Author’s Note: Written for Amy (Dragonsinger) for Christmas 2005, using her genderswapped version of McKay, Rose. Inspired by “Grace Under Pressure,” “48 Hours,” and the question, so who would be Rose’s big crush at the SGC? This was my answer. 😉
Sam did not need this right now. With Teal’c trapped in the Stargate’s pattern buffer, Daniel in Russia trying to get them a DHD to fix the problem, and Colonel O’Neill moping around like he’d just lost his best friend–an implication that he resented in spite of himself–the last thing he needed was some hot-headed feminist with a stick up her ass from Area 51. One who had absolutely no practical experience and was, despite her protestations, not helping in the slightest.
Reaching for a parfait glass of blue jello, Sam did his best not to give into the temptation to snap McKay’s head off–a rather remarkable testament to just how aggravating the woman was, considering she was exactly the sort of tall, leggy brunette he normally found attractive.
“There’s no switch,” she was insisting now. “The crystals were wiped clean by an unstable vortex of a forming wormhole. You have any idea how much excess energy one of those blasts gives off?”
He shut the door of the desert case a little harder than necessary. “As a matter of fact, I do. Now what we need to do is find a way to establish an event horizon without the vortex.”
Rose–clearly her parents had been thinking of a particularly thorny variety when they named her–shook her head. “It’s impossible. Which you would realize if you could just see past your fragile male ego.”
I’m not the one with the ego problem here, Sam narrowly stopped himself from saying. “I’ve seen it done before,” he stated instead, thinking of the strange hand device the older Cassandra had been wearing when she sent them home from…whatever year it was they’d overshot to on their return from 1969.
“By magical fairy beings, no doubt,” was the snide response. McKay then turned her critical stare on the poor airman who’d pulled KP today. “Is there lemon on the chicken?”
Said server gave her the same dumbfounded look that Carter had been reining in ever since they’d met. “It’s lemon chicken.”
“So it is,” she sighed in a lofty tone of persecution. “I’m mortally allergic to citrus: one drop of lemon and I could die. I’ll have whatever that is.” She pointed to a square tin of some unidentifiable gloop before turning back to Sam. “I have to be very careful.”
Sam made a mental note to stock up on lemons, just in case. Oranges and grapefruit too, maybe even a few pomelos.
As they reached the table and sat down, McKay picked back up the conversation, picking at her food in a manner that was the first dainty thing he’d seen her do. “So, what would this fictional event horizon be connected to?”
Sam was still fascinated by her imitation of a magpie. “Hungry?”
“Starving,” she quipped back cheerfully. “Let me tell you, it’s not easy balancing societal pressures to be thin–not that you would know anything about that–against the possibility of a hypoglycemic reaction. Though it helps that this is even worse than it looks, and fortunately I have excellent metabolism.”
Which was, no doubt, why she was eating like a woman with no metabolism. Shaking his head, Sam forced himself to answer her question. “The event horizon is what dematerializes you and sends you into the wormhole. Now maybe we don’t need to connect to a wormhole to form an event horizon.”
“Somehow, someday, somewhere,” was the breezy reply. “Perhaps down the street from where Tony and Maria are living happily ever after.”
At his blank stare, she sighed. “Right. Because having a working knowledge of classic Broadway musicals would be a terrible blow to your masculinity.”
Count to ten. Breathe. “Look, all we need to do is get the rematerialization process to work.”
“Major, even if you managed to create a viable event horizon without connecting a wormhole, you’d never get the wormhole to reintegrate Teal’c.”
“Why not?” he challenged.
“The crystals that retain the energy pattern before reintegration, they’re not like magnetic hard drives,” she pointed out unnecessarily.
“I know. That’s why we call them crystals, because they’re crystals.”
“You can’t just ignore the laws of thermodynamics. Entropy dictates that the crystals won’t retain their energy patterns permanently. I’ve measured it. It’s what we call quantitative evidence.”
Sam was fuming now. More than McKay’s arrogance, it was her casual dismissal of Teal’c that really burned him. “Believe it or not, I am familiar with the concept. I just think the energy itself is unimportant past its initial imprint on the crystals.”
“And this fantasy is based on?” Rose raised one skeptical eyebrow and planted her chin in her hands, her mouth pulled into a scornful smile.
It was getting harder and harder not to stuff his own plate of lemon chicken down her throat. “I suspect the Gate is storing its ones and zeros on the subatomic level within the structure of the crystals. So even though the energy is dissipating, the most recent pattern still exists.”
“You suspect.”
“We are dealing with a level of quantum physics here that is way beyond us, Princess,” Sam reminded her.
McKay shook her head. “More than a third of the energy pattern the Gate requires to reintegrate Teal’c is already gone.”
“I don’t think so–”
Rose waved her fork at him. “You’re guessing wildly, like you always do. In fact, if our positions were reversed, most of your ideas would be dismissed out of hand as flights of feminine fancy. Fortunately for you, you’re a man, so people listen to you even when you’ve completely departed from both logic and common sense. Maybe you could find a way to fool the Gate into reintegrating whatever it has stored in memory. But I say you won’t like what comes out.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see, won’t we?” Sam leaned forward across the table, a challenge in his eyes. “And while we’re at it, why don’t you take a feminine flight of fancy of your own and think about someone else for a change? Seeing as how you’re supposed to be the more emotional, sentimental gender and all.”
“Major, Teal’c is dead. And this argument is a waste of time because the Pentagon is going to order Hammond to resume operations in…” she glanced at her watch. “…sixteen hours anyway.”
A sudden, cold realization settled into the pit of his stomach. Dear God–the woman really didn’t have any human feelings. “That’s how they came up with the 48 hour deadline, isn’t it? You told them Teal’c would already be dead.”
She met his eyes evenly, not even bothering to deny it. “That’s why it’s called a deadline.”
“My God…” He shook his head in amazement and stood to leave, taking his tray with him. Knowing that she had not only written off Teal’c herself, but was responsible for the higher-ups doing so as well…he wasn’t sure he could stand to be in the same room with her any longer. “You really are a bitch. And for the record, you’re the first woman I’ve ever said that to who wasn’t a Goa’uld.”
Rose shrugged and let out an exaggerated sigh as she leaned one cheek on her hand. “I wish I didn’t find you so attractive. I’ve always had a thing for dumb jocks.”
Dumb jocks? Sam sputtered. “Well, thank you so much for making me feel like a slab of meat.”
McKay just smirked at him. “Not used to being on the receiving end, Major?”
“Hey…” the Major strode back over to the table, setting down his tray and placing one hand firmly on either side of it. “I may have had my fair share of casual relationships, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you don’t get far with someone by insulting them. And that…” he pointed one finger straight at her chest. “…applies to either sex. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I’m going to go find a way to do the impossible and rescue my friend.”
“And I’ll–”
“You–” He offered her a sickly sweet fake smile. “–can go suck a lemon.”
As he stormed out, Rose stared after him with an unreadable look, then glanced down at her tray and pushed it away. It was just as well. She’d learned a long time ago not to let her emotions interfere with her work. Not if she wanted to play with the big boys.
Emotion was for artists. Pianists. People with parents who didn’t hate them for being the first of two daughters instead of a son. For a female scientist in a predominantly male field, there was no room for error and getting attached led to nothing but, as Sam Carter’s stubborn insistence on trying to save his friend only proved.
Besides–better to drive the good-looking major away now than wait until she woke up alone the morning after with a broken heart. It was better this way.
So why did she feel like she might have just lost something infinitely precious?