Archive of Our Own ^beta

It didn’t matter that Sam had spent most of the morning in mind-numbing meetings about research that wasn’t even in her primary area of expertise, or that they’d traveled for hours, plus some time hiking through unfamiliar woods, on an impossibly large mountain. It didn’t matter that they had eaten dinner hunched over a campfire, instinctively on the alert for large predators who might be drawn to the light, the sound, the smell of food.

It didn’t matter that she was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with being physically tired, and everything to do with being sick and tired…of the meetings, of the military-industrial complex, of bureaucracy in general. Not the first time she’d felt that way, wouldn’t be the last time.

No, it only mattered that when the effects of their recent meal became apparent to them, the person with her in that tent was Jack O’Neill.

If it had been anyone else, she would have been able to restrain herself. But she’d denied herself those things with Jack for far too long. As her brain succumbed, her overworked willpower collapsed and suddenly, she ached to touch him, to be touched, to be filled…anything, she was ready for anything he wanted to do to her and with her. Consequences be damned.

“So…Carter?”

“Hmm?”

“Excuse me?”

“Uh…sir?”

His eyes flew to hers, and she had just enough time to see them twinkle in the light of the single lantern before he looked studiously at the closest wall of the tent. Inspecting it for spots that needed waterproofing again, maybe.

“Feeling a little weird, Carter. Thoughts?”

“Sir… Do you think we might have fallen under the influence of some sort of…substance?”

“You tell me, Captain. You’re the scientist. Exactly what the hell is going on here?”

“Captain?” Her increasingly addled brain stuttered over that, but was too addled to come to a full stop.

He snapped out a reminder, a warning. “I asked you a question, Captain.”

“I…yes, sir. “ If she was Captain, that made him…Colonel? Man, was she ever loopy.

“Carter. Is it possible that there was something in the food tonight? Maybe some wacky local lettuce in the salad?”

“Oh. Oh.”

It took her a second to catch on, but once she did, she was all in.

“Well, I suppose it’s possible, sir. It may not have been intentional. The, uh, people here may be adapted to it. Our advance intel on new planets is never a hundred percent. If I had to guess, I’d say the hot toddy after dinner would’ve been the easiest thing to, um. Adulterate. Sir.”

He exhaled sharply and shifted on the sleeping bag, one hand running over his head as though he’d developed a sudden fascination with the textures of his hair against his palm, and his palm against his hair.

“Whoa…”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m…uh. I’m great. Hey, c’mere.”

Suppressing a snicker—and the temptation to reply with “Duuuuude”—she finished removing her boots by the tent flap and checked the zipper before she took the few steps to sit next to him. It was exactly enough time for the stuff to hit her fully, and she grinned as she sat down harder than anticipated.

“Oh! Whoa.”

“Right?”

“Um…okay. This is maybe a little too much?”

“Not for me. My back and knees feel better than they have in years, all of a sudden. I think? Maybe I just don’t care.” He finished kicking his own boots off, peeled off his socks, and wiggled his toes. “I totally get the appeal.”

Sam did too. The mild euphoria and unusual awareness of individual hair follicles weren’t the only effects she was feeling.

A lot of what she was feeling was distinctly not safe for work. Being out of control, in general, had never been safe for work; this set of sensations took that to a whole new level.

“It’s always the innocent-seeming planets.” The ones who talked about purity and moral worthiness then ended up having a semi-annual six-day bondage festival. Which always seemed to coincide with SG-1’s visit.

He looked up with a scowl. “There is nothing innocent about this planet.”

“True.” But it didn’t seem like a good moment to get sidetracked by politics.

So…unexpected mind-altering alien comestibles, temporary physiological effects from alien vegetation, alien aphrodisiac cocktails…what were the protocols for all that, again? She really ought to know by now. She’d helped write them, after all.

“We’ve taken ourselves out of any danger of contact with the locals, so that’s good.” She thought through the regs, then shook her head against all that effort. “We should probably try to document the effects as they’re happening.” And under the protocols she’d written, there would be no harm, no foul for SGC team members engaging in any alien-drug-induced activities they both reported as consensual, even if the activity was something that would normally be strictly forbidden as fraternization. Because alien drugs, come on. Who was to say whether the Tau’ri even had the power to resist?

