AN: I am fairly certain that my company is run by people who haven't actually physically ran a store... ever. And by 'run' I mean been the poor shmuck who has to keep the doors open not the desk monkeys who compile data collect paychecks. Our paperwork situation suggests they really don't grasp the reality that giving people who's job it is to make customers happy probably have more important things to do then record information the company could just pull from our cash registers themselves and send to us. That us physically tracking it is a waste of everyone's time. Goofy freaking nonsense. I get that they want us to think about those numbers so recording them by hand does that... except none of them question why it might be a TAD insulting to basically tell a bunch of adults running a store they aren't smart enough to just read a report...

Chapter 5

It was fairly late at night when Jon finally approached Sammy about what time it was. "Come on, Sam, you need some sleep."

"I'm fine. Go to bed."

Jon sighed. "It will keep until morning." He tried to cajole her to rest.

"And what if it doesn't?"

Jon shook his head. "Why ask for a ransom if they just plan on killing him?"

"To throw off the scent while they hide the body." Sammy grumbled but her hands had slowed. She was tired and it was harder to hack into the national satellites then it used to be.

"If he's still alive, I need you combat ready." He reminded her gently. "Come on. A couple hours."

Sammy just shook her head. "I can't. Not until it's done." She said, tears stinging her eyes.

Jon sighed. Was this what she'd been like when he was trapped on Edora? Were her feelings still too deeply entwined with Sam's for Jack? "Fine. I'll sleep on the couch." He said tiredly. So I can keep an eye on you, he thought silently.

"Go to bed, Jon. There's no sense in both of us not sleeping." She told him dismissively without looking up from her work.

"Who says I won't sleep?" Jon asked as he turned away from her, grabbed one of the overly fluffy pillows off the empty bed and headed for the couch. He wasn't about to tell Sammy but he hated pillow top mattresses and found them painfully uncomfortable… unless he wasn't doing any sleeping and that wasn't about to happen tonight or any time soon. Especially not with her peeved at him the way she was at the moment. Then there was the whole having promised Mare that he'd keep things age appropriate for Sam's current biological age which meant they only went so far and no farther. Sammy had clearly changed her mind about waiting but Jon saw the wisdom in not making love to her that way until she was old enough to be using some kind of protection over and above a condom. He could wait. Love wasn't just about sex anyway. Even when he was a younger man he'd known that.

Jon pretended to sleep but in reality he listened until the clack of keys slowed then stopped. Cracking an eye open a fraction of an inch he saw she was slumped over the keyboard in exhaustion.

Silently he got up and lifted her slight frame into his arms as gently as he could so he wouldn't wake her. He carried her over to the bed and laid her down on the sheet. He'd turned down the comforter for her earlier when he'd grabbed a pillow.

Sammy didn't let go however when he pulled away to stand up.

Jon smiled in amusement and lowered himself into the bed next to her. "Love you too, Carter." He whispered against her ear and closed his eyes, his arm wrapped comfortingly around her.

Sean blinked awake and looked around. In the bed next to him, Sammy and Jon were curled together fully clothed. She still had her sneakers on. He shook his head in amusement. The last time he'd seen the elder Sam and Jack had been at their wedding. These two had not been there and Sean idly wondered why. His curiosity piqued, he texted his father figuring with the time difference dad probably hadn't even gone to bed yet. His worry for his only cousin not letting him rest.

The reply he got back made him smile in amusement. Apparently Sam's younger brother was not cleared to know about his 'younger sister' in particular and Jon refused to come without her. Jack could have pulled off this is my brother's boy routine as he was currently doing. He and dad were all that was left of their never large family, but Sam's family would have known right away something was up and had a lot of questions. And having met them, he would not have been easily put off either. Sam would have had a very uncomfortable conversation with her brother on her wedding day so both clones had stayed home.

Sammy mumbled something in her sleep while Sean made a pot of coffee. He took a look at her program but only understood half of it. Dad would have understood it. That was the one advantage dad had over him. While Mac wasn't a programmer, he at least understood what he was looking at most of the time.

Jon, who was really Jack, rolled over and snorted in his sleep and mumbled Sam's name. Sam swatted at his face. A gesture of familiarity that was not lost on Sean. Jack and Sam had clearly been lovers prior to either clone's creation. Sean wondered if dad knew about that then decided it wasn't important enough to ask. Whatever they had done on their own time was their business.

Jon woke to his favorite smells. Coffee and Sam. He grinned a little and hoped she wasn't mad at him for taking her to bed like he had. "Hey blue eyes. Sean made coffee." He said into her hair that was curling against his face.

