Grace
Walking into the kitchen, Jack smiled at the sight of Sam sitting at the breakfast bar, Daniella on her lap and they were talking animatedly at each other. By talking, Jack could hear Daniella making random gurgling noises and high pitched squeals, repeating certain sounds over and over; she had yet to speak a true actual word yet, but he knew that it would come. Sitting down next to them, Daniella immediately began squirming, trying to reach her daddy and Jack happily took her. Even before he had decided to limit his off world duties, Daniella had preferred her father to her mother; she was definitely a daddy's girl. Then he noticed the paperwork in front of Sam and he looked at her in confusion.
"Well, no wonder she prefers daddy if you're reading her paperwork, Sam." He reached for the top sheet, to check it, finding it odd that Sam would bring work from home and be reading it in a public area and to their daughter. There was a picture of a nebula. "What's this?"
"It's a nebula I've been looking at for years through a telescope."
"What's so important about it now?"
"I think it's different to all other nebulae that I've studied. I was just going over some of the existing data we have on it."
"You never do things for a random reason. Spit it out, Sam, what's the deal with it?"
"Colonel Ronson," and the Prometheus, "might be able to make some extra readings of it soon," as the Prometheus passes it, "and I was examining the data to see if there was anything I could get him to check out."
"Him?"
"Well, his science staff, obviously."
"Why not you, I meant?"
A disappointed look crossed her face. "I'd wanted to be on it. They're testing the…" engines, "And I would have loved to be there and analysing everything as it happened, along with the nebula." She was avoiding his eyes and after pinching Daniella's nose to make her giggle, he gently prodded Sam's cheek, forcing her to look at him with a slightly sheepish smile on her face.
"Why didn't you request it?" He knew that the journey the Prometheus was taking would have kept Sam away from home for longer than average, a few weeks from beginning to end. Normally it was a mission gone wrong that kept either of them away from Daniella for that sort of length of time, but Jack would not dream of attempting to stop Sam. At the end of the day, he loved the look on her face when she was absorbed in her science stuff.
"It would be too long away."
"You could have," he argued.
"I know." Nodding, she looked down at her paper-work again, clearly trying to avoid Jack. He poked her in the ribs, grinning at her in an attempt to get her to open up. She sighed and then twisted in her chair to give him all of her attention. "I've been away too much recently, been through too much." She smiled hesitantly at him and he returned it with a half smile. After his mission to Honduras and hers to Anubis' base, Jack had managed to sit Sam down and have half a discussion about her recent behaviour. She had not opened up to him, but she had accepted her slightly off behaviour. "I thought you'd prefer it."
"Don't pin this on me."
"Why not?"
"Because I didn't ask you to stop doing your job, I asked you to stop willingly risking your life. There's a difference."
"What's done is done." Gathering up her paperwork, Sam walked out from the kitchen with a stormy look on her face and almost barrelled into Sasha as she did so. Jack thought he vaguely heard a mumbled apology. Looking down at Daniella, she had quietened with her mother's raised voice and was now slightly sullen and withdrawn. He tried to cheer her up by acting stupid and pulling funny faces, but nothing made her smile.
"Another argument?" Sasha asked, leaning against the breakfast bar next to Jack. The poor girl could not help but notice every problem that the two of them had.
"It'll blow over." Over the years, Jack had perfected the ability to lie convincingly and there was no way that Sasha would see through it.
She reached out and put a comforting hand on his arm. "I'm sure that it will all be okay." Flinching her hand away from his arm, he sensed discomfort in her, but she shook her head and excused herself from the room before Jack could question it further.
Lifting Daniella up above his head and throwing her slightly before catching her in an attempt to make her giggle, Jack then lowered her and shook his head saying: "Women!" Pushing her tongue out between her lips, Daniella blew a raspberry out, a spray of spit hitting Jack's face causing him to think that his point had been made.