Counter
by Pepsi
STATUS: Complete
CATEGORY: Sam/Jack romance, Janet/Daniel romance, minor character deaths (sorta), humour here and there, angst
RATING: M to be on the safe side
SEASON/SEQUEL INFO: There will be a sequel if enough people ask for one, but I have no idea what'll happen in it. :)
SPOILERS: Major spoilers for Tin Man
SUMMARY: To give a summary would be to give away the story. So I'll make it cryptic: memories cause things to surface among SG-1.
**********
"We can't."
"We have to."
"No we don't."
Sam - or the clone of Sam, anyway - sighed and turned Jack to face her. "We
won't last any longer here than we will on Earth, and I think we owe it to
them."
"Owe it to them!? Why?"
"Wouldn't you want to know if you were them? They *deserve* to know."
"They forgot about us, they went through the Stargate and told us to bury
the gate, which, I'd like to point out, we didn't-"
Sam sighed and gave Jack and impatient look.
"My point is," said Jack, lowering his voice so that he wasn't shouting and
sounded a lot softer, "that... maybe they don't even want to remember we
exist, okay? Maybe we're just metaphorical skeletons in a closet." He looked
at Sam's expression and sighed. "Okay, fine, whatever.. you would have gone
without me anyway, right?"
"Right," Sam lied, before smiling gratefully, and turning around to see if
Daniel, Teal'c and Harlan had arrived. Daniel and Teal'c were there, but
Harlan was not.
"Yo! Harlan!" Jack yelled. "You ready to go?"
"Ah, so you have resolved your differences then?" Harlan said happily from
behind them. "Kumtraya!" Harlan clapped his hands and smiled. Even in a
situation as dire as theirs, he could still be happy, and it fascinated Sam.
It also annoyed Jack.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, kum-by-ya, let's go."
Sam stepped up to the dial home device and started putting in the address
for Earth.
"I have.. never been through the Stargate before.. it.. it is an enjoyable
experience, yes?" Harlan asked Jack a little hesitantly. It had taken a
while for it to sink in that Jack would always be in an irritable state
around him, but when it did, it had sunk in good and proper so Harlan was
always very careful when speaking to Jack.
The Stargate opened, and Daniel told Harlan that it was an experience he
would never forget.
"Let's just hope they're off-world," Sam said as she sent the signal, "or
there's no way they'll let us through." She waited patiently for some kind
of response from the computers at the SGC.
Harlan ran a short distance away and came back with two briefcase-sized
boxes.
"What is this object?" Teal'c asked when Harlan handed one to him.
"Portable power-packs," Harlan explained, "Very temporary, they should only
last a few of your hours, but they will be enough to supply us all well
until then." He handed the other one to Daniel and ran back and got two
more.
"All right, they've accepted it!" Sam reported. She took the power-pack
Harlan offered her, gave Jack a commanding stare that said that if Jack
wasn't nice to Harlan, Sam would have to Do Something About It, which Jack
accepted. He took the other power-pack and Harlan picked up his own, before
they all went through the Stargate.
**
The technician stared at the computer screen, a tiny little voice at the
back of his mind stating that he'd missed something that was very
important....
He looked at the address that SG-1 were returning from. P3X-989.
SG-1 had set off through the Stargate to P4Y-275 that morning.....
There was a logical explanation for it, he reasoned. SG-1 went to another
planet when they dialled back because they didn't want to give away their
home address, or they couldn't reach Earth for some reason so gated to
somewhere that could, or something....
He glanced up and saw the figures emerge from the Stargate. It *looked* like
Colonel O'Neill, Captain Carter, Doctor Jackson and Teal'c... different
clothes, and Teal'c was minus a staff weapon, but it was certainly their
faces. And then he saw that they were accompanied by another man.
General Hammond rushed into the gate room to see why SG-1 had returned
early, from a different address, and why they brought another person with
them. And, come to think of it, why they were all carrying around those
black boxes. Before he had a chace to say anything, Jack started to explain.
