Well, That Was Awkward
Remember the ‘Placeholder’ post I put on here late in June, for the story I'd written for the sg1friendathon? The story was the second one finished and was supposed to ‘go live’ on August 2nd, but, well, there was some kind of mixup. (And yes, it was awkward.) So here it is, at last.
The ficathon was specifically gen stories, 1000 word minimum, focused on friendship. My prompt was: “Daniel, Sam. Five times they have to pretend to be married and things get really awkward for SG-1.” (This is, in fact, the only time I’ve ever written to a ‘five things’ prompt.)
Well, That Was Awkward
(aka ‘Five times that Sam and Daniel pretended to be married’)
“You’re makin’ way too big a deal outta this,” Jack said.
The neon blare of the motel sign blinked on and off, waves of harsh pink light and dank shadow. They could hear the hum of mosquitoes outside the car, in the sweltering night. The light flashed on, catching glints from Daniel’s glasses, Jack’s Beretta as he checked it and stowed it in an inner pocket, Teal’c’s gold brand. Teal’c picked up the straw hat that lay on the seat beside him and carefully settled it on his head.
“Sir, I really don’t like the idea of registering as Daniel’s wife.”
“We need to double up in the rooms. We’ve got a Goa’uld on the loose, and we’ve gotta stay together. That means you’ve got to register with somebody.”
“Okay, yeah, but - ”
“Carter, this is Mississippi. Rural Mississippi. You may think it’s the twentieth century, but really, it’s still the Dark Ages here. If you and Daniel register nice and normal as Ma and Pa Jackson, you’ll be invisible as dirt. Nobody will remember you were ever here.” Unless we end up shooting the place full of holes. That went without saying.
“Well, what about you and Teal’c?”
“Two beds, and I’ll spin ‘em some story about our days in the Gulf. Most folks in this kind of place have a soft spot for vets.” And you and me had better not try to pretend we’re married. That went without saying too.
“Hey, what if I register with Teal’c?”
“Carter!!! Mississippi!!” Jack had gone pale in the darkness. “You wanna be noticed? Re-mem-bered? That would get really ugly, really quickly.”
- - -
“Sam, it’s not that big a deal.”
“Says you.” Sam glared at Janet. “You could have warned us before we came over. How long is Cassie’s little friend staying, anyway?”
“Angela’s mother will be picking her up Sunday afternoon. And don’t you blame Cassie for this. The last time Angela was here, she was obsessed with bunny rabbits. We had no idea she’d picked up a new hobby.”
“In every culture, children emulate their parents,” Daniel observed absently. He was peering into the mirror in Janet’s bedroom, where the adults had retreated for a temporary breather under the guise of finding suitable costumes. He was trying to get a dark chiffon scarf to tie into something vaguely resembling a bowtie. “It’s part of how culture is learned.”
“I think you’ve spent more time around kids than I have,” Sam said crossly. “So let me get this straight. Angela’s father is supposed to have her this weekend, but instead he dumps her on you while he jets off, all expenses paid, to do this celebrity wedding gig at Diamond Head in Hawaii - ”
“Nice work if you can get it.” Daniel yanked on the scarf, nearly throttling himself, and had to pick the knot apart and start over.
“Cassie’s baby-sat for him before,” Janet explained. “Apparently, he thinks that means that she’s now on call for him any time he needs his butt covered. I don’t know how he got into this line of work, but he seems to be the favorite minister of the week for every lardbrained movie star or talk shot host who feels like marrying a supermodel on short notice.”
The bedroom door was pushed open and Angela bustled in, near tears. Cassie trailed after her, looking anxious and guilty. Sam looked at Cassie’s miserable face and softened.
“We’re doing our best, Angela,” she said brightly. “You have to admit, it was kind of sudden. Daniel and I weren’t exactly planning on getting married tonight.”
“There’s no veil,” Angela lamented. “The bride hasta have a veil.” She looked around, but the décor in Janet’s house didn’t tend towards sheer curtains or lace tablecloths.
