Ch 36

The cake was in the oven, and Sam was trying to clean up the kitchen. Danny had copied out "To Jack love Danny" on the picture he'd colored, and Sam had helped him put it on the refrigerator with a Homer Simpson magnet.

Still intrigued with the novelty of learning to write people's names, Danny was still keeping himself entertained with his crayons, the notebook, and his coloring books. He was finishing up a picture for Teal'c and already planning his next endeavor.

"You're going to run out of people to make pictures for soon," Sam commented as she loaded the dishwasher, surprised at how long Danny was sticking with the same task. "You'll be making them for General Hammond and my dad before long."

"I will make one for da Gen… Gen'wall," he agreed, fumbling slightly over the less-familiar word. "And da doc."

"Not my dad though?" Sam asked curiously.

"Nope."

"Why?"

"Sam's-daddy is gwumpy."

Sam laughed. So he'd picked up on that too, huh. One thing surprised her though. "Jack's not grumpy too?" she asked, remembering how when they'd first found him, Danny had been scared of Jack because he'd yelled before realizing Danny was there.

"No. Dack is funny."

She raised her eyebrow, surprised that the toddler had picked up on the differences between Jack's occasional affected 'grumpiness,' and her dad's, which was unfortunately real. She ruffled his hair affectionately and kissed the crown of his head - no need to bother holding back on the cuddling when there weren't grown members of her team around. "You're a smart boy, Daniel Jackson."

The timer went off, so she checked on the cake. "Looks done to me," she said with a shrug, poking at it experimentally with one finger. She set it on the counter and checked the box. "Wait till it cools… this is going to take forever. Danny, I'm going to go clean up your fort and stuff, are you going to stay right there and keep coloring?"

"Yup. And witing."

"Good boy."

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Teal'c glanced up from his work with one raised eyebrow as Jacob muttered something to himself and tossed his pencil aside. "Are you having difficulty with a translation, Jacob Carter?"

"What? No. I wish." He picked the pencil back up, then set it down, turning to Teal'c. "You know how people complain about the annoying little voice in their head?"

"Indeed."

"Well, in my case it's a very legitimate complaint. Selmak's pissed off about… something."

"You are referring to your meeting with General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill."

"Yeah… Jack told you about that?"

"He was most displeased."

"Yeah, well, so was I."

"I understand."

"You do?" Jacob asked, surprised. Teal'c's loyalty to O'Neill above anybody else was pretty much indisputable.

"I believe I do. It is often very difficult for me to reconcile the situation I have put my family in and the sacrifices my decision to fight with the Tau'ri has meant for them. I believe you are merely trying to protect your daughter from the possibility of a similar situation developing that would require her to make an equally difficult choice."

"Well… I guess I am, yeah."

"However, I also believe that O'Neill and Major Carter are doing the same thing. Perhaps in a different way, but they often handle situations in ways that I would not have expected but are nonetheless effective."

"What do you mean?"

"You are forcing them to make connections between this experience, caring for young Daniel Jackson, with a possible future relationship between them that would require one or both of them to make professional sacrifices for personal happiness."

"It's not like I don't want my daughter to be happy, Teal'c, but…"

"That was not a point I intended to make at this time. I would merely like to point out that in forcing this issue you are making it harder for them to deny the connection and its implications at all, which for them is a more effective strategy."

"Living in denial is…"

"I do not believe that either of them has failed to see any of this. Nor do I believe you have anything to be concerned about at this time. It is precisely the decision not to let this experience change things between them that is allowing them to be so comfortable with the current situation. While you may both be working towards the same goal, your strategy is undermining the effectiveness of the one they have grown accustomed to over many years."

Jacob was silent for a long time, so much so that Teal'c prompted, "Jacob Carter."

"Sorry, Teal'c. Selmak was just… agreeing with you vehemently. And doing the Tok'ra equivalent of chanting, 'I told you so' over and over."

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"Oh dear," Sam groaned as she checked on Danny in the kitchen. "So much for 'good boy.'"

"Wook Sam I putting my dino-saw tickers on da frigerator for Dack!" Danny declared with a big grin.

Sam looked at the refrigerator door with a sigh. From his eye-line and down, he had taken most of the stickers out of his sticker book and done a little redecorating. He had one on his shirt and the back of his hand as well.

"Sam? Wook!"

"Oh, I'm looking." She finally had to just chuckle and shake her head. Jack might not be too happy with it, but Danny had meant well. How could he be expected to understand the difference between putting a picture on the refrigerator with magnets and using stickers? Besides, Sam had just spent the better part of half an hour cleaning up Jack's mess, so she'd just let him deal with the stickers on the fridge later. "That was sweet of you to share your stickers, Danny," she finally said. "Now, that cake should be ready for icing, want to help?"

