has_2ls | TR debut

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sam,
tabula rasa

TR debut

Of all the fool damn things he’s done over the years, Jack is pretty sure that diving into icy cold water is way, way up on the list. McKay needs him to drain the jumper bay and apparently the only way to do that is to dive down there, look around for some switch, and flip it. McKay seems to think it’s pretty obvious but apparently Jack’s having an obtuse day - none of these controls seem obvious in any sense of the word.

The cold seeps in almost down to his bones and his lungs are burning from lack of air. He can hold his breath for a decent amount of time but he’s got no idea which of these switches he’s supposed to be pushing or pulling. Nothing to do but go back up and bark at McKay until he can give him a better description of what is and isn’t obvious on Atlantis. Damn Ancients. Why couldn’t it have been one of those ATA activated things where he could just think “open” from up on the ground, dry, and skirt around this whole mess?

When he breaks the surface again, Woolsey is there looking all expectant-like and Jack wishes like hell he had something to tell him. Thing is, he doesn’t and Woolsey isn’t the one he needs to talk to anyway.

“Did you do it?” Jack shakes his head and holds out his palm. “Radio.” Woolsey hands it over with a minimum of fuss but he’s still hovering and Jack knows that he’ll have to feed him something just to keep him from panicking and revealing their position. First things first, he’s got to talk to McKay.

“McKay. You and I have very different definitions of the word obvious.” McKay squawks a little, out of his element, and Jack interrupts him. “There are dozens of controls down there and I wouldn’t even know how to describe.” Still, he and McKay come to some kind of consensus that the emergency switch should be toward the middle of the console and extremely prominent. Jack hopes, for everyone’s sake, that he’s right.

He’s not really fond of going back in the water but a little cold water’s hardly the worst thing he’s faced in twenty plus years of a decorated military career. If Sheppard and his team can pull off this rescue, it will have been more than worth it for Jack to get hypothermia and frostbite. More than worth it. He takes in a deep breath and goes back under, swimming to the center of the room and pushing at a likely switch.

It seems to be draining the room, so Jack releases it, only to see the water rush back in. Great. One more trip topside to inform McKay that he’s a complete idiot and he’s back in the water again, hopefully for the last time. He pushes at the switch and ignores the burn in his lungs, ignores the way his vision goes black around the edges. When everything starts feeling fuzzy and he feels light-headed, he keeps holding on, knowing that everyone’s fate pretty much depends on Sheppard and the rest of them getting into Atlantis to take it back from these damn replicators.

He focuses on that, the rescue, and it feels like time slows down and he’s suspended for a little while. The big difference is that he feels like he’s sprawled out on a flat surface and while he’s wet and cold, it doesn’t feel like he’s underwater anymore. He gasps in a deep breath, chokes on it, and spends the next few seconds coughing and sputtering and wondering where in the galaxy he’s wound up. Replicators. Of course. Like as not, he’s in a room somewhere with some alien’s hand in his head and none of this is even real. When he hears footsteps, he decides to go on the offensive.

“Look. You’re not getting anything from me. Hell, I don’t even know anything. You captured the wrong guy if you wanna know how to get from Pegasus to Milky Way because I don’t even know how the damn gate works, much less that bridge Carter and McKay dreamed up. Completely out of luck.”

There. That should satisfy them, right?

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"I know, it doesn't make sense," Sam says. She imagines his head is about to explode from the math. "The thing is, people can disappear from here just as randomly as they arrive, and the other Jack O'Neill disappeared about a year ago. Not quite a year. A little less than a year. There have been a lot of Stargate personnel here over the years--you, me, Jonas, Daniel, Vala, John Sheppard, Ronon, Dr. Keller, Rodney, Cam...I think Teal'c was here too, before I came along. And some people from the Destiny, which you don't know about yet, do you? No, of course you don't. I didn't learn about that till later. They're all gone now, except for Jonas. Never any two of the same person at once, which is good, because of the whole entropic cascade failure thing. But... just trust me. It happens."

"Ooookaay."

