Surviving the Thaw
Surviving the Thaw
by Rowan Darkstar
Summary: Sam and Jack deal with the repercussions of their ordeal during the 'Lost City' arc.
Category: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Episode Related: 721 Lost City
Season: Season 8
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Rating: GEN
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 2004-09-05
Copyright (c) 2004 Rowan Darkstar
Inventory week was the bane of Jack O'Neill's existence. Inventory week was reason in itself to shoot for the rank of General, as the old guy seemed to be the only one not knee-deep in lists and boxes. Inventory week had begun less than twenty-four hours ago, and Jack O'Neill was already contemplating reinstating his retirement.
"Well, then, why can't we enter the numbers?"
O'Neill hunched over behind Daniel Jackson, squinting to read the computer monitor without the reading glasses he preferred no one knew he required, leaving the typing to the enthusiastic academic in the chair below him.
"I....have no idea," Daniel said. "This is the inventory screen. Last year, you just highlighted the category code, hit F10 and then it would take you through the prompts."
"Are you sure it was F10? What did they say at the briefing?"
"They said F10. It said right there on the overhead display."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure. I'm not the one who was openly snoring through the presentation."
"I did not snore--so what does that error box mean?"
"I don't know. It wasn't there last year," Daniel protested, hand gesturing toward the offending prompt.
"'Alternate Mode Error. Action prohibited.' We're in Scan Mode, right?"
"Yeah, I believe so. Yes. Yes, we are."
"I thought you said it had to be in Scan Mode!" Jack called over his shoulder.
He turned when there was no immediate reply.
Samantha Carter was no more than ten feet away, lab coat over her BDUs and focus locked on the printed label of a packing box.
"Carter!"
She looked up at the sound of her name, totally lost as to the thread of the men's conversation. "What? Sir?"
"The program, Carter. I thought you said to set it on Scan Mode."
She shook her head. "No, that was just for the search phase. You need it back in Standard Mode to enter the inventory."
Jack frowned, eyeing her for a beat. "All right. Daniel?"
Daniel's fingers were already ruffling over the keys. "I'm on it. Aaaaannd...there it is. It's taking the first entry."
Jack turned toward Sam, hands spread wide as if to say, *"Finally. Ya could have told us!"*
But Sam didn't even register the rebuff. "It's working now?" she asked, pen hovering over her clipboard, eyebrows lifted.
Jack nodded as Daniel typed beside him. "Yeah, it's working fine," he said.
"Good."
Sam hooked a stray clump of hair behind her ear, tapped her pen against the top box in a stack with an air of finality, and turned on her heel to pace briskly out of the control room.
The two men stared at the empty doorway through which Major Carter had vanished. Daniel glanced toward the computer, then to the stack of boxed lenses for the MALP probe cameras. O'Neill turned to Daniel and said simply, "Did she seem a little off to you?"
Daniel winced and kept his gaze on the computer keyboard.
Jack rested his hands on his hips, arms bare to the short sleeves of his black t-shirt. He would have thought a facility so far underground wouldn't be so damned hot all the time. Maybe they were getting too close to the Earth's core. He should ask Carter about that.
"Danny? What are you thinkin'?"
Daniel glanced up toward O'Neill, and the older man instantly caught the depth of concern running behind Daniel's controlled reply. "She seems a little off. Yes."
"Daniel? What do you know that I don't?"
Daniel shook his head, pushed up his glasses. "Nothing. Honestly. I do think Sam has...something on her mind today, and I have no better idea than you do what that might be. But, I do..."
Jack held out his hand in prompting. "You do...?"
Daniel drew a considering breath, turned in his chair to face Jack more directly, and ran a hand through his mess of hair. He picked up a pen from the edge of the control room counter and worried it between his fingers. "Jack, I just want to make sure you realize...Sam's been...she's been a little...*sensitive* to everything, since..."
"Since...?"
"Since you almost died, Jack. Twice, actually, within a few months."
That caught him off guard.
"Did you not...consider that?" Daniel asked, sincerely incredulous.
Not a good time to be hesitant in his reply. "Well...I mean, it's not like we haven't all been in mortal danger on this job. Frequently. I mean, just a few months ago, we saved Sam from--"
But Daniel was shaking his head. "Not quite the same, Jack. At least not the second time."
"How is it different?"
Daniel's brow creased in genuine concern, but he didn't speak.
The room seemed stuffier than usual, and O'Neill found himself longing for a break time on the surface. Early lunch on the grass.
"Help me out, here, Danny."
