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Jack met up with Sam as she was leaving the locker room. The two hours of sleep they had both managed to get weren't quite enough and they were both a little gritty eyed. Sam had hoped a shower would have helped but it didn't, she was just going to have to live on coffee today. She did scrounge the energy from somewhere though to smile at Jack's obvious bed head, his hair going off in even more directions than usual with a particularly artistic flat spot on one side.
As tired as he was he found himself giving her a little grin in return. Sam was a beautiful woman, on the inside as well as out, and her smile had been noticeably absent since Daniel's ascension. So it was nice to see a smile on her face, even if it was at his expense, and even if it was over something as trivial as his bed head.
With a mumbled, “I'll meet you in the commissary in five.” Jack headed for a shower.
The shower helped a little, and so did breakfast and coffee. And they were both working on another cup as they headed into Sam's lab. As she nudged her computer out of the screen saver a bright red, attention grabbing warning was on her screen.
Jack heard her say “Yes!” under her breath as she clicked on something on the screen.
“What?” he asked.
“Someone tried to access Daniel's file in the Armed Forces database a little while ago, Sir.”
“Friend or foe?” The thought that maybe the NID had Daniel's daughter had crossed his mind a few times, but he just couldn't see what good that would do them, unless they intended to use her to extort Jack and others at the SGC.
She was reading intently, “Well this is odd. It looks like it was NCIS out of Washington. A Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo.”
Jack's brain was tired but he was able to put a couple of things together, “You think its a coincidence that Georgetown is in D.C. too?”
“It does seem a little coincidental, Sir. But NCIS is part of the Navy. It doesn't make any sense.”
“Smells like NID, you know they have their slimy little fingers everywhere. What can you pull up on that DiNozzo?”
A few keystrokes later, Tony's picture and data sheet filled the screen. Sam was floored and just stared. Where were the guys that looked like that when she was working at the Pentagon?
Jack caught her reaction and just had to tease, “He's cute.”
The fish out of water routine her mouth did in response made the lame joke worth it. Ever since she had found out about him and Daniel he enjoyed keeping her off balance with little comments like that every now and again. It was almost too easy.
She finally realized he was teasing her and she just shook her head. They returned their attention to reading Tony's information and they both decided that it didn't feel like the NID. They were normally much more covert about their snooping.
As they sat there sipping there coffee trying to figure out what to do next, Sam's phone rang and Jack heard the one sided exchange, “Carter.” “Yes, please connect him.”
She hit the button for the speaker phone and mouthed to Jack, “DiNozzo.” then greeted the caller, “This is Major Carter.”
“Um, This is Special Agent Tony DiNozzo with NCIS, I'm looking for Major Sam Carter.” Tony said, a little confused.
“You found her. Major Samantha Carter. And I'm here on speaker with Colonel O'Neill. What can we do for NCIS today?”
Tony was a little distracted, Major Carter had one of those telephone voices that just sent little shivers down his spine. He started frantically poking at his computer, trying to pull up her service record so he could see what she looked like, fearing an old battle ax in with a bun in her hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He realized that she had asked him a question and quickly formulated a response, “We're investigating a double homicide out here in Washington and I need to locate Dr. Daniel Jackson. His information was locked down and tagged by you, Major Carter, so here I am.”
Her picture suddenly filled his computer screen and Tony's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider. There was just no way she was a geek, she was gorgeous. But her service report stated that she had a Ph.D. in Astrophysics. You couldn't get any more geek than that, and he sighed inwardly, he'd never be able to make rocket science jokes to her.
“Why exactly are you looking for Daniel in your investigation?” Sam asked, still not giving up any information.
“We found something that we think belongs to him at the crime scene.” Tony replied, also not giving up any information.
At Tony's words, Jack started squeezing the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles were white. Was Agent DiNozzo talking about Daniel's daughter? He used his best special ops training to keep the emotion out of his voice as he asked pointedly, leaving no wiggle room for the agent to weasel out of telling him what he wanted to know, “What exactly did you find, Agent DiNozzo?”
Tony had been at NCIS long enough to have dealt with all levels of command authority. Some men put it on almost as a show, some tried but never quite got it right, and then there were those that it was just so ingrained in them that it was just a part of who they were. Gibbs was a perfect example of that, and with those seven words, Tony realized that Colonel O'Neill was as well.
He had to make a quick decision, to tell them or not to tell them. He decided to try and stall a bit, but he sensed he would end up telling them anyway.
“I really think I should speak with Dr. Jackson directly.”
Jack's lack of sleep, coupled with the emotions he was trying to contain finally got the best of him, he wanted answers. He threw up his hands, “Oh for crying out loud.”
Sam decided to try another tactic with the agent and interrupted Jack's starting tirade, “Agent DiNozzo, unfortunately there is no way for you to speak with Daniel. The details are classified, but he is listed as missing in action, presumed dead. Now please tell us what you found. We were teammates of Daniel's for a long time, and we consider him a friend, and... family.” She chided herself when her voice caught with emotion towards the end, she hated showing signs of weakness.
