Ripple Effect - Rediscovery
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, I'm just playing in the world
A/N: Here is another side story / companion piece to my series of SG-1 tales. Please enjoy this little peek into another alternate reality
A/N 2: Some spoilers for 'Voices from a Lost Time'
Ripple Effect - Rediscovery
Being shunted to an alternate reality can be a life-changing experience in more ways than one. When Sam saw how the other Carters watched their Mitchells, it made her take a new look at her Cam.
After nearly two decades of a slightly distant relationship with her Academy friend, Sam begins re-examining her feelings for Cameron and wondering why their relationship was so different from those of the other Carters and Mitchells.
Stargate Command, January 2006
Sam looked around the mess at each of the other various SG-1s that had come through to this hub reality as her team had. She'd heard the other Carters talking in the lab they'd been assigned to work on their situation and she was seeing it now right before her eyes, how they looked at their Mitchells. She frowned slightly as she absently pushed her fork over her lemon chicken.
"Hey, Sam, mind if I join you?" She looked up at him giving her that faintly hopeful smile of his.
"Of course, Mitchell." She motioned towards the space opposite her and he sat down. She returned her scrutiny to the other Carters and Mitchells seated at the other tables and shook her head slightly. She glanced at the man across from her again as he tucked into his spaghetti. "How long has it been? Since we met." He looked up and watched her for a moment. He had that vague look of worried trepidation that sometimes came over his face. She could never work out why.
"Seventeen years and a bit." he replied with a wistful tone. She frowned slightly. She could tell he was holding something back. Probably with the 'and a bit' part. She looked around again at how easily all the myriad Samanthas and Camerons were chatting away. Thick as thieves, some would say. She wondered to herself why it wasn't the same with her and Mitchell.
There had always been a little distance between them, ever since the Academy. There was a tension, of course, she wasn't insensible to the fact he was a very handsome man and she liked to think she could turn a few heads herself, but there was a barrier, some unspoken though mutually acknowledged boundary beyond which they did not cross. She had no idea how it had developed or why. She frowned slightly, trying to think back to their days as cadets. She remembered how he'd always been there to help her, always been there to make sure she didn't burn out or get buried in the pressure that was that first year at the Air Force Academy. She couldn't remember anything that marked a change though. It was just that nothing seemed to have deepened between them as it obviously had between all these other Carters and Mitchells.
"Have you noticed..." Her voice trailed off, unsure and hesitant. She glanced towards him to see that same worried trepidation in his eyes. A look so recognisable to her she often didn't even register it anymore. She hadn't really reacted to it as anything except normal until they'd been shunted across the realities to this alternate SGC and she saw the looks that the other Mitchells typically shared with the various other Carters. He turned to look across the refectory for a moment and then returned to eating his lunch without saying anything, she hadn't actually finished her question after all. She looked down and pushed her chicken away. "I have to get back to work. I'll see you later, Mitchell." She stood when he nodded and let her go with a small wave.
Stargate Command, January 2006 (alternate reality)
She looked up at the knock on the door frame and knew exactly who it was. He leaned against the door, one arm spread across her doorway, and smiled softly the same way he always did. She looked back down at her laptop for a moment and closed her eyes before waving him in. He stepped in and gathered a chair from against the wall on his way to the opposite side of her bench. She'd had trouble around him since they'd returned from the alternate reality. Not that he'd changed at all. She had. Her mind had been full of questions and wondering and confusion. She looked up and could feel her brows furrow as she met his gaze. He began speaking quickly at seeing her look.
"Just letting you know that we're going to be giving a briefing to General O'Neill about the-"
"Cameron." she called softly. He stopped immediately, his eyes full of surprise, and something inside her just twisted into a knot. Why was he surprised? She flicked her eyes away a moment as she realised it probably had to do with how she usually didn't use his given name. "I need you to be honest with me." She saw it again, the worried trepidation in his eyes. "You noticed, didn't you? The alternate Carters and Mitchells." He sighed and looked down. "They all have something... closer... than we do." When he looked up at her it wasn't worry or trepidation she saw. It was fear. "Why is that, Cameron?"
