Three's A Crowd

"This is a very sexual game."

"Godammit, Vala," Cam spluttered, coughing on a mouthful of Dr. Pepper as he sat between Carolyn and Vala in a booth at Ten Pin Alley waiting for Daniel to get back from picking up their third couple at the airport, "now you're going to ruin bowling?"

She leaned forward, elbows on the sticky table and watched a multi-generational family group bowl just below them. "No, you see, tossing balls down a chute and hoping to hit just the right spot for maximum satisfaction…"

"Yes, I see. Shut up, shut up, shut up."

"I never thought about it that way, Vala," Carolyn said, unable to resist teasing Cam since he was fighting hard against laughter despite his valiant attempts to seem grumpy, "but you're right. It is very sexual. And men get so proud of themselves when they finally make the connection and get a strike."

Cam put his head down on his arms.

"Uh-oh, what did I miss?"

"Absolutely nothing," he told Daniel, knowing that Sam and General O'Neill were with him and having no intention whatsoever of explaining anything of the conversation he'd missed in front of General O'Neill. He stood up behind Carolyn, reaching around to give Sam a one-armed hug. "Welcome home. Are you sure you want to spend time bowling?"

She returned the hug. "Absolutely. Finally finished debriefs and now I need to relax."

"But can we eat first?" Jack said, sitting down across from Carolyn. "I've been in conferences, eating bland conference food, for three days and I need bowling alley pizza or something. Soon."

"Daniel texted us to order that," Carolyn told him. "It'll be ready in a few minutes."

"Good deal." He reached for a bottle of Coca-Cola at the center of the table. "I'm glad to see you out and about, kid, and I don't even question the company you keep. Mitchell, I appreciate the brevity of the SGC reports while you were in command, thank you."

"I tried to work under the theory of 'treat others as you wish to be treated,'" he admitted, thinking Jack would appreciate that operating method, "and I wanted shorter reports."

Jack laughed as Daniel and Vala got up to go get the pizza. "And did it work?"

Cam shook his head sadly. "No, sir."

He did not apologize, because it was a perk of being a general to not have to do that about work related things. "Are they arguing about sex?" he said, jerking his thumb in the general direction of where Daniel and Vala were having a mildly heated argument.

Hating that he felt compelled to answer because O'Neill was a general, Cam swallowed his unease and did just that. "Vala realized before you got here that there's something inherently sexual about bowling lanes and the act of bowling. She's probably just explaining her theory to Daniel."

"They're so cute together," Sam laughed, giving Daniel an innocent wave as they returned with dinner. "Let's eat. And then bowl. I haven't bowled in years. Should we be on teams? Girls versus boys?"

"Oh, competitive!" Vala exclaimed. "I like it! I've never bowled so I might hold you back but I'm in!"

"This is progress, Mitchell," Jack said awhile later as they sat on the hard plastic chairs by the lane furthest from the main doors and watched Vala take another long minute setting up her shot. "I've been here for two hours and you've only called me sir once."

"Last time you were in town, you gave me detailed instructions on when to call you that. I listen," he said with a shrug, "sir."

He laughed at Cam's deadpan delivery. "One work related thing, but still don't call me sir, alright?"

Cam nodded in agreement.

"When SG-1 is in D.C. next month for the holiday thing, you need to bring your Medal of Honor. It's occurred to President Hayes that he's never met you and wants to 'present' it to you himself before he leaves office in January."

"Won't that make the stargate program a little bit more public than it is?"

"Probably. But your name is on the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon and in case someone starts asking about why, there needs to be a more public record of it since there technically can't be classified recipients." Jack flashed Vala a thumbs up as she finally took her turn and knocked down two pins. "We're not going officially public yet, I guess you could call it laying the groundwork for going public."

Cam closed his eyes and sighed. "And I'm the poster boy because of the medal?"

"And because if we talk up the value of what's going on, SG-1 is still the star. I'm afraid you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If it makes you feel any better, I'll end up right there with you."

He gave a rueful laugh and took a deep breath. "The curse of commanding SG-1, then?"

"Hey, at least I only tripped into it," Jack protested, "but you asked for it."

Cam had to give him that.

Carolyn was eliminated from the impromptu tournament of champions on the Pac-Man machine and made her way to where Cam sat, having been knocked out first after he hadn't really tried that hard. The girls had won at bowling before they did something else. She sat beside him and dug into her bag, shaking two pills loose from a bottle and setting them and a king size York Peppermint Patty in front of him.

"Candy and unidentified pills scrounged from your bag? You're my kind of doctor, if a little unorthodox."

"It's Tylenol, Cam," she laughed, showing him the bottle. "That, with the peppermint and chocolate will help your headache."

Cam didn't need to be told twice, and he swallowed the pills with a mouthful of Coke. "I was going to ask how you know I have a headache but maybe I'll just tell you it's not that bad instead." He unwrapped the candy and gestured at her bag before he bit into it. "Just how many of these do you have in there?"

"Three more. It's, like, my emergency kit. I've carried it since high school when hormones meant migraines."

"I'll replace this one," he promised around a mouthful of chocolate. "Since we're terrible at Pac-Man but they seem like they could be at it awhile, do you want to go outside and get some fresh air too? I know it's cold but…"

She fished her coat out of the pile on the bench, then handed him his. Leaving him to get the message and put it on, she crossed the brightly colored retro print arcade carpet to where Sam stood watching Jack play Space Invaders while Vala and Daniel played Pac-Man. "Sam? We're going outside for a little bit."

