Author's Note: Wow, over thirty reviews. That more reviews than I've ever had on any other story (the last was like twenty-eight and that had a bunch of chapters!). But don't let that make you think that you don't need to keep reviewing (whoa, that's interesting grammar "don't let that make you think"). So, please keep R/Ring and enjoy the chapter.

Summary: As things unfold, what will Jesse remember and what will Janet find that can forever change the way Jesse looks at his life?

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Chapter Four:

The Secret

Once again, Jesse found himself being escorted through the halls of the SGC. But, this time, he at least he had his father with him. At least he wasn't alone with the Major praying his parents were alive.

Walking in silence, Jesse looked at the wall he knew to belong to the Infirmary. Just down the hall, he could see the door- opened and inviting. Inside, he knew there were conversations and things going he on he would never know or understand.

It took only six or seven steps until he and Jack reached the opened Infirmary door. Stepping inside, the men saw Janet and Sam talking in the back corner. Jesse took in the two women as he approached them. His mother wore green army fatigues with a black undershirt- something he never saw her wear before. Janet, however, wore an Air Force uniform underneath her white lab coat and her stethoscope hung around her neck.

The moment Jack and Jesse got into hearing range, the two women abruptly stopped talking and turned to greet the two. "Hi, sir. Jesse," Sam said with a hesitant smile, not looking at Jack. Jesse had noticed the "sir", understanding that it was probably a habit from her Air Force position that his mother never acquired.

"Carter, Doctor."

"Dr. Fraser, nice to see you again," Jesse said to the Doctor. "M-Major," Jesse stuttered over the word "mom", choosing to not say it after all. Neither his father nor his mother ever gave him the permission to call them by those names, so he wouldn't.

"So," Jack started. "What do you got?"

"We're just waiting for the General," Janet explained but it didn't take long for the General to arrive. At that moment, General Hammond appeared through the Infirmary's doors and approached the small group. Like all the others Jesse had seen, Hammond looked almost identical to the Hammond he had met not long before he came to his newest home.

"Doctor?" The General inquired and easily started the meeting.

"Well, according to his MRI," Janet began, holding the transparent black and white image up to the light. "He's not a Gou'ald. But, while running tests on his blood sample, I found traces of a protein marker- similar to Sam's from Jolinar."

Sam looked over at her son. She thought she had sensed something from him, but she hadn't been able to identify or connect it to anything. "Could it have been from… his mother?" Sam theorized.

"Even if she, too, had been inhabited by Jolinar, I doubt that the protein marker is hereditary," Janet said. "The only thing that would have caused it was if he had once been a host." Looking back at the confused Jesse, Janet gave him her "doctor" smile and asked, "Could I take a look at the back of your neck?"

Jesse hadn't understood any of what they had been talking about. MRIs, Gou'ald, hosts, protein markers: it all meant nothing to him put together the way it was. Secondly, he wouldn't have the slightest clue why they would want to see the back of his neck.

Without voicing his many questions, Jesse turned and allowed the Doctor to step forward. She pulled back on his shirt collar, inspecting his skin. Janet's eyes scanned over his nicely tanned skin and found exactly what she had hoped not to. Janet's eyes pealed themselves from the four-inch scar on his neck and looked at the General.

"He's no threat to the base? Correct?"

"Yes, General. The Gou'ald is dead," Janet re-enforced her belief in what she knew.

"What Gou'ald?" Jesse demanded. He tried turning his head enough to see what was going on while being prohibited from moving because of the Doctor's hold on his shirt.

Janet's eyes searched out Sam and Jack's, almost as if asking their permission to tell him what she knew. Sam just looked away while Jack looked down at the ground. Janet took that as the best sign that they were willing to tell him.

Letting go of his shirt so he could see her, Janet looked him in the eye, ready to explain what she knew she could only tap dance around. "Well, Jesse." Janet started slowly, as if afraid he would brake from the overload of new information. "Whenever you got that scar… it was from a… Gou'ald entering your body. They tend to go through the back of the neck, making it easier to attach themselves to the brainstem. I don't know how, but that Gou'ald died and… dissolved into your bloodstream. Which is what left the protein marker."

Janet watched him closely throughout her explanation. His expressions started with calm yet apprehensive, waiting for her to get on with it. Afterward, he quickly became baffled yet skeptic. Two things that weren't good with what she was trying to get across.

"No, that's impossible. My parents told me that scar came from hitting my neck on something when I was five. I got four stitches in that thing. They even showed me the chart and everything. It's a mistake," Jesse insisted.

Janet just shook her head and said, "It's not a mistake. You did have a Gou'ald invade your body. You said you were five, you probably don't remember. It wouldn't surprise me that your parents tried to make you forget what happened."

