They had settled into a routine now. Jack would put Aqua in the backyard. Put Sam's meal on a tray, usually a smoothie or soup, along with a couple extra bottles of water or juice. He was careful to disinfect as many of the surfaces as he could in case Lam's worst fears, that Sam's illness was indicative of some sort of immune system failure, were true.
Once or twice in a moment of romantic nostalgia, he clipped a rose from the bush outside the front door, and stuck it in a vase to help brighten her day.
Then, he would set it outside the door, stand in his home office doorway, and call her.
If she was awake and interested in food, she would unlock the door and take the tray. If she didn't answer he would take the tray back down to the kitchen, bring Aqua back inside, and sit outside the bedroom until she was ready.
He lived for those moments when he could see her face.
She always ducked her face, apparently self-conscious of how the fever had reddened her cheeks and the sweat plastered her hair to her scalp. She hadn't changed out of the same pajamas in almost two days now, and he suspected it was because just coming to get her meal wore her out.
He didn't care about any of that. He was just glad for those brief moments when he got to see her again.
And when he wasn't listening to her wheeze or making sure she was properly hydrated, he was on the phone with her. Talking to her.
"Do you remember the flowers on P3X 865, Carter? The blue ones that would sing? I think those are my favorite. What about you? If you could pick one plant in the whole universe that's your favorite, what would it be?"
Sometimes, if she was awake, she'd answer his question. If she was asleep, he'd hang up and wait for an hour before he called again.
Given the fact that the Lucian Alliance was coming, he probably should have been more involved in planning the actual response. He hadn't completely neglected his duties. Landry still called to keep him in the loop.
But this was one of those times he was grateful for all the people who understood that even if there was no earthly paper trail connecting him and Sam, they were connected. They all knew that when it came down to it, Jack would be there to help any way he could. He was just glad they spared him the choice as long as they possibly could.
He sat at the door, Aqua curled beside him. "Sam?"
"Yes, Jack?"
He smiled faintly. "Do you remember when we got married?"
There was a brief hesitation. "I seem to have a vague recollection of that happening, yes."
He chuckled. "I'll never forget the look on your face when I told you I'd packed something special for you in your pack."
"You should have seen the look on my face when I realized it was a wedding dress."
Jack grinned. "I would have, too, if Daniel hadn't been lecturing me about why it's bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the ceremony."
"But then I wouldn't have gotten to see the look on your face when I walked out of the tent with those flowers Teal'c picked for me and down the beach to you."
He could picture it as clearly as if it were yesterday. Sam in the satin dress which fell to her ankles, small white rhinestones in her short, blond hair. Teal'c standing in place of an officiant. Daniel videotaping the event as if they were enacting a centuries' old ritual never before seen. Which, in a way, all weddings were.
He'd made himself so anxious worrying about whether Sam would appreciate the surprise wedding, but how else were they supposed to take advantage of the brief interlude between her transfer to Area 51 and his transfer to the Pentagon?
And then, she'd stolen his breath away when she'd emerged from the tent with that shy smile on her face that seemed to say, Is this really happening?
"You know, it's been fifteen years, and you never told me. How did you get my mother's wedding dress?"
Jack leaned the back of his head against the wall. "Your dad. He pulled me aside after he got sick and told me there was something he wanted me to give you if your dad didn't make it to your wedding."
"I'd already broken up with Pete by then. How did he know—?"
Jack shrugged, his memories of the older man nothing but positive even if he hadn't been entirely trustful of the Tok'ra over the years. "I think he knew more than he ever let on, Sam. Why do you think when he filmed a video for your wedding, he didn't ever reference Pete?"
The video had been short, and Daniel had been the one who had revealed it as they ate some tropical fruit on the beach after Sam and Jack had exchanged vows. It was a pathetic attempt at a small wedding dinner and reception, but Jacob's video had made it special. Apparently, Daniel had found it on a video camera after they'd destroyed the Replicators and Anubis had been taken off the board by Oma Desala.
Hi Sammy. In case Sel'mak and I don't make it to your wedding, I wanted to make sure you knew how proud I am—how proud we both are—of you. I bet you look just like your mother, radiating happiness the way she did when we got married. I can only wish you and your husband all the love you deserve. Love you, kid.
Jack cleared his throat. Looking back on it, their tiny wedding with just their two closest friends sometimes felt like they'd been cheated out of the big party she'd been planning with Pete. Other times, it felt perfect. Intimate. Secret. Like so much of their lives, of their romance. "You know I never would have held it against you if you'd gone through with the wedding."
