Chapter Text
“It is.”
“Is not.”
“Is.”
“Not.”
“Jack.”
“Daniel.”
“Jack!”
“Daniel!”
Sam listened to their voices get louder and louder as the two of them repeated the others name over and over again. It all blended together until all she heard was ‘Jack Daniel’ in quick succession. Supplying an ’s’ at the end, she was desperately wishing she had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s right now. If the Jaffa were to hold her at gun point, or rather staff point, right now she could not have said what it was they were arguing over to save her life. She just knew their voices were permeating into her brain and she was about to go ballistic.
She hugged her arms around her waist as she curled into herself where she was sitting on a log by the fire. She started rocking slowly trying to reign in her anger.
“SHUT UP!” She finally shouted not able to take it any longer. She watched as both Jack and Daniel turned towards her in surprise. Even Teal’c looked at her with mild interest with a raised eyebrow.
“Carter.” Jack started to say drawing out her name.
“No! Don’t ‘Carter’ me. Stop. Just stop. Both of you.” Sam stood up and started pacing in the small area by the fire. She stared them down. “I’m getting sick of you guys always arguing. And over what? I don’t even know and I don’t care! It’s so infuriating.” She continued to pace as she was mumbling to herself about the Jaffa and whiskey and a bunch of other things Jack, Daniel, and Teal’c weren’t sure they understood.
Jack and Daniel had immediately lost interest in their argument over deciding which MRE was tastier and instead were watching Sam pace. Jack looked over to Teal’c to see if he had any clue what was happening. Teal’c looked back at him and shook his head minutely indicating even he had no idea what was going on with the Major.
After watching this for a minute with no signs of her calming down, Jack finally decided he should take some sort of action. He was in charge after all. He stood up slowly and made his way to the other side of the fire where Sam was still pacing. He kept his movements slow as though he were approaching a cornered animal because he thought that maybe a kick or a punch might not be out of the question here. He had never seen her so angry before. He knew he was being a bit childish arguing with Daniel over the meals, but it was just a little bit of fun. He knew Daniel wasn’t actually bothered by it. He didn’t think his teammates would be bothered by it either. It was really just a way to pass the time on this boring planet.
When Sam turned towards him during her continued pacing, he spoke softly, “Carter, you doing ok?” She turned around and completely ignored him. So, he went with her rank instead, “Major, can you tell me what’s going on?” Still nothing. He tried, “Sam?” Nothing. Getting a little desperate at this point to get her attention, he yelled her full name and rank, which he had rarely used before, in his best ‘I’m a Colonel’ command voice, “Major Samantha Carter!”
She stopped immediately and turned to face him. “What?”
Getting annoyed with her insubordination now, “Excuse me?”
She actually rolled her eyes. “What, sir?”
Ignoring the way she disrespectfully and indignantly said ‘sir’, he tried to calm himself back down. “Major, can you tell me what is going on right now?”
“No.”
He looked over to Daniel and Teal’c for help, but Daniel was just looking at her with a shocked look on his face. Teal’c was simply looking on with his same inexpressive face he always had. Clearly they weren’t going to be any help. At least she had stopped pacing and muttering. He looked back at her and found her just staring at him. Her cheeks were red and she was squinting her eyes as she stared him down. “Ok, can you tell me anything?”
“Oh my god, seriously? Yes, I can tell you all kinds of things. For instance, I can tell you all about the make up of the sun in this solar system. I can describe in detail how the gravity here is slightly different than on Earth. I can tell you all kinds of things, Colonel,” she said stressing his rank with an eye roll.
“Ok, Major. Understood. Can you truthfully tell me what is going on with you, right now? Please?” He was getting a little desperate here with her acting so out of character and he wasn’t above begging.
“No, you can’t handle the truth!” Sam yelled back.
Jack almost had to chuckle as he thought of the movie where that statement had originated. Some amusement must have shown on his face, because this seemed to only make her angrier. “You think this is funny?”
