The Next Day
"Sir, I need to talk to you about Captain Carter," Jack says as he enters General Hammond's office early the next morning.
"Colonel," General Hammond says using the voice that makes his stomach shake, "I don't care what is going on between the two of you, but you are going to have to get this solved before you go through the gate."
"General, I think you are misunderstanding. I'm not here because Carter and I can't get along. I'm here because we got along a bit too well."
"Excuse me?" the General booms. For a second he looks a little bit like an overprotective father, and Jack remembers with a pang of fear that Carter's dad really is a General in the Air Force. One who is no doubt just as intimidating as the General who is currently in front of them, and probably thinks he's a deadbeat dad.
"Sir, I knew Sam back in the Gulf. You are aware that Carter has a son?" he asks, looking at the General.
The Generals eyes go large, "You're telling me you're Tyler's dad?"
Jack nods.
The General stands up to his full height, which isn't actually that tall, but which is still capable of intimidating. "You're the lowlife that abandoned a Sam when she was pregnant in a war zone? You've got to have twenty years on her, for God's sake."
"That's not… how it happened. I tried to get into contact with her after the war, and I never knew she was pregnant." Suddenly, a memory that seemed unimportant at the time comes back to him, "I should have known though, she was sick right before she got orders. We thought it was the flu, but now I know it was morning sickness."
"So you're alerting me that Sammy and you are planning on breaking frat rules?" the General says.
"Yeah, I suppose having a kid together is breaking the frat rules just a bit, Sir. That certainly qualifies as a relationship that might prejudge good order and discipline. But that's not why I want a transfer out of being her commanding officer. The reason I was asking was a bit more practical, child care."
The General looks at him critically. "Child care? Sam doesn't let anyone watch that kid when she's not around. Well, at least not anyone but Jacob."
"Jacob?" Jack says, his stomach twisting in the fear that Sam might have been lying. Maybe there really have been others.
"Her father," the General says glaring at him.
"I was with Ty for hours last night," Jack protests.
"Right, but she didn't actually let you get out of her sight with him, did she?" the General presses.
"I hadn't noticed," Jack says slowly, bothered by this new information.
"Right, well don't feel bad, it's everyone."
"Ty said he went to day care," Jack says stunned.
"Wow, Sammy must really want to get through the gate," the Generals says in awe. "Look, I'm going to tell you that making a decision about child care without actually talking to the mother of your kid is pretty dumb. I'm denying your request, because you are the only person who has led a team through the Stargate, you're too important."
"I'm not that important, and you said that Carter is an expert on the Stargate. Why not give her the command?" he asks.
"Because she's a Captain, and doesn't have the experience. She's been in charge of a dozen guys in her aircraft in the Gulf. She's kept ten scientists and as many civilians in line for a couple of years. She's never done ground operations, Jack. She's never been responsible for a dying man, never held him in her hands."
"No, she hasn't held dying men, because she was damn good at preventing them from dying. I can attest to that. And I can also attest that she sits by people when they are in the hospital, makes sure they are all right. That goes a long way in my book," he says.
"She's not ready."
"What about Charlie, then?" he asks softly.
"Jack, I'll keep this in mind. If I ever get a chance to give you both jobs that make sense for you, I will."
"Thank you, Sir," he says standing up.
He's almost to the door when the General's voice calls him back, "Congratulations, Daddy."
"Thanks, sir," he says with a smile.
-0-0-0-
Sam wakes up with a start, sitting straight up in her bed with pure panic. She runs into her son's room, and draws an arm out of the blanket. She feels it carefully. It's fine, whole.
She scoots her baby over in bed, and wraps her arms around him. "I'm sorry baby boy. I'm so sorry," she says, gently kissing his forehead.
-0-0-0-
"Mommy, did you sleep in my bed again last night?" Tyler asks as he runs a hand over her face to wake her up.
"Yeah, baby, you had a nightmare again," she tells him.
Tyler is only three years old, but he's already figured out that he's not the one with nightmares. "I'm fine, mommy," he tells her, wrapping his chubby baby arms around her.
"I know you are, honey. You are fine."
-0-0-0-
"Mom," Jack says on the phone.
"Hey, babe, I heard you got called onto active duty again. Where are you stationed?"
"I'm in Colorado," he says, trying to interrupt his mother with the real purpose of the call.
"What are you doing?" his mother asks.
"I can't tell you that mom, but listen there is something I can tell you… ah… you can stop bugging me for grandkids."
There is a moment of silence, but when it ends it really ends, "You're telling me that you got some girl pregnant? Who is she? How come you've never talked about her? How serious is it? Are you getting married? When is she due?"
"Ah… about three years ago," he says, only managing to answer the last question.
"You've had a kid for three years, and you couldn't be bothered to tell your mother. Do you even understand how much you've made me miss?"
"Mom, I didn't know until yesterday. I met her back in the Gulf, mom. I never knew she was pregnant, and I ran into her again. And I met him. His name is Tyler Carter. He's a really great kid. He's got his mother's blond hair and my eyes. Your sense of humor, and the O'Neill sense of justice. Carter was crying when we were talking in the living room, and he tried to beat me up for making my mom cry."
"You call this girl by her last name? Why did you break-up?"
"Ah… right now I'm her boss, and we never really broke up."
