Archive of Our Own ^beta

I care about her more than I should. His words, his look echo in her mind, but she's an officer. She knows her duty, and puts that day in the room behind her.

So she's not prepared to answer the doorbell and find the Colonel on her doorstep.

"Carter." He's in civvies, twirling a ball cap in his hands.

"Sir," she replies, puzzled. But she steps aside to let him in.

"Not 'sir' anymore." He's addressing the floor, but glances up at her nervously. "I ... I couldn't do it. I couldn't throw away a chance at happiness."

She draws in a breath. "What do you mean?"

"I mean ... aw, hell, Carter, I mean I resigned!" He steps forward, tosses the cap to the side, and takes her in his arms. He hesitates just one moment to see if she has any objection, before taking her in a forceful kiss that leaves no doubt as to his feelings.

Sam rolls onto her back, imagining it's him laying her out on the bed, that he slowly peels her clothes off, kissing every part of her as it's revealed. The image of the Colonel covering her body with his own is powerful—overwhelming. Strong enough to drown out the image of Martouf crumpling to the floor. The only way she'll be able to get to sleep.

"Damn it, Jack! I can't figure out how to negotiate with these people without a better understanding of their values! I need more time with their holy book!"

"There is no more time! SG-9 is gating out at oh-nine hundred—"

"So delay the mission! It's a completely arbitrary time that has more to do with pressure from Washington than—"

"Yes, Washington. Where the money that keeps us going comes from."

Sam winces at the shouting coming through Daniel's office door.

"They're at it again, huh?"

Sam turns and sees Janet, looking more amused than anything. She gives her a rueful smile. "I hate it when they fight."

Janet snorts. "That's not a fight."

A yell of "Bullshit" echoes through the door, and Sam challenges Janet with a look.

"Oh, honey, that's just a discussion." Janet pushes through the door and claps her hands loudly. "Hey!" She matches them decibel for decibel. "If you two don't settle down I'm turning this car right around. You," she points to the Colonel, "my office for your followup."

The Colonel and Daniel turn in perfect unison towards the wall clock.

"Aw, crap. Sorry, Doc." The Colonel heads out the door towards the infirmary, while Daniel sweeps a pile of paper together, and hurries off to the briefing room.

Janet pauses by Sam on the way out. "I know you were taught to use your 'indoor voice,' but if you want most of these guys to hear you, you have to crank it up."

Sam shakes her head. "I get it in the field, but on base? Shouting is ..." Aggressive. Angry. Bad. Impolite.

Janet pats her arm. "Honey, if you grew up anything other than WASP and middle class—shouting is just how you get heard in conversation." She grins. "Ask Ferretti. It doesn't mean anything."

Sam still winces to herself. She'd learned the term "conflict avoidant" in therapy, after her break-up with Jonas, and she can see where it fits.

God, she's tired. And she's frustrated. And she doesn't know what the hell to do about General Bauer.

General Hammond is gone. The Colonel is gone. And she's doing the best she can to make sure the bomb test won't be an utter catastrophe, but she doesn't have much hope.

She's coming out of the showers wearing a towel, using another one on her hair. A hand covers her mouth and she's spun against the wall. She realizes immediately it's the Colonel, and nods slightly that he can free her mouth.

"How did you—" she starts to whisper, and he answers, "Access tube," before she can finish. She can see over her shoulder that he's thrown the deadbolt to the locker room, so they won't be interrupted.

"The conspiracy's big," he goes on in a hoarse whisper. "I'm still trying to figure out how to protect Hammond. But I needed to check on you, see you—" He freezes as he realizes he's still leaning against her, pressing her against the wall. "I needed ..." He falters. And then groans as he pushes his hips deliberately against her. "Carter ..."

"Sam," she whispers the correction, breathless.

"Sam," he agrees, mouthing kisses against her neck, dragging up the bottom of the towel.

