Sam sat in her office Monday morning, staring at her ring finger. The tasteful diamond solitaire set in platinum felt like a boulder, weighing down her hand and her heart. She knew this was not going to go over well with Daniel. When they had gotten ready to leave Daniel's Saturday, Jack had planted a real kiss on her in front of Daniel. She had seen Daniel's face. It was one thing for him to think about her staying with Jack for awhile longer in the abstract. It was another thing to be confronted with the actual fact and all its ramifications in person.
Sam had tried to act interested when they picked out the ring, but she just wanted to take the first thing she saw and get out of the store. Normally that was Jack's mode when it came to shopping. Buy it from a catalog or on line if you can. If you are forced to go to a store, get in and get out so fast the salespeople don't even get a chance to pounce on you. Although that was the Jack O'Neill shopping style as she had observed it to date, it was not how he had operated on Saturday. She was sure they had looked at every ring in the store, some of them more than once. He kept slanting her inscrutable looks, even more unreadable than usual. Half the time, she was sure the whole thing was some sort of a test. The rest of the time, she thought this was part of his sporadic attempts of late, ala the roses, to be more romantic and sensitive.
She had just lifted up her oh so-heavy-hand to pull a book down from the shelf behind her desk when there was a light rap on her door and Daniel entered without waiting for an invitation. The ring blazed in the overhead light and he said a few terse words in a language she didn't know. Sam was absolutely certain he was swearing. "That's a lovely ring, Colonel Carter," he said with exaggerated courtesy.
Sam flinched and put the book down on the desk, rather more forcefully than required. "Oh, really? I'm so glad you like it, Dr. Jackson." She didn't attempt to feign a reciprocal courtesy.
He glared at her for a moment, then turned and walked away. For a moment, she thought he was going to stalk out of her office and she actually reached out a hand, as if to stop him. Instead he shut the door and locked it. He turned and leaned against it. "Sam, I'm trying to trust you. I'm trying really hard, but I just can't understand how it can be better for Jack to draw out this charade. He guesses that something is going on now. We're just subjecting him to emotional turmoil for who knows how long until you tell him the truth. I think we ought to listen to Jake."
"Oh really?" Sam said again. She sounded like a broken doll, but she was too upset for creative repartee.
"Do you have any idea how it makes me feel to see someone else's ring on your hand? I've been here before, right? I had to watch my wife go off with Apothis. I had to help my wife deliver another man's child. I'm not going there again. If you can't either break it off with Jack very, very soon or tell me a convincing reason why not, I'm walking."
Being reminded of what he had already gone through with Sha're took most of the wind out of her sails. No man should have to endure what he had already endured and she was heaping more of the same, in a way, on his head. He was trying to be stern and hard now, but she could see the pain in his eyes, not just for himself but also for her. She walked across the room and stopped just short of touching him. "Would you have me break a promise to Jack?"
He sighed. "You have to decide that. You know how much I care about Jack. I rather doubt that any secret he has is something I would use against him or that would make me think less of him."
"It would kill him if he knew I told you. I can't do it," she said. "I've already betrayed everything else. I have to at least keep his secret."
Daniel looked at her for a long moment. "Okay." He grasped her upper arms and set her away from him, then turned and started to unlock the door.
She felt a huge wave of panic. "You can't go, not like this."
"Watch me."
She grabbed him, spun him around, pushed him up against the door, and kissed him. He was stiff and unresponsive at first, his fists clenched at his sides, but she kept kissing him, darting her tongue against his closed lips, demanding entrance. He caught fire at last, put his arms around her, and turned them so that she had her back to the wall next to the door. His hard, muscular body was pressed against her, his need evident, and his mouth hot on hers. For a few moments, she was focused on only him, on her need to make him stay, to keep waiting for her and on the incredible heat that every touch sparked in her. Mutual revulsion took them both at the same time. He pushed away from her and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
"I will not be a cheat, Sam, and I will not share," he said, vehemently. "You've got to end it with Jack." He did unlock the door then and left and she could only watch. After he was gone, she closed the door and leaned against it, her hand pressed the spot where he had been moments before, and began to cry. She slid down the door, sobbing harder and harder, to huddle against it in a miserable ball.
