[Sam Carter] What the hell was that all about?
Who: Carter
Where: Carter's Tent
When: Sunday, Apr 32, night (after Fish Fry, concurrent with Can We Talk?)
Invited: Daniel
Status: Incomplete ( Read more... )
Where: Carter's Tent
When: Sunday, Apr 32, night (after Fish Fry, concurrent with Can We Talk?)
Invited: Daniel
Status: Incomplete ( Read more... )
Sam barked a laugh at idea of marshmallows. Somehow, that just tickled her fancy. "Bet if we found hot dogs," she quipped, "Sedge'd come over and join us." Huhn. Maybe they should send them Jack's way. The man might appreciate the dog's intrusion.
She shrugged, though, as her friend asked just who it was that had intruded on the general's sleep, reaching to zip down the door again simply to keep it from flapping too badly. "Nope," she said. "But whoever it is, she's a doctor and she falsified some sort of identification." A beat. "Oh. And, she's probably wearing a cocktail dress."
Come to think of it, that was a goodly amount of information.
Just then, Jack's voice intruded very definitely on the night's silence. "Now. Will... please put... shoes back... leave? I... work... morning, and... not face-plant... cereal."
A wry smile touched Sam's lips. Aaaaand there's the toss-out.
Unable to restrain her curiosity, she moved to the window and pulled back the flap a little further in order to see Jack's tent. A couple of heartbeats later, a woman's voice rang out. "You are such a jerk!"
Sam lifted the flap enough to allow Daniel to see, as well. A woman Sam didn't particularly recognize, in a cocktail dress and carrying her heels, stormed away from the general's tent. Next door, in Elizabeth's tent, Sedgewick began to bark loudly. A moment later, the bark turned into a piteous whine.
Casting Daniel another grin, Sam gave a dry chuckle. "Wow. It's gonna be a killer briefing in the morning."
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A beat and Daniel frowned, "On the other hand, I don't want to think about it too much. I do plan on getting sleep tonight. Eventually."
Taking a seat, comfortable on the floor as easily as he was on a chair or a bed, Daniel rested the briefing folder in his lap, but didn't open it. He gave Sam a cursory examination, noting that she was calmer than she'd been at the cookout. It didn't stop him from wondering if some of her tension and insomnia stemmed from whatever had precipitated her reaction to Boone.
"So," Daniel clapped his hands on his knees and peered up at Sam thoughtfully, his voice quiet, welcoming and non-threatening. "What exactly ... happened ... with Captain Boone? Do I need to kick his ass, because you know I'm not just a mild mannered geek." The last was said with a slight smile, carefully placed humor used to ease Sam into relaxing and to give her an out if she wanted one.
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She let the flap to the window fall back down. Sedge's barking eventually trailed off, as the disturbance receded. Sam turned around and sat on the edge of the bed as Daniel took a spot on the floor. She was conscious of his scrutiny, and her lips twisted wryly as his hands clapped together in that let's-get-down-to-business way of his.
Flipping the folder onto the bed, she laughed as he offered to kick the Tok'ra's ass. "Nah." She shook her head. "No ass kicking required. I can kick it myself, if I need to." Her nose wrinkled and she gave a faint grimace, gathering her knees up against her chest within loose arms. "He just... huhn... decided this morning would be a good time to drop the bomb on me that, ah, Lantash isn't dead."
Her head canted some as she made that pronouncement, unsure if Daniel would understand the significance of what she said. She figured, if anyone would, he would. He and Jack.
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Then it clicked. Loudly. Daniel felt his eyes go wide, and his lips pucker slightly as he processed the information. (Varalan was actually Lantash.) Lantash from an alternate reality, Lantash who in that reality also had a connection to Sam. "Okay, didn't expect that."
Daniel had been there when Boone arrived in this reality, but he hadn't been part of the private briefing. No, that had been between the IOA, General Landry and Boone. Daniel hadn't really thought anything of it; there hadn't been any reason to think anything of it, but Sam's revelation raised all sorts of questions.
(And concerns.)
Losing Martouf had been hard for Sam, no matter how she hid it. She was strong, but she was also human. She grieved, and she moved on. (Just like I did with Sha're.) Even not knowing this ... version of Lantash, something of Sam's old feelings would have stirred to the surface.
For the life of him, Daniel couldn't think of any good reason for Boone and Lantash to make that sort of revelation after all this time. Still, he dealt with Sam's feelings first; his questions of selfish motivators could wait.
"How are you doing with that?" Without realizing it, Daniel had risen to his feet. He approached the bed and sat on the edge, giving Sam her space, but hovering closeby.
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The advantage of working together for nearly ten years (minus that one when Daniel was galivanting around the universe as an Ascended, of course), was that Sam could read her team mate's expressions pretty clearly. And, given the fact Daniel did not lie well, she recognized the chase of thoughts that ran across his face as he digested what she'd said. Privately, it was a relief to realize that he was as surprised as she had been about Lantash -- and to recognize that he had only just now put the pieces together, too. She didn't feel quite so stupid, now.
She let out a soft breath through tight lips. "Honestly?" She threw up her hands and gave something of a helpless shrug. "Now? Better... sort of. This morning?" She shook her head ruefully, a grimace on her lips, "Not so good. O didn't... react well."
