The Asgard took 10 days to get back to Balteria Major. It seemed 'Commander' Thor had been shirking his duties as Commander of the Asgard fleet and he needed to go around to a few planets to check out the situation. Danny loved the opportunity to study his 'guide' thingie, as well as getting to meet all those Asgard protectorates who knew the 'truth' about them. Teal'c found some 'ineffective human weapons' which he used to play with the bored-out-of-their-minds Balteri children. Which left Sam, Sunny, and I time to get to know each other as a family.
But all of our fun came to an end when we arrived on Balteria Major and were left with a decision.
Lauprezin had asked us to be guests of the Council again, but Thor, once he had found out about our situation on Earth, had offered us jobs. The toss up for us was 1.) an extended family vacation for the five of us or 2.) jobs and a nice permanent life for Sunny. Permanent was of course a loose term to be used until we could decide when and how we would be going back to Earth.
The more Sunny got to know the four of us (Sam and me in particular) the more she started speaking. Everything seemed to be going in fast forward for us, the child who'd been born only a few days before was running and speaking in sentences, paragraphs even sometimes. We were told we shouldn't notice her heightened intelligence until she reached adolescence... but I'd been around a lot of little kids, and for her age Sunheko was way ahead of the rest. Maybe the only contact the Asgard had had with small children had been with highly intelligent children, either that or Sunny was naturally that way which, given her mother, wouldn't be that surprising.
Sam was loving motherhood, whatever awkwardness there'd been the first day or so with our year and a half old child she'd lost and had quickly become attached. Of course I was also having a great time, I had always thought of Sam as my second chance at life and love, well I felt that Sunheko was my second chance at fatherhood, only this time I was going to do it all right and cherish her all the more because I knew how special she really was.
"O'Neill, you wished to see me?" Thor finally came out of his 'office'.
"Yeah buddy, I did." I stood, putting my hands in the pockets of the jeans I had found on the HRD.
"How may I assist you?" He'd been weird since finding out about Carter and my 'predicament', less like my buddy and more like an awkward little cousin you only see once a year.
"SG-1 has finally decided what we'd like to do. We'd like to stay on Balteria for a few days, a week at the most, introduce Sunny to 'planet-side' things like trees, animals, and sunlight."
"As you wish O'Neill." He handed me one of those crystal thingies. "You may use this when you are ready to re-join the Asgard, a ship will come to collect you within two Balteri days."
"Thanks Buddy, for all your help." I said leaving to tell the others our leave had been 'approved'.
"Guess what guys!" I found all four of them sitting on a couch watching, of all things, Sesame Street. How Carter'd managed to hotwire the TV and VCR is beyond me, but she'd done it and Sunny was giggling at the antics of the Count as numbers flew across the screen in the form of bats, all dancing to a cute little song. My daughter loved this, sitting on her mother's lap, her face bright, she was just soaking up her first television experience.
Finally, my family turned to me, "Hey Jack."
"Daddy!" Once I'd been spotted, Sunny thrust herself upon me.
"Guess what guys!" I repeated, now that I had everyone's attention.
"What?"
"Thor approved our 'leave'; we can go down whenever we're packed."
"All right, come on Teal'c." Daniel drug Teal'c off towards the massive amounts of clothing we'd found.
"How long did you tell him we'll be gone for?" Sam asked, as Sunny and I sat down next to her to finish the show.
"A few days, a week max, it'll give us a nice, much needed rest. Not to mention how nice it'll be to finally have our own bedroom away from Daniel and Teal'c again." The look she shot me over our daughter's head told me how she had taken that statement. "I've just been feeling, lately, that even with Sunny in bed with us Daniel's watching for us to do something, I feel guilty for even wanting to hold you at night." That one moment of emotional exposition earned me a quick kiss. "Have you given any thought to what we'll do for the Asgard once our 'vacation's' over?"
"A bit, I'd like to study their technology a bit, maybe give them some more 'dumb ideas'. At least then I'd have something to offer when we get back to Earth."
"I just figured I'd hang out with Thor, maybe offer up some dumb ideas of my own." She smiled at me, I realised that even on Earth she hadn't been smiling as much as she had before, and it bugged me.
"I guess we'd better get going." The scene had ended on Ernie singing to his rubber ducky, she clicked off the television just as she would have if we had been on Earth, ejecting the tape as I picked up Sunny and carried her with me as we headed off in the direction Teal'c and Daniel had gone in earlier.
Packing was pretty easy. We didn't have very much, so Sam and I collected all the clothes we'd taken as the three of ours and tossed them into a couple of bags. Daniel and Teal'c were done by then, joining us and entertaining Sunny while we played the frazzled parents, making sure we had everything we could ever, possibly need.
"Come on guys, Balteria awaits."
Sharcon was waiting for us when we made it to their bridge. He had the Asgard equivalent of a pout on his face as he went over the procedure for contacting the Asgard to come pick us up again. They didn't seem to think I could handle it on my own.
I was kind of sad to see the ship go, having become accustomed to the Asgard way of life (not much more different that ours when you really thought about it), but we were all starting to get a bit of cabin fever and Sunny really needed to get out and see other things.
"We'll go find Lauprezin and see what she wants us to do." Daniel and Teal'c left us in the lightly forested ring of vegetation around Balteria City; Sunny turned circles, taking in the birds, and trees and the fact that the world was moving a bit differently than usual.
"Welcome to Balteria Major, Sunheko." Sam picked up our daughter and we started walking through the 'forest', our family had started in that same place and it was good to be coming 'home' again- or as close to a planet to call home as we were to have for the time being.
It was weird. It was so incredibly weird that I didn't really know what to do other than pick up my obviously dumbfounded daughter and, grabbing Jack's hand, I decided we could use a little family walk to get Sunheko used to being on this new planet.
We'd only been on Balteria Major 17 days earlier, but I guess none of us were really paying attention to the weather. The warm summer weather we experienced for our three month stay was gone, it was replaced with very crisp, strong gusts of wind blowing through the trees, making them dance. We stopped at the edge of a small lake, looking out over the rippling water. Sunheko, with the fickle independence needs of any 18 month old, wriggled out of my arms to stand between the two of us, her confidence seeming to grow as she realised we weren't alarmed at all by the strange new sights.
"What I wouldn't give for a camera right now." Jack said, looking down at our daughter. Sunny, unfamiliar with the object in question, just smiled sweetly up at her father before something across the water caught her attention.
