Day five

The rain starts just after midnight.

Jack sits at the mouth of the cave tending to the fire. The droplets hit the ground loudly as water trickles along the rim of the opening. The rock is battered incessantly by water the downpour. He glances at Carter as she lies on the other side of the fire. She has the blankets pulled up over her, unconsciously moving toward the warmth.

She's fidgeted on and off tonight, mumbling a few times between bouts of fitful sleep. He's heard her have the odd bad dream on previous missions, nothing in the last few days. Sleep is often elusive off-world, especially a new one. He does a cursory check of the tree line. Nothing. All of their parameter checks have been clear. They haven't seen anything bigger than the squirrel-like critters Carter spotted the other day.

Her mumbles jumble into one, arguing with herself as she gets louder, agitated in her dreams. She starts shaking her head, keening as she refuses to co-operate with whatever scenario she's stuck in.

Jack observes her for another beat, noting the higher pitch to her protests, the slight sheen covering her flushed skin. He moves closer, crouches next to her as he reaches out to gently shake her shoulder. She flinches yet remains asleep.

"Carter," he says. She shakes her head, wincing in her sleep. He shakes her again.

"No," she whispers, batting him away with her hand.

"Carter!" Jack barks.

She bolts upright and her chest rising and falling rapidly as she gasps for breath. Her eyes dart around, unfocused as she tries to re-establish her link to her reality as her nightmare fades. Jack stays beside her, waits for her to wake up and turn her attention on him. He's had his fair share of nightmares. Her eyes flutter shut and she shakes her head. She's okay.

"You alright?" He asks when she finally looks up at him, guarded and afraid.

"Yeah," she licks her lips. He reaches for the canteen by the fire, offering it to her. She gulps down the water.

"Wanna talk about it?" Carter averts her gaze and he half expects her to turn him down.

"They don't happen often," she explains, as though that's the most important point. She sips the water this time.

"Wanna talk about it?" Jack repeats. She's never said anything about nightmares, no lingering issues.

Her gaze sweeps over him and he knows she's considering how little he'll let her get away with admitting. "Jolinar," she confesses with a sigh.

"Ah," Jack rocks back on his heels and settles on the cave floor. He's curious because he wants to know how she's dealing with it though he won't push it if she's uncomfortable. In the two years since Jolinar took her body hostage, the memories she's been able to recover have come in handy while bordering on disturbing at other times. Jack isn't entirely comfortable trusting the sketchy recollections from the Tok'ra snake, except it's the only part of the experience Carter is relatively open about. She focuses on the intel which can help them rather than her personal feelings towards the encounter. The fact that she's been keeping them to herself is unsettling.

Carter shuffles across the cave to rest her back against the wall, pulling the blanket around her. Jack sits beside her. She stares out at the night with her arms wrapped around her knees, a myriad of emotions crosses her face. He's about to tell her she doesn't have to talk to him. It's not an order. When he has nightmares, he just wants to pretend they never happened.

"Carter," he starts.

"It's fine," Carter tells him. "They aren't as frequent as they were."

He stares at her then.

Frequent.

She never mentioned them, not even after the incident. Apparently, this isn't a once-off.

"Not to sound like Daniel, but what..?" He trails off uncomfortably. He read her report, he saw her after. He never expected to see her so despondent. He never asked her for fear of making her uncomfortable. He didn't have a fascination with it like Daniel. The idea a host could survive was like a beacon to the younger man, rekindling his hope for Sha're. Jack and Teal'c spent a lot of the early days of Carter's recovery pre-empting the conversation to prevent the archaeologist from quizzing Carter on her experience. He has a tendency to be overzealous and single-minded when he has an idea in his head.

"What was it like?" Sam finishes for him. He nods. "Strange. She took over so quickly, I didn't know until it was too late. I saw and heard everything. I remember my mouth moving, talking. I remember how she felt. Her memories came later, after." Nightmares. "She was desperate."

"That doesn't excuse hitching a ride," Jack quips. Jolinar broke the fundamental rule, she took a host without consent. "Isn't that the difference between the Tok'ra and Gou'ald?"

