Disclaimer - MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.
Spoilers for 'Message In A Bottle', 'Spirits', 'Window of Opportunity' and 'Desperate Measures'. A 'Desperate Measures' episode addition, set just after Sam finds the injured Jack. Feedback, as always, would be appreciated.
*
"D'oh..."
Oh that *hurt*. Barely lifting his head up, he winced. He knew damned well what that pain meant.
"Sir? Are you okay?"
Carter. Carter was here? Wasn't she missing?
No, he remembered now. He'd got here in time. She was okay. "I've been shot, Carter."
She sounded relieved, and as she explained that only one bullet had actually hit him - and one was definitely enough, in his opinion - he pushed himself up towards the wall at his left side, away from his injury.
"I want sleeves on my jacket," He complained.
It was dark, the only reasonable light source coming from the red flashing light on the wall, but she was grinning, she was definitely relieved, so she humoured him. "Yes sir."
"Seriously," He grunted. "They should put sleeves on these things."
He realised that he must have really been out of it, because he was only just beginning to notice that she was touching him and wouldn't stop. There was never a prolonged moment of contact, but there was always a touch somewhere: his shoulder, his leg, his side.
Not that he was complaining.
Her hand rested gently on his arm, careful not to touch the injury.
"What happened?"
Dammit. A question he didn't want to answer. "The Goa'uld got away."
"Did you see who shot you?"
Closing his eyes, just for a second, he tried to remember. There was the sound of gunfire...then the floor...he hadn't seen the face - in fact he hadn't seen anything - but everyone else in the building had been taken care of. There was only one person it could have been. "Maybourne." Bastard!
Surprise flickered across Carter's face. "Maybourne?"
"I didn't actually see him do it, but..."
The surprise was still clearly stamped in her eyes. "You were working with Maybourne? Willingly?"
"I had to get you back."
The shock transformed to something else, and as she stared at him he realised that had probably sounded a lot more serious than he'd intended it to sound.
Ooookay. He needed an escape route. Now.
The radio crackled to life. "Sam!"
Yes!
She picked it up, pressing the button in. "I read you Daniel."
"How's Jack?" He sounded like he was running.
"I think he's gonna be okay. All the same, we should probably get him to the hospital or infirmary ASAP."
"The ambulance is on its way. I'm trying to reach the boiler room now but..." He paused, for quite some time. "Well, I think I'm lost."
Jack rolled his eyes, and was rewarded with a small grin. "Where are you?" Getting his response, she gave him the best instructions she could. Jack knew she didn't know the building very well herself, but she had at least managed to find her way down here. Signing off, she turned her attention back to Jack. "You gonna be okay until help gets here?"
"Fine," He croaked, before clearing his throat. "As long as I get fixed up soon I don't think I'll bleed to death."
Apparently grateful for the humour, she smiled again. "You certainly have a habit of getting your arms injured."
"Noticed that, huh? Big ass spikes, mean looking arrows, bullets...you know, maybe I should get into a different line of work."
"What kind of work?"
Small talk. He could do this with her. Only her, as it happened. Small talk wasn't normally his kind of thing. "Hmm...florist, maybe? Get in touch with my natural side."
"You have a natural side?"
He let the comment slide. "Or pottery! Yeah, I could release my own line of pots and...stuff."
"Pottery? I didn't even know you could do that."
"Sure. Teal'c and I had a lot of spare time on our hands when we were stuck in the time loop."
Shifting until she was actually sitting rather than crouching on the hard, not particularly comfortable floor, she nodded. "What else did you do?"
Now there was a question. "Oh...golfed through the Stargate, rode through the SGC on a bicycle, that kind of stuff. Nothing much."
"That's it?"
Why did she sound and look so surprised? "More or less, yeah. Why?"
Carter shrugged. "I guess I just thought you'd do something a little more reckless." She paused in that way that only she had. "Sir."
"Well...I did golf through the Stargate while Hammond was there. That's a terror all it's own."
Chuckling, she shifted again and the movement made him realise something that apparently neither of them had noticed.
They were holding hands.
Both noticed at the same moment, their gazes locking first on their hands, then on each other.
Jack didn't know quite what to do. He certainly wasn't about to do anything else, but he didn't want to pull away, either. Besides, he could rationalise that with the fact that moving would probably hurt and-
She tightened her hold.
Suddenly unbelievably relieved, he mimicked her movements, finding it strangely hard to breathe.
"I'm sorry," He announced suddenly, surprising her, but mostly himself.
Her hand was still clamped onto his. "Sorry?"
"That I couldn't get here sooner."
Shaking her head, her thumb moved over the back of his hand. "It wasn't that bad. Nothing particularly nasty happened. Actually, I should probably apologise to you. You're the one who ended up getting shot."
"Well, when you put it like *that*..."
She chuckled again, that grin returning in full force before she grew serious. "Thank you."
This felt awkward. "You'd have done the same for-"
"Don't."
He didn't. He stopped, suddenly, and simply looked at her. No forced humour, no quippy remarks; he just looked at her.
Footsteps approached. Jack supposed it was just as well, because he was getting colder with each passing second and he suspected shock was setting in.
But he started to regret that they would be interrupted. They rarely happen anymore; little moments like these. When it was just the two of them talking. It wasn't often they were even alone together since *that*.
And although she hadn't said a word, he knew she understood.
Suddenly leaning towards him, her hand renewed its hold on his. "When I saw you lying on the floor...you really had me worried."
It was no big shocker, no sudden newsflash, but the fact that she said it at all almost made getting shot worthwhile.
The footsteps grew louder, closer.
He shrugged. Or, he tried to shrug as best he could considering the fact that he'd recently been shot.
He shrugged, and spoke.
"I had to find you."
Daniel arrived.
~FINIS