Jack was mildly annoyed when he stepped back through the gate. He was tired. He was dirty. And he'd been stuck on P9K222 for three hours with only Daniel and Teal'c for company. He hadn't realised before how much he liked Carter's conversation, even he didn't understand half of what she said. At least she laughed at his jokes. She'd managed to get out of this trip by claiming she had important work to do on the artifacts from P6G897.
"What are you planning to do with that?" he asked Teal'c, gesturing at the rather large rock he held.
"I shall give it to Cassandra. She collects rocks."
"Right." Jack said, amazed at why Cassie would collect rocks. "I'm going to see Sam."
"You saw her before we left." Daniel pointed out.
"And now I'm going to see her again. Any objections? Good." and Jack wandered off, leaving a very tired Daniel shrugging and traipsing off to bed.
*****
Jack found Sam where he'd expected to find her...in her lab.
"I thought I told you to get some rest." he said as he strode in, then he took in the way she was leaning on the desk, staring into mid-space, looking tense and very pale. The only colour in her face was two high spots of red on her cheeks.
"Carter, are you okay?" he asked, worried by her appearance.
She shook her head slowly, as if even that slight movement hurt. "I'm not feeling too good." she said slowly, in a small weak voice.
Jack shook his head. "You've been working too hard, as usual. Come on, lets get you to bed." and he moved towards her to help her down from her stool. But as he got closer, her eyes closed, and she started to sway.
"Sir.." she murmured, as she collapsed. Jack caught her, and lowered her gently to the floor.
"Sam?" he murmured, slapping her gently to get her to open her eyes. She didn't. "Damn it Sam, what have you done to yourself this time?" he asked futilely as he felt her raging fever and her thready pulse. He was beginning to get panicked now. Sam was NEVER ill. He picked her up, worried by her incoherent moaning.
Five minutes later, he carried her into the infirmary, where Janet was patching up Makepeace. She glanced at Sam's limp figure, and Jack's worried expression, and motioned towards the bed.
"What's the hell's wrong with her?" Makepeace asked, as he helped Jack maneuver Sam onto the bad.
"Damned if I know. I found her like this." Jack said, stepping back reluctantly to let Janet attend to her friend. Makepeace opened his mouth to make a smart remark about Jack carrying his major around, but saw the distress in his friend's normally impassive face, and shut up. Instead he left quietly, pausing only to glance at Jack in what he hoped was a comforting way. Jack barely acknowledged him.
"Well?" he asked Janet as soon as Makepeace was gone. "I told her she was working too hard. She's been up at least twenty-eight hours to my knowledge."
"And if I know Sam, she's probably forgotten to eat too." Janet added. "Look, I'll run some blood tests to make sure, but I'm pretty sure that all that's wrong is overwork, tiredness and some dehydration. I'll put some fluids in her, and let her rest."
Jack didn't move, just stood at the end of the bed, watching Sam breathe. "I told her three hours ago to go to bed. Just for once, couldn't she obey an order?" he murmured.
"Colonel, go to bed yourself." Janet said firmly. "She's in good hands. And I don't want to see you end up the same way."
Jack almost argued, but one look down at Janet's very firm expression, and Jack changed his mind. He left slowly, taking one look back at Sam as he left.
*****
He stayed in his room for five hours, but couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her pale face, her fragile form, and felt her falling against him. His major was usually so strong, so indomitable. Seeing her so weak and frail was..unsettling. Even when he did manage to doze for a few moments, his sleep was disturbed by bad dreams. He was almost grateful for the knock on the door that woke him. He opened it to see Daniel standing there, looking even more worried then usual.
"Jack, come quick." was all he said. Jack practically ran after him to the infirmary, terrified that the worst had happened, and Sam was really ill.
What he saw there, stopped him dead.
Sam was in a protective plastic tent, designed to seal her in, with an oxygen mask over her face. She was no longer alone in the infirmary. Jack could see Makepeace, Simmons, Technician Davis, Hammond and several others including Cassie, all lying in the same enclosed environments.
"Oh God!" Daniel said, looking down. Janet was lying at his feet. After Jack and Teal'c had lifted her onto a bed, and arranged an oxygen mask and blankets as best they could, they turned to Daniel.
"She knew she was going to be ill soon." he said. "She'd already passed it on to Cassie. When I walked in, she was writing up notes for whoever came in. Dr. Warner's already ill you see."
Jack glanced down the room. It was full. He guessed many others were being cared for in their own quarters. He couldn't believe how many had fallen ill in just a few hours.
"What do you know?" he said grimly.
