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On day seventy-eight, he announced to her that it was time to build a house.
They'd been here nearly three months, and since it stood to reason that the weather wouldn't stay gloriously warm forever, they'd need a more solid structure than their hardy field tents to call home. She agreed with him, and they set themselves to work, using the small hatchet that he'd had in his kit. She was quite grateful that they had learned from their past "experiences" through the gate: since the first time they'd been lost in Antarctica, the packs and their contents had evolved significantly. There were small tents in each pack, a field medical kit, sleeping bags and, more importantly, more survival gear than ever before. Pots, a few utensils, a hatchet, water treatment tablets, anti-histamines (courtesy of Daniel and their experiences in the Land of the Light), a canister of fuel for the one-burner stove, and much more.
It was slow going with only the hatchet between them: it took several hours to slowly work their way through of the tree trunks, but they each took their turns, and slowly it all started to come together. It wasn't going to be a huge house, more a small log cabin, but it would be enough to provide them adequate shelter should the weather turn and winter come.
"Ever seen Witness?" he asked her, as they worked on dragging the newest felled tree to their building site.
"Witness, sir?" she asked, breathing hard as she pulled.
"Yeah, that Harrison Ford movie. All these Amish get together to put a barn up. It takes them all of five minutes to raise it from nothing to fully finished," he frowned, pausing. "At least that's what the montage made it look it."
She laughed. "I'd take an Amish barn-raising right about now, sir."
He huffed as he adjusted his grip. "So would I."
By day ninety-three, they'd established the walls of their future refuge. After dragging the last log over to the camp for the day, he headed over to the open-roofed structure, gesturing to her to come inside.
"So I'm thinking kitchen in this corner, maybe a separate island for added prep space and for entertaining? Big screen TV over here, that's non-negotiable..."
She grinned, as she watched him wave his arms around the small space, pointing to things that clearly were not and could not be there. "We'll be lucky to get all of our gear in here, sir," she remarked, studying the dimensions of the one room structure.
He grabbed her by the arm, and took her by the shoulder. "Ah, c'mon Carter, where's your sense of imagination? It'll just be a work in progress."
She smiled at him, and then doubled over as she began to cough.
"Carter?" he asks, all mirth gone from his voice.
"I- I'm alri-right sir," she rasped, though her lungs and throat begged to differ. She'd been feeling a little under the weather for some time, but she'd hoped against hope that it was just fatigue, or stress, or... something other than illness.
"C'mon," he said, taking her arm, more gently this time. "You need to rest."
Reluctantly, she let him guide her out of the room, back over to the familiar confines of their tent.
Day ninety-seven was remarkably similar to day ninety-six.
She'd been overtaken by the cold virus (or whatever it was, on this unfamiliar planet) fairly quickly. She'd been cooped up in the tent for days, exiting only to use their limited facilities or stretch her long-suffering muscles. At first, it had only been a cough and a slight fever, but it had progressed to an increasingly dry hack, a bone-numbing chill, and a (at times) dangerously high fever.
The colonel had been, by any measure, the greatest caretaker she'd had in a long time – probably since she'd been a small child. He was with her whenever she was awake, bringing her soup and tea, adjusting her pillows, checking her vitals, and so on. He even helped her, at the height of her symptoms, with changing out of her fever-soaked clothes, though she had been too sick to remember to feel embarrassed. He held her at night when she shivered from fever, though she repeated warned him to stay away lest he catch it too.
She was feeling better now though, and with the return of better health came the recollection of certain things she may have said while incapacitated by high fever and poor health. She could feel herself blushing as she recalled them, thankful that the redness across her cheeks from her high temperature hid her embarrassment.
"Sir?" she called out timidly as her commanding officer entered the tent.
"Carter!" he exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his brow as he turned to look at her. "You're feeling better, I take it?"
"Yes, sir, thank you."
"Good," he replied, brushing the dirt and sawdust off of his hands. He'd continued working on the "house" while she'd been ill, organizing the wood needed to construct the roof while she was asleep.
"Sir?" she asked again, watching as he sat down beside her.
"Yeah?"