Daniel abandoned his struggles with the ersatz bowtie. “Only in our culture. Well, some other cultures do it too, but it doesn’t have to be white. Did you know that?” He tossed the narrow black scarf aside and snagged a bright red one from a tilting pile of laundry. “For example, in ancient Rome, the bride always wore a veil the colour of flame, to symbolize the home fires, and the sacred hearth.” He draped the red scarf over Sam’s head.
Angela pouted up at him. “The veil is supposed to be white.”
“In Jewish tradition, the bride and groom stand under a canopy, called the chuppah, which symbolizes their new home.” Daniel pulled a bedsheet from the laundry basket, snapped it in the air and draped it over Sam and himself. It settled over them both like a cheap ghost costume. “Ooops. Um, Angela . . . are you still there . . . ?” Daniel reached out with fumbling hands, bumping in Janet, who had bent over laughing, and Cassie, who was giggling.
“Stop it,” scolded Angela. “Stop laughing.”
Daniel scrabbled free of the bedsheet, glanced at the little girl, and saw a faint quiver of a smile starting in spite of herself. “And in Hindu tradition - oh, Hindu weddings are fun. The bride wears tons and tons of gold jewelry - ” Daniel helped himself to what he could find in Janet’s jewel box. It wasn’t much, only three slender gold chains and one locket, but he solemnly decked Sam with his finds. “And her attendants spend hours drawing elaborate designs on her hands with henna. And everyone wears garlands of marigolds, and the groom rides an elephant.” He looked around the bedroom, frowning elaborately. “Darn it, Cassie, where’s the elephant? How am I supposed to get married without an elephant?”
Cassie had given up trying to stand and was lying sprawled across Janet’s bed, holding her stomach with laughter.
“Okay. Forget the Hindu wedding. Let’s try, um - ”
“Chinese,” Sam suggested.
“Chinese! Good choice. Or maybe not. Sam, you get to wear a red silk dress, and I wear a black silk coat, and we set off fireworks. Angela, do you like firecrackers?”
Angela screwed up her face and shook her head violently.
“Okay, no Chinese. Kind of a pity. They have lots of really great food at their weddings.”
“Russian!” Janet caught her breath long enough to gasp the word.
“Oh, Russian’s good. Sam, you’ll like Russian. Before we recite our wedding vows, we race each other to reach the wedding carpet. The winner gets to be the boss of the household. How fast can you run?”
“I won a few medals in track,” Sam grinned.
“I might’ve guessed. Okay, forget Russian. Hey, how about Finland? You get to wear a golden crown.”
“Too heavy.”
“Okay. And we better skip Fiji. For Fiji, I have to give Sam’s father a whale’s tooth, and Sam gets a tattoo.”
“Forget it.”
“Denmark? All the other boys kiss the bride, and all the other girls kiss the groom.”
“Denmark it is!” Janet whooped. She sat up, leaned over and kissed Daniel on the cheek. Sam kissed his other cheek. Cassie rolled over on the bed and landed a kiss somewhere on the back of his head.
Daniel cocked an eyebrow at Angela and gave her one of his best smiles. “Don’t I get a kiss from you?”
Angela’s face drooped. “You’re making fun of me.”
Daniel’s eyes crinkled with embarrassment. Sam reached out a hand to the little girl, suddenly remembering how young she was. Damn her father for dropping her off, like an unwanted piece of luggage. “No, not really. We’re just making a fun time.” She turned to Daniel. “C’mon, Daniel. You’re not fooling anyone. Spit it out.”
“What?” Daniel looked blank.
“ ‘Fess up. The wedding customs of, uh, Chulakistan. You remember. The country where the minister gets ice cream after the ceremony.”
“Oh!” Daniel sneaked a glance at Janet. She nodded, still smiling. “Sam, I wasn’t going to tell Angela about that one. She might get ideas.”
- - -
“Major Carter - Doctor Jackson - I think you might have made more of this than the situation absolutely required.” It was always hard to gauge what General Hammond actually thought about a problem, underneath the veneer of official concern and disapproval. He’d’ve made a damned good poker player.
