Intuition
by jackwabbit

Snowflakes swirled in front of the windshield as Jack O’Neill manhandled his big truck down the rural Minnesota road that led to the cabin he now called home.

The snow wasn’t bad, and he could see fairly well at the moment, but he knew the worst was yet to come.  The weather forecasters were saying that this storm was a big one, and it didn’t take a genius to see that the radar agreed.

Jack’s home was in for a pounding tonight, and he knew he’d wake to over a foot of new snow.

Because of this fairly certain fact, Jack had gone into town today to pick up supplies.  He’d refilled his two extra gas cans with fuel for his emergency generator, picked up several gallon jugs of drinking water, and stocked up on easy-to-prepare food.

He’d also stopped by the hardware store and purchased five hundred pounds of a sand and salt mixture that wouldn’t be entirely for personal use.

While Jack’s own deck and porch would need some care to keep it slip-free over the winter, he’d also use the grit on his neighbor’s homes.

When General Jack O’Neill retired to Minnesota five years ago, he realized right away that something was missing from his new neighborhood.  He lived in an area that was sparsely populated but close enough to several larger towns that it wasn’t overly rural.

He had access to medical facilities, shopping centers, entertainment, restaurants, and law enforcement.  But there were no actual city services that extended their range to his cabin and those of the people closest to him.

Trash was burned or hauled to the city dump, about twenty miles away.

Any recycling had to be taken to town.

Even the post office only delivered to the small general store at the end of the long, winding road into the woods.

These things didn’t bother Jack.

In fact, he rather appreciated them.  He went into town often enough for hockey practice and games or shopping or other errands that it was no inconvenience to drop off bottles and cans or pick up his mail.

But there was one notable exception to his lack of conveniences that caused him no end of stress his first winter here.

There were no snow removal services.

The folks who lived along the dirt road to Jack’s either shoveled and plowed their own way out after every snow or waited for the townsfolk with plows to come along (often days later) to dig them out.

Jack thought it was odd that no one had taken it upon themselves to provide this valuable service in a timely fashion, so he’d asked around about it.

It turned out that old Mister Holloway had plowed everyone out for as long as anyone could remember, and two winters ago he had suddenly passed away.  No one had yet filled the void.

Jack fitted his Ford with a plow that afternoon.

He hadn’t plowed snow since he was a teenager, but figured he could handle it.

It wasn’t as easy as he remembered, but he soon got the hang of it.

The rest of his first winter was spent practicing and learning the best way to navigate tight corners with a large snowplow and figuring out how to get his truck unstuck when it inevitably lost traction on some icy drive.

That spring Jack picked up an old Chevy 2500 with four wheel drive and a huge V8.  She had a few dings, but for what Jack had planned, she was perfect.

The green Ford gave up her plow to the new beast, and Jack spent the entire summer tinkering on his new blue demon, which was immediately nicknamed after a Simpsons character.

By winter, Marge was ready to go.  She’d been tuned up, fitted with a new, bigger hitch to haul a grader behind her, and a large metal box was mounted in her bed to dispense sand and salt as needed to snowy, icy roads.

Marge was indeed a beast, but she was also a beauty.

She’d served Jack well that winter.  She served as the cornerstone of the new business Jack established that year. As word got around about Jack and his truck and his willingness to help people out of a bind, more and more people approached Jack about contracting him for plowing at their homes.  Jack soon worked over thirty houses, and became a pro at plowing, grading, sanding, salting, and otherwise getting rid of the white stuff that so easily kinked plans in these parts.

When summer came again, Marge was put into storage in town and the Ford came out again, but the calls from neighbors didn’t stop.  Jack had earned himself a reputation as a dependable and helpful neighbor, and people called now wanting to know if they could borrow a truck to haul something, or if Jack knew anyone who could pull stumps from a field.

Jack was more than happy to oblige, and soon found himself the president, CEO, and sole employee of O’Neill Enterprises, a company that would tackle any job, from building decks to cutting wood to felling trees by summer but that specialized in snow removal by winter.

Jack made a comfortable living this way, even though his retirement pension covered most of his bills.  More importantly, he stayed busy.  He met all of his neighbors and enjoyed the friendships and conversations he shared with them immensely.  During Marge’s second and third winters in service, he often partook of hot chocolate and cider prepared for him by his new friends while he took short breaks from the constant chore of plowing during on ongoing storm.

All in all, he and Marge were living the good life.

CHAPTER TWO

Marge motored down the narrow lane now easily, seeming to look forward to the start of her fourth winter with O’Neill.

Jack had considered driving his nicer, cleaner, shinier Ford to town today, as it was early in the snow season (there were only a few inches of snow on the ground now) and it wasn’t yet in storage, but he was glad that he’d changed his mind at the last minute and taken Marge as the snow began to fall thicker.

The storm was apparently going to roll in earlier than the meteorologists had predicted.

As the white flakes began to get bigger and fall faster, Jack flipped his windshield wipers up a speed and squinted through the falling snow at the road ahead.  He knew the road well enough that he wasn’t too worried about the sharp corners and uphill grades, but it was becoming harder and harder to see other traffic and hazards in his path.

And then with the suddenness of someone flicking off a light switch, Jack’s visibility dropped to zero, even though it was broad daylight.  Marge’s bright headlights, on because of the snow, barely illuminated five feet in front of the truck, and the only thing they lit was a swirling white curtain.

The wind had grabbed a giant handful of snow from the air and the ground and was swirling it in a vortex that seemed impenetrable.  Marge was buffeted sideways, and Jack fought hard to keep the old girl on the road.

Jack slowed the truck to a crawl and leaned forward over the steering wheel in concentration.

‘Come on, Margie, get us home,’ he thought desperately.

Jack’s prayers were answered, at least temporarily.

As abruptly as it began, the white-out vanished, leaving only a softly falling snow again.

The wind had vanished.

But as it did so, and Jack’s sight returned, a scrawny black dog appeared directly in front of the truck.  Jack reacted without thought.

He slammed on the brakes.

His sudden deceleration caused the truck to lose control on the increasingly slippery road.

It also was too late.

Jack felt a sickening thump on his grill as the truck careened toward the trees on either side of the road.  He ignored it as best he could and tried to get control of the vehicle, but it was too late.

Marge slipped off the semi-paved surface of the road and skidded bed first toward the trees on the right hand side of the road.  She stopped her slide only when a large tree smashed into her just behind the passenger door.

Jack O’Neill was jolted hard against his seatbelt by the impact, and since the old truck didn’t have airbags, his head hit the steering wheel hard.  There was a loud crack and Jack felt a searing pain in his chest.  He didn’t lose consciousness though, and his still very awake brain told him he’d broken a rib.  Or several.

Jack quickly ran an inventory of his own body parts.  His arms and legs appeared to be intact and working normally.  Other than a headache and a chest that felt like it was on fire, he seemed ok.  His mind replayed the accident quickly, and instantly his only thought was of the dog.

He couldn’t help it.  Jack O’Neill was a dog lover, and although he dreaded what he would find, he had to investigate the fate of the four-legged cause of his accident.

Jack eased the door open and painfully slid out of the cab.

He stepped around the front of the truck, expecting to see a mangled body tangled in his plowing equipment, but there was nothing there.  Only a dark crimson stain in the snow bore evidence that the thump Jack had heard before sliding off the road did in fact damage a living creature.

The snow continued to fall around Jack, but he barely noticed it.

Nerve endings continued to pulse, sending pain to his body and brain, but he ignored those, too.

His face became a mask of determination, and his mouth thinned to a small line.

Jack O’Neill reached back into the cab of the truck that had been his livelihood for two winters.  When his hand emerged again, he held a civilian ninety-two model Beretta pistol that stayed in the truck at all times.  He removed the trigger lock, loaded the gun with bullets from the tool box in the bed of the truck, and set off into the woods.  Somewhere out there was a wounded animal, and Jack O’Neill was not one to let suffering continue if he could help it.

The trail was easy to follow.  The animal was obviously wounded badly, and blood spattered the white snow every few inches. The underbrush was broken and bent unevenly, too, as if the dog was staggering slightly.

As Jack tracked the creature, the snow around him began to fall thicker and heavier.

The wind picked up a little, and it got ten degrees colder in a matter of minutes.

And still Jack stuck to his task with a single-mindedness that made these details unnoticeable to him.  His ungloved hand gripped the pistol tightly, and guilt pushed him forward through the snow.

He came upon her suddenly.

She was lying on her side in a small clearing, too tired to continue her journey.  She was a mixed breed dog of the retriever type, but no one breed seemed to dominate her looks.  She was smaller than most and a little on the thin side.  She wore no collar, and it was apparent that she was a stray from her appearance.

Jack approached her cautiously, not wanting to scare her into running away or reacting aggressively.  He quickly ran his eyes over her body and winced.

The bitch’s right rear leg was twisted beneath her like a broken twig.  The left side of her chest was indented oddly, and a large laceration extended from the point of that shoulder nearly to her hip.  Her abdomen looked oddly bloated.  Jack didn’t need a veterinarian to tell him that her belly was rapidly filling with blood and that her chest injury had caused her lung on that side to deflate.  The dog’s tongue was bluish and her eyes stared straight ahead as she struggled to get enough oxygen to her body for it to continue to function.  It was a losing battle.

Jack drew his handgun level with the dog’s head, knowing what he must do as clearly as he knew his name.  This dog was his responsibility.  He had caused its injuries, and he wasn’t going to let it die a prolonged death in the cold, snowy woods struggling for breath until it could struggle no more.

It was better this way.

That knowledge didn’t make Jack’s task any easier, however.  Jack drew a large breath in preparation for his task and was suddenly and viciously reminded of his broken ribs as pain exploded in his chest and radiated outward to every inch of his body.

His sympathy for the dog doubled as he fell to his hands and knees in the snow and gasped for breath.  It took a moment for him to recover enough strength to look up at the dog again.

That’s when he noticed something he hadn’t before.

The dog’s abdomen was bloated, but the teats there were also engorged with milk.

Jack closed his eyes for a moment, knowing beyond any doubt that somewhere in these wild woods of Minnesota, this dog had puppies waiting for her return.

But this wasn’t Jack’s first encounter with the unfairness that is life.

He cocked the gun and crawled a little closer to the dog’s head.

As he did so, the little mother looked up at him with deep chocolate brown eyes.  She blinked once, almost as if she understood what was going to happen and appreciated it.

Jack O’Neill fired.

The single shot rang out in the stillness of the forest and echoed over the snowy landscape for what seemed like hours before it was finally quiet again in the clearing.

Jack’s aim had been true.  The mother dog lay dead.

But in the quiet, Jack heard another noise.

At first he thought he’d imagined it, but then it repeated itself.

A tiny, plaintive whine carried through the air as distinctly as Jack’s shot had, and the second he recognized it for what it was, Jack O’Neill was on his feet and tearing around the clearing like a madman, despite his injuries.  He no longer felt any pain.

He parted bushes and prodded leaves gently but hurriedly with his feet.  He called and whistled, even though he knew it was foolish to do so.  He dug in the snow in places, hoping to find the source of the pathetic noise.

And finally he did.

Under a low lying bush, on the far side of the clearing, half covered in snow and with ice tips on every hair on its body, was a puppy.  A scrawny little puppy of probably five weeks old.

Jack’s heart, recently so professionally cold, melted instantly.

Without any thought whatsoever, Jack unzipped his coat, gently scooped up the little fellow and tucked him inside the open jacket before zipping it back up.

The pup didn’t resist at all.  He was far too cold.

Jack searched the rest of the clearing but found no other signs of pups.  He knew a litter of one was rare for dogs, but judging by the condition of the mother and the time of year, he wouldn’t have been surprised if any other pups had died long before now.

As his search ended, Jack realized with a jolt that the sky was beginning to darken all around him.  Night was falling, and with it the storm would come in earnest.  Jack knew it was time to get back to the truck and find a way home.

The signs of Jack’s passage through the woods were already being obliterated by the falling snow when Jack began his trek back to the road, but he knew the way.

As he walked, though, Jack kept casting nervous glances at the sky, knowing too much about Mother Nature to not have a healthy respect for her.  Things were changing fast, and Jack knew it.

Jack rummaged in his pockets, looking for his cel phone.  He’d been in such a hurry to find the wounded dog after the accident that he’d forgotten to call someone then to try to arrange towing or to just let them know where he was.  He was close enough to his cabin that he could walk home, but people were relying on him to plow when this squall was over, and there was no way Marge was up to the task now.  Someone needed to know what had happened, and Jack was going to take care of that now, but his pockets were empty.  He had left his phone in the truck.

He cursed his carelessness and a pang of sadness shot through O’Neill as he thought about his faithful truck.  He hoped the damage wasn’t too bad, but he was afraid Marge had seen her last days.

This wasn’t the only pang he felt.  His adrenaline had worn off long ago, and chest was on fire again.  His head felt like it was split in two, and when he reached up to scratch an itch on his brow he felt dried, frozen blood there.  He hadn’t even realized until that moment that he’d cut his head in the accident.

Jack’s hands and ears were beginning to take on the purple tinge of unprotected flesh that has been in the cold too long.  His steps were beginning to falter occasionally.

At one particularly bad stumble, Jack cursed out loud and then began to cough.  He tried to hold it in, knowing what he would see if he didn’t, but the spasm came anyway.

Sparks exploded behind Jack’s eyes as pain racked his body.

Crimson flecks sprayed the snow.

O’Neill knew what the blood meant, but he didn’t dwell on it.

He pushed on, knowing he was his only chance of getting home.

No help was coming this time.

The little pup squirmed against his ribs and although the motion hurt, Jack smiled a tiny grin and doubled his efforts to get to the road.  He had another life depending on him, and that strengthened him more than anything else could.

But it was slowly becoming evident that his efforts would not be enough.

The storm was worsening.  Jack could barely see two feet in front of his face.  The wind pummeled him violently, and his breath came in ragged, wet gasps.

Jack realized too late that his injuries were worse than he thought and that he was ill prepared for his journey tonight.  He’d thought it would only take a minute to take care of the dog, so he hadn’t dressed properly for the weather.  His hat and gloves lay useless on the seat of his truck.

And, God, it was cold.

Jack could only remember being this cold once, and that had somehow worked out ok, but Jack knew that no one would come to the rescue this time.

Daniel wouldn’t figure this one out.

Sam wouldn’t help keep him warm until help came.

General Hammond wouldn’t show up in the nick of time.

There was no one here.

Jack was alone.

And he was tiring.

His injuries and the hike through the woods had taken their toll, and while he was in excellent shape, Jack O’Neill was not a young man.  His steps were coming slower now, and they faltered more and more often.

Jack knew that if he stopped walking, he would sleep, and that if he slept he would probably freeze to death, but he couldn’t make himself care anymore.

As the first rays of sunlight started to slip below the horizon, Jack O’Neill stumbled for the last time.

He landed on his stomach in the deepening snow.

He feebly tried to get up once, but his arms refused to support his weight and he fell again, face first, into the snow.  With his last little bit of strength, Jack rolled over onto his back.  The puppy against his belly squirmed again, and Jack whispered to it, to himself, and to the coming night.

“Sorry.  I tried.”

Jack’s last thoughts as he drifted into unconsciousness were of the irony that after all he had done and seen, after all the dangers he had faced in far-flung corners of the galaxy and beyond, he would die in the woods less than a hundred miles from where he’d grown up.

CHAPTER THREE

Samantha Carter pulled into a nearly empty parking lot in her small sedan as a light snow fell.

As she did, she shot a questioning look at her passenger.

“I thought you said the game was at five?  It’s quarter ‘til now.  And there’s hardly anyone here.  You sure you had the day and time right?”

Daniel Jackson frowned as he answered.  “I thought so.”

“Well, let’s go see if the place is open.  Maybe we can find out what’s going on.”

Daniel nodded in agreement, and the two friends exited the car after Sam parked it.

The ice rink was indeed still open, but Sam and Daniel didn’t have to enter it to get their answers.

As Daniel reached for the door handle, several boys and girls, ranging from ten to fourteen years old, busted through the door, bumping hard into him and jostling Sam as they headed for the few cars in the lot.  A chorus of half-hearted apologies reached Daniel’s ears, but the kids were gone almost as soon as they had appeared, and Daniel was left holding the door open with a look of puzzled amusement on his face.

It took a bump on the shoulder from Sam to get him to notice someone was calling him.

“Daniel?  Is that you?”

Daniel blinked a few times as Sam nodded to a rangy adolescent boy still in the building.  He stood just inside the door and looked at Daniel intently.

Finally, Daniel’s head swiveled around from the parking lot and he regarded the boy inside.  A bright smile then lit Daniel’s face and recognition sparked to life in his eyes.

“Yeah.  Hey, Kyle.  How you been?”

Kyle Rogers smiled back at the man he had considered a friend for the past three years.  He hadn’t seen Daniel Jackson in a few months, and the archeologist’s hair was a little longer than he was used to seeing, but the long scar on the left side of Daniel’s forehead and the kind blue eyes were unmistakable.  Kyle nodded in greeting.

“Ok.  I’m a little bummed about the game tonight, but what’cha gonna do?”

Daniel looked puzzled.  “Yeah.  About the game tonight.  It’s a big one, isn’t it?  We came to watch.   What’s going on?

Kyle immediately seemed to get irritated.  “Stupid weather.  Game’s cancelled.  Storm coming.”

“Sorry, Kyle.  Was this a playoff or something?  Jack said it was important.”

Kyle shook his head.  “No.  Not a playoff.  The game to determine if we can make it into the playoffs.  We didn’t have the best season, but we can still get in if we beat the Sharks and the Grizzlies lose to the Blue Streaks.  We were supposed to play the Sharks tonight.  They’re pretty good, but I think we can beat them if we play our A game.”

Sam snorted a small laugh at Kyle’s explanation and its effect on Daniel.  The archeologist’s eyes had already glossed over, even though the situation wasn’t that hard to understand.  Daniel had immediately gone into his ‘pretend I’m listening to Jack ramble on about hockey while I’m really doing advanced translations in my head’ mode, and Sam recognized it, so she answered.

“Well, I’m sure they’ll reschedule the game.”

Kyle seemed to notice Sam for the first time.  “Oh, hey, Colonel.  Didn’t see you out there.  Why don’t you come inside, anyway?  It’s freezing.”

Sam and Daniel nodded in agreement and stepped inside the doorway just as a middle aged couple came into view from inside the ice rink somewhere.  Daniel noted with interest that Kyle seemed as familiar with Sam as he was with him and wondered how many times the two had met.  He didn’t have time to ask, however, as the male member of the couple immediately called out to Sam, making Daniel wonder just how many people Sam knew here in Minnesota anyway.

“Colonel Carter! Good to see you!  What are you doing here?”

Sam beamed back at the man, who she recognized as Kyle’s father, Frank Rogers.  “Hey Frank!  We just came to watch the game that I guess isn’t happening.”

Frank smiled and answered.  “Yeah, bad timing for this storm as far as our guys are concerned, right, Kyle?”

Kyle squirmed with discomfort as all teenagers do when in public with their parents and didn’t answer.  Sam smiled in understanding at the couple.

“Well, I’m sure the game will get played later.”

It was the female’s turn to answer.  “Yes, Jack will be sure things get rescheduled.”

At the mention of Jack, Daniel chimed in.  He had never met Kyle’s parents, but he knew they had adopted Kyle, which was enough for him to know they were good folks.

“Speaking of which, is Jack around?”

Frank Rogers stepped forward and extended his hand to Daniel as he registered the question.

“No, I’m afraid Jack went home about an hour ago.  You must be Daniel Jackson.  Kyle’s told me a lot about you.  It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Daniel ducked his head in mild embarrassment and shook the offered hand firmly as Frank turned to the woman at his side.

“This is my wife, JoAnn.”

Daniel shook JoAnn’s hand, too, and mumbled a greeting.  “Nice to meet you.”

JoAnn blushed.  “Likewise, Doctor Jackson.”

“It’s Daniel.”

Sam noted that the woman’s blush deepened slightly at Daniel’s familiarity as his ice blue eyes met hers and felt a bit of sympathy for the slightly older woman.  Daniel brought color to many women’s cheeks, but he seemed mostly oblivious to his effect on the female population.  Sam decided to try to help the woman out a bit and jumped back into the conversation.

“Well, Daniel.  Looks like we better head up to Jack’s cabin, then.  These folks need to get home, and we might as well make a visit out of this trip since there’s no game to watch.”

At her words, Frank spoke almost at once.

“You’ll never make it up there in this.”

