"Casablanca" by Lin L Barrett

Title: Casablanca

Author: Lin L. Barrett

E-mail: (flames will be ignored; vent your spleen elsewhere. Authentic information phrased testily, on the other hand, will be appreciated and polite response made if time permits)

Rating: PG-17; R, Hu, A

Summary: Teal’c masters the Inner Mystery of Fly Fishing; Sam explains the Inner Mystery of Angling Itself to Daniel; Jack and Sam talk about it, finally.

Status: Complete

Spoilers: Solitudes

Season/Sequel: First season, after "Solitude"; following "Call Forward" but before "Exorcism" and "The Fifty-minute Hour." Won't make a lot of sense if you haven't read "Call Forward."

Content Warnings: Jack’s mouth.

Author’s note: Writing "Call Forward" was fun, and more of the story revealed itself.

DISCLAIMER: The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-1, the Gou’a’ould and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-1 Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fan fiction is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and is meant solely for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea, and the story itself are the sole property of the author. Please ask to archive. Author’s copyright March 2, 2001 - 09:43:52. 6526 words

Dr. Janet Frasier indulged in a guilty pleasure. She knew that she should assign the upkeep of the SG teams’ med kits to Barber.

But working with something that didn’t produce body fluids or screams got your head clear of working with someone who had.

Now, who’d been out? SG-1. SG-3. SG-7. Those first.

Only Teal’c’s and Daniel’s were there to check; they were pristine. Too bad Kormai wouldn’t let me break and reset that leg, but a Mark of the Goddess is not to be trifled with.

SG-3, the rowdy crowd. SG-7. Okay.

Everybody needed the new anaphylaxis pen. Note to self: pens for Carter and O’Neill when they get back in.

...there were supposed to be condoms in two of the Research Team kits since the Drs. Hernandez and Harrison were married to each other. She restocked the one which was lacking its marital aid, and an odd memory caught her up short.

Didn’t I sub this for Daniel’s kit? Yeah, I did, Daniel’s wouldn’t latch, and I gave him Harrison’s. Now it comes back without its condoms? From Daniel?

Her heart went into her boots. She hoped General Hammond hadn’t heard the thud.

Daniel had probably had very little to do with it. And Sam and O’Neill had gone back to that damned planet.

She went home preoccupied, and dialed Sam Carter’s home number from memory. "Sam, Janet. Let’s go for a drink when you get in. Call me, okay? See ya soon."

Because she didn’t want this anywhere on SGC records.

"That’s one of your green-and-sticky specials," Sam Carter observed.

"Grasshopper," Janet agreed. "Taste?"

"Thanks, I’ll stick with mine." Which was radiator-fluid blue.

"They," Janet Frasier said, "the magic ‘they,’ should invent a drink built on chocolate ice cream."

Sam looked over the blue drink. "We could do the research."

Janet tilted her head. "It would be a long, slow project."

"Especially if we funded for multiple solutions."

The two women grinned at each other. They liked this dowdy little bar in Cheyenne, not the neighborhood bar for either one; it appeared to believe deeply in the intrinsic value of ferns and frosted glass booth dividers, because it provided both in quantity. They sat alone on either side of a darkly gleaming polished wood table, and classical music shushed the conversations on either side of them.

"Sam," Janet said, twiddling the paper umbrella that had come in the drink, "I have to talk to you about Jack."

"About Jack?" Sam looked at her blankly.

"Come on, Sam. I’ve seen you look at him; I’ve seen him look at you."

Her friend looked stricken. "I thought I’d been careful. I assumed he would be too."

"You are. Both of you. If it weren’t for this last mission I’d have filed it into ‘forget it.’" She pushed the grasshopper away. "I don’t want to tell the story here. Let’s go to your house."

The story. Janet thought about the story, driving to Sam’s house.

She’d just finished surgery, some months ago. She’d gotten rid of the gloves and the bloody gown and the mask and the shoe shields and the scrubs. She’d walked slowly, yawning and stretching, from surgery to the infirmary; she had two patients to check on.

Beauregard, now in recovery, was doing well. She could hear him snore from here. Just a look at the monitors real fast and a quick note, then through the doors to the infirmary.

Jack O’Neill lay on his back in the total muscular relaxation of the deeply unconscious. Oxygen lines, IV lines, and catheters sprouted everywhere. He was so far out of it that his mouth hung open; she’d had to gork him pretty good to let him rest. It had been one of SG-1's more eventful, not to say disastrous, missions.

