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“Janet, I’m fine. Really.” Samantha Carter looked imploringly at the doctor. “Whatever Nirrti did to me with that machine, it’s all been undone. I feel completely normal.” Her hands gestured vaguely to her whole body.
“That may be, but I’d still like to keep you in here overnight, just to make sure there are no ongoing problems we need to be concerned about.” Dr Fraiser frowned at her patient. “Sam, your DNA was rearranged. Twice! We have no idea how that’s even possible, let alone what side effects we might see. You can stay here overnight. If you’re still fine tomorrow I’ll let you go.”
Sam turned her gaze to the Colonel, who was standing back watching the exchange quietly, with an unreadable expression, hands in pockets. “Sir, you were there, you know I’m fine, right?”
O’Neill sighed and rocked back slightly onto his heels. “Yeah, Carter I was there. I saw you nearly dissolve into a puddle of water, for heaven's sake. We’re gonna listen to the doc on this one.” He raised his eyebrows for emphasis.
Sam, ever the good soldier, successfully resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her CO, turning her attention back to Janet. But the fight had gone out of her and she slumped slightly where she sat perched on the edge of the infirmary bed.
Fraiser cast a grateful look back towards the Colonel and reached out to pat Sam’s arm. “Let’s get you settled in.”
For Sam it was an uneventful, though mostly sleepless, night. She could never rest easily in the infirmary and her thoughts kept turning back to the cage on P3X-367. By the time Janet reluctantly conceded that she could find no good reason to keep her under observation any longer it was mid-morning and Sam made a beeline for the locker room. She was exhausted and a hot shower sounded heavenly.
The elevator opened in front of her to reveal O’Neill, who faltered slightly at the sight of her as he moved to step out of the way of the doors.
“Sprung from the infirmary, I see?” Jack commented lightly, his eyes darting over her person. It was a glance Sam had seen a hundred times in the field. The quick, almost reflex, check of a CO making sure a member of his team was in one piece. If his eyes seemed a little darker and more intent than usual, or than his tone suggested, that could just be the artificial base lighting, right?
“Yes, sir. All Janet’s tests keep coming back normal, so she’s letting me go. With strict instructions to call her if I notice anything unusual.” She grimaced slightly. “I think this one kind of freaked her out.”
Jack raised a speculative eyebrow. “And it hasn’t freaked you out?”
Sam’s bravado, not much more than a delicate facade in her current state, slipped and her face crumpled slightly. “Yeah, actually it has,” she confessed quietly. Her legs suddenly didn’t feel too sturdy, and she shifted slightly to lean on a nearby stretch of wall.
She shook her head and sucked in a deep breath, attempting to summon her usual confidence. “I’m sorry, sir. I think I’m just overtired, I didn’t sleep much last night.”
O’Neill watched all of this with concern. “You should go home and get some rest. We can manage without you today.”
She frowned. “Are you sure, sir? I’m really fine, I was just going to shower and head to the lab.”
“Yes Carter, I’m sure. Go home and rest, you need it.” Sam looked ready to protest, so he added for good measure, “It’s not an order, but it could be if it needed to be.”
Despite the words there was no sharpness in his tone, and Sam looked up at him, caught off guard by the softness in his face as well. It dislodged something inside her and she froze, panic welling up.
“I thought I was going to die,” Sam whispered, her eyes wide.
Jack’s jaw tightened. “I know. I thought so too. “ His voice was low and gravelly. One of his hands twitched like it wanted to move towards her, but he clenched it into a fist and shoved it in his pocket out of harm’s way.
Sam was still staring up at him, frozen against the wall. “I thought I was going to die, and all I could think was …” she gasped and broke off, unable to continue. Tears shimmered in her big blue eyes.
“I know.” Oh, he knew alright. He remembered the feeling of helplessness as he sat by her side in the cell, as piercing now as it had been then. He knew the terror he’d felt as he ran back to the machine with her failing body in his arms would stay with him a long time and be hard to bury.
The memory of her blonde head resting gently on his shoulder played in his mind as it had all night. A moment of comfort she wasn’t allowed but took anyway.