"Daddy! Stargate!" She yelled, looking between the two of us and the object in question, across the water and in the distance.
"Asgard told ya about that eh? You wanna go see it?" She was jumping up and down the way only a small child can, to show how much she really liked that idea. "Of course you do." He picked her up and started to walk off, around the lake, before turning back to me on an afterthought. "You mind, Sam?"
"No, of course not, have fun." I let them go, watching as Sunny enjoyed her father's undivided attention. I also watched as the Stargate activated in a bright flash of unstable wormhole. For a moment, as I realised my family was no longer there, I panicked thinking the worst had happened and they'd been caught up in the unstable vortex. But, thankfully, I saw a flash of the red overalls Sunny had been wearing that day and realised Jack had jumped out of the way to hide in the bushes. It wasn't until I noticed something was coming through the wormhole that I decided it might be prudent to duck as well, especially considering it was a MALP. I watched the camera pan around, the second after it passed their position, I could see Jack take off running with Sunheko held firmly in his arms, once it passed me too I did the same; it was important for us to not only flee the MALP but for us to be out of the vicinity in case they were to send a UAV as well.
I didn't know where they would have gone, so I just headed for Lauprezin considering the rest of my team was supposed to be with her. Thankfully, as I entered the Main Council Chambers (they were still out of session considering they'd only been back a day) I saw both Jack and Sunny happily regaling Daniel and Teal'c with what had happened to us.
"Mommy! Did you see the Stargate? Daddy says we shouldn't let the MALP see us, did the MALP see you?" She said excitedly, pronouncing the name of the probe oddly.
"No honey, it didn't see me, and your Daddy's probably right." I picked her up to stop her from jumping up and down incessantly. I noticed several Balteri join us, and realised they were willing to follow our thoughts and take Sunny to allow us to speak seriously. "Hey baby, why don't you go with these people and see if you can find your friends from the ship?"
"Okay Mommy." She got down again, and after a quick round of hugs, went walking off confidently, telling her Balteri attendants about her adventure with the Stargate.
Once she was out of sight, we all turned to one another again.
"What really happened?" Daniel asked first. "Somehow I'm not buying the story of it being a great game to hide from the MALP."
"You're right. Sunheko got really excited when she saw the Stargate, she even knew what we call it. So, Jack took her to see it up-close, it activated about the time they got there from, I'm assuming, Earth." I finished the rest of the short story with Jack filling in the necessary bits from his and Sunny's point of view; once we were finally finished, the four of us could only stand around and think of the complications that would arise from that one moment.
"They're going to send a team." Daniel stated. "If they sent a UAV, they'll send a team once they see the Balteri are back."
"The Asgard are gone, if we call them it'll take them at least two days to get here. By that time the SGC team will probably have come and gone."
"So we either turn ourselves in or we..."
Daniel interrupted me. "Lay low, hope they leave without looking around too much."
"Yeah, sounds like a good plan." Jack, unconsciously I'm sure, put an arm around my waist. "We lay low, ask the Balteri not to mention we're here and make an attempt to enjoy our vacation. Even if we're lying low there's gotta be something fun to do around here. Why don't you and Teal'c go ask the Balteri if they'll keep our presence to themselves, while we take our stuff and check out our rooms?" For once, they accepted this, and after telling us where our new block of rooms were they headed off to Lauprezin's private chambers again.
Carrying the belongings for all five of us was not as difficult as it sounds. We just didn't *own* much, the adult four of us still had our packs, but we kept them on our backs once we'd left Thor's ship, leaving the two of us only responsible for the two of our own, and beyond that everyone had just one duffle bag.
Our new rooms were surprisingly close to where our old ones had been. We opened the door to the room designated as Teal'c's to find candles everywhere, like I said, the Balteri could anticipate every need. Daniel's room was next, we tossed his bag on his bed and left, there was nothing really exciting there, other than some paper and pencils. I opened the door to our room and was surprised, there was no bed. This was before I realised that there were more doors in our room this time, as opposed to the one door from before that lead to the bathroom.
Jack tossed our three remaining bags to the floor and went to open one of the doors. He located the bathroom, I on the other hand had opened the door to what I assumed to be Sunny's room, I came to this conclusion because of the toddler bed and the other small sized furniture that was around the room.
"Guess this means we'll be sleeping alone again?" Jack stated, wrapping his arms around my waist.
"Guess so, the three of us *would* probably be a bit cramped in there." Leaning back against him, I placed my hands on his arms as I indicated the incredibly small bed.
"So where's our room?" Jack asked, his lips at my neck.
We walked to the next door, the only remaining one, across the living area from Sunheko's room, and opened it. The room, a stark contrast from Sunny's, was big with a large bed and nicer furniture than what we'd had the previous time we'd lived on the planet.
"Woah." Jack, his arms still around me, said. "This is nice." His lips back on my neck, his hands pulled my borrowed shirt from the waistband of my, also borrowed, jeans. I turned my head, and our lips met for our first real kiss in almost a month. Jack's hands were just moving up across my ribs when someone started knocking enthusiastically on our door.
If that is Daniel, so help me..." Jack trailed off his threat, as I spun around to answer the door, Daniel or not.
Pulling open the unbelievably heavy door, I was surprised to see several Balteri. That was before I noticed the small brown mess that somewhat resembled my daughter.
"Mommy! Look!" Sunny stepped into the room, thankfully foregoing her usual hello hug, and held out what I assumed to be a mud pie.
"Thanks guys, see you at dinner." I dismissed her Balteri attendants before my not-so-nice thoughts on them letting her get so completely dirty reached them.
"Wow, Sunny, what's that?" Jack, obviously having gotten over his annoyance at being interrupted when he saw our daughter, joined in appraising the damage that had been done in our child's discovery of mud.
"Rielda gave me this!" She squealed happily.
"She did?" My mommy voice, something I'd recently acquired, was going in full force.
"Yes, *her* mommy likes 'em." I couldn't help but smile, despite my unhappiness at her incredibly messy state, at her father's inflection coming through clearly in her small voice.
I took the mud pie from her, both Jack and I making a big show of 'oohing' and 'aahhing' over it before putting it down as neatly as possible.
"Thank you honey, it's very nice. Do you want to take a bath now?" It was something we'd told her about, being in a tub full of water, but despite her appearance and knowledge she only had 12 days of life experience... the concept just didn't mean anything to her, and now that we were off of Thor's ship with more terrestrial bathing methods available we wanted her to get used to it like any normal child.