"Hmm?" she murmured and snuggled in tighter.

Jon chuckled. "Wakey wakey beautiful." He said as he stroked her face affectionately. It was rare that he got to just be Jack and Sam with her in this iteration of life.

"Wha-?" Sammy sat up, startled. "When did I…? Shit." She grumbled and tried to jump out of bed, got tangled in the bedcovers, cussed, and finally rolled out to dash to the desk where her unfinished work sat untouched.

Jon chuckled. Same old Sam.

"Coffee?" Sean offered.

"Yes please." Sam said gratefully.

Sean poured her a cup and Jon took it and added light milk to it and no sugar. He winked at Sean and set it by Sammy on her right side.

Sammy mumbled something and picked up the cup absently.

Sean watched them impassively. If you ignored the age they looked, you could easily assume they had been together for years, which he supposed they probably had. "How much longer." He mouthed at Jon.

Jon just shrugged and made a shoulder motion for Sean to join him in the hallway. Sammy took another sip of her coffee and didn't even notice them leave.

Once they were in the hallway, Sean gave Jon a sideways moue.

Jon shrugged. "We may as well go grab her some breakfast. She'll need the energy."

"How much sleep did she get?"

"She passed out at the desk around 0300. I put her in bed but she got clingy so it was just easier to join her." Jon shrugged as he walked down the hall.

"Is she going to be mission ready on three hours' sleep?"

Jon shrugged again. "She has been before." He said as he thumbed the elevator button for the first floor.

"How often does she do this to herself?"

Jon winced.

"Ah." Sean said, understanding immediately that it was probably every time Jack or Jon got hurt and needed a technological miracle. "So pretty often huh."

"Cute." Jon grumbled.

"Hey, she's your girlfriend." Sean said affably.

"Yes. Yes she is." Jon agreed with a self satisfied grin.

Sean chuckled and shook his head. "When dad told me the other you two were getting married, his exact words were 'it's about time'."

Jon scrubbed his tousled hair with his hand. "Yah, I think we… they were the only ones surprised by any of that."

"Why?"

"Hell, I don't know." Jon admitted. "I guess we'd been trying to stuff our feelings in a room for so long we forgot it was okay to admit them once in a while."

Sean nodded. "Sounds too complicated for me."

Jon shook his head. "Your father said just about the same thing." He grumbled as the elevator door opened. "They better have a decent breakfast. The last place I stayed had frozen waffles and powdered eggs."

"Wasn't the last place you stayed an Air Force base?" Jon quipped.

"Very funny." The boy told him as he followed his nose to the breakfast room that was filled with bored looking businessmen and women and a handful of families on vacation. Jon looked wistfully at the kids with their parents before heading to the buffet line and loading up a tray with enough food for four people.

"Is some of that for Sam?" Sean asked dubiously.

"I'm a growing boy." Jon said with a small pout and put more food on the tray.

"Right." Sean said and tried to figure out what Sammy might like for breakfast. The problem was he didn't really know Sam well enough to have any kind of answer. He supposed she could probably use some protein and grabbed her a sausage and egg bagel sandwich in case all that food really was just for Jon.

They rode back upstairs silently together. "What did you mean she's an insurance policy?" Sean finally asked.

Jon lifted his head to look at the ceiling. "I'm expendable. She's not. If something ever happens to the original Sam Carter, mini Carter will be able to decipher her notes and take back up exactly where she left off."

"That's rather clinical."

"That's the military." Jon said with finality.

"For what it's worth, Dad and I don't think you are expendable."

"Thanks." Jon said but his tone was short as though he either didn't care or was pretending he didn't.

Sean shook his head and followed Jon down the hall. This was his op but these kids had effectively taken it over like…well… like a couple of military black ops specialists.

Jon opened the door to Sammy doing an excited little jig. "We are IN." she crowed happily.

"Did you find him?" Jon asked.

"Not yet, it will take the GPS some time to track the next set of data but once it does it will spot every bit of Naquadah on the planet. Including the SGC, Vala and I, and specifically Jack."

Jon set the food down and spun her around. "Good job, Carter." He crowed at her as he set her down. "I brought food."

"So I see." She said and grinned when he chuckled and reached out to hold her wrist gently. "Trinium, I presume?"

"No idea. I never got it tested but probably." She agreed.

Sean looked from one to the other. "Her bracelet?"

"The charm actually." Sammy explained. "It makes sense. Sam and I would otherwise have identical energy signatures."

"And this would be necessary because…"

"In case they need to beam her ass up, Scotty." Jon said with an eye roll.

"Oh." Sean said. Not quite sure how to take that.

