Mess Hall / Commissary

[Northern Girl]

He nearly laughed out loud at the sergeant's second question, but understood that the sergeant was merely trying to be proper. He obviously doesn't know me very well.
He settled with a grin.

"No, they're not secret, and no, I dont think there is any way to focus it on any specific area." He paused and looked into the distance, thinking about the design.
"Well you could..." He looked back at Foster. He was on leave, vacation, yet theorizing shield technology still preoccupied his mind.
"Basically, no." He settled with.
Christ...go watch a movie. Your on vay-cay-tion!

Tim nodded and slipped a small sigh of relief inwardly about Sharps reaction to his question, then glanced at his watch.

“Wow, time flies… Look, no matter how nice this conversation has been, definitely learning a new thing or two, I think I really need to get going” He emptied his coffee mug, and got up from his chair and with a small grin, nodded to each of them.
“Colonel, Lieutenant… Good day.”

‘Right, time to see how Julia’s doing…’ Tim walked over to the rack and put the tray away, then headed for the elevator to get down to the infirmary.


>>to Infirmary>>

[ShelBel]

Jaime finished her cheesecake, feeling calmer and more prepared to go back to the Lounge. She put the plate away and met Henry's eyes; he smiled and nodded and gave her a little "good luck" wave. She smiled back and nodded once, then stepped out and headed toward the elevator.

<< to the Lounge >>

[JacksonMiracle]

<<From Linguistic Lab>>

Kylie continued to follow Astra as they headed for the line in the mess hall. She chose not to say anything just yet, wanting to wait until they were seated at a table before asking the other linguist if anything was bothering her. True to their conversation in the labs, Kylie filled her tray with Chicken, Potato bake, and a freash roll, then chose a glass of Gaian fruit juice to top off the meal.

"So, am I going to get some help with the tray again or do I have to beg?" She lightly teased the other woman as they reached the end of the line.

The pair quickly made their way over to an empty table, and took their seats. Kylie made sure that the crutches were balanced against the edge of her table, before turning her attention to her meal.

"Look, Astra, if there's something that you'd like to talk about...I mean, you usually don't get as frustrated with a translation as quickly as you did today." Kylie attempted to approach the subject slowly.

[Stargate78fan]

<<from linguist labs>>

Astra walked into the mess hall with Kylie lost in deep thought. Yet the smell of potato bake and chicken drew her out of her thoughts and quickly into the que.

"No silly I'll carry your tray for you," Astra said grinning.

She grabbed herself a heap of chicken and potato bake, with two white round roles and some of those little butters wrapped in foil that you always found at restaruants.

Astra carefully carried both trays to a table in the corner and placed them down on the surface. She pulled out a chair for Kylie, sitting herself in the other one.

"Um, sorry about the tantrum in the lab with the text and my notebook," she apologised, blushing. "I dunno what it is, but I tell you I've never been so stumped with a text before." Her eyebrows furrowed in deep frustration.

"Well I guess for the last six months I haven't worked on anything as challenging as this. Usually I don't let things get in the way of me translating once I'm working on the subject that's in front of me. You know me, I can go a day or two just working on a project without eating or sleeping if I chose to."

"I love being part of a team again. I don't want to hold anyone back or slow us down because I'm feeling rusty and old."

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie knew that Astra was genuinely apologetic for her actions in the lab, but that wasn't something that was concerned about. They all got a little frustrated about things from time to time, and no one ever held a grudge. It was almost an unspoken rule in the linguistics lab. "It's ok. I can understand, I was just a little concerned for you, that's all."

She nodded her head as she listened to the other woman's next words. "I don't think that you have to worry about holding the team back any. We're all having a hard time with this praticular translation for some odd reason. I've been about ready to put the whole thing aside and work on something else for a few days. Maybe coming back to it later would give us all a better perspective on things. It's either that or do the translation backwards. I've only done that once in my entire life and that was in college. The assignment was to come up with a unique translation tactic, so I started with the last word and worked my way backwards until I got to the first. It won't work quite the same way with Ancient, but it's worth a shot. Without knowing what word one is before trying to translate word two, you eliminate an expectancy effect. I've just been skimming the columns, looking for any patterns, or frequently repeated symbols and words. I found one section that appears to be rather interesting, lots of repititions, but always in a different order. I have no idea what it says yet."

She had to smile at Astra's next words. "Old and rusty? Nonsense. You've got plenty of years left to spend in that lab before you'll become old and rusty. And I'll be there to make sure you do get some proper food and sleep. Provided that I remember to do so myself." She that she would have to probably rely on Devin to keep her in line.

