Sam walked carefully down the corridors of the Odyssey. She'd kept fairly fit during her time here, but still, she felt age creeping up on her. She walked into the room where the Asgard database was being housed, somewhat surprised to see her daughter there. "Grace?"

"Hm?" She asked absently as she continued to work on her project.

Sam chuckled softly. She and her daughter were so much alike. When they were working on a project, they were almost impossible to distract.

"What are you working on?"

"I'm finishing up some of the translations that Daniel was working on."

"Oh? Where is he?"

"Celebrating his anniversary with Vala."

"Right..." Sam said, nodding. "I'd forgotten about that. Well, I guess I'll see you for lunch?"

"Sure." She said, still engulfed in her translations.

Sam shook her head as she turned to leave, but Grace set down the laptop she'd had in her hands. "Mom?"

"Yes?" Sam asked, turning back to her daughter.

Grace leaned against the Asgard console, casually. "You said you'd tell me about my dad someday."

Sam inhaled sharply. "I did, didn't I?"

"I know they try to hide it, but I've still heard everyone whisper about how much I remind them of this guy...O'Neill..." Grace looked at her mother, earnestly. "He's my dad, isn't he?"

Sam nodded soberly. "Yes."

Grace nodded as she tried to process things internally, looking down at the floor.

"The night before we left on this mission..." Sam said, reaching for the chain she always had around her neck. "He asked me to marry him, and I said "yes"."

Grace looked up at her mother, and saw the engagement ring which she wore on a chain around her neck. "And after twenty years in a time dilation field, you've remained faithful to him." She said, softly. "You must love him a lot."

Sam nodded, seriously. "Yes, I do."

"How did you two meet?"

A smile tug at Sam's lips as she remembered that fateful day in the briefing room when she'd met Jack. "He was the commander of a team that was going to retrieve Daniel from Abydos. I was finally being allowed through the Stargate after two years of studying it." She chuckled softly. "Your dad didn't like scientists at the time, and both he and his teammates, Kawalsky and Ferretti, were being rather...antagonistic toward me. But I didn't make it very easy on them..."

"What did you do?" Grace asked, watching her mother's face liven as she spoke about the early days of her work.

"I told them that even though I was a woman, I could handle anything that they could handle." Sam laughed. "Your dad still didn't like me, but General Hammond ordered him to let me on the mission." Sam sobered slightly as she remembered her friends from the early days of the Stargate program. "It was like I was the one little girl in the neighborhood who wanted to play with the boys, and it took their father's order to get them to let me play in the sandbox."

"So, then you met Daniel on Abydos."

She nodded. "Yes. And after only a few weeks, I made it onto your dad's "safe scientists" list."

"When did you fall in love with him?"

Sam thought for a moment. "I don't know. I was attracted to him almost instantly. Come to think about it, that's probably one of the reasons that his antagonism bothered me. But then I heard about his son and his divorce..."

"His son? His divorce?" Grace asked, confused.

"Your dad is..." Sam grimaced. "Used to be...fifteen years older than I was."

"Now he's five years younger?" Grace asked, looking at her.

She nodded. "With my time in the time dilation field? Yes."

Grace nodded in understanding.

"Anyway, he had been married before, but his marriage fell apart when his ten-year-old son accidentally shot himself with his personal firearm."

Grace's eyes widened. "That's terrible."

"Daniel says that he was despondent and depressed until he was ordered to go through the Stargate to Abydos."

"Daniel knew him?"

"Only when your dad went to go through the Stargate."

"Ah."

"Anyway, Daniel says that it was a dark time for him. After he returned from Abydos, Jack's wife, Sara, had filed for divorce. The irony was that it was about then that he was ready to really begin living again."

Grace inhaled and exhaled as she thought about everything that her mother had just told her. "Sounds like you were good for him then." She finally said, looking back up at her mother.

"He was good for me too." Sam said, honestly. "After all, I got you out of the whole thing, right?"

Grace managed a small smile.

"He would be very proud of you, Grace." She said, seriously. "He would have loved you very much."

