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"Well," Cam said, wiggling his foot, which definitely still felt more or less like a foot, and he'd take that as a win, "this isn't quite how I imagined our wedding night might go."
Sam had managed to roll onto her side, facing Cam, and that had been one hell of an impressive feat. No way he was rolling any time soon. Best he could manage was to wiggle that foot, and let his head loll to one side, which at least had let him see what Sam was up to.
She grinned at him, and it was just a little bit too damn gleeful, obvious even in the half-light of the room. "Really? Because it's exactly how I thought it would go."
The thing about rituals on other planets, Cam had been embarrassingly slow to learn, was that they were never quite as straightforward as they appeared. He'd assumed some of the SG-1 mission reports had been slightly exaggerated, if anything, but it turned out someone had probably been underselling a whole hell of a lot when they wrote everything down.
Cam would bet good money he knew who that person was, too.
"It's never quite as straightforward as it appears!" Daniel had yelled once, as they were running for the gate. "In fact, this reminds me of that time when Jack–"
Cam had glanced back behind them, fired off a couple of warning shots at their pursuers, and yelled back, "Jackson! I read all the goddamn reports. Just run."
So maybe he'd been a bit slow on the uptake in some ways, but it also hadn't taken Cam long to get used to the SG-1 quirk of talking about past missions. "Indeed, this situation is reminiscent of the time when Colonel O'Neill–" Teal'c would say, in the middle of what Cam might call a diplomatic crisis with knives, and Jackson and Sam would groan in agreement before he'd finish the sentence, an expression of pained commiseration passing among them.
Or Sam would say, while elbow deep in some tech Cam would never have even a hope of understanding, "Actually, we encountered something like this on–" and Jackson would nod, while Teal'c's cheek twitched in the involuntary way that Cam had figured out was the Teal'c equivalent of biting the inside of his cheek and keeping his mouth shut.
Or Jackson would run his fingers through his hair, or maybe squint briefly in too-hot sunlight, and say, "You know, Jack once didn't listen to me in a similar situation, and–"
Cam had learned to take these comments with grace. Mostly. Sometimes.
And he took to heart, eventually, that rituals were never quite as straightforward as they might seem.
And yet. Things still managed to surprise him.
"Is it weird we can't really move, but we can still talk?"
Sam probably would have shrugged if she could, but instead she frowned slightly. "Good question. I'm not sure what was in that celebratory drink, but I guess it could have different effects on various parts of the body. Or maybe," she added, "it just makes us think we can't move."
Cam thought hard about that, and then he thought hard about moving, about sitting up, or even just rolling onto his side like Sam. But all that thinking definitely didn't lead to any actual movement. "So," he asked, after admitting temporary defeat, "how does it feel to be enjoying this so-called night in quiet contemplation of the joys of each other's company, now that we're officially married?"
The ceremony - innocuously billed as an affirmation of long-term friendship on a planet that hadn't yet been targeted by Ori missionaries - had been nice enough. Sam and Cam had been arranged closest to a local official, Jackson and Teal'c a few steps behind them. There'd been some intonations, and Sam and Cam had been instructed to turn towards each other and clasp hands.
This had, Cam will admit, made him feel just a little uncertain. But behind him, Daniel and Teal'c had been told to do the same, which had been both vaguely reassuring and vaguely worrying at the same time.
Sam had seemed unconcerned, so Cam had decided to just roll with it.
He rolled with the additional intonations, and the wrapping of a thick red sash around their wrists and clasped hands, and the too-sweet smoke of the candle that a kid held tightly as he walked around them three times, and then did the same for Jackson and Teal'c.
He'd answered, "Sure do," when the official had asked if they felt a deeper connection now, and he'd grinned when Sam had said, "Of course."
He'd nodded and smiled when the villagers had looked at them expectantly, and he'd said, "That sounds great," when the sash was removed, and they were told it was time for a feast.
Taking his cue from Sam - and Jackson and Teal'c - he'd eaten and drank what he'd been given at said feast, and exclaimed that it was great, which, to be fair, it mostly was.
And then, when his feet were starting to question whether they actually existed, he'd still rolled with it when the villagers had started to laugh a little. Just a few titters behind hands, at first, then a bit more openly, looking at each other while glancing at the team.
Finally, Cam had asked, "What's so funny?" because he'd always liked to be in on the joke. It was just neighbourly.
And that was when it had all come out. Probably not coincidentally, Cam's legs had decided around the same time that they definitely were taking a break from being legs for a good long time.
Luckily, he'd already been sitting down.
