Qualms

"What was that, Major?"

In any other circumstance, he would be shouting—railing up and down until he'd shouted his anger out and calmed down. But this day, this first mission back after Orlin, he had swallowed back whatever scathing criticism he was surely thinking. This day, he demanded in a measured, patient tone.

Sam would have rather had the shouting.

He spoke to her again, his voice blending into the tumultuous thoughts in her head. Sam couldn't calm down enough to listen to him—to hear him.

She focused instead on unclipping her weapon from her vest. She fumbled with it once—twice—her hands trembled so badly that she couldn't grip it. She flexed her hands and tried again, and again. She tried to will the shakes away, but had no success.

She'd almost killed him.

Almost seen him killed. She'd hesitated at his order, hadn't flicked the switch to the detonator in time. He'd been running, and shouting his orders, the Jaffa close behind, shooting their staff weapons as they chased him through the trees, over a small rise.

They'd established the line for just this reason. Intending to lure the Jaffa away from the village, they had sent in Colonel O'Neill. She'd planted the explosives across the path that led from the village to the 'Gate. The Colonel had been the bait—the plan had been laid for him to lead the Jaffa to the line and then detonate as they crossed it.

And she'd hesitated on the trigger.

She hadn't trusted that his perspective was just that much more accurate than hers. So she'd held out for a fraction of a second more. But by the time she'd triggered the line, half of the Jaffa unit had passed over the mark, and she'd only taken out three of the seven guards.

Teal'c had downed two more with his staff weapon, and Daniel had gotten lucky to tag a third with his Beretta. They'd gotten much too close if Daniel had been able to shoot that accurately. Normally, all barn doors were safe around him.

Sam herself had finally eliminated the fourth with her P-90. It had taken more than ten shots to take him down. Nine more than it would have in a normal circumstance. Nine more than it should have taken.

And the Colonel had dived for cover as she'd opened fire, coming to a crashing heap in some bushes near the DHD. The last Jaffa had fallen no more than six yards away—Sam had stood in horror as the scene ended, staring unmoving at the last Jaffa to die, a single trail of blood leaking out of his ear.

O'Neill hadn't spoken as he stood and extricated himself from the undergrowth. He'd merely adjusted his vest, reseated his hat on his head, and brushed leaves and dirt off his pants. After a few long, dragging breaths, he'd reached for his pack and P-90, and signaled for Daniel to dial the 'Gate.

Now they stood in the locker room, Sam's back to him, her hands useless and cold on the clasp of her vest. She felt slightly disembodied, completely inert. A rushing filled her ears and she suddenly found herself too weak to stand. Reeling, she lowered herself to the bench next to her.

She'd almost seen him dead. The staff blasts had been so, so close. She'd smelled burning fabric as he'd passed and noticed singed spots on his BDUs. The Jaffa hadn't been the normal rank and file—there had been a First Prime among them, and two lesser lieutenant types that Teal'c had known. Better ranks, better aim.

"I ask you again, Major, what happened back there?"

"I don't know." But she did. She'd second guessed him—hadn't trusted him to know better than she knew the proximity of the Jaffa—their rate of advance. And he'd nearly been killed.

This then, was the price she would pay. The toll this whole fiasco would take. This loss of faith.

She finally gave up on the clasp and let the weapon dangle from the clip, while her hands fell useless into her lap.

Daniel and Teal'c were bustling at their own lockers, and Sam knew they were listening to the exchange. Waiting for her answer. That only made it more difficult. Too much couldn't, and wouldn't, be said.

"You hesitated. The line was ready to blow, and you didn't pull the trigger." O'Neill's voice was unnaturally calm. "I want to know why."

"I don't know." She didn't sound like herself. Her voice was weak, shallow.

"Yes, well." The Colonel had already stowed his gear and held his P-90 in one hand. She knew he was preparing to return it to the Armory. "Why don't you try to figure it out so that next time, I don't actually die?"

She had no answer for that.

No answer at all.

----OOOOOOO----

She raised a hand and knocked lightly—hesitantly.

At the 'Come in', she entered.

"Major Carter."

"Sir." She stood uneasily in General Hammond's office. The last time she'd stood here, Simmons had informed her that she'd been under surveillance. And Colonel O'Neill had refused to look her in the eye. And her confidence in the world, in herself, had been impossibly shaken. "You wanted to see me?"

"Sit down, Major." The General motioned towards the chair across from him. She stepped over to the chair and sat, perched on the edge, stiff.

"You're not in any kind of trouble, Major Carter. You can relax."

