Chapter 7- Do Me A Favor?

Sam opened the door to the bedroom, drying her hair with a towel. The colonel was still sound asleep, sprawled across the whole bed. She bit her lower lip. He just looked so gosh darn cute. She had half a mind to go over and wake him ever so gently with a kiss. Sam could just see the shock on his face. Then, of course, the other half of her mind quickly slashed that thought. He couldn't be Jack O'Neill for her, he was her Commanding Officer. The past few days, it had been hard to remember that. She swore he had been going out of his way lately to be absolutely adorable.

They'd been on the planet for a month now. Sam had given up on scouting for another power source. They didn't have anything that would come close on this planet. So, she would go back to the DHD...again. Sam couldn't make herself give up. It was too hard of a thought for her to handle.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she started to lace up her boots.

"Where are you going?"

Jack placed a hand on her hip, his voice betraying his grogginess.

"I'm gonna go back to the DHD. See if something will jump out at me since I've been away from it for a little while."

Jack nodded. "Give me a minute and I'll go with you."

Sitting up, Sam absentmindedly put her hand on his.

"Are you sure? What about the repair work?"

Jack yawned, laying his head back on the pillow and rubbing her hand softly with his thumb.

"Ah, that's all basically done with. Besides, I haven't gone with you more than two or three times since we got here."

A few moments passed by, Jack still gently stroking her hand. Sam looked at him and bit her lip again. He still wasn't fully awake.

"Colonel, you gonna get up?"

He opened his eyes. Lazily, he started to sit up. Squeezing her hand ever so softly, he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm going. I'm going."

He got out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. He'd started sleeping in just a pair of pajama pants that one of the villagers had given them and she had to say, he looked really good in them.

With a voice full of mischief and without turning around, Jack told her to quit staring at his butt as he went out the back door.

Covering her face with her hands, Sam fell back on the bed and actually squeaked. This was bad. Samantha Carter does not squeak. Teenage girls squeak. It was so not a good idea for him to be coming with her today.

(POV change)

It was getting harder and harder for Jack to look at Carter as just that. Carter. The major under his command. After all, how many colonel's share a bed night after night with their majors? How many watch helplessly as she crawls out of bed in the morning, wearing just a long t-shirt, walking on her tiptoes trying not to wake you, accentuating her toned legs with each step? Not many he imagined.

Jack kept trying to tell himself it had only been one month. One. Somehow he didn't see the government being okay with him doing what he had in mind to do to Carter after just one month. He knew he'd been slipping up lately. He'd been deliberately flirting with her for the past week. It was uncontrollable. He would look at her and before he could stop himself, he'd have said something to start some playful banter between them. And somewhere between thinking about Carter's legs and possible excuses he could make to General Hammond should the need arise, Jack fell back asleep.

The next thing he knew, Carter was leaning over the side of the bed. He reached out for her, eyes still slightly blurry and asked her where she was going. She said something about going back to the DHD.

"Give me a minute and I'll go with you."

He felt her put her hand over his. She had such nice smooth hands. Really. They were soft as silk. How did she get them to stay that way? If her hands are this smooth, he couldn't even imagine...

"Colonel, you gonna get up?"

Forcing himself to open his eyes, Jack started to crawl out of bed, squeezing her hand ever so gently before he let it go. Out of the corner of his eye as he walked to the bathroom, he saw Sam checking out his butt. Not a bad way to start the morning. Right before he walked out the back door, with a big grin on his face, he shouted at Carter to quit staring at his butt and shut the door.
The walk to the gate was especially playful this morning. Both of them were completely at ease and carefree. Jack was glad when they reached the gate because if she had flashed one of her mega-watt grins at him one more time, he was pretty positive he would have no control over his next actions.

Reaching the gate put a damper on the morning though. Jack hadn't seen it in a while and had been trying not to focus on well, everything to do with it. But seeing the gate was like smacking him in the face with everything left behind. Hell, he even missed Doc Fraiser with her big scary needles. Okay, maybe not so much with the needles, but still. Looking at Carter, he could see that she was going through much the same emotions as him. She'd probably gone through this everyday coming out here.

Carter got right to work while Jack scanned the area. He didn't really have anything to look for but it was habit. After a while, he found himself just looking at her. She was focused so intently on what she was doing, though he was sure she couldn't be doing anything different than she'd been doing for the past month. He knew that it was time. She'd done everything she could do. It wasn't fixable.Still, he wasn't sure he had the heart to say it out loud. He let her keep working, which she did for a while. Then she sighed and seemed to stare blankly at it.

"Carter, face it. It's broken."

She didn't look up at him or say a word. She just sat there, still staring at that dang thing.

Jack walked over to where he could see her face. She was crying.He got down on the ground beside her.

"Come here," he whispered.

She fell into his arms, shaking with tears.

"I'm sorry, sir. I tried."

"Hey."

He pulled her head back until she was looking at him.

"Look at me. You did everything that could possibly be done. I have no doubt about that. You understand me?"

She nodded, trying to control the tears.

"We'll be fine. We've got each other. And it's not like we're on some hostile planet with snakes trying to get in our heads or ...big bugs or something."

She laughed."Yes, sir."

He wiped the tears from her face and kept his hand there stroking her cheek.

Jack smiled. "You think you could do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Quit calling me sir."

She laughed again. "Yes, s..." "..Jack."

"Okay. Let's go home."