Jackson Junior: Fight the Past, by DrGemini86
Summary: Spin-off of Jackson Junior: Commanders, set eighteen years into the original timeline of the story, a widowed Daniel discovers that something was supposed to happen all those years ago and he sets off a chain of events that will change his life and those of their friends and his children forever.
Pairings: SamDaniel, CamVala, JonasCarolyn, Teal'cIsh'ta, miniJackHailey, CarmichaelBrightman, ShWeir, Lornifer, TeylaRonon, CarsonMcKay (not slash in this series), CassieOC, OC/OC (James and Charlotte), OC/OC (Cammie and Francis).
Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst, A/U, Character Death, Drama, Family-Focussed, Future, Tragedy.
Rating: K+ to T (contains a brief mention of another tryst with Sarah).
Spoilers: anything between seasons 1-10, Ark of Truth, SGA seasons 1-4.
A/N: This explores how things had been in the original timeline before an older Cammie appeared in JJ: Commanders to save her mother. It's advisable that you read that, or at least the chapters concerning this story so you know what's going on. I can't believe that I actually forgot to rewrite this… lol. Thanks to HOUSEM.D.FanForever for reminding me: )

--------------------

Daniel, his hair as white as snow, sat on a chair on the porch of what was once his and Sam's house, the house that had brought them together as a couple over twenty years previously and should have been their home for that same length of time. Only, he was cruelly robbed of his wife, his best friend, his team-mate, his former CO, the mother of their children – well, the father of one of them – when she had courageously laid down her life to save the Atlantis expedition during a fatal Wraith attack on the City eighteen years previously.

A blanket draped over his legs, he leaned his head back in his chair, closing his eyes as tears rolled down his cheeks as he remembered once again the second woman that he had failed to save. No-one had ever loved him the way that she had, so completely, so wholeheartedly and so passionately, and he could say the same about her. He had never quite understood why she had loved him like that, why she had thought the world of him, but he was glad of it all the same. Before she had come along, no-one had ever made him believe that he was more than he believed himself to be, that he could move the stars if she whispered words in his ear of her faith in him.

Every day since he had left her in Atlantis, he had felt utter guilt and remorse for doing so, but he had had responsibilities in his role as base commander, they both had, and, as hard as it was, as difficult, they both knew that duties were duties.

If only he had had the courage and the foresight to tell the SGC and the IOA exactly where they could put their responsibilities and insistence for professional conduct. He had killed her. He should have stayed with her at the very least so that they could have both gone together. SG-1 had a record, a tradition of not leaving their people behind, but he had crossed that, forgotten and overlooked that, and to what end? Her career didn't mean anything now… she was dead, blown up along with the City right before she could follow the expedition members, her atoms cast across a large expanse of the Pegasus galaxy, thousands of light years away from home, away from him, their friends and their children.

His chest began to hurt once again as he remembered once again the day Ferretti had confirmed that the Odyssey had discovered no life signs on Lantaea, no traces of her or even the City other than the total destruction that the Wraith had left in their stead. Until that moment, he had clung onto the slightest shred of hope that she was still out there, still fighting, not wanting to accept that the chance that she could no longer be, not even when his friends had brought Jack in to reason with him.

As soon as he had heard the fateful news from Ferretti in the gateroom, he had collapsed and wept, not caring that he was surrounded by military personnel and tough aliens. Jack hadn't hesitated in dropping to the floor and gathering him into his arms, holding him close as the rest of his friends gathered around them, smoothing his hair and offering as much comfort as they knew how to give.

What came next, after a spell in the Infirmary during which he had been sedated due to his uncontrollable grief, was breaking the news to their children. His friends had offered to be there but he had refused and they had argued, and much to their consternation, they had won. As Jack, mini-Jack and the rest of SG-1 gathered around the lounge, offering comfort by their presence, Daniel held his children in his lap and told them as best he could.

When they had eventually understood, they had cried and he had cried with them. It was as though the world had melted like snow for them, the sun fading with no hope of ever returning.

After Elizabeth had given birth to hers and Sheppard's daughter, Charlotte Samantha, in the New Year, named in honour of her father's saviour, Daniel had taken his children to Egypt. He had spent very happy days there and he had hoped that they would too, a new start… away from that damn blasted mountain that had caused his greatest source of pain.

His friends had flown out, trying to persuade him after he had gone without telling anyone, trying to get him to see reason, but he had held strong and gradually they left, frequently phoning, emailing and visiting over the years that followed. He had returned briefly for Cam and Vala's, Jonas and Carolyn's, Elizabeth and Sheppard's, Jennifer and Lorne's, mini-Jack and Major Hailey's, Teal'c and Ish'ta's, Carson and McKay's, and Teyla and Ronon's weddings, but left soon after each ceremony before his friends could attempt to get him to stay.

