He wasn't fully conscious yet, and since he was pretty sure he hadn't hit his head, that meant that Dr. Needles had given him some pretty powerful stuff. He smirked, eyes still closed. Janet knew the only way to keep him in the infirmary for the requisite amount of time was to drug him silly. He decided he might as well relax while he couldn't feel the pain that would inevitably start to ebb from the wound in his shoulder. He reached out with his other senses, sensed a faint glow behind his eyelids, heard a few beeps and clicks from equipment in the room, but no rustling from chart papers, creak from wheels, or rattle of tools. This told him it was the middle of the night.

A sudden floral smell stood out in stark contrast to the foundation of antiseptic notes in the room. He thought he'd dreamed it at first, but the more he came awake, the more he was convinced she was nearby. He inhaled more deeply and the moment he finished exhaling, in the quiet before his next breath, he heard her inhale first. He could tell by the sound that she was asleep, and fairly deeply so.

They had all been on enough missions together to have a mental catalogue. Knew when someone was fighting sleep, feigning sleep, too soundly asleep for the danger of a mission, not sleeping enough due to nightmares. She rarely slept when she was on infirmary watch, and never this soundly. He felt the faint puff of air against the skin of his arm, which revealed she was closer than he'd realized, resting partially on his own mattress. He barely registered elation or nerves before he went straight to concern.

He patted around to his right side and realized he was shifted mostly to that side of his hospital bed, which explained why there was a strip of mattress just wide enough on his left for her to have leaned without touching his injured shoulder. He reached across his body with his uninjured arm and came into contact with a soft mop of hair. When she didn't immediately stir, he grew more concerned and his touch turned into as much of a caress he could get away with considering he couldn't yet be sure there were no witnesses.

His brain finally convinced his eyes to open, and the moment he saw her pale face on the mattress, the foggy reasons for their arrival came flooding back and he treasured the breaths that reached his arm because they meant she was alive and safe. She was wearing hospital pajamas too reminiscent of the scrubs she had been wearing when he found her. To her credit, she'd taken the offered pistol and transitioned to tactical mode without missing a beat.

He felt a throb in his shoulder and a wave of nausea hit him. He didn't trust himself in his drugged state to make it to a basin and knew that he'd regret the pain inflicted from bolting upright, so he inhaled deeply and willed it away. He had only shifted slightly, but knew it was his discomfort rather than his movement that roused her. SG-1 had developed that ability, too, to know when a teammate was in trouble, but her instinct ran deeper than most. Stronger than the Goa'uld-sensing Naquadah in her veins. She shifted, and he opened his eyes again to meet hers as she lifted her head. Her normally bright blue eyes were stormy and grey. And the way they didn't quite focus divulged the drugged out and adrenaline-laced ordeal she'd been through. He suddenly felt guilty for being irritated about his own involuntary drugging. At least it had been in his best interests.

She blinked a few times, and the blank stare melted from her face in recognition.

"Hey, Carter." His first words were a little slurred, but passable.

"Ja…Si…Hey." She decided to avoid names entirely. He knew it wasn't fair, really. Her only options were too informal for the infirmary and too formal for someone who had stared down death with you. He could get away with using her last name as a term of endearment. She had no ambiguous equivalent. Be that as it may, practically sleeping on your CO was fairly unambiguous. He remembered they were still druggily staring at one another.

"Wanna play?"

He realized his brain had picked the wrong terminology when she scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. She lay back down on the mattress from the effort but didn't break eye contact.

"I mean, wanna do a puzzle?" He prepared to keep his pout in check in case she was too tired.

"Oh!" she said as though she had just truly woken up. "I didn't bring it. Sorry." She pushed herself off the mattress. "I can go get…" He held up a hand.

"I'm way ahead of you," he said, scanning the room. "Well, at least I think I am. It's gotta be here somewhere." He spied a pile of clothes in a chair against the wall. "There! I think it's under my shirt. Daniel said he'd bring it."

