Author: Jojo
Summary: Teeny weeny episode insert for Heroes Part 1.
Rating: PG
A/N: Thanks to Karen for instabeta!
As always, feedback is much appreciated.
The elevator broke down between levels twenty-two and twenty-three again and both occupants sighed.
"You know, if it keeps doing this, *I'll* try to fix it," Sam muttered, picking up the emergency phone and cradling it between her head and shoulder. How many times had it been, now? Three? Four? God, imagine if the documentary team got stuck in here – how bad would that look? The most secret military base on the planet and they couldn't keep the elevators working.
The phone was picked up at the other end and Sam smiled. "Hi, Steve? It's Major Carter... Yeah. Twenty-two and twenty-three. Again... Fifteen minutes?" She nearly groaned as Steve rambled on about the various broken down elevators in the mountain. "All right. Thanks." For nothing.
Colonel O'Neill was staring at his cuticles intently. "There better be cake in the mess after all this," he said.
She lifted her eyebrows and leaned against the elevator walls, thoughtfully. "Carrot cake," she decided, suddenly. They had been talking about it earlier; it wasn't entirely a non sequitor.
"I don't like the frosting they do on the carrot cake here," the Colonel complained, wiggling his un-inspected hand dismissively before raising it to play with his newly cut hair. "You know, with the little bits of... brown stuff on top."
She wondered if he'd got his hair cut for the camera, even though he refused to participate. "I think that's just cinnamon."
"No – I *like* cinnamon."
Sam made a face. "Okay, I don't know what it is, then."
"I don't particularly like the taste of the sponge, either."
She nearly snorted and mentally added 'carrot cake' to his list of dislikes. "So what you're essentially saying is that you don't like carrot cake... anywhere."
He dropped his hands down and smiled wryly. "That might potentially be what I'm saying, yes. So I'll have my usual. As usual." He looked down onto the floor briefly, assessing it for potential, and then slowly began to slide down so he was seated in the corner of the elevator.
Colonel O'Neill smiled at her encouragingly.
Sighing, Sam put her back to the wall and slid down too, wiggling until her butt was against the wall and her back was straight. She eyed her boots and decided that maybe now was a good time to bring up that topic she'd been mulling over for the past couple of hours. "You know," she said conversationally, and she was very impressed with how casual she sounded, "he asked me about you."
"Who did?" The Colonel arranged his feet so they were aligned with hers. Then he wiggled his toes up and down.
His boots were shinier than hers. How did he do that? "Brigman."
Colonel O'Neill didn't seem particularly interested – or at least he hadn't yet got the connotations of what she was saying. Though, she never really knew with him. For all she knew, he could have already heard from one of the camera men. "Did he try to convince you to get me to talk to him?"
She licked her lips and took a deep breath. It would probably be a good idea to just jump in at the deep end. Naked. "No. He just wanted to know if we were ... together." With great enjoyment, Sam watched as Colonel O'Neill turned puce. Something wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. She got such a kick out of shocking him which, after seven years, was pretty damn hard to do.
"What... the hell?" he managed, eventually.
"It wasn't as bad as all that." Wow, she was nearly gleeful, for goodness sake. What was up with that? "He was just asking leading questions."
"Jesus, Carter, what did you say? I mean, obviously you told him where he could stick his questions," the Colonel continued, hurriedly, "but exactly *how* did you phrase it?"
"I didn't. I babbled. Incessantly." She nodded acceptingly. "Apparently I get nervous in front of a camera." Yeah – nerves. That was *entirely* the reason. Nothing else.
"Oh."
"I'm just saying this so that, you know, when you see the footage you'll understand..."
"... the babbling?" he finished.
Relieved, she nodded. "Yeah."
"Okay, sure." He paused and regarded the tops of his knees. "No doubt I'll have to sit through several hours of you in explaining mode before I get to this part, right?"
"No doubt."
"Damn. Well, at least I have a reason to watch the documentary now. I was going to boycott it altogether."
Sam blinked. Her plan had backfired, somewhat. All she'd wanted was to downplay her interview footage where she had become increasingly flustered and, in Sam's mind, so *obvious* that the entire room would know about her, er, slight... ongoing... crush... yes, let's go with crush... on her CO. And now it turned out he wasn't even going to watch. "You weren't?"
"No." He smirked knowingly. "But now I'll be in the front row. With popcorn." He winked.
Oh, he had so totally known all along. Crap.