"I have no answers for you, Sam." he replied and turned away slightly. She noticed how he'd never shied away from using her own name. "Things are different for them, their friendships progressed differently, either something happened for them, or happened for us, or didn't happen in either case, that affected things."
"It's not you, is it? It's me." She watched for any reaction, but he just kept his face turned away slightly. "If it were up to you..." she trailed off and clenched her jaw as he looked up at her with a deep, overwhelming sadness filling his blue eyes. "You feel the way they do, don't you?" He was silent for several seconds, seconds which stretched out in her mind to feel like the end of time. When he spoke it was soft, slow and deliberate.
"If you're asking me if I still love you the way the other Cams love their Sams, then yes, I do." He sat up straight in the chair and pierced her with an unrelentingly fierce gaze. "I've always loved you, Sam, now as then." Why had she asked? Why had she forced him to tell her? And why did he say 'still'? She could feel her eyes were wide with alarm and her breathing was raspy and shallow. He turned away with a rueful smile and stood up. "Anyway, tomorrow, briefing with the Generals about our little extra-reality jaunt." He walked to the door and stopped, tapping the frame with the fingers of a nervous hand. He looked over his shoulder without meeting her gaze. "Nothing's changed for me, Sam, but I made you a promise." What promise? "I hope you still understand that. Though... I'll understand if..." He trailed off and turned back to look down the corridor. "I'll see you later." When he walked out she felt like something had been taken from her.
Stargate Command, January 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam walked into General Landry's office and hovered by his cabinet, fidgeting with her fingers. Landry watched her pacing back and forth in front of the board with his unit badges and raised his eyebrows, unsure whether she even realised where she was.
"Can I help you, Colonel?" he asked gruffly only for her to jump slightly and come to attention almost by reflex. He waved her towards a chair and she slumped down into it. "You seem troubled." She looked at him hesitantly and turned her gaze down to her hands in her lap.
"Sir, do you remember Galar?" she asked softly and he canted his head to the side slightly. "Do you remember how I wrote in my report that Colonel Mitchell had to relive something from his past, something... horrific?"
"I can't tell you what it is, Carter." he said with a slight edge to his voice and she looked up as if surprised.
"No, sir. Of course not. No, I was wondering if you knew why he'd stayed in the service?" she asked softly. "I can guess it was something bad enough to make him want to quit, anything like that would. So I was wondering why..." she trailed off and made to stand up again after her silence dragged on for a while. "Sorry, sir, it's none of my business. I shouldn't have put you in such a position." She walked towards the door and was even outside before the General spoke.
"Ask your father." he said. She whipped her head around and locked an alarmed gaze on Landry. "He was in charge of Mitchell's Air Wing at the time. He spoke to him, which in itself is a little unusual." She looked away and nodded slightly before walking off. When would she even get the chance to speak to her father about it? He was probably on a mission for the Tok'ra right now.
Petersen AFB Medical Center, February 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam looked at him sitting on the bench as he read a pamphlet, hunched over it, clutched at it as someone trying not to get swept away by a storm. She wheeled over the Galaran memory device in its black case and stood a little off to the side.
"Cameron." His name rolled off her tongue so easily these days. Especially now when it was obviously a difficult time for him.
"Sam." he replied gently. He never just said her name, she noticed that now. It was the way he said it, he gave it life.
She moved to the bench and sat down. He glanced over at her and she frowned sadly at the pain she could see in his eyes. She wondered how this conversation would go if they'd never been to that alternate reality. If she were still the way she had been then. There was still a barrier, she could feel it, it was like a slab of breaking ice, she could reach her fingers into the widening gaps, run them over the melting edges, across the jagged corners which sloughed off as mush when she crushed them in her hand. Why had she built up this wall? And it was her wall, she knew that. Why was she now trying so hard to break it down?