...and there was Sam Carter.

By the bed, bandaged, watching some internal horror movie, hand clutching O’Neills limp one and tears coursing down her cheeks.

Dr. Frasier went silently back through the door, her eyes thoughtful.

Power is an aphrodisiac, everybody knew that; she knew Sam knew it. She thought Sam was aware enough to discount an attraction based on the command relationship if she felt it. They’d had an extensive conversation about survivor’s guilt one day, too. But knowledge is one thing and experience another.

Janet had seen Sam in meeting after meeting, her hands clasped in front of her, calm and professional, navigating unfriendly waters successfully. Female, in a sexist-pig’s world, and possessed of enough brains to make them sit up and take notice.

Sam, don’t throw it away on Jack O’Neill.

What she wouldn’t say to Sam was this: I am unfair to Jack, who certainly has more than his own share of pain. But shut-down alcoholics who are ranking officers in the Air Force? There are probably a dozen on duty within the SGC itself right now. And there is only one Major Samantha Carter, Ph.D.

"So I went back in humming a cheery little tune and dropped my pen just outside the door." Sam didn’t smile. "Sam...what went on, on this last mission? Last two, I should say."

"Standard mission, except we ran into Jaafa; then some follow-up."

"You used condoms on the Jaafa?"

No answering glimmer of humor from her friend.

Janet reached out, and put her hand on Sam’s arm. "It’s off the record. That’s why we’re here."

"How did you find out?"

It was true, then. Janet’s heart contracted a bit. "A med kit Daniel was carrying - it wasn’t his own, as you may have guessed - came back without the condoms usually stocked in it." She sighed. "Did I put two and two together, Sam, and come up with five?"

"No." "It isn’t just sex or you would have taken care of it and gone on your way."

"Yes."

"Sam . . . get your own command. Then you and Jack can go for it, get all you can out of it." She sat back in the sofa. "And yeah, I think you’re throwing yourself away on him. But let’s table that discussion."

Carter took a deep breath and tabled that discussion. (But we will have it later, Janet.) "We performed what the high priestess referred to as ‘the Great Rite.’"

"What is that?"

"Apparently it depends. When the priestess performed it with Jack, it was hugging and cuddling. Teal’c discussed it with me, and it was even less personal than that for him, but he wasn’t affected by the local wine, and Jack seems to have been."

"And with you and Jack . . .?"

"That’s when the condoms . . . yeah." Okay, Janet. Breathe. "What is it you see in him?" Her voice was very quiet.

Sam pulled her other foot out of its shoe and up onto the couch, wrapping her arms around her knees, which she studied intently. "Jack is never able to finish grieving, because life keeps handing him losses."

Janet’s face changed. She hadn’t expected this.

"He could have shut down all the way and stopped caring about anything, and he made the harder choice. Janet, he is passionate about his duty, because of the Gou’a’ould. You told me once he seemed paranoid about them. Trust me, Janet, that’s a sensible, practical, and well-

adjusted reaction to the Gou’a’ould. And Jack is damned near a genius when it comes to being practical." Tears shone in her eyes, and she wiped them away with the back of one hand. "And he knows that the only practical thing we can do in this - impossible situation - is the best job we can, day after day. He can’t follow his heart, and I can’t follow mine. That would be dangerous to Daniel, the man around whom the entire Stargate mission revolves. The brass hats want to pretend that it’s otherwise, but it’s not: Daniel is the soul of this project, and Jack won’t endanger him. Jack wouldn’t be - unprofessional - around Teal’c, either. Jack likes and admires Teal’c." She drew a breath, not realizing she’d been holding it. "Jack is a thoroughly admirable man, doing his best in a rotten situation . . . who loves me."

"And you’d kick his butt if he were out of line on a mission." Half a question.

Well . . . there was Antarctica. "From here to breakfast, and follow it up with the legal papers, but I haven’t had to. It took a direct order and a threat of compulsion from the local high priestess to get him into my bed, and it damn near didn’t happen even then."

Janet stirred her tea thoughtfully. "Okay. I was preaching to the choir. Sorry."

"Let me have my few minutes in the infirmary now and again."

"And the occasional Great Rite?"

"Yes. Do you have to account for the damned rubbers?"