She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. "Did I, uh, say anything interesting while I was out of it?"
He grinned at her. "You might have."
She grimaced, and turned back to look at him. "I was afraid of that."
He chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Major. You weren't exactly yourself."
"I know, sir, but I want you to know-"
"Sam," he said, stopping her in the middle of her sentence. "Let's talk about this when you're feeling one hundred percent. You need more rest and water. Let's work on those first, okay?"
She nodded, defeated. "Okay."
She drank the water he offered her quickly, before lying down again and closing her yes, all too aware that both of them seemed equally unwilling to discuss what feelings they had between them.
On the one hundredth day, she made a pact with herself to talk to him about it.
One hundred days since they'd arrived here. One hundred days since they'd last seen home. One hundred days since they'd had to answer to the rules and regulations of a planet far away from here, yet still they found themselves inextricably bound to them.
They'd spent this anniversary in relative solitude, each of them taking some time to themselves to work alone. She'd gone to the gate in the morning and made a small speech to the inanimate device, telling it to get its act together and to get them home. She was glad he wasn't around to see that, to see her give in to the anger and the frustration and the grief.
She'd gone over to help him in the afternoon with the roof; it was ready to hoisted up over the main structure and finally giving a true form to their new home. It had taken a lot of work as well as some creative jury-rigging of a pulley system, but they'd managed to do it, and had treated themselves to one of the chocolate bar rations they still had left.
"Let's have a celebratory dinner, Carter," he told her, as they sat inside the structure, under shade of their new roof. "To the new roof and to one hundred days on this far-flung piece of rock!"
She smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "What do you want to have, sir?" she asked, looking over at him.
He raised an eyebrow at her mischievously. "I'm thinking a couple of nice steaks, some baked potatoes, a loaf of nice bread..."
"... chocolate cake and a nice bottle of wine," she finished for him, stating the last two longingly.
A long silence passed between them, as they fantasized about all the things they missed, the food and the places and the people.
He cleared his throat. "So, fish, fruit and tea?"
She sighed. "Sounds good."
After they'd finished their meal and put away their dishes, they'd gone out to the cliffs and sat along the rocks, watching as dusk overtook them. The sun hung low in the sky as they sat in silence, watching the waves roll in with the tide.
"Sir?" she said softly, almost unwilling to break the comfortable quiet between them.
"Mhmm?" he answered, still looking out at the water, lost in thought.
"I know what I said to you when I was sick," she blurted out, still embarrassed.
She could see his lips curl slightly at the side, though he still faced the water. "You do?"
Again, she couldn't help but grimace. "Yeah. I, uh, I think I told you that..."
He stayed silent.
"...that I love you," she finished lamely, looking down at her hands.
A long silence passed between them once more, but this time it was one full with anticipation and tension, a loaded silence in the fading light.
"I love you too," he answered softly, turning to face her. "I've loved you a long time."
She looked at him, uncomfortable. "What do we do?" she whispered. "I can't keep doing this. I can't look at you and be around you all the time feeling the way I feel. But I don't want to have it all taken away. If they open that gate tomorrow to take us home, I know we can't be together. I can't reconcile those two things. Can you?"
"No," he said simply.
An angry tear slid down her cheek. "I don't know what to do..." she murmured, hugging her knees to her chest as she felt the grief rise up in her chest.
"I do," he said softly, his voice almost lost in the twilight air. He reached a hand over to her, and wiped the tear off of her cheek. Taking two fingers, he raised her chin upwards, and looked her dead in the eyes.
"Jack?" she breathed, the name unfamiliar on her tongue.
He pulled her forward then, and brought his lips against hers, and suddenly it was like dawn had come upon them, blasting the night into oblivion. She moved her lips against his, and it was like everything she'd ever hoped for, to feel him against her in a moment absent of infection or manipulation or lies. Far too quickly, she felt him pull away, and her eyes met his once more.
"Last chance, Sam," he said, locking his gaze with hers.
She answered him by crashing her lips against his, grabbing him by the neck as his arms enveloped her, as all other sensation was lost to the world and it was just them, hanging in the void, beyond any care in the world.