Mark Carter was furious with his sister. How could Sam not tell him that she had a baby and also how could she justify keeping Pete from his daughter. He was so busy questioning how his sister could deceive her entire family that he missed his wife arriving home from work.

"What is the matter?"

"I hate living here and I'd like to move to Denver. It's getting too hard to raise a family in this city. The crime is bad and the smog is getting worse everyday. It'd be nice to move closer to friends and family too."

"Did you have a problem at work today?"

"No I was talking to Pete and I think I'd rather be closer to him. It's probably time for me to talk to Sam again. She's been distant since the breakup with Pete."

"Are you finally going to accept her husband? General O'Neill seems like a good man and if he makes Sam happy that's all that should matter to you. After all she is an adult and has never required your approval to live her life."

"The divorce rate is over 50% in the first seven years of marriage there's a good chance I'll never have to deal with the man."

"That is a horrible thing to say! How can you be so callous! They seem to be very happy together."

"Air force officers don't have healthy marriages because of the hours they devote to their jobs. Not to mention that he spends most of his time in Washington DC. My sister should have stayed with Pete at least he wouldn't be a part-time husband."

"How would you know how much time they spend with each other, you and Sam can barely have a civil phone relationship anymore. Not to mention they met at work so they probably have a lot in common and spend plenty of time together. How could you even bring Pete into this? They weren't right for each other and he is a bad example anyway. He wants a housewife Sam isn't a housewife. She never has been or will be."

"Maybe its time for her to slow down and raise a family before it's too late."

"Have you ever considered that her job is important? She's been on the news several times talking about her projects. Besides she's a very competent woman if anyone could handle a career and a family it's her."

"She told Pete more than once that her work was classified. She's just like my father. She dedicates her life to work and doesn't have personal connections like the rest of us."

"I refuse to talk to you while you are like this. We'll talk later about moving."

Mark's wife left the living room and walked into the kitchen leaving Mark sitting alone. He knew that his wife would never understand his real motivations for moving to Denver. If she knew that he was going to help Pete gain custody of his daughter she would be furious with his interference. For some reason his wife got along really well with his sister and kept in contact with her a few times a month … was it possible that his own wife knew about the baby and he didn't? No she'd never keep a secret like that from him.

Meanwhile in Denver

When Detective Pete Shanahan finished up his paperwork he left his desk and left for his appointment with an attorney that specialized in custody disputes. The meeting did not go well. As he feared it would be difficult to get custody because General O'Neill's name was on Grace's birth certificate. His signature was the first obstacle since he and Sam were married when Grace was born legally O'Neill was her father. The only way he could fight that would be to get a DNA test to prove paternity. Getting this test would be difficult because of O'Neill's political connections since he now lived in Washington DC. Not to mention he was still on 'probation' because of the background check incident that almost got his friend in the FBI fired. He lost a good friend because of that background check and all it did was help to destroy his relationship. Also there was a permanent black mark on his record could be grounds for dismissal on its own. That was probably also O'Neill's doing for insurance in case Sam ever decided to leave O'Neill for him. So he needed to take drastic steps quickly and quietly to collect the evidence that he needed.

Getting custody was going to be a long and dangerous process. Maybe it could be expedited by getting Sam to help him. If he was able to see Sam and his little girl face to face maybe Sam would be embarrassed by her actions and he could win her over like he did before. Since he remembered Sam routines he would be able to catch her before her 7 am run that she enjoyed every Saturday morning.

Oval office

The President of the United States was not an irrational man but when he heard that General O'Neill and the representatives from Cheyenne Mountain were not coming to the party because of a hostage situation and attempted baby-napping it was enough to make him absolutely furious. Heads were going to roll because someone had allowed little Grace O'Neill to be endangered and the tactical response afterward was incompetent and clearly needed revamping. Not to mention the fact that there was her security detail present but totally helpless/useless as well was inexcusable. Thank God his wife and children were well protected by the secret service. At least Grace was safe she was a very bright and cheerful baby who was an excellent distraction during boring meetings. She would have a great understanding of science and politics from a young age since she was present at some meetings when Lt. Col. Carter's presence was absolutely necessary. She was exhausted since the early birth of the baby and was still nursing every two hours to counteract Grace's low birth rate. Perhaps he should insist that she take a supervisory position for a few months until she felt better instead of diving directly into field work. God knows that she needed to train an assistant it was common knowledge that there were several hilarious situations that resulted from her pregnancy bump. Like when she was seven months pregnant it took an hour and three SFs to extract her from beneath the control room computers when there was a technical problem that was too complicated to walk a technician through. Or during a self defense demonstration when she dove for a weapon and then failed to regain her footing although this has remained an unsubstantiated rumor because all of the tapes were 'mysteriously' erased (AN2). Of course it would be drastically inappropriate for him to give her orders directly; she was an air force officer so he had to follow proper protocol. So he would take advantage of a political skill that he had spent years honing … delegation. Then he wouldn't have to deal with the repercussions.

