Author: Jojo
Email: randomleaves@yahoo.co.uk
Disclaimer: Not mine
Rating: PG
Summary: Ah, yes, here he is. The one and only....
A/N: Much love to Holly who practically wrote a huge chunk of this for me. Sequel to 'The One With the Cat', set twenty-eight days after, and ninth in the Matter of Tact series. Also, lots of {{knuffel}} to Emry and Melly, both of whom are poorly and yet still managed to beta it.
It is clear to me I cannot sustain any level of angst for any time at all. Sel, you really don't have to read any more. They're only gonna get happier and happier...
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"That's it?"
"'That's it'? Your daughter was having a crisis of confidence and all you can say is 'that's it'?"
Jacob rolled his eyes. "No, that's not what I meant, Jack. God, I'd forgotten how irritating you are."
Smiling sarcastically, Jack raised his hand in a mock-salute. "How could you have forgotten, Jake?"
Sighing, Jacob turned around and walked down to the end of the pier, leaving Jack standing on the shore. "So, what?" Jake put his hands on his hips and surveyed the lake. "You upped and left the next morning?"
"No! Of course not." He'd left at about midday. Much more civilized.
Half turning, Jake eyed Jack shrewdly in a manner that was eerily like his daughter's. "That's not the impression I got from the others."
"Oh, really? And how would 'the other's' know? Since I'm positive Sam hasn't told anyone that we're not seeing each other for a month."
Jacob snorted and walked a little way back towards him. "Actually, I didn't get to see Sam – but even if I had, I know she would have flat out denied that there was anything wrong..."
Jack threw his hands into the air. "There isn't!"
"Oh, don't you start too...."
"Look, Jake, I promise you, there's nothing wrong. We're just... having a break from each other."
"But you'd only been dating a couple of weeks!"
"If you want to be technical, we've been – notice the tense – dating since I retired."
Jack scowled. "You couldn't have waited a couple of months?"
"Why?"
"Why? Are you being unusually dense? So my daughter didn't get a reputation, Jack!"
"Oh please, nobody in the SGC thought anything of it. They know the truth."
"I think you're overestimating the honorability of the people at the SGC and underestimating the outside influences," Jake said crossly.
Deciding calm would work the best with this Carter, Jack found a level tone, "I'm doing neither of those things." He rubbed the back of his head. It was, after all, a matter Jack had seriously considered, actually. "Sam and I were scrupulously careful, Jake."
Jake's shoulders sagged for a minute and he turned his head to stare across the lake, into the gently swaying evergreens. "Yeah, I know, " he said quietly. "I'm just... I found out about the two of you from another Tok'ra, that's all. And then I got sent on an undercover mission for two months... "
"Ah, Jake, you know you shouldn't really be telling me these things," Jack put in hurriedly.
"Please, that's a dumb-ass rule if I've ever heard one. You know, I thought you were lined up for George's job."
Jack guessed spending quality social time with Sam had clued him in to this Carter conversational habit of switching topics abruptly. "I didn't want it."
"Because of Sam?"
Immediately, Jack wanted to deny it, but he caught himself in time. He wasn't about to lie to Sam's dad. "Partially, yes. But mostly because I couldn't hack the stress. You have to be a diplomat, a single parent to every member of the SGC, and a paperwork masochist to want to run the joint."
Jacob grinned brightly. "You're right – I can't quite picture you in the job."
"Besides," Jack said, shrugging, "I'm pretty sure Davis is being groomed for it."
"Bit young, isn't he?"
Jack shook his head and toed the dirt thoughtfully. "General Hammond isn't going to retire any time soon. Besides, last I'd heard, Davis had transferred to the SGC permanently. I imagine he's sharing the burden with George."
"I guess." Jake rubbed a hand over his chin, eyeing Jack shrewdly. "I hope you know I was really looking forward to torturing you.
Jack inclined his head. "I would expect no less, Jacob."
"I mean, I had some really great punishments lined up for you at the beginning of my two month mission."
