Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of their lawful owners. This story is written for entertainment purposes only and no profit is made. No copyright infringement intended.
Spoilers: In this story, everything up to and including Beneath the Surface (S04E10). Half Heart has its own spoiler alert.
Timeline: The universe of this story goes AU at Beneath the Surface and the story starts about a month after the episode.
Genres: Family/Drama
Rating: T (mentions of sex, nothing graphic)
Pairing: Sam/Jack but mostly in past tense
A/N: This is a prequel/companion piece to "Home Is Where Half of Your Heart Is" and I recommend you read that first, even if you have read it before because I went through a lot of trouble to tie these two stories together the best I could. This story won't make much sense on its own, I'm afraid.
I wanted to explain things from Sam's point of view to help you (and myself) understand how the years changed her into the person she was in Half Heart. So we start the journey with Sam when she leaves the States and this story ends around the same spot with Half Heart.
I'm already plotting a third part to this saga, from Gracie's point of view, but we'll see if that ever happens. Depends a little on the reviews this one gets, to be honest. There's a part of me that fears I'm over-explaining things with this, that some things would be better left for imagination. But I don't know.
I start sequels/prequels to most of my stories but haven't published (or finished) them before because I always fear that they will take something away from the original stories. For all I know, this story will do exactly that. But it wanted to be written for some reason.
English is not my first language. Neither is Swedish, German nor French. (My first language is Finnish in case you're curious.) Let me know if google translate got the French translations completely wrong.
This is for Laura, though it's neither light nor fluffy. I'll get you one of those some time soon, too.
It Means Home or Together
She runs her thumb over the passport picture and smiles a little. She looks like herself in the picture, blue eyes and blond hair, but the name is new. She knows they will track her to this flight and she doesn't want to reveal all her tricks just yet. She hopes she'll have enough of a lead that she can dye her hair, put on the colored contacts and move to the next country with the second passport that's hidden in her luggage before they start searching.
She puts her flight tickets between the passport and puts it in her purse just as the flight attendants remind them to put their cabin luggage in the overhead compartments or under the seat in front of you.
The engines roar to life and they start rolling towards the runway. It's a sunny day and she can't quite decide if the world is mocking her, painting everything she'll leave behind so beautifully that she's already missing this place, or if the world is smiling at her, agreeing with her decision. It doesn't matter, really, because it's too late to turn back now.
She has the window seat, the perfect place to watch how the country she served for so many years slowly disappears and switches into an ocean. Her new home is somewhere on the other side but that's all she knows for now. She's certain she covered her tracks well enough that no one can track what she has searched online these last few weeks but just in case they do, she didn't even try to figure out the little details yet. There will be time for that later.
Her hand finds its way to her neck but there's nothing there anymore. She can feel the nonexistent dog tags choking her, remind her that she's letting her country down, letting everyone she's ever loved down. She misses the weight of the chain against her skin because it reminded her that she belongs somewhere. Those days are gone now.
Only a fingerprint or a DNA sample can connect her to Samantha Carter now. The only personal item she kept is one diary. She needed something to cling to and the she has already written the notes in code to hide all the classified information. It's just bits and pieces, funny stories from around the campfire, moments she wants to remember but taking the actual photos would have been too risky. She's planning to buy another notebook, too, to write down some of this chaos that's coursing through her head right now but she doesn't know if that's safe.
She keeps repeating her new name inside her head a few more times but she'll only use it for about 20 hours so it's not as important. She doesn't quite know what name to use when she refers to herself inside her head. She's a new story built inside the old shell and the story has a lot of blank parts at the moment. But there's one title she can put on herself: mother.
Her hand finds its way to her abdomen, caressing the slight bump there, the new life she has sworn to keep safe, no matter what the cost. So far the cost has been higher than she ever imagined paying.
She left everything behind without goodbyes and she knows she can't contact her friends or family ever again if she wants to keep her child safe. If the word spreads and the wrong people find out where she is and why she left, they will take her child away and she can't let that happen. She is prepared to run for the rest of her life if she needs to because for the NID their child would be nothing more than an interesting test subject but to her that little shrimp in her tummy is already everything.
She makes a simple list of rules she's going to follow from this point forward:
Never from US. If she has to admit English is her first language, she's always from somewhere else.
She will never lie to her child. They will live in the middle of lies but between the two of them, there will only be truth.
Be ready to leave at an hour's notice at all times. She can't get attached to places, not anymore. All she has is her child.
In the bathroom of a shady motel that's rented by hour, she dyes her hair with a chestnut brown and adds some lighter highlights here and there. In the passport picture she has a wig but she thinks the look is close enough that no one will notice.
She adds some self tanning lotion to get a bit more color on her pale skin which doesn't exactly match her new hair color. She puts on the hazel colored contacts, more make-up than she feels comfortable with, and finally the glasses. They're dark gray and make her look professional somehow, like someone who knows what she's doing.
"I wish that was true," she mumbles.
She repeats her story few more times in her head while she stares at the reflection in the mirror. She's Marie now, born in Sweden but moved away at the age of two. She's lived in Australia for the last few years but now that she's pregnant, she wanted to return to Sweden to get to know her roots.
She burns the first fake passport in the metal bin in the bathroom and nobody reacts to the fire alarm.
There's a train to catch. She landed in Düsseldorf in the western part of Germany, not too far from the borders of Belgium and Netherlands and relatively close to France as well. She hopes no one will realize she's heading north instead.
She's seven months pregnant when she finally settles down into a small-ish town in southern Sweden. There are two airports at a reasonable distance, in opposite directions, and her apartment is close enough to a railway to use that as an additional escape route. She calculates that she can get out of the country in three hours if needed. She was aiming for two, but she had to compromise a little because she's getting too big and too tired to keep searching.
The apartment only has one room with a tiny kitchen in the corner and the wallpaper indicates that it hasn't been renovated since it was built in the 70's but it's good enough for her, for them. She buys an old crib from a flea market and paints it light green with baby safe paints because she doesn't know for sure if she's carrying a boy or a girl. Her gut tells her it's a girl, though.
She buys a bright yellow teddy bear for the child and a couple of other toys but nowhere near as many as she would have if she was still in Colorado Springs. She wants her child to have everything but it's not an option right now.
So far her life has fit into one suitcase but she buys another one because the baby will need a lot of things if they need to leave. She only keeps one packed, though, and it includes the basics for both of them. If there's time, she can pack the other one as well.
She buys a baby sling instead of a baby carriage because that way she can keep the baby close and it's easier to disappear into the crowd in case they're followed.
Most of her life circles around escape plans and false identities but she hopes she can stop and breathe for a moment when the baby is born, to enjoy it, because that's the reason why she took off in the first place.
"Father unknown" they tick the box in the birth certificate and she tries to keep the melancholy at bay but the picture they snap of her and her newborn baby girl clearly shows the sadness in her eyes. It doesn't matter, not really, because there's no one to see the picture except the two of them. The happiest day of her life becomes the saddest because there's no one to share it with.
