A/N: This was a story that popped into my head as I was watching "The Tok'ra". Thank you for reading it and for reviews.
Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Stargate's creators.
The Nurses' Station on the third floor was almost completely empty; most of the nurses on duty were answering calls from various patients. George Hammond was glad of this. He didn't want an audience for the phone call that he was about to make. He guessed that it would involve more pleading than any two-star Air Force General should undertake, let alone have others witness.
He sighed and lifted the handset. He knew that Captain Carter had to be where she was. Unless Jacob's condition deteriorated further, he did not want to consider calling her back. But there was another Carter who could be with his father if and when the time came.
Someone answered on the third ring. "Hello?" he heard a little girl say. Mark's kid, Hammond thought to himself. Jacob had mentioned in passing that Mark was living in San Diego with his wife and his two children.
"Hello, sweetie. Is your dad home?" Hammond asked in the voice he normally reserved for his granddaughters, all the more grateful that no was around to hear him.
"Yes," she said.
"May I talk to him?" Hammond ask, a small smile playing on his lips. Children at that age were so literal.
"Daddy!" the little girl yelled without bothering to cover the mouthpiece. Hammond moved the phone a few inches from his ear, bringing it back as he heard shuffling.
"Hello?" a man's voice said.
"Mark?" Hammond asked.
"Yes. Who is this?" Mark asked.
"George Hammond. I don't know if you remember me…"
"George… You served with my father, right?"
"Yes, I did," Hammond replied, glad that Mark remembered him. Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult as he thought it would.
"How is the old man?" Mark asked, a hostile tone to his voice.
Or not… Hammond thought. He sighed. "Not good, Mark. That's why I'm calling. He's dying."
"What? When I talked to Sam a few weeks ago, she told me he had cancer, but she said he was doing okay." Hammond could hear the denial in his voice, despite the fact that Mark was trying to remain apathetic.
"Something happened. He's not doing too good. You should come see him."
"Did he ask for me?" Mark asked.
Hammond had feared that Mark would ask that question. "Not exactly… But I know he'd want to see you."
Hammond heard a sigh on the other end of the line. "Look, George, I don't what my father's told you about me, but we've never exactly gotten along. And if he's not asking for me, I see no reason why I should fly out there to see him. It won't make a difference to him." Hammond could hear the pain in Mark Carter's voice, the need to see his father and the desire to stay away.
"Mark, I know this is difficult, but I think one of Jacob's children should be here. And Sam can't, as much as she wants to."
"What? Sam's not there? You're preaching to me about seeing my father before he dies, and the kid that he actually likes isn't even there? She can't be there?"
"She's on a mission."
"Ah, the Air Force strikes again. Look, my father was never there for me. So you can see why I don't really feel the need to be there for him. Or for Sam. She's turning into him. If she can't be bothered to drop a mission to be there for him, then why should I drop my life for a man I haven't seen in over ten years?" Hammond could hear the struggle to find words. He could tell that Mark was trying his hardest to keep his resolve, even though he wished that he didn't have to.
"Sam wanted to stay, but she had to go. Your father understands that. But I'm not telling you all of this so that you can be here for him. I'm telling you this so you can be here for you. You're going to regret not saying goodbye."
"I said goodbye to my father a long time ago. After my mother died. I don't need closure, and I definitely don't need to hear any more sorries or false promises. Goodbye, George."
The line went dead. Hammond started at the receiver for a few moments before placing it back in its cradle. If Mark Carter was not willing, there was nothing he could do to change that. All he could do now was to be there for his friend.
Hammond headed back towards Jacob's room in time to see his doctor shock his heart back to life. Hammond's own heart skipped a beat as he realized that he was losing his friend and that Sam, the little girl he had known so long ago, was about to lose her father for good. He couldn't let anything happen without at least giving her a chance to say goodbye. He immediately placed a call to the SGC, ordering SG-3 to retrieve Sam from the Tok'ra planet, hoping that she would return in time to get her own closure with her father.
Mark Carter stood impatiently by the nurses' station on the third floor, waiting for the nurse sitting in front of him to tell him where his father was. When he had arrived at the Air Force Academy Hospital, he had been told that Jacob Carter had been checked out, against doctor's orders. They could give him no further information and directed him to the third floor, where his father's room had been.
Mark was not sure what he was doing. What he'd told General Hammond had been true. He had gotten closure with his father many years before, or so he had thought. He thought that cutting his father off from his life would be enough to make the pain of losing both of his parents in the course of one accident go away. And for a while, it had worked. But when Hammond had called, the pain, the feeling of utter loneliness came flooding back as if it had never left. He had things to say, and he flew to Colorado so that he could get a chance to say them.
"I'm sorry, sir. He's no longer here. A Captain Carter checked him out of here about half an hour ago," the nurse said, looking through Jacob's file.
"Captain Carter? Samantha Carter?" Didn't George say she was on a mission? He thought to himself. More Air Force secrets.
"Yes, sir."
"Did she say where she was taking him?" Mark asked.
The nurse flipped to the next page and then back. "No, sir, I don't see anything here. A General Hammond was with them, though."
George. I guess he had no reason to expect me. "Thank you," Mark said, before turning back towards the elevators. He had no idea how to find his father. He supposed that Sam's house would be the place to look, but he had no idea where that was, having not seen her in a few years.
Mark was at a loss as to what to do. A large part of him wanted to find his father and say what he had to say. After all, he'd come all the way to Colorado Springs to get his chance. But another part was painfully aware that neither Jacob nor Sam had called to tell Mark about Jacob's condition or about what they were going to do. He wondered if they even considered him part of the family anymore. It had been so long, after all.
As he walked out to the parking lot towards his rental car, he made a decision. He would leave Sam to deal with her father, and he would return to San Diego to be the father he'd always wished he had.