"Okay Mommy." And so our adventure began. We'd found baby soap, along with everything else we needed, on the HRD. Jack filled up the Balteri bathtub (not much different from ours actually) while I looked for the most efficient way to get Sunny out of her, now soaked, formerly red, overalls.'
Oddly enough, despite being one of the 'best and brightest' of Earth, with my doctorate in Theoretical Astrophysics, I was having a hard time getting into motherhood. Maybe, if we'd all been on Earth, with our picturesque setting and twelve day old baby, I would have done better. But what I'd gotten instead was to run and hide from my own people and a child with the body of a year and a half old and the mind of a four year old.
It may not have been what I was expecting, or what I really wanted, but after being with her and seeing her see everything for the first time I would never have wanted to trade her in for that twelve day old baby.
I finally decided on a course of action, unsnap the snappies at the bottom, undo the clasps on her chest and just let them fall off of her. It worked, and soon I was left with having to deal only with pulling her tee shirt over her head; thankfully, there wasn't a nasty, mud filled, soaking wet diaper to contend with, as Sunny had, once she'd started speaking to us more, eschewed her diaper, stating that she could use the toilet just like us.
The bathtub full of warm water and baby soap smelling bubbles, Jack and I carefully assisted our only child into the water.
She looked between the two of us, her expressive hazel eyes unsure of what her reaction should be to yet another new experience. I gave her an encouraging smile and held out a bath toy we'd appropriated for her use. Jack watched from the door as the two of us managed to get just about every square inch of the bathroom soaking wet.
By the time I had Sunny wrapped in a towel and the water draining, my CO, lover, and father of my first and only child, was having a hard time containing the huge grin that was fighting for room on his face.
"What's so funny?" I asked, knowing perfectly well, as we took Sunny to her room to get dressed.
"Oh nothing, I've just never seen you so... messy, is all."
"Jack, it's only water. We were just having fun."
"I understand that, I wasn't reprimanding you Carter. Hey Sunny, pink or green?" Jack asked, holding out two pairs of pyjamas.
"Pink!" She exclaimed, as I brushed through her neat, shoulder length hair.
"All right, pink it is then."
"Yay!"
"Okay kiddo," I said, once we'd wrangled her into her pyjamas. "Daddy's going to go get us dinner, what do you want to do while we wait?"
I left Sam and Sunny doing *something* that involved them both lying on their backs on the living room floor, I didn't ask, both of my girls looked happy and that was all that mattered to me. My mission was food, and that was what I would bring them.
The Balteri had done a great job recovering, I guess that considering they'd left everything right where they'd been using it, and the fact that the Goa'uld didn't waste time searching the planet, everything was in good condition and order to just pick up using it again.
I entered the cafeteria to find Daniel, Teal'c, and every single other person I'd met on that planet.
"Hey guys." I said to my team members.
"Where have you been Jack?" Daniel's old suspicious self was back.
"Sunny's friends introduced her to mud. She had to take her first bath, and there was no way I was going to miss that."
"Where are Major Carter and the Child Sunheko?"
"In our room, we didn't want her to have to get dressed again. I'm just here for dinner, we were planning on just eating in tonight."
"You mind if we join you? We should probably discuss what Lauprezin said."
"Oh, yeah, sure." I did mind actually, I wanted to be alone with Sam and Sunheko for a while longer, but I guess as fugitives, that was a luxury we just couldn't have.
I grabbed our favourite dishes, and even remembered to have the sippy cup we'd brought down for Sunny filled with some sort of juice. I was glad to have the guys with me, considering how much food I ended up getting for the three of us. Once we got back to our room, the guys both marvelled at our "family suite", Teal'c even blinked. Daniel, thankfully, refrained from comment.
"So guys, what'd Lauprezin have to say?" I asked around a bite of food.
"She said they would not reveal our presence, but they would also not deceive the people of Earth any further."
"That's all we ask. Here Sunny, try this." I gave her some sort of sweet bread, which she took a cautious bite of before quickly eating the rest with a grin on her face.
"All right then, let's all try to enjoy this vacation as much as possible, we never know when we'll get a chance to relax like this again." I ordered, to be followed by a knock at our door, an ever-increasing occurrence.
I opened the door to, once again, several Balteri, only this time they weren't bearing dirty children, they seemed *excited*.
"Hey guys, care to come in?"
The excited Balteri got right to the point. "The Stargate activated, explorers from your world are on their way to the city. We felt you would wish to know this information."
"You felt right, thank you."
"I guess we'd better call it a night guys. Normally in a situation like this I'd recommend we maintain radio contact, but considering these are our own people, I think radio silence is our best bet. Any objections, thoughts... comments?"
"No."
"I have none."
"We will contact you in the morning with their progress, or before, if it becomes apparent they have discovered something of worry."
"Thank you, we'd appreciate that." Sam said.
Sunny finished her food by the time our unexpected guests left, and she happily waved "goodbye" to her 'Balteri Friends'.
"I guess we'll see you tomorrow sometime." Daniel said, as he and Teal'c walked the short distance down the hall to their own rooms.
"Hope somebody brings us some food or something tomorrow." I muttered, as Sam, Sunny, and I locked our door and started cleaning up our living room.
"Hope so. Okay Sunheko, time for bed." Sam enthused cheerily, like it was something every child should want to do.
"Okay Mommy." She begrudgingly agreed, stalking off towards her bedroom, with us in tow of course.
The three of us brushed our teeth (more borrowed items) and then read a couple stories together before Sam and I managed to talk Sunny into trying to go to sleep in her own bed.
"So..." I said, once we were sitting on our 'couch', my arm around her shoulders, and our feet propped up on the 'coffee table'. "Exciting time we've had lately."
"Jack, I think that is the understatement of all understatements."
"Sorry, I just don't know what to even think about this right now. I mean, just thinking about how close Sunny and I came to that wormhole today scares the shit out of me. I can't imagine losing her like..." I trailed off, I didn't want to talk about Charlie, it wasn't fair to Sam and it definitely wasn't fair to Sunny for me to be comparing him to her.
"It's all right Jack."
"No it's not, it was stupid of me to take her close to the 'gate like that. I don't know how we're going to manage her safety once we get back to Earth, but we're going to have to be even more careful than we would if we were any other parents."
