5.
They fall into the fountain. Well, that's not exactly the case. Carter stands at the edge of the fountain, her mass spectrometer as close to the water as she can get it without dunking the damn thing and Jack stands at her side, close enough for their jackets to brush. They're just standing there and then it's like the ground shifts beneath their feet and they both topple right into the pool of shimmering water. It looks almost like an event horizon, which makes the fact that he comes up freezing and wet even more traumatizing.
They both scramble out, exchange worried and confused glances; glare at Daniel who can't stop snickering.
Janet gives them a clean bill of health. Maybe the legends are wrong and the water is just that - water.
It takes two mornings for Jack to realize that his back doesn't ache when he tries to get out of bed and his knees feel fine. Great, actually. He could run for miles if he wanted to. When he gets into work a week after the incident, Daniel is looking at him oddly.
"Did you dye your hair?" he asks.
"Huh?" he asks. He's not that vain, and anyway, he cuts his hair at least once a month so dying it would be an insane kind of maintenance. "Why?"
They find a mirror, and sure enough, there's enough brown speckled in with the silver to seem suspicious. When Carter comes in, she's looking particularly fresh-faced as well. The little crows feet around her eyes have disappeared and her hair looks at least a few shades lighter. Her breasts perkier, not that he'd notice such a thing (except for he totally does and so does Daniel, judging by his expression).
By the end of the month, they both look twenty-five. Janet can't find anything in their system and the teams who go back through the gate swear that the water in the fountain is just that - water, but everyone is calling it the fountain of youth and Jack has never felt so alive.
He and Carter do a five mile run every morning on the surface now. It's a little odd, seeing her young face and slimmer hips beating out the trail in front of him, but it's still Carter, still her words that come out of that fresh, beautiful face. There are other things about being twenty-five that he has forgotten about until now. When they come to the end of their loop, she falls into the grass and lies on her back, her chest heaving, her skin flushed and sweaty. He falls next to her, his muscles burning, his fingers clutching at the thin blades this new spring growth has to offer. When she turns her head to look at him, she's grinning and then he's smiling too and it seems only natural to roll over her and press his mouth to hers.
His libido is almost impossible to reign in. Her leg wraps around his and he settles his hips against hers and he thinks that if Janet never finds a way to get them back to normal, that might be okay.
4.
Her transfer to Area 51 is final. It went through as of twenty-six minutes ago and she knows that Jack is headed to Washington in a few weeks time which means... which means...
She grabs her keys and almost runs to her car.
The sun is just starting to set as she turns out of her neighborhood, the sky going from blue to pink to orange. She makes it about one third of the way to Jack's house before she sees a very familiar truck coming towards her down the road. Before she even realizes what she's doing she flicks on her hazard lights and lays on the horn, honking until the truck swerves to the opposite side of the road. She stops the Vovlo, barely manages to get the keys out of the ignition before she gets out of the car. He stands on one side of the road staring at her. They have to let five cars pass before he can jog across to get to her.
"Carter," he says.
"I was coming for you," she says. He slides his hands up her arms, cups her jaw, moves his thumbs over cheekbones. "Please," she says. "Jack."
She's waited eight years for this kiss. He doesn't disappoint her.
3.
Mostly, they leave the ridiculous but harmless cultural misunderstandings out of their reports. It took a while for them to realize that just not saying anything was better than slogging through the paperwork that Hammond demanded anytime Daniel inadvertently married a goat or Carter's being a woman set into motion some asinine chain of events that ended with Teal'c having to carry her around a sacred tree nine times before they could gate home.
Now, they just pause before going through the gate, exchange looks, and vow never to speak of it again. As long as the mission was a success, this generally worked out.
Alien booze never goes well. Jack has a standing order for the team not to touch anything but water off world. It doesn't matter what cultural ritual they are partaking in, it doesn't matter if their hosts swear up and down that the beverage is harmless, SG-1 is never, never to drink it.
And here's why.
"Come on Jack, even the kids are drinking," Daniel says. "It's an integral part of the ceremony and we'll be offending them if we don't partake."
"It seems safe enough," Sam says. "Like fruit juice."
