Setting Challenge: Infirmary

Rated: General (It's kid stuff, folks)

It was strange to see him lying in bed looking washed out despite the brilliant pink of his sunburned flesh. She pressed the tip of her finger gently against the back of his hand in that fleshy spot next to the root of his thumb and watched as the pink receded to white. She lifted her finger and the white circle rush back to pink. She'd gauged sunburn severity by such a test since she was a girl and the speed of the re-pinking told her the burn was bad. Really bad.

Janet had told her that, too, so she wouldn't have chanced the press-test unless she was sure the Colonel was on a great deal of pain killers. So intent was she on his hands, on the pinky-red flesh of his arms beneath a protective layer of aloe Vera and lidocaine gel, that his voice made her jump. "Your hands are cold," he remarked, "put them back."

She smiled a little before she grimaced and then, as requested, laid her cooler hands over the superheated flesh on the backs of his. "You shouldn't have stayed out there so long," she admonished. "You should have kept your jacket on."

"Carter, it was a hundred and sixteen degrees and you were buried. I was more concerned with getting you out quickly than I was about whether or not I'd get a suntan."

"Sunburn," she pointed out. "And a bad one, at that."

"I've been hurt worse," he shrugged off her concern. "And for less reward."

"Thank you for coming to get me."

He scoffed. "Like I'd have left you planted in the ground."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The next day she took him a vanilla milkshake and played him a game of chess where she moved both their pieces. She winced in sympathy when the nurse made him sit up and lean forward so she could change the dressings on the back of his neck and arms where he'd gotten the worst of the sun leaned over as he'd been digging her out of desert sand.

"I can't feel anything, Carter," he soothed and indicated the IV, "I'm on the good stuff."

"Doesn't mean I can't feel bad for you anyway," she pointed out and he gave her half a shrug and pretended not wince when the nurse pulled the dressings away.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The following morning she showed up with iced coffee and found he'd started to blister overnight. She sucked in her breath when she saw him and he grimaced. "Still on the good stuff, Carter. Leave it be."

"But, sir," she exhaled and discovered she couldn't continue.

"It's still worth it."

She didn't tell him how she was still dusting sand out of personal crevices or about the chafing carefully hidden by her clothing because it seemed petty in light of his own injuries. And because he'd have felt worse knowing she'd experienced any lasting discomfort at all. Instead she said, "I'm glad you feel that way, sir," and set up the chess board.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The next day she entered his room to find the nurse handing him a fresh shirt. He cleared his throat uncomfortably but waved her in anyway.

"Oh please," she said and set an iced tea down on the table by his bed, "like I wasn't topless when you dug me up."

"Hey," he replied in a fit of pique, "it's not like I looked."

"Yeah, right," she said and raised her eyebrow in a way that would have made Teal'c proud.

"Much."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A few days later he was peeling and itchy and all around irritable but she sat with him and played chess anyway. By then he could move his own pieces. And despite his ire he kept flicking amused glances at her until she huffed and allowed him to put her king into checkmate. "What?"

"What 'what'?" He asked, knowing that particular question always infuriated her.

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

His gaze slipped down from her face to her belly button and a small smile played around his mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do," she pointed at him. "You did it again!"

He started resetting the board. "It's just, now I know."

"Now you know? Know what?"

He took his sweet time lining his pawns up just perfectly and then reached for the slushy she'd brought him. He met her eyes and gave her wink that made her stomach flip flop in a way it wasn't supposed to. "Know what?" she pressed.

"Now I know just where that little mole is."

She groans. "I knew you looked."

"And I know it has a friend."

When she'd finally stopped blushing enough to look up at him again she found a wide smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. "Well, sir," she finally decided, "consider us even."

"Oh no, Carter," he said with amusement. "I'm pretty sure I owe you one."