"Thanks Teal'c, I'm going to run," Shelby says the second that he walks through the door.
"This dress is pretty," Tammy says, taking it out of the bag, "Mommy says dresses are too fancy for me."
"Your mother is wrong, nothing is too fancy for you," Teal'c informs the child, "Now take your clothing into the bathroom and put it on." In that phrase, he edited himself in order to use small words, like he used to when his son was younger.
Tammy grins, and heads to the bathroom, pulling her sister after herself. Teal'c begins taking things out of the bags and packing backpacks for the young girls. He isn't sure if their mother just didn't bring their school supplies or if they don't have any. So he got them some in case. Worst case, he just wasted thirty dollars.
Then Becky Lynn comes out of the bedroom, and sees the crayons that he's putting in her backpack. "Who are they for?" she asks in awe.
"I was thinking of finding some little girls to give them too," he teases in the easy way he's seen Jack and Jacob do with children of this size. They are Earth children, and he needs to take care of them in an Earth way.
"I'm a little girl," Becky Lynn proclaims with shining eyes.
"Well, then, one of these is for you," Teal'c says, handing her the smaller cartoon character backpack.
"You got us each the big box of crayons," Tammy says.
"Indeed."
"We've never had the big box before," Becky Lynn says softly.
"We've always had to share," Tammy adds.
And Teal'c heart swells with the incredible urge to buy these little girls everything they've ever wanted.
"Your educational institutions have already begun dispensing knowledge," he says, forgetting to dumb down the language, because he's so distracted by this thought.
"What?" Becky Lynn asks.
"He means we're late for school," her nine-year-old sister translates.
Teal'c smiles and nods at the older girl. So not only is she as cute as a button, she's smart, too, he muses to himself.
He never liked children, in theory. That's why he was thirty years into his marriage before his son accidentally arrived on the scene. He been angry when he found out he was going to be a father. Why would he create another slave generation? Why should he bolster the numbers of the army?
But then he'd seen Ry'ac, and he'd understand. Parenthood, childhood, the meaning of life, all in one tiny smile of a newborn.
It wasn't logical, and he was ok with that.
These kids, they were making him feel all of that again. And they weren't even his kin.
"Kin of Shelby, have you eaten?"
The little girls nod their heads.
"Prepare yourselves for departure."
-0-0-0-
"I'm sorry I'm late. I need ta get my sisters into bed," Shelby says as she rushes into the apartment later that night.
"They are already in bed," Teal'c says.
"Really? It's usually impossible to get them to shut their eyes."
"I gave them a bath, then I read them soothing stories. Is that not the Earth way of putting small children to bed? It is the method that the O'Neill taught me to employ when I have babysat for their children in the past."
"That's great, but where did you get the book?"
"I purchased it this morning," he says.
"Did they eat?"
"They enjoyed fish sticks. Does this food actually contain fish and sticks?"
"Well, hopefully it contains fish, the stick part comes from the shape. I wish I was here to make sure that they did their homework."
"Their homework is complete. I required Becky Lynn to read her story twice, because she made significant errors in the first reading. Tammy made one error on her math, and I instructed her to fix it."
"Wow, I can usually barely get them to do their homework, much less do it twice. You're really good with them."
"I enjoyed being around your kin," he replies.
"Great," Shelby says, but she looks away from them.
"Shelby you shouldn't feel guilty about this."
"Why? Just because a stranger is better with my sisters than I am? Why would that make me feel guilty?" she says sarcastically.
"Shelby, you spend a significant amount of time mothering these children when you were growing up, did you not?" he asks.
"They're my half-sisters, you know; I was a teenager by the time that Tammy entered the picture. My mom was even less responsible when they came around than when I was born. I changed their diapers, and feed them, and rocked them to sleep."
"You were too young for such weighty responsibility."
"You do what you have to do," Shelby says dismissively.
"You no longer have to shoulder that responsibility."
"They still need help," Shelby says looking in his eyes.