"Yes, sir." But relaxation wouldn't have been possible without one of Doc Fraiser's famous prescriptions. Sam sat still, erect, breathing more shallowly than normal, her face tight.

The General eyed her with frank concern. He carefully folded his hands on the desk in front of him. "I understand that you have been under quite a lot of pressure lately, Major."

She raised her eyes and watched him find his next words. "And then I received your request today." He tapped the single piece of paper on his desk. "You've asked to be reassigned away from SG-1."

"Yes, sir."

"What's this all about?"

"I believe that I have become a liability for the team." She had been practicing the phrase ever since the Colonel had left the locker room that morning. In her head, the words hadn't been quite so distasteful as they were right now in her mouth.

"A liability?" Hammond narrowed his eyes. "How so?"

"I feel that the trust between the team members has been lost, sir."

"By the recent events with the Ascended Being and the NID?"

"Yes, sir."

"Colonel O'Neill mentioned something about this when I talked to him a few minutes ago." Hammond leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the desk in front of him. "When I showed him your request, he told me that he suspected that you would do just something like this." He indicated the paper beneath his arms.

"Sir, I informed you of my failure today during the debriefing. I was nearly responsible for the Colonel being killed."

"I'd say that those Jaffa had something to do with it." The General gave her exactly half a smile. "And Jack seems to have the propensity to do it all by himself, most days."

"General, sir. I didn't trigger the explosives." Sam shook her head. "He told me to, and I—I—" she faltered briefly before trying again. "I just believe that something material has been lost. I no longer believe implicitly in my teammates, and I don't believe that they have much faith in me."

Hammond paused, mulling. The seconds dragged on into what seemed like hours. Sam shifted in her seat, shifted her focus away from the General and over his shoulder to the eagle statue that hovered there. Fleetingly, the inane image came to mind of a cartoonish shoulder angel. She lowered her head before her nervous smile could show.

"Major, are you sure that this is what you want?"

Sam pulled herself back to seriousness. "Yes, sir."

"Are you sure that you really know why?"

Sam raised her head to find the General studying her. She scowled, returning his scrutiny. "I don't understand what you mean, sir."

"Colonel O'Neill didn't know anything about the investigation being performed. I believe that Simmons and his men are trying to discredit the SGC in order to gain control of it themselves. The situation with Orlin was merely coincidental."

"That's what Colonel O'Neill said, sir."

"And he was right." Hammond fixed her with his gaze. "He was also right in what he told me before you got here the other day that this situation would hurt you the most. That your trust in him would be broken."

"Yes, sir."

"But I think that you're underestimating the value that your team puts on you. And could it be that your own insecurities—knowing that what you were doing wasn't quite on the up and up—could have something to do with your belief that they don't trust you anymore?" His Texas drawl didn't make his words any less harsh.

"I believed that what I was doing was right."

"Sam."

The General rarely broke protocol. Sam ducked her head again, this time to hide the rush of emotion that broke over her.

"Sam." He said again. "You and I both know that's not exactly true."

Did she? She was capable of introspection. Her mind immediately flew to an image of the Colonel and Teal'c, standing on her front step with a box of pizza and that ridiculous Rhinestone Cowboy shirt and neckerchief. Orlin had just told her that he was once again human and could not simply vanish—and she'd touched him—known the veracity of his statement. But when she'd heard the colonel knock, she'd shoved Orlin behind a door and babbled incoherently to O'Neill about last minute plans.

Why hadn't she let them in? What had kept her from fulfilling her obligations as a member of the team and proving Orlin was real? She could have answered the question in that moment—and her sanity and integrity would no longer have been as issue.

But, convoluted as it was, she'd had feelings for Orlin, albeit not the ones he'd wanted from her. And what had been her real motivation? She'd told herself that it was gathering intelligence about the alien. She was learning about the weapon on 636. But looking back—she'd been enjoying the interlude. Orlin was an attractive man—and interested in her. And as lonely as her life often was, it had been wonderful to have that attention.

Her heart sank. Sometimes, introspection really sucked.

"I know that things have happened recently that have been—difficult." The General's voice had lowered—washing over her like warm Texas honey. "I know that feelings exist that are hard to cope with. Feelings that make everything more difficult to take."

"I'm handling it."

"Are you?"

Was she? She knew the answer, however much she didn't want to admit it. But the sound that she made was neither assent nor denial.