Jesse looked at her, his anger rising for some reason. He wanted her to stop talking about these things. He wanted her to stop trying to tell him that his parents lied to him. He wanted everything to stop and go back to the way they were. He just wanted everything to stop.

With a deep breath to calm his raging emotions, Jesse managed to get out, "You're wrong." With that, Jesse gave up and ran out of the room. Leaving no time for them to truly react or chase after him with his huge start on them.

"Would you like me to have the MP's find him?" The General asked two of his finest officers.

"No, I'll find him," Sam said, knowing that it would be easy for her to do. Not to mention her personal experience made it easier for her to talk to him.

Jesse had no idea were he was going. He was just running. And running with all his might. He felt as if he could just run away from everything going on by getting away from everyone. No matter the fact that he knew it was doing nothing at that moment.

Looking back, Jesse knew he had caused some damage in his path, but nothing that couldn't be easily fixed. At that moment, Jesse felt himself stop suddenly and hit the ground. At the same moment, he heard a man say, "Whoa there, kid! What are you doing? Better question, why are you?"

Jesse looked up into the hazel eyes of a thirty or forty year old man dressed as everyone else was: green pants, black shirt, green shirt to go over the black one. It was pretty boring when it went with the grey walls.

The man's face was kind with his friendly smile and joking eyes. Shaking his head, his brown hair moved just slightly out of place. Reaching out an arm, he offered it to Jesse in order to help him get back on his feet.

"Thanks," Jesse said, looking down at his feet.

"Lieutenant Robert Jones. What's your name?"

Jesse looked the man over and then down at his hand still holding tight to his. It was as if he thought he would bolt the minute he let go. Which he probably would. Looking back at his face, Jesse kept his eyes directly on his nose while saying, "Jesse O'Neill."

"Any relation to Colonel Jack O'Neill?" Jones asked, his brow creased as his noticed the similarities in Jesse's features to the infamous Major Carter and his name to the equally well known Jack O'Neill.

"Yea, he's my f… yea." The Lieutenant nodded in confusion- he would never understand the place he was working in. He may have been there for almost a year, but it was a strange place and stranger yet was the people he had met while working there.

"So, why where you running through the halls?"

Jesse shrugged, feigning innocence. "I just was."

"Jesse!" Jesse's ears perked when he heard his mother calling his name. With a hard pull on the Lieutenant's hand, he tried to pull his free. But, despite the fact he was strong for his age, Lieutenant Jones was stronger than he was.

"Major Carter!" Jones yelled out to get his mother's attention and she soon appeared. "I think I found what you were looking for?" Jones asked when she got a little closer. The SGC officer had only had the pleasure of working with Sam once before- around three weeks ago- but knew of her mostly from scuttlebutt.

"Thank-you, Lieutenant. I'll take him from here."

"Yes, ma'am." With her order, Jones finally let Jesse's hand go and continued on his way with one last look at the pair. Jesse watched as he went, noticing the patch on his shoulder with a large 3 on it.

"Major Carter," Jesse asked, his eyes once again finding a good spot on the ground to stare at.

"Can we talk, Jesse?" Jesse shrugged, not looking at her.

**Outside the SGC**

"I understand what you're going through," Sam said gently. They were the first real words spoken between them since Sam had taken him from Lieutenant Jones. She, instead of talking in the populated halls or in her lab, decided to take him out of the mountain and walk through the wooded area surrounding her work place.

"How could you?" Jesse asked with a huff, refusing to believe what she was saying.

Sam sighed and corrected herself. "Alright, I only understand the principle of your traveling to different realities and can only imagine what it's been like for you to realize that everyone you know is most likely dead by now. But I understand some of the other stuff."

Jesse looked at her as she easily deadpanned his life for the past twenty-four hours. She worked at the SGC and saw many things like the Gou'ald and such but he doubted she could begin to understand what it's like to find things out after you completely believe your parents telling you something opposite.

Sam watched her son and saw he didn't believe her. So she decided on a different approach. She'd spill everything. "About…five years ago, my team and I were trying to help save a village on another planet from the Gou'ald. There was this man; he wasn't breathing so I tried mouth to mouth. Suddenly, I found myself losing control. It was just… slipping away from me. I fought the symbiote hard, but she was stronger than I was in many ways."

At that point, Jesse was watching his mother very intensely. She was telling him something he knew was very personal to her. Jesse sat down and was soon joined by Sam. Jesse continued observing her, waiting for her to collect her thoughts and continue with the story as if a young child wanting the end of a fairy tale.

"Later, a Gou'ald assassin tried to kill the both of us. Jolinar gave her life to save mine. A Gou'ald would never do that. We discovered not much later that she was telling the truth when she said that she was a Tok'ra."

