When I woke up several hours later, and couldn't see Sunheko in my vision, I rationalised, she was potty trained after all and could have been using the bathroom, or she could have gone into her room to play. I listened, and couldn't hear anything other than Sam's and my own breathing, that was when I got worried, little kids don't tend to do anything quietly.
I woke up Sam. "Sunny's missing."
"What?" She jumped up right after me, following me around, in and out of every room before it was clear that I was right and she really wasn't there any more. That was when I noticed the front door- it was cracked about an inch, somehow, she'd managed to pull the incredibly heavy thing open. "It's all right, maybe she just went to see Daniel or Teal'c?"
We headed out the door and down the hall, knocking on Daniel's door as we came to it first.
"Uh hey Jack, what are you doing here?"
"Have you seen Sunny? She's missing."
"Missing? How?" He pulled us into his room, out of the hall.
"We all took a nap," I said, and at the look on his face added. "together... she must have woken up and decided to take a walk."
"Well we've gotta find her, the SG team's still here."
"Yeah, we kinda figured that. Figured we'd ask you and Teal'c if she happened to come and see you." The three of us moved on to Teal'c's room next, he had a very similar story to Daniel's, in other words he hadn't seen her either.
We split up to search the council building. It was pretty late, I don't know why we hadn't been awakened for dinner, and of the very few people we came across, no one had seen Sunny. The four of us joined up again to search more of the city, we decided our best bet at finding her would be at her friends' houses and if we didn't find her there we were going to split up again.
"How hard can this be? There are two blonde people on this planet right now, and we've got one of them with us. Sunny's dressed different *and* she's got blonde hair... she should stick out, so why aren't we seeing her?" I asked no one in particular.
"Perhaps because she is in one of the buildings O'Neill." Teal'c suggested, in response to my rhetorical question.
We finally came across someone who had seen Sunny a while later, it was a group of someones actually. A bunch of kids were playing in an excruciatingly well lit area, with their parents around them.
"You wish to know of your child?" One of the parents asked before any of us even opened our mouths, whether from them knowing already or their telepathic abilities, I don't know.
"Yes!" Sam and I yelled simultaneously.
"She left with the explorers, back to your planet."
"What?" Sam's and my mind seemed to be going along the same line.
"She was playing with our children as they were on their way back to the 'Stargate', when they saw her one of the men picked her up and left with her. His intentions were not clear, but there was no malice in his thoughts."
"We've gotta go get her. Those bastards took our daughter!" I walked away from the group without further comment, all I knew was that I had to get to Earth and get my daughter back.
"Jack!" Sam was running to catch up with me. "Jack! How are we supposed to get back to Earth? We don't have our GDO, and even if we did they would have locked out our IDC by now."
"Somehow I have a feeling that if the 'gate activates from Balteria that they'll open the iris." The three moons of the planet cast plenty of light on our path as I trekked to the Stargate, there was nothing in our rooms that was more important to me, or to Sam for that matter, right then than getting to our child and making sure she was safe and taken care of.
"Jack-" I turned to Daniel as we came upon the lake, the chilled wind rippling violently across the water.
"Yes Daniel? Please don't tell me we're going to have to fight over this, I thought we were past that."
"Jack, all I was going to do was remind you that if we go back now, like this, there's nowhere else for us to go, we're going to be arrested, stuck on Earth." I didn't reply. "We could go back to the city and recall the Asgard, go get her that way."
"No, we get her now, damn the consequences. You and Teal'c can stay here, that's fine, I won't hold it against either of you." I was starting to feel like this was the only conversation I was able to have with Daniel.
"No." He answered, taking the lead as we rounded the lake and came upon the DHD, Daniel dialled quickly and we all waited as the chevrons locked into place, spewing out an average-looking wormhole.
I turned to Sam, seeing what I imagined to be my facial expression mirrored on her face, reaching out, I grabbed her hand. "Not exactly how I'd intended on introducing her to Earth."
"No, but I guess that's been taken out of our hands now." Was that relief in her voice? I don't know. Our hands still joined, the two of us walked calmly through the wormhole, hoping that we didn't go 'splat' on the other side.
We didn't go 'splat', and we didn't get shot either, in fact there were only 4 SFs there to even raise their weapons as we came through, kind of a let down. A very quick glance at my watch as I walked hurriedly down to the end of the ramp told me that it was only 0200, the rest of the base wouldn't wake up for at least another three hours.
"Where is she?" I asked, scaring the man I spoke to enough to make him just point out the door... now to me this wasn't helpful, all that meant was that she wasn't in the Gateroom, duh. "Did they take her to the infirmary?" To this the man nodded and managed to stutter out something that sounded like a 'yes'.
I shoved the SF out of the way, his buddies didn't try to stop me either as Sam, Teal'c, and I made our way to the infirmary; taking a bit longer than we would have liked considering Teal'c had to manhandle several people out of our way.
When we got to the infirmary, it appeared as if someone had called ahead to warn them that SG-1 was on our way. Daniel was supposed to be smoothing ruffled feathers in the control room. SG-3, along with several orderlies, were looking straight at the door as we came through it. I went right to the leader of SG-3, they had been the ones on Balteria Major earlier that day.
Okay, so maybe jumping a marine who had at least 50 pounds on me wasn't the brightest idea ever, but it did get his attention.
"Where is she you bastard? Where's my daughter?" As Teal'c pulled me off, the guy just stood there with a blank look on his face. "Blonde, wearing Earth clothes, looks a lot like Major Carter."
Realisation dawned on him. "Oh, the little kid we found, she was obviously from Earth, so we figured we should bring her back to the SGC."
"You kidnapped my kid!" Sometime while being held down by two marines I realised Sam was no longer with us.
