A/N: This one should cheer up all the Jacob fans a bit.

Ch 29

Sam glanced at her watch for what had to be the millionth time. It was a quarter past noon, and Jack and Danny still hadn't arrived for lunch. She had been expecting them to show up right at noon or maybe even a little before. She wasn't worried, of course, but she would like to see them. It would give them all an excuse to get out of the lab, and she desperately needed a break. And there was only so much you could do with a toddler, right? She was expecting them to both be ready for a change of scenery by lunchtime.

Finally, her dad went to go drop in on the linguists and see what progress they were making. She took the opportunity to dial Jack's cell phone without being scowled at. It rang several times before he finally answered. "O'Neill."

"Hi."

"Hey."

That was a very stressed-out sounding 'hey.' "Is everything okay? We were kind of thinking you guys would be up here by now."

"Yeah, we got a little side-tracked," Jack said. "Danny lost his dinosaur."

"Oh no. Where?"

"Well, if I knew that it would be a lot easier to find. We've been going back over our tracks. I've checked the house and my truck… We checked every square inch of the park we covered, we went back to the grocery store and asked the manager to check the lost and found… He has no idea when he last had it and I'm so used to seeing him with it I don't know either. I'm starting to think it somehow ended up in the bed of the truck rather than the cab and maybe blew out. We're heading back to the house and I'm keeping an eye out on the side of the roads, but…"

"Is he really upset?"

"Well, actually, he's taking it pretty well so far. I kind of made looking for it into a game… but I don't know how long that's going to hold out and when he gets tired…"

"Yeah…"

"Do you think it's possible he lost it sometime yesterday? Do you remember him having it in bed?"

"Yeah, I know he had it this morning when I woke up… could it maybe still be in the bed? Tangled in the sheets or the comforter?"

"No, I already checked that."

"Oh. I have no idea then. They did have lots of other ones at the toy store though, I could go get one and tell him I accidentally brought it with me to work or something," Sam suggested.

Jack chuckled. "That won't work. Believe me."

"Okay, well, how about…"

"Hang on, you just gave me an idea. I'm pulling in the driveway, I'll call you back."

"Good luck." Sam hung up the phone and turned back to the work bench - her dad and his scowl were back, having returned while she was on the phone. She offered a slightly-nervous smile and went back to work, resisting the urge to tell him if he wasn't careful his face might freeze like that.

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"Come on Danny boy, there's one spot left in the house we forgot to check," Jack said as he quickly got Danny out of his car seat and carried him back into the house.

"Where dat?"

"The dryer."

"Da dwyer?" Danny asked skeptically.

"Yeah…"

Jack set him down and walked briskly to the laundry room, remembering how hastily he'd taken to doing the laundry whenever he had a chance… and the two or three loads he'd already done this morning. He checked the washing machine first, which was empty, then opened the dryer and pulled out its contents hopefully.

Dumping them in a nearby basket, he and Danny both started searching. There, amidst the towels, was one orange and yellow triceratops.

"Toppy!" Danny screamed happily, hugging the dinosaur to him ecstatically. He grinned at Jack and said, "Fanks Dack for finding him."

"Yeah, no problem. I'm just glad we did."

Danny pulled the stuffy away from his face and wrinkled his nose. "He smells funny."

Jack took the toy and smelled it, then laughed. "Yeah, that's called 'being clean.' He had a bath, just like you." Danny decided that was a good explanation and hugged it to him again. "Try to keep up with him this time, okay?"

"I will," Danny promised.

"All right. Well, now that we've avoided that crisis, let's go have some lunch."

"Wiff Sam and Tea?"

"Yup… oh, I better call her."

"Why?"

"She was worried about Toppy too," Jack explained, picking Danny back up and heading out to the truck yet again.

"Can I talk to her pease?"

"Yeah, sure. You can call her on the way."

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Sam was just trying to explain to General Hammond and everyone else why her CO was late reporting in when the phone rang. "That's probably them," she said as she picked it up. "Carter… yeah, put him through," she laughed.

"Sam?"

"Hi Danny."

"I pushed da button," he said proudly.

She chuckled and guessed, "On the phone?"

"Yeah, Dack showed me. Two wike me cuz I'm two. Sam, I wost my Toppy but Dack finded him!"

"Yeah? That's great! Where did he find him?"

"In da dwyer."

"The what?"

"Da dwyer. Toppy got a baff wike me!"

Sam realized what must have happened and laughed. "Wow, well, that's great. I'm so glad you found him. Are you on your way up here now?"

"Yup. Gotta-go byebye!" Danny called cheerfully before Sam got the dial tone.

Sam was a bit surprised at the abrupt end to the conversation - she'd been expecting the phone to be handed over to Jack at some point. But it was pretty cute, having Danny call…

"Major Carter?" Hammond prompted.

"Yes, sir. They'll be here soon."

"I trust they have located the missing dinosaur?" Teal'c asked.

"Yes… I didn't quite get the whole story from Danny but apparently it was in the dryer."

"An unlikely location indeed."

"Yeah, I still don't know how it ended up there… although I'm guessing Colonel O'Neill's not too happy about having to search the park and the grocery store when apparently it was in the house the whole time."

"It could be worse, Major," Hammond said. "I remember one summer, we were out on the lake all day, and we were halfway home before Tessa realized she'd left her blankie on the boat with the lifejackets."