"They said something about an alley called the Tok'ra. Who are they?"

"The Tok'ra is… a group of aliens. They are much like the Gou'ald. Symbiotic. But they take only hosts that are willing rather than by force. Plus they are trying to destroy the Gou'ald, like we are," Sam explained.

"Oh, and you were… possessed by one unwillingly? Wouldn't that be against what they believe?"

"Yes, she was willing to leave my body and enter another host if she could go through the Stargate… but, no one would trust her. They weren't about to let her go with my body," Sam told her son with a faint smile.

Jesse thought her words over, looking away yet at nothing. Lose strands of hair found their way into his eyes but he didn't notice. His mind was thousands of miles away seemingly in another world.

The loud noise scared the young boy of five. Red lights lit on the walls illuminated him in a red gleam. He looked around the room he had been told to wait in by his parents; too afraid to move anywhere else just as he was too disciplined to know to do just that.

Sliding out of his chair, he stood up straight showing his height of a mere 2'7". His curly blonde hair hung unbrushed in his eyes as he looked down into the room below him that the glass screen allowed him to see. Pressing his face and hands up to the clear wall, his curious blue eyes scanned the large area; watching the red-haired Doctor work on whatever it was she was doing.

She seemed completely focused on her work. Mixing strange liquids with her gloved hands; the boy observed everything she did. His eyes were like those of a hawk's: missing nothing. Yet, if he wished, he could tune out anything and everything, even at his tender age.

Jesse shook his head as if it would rid his mind of the unknown memory. He had paled slightly after remaining silent for almost five minutes. Whatever it was that just flashed through his head, Jesse didn't remember it though he knew the child was him.

"Jesse?" Sam asked, her voice empathic and concerned for her son.

"Yea?" He responded, moving his head toward her but not meeting her worried blue eyes.

"We should go back. You gonna be ok?"

Jesse shrugged and stated flatly, "Ask me tomorrow." With his father's natural grace, he slipped past Sam and led the way to the guarded entrance by memory. But Sam trailed a few paces behind.

She watched him for a time, thinking through what had recently happened to her life. Not only had she meet a young boy who represented a relationship between her and the Colonel, but she had discovered that she was his mother- sort of. And now, because of this fact, she and the Colonel were not in-charge of him.

That hadn't truly sunk in the last time she had seen the boy. But, now, as they walked back to the mountain in silence, the idea was playing on her mind. Sinking in yet still being denied. If that was how she felt, her mind couldn't even beginning to imagine what his was going through.

**SGC, Infirmary**

Once Sam managed to get Jesse back into the Infirmary, Janet immediately took him and gave him a second examination. This one, though, was more thorough and included a longer medical history.

Sam, for her part, pulled Jack to the side and asked him, "I think I've managed to calm him down but… he still in denial." Jack nodded and looked over his shoulder at the boy who was being examined by the only doctor he truly trusted.

"Um, Sam?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Jesse and I were talking this morning," Jack began but looked away before finishing.

"Talking about… what, sir?" Sam urged, trying to get him to look her in the eye.

"About you… visiting. You know, for dinner or… whatever," Jack said; now looking at his feet. "Even you taking him for the day."

Sam nodded, understanding his hesitance with the subject. "Right. I-I can take him today… if you want. I could keep talking to him."

"Yea, yea… that would be a good idea," Jack agreed with a nod. "I think he'd like that: to talk to you."

**Sam's House**

From the outside, Sam's house was averagely sized and beautiful- an ideal home to live in. A small garden filled with bushes overdue for a trim surrounded the front porch. Once inside, it was large and quite spacious, even with all of her furniture.

Sam chose to let him explore her house a little before ushering him around any. And, just as she thought he might, her son headed straight for the pictures set out on a display case tucked into the corner of her living room.

Tons of pictures of her family- father, brother, sister-in-law, and her brother's two children- lined the many shelves. Jesse's eyes flew over most of them, interested in his mother's family outside of him.

The first picture he really took the time to look at was one of his mother and a man, not much younger than she was, with blonde hair and matching eyes to his and Sam's. The man was smiling at the camera with his arm wrapped around a laughing Sam.

"Major? Who's that in the picture with you?" Jesse asked, looking away and at Sam.

She walked gradually up to where he stood and looked at the memorable picture. "That's my brother, Mark. He lives in San Diego. He doesn't exist in your reality?"

"No, I don't have any aunts or uncles. Well, not technically," Jesse pouted, turning his attention back toward the pictures. The next one his eyes settled on was a nice shot of his grandfather, Jacob. He was in full dress uniform, his General stars showing proudly with his many metals to line his chest.

