Jake eventually got upset enough that Carolyn asked Jack and Sam to step out for a little while. Jake didn't even seem to mind that they took Abigail with them, as long as they left him. The toddler was fully awake after all the commotion.

"I don't know what to do for him," Sam quietly admitted once they were out in the hallway.

"I think it's just going to take time," Jack replied. "I don't think I'd trust us if I was in his place."

"I just don't want him feeling so alone, not after what he's been through."

He sighed. "Yeah."

Abbie was repeatedly saying "Oh-oh, oh-oh," and Jack finally realized what it meant.

"You hungry?" he asked her, and got a nod in response. "She wants cheerios," he told Sam.

She frowned. "How do you know that?" He'd only been there for an hour; how did he know things that she didn't?

Jack swallowed hard, looking away. "Charlie used to do the same thing."

Sam studied him carefully; she had wondered earlier if this whole situation would end up being too much for him deal with. They'd had brief conversations over the years about his son, but she hadn't gotten much from them besides the fact that he still felt deeply guilty for Charlie's death. The previous night, she hadn't tried calling him immediately because she wasn't sure if it was a sound idea – how would he react to being surprised with the news that he, in a way, suddenly had two more kids? Logic had won out in the end. There was no way that she could keep something like this from him, especially since she was planning on taking care of Jacob and Abigail. Jack had to know the truth, and now she reminded herself that she could deal with the fallout, no matter what that entailed.

I don't need him in order to do this, she told herself. I really want him, but I don't need him. "I guess we better go get her some breakfast," Sam quietly said.

They headed for the mess hall, and Sam got a bowl of cheerios for Abigail while Jack got two cups of coffee. The pair stayed silent for a long time, watching as the toddler happily fed herself.

"We need to talk," Sam finally said.

Jack snorted. "Understatement of the year."

She smiled a little, but quickly sobered. "I know I'm the one who signed up for this," she told him. "I'm the one who agreed to Janet's request and I know I didn't talk to you first. I'm sorry for that."

He shook his head. "You did the only thing you could."

"I don't want to make any other decisions for you, Jack. I can take care of them, like I said I would, and you can be as involved or not involved as you want."

He looked up at her in surprise. "You think not being involved is an option?"

"Everything's an option. We've both got to pick what's going to work for us. I…I know this has to be hard for you. I don't want to make anything worse."

Jack wasn't going to lie to her and say it wasn't hard. Just looking at Jake… there were a lot of reminders. He'd never imagined that he'd once again be in a position where someone was deciding whether to trust him with a child – and asking him to decide if he trusted himself. "What do you want from me?" he softly asked. "A perfect little family with a white picket fence?"

Sam sighed a little, unsure what the answer to his question was. "I don't know, Jack." By this point in her life, she knew that perfection didn't exist and normal often seemed overrated. A family was something that she'd wanted, but in recent years, she'd let that goal slip away. Now that the wish had magically been granted… what did the future hold? Soccer games, ballet practice, and school plays? She was looking forward to it, but feared that Jack would be dreading it. The only thing she knew for sure was that she didn't want anything that he wasn't completely willing to give. "Maybe…maybe you should go back to DC."

He blinked. It was the easy way out, all neatly wrapped up with a bow. All he had to do was agree with her – logically, she couldn't get upset since she was the one who had suggested it. Jack felt guilty, but he couldn't make himself disagree. The fear was too strong. He couldn't imagine having Sam look at him with the same anger and disgust that Sara had. He couldn't let a mistake hurt her the same way.

"Uh, okay. You want me to stay a few days and help you get settled?" he asked. It seemed like the least he could do.

She shrugged, turning to focus on cleaning Abbie up. I guess this IS too much for him to deal with, she thought. Better to know now than have us end up resenting each other later. "If you want."

By the time Jack and Sam got back from breakfast, Jake had calmed down and eaten some of the food that one of the nurses brought him. "How are you doing?" Sam asked as she sat at the foot of his bed and put Abbie down.

Jake pushed his tray away and motioned for his sister to come over to him. "Fine," he curtly replied as he protectively got Abbie settled at his side.

Sam nodded. "Good. We were talking to Dr. Lam and she said you guys are ready to get out of here. That sound like a good idea?"

Curiosity overrode Jake's desire to stay non-talkative. "Where are we going?"

"You guys are going to stay at my house."

Jake raised an eyebrow. "Your house? By yourself?"

Sam glanced up at Jack. "Um, yeah. I live here in Colorado Springs and Jack lives in Washington DC. That's…well, it's pretty far away from here."

"My mom and dad both lived here," he quietly pointed out. It was the first time he'd voluntarily talked about his life in his own reality.

"We know," Jack told him. "There are some things that are different here. This is one of them."

"It's going to take some adjustment for all of us," Sam assured him. "I know it's hard because we look like your mom and dad, but… we all know that we're not. All of us are going to have to get to know each other. Just know that we're going to take care of you, okay?"

