Jack is an unusual babysitter, but a happy one. He loves doing the homework, the dinner, and the play- whatever is needed. Tonight, being a Friday, Cassie is allowed to stay up a little extra and have free time. She's chosen to paint, which he loves to watch.
He knows he's not the first choice to babysit, but the high school girl had a date, and Daniel was busy, and Sam was stuck on base till her weird sneeze thing from their last offworld trip wore off, so… And he loves it. So of course, first there is pizza and then there's whatever she wants, which is to watch The Princess Bride again, and he doesn't mind. She asks if she can have her painting stuff out during the movie, and he can't think of a reason to deprive her, so they set it up in Frasier's living room.
Jack loves watching her paint; she's so deliberate with her strokes, and he smiles as she pushes a round tipped brush onto the paper before pulling it upward to make what looks like the petal of a flower. His lip curls up on the left side as he watches her start the next petal, and he leans forward. "Whatcha painting, Cass?" he asks.
"Tulips," she smiles brightly as she looks back at him. "Sam loves them."
"Does she?"
"Yeah! She told me about when her mom took her to a place called Amsterdam one time and she saw millions of them!" Cassie's enthusiasm is infectious and Jack is willing to catch it. He watches her brush strokes closely as she paints a series of tulips and their stems.
"What did Carter show you about tulips?" he asks, leaning forward with his elbow propped up on his knee and his chin resting on his hand while he watches her adoringly.
Cassie grins at him and drops her brush into the cup attached to her easel. "Hold on," she says. "I'll show you." She digs through a cigar box covered in rhinestones and other stickers before drawing out a photo too old to be recent. She hands it to Jack and he does his best not to audibly gasp.
The photo in his hands is four inches by six inches and it shows a field of brightly colored tulips with a windmill in the background. But in the foreground is a breathtakingly beautiful blonde woman whose arms are wrapped around a gangly teenage girl with long blond hair and huge blue eyes who is trying too hard not to look as tall as she is already. Jack's heart skips several beats as he looks at little Carter with the woman he assumes is her mother. It's a precious and deeply personal memory that Carter chose to share with Cassie and that Cassie, in her sweet innocence, has shared with him. He'll never bring it up, but he'll also never forget it.
Three days later is the next time Jack has the chance to sneak into Sam's lab, and he goes for it. He drops the small vase of tulips on her work counter next to her desk and fluffs them a bit, silently begging them to be as pretty as they can be in the sub whatever level basement of a mountain base. He figures she should have a little sunshine down here once in a while, and now he knows tulips are a good choice.
"Sir?"
Jack looks over as he's shuffling the flowers around in their vase. "Oh, Carter!" he says. He gently pushes the vase to the side a little and shrugs. "I heard you liked tulips."