"Jack--"
I interrupted her. "No Sam, listen to me, I've thought this through. We're hated enough already in Goa'uld town, they tried to wipe out an entire Asgard protectorate because of us... when they find out about Sunny they'll try and use her against us. There's no telling what the NID will want to do to her if they come up with the idea that she could possibly be a Harsesis, which she's not."
"They will not get her, if your Goa'uld wasn't absorbed, if left you while it died, then they should know she couldn't possibly be Harsesis."
"I know that, and you know that, but we've had problems with the NID before... they're idiots, they never listen, not even to scientific fact."
Her hand on my chest was reassuring. "They won't get her. We'll be all right." Her smile was intoxicating, *Sam* was back. "So, you feel like a bath? It's only been what? Two weeks since our last shower?"
Her change of subject worked, "Sure, that sounds like the best idea I've heard all day." She stood and then helped me off the couch. "We'd better check on Sunny."
"Yeah." Despite her firm statement to the contrary, it appeared as if Sunny had managed to sleep in a bed without us. We quietly closed the door back on our angelic daughter and headed to the bathroom to re-fill the bathtub.
During our first stay, neither Sam or I had had a bathtub in our rooms, and I don't recall hearing any bubble bath stories from either Teal'c or Daniel; I don't know what the criteria for shower verses tub assignment was, but this time, we'd gotten one, and it wasn't an opportunity we were going to pass up.
Sam started the warm water filling while I got some of their wonderful, strange fabric "towels" out from under their "sink"(glorified fountain, whatever).
Without speaking, I went and grabbed some night clothes for each of us from our bags. While sleeping with Sunny, we'd gone back to the sweats we'd been wearing during the 'waiting period' after the procedure; Not that I minded, I was just anxiously awaiting our return to Earth, and maybe the ability to feel a little more of Carter's body against mine at night.
The room had gotten distinctly warmer by the time I had closed the door behind myself and placed our clothing on the counter with the "towels", and there was a nice, Sam-style scent in the air from the bubbles topping the water at the edge of the tub.
"It's ready." Sam stated, turning to me. I kissed her quickly before helping her, unnecessarily, out of her shirt. The rest of both of our clothes soon followed. Quickly, I had made room for her between my legs as I sat in the tub amongst thousands of tiny bubbles, soon welcoming Sam into my arms.
To say I was happy would have been an understatement, I had the perfect daughter, and the woman I loved naked and in my arms. Other than the fact that we were fugitives, I couldn't have asked for anything more.
"This is nice." I whispered into Sam's ear, as her gentle caress on my lower thigh told me she'd gotten herself situated.
"Uh huh." She muttered, the warm water and (hopefully) soothing embrace having lulled her into a deep state of relaxation. "I've missed you." She finally said, leaning her head back on my shoulder to look up at me.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this, I had no idea parenting could be so detrimental to your sex life."
"Only happens to good parents. Sunny's needed our full attention lately, not to mention the fact that we've spent the last 17 days sleeping in the same room as Daniel."
"This is still nice."
"What'd I say? We're on vacation." I kissed the mouth that was so kindly pointed in my direction. "I love you."
"I know, I love you too. Now, make love to me Jack."
"Ya know, I've never done this in a bathtub before." "Never?" She sounded surprised.
"No never. Believe it or not, I don't bathe with every woman I meet." That got one of her wonderful smiles.
"Then I get to be your first."
"Thank you." I murmured, a while later, after the water had cooled and we were attempting to drag ourselves out of our comfortable state.
"For what?"
"For being you," I wrapped a warm, Balterian towel around her. "And for introducing me to something new, we should definitely do this more often."
We decided to forgo our pyjamas, favouring instead to feel one another against each other, how we'd slept seven months ago, during our first stay on the great planet Balteria Major.
The next morning Sam woke me with a smile on her face, it was nice to be getting that from her consistently again. She kissed me, tasting of Balterian coffee.
"We heard from Sunny this morning?"
"I checked on her, and Miss Sunheko is still sleeping. The Balteri dropped off breakfast, and they said that the team from Earth had asked for an audience with the Council." She was lying on her side, facing me, which created an irresistible gap between the waistband and the shirt of the pyjamas I assumed she'd put on for the Balteri. I slid my hand in the gap, splaying my hand across her stomach. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Not for food. Not right now." She gave a little squeal as I pulled her across the bed. "I want you. You're beautiful, and ya know what?" I kissed her. "I've missed you too."
"Feel free miss me more often Colonel."
"I'd rather have you all the time instead."
"Mommy? Daddy?" I swear, Sunny must have been taking lessons in timing from Daniel. I picked my head up off Sam's shoulder to look at Sam's face, she was laughing.
"Just a minute baby, we'll be right out." She called, as I rolled off of her to grab my appropriated boxer shorts.
Dressed in record time, we shared a quick kiss before I opened the door to find Sunny standing by the massive spread of food we'd been brought, chewing. She jumped, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong, when she heard us enter the room.
"Whew," I ignored her guilty look. "I'm starved. What do you think we should eat for breakfast Sunny?"
Cautiously, she extended a hand to point at some of the sweet bread I'd given her the night before, this loaf just happened to be missing a piece out of it. "Bread?"
"Okay." I grabbed both her and the bread, and carried them both over to the table. Sam filled Sunny's sippy cup and got coffee, while I managed to break the loaf into three (somewhat) equal portions. We ate our first real meal as just our family quietly, I remember wanting to cherish that moment, because just as with our vacation, I never knew when we'd have the opportunity again.
Sam and I showered separately, considering someone needed to be with Sunny. I went first, by the time I was done Sam had Sunny completely dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes, her blonde hair even had little ribbon bows to keep it out of her eyes, she looked like any other child you'd see on the playground... on Earth. While Sam showered, Sunny and I explored her room, not only was the furniture child-sized, but there were also toys in a chest as well, and it was there that we found what appeared to be a colouring book with crayons.
When Sam came out of the bathroom, we were sitting on the floor of the main living area, Sunny was using our "coffee table" as a... well as a table, and I was just leaning back against the couch, watching to make sure she didn't decide to colour all over the Balterian's stuff.
"What's that?"
"Colouring book!" Sunny informed her happily.
"A colouring book, wow, can I colour with you?"
