Late Season 3 or Season 4

Disclaimer--I do not own Stargate SG-1 nor will I make any profit in connection to this story...

THE SNUGGLER

Their position on the narrow rock ledge hardly sheltered them from the icy wind, but it had been the best location that they could find. Jack added some fuel to the small fire outside the tent and pulled his sleeping bag closer around his shoulders. As far as he could tell, there was nothing else alive on this god-forsaken rock. Still, prudence had seemed in order, and so he had assigned himself the first watch. A great gust of wind rushed through their little valley and, not for the first time in his long vigil, Jack envied Daniel–safe and warm with SG-5 on some tropical paradise somewhere–while he was stuck collecting minerals on P4C-238.

Inside the tent, he heard a cessation of Sam's raspy snore (her body's predictable reaction to cold air, her team had discovered), and some slight rustling. Jack's numbed checks lifted at the sound in an almost smile, thinking Teal'c's up. And, sure enough, within moments the large Jaffa emerged from the impromptu bivouac with his sleeping bag wrapped firmly about his shoulders to relieve Jack.

Jack rose slowly, all his joints creaking and aching. "Argh. Is it just me, or is it a bit chilly out here?" He quipped sarcastically.

"It is indeed cold, O'Neill." was Teal'c's stoic response, but Jack thought he could detect a glint of humor in his eyes.

"We'll I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got a hot date with a hard slab of ground." Jack began shuffling towards the tent, a feat he was attempting while still completely ensconced in his mummy bag.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow at his comrade's antics. "O'Neill, a word of caution."

Jack, who was at the tent's door, looked back over his shoulders with a puzzled expression on his face, "What Teal'c?"

Teal'c's face was completely neutral as he said in a hushed tone, "Major Carter is cold."

"Ah," Jack replied, his face becoming contemplative. "Cold... Thanks for the warning, T." And, with that he crawled carefully into the shelter.

SG1

The rock ledge had only allowed about three feet of slanted sleeping space. Samantha Carter, who'd woken when Teal'c had gotten up, had managed to cram herself onto the uppermost six inches of it to make room for her commanding officer. Jack smiled at her blatant efforts to avoid conscious physical contact. "Carter," he whispered, knowing full well that she was awake.

"Sir?" she questioned as she heard him lay down and adjust his sleeping bag.

"At ease, Major, I've got plenty of space."

"Yes, sir," she replied, though she didn't appear relax or move to fill anymore of the tent floor. Jack shrugged in a suit-yourself-manner while thinking smugly to himself, it's just a matter of time.

It was Daniel who'd first made the discovery that a certain at-the-time-Captain Carter had a second, more pronounced, reaction to the cold than her slight snore. They'd been off-world on P9G-441 when one harried looking Daniel had emerged from his shared tent in the morning to confess to Teal'c and Jack that he hadn't gotten much sleep. Carter was a snuggler, and a moderately aggressive one at that.

Jack had good-naturedly ribbed Carter about it later that day and had mortified her in the process. The negative consequence of which was that she hardly slept for the rest of the mission. After that, her teammates had held their tongues with regards to her snuggling and stoically rotated turns as her tent companion on cold planets. And, the funny thing was that as the team grew more and more comfortable with each other, the less the snuggling seemed to matter.

Daniel, who hadn't quite known how to respond when his attractive female teammate, almost a stranger, had tried to share his warmth that first time, had long since grown so comfortable and relaxed in her presence that he'd begun snuggling right back. Some mornings, the two doctors looked positively adorable in their miniature puppy pile. Jack had several compromising photographs from such mornings set aside in case blackmail was ever in order.

Teal'c had somehow trained his body to ignore the ordeal. While he kelnoreemed, Carter could snuggle all that she liked–his body registered her as an unthreatening entity. In short, his response was similar to the way in which most humans could sleepfully ignore the movements of their house pets.

Jack, on the other hand, had a vastly different reaction to Carter's cuddling. As his teammates had come to view it as innocuous, Jack had learned to view it as dangerous. Not unwelcome, not un-looked for, but very dangerous all the same. He liked it; God help him. He liked holding his snuggling 2nd in his arms. He enjoyed the weight of her as she desperately sought to share his heat. Her smell, her feel–they filled him with a surprising sense of peace. He always slept well when he held her, and it terrified him.

Carter's breathing had changed, she was asleep again. Jack could hear her body relax into the space that she occupied. He knew that within moments, she would unintentionally, by minute movements, head in his direction. He knew that within a half an hour she would be intertwined in his arms, her head nuzzled beneath his chin, her soft breath warming his neck. He knew that he would welcome her as he had done dozens of times before–strangely thankful for this one small intimate pleasure.

And, he also knew that he would awaken prior to her assumption of the watch, that he would study her face blissful and angelic in sleep, that he would lightly kiss her brow before he disentangled her from himself even if it felt like he was losing something vital to his own life in the process, that he would try to protect her from her own fear and her great sense of impropriety by acting as though nothing had happened, and that he would feel deeply sad and abandoned when her alarm woke her and she carefully slipped from the tent so as not to wake him.

Jack lay there on the hard ground as the bitter wind whipped around the sturdy tent anticipating both the joy he would feel when his forbidden and unconscious lover sought his embrace and the empty-ness that he would feel in a mere three hours when he would lose her again. And, at that moment, he didn't envy Daniel Jackson a bit.