Season 10 Episode 5 – Uninvited

Episode summary: Landry has invited SG-1 to join him at General O'Neill's Minnesota cabin for some team bonding and R&R. Landry and Mitchell arrive on time, but Daniel is delayed in England when he discovers an Earl with a reference library of relevant information, and Teal'c, Sam and Vala are delayed at the SGC when a series of monster attacks require investigation. They discover that the alterations they made to the Sodan cloaking devices to make them safe for human use have had an unintended side-affect, and that a small parasitical creature is being brought into this dimension with their use. The parasite then enters another creature, and causes extreme mutation into a large and aggressive monster. Sam recalls all of the Sodan cloaking devices and realises one is missing. Meanwhile in Minnesota, a series of attacks believed to be the work of a grizzly bear are revealed to be another case of this monster mutation, due to the missing Sodan cloaking device being used by a Trust operative to spy on Landry and Mitchell. SG-1 and Landry work to hunt and kill the monster. It turns out there are two monsters, and they kill both. At the end of the episode, they have started their holiday at the cabin with a game of poker, and Teal'c makes a joke that it is obvious Sam is not much of a gambler. Sam takes offense and promptly bluffs him, winning the poker hand.

Sam still hadn't quite forgiven Teal'c for his comment about her gambling prowess – or lack thereof – and so she didn't feel the least bit guilty when he was relegated to the couch when they bunked down, on the first night of their enforced 'holiday' at Jack's cabin with General Landry.

It was a tight fit, five adults in the little three bedroom log cabin – it was a good thing Daniel had gotten absorbed by the Earl's library in England or it would have been even tighter. As it was, General Landry had taken Jack's room, Cameron had the single room, and she and Vala were sharing the twin-bed room. Teal'c got the couch.

It was weird, being here with Landry, Vala and Mitchell. She'd been here a handful of times, but apart from the first time when it had been herself, Jack, Daniel and Teal'c, it had always been just her and Jack, when they wanted some time away to themselves. Bringing all these other people up here felt a little like an invasion of her personal space.

She reached for her cellphone in the dark, and texted Jack. Wish you were here.

He was clearly still up, as he texted back immediately. It would be a bit crowded, wouldn't it?

You'd probably have to share a bed with Landry.

Ugh, Carter, now I'm never going to sleep.

She giggled.

"What are you doing over there?" Vala asked.

Sam snapped her phone shut. "Sorry, I thought you were asleep."

"Texting your lover?" Vala asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

Sam flushed. "Don't call him that. He's my husband."

"Husband, lover … it's all the same really, isn't it?"

Sam rolled her eyes and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Vala gasped suddenly. "This is General O'Neill's cabin, isn't it? Isn't that what General Landry said?"

"Yes …" Sam said slowly, wondering where Vala was going with this.

"And you are his wife."

"What's your point?"

"Only that I just realised General Landry is effectively sleeping in your marital bed. Where you've had lots of sex with your husband."

Sam groaned and pulled a pillow over her face. "Vala, please stop talking."

"Well, you can hardly pretend that you don't have sex with him, considering your little pregnancy scare on the Odyssey."

"You're still talking."

"Ooh, I wonder where else in the cabin you've done it with him? In here? In the living room?"

Clearly telling Vala to shut up wasn't going to work. Sam threw the pillow at her instead.

"Why Colonel Carter, I am positively scandalised." Vala said in a falsely prim voice.

The door suddenly opened, and Mitchell was standing in the doorway in his grey Air Force t-shirt and boxers. "You two realise that these walls are paper thin and we can hear every word you're saying out here, right?"

Sam groaned again and pulled the duvet over her head. "I'm just going to curl up and die now."

"Drama queen." Vala said dismissively. "Mitchell, it's impolite to linger in a lady's doorway. Either come in or get out."

"Can I trade rooms with you?" Sam asked Cam desperately.

Mitchell chuckled. "Not a chance in hell. Night Sam."

Sam went for a run the next morning. A long run. Frankly she was giving serious consideration to just running all the way back to Colorado rather than facing the three men back at the cabin.