"What? No. ‘Course not. The receptionist keeps them stocked in a bowl in the waiting room. She says they make a pretty display, and she likes the way people’s faces change when they figure out what they are."

Carter smiled. "Can you add some to my med kit?" If I get them myself I’ll be talked about for days.

"Think it’s wise?"

"Of course not." Sam paused for a moment. "You would have to trust me to behave professionally around that opportunity."

"I trust you implicitly, and believe it or not I trust Colonel O’Neill, too. He’s gotten where he is and stayed alive, kept you all alive, by being ruthlessly pragmatic, as you say, and that will keep all of you safe. So I’ll do it as long as I’m the one who stocks the med kits. When that has to change we’ll figure out something else."

Sam reached out for the doctor’s hand. "Janet, you’re a good friend to me."

"I wish I were as confident of that as you are." She squeezed gently.

"Buy you a cup of coffee here on this world, Major?"

The man was outrageous. "Sorry, Colonel, but I’ll need a rain check. I can’t leave this experiment right now."

He nodded, and left. Carter went on with her work. How many errors in how many iterations? You waved the magic wand of statistics over it, you let your calculator do the skull sweat, and then you damned it all to hell because it still wasn’t performing reliably.

Some time later, her hand went automatically to a cup of coffee and she drank half of it before she realized she hadn’t gotten any coffee since nine and it was now three. How could this be hot? Paper rustled, and she turned, startled.

And there he was, with reports on his lap, reports piled on the floor beside him, long legs stretched out and his boots up on the second shelf of her bookcase. "Sir - how long have you been here?"

"Since before lunch, which you missed. Your sandwich is on the desk." He poured himself coffee from a purloined commissary carafe and held it up in her direction, saying, "Refill?"

"Thanks. What are you doing here?" She began unwrapping the sandwich.

"Hiding from Frasier." He opened his eyes very wide, and dropped his voice to conspiratorial whisper in a fake-Transylvania accent. "She vants my bludt." Her phone rang, and she punched the speaker button. "Carter."

"Sam, it’s Janet. Have you seen Colonel O’Neill?"

His eyes widened with horror, and he got up, silently, spreading his hands out in front of him, shaking his head, backing to the door.

"He left my office maybe five minutes ago, Janet."

Jack pulled a beer out of the refrigerator and held it in his hand for a moment, looking at it. And then he put it away. For the fourth night in a row.

Finding O’Neill for phlebotomy was a pain in the glutei. Every single time.

But here was Janet Frasier, M.D., with his results in her hand. Good. Good. Good. No problems there...alcohol metabolites significantly lower than they used to be. Good. Too bad she couldn’t share that news with Sam.

Well, is that the only objection I have to O’Neill?

Frasier sighed. No. He’s a very smart man, but he is uneducated compared to Sam, and I see no evidence of depth to him. Not the kind of depth Sam has, anyway. He’s polished the smart-alec act to a high shine and it gets him through the pain. She’s faced hers. Daniel’s faced his...for that reason alone they’d be a better match.

I don’t know if anyone could face the amount of pain O’Neill has been given, and keep their sanity. Not without help. And he won’t accept help. He self-medicates by boozing instead.

And even with the drop in metabolites, I think he’s a far-gone alcoholic.

If he hurts her, I’ll...I’ll keep the dull needles just for him. I’ll slip him an Antabuse every Friday night. I’ll tell him it’s Viagra and write the scrip for saltpeter.

Phone. Ringing. Still ringing. Keeping ringing. Staying ringing. If he picked it up it would stop. "Uhl." (He meant, "O’Neill.")

"Jack, hi. Sam."

"Tymzit?"

"Five a.m. on Friday, Jack. You wanted the wake-up call; remember, we’re all going fishing. Not at your cabin, but with the tents, in the woods." I’ll fish with the team, Jack. Not with you-

and-me by ourselves.

"Unh." He rolled over and squinted out the bedroom window. Not quite night out there.

God, he felt awful. Was he hung over? No - he’d had precisely three beers last night. Ah: Gate lag. The thirty-eight-hour days on Kormai’s world had put his body clock so far out of whack he was living in the middle of next week. During the years he’d spent being slightly drunk during all his off-duty time he’d felt so bad upon awakening every single morning that he’d never noticed the Gate lag.

He shut his eyes and fell limp to the pillow. He had been put through a hot wash with bleach and he had no color left.