Her superior officer had other, more practical priorities. “What we should do is put that light out.”

“Oh.” She stood shakily to click it off, then sat back down in the darkness. “Okay. That’s gonna make it harder to document things, though.”

“I’m pretty sure I already know how this goes,” he reassured her. “The gist, anyway. I’ll, uh…write the report. Never you fear.”

He might know how this went, but she didn’t. It was disconcerting, the way her mind was suddenly floating sideways with each thought, while her nerve endings seemed to be waking up one by one. She hadn’t even known they were asleep. “I can feel my toes. Like…individually.” She looked down at them suspiciously, and they wiggled back at her, but it wasn’t exactly reassuring. She knew she’d wiggled them and could feel them way more distinctly than usual, but it all seemed oddly abstract.

“Hey. Carter…Sam. Look at me.”

She looked up at his face, grounding herself with the familiarity of each feature, each laugh line. The raw newness of her skin started to shift from awake to aware, and that awareness was all oriented towards him like a flower towards the sun.

“C’mere,” he said again, with a gentle jerk of his head. He held out his hands to her, the same way he had in her dreams for so long. “It’s okay.”

She could feel the smile spread on her face as she laced her fingers with his. “It is?”

“It is.”

“Okay, then.”

Her brain was whirling with questions, but there wasn’t a hint of doubt as she scooted closer to him.

He maneuvered them both until she was somehow sitting with her legs over his, half-wrapped around him, while their torsos pressed way more closely together than frat rags would have ever permitted.

It was stabilizing. She knew him, and he was solid and felt right, and she drank in all that contact thirstily.

“Better?”

She nodded cautiously, because moving her head too fast seemed like a bad idea. “Yeah.”

“Look at me.”

Automatically, obediently, she turned her eyes to his. Or to where she assumed his would be if she could see them properly. With no light and no light pollution and also no glasses, she was truly in the dark.

“I can’t see you.”

“I can kinda see you.”

“And?”

He pulled her hands up to his shoulders, anchoring them there, then ran his own along her arms, to her sides, down to her hips, lighting small fires along the way.

“And you look pretty stoned.”

“Is this being stoned?” She’d imagined it to be more transformative, somehow. Not quite so much like she was just really, really relaxed while unavoidably tipsy. And increasingly interested in having him touch her everywhere. A curious, warm thrill had taken up residence in her abdomen and chest.

“It’s a variety of being stoned. A really, really interesting variety of being stoned. This is some wild shit.”

She giggled and put a finger over his lips to shush him. “It’s alien salad.”

“Hot toddy.”

“Alien hot toddy.”

“Right, right. So we can’t help ourselves. Oh, darn. Captain, I’m finding myself overcome. I’m gonna have to kiss you. Are you okay with that?”

Words escaped her, so she kissed him instead, pressing her lips to his and immediately falling into the world of texture and sensation his lips and breath offered.

When he flattened his hands over her back to pull her closer, every fine hair on her neck announced itself one by one, and she shivered in response.

The interference of sports bra and base layers didn’t matter. She could feel the contact intensely as her nipples grazed his chest before her breasts flattened against him. Then her belly, pressing into his, warming molecule by molecule and sending sympathetic vibrations down to her core. The physiology of her reactions was as clear as if she had a chart in front of her, illustrating perfectly what this felt like with no intruding external thoughts to interfere.

Did she have a job to do, bills to pay, a universe full of concerns? Absolutely. Some part of her still knew all that intellectually, could even detail that.

Did she give fuck-all about any of it right now? No. Not with her pulse throbbing so hard it felt like her nipples and clit were being flicked by invisible tongues. Not with Jack’s warm, skillful hands tugging her shirt up to get to her skin.

“Need to touch you,” he explained, as if it required explanation.

Impatient, she reached for the garment and pulled it up, but got distracted and tangled in it when his lips found her nipple through her bra.

It was a lightning bolt straight to her clitoris.

“Oh, fuck!”

“Mmm. Language?”

“I…fuck.”

He hummed without releasing her nipple this time, and she tried to breathe through the sensation of his tongue and the damp fabric against her puckered peak, and the building pressure behind her clit. The movements of his mouth formed her entire universe in that moment; he became her oxygen.

