Chapter Thirteen - Jack

Six months ago

Jack got out of the truck and walked across the street to the cafe where his daughter sat with her eyes fixed on a nearby park.

Grace's expression lightened significantly as she caught sight of him. "Dad. Over here."

Jack waved to the waiter as he joined Grace in the outdoor cafe. "You want to explain what we're doing here?"

Grace handed him something that looked suspiciously like one of her reports from school. "I sent this to my editor this morning."

He quirked an eyebrow up as he turned his attention to the paper. Thanks to his special ops training, he rarely reacted to things before he'd had a chance to think through the ramifications and hear all the information available. He also tended to notice things most people might have ignored. Like the date at the top of the page.

"You sent this to your editor this morning?"

"At two-thirty."

Jack didn't respond, just perused the article as he waited for Grace to finish her explanation.

"Dad, I called the congressman's house. They didn't sound like a family who was waiting for a ransom or panicked about losing a child. He hasn't canceled any of his appearances either."

Jack put the paper back on the table as a waiter came by to take their orders. Jack ordered an herbal tea and a turkey club. When they were alone again, Jack turned to his daughter. "So, you think this hasn't happened yet."

She nodded. "I'm also guessing that the whole thing could be avoided if someone was in the right place at the right time."

Jack squinted in the sunlight. "Your mom would be the first one to tell you it's impossible to predict things to this level of accuracy."

Grace eyed the tables around them. "The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, I know."

Jack took a sip of his ice water. "Then again, your mom's seen some strange stuff in her lifetime—"

"And?"

Jack shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Well, you asked for my help. What do you want to do about it?"

Grace chewed the inside of her cheek. "I kind of want to go to that park when the article says the kid's gonna get snatched up."

"Okay."

She studied him, as if she wanted his approval. "Is that a good plan?"

He turned his attention back to the papers in his hands. "The best missions always start with good recon. When did it say the kid went missing?"

Grace played with the napkin in her lap. "It didn't."

The waiter was back with the herbal tea and a refill on Grace's coffee. Jack waited again for the nice young man to leave. "Well, see, that would be helpful information."

"Don't you think I know that?" Grace's outburst drew the attention of several of the cafe's patrons. She squirmed under the weight of their interest, her cheeks turning unnaturally pink as she waited for their scrutiny to dissipate.

Jack raised an eyebrow as he looked at his daughter. "I never said you didn't, but you did ask me to meet you here. So, I assume you have a plan."

Grace took another quick sweep of their surroundings. "What little I was able to dig up on the congressman was that he's a fan of yours."

Jack took a sip of his tea. "Mine, you say?"

Grace's expression grew sheepish. "And Mom's, but she's at the Mountain."

"Lucky me."

Her brown eyes grew ever more pleading. "Please, Dad. All my life I've wanted to use my dreams to help stop something bad from happening, and I finally have a chance to keep someone from living through what Jacob and I experienced."

Jack wiped his mouth with the napkin. "Right about now is when the mission commander starts telling the troops what the plan is."

Grace blinked at him. "Mission commander?"

Jack met his daughter's gaze with full confidence. "Your intel, your mission. Simple as that."

Though she knew the seriousness of the circumstances, Grace's lips lifted in a faint smile. "My intel, my mission. Right."

There was a modicum of parental pride in Jack's face as he leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Tell me where you want me, ma'am."

Present Day

Jack studied the scrap of paper, pulling it closer and farther away as he tried to experiment with what configuration his eyes would need today. "What is it?"

Sam lifted the paper out of her husband's hand. "Not much, but honestly, more than I thought we were going to find."

Daniel looked up from where he had his arms folded across his chest. "So, it was definitely Jacob's engine that did this."

Sam shook her head, vehemently. "Oh, I would need a lot more information if I was going to even begin to guess. All I know is that these aren't the blueprints for the manufacturer's standard engine for Grace's car."

Apparently, that wasn't good enough so Daniel pressed her. "But it's possible, right?"

Sam bit her lip as she squinted at the paper in her hand. "It's possible. Though, in order to pull this off, Jacob would need a ton of supplies that he could only order from the dark net."

"Like Orlin."

"Oy." Jack pinched the bridge of his nose as he leaned over the table. That had been a nightmare the first time around. Now that it would be completely on the O'Neill family, instead of shared with the Air Force, that was going to get expensive, and a lot of personal favors were likely to get traded in the next few months.

Sam sighed. "I knew he could tinker. I even thought it was kind of cute when he somehow got us Canadian TV channels with just our household antennae. I just didn't think he was going to inadvertently invent a time machine. I mean, what little we know about the ancient time machine is that it needed extraterrestrial elements to function."

"Not to mention Elizabeth Weir learned that the Ancients weren't all on board with the technology in the first place."

Sam motioned to her husband. "Precisely."

"So, what are you going to do when they get back?"

Sam shifted. "I'm going to do what I have to do to keep my family and the planet safe."

"You're going to make him get rid of it."

Resignation took over as she finally met Daniel's gaze. "Probably."

Teal'c's eyebrow did that thing it did when he wasn't sure the rest of them were making the wisest of decisions. "I believe that would be a mistake, General Carter. If you are correct, your son is perhaps one of the greatest scientific minds on Earth."

"That may be true, Teal'c."

Jack studied his wife, watched the emotions play across her face as she contemplated letting down her youngest son. She'd admitted that she was concerned about a strain in her relationship with Jacob, so to think about telling him that he couldn't share his genius with the rest of the world wouldn't make her feel any more secure about her parenting.

Sam eyed Jack with that look that seemed to share her anguish. "But the truth is that the greatest scientific minds on our planet have often lived to regret their contributions to science. If Jacob had to live with the knowledge that something he created had altered the world, or worse, time—let's just say that's one of the many things I've been trying to protect my son from."

Jack crossed his arms. "Or, you know, maybe our kids will save the world, the time-space continuum, and be back at the hotel before bed. Just like their parents."

Sam tried to force a smile to her lips, but it only confirmed how unlikely she found the scenario. "Or that."

There was a knock at the door to the small closet. The Air Force liaison to the White House appeared in the doorway. "General O'Neill, General Carter, Dr. Jackson, and Teal'c? It's time."

Jack sighed and let the military façade that had become his armor wash over him again. Show time.