He rubbed his face, hearing the beard bristles rasp. "Carter, how can you stand to be so cheerful?"

"I’ve had two cups of coffee and a stack of pancakes."

He groaned. This, after playing poker all night, and what - three hours’ sleep? "Carter, that’s insubordinate. I’m hungry, I’m still tired, and you’re on the phone gloating at me about pancakes and coffee. At five a.m."

"You were the one who had to go fishing, sir. We all agreed to be at your house at six."

"I’m going back to sleep until you get here."

"You can sleep in the jeep while we drive to the lake, sir."

"There won’t be room with Daniel and Teal’c in the jeep."

"You can sleep on Teal’c’s shoulder, sir. He won’t mind. He didn’t last time."

Last time? "I’m going to lose this argument, aren’t I?"

"Yes, sir. I think you may have already, sir. You sound more awake."

"Key’s under the flowerpot."

"See you, sir."

The shower washed away the worst of it, although he still felt like he’d been ridden hard and put away wet. While he was toweling his best collection of scars the smell of coffee began to waft through the bathroom. His stomach rumbled.

He stepped outside the shower, and there was a full steaming cup on the counter by the door. Bless you, o coffee goddess.

Her back to him, Carter looked like six million dollars: a tie-dyed T-shirt and cutoffs over tennis shoes that had lived through a lot, by way of eight or nine miles of leg. Her blond hair had been shoved up under a worn gimme cap whose bill sported an entire swarm of trout flies.

He’d trade his swimsuit issue for Carter on a Saturday.

"Hey," he said, "how ya doin’, Carter." He reached for the coffee.

"Jack." She turned her head quickly, smiled, went back to the task of cooking pancakes.

Daniel bounced into the kitchen, eyes bright. "Hey, Jack! Sam, we’re done."

"Great. Oh - don’t forget the med kit. Janet let me borrow it." She nodded at the SGC-issue box on the table. Efficiently, she shoveled four pancakes onto a plate, where they looked just right between eggs and sausage. Jack’s stomach rumbled. She grinned at him, handed him the plate, and turned back to Daniel. "You guys eat yet?"

"Not to mention. Well, McDonald’s, but that doesn’t count, does it? Got extra? I need some coffee."

"Sure. Teal’c, do you want to learn how to cook pancakes?"

"It looks most interesting, Major Carter. Good morning, O’Neill."

"Teal’c." How’d my personal kitchen get to be this happy little corner of suburbia?

Teal’c didn’t mind, again.

They stopped for lunch at a greasy spoon. Teal’c wore a baseball cap pointing backward, Jack wore his pointing forward, and Carter pointed the bill of her own to the left.

Jack peered at Teal’c’s plate. "What is that?"

"It is called a ‘chicken-fried steak.’ I detect no chicken in it."

Daniel said, "This salad dressing is motor oil and food coloring."

"Guys, it’s road food. It’s not good food." Carter ate a crispy potato happily. "French-fried anything and cole slaw. With red jell-o afterward. You can’t go wrong with that."

But Jack shook his head. "No, I’m going to try a piece of that pie I saw in the case. Teal’c? Jell-o or pie?"

"I do not like things that quiver, and the last time I had pie in a diner with you, O’Neill, it was . . . unique. Daniel Jackson said it was like eating sweetened vaseline. I have not tried that but the description seemed accurate. I will pass."

The tent was pitched, the car unloaded, dinner done, the food cached. Time for a fire.

"Okay, Teal’c," Jack said, "watch." Pass of one hand before the other, whose fingers were curled, the thumb held on top of them. Sprout of flame from that thumb tip.

The big Jaafa’s eyebrows went up. "It would be useful to know how to do that."

"Watch closely." Pass of hand, sprout of flame from thumb tip. "Okay, you try."

Pass of hand, no flame. "I shall try again."

Pass of hand, no flame.

"Look, Teal’c. You do it like this." Pass of hand, sprout of flame from thumb tip.

Pass of hand, no flame. "There is something I do not understand about this."

Pass of hand, no flame.

"It’s simple, Teal’c. Just concentrate." Pass of hand, sprout of flame from thumb tip..

Pass of hand, no flame. Frown of concentration. "I cannot do it."

Pass of hand, no flame.

"Jack, stop it." Carter, smelling of mosquito repellent, buffeted his shoulder and sat down between them. "Teal’c, he has a lighter in his hand. When he puts his other hand between you and you can’t see, he fires the lighter with his thumb."