"General Hammond, we're the robot clones of SG-1, we got left at P3X-989,
and we came here to see our 'real' selves... do you know where they are, by
any chance?" he asked with his usual humour.
General Hammond sighed. "From what I seem to remember, you only lasted a few
hours the last time you were here. SG-1 may not be back for weeks, so I
suggest you return to P3-"
"Our power source has failed," 'Teal'c' said. "We would last no longer on
P3X-989 than we would on Earth. These packs will sustain us for a few hours
longer than we would normally last."
General Hammond sighed, and led the way to a room where they could stay
until SG-1 returned, if they returned before the clones had shut down.
**
SG-1 were very surprised when, instead of the usual 'welcome back, mission
debriefing in x hours' message they got on returning, they were instead
ushered into a room with a hurried explanation that none of them quite
caught or understood.
It suddenly all became very clear when they entered a room to be
face-to-face with: themselves.
"Hi," Jack's clone said, doing a small wave.
"Kumtraya!" Harlan said, smiling.
Teal'c's clone was over by a computer, eyes closed, palms of hands pressed
on the ends of the keyboard, and a lot of information appearing on the
screen and copying itself onto a disc. He looked like he was in a state of
fierce concentration.
"Um..." Daniel whispered, indicating 'Teal'c'. "What's he.. um.."
"He's copying his memories," Jack's clone said out loud. "He can't really
hear us right now, but he'll snap out of it when he's done, and then it's
Harlan's turn."
Sam asked the question that everyone was secretly wondering. "Why are you
here?"
"The generator on P3X-989 got beyond repair. These packs we've got will give
us a couple of extra hours, and then.." 'Daniel' trailed off, not wanting to
complete the sentence.
"A certain someone," 'Jack' said, giving Sam's twin a stare, "thought that
we 'owed it to you' to give you our memories... personally, I think you'd be
better off without them..."
"Thanks, Jack," said 'Sam' sarcastically, sounding annoyed and also a bit
hurt.
"I didn't mean it like that, I *swear*-" 'Jack' started to explain
hurriedly.
"Um... hate to interrupt..." Jack said, "But.. uh... what *are* you guys
talking about?"
There was the sound of a chair scraping as 'Teal'c' got up from the computer
and returned to his group. "The computer is ready for use, Harlan."
Harlan nodded, smiled, and went over to the computer. He rapidly started
filling it up with memories of his 'life', his work, and all the events that
had happened in his 11,000 years of being a robot. Whoever got this disc was
going to have a LOT to get through.
"I believe it may cause less confusion if we met with our counterparts in
private," Teal'c suggested.
Neither of the Jacks looked like they were going to look forward to it, the
Sams were busy trying to sum the other one up, the Daniels looked pretty
interested at the idea, and the Teal'cs remained neutral.
**
'Sam' handed over the disc. The real Sam stared at it for a while, as if she
was trying to grasp the concept of it, then looked up at her clone with a
questioning look.
"Better not let Cassie get a hold of it," her clone said.
"Why..?" Sam asked suspiciously.
'Sam' took in a deep breath, let it out again, thought several moments
before saying, "Let's just say that if someone turned it into a film, it'd
be X-rated."
Sam looked shocked. Her first thought was to wonder what it would be like,
the second one was devising a way to try and skip those parts, and a third
one was busy trying to figure out a reason behind how that could even be
*possible*.
"You don't wanna know how it's possible, and even if you did.. I wouldn't be
able to tell you," 'Sam' told her, partly reading her thoughts.
"So that was why you got annoyed when Jack said he thought we'd be better
off without them."
"I wasn't annoyed!" denied 'Sam'.
"Yes you were!"
"Wasn't!"
"Was!"
"Wasn't!"
"Aren't we meant to be past this stage?"
"Probably."
They fell into silence.
"Maybe he was right," the clone said after while.
"What do you mean by that?"
The clone locked eye-contact with Sam. "Sam, as much as you tell yourself
that you don't love him, and it's against the rules, you know that you're
lying to yourself and deep down, something in you knows that regulations
will never be enough to keep you apart. Never."