Sam glanced out the doors then and saw that the snow was falling faster now.  She had to agree that her little sedan would have a hard time making it up the winding road to Jack’s in this weather.  Still, she felt somehow that she needed to go.  Something was niggling her in that undefined area of her mind that often said trouble was coming.  She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was there.  It took a second for her to realize JoAnn was speaking.

“You’re welcome to stay at our place, of course.”

Daniel answered, sparing Sam the embarrassment of asking JoAnn to repeat her words.

“Oh, no.  We wouldn’t want to impose.”

Frank Rogers laughed at that.  “Nonsense.  Any friend of Jack’s is a friend of ours.  We wouldn’t have it any other way.  We’ll call Jack and let him know where you are.”

Daniel seemed to consider the notion.  “Well…I don’t know…Sam?”

Sam’s brow had wrinkled in concern as she listened to the conversation.  That niggling little feeling in her gut was growing, and while she tried to blow it off as just tiredness or stress or irrational worry, she had long ago learned to trust her instincts, and something was telling her she needed to go to Jack’s.  If everything ended up being fine, great, but she had to know that for herself before she could dismiss her worry.

“I don’t know, Daniel.  I think we should head up to the cabin.”

Daniel looked at Sam for a second before he answered.  His eyes met hers and held them for a moment.  He saw something there that made him slowly nod his head in understanding.  Sam’s next words, delivered in a whisper, were unnecessary.

“Trust me.”

Daniel nodded more vigorously and turned to the Rogers.

“I think Sam is right.  We need to go to Jack’s.  Thank you for the offer, though.  Do you know anyone who has a truck we could borrow to get up there?”

Frank and JoAnn looked perplexed at what they had just seen and heard, but accepted it without further questions.  Frank spoke next.

“Ok.  Um…let’s see.  I’ve got a truck that could make the drive, but it’s at home right now.  We’ll have to run home and switch.  That ok?”

Sam and Daniel both nodded.

“Ok, then,” said Frank.  “Let’s go.”

XXX

Half an hour later, Sam and Daniel were standing in the Roger’s driveway in front of Frank Roger’s extended cab Dodge pick up wearing heavy winter coats, hats, and gloves.  Their bags were stowed in the bed of the truck, which was covered with a camper shell.  Frank Rogers was standing a little to one side of them, in front of the passenger door of the truck.

He was engaged in an argument with his son.

“I told you.  Get inside.  I’ll run these two up the hill and be back in no time.  There’s no sense in both of us being out in this weather.”

Kyle Rogers stood, arms crossed, in front of the door to the truck and shook his head slowly from side to side.  When he spoke, his voice seemed much bigger than that of a fourteen year old.

“No.  I’m going.  Colonel Carter thinks something is wrong.  Daniel is worried, and so are you.  We can’t reach Coach Jack on the phone.  He should have been home hours ago.  Something is wrong, and you know it.  I want to help.  I’m going.”

Frank took a deep breath and prepared to order his son inside, but as he looked into Kyle’s dark  eyes, he reconsidered.  Suddenly, for the first time he could remember, Frank was looking into the eyes of a man, not a child.  And suddenly, he couldn’t argue.  He couldn’t point out the fact that the phone lines might be down from the storm or that Jack O’Neill could navigate the road to his house better than anyone and that he was likely home but ignoring the phone to enjoy a good book.  He couldn’t argue at all.

Especially since he didn’t believe any of those things.  Kyle was right.  He was worried.

Frank nodded once, and Kyle climbed into the truck.  Daniel and Sam followed.

Frank stepped back to the porch of his home for a moment.

JoAnn Rogers waited there, having witnessed the whole scene.  She nodded without smiling at her husband.  She understood what had just happened and what needed to be done.

“Be careful out there.  You sure you don’t want me to go?  I know it’s a tight fit for five in the truck, but I’ll go.”

“I will.  And no.  You stay here.  Keep trying to reach Jack, will you?  Let him know where we are and what’s happened if you get him, ok?”

JoAnn nodded bravely.  Frank kissed his wife good bye and turned away.  A moment later, he pulled himself into the driver’s seat of his Dodge and put the truck in gear.

As the big Dodge left the drive, JoAnn Rogers whispered a prayer to the heavens that her family would return.

CHAPTER FOUR

Daniel and Kyle rode in the back seat of the extended cab truck while Sam and Frank had the more comfortable seats up front.  The first part of their drive to Jack’s was fairly routine.  The snow was falling steadily but not heavily in the suburban area that was home to the Rogers.

As they traveled the well tended roads leaving town, silence was thick in the truck.

Everyone was tense, worried about Jack.  No one could say exactly what they were worried about, but when Sam’s gut feeling had been bolstered by the group’s inability to contact Jack, her worry infected everyone present.

Finally, however, as the truck began its tedious journey up the track outside of town that led to Jack’s cabin and the snow began to thicken, Daniel could take the silence no more and broke it with a question.

“So, Sam.  How do you know Kyle and his folks?”

Carter half turned in her seat and answered in a sarcastic voice.

“The same was you do.  They’re friends of our illustrious former CO, aren’t they?”

Daniel hid a smile behind one hand as he mentally amused himself with the notion that when other people were present Sam still only referred to Jack in some military fashion, despite the fact that she and Jack had been involved with each other for almost five years.

Daniel’s musings were interrupted by Kyle’s voice.

The young man suddenly flung himself halfway over the front console between Sam and Frank’s captain’s chairs.  His arm was waving wildly, pointing at something on the side of the road.

“It’s Marge!  Dad!  Dad!  Stop the truck!  IT’S MARGE!”

As Frank slowed the Dodge, everyone in the truck saw what Kyle had seen.

Samantha Carter’s heart dropped into her toes as her niggling worry became a consuming fear.

Daniel Jackson fought a rising tide of bile in his throat as panic gripped his gut.

Kyle Rogers eyes filled with tears.  He was still young, and he wasn’t sure he could handle what they might find in the big blue truck lying crumpled at the side of the road.

Frank Rogers stopped the truck next to the wreck and fought his own fear.  He started to speak, but realized suddenly that he was alone in the vehicle.

Daniel and Sam had jumped out of the truck before it even stopped, and Kyle was hard on their heels.  His fear had spurred him to action.  He had to do something.  He had to move, to fight, to run.  He couldn’t sit still.  He had to act.  He didn’t know what he could do; he didn’t know what they would find in his hero’s truck, but he knew he had to help somehow.

Frank called the boy back, but Kyle never heard his father’s voice.

Daniel and Sam reached the truck at the same time.  Daniel wrenched the driver’s door open.  Sam quickly scanned the interior and wordlessly shook her head at Daniel.  When the two then turned away from the truck to begin a systematic search of the immediate area, they ran right into Kyle.

The boy stood rooted to one spot like a tree.

He stared straight ahead, unresponsive.

“Kyle?”  Daniel called out.

The boy did not answer.

Sam tracked Kyle’s line of sight and gasped.

“Daniel!”

Daniel turned, and then he saw it, too.

The large blood stain in the snow was sheltered from the storm by a large overhanging evergreen bough, so it hadn’t been covered by the newly falling flakes.

Frank Rogers reached the scene just as Kyle began to stammer.

“Is it…I mean…is it his?”

Carter answered, her voice all business.

“We don’t know, Kyle, but we’re going to find out.”

Daniel and Sam searched the truck first as Frank and Kyle watched.  They were looking for clues to Jack’s whereabouts.

There were none:  no notes, no signs of a search or a struggle.  Nothing.  And then Sam’s voice pierced the frigid evening air.

“His gun’s gone.”

Daniel’s eyes widened in astonishment.  “What?”

Sam gestured toward a small case protruding out from under the driver’s seat.

“He keeps it right here.  It’s gone.”  As Sam spoke, she began frantically digging through the tool box in the bed.  She emerged a few minutes later, and her eyes met Daniel’s.

“It’s loaded, too.  He’s careful these days.”  Sam flicked her eyes rapidly to Kyle before continuing, her gaze holding Daniel’s again.  “Doesn’t keep it that way.  But the box of clips for the Beretta is missing.  He wouldn’t have left the truck for no good reason, and he’s armed, Daniel.”

Frank Rogers looked quickly between the two people in front of him for a moment, knowing that silent communication was happening.  He didn’t have to wait long before what he was expecting came.  Samantha Carter called out to Frank and his son, who were still standing in the snow.

“Kyle, why don’t you wait with your dad in the truck.  We’ll handle this, ok?”

As she spoke, Sam’s eyes met Frank’s, and the two nodded to each other ever so slightly.  The friendly blue eyes Frank had come to know through his acquaintance with Jack O’Neill had turned to ice, and Frank understood what was happening.  He and Kyle were being dismissed, and Samantha Carter, Colonel, United States Air Force, was taking over.  Frank wondered, not for the first time, what his friend Jack O’Neill had done in his military days as he bodily turned his son around and steered him to the truck.  Kyle did not fight.  He seemed almost in shock.

Sam and Daniel returned to Frank’s truck as well, but only briefly.  They both removed their bags from the bed and picked through them for a moment before heading back to Marge.

As the two old friends prepared to set out to find another, Sam looked to Frank.

“If we’re not back in an hour, or if you think it’s getting too nasty out there, blow the horn and then give us fifteen minutes.  If we don’t come back in, get to town and call the police and the ranger’s station.  Tell them what happened.”

Frank nodded, and Sam turned on her heel.

She and Daniel set off into the woods, using the maroon snow as their starting point.

Frank Rogers watched them anxiously, noting the ever increasing snow and certainly not missing pointed lump in Sam’s pocket and the way her hand never left it.  He had no doubt what Daniel and Sam had retrieved from their bags, and he wondered just what he had gotten himself into.

CHAPTER FIVE

Daniel and Sam never needed their guns.

In fact, they never needed much of anything.

They found Jack after only fifteen minutes of looking.

O’Neill had nearly made it back to his truck when he collapsed.

Sam missed the irregularly shaped lump in the snow the first time she passed it.  She walked within feet of the General, but in the swirling snow and with a light snow already covering Jack, she didn’t see him.  As she retraced her steps with Daniel at her side, ready to begin covering a new section, Daniel reached up and wiped accumulating frost from his glasses.  When he placed them back on his face, he gasped.

“Sam!”  The wind whipped around Daniel, nearly stealing his words, but Sam heard them.

Carter whirled to face him, alerting to the urgency in his voice.  “What?”

“There!  Between those trees!  You see it?  Boots!”

Daniel was right.  As Sam squinted into the wind ahead of her, she made out the distinct outline of a pair of military-like boots.  They were nearly hidden from view by two close-growing trees, but they were there.

Sam sprinted to them as quickly as she could, given the weather.

Daniel was right behind her.

As the two reached the boots, they soon made out the outline of a man under a thin covering of snow.  There was no movement from the outline, and a fear colder than anything the weather could throw at them surrounded both Daniel and Sam.

They knelt quickly in the snow and began to dig frantically at the mass there.

Within seconds, Jack O’Neill was revealed to them.

His lips were blue, and his skin had a grayish tinge.  Frozen blood covered the right side of his forehead.

Daniel listened for breathing while Sam continued to dig out the rest of the General’s body.

When he slowly shook his head, Sam met his eyes.  She shook her head back, in defiance of what Daniel was saying.

“Check for a pulse, Daniel.  You can’t hear or feel breathing out here… it’s too cold and too windy.  He’s still warm, Daniel.  He’s got to be alive.”

Daniel could hear the fear in Sam’s voice and his own panic racheted up a notch.

He pulled a glove from one hand and gently placed it on Jack’s neck.

There was nothing.

Daniel removed his other glove and warmed his hands by rubbing them together.  He blew warm breath on them and lifted a silent prayer before again exploring the slight groove in Jack’s neck where he knew a pulse should be.

Again, there was nothing… for a long moment, Daniel pretended that he wasn’t sure of what he was feeling.  He needed time to process the fact that Jack was gone, and he needed to think of how to tell Sam.  He left his hand on Jack’s neck and shifted his position in the snow to face Sam better.

And then it was there.

A slow but steady throbbing beneath his fingers.

His hand had shifted slightly when he moved, and there is was.

Jack’s pulse!

Jack was alive!

Daniel’s heart exploded with joy in his chest and he laughed out loud.

Sam jerked bodily and looked at Daniel as if he’d lost his mind.  Underneath all her layers of winter clothing, Daniel could really only see her eyes, but to him Sam looked like shock personified.

Daniel laughed for only a second before blurting out his discovery in uneven rejoicings.

“Pulse!  Alive!”

Sam rushed to Daniel and felt for herself.

When she felt the drumming under hew own hand, Sam deflated.  She collapsed into Daniel like a puppet with cut strings.  Her relief washed over both of them and for the space of three heartbeats the two old friends just held one another in the snow, overjoyed that Jack was still among the living.

Exactly three heartbeats later, Colonel Carter resurfaced, and Doctor Jackson wasn’t far behind.

“Alright, Daniel, try to wake him.  Here.  Get this around and under him as best you can.”

Sam threw the small backpack she had been carrying to the ground and removed a thermal blanket.  She tossed it to Daniel.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find something to carry him out on.  If we can’t get him up, we’ll need some sort of stretcher.”

Daniel nodded and quickly unfolded the blanket.  He covered Jack with it and began to vigorously rub Jack’s face and body with his hands, trying to warm his friend and rouse him back to consciousness.

Sam assessed Jack and the surrounding area quickly.  There were several small trees and larger branches on the ground that would make a frame for a stretcher easily, and the blanket would serve as a carrying surface, but it was very nearly completely dark, and time was of the essence.

Sam had no idea what injuries Jack had sustained in the truck accident or afterwards, but she knew that Jack O’Neill would never lie down in the snow in a storm unless forced to.  Somewhere in that battered body was an injury that was not minor.  If she moved the General and he had spinal trauma or a fracture, she might make it much worse, especially without supporting his entire body.  However, if she didn’t move him, he would freeze to death.

Sam made a snap decision.

“Daniel!”

“Yeah?”

“Is he showing any signs of waking?”

“No.”

“Well, we don’t have time to wait.  We’ll have to drag him out of here between us.”

Daniel didn’t argue.  He began to worm his arm underneath Jack’s shoulders.  Sam was there a second later and did the same from the other side.  They managed to get the General’s considerable weight into a sitting position, then Sam spoke again.

“Ok, on three, we’ll stand him up.  Careful as we can.  We’re not far.  We can make it.”

Daniel nodded mutely in understanding.

“Ready?  One… Two… Three!”

Sam and Daniel heaved Jack upwards together and stood him between them.  Jack still did not show any sign of waking, and a worried look was shared between his rescuers.

With half of Jack’s weight on her shoulders, Sam had to grunt to speak again.

“Ok, let’s go.  Forward on three, and we don’t stop until we get to the truck, ok?”

This time, Daniel argued.  “Sam, I can carry him.  You go ahead.  Guide me.”

Sam shook her head negative.  “Not without moving him a lot more you can’t.  If you put him over your shoulder, we could aggreivate a lot more injuries than just doing it this way.  We can do this, Daniel.  Let’s go.”

Daniel nodded.  Sam counted.  They stepped off together, sharing Jack’s weight and half dragging him back toward the truck.  It was an awkward journey, but it was one they had made before, and they started it in silent cooperation.

After a few faltering steps, the pair fell into a rhythm.  While Jack was no lightweight, and it wasn’t easy dragging him through the snow, Daniel and Sam quickly figured out the best way to accomplish their task, and they made progress at an impressive rate, all things considered.

That is, until Sam fell.

They were halfway back to the site of the accident when Sam slipped in the snow.  Her feet slid out from under her on a unseen patch of ice, and she fell, hard.

Sam couldn’t risk bringing Jack down with her, so she let go of him as she tried to slow her unexpected and rapid descent to the earth.  Daniel reacted without thinking and quickly shifted Jack’s weight fully onto his shoulders to keep him upright.  He called out to Sam just as she landed in the snow and a loud snapping pop echoed through the forest.

“Sam!  You ok?”  Daniel knew that his question was a dumb one, as only a broken bone would made that noise, but he asked it on instinct.

He wasn’t surprised by the answer.

Sam Carter took a deep breath, pressed her lips into a thin white line, and nodded.

Daniel pretended he didn’t notice the tears that filled her eyes suddenly and looked at her in what he hoped was only concern.  He knew she was in tremendous pain but would never show it.

“Sam…”

Carter looked up at Daniel then, and there was fire in her eyes.  The rest of his words were cut off in his throat.  Sam looked from Daniel to Jack and back again, then ground out a simple response as she got her feet under her and stood.  She hugged her right arm tightly to her body as she did so, and Daniel couldn’t help but notice the dark stain beginning to form on her sleeve, but he said nothing.

“I’m fine, Daniel.  Just hit my arm.  We have to get Jack back.  Let’s go.”

Daniel knew that getting Jack help was the only way to get Sam help.  He also knew there was no use arguing, so he just half shrugged his shoulders, jostling Jack.

“Ok.  But you’re getting checked out with him.”

Sam grunted a ‘fine’ under her breath while she wiggled her shoulder under Jack’s again.  Daniel didn’t waste time arguing her actions, but he also didn’t shift Jack’s weight much off of his own shoulders as the two set off again, either.

Their rhythm never came this time, and Daniel’s shoulders, back, and legs began to burn with the strain of supporting Jack, but he never considered stopping or resting or putting more of Jack’s weight onto Sam.

He knew he had to be the strong one for both of this friends.

Besides, he could see that the trees were thinning.  They were almost back.

CHAPTER SIX

Frank Rogers sat in his truck and worried.  The storm was not escalating right now, but it wasn’t getting any better, either.  He and Kyle were not exactly where he wanted to be.

Frank had tried to make conversation with his son and reassure him that his coach and good friend would be ok, but it hadn’t worked.  Kyle wasn’t stupid, and he knew the score on this as well as his father did.  They were both worried, and they sat in an uncomfortable silence.

Frank finally spoke when the oppressive lack of noise became too much.

“Kyle.”

“Yeah?”

“You know, at some point, we’ll have to leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“You heard what Colonel Carter said.  If they’re not back in an hour, or if the storm gets much worse, we’re supposed to go to town and tell the police.  We can’t freeze out here, Kyle.  We have to get help if they need it.”

“It’s only been half an hour.  They’ll be back.”

“I’d like to think that, Kyle, but…”

Kyle interrupted his father.  “They’ll be back.”

The quiet conviction in the boy’s voice could not be argued, so Frank sank into his seat with a sigh.  He hoped Kyle would be right, but he knew that was a big ‘if’.  And he would not jeopardize his son, even if it meant sacrificing Jack and his friends.  If it came down to it, he would drive down this hill while he still could.

As silence fell again in the truck, Frank lost himself in thoughts of Jack O’Neill for a moment, and his determination wavered.  How could he abandon a man who had done so much for his county, and on a more personal note, for Frank’s own family?  Would Kyle ever forgive him if he did?

Frank’s introspection was interrupted by Kyle.

“Dad!  They’re coming!”

Frank’s head jerked up and he squinted through the windshield.  At first, he saw nothing, but after a moment Kyle’s younger eyes were proven right.  Two figures, carrying what looked like a third between them, were emerging from the woods beside the wreck of Marge.

Kyle jumped from the truck, and Frank followed on his heels.

When they reached the struggling trio, Kyle excitedly jumped around them like a jackrabbit on crack and began rapid firing questions.

“Jack!  Jack!  Is he ok?  Where’d you find him?  What happened?”

Neither Sam nor Daniel answered the young man and they were grateful that Frank Roger’s response was more subdued and practical.  Frank didn’t speak but quickly noted the freezing bloodstain on Sam’s arm and slid one arm between Sam and Jack while he gently moved the injured woman out of the way to shoulder Jack’s weight with Daniel.  Sam gratefully accepted the help, and spoke to Kyle calmly but forcefully.  Her voice cut through Kyle’s excitement, and the boy immediately paid attention.

“Kyle.”

“Ma’am?”

“Go open the tailgate of the truck.  Clear everything out of the bed that’s hard.  Throw it up front or just throw it out.  Take the soft stuff, like my duffel bag, and push it against the sides of the bed to make a place for Jack to lay down back there.  Go.  Do it now.  As fast as you can.”

Kyle’s only response was to turn and sprint back to the truck.  He quickly carried out Sam’s commands and had the bed of the truck as comfortable as it could be before the rest of the group made it there.