Jack's seen enough weird shit in his life that he's able to accept this easily enough. He's been in a room with two Carters before, it's possible that he's been here before now. He scrubs a hand back over his hair and looks down at his coffee before his glance slides to Carter's hands. She's wearing a ring. It's kinda simple, but it's clear what it is.

"And you got married and had kids? So, who's the lucky guy. You didn't mention Shanahan."

She sees Jack looking at her wedding ring--she's never taken it off--and laughs, softly. As many other thems as they've encountered, she thinks he might have put two and two together by now... except how do you even assume something like this? "Not Pete," she says. He's never been there and she hopes he doesn't show up, not so much for her sake but because he'd hate it. "I married Jack O'Neill."

Oh, well, there it is. Jack's been avoiding that possibility for obvious reasons but now Carter's put it out in the open and it explains a lot - especially how she's been calling him Jack and not sir.

"Look...I...okay. So we were married and had kids, multiple, and then I disappeared and now I'm back. It's a little screwed up, isn't it?"

"A little bit," Sam admits. "Two kids. William is three, and we adopted him when his mom disappeared. Vala is his mom--I think you would have met her at least once--and he's a nice kid. Normal, I mean. Not like Adria. He's not Ori, or anything. He's a normal human boy. And Janet, she's about seven months. They're at the day care right now, they're usually with me but I teach some classes at school and I was just going to pick them up when I saw you." She suddenly feels a weird sense of guilt about that, which is crazy, because it's not like she needs to defend her parenting choices to him (nor has he hinted that she should) but this whole situation is crazy and that's maybe the least of it.

"Sorry to dump all this on you," she adds, before he even has time to get a word in, because she's not sure what his reaction is going to be and she needs time to prepare herself for it. "I wasn't really prepared for...for this, and I don't know what I should say or anything..." She's meandering now and she reaches for her coffee to drink it; her hands are shaking and she spills a little, but it's an excuse to get up and find a towel to clean up with and she jumps up to do it.

"Carter, it's all right," Jack tries. It's not, because it's completely ridiculous and screwed up but he can see she's upset and he doesn't like it. He does love her, however stupid it is for him to love someone he can't have, and he doesn't want to hurt her.

"It's what we do. It's our thing, the thing in the room and I don't blame him for uh, for doing right by you."

When he mentions the thing in the room it's both a comfort and a painful reminder that he's not the same Jack as the Jack she married and built a life with here. He's still Jack, and he knows her--in some ways more than her husband, because of all the things he's lived with her that her Jack didn't, and in some ways less, because of the things here he doesn't know. It's confusing and she's not sure how to respond to it. "It wasn't about 'doing right,'" she says, because this is Jack and she knows he doesn't mean that, but it still stings a little. "It was about finally having what I wanted and could never have. Janet came later."

She wipes up the spill and tosses the towel on the counter. "I have to pick up the kids," she says, and she finds it difficult to meet his eyes. "I understand if you don't want to--if you're not ready to see them, but if you want to, you can. It's just around the corner, I won't be gone long."

Jack isn't really sure what to say because while he knows he wants to see his kids, especially the one that's his, he doesn't want to confuse them. The baby's probably too little but the older one might remember him. He's about to say he'll just leave and come back some other time when he's interrupted by a lapful of fur and paws and teeth.

Holy shit. It's a wolf. Not just a wolf, but a giant, overgrown, the-size-of-a-pony wolf.

"Carter? Why the hell is there a wolf in the house?"

His voice is a little high and nervous but the wolf seems to be all right with him being there, maybe a little too all right. "Uh, calm down, buddy. And yeah, go get the kids, I'll uh, be here. With the wolf."

"Thor!" Sam scolds, but the direwolf seems perfectly happy to half-climb all over Jack and shove his nose in Jack's face. It's kind of cute, actually, and Sam can't help but smile a little. "There's a wolf in the house because a girl named Susan gave us a wolf. Named for everyone's favorite Asgard. Um, and this is Cash," she says, as the dog follows the wolf and sniffs at Jack's pant leg. "He used to belong to John, and then Rodney, and now me, and we have a cat and turtles... we sort of inherit all the pets," she adds sheepishly.