"Really?" Sam asked, smiling at him. She already knew the answer, but she asked anyway. "And did you go back?"

"Of course," Hammond stated matter-of-factly. "That reminds me of another story, as a matter of fact, Jacob… something about a lost bunny rabbit at an air show in Texas?"

Sam turned to her dad in surprise. Stuffed bunny rabbit… "Mr. Buns?" she asked. "Dad, I lost Mr. Buns at an air show?"

"Yeah," Jacob said, smiling as he remembered the incident. "You were only about three, I'm not surprised you don't remember it."

"Well, I remember it," George said, hoping the memory would lighten his friend's mood somewhat. "And I know you do too, Jake. You tell the story."

"What is an air show?" Teal'c asked.

"It's a kind of thing… I don't think they're as big now as they used to be. They're held at fair grounds, you know. People bring their families, there are all different kinds of planes flying and everything. The Blue Angels, all that stuff," Sam explained.

"This one was in San Antonio," George said. "So the Air Force was a big part of it. I was flying one of the planes in formation, but Jake was just there with you guys."

"Mark was completely uninterested," Jacob said, taking over the story. "But Sam, I remember your mom was worried you were going to hurt your neck looking straight up in the air so much."

The story had to be paused as Danny ran into the room followed by Jack, diaper bag over one shoulder. Danny was waving Toppy over his head as he ran, calling, "Wook, Sam, Toppy! My dino-saw!"

"Yeah, he looks as good as new," Sam said, hugging him as best she could while he hugged her legs. "Better than new, actually."

"Yeah, I think his trip through the spin cycle did him a world of good," Jack agreed, setting the bag down on the table and perching on a vacant stool.

Everyone greeted everyone else, although Danny was the only one who made his way through the group, hugging Teal'c and then General Hammond, to the General's obvious surprise. He still wasn't about to hug 'Sam's Daddy,' however, obviously still blaming him for her recent absence. He crept back over to Jack instead.

Jack picked him up and settled him on top of the table, an arm around him loosely just in case. "So, we've had our own brand of excitement today, what have you kids been up to?" Jack asked.

"Jacob Carter was about to tell us of the time Major Carter lost her Mr. Buns," Teal'c informed him.

Jack laughed/coughed all in one and asked, "Her what?"

"Mr. Buns, sir. My favorite stuffed animal when I was a kid."

"Ah. Yes, of course. And what sort of animal was this Mr. Buns?"

"He was a bunny," she informed him.

"Ah. Of course he was. Please, don't let us interrupt."

"That's okay…" Jacob started.

"No, no, we want to hear all about it, don't we, Danny?"

"Bout what?"

"When Sam was little like you she lost her favorite stuffy like you just lost Toppy."

"You did?"

"Apparently, yes I did. I don't remember it though. Dad?" she asked hopefully - she really did want to hear the story. So did Danny - he turned his full attention to Jacob Carter, swinging his dangling legs and hugging his own treasured toy with both arms.

Jacob gave a small smile and shook his head. "Well… like I said, you were three. Mark was eight or so, so we went to the air show mainly because we thought he'd like it. He didn't. He was just as uninterested in airplanes as your mom was - she could take them or leave them, it didn't really matter. We probably would have just called it a day and gone home but you liked it."

"I found you guys in the crowd because you were sitting on your dad's shoulders," Hammond put in.

"Yeah, that's right," Jacob remembered. "We were afraid you'd get lost in the crowd because you were looking up in the air the whole time. You weren't watching where you were going at all, so I had to carry you."

"It was the middle of August in San Antonio so it was about a hundred and five degrees too, by the way," Hammond added.

"Yeah. So anyway, we had a good time. You liked watching all the planes and everything. But when we were getting in the car to go home you realized you didn't have… Mr. Buns… so we had to go look for it. We checked around our seats in the bleachers first, then had to keep looking for a long time. It wasn't returned to the lost and found, it wasn't in the women's toilet from when your mom had taken you in there… we were pretty much convinced it was gone for good. We ran into George again and he and his wife helped us look… we found it, luckily."

"How?" Danny asked, wide-eyed, caught up in the story.

Hammond laughed and said, "That's the best part."

"George…"

"Oh, come on, Jake, it was classic. He pulled rank on the announcer and got on the PA and issued an APB for the thing."

"Smart tactic," Jack said.

Sam was touched that her dad had gone to all that trouble so she wouldn't lose her bunny. While she didn't remember the specific event, she certainly remembered having Mr. Buns well after three years old. As a matter of fact, she was fairly certain he was up in one of the trunks in her attic.

"So, I take it somebody found it after you made the announcement?" Jack asked.

George answered, realizing his friend was reluctant to own up to the lengths he had gone to for something called 'Mr. Buns.' "It was very funny, actually… he was describing the rabbit when Sam, you grabbed the microphone from him and told everybody his name and that he was three like you, and it was almost time for his nap or something like that… whatever you said, it was very cute. Anyway, it actually worked."

"Yeah. Another kid found it and his parents took it to the lost and found," Jacob explained.

"I can't believe I don't remember that," Sam said, smiling at her dad and hugging him. "Dad, that's so sweet."

Jacob, despite his earlier foul mood, found himself unable to resist softening up a bit between the cheerful toddler, Selmak's constant input on everything, recalling the old story, and his daughter looking so happy because of something he'd done - even if it was over thirty years ago when he'd done it.

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