"Please," she says, as she feels his hands moving between them, unfastening his buttons. She wraps her arms around his neck and he pushes her higher against the wall, lifting her ass in his hands until her legs go around his waist. His hardness rides along her wet folds, pushing, until the head finds her opening and he thrusts in with a groan. Jesus that's good. Just hard cock slamming into her, over and over, as she's pressed into the wall by his weight.

Sam lifts her head reluctantly from her arms, and peers blearily around her lab. She could sit on this stool, head on the counter, forever, lost in that particular daydream. But she needs to keep going on the proof that the bomb test isn't safe.

She's just walking into the hangar when she hears, "Sam? Sam!" and gets swept up in a hug. She squeezes back, grinning. Just hearing that voice is enough to make her day.

Cam Mitchell is looking down at her, now, hands still on her shoulders. "Don't you look better than a month of Sundays ..."—he glances at her insignia—"Major Carter."

"You look pretty fine, yourself, Major Mitchell," she grins back.

She hasn't actually seen him since they were lieutenants passing each other in Incirlik during Desert Storm. But when the SGC was pulling together names of pilots to recruit for the X-302 program, she knew they wanted him, knew she wanted him. He's one of those solid people she trusts instinctively, has since they were friends back at the Academy, and she'll feel Earth is that much safer for having him in the program.

"Go on, now," she gives him a little shove. "Time for the lineup." She watches him join the other pilots milling about before she turns to join the light colonel running the program at the podium. She sees Cam's eyes widen slightly when he notices her up front, but he settles into parade rest with the others as they wait to find out what this new assignment is.

After the they've had an introduction to the 302 and Sam has run through some of the technical specs, there's a break, and Cam drifts over to her.

"So, you're helping run this rodeo." There's triple layers of meaning there—he's catching up with what's going on in her life; he's curious about the program; he's acknowledging her authority on this assignment.

"I'm just here for this week," she clarifies. "I'm based in Colorado Springs."

"Peterson?"

She shakes her head. "No, another program, in Cheyenne Mountain." She teases him with a grin. "If you manage to not wash out this week, you'll hear all about it."

"Well hell," he drawls, "so much for me slacking off."

She snorts. She's never known anyone who works as hard as Cam. Well, except Teal'c.

"So tell me the truth." He nudges her with an elbow. "Is it really as much fun to fly as it sounds?"

"Oh, more!" she promises with a glint. She's happy, bone-deep happy to see him again. Happy he's in the program. She feels a tiny bit of regret that she can't take him back to her room tonight for a reprise of that one night they had in Turkey—god, that was the most uncomplicated and fun sex of her life!—and she recognizes that tiny hint of regret in him, as well. But this week she's part of his command, and they'll both respect that.

After this week, well, they'll see.

After twenty hours straight of tinkering on the naquadah generator, Sam has just enough energy to pop a frozen dinner in the microwave and collapse on the couch. She's not sure how she managed to drive home. She's not even sure she'll be able to get up when her dinner's ready. Still, this is when she loves her job.

The microwave beeps and the Colonel lays a hand on her shoulder. "You relax—I'll get it."

She hears him pop the microwave door open, then close it and fish through the silverware drawer for a fork. The door of the under-sink cabinet bangs as he tosses the dinner lid.

"Mac and cheese, dinner of champions," he says, presenting it to her with a small Vanna White gesture. She can't help but smile as he hands it over. He motions for her to scoot up a little, and he sits behind her, snuggling around her.

"Okay," he says, "eat up. You've been working yourself to the bone getting ready for this race."

"But it's fun!" she protests.

"Aht! Eat. Still, you have a point. It'll be pretty cool to see eight different space ships that aren't al-keshes. Ours is going to win, right?"

She just nods, mouth full.

"Too bad Walter's not coming with us," he muses. "He'd sniff out the betting in a heartbeat, and if there wasn't any, he'd set up book in no time."

Sam snorts. It's true.

"NASCAR in space—that's the kind of sci fi I can live with. The whole parasitic snakes in the neck thing, not so much. Just imagine how much we could make off selling ESPN the broadcast rights. That'd keep the program going right there."