Jack was getting nowhere with the marines, it was good for him to release the pent up energy from our extensive stay with Thor, but other than that he wasn't going to get much out of them. I figured something constructive would be a better avenue, and noticing the light on in my (possibly former) best friend's office, I decided that there might be the place to begin. I hadn't seen Janet after the news of Jack and my relationship was brought out, I was a little busy trying to get Jack out of his holding cell, and take over the base, I was worried what her reaction would be. But no matter what her reaction, I had to get my daughter back somehow.
I pushed the door open without knocking, I didn't want to have to wait around to find that it was just some other Doctor filling in for my friend and speaking to a marine with some unknown illness. What I saw made me wonder if I was in the right reality, sitting there are as if she'd been on earth for the entire year and a half she appeared to be was my daughter, Sunheko, but it wasn't entirely her presence that surprised me, no, it was whose lap she was on that threw me for a loop and made me want to go running, or at least warn Jack.
"Dad!"
"Mommy!" Sunny was wrapped around my legs as I struggled to pick my jaw up off the floor and hide my embarrassment from my father.
First, I picked up my daughter, she'd been put through enough for me to shun her. "Hi baby, we were worried about you. You should have told us you wanted to go play." I reprimanded softly, hoping in the mean time my father and yes, Dr. Janet Fraiser would just evaporate.
"Sorry Mommy." She tried to appease me. "The Earth Men said I shouldn't be on that planet, they wanted me to come with them, they didn't ask about you or Daddy." She rambled, and then her face brightened. "Is Daddy here? And Teal'c? And Daniel?"
I peeked out the door, things had calmed as the marines left to shower. "Yes they are, and I'm sure they'd all like to see you. Why don't you go out there and show them you're here?"
"Okay Mommy!" She almost jumped out of my arms as I let her go, leaving me with my completely blank-faced father.
"She's a good kid." He opened, as Janet excused herself with a look that told me we'd be having an in-depth conversation later. "Looks a lot like you, though she does favour her father quite a bit."
"Funny, I thought she looked like you, and nothing like Jack, she does have all of his mannerisms though." Despite my quaking voice, I managed a small smile.
"God help us, two of them running around." His minute smile quickly faded. "Tell me Sam, was this going on the last time I saw you? How long have the two of you been going around behind everyone's backs?"
"No, we weren't together when we saw you last." I answered honestly, as I planned on answering all of his other questions. "Our relationship began about 10 months ago on Balteria Major while we were there negotiating for the treaty between them and Earth. Up until a couple weeks ago only Teal'c, Daniel... and the entire population of Balteria Major, knew of our involvement. Dad, it's been almost a year since I've seen you." He took my statement as a reproach, which it wasn't.
"We're fighting a war out there, in case you've forgotten, and we can't have soldiers going off and having sex with their commanding officers whenever they feel like it. Dammit Sam, why couldn't you have shown a little responsibility? I've known you and Colonel O'Neill had a problem from day one, but I never thought you'd take it this far."
"Dad, don't even bring Jack into this, it's my fault, I'm the one who instigated things in the first place."
"'Don't bring him into this'? He's the reason for 'this' in the first place, isn't he? He's your commanding officer, he should have been responsible enough to turn down your flirting or whatever it was to begin with, if he had we wouldn't even be having this conversation."
"We've both fought side by side with Jack, you know as well as I do that he's one of the best soldiers you'll ever come across." I squared my shoulders and looked my, now standing, father straight in the eye. "Do you have any idea how easy it would have been for me to have ended all of this once I found out I was pregnant? I could have just come home, claimed I'd had an 'accident' with one of the natives and had an abortion. But I didn't, because I knew that despite all we'd end up losing in the process, Jack and I would be gaining a child, someone to bind us together as a family no matter what the US Military had to say about it. What we've been through in the last 10 months in no way compares to our trip to hell and back, never ask if it can get worse, because it can, and it has. In the last three weeks alone, I've broken my arm in a rock fall, had the woman carrying my child taken back by her own people, met a delightful Goa'uld who was determined to kill us all, oh, and found out that instead of getting to see my child grow up normally, I get to witness everything from about age two on. But you know Dad, the only person, the one, single person who was there for me through everything was Jack O'Neill... the man you now seem to want to hate so much."
"I'm sorry," He admitted. "This is how I lost Mark ya know, not listening. It's just things are so..."
"Complicated?" I supplied.
"Yes, Selmak's telling me it's your life and I should just smile and go see my granddaughter."
"Selmak *is* among the oldest and wisest of the Tok'ra."
"Don't think that because Selmak seems perfectly fine with it that I will be, I still plan on having a conversation with Jack, but it will probably be a little less violent than I originally intended."
"Dad! Promise you won't leave any marks that Sunny can see?" The look on his face at this request made me cringe, it was too calculating. "Or that *I* could see." His facial expression changed, this time becoming somewhat comical, I almost expected him to put his hands over his ears and shout 'TMI!' for 'too much information', as Cassandra Fraiser would have done. "Why don't you just try talking to him?" I suggested as I pulled open Janet's office door to find Teal'c colouring with Sunheko.
"Major Carter." Teal'c eyed my father cautiously. "General Carter."
"Where are Jack and Daniel?"
"Daniel Jackson is being examined by Dr. Fraiser. General Hammond arrived, and ordered O'Neill to his office."
"Oh. Can you keep an eye on Sunny for a while?" I asked him, already knowing his answer.
"I will in fact keep both of my eyes on her." It took me a minute as I walked over to them for me to realise he was joking, having gotten (mostly) used to our idioms in his four years with us.
"Sunny, listen to Teal'c, okay? If you're hungry or need to go potty, you need to tell someone so they can go with you, all right?" I kissed her on the forehead before leaving the infirmary and heading as quickly as possible to Hammond's office.
