He stands outside the school gates. The children are playing. He watches them, his eyes searching...always searching. There she is, running across the yard with a group of her friends; the golden haired child with her mother's eyes and her mother's smile. His heart hesitates and his breathing slows. She stops her play and looks at him. It is her, he can feel it. Curiously, she leaves her classmates and walks towards him. He crouches down, so their eyes are on the same level. Then she smiles. Her mother's smile. The smile he last saw two weeks and a lifetime ago. They told him that he's been away six years...and this is the evidence.
"Who are you?" she asks.
There is no fear in her voice, it's as if she has known him all her life.
"I'm Jack," he replies, "Who are you?"
"Joanna Danielle Carter."
"Hello, Joanna Danielle Carter."
"Hello, Jack."
She reaches her fingers through the chain link fence to touch his face. He's crying. She's probably never seen a man cry before.
"When I cry, mommy sings me a song. Do you want me to sing you a song?"
"What does she sing?"
The child screws up her face as she tries to remember the words.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word.......Moma's gonna buy you a mocking bird....."
"And if that mocking bird don't sing, poppa's gonna buy you a diamond ring," he joins her.
She laughs.
"Do you feel better now?"
"Yes."
The bell rings and she glances back towards the building
"I have to go," she tells him.
"That's OK."
"Will you come back?"
"If you want me to."
"I'd like that. Goodbye Jack."
"Goodbye, Joanna. Study hard."
She blows him a kiss before running inside. He stands there for a long time, touching the place where childish fingers wiped his tears away.
***********
"What did you do at school today?" Samantha Carter smiled as she ruffled her daughter's hair.
Joanna looked up at her mother, "Nothing," she answered and turned back to her drawing.
"What are you drawing, honey?"
"A mockingbird."
The colours were bright and it did look like a bird. Unlike most children, Joanna always drew her pictures in more than one colour.
"It's very beautiful. When you finish, we'll put it up on the wall."
"No, mom. It's for Jack."
"Jack?" her voice sounded strange. "Honey....we talked about Jack. Do you remember?"
"He's nice. He's my friend."
"Someone at school?"
"Yes. We sang songs."
"That's.....nice."
"He's coming back to see me."
She picked up the purple crayon and started to colour in the bird's wings.
***********
"I don't know what to do, all she talks about is Jack."
"Sam, I think you're overreacting. It's not unusual for a child her age to have an imaginary friend. She must have heard you mention his name and latched onto it. I wouldn't worry. She'll grow out of it...."
"Thanks, but you don't have to live with it."
"You know what I'm gonna say, don't you?"
"Yes."
"There's plenty of room at my place, for both of you."
"We talked about this. The answer's still no, Simon."
'How did this conversation get turned around?' Sam asked herself. They were supposed to be discussing her daughter's problem, not arranging their own future.
"I want to marry you," he continued. "I want you to be my wife. That's why you're wearing that ring on your finger."
"I can't, not yet."
"When's it gonna be? "
She couldn't answer him.
"Never?" he asked.
Sam found herself nodding. The man seated across from her didn't seem surprised. He drew out his wallet and placed a few bills on the table. Sam took the ring off her finger and handed it to him.
"Then, I guess there's no future for us. Sam, you have to let go of him sometime."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
He stood and took his coat from the back of the chair. Bending close, he kissed her cheek before walking away. Sam couldn't make herself watch him leave and busied herself taking another sip of her wine. This wasn't the first relationship that had ended this way.....and for the same reasons. How could anyone ask her to let go of her feelings for Jack? That would be like asking her to cut off a limb. It wasn't going to happen. Sometimes, she would wake in the middle, scared that she'd forgotten his face. While that fear still lived within her, she wasn't going to let any part of him go.....or let anyone else be a father to Joanna. Jack would have made a great Dad, but the chance had been snatched away from him. There wasn't even a grave she could visit. Nothing to give her any kind of closure. He had simply vanished. Whether the wormhole had failed, or they had met hostile aliens.....no one would ever know.
The Stargate project was now in her past. She hadn't been able to stay on after Jack had vanished and had got herself reassigned to the pentagon. Returning to pure research had been hard. She missed the stimulation of her days in the field, discovering new alien technology and making it work. If she admitted it to herself, her current area of study seemed uniformly dull by comparison. There was no creativity, no flashes of inspirational genius and she was bored.