Daniel shrugged. "Look, I'm just guessing. I don't know what's distracting Sam, today. One of us should probably talk with her. I'll ask her, if you'd rather not--"
"No, it's not--it's okay, I'll--"
"--it's just that...Jack, you just need to know that...this one was really hard on her. I think she felt...more responsible somehow than she had any right to. And she just...she just had a hard time with it, Jack."
Jack nodded, listening quietly now, struggling to read between the lines. Daniel had the utmost respect for Sam's capabilities, her strengths and her formidable coping mechanisms. If there was something here to make Daniel step forward and mention it, there was something here worth hearing.
"Okay," Jack said at last.
Daniel was quiet a moment. Then he nodded, seemingly giving a close to the subject, and turned back toward the computer. "So. How many Class G lenses?"
Two hours of Hell in Inventory passed before Jack O'Neill found a moment to catch Sam Carter alone. She was in her lab amid enough packing boxes to relocate the whole facility and shrugging out of her lab coat to leave only her black t-shirt, cap sleeves rolled high. She was feeling the heat as well.
Sam caught sight of him in the doorway. "Sir. I didn't hear you come in."
"Sorry."
"It's all right, sir."
Carter tossed her lab coat across a stack of boxes, and straightened her shirt. He looked away for a moment and thought about inventory. Better.
"Did you need help with something, sir? Is the program still working for you?"
Jack shook his head as he drifted into the room. "No, no, it's fine. Daniel's counting everything but toothbrushes, probably that, too, if I let him." He slipped his hands into his pockets. "The man's big on organization. You wouldn't think it to look at him, would you?"
Sam offered a cursory smile that didn't reach her eyes, and that hit him in the gut. He took a step closer and leaned an arm on a particularly tall stack of supply boxes. He reached out and touched light fingertips to Sam's elbow. "Hey, Carter. You all right?"
She drew a soft breath, pulling in her lower lip, and dropping her gaze. But she replied evenly, "Yes, sir, I'm fine."
Jack tilted his head, repeated the question with his eyes as he strained to catch her evasive gaze.
He felt better in here. Here in the lab. Where it was quiet. And he could hear Carter breathing. And no one else was around. He didn't follow that thought too far.
"Carter?" he prompted.
When she raised her eyes as far as his chest, his stomach clenched. Sam Carter was about a hair away from tears, and he hadn't been ready for that on any level.
"Rough night, sir," she said softly.
Jack breathed with her for a moment, offering quiet support with his eyes. "You all right?" he repeated, but the simple question held more meaning now.
She was watching his arm or his stomach or his wristwatch. Anything but his eyes. "Sir, Pete and I...broke things off last night."
*Holy crap.* "Well, that's rough," he said softly, feeling aggressively out of his league and in need of a regroup.
Sam's reply was half under her breath, half to herself. "Actually, *I* broke things off."
*Holy crap.* "What happened? I mean--I'm sorry, that's none of my business." So far out of his league.
As if to confirm his complete lack of a grasp on the situation, Sam released a sharp breath and whispered, "Actually, sir, it has everything to do with you."
"What? Carter, what are you talking about?"
She pulled back, as though she had only just realized her words had been spoken aloud. "Nothing. It's...it's nothing, sir. I'm sorry." She shook her head and took a half step back.
He should have been angry, resentful, something, of her backhanded jab and duck, but she was too soft right now, too vulnerable and hurt for him to summon any tangible anger. *Sam...* He was lost. And desperate to know what the hell he could have done to cause this.
Jack shook his head. "Sam. I don't understand."
Sam looked up at him, wide blue eyes meeting his gaze solidly at last. She searched him for a moment, reading him, and he would have given a good bit to have a clue what she saw.
She nodded with a kind of inevitable acceptance. "I should get back to work," she said flatly.
He couldn't assemble his words into a sentence before she had slipped past him and vanished down the hallway.
He wasn't sure how many times the doorbell had rung before he pulled his eyes open, but there had been something in his dream about cake timers and maybe going three rounds before the final bell, so he guessed it wasn't the first ring to fully awaken him.
He squinted at the glowing red numbers in the darkness. 3:24.
This couldn't be good.
He pulled himself out of bed, debated fishing out his firearm, but decided to play it cool. Not bothering to turn on any lights, he pulled on a t-shirt and socks to go with the sweats he had crashed in, and padded to the front door. He squinted through the peep hole, momentarily blinded by a flash of light from the street lamp across the road.
*Sam.* Sam Carter was on his doorstep. What the hell?
He hurriedly flipped the locks and pulled the door wide, functioning on autopilot. "Carter? What's going on? Do we have a mission? Unauthorized offworld activation?"
But his words were lost when Sam shifted away from the backlight and he caught sight of the tear streaks on her pale face and the pained lines on her brow.
