Snapshots 6: Quarrels
The sixth Snapshots vignette.
You may also catch up at the LJ tag Snapshots (reading from bottom to top, of course).
Since I'm sure you've all forgotten all these YEARS later...::headdesk::...The original series introductory explanation:
Snapshots is a series of vignettes, giving glimpses into the story of Samantha and Martouf in the Alternate Reality introduced in the episode "Ripple Effect". The stories will not be written (or posted) in chronological order, but in an artistic one, like snapshots of a lifetime tossed on a table. Each will stand somewhat alone, though the intent is that these stories, when taken as a whole, will give a reasonably complete picture of some kind of love story. If you are pure Sam/Jack and can't stand the thought of Sam loving Martouf, this is likely not the story for you. But if you are pure Sam/Martouf and have no interest in Sam/Jack, this is likely not the story for you, either. In the end, this will surely be more than one kind of love story. I hope you enjoy.)
DISCLAIMER: Yeah, the SG-1 guys are all property of MGM, World Gekko Corp, and Double Secret productions. This is all in fun, no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. All other characters, ideas, etc., herein are copyrighted to the author.
TITLE: Snapshots: Quarrels
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
RATING: Series is rated NC-17
ARCHIVE: Only on author's website
SPOILERS: Through "Ripple Effect"
CATEGORIES: Sam/Martouf, Team, humor
The usual massive debt of gratitude to my fabulous beta team - helenhighwater7, annienau08, and taliatoennien.:)
This is the sixth installment in a series of vignettes collectively titled "Snapshots: Some Kind of Love Story". The stories do not always fall in chronological order, but in an artistic one. Taken as a whole they're meant to paint a larger picture -- of some kind of love story.
QUARRELS
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2011
Leaning over the naquadah generator, once again ignoring the work stool, Sam knew she would have a hell of a backache later. But this angle gave her the best maneuvering room to realign the power transfer relays. She nearly snapped a connector when Martouf's voice rang in from the doorway.
"Do you ever take a break, Samantha?"
She glanced his way with a sheepish grin. "Not often, actually. Sometimes Daniel drags me away. Unless he's buried in his own project."
"Then I believe I shall have to fill in, in Doctor Jackson's absence." Martouf stepped into her lab, moving carefully as she continued to work, less brazen than Daniel would have been. Daniel would have taken the tools from her hand and aimed her toward the door.
"Actually, I'm glad you're here. I've got a question for Lantesh about the power stabilizers. I don't understand what's causing the fluctuations in the emissions. The crystal technology is based on such an alien premise….no offense," she added with a playful glance over her shoulder.
He smiled. "None taken."
They fell quiet for a moment and Martouf remained behind her. When he offered nothing more, Sam tossed him a questioning look. "Uh...my...question, did...if Lantesh could..."
Martouf drew himself up a bit, pulled in a breath, and nodded. "Yes, I'm sure he would assist you."
"Well, he doesn't have to...I meant you could just ask...I'm..." She was floundering, avoiding stating the obvious, but something was off and Martouf wasn't helping.
"Uhmmm...is everything okay? Is Lantesh...all right?"
He nodded. "He is fine. I am sorry. It is just..."
The lines of discomfort on Martouf's face lead Sam to straighten her stance. She moved a bit slowly to unwrench her back, set her tools onto the lab table. "Just what?" she asked as she took a step nearer.
"Lantesh and I are not speaking," he said simply.
She blinked at him. "What?"
His manner remained unnervingly calm. She still found this his most irritating quality. Screaming and ranting felt awkward when he didn't respond in kind, and she worried she let too many things go unaired. Their relationship was new, but the emotion ran deep. Small slights cut to the bone. "Lantesh and I are in the midst of a disagreement," he explained, "and we are not speaking."
She stared at him for a long moment, lips slightly parted, brow knit in confusion. "What?"
He gazed upon her, unruffled.
