Title: Touch
Rating: G
Summary: They needed that contact, that reassurance that they were still alive.
Season: Six; after Paradise Lost
I wrote this in present-ish tense. And it was hard to do, I can tell you that.
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They've stumbled across a new culture, as usual. There's been greetings and exchanges of pleasantries and polite invitations to stay- for once not suggested when the native is pointing the business end of a weapon at them. So they accept and start the hike back to wherever it is these people live, while Daniel talks animatedly, Teal'c watches silently, and Jack and Sam exchange discreet glances.
It's quiet enough, for a strange planet. The locals are friendly enough to generously allow them into the city, fortified by high walls of clay. Inside they find a surprise- there aren't actually buildings, per se, but rather arrangements of cloth and rope that serve to indicate separate or common living areas. The night's getting colder, so they crouch around the fire and listen to the folklore of these nice enough guys.
And then the party ends, and before they can volunteer to set up camp outside the city, their gracious hosts give them accommodations for their stay- and have already shuffled out where everyone's sleeping.
Either Daniel and Teal'c have dropped a word in with them, or the locals are astute enough to notice the vibrating tension that exists between the other two. One way or another, Jack and Sam end up housed in one of the tent-like arrangements together.
Amazingly enough, the small space is kept warm by the foreign material. The two bid goodnight to a sleepy Daniel and a thoughtful Teal'c and slip inside, laying out their 'mummy sacks', as the team is wont to call them, and watching the dying fire cast patterns on the thin cloth.
Their nerd had explained to them earlier how the natives dealt with the cramped space: if something went on behind closed cloth, the others act as if it never happened.
And what they want could never happen.
But just once, desperate for the comfort that they need after being apart for so long, they are tempted to give in to the tantalizing dreams.
And yet some part of them insists that they realize what could happen, what could go horribly wrong if they go too far.
So it's only natural, then, that they fall asleep close together, her fingers interlocked with his- for they never quite overstep that boundary, but find middle ground easily.