Grace had tears shining in her eyes, and Sam gathered her into her arms. "I'm so sorry," she whispered as she hugged her tightly. There was so much to say that she didn't want to have to say: I'm sorry you have to grow up without him, I'm sorry I can't get you back to see him, or I'm sorry I haven't told you more about him.

A few more moments of silent consolation passed between mother and daughter before Sam pulled away. She gently guided a stray strand of Grace's hair back to where it belonged behind her ear. "I have an idea." Sam said, quietly. "Why don't I take the rest of the day off? We can have mother-daughter bonding time. Just you and me. We haven't done that in a while."

Grace nodded with a smile. "I'd like that."

"Excellent." Sam grinned. "Now...is there anything that you'd like me to bring to this mother-daughter bonding day?"

Grace shook her head.

"Well, I do have something." She said, seriously. "Why don't you go to my quarters, change out of your work clothes, and wait for me?"

"Okay." Grace said, nodding as she left.

Sam watched her leave, inhaling sharply as she did so. Tonight, she would answer any question regardless of how hard it was. She owed her daughter that much. Tonight would be a no-tears night. "For you, Jack." She whispered tenderly as a soft smile touched her lips.

--

Sam walked into her quarters after a few moments. She had a small box under her arm. She smiled upon seeing her daughter sitting on the couch. There were a couple of plates of chocolate cake on the coffee table in front of her. "I passed Daniel in the hallway, and he insisted we take some cake." She shrugged.

Sam chuckled. "The last thing Vala needs is a whole chocolate cake..."

"I thinks that's why he was so insistent." She laughed.

Sam sat down on the leather couch she had cursed so frequently during her pregnancy. "Your dad loves cake." Sam said, seriously. "In fact, there was a time when I had to shut down an active wormhole because of the radiation that was coming through. I had to work with this conceited scientist who wouldn't listen to my suggestions because he thought that they were crazy."

"Sounds fun." Grace said, sarcastically.

"Oh yeah." Sam said, sarcastically. "Anyway, I stole away to my lab, unable to handle the pressure from the scientists who were gathered in the briefing room. Your dad found me there and asked me why I wasn't with the "eggheads"."

She laughed. "He called you an egghead?"

"He tried to take it back." Sam laughed. "It was a clumsy attempt, though."

Grace chuckled. "He sounds like he'd be able to make you laugh even if you weren't sure you wanted to."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. And don't let him convince you that he's not smart. He's very intelligent."

Grace bit the inside of her cheek as she wondered if there would ever be a time that she'd get to meet her father.

Sam inhaled. "Long story short, I asked your father for help, and he offered me cake." She said, finally.

Grace chuckled soberly.

"Now, I have a surprise for you." Sam said, looking at her daughter.

"Oh?"

"Yes." Sam nodded. "I have something that I've been preparing for your father, but I thought you might want to see it too."

Grace looked interested as her mother put in the first DVD. Instantly, Sam appeared on the screen.

"Hi, Jack." The much-younger TV Sam greeted. "I'm sending you this message from the Odyssey like I normally do, except this is a little different." She inhaled. "I can't send it to you once I'm finished recording because we're in a time dilation field while I try to get us home."

Sam looked over at her daughter as the DVD played. Grace was watching it intently, and Sam hoped that this DVD would help.

"I've really done it," Sam heard herself say with lips quivering as the TV Sam looked down at her hands uneasily. "I've gotten us stuck in a time dilation field without any clue of how to get us home." Sam saw her look back up at the camera. "You'll probably receive this a little while after I get home; whenever that is. You probably opened this thinking that it was your Simpsons Season 10 DVD set, but found this instead. Watch the whole thing before you call me, please. Everything I need to tell you is going to be on here."

She inhaled. "Jack, you've probably heard by now that the Asgard home world was exploded. You've probably also heard that they did it on purpose. It was hard to watch, and I wish they hadn't done it, but they were determined." She took another deep breath. "Still, there's something else I need to tell you, and if I don't just say it, I may never say it. " She bit her lip and looked back at the camera. "Two weeks after I initiated the time dilation field, I began to suspect that I was pregnant."

The real Sam watched herself fight the tears that were threatening to burst forth.

"I don't know when this will find you," the tape continued. "But I'm going to do my best to document this because even though we never talked about it, I felt that you wanted to be there if you ever had any more children."

