Entering the kitchen, Jack smiled a greeting at Sam who was sitting in front of Daniella's high chair, attempting to feed her. He was trying his hardest to keep up to date with all things related to his daughter, but sometimes he found it incredibly difficult. Things had changed a lot in the decade since Charlie had been born, although how babies had evolved and changed in that space of time, Jack was unaware. Back then, with Sara, it had been vastly different to now with Sam and Daniella. Work had been busy then, just as it was now, leaving Jack feeling like a part time father on both occasions. At least with Charlie and Sara, Jack had never felt like he needed to catch up with the first few missing months, but he had kept a lot of work-based secrets from his then wife. With Sam and Daniella, Jack did feel the need to try and catch up with the first missing months of his daughter's life, but at least there would be fewer lies. He knew that she was still so little and that being only eight months old meant that she would not be aware of his absence, but he was. He felt out of the loop and uncomfortable trying to explain that to Sam. Despite there being far fewer lies between himself and Sam than there had been with his wife and the close working friendship that he had with Sam, it still felt odd to him to question her. He had not attended any antenatal classes with her, nor had he been on any parenting classes with her and sometimes he watched Sam doing something and had no idea what she was doing or the reasons behind it. She probably thought that he was practiced due to his time living with Laira and Jack-Junior. Unfortunately, Laira had rarely allowed Jack anywhere near his son.
Pouring himself a cup of coffee, Jack then sat down opposite Sam. In one hand, she had a bowl with some orangey coloured mush in it and her other hand seemed to be hovering around near the edge of the highchair. He glanced at Daniella and saw that she had a plastic spoon gripped in her left hand and there was the same orangey mush all over her hand and the spoon.
"What time are you leaving for work?" Sam asked without taking her eyes from Daniella and the spoon which she kept wildly moving around.
Glancing at his watch, Jack calculated how much more time he could risk before he would be too late for his mission debriefing. "Got to leave in about an hour."
"Whoa! Reign in that excitement, please." Sam glanced over at him and she smiled. He rolled his eyes in response.
"Well, would you be excited about it?" He was really displeased with the upcoming mission, knowing that there were far more important missions to undertake.
"I will be there with you, remember?"
His brow furrowed in confusion. "Right. I forget these things." He was still trying to get used to her alternating with Carpenter and sometimes it took him a while to remember who was due on what mission. Even though he lived with her, it was not as if he and Sam partook in pillow talk at the end of each day.
"Gee, thanks." Daniella then dropped the spoon, but Sam moved quickly enough and got it before it could hit the floor. She passed it back to her daughter who grinned at both of them. "There you go." Wiping her hand to remove the mush, Sam said to Jack, "It is important, this mission."
"Really?" The sarcasm dripped from his voice as Sam used a clean spoon to try and feed Daniella a spoonful of orange mush. The first attempt missed the baby's mouth and Jack laughed. As a consequence, Daniella smiled giving Sam the opening to get the spoon into her mouth. "Team work." Promptly on cue, Daniella's tongue darted out of her mouth depositing all of the mush onto her chin. "Or not."
"It's just what she does. At least she gets it into her mouth. She needs to get familiar with the tastes and textures of food."
"Right." He nodded and then noticed Sam looking at him, her eyebrows raised sceptically. "What?"
"Nothing." Using the spoon, Sam scooped up the mush from Daniella's chin and tried to get it into her mouth again.
"How do you know how to do this?" he suddenly found himself blurting out.
She paused for a moment and then turned in her seat to face him. "I read it in all the baby-books. It's not all natural or anything and there's not many other people I know that have had children." It had never occurred to him that she felt as confused and out of the loop as he did. He could remember with Charlie, how Sara's parents had always been close by and whilst he knew that Sam had very good friends from work, not even Janet had ever had a baby to look after. Without a mother of her own around, Sam was quite alone in the parenting club, too. For the past few weeks, he had spent his time believing that she knew what she was doing when maybe she was not quite as intuitive as he had believed.
"Couples probably have it a hell of a lot easier, don't they?" He diverted his attention to his cup of coffee. It was not often that Jack willingly opened up, but he figured his daughter was important enough for him to change slightly especially as it was the thought of her that numbed his nightmares.
"What do you mean?" There was something that he could hear in her voice and he was not sure what it was: Possibly confusion or naivety.
Shrugging, he took a sip of his coffee. "With Charlie, I felt like I had no idea. Sara had her mom around and they knew how to deal with him. I was part of the process from day one and Sara would just tell me what to do because I spent so much time away. I was always playing catch up but she dealt with it how she had to deal with our marriage - telling me what to do."
"And because we're not... together, our communication is a bit different?"
He looked up at her and met her eyes. "What is that orange stuff?"
Sam laughed, causing Daniella to giggle and bang her spoon against the highchair tray. "It's pureed carrot."
"I see." Jack had no idea why the carrot had been pureed, where it had come from or why exactly carrot had been the chosen vegetable.
"I pureed different types of vegetables and fruits, froze them in ice cube trays and then I just have to melt a cube at a time." She turned her attention back to Daniella, who was still happily banging away. There was now a spray of carrot on the floor. "Daniella then likes to play with it herself and maybe eat a bit of it."
"Because she needs to explore and experiment." The spoon suddenly dropped to the floor and Sam smiled in exasperation as she bent down to pick it up. She placed it on the table and gave a clean spoon with some carrot on to Daniella. "And she likes to put things in her mouth." That much he definitely did know about his daughter because she chewed clothing, toys and his fingers. Daniella giggled at nothing in particular and swung the spoon, flicking the carrot up into the air where it promptly landed on top of her head. Jack laughed out loud, prematurely halting any tears Daniella may have had as she giggled with her father. "Definitely exploring."