The one joy in her life was Joanna; the one thing that made her want to carry on. A small piece of Jack lived on in their child. There had been other men. She hadn't lived the last six years in seclusion...or celibacy, but she had never been able to make that final commitment. Simon had managed to get closer to her than anyone else, but even he failed when it came down to sharing her child. Sometimes, Sam wondered if she wasn't being fair to Joanna. Perhaps the child needed a father figure, and this fixation with 'Jack' was just a symptom.
Sam drained her wine glass, gathered her coat and stood to leave. Joanna would be waiting for her at home. It was the only love she needed; unconditional and perfect, and all hers....for a few years anyway.
***********
She handed him something through the fence. Jack took the picture and unrolled it carefully.
"Who is it?" he asked her.
"That's you, that's mommy, and that's me."
It looked like him....exactly. His hotel room was covered with pictures. She drew him a new one every day. He gave her an encouraging grin.
"It's very good."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Could you be my daddy?"
"What?"
"Most of the other kids have one, but I don't. Mommy said he went away. Then later she said that Simon was going to be my new daddy, but I don't like him."
Jack didn't know what to say. He reached over the fence that separated them and touched her hair. The blue eyes that looked up at him were filled with tears.
"Couldn't we just pretend?" she pleaded with him.
His heart melted, "Sure we can, sweetie."
She reached up and took hold of his hand. Jack knew he shouldn't have come here. This child had stolen his heart. She was perfect....perfect.....just like her mother. He'd been here every day since the first, he couldn't stay away.
They'd told him that Sam was engaged the moment he'd stepped back through the Gate and asked for her. Six years....six years! It was as if he'd just nipped around a bend in the space-time continuum and..... According to the experts, the wormhole had been nudged by a solar flare. He'd stepped through the gate and lost a significant portion of his life in the blink of an eye. The birth of his daughter, a future with Sam....everything that meant a damn to him.
So he'd come here, to Washington, to see his daughter, just once. The problem was, once wasn't enough. He hung around the school at recess, and watched from across the street when Sam arrived to pick Joanna up. Seeing them together made him smile. Joanna always greeted her mom with a hug and they'd walk off down the street, hand in hand. In his imagination they were going to get ice cream, to the park, to the movies...a hundred and one activities which he wanted to be a part of. Once, three days ago, there had been a man with Sam. Jack could only think that it was Simon, Sam's fiancee. It was all he could do to stop himself crossing the road and knocking the guy's lights out. The fact that it would have upset Sam stopped him. She had got on with her life, and he had no right to disrupt her happiness.
"Joanna Carter!" the voice made the child jump away from him. "Get away from that man!"
Joanna stood defiant in the face of her angry teacher. It was Jack who backed away. The child was sent inside and the woman approached Jack.
"I don't know who you are, but if I see you hanging around here again I'm calling the police."
***********
"Yes, Mrs. Jackson. I'll talk to her.....Do you know who the man was?.....Yes, absolutely, call the police if you see him again. Thank you for letting me know."
Sam hung up the phone and turned to look at her daughter. She knelt in front of her, taking the child's hands.
"Joanna, that was Mrs. Jackson. She said that you were talking to a strange man at school today."
Joanna shook her head. It wasn't a strange man, it was Jack.
"You know what we said about talking to strangers?" Sam continued.
"I'm not supposed to," Joanna admitted.
"So if he comes by again, I want you to tell a teacher so they can call the police."
"Why?"
"Just promise me, honey?"
"But why?"
"Because it's important. He might be a bad person."
"He's not bad.....he's...."
"Promise?"
Sighing with childish exasperation, she nodded. If it would make Mommy happy she supposed it was OK. Jack would be upset thought. It wasn't fair. He was so nice....and he wanted to be her daddy.
"Come one it's time for bed," Sam said.
Joanna held out her hands and let her mother pick her up.
"Mommy," she began.
"Yes, honey?"
"Can you sing me a song?"
"Sure, which one do you want?"
"The one about the mockingbird. It's Jack's favourite."
***********
Sam was late. She swore to herself as she leaned out of the car window, trying to see what was holding up the traffic. Her car had been stationary for twenty minutes and she was now an hour late for meeting Joanna. Normally, she wouldn't have worried. There would always be someone at the school for her daughter to wait with. However, after her conversation with Mrs. Jackson, she couldn't help but be concerned. If the creep saw Joanna lingering in the schoolyard God only knew what he would do. Sam couldn't even think about losing her daughter.
Damn, but the traffic just wasn't moving. If she hadn't been delayed at work, she probably would have missed this and been at the school on time. In pure frustration, she leant on the car horn. It wasn't like it would do any good, but she needed to vent her anger somehow.