"Bra'tac got us a gate address. Ka'lel led him to a planet with a mothership parked on a pyramid. He believes Teal'c's being held there." She hunched down slightly in her floral print shirt and dark reddish-brown leather jacket. Cameron nodded without looking her way.
"That's good news." he replied, forcing some emotion into his voice. She watched him for a moment.
"We're briefing in an hour." she said softly only for him to nod again.
"I'll be there." he breathed, finally glancing her way again. Her brows knit as she looked into his blue eyes. So expressive, so alive, even now, drenched in pain as they were. She looked away and her eyes found the black case with the memory device.
"Do you need some help with this?" she asked to cover up what she really wanted to ask.
"No, I got it..." he replied. "Does this make me a hypocrite?" She looked over at his question, unsure what he was asking. It must be about telling Ferguson about the Stargate.
"I told my Dad." she offered. He shook his head.
"He was getting a Tok'ra symbiote." he replied dismissively.
"Pete." She wanted to kick herself as soon as she mentioned her ex-fiancé. She didn't miss the slight wash of... something... which passed over his face. Had he always had to deal with such things? She sighed.
"Got shot by a Goa'uld with a laser blaster." He didn't look at her when he said it. "That's not really the point. I was talking about using that thing. I mean, after what happened to me, I was opposed to anyone ever having anything to do with that technology. Now I'm going out of my way to make use of it." She looked up into the distance beyond the entrance to the medical center and across the shaded areas of Petersen. She closed her eyes for a moment, wondering what she could do to ease his pain.
"Is showing your friend the truth going to make him feel any better?" she asked finally. Cameron set his jaw slightly, but just shrugged. She frowned softly as a memory tugged at the back of her mind. It slipped away before she could take a hold of it.
"He wants to know I'm not going to be burdened with guilt over the fact that he died because of me." he said in a slightly broken voice.
"Is the truth going to change that?" she asked, compelled to do so by the tone of his voice.
"Not for me." he whispered and she felt a shudder starting in the pit of her stomach as she looked at him. She just nodded, unsure what else she could say.
The Capitol, Alba, Caledonian Federation, Tegalus, February 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam paused in the corridor just outside the war room and pressed her back against the wall next to the open doorway, her escort stopped behind her and just stood off to the side with a slightly curious expression. She turned her head to the door as she heard him speaking again and something inside her just snapped into place. She had been so afraid, terrified she'd never hear his voice again. She lifted a hand to her mouth, wondering why she was feeling this way now? He'd nearly died several times already since he'd joined SG-1, like when the prior had infected him with a plague on P8X-412, or when the Sodan had taken him and sentenced him to fight to the death in the ritual of Kel'shak Loh. It was different now though. She was different. She was reacting differently. She blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to regain her composure before she went inside. Taking a deep breath, she pushed off from the wall and stepped around to enter the open doorway.
"Teal'c! Cameron!" she called, trying not to betray just how much she was feeling at seeing them both, at seeing him. They turned around and she could see the relief pouring off both of them as they caught sight of her. Rather more subtly in the Jaffa's case.
"Sam!" Cameron called and began moving forward, her feet were moving towards him as well. "You are a sight for sore eyes." She found herself embracing him as eagerly as he wrapped his arms around her. She pressed against him and closed her eyes, willing the moment to stretch out into eternity, but she opened her eyes and blinked and it was over. He stepped back and it was like she could feel the space between them tingling. The wall of broken, crumbling ice had been swept away in an instant, leaving in its place only clear, fresh air. Cold and biting, but invigorating. It felt like a beginning. It felt right.
Stargate Command, April 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam stood over Daniel as he hunched over a notebook in Dr. Lee's lab. Bill himself was tapping away at a laptop on a desk behind them. She crossed her arms as Daniel wrote something down and pulled at his lip slightly. He pulled the sheet of paper with its pictographic representation of the Ancient alphabet a little towards him and Sam sighed as she found the character on the shimmering display which was the next one they needed to transcribe.