When his dad and Daniel appeared, still supporting the unconscious Jack, Kyle got out of the way.  Frank and Daniel turned around and set Jack on the tailgate backside first as gently as they could, then laid him down and manhandled him into the truck bed.  Sam crawled into the bed beside the sleeping General and looked at Frank, still cradling her right arm but otherwise oblivious to her injury.

“Can you get us to the hospital?”

Frank nodded, sure of his resolve.  “I can.”

Sam nodded back.  “Good.  Then you take Kyle up front and do the driving.  Daniel and I will look after the General for now.”

Frank closed the tailgate and camper shell back window, then turned and headed back to the cab of the truck.  He climbed inside and buckled his seat belt before he realized that his son wasn’t with him.  He jumped back out, calling as he went.

“Kyle?”

There was no answer.  Sam and Daniel were too involved in beginning their assessment of their former CO to notice what was going on, and Frank couldn’t see Kyle.

He didn’t find him until he rounded the back bumper of the truck and looked behind the truck.  Kyle was frozen in place again, staring through the back window at Jack.  Frank could tell the boy was overwhelmed at seeing his always strong coach in this state.  He walked up to his son and put a hand on his shoulder.  Kyle jumped at the contact.

“Son, we have to go.  We have to get Coach Jack to the hospital.  Come on.”

Kyle nodded mutely and started toward the front of the truck.  He would have kept going, but just then a startled yell from Daniel brought both Kyle and Frank back to the truck bed.

“What the HELL is that?!?”

Frank whipped open the camper shell and tailgate and stared inside the bed of his truck.

He saw that Daniel was rapidly undressing Jack O’Neill in order to get a better look at his injuries, while Sam was struggling to open a first aid kit from her bag.  Jack’s coat was unzipped, and both Sam and Daniel were staring at something that seemed to be growing out of Jack’s chest.

An oblong furry object was sticking out of Jack like some sort of living tumor.  Frank didn’t recognize it at first, but then it gave a plaintive cry.

A puppy!  And it was alive!

Daniel and Sam looked at the tiny beast in obvious disbelief and amazement, and neither seemed to be able to react for a few seconds.  Then Daniel smiled.

He smiled, despite the situation, and Frank thought he’d gone insane.  Kyle’s stories of the archeologist were always a little odd, and Frank wondered if the man was simply crazy until Daniel’s gentle voice called out.

“Kyle?”

Kyle stepped forward to the tailgate and answered nervously.  “Yeah?”

Daniel looked up from his unconscious friend as he gently scooped the little animal into his arms and Sam finally managed to get the first aid kit open.  Daniel’s eyes met Kyle’s, and he beckoned the boy forward.

“Kyle, come here.”

Kyle scrambled into the truck with all the grace of an adolescent and crawled over the Daniel.  As Carter suppressed a shudder of alarm at the bloodstain that had been hidden by the pup but was now visible on Jack’s shirt, Daniel quietly steered Kyle’s attention to the puppy in his arms.

“Kyle, I need you to do me a favor.  Jack needs you to do him a favor.  Can you do that?”

Kyle nodded.  “Yeah.  Anything.”

A little bit of Kyle’s usual exuberance was returning, and Daniel was glad for it.

“Well, you see, we don’t know what happened to Coach Jack yet, and we won’t for a while, but this little guy is obviously pretty important to him or he wouldn’t have had him in his coat.  Now, Sam and I have to take Jack to the hospital and take care of some stuff, so we can’t look after this dog.  But you can.  We need you to do that.  Can you do that, Kyle?  For me?  For Jack?”

Kyle nodded vigorously and took the pup from Daniel.  He scrambled back out of the bed and ran to the passenger side of the truck.  Frank nodded once at Daniel, understanding at last, and then shut the tailgate again.

As Frank climbed into the cab this time, his son was no longer fixating on the gravely injured man lying behind him.  He was coddling an adorable black puppy, who after a few minutes in the heated cab was already squirming around like a healthy puppy should.  Frank grinned a little at Daniel’s perfect distraction for Kyle, put the still running truck in gear, and started down the hill.

He opened the window to the bed and kept one ear open for any sounds of distress.  He heard none.  All he heard were the occasional sounds of paper ripping and clothes being removed, along with a few grunts and muted thumps as Daniel and Sam shifted O’Neill’s position.  There were also a few curses from Daniel telling Sam to take it easy.

He thought that was a good sign.  But then he heard something else.

It was so quiet he nearly missed it, like Kyle did.

But it was unmistakable.

Samantha Carter’s voice shook slightly as two words floated up to Frank.

“Oh, Daniel.”

Daniel’s voice shook back as he answered.  “I know, Sam.  I know.”

Frank Rogers didn’t dare look back to see what had caused their distress, but he did grip his steering wheel tighter, and his foot pushed the accelerator closer to the floorboard.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jack’s eyes opened once on the way down the mountain, and two hearts quickened in response.  Jack didn’t make a sound, but his brown eyes were as intense as ever, and they held onto Daniel’s, then Sam’s, for a second apiece before closing again.

It was then that the emotions of the day overwhelmed Samantha Carter.  Jack’s eyes had told her that he was still in there and that he knew what was going on, but she knew the extent of his injuries now, and she was truly worried.  Several of Jack’s ribs were obviously broken, and the purplish color of most of the skin of his chest and abdomen hinted toward internal bleeding.

His breaths were harsh and shallow.

His heart rate erratically slowed, then jumped well over normal limits in spurts.

She whispered a plea for comfort to the only other person present.  “Oh, Daniel.”

His response was to stretch one hand across Jack’s body and squeeze her good shoulder.

The gentleness of the gesture was too much for Sam.  Pain crashed into her then like a tsunami and there was no fighting it.  Her adrenaline was gone, and she let the pain come.  The first aid was done.  There was nothing more she could do for Jack now, and Sam’s shattered ulna sent waves of nausea and pain to her brain without mercy.  She gasped involuntarily and her vision swam.  As the truck hit a particularly nasty bump, she swayed and would have fallen over if not for Daniel’s strong grip tightening on her shoulder.  She leaned into Daniel then, taking what comfort he could give her.

Daniel let his own worry for Jack go for a moment and pulled Sam into a careful embrace.  The two of them were careful not to touch Jack, but they formed a triangle over him.  Both were kneeling, one on either side of the unconscious man.  Sam’s head rested on Daniel’s shoulder and her good arm snaked its way around his back and held fast while her injured arm was still glued to her chest in protection.

Daniel stabilized Sam with one arm while he gently rubbed her back and head with the other.  He whispered the only thing he could think of, and prayed for safe passage.

“I know, Sam.  I know.”

XXX

Jack’s eyes didn’t open again for four days… four days that would forever be a blur to Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter, like so many that had passed before them.

Jack, Sam, Daniel, Kyle, and Frank would make it to the hospital.

Daniel would be treated for minor cuts and scrapes, under protest, while Jack was whisked to ICU and Sam was triaged in the next bed.  He would smile at the doctors sympathetically as they removed her jacket.  They wouldn’t understand until a curse split the emergency room.

“Jesus!”

The epitaph would fall from the lips of the head nurse as she pulled Sam’s right sleeve free of her injured arm, and the word wouldn’t do justice the sight seen there.

A jagged piece of bone stuck out of Sam’s forearm at an angle that was anything but natural.

The open fracture was a nasty sight, but it wasn’t what unnerved the experienced nurse.  What unsettled her was the calm way her patient examined her own wound, and the fact that while the fracture must have been excruciatingly painful, Sam Carter hadn’t once uttered a cry or acted like she had more than a simple laceration under her sleeve.

Daniel would smile at his friend across the room and wave a tiny goodbye.

Sam would nod and smile back while offering her good arm to another nurse in an almost bored fashion.  An IV catheter would be inserted into her vein and minutes later she would slip into a drug induced haze gratefully, knowing that once again her body was going into a surgical suite and that she would likely come out of it with more internal hardware and an interesting scar.

Frank would call JoAnn and let her know that he and Kyle were safe, but no one would leave the hospital that night.  They would all stay until the storm abated the next morning.

The nurses would do their best to make them comfortable.  They would roll out cots and extra blankets and show the three non-admitted members of the group to a lounge already crowded with stranded people.  One kindly woman would even look the other way to the four legged contraband that she knew Kyle had in his jacket and slip him a can of baby formula, an empty box, and some newspapers when no one was looking.

Frank and Kyle would head home the next day, but would return often to check in on Jack.  JoAnn would come sometimes, too.  They’d all visit the pet store and get a kennel for their new friend.  They’d take him to the vet and get him vaccinated and dewormed.  They’d bathe him and  buy him puppy formula and the best puppy food they could find and realize quickly that he was big enough to eat on his own.  The only thing the Rogers didn’t do for the pup in their care was name him.  He wasn’t theirs, they rationalized.  They were just taking care of him for Jack.  The pup was their link to Jack, and they tended him lovingly, but they didn’t name him, as they had no plans to keep him.

Teal’c would turn up three days into Jack’s hospital stay.  He’d intimidate Kyle at first, but then become fast friends with the boy.

And still Jack would sleep.  He’d get his head stitched up.  He’d have two surgeries to drain blood and fluid from his chest and one to repair a leaking spleen.  He’d develop pneumonia and spike a white blood cell count so high that the doctors would fear for his life.  He’d be hooked up to tubes and monitors and be put on all sorts of drugs.

But he would not wake.

That mostly was because the doctors would keep him sedated so that they could keep him hooked up to a ventilator and force him to breathe deeply to combat his lung infection, but it still bothered his friends.

Sam would be released as soon as she was cognizant enough to drive her doctors crazy asking about Jack, which took about thirty-six hours, but she and Daniel would not leave Jack’s room except to eat and use the restroom until Teal’c arrived.

When the big Jaffa was present, Daniel slipped off to shower at the Rogers, then Sam did the same when he returned.  But mostly, the three of them would wait.

As they had countless times before.

Finally, on the fourth day of their wait, Jack O’Neill’s eyelids fluttered.  He’d been weaned off sedation and allowed to breathe on his own for about eight hours when it happened.  The lids moved erratically for a moment, then slowly opened.

Jack was greeted by three faces raptly watching him.  Teal’c had noticed his friend’s movement first and had called to the others.  When Jack looked up, he saw Sam, Daniel, and Teal’c looking down at him.  He felt like a science experiment and looked away from them quickly.

Suddenly all of them spoke at once.

“O’Neill.  Can you hear me?  Do you require anything?”

“Jack, God, it’s good to see you awake.”

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Jack shushed them all with a wave of his hands.  He closed his eyes again in irritation.

He only meant to blink, but it was two hours later when Jack woke again.

His friends were calmer now, and Daniel seemed to be elected spokesman.

While Sam and Teal’c hovered in the background, Daniel sat on the edge of Jack’s bed and laid one hand on his friend’s arm.  He spoke quietly when he noticed Jack was awake.

“Hey, sleepyhead.  How you feeling?”

Jack moved his mouth a little but no sound came out.  Daniel nodded in understanding and gently moved his hand to rest on Jack’s chest.

“Easy.  You don’t have to say anything.  Just rest.  Water?”

Jack nodded weakly.  Daniel spooned a few ice chips from a cup next to the bed and fed them to Jack as if he was a small child.  Jack took no offense and nodded again in gratitude.

“Better?”  Daniel smiled warmly.

Jack nodded yet again.  His mouth moved slowly and then finally succeeded in getting a scratchy sound out.

“Thanks.”

It was Daniel’s turn to nod.  “No problem.”

Sam and Teal’c stepped forward then and smiled silently down at Jack from the foot of the bed.  As they did, Jack’s brow wrinkled.  Daniel panicked a little at the expression.

“Are you hurt?  Do you need me to call the doctor?”

Jack shook his head the tiniest negative and whispered again.  “How?  Where?  How long?”

Daniel smiled.  “There’s time for that later, Jack.  Just rest now.”

Jack shook his head again, more emphatically, and it was Daniel’s time to be confused.

“What’s wrong?”

Jack seemed to grow tired then and didn’t answer for a long minute as he took several labored breaths.  Sam’s hand lingered on the call button, about to summon the doctor.  Just as she was about to press it, Jack spoke again, in a tired, rough, sad voice.

“Pup.  Dead?”

Daniel’s smile could have powered a small city, and Sam’s would’ve had no problem with a metropolis.  Even Teal’c grinned.  Daniel answered for the group yet again.

“He’s fine, Jack.  Kyle has him. He’s fine.”

Jack smiled then.  It was a genuine smile, and it reached all the way to his eyes.

He looked at each of his old teammates in turn and tried to put every bit of gratitude he had in his eyes.

Then he promptly fell back asleep.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next time Jack O’Neill squinted against the harsh lights of his hospital room, Teal’c and Sam weren’t there.  Only Daniel kept him company, and he was looking out the window as Jack slowly regained consciousness.

Daniel didn’t notice Jack’s awakening, so as his brain came fully awake, Jack watched him.

Something wasn’t right.  He couldn’t place it, but even in his hazy state of mind, he knew his friend was worried about something, and he didn’t like it.  Daniel’s shoulders were slumped a little, and he was in full self-hug mode.  Daniel rarely did that these days, but it was a dead giveaway to Jack that something was troubling the younger man.

Jack finally gave up all pretense of sleep and called out to Daniel.

“Hey.  Can’t a guy get a decent meal around here?  I’m starving.”

Daniel turned immediately toward Jack and grinned.

“Sorry, Jack.  Room service took the day off.”

Jack gave Daniel a look of mock exasperation.  “It’s ok.  What’s going on?  Where is everybody?”

“Teal’c forced Sam to a local restaurant for some food.  They’ll be back soon.”

Jack nodded.  “Oh.”

It was quiet then for a moment, but once Daniel realized that Jack wasn’t going back to sleep, he moved toward him purposefully.  Jack sighed, and winced in pain as he did so.  He knew what was bothering Daniel, and he knew what was coming.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened out there?”

Jack tried to laugh then, but it turned into a type of mangled choking cough.  Daniel moved to help him, but he quickly waved him away.  It took only a minute for him to get control of himself, and when he did, he spoke calmly and clearly.

“Well, that’s a bit of a story… but shouldn’t you be calling the doc right about now?  I mean, I‘m awake and staying that way.  Wouldn’t they want to know that?”

“They already know you’ve been waking up some, Jack, and don’t change the subject.  What happened out there?”

“It’s complicated, Daniel.  How’d you get here, anyway?”

Daniel pinned Jack with his best no-nonsense look and tried again, ignoring the question.  “Not going to work, Jack.  I’ll tell you my story after you tell yours.”

Jack sighed again, softly this time, and found it didn’t hurt too badly.

“Fine.”

Jack told his story then, in detail.  He told of his trip to town and its tragic end.  He told of the mother dog and her fate.  He told of finding the pup and nearly making it back.  It didn’t take long, and Daniel didn’t interrupt.

When Jack was finished, Daniel seemed a little overwhelmed.  He sat in a small chair next to Jack’s bed and processed what he had heard for a moment before speaking.

“So, you were nearly killed for a dog?”  Daniel wasn’t sure if he was mad or amused.

A flash of anger crossed Jack’s face.  “I didn’t know it would be so far away, Daniel.  Geez!  Look, I know I screwed up here, but…”

Jack trailed off as a series of coughs racked his body.  Daniel stood and helped Jack get a drink of water.  When the coughing subsided, Daniel spoke quietly.

“I’m sorry, Jack.  We can talk about it later, ok?”

Jack nodded.  “No, it’s ok.  I’m fine.  Now, what about you?”

“Well, Sam thought it might be fun to come up for the weekend and surprise you by turning up at the game the other night.  We were off duty for a bit.  Course, the game got cancelled, and…”

Jack interrupted.  “The other night?  How long have I been out, Daniel?”

Daniel hesitated, but told the truth in the end.  Jack would find out sooner or later.  “Four and a half days.”

Jack’s eyes grew wide for only a second, then he nodded sagely.  “That explains T.”

“Yeah, he came up just yesterday.”

As if by magic, Teal’c took that moment to appear in the door to Jack’s room.  He barely registered O’Neill’s awake state when Jack’s sarcasm welcomed him.

“Speak of the devil.”

Teal’c beamed back at the man in the bed.  “O’Neill.  It is good to see you awake and conversing again.  Perhaps now we may know what has happened to you.”

Daniel waved dismissively at Teal’c.  “I’ll fill you in.  Where’s Sam?”

“Colonel Carter has made a detour to the ladies room.  She should join us shortly.”

As Teal’c’s deep voice resonated through the room, Jack felt his eyelids getting heavy.  He didn’t want to sleep yet, but his body had other ideas.  He wanted to see Sam, to let her know that he was ok.  He told himself he couldn’t sleep yet, but despite his will, Daniel and Teal’c soon found their friend asleep, long before Daniel could tell the rest of his story or Sam rejoined them.

XXX

Jack moved out of ICU that evening, into an intermediate care private room.

He slept through the journey, but he woke shortly after the nurses settled him into his new home.

At first, he thought he was alone, and he panicked.

Daniel, Sam, and Teal’c were nowhere to be seen, and Jack had rarely woken up in a medical setting without one of them there to greet him.  He wondered for a second what kind of emergency had occurred to necessitate recalling all of them back to the SGC.

But then he saw her.

His new room was larger than his old one, and much less busy.  It was dark, and it was easy to overlook one woman, curled in upon herself.

She sat in a chair in the far corner, with her knees drawn up to her chest.  Her head rested on her bent legs, and her arms were crossed in front of her face.

There was a glint of metal there that didn’t make sense, and Jack wrinkled his forehead in confusion.

As if she sensed his need for explanation, Samantha Carter raised her head.  She looked right through Jack O’Neill with wide awake eyes.  The intensity of her gaze was such that Jack shivered a little, despite the warmth of the room.

Jack swallowed once, then spoke quietly.  “Sam?  You ok?”

Carter merely nodded.  She didn’t move closer to Jack, however, and this troubled him.

“You sure?  What’s that on your arm?”

Sam snorted a small laugh then.  “It’s called an external fixator.  Haven’t had one of these yet.  Apparently it’s the best choice for the way I broke my arm.”

As she spoke, Sam raised her fractured arm slightly and turned it a little in the dim light of the room for Jack to see.  Her arm was whole again, but large metal pins stuck out of her flesh at odd angles to each other.  They were attached to a large bar that ran down the outside of her forearm with clamps, and the whole thing looked like some sort of replicator gone terribly wrong.

Jack grimaced.  He couldn’t help himself.

Sam laughed again.  “I know it’s not much to look at, but…”

Jack sobered and interrupted with a voice he hadn’t used in a while.  “Carter.”

Sam responded in a way the voice demanded.  “Sir?”

Jack looked at Sam for a moment before he could speak.  His insides squirmed at Sam’s use of that title for him, despite the fact that he had asked for it by his tone.  When he finally did speak, he whispered hopefully.

“Sorry… Sam… could you come here?  Please?”

Carter stood and made her way over to Jack.  Her arm swung easily at her side despite the metal contraption that was to be her companion for at least the next six weeks.

When she reached him, Sam laid one hand on his arm under the thin hospital cover.

“I’m here.”

Jack closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as he could without pain, then whispered again.

“Thank you.”

Sam blinked in surprise.  “For what?”

“For coming over.  Now, what happened to your arm?”

Sam shrugged.  “It’s nothing, sir.”

There was that word again.  Jack’s eyes narrowed.  It was nearly dark in the room, but Jack didn’t need light to know something was going on.  He knew Sam only dropped the ‘sir’ bomb these days when she was angry.  She was several years distanced from her role as his subordinate officer.  He and Sam had an odd relationship, but while they only saw each other in snatches of time stolen from the SGC and Jack’s own busy life, they had an understanding that went deeper than most more traditional couples.  Their devotion ran deep, their bond was strong, and while they rarely needed words, communication was usually not a problem between them.  Jack wasn’t sure what he’d done now, but he knew he was in deep trouble somehow.  His groggy body came instantly more awake.

“It’s not nothing.  What happened?”

“I fell,” Sam said evasively.

“Yeah, I can see that.  When?”

Suddenly, Sam’s anger came bubbling to the surface.  “When I was out trying to find your sorry ass in the middle of the woods, that’s when!”

“You were in the woods?  Why?”  Jack seemed genuinely confused.

“I was looking for you!”

“You found me?”

“Yeah.  Daniel and I found you.”

“How?”

Sam shrugged.  “Got lucky, I guess.  We saw the wreck.”

“But how did you know to come look for me at all?”

Sam hesitated then and looked at the tile floor beneath her feet for a moment.  “Just had a feeling.”

“A feeling?”  Jack blinked a few times in surprise.  It wasn’t like Sam to be so vague.

