Learning to Fish
Chapter Two: Reeling
by
AstraPerAspera
A/N: Author's Note: If you have not read Chapter One: Casting, then STOP!!! Before you read this chapter begin the story on here on : /s/4967780/1/Learning_to_Fish. And thank you to jenniferjf for letting me ride on the back of her idea and sneak in my own pov. It was her story to begin with and should have been a solo act, but sometimes the muses are not to be denied.
It was the kiss at the base of the back of her neck that had awakened her. Nearly. Half-dream. Half-real. She remembered murmuring something barely intelligible before his whispered "Go back to sleep" had nudged her into consciousness and the squeak and bounce of the well-worn bed springs advised her of his departure from their bed. By the time he'd dressed…remarkably quietly for him, with only a barely intelligible curse when he'd banged into the dresser…she'd been fully awake, watching his shadow move through the murky non-light of early day. She'd remained quiet, not wanting to intrude. This was his morning, after all.
Contentedly warm beneath the blanket, she'd mentally followed his movements down the hall. The click of the door knob. A muffled protest followed by his low rumble of gentle prodding. A sudden scramble for clothes and the swift padding of small feet following behind his slower, longer steps. A stop at the front door, the rustling of jackets and the groan of hinges as the door was cautiously opened and even more cautiously closed, the draft of early morning air reaching her a few moments later. And they'd been gone.
She watched them now, unobserved, out the window. The big man with gray hair and the little girl with short yellow fringe peaking out from beneath an oversized bucket hat. The sun had risen just enough to push its way through the phalanx of pine and birch, shooting rays like star points across the dock and the glass-like surface of the pond, catching droplets of water as they slid and dripped off the lines stretched out across the water. The man hitched his arm back and cast out his line with practiced ease and the girl followed suit, only a little less hesitant than her mentor. Through the opened window she could hear the reels' characteristic whine and two nearly simultaneous plops as the lures hit the water. A brief pause and then the click of the rewind. Moments later, they had cast their lines again.
If someone had told her ten years ago she'd be standing at this window watching this man and his child fishing off this dock, she probably would have laughed. If they'd told her that the child would also be hers, she probably would have cried. So much had stood in the way of that ever even being remotely possible, the pain of even contemplating it would have been too much.
Yet here they were.
Incredibly.
Remarkably.
Undeniably.
Here.
A stray cast landed in the cattails at the edge of the pond. She watched as he made his way along the shore, wading knee-deep into the water to untangle the red and white bobber and what appeared to be a pink lure from the tall reeds. She couldn't help but smile; the last time she'd mis-aimed and landed there herself, he'd made her retrieve her own line. But for the girl on the dock she knew he'd go to hell and back, if that's what she needed him to do. The fact that the route was more than familiar to him wouldn't matter in the least.
Back again, side by side, she watched the fishing resume. Cast and reel. Cast and reel. It reminded her of how they had come to this point in their lives. At times brought so close together, only to be cast, by circumstances or their own fears, even farther apart. Drawn, without hardly understanding how or why, back to one another until they were flung distant yet again. Ironic that his favorite pastime should be a metaphor for those painful eight years.
But that was long ago. And regardless of how they'd gotten here, now was all that mattered. This moment with this child standing beside her father on a dock, fishing in the golden light of a summer sunrise.
The scene before her swam briefly as she quickly wiped away the dampness on her cheek, glad no one else was up yet. And not just because of the tears. This was too private…too personal…for anyone else to intrude upon, including herself. Even so, watching them from afar, she felt a part of the moment, undeniably tied to the two forms on the dock as if their three hearts were merely one, divided into three bodies. The man and the child were more than her family—they were a part of her, as surely as she was a part of them. And this morning…this moment…she wanted to share with no one else. It was hers—it was theirs—alone.
There was that dampness on her cheek again.
Out the window she saw the child step closer to the man and speak. The man looked down and words were exchanged that were too distant to hear. But even this far away, there was no mistaking the look on his face. Over the years she thought she'd seen every emotion cross the man's features. She'd seen him angry, she'd seen him indifferent, she'd seen him happy, with all the points, high and low, in-between. But as she watched their daughter cast her line one more time into the pond with only one fish, she realized that this was the first time she'd ever seen him like this.
It was the first time she'd ever seen Jack O'Neill filled with joy.