She pulls her coat from the rack by the door and then hesitates. "I don't know how William will react," she warns Jack. "He was close to you before, and to Daniel--and Daniel was here twice and William really took it hard the second time, when he left. He's a sweet boy, Jack, so if he doesn't seem like it now, he's just having a hard time."

Jack is covered in animals but he manages to nod a little. "Yeah, yeah, hard on a kid. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. He's a kid, I'm not holding it against anyone if he acts out. He can't help it."

He manages to push Thor down a little and rubs between the wolf's ears. "Go get them. I want...I want to see her."

It's hard for Sam to respond to that. She's always wondered if Janet looks anything like Charlie, if seeing her would be hard for him, like looking at a ghost--and now she'll find out, from a man who didn't father her, didn't look forward to her birth with more anticipation than a kid at Christmas, and until ten minutes ago didn't even know she existed.

"Okay," she says quietly. "I'll be back in a little bit."

Jack waits, but it's far from patiently. He hasn't had a kid since Charlie died, not one that was his and while he has no doubt in his mind he loves Vala's kid like a son, it's not the same as his own flesh and blood.

He's equal parts nervous and excited and when he hears the door swing in, he's already on his feet.

Janet's still napping when Sam gets to the Children's Office, so Sam lets her sleep for a little longer while she talks to William. She thinks maybe he needs some prep for this, especially with how touchy he's been lately. She tries to explain to him--how do you even explain this to a toddler?--that Uncle Jack is here again, and he doesn't remember the things that happened when he was here before, but he really wants to meet him and Janet. William just nods and puts his thumb in his mouth (something Sam hasn't seen him do in a while) and Sam worries a little but she's not sure what else to do. She bundles William up in his coat and hat and collects Janet, who doesn't wake when Sam wraps her in her thick blanets and puts on her fuzzy pink hat.

And then there's not much else to do than take the short walk home. It's not a long enough walk for her to really think about how she actually feels about all this. It's good to see Jack, certainly, but it's painful, too--in some ways, it's like he's someone she doesn't know. But he's stuck here and she's just dumped a lot on him and it's not like she's going to walk away.

When they enter the apartment, William clings to her leg. He doesn't pull his hat off or his coat and drop them in the floor like he usually does; he just curls his fingers in her pants leg and holds on, peering at Jack from behind her knee.

"Hey there, little guy," Jack says gently, kneeling down slightly so he can almost get eye level with William. It's killing his knees but it's worth it for this.

"I know I'm probably kinda weird, huh? Since I was here and left and now I came back? I'm sorry for that."

William nods cautiously, thumb still in his mouth, his other hand still firmly clutching Sam's leg. At least he's not throwing a tantrum, which is an improvement over the last few days, so Sam takes that as a good sign even if he seems reluctant.

"Why don't you take your coat off, kiddo?" Sam suggests gently, but William shakes his head. "Okay. Maybe just your hat?" He doesn't take it off, but he doesn't stop Sam from peeling it off one-handed, and he stares at Jack the whole time. It's another one of those times Sam wishes she knew what William is thinking.

"Sorry," she says quietly to Jack. "He's a little shy."

"Nothin' wrong with that. You wanna know a secret, kid? I'm scared too. I'm scared you won't like me."

Maybe it's broken down kind of simple but that fear is there, especially since Carter told him that this kid had loved the previous version of him on the island.

William looks at Jack for another long moment and then hides his face against Sam's leg. "Honey, it's okay," Sam says, and smoothes her hand across the top of William's soft hair. "You had a long, busy day and you're tired. You didn't expect to see Uncle Jack today, I know. You want to go in your room for a little bit and chill? I think Socks is sleeping on your bed. I'll come in there in a little while and we'll read a story or something. How's that?"

"'kay," William murmurs, his voice muffled against her leg, and after a moment he peels himself away from her and shuffles down the hall to his room. Sam waits until he's out of earshot to say, "He's lost a lot. It's nobody's fault, it's not like it's something anyone can control, but he doesn't understand it yet."

