I'm so sorry, I had a writer's block and then no time and then issues and you don't really care about all of it. Therefore, I'll shut up and let you read.

Enjoy!

M.

PS: Yeah, probably not the best piece around.

Chapter Twenty-six

"Ok, ok… wait!" Jack interrupted Sam, scrubbing his face tiredly. She eyed him with a frown, not quite understanding why he had stopped her when she was so close to finishing.

"I'm sorry Carter, but we've been sitting here for," he checked his watch "eight hours now, and even if I'm the most interested person in this room on knowing where the hell you've been, why you were gone and what sort of trauma you did experience … I need a break. WE need a break," he pointed to all the presents. "And moreover, I'm pretty sure you need the pause."

"General O'Neill," the president warned.

"No, listen to me Henry," he raised his hand to stop Hayes from talking. "I don't know for sure where or how long she was flying the tel'tak she stole from the Jaffas, or how much of that she did consciously or how on Earth she managed to keep both of them alive. But right now, I don't care," Sam looked at him with a curious squint, "I don't care, because the only thing I want is to go out there and check that my daughter, the one I've been introduced to yesterday morning, is okay. I don't care because the one thing I want to do right now is raising my ass out of this chair and then walk away from all of you and grab my daughter with the hopes that my wife will follow. And then... The next only thing I want to do is go for a nice family dinner. I don't care if we are still halfway through her history, or if she's not alive according to with our records. I want to spend some good old time with my family before you decide whatever you choose. I want to use my time, the out of the clock that we've been using for the past three hours, to have a conversation with my wife and get reacquainted with her. I don't care if she can't tell me her experiences during her time on the tel'tak. But I certainly have way more questions that those at the moment. And if you don't agree with me, well… then I will have to grab Carter by force and leave you all behind, and maybe even locked, until tomorrow morning. Because honestly, I don't know about you, but I know I am starving and if I'm hungry so is Sam, and I can't imagine how bored the one-year-old outside the meeting room is." He finished his rant and Sam looked at him with a hint of a smile, knowing he had lost it out of boredom and hunger. The room was silent, and no one dared to even breath louder. And then, Hayes laughed.

"Oh, General O'Neill… you could've just say that you wanted time with your family and we would've stopped this sooner. We want to know what happened, but I know both of you well enough to understand you need time to process and to just be a family," he nodded. "and you are right, I'm starving. We should adjourn this meeting and restart it at 0900 tomorrow. I know you are all military. However, I'm not a morning person. Colonel Carter a.k.A Samantha Carter O'Neill, this meeting is adjourned. It isn't over; you aren't free to talk about the events of your missing days that were spent on the tel'tak. Since you already have given the facts about the days since the mission up until getting the new ship, you can speak of those with General O'Neill. But only with him. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Oh! And this act of kindness towards you and your family doesn't mean I won't accept a hard punishment if you are found guilty," Hayes warned her.

"I understand, sir."

"Good. Now, go. You are free to grab that cute child of yours and have a decent night on Earth." He grinned. "You are all free to leave, gentlemen."

The meeting was over, and even if a couple of the present weren't happy with the situations and wanted to continue until the end. They were forced to go. Sam being closer to the door was the first to leave the room.

Outside, Amelia wasn't in her chair, and Sam frowned, it was then when the door opened, and a grinning Naysa jumped from the arms of the woman to the floor and towards her mother.

"Mommy!" she hugged Sam's legs standing on her mother's feet. Then she moved her head to the side, hiding her face from the view when the room started to be filled with many other legs coming out of the same room.

Sam thought a way of grabbing her daughter but the position in which they were didn't left space for it, she was about to take one step and move them both at the same time, when a dress blues kneeled beside her and tapped her daughter's shoulder. Naysa slowly moved her head to see who was taping her and then she jumped towards him.

"Daddy!"

"Hey munchkin, let's go eat something," he grinned at Naysa, who nodded eagerly. Jack wasn't so sure she had understood what he was speaking of, but he simply placed her comfortable on his grass and then turned around. "Amelia, thank you for taking care of her, it's late, you should go home. And gentleman, I would love to stay and chat, but my family needs me, and I'm quite sure you have much to do than hovering around on an office as small as this one. Wave bye to the men, baby." He waved at the people in the room and Naysa followed. Soon the office was empty, and only the O'Neill's were left.

Jack opened his arm and nodded Sam to join them, and she did. With his daughter on one side and his wife on the other one, he felt like the happiest man alive. He kissed Sam's hair.