I heard the yelling before I came to the door, it was open of course, who would be around at 2:30 in the morning? For a minute or two, I just stood outside listening as General Hammond listed off all of the regulations the four of us had broken since the beginning of the Balteri Treaty Negotiations. Excluding our relationship, by far the worst charge at the court marshal was going to be Teal'c, Daniel, and my assault on the base to get Jack out of his holding cell and 'gate to Balteria Major; this time we didn't have any sort of alien influence to blame.
I felt the presence behind me long before he spoke, but even when the voice came I was surprised. "Should you not join him?"
"I don't know if he'd want me to, I'm not sure who he is right now." At the confused look, I explained. "If he's in there as "Jack" then he'd want me by his side. But if he's "Colonel O'Neill" right now, I think he'd like to get his dressing-down without his second in command present."
"Ah, I see. You know Samantha, I told your father several years ago that you and Colonel O'Neill would become lovers- he was in denial."
"Selmak! You're not supposed to talk about that kind of thing with my father, there are some things that he just shouldn't know... or even think about." Selmak, the wittiest (and wisest) of all Tok'ra, just gave a motherly (coming from my father's face, very weird) smile and a quiet laugh. The people in the office were still completely oblivious to our presence.
"You have love for each other?" She asked, almost reflectively.
"Yes, very much. We're committed to making our family work. We want Sunheko to have a normal life now that we're back on Earth, with two parents, a sibling or two, and maybe a dog. We know that's not going to happen right away, and we know what we've done is wrong, but neither of us would change it."
"That's very admirable Samantha, and don't worry about your father, he will 'come around'." My kind stepmother in my father's clothing patted me on the shoulder as General Hammond's voice reached a near deafening volume. "Go to him, you harbour no naïve expectations of what's to come. You are now O'Neill's symbiote, without you he can not survive."
"Thank you Selmak." I didn't hug her. I didn't want to make my father uncomfortable by being too physical too soon, despite the fact that it wasn't "him".
Getting one last, supportive smile from Selmak, I stood up straight, squared my shoulders, and knocked lightly on General Hammonds open door, alerting both men to my presence.
"Major Carter." General Hammond turned to me. "I was just about to have you paged."
"Good thing I'm here then, Sir."
"Where's Sunny?" Jack asked quietly, as I joined him in front of the General's desk.
"Playing with Teal'c." Turning back to General Hammond, I realised how tired he looked, almost as if he hadn't slept at all in the 19 days we'd been gone. Surprisingly, his face wasn't as livid red as I'd assumed it would be by how much he was yelling, no, he only looked tired as he closed the door behind me.
"As I was saying Colonel, before Major Carter joined us, there is an enormous amount of charges against the two of you. As usual, Dr. Jackson and Teal'c are exempt form prosecution. But none of it matters because you're not going to be around to face these charges."
"What?"
"Excuse me, Sir?"
"When you left, and news that the child belonged to the two of you became common knowledge, the NID ordered that if it was found, the child should be taken into custody immediately. I'm not going to allow that, I've already made arrangements, but I was expecting a baby, so you'll need to choose a birthday for your daughter."
"They'll know we've run, they'll try to find us."
"No they won't, you'll be dead." I was confused, yes, but as he explained his complex plan, everything became much more clear. It would mean a new start, with new occupations, names, and the loss of our friends. But, it would be what we'd wanted for Sunny since the moment we'd found out about her- a completely normal life. "You do understand that Teal'c and Dr. Jackson will have to stay here? It would be too difficult to realistically hide all five of you."
"Yeah, we kinda figured that." Jack said, the soft words clearly not as sarcastic as they seemed.
We settled on Sunheko's age and birth date quickly, claiming that instead of being born 15 days earlier, she'd actually celebrated her third birthday 15 days earlier on July 8th; which, despite her small size, wasn't that unbelievable.
"Despite how disappointed I was when I found out, I really am happy for you. We're going to miss having SG-1 around here, you've certainly brought a great deal of excitement to this mountain over the last four years."
"Thank you Sir, we'll miss you too."
"I would let you go home and collect some of your things, but considering Lieutenant Jameson from SG-15 lives next door to Major Carter, I don't think that would be wise." This was news to me, I had known the house was for sale, but I hadn't even thought about it.
"How long has Lieutenant Jameson been living there Sir?"
"She transferred here while you were on Balteria negotiating the treaty."
"Oh." I said, as everything clicked into place in my mind, that was why I had been hearing rumours about Jack and my activities, and probably the reason I'd felt like we were being watched on more than one occasion.
"You should go tell Teal'c, Dr. Jackson, and Jacob about the plan, while I call my contact with this information." He motioned to the pad he'd written Sunheko's birth date and middle name on, we were all getting new middle and last names, thankfully keeping our first names.
As soon as the door to the General's office closed behind us, Jack and I were in each other's arms, our whole world was coming to an end.
"Oh god, how are we going to do this?" My question was muffled by his shirt from the HRD.
"We'll get through it somehow, we'll have Sunny, and a little help from Teal'c and Daniel, and hopefully your dad." He pulled back, ending our moment of emotional co-dependence. "We'd better go check on our baby."
We arrived back in the infirmary to find Sunny playing Barbies with my father and Teal'c, while Daniel just sat by, watching with a smirk on his face.
"Where'd you find the Barbies?" I asked, coming up behind him.
"They were just here, I guess they were leftovers from when Doctor Fraiser first had Cassandra."
"Wonder if Cassie's going to want them back?"
"Probably not, she's 15 now, probably more interested in getting a car sometime soon."
"Good, then she won't miss them if we bring them with us."
"Where are we going?" He asked, getting my Dad's (or Selmak's) attention, causing him to look up as we continued our conversation.
"You're not coming with us, you can't come with us."