[Stargate78fan]

"Putting it aside for a few days is a great idea," Astra mused thoughtfully, shovelling some chicken into her mouth. "Working on something a little bit more simpler would be good. I've only been working on this thing for a few days and goodness knows how long you've been working on it before you gave it to me."

"Thanks for giving me a crack at this text. It's kind of brought me back to life you know," she said softly, playing with the potatoe bake, nibbling at one of the bread rolls.

"You know I haven't felt this passionate about something in six months," Astra confessed, glancing at Kylie.

Astra wondered if there was something else bothering herself that she couldn't place right now.

'It's just the text you seem to be struggling with,' she assured herself.

"Just don't send me to any shrink, that's if we have one here," Astra joked, adding it as an after thought.

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie shrugged rather than admit that she had been working on the translation since before the Gaiaquake. "Don't worry, I haven't been working on it for that long. Besides I figured that I could use the help. This stupid cast is really inhibiting alot more than just my ability to walk. I hadn't realized just how hard it would be to get around the lab. I'm glad that I have someone else there to keep me focused on the task at hand, otherwise I might have just decided to skip it altogether. I love a challenge, but when I can't easily get to the books I need...." She let her voice trial off, hoping that it would have the desired effect of letting Astra know just how valuable she was to the department.

She took a bite of chicken and chewed it thoughtfully before responding to the other woman's next statement. "Yeah, I think that I do know. And your welcome. It's been hard for all of us. I guess it was time to find something like this to help renew everyone's focus."

"Passion is never lost. We just don't use it like we should sometimes." She said wisely, as she took another bite of the potato bake and swallowed some of the fruit juice.

"Oh we have a shrink all right. And I only happen to know that because several people on base have promised to send a referal her way very soon. I'm not looking forward to those sessions. But don't worry, I'm not going to talk about you. At least not to the extent that she'll insist on seeing you too. I think that as long as you're talking to someone, the resident shrink, me, or someone else, then you'll be fine. But the day you stop talking about anything is the day that I send you to the head doctor." Kylie managed to joke while keeping an undertone that let Astra know that she was serious.

Kylie ate a few more bites of food and diverted her gaze to her plate. She realized that she had been doing the same thing that she had just told her friend never to do. She had quiet talking about things, and that's why when she finally did open up to Devin it was like a dam breaking, and everything had spilled out all at once. She never wanted that to happen again. Maybe talking to that psychologist wouldn't be such a bad thing afterall. Maybe she could even convince Devin to go with her. It might be easier talking with him in the room to hold her hand and encourage her when it got to the bad parts. There were things about her past that she never wanted him to know. She would just have to be careful not to talk about that when he was around. Just the same she filed the question away as one that she would need to talk to him about eventually. Maybe during their movie that night.

[Stargate78fan]

"Well the two of us can keep each other focused - not let the other slip off the railing," Astra said, telling Kylie the same things Daniel used to tell her when she felt herself going under.

"I felt the same way with my cast. It was so frustrating and inconveniant to getting anything done, and you had to rely on other people to help you. You know I'll help if you need help and you have Devin to ask for help as well. I was lucky to have you and Daniel helping me when I had my cast at the SGC. I had Brian and the kids as well at home, but I felt terrible in lying to them at how I hurt myself. I told the kids that I hurt myself tripping over dead bones as the kids called them. Brian saw through it of course, but he also realised that I couldn't tell him what I was doing."

Astra closed her eyes at the mention of her family that she had lost.

"Going to see a shrink is a good idea and is something that I probably should have done, not that I don't like the person who is the shrink. I just don't feel comfortable around them, and how they try and profile every little detail about your life. Believe me, I've been to enough shrinks to last me a life time," Astra confessed.

Astra refused to reveal anything more about her time with shrinks in her past before. She'd ben rebilious as a small child and right through out her teenage life. Disobying orders from her family and only ever listening to her 90 year old grandmother. Her mother had often called her a difficult child. Her parents had sent her to shrinks to find out what was wrong with her.

She'd often gone out parting during her senior high school years. Nearly every weekend, coming back to school late. The boarding school had almost thrown her out of school twice. It was only because she kept up her grades and her parents had pressured the school to give her a few chances. Astra shook her head from the memories and shivered at the thought of seeing another shrink.

Most people just acused her of being a military brat.

"I'm okay talking to you with most stuff. Though I know I tend to keep a lot of stuff to myself. I don't know anyone esle apart from you. You know how bad I am at meeting and getting to know new people if its outside of work. The day you send me to the shrink is when you have to tie me down and carry me or zat me," she replied, but understood her friend's words.

