Jack started to get himself involved as well. Sam pulled apart and Jack jumped back, thinking that Sam had seen someone watching them.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!" Frasier ran in.
"What happened?!"
Jack looked at Sam knowingly, but she wasn't paying attention due to the pain in her arm and ribs. She wheezed a bit. "Jan, I'm fine, honestly…" she protested, but with no avail.
"Major, I want you lying back down in that bed," Janet ordered and Sam knew better than to argue with her. Unfortunately, Jack didn't. "As for you colonel, you are to stay off that ankle until it heals, it'll get much worse if you don't. You stay in bed and I'll release you at the end of the day, if you don't then…" she shrugged.
"But…."
"No, colonel, in bed." Looking at her no-nonsense stance and the hearing the firm tone of voice, he grumbled his way back over to his bed.
"When will Sam be okay?" Jack wondered.
"I'm fine!" Janet turned to Sam with a glare.
"Now what happened colonel?" Janet demanded to know. Any risk to her patients must be dealt with.
"Well, she was in the bed and I hobbled over," he said.
"And…"
"We talked."
"Colonel…" the voice warned and he sighed.
"When we were talking, she rolled over and hit her ribs," he lied carefully. Sam peeped up.
"I ignored it at first, but then the colonel went to sit on the bed and the bounciness and the pressure of the bed bouncing back, hurt my ribs again. That's all." Sam was good at doing this, making up cover stories for whatever. So Janet was convinced. She sighed and left.
"I'd better not find you two up and about, is that understood?" she looked pointedly at Jack.
"With protest."
"Yes, Janet." She left to talk to Hammond. Jack rolled over to face Sam.
"So, would you like to talk about the conversation we had the other day?" he asked conversationally. "We're gonna be stuck in here for a while."
She sighed. "Yeah, sure." She turned her head to see Jack and he could see the love and pain in her eyes.
"I love you Sam, I think you know that," he confessed. Sam was touched, she knew it alright, but he'd never confirmed it.
"I know Jack, I love you too. But when you said what you did in your office… I…" Jack knew what she meant and didn't mention it so that he didn't have to reopen old wounds. But they both remembered clearly.
The Day Before
Sam stood into Jack's office. He'd emailed her wanting to know something. She was intrigued of course. Anything having to do with Jack was purely fascinating. She knocked.
"Hey Carter," he greeted. She waved cheerfully. Her day was going quite well.
"Hello sir, doing paperwork?" she asked. He sneered at the pile of papers that had amounted on his desk. He was almost never in there. Jack spread his hands to show her the other side of the fruits of his labor.
"See what I get? We save the world and all I get is paperwork!" he groaned and resumed a 'happy' face and smiled at her.
"You wanted to see me?" He nodded.
"Have a seat, if you can find one…" She grabbed a chair from across his room and sat down in it.
"Sooo…" Sam pried. Jack sighed. He sounded miserable.
"Sam… you know how I … care for you." Sam nodded silently. "And I know that eventually… both of us will want it to go somewhere," Jack was wringing his hands. He was downright nervous and Sam couldn't believe that he was coming out with it so readily. In fact he'd spent the last two hours trying to think of what to say… and it had all gone to waste…
"Jack, eventually, I think I want to marry you," Sam answered kindly. Pressured by paperwork and having his nerves stretched thin, he almost snapped back.
"Sam that's exactly what we can't do! Don't you see? Both of us love this job… and don't tell me that you would give it up for me, because I wouldn't let you. I do love you, but… or jobs are on the line…" Sam had heard enough, she assumed that he didn't love her any more. She tensed up and Jack could tell she was going to leave. He'd said that much harsher than he had intended to.
"Carter, I just don't want to see you get hurt…" She raged at him. Apparently, the project she was working on also had her nerves frayed.
"I don't need your protection, sir. I'm a big girl now; I can take care of whatever I choose to get involved in! If I want you love you, fine, but if you don't want to love me back, that's fine with me too!!" She didn't mean the words she said and immediately regretted saying it, but her pride didn't allow her to apologize and Jack's didn't allow him to forgive. There was a hard look in Jack's face and a sadness in his eyes. Sam knew it was her that had put it there and she hated herself for doing so. Jack was cold and quiet when he spoke.