When she eventually went back, she ducked straight into the shower, and then took her time getting dressed in her room. On emerging, she found Mitchell and Teal'c playing cards in the living room. Vala and Landry were nowhere to be seen.

"Good morning." Mitchell said, a note of teasing in his voice that made her flush red right to the roots of her hair.

She sat down beside Teal'c sullenly. "Where are the others?"

"Landry took Vala out bird-watching or something."

"Did you sleep well, Colonel Carter?" Teal'c asked solicitously.

Sam scowled. "Not particularly."

"Relax, Sam, we all know Vala was just yanking your chain."

Sam groaned. "Please tell me that General Landry didn't hear what she was saying."

"I think he was probably asleep." Cam said.

"Thank God." She whispered.

"What I wanted to know though, was what was that Vala was saying about you having a pregnancy scare on the Odyssey?" Cameron turned away from the card game to look her in the eye.

She shifted uncomfortably, as Teal'c aimed a level gaze at her as well. "There's nothing more to it than that. There was a short time on the trip to Atlantis when I thought I might be pregnant, and then I did a test and it was negative. No big deal."

Cameron raised his eyebrows. "No big deal? We're fighting a war here, Sam. If you're trying to make babies I think I have a right to know."

A right to know? "Go to hell." She snapped icily, and jumped up, stalking back outside.

"Sam." Cam had come after her. "Sam, will you wait up? I'm sorry."

She stopped walking with a sigh, and he caught up to her, coming round to stand in front of her.

"Maybe I could have worded that better." He admitted. "But you get what I'm saying, right?"

"You think I'm being selfish."

"I think we have a job to do. I need to know where your priorities lie."

Sam shook her head. "This is different for you than it is for me, and Daniel and Teal'c. You've been here a year, we've been doing this for ten. Your perspective changes when you've been fighting as long as we have. We fought for eight years to defeat the Goa'uld. What the hell were we doing it for if not for the freedom to live our lives at the end of it?"

"The war isn't over."

"Maybe my war is."

Mitchell looked stunned. "You don't mean that."

"I'm thirty-nine, Cam. It's now or never for me. Are you saying you think I should give up on the chance to ever have a family because you pulled me back into another God-damn war?"

"That's not fair."

She looked away, contrite. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's not your fault."

"Are you thinking about quitting?" He asked quietly.

Sam sighed. "Not at the moment. But if I do get pregnant …"

"And you are … you know, trying to?"

"Yes." She admitted. "But as you know, Jack and I live on opposite sides of the country ninety percent of the time, so there's no guarantee it will happen any time soon."

Cam sighed and walked away a few paces.

"If we lose you from this fight … it's going to be a big loss."

"Cam, even if I do get pregnant, I'm not planning on retiring – just taking a step back from the front line. I'll still be around to help come up with technologies and strategies for the war."

He nodded, and turned back to face her. "Well, I can't say I'm particularly happy about the idea … but given everything you've done to protect the planet in the last ten years, I guess I can't begrudge you a chance at a family, if that's what you really want."

" … Thanks?" Sam said.

He rolled his eyes, and held out a hand. "Truce?"

"Truce." She smiled.

"Just … please tell me you never had sex with General O'Neill on that couch."

Sam gave him a wicked smile, and walked back towards the cabin.

"Sam!"

Sam helped Cameron cook dinner for them all that evening, supervised by General Landry. The General seemed to find it hilariously funny that she was a lousy cook, but she was necessary to the proceedings if only because no one else could figure out the bizarre organisational system of Jack's kitchen. She had been here enough that she just knew where everything was already.

That fact did seem to bother Landry a little, although she wasn't sure why.

"Mitchell! Don't put too much basil in that sauce!" Landry ordered urgently, getting up from his supervisory perch to seize the offending basil jar.

"It brings out the flavour, sir! It's how my grandma makes it!"

Sam hid a snort of laughter. It did seem as though the few days Cam and Landry had spent alone had helped them bond a tiny bit, against the odds.

"Sam, where's the colander?" Cam asked suddenly, poking at the spaghetti.

"Here. Excuse me, sir." She stood next to General Landry and the sauce pot to reach for the colander on the top of the cupboard above his head, passing it to Cam.