She slid out of the chair obediently, and he wondered if she was just doing it because he was the needy patient. But when he saw her tiptoeing back to the bed like a child sneaking cookies at midnight, he knew she was on board. She returned to her chair and handed him the book. He noticed a reddish-brown spot on the cover, surmised it was likely transfer from the blood on his shirt.

"I'm sorry, Carter," he said, rubbing at the already dry stain. She swiped at it once and then waved her hand.

"It's okay. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before."

"Yeah, don't you bring it on missions?"

"I stopped that a while ago."

"Why?"

"I didn't wanna lose it," she said simply, but her eyes lingered on the book in his hands a beat too long. He thumbed through the pages and opened it somewhere near the middle, read the title and scanned the page. Oh no way, he thought. He must have scrunched up his face because she blocked his hand from changing the page.

"What? Lemme see." She gripped the side of his hand to encourage him to turn the book around. He obliged, begrudgingly. She read the title.

"Misery Loves Company." She paused. "I don't get it."

Had he ever heard those words come out of her mouth before? Where was a tape recorder when you needed one? Back in the time loop, his brain unhelpfully supplied. He shook off the onslaught of imagery.

"As in the Stephen King book. Crazy fan kidnaps a guy." He braced for a reaction to a hostage reference. It wasn't what he thought. She broke out into her first post-kidnapping grin.

"No, it's perfect. Let's do it."

And that, your honor, is when I kissed her, he heard himself telling the judge at his court martial, but he refrained from jumping her bones and pulled her via the book that linked their hands toward the mattress, where they settled into serious analysis.

She was able to fill in a few easier clues - Carrie, The Shining, IT – before she got stuck. He had been a pretty loyal King fan until some of their missions had begun to resemble the stories.

She was tapping her pencil on nine across, a signal he usually interpreted to mean she needed help, as she rarely asked for it. He looked at her, made her work for it.

Finally, she wondered aloud. "Willie Wolfe? What does he have to do with…?"

"Cujo," he supplied.

"Oh, that poor dog."

He bellowed at that. It was just like her to feel bad for the dog.

"Did you know he wrote that one on a cocaine binge?" he waggled his eyebrows at the scandal.

"I was drunk when I saw it."

His eyes bulged. She won that round. "Weren't you like twelve?"

"Fifteen, thank you very much," she said between pencil scribbles.

"Bet Dad loved that."

"Yeah, he was pretty pissed." She wore it like a badge of honor. He knew very little of those years between her mother's passing and her academy days. And despite her improved relationship with Jacob, he knew they didn't talk about it either.

"I think I saw it after East Germany."

"Oh." She stopped writing on twelve down.

"Yeah." He shrugged. Sorry's were not exchanged over their memories. It just was what it was, and they were comfortable enough to let it be.

"Blank Card Man" he read, both to change the tone and to challenge her.

"Yellow," she replied automatically. He narrowed his eyes at her, impressed.

"I actually read that one."

"You haven't read any others?"

"I'm not much for horror. I saw a few movies because Mark liked them."

"How bout that time travel though?" He loved pushing her buttons.

"Yeah." She didn't bite.

"Accurate?" He prodded.

"No comment."

He clucked his tongue at that. "You so want to comment."

That's all it took and she was off like a shot. "Alright, so ignoring all other inaccuracies, the time machine should have at least been shaped like a donut."

"But it wasn't a time machine, it was a portal," he interjected.

"Portals don't work that way."

"The Stargate does." He was way out of his league here, but he had traveled back in time, so he felt like he deserved to be in this particular sciencey argument.

"Not without solar flares."

Ok, so she was right about that. "Al called it a rabbit hole. Maybe rabbit holes work that way, Alice." He fixed her with a look.

Focus came back to her eyes as she returned it. "Maybe you're right, Hatter."

And she gave up her argument, just like that. Had she…ever done that before? Not to his knowledge. He nodded triumphantly. Maybe he was mad, after all.

They returned to companionable silence for a few moments, until a thought struck him and he poked her in the shoulder. She "Hmmed" without looking at him.

"So, donuts, you say?"