Descension Back To Normalcy
"Did the NID trash my car when I wasn't looking?" Sam asked suspiciously, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.
"No," Daniel replied slowly, frozen with his arms halfway into the sleeves of his jacket.
"Do any of you have orders from General Hammond or Janet that I don't know about?" she pressed, her eyes darting back and forth between her three teammates.
"No," Jack assured, his fingers curled around his keys and one foot already jammed in his shoe.
"Is my sanity still in question?" she persisted. In spite of herself, she felt her heart speed up as she realized that they might be acting under MacKenzie's orders.
"No," Teal'c took his turn to answer firmly, planting a tri-colour beanie on his head to cover his tattoo.
"Then let me drive myself, for crying out loud!" she cried, throwing her arms out in exasperation. A moment later, she realized what she'd said and narrowed her eyes again, sweeping her glare over the three of them. "Don't even start."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Jack smirked, pleased that he was rubbing off on her even though she didn't seem to be.
"We want to see Cassie too," Daniel argued defensively, pouting slightly and turning his best puppy dog eyes on Sam in the hopes of changing her mind.
"Girls' day, Daniel," Sam reminded, quirking her eyebrow. "Unless there's something you'd like to share with the rest of us, I don't think you're eligible to participate."
"We are merely attempting to…" Teal'c began, trying to explain their persistent efforts to keep her from driving herself anywhere.
"Smother me? It's working," Sam snapped. She shrugged on her jacket and held out her hand expectantly. "Hand them over," she demanded.
"What?" Jack asked at the same time Daniel asked "Who?" They turned to one another with raised eyebrows before turning to blink at Sam in confusion.
"Keys. Now. I don't care whose they are," she elaborated, tapping her foot impatiently.
"I suppose this means you'd like one of us to run you up to the base later and pick up your car?" Jack asked sarcastically, pocketing his keys again. There was absolutely no way he was letting her drive his truck when she was in such a foul mood.
"Whatever gave you that idea, sir?" she asked sweetly, snatching Daniel's keys from his hand and turning on her heel.
"Um, maybe the fact that you've been asking for the last three days?" Jack retorted. The only response he got was a screen door banging shut and a vague wave over the shoulder.
"Have a good time and give Cass our love," Daniel called to Sam's retreating back. He too got nothing more than a distracted wave in reply.
"I informed you on several occasions that she would quickly lose patience with depending on others for transportation, O'Neill," Teal'c observed, watching as Sam slammed the door to Daniel's car shut with much more force than was really necessary.
Daniel winced in sympathy for the hinges on his car's poor door.
"Yes, you did," Jack sighed, watching as she backed out of the driveway faster than was probably safe and peeled off, revving the engine repeatedly.
Daniel winced again, wracking his brain as he tried to remember the last time he'd had his brake pads replaced.
Inside the car, Sam sighed and took several deep breaths to calm herself down. Glancing at the speedometer, she realized she was driving way over the speed limit and eased her foot off the gas pedal. Letting one hand wander to her hip, Sam unclipped her cell phone from the waistband of her jeans and hesitated for a few seconds before flipping it open. She'd over-reacted to the situation – she knew that – and rather than letting the minor spat fester for the rest of the day, she sent a quick text message to her teammates. It only took a few swipes of her thumb across the keypad to enter the simple "sorry" and then she flipped the phone shut again and tossed it on the seat next to her.
She needn't have bothered. A few seconds later, her phone let out three short beeps announcing that she'd received new text messages. Groping on the seat for the phone, she flipped it open and scrolled quickly through "forget it," "me too," and "as am I" with a smile. Turning her full attention back to the road, Sam made the short drive to the Frasier house. This was the longest stretch of time she'd had truly to herself in days, so she kept the radio off and just enjoyed the peace and quiet of the empty car.
She appreciated how many people had gone out of their way to help her out in the last few days, but all that kindness had made it virtually impossible for Sam to find two consecutive minutes to herself. Her house was still swarming with SGC personnel at all hours, the round-the-clock efforts ensuring huge leaps towards making her house livable again. Well that was certainly good news, it also meant that no matter where she went in her house, she couldn't turn around without running into someone with a job to do in the room. She adored them all for their efforts, but it still felt very overwhelming.
