By the end of this chapter, I was thinking, "Jack! Hurry up!" Then I realized I was the one who wrote it.

Midnight

"Sir, wake up." He swears she's petting his head, running her hand across his hair, and God, Jack thinks, that feels nice. "You've been asleep a long time."

He's uncertain what Carter means by "a long time"- in his world time can dilate, shift, and loop- but he's sure that he doesn't want to wake up since that hurts and sleeping doesn't. "Uh huh," he says without opening his eyes, proving that he's alive and somewhat coherent, hoping that will be good enough for her to keep doing what she's doing.

But it isn't. She sits back on her heels with a little sigh, and that's enough to prod him into trying harder. He opens his eyes finally and stares at the fire while he gathers his strength, then struggles to sit up. But the pain, stiffness and blood loss converge on him like a tidal wave and the world abruptly disappears again.

The next time he surfaces he knows something's gone wrong because the scratches on his face are bleeding again and they hurt worse than they should. He really must have hit the bed hard. And then hears her voice and the anguish in it puts everything into context. "Jack. Don't. Not again." He slowly opens his eyes again and finding his head now cradled in her lap, reaches up and wipes the tears from her face before they fall on his, tears shed not for a fellow soldier or for fear of survival- but just for him.

He's too sick to think anymore, and so he can't rationalize or deny what he sees or what he feels, what he knows has been there all along. He can't pretend to understand it, either- he never has. She deserves so much more. But in that moment of semiconsciousness, with thoughts and dreams and feelings swirling into one confused storm in his head he finally understands that what she needs is him. And the shock of it causes him to close his eyes again as his hand slips up around the back of her neck and he pulls her head down to his.

In a few minutes the faintness has passed. "I'm all right," he says softly. "Just a couple quarts low." She nods, her flaxen hair soft against his cheek, but her breaths are still forced and fast against his neck. He's never seen her cry like this before, and it's still a few minutes before she's calm enough to raise her head and meet his eyes. "Hey," he whispers, his gaze caressing her heartbreakingly beautiful face, "that's enough of that." He's not ready to call what's left of her bluff or to tell her what he needs to say, because they're both too weak for that right now. But there will be time for that. Lots of time.

He's relieved to see her tears replaced by a weak smile and then she turns and she's out of his field of vision. An exotic but familiar aroma replaces the lingering animal smell that still seems to cling to his clothing. "Is that coffee?" he asks incredulously.

"I was saving it for a special occasion," she says. He guesses that not dying is pretty special, and takes the cup with his good hand and tilts his head up just enough to drink it, savoring the smell and taste as if it's a fine vintage wine instead of instant Folgers.

"Come on, sir, all of it. Maybe it'll raise your blood pressure." As if having his head in her lap isn't already raising his blood pressure enough.

"Carter, you can't expect me to pound this. Let me enjoy it."

She scoots in a bit closer to support him and he tries to sit up a little more, but a jolt of pain pushes him back down against her shoulder. "Crap." His breathing is shallow and fast and it hurts to do even that.

She takes the coffee from his hand. "Let me give you some pain pills, sir."

"Nah. Just give me a minute." He closes his eyes and feels her move, then the dry, smooth texture of two tablets against his lips as she feeds them to him one by one. She's persistent, he has to give her that. She brings the coffee to his mouth and steadies it as he tips it. "Okay," he says after he's done taking a long, sweet swallow. But she doesn't move the cup, and he dutifully finishes it before she sets it down and brings her arms back up around him again. Neither one of them speak as she holds him and Jack finds himself not really giving a damn if her behavior is inappropriate for a subordinate or a woman engaged to be married to someone else. After enough time goes by for the pills to have kicked in, she eases out from under him and heads for the kitchen. His voice stops her. "Don't be gone too long."

Sam swallows hard. "There's a blizzard outside. We're kind of stuck with each other now."

In a short while she's back, stoking the fire after handing him another cup of coffee. It 's easier for him this time thanks to the pills, but she only has a little while to give his injuries a good once-over before the pain returns. He's more or less sitting upright as she peels away the dressing from the day before, and she tells him that she thinks it looks about as good as it can. She cautiously cleans the wound and he flinches. "Sorry, sir. Not all of it would go back together again."

"Colonel. Just do what you have to do." She doesn't reply and he regrets his brusque tone since she's doing a great job and he's a lousy patient. With a final press of adhesive tape, she lies him gently back down. "Sorry, Carter," he says penitently.

