"Am!" Charlie says reaching his arms up toward her. She picks the child up, and he nuzzles into her shoulder, "Dada," he wails.
"Daddy is fine," Sam assures him.
"Dada," the boy wails again.
Sam walks to the bedroom door, and cracks it open ever so slightly to see if Jack's awake.
Not only does he look awake, but he looks bored.
"Someone is worried about his Daddy," she tells him.
"Bring him in," Jack says with a smile.
Sam pushes the door open the rest of the way, and Charlie immediately leaps out of her arms. She is startled by it, and terrified that he may have hurt himself, but it's a feat that the child has accomplished many times before.
Charlie crawls over to the bed, and pulls himself up into a standing position using the side of the bed for support. Then he tries to clamber up onto it. His tiny hands grip on the sheets of the bed. He makes more progress pulling he sheet off the bed then in pulling himself up.
Sam reaches over, and pulls him up on the edge of the bed.
"Be gentle with your Daddy," she warns her.
"Owie?" Charlie asks, moving toward his father slowly and gently.
"Yes, Daddy has another owie, but it's going to be ok," Jack says.
"'ere?" Charlie demands.
Jack puts a hand gently on his side to show his son where the wound is.
Charlie leans forward and delivers a huge smacking kiss on the spot. Sam can tell that the action causes Jack quite a bit of pain. But he hides the flinch by the time his son's head bobs back up to look at him.
"You made it all better!" Jack exclaims.
"etter!" Charlie repeats with glee.
"You're really good at this. Are you going to grow up to be a doctor?" Jack asks.
The child shakes his head with a look of disgust on his face.
"A merchant, then?" Sam suggests
Charlie shakes his head even harder.
"A scientist like Sam?" Jack asks, smiling at his new wife.
Charlie looks at her critically for a long moment, before he does a gentle shake of his head.
"What do you want to be then?" Jack asks, even though he was pretty sure his son can't answer yet.
"Dada!" Charlie exclaims.
"You want to be a professor like your Dad?" Sam says, feeling all warm inside at this father-son connection. It's a connection that she's hoping to feel - with Charlie, and someday with other children. If she can ever convince her husband to have a real marriage with her.
Charlie shakes his head again, with a wrinkle in her forehead.
"You want to do other things that Daddy does?" Jack says. He'd hoped that his son wouldn't figure out what he was doing until he was much older.
Charlie nods. "Dada."
Jacks' eyes cloud with this new knowledge. He doesn't want his son to risk his life. He doesn't even want his son to know that he risks his life. But Sam has figured out that his son means something completely different than Jack thinks he understands. "You mean you want to be a Daddy like your Dad?" Sam asks.
Charlie nods his head. Then he crawls over his father. Then he snuggles in against Jack's good side. He meant it to be gentle, and sweet, but Sam can see that it caused him a great deal of pain.
"Come on, little man, let's leave your Dad alone now," Sam says, trying to take the boy by the hand.
He pulls it away from her, and whines.
"He's fine," Jack assures her. "You want to take a nap with Daddy?" he asks.
Charlie nods his head and smiles. Jack smiles up at Sam. It's a secret smile of understanding. He knows how precious it is to be a parent, and he is glad he gets to share it with her, sort of.
-0-0-0-
Why is it so hot? Sam asks herself. She casts off the warm woollen blanket. A sound of protest next to her ear makes her jump. Who is in her bed?
Right, her husband.
And he's the source of the heat.
"Jack," she whispers.
"Sara?" he asks with a smile on his face.
Sam's heart clenches. He thinks that she is his dead wife? "Jack, you have a fever."
"Mm fine," Jack mutters.
"You're burning up, what do I do?" she asks in panic. What were they thinking, calling her an adult, old enough to be married? She knows nothing. "Jack!" she shouts.
His eyes focus on her, "Carter?" he asks.
"You're sick!" she pleads.
"Get Janet."
"I can't leave you and Charlie."
"Get Sha'uri, she can get Janet," he says.
"I can't leave you."
"You can see the house from there," he says.
"Jack, don't get sicker while I'm gone," she pleads with him before she leaves.
-0-0-0-
"Sha'uri!" Sam pleads, banging on the door desperately.
Hosna opens the door, "What is wrong?"
"I need to speak to Sha'uri, Jack is sick," she says.
Hosna leaves, and returns a few minutes later with Sha'uri, dressed in a thin cloak. "You need Janet?" she asks.
"I'll get her, you go with her," Hosna says, remembering all too well what it was like when she was suddenly, at the age of seventeen, thrust into the role of adulthood. She'd been a third wife, with two women more than willing to show her the ropes. She couldn't imagine what Sam must be going through when she was all alone.
Sha'uri and Sam rush back to Sam's house, where Sha'uri takes control right away. "Get a cold wash cloth."
"I don't know where he keeps them," Sam says.
"I'll go look, go get ice."
"Ice? It's not winter," Sam says, confused.
"I know, he has an ice box in the kitchen," Sha'uri says.
It takes Sam a lot longer to find the ice box than she would have liked. When she finally returned to the room, Jack is displaying his bad patient reputation.
"Leave me alone!" he says.
"Jack, Sha'uri is trying to help you," Sam tells him.
"No, she's trying to freeze me to death," he protests.
"Good, you found the ice," Sha'uri says.
"Ice? You've got to be kidding me," Jack says in dismay.