Sam shrugged.  “Yeah, just a hunch.”

“Hunches are good.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell then, but it wasn’t the comfortable silence that Jack and Sam were accustomed to.  It was a long time before either of them spoke, but Jack finally rasped out a question.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“How bad’s the break?”

“Pretty bad.”

“How bad is that?”

“Bad enough.  I’ll be out for at least eight weeks, maybe longer.  Broke the ulna in half.  Only two pieces, but one punctured the skin so everything is presumed infected so they didn’t want to put a plate in.  I also dislocated my wrist, so the fixator stabilizes that, too.  See?  It crosses the joint.  I can move my fingers, but not my wrist.”

Jack winced.  “Sorry.”

Sam’s words were out before she could think to hold them back.  “You’d better be.”

Jack stared at her in the semi-darkness of the room for a full thirty seconds before asking for confirmation of what he’d just heard.

“What?”

Sam snarled a response.  “Nothing.”

“No.  There’s no nothing now.  Sam… what did you mean by that?”

One small nervous laugh escaped Sam.  Then her anger took hold again and she railed at the man in the bed.  “Jack, you’ve lived here all your life.  You know what the weather can do.  You know better than to do what you did, Jack.  You know better than to act without thinking!”

Jack raised one hand slowly and rubbed it wearily over his face.  He had no argument.

“I know.  I’m sorry.”

Sam nodded once, slowly, and seemed to accept the apology.  Her anger and her energy seemed to flow out of her and she sagged into a chair next to the bed.

“Well, it’s just a good thing you’re ok.  You ever pull a stunt like that again, though, and I’ll kill you myself.”

An involuntary snort issued from Jack.  “I don’t doubt it.  You could club me with your ‘Terminator’ arm.”

Sam laughed at his joke in spite of herself.  She was reminded of why she loved this man.  He could find humor in any situation, and while he sometimes did really dumb things, it was always with the best of motives.  When her laughter died away, Sam yawned.  She was tired.  The events of the last several days had taken their toll on her, and she was feeling it.

A second yawn came from the bed and Jack sleepily murmured a request.

“Don’t do that.”

Sam looked at Jack for the briefest of seconds, then laid her head on the bed next to his.  Her hard snaked up to enclose his, and as she leaned into his bed from her chair, she murmured back.

“Shut up, Jack.  Go to sleep.”

Jack O’Neill smiled a true smile, and after taking a moment to appreciate the woman next to him, he started to follow her orders when a random thought slowed his progress to sleep.

“Sam?  You awake?”

“No.”

“Very funny.  Seriously, though, why am I clean shaven?  Did you do that?”

Sam’s head shook the tiniest negative against his pillow.

“Wasn’t me.  That was Daniel.  Night, Jack.”

Jack smiled again, and sleep claimed him before he could say anything else.

CHAPTER NINE

Three weeks later, snow was thick on the ground when a big Dodge pulled into the hospital parking lot again.  Several young nurses were cloistered around the main entrance as one older nurse pushed a man in a wheelchair out to the truck.

The man groused under his breath to the matronly nurse.

“This really isn’t necessary, you know.”

The woman replied with a knowing smile.  “I do, in fact, know that.  However, the rules are the rules, and I’m not going to break them.  Besides, this’ll keep you safe from the others.”

As she spoke, the nurse tossed her head toward the younger nurses in the doorway.  Several of them scampered off to their duties and pretended they hadn’t been ogling the exiting patient, but some didn’t bother to hide their looks of disappointment as their most handsome and entertaining patient of the last few weeks was discharged.

Jack O’Neill was bundled warmly in a thick coat and warm pants in his wheelchair, but the ride to the truck was still a frosty one as the Minnesota wind whipped around his body.  The air in his chest was stolen from him momentarily, and he gasped involuntarily.

The nurse noticed.

“Now, you be sure to do what the docs said, and your respiratory therapist will be around tomorrow, ok?  Those ribs aren’t quite healed yet, and that pneumonia you had that kept you here so long could come back if you aren’t careful.”

Jack nodded and smiled at the nurse.  “I know, Maggie, I know.  I’ll be careful.”

Maggie smiled back and swatted her patient playfully on the shoulder.  “Ok, then, hon.  You get on your way then.”

Jack rose slowly from his chair then and took one shuffling step toward the truck as the doors of the Dodge opened and spilled out Kyle Rogers and his dad.  Kyle stepped up to Jack and took the small bag Jack was carrying from him.  He then ran quickly to the truck, tossed it into the back seat, and returned to Jack.

Jack waved off his offer of assistance and walked to the truck under his own power.

It wasn’t easy, but Jack pretended that breathing didn’t take more effort than normal and wedged himself into the back seat before anyone had a chance to argue.  He wanted to have some relative privacy while he caught his wind.

Neither Kyle nor Frank argued.

They climbed back into the truck and Frank wasted no time getting the Dodge back on the road.

Once the truck was in motion, Frank flicked his eyes to Jack in the rearview mirror.

“You sure you won’t reconsider?  JoAnn and I have the spare room.”

Jack shook his head.  “I don’t want to be a bother.”

Frank sighed.  “It’s no bother.  We really don’t mind, Jack.  You shouldn’t be up there by yourself.  It’s too hard for people to get up there if there’s another storm.”

Jack sighed back.  “Frank, I told you before.  I’ll be fine.  This isn’t anything I can’t handle.  I’ll take my meds like a good little boy and do my therapy.  Honest.  I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, have it your way.  Daniel and I took the Ford up there last week, so at least you’ll have that to get around.  I had Marge towed to your storage garage right after the accident, like I told you.  She’s pretty banged up, but she might pull through.  Her tires were ok, so I switched them out for the Ford’s.  They’ll do better in the snow.  Your plow is toast, though, my friend.”

Jack nodded sadly at Frank’s words.  He still felt the loss of his old blue truck acutely, but he was touched at the effort Frank had gone through to help him.

“Thanks, Frank.  It means a lot.”

“No problem, Jack.  That’s what friends are for.”

The truck fell silent for a moment then, and Jack decided it was time to bring Kyle into this conversation.

“So, Kyle, what’s this I hear about you scoring a hat trick the other night?”

Kyle shrugged humbly.  “It wasn’t enough to get us the win.  We’re still out of the playoffs.  The Sharks are in.”

Jack nodded.  “So I heard.  But still, I don’t think you’ve ever gotten three in before, have you?”

Kyle beamed at his coach.  “No.  It was my first one.”

Jack grinned.  “See?  Look at the positives.  I’ll never hear the end of it from Coach Mike.  He’ll say he got it out of you.  Besides, I heard the Grizzlies won again last week, so our win was moot point.”

Frank laughed.  “Jack, how did you know that?  Did Kyle tell you?  He wasn’t supposed to.”

Jack laughed back.  “That’s for me to know.  Now, about that other thing we talked about, Kyle…”

Kyle grinned.  “I did it.”

Jack grinned back conspiratorially.  “And you’re sure, Kyle?  We can’t go back on it, you know.”

Frank looked confused at the turn of the conversation, but he stayed silent as Kyle nodded.

“I’m sure.  It has to be that way.”

Jack nodded once back at the boy, pride beaming from his eyes.  “Ok.  I appreciate it.  You did a good job, you know.”

Kyle smiled shyly at the compliment and ducked his head.  Jack couldn’t resist giving his hair a little ruffle, like he had in Kyle’s younger days, and Kyle laughed.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Kyle.”

Frank was more confused than ever as to what his son was talking about, but he didn’t have time to ask about it as his truck pulled into Jack’s driveway and Jack O’Neill was struck speechless by the appearance of his cabin.

The porch was spotlessly snow and ice free and the driveway was meticulously maintained.

Jack’s green Ford was parked under the carport beside the cabin as if he had parked it there last night.  A rented four-wheel drive SUV was parked behind it.

The windows of the cabin shone with a soft light from the interior of the house, and wood smoke rose from the chimney, lazily forming a wispy plume on the wind.

But none of these things surprised Jack, except perhaps the SUV.

What floored him was the appearance of someone on the porch of his cabin.

Sam Carter stood on his porch, bundled against the cold.  She leaned on one post of the porch and smiled warmly as Frank’s truck pulled into the drive.

As Jack made some sort of inarticulate noise, Frank Rogers chuckled.

Jack pinned him with a glare of mock indignation.  “You knew, didn’t you?”

Frank laughed out loud.  “Come on, Jack.  You really think we were going to leave you up here alone?”

Jack fired sarcasm back.  “A guy can hope, right?”

Frank laughed again as he and Kyle exited the truck.  Kyle grabbed Jack’s bag again and hopped over to Sam merrily.  Jack clambered out of the vehicle with grumpiness all over his face, but inside he was ecstatic.  His heart had nearly stopped beating for a minute when he’d realized Sam was here.  She had returned to Colorado off and on several times since his injury, but recently, he had thought she was gone for a while.  Even though her broken arm precluded any hazardous missions, there was still a lot Colonel Samantha Carter could contribute to the SGC, and she had work to do.  Jack had thought that she wouldn’t turn up again for at least a week.

He really should have known better, and he chided himself now.

He should have known that she would be here to welcome him home.  In fact, he realized that he wouldn’t be surprised if Daniel and Teal’c were somewhere inside the house, now that he thought about it.

Jack made it to the porch only a few steps behind Kyle and Frank, and he smiled up at Sam.  She looked down on him for a moment, then took a sip of steaming liquid from the cup in her hand before leaning down the small steps of the porch and planting a chaste kiss on Jack’s lips.

Apple cider had never smelled so good.

Sam turned wordlessly toward the front door and Jack O’Neill followed her into the house, grinning from ear to ear.

CHAPTER TEN

Daniel and Teal’c were indeed inside the house, lounging around a roaring fire.  Daniel was sitting on the floor, with his feet propped up on the hearth.  His toes wiggled in his socked feet as he tried to warm them from a recent trip outside for firewood. As Jack and Sam entered, followed by Frank and Kyle, he jumped to his feet and gently hugged Jack.

“Welcome home, Jack.”

Teal’c also stood from his place in an armchair and nodded to his friend.  “It is good to see you home at last, O’Neill.”

Jack thanked them both, then sat in the armchair Teal’c had recently vacated.  He still got tired easily, and while he was grateful for his friends, he needed a bit of a rest.

The others seemed to sense this, but wisely made no comment.  Daniel rearranged himself on the floor and groused about the weather, while Teal’c joined Sam and Frank on the sofa that ran along the wall opposite Jack’s chair.  Kyle, like most boys his age, merely flopped down on the floor unceremoniously.  Conversation sprang up, and the friends talked about everything and nothing for several minutes until Sam thought to bring drinks and snacks in from the kitchen.

When Sam returned to the living room, Frank and Kyle were pulling their coats back on.  She looked at them questioningly for a moment.

“Where you guys off to so fast?  Why don’t you stick around for a bit?”

Frank shook his head.  “Love to, Sam, but we have to get back to town.  Kyle’s got a lot of homework, and it’s a school night.  Besides,” Frank said with a pointed look at Kyle, “Someone has to walk the puppy before it gets too dark.”

Sam nodded in understanding, and the two men slid out the door as a blast of icy air blew through the house.  As soon as Kyle was gone, Jack looked at his glass of fruit juice in disgust.

“Any way a guy can get a beer around here?”

Disapproving glances met his request from Daniel and Teal’c, but Sam seemed to consider the idea for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“Why not?”

Daniel seemed confused.  “Sam…”

“Oh, lighten up, Daniel, one beer won’t hurt anything.”

Daniel shrugged and stood.  “In that case, I’ll help you.  I could go for a glass of wine myself.”

When Daniel and Sam returned to Jack and Teal’c, they found the two men leaning entirely too close together and talking in hushed tones.

“What are you two up to?” asked Sam.

“Oh, nothing… right, T?”  mumbled Jack.

Teal’c nodded.  “Indeed.”

Sam thought she’d caught a flash of paper as she entered the room, but when she looked again, neither man had anything in their hands and while they looked a little too innocent to actually be innocent, she let it go.

One beer and a glass of wine ended up being a lot more than that by the time the pale wintry sunlight slipped below the horizon, and Jack O’Neill and his friends had a wonderful evening.

They talked about the past.

They talked about the future.

They talked about sports, movies, and books.

They talked about Rya’c and Walter and General Hammond and Cassie and how much they still missed Janet.

They reminisced and chatted as only the best of old friends can do.

The fire warmed their bodies, and their company warmed their souls.

Jack was indeed glad to be home.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Everyone rose early the next day, despite the alcohol they had consumed the previous night.

Daniel and Teal’c were heading back to the Springs, and Frank had agreed to pick them up before he went to work.  Daniel had left his car at Frank’s when he helped bring Jack’s truck up to the cabin from storage.

As Daniel threw his few belongings into his overnight bag, Teal’c stood on the back deck and watched the morning sun begin to play peek-a-boo with the trees along the lake.

His breath made frosty flames as he exhaled, but he wasn’t cold.  The morning was so beautiful that he hardly noticed the temperature or anything else as he appreciated the sunrise.

Jack slid behind him and sighed, making Teal’c’s head turn.

“Good morning, O’Neill.”

“Morning, T.  It’s a grand one, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.  The scenery here is most pleasing.  I believe I prefer this place in winter.”

“The snow does add something, doesn’t it?”

Teal’c was silent a moment, then raised one eyebrow at his friend.  “There are no mosquitoes.”

Jack laughed a bit, then sobered and looked around to be sure no one else could hear his words.  “That’s true.  I forgot about your little problem with the bugs.  Seriously, though, T, thanks again for the contraband.  I couldn’t have made it through without it.”

“It was my pleasure, O’Neill.”

“Yeah.  Anyway.  Thanks.  Just don’t tell Sam or especially Daniel, ok?”

Teal’c inclined his head with a grin.  “Wild horses, O’Neill.”

Jack laughed again.  “Yeah.  So, did you see the one about Central Lakes maybe getting a team?”

“I did.  That would be most interesting.  I have often wondered why they do not have one now.”

“It’s a small school, T.  Money.”

“Indeed.”

Their conversation was cut short by the door behind them opening.  Daniel’s head popped out and he looked at the other two men like they were insane.

“What are you guys doing out here?  It’s freezing!”

Jack snorted.  “We didn’t all grow up in Egypt, Daniel.  It’s not that cold.  We have coats on, you know.  We won’t freeze to death or anything.”

At Jack’s words, Daniel paled, and Jack replayed what he had said.  He closed his eyes in painful realization.

“Oh, Daniel… sorry…”

Daniel waved him off.  “It’s ok.  I know you were joking.”

Jack and Teal’c moved inside and Teal’c went to retrieve his own overnight bag from the spare bedroom.  As he did, Jack caught Daniel’s sleeve and turned him to face him.

“Daniel.”

“Jack?”  Daniel’s voice was normal, but he didn’t meet Jack’s eyes.

“Daniel, I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize what I said.  It wasn’t funny.  Sorry.”

Daniel nodded.  “Jack, it’s ok.  Really.”

Jack nodded back, not entirely satisfied but letting it drop.  “So, Sam’s not going back with you guys?  How’d she managed that?”

Daniel shrugged.  “She’s got a lot of leave saved up, Jack.  You know how often she uses it.  When you combine that with the fact that her arm limits her duties and that she can do a ton of work via telecommuting, she decided she needed to be here for a bit.”

Jack snorted.  “Yeah.  Speaking of her arm.  Daniel, what really happened?  She still won’t tell me much.”

Daniel finally made eye contact with Jack and held it for a long minute, then sighed.

“There’s really not much to tell.  After we found you, Sam and I drug you back to the wreck.  We were about halfway there when she fell.  I heard her arm break, and I saw blood, so I knew it was bad, but there was nothing to do about it.  I tried to get Sam to let me carry you alone the rest of the way, but she wouldn’t have it.  We got you back and then down to the hospital, and she got treated there, too.  That’s about it.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully.  “Let me guess.  She didn’t even let on she was too badly hurt, eh?”

A snort issued from Daniel.  “Well, you know Sam.”

Jack snorted back.  “That I do.  Daniel, I’m sorry I put you two through this.  I really am.”

“I’m just glad we came up when we did, Jack.”

“Yeah, me too.  Thanks, Daniel.”

Daniel squeezed Jack’s shoulder supportively.  “No problem, Jack, but you really should thank Sam.  She just had a feeling…”

A light cough issued from Teal’c near the door as Jack and Daniel’s conversation wound down.

“Frank Rogers is here to take us back to town.”

Jack and Daniel both nodded.  Daniel gave Jack another gentle hug.

“Take care of yourself, Jack.  And look out for Sam, too, ok?”

Jack hugged the younger man back and smiled.  “Sure thing, Daniel.  Wait.  Where is Sam, anyway?”

Daniel grinned.  “She’s still sleeping.  After you fell asleep last night, well, the rest of us didn’t turn in for a while and we said our goodbyes then.  She told us not to wake her.”

Jack nodded, then called to Teal’c across the room.  “Oh.  Ok.  T, I’ll see ya later.  Make sure Daniel stays out of trouble, will ya?”

Teal’c inclined his head in that alien way he had never lost and smirked.  “Indeed.”

A knock on the door finished their farewells.  When Teal’c opened the door, young Kyle Rogers greeted the group with a small wave.  “Morning.”

Daniel waved back.  “Morning, Kyle.  We’re all set.  Be right out.”

Teal’c and Daniel left then, carrying their overnight bags.  When they were halfway to Frank’s truck, however, Daniel suddenly turned to face Jack, who was standing in the open front doorway of his cabin.

“Jack?  What about the puppy?  Are you going to take him now?”

Jack smiled a smile that always made Daniel wonder what he was up to and glanced ever so briefly at Kyle, who had also turned around.  “It’s been taken care of, Daniel.”

Daniel scratched his head once, then decided it wasn’t worth trying to find out more and turned back around to get in the truck.

As Frank Rogers gunned his engine and took off, carrying Jack’s friends with him, Jack turned and reentered the house.  The door shut behind him with a sharp click.

Despite his upbringing, a slight chill tingled down Jack’s spine as he stepped back into the living room.  The fire was merely embers in the hearth, and it was a tad nippy in the cabin.

Jack considered refueling the fire, but after a moment he decided that Sam had the right idea.

A warm bed sounded terribly inviting, but he had to do one thing first.  He stepped quickly over to his armchair and slipped a magazine out from under the cushion, glancing over his shoulder as he did so to be sure Sam hadn’t woken.

He smiled as he slid the magazine into his magazine rack with all the other, older ones there to camouflage it.  Sam wouldn’t really care, but he didn’t want to explain how the most recent edition of ‘Minnesota Hockey News’ had made it into the cabin.  How Jack had stayed so well informed about his game while in the hospital would be a secret between Teal’c and Jack for all time.

Five minutes later, Jack O’Neill climbed into bed next to a sleeping, very warm Samantha Carter and smiled.  Sam rolled over as he disturbed the bed but didn’t wake.

Five minutes after that, Jack was warm, comfortable, and deeply asleep.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next time Jack O’Neill woke it was to a screaming pain.

His still-healing ribs exploded with fire as neurons flashed to life and blasted him from sleep.

“OW!”

His exclamation was way too mild to describe his pain, but it was all he could get out through his clenched teeth.

The source of his discomfort awoke too, and as Sam Carter realized her good arm was laying across Jack’s chest, likely because she had flung it there in her sleep, she mumbled an apology.

“Sorry.”

Jack mumbled back.  “It’s ok.  At least it wasn’t the other one.”

Sam laughed a small laugh and nodded.  “No doubt.  What’re you doing here?”  Her voice was still slurred by sleep, and Jack grinned at her confusion.

“Um…it’s my bed.”

“Yeah, but…what time is it?  You were sleeping in the living room.  We didn’t wake you.  How’d you get here?”

“I walked, Carter.  That is the usual way.”  Jack was still smiling, but a tiny bit of his usual annoyance at her million morning questions was starting to grow.

Sam nodded, still slightly off kilter, but seeming to be satisfied.  “Daniel and Teal’c already leave?”

“Yeah.”

“I never heard them.  I must have been really tired.”

“Yes, well… running too hard while your body is trying to repair a broken arm can do that.”

“Like you’re one to talk.”

Jack acquiesced.  “True.  Anyway, how ‘bout some breakfast?  I’m starving.”

“Sounds good.  I’m just going to grab a shower first, ok?”

