A/N: I love little Danny as much as all of you do - and probably more, since he's based on one of my nephews. But this story does have to end sometime (those of you who have been asking if you can keep Danny when the story's done will just have to fight over him amongst yourselves, I suppose.) Anyway, don't worry - this is the beginning of Jack, Sam, and Danny's 'last night at home,' but as such it's going to be very long and extra-sweet. I'm sorry - many of you have been asking how many chapters are left. I can't really answer that because while the story is complete, I do split chapters up and rearrange things frequently, because they're simply too long for me to tackle editing all at once, and I'm trying to keep them roughly the same size. There are three more chunky chapters about this one evening alone though, so that should be enough for us to be getting on with, right?
Ch 37
Jack wasn't sure if he should mention the whole thing with Sam's dad to her or not. After all, he doubted Teal'c would say anything, but especially if Jack asked him not to. Jacob sure wouldn't - he had to know he'd get an earful from his daughter for not confronting her directly before dragging Jack into Hammond's office. But there were other people on the base who, while they didn't know the specifics, did know that they'd all been in Hammond's office for quite some time - and somebody had probably overheard some of the yelling…
But they'd pretty much come to an understanding, so what was the point of getting Jacob into trouble with his daughter? It would upset Sam, for one, and probably just get Jacob irritated with him once more. He was leaning towards 'don't ask, don't tell' as he pulled into the driveway behind his own truck.
He let himself into the house, expecting to find it in the same state he'd left it in, but a quick peek into the living room revealed that everything had already been cleaned up in there. He raised both eyebrows and headed to the guest bedroom, guessing they were in there playing or something. They weren't, although that bed had been remade and everything tucked back into place in there as well. He checked his own room, then started to get concerned.
Then he heard Danny laughing from what sounded like the kitchen. "What are they doing in there?" he asked himself quietly.
As he headed down the hallway, he could make out their voices. "There, see? You have to start rolling it from this end or it won't be the right shape."
"What the hell…" he muttered, entering the kitchen. He stopped in the entrance, taking in the sight in front of him in surprise. Danny had to be standing on a chair to reach the countertop. Sam, next to him, was helping him roll the crescent rolls he'd got at the store.
"You know what shape these are, Danny?"
"Twiangles."
"That's right, smart boy." She hugged him and lifted him off the chair, setting him on the ground. "Okay, I have to do this part by myself, because the oven's hot."
Jack wondered how long it would take her to notice that she and Danny were no longer alone. Her back to him, she went to the oven and was setting the timer when Danny spotted him and blew his cover. "Dack! Hi Dack! You back! We misted you!" He ran over to him, hugging his legs tightly - his head hitting Jack's thigh rather unpleasantly in the process - and started talking so fast Jack couldn't understand any of it.
"Oh, hi!" Sam said, looking a little flustered as she turned around to greet him. "You snuck up on us."
"Hi… are you making dinner?" Jack asked incredulously.
"Well… I didn't think it would go over very well with Janet if we didn't feed Danny tonight."
"Yeah but…" Danny was putting all his strength into tugging on Jack's hand with both of his. "What is it, little guy?" he finally asked, reluctant to give the little boy his attention at the moment when he seemed to be having a lot of trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that it really was his house he'd just walked into.
"I maked some-fink for you Dack commear." Jack let the little boy lead him over to the fridge, where he pointed to a picture stuck to the freezer, much too high for Danny to have got it there by himself. Jack picked up Danny automatically as he studied the picture. "Wow… did you write this yourself?"
"Yup. Sam showed me to wite Sam, Danny, Dack, and Tea."
"Very impressive," Jack said to Danny, although he meant it to both of them. "So… let me get this straight. Since you guys came back here, you've cleaned up the tornado damage, cooked dinner, which smells really good by the way, and taught a toddler to write?"
"Well… he's really just copying the letters, he can't read what he's doing or anything," Sam said, uncomfortable with how impressed he looked. She usually received less praise for far more impressive things, like blowing up mother ships.