"Okay, first letter, next word. Stop me when you see the right symbol." intoned the linguist, just as bored by this as Sam was, and began moving his finger across the sheet at a steady pace. She wished she could just tap out the 'yes' key so many times to indicate the next character from the order in his list, but this was the method Daniel thought of and she was stuck with it. She looked up and smiled when Cameron came into the lab, Daniel's slowly moving finger completely forgotten.
"How's it going?" he asked as he came to stand next to her, very close to her. She looked down with a slight smile at how the distance between them always seemed to vanish nowadays. She sighed when she looked back down at the display though.
"Fantastic. We've almost finished the first sentence." she replied sarcastically. He raised a hand and let it rest on her shoulder and she let her eyes drift shut for just a moment. Was this what all those Carters had with their Mitchells? For all those years? She wanted to cry at the wasted time.
"Listen, you think you'll be okay on your own here for a while?" he asked with a slightly hesitant tone. She looked at his eyes and saw worry.
"Sure, why?"
"We've lost contact with Teal'c." he explained. "Landry's sending SG-3 and 22 to check on him at the Sodan village. I figured I'd tag along." She frowned in concern and turned to face him.
"Off-world?" she asked, reaching a hand up to brush over the front of his BDUs.
"Yeah, well, Jackson was able to travel through the 'gate when he was out of phase. So... yeah." He shrugged and tried to give her a reassuring smile. It wasn't working.
"Well, that's my point. You're out of phase. What do you hope to accomplish?" she asked in consternation. He frowned slightly and laid his hand over her fingers.
"Sam, Teal'c could be in trouble." he said softly. "I want to check it out. No one can see me. I can't get hurt. I can gather intel that no one else can." She clenched her jaw a little and was about to ask him to whom he was going to tell this 'intel' he gathered when Daniel looked up from his sheet of Alteran glyphs with a slightly irritated look.
"Sam, Mitchell, did you see it?" he asked and Sam grimaced at having forgotten what she'd been working on. She locked her gaze on Cameron and glared unhappily at him.
"Listen, I promise, I'll come back through the 'gate when they dial to check in. I'll only be gone a couple of hours." He put both his hands on her shoulders as he spoke, but it didn't mollify her at all.
"Hello? You guys still there?" Daniel asked, slightly worried now. Bill turned to look over in concern and got up out of his chair.
"Cameron-" she began, but he cut her off with a squeeze of her shoulder.
"Sam, Teal'c may need help," he said gently, "and I have friends among the Sodan. I'll be back soon. Promise." He began to move off, but Sam grabbed the front of his BDUs, a strange compulsion overtaking her. She pulled him closer and brought her lips to his as he let out a surprised grunt. It only took a moment for him to reciprocate and raise a hand to cup the back of her head. His fingers running into her short hair left her as breathless as the kiss did and she looked into his eyes for long moments after he pulled back.
"I need you to be safe." she breathed and he only nodded, letting his fingers trail out of her hair and down her neck. Her skin burned at his touch.
"Like, slap a button or something!" Daniel called loudly and Sam scowled in irritation as she leaned forward and angrily smacked several buttons. She let her scowl fall on Cameron and he raised up his hands in surrender and walked to the door, leaving after giving her one last smile over his shoulder. It reminded her that she hadn't seen that old look of worried trepidation from him in some time. Bill moved back to his chair in relief and Daniel raised his eyebrows for a moment before frowning and looking around him, obviously surprised.
"Okay, thank you. So, first letter, next word, and stop me when you see the right symbol." Daniel repeated and Sam frowned, crossing her arms under her breasts. After a moment she bit her lip and she could taste him still.
USS Odyssey, above P3Y-229, June 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam let herself go limp as her space suit lay on its side on the deck of the flight bay and she sighed deeply as she turned her head to look up while one of the flight crew techs began trying to unlock her helmet.
"Cameron..." she called softly into the radio as the helmet was pulled away from her head and her vision began going a bit grey at the edges. He'd just done the impossible. For her. He'd come for her, so stubborn.
