Impossible Yet Useful Numbers, by Tallulah Rasa (G)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Gen

Pairing: None
Category: Gen, Samantha Carter, team, character study
Warning: none
Author on LJ: unknown
Author's Website: To Explore the Universe and Eat Pie
Link: Impossible Yet Useful Numbers


Why This Must Be Read: It's simply not possible to ignore Tallulah Rasa when reccing in the gen category. Unlike most of her wonderful fics, this story doesn't center on Jack or Daniel, but rather on Sam and her disquiet with the irrationality of the universe. Perfect Sam musings. What more could you want?

Set against the backdrop of a rather unusual mission, Sam tries to reconcile her scientific, logical training with the actions of her teammates, particularly Daniel's impulses and Jack's willingness to trust them. She goes from one member of the team to the next, attempting to understand something that she's never quite been able to comprehend: irrationality, and how it fits in her life.

Tallulah Rasa offers us a beautiful glimpse of Sam, presented with her usual impeccable writing style. There's gentle humor, and lovely characterization, and, despite the junk e-mail, a covert mission to the commissary to get pie. And isn't that enough?

The mission hadn't gone well from the beginning.  The planet was dry and barren, the naquadah deposit disappointingly shallow.  Halfway through their recon a mob of Teal'c-sized lizard-frogs had come out of nowhere, hissing threateningly.  The Colonel had raised his P-90, and she and Teal'c had followed suit, but Daniel had yelled at them to stop.  After a long moment, the Colonel had lowered his gun.  By then Daniel had already moved out, wriggling his nose and sticking out his tongue in imitation of the creatures  -- and hadn't she wished she'd had the camera for that. A few hours later they'd been eating a surprisingly good vegetable stew and listening to Daniel hiss at the Dukes of Frozzard, as the Colonel kept calling them.  As they began their hike back to the Stargate, she'd mentioned that the planet's natives were much more advanced than the UAV had indicated. 

"Not to mention," the Colonel had enthused, "they could keep the entire state of Minnesota free from flies and mosquitoes forever."

That had led to the current "cultural sensitivity" argument between the Colonel and Daniel.  And to yet another round in Sam's ongoing study of SG-1.

Team dynamics are perhaps the most challenging thing Sam's studied while at the SGC.  She knows why, after a fashion: after losing her mother, the idea of investing in relationships was too risky even for an adrenaline junky, and besides, her brother and father didn't offer the most fertile ground for experimentation.  But even without that, Sam always found her peers less interesting than her projects.   Friends were people who loaned her books or tools, who shared her lab or helped her rebuild an engine.  For a supportive, nurturing presence in her life, for a reflection of herself she understood and could live with – for that she turned to science, not people. 

It took the Stargate program to show Sam another side of friendship, and she knows she's explored it far more cautiously than she ever explored another planet.  There have been any number of late night coffee runs with Daniel, who she thought she could peg but who defies definition time and again, and much laughter with Janet, who seems to have unlocked the secret to being a scientist and a person, too.  There's Teal'c, who needs friends, but may be willing to sacrifice them in the name of a greater cause.  And then there's the Colonel, who shows nothing, but is nevertheless transparent to Daniel.  Together they create some sort of bond that’s practically molecular, but also, rationally, not possible.

They're laughing again, and then she hears the Colonel say, "Well, maybe. Maybe. But I still think you're wrong about the other thing."

She's seen a lot of impossible things in her time at the SGC, of course.  She knows her teammates trust in things they can't see.  Daniel talks of intuition, but for him leaps of faith are second nature.  Teal'c says there is truth beyond knowledge, but she thinks all Jaffa are trained to believe that.   The Colonel, with so many years in the military, speaks of experience and gut instinct.  They all seem to take this trust for granted; a small thing.  Yet in all her time in the lab, studying things magnified under a microscope or measured in tiny increments, she's never seen it.

Comments

Rec Format

[medie]

Nitpicky mod moment! *G*

Please, when you are posting your recs no matter what category you're reccing for, stick to the following format:


Rec Category: ie: Character Name, Genre Type, Pairing Names
Pairing: (no abbreviations please)
Category: ie: H/C, Daniel, Atlantis, etc
Warning: ie: Het, Slash, Character Death (This is a must!)
Author on LJ:
Author's Website:
Link:

Why This Must Be Read:


Even if you don't have anything to put in a particular field, please leave it there.

Thank you.

Re: Rec Format

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Erm. Sorry.

I always do a cut'n'paste for the initial part of the rec and somehow, the pairing bit got left off. And since it's gen, I didn't notice.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

Oh! Excellent rec! I had read this long ago and then lost track of it. I'm VERY glad you rec'ed it because I loved it. I love this version of Sam, running equations and numbers through her head yet ever vigilant. I very much enjoyed re-reading it. Thank you! :)