Archive of Our Own

The rain lands heavily against the cloth roof then drips into clay buckets, the ping ping of water meeting water a mournful accompaniment to the care of the body. A cold wind burns through the tent, and Sam shivers where she stands watching, her hood lowered but her mask pulled down around her neck, wet and weighty from the rain. She's morbidly fascinated by what she's seeing, unable to tear her eyes away from the body of the girl, the stone table on which she lies worn smooth by hundreds and hundreds of bodies before.

A descendant of the women specifically cultivated to be Jaffa for the more important Goa'uld symbiotes, her death has caused mild ripples through a community where women are valued far less than men. Her pale skin is mottled with dark purple bruises that stain her in death; her shining blonde hair shorn and carefully gathered by her grieving sisters. So small and delicate on the table, naked for the last time in her life, and Sam's eyes linger on the hollow swell of her stomach that lies wrinkled against her hipbones. The child is safe, nestled in the crook of his proud father's arm who has not seemed to care that his wife is dead.

The girl – Khayyam – is little more than fourteen or fifteen. Younger still when she married a man three times her age. His fourth wife, though unlikely his last, who suffered at the hands of her husband. Sam remembers seeing her when they first arrived, small and hunched, curved around the swell of her stomach as her husband yelled at her. The colonel's hand was strong and restraining on her wrist when she jerked towards them, a silent warning not to interfere. She remembers her breath on the air and the burn of his grounding touch as Jonas's excited babble washed over them at the anthropological wonder they had stumbled across.

Wonder.

The scoff remains hooked low in her throat. There's nothing wonderful about the death of a child, no matter what glory her family are trying to find in her death. Everyone knows but doesn't say that if the baby born to her had been a daughter, there would have been no talk of glory.

These are the days she hates the most. The true wonder of the Stargate paling in the face of such suffering, unrelenting and harsh.

A gentle undulation of song wraps through the bitter cold of the tent. Khayyam's mother is bent over her daughter's head, rocking back and forth as she sings her daughter into the afterlife. Her voice breaks with the tremors of her grief, and Sam is acutely conscious that she's intruding despite being invited.

The thought that some things aren't meant to be seen by outsiders drifts through her, and she draws in a deep breath that sears its way through her and makes her aware of the heaviness of her robes and the chill running over her skin. She thinks longingly of her home with the fireplace that she wants to curl up by, a journal in her hand, the heat of the flames washing over her despite the fact it's the middle of summer in Colorado. She doesn't care. She wants that fireplace, anything except this frozen land.

The young woman overseeing Khayyam's burial rites turns from the body and picks up a coil of rope. It's rough, strong, not at all like the loving care that forms the grieving process for the living. She watches, curious and with growing confusion, as it's wrapped around the Khayyam's pale, stiff legs. It starts at her ankles and slowly winds its way up until her thighs are bound tightly together and cuts into the soft flesh of Khayyam's recently vacated stomach. A cloud of soft material is draped over her, settling against her features, shrouding her from watchful eyes.

She is caught watching by the young woman whose name Sam wasn't given. Washing her hands until they're red and throbbing in the cold water, her face turns to one side to address Sam's silent question.

“Men cannot be trusted with the bodies of women,” she says in a butter-soft voice, “even the bodies of our dead sisters.”

*

“Son of a –” Jack scrubs the back of his head before jamming his hat back down. He's drenched from head to toe and is feeling miserable about it; his misery only increases the longer he stares at the valley below them. “I don't suppose there's a way around? A handy bridge or something?”

“There is not,” Teal'c replies. Despite his waterlogged condition, he manages to look stoic and unconcerned even when soaking wet, unlike Jonas who is huddled in his clothes and finally looks like he's not having fun from which Jack derives a small amount of pleasure. “This is the only path to the Stargate.”

“And it's currently flooded.” He bites back a sigh. “Great. That's wonderful. How does everyone feel about swimming?”

“That is inadvisable, Colonel O'Neill,” Teal'c says, and Jack never knows whether Teal'c takes him at face value or is just constantly turning his nonsense back on him, either way he speaks the truth. “There is no guarantee that we would survive the endeavour as the current is strong.”

Jack watches the water churn and pull at deeply rooted trees, their bodies shaking under the strength of it. While they are all strong swimmers, he doesn't want to risk it. Not when the alternative is simply to wait it out. Rain doesn't last forever no matter how it feels when he wants to fish.

“Yeah, yeah.” He does his level best not to look at Carter off to his left behind him, a steady presence who is taking the rain in stride even though he knows that she hates getting wet. After three days of playing unwilling anthropologist to sate Jonas's curiosity and to keep busy, she finally looks like herself; he doesn't want to have to tell her that they need to go back even though he already knows that's what's going to have to happen. “We could set up camp here. Pitch up a tent and –”

“Why?” Jonas pops up like a particularly annoying puppy, large eyes staring at him as he shivers. “They'll give us shelter back in the city. They've already invited us to stay longer, and it'll be a great opportunity to explore their culture in more detail. I didn't have a chance to –”

“Jonas.” Jack's voice is on the edge of too-sharp. The man stops, blinking at him, hurt blooming across his face before he reigns in it, and Jack regrets his tone. He's still trying to find the right way to stop Jonas rambling. Daniel never took his sharp tone personally, years of friendship tucked away under it to soften the blow, and he sometimes forgets that Jonas is a fish out of water and is just trying his best. “I'd rather we didn't go back.”

His wide eyes that make him look younger than he is – which is still younger than Jack by a good decade and a half – stare at him. “Why?”

He jerks his head at Carter who has hand resting on her weapon, face mercifully no longer covered by the ridiculous mask the ruling counsel required her to wear. “Carter's hasn't exactly been having a great time.”

“I've been fine, sir,” she says because of course she does, she's Carter. “And it makes more sense to go back. This rain is awful. We'll fall sick if we don't sleep indoors.”

Jack thinks for a moment, wonders whether to lighten his mood with a joke – sure you don't want to stay married a little longer, Carter? - but he and Carter don't joke around, not like that. It's difficult for him though. The last few days have been spent in a close intimacy, the kind he's tried to avoid since he had to kill her to save the base, and it's wearing on him.

“Carter, you're being treated like a second-class citizen,” he says, mud squelching beneath his boots as he turns to her. “Don't tell me it's not bothering you.”

“Of course it's bothering me, sir, but this isn't the first time something like this has happened,” Carter replies, and they do seem to hit a lot of rigidly patriarchal societies that are always less fun for Carter than everyone else. “And it's better to be in the city to wait out the rain and let the flood waters go down than out here where we can't even light a fire. You know it makes sense, sir.”

And he does.

He can't make a decision based on one member of his team no matter how much he wants to make things easier for her. She doesn't want him to either. She's never wanted special treatment from him. He respects both that and her so he sighs, wanting to stomp his foot like a child.

“Fine.” Jonas perks up, enthusiasm flooding his body, and Jack refuses to look at him for fear of seeing another excitable scientist that he misses with a fierce ache. “We'll wait here for the SGC to make contact and then head back.”

“Yes, sir,” Carter says while Teal'c inclines his head in a nod.

Jack squints down at the flooded valley and swears in his mind, fuck.

*

Ralash is happy to have them stay longer, clucking his tongue in sympathy at the flooded valley, confessing that it happens more frequently than they like. Sam is too well-trained by the Air Force to say everything that comes to her mind but the Colonel is looser with his interpretation of Air Force standards of behaviour and says exactly what bursts like sour apples across her tongue. There's something about him, about the way he holds himself and the way he speaks that these rulers, born to their position more often than not. It shouldn't work – the Colonel's irreverence, his sharp comments, the ever-lingering threat that vibrates beneath his skin – all of it should set the backs of these men up and yet Ralash laughs as though a great joke has been told.

On the way out of the heavy stone room, damp sinking into the walls and running into her bones, he meets her eye and his mouth quirks up, a joke shared that warms her through.

Teal'c and Jonas peel away to the bachelor's quarters while she and the colonel climb the long, winding stairs to the rooms that married couples share. There's a woman washing the floors. Sam knows her name is Jiyrah and that she has an absolutely stunning sense of humour that has made her sides ache with laughter, but, at the sight of the colonel, she tenses. She's on her feet in an instant, eyes cast towards the ground, pressing herself into the wall and making herself as small as she possibly can. She feels the colonel resist the urge to stay something, to lighten the mood, and her fingers twitch to reach back for him.

“Home sweet home,” the colonel says when the door is closes behind them. He rests his P-90 on the bed and scrubs a hand over his face. “I'll – er – keep my back turned while you –”

He gestures with his long fingers. She nods, already tired at the thought of having to don the clothing she has to wear. It's cold and wet, and she bites back a grunt of annoyance when she peels off her jacket and T-shirt, her bare skin left open to the elements. Goosebumps rise up across her skin, a shiver washing over her, and she hurries into her new clothes that are, at least, warm if restrictive.

