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The entire situation is ridiculous. It wasn’t supposed to rain, for one thing. One moment Jack was walking the perimeter with Carter in bright sunlight, and the next, they were hit by a rainstorm that appeared from absolutely nowhere, so much so that he suspects aliens are behind it. It makes sense. Added to the misery of being soaked to the skin before they could even manage to pull out their rain gear, the comfortable 65-degree temperature plummeted to some number Jack doesn’t even want to hazard a guess at. He peers out from the ledge they are currently huddled under, noting that it is at least warm enough that it’s still rain rather than sleet.
Small favors.
Jack shudders, tucking back against the dry wall behind him, burrowing down into his jacket. He’s lucky enough to have nice, thick Minnesota blood, but Carter had been turning blue within minutes of the rain starting. He claims that as the reason he ordered her inside this makeshift shelter rather than trying to get back to where they’d left Teal’c and Daniel, who are no doubt still blissfully bone-dry. Bastards.
From the opposite corner of the little cavern, Jack can hear Carter shuffling around, probably trying to find a comfortable position. He stares at her through the gloom. She looks miserable.
He’s wedged about as far away from her as is humanly possible, even though that means there is a persistent drip splashing against the bill of his cap. It’s not that he’s scared of her or anything. It’s just that it hasn’t been that long since the incident on P4C-027 and he’s sort of promised himself to be way smarter about tight, confined spaces and, well, touching Carter—at all. He’s been doing very well up until now. Stupid rain.
Carter shifts around again and he’d swear she’s being deliberately distracting if not for the fact that he can actually hear her teeth chattering all the way from his side.
Did he mention how ridiculous this situation is?
“Carter,” he snaps, annoyance unintentionally sharpening his voice as he moves further into the center of the cavern. It’s not like he’s asking her to snuggle, for God’s sake. This is about conservation of body heat and not getting his ass kicked by Janet for bringing Carter back with pneumonia. Pure motives have got to be worth something, right? “Get over here before you freeze to death.”
She doesn’t wait to be told twice, sliding across the space and up against his side. He automatically lifts one arm as she comes closer, dropping it across her back and settling the emergency blanket over them both. He doesn’t think he’s imagining that the temperature jumps by at least five degrees just through proximity.
There. That’s much better, right?
He can so do this.
Only then she sidles closer like some heat-seeking missile. She turns her face into his neck, her fingers creeping inside his jacket, and she’s pressing up against his side with her--.
No, not even going to think the word. Not even going to acknowledge it. Nope. They might as well not exist. Comrade in arms, moment of distress, survival tactics. That is all he will focus his mind on.
Definitely not snuggling.
He rubs his hand briskly up and down her back with what he considers completely platonic neutrality. He idly counts to one hundred and then two hundred, just because he can. Not because he feels the need to focus his mind elsewhere. Nope.
By the time he’s reached three hundred, she’s stopped shivering.
“Better?” he asks. Does his voice really have to sound that hoarse? Surely it’s just the cold. Yes. That makes perfect sense.
If possible, Carter moves even a little closer. “Yes, much,” she says, nodding slightly and now he can’t ignore the feel of her breath against his neck.
He peers out the opening. “The rain’s probably going to let up soon,” he says, more hopeful than well informed.
Carter cranes her head away from his neck long enough to look outside. As if to call him a liar, there’s a perfectly timed flash of lightening. And then it starts to rain even harder.
Dammit.
Carter turns her face back against his neck, shifting her weight as if trying to find a more comfortable position, her hand sliding around his side, skimming across his ribs. It’s getting really warm now. Friction, after all.
God, this was a bad idea. Pneumonia isn’t all that serious, right?
He doesn’t realize he’s started muttering vague obscenities about alien planets and stupid unexpected rain and the need to keep his teammates, you know, alive and all, until Carter says, “Sir? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Peachy. Why wouldn’t I be?” It’s possible he sounds a little too insistent.
“You just seem…tense,” she says, one of her hands squeezing his arm in what is probably meant to be comforting. Only it’s not.
Not snuggling.
He notices he has his hand twisted in the blanket, the crinkling sound of the material being compressed filling the small space. He lets go of it. Only now he has a free hand and has to decide where to put it. He considers sitting on it. It seems the safest course of action, after all.
“I’m fine,” he repeats, but he’s not really sure for whose benefit anymore.
Carter smiles then, and the only way he knows this because she has her lips pressed against his neck.
“Oh my God,” he says, something finally clicking into place, like that totally forcibly innocent tone she’d just used on him. He should have picked up on this earlier. “You are totally messing with me, aren’t you?”
She looks up at him, her mouth coming perilously close to brushing against his jaw. “I have no idea what you are talking about, sir,” she says, all perfect and polite, only she so does know because she’s got that evil glint in her eye that is almost more sexy than the fact that she is plastered against him--. No. Not going there.
He considers making her get the hell back on her own side of the cave.
“You did this on purpose,” he accuses.
She’s grinning now in that certain way that she has to know makes him a little crazy. After all, he’d proven that back on P4C-027, hadn’t he? Though, to be fair, that was mostly his fault. But he’s not thinking about that right now.
Carter pokes him in the arm. “Are you saying I somehow made it rain?”
She makes it sound ridiculous, but he’s seen her do way crazier things than make it rain so they could have an excuse to snuggle. No. It’s not snuggling. It’s conservation of body heat. Or at least that is what his report will read. Just like last time.
And the time before that.
And that other time--. Damn. This was becoming a pattern with them. A quite nice pattern. No, not nice. Wrong. He tries to refocus on his well-intentioned promises about tiny spaces and not touching Carter, but she’s still grinning up at him and completely against his own will, he’s grinning back at her.
She’s got one strand of hair sort of plastered to her forehead and that just can’t be comfortable, so he helpfully brushes it aside for her. Her grin widens.
“Oh, hell,” he mutters, his arm tightening around her, pulling her closer. Traitor. “How many days did we make it this time?”
Carter doesn’t even have the decency to pretend she has to think about it. “Seventeen.”
Funny, it felt like a lot longer. Carter lowers her head back to his shoulder, and he rests his cheek against her hair. Okay, so maybe it is snuggling. A little.
She’s smiling again.
Jack starts counting to a hundred.
And if his hand somehow finds its way to Carter’s, he’s claiming fear of frostbite.