A Dangerous Business, by Tarimanveri (PG)

[figs_sg1_rec]

Rec Category: Samantha Carter

Pairing: none
Categories: Samantha Carter, team, angst, character study
Warnings: mild Sam and Daniel whumping
Author on LJ: tarimanveri
Author's Website: unknown
Link: A Dangerous Business

Why This Must Be Read: A Dangerous Business is one of the many delightful fics that emerged from the wildly successful ficathon of samcarterfic a few months ago. I have a special fondness for early SG-1, and this story – set some time after their first mission – is about as "early" as you can get.

Here we have Captain Carter with a queen-sized chip on her shoulder, wary of her CO and determined not to show any kind of weakness whatsoever. So when weakness does appear, Sam is frantic to hide it – until she discovers that not only is that impossible, but also wholly unnecessary. Maybe Colonel O'Neill is a better officer than she realized, a man she can truly learn to respect and follow…?

Tarimanveri does a good job of drawing us into the crisis without realizing exactly what's happening. And it's interesting to see the stark differences between civilian-Daniel and military-Sam – one willing to admit to weakness, one afraid to admit to anything, and the slow understanding that maybe, just maybe, she's found a group of people where she doesn't have to be afraid at all.

She was on another planet. And she’d left her stove on.

Oh, God.

As her mind cast about wildly for some hopeful shred of memory to prove her growing certainty wrong, her gaze fell, and stuck upon, Colonel O’Neill, walking point a few yards to her right, gun raised, concentration fierce, demeanor unruffled. Oh, God. The memory of their rancorous first meeting still echoed in her head whenever she thought about it too hard and whenever… well, now. To think she had actually comforted herself afterwards that there was nothing worse she could do. Scratch that. She’d just discovered whole new depths to plumb.

Not that she was going to plumb them.

Would the insurance cover it if you knew it was going to happen but didn’t do anything about it? Would it still cover it if you couldn’t say why you didn’t do anything about it? Were there clauses for off-world travel and inscrutable CO’s who would do anything for their men if only you could figure out how to make them think of you as one of them?

Sam gave herself a mental shake and tried to think. She’d been on base for both breakfast and lunch. The oatmeal and sandwich were still sitting solidly in her stomach. If she’d left a burner on, it would have to have been overnight and she’d have noticed in the morning. But no, somehow she must have – maybe she’d been thinking of making tea. She could see herself turning the dial to maximum; she could see the red glow of the element.

She was starting to feel sick thinking about it. She was starting to feel sick, which was only too reminiscent of her first trip through the ‘Gate and how cocky she’d been and then how awful she’d felt and how satisfied the smirks of the rest of the Colonel’s team had been.

Actually, she was approaching how awful she’d felt that time. At this rate, she was going to be sitting on the ground and groaning – again – in no time, and the Colonel would remember the last time, which hadn’t really been that long ago, and he’d start to question, if he wasn’t already, her worth as an officer in the field…

It hadn’t quite come to that, but it was getting close. Her gauzy kitchen curtains were probably drifting above the range now, starting to char delicately around the edges as they came in contact with the red-hot burners, and bursting into flames. Then, her cabinets, her walls, her wooden framed house, all because she was too absent-minded to check these things before she left. Leaving her stove on… the Colonel wasn’t the only person who was maybe starting to doubt her worth as a field officer.

Image after image of destruction and disgrace passed before her eyes. Her stomach gurgled menacingly. In her preoccupation, she stumbled. Then the worst happened. The Colonel noticed. He paused. He turned his disconcertingly intense gaze on her. Their eyes met. He noticed.