"I have already had some," Teal'c says now, ignoring Jack's eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. Teal'c had spent most of the day with the warriors who had apparently started the celebration some hours earlier. "I remain fine."
"All right, all right," Jack concedes. "But no more than strictly necessary."
Still, he has a bad feeling about it, a nagging in his brain like he's forgetting something. Like there's something right under his nose that he can't see.
It takes him over an hour to realize none of the women are drinking it. None except Carter.
Carter's hand sliding up his back beneath his jacket is another red flag.
He manages to get Teal'c to watch her while he and Daniel speak to the chief of this tribe. Daniel has to translate everything and it's slow going. There's a particular phrase that Daniel blanches at and then paraphrases.
"They give it to women on their wedding nights, I think," Daniel says carefully. "He says it's harmless. That it'll wear off by morning. He apologizes that she accidentally partook."
"What did he actually say, Daniel?" Jack demands.
"Something along the lines of the drink being used to, ah, grease open the knees of unwilling brides," Daniel says apologetically. "We told them Sam was a warrior so they treated her like a warrior. This is our fault."
"Like hell," he says. "We're going back to the gate. Now."
"Wait, wait, wait," Daniel says. "It'll wear off and if you bring her back into the SGC in this state she'll never forgive you. Look at her, Jack!"
Teal'c is holding her arms from behind and Sam is both struggling for freedom and rubbing herself against the strong wall of muscle behind her. Her eyes are glazed, her cheeks flushed and she keeps staring at Jack, just staring like she's starving and he's the main course.
"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Jack asks.
"Take her back to camp," Daniel says. "Don't make her do this in front of all these people. Go with Teal'c. I'll stay, smooth everything over."
"Sir," she says when he approaches her. "Sir, please."
He looks at Teal'c who has the decency to have even less of an expression than usual.
"We're gonna take you back to camp, Carter," he promises. He isn't sure why Teal'c lets her go, but she launches herself at him, throws her arms around his waist, presses her hot face into his neck and he feels her shudder and gasp and tremble and he holds her close, his arms so tight that she can't get free, not that she's trying. He can't tell if she's moaning or crying, but her breath is hot down his collar. "Sam," he whispers. "Try to be strong."
She whimpers and he feels her tongue dart out to lick his neck. His eyes fly to Teal'c who moves, takes one of Sam's arms and pries her away from Jack so they can take her stumbling and weeping back to camp.
When they get there, Jack lights a fire and Teal'c zip ties her wrists together. Jack has pity on her and orders Teal'c to take the perimeter, walking a slow and probably unnecessary circle around the camp. Sam sits across the fire from him and takes breath after shuddering breath.
"It's going to wear off," he promises.
"The women," she manages. He leans forward a little. She's barely whispering. "They told me how to stop it faster."
"How?" he asks.
Her eyes are dark and dilated and she licks her lips.
"No way, Major," he says. "We're just going to sit this one out the old fashioned way."
She makes a strangled noise of frustration.
Eventually he puts her in the tent and orders her to sleep. He doesn't untie her wrists. Daniel comes back a few hours before sunrise and they all sit around the fire and listen to her keen and writhe.
"Jesus," Daniel mutters once at the sound of a strangled, choking cry, but Jack's eyes are hard.
"Shut the fuck up," he snaps. "We never talk about this, never, you hear me?"
"Yes!" Daniel says too quickly.
In the morning, he sends both Teal'c and Daniel to wrap up negotiations - he's really not sure if this was worth the naquadah - and he unzips the tent carefully. She's asleep, all of the sleeping bags tangled around her. Her wrists are bruised where the ties are - she must've tried hard to break free. He hopes for her sake that memory loss is going to be a key part of her morning.
She wakes up to him cutting her free.
Their eyes meet.
"Oh my God," she whispers, her eyes filling. She's embarrassed beyond belief but before she can scurry away, he opens his arms.
"Come here," he says, pulling her limp form against him. She sags and doesn't try to break free.
"Sir..." she says, muffled by his coat.
"Never happened," he says and presses a kiss to her forehead. "Never even happened."
2.