She pushed to her feet, the volume of her voice kept low simply in recognition of the fact Jack and Elizabeth were sleeping nearby -- not to mention the SFs on patrol or any other midnight visitors that might be lurking about with the purpose of harrassing her CO. But, she couldn't sit still. "I don't know, Daniel. I mean he just..." Her head came up; she looked up at the ceiling and threw her hands up again, turning to face her friend. "He just dropped it on me. No warning, just..." She let out a breath that carried with it an aborted laugh that matched her rueful half-grimace. "I don't think he meant to tell me. But, uh, he was a little... forward. And... well, I eventually put two and two together."
No. Sam isn't stupid. But, she is very human.
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(I have got to stop channeling Jack's less civilized urges,) Daniel chided himself.
"Reacting well under the circumstances would have been . . . you're human, Sam, so you're expected to not react well when you get something of this magnitude dumped on you out of the blue." Daniel pushed his glasses up on his nose and replayed what little he knew about the Tok'ra in his head. Which, he realized, was very little. Daniel had very little contact with him, and that was a rarity in and of itself.
Of course, there had never been any hint that Varalan wasn't really what he said he was.
(No wonder Jack gets so annoyed with the Tok'ra.)
Daniel frowned and pursed his lips. "Did he happen to mention why he thought it was a good idea to keep something like that a secret? Or what he thought it would gain by keeping it a secret?" He paused and a lightbulb went off. The frown deepened, "Did he think he was protecting you?"
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Sam grimaced now. "He thought he was sparing my feelings," she said sharply, with quite a bit of feeling, in fact. It was pretty obvious she either didn't buy it or else didn't appreciate it. Probably a bit of both. Hearing the lingering frustration in her own voice, however, she let out a heavy sigh. Her shoulders fell and she turned in a small circle until she found the chair in front of the makeshift desk. Pulling it out, she slumped into it heavily.
"It was more he was sparing his own feelings," she said softly now. "Not that he sees it that way." She knows that without a doubt. Leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees, she sighed again. "God, Daniel. I thought I was past this years ago."
Pausing a moment, she looked away, mind replaying the disasterous argument from the morning -- particularly Boone's description of the pain the deaths of their alternate selves. That was really what disturbed her. The rest, she could reconcile. But that?
She returned her gaze to Daniel's face, brows creased with her own pain. The one thing she always valued about him was the fact she was allowed to feel things when she spoke with him. He wasn't military. He didn't expect her to remain detached. If Jack was her rock, Daniel was her net. "No matter what Lantash may feel -- what Captain Boone feels because of Lantash... They're not... who I knew."
Eyes closing for just a moment, she straightened, hands in her lap. When she opened her eyes, they were flashing again. "I should have been told about this years ago." Like when Boone first woke up.
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"The pain doesn't go away, Sam," Daniel acknowledged, ducking his head. He knew that he was telling her something that she already knew, but felt the need to reiterate it anyway. He still missed Sha're, a part of him still ached for her, though he had moved forward with his life and he wasn't that man anymore. The feelings were still there, and always would be. "You bear it, and it softens a bit, but it's always there.
"Something like this," Daniel looked up, pursing his lips thoughtfully, "Is like picking the scab off of a mostly healed wound. You have to let it scab back over again."
(Right, scab analogies. God, I am more tired than I thought.)
"You're right, Boone ..." He stopped. Daniel couldn't even fit Boone into the equation, not yet. "Lantash isn't the Lantash you knew, but what you feel? It's emotional and it's human, Sam. You can't help but draw the parallels, make the comparisons, feel all those things a little bit again. It's natural.
"And it wasn't fair of him, of them, really to do this to you like this. You're right, they should have come forward, at least to you, a long time ago. The motivators for keeping this a secret were selfish, and now they have to deal with the fall out. You just have to let yourself feel and cope... and remember. Remember Lantash as you knew him, as a part of Martouf, not ..." Daniel waved the rest of the words off.
He held out an arm, "Come here, this shoulder is pretty free right now."
Sam was strong and resilient. She would, eventually, bounce back. He would be there to catch her until she did. However, someone really needed to have a talk with Boone and Varalan. (Someone,) Daniel thought, (named Jack.)
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Jack probably did need to have a chat with the Tok'ra in light of all this. However, Sam had no intention of letting this affect her working relationship with the Captain -- such as it was. So, there was probably only so much Jack could say. And, when it came right down to it... she didn't want either of 'her guys' stirring the kettle on this one. She and Lantash, she and Boone, needed to come to their own level on it.
But, that didn't mean the sympathy and hug weren't well appreciated. Sam's lips quirked a little as Daniel stumbled over Boone's name, and switched to Lantash. That's how she looked at it, too. And, though she couldn't read his thoughts, in her own thoughts, Boone's symbiote was still properly named 'Varalan'. Lantash -- the Lantash she knew -- died a good five... six years ago.
She let out a short breath that was partially a sigh, partially a chuckle and pushed out of her chair to sit beside her friend and accept the hug. "Thanks, Daniel." She smiled ruefully. "I didn't mean to react, you know. At the... block party. Especially in front of Jack." More because he's their CO than because of any emotional considerations. "I just didn't expect to see him there." Him being 'Boone', of course.
Okay. Truthfully, she didn't expect to see anybody. She was perfectly happy returning to her tent to catch up on reading reports. Even if she had enjoyed herself by the end of the night.
"I'll be fine come morning."
Or at least better able to hold it together.
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Daniel gave a soft, self-deprecating chuckle, "I guess it didn't help either that I'd invited a few extra guests, huh?"
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