"Yeah?" And Jack had to work at sounding normal. Jacob was freaking scary when he was angry. Seriously. Nearly as bad as Sam.
"I was gonna sic Anise on you and the have Sam find you in a compromising position. Maybe I was going to hand her a zat beforehand, as well."
Remembering well Anise's take-no-prisoners method, Jack winced. "Harsh, Jake."
"That one kept me entertained for a good couple of days. Then the idea grew on me."
"Me and Anise?"
"No, you idiot, you and Sam."
Surprised, but pleased – hell, he respected Jake to no end – Jack smiled. "We grew on you?"
"Maybe that's a little too generous," Jake murmured, mouth quirked. "Let's just go with the idea that I don't want to murder you with my bare hands any more." He took a step forward.
Jack stepped back swiftly, and automatically. He wasn't about to get closer to Jake until he was sure he wasn't in any danger. "That's good to hear, sir."
"And then – when I've adjusted to the idea of my daughter and her ex-CO.... dating – I come back to find you've split up."
"We haven't – "
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he interrupted, "you're still a fifteen hour drive away from her. And, apparently, you don't have a phone either. Just why are you doing this?"
"It's for our own good!" Jack almost chanted – after all, at least a dozen times a day he asked himself the exact same question. "She needed to concentrate on her career and I needed to learn how to live without SG-1 and the SGC."
Jake's eyebrows rose. "So, after a month is up... what?"
"I don't know." Man, when did he start to sound so whiney? "Truth be told, Jake, when I thought up this plan, a month felt like years to me. And it was about as far ahead as I could see." He shifted his feet, uncomfortable about revealing so much to another guy, let alone Sam's father. "Sam and I will have to have a talk about our options."
"Options?" Jake repeated, dryly.
Not entirely sure why he could no longer look Jake in the eye, Jack stared down at the edge of the lake, the water lapping inches from the toes of his sneakers. "Yeah. Options."
"What kind of options?"
"Stuff, Jake! Private stuff!" Jack exclaimed, exasperated by the line of questioning.
"I'm just making sure that you have honorable intentions, Jack," Jake announced, his voice creaking with barely restrained humor. "Do me a favor and move in together before you get married? I want Sam to see what she'll be living with first."
"*Excuse me*? I'll have you know, *I'm* easy to live with." Jack flung his arms out madly. "It's your crazy night-owl of a daughter who's got the bad living habits," Jack replied hotly. Sensing he was gesturing too much, he shoved his hands into his pockets. "She does this thing with towels that drives me *nuts*. And she doesn't eat! Ever! She has, like, a *grape* for breakfast and laughs when I tell her it's the most important meal of the day. And I think she mainlines coffee at work, too. Plus, for a woman with, like, no hair, she has fifty-two different hair products, all of which materialized in my – "
Jack stopped.
Jacob waved a limp hand at Jack, wheezing, bent over with laughter. "Sorry, sorry. You gotta let me... wait, I'm nearly..." He burst out laughing, harder still and wrapped an arm around his belly. His other hand went to his eyes to wipe away tears. "Jack, I swear, if I wasn't okay with this already, you'd have convinced me by that speech alone."
What? What?!? "You Carter's are certifiable."
"Oh, undeniably. It's part of our charm. That and the fact that we can never be wrong. Are you good at accepting defeat?"
Jack made a displeased noise in his throat – he did not like being laughed at. "Are you done with teasing me yet?"
"Give me five... ten years."
"Good to know you're in for the long haul, Jake." Jack leaned back on his heels and looked up at the sky. In the couple of hours since they'd started talking – five minutes after Jacob had walked off the lane and onto Jack's little patch of nowhere – the sky had gone from a pale, frosty blue to a pink tinged purple with the onset of sunset. Consequently, it had gotten more than a little chilly. "Do you want to... hey, how did you get here anyway?"
Jake's eyes were brimming with laughter. "You're slipping, Jack."