She shook herself into action, moved a bit closer. Startled confusion gave way to a genuine desire to understand. "I'm sorry, I just...how does that work? I mean, you told me that you're completely empathetic; that what you feel Lantesh feels and vice versa. So...if one of you dislikes something or... I don't...I don't understand."
Martouf nodded, patient in his explanation. And she did love him for this. She could ask him anything, and the comfort unknotted something inside of her she hadn't realized she had held tight for too many years. She suspected she had asked her mother anything without reserve. She couldn't quite remember. "It is true that we experience one another's emotions and reactions," he said, "and that does color our views. But we are still two separate beings, even if we coexist in a symbiotic relationship. We do have separate personalities. I'm sure you feel that."
She did. She loved them together, but she did feel their life forces. Martouf was not Lantesh nor the other way round. She was not Jolinar and she never would have been. But they were something tangled and together. "Yes," she assured him, "yes, I definitely do. I just...," she faded for a moment, struggling to pinpoint the way forward through the maze of science and emotion. "So you just...you were arguing about something?"
"We were. It is a similar argument to one we've had before. We are currently both angry and do not wish to speak until we have had time to put things in perspective."
She let that soak in. "Okay. Well....is either of you mad at me?"
His smooth features softened into an affectionate smile. "No. We are not."
His smile spread to Sam's lips and brought a wave of shyness. She faltered in her eye contact. "Okay. Good. Well...tell me what you're angry about. Maybe I can help."
He raised his eyebrows and regarded her as though he had never considered this approach.
*****
The morning breeze had gone, and the afternoon's heat was grating on Jack's nerves.
Truly, he wouldn't have minded, if he hadn't been sitting for the last hour listening to the cosmic geeks from R&D arguing over things that would have made no sense to him even if he could have understood their language.
He was on the mission as little more than an armed guard for the geeks. He might have handed the job off to a younger officer, except, well, Carter was here and...well, he was kind of in the habit of guarding Carter.
But he really hadn't thought through the number of geeks on the roster when he had said yes.
There were people all around the gate, moving back and forth with various unidentifiable objects in their hands, and the chaos annoyed him further. He didn't like chaos on alien ground, he liked things in a neat line he could control and surround.
He was about to give a loud cattle call and make everyone line up like the Von Trapp kids when he was distracted by Carter's hurried figure brushing past. Martouf was calling to her, asking her to do something with some sort of...gizmo...he was holding out. Which wasn't so unusual, but what caught Jack's attention was Carter's reaction. She seemed to be rather coldly ignoring Martouf.
"Samantha!" Martouf tried once more, voice raised above his usual subdued manner, which was a bit of a red flag, but Carter only lifted a crate of gear with a hard set to her jaw and ice in her gaze.
Jack was about to speak, when Lantesh called out, "Samantha?"
Oh, hell, no. Jack stepped between the two and lifted a warning finger. "Enh!!! None of that!" he said toward Lantesh, but at the very same moment, Carter straightened from her labors and said pleasantly, "Yes?"
And Jack did a double take toward where she stood, hands on her hips, gazing expectantly toward Lantesh.
Wait, he was still in the middle of...he turned back to Lantesh. "How many times have I told you, no funny voice on the missions! You sound like a Goa'uld, people blow your head off first, ask questions later. Yes?" He pointed a firm finger at Lantesh's chest. "Not on the missions."
Lantesh nodded respectfully, accepting the order. "I am sorry. But Major Carter is not on speaking terms with Martouf, at present," Lantesh explained, keeping his voice low, but still Tok'ra.
"What?" Yeah. He had definitely lost control of the masses.
Lantesh drew a breath as if to explain, but Jack warned, "And not with the voice."
A careful nod, and then Martouf was speaking again. "Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter is angry with me, Martouf. Not with Lantesh. "
"What?"
Jack was hyperaware of Carter's eyes on his back, and he was a little afraid to turn around. He really didn't mean to be in the middle of this. He didn't even know what "this" was that he'd gotten himself in the middle of.