Daniel seemed to have a sixth sense about avoiding her for the next couple of days. Then SG-1 went on a three-week assignment that got extended another week to four weeks. It was the worst possible timing, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Even if she hadn't been preoccupied and worried about Daniel, it wouldn't have been a fun mission. They had to deal with some of the rudest and most inconsiderate locals it had ever been their pleasure to encounter outside of outright armed hostilities. The Giltians were not only nasty to SG-1, they were very nasty to each other. The ruling council seemed to delight in playing key factions off against each other, merely to watch them squirm.
Taking refuge in their own company was not very successful either. Teal'c was withdrawn because of a huge fight with Ishta the weekend of Mitch's birthday party. He preferred to be alone and only talked in monosyllables. Sam knew exactly how he felt and longed to talk with him about Daniel, but, given his friendship with both Daniel and Jack, it seemed like that would unfairly put him in the middle. Captain Bernardo Alcalde, the new team member, developed some gastro-intestinal problem the first day and, although he was never sick enough to be sent home, he wasn't feeling sociable. When they weren't actually doing their job, he withdrew to his temporary quarters and communed with his innards. That left Cam who was uncharacteristically cool toward her.
Toward the end of the third week, she was leaving a meeting with the ruling council with Cam, when she got a clue that the assignment's timing might not just have been bad luck. Sam said, complaining about the inability of the council to decide to whom they were going to award the opportunity of interaction with the Tauri, "They just need to make up their mind and get on with it. It isn't fair to leave everyone hanging on the possibility that they will be the ones selected."
"If I ever needed an illustration of seeing the mote in someone else's eye when you have a log in your own, I'll have to remember that statement," he said.
"Huh?" Sam's knowledge of biblical references wasn't her strong suit, but she knew she had just been insulted.
"Think about what you're doing to Daniel and Jack and explain how that's any different than the ruling council's treatment of those petitioning to form a trade agreement with us," Cam said shortly and walked away from her.
How dare Daniel tell Mitchell about their relationship? It felt good to be angry with Daniel. She had spent three weeks beating herself up for the situation. She worked hard to fan the flame of resentment over his confession to Cam without even asking her first, but it was hard work. She kept seeing Daniel's face when he talked about what Sha're had done to him. Unbidden, Jack's face standing in the living room doorway at Daniel's came to her mind. He had reminded her of the little Spartan boy with the wolf gnawing at his stomach ever since then. Did it make sense for all three of them to be miserable?
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Jack felt like a fool. He had decided to go to Colorado Springs to surprise Sam when she got back from her mission and hadn't bothered to confirm that the return was still as originally scheduled. He thought about getting right back on another plane and returning to DC, but wound up just driving around aimlessly. He kept replaying his last conversation with Sam in his mind from the night before she left. "You coming down with a cold?" he had asked.
She had sniffed a couple more times. "Yeah. I must have caught something from Catherine or Mitch."
"So you want to come to DC for the weekend when you get back?"
"I just feel really tired, Jack. I couldn't get the energy together right now to get myself on a plane. I doubt that I'm going to come back from the mission all refreshed. I'll probably just be more tired."
"How are Daniel and the kids doing?"
"Why would you think I'd know that?" she had asked. Her voice had been bitter and sad.
"Maybe because you work with him?" Jack had been surprised that he didn't feel like doing a little victory dance that she had apparently fought with Daniel. The man was his competition right?
"Look Jack, you don't have to fish around to try to figure out if there's something going on between Daniel and me. There isn't. Be happy, will you?" Her voice had started to break on the last sentence. "Jack, I just don't feel up to talking any more. I'm sorry. Good night."
Turning off a busy major artery into a quiet neighborhood, Jack said, "I can't make her happy." He spoke out loud, but he was in the car alone so there was no one to observe him talking to himself. If he tried to review his circumstances silently, his mind kept skittering away from the thoughts. They were too unpalatable. Maybe if he made a real conversation out of it, he would be more likely to stay on track.