Despite the sticky dampness of her skin, she manages to shimmy into the tight fabric that is, she has been told, meant to deter any attackers. From what she has seen though, the material doesn't form the shield it should. Not that the men would admit to rape or consider themselves the violent animals the women have whispered into her ear about, warning her to stay away from certain ones who look at her as though the small peek of skin around her eyes is enough to make them mad with lust. It's sickening, and her heart thumps low and hard in her chest as she swallow backs the bitter bile rising in her throat.

She can't help but think of Jonas at times like these and the burning grip of his hands on her thighs as he kneels between them, pinning her with his stare, her emotions caught between fear and desire. She was too young to trust herself then, a mistake she hasn't made since.

All those years she's spent unlearning her mistrust of men is like paper burning in the wind now that she's here. She raises her eyes as she pulls on the outer robe, fixing them on the colonel's back. The knot of tension eases in her chest. Safety wraps around her at the sight of him, strong and kind. She's never had to worry about him, not once – nor Teal'c or Daniel or now Jonas. Her men. The SGC doesn't tolerate sexual harassment and promotes itself as a gender equal workplace, but Roberta, Susan, Kate come to mind – three female soldiers who have transferred off of frontline teams because of their colleagues in the last year.

She knows she's lucky even though she hates she has to be grateful for that.

“I'm decent, sir,” Sam finally says once everything is as it should be.

He waits a beat before glancing over his shoulder. A flash of his eyes and the set of his mouth lets her know he's unhappy but gone are the days when she worried such a mood was directed at her. It's different from the first time he saw her in the clothing. Then he'd snorted, unable to hide his amusement, a quip about the dress the Shavadai had given her all years ago when they were all still so new to each other falling from his lips. This time, he just looks tired.

“I'm sorry about this, Carter.” The rough gravel of his voice tells her he hasn't been sleeping well and has been hiding it. “If there was another option that didn't involve us drowning...”

He trails off, and she offers him a smile. “It's not your fault, sir. And it's fine, really.”

“Will you stop saying that?” His irritation doesn't normally aim itself at her and she's surprised to feel its sting, hurt in a way she knows is nonsensical. Nostrils flare, a hand rubs the back of his head before knuckles knead his left eye. “Shit, sorry. I didn't mean – if I'm annoyed with this then you must be going mad with it.”

An understatement, she thinks, positive she's going to have to visit her dentist when she gets home to see if the constant clenching of her teeth has done any damage. And yet it's not like she's not used to this behaviour, both through the Stargate and back on Earth. It's insidious the way she's normalised the eyes following her back home, and a spike of fear rockets through her when she thinks about Cassie for whom puberty has hit like a freight train in the last few months.

Already attention is drifting to her; already Janet is fretting.

Sam blinks the thoughts away. “It's not my favourite thing in the world.”

“Of course not,” he says. “There're no gizmos for you to play with.”

A smile stretches across her face, and she's rewarded by the easing of the lines around his eyes and mouth. The fact that she's able to soften him in this way continues to confuse and delight her.

“I do like my gizmos, sir.”

Delight scrapes the tension from his face as she doesn't normally engage with him like this, and his fingers twitch for something to play with – and how many times has she had to shoo him away from one of her gizmos because he can't keep his hands to himself? There's a warm weight in the air between them and when he speaks again, it's carried to her like a feather in the breeze.

“I don't know how you restrain yourself from punching every man you meet,” he says and it's a joke but he's also serious, like he does actually think about it.

Knowing him, he has.

“Ah, well, I've had a lot of practice, sir.”

His eyebrows shoot up, mouth twisting into the strange pursing thing he does when she takes him by surprise and not in the good way. Like she's just said something that upsets him.

“That's...really?”

She doesn't snort because she's not so indelicate, but she does smile at him. “Would you like a lecture on gender politics in the United States, sir? I'm sure I could put one together for you.”

“Ooo, would you?”

She laughs and doesn't miss the thrilled look that dashes across his face. She wants to reach out to him and trace the smile with her fingertips. Instead, she looks down at her feet, happy and smiling, thinking that maybe it wasn't going to be so bad to stay for longer, not if she gets these little moments with him.

*

“I should put him on a leash,” Jack mutters, watching Jonas deep in conversation with a group of men who don't seem irritated by him yet. Teal'c is at his side, a solid wall of muscle and quiet threat that Jack's always appreciated, keeping their wayward team member close. “I told him to keep to himself and what does he do?”

Carter lifts her fork to her mouth beneath her veil and chews. He can only see her eyes but he knows her well enough to know that she's smiling.

“What?”

“You said that about Daniel too, in the beginning.” There was a long period where all Carter wanted to do was to talk about Daniel and share her grief with those who knew him. Now, when she mentions him, Jack doesn't feel as though he's having to juggle her grief and hers but there's still a wash of pain that presses against him at the thought of their dead friend. “You wanted one of those harnesses that kids have.”

“Did I?” He slides the tines of his fork into something soft and meaty. “Probably would've saved us a lot of trouble.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dinners are communal affairs on P5S-271. Jack doesn't mind that but he imagines it's uncomfortable for the women who might prefer to eat by themselves or with others of their gender just so they didn't have to worry about getting stains on their masks. It's ridiculous how Carter has to eat: tiny, bird-like nibbles because otherwise she's showing too much flesh. And it had been on the tip of his tongue to demand to know how the inside of her mouth could possibly risk inflaming the passions of men when Jonas excitedly started listing the about other cultures that did the same as though any of them cared.

Sometimes, he really hates scientists.

Not the one at his side though. He doesn't hate her. Could never hate her. And he lets his knee drift beneath the table to touch hers, wanting to feel her anchoring him to the present. She doesn't pull away like she sometimes does when guilt parachutes its way through her. Instead she presses back and shifts half an inch closer to him. He's happy with half an inch when it's all he gets some days.

He eats most of his meal as a woman whispers in Sam's ear, eyes darting to him, and he pretends he doesn't notice. At least he does until he feels Carter shake next to him, a telltale sign that she's giggling, which she knows is forbidden. He looks to her, eyebrows raised in a silent question, and her eyes are bright.

“Mari wants to know how you claimed me,” she tells him.

Claimed.

Seduced.

Won.

Purchased.

He's heard them all at one point or another over the last few years and doesn't bat an eye at this one. They've done this often enough that they have a few stories to tell – he doesn't always marry her when they need to, sometimes she's standing closer to Daniel, or Teal'c is viewed as the leader because, well, he's Teal'c, but they end up paired together often enough that it's stopped feeling strange. It never stops hurting though, that little pit in his stomach where he thinks maybe, one day, it won't be a lie, and he's opening his mouth.

“She beat me in an arm wrestle,” he says, and there's a titter of laughter. Carter stills next to him because this is a new one. “I like feats of strength. When she beat me, I knew I had to marry her.”

It's close enough, he supposes. He doesn't know when exactly he fell for her. He just looked at her one day and the feelings that already existed punched him in the gut. But he likes that she's strong, he likes that she's smarter than everyone else in the world, he likes that she's Carter with her short hair that she doesn't fuss with and her glee at getting grubby on missions but also willing to throw a skirt on when she feels like it. She's so perfectly herself that he can't not love her.

“Is this a mating courtship on your world?”

The question isn't addressed to him, women don't speak to men directly, but he answers it anyway.

“In some places, not all,” Jack replies because he remembers Daniel talking about them once when he was drunk, slouched on Jack's sofa and hazy with alcohol, the memory of which is bittersweet because he won't ever peel his space monkey off his sofa and tuck him into bed again. “Worked for us though.”

“Your husband is a strange man for liking strong women,” one of the braver ones says to Carter whose hand is resting on her thigh. He wonders what she'd to if he took it. “He is not like our men.”

Jack thinks that's not much of a compliment, but Carter's next words send an explosion of light and feeling through him.

“He's not like many men at all.”

*

Sam lies under the heavy covers on the narrow bed that passes for a double. The first time she sat on it, she was afraid it was going to give way under her weight but it's fortunately stronger than it looks. The wood is old and solid and has the kind of smell that she associates with her grandmother's home in Montana, all polished and heady. It's in her nose and on the linens of the bed but her mind is not focused on the nostalgia, not when the colonel is mere feet from her as he undresses while talking like this is normal for them. She finds herself interested in the ceiling, the heavy stone that sucks in the heat and doesn't give it back far more fascinating to her than the sharp, muscled planes of the colonel's back.

She doesn't need more fuel for the fire that has never really stopped burning inside of her from the moment they met and he said I like women as though it wasn't supposed to turn her inside out.

There's a flash of lightening that threatens to draw her eyes towards the colonel but she stares up and doesn't blink. She's annoyed that she isn't able to go to the celebration of sorts – an offering to Chac to stop the rain – but women aren't allowed out of their homes after sundown. One heated rant later, the colonel had tilted his head as he looked at her, as though amused that not being able to dance in the rain was the thing that made her snap, before he decides to stay behind with Sam, which, he assures her as he leans against the wall to pull his socks off, isn't an issue.

