Pass the Ammunition
by devra
Daniel stretched. The majority of the time he preferred first watch, because staying awake an extra few hours was a hell of a lot easier than going to sleep and *then* having to get up. But tonight he was tired and longed to change places with Sam, who'd managed to win the coveted, last watch position.
More for the need to do something to keep himself alert than to protect his team from non-existent enemies on this planet, he walked the perimeter yet again. To quote Jack, PR5892 was boring with a capital "B" and for once, hands down, Daniel had to agree. What he'd thought to be artifacts were just rocks, the humidity was high enough to make you feel like you'd showered even when you hadn't, the insects got into every crevice and article of clothing, and fourteen hundred hours tomorrow couldn't arrive soon enough. Home. Shower. Cold, frigid, snowy Colorado sounded like heaven right at this moment.
Sam had been ecstatic over the abundance of exotic plant life, the richness of the soil and for once he knew how Jack must feel, so he nodded his head at the appropriate times as she babbled on and on. Upon arrival, they had set up camp, then Teal'c and Jack had gone off to check out the lake, while he and Sam skirted along the tree line, their backpacks already filling with the samples they had collected.
He stopped walking. He could feel the sneeze building in intensity and when it erupted, it hurt. There weren't enough antihistamines in his backpack to counteract the flora on this planet. It was too soon for more drugs, so he'd just wait it out, his mental grousing and complaining keeping him company.
"Bless you."
Daniel jumped, his weapon at the ready and it took a moment for his brain to catch up with the familiar voice. "Sam?" He sniffed, then attempted to blink away the burning in his eyes.
"Yeah, it's me." She picked up the coffee pot, shook it, even held it as if debating whether to pour herself a mug, then put it back over the fire with a deep sigh.
"Are you okay?" Stupid, obviously she wasn't *okay* because *okay* teammates didn't get out of bed hours before their own watch was about to start.
Her *fine* was terse, with more than a passing hint of annoyance and Daniel had enough Ph.D.'s under his belt to know when to shut up, even though Jack would adamantly disagree. He lowered himself back onto the log and watched her pace in front of the fire. He sneezed again.
Sam rooted around in her pocket and produced a tissue. "Allergies?"
His nose blowing was loud in the relative quiet of the jungle. "Yup."
"Did you *take* anything for it?"
"Yes, *mother*, I did."
"You don't have to get all pissy on me, I was just asking."
"You weren't asking, you were—"
"Daniel! Carter!" Jack shouted from his tent on the other side of camp. "Don't take this the wrong way, but *please*, I'm begging you, *shut up!*"
"Sorry, Jack."
"Goodnight, sir." Sam walked a few feet in the direction of her tent, hesitated, then changed her mind and returned to sit next to Daniel. "Sorry."
"No need to apologize to me," Daniel said, giving a friendly nudge to her shoulder, "though in the morning a bit of groveling before Jack might be a good idea."
Sam placed her hands on the small of her back, rubbed, then arched forward.
He'd been around Sam long enough to know the symptoms. Hell, even this morning Jack had winked at him while they were kitting up about "Carter's time of the month," and for show, he withdrew a snack pack of Pringles and waved it under Daniel's nose. "For protection," he had chuckled. "Sara always craved salt." Daniel had been smarter than Jack and had packed two tubes of M & M mini's, that way if Sam didn't want them, he could always eat them.
Daniel stood, reached into the depths of one of his pockets and produced the candy for Sam, shaking it. "Want?"
Baby bird like, Sam snatched it from his hands. "Have I told you today that I love you?" She popped the top and poured some of the little mini's into her hand. Daniel laughed when she didn't even offer him any. Like any other anal, military woman with her period, she picked out all the red ones first. He left her enjoying the chocolates and walked the perimeter again in an attempt to force clarity into the allergy-induced muck and mire that was his brain.
Sam was working her way through the greens when he returned to the log, and he got an indignant "hey" and a playful slap to the back of his hand when he tried to abscond with a piece.
"Treat me like that, and I'm not going to give you any more."
"There's more?" Sam popped the rest of the mini's in her palm into her mouth.
