The Gift
Chapter 4
They were making love.
The candles on the windowsill lent a faint golden light to the snow falling lightly outside.
This time he didn't question.
He just exulted in the feel of being inside her, thrusting deeply and slowly, in awe at how she could feel so familiar and yet so new.
Beneath the comforter they'd pulled over them against the chill, he slid one hand down the length of her body, reveling in the silken feel of her, rejoicing in the fact the fact that she was whole, that she was here, and that she was his.
He brought his eyes to her face. She was watching him closely, her expression a mixture of pleasure and trepidation.
He stilled. Was this their first time?
He smiled and brought a hand to her face.
"So beautiful," he whispered. "I love you so much. Always have."
She gasped a little at his words and the accompanying thrust of his body into hers. Forgetting her fear and finally letting go, she moaned in pleasure at the feel of the roughness of his skin against hers, of him deep inside her.
Groaning, he began to move faster and more roughly, thrusting deeply inside her as she called out his name.
Without being aware of it, he was whispering against her lips, a mantra or chant: please, please, please, please . . .
"Please what, Jack?" she asked, breathless.
He halted, staring into the depths of her eyes. He startled as her fingers swept away the tears he didn't know were streaming down his cheeks.
"Please what, Jack?" she asked again.
"Please," he whispered. "Please let this be real."
She smiled, tightening her legs around him and kissing him long and deeply.
"More real than anything I've ever felt, Jack."
He stared at her for a very long while.
"You saved my life," he whispered, and this time she cried, and laughed, and they kissed and touched one another, knowing that each had finally come home.
He was drunk.
He watched as she hauled her suitcases to the car.
"I'll be back Sunday, Jon," she said. "Do me a favor and don't drive, okay? I don't feel like driving all the way back from Kansas City to bail you out of jail again."
"I could call Teal'c or Daniel," he muttered.
"Teal'c and Daniel are DEAD, Jon," she snapped. "Don't you DARE tell me you've forgotten that."
He said nothing but his stomach knotted at the sound of disgust in her voice.
The door slammed.
He fumbled for his keys.
"What's with you, Jon? You're usually a lot more fun when the wife's out of town," the bartender said.
"What the hell do you know about my wife?" O'Neill asked belligerently.
"Well, let's see," the bartender said, propping his arms on the bar. "I know what you tell me every time you come in here. That you asked her to give up her career so you could be together and she hates you for that. That she miscarried in her fifth month early in your marriage, and she hates you for refusing to try again. That after the miscarriage, your drinking got worse, started to affect your job, got a couple of your buddies killed, and she hates you for that."
He looked at O'Neill closely.
"That about sum it up?"
He was at her wedding reception, raising a toast to her and Pete . . .
He was watching in amazement as she bore him a daughter . . .
He was on his couch and she was on his lap . . .
He was holding her as she cried after the death of her favorite cat . . .
He was at her going-away party, she was leaving the SGC . . .
He was meeting her husband for the first time . . .
He was at her funeral, his arm around Cassie . . .
He was dying on a Goa'uld mother ship, and she was holding his hand and weeping . . .
He was at their son's little league game . . .
Faster the images came, rolling past like a slide show, each more emotionally wrenching than the last, faster and faster and faster . . .
He awoke, gasping for air.
"Jack?"
He looked up blearily. "Daniel?"
Daniel smiled in relief. "Yeah, it's me. You're awake, finally."
O'Neill peered at him. "Are you SURE I'm awake? The page isn't going to flip again?" he asked, voice hoarse.
Daniel handed him a glass of water. "I promise you're awake, back to your own self. Weird, though, Sam came in here this morning absolutely positive you'd wake up today."
O'Neill looked at him sharply. "Carter? She's here?"
Daniel looked puzzled. "Well, of course she's here. Where else would she be?"
O'Neill collapsed back on to the bed in relief. "God, Daniel, you have no idea."
Comprehension dawned. "Oh, right, the parallel universe thing," Daniel said. "I take it some of them weren't so . . . keen?"
"To put it mildly," O'Neill said. "And how did you know about that? And how long have I been asleep? And where the hell am I?"
"Well, sir, we knew because Thor told us," Carter said, coming in from a door to his right. "You've been asleep over a week and . . ."
Daniel smiled at the smug look on her face.
"And we're aboard the Samantha Carter," he finished for her.
"Flag ship for the Asgard," she told O'Neill, literally bouncing with excitement. "But enough about the biggest, baddest, SMARTEST ship in the fleet."
He grinned weakly.
She knelt beside him. "How are you, sir?"
He stared at her for a long while, just drinking in her features.
"Sir?"
"Oh. Well . . . oddly enough, I'm tired. Weird, wouldn't you say, for one who's been asleep for over a week? And how, exactly, did I happen to fall asleep and STAY asleep that long?"
"The Gift," Carter and Daniel chimed in unison.
"The what?"
"The Gift."
He moaned, covering his eyes with one forearm. "Sure as hell didn't FEEL like a gift."