"Shut up!" Sam snapped irritably. She leaned against the wall and closed her
eyes, and thought briefly. "How long did it take?" she asked quietly.
"What?"
"How long did it take for you and Jack.. YOUR Jack.. to actually say it?"
"A few hours? Something like that. Jack said he was going to walk on the
planet's surface so that he wouldn't have to exist as a... a clone."
There was a brief moment of silence. "What happened?" Sam asked quietly.
"Daniel, Teal'c, Harlan and I tried to persuade him not to, and we all
started arguing. Well," 'Sam' added as an afterthought, "everyone but
Harlan. He ran away to his little laboratory and didn't come out for another
two days.
"We just started arguing and soon it was mainly between me and Jack. I told
him that there were lots of reasons for living, and he said..."
**
"I told her the only reason I could think of was for her," Jack's clone
explained to the original.
"Then what happened?" asked Jack, interested but trying not to show it.
'Jack' indicated the disc. "It's all in there."
"Come on," Jack said, "I hate stories that end with To Be Continued, just
tell me for cryin' out loud, I'll find out eventually, you'll spare me the
bother..."
"You're really impatient, you know that?"
"I do now."
The clone sighed. "Fine! Fine, you're right, you'll find out eventually...
we kissed, and I decided that wandering around the surface wasn't a good
idea anymore."
"You wouldn't have done it anyway."
"Wanna bet?"
"Yeah. Even if that hadn't happened, you wouldn't have done it anyway. You'd
hide for a long time then come back and make up some excuse about how there
weren't any exits or something like that."
"Hey, I was suicidal, I would have done anything at that point in time."
There was a pause. "You regretting hearing all of this yet?"
"No, should I?"
"Guess it hasn't sunk in yet."
"Guess WHAT hasn't sunk in?"
"Me and Sam."
"So? We've had alternate realities and stuff where the exact same thing has
happened..."
"But this isn't an alternate reality. This is an alternate YOU, in love with
an alternate Sam, and you know that we are both very, very alike."
"Glad to see you got the cheek fixed, by the way."
"Don't change the subject," Jack's clone told him. "Thank you," he added.
"You're welcome."
"So... you still haven't realised?"
Jack sighed. "What you and your Sam get up to in your spare time is no
interest of mine."
"Look, the point is, you and I are the same. We think the same, we act the
same, and so do the Sams. You know that you've loved Sam for a long time-"
"Quieten down, will ya? She's in the next room!" Jack said, jerking a thumb
at the wall.
"*I* don't mind," said 'Jack'. He thought of something, and started
shouting. "JACK'S IN L-"
Jack quickly clamped a hand over his clone's mouth and pinned him to the
wall. "Shut up!" he hissed.
**
Both Daniels jumped as they heard some shouting, and then a thump.
"Sounded like Jack.." they muttered in unison, before realising what the
other had said.
The clone pointed to the disc which Daniel still had in his hand. "Watch out
about that," he said. "You'll discover something you didn't know was there."
"Sha're?" Daniel asked a little hesitantly.
"Some of it."
"Some?"
"Careful when you watch that thing. You might see parts and lose hope... or
see others and gain what you need to take the final step."
"Have I ever been that cryptic?" Daniel muttered, thinking out loud.
His clone shrugged. "That object in your hand could be the thing that makes
or breaks you. Be careful what you do with it."
**
The exchange between Teal'c and his clone had been different, because Teal'c
saw his clone as another person, and not a copy of one who already existed.
"If you are ever wanting for hope, my friend, you will find it in this
device," Teal'c's clone told Teal'c.
Teal'c nodded. "I will battle as hard as I ever have to free my people for
you."
"I will be no more."
"I shall do it in your memory."
They fell into a respectful silence.
**
Harlan left the abandoned room, completely unaware of where everyone had
gone and why. He wandered the corridors with his disc, looking for someone
who he would recognise or who seemed to have the air about them that
high-ranking people usually got. After wandering for a long time, using
several lifts and walking many corridors, he came across a woman doctor
who's face he had recognised from people's memories.