Sam stiffened to attention, but Daniel was sure she was reddening inside. He knew he was, outside. He also knew how hard it would be for Sam to explain, and rushed into the breach. “General, I assure you, the natives really weren’t kidding about their customs. It’s been almost a hundred years since they last lived in small, isolated groups, and the genetics thing isn’t a big issue any more, but their entire culture centers around respect for their ancestors. Including some really awkward traditions. Like the marriage thing.”
“Well, your handling of the ‘marriage thing’, as you call it, has put us in a very difficult position as regards future contact.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Sam said, “the future position would be difficult no matter what we did. At least - ”
“At least you managed to keep Daniel from bein’ put out to stud,” Jack drawled from the doorway of Hammond’s office. Daniel glowered at him. If it had been the whole team on that mission, not just himself and Sam . . .
“Are you saying that this law - ”
“It’s not exactly a law, sir. More like a custom, except it’s the kind of custom that screws things up if you don’t follow it.”
“Unless you have a really good reason for not following it,” Daniel chimed in after Sam. “In their tribal days, because of the genetic dangers of isolation, when newcomers encountered a new tribal group, every male not pair-bonded to a female of suitable high status was expected to, um, lie with every fertile female of the tribe - ”
“That sounds most fatiguing,” Teal’c remarked. He’d been lurking behind Jack. Daniel glowered at him too.
Hammond lifted a hand. The veneer had cracked, ever so slightly, and the glint in his eye was amusement, not anger. “Yes, I did get the picture from the reports. But now we’ve got to figure out how to handle the next visit. You know how important that one is. Doctor, as our cultural expert, the decision is going to have to rest with you. Our next scheduled contact is in 48 hours, and I need your recommendations on my desk well before then.”
Daniel spread his hands wide. “I can give you that right now, general. Unless you want to claim you’re Sam’s second husband, you’re probably better off taking Doctor Frasier with you as your wife of record. Healers are automatically accorded the highest possible rank.”
- - -
“Really, Daniel. C’mon. It’s not that big a deal.”
San was grinding her teeth, hard. She didn’t believe what she was saying, but she had to say it, had to try to convince herself.
Daniel wasn’t buying it either. His face said as much.
“It’s just that it’s such a goddamned cliché,” Sam fumed. “Why can’t we find just one planet, just once, a nice witchy Mother-Goddess planet where it’s all peace and sisterhood and benevolent matriarchy and the women call the shots? Huh?”
Daniel pulled off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. He knew he really shouldn’t try to answer that. He did anyway. “Well, all these colonies were originally seeded by the Goa’uld, and that’s really not the kind of myth they’d choose to establish . . . ”
“Myth shmyth,” Jack snapped. He was sprawled on one of the low divans in the central common room of their opulent guest quarters, and he’d defiantly planted his boots on the fancy inlaid table. “Carter’s right. It sucks. It got old a long time ago.”
“It could be worse,” Daniel pointed out. “At least you aren’t stuck in purdah this time,.”
“Nor, it is hoped, will any young member of the ruling family attempt an abduction,” Teal’c declared. He had settled himself onto another divan, and solemnly placed his booted feet up on another table.
“They better not,” Sam said.
“No kidding,” Daniel mused. “It would kind of mess up our chances of an alliance if you had to kick some stupid kid’s butt for him.”
“Pity there’s no free ballgown this trip, Cinderella,” Jack drawled. Sam glared at him, and he met her look with an expression of such exaggerated innocence that they all cracked up.
Daniel had been wandering around the room in growing abstraction, studying the walls. “Hey, guys. Did you notice all the inscriptions on these murals? Teal’c, look at this script. I know that word - wait, I know this dialect . . . ” He dived into his pack where it had been dumped on the tiled floor, dragged out his camera and a notebook, and started scribbling.
“Well, there goes Daniel,” Jack announced. “I hope he left a forwarding address, or he’s gonna miss dinner.”
There was a brisk tapping of long fingernails on the door, and the Royal Handmaiden entered, bowed formally, and announced, “The presence of the Honoured Guests is requested for the welcoming banquet.”
Jack heaved himself to his feet. Teal’c arose gracefully. Sam looked at Daniel. Daniel looked at the next panel of the wall mural.
“Dan-iel - ” Jack began.
Sam held up a hand. “Wait, sir. I have an idea.”