Jack waved a little wave of dismissal and rolled over as Sam left.  He had a few minutes before he had to get up if Sam was going to clean up.  The blankets were far too warm to be left easily.  He heard Sam start the water, then climb into the shower.  His body tried to tell him to go back to sleep while his mind enticed him with images of Sam in the next room, but his stomach finally won the battle for control of Jack O’Neill and he flipped back the covers with a sigh.

A small doubt began to gestate in the back of Jack’s mind as he stood and pulled a warm sweatshirt over his head.  He tried his best to ignore it, but something in the way Sam had reacted to seeing him next to her this morning just wasn’t right.  She had been confused and surprised, and that wasn’t unexpected at first, but there had been a tiny hint of something more sinister in her voice.  Jack wasn’t sure if it was anger or something else, but it worried him.  He and Sam were not a snuggle all day in bed type of couple (at least not most of the time), but Sam’s cold, business-like actions this morning were a bit extreme even for her.

As Jack’s head popped out of the sweatshirt and he slid his feet into his winter slippers, he shrugged.  He wasn’t one to dwell.  Sam was probably just tired, he told himself, and he went in search of breakfast.

XXX

Jack rebuilt the fire first.

Then he pulled out the skillet and opened the fridge.

As he did, he smiled.  He had known what he would find when he opened the steel door, and he wasn’t disappointed.  Fresh eggs, sandwich meats, cheese, fruit, milk, juice, and everything else one would usually expect to find in a well-stocked refrigerator was there.

‘Ah, T, I knew I could count on you, buddy,’ thought Jack.  Teal’c was far and away the most gifted cook from Jack’s old team, and he never failed to be sure that Jack had enough to eat during his many convalescent periods.

Twenty minutes later, a damp-haired Sam made her way into the kitchen as the smell of omelettes filled the air.  She wandered over to Jack near the stove and planted one small kiss on his cheek.

“Smells delicious.”

Jack grinned, and any doubts were laid to rest.

“Thanks.  Sit down.  It’s almost ready.”

The next fifteen minutes were spent in near silence as Jack and Sam ate with gusto.  Both of them were hungry, and neither had imbibed enough alcohol the previous night to dampen their appetites.

When breakfast was done, Sam cleared the dishes.  As she was rinsing the plates to put them in the small dishwasher Jack had installed in the cabin last year, Jack spoke from the table.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

Sam shrugged.  “Well, I thought I’d set up my computer and get caught up on my e-mail and a few other things so that I can research a new theory of wave-particle dynamics that MacKay is tossing around.”

“Rodney MacKay?”

Sam laughed out loud.  “Yeah, I know, right?  Don’t you dare let on that I think he might be onto something.”

“Like I could.  Besides, I thought you two got along now.”

“That’s being kind, Jack, and you know it.  The little jerk drives me crazy!”

“Well, be that as it may, all that sounds absolutely fascinating.”  His words dripped with sarcasm.

Sam sighed.  “Alright, fine, Jack.  What would you like to do today?”

Jack could tell Sam was a bit exasperated with him.  She hated it when he didn’t let her geek out in technoland and one thing he had learned in the five years since he and Sam had become involved was that his life was a lot easier if he just made himself scarce when she was in the mood for some serious wave-particle dynamics.  He held his hands up in defeat.

“You do your work.  Far be it for me to insist you actually take a break on your vacation.  Besides, I’ve got big plans.  It’s Saturday, Sam.  There’s college football on all day today, and a hockey game tonight.  I’ll stay out of your hair.  You go postulate.”

“Thank you.  One correction, though.  I’m not actually on vacation, Jack.  I do have work to do.  I’m on medical leave but I’m still expected to do my part on the projects I’m currently on.  I can do that long distance.  I’m only here to make sure you don’t nearly kill yourself again.”

Sam’s voice stayed even, and her words seemed to be nearly innocent, but Jack knew Sam better than most, and there was an edge to her last sentence that brought his doubts raging back to the front of his consciousness.  It also made him angry.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Sam.”

Sam wheeled around from the sink to face Jack.  “Got a funny way of showing it.”

Jack’s eyes grew wide and his face flushed darkly.

“I’m not having this conversation again, Sam.  I told you in the hospital.  I know I screwed up.  I’m glad you and Daniel were there to bail my butt out… again… but let it go, for cryin’ out loud!”

“It’s not that easy, Jack.”

Jack sighed.  “I know, but… look, I’m fine, ok?”

Sam interrupted, angrier than before.  “No, you don’t know!  And you’re not fine!  I saw you wince when you opened the fridge earlier, Jack!  You’re not done healing from, what was it?  Four broken ribs?  And you’re not getting any younger!  You live up here, cut off from everyone, and expect me not to worry?  God knows what could happen to you!  This accident just proves the point, Jack!  If Daniel and I hadn’t just randomly visited, or if Frank hadn’t given us a ride, or…SHIT!  Jack, you would’ve died out there!  And I wouldn’t have even known for God knows how long!”

Tears had formed in Sam’s eyes as she released her fury on Jack, but they did not spill.  Jack knew Sam had a point, but he was angry, too, and his words tumbled out without thought.

“I don’t need you to worry for me, Sam!  I’m fine!  I can take care of myself!”

Sam snorted and whispered back at Jack.  “Apparently not, but it’s obvious you want to.”

Jack would have preferred angry yelling to the intense whisper.

“What do you mean by that?”  Jack quietly questioned.

“You know what I mean by that, Jack.”

Jack sighed.  “Not this again.  Why does it always come back to this lately?”

“You know how I feel about you being up here, Jack.”

“And you know how I feel about being here.  Sam, we agreed when we started this that this was how it was going to be.”

“I know.  But maybe it’s not good enough for me anymore, Jack.  I don’t want to just see you on weekends and holidays.  In the beginning, when we were testing things out, it was fine.  You needed to get away from the mountain, anyway.  But now… now you could come back.  There’s no one there who would cause trouble, and…”  Sam paused, obviously having difficulty with her next words.  She looked around the room for a minute before her eyes settled back on Jack’s.

“Look, I just want you around, ok?  On a full time basis.  I miss you, Jack, and I can’t live with the worry anymore… when I think what we barely missed this time…”

The imploring look in Sam’s eyes nearly undid Jack O’Neill.  Nearly, but not quite.  His own anger wasn’t quite abated, and this was an argument he and Sam had had many times before.  He was tired of it, and some part of him refused to give in.

“You can’t live with the worry?  You can’t live with me being up here?  You’re afraid of a little weather or a little isolation?  What about you, Sam?  You think I don’t worry for you?  You still go offworld, Sam!  Sure, it’s been quiet lately, but you know as well as I do that there is always a risk, and a damn big one, with what you do!  There’s always a new enemy, always natural disasters and accidents and gate malfunctions!  And you say you worry?  You want me to give up my life so that you can have peace of mind at night?  I don’t think so!  That’s not fair of you to even ask!  I would never ask you to give up the SGC so I could sleep better, and I’m not moving back to Colorado just because you want me to.  Do you know how hard it would be for me to have the mountain sitting there mocking me everyday?  To have a constant reminder of what you’re doing out there in front of me all the time?  I can forget about it here, Sam, and I have a life here.  I’m not going to give it up without a fight.”

It was silent for a long moment after Jack’s tirade, and neither Jack nor Sam moved a muscle.

Jack began to wonder if he had said too much when Sam suddenly made it abundantly clear to him that he had.  She looked him right in the eye, and her tears were long gone.  In their place was a coldness Jack had seen only a few times, and a frigid fear paralyzed him.

When Sam spoke her voice was as cold as her eyes.

“Well, I guess you just have to decide what your life here is worth, Jack.  I’m tired of living this long distance thing, and I’m tired of this argument.  I’m going home.  You know where to find me if you decide what you want.”

Sam spun on her heel then and left the kitchen.  Jack stood rooted to the spot for another long moment before panic spurred him to action.  Sam had indeed been talking a lot lately about how she wanted him to move back to Colorado, but Jack hadn’t known it was so serious.  He also refused to believe the finality of the words he had just heard.  Was Sam leaving him?  Was this a ‘for real’ kind of thing?

Jack caught up to Sam in the bedroom.  She was stuffing her nightclothes into her bag.  Jack reached out and laid a hand on her arm, but Sam hastily jerked it away.  Jack’s panic ratcheted up a notch.

“Sam.”

There was no answer.

“Sam, please.  Look at me.”

“Go away, Jack.”

“No.”

“Jack, if you don’t want me to break more of your ribs, go away.”

The vitriol in Sam’s threat made Jack back off a step.  Sam was losing control, and Jack knew it.

He tried again a moment later, as Sam made her way into the bathroom to collect her things there.

“Sam.”

No answer again.

“Sam, please.  What’s going on?”

Sam didn’t turn around or look at Jack as she answered.  “I just need some time, Jack.  I need to rethink this.”

Fear grabbed Jack O’Neill harder and shook him a few times as Sam spoke.  Her words were every cliché about breaking up nicely that Jack had ever heard.  Samantha Carter was leaving him.  And from the sound of her voice, she regretted being with him to begin with.

“Sam, please,” whispered Jack.  “Can we talk about this?”

Sam’s voice was determined.  “No, Jack.  We’ve talked about it a hundred times.  I’m tired of talking about it.  I need to think about things for a bit.  I suggest you do the same.”

Sam walked out of the bathroom then and went straight to the front door.

She began to pull her winter boots on as Jack O’Neill watched in a trance.

When she was done, she grabbed her coat off a hook on the wall and pulled it over her shoulders.  She then picked up her bags and reached for the doorknob.  As she did, she sighed and hesitated.  She seemed to be fighting an internal battle of some sort.

After a moment, in which Jack hung back, still not sure what to do, Sam turned to face him.

Sadness and resignation seemed to radiate off of her like waves, and she slowly blinked once at Jack before giving him the tiniest little wave with her good arm.

It was the most heartbreaking gesture Jack had ever seen, and his soul shattered into a thousand pieces at the sight.  He barely heard Sam’s last words as she stepped out the door into the cold.

“Bye, Jack.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jack stood rooted to his floor for a long time.

He didn’t move.  He barely breathed.

Sam’s words had been so final.

Jack still wasn’t sure what had just happened, but as he heard the engine of the SUV start, he rushed to the nearest window and looked out just in time to see taillights leaving his driveway.

Jack sighed, and said the only thing he could think of.

“Shit.”

His ribs answered him with a dull ache.

XXX

Sam drove away from Jack’s in a daze.

She couldn’t believe what she had just done.

She wasn’t even sure what she’d just done.

She only knew that she meant it, whatever it was.

She was tired of living alone.  She was tired of only sharing snippets of Jack’s life.

As much as it hurt, Sam was determined.  She needed all or nothing from Jack now.  If he was unwilling to commit to their relationship, then she needed to move on with her life.

In her mind, it was easier for Jack to come to her than the other way around.  She wasn’t ready to give up the SGC, and Jack could easily find a new hockey team to coach in Colorado.  He could still come to visit Kyle and his other friends, too.  It just worked better.

She just prayed that Jack would see it that way.

As she drove, though, she worried that he might not… and she said the only thing she could.

“Shit.”

Her arm ached in response.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sam reached her house in record time.  She’d driven the long trek to Jack’s more times than she could count, and she did it mostly on autopilot.

When she got home, she was tired.

She never researched Rodney’s new theory.

She never caught up on her e-mail.

She never updated Daniel or anyone else that she’d come home.

She was exhausted.  Physically and mentally and emotionally, she was wrung out.

She didn’t even bother to unpack when she got home.

She just crawled into bed and fell promptly asleep.  She was so tired that she didn’t notice her arm was hurting a bit more than usual.

She didn’t change the dressing on her arm that night, so she didn’t notice the usual slight clear discharge from her external fixator had been replaced by a thicker, more yellow fluid that looked suspiciously like pus.

She just slept, oblivious to the changes in her body.

XXX

Fifteen hours is a long time to think.

And Jack O’Neill had been doing just that for the entire time Sam had been gone.

He hadn’t eaten, slept, or resorted to his usual alcoholic liberation from life.

He had just thought.

Sam’s words had stung, but many of them were true.

He wasn’t young anymore, as much as it pained him to admit it.

He did indeed live in an area not exactly conducive to easy transportation.  The weather could get brutal in a hurry.  He did have a tendency toward injury, and his life was such it might take the people in his life days to miss him.

He knew these things, and he knew that eventually he would have to move into town or somewhere else entirely for his own safety and security.

Knowing this didn’t make it any easier to accept, however, until he added another thought to his mental jigsaw puzzle.

He loved Sam Carter.

He’d loved her a long time, and while he was pretty content with their relationship as it was, she wasn’t.  She was so unhappy that she had given him an ultimatum, in essence.

He had to decide if his life her in Minnesota was more important to him than Sam.

It should’ve been an easy choice, but it wasn’t.  Jack was angry that every time he and Sam argued about this, she always suggested that he move back to Colorado.  Never once did she offer to come to Minnesota.

She said he could coach hockey there.

That was true, but he really liked where he was, and several of the kids on his teams were like family to him.  Kyle Rogers, in particular, was like a son.

Jack had never thought that he would have that type of relationship in his life again, and it was very, very difficult to think of giving it up, even for Sam.

She said he could find a new job in Colorado.

That was true, too, but Jack loved having his own business.  He had always worked for someone else, and it was liberating to be in charge of himself for once.

And Sam could always do more work via telecommuting, thought Jack.

Why did it have to be him who gave everything up?

As soon as he thought this, though, Jack would sigh in frustration.  He was angry that Sam was asking him to give up his life, so how could he ask her to give up hers?

And because Jack could come to no conclusion, because he couldn’t think of what to say, he didn’t call Sam. The circular logic and frustration finally got the best of him, and after a long, long talk with himself, in which he resolved nothing, Jack fell into a light sleep.

XXX

Sam Carter slept, too, but her body was doing something much more involved.

In an attempt to ward off invaders that were rapidly taking her over, it raised its temperature.

One hundred and three degrees Fahrenheit was passed with no effort at all.

But still Sam slept.

XXX

One thousand forty six miles away, Jack O’Neill woke with a start.

He was terrified.

He didn’t know why, but an icy hand had grabbed hold of his guts and wouldn’t let go.

He tried to tell himself that he must have been having a bad dream, and it mostly worked.  The fear loosened its hold on him.

But it didn’t let go.

Jack came fully awake, and as his mind cleared, he whispered one word to the empty cabin.

“Sam?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A private jet touched down in Colorado Springs airport, carrying no passengers or cargo.

Only the pilot was aboard, and he was worried.

Lines of concern etched Jack O’Neill’s face as he descended the ladder from the jet he normally kept at a small hanger at the airport near his home.

As he completed the paperwork and procedures to stow the plane, he cursed the delay that such things always caused.

He hadn’t been able to reach Sam since he’d woken.

He wasn’t sure if that meant something was wrong or if it meant that she was ignoring him.

Either way, he was worried.

He’d thought about calling Daniel to have him check on Sam, but he didn’t feel up to explaining why Sam wasn’t at his place anymore.  Daniel had a way of wanting to talk through things that Jack just hadn’t wanted to deal with.

Thankfully, he kept a flight plan to Colorado Springs on file with Brainerd Lakes at all times, so he had headed to Colorado after only a short delay.

And so, here he was, in Colorado Springs, about to head to Sam’s house.

Doubts assailed him from all sides and he told himself he was being silly, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to be here; that he needed to see Sam.

XXX

Jack rented a compact car with no difficulty.  The agents here knew him, and smiled as he rushed through the paperwork.

Within an hour of landing, Jack stood on Sam’s front porch.

Her car was in the drive.

Jack knew she had to be home.

He hesitated, still unsure why he was here and what, if anything, he wanted to say.

But he hadn’t come all this way for nothing.  ‘Sink or swim,’ thought Jack, and he knocked on Sam’s door with gusto.

There was no answer.

Jack knocked again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

He tried a third time to be polite, but when there was still no response of any kind, Jack flipped his key around on his key ring and opened the door easily.

“Sam?”  Jack called into the house from the doorway, wanting to let Carter know he was there.

“Sam, where are you?”

Jack suddenly realized that Sam would be sleeping.  It was pretty early in the morning.  She had left his house around 0900 yesterday, so she would’ve gotten home at about 2300 if she’d made good time. Jack had startled awake around 0200, and so it was now about 0900 again.

Sam was usually up by then, but after the last few days, a little extra sleep was to be expected.

Jack tiptoed to Sam’s bedroom and paused in the doorway.

Relief flooded him and he felt his strange fear let go of him entirely.

Sam was sleeping, alright.

She was curled up in a fetal position facing the opposite wall, and buried heavily in her blankets.

Jack smiled, glad his former 2IC was ok.

He took a moment to appreciate the tousled short blonde hair sticking up from the blankets, then quietly made his way over to the side of the bed.

As soon as Jack was able to see Sam fully, his smile faded almost as quickly as it came and the niggling little worry that had plagued him since he woke suddenly transformed into a fully grown fear monster of epic proportions.

Sam was sweating.

Profusely.

Her face was red, and while she looked to be hot in all ways, her body shivered as if cold.

Jack whipped the blankets off Sam in one fluid movement.

His sore ribs screamed in protest, but he hardly noticed.

He sat on the side of the bed and laid a hand on Sam’s forehead.  The contact lasted only a millisecond before Jack jerked his hand back.  Sam was burning up.

He was no doctor, but he knew Sam was sick.

And not just a little bit.

Jack’s heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest as he yelled to Sam.

“Sam!  Wake up!  Sam!  Come on!  You have to get up!  We’ve got to get you to a doctor!”

Sam did not move at first, and Jack began to panic.

He didn’t want to leave her, but he knew he had to cool her down some and get her help, so Jack quickly ran to the bathroom and doused several washcloths with cold water.

He applied his makeshift cool packs to Sam’s forehead, chest, and stomach while he dug his phone out of his jeans pocket.  He punched the ‘three’ button as hard as he could and waited desperately for the phone to connect.

An annoyed voice answered after a moment.

“Hello?”

Jack didn’t waste time with a greeting.  “Daniel.  I need you to do something.”

“Jack?  What’s going on?”  Daniel knew that something serious was going on by his friend’s voice.

“I need you to tell the infirmary that Sam’s coming in.  She’s sick.  I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Daniel was completely befuddled.  “What?  Why don’t you take her to a doctor up there?  Are you in Colorado?  When did that happen?”

Jack interrupted.  “Daniel, shut up and listen to me.  We’re in town.  It’ll be faster to get her there than a regular hospital.  Just tell them.  Now.  I’ll get her there.  You just get me in.”

Daniel nodded, then realized Jack couldn’t see him, so he answered without any more questions.

“Done.”

Jack hung up.

Sam had begun to mumble while he was talking to Daniel, and he had more important things to do now.

“Sam?  Come on.  Wake up.  Stay with me, here.  I’m gonna sit you up.  Come on.”

Jack removed Sam’s clothes and his cold packs within seconds and then redressed her in loose fitting sweats.  Colorado had nothing on Minnesota for coldness, but despite Sam’s fever, Jack knew that he couldn’t let her freeze on her trip to the SGC.

He pushed slippers onto Sam’s feet and then half drug, half carried her to the door.  His chest was on fire, but he didn’t stop to think about it or allow himself to feel the pain.

He had to get Sam help.

Nothing else mattered.

Jack pulled Sam’s coat over her shoulders and then somehow managed to get the door open.

As a blast of winter air hit Sam full in the face, she woke with a start.

Her eyes were bleary, and she was obviously not sure what was going on, but her voice was a calming balm to Jack.

“Jack?  That you?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s hot.”

“I know, baby.  I know.”

Jack and Sam had never been much for pet names and Jack’s tenderness surprised him.  Suddenly he knew that somehow he needed to fix the problem that had so occupied his thoughts yesterday, but now was not the time to dwell on it.

Sam didn’t respond to his words except to fall immediately back asleep, and Jack knew that she was very sick indeed.  The fact that she hadn’t even asked how he’d gotten there had given away that fact.  Jack longed for her to wake and grill him with a million questions, but he knew that was not to be.

Jack continued to speak to Sam to comfort himself and much as her as his adrenaline carried him outside.  Somehow, he managed to get Sam to the car and buckled in.

He didn’t stop speaking, though, as he started the car and sped away toward Cheyenne Mountain.

“Come on, Sam.  Stay with me.  Fight whatever this is.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Daniel Jackson was in trouble.

He’d not only answered his cel phone in the middle of a briefing, he’d then abruptly excused himself and left with no real explanation.

The people who pretended to be in charge of him were none too pleased.

But Daniel didn’t care.

