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Chapter Ten

Everyone was far too shocked to respond. Jacob was the first to recover his voice, most likely because he hadn't really been all that shocked. He looked ready to kill me. "You want to tell me why I wasn't informed that you and Samantha have a child together? Just who the hell do you think you are? How dare you ruin her career! And what the hell is a child doing in this facility? It's way too dangerous around here for my granddaughter!"

I backed up, pulling Carter with me since she wouldn't let go of my hand. My survival instinct was kicking in, reminding me loud and clear that I didn't want to die. I heard snickers from the control room and looked up to find half the staff, including the rest of SG-1, watching us. I could only imagine what the people who didn't know better were thinking at the time. I could hear the rumor mill start turning. I was about to turn and run when I realized the mistake Jacob had made.

"Daddy?" Carter pulled free from my hand and scampered over to Jacob.

Jacob looked at her, practically on eye level with her from his seat on the ramp. Then he looked at me, then at Hammond, and then back at Carter. "Sammy?" He reached out to touch her chin, as if to assure himself of what he was seeing, but Carter turned suddenly, running back to me and hiding behind my legs. Jacob looked around again. "What just happened?" He fixed his eyes on me again. "Not yours, right?"

I shook my head while squatting down and trying to console Carter who was sobbing once again. "Sam, what's the matter?"

"That's not my daddy!" Carter wrapped her arms around my neck and wouldn't let go.

Selmac spoke up. "Perhaps the child senses my presence." Of course, Selmac's voice only served to make Carter wail louder, if that was possible.

"Sam, it's ok. That's your daddy." I was hoping that Carter would continue to trust my assessment. Although, judging from her level of hysteria, it didn't seem to be working.

Hammond spoke to Jacob and, although I couldn't hear what was said over Carter, I found myself following the group up to the conference room. Jacob kept glancing back over his shoulder. Anise or Freya or both of them kept glowering at me and Carter. By the time we climbed the stairs past the control room, everyone who had been watching was pretending to be terribly busy. By the time we got up to the conference room, Carter's wailing had stopped, but she continued to sniffle and whimper intermittently. Her arms stayed fastened around my neck after I sat down.

Jacob took a seat opposite me with an unreadable expression. Anise still looked angry and I figured it was because I'd shot down her host's come on in favor of an impossible relationship with the woman who was in my arms, even though she wasn't a woman yet. Anymore. Whatever. I imagined that I looked annoyed because Anise was there.

General Hammond took his regular seat. "I've asked you here for some assistance, Jacob. Obviously Major Carter has found herself in a bit of a situation."

Carter's arms tightened around my neck. "That's not my daddy, Jack." Carter's whisper was loud enough for all to hear. "He looks like my daddy, but he's not my daddy."

Selmac was completely ignorant of how frightening her voice was to a child. "If this is indeed Samantha Carter, the naquadah in her blood has survived whatever process affected her."

Carter turned to face Selmac without letting go of me. "I am Samantha Carter and you're not my daddy!"

"No, I am Selmac."

Jacob spoke up then. "Samantha, I am your father and I won't have you acting so rude. Behave yourself." How Jacob could sound so stern to adorable Carter was beyond me.

Carter cowered back against me. "Jack!"

"Permission to join the meeting, sir?" All eyes whipped to Janet. At General Hammond's nod, she sat down. "The test results are in - she's definitely Samantha Carter."

"No slight abnormality?" I was referring to the only clue she'd found in my clone's blood that gave away the difference between us.

"None whatsoever." She closed the folder she'd been glancing at. "Right down to the naquadah, although I think you already discovered that."

Anise turned to Janet. "The child was able to sense our symbiotes so she obviously has naquadah in her blood."

Janet ignored the interruption while I glared at Anise. "I can't find any foreign substance or toxin that could explain this. Sam is in perfect health."

Jacob sighed. "Except that she's three."

Janet nodded at Jacob. "Right, a perfectly healthy three-year-old."

I couldn't resist trying to diffuse the tension. "So I think I'm going to head back out there to 738 and ask them to knock thirty-some years off my age. I wouldn't mind having a second chance with my knee."

Janet ignored me. "Since there's nothing technically wrong with her, there's nothing I can fix."

Jacob shook his head when Carter dug out my yo-yo and tried to make it work. Then he sighed and met my glance. "I'm too old for this. She was a handful the first time. Feel like adopting a three-year-old?"

I was stunned, unsure if Jacob's words were in jest. Carter didn't miss a beat though. She grinned at me happily, abandoning the yo-yo momentarily in favor of giving me a bear hug. "Yay!"

Jacob shrugged at Hammond, as though he wasn't at all surprised by how quickly he could be replaced. "She always did have a thing for older guys."

I was learning quickly that every moment spent with a young Samantha Carter produced a million additional ways for someone to mortify me. I hung my head as General Hammond and Dr. Frasier laughed. Looking across the table, I noticed that Anise didn't find it all that funny either. Or perhaps it was Freya who wasn't happy. Anise had a thing for Daniel. But they were scientists, or one of them was at least, which meant they were about Carter's only hope for the time being.

I cleared my throat in an effort to remind everyone that I was very much listening to them all laugh at my expense. "So, what are our options besides adoption?"