"Sure Mommy." She offered a yellow crayon as Sam sat next to her. I watched my girls make beautiful artwork until the Balteri brought us our lunch, which we ate, after we'd been informed that the Council was still in session.
Sometime during our lazy afternoon, our family took a nap, falling asleep with our arms around each other as we had on Thor's ship.
But all of our fun came to an end when we arrived on Balteria Major and were left with a decision.
Lauprezin had asked us to be guests of the Council again, but Thor, once he had found out about our situation on Earth, had offered us jobs. The toss up for us was 1.) an extended family vacation for the five of us or 2.) jobs and a nice permanent life for Sunny. Permanent was of course a loose term to be used until we could decide when and how we would be going back to Earth.
The more Sunny got to know the four of us (Sam and me in particular) the more she started speaking. Everything seemed to be going in fast forward for us, the child who'd been born only a few days before was running and speaking in sentences, paragraphs even sometimes. We were told we shouldn't notice her heightened intelligence until she reached adolescence... but I'd been around a lot of little kids, and for her age Sunheko was way ahead of the rest. Maybe the only contact the Asgard had had with small children had been with highly intelligent children, either that or Sunny was naturally that way which, given her mother, wouldn't be that surprising.
Sam was loving motherhood, whatever awkwardness there'd been the first day or so with our year and a half old child she'd lost and had quickly become attached. Of course I was also having a great time, I had always thought of Sam as my second chance at life and love, well I felt that Sunheko was my second chance at fatherhood, only this time I was going to do it all right and cherish her all the more because I knew how special she really was.
"O'Neill, you wished to see me?" Thor finally came out of his 'office'.
"Yeah buddy, I did." I stood, putting my hands in the pockets of the jeans I had found on the HRD.
"How may I assist you?" He'd been weird since finding out about Carter and my 'predicament', less like my buddy and more like an awkward little cousin you only see once a year.
"SG-1 has finally decided what we'd like to do. We'd like to stay on Balteria for a few days, a week at the most, introduce Sunny to 'planet-side' things like trees, animals, and sunlight."
"As you wish O'Neill." He handed me one of those crystal thingies. "You may use this when you are ready to re-join the Asgard, a ship will come to collect you within two Balteri days."
"Thanks Buddy, for all your help." I said leaving to tell the others our leave had been 'approved'.
"Guess what guys!" I found all four of them sitting on a couch watching, of all things, Sesame Street. How Carter'd managed to hotwire the TV and VCR is beyond me, but she'd done it and Sunny was giggling at the antics of the Count as numbers flew across the screen in the form of bats, all dancing to a cute little song. My daughter loved this, sitting on her mother's lap, her face bright, she was just soaking up her first television experience.
Finally, my family turned to me, "Hey Jack."
"Daddy!" Once I'd been spotted, Sunny thrust herself upon me.
"Guess what guys!" I repeated, now that I had everyone's attention.
"What?"
"Thor approved our 'leave'; we can go down whenever we're packed."
"All right, come on Teal'c." Daniel drug Teal'c off towards the massive amounts of clothing we'd found.
"How long did you tell him we'll be gone for?" Sam asked, as Sunny and I sat down next to her to finish the show.
"A few days, a week max, it'll give us a nice, much needed rest. Not to mention how nice it'll be to finally have our own bedroom away from Daniel and Teal'c again." The look she shot me over our daughter's head told me how she had taken that statement. "I've just been feeling, lately, that even with Sunny in bed with us Daniel's watching for us to do something, I feel guilty for even wanting to hold you at night." That one moment of emotional exposition earned me a quick kiss. "Have you given any thought to what we'll do for the Asgard once our 'vacation's' over?"
"A bit, I'd like to study their technology a bit, maybe give them some more 'dumb ideas'. At least then I'd have something to offer when we get back to Earth."
"I just figured I'd hang out with Thor, maybe offer up some dumb ideas of my own." She smiled at me, I realised that even on Earth she hadn't been smiling as much as she had before, and it bugged me.
"I guess we'd better get going." The scene had ended on Ernie singing to his rubber ducky, she clicked off the television just as she would have if we had been on Earth, ejecting the tape as I picked up Sunny and carried her with me as we headed off in the direction Teal'c and Daniel had gone in earlier.
Packing was pretty easy. We didn't have very much, so Sam and I collected all the clothes we'd taken as the three of ours and tossed them into a couple of bags. Daniel and Teal'c were done by then, joining us and entertaining Sunny while we played the frazzled parents, making sure we had everything we could ever, possibly need.
"Come on guys, Balteria awaits."
Sharcon was waiting for us when we made it to their bridge. He had the Asgard equivalent of a pout on his face as he went over the procedure for contacting the Asgard to come pick us up again. They didn't seem to think I could handle it on my own.
I was kind of sad to see the ship go, having become accustomed to the Asgard way of life (not much more different that ours when you really thought about it), but we were all starting to get a bit of cabin fever and Sunny really needed to get out and see other things.
"We'll go find Lauprezin and see what she wants us to do." Daniel and Teal'c left us in the lightly forested ring of vegetation around Balteria City; Sunny turned circles, taking in the birds, and trees and the fact that the world was moving a bit differently than usual.
"Welcome to Balteria Major, Sunheko." Sam picked up our daughter and we started walking through the 'forest', our family had started in that same place and it was good to be coming 'home' again- or as close to a planet to call home as we were to have for the time being.
It was weird. It was so incredibly weird that I didn't really know what to do other than pick up my obviously dumbfounded daughter and, grabbing Jack's hand, I decided we could use a little family walk to get Sunheko used to being on this new planet.
We'd only been on Balteria Major 17 days earlier, but I guess none of us were really paying attention to the weather. The warm summer weather we experienced for our three month stay was gone, it was replaced with very crisp, strong gusts of wind blowing through the trees, making them dance. We stopped at the edge of a small lake, looking out over the rippling water. Sunheko, with the fickle independence needs of any 18 month old, wriggled out of my arms to stand between the two of us, her confidence seeming to grow as she realised we weren't alarmed at all by the strange new sights.
"What I wouldn't give for a camera right now." Jack said, looking down at our daughter. Sunny, unfamiliar with the object in question, just smiled sweetly up at her father before something across the water caught her attention.
"Daddy! Stargate!" She yelled, looking between the two of us and the object in question, across the water and in the distance.
