Rather than use the spare key, Sam rang the doorbell to her father's house and waited for him to answer the door.
When he opened the door in a pair of jeans and an Air Force t-shirt, Sam noticed just how old he was starting to look.
"Sam," he greeted his daughter with a kiss to her cheek as he glanced at the other members of the group while holding the door open so the rest of them could enter.
"General," nodded Kawalsky as he entered.
"Sir," offered Ferretti.
"Dad," greeted Jack, "thank you for having us this evening and for putting me and Sam up the next couple of nights," as he did a double take upon getting his first real look at the man who was Sam's dad. "Oh no," he thought, "I am totally screwed now," as he recognized the man as the one he had spoken to last night right after walking Sam to her hotel room. Already, he was plotting his escape from the house.
"Not a problem son," replied the elder Carter, "Sammie and her friends are always welcome here."
"Sammie?" snickered the three men, already thinking of possible ways to torment Sam.
"Don't even think about it," Sam called as she entered the room, "The last guy that did didn't know what hit him."
"Sure Sam, whatever you say," Kawalsky said, brushing off her words as a joke.
Sam stalked from the room, offended that Kawalsky could think so little of her.
"Now you've done it," complained Jacob, "She'll spend the rest of the evening annoyed, and that is not something you want to experience."
"Sorry sir," said Kawalsky, not sounding the least bit sorry, "But she's a girl, it's not like she would actually beat a guy up."
"Kawalsky," Jack said, "You are either an idiot or have a really bad memory. Do you remember the conversation we had at breakfast this morning? That girl is more than capable of wiping the floor with you."
"Son," Jacob broke in, "If you know what's good for you, you would go in there and apologize to her right now."
Seeing the serious expressions on both Jacob and Jack's faces, Kawalsky beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen, hoping to apologize.
Ferretti took a quick glance at the two men in front of him that were eyeing each other and began backing out of the hallway, "I think I'll go make sure that he doesn't screw up that apology."
Now Jack was alone with Sam's dad, Major General Jacob Carter. Before Jacob could begin his interrogation, Jack said, "I think I'll join them too. I wouldn't want Sam to take a swing at either of them or something."
"You can't run forever," Jacob said to Jack's retreating back.
----
The scene that Jack could hear coming from the kitchen was obviously an unpleasant one so he chose to stay hidden and just listen.
"I've already said I'm sorry Sam, what else do you want me to do?" questioned an obviously frustrated Kawalsky.
Sam remained silent and kept her military façade in place.
"I have no doubt that you are an excellent Air Force officer. You've impressed Jack, which is one of the hardest things to do, so there must be something special about you," Kawalsky continued. "I promise that I will never underestimate your abilities again."
Kawalsky, standing toe-to-toe with Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, found himself sitting on the floor with no recollection of how he had gotten there, other than the fact that his knee really hurt.
Sam allowed her face to show anger and growled, "I may not be a guy, but never doubt that I can hit like one," she claimed as she turned and stalked away towards the door where Jack was lurking.
Only after getting out of Kawalsky's line of sight did she let her face break into a huge grin as her hands went up to her mouth in an attempt to muffle her laughter. Jack pulled her to him in a tight hug as she used his shirt to muffle her laughter, which grew past hiding when Kawalsky practically yelled, "I won't forget Colonel Carter, trust me."
Jack's laughter was what directed Kawalsky and Ferretti to where Sam and Jack were attempting to hide.
Kawalsky broke their laughter by meekly asking, "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"
Sam contained her subsiding giggles and pulled away from Jack. She walked towards Kawalsky, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said, "You're forgiven. Just remember that it won't be that easy for you to get away with it next time."
"I wouldn't dream of it," claimed Kawalsky. "So that's it, you'll never bring it up again?" Kawalsky questioned, wary of how easy it had been for the woman to forgive him.
"Not until I need something," confirmed Sam as she moved out of the hallway and back into the kitchen.
"You didn't think she would let you off that easy did you Kawalsky?" Jack said as he clapped the man on the shoulder and followed Sam into the kitchen.
----
Compared to dinner with the Hammonds, the meal at Jacob Carter's house was tense to say the least. It took all of Jack's will power to not find an excuse to leave the table. "Even my first meal with Sara's parents wasn't this stressful," Jack thought, "and at that point, we'd just told her parents we were engaged."
The meal started off in silence until Jacob asked how everyone knew each other. Kawalsky and Ferretti had explained they knew Jack from a previous mission, which was classified, something which Jacob did not pursue.
Then Jacob turned all of his formidable attention to Jack.
"So, how did you meet my daughter?"