"I have found that emotion often clouds our more basic functions." The General watched her steadily. "When my wife was alive, she used to tell me a story about an old couple who were unhappy in their marriage. The wife was constantly complaining that her husband was a slob—that she was always having to clean up after him. And what bothered her most was that, when he brushed his teeth, he would flick toothpaste all over the mirror. The wife nagged him and nagged him about how messy he was until they were both miserable. One day, about two months after he died, she was tidying up in the bathroom and she realized that there was still toothpaste all over the mirror." He paused, letting it sink in. "You see, Major Carter. She was just as guilty of it as he. But she was determined to find the fault in him, so she found it."

Sam bit her lip between her teeth.

"You may feel that they have lost faith in you, and you may feel like you can't trust them. But let's not let this whole issue be blurred by the fact that there are some very strong emotions running beneath it all."

"Sir, I—"

He raised a hand in interruption. "Don't say anything you'll have to take back later. Or answer for."

"I don't know what to say." And, in all honesty, she didn't.

"Then go figure this out. You're a smart lady, Major Carter." The General leaned back in his chair, pulling with him her request and crumpling it within one of his beefy hands. "I think you'll find that there's a way."

She stood, turning towards the door, but was halted by the General's Texas drawl. "Oh, and Major Carter."

"Yes, sir?"

"Be wise." Pointed. His meaning was absolutely clear. But he clarified anyway. "About your choices. Be wise."

----OOOOOOO----

Sam wandered the halls of the SGC, not realizing where she was going until she'd stepped through the entry of the lab. She stood in the doorway for several beats, watching as Daniel wrote something in his ever-present journal.

She made a noise in the back of her throat and he looked up, focusing slowly on her through his glasses and a series of rapid blinks—much like a baby bird. She found herself smiling—a slight, anemic thing.

"Sam." He closed his book closed with a solid thunk. "What's up?"

Rather than answer, she rounded his table and parked herself on a stool near his computer. She felt him watching her, knew he was gauging her. She didn't know what to say to him. How to begin.

"I heard a nasty rumor." He didn't look at her, picking up an artifact of some sort and storing it on a shelf.

"Oh?"

"Jack said that you asked to be reassigned."

"Yes. General Hammond denied it."

"Well," Daniel hooked his hands over his hips and smiled. "He always was a smart guy."

She nodded.

"Why?"

Sam looked up at him. "Why did I ask to be reassigned?"

"No, why did you wear that set of BDUs today?" He said, with a note of impatience in his voice. "Of course why did you ask to be reassigned?"

She let a little silence fall between them before blurting, "Daniel—do you trust me?"

He frowned, then pushed his glasses up his nose. "Why—why—would you ask that, Sam?"

"Did you believe me about the alien—about Orlin?"

"I wasn't even on base for most of that—I was on 636 translating."

"Did you believe me?" Her voice was harsh, insistent.

"I believe in you."

She smiled and rolled her eyes. Turning her body on the stool, she found a small statuette and ran her fingers over the headpiece. "That's what the Colonel said."

"And he was right." Daniel drew in a sharp breath, then exhaled slowly. "I didn't know whether or not this guy was real—but I believed you believed in him."

"You thought I was crazy."

"I knew you weren't crazy—but I didn't know whether or not you were wrong."

"Sounds the same to me."

"Sam in this job—there are always doubts as to what we see, what we hear. You remember in our second year of 'Gate travel—Shyla? You saw the effects of the sarcophagus on me. You doubted my actions in those times—but you never doubted in me, did you?"

"No, Daniel, of course not. I knew that the only reason that you were ignoring us was that you were being manipulated."

"It's the same with Orlin. We didn't know what kind of stuff was occurring. Our concern was for you. And we didn't know about the surveillance. Jack didn't know. We'd have told you."

"Yes. So I've heard."

A long silence stretched between them, accompanied by the low hum of Daniel's computer. Sam knew what he was saying—there existed a difference between believing in the basic character of a person and approving their every action. She hadn't sought their approval—only an excuse from the Colonel to act in a way that wasn't her norm.

And then she'd abandoned them by not letting them in when Orlin couldn't make himself disappear.

The example from General Hammond flashed through her mind. Toothpaste on a mirror. She'd assumed that they were at fault—that she'd been wronged somehow. But she hadn't trusted them enough to know that they would have acted in the right way if she'd introduced them to her visitor.

Daniel seemed to sense her thoughts.

"Sam, surely you know?" Daniel stepped closer to her. "Surely you know that no matter what—we're more like a family than a team. A bickering, dysfunctional, slightly nutsy family, but a family nonetheless. There's not anything that will change the fact that we—all of us—believe in you."

Sam's breath caught in the back of her throat. She stood. "Yeah. I know."

"Sam—I'm here, if you need me. We all are."

And she nodded. Because she knew that was true.

What she didn't know how to do was to believe it again.