Two Weeks Later
"The kids get to bed alright?" Daniel asks his wife as she enters the room.
Janet hates it when he does that. Speak automatically, with only a sliver of his brain, without looking up from whatever book he's buried in. She'd rather he ignored her altogether.
"Yeah," she responds. But she knows the response isn't going to break through his automated defenses and get into his brain. She knows the only thing that is going to do that. She gets on the bed behind him, and kisses his neck.
He turns to her with a grin, and kisses her on her lips. She moves closer to him to get a better angle, and in the process her knee gets on a book.
"Whoa!" Daniel exclaims pushing her off.
"And again my husband chooses his books over me. You are a bit hard on a girl's ego, Dr. Jackson," Janet teases moving back.
"These are really old books," he says mournfully, closing them up carefully and putting them away.
"Well, as long as they are really old books," she says sarcastically.
"Maybe I should stop reading in bed, or at least leave my really old books at work," he says as he sets them aside.
"Your wife would not object to either one of those," she says.
"And you now have my full attention," he says.
"Maybe someday, I'll get that without offering you sex," Janet teases.
"Ok, no sex, and you've still got my attention," he says, scraping a tendril of hair away from her head.
"Now is not the best time for sexless focus, it's the best baby-making day of the month," Janet says.
"Wait, what? You're not taking birth control?" Daniel blinks.
Her head jerks back in surprise, "Ah, no… we planned on lots of kids. I guess we never talked about how much spacing we wanted between kids. Do you want to wait a year or something before we have another baby?"
He laughs, a short stifled little thing full of concern, "Are you kidding me? We're not having any more kids."
"We were going to have a few more kids," Janet says.
"That was before the pregnancy from hell that landed you in the hospital more than once, and the depression which followed the kid's birth. Both of which, from what I've read, are likely to be worse with each additional pregnancy."
"So you're saying you regret our son, just became my hormones were a little off after he entered the world," she sneers.
"Your hormones were a hell of a lot more than a 'little off'. I watched my wife go through hell, and I don't really want to do it again," he says with increasing volume.
"So you do then, you regret our son?" she asks.
"No, of course not, but that doesn't mean that our future children should be born in the same way," he says raising her volume just a little above hers.
"So help me if you're suggesting carrying our kid in your own stomach, forget it! The O'Neills might have got out of that one unscathed, but it's just medically nuts. Not to mention the fact that I want to have a baby inside of me?"
"I was talking about adoption. You know, like our daughter, like I wanted to be when I was a kid? What's so wrong with that?" he asks. Their trying to top each other with volume has finally resulted in the noise level growing to a shout.
There is a tentative knock on the door. Daniel closes his eyes in the extra-long blink which is his way of flinching.
"Come on in," Janet says in a voice several decibels down from where she'd been yelling at before.
"Everything ok?" Cassie says, poking her head in.
"Yeah, we're fine, sorry if we kept you up," Janet says.
Cassie's stands at the door, emotions playing on her face. Daniel starts to wonder how much she's heard and whether or not he should address the whole adoption issue. The only thing that stops him is that he had no idea what he could say to make the words lose their venom.
"I don't talk about my birth parents much," Cassie says.
Her parents blink, this is not where she thought the conversation was going.
"They used to fight a lot," she says.
"Cassie, I'm sorry you heard us yelling. We never should have yelled at each other, it's not going to happen again," Daniel says.
"He left," Cassie says.
Daniel stands up, and walks across the room to take his teenage daughter into his arms, "I'm not leaving. It was just a fight."
"I'm sorry, I'm being foolish," Cassie says pulling away, and going back to her room.
"No, Cass, you're not. I want you to keep telling us things, so that we can keep making them better," Janet says.
Cassie gives her family a quick grin right before she disappears back into her room.
Daniel turns back to his wife, "I'm sorry I yelled."
"Yeah, me too, I think we should probably finish this conversation sometime when we're not both tired," Janet says.
"Right," he says laying down on the bed.
"And it wouldn't be terrible to adopt, it's just… it's pretty magical to have a kid inside you, and I really want to do that again."
"I officially declare this subject tabled," he says.
Janet snuggles herself against her husband's chest, and he wraps an arm around her, and presses a kiss onto her forehead.
A Week Later
Ty starts a toenail painting extravaganza at at a team/family night for all the kids. Cassie disappeared somewhere in the middle of her second foot. Sam gets up to find her. She's staring out the window. Daniel and Janet are outside, in the cold, and she can tell by the arms waving they're yelling at each other.
Cassie hasn't missed it either.
"Cass," Sam says lightly.
"Emma lived with her dad, right? Before he died?" Cassie says turning her eyes to her. "So on Earth, the kid gets to choose, right? 'Cause on Hanka the kid always went with the mom."
Sam's stomach clenches, "Well, honey, sometimes the kids get to choose, some of the time the judge does."