The Handmaiden gravely opened the doors for the three members of SG-1, who entered the banquet hall, approached the dais, and bowed their heads respectfully to the Imperator Regis, who inclined his in return and welcomed them. They took their places around on the divans beside him.
As soon as she was settled, Sam surveyed the magnificent platters that covered the nearby tables, picked up a plate and quickly piled it high with delicacies. She gestured to the Handmaiden. “Take this to my husband, please. We must be sure that he eats properly.”
The Imperator stared. “I do not understand. Where is your husband?”
Sam met his look with a wide-eyed gaze of polite astonishment. “Daniel? He’s back in our suite, of course. In our culture, men never dine with their wives in public.”
- - -
“I believe this is not as large a negotiation as you seem to think.”
Sam wondered if Teal’c’s solemn observation was one of his slyer jokes. In a less awkward situation, it might have eased the tension, maybe even gotten a laugh. Laughter was such a precious thing, especially now. Without laughter, they would already have given in to despair or madness.
Who would have thought that a ship as large as the Odyssey, echoingly empty with only six people aboard, could feel so cramped? There could have been much worse places to be trapped, and much worse prisons, and none of them was inclined to claustrophobia . . . but . . .
But.
It had looked so damned compromising. She wasn’t sure why Teal’c had walked into her quarters after knocking, instead of waiting for the usual invitation to enter, but he had. And there they had been, Sam lounging propped up on the pillows on her bed, Daniel lying across it with his head in her lap. She’d had one arm around him, fingers entwined on his chest, and she’d just given in to the perfectly natural impulse to ruffle his hair as he lay there. Talking. That’s all they had been doing, talking. And it didn’t look like that at all. Especially not with the frothy lacy nightwear she’d made for herself recently, just because it was a relief to have something pointless and pretty, not because she’d been planning on anyone seeing it.
“Teal’c - ” she began.
“Wait. Sam, let me.” Daniel had found his voice again. He hadn’t said anything since making that dreadful horrified choked noise when the door had opened. “Teal’c, it’s not what it looks like. It was my fault anyway.”
“If it is not what you think it looks like, what is it?” Teal’c sounded calm, but he didn’t sound dispassionate. After this many years, they all had very keen hearing for the subtle shifts in Teal’c’s tone of voice. He knew they were looking at an abyss of pain and hurt, and he wasn’t moving until he knew exactly where the edge of the brink was, and whether it was about to crumble under their feet. It would take so little to shatter the frail stability of the tiny shipbound group.
“It’s - it’s hard to explain. I just asked Sam, for a favour, just for a few hours, to pretend that we were married.”
Anyone else would have shouted “What?!” at that. Teal’c raised an eyebrow. When he raised that eyebrow, that high, that quickly, at that angle, he was shouting. Sam winced. Daniel plunged on.
“I - I told you it’s hard to explain. I really wanted to talk to Sha’re. It’s - it’s something I’ve been doing for years, ever since I lost her. When I need to talk to her, sometimes I talk to her even though she isn’t really there.” Daniel pressed his fingers to his temples. “It’s because she’s never really gone, and it helps. But lately, it’s gotten a lot harder. So I asked Sam to kind of stand in for her.”
Teal’c’s eyebrow had descended back to a normal volume. “You wish to ask your wife’s permission regarding Vala Mal Doran?”
“N-no. Not really. I know I don’t need to. I just - I wanted to tell her what I was going to do. I wanted her to know it was all right. That I’m all right. I don’t know if it will last, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to last, to last. Sha’re taught me that, you know. She taught me so much, even after she was gone.”
“Indeed.” Teal’c’s voice held approval, respect, warmth.
“When we first met Vala - never mind. It’s different now. She’s different. I really do believe that.”
“I believe it too,” Sam said. She was startled to be able to get a word in edgewise.
Daniel looked ready to launch into another long spurt of words, but Teal’c held up a hand an he subsided. “Daniel Jackson. Years ago, Master Bra’tac taught me an important lesson. He told me that in life, as in battle, we never truly have anything more than the present moment. In every moment, we must live life to the fullest. We may die at any moment after that. The present is all we ever have.” His gesture encompassed the Odyssey, the time field, the lethal bolt frozen in space outside the ship, their entire predicament. “It is all we have here, now.”