The shirt baffled her for another few seconds, but she finally worked it over her head and off her arms, and tried to start on her sports bra, which was unacceptably coming between her skin and his mouth.

“Wait,” he whispered, and she could hear his smile in the dark. “Slow down. If we’re finally getting to do this, Captain, I wanna do it right.”

“Oh, my god.” She didn’t realize she’d still been waiting to hear those words until he said them.

His fingers found the lower band of her bra and lifted it slowly, easing it upward and ignoring the way she arched toward him in an attempt to lure him back to her.

“Easy, easy. I wanna take my time with you.”

The bra was gone. She didn’t care where, because his hands were back on her and they were perfect. It wasn’t just the drug, it was him, and the way he knew exactly where and how to touch her.

Every inch of her skin was buzzing with sensation—either the constrictive weight of her remaining clothing, or the chill of the night air, or the heat of Jack’s hands and mouth that seemed to make her blood fizz like a shaken-up soda.

Finally remembering she had hands too, she reached for him, running her palms over his shoulders, her fingers into his hair.

When he pulled his mouth away, she whimpered pathetically. “More…”

“I’ve got you.”

He was only moving to the other nipple, it turned out, so he could tease it into a second tight, throbbing conduit of pleasure as his hands started exploring the fastening of her pants.

At some point she realized she was horizontal, and wasn’t quite sure how she got that way. Then Jack’s mouth was on her belly and his hands were pulling her pants down and away.

Everything from her navel to her toes tingled in anticipation, and she tried to wrap her legs around him somehow, but he wasn’t having it.

Languid though he seemed, he clearly had a plan. Sitting up, he pressed his hands over her feet to pin them to the sleeping bag, kissed one of her knees, and then rubbed his cheek there as he spoke.

“Do you have any idea how hard it’s been, Captain? Seeing you all day, almost every day, never getting to touch you? Sharing a tent with you, trying to sleep with you not even an arm’s length away, when all I want to do is unzip your sleeping bag and undress you and find out what every inch of you tastes like?”

Even in the dark she could tell by the tilt of his head that he was looking at her, at the parts he most wanted to taste. That gaze scorched her down to the bone, and it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Sir, I know exactly how hard that is.”

He snorted, prompting a grin from her.

“No double entendres from you, Captain, this is not the time. You’ll throw my plans outta whack. Now where was I? Was it…” He slipped one hand up her calf and then down to the middle of her inner thigh. “Here? Around here somewhere?”

“No, I think it was…”

He shifted that hand around to the back of her leg, scratching lightly along her skin just below her ass.

“Here, maybe?”

“Mmm, that’s maybe closer, but not really within tasting distance.”

“Okay, okay, let me workshop this a little.”

With a dramatic show of finding his way, complete with turnarounds and backtracking and occasional frustrated curses about how the alien sex drug givethed, and the alien sex drug takethed away, he had her in stitches by the time he finally, finally got close enough that she could feel his breath against her slick center.

“Giggling? What have I said about that?”

“Jack, please.” Her head was floating, but her hips were rooted to the ground, weighed down by need. She could feel each goosebump rise as the air brushed across her skin. The sticky-slippery drag of the sleeping bag under her back. The contrast between the heat of Jack’s fingertips and the cool night air. She could hardly breathe, there was so much going on with her senses. She could only want.

“You just…smell so good, I’m sorta worried when I get my tongue in your pussy my brain is gonna leak out my ears, here.”

“No guts, no glory, airman.”

“True. Ah, for those about to die…”

He went for it. Licked her cunt in a smooth, confident stripe that ended in a slow swirl of his tongue around her clit.

“Oh…oh, wow, that’s…” She was so aware of every nerve ending that every new millimeter of contact sent a fresh cascade of sparkling arousal swirling through her body. “That’s perfect, you’re perfect.”

“Mmm.”

Maybe he was agreeing that he was perfect, or maybe he was simply signaling his enjoyment, but it didn’t matter either way because Sam was already unmoored. Floating, drifting on a shimmering sea of pleasure with no visible shore. No beginning or end, and it was unbearably good, and it was too good to resist.

