This story is out of order, and I'm not going to apologize. I had to rescue Sam's poor son from the room with the bolted down furniture. Poor baby! I don't have any excuse for why it's out of order. I just wrote myself into a corner.

Dan'yel called me when I was in the lab, telling me that I had better get up into the briefing room as quickly as possible, and to bring with me a book we translated not too long ago. When I get there I hear General Hammond's angry verse screaming, "Just tell me how the hell an infant escaped from a secure room?"

"He didn't escape, sir, he disappeared," Janet explains.

"That doesn't make any more sense!" the infuriated General says.

I enter the room, and Dan'yel waves me over. I set the book in front of him. He flips around in it for a few seconds before he says, "Kheb, that's the word I was looking for. I think that the boy is in Kheb."

"What exactly is going on?" I ask, even though I am pretty sure that I already know.

Sam is sitting on a chair, and I can tell that she is just barely holding it together. "They… took my son."

"Who?" I ask.

Janet flicks a video screen so that it shows Jacob in his room. He is lying on his bed crying at a nightmare. Or really, the nightmares have become so constant that he doesn't even need to be sleeping for them to occur, so I don't know what you would call them. Suddenly a bright light, almost like how people draw stars, though not very much like a real star, appears in the room. The light has a female face though. It moves over to the boy, and cradles his head in her hands… or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them "rays".

He smiles at her, and I'm not entirely sure if I've ever seen the little boy smile before. Then suddenly, both she and the boy disappear.

"You say the child is on Kheb?" Teal'c asks.

"Yes, have you heard of it?" Dan'yel presses.

"It is a legend that my Master Bray'tac once told me*. I did not think it really existed. The Goa'uld fear and despise this place. At the end of their lives, the Jaffa can go there to help their souls find their way to eternity."

"Do you know where it is?" Dan'yel asks.

"No," Teal'c says.

"All I know is that Osiris once hid from Seth there," Dan'yel says with a sigh.

Tea'c's eyes brighten, "I know the location of the planet of which you speak."

"Sounds good, let's go, people," the General says.

Sam stays behind in her chair. It's only been a few weeks since she got the Goa'uld removed from her mind. She has not yet been cleared for active duty. I figured that they would have mercy on her and let her go on a rescue mission to retrieve her son, but it really doesn't look like that is going to be happening.

Teal'c suddenly kneels before her, and looks at her intensely for a few seconds. She meet his eyes, but doesn't say a word.

"I swear to you, Major Carter, that I will return your son to you."

"Thank you, Teal'c," she says, and tries to form her face into a ghost of a smile. Her mouth is rebelling against the action though, and it comes of looking a bit more like a grimace.

"I know that to be separated from one's progeny is painful," he says.

"You know?" she asks.

He doesn't say another word, but locks eyes with her for a few more seconds before he walks out of the door.

"Sam, why don't you come to Dan'yel and my quarters on base until we get news? You'll contact us there?" I ask the General. He gives us a nod.

I'm not sure if Sam was asleep, or was pretending to be asleep to avoid my trying to comfort her. Either way her whole body jumps when the phone rings, but she makes not motion to answer it. I know the phone call is meant for her, but I answer it anyway.

It's the General's voice, "You two had better make your way to the gate. SG-2 just radioed that SG-1 will be coming back through any minute now."

"And…" I say waiting for the real news. Even though I'm not sure I'm going to have the strength to deliver it, and I'm pretty sure that Sam is not going to have the strength to hear it.

"And they are bringing back the baby. That… alien light woman, she did something to the boy's brain. I'm not quite sure what it is, you'll have to come and find out."

"All right, we'll be up there soon, Sir."

"Sam," I say, lightly touching her shoulder, "We have to go to the gate room. They're coming back with your son."

She flips over toward me, with her eyes wet with tears, "They are bringing him back?"

"Yes, something to happened to him, so I don't know."

Sam cries harder, "She hurt my baby?"

"I don't know. Let's go and find out, ok?"

It's painful to watch her stand up. You can tell that it takes every ounce of energy that she has to heave herself off the bed. When she walks, it is more like shuffling, and you can tell that this takes everything she has.