"It's not your fault, sir." She puts the first aid kit back together, and then turns to get a plate of food from where it's keeping warm by the fire. "I even told you that hunting didn't seem fair because the animals are almost tame. We thought there were no predators."

"Except for Fluffy." He manages to hold the plate and spare himself the indignity of having her feed him. She scoots down to the foot of the bed to examine his injured ankle, carefully pulling off his socks one by one. "You're brave," he observes wryly.

"Your feet are the only part of you that are clean, sir. I'm going to need those pants, too."

"They're not that bad." He's being defensive because he hates being fussed over, even if it's for a good reason.

"What's the matter, General," she teases, trying to make light of the situation. "Afraid I'll notice you're a man?"

"Actually," he says, surveying the battered and scarred body that had taken decades of abuse, "I'm more afraid that you won't."

She looks up with an enigmatic little smile. "I don't think you need to worry about that, sir."

With a doubtful sigh, he defies the pain and stiffness in his right arm long enough to unfasten his belt and pants. He'd be happy to let her unzip him in a fit of passion, but he'd have to be near death to tolerate her doing it because he's weak. After she helps him struggle out of the stiff and bloody BDUs, Jack lies back completely drained, his hearth thudding desperately, every part of him somewhere on a scale from aching to excruciating. He shuts his eyes and waits for the agony to subside.

Without a word she presses a warm, wet cloth to his forehead, gently wiping the grime from the scratches that he knows must be covered in a very attractive layer of blood, sweat and dirt. Every so often she stops and he hears the gentle sound of water dripping into a nearby basin, and then she starts again, eventually moving down his neck. The tension in his body slips away and the spasms in his injured muscles start to dissipate with every light stroke of her hand.

It had been close. Very close. The animal was aiming for his throat and had nearly hit its intended target. Working over to the neatly dressed wound, she starts again with his hands, eventually going over every part of him except what he refuses to undress because he is sure that the cat did not bite his ass. When she's finally satisfied, she pulls the blanket up over his quiet form and kisses the old scar that crosses his eyebrow. Finally succumbing to the sleep she's denied herself for more than a day, she settles down beside him.

Relaxed but not asleep, Jack watches her face as unconsciousness finally erases the worry lines that crease her forehead and he's filled with the sense that after all these years of wanting to touch her, she had ended up making love to him first.

--

The first snow isn't deep and it's easy for Sam to keep a clear path to the workshop and cellar, all the while keeping an eye on Jack. She finally seems to accept the fact that he needs to sleep most of the time and that frees her up to stargaze. Despite his earlier aura of relaxation, he'd obviously worked very hard and there is more of everything than they're going to need, if her estimate of eight weeks of winter is correct. Her calculations also indicate they're either close to the equator or there's no tilt in the planet's axis which is good because if there were seasons on top of the days they probably wouldn't survive.

She's washing a crude iron pot in the workshop basin when the door opens and Jack is pushed in by a blast of frosty air.

"General! What are you doing over here?" She quickly shuts the door behind him.

"I smelled something burning and thought I'd better check on you." He never knows what she's going to be up to when his back is turned.

She smiles with satisfaction and nods toward the counter. "I made soap."

"Really?" He's always very impressed with anything that's practical.

"Better living through chemistry," she asserts happily.

His eyes narrow. "Don't even think about tinkering with my beer, Carter." He glances over to the table and reassures himself that everything is just where he left it.

"Now you know how I feel, sir," she says pointedly.

He shrugs sheepishly and they settle down on a rough, low bench by the fire. "It's really coming down out there."

"Oh," she says dejectedly. "I hope it doesn't keep it up."

"I doubt it'll snow all night- winter- whatever." Jack reaches across her and grabs a section of wood. "By the way, do we have enough of this to keep using it over here?"

"You split enough timber to build an ark, sir."

He smiles and tosses the log on the fire. Oh, if she only knew why there's so much wood piled off the back porch all the way up to the eaves. He chopped the last cord after catching her up at 0500 wearing nothing but a t-shirt and some tiny little thing that was supposed to pass for panties. Damn. Truthfully, he whipped the whole place into shape partly to keep from acting on his disturbingly vivid thoughts of holding her, in varying degrees of undress, against the nearest flat surface and making her scream his name.

