The Golden Age
by Bil!

K+ – General – J, S – Complete

Spoilers: CotG.

Season: Pre-everything. I have seen up to Season 8.

Summary: A long-ago meeting between two much younger members of SG-1.

Disclaimer: The characters herein bear a vague resemblance to some characters you might find under MGM and co.'s ownership. It's not my fault they took up residence in my brain.

Author's Notes: I was lying on my bed with my arm over my eyes waiting for a particularly vicious headache to give up and go away. I came up with this instead. I have absolutely no idea where it came from or why it came. It is very strange. You have been warned.

Jack took a sip from his bottle of beer and glanced around. The patio and the open-plan room leading onto it were overflowing with ranking officers, many gathered around the grill to his right, and he felt seriously under-starred. Very few here were under the rank of general, and even if they were in mufti you could see it in the way they walked and held their plates. And the way they tried to out-classify each other. He sniggered into his beer, and hastily tried to look innocent in case anyone was watching. His next promotion could rest on the people laughing and chatting about him as if they were ordinary people.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw General Heyer looking for a new victim to listen to his mind-numbing stories, so Jack cowardly and hastily lost himself in the crowd. He was aware it was an honour for General Carter to invite him to this barbeque party and that it said a lot for the General's opinion of him as an up-and-coming officer, but Jack wasn't much good at these socialite events. He could strip an MP-5 in ninety seconds or take out an armed enemy with his bare hands, but he couldn't play nice with the brass and their wives. He was a soldier, not a diplomat. But even had he been a fantastic and debonair diplomat, he suspected he couldn't have stopped the General's son fleeing the scene ten minutes in; one of them had been brought to entertain the other, though Jack wasn't sure which way around the General had wanted it, but the kid clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

So Jack headed down to the back of the garden, where there were plenty of trees and he could put his stealth skills to good use, keeping to the ample cover provided. Safely entrenched in a defensible position, he took a swig of beer, admired the sturdy looking tree house overhead, and considered his next move.

"Can I have some?"

He spun, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there and wondering how someone had crept up on him. A girl was peering over the fence, only just able to see over. "Cr-umbs, you scared me, kid!" He smiled at her; even as a cocky 20-something he liked kids – he'd been the best babysitter in his neighbourhood.

"Sorry," she said unrepentantly. "You can't be a very good soldier if you're not observant."

"I wasn't exactly expecting pint-sized invaders!" he protested.

"It's the one you don't expect that kills you," she said promptly, apparently quoting. "And I'm not that short." She hoisted herself up onto the fence, sneakers squeaking against the smooth wood, and perched on top, scrutinising him. He studied her in return. She was about ten, with short blonde hair that had been scraped into a pair of barely respectable plaits, jeans, and a fancy pink shirt that she'd tried to disguise with a disreputable green jacket.

"You have dirt on your nose."

She shrugged. "So can I?"

"Can you what?"

"Have some of your drink."

"I don't think I'm supposed to give alcohol to minors."

"I won't tell if you won't," she offered. "I just wanna know what it tastes like. Pleeease?"

He looked about furtively, but no one could see them. "Just a sip, then. But you've got to promise not to tell."

"Cross my heart and hope to die." She accepted the can, sniffed at it, took a sip, and shoved it back at him. "Yuck. Why do you drink it?" She rubbed her tongue with the back of her hand, disgusted.

"It's an acquired taste."

"That's what my dad said about mashed potato, but no matter how much I eat it I don't acquire it."

"Mashed potato's different."

"Of course it is, it isn't a drink."

"Smart-ass."

She giggled. "That's what Dad always says. Then Mum hits him over the head for saying ass."

"Oops."

"That's okay. I don't mind."

"You wouldn't," he said with feeling, and she giggled again.

"Mark says I have no sensibility. I don't care. He has too much. What's your name?"

"Jack O'Neill, at your service, fair lady. No, I mean, fellow knight."

She grinned. "Much better. You're not so stupid, Jack O'Neill. Wow, I'm glad that's not my name."

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, pretending offence.

"What Dad would call me!" She went into a peal of laughter and almost fell off the fence. "Jackass!"

"Yes, yes, thank you," he pretended to grumble. "And what's your name?"

"Sam."

He tugged on one of her pigtails. "You don't look like a Sam."

