Category: Sam and Jack romance/angst, Team/family angst

Spoilers: Directly for 6.17 Disclosure.

Content Warnings: None

Summary: General Hammond has his meeting with other Nations from Earth at the Pentagon and Major Carter is working with the Asgard to install new shield technology to the Prometheus, leaving Jack at home alone with his daughter.

Episode – 6.17 Disclosure

He could not help but smile as he watched his daughter giggling insanely from his position on a bench in the park. With Sam away with work for at least four days, Jack had requested that SG-1 be on stand down for purely selfish reasons. Due to his work, Jack rarely ever got any time alone with his daughter and he found himself frequently using the odd couple of days leave to spend with his son who he still had not introduced to his daughter. Laira was still not happy at being lied to, or mislead as Jack had kept trying to correct her, but she was at least allowing him to still see his son. There was not much more that Jack could ask for with regards to Jack-Junior. General Hammond had agreed to SG-1's downtime and that was how Jack found himself sitting in a park on a surprisingly warm November afternoon. Sam had only been gone for one day and Jack could not deny how much he loved spending the time alone with his daughter. He had even gone so far as to almost frog-march Sasha away on her own holiday, leaving him completely alone with Daniella. Sam had been worried, but he had reassured her that he knew Janet's number, he also had Daniel and Teal'c on speed-dial and he wanted to see if he could do it.

So far, so good as nothing had gone wrong. Thankfully, Daniella was actually quite used to spending days with neither parent and then days without Sasha so she was actually quite well adjusted for a fourteen-month old. It worried him that she could adapt so well as it was not necessarily normal for her age. Then he would remind himself that she was the daughter of himself and Sam; there was no way that Daniella was ever going to be normal and was always going to be adaptable – just as neither of her parents were normal and both could adjust and adapt to most situations. Jack could not deny that it had all been plain sailing in the day he had been a single parent; Daniella had not wanted to eat her dinner and had screamed when he had tried to bathe her. He had calmed her though, as any father should be able to. It was only when with her that he could truly forget everything bad in the universe.

Jack had also jumped at the chance to go to the park with his daughter, with Cassie in tow. He knew that Cassie did not get to see Daniella very often, nor did he get to see her and he wanted to spend more time with the teenager. Also aware of his physical limitations, Jack had thought it wise to take both girls to the park so that the seventeen year old could run around the climbing frame, slide and every other metallic danger with the toddler. There was no way that Jack was going to be climbing behind Daniella, although he would take over in a bit to push Daniella on the baby-swing; she loved swings. At the moment, however, she was in a cycle of climbing up a huge metallic rung ladder – with Cassie close behind – then walking along a rope bridge and down a normal, small slide. In those few seconds that it took for her to descend the slide, her smile was huge and her giggle was so loud. Every time, Jack could not help but smile and laugh ever so slightly. Daniella had attempted the curly slide, shaped like a mini helter-skelter, but it had frightened her too much. As she had landed on the wood-chip floor, Daniella's mouth had opened, her eyes had screwed up and she had started wailing. Cassie had immediately helped her up and started to bring her toward Jack, who had known that his daughter just needed a hug. Within a few meters, Daniella's tears had completely dried and she had dragged Cassie back.

It helped that his daughter was so distracting. When Jack had gone to visit General Hammond to request some down-time, Hammond had more to say than just yes or no. Even now, with Daniella distracting him, Jack could hear Hammond's words reverberating in his head.

"Senator Kinsey is not happy with the situation, Jack."

"So what? That man's never happy, even though me and my team saved his damn life."

"Son, you have to understand the kind of pressure I'm under."

"Sir?"

"They'll use anything to close us down, to get us out of here – you, SG-1 and me. You are walking a fine line."

"Me?" And then it had dawned on Jack – he meant his personal relationship with Major Carter and their daughter, their living arrangement. "General, nothing has altered with SG-1. We have been nothing but professional all this time."

"I know that, but I'm getting more and more pressure. Not just from the NID and Kinsey anymore."

"What are you going to do, sir?"

"I should remove one of you from SG-1." Jack hated the idea of that. No one could deny that there was something unique and special about the original SG-1 and he could not believe that it would ever be replicated. He knew that when Carpenter was on the team, they were still good, but they were not the best. Daniel, Teal'c, Major Carter and himself, Colonel Jack O'Neill, were the best. "But," Hammond continued, "I don't think I need to make that step yet. What I am going to do, however, is cut Major Carter's SG-1 time. It's nothing against her record, her family or having done anything wrong and it will not affect her career. What with the X-303 project about to be fully live, she should be more concerned with that."

