Jacob was in the lab with his mother, watching as she worked on the odd project and providing assistance every now and then.
"So" Sam began, "Why don't you tell me about…well, everything." She said, pulling a pair of safety goggles off her face after she was done welding together some machinery.
"Everything…in our futures, you mean?" he asked.
Jacob was sitting at the other end of her workbench studying some of the blueprints for a new glider his mom was working on and adding or changing some of the equations, making notes based on his own knowledge of the technology.
Sam had expressed several times over the past few hours how impressed she was with his apparent ingenuity and genius, despite his ability (inherited from his father no doubt) to look as if he was the least intelligent human being on the planet.
"Yea…I know I probably shouldn't ask, you have to keep the timeline safe in order to ensure your future's survival, but…" she shrugged and gave him a quirky smile, "I'm curious as hell"
He smiled, "Well, I'm sure Daniel told you what Amanda said" when she gave a confirming nod, he continued, "Okay…up until Daniel and dad passed away, I had lived with you at the Alpha site, you had been promoted to General when I was five and given command of that off-world base. Dad retired so he could be with us."
Jacob was able to relay the events of his childhood much more easily then Amanda had. He was a soldier after all, and trained to keep his emotions separate from his work, his slipped into that mode now when he talked and thought about his father.
Samantha thought it was neat that she had made General, and didn't seem too surprised about what he was telling her.
"I basically got my schooling from military academy that the president had authorized to be placed at the Alpha site so cadets would get used to being away from earth. Amanda and Daniel would drop in every once and a while, he was her teacher, Vala and him took her to the planets they knew were safe and she got to be at dig sites with him.
"Lif'kel stayed with Ishta on Keb most of his childhood. Teal'c was very busy with being on the Jaffa council and we rarely saw him if ever, but Ishta and you had become friends somewhere along the line and you sent me to Keb to be looked after by her when things got a little shaky at the Alpha site and it wasn't safe for me to be there."
Sam interrupted, "I can't imagine Ishta being content with playing mom every day"
Jacob pondered that, "Well, there wasn't too much fighting to be done, on battlefield at least, most of the drama that weighed on the Jaffa was political. And she certainly couldn't stand sitting through those boring talks all day, at least on Keb she was required to forage for the things they needed to live. And when a minor Goa'uld decided it would be a good idea to start ruling the galaxies again, she was called to help defeat him.
"Anyway, later on, dad died…I can't tell you how, you might try to prevent it" Jacob tried to gage his mother's reaction.
There was a pause in her tinkering with another piece of technology while listening to him…she must have decided that she would respond to that incident when it occurred, because she took in the information, then brushed it to the back of her mind. "Yes, Daniel told me that Amanda said he was there and helped the General ascend"
"Right, and when Daniel died a year later, Teal'c and you decided to keep close to each other for emotional support. We moved to Keb and you decided to retire. Vala and Amanda came there as well to recover, we all thought they would only be with us until they had finished grieving, but then Vala took off somewhere and Amanda was stuck with us.
"I gated to the Alpha site to finish my military training and joined the Air Force. Almost immediately afterwards, Cassandra was put as Civilian Administrator and her first act as such was to get rid of the current SG-1 on the grounds that they had "No character whatsoever" and got me transferred from the Alpha site to the SGC.
"I was given command of SG-1 and told that I could pick anyone I wanted as my team. I chose Amanda and Lif'kel, I already knew the type of people they were, and that I could trust them." He finished the short recapture of his history up to that point.
"Wow…that's a lot to process," Sam said, running her hand through her short hair and taking a seat behind a random scattering of unfinished projects.
"Yeah" Jacob was quiet as he returned to his input on her blueprints.
"There's something that's been nagging at me though" Sam said, "How did you get promoted to Major so quickly?"
"They wanted someone to run the Alpha site. It was already clear to my superiors that I was the best soldier they currently had for the job, I just didn't have the rank yet. The promotions were coming at me almost every month…whatever officer or politician wanted me to lead the site held a pretty snazzy position, they capitalized on every excuse in the book to get me up to the right rank until Cassie snatched me out of there"
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SG-1 sat in the commissary as Sam told them the details of her conversation with Jacob.
"Wow…" Daniel commented around a mouthful of waffles.
"That's what I said," Sam mentioned, pushing the food around on her plate.
"Was Jacob O'Neill not concerned that we may try to alter these events that are to take place?" Teal'c asked.
"Well, that's the thing, without knowing exactly when all of this is supposed to happen, there isn't much we can do about it" Sam said in a slightly despairing manner.
"You are concerned with preventing General O'Neill's death" Teal'c noted.
The Colonel sighed, "I'm trying not to think about it but…" she shrugged and attempted to occupy her mind with something else.
"He's going to ascend, Sam" Daniel offered as consolation, "I mean, I know you took it pretty rough when that happened to me, but won't it be a bit easier the second time around. Amanda said he shows up now and then…I'm sure you and him get to see each other"
Sam sunk down in her chair, concentrating on the matter, "Maybe" was all she said.
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Jack watched Amanda Jackson scamper around her temporary office, constantly moving as she jotted down bits of information, mumbling to herself with at least one book balanced open in her arm an others already strewn in random areas around the small space.
Jacob sat on her desk, swinging his legs and making paper airplanes from a stack of discarded printing paper he had stolen from a supply closet.
He held up he newest model and closed one eye, using the other to line up his target. He aimed and fired, the folded aviation toy landed on the open book currently in Amanda's hands.
She rolled her eyes in annoyance and was about to blow the offending object off her reading material when she noticed something written on it. Jack had seen his son scribble a note upon the plane just a moment before folding it.
She sighed tolerantly and set aside her work, glancing at him as she opened the paper. She giggled after she read the message, "No" she said in answer to what he'd written.
"Please" he pouted, hoping off the desk and going over to her.
"I have-"
"Ah" he interrupted, "Do not say you have work to do. You've been working all morning and half the afternoon"
She wrinkled her nose in thought, "Okay fine…one dance"
He grinned widely and dug out a metal cube from his pocket. He pressed a button on it smooth surface and chose what he wanted the object to play.
A jazzy, oldie but goodie, streamed from the tiny box that Jacob now set on the table as he took her hands in his and twirled her around the room.
Jack was shocked at the look his saw on his son's face; it was the same look he saw in the mirror every time he thought about Sam…that sweet, slow smiled, accompanied by twinkling eyes and a taste of euphoria on his heart.
He watched his son and Daniel's daughter swing around the room, laughing, at some untold joke…laughing at life in general…simply happy.
Jack glanced at the floor and leaned up from the doorjamb where he'd been for almost a half an hour watching the pair…thinking about his future and how he hoped it would turn out.
Neither of them had noticed him observing them and neither noticed him leave.
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