Sam scrapes the last bite of macaroni into her mouth, and sets the empty container on the coffee table. The Colonel scoots them sideways, so she's lying on top of him on the couch.

"So tell me about this ion propulsion engine you’re going to get us," he says, stroking her hair.

"Are you sure you want to know?" she asks.

"Yeah. This is cool stuff."

"Well, with the power configuration Warrick currently has, it’s an interesting piece of technology, but combining it with a naquadah generator actually generates exponential increases in performance—"

The alarm on the microwave echoes from the kitchen, and she groans to herself. Yeah, okay.

It figures that Cam would get posted to the SGC after Sam has moved to Area 51. She has to laugh, but she loves her new job.

She doesn't actually get back to Colorado until Daniel's in the infirmary after going comatose on a mental trip to another galaxy. Cam's been joking with her about "getting the band back together," but this makes her wonder if maybe she should be here, watching Daniel's back. Especially with this new threat.

She'll think about it.

Meanwhile, it's great catching up with Daniel and Teal'c—although Daniel's almost grumpier than the General these days. She can see why: Vala can certainly be a pest, and Cam is relentlessly enthusiastic about SG-1. She thinks it's cute, but she can see that Daniel's reached his limits. She smirks to herself as she wonders whether a yo-yo would mellow Daniel out the way it did the General.

Out loud she says, "C'mon, Mitchell. It's time for all good flyboys to leave the patients in peace," and snags his sleeve.

"All right, all right," he grouses good naturedly, and turns to follow her. Daniel mouths "bless you" behind Cam's back.

"See you tomorrow, Daniel," she calls on her way out the door. She quizzes Cam during the elevator ride on which restaurants and watering holes he's found so far, and decides it's criminal no one's taken him to Front Range yet for catfish and hushpuppies.

Two hours later, belching quietly behind his fist after cobbler, he agrees.

They drive in comfortable silence back to his apartment. Sam appreciates the way they're almost psychically tuned to each other. He's straightforward and undemanding, but when they're both in the mood ...

Yes! No sooner are they in the front door than he's pushing her back against it. He's kissing her hard, pulling her clothes off, his clothes off, almost roughly.

"Crap. Condom."

He hoists her up until her legs wrap around his waist and carries her, still kissing her, through the living room, somehow managing to not trip despite the slow downward slide of his unfastened jeans. She giggles into his mouth and he smacks her bottom.

He drops her carefully to the bed and pulls her panties off in one long sweep, then pushes his jeans and boxer briefs off in another. She grins up at him crawling over her as he reaches for the nightstand drawer, his dick bobbing enticingly in front of her.

He has it covered quickly, and he reaches a hand down to prepare her.

"No." She pushes it aside and wraps her legs around his hips. She's in the mood for fucking, not foreplay. "Just in me."

He raises his eyebrows. "All right, baby." And fuck her he does. God, yes, that's good. She's missed this. She hasn't dated anyone since she broke things off with Pete—hasn't wanted to—and Cam's perfect. No demands, no rebound, just utterly trustworthy. Safe.

Plus, he fucks like a demon. God, yes.

Daniel's catching Sam up on the Morgan la Fey–Merlin connection in the mess line when Colonel Sheppard intercepts them.

"C'mon, Rodney snagged us the good table." He leads them to a private balcony. "Where's the rest of your team?"

Sam clatters her tray onto the table next to Doctor Beckett while Daniel takes the space next to Rodney. Daniel answers, "Mitchell's checking out Satedan fighting techniques, and Vala's checking out Ronon's biceps."

Sam grins. "I'm not worried about Ronon and Cam, but I hope exposure to Vala doesn't scar him too badly."

Sheppard shivers. "I don't know whether he should be more afraid for his virtue or his knife collection."

Daniel comments wryly, "Both."

"Like you can talk about virtue, Captain Kirk," Rodney snipes.

