A/N: Just one more problem to deal with... I did foreshadow it, after all, and not following through on that would be very Joss Whedon of me.


Epilogue

How do you say to your child in the night,
"Nothing's all black, but then nothing's all white?"
How do you say it will all be all right
When you know that it might not be true?
What do you do?
~Stephen Sondheim

Sam moved purposefully – not, by any means, anxiously – across the campus green, heading straight to the administration building. She knew this campus like the back of her hand, and though she hadn't spent much time there in the last, oh, three decades or so, she knew exactly where she wanted to go and how to get there.

Certainly no one else took her stride as anything but commanding. Cadets dove out of her way left and right, pulling up to tight, tense salutes. She ignored them.

The building had been rehabbed – a little – but she found the Commandant's suite with ease and headed toward the office of a man she hadn't seen since he held the rank of... Lieutenant? No, Captain. The secretary leapt to her feet in a hurried salute. "Can I help you, General?"

"At ease." Sam waved her off. "General Elliot called me."

The poor, anxious lieutenant's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Yes, ma'am." She hit a button on her desk and announced, "General O'Neill to see you, sir."

Elliot still had a baby face that would've made her smile under other circumstances, but being called away from Washington by the Commandant of Cadets at the Academy was not amusing in any way. She quickly answered his smart salute as he stepped out to meet her.

"What," she growled, "could she possibly have done to justify you calling me all the way out here? And me – not Jack, who has nothing but time on his hands these days." Retirement was blissful, she'd heard. From her husband. Often.

A grimace crossed his features. "I think you'll understand once you hear the story. Come in, please, ma'am."

The two cadets sitting on either side of his desk sprang to attention as she walked in. To the right stood her daughter, looking fuming mad and not the least bit ashamed; to the left was a cadet Sam didn't recognize, sporting a black eye and a bandaged nose.

Sam sighed. "Did you do that?"

"Yes, ma'am," Aimee answered crisply.

"Why?" she asked with exaggerated patience. Her daughter didn't usually go around punching people, but still – she wasn't in the mood. And Aimee was nineteen and knew better.

"Because he deserved it, ma'am."

The older set of big blue eyes shifted to the cadet across the room. "You look familiar," she told him. "Black eye notwithstanding."

"That's Will Reynolds," Colonel Elliot put in.

"Reynolds?" Her eyes narrowed a bit as she looked him over again. Yes, it was possible. "Did I serve with your father?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Huh." She supposed she knew in the back of her mind somewhere that Reynolds' son was going to the Academy, but she'd forgotten. "And why, Cadet," she asked, turning back to her daughter, "did he deserve to be punched, exactly?"

The girl swallowed hard but didn't answer.

"Spill it," Sam pressed.

"He said you cheated on Dad," she answered finally, woodenly, never taking her angry gaze off Cadet Reynolds.

"Well, that's just ridiculous," Sam said before turning to the young man across the room. "Why would you even say such a thing?"

"That isn't what I said, ma'am," he growled.

"It's what you meant!" Aimee snarled back.

"I did not!"

"Cadets!" the general snapped, abruptly silencing them both. "It would pain me to think that you all spend your time here gossiping about senior officers. I'm not very interested in what he meant, just what he said. What did he say?"

The brusque treatment was well-deserved – Aimee was a cadet, after all, held to a high standard. But she felt more than a little bad about it as she saw the sparkling of her daughter's eyes and the way her jaw shook a little. Whatever had happened, she was really, truly upset.

"He said Dad isn't my real father," she managed finally.

It was Sam's turn to swallow hard – which she thought was pretty decent, considering what she really wanted was to run for the hills. She should have known this day would come, but she was blissfully unprepared. The acid in her stomach rose painfully.

"Oh, my God," her daughter gasped, watching her reaction. "It's true, isn't it? Oh, my God!"

"General," she breathed finally, trying so hard not to let her voice betray her, "could I use your office?"

"Of course. Cadet, out," he ordered Reynolds sharply, and the two men left, pulling the door shut behind them.

"Aimee..."

"How could you not tell me?" the girl demanded, tears flowing free. "Why? What-"

"Aimee, please." Holding her arms wide, she tried to embrace her daughter, but she was shoved away.

"Don't touch me. You lied to me! You lied to him!"

"No," she answered sharply. "I didn't lie to him. And I didn't cheat. I would never. I love him."

Anger gave way to confusion, and she sniffled. "I don't understand. Then how?"

