A/N:Here's the next chap. Mega tissue warning for part of it and past child death mentioned.

"Well, Colonel, I don't see any lasting effects from this, though you and the Lieutenant may feel a bit run down for a day or so. You both had the armbands on far longer than Daniel did."

Jack and Sean both finished pulling their shirts over their heads as Janet spoke.

"So we're okay do go home?"

The petite doctor reluctantly nodded. "Although I'm tempted to keep you here until later today, you can leave. I do want Sam to drive. That includes giving you a ride home, Lieutenant."

"How are Jay and Steph?"

"We'll check on them again when they wake up. If everything looks okay, they'll be release."

"They need to stick around, though," Jack broke in. "There's still the matter of McGrady to go over."

"Pape Matt and Rick are over at our place, and I don't think Jay would be too keen on staying with you."

"Tough. He'll have to deal."

"Oh yeah, that's the attitude to take." Sean rolled his eyes and shook his head at his father.

"What?" Jack asked, his typical false confused stare shooting through Sean.

The two men stood and started to leave the infirmary.

"Hey, Doc?" Jack called. Janet turned and looked at him. "Sorry 'bout givin' you a hard time the other day."

She smiled back, appreciating the rare apology from the gruff Colonel. "You two get out of here before I call Sam down to fetch you."

It was an idle threat. Sam was already standing outside the doors waiting for them.

"Ready to go?" she asked smiling sweetly.

"Sleeping in our own bed with you? Are you kidding? Let's get out of here!"

Jack turned to Sean as the three made their way out of the mountain. "First official reprimand. How does it feel?"

Sean's eyes darkened and the sorrowful depths revealed a truth Jack had hoped to never see in the eyes of any of his children.

"Not the first?" he guessed quietly. He peeked over at Sam, knowing she'd scoured his personnel file, but she was avoiding looking at either of them.

"You haven't really read my file much, have you?" His voice was low with remembered pain. It had been the worst thing he'd ever had to do, but it had saved his squad and quite possibly the entire base.

"Just what I needed to know. All I was given initially was a number, expertise and a listing of postings for all trainees," Jack said shrugging his shoulders.

Sean sighed, bringing back memories he'd tried to bury long ago. "Just after the Academy, Jack and I, you know, Lt. Adams, were sent... south. Four months in, we lost our CO, stepped on a land mine pushing a Greenie out of the way. Our new CO was worse than the guys fresh out of Boot; some ROTC big wig who'd gotten in on the back of Daddy. He didn't know anything about the area or the enemy, but thought he did.

"We were on a patrol through the jungle when we came across a little kid, maybe eight or nine; looked like he'd been hurt. The Captain didn't understand anything about these people. He rushed right up to him, but Jackson grabbed his arm.

"The kid started begging for help and we were ordered to give it to him. The Captain wasn't very observant. He failed to notice the kid's left hand. He wanted us to take the kid back to the base with us. No one moved. When he tried to pick the kid up we held him back.

"That little boy suddenly turned from scared child to our definite enemy. Even when he brought his hand up, the Captain never noticed the detonator. I shot the kid in the arm, cuz there was no way I was gonna have his death on my hands, but… but it didn't work. Jack grabbed the kid's other hand so he couldn't reach over to hit the detonator. I tied his arm off, hoping to stem the blood. There was just so much for such a little body. By the time I'd finished, he was already dead."

Tears were steadily flowing down Sean's cheeks, glad they'd made it to the elevator where others couldn't see them.

"That was the second worst thing I've ever been through. I had to shoot a child; a little boy, for cryin' out loud! I know, intellectually, that if I hadn't we would have all died, possibly even more at the base if the Captain had had his way. It was a month before Charlie was born and Jack had just found out Julia was expecting Cara. I couldn't let him die, Dad. None of them.

"When we got back with the boy's body, we turned him over to our mine sweepers and the detonations squad so they could disarm the bomb and we could bury him properly and safely, while I was brought up on charges and thrown in the brig.

"The investigation into the incident proved I'd done exactly what my training said I should and only a reprimand was put on my file for disobeying my CO. I'm a heartless, soulless bastard, Dad."