Sam likes him in dress blues. She'll never say as much, but she gets this almost feral look in her eyes when he comes home and tugs his tie free. She hates her formal uniform and it's not the most flattering thing he's every seen her in, all boxy with the shoulder pads, but she really, really likes his.
They haven't been in this house long and he still finds it cute to say, "Honey, I'm home," when he walks through the door even though she rolls her eyes every single time.
She takes his hat from him where it is tucked beneath his arm and sets it aside.
"Hello, General O'Neill," she greets.
"Hello, Colonel O'Neill," he grins back.
They're still pretty deep in the honeymoon phase. Daniel won't even come over to the house for dinner.
"You two sicken me," he says over the phone. "Sicken."
She pushes the jacket off his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor.
"You miss me?" he asks.
"Oh yeah," she says. "I missed you."
"Good," he says. "Just let me change and we can..."
"No," she says. "Don't change. Just... leave it on."
He grins and dips his head to kiss his wife.
1.
Sam declines his offer of fishing, of solitude, of four days at his cabin. He can't say he's all that surprised. They've had a rough summer and she tells him she's going to go see Mark and the kids and he can't exactly begrudge her that. Hammond has given them a whole week and Daniel had cleared out before the general had even finished his sentence. Teal'c had also said no, though after last time, Jack isn't particularly disappointed.
The cabin alone will still the cabin and he'll have a good time.
He gets there, chops some wood before he loses the light and goes to bed early. It's the middle of the night when he wakes up and it takes him a minute to realize it's the knocking that pulled him up and out. He doesn't hear anything now but he holds his breath and waits a minute and then it's there again, knuckles against wood.
He gets out of the bed, stumbles while pulling on pants, and opens the door. There isn't a porch light but there's a full moon and she looks up at him, her face silver in the reflected light. He squints and has to make sure this isn't a dream.
"Carter?"
"Sir."
"What... what are you doing here?" he asks. "I thought..."
"I was at the airport," she says and her voice sounds uneven and unsure. "And I was about to check into my flight and I looked up at the monitor and... you know, there was this flight leaving in twenty minutes for Minneapolis and I just, I just got on it." She lets out a crazed laugh. "I just got on it and rented a car and came here."
"Okay," he says touching her arm to steady her. "Could've called, but that's okay. Come in."
She steps in hesitantly and makes it about three steps before stopping. "I shouldn't have come."
"No," he says quickly. "I mean, yes. I mean, it's okay and I'm glad you're here, not... no..."
He rubs his face and she looks both amused and appalled.
"It's late," he adds lamely. "I'm just... gonna put on some coffee and then we can talk."
It's still kind of dark and he flips on the light to the kitchen and squints at the brightness. He makes coffee by rote, feeling blindly for the tin and sloshing as much water onto the counter as into the back of the maker. He pours the sludge into two mugs and walks back out to her.
"Okay," he says. "From the beginning, please."
She looks like she has no idea what to say and then when she does speak, she looks like she has no clue where the words even come from.
"Janet died."
And then, as if she hasn't thoroughly confused him enough for one lifetime, she promptly bursts into tears.
It's been a couple of months since they lost Janet. Cassie is already away at school and liking it. Janet had left her some money behind but Jack had paid for her text books and still sends her a little cash every few weeks. Watching Sam cry now, Jack doesn't think that it's Janet, exactly, that's causing this, but how Janet's death seemed to start this big cascade of shitty events. He gets that. He does.
"Carter," Jack says now, reaching out to touch her knee but she jerks it away and wipes at her eyes. "Please," he says. "Just talk to me. Tell me what you're feeling."
"What I'm feeling?" she asks. "I feel... desperate. All the time."
He cocks his head a little and studies her and realizes she does look a little desperate. Pale skin, dark circles under her eyes, and he knows she's been hiding her hands from him. He sees them now, tucking back into her lap. She's not wearing her ring.
"Okay," he says. "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to put you to bed and let you get some sleep because you're... obviously very tired. And in the morning, we're going to get all of this sorted out."
She looks like she might argue but then simply nods, used to going with his plans.
