One of those defining moments of their ship. Her near death should be enough to knock some sense into Jack and make him do something like this…
He should be used to it by now- death hovering over them like a fifth member of their team. He whipped them back in shape to remind them who was in charge. But like the prankster it was, death would always pull out all the stops to make its presence known in the most random way possible.
Death was at it again with Carter. In the most inconceivable way, he almost lost her to a "computer virus." It was downright silly. But that silliness quickly escalated into fatally serious in a matter of minutes. As she lay there in the infirmary, he whispered a prayer to all the gods in the universes to bring her back in exchange for a promise that he would no longer take things for granted between the two of them.
"Carter," he waltzed right in her lab. His voice had that usual lilt which she had recognized to mean that all was well. Maybe not between them necessarily. Though she couldn't hope for better things as she was still in SG1, alive and working side by side with – him. Sure there were walls between them. But it was better than nothing. It was better to feel something.
She paused and lifted her head to acknowledge him with a smile.
"What's up Sir."
"Oh just checking if you're.. you," Jack sat on the stool across her and leaned forward on the table.
He was glad to see the red back in her cheeks and the bright blue back in her eyes knowing she was so close to death just the week before.
She tried to downplay the queasiness in her stomach as he was giving her that smug smile of his that has been stuff of her dreams, which involved wiping off said smug smile with a smoldering kiss. Easy Samantha.
"That for me Sir?" she nodded her head towards the small box he was holding. It was to be his fifth gift since she recovered from her near-death they called it. The SGC had filled her in with way too much information on how the Colonel was- distraught, near tears, in a rage, murderous, - depending on who told the story, while she was lying in a comatose in the infirmary. She dismissed these as exaggerations of course, but his overcompensations and gifts were starting to convince her otherwise. Then again she chalked it up to the fact that the Colonel had to zat her in order to save the world.
"Consider this my last, the pinnacle, welcome-back-to-the-living gift, Carter," he placed the small brown box on the table, and gently pushed it towards her.
"Why thanks Sir," despite the scene repeating for the nth time that week, she said it with sincerity which always managed to make his heart swell.
He hunkered down closer to her, nervously and eagerly reading her face. As soon as she saw what was in the box her eyes squinted in confusion,
"A key Sir?"
He leaned further causing her to hold her breath as she caught the dancing sparkle in his brown eyes and that distinctive Colonel O'Neill scent. Locking her in his gaze he carefully said, "It's for the room where we left it."
A mist started forming in her eyes, which he couldn't do much about except to respond more intimately with words, "When you're ready."
Sam sat there powerless, knowing she was once again caught in an instant when she was wordless and smarting at the joy and pain of slowly falling in love with her Commanding Officer.
There was no need to respond to that unraveling. It should be enough for him to know she was grappling for words to say. More than enough, Jack thought as he slipped out of her lab and rejoined their world with his heart full of hope.