"Excuse me," he asked as she walked by.
Janet stopped and blinked. This was the Harlan she had heard of? He
certainly seemed to have a crazy look about him - his eyes shone in a way
that was fascinating and a bit unnerving at the same time.
"I am Harlan," Harlan told her, "And I believe you know Mr. General Hammond?
The leader of this mighty building?" he asked, indicating the walls around
him.
Janet wouldn't have called it mighty - it was strong, yes, but when Janet
looked at the grey walls, 'dull' was usually the first word to come to mind.
Whatever it was, it wasn't 'mighty'.
"Uh, yes, I am in contact with General Hammond..." Janet answered carefully.
Harlan gave her the disc.
"That item, yes, it holds many memories, many moments, oh, so, so long
ago..." Harlan said, beginning to trail off and enter his own little world.
"Oh, and, I believe it would be of best use to Mr. Hammond, and I cannot
find him among these many passages, so many passages..."
"Yeah, the SGC does have a lot of corridors.." Janet saw an airman walking
towards them. When he drew closer, she stopped him. "Airman, could you
please be so kind as to lead Harlan back to..." Janet paused and tried to
remember where Sam had gone, "Holding room 3H, on floor 17."
The airman nodded, did a quick salute, and begin to lead Harlan away. Janet
changed her course and went to General Hammond's office to drop off the
disc, and made a mental note that she had various forms and a health
assessment that needed to be seen and signed by Doctor Jackson.
**
'Well,' thought Sam to herself, 'the 'death' of my robotic twin and her
friends is coming up real soon now and I can't even figure out if I should
be there or not.'
One side of the argument was that if she wasn't there, it would look like
she didn't care, or look like she was abandoning them. The other side was
that if she WAS there, it would be like an invasion of privacy or something
along those lines.
She gently looked around the doorway, and saw 'Teal'c', Harlan and her own
clone waiting there. 'Teal'c' had gone into kel-no-reem, and Harlan was
sitting, fidgeting and generally having the atmosphere of a small child when
they've been forced to go shopping with their parents.
"It's okay to come in," her clone told her.
Sam entered, feeling a bit out of place. "How long?" she asked.
The clone paused and thought it out. "10 minutes," she said eventually.
Sam frowned, her scientific mind coming through. "I thought that with the
gradual lessening of power, you'd be-"
"Weakening, yeah. So did I," 'Sam' finished for her. She pointed to the
power pack. "I think what it does is keep full power for as long as it can
then suddenly shutting off when it can't, instead of feeding out less and
less."
Sam winced at the thought. A gradual death was one thing, a sudden one
though... but, it was expected. They knew when the sudden stop was going to
be....
Her thoughts were interrupted by 'Jack' entering the room.
He immediately walked over to Sam's clone, and they shared a look, before
leaning in and kissing.
Sam looked away, partly out of being polite and partly to try and stop any
against-regulations thoughts from forming. She looked towards the doorway
and saw Jack standing there, leaning against the door-frame with a look on
his that showed confusion, lust, and another expression that basically read
'why is life so unfair?' She realised with a shock that Jack was looking
directly at her.
Sam stared back for a few seconds before getting a serious need for space
and running out of the room, brushing past Jack and running down the
corridor.
"Sam!" Jack yelled, running after her, trying to catch up with her.
'Daniel' returned to the room with his friends, taking a seat next to
Teal'c. Sam and Jack broke apart, tears in their eyes, before embracing each
other, each of them thinking, asking, why their time together had to be so
short.
And for the clones, time ticked away..... and ended.
**
Daniel stood a few metres away from his computer, taking a few steps towards
it, then stepping away again, and staring at it like it might bite him.
He'd put the disc in, and was now in two minds about whether to take it out
again and never use it, or takes the few steps between him and the computer
and activate the A: drive.
After ten more minutes of hesitating, his sat down and made a list.
REASONS FOR USING DISC:
If you don't, you will never know.
You owe it to them after all the trouble they went to.
You're curious.
