Golden Blonde
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Samantha Carter, Laura Cadman, Daniel Jackson, Rodney McKay, Radek Zelenka
A/N: Intermediary chapter between Turbulence and the next chapter which will be Sam/Laura
Intro
Chapter 1 - Turbulence (John Sheppard/Cameron Mitchell)
“Don’t touch that!” Rodney snapped as Sam picked up a hexagonal blue device from his desk. “We don’t know what it does.”
“I was only looking,” Sam retorted, putting it down guiltily. “I don’t have the gene anyway, so I can’t activate it.” She rolled her eyes at Daniel, who was inching towards a flat disc-like object with Ancient writing along the bottom. “He does though,” she added, sticking her tongue out at the archaeologist as McKay slapped his hand and took the device away from him.
“Traitor,” Daniel muttered, crossing his arms and making a big show of not touching.
“Can we please just all keep our hands to ourselves?” Rodney huffed, gathering all of the unknown technology into a big pile and stowing it in a box under his desk. Behind him, the door swished open and two people walked in. The first, a scruffy scientist with a five o clock shadow, glasses and untamed hair was waving his hands animatedly as he explained something to the woman behind him who, judging from her uniform, was a Marine. Her hair, a golden blonde that reached down past her shoulders, was the first thing that Sam noticed about her. Air Force regulations had forced her to cut her own hair long ago and she’d become used to the short cut, but sometimes she missed the long ash-blonde tresses that had led her father to call her Princess.
The other thing that Sam noticed straight away was that the woman was carrying a tray laden with food and mugs of what appeared to be coffee. She walked over to McKay’s desk and unceremoniously dumped the tray with a sarcastic smile, before curtsying to the astrophysicist and asking, “does his lordship require anything else?”
With a smug smile on his face, McKay took a doughnut from the tray and bit into it. “She didn’t sneak in anything with citrus, did she?” he asked the scruffy scientist, who was leaning over his own desk and checking something on his laptop. The patch on his arm showed a flag Sam was sure she’d seen before, but couldn’t name the country. A white stripe above a red stripe with a blue triangle cutting into the left of the flag.
“Ne,” the other scientist replied distractedly. “She took some of those Athosian grapefruit things when I was not looking, but I found them when I checked tray.”
The Marine woman leaned against the desk at which Sam was sat and smirked. “When I agreed to be your slave for a week, I never agreed not to try and kill you.” She turned her head to look at Sam and winked.
With a laugh, Sam raised her eyebrows at McKay. “Slave? Sounds like the power of command has gone to your head.”
“Hmm? Oh,” McKay waved his hand at the Marine. “This is Lieutenant Cadman. She was in my head for a while, but I fixed it as usual.”
Lieutenant Cadman struck out her hand. “Laura,” she said as Sam extended her own and they shook.
“Colonel Samantha Carter. Sam,” she replied. Laura’s handshake was strong and confident. “You were in his head?”
“Long story,” Laura shrugged. “You’re probably used to that kinda stuff anyway.”
Recalling the time she’d shared headspace with a Goa’uld symbiote, Sam nodded and decided not to ask.
“I thought we were not going to mention that incident?” the scruffy scientist with the nationality Sam couldn’t place spoke up.
“He’s jealous coz I used his boyfriend’s lips to kiss two people,” Laura stage-whispered. When the scruffy man growled menacingly, she mimed zipping her lips together.
“Boyfriend?” That was new. The last time Sam had seen Rodney, he’d had a thing for blondes. And women. Neither of which could be used to describe this man.
Rodney waved his hand dismissively. “I personally believe he found an Ancient mind control device and is using it to make me his personal sex slave,” he said.
“TMI!” Daniel protested, dropping the spherical, football-sized (soccer, not American) Ancient device he’d managed to sneak from the box under Rodney’s desk. It bounced twice and rolled under the desk out of sight.
“So… uh, how did you end up as his slave?” Sam asked quickly, trying to distract the conversation away from McKay’s sex life and into safer territory.
Laura shot a dirty look at the astrophysicist. “He cheated at poker.”