Teal’c’s brow folded up into itself. "This is . . . a joke?"

Carter glowered at Jack. "There are those who think so."

"That is unfortunate," Teal’c said. "It would have been useful."

Jack grinned and folded his hands across his belly. "Teal’c," he said happily, "would you like to go snipe hunting in the morning?"

Teal’c said, "I will go with Major Carter."

A creel was strapped diagonally across his broad chest, his huge hand dwarfed a fly rod, he wore waders that a family of four could camp out in, and the outfit was completed by a battered wide-brimmed straw hat set at a tilt on the back of his head.

Teal’c of the Jaafa, ready to subdue the mighty trout of mysterious Wyoming.

Jack looked askance at Carter. "You’re going to teach Teal’c to fly-fish."

"He wants to learn Tau’ri customs," she said in a what-can-you-do voice, and picked up her own tackle. "Yes. Daniel Jackson says that the masculine ritual of fly-fishing is richly imbued with initiation and seasonal imagery, as well as having subtle sexual references in the - "

"Teal’c!" Jack felt his ears getting a little red. Daniel was turning away, a smile all over his face, and Carter (whose nose was an alarming pink) had made an odd sound. "Just do it. Don’t analyze it to death."

Daniel, like Jack, sat astride the fallen log that was doing duty as lunch table. The lake twinkled in the sunshine and lapped at the shore some way away, and their little glade was mysterious and cool, shaded by willow and aspen. The log bridged other fallen tree trunks, and they sat three or so feet in the air, with their boots dangling over a small stream which pooled beneath them before running into the lake.

Daniel chose a pickle. "Jack, will you explain something to me?"

"If I can." Jack’s tone was wary. This sounded serious, and he was never up for serious. And anyway: Me, explain something to you?

Daniel ate for a while, thinking, the blue eyes on (but not seeing) the lake.

"Jack, are you scared out there?"

The kid’s starting with the big stuff. "All the time." He ate a couple of chips.

"What do you do about it?"

"My job." No, I can’t leave it there. I remember that kid who got dead in our third drop having this conversation with my CO, way too many years ago. "It’s my job to keep us out of trouble, or, failing that, to get us out of trouble. Once you ask yourself ‘What works, right now?’ you lose your fright and start considering options."

He broke the top crust off his sandwich and threw it to an inquisitive jay. "Another part of it is that I have a lot of training you don’t, Daniel, and some of what I do is knee-jerk reaction. I don’t have to think about it. It doesn’t matter what I feel, the training kicks in." He looked at the younger man, who was still haunted, face set and eyes shadowed.

"Daniel." He put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. "You haven’t let me down, haven’t let Carter or Teal’c down, whether you were afraid or not. Whatever you think you’ve done or failed to do, you’re no coward."

The younger man’s face changed.

For cryin’ out loud. You’d think I just handed him the Holy Grail. Jack collected the lunch debris and swung a leg over the log, dropping to the ground. "Come on, let’s go see if we can get that tree to give up your fly. You’re not doin’ too bad, for some guy who speaks seventy-eight languages."

Sam and Teal’c found a nice little inlet of their own, with a willow-lined spring off to one side, the afternoon sun dappling down through aspens. Boulders defined the lake: perfect to stand on and cast from.

She demonstrated for Teal’c the Mystical Passes Which Evoke the Great Trout Spirit.

"Colonel O’Neill seems happy." Teal’c laid a cast out perfectly, the leader lying on the water and laying itself out silkily until the fly hit the water with a lovely insectile "plop."

"Teal’c, how did you do that?"

"Was it not correct, Major Carter?"

"It was perfect. But - Tau’ri - don’t usually pick a skill up just by watching other people do it."

"I see." He cast again, and it was perfect again. "If I am not with you, Colonel O’Neill, or Daniel Jackson, I should mess up a few times before I begin to perform a new skill well?"

‘Mess up a few times’? "Yes, I think so, Teal’c. Otherwise outsiders are going to start asking you to take your hat off."

"I see." He cast again. "Major Carter, Colonel O’Neill does indeed seem happy. Are you responsible for that? It has happened since Kormai made her decree."

She felt the question in her solar plexus. She breathed deeply, jammed her hat down on her head, and said, "No, I don’t think so, Teal’c. We each make our own happiness. I’m glad he’s found some."