Jack changed it up—he knew exactly what to do, as if she’d come with a set of instructions and he’d learned them by heart—and everything he did was as marvelous as the thing before it. Tongue, lips, fingers, teeth, pressure and pull and give and take, until she was ready to fly out of her own skin.

Flying was the most exhilarating thing, but also the scariest. Just when she might have lost her nerve, just when it was all becoming too much and she’d started whimpering from overstimulation and disorientation, he all but stilled his fingers inside her and slowed it all down to an easy, rhythmic flip of tongue over clit. That was it, all it took, and the pleasure started to curl in on itself, in on her, becoming dense and hot and keenly focused directly under that tongue and around those fingers.

She let go, and trusted him to keep her from losing herself entirely. Everything inside her went bright and sharp, and the pressure behind her clit exploded into shock waves of bliss. She forgot to breathe, forgot everything but the pleasure that overtook her. It went on and on, stoked by his insistent coaxing, keeping her aloft until she crested a second time. Only after that did he let her waft back to ground, softly as a falling leaf.

She was down, she was no longer light as air, and now she was rooted into the earth beneath her, pulling energy and calm from that infinite source into her every cell. One with the world.

“I’ve never seen you this relaxed,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful, Sam. You’re…so everything. All the best things.”

Serene and powerful as Gaia, she smiled and pulled him toward her. He gasped when she wrapped one hand around his cock, and came down to one elbow, half-suspending himself over her.

The change in focus, the shift from receiving to giving, roused Sam’s brain enough for her to concentrate all her formidable intention on the task of getting Jack inside her. Making their bodies one thing, one big good thing, all melted together and hooboy, she hoped there wouldn’t be a hangover from this stuff because her mind was everywhere.

A trail of pre-cum slicked her thumb as she passed it over his glans, dipping slightly into his slit and pulling a startled gasp out of him.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Not part of the local pantheon, sir.”

“I’m not yelling out some Goa’uld’s name when I get underpants feelings. Not happening.”

“Fair enough.” She did it again, lingering this time until he gasped out something that was no deity at all. “I need you.”

“How can you still be needy after that?” Even as he pretended to grumble, he was easing down towards her, angling his hips just so. He didn’t sound irritated, really, more impressed.

“I didn’t say I needed to come again,” she clarified, giving him a final stroke before pressing his tip against her opening with a hitch of her breath. “I said I needed you.”

“Oh. Well, in that case.” He sank into her slowly, stretching her to accommodate him.

Every tissue, every fiber, resonated with change. As he entered her, he altered her, a glorious organic shift. And then they were that one big, good thing, working with one mind.

“Wow…” Jack was barely moving, as if any more change might tip them over into disaster. “I’m…man, this is…”

She buried her nose in his neck. “Use your words.”

His response was as close to a giggle as he ever got. “I could either go all night or come right now. Like I’m on a tightrope. But a really awesome tightrope.”

“Mmm. Somewhere in between those two extremes, is probably best.”

“Yeah. But if I fall off, I fall off. You still okay?”

What kind of question was that? Couldn’t he see that she was literally glowing right now? Oh, his eyes were closed.

“Look at me.”

“I am.”

“With your eyes open.”

“Oh, right.” His eyes opened and took in the tent, the sleeping bag, her body, and finally her face. “You look like summer. Only night. But, like…the moon?”

Sounded about right. She felt sort of like a celestial object. “You look like you. I’m so glad it’s you.” Because with anyone else, she couldn’t transform into this thing the two of them became together. She loved being this thing with him. “We’re really high, aren’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am. We certainly are. You feel so good I think my head may explode like a water balloon, by the way. So in case that happens you’ll know why. And thanks.”

“Aww. That’s sweet.”

“I’m such a sweet guy. But I have to…” His hips were already speeding up as his words trailed off.

Instead of one sensation after another, it all merged into a continuous flow of pleasure, but mostly of pure joy. Sam put her hands on Jack’s face and studied it as he got closer and closer to having his head explode like a water balloon, because he was entrancing. So much strength, so much vulnerability, so much trust. Or maybe that was both of them, this organism they’d become.

