Disclaimer: Stargate: SG1 and the Carter family are the figments of other people's imaginations, which I enjoy very much but do not own in any way, shape or form.

Thanks again to all reviewers, you're a bunch of stars! Hopefully you'll stay with me to the end, but who knows.. and one day soon hubby and I will move into a flat with our very own broadband, so I can read everyone else's stories in peace! lol

Oh yes, and speaking of hubby - he has pointed out that the actor in Starship Troopers who I thought was the actor who plays Jacob Carter, is not the same person at all. For once, he was right :p Must have been the alcoholic fuzzy stuff addling my brain!

Carefully placing his feet one before the other, Jacob moved two tables down to see Mr Shepparton. He barely took in their conversation about his boy, nodding numbly at suitable moments, and noting in a remote corner of his brain that Shepparton had none of the same sparkle that O'Leary had when speaking about Sammie. Either this teacher was a lot more blasé about his students, or Mark just didn't get on in Math as well as Sammie did. It was a funny old world all right.

The Air Force Major drifted through the remainder of his appointments in a similar fashion. He collected report cards as appropriate – some teachers had been waiting for final marks before issuing grades – became even better acquainted with the phrase 'conscientious worker', and generally tried to make sense of the continuing turmoil in his mind.

'At least both kids seem to be doing ok at school,' Jacob reminded himself on his way out, before narrowly missing a red light. He shook his head in absolute amazement that he could be so troubled by all of this, but then realized that it had been staring at him in the face her whole life. Sammie was smart, and both he and his wife had noticed her brightness when she was a tiny baby, but he had never joined up the dots to realize what that might mean for her in the long run. Ability. Ambition. Career? What ever it was, she'd obviously felt it necessary to plough on ahead while hiding it from him, her father – and that hurt even more.

Kathryn had always been a bright spark herself, and he suddenly found himself remembering the time when he first met her and she lamented the waste of all those years she'd spent at school. "What's the point of learning trigonometry when the only math left to me is the grocery bill?" she'd say. Maybe he'd missed the point with his own wife as well, let alone his precious daughter. Had being a wife and mother been enough for her? Some women did work, but it was just expected that they would drop all such activities once kids were born. The only exceptions he could think of were those who couldn't afford not to work, which in turn shamed their husbands.

Jacob didn't even notice his lack of consideration for unmarried women. He didn't know any, so it didn't even cross his mind, but the thought that he might have been a barrier to his own wife's happiness began to stab a small hole in his resolve. Their marriage had been a good one, of that he was certain, but now he remembered all the times when Kathryn had helped Mark with his homework – it had all been simple stuff, but was she just lending her son a hand, or feeding some unfulfilled part of her soul that not even her husband had noticed? The possibility left him somewhat numb. Maybe it wasn't the norm for a wife and mother to work, but this was his wife and his daughter he was thinking out, not statistics, and he loved them both.

He himself had joined the Air Force because he had originally felt it to be his duty. The country had just been pulled through a horrendous war, in which his own father had flown, fought and died. It certainly wasn't for the potential glory – Lord knows the training camp beat that out of you. Jacob knew that he was good at his job and he loved it, even if he was more of a desk jockey these days, and he had a wonderful pair of kids to come home to each night. He had, unfortunately, lost his beloved wife while the kids were young, and things had been tough for all of them since then. Kathryn had been their anchor, and her death had damaged all of them. There had even been a time when he thought he'd lost the kids' love, in their silent anger and resentment that he had survived where she had not.

'She would be so proud if she was here now,' he thought in misery. 'She'd have a good word for Sammie, she'd know how to make it right..'

And the fact was that Jacob knew that he would not have been happy to sit at home and look after the kids if his place had been switched with Kathryn's. He loved his kids, but he also loved getting away to the base and stretching his abilities to keep his section running smoothly. It was the challenge and variety that kept him keen at work, not just the fact that it put bread and water on the table. Men who didn't enjoy work were expected to get on and work anyway, and women did have important duties at home, however liberated their husbands might be – but.. He couldn't complete the thought. He wanted Sammie to be happy, but if she was showing her independent will to be so contrary to the norm already, well, he had no idea whether to support her or set her on the 'straight and narrow'. Maybe she didn't even want to get married one day, maybe..

As he parked the car and took out his briefcase, the door opened to reveal Sammie in her pyjamas. A sight for sore eyes, even if she was making his head hurt right now.

"Hi Daddy," she said tentatively, then gave such a shy smile that his heart melted. What can one man do against his little girl?

'Not so little after all,' he reminded herself as he hugged her. 'I can't pick up a teenager, and she's still growing.'

"Hello, my little physicist," he said, hugging her in return.