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It's very late when Jack Carter slips quietly into his room. He's not all that sure what he's going to find, but there is a neatly folded science uniform jacket on their one chair in the corner of their bedroom, and his beloved husband is sprawled across the bed. Jack pauses to watch a moment, Nathan's asleep which is good as far as Jack is concerned as Nathan’s been working around the clock.So has Jack, but they have an uninterrupted three days off now, and Jack has made it very clear that they both need it.Nathan’s exhausted, and Jack is going to protect his scientist.He strips quietly and lifts the corner of the quilt,sliding into the bed. He waits a beat. It never seems to matter how deeply asleep Nathan is, his scientist drifts across the bed and either pulls Jack into his arms, or lets Jack hold him close.Tonight Nathan drifts into Jack’s arms, rolling onto his side, Jack makes an awkward grab for the quilt, lifting it high enough so that the cast on Nathan’s broken right leg doesn’t become entangled. The heavy cast comes to rest next to Jack, and he slips his knee under the bulky plaster offering Nathan some extra support.He sighs, and wraps his arms around Nathan, who breathes him in. Nathan should still be in the infirmary, but as usual, the tensions have driven him out. Too many doctors who want to poke and prod Nathan still, and not for his health and well-being either. Jack runs a hand through Nathan’s thick dark brown curls, Hair much longer than it used to be, and fewer suits, too. All reflections of the changes in the man himself.FlashbackThe Nathan Stark that was brought back from the time loop, was a changed man. Still acerbic, still brilliant, still the scientist with three PhDs and a Nobel prize, but some of his sharp edges softened. The mass of scientists crowding him, the back slapping, and the acquisitive gleams in certain so-called professional eyes. Jack had taken stock of the situation, and quietly stepped to one side. He had seen the panic in Stark’s eyes, after the emptiness of the void, this was far too much.So Jack reacted on instinct, stepped to one side and held his arms out. An invitation. On Nathan’s terms. It took seconds for the scientist to pull away and push himself into Jack’s arms. Nathan’s arms wrapped around Jack and he buried his face into Jack’s shoulder. Even then Jack waited to close his arms around Nathan until he could feel the taller man start to relax.Then he gave in to a little of his own joy at seeing Nathan alive. The kiss that Nathan pressed to the side of Jack’s neck confirmed his hopes, but the man shivering in his arms needed rest, and care and some goddamn privacy.So Jack told everyone that he was taking Nathan home, and that SARAH could monitor his vitals, with a sideways glare at Fargo who agreed, and that everyone can wait their turn. Nathan’s steely grip on Jack’s arm kind of confirmed that was what was going to happen.Jack sighs again, holding Nathan, he can feel the tension in his husband’s body, and he quietly curses the doctors that don’t get it.. Nathan going home with Jack wasn’t the end of it, of course it wasn’t, next thing they knew, Beverly Barlowe was trying to get Nathan into her care, and there was no way that was going to happen. There was something off about her that Jack had grown to dislike over the last few years. Things that happened that just seemed wrong somehow, but nothing that he could absolutely point to, which was frustrating.Jack was not a US Marshal for nothing, even if he had been Sheriff of Eureka. Over the years, in an exemplary career, he’d made lots of excellent connections, bringing in SSA Aaron Hotchner from the FBI’s behavioural analysis unit and also a top flight lawyer to fight for Nathan, and putting himself between Nathan and the number of doctors who wanted to poke and prod him, for selfish reasons of their own. Jack was shocked and horrified to see Allison’s name on that list of doctors, but he remembered her response to Callister and Nathan’s obvious grief and suffering at the loss of his son, and suddenly that was no surprise.When he thought about it later, from what he knew of Allison and Kevin, and what very little Nathan had told him, Allison had essentially cut him out of Kevin’s life, when she moved to take up the post in Eureka. She had expected Nathan to just follow her, and when that didn’t happen