Sam's eyes were tearing up, and she could see that Grace was tearing up as well as she sat cross-legged on the couch watching her mother's tape.

"Jack, no matter what happens, I want you to know that I love you. I always have, and I always will." She whispered with a trembling voice before she kissed her fingers and touched them to the lens of the camera. Just then, the video went black as the transmission ended.

A moment later, Vala's voice could be heard. "Daniel, how do I turn this thing on?"

"Here, Vala, give it to me. You're going to break it." There was a little bit of an audible scuffle. "Vala! You already turned it on!"

"I did?"

"Yeah. You just didn't take the cap off the lens."

Suddenly, Daniel's fingers could be seen as well as the infirmary.

"Oh." Vala said with a childlike grin as she appeared on tape. "Why didn't you just say so?"

There was silence for a moment, and Sam wondered if Daniel wasn't rolling his eyes.

"Now, how do I look?" Vala asked, looking at her reflection in the camcorder lens as she fussed with her hair. "I'm just not sure about this matter-converted shampoo..."

"Vala, this is not about you. It's about Sam and Grace." Daniel said, firmly.

"Right." She said, ducking out of the way with a sheepish smile.

"Okay, here we are with Sam and Grace." Daniel said as he approached Sam's hospital bed where Sam held her newborn baby. She gave him a small smile as she shook her head. "Do you ever stop filming your excursions, Daniel?" She teased.

"Hey, be grateful." He said, seriously. "Until now, none of us had any posterity that would want to know."

She chuckled.

"Now, where is little Gracie?" He asked eagerly.

Sam pulled the blankets which were carefully wound around Grace back a little so that her face could be more clearly seen.

"Look at that beautiful heart-shaped face," Daniel cooed. "And that head of blond hair."

Sam watched herself on camera, remembering everything about those days when she'd first had Grace. Daniel, Vala, and Teal'c helped her to keep her sanity while Grace tried to learn the difference between day and night.

Cam had avoided her, and strangely enough, she'd been grateful since he couldn't seem to keep himself from reminding them how long they'd been in space without a way home.

General Landry, however, came in every so often. She had a feeling that he was trying to find some sort of peace about how career-oriented he'd been when Carolyn had been a baby.

Now, Grace had a special, grandfather-granddaughter relationship with him for which Sam was grateful though at times it made her miss her father all the more.

"She looks just like you, Sam." Vala added.

"Not quite." The video Sam said with a melancholy smile. She touched the baby's fingers with her own. "She has my mother's eyes, my father's nose, her father's smile, and my hair..." Sam said, studying her baby closely.

"I have Dad's smile?" Grace asked, looking over at her mother.

Sam nodded with a small smile. "He has this...goofy grin when he's really happy." She said, remembering all of the times she'd seen it. "It's carefree and spontaneous, and it was so infectious that even when I was afraid the world would end, I couldn't help but smile in return."

Grace grinned as she returned her attention to the home video.

The screen blacked out again, and Grace looked over at her mother. "Why did you stop making the videos for Dad?"

Sam sighed; she'd been afraid of this question. "You were embarrassed by it." She said, seriously.

"I remember that, but you never told me that it was for Dad. Besides, you've done other things that embarrassed me, and kept doing it regardless. Why did you really stop filming everything?"

Sam looked down at her hands, unwilling to answer the question.

Grace looked at her mother, hearing the answer in her silence. "You don't think we're going to get home, do you?"

Sam inhaled sharply, and Grace recognized it as a sign of her mother's discomfort. "Why?"

"We've been here for twenty years, Grace." Sam said with a sigh. "It's unlikely that we'll ever get to Earth."

"What about those scientists that you always told me about? Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein? You always said that persistence was the key to scientific breakthrough."

Sam sighed. "They found their answers after twenty years, Grace. And it wasn't on their own in a time dilation field of their own making."

"Mom..."

"Grace, if I had a team of scientists working on the problem, it might be different, but I don't. It's just me."

"Then I'll help you." Grace said, solemnly. "You're not alone, Mom."

Sam gave her daughter a tearful smile as she reached over and squeezed her daughter's hand. "Thank you."