His stomach hit the back of his throat. "Sam?"
He reached out a hand toward her, but she stepped away. Her words rushed toward him on a wave of emotion. "Sir--it has everything to do with you, not because of something you did, but because when I wake up at 3am from nightmare flashbacks to the Goa'uld attacks and I roll over--he's not you."
The quiet of the early morning hours surrounded them and Jack's brain raced to fill in the conversation Sam had obviously had without him. Sam's breath rushed misty into the chill night like she'd just run for her life; Jack's heart pounded his pulse in his ears. A car swished past on the pavement, and somewhere in the distance a truck horn blared. And all Jack could process was the beautiful woman in the flowered skirt and denim jacket standing on his doorstep with tears in her eyes and a staggering confession on her lips.
"Come here," he whispered, his voice deep and strong.
Sam moved into his arms.
He never had to think about holding Sam. His body moved on instinct when she needed him. Always had, even in those early months and years when they hadn't really had the right to rely on one another so intensely. One nasty flashback under hypnosis and he was cradling her against him in full view of the medical staff. But she had let him. And no one hugged better than Sam. No one held on tighter than Sam. No one fit like Sam. Nothing felt more right or more secure than when Sam was tight in his arms and she was clinging to his back. Hell, maybe they *had* been married in an alternate reality.
Jack closed his eyes and buried his face in the soft warmth of Sam's neck. She sniffed hard and tightened her hold.
"Hey. Sssshhh. It's okay. It's okay."
*Jesus*. This felt so right and so damned horrible. Sam was hurting like hell and he'd missed it so completely. And they weren't supposed to be doing this at all, they weren't supposed to be here, but all he could think was why on earth had they waited this long? Why hadn't they talked all this out when he made it back to the land of the human? Why hadn't he let Sam be his best friend as everyone assumed he did--*they* did--all the time?
Something in Sam tensed and she pulled away. He didn't want to let her go. Didn't want to let her revert to Major Carter and speak to him as Colonel O'Neill.
He kept his hands on her hips as she eased away.
"I'm sorry I woke you," she said, still fighting for breath.
He shook his head.
Sam swiped at her eyes, pulled further back, and he could see the embarrassment flush across her cheeks, but Jack wouldn't take his hand from her hip. "I didn't mean to--it's ridiculous of me to have come here, I didn't--"
"Shut up, Carter."
She swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."
"Come on in."
"Sir, it's just that you said I should have called. And I didn't then, and now...I just came over. I'm sorry, sir."
Jack nodded. "Come on."
His house was neat, as always. Sparse. She didn't think he spent much time here. Didn't do much when he did. He was either on the roof with his telescope, or on the couch in front of a game. He didn't cook much. His home was cozy and functional and practical. It suited him. And the familiarity helped her stop shaking.
Sam followed her boss across the threshold of his home, down the steps into the shadows of his living room. He switched on the soft glow of a small end table lamp.
"So, where's Cassie?" Jack asked, throwing her a bone with simple conversation, and she jumped at the offer.
"Oh, she's staying over at a friend's house tonight, sir. Basketball game and pizza. She has my cell number."
"Sit down, Carter. It's three o'clock in the morning. Even *you* have to be tired."
She would have argued, but she was so exhausted from two sleepless and painful nights, she could hardly keep her legs beneath her.
She settled on the edge of the couch, and Jack took a seat beside her. "Are you thirsty? Can I get you some water?"
She shook her head. "No, thank you, I'm fine, sir."
Jack's soft brown eyes narrowed and her stomach twisted at the warmth she found there. She couldn't follow where that path lead. Not tonight, not when everything was shifting so wildly beneath her.
"I think we can drop the formalities," he said softly.
Sam stared at him. Not understanding, or maybe not wanting to. "Sir?"
"*Jack*."
*Oh, God.* She caught her breath and shook her head. "No, sir...I don't think I can."
Jack leaned closer and she wanted to run and wanted to erase the past fifteen minutes and just go back to the way everything had been when the world had been familiar and safe and she hadn't ripped her guts open and laid them on display. The endless problems of astrophysics were a thousand times easier than this moment.
But Jack wouldn't let her escape. Maybe he knew a little something about running from what matters in your life. He reached up and touched his fingertips to her cheek; his skin was still warm from sleep despite his moments outside, and she wanted so deeply to be back in his arms. "Yes, you can," he whispered. "Right here, tonight, in this room. Let tomorrow morning worry about itself."
*No, no, no. Too much.* Too much too fast, and she'd started it, but he was supposed to push her back in line, not lead her over the edge. That was the game, that was how they played. "I can't... we can't do that. I shouldn't even be here." Her words were firm, but her body made no move to depart.
