2 years can change everything!
AU. Jack has been out of the country for 2 yrs and now comes back to say goodbye to the military and to breach the idea of a relationship with Sam. What happens when he sees her new life. Does he take the chance he might have with her or will he be too put off.
Hammond stayed as Head of Home world Security and Jack took another position oversees. Sam married Pete after Season 8. No spoilers.
Retirement.
This was it, the last time I would walk these halls, at least in my Dress Blues anyway. It had been two years since I had left to 'Oversee International Affairs' in RUSSIA, I mean Russia, did the President really hate me that much! The only good thing about them is they hate us too, so for the first 8 months no one tried making small talk with me.
So it had been two years since I had seen anyone, besides Daniel; he had come by almost a year ago when he had to update me on the Ori situation.
I had just told Hank the good news and was on my way to see Carter, I assumed she would be in her lab as usual. I couldn't wait to see her again, I wondered all the time how she was doing.
I had just made my way to her lab and opened the blast door to see the rather familiar sight of Colonel Carter hunched over her work bench prodding at some new doohickey.
I cleared my throat and her head spun round quickly to look at me. She was about to salute, but I quickly waved her off and took a step forward for an awkward hug.
"It's great to see you again, Sir." She said giving me her mega-watt smile.
"You too Carter, and you can drop the 'sir' starting tomorrow, I am officially retired!" I said quickly perching myself on top of her desk. She smiled up at me again, but suddenly started looking around the corners of her room.
If she was trying to avoid me she wasn't being subtle about it.
"Sir, did you happen to see …" she started, peering behind a file cabinet.
"Boo!" shouted a voice as something grabbed hold of my leg from under the table. I quickly jumped off and backed away.
"Simon." Carter said in a strict voice.
Then a little boy with blonde hair and some sort of African facemask on came out from under the desk. He looked about 3 or 4 and he slowly pulled the mask off his head.
"Where did you get that?" Carter asked leaning down to his height.
"Daniel gave it to me." He said trying to look all sweet and innocent.
"Did he give it to you, or did you take it?" Carter asked seriously, I just watched in confusion.
"I took it." He mumbled shyly. "But it was in his bin, when I asked he said he didn't want it anymore, I thought he wouldn't mind." He said nervously fiddle with the white and red mask.
"Okay, you can keep it for now, but when we next see Daniel, you have to tell him you took it and offer to give it back, okay." Carter told him softly.
When he shook his head strongly and gave her a big smile she reached in a gave him a hug.
"That's my boy." She mumbled kissing his head as he quickly pulled the mask back on.
"Simon, this is an old friend of mine, Jack. Sir, this is my son, Simon." As she said that she didn't really look at me and I was glad because I felt my heart explode. Last I'd heard from Daniel, Sam and Pete were still married, but he never mentioned any kids!
When the young boy reached up to shake my hand I leaned down and shock his tiny fingers almost getting squished in my hand.
"So, how old are you?" I asked, in a slightly babyish voice.
The little boy held up 3 fingers, "But, mommy says I'm gonna be 4 next month."
"Going to." Sam quickly corrected his English.
It didn't take a genius for me to figure out that this obviously wasn't Sam's biological son, I was still Colonel 4 years ago!
"So, how did that happen?" I tried to breach the subject softly.
"Oh," Carter mumbled remembering how she had never told him, and had asked Daniel not to tell him as they regularly called each other. She had been hurt when jack never called or wrote to her, but she knew why, Pete. She had wanted to write to him a year ago and explain everything that had happened, but after she wrote: 'Dear Jack,' she screwed up the paper and never breached the subject again. It was just too hard knowing he was still in a different continent. And what if he had moved on, that would be more than a little embarrassing, but he was still her friend and didn't he deserve to know.
"Well, for starters I got a divorce, about a year ago." She said stroking Simon's fine hairs.