Father unknowning would be more accurate. She knows perfectly well who the father is but the father has no idea. She knows he's searching and she wonders how long he will continue.
Emma Lindberg, that's the name of her daughter now, but she will always be Grace inside her head. She adds another rule to the list and swears she will never say the name out loud. They can't afford slipping and therefore they can't afford "real" names. Their real names will always be the ones they're using at that point.
"Du är min dotter och jag älskar dig," she mumbles into the baby girl's hair. Her Swedish gets better day by day but is still far from perfect. You are my daughter and I love you. That's more than enough, right? It has to be because it's all she has. Love and a worn diary hidden in the middle of her meager belongings, reminding her of the family that would have doted this little girl if she had given them the chance.
She draws a symbol on Gracie's back with the tip of her finger. She used to have a secret language with the girl next door when she was seven and they always signed their letters with that symbol. It means I wish good things for you and it feels appropriate for the situation. Then, in a spur of a moment, she draws another symbol, a simple wiggly line, in the small of the baby's back. "It means home," she whispers in Swedish. "Or together."
"Och det här är Ann-Louise," she introduces her daughter in the new kindergarten. New town, new name, new story. This is the fourth place in Sweden and they will need to change the country soon, too, but she's allowing them this one last stint. She got a one school year job as a science teacher in the local high school to fill in for someone on maternity leave.
It's a relief to be allowed to use her brain for a change but at the same time, a teacher is just a borderline case when it comes to jobs that are too visible. She prefers to work where she doesn't meet people, warehouses, factories, sorting mail, cleaning grocery stores... Even waitering, because waiters come and go and though someone might learn her name, it's unlikely that they would try to find her later.
This time their backstory says that she has a Ph.D in physics and her husband is an engineer, currently building a power plant in Africa but she doesn't have permission to disclose any details.
Gracie is three and moving to another country now could do some serious damage to her language skills because from the beginning it has been clear that they will switch language completely when they move to a new country.
She hasn't spoken out loud a single word of English since Gracie was about one and she had learned Swedish well enough but she tries to think in English to keep herself afloat in the sea of lies and fakes they're swimming in every day and also because it's hard to think complicated things in a language you don't fully understand.
Germany is not that different from Sweden but the language takes a lot longer to learn. Gracie picks it up a lot faster but then again, she's surrounded by it almost constantly in kindergarten and playgrounds.
The mother works as a waiter now. Her new passport says she's five years younger than she really is and she does her best to act and dress up to that description. In this city her story is that she left when she got pregnant out of wedlock and has been traveling around ever since. A young woman at work sympathizes with her and though she tries her best to push the girl away gently, they slip into something she might call friendship, the one thing she's been trying to avoid the best she can.
They stay long enough for her to learn the language at a decent level.
Daniel would be proud of me, she thinks one evening and then the cold reality sets in again that Daniel will never know. They probably think she's dead already. She tries to push away the nagging voice at the back of her head that says that Daniel and the others are probably dead because she ran away, because she's not there to protect them and to pull miracles out of thin air. For a briefest moment she allows herself to miss that sense of excitement that came from saving the world because nowadays getting enough money to pay the rent is the biggest miracle she achieves.
They pack their bags the next day because she doesn't like to linger in places where the memories hurt, or in this case, where the memory of having a memory hurts.
It's harder to leave with goodbyes than without them and she promises to never do that again. She tells her workmates that her parents managed to contact her and said they want to get to know their granddaughter so they're going home. They are all so happy for her and she sheds a tear or two as well as she gives them all a hug but it's not for the reason they think it is.
"Ich freue mich für dich," her friend mumbles in her hair and all she can do is nod in return. I'm happy for you. You really shouldn't be, she thinks to herself. There's no home to go back to.
Life fits into three suitcases now. It was two at first but she can't ask Gracie to leave everything behind like she does. What she doesn't realize is that the girl has grown in a world where nothing is permanent, not even names, and she's more familiar with leaving things behind than her mother expected.
"Don't forget your teddy bear," the mother reminds but the girl shakes her head.
"I can live without it," Grace says.
"You don't need to," her mother reminds her but the girl swallows her tears and shakes her head.
"Alright," she agrees but when the girl isn't looking, she shoves the yellow teddy bear into her suitcase and decides to give it to Grace when she misses it for the first time. That moment never comes, but she can't bring herself to throw it away either. Instead she throws away her oldest sweater, the blue one that has followed with her all the way from the US.
One less thing to remind her of the past she can't get back.
She doesn't like to leave Gracie out of her sight unless the girl is with someone she trusts but the girl insists she can sit outside the bakery and finish her ice cream at her own pace while her mother picks up some bread for the day.
She watches her through the big windows of the bakery and soon realizes that the older woman is approaching Gracie instead of walking past her like all the other adults so far. She quickly pays for her bread and hurries out. For the first time she manages to ignore how the hot afternoon air strikes against her at the doorway. Usually it reminds her of stepping through the gate to a desert planet. She makes it to the bench just in time to see the lady leaning in to speak to her daughter.
"What's your name, darling?" the woman is asking in her lovely French that Sam is desperately trying to mimic but she still feels like it's obvious that she's not from around here.
"And where are your mother and father?" the woman continues, still in French. Everyone here speaks French and only French, their little family included. But she still tries to think in English every now and then because she feels like the person she used to be is fading into the chaos of languages she has in her head. She stopped being Sam Carter when she stepped into the plane in US all those years ago but she wants to cling to the memory, to remember who she used to be. She's not quite sure why anymore, but it feels important for some reason.
"Je suis Joséphine. Je n'ai pas de père mais c'est ma maman."
Grace replies, her French flawless now, at least to her mother's ears. I am Josephine. I don't have a father but that's my mommy. She doesn't point, she's polite like that, but instead she nods towards her mother, her blond hair briefly falling in front of her face, barely missing the ice cream she's holding in her hand.
"Everyone has a father," the woman argues softly and gives the girl's mother that disapproving look she's oh so used to already. She replies with a look of her own, the special "It's a horrible story I don't want my daughter to hear" one she saves for these occasions, the one that makes them think that he either hit her, raped her or both, and the questions stop right away. It's the last resort in case she's too tired to explain.
She can lie about everything else but it's hard to lie about him, to anyone. They always have a story, who her father is this time, why he isn't here. She might give the impression to strangers every now and then that something bad happened but the stories she tells to Grace and with Grace are always happy ones. There's a good chance that Grace will never meet her father but he is a good man and her mother wants Gracie to know that much.
Usually they go for the story that their family has a father but he's somewhere else, doing something important. Sometimes he's an engineer, sometimes a doctor, a reporter... Never a soldier, though. It keeps changing as often as the cities they live in and she's gotten so used to the foreign weight of a wedding ring already that she feels naked in this story without one. For Gracie those stories are fairytales just like the Disney princesses but for her mother, in a way, they're what-ifs and it hurts to think of the life they could have had.