Sobering quickly he disagreed, “Nope, definitely not. But something isn’t right here. Something isn’t right with you, Major.” He ran through their options in his head figuring out that they still had time to make it back to the gate before it got dark, based on her earlier estimates. He hoped those were accurate still before she apparently forgot she was supposed to be a rational Major in the Air Force. They had decided to take a short dinner break before Daniel was going to go back to the ruins and work on his translations for another hour or so. Turning back towards Daniel and Teal’c he ordered, “Pack it up, kids. We’re heading back to the Stargate.”
Daniel and Teal’c both didn’t question the order, moving swiftly to break camp eschewing their dinner. They were all in favor of figuring out what was wrong with their teammate instead of a meal.
“Major, why don’t you sit down for a minute and try to relax?”
“Relax? Right. Like that’s going to happen. I’m so sick of you always telling me to relax, go have fun, get a life. Do you realize how demeaning that is to me? I have a damn life.”
“Ok, Major, you’re right. I’m sorry for saying those things. I won’t say them again.”
“Yeah, right.”
Again with an eye roll Jack noticed. He really didn’t know what to say here. But he needed to figure out if she was up to the trek back to the gate. “You ok to walk? We have an hour to get to the gate.”
“I know that, Colonel. I’m not an idiot.”
“Yep, definitely aware of that. You’re unquestionably not an idiot.” Jack noticed Daniel was walking up to them with their packs in his hands. He handed Jack’s to him and waited until he got it situated before going to hand him Sam’s as well. Glancing at him, he ordered, “Have Teal’c carry it.”
Sam grunted at that and yelled, “Jesus, I can carry my own pack!”
“Alright, geez. Carry your damn pack then.” Jack had to take the pack from Daniel because it didn’t seem like he wanted to incur her wrath and was leaving it up to Jack instead. He walked closer and held it out for her. She snatched it out his hands and clipped it onto her vest. “Ready?”
“No, I’d rather hang out here on this boring planet instead.”
Jack questioned himself on whether that was the third eye roll or the fourth. He had lost count. She was starting to sound like his grumpy old ass, which was so not good. “Then let’s get you off of said boring planet, shall we?”
“Whatever,” she snipped back at him before moving to head out back on the trail they had made getting here.
Jack looked over and found Daniel and Teal’c waiting on them, “Teal’c, take point. Daniel, stay with him. Major, you’re with me.”
That set Sam off again. “I’m not ‘with you’. There you go making assumptions again. That I just want to be ‘with you.’” She even used air quotes as she said the last two words.
“I was just telling you to walk next to me.” He didn’t know why he was explaining this to her. He made the orders around here and everyone else was supposed to follow them. At least that was normally how it worked.
Jack had used the words ‘insane, bonzo, no longer in possessions of one’s faculties, three fries short of a Happy Meal… WACKO!’ to describe himself to Teal’c before. At the time he was going crazy in the middle of an exhaustive, interminable time loop. He was fairly sure that excused his craziness. But he never thought he’d use those words to describe Carter at any point. He was damn well not saying them out loud to her — he wasn’t up to the ass kicking she would likely level on him — but he was definitely thinking them.
Jack got on the trail behind Daniel and Teal’c and Carter rushed to catch up to him to continue to berate him.
“You think I need someone to protect me? Is that what it is? You just want to be the ‘man’ to protect the poor defenseless girl who can’t take care of herself? Ugh, get over yourself. I can take care of myself. I don’t need any protection. Least of all from you.”
“Carter, if you think that then you don’t know me at all.”
“Maybe, you just get high on ordering everyone else around. Can’t handle being pushed or questioned from anyone else, especially a woman.”
“Major, how about you just shut up until we get back to the SGC?” Jack asked harshly getting fed up with her trying to analyze him. Incorrectly as it was. He didn’t get off on ordering people around. It was the job he had and he took pride in it. It’s not like he ordered people around in his personal life. He’s not going to lie, it did come naturally to him, but he didn’t expect his subordinates to be submissive. He expected them to push back and question his orders if they thought he was wrong, but at the end of the day he was the one who ultimately made the decisions.
Jack had faced down far worse things than an angry Major. But it was Carter who was angrily yelling at him and that seemed far worse somehow. An hour, Jack thought to himself. He just had to survive her anger for an hour.