Denver to Colorado Springs

The ride home was nice and quiet with the notable repercussions of Grace missing the majority of her nap. She was normally an angel but if she didn't nap well it promised to be a long night. Thankfully there were reinforcements at the house so both Sam and Jack could get some sleep while her friends got to play with the baby. This weekend was a blessing since the past year had been slightly chaotic with the defeat of the Goa'uld, the elopement and the pregnancy.

Jack grimaced as he thought of the challenges that the year had brought. Sam's moods had become unpredictable during the pregnancy because she was worried about hurting Grace before she was born. Now her moods had finally begun to calm down since she was getting a lot of experience caring for their baby. Unfortunately she was also very exhausted and was prone to breaking into tears whenever she was very stressed. He was so proud of her for taking care of the situation so carefully while she was stressed out about the party and about Grace's safety. He would also have to tell her about the baby-napping attempt. He hoped that she wouldn't feel too guilty about not knowing that the woman transporting Grace to the outside world tried to run off with her. It was scary to think about how many psychos were capable of hiding in plain sight when they were used to fighting psychos wearing tacky gold armour.

The next problem would be a little more difficult to deal with. Detective Shanahan and all the chaos he promised to introduce back into their lives. Fortunately they were spending the next week in DC for a series of boring meetings about funding for the Stargate program. There was also the opportunity for some stargate teams to do some special ops training and missions. Also he needed time to go to the academy and find new recruits; maybe he should make a family trip out of it. After all Grace would probably end up in the academy she should see all of her mommy's awards and medals before they were successfully challenged by new geniuses. Replacing the security team would be a difficult task to accomplish as well his assistant could only do so much before he had to personally interview every member of the team. Outsourcing the final interview to a security consultant had almost cost him his daughter. A more pleasant task of the hostage situation would be finding a new assignment for the old team that was equivalent to Antarctic patrol. He needed to make sure that they could not be permitted to endanger a political family again. If Sam had not been able to deal with the situation … people could have died. He held his sleeping wife and daughter close as he thoughtfully watched the scenery go by.

Denver Mall

The FBI investigation was wrapping up at the mall, the men had been apprehended and all of the hostages had been debriefed. The woman who attempted the kidnapping was also having her psych evaluation completed. The FBI director was quite offended that he had been flown out of DC for such a simple case. Although what concern the POTUS had with the wife and child of one of his generals was probably something that would be worth investigating. But for now his main goal was to go back to his office and order his minions halfway across the country instead of him traveling. While he was mentally wrapping up his day he failed to notice the Denver Chief of police come up beside him.

"So this must have been a little more complicated than a simple hostage situation to justify your presence here."

"There are a lot of politics involved."

"I don't see how a simple two star general could demand such preferential treatment. This wasn't even an FBI case and yet you came in droves a few hours ago."

The Director was tiring of this conversation with this political weasel.

"The Generals wife's main job is making bombs more efficient."

The weasel went silent, "Also when the POTUS personally calls you tend to make an exception to jurisdictional rules."

While the Chief was distracted the Director made his escape.

Colorado Springs

Pete Shanahan was a determined man and when his weekend finally came he tossed his bag in his trunk and drove up to Colorado Springs. Upon his arrival drove straight to Sam's house, grabbed his bag and walked confidently up to her front door and knocked on her door. A middle aged man answered the door and looked at Pete with suspicion.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Samantha Carter is she here?"

"She sold us the house almost a year ago."

"Do you know where she lives now?"

"No we only met her during the house inspection; poor woman was very ill at the time and didn't stay long."

"Do you remember the name of her real estate agent? It's very important that I get a hold of her."

"I'm afraid not, have a good day."

The man closed the door in Pete's face unknown to the Detective he did know Samantha Carter. You didn't become a Master Sergeant of the SGC without knowing who not to talk to.

