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[gate_expert]

Sam had spent the morning working. It had been a good, fairly productive morning, and she thought that she might actually be getting somewhere instead of the futile banging her head against a wall that she'd been doing for some time now. It felt good to be working with numbers and equations and theories after a year of forced absence from anything

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[fear_no_words]

"That bad?" Even though she could sympathize, Uhura couldn't help the small smile. Some times you had to laugh at the frustrations in life, or you'd never get out of bed in the mornings. "It's shameful how little reading I've done here, just to avoid this thing."

[gate_expert]

"It's self-help hell," Sam said with a groan, and turned away from the bookshelf to see who she was talking to.

Holy Hannah. It was Uhura. And unlike Jim Kirk, who didn't look at all like William Shatner, she actually looked like Uhura.

Thankfully Sam's long military career had taught her something about hiding crazy facial expressions, or she would have been blinking and stammering like an idiot--she hadn't been here long but she'd been here long enough to know that that was pretty rude around here. "So it's been pretty bad to you, too? So far it's been pretty good to me, but not today."

[fear_no_words]

Uhura winced sympathetically. "I hate that nonsense," she agreed with a shake of her head.

"It depends. Some days it behaves, and some days I think it doesn't have anything better to do than to try and get a rise out of me." She cast a wary glance over her shoulder at the jukebox. "Honestly, that thing's worse, but at least I like the music even if the message is heavy-handed."

[gate_expert]

"See, that's the thing," Sam blurted. "This whole magic bookshelf and creepy jukebox really shouldn't be possible. It's just... weird." She didn't have a good, solid, scientific adjective to describe it, so weird would have to do.

[fear_no_words]

She grinned and her shoulder shook with a quiet laugh. "Oh honey, that's hardly the most impossible thing I've seen in my short time," she said, smiling warmly at the other woman. "Weird, yes, but obviously very possible. Are you a scientist? Engineer?"

[gate_expert]

Sam nodded. "Astrophysicist, actually. Oh, um, sorry, I didn't introduce myself. Colonel Samantha Carter, US Air Force. My friends call me Sam."

[fear_no_words]

"I didn't either," Uhura pointed out, by way of forgiveness and her own apology.

"Lieutenant Uhura, Starfleet," she said, offering her hand. "Nice to meet you, Samantha." They weren't friends yet after all. "Some of my best friends back home are scientists, even one astrophysicist. You all have the same tone when you hit a puzzle you just can't figure out."

[gate_expert]

"It's really nice to meet you," Sam said, and meant it. She glanced at the bookshelf and shrugged a little, sheepish. "I guess 'just plain weird' isn't a scientific enough explanation for me," she admitted. "I have to know how things work and why or I go a little nuts."

[fear_no_words]

"Why probably is just to drive you nuts," Uhura pointed out with a warm laugh. "This isn't exactly the friendliest of territories."