Walking out of the supermarket, juggling a bag full of junk food (and milk) while putting her change back into her wallet, she drops the whole mess on the asphalt. Something like ten dollars in coins -- she's usually much better at cleaning it out -- spreads in all directions, leaving her in the middle of a silver-and-copper circle. She stands, and stares at it, and a couple of college-age boys bend down to help.
Sam just picks up her groceries and her wallet, tells them to keep the rest, and drives to her house on autopilot.
***
The problem with having nothing to do for her father's memorial service is that she has nothing to do. General O'Neill offered to make the arrangements, which really means that he'll have Walter do it. It isn't necessary -- she's okay, really, and she's too familiar with how this all works -- but she said yes anyway. He might as well: her father, in his infirmary bed, had dictated his own obituary and his own service, which was such a Carter thing to do that Sam had to cry. There's very little left to decide, and Jack was trying to be kind. And at that moment it felt like he was the only person left on the planet who gave a shit.
Which was just stupid, and she knows it. Her brother cares -- she's already talked to him; he's flying in on Wednesday -- and Cassie will care once she finds out. Teal'c may be offworld, but he certainly cares. And Pete; Pete cares.
Sam puts the groceries away, eats some M&Ms, and she's done.
Teal'c's still on Dakara, and Daniel's probably dead no matter what Jack says. Cassie's fifteen hundred miles away and doesn't need to be burdened with Sam's problems. Sam doesn't talk to her brother about things like this, or to her ex-sister-in-law at all. She's ignored her friends from grad school for so long that they've been reduced to yearly Christmas cards with photos of smiling children and lists of recent publications.
She tells Pete, when he offers to come over and cook her dinner, that she wants to be alone. He's hurt, though he tries not to let her hear it; he's hurt, as he's been before, that she doesn't need him as much as he wants her to. But that's not his fault. It's not his fault that he loves her more than she loves him, or that he didn't know her father.
The few phone calls she has to make -- cousins, an uncle, a great-aunt -- are quick and awkward, full of heartfelt condolences that she doesn't feel. Between each call she stares at her computer screen. She hasn't turned it on yet.
Call waiting interrupts reminiscences from her father's only surviving first cousin, and she says goodbye quickly. It's Jack, who asks if Friday afternoon at the Academy Chapel is okay, and oh, can she give him her brother's number?
Sam realizes she's going to have to change her next-of-kin. It's the craziest thing: she's forty-one years old and she feels like an orphan. Daniel and Cassie would probably laugh.
She rattles off the number.
Jack hesitates. It's not an uncomfortable silence. He's just giving her a chance to collect herself before he asks what he's obviously going to ask.
"How're you doing, Carter?"
"It's weird," she says.
"Yeah." And then, "I miss the old coot. Both of 'em."
She smiles. "Thank you, sir."
He lets out a deep breath, like he does when he's thinking about something distasteful. "Listen, if you need some company -- if Pete's at work, or whatever ..." And he trails off.
Yes, kind. He's being kind, and he means it, and she's more grateful than she can say. She hopes he knows. "Thank you," she says again.
"Seriously," and he's more sure of himself this time, "give me a call if you need anything. Chocolate, Simpsons DVDs, toilet paper, whatever. Don't worry about what time it is."
She thinks for a moment. "Actually, there is one thing. Can you call Cassie?"
"Yeah, of course. Absolutely."
"Tell her she doesn't need to come. She should stay at school."
"Sure, Carter."
And then there's nothing else to say, so they don't say it. But Cassie calls twenty minutes later: she's booked a flight for seven AM.
"Is Pete there?" she asks, and Sam can hear her going through drawers, pulling things out.
Sam says, "No," and her voice cracks a little.
But Cassie's already moved on. "I'll do whatever Jack isn't. The caterer we had after Mom's funeral was good, don't you think?"
Sam remembers, and she remembers taking over like this when her own mother died. Cassie's nineteen and Sam was fourteen, but it feels the same. "Cass, you really don't have to --"
"Yeah, I do," Cassie says. "But I'm not old enough to rent a car, so somebody will have to pick me up."