Martouf regarded him in patient silence, and Jack was about to speak again, when Carter stepped up beside him. "It's all right, sir," she said softly, and he was wondering how it was she thought she should be reassuring him instead of apologizing. But he couldn't figure out what had happened fast enough to flip it around.
"Lantesh just needs me to recalibrate the sensor. This planet has a slightly denser oxygen content than Earth, it affects the readings," she said evenly. She stepped past Jack, took the sensor from Mar...Lan...that guy's hands, and they walked off together.
Jack stood, watching after them for a moment, then said..."What?"
*****
Twenty-seven hours...okay, maybe three hours later, and some of the geeks had finished up and gated back to Earth while others lingered. Carter was typically a lingerer, unless something was calling her to her lab.
So, Jack was caught completely off guard...again...when Carter approached him with her pack slung over her shoulder and her zat still strapped to her thigh and said, "Sir. If there's nothing else you need from me, I'll just be returning to the SGC. I'd like to take the rest of the day off."
Coffee. Maybe Daniel had been right, he should have had more coffee this morning. Because none of this was making sense.
"What?"
"Sir?" Her eyebrows were raised, and she was being respectful by all rights, but she was a little pissed off. Probably at Marty, but it looked more like the whole world was now on her hit list. "Do you need anything else from me here?" she prompted.
Well, you could explain some of this to me, let me know how...why...if you... "Well...naw, I don't think so, but--"
"Thank you, sir." Carter's reply was clipped and final, and she circled past him toward the gate.
He watched her determined steps. "What?"
She had just disappeared through the gate, when Martouf cut across Jack's eyeline. Jack jumped forward fast enough to startle the unsuspecting Tok'ra. "What the hell did you do to her?" Jack demanded, a little more loudly than he had intended, drawing glances from some of the remaining geeks.
"I'm sorry?" Martouf asked softly. "I do not understand."
"Carter," Jack said, tone a little more subdued this time, but he had only so much civility left for this day. "Carter...who hasn't voluntarily taken a leave day in...since I met her...just asked me for the afternoon off. So...what did you do to her?"
"I am not certain of Major Carter's reasons for wanting the rest of the day off of work, she did not inform me of her intentions, but I believe I already explained, she and I have had a disagreement. Such things are to be expected in a relationship, are they not?"
"Well...yes. Yes, they are, but..."
"I do not believe Major Carter would let such things affect her professional conduct."
"Well, not in...I mean...well, she wouldn't answer you, when you needed help with your...thing!?" He really wished he hadn't said that out loud.
Martouf's brow furrowed just a bit. "Colonel O'Neill, I am not certain what you wish me to do."
Jack swiped a hand down his face with a heavy sigh. "Okay. So. Your girlfriend is pissed off at you. Here's the thing. You should know this. You're the guy. Whatever it is the two of you are pissed about, you go, and you apologize."
"But...I do not feel I am the one who was incorrect in this matte--"
"Enh! Doesn't matter! You apologize."
Martouf held Jack's gaze for a long moment, then asked simply, "Why?"
Jack couldn't suppress another loud sigh. "Because she's the woman. That's how it works. Come on, Marty, you were in a relationship for longer than I've been alive. Jolinar was a woman."
"Actually, symbiotes have no gender. They merely--"
"Marty. Carter told me that you said Jolinar always took female hosts."
"That was always her preference, yes."
"You know why that was? BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T WANT TO BE THE ONE TO APOLOGIZE!!!! Now go! Fix Carter."
Martouf blinked at him for a moment, then nodded, and started off rather uncertainly toward the gate.
As Martouf leant to gather his supplies, Jack turned his back on the gate and his gaze fell to where Daniel was crouched before a soil sample kit, watching the scene in silence.
"GAAAAAHHH!!" Jack shouted, and Daniel ducked his eyes and feigned intense interest in his dirt.