Jack watched her in quiet consideration. Then he nodded, accepting her words, if still considering. He said simply, "Stay here. I'll be right back."
Jack vanished toward the kitchen. She heard a click and the slide of a drawer, and he reappeared with a small kitchen timer he plunked down unceremoniously on the coffee table. A large '5:00' glowed at them in the dimness, not yet flashing.
"Five minutes," Jack said, sitting back on the couch and lacing his fingers in his lap.
"I don't understand, sir."
He nodded toward the timer. "When I hit that start button, you have five minutes of freedom, Major. I hit that button, and for five minutes, anything we say or do, doesn't count. We never mention it again, we don't use it for future references or revenge, we just...be ourselves for five minutes. It's a patented therapy technique."
"It is?"
"No. Hell, I don't know. But it should be, shouldn't it? I always wanted to do it."
She sighed heavily. "Colonel, I appreciate the thought, but I really think I should just--" and she had actually caught the momentum to push up and leave, when Jack dove forward and slapped the button on the timer.
"Five minutes, Carter."
"Sir--"
"No." He pointed toward the timer. "Not 'sir'..."
Sam lowered her gaze, brow tensed, but unable to speak. After a moment, she sank to the edge of the couch cushion.
"Hey," he said softly. "Sam..."
She couldn't look up. He rested his hand on her forearm. After a moment, he reached up and drew his fingers down her hair--lightly, teasing, not yet stroking. He let his hand fall back to her arm. "'Jack.' Say it for me."
Her chest felt tight. She was shaking, hoping he wouldn't see. This moment was too intimate, too deep, too fast. He was close enough for her to smell his skin and she could too easily imagine crawling into the recently abandoned warmth of his bed with his arms wrapped tight around her.
She drew a trembling breath. His feather light touches were felling her walls. "Jack," she whispered.
"Thanks. Now tell me to go to hell."
"Excuse me?"
He nodded, and sat back to enjoy the show. "Come on. You know you've wanted to at least a dozen times--probably more like a hundred, but I do have *some* dignity left--but you could never do it 'cause I'm your CO. Well, for these fi--four and a half minutes, you can. So, go for it."
"Si--Jack. I don't want to...I mean, I don't know what I'd--"
"Okay, I'll start."
She swallowed hard, not certain if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but so fascinated by the utterly alien ground they were walking she couldn't force herself to look away. The irony of the metaphor was not lost on her.
"I hate it when you grin at me."
She blinked. "You--you do? Why?"
"Because, you...when you get excited about something, usually scientific in nature, you're like...Shirley Temple. Like the cutest little girl *ever*, and then whatever it is you're on to and trying to talk me into--I say 'yes.' Even if it's, like, the stupidest decision I could make. I mean, not that your ideas are ever stupid, but...you know what I mean."
"Oh," she said quietly. And she stared down at the couch cushion, letting that soak in. Then she said, "I'll try to be...less enthusiastic."
"Don't." Such simplicity, such honesty. Pure Jack.
She almost smiled.
And his eyes returned the gesture. "Your turn."
Okay, she could do this. She could enjoy the freedom and play the game until the five minutes were up and stay on safe territory and just let a word or two slip here or there. No harm done. Nothing they couldn't erase in the wake.
"Sir...Jack--it's about that poster inside your locker door. So many of the younger airmen who share that facility have the utmost respect for you; they look to you as a role model, and I really think you should be setting a better example for--"
"Not Carla. You really don't like Carla?"
She lifted an eyebrow. This was even easier, holding the upper hand again. "Jack..."
"All right, all right, point taken," he said, a childish pout gracing his middle-aged features. "Carla can come down."
"Thank you."
They fell quiet again. A gust of wind whistled through the rafters of the house and brought with it the reality that she was here, in Jack's house, at 3:30 in the morning.
"So, what's with the nightmares?" Jack asked, casually.
She took a moment to breathe. "It's just...well, you know, you've always told me I think too much. Sometimes my brain gets on a kind of...'natural high'. For a few days...hormones or something. Runs overtime, even for me. I have some of my most brilliant scientific inspirations on those days. Drawback is at night. My brain runs just as fast while I'm sleeping. Tends to bring up all sorts of things I'd forgotten. Usually things I...wanted to forget."
"Anything you want to talk about? You know, while you have the 'free time'?" He gestured toward the timer again.
"No, sir," she said simply.
And she saw the flash of hurt cross his countenance.
