Isn't that often the way? You start telling people about what you've been up to, how you got to where you are now, and all they want from you is more of the same? For the past two years, even when I'm at home, alone, I still feel like I'm connected, a part of something bigger. This was something I'd been looking for a while now, even though I hadn't know it at the time. It's not the kind of thing you talk about, after all. Though I have a family, the relationships between us were often strained - my father was first and foremost General Carter, someone for whom emotions were something you pushed to one side, so you didn't have to deal with them. When he became ill, it was a shock to see him looking so helpless. I didn't take this job looking for another family. My own experiences had led me to be independent, to look for solutions within myself, not rely on other people to solve things for me. In some ways, that's a good thing for an officer, but not so good if you're part of a team. And now I am, part of something that means more to me than I could ever have imagined. No, what I was looking for when I first came to the SGC was answers. Answers to a puzzle I'd been working on for years, which another scientist had apparently solved, but in such a way that there was no point in following on with his work. But I'm digressing - you wanted to know more about the SGC, right? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, it's difficult to know where to start, so maybe we should begin at the top. General George Hammond. My father's friend. The man who made it possible for me to be involved in the Stargate project when I never thought it could happen. The man who made Colonel O'Neill take me along, despite the colonel's well-documented 'little problem with scientists'. He's everything you always imagine a general to be - blunt, he speaks his mind, secure in the knowledge that he is in charge. That's how he tolerates the colonel so well, I suppose. Recent events have answered the question I'd always had about him and the way he looked at me whenever we met. We'd see each other occasionally, at my dad's house, or at military functions my dad dragged his scientist daughter along to. Whatever the setting, the general always smiled at me like we knew each other well, like he was privy to a secret about me he didn't want to share. Now I know it's because we'd met before, a long time ago, and when he saw me hanging around with all these military types, what he was doing was remembering, looking back to his days as a lieutenant in the 1960's.... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Who else? Janet. Dr. Fraiser, if you're being formal. We've got to know each other well over the past two years, as one or other of the team spends their time in the infirmary, but there were a couple of things that really brought us together as friends.... First that whole business with Hathor. Now there's a time I won't forget in a hurry. It kind of wiped the slate clean of all the gibes I'd had to put up with since I joined the military - nobody who was there in the SGC while all that was going on will be joking about women in uniform for a long time. We saved their butts, saved the whole planet - not that we can tell anyone, but I can live with that. There they were, these men, usually so in control - one whiff of Hathor's pheromones had them dancing attendance on her, doing whatever she wanted. I don't even want to start thinking what she did to Daniel, it makes me so mad remembering the state he was in. Locked up together with Janet and the others, despite how desperate it all looked at the time, somehow I knew we'd be able to stop her. I couldn't have told you how, I just knew. Not that it was too much fun along the way - I know Janet just kept brushing her teeth that night, after kissing that airman. Bet he was sheepish next time his annual exam rolled around, and he saw Janet snapping on her latex gloves! My heart almost stopped when I saw the colonel like that - lying there, after Hathor had turned him into her first Jaffa, his face twisted with pain. Good thing that sarcophagus of hers worked as well as it did - at the time I was annoyed that it got destroyed soon after (and I know Janet was, too), but when I saw later what one of those things did to Daniel, when he used it too much, I changed my mind. The other thing that made me see Janet in a different light? No, I hadn't forgotten there was more.... It was Cassandra. Seeing how she's looked after Cassie all this time, and I've been there for both of them as much as I can be, has made me appreciate her a whole lot more. Here Janet took on a ready-made family, despite her own obligations to the SGC, and she's thrown herself into being mother and father to Cassie 100%, like everything else she does. Janet almost makes you feel okay about being shot, or blasted, or crushed, or whatever else tends to happen out there - you know, when you get back, that she'll never give up on you, that she'll fight for you with everything she's got. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Being here at the SGC is no different in many ways from the numerous air force bases where I grew up. You get used to the hours, the fact that there's always someone around, that it's never really quiet, even in the middle of the night. That's what is different here - you're never really sure, when you're in the complex, whether it's day or night.... Chances are, though, one or more of SG1 will be about. Teal'c, well, he doesn't have a choice - he lives here. But we all do our best to include him in stuff we do outside; he spends a lot of time with Jack and Daniel, and we spend time together, in all sorts of combinations. That always surprises people who haven't been in a team like this, I suppose. The idea that we go through all this stuff together and socialise together too! Not always, it's not like we're joined at the hip or anything, but I do spend a lot of my free time with one or more of SG1, now I come to think about it. I guess the colonel and Daniel probably spend the most time together - at one point, when Daniel first came back from Abydos, he even stayed with the colonel for a while. And they were still talking when Daniel moved into a place of his own a couple of months later.... To people who don't know them, I guess they make a strange pair, and at first it's hard to imagine what they could have in common. To hear the colonel grouse sometimes, you'd think he can't imagine what it is either. But they are close. Everything that happened on Abydos the first time round saw to that, and somehow the stresses and strains that our missions have put on that friendship seem just to have made them closer. Not to mention the fact that we've lost Daniel, or thought we'd lost him, more times than I care to think about. The colonel might fool some people, when he starts snapping, but I saw the look in his eyes at Daniel's memorial service. Am I jealous of that relationship? Well, yes, just a little. Daniel and I are close, like brother and sister, but when he's got a problem, it tends to be the colonel that he goes to first. And that's how it should be - after all, friendships are based on shared experiences, right? And that tips the balance in the colonel's favour. So, if you should venture down to Daniel's office late one night, when you know he's there poring over some manuscript or artifact, don't be surprised if you find other people there with him. It could be Teal'c, looking for an explanation of some phrase that he overheard and is taking way too literally. Or the colonel, those nights when he can't sleep, there to tap into Daniel's constant supply of coffee. Or me, just trying to catch up with Daniel's latest wild theory. You'd think Daniel would moan, gripe that he can't concentrate, but, knowing Daniel, he's just glad of the company. ~fin~

Disclaimer : Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written for entertainment purposes only - no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story-line are the property of the author - not to be archived elsewhere without permission.