"What? Why? Where are you going?"
"General Hammond's made all the arrangements, but we do need your help." Jack stepped in, he then proceeded to explain the plan to our friends.
"So let me get this straight, we're never going to see you again?"
"Not if everything goes according to plan. You should be able to come see us, Dad, when you come to see Mark... that is if you want to." I added, not knowing if he was planning on completely avoiding me.
"Of course I'll come. I still love you Sam." He looked to Jack. "No matter what, I still love you." I gave him a smile.
"Good, then if we're discreet, we can send letters to each other through Dad."
We all explained the plan to Sunny, she seemed to understand perfectly well things she shouldn't be able to. Her mind was growing in leaps and bounds.
At 8am, five hours later, we were ready to put our plan into action. Jack and I were to have a yelling match with General Hammond about the NID taking Sunny, getting the SFs involved, but not enough to get Sunheko hurt. We would then run to the Control Room, knock out Walter Davis, dial a heavily populated Goa'uld world, and close the blast doors.
Simple enough, we did that, gently (not really) zatting Walter before we took out the gathered SFs, between the five of us we had four zats, so unless someone fell and hit their head, no one was seriously injured.
We then sealed the Gateroom doors and turned to our friends.
"Thank you," I hugged Teal'c. "I'm sorry we have to leave like this."
"You are a formidable warrior Samantha Carter. You have helped my people and many others, for that I thank you."
Daniel was next, he and Jack had already said their goodbyes while Sunny and I slept (well, Sunny slept, I just watched her mostly).
"I'm sorry." I said, causing him to pull me into a hug.
"Don't be, what I didn't see until now is that there are some things more important than SG-1, and Sunny is one of those things." He released me and picked up my daughter. "I'm going to miss you kid, hope you have a great life."
And we left, we had to climb our way out of the Mountain, and with everyone's attention turned towards the demise of three packs through the Stargate, we hiked as we had before through the woods to meet my Dad on one of the main roads leading into Colorado Springs, and then back out of town heading South West.
"Did Hammond give you our IDs?" Jack asked, once we were out of Colorado Springs, headed for California.
"Yup, you guys are going to love your last name, Selmak chose it."
"Oh dear." He handed me a bag with various documents of identification- birth certificates, social security cards, driver's licences, and even a marriage licence. I was surprised to see our wedding date as almost five years earlier, the day SG-1 had become SG-1. "Isn't Kree a little suspicious?"
"Not really, the government doesn't really pay attention to the Goa'uld language, and it's not like they're going to be looking. Besides, I've met someone with the last name Gould before, so Kree shouldn't be that unbelievable."
In the pack, I also found instructions. "'Jack and Samantha Kree purchased a home in a Southern California suburb eight days ago, after securing jobs at the "Saint Giles School" teaching high school English and science respectively. Their young daughter, Sunheko Kree, is registered to attend preschool at St. Giles in the fall." I read. "Jack's going to teach English?"
"What? You don't think I can?"
"I never said that, you just don't strike me as the English-teaching type."
"He's got perfect grammar, and I figured it'd be better in the long run than being a gym teacher."
"Thank you." Jack went through the pack, pulling out a bunch of bank information, with check books, ATM cards, and a couple credit cards. The information on our savings and checking accounts showed that the Kree family was not lacking in funds, at all. "Woah Jake, where'd all this money come from?"
"That is the sum of the money in both of your bank accounts, and pensions if Sam had kept working for another 20 years. This money is 'borrowed' from the US Government for now, when they seize all of your assets in your 'death' they'll get it all back."
We kept driving, all three of us in the back of the van sleeping off and on as Selmak kept my Dad awake as he drove though the day and late into the night.
It was after ten when we reached the address listed in the letter, it was a nice, two story, California-style house with a truck and an SUV in the driveway, which I assumed were part of the pack of keys I had.
"Sunny, wake up baby, we're home." Jack pulled our daughter out of her seat while I dug out the keys to our house and let us all in.
The place was sparsely furnished with just the essentials, leaving us enough room to personalise the house to our own tastes. "I'll take her to find a bed, I don't think she feels up to touring the house tonight."
"All right. Sleep well honey." I kissed Sunheko's and then Jack's cheek. "I'll grab our stuff and be right up."
"Okay." He whispered as he leaned forward, capturing my lips for a brief kiss before hauling Sunheko's sleepy body up the stairs.
Turning to the door, I found my father standing there, watching me. "You sure you're going to be all right?" He asked, handing me the two bags of supplies we'd been able to scrounge up from our lockers and on-base quarters, we'd brought all of the personal belongings we had that couldn't identify us.
"Yeah, we'll be fine. Thanks for your help Dad, I know this isn't exactly an ideal situation, but thank you. And thank General Hammond for all of his help too... this is really nice. I think we'll be very happy here." He pulled me into a tight hug and as he pulled back I could see Selmak struggling to reign in his emotions.
"I'm on my way to see Mark now, to make this little trip believable, but I'll stop back by on my way back to Cheyenne." He explained. "I'd love to spend more time with you and Sunny, I already feel like I've missed so much. And I still have to have that conversation with Jack."
"Dad." I said, exasperated.
"I know, he's a good man, and I get that you love him, I don't understand it, but I get it." He hugged me again before turning and walking out the door. "You're death is going to be really hard on me, I'm going to have to be coming here to see Mark a lot more often now you know, possibly for a couple weeks at a time, of course Mark'll only be able to explain my whereabouts for a week or so of that."
I smiled as I closed the door and looked once more around my new home. From what I could tell, with nothing to do for the next month until school started, the "Kree" family was going to have a lot of fun shopping for new belongings and just being together as a family.
As I mounted the stairs, I could already see the dog I was sure Jack would have for Sunny soon, running up the stairs with me to reach her little girl. We'd save the world by recycling, and we'd be happy.
