The lines that prematurely graced Esther's face had vanished while she slept, giving her the air of any other teenager her age, without cares or worries. She looked so beautiful, so much like Jack's mother it was a little eerie. Looking at her face, and the way she grimaced slightly when she forgot about her back and tried to turn over, Jack was determined never, ever to play the fool again and let his family leave him. He'd move heaven and earth if he had to, but he had found his family again, and he wasn't going to lose them.
The next day, Esther was released from the hospital on good behavior, with strict instructions to return four times a week for physical therapy, no walking and no strenuous activity. She took it all in stride, trying to keep her mind out of the pit that it had grown very used to in the past year. It wasn't her fault that her baby had died.
After deciding to go back to Jack's house, when Esther said that she didn't want to see their house for a while, the five gathered into Jack's car and headed toward his rather spacious five-bedroom house just outside of D.C.. Surprisingly it was only a few miles away from their own house, Esther looked at her father with questions written all over her face. "What about Aunt Caroline, Dad? Isn't she still at the hospital?"
Jack nodded without taking his eyes off the road, "Yep, as soon as we got up to her room I called her husband and he's with her now. I was just there for moral support and because she went into labor when Lou wasn't at home."
"Oh."
"What's her last name?" Sam asked curiously.
"Ferretti."
Her eyes bugged out and she stared at Jack in shock, "Lou Ferretti of SG-2 is your brother-in-law? Why are they here and not in Colorado?"
Jack shrugged, "Care Bear wanted to visit me and the only way to do that was driving when she was eight months pregnant." He chuckled to himself, "They were supposed to go back today, but I don't think that'll be happening."
The rest of the car ride was spent in a comfortable silence as Esther lost herself in thoughts about her dead child; Jack thought through everything he'd need to do now that he'd found his family; Sam debated giving in to Jack once again; Abby's thoughts were centered around Tom in a desperate attempt to lose herself in the rare goodness of him; and JJ spent the entire ride trying to block out everyone else's thoughts from his mind.
Jack's house was everything the triplets expected it to be and more. It had five bedrooms, much to the amusement of Sam who distinctly remembered that his house in Colorado Springs had only two bedrooms, a basement Jack had converted into a game room, a spacious back yard with trees, and a basket ball hoop in the driveway. All in all, it was the perfect house to raise a family in.
Jack's original sleeping arrangements had Abby and Esther sharing a room, JJ next door, followed by Sam in the next room, Caroline and Lou in the fourth room and Jack in his room. This was soon changed to Sam sleeping in the room JJ was given and the triplets sleeping in one room together. Jack had thought that JJ would be a little uncomfortable sharing a room with his two sisters, but he wasn't. It seemed he preferred it to sleeping by himself…especially after what Esther just went through with Pete – what they all had gone through.
The days passed slowly for Esther as she quietly relived the time when her daughter had been alive. Exactly four days after their fifteenth birthday, Hammond showed up at Jack's house with Henry in tow. The procession made their way to the funeral so Esther could say good-bye again to her baby girl who would have been one year old had she lived. Caroline and Lou chose to stay home with their newborn son, not wanting to intrude and knowing the way Esther gazed at the child.
Jack noticed only one thing about his oldest daughter that concerned him a great deal: She had a small teddy bear that would have been used for a newborn; the ears were gnawed at and the white coloring was now gray as if the bear was much loved. He often saw her fingering the worn bear, but never said anything about it – even when she chose to take it with them to the cemetery.
"Hey, Destiny," Esther whispered as she sat in her wheelchair by her daughter's grave, the rest of the family at a respectful distance away. "I miss you, baby. You would have been such a happy child. We all miss you."
The tears she wouldn't let fall on any other day fell in abundance as she sat with her back rigidly straight to keep the pain at bay from her wounds. Wordlessly she dropped the small bear on the ground and turned to the grave next to Destiny's. "Take care of her, Charley. For me."
Esther turned back to her father and nodded her head slightly, telling him it was okay to come forward. He did just that. Jack had heard the words spoken by his daughter to her daughter and her brother, his son. He was heartbroken that there was little he could do to comfort the scarred girl.
Sam watched in silence with the rest of the onlookers as Jack approached the graves of his son and his granddaughter; his living, breathing daughter sitting in her wheelchair in between them. All she wanted was to go to them, but she knew without being told that she was more useful comforting her other two children who missed their niece almost as much as Esther did. With little fuss, she turned around, both of her children clinging onto her as if she were a life preserver, and made their way back to Hammond's car parked a few feet away.
Abby sniffed at her mother, looking up into her tear-stained face, "Why are we leaving?"
Sam's haunted blue eyes bore into her daughter's then her son's. "Because this is something your dad has to help Esther with, and we can only offer our comfort. He just found out about Destiny – they need to grieve and learn to live again – together."
Hammond and Henry soon followed Sam, Abby and JJ. In his mind, Henry wondered why he was even there – but in his heart he knew. He'd been going out with Esther for a year and a half. It was partially his influence that had kept the girl sane when Destiny had first died. He had been there when the little girl had lived and died too soon for any of them.
Now, it was time for Esther and Jack to learn to move on together.
A/N: So? What think you? This chapter was a little harder to write, but I thought I did pretty good. This story is about...oh, a little over half way done right now. REMEMBER TO REVIEW!