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It’s been three days since they returned from Pindar and she still has bruises at her hips. Carmichael didn’t spot them at her post-mission medical – no reason he would, of course, because diplomatic missions only require cursory medical exams, more concerned with infection than with physical damage. So, anyway, she still has bruises at her hips, but she doesn’t need them to remind her of her off-world indiscretion, of the heat in his gaze and the taste of his mouth. It’s all she can think about, which is madness because she is supposed to be planning a wedding – a wedding to a different man entirely – plus she has a job to do, and there’s the small matter of the regulations. And the General. The minor issue of having launched herself into the lap of her superior officer while on duty and off world. And not having spoken to him about it at all.
Sam grimaces as she absentmindedly tinkers with SG-12s latest find from P3R-987, her other hand twiddling the ring she’s wearing with her tags around her neck, at least while she’s on base. She’s lucky that she’s not seeing Pete for the next couple of days while she figures all of this out (she is exerting considerable willpower to ignore the relief she is feeling at this quirk of their duty rosters). She thinks that maybe her run in with the Replicator version of herself has driven her a little crazy. Or nerves about the wedding. If it was a last-ditch attempt to prove to herself that her attraction to the General is a thing of the past, then she’s fucked up royally because now she can think about nothing else. She’s been avoiding him at the base, hiding out at her lab, but even catching sight of him accidentally trails a flush across her chest, makes her heart pound, sparks into life the memory of his open-mouthed kisses at her neck …
Damnit. Sam can’t believe that after everything they have been through to keep themselves in check, she could have been stupid enough to risk the integrity of SG-1 and all that they have worked for. She knows that the IOA and probably a few unofficial agencies are looking for exactly this kind of indiscretion to unseat the USAF’s control over the Stargate program. And god knows what Jack is thinking about her sudden demonstration of poor impulse control.
Sam slowly lowers her head to her desk, avoiding the doohickey she has been fiddling with. She knows that she needs to speak to Pete, but she’s not at all sure what it is that she wants to say. She can’t even begin to quantify her relationship with the General, and she doesn’t know what she wants. (Except his mouth on her, his hands spanning her waist, the low timbre of his voice as he says her name like she’s the only other person in the world.)
Her introspection is interrupted by Daniel bumping off the doorframe into her office, half lost in SG-12’s mission report no doubt. She bolts upright and knows he probably hasn’t noticed that there’s the imprint of a notepad in her forehead where she’s been wallowing in self-indulgent misery. Veteran of waiting out Daniel’s distractedness, she schools her expression and waits for him to look up, which he eventually does. For a moment he looks at her expectantly, like she’s the one who has strolled into his office, until he comes back to himself.
“Hey, Sam,” he ventures, “so, I’ve just been over the report from SG-12 and it sounds like the device they found may be some sort of cipher for the text I’ve been working on for the last few weeks. The technology doesn’t quite match but you can see the glyphs here align with the presentation of the script and-”. He stops short as he sees that Sam is holding the small machine out like a gift. “So, if you’re, um, done for now, I was thinking I could take a look? Jack said you probably had plans with Pete this weekend anyway so I figured you’d be winding up for the evening…” He stops short at Sam’s slight grimace at the mention of Pete, but Sam answers his raised eyebrow with a small shake of her head, their shorthand for not right now, Daniel.
Not for the first time, Sam is thankful for Daniel’s emotional acuity with the people he really cares about. She really doesn’t want to talk this over with him right now, and besides, she can’t risk jeopardising SG-1 any more than she already has by implicating Daniel in some sort of cover up of her temporary insanity. She hands over the small, oddly shaped device, which she hadn’t really been paying attention to anyway – “Here you go, Daniel. Don’t stay up all weekend, ok?”
As Daniel leaves, giving her a careful, supportive pat on the arm, it hits her. However much she is petrified of screwing up the fine balance that she and the General established in the last few years, she owes it to Pete to let him see that there will always be a part of herself that she can’t share with him. If he decides he can live with that, then maybe, just maybe she can too.
Sam picks up the phone. Pete tells her excitedly that he’d been planning to come to see her this weekend anyway, that he has a surprise that he wants her to see and that he’d pulled in a few favours to change his shift.
She says ok, and feels a little lighter than she has in days.