“Getting wet and cold out there, or staying warm and dry in here?” He nearly topples over. She sees the shadows of his lack of balance dance across the ceiling, her skin flushed warm with the with you that goes unspoken. “Not a contest, Carter.”

Her mouth picks up, hands tucked into a fold on her stomach. “Kind of wish we had a TV though, sir.”

“You've never struck me as the type of person to watch TV for fun,” he says. “Documentaries, sure but fun TV?”

“Documentaries are fun!”

“They're educational.”

“That's what makes them fun, sir.”

His warm chuckle fills the room as he moves toward the bed, the hesitance of the first days gone because the room is cold and the bed is so much warmer. He pulls back the covers on his side and slides in next to her, all hot muscle and cold skin. She finally allows herself to look at him, the light from the candles catching the silver in his hair.

“Carter, I say this from a place of friendship,” he begins, and, since she knows what's coming, she's already rolling her eyes, “you're a nerd.”

“Yes, sir.” Her reply is as dry as the sands of Abydos. “How's astronomy these days?”

He grins at her, always delighted when she gives into the mischief he knows lives in her and verbally spars with him. “Just fine, thank you, major. Just fine.”

For all he likes to rag her about her nerd credentials, she's discovered over the years that he's also into science. The telescope was her first inkling of the truth but she knows from lazy afternoons in his home with the rest of the team that he's got the books she's written on his shelves with post-it notes that she flicked through once she was comfortable enough in his house to discreetly nose. The notes he made were intelligent, thoughtful, and an indicator that his I'm-so-stupid-please-talk-to-someone-else act was exactly that, an act. She knows he can't be stupid because there are educational requirements to be a colonel but she's never been able to figure out what his are. And the day she found his office stuffed full of books in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Russian, her heart had done a strange floppy thing and the grin he gave her when he saw her standing in the doorway made her stomach join the circus.

He's as much a nerd as she is, he just hides it.

“What would you watch?” The colonel settles in next to her, tucking his arms beneath her head, careful not to elbow her in the temple. “If you could?”

“Honestly?”

“Always.”

She lets it sit for a moment, tempted to lie but she tells him the truth. “Power Rangers.”

His head snaps to look at her, and a hot burn of blood turns her cheeks red. “Excuse me?”

“My niece and nephew made me watch it with them when I visited,” she explains, a hint of defensiveness in her voice even though he's smiling at her with that special sort of bemusement he sometimes gets when she says or does something that shifts his understanding of her, like she's given him another piece of the puzzle to click into place. “I liked it. It's awful in every way but it's relaxing.”

His body shakes with a small laugh. “Power Rangers. Not what I'd have pegged you for, Carter.”

“I'm full of surprises, sir.”

The smile he levels at her is so warm and so filled with affection that she feels it between her legs. “That you are.”

*

The next morning, the rain still hasn't let up. From the warm cocoon of the bed, Jack listens to it slam against the walls and the window with thick, heavy drops. He's reminded of Minnesota and rushing out into the rain with his grandfather who thought that fishing happened no matter what the weather: the rocking of the boat and the sluice of rain off his too-big waterproof and into his boots, turning his toes pale and pruney for his grandmother to cluck over later, he breathes in deeply. The damp of the room and the warm, sleepy heat of Carter fills his senses. If he lets himself, he can easily imagine that they're in Minnesota in his cabin, and he wants, wants, wants.

He turns his head to observe her.

She's still asleep, turned on her side towards him, her hand curled into a small fist near her chin. Her hair is mussed and falls across her eyes. It's getting a little long. He's seen her fuss with it out of annoyance: sweeps of her hand across her forehead, fingers holding it back as she frowns at something she's reading. He knows she's going to come to the mountain with it shorter, neater, sooner rather than later, but he likes this slightly longer style. It warms something soft in him, a molten pool of feeling in the pit of his chest.

She sleeps more soundly in a bed than she does in a tent, harder to wake up. He tries not to think that maybe, just maybe, it's him that's making her sleep so well. As if the presence of his body nears her in the night is enough to fill her with safety and home so that she forgets she's on a mission.

When she does wake some time later, blinking gummily at the ceiling before snapping into awareness, it's to a cup of bad coffee that he's set on the small table next to her and to him long gone from bed. It's better to be up and dressed by the time she wakes up otherwise he wants to sink into her, arms around her, face pressed into her neck, and he can't. So he's dressed and staring out the window, watching her reflection as she smiles and takes a sip, sleep warmed and beautiful.

*

Laughter fills the air, sliding through the rising white steam of the hot water, and Sam relaxes into it. It washes over her, the chatter of happy voices sliding under her skin and peeling away the stress and resentment of the mission. Her coverings are removed and drying over heating vents that she had nearly fallen down in her curiosity to learn how they work. Her bra strap digs into her shoulder as she leans forward, muscles stretching in her back, to scrub Jonas's T-shirt against the stone washing board.

Her skin is flushed pink, water rivulets sliding down her arm from the moisture in the air. She's not alone. She's surrounded by woman, the room full with them, in further states of undress than she is. She is, perhaps, a little overdressed in her Air Force issued underwear but she can't bring herself to strip fully off, much to the amusement of all around her. Beautiful bodies of fleshy curves and heated skin make her feel more herself than she has in a long time, and she wants to stay with them forever.

Her eyes slide to the pile of clothes at her side – her things, the colonel's, Teal'c's and Jonas's too, though she had to wrestle Teal'c's from him. None of them are particularly happy that she's washing them, the colonel going so far as to attempt to forbid her from doing it, but she ignored him in a rare display of subordinate disobedience. The more clothes she has, the longer she can spend with the women without having to worry about a man interfering, and she would've stripped their bed too if he hadn't been looming, a frown pressed into the lines of his forehead.

She knew how to consider a battle won, happy with the time she has to listen to stories such as Junal, the fierce and beautiful wronged woman whose life is told in two brief stanzas that Marad repeats for her with a rolling tongue. It doesn't help Sam with understanding it though. She remembers literature lessons in high school but those fell by the wayside fairly quickly when she struggled to grasp the difference between a cinquain and a haiku beyond its length. She doesn't know anything about poetry or literature, something that had Daniel shaking his head in bewildered confusion, and she admits as much to Marad, who smiles.

“It simply means that a woman should give herself to the land rather than to a man,” she says.

Otalla scoffs into the thickly soaped water. “If only there were a choice.”

“Hush, child,” Marad chastises. “This is the way of things. Your complaints only hurt our ears, not change our hearts.”

“It's not your heart I want to change, Uma, it's your mind.” Sam has picked up enough of the variations of the common tongue that they often find through the Stargate to know that uma is a title given to older women, a sign of respect. “Samantha, what do you think?”

“Oh, I –” she flounders, blinking rapidly as her skin flushes with more than just heat. “It's not my place to say. This isn't my world.”

“But surely you must –”

“Otalla.” The sharpness of her name carves through the air and silences Otalla whose face shifts, mutinous, resentful, and, worst of all, resigned. Whatever discomfort Sam feels at being an audience to the small fight is outweighed by Otalla's pain. “You mean well. We all know this. But you must guard your tongue more carefully, or must you learn the tale of Yrig the Unwise again?”

“She's only considered unwise because it's men who tell her tale,” Otalla mutters, sullenly. “And because no one was brave enough to stand with her.”

“Yrig?” Sam asks, hoping to pull the attention away from the young woman who, looking at her, can be no more than twelve or thirteen and, therefore, close to being married. “Why was she unwise?”

Otalla shoves her arm deep into the water, scrubbing her father's trousers viciously. “She wasn't.”

“Child.” Marad's voice silences her. “Yrig rose up against Chac. She tried to break free of the chains she believed held us down. Chac had to make an example of her.”

“He flayed her alive and let carrion pick the flesh from her body as she writhed in agony,” Otalla says, sharply. “She lived for three days before she died, her strength an enemy to her in the end. And no one helped her. No one tried to save her.”

“She could not be saved,” Marad says, trying to cool the fire that burns in Otalla. “One day you will understand though –” she sighs, her eyes bright with hope and sadness. “I hope that day is far from you, my dear girl.”

Otalla blinks at her before huffing, gathering up her wet clothes, and stalking to the other side of the room where she bows her head. Sam watches after her before glancing to Marad.

“A true story?”

“Sadly, yes.”

Sam finds her mind riven with the images Otalla painted, the horror of Yrig's last moments, and her mind drifts backwards to the young dead woman whose burial preparations she witnessed. Marad clearly believes one thing and Sam doesn't want to push back against the cultural norms but it's hard for her to bite her tongue, and she's relieved when a loud crash of thunder seems to shake the skies overhead, loud enough to break through the thick stone. She looks up, eyes sweeping the ceiling to check it's stability.

“This rain will end,” Marad says, keeping her weathered face turned to her laundry. “Every eleven years the sky opens and pours its sorrow onto the land.”

Interest sparks in Sam.“Every eleven years?”

