It took a little more time than Jack would have liked to get his work responsibilities turned over to a new general, but at the end of July he was able to move out to Colorado. He packed up his stuff and then flew across the country while his belongings and truck were moved by professionals.

On the day that the moving truck was supposed to arrive, Jake and Abbie spent the morning by the living room window, watching the street. Sam was pretty sure that Jake thought of the van's arrival as the real proof that Jack was moving in. While he was still living out of a suitcase, it was just like any other visit. But once the van showed up – this was real.

"Do you see it yet?" she asked them as she set plates out on the table.

"No," Jake replied.

"Well, breakfast is ready; you can go back to watching after you eat."

"What if it gets lost?"

"It's not going to get lost," she assured him. "I'm sure they've got GPS." Jake seemed skeptical, but got up and came to the table.

They had just finished eating when the doorbell rang. Jake instantly shot out of his chair and over to the window to look. "They're here! They're here!" he exclaimed.

"Giving him sugar with breakfast was probably a bad idea, huh?" Jack asked Sam. She laughed.

They spent the rest of the day getting things unloaded and put away. Jack had sold a lot of his furniture, since Sam already had most things that they needed. He'd brought clothes and tools and some other odds and ends.

At one point, when Jack went to put some things in the garage, he was surprised to find that Jake had silently followed him. "What's wrong, pal?" he asked as he saw the little boy standing in the doorway, staring at him.

Jake raised a hand to point at what Jack was holding. "You have fishing poles."

He looked down at them. "Yeah, I do. I was supposed to take them up to Minnesota the last time that I went, but I never actually ended up going."

"To the cabin?" Jake asked.

Jack nodded. "That's right. You went to the cabin with your father?"

"Last summer. It was the first time he took me, other than when I was a baby. We ended up having to come back early 'cause of his work, but it was still fun. Just us."

"That sounds like a great time. You left the girls at home?"

Jake nodded. "Abbie had a cough and Mom was worried about her."

"Ah." Jake was still staring pensively at the fishing poles, and Jack decided he had to try something. It might blow up in his face, but at least he would have tried. "I've got an idea," he told the little boy. "How about we plan a trip for us to go to the cabin together? We can make some new memories to go right along with the ones you've already got."

Jake was quiet for a long minute, but finally nodded. "Okay."

Jack smiled. "Okay."

Everything was finally put in its place by dinnertime. Once the kids were in bed, Jack and Sam settled down together on the couch to watch TV. After flipping through the channels for a bit, they landed on some cable-channel movie that neither had any strong objections to.

"Does it feel like home?" Sam asked at one point.

Jack thought about it. "Yeah, it does."

"Good."

"How about you? This house has gotten pretty full this year."

She smiled. "I like it full."

"It is kind of nice, isn't it?" he agreed. If someone had told him five years ago – hell, even one year ago – that he'd have a family with Samantha Carter, he would have had them committed to a psychiatric institution. And yet… here they were.

"Mmm-hmm."

They could hear a door softly creak open down the hall, and little footsteps approached. "Hey, pal, what are you still doing up?" Jack asked as Jake joined them. He'd tucked the little boy into his bed over an hour earlier.

"I couldn't sleep," he replied.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Sam asked.

Jake shook his head. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Can it wait until morning, buddy? You really should be sleeping." Jake frowned, looking down.

"What have you got there?" Jack asked him; Jake was holding one hand behind his back, hiding something from view. After a moment of hesitation, he showed them what he was carrying – the notebook that Sam had given him a few months earlier.

"I wanted to show it to you," he explained.

Jack and Sam shared a look; both of them knew that this was a big step for Jake. The secrets of his past had been closely guarded and only came out in slow trickles. If he was willingly coming to them now…sleep could wait.

"Come sit down," Sam told him, moving over so that Jake could sit between them. The little boy obliged, crossing his legs and holding his book on his lap.

"I did what you said," he told Sam. "I wrote down things that I remember. As much as I could." He turned to the first page and showed them the list of names. "These were all the people that I cared about. And they cared about me." Several of the names were familiar to them, such as personnel from the SGC. Others were unknown, possibly belonging to Jake's friends or their neighbors.

"You want to tell us about them?" Jack asked.

Jake nodded, and turned to the next page. His mother's dogtags slid out onto the couch, and he picked them up. "These belonged to my mom. She gave them to me before she died." On the paper, there was a list of words and phrases that described her in Jake's careful handwriting. "She was pretty and nice and brave," he told them. "Just like you are, Sam."

She kissed the top of his head. "Thank you, buddy."

"I don't have anything that I kept from anyone else," Jake admitted. "There wasn't any time when we left Earth."

"That's okay," Jack told him. "Your memories are good enough.

The little boy nodded and turned to the next page. "This is about my dad. We made glider airplanes and flew them in the park. Last fall, he was going to teach me to ride a bike, but… he got really busy at work with all the bad stuff that was happening. He worked late a lot. But he would always come tell me goodnight, no matter what. Sometimes I would wake up when he came in, but I would pretend to be asleep. He would always say, 'I love you more than the moon and stars'."

He flipped to the next page, which was dedicated to the other members of SG-1. "This is about Daniel, Cam, and Martouf. I got my middle name from Daniel, 'cause he went away before I was born, but he came back. Not many people get to come back when they go away like he did."

Jack nodded. "No, they don't."

"I called them my uncles, but they weren't really, not like Uncle Mark. They were my mom and dad's friends. But they loved me and Abbie like we were all family…"

Jake eventually fell asleep on the couch, but he'd made it pretty far into his book of memories. Jack carefully scooped him up and carried him back to his bedroom while Sam retrieved his notebook and put it on his desk.

"We should get a case or something for these," she whispered to Jack as she put Jake's dogtags back inside of his book. He nodded as he set Jake down in his bed and pulled the blanket over him.

Sam came over and kissed the little boy's forehead. "Sweet dreams, buddy," she told him. "I'm going to go check on Abbie," she said to Jack. "See you in our room?"

"Yeah." He made sure Jake was tucked in and turned out the lamp by his bed. He was about to leave, but turned back. "I love you more than the moon and the stars," he whispered to Jake before heading out of the room.

TBC...