Cassie's gone in a whirlwind of details, each of them still insisting they'll deal with the caterer, and Sam's left thinking, suddenly, about who will sit where: she and Mark and the kids in the front pew, obviously; Jack and Teal'c and Cassie and General Hammond in the second? And Pete with her, of course. But that's not right, somehow. How can that be right?
Sam thinks, and she eats more M&Ms, and Jack calls back to ask if she wants to say anything in the chapel; Mark's already said yes. She says she'll let him know tomorrow, and she wants to say other things. But she can't, not about Pete, not to him, not now.
She asks instead if he'll have Teal'c call her as soon as he steps through the gate, and he says again, "Sure, Carter."
***
When her doorbell rings at two in the morning, she figures it has to be important -- nobody would bother her now for something minor -- and her best guess is that it's about Daniel. She's been in the military more than half of her life; she knows that official visits in the middle of the night are never good.
But it's not official: it's Teal'c. She blinks up at him, her eyes still filmy and everything a little pale beside him.
"I am deeply sorry about your father, Colonel Carter," he says in his most formal voice.
She closes the door behind him and accepts a long hug. "Thanks, Teal'c," she says. She thinks at first that Jack must have misunderstood her, but then she figures it out. "He asked you to come back just for me, didn't he?"
Teal'c nods infinitesimally. "It was no trouble to do so."
But Sam knows it was -- there's something like a Jaffa Mardi Gras going on on Dakara right now -- and she's so grateful she can't even summon up any guilt. She convinces Teal'c to drink some tea with her, leads him to her couch. Then she thinks again about who'll sit next to her in the chapel, and blurts out, "I don't think I can marry him."
***
On Wednesday, when Teal'c's returned to the base and she knows Pete will be awake, she picks up the phone.
The rest of the day is a blur, and that's not a bad thing. She meets Pete at 8:30, calls Teal'c on the way to the airport, and picks up Cassie at eleven. They're just putting away the dishes from lunch when Mark and the kids pull up.
Cassie leads Andy and Jessica into the house; Sam lingers on the sidewalk while Mark locks up the rental car.
"I gave Pete's ring back this morning," she says.
He stands in front of her, looking more like her father than she remembered. "Jesus, Sam," he says. "Big week, huh?"
She smiles, surprised, and realizes that she expected him to disapprove. And then she wishes she could tell him the rest: about Daniel, and about Selmak, and about how proud he should be of their father. She wonders if they'd be closer if she could tell him.
"Sam?" Cassie calls from the door. "Jack's on the phone." And Sam barely has time to apologize before she's heading back for the base, where for once none of them saves the world. She stands with Jack, Teal'c, and Walter, watching the self-destruct countdown pause, and somehow the wormhole collapses before Anubis can activate the weapon on Dakara.
In his office afterwards, Jack says, "I need a new career, Carter."
***
On Thursday, Sam makes pancakes for her family and promises she'll only be gone a few hours; she wants to go to the morning briefing, though she's been ordered not to. And Daniel surprises them all.
It seems that descension precludes clothing. Jack calls down to the control room to order Walter to steal the next set of BDUs he sees, Bra'tac wears a grin bigger than any Sam's ever seen (Jaffa never do anything halfway). Teal'c hits Daniel on the back in the classic guy not-hug, and Jack gives Sam a smug I told you so look that she doesn't mind at all.
After the briefing -- which involves a lot of Daniel saying "I have no idea" -- Sam follows him down to the locker room like a lost cat. The spare BDUs are too short, the t-shirt too tight. He has no shoes, and he babbles about replicators and free Jaffa and how much he can't wait to get his hands on Dakara.
"Imagine knowing the exact spot where your race was created, and actually being able to see it."
Sam thinks it's spooky that the Jaffa revere that temple so much. And she will probably always think of it as the place where Selmak died, but nobody's told Daniel about that yet.
Daniel keeps bubbling over while he changes, and Sam's happy to listen to it; it's like he hasn't been able to talk for days and now the words have to spill out of his brain. Maybe that's exactly what happened. He says he doesn't remember.