"Honey is my work cell phone in the kitchen?" He asked his wife.

"Yes it is who was at the door?"

"Just a man who was trying to bother Lt. Col. Carter."

"As if her pregnancy wasn't hard enough now some man wants to bother her. I hope you threw him out on his ass."

"No I'm going to do one better. I'm going to call General Landry and General O'Neill."

"Good that is the last thing she needs to deal with. It's a good thing that General O'Neill is so sensitive to her needs, she found a good man in him and he is so good with their daughter. He is a great man and a great leader he'll take care of it."

The man picked up his phone and walked into the backyard,

"General O'Neill please … Master Sergeant Siler … it's important … yes I'll hold."

"O'Neill."

"General O'Neill its Siler. I just had a visit from Detective Shanahan at my home. He was looking for Lt. Col. Carter he says it's very important and was prepared to track down the real estate agent to find Lt. Col. Carter's current information …"

The swearing on the other end of the line shocked him in its creativity and dark promise.

"Sir?"

"Have you informed General Landry yet?"

"Not yet sir, I thought you would prefer to keep as much of this out of Lt. Col. Carter's attention as possible."

"You did the right thing Siler. I will talk to Landry myself. If he returns again or if you even see his vehicle in the neighborhood you are to notify Landry immediately."

"Yes sir, how are Lt. Col. Carter and Grace? It must have been very stressful to deal with a hostage situation with a small infant's life at stake."

"They are both relaxing in the house at the moment I need to replace her security team I'm considering choosing an SG team or two for their protection instead of a private firm."

"Anyone of us who works at the SGC would walk through fire for you, Lt. Col. Carter and Grace sir. We would never let anything happen to either of them."

"I know that Siler. Keep me informed."

"Yes Sir."

General O'Neill's house

General O'Neill was furious now Shanahan was preparing to stalk Carter again. The man definitely had problems and needed to be removed from the equation. It wouldn't take too much more of his interference before Carter found out so he made a difficult decision. As soon as Carter woke up from her nap he would tell her everything that had happened since the hostage situation. First though he would brief Landry about the brewing situation. O'Neill hit the speed dial for the base when Landry's direct line was busy.

"This is O'Neill I need to talk to Landry and his direct line is busy."

Sergeant Walter Harriman answered,

"He is currently on the phone with the POTUS sir, I can have him call you after his call is completed."

"That's alright Walter I can wait but in the meantime I need some feelers put out. Shanahan knows about Grace and has already been to Carter's old house. I need you to have everyone on the lookout for him he is not to enter the base, park within five miles of the base and all calls he makes to the base must be recorded after being bounced from dept to dept and put on hold for a minimum of half an hour so we can have someone with Carter when he calls. Also Capt. Kent's wife handled the sale of the house; they need to be told not to reveal any information on the sale unless he gets a warrant. Be sure to provide her office with contact information for a JAG attorney to fight a warrant if Shanahan manages to get one. I want to keep Carter out of this as much as possible."

"No problem sir, would you like to receive daily verbal reports or would you like updates as they come in?"

"Use your own discretion but make sure that Landry receives every report and make all relevant reports to my cell phone."

"Yes sir. General Landry is ready to take your call would you like me to transfer you?"

"Thank you Walter. Keep up the good work."

"Landry."

"It's O'Neill the Shanahan situation is heating up."

"What happened now? He's already tried to call the base twice."

"He went to Carter's old house and Siler gave him the brush off. It's getting to the point where I have to sit Carter down and tell her what's going on. I was trying to keep from worrying her but I don't want for her to find out from someone else. What did he want when he called?"

"He wanted to talk to Lt. Col. Carter and when he was refused he started to ask for her contact information and address when the Sergeant he was talking to hung up on him."

"I assume the Sergeant is now fast tracked for a promotion?"

"I have the paperwork on my desk at the moment."

"Good. I gave Walter some instructions to make Shanahan's next calls very difficult along with other instructions to make sure that finding Carter will be very difficult. Also I'm going to need to borrow an SG team for Carter and Grace's personal protection."

"I'll let the team leaders fight that one out there's no way I want to be involved in that discussion. Also I just got off the phone with the President, he was concerned about how tired Lt. Col. Carter has been lately in meetings and has directed me to order her into taking a new position that he's created to oversee all of the scientific discoveries from the Stargate program. It would require weekly reports in Washington DC and would result in her easing back into fulltime work over a longer period of time."