The End Has Come... please send feedback J kelly.mullins@verizon.net
I woke up Sam. "Sunny's missing."
"What?" She jumped up right after me, following me around, in and out of every room before it was clear that I was right and she really wasn't there any more. That was when I noticed the front door- it was cracked about an inch, somehow, she'd managed to pull the incredibly heavy thing open. "It's all right, maybe she just went to see Daniel or Teal'c?"
We headed out the door and down the hall, knocking on Daniel's door as we came to it first.
"Uh hey Jack, what are you doing here?"
"Have you seen Sunny? She's missing."
"Missing? How?" He pulled us into his room, out of the hall.
"We all took a nap," I said, and at the look on his face added. "together... she must have woken up and decided to take a walk."
"Well we've gotta find her, the SG team's still here."
"Yeah, we kinda figured that. Figured we'd ask you and Teal'c if she happened to come and see you." The three of us moved on to Teal'c's room next, he had a very similar story to Daniel's, in other words he hadn't seen her either.
We split up to search the council building. It was pretty late, I don't know why we hadn't been awakened for dinner, and of the very few people we came across, no one had seen Sunny. The four of us joined up again to search more of the city, we decided our best bet at finding her would be at her friends' houses and if we didn't find her there we were going to split up again.
"How hard can this be? There are two blonde people on this planet right now, and we've got one of them with us. Sunny's dressed different *and* she's got blonde hair... she should stick out, so why aren't we seeing her?" I asked no one in particular.
"Perhaps because she is in one of the buildings O'Neill." Teal'c suggested, in response to my rhetorical question.
We finally came across someone who had seen Sunny a while later, it was a group of someones actually. A bunch of kids were playing in an excruciatingly well lit area, with their parents around them.
"You wish to know of your child?" One of the parents asked before any of us even opened our mouths, whether from them knowing already or their telepathic abilities, I don't know.
"Yes!" Sam and I yelled simultaneously.
"She left with the explorers, back to your planet."
"What?" Sam's and my mind seemed to be going along the same line.
"She was playing with our children as they were on their way back to the 'Stargate', when they saw her one of the men picked her up and left with her. His intentions were not clear, but there was no malice in his thoughts."
"We've gotta go get her. Those bastards took our daughter!" I walked away from the group without further comment, all I knew was that I had to get to Earth and get my daughter back.
"Jack!" Sam was running to catch up with me. "Jack! How are we supposed to get back to Earth? We don't have our GDO, and even if we did they would have locked out our IDC by now."
"Somehow I have a feeling that if the 'gate activates from Balteria that they'll open the iris." The three moons of the planet cast plenty of light on our path as I trekked to the Stargate, there was nothing in our rooms that was more important to me, or to Sam for that matter, right then than getting to our child and making sure she was safe and taken care of.
"Jack-" I turned to Daniel as we came upon the lake, the chilled wind rippling violently across the water.
"Yes Daniel? Please don't tell me we're going to have to fight over this, I thought we were past that."
"Jack, all I was going to do was remind you that if we go back now, like this, there's nowhere else for us to go, we're going to be arrested, stuck on Earth." I didn't reply. "We could go back to the city and recall the Asgard, go get her that way."
"No, we get her now, damn the consequences. You and Teal'c can stay here, that's fine, I won't hold it against either of you." I was starting to feel like this was the only conversation I was able to have with Daniel.
"No." He answered, taking the lead as we rounded the lake and came upon the DHD, Daniel dialled quickly and we all waited as the chevrons locked into place, spewing out an average-looking wormhole.
I turned to Sam, seeing what I imagined to be my facial expression mirrored on her face, reaching out, I grabbed her hand. "Not exactly how I'd intended on introducing her to Earth."
"No, but I guess that's been taken out of our hands now." Was that relief in her voice? I don't know. Our hands still joined, the two of us walked calmly through the wormhole, hoping that we didn't go 'splat' on the other side.
We didn't go 'splat', and we didn't get shot either, in fact there were only 4 SFs there to even raise their weapons as we came through, kind of a let down. A very quick glance at my watch as I walked hurriedly down to the end of the ramp told me that it was only 0200, the rest of the base wouldn't wake up for at least another three hours.
"Where is she?" I asked, scaring the man I spoke to enough to make him just point out the door... now to me this wasn't helpful, all that meant was that she wasn't in the Gateroom, duh. "Did they take her to the infirmary?" To this the man nodded and managed to stutter out something that sounded like a 'yes'.
I shoved the SF out of the way, his buddies didn't try to stop me either as Sam, Teal'c, and I made our way to the infirmary; taking a bit longer than we would have liked considering Teal'c had to manhandle several people out of our way.
When we got to the infirmary, it appeared as if someone had called ahead to warn them that SG-1 was on our way. Daniel was supposed to be smoothing ruffled feathers in the control room. SG-3, along with several orderlies, were looking straight at the door as we came through it. I went right to the leader of SG-3, they had been the ones on Balteria Major earlier that day.
Okay, so maybe jumping a marine who had at least 50 pounds on me wasn't the brightest idea ever, but it did get his attention.
"Where is she you bastard? Where's my daughter?" As Teal'c pulled me off, the guy just stood there with a blank look on his face. "Blonde, wearing Earth clothes, looks a lot like Major Carter."
Realisation dawned on him. "Oh, the little kid we found, she was obviously from Earth, so we figured we should bring her back to the SGC."
"You kidnapped my kid!" Sometime while being held down by two marines I realised Sam was no longer with us.