"C'mon, Rodney!" Sam hides a smile at the way Sheppard's voice had risen to a squeak. She unfortunately knows just how good Rodney is at pushing people's buttons. "I've told you, I never see it coming! It just ... happens." Sam and Daniel give him a questioning look, so he elaborates, "I'll just be minding my own business, and then some woman will just ..." He flings his hands out in a way Sam guesses means throw herself on me.

"Oh, right," mutters Rodney.

But Daniel jumps in, "No, no, I can see that. It happens. I mean, Jack's never made a move on someone in his life." At Rodney's skeptical look, he goes on, "Girls always asked him for a date, not vice versa. Sara, his ex-wife, asked him out and was the one who proposed." Sheppard leans back and folds his arms, looking intrigued.

Daniel looks at Sam as he remembers, "There was Kynthia, on Argos—though she drugged his meal before hauling him off to bed." Rodney and Sheppard exchange an uneasy glance, while Daniel goes on, counting off on his fingers. "When Jack was stranded on Edora, it was Laira who chased him. Who else? Kerry. He thought he was giving her a friendly invite to watch an Avalanche-Capitals game. She thought he was inviting her to jump him."

Sheppard holds his hand up to stop him. "Okay, this is just freaky."

Rodney casts him a worried look. "Planet Rohypnol Princess, right? And that Ancient hippie commune place."

"Not to mention my ex-wife was the one who proposed to me." Sheppard's eyebrows are drawn together. "Carson, there's not some ... thing in the ATA gene that makes both General O'Neill and I ..." This time the hand gesture isn't so distinct.

"Lesbian sheep?"

That surprises Sam into a laugh, though Daniel's smirking along with Doctor Beckett. Sheppard and Rodney look just plain shocked, though Sheppard rapidly morphs to pissy while Rodney turns smugly amused.

"No, no. Sorry, lad," Beckett says to Sheppard, though he's still trying not to laugh. "There's a study by an American researcher, an agriculturist. She was observing sheep flocks and noted that normal behavior includes a certain amount of homosexual activity among the rams. A sexually interested male sheep will mount. But sexually interested female sheep stand still. She hypothesized that there might be female sheep interested in other female sheep, but we'll never know because they never do anything."

Daniel adds, "Since that study, 'lesbian sheep' has become shorthand for someone who lets the other person take the lead—especially when there are two people who are interested in each other, but neither will make the first move."

Beckett nods agreement. "To answer your question, though, it's not very likely it's a trait wired into the ATA. There is some chance that natural ATA carriers are more attractive as mates—maybe a pheromone—which causes women to ..." He repeats Sheppard's "throw themselves" gesture.

"Or maybe women just like a man in uniform," offers Daniel.

"Ay, there's always that," Beckett says with a slightly wistful sigh.

General O'Neill is there in a tux, waiting for her. She slowly approaches, clutching her bouquet, feeling the drag of the train pulling slightly against her steps. She feels like her happiness is a glow they could see from space.

"Hey, Carter." His voice is as warm as his eyes.

Fast forward ...

The General sweeps her up in his arms just long enough to carry her into the hotel room, then carefully puts her back on her feet and kisses her with gentle insistence. His hands move behind her, working open the column of buttons down her back—

The blaring alarm next to her bed jerks her out of her slow drift awake. Damn, that was a dream from way back when. She blames Vala's constant romance novel chatter and shakes her head. The tweaks she wants to make to Arthur's Mantle would have been much more useful as waking-up musings—they need the help against the Ori.

Normally she'd call, but Sam's pulling up to the curb in front of Daniel's house instead. She'd just been around the corner picking up the sweet-and-sour pork she'd been jonesing for, and since she's here, she wants to quickly check in on Daniel.

Carolyn had said the side effect of being turned into an omnipotent being was that his health was perfect, but Sam wants to see Daniel, de-Prioritized (that'll be in her nightmares for a while), now that he's home again.

Though she doesn't want to wake him up, in case he's sleeping. She knocks lightly on the door.

When Daniel doesn't answer, she fishes for his house keys on her ring, and lets herself into the entryway. She glances quickly at the alarm panel, but it's not armed.

