The Colonel's Complaint

Author: Geonn

Email: neil_j_miser@yahoo.com

Rating: PG13

Pairings: Sam/Janet

Category: Angst

Disclaimer: These folks don't belong to me. I stole them from MGM's toybox without asking their mommies for permission. I promise to return them more or less unscathed.

Spoilers: "Cold Lazarus," "Entity," "Legacy," "Rite of Passage," "Upgrades," "Hathor," "100 Days," "Divide & Conquer," "Tangent,"

Archive: Yes, just let me know where it'll be.

Summary: Jack O'Neill discovers something he shouldn't know.

Special Thanks to Hl for the banner.


"I believe in grumbling; it's the politest form of fighting known."  -Ed Howe

 

One of these days, I'm going to ask her how she does it.

Daniel is enough of a mystery, but I've seen him carrying that little notebook around sometimes. I know it's not all in his head. But Carter... we Gate to a world one day, then years later she comes up with the address out of thin air. I'm lucky if I can remember the address of the planet we're currently on. Thank God I'm the commanding officer and can simply call out for someone else to dial us home. It's not always safe that way, like if I get stranded or left behind like I was on the blue crystal planet... but it's saved me a lot of brain power.

I kicked my boot against the side of the wall, trying to dislodge some of the sand from the treads. Using my hand to balance myself, I squinted through my goggles at my scattered team. Daniel had disappeared into the dilapidated temple, in search of shiny rocks. Teal'c was establishing a perimeter around the small town we had discovered, and Carter was taking an inventory of the little village. Every now and then, I spotted her moving from one street to the next.

The jobs all sufficiently handed out, I took a moment to sit on the steps of what I assumed was a church, resting my gun against the wall next to me. Carter... Damn it, why did every thought have to bring me back to her? I couldn't look at her without thinking about... it. What I saw... What I know.

Damn it. I leaned forward, covering my face with my hands and brushing the sand away from my nostrils. There was a reason a CO wasn't supposed to have feelings for his 2IC. Huge reasons. Like being unable to send that person into a volatile situation. Or being unable to focus on a mission. Or the heartbreak that comes when you discover she's *not* waiting for you... but is instead already with someone else.

I could've been more dense. Not much more, but it would've been possible. All those unspoken moments when I thought maybe, maybe if we weren't colleagues. Or if I wasn't her superior. Maybe if we weren't in the Air Force, had just met in a bar one night. It was a nice fantasy. I'd even convinced myself that she was playing the same game with me. It made an old man feel good... the thought that the only thing keeping a woman like that from jumping his bones were some rules written down by some stodgy old fool in the Pentagon.

That was before I knew better. Now, I knew that Samantha Carter didn't give a damn about rules and propriety when it came to love. I had been courting her like a lovesick teenager and she had constantly turned me down. I tried to think it was to avoid temptation; "No, Sir, I can't go fishing with you, Sir, because if I did, Sir, then I would be unable to stop myself from jumping your bones, Sir." Again... a nice fantasy. In reality, it was "No, Sir, because I am unattracted to you."

There's a nice wake-up call for ya.

Since I had learned the truth, my eyes had been opened. I wondered if I'd been wearing blinders for the past five years. The quiet looks, the little trips they took together, the... God, they slept at each other's house, for cryin' out loud! How could I have missed *that*?! They were closer than friends, tighter than colleagues. If only I'd stopped lusting after her for five seconds, maybe I would've seen the truth. And to think, none of this would've happened if Teal'c had brought the damn root beer...

You think when you learn Earth-shattering news, there'll be a big build-up. Ominous music, dark lightning, that sort of thing. A revelation of this sort comes with fire and brimstone. Not a twelve-pack case of A&W Root Beer. Teal'c, Daniel and I had been planning to take Cassandra fishing (it was actually Fraiser's idea, come to think of it) and we had gotten to the end of the block when I realized Teal'c hadn't gotten the root beer Janet had left for us. So I turned the truck around and headed inside to pick up the cans.

My first indication that something was wrong was that the living room was absolutely empty when I arrived. Sam had stayed behind under the ruse of wanting to watch a movie. So... why would the TV be off? Like an idiot, I searched for the two women to let them know I was there. The bedroom door was standing open and I peeked in. God, why did I peek in?

Neither of them had seen me (kind of had other things on their minds, you know), so the secret was still safe. Would remain safe, as far as I was concerned. In the two weeks since, I had tried to pinpoint when the relationship had started. In retrospect, Janet's reaction to Sam being taken over by the Entity was more akin to the reaction of a lover. And here I thought she was just a concerned friend.