"What do I call you?" Jake asked, his eyes downcast.

Sam and Jack exchanged looks; they hadn't thought about that part. "Well, since right now we're trying to be friends, how about we all call each other by our first names, like you would with your friends, okay?" she suggested. Jake nodded.

As they got everything set to leave, they realized that Sam wasn't really ready for Jake and Abbie to go home; there were several things one needs for small children that she didn't have.

"For starters," Jack told her as they stood in the hall outside the infirmary, "I can take your car and go get a car seat for Abbie."

"Thank you. One of the Airmen brought in some clothes that his kids have outgrown, so I'll get them dressed while you're gone. Then we can go shopping."

Jack nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Are you sure you can handle them both?"

"We'll be fine," she replied as she gave him her car keys. "Sure you can handle a car seat?"

He shrugged. "How hard can it be?"

As Jack soon found out, the answer was 'pretty hard.' Technology had come a long way since the last time he had to worry about a car seat. He was still trying to make sure the thing was properly buckled into the backseat of Sam's sedan when she brought Jake and Abbie outside.

"How's it going?" she asked in what was supposed to be an innocent tone. Jack saw right through her, though.

"Are you being insubordinate, Colonel?"

"Yes, Sir," she cheerily replied as she handed Abbie to him.

"It's been a while," he defensively told her. "You gotta have an engineering doctorate to put these things together now."

Their first stop was a furniture store. They decided to worry about the essentials that day, such as beds, and get other items later on. Clothes shopping would be an adventure for the following day. Jake barely said a handful of words through the whole expedition, and even getting those out was like pulling teeth. By the time they arrived at Sam's house, everyone was tired and there was still a lot of work to be done.

"What do you think about inviting Janet over for dinner?" Jack asked Sam as they started getting prepared to paint the room that would soon be Jake's.

"Sounds like a good plan. Maybe we can even put her to work in here."

Janet accepted the invitation, and brought Cassie with her for one more pair of hands. Assembling furniture and painting walls was going to take hours, so 'dinner' ended up just being delivered pizza. The evening was a lot of fun, though. Sam noticed that Jake seemed a lot more animated around Janet, and he got along well with Cassie.

"Thanks for coming," she told the other woman as they washed out a couple brushes and rollers in the kitchen. Jack, Jake, and Cassie had moved on to working on Jake's walls, and Abbie was asleep in her crib in the living room.

"No problem."

"How are you settling in?

"Pretty good." Janet had decided to stay at the SGC instead of Cassie's tiny campus apartment while she was working on getting her life sorted out. The 'official' story on her sudden reappearance was that she'd been incorrectly declared KIA four years earlier and was in fact MIA. The details of how she'd been found – and where – were classified, but that lie allowed Janet to take over the life of her counterpart from this reality. She was going to return to working at the Academy Hospital, and be on staff with the SGC as well.

"I was wondering," Sam carefully changed topics. "You said before that the Daniel from your universe was killed on the Daedalus."

Janet wouldn't look at her. "Yeah."

"You were close, weren't you?"

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded. "Yeah, we were."

Sam sighed, thinking of the scene with Daniel and Vala in the hallway at the SGC. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Don't be. I mean…I'm alive, I have Cassie now, and I know Jake and Abbie are going to be okay… Do I have any right to ask for more?"

"Janet – "

But she didn't let her friend say anything else. Janet grabbed the brushes they'd just finished with and started toward Jake's room. "We should probably get back to work if we want to finish anytime soon." Sam finally nodded and followed her.

By 11PM, they were finally done. Jake had fallen asleep a while earlier out on the couch near his sister. Both children would move into their bedrooms the following night once the paint was dry. After Janet and Cassie left, Sam realized that the very long day was starting to catch up with her.

"Are you coming to bed?" she asked Jack when she realized that he'd stopped in the living room and was simply watching the two kids sleep. She figured that he had to be just as tired after his middle-of-the-night plane trip to Colorado.

"Uh, yeah, I'll be there in a while. I just want to make sure they're tucked in good."

Abbie was lying on her back, her little thumb dangling from her mouth. Jack pulled her blanket up, and then turned to Jake. He was almost hanging off the couch, so Jack carefully righted him. He couldn't help but think of Charlie; his son had also been an 'active sleeper.'

Jack sighed as he sat down at Jake's feet and watched him sleep. He'd never thought that he'd want to be a father again, but now… these two little people were starting to matter to him. And that was absolutely terrifying.

"I don't want to screw you guys up," he whispered. "I won't let that happen."

TBC...

A/N: Thanks so much for the feedback I've gotten so far! I'm glad you guys are enjoying the story. :-) I want your opinions for upcoming events in the story - what should happen with Janet/Daniel/Vala? I'm not really a shipper either way, so it'll be reader's choice where that goes.