Ch 38

Sam and Jack cleared the table before dessert, while Danny banged on his plastic tray with his fork and chanted, "Cake! Cake! Cake!" loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.

Jack laughed as he got out dessert plates. "Just get two," Sam called as she got out the cake and a knife.

"You're not having any? But you made it," Jack said, confused.

"I know, but I'm stuffed from dinner. I'll have some eventually, just not right now."

"Okay…" He took the knife and started cutting a huge piece of cake for himself.

"Okay, Danny's piece needs to be about a quarter of that. He already had lots of the icing while we were making it," Sam said, amazed that he still had room for that much cake after all the dinner he'd just put away. "And I make no guarantees on that anyway, so you might want to start with a smaller piece."

"Nah, it looks great. Everything else was delicious." He cut a smaller piece and got a cup of milk for Danny.

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaam! Caaaaaaaaaaaaake!" Danny called loudly.

Sam, who was waiting for the coffee to finish, started to answer, but Jack said, "I'll go let him start eating before he figures out how to get out of the chair" and left with both hands full.

Sam was pouring the coffee when the phone rang. She checked the Caller ID and saw that it was Janet, so she answered. "Hi Janet."

"Hey, Sam. I didn't see much of any of you today so I wanted to see how everything was going."

"Oh, everything's fine. Danny was…"

"Who is that?" Jack called.

"It's just Janet!"

On the other end of the phone, Janet snorted. "Just Janet. Thanks a lot."

"You know I didn't mean it like that. And anyway, I should be thanking you…"

While Sam continued her phone conversation in the kitchen, Jack tried to get Danny to stop chanting, "DammitDannit" over and over, which had begun as soon as he overheard the doctor's name. Jack finally solved the problem by shoving the first mouthful of cake into Danny's mouth.

The little boy closed his mouth around the cake in surprise, chewed for a few moments, then made a terrible face and spit it out.

"Uh-oh," Jack said quietly, glancing nervously into the kitchen. "What's wrong with it?"

Danny was too busy drinking his milk to answer, so Jack took a bite himself and chewed thoughtfully. It wasn't really bad, it was just a little bit... raw... in the middle. It made the cake a little gooey, and gave it kind of a strange texture, but the flavor was still okay.

Still, Jack could easily imagine Sam focusing on the not-quite-perfect cake and completely forgetting about everything else she'd done… the solution was obvious. He had to keep her from finding out that there was anything wrong with the cake. That was easy… except for having Danny as a witness and therefore necessary partner-in-crime. And the kid's track record with secrets was now against him after the whole speeding ticket incident… this had to be done carefully.

Jack inspected his own slice of cake carefully and realized that the first inch and a half or so, under the icing, was just fine. So he quickly cut that part off Danny's piece, transferred the rest to his own plate, and said, "All right, Danny, try it now."

"No," Danny said firmly, crossing his arms.

In between huge bites of cake, as Jack now had to dispose of most of Danny's piece in addition to his own before Sam got off the phone with Janet, he lowered his voice and leaned closer towards Danny. "Listen - we don't want Sam to find out you don't like the cake, okay?"

"Why?"

"She spent a long time making it because you wanted her to. You don't want to hurt her feelings and make her sad, do you?" Danny's eyes widened and he shook his head firmly. "Okay. The top part is good, with the icing. You just eat that and be quiet, and if she asks you if you like it, you say yes, because you like the top part, so you're not even lying. Got it?"

"Got it Dack," he said, nodding seriously.

"Good boy." Jack ruffled Danny's hair and continued eating. "Okay, shhh, here she comes," Jack said suddenly, hearing Sam saying goodbye to Janet on the phone. He stuck a forkful of mostly icing into Danny's mouth so it would take him a while to chew and swallow, and put another over-large bite in his own mouth, frowning as he realized he'd accidentally used the same fork again and got a little milky drool with it as well, which definitely did not help the flavor at all.

So it was that when Sam rejoined them, she was surprised to see that they were both apparently trying to eat as much cake as possible in as little time. "Wow," she said, stopping behind Danny's chair and stroking his hair absently. "It looks like you like it."

"It's delicious!" Jack declared after swallowing. "We love it, don't we Danny?" He held his breath hopefully.

Danny picked his milk back up and said, "Yup!"

"It looks like you must have inhaled yours," she said, noticing that Danny was almost completely finished. "Here, why don't I help you so Jack can finish his own piece by himself," Sam suggested, pulling a chair up to the other side of Danny's chair and picking up the little fork on his plate. "You really like it?" she asked once more, biting her lip.

"Yeah we do. Everything was wonderful, Sam. Right, Danny? What are you going to say to Sam for cooking such a great dinner?" Jack crossed his fingers under the table.

Danny grinned - icing and cake outlining his mouth - and said, "Fanks Sam we wuv you!"