When Ma'chello's bugs had taken over me and Fraiser, who had Sam stayed by? Who had Sam comforted while I cringed painfully in the corner? In retrospect, I'm surprised she even remembered to give me the cure. "Oh, yeah, he's here too, isn't he?"

Who was the only member of SG-1 invited to Cassie's private, family birthday parties?

Who had fought tooth and nail against Anise when SG-1 was addicted to the Atanik armbands?

And when Hathor took over the base, they had fought side-by-side. God, could this have been going on since *then*?

I stood, stretching my legs and looking up into the sky. Daniel came out of the temple, his nose buried in a notebook. He stopped short when he saw me, adjusting his glasses. "Jack," he said. "We, uh... should really get SG-11 in here. Long term excavation procedures, extensive cataloguing. It's truly remarkable."

"Right," I sighed. I thumbed my radio and said, "Carter, Teal'c, regroup... we're heading back to the Gate."

Sam was, of course, the first I saw. She came out of a small building, her stride long and her hair sticking out of her drab green cap. I loved it when her hair got a little long... I exhaled slowly, adjusting my goggles. When Sam rejoined us, Daniel started explaining to her what he had found. It was like a little kid telling his mom what he had done at school that day, while the mother simply nodded and made appropriate noises. "Oh? Wow! Uh-huh? Oh, really? Huh!" I shook my head and turned around, looking for Teal'c. Good ol' Teal'c...

Love and loyalty. I had learned a lot about the differences between the two since discovering Sam's relationship. Love is going to the ends of the Earth just to hold the one you loved again. Loyalty is working three months on a device to get your commanding officer back, saluting, and then walking off. Sure, Sam had worked practically non-stop on that... that ray gun thingie... but afterwards, what did she do with me? Invite me out to dinner? Tell me how great it was to have me back? One thing she said after I got home had a new, startling depth: "Now maybe Janet will forgive me for spending all my time at the base."

God, I'm a dense son of a bitch.

The defining moment in our non-relationship, as it were, was also a lie. Something that I had misconstrued because I only heard what I wanted to hear. When Anise had us hooked up to that za'tarc detector, I had admitted my feelings for Sam. That I 'cared for her a lot more than I'm supposed to,' had been my exact words. Then, it was her turn. She had said that she was aware of my feelings and knew I would rather die than leave her behind. She'd also acknowledged her work on trying to rescue me while I was on Edora. She wouldn't leave me behind, either. In my love-fogged mind, that meant that she loved me, too. That she *wanted* me to stay behind. Now, I know she was simply acknowledging my feelings. What a kick in the ass...

"Sir?" That soft voice did me in every time. "You planning to come with us?"

Damn it. Carter, Teal'c and Daniel had already started towards the Gate, while I was staring into the distance. I closed the gap, moving to the front of the group and adjusting the brim of my cap. "Yeah. Let's head out," I said, avoiding her eyes as much as possible.

A few moments later, I was aware of Carter at my side. I glanced at her, then looked at our team. Daniel was still thumbing through his notes, using his small pencil to make footnotes. He wouldn't notice if a Goa'uld popped out of the sand dunes ahead of us. Teal'c was purposefully lagging behind, keeping an eye out for danger. Carter cleared her throat and, in a quiet voice, asked, "Is something bothering you, Sir?"

I glanced at her. For a moment, her face was obscured by a mental image I had of her; blouse open, fingers buried in Janet Fraiser's brunette hair, lips parted and skin sheened with sweat. I quickly turned away. "Nothing's bothering me."

"You've been quiet lately, Sir. Reserved... like you're preoccupied."

She was concerned for me. Two weeks ago, I would've thought that meant she had a soft spot in her heart for me. Now, I knew she was just worried about a distracted team mate. I sighed, glancing again at Daniel. He was looking at his watch and marked something in his notebook. "There's something I've been thinking about," I admitted. "But it's something I really need to deal with by myself."

"Oh. Okay, Sir." She patted the butt of her gun, then smiled. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

I nodded. She was right, though. "Sorry, General. I didn't notice that we were surrounded by Jaffa because I was too busy thinking about Sam Carter being a lesb--" I couldn't even bring myself to *think* it. How do you reconcile the fact that the woman you've spent five years harboring feelings for prefers women?

The past five years, I'd had no significant relationships... Sure, there had been Laira and the chickie who made me age faster than Captain Kirk on that one episode of Star Trek. The latter had just been about meaningless sex, while the other was simply trying to come to terms with being stranded. Laira had been someone to lean on while I got used to my new situation. But Sam had always been there. Maybe the only thing that kept me going through that long, lonely period was the thought that maybe, just maybe, I was building some kind of future with Sam Carter. That's out of the question now, I suppose.

