Danny nodded, still wary. Daniel said switching to a more energetic tone, "Actually, I'm extremely hungry. If the rest of you haven't had dinner yet either, maybe we could all go get something to eat." There was universal gratitude at having something to do that could put off a conversation no one knew how to start and everyone was more than a little afraid of.
Sam elected to follow them in her car but things were still a little strained in Jack's car even without the Jack/Sam dynamic. Jack asked Daniel to suggest a restaurant and the first three he named had all gone out of business during his absence. Eventually they wound up at a steak house Jack selected where the waitress led them to a booth. There was an awkward moment before they sorted out an acceptable seating arrangement since Sam and Jack weren't going to sit together and Danny wasn't ready to sit with Daniel. Sam and Daniel ended up facing Danny and Jack and the verbal tennis match began.
"So what's your favorite subject?" Daniel asked.
"PE," Danny said.
"I mean, really,"
"PE." Danny repeated. "So where were you?"
Daniel said, "I've been gone 17 years they tell me. But I only remember about 10 days in,' he paused very briefly, "Guatemala."
"Guatemala," Danny repeated in a dubious tone of voice. "I thought you said, Dad, that Uncle Teal'c found me in Costa Rica." Jack shrugged. What else could he do with this weak cover story?
"How come you only remember 10 days?"
"I have no idea."
Nobody said anything for a few moments.
"Do you like history?" Daniel asked, trying to pick up the threads of the conversation again.
"It's boring. We shouldn't be wasting time on dead people. We should be paying attention to what's happening now. So you have degrees in archeology and linguistics, right?"
"Right."
"So what does a linguist and an archeologist do for the Air Force?"
"Linguistics and archeology. I could make something up but I don't want to start out our relationship by lying to you. The details are classified. So what foreign language class are you taking?
"I'm taking first year Spanish."
"But you're a junior. Did you start out with some other language?"
"Actually, I flunked it last year."
Daniel looked at Jack. "Did you explore using a tutor or something?"
Jack bridled at the implied criticism. "Are you telling me how to raise my kid?"
Daniel barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "I'm a linguist and his mother was," Daniel cut that statement off in the middle and then resumed, "I mean, Danny, you should have inherited some ability with languages. I'm just surprised."
"Danny is an extremely talented guitarist and the best forward on the soccer team. Not everyone aspires to be a nerd," Jack snapped.
That was a real conversation stopper. Danny was staring, shell shocked, at his father's defense of him for his poor grades when the man had done nothing but ride his case about them since he got to high school. Sam was appalled. She and Jack had made a real effort, even when their marriage was falling apart, to present a unified front to Danny and set standards for his conduct. Daniel didn't appreciate having being a good student classed as being a nerd and Jack was sounding suspiciously like the kids who had bullied and taunted him when he was a brainy kid two years ahead of himself in school. Jack glared at them all truculently but inside he couldn't believe what he had just said either. He was proud of Danny's musical and athletic abilities but he was just as unhappy with Danny's performance as Daniel probably was. At the moment, he was also very angry. Where had Daniel been when Danny had turned from a sweet, bright, high achieving little boy to the surly rebel sitting next to him?
"So," said Sam attempting to defuse the situation with a complete change of subject. "Are you going back to work at Cheyenne Mountain?"
"Actually, yeah. My particular skills haven't really been made obsolete by the last 17 years of technological advances. So, they're going to have me consult with various teams. They said to take a couple of weeks and get my bearings and then come in." He looked at Danny. "I've never been a father. I'm going to need a lot of help easing into it. I'd like to spend time with you over the next couple of weeks."
Danny shrugged. "I suppose. I have a pretty heavy practice schedule with the team and my band has a major show in two weeks so I don't have a lot of free time."
Jack said, cutting off the end of Danny's response. "He's got a father, Daniel. Get to know each other but let's not be expecting Father's Day cards in the mail yet."
Daniel raised a hand in a peacemaking gesture. "Sure, Jack, sure. I didn't mean to imply anything."
Sam felt terrible about the way Jack was acting. Impulsively, she said, "Daniel, why don't you stay with me? It's crazy for you to go to a hotel. I've got a spare room in my condo. It's only about a mile from here and it'll make it easy for you to see Danny."
