"And I really like my bus driver, Miss Marie, 'cause she's really nice. And my teacher Miss Lyons gives us these little stars when we're good, and I really like her, 'cause she's really nice, too. And-"
"David," Ellie said patiently, "give the poor man a rest."
An easy grin spread over Jack's previously dead-serious expression as his gaze moved from son to mother. "It's fine."
"All right, well, give your aunt a rest, then. She's only heard this a million times since last night. You can talk Mister O'Neill's ear off later." When three sets of eyes turned to her, she defended, "What?"
"Uh... no one's called me 'mister' in awhile."
"Oh. Sorry, uh... General O'Neill," she corrected.
"No, no. It's actually great." Ever since the stars, he felt like people walked on eggshells around him, and the way they talked was irritating. It was like they were all new recruits – 'General' this and 'sir' that and 'respectfully' everything. 'Mister' felt... normal. Human. Further from the job that had slowly begun to suck out his soul. God, he hated paperwork.
"So, you work with Sam?" Mark asked.
"Uh... yeah," he shrugged – the short answer, which he figured was easier.
"No," Sam said simultaneously, and both winced a little when the married couple shot them looks.
"I technically fly a desk in Washington now," he explained, "but Cheyenne Mountain is still home."
"We miss you, sir," the Colonel put in softly, and the words made his heart do a little dance. He missed them, too. More than she could possibly know.
"Washington State or DC?" Ellie asked. "Probably a dumb question, but since we're so close..."
"The Pentagon," her sister-in-law confirmed.
"Oh," the woman acknowledged, wide-eyed in what he could only take as wonderment. He hated that. "Well."
"It's not that exciting, really." Stacks upon stacks of papers waiting for his signature. Yes, thrilling.
"Sam was at the Pentagon for a few years," Mark told his wife. "She loved it."
"Of course, I was a lowly captain then. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you know. I'm sure the experience is a bit different," Sam said.
Ellie shot Jack a mischievous grin. "What, you're not bushy-tailed?" But she saved him a response by pushing to her feet and starting to collect the empty plates. Sam, of course, did the same, her warm hand brushing against Jack's larger one as she took his plate. If the other two noticed them both jump a little, they didn't comment. "You know, Sam, I am really looking forward to that apple cake you made," Ellie pressed on.
"I'm sorry," Jack interrupted. "Carter cooked?"
Ellie nodded.
"And you intend to eat this contraption?" In eight years, she'd never, ever, made anything from scratch. Not that the rest of them had, either, of course, but it just didn't seem right.
"I intend to dig in with both hands," she assured him. "It smells amazing. And Sam helped make half of what you just ate, by the way."
His confused eyes met his second's – ex-second, he reminded himself – amused ones. "I never told you I couldn't cook."
"Yeah, but you... I mean, you..."
"You know what they say about assumptions, sir," she quipped as she vanished into the kitchen.