Thoughts about their real meeting flooded through Jack's head, and Jack made the decision to avoid that particular story. "I'm currently overseeing the ROTC program at the University of Colorado, and Sam was loaned out to teach a class there by General Kerrigan. Despite an initial misunderstanding, we hit it off."
"So you dated my daughter while she was under your command," accused Jacob.
"Never," insisted Jack, anger boiling under the surface.
"Oh, and I'm sure that your word will be good enough to convince anyone who asks. The fact you couldn't keep your hands to yourself is endangering my daughter's career," claimed Jacob.
Any possibility of a peaceful dinner went out the window with that comment.
"I'm sorry if I've disappointed you Dad, but it is my career, and I'm not the one whose father is keeping her from being deployed to Iraq," Sam stated in a carefully controlled voice as she stood and glared at her father.
"I'm sorry that I want you to live long enough to get into NASA," Jacob replied.
"You're not the one who has put up with all the rumors for years about how you've gotten to where you are because your father's a General. There is always a shadow on my accomplishments because I'm a woman or because of who my father is, despite the fact I've done everything short of changing my name so that people wouldn't know I'm related to you!" exclaimed Sam, "God! I understand why Mark left after Mom died."
"Don't bring your brother into this," demanded Jacob.
"Try and stop me," spat Sam, and she abruptly left the room. Jack soon heard the front door slam behind her.
Kawalsky and Ferretti quickly stood up and carried their plates to the sink.
"General, I think we're going to head back to base," explained Ferretti.
"Thank you for dinner sir," offered Kawalsky, and then they were gone.
Silently Jack removed the remainder of the dishes from the table and loaded them into the dishwasher. Jacob sat at the table and watched Jack's every move.
Jack poured two mugs of coffee and returned to his seat at the table, handing Jacob one of the mugs and keeping the other for himself.
"This is how this is going to work," Jack began.
Jacob's eyes filled with anger, "This is between me and my daughter. Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong Colonel."
Jack projected an air of calm and command as he set his mug on the table and ignored Jacob's words. "I am going to go find Sam and drag her back here. You are going to apologize her, and then we are all going to go to bed. When we get up tomorrow, you are going to act like this never occurred."
"What if I don't want to?" questioned Jacob.
"Then I can guarantee that Sam will never speak to you again. If you can live with that, then do whatever you want," Jack said as he got up from the table and left the room.
On his way out the door, Jack grabbed his jacket and Sam's coat knowing that once the initial anger burned off, she'd be freezing.
Jack really had no clue where Sam might be. She didn't know the area as far as he knew, but the park across the street was the most promising spot. There, on the first bench he saw, was Sam. She was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, trying to keep herself warm. Jack made plenty of noise as he approached and dropped her jacket around her shoulders. Instantly, her arms found their way into their sleeves. When Jack sat down, Sam instinctively moved closer to him, and his arm shot out to pull her closer to him. Jack tried to convince himself that it was just because she was cold and upset, not because they were almost dating.
"Obviously you're upset," stated Jack.
"Really," questioned Sam sarcastically, "What makes you think that?"
Jack ignored Sam's words and instead focused on calming her down. "But I really think that you should give your dad one more chance. Go back into the house and give him the chance to apologize."
"Why would he," Sam said, "He's never apologized to me before."
"Because he's your father Sam," said Jack, "and because I told him that you probably wouldn't speak to him again if he didn't make an effort."
"Got that one right," claimed Sam. "And why should I give him that chance? He'll apologize this time and then do the same thing again the next time this topic crops up."
Jack was silent for a long time. "Because I'm asking you to do this for me. Because I don't want you to regret not making the effort the same way I regret with Charlie."
Sam knew just how hard it was for Jack to say that, to admit that Charlie had died without him getting to say something, even if she didn't know what that something was. Sam closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she knew what she was going to have to do. "On one condition."
"What?"
"If he doesn't apologize, you never mention it again, and we go stay on base or somewhere else tonight," conditioned Sam.
"Okay," relented Jack. "But can we please do this before either of us freezes to death," he pleaded.
"Is wittle Jackie getting cold?" Sam questioned in a joking voice.
"No but little Sammie is," Jack retorted. "Come on Sam. The sooner you go in there and let him apologize, the sooner we're warm again."
"And if he doesn't," she said standing up, "We can still go get warm in a hotel room or on base."
"Agreed. Now can we please go," begged Jack.
Hand in hand they walked across the street and back into the house. Jack let Sam pull him through the door. She was holding his hand for dear life, and she obviously had no reservations about her dad seeing the two of them holding hands.
Jacob was still sitting at the kitchen table staring into his mug of coffee. When Sam and Jack walked in, he looked up to see his daughter in the doorway. Sam stood there, holding Jack's hand, and waited for her dad to make the first move.
