Characters: Samantha Carter, Jacob and Beverly Carter, Jack O’Neill, Daniel Jackson
Pairings: ‘Really It’ is leading up to, and then ‘An Echo From Yesterday’ is OT3.
ESRB Rating: Mature - Polyamorous relationship.
Themes: Angst, Character Death, Stranded, OT3

Prompt: posted by Lab Brat

Written: March 19-20th, 2006
Dog Tags

The Jabbader

She is five and sitting on her parents bed, kneeling up to peer both into her father’s face as well as his duffle bag. When he leans over to tuck another helping of socks into a side pocket, his dog tags sway away from his chest and her small hand makes a grab for them.

“Hey, whoa,” Jacob startles, but has an easy grin, carefully extracting the government issued chain from his daughter’s hand. “Don’t go choking me now.”

Sam’s face is already clouded again. He’s been joking and laughing with her as he packed, but her troubled frown and the way her brow puckers when worried were all back from before. “You shouldn’t go.” She’s trying very hard to be brave.

“Honey, I won’t be gone long. Only a week, maybe two.” He has his back to her as he digs out undershirts. “You’ll play in the pool with Mark, maybe even go all the way down to the beach. You won’t even notice I’ll be gone. You’ll be having too much fun!” His smile tries to be soothing when he comes back, but his youngest child isn’t buying any of this.

Her little hand reaches for his dog tags again and twists tight. Instead of untangling her, Jacob Carter tangles himself further with Sammy, pulling her up against his shoulder. “If you’re not here,” she whispers in sloppy little girl talk. “Who’ll make sure the Jabbader isn’t under my bed? He’s only afraid of you.” Who the hell knew what a “Jabbader” was, but it “lived” under Sam’s Big Girl Bed and had been plaguing her for weeks.

It all made Captain Carter grin wryly. Here he was, packing to go on a mission of at least some importance, and all he really wanted to do for God and Country was sweep a maglite under a bed to reassure a little girl no monsters were lying in wait to eat her hand when it slipped over the side. The directions your life took you, eh?

Beverly is suddenly in the doorway, ducking her head in to check on his progress. His wife has a quick frown seeing their daughter in his arms, but Jacob’s gentle shake of the head has her leaning casually against the doorjamb with a soft expression. Jacob’s hand brushes down Sam’s little back as her parents share an indulgent moment. The directions your life took you indeed.

Really It

In a sudden flurry of action, Sam simply snatches at the chain around her neck and hurls her dog tags across the room. Daniel has to duck or risk losing an eye. Jack keeps looking down into his soup; he knows why she did it without even having to ask. He had had a similar impulse after all, she’d only moved faster then he did. Now if he did it too it’d seem… cliché. Still. He knew. Because he felt it too. That sudden rush of helpless futility. Of this really being it.

“Oh, Sam, I— I didn’t mean. I mean, I was only…” Daniel is already reaching a hand for her across their dinner table, his big blue eyes filled with contrite apology and it makes her feel terrible. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, no, it’s me. I’m sorry.” She lets him take her hand, her fingers instinctively curling through his. “It has been three years. I should just… learn to accept it already.” But it’s hard, and she ducks her head to avoid their eyes. It means she misses when they make their own point of contact across the table, Jack’s palm covering the back of Daniel’s hand. But she doesn’t miss when the Colonel rests his other hand against the small of her back. They make a rough triangle of familial contact.

Three years of trying to contact Earth, one year since they’d lost Teal’c. Eight months since Jack had finished carving his headstone. Six months since she’d given up heading to the DHD once a day, three months since she had even bothered going once a week. Now it was more like every two to three weeks. Two months since the Viian’s had honestly, truly, full accepted them into their community. Daniel had only been making a passing observation of their time here, a commentary on their unfortunate ‘anniversary’.

She tries to put on a brave face and lifts a tight smile to the men, but they know her too well and see through it all easily. Jack tugs her against himself and holds her gently. Daniel comes to sit next to her on the bench, his arm coming around her waist. He faces out as the other two face in, so he rests his chin over the top of Sam’s shoulder and leans into her softly. Jack leans right, Daniel leans left, and together they hold Sam in the middle. They sit this way for a long, long time.

Fingering his own chain, Jack finally tugs softly on his dog tags, letting them come down onto the table with a resolved clink. There, he thinks. It.

An Echo From Yesterday

She is cranky and she is irritable and her feet hurt and her back aches and she’d rather be down working on the aqueduct then stuck in the house and the very last thing she absolutely needs is for Daniel’s son to be a nosy hellion today.

“What have I told you about playing up here?” Sam tries to reel herself in, but she grabs the toddler a little harder then she means to around the scruff of his neck. The noises he’d been making had startled her. The house was supposed to be empty, so the thump and bump and rustling had set her nerves on an edge. His yelp is shrill in the panic of being caught in the act.

“I was just— was just lookin’ for the necklace!” He turns his eager, earnest face up to her. See? Nothing really bad, honest! Frowning down at her son, she has no idea what he could be talking about.

“Necklace?” Already she’s steering him down the small hall and back out into the bedroom proper. She’ll have to talk to someone about raising the latch higher, where little hands can’t lift it and gain access to the storage closet.

“The silver one, with the flat pieces of metal. Dad showeded me.” Dad. That meant Jack. Damn him, Sam thought irritably. Why in the world would Jack be showing the baby his dog tags? Because that was what they had to be, certainly.

“Never mind about any necklaces.” And never mind the jumble of memories suddenly running around her head, too fast to catch anyway but distracting enough to need a rough pushing aside. “You know you aren’t supposed to be in there without permission. What are you supposed to be doing though?” Standing in the kitchen, Sam’s hands are on her hips as she looks down at her small son, one eyebrow cocked in an unconscious mimic of an old friend. He has the good grace to fidget under his mother’s stern yet silent reprimand.

His confession is soft and abashed. “I’m ‘posed to be with Amak, helpin’ with the fence.” Amak is Viian for “father”, and that means Daniel. And why Daniel doesn’t seem to know where their child is is something they’ll have words about later.

She lets the little boy squirm a bit longer, his feet very interesting, before she relents with a sigh and a quick tug. Cradling him against her hip, Sam can only shake her head. Like father - and father - like son. What was she supposed to do with any of them?

“Sam? Sam! Have you seen—!” Daniel and Jack both explode through the front door, eyes wide and harried. Jack crashes into Daniel’s back as the first man skids to a stop. Sam is already lifting her hand: every thing’s fine, everyone’s safe. Her other hand combs easily through the child’s thick blond hair as he tries to bury himself into her thigh.

Jack points sternly, though unnecessarily, at the boy. He already knows he’s in big, big trouble with them.

Reaching out, Daniel crosses the room in three easy strides, grabbing his son up in frustrated relief. “Do you know how worried you had me? Why didn’t you say anything? You were just suddenly gone!” The boy tries to explain, about the necklace, how he was curious, how he couldn’t get the flat pieces of metal out of his little thoughts. It’s something Daniel would easily understand, but he’s too busy crushing the child against himself to listen. “We’ve been looking for you for an hour!”

Crisis averted, Jack eases himself behind Sam and rests a hand over her expanded midsection. “This had so better be a girl,” she lets him know under no uncertain terms. “I need the help.” The snort in her ear is derisive, but the soft kiss against the nape of her neck is tender.

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