A/N: Yeah, I know this one is mean. But hey, I've finally given into some nagging... I mean 'helpful criticism,' and named the chapters so people can go back and find things easier if they like.
Ch 40: Talking Pigs VS Flying Monkeys
When Sam emerged from the guest bedroom, showered, clean, dry, and warm in her pajamas, she wasn't surprised to find both Jack and Daniel in the living room. She was, however, surprised to find them both standing in front of the television, facing each other, both with firm looks of determination on their faces, both clutching movies to their chests.
"Come on, Danny, just give it a try. I promise you'll like it. There's singing and dancing, and a lion, a scarecrow, a tin man, a girl named Dorothy, a little dog… a witch, flying monkeys…"
"Monkeys don't fwy," Danny stated seriously.
"Yeah, and pigs don't talk," Jack countered.
"Babe can, he is a special piggy!"
"Yeah, well… these are special flying monkeys! I promise, this movie is way better than that one."
Danny looked so utterly disbelieving that any movie could be better than his precious 'piggy movie' that Sam, who had been trying not to be noticed, couldn't take it any longer, and laughed out loud, drawing both their attention.
In concert, they both started trying to get her on their side.
"Sam, tell Danny how good this movie is."
"Piggy movie! Sam piggy movie, wet's watch dis!"
"It is a good movie Danny," Sam acknowledged when they had both stopped to hear her answer. "But… I'm not sure he's old enough to watch it, Jack."
"Come on, it's not even rated…"
"Yeah, but don't you think it will scare him?"
"The grandma sheep gets murdered and the pig almost gets shot in the face by the farmer in his movie!"
"Yeah, but…" Sam sighed. He did have a point. And it was a pretty long movie, Danny would probably be asleep thirty minutes into it… and she had to admit, she'd much rather watch 'The Wizard of Oz' than watch 'Babe' again.
"Danny, I think you'll like this one if you give it a chance. Let's watch it for a little bit and if you don't like it we can turn it off okay?" Sam suggested.
He thought for a moment and said, "Okay Sam I will twy it. Where's Toppy?"
"I think I saw him on the bed."
"Den I will be wight back," Danny informed them both, surrendering the tape before trotting off down the hall.
"Is it just me, or does he keep getting cuter by the minute?" Sam asked, shaking her head and smiling.
"Yeah, he's pretty cute," Jack agreed as he put his movie of choice in the VCR. "Good thing he grew out of that before we met him," he added, just because it seemed like the thing to do.
Danny ran back into the room with Toppy and scrambled up onto the couch as Jack started the video. Sam didn't even try to resist the urge to pull Danny into her lap on the couch and cuddle him. When his hair was damp and brushed out of his face and he was in his footy pajamas, he still looked more like a baby than a little boy. "Sam do monkeys fwy?" he asked skeptically.
"Ah, no, not really, sweetie."
"See Dack I toad you," Danny said proudly as Jack sat down at the other end of the couch and reached for the remote.
"I never said they did in real life, I said they did in this movie. Like your talking farm animals."
"Farm aminals are weal!"
"Not talking ones."
"Yeah huh dey talk to each udder just not to people."
"How do you know? You're a person."
"In a diaper," Sam interjected quickly when Danny opened his mouth to respond but didn't seem to know what he should say to that. "Jack, you're once again arguing with someone wearing a diaper and footy pajamas."
"Wiff dino-saws," Danny added, pointing to one of the little dinosaurs that formed the pattern on his pajamas.
"Can we just watch the movie please, gentleman?" Sam asked, yawning into the back of her hand. It had been a very long day.
Danny snuggled into her more comfortably and said, "Kay Sam, I sowwy."
"It's okay, Danny, you don't need to apologize. It's just time to get quiet before bedtime." She stroked his hair away from his forehead and rested her cheek on the top of his head for a few moments - he still smelled like baby shampoo.
Jack narrowed his eyes at Danny suspiciously - the little boy was giving him a smile that could definitely qualify as a smirk - one that seemed to be saying, "Jealous?"
Or maybe Jack was just being a little paranoid, which was understandable after the day he had. He propped his feet up on the coffee table to get comfortable and turned his attention to the movie - Danny may have appeared to get Sam on his side, but they were still watching Jack's movie, after all.
As soon as it started, Danny turned to Jack and Sam with a look of utter confusion. "Where da color go?"
Jack laughed. "There is no color. This part's in black and white."
"Why?"
"Because it's Kansas."
"Oh." Danny nodded as though that was an adequate explanation, although Sam highly doubted he had ever so much as heard the word 'Kansas.' "I be wight back," Danny said suddenly, sliding off of Sam's lap and heading into the kitchen.
