<< Previous | Story Intro | Return to Stories | Next >>

Nicholas was crawling across the living room floor toward Emily. The tot watched him warily for a moment, then grabbed her toys and fled to the dining room. The infant sat back on his round little bottom, stuck his fingers in his mouth and watched his sister. The instant her back was turned, he was on his way again.

"Mommy!" Emily wailed, trying to pull her doll from her little brother’s grasp. "Nik’owas won’t weave my baby dow awone!" Nicholas was beginning to squeal also.

Casey looked up from where she sat at the counter making out her grocery list. She cast a glance toward the den, then frowned. She stood up, picked up her son, who happily turned loose of the doll in lieu of his mother’s attention. She kissed his cheek, cuddled him for just a moment. "You are just bound and determined to torment your sister, aren’t you?"

Nicholas gave her a wide, toothless grin.

She put him in the playpen with the pile of baby toys, watched him settle happily with several of the stuffed animals. She turned to Emily. "Okay, sweetie, take your dolls and play in your room. Then Nicholas won’t bother you."

"I pway here wif you," the tot said.

Casey ran her hand over the blonde head. "All right, Emmie. But if Nicholas starts bothering you again, take your dolls to your room. Okay?"

"‘Kay," the blonde head bobbed.

With a sigh, she settled back down and reached for her list again.

"Casey!"

She rolled her eyes heavenward. "What?"

"I can’t find my Latin dictionary!"

I will not kill him. I will not kill him. I will not kill him, was her mantra for several long seconds.

"Case? Where is it?"

"If it was up your ass you’d know where it was, wouldn’t you?" she muttered under her breath. Knowing that nothing short of a trip into the room to find the missing book would please him, she slammed her pen down on the counter and went to the den. She walked to the bookshelf. It wasn’t there. She gave a cursory look at the tops of the filing cabinets. Just as she thought. She pulled his chair…in which he was sitting, away from the desk, rummaged under several stacks of papers, found the book, and tossed it at him. "Want a snake-bite kit?" she asked grumpily.

"Huh? Snake-bite kit?"

"Yeah, if it had been a snake it would have bitten you. Next time, try looking under the piles of…stuff…on your desk." She turned to go back to the kitchen. "What did you do before you had me to keep track of your disorganized butt?" she muttered.

"Spent half my time looking for stuff," he answered with a cheeky grin.

She gave him a hard look and left the room. Just as she was walking by the telephone it rang. Again she rolled her eyes. She grabbed the receiver, knowing full well that Daniel wouldn’t bother to answer it in the den. She took a deep breath, forced herself to calm down, and said hello.

"Hey, Case. Is Daniel there?"

"Hi, Jack. Sure, hang on." She turned to face the den. "Daniel? Telephone." Silence. She waited, but he didn’t pick up. "Daniel! Telephone." More silence. With a pained sigh, she laid the phone on the counter, gently thank you very much, and walked back into the den. She picked up the receiver there, bopped Daniel on the back of the head with her open hand, and thrust it at him.

"Ow! What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, looking up at her, a frown on his face. He took the receiver.

She didn’t reply. Instead, before she could give in to the urge to bop him again, she turned on her heel and walked away. She hung up the kitchen extension, again doing so gently. Then turned around to find that Emily had pulled her list from the counter and was ‘drawing’ on it. With the ink pen. "Emily Rose! Put that pen down this instant! You know that you’re never to grab anything on that counter, ever!"

Emily started, looked up at her mother. Her lower lip began to tremble, and she jumped to her feet and ran into the den.

Casey could hear her telling Daniel in between her sobs that Mommy was being ‘bad’. She shook her head, picked up her now utterly destroyed list, tossed it to the counter, and heard the crash of something hitting the floor…

Nicholas was standing at the side of the playpen. Which just happened to be next to the shelves. Well, lovely! On the floor was what was left of a terra cotta bowl that Casey had found on one of the many digs she and Daniel had been on.

She liked that bowl! She had been the one to uncover it! "Oh, Nicholas! No! You leave things on the shelves alone!" She went into the living room, pulled the playpen away from the shelves, and began to clean up the broken pieces. She managed to cut her finger on a sharp corner. "Damn it!" she hissed, putting her finger to her mouth.

When the pottery shards had been cleaned up, she turned to find Daniel watching her, Emily in his arms.

"What’s wrong with you today? Why were you yelling at Emmie?" he asked. Wrong question, he decided instantly, when he saw the flash of anger in her eyes.

"What’s wrong…what’s…Ooooooooo!" She clenched her fists at her side. "For your information, I did not yell at your daughter. Even though she totally destroyed the grocery list I’ve been trying to work on for two hours now. In between keeping your son from pestering her, changing his diaper, feeding them both lunch, finding lost books for you, cleaning up broken pottery…" she broke off, gave an exhausted sigh.

