Chapter 10: Daycare Doldrums
Sam had to strongly resist looking at the large wall clock again. She knew it would tell her it had only been five minutes since the last time she looked, which had only been five minutes from the time she'd looked before that. Earlier, as the employee had led her into the room, Sam had tried again to think of this like one more mission, a cultural exchange like Daniel had suggested. That resolve had lasted all of two minutes.
And then the singing had started.
She'd barely been here fifteen minutes and already she was bored out of her skull. The group of four to six year olds around her led by another one of the attendants launched into a third repetition of the song, "Bingo," boisterously clapping and chanting the unimaginative lyrics. Sam sighed, tightening her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees, unable to stop replaying in her mind the last few minutes before the Colonel and Daniel had left. Something was up. What, she had no clue. Yes, the Colonel had given in a few times to a bit of over protectiveness since her transformation, as had the rest of her team, but they'd all seemed to be working things out. Or so she'd thought. Obviously, something had changed, but the cause eluded her. She sighed quietly again.
Around her, the song ended and the woman leading the group changed the tune thankfully, but since Sam had about as much interest in singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" as "Bingo," let alone participating in the accompanying actions, she silently detached herself from the group of children as the youngsters eagerly stood up to join in.
With a bit of inward struggle, she managed to suppress her speculations about why the Colonel had acted the way he had, and concentrate on the here and now. Slowly, she wandered around the perimeter of the large room, for the most part, watching quietly and observing the various activities. Some of the adults smiled, and Sam returned them with a shy smile of her own, but was reluctant to join in any of the activities she could see going on in the room, from boisterous to quiet. Mostly, she just wanted to watch. Despite the large size of the room, Sam found that the child-sized tables, chairs, and other furnishing were much more welcoming than the now seemingly imposing items around her in her more familiar adult-sized rooms. She knew that is was just a change in her perspectives, because she had vague memories of thinking old classrooms had shrunk as she'd grown older, and as an adult, saw child sized things as tiny, even cute. Sam stopped her wandering, gazing into the room, trying to get a grasp on her new view of things.
"Hi," said a girlish little voice not far to her right, startling her from her thoughts. In surprise, Sam turned to find a small girl who looked to be about six or so smiling at her. She was seated at a small oval table surrounded by what looked like drawing materials. "Would you like to color with me?" the little girl asked.
Sam blinked, and sent one last look around the room. Well, it wasn't like she had anything better to do; at least not until the Colonel decided she'd been here long enough. "Ok," she replied with a half shrug, and joined the girl at the table. The child didn't seem to notice her hesitation; she just smiled and shook her head in an unconscious gesture to settle her long brown hair. Silently, she pushed a piece of paper over in front of where Sam sat, and then moved the plastic tub full of crayons to where they could both reach it.
The other child picked up her temporarily discarded crayon, and bent back to industriously coloring her picture of what looked like a house and a family complete with trees and a smiley-faced sun. "I'm Katie," the little girl told her in a matter of fact tone. "I'm six. What's your name?"
Frowning slightly, Sam looked at her blank paper for a few moments before replying. "I'm Sam. I'm… five."
"You must be starting kindergarten," Katie replied wisely. When Sam nodded, Katie continued. "You're just a baby then," she informed Sam. "I'm going into first grade. My mommy said that first grade is for big boys and girls." Katie glowed with pride.
Biting back an automatic retort, Sam pulled a crayon out of the tub and started to color on her paper with it. Not really sure what to draw, she placed the yellow crayon against the paper, idly forming it into a round, yellow disc. Next to her, Katie continued to enumerate the benefits of first grade over kindergarten.
"Mommy says I'm going to be able to read real books this year. Oh, and I won't have to take naps anymore." Katie exchanged her crayon for another. "Naps are for babies. Say, you draw really good, are you sure you're only in kindergarten?"
Looking at her paper in surprise, Sam studied the drawing, and then she shook her head. "Pretty sure," she replied. No one had complemented her artistic abilities since, well since she'd been in elementary school. No doubt the standards were a bit lower now in her present state.
"You've never been to school before?" Katie asked seriously, still pursuing her line of questioning.
Sam frowned, wondering what the girl saw in the half formed images drawn idly on the paper sheet. "Not really," she answered.
"Preschool doesn't count. My baby brother Matthew is in preschool, and he doesn't know anything." Sam ducked her head to hide her smile as Katie launched into a diatribe about annoying little brothers. With half an ear, Sam let Katie prattle on while she absentmindedly colored, occasionally inserting comments when it was required, most of her mind devoted to her recent speculations and observations. For her part, Katie didn't seem to mind the mostly one sided conversation, and Sam listened as the little girl moved on from annoying brothers to the outfit she was going to wear the first day of school, to the new backpack and lunch box she'd picked out, to talking about her favorite cartoon.