This time she's telling the story that's as close to the truth as she can bare to tell; that Grace's father has never been a part of her life.
"Did you buy that good bread?" Gracie asks.
"I sure did!" her mother says, trying to lace her voice with equal amount of excitement but unfortunately it makes her well practiced pronunciation slip.
"You have a strange accent," the woman comments right away. "Where are you from?"
"Sweden," she admits with a little smile.
"Oh, of course. I should have realized from the blond hair and the blue eyes. It's a long way from Sweden to France." She says it like it's a casual comment but she can see the curiosity in her eyes and knows she's hoping for her to take it as a question instead.
"Love makes people do the weirdest things," she says with a little laughter and the woman laughs with her but her eyes never let go of that pity that set in when she asked about Gracie's father. But the truth is that this time she's telling her the truth, the woman just reads it the wrong way like people often do.
It's her love for Grace that makes her do all those things, to live through all those lies. Just to keep her safe. And it's worth it. It has to be.
"Truth time," Gracie mumbles in French when they're lying in Sam's bed. That's the most important rule: she never lies to Grace. She can't tell her everything and some questions she can't answer at all, but she never lies to the girl. But sometimes it's hard for Gracie to know which stories are for her and which are for others so when she says truth time, her mother will only speak the truth and their cover stories aren't mentioned at all.
"What do you want to know, honey?" she asks, in French as well. Wherever they are, they use the language every day, around the clock.
"Tell me about my father," she pleads and her mother sighs. "My real father."
"I know you mean your real father." They don't talk about the imaginary ones at truth time. "What do you want to know?"
"What does he look like?"
She dies a little inside every time she realizes that Gracie has given up on some questions. She used to start with his name, then his address and phone number. Now she automatically skips those because she knows she won't get an answer.
"He's tall. Taller than me, Josephine." The seven-year-old princess thinks that her mother is a giant so this part of describing her father always makes her eyes widen. "He has safe hands."
She doesn't know why she mentions his hands. Somehow they always pop into her head when she thinks of him. Safe hands. They're not the same as gentle hands. With gentle ones comes the promise that they will never hurt a living thing in this world. But safe hands... His hands have killed a lot of people, they're the hands of a man who is willing to do whatever needs to be done. But she knows they would never hurt her, that when it comes to her, the purpose of those hands would be to protect instead of harm.
"You say that every time, Mommy," Gracie giggles.
"They're big," she tries to demonstrate by spreading her fingers in the air and drawing an even bigger hand around it with her finger. "And I always knew they would protect me."
"Would they protect me as well?" Gracie asks.
"They would," she manages to say and then she has to stop to swallow the tears that threaten to burst free. "They will, if you ever meet him."
"Can't you just call him and tell him about me?"
"No, honey. I can't. It's not safe."
She nods and goes quiet. After a while she thinks she's sleeping already but then she heaves a sigh like she always does when she's thinking something too hard.
"What is it?"
"Won't he be angry? I'm a big girl and he never knew about me. Won't he be angry if he finds out?"
"Not at you, honey. Never you. He will love you, I know that. He will love and protect you. He might be angry at me but never you."
Grace seems to consider this for a moment before she nods against her mother's shoulder, accepting the answer.
"I still don't know what he looks like," Gracie says. Her mother never tells her any details, only some vague things here and there. She takes a deep breath and decide that now is as good a moment as any.
"He has the darkest brown eyes I've ever seen."
"Chocolate brown?"
"Like that hot chocolate Josie makes, before she adds milk." Josie takes care of Gracie after school, before her mother comes home.
"That dark?"
"That dark," she agrees. "I felt like I would drown in them if I looked into his eyes for too long. The darkest eyes I've ever seen." And a darkest soul as well, underneath all that humor and other acts. But isn't that what they say, after all? Eyes are the window to the soul. "Darkest eyes and the safest hands."
"And his hair?"
"It's short and brown with a bit of silver here and there." Or was it silver with a bit of brown here and there? She wonders if he's gone completely gray already. He probably has. It seemed to happen so fast.
"He's old?"
"Older than me," the mother admits for the first time. "No numbers, Josephine."
"You don't need to call me Josephine anymore," she reminds her mother. "I remember my new name already."
"Of course," she agrees.
They don't usually use names when they're home. They try to stay as true as they can when they're inside their own bubble and the only role they keep up is the language. It's not much of a role for Gracie, though, because French is almost like her mother tongue. That term is ironic because the girl can speak a bunch of languages already but not a single word of her mother's language. Not that she knows that. There are a lot of things Gracie doesn't know.
Gracie yawns and cuddles a little tighter against her mother's side.
"I wish I had a real name," she sighs. "One that stays."
Oh, you do, honey. But I've never told you that.
She draws the familiar pattern on her daughter's back, half a heart that continues as half a sun. Gracie giggles when her mother draws the wiggly line underneath the sign.
"That's not a name, Mommy," Gracie mumbles.
"It's not," she admits. "But it stays. Even if everything else becomes a lie, you will always be my daughter and I will always wish good things for you, honey. And your home will always be right here, wherever here is at the moment."
She's asleep by the time her mother finishes her speech and she has no idea if she heard it or not.
All the stress finally catches up with her body when they move inside France for the third time. She self diagnoses stomach ulcers and gives up coffee. It's a real shame because they live above a small café and she wakes up to the wonderful smell of freshly brewed coffee and baking every morning.
She finds the first gray hairs a week later and for the first time she really understands how long they've been on the road. She's not young anymore, she knew that much, but she doesn't feel quite as old as the woman that's staring back from the mirror.
Samantha Carter would be forty now. The woman in the mirror seems older, though. The lines around her eyes are starting to show and her forehead gets all wrinkly when she raises her eyebrows. Maybe she should fix her age up in the next passport. So nobody would wonder why she looks so tired.
They avoid planes the best they can and move around within the Europe most of the time. After France there's Hungary and Spain, then UK because she wants Gracie to learn English, too. Her mother insists on speaking French, though, making Gracie translate for her most of the time because she's worried she would slip into her American accent and blow their cover.
They make a short stint to Russia but never learn the language well enough to fit in.
She plays with the idea of moving to America, perhaps the South America, but she doesn't quite manage to gather the courage to take that step.
They spend six months backpacking around India because she feels like they could use a change and it's refreshing that they don't need to settle in for another lie. They're constantly on the move, a new town every few weeks, a new story for everyone who asks. Funny enough, the hot climate with the spicy food make her miss home more than any other country or city they have visited. She didn't even know she was capable of being homesick after so long on the road but she misses the crisp winter mornings in Colorado, the colors of autumn, those chocolate cookies her mother used to make and which she hasn't managed to copy without that specific brand of chocolate they always used.
She wonders if Grace gets homesick and if yes, which of their homes does she miss. She never asks.