Easily, he shrugged. "I'm allowed to, now."
"By car. Well, that and a very small, shaky plane. I'd forgotten what transportation on this... place... is like." Jake shrugged melodramatically.
"Hey, at least we have seatbelts," Jack said, nodding his head to the cabin and moving towards it.
Jacob chuckled. "There is that, yes." He glanced at the cabin, his eyes flicking over the building doubtfully. "Is there room for me to stay overnight?"
"Just about. I hope you're not hungry, though. I'm not equipped to feed someone else."
"I had a big meal on the plane." Jacob followed Jack into the cabin. "Has the food gotten better or is it just – holy Hannah, Jack, the walls are made of books."
Hurriedly, Jack explained, "Most of them are my grandfather's. He was really well read."
Turning around and peering intently at all the walls, Jake murmured, "Sam mentioned that you are too."
He blinked. "She talked to you about me? I thought you didn't see her."
"Oh, this wasn't recently." Ambling over to one of the nearest book shelves that lined the walls, Jake tilted his head to the side and read the spines one by one. "That was years ago, before I really knew you. Or, you know, cared about you remotely. Shortly before I took Selmak, I made some off-hand crack about your intelligence – a remark Selmak smugly tells me I was spurred on to make because it seemed my little girl had started to admire someone who wasn't her father – and she raked me down. So much so that I had a look at your file."
Glancing over his shoulder and no doubt seeing that Jack was looking extremely flustered. "A major in English? Seriously, Jack. And you *minored* in Russian? How the hell does no one know that?"
Mortified, Jack cleared his throat and looked elsewhere. "Oh, come on, Jake. Hell, I was disappointed I couldn't major in flight school. All I wanted to do was concentrate on flying and I figured English would be the easiest option. That's all."
Jake was looking at him oddly. Very oddly. "And the Russian?"
God – how was he gonna explain this? "Well, you know..."
This conversation had been mortifying with Sam, too – she kept insisting that he say something to her in Russian. Something about it being romantic. He'd refused all evening – knowing that the pressure would inevitably make him screw up and then he'd look like an idiot. What was Russian - *rusty* Russian, at that – to a PhD in theoretical astrophysics?
It had all ended well, though. Having ignored and refused her demands all evening, casually, while they'd been clearing up dinner and long after she'd last asked him, he'd asked her to pass him the dish towel in Russian.
And she'd jumped him right then and there.
"Why Russian?" Jake pressed.
"Um..." Oh, if the Earth could swallow him whole right now. "We, er, covered a lot of Russian literature. I thought it sounded cool. And, besides, all cadets at the Academy take at least two semesters of a modern language. Plus, it was during the Cold War. I thought, hell, Jake, I don't know. Just did, okay?" he finished defensively.
Jake, apparently, was willing to let this slide. Possibly because Jack was overreacting so badly. "And you did your masters in MDOS. Me too, though it wasn't called MDOS back then." Smiling slightly, "Arabic?"
Shit. Okay, so he'd got a little more serious about his studies? That wasn't so bad. It was still... it was nothing impressive. "You know," he muttered mutinously, feeling faintly like he was being cross-examined. "It was in preparation for CENTCOM."
Jake nodded understandingly. "Right. Jack... I'm impressed. I was impressed and I still am. It was the first time I felt vaguely comfortable about you. I mean, you were just the right age and... appearance to make me nervous for Sam."
"Nervous for Sam?" Jack laughed. "Why the hell were you nervous for Sam?"
"Are you kidding? After the long string of unbelievably similar USAF idiots she'd brought home? I thought you'd be next!"
Jack blinked. "Not... not back then, Jake. I mean... I was still... I was separated. Sara... Do you want a beer?" He was already backing towards the kitchen.
Jake waved his hand at him. "I know that *now*. But I'm her father. I worry. Still... that's just me. Sam already knew all that. God knew she all but devoured all reports on you and Jackson, the first Stargate mission before she met you. I guess the Arabic came in useful?"