Finally he turns to her, seeming to realize that she hasn't said a word yet. "Sam? You okay?"
"I'm just happy you're all right," she says, and clings to him a little desperately. His feet are still bare. She tries not to crush them.
"Sam? What's wrong?"
"It's been a hard week, Daniel," is all she'll say.
He says, "Okay." And then he just hugs her back.
***
On Friday, there are too many people in her house, too many secrets, and everyone who hadn't known about her breakup beforehand found out in whispers at the service. Pete isn't here, but he was at the chapel, sitting near the door. And afterwards, in the foyer, he offered quiet condolences, with genuine sorrow for her father. Pete's a good man. Too good, maybe.
She thanked him, and hugged him, her team covering her back, as always. Pete moved on to Mark, and Sam heard them both say, "I'm really sorry," at the same time.
Too many eyes, and Cassie has everything under control. Too many deviled eggs. Sam's going to write no deviled eggs in her will.
She slips away, finally, with Teal'c trailing her and Jack trailing both of them, and she changes quickly into jeans and a blue t-shirt. They end up sitting against the foot of her bed, not talking much. There's an arm around Sam's shoulders and another around her waist and Daniel finds them like that, eventually.
"Oh, hey, I wondered where you guys were," he says in a rush, putting his plate of hors d'oeuvres down on her dresser. "Do you mind if I use the bathroom in here? There's a line and I've really gotta --"
Sam cuts him off with a smile. "Of course you can, Daniel." Two beers still go straight through him, despite Jack's long-term efforts to increase Daniel's tolerance.
"I believe you have not yet accomplished your goal, O'Neill," Teal'c says.
Daniel says, "What?" and doesn't wait for an answer before hurrying into the other room.
"Eight damn years and this is all I've got to show for it," Jack grumbles.
Sam shoves him a little with her elbow.
"What?" he asks.
When Daniel emerges, he plops down in front of them and Sam has to hurry to get her knees out of the way. But he just sits, legs crossed, mirroring her, and holds both of her hands.
"To Dad," Jack says.
"To Dad," Daniel agrees. "And to Selmak."
"To ... Dad," Teal'c says.
They don't have any drinks, but it doesn't matter. Sam's eyes fill up. "Thanks, guys," she says, and those few words shouldn't be enough, but they are. And then Teal'c asks who's going to wait in line with him when the new Star Wars movie opens in May, and Jack groans, and Sam says she will as long as she can bring her laptop, and Jack groans again. Daniel admits that he never saw the original trilogy as a kid; his roommate in grad school rented them, and Daniel fell asleep. Teal'c is appalled; Jack is proud.
More than an hour later, Daniel lies on his back by Teal'c's feet, and Jack's propped up on an elbow, recounting the hockey play that ruined his knee in high school. He doesn't reach the end of the story, but they all know it anyway: he made the goal.
"Aunt Sam?"
Jack stops, and all four of them look up, twisting their necks. Sam's niece stands in the doorway, all arms and legs and big eyes.
"It's okay, sweetheart," Sam says. "You can come in."
Jess takes one step into the room. She's got that junior-high shyness, to go with the gangliness. Sam knows the guys can look pretty intimidating, even lying around in her bedroom.
"The caterer wants to know something about the garbage disposal," she says, "and I think Cassandra went to get more ice, and --" She makes a hand signal that Sam translates as I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
Sam wonders what Daniel, Jack, and Teal'c would have thought of her, at Jess's age. "Okay," she says. "I'll be out in a second."
Jess smiles, relieved, and disappears; Jack sits up. "I can take care of it," he says.
"No, it's all right." Sam's already unfolding her legs, to stand, and she looks at her watch. People will start leaving soon if they haven't already. "I shouldn't be hiding in here anyway." But she stops, and bends down to kiss Teal'c and Jack on the head -- something she's never done before -- and to squeeze Daniel's hand.
"I'm really glad you guys are here," she says.
"Us too," Daniel says, accepting a hand up from Teal'c, and all three of them follow her out to the kitchen.
Thanks for reading!