Jack went in search of coffee.
*****
You may also catch up at the LJ tag Snapshots (reading from bottom to top, of course).
Since I'm sure you've all forgotten all these YEARS later...::headdesk::...The original series introductory explanation:
Snapshots is a series of vignettes, giving glimpses into the story of Samantha and Martouf in the Alternate Reality introduced in the episode "Ripple Effect". The stories will not be written (or posted) in chronological order, but in an artistic one, like snapshots of a lifetime tossed on a table. Each will stand somewhat alone, though the intent is that these stories, when taken as a whole, will give a reasonably complete picture of some kind of love story. If you are pure Sam/Jack and can't stand the thought of Sam loving Martouf, this is likely not the story for you. But if you are pure Sam/Martouf and have no interest in Sam/Jack, this is likely not the story for you, either. In the end, this will surely be more than one kind of love story. I hope you enjoy.)
DISCLAIMER: Yeah, the SG-1 guys are all property of MGM, World Gekko Corp, and Double Secret productions. This is all in fun, no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. All other characters, ideas, etc., herein are copyrighted to the author.
TITLE: Snapshots: Quarrels
AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar
RATING: Series is rated NC-17
ARCHIVE: Only on author's website
SPOILERS: Through "Ripple Effect"
CATEGORIES: Sam/Martouf, Team, humor
The usual massive debt of gratitude to my fabulous beta team - helenhighwater7, annienau08, and taliatoennien.:)
This is the sixth installment in a series of vignettes collectively titled "Snapshots: Some Kind of Love Story". The stories do not always fall in chronological order, but in an artistic one. Taken as a whole they're meant to paint a larger picture -- of some kind of love story.
QUARRELS
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2011
Leaning over the naquadah generator, once again ignoring the work stool, Sam knew she would have a hell of a backache later. But this angle gave her the best maneuvering room to realign the power transfer relays. She nearly snapped a connector when Martouf's voice rang in from the doorway.
"Do you ever take a break, Samantha?"
She glanced his way with a sheepish grin. "Not often, actually. Sometimes Daniel drags me away. Unless he's buried in his own project."
"Then I believe I shall have to fill in, in Doctor Jackson's absence." Martouf stepped into her lab, moving carefully as she continued to work, less brazen than Daniel would have been. Daniel would have taken the tools from her hand and aimed her toward the door.
"Actually, I'm glad you're here. I've got a question for Lantesh about the power stabilizers. I don't understand what's causing the fluctuations in the emissions. The crystal technology is based on such an alien premise….no offense," she added with a playful glance over her shoulder.
He smiled. "None taken."
They fell quiet for a moment and Martouf remained behind her. When he offered nothing more, Sam tossed him a questioning look. "Uh...my...question, did...if Lantesh could..."
Martouf drew himself up a bit, pulled in a breath, and nodded. "Yes, I'm sure he would assist you."
"Well, he doesn't have to...I meant you could just ask...I'm..." She was floundering, avoiding stating the obvious, but something was off and Martouf wasn't helping.
"Uhmmm...is everything okay? Is Lantesh...all right?"
He nodded. "He is fine. I am sorry. It is just..."
The lines of discomfort on Martouf's face lead Sam to straighten her stance. She moved a bit slowly to unwrench her back, set her tools onto the lab table. "Just what?" she asked as she took a step nearer.
"Lantesh and I are not speaking," he said simply.
She blinked at him. "What?"
His manner remained unnervingly calm. She still found this his most irritating quality. Screaming and ranting felt awkward when he didn't respond in kind, and she worried she let too many things go unaired. Their relationship was new, but the emotion ran deep. Small slights cut to the bone. "Lantesh and I are in the midst of a disagreement," he explained, "and we are not speaking."
She stared at him for a long moment, lips slightly parted, brow knit in confusion. "What?"
He gazed upon her, unruffled.