~ fin ~
The ficathon was specifically gen stories, 1000 word minimum, focused on friendship. My prompt was: “Daniel, Sam. Five times they have to pretend to be married and things get really awkward for SG-1.” (This is, in fact, the only time I’ve ever written to a ‘five things’ prompt.)
Well, That Was Awkward
(aka ‘Five times that Sam and Daniel pretended to be married’)
“You’re makin’ way too big a deal outta this,” Jack said.
The neon blare of the motel sign blinked on and off, waves of harsh pink light and dank shadow. They could hear the hum of mosquitoes outside the car, in the sweltering night. The light flashed on, catching glints from Daniel’s glasses, Jack’s Beretta as he checked it and stowed it in an inner pocket, Teal’c’s gold brand. Teal’c picked up the straw hat that lay on the seat beside him and carefully settled it on his head.
“Sir, I really don’t like the idea of registering as Daniel’s wife.”
“We need to double up in the rooms. We’ve got a Goa’uld on the loose, and we’ve gotta stay together. That means you’ve got to register with somebody.”
“Okay, yeah, but - ”
“Carter, this is Mississippi. Rural Mississippi. You may think it’s the twentieth century, but really, it’s still the Dark Ages here. If you and Daniel register nice and normal as Ma and Pa Jackson, you’ll be invisible as dirt. Nobody will remember you were ever here.” Unless we end up shooting the place full of holes. That went without saying.
“Well, what about you and Teal’c?”
“Two beds, and I’ll spin ‘em some story about our days in the Gulf. Most folks in this kind of place have a soft spot for vets.” And you and me had better not try to pretend we’re married. That went without saying too.
“Hey, what if I register with Teal’c?”
“Carter!!! Mississippi!!” Jack had gone pale in the darkness. “You wanna be noticed? Re-mem-bered? That would get really ugly, really quickly.”
- - -
“Sam, it’s not that big a deal.”
“Says you.” Sam glared at Janet. “You could have warned us before we came over. How long is Cassie’s little friend staying, anyway?”
“Angela’s mother will be picking her up Sunday afternoon. And don’t you blame Cassie for this. The last time Angela was here, she was obsessed with bunny rabbits. We had no idea she’d picked up a new hobby.”
“In every culture, children emulate their parents,” Daniel observed absently. He was peering into the mirror in Janet’s bedroom, where the adults had retreated for a temporary breather under the guise of finding suitable costumes. He was trying to get a dark chiffon scarf to tie into something vaguely resembling a bowtie. “It’s part of how culture is learned.”
“I think you’ve spent more time around kids than I have,” Sam said crossly. “So let me get this straight. Angela’s father is supposed to have her this weekend, but instead he dumps her on you while he jets off, all expenses paid, to do this celebrity wedding gig at Diamond Head in Hawaii - ”
“Nice work if you can get it.” Daniel yanked on the scarf, nearly throttling himself, and had to pick the knot apart and start over.
“Cassie’s baby-sat for him before,” Janet explained. “Apparently, he thinks that means that she’s now on call for him any time he needs his butt covered. I don’t know how he got into this line of work, but he seems to be the favorite minister of the week for every lardbrained movie star or talk shot host who feels like marrying a supermodel on short notice.”
The bedroom door was pushed open and Angela bustled in, near tears. Cassie trailed after her, looking anxious and guilty. Sam looked at Cassie’s miserable face and softened.
“We’re doing our best, Angela,” she said brightly. “You have to admit, it was kind of sudden. Daniel and I weren’t exactly planning on getting married tonight.”
“There’s no veil,” Angela lamented. “The bride hasta have a veil.” She looked around, but the décor in Janet’s house didn’t tend towards sheer curtains or lace tablecloths.
Daniel abandoned his struggles with the ersatz bowtie. “Only in our culture. Well, some other cultures do it too, but it doesn’t have to be white. Did you know that?” He tossed the narrow black scarf aside and snagged a bright red one from a tilting pile of laundry. “For example, in ancient Rome, the bride always wore a veil the colour of flame, to symbolize the home fires, and the sacred hearth.” He draped the red scarf over Sam’s head.
