Author's Note:

I hope you enjoyed Chapter I enough to carry on reading. There is a line in here that is from "Game of Thrones", a show which I am equally as avid a fan of as the Stargate shows. Wonder if you can spot it? Kudos to anyone that does and puts it in a review! Enjoy reading and reviewing.

Chapter II – Mom & Dad's Adventures

After dinner, Vala and Daniel had told Sam they were going to go and spend some time with the McKays. They had given the medical Dr. McKay some package and they wanted to see how they were after watching it. Ever since the twins' christening, where Jennifer and Rodney McKay were made Little Jennifer's godparents, Sam had gotten closer to the kooky Dr. McKay and Jennifer simply adored him. It had been one of Sam's favourite childhood pastimes to set the two McKays against each other. Rodney McKay was so easy to antagonise, it was hysterical. Any slight of his higher than average intellect sent him into a comical rage, which his wife would frown upon and calmly instruct him to remove whatever was stuck up his ass.

"S'all right, mom, I think I'll just go hang with Uncle John," Sam said gleefully as he bounded from the commissary.

His parents nodded back their reply and watched as their eldest child went to find his hero. Vala wondered if John knew the power he wielded over her boy and how, when Sam got older, the two men might still be as close as they were now. She was relatively close to John Sheppard, especially after they had met when the Ori Supergate had been an issue. He still brought up – from time to time – the story about how she had made Rodney blush at the meeting by asking what the problem would have been with a St. Bernard a Chihuahua getting it on, which ironically, had also endeared her to Dr. McKay, on account of her 'cute ignorance' (according to McKay).

Daniel knew that Sam hero-worshipped Sheppard and he was so relieved that the boy's admiration had not fallen at the doorstep of Rodney McKay, who would have milked it for all it was worth. He and John also got along and he and Vala had almost fought over whether John should be one of the godparents of the twins, but he had thought that Mitchell and Carolyn deserved that honour however he did allow John to choose the middle name of Jennifer. Elizabeth…everyone who knew who had picked out that name understood why, for John had never truly come to terms with Elizabeth's sacrifice and he had loved her dearly, though, like Sam and Jack, he could not reveal how he truly cared but unluckily for him, he waited too long and she died. Indeed, rumour had it that John's underlying love for the former commander of Atlantis was the reason for Teyla's departure.

He and Vala started walking to the McKays' suite and all the while were thinking about what hijinks their son and his surrogate uncle were plotting.

John had been readying himself to get some sleep, but true to form, he never made it to his bed, as Sam careered into the room without knocking and settled himself on the sofa and looked expectantly at his idol, who was looking back at him with some annoyance but mostly amusement, "What's up, man?"

"Nothing," Sam shrugged, "just wanted to hang out."

John sniggered, "Is it not your bedtime yet? Shouldn't Vala be telling you a story about one of her and Daniel's many adventures to strange and dangerous planets to battle aliens and whatnot?"

"Now that mom has the twins," Sam recovered from his mistake, "and I'm way too old for bedtime stories, I don't get to hear about what mom and dad did when they were on SG-1. But you know all their stories right, Uncle John? Why don't you tell me?"

John felt uneasy at having walked right into this fix. He wasn't sure how much his friends wanted their kid to know about their life before he was born and their life while he was a toddler, but he knew from experience that he had just aroused a fatal curiosity in the boy…curiosity that would be fatal for him. He could just see it now, his gravestone: Here lies John Sheppard. A great man, a great leader and a great friend who couldn't keep his trap shut and so he died!

"Boy, you've put your foot in it now, Sheppard," John muttered to himself.

He watched as the inevitable frown appeared on Sam's face and he saw the question forming on his lips, "Uncle John, why did my mom leave SG-1 when she did? It was right after a mission where something went wrong, wasn't it? Auntie Samantha told me something happened to mom that made her want to leave."

John winced, remembering the arrival of an SG-1 mission report that saddened everyone on Atlantis and changed outgoing mission protocol from that time on. It had happened when Sam was two years old and no one who was close to the Jacksons forgot that year easily. He guessed Daniel and Vala had chosen not to tell Sam until he was older but he didn't want to lie to the boy and he was sure that his friends would not find him culpable of not wanting to deceive their son. He would find out the truth eventually and if John spun him a yarn today, he would not be forgiven by the boy. He decided to tell Sam what had befallen his parents to bring about his mother's lightning-quick withdrawal from SG-1.

He sat down and looked Sam deeply in the grey eyes he inherited from his mother, "What I'm about to tell you, your parents probably won't like that I've told you, Sam, but I don't want to lie to you and I also don't want you to take what I'm about to tell you lightly because it hurt a lot of us deeply, but most especially, your parents."

Sam could only nod with anticipation and slight dread.