Eventually, Katie grew tired of coloring and stood up. "I'm done coloring," she announced, "Let's go play dress-up." The little girl flounced off across the room before Sam could reply. Halfway to her goal, Katie stopped and turned around, small hands braced on hips. "What are you waiting for Sam?" she asked. "C'mon, I'll even let you be Cinderella."
Returning her crayon to the tub, Sam sent a fleeting look at the clock on the wall behind Katie. She'd barely been here more than an hour, and somehow she doubted that the Colonel would be back anytime soon, with or without Daniel's attempts to persuade him. There had been a determined set to his features she recognized all too well, despite the glimpse of an odd expression she hadn't been able to place before he'd turned his back on her. But thinking of that brought her back to her commander's sudden and unexpected behavior, so with a sigh, she abandoned her train of thought, moving to join Katie in whatever diversion the young child might provide.
As soon as Sam got up from the table, Katie turned around and skipped the rest of the way to the dress-up corner, which was furnished with a mirror, benches, and a large trunk. By the time Sam joined her at a more sedate pace, the other little girl was already digging in the big chest, mumbling as she tugged out some items and discarded others. "Here it is," she crowed suddenly, pulling on something. Straightening, Katie turned and thrust a bundle of fabric into Sam's arms. "Put that on," she ordered, and turned back to the chest to pull out something else. "I'm going to be the fairy godmother," she said smugly.
One eyebrow raised at the little girl's bossiness, Sam shook out the child-sized dress she'd been handed. The little dress was plain, despite a glossy sheen, white with turquoise highlights.
"What are you waiting for Sam? We haven't got all day," complained Katie as she emerged from the trunk with a more ornate frilly pink dress covered in layers of taffeta. Without hesitation, the little girl pulled on the dress over her clothes, and turned back to the trunk. "Now I just need to find my tiara and my wand," she explained seriously. "Hurry up and get dressed so you can play with me."
Sam narrowed her gaze at the child and then suppressed a sigh after reminding herself that Katie was just a child, and she was here after all to practice interacting with her new, albeit temporary, peer group. She pulled the slightly wrinkled dress over her head and the material fell to the floor, hiding her shoes. What was it with her and blue dresses anyway? The guys would be having a field day if they saw her now. She moved to stand next to the little girl, and peered doubtfully into the trunk as the child continued to rummage.
After a few minutes, both the tiara and the wand were located. "Now, the evil stepmother has told you to scrub the floors, so you should do that, and I," said Katie, waving the wand with what she must have thought was a dramatic flourish, "as your fairy godmother will come to whisk you away to the ball."
The minutes trickled by, and Sam tried not to watch the clock too closely. Not far from the dress-up corner, another sing-along started, and Sam decided that Katie was the lesser of the available evil choices. Sam knew she could slip away and try to find something else to occupy herself with until the guys came to pick her up, but she was here to observe. And Katie seemed to enjoy playing with her, even if she didn't ask for opinions very much. Sam also thought that refusing to play with the child anymore would probably hurt the little girl's feelings. Katie, despite her outgoing and sometimes bossy personality seemed to radiate loneliness, likely related to the fact that she'd just moved here this past summer when her father was transferred.
Unfortunately for Sam, Katie seemed to prefer the dress-up corner most of all. Even though Sam managed to pry the girl away for a short game of Candyland, Katie dragged her right back over to play dress-up again. The girl seemed to prefer the dresses, the frillier the better. Of course, that would be when her ticket out finally arrived, and Sam looked up after donning the latest, and probably frilliest, of the dresses to find a very amused Colonel looking down at her.
A/N: Quite a mixed reaction to the past chapter, but then, I expected as much when I posted it. In fact, I thought I'd get a bit more of a reaction, but FF hasn't been sending me my alerts so I figure others are probably having the same trouble, and hopefully will get alerts with this chapter so they can catch up. Anyway, I expected a mixed reaction, you should have seen the clamor my beta's made with the original draft. In that version, the argument in the parking lot didn't happen, and it wasn't until the last minute that I added in the bits Sam noticed at the school an in the daycare center. Even still, I thought there would be a divide of folks that thought Jack would be totally capable of doing what he'd done, and another group that thought he would be out of character. In either case, hopefully I'll be able to explain his thought processes in the upcoming chapters. Keep in mind that this is somewhere season 7.