"Asgard told ya about that eh? You wanna go see it?" She was jumping up and down the way only a small child can, to show how much she really liked that idea. "Of course you do." He picked her up and started to walk off, around the lake, before turning back to me on an afterthought. "You mind, Sam?"
"No, of course not, have fun." I let them go, watching as Sunny enjoyed her father's undivided attention. I also watched as the Stargate activated in a bright flash of unstable wormhole. For a moment, as I realised my family was no longer there, I panicked thinking the worst had happened and they'd been caught up in the unstable vortex. But, thankfully, I saw a flash of the red overalls Sunny had been wearing that day and realised Jack had jumped out of the way to hide in the bushes. It wasn't until I noticed something was coming through the wormhole that I decided it might be prudent to duck as well, especially considering it was a MALP. I watched the camera pan around, the second after it passed their position, I could see Jack take off running with Sunheko held firmly in his arms, once it passed me too I did the same; it was important for us to not only flee the MALP but for us to be out of the vicinity in case they were to send a UAV as well.
I didn't know where they would have gone, so I just headed for Lauprezin considering the rest of my team was supposed to be with her. Thankfully, as I entered the Main Council Chambers (they were still out of session considering they'd only been back a day) I saw both Jack and Sunny happily regaling Daniel and Teal'c with what had happened to us.
"Mommy! Did you see the Stargate? Daddy says we shouldn't let the MALP see us, did the MALP see you?" She said excitedly, pronouncing the name of the probe oddly.
"No honey, it didn't see me, and your Daddy's probably right." I picked her up to stop her from jumping up and down incessantly. I noticed several Balteri join us, and realised they were willing to follow our thoughts and take Sunny to allow us to speak seriously. "Hey baby, why don't you go with these people and see if you can find your friends from the ship?"
"Okay Mommy." She got down again, and after a quick round of hugs, went walking off confidently, telling her Balteri attendants about her adventure with the Stargate.
Once she was out of sight, we all turned to one another again.
"What really happened?" Daniel asked first. "Somehow I'm not buying the story of it being a great game to hide from the MALP."
"You're right. Sunheko got really excited when she saw the Stargate, she even knew what we call it. So, Jack took her to see it up-close, it activated about the time they got there from, I'm assuming, Earth." I finished the rest of the short story with Jack filling in the necessary bits from his and Sunny's point of view; once we were finally finished, the four of us could only stand around and think of the complications that would arise from that one moment.
"They're going to send a team." Daniel stated. "If they sent a UAV, they'll send a team once they see the Balteri are back."
"The Asgard are gone, if we call them it'll take them at least two days to get here. By that time the SGC team will probably have come and gone."
"So we either turn ourselves in or we..."
Daniel interrupted me. "Lay low, hope they leave without looking around too much."
"Yeah, sounds like a good plan." Jack, unconsciously I'm sure, put an arm around my waist. "We lay low, ask the Balteri not to mention we're here and make an attempt to enjoy our vacation. Even if we're lying low there's gotta be something fun to do around here. Why don't you and Teal'c go ask the Balteri if they'll keep our presence to themselves, while we take our stuff and check out our rooms?" For once, they accepted this, and after telling us where our new block of rooms were they headed off to Lauprezin's private chambers again.
Carrying the belongings for all five of us was not as difficult as it sounds. We just didn't *own* much, the adult four of us still had our packs, but we kept them on our backs once we'd left Thor's ship, leaving the two of us only responsible for the two of our own, and beyond that everyone had just one duffle bag.
Our new rooms were surprisingly close to where our old ones had been. We opened the door to the room designated as Teal'c's to find candles everywhere, like I said, the Balteri could anticipate every need. Daniel's room was next, we tossed his bag on his bed and left, there was nothing really exciting there, other than some paper and pencils. I opened the door to our room and was surprised, there was no bed. This was before I realised that there were more doors in our room this time, as opposed to the one door from before that lead to the bathroom.
Jack tossed our three remaining bags to the floor and went to open one of the doors. He located the bathroom, I on the other hand had opened the door to what I assumed to be Sunny's room, I came to this conclusion because of the toddler bed and the other small sized furniture that was around the room.
"Guess this means we'll be sleeping alone again?" Jack stated, wrapping his arms around my waist.
"Guess so, the three of us *would* probably be a bit cramped in there." Leaning back against him, I placed my hands on his arms as I indicated the incredibly small bed.
"So where's our room?" Jack asked, his lips at my neck.
We walked to the next door, the only remaining one, across the living area from Sunheko's room, and opened it. The room, a stark contrast from Sunny's, was big with a large bed and nicer furniture than what we'd had the previous time we'd lived on the planet.
"Woah." Jack, his arms still around me, said. "This is nice." His lips back on my neck, his hands pulled my borrowed shirt from the waistband of my, also borrowed, jeans. I turned my head, and our lips met for our first real kiss in almost a month. Jack's hands were just moving up across my ribs when someone started knocking enthusiastically on our door.
If that is Daniel, so help me..." Jack trailed off his threat, as I spun around to answer the door, Daniel or not.
Pulling open the unbelievably heavy door, I was surprised to see several Balteri. That was before I noticed the small brown mess that somewhat resembled my daughter.
"Mommy! Look!" Sunny stepped into the room, thankfully foregoing her usual hello hug, and held out what I assumed to be a mud pie.
"Thanks guys, see you at dinner." I dismissed her Balteri attendants before my not-so-nice thoughts on them letting her get so completely dirty reached them.
"Wow, Sunny, what's that?" Jack, obviously having gotten over his annoyance at being interrupted when he saw our daughter, joined in appraising the damage that had been done in our child's discovery of mud.
"Rielda gave me this!" She squealed happily.
"She did?" My mommy voice, something I'd recently acquired, was going in full force.
"Yes, *her* mommy likes 'em." I couldn't help but smile, despite my unhappiness at her incredibly messy state, at her father's inflection coming through clearly in her small voice.
I took the mud pie from her, both Jack and I making a big show of 'oohing' and 'aahhing' over it before putting it down as neatly as possible.
"Thank you honey, it's very nice. Do you want to take a bath now?" It was something we'd told her about, being in a tub full of water, but despite her appearance and knowledge she only had 12 days of life experience... the concept just didn't mean anything to her, and now that we were off of Thor's ship with more terrestrial bathing methods available we wanted her to get used to it like any normal child.
