Title: Campfire Honesty

Fandom: CSI/Stargate SG1

Pairing: Sara Sidle/Cameron Mitchell

Rating: PG

Word Count: 2189

Prompt: 4. First

Notes:

The first time that Sara goes off-world, it’s something of a disappointment.

She knows it shouldn’t be, because she’s been working in the SGC for long enough to hear stories, has read more than her fair share of mission reports to try to figure out the workings of some strange contraption that an SG team has brought back. Even before she transferred to Cheyenne Mountain, back when she was working in Area 51, she knew that there were other worlds besides Earth, had heard whisperings of what they were like. She’d never expected to see one for herself though, not even after she began working in the SGC. She’s a theoretical astrophysicist, she observes, studies, makes the contraptions work. She doesn’t go through the gate to collect them herself.

So when General Landry had come to her a few days ago, had told her that she was going on a mission through the Stargate, she’d done her best to talk him out of it. She’d made several impassioned arguments about why she wasn’t qualified, why this scientist or that scientist would be a better choice. The general hadn’t been for turning however, and here she is, sitting in the middle of the woods on P3X-982, staring up at the stars.

She’d told herself that she was all prepared for the mission; at the very least, she’d been sure that she’d got herself under control enough so that she wouldn’t look like some starry-eyed innocent walking through. She’d thought she was ready, but she still hadn’t been able to sleep last night, and when it actually came to it, she’d been more than a little nervous. It had taken Cameron, his blue eyes holding hers, the solid presence of him at her side, to put herself at ease.

It was only when they got to the other side of the gate, after she’d had time to catch her breath, that she hadn’t really prepared herself that well at all. She’s not sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t what she found – a clearing around the gate, then row upon row of trees, a veritable forest, that they’d tramped through until darkness fell, much like the woods around Tomales Bay where she’d grown up. When they made came, she’d expected to fall asleep right away, but she’d found herself staring up at the dark green canvas of her tent, the insomnia she thought she’d beaten rearing its ugly head again. She tried to tell herself that it was a carry over from the adrenaline rush of gate travel, or that it was just disappointment, because everything looked so familiar. She’s more afraid though, that it’s to do with the fact that every time a breeze moves the leaves of the trees, she’s a kid again, hiding out in the forest because she doesn’t want to go home.

When it had become obvious that sleep was going to continue to evade her, she’d given up the pretence, had come out to sit beside the camp fire, finding Cameron already sitting there. He’d elected to take first watch, and he tenses instantly when he hears her approaching, hand on his firearm as he turns. She holds up her hand, a small smile springing to her lips. “Don’t shoot,” she quips, and he shakes his head, firearm dropping to his side.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he admonishes, sounding more Southern than usual somehow, and Sara barely resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“Yes Sir,” she says, doing her best to salute, and this time when he shakes his head, an amused chuckle accompanies the gesture.

“That’s the most god-awful salute I’ve ever seen,” he observes, and she shrugs.

“I’m a scientist, not a soldier.”

It’s more or less what she said to him when they’d stood on that ramp earlier in the day, and he tilts his head, eyes raking her from head to foot. “Yes you are,” he murmurs, so quietly that she can barely hear him, and she wonders if he was even talking to her. “So,” he continues in a slightly louder voice. “Can’t sleep huh?” When she shakes her head, he pats the ground beside him. “Well then, why don’t you pull up a piece of grass and keep me company a while.”

“You’re not going to order me back to my tent?”

She’s teasing him, but he takes it completely seriously. “As you so rightly point out, Doctor Sidle, you’re a scientist, not a soldier – though I gotta tell you, you question my authority when we’re under fire, and we’re gonna have words.” She’d think he was serious if she wasn’t sitting beside him by now, able to see the firelight and amusement dancing in his eyes. “For tonight, I think we’re good.”

She lets him pour her some coffee, wraps her hands around the mug, letting the warmth seep through the ceramic into her hands. Her first sip tells her that it might be better just to hold it rather than drink it, because it’s the nearest thing to petrol that she’s ever tasted, and she can’t help but screw up her face as she swallows. She hopes Cameron didn’t notice, a hope that lasts no time at all as he nods cheerfully, saying, “Yep, that’s night watch speciality coffee… keep you awake and put hairs on your chest all at the same time.” She gives him her patented Sara-Sidle-glare, the one that has the junior researchers at the SGC running for cover, but it doesn’t have the same effect on Cameron. He just looks down at the area in question, says with an unmistakeable leer, “Not that there’s anything lacking with you in that area of course…”

She’s tempted to throw mug and all its contents at him; she settles for a handful of grass. “I thought we were being discreet?” she asks, and he just shrugs.

“Vala would sleep through a nuclear holocaust,” he points out. “Jackson’s dead to the world, and wouldn’t say anything even if he did hear us… and Teal’c would just raise an eyebrow and say ‘Indeed.’” It’s all true, and it makes her smile into the fire. “Nah, we’re good.”

“Why did you pick me?”