"Sir?"

Not much of a scream, he thinks, hell- not even his name. He sighs, admitting to himself that lust is the least of his problems, after all there's more than one way to handle that. But the longer they avoid talking about that unspoken near-death confession, the less likely they are to ever address it- just like every other unspoken confession that they've had.

It's such a complicated mess that some days he wants to break something with his bare hands out of sheer frustration, and that feeling started well before they ever got here. He wants her at the SGC but he wants her for his own, he's got too many dark secrets but only she understands, he'll ruin her career but he can't give up his, she's getting married and he's seeing Kerry, they might have to live here or they might have to die here- and on and on and on. He's pulled in so many directions he can't move in any direction.

And none of that matters at all, because she could cut right through all the ties that immobilize him only she doesn't even know she holds the knife.

"General, are you all right?"

"Yeah," he nods, and says nothing more. O'Neill, he thinks, you are such a piece of work.

They settle down into silence until the fire burns down and there's nothing left but coals. Reluctantly, they leave the hearth and walk as quickly as possible over to the main building, finally running up the stairs and flinging the door shut to keep out the cold, Sam laughing with her hands on her bright red cheeks, the snowflakes turning to dew on her skin. "Wow! It's really cold out there!"

He resists the urge to kiss the droplets off of her eyelashes, her face, her hair and any other part where the snowflakes might or might not have fallen. He just smiles and runs his hand through his own wet hair, and she laughs again. "You really need a haircut, sir. It looks like magnetized steel filings." Her eyes are sparkling and he wonders how insubordination could be so damned cute.

--

Sam lies in her sleeping bag looking up at the stars, the only thing between her and sure hypothermia being a millimeter or so of space blanket. Every now and then she takes her hands out, looks at the notebook, then puts them back again. The sky has cleared and right now it's one giant Rorschach test and she's just waiting for the image to snap into focus. The image that can lead them home.

It's tough going, though, with the snow and cold and constant interruptions from her CO.

"Carter, did I ever tell you how crazy you are?"

"About every half-hour, sir."

"Well, I'm promoting you from 'crazy' to 'stark raving mad,' retroactive to 0800." He's shivering with his hands tucked beneath his crossed arms because they had no winter gear with them when they left the SGC. And he's also getting a little irritated because now he has to add his shoulder to the list of things that hurt when it's too damned cold outside. It never occurs to him that the solution would be to stay inside.

"Thank you. Any perks with that?" Pitch black clouds edge across the moonless sky and soon her window of opportunity will be gone.

"The budget's tight," he muses, "but I think I can manage a straightjacket." Startled, her vision switches to him too late, as he stoops down and swiftly tightens the cord around the opening of the sleeping bag with a smirk. Having completely restrained her, he picks her up- bag, space blanket and all."Time for a break, Carter."

"Sir!" There's not a thing that she can do.

It's easier than it should have been, even with his sore shoulder, and his smugness is abruptly replaced by a sudden, sick feeling- like the one that he felt when he'd found her missing six weeks earlier. This particular garden of Eden they're in is full of all kinds of snakes, some of them more sneaky than others.

"This isn't funny," she sputters, managing to loosen the cord after he sets her down gently in the common room. She throws her notebook out and unzips the bag, then climbs up on the bench to kick her feet free.

"No, it isn't. When's the last time you ate anything?" He realizes now that there is actual survival value in his wanting to see her naked.

She shrugs. "When you did." He doesn't reply and she sighs. "I'm not a great cook."

"You don't have much to work with, but that's beside the point." He straddles the bench where she's sitting and he knows he's making her uncomfortable with his close proximity and attention, but it's his duty to watch out for the welfare of those under his command. And then he picks up both of her hands and knows he's not fooling anybody.

"Sam, you're smart. But you don't have to figure it out all in one day." Her hands are pale, delicate and cold like a porcelain doll's as he encloses them in his strong, warm grasp. "It's easy to get sick here. You said so yourself." He thinks he might have to pull rank and order her to drink his home brew whether she likes it or not. It might help cure a couple of things that appear to wrong with her at the moment.

"Aren't you the one who says the smartest person is the one who knows that he doesn't know squat?" She's still frustrated and angry and Jack's not really sure why but he chalks it up as one more reason for a big mug of beer.

"I would never say such a thing," he states.

"Why not?"