"Dack put-me-down," Danny said quickly, squirming. Jack bent over to set him down, spotting the lower half of his fridge in the process. The sticker-covered half.
"Um, yeah, sorry about that," Sam apologized. "He did it so fast while I was making the beds and…"
Jack shrugged. "I'm sure they'll peel off. I'll wait till he's… back to his normal self. He probably won't care then."
"Probably not," Sam agreed, opening the utensil drawer to set the table.
Jack went to get the plates and called over his shoulder, "You know, you didn't have to do any of this. I mean apart from cooking for all of us without any help, you really didn't have to clean up."
"Well, it was actually easier to clean up than trying to keep track of Danny with all the stuff lying around to hide in or trip over."
"If you say so," he shrugged.
They set the table while they waited for the rolls. As Jack strapped Danny into his high chair, Sam poured the entrée into a serving dish and brought it over, along with the basket of rolls and a large bowl of salad, although she suspected she'd be the only one eating much salad.
"You made all this," Jack stated again as they sat down. She gave him a look and he raised both hands in surrender. "I didn't mean it like that, it's just… well, you don't normally…"
"I know. And, this is about the extent of my culinary skills. You're making way too much out of this, Col…"
"Ack!"
"Jack. As I was saying. All I did was open a bag of salad, roll up the pre-made rolls, and throw a bunch of stuff in the crock pot. You barbecued for everyone - Teal'c and Janet included - the other day, after all." She definitely wasn't going to mention the cake now - not when he was making such a big deal out of rolls and crock-pot casserole.
"What is this exactly? It looks great," Jack said as he spooned food onto Danny's plate first, then his own.
"It's one of Janet's recipes - it's some sort of chicken casserole, I don't know if it has a real name. It's just noodles, chicken, chicken broth, a few veggies, a few kinds of cheese… you just throw it all in there and let it sit. Even I can't screw it up."
Jack took a huge bite without hesitation - at least any outwards signs. The few lingering doubts he'd had quickly faded as well. "Wow," he said after he'd swallowed. "Teal'c is going to be so sorry he turned down my invite tonight."
"Really?" Sam asked, buttering a roll for Danny.
"Really. This is… awesome. All of it."
She glanced at him and had to look away - he was giving her one of those melting-looks that she could never look at for very long without… well, melting.
Jack picked up Danny's little plastic fork and started feeding him after she broke the eye contact. Sam was getting uncomfortable, and if he made too big a deal out of it, she'd probably never cook anything for any of them ever again. So, he searched for a change of topic and said, "So, your tiny little car did a real number on my knees. I haven't used a clutch in a long time."
"You didn't grind the gears down to…"
"Relax, your car is fine. So, Danny, what else did you guys do today?"
Sam ate quietly while Danny chattered away about learning to write everyone's names and coloring pictures for Jack, Teal'c, Janet, and apparently General Hammond as well. When he got past that, he declared, "And I wick't up da icing."
"You did… wait, icing?"
"Yeah fwom da cake we maked."
Jack's eyebrows rose again in unison as he turned his attention back to Sam. "Cake? You made cake too?"
She shrugged. "It was his idea. He wouldn't take no for an answer." It worked out rather well that she was suddenly devoting all of her attention to rapidly pushing around the food on her plate, because she didn't see how long he stared at her with his mouth slightly open.
He had to admit, he thought he'd been doing an okay job at refusing to think about any of their temporary arrangement as potentially anything other than temporary. It certainly didn't help that after all the talk with Jacob and Teal'c today, he'd walked into just about the most extreme domestic setting he could have imagined - so much so that the thought had actually crossed his mind, for a fleeting moment, that he might have somehow stumbled into an alternate reality or something. Now, he couldn't stop thinking about how much he was going to miss having someone - someone specifically Sam - to 'come home to' … or 'with,' preferably… when all this was over.
"Dack! More!" Danny squawked, interrupting Jack's musings.
"What… oh. Sorry little buddy." He scooped up another bite and fed it to Danny, who for once was eating everything on his plate without complaint, even the vegetables she'd hidden in the casserole. "So, ah… sounds like you had a really fun afternoon, huh Danny?" he asked.
