Family Possessions
Disclaimer:
I do not own Stargate or any of its characters or storylines.
Summary:
Jacob and Sam decide to have a chat over coffee about their experiences of being host to a Tok'ra symbiote. Just your average father/daughter bonding! One shot.
Rating:
K
Author's Notes:
This is the first fanfiction I have written in quite a while! Just stretching my writing muscles in the hopes I can start writing more again soon!
I have been watching Stargate SG1 through again from the beginning and am loving the father/daughter relationship of Jacob and Sam! I wish we had got to see more of them just spending quality time together in the show. I thought I would try out writing a scene of that nature and this conversation seemed the right thing to focus it around.
She nursed the cup of coffee as she considered the question. Concentrating on the steaming brown liquid that occupied the mug could not prevent the discomfort of the borrowed memories pushing their way to the surface. She could suddenly feel Martouf's breath against her ear as he whispered to her. She could feel his hand brush her cheek with the delicacy of a warm summer breeze. She felt a lump rise in her throat. He was dead. Jolinar was dead. Now she carried them both.
"Sam?" Jacob gently set his own mug on the table and looked at her. There was something in his eyes. Concern maybe?
"Sorry." Like putting away old photographs, she placed the memories in the box in her mind and felt her way back to reality by following her father's voice. Her hand slid to embrace the warm china in front of her. It made her feel a bit better. More grounded. "I don't know to be honest."
"I can't imagine not having Selmak. It's like being with your best friend, always. But this is a friend who understands you better than anyone ever has. They share everything with you. As I sit here and look at you I know that Selmak feels the same love, the same pride in you that I do." He studied his daughters face. She smiled at him briefly and he saw love reflected back at him. It was a response that, just a few years ago, would not have been that way. His blending with Selmak had given him the opportunity to see more amazing things than he ever could have imagined in his previous human existence. However, the most rewarding thing had been the opportunity to really get to know his daughter and understand her life.
"Some nights I can't control the memories and I dream about a life that isn't mine." She could sense her father's understanding. An understanding that was absent in her team members. Sometimes she had wished that Colonel O'Neill was able to remember his blending with Kanan so she didn't feel so alone. "I wake up crying about the loss of friends I didn't know. I couldn't possibly pretend that's easy or desirable." She lifted the mug to her lips and felt rich, hot liquid rush down her throat. The lump from earlier still remained. Her father waited patiently for her to continue.
"When Martouf died, I cried for three days. Not only did I mourn for the loss of a friend but I mourned the loss of Jolinar's soulmate. It was a lifetime of the deepest love I could imagine. Over. Finished. Gone." A headache began to form as she battled to keep the memories at bay. She had been clinging tightly to her mug but her grip softened as her father reached forward and wrapped his hands around hers.
"It's not all roses, that's for sure. Just as Saroosh told me when I chose to blend with Selmak, I carry the deaths of all of Selmak's previous hosts with me. I miss every one of them even though I know that if any of them had lived just a little longer I would be dead right now." He felt Selmak stir uncomfortably at the back of his mind in response to the conversation. He always tried to give Jacob as much privacy as possible when he was on Earth with his family. However, it was a sensitive topic. As many rewards as blending brought both of them, it did cause torment to Selmak that he wasn't able to fulfil his duties as a Tok'ra without risking someone else's life along with his own.
"Don't get me wrong, I couldn't possibly be ungrateful to Jolinar." Sam looked at her father intently. She could see the hurt in his eyes born of the fact that he could not protect her from such a painful experience. "As hard as it is carrying her memories, so much would be different now if she had chosen to die with her host on P3X-382." Her hand caressed her throat absent-mindedly as she remembered the sharp, overwhelming pain of a symbiote tearing its way into her body. It had felt like falling into a chasm as she had lost control of her body and her mind had been boxed away by the new inhabitant. She distinctly remembered an echoing voice giving its apologies before she no longer had control.
"If I hadn't shared my body with her then I never would have been able to use her memories to find the Tok'ra. Selmak would be dead. You would be dead." Her hands pulled away from her father's and she raised her mug to her lips. Her coffee had begun to cool significantly. She tried not to think about the death of her father. It was something that consistently danced at the back of her mind now he was all over the galaxy completing dangerous assignments for the Tok'ra. She knew that the time Selmak had given them was a blessing but there was a part of her that feared at every activation of the gate that she would be hearing news of his demise.
"In fact I would probably be dead a couple of times over!" He tried to bring a lighter tone to his voice to downplay the fact. Selmak warned him to stifle the anger that was building in response to the memories of his daughter saving him. He was supposed to protect her. He was a soldier of great experience on Earth and carried the memories of one of the greatest soldiers ever to grace the Tok'ra ranks. How was it that he still continued to fail her? As Selmak bristled in response to his pride Sam responded to his inner monologue.
"Dad, it isn't your duty to look after me all the time and it certainly isn't wrong for me to look out for you. None of what has happened makes you a weaker solider." Her eyebrows raised as he broke eye contact and stared into the depths of his own coffee. She knew she had clocked his feelings perfectly. "And Jolinar has offered me more than a cure for your cancer and an alliance with the Tok'ra. My ability to sense Goa'uld has been invaluable. Plus I often receive snippets of information from her memories that are useful to the SGC."
Jacob ignored the last statement. He didn't want to know what kind of information the SGC had gleaned or acted upon from Sam's borrowed memories. He knew that there was no point ruining the conversation with another speech about why Tok'ra intelligence shared with the SGC was so controlled. He tried his hardest to let his work go. He had to enjoy the time he spent with Sam. With the constant threat of Anubis loitering ominously he hadn't had a lot of chance to get away and spend time on Earth recently.
"I'm sorry I asked. I didn't want to bring up experiences you're trying not to think about." He paused and reached to massage his temple. The atmosphere was pensive until he spoke again "You know, it's crazy! From the first time I held you in my arms until I became a member of the Tok'ra we have had barely anything in common, except for the military. Now here we are, over coffee, discussing our experiences of harbouring symbiotes! Oh if your Mom could see us now…"
"Maybe she can." Sam was not the least bit religious yet her experiences with ascended beings lately had made her somewhat spiritual "Maybe she is laughing about the absurdity that has finally brought you, me and Mark together." She laughed and the smile remained naturally on her face as she thought of her Mom. There was still that place inside that felt empty without her. Still a longing to take her Mom into her arms and feel a heady rush of love as she inhaled the soft scent of the perfume that she always used to wear. For a long time Sam had continued to buy that perfume so when things were really hard and she felt like she was too tired for everything she could pretend that her Mom's special brand of encouragement was there… 'Come on love, get up now, give me a hug. What is this all about? I'm sure things aren't as bad as you think!'
The last time she had reached for the small purple bottle was when Colonel O'Neill had gone missing with Maybourne. It was a combination of that and Teal'c's support which had held her together.
"Maybe." Jacob smiled warmly. His hand reached out and squeezed his daughter's fondly. He missed his wife terribly. Even now, years after her death. Sam was like him in many ways but her beauty, her sense of humour and her huge heart all came from her mother. When they argued they had picked apart these traits in each other. When you love someone like that you can actually be pretty cruel. When they saw these traits in their children, they knew they had made no bigger achievement in their lives than combining the best of both of them into Mark and Sam.
"I love you kid"
"I love you too Dad." Sam drained the rest of her mug, pulling a face at the dubious temperature. "How about we get some lunch?"