"Okay Mommy." And so our adventure began. We'd found baby soap, along with everything else we needed, on the HRD. Jack filled up the Balteri bathtub (not much different from ours actually) while I looked for the most efficient way to get Sunny out of her, now soaked, formerly red, overalls.'
Oddly enough, despite being one of the 'best and brightest' of Earth, with my doctorate in Theoretical Astrophysics, I was having a hard time getting into motherhood. Maybe, if we'd all been on Earth, with our picturesque setting and twelve day old baby, I would have done better. But what I'd gotten instead was to run and hide from my own people and a child with the body of a year and a half old and the mind of a four year old.
It may not have been what I was expecting, or what I really wanted, but after being with her and seeing her see everything for the first time I would never have wanted to trade her in for that twelve day old baby.
I finally decided on a course of action, unsnap the snappies at the bottom, undo the clasps on her chest and just let them fall off of her. It worked, and soon I was left with having to deal only with pulling her tee shirt over her head; thankfully, there wasn't a nasty, mud filled, soaking wet diaper to contend with, as Sunny had, once she'd started speaking to us more, eschewed her diaper, stating that she could use the toilet just like us.
The bathtub full of warm water and baby soap smelling bubbles, Jack and I carefully assisted our only child into the water.
She looked between the two of us, her expressive hazel eyes unsure of what her reaction should be to yet another new experience. I gave her an encouraging smile and held out a bath toy we'd appropriated for her use. Jack watched from the door as the two of us managed to get just about every square inch of the bathroom soaking wet.
By the time I had Sunny wrapped in a towel and the water draining, my CO, lover, and father of my first and only child, was having a hard time containing the huge grin that was fighting for room on his face.
"What's so funny?" I asked, knowing perfectly well, as we took Sunny to her room to get dressed.
"Oh nothing, I've just never seen you so... messy, is all."
"Jack, it's only water. We were just having fun."
"I understand that, I wasn't reprimanding you Carter. Hey Sunny, pink or green?" Jack asked, holding out two pairs of pyjamas.
"Pink!" She exclaimed, as I brushed through her neat, shoulder length hair.
"All right, pink it is then."
"Yay!"
"Okay kiddo," I said, once we'd wrangled her into her pyjamas. "Daddy's going to go get us dinner, what do you want to do while we wait?"
I left Sam and Sunny doing *something* that involved them both lying on their backs on the living room floor, I didn't ask, both of my girls looked happy and that was all that mattered to me. My mission was food, and that was what I would bring them.
The Balteri had done a great job recovering, I guess that considering they'd left everything right where they'd been using it, and the fact that the Goa'uld didn't waste time searching the planet, everything was in good condition and order to just pick up using it again.
I entered the cafeteria to find Daniel, Teal'c, and every single other person I'd met on that planet.
"Hey guys." I said to my team members.
"Where have you been Jack?" Daniel's old suspicious self was back.
"Sunny's friends introduced her to mud. She had to take her first bath, and there was no way I was going to miss that."
"Where are Major Carter and the Child Sunheko?"
"In our room, we didn't want her to have to get dressed again. I'm just here for dinner, we were planning on just eating in tonight."
"You mind if we join you? We should probably discuss what Lauprezin said."
"Oh, yeah, sure." I did mind actually, I wanted to be alone with Sam and Sunheko for a while longer, but I guess as fugitives, that was a luxury we just couldn't have.
I grabbed our favourite dishes, and even remembered to have the sippy cup we'd brought down for Sunny filled with some sort of juice. I was glad to have the guys with me, considering how much food I ended up getting for the three of us. Once we got back to our room, the guys both marvelled at our "family suite", Teal'c even blinked. Daniel, thankfully, refrained from comment.
"So guys, what'd Lauprezin have to say?" I asked around a bite of food.
"She said they would not reveal our presence, but they would also not deceive the people of Earth any further."
"That's all we ask. Here Sunny, try this." I gave her some sort of sweet bread, which she took a cautious bite of before quickly eating the rest with a grin on her face.
"All right then, let's all try to enjoy this vacation as much as possible, we never know when we'll get a chance to relax like this again." I ordered, to be followed by a knock at our door, an ever-increasing occurrence.
I opened the door to, once again, several Balteri, only this time they weren't bearing dirty children, they seemed *excited*.
"Hey guys, care to come in?"
The excited Balteri got right to the point. "The Stargate activated, explorers from your world are on their way to the city. We felt you would wish to know this information."
"You felt right, thank you."
"I guess we'd better call it a night guys. Normally in a situation like this I'd recommend we maintain radio contact, but considering these are our own people, I think radio silence is our best bet. Any objections, thoughts... comments?"
"No."
"I have none."
"We will contact you in the morning with their progress, or before, if it becomes apparent they have discovered something of worry."
"Thank you, we'd appreciate that." Sam said.
Sunny finished her food by the time our unexpected guests left, and she happily waved "goodbye" to her 'Balteri Friends'.
"I guess we'll see you tomorrow sometime." Daniel said, as he and Teal'c walked the short distance down the hall to their own rooms.
"Hope somebody brings us some food or something tomorrow." I muttered, as Sam, Sunny, and I locked our door and started cleaning up our living room.
"Hope so. Okay Sunheko, time for bed." Sam enthused cheerily, like it was something every child should want to do.
"Okay Mommy." She begrudgingly agreed, stalking off towards her bedroom, with us in tow of course.
The three of us brushed our teeth (more borrowed items) and then read a couple stories together before Sam and I managed to talk Sunny into trying to go to sleep in her own bed.
"So..." I said, once we were sitting on our 'couch', my arm around her shoulders, and our feet propped up on the 'coffee table'. "Exciting time we've had lately."
"Jack, I think that is the understatement of all understatements."
"Sorry, I just don't know what to even think about this right now. I mean, just thinking about how close Sunny and I came to that wormhole today scares the shit out of me. I can't imagine losing her like..." I trailed off, I didn't want to talk about Charlie, it wasn't fair to Sam and it definitely wasn't fair to Sunny for me to be comparing him to her.
"It's all right Jack."
"No it's not, it was stupid of me to take her close to the 'gate like that. I don't know how we're going to manage her safety once we get back to Earth, but we're going to have to be even more careful than we would if we were any other parents."
"Jack--"
I interrupted her. "No Sam, listen to me, I've thought this through. We're hated enough already in Goa'uld town, they tried to wipe out an entire Asgard protectorate because of us... when they find out about Sunny they'll try and use her against us. There's no telling what the NID will want to do to her if they come up with the idea that she could possibly be a Harsesis, which she's not."