REASONS FOR NOT USING DISC:
If you don't, you will never know.
Daniel warned you to be careful with it.
It's an invasion of privacy.
He looked at the lists and sighed. Bearing in mind the clone had given it to
him willingly, he supposed that he had permission to look at it, so it
wasn't an invasion of privacy. If he tried to use algebra, then the first
reason in both lists were equal to they could both be discounted. So there
was only one reason in the 'not using disc' list, and two in the 'using
disc' list.
He went over to the computer, took a deep breath, and opened the A: drive.
He opened the solitary file and sat down, watching it with interest.
It was a bit confusing at first - the angles kept changing from Daniel
looking through the eyes of the clone to pictures of the clones at a
distance - Daniel guessed that the robotic bodies were able to 'communicate'
with the security camera device the had seen when visiting P3X-989 to get
these images.
The disc seemed to skip parts - maybe 'Daniel' hadn't bothered to upload all
the useless day-to-day stuff.
At one point - Daniel had no idea how long he'd been watching - the clone
was lying on his back, on a bed. Not sleeping, but not awake either.
Thoughts ran through his mind, and these were even more confusing. They were
vague, compromised mainly of vague pictures that appeared and disappeared
quickly. After a while, they started to make a strange kind of sense and
Daniel could understand them and what the clone was thinking.
His pager started beeping, and he checked it.
'SG-5 home' the display read.
"Oh, the artefact!" exclaimed Daniel, pushing the disc to the back of his
mind, gathering a few items and rushing to the gateroom, leaving his office
door wide open.
**
Janet knocked on the open door. "Doctor Jackson?" she called out.
No answer.
She knocked again, gently in case he was sleeping. "Doctor Jackson?"
There was no answer, and Janet decided that she would put it on his desk
with a note, and then leave.
She gently pushed open the door, and went inside, placing the papers on the
desk and quickly writing a note saying that she would appreciate it if
Daniel could sign in the right places and return them to her as soon as
possible. She was about to leave when the computer made a beeping sound. She
looked at it, and saw that a window had flashed up.
'ERROR: Cannot go to standby when A: drive is in use.'
On auto-pilot, Janet okayed the message and was about to walk out again when
something on the screen caught her eye.
For a brief moment, there had been a picture of her on the screen. She
looked again, and saw that it had gone. Then, it appeared again, along with
many other appearing and disappearing images.
Janet decided that whatever this was, she wasn't meant to see it and that
the best option would be to leave. Now.
**
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Sam said automatically.
Janet entered and gently closed the door behind her, before taking in the
computer that was acting in a similar way to what Daniel's had been doing.
Brief images, flashing on and off.
"What is that?" she asked Sam.
"What?" asked Sam, turning around. "Oh, this," she said, realising Janet
meant the computer. "When the clones came, they copied their memories onto
discs and gave them to us. This is Sam's.
"How accurate are they?" Janet asked. On receiving a confused look from Sam,
she continued, "I mean, how close is what they think to what YOU think?"
"Pretty close. For ME, anyway." Sam frowned. "Why'd you ask?"
"Stopped by Daniel's office with some papers, his disc was running, and.. I
saw something that surprised me."
Sam could sense that Janet was very unsure by whatever it was that she saw.
"Janet.. what was he thinking about?"
"Um. Me."
Sam shrugged. "You might as well talk to him about it." She smiled. "What
have you got to lose?"
"My dignity? My reputation? My job? My-" Janet stopped in mid sentence as
she glanced at the screen of the computer. "Uh.. Sam..." Janet awkwardly
gestured towards the computer.
"What?" Sam asked. She turned around. "Oh! God!" she exclaimed as she saw
one of the parts that her clone had described as being X-rated. She quickly
turned away from it, facing Janet.
"You do realise something, don't you?"
"I realise that my computer is showing an alternate me making love to an
alternate-"
"Nuh-uh. This isn't an alternate you, this is *another* you. She," Janet
said, gesturing to the screen, "*is* you. And another Jack got together with
her. I think that alone speaks volumes."