They move to Canada the day Gracie turns fifteen. Not that she knows either one of those facts. She's Amelie now and her passport says she's sixteen and two months because her mother wants to teach her how to drive. She thinks it will do her good because they have quite a symbiotic relationship and it can't last forever.
She's learning to let her go, little by little, and her first step is to shove her into a tin can on her own. Well, she won't be driving on her own for a long time but basically, that's the plan.
It's been years since they spoke French but it comes very naturally after a few days of practicing.
Grace is turning into a woman and her mother is at a loss with how to help her. Every morning she brushes her teeth and looks into the mirror but she doesn't recognize the woman that looks back at her. Major Samantha Carter, she tries to pronounce the title inside her head one morning but the words don't sound right and even inside her head there's a French accent in them.
She wonders if Grace finds herself in the mirror but she's optimistic that the girl will be fine. She's strong in a way no child should be but strong nonetheless. Gracie is always in this moment, sometimes painfully so when her mother feels like she's slipping into memories that don't exist anymore. She's observant and witty, clever and mouthy. She's polite but she doesn't really get attached to people and her mother feels guilty for that because she thinks she has robbed her the chance of high school sweethearts and all those crazy things you do because you're young and in love.
This will be their last move, she decides. It's bit risky because they're close to the US of A but maybe they will be fine. It's been fifteen years. They've probably stopped searching by now.
They have never had a lot of money, just enough for the simple life they live and bit of savings to make sure they can leave if the need arises. But this time she actually gets a nice job that pays well enough that she can save a decent amount of money every month. They live in a small two bedroom apartment but she's starting to think about buying a house. She's not sure if she knows how to stop running, though. That's why she never mentions it to Grace.
When Grace turns eighteen, according to her Canadian passport, she gets a car from her mother. It's gray and boring and doesn't fit Gracie's personality at all but it's relatively new and safe enough that her mother can live with the fact that her daughter is driving it. The girl takes it out for a spin right away and then heads out to celebrate with her friends.
Her mother spreads newspapers, books and work papers on the kitchen table as she keeps vigil like she always does, waiting for her daughter to come back safely. Every now and then she needs to fold her reading glasses on the table and try to massage away the tenseness from her temples because the nagging voice is back in her head and it keeps telling her that Gracie doesn't need her permission for anything anymore, she's officially an adult now and she could even leave the country and her mother would never know.
She feels conflicted because that's what she's been secretly urging her to do, to pick her own road from hereon forward. She always imagined that the road would lead away from the life the two of them have made but now she's not sure if she could really live with that.
She makes herself a cup of chamomile tea and goes to bed at midnight. There's nothing she can do if Grace chooses to leave.
The mattress dips when somebody climbs on the bed and she snaps awake, the soldier reflexes still sharp after all those years. Before she have time to react, Gracie snuggles up against her side.
"You didn't wait up," she mumbles.
"You're a grown up now, honey." She tries to say it with humor but Grace probably knows her well enough to hear the sadness in her voice.
"I know what you thought, mommy," she whispers and wraps her arm around her mother's waist. "You thought I would leave," she says softly. "You thought I would disappear as soon as I'm old enough to leave. You even bought me a car, you fool."
"I want you to be happy, honey," her mother whispers. "If it means letting you go, I understand. This is no way to live your life. I've dragged you all over the world for eighteen years. Now you get to decide which way you want to go. Literally. I just want you to remember you need to be careful."
Eighteen years is bit of a round up, actually, because it's been sixteen years and ten months since Grace was born. But technically Sam has been dragging her around the world since the girl was just a two month old fetus.
"I decide to stay right here," the girl says firmly and her mother realizes the girl's hand is moving, drawing something on her mother's abdomen with her index finger.
"It means home," the girl whispers. "Or together. In our case, it means both."
Her mother can't find anything to say so she kisses Gracie's forehead instead.
"Du är min Mamma och jag älskar dig." The words are soft but easy to hear, even spoken to the fabric of her mother's nightgown. You are my mother and I love you. They left Sweden twelve years ago and she hasn't heard her speak Swedish for eleven and a half but it is and will always be her first language and therefore it automatically holds a little more emotion than any other words she could have chosen.
"Och jag älskar dig, min dotter." And I love you, my daughter. Her mother answers, her voice just as soft.
"It's OK to cry, mom," Gracie mumbles and the tear ducts decide to open without her consent. She hasn't cried since she said goodbye to her friend in Germany and she didn't even realize she still could.
Grace starts studying art and taking painting courses. She has always been good at drawing and her mother thinks it's probably because they changed languages so often. Pictures were always the same, an easier way to express herself when she was in transition between languages, forgetting one but not fluent in another yet.
The idea of being invisible, unnoticeable is so deep inside her basic coding that she hides her best works under her bed and only shows the average ones for others. When a talented person disappears, someone will miss them. Average people can come and go with no big fuss and the one hour rule is built into Grace despite her mother's reassurance that they're done with running. They both still keep a packed suitcase under their beds and try to pretend they don't.
One day when her mother is bringing the clean laundry to Gracie's room, she almost trips over a corner of one painting that's pointing out from underneath the bed. Out of curiosity she pulls it out and finds herself looking at a slightly twisted version of Jack O'Neill that Grace has painted, based on the little details her mother has mentioned over the years.
The hair is bit wrong, too long somehow, and his arms don't have the right amount of muscle, but the hands are just like she remembers them to be. Safest hands in the universe. The eyes are spot on, too, but there's no scar in his eyebrow. There couldn't be, because she's never mentioned it. She wonders if she should, next time. The man in the painting is smiling a happy, though not overly wide, smile and that's the detail that seems the furthest from reality. Jack's smiles were mostly mischievous or sarcastic, sometimes a little sad, but never so openly happy.
What surprises her the most, though, is the fact that the man in the painting is standing by a little lake, holding a fishing rod. She can't remember if she mentioned he likes fishing but she probably did. Jack wouldn't be standing, though. He would be lounging in a chair on the deck, half asleep, with a fishing rod loosely in his hand. That's how she always imagined it.
The man in the painting is Gracie's father, but it's only one side of him. Maybe one day she'll know the other side as well.
Grace even manages to sell a couple of her paintings. She spends the money with her new friends that aren't introduced to her mother. She suspects there's a boy somewhere in the mix but Gracie never talks about him and her mother doesn't know how to ask.
"What is it?" she mumbles when the bed dips at – she glances at the clock on the bedside table – two in the morning one Saturday.
"Truth time?" Gracie suggests.
"Of course." She will always have time for Gracie and truth time, always.
"Any advice you would want to give to a girl who's planning to lose her virginity this weekend?"
She's proud that her daughter is talking to her about this but at the same time she's not quite sure what to say. "With someone you trust, sober, in bed, use a condom," she finally concludes. "And if you hesitate, even a little bit, you say stop and walk out, OK?"
"Is that how it was for you? Or was yours the exact opposite?"
"Mine was a clumsy, quick thing at the backseat of a car with a boy I was madly in love with. We were sober, though. And used a condom. So I guess it was bit of both."