"Not bad, actually," Sam said. "We haven't had a lot of time to catch up lately. And it's not the worst off-world marriage I've ever had. At least the feast was good."
So, that's something that obviously hadn't ever made the mission reports. Because Cam had read all of them.
Closely.
Sometimes twice.
And marriage had never turned up, except for that one time for Colonel O'Neill.
"Also," Sam added, "this bed is pretty comfortable."
It was comfortable. It was thick. It was soft. It smelled nice. It felt like a little bit of luxury. But also, "Not your first off-world marriage?"
She winked at him. "Nope."
Her eyes seemed to lose focus for a minute, and maybe it was whatever they'd had to drink. But maybe not.
"Let's see. Colonel O'Neill and I got married twice. Me and Daniel once. Teal'c is my husband on four planets. Also, I have a wife named Ammara, though, you know, we haven't seen each other in years." She whispered conspiratorially, "It was more of a marriage in name than anything. It helped her with some messy inheritance issues. You know how it is sometimes."
"Oh yeah, for sure, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do," Cam responded in a way he hoped sounded thoughtful, and not like he was trying to keep his eyes from bugging out. "And anyway, interplanetary long distance relationships are hard to sustain, I guess."
Sam grinned. "Exactly." She paused for a moment. "There were also Jolinar's memories about her relationship with Lantash, and by extension, Martouf. I wasn't there, of course. But I remember things."
There was something about that grin that was maybe…a little dirty. It left Cam with all sorts of questions. And those questions led to other questions, like what exactly had gone on at all those other wedding nights. And these were all questions he definitely wouldn't ask, ever, because he valued his own life. Still, he had to say something. "Well. That's quite the harem you've got there, Carter."
Her grin widened. "Yep."
And that was when it hit him. "You knew today was a wedding."
She didn't miss a beat answering. "I did."
He should have known. "Teal'c and Jackson knew too, right?"
"Oh, they did."
"This wasn't an accidental wedding at all, was it?"
"Well," she said, "it was accidental in the sense that we didn't quite realize we'd arrive during the wedding season, or that these people enjoy any good excuse for a feast."
He closed his eyes, wishing he could scrub at his face. "And none of you told me, and now you've added one more husband to your harem."
"Guess so." She sounded relentlessly cheerful about it. No one should sound that cheerful when they couldn't move much. No one.
"This is another haze the new guy thing, isn't it?" Because he wasn't new-new. But he was still new, in the scheme of things. And SG-1 clearly liked to have its fun, sometimes.
"Oh, it definitely is."
Though he wouldn't admit it, even under Ori torture, there'd been a time when Cam had entertained, more than once, the thought of hooking up and getting hitched to Sam Carter, or, at the very least, someone just like her. Smart, strong, more than competent. Someone who had the attention of a room without even trying, because they're so damn good at what they do. Someone who moved with confidence, in uniform and out.
Maybe he thought about it a little too often, back in his academy days, and maybe those memories had resurfaced, just a little bit, when he'd learned about Stargate Command and who, exactly, was central to it.
But Cam had had a good part of a lifetime's experience at pushing those kinds of thoughts to the side. It was something you learned real fast when surrounded by a whole lot of competence and a whole lot of people who looked great in uniform (and out).
The thing about a surprise wedding, a lengthy feast, and consuming something that made your body forget itself for a while, was that it was all pretty exhausting. Add a soft bed and reassuring company on a quiet planet? It was cozy as hell, and hard not to want to sleep.
"Think I might doze off here soon," he said.
Sam maybe nodded, just slightly. Which didn't seem entirely fair. And then her face twisted up in concentration, a look Cam had become pretty familiar with, and in a move that had to be even harder than it looked, she managed scooch closer and lurch her arm up and over so it fell around Cam's waist.
It was impressive. Just like pretty much everything Sam did.
"I'm almost there too," she said, after a moment. "Sleep well, husband. You can bring me breakfast in the morning."
He grinned back at her. So that was how this marriage was going to be, huh?
He was half-asleep, warm and comfortable, when he thought oh shit. "Hey. Carter. Hey."
"Mmmh?"
"If Vala had come on this mission, would we have ended up in some kind of three-way marriage over here?"
"Mmmm. Probably." She looked – and sounded – all kinds of serene about that.
Well, damn. That would have been one hell of a situation, though it maybe would have been more than a little hilarious if Vala had ended up married to both Jackson and Teal'c.
"But," Sam added sleepily, still serene as hell, "it's not like it'd be the first group marriage I've been part of."
And yeah. Cam should have known that too.
End