Ch 3: Disclosure
They had gone through the familiar tradition of refusing to go fishing with him, but it had hurt all three of them this time, and it never had before. Sam knew Jack never usually expected them to accept his invitations, especially her. It was just a joke. Except this time, he had actually made the effort to try to heal the rift between them, and they had just as intentionally refused to accept his olive branch. It wasn't that they were being any more stubborn than usual, or that they liked the current state of things, but they didn't want to do it on his terms this time.
Still, although she was trying not to get too excited about her current idea, Sam had to admit she had felt extremely guilty following Daniel's cold brush-off when they had told him they weren't going fishing with him. Daniel, whom Sam knew had been hurt more than any of them, although he had refused to say exactly what Jack had said to him when he'd gone to his house alone, had rubbed salt in the wound by not only turning Jack down, but insinuating that he and Sam were going on a scientist-only exclusive-type trip.
When he'd said that, Jack had looked at her with so much sadness in his eyes that she had almost blurted out an apology. She hadn't, but she had met his gaze openly, sure there was just as much sadness reflected in hers, if not more, than there was in his. Daniel had tugged on her arm gently, she had given Jack one more look, and followed Daniel out of the room.
Now SG-1's doctors were standing on their leader's front porch in broad daylight on a late Saturday morning, looking around as if expecting to find a neon sign spelling out "CLUE!" Sam quickly ran her hand over the door frame and looked under the welcome mat. Nothing. She looked around in the landscaping for rocks that could be concealing keys and found nothing.
Frustrated at finding nothing and frustrated with herself for expecting to find something, she turned to Daniel and said, "Let's go," in a businesslike tone. "Daniel?" she prompted, touching his arm lightly. He was facing the street, looking around slowly.
Sam watched as his eyes locked onto something and she followed their gaze. The mailbox. Of course! The black metal, old fashioned, skinny mailbox attached to the porch railing. Its contents were typical, but something nagged at the back of her mind. Pulling a flashlight out of her pocket, she climbed up on the rail next to it to peer straight down into the narrow slit.
"There's a key down here," she said, flashing Daniel a smile. She passed him the flashlight and tried to get it out, but her arm wouldn't go down far enough.
"Can't you just pick the lock to his front door," Daniel said with an exasperated sigh as he watched her struggling.
"I guess," she said with a frown. "But it's right there... I can touch it with the tips of my fingers, I just can't grab it. All right, I'll pick the lock," she said, hopping off the railing and pulling out her handy-dandy lock-pick kit.
"Let's hope we don't set off some kind of alarm," she muttered as she felt the lock give and turned the knob cautiously.
"Way to go, Sam," Daniel replied as they instantly heard the warning of an alarm system. They hurried over to the keypad to shut it off.
"Two minutes," Sam said, biting her lip. Yeah, it would go over really well with the Colonel if he was called away from fishing because she and Daniel got arrested for busting into his house. General Hammond would probably be a bit irked as well.
"Okay, okay, he must have left the code around here somewhere," Daniel said reasonably, looking around. He zeroed in on a stack of CDs on his front hall. The one on the top of the piles was a Switchfoot single.
He held it up. "Since when is Jack a Switchfoot fan?" Daniel asked, indicating the title.
"Under the Floor," Sam read aloud, trying to shut out the irritating beeping of the alarm.
They both started tapping at floorboards, trying to find a hollow one. "Got it," Carter said, pulling out her pocketknife and prying the loose board up.
She pulled a folded piece of paper out of the small space underneath and hurried back to the keypad with it, quickly entering the correct code in time to prevent the alarm going off and the police being called.
"Why didn't he just send us an e-mail or something?" Daniel practically whined.
Sam gave him a look. "He was obviously being very closely watched, Daniel. Come on. There's got to be something else here."
They inspected his living room and found nothing out of place, as far as either of them could remember or tell. The curtains were all drawn except for one, but it was such a bright day outside that the room was flooded with natural light anyway. They moved to the kitchen and Sam's eyes were immediately drawn to the refrigerator. There was a grocery list stuck to it.
And she had a pretty good hunch Jack O'Neill wasn't really the type to make such a long grocery list, especially since it was full of pretty mundane items. The last item on the list was the only unusual thing. "Apple turnovers," Daniel read over her shoulder.
