Descension Back To Normalcy
"How did it go?" Janet asked as Sam gracelessly dropped herself into the barely large enough space between Jack and Teal'c.
"I now remember why I swore to never again buy furniture," Sam declared tiredly. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall behind her with a thump, enjoying the familiar tingle that sang through her blood whenever she was in close proximity to Teal'c. It was a welcome change from the cloying sensation of being stalked by overzealous sales people once they'd realized just how much furniture she needed to buy.
"Tell me there's pizza left," Daniel pleaded as he too slumped to the floor in an exhausted heap.
"Nope," someone replied from near the doorway to the living room. "All gone."
"Is anybody else sick of pizza?" Feretti asked, sounding bored in general. Sam had noticed he really enjoyed ripping what remained of her house to pieces; she couldn't help but wonder if he would disappear when there was nothing left to do to but actually fix things.
"We could order Chinese for dinner?" Sam suggested, fishing in her pocket for her cell phone.
Everyone consented, leaving Graham Simmons with the daunting task of finding out what almost all of the off-duty personnel stationed at the SGC wanted to order. Making his way around the kitchen where everyone had gathered for a break took almost twenty minutes, but no one minded that their break would be longer than originally intended. By the time Sam placed the order the list was two pages long; the employees at the nearest Chinese place didn't know what had hit them.
Sitting around on the floor, everyone enjoyed their well-deserved rest and took turns filling Sam in on what had been accomplished while she was out.
What they accomplished was, in short, quite a bit. The holes in many of the walls had been filled and new drywall had been hung where necessary. The front door had been replaced, complete with new locks and a heavy-duty security chain that Teal'c had informed her she most certainly would be using. Most of the pipes on the main and upper floors no longer leaked, and a plumber would be back tomorrow to repair the pipes in the basement. Once that was taken care of, a contractor was scheduled to drop by and make sure that the water problems hadn't given way to mould issues. Once the basement got the all clear, they would focus their attention down there. In the meantime, they were devoting most of their time and energy to the house's top two floors. After getting a lot of "that's classified"s in answer to his questions about what on earth they had been doing with electricity, an electrician had solved the problems with the power. The sub-floor was repaired in the kitchen and would be repaired elsewhere in the days to come. After that, they could begin laying down new tile and carpeting. Strategically placed sheets of drywall had all the ceilings repaired quickly. The windows on the lower level of the house would be replaced tomorrow, followed by the ones on the upper level the day after. Everyone agreed that they would have the repairs done by the time the furniture was delivered in a week and a half.
When Janet commented on how quickly painting would go in an unfurnished house, the men of SG-1 had all cast assessing glances at Sam. Seeing how she perked up at the thought of painting, Daniel shot a glare at Jack, sure that they really would be painting multi-colour stripes throughout the house. Teal'c settled for raising an eyebrow while Jack treated them both to his best "who me?" expression.
When Sam was up to speed on their progress, the kitchen grew quiet. The ambitious timeline for getting the house liveable again was already beginning to take its toll and those of them who were off-duty again tomorrow would be back bright and early the next morning. They were all more than happy to relax and, in some cases, even catch a quick catnap before the food arrived, knowing that they still had a few more hours of work ahead of them before calling it a night.
"Appliances tomorrow," Jack announced suddenly, interrupting the tired silence that had settled over the room.
"What?" Sam asked sleepily, turning her head to look at him through barely open eyes.
"You need a fridge, a stove, appliances," Jack elaborated. "I'll take you tomorrow."
"You don't have to do that, sir," Sam objected, stifling a yawn.
"Yes I do," Jack replied with a smirk as he stared pointedly across the room. "Sending Daniel again just might kill the poor guy." As Jack had intended, everyone's attention turned from visions of cold beers and their beds to the aforementioned archaeologist.
Daniel was slumped against the wall, fast asleep. His glasses were crooked on his face and his head was tilted back, giving everyone a clear view of the string of drool slowly running down his chin. Laughter was suppressed at the sight and more than one of the women present had to leave the room to dissolve in a fit of giggles out in the backyard. Though amused by the sight, the men settled for smirking at the oblivious archaeologist and quietly marvelling at how girly their female co-workers could be sometimes. Decaffeinated as he was after going a whole afternoon without coffee, Daniel slept on, the string of drool growing longer with each passing minute.
After the silence was broken, small conversations broke out as people caught up on current events, sports, one another's families and off-world antics that had "accidentally" been omitted from official reports. The amicable chitchat passed the time until the doorbell eventually rang, signalling the arrival of what was quite possibly the largest delivery order in the history of Colorado Springs.
As the chime from Sam's brand new doorbell died away, Teal'c grabbed his hat off the floor and rose gracefully to his feet. Securing the hat over his tattoo, he went to answer the door much to the relief of everyone else. As uncomfortable as the plywood sub-floor was, their exhaustion made staying put a much more attractive option than moving.
"Major Carter," Teal'c called from the hallway, his voice jolting Daniel awake. "There is a caravan of delivery vehicles assembled outside your home."
"Oh man," Sam moaned as she got tiredly to her feet. "As if the neighbours don't think I'm strange enough after the last two weeks! I need a couple of able-bodied soldiers to help me out."
Hauling himself upright along with six others, Jack trudged to the door behind Sam and saw that there were indeed twelve delivery cars all bearing the same logo parked along the street, fitted in where they could find room amongst all the cars belonging to the neighbours and the SGC personnel.
Teal'c gladly stepped aside and let Sam deal with the stressed out delivery people. Putting on her most apologetic smile, she paid the five hundred plus dollar bill. She then moved out of the way with an armful of bags filled with little white containers and went back to the kitchen, leaving the rest of the food to Teal'c and her able-bodied volunteers. Settling back in her spot, Sam opened the containers and, with the help of Graham Simmons' handy dandy list, began figuring out who was supposed to get what.