"I too. I do not think he has been happy for a long time." The huge Jaafa cast again. "The fish do not seem to be interested in my fly right now, Major Carter."

Carter gathered up her tackle. "Let’s find a better hole to drop the flies in." And run like a rat from the subject of a certain Colonel.

"‘Hole’? Fish make a ‘hole’ in water?"

Carter had won the toss for dinner clean-up, and was making a last cast before the light gave out. Teal’c washed a skillet methodically, Daniel rinsed it, and Jack gave it a swipe with a towel and put it on the metal table beside him. The lantern began to acquire a miniature solar system of night insects.

Teal’c said, "O’Neill, will you explain something to me?"

"If I can." What is this, my day to be the Encyclopedia Britannica?

"Major Carter was explaining to me today that all human brains also contain what she referred to as a ‘reptile brain,’ and that this ‘reptile brain’ is all fish have."

Jack’s eyes glazed over. Daniel said hastily, "That’s essentially correct."

"So, if you Tau’ri have so much more brain than the fish, where is the challenge in catching them this way? Would not a net be faster and more efficient?"

Jack looked at Daniel. Daniel grinned at him, and said, "Jack, I told him about the rituals, you have to tell him about this part."

"Okay, okay. --Yeah, Teal’c, a net would be faster and probably more efficient. But fish have more acute senses than we do, and trying to overcome that advantage takes considerable imagination and skill."

The Jaafa washed another dish. "So neither the fish nor the human truly has an advantage over the other."

"I guess. Of course, if Carter were here she’d point out that only some humans have more brain than your average trout."

They played five-card stud for money by the light of the fire, and Teal’c won.

Next day insects whined in the noonday heat. Carter wore shirt, shorts, tennies, hat-with-flies, a near-visible layer of insect repellent, and white cotton gloves.

She justified this bizarre sartorial excursion by alleging that fish would lose their protective slime if touched by bare hands, and get fungus infections on their skins. She wanted to fish all day and they were, she said, responsible for providing only six trout for dinner, so she expected to free more than a few after catching them. She wanted to insure the safety of the rejects.

"If that came from Jack, I’d know I was being had," Daniel said.

She laughed. "You’re not. Ask him sometime. Ask General Hammond."

She cast effortlessly into the same hole for about the nineteenth time.

Daniel was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, his archeologist’s hat, jeans, boots, and a glaze of sweat, working out a snarl in his line. "Sam, you’re a female officer in the Air Force. I’ve heard some - stuff - about other female officers, and I assume you’re subject to the same - stuff."

"All the crap, all the time," she agreed absently.

"You seem to cope with it pretty well." Daniel’s not-quite-a-question rising inflection.

She had a look at her latest victim. A barb was embedded shallowly in the flesh of the lower jaw; she eased the hook out, put the fish into the water and held it there a few moments, then allowed it to muscle its way away. "Daniel, I have level 3 hand-to-hand combat skills. There are very few bad boys on any world I can’t put down. A lot of the crap men aim at women depends on the woman being physically intimidated by the man. I’m not, so they have to talk about me behind my back instead of being unpleasant to my face." She looked at him suddenly. "Has somebody been harassing you, Daniel?"

"No. But Sam..." He looked at her seriously. "I guess I was trying to ease on over into talking about fitting in."

"Wrong person to talk to, Daniel. I don’t fit in any more than you do."

"The brain divide?"

"That’s part of it. How much actual conversation can you or I have with someone who’s a dim bulb? And there’s a place for a consistent, methodical, organized dim bulb in the military. That’s why there are so many of them there."

"What’s the other part?"

Sam sighed. "I’m female. And believe me, the military buys the myth of male superiority." Her line made another perfect arc out to that trout singles bar, or whatever it was, she’d found out there. "Daniel, every single one of my superiors in the Air Force, Jack and General Hammond excepted, have assumed that I was wrong all the time, consistently throughout my career. And not just in terms of my field, but on the question of whether the sky is blue. If I said so, they had to check. Not just to see the proof, but to check it, usually assigning someone with half my brain power to a calculator."

"That sucks. How many of them were scientists?"

"Too many."

"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

"You were too young to be so smart, and I’m too female. Time will cure it, Daniel. For you, anyway." She sounded bitter.

Who wouldn’t. "We’re outsiders, you and I."

"Yeah, that’s it."

"What about Jack?"