"All right. Then I get to say something, on MY free time." Jack sat forward as his voice strengthened, forearms propping him on his knees, bringing him parallel with her on the edge of the cushions. "Carter, you just told me something on my doorstep tonight that said a whole hell of a lot. And that was NOT on free time. And the banter is fun and all, but frankly, right now, I just don't want to pretend that what you said never happened. Especially, when *I* probably should have been the one to work up the nerve to say something. A long time ago. Maybe it's the almost dying a lot this year thing, but I find I'm a little impatient with the whole we'll-get-to-that-later philosophy."
Sam's eyes flushed hot with tears, and her vision blurred and tunneled. She stared at the floor a long moment, fighting to make the room hold still. She dug her nails into the edge of the couch, cleared her throat. "All right. You want me to yell at you? You want me to tell you something I would never tell you any other time?" She turned to face him, letting anger and fire fuel her strength, and Jack met her challenge head on, ready to go a round if she wanted, ready to take whatever she threw at him. Let him handle this. "I hated you for sticking your head into that thing," she said harshly.
And she saw her words hit him in the gut, but he barely flinched.
She charged forward. Too much had been ripped open, no point in turning back now and leaving open wounds in her wake. "It was unbelievably brave of you and selfless and it was the right thing to do for the entire human race, but all I could feel was that you left me. And you never even spoke with me about it." She swiped at her eyes, brushing hot tears from her cheeks that she didn't want to know she had shed. She gave a single self-derisive laugh. "Could I be more self-centered?"
Jack didn't speak. He listened quietly, letting her words carry the full weight they deserved. When he offered his voice, his tone was deadly serious. "I hesitated for a moment before I let the device take me."
Sam stared at him. "Of course, you did. Who the hell wouldn't?"
He shook his head. "No. No, it wasn't like that. I mean, it was, but I was resigned to the process. The option had crossed my mind before... But in that moment--just before I took the dive--all I could think was...'Sam'."
The room fell silent. She felt the weight of the darkness around her, the wind outside, the gentle scent of Jack's warm skin, the lingering burn of his late night whiskers against her throat and the deep threaded timber in his words.
"Oh," she whispered, voice liquid.
"The nightmare tonight was about the Goa'uld," she said. "About an invasion. The ships above and the feeling when the Goa'uld attaches and slips inside you and that complete loss of self and...and last night it was Cassie. I dreamt she was sick again, like she was when we found her, and this time, no matter what we did, we couldn't stop the time bomb inside of her, and she--"
"Sam."
She closed her eyes, forced a deep breath through her nose.
Jack's hand was like a spring breeze in her hair. "Samantha..."
"No..."
"Our job sucks sometimes. There are risks. Big risks. But I'm not gonna leave you. Not if I can help it."
"You already did. You just got lucky. And I am not your charge. I should not be a consideration in how you perform your job."
"You're right." He was still smoothing her hair, quieting her soul. "And when the fate of the entire human race depended on it, I sucked it up and took the plunge. And I would do what I did again. At least I hope so, if I want to live with myself. And you would, too. And you can take care of yourself, Sam Carter, I know that, I've always known that. But if it's anything less than the destruction of the Earth as a whole that's at stake, then...I need to know when you're scared. And *I need* to factor that into my plans."
Those words hurt too much and felt too good, and she couldn't fight against her tears any longer. And before she knew it, Jack's arms were strong around her and pulling her in hard against him, a world of feeling in the force of his muscles, and she was burying her face in his neck and clinging to the power in his shoulder. He kissed her neck and cradled the back of her head, fingers against her scalp, woven in her hair.
"It's all right," he whispered. "It's all right. No more dreams tonight, okay? I won't allow it."
She couldn't reply. She closed her eyes and drew in his scent and held on. Jack was here. He was alive and real and coherent and speaking English and holding her for all he was worth. She couldn't think past that.
A barrage of piercing beeps shot through the room.
Sam caught a sharp breath and jerked her head upward.
The timer. The timer was ringing.
Jack didn't move. Sam turned her head, mouth to his ear. "Sir. Sir, the timer." He didn't move. "Sir, we need to--" But before she could finish her sentence, Jack reached out one arm, grasped the timer, and hurled it across the room. The flimsy plastic cracked and the battery skidded across the floor, alarm silencing.
Sam stared at the shattered electronics, gasping for breath, chest against Jack's, but Jack clung to her hard, breath hot on her neck, urging her insistently back into his embrace. She couldn't pull away. She sank into his touch. It was only a moment before the intensity returned and her arms locked around his neck. She caught her breath on a choked sob for everything that ached and everything that felt too good to believe.
"It's all right," he whispered again.
And she had to believe that much. She needed to believe.
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