"I'll be right there, Sam." He was coming for her again. His words brought a smile to her lips as she let her eyes drift shut. When she opened them again she was in the infirmary. Her suit's air supply must have been further gone than she'd realised. She tried to sit up a little with the help of a nurse who came bustling over, then slumped slightly and rubbed at her head for a moment as she could feel the dull thrum of a headache starting up. Hypoxia was a bitch. She smiled involuntarily when she remembered what had just happened. He was a crazy bastard. Coming after her and picking her up in a battlecruiser's flight bay. Crazy. She shook her head. Crazy, but so Cameron. She looked up at a sound from the door and smiled brightly when he came in with Major Marks in tow.
"Thank you." she said softly and nodded to him. She held out her hand and he took it, holding on to it gently. She felt his thumb sliding against her skin and the slight thrill that ran up her arm at his touch. She just wanted to hold on to him, on to this moment as she looked up into his eyes and they shone down on her.
Derelict ship, above P1X-011, July 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam blinked slowly as her eyelids began to feel heavy. She grinned involuntarily. Hypoxia was a bitch. She looked through the glass at his eyes, shining blue with anger and the undercurrent of fear. She shook her head at him and pressed her hand to the glass, waiting for him to lay his own over hers on his side of the door. She leaned forward slightly as she felt her knees shaking and growing weak. This was important. She had to tell him. Tell him that in these last several months... since he'd told her... since he'd said he... She blinked and locked her eyes on his.
"Cameron," she breathed against the hint of loneliness she could see in his gaze, "I love you so much." She smiled faintly and held his eyes for a moment before everything went dark.
Air Force Academy, December 29th, 1988 (alternate reality)
Sam huddled in her heavy coat as she sat on the roof of Sijan Hall and raised her cup, filled from a keg of beer a group of seniors had surreptitiously left for her as a birthday present, and took a long drink. She was a year too young still, but she didn't really care. She leaned over and sighed when she felt the unyielding surety of Cameron's shoulder against hers. In the last four months he'd become such an important part of her life that it scared her. It also did not go unnoticed by her that he was a hunka hunka burnin'... she clamped a hand over her mouth lest she start singing in her current state of inebriation. She began giggling and Cam turned to her with a grin.
"What is it, Sam? What's so funny?" he asked softly and Sam scowled at him. He'd had at least as many as she had, but he wasn't slurring at all.
"How come... you're not even feelin' a little tipsy?" she asked as she pinched her finger and thumb in front of a squinting eye. Cam chuckled and she frowned some more.
"Sam, when you were seventeen and eighteen, what were you doing?" he asked with a sidelong glance at her. She narrowed her eyes.
"I was finishin' up my bash- my bachelor's degree at MIT." she replied, somewhat confused. He nodded.
"I was sneaking beers with my buddies down at Walker's Hole. With a little bit of studying on the side." he explained and she slapped at his arm.
"I went to parties on campus!" she cried scathingly and he laughed. "Shut up! I did!" She took an angry slug of her beer and waved the empty cup in front of his face. He took it off her and handed it back after refilling it from the keg beside him.
"I'm just sayin' that right now, you're a lightweight, Sam. It takes some practice to get your tolerance up." he explained and she huffed in frustration. "Anyway, you always strike me as someone who prefers to stay in control. And to deal with people who have all their wits about them."
"You don' know me at all." she snapped. "I don' wanna be the good girl all the time!" She looked at him and flashed angry eyes at the concern she saw in his baby blues."I'm sick an' tired of everyone always seein' the perfect little Samantha, General's daughter. The genius, Dr. Carter, future spacegeek." She gave him a weak shove with one hand. "Tell me how you see me, Cam? I'm the naïve little doolie the Superinden- intendant tol' you to babysit, right?" She was slurring her words and getting angrier as she saw the worry growing in his eyes. When he shook his head at her question she scoffed in irritation. "Don' lie! Tha's exactly how you see me, ain't it?" She turned and got up onto her knees and grabbed at the front of his jacket to shake him. "Well, I don' want you to see me like that, damn it! Not you!"
