September, 1994

Strong fingers gripped Sam's thighs as Jonas drove her backward, stopping only when his shins hit the mattress. He followed her down, eliciting a moan as his teeth caught the tender flesh behind her ear and nipped at it a little harder than he probably should have.

"So tell me," he murmured, his breath hot in her ear, "where is this little surprise you promised me?"

Grinning wickedly, she tugged his shirt free and started on his belt. "Where do you think?"

"Mmm, I think I'm going to like this one." He caught her lips as a hand snaked between them, popping the buttons of her uniform shirt one by one until he could pull it open.

"Good?" Sam asked as he kissed his way down her throat to get a close look at the newest addition to her wardrobe. His lips traced the line down one shoulder and across the line of lace, pausing to lathe attention on the spot in the deep vee.

She must have misheard him – must have – because she would swear what he murmured against her skin was, "Next time, get the red one."

"What?"

He paused just long enough to glance up at her. "You look good in red."

"I... um..." Did that mean she didn't look good in teal?

"It's not really your color."

She stiffened, a pang of hurt settling in her stomach. "Oh."

Oblivious, Jonas continued his southerly path, and she cringed inwardly at the thought that he was about to find the rest of the set. "Relax, baby," he murmured into her stomach as his fingers toyed with the button on her jeans. "Next time you'll do better."

The breath she sucked in was shaky. "Yeah."

~/~ ~/~

August, 1997

Sam really wanted a nail file. Yes, she knew that made her girly, and yes, it would probably just aggravate all of her other problems with the men around her, but she had a tear in her nail and absolutely nothing else to do but stare at it. Damn, she was bored.

The colonel passed her by for the thousand and third time in his pacing – counting them for real would have been a good use of time if she'd started at the beginning – and this time, she just had to say something. "I think I'm starting to agree with you, sir."

He slowed to a halt and glanced down to where she sat. "'Bout what?"

"Remember when I seconded Daniel that we should use the Gate for cultural study?" she asked.

He cast a long, slow look over his shoulder at their archaeologist, snapping photos and making sketches of the fallen-down city around him alongside the four members of SG-7. "Yeah?"

"I was wrong."

That crooked grin she loved so much crossed his face. "Bored, Captain?"

"Immensely, sir," she pressed.

"What about the science part?" He squatted next to her, and she briefly considered ceding the tree trunk she was leaning against to her CO who was, after all, older.

She decided not to. "I'm holding firm on that one."

"Well, I suppose that's fair. Since you are a scientist, and all," he shrugged.

"So you noticed," she chuckled.

He slowly stretched out, sitting to remove the pressure on his knees. "Well... I just figure all those words you spout that I don't understand are either science or Latin, so..."

Grinning, she just shook her head.

They sat together in silence for a moment before he said, "At least it's pretty."

"At least it's pretty?" she echoed. Had he really just said that?

He shrugged. "Well... it is."

She refrained from telling him how ridiculously un-manly that was, but only because he outranked her. And because he had a point – it was a cute planet. The ruins had been overgrown by red and purple wildflowers that spread past the outer walls of the old city and over the hills as far as the eye could see.

Several yards away, Daniel's notebook hit the ground with a thump. "Teal'c! Do you know what this symbol means?"

No one answered him, and Sam didn't particularly care. Daniel, unfortunately, did. "Teal'c!" he called, spinning around to find the man. "Teal'c? Jack, where's Teal'c?"

"He'll be back," the colonel answered evasively.

Sam began to pick at her broken fingernail. She, personally, was glad the alien wasn't around. His stoic, self-righteous face pissed her off.

"You gonna be mad at him forever?" the man beside her asked.

For humiliating her in front of two dozen of her coworkers? Yes, probably. "I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

It didn't come across as particularly convincing. Even to her.

"You know," he said slowly, "you women are still a mystery to me, and I've had lots of practice. Teal'c-"

"Is much older than you are, sir. And I'd rather not discuss it." It was bad enough that she'd been that close to tears when she'd run into them in the corridor; she was not about to spill her guts about all her insecurities to her CO. But really – had the big, dumb alien not been watching when she'd taken down Turghan in that knife fight? Hadn't she proven herself already?

"Okay." He pushed to his feet and glanced down at her, but something past the tree/backrest seemed to catch his eye, and he grinned. "You just stay mad, then. Try it. I dare you."

Before she could ask him what that was supposed to mean, he headed quickly for the ruins. Sam wasn't about to give up her comfy spot, though her rear was starting to fall asleep, and she went back to picking at the errant fingernail.

It wasn't long before someone else's feet crushed the flowers in front of her, and the massive shadow he cast could only come from one man. Er, alien. Sighing, she intentionally didn't look up.

"Doctor Carter."