"In a car? Just like in those American high school movies?"
"Yeah," her mother chuckles like she had never thought of that. "Just like those. Funny, isn't it?"
"Hilarious," Gracie says but her voice is laced with so much dry sarcasm that her mother stops breathing for a moment. She's her father's child, there's no doubt of that. Even though they've never met.
"If I hadn't been born..." Gracie starts and her voice is softer this time, more hesitant. "What do you think would have happened to you and Dad?"
"I wouldn't trade you for anything, honey. This is the way it was supposed to go."
"But I'm sure you have thought about it. The what-ifs."
"The more I think about it... I can't imagine either one of us taking the first step. I think I would have died alone and miserable." She really believes that, but she's not sure if she's just made herself believe a lie to ease the pain or if it really is the most likely option.
"Now you're just miserable."
She's surprised about Grace's nonchalant tone, how she states it as a fact they both have known for a long time. Miserable? Maybe she is, now that she really thinks about it, though she feels numb more than anything. Numb and empty.
She spends a long time staring into the mirror the next morning. Her hair is long now, reaching all the way to her shoulders. She's been blond for the the last couple of moves again but now she realizes that there's more silver than gold in her head.
Her face is marred with deep lines and she fears that the little frown on her forehead might have become a permanent feature. But the thing that frightens her the most is how empty her eyes look and how all her smiles seem forced and hollow as well. She used to have dimples, didn't she? Did she lose them somewhere underneath that sagging skin and deep lines or has she just forgotten how to smile for real?
They buy a house eventually. A small house in the suburbs, three bedrooms and a two car garage though one bedroom gets turned into an office. Gracie insists on buying a fold-out couch, though, despite the fact that they never have guests.
"This is a real house, mother. Real houses have guest rooms."
The girl seems excited about it and her mother can't say no to that smile so the third bedroom becomes an office slash guest room.
Gracie decorates her own room with free hand paintings of fruit trees, beaches and inspirational quotes in French. Her mother buys blue curtains to her clean white room and once again tries to remember who she used to be because this is the first time she could decorate a room the way she wants but problem is that she can't remember what she likes.
She lies down on top of the covers and stares at the ceiling, trying to remember her favorite color but her head keeps throwing her that specific shade of burnt orange they wore in the factory under ice. She remembers how gently he removed the scratchy fabric that covered her body and she smiles, for the first time in months if not years. But those aren't Samantha Carter's memories, those are Thera's. But the thought makes her happy so she decides to cling to it and marches into Gracie's room to borrow some paints. She pulls the bed away from the wall and paints an orange square there, like a headboard.
"It clashes with the blue of your curtains," Gracie informs her mother when she sees the results for the first time.
"Maybe that's what I wanted," her mother answers cryptically and realizes that maybe it really is. The blue and orange really do clash a little, mostly because of their shades. The dark, burnt orange and the bright, ocean blue don't sit quite right with each other but maybe that's what she needs, a reminder. A reminder that something is off in her world, a reminder not to get used to the numb gray of her days because it's not supposed to be that way.
"I like it," Gracie decides in the end.
"Forgive me mother for I have sinned." Gracie's words are whispered in broken English to the dark room but her mother wakes up right away.
When she turns on the bedside lamp, she finds her daughter sitting in a chair next to her bed, wearing her jacket on top of her pajamas and her favorite scarf wrapped around her neck.
"Ce qui s'est passé?" What happened? She notices the suitcase, the one Gracie keeps packed in case they need to run.
"I found someone I could trust," the girl says, her voice soft and full of guilt. "Someone who knew what it's like to hide."
"What happened," her mother asks again.
"The police caught him. I think we should leave before they catch us, too."
"What did you do?"
"Nothing, mother. I swear I didn't. He sold weed. I knew he was using but I didn't know he sold it, too. But it's the police and you keep reminding how important it is that we stay away from them."
"We're not criminals, Amelie. It's not the police we're running from."
"Then who is it?"
"I'm sorry but I can't tell you."
"How do you expect me to be careful when I don't even know what to fear?"
"The reason we stay away from the police is that if they run a sample of our DNA or my fingerprints, there's a good chance that they'll get a match." She's not certain if the SGC workers are listed in any databases but they might be. "Or at the very least someone, somewhere, will get a nice little bing at their computer that I'm alive and I'm here. And if it's the wrong people, we'll be in trouble."
"And then what happens? What kind of trouble?" Grace asks and her mother tries to decide if she should just answer but the story goes so far back and includes aliens and conspiracies and the girl wouldn't believe her if she heard the truth.
"Bad things."
"Mother," Gracie sighs and it's obvious she's had enough of the non-answers.
"You are special, my daughter. And there are people out there who would do anything to find out just how special. In my darkest nightmares they tie you to a table and perform an autopsy while you're still alive." That's the first time she has admitted how big a threat they're escaping. She doesn't want Gracie to turn into a paranoid empty shell like herself but the girl has the right to know.
Gracie doesn't say anything but she sheds the jacket and the scarf and climbs in bed with her mother who kisses the girl's forehead gently.
"I'm so sorry, Amelie," the mother whispers.
Maybe they should run again but nowhere is safe, she's starting to see that. She's even playing with the idea of contacting the SGC or at least her old friends. It doesn't matter anymore, nothing does, except Gracie's happiness and she has the right to know something.
"One day," she whispers, in English this time. It's a simple promise but she knows it will be the most difficult to keep.
She pulls the bright yellow teddy bear from the locked upper drawer of her bedside table and places it under Grace's arm. It's the same bear she bought when the girl was born, the one Gracie volunteered to leave behind when they left their first apartment in Germany more than a decade ago.
She watches through the kitchen window how the middle aged man climbs out of the car to open Gracie's door, then kisses her, straight on the mouth, with a little more passion than her mother feels comfortable seeing.
She lowers her gaze back to the sink and keeps cleaning the pot. She has never been a great cook but it's been years since she managed to burn potatoes. She's been distracted lately and she wonders if she's getting old or if she's just stressed out. Living in a house doesn't sit right with her for some reason, it makes her more restless than any of the lousy apartments with horrible wallpapers.
Gracie lowers her purse and keys on the breakfast bar directly behind her mother but she doesn't turn around.
"He's not married, I hope." Her voice holds a little more venom than she intended but she's worried about Grace and the choices she makes. For some reason snapping and nagging seem to be the only ways for her to express that fear.
"I can be almost anything I need to be, mother," Gracie speaks softly and her mother can hear that she's swirling the keys around and around in her index finger. "But I would never break a family. I would never pull a father away from his children."
She feels bad now for accusing the girl.
"Divorced, five years ago. No children. As a matter of fact I think he might be gay but hasn't come to accept it yet. But he's charming, can afford nice restaurants and the sex isn't half bad either."
Her mother freezes for a second but then keeps scrubbing the pot with even more force. She doesn't know what to say.