Time stretched on as they stared at each other across the hallway, their eyes communicating things they couldn’t say out loud. Sam was the one who finally broke it.
She pulled her gaze away and reached out to press the elevator call button with a shaky hand. “I’m going to go home before I do something stupid.” Her words were still a whisper, a confession of something she didn’t have the right to speak.
The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Like what?”
Her eyes snapped back to his, startled that he would ask her openly.
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open and she stepped slowly inside, slumping against the back wall. She tipped her head back against the cool surface and sighed a bone deep sigh, eyes closing as if in pain, too tired to pretend anymore. “You know what, sir,” she murmured as the doors closed between them.
Jack lingered in the hallway longer than he meant to. A couple of airmen came to use the elevator and were unsure how to proceed with an obviously agitated Colonel O’Neill pacing nearby, but he absently waved them past with barely a glance, and they shrugged and carried on.
Alone in the hallway once more, Jack clenched a fist and bumped it lightly against his forehead several times. The mental image of Carter lying near death in that cage was a hard one to shake. He took a deep, steadying breath and straightened, hand coming to rest on the wall by the call button.
This was a bad idea. A monumentally bad idea. He knew that.
He pressed the button anyway.
Sam made it to the women’s locker room and immediately dropped to the bench. Never particularly busy at the best of times, the room was abandoned at this hour of the morning. The overhead lights had been switched off and she left them that way, relishing the dark silence.
The idea of a hot, invigorating shower had been the one thought propelling her forward but now that she was here, a soul-deep weariness had set in, making the prospect of standing up and moving to the showers all but impossible.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the dim glow of a security light limned the edges of everything in the room slightly silver, allowing her to make out the familiar shape of her locker.
Maybe she’d just grab her things and go home. She could shower there and if she fell apart under the hot water, well at least there was no risk of anybody else accidentally bearing witness.
A memory flashed into her mind. She was lying in the cell, eyes closed against the fatigue and pain of the genetic manipulation she’d been subjected to. There was a hand on her arm, gentle but strong. A reminder that she wasn’t enduring this alone. She managed to crack her eyelids open and her vision came into focus on Jack O’Neill gazing down at her, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Emotion swirled clearly in his eyes, taking her breath away.
It had been a long time since she’d seen him look at her quite like that. It was a relief and a heartbreak to know that time hadn’t dimmed his feelings towards her. That he simply kept them under heavy lock and key the way she did.
Forcing her mind out of the memory, Sam flung herself forward, dropping her head into her hands, fingers raking through the short blonde strands of her hair. She couldn’t afford to linger here too long, the barely suppressed emotions of the mission were catching up and she wanted to be gone before they spilled over.
A sudden knock on the door made her jump.
Jack found himself outside the women’s locker room. He rubbed his face and looked around awkwardly, questioning every shred of his sanity. If anyone else came along this would be hard to explain. As it was there was a security camera covering this hallway. If anybody happened to be watching the feed at this particular moment … Well, that would be bad too.
There were no cameras inside the locker rooms, so it was time to decide. Turn around and go back to work, like this moment of lost sense had never happened? Or embrace the madness and see where it led?
His hand raised and knocked on the door. Had there ever been any doubt?
There was a pause, long enough for him to wonder if he’d waited too long by the infirmary. If the fates had saved him from himself by sending Carter home before he got here.
But then there was her voice, beautifully alive and not dead, and not already in her car either. “Uh, yes?”
The longer he stayed out in the hallway the riskier this was, so he took a deep breath and opened the door, slipping quietly inside.
The door opened, briefly flooding the locker room with light from the bright hallway. A distinctly male figure, silhouetted against the doorway, entered the room.
Sam supposed she should feel alarmed by the appearance of a man in the women’s locker room, but she would have known that silhouette anywhere. Her breath caught in her throat.
The door swung shut and darkness fell again. Sam’s night vision had been ruined slightly by the lights in the hallway, but it returned quickly and she stared at Jack O’Neill, who was now leaning against the closed door staring back at her.