Damn. "Can I help you with something, Teal'c?" she asked coolly, still staring at her hands. She almost added something along the lines of 'though I can't imagine what help a lowly female could possibly be to a big, burly man like you' but decided that was a little on the bitter side. The fact that he repeatedly referred to her with her civilian title rather than her military one did not escape her notice.

"On Chulak, when a woman has been publicly wronged, she is customarily given jewelry braided from the entrails of a Teshanian lamb in apology," he said.

Oh, this conversation could not end well. She shrank into the tree a little.

"However, Daniel Jackson informed me that such a gift would likely not be well-received. Moreover, it would be most difficult to procure one."

Thank God for small favors.

"I have collected what I believe to be the culturally acceptable alternative," he offered.

Unfortunately, an alien probably wouldn't understand the significance of Sam putting her fingers in her ears and chanting "la, la, la," so avoidance was kind of out. Besides, it was like the fabled train wreck – while she knew she desperately didn't want to see whatever it was, she just had to look. The curiosity was overwhelming.

Wincing hard in horror, one eye closed, she looked up.

She'd had every intention of staying pissed off; really, she had. But while he had gotten one thing right – yes, flowers were an acceptable gift – he hadn't quite gotten down the details. Like type. Or number. Or method of packaging.

No, the Jaffa's massive arms were filled with hundreds, thousands, of the tiny wildflowers, heaped and tangled with each other. And the effort he'd taken in collecting them was obvious – his uniform was covered in loose petals and tiny stem pieces, and one large smear of pink across his cheek had to be pollen but looked disturbingly like blush.

She couldn't help it. She laughed. Hard.

He stared at her for a moment, his expression growing increasingly uncomfortable, before he asked, "Is this not the appropriate expression of contrition?"

"It... is," she answered slowly. "Kind of. Sit down."

Obediently, immediately, as if he thought it was a required part of the apology process, he sat.

"You can put those down."

"Am I not to give them to you?" he asked.

She glanced down at her still-pristine black t-shirt and said, "Generally speaking, yes. Today... you can just put them down. Really."

His massive arms opened, letting the blossoms fall into a heap in front of him. Still chuckling, Sam leaned forward, picking leaves and stray petals from his shirt for a moment before smearing away the pollen on his face. "It was a nice gesture, Teal'c."

"It was not my intent to offend you, Doctor Carter," he explained softly. "My actions were born from many generations of doctrine. Such is the way of the Jaffa."

Daniel had tried that argument too – cultural differences – and Sam distinctly remembered telling him that Teal'c's culture could kiss her little Suffragette ass. But he looked like a little lost child sitting there, not entirely certain what he'd done wrong (and covered in tiny green and purple pieces) that she just couldn't bring herself to be spiteful about it. "Do you really think that about me? That I can't fight just because I'm a woman?"

The silence stretched long enough that she seriously considered picking up a handful of the stems and shoving them down his throat before he said, "I once stood secure in my beliefs – in the teachings of my father and those before him. Now... I no longer know what to think about many things."

The two deep, earnest brown eyes that stared back at her made it damn near impossible to work up the same indignance that she'd used on Daniel. Hurt as she'd been, prejudice was something she had some experience with, at least. Teal'c had left all of his norms behind to join a battle that was his, certainly, but with a culture that was not. And the learning curve from that, she supposed, was pretty steep. "Apology accepted," she said softly.

He bowed his head slightly. "I fear that this is not the last time the ways of the Jaffa will cause dissent among the Tau'ri."

"No, probably not," she admitted. "But I suppose I can try to be more understanding."

"As shall I," he pledged solemnly.

The distinct feeling of being watched made her hair stand up a bit; she glanced over her shoulder to find Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson observing them intently. What did they expect – that they would actually kiss and make up? Somehow she doubted Teal'c would even understand the phrase.

"Doctor Carter," the Jaffa went on, "in the future, if my words or actions cause you distress, I would wish you to tell me so that I may correct the problem."

"I don't want to be coddled because I'm a girl, Teal'c."

"Nor do I wish to alienate my fellow soldiers because my customs are..."

"Alien?" she offered with a grin.

He narrowed his eyes at her the tiniest bit, but said simply, "Indeed."

And so, hours later, as they trooped back through the Gate, Sam felt for the first time like she'd truly found her place. She and Daniel had found a groove of sorts, a way of making their sciences mesh; she and Teal'c were... working on it. And the colonel... Well, he'd proven himself a far more respectable man than she'd ever imagined, which only made her strive harder to prove herself. He inspired an incredible amount of loyalty from the people he served with.

And, of course, he was pretty damn attractive. It was more than she'd ever thought to ask for in a CO.

Her contentment as she walked down the ramp, however, quickly soured at the look on General Hammond's face. He hovered just off the end of the ramp, his expression and posture tense. "SG-1," he greeted tightly. "The briefing room. Now."