Jack and Sam watched him go, amused. He came back in carrying his giant box of crayons, heading straight for the television, and they both got to their feet quickly. "Whoa there, Danny boy, you better not be thinking what I think you're thinking."
Danny turned to him and said matter-of-factly, "I gonna fix your movie, Dack."
"It doesn't need to be fixed…" Jack tried to explain. "It's supposed to be in black and white at the beginning. It'll go to color in a few minutes, just watch. Look Danny, puppy!" He pointed at the screen hopefully. Sure enough, the distraction worked. Danny lost interest in 'fixing' the movie and let Jack take his crayons, laughing as Jack scooped him up under one arm like a football to take him back to the couch.
"Color my television. I don't think so, mister," Jack said gruffly, dropping him onto the couch carefully.
Giggling, Danny said cheerfully, "I sowwy Dack," and leaned over to pat him on the arm.
"Yeah, yeah."
Sam watched all of this and tried to figure out how exactly the little boy was able to tell the difference between Jack's grumpy act and her dad's actual mood. She finally gave it up - he must have just been born sensitive to other people's emotions.
They watched the movie without incident for a full five minutes before Danny asked, "When's da color coming?"
"Soon," Jack said. "Just watch."
"I watching Dack but dis is boring!"
"Hey watch the language, pal. This is a classic." The phone rang, interrupting the potential Round 2 Sam could easily see unfolding. Jack went into the kitchen to answer, leaving Danny and Sam alone.
She watched him fidgeting around on the middle cushion, kicking his legs, playing with Toppy, squirming around, and said, "Danny, why don't you hand me that remote and we'll skip ahead to the color part while Jack's on the phone."
Grinning, he scrambled to the arm rest to fetch the remote and brought it to her obediently. She fast-forwarded to the color part and said, "There, now, see, when she wakes up everything's going to be in color, just watch."
Danny watched the screen, growing genuinely interested in the movie for the first time as he saw the bright colors and huge flowers that made up Munchkinland. He slid off the couch again, moving closer to the television and hopping around in place as he watched excitedly.
"Ah, so you do still have some of that sugar left in your system," Jack commented as he joined them again. "Either that or Sam hid jumping beans in the casserole."
Danny didn't even hear the comment, he was watching the movie so closely. Jack sat back down, made himself comfortable again, and added casually, "You didn't really expect me not to notice you skipped ahead did you?"
Sam shrugged unapologetically and gave the remote back to him - although neither of them really needed it, he seemed to really be much more comfortable when he was holding it… not unlike Danny and Toppy, actually. As the comparison occurred to her, she laughed quietly to herself. Not quietly enough, apparently - Jack correctly guessed he was at least somewhat responsible for her current state of amusement and asked, "What?"
"Nothing…"
"Hmm. If you say so. That was Cassie on the phone. She wants to babysit Danny tomorrow night."
"What did you tell her?"
"That she's welcome to come see him anytime he likes but that Hammond ordered one of us to be with him at all times. It's true, and it seemed easiest."
"Was she okay with that?"
"Yeah. I didn't have the heart to tell her he probably won't be like this much longer, maybe not even tomorrow night…"
"Are they really that close?" Sam asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Well, let's just say that they've got such a long list of things the box tells them not to do with the device that pretty soon there won't be many other things left that it can do."
"Did Teal'c happen to mention if they've gotten any further on those symbols they couldn't decipher at all?"
"No, I don't think so, but we didn't spend a long time talking about that."
"Why not?"
Jack was saved having to decide whether or not to tell Sam about the lovely day he'd had with her father by Danny jumping back on the couch between them and shushing them loudly. Jack shushed obediently, then, seeing the amused look on Sam's face, stipulated, "I'm only shushing because he's finally watching it."
"Of course you are."
vvvvvvvvvvvvv
When the movie ended, Danny was sound asleep, having made it through the mildly-scary parts of the movie by hiding his face in Sam's shirt, and falling asleep before it got to the most intense parts. Jack turned down the volume as the credits ran and looked down the other end of the couch - when Danny had finally started to crash, Sam had stretched out on the couch with him to keep him still and help him go to sleep faster.
Jack was sort of expecting her to fall asleep as well - he was exhausted himself, and not nearly as comfortable as she appeared to be. Of course he could have elected to get up and take the comfortable chair, which would have given him all the room he wanted, but he preferred to remain at the far end of the couch, wedged into the corner between the arm rest and Sam's feet. He also preferred not to stop and think about why that was. Not now anyway. He nudged her foot lightly and asked, "You awake?"