Landry put the wooden spoon back in the pot and gave her a speculative look. "I'm gonna go tell Teal'c and Vala it's ready." He said, before leaving the room.

Sam watched him go anxiously. "Are you sure he was asleep last night?" Sam asked Cameron in an undertone.

"He was snoring. So … yeah, pretty sure."

"He keeps giving me weird looks."

"You know, Sam, it's possible he's figured out for himself that it's your bed he's sleeping in. Maybe it's freaking him out."

Sam bit her lip, thinking.

"It probably doesn't help that you obviously know this place like the back of your hand." Cam added.

Sam rolled her eyes. "What's wrong with knowing where stuff is?"

"It's a reminder that you've been here a lot, which is a reminder that you're married to General Landry's boss. It's not exactly … conventional."

"This trip was his idea." Sam muttered.

"You're pretty good at not drawing any attention to your relationship with General O'Neill at work, even when he's physically there. Maybe he hadn't given it much thought before now."

She hummed an acknowledgement and looked at her feet. Cam ordered her back to work putting the spaghetti on plates.

"Don't worry about it Sam. We're only here a few more days, right?"

"And there's no chance we can organise a galactic emergency to pull us away sooner?" She was joking – mostly.

"If wishes were horses." Cam drawled, and followed behind her with the sauce pot, completing the plates of food.

There was another storm that night, and the power cut out again.

When Sam got up in the morning, Teal'c calmly informed her that General Landry was attempting to activate the backup generator in the basement. Sam's eyes widened, and she immediately headed down there.

"Sir?" She called, shining a flashlight down the stairs.

"Colonel! Where's the damn 'on' switch for this thing?"

"Sir, don't touch the generator! It's … well I've made a lot of modifications."

He looked startled at this news. "Is it dangerous?"

"It could be if you don't know what you're doing." She opened the cupboard at the side where she'd installed the power monitors and controls, and Landry stared in bewilderment at the array of blinky lights.

"Are you trying to power the cabin, or a secret base?" He asked incredulously.

"Sometimes I get bored up here." She admitted with a smile over her shoulder, flicking some switches, and turning some dials, and finally throwing a breaker and flooding the room with light.

"That should see us through for a couple of days, if we need it." She said, dusting off her hands on her jeans.

Landry was giving her that speculative look again.

"Sir? Is everything alright?" She asked nervously.

"You've been up here a lot." He stated in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

"Uh … yes sir."

"With Jack."

"It's his cabin." She pointed out.

"Sometimes I forget that you two are … well …"

"Married, sir?"

"Yes."

She shifted awkwardly on her feet. "I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, sir."

"You know what? It does. But not for the reason you'd think."

Sam blinked, confused. "Sir?"

"I admit that when Jack first told me that the two of you were married, I had concerns about the integrity of the chain of command. But as I got to know the two of you, I realised you were both far too professional to ever let your personal life get in the way of your jobs."

Sam nodded. "Yes sir."

"But the thing is, you're both so damn professional about it that most of the time I forget the relationship is even there. So I end up doing a damn fool thing like inviting you up to your own cabin on holiday."

Oh, wow. "I don't really consider it to be 'my' cabin, sir. It's Jack's."

"It also occurred to me that I monopolised your bedroom."

Not touching that one with a ten foot pole.

"You know there's a photo of the two of you on your wedding day on the nightstand?"

"Yes sir." She'd put it there.

"And there's a framed bit of paper on the wall that says 'Marry me'."

She grinned. She'd put that there, too.

"That's how he proposed." She admitted. "He did it the first time I came up here, after he was transferred to the Pentagon."

"I'm just a little bit concerned that one day SG-1 will bite off more than it can chew, and I'm going to end up informing the Head of Homeworld Security about the loss of SG-1, without remembering that I'm also informing a man about the loss of his wife."

Sam felt that one in her gut. "We know the risks, sir."

Landry sighed. "Well, I guess all I can do is trust you all to continue being so relentlessly brilliant at your jobs."

She smiled nervously. "We do our best sir."

He chuckled and shooed her up the stairs ahead of him.

"That you do, Colonel. That you do."