"Fine then major, I don't need you either. You are dismissed." Sam almost ran out of his office, but stopped to glare at him first and walked out slowly, as if to show him that his words hadn't bothered her. But she was only fooling herself. Jack collapsed on his desk, in close to tears, after Sam left. He'd just lost the love of his life. She hated him now for saying that. Sam ran to her own office and sat down in tears, something she shouldn't have been caught doing, but she didn't care anymore. Her Jack was gone to her forever. She hated the cold and cruel words that had come out of her mouth, she didn't mean them, but he couldn't have known that.
"Oh god, what have I done?" she moaned. An hour later, she cried herself to sleep.
Jack thought about her for hours after. Gods, had he screwed up. You've done it again, O'Neill, broken your woman's heart, he thought miserably. How could he ever make it up to her? That is if he could… he was sure that she hated his guts about now, but he knew that he didn't meant exactly what he'd said, maybe she didn't. He sighed. It was best to ride out the storm and approach it tomorrow when she'd, hopefully, gotten rest and maybe forgave him.
---------------------------------------------
Back in the Infirmary
"Sir, remember this morning, when you came and made up to me?" Sam wondered. How could he forget…
"Yup."
He'd gotten up real early, knowing that if Sam was mad, then she'd be up working on her thingamabobbers. Besides, he wanted to smooth this over before the day actually started and could be ruined. He ruffled his hair, yawned, and tried to look awake as he hoped that a specific major would be in her lab. He walked in. Sam's back was turned to him and came up with a brilliant idea. He came up behind her, silent as a ghost and grabbed her 'round the waist for a hug. Sam giggled. All was well so far! She'd laughed! He set Sam down and she turned to face him.
"Are you here to say something to me, colonel?" she asked in mock seriousness. Her tone of voice didn't reach her eyes, for they smiled at him, apparently she'd forgiven him. Jack returned the sarcasm.
"Yes, major I am," he retorted carefully, it wasn't usually that Sam made up with him so quickly, not that they'd ever gotten into that big of a fight…
"Do you forgive me?" she pondered, batting her eyes. She'd never done that before, but he overlooked it.
"Do you forgive me?" he asked, also batting his eyes. They smiled and answered.
"Yes." Jack clapped his hands together.
"Right then, so we're all good?" Sam nodded. "Good, because I need to catch some sleep, it ran away last night," he joked. Sam smirked at him and he left.
"Carter, you're telling me you thought that it was all part of your very elaborate dream?" She nodded and paused.
"I didn't know you knew that word…"
"What word?" he asked curiously.
"Elaborate." Now he knew that Sam had been joking around and scowled. This caused Sam to laugh.
"I have my charms, when I feel like it," he mentioned. Jack continued the conversation. "So when you fell off the shelf…"
"It pushed me off, sir, I swear!" she added sarcastically.
"Right, when it pushed you off, that's, as far as you knew, when you woke up?" Sam nodded somberly and soberly. "Oh." After that, the day was rather uneventful, stuck in the hospice all day long, but he didn't get up… well, except to go to the little boy's room, but he stayed down otherwise. Jack wanted to go home at the end of this… and he wanted to take Sam with him. Once in a while, they played imaginary cards or real cards after lunch when Janet scooted them together. Jack had pie for dessert, after Janet scowled at him. His favorite, yum. At about three in the afternoon, the good ole doc came back for them.
"Colonel, how's your ankle doing?" She actually allowed him to get up and walk on it.
"It's fine," was the automatic answer, but at least this time, Jack meant it. Unfortunately, Janet didn't believe him. So after much poking and prodding, Janet reluctantly relieved Jack of the infirmary and his crutches, which she knew his wasn't going to use anyway.
"What about Sam?" he asked after a few moments. The doctor smiled at him.
"She's going to be fine, now go home and get some rest. Tomorrow I'm letting on light duty." Janet knew, immediately, what the next question form his mouth was going to be.