Jesse smiled sadly, recalling all the time he had spent with his grandfather. He was a great man, strong and determined, but he had a soft spot if you knew how to find it. Jesse did. He was easy to manipulate with the right words and look.

"He died… when I was only nine. I miss him," Jesse told her in a hushed voice, trying not to upset her.

Sam, too, held a sad gaze at the picture. For once, she felt like she understood Jesse's crisis. In her reality, her father was alive and well with the Tok'ra but, in his reality, he was dead. It was a mind-boggling concept even for Sam- an astrophysicists who wrote the book on the Stargate and wormholes (literately).

Jesse turned and stole a look at his mother. Her look was not what he expected. Whenever his grandfather was mentioned around his mother, she was usually upset by it. But not this Sam. "He didn't die, did he? Not in your reality," Jesse stated with sudden understanding.

"No. He was diagnosed with cancer, but…" Sam said with a shake of her head.

"My grandfather died from the cancer. Nothing worked on him." Sam nodded, she knew what it had felt like to think that nothing could help him after all of modern medicine had failed. "How?"

"A Tok'ra blended with him, healing him," Sam explained briefly, not feeling up to the idea of giving the boy more detailed information.

"Oh. Then you trust the Tok'ra more… now? More than when you were… Jolinar?" Jesse asked, turning longing eyes back to the image of his late yet not late grandfather.

"Yea. We're allies now."

"Right." Jesse continued to stare at the abundance of pictures. He was thrilled by the idea that his grandfather was still alive and that he had an uncle. And, by the looks of some of the pictures, he had two younger cousins as well.

"Would you like something to eat?" Sam asked him, pulling his mind out of his pondering.

It was practically noon and he found that, when he thought of it, he truly was hungry. "Sure," Jesse answered shortly.

"What do you want?"

Jesse shrugged and turned to look at her. "How 'bout… a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?"

"Alright," Sam responded with a smile, turning to enter the kitchen.

Just as Jesse looked back at the collection of photos, the doorbell rang- indicating someone was at the door. "Would you get that, please?" Sam called from the other room. Without acknowledging her question, he walked to the heavy door and turned the knob.

When the door opened, Jesse found himself gazing into the eyes of the same man from the picture with Sam. His face paled as he looked at his uncle, completely not expecting it to be him standing at his mother's door.

Jesse observed the man, quite obviously related to Sam. He seemed almost annoyed yet, at the same time, confused because of Jesse's presence.

"Hi," the man- Mark, she had called him- started, his eyes observing the boy suspiciously. "Is… is Sam here?"

With a nervous nodded, Jesse let the man in the house. "She's… she's in the kitchen." Mark eyed the boy for a minute longer before venturing farther into the well-furnished house. Jesse, for his part, kept a respectable distance from the man even though he still followed him to Sam.

"Sam!" Mark called, his voice deep and musical.

"Mark?" Carter replied as she walked out of the kitchen. "What are you… oh, yea."

"I would assume that means you forgot I was here today?"

"Yea, I'm sorry," Sam apologized to her younger brother, forgetting momentarily about her newest charge. "It's been one of those weeks."

"Right," Mark nodded. Although he knew nothing about her recent assignment for the Air Force, he had long since learned to just accept it and move on. "Um, what's with the kid?" Mark asked, his voice hushed assuming Jesse wouldn't be able to hear him.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Mark, this is Jesse … Jesse, my brother Mark."

"Nice to meet you," Jesse said as if he had never heard the name before; acting perfectly detected while deep down it was an exhilarating moment.

"Nice to… meet you," Mark said, accepting Jesse's outstretched hand with a creased brow.

"He's a… coworker's son. I promised to keep an eye on him," Sam explained, as if reading his mind.

Jesse looked back and forth between the two adults and knew they would rather be alone for a while. "Um, I can go finish my sandwich. You talk to your brother," Jesse told Sam, a brave smile plastered on his face. A smile he had used too often since his arrival. It was the same kind of smile that registered on the face but not in the eyes.

"Are you sure?" Sam asked, recognizing his look.

"Yea. I'm sure." As if to prove his point, Jesse moved toward the unoccupied kitchen. With a final, stern look, he turned his whole body and entered the kitchen.

For a moment, Jesse simply observed the room. It was a nicely sized kitchen- about twice what his was. There was plenty of room to move around and was just as spacious as the entire house seemed.

At the end of the kitchen- connecting the open-walled hall to the kitchen- was a counter for preparing, serving, and eating food on. On it was Jesse's half-made meal. Stepping closer to the object, Jesse picked up the knife and stared to spread the peanut butter over the bread. All the while, he was trying very hard to shut down his hearing and not listen in on the two out in the living room.

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Poor Jesse. So how did you like that twist? I bet no one saw that coming, did they? Please R/R and tell me how it's going.