Sam tinkers in her lab to the soothing background music of Jack and Daniel squabbling with each other. Teal'c is there, too, but his contributions to the conversation are mostly eyebrow lifts and head tilts, which Sam mentally fills in without actually needing to see them.
This time, they're arguing about professional hockey. Jack extols the sport lovingly and thoroughly, leaving no detail unspoken; Daniel is at his most waspish, with that faux sweet innocence that no one who really knows him can take at face value. Jack gets Daniel to admit that he enjoyed their team outing last year, when they watched the Avalanche beat the Red Wings. Daniel manages to sidetrack Jack onto an anthropological tangent that includes terms like "blood sacrifice" and nearly drives Jack to sputtering incoherence. Teal'c contributes the occasional "indeed," using that dry inflection that pointedly tells them he's laughing at them without ever cracking a smile.
Both men try to drag her into the bickering to take their side, but Sam easily diverts them with a few hmms? and uh-huhs. She knows that neither of them is really invested in the argument; they just enjoy the verbal sparring. It's more fun to watch from the popcorn gallery, anyway -- especially when Teal'c provides the popcorn, as he did on three memorable occasions.
Sam doesn't think she'll ever admit it to Jack, but she actually likes hockey quite a lot. Of course, her reasons for enjoying the sport are different from his. Both of them appreciate grace and skill and speed on ice, but Sam most admires the rapid calculation of angle and vector, the hiss of the puck as it flashes across the rink to take advantage of a gap that wasn't there seconds before. There's a kind of rueful recognition, too, that the players out on the ice don't perform mathematical computations in their heads, as she would in their place; they've simply developed an instinct over years of practice at honing their skills, until they do mental geometry on the move without even realizing it.
Of course, there's one real drawback to professional hockey that doesn't seem to bother Jack at all, and that's that they can't actually take part in the game. They can only watch the players down on the rink, and where's the fun in that?
There's a sudden scuffling, and Sam glances up to absently note that Jack has Daniel pinned in a headlock. Ah -- Jack lost the argument, then.
She ignores Daniel's squawk of protest and turns back to her work, tweaking one last formula before letting the computer analysis begin. Satisfied, she turns towards her friends in time to see Teal'c step forward and rescue Daniel with a single deft move that leaves Jack yelping.
"All right, T! Ow!"
Daniel brushes off his BDUs and gives a little huff of indignation. "And don't think I'm going to watch any hockey tonight, either!"
"I wasn't going to watch hockey tonight," Jack says a little sulkily, trying to maintain his dignity even as he surreptitiously massages life back into his right wrist. "I was going to watch curling."
Daniel rolls his eyes and looks ready for a new round of the Jack and Daniel Show, but Sam interrupts and suggests, "How about a night out instead, sir? O'Malley's, maybe?"
"That would be most enjoyable, Major Carter," Teal'c says immediately, and his eyes meet hers with amused understanding.
"Steak, huh?" Jack stops rubbing his wrist and considers. "Yeah, that sounds good. So long as Daniel here doesn't drink more than one beer and get pie-eyed before we --"
Sam forestalls Daniel's indignant protest by taking his arm and steering him toward the door. "This analysis is going to run all night," she tells him, "so I'm ready to go now. Meet you by the elevators in fifteen?"
They part to change back into civvies before leaving the mountain, and as Sam pulls her leather jacket out of her locker and shrugs into it, she can't help but smile in anticipation of the upcoming evening.
Hockey is spectator sport -- enjoyable, yes, but so limiting.
But a night at O'Malleys, with good food and good friends... and a good pool table where she can cream the opposition? That's what Sam calls fun!
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by Fig NewtonKapitel Bemerkung:
Birthday fic for Katie M., who asked for Sam and hockey.
Hockey has its good points, but Sam has her own preferences. Teamy goodness with an added dash of Jack and Daniel silliness and Teal'c pwnage. No spoilers, any season.
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