Jack was getting nowhere with the marines, it was good for him to release the pent up energy from our extensive stay with Thor, but other than that he wasn't going to get much out of them. I figured something constructive would be a better avenue, and noticing the light on in my (possibly former) best friend's office, I decided that there might be the place to begin. I hadn't seen Janet after the news of Jack and my relationship was brought out, I was a little busy trying to get Jack out of his holding cell, and take over the base, I was worried what her reaction would be. But no matter what her reaction, I had to get my daughter back somehow.
I pushed the door open without knocking, I didn't want to have to wait around to find that it was just some other Doctor filling in for my friend and speaking to a marine with some unknown illness. What I saw made me wonder if I was in the right reality, sitting there are as if she'd been on earth for the entire year and a half she appeared to be was my daughter, Sunheko, but it wasn't entirely her presence that surprised me, no, it was whose lap she was on that threw me for a loop and made me want to go running, or at least warn Jack.
"Dad!"
"Mommy!" Sunny was wrapped around my legs as I struggled to pick my jaw up off the floor and hide my embarrassment from my father.
First, I picked up my daughter, she'd been put through enough for me to shun her. "Hi baby, we were worried about you. You should have told us you wanted to go play." I reprimanded softly, hoping in the mean time my father and yes, Dr. Janet Fraiser would just evaporate.
"Sorry Mommy." She tried to appease me. "The Earth Men said I shouldn't be on that planet, they wanted me to come with them, they didn't ask about you or Daddy." She rambled, and then her face brightened. "Is Daddy here? And Teal'c? And Daniel?"
I peeked out the door, things had calmed as the marines left to shower. "Yes they are, and I'm sure they'd all like to see you. Why don't you go out there and show them you're here?"
"Okay Mommy!" She almost jumped out of my arms as I let her go, leaving me with my completely blank-faced father.
"She's a good kid." He opened, as Janet excused herself with a look that told me we'd be having an in-depth conversation later. "Looks a lot like you, though she does favour her father quite a bit."
"Funny, I thought she looked like you, and nothing like Jack, she does have all of his mannerisms though." Despite my quaking voice, I managed a small smile.
"God help us, two of them running around." His minute smile quickly faded. "Tell me Sam, was this going on the last time I saw you? How long have the two of you been going around behind everyone's backs?"
"No, we weren't together when we saw you last." I answered honestly, as I planned on answering all of his other questions. "Our relationship began about 10 months ago on Balteria Major while we were there negotiating for the treaty between them and Earth. Up until a couple weeks ago only Teal'c, Daniel... and the entire population of Balteria Major, knew of our involvement. Dad, it's been almost a year since I've seen you." He took my statement as a reproach, which it wasn't.
"We're fighting a war out there, in case you've forgotten, and we can't have soldiers going off and having sex with their commanding officers whenever they feel like it. Dammit Sam, why couldn't you have shown a little responsibility? I've known you and Colonel O'Neill had a problem from day one, but I never thought you'd take it this far."
"Dad, don't even bring Jack into this, it's my fault, I'm the one who instigated things in the first place."
"'Don't bring him into this'? He's the reason for 'this' in the first place, isn't he? He's your commanding officer, he should have been responsible enough to turn down your flirting or whatever it was to begin with, if he had we wouldn't even be having this conversation."
"We've both fought side by side with Jack, you know as well as I do that he's one of the best soldiers you'll ever come across." I squared my shoulders and looked my, now standing, father straight in the eye. "Do you have any idea how easy it would have been for me to have ended all of this once I found out I was pregnant? I could have just come home, claimed I'd had an 'accident' with one of the natives and had an abortion. But I didn't, because I knew that despite all we'd end up losing in the process, Jack and I would be gaining a child, someone to bind us together as a family no matter what the US Military had to say about it. What we've been through in the last 10 months in no way compares to our trip to hell and back, never ask if it can get worse, because it can, and it has. In the last three weeks alone, I've broken my arm in a rock fall, had the woman carrying my child taken back by her own people, met a delightful Goa'uld who was determined to kill us all, oh, and found out that instead of getting to see my child grow up normally, I get to witness everything from about age two on. But you know Dad, the only person, the one, single person who was there for me through everything was Jack O'Neill... the man you now seem to want to hate so much."
"I'm sorry," He admitted. "This is how I lost Mark ya know, not listening. It's just things are so..."
"Complicated?" I supplied.
"Yes, Selmak's telling me it's your life and I should just smile and go see my granddaughter."
"Selmak *is* among the oldest and wisest of the Tok'ra."
"Don't think that because Selmak seems perfectly fine with it that I will be, I still plan on having a conversation with Jack, but it will probably be a little less violent than I originally intended."
"Dad! Promise you won't leave any marks that Sunny can see?" The look on his face at this request made me cringe, it was too calculating. "Or that *I* could see." His facial expression changed, this time becoming somewhat comical, I almost expected him to put his hands over his ears and shout 'TMI!' for 'too much information', as Cassandra Fraiser would have done. "Why don't you just try talking to him?" I suggested as I pulled open Janet's office door to find Teal'c colouring with Sunheko.
"Major Carter." Teal'c eyed my father cautiously. "General Carter."
"Where are Jack and Daniel?"
"Daniel Jackson is being examined by Dr. Fraiser. General Hammond arrived, and ordered O'Neill to his office."
"Oh. Can you keep an eye on Sunny for a while?" I asked him, already knowing his answer.
"I will in fact keep both of my eyes on her." It took me a minute as I walked over to them for me to realise he was joking, having gotten (mostly) used to our idioms in his four years with us.
"Sunny, listen to Teal'c, okay? If you're hungry or need to go potty, you need to tell someone so they can go with you, all right?" I kissed her on the forehead before leaving the infirmary and heading as quickly as possible to Hammond's office.