"Can I take her home?" The doctor smiled inwardly, she'd been right.
"To her house, colonel. She can call if she needs us." Now the protests were under way.
"But she'll knew someone to take care of her if she falls or something like that," he argued. Janet had every intention of letting him take Sam home, but he didn't need to know that. She liked arguing with the colonel, it was… amusing.
"Now colonel, she needs some time at home to recoup. After that, she can call you and ask if she can come over, understood?" Janet looked resolute in her point, so Sam joined the conversation.
"Jan, I'm fine, really. It was just a fall and after four hours of being in here, I think I'm fine." Sam jumped off her bed and bowed. It was a little stiff, but she was good. Janet glowered at the two. She poked and prodded at Sam to see if she was really hurting or not. After that being done, Janet relented.
"Fine colonel, you can take her, but she so much as breathes too hard, you are to report her to me. Is. That. Understood?" the doc said slowly. Jack nodded.
"Yes. Ma'am," he answered and turned to Sam. "Let's go now…it's too boring here." He winked at Janet and she knew that he was secretly glad for helping them.
Once in the elevator, they exchanged a swift, but intimate kiss. Sam laughed with glee.
"Want lunch, err… dinch? Lunner?" he tried to make up words for this kind of meal. Sam nodded. "Which one do you want? Dinch or lunner?" he asked sarcastically.
Sam pretended to think real hard about the choices. "Lunner with do, sir," she said in a petite and formal way. He almost thought she'd meant 'sir' in a military way and almost protested. That is until he realized the accent she used. They both laughed joyfully.
They walked out to Jack's truck and Jack, being the perfect gentleman of course, opened the door for her. She dazzled him with a smile and clambered inside the roomy beast of a car. Jack hopped in beside her in the driver's seat. He turned the truck on and rumbled how of the base.
"Where do you want to go?" Jack asked without looking at her. Sam tried to decide.
"Uh, I don't know… anything good around here?" Jack shrugged.
"I dunno, I never pay attention. I pick up my burgers and go," he remarked causally. She smiled.
"Then let's get burgers, sir."
After their rendezvous with cheeseburgers and fries, they went to Jack's house, a nice little place to settle down for the rest of the day. Jack got Sam comfortably positioned on the guest bed. She protested that she wasn't hurting, but Jack saw the mild pain in her face. He wasn't going to allow her to injure herself anymore if he had anything to do about it. They settled in. Sam's hand brushed Jack's thigh, causally, almost a mistake, but it lingered there a moment to long. O'Neill responded by placing his hand on her thigh and tickled it. She giggled in response, the result he'd been looking for. ESPN looked on innocently as the two made their proceedings. Nothing very intimate of course, just touches and kisses. Carter wasn't well enough to be taken to bed, yet. Two hours flew by as the friends watched T.V. Then Jack's beeper went off. He looked at the number and called.
"Sir?"
"Hi, Jack, sorry about this, I know you're taking care of Major Carter, but you need to come back in. It's up to the major whether she wants to come or not, but be here ASAP."
"Yes, sir, I get it. I'll have Thor beam me over." A chuckle fell on the line.
"No need for that colonel, it's not that serious…remember that plant? The one that threatened to overrun the base?"
"Yeah, don't tell me…"
"Yup and guess who's taking it back…along with some friends, ASAP colonel," and the phone hung up before Jack had a chance to answer. He looked at the phone suspiciously and dropped it back on its hook. O'Neill gathered up his jacket.
"Sam, Hammond just called me back in, apparently that evil plant wants the base for itself again. You're welcome to come…or stay. I think if you come, you'll be forced to the infirmary…" When Sam heard that, she changed her mind.
"Actually, I'm quite comfortable, thanks though." Carter pecked Jack on the cheek and he returned the favor.
"Now you behave, missy, I want to come back and actually find this place… not gone because of a reactor or a science project gone wrong, hear me?" he asked with mock sternness.
She snapped a perfect salute, at least as well of one as one could who was lying on the couch. "Yes, sir!" He saluted her back and left. Sam sighed, damn, did she love that man…