After rushing to the infirmary and notifying Dr. Lam that Samantha Carter was on her way in and was in some sort of distress, Daniel had immediately headed topside, without even trying to answer the questions left in the wake of his announcement.

To her credit, Dr. Lam had been around the SGC long enough to not really bother with questions anyway.  She immediately prepared for the arrival of an unknown and took Daniel’s strange behavior in stride.

Daniel stood in the cold Colorado winter wind now and shivered.  He hadn’t thought to grab his coat.

But he didn’t feel the cold.

He only kept his eyes on the road leading to Cheyenne Mountain.

He didn’t know Jack was driving a rental car, so he didn’t recognize his arrival right away.

As the red sedan pulled into the base entrance, several SF’s moved to intercept the vehicle.

Daniel ran forward from his place near the entrance and yelled out to them.

“Wait!  Stop!  That’s Jack O’Neill and Samantha Carter!  Let them in!”

The SF’s glanced to Daniel, but did not allow the car to pass.

They didn’t know Jack O’Neill.  They had heard his name before, but since Jack’s departure from the SGC was done under strange circumstances that most didn’t know anything about, the fact that General Jack O’Neill might be in this car made little difference to them, even if the man was currently pitching a fit to be let in at the top of his voice.

They didn’t budge until one of them leaned his head against the passenger window and spotted Sam.

Samantha Carter was known to every young airman on base, for a lot of reasons.

The guard yelled to his companion.

“John!  I think we better do it!  Colonel Carter’s in here, and she looks pretty bad off!”

The other SF visibly paled.  He was in charge here, and he didn’t want to let an imposter or a threat on base, but he also didn’t want to deny entrance to the second-in-command of the SGC, either, especially if she needed medical attention.

The SF hesitated.

Jack O’Neill looked the young man directly in the eye for a half second.

John opened the gate without further ado.

As soon as Jack and Sam were through the gate, Daniel ripped the passenger door of the sedan open and pulled Sam into his arms.  He looked across the seat to Jack, and their eyes met.

Daniel could feel the heat of Sam’s body burning into his own and knew Jack was right. Sam needed to get to the infirmary right away.

Jack nodded to Daniel once, and Daniel ran.

He didn’t stop until Sam was in the capable hands of Dr. Lam.

XXX

An hour later, as he stood near the foot of Sam’s bed while Dr. Lam and several nurses worked, Daniel Jackson heard an argument outside the door of the infirmary.  He couldn’t see who was arguing, but he didn’t need to see to know.

Jack O’Neill’s voice rang through the corridor outside the infirmary like a bell.

“Dammit!  You’re going to let me in there!”

Another calmer, but exasperated, voice tried to calm him.

“Sir, you know you’re not even supposed to be here.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass.  I’m going in there!”

“Just calm down.  I’m sure they’ll let us know what’s going on in a few minutes.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Daniel sighed.  So, Jack had made it down here at last.  Since his excommunication from the SGC, his credentials didn’t carry the weight they once did, but Daniel had known he’d get in eventually.  The other voice in the hall was probably the reason why.

Walter Harriman’s distinct voice tried again, but failed again, to placate Jack.

“Sir… please…”

“Walter, don’t give me that.  I’m getting in there.”

Daniel sighed again and stepped out into the hall.  Walter visibly relaxed.

“Jack.”

“Daniel.”

“Jack.”

“What’s going on, Daniel?”

“Could ask you the same thing, Jack.”

“Daniel, knock it off.  What’s up with Carter?”

Daniel smirked, then sighed.  Like Sam, Jack immediately slipped into military mode when around others, so ‘Sam’ became ‘Carter’ and feelings became non-existent.

“They think she got an infection in her arm around the stabilization device and it managed to get into her bloodstream and spread throughout her body.”

“But she’ll be alright?”  There was an edge of fear to Jack’s voice that Daniel didn’t miss.

“They think so, Jack, but she is really sick.  They have her on IV antibiotics now and lots of anti-inflammatories to bring her fever down, but it will be a few days before they can say if she’s going to lick this.”

Jack nodded.  “Ok.”

Jack’s voice was calm, but Daniel noticed an old familiar look in Jack’s eyes, and it scared him.  The haunted, dead look from Daniel’s very early acquaintance with Jack O’Neill was rearing its ugly head.  Daniel hadn’t seen that look in a long time, and he tried to send it back to the forgotten recesses of Jack’s soul where it came from.

“But you got her here fast, Jack.  They say that makes a big difference.  If anyone can fight this, it’s Sam, Jack.  You know that.”

Jack nodded again, but the look didn’t leave.  Jack was scared, and Daniel knew it.  Daniel wondered if something more than what he knew was going on, and he asked Jack about it.

“So, Jack… how’d you get here, anyway?  I left the two of you in Minnesota yesterday.  What’s up?”

Jack shuffled his feet and looked decidedly uncomfortable, and Daniel’s suspicions were confirmed.  Daniel knew Jack well enough to know when he didn’t want to say something.

“Nothing.  We’re here now, and that’s all that matters.”

Daniel decided to let it go for now, as he didn’t see what good it would do to push the point and as two guards suddenly appeared around the corner.  One of the young men addressed Jack.

“General O’Neill?”

Jack regarded the guard with a angry look.  “What?”

“We need you to come with us, sir.”  The young man who spoke looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“Why?”

“Just following orders, sir.”

Jack snorted then, and started to speak, but never words never left his mouth. His snort turned into a violent cough that he tried to stifle.  He failed miserably.

Daniel was at Jack’s side in a heartbeat and he stared down the guards.

“Jack’s not going anywhere.”

The SFs hesitated and looked at one another as Daniel turned to Jack.

“Jack?  You ok?”

Jack nodded through clenched teeth, but his hand involuntarily strayed to his ribs and stayed there in a protective manner.

“You sure?  You don’t look so good.”

As Jack nodded again, the doors to the infirmary opened and Dr. Carolyn Lam stepped out.  She looked anything but pleased.

“What the hell is going on out here?”

Daniel tried to explain.  “Jack wants to get in to see Sam, but these guys say he needs to go with them.”  Daniel half held Jack up through another coughing fit as he spoke.

Lam looked at Jack for a half second, then looked at the guards for less than that before snapping out orders to everyone.

“Well, I don’t know what’s going on out here, but I do know that this man isn’t going anywhere except inside the infirmary.  He looks like he’s about to fall over.”

Daniel smiled gratefully at Lam and prepared to help Jack to a bed inside the door.

The older of the two SFs protested weakly.  “But…”

He got no further.

Lam turned on him like a mother bear with cubs.  “Look. This is MY infirmary.  When it comes to medical care, I make the decisions and the rules around here.  This man needs help, and he’s going to get it, no matter who wants him or for what, understood?”

The guard nodded meekly and scuttled off, whimpering a ‘yes, ma’am’ under his breath.
As soon as the guards were gone and the infirmary doors closed behind them, Lam turned to Daniel and Jack.  She nodded to each man, then gestured to a bed nearby.

“General, good to see you again.  Sit down.”

Jack shook his head, stubborn to the end.  “How’s Carter?”

“Colonel Carter is holding her own, sir.  Now, sit down.”

Jack complied this time, seeing as he knew it was the best way to get Lam off his back.

Jack’s coughing fit was quieting down now, but his chest felt like he’d swallowed an elephant.  His actions getting Sam to the mountain were taking their toll on him.  His breathing was rapid and it seemed to him like he couldn’t get enough oxygen, no matter how hard he tried.

Lam spoke to him quietly but with conviction.

“Sir, I need you to calm down.  Breathe as deeply as you can.  I know what you’ve been through lately, and I know that it probably hurts, but you have to breathe, ok?  Just calm down.”

Jack nodded and took a deep breath.

His chest screamed in agony and he bit back a curse as tears filled his eyes.

Lam nodded to herself.  “Alright.  That’s it.  Lay down.  I’m going to get you something for that and you need a chest x-ray.”

Jack didn’t move for a moment.  His eyes sought Daniel’s and locked with them for a moment.

Daniel nodded.  Jack didn’t need to speak.  Daniel understood.  “It’s ok, Jack.  I’ll look after her.”

Jack nodded back weakly and carefully laid himself on the gurney that had been his temporary chair.  He was exhausted and he hurt.  A lot.

As Dr. Lam called a nurse over to her and issued orders, Jack finally began to catch his breath.

A few minutes later, after a prick in the arm, his breathing eased.

It barely hurt anymore.

Jack grinned.

He always grinned when he was on morphine.

XXX

Jack didn’t fall asleep from the drugs this time, but he did drift along in a pretty thick fog while the medical technicians x-rayed and scanned him and while Dr. Lam listened to his heart and lungs.  He wasn’t really listening when Lam described his latest complication, but he understood that he’d shaken things up with all his activity.  He heard the words ‘fractures far from healed’ and ‘still has some degree of infection’ and ‘be sure he takes his meds’ and ‘probably some component of a panic attack’ and he saw Daniel nodding solemnly.

He didn’t care.

His chest no longer hurt, he was on new drugs to help with his breathing, and best of all, he was firmly ensconced in a bed that allowed him to see Samantha Carter.

Jack was in the last bed next to the wall that separated the general infirmary from the more specialized ICU next door.  There was a large window that allowed doctors and nurses to see through the rooms easily set into the wall.  Sam was just on the other side of the window, hooked up to tubes and monitors.

She was pale, but looked much better than she did earlier in the day.

Secure in his knowledge that Sam was ok for the moment, Jack finally allowed himself to drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jack awoke to the sound of voices.

He recognized them immediately, and being as he wasn’t yet ready for conversation with either one of them, he kept his eyes wisely closed.

General Hank Landry, still in charge of the SGC, was talking with his daughter, Dr. Lam.

The two of them appeared to be arguing.

“Carolyn, you know I have to get him out of here.  He’d not supposed to be here.  If the ‘less than friendly’ types in our government here about this, they’ll be hell to pay.”

“The man is sick.  He needs medical attention.  Surely they will understand that.  And he saved Colonel Carter.  That has to count for something.  Last I checked, she was still the apple of the President’s eye.”

“Alright, fine.  But Carolyn, if you’re letting him stay for any other reason…”  Hank trailed off, and his eyes strayed to Sam in the next room.

Carolyn held up her hands.  “I know, I know.  My responsibility.”

“Damn right,”  said General Landry, and he turned and walked out of the infirmary.

Dr. Lam sighed, and Jack opened his eyes.  Jack spoke softly to the younger woman.

“Thanks.”

Carolyn nodded.  “You just do your part.  You’re sick, remember?”

Jack nodded back.  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Glad we understand each other.  Now, be good or I’ll break more of your ribs.”

Carolyn turned then and walked off, throwing a wink over her shoulder as she did so.

Jack threw his hands up in the air briefly.  ‘What is it with women wanting to break my ribs lately?’, he thought desperately.  The thought was funny, but it immediately made Jack think of Sam and why she had given him the same threat earlier.

And suddenly it wasn’t funny.

Sam wanted Jack back in Colorado.

Right.

And suddenly all the questions and doubts and fears from a mere twenty four hours ago came crashing in on Jack O’Neill.  His convictions of the heat of the moment yesterday faltered.

But then he looked through the window on his left.

Sam had a little more color now, but she still looked pale and fragile.

As he watched her, Jack’s resolve returned.

As hard as it would be, he knew what he had to do.

XXX

Sam was released from ICU the next day and joined Jack in the regular infirmary.

Forty-eight hours of IV fluids and antibiotics had done their job, and she was nearly back to her usual self.

As they rolled her bed in next to Jack’s, Sam’s forehead crinkled in puzzlement.

“Sir?  What are you doing here?”

Jack grinned.  “Had a little setback, Carter.  Doc says I’m gonna be fine, though.”

Jack winked at Dr. Lam, who sighed back.  “Careful, General, or you’re out of here.”

Jack laughed.  “Who would have ever thought I’d want to stay?”

Teal’c’s big voice agreed from the doorway.  “Indeed.”

Jack waved halfheartedly to the Jaffa as he entered the infirmary followed by Daniel Jackson.

“Hey, guys.  Come to join the party?”

Daniel waved back.  “We just heard they were letting Sam out of ICU today and wanted to come by and see how things were.”

Sam spoke softly in answer.  “I’m ok.  They say maybe I’ll be out of here by the end of the week.”

Daniel nodded.  “Sweet.”  Daniel then turned to Jack.  “So, still playing the invalid, I see?”

Jack shushed Daniel with his hands.  “Be quiet!  You want to get me sent home?”

Sam was utterly confused now. “Whoa!  Wait!  Someone want to explain to me what’s going on here?  Why are you even here, sir?  And you want to stay here?  And how did I get here?  And…”

Sam trailed off, unsure what else to say, and all eyes looked to Jack for explanation.

When Jack offered none, Daniel spoke first.  “Yeah, Jack, those are good questions.  Care to explain?”

Jack sighed, knowing he had no choice if he ever wanted any peace again.

“Fine.  I found Carter at her house the other day, burning up with fever.  I called Daniel.  He got us on base and we got Carter admitted to the infirmary.  Apparently she had a major infection from her ‘Terminator’ thingy.  I got a little banged up on the way in, and Lam made me get checked out.  I’m ok, mostly, but since I’m not supposed to be on base, she’s fudging it so I can stay so that I can visit Carter.  Ok?”

Daniel nodded.  “Good enough.  But why was Sam back in Colorado?  I thought she was going to stay up in Minnesota for a while?”

Jack’s face grew stony then, and Daniel remembered that he’d suspected a deeper issue in the hall the other day before Jack’s breathing had gone all haywire.

“That’s a long story, Daniel, for another time.”  Jack’s voice told Daniel arguing wasn’t an option.

Teal’c also picked up on the tone and decided to enter the conversation.

“Perhaps, Daniel Jackson, we should take our leave.  Colonel Carter looks tired, and both she and O’Neill have much recovering to do.”

Daniel nodded to Teal’c, knowing that he meant much more than he said.  He wasn’t ready to go yet, but he knew the Jaffa had a point, so after a long look at Jack, he turned and left, with Teal’c on his heels.

When the pair had left, Jack turned to Sam.  He was sure of his decision now, and he wanted to tell her before he lost his nerve.

But Samantha Carter was fast asleep.

Jack would have to wait.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mike Kline saw the lights from headlights on his living room wall before he heard the engine of the truck outside.  He was expecting company, so he flicked off the television and stepped toward his hallway just as a tentative knock sounded on his front door.

When he opened the door, a scrawny teenage boy stood on his porch.

The boy carried a squirming black puppy in his arms, and a man who seemed to be his father stood behind the boy.  The teenager was nervous, but Kline was used to that.  He’d know a lot of kids in his day.  He stood to one side and ushered the trio in out of the cold.

“So, you must be Kyle.”

The boy nodded, and the man stuck out his hand in greeting.

“Frank Rogers, and my son, Kyle.”

Kline nodded back.  “Nice to meet you.  And this must be Jack’s puppy.”

Kyle nodded again, still too nervous to talk.

Kline smiled.  ‘This kid was going to be a tough nut to crack,’ he thought.

“How long have you had him, again?  Jack told me, but I forgot.  The mind’s the first thing to go, you know.”  As he spoke, Kline made circling motions around both of his ears, in the universal gesture for a crazy person.

Kyle grinned, finally relaxing a little.  It took a moment, but he found his voice.  “About three and a half weeks.”

“Wow.  That’s a pretty long time.  You sure you want Jack to have him?  He told me to double check.  You know Jack’s been wanting a dog for a long time.  Nearly took one of mine a while ago… but decided to hold off… he thinks him finding this one was a lucky break.  But he wants to be sure you’re okay with giving him up.”

Kyle looked Kline right in the eye then, and the man thought he understood why Jack spoke so highly of the boy.  He just had a quiet strength about him.

“Yes, sir.  I’m okay with it.  Coach Jack needs this dog more than I do.  Besides, my mom is allergic.  It’s not bad, but I know he bothers her some.  And I’ll be leaving for college before this old is very old, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave him with my parents.  And between school and hockey, I don’t have a lot of free time to look after a dog.”

“Ok, ok.  You made your point.  And it’s a good one.  I agree with you.  Now, let’s get a look at this kiddo.”

Kyle handed the pup over to Kline then.

Kline examined the little dog with the expert eyes of a long time dog lover.  He was an experienced breeder of hunting trial Labradors, and before that he’d bred and trained German Shorthair Pointers.  Dogs were his life now that he was retired, and he’d known Jack O’Neill for a long time.  He had agreed to take the pup for Jack for a few weeks while Jack recuperated.

Jack had wanted to get the pup out of the Roger’s house for JoAnn’s sake and so that Kyle wouldn’t bond to the dog anymore than he already had.  Jack knew that the Roger’s really couldn’t keep the dog, and he and Kyle had talked for a long time about it before deciding what they thought was best for the pup.

The little guy would live with Papa Kline for a few weeks and receive some early training and much needed socialization.  After losing his mother so soon, the pup needed some time with other dogs to learn valuable skills, and Kline’s house was the perfect place for that.

After a moment, Kline looked back at Kyle and set the pup on the floor.  The pup began to sniff around and explore, which please Kline.  He didn’t really care for clingy dogs much.

Kline addressed Kyle.  “So, what do you think he is?”

Kyle shrugged.  “I dunno.  Maybe Lab and Border Collie or maybe something with longer hair, like German Shepherd, thrown in?  It’s hard to say.”

Kline nodded.  “I agree.  He’s probably a bunch of things, but that’s a pretty good guess.  I like that one white foot he’s got.”

“Yeah, Coach Jack calls it his lucky foot.”

“That sounds just like Jack.  You seem to know a lot about dogs, especially for not having one.”

“Thanks.  Coach Jack told me some, and I read a lot, once this guy came along.”

“Well, you did great with him.  He looks good.  What have you been calling him?”

“We didn’t name him.  We figured he was Jack’s dog, so he should name him.”

Kline shrugged.  “Seems fair.  But you had to call him something.”

“I’ve just been calling him ‘Pup’.  He seems to like it.”

“Ok, Pup it is.  Do you want to see where he’s going to stay?”

Kyle nodded enthusiastically, and Kline led Kyle and Frank to another room.

The living room was attached to a type of mud room that ran the length of the house on the back side.  All along the walls of this room were dog crates in nearly every size and configuration.

Most were empty now, but a few housed dogs who began to bark as the trio entered.

Kline barked out a command to ‘settle’ and the dogs fell silent.

“Sorry about that.  These guys are all mine.  They’re not used to being locked up this time of night.  They only sleep in here.  But I figured you might want to come inside without getting overrun by Labradors on your first visit.  Besides, some other friends are coming by later, and I thought it might be considerate to put the kids away for a bit.  They’re bringing their dog.  She’s stayed here lots of times, but I try not to overwhelm dogs when they first get here.  I like to introduce them real slow like.”

Frank nodded and spoke for the first time.  “That makes sense.”

Kline nodded back.  “Yeah.  Now, your little fella will sleep out here with the others.  During the day he’ll be in the house or out in the dog yard.  I’ll show you.  Let me hit the lights.”

Kline hit a large switch on the wall and the yard behind the house was bathed in light.  The yard was divided roughly in quarters by chain link fence, with gates linking each section.

“Now, I usually put dogs of similar ages, temperaments, and size out in groups to play for most of the day in between time inside so they learn to behave.  I board dogs for a few folks, so there’s always some coming and going.  This little guy will get lots of playtime.”

Frank smiled.  He knew Kyle and Jack had made the right choice for their little pup.  Kline seemed to genuinely care about his dogs and those in his care, and the dog would be much better served here, at least for a while.

“Wow.  This is so cool,” muttered Kyle.  He’d developed quite an interest in dogs since Jack’s pup had come to live with the Rogers, and his eyes were alive with excitement.

“Well, son, if you can get your dad to drive you up, you can come up anytime you want to visit.  I don’t mind.  That ok with you, Frank?”

Frank nodded.  “Absolutely.  By the way, we brought the pup’s crate and toys and food and such.  It’s out in the truck.”

“Great!  Let’s head back inside.  We can get it later.”

As the tour ended, Kyle noticed something he hadn’t before.  Many of the crates in the ‘kennel room’ had name tags on them, and the names were way longer than any he had seen for dogs.

He was used to things like ‘Fluffy’ and ‘Rex’ and ‘Toby’.

These were different.  One read:  Hell’s Hot Chocolate Fury, “Storm”.

And on another:  Lake Country’s Blazing Surfer Boy, “Hobie”.

And finally:  Aggieland’s Sunny Afternoon, “Trinity”.

