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Jack sighed as he watched Carter struggle with herself via the now almost-broken security camera in the holding cell, his eyes glued to the monitor on his end of the control room. It'd been days since they'd come home to find that the captain had taken ill somewhere toward the end of their trip, and still Dr. Fraiser was no closer to finding a cure than when she'd first arrived in the infirmary. The alien virus was still coursing through Sam's system at full speed, and no one could accurately assess what the long-term damage might be if it was left unchecked.
The team would inevitably find a way to save Carter, he knew... they always did. But that didn't make watching the virus attacking her mind, throwing her at the mercy of whatever in the hell it was and whatever it had in store for her, any better. Or any easier, for that matter. He was Colonel Jack O'Neill, for fuck's sake. He was used to being in control - of other people, of the situations he was faced with out in the field... of himself. Now, as he stood there, his heart in his throat and his eyes fixed on the screen, he knew how out of control things had truly gotten.
He loved that woman in there – his captain, his confidant, his friend - for better or worse... and he was going to be damned if he let anything happen to her because of his own carelessness or inability to intervene.
“Just hang on, Sam... we're going to get that thing out of you if it kills me,” he said quietly, mostly to himself. His eyes never once left the monitor.
Almost as if she'd sensed it, Sam's eyes briefly rose to the corner where the security camera was positioned, her eyes burning through Jack as he stood there in awe.
His Carter was still in there - he knew it without a doubt now. And though it'd only lasted for a brief moment, never mind the fact that it was virtually impossible for her to have heard him even under the best of circumstances, Jack knew that somehow, deep down, Sam was trying to tell him that it was okay. That she knew he wasn't giving up on her... that he'd never give up on her. That they'd make it through this thing together, or they'd both die trying.
He was going to do everything in his power to make sure the latter never came to pass.