"She hasn't been happy, not really, since we got together." He kept searching his memory for evidence to counter that statement. There had been one pleasant afternoon spent hiking in the mountains and he remembered they had gone to "The Upside of Anger" and laughed like fools. In an entire year, those were the only two things he could remember that had been any real fun other than all the sex.
He noticed to his surprise that he was on Daniel's street. He didn't remember consciously deciding to do that. Some sick fascination, akin to peeling sunburn or picking at a scab, caused him to continue down the street until he pulled up in front of the rambling pleasantly dowdy house. He sat and looked at it, the first floor blazing with lights, the upstairs dark. He checked his watch. It was 9:30. The kids were probably in bed. He remembered when he used to call Daniel and Sam "kids." Did that make him a dirty old man for doing the nasty with one of his kids? Didn't a kid belong with a kid?
He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel while years of memories of Daniel and Sam working together, talking in excited tones about things he didn't care to understand, and laughing at things he didn't think were particularly funny chased themselves through his memories.
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Jake peered out the window again. "That car is still out there," he commented.
"What kind did you say it was?" Daniel asked. "What color?"
"Some sort of SUV. Can't tell the color. It is dark out there, you know."
"Do you suppose someone's in trouble somehow?"
Jake rolled his eyes. "Or casing the joint?"
Now it was Daniel's turn to roll his eyes. "Everything we have is dilapidated and stained with grape juice or peanut butter or some other kid induced depredation. The puppy everyone had to have pretty much finished off whatever had survived to that point. I put all my valuable artifacts in storage after Catherine and Mitch broke about $2,000 worth in the first week we were living together. What's left to steal?"
Jake turned back and looked at him. "We just came in and wrecked your life didn't we?" Daniel searched for Jake's typical almost Jack-like sarcasm in the comment but it wasn't there this time.
He put his book aside and said, "I'm not going to lie to you. It was an adjustment, but I never really minded because the one thing I've been missing most of my life was a family. SG-1 was a substitute of sorts, but only a substitute. If you knew more about my life, you might understand that, but you've never been curious. Mitch and Catherine, they've pestered me for stories about when I was a little boy. Even Mary Clare's asked a few questions, but not you."
Jake sat down and looked at him. "Your mother isn't alive anymore, I know that and I know you didn't know Uncle Cam when you were growing up. Other than that, was it really that much different than my dad's life?"
"Both my parents died in the accident that just killed your dad's father. My only living relative, my maternal grandfather, didn't want me. I grew up in a series of foster homes. I think the longest any of them lasted was two years. There was some abuse in a couple of them and neglect in most of them. I was way ahead of myself in school and started college at 16. I was always regarded as odd and I never belonged. Is that different enough for you?" Daniel's voice was mild. He had come to terms with his wretched childhood a long time ago and had stopped feeling sorry for himself over it. He knew he would be someone different if he hadn't lived through it and he had finally come to the place where he was very happy with being who he was.
Jake looked consternated. "My mom went through a foster home experience a lot like that. She didn't like to talk about it, but the few times she did, I could tell how much it had hurt her." He picked at a callous on his palm. "I guess I'm a jerk. You've taken in my family and I haven't given anything back."
Daniel said, quietly, patiently, "You were mourning your dad and you resented me for playing a parental role with Mitch and Catherine and eventually with Mary Clare. It's a lot easier to dislike someone and give them a hard time, if you don't think of them as people with problems of their own. I don't blame you."
Jake looked at him, still upset, then stood up abruptly and walked back to the window. Daniel thought, somehow Dan and Mandy managed to have a kid that reminds me forcefully of Jack a good deal of the time and, now, Jack-like he's exceeded his quota of emotional conversation, probably for the next month.
"I think we should check that car out. There is someone sitting in it, it's below freezing, and I honestly think they've been out there for close to an hour."
"You're not going out there alone," Daniel said.
