"You promised..." Ian said, looking over at her. He didn't know exactly what she and Jack were talking about, but he was smart enough to figure out that whatever it was, it meant telling Hammond – General Hammond – about his nightmares. And Sam had promised him she wouldn't do that.

Sam met his gaze, holding his dark eyes with her blue ones, and seeing the vulnerability still there.

"General Hammond's a good guy, Ian. You know he wouldn't-"

"He's a friend of my father's Sam..."

She hung up the phone. He was right.

"Well, she's right, Ian," Jack said, sighing. "You do need to know what's going on – or you're not going to be able to shake this thing. And I can't allow that."

Sam came over and sat back down at the table, watching Jack as he debated just how much to tell the cadet – and how much jeopardy he'd be putting his career in if he did it. He decided it didn't matter, in the end. Ian was going to know everything eventually – he'd have to – so they might as well give him a little of it now. Not everything, but some. At least enough that he'd be able to understand the Ashrak – although for that, he needed a little background into the fact that the Ashrak weren't human – and they weren't the only ones who weren't.

"You can't tell anyone about this," Sam said, invoking the same promise Ian had asked of them only a little before.

Ian nodded.

"Who would I tell?"

And what were they talking about anyways?

"Tell me something, Ian..." Jack said, pouring himself a little of the whiskey he'd plied Ian with. "What do you know about wormholes?"

"Quantum Physics?" Ian asked, curiously. "What does-"

"What do you know about them?" Jack repeated.

The cadet shrugged.

"Not a lot. I haven't read much on them-"

"Let me explain a wormhole to you, Ian," Sam said, taking up the conversation. She was pretty sure that Jack really understood enough about the wormholes by now that he could have explained them himself, but it was her field of expertise, after all. "If you have any questions, just interrupt and ask."

OOOOOOOOOO

Ian didn't interrupt. He was a smart young man and even more importantly, Sam was a genius as well and an expert in the field she was explaining to him. She knew how to explain what wormholes were with the least amount of confusion and without dragging it on for any longer than was necessary. It wasn't a simple topic, of course, so it wasn't like it was a ten-minute conversation, but by the time she was finished, Ian knew more about wormholes than 99 percent of the people in the world.

"Any questions?" Sam asked when she'd finished that part.

Ian shook his head. It was interesting enough, he supposed, but he still didn't know what a theoretical anomaly had to do with his nightmares – and didn't ask.

"So..." Jack said, while Sam took a sip of the coffee Jack had brewed during her impromptu lesson. "You're probably wondering what that has to do with anything..."

Ian nodded.

"A bit, yes..."

He was looking a lot better than he had when he'd woken up, Jack thought. Of course, the only way he could have looked worse was if he'd been dead, so anything was an improvement. At least he had color and his expression wasn't anywhere near as bleak as it had been.

"Well," Sam said, with just a little hesitancy. So far nothing they'd said was classified. Now, though, they were going to cross that line, and while she knew it was for the best it was still enough to make her uneasy. "What would you say if I told you a device existed that could create a wormhole whenever we wanted?"

"You just told me they're random."

"But say there was a device that could take away the randomness... and could open a wormhole at will."

"Why would anyone want to do that?" Ian asked, curiously.

"Because," Jack said, "If there are more than one of the devices, and the wormhole goes from one to the other – no matter how far apart they are – and can connect two places to each other."

"Like from here to New York?"

"Like from Earth to another planet," Sam said.

Ian snorted.

"Sounds like something from a movie. A 'B' movie."

Jack smiled. He could understand that.

"But if it was true?" Sam asked.

Ian shook his head, considering the possibilities because it seemed important to them – although he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

"A device that connects two planets with a wormhole. A wormhole that you said could dissolve at any minute-"

"A stable one, Ian. One we controlled. One people could walk through and almost immediately come out the other side and step on another world."

"You'd have to get to that other world to put the other device on it, first..."

"Someone already did that for us," Jack told him.

"What?"

"All of this is theoretical," Sam said. "I know. But it's also all real. We have control of such a device and it's amazing."

"We call it a Stargate," Jack said.

"Catchy name." He wasn't sure if they were screwing with him or not.

"I didn't name it that," Jack told him. "The Ancients did."

"The Ancients?" Ian could hear the capitalization in the title, and recognized it as a name, and not an adjective.

"The race of beings that built the Stargate," Sam said.

"Race?"

Sam nodded.

"As in... Italians?"

Jack smiled.

"As in... Aliens."

"Aliens...? Like in Area 51? Like that Thor thing I-"

"Thor's real," Sam interrupted. "He's not a thing."

"He's an Ancient?"

"He's an Asgard."

"An Asgard?"

"Another race of aliens."

"Good aliens," Jack added.

"The Ancients were an old race – incredibly old – that were far, far advanced. Way beyond anything we can do – or can even imagine, really. They traveled to other worlds, and placed a Stargate on several of them."

"Including Earth?"

Sam nodded.

"Why?"

"Instant access," Jack said, shrugging. "Maybe they were going to populate the planet – they were here long before people were."

"There are theories that they might have started life here," Sam added.

"So they're God?"

Sam shook her head.

"I don't think so. It doesn't say anything about them creating the Earth. Only coming to visit it."

"But we know they were here?"

"They had to be."

"Because there's a Stargate...?"

Jack nodded. He didn't need to go in about the Gao'uld and their own addition of another Stargate just yet. It was enough that the cadet wasn't looking at him like he was making it up.

"That's what's the big secret in Cheyenne Mountain?"

Sam nodded.

"Not the research?"

"We do that, too," Sam said. "And a lot of it is advanced stuff – and sometimes dangerous, because we're working on technology that is far above our own."

"Stuff we find on other planets that we go to by using the Stargate," Jack said.

"Can I see this thing?"

"Can I tell General Hammond about your nightmares?"

His expression – which had been excited and interested enough to please Sam, and satisfy Jack – suddenly clouded once more.

"You have to...?"

"There's no way he'd let you see the Stargate, otherwise, Ian. As far as he's concerned, you and River already know too much just by having been to the SGC."

"If he knew about the nightmares, and knew there was a reason that we needed to show you – to let you in on the secret – then he'd probably agree to it." He did care about Ian, after all. Ian was the son of a friend.

"You'd have to sign nondisclosure papers, though."

"I already have."

"There's probably another set for this."

God, it'd be worth everyone knowing about his nightmares if he could see this Stargate thing, Ian thought. Well, no, maybe not – but he was still interested in it. And he absolutely had to see it in action.

"If you can get him to promise not to tell my dad..."

"I'll try," Sam promised, picking up the phone.

"And you can't tell him what we've told you," Jack said. "Or my ass will be in the biggest crack you've ever seen."

Ian smiled for the first time since he'd woken up, and shook his head.

"I won't tell anyone."