Finally, against my better judgement, I decided to ask her a question. Trying to make it sound casual, I said, "Say, Carter... I have a rhetorical question for you." She turned, blue eyes wide behind her goggles. "Let's say you knew something... something of a, a personal nature. And knowing this... personal thing... was kind of hampering your ability to function. Do ya think it would ease your mind to tell the person involved with this-this personal thing that you know?"

"It depends, Sir," she said, turning her gaze to Daniel. "What kind of personal thing is this?"

"Very personal."

"Personal how?"

"Forget it," I said, lengthening my stride. "Just forget it."

She caught up with me. "No. I don't think it would. I-I mean, telling the person involved would just cause both of you to be uncomfortable. Not only that, you'd be unable to function together due to the awkwardness. I mean, look at it this way. Person A learns something about Person B. Person A becomes unable to focus and tells Person B that he knows. Person B then becomes uncomfortable knowing the Person A knows. So Person A and Person B are unable to work together." She shrugged. "I think it would be best for... Person A to just forget about this personal information."

I wondered if she knew what we were really talking about. "Right. So... I'm Person A?"

"Yes, Sir," she smirked. "You're Person A."

I nodded. "Right. Okay. So I should just... forget whatever personal information I have?"

"Is it hazardous to Person B?"

"Potentially."

"Forget it. Put it out of your mind. Unless whatever you know causes you to be physically unable to work with Person B, I say put it out of your mind and move on."

I nodded. Makes sense. Leave it to Carter to simplify the issue I'd been agonizing over for two weeks. "Thank you, Carter. You've been a tremendous help."

We were halfway to the Stargate. I actually felt better than I had in weeks.

---

I buttoned my favorite plaid shirt, peeking out the back window at the stars. According to the newspaper, Jupiter would be visible for most of the evening. I still found it ironic that I jumped at the chance to look through a telescope at a planet I had actually orbited. I grabbed a cold beer out of the fridge and headed for the front door, whistling some song I had forgotten the name of ages ago. I pulled open the front door and stepped onto my porch, trying to make sense of what sat before me.

Samantha Carter was perched on my porchstep, her car waiting for her at the curb. She hadn't heard me come outside, so I took the opportunity to examine the back of her head. God, she had beautiful hair. "Ahem," I fake-coughed, causing her to turn. "Been waiting long?" I tossed her the beer can, inviting her to come in.

"Sir," she said, catching the can and turning it upright before tossing it back to me. "I-I can't stay. I just wanted to... talk about something."

I nodded. "Did you enjoy the view from my porch?"

She smiled. "I've been debating whether or not to ring the doorbell. Were... were you going somewhere?"

"Yeah. Up." I pointed. "Telescope."

"Oh. I shouldn't keep you."

"The stars aren't going anywhere," I said, popping the top of the can. "What do you need to talk about?"

She sighed, brushing her palms on the front of her shirt. "Well... I can't really... I was just wondering... back on PY6-C86. Our little talk on the way back to the Stargate. I was just wondering if-if..." She rolled her eyes, obviously wanting this to be more articulate than it was. "Sir, am I Person B?"

I swallowed a mouthful of Budweiser to stall. I knew she was smart enough to figure it out, I had just hoped she *wouldn't* figure it out. Instead of answering, I turned my gaze to the stars and crammed my hands into the pockets of my jeans.

"Is Janet Person C?" she asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

Shrugging, I said, "I don't recall a Person C in our hypothetic situation. Speaking of which... if you make it about real people, it won't be hypothetical anymore."

"I have to know, Sir. You know, don't you? Somehow, you figured it out."

She was making this impossible. "Carter," I pleaded. "Okay... *if* I somehow happened to learn something that concerned you and Dr. Fraiser, I would simply take your advice and forget it. Simple enough?"

When I turned back to her, she was smiling. She nodded, ran a hand through her hair, then said, "If you'll excuse me, Sir, I have to go. Kind of left someone waiting..."

I nodded.

"Thank you, Sir."

"Don't mention it, Carter."

She walked away, slipping her hands into the pockets of her jeans. I forced myself not to check out her ass, but c'mon... I was heartbroken, not dead. I sighed, pushing off the wall and making my way towards the ladder on the side of my house. Feelings came and went with the tide. I would get over Sam Carter, just like I got over Trisha Greene in high school. Just like I'd gotten used to Sara not loving me any more. I would adapt, I would move forward. Until then, I would be looking at the stars.

End


The Doctor's Complaint

Geonn

Stargate SG1

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