Sam automatically turned the list over as he read that, shrugging in response to his curious look. "He's written this on the back of a page from a book," she realized.
"An old book. D.H. Lawrence?" Daniel said, looking at the poem printed on the back of the list skeptically. "Jack?" Shaking his head, Daniel read the title out loud unnecessarily: "At the Window."
He hurried back to the living room automatically. Sam had been skimming the rest of the poem, having thesudden feeling that the title wasn't the only reason Jack had chosen it.
"Sam, come on," Daniel said excitedly, getting into the thrill of discovery now. Sam smiled at him and pocketed the poem quickly, hurrying after him.
They looked out the only open window, which faced Jack's backyard. Daniel played with the cords for the blinds while they looked out the window. Another piece of paper fluttered down between them, having been stuck up in the blinds. Carter bent down and picked it up. "Oh God," she said quietly, smiling slowly at the photo.
She remembered the day it was taken. Janet joined them in the park to pick up her new daughter, and had been most unhappy to learn that her new daughter also now came with a new dog. Still, she had taken it all in stride and had been taking pictures of all of them when a nice elderly couple taking a walk had stopped and offered to take a big group picture.
Janet, Jack, and Sam were sitting on the park bench, slightly crowded. Jack was in the middle, his arm stretched out over the back of the bench behind Sam. Cassie was in Janet's lap, nearly as big as her already. Teal'c and Daniel were leaning over the back of the bench, looking like they were hugging the whole group. Carter was holding the puppy in an upright sitting position in her lap, like he was a person. Jack was patting the dog, as was Daniel, leaning heavily into them both. The best part about the picture was that the puppy had 'ruined' it by stretching up and licking Daniel's glasses right as it was being taken, so that everyone was laughing hysterically at the dog and Daniel rather than smiling awkwardly and looking posed. It was a very natural looking picture, and Sam couldn't look at it without feeling happy.
She turned it over, but there was nothing on the back of it. She handed it to Daniel, staring out the window, her eyes slightly glazed.
"The tree," she said finally, realizing what she had been looking at for minutes. The biggest tree in his yard, and the tree that looked like the window they were staring out of had been built to frame it. She headed outside, Daniel following her. They walked over to the tree and looked around on the ground. Nothing.
"Any knot holes, Scout?" Daniel asked with a grin.
"Nope," she replied, smiling back at him. "Give me a boost," she instructed, eyeing the rough bark and branches just out of her reach.
"Um, Sam, do you really think he put something up in the tree?" Daniel asked doubtfully.
"Yes, I do," she said matter-of-factly. "Give me a boost or I'll go get the ladder."
"Fine," Daniel said, kneeling down and cupping his hands together.
He boosted her up and she scrambled up to the lowest and thickest branch. "Like riding a bike," she called back down as she wrapped her legs around it for security and brushed loose bark off her hands.
"Your dad told me once about the long process of you learning to ride a bike. As I recall, it went something like scraped knees, bruises, crashing into a patch of poison ivy, and a dislocated shoulder!" Daniel called up.
She grinned down at him before setting off for a higher branch. "Yeah, but that was only because I was four and determined to ride my big brother's bike. My legs were too short. They're longer now. Don't worry, Daniel."
He sighed and started really, really hoping she didn't fall.
"I see something!" she finally called. "It's... an airplane."
"How high ARE you?" he called.
"Very funny," she replied sarcastically. "It's one of those balsa wood ones, like little kids make... he must have known it would look like some neighbor accidentally crashed it or something."
"Can you get it?"
"Yeah... I've got it!"
"Okay, please come back down now. You know I don't like heights!"
"That's why you're on the ground, Daniel," she reminded him.
"Well... you're making me nervous, please just get back down here."
"All right..."
She slid roughly down the last several feet of the trunk. Daniel caught her awkwardly and brushed off her shoulders. She pulled the plane out of her back pocket and turned it upside down, grinning at him so happily Daniel really didn't need to read what was written on the underneath side of the plane's wings. He did it anyway. "Undercover. Sorry." He snorted. "Eloquent. All that snooping around for that. We already knew that, Sam."
"Yeah, but apparently I overestimated you guys," a familiar voice called, startling them both. "I thought you would have found that ages ago."