"I don't see you like that, Sam." he breathed and she growled.
"Then what do you see when you look at me, Cam?" she asked with another shove.
"I see the woman I've fallen in love with." he whispered without taking his eyes from hers. She froze and felt herself leaning on the arm which was grabbing at his jacket.
"Liar." she breathed, shaking her head. "Liar!" she cried as hot tears formed in her eyes. He sighed and canted his head slightly. She looked away and lifted her hand off him to clutch at the front of her coat, suddenly having trouble breathing. "There's no way. Not you. Not me."
"I love you, Sam." he said with conviction lacing his words and she looked up into his clear blue eyes. "You're smart, funny, beautiful, strong, kind." He shook his head. "You're far too good for the likes of me." She felt her fingers shaking as she dropped the cup of beer onto the snow covered roof. Cam's eyes never left hers. "I don't expect anything, Sam. I'm not an idiot and the last thing I want is to ruin our friendship. So just say the word and I'll accept it, whatever it is. I promise." She stood up and he followed her with his eyes. Her heart thundered in her chest and the blood rushed in her ears until all she could think about was that Cameron was looking at her with those blue eyes. Eyes that burned her. Eyes she had to get away from.
"No." she whispered and turned around to run back into the building.
Derelict ship, above P1X-011, July 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam gasped and cried out in pain. Gulping in great lungfuls of air which ignited inside her and set her chest on fire. She clawed at the ceiling with grasping fingers and hacked and coughed out the vile oxygen from her lungs only to gasp in more. Her head was pounding as if jackhammers were slamming against the back of her eyes and all her ribs felt broken. She felt arms around her, lifting her and pulling her into a crushing embrace and she knew it was him. She coughed and gasped, alternately expelling the abhorrent air and inhaling its intoxicating sweetness.
"I've got you, Sam. I've got you." he whispered into her ear and she found herself nodding as desperate tears rolled down her cheeks while the memories washed over her again. Memories she'd expunged in alcohol-fuelled panic. She clutched at the back of his BDUs as he held her close to him and began sobbing even as her muscles spasmed in pain from the soreness of her chest and sides. She pressed an arm in tight against herself, trying to alleviate the pain. "Just breathe, okay? Just breathe, baby." She almost began laughing as she heard him giving voice to such a simple affection.
"You're an idiot." she croaked out in a painful, rasping imitation of her voice. "I'm an even bigger idiot." He pushed back from her slightly, confusion and worry etched across his features. "Don't make promises to someone so drunk they won't remember, you ass." She tightened her grip on his back and he took that as a signal to pull her back against him as she wanted. She leaned her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes as she buried her face into his neck.
She hadn't forgotten what had happened completely, of course. Some vague vestige of a memory remained and she'd pushed him away because of it, never again treating him with the same familiarity as she had previously. Never conscious of why, only knowing that there had to be a distance, a separation between herself and Mitchell as he must now be called. Desperate, panicky, naïve imbecile.
"I'm sorry, Cameron." she whispered and she felt him shushing her as much as heard it. She cursed him as well, under her breath. He'd just accepted it all, suffered it in silence with only that worried trepidation which would alight on his face whenever their conversation hit a little too close to the mark for comfort. She felt one of his hands brushing against her cheek and the back of her head and she let her tears fall again.
Stargate Command, July 2006 (alternate reality)
Sam opened her eyes and blinked blearily as she saw her father's smiling face off to the side.
"Dad? Oh, no. Did I fall asleep on you? I'm sorry." she said slowly in her still-raspy voice. He just shook his head and waved it away with a dismissive flick of his hand. She smiled at him.
"It's alright, Sammie. You almost died." He scooted his chair a little closer and took her hand in his. "I'm just sorry it's taken you nearly suffocating in a malfunctioning airlock to force me to make the time to come see you. You asked for me to come months ago." She gave his hand a squeeze at the reminder. She turned over slightly and grimaced at the pain in her chest. He lifted one of his hands off hers as if to motion her back down, but just shook his head and cupped her hand in his again.