A couple of years into his self-imposed exile, he had encountered Sarah Gardener again, the ex-Goa'uld involved in a nearby dig. Soon afterwards, they had slept together, but he had woken up during the night feeling sick with guilt at dishonouring his wife's memory and he had left her, running back to his trailer where he had been violently sick.

The nightmares continued where he woke up sweating and screaming, and gradually, his hair turned white by the time the twins had hit their fifth birthday.

He had watched his children blossom and grow in the freedom of the desert, and he thought wistfully and with regret on a regular basis that Sam had missed out on so much. He felt that he owed it to her, to her memory to give them a stable life, a happy life and he homeschooled them between their long voyages of discovery in the iconic scenery that surrounded them, so steeped in history and times past. By the time they were seven, they could speak English, Arabic, Greek, French, Dutch, German, Welsh, Italian and Chinese fluently, and write in every one of those languages, plus Akkadian, Sumerian, Egyptian Demotic, Egyptian Hieratic and Latin.

By the time that they had hit twelve, he had given into his friends' never-ending pleas to come back to the States, insecure in his own abilities to give them an adequate and comprehensive education and knowing that they needed children of their own age to mix with, and not the hit-and-miss mixture of children that occasionally accompanied travelling Archaeologists and rarely stayed longer than a digging season.

His friends had kept their house, knowing that they would win someday, and the night he stepped through the door with his children, he felt overwhelmed with emotion, memories and ghosts of the past. Everywhere he had looked, he had seen her, and after everything that had happened, he felt that he deserved it, deserved to see her but to have her always slipping just out of reach, in a similar manner to Tantalus. He felt that he had deserved it because of not only his guilt surrounding her death, but also his perceived unfaithfulness to her memory in his brief and albeit disastrous tryst with Sarah.

As the pain, nightmares and memories continued for him as well as his longstanding dispute with Mark Carter over not consulting him with regard to his niece and nephew's welfare and upbringing as well as the circumstances of Sam's death, the twins became acclimatised to high school and were soon skipped four grades ahead of their peers.

They also became friends with the other children of the mountain: Francis Carter and Samantha Wendy Mitchell; Charlotte Samantha and Stephen Samuel Weir-Sheppard; Henry Samuel and Samantha Kimberley Lam-Quinn; Samantha of the Hak'tyl, Samantha and Janet Frasier-Brookes; Helen and Samantha Keller-Lorne; Samantha Hailey-O'Neill; Samantha Emmagan-Dex; Samantha Meredith Beckett-McKay; Andrew and Samantha Brightman-Carmichael.

The summer of the twins' first year at University when they were aged just fifteen, they had broken into the mountain, having suspected for years that something big was going down there, and quite rightly so. Instead of being arrested for trespassing on military property, General Mitchell, recognising their potential, enlisted them as on-base consultants during their holidays, but soon they showed their proficiency in not only dealing with off-world Archaeology and technology but also in combat and rescue off-world. On one occasion, during her first trip off-world, Cammie had single-handedly saved SG-19 from the Lucian Alliance thanks to her quick-thinking after she had stolen a cargo ship.

Now, they were on the brink of beginning five PhD programmes between them, ranging from Archaeology and Linguistics, to Astronomy and Electronic Engineering, and still Daniel regretted that Sam couldn't be by his side to see their beautiful children and their breathtaking accomplishments.

In the present, he opened his eyes and watched with tears in his eyes, the view that lay before him. Off a little to his right, some distance away in the grass, sat an older James, his soft hair a light brown, his back to his father as he sat close to a slender girl with long dark-hair, their fingers intertwined as the girl leant her head on the young man's shoulder. Daniel smiled slightly, his chest feeling heavy as he thought of how Sam would have loved to have seen their little boy in love, with none other than the daughter of Elizabeth and Sheppard.

He moved his gaze away as the couple shared a tender kiss, his hand reaching up to massage his tight chest and hoping that he wouldn't need a Nitro-glycerine capsule just yet. His gaze moved to a beautiful young woman with long sun-bleached light brown hair and glasses, bent over an open car engine, an oily rag poking out of the back pocket of her jeans. Next to her was a young man of seventeen with dark hair like his mother and the same intense gaze as his father, Francis Carter Mitchell, Cam and Vala's firstborn, named after Cam's father who had brought the young man into the world.

Daniel smiled as he watched the two of them work, how she was so much like her mother in so many ways, and how his godson gazed at her when he thought she wasn't looking. He had spotted the younger man's attraction to Cammie months before and he, along with the boy's parents, had no problem with any relationship that could develop as the two of them had a similar age difference to that of James and Charlotte and were well-suited.