Time to herself had also been hard to come across at night. She was still staying in Jack's spare bedroom and Daniel and Teal'c had moved into his living room until further notice. When she'd asked, they'd explained that it was easier for them all to carpool back and forth to Sam's house from a central location than to keep shuttling Teal'c and Daniel from her house to the mountain and Daniel's apartment. However, she suspected that it was really a poorly disguised effort at repairing the relationships between the team by forcing them together, just as they'd done in the early days of SG-1. Once again, she appreciated the lengths they were going to, but sometimes she felt like she needed breathing space more than she needed their boundless support and never-ending series of sweet gestures.
Turning the final corner and steering the car onto the Frasier's street, Sam looked ahead and scanned the appropriate house. She saw the curtains in the living room window twitch and broke out in a grin when a copper-haired whirlwind flew out the front door and raced down the driveway to meet the car. Sam shifted the car into park and got out, closing the door just in time to catch an armful of excited teenage girl.
"I'm so glad you're here!" Cassandra squealed, squeezing her adopted aunt around the waist. "But I thought it was supposed to be just us…" she noted, trying to peer into the car's windows.
"Daniel's spending the day at my place with the Colonel and Teal'c, I just borrowed his car," Sam explained, running her fingers through the teenager's hair. "I did have to remind him that he doesn't meet the necessary criteria to participate in girls' day, though," she added, making Cassandra giggle.
"Goodbye to you too," Janet called to her daughter, stepping out onto the front porch in bare feet. "Hey, Sam, how's it going?"
"Things are good," Sam assured, finally releasing Cassandra from the hug. "The guys are hovering but they mean well."
"They do," Janet agreed, sharing a knowing smile Sam. The subtext of what her best friend wasn't saying was clear: her teammates were slowly driving Sam crazy and despite her best efforts, she was starting to get frustrated with them. "I see you managed to get away from them though."
"Believe me, that took some doing," Sam stated, rolling her eyes.
"They care," Janet reminded as Cassandra sighed dramatically and walked around to the passenger side of the car pointedly.
"Saaaam…" the teenager almost whined, shifting from foot to foot with impatience.
"Okay, okay, we're going," Sam laughed, opening the car door. "Are you sure you don't want to come?" she called to Janet as Cassandra just about threw herself into the car.
"Hmm… Another weekend at the mall with an excitable teenage girl?" Janet pretended to consider it carefully, tapping her chin in thought. "I think I'll pass."
"We'll be back by dinner time," Sam promised, sharing a knowing grin with the other woman.
"Pizza and Margarita Monday when you get back?"
"Replace "pizza" with "Thai" and I'm there," Sam negotiated. Living with three men, even temporarily, meant she was eating a steady diet of pizza, beer and more pizza. He'd pulled out all the stops when trying to explain it to her, but Jack still hadn't convinced her that switching up toppings kept one from getting sick of eating pizza.
"Done," Janet agreed. "When do you need to have Daniel's car back?"
"Daniel can have his car back when I get my car back," Sam stated, her tone making it clear that this was not open to debate.
"They care," Janet reminded, sensing her friend's frustration.
"They care," Sam agreed, stepping one foot into the car.
Anything else Sam might have said was cut off by a long honk of the horn. The two women turned their attention to the teenager waiting impatiently in the car, her most innocent expression plastered on her face.
"You'd better go before she decides to drive," Janet stated wryly. Realizing that Cassandra would, in fact, be learning to drive in just a few months, Janet suppressed a shudder. With an adopted aunt and two adopted uncles who lived to fly as fast as humanly possible, plus a few years of zipping around Colorado Springs on classic motorcycles, tucked safely behind said adopted aunt under Cassandra's belt, Janet fully expected that teaching her to drive would be a harrowing experience.
"See you tonight," Sam bid Janet farewell, climbing back into the car, much to Cassandra's relief.
Backing the car out of the driveway one-handed, Sam fastened her seatbelt with the other before waving goodbye to Janet. Cassandra offered a distracted wave as she launched into a detailed story about the latest saga in the life of a high school student. Janet watched from the porch as Sam, bless her heart, took it in stride and began nodding in what Janet assumed to be all the appropriate places. After watching the car disappear around the corner, Janet made her way back inside to inventory supplies for Margarita Monday.