“It is the cycle,” she replies. “Is it not the same on your world?”

She thinks of monsoon season across parts of Asia and the heavy snows in Alaska during winter. “It is, in a way.

“Our men refuse to listen to us when we tell them to protect the crops,” she continues, dragging a robe over her washing stone. “Every season we have to store away enough food to survive the flooding. Every season they congratulate themselves on their foresight.”

Sam pauses. “Doesn't that bother you?”

“Are you bothered by the river wearing away at stone?” Marad asks. “It is only doing what is in its nature. The stone must shape itself to the current or be lost.”

“But there's more women then men,” she points out. “You don't have to listen to them.”

“What else would we do?”

“You could work with them,” Sam argues, “make them see your point, work together as equals.”

“Do you believe your way is better than ours?”

“I mean no disrespect.”

“And none has been taken,” she assures her. “It is easy, I know, to judge what you don't understand. For now, this works for us.”

“But it started as protection from Chac,” Sam says. “Chac hasn't returned in two hundred years. You don't need to keep living like this.”

“This is the only way we know,” she says, and Sam's mouth opens to say what, she doesn't know, when startled shrieks fills the room.

Alert and reaching for her weapon, she turns in time to see Colonel O'Neill perform a sharp turn, hand clamped down over his eyes, and stumble from the room. His bellowed apology over his shoulder does little to restore the peace and warmth of before. The women look sick, frightened, clutching wet clothes to their naked bodies, unsure what to do now that their sanctum has been breached by a man.

Sam gets to her feet, apologies for him tumbling free as she knows he meant nothing by it, and she hurries out to meet him. She's dripping wet and only belatedly realises that she's in her underwear, a fact that misses him because his hand is still over his eyes.

“Guess I should've knocked.”

“Probably, sir.” He peers at her from between his fingers, a little boy expecting to be told off, before his throat bobs with a swallow as he takes in how she is dressed, and heat climbs its way through her. “Did you need something?”

“The SGC sent a drone through,” Jack tells her, keeping his eyes fixed resolutely on her face. “We've got some supplies to tide us through. It's not Power Rangers but there is a book or two.”

She grins.

*

Jack tips his beer back. At least he thinks it's beer. It has the yeasty taste that's familiar to him but it's thicker, flatter, and he has to hold back at grimace at the texture. It's not even particularly tasty, yet it's either that or drink the water and after Jonas got sick from the water – both ends in the large room he and Teal'c share in the bachelor's halls (much to Teal'c's horror) – he's stuck to the sludge that is the beer. According to Carter, it has protein in it, which accounts for the halfway decent nutrition that the people have, but it tastes like he's left open a bottle of beer and then sprinkled some flour into it.

He turns to find Carter, an automatic reflex whenever he's thinking about her, and he has to cast his eyes wide across the room. Like SG-1, a visiting diplomat from another land got caught in the storms; unlike SG-1, he was travelling at the time and only made it to the city that afternoon, waterlogged and snapping at anyone who tried to help him. Had it not been for Ralash's desire to show off the aliens from the Stargate, Jack is sure the other man would be in bed with whatever passes for a hot toddy here. Instead, both he and Jack are forced to participate in an official dinner that has separated the men from the women.

He finds her shadow across the room hidden behind the thin gauze that separates the genders. He knows it's her because of course he does, and he finds himself staring at the gauze, wanting to tear it down so that he can see her. He doesn't like having his eyes off any member of his team on duty, Carter especially in these situations. He's never forgotten the lesson of the Shavadai.

“O'Neill.” Ralash's rolling tongue has trouble with the two ll's in Jack's name, clipping it sharply so it sounds like nill. He shifts, looks towards him, and finds his glass being refilled. “Tell Gurjin of your fights with the Gods.”

“Oh, it's nothing really,” Jack says, lightly. “You kill one god, you've killed them all, you know?”

Gurjin barely looks up from his hot drink that's warming his ruddy nose, and Ralash laughs, slapping Jack on the back with enough strength that Teal'c has to grab him before he ends up face first in his dinner. He grunts his appreciation, the slow curve of Teal'c's mouth his version of a beaming smile, and he looks for Daniel to beg him to take over when he remembers –

Daniel's not there.

He forgets, sometimes. He's like that with Charlie as well, or at least he was at the beginning; the absence of his son so profound and large that his brain couldn't handle the truth all the time. And, like then, he finds himself turning to address Daniel, his friend's name on his tongue, only to have Jonas looking back at him with that hopeful smile on his face. Daniel's name tastes like ash on his tongue these days because of his disappointment.

And it's at times like these that he misses him the most, aware that he had the best diplomat in the SGC on his team and not fully appreciating it at the time because he was still the same Daniel that lied his way through the gate to Abydos and then seemed baffled by Kawalsky and Ferretti's anger.

Idiot, he thinks with a fondness he wishes he had shown while Daniel was alive.

He takes another large mouthful of not-beer and tries to tune back into the trade conversation. The planet has a dearth of Naquadeh but that doesn't mean it's not a viable trading planet. They have a precious mineral that got Carter excited when she discovered it, babbling at a hundred miles an hour about its use in...something. He should know, it's just when she gets excited over science, he loses his ability to focus.

The gauze curtain shifts and there's a flash of life inside. He shifts, trying not to incline his neck too obviously, by the curtain falls back into place, and he's left feeling like an idiot. Even more so when he looks up and Teal'c meets his eye.

Colour threatens to stain his cheeks: Jonas is still too new to figure out his feelings for Carter but Teal'c? The man knows their secrets inside and out even though he's never admitted to them. Daniel was the same.

Jonas – it's easier to pretend with him, though harder at the same time. He has to watch himself more around Carter, make sure he doesn't touch her in a way that Jonas will think is normal and mention it later. He knows she's on the same page as him as her smiles are harder to come by, the accidental brush of her hand against his disappearing, the lingering look over the fires. Or maybe she's still grieving. He doesn't know. They haven't spoken about Daniel, not really, and he breathes in deeply, turning when Ralash speaks to him, eager for his attention.

“Jonas is your man for that,” Jack says, not really sure what he's offering Jonas up for but he knows he'll be game for it, excitable puppy that he is. “I'm just the guy in charge.”

That draws a laugh, and he turns his gaze back to the curtain, eager for the night to be over so he and Carter can talk about whatever without having to watch themselves.

*

Sam sits on her and the colonel's bed, legs crossed beneath her, wrists resting on her knees, listening to Jonas excitedly relate everything he's learnt. Teal'c is enjoying a much-needed respite from being the sole source of Jonas's excitement, and Sam is enjoying spending time with her team. She's not allowed to so much as look at them when she's out and about, keeping her eyes lowered or only fixed on the colonel or other women. It's hard, and she finds herself staring at the colonel more than she used to, simply because she can.

“You're sure they said every eleven years?”

“I'm positive,” Sam replies for the third time. “Marad was very clear about it.”

The colonel spins a yo-yo out, feet kicked up on the edge of the bed, a smile shadowed so that only Teal'c and Sam can see it. Teal'c raises an eyebrow a miniscule amount, and Sam presses her lips together to stop from grinning.

He's about to tease Jonas and Sam loves it.

“Reckon you can figure out a way to stop the rain now, Jonas?” Jack asks. “Find a machine or something and just –” he mimes flicking the switch.

Daniel would've expanded, dropping into a rant how that's not how things work – even though that's mostly how things have worked in Sam's experience – but Jonas isn't Daniel. He blinks as though he's never considered the idea before, wonder and delight passing across his face. How new everything is to him secretly delights them all, even the colonel who pretends to be unaffected by such things. They're all such old hands at the Stargate now that it's refreshing to see things through Jonas's eyes – Jonas who, only a year ago, hadn't even known the existence of other worlds or the Stargate.

She envies his newness.

“If it's anywhere I bet it's in the buried temples,” he says, and Teal'c slides unforgiving eyes towards the colonel, knowing he's about to be roped into another quest. “Teal'c, we should –”

“Sleep, Jonas Quinn,” Teal'c says in the voice that Sam and Daniel used to call his dad voice, easily imagining him using it on Rya'c through the years. He often uses it on the colonel too to great and surprising effect. “We should sleep. Is it not true that the mind functions best when fully rested?”

He hesitates. “I guess...”

“Then you must rest your mind as I must Kelno'reem,” he continues, a solid wall of peace and immobility. He rises, smooth and steady. “Come. Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter also require rest.”

“Oh.” Jonas's face falls, disappointed, but he stands. “See you guys tomorrow then, I guess.”

Sam gives him a wave and saves a wide smile for Teal'c whose expression turns warm and fond before she's left alone with the colonel. His yo-yo snaps out and then back before he meets her eyes, face open.

“He's like a puppy,” he says.

Her laughter finally breaks free.