"Thank you, sir." The last thing that Jack wanted was for her career to be affected by the fact they had a child. He was not even sure that he would allow her to give up her career of her own choice for their family.

"Don't thank me yet, Jack. There may well come the point when I have to transfer her to another team, especially if Major Carter does want more off-world time." After a long pause, Hammond spoke again; "And the minute either of you step out of line, Colonel!" It was a threat that the general did not need to finish and Jack nodded at him, standing up from his chair. "Dismissed."

Jack was fully aware that Kinsey would use anything to try and get the Air Force out of Cheyenne Mountain and he could not deny that it did worry him that one day Kinsey would succeed. There had been plenty of occasions when SG-1 had either directly or indirectly almost ended the world, or worse. The SGC under Air Force control had suffered at least one foothold situation, almost allowed Earth to be sucked into a black hole, had multiple viruses or infections that could have endangered the entire human race, nearly been completely over-run by Replicators and got the planet trapped in a time loop lasting on the outside for at least three months. Although that one had been one of the more fun disasters, Jack had to admit.

Deep down, Jack knew that the General was right – something would change at some point. Jack spent most of his time trying to ignore that fact. A loud piercing scream dragged Jack's thoughts away from work and Sam, back to his gorgeous daughter. Her scream had been one of joy as she had gone down the helter-skelter slide on Cassie's lap. He smiled over at the pair of them.

"Very cute. Are they both yours or just the teenager?" Jack turned and saw a woman sitting down next to him on the bench.

"Just the toddler actually."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to assume anything." He saw the woman blush and he felt sorry for her. It was the most obvious conclusion to jump to and something he would have to get used to given his age.

"Don't be sorry. At least you didn't think I was some creepy old man here on my own." Although, now she probably thought that, Jack thought to himself as he rolled his eyes in annoyance with himself. After a short silence, he nodded his head toward the park. "How about you? I mean, which kid's yours?"

"Oh, I'm some creepy lady." He glanced at her and could see her grinning. He smiled back and she laughed slightly. "That's my three year old on the bigger climbing frame." Jack nodded in acknowledgement. "It gets easier when they get past two – they can play on their own whilst you sit there watching."

"You see, play-parks aren't my thing. Baseball, hockey – I'd be happy to play with her."

"What about your wife? I'm sure she'd like to visit the park with you both."

"Not married."

"I'm a single parent, too. It can be difficult."

"Oh, I'm not… It's not that simple."

"Tell me about it. Never is, is it?" she smiled again and Jack found himself smiling back although he was not sure why. "My name's Karen, by the way."

"Jack."

"Nice to meet you, Jack." She seemed to be about to say something else when a cry caught both of their attention. It was Karen's three year old son. "I better go see to him," she said and stood up before pausing and turning back. "This might seem really odd, perhaps incredibly forward, but I don't meet many single parents down here." Karen rummaged around in her bag and produced a small white business card. "My cell number, if you ever want to chat. Single parent to single parent." She turned around again and began walking off calling over to her son as she went.

Almost nervously, Jack fiddled with the small rectangular piece of card; twiddling it over and over as if it somehow held a spectacular secret. Glancing up slightly, Jack noticed Cassie and Daniella approaching so he quickly put Karen's card into his pocket and then noticed how the toddler was running to keep up with the teenager. "Hey, Jack," Cassie greeted. "Dani wants to go on the swings now and I figured it was your turn so I can have a rest." She seemed slightly out of breath.

"Come here, precious," he said, scooping Daniella up into his arms and she giggled even more. "Did you want to go on the swings?"

"Wing!"

"Okay then. You okay here with the stuff?" he asked Cassie.

"Uh-huh. Jack?" He paused for her. "Who was that woman?"

"That, she, uh, she's just another single parent. Don't forget there's a drink in there for you, if you want it." He vaguely heard Cassie mumble a thank you as he carried Daniella over to the swing. He was not sure why, but Jack felt guilty over a less than five minute conversation with another woman.

Next Chapter – 6.18 Forsaken

I finally know exactly where I am going with this entire story! It came to me after watching Disclosure and it should be roughly seven more chapters. Although it may be about ten or eleven depending on how in depth some chapters have to be. But, woo, I know where I'm going with it!