"We've got to get the fever down. You've got an infection again," Sha'uri tells him.
"I thought the stupid staff blast was supposed to cauterize the wounds," Jack whines.
"Well, unfortunately, the vest keeps it from getting hot enough to let it do that," Sha'uri informs him.
"So you're telling me that the vest made me worse off," he says.
"Not exactly. Without the vest you would be dead," Sha'uri says, with more honesty than she meant to use.
Sam gasps in horror.
"Geez, Sha'uri, she's not used to this crap," Jack protests, flinching as Sha'uri adds some ice to the washcloth at his brow.
"She might as well get used to the truth," Sha'uri says, a bit casually, as she drops cold water on Jack's arms. He shivers at the contact.
Sam starts to wonder if she's going to be a widow before she ever gets to be a wife.
"Carter, I'm going to be fine," Jack says, reaching out his hand to her. She takes it, somewhat surprised at his openness.
-0-0-0-
Janet rushes into the house without bothering to knock. She pulls out a bottle full of a green substance.
"No, not the mold!" Jack wines.
"Sir, you have an infection," Janet presses.
"Why exactly does that equal moldy bread?" Jack asks.
"Do whatever Janet tells you to," Sam pleads.
"It's ok," Janet says, casting a smile over at the younger woman, "He always does eventually."
Jack narrows his eyes at her, and opens his mouth in a parody of a baby bird. Janet is undaunted by the fact that he is making a joke, and takes the opportunity to shove the medicine down his throat.
"You know that stuff tastes awful," he whines.
"I know, take another bite, and I'll give you something to wash it down with," Janet says.
Jack looks at her suspiciously, but takes another bite. Then Janet opens up her hand to reveal a small dark brown lump.
"You got chocolate?" Jack says in surprise and delight.
"What is chocolate?" Sam asks.
"Give it to her," Jack insists.
"No, you need it to get the taste out of your mouth," Sam protests.
"This is something that everyone needs to experience at least once in their lives," Jack says.
Janet hands it to her with a smile, and Sam guiltily slips it into her mouth. The sweet yet bitter taste touches every taste bud in her mouth in a way that no other thing she has ever tasted has done.
"Wow, Jack, I can't believe that you would give that up for me! Especially when you were injured," Sam says in shock.
Jack laughs, "Oh, Samantha, you are pretty easy to make happy."
"I would be a whole lot happier if you could get better," she tells him.
"He's going to be fine. You just have to make sure he takes a two spoonfuls of his hated medicine each day for the next five days. You'll also have to keep the cold compress on his forehead until the fever comes down."
Sam nods.
"Now for the least fun part of this," Janet says.
"That's not the medicine?" Sam asks, concerned.
"No, I have to clean his wound. Could one of you get the alcohol?" Janet asks.
Sam looks panic-stricken. She doesn't want anyone else to know that she has no idea how to run the house. It's bad enough that Sha'uri already knows about it.
Sha'uri walks out of the room.
"No-one expects you to know where he keeps everything after a day in the house," Janet says. She's sharp enough to notice other peoples discomfort, and completely unwilling to let it stand for more than a few seconds.
Sam smiles shyly, "I'm just not very good at this… wifely thing."
"Sure you are," Jack says quickly, "And even if you weren't, you're a brilliant scientist. You don't have to be good at everything."
Sam nods, and looks down at the floor gloomily, thinking that she isn't good at any of the things that matter.
Sha'uri returns a few minutes later with a jar of beer.
"No spirits? They're more condensed," Janet says.
"I don't have any," Jack mutters.
"Hold your husband's hand, this is going to hurt," Sha'uri offers.
"I don't need someone to hold my hand, I'm a big boy," Jack says mockingly.
But Sam knows what her friend is doing, and walks over quickly to obey. The feeling of his hand in hers causes an electrical sensation to go up her arm. She wonders if her mother would have told her that it would be like this if she had lived long enough to give her the pre-wedding speech.
She looks into Jack's eyes, and for the one second between when their hands make contact, and when the alcohol hits the infected wound, she notices in them the same excitement that she is feeling in her own heart.
"Crap," Janet says once the wound has been washed.
"What?" Sam asks, moving over to the other side of the bed to get a better view of what Janet is looking at. She sees a thin red tendril moving from the wound. It fills her with dread even though she doesn't know what the meaning of it is.
"Blood poisoning," Janet says.
"Poisoning?" Sam answers.
"Hopefully the antibiotics and the cleaning will stop it. I just don't like how close it is to the heart, and it's not on a limb."
"Hey there, chip choppy, I'm not firewood, so it doesn't really matter if it's on a limb or not, now, does it?" Jack says quickly.
"Firewood?" Sam asks, confused.
"Sometimes when someone gets blood poisoning, they have to take the limb," Sha'uri explains.
"But that's not happening here," Jack says quickly, more for his own comfort than for hers.
"It's not," Janet says looking at the wound again. "Can you find me a pen, something to mark his flesh with?"
This is one of the few things that Sam has found in her brief stay in Jack's house. She leaves the room to fetch it. Janet takes it from her, and gently dips it in the ink well. Then she carefully traces the wound with it, dipping it into the ink well again and again. She leans forward to blow on the side like it is a piece of paper.
Jack giggles.
"Sorry," she says, blushing as she realizes what she's done. Sometimes the line between doctor and woman gets a little bit blurred. Even for a married woman. And Janet never really counted any of her marriages a true one.