Jake looked at him for a moment and then laughed a little. "That's right. My dad was an athlete in school and you weren't, but, on the other hand, my dad never had any combat training and experience like you have."
Daniel flipped on the porch lights and grabbed a flashlight from the shelf in the front hall closet. The two Jacksons went out through the frosty dead grass to the street and approached the car, one from the street side and one from the sidewalk. At first Daniel thought the man in the car had had a heart attack, looking at him slumped over the wheel. When he looked up at their approach, Daniel was startled to recognize Jack. Jack stared back at him blankly and Daniel tapped on the window.
Jack put the window down a crack and Daniel said, trying to sound like there was nothing unusual in the situation, "Jake and I were wondering if you'd like to come on in for some coffee."
Jake added, "Or brandy. It's too fraking cold out here."
Jack seemed to go through some minor internal struggle, then shrugged and said, "What the hell. I'm here, right?"
He followed them back into the house and Daniel said, "Do you want to go with the coffee or the brandy?"
Jack looked over at the partially filled snifter sitting next to a heavy archeological tome on the table by the armchair and said, "It looks like the brandy bottle is already open. I'll join you."
"I'll get it, Daniel," Jake offered. "Do you mind if I have some?"
"You're not going out in the car, right?" Jake shook his head. "You're 18. They'd consider you old enough to put on a uniform and kill someone. You ought to be old enough to drink. Go ahead."
Jake looked surprised. Daniel realized Jake had never asked before because he had simply assumed the answer would be no. He sighed. From the beginning, Jake had painted him as a martinet because Daniel had tried to impose stricter discipline than earth mother Mandy and her laid back husband had practiced.
While Jake was in the kitchen, Jack gestured at the brandy. "I'm surprised to see you drinking."
"Being as I'm such a fun guy?" Daniel asked, a slight edge to his voice.
Jack looked at him reproachfully and Daniel flushed slightly. "I'm sorry, Jack. That was uncalled for. I was sitting here until a few moments ago having a pity party. I guess it's left me out of sorts."
An expression of something deeply disturbed drifted across Jack's face and was gone before Daniel could identify it. Jake returned with the two glasses and sat down on the other end of the couch from Jack.
Jack turned to Jake and asked, "So how's it going?"
"Still weird. It's all the little things that you don't think to ask people. I was never much of a talker, but now I hardly open my mouth. It's too easy to get into trouble. Like just today, someone was talking about their grandfather dying of Parkinson's. I barely caught myself in time before I said something stupid. There was a cure for Parkinson's in my reality."
"Really?" Jack said. He sounded rather excited.
"Yeah. It was something we found on one of Horus' planets and brought back." The Stargate had been public knowledge in Dan and Mandy's reality since the fourth year of the program.
"You don't remember which planet do you?" Jack asked.
"No. I'm sorry. But Horus was pretty minor, right? The least powerful of all the system lords. The planet was advanced in biotechnology. That wasn't the only thing we found there."
"It's amazing hearing all this classified info from a kid," Jack said with a smile. He turned to Daniel. "The SGC should check that out, don't you think Daniel?" Jack said. His amusement had fled and he was dead serious and intense.
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Daniel said. "I'll suggest it to Cam." He looked narrowly at Jack. "This means a lot to you for some reason."
"It would mean a lot to anyone."
Daniel looked at Jack dubiously. Jake glanced at his watch. "I've got a call to make. I'm glad you dropped by Jack. Daniel has been really down about something for weeks. Maybe you could tell him some of those crazy stories you used to tell us and get him to smile a little. Usually Uncle Cam does that, but he's been offworld."
He exited the room and Daniel kept his head down, studying his brandy to avoid looking at Jack. Jake teetered between amazing insightfulness and maturity and hamhanded social blunders like this one. What was Jack supposed to do with an announcement like that?
Daniel said, "I've just had a persistent cold, been sort of tired and run down. Don't mind Jake."
His head jerked up when Jack said, very quietly, "About once a decade I decide it's time to have a heart to heart with someone. This decade it's going to be you."