Sam stood with Vala and Cam, geared up for a mission. "It feels weird only the three of us. Almost as weird as it did when Jack was promoted to General." She admitted.
"Well it's just a jaunty hop and a skip Sam. If the three of us can't handle this one on our own without Jackson and Teal'c, I'm a little worried about the quality of our team as a whole." Cam drawled.
Sam bit her lip. It wasn't that. She felt she should stay. Couldn't put a finger on it, just a gut feeling that things would change somehow after she got back and she wasn't honestly sure they were changes she'd be pleased with.
"SG-1, you have a go." Landry told them over the PA.
"All right people, let's move out." Cam said and waved them both through the now activated gate.
Later that evening Sam and Vala were laying in their tent. Cam had opted to take first watch but neither woman was tired. It had only been a survey mission after all, Sam was taking soil samples and Vala had run the drone around to see if there was any sign of inhabitants further away from the Gate. So far neither woman had found diddly squat.
"I'm so bored Sam." Vala groaned.
Sam chuckled. "I'm not sure we'd enjoy the alternative."
"Well, this is dull. I think I'm so used to being shot at that I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not." Vala admitted.
"Plus there's nothing to steal." Sam said absently.
"I'll have you know, I haven't stolen anything in…" She counted on her fingers, paused, retracted one and held up the three remaining ones. "Three months. That has got to be some kind of record." She said triumphantly.
"The last thing you stole was from my lab." Sam reminded her dryly.
"I put it back." Vala said defensively. "Besides, you wouldn't have even known if I hadn't told you."
Sam gave Vala the side eye in the dim light.
"Speaking of which, what is Jack up to anyway? You didn't seem very pleased with him when he left."
"He has some hair brained idea that Maybourne can help him out somehow."
"Maybourne... Maybourne... that shady fellow who Daniel says can't be trusted further than he can be thrown?" Vala asked surprised.
"That's the one." Sam said, tiredly.
"Why does he think that?!"
Sam shrugged then sighed.
"Oh well, on to happier topics. What's this I hear about our dear General considering getting his knackers buttoned back up." She asked Sam enthusiastically.
Sam for all her years actually blushed.
"Shhh…" She pointed at the flap. "He'll hear."
"He has a name and he can hear you!" Cam called through the night.
Vala snickered. "We weren't talking about you darling!"
"Sure you weren't." Cam said back and went back to ignoring them. Not believing her for even a minute.
"He put it out there as an option. I mean, I'd love to have another baby with him but it will probably be a couple years before we can even get married if we decide to go that route and I'd prefer if we have another baby that we be living under the same roof."
"Well you don't have to be married for that darling." Vala said quietly with a laugh. "I dare say getting married just because of a baby was what got you into this mess."
"Don't remind me." Sam said and flopped back on her pillow to stare up at the roof of the tent.
"I'm only teasing. You know he loves you more than anything in the universe other than those boys. I think you were knocked out of contention after he laid eyes on them."
"He does love those boys. Vala, he would have even if they hadn't been his."
Valla nodded thoughtfully in the dark. Sam was right. Jack was the kind of man that didn't confine his love for kids to only the product of his own loins.
From outside the tent they heard Cam exclaim, "Wait, Georgie and Jake are both Jack's kids?!"
Sam and Vala looked at each other and broke out into peals of laughter. "Poor Cam, last one to know."
"Everyone but me knew? Everyone?!" Cam exclaimed, perturbed.
Meanwhile in Hank Landry's office, he sat with his fingers jammed into his eyeballs to stave off the incredible headache that was coming on.
"You don't seem to understand the situation Captain. Colonel Carter isn't currently available to be arrested for this nonsense."
"Then have her recalled General."
"I will not compromise an operation based on a baseless accusation with no supporting evidence." It didn't matter how trivial their mission was. He wasn't going to call her back in over a frat regs violation he couldn't figure they could even have committed seeing as Jack had no chain of command whatsoever and had not since becoming head of Homeworld Security which, like heading up the department of Defense, was a Joint Chiefs position and therefore outside the chain of command entirely. Hank didn't have to do a damn thing Jack told him to do nor did any of his people. Sam could cheerfully tell him to go to hell sir to his face and Jack couldn't do a damned thing about it.
"These accusations come from a member of Congress."
"And don't you find it a bit odd that the congressional elect of Kentucky has any idea what an Air Force Colonel in Colorado is doing with an unmarried man I might add? Look Captain Smith, I understand you are just following the tribunal's orders and they have to take every accusation seriously as such… but I know my people and I've known General O'Neill for decades and I assure you nothing will come of this accusation."
"You have no way of knowing that General Landry."
"Don't I? At the worst Colonel Carter has been accused of cheating on her spouse who is not military with an unmarried man who is outside the purview of chain of command entirely. There's nothing here Captain, and therefore I will not abort the mission to recall her or her team and when she does return she will remain at the SGC or under house arrest.
"She's a single parent. The parental rights of her children's father have been revoked and for very good reason. Their guardianship paperwork hasn't been signed off on yet because the man you are accusing of being her lover who intends to adopt her children is also on a mission and unavailable. The only options I will entertain her being remanded to custody are confinement to a VIP suite with them or house arrest. She is currently their only adult guardian and General O'Neill would skin me alive personally if I even considered handing those boys over to their former father who forged her name to put a second mortgage on the home she had with her boys to force her to release them to him in spite of him never showing up for scheduled visitation or paying his child support.
"I will not let their father use them as pawns while your idiot accuser worries about another man's love life." Landry said in a huff. "We both know that unless she's guilty of something egregious, the charge won't stand, especially as the stated reason for Colonel Carter's divorce was her spouse cheating. It seems theirs plenty of that to go around and I've always thought it best not to accuse someone of something they have evidence of you doing too."
"But it's not her ex-husband making the claim sir."
"Isn't it? How do you think our congressional friend got his information? ESP?"
The captain didn't have an answer for that. "Please inform me when Colonel Carter returns to base General."
"You're dismissed Captain." Landry told him without agreeing to anything at all.