"Sa-man-tha." She rolled her eyes. "It's a dumb name."

"It's not that bad. It can't be if it comes with you attached."

She smiled. "I think you're one of those men Dad says to be careful 'round." He tried an innocent look, but she just laughed. "I like you. What's your rank? You're airforce, right?"

"Lieutenant." It was still new enough that he said it with pride.

"My dad's a general," she said with equal pride. "That's why we're having a party," she added glumly.

"So that would make you a Carter."

"Yeah. And Mom made me wear this stupid shirt." She tugged at it morosely. "I wouldn't care so much if it was blue. Blue's my favourite colour. I don't know why she bought me a pink one. Did you know, Viking's thought pink was a man's colour. Mom told me, she likes history and stuff."

"Seriously? I wouldn't be a good Viking then."

"Me either. Mom said I had to look nice," she continued, apparently glad to have someone to grouse at. "I said I didn't want to look nice. And then I had to play with stupid Julia. That's why I ran away." A noise made her start. "Is someone coming?"

He glanced around the bush. "Nope, all clear."

"Oh good." She jumped off the fence, landing neatly beside him. "Come on, let's go into the Observatory, then no one will see us. I'm not s'posed to be out here."

"The Observatory?"

She pointed up, to the tree house. "I'm going to be a astronaut."

"Cool."

She grinned. "Yeah. Come on!"

He followed her up the ladder into the sturdy structure. For a treehouse it was roomy, but he definitely had to shuffle on his knees. There was a large star-chart taped to the roof, and binoculars on a shelf next to a small collection of books (where Biggles sat next to Arthur Ransome, Rudyard Kipling, and a lone Nancy Drew). Some brightly coloured cushions served as seats and an astronaut doll with a stiff smile sat on the tiny table next to an open notebook which contained long division working in a careful childish hand.

"Nice place."

"Me and Dad built it," she said proudly. "We always build a new one when we move, so we're good at it now." She grinned at him, but he felt a twinge of sadness at the shadow behind the words and the implication that they were often moving. "You won't tell Dad I came here, right? I'm not s'posed to come here when there's visitors. Mom and Dad don't like me hiding."

"I won't say anything, but I don't know how good I am at lying to my CO if he asks me," he temporised.

"That's all right then. He won't," she explained. "He wouldn't think to. I don't let anyone else up here but him."

"Then why am I up here?" he asked, strangely touched.

"I said. I like you. You're nice. Do you know the stars? Dad only knows Cassiopeia and the Bear."

"Do I know—?" He grinned at her. "You're looking at a master of the stars. Do you know the stories?"

They lay on their backs, Jack having to bend his knees to fit, and looked up at the star-chart. Jack knew the constellations and he knew the stories about them. Sam listened to him eagerly, laughing at his jokes. He produced a paper bag of sour worms, and they worked their way through them. "You should come visit some time," he offered. "You and your dad. I've got a good telescope, and I can show you things so much better than with a piece of paper."

"Hey!" she protested, sticking up for her piece of paper.

"Well?"

"Nothing. Where do you have your telescope?"

"Normally I go find a quiet park. I've only got an apartment here, so no backyard. When I get a house, I'm going to have one where I can sit on the roof and look up."

"That sounds nice."

"You'll always be welcome."

She rolled her head over to smile at him. "Thanks!"

They reached for the last sour worm together and the paper crumpled under their fingers. "Bags it!" Sam said.

"I'll arm wrestle you for it."

"Sure!"

They faced off across the tiny table, the astronaut and the notebook being displaced. Jack won, not surprisingly. "Two out of three?" she said hopefully.

"Okay. But first, I've got to teach you how to cheat."

That involved laughing, a tickle fight, and some genuine insanity, but eventually they settled down and shared the last worm.

"I'm glad I ran away from stupid Julia," she said lazily.

"Stupid Julia? Is that really her name?"

"No, stupid," she laughed. "But it's what she is. She likes parties. She wears a pink dress with lots and lots of lace, and see-through sandals with pink hearts on them and she never wants to do anything interesting like climbing trees or fishing for tadpoles. She has ringlets," she added as a finishing touch.

"Sounds horrible," Jack said, struck by this picture.

"Definitely. She was making us play weddings, with a tea towel on her head so she was a bride. We all had to pair up. It's such a stupid game; who wants to play getting married?"