Angela pouted up at him. “The veil is supposed to be white.”
“In Jewish tradition, the bride and groom stand under a canopy, called the chuppah, which symbolizes their new home.” Daniel pulled a bedsheet from the laundry basket, snapped it in the air and draped it over Sam and himself. It settled over them both like a cheap ghost costume. “Ooops. Um, Angela . . . are you still there . . . ?” Daniel reached out with fumbling hands, bumping in Janet, who had bent over laughing, and Cassie, who was giggling.
“Stop it,” scolded Angela. “Stop laughing.”
Daniel scrabbled free of the bedsheet, glanced at the little girl, and saw a faint quiver of a smile starting in spite of herself. “And in Hindu tradition - oh, Hindu weddings are fun. The bride wears tons and tons of gold jewelry - ” Daniel helped himself to what he could find in Janet’s jewel box. It wasn’t much, only three slender gold chains and one locket, but he solemnly decked Sam with his finds. “And her attendants spend hours drawing elaborate designs on her hands with henna. And everyone wears garlands of marigolds, and the groom rides an elephant.” He looked around the bedroom, frowning elaborately. “Darn it, Cassie, where’s the elephant? How am I supposed to get married without an elephant?”
Cassie had given up trying to stand and was lying sprawled across Janet’s bed, holding her stomach with laughter.
“Okay. Forget the Hindu wedding. Let’s try, um - ”
“Chinese,” Sam suggested.
“Chinese! Good choice. Or maybe not. Sam, you get to wear a red silk dress, and I wear a black silk coat, and we set off fireworks. Angela, do you like firecrackers?”
Angela screwed up her face and shook her head violently.
“Okay, no Chinese. Kind of a pity. They have lots of really great food at their weddings.”
“Russian!” Janet caught her breath long enough to gasp the word.
“Oh, Russian’s good. Sam, you’ll like Russian. Before we recite our wedding vows, we race each other to reach the wedding carpet. The winner gets to be the boss of the household. How fast can you run?”
“I won a few medals in track,” Sam grinned.
“I might’ve guessed. Okay, forget Russian. Hey, how about Finland? You get to wear a golden crown.”
“Too heavy.”
“Okay. And we better skip Fiji. For Fiji, I have to give Sam’s father a whale’s tooth, and Sam gets a tattoo.”
“Forget it.”
“Denmark? All the other boys kiss the bride, and all the other girls kiss the groom.”
“Denmark it is!” Janet whooped. She sat up, leaned over and kissed Daniel on the cheek. Sam kissed his other cheek. Cassie rolled over on the bed and landed a kiss somewhere on the back of his head.
Daniel cocked an eyebrow at Angela and gave her one of his best smiles. “Don’t I get a kiss from you?”
Angela’s face drooped. “You’re making fun of me.”
Daniel’s eyes crinkled with embarrassment. Sam reached out a hand to the little girl, suddenly remembering how young she was. Damn her father for dropping her off, like an unwanted piece of luggage. “No, not really. We’re just making a fun time.” She turned to Daniel. “C’mon, Daniel. You’re not fooling anyone. Spit it out.”
“What?” Daniel looked blank.
“ ‘Fess up. The wedding customs of, uh, Chulakistan. You remember. The country where the minister gets ice cream after the ceremony.”
“Oh!” Daniel sneaked a glance at Janet. She nodded, still smiling. “Sam, I wasn’t going to tell Angela about that one. She might get ideas.”
- - -
“Major Carter - Doctor Jackson - I think you might have made more of this than the situation absolutely required.” It was always hard to gauge what General Hammond actually thought about a problem, underneath the veneer of official concern and disapproval. He’d’ve made a damned good poker player.
Sam stiffened to attention, but Daniel was sure she was reddening inside. He knew he was, outside. He also knew how hard it would be for Sam to explain, and rushed into the breach. “General, I assure you, the natives really weren’t kidding about their customs. It’s been almost a hundred years since they last lived in small, isolated groups, and the genetics thing isn’t a big issue any more, but their entire culture centers around respect for their ancestors. Including some really awkward traditions. Like the marriage thing.”
