A/N: It's really sad that my favorite part of tonight's SG-1 was the commercial for Stargate Monday, isn't it?(They really pack that little promo full of O'Neill, don't they?)

Note relevant to this chapter: Come on. You knew I had to do it eventually, right?

Ch 23

"Okay, buddy, here we are," Sam heard from the hallway a moment before the two people she had assumed were still sleeping entered the study. She looked up from her laptop - Danny was still in the process of waking up, doing a sleepy walk that was remarkably similar to his adult two-beers walk. Jack was following, looking like he could use a little more sleep as well. "See, there she is?"

"Sam, I sweepy," Danny announced miserably, rubbing his eyes with his fists.

"Then how come you're not still taking a nap?" Sam asked, coming over to them and picking Danny up.

He snuggled into her and scowled at Jack. "Dack takeded my dino-saw."

"Took, Mr. I-Speak-27-languages," Jack mumbled. "And I told you, I have no idea how I woke up with that filthy thing. Actually, that's not true. I know exactly how I woke up with it. You smacked me in the face with it. What I don't know is why I had it in the first place." He looked at Sam pointedly. "Any ideas as to how that might have happened, Sam?"

She shrugged and said innocently, "You did ask me to tuck you in." She rubbed Danny's back and said, "I didn't know you'd wake up and miss him, Danny. Jack was just borrowing your dinosaur for his own nap, because you weren't using it."

"I was not," Jack mumbled.

"Anyway, we're sorry," Sam told Danny, kissing the top of his head and rocking slightly. He wasn't fully awake yet and was being very cuddly. And he was still sucking his thumb, which was a sure sign that he needed some extra attention.

"Dack sowwy too?"

"Yeah." Jack gave him an apologetic hair ruffle, then said, "Hey, wait, I didn't do anything. Sam's the one who took…"

Loud knocking on the front door drew everybody's attention. "That must be Teal'c," Sam said as they all made their way down the hall towards the door.

"I thought I gave him a key," Jack commented as he reached around Sam and opened the door.

It was Teal'c. And he had Jacob Carter with him.

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Jacob had come as quickly as he could when he heard what had happened to Daniel, although from what George had told him, it didn't sound like he'd be able to do very much to help. He had understood George's point about Daniel not belonging on the base in his current situation, but had been surprised when Teal'c told him they were all staying at Jack's to take care of him together.

Teal'c's comments about how well Daniel and Sam were getting along in particular had pretty much been ignored by Jacob, who felt that while his daughter had many amazing qualities, taking care of a small child was not, as far as he knew, part of her repertoire. Then again, he couldn't really picture Jack or Teal'c doing such a bang-up job of it either.

He only fully appreciated what Teal'c had been trying to prepare him for when he stood on Jack's doorstep, looking at his daughter holding the toddler-version of Daniel, standing in front of her CO with not quite enough space between them. "Dad!" she said happily, smiling at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to help Daniel, if I can," Jacob said, trying to get a better look at the little guy, who looked barely awake but quite comfortable with his cheek smooshed into Sam's shoulder and his thumb in his mouth.

"Great!" Jack said enthusiastically. "Nice of you to stop by, Jake. Come on in." Since both members of the Carter family seemed to have been so taken by surprise that they weren't moving from the awkward clump they made in the doorway, Jack opened the door all the way and stepped aside, nudging Sam into moving out of the way as well with a hand on her elbow. "Teal'c, home just in time for dinner, I see," Jack greeted as Teal'c followed Jacob inside.

Teal'c tilted his head in acknowledgement of the remark and said, "I was securing a ride back here this afternoon when Jacob Carter arrived. I determined it would be best to wait while he was updated on the situation before returning."

"Tea! You back!"

"Greetings, young Daniel," he said, smiling at the little boy, who perked up in Sam's arms as he spotted his largest friend, lifting his head and smiling at Teal'c, but unwilling to be set down just yet. "Did you have an enjoyable excursion?"

Danny looked confused, so Teal'c added, "At the dinosaur center?"

"Yeah, I saw dino-saws! A baby wex and…"

"Here, why don't you show him your new stuff and tell him all about your day," Sam suggested, passing Danny to Teal'c so she could hug her dad hello.

