At First Sight

Chapter 19: Revelations

I woke up in a slight panic. My heart was racing. It took me a moment to remember the events of the last, I didn't even know how long it had been. More than 24 hours had passed for sure. I took in the room around me; it was slowly coming back to me. I Inhaled deeply, feeling a slight resistance, and a sharp pain. I looked down, my heart raced faster. Carter had curled up as close to my body as physically possible, leaning her head on my shoulder. I dropped my head back. I had only dreamt of this happening, waking up to Carter's beauty cuddled up beside me. Of course it had to be in the most dire situation, where most likely she had done this to keep me warm enough to live through the night. I tried to breathe again; the pain was only worse this time. Damn, I thought, I have to move her. My strength was gone. I could barely move myself, let alone her.

"Captain," I mumbled, she groaned slightly. "Captain!" at last she started moving. "As much as I think this is nice..." It was hard to talk, I had to take deep breaths between each word.

"Shh, try to sleep," she told me, "You're exhausted, you passed out. I thought we'd need to combine body heat to make it through the night,"

"Oh, that's fine. It's just, it's hard to sleep with broken ribs, when someone is lying on you," I explained, regretting my words more and more, but knew it was necessary.

"Sorry," she mumbled, then moved her weight off me, but still clutched my body close to her.

"That's better," I gasped.

"We'll sleep for a few hours, then I'll fix the DHD," she informed me.

"Okay, night," my heart soared as I spoke those words.

"Night," she whispered back. As much as this was out of necessity, I was sure that had we encountered a situation where we'd been stuck on a dessert planet, we would have ended up like this anyways. Even if I didn't tell her the truth, she knew it, or at least hoped. As we started to drift back into sleep, her hand slid down from the awkward position she was holding it in. Her arm was around my waist, and I could feel my body responding to her presence so close to me. Stop, I ordered it, but it didn't.

"Um, Sir?" Carter mumbled.

"It's my side arm... I swear," I joked, she knew as well as I did that that was an outright lie. We laughed for a second, but pain erupted again. "Okay, no giggling," I felt her smile on my shoulder, and then she moved closer.

"If we don't make it," she whispered, "I won't regret this,"

"I'll regret dying," I replied, "Without knowing what this could become." I left it at that, and fell back into my slumber.

I didn't know how much time had passed when I was conscious again. I wasn't really awake, just awake enough to be aware of Carter. Carter was still clutching herself close to me. I moved my arm over her, and held her too. For a long moment, we lay there, in each other's arms. I didn't want this feeling to end. I hadn't even felt this kind of passion with Sara. I was in and out of consciousness for the next several hours. I was aware when Sam got up and checked my leg again, swearing violently when she saw the irreversible damage the cold had done to it. She lit the last of the cooking propane to keep it warm and carefully wrapped it up in more blankets. I was aware of her mumbling to herself as she dug deeper around the DHD.

"I can't let him die," she muttered. "Not after everything he's done for me!" Sometimes she would shout at the DHD. "WHY?" or "This isn't going to work!" every now and then, she would let out a cry of frustration, I could hear her sobbing for long periods of time. "Jack, I'm doing everything I can. I'm doing my best! I did my best!" My heart would skip a beat when she would say my name. It seemed to be a motivator for her. "Jack," she would whisper, and then I would hear her move around, and start doing whatever it was that she abandoned.

"WHY WON'T YOU WORK!" she yelled a few hours later. I was awake now. I reached for my radio.

"Carter?" I whispered into it. I could feel that there's almost nothing left inside me. Just cold and pain. All sorts of pain. The pain of knowing I couldn't be with Sam. The regret of never knowing what a relationship with her could be like. I heard her scramble to her feet, and slide down to my side.

"Sir," she whispered.

"I'm usually the first one up," I joked.

"You're bleeding internally, I don't know how badly, you're broken leg might be frost bitten, I can't tell, I've been trying to warm it up,"

"What's the bad news?" I asked, trying to keep the situation light, seeing as Carter was so close to tears again. "Help me up,"

"No, Sir, you need to heel. That's an order," she told me. I smiled.

"Hey, I give the orders around here,"

"Not Doctor's orders,"

"Oh,"

"Here drink as much of this as you can," she told me, moving the pot filled with melted ice towards me. I drank as much as I could, coughing as the cold water went down. It stung. "I should have gotten you out of here by now! I'm sorry"

"You will!" I told her, as much for her benefit as my own.