It was another hour before she finally drew up outside the school. She flung open the car door and run into the yard. There was no one there. Sam heard herself shout her child's name as she tried to find a way into the building. Maybe someone was still here...even if it was only the janitor. Someone must have head her frantic knocking, because a side door was opened and a young woman appeared,
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"I'm Samantha Carter, Joanna's mother? I was supposed to pick her up, but I ran a little late.....where is she?"
The woman looked a little confused for a moment, "I'm sorry, Ms. Carter, but I'm just a substitute and I don't really know the children very well."
"OK. She's six years old, blond hair, blue eyes...she would have been waiting around for a long time."
"Oh....yes. She went home with her father."
"Shit! Joanna doesn't have a father. He went MIA before she was born."
"But....she called him daddy?"
"There's some creep that's been hanging around her, it must have been him."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know. Should I call the police?"
"You think?"
The woman looked most distressed, but Sam just didn't have time to cope with that. In the end she called the cops herself. Luckily, the supply teacher pulled herself together enough to give an adequate description of the man who had left with Joanna. Sam was ready to tear the city apart...or at least call out a squad of special forces troops, but the police told her to go home and let them handle the search. That didn't stop her from driving around for several hours....just in case. Her worst nightmare was coming true. If anything had happened to Joanna, she didn't know what she would do. Sue the damn school....even if she managed to restrain herself from causing someone physical injury. How could that supply teacher be so stupid? The least she could have done was ask for ID, and not let the child wander off with whoever happened to turn up. How many kids disappeared never to be seen again? The very thought made Sam almost physically sick.
Eventually, she realised that going home and waiting for a message was the best option, but all she could think about was being summoned to the morgue to identify her own child's body. If someone hurt her.....Sam knew that she was quite capable of killing whoever was responsible and she probably wouldn't care about the consequences.
It was late when she finally got home. Another cold, dark, empty house. Very like the one she'd returned to after Jack had gone. She almost didn't go in. The absence of the childish laughter would be too much to bare. Only the thought of the possible messages stopped her turning the car round and booking herself into a motel. She was deeply tired, although she knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep. It was at times like this she really missed her friends at the SGC. Even Graham Simmons would be a welcome face right now. Maybe she could call Janet. It had been a long time since she had spoken to Doctor Fraiser, but she needed some support....that and a very stiff drink.
She didn't notice the other car parked outside as she made her way up the path and let herself in. Sam didn't turn on the lights as she walked through the living room, towards the kitchen. The curtains were open and spill light allowed her to navigate her way around the furniture. It was only when she opened the fridge and reached for a beer that she realised the house wasn't empty. The sound of gentle snores wormed their way into her conscious mind. Sam almost went for her gun....but then realised that any intruder probably wouldn't have gone to sleep in her living room. She settled for turning the lights on.
There, on the couch, was Joanna, curled up against a sleeping Jack O'Neill.
Sam wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She wanted to do a dozen things at once as the emotions coursed through her body. It was him. She couldn't doubt that. No one snored in quite the same way. All the time Joanna had been talking about Jack and she had been telling the truth. There was a story book in his lap. It was turned to the page with the mockingbird song on it. She should have known. Jack had sung it to her stomach whilst she had been pregnant. How or why he had come back, she didn't want to guess. He was here, that was all that mattered for the time being.
Moving as quietly as possible, Sam picked up her daughter and carried her to bed.
"Mommy?" Joanna asked sleepily, as Sam tucked her in.
"Yes?"
"Wanna stay with Jack."
"Not tonight, honey. Mommy will look after him."
"Can he stay?"
"Yes....if he wants."
"Good. I missed you at school."
"I'm sorry about that, but Daddy was there to look after you."
"Yes. I know strangers are bad....but he's not a stranger, is he?"
"No he's not."
She should have been angry, but somehow she couldn't manage it. The lecture could come later, when Joanna was awake enough to appreciate it. Sam kissed her daughter goodnight and went to inform the police. When she had finished the call she looked in on Jack. He hadn't moved. Sam felt herself smile. He looked so damn cute when he slept. She went and found a blanket to cover him up. Slipping off her shoes, she joined him on the couch, occupying the position Joanna had earlier. She cuddled against him, enjoying the warmth of his body. He shifted in his sleep, unconsciously easing them into a more comfortable position. Sam closed her eyes and slept.
***********
Story Notes: NOTES: Sequel to The Dress. SG1 Disappeared leaving Sam to cope with losing Jack. This story takes place some years afterwards.
End Notes: Happy enough ending ? :):):) Ruth
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]