"He’s not bad, for an insider." She watched Teal’c’s effortless cast on the other side of the lake. Were he and Jack having a good time together? (What was "a good time" being enjoyed by both Jack and Teal’c like, for one thing?) "Jack has the military mindset and is therefore pragmatic. He took a lot of garbage over having a female 2IC when I got here. But once he was assured that I could handle my end of it, he quit caring what gender I am. It’s - relaxing to work around him because of that. I know where I am."

"He cares what gender you are, Sam." Daniel’s voice was very quiet.

She sighed and took in a bit of her line. "When we’re on duty, then. And yeah, you’re right - we had an opportunity on Kormai’s world, and we took it . . . I haven’t thanked you."

He flapped a hand and said, "No need," but he looked pretty pleased.

"Daniel."

Something in her voice turned his head to look at her.

"If I were you, I might be very alarmed at the sight of the OIC and the 2IC whose job it is to protect me . . . cavorting, off-world."

He spread his hands, drawing line through the knot. "You and Jack are military - therefore pragmatic. I don’t see either one of you letting it affect a mission. On Kormai’s world nobody died and it worked out. And Kormai herself didn’t leave Jack much of an option." He took a breath. "If you bring Jack some happiness, that’s great. He’s had more than his share of pain. If he brings you happiness, Sam, you deserve it. And if he makes you unhappy, I’ll - I’ll go talk to him about the differences among pre-Semite, Huttite, and Babylonian moon-god symbology. I’ve been timed at four hours."

Blue eyes met blue, with a laugh in both. "Fair enough. Let’s take a knife to that tangle. You won’t have any time to fish, otherwise."

"You’re catching enough for both of us."

"Daniel, the object of fishing is not catching fish."

"What is it, then?"

"It’s like jazz. If you have to ask, you’ll never know, and once you learn, you find out that there are no words."

Jack threw his hand in. "Teal’c, you’ve cleaned me out."

"I have administered no laxative to you, O’Neill."

"Teal’c!"

"Is that not correct? Doctor Frasier said it to an airman when I was in the infirmary last."

The next night, the last, Jack won the toss. He poured the last of the coffee for himself and went to look out over the lake.

Teal’c washed, Sam rinsed, Daniel dried.

Teal’c rumbled, "Perhaps you, Sam, and you, Daniel Jackson, can tell me something about Colonel O’Neill."

They looked blankly at each other. "We will if we can," Daniel said cautiously.

The Jaafa continued with his task for a moment. Then he said deliberately, "It seems to me that when you and Sam are talking, Colonel O’Neill understands a great deal more of what you are saying than one would conclude from his conversation."

"Absolutely true," Daniel said.

"Why, then, continue the pretense?"

Sam shrugged. "It keeps him on top of Daniel. You and I are military: he knows if he says ‘Jump’ we just ask ‘How high?’ on the way up." She glanced at the big Jaafa. "And Teal’c, you and he understand each other in many ways."

"In many ways. In others the Colonel is quite inscrutable."

If she started to laugh she might die of it right here, and Daniel was grinning at the dishwater like a maniac. She controlled her voice with an effort. "True. Anyway, on missions, Daniel, not being military, is a loose cannon, hard to control and definitely insubordinate when he finds a new . . . ‘rock.’"

"Hey!" Daniel said.

Sam shrugged. "You know it’s true. By pretending ignorance and impatience, the colonel actually manages to keep Daniel on a pretty tight rein, Teal’c."

Daniel said, "And he has to keep that up once we’re off duty. Did I tell you I caught him reading one of my papers, once?"

"Did he frown, clutch his head, and heave a sigh? That’s what he does with mine."

"Yeah, once he spotted me, but I saw him turn a page or two before that." "Yeah. Once he sees you, he stops reading."

Beyond the lantern light, Jack, returning, grinned.

Jack and Teal’c were digging another fishbone pit. It was a pleasant task, especially for Jack, who allowed Teal’c to do all the work.

"I do not understand the relationship between you and Major Carter, O’Neill."

Jack looked at the broad back, rhythmically flexing and rising, dirt flying. "Let’s take a break for a minute, Teal’c."

They went to sit on a downed tree in the shade, and the Jaafa drank from his canteen.

"Teal’c, your people don’t have female warriors, do they?"

"No, O’Neill." Teal’c watched the lake impassively for a moment. "Daniel Jackson said that that is because my people have assigned sex roles."