Tony heard that little catch in her voice and he thought briefly about what it would be like to lose one of his teammates and his mind repulsed from the idea. He couldn't imagine what their emotions were. He also put himself in their place, imagining that if by some fluke he had a child he didn't know about would he want someone telling his teammates? And the answer was absolutely in the affirmative. And if by that same fluke, he were dead, there wouldn't be anyone other than any member of his team that he would want to raise his child.
“I'm sorry. I... I didn't know.” Tony's voice had softened and was full of compassion. “We were called to an apartment that was the scene of a double homicide, a dead sailor and a woman the local police say is a known prostitute and drug addict. As were collecting evidence I found a little girl hiding under a pile of laundry in a closet. We found a baby book with a birth certificate that listed Elizabeth Warden as the mother and a Daniel Jackson as the father. There were some pictures and notes in the album that suggested the father was an archaeologist so I've been digging, if you'll pardon the pun, to try and find him.”
“Oh my god.” Sam said in a whisper.
Jack took in a deep breath and let it out, and asked, “Is she okay?” Visions of a little girl living with prostitute bringing home customers almost made him lose his breakfast.
“She's in the custody of Social Services at the moment. She's dehydrated and underweight and the doctor is keeping her in the hospital for a few days to keep an eye on her.”
Jack and and Sam just stared at each other, the reality of it all hitting them. When they didn't say anything for a while, Tony gently cleared his throat and said, “Major Carter, if you have his DNA records we can run them against the girl's and verify that she is in fact his daughter.”
Sam shook off her shock, “Yeah, um, I'll unlock his file right now, you'll be able to access them.” Her fingers flew over the keys.
Tony pulled up Daniel's file and gasped in surprise when he saw Daniel's picture for the first time, his daughter was the spitting image of him, especially the eyes. Even without the DNA, Tony was convinced.
“What?” Sam asked, hearing his surprise.
Gently Tony said, “She looks just like him. I'll send you a picture.” He emailed off a photo that they had snapped yesterday at the hospital, and it was a picture that he knew would haunt him for a very long time, she was just so forlorn and unloved. It broke his heart a little more every time he looked at it.
But being the big, macho guy he was he would swear that he would never admit that, until he heard Major Carter sniffle as she tried to clear her throat to keep from crying as she looked at the picture of the little girl. Softly Tony said with lump in his throat, “Me too, Major Carter. Me too.”
Jack could only stare. He could see Daniel in everything about her. And she was so not staying out in Washington where no one cared if she lived or died. She was coming home to Colorado where she belonged. If he had to get the President himself involved he would. Hell, if he had to call in Thor to take them both someplace safe he would. She was not going to get dumped into that same system that had left scars so deep on Daniel's psyche that nothing would ever heal them. Daniel was his, she was Daniel's, ergo she was his. Simple.
Jack gritted out between clenched teeth, “I'm on a plane in an hour.” Then he turned and left the room heading for Hammond's office.
Sam wiped her cheeks, trying to hide the evidence that she had been crying, and said, “We'll be out there in a couple of hours, Agent DiNozzo. I can't even begin to tell you what this means to us.”
“Please call me Tony. I'm sending you the info to contact the social worker in charge of her case. And, uh, my contact info as well, Major Carter.”
“Sam. Please. Will we see you when we hit Washington?”
“Yeah. And I should have the DNA comparison by then just to confirm.”
Sam was back to staring at the picture of the little waif and realized they hadn't asked him an important question, “What's her name?”
Tony chuckled, “Oh, yeah. It's Jacqueline, but looking at some of the stuff in the album, I think they call her Jackie.”
He was treated to the sound of Sam laughing, an almost full out belly laugh and it was a wonderful sound. When she finally caught her breath he asked, “Why is that so funny?”
“Colonel O'Neill first name is Jack. It just brought back a memory.” She didn't tell him that she thought about the time that they had all gotten together at Jack's house for a barbecue and after a few beers Jack had started calling Daniel “Danny” much to his chagrin. So a pleasantly drunk Daniel had started tormenting Jack by calling him “Jackie” in a sing-song voice. It had denigrated down to the point that they both sounded like five year olds on the playground. She and Teal'c just sat back and enjoyed the show. It had been a good day, full of camaraderie and laughter. She missed those days.
“Well, I guess I will see you in a few hours then, huh? Maybe I can convince you to share that story with me since it's obviously a good one.” Tony asked, allowing just a hint of flirting to enter his voice.
“Hmm, maybe.” She teased back, she felt oddly comfortable with Tony on the phone, it would be interesting to meet him in person. “Tony?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“You're welcome. I'll see you in a while.”
Sam hit the button killing the speaker and took a moment just thinking about little Jackie before heading to Hammond's office, where she thought she was certain to find Jack.
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tbc...
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