"I know, but I would have." She coughed. "I knew back after Antarctica that it wouldn't be Pete. Couldn't be Pete."
He quirked an eyebrow. "Did you?"
"Fifth. He tried to make me think that what he was showing me in my mind was real. Wanted me to believe that was the reality."
Jack wasn't sure he wanted to hear what Fifth had done to her, even after all these years. Something about the Replicator still twisted his gut with guilt. Not over what they'd done to him, necessarily, but what their actions had prompted him to do to her. "What reality was that?"
"Pete and I owned a farm. In order to get me to buy into the sudden shift in reality, Fifth tried to make it seem like I'd had a nervous breakdown or something. That I was seeing a therapist."
Jack shifted the phone from one ear to the other, a cramp beginning to form in his muscles. "Would have been hard not to buy into that."
She was quiet for a moment. "Not really."
"Oh?"
"I'd have been more tempted to stay if it had been you. My duplicate knew that. Fifth didn't."
His head cocked at the strange admission. "How do you know your duplicate knew that?"
She swallowed, taking a sip of something. That was good. She was hydrating. "Teal'c asked me why I thought I could trust her. It was something she showed me. Something she said Fifth made her do."
"And that was?"
"I have no idea if Fifth actually made her do it or if she was just manipulating me, but—" She took a deep breath in, exhaling into a coughing and wheezing fit.
She was getting tired.
"Carter, maybe we should finish this—"
"She showed me Fifth making her kill the team. Daniel. Teal'c. She took those shots without hesitation, but when she saw you—"
The irony was that Jack wouldn't have hesitated to destroy the replicated version of Sam. Had told Teal'c not to hesitate. Had hoped Sam wouldn't hesitate.
"I believed her because she knew my secret. She didn't tell anyone, not even Teal'c. She showed me instead. I thought that meant we could trust her. I still don't know if she did it out of some small compassion or if she showed me because she knew telling me would bring some small pain, but showing me would make it worse. Watching you take a bullet at the hand of someone who looked just like me, watching you shoot someone who looked just like me without hesitation—she knew that would make it worse."
"You amaze me, you know that?"
"What?"
His lips curled into a smile at her surprise. "You go through all of that with your replicator duplicate, and you married me three, maybe four months later."
"I had to. I think I'd already proven that my feelings for you weren't going anywhere. We had to take our chance when we did."
He thought back to that time, trying to awkwardly navigate being newlyweds while living almost two thousand miles apart. "You ever wish we did the whole big church party thing?"
"Once in a while. I mean, it was perfect, but I don't know. It might have been fun to have a few other faces there. Cassie. Mark. General Hammond, even."
Jack sat up, eager to have something to do other than just wait for the Lucian Alliance or wait for some other shoe to drop on Sam's medical condition. "So, let's do it."
"Do what?"
"Have one of those vow renewal things."
She snickered, and for once, she didn't fall into a fit of coughing. "Are you crazy?"
"Probably, but what have we got to lose?"
"Jack, I'm back on the ship as soon as the upgrades are completed and I'm well again. We're going to be social distancing here on Earth for at least that long, and probably through early fall." She coughed again. "It makes more sense to wait until our twentieth anniversary to try anything like that."
Jack frowned. "Sam, your brother gives me grief every Christmas that he wasn't invited to our wedding. Can we at least fix that before you fly off in your spaceship again?"
He could hear the exhaustion creeping back into her voice with her low, throaty chuckle. "Okay, Jack. After I get better but before I get back on the Hammond, we'll renew our vows over video chat for my brother."
Jack grew more serious as he leaned back against the wall. "Sam?"
"Hm?"
"I know you want to keep me safe, and I know Lam wants to make sure she minimizes what you're exposed to before she knows what this is, but I'd give anything if I could hold you right now. You know that, right? Press a cold washcloth against your forehead. Kiss your temple. Warm your fingers and your toes. Tell you everything's gonna be okay."
"I wish I could let you."
He pressed a hand against the door, imagining her fingers coming up and threading between his. "We're gonna figure this out, Sam. This stupid quarantine's going to end, and the lockdown outside is going to end, and it's all going to be okay."
There was a long moment, and he worried she had fallen asleep. "Promise?"
He closed his eyes, praying that she'd get the rest she needed, praying these weren't the last words they'd exchange. "Always."
