*considers* Hmmm. I appear to have written a suggestion of Sam/Daniel. Not at all what I intended when I started this this morning, but there you have it! Poor Jack feels left out. Shall have to do something about that later.
Possibly Pod People
By Lokei
Universe: Stargate SG-1
Rating: PG
Summary: “Of course, if you want me to tell you it’s because you’re too good looking to shoot…” Episode tag for “Foothold,” season 3
Disclaimer: Not mine. I promise not to break them if you’ll let me borrow them, though!
= = =
“I want to hear more about how you shot Jack,” Daniel grinned at Sam with the kind of impish complicity which had been sadly lacking in his expression since Shau’ri’s death. She grinned back at him, leaning companionably against her workbench next to him and temporarily abandoning the fascinating MRI results from the holographic mobile projector-the one left behind when what the Colonel called ‘the lobster aliens’ had departed.
“And Major Davis,” she added smilingly, which Daniel waved off with admirable unconcern, given his usual penchant for saving the lives of the odd or abandoned. Apparently Pentagon lackeys didn’t count.
“But not me,” Daniel replied, grin growing wider. “Why not me?” Inexplicably, his expression grew thunderous. “Not because I’m ‘too cute’ to kill?”
Ah. That. Following Daniel’s thought patterns could be dizzying to most, but Sam actually knew what on earth he was referencing this time, and chalked up a mental mark on her running tally of reasons she and Janet were going to have to go around the base and kick some serious butt as soon as possible.
Sam had overheard a number of the nursing staff in the hallways discussing the foothold situation this morning-apparently so had Daniel. Unfortunately, though their discussion had started out as a relatively interesting speculation on the one-to-one correlation of alien imposter to individual imitated, the tone of the conversation quickly dropped dramatically. One of the nurses had offered up the opinion that if the aliens had been able to use multiple projectors with the same image, they would have been smart to use only the best looking of the SGC personnel, and the others had loudly agreed that an SGC full of Doctor Jacksons would mean imminent disaster for earth, as the exponential increase of adorability would defeat any attempt at resistance.
Sam was going to have to remind them-forcefully, if necessary-that regardless of whether or not their opinion was justified, they had absolutely no business saying it anywhere where Daniel could hear them.
And if she had to, she and Janet would go back and remind them again.
“Sam?” There was a dangerous tone to Daniel’s voice and Sam realized with a start that she had let her mind wander.
“Of course not, Daniel,” she elbowed him gently in the ribs. “If I killed you, that would be the end of the only person on base who understands what I say more than half the time.”
“Janet?” Daniel’s smile was returning, slowly.
“She might have been dead already. But honors are just barely even between you two anyway,” Sam agreed. “Of course, if you want me to tell you it’s because you’re too good looking to shoot…”
Daniel, thankfully, simply snickered and poked her ribs in retaliation, then settled back on his stool and shook his head mournfully. “I just can’t believe I slept through it all. I missed all the fun!”
“Well, not really,” Sam smirked. “After all, your face and voice went to DC, flew back on a sinfully comfortable upper-echelon military plane, infiltrated the base, and then your hands put together the frequency-generator that shorted out all the alien devices.”
Daniel’s eyebrows went up. “I suppose for a few minutes in there, then, it looked like I actually knew my way around all this stuff, huh?” He blinked at the countertops littered with gewgaws and gadgets-Colonel O’Neill’s terms, not hers-and squinted. “I can’t imagine.”
Sam knew he was pulling her leg; archaeologists did plenty of lab work, and even if Daniel’s specialty was languages, the man knew his way around nearly as many “tech-y” toys as she did. That was not going to stop her from pulling his leg right back again.
“Well,” she drawled in a reasonable facsimile of the Colonel, “it looked something like this.” She stuck the projector device on the bare skin just above her elbow and Daniel reared back as her body appeared to shiver and morph into his own.
He blinked again, eyebrows all the way up now, and mouth open in that expression of surprise that had at least half the base thinking baaaaad things at any given moment. “Wow,” he said finally as Sam crossed her-or rather his-arms and cocked her head at him, in Daniel’s own challenging stance.
“That’s…wow,” Daniel repeated, apparently well aware from the way his brow creased that he was sounding inane.
Sam chuckled, startling herself as much as her companion when her voice came out so much lower than she expected. “No kidding. Weird, huh?”
Daniel reached out and poked a tentative hand at her shoulder and then leaned in and peered at her face. “Huh.” He leaned back again, lips quirking. “Nice shirt.”
Sam looked down at blue and white checks and shook her head. “You have to let me take you to the mall, Daniel,” she implored.
Daniel’s mouth was falling open again to utter his ritual protest at the dissing of his wardrobe when the door opened with an exuberance which could only herald one person.
“Carter! Daniel!” The colonel’s voice preceded his face around the doorjamb, which twisted momentarily as he saw two Daniels where he expected only one. “Daniel…” Jack repeated, eyes going immediately to the right Daniel. Not for the first time, Sam wondered just how in heaven he could do that. He’d known she wasn’t Daniel in that storeroom, and he could tell now, too.
“Jack?”
“Sir?”
Sam winced. Okay, even she could tell that ‘sir’ sounded weird in Daniel’s voice.
“Teal’c’s meeting us in the commissary in five. Time to get a move on,” the colonel explained, making ‘hurry up’ gestures towards the door.
“Commissary, sir?” Sam winced again.
“Sure, you know, food, sustenance, proteins and carbohydrates…” their esteemed leader trailed off. “Lunchtime?”
“Oh,” Sam was distinctly unenthused. “But I’ve got these results to examine and I really think I’ve-“
“Carter,” the colonel broke in repressively, “stop playing with Daniel’s doohickey and come to lunch.”
There was a beat as Daniel’s eyes widened and Sam wondered vaguely if her blush was turning up on her façade’s face.
“Ummm,” Daniel stammered, and Jack spinelessly backpedaled, hands in the air. Sam, propelled by some agent of mischief, looked down at her borrowed appearance pointedly and up again with a certain amount of amused challenge that she wasn’t at all sure conveyed adequately on Daniel’s features.
“I didn’t mean that!” he yelped. “Just, you know-food!” At which point he manhandled the real Daniel, unprotesting, out the door as Sam detached the device and shimmered back to normal. The colonel’s face showed obvious relief as he looked back to check on her, eyes tracking from her face to the device sitting innocuously on the abandoned counter top.
Sam gestured to the colonel, muttering something indistinct about pod people, to precede her out of the lab and turned back to turn out the lights. And if she lingered a moment, with a focus on a certain lab bench and a speculative gleam in her eye, there was no one who could call her on it.
After all, they must be suffering the hallucinatory effects of the chemical spill on the twenty third floor.
Sam grinned.