"He owns a gallery. My exhibition will open in two months."
"So you slept with him to get your paintings in his gallery?"
"I slept with him because he has safe hands. I noticed that when he signed the contract. You should try sex, mother. It might help you relax a little."
"I've had sex, Amelie. I got you, remember?" She's hardly a virgin but she has to admit she hasn't let anyone touch her for a long, long time.
"I got the impression that it was a quick one time thing and you two were probably drunk. That hardly counts."
Her mother can sense that the girl is trying to get a raise out of her, to make her angry enough to reveal something new about her father, but she can't help the anger boiling in her veins. How dare she? Grace is free to insult her mother for what ever reason she sees fit but she has no right to talk about her father like that. She takes a deep breath but doesn't turn around to face the girl.
"We weren't drunk," she corrects first because for some reason that assumption offended her the most. She leaves out the under alien influence -part, though. "One time, yes. I won't even try to deny that. Circumstances were extraordinary but it wasn't a spur of a moment thing, we just reached our breaking point after long time of wanting and wishing and-"
She can't quite bring herself to say loving. She wants Gracie to know she wasn't the result of some drunk grope but she can't quite say that she was born out of love, either. That would feel like a lie because she can only speak for herself, not for his feelings.
"We forgot why we shouldn't do it," she says softly. "Only for one night."
"And quick?" She lets out a dry laugh. "God, no." She could still recite every kiss, every fleeting touch, every brush of his stubble against her sensitive skin. Every stroke, every whisper, it's all permanently burned into her memory. "It was slow, gentle... perfect. I hope you find someone who makes you feel like that, Amelie. But I don't think you'll find it in middle-aged might-be-gay gallerists."
She can hear the girl moving and then slim arms wrap around her waist from behind. She lets the sponge fall into the bottom of the sink and braces her hands against the edge of the counter, suddenly feeling emotional.
"I'm sorry, mother" Gracie mumbles when she buries her face between her mother's shoulder blades. She doesn't call her mommy anymore and it stings more that she ever thought it would.
Two nights later Gracie climbs in her mother's bed late at night, clutching the teddy bear against her chest.
"Everything alright?" the mother asks and wraps her arm around the girl. They've been fighting a lot during the days lately but somehow the nights are different. It's like Gracie is fifteen years younger all of a sudden when the lights go out and all she needs is her mommy and a hug. That much she can give her, it's everything else that gets difficult.
"I think it will be," Gracie mumbles but doesn't say anything more.
In the morning Gracie cooks breakfast, waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, muesli with yogurt and her mother's favorite tea with just the right amount of honey and she suspects the girl is up to something.
"Where are you going?" she asks when the girl is standing in front of the mirror, braiding an orange ribbon into her long hair. She's wearing a white summer dress that reaches just below her knees and that has small orange and yellow flowers here and there. She looks so innocent like that, smiling at her own reflection, but her mother knows there's storm going on under the surface.
"Nothing special," Gracie says and secures the braid with an elastic. She snatches something from the small table and quickly hides is behind her back. A paper, perhaps, her mother thinks. Or maybe a letter.
She doesn't ask about it but when she gets up to take the dishes to the sink, she sees something else.
"When did you get that?" she asks and nods towards the girl's toe. The tattoo is small, easily mistaken as a piece of yarn or just dirt stuck on her skin, but her mother knows exactly what it is. It means home, or together. In our case it means both, Gracie had said once.
"A while ago," Gracie admits. "Before we bought the house." Her mother thinks she knows what that means. Before they bought this place, their home was always with them, wherever they were.
A house is made of brick and stone, a home is made of love alone, an old rhyme gets stuck in her head all of a sudden. She wonders if she's too old to get a tattoo as well.
"By the way, who's Terra?" Gracie asks when she's stepping out of the front door already.
"Terra?" Terra? Terra... Thera! "Why do you ask?"
"Just something you mumbled in your sleep, mother. I wondered if it was important."
"Not really, honey," she says with a smile and feels a twinge of guilt all of a sudden because that's the closest thing to a lie she has ever told Gracie.
"Alright. Have fun at work!" the girl says and gives her mother a wave before she's out the door.
Gracie seems distracted all week and the next one, too, but her mother isn't too worried about it because she insists it's because of her upcoming exhibition. But when the girl climbs in her bed again, late on Wednesday evening, and wraps herself around her mother, she knows there's something more going on than work stress.
"You can tell me anything, honey," her mother kindly reminds her and the girl starts crying.
"I will, eventually," the girl finally promises. "Can you sing to me? That song you sang when I was little."
She knows exactly what Gracie means but she can't believe the girl still remembers something like that. She starts humming softly because she has forgotten the words a long time ago. It's some old Swedish lullaby, something the nurses taught her when Gracie was born. She hums until the girl falls asleep and makes a promise to herself that she will try to make the girl open up the next day because something is obviously wrong.
When her alarm goes off at half past six, Gracie is gone. Her teddy bear is on the pillow where her head should be, her favorite shoes are gone, so is the scarf, but her runaway pack is still hidden in the corner of her closet. There's no message and she doesn't answer to her mother's calls or text messages.
She's worried but she decides to wait a little longer before she starts panicking. Based on Gracie's behavior, this was something she planned. Otherwise she would be suspecting a kidnapping by NID. But she feels restless when she doesn't know where her daughter is or when she should come home because the fact that she left willingly doesn't mean she didn't get in trouble along the way.
When the clock hits 11 pm and there's still no sign of Grace, she boots up her computer, the one she keeps hidden in the safe with their next passports, and starts searching. Luckily for her, Grace has no idea what her mother is capable of.
It's little after midnight when the girl's phone is finally turned on again and she manages to trace it to one cell tower in a not-so-nice neighborhood in their city. At first she has no idea what Grace is doing there but then she remembers that night a couple of months ago when she confessed her boyfriend went to jail for selling drugs.
She gets the address fifteen minutes past six in the morning, gets dressed for work and decides to give her daughter a lecture on her way to the office. She hides her pistol in the bottom of her purse, though, just in case Grace is in trouble after all.
"I know you're in there!" she yells through the door that seems to be too thick for a place that's otherwise falling apart. She wonders if it was perhaps kicked in some time and replaced with something harder to break. "Amelie! Open the door!" She can feel the sleepless night affecting her and she's angry at the girl for making her worry so much. In a way she wishes she could speak English now because her vocabulary of nasty French words is very limited. She lets out each and every one of those she knows, though, because she can't remember the last time she was this upset with anyone.
She stops just for a second when she hears movement from inside and she realizes that Gracie is not alone. There's a man in there and she yells through the door that she's aware of that fact. God, she just wants her daughter home safely and maybe she could catch a nap before work. She's too old for this, especially without coffee.
"What the hell is your problem?" the man barks when he pulls the door open.
"Are you sleeping with my daughter?" she asks in English, surprised how thick the French accent is in her voice, like her tongue didn't quite remember how to twist into the language she spoke for the first thirty-something years of her life.