The group was silent when they reached the surface and it wasn't until they had signed out and made their way to Jack's truck that Sean started to speak again.

"All the villages, they had their own tattoos, to mark who was who and from what tribe, but this kid had two separate and distinct marks. One was definitely older than the other, so we asked one of the local guides and he took us to the boy's parents. He'd disappeared almost a year earlier. The second tattoo was from the tribe that took him. They were well known by all the locals for drugging children and using them as weapons, but only kids they'd kidnapped.

"His parents actually thanked me for what I did. All the kids they'd ever rescued ended up dieing within a week, either by their own hands or from severe withdrawal symptoms. As the boy's 'savior' they made me part of the funeral.

"We were ordered back a week later for psych evaluations. Captain Hansen and two others didn't pass, so we were split up and reassigned."

Jack chanced a glance at Sam who just barely nodded in return. Yes, they were talking about the same Captain Hansen, and that mission had been the beginning of his downward spiral. After that he'd volunteered for every dangerous and self destructive mission he could get on.

They pulled up in front of the younger O'Neills' house and Jack hopped out of the truck to let Sean out.

"We're grounded until who knows when, but we have a briefing tomorrow about the McGrady case. Go spend some time with your wife, let someone else watch Alex for a little while."

Sean nodded and gave his father a short, sad smile. "Yeah. I think we might just do that. I'll see you tomorrow."

Jack climbed back into the truck and turned to Sam as they waited for Sean to safely get into the house.

"You knew about that whole thing."

"Yeah," Sam whispered. "It was right after Jonas and I were engaged. He never talked about it, and I never knew what really happened until Sean came and talked to me about it right after he found out he'd been placed on SG-1. He was worried something like that might happen again and he didn't want to disappoint you."

Jack shook his head, his eyes, for once, showing the depth of his feeling. "I know how he feels," he said softly.

Sam knew Jack had had to do some very distasteful things during his time as one of the Nation's elite, invisible soldiers, and that he wasn't proud of them. She suspected some of those things were far worse than what Sean had done, but as awful as Jack felt about them, she was proud of him for staying sane and holding onto his humanity.

Jack's mind, so used to tuning out the thoughts of his past, had immediately turned to Jay and what McGrady had done to Stephanie. There was a lot they had to go over, and he dreaded forcing Steph to go through all that again, but it had to be done. They had to know the extent of the man's treason.

"Jack?"

His head popped up to stare at Sam.

"I asked if you wanted anything to eat?"

He looked around him, belatedly realizing that they'd pulled into the driveway and she'd shut off the engine. He didn't even remember the drive home.

"Um, no, I'm fine," he said, trying to reassure her with a tight smile. She saw right through it, of course, but didn't mention anything. "You should probably eat, though."

"I already ate breakfast." Sam hopped down out of the truck before Jack could run around to help her, and the two headed into the house. As soon as they stepped in the door, Sam turned on her husband, sobs bursting from her throat.

"How could you?" she cried, beating his chest with her fists. "Don't you ever do that to me again!"

Jack grabbed her, and instead of trying to fend off her fists, pulled her into his chest. She slowly stopped, wrapping her arms around his waist, her tears soaking his shoulder.

"I can't believe you. That was so stupid," she said softly, her words muffled in his shirt.

"I know. I really am sorry." It was really the first time he'd stopped to think about everything that could have been lost, the two children who would have grown up without their fathers. Yes, it would have been for a good cause, but Sam was right. It was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever done.

Sam finally calmed down enough to talk to him and pulled back so she could look into his eyes. "Missions are one thing, Jack. I know losing you out there is an acceptable risk we have to take, but this was just idiotic. I know you're not as dumb as you pretend to be and Sean's practically a genius, but the two of you going off on your own…"

"It was weird," he said as she trailed off. "It was like I couldn't control what I did. Like all inhibitions were gone. It reminds me of the Touched thing, without all the aggression."

Sam quirked her eyebrow at him and folded her arms.

