samandjack.net



An incredibly strong vice squeezed his insides. His organs were quickly crushed, dissolving themselves into a slimy substance as he felt his muscles burn and his bones turn to dust. He needed to breathe, but he had no lungs anymore; he wanted to scream but only silence met his decaying ears…

Jack sat up in the bed, his body covered by cold sweat.

“Jack?” Sam mumbled.

“Yeah…” he replied in a hoarse voice.

Sam rose on her elbow. “What’s up?”

“I… I had a bad dream,” he panted. “Ow!” he screamed in pain, doubling over.

“Jack!” Sam, now fully awake, reached for him.

“God it hurts!” he croaked.

The pain subsided and he started to take deep breaths, lying on his back.

“What is it? Where do you hurt?” Sam asked, searching his tummy for signs of heat or tumor.

“I don’t know, everywhere… At first it was only in the stomach and I thought it was something I ate, but now… It’s like I’ve run a marathon and eaten rotten food…” he let out a long breath and seemed to relax a bit. “It’s… it’s gone,” he said.

“Jack, I want you to see a doctor,” she said in a worried tone.

“I don’t know, Sam. Maybe I’m just a little stressed out and tired. First, there was Thanksgiving, now the Holiday Season… I have a lot of work, and…”

“Don’t bullshit me, Jack, you’ve done worse than that back at the SGC and never experienced such crap. Your skin is on fire.” She put her hand on his forehead. “You have a fever.”

She got up and went down to the bathroom to retrieve some aspirin. She gave the two tablets to him, along with a glass of water, and he took them gratefully.

“This will help to keep the fever at bay. How long has this been going on?” she asked.

“Coupla months… maybe less… It wasn’t that painful at first, just the occasional pang in the stomach; then I’ve been having nightmares for about three weeks, almost the same ones…” he confessed.

She sighed thoughtfully. “Promise me you’ll go and see a doctor.”

“Hey,” he said, drawing her upon his chest. “I’m okay…”

“No, Jack, you’re not. You’re burning, and you hurt; you’re not ‘okay’!” she exclaimed, looking him in the eyes.

“Okay, I’ll go. I’m off the rotation in two days; I’ll go then,” he conceded.

“I’ll go with you,” she affirmed.

“As you wish, Mom…” he smirked, earning a playful slap from his companion.

“Sleep, wise ass!”

“Yup, that would be me!” he murmured, laying a kiss upon her head.

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Oma had recommended him for his discretion and efficiency. Doctor Gilmore examined Jack from head to toe. He took his temperature, checked his blood pressure and heart beat, and performed a series of other tests which were starting to aggravate Jack, never one very fond of doctors and their patronizing looks.

“You can put your clothes back on, thank you.” He had concluded his examination.

Jack hopped down the examining table and grabbed his shirt. A while later, he joined Sam and the doctor in the office.

“Mr. O'Neill, I’d like you to take an MRI. Your body temperature is currently significant of a slight infection. Nothing too serious, but still it’s a bit more than average, and from what you described, I want to rule out a parasite.”

Jack internally cringed at that.

“You said besides your stomach pains, you haven’t had any digestive problem?” Dr. Gilmore asked.

“No, and the pain ceased entirely every time the attack subsided.”

“Your blood samples came back clear for infection; that’s what I don’t get. There are slight abnormalities, but nothing that could explain those intense symptoms. Dr. Carter here tells me she works at Burlington College. You could take the opportunity to schedule an MRI as soon as possible. In the meantime, I am sorry, but I’m putting you on sick leave.”

“What?” Jack exclaimed standing up.

“Considering the fact you pilot a plane, Mr. O'Neill, think of what might if you have an attack during landing or take off?” Dr. Gilmore asked him pointedly.

Jack sat back down.

“I knew you’d see my point,” Dr. Gilmore smiled.

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Sam was hunched over test sheets she wasn’t even paying attention to in the small alcove that passed for her office at the university. Jack had come with her today and was to spend the entire morning at the hospital, where she had dropped him for his MRI and several other tests Dr. Gilmore had prescribed. She had her doubts. She feared the MRI would confirm them, and in that case, not only he but she was in big trouble, for she had been experiencing some diffuse muscle and stomach cramps recently.

“Dr. Carter, the spectrometer analysis of the sample shows no trace of radioactive element…” Steven Basic, one of her students, said, coming from the lab, holding the results of the aforementioned analysis.

“Huh?” she asked, not really knowing what Steven was talking about.

“The results on the sample of soil we received last week,” he clarified. “I haven’t completed the analysis, but neither the Geigermeter nor the spectrometer shows any trace of Uranium.

“Oh! Well, that’s good, Steven, thank you! When you are done, don’t forget to write down all the results and print the report. I want it as a proof our prototype decontamination sprinkler works.”

“Yes, of course!” Steven beamed.

Sam smiled back. She knew the guy had a crush on her, and he was always eager to please her, but she had noticed the sad look upon his face when Jack had come and surprised her once, taking her out to dinner on a whim and planting a big kiss on her lips before leaving the lab.

