For the ship family at Gateworld. I am thankful for every moment I spend with you

Giving Thanks

The Carters had never celebrated Thanksgiving. Jacob had always been too busy, or too tired from work, or as Sam had thought as a child, too lazy and uncaring. Although she had come to understand her father's motives over such things long ago, Sam still resented her father just a little for ruining the holiday for her as a child. She had never celebrated the holiday in her adult life, and fully blamed her father for her inability to get into the spirit.

But now, she noticed, something had changed. She held the small bundle in her arms and wondered just how the cushion-sized miracle had changed her. Even a year ago she wouldn't join in the holiday fun, though she had much to be thankful for; a husband, a home and lasting peace once more. She had always thought it would be a husband that changed her, that made her the woman she had seen in the magazines as a girl. But being married had made her no Betty Crocker, another thing that Sam was particularly thankful for. She was the same woman, no more, no less for having a husband. But now, it was though she and Jack were more than husband and wife, and a far cry from the General and Colonel that they had once been. The little bundle had turned their whole entire world upside down, and there was nothing she could do, or would do, to turn it right side up again.

Her whole focus had changed. She had spent her life putting other things before herself, but never quite like this. Putting the world before her feelings for eight years was necessary but tiring. She had never believed that one day she would rid herself of that boundary, only to become second best in her own mind once more. She had never allowed herself to believe it. But here she was, holding the child close to her, the only thing that she would give the world for. It scared her that there was finally something more important than Earth, than saving the universe. More important than her husband even, but she knew Jack would never hold that against her. He was the same, just as she knew he would be. Completely smitten and in every way a slave to the bundle of life that was now his legacy.

Sam looked around her at the table of food and the company that sat around it, laughing and smiling. Teal'c, Daniel, Cameron, Vala and Jack; the five people she owed all of her thanks, for saving her life and her soul. She looked back down at the gurgling bundle in her arms and kissed its tiny head. She was thankful. She was thankful just to be alive, to be safe and free. She was thankful for her friends and her family. She was thankful for her husband, who had always stood by her, and was finally able to stand with her, as an equal, as a mate. But she was most thankful for the beautiful child that had turned her life inside out. After forty years of wondering what all the fuss was about, she knew what it was like to be truly thankful.

And she knew that her child would never go without a Thanksgiving feast for all her life. It would be Sam's way of remembering, of giving thanks for little Jess and her future.