she cut him off from the boy, Nathan who had to all intents and purposes been the only father that Kevin had known.At the time, when Jack finally found some more missing pieces of the puzzle, Allison’s behaviour had seemed needlessly cruel to Nathan. Who had apparently just accepted it.There were no secrets between him and Nathan now, not with the world gone mad, and fleeing for their lives. Barely three months after winning the court case, Jack’s cousin Sam, from the Airforce, apparently stationed in Colorado (sometimes, when Jack thought about it he wondered how so many people could apparently be stationed in such a tiny place, and still be so invisible to the world) contacted him. As Sam’s cousin, and almost only living relative he discovered he had a place on Atlantis. As Nathan’s significant other (and boy was he in trouble for not inviting her to the wedding) he had his own place next to his husband.They had had twenty minutes to pack. Which was really not long enough. “Dress warm.” Was at best an ambiguous instruction, then they were no longer alone in their living room, but Sam was suddenly there, slapping some sort of bracelet around his and Nathan’s wrists, and then the world turned grey and swirly, and Jack panicked, his hand closing tight around Nathan’s wrist as the world resolved itself into the deck of what Jack could swear was a starship, and Jack was practically hyperventilating as he sagged to his knees, Nathan’s arms wrapped tightly around him. Through the roaring in his ears Jack could hear nothing, just aware that Nathan was there, whole and if not hearty then alive. Then Sam was crouching in front of him, and slowly Jack was able to resolve the image of his cousin, kneeling on the floor in front of them, and Nathan’s tight grip and he managed to snap back.Sam was looking back over her shoulder and snapping orders at someone behind her.Jack glared at his cousin. “Given our recent history, a little warning would have been nice.”“Jack, there was no time.” She raised her hand to his face, touched his cheek, aware of Nathan’s extremely protective body language beside Jack. “Sorry, there was no time to warn you, but you’re fine, you’re both fine, and you’re here.”“Where is here?” Nathan might have been shaken by the experience but the curiosity of the scientist won through.Sam stood up, “gentlemen, welcome to the Daedalus.” She leaned in towards Jack and Nathan, “and by the way guys, don’t stare.”At what? Jack was about to say, but he turned around and got a solid visual confirmation that yes, this was a starship, and yes, that was a little grey alien.Then Sam grasped their hands firmly, distracting both of them. “Sorry, but we have to do it again,” and Jack was about to object, but Nathan’s free hand wrapped firmly around his and his scientist nodded.If Nathan could take it, after what he had been through, then so could Jack.“DRESS WARM!!!” Jack barked at his cousin, as he shivered in the subzero temperatures, Nathan looked smug, as well he would given the polar fleece he was wearing likely cost a month of Jack’s US Marshal salary, and was rated for the Arctic. “DADS!!” Zoe flung herself at them both, hugging Nathan almost as hard as her father. As Jack looked around he could see several people from Eureka, all looking very cold and bewildered, but curious.“It’s science nerdvana….” Zoe elbowed him in the ribs, as Sam cleared her throat beside him and Jack turned to see an older, grey haired man in a General’s uniform, and knew that their previous struggles with Mansfield were chicken feed.“Jack… meet Jack…” Sam was virtually glowing, and Jack was happy to see her smile like that. It had been a long time. “Jack Carter, my cousin, Jack O’Neill, my fiance.” she waved her hand to encompass Nathan and Zoe, “Dr Nathan Stark, Jack’s husband and their daughter Zoe.”“Pleased to meet you.” O’Neill had a firm handshake, and he was already directing them to another room as Jack had barely managed to get his bearings from the last. “Dr Nathan Stark? Any relation to Iron Man?”“My half brother.” Nathan’s reply was wary, he’d only just regained some form of relationship with his half brother, and the situation was too new.