Sam
Two weeks after our return from Minnesota I saw Eleanor back in the office. Janet had put her on bed rest due to complications from the vaccine administered to counteract the effects of the virus injected into her bloodstream. After a passed psychiatric evaluation she was back and like us, pretending none of it had happened. From what Daniel had said she was stir crazy in the house, but Janet didn't want her passing any possible symptoms to anyone outside the office and with the rest of us not showing symptoms we were clear. She hadn't even taken her gray tweed pea coat off when I caught her in Jack's untouched office adjusting a small parcel just so on his desk.
"He's in the mess hall eating breakfast," I cleared my throat. "Glad to see you're feeling better."
"Is it bad I'm avoiding him?" She tucked a curl behind her ear and grimaced. "I ruined his safe place, the one spot he doesn't have to be Colonel O'Neill and he can just be Jack." She looked back at the wrapped box in brown paper and twine. "It's tainted now."
"That's not your fault." I tucked my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching out to hug her. She gave a sad half smile back and shrugged.
"He likes cake, maybe I can earn a little grace back." She nestled a small card under and walked back out into the hall with me.
"You look very autumnal," I motioned at her black turtleneck and matching gray tweed skirt as we went walking toward her office.
"I heard Rodney McKay is in the building now, I have to impress." She said straight faced and my eyes widened. A laugh poured from her and she grabbed onto my arm. "Oh god could you imagine? Is he as insufferable now as he was then?"
My face warned and I nodded in response, "try spending the entire week with him in the same lab."
"I did, I mean I used to. I had to play mommy and break up his fights with the science department constantly. I'd just sit at the table across from them all and let him just hurl insults at me. He works much faster that way you know, if he has someone to bully around and make him feel like a big tough guy." Her smile softened and she took in a deep breath. "He's not so bad once you get past the thick shell. Very, thick shell."
"I suppose," I shrugged doubtfully, "I'll see you at noon for the debriefing?"
She tensed and then readjusted her demeanor. "Yes, but I have some pastries I'm dropping by the science department next if you'll be there."
"You know I will be," I sighed, veering off to the left to get into the dreaded lab next. Even down the hall I could hear the bickering between them all. McKay, Felger, Coombs, Lee and myself were all working double time to decode the notebooks and figure out the inner workings of Daniel's original jump device. Knowing the rogue NID had intel regarding any of it set the flames of the need for finishing it into action.
"Ah, Carter, can you get me a fresh coffee?" McKay waved his cup in my direction and I sucked in the air from my teeth ignoring the obvious jab. I pulled my blue coverall top off and placed it onto the coat rack in the corner of the room. Bill Lee brought me up to date on what they had finished that night before as Eleanor walked in, a pile of small boxes in hand.
"And you are?" McKay gave her a look over and smirked while her lips turned tight already in annoyance.
"Eleanor Owens." Her response was clipped and she gave Bill a delicate look in return as he waved from across the room.
"So these are in your horrid handwriting then?" McKay grimaced down at the notebooks and back at Eleanor. "From your little time jump."
"I wouldn't call it little," Felger snorted.
"Yes, well at the time I wasn't really concerned about my handwriting as much as I was just, surviving." She replied back sardonically. "Are they not legible?"
"Barely," he mumbled, flipping through the papers. "Jackson translated them?"
"They've been scanned and translated. Yes," she nodded. "I brought snacks for everyone to help with," she looked around the room and winced back at me, "morale." I mouthed a thank you and she wrinkled her nose back. She plopped the pile of paper boxes tied with pink velvet ribbon down on the work table.
"You didn't use this though." He shook the tray filled with pieces from Daniel's remote. "How did you do it?"
"If I knew, you wouldn't be gracing us with your vast intelligence doctor, it's in there somewhere." She shrugged, "but it was a single use button that was very shoddily put together, by myself. I came through the gate freezing and all out of sorts. So, whatever I did wasn't calibrated properly. Once again Dr. McKay, I'm not a scientist." She held up her finger to interrupt his first thought, "or a secretary."