She shook herself into action, moved a bit closer. Startled confusion gave way to a genuine desire to understand. "I'm sorry, I just...how does that work? I mean, you told me that you're completely empathetic; that what you feel Lantesh feels and vice versa. So...if one of you dislikes something or... I don't...I don't understand."
Martouf nodded, patient in his explanation. And she did love him for this. She could ask him anything, and the comfort unknotted something inside of her she hadn't realized she had held tight for too many years. She suspected she had asked her mother anything without reserve. She couldn't quite remember. "It is true that we experience one another's emotions and reactions," he said, "and that does color our views. But we are still two separate beings, even if we coexist in a symbiotic relationship. We do have separate personalities. I'm sure you feel that."
She did. She loved them together, but she did feel their life forces. Martouf was not Lantesh nor the other way round. She was not Jolinar and she never would have been. But they were something tangled and together. "Yes," she assured him, "yes, I definitely do. I just...," she faded for a moment, struggling to pinpoint the way forward through the maze of science and emotion. "So you just...you were arguing about something?"
"We were. It is a similar argument to one we've had before. We are currently both angry and do not wish to speak until we have had time to put things in perspective."
She let that soak in. "Okay. Well....is either of you mad at me?"
His smooth features softened into an affectionate smile. "No. We are not."
His smile spread to Sam's lips and brought a wave of shyness. She faltered in her eye contact. "Okay. Good. Well...tell me what you're angry about. Maybe I can help."
He raised his eyebrows and regarded her as though he had never considered this approach.
*****
The morning breeze had gone, and the afternoon's heat was grating on Jack's nerves.
Truly, he wouldn't have minded, if he hadn't been sitting for the last hour listening to the cosmic geeks from R&D arguing over things that would have made no sense to him even if he could have understood their language.
He was on the mission as little more than an armed guard for the geeks. He might have handed the job off to a younger officer, except, well, Carter was here and...well, he was kind of in the habit of guarding Carter.
But he really hadn't thought through the number of geeks on the roster when he had said yes.
There were people all around the gate, moving back and forth with various unidentifiable objects in their hands, and the chaos annoyed him further. He didn't like chaos on alien ground, he liked things in a neat line he could control and surround.
He was about to give a loud cattle call and make everyone line up like the Von Trapp kids when he was distracted by Carter's hurried figure brushing past. Martouf was calling to her, asking her to do something with some sort of...gizmo...he was holding out. Which wasn't so unusual, but what caught Jack's attention was Carter's reaction. She seemed to be rather coldly ignoring Martouf.
"Samantha!" Martouf tried once more, voice raised above his usual subdued manner, which was a bit of a red flag, but Carter only lifted a crate of gear with a hard set to her jaw and ice in her gaze.
Jack was about to speak, when Lantesh called out, "Samantha?"
Oh, hell, no. Jack stepped between the two and lifted a warning finger. "Enh!!! None of that!" he said toward Lantesh, but at the very same moment, Carter straightened from her labors and said pleasantly, "Yes?"
And Jack did a double take toward where she stood, hands on her hips, gazing expectantly toward Lantesh.
Wait, he was still in the middle of...he turned back to Lantesh. "How many times have I told you, no funny voice on the missions! You sound like a Goa'uld, people blow your head off first, ask questions later. Yes?" He pointed a firm finger at Lantesh's chest. "Not on the missions."
Lantesh nodded respectfully, accepting the order. "I am sorry. But Major Carter is not on speaking terms with Martouf, at present," Lantesh explained, keeping his voice low, but still Tok'ra.
"What?" Yeah. He had definitely lost control of the masses.
Lantesh drew a breath as if to explain, but Jack warned, "And not with the voice."
A careful nod, and then Martouf was speaking again. "Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter is angry with me, Martouf. Not with Lantesh. "
"What?"
Jack was hyperaware of Carter's eyes on his back, and he was a little afraid to turn around. He really didn't mean to be in the middle of this. He didn't even know what "this" was that he'd gotten himself in the middle of.