[JacksonMiracle]

Slip off the railing. Kylie recognized the phrase as one that she had heard Daniel use before. The memory was bittersweet, but she had to agree with Astra, they did need each other. It was the only way that anyone was going to survive anymore. With the entire population of Earth redusced to several hundred, there were new challenges that the base was going to face, and the key was to face them together.

"Yeah, I guess you do know how frustrating it is. It's not my first broken bone, just the first one on Gaia. There were a lot of things about Earth that was different. I know I can get help from you and Devin, but I'd hate to make anyone feel obligated or burdened by helping me. I guess it's one of those human nature things. I never actually met Brian, but from the way you always talked about him, I'll bet he knew more than you give him credit for. But I'm glad that he was able to respect your work enough to know what questions not to ask." Kylie replied honestly as she took another bite of her roll.

"They have their job, and we have ours." She commented absent mindly, knowing that there was more to Astra's statement than what she was saying. Kylie had been to enough shrinks in her own lifetime to recognize the signs of talking to one too many strangers about things that were so personal.

She watched the emotions play across Astra's face, relaxing only when the other woman spoke again, the demons from her past supposedly vanquished for the moment.

"You know more people than just me. Maybe not as well, or for as long a time, but you do know David, and James, and several of the other linguists. We have to know each other if there's any hope of being able to work together effectively. But you're right, some of us lab rats don't do well in more public settings when we actually have to talk to people we don't already know. It's something to work on though. Especially being on an SG team now. For both of us. And just so you know, I'll have no problem zatting you, if it comes to that." Kylie winked at the other woman, but her words were sincere. Making a mental note to herself of another item that she and Devin would eventually have to talk about, she sipped her juice and finished the last of her potato bake.

[Stargate78fan]

"You're not a burdan to anyone, Kylie," Astra told her friend sternly.

"Yeah I guess you're right about Brian with how much he may he thought he knew. I never really gave it a thought and tried to keep any stuff that I brought home from work out of sight from him and the kids," she said thoughtfully "I guess he didn't want to ask the question and get us both into trouble. Though he must have been extremley curious about what I was doing and where I was working."

"I suppose that's true about shrinks having a job just like the rest us do. Thoguh I don't know why they would want to try and get inside someone's head. Being in my head some days can be ugh enough without someone else in there as well at the level of a shrink."

Astra laughed picturing Kylie zatting her.

"No, you wouldn't have any trouble zatting me would you? Evil woman," she said giggling. "Then who would you get to do your dirty work in carrying me to the shrink's office?"

"Yeah I do know James and David, but not anyone else and that's something I should rectify. I'm just not very good at it, except when I'm working. When I'm working I have no troubles with talking to people I have never met. I've mainly lived down in the labs and haven't been out much. I haven't done any cricket or any archery, let alone any other fun curiculum.Yes there is SG4 that I will be apart of and that will help to," she said enthusiastically.

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie accepted Astra's words with a grain of salt. She may not be a burden now, but it wasn't always that way. She could remember several times when she had infact been a burden to society as a whole, and even to herself. But she had been punished for those days already. It may have been an unjust and unwarrented punishment, but at least she could move on now.

"I'm sure that there were a lot of people back on Earth that were curious about the goings on at the myseterious Colorado base. I remember that I would get calls from some of my old co-workers at the museum, and they would ask me just these random questions. I always felt that they were just waiting for me to slip up. But I knew that I couldn't say anything. I think that a few of them were jealous at the time that I had probably made the discover of the century, and was keeping it all to myself." That was one of the hardest things about losing that life, they would never be able to announce the greatest find in History to anyone that didn't already know about it. She remembered the awe that she saw in people's eyes when it was their first week at the SGC. She had probably had the same look the first time that she saw that gate. Too bad, she would never again meet someone who would be impressed rather than passive toward the gate.

"I guess that would creep me out too." Kylie admitted about the shrink.

"Now see that's where having a Tok'Ra for a boyfriend could come in handy." She joked with the other woman and pictured Devin carrying an unconcious Astra off to the psychologist's office.

"Meeting people takes time. And I've already promised to be your outdoor activities partner, or at least attempt it. Just name the time, and I'll be there." Kylie tried to encourage the other woman, as she finished the last few bites of her chicken and roll. She had always been a fast eater, even while talking to someone. It was another talent that she had learned early on in life. How to talk with your mouth full, and make it look like and sound like it was empty of everything except teeth and tongue, and most importantly, how not to choke while doing it.



