AN: The end is coming... eventually. But this isn't it! Keep those reviews coming. They make my day!

Chapter Fourteen

Jack didn't go too far. He didn't want to miss when the nurse came back to get him, regardless of any good natured ribbing he might get. He settled on waiting around the corner. While he couldn't hear what was said between his friends, he'd be able to hear if the door opened. He would have been fine to hide there as long as he needed had Sergeant Siler not walked past and offered him a loud greeting.

Jack growled as he walked back to where Daniel and Teal'c were sitting. If he stayed there, they would know that he'd been hiding the whole time. Somehow that was just too embarrassing. Not that Daniel's and Teal'c's smirks were any less so. Jack reclaimed his seat beside Teal'c.

"On Chulak it is customary to congratulate a warrior who has picked a mate. Is that the custom here as well?"

Daniel cracked up laughing. Even Jack snickered at the idea of anyone having picked Sam. "It's really more like she picked me." From the first moment he'd laid eyes on Sam, he'd been completely off balance. Of course, he finally knew that she'd had a ten year head start on figuring their relationship out.

"Then perhaps I should offer my congratulations to Colonel Carter."

Daniel laughed harder; his face turning red. Jack didn't blame him. In fact, he joined in laughing. "You might want to rethink that. I'm not really much of a prize."

Teal'c smiled slightly, ignoring his friends' hilarity. "I believe Colonel Carter thinks otherwise."

Jack's laughter stopped. As always, Teal'c had made a completely accurate observation that stunned Jack with its clarity. He started to smile out of sheer happiness. If Sam wanted to think that he was a great catch, he wasn't about to stop her. He liked the idea that she thought he was great. "Look, T, it's probably better if you don't mention anything to her. She'll think I told you guys and then she'll get mad at me."

Teal'c nodded, accepting Jack's request without question. Daniel rolled his eyes and Jack knew he was going to pull the same crap with Sam until she admitted it as well. Sometimes Daniel was just a little too interested in other people's business for Jack's taste.

"So, Jack, about today - what happened? You were coming and then you never showed up. Why did you change your mind?"

Jack sighed and stared at the door to the infirmary, willing the nurse to step through. Unfortunately, his powers of telepathy were nonexistent. "You mentioned something earlier about wanting to trade places with Sam."

Daniel nodded. "I'd go back and change it in a second if I could."

Jack smiled. "I figured you'd say that. You probably could go back and change it, but I wouldn't recommend it."

Daniel looked to Teal'c as though he might have a better understanding of what Jack was trying to say. Surprisingly, he did. "Colonel Carter did mention increased solar flare activity. That is why the mission was delayed this morning."

"I just spent a week in 1987. Trust me, you're better off not changing things." Just thinking about all that history altering, life changing stuff threatened to bring his headache back.

Teal'c's head turned sharply toward him, evidently he hadn't considered that the solar flares had anything to do with Jack's absence from the mission. Daniel's mouth dropped open. Teal'c was the first to recover. "O'Neill, did you experience temporal distortion when you attempted to travel through the gate?" Daniel continued to gape, uncharacteristically rendered silent by the conversation.

Jack grinned. "Sam was really cute at eighteen."

Daniel raised his eyebrows. "I'll bet she was." He continued to look perplexed for some time before something clicked. "That's probably why she wasn't at all concerned when you didn't step through. We were standing there, waiting for you. The wormhole activated and then just disappeared. Teal'c and I thought something bad had happened, but Sam just walked away. And she was smiling too - that was kind of freaky. I couldn't figure out why she was so calm. She's usually so protective of you."

Jack couldn't keep the smile off his face thinking about Sam being protective of him. "Fond memories of meeting her idiot CO, I guess."

Teal'c looked confused. "Colonel Carter has known for some time that you would alter the natural course of events."

"After all that bitching about the timeline too."

Teal'c ignored Jack's comment and continued with his original train of thought. "Perhaps her knowledge that you would someday be a general is the reason she never despaired during dangerous missions."

"And here I just thought she was unflappable." Jack pondered Teal'c's words. It did make sense - she had to have known they would survive all those harrowing ordeals they'd been in through the years. But then he realized she'd probably spent the entire time fearing that something had altered along the way too.

Daniel grinned, his eyes sparkling as he looked at Jack. "So you met an eighteen-year-old Sam, huh?" He chuckled to himself. "I'm not sure which one of you would be in more danger."

Teal'c turned toward Jack. "I do not imagine Colonel Carter would be much different at any age."

"So, Jack, what was she like?"

Jack smiled, thinking about her. "Young. Innocent." He paused. "Hot." He shrugged. "Not the Sam we know. I didn't even recognize her the first time I saw her."

Daniel forehead creased with concentration. "How is that possible? You'd know her anywhere."

Jack shrugged. "She was different. Naïve, unsure of herself. She was like a fish out of water at the Air Force Academy."

"I am not familiar with that expression. Did Colonel Carter have difficulty breathing?" Teal'c looked concerned.

Daniel answered him quickly, wanting to get the rest of the story from Jack. "It means she was unsure of herself, uncomfortable with her surroundings."

"It is hard to imagine Colonel Carter without confidence."

"That's what I thought, T. She was going to quit the Air Force."

Daniel's eyes glazed over for a second as his mind filtered through the ramifications of what Jack was saying. "So, in those other realities, you weren't there to convince her to stay in. So she did quit."