Sam glanced at Cam, worry briefly in her eyes, she knew him well enough to guess that he was unsettled by what Jack had told him and bothered by the lights and sounds of the bowling alley. "Is he okay?"

"He says it's a 'not that bad' headache and just needs some fresh air." She shrugged and zipped her coat. "We'll be back."

"Okay. But wait." She leaned close to say something quiet, over the noise. "We didn't crowd in on your date, did we? The four of us?"

"Vala said you and Jack wanted to do this," she told her, "and we haven't used the d-word at all, so no. Don't worry about it."

Sam gave her a quick hug and smiled. "Okay good, but you should use it."

Carolyn only shook her head and walked back to where Cam waited for her.

"You know, and I don't mean to be pushy," Carolyn sat as they sat on a bench outside the bowling alley, their breath fogging in the cold, crisp night air, "but I bought cookies at the grocery store and I was sad about how they tasted. You might have ruined cookies for me."

Cam grinned as she gave him a pointed look. "Sorry? Want to come to my place after this and we can make chocolate chip cookies, which are all I have the ingredients for right now."

She wondered if that counted as a 'date.' "Yes, please and thank you,"

"So this might be an odd time and place to be doing this," he said, considering the ice broken and the floor open for anything, "but your father talked to you, right?"

"About how badly he doesn't want details but also wants to know if you and I have started dating? Yes."

He bit the inside of his lip and fidgeted beside her. "And… I feel like a stupid teenager who doesn't know what he's doing… and maybe I don't know what I'm doing but… have we?"

His hands were in the pockets of his coat and she threaded her arm through his so that they were linked. It meant they were closer, and touching in a different way than they ever had before. "I hope so."

Cam scooted closer to her. "Me too," he said, sighing when she rested her head on his shoulder. He felt warmer, and relief, because she'd answered that way. He knew that someone was going to come looking for them sooner or later but he didn't want the moment to end. The shiver Carolyn gave a few minutes later settled things, though. "My headache is almost gone, thanks to you," he told her. "Let's go back inside before we freeze or Vala comes looking for us."

Carolyn didn't say that it seemed just as likely that Sam would. She was distracted by the fact that he kept his hands in his pockets and held onto her arm. It seemed like the two couples they were out with would have their answer soon enough.

She couldn't help but smile as they walked inside.

"It wasn't cake, but it was good," Jack said as they finished slices of Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie back in the restaurant area of the bowling alley. "Seems a bit odd, the group of us closing down a bowling alley, but I think that's good too."

"Probably not so odd since it's a Tuesday night," Cam pointed out, already wondering if he could replicate the pie but make it better. He and Carolyn had managed to miss the rest of the arcade game tournament, which no one minded because Vala and Sam got a little giddy when it became obvious that progress had happened outside, and they'd played one more game of bowling in which the Air Force officers beat the civilians. "But it was fun. Thanks for the invite."

Jack nodded as he pulled on his coat. "Glad you and Carolyn are official, or whatever the kids call it these days, so we can all have a good time a little less awkwardly."

"It's not a problem? Carolyn and I?"

"That'd be hypocritical of me, wouldn't it?" He shrugged, leaning to gather the last of the trash from their dessert onto a tray. "For whatever reason, they need us, Mitchell. As far as I'm concerned, that means we get to make some demands too. If that means Sam and Carolyn, then that's what it means."

Cam was happy to follow his lead.

"Do you need to get anything from your place?" Cam asked Carolyn as he waited for the light to change to pull into the flow of traffic.

"If you have a spare toothbrush and I can borrow some Air Force clothes again, no," she said, fiddling with the knobs on the dashboard to get the car warmer faster. "And you're sure you have the ingredients for the cookies? Because delicious pie aside, you promised me cookies and I haven't forgotten that."

In what little traffic there was, he had to stop for a red light almost immediately. "I'd never break my promise to you, Carolyn. About anything, but definitely about cookies."

"Good. You don't mind that I turned up the heat, do you?" she asked, realizing she probably should have asked first.

He gave a wave of permission and stepped on the gas when the light changed. "You can adjust the thermostat at my apartment too. Live and let live rather than ask about everything and all that, okay?"

Carolyn agreed to those terms, making him promise the same if they were at her house. "Did you finish that puzzle you'd been working on?"

"No, I haven't really had the chance to work on it. You going to help with it?"

"We need something to do while the cookies are in the oven," she pointed out, feeling somewhere between silly and needy but also desperately craving homemade cookies. "Oh, and if you're interested in a challenge, I got the recipes for some Vietnamese cookies from my mom. She hates baking, I don't hate it but I'm terrible at it, so she said she wants to try them if you make some. Which I realize is probably a lot of pressure but… I thought it sounded like you like trying new things…"

"I do, so don't apologize," he interrupted her to say. "If it makes you feel better, if I make Vietnamese cookies, you have to make other Vietnamese food for me to try. A trade."

"It's a deal," she agreed, happier than she expected to be. "I like our new plans."

Knowing she meant the larger picture along with the smaller one, Cam gave his complete agreement with that particular statement. Things had felt different since that first night she showed up at his apartment and he didn't want to go back to how it was before. It was like what his grandmother had always said about there always being a time and a place, and you have to quit trying to make it happen because it'll happen either way. It was good.

THE END

Thanks all, for joining me on this little journey into a ship I absolutely believe Stargate: SG-1 should've made a thing. Then again, if they had, it probably wouldn't be as much fun to write, would it? But thanks to those of you who read and moved on & special thanks to those who read and left a review!