“He suggested that we contact you,” whatever else was lost in the wonder as Jack stared at the chair…PresentJack looks down at his peacefully sleeping scientist, Nathan has half-smile on his face and Jack huffs a little at that. Hindsight is always perfect. This is the science trip of a lifetime, and they’re in it up to their necks. But Jack knows the alternatives, they’re alive, they’re together, Zoe is just down the hall, most of the people they knew have also made the cut, people they care about, Abby isn’t in the city, but Jack knows she was evacuated through one of the gates. Zoe will see her mother again, and Jack will get to field the usual curiosity about how he wound up with the very hot scientist, and life will go on. It will be another five days before they reach their destination, and Jack is excited. He can’t help it.FlashbackSo they’re in Antarctica to test for a gene that shows up because of a chair, and Jack can sort of buy that because Eureka. It turns out that Jack and Zoe can make things glow a bit, but then Nathan sits in the chair, and everything lights up.Nathan lies back in the glowing chair, stares up at the revolving chart above his head, “think where we are in the universe,” says O’Neill and watches in wonder as Nathan charts a course.Of course, it could have been from when Nathan was deleted, dead, floating in the ether, but Jack knows it isn’t.His Nathan has been an over-achiever his entire life. Three PhDs, and a Nobel. It’s the heart of the man that matters, and the pure scientist, brought back to a life he can embrace, the politics is behind both of them, when Nathan looks across at Jack, reaches out to hold his hand and Jack can feel the thrum of something ancient and powerful through Nathan’s fingers, the joy in Nathan’s eyes, “I can save them.” Nathan whispers and Jack knows he’s never loved his scientist more than in that moment.They’re on their way to Atlantis. More uncomfortable, swirling leaps.It’s when they land, with everything they packed, in a crowded room that resembles a high end hotel lobby while being thoroughly alien at the same time, with Zoe, Lucas, Vincent and a number of others including Allison and Jack is seriously not pleased to see Beverly Barlowe, but Henry and Fargo and the others are all there too, and Jack is consumed with everything that is going on, trying to get everyone settled, he and Nathan get married quarters of course, much smaller than the bunker, but Fargo has brought SARAH so they should feel right at home, and Zoe is only a couple of doors down, because Jack insisted and then Jack gets his first view of the chair in Atlantis and it sinks in.Nathan is going to fly the city.Nathan and John Sheppard. The two most powerful ATA genes in the city, and in retrospect Jack should have known, the gleeful way Nathan wielded the goo gun when they were trying to save Fargo, then Sheppard mentioned surfboards and Nathan’s million-watt grin lit up in a way that made Jack vaguely jealous and completely aware that stripped of political necessity, his adventure scientist was off the leash.No time to think of that, they barely escape with their lives and the city intact, they have to fight their way out, because space vampires.All Jack knows is that they’re huge, strong and damn hard to kill. But in the battle, some heavy, poorly secured equipment falls on Nathan, breaking his leg. The trip to the infirmary almost drops them back to square one again.Nathan’s in pain, it’s a bad break, tib, fib and femur, and Jack knows that look in the attending doctor’s eyes.The Chief Medical Officer turns out to be a clone, and well aware of acquisitive doctors seeking to make a name for themselves, he takes over Nathan’s care, though he doesn’t authorise the trip to the chair, but Nathan crutch hops his way down there, and Jack gets to argue with a doctor, and Colonel John Sheppard, and Nathan sits back in the chair and that apparently is that.Nathan and John are the strongest gene carriers, it’s naturally present, so the main burden falls on them to fly the city, and Nathan is naturally good at it. Over-achiever, of course. Jack knows he’s worrying over tiny details, all Nathan’s body is doing is sitting there, more lying than sitting anyway, and it’s Nathan’s brain that is basically doing all the work, but Jack is worried for his scientist, Nathan virtually bolted from the infirmary, Jack’s used to his work ethic, and intellectual curiosity, but he’s still injured.
Present
They have three days, and Jack is going to make his scientist rest, and Jack has gotten a lot more cunning over the years, as he’s had to deal with a wily daughter, and a wilful husband.