"Occasionally." Staring into the small fridge, Jack hoped his face would cool down sometime soon. Or he was going to have to pretend that he'd lost the beer in the fridge. Which would be really hard.
Slowly, he picked up two beers and stood up, jolting a little when he saw Jake had moved to stand on the other side of the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.
He offered Jake a beer.
"Jack?"
He sighed. Please, please, don't let him continue the conversation. "Yeah?"
"Do you love her?"
*
The moment Sam arrived back on Earth, she knew something was up.
The smile that she'd stepped through the Stargate with faded just a little around the edges as she walked down the ramp, an arguing Daniel and Jonas behind her and a placid Teal'c behind them.
Arguing was probably too harsh. *Bickering* would be better. She didn't think either of them had stopped to take a breath since... since... well, for a week.
But they weren't worrying her. The atmosphere in the gate room was.
She wondered what it was that had alerted her. Was it Janet, hovering seemingly uselessly in the corner of the gate room? Or General Hammond standing up in the control room, looking down at the four of them almost nervously, when he had no reason to be in the room at all.
Sam narrowed her eyes and handed over her weapons, plucking her cap from her head and smacking it lightly against her leg.
Hmm.
"But you can't *do* that!" Daniel exclaimed plaintively.
"Look, Daniel, I really don't see what your problem is," Jonas replied, stomping down the ramp next to him. "So I do things a little differently? Just because I don't flirt with every alien woman..."
"Talk about the pot calling the..."
Rolling her eyes at the repetitive nature of this argument, Sam glanced behind. "Okay, guys, that's enough," she said. "If you want to continue this discussion, do it at lunch."
Both men looked at her sheepishly.
"Sorry, Sam," they chorused.
"SG-1, welcome back. Infirmary, then de-brief in one hour."
Sam saluted neatly – a protocol she liked to maintain now that she was the only military member of SG-1 – and headed straight for Janet who was now smiling rather forcefully at them. At *her*, Sam realized, with a sinking feeling.
"Doctor," Sam greeted, cautiously.
"Hi!" Janet exclaimed brightly. "How was the mission?"
"Great," Sam murmured, walking side by side with Janet out into the corridor, keeping an eye on the woman's face. If it was something terrible, Sam reasoned, Janet would have told her right away.
"Good, good. I'm glad." Janet cleared her throat. "You were due back yesterday."
"Yeah." Glancing behind her to check on the boys and to make sure that they'd stopped bickering, Sam continued, "I'm pretty sure Daniel got distracted by some girl, actually. We just needed the extra day. General Hammond okayed it."
"Oh, I'd heard. Um. Your father dropped by yesterday."
Sam brightened. Well, that could only be good news. "Dad? Really?"
"Yup. He was sorry to miss you."
Damn. She hadn't seen Dad in nearly six months. She was beginning to forget what he looked like. "Did he leave any messages?"
"Not that I know of. He, ah, hasn't actually gone back to the Tok'ra base." Janet swung into the infirmary abruptly and started ordering nurses around, then swiftly turning on her heels to order SG-1 to various beds.
"Is he still on base then?" Sam asked as Janet swept the curtain around the bed, desperate to get to the truth.
"No, no, he's not..." Janet pulled the instrument tray towards her and dropped her clipboard onto the end of the bed.
Sam made a face. Janet was not usually this avoidant. "Where is he then?"
"You know, if any of us had *any* idea what he was going to do..."
Seriously alarmed at Janet's tone, Sam's eyes widened. "For God's sake, Janet, tell me!"
"I'm trying to! I just want to make it clear that if any of us had had *any* idea what he was up to, then we would have had nothing to do with him."
"Okay... now where is he?"
"I'm pretty sure, I mean, from what I've overheard... he's gone to Minnesota."
Completely confused, Sam felt her brow furrow. "Minnesota? As in, the state? Why would he..."
Janet stared at Sam, her lips pursed.
"Oh *shit*!"