Vala looked at Daniel, her eyes red and swollen, not surprised to see that his face looked drawn and haggard.
"It's been quite a day," she managed, slowly, as she lifted the cup of coffee that Teal'c had dropped by to her lips. "Quite a day."
"You know, besides Teal'c and Jack, she was the only family I'd ever known until..." He looked over at her with a ghost of a smile settled over his face. "Until I met you."
"When I first met her...back when we were fighting the Ori..." Vala murmured, her voice low, as she cast her mind back through the years. "I was jealous of her."
"You were?" He asked, surprised. "Because you thought she and I..."
Vala shook her head. "She was a beautiful woman, to be sure, but there was something deeper about your relationship with her. All of you – Cameron, Teal'c – you all respected her. When she said what she did about having an extra backup singer, I..." She looked down at the ground, honesty and guilt working hand-in-hand to bring forth this admission. "I was determined right then and there to do whatever it took to prove to her, and to you, that I wasn't just some pretty face. That I had something to offer you."
His eyes lit up a little, though they were still overcome with sadness as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Sam was good at bringing out the best in people. Though she'd never have told you that." He sighed. "Honestly, I think the SGC lost her too early when she retired. I mean, I understand why she retired, but still..."
Vala nodded, leaning her cheek on her husband's shoulder as she looked down the corridor to where Jack was sitting, dressed only in his shirt, tie, and slacks with his arms resting on his thighs, his hat in his hands and his head hanging down, almost as if he was praying. "Has he done anything to locate the children?"
Daniel sighed. "He called Reynolds from the ambulance. Reynolds said they'd keep their ears to the ground. He called Barrett when she was first admitted, and raised a lotta hell for the NID, but..."
"You don't think they'll find them." She whispered, softly.
"This was..." Daniel began. "The perfect assault. Cassandra in a hospital, so Charlie's incapacitated. Let the President say just enough so that the secret practically reveals itself, and the SGC is overextended. Shoot Sam so..."
He didn't finish his sentence, only let his eyes wander over to where Jack was sitting. "I keep hoping that after a little bit of time, he'll snap back into soldier mode. That's better than this."
"Anything is better than this," Vala clarified, gently.
Suddenly, the object of their conversation stood, and put his hat back on. He walked down the corridor toward Daniel and Vala, the indignation in his eyes practically shooting fire at anyone who would even think of standing in his way.
"We're going to the SGC." He said as Daniel and Vala stood. His tone made it clear that no amount of discussion would change that fact.
"How?" Daniel asked, simply.
"The SGC may be surrounded by reporters, but I happen to have it on good authority that there's a ship in orbit. I'm sure that with a call to Hank Landry, he'll make the necessary arrangements."
"Jack," Vala began.
He turned an eye to her, but it wasn't the eye of a husband and father who had nearly lost everything he'd ever held dear. It was the eye of a soldier who was ready for a fight.
She exhaled. "Samantha would want you to find your children, and bring them home safely. That was her only real desire."
Jack's eyes softened for a moment before he nodded, gruffly. Even without the jacket which he'd tried to use to stem his wife's bleeding and apply pressure to her wound, he looked like a formidable general about to bring the world to its knees. "I just wanted to make sure you were warned...before we get beamed aboard the George Hammond."
Daniel nodded. "Did you get Teal'c?"
"He said something about getting me something to eat." The general waved the concern away as if it was nothing more than a nuisance. "I'm fine. I'd rather get straight to the SGC and see what we have to work with."
"You mean what Dr. Lee knows about Samantha's research." Vala said, studying him closely.
Jack didn't dignify her statement with a response. "If you want to say your goodbyes, you do it now." He said, seriously as he pulled out the first cell phone in his pocket, his wife's phone that had been covered in her blood when he'd answered it just after the paramedics had arrived.
To any observer, he'd had no reaction. But to Daniel and Vala, the look in his eyes told them everything they needed to know. He was hurting, but the circumstances dictated that he bury his pain so that he could be more efficient at finding the two things she'd held most dear to her in this life – her children.
He coughed before reaching into his other pocket and retrieving his own cell which he dialed. "Hank, I need a favor."
A loud, overly dramatic sigh from the entrance to the lab brought Bill Lee out of his work-induced haze. He'd learned a long time ago, on a planet where then-Colonel O'Neill had disappeared, that when Samantha Carter wanted something, she would work as long and as hard as she possibly could to get it. He'd also learned that nothing brought a fiercer loyalty out of the retired General than the feeling that her family had been threatened.
In an effort to learn from his past mistakes, such as that same time when he'd not been quite as kind or understanding about her feelings, he was working overtime to get her the personal peace of mind that this anti-anti-Prior device would be to her and her family.
Another loud sigh made Bill roll his eyes. "What is it, Felger?" He asked, more than a little annoyed. "I'm a little busy at the moment."
"She...she worked here." Felger said, walking into the lab. "I can still smell her perfume."
