Work Text:
The past
“You okay?” Jack turns to the silent woman beside him to ask the question he’s been itching to ask for hours now. They haven’t had a moment alone since it happened and, while unsure how she’d feel about clueing in Teal’c and Daniel, he definitely couldn’t broach the subject around Michael and Jenny.
So instead, he’d spent the last few hours watching Sam stare out the van window as it hurdled down the highway while trying to imagine what it must feel like to bump into versions of your parents from a time before you were even old enough to know who they were. Especially when one of them is a mother you‘d lost way too young.
It had all happened so suddenly. They’d pulled into a rest stop for food and gas where Sam had literally bumped directly into her father. Shocked, she’d blurted out, “Dad?”
By the time Jacob Carter raised his eyebrows in response, she’d realized her mistake. But some urges are too strong to overcome. She’d searched the rest stop desperately, looking for her mother.
Seeing this and having heard what she’s said, Jack wrapped an arm around her waist pulling her tightly towards him. “He does look like Chad, doesn’t he, hon?”
“Huh?” Sam said, looking confused and distracted.
“You thought he was Chad.” He emphasized the name with intention. “He’s not.”
“No, no of course not.”
Jack frowned as she craned her neck back around, still searching.
Sam’s dad laughed. “Chad! Would’ve sworn she’d said dad and since I can’t be much older than she is…”
“Nope. She definitely said Chad. Friend of ours we haven’t seen in a while.” Jack tugged at his distraught Captain’s arm. “Sam. We gotta go,” he urged.
“Sam? As in Samantha?”
Startled, Sam looked curiously at her father.
“My daughter is also Samantha.”
“Of course our Sammy is still in diapers.” The pretty woman, who looked a lot like Sam, placed a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Care to introduce me to your friends?”
Frozen to the spot, Sam’s eyes were fixed intently on her mother as her father explained the situation.
Jack leaned in and whispered directly into her ear, “Grandfather paradox, Sam. We have to go.” When she failed to respond, he added a curt “Captain.”
“Yeah. Yeah okay,” she said, swallowing back whatever she was feeling.
It hurt to pull her away but he’d known it had to be done—immediately. She’d thank him in the end…he hoped.
“Are you alright?” Sam’s mother asked before they’d had a chance to fully turn away, obviously having seen the longing in her eyes.
“I…I…” Sam started, clearly fighting with her yearning heart.
“She’s just exhausted. We’ve been driving for hours,” Jack explained, taking Sam’s hand and preparing to move quickly.
“As have we,” Sam’s mother said, gripping her husband's arm more tightly. “Safe trip.”
“Thank you,” Jack replied, briskly turning Sam away.
“Hey, uh…you.”
Jack and Sam turned in unison at her father’s call.
After a beat, he simply said, “take…take care of her, huh?”
Jack gripped Sam’s hand tightly and smiled softly at the man. “Always.”
Sam’s been ruminating since and, having failed to answer his question, Jack taps her on the arm and asks again. “You okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack frowns. “Carter. It’s just you and me.”
Her shoulders drop and she lets out a puff of air before finally looking at him. “Why?” she asks, shaking her head. “Why them? Of all the hundreds of millions of people in this country, I bump into them. I hadn’t even considered the possibility because the chances are so…astronomical. Yet, here we are.”
“I dunno, Carter. I dunno.”
She lets out another long breath and starts gazing outside again. “She was beautiful wasn’t she? She always had the best smile.” Sam finally smiles a little herself. “My dad used to say she could bring any man to his knees with that smile.”
“Like mother, like daughter.”
A look of surprise flashes across Sam’s face and Jack thinks maybe he shouldn’t have said it. But then Sam smiles softly, relaxes a bit, and leans her head onto his shoulder.
They remain like that, quietly breathing together, until they hear the voices of their travel companions approaching.
The Present
First there was Sam on his porch, then Kerry in his office, and now this. Jack fiddles anxiously with the crumpled paper in his hand, knee bouncing in time with his pounding heart.
What he wants isn’t in question. He wants her. And he has more than enough reason to think she wants him. Kerry’s words reverberate in his head. Is the Air Force really the only thing keeping them apart?
Uncrumpling the paper, he re-reads what he’s realized is both the confession and final request of a dying man.
Jack,
You can still have everything you want. Don’t let rules stand in your way. Take care of my little girl. You promised.
J.C.
Jack, decision made, stands up so forcefully the bookcase behind him quakes from the impact of his chair. Cringing, he deftly catches the model jet as it falls, setting it down swiftly but carefully before finally following his heart and a promise he made some 35 years ago.
Jacob listens to the parting words of his Tok’ra colleague while remaining hyper aware of his daughter keeping vigil from the observation room. It’s true what they say. In the end, little matters but the ones you love. He keeps a tired but watchful eye on her.
He’s aware when Jack joins her and sits by her side. He’s hopeful when his daughter, leaning into the comfort of Jack’s arms, clasps his hand in hers. And even with the failing eyes of a man on the verge of his last breath, he makes out what Jack says.
“Always.”
Jacob feels his last tethers to this world release. He’s ready now.