Shifu strolled the temples of Keb alongside Lif'kel.
Lif'kel was reverent and silent as they walked, introspective as always, mostly just observing his surroundings. Shifu updated him on the events that were taking place in the past with his friends.
The ascended being hesitated in his speech when the two arrived at a window, which on Keb meant a waist to ceiling length rectangle carved in the sandstone walls of its establishments, providing a grand view to the landscape outside.
These windows were usually set above strips of a wild garden that border most of the planet's buildings, so in warm weather, it's thick ledge invited the temples inhabitants to perch upon it and pick the flowers below while being able to admire the sunset or sunrise.
Keb must have been the most gorgeous world in every galaxy at one point in history. It had the most glinting and wonderful ruins a few miles from the main network of foundations, which had been discovered by Lif'kel and Ishta after living there for a while.
The sky was completely unobstructed and untainted. The ground flourished with streams, and plants that blossomed widely, creating the most magical effect on a person.
Shifu saw why Oma Desala loved taking him here to be taught. He remembered a saying she had told him during a brilliantly clear evening, where the stars seemed as large and touchable from the ground as they were from space, "Paradise is the beauty of all natural creation…the road to enlightenment passes this way"
The view currently formed outside of the window Lif'kel and him had stopped at hosted Teal'c and Ishta, both looking as young and fit as they had been twenty-seven years ago. Tritonin had to replicate perfectly the same metabolite effects as a Goa'uld larva in order for the Jaffa to survive, so the aging results were the same.
Away from them, closer to the temple, was Sam, who was about sixty years old now. She had a few wrinkles on her face, and her once short blond hair had grown out to her mid back and was tied away from her face, light yellow strands now streaked with white. She had managed to keep her body in good condition by taking frequent hikes and participating in combat practice with Teal'c and Ishta.
She was currently analyzing the properties of a plant a few yards away from her friends.
"Growing old" Lif'kel commented, "in such a peaceful place, seems an unfit way to finish a life for a warrior such as Samantha Carter"
"Hopefully, the task I have appointed your teammates will alter this outcome slightly" Shifu said quietly.
Lif'kel looked at him, "Do the ascended beings not have rules against interference in the fate of individual humans?"
"Yes…but Oma showed me all the loopholes before she…left" he said, smiling, "Also, I am not truly ascended, I am…a combination of sorts…and humans are allowed to interfere in the fate of other humans"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Are we really going to let him do this?" the Ascended being of Daniel Jackson asked as he slid into a booth in Enlightenment Café next to Jack and across from Oma.
The woman shrugged, "He is not technically breaking the rules" she said, sipping a cup of coffee.
"Won't the Others do that glowy thunder an' lightning thing they do if fate is altered?" Jack said, waving his hands around.
"No…Let's just say, the Others have been a little more lenient with the rules ever since I defeated Anubis" Oma replied, trying to put their minds at ease, "Once Shifu's plan is completed, everyone of the members of SG-1, past and present, will get the life they deserve. A…happy ending" she said with a smile.
"You mean, I could go back to being with Samantha and Jacob?" Jack asked hopefully.
"Yes"
"And I can come out of galactic hiding so Vala will never have to get herself killed hunting down that artifact, and Amanda won't have to lose either of us?" Daniel questioned.
"Yep"
"I don't know about you, Danny Boy, but doesn't that sound just a bit too easy?" Jack asked.
"Well, not exactly" Daniel said, leaning forward, "You see, when you got shot by that conspiracy theorist after being recalled to earth for exploitation of your expertise concerning Homeland Security-"
Jack cringed.
"-And I found that Goa'uld technology had been influencing your murderer's mental state, and that it had possibly been implanted by a rogue Ancient, I studied my ass off trying to find this Ancient and realized I would need to ascend once again to do it. Once I did that, with Oma's help, I was able to find the culprit and the device that would stop him from altering the power of the System Lords on a cosmological scale. He had to kill you and the rest of SG-1 if he was going to reiterate the Goa'uld as the general prominence of the galaxy"
"Yeah, see, I never got that, why would anyone want the Goa'uld back in power?" Jack asked.
"Because he believed it was the proper fate of the universe" Oma explained.
Jack blanked for a moment, "Yeah, still don't get it"
Daniel sighed, "His motivations aren't that important, what is important is that I had to go visit Vala and tell her where to get the device, then I had to fill in Sam so she'd know how to get the device operational once it was found. I didn't plan for a couple of rival thieves to be looking for the same artifact in order to make a profit. They killed Vala, and lost the device on some backwater black market where its later owner ended indirectly destroying it when his ship got blown up by some aliens he'd pissed off.
"Now that rogue Ancient is still on the loose and neither of us can reclaim human form until we've found him. But by sending Jacob and Amanda back in time, all they have to do is find the device, give you and Sam an early shove into each other's arms, and Vala and I, then we'll have a head start on this guy and be able to stop him" Daniel finished.
"See" Jack said, "I love it when you try and explain things, they always sound more complicated coming from you. I feel like we're actually accomplishing something"
"We are" Daniel responded.
"Well, it feels like were working harder to do it" Jack commented.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You want us to play match maker to our parents?" Jacob asked in surprise at what Shifu had just told them.
"If their unions occur earlier, there is a chance that Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson will not become physically deceased" the being explained.
"How so?" Amanda asked, "I mean, I see how timing might effect Jacob's dad's death, but we don't even know why mine was killed"
"Oh, there is more to it. But this is the first step in the process" Shifu answered before disappearing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob rolled his eyes and almost bolted away from his position outside the door to his mother's office.
"Don't even think about it" the toneless phrase that he heard almost on a daily basis fell from his friend's lips as she straightened her standard military jacket and plastered a smile on her face.
He gave her a pout, "This is so…wrong" he whined, repeatedly snapping his fingers in nervousness.
She didn't say anything to that; just grabbed his hand to make him stop the incessant clicking noise he was making with his fingers.
"It's all a major cliché, too" he muttered as she knocked on the office door.
"Come in" came the clipped professional reply.
Amanda grinned her way into the room, "Hi, Sam" she said cheerily.
"Hello" Sam said, responding automatically to her infectious good mood.
"Hey, mom" Jacob moped, following his teammate inside, "We're bored"
She raised her eyebrows, "I have a naquadah generator you could screw around with" she suggested.
"No good, we need to get off base…do you think you could take us somewhere?" it was a ploy from "hello".
Sam glanced down at the paperwork she still had to finish…and decided she needed an excuse to get out of it, "Okay, I'll have to get permission from the General first, though" she said, picking up her phone.
"Oh, ask Jack to come with us" Amanda suggested in a whisper when the man on the other end of the phone picked up, as if it was an idea she had just come up with.
Sam raised her eyebrows, but asked anyway.
Amanda spared a mischievous wink in Jacob's direction; he glared in response.