Chapter Seven - Sam

It was the hardest part of her job—always had been—but there was something particularly excruciating about standing across from Daniel and Vala and giving the spiel she'd rehearsed too many times in the last fifteen years since she'd taken command of the SGC a second time.

Missing doesn't mean we stop looking.

Doing everything we can.

Please be patient while we figure out what happened.

Vala looked like she was about to faint, and Daniel caught her by the waist before she slumped into the chair behind her. "She's gone?"

Sam looked at her hands, knowing that this would be an especially challenging thing to hear for Vala Mal Doran. Nicole was her second chance after Adria.

Sam forced herself to be objective again. "Fortunately, it looks like they weren't alone. They were with Captain Trevor Knight. He's under my command at Cheyenne Mountain, and he's smart. Got a good head on his shoulders. Good instincts."

Daniel blinked up at her. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

Sam shifted, then exchanged a glance with her husband who just shrugged as if to say it was going to come out sometime. "Trevor dated Grace when they were in high school."

Vala's head snapped up. "My daughter is who-knows-where with Grace's ex-boyfriend?"

Jac's voice was droll. "Not alone."

Daniel threw a glare in Jack's direction. Apparently, the comment hadn't been appreciated. Then, he turned back to Sam. "Okay, what I want to know is what happens next?"

Jack's medals reflected the bright light of the ballroom as he shifted, his gaze dusting his shoes as he searched for the right way to explain. "President wants the original members of SG-1 to stay here until after the ceremony."

Daniel looked ready to jump out of his chair. "Jack, you of all people know I can't do that."

He didn't say it aloud, but the reason Daniel had joined SG-1 in the first place had been to locate Sha're. The idea that Daniel would just wait until his daughter was returned was frankly as laughable as Jack sitting back and doing nothing himself.

Sam put a hand on her husband's arm to stop him from doing something rash in response. "None of us are suggesting that we stay put, but the President has a good point about publicity. If three members of the original SG-1 team leave a function like this, the story's going to blow up."

Vala's eyebrow raised as she recovered some of her wits. "You emphasized the word original. Why?"

Sam let her vision dart to Teal'c and Mitchell, whom Jack had also tapped when Daniel had demanded to know what had happened to Nicole. Only a moment afterward, Cassandra and Charlie had come as well. "Because the only way I'm going to be able to go up on that stage is to know that I have people I can trust to find my kids."

Daniel stiffened, and Sam amended her statement. "Our kids. I'm not any more interested in calling Trevor's mom and telling her that the Stargate program took her son the same way it took his father than I am in living in this world without Grace, Jacob, or Nicole."

"What do you want us to do, Carter?"

The voice had sounded so familiar, and yet, her husband had been silent beside her. A quick look across the circle revealed Jack's much-younger clone, and another member of a later iteration of the SG-1 team.

Sam nodded in the younger man's direction, but he didn't respond. Just waited for his marching orders. "The president wasn't wrong that we can't do anything right now. We just don't have the information yet. For example, why did Grace's car react the way it did? We suspect Jacob did something to it, probably trying to make it cheaper to drive or to reduce emissions, but that's still just a theory. It would be helpful if someone could go back to the house, check the garage and Jacob's room, and see if he left any designs behind."

Daniel eyed Sam the way he did whenever he thought she was on a fool's errand. "You realize we're talking about Jacob here, right? When he tinkers, it's like whenever Jack downloads the Ancient database into his brain."

Both John Neill and Jack shuddered.

Sam ignored them both. "Except that the first time around, Jack drew plans that helped me see how to fix the DHD so we could get home. I'm hoping there will be some kind of clue around somewhere that will give us some insight into what Jacob's done to Grace's car."

"That's assuming it was Grace's car that started this, not something else."

Sam had to shrug. "I know it's not perfect, but it's something. I don't know about you, but I can't just sit around here and do nothing."

Charlie frowned. "Don't get me wrong, I'm just as concerned as the rest of you, but at what point are we going to acknowledge that all four of them are adults?"

There was silence all around the group.

Charlie rubbed his eyes, looking so much like his father in that moment that it surprised Sam. "I get that Jacob is impulsive, and that worries you. Trust me. I was impulsive as a kid, myself."

Jack winced beside Sam. Unbidden, Sam remembered the decades Jack had tortured himself over what he thought had happened to Charlie. What had happened to the boy's clone.

"But Jacob's not a kid anymore. Between the four of them, I'm sure they can get themselves home. I don't know much about Trevor now that he's in the Air Force, but he had a good head on his shoulders when he was dating Grace. For all we know, the Grace and Jacob's powers are going to give them a leg up on this—"

"Or get them killed," Sam interrupted. "I'm sorry, Charlie, you make some good points. They are adults, and maybe I've been worrying about them as kids for too long. Unfortunately, if they've gone back in time like I suspect, either they could get themselves killed or they could inadvertently change history for the rest of us. I don't like either of those scenarios."

Daniel's head snapped up. "You think they went back in time?"

Sam hesitated, then nodded. "The pulse of energy and the blast of light. It reminds me of the Ancient time machine."

Jack groaned. "Oh, here we go."

Sam whipped around to face her husband. "Jack, he's got the Ancient gene, too. We know by the fact that the database unspooled in your brain faster the second time that there had to be something left behind. Neural structures at the very least. Is it really that crazy to think he's got some of the knowledge of the Ancients trapped in his subconscious?"

Jack chugged the last of his punch like it was a glass of scotch. "While we're on that track, maybe while Grace was sleepwalking last month, she drew up plans for her own engine, and Jake's just the one who found and implemented them."

"It's a possibility, Jack—"

Daniel stood in front of his friends. "Are you forgetting Occam's Razor, you two? It's completely implausible—"

Teal'c cleared his throat, and the whole gathering fell silent. Then, Teal'c looked around at their surroundings. "Perhaps, if our objective is discretion, we should relocate."

Sam sighed as she realized that, as the president had feared, the eyes were on the growing gathering of SG-1 team members. Even worse, she caught the very unhappy look of the President's Chief of Staff from across the room. Vague memories of another time she'd clashed against the President of the United States hummed in the back of her mind.

She'd only narrowly escaped several unpleasant consequences from that alternate reality.

Now, she was living it all over again. Just with a twist.

Though Cassandra whispered something in her husband's ear to soothe him, Charlie cleared his throat again. "Look, I get the instinct to protect our kids. I just think Grace and Jacob are a bit more capable of handling their own problems than we're giving them credit."

Sam exchanged a worried look with her husband as he shrugged. "Man's got a point. They're not kids anymore. And with their gifts, they've proven to be a lot more resilient and resourceful than we admit sometimes. They've had to be."

Something about the whole conversation left Sam feeling more helpless than she'd felt in a long time. "So, we just throw up our hands and let them find their own way home?"

Jack seemed to age before her eyes as his shoulders stooped slightly and his head drooped in discouragement. Even the lines on his face seemed to grow ever more etched on his skin. "Of course not, but we have to trust that all the things we've taught them and all their unique abilities are going to get them back here with us, okay?"

There was a long moment as Jack looked back at Charlie. "I never thought I'd get my son back, but he made he's here. Married. Relatively happy."

Sam squeezed Jack's hand, not having to look too far into the past to find a time when they couldn't have said that.

"And we all know Grace and Jacob are way smarter than I ever was."

Sam couldn't help but chuckle at Charlie's attempt at humor. "Okay."

Neill stepped forward. "And in the meantime, if you can get me transport, I'll see if I can find out what Jake did to Grace's car."

A wave of relief settled over Sam as she offered Neill a grateful smile. "Sure thing. I'll put a call up to the Hammond."