"What do you do then aside from take up space?" He squinted back at her and I felt a puff of air escape me. I went to defend her, but she had a tenacity behind her polite smile. Bill's jaw tensed though as if he were waiting to lash out. She had been spending a fair amount of time with him in the office sitting on her laptop working over the finalities of her database when Daniel and I were off-world since she started. It was clear she was intent on rebuilding lost friendships, and according to Daniel she spoke often about how she missed the science department monthly game night meet ups.
"I give you problems to work on Dr. McKay, that and cultural analysis. If you do need my help, I'll just be down the hall. I fear it may grow too cramped if I join your science club here."
"Thanks," McKay muttered again and she slid a box down to him.
"That's what friends are for." She waved over at Coombs who had his headphones on in the corner of the room while he was flipping between a hand drawn diagram in one of the notebooks at the translations on his computer. He gave a thumbs up in recognition and went back to his work.
"Friends?" McKay looked up at her with honest interest.
"In a past life, so to speak." I saw the hopefulness in her face. She must have found an innocence in the question behind a man she was partially fond of before.
"I find that doubtful." He shattered the genuine moment and went back to the journal.
"I figured you'd say that Rodney," she shrugged, "that one's a maple bar. It's separate from the lemon squares." She tapped the box in front of him and walked out.
His eyes followed her through the door and he looked over to Bill wiggling his brows, "she seems nice."
"Don't even try. She's engaged to Jackson." Felger grumbled, not looking up from his computer.
"Already? He works fast doesn't he?" McKay scoffed.
"Did you even read her file?" Bill choked on a lemon square mid bite.
"I don't bother with that if it doesn't pertain to the tech. She is from this timeline, but not also correct? Created a split timeline? Apparently knew me enough to not poison me," he pulled the maple bar out and gave it a sniff, "that's it."
Bill and I shared a look of annoyance and he turned back to McKay. "Jackson jumped into this timeline to save Earth from Goa'uld intervention, and left her behind in the process. She isn't supposed to be alive. She's supposed to be at the end of the timeline. Gone. But a quantum tether was formed between them and now, she's here."
"He left her?" McKay sniggered. "I wonder why."
"She was supposed to be here, the other version of her, but she was dead. Because of something you both took apart in the prior timeline for that remote." Bill grimaced looking at the mess in the box.
"Maybe read up on the files, it would help you not look like such an ass." I snapped back in his direction. "And, we are thankful she is here."
"I didn't say otherwise," Bill shrugged between mouthfuls. "She is very informative and helpful. No one visits me here unless they have a question. She is kind enough to pop in and at least ask how my day is before her questions, and then stay for a chat after."
"They're engaged because they have a quantum tether?" McKay took a bite ignoring Bill's comment. "She's cute, but I've seen better, and he was willing to leave her behind."
"No, she and Jackson are together because they both fall in a chart of attractiveness, to hobbies, to usefulness ratio." Felger added. "They're both hot..."
"Did I hear you correctly? Did you just say Jackson was hot?" Coombs removed his headphones and snickered.
"If you don't think Dr. Daniel Jackson is inherently attractive, you're lying to yourself." Felger shot back. "The man has eyes so blue you could swim in them. Look at his face and tell me he isn't hot. He came back to the SGC two weeks ago carrying her nearly dead ragdoll body all the way to Fraiser's med bay at 9am after getting a bullet fished out of his arm like it was nothing. He looked like Clark Kent bringing Lois Lane through here. He is hot. No argument."
I stood there in shock that this conversation was happening while I was in the room. "Why does she want to be back in your game nights so badly?" I asked flatly and they ignored me.
"Eleanor is," Coombs agreed. "Did you see her knee high boots today with the black tights? That's why Jackson's with her."
"That's without question." Felger nodded. "But see, she is a big nerd like us."
McKay let out a laugh, "she is not like us. Well, not like me. Maybe like you."
"She paints miniatures, she quotes Lord of the Rings. Jackson doesn't do that, but what Jackson does do is read old Latin texts and translate them for fun." Felger continued to ignore him.