"I want to go with Daniel," Cassie says with decision.
Sam knows that will destroy Janet. "Honey, are things really that bad?"
"Mom's been depressed for a long time. And then since Christmas it's been this," she waves her hand out the scene, "All the time."
"Honey, you don't need to watch this, go paint your nails," she says.
Cassie obeys, reluctantly. It's like it was back on her planet with the sickness; if the world is going to end, you might as well watch it happen.
The team night is at the Jackson's house, so Sam grabs Daniel's large white sweater from the hanger by the door, and heads outside.*
"Daniel, Jack wanted you to explain again the difference between Upper and Lower dynasties of Egypt," Sam says.
Daniel doesn't buy this, but he's embarrassed enough at being caught yelling at his wife when its ten degrees out that he heads into the house.
"Are you ok, Janet?" Sam asks.
"Yeah," Janet says, trying to follow her husband into the house.
"Really? 'Cause I just had a chat with Cassie, and in her mind, you guys are thumbing through the phone books for divorce lawyers."
"Cassie is overreacting because her birth parents split," Janet says.
"Well, I didn't know that but," Sam makes, Janet turn toward her, "Are you guys ok? I mean, I'm your friend, we could go to drinks and talk about it."
"Yeah, we might have to do that," Janet smiles.
"You're going to be ok," Sam says with a firm nod of her head. She says this because she can't imagine it not being true. She's seen plenty of marriages blow up, but not Daniel and Janet, they're perfect for each other.
Janet is starting to wonder. She's failed at marriage before. Maybe some people just aren't cut out for it.
Daniel is a better man than her first husband, but she's the same person. She's still picking fights, because screaming is better than silence. And she's still lonely. Because in the end, being lonely doesn't have anything to do with proximity, it has to do with your ability to connect to the people in your house.
Maybe she's just broken.
Two Weeks Later
"Teal'c, you know that I'm going to be done with college in a couple of months, right?"
"Indeed, I am endeavoring to plan a party for you."
"Oh, that is not necessary," she says quickly.
"On the contrary there is a tradition on Earth which requires the celebration of academic accomplishments."
"I so don't like to be the center of attention, but I didn't bring this up to talk about a party. I just mean, well I've studied my entire life. And when I'm done with school… I'd like to keep studying."
"You want to continue your studies and become a doctor?" Teal'c asks with something in his voice that might be mistaken for excitement.
"No, nurses are the ones who do most of the work. I'm just saying… I want to learn the Goa'uld language, and to fight like a Jaffa."
"These things take years of study."
"Luckily I plan on being married to you for years."
"Mel tek no'meen kree," he says.
"I know you told me to listen, but that's all I got."
"I said, 'perhaps we should begin immediately'. Kree can mean 'now' as much as it can mean 'listen'," he replies.
"How do you say 'ok'?" she asks.
The Next Day
There are forms of this Jaffa martial arts, Shelby realizes. There is the semi-serious way of fighting that he does when he is training with an adult Jaffa or a member of his team.
Then there is the lighter way he fights when he is going against his son, where he never looks right at him, which gives his son the ability to use the element of surprise.
And then there is the way he fights with her.
It's like dancing. It's like foreplay.
And she realizes that all the time he's been married to her, there has been some huge part of his Jaffa sexuality missing.
He gave that up for her.
And this whole slapping giant sticks together doesn't do anything for her. But it does for him. And after, when they're in bed together, it's definitely worth the foreplay.
But the fighting does something else for her, something not sexual, but the fighting does make her feel powerful.
She's been abused before, and not just by her current stepfather. By the vast majority of the stream of men her mother had been with over the years. But she knows, if they tried to hit her now, she would be able to defend herself, and that makes her feel a lot more powerful.
It makes her feel safe, knowing that not only would Teal'c never let anyone hurt her again, but neither would she.
There is a music to it, the smacking of their sticks. The movement of their feet, like a dance.
"This is nice," she says. She's always trying to fill the silence with words. And with Teal'c there is a lot of silence.
"Indeed," he says, reminding her once again how few words you need to communicate.
Two Days Later
The microwave and the oven are buzzing at once, and Janet's hands are already full. The whole idea of cooking a from-scratch dinner was stupid. When you and your spouse are both working full-time and there is a baby and a teenager involved, edible is enough, really.
"Daniel, can you help me in here?" she asks.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, in a minute," he says, not lifting his head up from the book from the table in the attached dinning room.
Janet decides not to commit murder.
Will is laying on the floor having "belly time" and starts to cry.
Daniel puts the book down, and lays down next to his son on the floor, touching his sides to make the small boy giggle.
-0-0-0-
Daniel chats through dinner, about work, about Cassie's school, about an article he read in a professional journal (Janet's, although she didn't comment on it).
Janet doesn't talk.
Daniel doesn't notice.
Cassie does.
*Yes, I did put Samantha Carter in the ascension sweater.