"Fortunately," Sam said as she attempted to clear up some of the carrot, "it'll be up to Sasha to clean up the worst of all this." They still tended to travel to work separately, normally due to the fact that Sam would simply be working a normal seven hour day whereas Jack might be heading off to another planet. In their normal morning routine, Sasha would arrive home soon after spending the night at a friends’, giving Sam half an hour to get ready and leave before Jack for work. "And then we can head off to help out Jonas."
"Don't mention him." Jack's voice was an annoyed growl which caused Daniella to turn to him in surprise. "Sorry," he apologised to both Sam and Daniella. He tried not to raise his voice at home, or get into too grumpy a mood.
"Jack, it isn't his fault." Sam attempted to get another spoonful of pureed carrot into Daniella's mouth, but as she did so Daniella blew a raspberry through her lips, spraying it all over Sam's hand.
"If SG-2 hadn't have been sent to Jonas' stupid damn-"
"Jack," Sam warned and he stopped himself. He was unsure whether it was purely that he was about to mention the words planet and aliens or because his tone had become angrier.
"If it weren't for Jonas and his countrymen squabbling over nothing of importance then Ferretti would still be here."
"I know, Jack, but plenty of countries still have infighting when there are more important things in the world. They have a resource that we need and it has absolutely no bearing on Jonas." She subtly used replacement words for 'planets' and 'galaxy'. He knew that Kelowna had a source of Naquadria which appeared to be a lot more powerful than plain old simple Naquadah and that it had been Jonas who had stepped up and admitted the cover up, exonerating Ferretti, but that did not stop him disliking a planet who squabbled amongst themselves, building weapons intent on destroying up to a third of their planet's populace when there were Goa'uld out there and the Universe needed what they had. Subsequently it was Ferretti who had lost his life to save their selfishly indulgent planet.
"At least he never got brought into the equation for being your replacement." Jack knew that Jonas was far happier being Sam and Carpenter’s laboratory assistant than he would be with SG-1 exploring the galaxy.
"Play nice."
"Let's just say that I'm glad you're coming on this mission. Not sure I could handle Carpenter and Quinn on this mission." He was starting to warm to Carpenter, but two scientists on a boring mission to a planet he already despised would have caused him to refuse. At least with Sam and Teal’c, Jack would be able to escape from the inane discussions between Daniel, Jonas and Carpenter. It was all that he could do to tune out Daniel and Carpenter on an average mission, but after meeting the three delegates from Kelowna, Jack thought even less of their planet.
Sam checked her watch and then looked up at Jack. "Would you mind trying to feed her a bit more so I can get ready for work? I have to leave in twenty minutes, but Sasha should be home soon."
"Sure." As she stood, he made his way around the breakfast bar and took the clean spoon from her. "Okay." He looked across at his food-covered daughter; she smiled at him. He gathered some pureed carrot onto the spoon and moved it towards her. She seemed to consider him in the way that only a Carter could before opening her mouth. She did not move a muscle as the spoon approached her mouth and the food got into her mouth. "Yes!" His yell of celebration caused both Daniella and Sam to smile and laugh at him, leading to Daniella's tongue emptying her mouth of the food mixture. Jack shook his head. "Nearly." He turned to Sam. "It's true, I don't necessarily know what I'm doing or why you're doing what you’re doing and just because we aren't... together, doesn't mean we're two separate people in this family."
Nodding at him, Sam responded, "We're a team."
"Yeah, we just need to communicate. Teach me."
"Fine, but I won't tolerate your moods. I get enough of them from her."
"That's my girl," Jack said with pride as he tried another spoonful. "See you at work, Sam." He saw her nod out of the corner of his eye and smiled at the baby in front of him who's face and hands were covered in liquid food. It made her look adorable.
Author's Notes: Jack isn't too happy with his upcoming mission to Kelowna after what happened when they first met Jonas Quinn and his people.
Direct spoilers for 6.07 and 5.21 Meridian.
Minor character death included!
End Notes: Next Chapter – 6.08 The Other Guys.
I wanted to show a glimpse at the first few weeks of them living together and that just because they make such a great team at work, a lot had happened and at home it doesn't always slip straight into place. Jack being a host to Kanan isn't really mentioned because of how Jack compartmentalises things and he "got over it" and that Sam has come to terms with what she did. It may crop up again. I also wanted to explain what happened in Meridian as I had already changed things to not have Daniel die/ascend. Needless to say, I have nothing against Ferretti - I simply needed to kill someone in Daniel's place. I also have nothing against Jonas, but I think Jack would have an element of hostility against him even without both being on SG-1. Next chapter won’t be Sam/Jack focussed.
I wanted to show a glimpse at the first few weeks of them living together and that just because they make such a great team at work, a lot had happened and at home it doesn't always slip straight into place. Jack being a host to Kanan isn't really mentioned because of how Jack compartmentalises things and he "got over it" and that Sam has come to terms with what she did. It may crop up again. I also wanted to explain what happened in Meridian as I had already changed things to not have Daniel die/ascend. Needless to say, I have nothing against Ferretti - I simply needed to kill someone in Daniel's place. I also have nothing against Jonas, but I think Jack would have an element of hostility against him even without both being on SG-1. Next chapter won’t be Sam/Jack focussed.
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