"Yet you haven't seen her in four years," his mother says.
"Yeah, there was a misunderstanding, we couldn't find each other after the war."
"My god, Jack, is she the one that destroyed you?" his mother asks in a soft voice.
"No-one destroyed me," Jack says annoyed.
"Don't give me that. I saw you after the Gulf War. And at first, that's what I thought it was… the war. Post-traumatic stress or something. I was surprised that it hadn't happened before. All the wars you went through. But none of the wars, none of them destroyed you like her. And I knew… it was some her," his perceptive mother says.
"Yeah, it was her," Jack admits.
"So how open is she to your involvement? Can I meet him?"
"I don't know mom, this is pretty new. I… really only spent one day with the kid. She wants him to call me 'Jack' for now. But I'll ask for you."
"God, Jack, you're a father," she whispers.
"I am," he says, and he can't help a grin that's spreading across his face.
One Day Later
"Hey, Carter?" he says with a grin when she opens the door. "Is it ok if I come again? I know I was just here yesterday, but…"
"Jack!" Ty says, wrapping himself around his legs.
"Hey, little man," Jack says picking him up.
"Grandpa's coming tomorrow. Mommy is going on a trip the day after that. I wanta come with, like when we went from home to new home. But Mommy says I'm going to start going on trips that she can't go on."
"Your mother's right," he says.
"Nuf' air," he mutters. Jack knows he's trying to say no fair, but it comes out all run together. And with the way he's quickly moving toward tantrum something that sounds like 'enough air,' is actually pretty fitting.
"The cool thing about her new job is that your mother is going to have whole days off, and she can spend them with you, doing all kinds of fun things," Jack says.
"You too, Jack?" the kid asks hopefully. He loves the way that little kids get attached so fast.
"I'm not really sure, maybe different things at different times," Jack says.
"Of course you are. You're on the same team as me," Sam protests.
"Ah… I talked to the General about finding a job were our days on and off would be closer to opposite. He said no for now," Jack says, looking in her eyes.
She's pissed, and the General is right, he never should have done this without asking her first. "Why don't you want to work with me?" she demands.
"Maybe, we should finish this… somewhere else," he says, glancing at the kid in his arms.
Sam nods her head, and Jack puts her down. Sam pulls a coloring book and some crayons off a high shelf, and hands them to her son. "Jack and I are going to go into the kitchen. You come in if you need anything, bud, ok?"
The kids nods, "But don't make Mommy cry again," he says, giving Jack a glare.
"I'll try not to," Jack promises. He puts his hand on the small of her back as the two of them walk into the kitchen. She flinches under the contact, and he pulls his hand away quickly.
"I want to work with you, but I'm not sure it's appropriate…" Jack begins.
"So you just assumed that we were going to be together without even asking me?" she asks with venom.
"I didn't know if we were going to be involved. But we have a kid together, and that's a strong bond. It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship in order to be breaking the frat rules. And I was thinking that I could take care of him when you were going through the Stargate. I know that having someone you trust to watch him is really important to you."
"And what makes you think that I could trust you?" she says bitterly.
"I don't know, maybe the fact that I'm his father!" Jack blurts.
"What?" a tiny voice says.
Both adults turn to the little boy who is looking at them with a mouth hanging open.
"Did you need something, babe?" Sam asks, choosing to ignore the question that he just blurted out.
"Is Jack my Daddy?" Tyler asks not willing to be that easily distracted.
Sam's stomach twists, "Yeah honey, he is." She really didn't want her kid to know. She knows she should trust Jack. She believes that it wasn't his fault. But she still can't trust him, not completely.
"Why didn't you love me?" Tyler says, looking up at his father.
"Oh God, son, I love you," Jack says picking him up.
"No, you left," he says.
Sam breaks in, "Honey, I told you that your Daddy never knew about you."
"And if I would have I would have been there for you," Jack says.
"But you weren't. Didn't you love Mommy?" the kid asks, looking at his father in confusion.
"I loved your mother very much," Jack tells him, holding the child chose. Tyler has gone a little limp in his arms. He's a dead weight snuggled into the crook of Jack's neck.
"I don't understand what happened," Ty informs them.
"Neither do I," Sam says.
"It was all because I don't have good handwriting," Jack proclaims.
The little baby pulls his head away, and looks at his father. "What?" he asks.
"That's right, my handwriting was bad, and that's why we couldn't be together anymore," Jack informs his son.
"Oh, ok," the little boy says. Sam stares at him open mouthed. That made sense to Tyler? It didn't even make sense to her, and she was an adult who had actually lived through it.
"How is your handwriting now?" he asks, pulling back to look at Jack's face. He's trying to figure out if his father is going to leave again.
"I'm working on it," Jack says. He's looking over his son's head, and there is a message in this for Sam, and he is not talking about his handwriting.
"I'll help you practice," Ty proclaims. "I can write a 'T'."
"'T' for Tyler," Jack says, sitting down so his son can skip off.
"How did you know that?" Tyler asks.
"Well, my spelling's better than my handwriting, son," Jack replies.
And Sam giggles. She giggles in a way that she hasn't since the last time she knew Jack. And then she stands there as Tyler 'teaches' his father to write. She smiles at her boys. This is right. This is the way it should have been.