By the time we make it to the gate room, the SG teams are already through.

Teal'c is holding Jacob in his arms. Both of them have huge grins on their faces, and Jacob is talking to him. Then the Jaffa reaches over, and actually tickles the little boy.

He lets out a shout of laughter.

Sam runs over to him, and takes the baby into her arms. "What's happening?"

"Oma Desala healed your son," Dan'yel says, "She blocked the Gou'ald part of his mind. He can't access it anymore. She's protecting him."

"He's safe?" she says with tears in her eyes.

"I told you that your son would be returned to you unharmed," Teal'c says.

Sam starts crying, and Jacob looks distressed. "It's ok, honey, Mommy is crying happy tears," she says.

"Ma!" Jacob says, flinging his little baby arms around her.

"That's right, Mommy has you at last. Oh, baby, I have waited so long," Sam says, holding him tight.

I make sure to position myself by Teal'c as we walk out of the gate room. "Teal'c, you mentioned that it hurts to be separated from your children. It kind of sounded like you spoke from experience."

I don't miss that the ears of most of his teammates are suddenly trained on the conversation, and I know that Teal'c doesn't miss this either.

"I have a son," he says.

"Where?" I ask.

"On Maldar. My wife and I had a pledge break** a few years ago, and I have not often seen him since."

"Pledge break, is that a word for divorce?" Dan'yel asks.

"It is similar in many ways. But simpler," Teal'c explains.

"So, your wife got custody?" Jack asks, "But you could visit him right? I don't know Jaffa laws, but I can't believe they would keep a man away from his son."

"I am allowed to visit my son on occasion," Teal'c replies.

"But you haven't, right? You haven't since you came here?" Jack asks in shock.

"No, and only rarely before that," Teal'c says.

"Why? He's your son. You obviously miss him, and I bet that he misses you too," Dan'yel says.

Teal'c is silent for so long that I begin to worry we must have offended him. Then slowly he says, "Dray'auc does not believe I am a good father. She has secured someone else to fulfill the role."

"He has a stepdad?" Jack asks.

Teal'c nods.

"Why doesn't she think you're a good dad?" Sam asks.

"She did not think I spent enough time with my son," Teal'c replies.

"So your solution is to spend no time with him?" Jack demands.

"When the pledge break occurred, Dray'auc told my son that I had died, a hero in battle. She then moved to another world to raise our son. Bray'tac checks in on them from time to time, and sends me reports to let me know that my son is well. When I visited him, I was introduced as Bra'tac's friend."

"And you're ok with all of this?" Jack asks.

"I do not have a choice in the matter," Teal'c replies.

"The hell you don't!" Jack says.

"Jack, I'm not sure we should be playing Judge Judy in the court of another species," Dan'yel cautions.

"A member of my team has had his son stolen from him. That is not ok," Jack says, glancing at Dan'yel before he turns to Teal'c, "You should have told us right away, buddy. What planet are they on?'

"We're not going to storm an alien planet," Dan'yel protests.

"No of course not, but you are going to do some of that diplomacy magic stuff you're so good at, and work out joint custody for Teal'c," Jack says.

"How old is your son?" Sam asks. It's the first time she's spoken in this conversation. She was so absorbed in the return of her own son that she couldn't much worry about Teal'c's.

"He'll be eleven years old in 114 days," Teal'c replies.

*In the series it was Bra'tac who told this story. But for simplicity's sake, I cut Bra'tac out of this episode, so it has to be Teal'c. But it's an alternate reality version, and I don't think it is too much of a stretch to think that Bra'tac might have told this story to his student. I also simplified some of the Jaffa words in here, assuming that Teal'c would be a bit more Americanized in language than his master.

**I have my own sneaky motives for changing this fact, but come on, Teal'c couldn't have possibly been on good terms with his wife at the beginning of the story. I mean, he leaves them without a word. And you can't tell me that was all about fighting the Gou'ald. Besides, the whole incident with the priestess seems to indicate that he was at least emotionally unfaithful to his wife while they were married. So you have to figure it wasn't the strongest marriage in the history of Jaffa.