She nods slowly, her eyes dropping to her hands holding the blanket over her bent knees, breathing shallowly as she centres herself. She rolls her head back against the wall, glancing at him while looking resigned. At her nightmare, at his undivided attention, Jack doesn't know.

"Jolinar liked you," Carter suddenly declares, surprising him. He gives her a look. Carter shrugs. It's a stretch at best. "Well, she respected you for not giving her the benefit of the doubt when she said she was a Tok'ra."

"It wasn't about her," Jack admits, not willing to comprehend what that means to him or his role as her commanding officer.

He could've pushed the Tok'ra harder. Objectively, he needed to find out what she knew, why she took Carter, whether it was random or strategic. He was angling for a way to get her to release Carter, bring her back in a way they hadn't been able to do for Sha're. That was the Air Force line, the one he pushed. Jolinar pushed right back, using Carter as a weapon against him.

Jolinar's attitude, her fire, sparked something akin to fear in him. Combined with Carter's wide, glistening eyes, the use of her voice, Jack realised Jolinar was more dangerous than any snake they'd encountered. Her choice of hostage, random as it was, was the kicker. Carter is essential to the program; her knowledge of Earth's defences and the computer systems is second to none. That information in the hands of an enemy is debilitating.

That should have been at forefront of Jack's mind when interrogating the Tok'ra. Carter's a damn fine officer. Half of what she says confuses Jack, he gave up trying to translate her technobabble to English at some point during the first year, but he trusts that she knows what she's doing. Jack wasn't going to sacrifice her to the enemy, one who knew that about him because of the woman carrying them against their will.

"I know," Carter says, just as quietly. "I'm glad you didn't give her a pass because it was me."

She gets it. She understands the decisions he has to make; the ones he's made in the past, the ones he'll make in the future.

"I would never have consented to become a host, but there are things we wouldn't know if I hadn't," she sighs. "Hell, my dad would've died of cancer if I hadn't." She pulls at a loose thread on the blanket. "Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between our feelings."

Jack steels himself. He's going to listen to her because she seems ready to talk, it's more important than the conversation they cut short a few hours ago. He knows why she cut it short, why she hesitated. Same reason he's hesitated around her for months. He doesn't know if she talks to anyone outside of the job, friends, maybe Doc Frasier. He wonders if he's got this all wrong if their muddled feelings are just a result of the job. Jack has no way of reconciling that as it's never happened to him before. He's never worked with anyone like Carter before.

"Is this about Marty?" Jack hates himself for asking, he really does. He doesn't want to talk about other guys who Carter may or may not have feelings for. He can't deny the guy doesn't go hand in hand with the whole Jolinar saga. They were mates. Don't get him wrong, Jack likes Martouf. Martouf's his second favourite Tok'ra, right behind Selmak. He's a good guy, he's gone against the Tok'ra to save their asses. A little too dreamy-eyed around Carter, commandeering her time when he drops in for a visit, but no one's perfect. Jack doubts the guy would push her into sharing his life, but he wouldn't say no if that's what Carter decides.

Carter cocks her head to the side and Jack tries to keep his face schooled as she reads him and his curiosity. She calls his bluff.

"When Martouf looks at me, he sees his mate. When I see him, I'm drawn to him," Carter pulls a face. "I have memories of him that aren't mine. What they had was so intense, their relationship, their fight against the Gou'ald…" She glances at Jack. "But I don't think I would feel this way about him if I never carried Jolinar." She sighs, frustrated, confused. "I'm not compromised, Sir," she stresses.

"I never said you were, Carter," Jack replies. She never would've passed the psych evals if she was. Jolinar's memories may have influenced her actions, but she's still as dedicated to her job as she's always been. He doesn't really want to talk about other guys, but if she decides this thing with Martouf is more than just Jolinar then he won't let his confusing feelings for her stand in the way of that. She drops her eyes, plucking at a thread of cotton on the rough blanket she's wrapped around herself. Jack watches her, letting her words, her own confusion, sink in. She hasn't been specific and Jack won't push her to clarify. He's always going to let her take the lead with this, even if she doesn't realise that.

"I'm trying to figure out if I'm not sure about my feelings for Martouf, whether can I be certain about my feelings for others." She turns her head slightly to gauge his reaction.