The security light picked up the edges of his features and hair, everything cast in silver and shadows.
“What are you doing?” Sam was surprised to find her voice sounded surprisingly normal. Belatedly she realised she’d forgotten the ‘sir’.
A slight shrug of one shoulder. “I’m actually not sure …” his face and tone were guarded, and his eyes flicked around the room like he was having second thoughts.
She stood up and turned fully towards the door, slowly approaching the man in front of it. Inside her brain klaxons were going off, telling her to get through the door and go home to safety.
But he was blocking the door. She knew he’d move if she asked him to. Knew in every fibre of her being that he’d let her go without batting an eyelid, if that was her choice.
And she knew that asking him to move so she could leave was the smart choice.
The only choice, really.
And yet …
She stopped in front of him, still a respectable distance between them. Nothing anybody could question. “Are you here to do something stupid?” Her voice was low and slightly rough now.
Jack’s dark eyes flickered in surprise. He hadn’t been entirely sure what he would do once he stepped inside. Bad planning on his part, in hindsight. A moment’s hesitation, then, “You tell me.”
She took a deep steadying breath. She wasn’t sure what had possessed him to follow her here, but whatever happened next had to be her decision. He would never want there to be even a hint that their relative ranks had any bearing on anything that followed.
A step closer. Sam was pushing the boundaries of personal space now. If they stood like this anywhere else on the base people would definitely gossip.
“I already told you I was in danger of doing something stupid today,” she whispered desperately. “I can’t be the smart one right now.” Her hand reached towards his and for a fraction of a second Jack thought she was going to weave her fingers with his, but at the last moment her hand slipped past his and she flicked the lock on the door, sealing them in the room.
His breath hitched in surprise. Their eyes met in the dim light, possibility shimmering between them and suddenly she was somehow even closer.
“Well no one has ever accused me of being the smart one,” he murmured, marvelling at this moment, that she wasn’t a puddle of water, that she was here. “Especially not when you nearly died yesterday. ”There was pain in his eyes.
A shining tear welled up in her eye and slipped down her cheek. “I nearly died yesterday and all I could think was that I was never going to get to do this…”
When her lips met his it wasn’t the desperate collision it could have been. It was gentle and tentative, almost feather light. She was warm and soft, and very, very alive.
Jack’s brain short circuited for a moment. Years of longing to do this very thing were inextricably tangled with years of it being forbidden, and he froze.
Sam sensed his hesitation and immediately moved to pull back, the beginnings of mortification setting in immediately. Apparently she’d completely misread this situation.
But deep down Jack had always known why he was coming to the locker room and he recovered fast. He brought up his hands, one arm wrapping around her body to halt her retreat, the other cupping the back of her neck as he leaned in to recapture her lips with his.
This time the kiss was different, more insistent, both of them now fully involved. But it was still soft, almost reverent. It was too easy to believe a moment like this wasn’t real.
But a second later Sam’s lips parted, her breath mingling with Jack’s and he groaned, matching her movement. Something shifted and the energy became charged. All the longing of years past welled up and poured into this one kiss.
Their tongues duelled as they clung to one another. Jack’s hand left Sam’s shoulder and skimmed down her arm to her waist, dipping under the hem of her shirt to test the soft skin it found there. Then it re-emerged to find her hip, grabbing her thigh and pulling her leg up off the ground to hook around his.
In a split second movement he spun them around and now it was Sam pressed up against the door, no personal space present any longer at all. The full length body contact was exhilarating after so many years spent denying themselves anything beyond the most benign of casual touches.
Here they settled, tasting one another hungrily. Jack broke the contact and dipped his lips to the base of Sam’s neck, pressing kisses to the sensitive skin there. A soft moan escaped as she tipped her head to grant better access.
The sound was like an electric shock through Jack and they both quickly became aware that evidence of his arousal was nudging against Sam’s hip. She tugged Jack’s head back up so she could meet his eyes. Desire was pooling there, but he took a deep breath, tilting his forehead to rest against hers.