Jack's previous glare now escalated to a glare set on stun directed at both people across from him. His earlier delight in the return of his friend had evaporated in the face of the threat Daniel posed. He muttered, "And you won't even have to worry about washing an extra set of sheets" but Daniel was looking at Sam. Only Danny heard him and was immediately grossed out by the image.
"If that wouldn't be inconvenient for you, Sam, it would be wonderful. I do really feel sort of adrift. I will need to get some stuff. I just have these clothes and one change they gave me at Cheyenne Mountain. You guys have all my stuff right? I mean Danny would have inherited it."
He looked back at Jack and asked, "Could I swing by your place and maybe get some clothes. Jack deflated. This was not going to be easy for Daniel and it was his fault. "Actually, Daniel, we don't have any of your clothes." Daniel looked a question. "At first, sure, we kept everything. I mean you've made a REAL habit of disappearing like when you Ascended and then showing up again later."
"What's Ascended?" Danny asked.
Three pairs of eyes looked at him blankly. "If I said Ascended, I sure didn't mean to," Jack said quickly. "I meant absented."
"Dad, that isn't even a word."
"You would know?" Jack said, cuttingly.
Daniel prompted, "You were telling me what happened to my clothes."
"Right," Jack picked up again reluctantly. "Then when we moved when Danny was about 2 we got rid of all the stuff that doesn't age well. I mean there were moth problems with your wool sweaters. Stuff like that. And then," he drew patterns with the wet rings on the table from his beer, "this last move about three years ago, I weeded it out a lot more. Just kept the stuff that I thought Danny would care about."
Daniel shrugged. "I guess that makes sense." A pretense of polite conversation resumed. Danny went to the restroom and as he came back to the booth, he hung back to see what he could hear before they noticed him.
Daniel was saying, very, very quietly, "You kept Sha're's picture, right?"
"Actually, no Daniel. I didn't. I'm sorry."
Sam was looking at him surprised now too.
"Loving Sha're was one of defining moments of my life Jack. You knew that. If you wanted Danny to ever know anything about me, to understand me, wouldn't that be important? But then I'm wondering if you did intend that he ever know about me." He clutched his hair with one hand and Danny thought there almost might be tears in his eyes. "Abydos is gone. The whole world gone. There isn't a trace of Sha're or her people. Nothing. That picture was all I had of her Jack."
Danny went back to the booth then, chewing on what Daniel had said. Daniel gave him a forced smile and said. "I'm dead tired. Sam, would you mind if we went on back to your condo now? Danny, tomorrow's Saturday. Could we maybe get together for awhile in the afternoon?" He added with exaggerated courtesy to Jack, "If that would be all right with you Jack?"
Danny nodded. This was like being pulled between his mother and father for most of his childhood. Sam made her position clear in the tug of war immediately by quickly saying," I'm SURE Jack would be just fine with that." Well, good, at least he was only going to be pulled two ways instead of three.
Daniel and Sam eased out of the booth. Daniel said to Danny, "Two then? I'll come by."
The next morning Daniel woke up to find that it was already 10:00 in the morning. Ever since his return he had been sleeping a lot but the doctors didn't know what to do with that piece of evidence. On the chair next to his bed, there was brand new clothing: jeans, a t-shirt, underwear. Sam had already gone somewhere and bought him a change of clothes. He carried them into the bathroom to take the shower he had been too tired to contemplate the night before. He found shaving gear and a new toothbrush. When he finally went into the kitchen, there was the wonderful smell of a fresh pot of coffee and a beautiful coffee cake with just a small wedge gone. Next to the coffee cake was a pile of three scrapbooks which a quick check showed documented Danny's childhood but still no Sam. She was beginning to seem like the fairy godmother.
He began to look through the scrapbooks as he sipped his coffee. Sam appeared to have taken most of the pictures because she appeared in very few of them. Page after page made the bond between Jack and Danny very plain with pictures that showed the little boy tagging after his dad, looking up at him with love and respect, copying him.
Sam appeared, dressed in running shorts and a tank top, as he came close to finishing the books. He cocked his head at her and said, "You wanted me to see these before we talked, didn't you?"