Jack nodded. "Hence the destruction of the world several times over."

Teal'c nodded as well. "Colonel Carter did not want to take credit for it, but I believe it was her participation in the Air Force that has yielded many of the changes we observed between our realities and the others. I must thank her for my freedom when she awakens."

"I doubt she'd take credit for that, Teal'c. You had something to do with it." Daniel pointed at Jack. "And since it was Jack who convinced her to stay in, maybe you should thank him instead."

Jack patted Teal'c shoulder. "Think nothing of it, buddy."

Teal'c nodded once. "I am indebted to you once again, O'Neill. Perhaps I will repay you by not telling anyone that you caused the injury to Colonel Carter's neck."

"Gee, thanks so much T."

It was a very red faced nurse who cleared her throat in an attempt to politely interrupt before she heard anymore. Although she was amused by the situation, Jack knew she didn't want to be there. Jack commiserated with her because he didn't particularly want to be there himself.

"Um, sir? Dr. Brightman said you can have a few minutes now."

Covering his embarrassment with false bravado, he stood up. "Let's go, kids."

The nurse let them to a curtained off section of the infirmary. She disappeared soon after and Jack wondered how fast the rumors were going to spread. He imagined the rumor mill would be in full swing by the time Sam woke up. With the wide neckline of the hospital gown, the hickey stood out prominently against her flawless skin. Jack cringed - he knew how embarrassed Sam would be if she knew and he felt responsible. Especially since everyone on the base would know who had given it to her.

Jack hung back while Daniel walked right up to her side. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, gently taking her hand in his and telling her that he couldn't wait until she was awake to yell at him. Jack was jealous. Daniel was comfortable with his place in her life. Jack, on the other hand, didn't know what to do with himself. He hadn't talked to her since the previous night when she fell asleep tucked safely in his arms. There had been a few brief moments with her before surgery, but it wasn't what Jack would consider quality time. He stood back, letting his eyes drink in the sight of her. She was alive - that was all he cared about. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest and listened to the reassuring sounds of the monitors around her.

Daniel and Teal'c left a moment later, allowing Jack some privacy. But there were still members of the medical staff milling around, measuring and recording and just basically not letting him be alone with her. He wanted to kiss her like Daniel had; he wanted to take her hand again. Unfortunately, once the immediate crisis had passed, he realized how inappropriate his actions had been. No one had noticed, except for Dr. Brightman, and she hadn't particularly cared, but he didn't think he should push his luck. He didn't want to get Sam in trouble. She'd already had a bad enough day.

Dr. Brightman appeared to check on Sam. She waited for Jack to look up, but he didn't until she started talking. "Sir, I'm going to need to check on her incision. I want to make sure the bleeding has stopped completely."

Jack shook himself. He'd wasted the few minutes he'd had with her. He was still standing at the foot of her bed, further away than even Teal'c had stood, never having decided what the least obvious way to touch her was. Under normal circumstances, he would have insisted on staying and generally made a pest of himself until she woke up and sent him packing. But it wasn't a normal circumstance and he didn't want to call any attention to the painfully recent change in their relationship. He nodded instead.

"I have a lot of work to do, so I'll be on base all night. Can you give me a call when she wakes up?" He tried to sound detached, but he didn't think he was fooling her.

The doctor smiled. "Yes, sir. You'll be the first to know."

He almost thanked her out loud for not mentioning his paper thin logic for staying on base. "Keep up the good work." With a final glance at Sam, Jack left the room before he could change his mind.

Daniel and Teal'c were waiting for him in the hall. Daniel smiled at him. "She's going to be all right, Jack."

"I know." He found himself looking longingly at the door to the infirmary and wanted to kick himself for such a foolish gesture. "You guys should get some rest. You haven't had an easy day either. And Teal'c," Jack motioned at his stained BDUs. "You really ought to get changed." He knew his friends would be on base all night too, just in case. None of them wanted to be far away when she woke up.

Teal'c left for the locker room with a final nod to Jack. Daniel walked with Jack toward his office. "There was one thing I was wondering."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Of course there was." He didn't mean to be rude, but the emotional roller coaster he'd been on in the previous few hours had just caught up with him and he wanted nothing more than to take a nap. He considered a shower momentarily. And food appealed to him as well. Having a philosophical conversation with Daniel didn't figure in anywhere on the list. Nope, sleep was definitely priority number one. Jack dropped into his chair and began clearing a spot amid the piles where he could lay his head for his nap.

Daniel leaned in the doorway, looking like he was pondering the mysteries of the cosmos. "How'd you get home? From 1987."

Jack blinked at him, already half asleep and wondering for just a moment what Daniel was talking about. Then he remembered and smiled. "Sam wrote herself a note."

"Guess she knew you'd need her help." Daniel seemed amused at the idea that even a teenage Sam was smarter than Jack.

Jack would have been offended if he'd noticed. "I'd like to see you figure that time travel stuff out on your own."

Daniel cocked his head to the side, more interested in the dilemma than in Jack's attitude. "Which begs the question - how did she know when to give it to you?"

Jack looked around the office, checking if maybe Sam had left him a note to explain it all. Finally he shrugged. "I'll have to ask her that." Jack didn't wait for a response before dropping his face forward into his arms. He was asleep before Daniel was even able to close the door behind him.