"Yeah!"

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"Hey, Teal'c can I talk to you in the hall for a minute?" Jack asked, poking his head into Sam's lab but not wanting to be around Jacob any more than he had to be at the moment.

Teal'c, sensing this, decided to 'play dumb,' as O'Neill would say. "You may speak to me all you wish, O'Neill. However, I am not at a point to leave my work at the moment. Please, enter."

Jack slunk inside, not looking in Jacob's direction. "Fine. I was just wondering if you're coming home with me tonight or if you're going to stay here and keep working."

"As much as I would enjoy another evening with young Daniel Jackson, I believe it would be unfair to leave Jacob and Selmak with the burden of the work."

"Okay. I kind of figured you'd say that, I just wanted to invite you. Make sure you know how much I love your company… oh woops, I guess I shouldn't have said that in front of Jacob, he'll probably report us to Hammond now."

"Jack, could I talk to you for a second?" Jacob asked, ignoring the dig.

"Don't you want to talk to General Hammond first and have him call me into his office?" Jack asked sarcastically.

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Would you just shut up and listen to me, Jack?"

Jack shrugged. Teal'c gave him that 'listen or I'll make you listen' look, so he nodded reluctantly and made a 'go ahead' gesture with his hand.

"Look… maybe I could have handled this… differently. I'm not saying I was wrong - because I'm not stupid and I know damn well that George deliberately worded those questions so you wouldn't have to lie to him, but… I guess I should have given you and Sam a little more credit in letting you do things your own way. No matter how… strangely you go about it."

"Well, gee Jake, that almost sounded like an apology."

"Don't push it, Jack."

"Right."

"Just… be careful, okay? The more blurry you let the lines get temporarily, the more difficult you'll probably find it to draw them out again in a couple of days."

Jack scratched at the back of his head and sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, the man did have a point. And however misguided his approach might have been, Jack knew Jacob did only have what he considered to be his daughter's best interest at heart, and he couldn't blame him a bit for that. "I know. I'm not… look, Jacob, what I'm about to say is sort of borderline on giving you ammo to report me to Hammond again, but if it makes you feel better… all that line stuff isn't up to me, okay? You've got nothing to worry about, it's not… I just respect the perimeters, okay, I'm not in charge of drawing them out."

He cleared his throat nervously, somewhat surprised he'd just admitted that to Jacob after all they'd been through since he arrived. He nodded at Teal'c and said, "Well, uh, I better get going. See you kids later."

"He does know that between me, you, and Selmak we've got a couple thousand years on him, right?" Jacob asked lightly once Jack was gone and he'd taken several moments to recover from the unexpected admission.

"He does."

They went back to work, although Teal'c suspected Jacob had something he wanted to ask. Finally, Jacob spoke up again. "Teal'c? What Jack just said? Is that true?"

"I believe it is."

Jacob nodded and went back to work. Teal'c watched him carefully for a moment and then said, "And I believe, should you require further proof that nothing will transpire between them, that Major Carter is unaware of this."

"Really?"

Teal'c nodded and got back to work. If nothing else, hopefully he had helped to restore the conditions for Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill to continue persisting in their 'stale mate.' Teal'c had to admit that when his teammates had taught him the game of chess, he had not understood the purpose of a 'stale mate' - the Jaffa as a people did not consider such tactics a viable option. Now, however, he began to see that it could ultimately serve its purposes.

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"Okay, okay, that's enough for now," Sam objected, taking the icing bowl and spoon away from Danny. He was licking up all the leftover icing, and she really didn't want him getting any more sugar in his system before dinner. She knew he'd already had at least three cookies over the course of the day, as well as a Popsicle, and who knew what else. Plus grapes and apple juice… fructose was still sugar, after all.

She set the bowl in the sink and turned back around to Danny, who had solved the problem of having his bowl and spoon taken away by licking all the icing he could off of his hands and arms. She sighed and put the cake away, surveying Danny and herself. While he was certainly the messier of the two - he had chocolate icing smears on his face, shirt, arms, neck, and one ear, she still could do with a bit of a clean-up herself. In addition to a few cake mix and icing smears, there was a Danny-sized chocolate handprint on her tee-shirt.

She pried his sticky hand away from his mouth, laughing. "All right, sweetie, you're not a cat. Let's go get cleaned up like human beings, and get in some clean clothes for dinner - although I'm sure yours will end up right back in the laundry with these after we eat."

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