She laughed a little and admitted, "You found me out." She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down next to Daniel. "Look, Daniel, Jack is a very good father. The problems Danny is having are not due to a major parenting failure on Jack's part. Jack was being an ass last night because Danny is the most important thing he has left in his life. He was forced to retire when he had the heart attack and the triple by-pass. Our marriage is dead and he isn't even living in Minnesota any more."
She sighed and broke eye contact. "There's something else. Jack is convinced that you and I … that you and I were lovers."
Daniel was in middle of a sip when she dropped that bombshell and he jerked in surprise and spilled coffee all over the counter and down his front. "Sam, these nice new clothes, thanks very much by the way, I just got coffee all over them." He was muddling around, alternating ineffectually between dabbing at his shirt and mopping at the counter with some outclassed paper napkins.
"Give me the shirt," she said.
"Huh?"
"Give me the shirt and I'll throw it in the washer immediately and it won't stain." He didn't move and she reached over and grabbed the shirt and pulled it up over his head. He got tangled in it and had no choice but to cooperate with taking it off the rest of the way. "Good," she said and went in and popped it in the washing machine.
She returned to find an uncomfortable looking, bare-chested Daniel and a wiped off counter. It was impossible to keep all appreciation for the magnificent, toned physique in front of her out of her face but she was pretty proud of how well she damped down her level of appreciation to something that shouldn't embarrass them both.
"How could he think something like that?" Daniel asked his arm crossed over his chest. "There was never anything. I don't get it."
Sam gave him a partial answer. "He's more than 10 years older than I am. It's made him insecure whenever a man close to my own age pays attention to me. I think he started having doubts as to how attractive he was to me."
She paused for a second and Daniel leaped into the breech. "That's crazy. Age difference doesn't matter if you care about someone. You're what, maybe 12, 13 years older than I am now; I mean if I really haven't aged. You look damn fine to me."
Daniel didn't know where that had come from and regretted it when Sam blushed, very flattered. Good lord, what must she be thinking was on his mind? Sam continued, "Thanks for the kind words. But, anyway, I told Jack that and I showed him how I felt, but he got harder and harder to convince. When I left, that's when he brought it up. That I had just married him because you were out of the picture."
Daniel closed his eyes and rubbed his face. "So now he thinks we're over here doing God knows what."
"Probably, but Daniel, I just can't care any more. I've had years of walking on egg shells and I can't do it any longer."
Daniel opened his eyes and looked at her, "What do you think Danny thinks is happening?"
Sam looked at him thunderstruck. "I'm his mother. Boys don't even want to think about their mothers having conceived them. Surely he isn't thinking anything like that."
Daniel said, "I hope not. It wouldn't help would it?"
Sam came closer and said very softly, "I have to ask you something about Danny."
Daniel nodded with a bad feeling that he wasn't going to like what he heard next. "I want to ask you to cancel your time with him this afternoon. Just back off and let him approach you. Make it clear to him that you are interested in knowing him when he's interested in knowing you but let him set the pace."
"Are you sure Sam?" he asked, searching her face? He read the certainty there without her having to say anything. "Okay, Sam. I'll play it your way."
Sam impulsively threw her arms around him and hugged him. She felt really good against his bare skin and smelled delightfully like soap, shampoo, and just a hint of something subtle and more exotic. Her hug unbalanced him a little and he hugged her back for balance. They released each other and there was an uncomfortable silence.
"I think I should tell him this in person though," he suggested and she agreed. "Well, now I have two weeks to fill up with something to do."
"Daniel, you're going to need clothes, a place to live, something to drive. I don't have any consulting lined up for the next couple of weeks. Let me help you. I would really enjoy it."
"Are you sure Sam? I do have money. The Air Force gave me my back salary. Still, with everything you've already done, I already feel a little like a, a, um," he searched for a word.
Sam found herself mentally supplying 'boy toy' and was appalled at herself. She quickly said, "You are not an IMPOSITION. You are one of my oldest and dearest friends and it would be nice to have a good friend around when my divorce become final next week."
He looked at her with instant sympathy. He knew that even if Sam had initiated the divorce, it would be difficult to lay to rest a dead dream once and for all. "Sure, Sam, that would be absolutely great. Let's make up a list."