"Fair point," Jack concedes, trying to school his features. He digs at the fire with a stick to give himself a second to think. He hadn't thought of that, of how her experience with Jolinar could sway her feelings as much as her obligation to the Air Force. "Look, Carter, when I asked you to go to my cabin, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"You mean like watching you kiss a version of me and wonder how it feels?"

"I didn't know you were watching until after…" Jack waves his hand in the air, letting the word hang between them.

"Would that have made a difference?"

"Carter," Jack sighs weakly. He chances a look at her, her eyes trained on him, waiting for an explanation for kissing her grieving counterpart. He remembers it, her soft curves fitting into his embrace, her lips pressing against his, seeking any sign of her dead husband. Doctor Carter had sought solace in his arms but she'd known the difference. Jack, for his part, tried to give her what she needed, comfort her as much as possible while trying not to compare or wonder about his Carter, and how she would react, if her lips would feel differently against his. Or how he wanted it to be his Carter. "She was grieving, she needed her husband."

"Her version of you," Carter points out, her voice irritatingly neutral. Her guarded expression doesn't give anything away. Jack meets her eyes. Her eyes give her away. Questioning, careful, hopeful.

"She needed to say goodbye," he tells her softly.

"I know you want to make things better for people, make it easier," she shakes her head. "But there are some things not even you can fix."

"I'm beginning to realise that." Jack doesn't remind her that her double believed he was capable of such a feat. He wishes it were that simple. By making it easier for the Doctor Carter, seems he made that situation harder for his Carter. "I don't want this to be a problem between us, Carter."

"It's not a problem," Carter tells him quickly. She averts her gaze, capturing her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it. "What we do is so important, it can't be a problem, can it, Sir?"

"No, it can't." Jack looks down at the fire. "Look, Carter, I-."

"I think I would've done the same if our roles had been reversed," Carter admits, quietly, baulking slightly when she realises what she's admitted it out loud. "Oh, God, I mean, uh…" Carter sighs. "Sir, I just…"

As amusing as this is for Jack, he holds up a hand to stop her. "I get it, Carter."

She would've kissed a man grieving his wife if it offered him solace no matter if it complicated their relationship. Neither are really ready to question why they've encountered two versions of themselves who are together. Maybe they don't have to. They probably shouldn't. Their circumstances don't allow those kinds of questions. The Stargate Program is under military rule, meaning military personnel have to adhere to those regulations no matter what curveballs the assignment throws at them. "We work well together," he adds as though his words are an afterthought.

"Yeah, we do," she concurs, swallowing, throwing a furtive look at him. "I can't imagine not working with you."

"Well, I brag about you daily," Jack muses, faltering when her eyes snap up to his. "All of you, I brag about all of you daily, that other team leaders would think it's odd if I don't."

Carter ducks her chin to hide her flush. "I can't imagine giving up our team."

Whatever this is between them, what this connection is that their counterparts have explored, isn't enough to break their oath, not when they haven't come to terms with it themselves yet. She has a lot to come to terms with, and whenever Carter decides she's ready, he'll be there.

"I like to think of it like fishing," Jack tells her.

Carter's eyes narrow and her lips quirk. "Fishing?"

"You know the fish are in the pond, but you gotta wait for 'em to bite."

"Wait?" Carter asks, hesitantly curious.

"No matter how long it takes," Jack confirms, fairly confident she's following the subtext of their conversation. Neither of them can say anything out loud, not even to each other.

"You think they'll be a time when we stop waiting?"

"I hope," Jack tells her. They're in the middle of a war, who knows what the outcome will be, but he hopes there's a day when they overcome everything holding them back; when they're comfortable enough to explore whatever is happening between them. "For now, we wait."

"We're okay with that?"

He turns to her and studies her expression full of hope and fear. "Yeah, we're okay with that."

Because they're not ready for more. They both have things to figure out before they are.

"Just let me know when you're ready to fish, Carter."

She's quiet for a long while, Jack almost thinks she's fallen asleep until she speaks. "I'm sorry we're not there."

"At least we're not alone here," he adds softly.