"Only this. It's passed by touch. Janet said she had to find patient zero, so she could find the cause, then find the cure."
"Patient zero?"
"The first patient to fall ill. The one to pass it on to the others." Teal'c explained.
"The problem is," Daniel explained, "Hammond initiated quarantine procedures before he fell ill. No-one can get in. There's no doctors coming, and all ours are too ill to help. It's down to us."
"Right, lets go through it again." Daniel said. "We know that Simmons touched Technician Davis when he came on duty. Simmons brushed by Makepeace in the corridor. Makepeace was on his way to meet Hammond, who shook hands with him. Both Hammond and Simmons fell ill soon afterwards, and so did Makepeace. So we know Makepeace passed it on to them."
"And he helped me with Sam, who was already ill. I got that part. But I also touched Sam, and I'm not ill, so where does that get us?" Jack replied, too tired to snap. They'd been at this for hours. Teal'c was wandering the base, helping those who had fallen ill. There were many, and Jack and Daniel were beginning to feel like the only well people on base. It was a lonely feeling.
"Sam must be patient zero. But where did she get it, and why aren't you ill?"
"What about P6G897?" Jack asked wearily, resting his head on his arms. His head ached from trying to assimilate and rearrange information he only half understand, and his stomach was twisted into a cold hard knot with worry. He was almost sick with fear and frustration for Carter.
"No," said Daniel, "then we'd be ill."
"Then the artifacts she was studying? Some dead thing came to life and infected her." Jack said. He was well aware that they'd been through all this a million times before, and it was still getting them nowhere.
"No, I've checked them." Daniel mused, chewing on the end of his pen. It was a sodden mis-shaped ragged piece of plastic by now. "Maybe we've been looking at this the wrong way." he said slowly. "Maybe we shouldn't be looking at who's ill, but who's not ill?"
"What?" Jack snapped, looking up briefly. It was long enough to catch the sudden hope being born in Daniel's eyes, deep down as a new idea was formed.
"You touched Sam. Yet you're not ill."
"I'd realised that." Jack replied, snidely. For crying out loud, hadn't he spent the past few hours wishing it was him lying in there, dying slowly, instead of her, and wondering why the hell it wasn't? The only comfort he derived from not being ill was that he could help her.
"Janet told me once, that in San Francisco, when they were studying the spread of AIDS, they found that the patient zero remained relatively healthy for years, while those he had passed the disease onto sickened and died."
"So?"
"So who else have you touched recently?"
"No-one. I'm not exactly the touchy-feely type."
"Okay. Now this thing has an incubation period of about three hours. When was the last time you touched Sam BEFORE she fell ill?"
Jack thought back. Before he had left for P9K222, he had visited Sam in the lab to tell her to rest. She'd been engrossed in the microscope, and hadn't heard him enter. He'd tapped her on the shoulder, and she'd jumped, and almost fallen off her stool. She'd grabbed onto him to steady herself. He could still feel the warm touch of her hand against his. He grew cold as he suddenly realised what that touch meant.
"About three hours before she was ill."
"Exactly. Although you're not ill, you're the carrier. Sam didn't pick anything up on P6G897, you did, but you didn't touch anyone till you touched Sam."
Jack felt the knot in his stomach grow harder and larger until it threatened to overwhelm him. "You mean," he whispered, "I've killed her?"
"You may also be her saviour." Teal'c announced from the doorway.
"How?" said Jack, grasping at the slender chance of hope.
"You are not ill. Therefore you have the cure inside you."
"But how are we to find it? We're not doctors." Daniel said, ignoring the flaring of hope in Jack's eyes.
"We shall see if the infection is in his blood. If it is, we can devise a cure using the same method Major Carter used to cure us all of Machello's device."
"You mean, separate the blood, and all that?"
"I mean, all that."
"But how?"
"I can draw blood. Dr Frasier taught me. As for the rest...in my quest to understand humanity, I sought to understand your physical make-up. I have observed Dr. Frasier many times, and she has been kind enough to teach me many of the procedures, including the one that saved my own life, and now will save hers."
"You mean, you can do it?" Jack said, in awe. Teal'c inclined his head. "My friend," Jack said, "you are an amazing man."
*****
The three of them sat in the infirmary, surrounded by people they knew, liked, talked to every day. Now they lay still, quiet, hardly breathing, losing the battle against the microbe that had invaded their bodies. Death was very close for some of them. Death was a breath away for Sam.
"It's typical really." murmured Jack, as Teal'c drew his blood.
"What is?" Daniel asked. Jack smiled.
"There she is, totally out of it, unable to speak or communicate, but still, its a plan she's devised that's going to save everyone."