At Danny's direction, Teal'c took him back towards the guest room, where all of his new stuff had ended up. "So, did you find anything when you looked at the trunk, Dad?" Sam asked as they all moved into the den.

"Not a lot. I flipped it over and tried to find an invisible trigger when I heard about you figuring the writing was upside down, but I didn't find anything."

"Oh," Sam said, trying not to look too disappointed. Jack had to stifle a laugh, knowing she'd wanted to do that herself.

"But I talked to George and you don't have to babysit anymore. We can go back to the base now and have a closer look at that trunk."

"Oh," Sam repeated. "That's… that's great, Dad, only…"

"We should eat first," Jack interrupted.

Both Carters turned to look at him. "Well, you're here already, it's almost dinner time, and anything we can scrounge up around here is bound to be better than whatever they're serving in the commissary today, right?"

"Absolutely," Sam agreed, smiling at him and turning to her dad. "And I'm sure you're craving some civilian Earth food."

"I didn't mean to impose on your hospitality, Jack," Jacob said. He still couldn't get the way they'd looked when they'd opened the door out of his head - it was like he was barging in on a quiet family night at home. It made him very uncomfortable.

Jack shrugged. "It's not a problem. We were all planning to eat tonight anyway, I assure you."

Danny ran into the room, scanning it quickly before locating Sam. He stopped in front of her and patted her leg insistently. "Sam I wost my bawoon."

"You did?"

He nodded, leaning into her legs, and pointed at Jack as he spoke accusingly. "I fink Dack did it."

"Hey!" Jack objected. "I did not take your balloon and I did not take your dinosaur either."

"You did."

"Did not."

"Did."

"Not."

"Hey," Sam interrupted. The usual Jack/Daniel banter wasn't really fair on Danny at the moment, although he was still pretty good at holding his own. "Danny, Jack didn't take your balloon. Actually, he fixed it so it wouldn't get lost."

"He did?"

"Yup. While you were taking your nap earlier."

"Where?"

"I bet if you go tell him you're sorry you wrongly accused him of taking it he'll show you where it is," Sam suggested.

Danny glanced over at Jack for a few moments, then made up his mind, running over to Jack and patting his leg instead. "Sowwy Dack. Where my bawoon?"

"I popped it," Jack stated.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Jack."

"Okay, okay, I didn't pop it. It's in the kitchen, come on." He pointed Danny towards the kitchen and left with him.

Sam watched Danny run off into the kitchen ahead of Jack and turned back to her dad. "He's cute isn't he?"

"Adorable," Jacob replied. "So… it's Sam and Jack now?"

Sam took a moment to figure out what he meant and said, "Oh, yeah. Well, it was too confusing to Danny - all the sirs, Majors, Colonels, Carters… he's smart but he's still only two and a half."

"Oh. Right. Listen, it looks like Jack and Teal'c can handle Daniel on their own. Don't you think we should get back to the base and get to work?"

"Sure, Dad. After dinner though - why, what's the matter?"

"Nothing," Jacob said quickly. He was starting to realize that Jack and Sam truly had no idea how different they seemed to him now. He supposed it must have been a gradual, more natural shift for all of them as they cared for Danny together, but for him, coming in at this point as an outsider, the change was drastic and remarkable.

And the truly disquieting thing was that, while he'd always known there was something between his daughter and her CO that shouldn't have been there, they'd always been very obviously aware of it and just as careful of avoiding it as anybody could hope for… like they were more terrified of going anywhere near the thing than anybody else was…

He'd been worried about it after meeting Jack for the first time, but after talking to George and then seeing Jack in action during the whole "hey Dad, want to become a Tok'ra" thing, he'd pretty much accepted George's assessment of the situation and decided if they were ever going to give them something to really worry about, it would have happened a long time ago.

Danny ran back through the room with his balloon, yelling, "Tea! I got it!"

Sam laughed at the little blur of a toddler and said, "Come on, Dad. Do you want something to drink?"

"Uh, no, I'm okay." He followed her into the kitchen, standing by the counter and watching carefully (while trying to look like he wasn't paying them any attention) as Sam reached around Jack into the open refrigerator for a diet soda.