“Well, your handling of the ‘marriage thing’, as you call it, has put us in a very difficult position as regards future contact.”
“With all due respect, sir,” Sam said, “the future position would be difficult no matter what we did. At least - ”
“At least you managed to keep Daniel from bein’ put out to stud,” Jack drawled from the doorway of Hammond’s office. Daniel glowered at him. If it had been the whole team on that mission, not just himself and Sam . . .
“Are you saying that this law - ”
“It’s not exactly a law, sir. More like a custom, except it’s the kind of custom that screws things up if you don’t follow it.”
“Unless you have a really good reason for not following it,” Daniel chimed in after Sam. “In their tribal days, because of the genetic dangers of isolation, when newcomers encountered a new tribal group, every male not pair-bonded to a female of suitable high status was expected to, um, lie with every fertile female of the tribe - ”
“That sounds most fatiguing,” Teal’c remarked. He’d been lurking behind Jack. Daniel glowered at him too.
Hammond lifted a hand. The veneer had cracked, ever so slightly, and the glint in his eye was amusement, not anger. “Yes, I did get the picture from the reports. But now we’ve got to figure out how to handle the next visit. You know how important that one is. Doctor, as our cultural expert, the decision is going to have to rest with you. Our next scheduled contact is in 48 hours, and I need your recommendations on my desk well before then.”
Daniel spread his hands wide. “I can give you that right now, general. Unless you want to claim you’re Sam’s second husband, you’re probably better off taking Doctor Frasier with you as your wife of record. Healers are automatically accorded the highest possible rank.”
- - -
“Really, Daniel. C’mon. It’s not that big a deal.”
San was grinding her teeth, hard. She didn’t believe what she was saying, but she had to say it, had to try to convince herself.
Daniel wasn’t buying it either. His face said as much.
“It’s just that it’s such a goddamned cliché,” Sam fumed. “Why can’t we find just one planet, just once, a nice witchy Mother-Goddess planet where it’s all peace and sisterhood and benevolent matriarchy and the women call the shots? Huh?”
Daniel pulled off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. He knew he really shouldn’t try to answer that. He did anyway. “Well, all these colonies were originally seeded by the Goa’uld, and that’s really not the kind of myth they’d choose to establish . . . ”
“Myth shmyth,” Jack snapped. He was sprawled on one of the low divans in the central common room of their opulent guest quarters, and he’d defiantly planted his boots on the fancy inlaid table. “Carter’s right. It sucks. It got old a long time ago.”
“It could be worse,” Daniel pointed out. “At least you aren’t stuck in purdah this time,.”
“Nor, it is hoped, will any young member of the ruling family attempt an abduction,” Teal’c declared. He had settled himself onto another divan, and solemnly placed his booted feet up on another table.
“They better not,” Sam said.
“No kidding,” Daniel mused. “It would kind of mess up our chances of an alliance if you had to kick some stupid kid’s butt for him.”
“Pity there’s no free ballgown this trip, Cinderella,” Jack drawled. Sam glared at him, and he met her look with an expression of such exaggerated innocence that they all cracked up.
Daniel had been wandering around the room in growing abstraction, studying the walls. “Hey, guys. Did you notice all the inscriptions on these murals? Teal’c, look at this script. I know that word - wait, I know this dialect . . . ” He dived into his pack where it had been dumped on the tiled floor, dragged out his camera and a notebook, and started scribbling.
“Well, there goes Daniel,” Jack announced. “I hope he left a forwarding address, or he’s gonna miss dinner.”
There was a brisk tapping of long fingernails on the door, and the Royal Handmaiden entered, bowed formally, and announced, “The presence of the Honoured Guests is requested for the welcoming banquet.”
Jack heaved himself to his feet. Teal’c arose gracefully. Sam looked at Daniel. Daniel looked at the next panel of the wall mural.
“Dan-iel - ” Jack began.
Sam held up a hand. “Wait, sir. I have an idea.”
The Handmaiden gravely opened the doors for the three members of SG-1, who entered the banquet hall, approached the dais, and bowed their heads respectfully to the Imperator Regis, who inclined his in return and welcomed them. They took their places around on the divans beside him.