The last one had lots of letters after the dog’s name, and Kyle stopped to look at the tag.

Kline noticed his confusion and stopped.  “What’s wrong, Kyle?”

Kyle pointed to the last tag.

“What’s up with the names of these dogs, and what do all these letters mean?”

Kline laughed a little.  “Well, you see, some dogs have long names.  They’re traditional.  You know, like some kids have weird middle names and stuff.  A lot of folks name their pups after their parents or the kennel they came from.  So, they get crazy long names, like that one there.”

“So what do you call them?”  asked Kyle.  “You can’t yell that out all the time.”

“Right you are.  For those dogs, people usually use what we call a ‘call name’.  It’s a shortened version of the long name, or sometimes something else entirely.  Makes it easier.  That’s the second name on the tags, usually.”

Kyle nodded in understanding.  “So, this dog is ‘Trinity’?”

“Yep.”

“That’s pretty cool.  Too bad my pup can’t have a name like that.”

Kline shrugged.  “Well, there’s no rule saying he can’t, Kyle.  But I thought you were going to let Jack name him?”

Kyle slumped.  “Oh, right.”

Kline clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Ah, don’t worry about it.  Who needs a fancy name anyway?  My first dog was called ‘Puppy’, and she lived a real long time and was a great dog.  I think Pup works just fine for now.”

Kyle smiled, and the three men headed into the house.

Kyle and Frank left shortly after coming in, and drove the forty-five minutes back to their house in silence.  Kyle was a little sad about leaving his pup, but he would never have admitted it, and he felt good knowing the dog was in capable hands.

He would fall asleep that night thinking of long names for the dog, like those he’d seen earlier.

Some would be funny, some would be stupid, and some would be small sentences, but finally his young brain remembered a vocabulary word from English class earlier in the week, and Kyle smiled.  He thought that he just might have a silly, long name for Jack’s pup after all.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Back in Colorado, the infirmary was nearly empty.

A retired General, a Colonel, and a Sergeant were the only patients present, and the Sergeant was on his way out as the door slowly opened and an archeologist slid through it noiselessly.

Daniel Jackson nodded to the enlisted man as they passed one another.

“Night, Siler.”

“Actually, it’s morning, Doctor Jackson.  See you later.”

As Siler exited, the young nurse who had sutured the small cut on his arm nodded to Daniel and then disappeared to go attend to other duties.  Daniel was left alone with Jack and Sam.  He glanced at his watch and realized Siler was right.  His next duty shift started in only half an hour.

He hadn’t come for any particular reason.  He just wanted to be near to his friends as they were hurting.  He knew Jack was doing pretty well, but he also knew that Lam wasn’t really exaggerating Jack’s condition.  Jack was still pretty banged up, and while the severe pains from the other day hadn’t returned, Daniel knew that when Jack was up and around and moving too much, as he most certainly would be, the still healing rib fractures wouldn’t be a lot of fun.

And Sam, well, Daniel was still worried about her.  She didn’t have a fever any longer, and her condition was vastly improved from when she came in, but while the systemic side of her infection seemed to be under control, she would need to have at least one, and probably several, surgeries on her broken arm to get the local component out of her body.  There was infection in the bone fragments that were trying to heal, and they would have to be removed if Sam’s arm stood a snowball’s chance in hell of healing properly.

Daniel sighed as he stood in between the beds of his two closest friends.

It was a quiet noise, and Sam didn’t stir, but Jack had apparently been sleeping lightly, and his eyes fluttered open at the noise.

“Daniel?”

Daniel jumped a bit at the unexpected noise and turned to Jack.  “Yeah?”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Just checking in on you and Sam.”

Jack nodded.  “I’m holding up alright, but I’m not sure about Sam… they won’t tell me everything.  I know she’s got to have more surgery, but I’m not sure why.”

“She’ll be alright, Jack.  She’s just got a long road ahead of her to get that arm to heal right.  The infection that started around her implants from the contaminated fracture site spread through her body, and that’s what made her so sick, as you know, but that part is under control.  However, the arm itself has some pieces of bone in it that will have to be removed because they are too infected for drugs to properly treat.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.  After the bone pieces are removed, the fracture will still have to finish healing.”

Jack was silent for a long moment after Daniel’s explanation, then suddenly cursed out loud.

“Dammit!”

Daniel was confused by the outburst.  “What?”

“This is my fault, Daniel!  If I hadn’t been so stupid…”

Daniel interrupted.  “Whoa, there, Jack.  We can’t change what happened out in the woods that night, so there’s no sense thinking about it.”

Jack shook his head in frustration.  “I know, but…”

“No, Jack.  There are no ‘buts’.  We can’t change it.  All we can do is to the best with what we have now.  You have to get better, and Sam has her own road to travel.  You’ve both been down rockier ones before.  You’ll be fine.”

Jack nodded.  “I know.  I just feel bad about this.”

“I understand that Jack, but… I think Sam would say it was worth it.”

“What was?”

“A broken arm and secondary infection, I think, for Sam, is a small price to pay for having you around.”

Jack snorted and replied in a bitter voice.  “I’m not so sure about that.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Jack’s eyes grew a little wide and he started to worry the edge of his blanket with his hands.  Daniel knew that Jack had just said something he hadn’t meant to, and the words confused the hell out of him.

“Jack?”

Jack feigned innocence.  “What?”

“Jack, what did you mean by that?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Jack.  What’s going on?  I still haven’t figured out what you and Sam were doing down here the other day, and then there was that incident in the hall, and…”

Jack cut across Daniel viciously.  “What incident in the hall?”

“Jack, I know you overdid it and stretched the hell out of your injured ribs getting Sam here, but your chest x-rays were pretty clear.  There was no reason for you to have as much difficulty breathing as you did.  And while pain alone would do that to some, I don’t think it would to it to you.  I’ve seen you do much better with much more substantial injuries.”

“What’s your point, Daniel?  That I’m not as young as I used to be?”

“No, Jack,” snorted Daniel with a growing sense of annoyance.  “My point is that Dr. Lam thinks that at least some part of your attack was emotional.  She thinks you had a panic attack.  And I want to know what’s going on that would do that to you.  It’s not like you’re prone to losing control of your feelings, Jack.  Things don’t add up here, and I want to know why.”

Daniel’s eyes bored into Jack’s as he spoke, and Jack’s stared back.  It was a long moment before Jack responded, and when he did, his voice was like acid.

“Daniel, I’m only going to say this once.  What happened the other day is between me and Carter.  Nobody else.  Okay?  Leave it alone.”

Anger began to build in Daniel.  “Fine.  Have it your way, Jack.  But be careful.  Don’t do anything stupid.”

Jack fired back at Daniel, his voice beginning to rise as he grew angry, too.  “What do you mean by that?”

Daniel never had a chance to answer.  The doors to the infirmary opened and a shift change of nurses wandered into the room in a group, halting conversation for a second.  Behind the nurses, a Jaffa leaned around the doorframe, scanned the room, then entered.

Teal’c walked right to Daniel, apparently oblivious to the argument going on.

“Daniel Jackson.  I am glad to have found you.  General Landry requires your presence immediately.”

Daniel turned to Teal’c, annoyed.  “Why?”

Teal’c raised one eyebrow in surprise but spoke evenly.  “The mineral agreement you have been negotiating on P9X-434 has apparently caused some sort of internal power struggle on the planet, and the two main factions are threatening cut all diplomatic ties with us unless a suitable compromise can be found.”

Daniel sighed.  “Fine.  I’ll be right there, Teal’c.”

Teal’c nodded and took his leave.

Daniel turned to Jack as his mind kicked over to ‘work mode’ and began thinking of things he could offer both sides in his negotiations.

“I’ll be back later.”

Jack waved dismissively at Daniel and muttered a farewell without really hearing anything.  Jack’s anger had fled as quickly as it had come, and his mind was busy thinking about other things, too.

Something Teal’c had said had resonated with O’Neill.  Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner?

Teal’c’s voice boomed in Jack’s head as Daniel left the room.

“Unless a suitable compromise can be found…”

Compromise.

‘That just might work,’ thought Jack.

Sam still slept in the bed next to him, but Jack had an idea now, and it energized him.  He didn’t know if Sam would accept his terms.  In fact, he wasn’t yet sure what his terms were, but at least he had a plan now, and that brought a smile to his face.

It was his first real smile in days, and it felt good.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sam was taken to surgery later that day.

Jack never got to speak to her, again.

But that was ok.  He had a chance to think and come up with what he thought was a reasonable solution to the problem of Jack and Sam and living arrangements.

He was much more lively in the next few days as Sam recovered and he was eventually discharged from the infirmary.  Dr. Lam finally could come up with no more excuses to keep him there and General Landry was feeling some pressure to get him off base from some of his superiors, so Jack O’Neill agreed to a quiet exit, after talking to Daniel and Teal’c and making them promise that he would be informed of the slightest change in Sam’s condition.

Before he left, however, Jack had one stop to make.

Sam was in a private room now, down the hall from where Jack had stayed.  As Jack made his way to the elevator to head topside, he detoured to Sam’s room.  Since his escort was Teal’c, this was not only allowed, but encouraged.

Teal’c waited outside the room while Jack approached Sam.  Carter was awake and smiled a nervous smile at Jack as he came closer.

“Hey, sir.”

“Hey, Carter.”

“You out of here?”

“Yeah.  What about you?”

“Probably in a few more days.  They say the surgery went really well, but they want to keep me on mega doses of antibiotics for a while to be safe.”

“Seems reasonable.  Any more slice and dice in your future?”

Sam shrugged.  “Not sure.  Originally they thought so, but now they think one scraping of the bone might to the trick.”

“Scraping?”

“Yes, sir.  They went into my arm and removed my ex fix, then all the bone that wasn’t normal.  Apparently the bacteria that was in there just ate up some parts of the bone and liquefied it.”

“Yummy.”

“Yeah, I know, right?  Anyway, they debrided all that away and left only healthy bone in there.  Then they put a plat on the bone to stabilize it.  See?  No more ‘Terminator’ arm.”

Sam held up her arm for Jack to see.  There was a new, very long row of sutures down Sam’s arm, but the large metal contraption that had been Sam’s constant companion for nearly a month was gone.

“Cool.  But I thought they couldn’t put a plate in if things were infected?”

Sam nodded.  “Me, too.  But I guess my arm has healed enough now that there’s enough bone to get good purchase with the plate and since they think they got all the nasty, infected, dead bone out, they think it will be ok.  My wrist is fine, now, too, so that part of things is at least under control.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell like a curtain then over the couple, and both looked anywhere but at the other for a second.  Then Jack broke the discomfort.

“Look, Carter… I’m sorry.”

Sam was confused.  “For what?”

“Everything.  Nothing.  I don’t know.  I’m… I’m just sorry, ok?  About all of this.”

Sam nodded.  “Ok.  Me, too.”

Jack nodded back.  “Look, I know there’s some things we’ve got to work out, but… um…  I’ve got to go for now.  Think we can talk when you get out of here?”

Sam nodded again.  “Yeah.  I think maybe we can manage that.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“Sure, Jack.”

It was a small first step, but the breakdown of formality between General O’Neill and Colonel Carter, while in the SGC, was significant.

Jack smiled a half grin.  “I’ll see you later, then?”

Sam smiled the same grin back.  “Count on it.”

Jack nodded and turned away.  He didn’t look back as he left until he reached the door.  Sam’s voice made him look back over one shoulder.

“Oh, and Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for coming after me.”

Jack turned around and smiled.  “No problem.  I guess we’re even now.”

Sam snorted.  “Something like that.”

Jack nodded and stood silent for a second, then nervously spoke.  “Look, Sam, I’ve got to run up north for a bit, but I’ll be back, ok?”

Sam nodded and seemed to understand.  “Ok.  Just look me up when you get back.”

Jack smiled and waved a little good-bye.

Sam waved back, and Jack disappeared from view.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

True to her word, and mostly due to the toughness of one Colonel Samantha Carter, Dr. Lam released her previously septic osteomyelitis patient twelve days from her initial presentation.

Sam sported a soft brace on her arm to help keep her from overdoing it on her newly healed wrist, but otherwise she seemed perfectly normal.

Daniel drove her home.

As Daniel turned down her street, Sam noted that the rental SUV was no longer in her drive.  She turned to Daniel and asked about it.

“Who returned the rental car?”

Daniel answered with a grin.  “Oh, Teal’c and I ran it to the agency the other day.  You and Jack were still in the infirmary then.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.  So, speaking of Jack, where is he, Sam?  He took off after he got discharged and I haven’t heard from him since.  What’s going on?”

Sam laughed a little laugh.  “He’s back in Minnesota, Daniel.  Said he had some things to take care of.  He’ll be back.  Did you let him know I was getting out today?”

Daniel nodded.  “Yeah.  That’s why I’m surprised I haven’t heard from him and that he’s not here.  Seriously, what’s going on with you two?”

Sam sighed.  “I wish I knew.  It’s all screwed up, Daniel, and I really don’t think I can explain it.  I’d rather not talk about it.”

Daniel shrugged.  “Ok.  Just let me know if you need anything, ok?”

Sam looked at Daniel and smiled.  He was a very good friend.  “I will.  Thanks, Daniel.”

“Anytime, Sam.  Anytime.”

They had reached Sam’s house by now, and this effectively ended the conversation.  Sam collected the small bag of personal things that Daniel had brought her in the infirmary and stepped out of the car.

She was halfway to the door when Daniel called out to her.

“You sure you’re going to be ok, Sam?”

Sam smiled.  “I’ll be fine, Daniel.”

“Aright.  But call if you need anything at all.”

“I will.”

Sam continued on her way inside then and Daniel watched to be sure she made it before grumbling something nasty about Jack under his breath and putting the car into reverse.

XXX

Five hours after Daniel Jackson dropped Samantha Carter off at her house, the doorbell rang.

Sam was lightly napping in the living room when the chime sounded.  She’d been expecting the interruption, however, and she came fully awake instantly.

Sam opened the door to reveal a nervous-looking Jack O’Neill.

Jack smiled when he saw Sam, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes.  One hand ran through his short hair then started tapping on his thigh.

Sam smiled back and opened the door enough to allow Jack inside wordlessly.

As Jack shrugged out of his coat, Sam greeted him.

“Jack.”

Jack hung the coat up on a hook near the door and answered.  “Sam.”

“So, I can’t say I’m surprised you turned up here, but I think you should let Daniel know.  He seemed pretty mad that you weren’t here earlier.”

Jack laughed.  “Tell me about it.  I had about twenty messages from him when I touched down.  I already let him know.  I figured if I didn’t, his head would explode.”

“So, you flew down then?”

Jack nodded.  “Yeah, I snuck in before the front hits.”

Sam looked puzzled.  “Front?”

“Yeah, a storm’s coming.  Shouldn’t be a bad one, but it would’ve grounded me.  So, it’s a good thing they released you when they did.”

Sam nodded.  “Yeah.”

Jack slipped his boots off and looked Sam right in the eye for a moment before speaking again.  Finally, when the tension of the emotions between them got too high, Jack looked away and spoke under his breath.

“So, how ya feeling, anyway?”

“I’m alright.  You?”

Jack shrugged.  “Fine, all things considered.  Still a little tender, but I’ll live.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell again and again it was Jack who broke it as the pair moved into the living room.

“So, you hungry?”  Jack tried to keep his voice casual, but failed.  Sam could tell he was still nervous and that something was on his mind.  It didn’t take an astrophysicist to tell what it was.

“Yeah, a little.  We can order Chinese if you want.  I had a craving earlier for some sweet and sour chicken.”

Jack nodded.  “Oh, yeah.  Sounds good.  Sure beats infirmary food, huh?”

Sam smiled.  “Oh, yeah.  Grab my phone, will you?  It’s there on the counter.”

Jack was closer the kitchen, so he snagged the phone off the counter as he passed and handed it to Sam.

Sam dialed a number without thought, and Jack’s eyebrows rose.  “You know the number?”

“Of course I do,” smiled Sam.  “You want your usual?”

Jack nodded as Sam spoke into the phone.

“Hi.  I need one sweet and sour chicken with steamed rice and one beef and broccoli with lo mein.  Ok, thanks.”

Sam hung up and plopped into a chair in the living room.  “Should be here in about thirty minutes.”

Jack sat down on the couch opposite Sam.  “Cool.”

Silence descended again.  Jack picked up Sam’s remote control and began to fiddle with it, but did not turn on the TV.  After a moment, Sam reached across the room and took it from his hands.  Her hand lingered on Jack’s, and he looked up to meet her eyes.

His expression was almost fearful, and it worried Sam, but she knew that they had to talk about Minnesota.  Their nearly two week vacation from their problems was over.

Sam bit the metaphorical bullet.

“So.  About that talk.”

Jack sighed.  He didn’t want to do this, either, but he knew he had to.

“What about it?”

Sam sighed back.  “I guess now is a good a time as any to have it, huh?”

Jack shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I was thinking you might want to settle in a bit first, or…”

He trailed off and Sam took control of the conversation.  “No, Jack.  Let’s just do this.  I’m tired of not knowing what’s going on with us.  You seemed pretty peppy when you left before, and you said you wanted to talk, so let’s talk.”

Jack sighed again and nodded.  “Ok.  Here goes.”

Sam looked at Jack expectantly.

Jack took a deep breath and swallowed once, then began.

“Alright.  Here’s the deal.  I’m not giving up my hockey teams.”

Sam started to protest, but Jack continued without letting her butt in.  “And I’m not giving up my cabin.  It’s paid for, and I like it.  A lot.  It holds lot of good memories for me, and it’s always been a place where I could escape when life got to be too much.”

Sam opened her mouth to speak again, but again Jack cut her off.  “Let me finish, please.”

Sam took a deep breath of her own and nodded.  She could at least hear Jack out.

Jack continued, nodding his thanks.  “So, anyway, I’m keeping the cabin.  BUT I am willing to give up living there full time.  I’m going to live in Minnesota in hockey season, and that means it’s gonna be winter, and the weather might turn nasty, and you have a point that the cabin is awfully inaccessible sometimes.  So, in winter, I’ll live in town.  I can rent a place or whatever.  Sometimes it does get old keeping the cabin up in winter, I’ll admit that.  But when the weather is nice, I’m going to spend some time up on the hill.  And I’m going to plow if I can.  My business is important to me, Sam, and while I know that it carries certain risks, this latest medical adventure of yours points out the fact that there are risks in everything.  We can’t live a risk-free life, Sam.   Every life, every day, is in danger.  That’s just life.  Your job is hazardous.  Fine.  So is mine, in an entirely different way.  But our jobs are important to us, and they make our lives worth living, so we can’t just do something else because it’s safer.  That’s not us, Sam, and I don’t want it to be.”

Jack paused and Sam blinked a few times, trying to process the information she had just heard.

Jack’s break didn’t last long.

“And as for being down here, I’m ok with that for the most part.  You know I do work in the summer for folks, too, but it’s not nearly as much of my business as plowing, so I’m willing to give it up for a good piece of the year.  If someone needs something particular, or if one of the other coaches wants me to help with summer mini-camps or something, I can always go up for a week here and there to help out.  I can spend most of my spring and summer down here, but still keep the things that really matter to me up there.”

Jack’s speech petered out, and he looked at Sam.

She was still blinking in shocked surprise and she kept opening her mouth like she wanted to say something but nothing was coming out.  Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at her questioningly.

“Well?”

Sam finally found her voice.  “Well what?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I think you’ve thought about this a lot.”

“I have.”

“And I think that this is a very mature way to try to handle things.”

“So, it’s ok with you?”

“I’m still thinking.”

Jack reached across the coffee table and took Sam’s hand.

“Sam, look.  You made some very valid points the other day about our relationship.  We’ve been essentially dating for five years, and we’re not going anywhere.  You’re not happy.  I’m willing to do this because I don’t want to lose you, Sam.  I don’t want you to be unhappy in our relationship.  But I’m not going to just roll over and play dead.  I won’t give up everything that means anything to me.  Especially not when you won’t budge on your end.  You keep asking me to move back here, but you have never once offered to come to Minnesota.  You want me to give up my job but you want to keep yours.”

Sam interrupted then with an angry yell.  “My job is more important!”

Jack’s face flushed then in equal anger.  He couldn’t even speak for a moment, but his breathing rapidly accelerated and his muscles began to tremble.  Sam saw his reaction and backpedaled a little.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that.  I just meant that people depend on me, and…”

Sam was digging herself deeper into a hole, and she knew it.  Jack interrupted.