"That is what I am here for," Teal'c informs her.
-0-0-0-
"How did the homework go?" Sam asks coming into the house after work.
Emma has a look of cold determination on her face, an arms crossed across her chest, "No," she says.
Sam glances at Jack.
"We were doing pretty good, and then she gave up on me," Jack says.
"You're lying, dad, I'm too stupid for math."
Sam sits down across from the girl at the table. "Do you know who Einstein was?" she asks.
"He's the guy who stuck is finger in a light socket and discovered electricity, right?"
Sam is proud of herself for not laughing, "Not exactly sweetie. Another guy discovered electricity with a kite. But Einstein was one of the smartest people ever. He explained how light and energy interact together. A lot of the calculations that I do in a day stem from the ones that he came up with."
"How exactly do you think telling me about a really smart person is going to make me feel any better?" her daughter sneers.
"He had trouble when he was in school. So much trouble that they kicked him out of the school that he went to, and his parents had to find him another one. He couldn't do math. But when he grew up he invented a whole new kind of math."
Emma just looks at her mother.
"What I'm trying to tell you is that we just have to find a new way to show you how to do the stuff you've been working on. You can get it. I know you can get it. We just have to figure out how your brain works."
"How come some people don't have to work hard? How come some people just get it?" Emma asks glancing over at her brother, who has already finished his homework and is drawing on the floor of the living room.
"Because some people aren't as lucky as you, goose, some people don't get to find out what they are made off. What are we working on?"
"Adding," Emma says.
"Well, that's great you're good at adding," Sam says with a smile.
"I am not."
"You're great at counting, and adding is just counting," Sam says.
A Day Later
"Daniel Jackson, you spent your formative years in the care of your country's government, did you not?" Teal'c says walking into her lab.
"Yeah, between eight and eighteen. Is this about Shelby's little sisters?"
Teal'c nods his head, "Did you receive the material and emotional support you required while in the care of foster?"
"Yeah, I guess. I mean, they didn't starve me or anything. Didn't their mother come back for them?"
"I do not believe their mother provides them with the material goods they require to be successful at their educational institution, or remain clean. Also I do not think that she provides them with enough affection."
"You don't think their mother loves them enough? Yeah, the state is not going to take them away because of that. You know, research shows that the more loving adults a kid has in their life, the better they do. You can be there for those little girls."
One Week Later
"Teal'c what does this mean?" Shelby asks, bringing yet another fresh flower out of her bedroom and holding it up to him.
He looks at her, "I am not well versed in how to execute a romantic endeavor on your world. In my world, all we do is ask someone to become our spouse."
"Are you like, seriously thinking about proposing to me?" Shelby asks in a mystified tone.
"I know that that is the inappropriate romantic move in this culture. That is why I started by offering you a flower."
"You could just ask me to date," Shelby says.
Teal'c is silent.
"Unless you don't want to," Shelby says, fidgeting with her nervousness.
"I do want to, I am just uncertain about the correct way to proceed," Teal'c says.
"Good thing you have a yoda," Shelby says with a grin.
A Week Later
It's less than a second between when Janet wakes up and when she's bent over the toilet losing the dinner that Daniel cooked for her a couple of hours ago.
Before her miscarriage, she took a pregnancy test as soon as she could. After… she just didn't want to know. You take an early test, and there is a 30% chance the baby would die. She couldn't deal with that again. She knows that if she waits for a missed period, waits for her the nausea, her odds are up to 15%. Half the chance of having a broken heart.
Her period should have started yesterday, and it hasn't, and now she's throwing up in the middle of the night. She takes the test.
Positive. But she's not going to tell Daniel yet. She might be able to survive a 15% chance of losing a baby, but she knows that Daniel can't survive odds like that. She wants to protect him, and guard his heart from every possible misfortune. But she knows there is no such thing as a 100% guarantee.
She's going to wait until she hears the heartbeat. By then, there will be a 95% chance that she'll bring a healthy baby into the world. Daniel can handle odds like that.