The light of day was poking around the drawn windows when Jack woke again, hours later, the warmth of a small body pressed into him. However, that wasn't the only unfamiliar thing in his bed. Experimentally, Jack cracked an eye and craned his neck around, confirming that the weight at his back under the covers was Danny and the one at his feet was Teal'c.
At his movements, two heads popped up and he was met with sheepish looks. Quickly, he grinned at the two boys to show them that he didn't really mind them joining him in the night, and they grinned back, and then sobered as they looked at the still sleeping figure of Sam. He caught the looks, and tried to look reassuring as he whispered, "Doctor Janet called last night, and she said she thinks Sam will be feeling better today."
The boys looked relieved. "Do you think Sam would like to go outside and play today?" Danny whispered hesitantly.
"I think she might, later. We can see how she feels after breakfast. How do pancakes sound? I think she'll be waking up soon." In fact, she had just stirred next to him and sighed. He suspected it wouldn't be long.
"Cool!" Daniel whispered back, and Teal'c looked cheered by the news and the prospect of pancakes, he'd come to like the breakfast food and found great enjoyment in seeing how many he could stack on a plate. It had become a bit of a competition among the kids, the only rule being they had to eat what they took, and Jack had compromised by making smaller silver dollar pancakes for the kids to have their game with.
"Ok, you two head downstairs, and get the stuff out, I'll be down in a few minutes." The boys nodded in agreement, sliding out of the bed. Jack stretched; feeling another stirring from the small warm body curled into his side, and looked down into a pair of wide blue eyes. "Hi sunshine."
She blinked at him sleepily, and her forehead creased. "Colonel Jack?"
"Yeah sweetie?" he answered.
"Where's my room?" she asked, her tone puzzled as she looked around her in obvious confusion.
He laughed, and kissed the top of her head. "You're in my room silly."
"Oh."
Gently, he rubbed her back and smiled down at her. "How are you feeling Sam?"
Her forehead creased again, and for a moment, he was worried more tears were to come, but she only spoke when she answered. "My head hurts and it feels stuffy. And I feel all achy. And I still feel sad." Her face was so downcast, that he instinctively tugged her to him, enfolding her into his arms.
After a few minutes, he heard her whisper into his chest, "I love you Colonel Jack."
"I love you too Sam," he returned with feeling, and another warm hug. Pulling back a ways, he looked at her. "So, what do you think about pancakes?"
"Yay!"
He grinned at her cheer, relieved that the worst seemed to be over. Hopefully her leftover headache and aches wouldn't linger, and were maybe just side effects from skipping dinner. "Ok kiddo, let's go. Danny and Teal'c are downstairs getting things out, you wanna help?" She nodded, and he grinned.
Jack got out of bed, heading out of the room. He turned back a moment later when he didn't hear the telltale patter of bare feet hitting the floor behind him, telling him that Sam had followed him. Stopping in the doorway, he looked back at the bed. Sure enough, she was still sitting on the bed, squirming oddly, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Sam?" he questioned, suddenly worried he was in for a repeat of last night's behavior where she couldn't walk anywhere without assistance, and he'd have to spend the next several minutes convincing her that her legs weren't actually broken because he didn't think his back (or his knees) could handle carrying even her smaller seven year old body around all day.
"I can't," she replied, squirming again in that odd way.
He sighed, and walked back to the bed, prepared for an explanation of why she could. "Why not?" he started off.
"Because," her head ducked down and she refused to meet his eyes, her cheeks turning a faint shade of crimson, "I don't have any underwear on." The last part was said with her voice barely above a whisper, and Jack had to strain to hear it. When he did, he had to fight to keep from smiling and fight even harder not to laugh out loud because he knew if he did, she'd never forgive him. Out of all the explanations, this was the one he'd never expected to hear.
"Well," he said instead when he could speak with a straight and mostly serious face, "We'll just have to fix that, I'll go get you some. You wait right here."
At that, her head popped up. "But you can't! You're a boy!" He stared at her, and she explained as if he were an idiot. "You can't touch my underwear, boys aren't s'posed to touch girls' underpants. It's not right." Her lecture was delivered in a very matter of fact tone, and he wondered where she had gotten her information. He also decided that now was not the time to inform her that by doing the laundry, he by default saw and touched her underwear on a regular basis. In fact, he'd touched several pairs last night.
Instead, he merely suggested, "I think it will be ok, just this once."
She thought about it, drawing her knees up and pulling the T-shirt over them so that the material stretched slightly. "Ok," she agreed, then whispered conspiratorially, "Just don't tell Danny and Teal'c ok?"
Jack shook his head solemnly, and held up his hand. "Scouts honor." Ducking out of the room, he grabbed the pair of underwear he'd discarded the night before as too much of an occupational hazard to put on her, and returned quickly with them. She grabbed them, and pushed them under the covers as if they were something secret, staring pointedly at the door, clearly waiting for him to leave. He decided now was also not the time impart to her the knowledge that he'd seen a lot more of her than her in her underwear. Instead, he just pulled the door, and tried not to laugh where she could hear him, but he did have a big-ass grin on his face as soon as she couldn't see it.
As he walked away from the room though, one thought struck him that stopped him in his tracks. A thought that he would never reveal to anyone, even under threat of death or torture, and not even if he was left locked in a room for hours on end with a crying, irritable, miniature version of Sam Carter. A form of torture he had actually decided was nowhere close to anything the Goa'uld had ever done to him. No, he would not reveal the thought he'd just had, because it had suddenly occurred to him that Sam Carter was in his bed, with no underwear on, although somehow, he had never quite imagined it occurring in this way. It seemed, Jack thought to himself, as he made his way to the kitchen to start breakfast, that the fates rather enjoyed toying with the life of one Jack O'Neill.
A/N: Thanks for all the cold remedies. I especially liked the one from MandySG1 that involved green tea and rum. :P I am starting to finally feel better though, thankfully. Which is good because the sinus pressure was really starting to get to me.
On another note, we had a little remodeling adventure I just have to share. We finally got around to packing in the plaster of Paris underneath the tub upstairs. So Dad mixes up the first 25-pound bag and as he is crawling into the attic crawlspace with the first bucket of plaster, and I'm moving around to the other side to watch out and make sure the plaster doesn't come out the other side, he starts hollering. He'd accidentally kicked over the second bucket of water for the other bag of plaster, spilling several gallons of water all over the wood floor. Next thing we know it's running under the walls and all over and he's trying to suck it up with the wet/dry vac. Mom comes upstairs and tells me she can hear water dripping downstairs, and I go down there and sure enough there's a stream of water pouring from the ceiling into my brand new kitchen. I tell mom to go tell dad about the water from the ceiling while frantically looking for some cup or something to catch the water dripping down since some of it is falling on the countertop and some of it is falling into the wall behind the cabinets. Eventually dad comes downstairs and starts drilling holes in the ceiling letting even more water come out. Meanwhile the bucket of plaster is setting up so as soon as he's gotten as much water as possible out of the ceiling (using the vacuum against the newly drilled holes) we have to run upstairs and pack the plaster under the tub. Just in time, because as soon as the last of it is pressed in its already set up too firm to move!