**
Sam lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering why life had to
be so unfair. It was hot, and she was restless, and sleep seemed to be far,
far away from where she was.
She'd managed to brush it off that day, and had self-consciously avoided
Colonel O'Neill in case he wanted to talk about it, but now one fact was
very clear.
When 'Jack' wanted to run away and kill himself, and Sam's clone tried to
stop him, 'Jack' said he loved her...
"A few hours," Sam said out loud to herself. "Still long enough to act
exactly like us."
Logic told her that she should forget that all of this happened and get on
with her life, and especially her job.
Her heart told logic to go take a running jump.
She yawned, turned over to that she was lying on her stomach, and put the
pillow over her head in the hope that it might be able to stop these
thoughts from happening.
In her dreams, she was with him, running her hands over his skin, feeling
the muscles beneath and tasting his lips, feeling him push against her, his
hands running through her hair, him kissing her back, neither of them
wanting this to end, just wanting it to last forever...
The memory would last forever.
**********
Jack opened his eyes blearily. Stupid, *stupid* disc! He rolled over and
started mentally writing some ground rules for his subconscious to use in
future.
1) NO erotic dreams about Sam. As much as I enjoy them, I have enough
trouble struggling with my imagination when I'm awake.
2) Remember that rule number one is very, very important.
3) That's it.
He frowned to himself, remembering the dream, with his mind using parts of
what he had seen on the disc to fill in the blanks.
"I have no self-control," he said to no-one.
**
Daniel munched on a late-night/early-morning snack and went back to his
office.
'Woah', he thought to himself. 'I was studying the artefact for 12 hours?'
He glanced at the computer. The disc was still running. Glancing at it, he
could see that it was still keeping in with the 'reappearing and
disappearing pictures' trend.
He watched the screen, then his eyes widened as one picture showed up.
"That's what he meant...."
He sat down at his desk, fixated with the computer. Eventually a small voice
at the back of his mind managed to get it through to the conscious part that
there were papers on the desk that hadn't been there when he left yesterday.
Daniel looked at the note lying on top. 'Dr. Jackson, I need these to be
signed and returned to me ASAP. - Dr. Janet Fraiser.'
Seemed formal enough. Daniel couldn't help noticing how she hadn't used his
first name, but had signed it with her name in full.
"Maybe that's just how she signs letters," he said out loud.
He scanned through the official papers and signed where it was necessary,
before holding his head in his hands and thinking.
Little touches, glances, things said that could have two meanings.... why
hadn't he noticed? What's more, why didn't he realise? All this time he'd
been thinking of Sha're, having dreams of her... was it really her? Going
back over his dreams, Daniel remembered that the face of who he had assumed
to be Sha're was never actually clear. Faces of other people were
identifiable - in one of his more bizarre dreams where he'd 'seen' Sam and
Jack talking about the differences between their relationship and Mulder and
Scully's, he'd known it was them without a shadow of a doubt... but Sha're?
Was Sha're actually Janet?
Daniel was still thinking these thoughts as sleep caught up with him and
demanded payback.
**
A few hours later, he opened his eyes and realised where he was. He stood up
and picked up the papers, knowing that he would have to drop them off and
some point or another, and if he took too long then Janet would chase him up
about them.
Maybe he'd get to the infirmary and find Janet wasn't there.
One of the dozier parts of his mind saw that thought and got very confused.
He didn't want to *avoid* Janet, did he? He loved her! And she loved him!
"And we don't have any regs keeping us apart, unlike a certain two people
who will remain nameless...." Daniel said aloud as he walked down the
corridor. A passing airman stopped long enough to stare after Daniel as he
walked away, before shaking his head and continuing to the surveillance
camera room.
Daniel entered the infirmary, papers in hand. Janet looked up as he walked
in.
"Oh, Doctor Jackson, you have those papers I was wanting..." Janet got up
from her chair and walked across the room.
"Did you see the disc?" Daniel asked her quickly.
Janet stopped in her tracks. "What?" she asked eventually.