Martouf regarded him in patient silence, and Jack was about to speak again, when Carter stepped up beside him. "It's all right, sir," she said softly, and he was wondering how it was she thought she should be reassuring him instead of apologizing. But he couldn't figure out what had happened fast enough to flip it around.
"Lantesh just needs me to recalibrate the sensor. This planet has a slightly denser oxygen content than Earth, it affects the readings," she said evenly. She stepped past Jack, took the sensor from Mar...Lan...that guy's hands, and they walked off together.
Jack stood, watching after them for a moment, then said..."What?"
*****
Twenty-seven hours...okay, maybe three hours later, and some of the geeks had finished up and gated back to Earth while others lingered. Carter was typically a lingerer, unless something was calling her to her lab.
So, Jack was caught completely off guard...again...when Carter approached him with her pack slung over her shoulder and her zat still strapped to her thigh and said, "Sir. If there's nothing else you need from me, I'll just be returning to the SGC. I'd like to take the rest of the day off."
Coffee. Maybe Daniel had been right, he should have had more coffee this morning. Because none of this was making sense.
"What?"
"Sir?" Her eyebrows were raised, and she was being respectful by all rights, but she was a little pissed off. Probably at Marty, but it looked more like the whole world was now on her hit list. "Do you need anything else from me here?" she prompted.
Well, you could explain some of this to me, let me know how...why...if you... "Well...naw, I don't think so, but--"
"Thank you, sir." Carter's reply was clipped and final, and she circled past him toward the gate.
He watched her determined steps. "What?"
She had just disappeared through the gate, when Martouf cut across Jack's eyeline. Jack jumped forward fast enough to startle the unsuspecting Tok'ra. "What the hell did you do to her?" Jack demanded, a little more loudly than he had intended, drawing glances from some of the remaining geeks.
"I'm sorry?" Martouf asked softly. "I do not understand."
"Carter," Jack said, tone a little more subdued this time, but he had only so much civility left for this day. "Carter...who hasn't voluntarily taken a leave day in...since I met her...just asked me for the afternoon off. So...what did you do to her?"
"I am not certain of Major Carter's reasons for wanting the rest of the day off of work, she did not inform me of her intentions, but I believe I already explained, she and I have had a disagreement. Such things are to be expected in a relationship, are they not?"
"Well...yes. Yes, they are, but..."
"I do not believe Major Carter would let such things affect her professional conduct."
"Well, not in...I mean...well, she wouldn't answer you, when you needed help with your...thing!?" He really wished he hadn't said that out loud.
Martouf's brow furrowed just a bit. "Colonel O'Neill, I am not certain what you wish me to do."
Jack swiped a hand down his face with a heavy sigh. "Okay. So. Your girlfriend is pissed off at you. Here's the thing. You should know this. You're the guy. Whatever it is the two of you are pissed about, you go, and you apologize."
"But...I do not feel I am the one who was incorrect in this matte--"
"Enh! Doesn't matter! You apologize."
Martouf held Jack's gaze for a long moment, then asked simply, "Why?"
Jack couldn't suppress another loud sigh. "Because she's the woman. That's how it works. Come on, Marty, you were in a relationship for longer than I've been alive. Jolinar was a woman."
"Actually, symbiotes have no gender. They merely--"
"Marty. Carter told me that you said Jolinar always took female hosts."
"That was always her preference, yes."
"You know why that was? BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T WANT TO BE THE ONE TO APOLOGIZE!!!! Now go! Fix Carter."
Martouf blinked at him for a moment, then nodded, and started off rather uncertainly toward the gate.
As Martouf leant to gather his supplies, Jack turned his back on the gate and his gaze fell to where Daniel was crouched before a soil sample kit, watching the scene in silence.
"GAAAAAHHH!!" Jack shouted, and Daniel ducked his eyes and feigned intense interest in his dirt.
Jack went in search of coffee.
*****