"Daniel?" she calls quietly.

There's just one low lamp in the living room, and the same KRCC song that was on her car radio is playing from his stereo. The rest of the house is dark.

She's just about to back out, because obviously he's sleeping, when she realizes she can hear a low cry, underneath the fiddle. Pain? Injury? Nightmare? Instantly, she's inside with the door shut behind her and heading to the hallway.

Just as she reaches the corner, and can see a spill of light from the bedroom door, she realizes she can hear two male voices, and what sounds like a struggle.

Sam goes into stealth mode, lowering her purse to the carpet to free her hands. She slips up to the half-open door ... and freezes.

The bright light of the overhead fixture illuminates everything in technicolor detail. Daniel's nude body over another, a second pair of legs—hairy legs—caught up in his elbows. The foot of the bed faces the door, so what Sam mostly sees is Daniel's ass, pumping rhythmically, hard, the sides dimpling as he pushes in and out of ....

She flinches back out of the sliver of light, the image seared in her brain. As she pauses against the wall a moment, waiting for the adrenaline to subside enough to slip quietly back out, a familiar voice, hitching with the rhythm of their movement, comes from the open doorway.

"My balls are right there. You could touch them."

The shock freezes her completely. General O'Neill. In full, nasty sarcasm mode.

But Daniel just huffs a laugh. "Bitch ... bottom.... Dictionary." He sounds distracted by equal amounts of pleasure and exertion. Though what follows is a creak and a rustle and then a long moan of pleasure from the General that says Daniel adjusted positions to accommodate him.

"Oh god, Daniel ..."

"I know. I know."

The casual snark is gone like a switch flipped. It's not just about sex and orgasms; there's an intensity of emotion in their voices, an unimaginable intimacy. Daniel was missing for so long ....

The cries of sex, needy and desperate, are being muffled inside the sound of kisses.

Sam's legs are moving her before she's conscious of it. She slips back down the hallway, snagging her purse handle on autopilot, running silently from the scene that's upended her entire reality. She passes the swell of mandolin picking from the stereo. Gets outside the door and locks the locks. Flees to her car, her sanctuary.

The humid waft of sweet and sour when she jumps in turns her stomach. She stabs the key at the ignition a couple of times before she can get it in and turned, then immediately punches off the radio, cutting off Allison Krause mid-chorus. Grass roots revival isn't her favorite, anyway.

She rolls down the window, desperate for fresh air. She needs to get away ... away. She drives up the block and around the corner. The apartment building ahead has a dumpster, so she pulls over, grabs the dinner she can't even stand to smell, much less eat, and gets out and tosses it through the hatch.

She drops back into the driver's seat and closes the door, the stink of food fading, the quiet idle of the engine the only sound.

She grips the wheel and wonders why she isn't putting the car in gear and going.

A drop of something wet lands just below her collarbone. She frowns as she goes to touch it. Where ...? But then raises her hand to her face, instead. Her eyes are watering, tears rolling down her cheeks. It's not until she realizes that she's crying that she hitches a sob. Then suddenly there's nothing she can do but turn off the engine, turn off the headlights, and keen in the dark—she doesn't even know what for.

Eventually the sobbing trails off, and she cleans herself up with tissues from the glove box. She makes it home, feeling blessedly blank, like the calm after the storm.

She wakes up the computer only long enough to email to Bill Lee that she won't be in during SG-1's stand down after all, then drops her clothes piece by piece on the floor as she makes her way to her bed.

She crawls in, pulls the blankets over her head, and, thankfully, goes out like a light.

Sam's drifting slowly awake, until she remembers the night before and she's fully conscious with a slam.

It's like it's the waking up that's the nightmare.

Now that she's past the initial shock, all the reactions roll in at once. How long ...? The General's not— Oh, god, I watched Daniel having sex .... I watched the General— Daniel's gay? The team. The program! The Pentagon could— or the IOA .... Does Teal'c know? Does General Landry? How could Daniel keep a secret like that from me? It's not .... I thought they were my closest friends. Who is the General?