His daughter. His son. Okay, she wasn’t happy. And he didn’t remember having that Latin dictionary out for awhile, how was he supposed to know it was still on his desk? It wasn’t like she never used it! "So, are you going to make out a new grocery list?"

She glared at him.

Danny, you're batting two for two in the stupid questions department. "Uh…never mind." Something told him that telling her the reason for Jack’s call right now probably wouldn’t be the brightest thing he could do.

"What did Jack want?"

And hedging would get him killed. He heaved a pained sigh. "I have to go on a diplomatic mission." Uh-oh. Hands on the hips. Her eyes were full of fire…and not the good kind, either.

"I see. Just how many freakin’ slave girls will be on this one?" she demanded.

He grinned. "None. Not unless the Prometheus has started carrying them around," he replied. Emily squirmed to get down, he put her little feet on the floor.

"Prometheus?"

"Yep. Duncan and I are going to be meeting with the Earth Defense Alliance. Apparently there were elections held, and all of the new members want to meet with us and discuss our treaty."

"That could take awhile," she said, a slight frown on her face.

"Not more than a week," he told her.

She dropped down onto one of the upholstered chairs that flanked the fireplace. "When do you leave?"

"Seven in the morning."

She nodded. "I suppose you have a lot of work to do now, getting out the treaty and going over it, things of that nature?"

He nodded.

"Right. Of course."

"Unless there’s something you need…" he started. His mind was already going over what he could remember of the treaty, he was already turning away from her to go back to the den.

She knew the look in his eyes. He was already ‘gone’. "No, Daniel. There isn’t a damned thing I need from you."

Daniel stopped, and turned back around. "Babe?"

She sighed, waved her hand to indicate he should go. "Go to work Daniel. Your brain is already there." She let her head fall back, and closed her eyes. Jumped when she felt his lips on her throat, the weight of his body leaning against her.

"Make your list, Angel. I’ll get the kids ready to go," he said softly.

She reached up and caressed his cheek. "What about your prep work?"

"I can do it on the Prometheus," he replied. He kissed her. "Now, let’s get the grocery shopping done."

"I love you, Daniel Jackson," she whispered.

"I love you, too, Casey Jackson," he whispered in return. He stood up, grabbed his daughter under one arm, holding her upside down, making her squeal with laughter, and carried her into the bathroom to wash her up and get her ready to leave.

Casey smiled, and went into the kitchen. She could remember most of what had been on her list. By the time she was finished, Daniel had both of the kids ready to be put into their car-seats.

A  A  A  A  A  A

Daniel put Nicholas and his carrier into the basket of one cart, and Emily into the seat, Casey pushed a second cart and began to fill it with the items from her list. As always happened, Daniel, and now Emily, would see something they wanted and add it to the growing pile.

"Mommy! Cookies!"

"No. We have a box at home," Casey replied.

"Babe, they have chips on sale."

"And we have two unopened bags at home."

"Not Cheetos."

"Fine, get the Cheetos." One bag of Cheetos into the cart.

"Mommy! Ceweal! Cap’n Cwunch!"

Casey sighed. What was one more box to add to the five half eaten ones in the pantry? One box of Cap’n Crunch into the cart.

They were loading the groceries into the jeep when she saw the bouquet of flowers sticking out of the top of one of the bags. When had he done that? She looked over at him, her heart surging with love for the man who held her heart in his hands.

He watched her, knew when she noticed them. He pulled them from the bag and handed them to her. "Love you, Angel," he said softly.

"Oh, Daniel, thank you!" She didn’t care that they were in the middle of the parking lot at Murphy’s. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Love you, Sweetheart."

A quick stop at Tyrone’s Burger Barn, and she didn’t have to worry about fixing dinner. Daniel helped her get the groceries put away. The burgers and fries and shakes were eaten before he finally admitted that he had to get to work on the treaty. He didn’t surface until it was 'snuggle time'.

She turned off the bathroom light. He was back working in the den. She slipped in, kissed him on the top of the head, although she didn’t think he noticed, and went to bed.

It was almost one a.m. when he finally turned off the light in the den. The house was dark, silent. He checked the locks on all of the doors, although there wasn’t really a need. Crime wasn’t a problem that Hope had to deal with.

He slid into bed beside her, reached out and found her naked. She was waiting for him. Knew that he wouldn’t leave on a mission without making love to her. He moved closer to her warm body, let his hand roam over her, the soft skin setting him on fire. He leaned over and kissed her, smiling inwardly when she kissed him back, even though she was still mostly asleep. When her arms wrapped around him, he knew that she was waking up. They made love slowly, gently. He held her tightly, sleeping with her slender body still on top of his.

<< Previous | Story Intro | Return to Stories | Next >>