Rolling his eyes, McKay grabbed a cup of coffee from the tray and took a sip. “You were the one who made the bet. I won fair and square.”
“You were counting cards!” Laura shot back.
“You’re a sore loser and your poker face sucks,” McKay told her.
“Rodney,” the scruffy man warned, looking up from his laptop. “Remember what I told you?”
“I know, I know, no bitch-fighting,” McKay sighed.
“Good boy,” the scruffy man said, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Sam had just remembered where that flag was from. The Czech Republic.
McKay glared at him for a few seconds. “Two thousand, two hundred and twenty nine,” he said suddenly.
The Czech groaned and rolled his eyes. “Not again,” he moaned.
“Two thousand, two hundred and twenty nine,” McKay insisted.
“Not prime,” the Czech sighed wearily, not looking up from his laptop.
Sam exchanged an inquisitive glance with Laura, who merely shrugged. “It’s a game they play sometimes,” she offered by way of explanation.
“Well?” McKay demanded.
“Six thousand, eight hundred and sixty three,” the Czech replied, obviously realising that he couldn’t get away that easily.
“Prime,” McKay said smugly.
They continued that way for a while and Sam soon tuned them out. Daniel had managed to retrieve his ball without being noticed by either scientist and was now examining it excitedly. There seemed to be Ancient writing running around the equator of the device, but he hadn’t yet figured out where the starting point was.
Sam meanwhile was finding out more about Laura Cadman.
“This was before he started dating Zelenka,” Laura told her. She assumed Zelenka was the Czech guy. “He had a date with this sweet little botanist called Katie and I just knew he was gonna totally screw it up, so I ended up taking over and kissing her brains out.”
“Uh… and did it work?” Sam asked tentatively.
“Well yeah, but not in the way I intended. The morning after I got my own body back, Katie turned up at my door with a tub of Rocky Road and two spoons.” Laura smiled fondly. “We ended up going out for a while, but she broke it off when she decided she was straight after all.”
Oh good Lord. Sam was almost surprised to find out that someone around here was straight. Lieutenant Cadman was as bad as Vala with her casual attitude to sex and relationships.
“The other person was Dr Beckett,” Laura continued. “I didn’t think I was gonna survive the putting-me-back-in-my-own-body, so I took the opportunity to grab him. I don’t know what shocked him more; that he’d been kissed by Rodney or that he’d been kissed by a woman.”
“One thousand, two hundred and twenty one,” McKay said with a mouth full of sandwich.
“Not prime,” Sam said quickly before Zelenka could answer. Both scientists glared at her. “What, am I not allowed to join in?” she joked.
“Not unless you want a threesome,” McKay told her. “We’re playing to decide who gets to be on top.”
“TMI!” Daniel protested for the second time. He sighed dramatically and resumed his examination of the Ancient device.
“No threesomes!” Zelenka growled, narrowing his eyes in Sam’s direction. “I have heard things about you, Colonel Carter.”
Putting her hands up defensively, Sam told him in no uncertain tones that there was no chance of a threesome. “Don’t worry, there’s no way in hell that I’d ever want to see McKay naked.”
“Hmph,” McKay snorted. “OK, new one: One thousand, one hundred and seventy three.”
“Not prime,” Zelenka replied, keeping his eyes on Sam. She quickly turned back to her conversation with Laura.
“So now you’re gonna tell me you ended up dating this Dr Beckett guy?”
Satisfied that there was no further threat from her, Zelenka turned back to his notes.
Laura snorted and shook her head, but before she could say anything she was interrupted by Daniel’s excited babbling.
“Found it! It’s a warning: On the third bounce, this device will… uh-oh…”
“Dr Jackson, what did I tell you about touching?” McKay demanded, walking over and trying to grab the ball from Daniel’s grasp.
“Hey, careful, it’s already-” Daniel tried to keep hold of the device, but growing up with a younger sister had taught Rodney to play dirty and he twisted Daniel’s fingers until the archaeologist dropped the ball with a cry of pain.
It bounced once and exploded.
Chapter 3 - Explosive (Samantha Carter/Laura Cadman)