"The disc. The disc that my clone gave me, it was running on my computer
when you dropped these off, so you probably saw it, right?"
"A little," said Janet carefully. "All I did was put the papers on your desk
then write a note and leave."
"So you know, right?"
Janet began to see what was underneath all these questions. "I know," she
said.
"I didn't," said Daniel after a while, walking closer to her. "I didn't know
my feelings for you until I saw the disc. I don't know if I would have
realised with out it."
"So what now?"
Janet didn't get an answer to her question, because she was suddenly very
distracted by the feel of Daniel's lips on hers, and her body responding
fully to the contact.
"Janet, I- oh."
Both doctors jumped apart at the sound of Sam entering the infirmary, and
Sam blushed a little.
"I'll.. er... come back later," Sam said, sounding a bit embarrassed and
quickly leaving.
**
An hour or so later, Janet heard a gentle knock on the infirmary door.
"Come in," said Janet, slightly amused at Sam's level of caution this time.
"Ah... hi," said Sam. "Sorry about before..."
"Forget it," Janet told her. Then she frowned. "Any medical reason why
you're here?"
"Sort of. More in a psychiatrist-doctor way, but I am NOT going to see Dr.
MacKenzie. I need to talk to a friend."
"This is about Jack?"
Sam sat down and looked a bit uneasy. "No... yeah.. I.. I had dreams last
night."
Janet looked like she was needing some more details.
"It's just... they were really erotic, and it was what I saw on the disc
and... I could practically *feel* it...." Sam sighed. "And I don't know what
to *do*.. I love him, or I THINK I love him, and I can't tell him because
I'm scared and it's against regulations, and, according to the disc, *he
loves me back*! What am I meant to DO with that? If we break the regs, I'M
the one who'll be kicked out of SG-1." She sighed again, and gave Janet a
sidelong glance. "What should I do?" she asked quietly.
"I think you should tell him," Janet said, "because he's probably just as
worried about saying anything as you are, and if you don't do it and you
miss your chance, you'll always wonder what could have been..."
Sam smiled, and got up. "Thank you. I'm nervous as ever, but thank you." She
started to walk out of the infirmary.
"I expect to be invited to the wedding!" Janet yelled after her. Sam turned
and gave her a smile, before walking out into the corridor. She was still
partly looked behind her when she bumped into Jack.
"Oh, sorry, er..." Sam realised who it was. "Colonel, hi. How long have you
been standing out here?" she asked when she realised that anyone could have
overheard her conversation with Janet.
"Long enough," Jack told her.
Sam began to feel angry. 'How *dare* he listen in on my conversation like
that...' she thought to herself.
Apparently, her annoyance didn't show. "Why didn't you tell me?" Jack asked
her.
"You overheard the conversation, you should know," Sam snapped without
thinking. She gave a frustrated sigh. "Look, it's against regulations, and
you know that," she told him. "You didn't exactly take the first step
either," she added.
The expression on Jack's face looked like self-disgust. "No," he said
quietly, looking away.
**
Airman Shipper glanced over at one of the camera screens behind her. She
cleared her throat quietly, before saying, "Uh.... Lieutenant... sir..."
Lieutenant CK turned around and looked at the screen that the airman was
pointing at. Sam and Jack could clearly be seen kissing on the screen, and
glancing at the screen next to it, he could see that Janet and Daniel were
sharing a similar moment.
He sighed and raked around for one of those stupid official reports he
always seemed to be filling in.
After filling in the necessary fields, he handed it to the airman. "That is
a report concerning Colonel O'Neill's and Doctor Samantha Carter's breach of
protocol."
"Do you want me to refer it to General Hammond, sir?" Shipper asked.
CK smiled. "No. I want you to tear that into little bits and put it in the
bin." After a moment's hesitation, CK added, "That's an order."
The airman did as she was told, and CK turned back to watching all the
screens.
"So... you're just gonna let them get away with it?" Shipper asked after a
while.
CK smiled, and switched off the two screens, before turning to Shipper.
"Hell," he said, "Why not?"
**********
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