"That sounds like a good plan. I'm sure she'll love to hear the details from you first thing tomorrow. I would prefer not to be involved in this little project."

There was a knock on the door,

"Just a moment I need to see who that is … its Shanahan I'll send him away and call you later."

After hanging up the phone O'Neill opened the door and then walked onto the porch closing the door behind him.

"What do you want?"

"I want to see Sam and Grace. Where are they?"

"They are none of your concern; if you want to enjoy the rest of your career I suggest you stop your harassing activities. Carter doesn't need this unnecessary stress and I will take steps to make sure you can't bother her anymore."

"You can't keep me away from them all I need to prove is that Grace is my daughter and you will be out of the picture old man."

"Go ahead and try no lawyer will take your case and no judge will hear it. I promise you that getting a DNA sample will be impossible through the courts."

"Why are you fighting this? All I want is what's mine."

"I waited eight years to marry Carter and Grace is my daughter. You won't gain anything from your investigation but you have a lot to lose."

"She was born nine months after she and I broke up and I don't believe in coincidences."

"It is just a coincidence. I suggest you get off my property before I call the police and put another black mark on your record."

He could hear Sam's voice from inside the house. Shanahan tried to grab the door handle when O'Neill grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind Shanahan's back.

"Leave now." O'Neill pushed Shanahan to the ground before he released Shanahan's wrist and went back inside the house to speak with his wife. Shanahan held his throbbing wrist as he stared at the house. Using the house address he could get the phone number and call Sam when O'Neill wasn't home. Fortunately he 'recovered' their garbage before he went to the door so he should have an admissible DNA sample from Grace. Pete returned to his car and drove off to a lounge where he could get some lunch and make another phone call.

He arrived at McNally's, ironically the same restaurant that was the current favorite off duty hideout for off duty SGC officers. Since Pete didn't know this fact and he decided to get Mark more involved in the situation, maybe he could get Mark to sue for custody of his niece.

"Hey Mark its Pete. I'm up in Colorado Springs on a case and I was wondering if you have Sam's phone number so I can ask her to lunch or coffee."

"I usually just use her cell phone number but I don't call when O'Neill is going to be around. He doesn't approve of me and won't allow Sam to talk to me on the phone."

"He answers her cell phone?"

"All the time since they got married. It must have been because of Sam's pregnancy although I was apparently not important enough to be told of my niece's existence."

"So if I called her right now she wouldn't even answer the phone."

"No the man won't even let me talk to her if he answers the phone."

"The man obviously controls her quite strictly when he's at home, probably gives her orders throughout the day. Maybe when you move to Denver you can get custody of Grace."

"I don't think we'll be moving to Denver, my wife has already gotten an interview at a hospital in Colorado Springs so we might be moving there. I can work anywhere but it's harder for her to get a job."

"How did she get an interview so fast?"

"Apparently she applied for a position online last night and she got call this morning. She's going to try and get a motel room for Sunday night so she can fly back here on Monday. You would think that a phone interview would be sufficient, even worse they will only reimburse her expenses if she gets the job."

"That's pretty rough but it's worth it if you can move here and start to get rid of O'Neill. Sam's your sister she has to support your views over his."

Pete was so involved in his conversation that he didn't notice a table of men that had stopped talking to listen to his call,

"Are you going to come to Colorado Springs to make Sam admit she has a baby?"

"My wife gets along with her I'll wait for her report about the baby and then pretend to be surprised."

"Is there anyway that she knows already about the baby?"

"She would never hide something like that from me. We have no secrets between us."

The men who were listening to the conversation were not amused by the implication of the conversation between Pete and Lt. Col. Carter's brother. It was not a coincidence that when Pete left the restaurant after lunch that he found that all four of his tires were slashed.

AN- I hope you liked this chapter, I have to admit that I wrote it out so long ago I had to reread it to figure out what it said and what it means for chapter 9. That's pretty sad but at least you'll have an update. Fortunately I have graduated and hopefully I'll be able get a job and time to write.

AN2- This is a situation that I borrowed from an interview I saw with Mariska Hargitay where she describes filming a scene in Law and Order: SVU while she was very pregnant. In the interview it said that she dove (while properly padded to protect the baby) and was supposed to get up "like a badass" but she was stuck on her back like a turtle. The whole crew started laughing and she had to be helped up. I thought it was a really funny story that should be shared with the world.