Her eyes must have adjusted at some point, because she could see well enough to make out his expression when he finally came—wonder and joy and relief and satisfaction and all the things she’d felt earlier. All of it circled back into her, then back into him, and around and around until he gave one last shudder and sigh and sagged down into her body.

They lay there long enough that his back grew chilly under her fingertips, around the same time she realized if she didn’t get a drink of water she might die of dehydration on the spot.

“Mmm. Love you. But you gotta move, I can’t reach my water bottle.”

“Don’t wanna move. Love you too. Can’t move yet.”

He snuggled closer, bracketing her legs with his and holding her firmly in place. It was lovely, but she was alarmingly parched. A side effect, probably.

“Jack. Don’t make me flip you.”

“Can’t flip me unless I let you.”

“True. But just think how awkward it would be to explain any injuries to your person on that report, sir.” She curled her leg up and nudged the back of his balls with her knee, urging his reluctant but prompt roll to one side so she could move.

“Grab mine too? I think it’s over by the foot of the sleeping bag somewhere.”

“It’s right by mine.” She’d rolled over and turned around, belly-crawling to reach the precious water bottles, so she just slid his onto her back where he could reach it. “Here you go.”

“Huh? Oh, thanks. That’s a nice place to put that.”

A brief, fond squeeze of her ass followed before he slid the bottle away.

The ring of her cell phone jarred them both out of their slight stupor.

Jack groaned. “No. Fuck, no.”

“Shhh. It’s Maggie.” She answered the call, trying to clear her mind of what would’ve probably been frantic paranoia if she’d been capable of anything frantic in that moment. “Hi, Mags. What’s up? Everything okay?”

“Mom, what do I do if the eggs cracked while I was boiling them?”

“Make egg drop soup?”

Jack cackled, and she tried ineffectually to tap him with her foot.

“I just wanted hard boiled eggs on my salad?”

“I know, sweetie, I’m sorry. Um…are they little cracks? Like are the eggs mostly still…egg-like? Shaped? Like eggs?”

“Yes. They’re still kind of ovate spheroids, if that’s what you mean?”

“Sounds right. If they have like…sticky-outie parts along the cracks, that’ll still be fine to eat, but you can also just pull that part off then proceed as usual.”

“They won’t be, like, soggy and gross inside?”

“No. They’ll be fine. Mmm, thank you.” She pulled the down throw blanket around her shoulders more securely and smiled at Jack for placing it there, then gestured to the lantern. “We may need that back on.”

“How’s the camping? Please don’t freeze to death. That wouldn’t be great for anyone. Also, did you put your food far enough away from the campsite?”

“Yes. I’m gonna put you on speaker, okay?” She needed her hands to get dressed. The puffy blanket was great, but she would need layers if she planned to make any late night bathroom trips. Jack was rustling through their pile of discards, frowning vaguely at each piece like he’d forgotten what clothes were. She whispered at him. “Can I have that?”

She’d pointed to her t-shirt, and he passed it to her with a proud, boyish, but still very high grin. “I figured it out. Hi kid. Don’t forget to take Nanners out one last time before bed.”

“I will. What are you guys doing? The air sounds dead, like you’re in the tent already.”

“Nothing dead about this tent,” he replied with a wider grin, and Sam giggled and tried to shush him. He shook his head at her. “Pretty lively in here, in fact.”

“Shhh!”

“Ew. Dad, gross. I don’t need to hear that.”

Sam caught sight of the way the solar lantern, on its lowest setting, cast a glow on the blue tent roof the exact color of turquoise.

“Oh, that’s a perfect color,” she murmured.

“It’s…bluey-greeny,” he concurred. “I like it. We should paint something that color.”

A suspicious grunt emanated from the phone they’d forgotten about. “What are you talking about? Wait. Oh my god, wait a minute. Are you guys high?”

“No,” they both claimed in defensive unison.

“God! That isn’t responsible! You left me alone in the house so you could go into the woods and camp and get high? Like a pair of hippies?”’

“You’re in college,” Sam pointed out. “And you know how to boil eggs for yourself. You’re fine.”

“I’m just your free dog-sitter so you can go trip balls on some mountaintop.”

“Margaret.”

Jack’s tone and scowl sent a remembered thrill through Sam’s body. She smiled at him and mouthed, “Sir,” and he shot her an incredulous look as he attempted to glare at the phone.