"Ok, here goes. When you were two, your parents and the rest of SG-1 had to go off-world to a new world to check it out. They found an agrarian," John frowned, realising that a fifteen year old boy would not know what that meant, "a civilisation of farmers. At least, that's what they thought. It was a front and the real inhabitants of the planet were powerful and controlling slavers who had stolen the 'farmers' from other worlds as children and nurtured until they were grown and could work for them. Your mom and dad found out that the bad guys had tortured their captives, who lived in abject fear of them but mistakenly believed that after forty years of service, they would be returned home. In fact, after forty years, the aliens just killed them because they became bad labourers. This appalled your dad so much – he was the first to discover it – that he immediately made your Uncle Cameron stop the trade talks with them and exposed the situation for what it truly was."

As John took a reprieve from his tale, just before the climactic event, he surveyed his audience and saw that Sam was on the edge of the seat, fully engrossed in the story. John remembered what it felt like to have such childish naïveté, but Atlantis had long since driven any such notion from his heart and mind. Sam had grown up in a world that was much bigger than normal teenagers understood, but he was still shielded from the horrors that came with fighting and surviving in such a large world where the night was dark and full of terrors. He hoped that the little insight into some of the trials and tribulations his mother and father had overcome which he was about to give Sam would not eradicate the boy's inexperienced and untarnished worldview.

"Carry on, Uncle John. What happened next?"

"Well, when the Muscovi – that was the name of the aliens who kidnapped humans as children – realised that they had not tricked us, they began to fight. Now, normally, SG-1 was pretty good in a gunfight, especially your mom. That woman can wield a P90 with frightening talent," John winked at Sam, "but something happened to your mom and it made her collapse. Now, SG-1 were – are still – the best team the SGC has to offer and under your Uncle Cameron, they were at their peak. However, when your mom went down, your father thought she'd taken fire and rushed over to her. The rest of the team gave covering fire so your dad could reach Vala. When he got to her," John hesitated, still unsure of the best way to relate the next scene of the story, "well, your mom was in a bad way, but she hadn't been shot. Your mom said she had been feeling a little off before the mission but had thought nothing about it at the time. During the fighting, your mother started bleeding and that's why everyone else thought she had been hit."

John knew he was skirting around the truth of Vala's final mission, but he had no clue how he was to tell Sam such a sad turn of events, "Sam, they managed to get out. By the time they reached the Stargate, your mom was unconscious and Teal'c was carrying her. They messaged your Aunt Carolyn and your mom was seen the second she passed through the Earth Stargate. Carolyn later saw SG-1 and General Landry at the debriefing and apparently, she was crying. You see, your mom had been pregnant but hadn't known before she went on the mission and in the heat of fire, she lost the baby."

John leaned back in the chair as he gave Sam a moment to process the new information, all the while looking at his face to gauge his emotions.

"My mom was pregnant? So, I could have had another brother or sister…or two?" Sam inquired sombrely.

John nodded, "Yeah, mate. Do you want me to tell you what happened afterwards?"

"Yes."

"Well, your dad was absolutely devastated. He wouldn't talk to anybody, not to any of his friends, not to nobody. Your mom was still unconscious, so she still didn't really know what had happened to her but when she woke up, Carolyn let your dad tell her, so it wouldn't be so hard. Your mom felt so guilty and sad that she said she never wanted to go back to Stargate Command or see any of her team again. She blamed herself for not knowing she was pregnant and for a while, everyone thought she couldn't have any more children," John almost broke down remembering how empty and morose Vala had been during the time after her miscarriage, "but it surprised everyone that the only person who gave her any feeling of solace…was you. She utterly retreated from everyone else, but she grew to love you more. Anyway, this carried on for months, until finally, she opened up to your dad and things got slowly back to normal but she declined any more missions, but everyone still wanted to give her something to do at Stargate Command so she was put on the payroll as a civilian consultant. The first thing she did, which was how your lost little brother or sister will always be remembered was to add an addendum to the Air Force Stargate Program protocol, where she made pregnancy tests before and after missions mandatory. Normally, such a proposal would have had months of deliberation and argument but your mother made sure that it would become regulation with haste so no other female member of an SG team would suffer as she and your dad had. You can see it in print. It's called the Doran-Jackson subsection and it was entirely composed by your mom."

Sam did not know how to process what he had just learned about his parents. He knew that they had been through the wars, but he never imagined what his uncle had told him. He was still curious though, as he had found out why his mom had pulled out of SG-1, but it did not follow suit that his dad left the team, "So, what happened to dad?"

John chuckled lightly at the boy's indomitable inquisitiveness, "Your dad stayed on as a member of SG-1 for years yet. He only stepped down when your mom discovered out of the blue and unexpectedly that she was carrying the twins. He didn't want her to be alone and he knew she was still scared of losing them and needed him around, so he also signed on with the SGC and Atlantis as a consultant and linguistics coach. Do you want to know something though, Sam?"

Sam's interest peaked, "What?"

John patted him on the arm, "I don't think that for one minute your parents have ever regretted stepping down from active duty to spend more time with you and your sisters. Despite all the action and drama they've seen in their time on SG-1, it's obvious to their good friends that they have never been happier."