She follows him down the hall to his bedroom. She probably has luggage out in her car, but neither mention it. Instead, he hands her an old, soft t-shirt and points to the bed, rumpled and still warm from his body. While she changes, he gets her a glass of water. When he brings it back into the bedroom, she's already in the bed, nestled exactly into the spot where he'd been sleeping. He sets the water on the nightstand and leans over to turn off the lamp. Her eyes are still watery and red and have feral look about them. Her hair is getting a little longer now, and he can't help but reach out and push it away from her forehead. Her hand shoots out from beneath the blankets and snags his wrist, holding on tightly, like if she lets go, this will all be over.
"Sam," he says. "It's going to be okay. I promise."
She bites her lip and nods once, but doesn't let go.
He turns off the light with his other hand and in darkness, her fingers relax and then slip away.
He's awake to watch the sunrise. The cabin is generally a no phone, no computer, no technology zone for him, but he digs his phone out of his duffel and turns it on. Daniel is still mostly asleep when he answers.
"What?"
"It's Jack," he says.
"No one wants to go fishing," Daniel says with a yawn. "Get over it."
"It's not that," Jack says even though he really does think Daniel would like it if he just gave it a chance.
"What's wrong?"
"Sam's here."
"Sam's in California," Daniel says.
"No," Jack says, "Sam's here. She just... showed up in the middle of the night and... isn't okay."
"Is she hurt?" Daniel asks, awake sounding now.
"She's not injured," Jack says, stepping out onto the deck and closing the door behind him.
"Ah," Daniel says and then after a minute. "She hasn't been okay in a while, Jack, but you've been too stubborn to see it."
"Daniel..."
"Look," Daniel says. "I know you two... struggle... with things... but it's worked for this long. I'm not really sure why it stopped so suddenly."
Because I'm an ass, Jack thinks. Because he pretty much told her to get a life and then she did and he got pissed about it.
"Well," Jack says. "I think I'm going to try to fix things. I just didn't want you to worry and I don't know if she called her brother or what the deal is, so I thought you should know and I have her and she's safe."
"Can I say something?" Daniel asks. Jack wants to say no, because if Daniel has to ask, it's something Jack isn't going to want to hear. Jack doesn't say yes or no, just waits. "I know we don't talk about you and Sam. I know that we all just pretend that we don't see what's happening here, what's always been happening..."
"Daniel." This time, it's a sharp warning.
"But maybe doing the right thing isn't working anymore," Daniel hurries on. "Maybe doing the noble thing is ultimately what's going to rip our team apart instead of keep it together."
"Rules are rules," Jack says. "I don't get to pick which ones to follow and ignore the rest."
"What? That's exactly what you do!"
"Not for this," Jack says, breathing out. "Not for this."
"Jack, it's not working anymore," Daniel says softly. "You two are so unhappy that it's poisoning everything."
"What do you want, Daniel? What do you want me to do? She's engaged."
"And why do you think that is, Jack?" Daniel snaps, clearly losing his cool.
"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Jack sighs. Sometimes he wishes that Daniel were as military as Carter, that the tone of his voice would be enough to shut Daniel up but it never, ever is.
"I don't care," Daniel says. "You pushed her away and now this is what you get."
"You don't know anything," Jack says. "You have no idea what we live through every fucking day."
"Maybe," Daniel concedes softly.
"And she pushed me too," Jack says, sinking wearily against the deck railing. "We just..." But he doesn't know how to finish the sentence and Daniel says nothing and there's a long stretch of silence where they just breathe and the birds start to sing around Jack as the morning blooms. This is the most honest conversation that Daniel and Jack have ever had.
"Jack?"
"I have to go," he says.
"Okay," Daniel says. "Talk to you soon." He hangs up.
He tucks the phone into his pocket even though he feels like hurling it into the pond and finding something to punch so hard that his knuckles bleed. He hates it when Daniel is right, he really does.
Inside there is movement and then, a few minutes later, Carter appears on the other side of the glass door. She's still in his t-shirt, but she's pulled her jeans back on and she has one of his knitted afghans wrapped around her shoulders. They stare at each other through the glass for a few moments and then she, rather hesitantly, reaches for the door and slides it open.