She curls around a pillow, ducking back under the covers.

The Stargate program has changed everything she thought she knew—space explorers join NASA, stable wormholes don't exist, gods are myths—even, my Dad is cold and distant. But she's never had a paradigm shift that hurt so much. She's never had everything turn upside down so close to home.

She doesn't know who Daniel and the General are. She's not sure she knows who she is.

Five days with a motorcycle and some empty two-lane highways help clear her head. For a while.

But pulling back into the Springs, she's not sure how to face her old friends with this new knowledge inside. There's one who's safer than the rest. She stops at her place long enough for a hot shower to loosen up bike-tight muscles, then calls Cam.

"Hey, you missed Jackson's welcome back party!" Oh, she only wishes she had. She suffers a sudden stab at Cam's enthusiasm for Daniel: if Daniel's gay, he'd better not— The thought disappears before it takes hold. Even just as "friends with benefits," she knows Cam's both too gentlemanly and too smart to ever screw up the team by sleeping with two of them.

Sam interrupts Cam's description of the white pancake makeup gag gift. "Can I come over?"

"Of course, baby! You know that." Thank god for Cam; he's never less than welcoming.

Very welcoming. As soon as she's inside his door he lets her push him up against the wall, kissing him hard and hungry. Doesn't object when she manhandles him down the hall, pulling his clothes off, shoving him onto the bed. She pulls a packet off the string of condoms she'd stuffed in her purse, tears it open, and has him covered in record time—a small part of her thinks, absurdly, that she should do time trials, like breaking down and reassembling her sidearm.

Cam just looks up at her with an appreciative, "Oh, yeah!" when she straddles him and sinks down, concentrating on the lift and thrust that grounds her in her body, in the physical, driving out any inclination to think with the overwhelming build towards orgasm.

Sweaty and sated, she leans forward to prop herself on her arms, hands flanking his head. "Thanks," she says with a little smile.

"Anytime, baby," he replies, and gently brushes her hair off her face. "Come here." He rolls them sideways. "Let me just ..." He drops the condom in the waste can next to the bed, then pulls her into a snuggle.

"Missed you," he murmurs in her ear as they drop off to sleep.

By the time they're back on duty, Sam's on a more even keel, though every time she's tempted to say something to Daniel, she swallows her words instead. The idea of "confronting" deescalates to "asking" over time, but she's self-aware enough to know she's not all that good at controlling her emotional reactions. She's afraid there will still be bite, and they have bigger false gods to fry.

So it comes as a surprise one day, when they come back exhausted from another fruitless mission of digging for the Ancients' Ark in some dirt a hundred light years away—utterly alien, but still as heavy as Earth dirt.

Post-infirmary, post-shower, post-debriefing, Daniel's in his office with the phone squeezed between ear and shoulder as she comes through the door.

"You know how it is—visit a few planets, translate a few tablets, dig a few holes, fail to save the galaxy.... Right, sorry. I'll be sure to get on that.... Uh, huh.... You'll get it when General Landry gets it. Right now I need about twelve hours of quality time with my mattress." He smirks at the response, and recaptures the receiver from his shoulder. "Riiight.... Okay, later."

And there's nothing—nothing—that indicates it was anything more than a friendly phone call, or even who was on the other end, but Sam knows. And she sees. Because, okay, the joke around SGC for ten years has been that Daniel and the General are an old married couple, but they really are. There's a bubble around the two of them that contains only them.

She knows the General loves all of them, loyally and fiercely. She knows Daniel loves all of them, sometimes absent-mindedly, but absolutely. The General and Daniel, they would either of them die for the team in a heartbeat. But they would live for each other. And it's okay. It's the natural order of things—the way it's been all along.

So suddenly it's easy for her to ask, "Daniel, were you ever going to tell me about you and him?"

Daniel gives her a slow blink, then asks back in his trademark rapid delivery, "Were you ever going to tell me about you and Mitchell?"