"Oh?" Jack asked softly
"I got some bad news, we had been trying to get pregnant for ages and after awhile I just went to the doctors, as it turns out, I'm infertile. The Doc thinks it had something to do with my blending with Jolinar. So I decided I wanted to adopt, I always wanted to be a mother, and they would need a parent and a home…" carter tried to explain as quickly as she could Simon looking up at her his brown eyes peering through the small holes in the mask.
"So why the divorce, wouldn't Paul want to adopt too." Jack tried to get the full story without being harsh but it was awkward. This had happened over a year ago and she had never thought of telling him.
"He decided the doctors were wrong, and after awhile he was blaming everything on my job. Whenever I brought up the idea of adoption he kept shouting at me, saying we only deserved to have our own kid, and that, well basically he said, that we were too good for some kid that nobody wanted. After awhile it all just became too much, he never even tried to sympathise with how I felt about any of it, I just packed my stuff one weekend he was out of town and left the divorce papers in the kitchen." She said reliving the great feeling of leaving him once and for all, and even just the feeling of opening her front door again, and sleeping in her bed, completely alone.
"Good for you, Carter." Jack cheered gently punching her shoulder. He accidently feel into step with saying Carter like nothing had changed. He couldn't wait to say Sam, just 10 more hours!
Sam turned around and grabbed a few files and turned back to Jack.
"Have you seen Daniel yet, sir." She asked quickly turning to leave.
"No, lets go see the Space Monkey. Is this Vala really that bad?" he asked comically as she swiped her card for the door.
"Simon, we're going to see Daniel and Nicky, you coming monster?" Sam asked turning to her daydreaming son.
"Sure." He said excited jumping of his chair and leaving the mask on the table.
"Uh-hum nice try, young man, remember what we said." Sam said pushing him back towards the table.
"Oh." He sighed going back and grabbing the mask. "D'you think he'll be mad at me?" he asked looking up at Jack with puppy dog eyes.
"Do you." Sam corrected his grammar again.
"Well, Danny boy never could resist a decent pout." He whispered winking at the little boy who winked back.
"So who's Nicky?" Jack asked Sam as they all got into the elevator car.
"My bwother." Simon said his voiced muffled by the mask he was wearing again.
Jack just quirked an eyebrow at Sam. "Yeah, he's Simon's non-identical twin. He prefers spending his time listening to Daniel go on and on about his work, the funny part is, he can actually talk faster." Sam said laughing at the thought.
The doors opened and they automatically started walking to Daniel's. They saw his familiar frame making it's way to his lab just in front of them in the corridor.
"Daniel." Sam called out. Daniel quickly stopped and turned around shocked to see Jack there. They gave each other an awkward shake/hug and he looked around for Simon who was hiding behind Jack's legs.
"Boo." He shouted jumping out in front of him. Daniel made a show of being scared and then gave him a gentle flick on the shoulder.
"Where have I seen that before?" Daniel asked trying to cover up that he saw Simon quickly steal it from his trashcan.
"Oh yeah, hah, I kinda borrowed it, from your bin." Simon said fiddling with it, refusing to make eye contact.
"You know if you asked I woulda given it to ya." Daniel said in a soft voice.
"Do you mind? Can I keep it?" Simon said in a hurry, giving Daniel the promised pout.
"Uh, okay." Daniel said scruffing up his hair.
He started walking again to his office opening the door quickly. Jack looked around to see the only real difference he could see was the three year-old boy, with brown hair, on his knees flicking through one of Daniels books.
"Hey there monster!" Sam said going over and kissing his head. "You haven't been bugging Daniel have you?" she asked teasily as he stretched his back.
"Nah." He said yawning slightly. Daniel looked at the book Nicky had been reading and quirked his eyebrow.
"So brushing up on your Italien, huh." Daniel asked him, trying to catch him out.
"Sì realmente." Nicky said with the perfect accent.
"La vostra grammatica è poco fuori." Daniel mumbled annoyed Nicky had thought to learn those words.
"Eh?" Simon asked, pulling a 'what the hell' look.