"Because 'doesn't know squat' is a double negative."

She presses her lips together and tries not to smile but she's always been a sucker for his jokes, though sometimes he suspects she's laughing at him. For a few seconds, she looks like she's going to be all right, and then worry turns her blue eyes gray. She sighs and looks down at their hands, as if the solution to the problem could be there. "Time is running out, and I don't know the answer."

He's puzzled by her statement and the depth of her emotion. "We're fine," he asserts, feeling her hands start to thaw. "We're just going to stay holed up here all winter. The only thing we've got to worry about is driving each other crazy."

Finally she smiles, but her eyes retain a weary look. "All right," she sighs. "I think I'll turn in, sir."

Jack realizes she thinks he doesn't needs her with him all night anymore. But she's wrong. "It's like a fridge back there."

"Maybe." She gets to her feet and stretches. "Goodnight, sir."

"Well, when you get tired of freezing your ass, you can come out here. I don't snore."

"Much." She says with a smile. He huffs in mock indignation and turns to roll out his sleeping bag while she retires to the back room.

A few hours later he wakes up to find the warm, quiet shape that is Lt. Colonel Carter curled up against his back. Jack doesn't move, preferring to stay right where he is a moment longer since the room was pretty cold and Carter definitely wasn't. He carefully eases onto his back and she burrows in closer, leaving nowhere for his arm to go except around her.

She stirs again and a muffled voice rises from the general vicinity of his left side. "G'morning, sir."

"Morning, Carter."

"It's cold." It's as good an excuse as any, though they both know why she's there. She can't stay away any more.

"The fire went out."

"Oh. I'll get it."

"That wasn't a request, it was a statement." His arm tightens around her slightly, communicating that she doesn't have to get up. She makes no attempt to move from his side. Her hair tickles his face and he sweeps it away with his free hand.

"Sorry sir. I needed a haircut the day we left. I wish I could do something about it."

"I don't." he admits, then hurriedly adds, "It suits you."

He can hear a smile in her voice. "You wouldn't say that if you could see me right now." She's lifted her head and he'd be able to see her eyes shining back at him if there'd been any light, but there is no light, just the enveloping, intimate darkness. He lets his hand slip down the side of her face, fingers tracing until he can orient himself in the dark.

"I wouldn't mind that," he caresses her cheek with his thumb. "Seeing you right now." Then he sits up, kisses her gently on her forehead, and gets up to relight the fire.

Sam stays curled up in the nest of sleeping bags and blankets and watches him, her eyes wide in shock from the tenderness of that single, swift moment.

"Warmer?" he finally says, once the fire had taken hold. She nods. He checks his watch. "Go on back to sleep, Carter."

"I thought that on the list of things to worry about, following orders is pretty low. Way below things like, oh- talking to you." Sam says quietly.

"You've got a mind like a steel elephant."

She smiles but doesn't appear to be distracted by scrambled similies.

Jack knows there's no way out this time. There's nowhere for either one of them to hide, nothing to come between them, no planet to save. They can't even open the door to go outside. He stays standing, with one arm on the mantelpiece, because he needs the distance. It's the only defense he's got left. "Nothing's changed."

He watches the profile of her face, the light dancing across her features, and her eyes don't follow the flames as she stares through them lost in thoughts he'd pay a hell of a lot more than a penny for. She nods in agreement. "Things are just like they were. Like they've always been."

He can barely breathe. His grip on the mantel tightens as her words sink into his soul. But it can't be this simple, because nothing ever is.

"You sure about that, Carter?" He doesn't want to come right out and say she's engaged to someone else but he's pretty sure it hasn't slipped her mind.

"He's not you. It's always been just a matter of time."

"Maybe it's just a matter of space."

Sam shakes her head and turns to look directly into his eyes, her face flushed from the heat of the fireplace and her own emotions. "This little… pressure cooker," she waves her hand at the room, "sped up the reaction. It didn't start here. It won't end here."

"Just chemistry then?" He has to make sure she wants this. Because once he opens the door, he can't close it. Not a second time.

She smiles and it's like she's walked right in and taken his heart off of the shelf and every breath, every word, every smile brushes away a little bit more of the dust. "In the end, sir, everything is physics."

It's taken him years, but he thinks he finally gets that.

--

Thirty miles away, the chevrons of the stargate light up one by one.

--TBC