Sam scrubbed a hand through the hair at the back of her neck – a behavior she'd picked up from her husband long ago. "Can we sit down?" When both were seated, the chairs pulled close and her daughter's hand in hers, she continued. "I never wanted to have to tell you this," she whispered. "I never wanted you to know."

"That ship has kind of sailed, Mom."

"I know. So I need to tell you, before I say anything else, that you mean the world to me. That I love you so much."

She blinked. "Okay, now I'm a little scared."

"Sorry. But you know that, right? You know you're everything to me. To both of us."

After a moment, she nodded. "I love you, too, Mom."

Sam searched the floor for something that might help her keep her cool – she hadn't talked about that mission to anyone in over eighteen years, but it was still fresh. Finding nothing, she kept her eyes down and held her daughter's hand a little tighter. "You know about the team – that Jack and Uncle Daniel and Teal'c and I worked together."

"Dad was your CO."

"Right. And there was this mission..." She swallowed hard. "And it went so wrong. I was captured, and... this man, he... he kept me for seventeen days. And then I escaped, and the team – and Colonel Reynolds' team – found me, and Jack carried me home. And I.... I had you."

The breaths from the chair across from her were short, shaky. "He raped you."

She nodded.

Abruptly, the girl flew from her chair and out of reach. "God," she gasped. "How could you... How can you look at me? Knowing what I am?"

"What you are," Sam pressed softly, "is my child. My only child. And you're perfect. And you're everything I dreamed my baby would be. It just didn't happen quite how I planned it."

"You didn't want me."

She sucked in a breath. True as that was, it seemed cruel to tell her... but she supposed, after holding it in this long, that her daughter deserved the whole truth. "No," she confessed. "Not at first. I was so angry. And hurt. That mission almost destroyed me – and it might have, if it weren't for your – for Jack," she finished uncomfortably, well aware that the word 'father' had unintended connotations with the story she'd just told. Pushing to her feet – old age was a bitch – she caught her daughter's face in her hands and held her gaze. "I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but Jack.... He loved you long before that. He wanted you so badly."

"He did?" she sniffed tearfully.

Smiling, Sam nodded. "He held us together. He wasn't stuck with you, Baby – he chose you. He loves you so much."

"I'm so sorry, Mom."

This time, she didn't resist as the older woman enfolded her tightly in her arms. "You are not him," she insisted softly. "You are not responsible for that man's sins. I love you, and you are perfect."

Sam held her for what seemed like hours, till the shaking subsided and the younger woman returned the embrace in earnest. Only then did she pull away and say, "But that doesn't mean you get to go around hitting people."

Teary-eyed, she chuckled. "Sorry. But he really did deserve it."

"And I might have done exactly what you did. But I'd take my punishment for it, too."

"I will."

"Good." Sam grabbed a box of Kleenex off Elliott's desk and waited until her daughter had cleaned her face and straightened her uniform before she asked, "Ready?"

"No, wait." The young woman's teeth found her lip in yet another inherited sign of anxiety – this time from Sam. "My... I mean, the man who attacked you. When you said you escaped, did you.... I mean, is he...."

That was one thing Sam had never told anyone – that she'd stolen the knife he'd used on her and slit his own throat with it – and she wasn't sure what the right answer was supposed to be. Again, she settled for the truth, albeit the short version. "He's dead."

"Good." Aimee sucked in a breath, pulling herself together before giving her mother a firm nod, a move so reminiscent of Jack that Sam's heart clenched a little. Genes or not, she was her daddy's little girl. "Ready."

Pulling the door open, the general beckoned Elliott and the young cadet back into the room. "General, she's prepared to take whatever punishment you see fit," she told him. "I would only ask that you take the circumstances into account."

"I will," he vowed. "I'll have to think about what would be appropriate. I don't particularly want to draw any more attention to this than necessary."

"I appreciate that. What did you have in mind for Cadet Reynolds?"

The man's nose wrinkled a bit in distaste. "While the whole situation reeks, ma'am, technically, he didn't do anything wrong."

The cadet smirked just a little, and Sam could practically feel her daughter gunning for him.

"Then I have a request. You saw fit to notify me about this little incident; it's only fair that you should notify his father, as well."

The smirk contorted into something vaguely resembling utter dread, and it was Elliot's turn to smile. "I think you're right, ma'am. It's only fair."

"Now, if we're done here, I need to shanghai a flight back to Washington." As much as she wished she could stay – her daughter could surely use the support – the paperwork in her inbox had almost certainly gone catastrophic in the mere hours she'd been gone.

"Of course. Cadet, walk the general to her car and report back here immediately."

Cadet O'Neill snapped a perfect salute. "Yes, sir."