“Sam.”
She’d never heard him say her name like that before. Low and hungry. It ignited something else inside her and her eyes slid shut.
They were both breathing quickly, chests rising and falling almost in synchronicity. Sam’s mind was adrift in the universe, her thoughts scattered beyond coherence as she pressed her hips against his, using the angle of that hooked leg to try and apply pressure where her body longed for it.
“Sam.” This time there was that same hunger, but also a plea.
It got her attention, a slight break in the haze of her arousal. Her eyelids flickered open and he pulled back slightly to look into her eyes, glazed over by her physical response to him. The usually bright blue had been washed away by the dim light.
He took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to, but we have to stop. It can’t be like this. Here.” He stepped back slightly, letting her leg drop back down, then gathered her into his arms in an all encompassing hug, burying his face in her hair.
She didn’t move for what felt like a long time, then gradually her body softened into his and started to shake with the onset of tears. “I know.” Her voice was a whisper against his neck.
“Things won’t always be the way they are now. Someday they’ll be different.” He wasn’t sure if he believed his own words. He knew there was absolute truth in them, but the future was so hard to see from where they stood. Who knew what state things would be in when ‘someday’ arrived? There was no guarantee this would ever be anything other than forbidden.
“Someday?” Carter sniffled and pulled back to look up at him. Tears glinted on her cheeks where the light caught them. “Someday one of us might be dead.” The mission to P3X-367 was still too fresh in both their minds.
Jack knew it was true. He blew out a long breath and shifted slightly, finally breaking the full length body contact. They were still close enough for her hands to rest lightly on his chest, and he absently fiddled with a strand of her hair.
“Then, what?” He looked straight at her, choosing his words carefully. “Is this it? ‘Cause if it is, if we really can’t come to work tomorrow like normal after this …” he shrugged, “…then I’ll talk to Hammond. Today.”
Sam’s face betrayed her surprise, eyes flaring wide and lips parting to pull in a sharp breath. “Is that what you think we should do?” Her features settled into a more guarded, slightly troubled expression. “Is that what you want?”
Jack shook his head. “Carter, I’ve wanted to kiss you like that for a long time, those feelings have always been there whether I acted on them or not. Nothing has changed on my end.” He brushed a thumb gently across her lips, “Do I want to do it again? Sure. But I can put it back in the room with everything else for now, no problem.”
Sam blew out a long, frustrated breath and leaned back against the door, tipping her head back. Her gaze fixed on the ceiling as she spoke. “There’s a tired, selfish part of me that wants to tell you to go to Hammond right now …”
Jack kept his face carefully neutral, conscious of not giving her anything that could sway this decision one way or another.
There was a long pause as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “…but we can’t do that, can we?” Her eyes flicked back down from the ceiling to meet Jack’s steady gaze. “There’s still too much at stake. Anubis is still out there. I couldn’t live with myself if we blew up SG-1 for personal reasons and something awful happened.”
For a long moment they just looked at one another, a million emotions flitting across their faces. Eventually Jack smiled a slightly sad smile and framed Sam’s face with his hands, brushing her cheeks with his thumbs. He leaned down and pressed one last gentle kiss to her lips. All the heat was gone, this was more like a goodbye. He could only hope it wasn’t the last kiss he’d ever give her.
The kiss turned into another hug and Sam smiled, whispering against his ear, “Thanks for being the smart one today.”
Jack huffed an almost laugh, his mouth twitching up on one side. “Well, there’s a first time for everything.” He pulled back, eyes twinkling. “You should go. I’ll wait here a minute.” He stood to the side, hands in pockets while Carter gathered her things.
Sam hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and headed to the door. There she hesitated, hand on the lock. Turning back, her eyes found Jack’s in the gloom. There was uncertainty in her expression. “Someday, right sir?”
He met her gaze. “Someday. You betcha.”
A ghost of a smile played across her face, then she spun the lock, opened the door and was gone.
Jack sat alone in the dark for several long minutes after she left before getting up to try and salvage the remainder of his day.
He sighed. Someday felt so far away.