AN: Ok, I'm fairly certain there will only be one more part, but no promises! Someone asked about how much was written - the entire plot is written out, but sometimes connections between scenes go a little differently than I imagined. Hope you guys are still enjoying this!

Chapter Fifteen

The next thing Jack knew, he was being chased by the galaxy's largest bee. It was almost as big as him, putting those things that had stung Teal'c to shame. It had a huge stinger that Jack knew would kill him, so he kept running. He tripped, sprawling hard on the ground. As the bee prepared to sting him, it began to buzz - an altogether horrible, annoying, intermittent buzz. The bee stopped buzzing and Jack realized it was wearing an SG uniform. Before Jack could quite figure out why the bee was wearing clothes at all, let alone an SG uniform,he discovered there were two bees - and they were both in SG uniforms. They both began to buzz in the same irritating fashion. It also seemed that they knew how to throw their voices because their buzzing wasn't coming from their direction. Then they both began wailing an alarm as well.

Jack's eyes popped open, darting wildly about the room. All the bells and whistles were going off that accompanied the activation of the Stargate, including the scheduled return of one of the teams that Jack couldn't summon up the energy to care about. Daniel and Teal'c were just inside his office door and looked rather smug. Jack's phone was buzzing incessantly. He glowered at it and solemnly vowed to never go to bed without eating ever again.

Daniel spoke up once he realized Jack was really awake. "Dr. Brightman's been trying to call you for an hour."

Jack jumped up from his chair as reality dawned on him. "Sam's awake?"

Teal'c nodded. "We though to postpone our visit until after you were able to visit."

Jack darted past them, nearly knocking Daniel down in his haste. He couldn't believe he'd slept through the doctor's call. He didn't want Sam to think he didn't want to see her. And she was cooped up in the infirmary with nothing to do besides wonder why none of her friends could be bothered to visit.

He dashed through the halls; paying no attention to the airmen he tore past on his way. He didn't care what people thought at the moment. He just wanted to get to her. He flew past the nurses in the infirmary, barely skidding to a halt when he reached her bedside.

Sam had been sleeping, but her eyes blinked open when she heard the commotion preceding Jack's arrival. She smiled at him and the spectacle he made of himself.

Jack grinned, too happy to care that she saw how needy he could be. "Hey."

"Hey."

He pulled a chair over next to her bed. "So."

Sam looked away. "So."

Jack looked around to make sure no one was looking. Most of the staff he'd had to shove past had disappeared. He reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. "This probably isn't the time or the place, but we should talk." He was afraid to make eye contact with her as he spoke, but he didn't miss the hurt on her face.

Her hand loosened from his and she tried to pull it away. He didn't let her. She fixed her eyes on a point on the far wall. "It's ok. I understand, sir."

"No, you obviously don't."

"Sir?" She glanced at him, but immediately looked away again.

"If you're back to calling me sir, then you can't possibly understand." He took another peek around the infirmary. He'd never seen it so empty. He decided to take his chances. He stood up and leaned over her, kissing her soundly on the mouth. When he sat back down, she was beyond flustered. He smiled as she tried to process it.

"I thought you wanted out."

He squeezed her hand. "I barely got in. Why would I want out?" He gave her a minute, not surprised when she didn't speak. "I just meant we should talk about how I'm going to keep my hands off you when other people are around."

She giggled. "Maybe that's a conversation best reserved for somewhere besides here."

"You're probably right." He glanced around yet again, spying a nurse who appeared to be completely out of earshot. "This is something that definitely should wait until we're alone too, but you deserve to hear it now. I'm sorry about this morning."

"It's ok." Her expression gave away that she didn't really feel it.

"It's not ok. You were mad. Not that I blame you." His reasoning for bailing on her seemed ridiculous when it came down to actually explaining it to her.

"I wasn't mad once I figured out why you were pretending not to know anything about it."

"Because I didn't." He began to realize that she was hurt because she would have liked it to be different, but not particularly hurt by him.

Sam giggled. "Well, I know that now."

"I'm really sorry. I want you to know that. But I had to leave because you were supposed to get mad at me. At least, you did the first time. Well, I think you did the first time, but I wouldn't really remember it now if you hadn't been, right? I'd only remember how it ended up." Jack's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "You should have come with me to make sure I didn't screw anything up. You could have gotten us back home without any trouble and I wouldn't have had to interfere in your life."

Sam squeezed his hand. "That's the last thing I would ever want to change, Jack." She smiled up at him, her eyes revealing that same unadulterated love he'd seen from her younger self.

He smiled, even though he wondered how she could love him so much. If there was one thing he'd learned through the years, it was that he wasn't good enough for her. He couldn't even compare to her, although she seemed to think he was worthy. "Are you sure?"