Sammy however just giggled. "It's all right, Sean, he's just screwing with you."

Sean glowered and managed to look very much like his father which made Sammy laugh all the harder.

"Eat your eggs, Carter." Jon said gruffly.

"Yes sir." Sammy said, still snorting with amusement.

"And knock that off." He grumbled.

"It would help if you stopped acting like him then." She admonished him lightly.

"Kind of hard to do since I am him, Sam."

"No. You definitely are not." She disagreed with a challenge in her eyes.

Jon wisely, in Sean's opinion, did not rise to said challenge.

Sammy went back to work, knowing that being in and being able to upload an entire program were two separate things and the guys watched TV for a little while. It was about lunch time when Sammy sat back and stretched with a satisfied grin on her face. "Got it." She announced. Jon and Sean got up and peered over her shoulder as she hit the send button to upload her program to GPS. Fifteen minutes later, two red dots appeared in the DC area on Sean's computer. One at their location and one several miles down the road closer to Virginia.

"Why is there only one dot here if you're his clone?" Sean asked, clearly confused.

"Because the old man wasn't a host until after I was made. I'm kind of surprised it doesn't interfere with his ability to control Alteran tech."

"Pardon?"

"I don't see why it would." Sammy answered absently. "Other than a safety measure but possibly it being naturally occurring and not introduced matters." She said thoughtfully.

"Did that make any sense to you?" Sean asked Jon.

"Yah. Didn't you understand it?"

Sean gave Jon a flat unfriendly look for screwing with him.

"That's Jack." Sammy said with satisfaction. "Let me zoom in and see exactly where he is." She murmured quietly and fiddled with the zoom.

"West Virginia." Sean muttered.

"Hey, I know that hotel! It's the Greenbrier!" Jon said excitedly.

Sammy turned to him.

"There's a bunch of old bunkers under it and tunnels." Jon explained. "Do you think you can hack into the DOD and get us a map?" He asked excitedly.

"She can do that?" Sean asked with surprise.

"Not even her first rodeo, kid." Jon said smugly.

"Watch the 'kid' stuff." Sean grumbled as he bit into his extra sandwich. He noticed Sammy was absently eating her now long cold eggs while she tapped away on the keyboard.

"This will take about an hour. I don't want them knowing I'm in there."

"Use my clearances if you have to." Jon said softly.

"Right." Sammy agreed with a serious frown of concentration. "Jack might not even yell at me later." She said with an amused smirk.

"Well, he likes you." Jon pointed out.

"Of course he does." Sammy said, flashing him a dimpled smile that took Jon's breath away before turning back to her work.

"More waiting?" Sean said over Sammy's shoulder to Jon.

Jon motioned him over to the couch. "Nope. Strategy." He said while scooping up a huge spoonful of warmed over oatmeal he'd put in the microwave while Sammy explained herself and commenced eating it with relish.

"That's disgusting." Sean said of Jon licking the thick goopy mass in chunks off his spoon.

"Who cares?" Jon mumbled and popped the spoon in his mouth to clean it off before digging into the bowl again. "So here's what we do." Jon said, by way of starting his mission plan and outlined how he'd planned to get into the bunkers under the hotel.

Jack sighed. He hurt all over now. Sam was going to read him the riot act for getting kidnapped. He just knew it. Oh, she'd be very sweet and kind about it but make him feel like he'd personally chosen to worry her. It was a side of her he'd not really suspected but should have as her father was the king of said maneuver. He wondered if he could just sort of… not tell her.

He leaned up and propped himself against the wall and a small furry head plopped onto his leg. "Hey girl." He said affectionately and patted her head. His captors had decided he was broken enough now to free his hands. The guards were probably fed up with having to help him in and out of his bindings every time he had to pee, which was surprisingly often… Jack smirked to himself. He had these guys convinced he was a feeble old man with bladder problems.

At least it wasn't rogue NID or the Trust. They wouldn't have fallen for that at all. He'd tried to convince the guy that Cromwell had sacrificed himself to no avail. The guy was convinced his CO had been murdered and Jack had gotten away with it. Lacking access to the video feed for the Gate room, Jack couldn't prove his case and he wasn't confident his captor would believe him anyway.

Jack was also pretty sure the guy was going to kill him whether Bub put up the funds for ransom or not. He'd gotten a look out the door when he'd pretended to stumble previously. There was something familiar about this place but he couldn't put his finger on in. Jack pet his little friend for a while until he noticed the empty plate on the floor. He looked at the dog who raised her head and gave him a hopeful lick.

Jack chuckled and shook his head ruefully. He needed to lose a few pounds anyway he reminded himself again.