"We're running low on supplies," Jack commented as he studied the contents of his fridge.

"Yeah," Sam agreed.

"I don't really feel like going to the store tonight. How does Chinese sound?"

"Sounds good to me, but we can't give Danny his usual spicy stuff."

"Oh yeah. Well, he can have fried rice and… sweet and sour chicken - you know, without the sauce?"

"Good idea, that'll be just like chicken fingers."

"That's what I'm thinking." Jack shut the fridge and went over to his drawer of delivery menus, rummaging around for the Chinese one. He glanced at Jacob, noticing the man was just sort of standing in the middle of the room. "Have a seat, Jacob, make yourself at home."

Danny ran into the room in just a tee-shirt and diaper, giggling as he amused himself by escaping the large Jaffa chasing him. Teal'c followed, carrying Danny's shorts. "Everybody else has," Jack added lightly as Teal'c captured Danny and carried him off to finish the diaper-changing procedure.

"Clearly," Jacob muttered under his breath.

"I better make some more tea for T," Jack commented as he handed the paper menu to Jacob. "You like Chinese, right?"

"Yeah."

Teal'c joined them in the kitchen again, with a sobbing Danny. "What happened?" Jack and Sam demanded at the same time as Teal'c handed Danny to Sam.

"He inadvertently popped his balloon from the dinosaur center. The noise startled him."

"Poor guy," Sam said quietly, rubbing his back. "Did it scare you?"

He nodded into her shoulder and wailed, "I wannit back!"

"Oh… well Danny, once a balloon pops you can't fill it back up," she tried to explain. "I'm sorry, sweetie, it's gone."

"Noo Sam noooooo…" he sobbed into her shirt.

Noticing that her dad looked like he was getting a headache - which she wasn't actually sure was still possible now that he was with Selmak, but that was irrelevant at the moment… she took Danny out of the kitchen to continue comforting him.

Jack resumed his iced tea making task and said, "Jake, do you want a beer or something?"

"No that's okay."

"Crap diet soda? Water? Juice?"

"I'll just have tea with dinner. Thanks."

Sam returned with a still sad-looking little boy in her arms, but he was no longer crying. She wet a towel in the sink and wiped his face off. "There, that's better, isn't it?" He gave a brave sounding sniffle and nodded.

"Hey, I bet they'll have balloons at the grocery store tomorrow, Danny," Jack offered, ruffling his hair as he passed them.

"Dack?" he asked in a small voice.

"Yeah?"

"Fwy me?"

"Huh?"

"Fwy me! Pwease?"

Jack realized what Danny was saying, but decided to try and cheer him up a bit more first. "Huh? Fwy you?" He poked Danny's tummy before Sam handed him over.

"Yeah, fwy me!"

"Fry you? All right, Sam, get out the frying pan, Teal'c, get the butter!"

"No!" Danny objected, laughing. "FWY me!"

"Oh, fly you! That makes more sense. All right, hold on." He flipped Danny into the obligatory Superman/airplane flying position and flew him out of the room, Danny already giggling again.

"He is very easily distracted at his current age," Teal'c observed.

"Yeah. Oh, speaking of distracted, I'd better order the food." She picked up the cordless phone and turned to her dad. "Dad, what do you feel like?"

Jacob almost answered, 'Like I've entered the Twilight Zone,' but he resisted. Instead, he said, "Beef with broccoli."

"With hot and sour soup?" Sam asked as she dialed.

"Yeah." He then watched his daughter place the largest order of Chinese food he'd ever heard of in his life.

She hung up the phone as Jack came back in the kitchen, alone. "He wants you now, he's trying to open that new puzzle. Did you order the food?"

"Yeah. Fifteen minutes," she said with a smirk. They both laughed. Jacob looked confused. "This place always says fifteen minutes," Sam explained to her dad. "And it's always at least forty-five."

"Hilarious," Jacob said as Sam left to go help Danny with his puzzle.

Teal'c looked at the clock, promptly excused himself, and left the kitchen. "Does he have a date or something?" Jacob joked.