"I've had eighteen years to think about it."

He couldn't keep the smug, self-satisfied grin off his face. "Then we'll have that talk as soon as you get out of here. Why don't you get some rest now?" Jack stood up to leave, loathe to separate their hands. Sam didn't let him go; she tugged on his hand until he sat back down.

"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?" Her entreaty struck him with its vulnerability. He simply nodded, too choked up to be able to respond. Jack waited at her side long after her breathing evened out. Every moment he was with her smoothed over more of the scars that life had given him. He needed her. He'd never really needed anyone in his entire life, but he needed her. The thought probably would have been more alarming had he not known that she needed him just as much.

He would have happily stayed with her all day, but he had work to do. And he was quickly becoming obsessed with not doing anything that might reflect badly on her. He forced himself to return to his office and finish up on the pressing things he'd been ignoring for too long. Once he caught up - well, caught up for Jack meant only a few weeks late for anyone else, he made himself stop by the control room. He checked to make sure everything was running smoothly. He sat through two briefings with other SG teams and even called Daniel and Teal'c into the conference room to officially debrief SG-1. A quick visit to the armory, the commissary, and the labs completed his work quota for the day. He even let Daniel persuade him to have a late lunch since it had been far too long since he'd eaten.

Returning to the infirmary, he found Sam was awake. He didn't approach her right away. He stood back, watching her play with the food-like substance she'd been given. He couldn't identify it from where he stood, although he knew being closer wouldn't have helped any. Whatever it was, she was stabbing it with her fork, holding it up for closer inspection, poking at it with her knife, and then flinging it back down on her plate. She did it methodically to several pieces in a row. She looked sickened by it, yet somehow fascinated. Jack imagined it was making her crazy that she couldn't take it to her lab to study it.

Finally he decided to spare her from pretending to eat anymore. He walked up and sat on the edge of her bed on the opposite side of her tray. "Not hungry for the mystery meat special?"

She made a face and dropped her fork one final time. "I'm not sure whether it had fur in it or has grown fur, but either way, I'm not about to ingest it."

"You know, I just ate." He suddenly wasn't feeling so well.

"Lucky you, sir. I'm starving."

Jack smiled widely, promptly pulling his hand out from behind his back and revealing a slice of peach pie and two forks. "If you see any fur in this, you forfeit your half."

"Not a word, I swear." Sam's eyes were trained hungrily on the pie. Jack was fairly certain she'd attack him if he tried to take it away.

Placing the pie on the tray between them, Jack handed over the extra fork. "Before you ask, there was no cake."

They shared the pie in companionable silence. Jack had scraped the last bit off the plate and was about to put it in his mouth when his eyes fell on the hickey. His movements stopped abruptly; his mind was too busy trying to tamp down his desperate urge to give her another one to finish eating.

"Admiring your handiwork, sir?"

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, seeing a devilish gleam in them that he'd never seen before. He winked at her. "Actually, I'm just trying to stop myself from giving you several more right now."

She blushed and looked down, not realizing that her uncharacteristic shyness did nothing to dissuade him. "Not until I'm several days away from having to see Daniel." She shook her head. "I tell you, he's worse than my dad ever was."

Jack snickered at the mental image of Jacob inspecting Sam's neck for hickeys. "So Daniel and Teal'c already talked to you."

"We're going to have to have a little chat about keeping secrets." She tried to look disappointed, but it was hard with her smile.

Jack rolled his eyes. "They already knew."

"How?"

"Maybe they went back in time." Jack tried his best to look pathetic. "They really did already know. I only confirmed it. Accidentally."

"How did you confirm it accidentally?"

"I referred to you as Sam and you know Daniel didn't miss that." Jack shrugged. "That and the hickey..."

Sam shook her head. "Sometimes that man is just too smart for his own good."

"Tell me about it." Jack pushed the dinner tray away and shifted closer to her. "Of course the fact that I was sleep-deprived and very worried and hadn't eaten might have contributed."

Sam started to reply, but her words were cut off by a yawn. She rubbed her eyes. "I never imagined I'd ever need this much sleep."

Jack couldn't resist. He spoke softly to avoid being overheard. "Better rest up. Once you get sprung from here, you're not going to be getting much sleep."

"One of these days, you're going to be here when I wake up."

"If you promise to tell me how you knew when to give me that note, I'll promise to be here when you wake up."

Sam smiled sleepily at him as her eyes closed. "You've got a deal, sir."

Jack leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Jack." He moved off the bed and into the chair he'd been in earlier, watching as Sam fell asleep with a smile on her face.