He held up his hands in surrender. "Not me!"

"I don't want to marry anyone, but I definitely don't want to marry Jimmy Peterson. He's in my class at school and his dad's a major general, so he thinks he's better than me. He says girls are weak and should wear dresses and like cooking. He's stupid. And a coward. He wouldn't fight me, he said he wasn't allowed to hit girls."

"I would have hit him anyway," Jack said, before realising it wasn't the advice he should be giving his CO's daughter.

"I did," she said simply. "I made his nose bleed. I punched him just like Dad showed me, with the first two knuckles." She held up her hand, demonstrating. "Not the other two, 'cause then you break your hand."

"Exactly."

"Only wouldn't you think that since he taught me he'd be proud of me for doing it right? He wasn't at all!"

"He should have been very proud," Jack agreed solemnly, trying not to let the smile do more than twitch at his lips.

"You're laughing at me."

"Sorry."

"That's okay, I don't mind. I like people who laugh. Not like Mark, Mark is always angry. He's my brother. He's seventeen. When Dad goes away again on a mission his lips go like this." She pursed hers disapprovingly. "Mark doesn't laugh much."

"I laugh all the time," he assured her. "I get in trouble for it. Don't you get angry when Gen - when your dad has to go away?"

"It's his duty," she said firmly. "He has to do his duty. It's my duty not to make it hard for him to do his duty." She looked at him calmly, oddly mature for a moment.

He smiled a little sadly. "You'll make a great soldier."

"Thank you! I told that to Colonel Vidrine once and he said I'd be a good soldier's wife." Her look of disgust was comical. "It was before I told him I wasn't going to get married, but it was still stupid."

"Very stupid," he agreed.

"And he didn't have to be stupid, because you weren't. I think it shows you have great perski- persti- great perspicacity," she told him.

"Where did that come from? Do I even know what that means?"

She laughed at him. "Mrs Frith wrote it on my report. I had to look it up. Only me and Amelia think she got it from a thesaurus, 'cause it was on Amelia's report too."

He laughed. "It's probably hard coming up with new and interesting things to say. I hate writing reports."

"So does Dad. He says he wouldn't have become a general if he knew how much paperwork it meant."

"Thanks for the warning! I know better now. Whew, that was close!"

She giggled. "You know what? I think if I had to get married I'd want to marry you."

"Why thank you," he said, much taken by this generosity. "I don't think I'd mind it myself."

She grinned at him.

"Sam!" The general was yelling under their feet.

"Aw, man." Sam dragged herself reluctantly to the doorway and looked down. "What?"

"You know you're not supposed to be up there, young lady. Get down here now. General West wants to say goodbye."

She pulled a face at Jack. "But I don't like General West," she muttered. "He thinks I'm six."

"Sam! Now!"

"Want me to come with?" he offered. "Take some of the heat off you?"

"You'll get in trouble."

"I'm always in trouble."

She smiled at him. "I do like you."

"Don't make me blush."

She giggled, and clambered down.

Jack followed, much to General Carter's surprise.

"Lieutenant O'Neill?"

"Your daughter was kind enough to give me the ten cent tour."

Carter blinked at him, bemused, then held his hand at to his daughter. "Come on, Sam."

Jack grinned to himself and wandered back into the melee.

Later, as he was leaving, a small face peeped at him through the shrubbery. "It worked!" she said triumphantly. "He was too surprised to be mad. Thank you! I never had so much fun at a airforce party!"

He grinned at her. "Me neither."

Jack never knew what the general's response might have been to a lieutenant climbing in his daughter's treehouse because his squad was suddenly shipped out, and by the time he returned, General Carter was gone. Without much hope, Jack drove past the Carter's house. Someone had painted the treehouse purple and three unfamiliar kids played in the front yard.

Sad, Jack accepted he'd lost his charming young friend, but he didn't forget her. Even many years later, when he was sitting under Cheyenne Mountain and heard the name 'Sam Carter' again he immediately thought of her. He didn't expect her, though, and so when he turned at the female voice and saw what his ten-year-old friend had become, he could hardly stop his jaw dropping.

Her emphatic defence of her gender surprised him a moment - didn't she remember him? - until he saw the twinkle in her eyes. When she offered to arm wrestle it was all he could do to keep from bursting out laughing and completely shocking his new CO.

The Beginning