"No, I've mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open."
"Hey, that's how I get through briefings. You should have come to me for pointers years ago," he said lightly, confused when she immediately looked hurt and mildly horrified at the statement. Then he got it. "Oh! I didn't mean… not your briefings. Just Daniel's… and the annual budget meeting… and…"
"I get it," Sam interrupted, smiling.
"Good."
"I didn't buy it though."
"Damn. I'll have to work on that. Want me to help you out there?" He nodded at Danny.
"I guess," Sam said reluctantly. "It's pretty late, we should get to bed." He raised both eyebrows in response. She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. "I meant…"
"Yeah," he agreed quickly, getting to his feet. "I knew what you meant." It was weird - little awkward moments had never been unusual and even happened between them fairly often, but since they'd been watching Danny, the awkwardness had been growing more and more infrequent. Still, that just made it that much more embarrassing when one of them let something slip.
He set about picking Danny up carefully without waking him and took him into the guest room while Sam headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed. As Jack shifted Danny to one arm to pull down the covers on the bed, he stirred, waking partially. "No, no, no, go back to sleep," Jack said quietly, rubbing Danny's back for a few moments before laying him down and tucking him in, perching on the edge of the bed himself and watching hopefully.
Danny turned back on his side and started sucking his thumb again, but opened his eyes drowsily and looked around, obviously confused as to how he'd gone from watching a movie in the living room to being tucked into bed in the guest room. "Where my Toppy?"
"Sam's got him, she'll be here in a minute. Go back to sleep, Danny." He stroked Danny's hair for a few moments to encourage him to go back to sleep. Danny nodded and closed his eyes again, yawning around his thumb.
Jack was just about to get up when Danny added sleepily, "Night-night Dack I wuv you."
Jack couldn't help but smile at that, and before he could let himself get self-conscious about the fact that this was still technically Daniel Jackson, he had leaned over and kissed his head - like Sam was always doing - and said, "I love you too, Danny. Sweet dreams."
After another moment or two, he got up and turned to go, and froze.
Sam was leaning against the door frame and she looked like she was about to cry. She didn't. She just stood there, looking at him, somehow keeping him from feeling caught off-guard by with such an equally unguarded look of surprise and affection that he relaxed again… while at the same time they had managed to catch themselves in yet another of those 'playing with the line' situations Jack had been talking to Jacob about. All that without having to actually say anything.
Finally, they both looked away at the same time, which was always the best resolution to one of those moments between them - nobody had to be the first one to back down or change the subject, but they didn't actually have to address it either… they could just add it to the ever-growing collection of Things Never to be Mentioned Out Loud.
It usually fell upon Jack to make some sort of joke at this point. Tonight, he waved his hand and said, "You saw nothing. We're not the droids you're looking for. Go on about your business."
Laughing quietly, she said, "Hmm, we obviously need to watch Star Wars again. You sort of butchered that one."
"Teal'c will be thrilled." He stopped as he passed her in the doorway and squeezed her arm lightly for a moment. "'Night, Sam."
"Good night, Jack. See you in the morning."
vvvvvvvvvvvvv
Despite being exhausted, Sam was still awake an hour and a half later, and she was starting to get restless, but reluctant to risk waking the sleeping little boy one pillow over. While she had initially been thinking about how much she'd miss not only Danny but also the affect he'd had on all of them, she had quickly realized that tonight at least that wasn't the reason her mindwouldn't shut down. She had that feeling that she'd forgotten something important. After running through a list of possible things she could have forgotten and coming up with nothing, she finally tried to stop thinking about whatever it was and get some sleep. Turning back on her side to face Danny, she smiled fondly at the sleeping little boy drooling on his pillow and brushed his hair away from his face. She watched him for several minutes and finally drifted into a restless sleep.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Sometime in the middle of the night, she sat upright in bed, instantly wide awake. She glanced at Danny once before jumping out of bed and hurrying down the hall, almost-but-not-quite running. The snoring from Jack's room assured her he was sleeping so she hurried inside without knocking and didn't bother stopping until she was leaning over him and shaking his shoulder. "Jack, wake up! Colonel!" No response. She reached over and flipped on the lamp on his night stand, shaking his shoulder a little harder this time. "Sir!"
He made a sound that was part snore, part inhale, and part snort, and said something into the pillow that could have been, "What?" but sounded more like, "Mrrrmphht."
Too excited to ensure that he was actually awake first, she blurted out, "I think I figured it out! I know how to use the trunk!"