*

Jack presses his head into his pillow, fighting against the pull of consciousness. Normally he snaps awake on missions, but he can hear the thunder of the rain and feel the cold of it in the air. He buries himself closer to the burning heat that is Carter. She has turned over in night, an arm slung over his stomach, face mashed into his chest. His hand touches her back, rubbing gently, caught between sleep and wakefulness. She mutters something, shifts, and her foot drags over his calf, knee resting on his thigh. He turns his head towards her, blinks blearily, and lets sleep steal over him again.

*

Sam stands with the other women as the little boy is buried. She can hear still hear the wails of the mother as Teal'c fished him out of the flood water and the colonel tried CPR but he was already blue, lungs full of water. It's not the first death to have happened since the flooding began, but it is the first child. It hangs heavy over all of them. Sam digs her nails into the flesh of her palms as the boy's body is placed in the wet earth, soil smeared across the feet and calves of the men who are burying him. She risks a glance to where the men are standing, looking for hers: Jonas is quiet, solemn, his bright eyes dull as he watches the funeral customs; Teal'c is stoic, as ever, keeping close to the colonel who's –

Sam doesn't even know.

The boy was of an age with Charlie. Similar enough in appearance that he was a quiet favourite of the colonel's when the children inevitably flocked to him, his large hand ruffling his hair and scooping him up onto his shoulders. His jaw is set, eyes hard, and Sam thinks back to how he was in the first year of the Stargate programme when he was in the middle of a painful divorce, barely a year removed from the death of his son.

At the time she hadn't realised, too caught up in her own excitement at finally being part of what she always dreamed of, but she knows him better now. There is his hurt. There is his pain. And there is how much he doesn't want to be there.

When there's a death, the genders separate. Sam's spent the last day cooking, cleaning, and looking after the mother and sisters of the little boy. She has faint bruising around her jaw from where the father of the boy grabbed her when she stepped in to defend the mother from the vitriol he laid at her feet. It hurts, a little, but she's had worse and she couldn't bear watching the woman's bowed head, her slumped shoulders, the pain in every line of her body as the man berated her for her inattention as though he had no responsibility.

“Major Carter.” Teal'c has moved and is now behind her, the warmth of his body comforting as the funeral disperses. Jonah is talking to a silent Jack, nervous at his lack of response. “Colonel O'Neill is emotionally troubled by this event.”

Her eyes dart to Jack and then back to Teal'c's face. “It's bringing up everything that happened with Charlie.”

“Indeed.” None of them have ever spoken about Charlie. The only reason they know about him is because of that one mission that brought a fake colonel back. “He has not spoken since the child's death.”

“Oh.” Sam aches for him. “I'll see what I can do.”

His head bows. “Thank you.”

He understands that he's asking her to lower the walls of professionalism between her and the colonel to touch on things that they try to avoid. She doesn't mind doing it, but she doesn't know how to broach the subject as, the between them, there are things they don't talk about.

And yet, much to her surprise, he does it for her.

*

The rain is muffled even as it snaps sharply against the window. Jack stares up at the ceiling, hands folded across his stomach. Carter's breathing quietly next to him, slow and steady but not the typical breathing of her sleep. She's awake and, based on the tension running down her thigh, she's trying to think of something to say to him. He suspects Teal'c has had a hand in her twitchiness. Without Daniel there to be his friend, Teal'c and Carter are adjusting to fill the gap: the first time Teal'c turned up with beer after Daniel's death, Jack had been so surprised he hadn't thought to question it. Carter swinging by on her bike to borrow a tool took him three days to realise it was an excuse as her garage is better outfitted than anyone's.

When he' not busy grumbling he's not a child to be babysat, he appreciates the thought. And, into the dark cold, when a gunshot echoes through his mind, he opens his mouth.

“I don't remember Charlie's funeral.” Every inch of her freezes, and he feels it against his side. “I know I was there. I just don't remember it.”

Carter shifts around to face him, blue eyes staring at him. “Sir –”

“It's probably for the best,” he admits even though he wants to remember, wants to know if he was any help to Sara or if he had already left her then. “If I had to relive it every day, I'm not sure I'd be able to keep breathing. It's bad enough...” he sighs, chest sinking with it. “It's bad enough hearing it all the time.”

In the dark, Carter swallows and tucks the hand that was reaching for him under her head. “You never talk about him.”

“No.” There's no sense in denying such an obvious truth. He doesn't even know when she learnt about Charlie, only that she and Teal'c know.. He can't imagine Daniel would have told them in idle gossip but by the time he walked out of that hospital holding fake Charlie's hand, they knew and that was that. “Sometimes I do...with Sara. Birthdays, you know? Christmas. Not often. Not now that she's remarried anyway.”

“I didn't know she'd remarried,” Carter says. “When was that?”

“Around the time Sha're died.” It had been a dull blow at the time, something that hurt like when he knocks against a bruise, but Daniel had been drowning in grief and that put it all into perspective. He lost Sara long ago with the explosion of a bullet and the thousands of way he failed her after everything. “It didn't seem important to mention it.”

“You should have,” she tells him. “We could have...I don't know what we could have done, but you didn't need to be alone.”

Jack imagines what that might've been like. He's never one to share his life at the best of times. He's sure he could've dropped the fact that Sara had remarried into conversation at some point though. He imagines Daniel trying to talk to him once the grief had cleared enough for him to breathe again, Teal'c seeking him out to offer to box, and Carter letting him play with her gizmos for longer than she normally did before ushering him out. The thought of it warms him and he thinks that maybe it would've been nice to share.

He turns his head and looks at her, a small smile shadowed on his face. “Yeah?”

“Of course,” she agrees. “We're a team, sir. You're the one who always tells us that. Or, you used to anyway. At the beginning.”

“It was the only way to get Teal'c to relax and for Daniel to stop trying to do stupid things,” Jack argues. “Not you though. You were ready to go. Got to love that Air Force training.”

Carter smiles, the curve of it barely visible in the dark. “Do you want to tell me about him? You don't have to but, if you want, I can listen.”

Jack stares, tracing her face with his eyes, allowing himself the indulgence.

“He was funny,” he tells her, words failing to accurately paint how wonderful Charlie really was. “Always laughing. I miss hearing him laugh. I'm sure he'd have grown out of it when he became a teenager and puberty kicked his ass, but he was always smiling and laughing. That's what I remember the most.”

The memories shift in him, hundreds of them – though not as many as there should be, regret at being away from home with the Air Force more often than not piercing him. The ones he had though, he treasured and held close to his chest. It's difficult to talk about Charlie even with Carter as she is the one woman – the one person – he wants to tell. But he's greedy: he wants to horde the few shards of his son that are his and his alone.

“I never told you how sorry I am that it happened,” Carter says when the silence stretches. “When I found out...I didn't know you then. But I'm so sorry it happened.”

And her fingers stretch towards his, reaching down only to stop on their path, remembering who they were. For once, Jack doesn't care. There's no one there. They're completely alone. He closes the distance so their fingers touch and curl, everything that needs to be said done in the warm touch of their hands.

*

The morning is different. Sam wakes up slowly. She's aware of the warmth that swathes her, and she presses herself deeper into it. It's the colonel. The hard planes of his chest are beneath her forehead where he smells wonderful. The lingering scent of the rain that clings to his skin has softened over the night, and his arm slides around her, curling against her back, pulling her closer to him as he shifts in his sleep.

He's normally awake before she is. She knows he does it on purpose so they can avoid any awkwardness. But Sam doesn't care this morning. She slides a leg over his and closes her eyes, letting sleep pull her back under, allowing herself this one moment of letting herself feel everything for him.

*

He leans in close, hand on her shoulder, and he says her name: not Carter but Sam. She wakes slowly, languidly, stretching her entire body out beneath his hand, and his mouth turns dry. Arched chest and dishevelled hair sends his blood pulsing through him, rushing to places he tries not to think about when he's around her, and she smiles sleepily up at him.

“Hey.”

God, he loves this woman.

“Hey,” he says, a little roughly. “Listen.”

Her mouth drops into a confused moue, and he holds a finger up. It takes her brilliant brain only a moment before her eyes light up, and she pushes herself up into a sitting position. He removes his hand and the blankets pool about her waist.

“The rain's stopped!”

The community pours out into the street to stare up at the clear blue skies. Carter gets frustrated enough with her clothing that he has to help her, and her hand is surprisingly slender in his when she hurries him outside. The streets are slick and flooded but people are celebrating, and the air smells fresh and clean.

“Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter,” Teal'c says behind them. “The rain has stopped.”

“Yes, it has,” Jack says, watching Carter be pulled away by some women with a serious frown on their foreheads that stirs something uncomfortable, warning, in his stomach. “We should check with Ralash. Maybe this is just a break in the weather and it'll start again. Jonas, stay with Carter.”

“But I want to –”

“Jonas,” he says, sharply. “Stay with Carter.”

If he had known what was coming, he wouldn't have left her at all.

*

Sam untangles herself from the crush of women who have drawn her into their circle, concerned with what she's learnt. Jonas is hovering in the background, trying to respect the gender divide while also learning as much as he can. She keeps one eye on him as she steps into a dark nook and reaches beneath her robes for the radio that's clipped to the belt she wears beneath it.

