A/N: Thanks for the great reviews once again - that last chapter was my personal favorite, so I'm glad other people enjoyed it as well.

Ch 14: Playing

Jack sat quietly on the couch, in the corner he was fast starting to think of as 'his.' Carter was next to him, her father next to her. Jamie and Caroline were on the other side of him as well, so once again it was very crowded. Anne was perched on the armrest next to her sister-in-law. The other chairs were just as full. All attention in the room was on the kids, who were standing in three lines as if they were a professional choir, the tallest ones in the back, the ones so little they only knew parts of the choruses to the songs they were singing in the front.

So far, they had been through 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,' three songs about Santa Jack had never heard, and made a valiant effort at 'Joy to the World,' although it had somehow turned into 'Frosty the Snowman' halfway through. Jack stifled a yawn with the back of his hand and leaned further into the cushion, stretching his arm over the back of it.

It collided with Jacob's arm, which was apparently doing the same thing. Pulling his arm back as if scalded, he leaned back behind Carter's head. Jacob was doing the same thing, looking at him suspiciously.

"Sorry," he whispered, returning his hands to his lap.

He tried tapping his hands against the armrest and his leg as the next song started, trying to keep himself awake. Apparently Carter found this irritating. Interesting, he thought with a small smile as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that she was glaring at him repeatedly. He kept it up, right through the Twelve Days of Christmas (they got a few of them mixed up, but who was keeping track?) and through Carter's increased-frequency looks, pointed sighs, and sharp throat clearing.

Apparently, as the kids started singing "Jingle Bells" and Jack wondered how many songs they knew, Carter could take it no more. She grabbed his hand that was tapping his knee, pressing it flat against his leg, and hissed, "Would you stop that, please!"

"Sorry, Carter, something wrong?" he asked innocently. She rolled her eyes and let go of his hand. He turned his attention back to the kids just as things got exciting.

Matty, he would bet, was the one who started the 'alternate' Jingle Bell version, the one about Batman smelling (Why was it Batman? Jack had never understood.) Conor and Sydney picked it up as well. Rory, Lily, Gwen and Kieran apparently weren't too happy about it. They continued the original song louder than ever. The littler kids all got confused, not knowing what they were supposed to be saying, and just stopped and turned to look at the older ones, who were all soon yelling out lyrics at the top of their lungs.

Some had even taken the liberty to change the alternate lyrics, so that as the adults tried to get them to stop, Matty was yelling things like "Jingle bells, Sydney smells, Conor laid an egg!"

Even the traditionalists abandoned the song for new things like "Jingle bells, Matt's a dork, he can't even use a fork!" Jack had to laugh at the genius of that one. Soon the 'choir' started pushing and shoving, and four adults quickly swarmed, pulling them all apart.

"Hey!" Carter said loudly as soon as the kids had all died down. Jack turned to look at her in surprise. "Grandpa didn't come all the way here to watch you fight," she said firmly.

It was like she had flicked a magical switch somewhere, Jack thought. The kids all mumbled apologies and got back in line.

"That's better," Nigel said. "Do one more nice song and that's it."

The kids conferred for a minute, got back in their positions, and had apparently decided an encore of Frosty the Snowman was in order. When they finished, everyone clapped loudly. They took a few bows, all grinning, and Emily said, "I'll go make hot chocolate for everybody if you guys go get ready for bed."

They went upstairs excitedly. Several people went with them to help the smaller ones. Emily and Karen headed for the kitchen. "I'll help you," Carter said quickly, getting up to join them.

"Carter, do you know how to make hot chocolate?" Jack called after her.

"Very funny," she said sarcastically, heading into the kitchen muttering something he couldn't make out.

Jack looked over at Chris and Jacob, who were laughing silently. "Hey, Dad, remember when she got her first apartment, in college?" Chris suddenly asked.

Jacob chuckled. "Yeah, that was..."

"Crunchy," they both said together, erupting into laughter.

Jacob turned to Jack to explain. "She had us over, Chris was the only one still at home at that point, so we go over to her new place and she's so excited and everything. So she tries to make this big lasagna..." he was laughing too hard to continue.

Chris picked up the story. "So we sit down to dinner and she serves it up and she's just looking at us both, so excited about cooking in her own new apartment and all, so we both take a bite and..."

"Apparently, the recipe assumed that the chef would know to boil the noodles before putting them in the pan," Jacob continued.

"So, you're saying..." Jack started.

"Yup. Raw noodles, cooked in a lasagna. Very, very crunchy," Chris said as John came downstairs carrying Grace and Kailey.

"Oh, were you telling Jack the raw noodle story?" he asked. That set them all off again.

When everyone was assembled in the living room once again, Emily, Carter, and Karen brought in trays of mugs of hot chocolate and coffee. Carter handed one to Jack, who took it, looking at her suspiciously. She smiled at him and moved on, handing the next cup to her dad.

Jack watched everyone take sips of their drinks and smile contentedly. He shrugged and took a giant gulp of his. He promptly spit it out everywhere, spluttering it all over the place. "Carter, what the HELL did you do to this?" he demanded.

The kids were laughing because he had spit everywhere.

Carter turned to him and said in a perfectly innocent tone, "Well, you know me, Colonel, can't even be trusted to make hot chocolate or coffee... I must have used some of both... and some instant gravy mix as well."

Emily passed him several napkins, making a valiant effort to hide her amusement. The rest of the family was much less subtle. Jack went into the kitchen, cleaned himself up, and poured himself a cup of coffee, determined to get her back before the night was over. He wasn't sure how he was going to do it, but that part he could figure out later.

When he went back into the living room, Carter was hiding behind Gwen, who was falling asleep in her lap, making them both look too warm and cozy for him to plot a proper revenge. That's fine, he thought to himself. They have to go to bed at some point.