"Dad, did I talk to you about Cameron when I was at the Academy?" She smiled faintly at the surprise on his face.
"Sure. He was all you talked about your first semester, but even after that too." He smiled at the memory. "He helped you a lot, I know." She nodded slightly.
"I found out recently that he did something... bad. Something that he feels horrifically guilty about." she said softly and Jacob's features darkened instantly. "I'm not going to ask you to tell me, Cam hasn't entrusted me with that. Just... I need to know... Did he nearly quit?" Jacob looked at her for a long moment before nodding. "Do you know why he didn't?" Jacob nodded.
"I have a good idea." he whispered and her brows knit in hesitant fear. He tilted his head to the side and ran his thumb in slow circles over the back of her hand. "He'd never give up on you and leave you behind, Sam. You still hadn't fulfilled your dream and he'd-" She pulled her hand from his grasp and raised both of them to cover her mouth as tears suddenly welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. "Sammie..."
"No!" she cried. "It's not right!" She shook her head vehemently. "Not after what I did." She screwed her eyes shut and brought her fingers further up to cover them completely, then pushed her hands up into her hair and reached over to pull the blanket off herself.
"Sam!" cried Jacob in warning. She ignored him, swinging her legs off the infirmary bed and pushing off to land lightly on her bare feet. He stood up and tried to come around the side of the bed as a nurse looked over in alarm and began moving in their direction. She just padded quickly towards the door and slipped out into the hall. "Sammie!" She frowned and looked both ways before deciding she knew just where he'd be. She began to run up the hall towards the elevators as her father followed after her with a nurse calling to them both in consternation. She spotted the doors opening and slipped into the elevator as Daniel stepped out while reading a report and holding a mug of coffee, only for him to spin around in surprise as she passed him in her scrubs.
"Sam, I was just coming to-" he began only for the doors to close on him as she pressed the button for sublevel 22. She tapped her bare foot impatiently as she waited for the elevator to slip down a level and open its doors again. She stepped out and jogged down the hall towards the mess, stopping at the entrance until she spotted him cutting into a slice of pecan pie with the side of his fork. She began moving between the tables as everyone glanced up at her in surprise. He turned his head and locked eyes with her as she moved towards him. He blinked at her in confusion then his features settled into a knowing look. She stopped beside him and looked down at him for a moment as he turned to face her in his seat.
"How long has it been? Since we met." she asked softly, her voice still weak.
"Seventeen years, ten months, six days." he replied immediately. She reached over and put her hands on his shoulders then ran one over his cheek and pushed it through his hair over his ear.
"I love you, Cameron Mitchell." she breathed before leaning down and kissing him hard. His hand rested on her hip, then slipped around the small of her back as he pulled her in closer so she had to settle one knee down on the bench next to him and let him take her weight. Her lips parted as his tongue slipped inside her mouth to find her own and she clutched at the back of his neck and leaned forward more as he twisted further in his seat. He wrapped his other arm around her shoulder as their kiss deepened and intensified.
"Does this not mean you owe Daniel Jackson a considerable sum of money, Vala Mal Doran." came Teal'c's voice, intruding upon her breathless exploration of Cameron's lips. Sam growled and turned her head to glare daggers at the Jaffa and the almost reformed thief standing next to him with their trays loaded with food. Vala frowned at her accusingly.
"Yes, Muscles, it does. Why couldn't you have waited another fortnight, Samantha?" she asked with her own set of daggers flying Sam's way as she and Teal'c laid their trays down on the table opposite the two Air Force officers. Cam couldn't stop himself from chuckling and Sam turned her glare on him, before smiling herself and caressing his cheek and turning back to her friends.
"What? Can't I realise what an idiot I've been whenever I damn well please?" she asked in her scratchy voice as Daniel came striding in with her father and a nurse in tow. As soon as he saw Sam still being held in Cameron's arms while everyone in the mess was nattering excitedly about declarations and kisses he began pumping his fist in the air in triumph and Vala glared at him from across the room.