"Yeah we saw wights!"
"You saw what?" Jack asked, turning to Sam for a translation. She had dropped her fork and looked very deer-in-the-headlights all of a sudden. "What's wrong?" he asked quickly.
"Nothing," Sam said quickly, clearing her throat and reaching for her water.
"Wights, Dack. Wed and bwue wights fwom da po-weese man," Danny informed him eagerly.
"Hey, we had a deal," Sam objected weakly.
"Well, well, well," Jack said, leaning back in his chair with a smug smile. "Sam… you weren't by any chance trying to bribe a child - this sweet innocent little boy - to keep his mouth shut were you? Because in my experience that very rarely works."
"I gave you a cookie," Sam grumbled to Danny, stabbing a noodle moodily.
Jack couldn't resist teasing her just a bit more, although he was going to let it go a lot sooner than usual - hey, she'd cooked dinner and there was still cake on the way, after all. "So… another ticket to add to your collection, Speed Racer?"
"No, actually. I just got a warning, which is why there's no need to make a huge deal about it…"
"Well, apparently Teal'c isn't the one I should have been worried about driving my truck. And, remind me to tell Daniel he owes me twenty bucks. When he's tall enough to reach the ATM, of course."
"Twenty…" she sighed. "What was the bet this time?"
"Nothing for you to concern yourself with. Just keep doing whatever it is you do to weasel your way out of actually getting tickets when you get pulled over."
"You bet I'd…" she started, then turned her attention to Danny, not above holding his toddler-self responsible for the actions of his grown-up self in this case. "And you bet I would get a ticket?"
He gave her a blank, unconcerned look and asked, "More wolls?"
As Jack buttered another roll for the little guy, Sam couldn't help but defend herself a little bit more. "I don't think I was speeding that much anyway, I was being careful."
"As I recall, your definition of 'not speeding' is driving eight or nine miles over the speed limit."
"Who gets pulled over for only going…"
"Well, that combined with the fact that my speedometer is a little bit off…"
"What?"
"Yeah, did I forget to mention that?" he asked innocently.
"Why is your speedometer off?"
"When I got new tires, I got the bigger ones, so the turn radius is larger than the speedometer is used to. It throws everything off when it counts revolutions."
"That makes sense. I can probably fix that."
"I'm sure you can. While simultaneously baking cakes and teaching toddlers to read… and probably building naquada reactors too. Speaking of which," he said, turning his attention to Danny. "Any little boy who can already read should be able to figure out how to use a toilet. You're lucky Teal'c says you'll be growing up soon or we'd be doing some serious toilet training, mister."
Danny gave him a huge-eyed look of surprise and looked at Sam with a 'help me' look.
She stifled a laugh and pointed out, "He can't read. Not really…"
"Yeah, yeah. It's still impressive."
She cast around for a change of subject, grateful that Jack seemed willing to drop the speeding thing. For now at least. "Well, now that you've heard what we were up to, how did the rest of your day go?"
"Not so great," he said truthfully, distracted by Danny as the boy tried to shovel a heaping fork-full of casserole into his mouth and it fell to his bib instead. Undeterred, Danny picked it up with his fingers and got it in his mouth that way instead. Jack took control of the fork back and turned back to Sam, who had her brow furrowed in concern, obviously trying to figure out what could have gone wrong in the relatively short amount of time since they'd left him at the base. He smiled and said, "It's okay though. It's a lot better now."
Blushing slightly at the soft look in his eyes and tone of his voice, she turned her attention back to her plate, picking up a roll and tearing it into ridiculously small pieces so it would take an extra-long time to eat.
They got back to the meal in silence for a few moments, until Danny said in a very firm little voice, "I wike my diaper. I not using da toy-wet." Sam started giggling at the serious tone and firm scowl on his face, and couldn't stop for a long time.
As Sam wiped her eyes with her napkin, Jack and Danny looked at each other and shrugged. Danny had been deadly serious, so he didn't see why she found it so funny, but as long as he was the center of attention he didn't really care if he was being laughed at. And Jack, well, he was getting way too used to seeing her so relaxed and happy. He was going to miss that sound when they went back to the 'no giggling' rule.