"I love you Sam. I've always been proud of the fact that you chose to follow in my footsteps by joining the Air Force. While I may not understand your choices in your personal life, I've always hoped that you would achieve the dreams that you had when you were a little girl," Jacob claimed. "That's all every father ever wants for his little girl."
"But I'm not a little girl anymore," Sam reminded him.
Jack took the opportunity to remind Sam that her dad was trying to make amends here. "You'll always be his little girl though Sam, no matter how old you get," Jack softly whispered.
While Jacob was surprised that Jack understood a parent's point of view so well, he let it go for now, knowing that he better quit while he was ahead. "So if you guys are still staying here tonight, let me show you where things are, and then I'm going to bed. Maybe we can talk more in the morning," Jacob hinted.
"Okay," Sam said as she pulled Jack after Jacob out of the room. A quick tour of the house showed them the two spare rooms and guest bathroom, including where to find bedding and extra towels.
Jacob leaned in and gave Sam a peck on the cheek before saying "Good night Sam, Jack."
Jacob went into the master bedroom and shut the door. He changed into his pajamas and crawled into his bed. He pulled the covers up and listened to the silence of the house. Despite the fact there were two more people somewhere, Jacob couldn't hear the difference. He wondered about the relationship between Sam and Colonel Jack O'Neill. Sam's choice of boyfriends had never been great.
"Put her in a room of guys that are all wrong for her, and she'll find the one who is most wrong and convince herself that he's 'the one'," thought Jacob, "and somehow each time I've met a guy, he's been successively worse than the previous." His last thought before he drifted off to sleep was, "So I guess the only way for her to go is up."
----
While Jacob was already sleeping, Sam and Jack were in Sam's room. Sam, still recovering from her brief time outside, was snuggled under the covers while Jack had sprawled on the bed on top of the covers.
"Can I ask you a question?" Sam asked timidly.
"Sure," Jack replied as he propped himself up on one elbow and grabbed a pillow to hug with the other arm, "Doesn't mean I'll answer though."
Despite being under the covers, Sam still reached out and tried to swat him through the many layers on her bed, only to find out that she didn't pack much of a punch. "What did you mean when you said you regretted not making an effort with Charlie?"
Jack was silent for a long time; to the point that Sam would have been convinced he had fallen asleep if she couldn't see that his brown eyes had taken on a look of reflection, as though he was recalling a painful memory. "About two weeks before Charlie died, I found him playing with a toy gun, one that couldn't harm anyone. I yelled at him for it. I told him that guns weren't toys. He got mad at me and stormed off. If I had just taken the time to explain to him the difference between his toy gun and my real gun, he would still be alive today." If it was possible, Jack hugged the pillow he was holding even harder, and closed his eyes letting the grief and despair wash over him.
Sam pushed the covers back and scooted over to Jack so that she could lay a hand on his shoulder. "There's something that your relationship with Charlie and my relationship with my dad have in common."
"What?" Jack asked looking up at her with eyes that showed all the emotion that the rest of him didn't.
Sam took a deep breath and let it out. "I have no doubt that Charlie loved you and that you loved him back. Even if he was mad at you, he had to know that you loved him because no matter how hard I try, I can't stop loving my dad."
For the first time since Charlie's death, Jack O'Neill began to forgive himself for leaving his gun where Charlie could get to it. The pain lessened just a little bit as he squeezed Sam's hand. They sat like that for quite a while. Eventually Sam let out a large yawn.
"Sorry," she said.
"No, I'm sorry. You're still catching up on sleep from your workathon last week and it wasn't exactly an early night last night," Jack said as he smiled at the memory of how that night had ended. "Come on, I'll even tuck you in," Jack offered as he pulled himself off the bed and let Sam get under the covers again.
Jack leaned down and pulled the covers up until the rested under Sam's chin. "Good night," he whispered and then leaned forward to lightly brush her lips in the same way as she had last night.
But Sam had other ideas as her arms snuck out from under the covers and wrapped around Jack's neck, deepening the kiss.
When Jack finally pulled back, he found himself looking right into Sam's eyes. What he saw there comforted him. There was no sign of regret in eyes, just some unnamed emotion that was all in all a good one.
"You know," he joked, "If we keep doing this, we are going to have to quit telling people that we're 'just friends', because I don't think they're going to believe us."
Her eyes twinkled in response to that statement, "We'll figure it out later," she whispered as she once again claimed his lips with hers.
This time when they parted, Jack pulled out of Sam's arms. He said, "Tomorrow before this goes any farther, we need to talk." Jack walked to the door and right before he shut it, he sent a huge smile Sam's way and whispered "Good night Sam."
"Good night Jack," Sam whispered back and her head fell back onto her pillows with a contented sigh.
