Morning came without incident. He peeked in first on Sam, finding her sleeping peacefully, the pillow nest he'd made for her seeming to do the trick. He'd had to readjust it last night when he'd given her the medicine, but she seemed to have slept ok otherwise. Teal'c and Daniel were still sleeping, which was unusual given the early hour they'd gone to bed, but he wasn't complaining, he hadn't had a lot of alone time since the kids had come to stay. Not that he minded. In fact, he wouldn't change anything, and certainly didn't regret his decision in the slightest. But he'd been single for a long time, and suddenly having a house full of children meant a total lack of privacy, so it was only in the moments late at night or early in the morning while the kids slept that he felt he had the house to himself, even if it wouldn't last long.
Jack set about making breakfast. He went all out, making a "big breakfast" with sausage, eggs, toast, juice, hash browns, the works. The boys showed up first, blinking sleepily. Jack grinned at them as they took their seats, waiting for the food to be done. The third figure didn't show up until the food was almost done, making Jack start to think he'd have to go fetch her. Her hair was sticking out in all directions, and her face was wearing its characteristic "I hate mornings" look. Sam was most definitely not a morning person, even at seven years old. Jack just placed plates of food in front of each child, and one for himself, watching in amusement as each child dealt with the problems of waking up, though poor Sam was having more problems then normal with her cast. Luckily, she'd broken her non-dominant arm.
They spent the day mostly indoors, Jack keeping them involved in quiet activities. He also finally got them around to the neglected thank you cards for the SGC, because he'd finally remembered to purchase a variety of crafts supplies a few days ago but with all the things going on the last few days hadn't had a chance to get the kids into the activity. The kids spent the next few hours designing and creating an enormous card using loads of construction paper, glue, glitter, crayons and marker. Daniel drew things, Teal'c cut them out, and Sam colored things in. Jack was pretty impressed with the end result. Daniel had somehow reproduced the symbol for Earth from the gate address, and managed to make it so that it popped up when the card opened. After Teal'c had cut it out, Sam had colored it, and applied glitter, and lots of it, making it very sparkly. Daniel had also drawn a number of stars that Teal'c had cut out and Sam had colored and glittered a variety of colors (of which, she now had a variety of glitter on her cast, and likely down inside too, he wondered if the cast was glitter proof). Speaking of glitter, there was also a lot of glitter on Sam's clothes, the table, the floor, her teddy bear, her hair… was that glitter on the wall? Jack sighed. Maybe buying glitter wasn't such a good idea after all.
Admiring the card most vocally, Jack carefully set the card on the counter so that it could dry and not spread anymore glitter anywhere, then sent Sam up for a bath despite her protests that she didn't need one, that it was the middle of the day, that Teal'c and Daniel didn't have to take one, etc, etc. He sent the boys off to play a board game, and cleaned up the kitchen. When he discovered a trail of glitter following the path Sam had taken, the glitter "accidentally" fell in the garbage, and Jack discovered that it was next to impossible to remove every speck of glitter from every surface. No matter what he did, more kept appearing, and he was even starting to find it on his own body now. Eventually, he gave up and hoped the stuff would biodegrade or something.
When Sam came back downstairs, her damp hair and fresh clothes testified that she'd followed the instructions and bathed, but when Jack looked at her closely, he could still see specks of glitter on her face and glinting off her cast and other places. Daniel and Teal'c had a few sparkles too, and Jack silently cursed the inventor of the stuff.
After the kids beat him ridiculously at Monopoly Jr. (he'd swear the game was rigged against adults if anyone ever asked) they watched movies, and then built an enormous tower out of Lego using all of their bricks. They knocked it down using Sam's remote control car, the bricks flying everywhere much to the kids enjoyment. After that, Jack had them straighten up their rooms, which Daniel and Sam whined about until they saw Teal'c readily doing it, and so they stopped complaining. Teal'c and Daniel finished their room first, and Jack was only mildly surprised to find them helping Sam, who was struggling slightly with her broken arm and messy childish habits.
Things grew quiet, and he went to check on them again later, to find them all tucked into Teal'c and Daniel's room, all curled up with a book. Sam and Daniel were sharing the bottom bunk, a variety of pillows in use to prop up Sam and her arm. Daniel was lying on his back, book held up above him. Teal'c was seated on the top bunk, quietly reading his own selection propped open in his lap. Jack grinned, and left them in peace; glad they'd found something to unwind with.
There were sleepy protests when bedtime came, but the kids went, each giving him a warm hug and expression of love that made it all worth while.
A/N: Well, nothing exciting happening in my life for a change. The cats are relatively well behaved, for them. And my kitchen is slowly coming together. So, for breakfast I had a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese. Yummy. The day before I went out with coworkers after the night shift, to one of the few places in Baltimore (featured in Hopkins: 24/7) where you can actually get a drink early in the morning. Beer. It's not just for breakfast anymore, though you can certainly get a beer with your eggs and home fries if you want it at Jimmy's.