"Jackson corrects your pronunciation of words in a dead language when he's the only one still alive speaking it," Coombs grumbled back flipping through pages in the journal. "And she will only watch Star Trek Voyager and Next Generation but not Deep Space Nine because the plight of the Bajorans makes her sad." He rolled his eyes and got up to join us at the table. "They're both annoying."
"She bakes, she gardens, she was knitting a Fourth Doctor Who scarf at lunch the other day. She's like if hot Martha Stewart went to renaissance festivals." Felger shot him a look.
"And Jackson is just an anthropomorphic Rosetta Stone." McKay snarked his input again. "This maple bar's decent though."
"He's more than that," Felger continued, "Jackson is the question of what if Indiana Jones was also a therapist?"
"Does that make Eleanor Marion Ravenwood then?" Coombs laughed, grabbing a spare pastry.
"No, she's not as hot as Karen Allen." McKay shook his head doubtfully.
"They're real people, they're your coworkers. If she heard you debating her attractiveness don't you think her feelings would be hurt?" I asked in disbelief and Bill held his hands up.
"I'm not in this."
"No one compares to you Sam," McKay grinned in retort.
"Stuff it McKay," I muttered and grabbed another journal from the shelf. "I'm getting a coffee."
"I'll take a cup again, if you're offering." He chimed back down the hall.
After lunch I went to the briefing room where a meeting was scheduled to take place and explain to Barrett how the situation on our end unfurled so he could put the pieces together at his NID branch. Eleanor sat there early thumbing through a handful of files and a spare legal pad. Her feet were tucked under her in the chair alone. I cleared my throat again to let her know I was in the room and she shot her head up.
"Sam," she smiled, "how was your morning? Uneventful I hope."
"There was a weird discussion about Daniel's attractive scale. I'd watch out for Felger, he might just steal him right from under your nose." I sat down across from her and she chuckled softly.
"Oh, I'm well aware." She sighed. "The things he would say about all of you off the cuff before was, shocking to say the least. Just like I'm sure I was brought up." She paused and took in a steadying breath. "You know, I was never a sexual object to them before. I was like a sister that tagged along and broke up their fights. It's uh, it's not the worst of my problems. But it's not fun. I helped make their costumes for Comic Con last year. I had helped Simon pick out an outfit to ask the woman who owns the coffee shop by my old house on a date and they were together for four months. Now, it doesn't feel the same. I'm not one of them, and I don't think I will ever be again. So, I take what I can get, but there will not be any dungeon raids anytime soon." She looked down at her notes and I finally saw the little pack she had with them before in her comments. She let out another melancholy sigh and looked back at me, "Colonel O'Neill warmed up to me faster though. It took a year for him to trust me, well," she laughed nervously, "maybe not anymore. But, Teal'c was always kind, and you." She smiled, "I appreciate having you in my life Sam."
My face flushed and I heard talking down the hall. Daniel was walking in with Jack and Teal'c going over their sparring match this morning. Jack looked over at Eleanor first and gave her a wink and nod in understanding. Her face beamed and returned to normal. Daniel handed her a steaming paper cup and she signed thank you back to him as he slipped into the seat next to her. He leaned over her shoulder and she angled the file so he could read as he took the pen from her hands, his fingers lingering a little longer than coworkers would and then circled something in her notes silently before she flipped through the file again and pointed to another notation. The ebb and flow they each had, answering one another's questions without any word between them both was remarkable. I was so mesmerized I missed Barrett and Jonas walk in, but I saw her eyes widen and Daniel's free hand move to hers. Jonas sat in the seat on the other side of her and Barrett stayed standing. The awkward air in the room filled before Eleanor stood up and looked at the agent down the table. She took in a deep breath and laced her hands behind her back.
"I'm sorry for my actions the day I met you. For well, for kneeing you in the balls." Her words sounded so sincere but Jack's sputtering choking of water next to me and Daniel biting down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing made it feel contrary. We all rose as Hammond entered before Barrett could respond, and motioned for us to sit.
"Let's hash this out, I have a meeting at two." He grunted and we went over everything we knew from the trip.