Edited 2012-12-04 03:03 (UTC)

"I was the same, the handful of times my dad felt the need to visit me as a kid," Jack says, sympathetic. "It's hard on them. Probably worse for him since he knows I just wasn't here anymore and he didn't know where I went. He'll warm up when he does."

That still doesn't settle the fact that there's a little pink and white bundle of infant in Carter's arms and Jack wants to hold her, wants to see her little face and see who she looks like.

"So that's baby girl, huh? I like the name."

"I wanted to name her after someone important to both of us." Janet's still sleeping, so Sam carefully eases off her little pink hat with earflaps so Jack will actually be able to see her. Her face is pink from the cold outside and the warmth inside and her mouth is all scrunched up the way she does sometimes when she's sleeping.

Sam doesn't know whether she ought to offer to let Jack hold her or if maybe he doesn't want to; she's lost the ability to read him like she used to, and she feels like she ought to protect them somehow, but that's completely irrational--she knows Jack, any Jack, would do anything for her and her kids whether they were his or not and they don't need protecting from him of all people. Maybe it's the potential for loss that she wants to shield them from, not wanting William to be more miserable than he already is, not wanting Janet to experience it at all.

Even pressed up against Carter's shoulder, Jack can tell she looks like Charlie. The mouth is a little Carterish, fuller than Charlie's ever was, but the rest of her has O'Neill written all over it. It's like seeing a ghost.

It takes him a minute before he can say anything and when he does, his voice is low and soft. "She's beautiful, Carter. Completely perfect."

Sam feels absurdly proud of that--again, weird, because it's not like she planned out exactly how Janet looks or did anything, really, except manage to give birth to her--and she touches the little wisps of blonde hair that are sticking up from Janet's head, a little staticky from her hat. It's hard to know what to say, because Jack looks stunned, like someone's hit him in the head and he's trying to get his bearings. She tries to image what it would be like if their situations were reversed and she can't. She doesn't know what she'd say if she showed up in an alternate universe where Jack was alone with a child of theirs. She can't get her head around it.

She shifts Janet in her arms so Jack can get a better look at her, and it's enough to wake her, even though Sam didn't meant to do that just yet. Janet opens her eyes gradually, like it's an effort to wake up while bundled in warm blankets.

When Janet blinks her eyes open, Jack hopes for half a second that she has blue eyes and hates himself for it when he's disappointed they're brown. She looks even more like Charlie now and while she's perfect and beautiful and undeniably his, it wounds him in a place he's pushed down and forgotten for so long that he doesn't remember how to deal with the pain.

"Hey there, pretty girl. You sleepy over there on Mama? Don't blame you. I bet that's a real nice place to sleep."

He feels kind of like an idiot baby-talking but she's his daughter he and figures nobody will judge him for it.

Sam never got to hear Jack talk to their daughter, never got to see the look on his face when he saw her for the first time, and now he's standing there looking like he's seeing the most precious thing in the world when an hour ago he didn't even know she existed. "Do you want to...?" she asks hesitantly, and trails off, because even though he's looking at Janet adoringly, he's still got the stunned-shocked look behind the adoration and she's not sure if offering to let him hold her is putting him on the spot.

"If that's okay? I don't want to like...overstep, or anything," Jack says, awkward even though his fingers are curling in anticipation. He's always loved the way babies smell, all soft and clean, and Janet brings back every good memory he ever had of Charlie as an infant.

"If you think it'll be all right, I'd like to."

"Sure, it's all right." And it is all right, no matter what her protective urges are blaring at her about. She shifts Janet into his arms and it's made easier by the fact that Janet, at seven months, doesn't have the floppy, heavy head and weak neck of a newborn. Now that Janet's waking up and curious about this new person, she's pushing herself to sit up and look around.

It's hard for Sam to look at them, and she looks away; her chest feels tight and she's hot all over and she slips out of her coat, using putting it away as an excuse not to stare.

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