Jack couldn't help but find himself getting irritated with Jacob again for putting all that stuff in his head. Not that it hadn't been there before, but he'd been doing a pretty good job at keeping anything that could possibly be classified 'wishful thinking' at the back of his mind. Now, though, how could he possibly be expected not to think about… stuff he wasn't supposed to think about at all. He knew - probably from spending too much time with the grown-up Daniel - that he wasn't even really irritated at Jacob specifically, it was just misdirected frustration at the situation in general.
Then again, he had two choices. He could continue brooding, which would only make him unhappier and end up putting Sam in a bad mood as well or at least make her uncomfortable - she was already starting to shoot him looks of concern. Or, he could just deal with all that later and enjoy what was probably going to be one of their last nights with Danny as a little boy.
Sam had surprised the hell out of him with all this 'homey' stuff that he wouldn't have expected of her, not that she wasn't capable of it, (as far as he was concerned she had proven many times that there really wasn't anything she couldn't do,) but it had always just seemed like something she wasn't interested in spending time doing when there were tons of other things she had to do and she could just as easily eat one of those old sandwiches in the commissary while she worked - the prepackaged ones that only Sam and Teal'c were brave enough to go near. Anyway, he decided that since he had Sam's shining example of trying something sort-of-but-not-really out of character, he could to do the same thing, and make the very un-Jack-O'Neill decision to choose enjoying the present rather than brooding about the past, future, and all the missed opportunities in between.
"Er… Jack? Everything okay?"
"What?" he asked, looking up quickly; he didn't realize how long he'd been sitting there staring at a random spot on the table.
"With the food?" Sam asked, trying very hard not to look nervous.
He let out a loud, almost barking laugh - he'd automatically thought she meant 'everything okay' in general, as though she were privy to his line of thinking. He smiled a little bit too big. "Everything's great."
"Good," she said, visibly relieved. "I haven't made this in a really long time, not since the last time Cassie was over for a whole weekend, which was… two years ago? Can that be right?"
Jack shrugged. "That's about the time her dance card started getting too full for weekends with me too."
"I guess it's different since she didn't get here until she was almost twelve but…"
"They grow up fast?" Jack guessed.
"Yeah."
He nodded sympathetically. Danny, who had been growing more and more indignant over in his booster seat at the lack of attention he was getting from both of them, finally leaned over the table as much as he could, trying to help himself to another serving. He slid his plate into Jack's glass inadvertently in the process, spilling iced tea everywhere and sending everyone springing into action.
As Sam and Jack both set about cleaning up Danny and the table as best they could, Jack suddenly started laughing again. "What?" Sam asked, reaching for more napkins.
"I was just thinking… yeah, they grow up fast… then they play with mysterious alien doohickeys, get turned back into toddlers, and flood your plate with tea."
She laughed and handed him the double-handful of soaked napkins in her own hands as he took all the mess out to the rubbish. She looked down at Danny, who was grinning, obviously pleased with the result of his actions even though they had been accidental. "You're extremely lucky you're so adorable, mister," she informed him, dabbing at his nose with the last clean napkin. "Now, what were you trying so hard to reach?"
He pointed to the casserole. She smiled and picked up his plate to get him some more. "You know, I'd be a lot more flattered with how much you seem to be enjoying this if I hadn't seen you digging into all kinds of alien goo over the years."
"Ah, but as a toddler he has a much more refined palate," Jack said, returning with more napkins and a clean plate for himself, which he held out hopefully.
Sam raised an eyebrow but filled his plate again as well, remarking, "You didn't seem to think his palate was so refined when he was putting catsup on Chinese food the other day."
He had to laugh at that. "Good point. But the point I was trying to make is that he's right. This is great."
As they sat back down to get back to their meal after the interruption, Sam couldn't resist adding, "I'm telling him you admitted he was right when he's big again."
Jack shrugged, glad they were all back in cheery and not uncomfortable moods. "As long as you back me up about that bet."
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