Anise answered me while the rest of the table pulled themselves together. "I will examine the child and see if my equipment is able to detect anything. If I reach the same conclusion as Dr. Frasier, we will have to investigate alternative solutions. How did she come to be affected?"

"I think she might have eaten something that was contaminated." I looked around, waiting to see if anyone was going to call me on why Carter might have done something so stupid.

Anise nodded thoughtfully. "I may require a sample of the contaminated substance in order to produce an antidote."

"That might be a problem." I winced when I saw Jacob's eyes rivet on me.

General Hammond jumped in. "738 has been classified unfriendly. SG-1 was under attack when they returned."

"Why were they attacking?" I could tell from the way Jacob was looking at me that he suspected I had done something wrong.

"Because we refused to leave Carter behind. They wanted to keep her." Jacob looked confused, so I continued. "They did this to her on purpose."

Jacob laughed. "You've got to be kidding me."

"No. Our friendly neighborhood tour guide Loh'ran thought that Carter would make the perfect spouse."

"So he shrank her? Maybe he wanted a daughter and not a spouse?"

I shook my head. "He shrank himself too. He wanted to grow up with her or something. I didn't really stick around to ask questions."

Anise cut in with her usual bluntness. "If I am unable to identify the substance responsible in her body, there will be no choice but to retrieve a sample from the planet."

I took a deep breath. "If it gets Carter back the way she was, fine, I'll do it. But I really hope you can find something with your super-duper hyper-advanced gadgets that are oh so much better than ours."

Anise nodded. "I will return to the Tok'ra base to gather the necessary instruments."

"I'll stay here and try to prevent any catastrophes Sammy is going to attempt to cause." Jacob smiled at Carter.

I didn't even notice when Anise left. I was busy staring at Carter. At the moment, Carter seemed harmless enough, sitting quietly in my lap and trying to unknot my yo-yo. I grinned at Jacob. "Oh, come on, what harm could she do?" I had momentarily forgotten her escape and subsequent attempt to break the iris.

Jacob and Hammond shared a pointed look and then Jacob chuckled. "She wanted to go to the moon when she was four. So she tried to build a rocket." I grinned, thinking that sounded exactly like Carter. "She burned the house down."

I looked down at the angel in my lap. "Did you start a fire, Sam?" She ignored me and continued with the completely ruined yo-yo.

"No, Jack, you didn't hear me. She didn't start a fire. She burned the house down."

I met his eyes in disbelief. "You mean like some excitement for the neighbors, a coat of paint and some new furniture and a stern warning from the fire marshal, right?"

Jacob shook his head solemnly. "To the ground, Jack. We were lucky we all survived."

Not even waiting for his words to sink in completely, I turned to Janet. "You're taking her tonight, right?"

She shook her head. "My house is far from child-proof. Cassie was nine when I adopted her. I have no experience with babies." Before I had the chance to order her, she shrugged at me. "Besides, she likes you best, sir."

"Some things never change." Jacob's words made Hammond laugh at me once again.

"Janet, please?"

She shook her head. "Absolutely not, sir. Sam's told me plenty of her finer childhood exploits and I have no desire to experience them firsthand." She nodded at Hammond. "May I go, sir?"

Hammond dismissed her without waiting for me to say anything. I tried to convince myself he didn't want to see me lose it, but I wasn't so sure. I turned back to Jacob. "So you're sticking around for the night, right?"

Jacob only smiled. "Sam didn't listen to me. Ever. Hell, she still doesn't. You'll probably have much better luck."

I glanced down and saw Carter had settled in for a nap. She was resting against my chest, her thumb sticking in her mouth, with a yo-yo knotted around her wrist. I smiled at her. I didn't care what Jacob or Janet said. Carter was a handful because she was too damn smart for her own good. But she was as innocent as she was rambunctious and I was convinced I could handle her.

I looked back at the general. "I'll be in my quarters working on some of those mission reports. When she wakes up, I'll take her to the park and let her run around for a while. Then maybe she'll burn off some of that extra energy."

Jacob laughed, a sound I was beginning to resent. "Jack, I think she was in high school before she slept through the night. No one could ever get her to settle down. She was always up all hours of the night doing things."

"Sounds like Carter." It actually made me feel better to know that she'd always been like that - for a few years, I had been afraid that it was her work with the Stargate that caused her stay up nights.

Hammond stood up, signaling that the meeting was over. "Colonel, I'm going to contact the Asgard to see if they can offer any assistance." He glanced at Jacob who was trying not to look offended. "Not that I don't have every confidence in Anise."

I rolled my eyes. I was all too aware of the trouble Anise and her scientific method could cause. "I'll hold out for Thor. He likes Carter."

I returned to my quarters and tucked Carter back into bed. I desperately wanted to prove to Jacob that he could trust Carter to my care, but the thought wasn't one I wanted to dwell on. I couldn't admit to myself that I was trying to impress Carter's father because I knew that would bring the whole house of cards tumbling down.

I settled down across the room and started writing up the mission reports that were several missions late. Every so often my eyes wandered over to Carter and I'd catch myself staring at her, taking comfort of the gentle rise and fall of her chest with each breath. And I knew as I watched mesmerized, even if no one could put Carter back the way she was, I'd still die to protect her. I loved her that much.

And once I realized that, I sat back in my chair and stared at her, forgetting entirely about working.