Cassie blushed a brilliant shade of red as she realized who was at the door watching them, but Ian only paled. Not because of the sudden company, but because he'd jerked his head sideways, and the movement had been to sudden and a spasm of pain from his injured shoulder washed over him – even with all the painkillers he'd been given.

Jack's immediate scowl softened at the sight, and he bit back the retort he'd been prepared to make.

"Your mother wants to see you, Cass," he told the girl sitting on the edge of Ian's bed so intimately.

Cassie nodded, and looked down at Ian, realizing that he seemed to be in a lot of pain all of the sudden.

"Are you okay?"

He forced a tight smile and nodded as well as he could.

"Fine. Go on, see what she needs…"

She stood up and headed for the door.

"I'll be back."

"He'll be here," Jack told her, shooing her gently out of the room.

He waited until the door was closed, then crossed the small room and looked down at him, his face about as expressionless as Ian had ever seen it.

"You do realize if I wasn't so glad you're alive, I'd kill you, right?"

"She kissed me…"

Well… yeah, that was pretty obvious, even to someone who pretended to be as dumb as Jack did. Besides, Ian definitely wasn't up to chasing anyone around his hospital room. However…

"You kissed her back…"

"She was crying…"

Bah. Fine. He lost the intimidating look – it wasn't really working on Ian anyways – and took the spot that Cassie had vacated. Anyone could see Cassie had been crying, and she'd walked right past Jack, after all.

"She was worried about you."

"Yeah, I know…" He tried to shift in his bed, but couldn't manage it without hurting himself, and gave up. "Crazy woman…"

"Girl," Jack corrected.

Ian snorted softly, but didn't argue, figuring he was probably lucky that Jack wasn't mad about the whole kiss thing. At least, he didn't think he was mad.

"Okay."

Since he still hadn't regained his normal coloring, Jack frowned.

"Hurt?"

"Like a Sonofabitch…"

Jack took hold of the base of the IV holder, and showed Ian the button there.

"If you press this, it'll give you a dose of painkiller."

Ian nodded, and was sorry for it immediately.

"I know. I had some earlier. It's just not doing the trick. Not that I'm complaining, though. As glad as you are that I'm alive, I'm just as relieved, I assure you…"

Jack smiled.

"We're going to have you transferred to Cheyenne Mountain tomorrow morning."

"I have to be back at school tomorrow."

"That's not going to happen. What will probably happen is that we – and I don't mean me – will get your course work for you and you can work on it while you're down. From what we've been told, your instructors don't seem to think you're going to fall behind if you're not in their classes for a month or so."

"A month?"

"Maybe longer."

"I'm not hurt that badly, Jack…" He knew what had been done for him, and he knew that even though he was really hurting now – and oh fucking goodness was he hurting just then – he wasn't going to be hurting this badly for a month. "A couple weeks, maybe…"

"Except that then people will wonder about your rapid – way too rapid – recovery, and there will be questions raised. Questions that we – and I mean we – are not going to be answering, and want to avoid at all costs. In this case, that means that you are the guest of the SGC for the next month – probably into the new year."

"Shit."

"It's not so bad," Jack said, stopping himself from patting Ian reassuringly at the last minute. That would have hurt. "We can find a lot for you to do around the place while you're pretending to be recovering."

"Yeah?" Ian asked. "Got a lot of supply closets that need inventoried?"

"You volunteering?"

Ian made a face – which looked awful considering how bad his face already looked, and Jack smiled and rested his hand on the cadet's arm.

"We'll keep you from getting bored."

"I'm sure."

"Anyways… River and Shawn have to head back to the academy today and they want to see you before they go. Are you up for that?"

"Sure."

"I'll go get them – but Fraiser's not letting anyone stay long, so don't expect an extended visit."

Since he didn't think he could handle an extended visit, he wasn't too worried about that.

"Okay."

Jack hesitated, looking down at the cadet as he got up.

"You really look awful."

"You should see the other guys…" Ian told him, trying to make light of things a little, and ease the concerned look on Jack's face.

"I have," Jack told him seriously. "One of them, at least. He looked almost as bad as you do."

"You could have done better?" Ian asked, sarcastically.

"I would have dodged the bullets," Jack told him, a smile lighting his eyes and his expression.

Ian chuckled, wincing at how much that hurt the bruises on his ribs and pressed his good hand against his side.

"I'll go get your roommates," Jack told him. "They're worried about you, too."

"Yeah… well…"

"I don't expect you'll be kissing them to make them feel better…?"

"She kissed me, Jack…"

"You make sure you tell Janet that when she finds out," O'Neill told him with a smile as he headed for the door. "She's the one with the big needles that you'll be answering to – especially for the next month or so."

He was gone before Ian could decide if he was joking or not.