"Sleep okay?" he asks finally. She shakes her head and then her face crumples again and, Christ, apparently he's not going to get any reprieve, only this broken, crying version of Sam which makes Daniel even more right. Things are really, really fucked up and broken between them. They're either going to fix it now or everything will end. That's all there is to it.
He steps up to her and puts his hand on the back of her neck and pulls her head against his shoulder. They stand like that, her in the house and him out of it, for several minutes while she cries into his shoulder and he squeezes the back of her neck.
When she finally looks up at him, all teary and snotty and pathetic, he puts his other hand on her neck too, so she's trapped.
"Tell me what's wrong," he says. He demands it, really, leaves no more room for her to hedge around. She'll tell him and he won't let go until she does.
"I don't want to be in love with you," she says, fresh tears sliding down her face and dripping from her jaw onto the borrowed t-shirt.
He exhales, harshly. Her words force the air out and he tenses all over and she's really done it now. She's gone and said the thing that they've carefully not said for years.
"Carter."
"But I can't stop. I don't know how. I've tried everything." Her voice cracks and she sounds like a wounded animal and he remembers her from the night before, telling him how desperate she felt.
"You're getting married," he says. "Why are you telling me this?"
She tries to break free now, but he holds her in place.
"I can't marry him," she says. "I can't marry him if you feel this way too."
Oh.
"Please," she whispers, his eyes not quite meeting his. The back of her neck is hot against his hands. "Just tell me. Just... put me out of my misery so I don't have to feel this way anymore."
Maybe he takes too long to decide what to say. He's spent so many years carefully not telling Carter how he feels that now that she's asked for it, he finds he doesn't even know where to start. He gives a brief, fleeting thought to the rules that have held them apart this long, but isn't this somehow worse? Meaningless sex would have been far less damaging than the scene currently playing out.
Her eyes close and she sags and lets out a shaking breath. "Let me go."
"No," he says.
"Sir, please let me go," she says, struggling again, sliding her hands up between his and pushing out to try to force his arms away but he doesn't budge and she makes a frustrated noise and then tries pushing on his chest and there are several long minutes of a struggle but he doesn't let her go and then all of a sudden the struggling is over and she has her arms around his waist and he's pulled her closer too and their whole bodies are flush and they're just hugging.
"Sam," he says.
"What?" she says into his neck.
"Don't get married."
She makes a relieved noise and somehow manages to hug him more tightly.
"I won't."
They might have stood there hugging for the entire day, but then the phone in Jack's pocket starts to ring again and she pulls away.
"Daniel," he says. "We fought." He takes the phone out and looks at it and she nods once, so he answers it. "Hey."
"Yeah, sorry I was a jerk," Daniel says. "My bad."
"No," Jack says. "You were right."
"Well, I know that, but I didn't have to be an ass about it. I know you two make the best of a bad situation."
Sam holds out her hand and Jack hands the phone over.
"Hi Daniel," she says.
"Hi Sam," Daniel says, surprised at the swap. "Are you crying? Are you okay?"
"I'm okay," she says with a sniff.
"Are you sure? You want me to come get you?" he asks. She has to laugh at this. She's made a career out of saving Daniel's life, practically, but now he's offering to fetch her like she's a helpless maiden trapped in a tower.
"No," she says. "We're going to try to sort some stuff out, I think."
"Good," Daniel says. "That is some excellent news." She winces at how relieved he sounds.
"Do you think you could, you know..." but she falters, not knowing exactly what she wants him to do that won't sound like asking him to lie. Jack snags the phone back.
"We need you to watch our six for a few days," Jack says.
"Sure," Daniel says. "Just call if you need anything."
He turns off the phone this time and puts it back in his pocket. They're still standing close, almost cheek to cheek. She's stopped crying, he's noticed, and he lifts his hands to brush the rest of her tears away with his thumbs.
"Sir," she says. "What are we going to do?"
"I dunno," he says. "We can't... you know what's at stake."
"I know," she says. "Nothing changes."
"No," he says, still holding her face.
"No," she repeats back, her eyes darting down to his mouth.
"Because the work is important," he murmurs, tilting her head back slightly.
"Really import-"
But the rest of the word is silenced by his kiss. Inside Jack feels something, that has been a long time fraying, snap.