a/n: Italics are flashbacks, and I centered them so that they, hopefully, won't be confusing. Please review and let me know if it was easy to read or not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in," Captain Donaldson announced just as Katie walked in the front door of the Dixon home. "If it isn't our favorite little trespasser."
"Aww, your favorite?" Katie replied as squeakily sarcastic as she could. "I feel so loved."
Captain Donaldson laughed and flung his arm around Katie's shoulders. "As well you should, little lady."
Katie rolled her eyes and pushed the captain's arm off of her. "Have you seen Janet Wells and Matt Dixon?"
"Ah, I believe I saw them huddled in a corner in the backyard."
"Thanks," Katie replied and started walking towards the backdoor when a voice caught her attention. Freezing in her spot, she slowly turned around and squealed as she took off running into the next room. "Daniel!" she shrieked as she jumped into his arms.
"Katie! Hey, how have you been?" Daniel replied breathlessly as the teenager strangled him with her hug.
"Okay, how 'bout you?" she asked, her arms still tightly embraced around one of her favorite people in the whole universe.
"Busy," was Daniel's short answer. "I want you to meet someone," he said, pulling away and turning towards Jack, who was standing next to him.
Katie pulled back as well. She had zoned in on Daniel the moment she heard his voice and had completely blocked out everyone else in the room, but as she slowly pulled away, she could definitely feel the presence of someone else standing next to the aging archaeologist.
Katie turned her head and her eyes widened remarkably. Her breath hitched in her throat at the same time she exhaled, "Jack."
Jack lifted his eyebrows and gazed down at the girl who looked so much like her mother.
Daniel looked from Katie to Jack and back again in bewilderment. "Uh, yeah, Colonel Jack O'Neill. He's been gone since before you were born, but he was our teammate for seven years before that."
The room started to spin at the same time images began rapidly flashing in front of Katie's eyes. Past moments between she and her mom, past moments in her safe place with Jack. How had she never connected them before?
Colonel.
Sir.
All along, her Jack had been her mom's Jack.
"Mommy, who's Jack?"
"What? Who told you about Jack?"
Katie shrugged and played with the crayon in her hand. "You miss him."
Sam sucked in a deep breath. "Yes, yes, I do. Very much."
"He's just sleeping."
"How do you know that, Katie?" Sam asked her daughter.
Katie shrugged again. "Cause you do."
There was only the one time that her mother had thought of him as Jack, and that had been long before Katie ever found her safe place. She had always referred to him as colonel or sir, even in her thoughts. Katie had never once connected the two.
Colonel Jack O'Neill. He was the man her mother loved. He was the man who she thought of constantly. The man she cried for. The man she prayed for. The man she knew was responsible for Katie's "gifts."
With that thought, the spinning room immediately halted and the flashes in her eyes were gone. Katie blinked and stared at the man before her.
Her father.
"He's just sleeping."
He was in stasis.
Do you think you'll ever get out of here?"
"I don't know. You tell me. You're able to come and go."
"Only my mind is here. My body is still at home in my room. I think your body is somewhere else, too. You need to find out where your body is and then maybe your mind can return to it."
She had found his mind while his body slept. Katie let out a small gasp as her mind continued to bombard her with more and more discoveries.
Her safe place had never been a place at all. It was Jack's mind. Her father's mind. Somehow, Katie had managed to find her way inside her father's consciousness, not unlike the way she would often visit her mother's.
"So you're Katie?" Jack's voice, so familiar, yet so foreign to hear aloud, cut into her thoughts, and Katie jerked her eyes to meet his once again. "You look just like her," he said softly, his warm smile soothing and distant at the same time.
And then Katie realized.
He didn't remember. He didn't have a clue who she really was. She stared at him and even though she knew without a doubt that he was her father, and the man she had bared her deepest secrets to for years, there was still something different about him. Something missing. She could feel the loss all the way down to her bones.
In a soft, almost sad voice, Katie replied. "My mother thought of you often. She missed you very much."
And, as Jack's face fell, and pain flickered across it at her words, Katie felt her heart fill with joy.
He missed her too.
Daniel cleared his throat from beside her, but before anyone could say a word, a hand grabbed Katie's arm, and a familiar voice sneered in her ear. "Katie! Why can't you ever listen to me?" Caleb growled at her.
"Son?" Dixon asked and gave his son a stern look as he joined the group.
Caleb looked up at his father and Katie noticed his neck start to turn red. Glancing at Daniel and then Jack, Caleb looked back down at Katie and then back up at the three men watching him with curiosity. "Uh, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak with Katie for a moment," he announced, his voice cracking as he addressed the older men.
"Ow, Dixon! Let go of my arm, you baboon!" Katie yelped and yanked her arm free.
He only responded by wrapping it around her waist and pushing her towards the kitchen. "We'll only be a moment," he called out over his shoulder as he continued to push her out of the room.
Jack raised his eyebrows and passed a questioning glance to General Dixon.
Dixon smiled and shrugged. "They're…….odd," was his simple answer. "They've always been like that with each other. They're favorite way of communicating is screaming at each other."
Jack cocked his head to the side as Dixon's words echoed in his mind. He had heard that before. Where the hell had he heard that before?
