The scratchy, stiff material of BDU's feel a little strange after so long in homespun linen, but it does feel good to be showered and shaved.
Jack stops in at the control room and finds everything running as usual. Siler, tinkering with something in one corner, nods to him. "It's good to have you back, Colonel."
"Thanks, Siler."
"You getting back into the swing of things, sir?"
"Getting there."
It's whiplash, more than anything. He'd spent three months determined to get back here, and then the minute he'd finally given up and decided to build a new life, suddenly now he's right back here on Earth with electricity and indoor plumbing.
It's not that he's not happy about it. It's just...complicated.
(He remembers homecomings like this, from missions he couldn't talk about, where he and Sara had to smile at each other over a strain they couldn't put into words.)
He still feels uneasy.
Carter's been quiet since Edora.
Scratch that, actually. She's been absent. He's barely seen her since they got back to Earth.
He's been determinedly ignoring the knot in the pit of his stomach, a pointed reminder that during those hours he'd spent digging for the Stargate, sweating and straining and filthy, he'd found himself thinking about what he wanted to go back to on Earth. And more often than not, his mind's eye had showed him blonde hair, blue eyes, and a brilliant smile.
He'd resigned himself to never seeing her again, never hearing the brisk yes, sir that feels as personal as his name.
But now it all feels wrong, and it's off and unbalanced and itchy like his BDU trousers and he'd pretty sure he needs to talk to her, though he's not sure what he needs to say.
Of course, he hasn't seen her in hours.
Siler's packing up his toolbox from whatever he was fixing, and the SGC has long accepted that Siler knows literally everything that happens at Cheyenne Mountain. He's like an interactive computer display. But nicer. And no blue screen of death.
"Hey, Siler. Where's Carter?"
"Maybe in her lab, sir? She was in here earlier. I think she said she was heading there."
When Jack gets to Carter's lab, the door's closed but unlocked; he knocks, hears nothing, and decides to peek inside.
It's a mess.
Carter usually keeps her lab pristine, if a little crowded when she's working on something. But now?
Every flat surface - every flat surface - is covered with notes. Table. Workbench. Papers are pinned to walls, to the corkboard over the desk, taped to the cupboards where she keeps her tools. There's a small section of the floor that's carpeted with them, laid out carefully like tiles. There's even a rolling clear glass dry-erase board in a corner, so covered in scrawled equations that he can barely make out individual digits.
He picks up a paper off the table closest to him, scanning it. He knows Carter's handwriting. It's tidy. This is messy. There are ink stains, spots where the writing has smeared. Calculations, diagrams, words he's never seen before. There's a pile of crumpled papers on one side of the table, and he smoothes one out to find a set of equations scribbled out with rough, impatient scrawls.
Jack's no handwriting analyst, but he can feel the frustration that seethes through the paper. He's watched Carter do plenty of math, but he's never seen anything like this before. This isn't just desperation. Her writing looks crazed. This is the edge of despair.
"Sir?"
He turns around to find her in the doorway. She looks uneasy, and it hits him in the gut, because she's never looked like she wants him out of her lab before. Not even when he starts messing with the gadgets.
"Carter. What -" he looks around - "what is this?"
She shrugs. "This is how we got you back."
Jack looks around, taking in the mess yet again. It's like Carter's brain threw up all the physics in the universe. He sees snippets of her scientific mind in briefings he doesn't understand, or while they're in the field and she gets excited about something, but this is something completely different. This looks like she was struggling. And he's never seen her struggle with science. Ever.
"Did you do all this?" Stupid question. It's her lab, and it's her handwriting. Of course she did all this. "How long did this take you?"
"Three months."
Her voice is very even, like she's talking about any mundane thing in the world instead of how she spent three months feverishly filling hundreds of sheets of paper with concepts he can't even begin to understand.
"Sir?" She's eyeing him warily, with a guarded expression he doesn't remember her having around him. That hurts. "Did you need something?"
She finally meets his eyes, and he gets it.
The image flares up in his mind of her, sitting in here alone, scribbling equation after equation under the harsh fluorescent lights for hours that turned into days, then weeks, then months.
He knows how stubborn she is.
And she looks so tired.
"Carter."
He wraps his arms around her, and before he has time to worry that it's the wrong idea, she lets out a shuddering breath and hugs him back.
She's warm and soft in his arms, and he feels a bit of the tension in his chest dissolve, like he's finally found the last piece that was missing.
Her eyes look suspiciously glassy, and then he realizes: this is what he still needed to find. He was so focused on his own situation that he forgot there were people back on Earth who never gave up on him.
"I missed you," he says quietly into her hair. The words are a relief. It wasn't just Earth. It was her.
"I missed you too, sir."
When he was in the infirmary earlier, Janet had tried to explain whatever it was Carter had done to get him back, although at the time, Jack had still been kind of overwhelmed by everything. But now it's starting to make sense.
She put in more work than anyone, Colonel. If not for her, you'd still be there.
"I'm pretty sure 'thank you' is kind of feeble after all this," he murmurs into her ear, "but for what it's worth, thank you."
He feels the soft warmth of her breath against his neck as she laughs softly. "You're welcome."
She's surprisingly pliant in his arms, all curves and softness melted against him, and his body's reaction is instinctive. It feels too good. Too easy. Too tempting.
He wants to kiss her so badly he can't breathe.
It hits him hard, this shot of pure physical heat, and Jack tenses, lets her go before he embarrasses himself. But even the look in her eyes, wide and open, knocks him down.
He'd missed her, sure. But maybe he hadn't realized just how he'd missed her.
Carter looks a little curious, like she's not sure why he's suddenly pulling away, and he can't let the moment go, because this is the most like home it's felt since he stepped back through the Gate.
"You built something, right? Something to make the Gate work?"
She half-smiles at that, the fond little smile that means It would take three hours to answer properly, but I know you're trying. "A particle beam. Yes, sir."
"Hammond said you 're-wrote the laws of physics,' yeah?"
She flushes at that, looking down self-consciously. "It took some...creative problem-solving."
"If anyone on Earth could break science to get me home, Carter, it's you."
That gets him one of her real, genuine, beaming smiles, the kind that lights up her whole face. Damn.
"We're just glad to have you back, sir."
For a long moment it's quiet, and Jack knows he needs to leave, needs to maintain an appropriate level of distance between himself and the woman who literally moved heaven and earth for him and feels so natural in his arms that he just wants to -
"Do you - need help?" He waves an arm sort of abstractly, indicating the blizzard of papers surrounding them. "Filing? - or something?"
She looks around, like she's only just remembering that she's got a ream of paper to clean up.
"You know - I think it can wait." She shrugs. "It's not going anywhere."
It's probably even worse, how endearing he finds that.
Jack shoves his hands in his pockets. He's still reeling from...well. Something he's telling himself isn't an issue.
"You should go home, Carter. From what I hear, you've earned it."
"You too, sir."
She follows him out of the lab, pausing to switch off the lights and power down something that looks expensive (and probably dangerous).
It's on the tip of his tongue - Do you want to come over? - have dinner? But as unbalanced as he feels right now, he knows, with absolute clarity, that it's not just a bad idea for the sake of appearance.
Best to get some space.
Not that he hasn't had plenty of that recently.
"See you tomorrow, Major."
She shuts the door behind them.
"See you tomorrow, sir."