"They will not get her, if your Goa'uld wasn't absorbed, if left you while it died, then they should know she couldn't possibly be Harsesis."
"I know that, and you know that, but we've had problems with the NID before... they're idiots, they never listen, not even to scientific fact."
Her hand on my chest was reassuring. "They won't get her. We'll be all right." Her smile was intoxicating, *Sam* was back. "So, you feel like a bath? It's only been what? Two weeks since our last shower?"
Her change of subject worked, "Sure, that sounds like the best idea I've heard all day." She stood and then helped me off the couch. "We'd better check on Sunny."
"Yeah." Despite her firm statement to the contrary, it appeared as if Sunny had managed to sleep in a bed without us. We quietly closed the door back on our angelic daughter and headed to the bathroom to re-fill the bathtub.
During our first stay, neither Sam or I had had a bathtub in our rooms, and I don't recall hearing any bubble bath stories from either Teal'c or Daniel; I don't know what the criteria for shower verses tub assignment was, but this time, we'd gotten one, and it wasn't an opportunity we were going to pass up.
Sam started the warm water filling while I got some of their wonderful, strange fabric "towels" out from under their "sink"(glorified fountain, whatever).
Without speaking, I went and grabbed some night clothes for each of us from our bags. While sleeping with Sunny, we'd gone back to the sweats we'd been wearing during the 'waiting period' after the procedure; Not that I minded, I was just anxiously awaiting our return to Earth, and maybe the ability to feel a little more of Carter's body against mine at night.
The room had gotten distinctly warmer by the time I had closed the door behind myself and placed our clothing on the counter with the "towels", and there was a nice, Sam-style scent in the air from the bubbles topping the water at the edge of the tub.
"It's ready." Sam stated, turning to me. I kissed her quickly before helping her, unnecessarily, out of her shirt. The rest of both of our clothes soon followed. Quickly, I had made room for her between my legs as I sat in the tub amongst thousands of tiny bubbles, soon welcoming Sam into my arms.
To say I was happy would have been an understatement, I had the perfect daughter, and the woman I loved naked and in my arms. Other than the fact that we were fugitives, I couldn't have asked for anything more.
"This is nice." I whispered into Sam's ear, as her gentle caress on my lower thigh told me she'd gotten herself situated.
"Uh huh." She muttered, the warm water and (hopefully) soothing embrace having lulled her into a deep state of relaxation. "I've missed you." She finally said, leaning her head back on my shoulder to look up at me.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this, I had no idea parenting could be so detrimental to your sex life."
"Only happens to good parents. Sunny's needed our full attention lately, not to mention the fact that we've spent the last 17 days sleeping in the same room as Daniel."
"This is still nice."
"What'd I say? We're on vacation." I kissed the mouth that was so kindly pointed in my direction. "I love you."
"I know, I love you too. Now, make love to me Jack."
"Ya know, I've never done this in a bathtub before." "Never?" She sounded surprised.
"No never. Believe it or not, I don't bathe with every woman I meet." That got one of her wonderful smiles.
"Then I get to be your first."
"Thank you." I murmured, a while later, after the water had cooled and we were attempting to drag ourselves out of our comfortable state.
"For what?"
"For being you," I wrapped a warm, Balterian towel around her. "And for introducing me to something new, we should definitely do this more often."
We decided to forgo our pyjamas, favouring instead to feel one another against each other, how we'd slept seven months ago, during our first stay on the great planet Balteria Major.
The next morning Sam woke me with a smile on her face, it was nice to be getting that from her consistently again. She kissed me, tasting of Balterian coffee.
"We heard from Sunny this morning?"
"I checked on her, and Miss Sunheko is still sleeping. The Balteri dropped off breakfast, and they said that the team from Earth had asked for an audience with the Council." She was lying on her side, facing me, which created an irresistible gap between the waistband and the shirt of the pyjamas I assumed she'd put on for the Balteri. I slid my hand in the gap, splaying my hand across her stomach. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Not for food. Not right now." She gave a little squeal as I pulled her across the bed. "I want you. You're beautiful, and ya know what?" I kissed her. "I've missed you too."
"Feel free miss me more often Colonel."
"I'd rather have you all the time instead."
"Mommy? Daddy?" I swear, Sunny must have been taking lessons in timing from Daniel. I picked my head up off Sam's shoulder to look at Sam's face, she was laughing.
"Just a minute baby, we'll be right out." She called, as I rolled off of her to grab my appropriated boxer shorts.
Dressed in record time, we shared a quick kiss before I opened the door to find Sunny standing by the massive spread of food we'd been brought, chewing. She jumped, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong, when she heard us enter the room.
"Whew," I ignored her guilty look. "I'm starved. What do you think we should eat for breakfast Sunny?"
Cautiously, she extended a hand to point at some of the sweet bread I'd given her the night before, this loaf just happened to be missing a piece out of it. "Bread?"
"Okay." I grabbed both her and the bread, and carried them both over to the table. Sam filled Sunny's sippy cup and got coffee, while I managed to break the loaf into three (somewhat) equal portions. We ate our first real meal as just our family quietly, I remember wanting to cherish that moment, because just as with our vacation, I never knew when we'd have the opportunity again.
Sam and I showered separately, considering someone needed to be with Sunny. I went first, by the time I was done Sam had Sunny completely dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and tennis shoes, her blonde hair even had little ribbon bows to keep it out of her eyes, she looked like any other child you'd see on the playground... on Earth. While Sam showered, Sunny and I explored her room, not only was the furniture child-sized, but there were also toys in a chest as well, and it was there that we found what appeared to be a colouring book with crayons.
When Sam came out of the bathroom, we were sitting on the floor of the main living area, Sunny was using our "coffee table" as a... well as a table, and I was just leaning back against the couch, watching to make sure she didn't decide to colour all over the Balterian's stuff.
"What's that?"
"Colouring book!" Sunny informed her happily.
"A colouring book, wow, can I colour with you?"
"Sure Mommy." She offered a yellow crayon as Sam sat next to her. I watched my girls make beautiful artwork until the Balteri brought us our lunch, which we ate, after we'd been informed that the Council was still in session.
Sometime during our lazy afternoon, our family took a nap, falling asleep with our arms around each other as we had on Thor's ship.