Jack was supposed to pick Cassie up from school. Yet somehow, he had managed not to come back with the rest of his team when they came through the stargate. Daniel told her on the phone not to worry, but Daniel had a head injury so what did he know?

Everything in her wanted to run into the base, and see what she could do to help, but the baby was napping, and she had to pick up Cassie from school in less than an hour.

She felt trapped, and she felt like a horrible mother for feeling trapped by her children.

-0-

Cassie skips out of the school with her arm linked with another girl, and braided hair she didn't leave the house with in the morning.

Sam had never imagined herself ending up with a popular girl.

"Where is Jack?" Cassie asks throwing her back pack into the car in such a way that it wakes the sleeping baby.

"Sorry," she says more to the baby than to Sam. She puts a hand on his stomach in a vain attempt to calm him down while buckling herself with her other hand. Sam plasters a smile on her face and drives through the crying.

"He got stuck at work."

It's the best acting that Sam has ever done, but she is a very bad actor so that isn't saying much.

"Is he hurt?" Cassie asks.

"I don't know," Sam replies.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Cassie asks alarmed, "When the man you are living with does something that dangerous and isn't coming home you ask questions."

"No one knows. He's missing."

Cassie ponders for a long moment, "You're pretty good at finding people at work aren't you?"

"I guess," Sam admits.

"What do you say that the little tike and I spend the night at Janet's place, and you go to work and save Jack?"

"Cassie, I don't want you to worry. I am sure that Jack is just fine."

"I am sure that he would be a lot finer if you were there for him," Cassie insists.

"Honey, you are the priority here. There are people looking for him," she pauses.

"Sam, I haven't really answered that question about where I wanted to live now. I've been living with you for more than a month, and I've never told you if it was going to be a permanent thing or not. This is why. I'm terrified that I am going to hold the two of you back. That somewhere in the universe, someone is going to die, or maybe all of us are going to die, and it will be because you were at home checking my homework when you should have been saving the world. I really couldn't live with it if the person that didn't get saved was Jack."

"Cassie, it isn't a choice between you or him…" Sam begins.

"That's what I'm saying. Sam, he really needs you right now. Go be there for him. Let other people help you. I would rather live with you full time, but I really love Janet too. She told me she would be willing to be my mom full time, I don't see why she wouldn't agree to occasional emergency babysitting."

"It's not the same thing, Cass."

"I know, it's way easier."

"You are just making this argument, because you want all the perks of having two families," Sam teases.

"No kidding. Have you seen the loot that Charlie and Ava have? Sign me up!" Cassie teases back.

-0-

"I heard you got me back," Jack says barely recognizing Sam over the bandages that are wrapped around his head.

"I did," she agrees.

"Where are the kids, Sam?"

"Janet took them. Speaking of the kids, Cassie made a decision."

"Did she?" Jack asks trying to sound casual even with his stomach sinking within him. Why would she choose this moment when he was in so much physical pain to add on emotional pain? The kid didn't want him to be her dad. It was an obvious choice, because his carelessness has resulted in one of his children getting shot. Still, Cassie's only choice was him as a father or no father at all. At least when it came to the Janet Sam choice it was just choosing which mom to have. He could have taken rejection like that, but this…this was a bit too much.

"She decided that she wanted us to be her parents, with the provision that she gets to hang out with Janet whenever we are needed at work. Janet loves the idea. I thought that was a pretty generous proposition considering the fact that there is also newborn baby involved.

"What?" Jack says. He must be hallucinating. It's the drugs they gave him in surgery.

"Cassie wants to stay with us. Janet wants to take care of them sometimes."

"Janet is taking both the kids?" he asks still confused.

"Yes, for the last two days, and tonight too. Tomorrow you are going to have to brave the hospital on your own. Three days away from my kids is really too much."

"They aren't staying with her?" Jack says confused.

Sam wrinkles her brow. Perhaps he is not conscious enough for this discussion, "Jack, Cassie chose us. She wants to live with us."

"What is wrong with the girl?" he asks.

This causes Sam to laugh in relief. It sounds like the man she knows and loves.

"Speak for yourself. I am quite the catch," she teases. She hasn't missed how out of it he is though, "How are you Jack? Does it hurt?"

"No, but I'm guessing there are pain killers involved in that answer."

"You know what really sucks about this whole situation?" she whispers close to his ear, "We were only two days away from the check-up that would have cleared me for…amorous activities."

Jack groans looking down at his broken ribs, broken leg, and whatever the hell he was in surgery for. All of it pretty much guaranteed that he was not going to be cleared for amorous activities anytime soon, "Yep, the universe has definitely conspired to keep us apart."