“We are not tripping any balls,” he insisted.

Before she could stop herself, Sam shrugged. “Well…”

“Stop!” Maggie almost shouted. “No more. For cryin’ out loud. I’m hanging up the phone now so I can call the therapist I’m clearly gonna need. Please sober up before you try to hike anywhere?”

“We’re in for the night,” Sam reassured her, her cheeks sore from smiling so hard and suppressing laughter. “And we’ll be fine. There have been no recent bear or cougar sightings anywhere near our campsite, we checked when we walked down to the ranger station earlier. Just make sure you turn the heat off under the eggs—“

“Oh, shit. I mean shoot.”

Sam heard a clicking noise and the rattle of a pan over quiet swearing; it sounded like Maggie had turned off the burner and was draining the eggs, and it was all Sam could do to resist warning her that boiled eggs and the egg water were very hot. Maggie already knew that. She was kind of a squirrely kid, but had a surprisingly practical bent, not unlike her father.

Jack must have sensed Sam’s hesitation. He put an arm around her—fully clad, so more time must’ve gone by than she realized—and gave her a peck on the cheek before addressing their daughter.

“You got everything under control, there, Missy McGee?”

“I’m good. Nanners is scratching at the door, though. Stay on the phone with me while I’m outside with him?”

“We can do that.” He mouthed at Sam to put some clothes on. “So why are you making a chef salad at…huh. It’s only nine thirty?”

Sam shared his bafflement. It seemed like hours had passed since dinner. Or maybe only seconds, but seconds like you have in dreams where they really take hours. She took a long draught of water, hoping it might clear her head a bit.

“Avery’s coming over,” Maggie explained. “I think she may have broken up with Tragic Clown Boy, finally. But for good, this time.”

“Oh yeah? We’ll cross our fingers.”

“Right? We were gonna eat salad and ice cream and watch Disney movies. As is our wont.”

Sam finished pulling her t-shirt and fleece-lined leggings on, and tugged the quilt back from Jack, angling towards the phone again.

“Salad? Is that a traditional breakup food I don’t know about?”

“Nah, I just figured we needed a base for the ice cream and it’s something we can both eat. I have some chickpeas for her, for protein. Oh, by the way, you’re out of chickpeas now. And lettuce. And you didn’t have any vegan cheese.”

Jack was studying the beautiful blue light spot again, head tilted. She wanted to get in his lap. “That’s fine. If you think about it, write those on the grocery list? Also oat milk.”

“I like the coconut milk,” Jack said with a faint frown.

“The oat milk’s better for us.” She curled a hand over the back of his neck, and got an echo of that grounding, floating, merging-into-one-being sensation from earlier. “How’s Nanners?”

“Old,” Maggie said. “Slow. But he’s a good boy. Aren’t you, Nanners? Yeah you are. Come on! Back inside!” The door needed WD-40, and it squeaked right before it closed. Maggie must have been standing there with it open, waiting for the dog, letting all the heat out. “Okay. We’re all locked up again, safe as houses. You guys are free to go back to being stoners or whatever.”

“It’s legal here,” Sam reminded her. “We’re retired. I’m technically a civilian.” She still wasn’t supposed to be doing drugs as a contract consultant for the military, but she wasn’t subject to testing anymore, and if anyone found out, at least she wouldn’t go to Leavenworth for it. “You be good. Give Aves a big hug, and let her vent, and try not to bash the guy too hard, in case they end up back together again, again.”

“I will. Love you, potheads.”

“Love you, little miss straight arrow.”

“Love you, kiddo,” Jack chimed in.

When the phone was off, they could hear the soft night sounds from around the tent. Other campers getting settled in, a group out walking and talking, probably heading toward the showers. A dog barking at a distance.

Jack was still looking at the light, but wasn’t quite as tuned out as she’d thought. “Welp. Our attempt to shield her from our wild, bohemian lifestyle has apparently failed. Do we lose the parents of the year award? Again, again?”

Sam chuckled and leaned against his back, wrapping her arms around him and the blanket around them both. “We’ve kind of committed to this whole living deep, sucking the marrow out of life thing. She was bound to find out eventually. This does mean we’ll need to hide our stash.”