“Carter, I know that my job isn’t exactly saving the universe, but it’s important to me, and it kept me from going crazy at a time when it was all I could do not to kill myself over not being at the SGC anymore.  Don’t you dare belittle me.”

Sam’s voice trembled as she answered.  “I just think you could do that down here if you wanted to.  That’s all I meant.”

“That’s not what you said,” snarled Jack.

“I know, but…”

“No, no ‘buts’.  That’s not what you said.  And that’s the problem.  You expect me to just throw away things that matter to me, but won’t budge on anything you want.  Well, it’s not going to happen.  I’m willing to give a lot, but I’m not giving up my business or my kids.  It’s not going to happen.”

Sam tried to interrupt but Jack held up a hand to forestall her.

“And before you say I could coach down here, too, let me point out that there are days, weeks, and months on end that you aren’t home.  You spend time on Atlantis, Sam.  You spend time offworld.  You can’t expect me to sit around your place all day and play house while you go gallivanting around the universe.  I need something to do, Sam.  And, God, I can’t look at the mountain all the time.  I just can’t stand constantly wondering what’s going on and worrying.  I have to spend at least some time away from here.  And…”

Jack trailed off, and Sam wanted to say something, but she couldn’t think of what to say.  Jack had a point.  One she hadn’t really thought of before.  She had wanted Jack to move back to Colorado to spend more time with him.  She wanted him to be there when she came home at night.  But how many nights did she not come home?  Was it really fair to ask Jack to just sit around and wait on her?  Sam suddenly realized that she had been short sighted.  She didn’t want to make Jack unhappy anymore than she wanted to see her upset.

Sam sat for a moment, thinking and absorbing, then realized Jack’s last word had been ‘and’.  She looked up at him quizzically and quietly asked a question.

“And what?”

Jack looked confused. “What?”

“You said you had to spend some time away from here, AND.  And what?”

Jack shrugged.  “Nothing.”  His voice was churlish, and despite the high emotions of the night, Sam knew he was denying something.

“Jack, tell me.”

Jack looked at Sam for a second, then looked away.  He shrugged again and then sighed.

“It’s Kyle.”

Sam blinked.  “What about him?”

Jack grimaced.  A part of him still held back, even from Sam, and it tried to stamp down his next words, but failed.  Jack shook his head in resignation and spoke softly while looking down at the floor.

“I love that boy, Sam.”

“I know you do.”

“No, Sam, you don’t get it.  He’s Frank and JoAnn’s son, but I feel things for him that I haven’t felt since Charlie.  Frank always jokes that I might as well be Kyle’s uncle, but… God, Sam, don’t ask me to give up Kyle.  I never thought I’d feel that way about a kid again…”

Jack stopped, his voice broken.  He didn’t look up.  It was easier to talk that way.

Sam’s mouth opened in shock.  She knew Jack was close to Kyle, but she never expected the depths of Jack’s feelings for the boy.

And suddenly she felt like shit.

She reached a hand out to Jack and moved to comfort him, but she never made it.

A knock at the door startled her, and her hand jerked back to rest in her lap.

Jack jumped up entirely too quickly and nearly ran to the door.  “Must be the food,” he muttered.  “I’ll get it.”

Sam nodded and sat rooted to her chair.

When Jack returned to the living room, he carried two bags of Chinese food and his face was a stony mask that was all too familiar to Sam.  Jack O’Neill was back in control of his emotions, and Sam could read nothing on his marble face.

His eyes, however, betrayed him.  They were still stormy, filled with anger and conflict and raw emotion.  Sam met Jack’s gaze bravely, and her eyes looked much the same.

Jack sat on the couch again and handed Sam one bag.  “Dinner,” grumbled Jack.

Sam nodded her thanks and took the bag, but didn’t open it.

Jack didn’t open his, either.  He leaned back on the couch and sighed.  His eyes studied the fibers of the carpet.

Sam’s studied her own hands.

After a moment, Sam lifted her gaze and regarded Jack.  Her mind was going ninety miles a minute, replaying the conversation she had just had with her lover and friend.

It took a minute, but she finally came to a conclusion.

Jack was right.  Her demands had been unfair, and while they were good intentioned, they didn’t take into account some things that obviously mattered very much to Jack.

And he was being incredibly mature about this.  He had offered Sam a compromise, and she had attacked him.  Guilt ate up Sam Carter from the inside out.

Jack eventually sensed Sam’s eyes on him and lifted his own.  When their eyes met, Sam’s suddenly filled with tears.  Jack’s fell again to the floor and he shrugged.

After another minute, he spoke in a whisper.  “Well, I thought it was a good idea.  Guess not.  Sorry.”

Sam’s heart nearly broke at the sadness in Jack’s voice.  She stood and came to sit next to him on the couch.  Jack looked up in surprise, and his eyes grew exponentially as Sam reached out and took his hand again.

Sam took a deep breath as Jack stared at her.

“It was a very good idea.  I’m sorry I reacted the way I did.  I was just angry, Jack.”

Jack didn’t respond verbally.  He just looked at Sam like she’d suddenly grown two heads.

Sam smiled a little at his expression and continued.

“Look, I know I’ve been really bitchy for a while about you being up there by yourself, Jack, but I didn’t think about why some of the things you do up there matter to you.  I didn’t think about the fact that I’m gone a lot.  There were a lot of things I didn’t think about.  And I don’t want you to be unhappy, either.  I don’t want to get my way at the expense of your happiness.  That wouldn’t be fair, and you’d resent me for it.  Eventually, that would come back to haunt us.  I don’t want that.  But I also don’t want to end this.  It’s been good being with you, Jack.  So good I wanted more.  But maybe more isn’t better here…”

Sam’s voice dropped away then, and Jack whispered back to her.

“I didn’t say there couldn’t be more.”

Sam smiled.  “I know.  In fact, I think your idea is a damn good one.  We can ease into things and see how it goes.  I don’t know why I freaked out on you.  I guess I’m still just scared.”

“I worry all the time, too, Sam, but us living in one place isn’t going to change that.  Life’s just too full of random accidents and illnesses to erase that.”

“I realize that now.”

“So, are we good?”  Jack’s voice was hopeful, and he looked at Sam nervously.

“I wouldn’t say we’re completely ok, Jack, but I’d say we’re on the way there.”

Jack smiled a little.  “I’ll take that.”

Sam smiled back and gripped Jack’s hand a little tighter.  “Me, too.  We can work it out, Jack.”

Jack’s smile widened a bit.  “Sweet.”

Sam laughed, then grew quiet again for just a second.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we eat now?”

Jack laughed.  “You read my mind.”

Jack and Sam reached for their respective bags of food simultaneously.

Dinner was devoured in silence by two hungry humans, and afterwards a lot more talking was done.  Somehow, against all odds, Jack O’Neill and Samantha Carter managed to smooth things over enough that as the night wore on and fatigue took its toll and both of them began to get sleepy, they had no thoughts of leaving the couch to retire.

They instead ended up laying on the couch, nestled closely together.

Just as Sam was dropping into dreamland, Jack would speak once more.

“Sam?”  Jack whispered, half afraid Sam was already asleep.

Sam’s reply was groggy.  “What?”

“You know I’m keeping the dog, right?”

Sam groaned.  “I figured as much, Jack.  It’s fine.”

Jack smiled, glad to have that little announcement over with.

When the morning sun lit Sam’s living room, it would shine down upon two entwined, sleeping bodies.  Jack and Sam would wake together, and they’d smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Jack stayed in Colorado for nearly a week.

After that, he headed home to take care of a few things.

Since Sam was still on medical leave, she went with him.

It was an easy flight back, and Jack pointed out several times that he really did own a plane, and that even though he historically hadn’t used it that much, that could potentially change.

Sam just laughed at him.

They were starting to get some of their comfort with each other back, and it was a good thing.

They picked up Jack’s Ford at the hangar and drove to the cabin in relative silence.

The weather was good, and the roads were clear.

Jack and Frank had arranged other plows to take over Jack’s old routes until he could get Marge up and running again or get a new truck.

But the drive was easy today.  There hadn’t been any new snow in weeks, and Jack made good time up the hill to his cabin.

As he and Sam pulled into the drive, Sam noticed a small package on the porch.  She pointed it out to Jack.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you picked up your mail in town.”

“I do.  Why?”

“There’s a package on the porch.”

Jack looked at the porch in surprise and saw Sam was right.  Just outside the door sat a small box wrapped in a plastic bag to protect it from the elements.

“Huh.  That’s odd.”

Jack shut off the truck and grabbed his bag and Sam followed suit.

Sam reached the porch first and picked up the small box.

Jack reached out and took it from her.

“Be careful.  You never know what’s in it.”

“You think it’s a bomb or something?”  asked Sam seriously.

Jack laughed.  “Not unless Kyle’s taken some courses I don’t know about.  It’s from him.”

Sam looked relieved.

“You gonna open it?”

“Can we get inside first?  Geez!”

Sam gestured grandly to the door.  “By all means.  Lead the way.”

Jack unlocked and opened the door.  He set his belongings on the floor by the door and the box on the kitchen table.  “Let me just light a fire first, Sam.  It’ll be cold tonight.”

Sam nodded and tossed her own bag in a corner.

Jack made short work of starting a fire, then returned to where Sam sat contemplating the little package.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got.”

Jack tore the plastic bag off the box, then opened it carefully.  Inside, he found a note, scrawled in Kyle’s writing.  Jack pulled it out and read it twice to himself.  A quirky grin spread over his face and at Sam’s inquisitive look, he read the note out loud.

Coach,
I decided that I wanted to name the pup after all.  Hope you don’t mind.  No worries, he’s still yours, but with this one condition.  You’ll find his name inside.
Kyle

Sam tilted her head sideway in obvious curiosity and stood.  She positioned herself behind Jack so she could see what was in the box.

When Jack pulled out a small silver plate, beautifully engraved with a simple script, Sam’s eyes filled with uncontrolled tears.  Her hand flew to her mouth and she let out the tiniest of surprised gasps.

Jack heard Sam’s reaction, but didn’t respond to it.  He was too busy trying to keep his own under control.

For in his hand, he held a small nameplate, with two holes drilled in each upper corner, designed to be hung on the front of a dog crate.

Jack’s own eyes filled with saline and his breaths were shallow as he read the words there.

Intuition’s Second Chance, “Hunch”.

After a moment, Jack set the plate down and stood, then turned wordlessly to face Sam.  He opened his arms and she stepped into them without hesitation.

Jack and Sam held each other for a long time in silence.

Finally, Sam said the only thing she could.

“It’s perfect.”

Jack nodded against her neck and murmured a response.

“Kyle’s a genius.”

Sam laughed.  “Yes, he is.”

Kyle Rogers would never know the double meaning of the fancy name he came up with for Jack’s dog, but it didn’t matter.  He would only know that Jack was thrilled with it.

And that was enough for him.

EPILOGUE

Jack O’Neill sat on his dock.

His pants were rolled up and his bare feet dangled in the water over the edge of the dock.

It was a beautiful summer day, and the woods around him were alive with color and sound.

The water lapping at his feet was cool, but not cold.

The ever-present mosquitoes were mercifully silent in the relative heat of afternoon.

Jack leaned back on his hands and threw his head back to look at the sky.  It was nearly a perfect clear blue, with only a few clouds to mar the sunlight that streamed down on his face.

Jack closed his eyes against the ultraviolet assault and let the warmth of the sun wash over him.

He wanted to sit on that dock like that all day.

But that wasn’t to be.

As Jack languished in the sun, soft footsteps reached his ears.

He turned his head slowly toward the sounds as they grew closer and then stopped.

Jack didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled as the dock groaned from the weight of someone sitting behind him and pair of arms encircled his chest.  He took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of Samantha Carter, and his smile grew.

Jack leaned back into Sam, and she supported him.  They sat that way for a long time.  Neither spoke nor moved for a long several minutes.  Then Sam softly kissed Jack’s neck, sending a shiver down his spine.

Sam smiled at the effect she’d had on Jack and whispered into his ear teasingly.  “Come in the house.  I made lunch.”

Jack smiled.  He was starving.  Lunch did sound good, and if it was served like this, he certainly wouldn’t turn it down.  “Well, I guess we better go eat then, huh?”

Sam nodded and untangled herself from Jack.

Jack pulled his feet out of the water and stood, stretching slowly in the sun.

As Jack moved, a black furry lump that had been laying next to him on the dock moved, too.

The lump transformed into a long legged sixty-five pound dog of questionable heritage.  One white foot stuck out in contrast of the black fur that covered the rest of its body.

The dog stretched its front legs forward in an exaggerated bow, then extended its back legs behind itself for a moment before shaking itself once and looking up expectantly at Jack.

Jack laughed.  His ever-present shadow had a way of doing that to him.

“No.  No walk right now, big guy.  Let’s head inside.”

Jack turned and walked toward the house a few steps behind Sam.

The dog followed obediently at his heels.

When they got inside, Sam moved to the kitchen to fetch the sandwiches she’d made, but Jack reached out a hand to stop her.  He pulled her into an fierce embrace and kissed her.

When they broke apart after a minute, Sam playfully swatted at Jack.  “I thought you were hungry?”

Jack shrugged.  “Not so much anymore.”

Sam laughed.  “You’re incorrigible.”

Jack shrugged again and laughed back.  “I know.”

Jack held Sam’s gaze as he spoke and Sam looked back defiantly.  After a second, a grin split Sam’s face.  She giggled a little.

“Then again, I guess lunch could wait for a bit.”

Jack raised his eyebrows in silent question.  “Really?”

Sam nodded.

Jack turned on his heel faster than should have been legal.  “Just let me put the dog up.  You know how I feel about that.”

Sam laughed and headed down the hall to the bedroom.

Jack quickly secured the dog in his crate near the back door and followed her.

The dog sighed.  He knew from experience that he wasn’t getting out again anytime soon.

EPILOGUE 2 (OR 1)

Kyle Rogers squirmed on his back under the front end of a big blue Chevy truck.  His arm extended out in front of him and his fingers explored empty air for a moment before latching onto the square metal frame of a jack stand.

A disembodied voice called down to Kyle as he started to drag the metal tree out from under the truck.

“You got it?”

“Yeah,” called Kyle.

“Ok, then slide on out of there.”

Kyle scooted backwards until he was clear of the truck, then stood.  As his head cleared the edge of the truck, a laugh rang out from behind him.

Kyle spun around to see Jack O’Neill with a huge smile on his face.  Jack was standing in front of the truck’s grill, carefully bracing the handle of the jack that now supported the vehicle.

“What’s so funny?”  asked Kyle.

Jack chuckled.  “You.  Only you could get grease in your hair just by pulling a jack stand out from under a truck.”

Kyle indignantly defended himself.  “Hey, it’s not like Marge is sparkling clean or anything.  And besides, I did a lot of other stuff earlier.”

Jack held up his hands in mock surrender.  “Ok, ok.  Whatever.  You ready to do this?”

Kyle nodded.

“Alright.  Then get over here.”

Kyle walked over to where Jack stood.  “I just turn the handle, right?”

Jack nodded.  “Yep.  Just let her down slow and easy.”

Kyle twisted the long handle of the floor jack counter-clockwise and the Chevy gently settled to the floor of the garage.  Her old joints creaked for a moment, and then Marge was still.

Jack grinned. “See?  Nothing to it.  Ready to do the back ones now?”

Kyle nodded vigorously.

Jack’s smile grew.  “Sweet.  Drag that jack back there.  I’ll be right there.  Don’t do anything until I get back.”

“Ok,” answered Kyle, as he manhandled the floor jack around to Marge’s back bumper.

Jack manually tightened the lug nuts on the front wheels of his old Chevy, then stepped away from the truck for a minute and called out to a man who had just appeared in the garage.

“Hey, Mike.”

Paul Michelson, Jack’s co-coach and friend who everybody just called ‘Mike’, nodded in greeting.

“Oh, hey, Jack.  Still working on the beast?”

“Yeah.”

Mike shook his head.  “Don’t know why you bother, man.”

Jack scoffed.  “Hey!  Marge and I have been through a lot together.  A few more dings won’t hurt anything.”

Mike laughed out loud.  “Yeah, the two of you can match.”

Jack laughed back.  “No doubt.  Seriously, though, I just wanted to say thanks for letting me use your garage.”

“Not a problem,” shrugged Mike.  “So, what’re you up to today?”

“Just put new tires up front.  About to do the backs.  Decided to leave the old ones on the Ford.”

Mike nodded.  “Well, you were needing new ones for the Ford anyway.”

“Exactly.”

As Jack spoke, a third voice entered the conversation.

“Hey!  We gonna do this or not?”

Mike grinned as Kyle’s tousled, grease-smeared head appeared over Marge’s tailgate from the other side of the garage.

Jack waved dismissively at Kyle.  “Hold your horses.  I’ll be right there.”

“Looks like rebuilding Marge has a few other benefits, huh?”  asked Mike.

Jack shrugged and spoke under his breath.  “Sometimes it’s a mixed blessing, as you can see.  But he’s a fourteen year old boy, Mike.  He can’t get enough of cars.  I can’t keep him out of here.  He wanted to help.”

Mike grinned like a Cheshire cat.  “Oh, I’m sure it’s torture for ya.”

Jack grinned conspiratorially back and slapped Mike on the shoulder before walking back toward Kyle.

“Indeed.  Here’s an idea.  You wanna help?”

Mike shook his head.  “Nah.  I just stopped by to see how you were doing.  I’ve got to run back to work for a bit.”

Jack shrugged.  “Suit yourself,” he called over his shoulder as he reached the truck.

Kyle and Jack replaced Marge’s rear tires, then set to work banging a few dents out of her fenders.  Jack had already replaced her passenger door and while he and Kyle were no body work experts, by the time Frank Rogers showed up to pick up Kyle after work, Marge looked a lot better than she did when they started.

Frank nodded to the old truck as he entered Mike’s garage.

“Be cheaper to get a new one, you know,”  he teased.

Jack waved him off.  “Yeah, yeah.  I know, but this is a lot more fun.  Right, Kyle?”

Kyle nodded, grinned, then swung a big rubber mallet high in the air.  It came crashing down on Marge’s fender with a resounding metallic thud.  Frank and Jack just laughed at Kyle’s exuberance.

“Well, as much fun as this is, Kyle, let’s go.  We’ve got to get home before your mother does.  It’s our night to make dinner, remember?”

Kyle nodded and reluctantly headed to his dad’s truck.

Frank watched him go, then turned to Jack.

“Thanks, Jack,” muttered Frank.

Jack was confused.  “For what?”

Frank shrugged.  “For teaching Kyle about this stuff.  I know the basics, but… ”

Jack interrupted.  “It’s no problem, Frank.”

Frank nodded.  “I know.  But still, it’s appreciated.  You know Kyle needs to stay busy.”

“We all need to stay busy, Frank.”

“True.  So… anyway… you wanna come over this weekend?  Some buddies are coming over for poker.  JoAnn’s taking Kyle over to visit her mother for a few days.”

Jack grimaced.  “Don’t think I can, Frank.  Sam’s coming up.”

“Wasn’t she up last weekend?”  Frank was surprised.  Sam visited Jack often, but usually not that often.  Especially since Jack hadn’t been down to Colorado in a while that Frank knew of.

“Yep.”

It was silent in the garage for a few seconds, then Frank snorted and started to quietly laugh.

Jack looked at him sideways.  “What?”

“She wants to work on the beast, doesn’t she?”

Jack laughed at Frank’s double entendre.  He laughed so hard he nearly doubled over.

Frank rolled his eyes at Jack.  “The truck, Jack.  I meant the truck.”

Jack wiped his eyes and controlled himself.  “I know you did, Frank, but it was just funny to me.”

“Understandable.  But that’s why she’s coming, isn’t it?”

Jack grinned.  “I can’t keep her out of here anymore than I can Kyle.  Once she figured out she could ‘improve’ Marge and actually got into the nitty-gritty of things, she’s all about this truck.  She’s treating it like one of her bikes.”

Frank chuckled.  “Well, she’s got the tinkering gene, Jack.  You can’t change that.”

Jack snorted back.  “Too true.”

“Well, I’ve got to run.  Another time for poker, then?”

“Count on it.”

Frank laughed and waved bye as he joined Kyle in the truck.

Jack waved back and turned back to Marge.

He worked a little longer, then called it a day.

He smiled as he drove home in his Ford, pleased with his work.

Marge would live to see another day, and if Sam had anything to say about it, she would be running faster and better come winter.

And Sam always had a say in everything.

The End