"Yes and no," the man replies but she's not listening anymore. She's squeezing past him because she needs to see her daughter.
"What the hell were you thinking?" she yells in French. "I don't care who you sleep with or when but you need to tell me where you are! You can't disappear before sunrise and not come home for the night!"
"English, mother!" Gracie barks back. "We have company."
"You really want your latest fuckbuddy to hear what I'm saying to you?" She's staring into her daughter's eyes, still angry, when she lets the words drop from her lips, in English this time as requested. She doesn't need to know who this man is, she doesn't care.
"Mother, meet my Dad. Dad, meet mother."
She turns around quickly and lets her eyes scan the stranger more carefully. His hair is different, longer and whiter, but the same untamed look remains now that she thinks of it. His eyes are the same dangerously dark chocolate brown and there's even that scar on his eyebrow that Gracie never knew of.
"Howdy," he says with a little wave and she would recognize those hands anywhere. The safest hands in the universe. But she doesn't know what the hell he's doing here so she keeps glaring at him, waiting for him to explain.
"Uh, we wiped out the NID a decade ago," he says, swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet, and she wonders how much he knows, how much Gracie has told him. "In case that's what you've been running from. And if it was me... Well, I'm sorry but I busted that plan as well."
"How?" is the only thing she manages to get past her lips. She thinks she's slipping into shock. Sure, she played with the idea of contacting him but that was supposed to happen at her terms, not his. Why is he here, what does he know? How long has he known?
"I wrote him a letter," Gracie says and gets up.
"How?" It's the same question but this time it's aimed at Grace instead of Jack.
"I read your diaries," she confesses. "Took me years to piece everything together. But eventually I found an address."
"You finally kicked your caffeine addiction?" he asks when she gets started with the tea.
"Stomach ulcers," she replies, her thoughts a million miles away. Gracie makes them sandwiches and they sit around the table with their cups and plates.
Grace is sitting next to her father and it's painfully obvious that they are related. Gracie got her mother's eyes and hair but the shape of her face is more like Jack's, her chin, her forehead... Even something about her nose. And they both have that same curious but slightly lost look on their faces when they look at her. She stirs her tea slowly, taking her time, ignoring the sandwich because she's not hungry anymore.
And suddenly it feels like the perfect moment to come clean about everything.
"Your name is Grace," she says the name out loud for the first time and glances at her daughter. Her English still sounds odd even in her own ears but there's nothing she can do about it right now. "I have never written it anywhere, I have never called you that, but that has been your name since the moment I found out I was pregnant. Grace O'Neill. Gracie."
The look on Jack's face seems to suggest that he agrees about the name. It's a relief though she keeps telling herself that his opinion doesn't matter. They share a moment, him and Grace, when the weight of her words sinks in.
And then he surprises her by whispering a simple "It's good to see you, Carter."
She keeps waiting for the anger to come but she can't sense any of it in him. He seems lighter now, like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. She doesn't think it's because of today, it seems more profound somehow. Maybe he finally learned to let go of the sins of the past. Perhaps one day he will teach her how to do that.
"Carter died somewhere over the Atlantic ocean," she replies honestly. Or perhaps the day before, when she burned her personal documents and left her dog tags on the small table in the hallway.
"No," he says and shakes his head. "That might be when you buried her but she's hard to kill. For all I know she's still gasping for breath in that coffin you built for her. But I can call you Sam if that makes you feel better."
"Sam died as well," she says with a shake of her head. "A lot later then Carter, but she died as well. There is nothing left of me for you to reach. I have built a new woman inside the old shell."
He thinks he found her but the woman he was looking for doesn't exist anymore. He's more than welcome to be a part of Gracie's life but he needs to know that there is no Carter left for him to find anymore.
He frowns like he's trying to make a decision and then whispers one word that takes her completely off-guard: "Thera"
She can feel her face relaxing and for a brief moment she's lost in the memories again, hundreds of feet underneath the ice, working hard but loving harder. But she pulls herself out of the memories, fantasies and fixes him an ice cold stare. That was low, even for him.
"Nothing?" he whispers and quirks an eyebrow.
"It wasn't real. The only part of me you still recognize is a fantasy we shared." She told a different story to Grace but in a way she believes them both just as much. Jonah and Thera existed in a bubble that was completely separate from their real life. It was them, but it wasn't them.
"I think it was more real than anything else in our lives. It was us, stripped from the rules and regulations and limitations of the society. It was us, raw to the bone. How can you look at your daughter and say it wasn't real? Is she just fidget of your imagination?"
Anger boils inside her again and she can feel the venom dripping from her lips as she lets the words slip out one by one: "She is the only real thing in my life."
She wants him to leave, to stop him from hurting her, because she's starting to realize that he's the only one who still can. She thought she was dead inside, apart from that small part that's beating for Gracie, but it seems there's a small part of her heart that's been left for him to break.
He tells her he would have run with her and she feels like choking because if there's one thing she has wished for more than anything these past years, it would have been that. She realized a long time ago that staying in Springs wouldn't have ended in a happily ever after but every now and then, on the cold nights in nameless towns, she wished that he had run with her.
She can feel tears burning in her eyes and she simply nods, not trusting her voice. He nods back and in a way it feels like they set something huge to rest now, buried a burden they have both dragged along for two decades. Perhaps they did.
Jack suggests a walk for Gracie and the girl leaves to get changed.
Then, all of a sudden, it's just the two of them, in her kitchen that's flooding with the morning light, so bright that she wants to wear shades because suddenly it feels too bright, reflecting from the clear white walls. Maybe they should paint the kitchen wall with something a little warmer, something more... alive. Hell, maybe she should just buy a wallpaper that looks like those hideous ones in the cheap apartments they've rented over the years. Maybe that's what it would take to make this place feel like home.
She starts cleaning the table because she doesn't know what to say.
"I'll get the guest room ready," she finally says when she's standing by the sink, her back turned to him. She feels like she has a leverage now, bit of a buffer against him and the emotions he makes surface.
"I don't need to stay here," he says and she can hear him get up.
She takes a deep breath, turns around and wills her walls to lower just a little, hoping he can still read her like he used to do all those years ago. She's not his Carter anymore but she wishes there's enough left for him to recognize.
"You are real. She should have you here," she whispers because she doesn't trust his mind-reading abilities anymore. She's slipping, more hollow than she ever has been before, and she feels like Gracie is sliding down a slope as well. She needs someone to ground the girl, someone solid and real.
"And you're her mother. She needs you as well," he says.
She surprises even herself when she steps forward and raises her hand to rest on his cheek. He didn't have time to shave this morning before she made them leave the apartment and she can feel the stubble against her palm. It reminds her of those nights in the factory and she smiles a little as she strokes the corner of his mouth with her thumb. "I'm not going anywhere," she whispers. "Not anymore. There's no reason to run."