As soon as she was settled, Sam surveyed the magnificent platters that covered the nearby tables, picked up a plate and quickly piled it high with delicacies. She gestured to the Handmaiden. “Take this to my husband, please. We must be sure that he eats properly.”
The Imperator stared. “I do not understand. Where is your husband?”
Sam met his look with a wide-eyed gaze of polite astonishment. “Daniel? He’s back in our suite, of course. In our culture, men never dine with their wives in public.”
- - -
“I believe this is not as large a negotiation as you seem to think.”
Sam wondered if Teal’c’s solemn observation was one of his slyer jokes. In a less awkward situation, it might have eased the tension, maybe even gotten a laugh. Laughter was such a precious thing, especially now. Without laughter, they would already have given in to despair or madness.
Who would have thought that a ship as large as the Odyssey, echoingly empty with only six people aboard, could feel so cramped? There could have been much worse places to be trapped, and much worse prisons, and none of them was inclined to claustrophobia . . . but . . .
But.
It had looked so damned compromising. She wasn’t sure why Teal’c had walked into her quarters after knocking, instead of waiting for the usual invitation to enter, but he had. And there they had been, Sam lounging propped up on the pillows on her bed, Daniel lying across it with his head in her lap. She’d had one arm around him, fingers entwined on his chest, and she’d just given in to the perfectly natural impulse to ruffle his hair as he lay there. Talking. That’s all they had been doing, talking. And it didn’t look like that at all. Especially not with the frothy lacy nightwear she’d made for herself recently, just because it was a relief to have something pointless and pretty, not because she’d been planning on anyone seeing it.
“Teal’c - ” she began.
“Wait. Sam, let me.” Daniel had found his voice again. He hadn’t said anything since making that dreadful horrified choked noise when the door had opened. “Teal’c, it’s not what it looks like. It was my fault anyway.”
“If it is not what you think it looks like, what is it?” Teal’c sounded calm, but he didn’t sound dispassionate. After this many years, they all had very keen hearing for the subtle shifts in Teal’c’s tone of voice. He knew they were looking at an abyss of pain and hurt, and he wasn’t moving until he knew exactly where the edge of the brink was, and whether it was about to crumble under their feet. It would take so little to shatter the frail stability of the tiny shipbound group.
“It’s - it’s hard to explain. I just asked Sam, for a favour, just for a few hours, to pretend that we were married.”
Anyone else would have shouted “What?!” at that. Teal’c raised an eyebrow. When he raised that eyebrow, that high, that quickly, at that angle, he was shouting. Sam winced. Daniel plunged on.
“I - I told you it’s hard to explain. I really wanted to talk to Sha’re. It’s - it’s something I’ve been doing for years, ever since I lost her. When I need to talk to her, sometimes I talk to her even though she isn’t really there.” Daniel pressed his fingers to his temples. “It’s because she’s never really gone, and it helps. But lately, it’s gotten a lot harder. So I asked Sam to kind of stand in for her.”
Teal’c’s eyebrow had descended back to a normal volume. “You wish to ask your wife’s permission regarding Vala Mal Doran?”
“N-no. Not really. I know I don’t need to. I just - I wanted to tell her what I was going to do. I wanted her to know it was all right. That I’m all right. I don’t know if it will last, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to last, to last. Sha’re taught me that, you know. She taught me so much, even after she was gone.”
“Indeed.” Teal’c’s voice held approval, respect, warmth.
“When we first met Vala - never mind. It’s different now. She’s different. I really do believe that.”
“I believe it too,” Sam said. She was startled to be able to get a word in edgewise.
Daniel looked ready to launch into another long spurt of words, but Teal’c held up a hand an he subsided. “Daniel Jackson. Years ago, Master Bra’tac taught me an important lesson. He told me that in life, as in battle, we never truly have anything more than the present moment. In every moment, we must live life to the fullest. We may die at any moment after that. The present is all we ever have.” His gesture encompassed the Odyssey, the time field, the lethal bolt frozen in space outside the ship, their entire predicament. “It is all we have here, now.”
~ fin ~