I heard the yelling before I came to the door, it was open of course, who would be around at 2:30 in the morning? For a minute or two, I just stood outside listening as General Hammond listed off all of the regulations the four of us had broken since the beginning of the Balteri Treaty Negotiations. Excluding our relationship, by far the worst charge at the court marshal was going to be Teal'c, Daniel, and my assault on the base to get Jack out of his holding cell and 'gate to Balteria Major; this time we didn't have any sort of alien influence to blame.
I felt the presence behind me long before he spoke, but even when the voice came I was surprised. "Should you not join him?"
"I don't know if he'd want me to, I'm not sure who he is right now." At the confused look, I explained. "If he's in there as "Jack" then he'd want me by his side. But if he's "Colonel O'Neill" right now, I think he'd like to get his dressing-down without his second in command present."
"Ah, I see. You know Samantha, I told your father several years ago that you and Colonel O'Neill would become lovers- he was in denial."
"Selmak! You're not supposed to talk about that kind of thing with my father, there are some things that he just shouldn't know... or even think about." Selmak, the wittiest (and wisest) of all Tok'ra, just gave a motherly (coming from my father's face, very weird) smile and a quiet laugh. The people in the office were still completely oblivious to our presence.
"You have love for each other?" She asked, almost reflectively.
"Yes, very much. We're committed to making our family work. We want Sunheko to have a normal life now that we're back on Earth, with two parents, a sibling or two, and maybe a dog. We know that's not going to happen right away, and we know what we've done is wrong, but neither of us would change it."
"That's very admirable Samantha, and don't worry about your father, he will 'come around'." My kind stepmother in my father's clothing patted me on the shoulder as General Hammond's voice reached a near deafening volume. "Go to him, you harbour no naïve expectations of what's to come. You are now O'Neill's symbiote, without you he can not survive."
"Thank you Selmak." I didn't hug her. I didn't want to make my father uncomfortable by being too physical too soon, despite the fact that it wasn't "him".
Getting one last, supportive smile from Selmak, I stood up straight, squared my shoulders, and knocked lightly on General Hammonds open door, alerting both men to my presence.
"Major Carter." General Hammond turned to me. "I was just about to have you paged."
"Good thing I'm here then, Sir."
"Where's Sunny?" Jack asked quietly, as I joined him in front of the General's desk.
"Playing with Teal'c." Turning back to General Hammond, I realised how tired he looked, almost as if he hadn't slept at all in the 19 days we'd been gone. Surprisingly, his face wasn't as livid red as I'd assumed it would be by how much he was yelling, no, he only looked tired as he closed the door behind me.
"As I was saying Colonel, before Major Carter joined us, there is an enormous amount of charges against the two of you. As usual, Dr. Jackson and Teal'c are exempt form prosecution. But none of it matters because you're not going to be around to face these charges."
"What?"
"Excuse me, Sir?"
"When you left, and news that the child belonged to the two of you became common knowledge, the NID ordered that if it was found, the child should be taken into custody immediately. I'm not going to allow that, I've already made arrangements, but I was expecting a baby, so you'll need to choose a birthday for your daughter."
"They'll know we've run, they'll try to find us."
"No they won't, you'll be dead." I was confused, yes, but as he explained his complex plan, everything became much more clear. It would mean a new start, with new occupations, names, and the loss of our friends. But, it would be what we'd wanted for Sunny since the moment we'd found out about her- a completely normal life. "You do understand that Teal'c and Dr. Jackson will have to stay here? It would be too difficult to realistically hide all five of you."
"Yeah, we kinda figured that." Jack said, the soft words clearly not as sarcastic as they seemed.
We settled on Sunheko's age and birth date quickly, claiming that instead of being born 15 days earlier, she'd actually celebrated her third birthday 15 days earlier on July 8th; which, despite her small size, wasn't that unbelievable.
"Despite how disappointed I was when I found out, I really am happy for you. We're going to miss having SG-1 around here, you've certainly brought a great deal of excitement to this mountain over the last four years."
"Thank you Sir, we'll miss you too."
"I would let you go home and collect some of your things, but considering Lieutenant Jameson from SG-15 lives next door to Major Carter, I don't think that would be wise." This was news to me, I had known the house was for sale, but I hadn't even thought about it.
"How long has Lieutenant Jameson been living there Sir?"
"She transferred here while you were on Balteria negotiating the treaty."
"Oh." I said, as everything clicked into place in my mind, that was why I had been hearing rumours about Jack and my activities, and probably the reason I'd felt like we were being watched on more than one occasion.
"You should go tell Teal'c, Dr. Jackson, and Jacob about the plan, while I call my contact with this information." He motioned to the pad he'd written Sunheko's birth date and middle name on, we were all getting new middle and last names, thankfully keeping our first names.
As soon as the door to the General's office closed behind us, Jack and I were in each other's arms, our whole world was coming to an end.
"Oh god, how are we going to do this?" My question was muffled by his shirt from the HRD.
"We'll get through it somehow, we'll have Sunny, and a little help from Teal'c and Daniel, and hopefully your dad." He pulled back, ending our moment of emotional co-dependence. "We'd better go check on our baby."
We arrived back in the infirmary to find Sunny playing Barbies with my father and Teal'c, while Daniel just sat by, watching with a smirk on his face.
"Where'd you find the Barbies?" I asked, coming up behind him.
"They were just here, I guess they were leftovers from when Doctor Fraiser first had Cassandra."
"Wonder if Cassie's going to want them back?"
"Probably not, she's 15 now, probably more interested in getting a car sometime soon."
"Good, then she won't miss them if we bring them with us."
"Where are we going?" He asked, getting my Dad's (or Selmak's) attention, causing him to look up as we continued our conversation.
"You're not coming with us, you can't come with us."
"What? Why? Where are you going?"
"General Hammond's made all the arrangements, but we do need your help." Jack stepped in, he then proceeded to explain the plan to our friends.