The NID is gone, that's what he said and she believes him. She will always believe him. Gracie is safe now, they can stop running. They promised to do that when they settled in this city all those years ago but this is the first time she feels like she could unpack her emergency suitcase and burn all the extra passports.
She drops the hand and takes a few steps back to restore her equilibrium. His smile is distracting but nowhere near as distracting as the feel of his skin against her palm.
The dinner is a quiet event but not as awkward as she would have thought. Gracie goes to bed early and leaves them in the kitchen again.
She opens a bottle of wine, hoping it will help them find something to talk about. She folds her glasses on the table and massages her temples. She can feel the allnighter she pulled the previous night weighing her down. She's exhausted and her head is pounding but she can't quite bring herself to call it a night just yet.
He asks about Gracie's first language and she tells a little about Sweden. She's glad he doesn't ask about her first words, first steps or first anything because it hurts too much to think he wasn't there to see those with her. But the she realizes that's probably why he doesn't ask, because it hurts him as well, and she feels bad anyway.
"I took her from you and you don't owe me anything," she says softly, overwhelmed with the guilt suddenly. "You are free to pretend I don't exist."
"I tried that for ten years," he admits. "It didn't work."
Suddenly he reaches over the table and covers her hand with his, efficiently stopping her from tearing apart the corner of the napkin.
"I don't know," he says firmly and though there was no question, she feels like she knows which one he's answering. What happens now? "I really don't know," he admits. "But you're real and so is our daughter and we can work our way up from there."
She nods and covers his hand with her left one so that it's sandwiched between both of her hands now. He's staring at her hand, lost in thought, and she wonders how he'd describe her hands. They're not safe, not like his, but he seems to find them special somehow because he can't look away.
"You should take her to the park," she says because when she thought of his hands, she realized they are perfect for pushing a child in a swing and that's something she took away from him. "I never learned how to push her high enough in the swings," she confesses and tries to keep the regrets at bay, tries to remind herself that this is good enough and there's no reason to go through how it could have been better.
He smiles and she gets the impression that he almost says something out loud but decides against it at the last minute.
"Maybe you should come with us," he says instead.
"I probably should," she admits.
He opens his mouth but then closes it again, obviously hesitant to ask the next question. "What should I call you?" he finally asks, voice laced with worry about offending her.
She doesn't want him to call her by the name in her passport because that's part of a lie. Gracie calls her mother or mommy but Jack can't call her that. The soldier is dead and she's not the same woman, either, so Carter and Sam don't feel right. There's not much of a choice, really.
"Thera," she finally says and gives his hand a squeeze. "I think you should call me Thera until we find out how much of Sam or Carter is still alive."
He makes a bad joke about using mouth-to-mouth to rescue them and at first she wants to slap him because what they have here is fragile and serious and he can't just keep cracking jokes like that but then she remembers how much she has missed his horrible sense of humor and she can't help but laugh at him, with him.
"What's wrong, Gracie?" she mumbles when the mattress dips in the middle of the night once again.
"Not Gracie. The other O'Neill, the uglier and hairier one," a male voice explains and it takes a second or two of panic before she remembers who it is.
"Something wrong?" she asks and sits up. She turns on the bedside lamp and finds Jack sitting on the edge of her bed, playing with a paper plane he folded out of a newspaper page. It probably means he's been awake for a while now.
"Nope," he says and throws it towards the trash can in the corner. "Not really. Just checking that you're really real."
"I think I am."
"You think?" He raises his eyebrows at her and she shrugs a little.
"Some days I'm not sure myself," she confesses and rubs her temples. She has a headache because she got no sleep the previous night but still, she doesn't want him to leave just yet. "You wanna stay?"
"That's not why I came, Carter."
"Thera," she corrects though it feels a bit silly because neither title sits quite right with her.
"All the more reason not to stay, Thera."
"Just sit a moment with me," she says and taps the mattress on her right side. He sits down next to her, leaning his back against the headboard that's not really a headboard but a painted square in the wall. He lets his fingertips linger against the wall a little longer than necessary when he gets settled and she wonders if he recognizes the color and what he thinks of her if he does.
He pulls the yellow teddy bear from underneath his thigh where it got buried and raises his eyebrows at her.
"Gracie's," she answers and reaches her hand out to take the stuffed toy but Jack doesn't let it go. Instead he makes it sit on his lap like a baby and she snorts when he jumps it up and down.
She takes a risk after few awkwardly silent seconds and leans her head on his shoulder. They both heave a sigh at the same time and it feels like the last piece of puzzle finally fits somehow. Not perfectly but almost, close enough.
There's a soft knock on the door and before either of them has time to say anything or even move from their compromising position, a sector of light stretches from the doorway, all the way to the bed as the door opens, revealing Gracie standing there, looking a little lost and very sleepy.
"I just wanted my teddy bear," the girl says but she seems to be frozen in the doorway, not daring to step into the room.
"Come get it, then," her father says and Gracie slowly walks into the room and climbs on the bed between her parents, forcing them to part. "You wanna stay, too?" Jack asks when the girl gets settled against the wall just like her parents. "Hang out with the old guys? If that's OK with you, Car- Thera."
"Carthera," Gracie mumbles and snatches her teddy bear from her father. "I like that."
Her mother likes, it, too. It's something new but it's made of something old and familiar and it brings the comfort without the pressure to fit into a mold of a long-dead woman. "Yes," she agrees out loud. "Carthera sounds like a good name."
Gracie drops herself to lie down between them, clutching the teddy bear against her chest, and mumbles a sleepy "Good night, mommy. Goodnight, daddy." with her eyes already closed.
"Goodnight, Gracie," they say at the same time, then turn to smile at each other briefly.
"Goodnight, Carthera," he says and lowers himself to lie down next to Grace.
"Goodnight-" she starts but hesitates briefly, not quite sure what to call him. Sir? Jack? Jonah? She finally settles for "Jack" because it holds the least emotion and memories. That's wrong on so many levels because it's his name and first name should always be more personal than official titles but somehow it never was, not for them. Maybe they would have reached that level at some point if she had stayed. Or maybe she would have died miserable and alone. She's neither now, she realizes all of a sudden.
She hits the switch of the bedside lamp again, drowning the room in shadows before she can over-analyze everything again. When she goes to wrap her arm around Gracie's waist, she realizes there's already one arm there, and she lets hers rest on top of his. The other O'Neill, the uglier and hairier one. She has to bite her lip to stop herself from chuckling out loud at the description.
She still feels hollow but in a way it's alright now. They're all a little broken and lost, maybe she's no worse than he is. She can't remember the last time she felt happy like this. Perhaps when Gracie learned how to drive a bike. How many years has it been? How many countries, how many passports? She can't even remember anymore. Maybe it doesn't matter.
You're real and so is our daughter and we can work our way up from there.
Maybe they really can.
~The End~
A/N: Thank you for reading. Reviews are always appreciated.
Sharing my stories is very difficult for me right now but I will always keep writing so I think every now and then one or two will leak into the internets as well.