What She Doesn't Say by Alli Snow

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Sam and I are friends.

We’re friends for a lot of reasons. We’re alike in many ways: doctors, scientists... women. We met and we bonded, almost instinctively and a little desperately. It was like we saw the need to implement the Buddy System, or exercise safety in numbers. It’s not as if it’s actually ‘this man’s army’, but it’s true: you don’t often see new female faces around here.

You might say that it began as a friendship of convenience.

But over the years, I believe that it’s become a whole lot more than that. It isn’t just a casual work thing anymore. I’ll see Sam in the infirmary with the boys, and then I’ll see her a couple hours later for coffee, just the two of us. We found common ground as doctor, scientist, and women... but as human beings, too.

We talk. In person, on base, during those moments of peace that always seem to signify something big on the horizon. We talk off base, going out to dinner and the movies, things I did with gossipy girlfriends in high school and haven’t since. And we talk on the phone; Lord, do we run up some phone bills. Sometimes, I almost feel like I’m back in my teenage years, and that’s something that I don’t mind in the least. Sam and I are good for each other. We talk about television and music, clothes and guys. We smile as we watch Cassie grow. We laugh as we watch Teal’c assimilate - or perhaps be assimilated BY - Earth culture. We reminisce about the past and fantasize about the present, about what and who it’ll include.

But for all the things we talk about, there’s one thing we never do. Or rather, one PERSON. Who, you might ask? A certain strapping hunk of gorgeous Colonel, that’s who.

I look back and realize that he’s hardly come up in our many conversations, and that when he does, the mentions are fast, fleeting, and lighthearted. That alone tells me something; I can feel it in every bone of my female body. If Jack O’Neill was any other man, in our private talks he’d either be the butt of a thousand jokes or the object of intense drooling adoration. Heaven knows I’ve had more then one impure thought about the man. And Sam’s a very pretty woman. And they spend a whole heck of a lot of time in each other’s company.

But, naively, I didn’t even start noticing until a couple of months ago. Sam and Jack... as in Sam-and-Jack... it simply never crossed my mind. Well, only once, when nearly the entire base was infected with a certain virus that will remain nameless... but that was biological, STRICKLY biological. I think.

And okay, there’ve been the instances where we’ve discovered that in other realities, the Colonel and Major are more than Colonel and Major... much more. But that’s THEM, not us. Not the people that we are now, that we’ve become. Besides, in those other worlds Teal’c - one of the sweetest, most lovable men you could ever hope to meet - was still the bad guy. That tells you how ‘accurate’ those things are.

And then there’s the little stuff that's no big deal. O’Neill’s entire attitude during the Jolinar thing WAS a little more extreme than I had expected. Sam taking the risk to find O’Neill in Hathor’s palace was also surprisingly not like her - taking the risk to herself and the others teams, I mean. Not to mention the Colonel’s decidedly NASTY vibes he throws in the direction of anyone who shows even a LITTLE interest in Sam... But Lord, they ARE friends. They respect and like each other. The teasing and ribbing and casual flirting...

And THAT was when I realized ‘Oh dear God, I’m blind’.

I’ve tried to stay out of it. I swear! But ever since that moment of grand revelation I simply can’t keep my eyes off them. I watch with an eye to the clinical: the way that they look at each other, holding a silent conference of their own in the middle of a spoken conversation. I watch body language. I watch their eyes, hands, and lips. I watch them when they don’t think they’re being watched.

Jack... well, after months of careful - and, I might add, UNFUNDED - research, this doctor has come to the conclusion that he has got it BAD for her. He’s consciously trying the hide that fact, burying it beneath all the reasons why it can’t be, but UNconsciously his psyche is trying to announce it to the world. Either way, though, he knows he feels something for her, even if he doesn’t know what that something is. I believe that one day he WILL tell her how he feels, however that might be. I just hope that that day doesn’t come too late.

I’m even less sure about Sam. Oh, I do think that one way or the other she harbors strong feelings for the man, feelings that she’s also trying to hide... but she’s a very different person from the Colonel. She loves her job, and her team, and right now she is simply loving her life in general. Even if she consciously admitted to any deeper emotions, it’s highly doubtful that she would actually bring herself to do anything about them. Not that she’s a coward. FAR from it, and I don’t just say that as a friend.

And AS a friend, I don’t want to stick my nose into their business. But I also don’t want to see such promising... possibilities go unexplored, and even unrecognized.

If one of them doesn’t make a move soon, these things between them will always go unsaid.

End Notes: Alli

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