Teal'c finished, and Jack moved over to her. He pushed the sheets aside, and sat down by her bed.
"Do not touch her." warned Teal'c. "Not until I have ascertained that you do indeed have the infection in your blood, and that it is dead."
Jack sat down, staring at her pale face.
"Talk to her." Daniel suggested quietly. "People who seem too ill to be aware can often hear. And I should know."
He moved away, aware that whatever Jack said, it would be deeply personal.
"I know." Jack whispered. "I've been pulled back from death by your voice. Remember Antarctica? I was ready to die. It was so cold, and it would have been so easy. But you kept talking to me, kept urging me to live. You wouldn't save yourself, you just kept pulling me back to life. I had to order you to go in the end. And I thought of you, as I closed my eyes. But you still came back. Spoke to me. Even pretended to be my wife. You thought I didn't know. But I did. I always did. I know how you've saved my life, over and over again, risking your own. It's a stupid thing to do Carter. Your life for mine...its not a fair swap."
He glanced over to where Daniel and Teal'c where bent over the centrifuge, watching the two test tubes spinning in it.
"They're working so hard." he said to Sam. "They...we.. so desperately want you to live. You have to live Sam. You're our heart. You're our rock. Don't think I don't know that Daniel goes to you when he's depressed. And don't think I haven't noticed how protective Teal'c is of you. And don't think, don't ever think, that I don't need you too." His voice shook, as he glanced back.
"You're infected." Daniel called. "But you've got the cure. We're just separating it now."
"You can now touch her." Teal'c added. Jack turned to Sam and lifted her cold hand, trying to warm it in his own. She was breathing so shallowly now that her breath hardly misted the mask at all. Jack was afraid, so very afraid.
"Don't die. You're my light. You're my life. You mean...what can I say?" Jack had run out of words. The tears had welled up into his eyes, and now they fell, singly, landing to sparkle on Sam's white cheek, like diamonds in the snow.
Daniel injected the blood product into her IV.
"We should know very soon, Teal'c said." Daniel said, unsure whether to stay or leave Jack with Sam.
"Live." Jack murmured urgently in her ear. He bent down, and whispered, "Please. I need you." The cure poured into her, and still nothing happened. "I love you."
He pulled off her oxygen mask, and bent down to her mouth. He could feel no breath coming from it. One of his tears lay on the corner of her mouth. He bent down, and kissed it, gently, softly, willing his life into her. Then, against his cheek, he felt a faint stirring of air. He sat up. She was breathing.
"Oh Thank God." he prayed, shaking with the sudden release of fear. Daniel went to Teal'c, to prepare more of the cure. Jack watched, struck dumb with overwhelming joy, as Sam's eyes opened.
Sam woke up to see Jack bending over her, his face wet with tears. She hadn't seen him like this since...since Hathor had almost killed both him and her.
"Hey," she whispered, her voice croaking, unconsciously reaching up to smooth the tears away, "who died?"
"You almost did. You've been ill."
"I dreamt you loved me." she murmured still groggy.
"And so I do." he replied. "Now for God's sake Major, get some rest."
Jack left her sleeping peacefully. He went to his room, locked the door, then thought of how close he had come to losing her, of that one brief second where she hadn't breathed, and the strain and trauma and sheer heartbreaking dread of the past few hours finally swallowed him, and he broke down into wrenching sobs.
*****
After a few hours, he returned to the infirmary to find Sam awake, sitting up and arguing with Teal'c about when she could get up. She smiled as she saw him, and patted the bed, inviting him to sit down. He did.
"So..." he said, desperately trying to think of something witty to say and failing miserably.
"I heard you, you know." she said, smiling complacently.
"Heard what?" he asked, although he knew very well what.
"You know," she said dreamily, "when I first read that first report you wrote on Abydos, I had a feeling I would fall in love with you. And I was right."
"What?" Jack managed to stammer, completely dumbstruck.
"I knew I would love you as soon as you smiled at me, when I offered to arm-wrestle you." she continued, as if she hadn't heard him. "I just had no idea you could ever love me."
"Major, are you saying..."
"That I love you? Yes Sir."
Jack stared at her. "You never cease to amaze me, Major." he said.
"Can you say it again?" she asked. "Now that I'm actually awake."
Jack looked deep into her eyes. He'd known, the minute he'd first seen her, that his fate was sealed..and such a sweet, joyful fate it was. There was no use fighting it anymore.
"I love you, Major."
"Sam."
"I love you Sam."
The End.
Story Notes: SPOILERS;SOLITUDES, LEGACY
SEASON;THREE
SEASON;THREE
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]