“Colonel O'Neill, come in.”

She waits, knowing he's probably deep in conversation with Ralash, but he comes back quicker than she expects.

“Go ahead, Carter.”

“Sir, this is the calm before the storm.” She cuts straight to the chase. “The women I've spoken to says this always happens. We've probably got a day or two more of heavy rain after this. If we set out for the Gate now, we won't make it.”

“Ralash thinks differently.” There was a time when Sam would've bristled at that but she knows the colonel now to hear the underlying message: the leader is an idiot and I'm exhausted dealing with him. “Guess we're here for a couple more days then.”

“I guess so, sir.” As eager as she is for the hottest shower she can manage, she's not upset they have to extend their stay. She looks up at the sky that is already clouding over, dark shadows threatening rain. “You're going to get soaked on the way back.”

It's such a wifely thing to say that she frowns at herself, bemused as to why it came out of her mouth but the colonel takes it in stride.

“Not the first time, won't be the last, it's Teal'c you have to worry about,” he jokes. “You know how the big guy hates getting wet.”

Sam laughs. “The women have offered to show me a –”

Her words are cut off when she's slammed face first into a wall, a heavy weight of thick muscle behind her, hands grabbing at her robes, shoving them up her body. Fear slicks her throat, her instincts already throwing her elbow and head back as the radio clatters to the ground.

“Carter?” The colonel's voice comes through. “You still there? Carter?”

Sam spits the blood in her mouth to the ground and fights back.

*

Fury blazes through Jack. He's aware of Teal'c swiftly and gently unbinding Carter from the thick wooden pole she's bound to, arms stretched above her head, toes barely touching the ground. When the rope is cut, she drops and staggers forward into Jonas's arms. Blood oozes down the side of Jonas's face, his nose clearly broken from where he had tried to help; he is a solid wall of unexpected strength when he catches Carter. She pushes out of his arms and staggers towards Jack. He reaches for her, thinking she needs him, but she bypasses his hand, grabs the gun from the back of his belt and pistol whips the man that tried to rape her.

Already deeply bruised from the absolute beating Carter gave him, his head snaps back, blood bursting from his mouth.

“Oh no you don't!” Jack throws himself between Carter and the crowd of angry men that surge forward at her actions. He points his P-90 threateningly at them. “Back all the way off there, assholes.”

“Your woman is out of control!” Ralash roars at Jack. Spittle flies from his mouth, his face an interesting patchwork of purple and red. “You will control her.”

“Or what?” Jack demands. “Seems to me your man should've kept his hands to himself. He got what was coming to him.”

“A woman may not lay hands on a man!”

“And what about a man laying hands on a woman, huh?” He pushes forward into the other man's space, gratified by the flash of fear. “If she'd been any other woman, he would've raped her!”

“The crime is lesser compared to the injuries she inflicted on him,” Ralash snaps. “She broke our most sacred law.”

“I'm about to break your most sacred face.”

“Colonel!” Jonas flings himself in the space between them, shoving a foot of distance in order to separate the growing anger. “Please. There's no need to make this more heated than it is.”

“Unless his,” Jack jabs a furious finger at the leader, “next words are a grovelling apology and a promise to properly punish this asshole, it's about to get heated.”

“She should not have seduced him!”

“She's covered from head to toe!” He's going to go crazy, he is. This is it. This is how he loses his mind. “If he can't keep himself under control, then he shouldn't be allowed outside!”

“That is not for you to decide!”

“She's my officer – wife – person!” To his annoyance, he stumbles over the correct label and lands on something much worse. “She's mine!”

“Then you can restore her honour by fighting for her,” Ralash tells him. “Restore honour and be done with this.”

Jack's head throbs. “Her honour is fine!”

“Colonel, please.” Jonas is surprisingly stronger than he looks, and it's only the sight of his already battered face that stops him from shoving him to one side: the brass have got to stop giving him young men with faces like children. “They have a strict patriarchy here. I've studied their laws. If you, as Sam's commanding officer and husband –” he drops his voice to whisper the word, embarrassed by it, “fight to restore her honour then her crimes will be forgiven.”

His words are ice. “She's committed no crimes.”

“I know that,” Jonas says. “But it's not like we can leave yet, can we? It's already raining, and it's only going to get worse.”

Jack's stiff and tense, but he manages a nod.

“Fine.” He's already unclipping his gun and pressing it into Jonas's chest, shrugging out of his jacket. “Let's get this over with.”

*

The colonel walks into their room, covered in blood that is only partially his. It wells on his cut lip and his knuckles are bruised rain sluices from him. He digs a finger in his ear to get to rid of the water lodged there, and Sam moves past him, immediately starts stripping out of her clothes. She feels the heavy weight of his eyes on her back, certain that her pale skin shows the pain she feels in her muscles: the bruises must be purple now, mottling awaiting her. She doesn't say anything as she grabs her T-shirt and pulls it on along with her trousers. She's cold but doesn't pay any attention to it. When she turns back, the look on his face stills her: he looks absolutely furious, the dark haze of his eyes impenetrable, before he looks up and meets her gaze.

Her heart does something funny in her chest.

Without saying anything, he turns from her and abruptly tugs his own shirt on. There are red marks on his skin that will soon bloom purple like hers but he escaped the fight with everything in tact, unlike her would-be rapist.

Sam unearths the med kit and holds it like a child clutching at something safe.

“Sir.” He looks over his shoulder at her. “I need to stitch your face up.”

His mouth curves up, some of the fury dropping away, and she finds her mouth moving to match his.

He sheds his trousers. She closes her eyes a beat too late. She hears him pull on his boxers and another pair of trousers, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He clears his throat and she opens her eyes to find him waiting.

“You're lucky the knife didn't cut lower,” Sam tells him, pulling on surgical gloves and tipping his head back, examining the wound in the faint light. It's not the first time she's patched him up and she doubts it'll be the last, such are their lives. “This has gone deep.”

“Head wounds always look worse than they are,” he says as though she doesn't know that but she's aware that they're both conscious her breasts are right there, level with his eyes.

“It was a dirty trick he pulled with that knife.”

“Yeah, well, bet he wish he hadn't in the end,” the colonel replies, looking down at his hands and forearms that are coated with the man's blood. “Got any wipes in there?”

She pulls out a pack and hands it to him. The movements as disinfects his hands and scrubs the blood away jerks his head. She holds him by the jaw to keep him still, wiping the excess blood away, disinfecting it. It's definitely going to scar. Another one to file away, his body, like hers, a roadmap of pain and injuries detailing his time in the Air Force. She thinks of the one on her own scars, particularly the pale pink one that came early in her days at the SGC that she sometimes thinks about late at night when she's tired and wanting.

“Don't you want me?”

“Not like this.”

Those three words have sung through her over the years, and when he shifts, she wonders if he's thinking the same thing. Instead of asking him or anything stupid like that, she threads the needle through his skin and he grunts.

“Okay?”

“Fine,” he says, trying not to frown. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, sir,” she assures him. “He took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting it.”

“He wasn't expecting you to fight back either.” The pride in his voice is unmistakable. “But you're okay?”

She holds him in place as she puts a small bandage over her field work, touching her thumb against his hairline as she breathes. The top of his head is more salt than pepper these days, and she thinks of how it was dark and occasionally golden with the sun when they met.

“It's not the first time something like this has happened, sir,” she finally says. “I'll get checked out when we're back and then talk with with Janet.”

He manages a smile. “Good ol' doc.”

“Yes, sir.” Her hand drops from his head, busying herself with the med kit to find something for his split lip. “Thank you...for taking care of him.”

He laughs, the sound of it so startling that she looks back at him. “C'mon, Carter, you'd have done that yourself if you wouldn't have been stoned to death afterwards.”

“Maybe,” she agrees, holding his chin between her thumb and forefinger as she dabs at the blood on his lip. “All the women are very taken with you now. A husband who defends his wife is apparently unusual around here.”

The colonel's eyes roll. “Now there's a low bar.”

“Don't put yourself down,” she jokes, lightly. “You're a good husband.”

It's off-hand, lighthearted, something that's been parried between them before in similar situations, but something in the air shifts between them. Whether it's the remnants of the fight that still lingers in the colonel's body, or the fact that he's been sharing closer-than-normal quarters with her for a week, her words don't bring a laugh or even a curled grin. Instead, she feels him stop breathing and she finds himself frozen as he stares up at her. She's suddenly very, extremely, painfullyconscious that she's standing between his legs, and her guilty sigh catches in her throat.

“Too much?”

He shakes his head, throat bobbing as he swallows. “No. And that's the problem.”

“This last week...”

“Yeah,” he agrees, looking up at her. “It's been...”

“It has.” Her eyes catch his. “I think I've liked it a little too much.”

“Whenever they call you my wife, it's -” his eyes squeeze shut, pained. “Sorry, Carter. Ignore me.”