Jack laughed. "Yeah… his ass, my chair, and the TV. It's time for 'Bewitched.'"

"Bewitched?" Jacob asked incredulously. "You're joking."

"He loves it," Jack said with a shrug. "And I've learned not to try to come between Teal'c and his Nick-at-Nite."

Jacob nodded, and they lapsed into silence again. Jack tried to think of something to entertain his unexpected guest and said, "So… you've never been here before, have you?"

"No. I usually don't leave the base anymore, unless I'm going to visit Mark."

"How's he doing?"

"Good. Real good."

"Good."

"Yeah."

"So… want the fifty cent tour?"

"Um, sure."

"All right, well, you've seen the kitchen…" They headed back into the den, Jack making an over-large gesture to showcase Teal'c, who was sitting in the biggest chair with his attention on the television. "And you've passed through the den already, which as you can see comes complete with a former first prime of Apophis…" Jack stopped his imitation of Tour Guide Ted to look down at Sam and Danny, who were sitting across from each other on the floor in front of the coffee table, the small amount of floor space between them littered with puzzle pieces.

Sam was trying to explain to Danny that it might be a good idea to turn all of the pieces upright first before they began trying to piece them together. Danny was uninterested. He also didn't seem very impressed with her suggestion that they start with edge pieces, or separate pieces they'd already tried from new ones. Apparently Daniel Jackson had not embraced the scientific method before the age of three.

Tour temporarily forgotten, Jack laughed quietly as Danny suddenly 'fit' two pieces together by mashing them with his little fist until they were stuck. "That won't work, sweetie," Sam explained quietly, obviously trying not to interrupt Teal'c's television show. "See how the leaves are different here and the pieces don't fit?"

"Dey fit now," Danny pointed out logically.

"Well… they sort of look like they fit, yes, but they don't really. And if you make these two fit, the rest of the puzzle won't work either, see, because these two are meant to go with other pieces…"

"Oh." Danny tried to twist the mismatched pieces apart, bending them both in the process but not dislodging them. "Here, Sam. Fix." He leaned over the puzzle and passed the crumpled pieces to her.

Jack had grown used to seeing Sam's blonde head and Daniel's slightly darker one huddled over various blueprints, texts, and schematics over the years - the two of them were often the personification of two heads being better than one. Now Jack couldn't help but find it funny, watching them devote the same amount of attention to a brightly colored dinosaur puzzle as they usually reserved for saving the world.

While Sam tried to separate the pieces and bend them back into place, Jack realized he'd stopped his own tour and figured it was time to continue. "And here on the floor are the two smartest people on the planet… who, at the moment, are doing a child's puzzle… of no doubt great cosmic importance."

Sam looked up from the floor where she and Danny were working, smiled at them both, and shrugged cheerfully. "Hey, I'm doing it upside down."

"Carry on then, Major. Now if you'll walk this way, sir…" Jack turned back to Jacob and started walking backwards, with added dramatic hand gestures. "And we're walking, we're walking…"

"Actually, Sam, maybe you could show me what you've been working on, so I can compare it to what the guys at the base have on the trunk?" Jacob suggested.

"Sure, it's all right there on my computer," she said absently, her attention already back on Danny. "Will you show him, Jack?"

"Sure, I'll make it the next stop. Come on, Jake." He showed him down the hall, indicating what the various rooms they passed were, and led him into the study.

"There's the computer…" He opened it up and turned it on, rummaging through the various hand-written notes lying around until he found the disk he was fairly certain Sam had illegally brought home. "This is Daniel's… I guess alien-language dictionary. Sort of. Anyway, it's got most of his notes on it." He handed it to Jacob and picked up another disk. "This one's the stuff from Daniel's that Sam thinks might be relevant to the trunk." He typed in the password on the computer and then showed him where the folder was she'd been saving everything under. "Uh, that's about all I know, apparently the rest of its supposed to be self-explanatory."

"Thanks," Jacob said, not quite sure what to make of any of this. The only thing he knew for certain was that he found this whole situation… unsettling.

"Sure. Shout if you need anything." Jack clapped him on the shoulder and left him to his work, since he seemed so eager to get started.

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