"You are *so* easy, Major Carter," he chuckled as he tossed over the second tube. "All a system lord would have to do would be to deny you chocolate when it's your time of the month and you'll give him anything he wants to know, gate addresses, Earth's secrets—"
"Time of the month?" She poked him. "How old are you? I have my period. I'm menstruating. Come on, you're a linguist, you can say it… m – e – n…"
Maybe Jack was wrong, damn it, Daniel realized, maybe *he* was wrong. Neither chocolate nor salt was going to save them, though a zat would. One shot, that's all it would take.
"Are you listening to me?"
"No," Daniel answered honestly, laughing.
"So you're *laughing* at me."
"No." He sneezed again then accepted the tissue Sam waved in front of his face. "Thanks." He pushed his glasses up to the top of his head, wiped at his tearing eyes then blew his nose. "I was remembering Abydos."
"My having my period reminds you of Abydos?" Sam's hand flew to Daniel's forehead. "Okay, you have no fever." She swiped her hands on her BDU's. "Sweaty but cool."
"No, you and your period remind me of Sha're."
"Oh," was Sam's soft reply. "I'm sorry."
"I wish people would stop doing that." Daniel picked up a pebble and tossed it into the fire. "Stop being sorry and uncomfortable when I talk about her." Daniel shot down whatever Sam was going to say with a scathing look. "Please don't apologize now because—"
"I wasn't," Sam huffed. "I was going to offer you some M & M's."
"Thanks." Daniel picked out a rainbow assortment.
"How hard is it for women on Abydos?"
"Sha're bucked her father every step of the way. Oh, don't get me wrong, she did what every woman was *supposed* to do, but she griped and complained the whole time. At least that's what Kasuf told me."
"She didn't complain to you?"
"No," Daniel replied hesitantly.
"Why do I sense there's something you're not telling me?"
"Sha're didn't need to complain. When something bothered her, she made sure to let me know. Hell, most of my Abydonian curse words, I learned from my wife."
"I wish I could have gotten to know her."
"Me, too." He began to dig the heel of his boot into a crevice in the soft earth. "You know that about six weeks after we were married, Kasuf took me out, got me drunk and thanked me for taking his daughter off his hands. *Then* he told he was sorry. He actually was amazed that I survived being with her during her hesmen."
"Hesmen?"
"Period."
"Ahhh. She wasn't that bad, was she?"
Daniel's laughter earned another "shut up" from the direction of the colonel's tent. "She *was* horrible. There was a month or two, I seem to recall, where I slept outside under the stars for my own safety."
"Even I'm not that bad."
"No comment," Daniel said, bending away from Sam's swipe. "But she didn't have the modern comforts of home. Picture no heating pads, no pain meds, no tampons, no birth control pills to control the cramps…" He blinked at Sam's wide eyed amazement of his knowledge of female physiology. "Sarah. Remember her?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Horrific cramps. Birth control. Give me credit, where credit is due, Sam. I listen. I learn. I wasn't born yesterday."
"Forgive me."
"You're forgiven. And Sha're, the poor woman, never knew chocolate. Where I could appease Sarah, and obviously you, with perfectly timed chocolate, there was none for Sha're so I had to learn other ways to make her happy."
"Do I want to hear this?"
Daniel rolled his eyes heavenward, stood and went over to the fire, warming his hands over the flames.
"It's one hundred and ten degrees, Daniel, are you nuts?"
"Stand up, Sam," he said softly, then waited until she capped the tube of candies and stuck it in her pocket before he sat on the log behind her, reached and maneuvered her so she was standing up, straddling his outstretched legs.
"Trust me." He raised her teeshirt and pressed his warm palms against the small of her back and applied pressure.
At first Sam stiffened at his touch, but then relaxed against his hands. "Oh! Nice." Daniel applied more pressure, pressing firmly into her skin with the heels of palms. "Very nice. God, Sha're was one damn lucky woman."
Sam squirmed and Daniel prodded her forwarded. "Hey."
"Just gonna warm my hands again," he said, sneezing as he stood.
The planet was nothing like Abydos, the woman accepting his ministrations wasn't Sha're and Daniel could barely breathe due to his allergies, but tonight, finally after all these years, he was able to look backwards without pain tightening his chest. It was a comforting feeling.
Daniel was kneeling between Sam's spread legs, massaging her thighs with his hands, when Jack surprised them.
"I hope the coffee is fresh, at least."
"Sir." Sam stood so abruptly that Daniel lost his balance and landed ass first onto the moist, damp ground.
"Carter. Daniel." Jack wagged a finger between the two of them. "Something I should know about?"