((Probably last post, sleep calls. ))

[Stargate78fan]

((no problems! Hope you have some great sleep. ))

"Though none of my old co-workers tried to trip me up on what I was doing. I think they were geniuly interested and supportive. Hopefully the winters here won't be as cold as they were in New York. I think I got comfortable with the weather in Colarado. It was good weather there," Astra said smiling.

"Oh yes of course you would coherce your Tok'Ra boyfriend into it. I'm really scared of Devin -shaking in my shoes." she grinned, winking at Kylie.

"Well I guess I'm not a large great big hulking frame or heavy either. I've always told people I'm not short at 5'5, but vertically challenged or that I was given out the short genes when the rest of my family got the tall genes. I just prefer vertically challanged," she said grinning wolfishly.

"I know you can't play much sport right at the moment, but when you are able to again I'm looking forward to being sporty buddies with you. If there's a sport you want to play besides cricket and archery, I'm fine with that too," she asured Kylie. "They are just my favourite sport and what I'm good at. I don't know if anyone else here likes cricket or plays it either, let alone heard of it."

[Ryn]

David entered the mess hall about fifteen minutes later than the girls had. He joined the line - which was not that long - at the counter and patiently awaited his turn. As luck would have it, it was Swanson himself who was serving lunch.

"Ah, chef, what do you have for me today?" David asked, with a grin.

"Help yourself, David, I think it's one of your favourites." The other man said winking.

"Oooh, roast chicken ! Yummy. Thank you!"

"No problem, enjoy. Next?"

David chose an empty table, somewhere well away from the two girls (in case they required privacy, which you never knew with women), and sat down. The food was delicious, and he really enjoyed it, especially after all this time. It had been a good while since there had been chicken on the menu. He guessed Swanson had been able to get a good deal with one of the farmers in town.

[JacksonMiracle]

Kylie had never looked forward to the winter monthes anywhere that she lived. Sure she liked drinking hot chocolate with marshmellows, and the snow was always gorgeous. But winter always brought with it a sense of darkness closing in around her. It was cold and her foster parents refused to turn on the heat for her part of the house. And it was the time when they had been the most angry with her for the smallest of inconsistencies. And then there was the ice. Ice was pretty when it hung from the trees, but it was vicious when you fell down every few steps as you struggled to the end of the half mile long driveway to retrive the mail. Kylie still had the scars from where some praticularly jagged ice had cut into her skin on one of those trips. Scars. That was the one thing that she would not mind losing if she ever became a host. Then again, Jaa'nik had never healed Devin's scars. She wondered for a moment why that was, and filed it away as something else to ask the man about at a later time. Despite, these inner thoughts, Kylie wore a smile on her face. "Yeah, Gaia weather has been perfect, so far, I hope that the winter is as gorgeous as I remember Colorado being. Snowcapped mountains, a light dusty powder in the vally that is Colorado Springs. It was so pretty."

Kylie laughed at a mental image of Devin morphing into the giant green monster that television and comic books had refered to as the Hulk. "Devin's not exactly the picture of perfection in the height department either. He's shorter than you are by a good five inches. Makes me feel like a towering giant standing beside him. Try living with the nickname 'beanstalk' in Jr. High, that wasn't any fun. I was so glad the day that the guys finally caught up to me in the height department. Goodness only knows why girls have their growth spurts so much earlier than guys."

"Honestly, I never was the sporty type. I played dodge ball, and kick ball, and flag football in school just as good as anyone, but I can't say I ever won a trophy. I think for the purposes of the Gaian landscape we'd better stick to Archery, and cricket. Maybe a game of basketball, if we're lucky enough to ever find the court empty." Kylie knew that everyone on base had been trying to keep in shape since the gate had been offline and it seemed that the gym and the basketball court was always full. They would definately have better luck trying to fit in a game of cricket.

Kylie noticed David enter the mess hall and take a seat an empty table a few minutes later. He probably didn't want to interrupt, but she hated the thought of him eating alone. But this talk between her and Astra was important for the other woman, it was probably best if they kept between just the two of them for now. They could talk to David another time. But, she promised, he's not going to be eating alone again if I can help it.

[Ryn]

He wished he knew what they were talking about, the chat seemed to go so friendly. The two were laughing and talking and just generally enjoying themselves. Not that he was begrudging them that, David mused. No, not at all. He *liked* being on his own for once, even though the room was crowded. At times like these he enjoyed people watching as well. He let his gaze travel around from the girls to whomever was there. Colonel Sharp was there, it seemed, and other officers whom he didn't recognize. He gave them a friendly nod if any pair of eyes met his own. He then focused his attention on the chicken leg for a while, savouring the taste of the juicy, cooked-to-perfection meat.


((he's not looking for someone to talk to, but if any of you want to, be my guest ))