"Hey, dad, Donaldson said Katie was here," Matt Dixon announced as he and Janet came walking into the room and stopping next to General Dixon.
"Caleb just ran off with her, she'll be back in a moment," Dixon replied. "Have you two met Colonel O'Neill yet?"
"It's nice to meet you, sir," Matt immediately replied, reaching his hand out to shake with Jack. "I'm Mathew Dixon."
"Mathew," Jack replied with a grin. "You threw up on my rug once when you were a baby."
Matt looked embarrassed as his cheeks slowly started turning pink. "I'm sorry for that, sir," he replied sheepishly, which caused Janet to laugh from beside him.
"And this is Simon and Marci Wells' daughter, Janet," Dave announced as Janet giggled.
Jack's eyes widened. "Janet Wells? Wow! You've grown up as well."
Janet smiled warmly and shook his hand, but something nagged at the back of her mind. She saw this man before. His face, his smile. He was very familiar to her. Where had she seen him before?
Jack pulled back from shaking Janet's hand and shook his empty beer bottle. "I'm going to go snatch another one," he told Daniel and Dave and then nodded at the two teens. "Be right back."
The men nodded and then started a conversation with Matt and Janet. Jack walked into the kitchen and immediately went on alert.
Even after seventeen years of inactivity, his mind and body were still honed with special forces training, and the darkened breakfast nook off of the kitchen instantly caught his attention.
He could see the two young people inside the room, even though they were yet unaware of his presence. Pausing, he listened and watched as they continued with their conversation.
"I told you to stay away from him! How could you spend an entire day with him? And now he's calling you!"
"Oh, Caleb, will you chill out! He's harmless. I don't know why you're so worked up over this. When have I ever listened to you?"
Caleb growled and took a step closer to Katie and Jack froze in his spot, his eyes picking up on every subtle move the boy made against Carter's daughter.
"I don't trust Baker, Katie. Don't get caught up in this……please," Caleb said in a low, pleading voice.
Katie scoffed. "What do you care?"
With those words, Caleb's hands came up and rested on Katie's shoulders, as he lowered his head to her level. "You know I care," he whispered.
Jack saw the look of longing stretch across Katie's face and watched as she bit her bottom lip, a gesture she surely inherited from her mother. And at that moment, he felt an overwhelming feeling of protectiveness wash over him. He wanted to protect her. From hurt and pain, both physical and emotional. He wanted to protect her from it all. And, as quickly as this feeling washed over him, he just as quickly reasoned that his intense feelings were so strong because she was Carter's kid. And in extension, he cared for her because he cared for her mother.
Jack watched as Caleb played with a strand of Katie's hair that had fallen in her face. He twiddled it in his fingers before lovingly brushing it back behind her ears and meeting her gaze.
"Have you ever been in love before?"
"A couple of times, why?"
"Has it ever been forbidden?"
"What?" Jack asked, choking slightly in surprise.
"Forbidden? I think I love someone, but I shouldn't."
The words echoed in his mind so quickly, Jack wasn't sure if he really heard them or not. Forbidden? Love? Why couldn't he remember?
Starting to get uncomfortable, Jack coughed to alert the couple to his presence, and he watched as they jumped away from each other. He raised an eyebrow questioningly at them, but then turned quickly and opened the refrigerator, grabbing a bottle of beer out of it.
Shutting the door, he turned back around to the flushed young adults and uncapped his bottle. "Your friends are waiting for you, Katie," Jack said softly, his eyes locking on hers and that feeling of déjà vu washing over him once again.
Katie cleared her throat, and glanced at Caleb guiltily before stepping out of the breakfast nook. "Uh, thank you, Jack. I-I should be going," she stuttered, and with one last fleeting look at Caleb, she shuffled out of the room, her head turning back and glancing at Jack just as she reached the kitchen door.
She looked at him as though she was memorizing every single detail about him, and Jack didn't doubt that that was exactly what she was doing. As soon as she was gone, Jack turned back to Caleb, who was looking at the door with a grief-stricken look on his face. When he felt Jack's gaze, he turned to look at the older man.
"It's not what you think," he told Jack.
"How do you know what I think?" Jack replied.
Caleb shrugged and then sighed deeply. "I would never hurt her."
"I never said that you would."
Caleb ran a hand through his short hair in distress. "I-she, it's hard to explain."
"I bet it is," Jack responded, and noticed how his short, indirect answers were starting to annoy the young cadet. "She's only sixteen," Jack announced, that feeling of protectiveness washing over him once again.
Caleb looked at the colonel incredulously. "I know that," he said in a monotone voice.
Jack tilted his head up, a silent way of dismissing the boy, that Caleb instantly picked up on. Sighing heavily, Caleb walked out of the kitchen, but even though he said the words under his breath, Jack still heard him clearly as he reached the kitchen door.
"Doesn't stop the way I feel."
Jack smiled sadly as Caleb's words reached his ears. 'Oh, the pain of forbidden love,' he mused as an image of Carter behind Apophis' force shield flashed in his mind and an aching torrent of regret flooded Jack's soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a/n: Sorry this chapter is kind of short, but it seemed like a good place to stop. Next chapter will reveal why Jack looks familiar to Janet. And, for those of you who have asked, yes Sam will be coming into this story soon.