An hour later, all the kids were asleep upstairs somewhere. Caroline, John, and Karen were with them as well. Jack was having trouble staying awake, even though he was on his third cup of coffee in an hour. It had been a very full two days, and he hadn't slept much.

"Okay, tonight I say we play Pictionary!" Jamie declared.

"No!" Carter objected. "Let's play poker."

"Yeah, I'd rather play poker," Mark agreed.

"You two are just saying that because you can't draw at all," Nigel said. "Besides, we played your game last night, Sam. Tonight is Pictionary," he added firmly.

Carter sighed and turned to Jack as her brothers fetched the game. "You don't have to stay up if you don't want to, I know you're tired."

"Yeah, but not so tired I'm willing to miss seeing you suck at something for once!" he said triumphantly. "Nice try though." And here, he thought with satisfaction, is where I get my revenge.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't suck at Pictionary," she said firmly. "They're just lousy guessers."

Jack ended up on a team with Carter and her dad, and he soon learned that her brothers had been entirely correct. She was lousy, but he wasn't helping matters by guessing ridiculous things. She would start off by drawing a straight line and he would be guessing things like "A clown. A headless chicken. A purple monkey." She stopped drawing and glared at him.

"The category is ACTION," she said pointedly.

"TIME!" Nigel and Jamie shouted together as Chris leapt forward to the giant pad of paper to take his turn. Carter threw the marker at him and sat down angrily with her team, crossing her arms.

The game continued on basically the same path. Luckily, when it was Jack's or Jacob's turn to draw, they usually got it. Carter was great at guessing what other people were drawing, probably because her mind always worked so much faster than most people's, so they weren't really behind the other teams despite her lousy drawing.

Once she realized this, Jack could tell she gradually started enjoying herself, and even saw her fight to conceal her amusement at some of his more creative guesses at her pictures.

When the game was finally over (Nigel, Anne, and Mark had won,) Jack was exhausted. Chris suggested a few hands of poker, but Anne and Emily insisted they were too tired and needed to go to bed. Jack decided to do the same.

He took his coffee mug into the kitchen and started washing it out in the sink. As he was drying it off, Carter came into the kitchen for a refill of her own cup. "Going to bed?" she asked.

"Yeah. I was ready to go to sleep when the kids did. Looks like you need special training for a Carter family weekend."

She smiled and nodded. "Umm, I don't think I should sleep in the..."

"Yeah, I know," he said, realizing he was going to be sleeping completely alone out there. He didn't know why that bothered him; he was so tired he'd be asleep before his head hit the pillow anyway. And her dad was over their earlier scene, but probably wouldn't be too thrilled with them grabbing 'alone time' in the room above the garage.

"Umm... guess I'll see you tomorrow then," she said a bit awkwardly, setting her mug down on the counter.

"Yeah. Night." He smiled at her and she nodded, turning to go back to the living room. "Hey, Carter?"

She turned back around, looking at him expectantly.

"I'm glad your dad came," he said honestly. True, he had spent most of the day hiding from the man or terrified he was going to be injured, but Jacob had calmed down, and Jack remembered how disappointed Carter had looked earlier that week when she told him about how he wasn't going to be able to come.

Apparently it had been a good thing to say, because her face lit up in a surprised smile and she hugged him tightly. He hugged her back until she broke the hug. She stepped back a bit, still smiling at him, and finally said, "Good night, Colonel."

"Night," he repeated, smiling at her as she took her coffee cup and went back into the living room. He set his mug in the dishwasher and grabbed his coat.

Yup, still freezing outside, he thought as he made his way over to the cold metal staircase. The biting cold woke him up a bit, and he let himself into the warm room gratefully, fumbling around for the light switch. Shrugging out of his coat and stepping out of his boots, he went to the bathroom, got ready for bed, and looked around.

TV! TV was always good. He sat down on the couch and flipped through all the channels three times. Nothing. Sighing, he turned off the lights and slowly made his way over to the bed, doubting if he'd be able to go right to sleep. He was wrong.

He woke up sometime later to the sound of the door opening, instantly alert as his training insisted. "Carter?" he called with a yawn. He heard her jump and swear.

"You scared me, I thought you were asleep!"

"I was," he answered evenly. She closed the door and he could hear her moving around but didn't know what she was doing until a lamp came on way over on her desk, so that it wasn't too bright for him.

"Sorry," she apologized.

"S'ok. What time is it?"

"After two."

"Are you staying over here?"

"Yeah, I couldn't... I didn't want to stay over there," she said simply, going into the bathroom with her pajamas in hand.

Okay, that was weird, he thought as he heard the water running. She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later in her pajamas and went over to the couch. Realizing he should give her the bed back, he reluctantly rolled out of it, sending it a silent goodbye. He sat down cautiously on the couch next to her.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, everything's fine," she said quickly.

He must have looked as confused as he felt, because she smiled and said, "Sorry. I'm tired."

"Yeah. I warmed your bed up for you," he tried with a grin.

She smiled at the coffee table but didn't say anything.

"Did you win?" he asked after a few seconds.

"We stopped playing when it was just Dad and me. Everyone was too tired."

"Oh. Where is..."

"He's on the couch in the living room."

"Oh."

He watched her profile, trying to read her mind. It didn't work. She was working on something in her head, that was for sure. He finally slipped an arm around her, squeezing her shoulder lightly. Hey, he would have done the exact same thing to Teal'c. Okay, he probably wouldn't have smelled Teal'c's hair in the process, but then again Teal'c didn't exactly have hair.

After a very long silence, she looked at him and said, "I want to talk."

---

A/N: Yes, yes, I'm terribly cruel, evil, and all of that. The next chapter is the final one, and it's very long. Hopefully it will please you guys.