Her hand touches his cheek. She's startled at her boldness, at closing the distance they are so careful to keep between them. His eyes open again, and suddenly she's staring at Jonah. There's the smell of oil and unwashed man in her memory. She makes a small sound in her throat that has his hand wrapping around the back of her thigh, pulling her closer. Her hand drops to his shoulder to brace herself, and it's so hard to breathe when he exists like he does.

It's so much more electrifying when her mind is her own and she knows exactly who he is.

She opens her mouth and scats their carefully maintained distance to hell. “What if I don't want to?”

He looks so bewildered, pained, and hopeful all at the same time. It's the most emotion she's ever seen on his face and the fact that she put it there, that she's responsible for drawing such feelings out of such a man. She's dizzy with power, and heat throbs between her legs.

“It's your room, Sam.” The use of her first name startles both of them, but he's looking up at her so open and trusting and, beneath the hard mask of the colonel, she sees the love. There's so much love in his gaze. “It's always been your decision to make.”

Sam splits open at his truth, and she realises that she's been the one slowing them down, holding them back. He's a simple man, he always has been. And she realises that now. She touches his cheeks, frames his face with her hands, holding him with such tenderness that he breathes her name. She rests her thumb lightly on his mouth, and his eyes flutter.

“My room?”

“Yours.” He covers her hands with his, not restraining but just there. “Always yours.”

And oh the ways she could take those words.

The way she's going to tear them apart and treasure each one of them.

But, before that, she tips his head back, examines every inch of his perfect face closely, more closely than she's ever allowed herself before, and then she's leaning down and he's welcoming her like there was ever a chance he wouldn't.

*

He's had dreams like this. Various shades and forms of her mouth on his. It's been impossible not to since he started falling for her after the fog of Charlie's death cleared from him and the ache of the divorce and his failure stopped keeping him awake at night. Her golden hair, bright blue eyes, and her brain – her goddamned brain that's possibly the most important resource on planet Earth – it all melts away at the touch of her mouth and forms the bright heat that is all her.

It's soft, almost tentative, as though she's afraid he won't want her. The urge to laugh bubbles up his throat but she breathes against him. It's as though she's breathed life into him. He surges to his feet, hands smoothing up her hips and to her back, tugging her against him.

“Carter –” it's not eloquent or clever – or anything really – but that doesn't stop the shiver running through her, her skin turning pink right in front of him and he wants to chase the colour, see how far it stretches down her body. “God, Carter –”

Her fingers touch the back of his head, pulls him closer, and he falls into her. Kissing her is seared into his mind. That wonderful, confusing time in the locker room where he didn't know what was going on only that her tank top wasglorious and her arms demanding. And the memories of Jonah and Thera, late-night kisses with callused fingers on her skin, his knee between her legs. There was never enough time for them. He oscillates between being grateful and being furious. The memories – oh, the memories would've been nice.

But now it's them.

There's no alien virus that has her seeking him out as a mate.

There's no memory stamp where their love carries over.

It's them, them, them.

And it's dizzying.

He pulls her closer against his body and kisses her in the exact way he's wanted to kiss her for years. She tastes like his future. He moves his hands off her back, cupping her face, trying to get as close as possible. The small little moans she makes into his mouth has him moving her back, the cool wall making her gasp and arch into him.

“Sam.” Her name falls from his mouth this time. A murmur: desperate and confused and wanting. “God, Sam.”

She stares up at him, mouth holding the shape of his kiss, her chest heaving.

“Jack.”

His name explodes wonder through him, his forehead resting against hers. He's out of control but grounded all at the same time.

“I want you. I love you.” Her words are breathed into life against his mouth, his jaw, and he has to let go of her. He places his forearms on either side of her head, lifting his body from hers briefly. She groans, hands sinking into his side, trying to pull him back. “Jack –”

“We left things in the room for a reason,” he hears himself say. “Your career –”

“Fuck my career.”

He laughs, short and startled. “You don't mean that.”

“No, I don't,” she agrees, catching her breath. “But I'm tired. Jack, I'm so tired of wanting you and not having you. Daniel's dead.” He flinches but doesn't pull away. “He's dead and I don't want to lose you too. But it could happen any time. To any one of us. It doesn't even have to be the Goa'uld. It could be something stupid like Daniel. And I don't want you to die, or me to die, without this. We deserve this.”

He swallows hard. “The Air Force doesn't agree.”

“They don't have to know,” she whispers, holding his gaze. “Teal'c will never tell anyone. And Jonas – I'm not sure he's even noticed. But I don't want to be without you any more.”

He was wrong. This is how he loses his mind. “Sam – Carter – Sam.”

Her mouth lifts into a smile at his bewilderment. “Don't you want me?”

“That's never been an issue,” he says, swiftly, and the colour on her skin deepens with pleasure. “I just don't want to be something you regret.”

It is, he considers, the most honest he's ever been with her.

Her hands reach up to hold his face, fingers gentle on him. “How could I ever regret you?”

He blinks and understands, deep in his marrow, that he is never going to love another woman like he loves her.

She is it for him, and he surrenders to his fate, to her.

*

Sam is not a short woman by any means but she has to go onto her toes to bring his mouth back to hers, shockingly hot despite how chilled his skin is. His concern for her – always for her – has been swept away and the enthusiasm, the longing, with which he meets her kiss for kiss is intoxicating.

She touches her tongue to the seam of his lips and then he's groaning, deep and longing into her, pressing her body into the wall with his. He kisses like a dream: strong, comforting, taking charge not because it's a power trip for him but rather because the desperation that pounds through him leaves him incapable of waiting. There's a familiar taste to him – a sharp, thrilling reminder that they've done this before, that she's tasted the inside of his mouth before, and there's a powerful throb between her legs. It's so strong she rolls with it, hips pressing against his, and one hand slams to her hip, gentle despite the speed, fingers flexing where he holds her.

She's embarrassingly weak-kneed as his fingers tilt her head back, thumb on her jaw, tugging her mouth further open. She belatedly realises he has her trapped with his hand on her face and the other on her hips; the feeling shudders its way through her, thrilled to be exactly where she is – a rock and a hard place, she thinks to herself with the sort of manic humour that has her arching off the wall and pressing her hip bone against the tempting bulge in his pants.

“God, Sam.” He sounds drunk off her kisses, and she pushes him back onto the bed where he bounces and stares up at her, mouth well kissed, body wonderfully dishevelled. “Is this real?”

His words send a pulsing want down to her cunt. She catches his lip between her teeth, dragging her mouth across the rough surface of his skin where he's in need of a shave. The scratch of it leaves faint marks on her pale cheeks and all she wants is for him to leave his mark all over her.

“Does it feel real?”

“I don't know.” His laugh is a shaky, breathless thing. “I've had some pretty good dreams.”

Her throat is thick with want. It's not like she's never thought about him thinking about her. She has a mind that never really turns off and it takes her down all sorts of thought paths at times but the sheer lack of embarrassment at his admission – the bald truth of it, has her shoving him back. He staggers, stumbling for a moment, before righting himself, his eyes dark and piercing as she lifts her shirt off over her head and reaches behind her back to snap her bra open. It falls down her arms, his eyes tracking the move before, finally, they settle where they both want them. Her nipples tighten under his gaze, goose pimples rushing across her skin, and she pauses, overwhelmed by the moment.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “Jesus.”

She watches his hand move, readjusting himself in his trousers, and she snaps open her belt, kicking off her trousers and stripping herself of her underwear as quickly as she can. The fact she's naked isn't important – at least to her, to him he seems to find it incredibly important; what's important to her is that he's watching her and still not touching her. She closes the distance between them, his face swimming through various emotions before she's in his arms, his hand on her back.

“You're overdressed,” Sam tells him, fingers in his damp hair. “You should do something about that.”

He sways, gratifyingly as weak kneed as she is. He drops his head to her shoulder, mouth open against her skin, breathing wet and moist against her. He trembles, and she takes the one arm that is hanging uselessly at his side, almost as though he's afraid to really touch her, and presses her thumb against the soft inside of his wrist. His hand twitches. Lifting it, she presses a kiss to the meat of his palm, eyes on his, before she guides his fingers in a trailing brush down her collarbone and then to her breast. He grunts, eyes dropping in a heavy, startled blink, and then he's curving his palm around her, finding her nipple and brushing with the pad of his thumb.

“Sam –” she strokes her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, wanting, wanting, wanting. “I love you. You know that, right?”

Struck by the urge to cry, she presses her mouth to his, tightening her grip on him. “I know. I know. It's – it's nice to hear it though.”

His laugh is unsteady but his hands are firm, finding their courage, and he steps back, misjudging the distance to the bed. He falls with a surprised oof, her hands flying out to cushion her own fall. He blinks up at her, mouth curving upwards, and Sam's struck by how soft and loving he looks. It's a side of him she's never seen before. All she wants is to save this moment and keep it safe so she'll never forget.

“Hi,” Jack says to her.

She grins. “Hello.”