"I've been working on the control panel for 12 hours now. It should work, I don't understand what's wrong. It should work! I'm missing something." My heart fell. There was no way both of us were getting out of this alive if she couldn't get that Gate to work.

"Captain, I think it's time that we start thinking of plan B," I whispered.

"What's Plan B?"

"You take the rest of the supplies to the surface, and take your chances."

"No, Sir, I can make the Gate work, I know I can!" She got up, and started working again. I hoped to god she would figure it out. She was my only chance at survival. This time, she wasn't as chatty; I think it was because she knew I could hear her now. But it didn't matter, because I was already unconscious. She shook me awake a while later. The look on her face said it all. It was wet again with tears, and sadness emanated from her intelligent blue eyes. Her eyes just looked dead.

"I guess it didn't work," I whispered.

"I'm sorry," she cried.

"I don't understand! It wont work!"

"Captain, Plan B," I told her.

"No, Sir,"

"Sam!" Her face lit up slightly at my saying her name. "I'm dying, follow my order, please!" For a long moment, she looked at me.

"Yes, Sir," she put the radio in my hand, and got up and left. She started climbing.

"I always loved you, Samantha," I whispered, but she couldn't hear me anymore. I couldn't hear myself. It was like the desert, but this time, Samantha couldn't get me through it. For a while, the radio, then Sam's voice came through.

"Sir, I don't know if I'll ever reach the surface! It seems to just keep going!"

"Sam," I mumbled. "It was an honour serving with you!" And then, everything went black again, this time, I thought for good. I was aware of some things, like Sam's voice on occasion, and when she fell, and when she pulled herself closer to me.

"Sam,"

"I'm here, Jack,"

"Cold,"

"I know, it's alright, you can sleep now," she kissed my cheek, and fell asleep, and together, our worlds went black.

Is this heaven? I thought, feeling warm and fuzzy inside. The pain was gone. At last the pain was gone. This must have been heaven. Or not. The world around me started to come into focus. I could hear beeping, two sets of steady beeping. I could hear other electronic equipment buzzing. I wasn't dead, or in heaven. I was in a hospital. More specifically, the infirmary at the SGC. I could hear Fraiser's voice in the corridor.

"They both suffered severe frost bite, Colonel O'Neill's internal bleeding has subsided, and we are performing transfusions as often as necessary. Captain Carter did an excellent job with that splint, and his leg will heal fine," I smiled. I hoped they would tell Carter that. "I have no idea how Captain Carter got away from that with so little injuries. She's better off than Daniel was. And thank god for that. If she had been as badly hurt as Daniel, or worse, neither of them would have survived as long as they did."

"So they'll make a full recovery?" I heard General Hammond's voice waft into the room.

"Yes Sir, Although, both should be given some time off. I would like to keep them under my supervision in that time. Is there any where on base that they can stay once they are well enough to leave these beds?"

"We have several rooms. I will arrange it."

I was still bed ridden a week later when Sam came to see me. She had been released the day before, and had caught up with Daniel to find out exactly what had happened.

She sat down in the Chair beside my bed. I noticed for the first time that she had a huge scrape across her cheek, but otherwise looked happy and healthy. She slide her hand into mine and squeezed it.

"Sir, it's good to see you're okay," she whispered.

"Yeah," I replied, my head was fuzzy from the morphine that they were pumping me with while my rib healed. "So, what happened? The last thing I remember is... you... falling back down, I thought I was done for. Did you get the gate to work?"

"No, sir..."

"Cut out the Sir crap, would ya? We nearly died together on some god forsaken planet, for crying out loud. Hell, we even slept in the same sleeping bag to keep warm!"

"Er, well..."

"I give you full permission to call me Jack," I told her. I wanted to hear he say my name just once, as if it would prove to me that this was not a dream. She smiled.

"You remember how I told you there was no four? Not this time? Well turns out there was. It just was so unlikely that it didn't even occur to me! Four: There's a second Star Gate on earth. When the Gate on P4X-771 was hit with enough energy, the worm hole jumped to the nearest Star Gate, the second one on earth, which was situated in Antarctica,"

"Ice planet my ass, Sam!"