Daniel wiped his hands on his pants, turned his head, sneezed, then accepted Sam's helping hand. "Nope. Actually, I was just showing Sam—"
"Eh!" Jack made a slicing motion across this throat. "TMI, Daniel."
"It wasn't like that at all, Colonel," Sam replied indignantly.
"I gave her *chocolate*," Daniel said, turning wide eyes and raised eyebrows towards Jack, accompanied by a slight tilt of his head.
"Okay. Gotcha." He gave Daniel a sympathetic nod. "I warned you it was that time of the month."
Sam sighed and shook her head. "There has to be some military regulation somewhere that deals with discussion of a teammate's period and PMS as a form of harassment."
"I'll bring that up at my next meeting with General Hammond."
"Colonel!"
"Kidding Carter, honest. Now shoo, you two. Carter, you have a few hours before watch and Daniel, please, take another antihistamine before you bed down for the night. Snoring, snuffling, you know how annoying that can be."
"As annoying as nosey colonels?" Sam smiled sweetly. "Goodnight, sir."
* * *
The antihistamines made him want to sleep, the humidity made sleep something unobtainable, so he was more than a tad grouchy when Jack finally entered their tent. "I'm not snoring."
"Obviously." Jack toed off his boots and took off his pants, then flopped down on top of his sleeping bag, his hand searching out Daniel's. "You're also not sleeping. Feel okay? Too much excitement with Carter?"
Daniel used the edge of his tee shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. "To answer your questions, yes and no."
"Carter okay?"
If Daniel lay perfectly still and focused only on Jack's thumb rubbing across his knuckles, he could almost shut out the fact that the tent was airless. "Sam's fine. Just trying to make her feel better."
"I saw."
"Jealous?"
"Who, me?"
"No one else in the tent besides you and ten thousand varieties of bugs."
"You never offer me chocolate and massages."
"You're jealous."
"Maybe because you can touch her and you—yeah, I'm jealous," Jack admitted. "I always manage to get cold hands and feet when I take you to bed."
"Cold," Daniel replied orgasmically. "I could do cold right about now." He concluded his statement with a sneeze.
* * *
"Hey, how're you feeling?"
Daniel looked up from his computer and smiled. Allergies had led to a cold, it happened sometimes, not often, but it happened. Didn't make it any easier to deal with, but at least he was home with snow, warm baths, hot coffee and Jack warming his bed, which was a hell of a lot better than sharing his sleeping bag with bugs on hot, humid planet where they couldn't touch each other.
"Awful. I feel lousy. But don't tell Jack or Janet, please." He held up his mug and flicked the little square at the end of the string. "See, I'm drinking tea." With his other hand he held up a glass of juice. "And here's my Vitamin C." He put them down, grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and blew his nose.
"Nice cold."
Daniel wadded up the tissue and shot it into the already overflowing waste basket.
Sam dragged a stool over to Daniel's work bench. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you sound sorta like…"
"Yeah. Jack made sure to tell me, right in the middle of a briefing."
"He really does have that embarrassing thing down pat, doesn't he?"
"To the letter," Daniel agreed.
"What you did for me, on that—"
"Don't mention it," Daniel said, ducking his head, studying his monitor.
"Thanks for treating it… treating me as an adult."
"I was a husband, I understand."
"And you were perfect." She patted his hand. "I know you were."
"Bribery will get you everywhere."
"Really? Then can I make a suggestion?"
"Sure."
"I'd like a little salt with my chocolate, so next time a few pretzels or chips would be greatly appreciated."
"Actually, Jack had…"
"The colonel did nothing but break my chops."
Daniel sighed. It was going to be every man for themselves. "Okay, but you know how you could make my life even easier? How about giving me a heads up so I know when to pack the additional supplies?"
"Oh, you'll know." Sam leaned over his work space, kissed him on the nose, then fluttered her eyelashes at him. "When you see me packing extra ammo, that'll be our signal, and you'll know to pack the necessary supplies."
"And if I don't?" Daniel gulped.
"That's what the extra ammo is for."
The End!
Author's Comments:
This fic was written in response to the AG FNF Challenge #95 That Time of the Month. Thanks to babs for the wonderful challenges, to the heartsisters who wear their cheerleading outfits very well and to jo who's patient, understanding and deserves the halo she wears so proudly--you are the bestest, though any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
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