Her musings were once again interrupted, this time by the phone ringing.

“Carter?” she said in the receiver.

“Dr. Carter, Jack O'Neill would like to speak to you,” came the voice of the secretary of the University.

“Put him through, thanks,” she replied. When she heard him take the phone, she spoke, “Hey…”

“Hey,” came his soft voice.

“You’re done?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“And?”

“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Complicated words, ya know…” he said lightly.

A sense of dread crept up her spine. “I’ll come and get you,” she said in a voice more confident than she thought it would be.

“Okay, I’ll wait for you outside the entrance.”

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Jack hopped in Sam’s car and kissed her on the cheek.

“Where to?” she asked.

“Someplace quiet… restaurant? It’s time for lunch anyway…” Jack replied.

“Dino’s Pizza?” she suggested.

He nodded. “Sounds great, secluded booths…”

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Jack opened the door for Sam, then proceeded to seek out a secluded table. Once they had ordered, Jack took Sam’s hand and looked her in the eyes.

“Nothing’s apparently wrong with me,” he started.

“But?” she supplied.

“But the MRI showed strange patches of cells throughout my body. It’s not cancer… It’s just as if these patches were abnormal,” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers, “and then not. One second there was nothing, the next there were dots all over my body, and then nothing again. I had a seizure while I was in the machine, a small one, but strong enough for them to see the phenomenon on a larger scale, before everything went back to normal again, like nothing had happened.”

Sam closed her eyes and sighed. “Entropic cascade failure…”

Jack nodded. “They don’t know what it was, but I suspected, yeah.” He paused. “Now, if I’m experiencing that…” he left the question hanging, raising his eyebrows.

“I have been feeling muscle and stomach cramps for some time, too. Only milder than what you seem to be experiencing.” She confirmed.

“Maybe that’s because I’m older?” he suggested.

“I don’t know; if I had the proper equipment, I’d run some tests, but…” she shook her head, powerless to do anything but acknowledge the facts.

He nodded, then asked, “Why now?”

“We must have been experiencing them at the cellular level from the beginning, but they were too diffuse for us to feel anything.”

“So let me get this straight,” he started. “At first we thought we were safe because the exact matches, Jack O'Neill and Sam Carter were actually just TV characters?”

She nodded.

“But it occurs that we’re experiencing entropic cascade failure anyway because there are in fact far more similarities between this Richard Dean Anderson guy and Jack O'Neill — me — and Amanda Tapping and Sam Carter — you — than we thought?” he asked her.

“Most probably, yeah. Exact matches would have induced a stronger reaction. The fact that we’re geographically distant from them might play some part, too…”

Jack’s hand squeezed hers. “I don’t want to go through any more tests, Sam,” he said, his eyes fixated on hers.

“Pointless,” she agreed.

“My job insurance covers my sick leave for another month and a half,; I checked with them while I was waiting for you…”

Sam shook her head. “Jack…”

“Sam, I know what this means,” he cut her off.

She looked at him sharply, pinching her lips together.

“It’s been more than six months, Sam…” he started, referring to the amount of time they had spent in this universe. “Either they cannot help us, or they’re close to finding a solution, or...”

“But we don’t have time, Jack!” she said, her voice constricted. “Not anymore!”

“Sam.”

She refused to meet his eyes.

“Sam, look at me,” he said gently, putting his index finger underneath her chin and making her look him in the eyes. “Sam, let’s go home. I’ll work with Jim as long as I can and enjoy the life we have there, with you, if you’ll let me. And we’re gonna hope for the best, okay?”

“This is so damn unfair!” she said, frustrated.

“You’re the scientist there, Sam. When has life ever been fair for us?” he smiled gently, leaning forward to lay a soft kiss on her lips.

They finished their meal, making small talk and trying to relax as much as they could, given their current situation, then Sam called the University to say she was taking the rest of the day off for personal reasons.

In the car on their way back home, they decided that she would continue her work as long as she didn’t experience strong seizures, while Jack remained at the farm. He had already called the airport, asking for a meeting with the chairman of CommuteAir.

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Sam stepped into the foyer and turned to Jack as he closed the door. Their eyes locked, and he opened his arms for her. She stepped forward, crushing her face against his chest and hugging him fiercely.

“I can’t believe this is happening to us,” she murmured against his sweater. Right before Christmas to top it all…”

“It’s gonna be okay, Sam. We have come out of more serious situations; we’ll come out of this one, too, and when we do, I’ll marry you,” he said softly, kissing the top of her head.

She looked at him sharply. He was smiling that terribly sexy grin of his. “You will?” she asked, not quite trusting what her ears had just heard.

“You betcha!” he said before kissing her ravenously.

When they came up for air, Sam took his hand and caressed his knuckles. Jack did the same with her cheek, then she locked her eyes with his. “Make love to me, Jack.”

He smiled tenderly and let her pull his hand as they went up the stairs and to their room…

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