Sam's so startled she literally takes a step back. "Wh—? How did you know ...?"

Daniel just shakes his head slowly, with a smile. "Sam, I've never seen you so happy."

And now she has a few more thoughts to untangle. Why didn't she tell Daniel? Is there a difference between his secret and hers? Are her nights with Cam a threat to the team? Daniel didn't seem upset—the opposite, really. Sleeping with a teammate is a threat to their careers, though being of equal rank mitigates it to some extent. General O'Neill is taking the far bigger risk with DADT. But is she really that noticeably happy?

Sam has absently backed out of Daniel's office, wandered the corridors, and ended up in the mess with her favorite brain-teaser combo of coffee and pie before she notices that Daniel never answered her question.

Sam is just grateful the Ori are gone. This last mission was ... She shudders. She hates Replicators. Finding Cam bloodied and unconscious in the command chair had scared the hell out of her—she hadn't even been sure he was still alive. Fortunately they'd been able to stabilize him in the sick bay until they got back to the SGC.

There's a fair amount of celebrating going on, but the team is making sure the big "we saved the Earth, again" party doesn't happen until Cam is up for it.

Meanwhile, she's had separate, personal visits from Woolsey, Shen, LaPierre, and Chapman. Outwardly they came to express their horror at what Marrick had done, but the conversations were full of undercurrents of "what next?" for the SGC and SG-1.

Sam is well aware that SG-1 is on the way to becoming a ceremonial team again, pulled together only for special occasions. If it hadn't been for the whole saving-the-galaxy-from-the-Ori thing, she's pretty sure she would already have been at Area 51, reverse-engineering the Asgard tech. Daniel is long overdue to be working on xeno-linguistics documentation full time, and the Jaffa need Teal'c more than ever.

Her IOA visitors had surprised her, though, with hints about the Pegasus Galaxy. Atlantis has lost Doctor Weir, who'd been their cultural specialist, diplomat, and Ancient language expert, as well as their leader. Sam's not quite sure why she's their second choice, since Atlantis is well set for both physicists and military, but the obvious first choice is apparently off the table. Which doesn't entirely surprise her. It's an exciting idea, though, to live in the city of the Ancients, and the leadership position is an excellent career move.

The General has also visited, making noises about getting Cam back on his feet to help him politic in Washington. General Landry had asked the obvious question; the answer was blunt, but made sense.

"Mitchell looks better than I do. We both have the 'saved the Earth' thing going for us, but his hero record goes all the way back—hell, his goes back four generations. My record is mostly sheets of blacked-out lines. Makes people nervous. Besides, I can only do so many charming smiles before I'm ready to take a staff weapon to the entire room. I need a wingman at these damn cocktail parties."

Cam in Washington is an interesting idea. Truthfully, she feels a little better about it than him going offworld if she's going to be in the Pegasus Galaxy. She's still a little freaked out by the damage he took from Repli-Marrick. That cold feeling in her gut when she first found him ....

She suddenly remembers when Cam thought she was dying, trapped behind Arthur's Mantle while the Ori terrorized a village. He'd cajoled, sweet-talked, and ordered her to hang on, utterly unable to let her go. She'd been distracted at the time, but realizes now she's never seen him so distraught.

She gets now how he felt. And she suddenly gets the extra layer of pain in his voice when she told him the password for her personal folder was "fishing"—she winces herself at that sign she'd been living in the past. Yet Cam had still baked her his grandma's macaroons, even if she'd been a little nauseous from anesthesia at the time.

She's an idiot, she realizes—a first-class idiot. Her Dad had told her he wanted her to be happy, and she is. She has someone who gets her, and gets her work. Someone who's not overshadowed by her. Someone who's there for her in good times and in bad. Someone passionate and all the comforts of home. Someone who's said in all but words he wants to settle down with her.

Sam hustles out the door. She needs to hit up the grocery store, because she has some baking to do. She'll leave the macaroons as a hint when she visits him in the infirmary. Once he's out, they can talk. She can tell him she's changed her password to "poker."