The words are as much a surprise to her as they evidently are to him; she had no intention of asking that question. She’d be lying however, if she said it wasn’t preying on her mind, because she’s sure there are more qualified personnel on the base than her, if not scientifically, then certainly people who have been through Air Force training, who know how to hold a firearm. She’s a relative newbie to the SGC, and SG1 is the team that everyone wants to join. Everyone, that is, but her, and yet she’s the one who’s here.

“I told you,” he says again, and he holds her gaze, as if to make sure she believes him. “You’re the best at what you do.” She lifts an eyebrow, and he holds up a hand, as if to allay any doubts or further questions she might have. “Seriously… you might not have combat training, but when it comes to figuring out the Ori, and whatever science they’re using to hocus-pocus the local folk, there’s no-one else I’d rather have by my side.”

Sara’s cheeks grow warm, and it’s nothing to do with the fire, nothing to do with the coffee, and everything to do with the fact that he’s just said something that she really wants to hear. She fell into the Stargate Program by accident, was just going about her post-graduate research at Harvard, wrote a paper that got noticed by Samantha Carter, who approached her and offered her a job. One extensive background check later, more confidentiality agreements to sign than she could have imagined, and she was working in Area 51, somewhere she’d dismissed as made up, imagined only by conspiracy theorists. That notion had quickly changed, and when she’d moved to the SGC, her whole outlook on life had changed.

Then she’d met Cameron.

A fighter pilot, he’d transferred to the SGC after he recovered from injuries sustained saving the world – his words, uttered during one of his more loquacious, dare she say drunken, moments. They’d met, strangely enough, around this time of night, the two of them haunting the coffee pot in the mess, him mired in personnel reports that he was trying to make sense of, her trying to get some piece of Ancient technology to work, failing utterly. The only two people in the mess, they’d struck up a conversation, a rarity for Sara, who was far more comfortable with her books than with people, always had been, but nothing new to the far more garrulous Cameron.

To her surprise, they’d talked that night for over half an hour, and later, when he’d appeared in her lab, she’d been shocked when he asked her out to dinner. She’d been even more shocked when she heard herself saying yes, because Cameron Mitchell was funny and handsome and a bona fide hero, and men like him weren’t interested in women like her.

But they’d gone out to dinner the next night, and they’ve been seeing one another ever since.

“I meant what I said before,” he tells her, his voice breaking her reverie. “I didn’t pick you because of us… I mean, I like having you here… but that’s not why…”

“I know that.” She tries to rescue him from his stumbling words, but hero he is, he’s not so eager to be rescued. Though when he speaks again, it occurs to her that he might need it.

“It was the General’s idea to pick you,” he says. “It was between you and McCormack… and I know, I know-” He holds up a hand again. “-He’s not half the scientist you are, and I don’t disagree. You’re the better choice, and I know it… but you know how dangerous gate travel is. And right or wrong, I don’t want you anywhere near that.” Sara’s dimly aware that her jaw has dropped, but she doesn’t realise how long she’s been sitting there just looking at him until he says, “Should I be ducking and running right about now?”

She shakes herself, takes another sip of coffee to bring her fully back to reality. “You never told me this before.”

“Never came up,” he replies with a shrug. “But there’s just something about firelight… makes me want to be honest.”

She’s feeling equal parts touched and uncomfortable, because there’s something about the way he’s looking at her, something deep in those blue eyes that make her stomach swim, make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Any more secrets you want to share?” she says, keeping her voice light, teasing, but when he replies, if anything, he’s even more serious.

“Not just now,” he says, and he’s looking at her so intently that she has to look away. Tilting her head back, she stares up at the sky, alight with stars, and a shiver runs down her spine as, once again, she’s a kid in Tomales Bay, afraid to go home. “You ok?” he asks, and she curses his powers of observation.

“Just a chill,” she lies, and when she chances a glance at him, there’s a crease between his eyebrows that wasn’t there before.

“What are you thinking about, Sara Sidle?” he asks, reaching out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.

She opens her mouth, all ready to lie to him, and she’s more surprised than he is when the truth falls out. “About when I was a kid… and how I used to sit out in the woods like this… looking up at the stars.” She squints up again now, at those stars that kept her company on so many long and lonely evenings, but the stars, like her, are completely different here.

“You didn’t have a happy childhood, did you?”

The observation cuts her to the core, both with accuracy and unexpectedness, and her grip loosens on the coffee mug, hot liquid splashing on the grass, barely missing her skin. Too addled to even make a face at her own clumsiness, she sets the mug down on the ground, runs her hands through her hair. “No,” she murmurs, and even to her own ears, she sounds desolate. How unhappy she’s never told anyone; indeed, only Cameron’s got that much out of her.

She hears him sigh, then she senses him moving, feels his palm on her back, moving up and down slowly. “It’s ok,” he says quietly. “That’s the thing about gate travel and campfires – there’s enough honesty for more than one night.”

Despite where they are, despite the fact that their team-mates could find them at any time, he moves closer to her, puts his arm fully around her shoulders. She lets herself fall against him, rests her head on his shoulder and stares up at the stars, trying to learn the new order of things.

It’ll take more than one night, but like Cameron said, they’ve got plenty of time.