"So let me get this straight, we're never going to see you again?"
"Not if everything goes according to plan. You should be able to come see us, Dad, when you come to see Mark... that is if you want to." I added, not knowing if he was planning on completely avoiding me.
"Of course I'll come. I still love you Sam." He looked to Jack. "No matter what, I still love you." I gave him a smile.
"Good, then if we're discreet, we can send letters to each other through Dad."
We all explained the plan to Sunny, she seemed to understand perfectly well things she shouldn't be able to. Her mind was growing in leaps and bounds.
At 8am, five hours later, we were ready to put our plan into action. Jack and I were to have a yelling match with General Hammond about the NID taking Sunny, getting the SFs involved, but not enough to get Sunheko hurt. We would then run to the Control Room, knock out Walter Davis, dial a heavily populated Goa'uld world, and close the blast doors.
Simple enough, we did that, gently (not really) zatting Walter before we took out the gathered SFs, between the five of us we had four zats, so unless someone fell and hit their head, no one was seriously injured.
We then sealed the Gateroom doors and turned to our friends.
"Thank you," I hugged Teal'c. "I'm sorry we have to leave like this."
"You are a formidable warrior Samantha Carter. You have helped my people and many others, for that I thank you."
Daniel was next, he and Jack had already said their goodbyes while Sunny and I slept (well, Sunny slept, I just watched her mostly).
"I'm sorry." I said, causing him to pull me into a hug.
"Don't be, what I didn't see until now is that there are some things more important than SG-1, and Sunny is one of those things." He released me and picked up my daughter. "I'm going to miss you kid, hope you have a great life."
And we left, we had to climb our way out of the Mountain, and with everyone's attention turned towards the demise of three packs through the Stargate, we hiked as we had before through the woods to meet my Dad on one of the main roads leading into Colorado Springs, and then back out of town heading South West.
"Did Hammond give you our IDs?" Jack asked, once we were out of Colorado Springs, headed for California.
"Yup, you guys are going to love your last name, Selmak chose it."
"Oh dear." He handed me a bag with various documents of identification- birth certificates, social security cards, driver's licences, and even a marriage licence. I was surprised to see our wedding date as almost five years earlier, the day SG-1 had become SG-1. "Isn't Kree a little suspicious?"
"Not really, the government doesn't really pay attention to the Goa'uld language, and it's not like they're going to be looking. Besides, I've met someone with the last name Gould before, so Kree shouldn't be that unbelievable."
In the pack, I also found instructions. "'Jack and Samantha Kree purchased a home in a Southern California suburb eight days ago, after securing jobs at the "Saint Giles School" teaching high school English and science respectively. Their young daughter, Sunheko Kree, is registered to attend preschool at St. Giles in the fall." I read. "Jack's going to teach English?"
"What? You don't think I can?"
"I never said that, you just don't strike me as the English-teaching type."
"He's got perfect grammar, and I figured it'd be better in the long run than being a gym teacher."
"Thank you." Jack went through the pack, pulling out a bunch of bank information, with check books, ATM cards, and a couple credit cards. The information on our savings and checking accounts showed that the Kree family was not lacking in funds, at all. "Woah Jake, where'd all this money come from?"
"That is the sum of the money in both of your bank accounts, and pensions if Sam had kept working for another 20 years. This money is 'borrowed' from the US Government for now, when they seize all of your assets in your 'death' they'll get it all back."
We kept driving, all three of us in the back of the van sleeping off and on as Selmak kept my Dad awake as he drove though the day and late into the night.
It was after ten when we reached the address listed in the letter, it was a nice, two story, California-style house with a truck and an SUV in the driveway, which I assumed were part of the pack of keys I had.
"Sunny, wake up baby, we're home." Jack pulled our daughter out of her seat while I dug out the keys to our house and let us all in.
The place was sparsely furnished with just the essentials, leaving us enough room to personalise the house to our own tastes. "I'll take her to find a bed, I don't think she feels up to touring the house tonight."
"All right. Sleep well honey." I kissed Sunheko's and then Jack's cheek. "I'll grab our stuff and be right up."
"Okay." He whispered as he leaned forward, capturing my lips for a brief kiss before hauling Sunheko's sleepy body up the stairs.
Turning to the door, I found my father standing there, watching me. "You sure you're going to be all right?" He asked, handing me the two bags of supplies we'd been able to scrounge up from our lockers and on-base quarters, we'd brought all of the personal belongings we had that couldn't identify us.
"Yeah, we'll be fine. Thanks for your help Dad, I know this isn't exactly an ideal situation, but thank you. And thank General Hammond for all of his help too... this is really nice. I think we'll be very happy here." He pulled me into a tight hug and as he pulled back I could see Selmak struggling to reign in his emotions.
"I'm on my way to see Mark now, to make this little trip believable, but I'll stop back by on my way back to Cheyenne." He explained. "I'd love to spend more time with you and Sunny, I already feel like I've missed so much. And I still have to have that conversation with Jack."
"Dad." I said, exasperated.
"I know, he's a good man, and I get that you love him, I don't understand it, but I get it." He hugged me again before turning and walking out the door. "You're death is going to be really hard on me, I'm going to have to be coming here to see Mark a lot more often now you know, possibly for a couple weeks at a time, of course Mark'll only be able to explain my whereabouts for a week or so of that."
I smiled as I closed the door and looked once more around my new home. From what I could tell, with nothing to do for the next month until school started, the "Kree" family was going to have a lot of fun shopping for new belongings and just being together as a family.
As I mounted the stairs, I could already see the dog I was sure Jack would have for Sunny soon, running up the stairs with me to reach her little girl. We'd save the world by recycling, and we'd be happy.
The End Has Come... please send feedback J kelly.mullins@verizon.net