Felger had been overwhelmingly in love with the lead scientist longer than Lee could remember. "She left over twenty-four hours ago, Felger." He said, sounding clearly irritated by the man's intrusion. "Now, get back to your lab. I've got work to do."
For a moment, it looked like Felger might throw up, and Bill cringed at the thought of what that kind of mess would mean for his lab, which was filled with computers, alien technology...
A sudden sniffle caught Bill's attention, and he gaped at the other scientist in surprise. "Are you...crying?"
"I can't help myself," Felger admitted through echoing sobs of grief. "To think...that this might have been the last place she..."
"Oh, Jay!"
His emotional outburst had been cut short by the sugary sound of his assistant of the last ten years Chloe's voice.
She hurried over and wrapped her arms around her husband. "Come on, Jay, let's go get some tea." She turned to Bill, who was watching the whole drama unfold in horrified fascination. "I'm sorry. It's just...ever since he heard the news..."
"What news?" Bill asked, his brow furrowed.
"She's dead!" Felger wailed, throwing back his head before he retreated back to the comfort of Chloe's waiting arms.
She managed a sigh. "According to the news, General Carter was shot when the President began to go public with the Stargate Program's existence."
Felger released another dramatic wail, and Chloe paused to offer him some more comfort before she turned back to Lee. "Rumor has it that she..." She paused as Felger's sobs increased in intensity. "She didn't make it."
Lee just stood there, dumbfounded as Chloe led Felger away with promises of chamomile tea and a phone call to his mother.
Dead, he reeled. How could she be dead? Not long ago, she'd been standing in this very lab, passionately begging him to help her on this project.
He walked over to his computer and pulled up his internet browser. Brigadier General Samantha Carter, he typed in the search box.
CNN was the first link, and he clicked on it. Instantly, video of the assassination appeared on his screen, and he reeled back in horror.
He recovered enough to turn on the sound to his computer. "...memorial service is expected within the next week. But the tragic shooting at the White House isn't the only worry on retired Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill's mind at the moment. We've just received word from the FBI that they have sent out an amber alert for the O'Neill children, Grace, who's thirteen, and Jacob, who's five, who went missing at about the time of the shooting."
Pictures of the two children appeared on the screen.
"White House spokesperson, Bryson Netting, said today in a second unscheduled press conference that it is unclear at this time whether the shooting and the abduction were launched in tandem by a United States based terrorist organization or if the two events just happened to coincide."
A man, in his early thirties, dressed in a white shirt, blue suit, and red tie, stood in front of a pulpit bearing the White House emblem. "Our hearts go out to the O'Neill family at this time. Our country has lost one of our best and brightest with General Carter's passing, and we pray that her legacy will be passed on for many years to come by her missing children. We ask every American to be vigilant and call the FBI tip line if they've discovered any clue as to the whereabouts of these children. Thank you."
The man left the stand as the female reporter's voice returned. "This is CNN's Jacqueline Nightingale reporting from Washington."
The video closed, and Bill Lee closed the application window in shock. So, it was true. Not only was she dead, but her children were missing as well.
"Dr. Lee."
He looked up to find Jack O'Neill, standing in the doorway to the lab.
"General O'Neill, I just heard. I'm...I'm so sorry."
"I need to know everything that Carter worked on in the last few years."
"Everything?" Lee asked, his eyebrows shooting upward in surprise.
"Her biggest fear was that Grace and Jacob would abducted." Jack said, simply. "She wouldn't have just left us without any options."
Lee sighed. "Well, uh..." He inhaled. "She came to me just a...about 24 hours ago. She asked me to make an...Anti...anti-Prior device. She said that her son might be in danger, and that she was afraid that they might try to use the device against him."
"And did you?"
"Use the device against your son?" He asked, nervously pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.
"Make the Anti-Anti-Prior device." Mitchell said, shaking his head.
"Oh. Uh, well, I'm...I'm..." He looked up, sheepishly. "I'm still working on it."
Jack exhaled, heavily. "What else?" He asked after a moment. "What else did Sam work on?"
"Just a few...modifications to the Asgard scanner."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "My wife, the most brilliant woman on the face of the planet has been working part-time with the SGC and ALL she's been working on was modifications to the Asgard scanner?"
"Well, besides the Anti-anti-Prior device, that was the only one that was her idea." He amended, quickly.
Suddenly, Jack's face brightened slightly. "Was she successful in making the modifications?"
Lee nodded, earnestly. "You weren't kidding when you said she was the most brilliant woman on the face of the planet." He said, seriously. "In fact, when she suggested the project, I thought she was crazy...I mean, this is technology that was built by the Asgard, for cryin' out loud."
He won a sharp look from General O'Neill, and he quieted. "She wanted to modify the Asgard scanners so that they could not only locate a unique energy signature, but also so they could scan the planet for any quantifiable unique properties. Obviously, the most readily available quantification of one's uniqueness lies in the very make-up of their..."
"DNA," Jack interrupted. "I know." He turned to Mitchell. "I need the George Hammond to beam me to my home. I'll c all when I'm ready to be picked up again."
Mitchell nodded as the two men disappeared from the lab.