"I said 'Your grammar is a little off.'" He explained passing the book back to him.
"Well, I am learning from a book, and I'm four." He said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Hey there smarty pants, come and meet a friend of mine." Sam said pulling him over to Jack.
As Jack saw the two boys next to each other he could clearly see the differences.
Simon had blonde hair, Nicky had brown, Simon had brown eyes, Nicky had greenish-grey eyes. Nicky was a bit taller than Simon by an inch or two, was definitely the cheeky one of the two.
"Hey Nicky, I'm Jack." He shock his hand.
"Pleasure to meet you." He said before whispering something to Simon. They giggled together and ran off through the door as it started closing.
"What I do?" jack asked scrunching his eyes together.
"Nothing they probably went to see Vala. Daniel here are the files you wanted." Sam said before dumping the files in the only empty spot on his desk.
"Oh thanks, see ya." He said engrossing himself in some old vase. They turned to leave quickly, Sam directing Jack towards Vala's quarters.
"So, you never answered my question before, Daniel's told me a lot about how annoying she is?" Jack asked again now.
"Nah, she's not too bad, gets us in trouble once and again and she does kinda use Sex as a weapon, but she's just had a bad past, she has really grown up since the whole Ori, Adria thing." Sam explained as they started hearing squealing. As they enter the room they saw Vala tickling both boys with vengeance.
"Double team her." Simon shouted as he got free.
"Wow now boys, you're gonna wake Crystal." Sam said going over to crib and pulling out a blonde girl in a pink dress, she looked just older than 1. She went over to Jack gently bouncing the little girl on her hip, "Jack, this is Crystal, my daughter." She said making an amazed face as the little girl opened her eyes, blue orbs staring straight at Jack.
"She has your eyes" he whispered unconsciously reaching forward to stroke her chubby cheek.
"She's 15 months now, aren't you beautiful." Sam cooed at the little girl as she started reaching up for a strand of Sam's, slightly longer then usual, hair. "Do you want to hold her Sir?" Sam offered her to him.
"It's Jack, Sam." He couldn't help but to feel hope as she blushed when he said that. Her heart fluttered as he got even closer to her to smoothly take Crystal from her and rested her on his hip, he bounced her gently up and down as she reached up to pull on the collar of his Dress blues. He smiled broadly down and the little girl and she giggled as he blew a raspberry at her.
After a bit she started reaching out to Sam, who quickly took her from Jack as she had already heated pulled out a little jar of mushed up Apple, her favourite, she placed her in her highchair, tied on her bib and started feeding her little angel.
"So Nicky, cómo está su Español?" Jack asked trying to see if Nicky was as good at languages as Danny boy was.
"Bastante bueno, ésa era la primera lengua I aprendido. Incluso Daniel admitió que el francés era complicado." He said fluently. Jack was quite impressed and he saw Simon pull out a bean bag ball from a little box in the corner and threw it towards him when he saw he was looking.
"Hey, you guys wanna go to the game room, I can teach you some Baseball." Jack asked thinking of the days him and Charlie would play.
"Cool." They both said simultaneously.
"Sam?" he asked her turning around.
She was engrossed in feeding Crystal and then she gave her a kiss and gently laid her back in her bed and turned towards them. "I guess, you'll take care of them right, I mean they look sweet and innocent now." She said teasing them as she swooped down to pick Simon up who automatically started giggling.
"Sure" she said then putting him down. "If you need me, or anything happens, I'll be in my lab." She said following them out the door.
"Yeah, don't worry I can handle them." He said before they each grabbed a hold of his arms and pulled him down the corridor.
Hope you like it, kinda a fluffy fic. No real twists planned yet.
Don't worry Pete isn't in this AT ALL!
Absolutamente bueno, ése era una de las primeras idiomas I aprendido. Daniel incluso admitió que el francés era complicado. = SPANISH FOR = Quite good, that was one of the first languages I learned. Daniel even admitted that the French was complicated. - I'm not sure about the grammar, i don't actually speak Spanish