Jack backed away from the edge of that conversational pit. "We Tau’ri, since we have female warriors, have rules around how we can behave man-to-woman on duty. And off duty, too."

"Why must you obey these rules, O’Neill? You and Major Carter seem to be quite sensible."

Jack felt like he’d been punched in the short ribs. "Teal’c, I can’t answer that question for you. All I can tell you is that among my people many of us have . . . a problem doing our duty when we’d like to have sex." He looked down at the thumbs revolving around one another in his lap. "And as for what happened on Kormai’s planet, Carter and I could have been responsible for your death, or Daniel’s. I can’t defend our choice."

"It is true misfortune could have befallen us, but it did not. I believe that you chose the time and place well, given Kormai’s decree." The bigger man wasn’t looking at Jack, didn’t see red stain the lean cheeks. Teal’c drank again. "And you and Major Carter - you continue to be friends? Were you friends before we visited Kormai’s world?"

Jack shut his eyes. No, no, no, I can’t be having this conversation.. "We’re friends, Teal’c. But because of the way our people feel about men and women warriors, we have to pretend that we don’t know each other as well as we do."

"I see." The Jaafa’s brows contracted. "Your subterfuge appears to be working. If I did not know you were - as man and wife to one another?"

"‘Intimate,’ Teal’c."

"Thank you. If I did not know you were ‘intimate’ I would not suspect it."

"That’s good. It would cause problems if people did know. General Hammond might feel compelled to break up the team."

"That would be inefficient." Teal’c screwed the cap back on his canteen. "I do not understand the ways of your people, O’Neill."

"Teal’c, there are times I don’t either."

Teal’c rose. "I shall keep silent about your relationship."

"I appreciate that, Teal’c."

"It is ‘not a problem.’"

They broke camp after breakfast on Sunday. The car packed, they agreed to leave at noon, after a last try at fishing. Teal’c left, carrying his fishing gear. Daniel, dawdling, said he would stay there, and conduct basic ballistic research.

"You’re throwing rocks in the lake," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah. Like I said."

Jack and Sam looked at each other. Then they went, without another word, in the opposite direction from that Teal’c had taken.

The thin mountain air was cold, the sun hot, and the light made patterns on the water. The mountain breathed its particular brand of not-quite-silence. The lake dabbed at its shore. Their lines said "Whee!" going through the guides, their leaders ran like silk along the surface of the water, and the flies dropped into the lake casting perfect rings of ripples.

Peace spread out around them.

They had had Kormai’s world, and they had this day, standing in cool pine-scented sunlight and making the Mystical Passes Which Evoke the Great Trout Spirit.

Jack wanted the morning to last for a couple of years. The crisp air. The warmth of light. The lake, murmuring its secrets for other ears than his; Samantha Carter, in shorts, tie-dyed T-shirt, disreputable tennies, fly-bedecked hat, and white cotton gloves, for cryin’ out loud, casting a line beside him.

Sam, feeling only the warm hand of the sun against her skin in the cool air, suddenly remembered a Navajo prayer Daniel had taught her. May you walk in beauty . . . . They could walk in beauty here, for a time.

Well, fish in beauty, anyway.

Jack spoke reluctantly. "We should probably talk."

"Yes."

"What are we going to do about what happened on Kormai’s world, Sam? It felt so right, and it was indefensible, militarily."

She took a big breath. "Jack, as deeply as I love you - "

She wasn’t looking his way, didn’t see the statement on his face.

"- we can’t do anything to endanger Daniel. We can’t do anything to endanger Stargate, or our world, or the rest of the galaxy." She paused. "I’m starting to sound like an intro for Star Wars. Jack, it’s so ugly out there that what two people want doesn’t, can’t, count for much beside it."

"That’s not quite the line," he said.

She looked at him, puzzled.

"Casablanca," he said. "Never mind. We’ll watch the movie sometime." He sent his line out, a clean arc over the water. "Sam, I want to wake up beside you every morning, in a safe world."

"It’s what I want too, Jack."

"Right now . . . ."

"Right now we can’t do anything to endanger the team, or any member of it, Jack."

Military, and therefore pragmatic. "Yes. You’re right, Sam. I wish you were wrong." "I wish I were too." Janet thought, Wow, I wonder what happened? They all came back. She dropped them into the bowl in the reception area, returned to the storage cab, and finished checking in Sam’s med kit.

The End