And then she shifts, legs straddling his still clothed body, and presses down against his hard cock. He bucks, taken aback, curses tripping from his mouth in his surprise. Hands grasping her hips, he grinds back before he can stop himself, but she presses her palm against his chest, holding him still, wanting to see him as she rocks her body weight against him. It's heady and intoxicating to have him under her, between her legs, and though the material of his boxers separate them, it doesn't stop her from taking what she wants from him. There's a need to her that would be embarrassing were he any one else but it's him and so she lets the craving she's felt since their first year together sail through her.

“That's it,” he encourages, enraptured. “God, you're so beautiful like this. I knew you would be. C'mon, Sam, you can do it.”

She presses down hard, and his eyes roll into the back of his head. Reaching down, she finds her clit with two fingers and comes with a rolling groan. She tips forward onto him, breathing heavy, and he cradles her to him, not moving.

“You're perfect.” His words wash across her skin, and she suddenly, incomprehensibly, wants to cry. Instead, she tucks her face into his neck and breathes him in deeply. “That was perfect.”

He's still hard against her, of course he is, and she flicks her tongue out, licking at his skin. “Fuck me.”

He shudders, hands flexing on her. “I don't have any protection.”

“Do you normally carry it off world?”

Jack snorts, a light huff in her ear, and it feels so good and comfortable to be with him like this, an extension of their professional relationship where they've always worked well together. “After that thing on Argos, Doc Frasier made it mandatory for all male members of off-world teams.”

“Did she?” Sam wonders how she missed that. She imagines all the men getting together to be lectured by Janet about off-world relations and she smiles. “And you don't have it now?”

“Used them to protect our radios.” The hum of regret in his voice makes her body shake against him. “Hey, what have I said about giggling?”

She props herself up onto her elbow and looks down at him. He looks relaxed despite not having found the relief she has, and she kisses him just because she can, smiling against his mouth.

“I don't care about condoms,” she tells him. “I'm on birth control. And I trust you.”

Jack blinks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“There hasn't been anyone since...” he pauses, a brief hesitation that pulls at her. “It's been a while.”

Sam remembers Edora, knows exactly what and who he's talking about. Jealousy tugs at the cords of her heart. She's never had a claim on him, she knows that, but Laira hurt in a way no one else had.

“It's been a while for me too.”

“All work and no play,” he chides, reaching up to tug on her hair. She leans into his touch. “Here now though.”

“Here now,” she agrees, so unbearably fond of this man that she touches his chin and wants to spend the rest of her life with him. “Do you want to take off your boxers or shall I?”

“Are you kidding?” His eyebrows shot up. “Carter, I've fantasised about you undressing me since you jumped me in the damned locker room.”

She laughs, kisses him, and then divests him of his boxers.

Once he's naked, she pauses at the end of the bed, knees pressed into what passes for a mattress, and stares at him. He's gorgeous. She's spent enough time with him in various states of undress to know what to expect, but nothing could have prepared her for the full force of having him naked in front of her. His cock is hard against his thigh, and while she hasn't exactly doubted that he wants her, the proof – the visual, stunning, leaking proof – that he wants her has pure lust slamming into her, and she reaches for him, hands on his lean muscle and tanned skin, touching everywhere she can. She notices he doesn't have any tan lines and that flings her mind down a wondrous path as to what he does in Minnesota when he's there and how clothed he is while doing it.

“Carter.” His voice brings her back. “C'mere.”

He meets her halfway, impatient for her. The surge of his body and the kiss he gives her has her pliable in his arms, allowing him to turn her onto her back where she makes space for him between her legs. Annoyingly, he doesn't seem to be in a rush to fuck her. Instead, he kisses her face, her neck, her sternum, and she clutches his head to her chest when he pays long, glorious attention to her breasts. Down and down he works, kissing that little scar she doesn't yet know he dreams about, and further still until the heady scent of her is all he can smell.

Having him there, head between her legs, flat of his teeth scraping over the inside of her sensitive thigh, she quivers.

“Hell,” Jack mutters, fingers sliding through her wetness. There is a fine tightening of his muscles, shoulders shifting as he brushes his nose over her. “God, this is perfect. You're perfect.”

Sam reaches down, carding her fingers through his hair, and the way he presses up into her touch, like a dog seeking attention, does something wonderful and new to her. His spreads her thighs further apart, analyses his best approach, and then – god bless him – dives in with all the attention and enthusiasm he typically saves for tactics and strategy.

It's not the first time she's had someone eat her out before but it's the first time Jack O'Neill has and everything is a thousand times more sensitive because of that. His tongue splits her open, two fingers inside her pressing against the spot she always struggles to reach on her own, the other hand holding her thigh on his shoulder. She wants to savour the moment while also wanting to urge him faster, harder, so that she can come apart against his mouth and have that memory forever. She's not surprised he knows exactly what to do, and she's only mildly surprised at her body's reaction to him.

She knew she was going to be a live wire when he finally touched her, but she didn't expect it to be so strong.

“Jack –” she gasps his name, hips tipping up, pressing harder against his mouth. The world is narrowing to his mouth and fingers between her legs. “God –”

He makes a sound against her that goes right through her, catching like dry tinder and sending her up in flames. She's coming hard against his mouth, soaring, and doesn't allow herself to catch her breath before she pulls him up to her, fingers in his hair, and kisses the taste of her from his mouth.

His shoulders tremble, her hands pulling him forward by his hips. A sound leaves her throat that she's never heard before when his cock slides between her wet lips, back and forth, hitting her sensitive clit on every slide. And then there he is, holding himself steady, pressing ever-so-slowly into her. It's – it's –

Sam has seen a supernova up close, travelled through wormholes, lain beneath alien suns.

And this is better than all of that because it's him, it's her, it's them.

Finally.

He settles against her, muscles tensing, and she can barely breathe with how full she feels. She meets his gaze. Flashes of Jonah and Thera pass between them but they are Jack and Sam and that's all that matters.

“You feel so good,” Jack groans, face flashing with pained pleasure. “So hot and tight.”

She flexes her muscles to watch his reaction: his jaw tightens, his hands sinking into the bed, throat moving. He looks at her, the universe suspended in a single moment, before she shifts so he slides deeper and half-orders,

“Move.”

He obeys.

With his foot bracing against the mattress, she reaches down and sinks her hands into his ass, pulling him closer, his movements careful and luxurious, treasuring each wet grip his thrusts give them. It's not enough for Sam though and she pleads, “harder.”

“Sam.” His voice is a tight knot of desire and pain that bites through her. “God, Sam. I love you. I love you.”

The pleasure is hot and heavy and singing. He's exactly as perfect as she thought he would be and she grabs his hand, tangling his fingers with hers as his hips move. His abdomen is close enough that she gets friction against her clit on every other pass and colour burns through her as another orgasm approaches. She's aware of him watching her, mouth open and eyes heavy, memorising what she looks like as she comes apart around him with a cry that is wrenched from her, squeezing him tightly.

“Jack – Jack.”

He leans back, readjusts, takes her hips in his hands and she cries out from the feel of it: it's both too sensitive and wonderful all at once, her entire body arching off the bed when a weaker orgasm rushes through her on the heels of its predecessor. And then he's faltering, a deep grunt punching out of him. He stills, pressing himself so deeply into her that it almost hurts, grinding. His releases fills her before his arms sink into the bed, his damp chest on hers, and he makes to move off but she grabs him.

“No.”

“I'll crush you,” he murmurs, wrecked.

“No, you won't.” She presses him down until he gives, lying on her, and she feels the hot puffs of his breath against her hot skin. “This – this is what I want.”

“Always,” Jack promises, gently pressing his lips to her skin, arms sweeping around her. “I'm yours.”

Sam blinks into his hair, tears burning at her eyes, and she holds him tight. “Mine.”

*

Jack wakes up to Sam tracing lazy patterns on his chest, her head nestling in the curve of his body. He stretches, rolling into her, burying his face in her neck. Her body shifts against him, one leg drawing up his side, as she breathes in the smell of him. There should be something strange about it but there's no awkwardness, no regret, just deep and comforting love.

“The rain's slowing down,” Sam says instead of good morning. He lifts his head from her and squints at the window where the rain is no longer lashing but rather gently pattering against the glass. “It's so quiet.”

“It's good,” he replies, looking down at her. She's sleep-warmed and ruffled, and he smiles. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

His hand brushes over her side. “Any regrets?”

“Of course not,” she tells him like he's stupid, and he grins. “You?”

“Oh, yeah, loads.” She pinches his side, and he rolls off her laughing even as he drags her with him. “Not a single one, Carter.”

“Carter?” Her eyebrows twitch up. “It was Sam last night.”

“Are you telling me you're not five seconds away from calling me Colonel?”

Her grin deepens. “Maybe.”

His hand moves up her back and pulls her down for a slow, wet kiss. She slides across him so half of her body is pinning him in place, curling against his chest like a particularly content cat.

“So,” he says, “how do you feel about fishing?”

Sam can't help it, she laughs. “I think I'm going to love it.”