Francis called in a soft southern lilt as Cammie started up the engine, the engine note rising, "Needs a little more work."

Cammie nodded and quickly shut off the engine before returning to his side, pulling a screwdriver out of her jeans. After a moment of tinkering, she started up once again and they both grinned in triumph on hearing what they had wanted to hear. Daniel pretended to be asleep so as not to embarrass them, and he watched, biting his lip to prevent himself from smiling as Francis leaned against the car after Cammie had switched the engine off and climbed out, the young man wiping his hands on a rag.

He said, meeting her gaze briefly, "Cammie."

Curious, she asked, "What is it, Frankie?"

Daniel willed the younger man to speak and watched as Francis eventually did, this time in a quiet and nervous voice, "Would you like to go out sometime?"

Cammie turned to glance in her father's direction to ascertain whether he was asleep or not, and satisfied somewhat by what she had seen, she looked back at Francis and replied with a sigh, regret in her eyes as she caressed his jaw affectionately,

"Frankie… I can't. You're a great guy. I just don't think I can make you happy – I'm not ready to love yet. I'm sorry."

Francis, tears in his eyes, looked down at his feet and replied, "It's ok – I get it."

Throwing the rag down, he fled away from her, not caring where he went just so long as he was away from her before he did something stupid, tears running down his face. Cammie, upset, called as James and Charlotte suddenly looked from a fleeing Francis to her direction,

"Frankie, come back… I'm sorry!"

Cammie stood, despondent in the driveway, not allowing herself to cry, forcing everything down inside like she always had done. Daniel, his chest feeling heavy again at seeing his little girl so sad, called,

"Sweetie, go after him."

Not totally surprised that he hadn't really been sleeping, she looked back at him belligerently, about to speak when he said, a little firmer, "Cameron, now."

She threw her hands down in a characteristic show of defiance in the face of authority before her gaze softened and she ran in the same direction that Francis had, calling his name as her brother and his girlfriend watched with concerned expressions.

Daniel sighed, taking deep breaths to relieve the tightness in his chest, and a grey haired Cam entered the porch from the house and sat down on the step next to his chair. The General said, glancing up at the man that he still could scarcely believe was only sixty-two,

"Hey Jackson, what's cookin'?"

Daniel, his eyes closed, replied as he leaned his head back again, "Francis asked her out and she told him that she couldn't love anyone. The poor boy ran away in tears and she's gone after him."

Cam said with a little sigh as he looked out into the distance, "We figured this would happen. C'mon, you and I both know that Cammie has issues."

Daniel defensively remarked as he looked down at his former team-mate, "What do you mean by that?"

Cam rolled his eyes and patted his friend on the knee, saying, "I'm a Daddy too and it took a lot to say that. Look, it's not an insult. You can't deny that she has issues… she needs a mother and no-one can be a substitute for the real deal."

He sighed as he remembered his late best friend, and continued, "She needs Sam."

Daniel replied as he quickly brushed away a tear, his voice quiet, "So do I. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss her… but I deserve this. I brought it all on myself by letting her go. I pushed her to go. She didn't want to but… I may deserve all this but our children sure as hell shouldn't have to pay for my sins."

Cam nodded, familiar with the Archaeologist's guilt and he said, looking up at him, "I know I could say this 'til I'm a grandpa and you'll still pile on the guilt on yourself but what happened wasn't your fault. She died a hero saving their lives. I hate the fact that she isn't here now too. I can't help thinkin' that she would have loved being Auntie to my kids, to Quinn's, to T-man's… to everyone's. She was a great mother even if she didn't give herself enough credit."

"But I…"

"Cut that out, Jackson! It was no-one's fault – it was an accident. No-one could have done anything. If it hadn't been her, it would have been someone else, and let's face it, who else would have saved the entire City like that? She was a hero, a legend… I'm not arguin' with you anymore because you're never gonna listen, but the fact is, Sam was the best of the best."

Nothing was said for a few moments, both men thinking back all those years ago to a time when they had had their mutual best friend in their lives. Suddenly, needing a change of subject, Cam asked with characteristic cheerfulness,

"You up for tutoring our Sam tonight?"

Daniel remarked, looking at the man in disbelief, "I respect the fact that she's my niece but she's the devil incarnate, and believe me, I've known plenty devils in my time."

Cam said with a grin, patting him on the knee, "Aw come on, she likes you."

"Likes me enough to mug me. She stole my watch the last time. Sometimes I wonder whether she'll knock me out and hijack my car in order to sell it to someone a few states over."

Cam remarked with a soft smile as he scratched the back of his neck, "She takes after her Mom."

"I'll say."