She returned the smile and wiped his face off. "I love you too, Danny. And don't forget, you helped with everything."

"What did the doc want?" Jack asked, not wanting to spend too much time pressing Danny to keep up the little cover story.

"Not a lot. She just wanted to check in, see how Danny was. She might be asking for verification that I cooked tonight, by the way."

"Well, she'll have to take my word for it because there aren't a whole lot of leftovers," Jack said, groaning slightly as he got to his feet to clear away their plates. He was extremely full.

"Yeah… two adults and a child… Janet told me that casserole served six people."

"You'd have to make two of them if Teal'c had been here then," Jack remarked as Sam took Danny's bib off and set him on his feet.

He immediately ran into the living room, calling "Mon Dack, mon Sam wet's pway!"

"I'm too full to play," Jack groaned, patting his stomach as they followed the energetic boy nonetheless.

Danny bounced back over to him, demanding, "Fwy me!"

Still grumbling, Jack airplane-flew him around the room, crash-landing him on the couch and crashing next to him for a bit of a break. That turned out to be a big mistake, as Danny interpreted it as an invitation to jump on him. Sam picked Danny up and shot Jack a look of sympathy. "Danny, let's play quietly for a while."

"Why?"

"Because, you'll hurt Jack's tummy if you keep jumping on him and making him throw you around, and we've had way too much vomit in our lives lately, I don't think we need anymore from either of you. Do you want to do a puzzle again?" she asked hopefully.

"No. I will get my Wegos."

"Good idea," she said, putting him down. He ran off down the hallway.

"Thanks," Jack managed.

"Sure. You can tell him no, you know."

"Oh yeah, you're one to talk. And besides, Teal'c said they'll have the trunk figured out in two days, so we probably won't have much more time with the little bugger." Sam got a sad look in her eyes that Jack really didn't want to be responsible for. He smirked and added lightly, "So I've got to get all the blackmail material out of him I can in the meantime."

She smiled, although she was rolling her eyes as she did it, and said, "Oh please. You've loved every minute you've spent with him."

"Hmph."

Danny came back in dragging his big tub of Legos. He dumped them in front of the coffee table and ran off again. "How many of those does he have?" Jack asked.

"Just one."

Jack glanced at the clock. "Hey, it's time for the Simpsons."

He turned on the television, but they were both more interested in watching Daniel. He dragged his Egyptology book from the bedroom and settled himself on the floor, found a picture of a step pyramid, and began trying to reconstruct it with Legos. After a few moments, he turned back to them. "Sam I need help pease wiff dis."

She joined him on the floor once more and started helping him, ignoring Jack's sarcastic, "You can tell him no, Sam."

Jack could tell that his comment that they wouldn't have much time left with Danny was starting to get to her as the evening wore on. She continued to play happily with Danny and responded to Jack's attempts to be funny, but she was stroking Danny's hair more than usual and got a slightly sad look in her eyes every now and then.

Jack picked up one of the disposable cameras Teal'c had left lying around and snapped a few pictures of the construction process - grown up Daniel might find it funny that he'd been interested in pyramids while he was still in diapers.

"Done!" Danny declared triumphantly, getting to his feet next to it - they had used all the Legos and it reached his chest. "Dack, come wook! Take a pitcher!"

"A picture?" Jack corrected as he rolled off the couch with a slight groan and came over, dutifully admiring the Lego creation. He snapped a picture of the finished creation, with Danny stood next to it, and said, "Wonderful pyramid. Very… triangular." He patted Danny on the head and tried to do the same to Sam, but she swatted his hand away lightly. "So, is this one a landing pad for UFOs, or just a pyramid?"

"Maybe teeny tiny UFOs," Sam said, accepting the hand he offered to help her to her feet. "Although I think those are only the smooth pyramids, not the step ones… whatever they're called. I guess we'll have to ask him when… when he's big again."

The sad look was trying to creep back into her eyes, so Jack thought fast and said, "Hey, Danny? You ready for your bath?" It was pretty impossible to be sad while trying to give a squirming toddler a bath.

"Yeah!" He immediately started trying to pull his tee-shirt off right in the middle of the living room. "Sam! Dack! Help!" he squealed dramatically as his head got stuck in the neck hole.

Laughing, Sam pulled his shirt off for him and glanced over at Jack. "I'm assuming you want me to supervise?" Jack would do it if he needed to, but if given the choice, he was still a little uncomfortable bathing Daniel. "Danny you don't have to take your pants off right now," she added, a little too late. When he started pulling at the sticky tabs on his diaper, she picked him up to stop him, not wanting him completely naked until he was ready to go directly into the tub, in case of 'accidents.'

"You're just so much better at it than I am," Jack said, patting her on the shoulder before going back over to the couch, where he made a show of getting all comfortable again and picked up the remote.

"Right," she said, smiling. "Come on, Danny."

"Can I haff bubbles?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure. Let's go."

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