"Sorry, Sir... Jack, it seemed like the logical explanation at the time!" I smiled at her. I was right, hearing her say my name was all the medicine I needed. That's when I decided that she needed to know. I should have told her earlier, I had tried, but she couldn't hear me.

"Sam, can you check something for me?" I asked in an undertone.

"Sure," she furrowed her eyebrows curiously.

"Make sure no one can hear us," I told her. She got up and peered down the hall in both directions.

"There's no one there," she told me, "What did you want me to check for?"

"I wanted to tell you, I lied. I've lied for a really long time about this particular subject, and I can't keep it to myself anymore. The reason I lied is because, now especially, it could get me court marshalled, when I first spouted the lie, I'm not sure why I did it, I think it was because I was trying to convince myself that it could never work, I had given up for a reason and that..."

"Jack? I don't understand," I smiled, I opened my mouth to tell her the truth, that I loved her, but then, Hammond walked into the room. I quickly dropped Sam's hand, and turned my focus to Hammond.

"Jack, good to see your awake! You have one dedicated team, son!" Hammond boomed. He was smiling from ear to ear, oblivious that he had just walked in on my confession.

"Yes I do, Sir," I replied. "I know without Carter here, I would be long since dead,"

"Not only that. It was Teal'c who searched every planet between here and P4X-771, and Daniel who spent hours sitting in the briefing room, trying to solve this puzzle,"

"Never leave a man behind, that's how I run this team," I replied, hoping that he would leave. He smiled. That was when Teal'c walked in. There went my chance.

"Sir," Sam suddenly said, rising to her feet, "I have to get going, I wanted to take a look at few things," And she left. My heart sunk as she walked out of the room. When would I ever have the chance to tell her now?

"Jack, I better get going to, SG-5 is due back any minute,"

"Thanks for stopping by, Sir, always a pleasure, and thanks again for the rescue. I heard you came all the way down to the south pole to rescue us,"

"Anything for you, Jack," Hammond replied, and turned on his heel. No sooner was he out the door that the sirens started to blare. "Off world activation!" was being cried over the speakers by Harriman.

When the room was empty, I turned to Teal'c.

"Teal'c I'm glad you're here, I don't know who to talk to," I told him.

"Are you referring to the fact that you have feelings for Captain Carter that are forbidden on your world?"

"You know Teal'c, you are one observant son of a bitch," Teal'c raised his eye brow at me, then asked:

"Why are you and Captain Carter not permitted to have a relationship, when you both so clearly desire one?"

"Because... well, it's hard to explain..."

"It does not seem so complex to me, O'Neill. On Chulak, if two people have feelings for each other, they are encouraged to act on those emotions, not hide them,"

"Well, we can't all be like Chulak," I mumbled. "How long have you known?"

"Since I first laid eyes on the two of you. It became more obvious as we went on missions however. On Simarka, you went above and beyond to save Captain Carter. I even noticed your reaction when she emerged in the traditional attire for a woman on that planet. You harmed Daniel Jackson in her name when you were infected by that microbe. You were one of the last men on base to fall under Hathor's spell, and once you saw Captain Carter, I could see it in your eyes that you did not wish to harm her. You would have gone down to save her when we thought she would die along with Cassandra, you were furious when she went down on her own. You resented Narim for showing interest in her. It has been all too easy to see right through what many humans do not see,"

"And here I thought I was doing an okay job," I dropped my head back in the pillow.

"It would appear you are," Teal'c stated. I guessed he was right. If only Teal'c had noticed, then it wasn't so bad. I didn't think it would matter to anyone on base if they knew. However, it was not worth risking it this early in the game.

"If you say so,"

"Indeed," I rolled my eyes.

A/N: I apologize that this chapter was significantly shorter than pervious chapters of late. However, I do hope that you were entertained by its content. You can expect an update within the next few hours, possibly regarding SG-1's first victory against Apophis, or perhaps the after math of that situation. I would greatly appreciate it if review and comments were made in regards to the pervious chapter. "Great Chapter" will not be sufficient. I would appreciate suggestions and comments regarding stylistic and other components of this story. Once again, I will request that you inform me of any changes you would enjoy seeing, such as Teal'c's point of view, or Daniel Jackson's, I'd even consider 's point of view, if that was requested.

... Wow... that was hard...never trying to talk like Teal'c again... that was an epic fail! Haha! INDEED!

I have no ownership rights to Star Gate SG-1... Indeed...