“Ooh, are we gonna start having a stash?”

“I think we might. I wouldn’t mind this again, would you? Even just the weed, without all the extra herbal stuff. I still feel…really good. Like, really good.”

“Yeah, that whole thing just now was really good. Mostly because of how hot you are. I’m sure the drugs didn’t hurt.”

“Sweet talker.”

“How is it only nine thirty, though?”

She shrugged, as much as she could when she was so boneless.

“Time flies. Or maybe there’s a time dilation field. Who’s to say?”

“As long as it’s not a loop. That does mean two things, however. Firstly, that we just whooped it up in here during prime time. I don’t know that either of us was our quietest. So we may get some funny looks when we leave the tent.”

“True. Don’t really care, though. Totally worth it. What’s the second thing?”

“We still have some time left to enjoy being high. Unless you’re ready to call it a night. No judgment, I know you’ve had a long day.” Leaning back, he angled his head awkwardly for a kiss, which she bestowed before resting her cheek against his.

“I’m not exactly sleepy. And I’m enjoying this. Not just the weed, all of this. Having an adventure with you, that’s probably a nice, safe adventure. Camping with just the two of us, for the hell of it. Provided no bears show up, this is way more fun than I expected retirement to be.”

“It’s definitely the most fun mine has been so far. “

Several options presented themselves. They could go for a walk in the moonlight, but that sounded very active and potentially risky. They could try to have sex again, but even with all manner of herbal assistance, neither of them had the refractory period, energy, or attention span for sexual all-nighters anymore. They could hang out in the tent and talk, or maybe read…

“Oh, I know.” She nudged him gently. “Our fire’s out anyway, and it’s pretty dark with no moon. We could go back outside, bundle up in the blanket, and look at the stars.”

His cheek moved against hers, stubble against smooth, as he smiled. “I like that. Perfect way to cap off this little retirement party. Fitting, even.”

Pushing away from him was hard, but she knew it would only be for a minute. And then they could snuggle and study their own familiar sky, and name stars to one another that most people on earth had never heard of. Whisper the remembered mythologies of places they’d been together, the many other worlds they’d walked.

It would be a kind of homecoming. A moment of appreciation for the planet they’d fought so hard to secure, and the vastness of the universe around it that so few people from Earth ever got to see.

“Unless you’re sick of thinking about that stuff,” she qualified as she pulled her turtleneck back on.

Jack reached for his jacket and shrugged into it, then started on his boots.

“What stuff, space? A little too late to be sick of space, don’t you think? “

“True.”

“Besides.” He yanked his second boot on and turned towards her, fanning his fingers across her cheekbone as he studied her face. “The chance to go stargazing with my favorite general of all time? I could never pass that up.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” She pressed a kiss into his palm, sighing contentedly as he wove his fingers into her hair. “You’re my favorite general too. This was a good idea. Pothead.”

“I told you you’d like it. Memory served me even better than I dreamed. I wasn’t sure about the extra ingredients, but I figured in case you refused to try it again, might as well go for the gusto this time.”

“It was a truly excellent alien hot toddy slash little pink weed pill.”

“It certainly was. And we still have a whole tin of ‘em for whenever we want to try this again.”

The kiss they shared lasted either seconds or a lifetime, and Sam was good either way. She would take every second or every lifetime she could get with Jack.

A barking dog at the neighboring campsite broke the spell, and Sam finally grabbed her fleece, shrugging into it and standing so they could leave the tent.

Outside, the stars grew more and more visible as their eyes adapted to the dark. The other campers had started putting out their fires and packing up for the night.

For a while, wrapped in the blanket with Jack on their folding two-seater, Sam had the sense that they were on their back terrace at home, taking turns at the telescope, wishing they could see more. The illusion held as long as she didn’t look to the side. Like waking up in a hotel room and, for a few moments before opening your eyes, thinking you’re in your bed at home. But it wasn’t jarring when the moment passed and she became aware of the campsite around them again.

Jack was still there beside her, so really, she was still at home. It didn’t matter where they were, what world they were on, as long as they were together. And even with just their naked eyes turned to the night sky, they could see that—in part thanks to them—all was right with this world.