"We should go get changed first."

"Nah, if we go home we will never be out before everything it's closed. Let's go to the city, have something to eat on one of those top-notch extra organic restaurants I never dared to try, and you can convince me it tastes better than cardboard. Then, we go home and put our daughter to bed and to end the night… I'll take you to bed," he added wriggling his eyebrows.

"I like that…" she whispered.

"Oh, I know! I'm very good at putting you to bed," he grinned mischievously, getting a slap on his chest for it.

"I meant, the sound of it: Our daughter, coming from your mouth is like a dream."

"No, having you back is a dream, Sam." He caressed her cheek, "let's go eat."

They walked closely together but keeping the space in between them as being at the Pentagon required from two officers, until they reached the gate and finally walked to the stairs separating them from the metro.

"How do you even know about organic restaurants?" Sam asked while they waited, trying hard to ignore all the glances. He grinned.

"Ah, a man has his secrets," Sam raised her eyebrow and kept her eyes fixated on him. "There's an app, they rate the best restaurants around the area, and they happened to list a few vegan ones."

"Okay," she trailed.

"Kay," Naysa added imitating Sam's facial expression.

"Okay, you both win! Time and time again the guys would come up and try to cheer me up, and not to look quite like the hermit. Vala and Daniel wanted to try something new one time they came to visit, and Amelia suggested we looked it up. I've searched for one earlier this morning to hopefully catch up during lunch, but …" he stopped, "that's ours. We need to get to PI Gallery."

"You are the boss," she smiled moving to enter. Luckily, they found empty seats.

"She's trying to understand what's going on," Jack said observing the way Naysa's eyes kept roaming around.

"She's probably distracted by the lights and the fast moving, or maybe, she's just thinking about the last time she saw things moving more quickly than this," Sam smiled.

"Yeah, perhaps." Their station arrived quickly, and the walk did wonders for their stressed selves. And Naysa seemed to enjoy walking between them. "I can't believe I missed her first steps," Jack huffed.

"Well, it could've been much worse, you know?"

"Yes, I could've never find out about her." They stopped, and he reached down to grab his daughter. "Thank you, Sam. I know you returned home to give her to me. And if we weren't on our uniforms I would kiss you senseless."

"I told you we should've to go home first."

"Welcome, table for two and child?"

"Yes." The waiter started to walk, and they followed.

"You've got here just in time," the girl added giving them the menus, "we close the doors in twenty."

"Told ya!" Jack grinned.

"Tolya!" Naysa repeated and laughed making both of them laugh.

"This will be fun, I know you ate salads, but you weren't as fond of them before. And I'm pretty sure the food isn't even remotely similar to the options we have," Jack added once they had ordered.

"That's an understatement. We ate different colors and flavors of a gooey thing; the yellow one tasted like avocado and tomato. The red one tasted like chicken MREs," they both grimaced. "The blue one tasted like bananas. And there was some meat, scarce but we ate it too. Then there were different versions of nuts. Those weren't as bad, and those were the ones we had taken with us on our trips."

"IT must have been awful," he acknowledged giving her hand a quick press.

"It actually wasn't that bad. I mean, it could've been worse."

"Yet, you raised her alone, Sam."

"No, I didn't. I didn't have you, Jack. However, I wasn't alone, the people there, they helped me a lot. Even if they didn't understand a word of what I was telling them," she stopped as the waiter approached with their orders.

"Thanks," they both said, and the girl smiled at them.

"Look, Jack," She said grabbing his hand on hers, "I wasn't alone. And I was lonely; I had her and plenty of desperation. I wanted you; I missed you and, I confess, I wished I had the opportunity to turn back time and sent others to the mission and stay behind, but I can't."

"I'm not asking you to do it, Sam. I'm merely acknowledging the bravery you have. Hell, if I could turn back time I would have I don't know, intervened so you wouldn't be sent or something. We can't alter the timeline just because what happened doesn't suit us. Yes, I would've loved to see you pregnant and be there for her birth. And hear her when she first started to speak, and wobble. And I can decide to be bitter about it, or I can accept that I have you and her, after being pressured to affirm I wouldn't see you ever again. And I chose to accept it; I decided to focus on the present. Whatever the future brings to us, it can't be worse than the things we already went through, right?"

"I love you." Was her breathy answer. "We should hurry up getting home," Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

"Aye, ma'am. That we can do."