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"So, you got married?"
Despite having been told to stand at ease, the two officers stiffened to attention in front of her desk.
She examined their faces for a moment, lingering on the blue swirls of ink that had been applied to cheeks and forehead. Apparently it would take another few days to wear off. Captain Avery and Lieutenant Brittner were standing in front of her with almost identically apprehensive 'we were hoping she wouldn't notice that line in the report' expressions.
Behind the two officers Sheppard grinned. He was slouching against the doorpost of her office. She was pretty sure he was only there for the entertainment factor of seeing his officers squirm.
Sam hid her smile by looking down at the report.
"Um, yes, ma'am," Avery finally said. "The local population left us no other choice-"
"-that would have allowed us to return to Atlantis safe and whole," Brittner supplied.
"That happens," she said mildly. "I take it you want it annulled?"
"We assumed it would not be valid," Avery said quickly.
"It isn't, captain, at least not outside MX9-107. But we never know, somebody at the IOA might learn to read subtext at some point," she threw a quelling look at Sheppard when he muttered 'and want to throw you a big white wedding.'
She wrote ANNULLED in the margin of the report and initialled it.
"So, nice ceremony?" she asked then.
"Ma'am?" Brittner asked her in a did-I-hear-that-right sort of tone. The dark blue paint contrasted interestingly with her dark hair and light brown eyes, Sam thought. Avery had a pale blue that stood out against his deep brown skin. It didn't seem like it had been too traumatising, but you never knew. She wasn't about to ask if they'd been forced into any form of consummation, especially not in front of Sheppard. She was still far too new to them to confide in her anyway.
"Was it a celebration or an at-spear-point sort of thing," she clarified, still looking at the report. "Doctor Ingadottir over in Anthropology will probably want to debrief you, she's trying to make some sort of flowchart on how to handle these sort of situations."
"Ma'am, do you mean this happens.. more often?" Brittner finally asked.
"Oh yes, it's quite common really. On a lot of worlds it's unthinkable that women would work with men in the way we run gate teams. If you encounter something like this again, try claiming that you have a pair bond, but that in your culture it's taboo to show affection outside of your home," she suggested, observing their interaction. "I've had some success with that approach."
Twin surprised looks. Now they were no longer expecting to be chewed out, they'd relaxed a little.
AR-4 had been working together in this configuration for about eighteen months, and though the two officers seemed a little awkward with each other right now, she felt fairly confident that they would overcome this. Not like her and then-Colonel O'Neill when this had first happened to them - the mortifying confrontation with feelings they'd both been determined to ignore had nearly smashed apart the team.
She figured she could tell them a little more.
"There are several planets in the Milky Way where I'm married to one of my former team mates," she said with the hint of a smile. Or several of her teammates, in fact. There'd been that one polygamous planet where Daniel, Teal'c and the colonel were all her husbands. That had been fun. Especially Jack's attempt at playing amiable co-husband.
After the mortification of the first marriage to Jack, Daniel had become her de-facto husband if it was necessary. He could demonstrate affection better than Teal'c could, though she knew it was there in spades in her Jaffa friend. In later years, Mitchell had done an even better job - the conversation in advance had been hilariously awkward, but he knew how to go with the flow, and the relaxed fondness between them had allowed them to glide through any potential doubts about their claimed marriage.
Two pairs of eyes widened comically - three, actually. It wasn't a secret at the SGC that this sort of thing happened, and happened to SG1 especially, but Sheppard wouldn't really know that.
"And I'm reasonably certain that Colonel Sheppard and Teyla are considered to be married on several of the planets we trade with," she continued blithely, ignoring Sheppard's small choking sound. Oh yeah, he hadn't realised she'd noticed that. He really had to stop expecting her to be as oblivious as McKay.
"Given the sudden close union between the Athosians and the Lanteans, a marriage alliance is the obvious explanation for them to arrive at."
There was a contemplative silence, and she let it stretch for the space of a few seconds.
"Any questions?"
Avery and Brittner exchanged a glance, and that more than anything convinced her they, and AR-4, would be fine.
"No, Ma'am," Avery answered for them both.
"Good!," she said briskly. "See Doctor Heightmeyer for a... let's call it a post-marriage debrief, see Doctor Ingadottir sometime in the next few days for a culture debrief, and you might try if the infirmary can think of anything to get the ink off your faces faster. Dismissed."
The two shared a relieved glance and left her office, and Sam noted the ordered session with the base therapist down on a post-it and stuck it to the report. Let Heightmeyer have the forced intimacy talk - it would be more comfortable and productive all around.
"So," Sheppard drawled as he strolled closer to her desk, "Any former team mates you're not married to?"
She looked up in surprise, and then leaned back in her chair, raising a challenging eyebrow back at him.
"Let me see... Ah, Jonas."
"So everybody else.."
"It only takes one planet with a culture of polygamous family structure, John," she said mildly. "As you know. I'm sure I read something about a 'team bonding ritual' in one of your missions last spring."
He grimaced, and she tried not to laugh.
"Right. Uh.. don't tell Rodney?"
He was out of her office before she could spot the full implications of that awkward request, and she bit her lip to hide a grin. She very much doubted either Teyla or Ronon had missed it, but apparently McKay didn't know he was married to his team mates.