[Moments of Adoration]

OMG ridiculous. For Lyta. In payment for SG episodes and pornographic pancakes. Many thanks to Karen.

Eventually, though, she started making stuff up.

"Daniel? Huge," she told Lieutenant Tavish in a breathy voice, her eyes as wide as she could open them. Three days later, when Captain McKinley asked the same question, Sam glanced around the locker room and leaned close, telling McKinley in a conspiratorial whisper, "Well, it was dark, so I can't really be sure, but..." And then she shrugged. "But he does have very nice hands, so I'm sure that makes up for it."

She tended to be a little more circumspect when talking about the colonel, because she liked her job and really, her female colleagues did well enough all by themselves in speculating about him. She contented herself to the occasional knowing look or quiet laugh when the subject came up, followed by a sudden memory of something very important she had to do, elsewhere, right now.

And then there was Teal'c.

Sam had been curious herself. Because, well, how could someone not wonder? The man was built better than any god, and she knew his boot size. But the thing that the women of the SGC fixated on the most?

His biceps.

"Have you ever... touched them?" That was Airman Patterson, one late night in Sam's lab, as she helped Sam manhandle a large, awkwardly shaped artifact onto a series of scanners for testing. Teal'c had stopped by moments before to bid Sam goodnight, and since he left, Patterson had been wistfully staring at the door.

So Sam made a special effort to do just that the next time she and Teal'c sparred in the base gym. The dropped jaws and furious whispers were well worth the raised brow and black eye (she was too busy gloating over her little triumph to properly judge a block) she got from Teal'c.

"Major Carter."

He stood in the doorway to her lab later that day, as she tried to type with one hand while holding an icepack to her eye with the other.

"You seemed most distracted this afternoon. Is there anything you wish to discuss?"

Oops. "Um, no, Teal'c. Just, you know, work. And stuff."

She went back to her typing, screen covered in little red squiggles as Word highlighted each typo, and hoped he'd leave it at that.

He didn't. "I noticed a great deal of agitated discussion and undue interest directed your way, by other female members of the SGC who were in the gymnasium during our workout. Are you having some sort of difficulty with your colleagues? Are they making inappropriate assumptions?"

"No!" Well, after she'd all but groped his arm that afternoon, they might be now. She put the icepack down next to her keyboard. "Look. Don't be offended, but... well, it's just... they're very admiring of your... arms."

"My arms."

She rolled her good eye. "Come on, Teal'c. Compared to most of the men here, you do realize you're rather, well, sculpted."

He was wearing a tank top, and his skin still glistened with sweat from their workout. Staring at each bicep in turn, he flexed them. Sam swallowed hard and squirmed on her stool. She worked beside them every day, so she didn't pay much attention to them, but like this, it was hard to ignore their allure.

"Yeah, you might not want to do that casually, Teal'c. It's..."

"Indeed." He eyed her for a long moment. "This has been most enlightening. Thank you, Major Carter."

Teal'c left then, looking positively cheerful, and Sam wondered just what she had unleashed on the women of Earth.