"Okay, McGrady's was different," he argued to his own defense. "The touched thing was like a constant need to beat the crap out of every guy within five feet of you. This was different. This was like everything that kept me in line was just gone. I didn't care that Hammond hadn't approved the mission."

She nodded in understanding. Everything they'd discovered about the armbands led her to believe he was telling the truth. It was interesting to hear it from his perspective, but really, she wanted to change the subject. She didn't like thinking about how close they'd come to losing both he and Sean.

"Why don't we get some rest? It's going to be a long couple of days for you."

Jack smiled sadly and pulled her along with him to the bedroom.

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

SG-1 plus Jay, Steph, and Sam sat in the briefing room with General Hammond and one of the newer, but competent, members of the NID, an Agent Malcolm Barrett. The meeting had been called as soon as Janet had cleared Jay and Steph to leave the infirmary.

"We've been working on gathering evidence against Agent McGrady for a few years now, but he's got friends in high places. Everything we'd thought we had kept getting washed. We couldn't corroborate any of it until Colonel O'Neill took down the smaller rogue faction," Barrett said, opening one of the thicker files in front of him. "Colonel Maybourne had copies and traces of just about everything we needed to take down Agent McGrady, we just hadn't been able to track him down yet. He was involved in everything from extortion to murder to kidnapping to accepting bribes. There's practically nothing he isn't guilty of."

"Gee, I coulda told you that," Jack muttered under his breath. Sam elbowed him in the ribs, thankful the General hadn't heard him.

"There're teams sweeping every safe house he's been involved in since the beginning. His house and all property he owned as well. Interviews are being conducted with his father and ex-wife."

"How'd he get back on Earth?" Jack asked. It was a moot point trying to hide anything from Jay and Steph, they'd already seen the armbands in action.

"We're still not sure at the moment," Barrett answered. "We've caught a few of the agents he kept under his thumb. Hopefully, we'll get more information soon."

"Mrs. O'Neill," Hammond said, turning to Steph. "Please, if you could, fill us in on what exactly happened."

Stephanie looked at her husband, tears in her eyes, but nodded at Jay's reassuring look.

"He called me, said he wanted to finally meet Lilly, but I wasn't so sure about that so I agreed to meet him for lunch to gage how sincere he really was. Lunch was nice, until we went to leave. He had this… thing. I don't know what it was, but it felt sticking your finger in a light socket."

Jack exchanged glances with the rest of his team. Zat.

"He tied me up, had my arms strung behind my back and hooked to the ceiling. It hurt so bad. He kept hitting me, telling me I'd have to watch him kill my family before he'd let me die.

"It never stopped. He even gloated when he realized Jay had found out where I was and was coming for me. He told me how much fun it would be 'eradicating the world of O'Neills'."

Jay reached over next to him with his one good arm and wrapped it tight around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest. He whispered in her ear comforting words and turned a cold stare to his father. "We're done."

"Jay-" Jack started sternly, his face equally as dark.

"No!" Jay growled. "I won't have any of you military yahoos upsetting my wife. Now, we're going to take our daughter, go home, and forget all this shit ever happened."

He pulled his arm back and stood, holding out his hand to Steph.

"Sit down, Son!" Hammond barked.

Jay's face turned just about as red as the General's already was. "I am nobody's son," he spat.

Steph tugged on his hand, and thinking she wanted to get up, pulled to bring her to her feet. She shook her head and pulled him back down.

"He said things about Charlie," she said softly. "Both of them. I think they're still alive."

A/N: Okay, the beginning of the chapter w/ Sean isn't meant as any sort of opinion of anything or anything like that. I wrote that in one of my hormonally emotional states after a day at work yelling at EVERYONE, including my boss and some of the drivers. I tried writing this chapter so many other ways to take that out, and i just couldn't do it. I really don't like it, but oh well i guess. Sorry if you hate it. it made me cry, but unfortunately stuff like that happens and it's the saddest thing.

Anyway, more on the Charlies and just a little bit left for this story. please review, even if you absolutely hated it. it'll probably make me cry but i'd still like to read it.