Chapter Eight:

"So?" I snapped out, raising an eyebrow.

Jack winced at my tone. "Come, let's go somewhere more comfortable first."

I followed him, silently seething with the anger that I hadn't known I felt. It seemed that ever since I had seen him standing in front of me, I had been battling feelings of betrayal and anger. I simply couldn't understand why he had left me and my mom for all these years. It had been different when I had thought he was dead. But, since he obviously could, why hadn't he come back? And why hadn't he told me that I was his daughter from the moment I was born?

I blinked in surprise as that thought crossed my mind. I searched my feelings and it was true. I felt betrayed and hurt that my last name wasn't O'Neill like his. I was his daughter, but somehow he didn't think I was good enough to know that from the very start.

The room he led me into was large and sparsely decorated, with a desk and chairs at one end and a bed at the other. A large window dominated one of the walls, showing a beautiful view of the stars and Earth.

Obviously noticing the direction of my gaze, my father spoke. "We're cloaked and in orbit of Earth."

I walked over to him and gave him a thump to the chest. "Seems you're real enough, too." I said. "So, since you have both the technology and the ability to travel to Earth, why the hell haven't you come to see your family before now?"

With every word, my voice had risen and gotten angrier. By the time I had finished, I almost felt like punching my father in the jaw, whether he was my parent or a highly trained fighter or not.

To my absolute disgust, tears began to pour down my cheeks. Angrily, I wiped them away, but more kept falling. And despite everything I knew and felt right now, I couldn't keep the joy and love from warming my heart as I finally realised my father was alive.

"Didn't you love us enough?" I sobbed. "Didn't we mean enough to you?"

"God, Shannon." My father said brokenly, pain filling his voice. "It wasn't like that. There hasn't been a day that goes by that I didn't just want to say 'to hell with the rules' and come back. To see you graduate high school and then college. To buy you your first car. To scare away all your boyfriends."

"Then why?" I whispered, tears still pouring down my face.

Strong arms wound around me and pulled me close. I buried my face in my father's shoulder and let the sobs come. I don't know how long I cried into my father's shoulder, or how long he just held me, but when the tears had finally stopped, I leaned back to look at his face. I was surprised when I saw that his eyes were as red as I imagined mine were and there were trails of tears down his face.

He reached up to cup my face in his hands, and wiped away the last of my tears with his fingers. "You don't how sorry I am, Shannon." He said hoarsely. "I can only hope that once you've heard my reasons you won't hate me so much."

"I don't hate you, Dad." I said. "I can't. I will always love you."

Tears gathered in my father's eyes once more. "I will always love you too, Shannon." He said, before kissing my forehead.

We clung to each other for a moment longer, before breaking away and moving towards the chairs at one end of the room. Sitting down, my father turned to me. He took a deep breath and sighed. "I guess I should start from the beginning." He said. "How much do you know about my 'death'?"

"Not much." I said. "I only know you were sick for a while, before you were killed on a mission off-world."

"Well, I guess I've got a lot to tell you then." He said.

"Yeah." I agreed. "Just a little."

He smiled slightly at my weak attempt at a joke. I looked at him and noticed how old and tired he seemed all of a sudden. It was as if the weight of the world had been on his shoulders for so long, he wasn't sure how to get rid of it anymore. I felt the anger fading as I looked at him. If I knew only one thing, it was that staying apart from his friends and family for all these years had been as hard for him as it had for us, if not more.

"How much do you know about the Ancients?" Dad asked.

"A little." I frowned as I tried to remember. "They inhabited Earth before the humans and were the builders of the stargates. They ascended to a higher plane when a plague spread through the galaxy."

Dad nodded. "That's the simple version, yes." He said. "But not all of it. As we already suspected years ago, human are the direct descendants of the Ancients. It was part of the way they decided to defy the plague that killed so many of them."

"I'm not sure I understand." I said.

"Human are the children of the Ancients, left on Earth so that the Ancient Civilisation might one day continue." He explained. "They knew this would be a hard task, so they left clues and technology buried on Earth for us to find and use. And they imprinted a marker in our DNA, so that when we began to reach a certain point in our evolution they could come back and begin to teach us what we needed to know."

I nodded, trying to digest the implications of what my father was saying. "So, what has this got to do with you and why everyone believes you dead?" I asked, more curious than angry and bitter now.

"You were right. I was sick, in a way." Dad said. "I had a second repository of Ancient knowledge downloaded into my head. Except this one was different from the first. My brain seemed to be able to hold it better, meaning my symptoms were slower. And this time the Asgards couldn't take it out. It seemed the information had recognised something in my brain and had become a part of it."

"Meaning you couldn't remove it anymore than you could remove a crucial part of you brain." I said, suddenly understanding.

"Exactly." Dad agreed.

"Is that why you couldn't tell me you were my father?"

"Not so much." Dad said. "The reason I didn't tell you I was your father was because I didn't want to have to force you to watch my go crazy, or worse have me simply disappear. I thought that you would be too young to handle that."

"But you survived a lot longer than you thought you would."

"Yeah. I did. But don't get me wrong. By the time I told you who I really was I was pretty bad. Most of the time I was a babbling mess. You just saw me on my good days."

I smiled slightly at his attempt at humour. "And I guess mom saw it all?" It wasn't really a question.

"Yeah."

I began to understand why no one had told me who my father was. For anyone, having a father that could be rational one moment and babbling the next would be hard, but a child of two or three simply wouldn't understand. And I knew that my father would never have wanted me to see that, even if he never said it out loud. I guess, after he 'died' it was just easier to let me assume my father had left a long time ago rather that the truth. Particularly since I hadn't had the clearance to know the truth for most of my life.

"So how did you die?" I asked. "And why aren't you dead now?"

"My last mission was to a small Ancient outpost on one of the uninhabited planets near Earth." Dad explained. "We thought Anubis didn't know about it, but we were wrong. He sent some of his super-soldiers to kill us and gain control of the outpost. We fought them off, but just as I touched the Ancient technology, I was hit by two blasts to the back."

I gasped in shock and had to resist the urge to make sure my father's back was still whole and there weren't two gaping holes in it. "And?"

"It was the strangest thing." He said, his eyes moving to gaze at the wall if he was looking at something I couldn't see. Then he focused back on my face. "Do you trust me, Shannon?" he asked abruptly.

I blinked in surprise. "Yes, of course…"

"Then just close your eyes." He said.

I gave him a look, not sure what to make of his request, but I closed my eyes anyway. As I shut my eyes I felt his hands come out and cup my temples, and then everything faded until all I could hear was my own heartbeat and I felt myself drifting away.

Pain blossomed in my back as I felt to jolts, each once forcing me to stagger forwards and breaking my stride. I stumbled and fell forwards, landing on all fours on the paved stone of the Ancients' temple. I couldn't stop the groan of pain escape my lips and only hoped none of my team had heard it. If they came back…I couldn't stand the thought of this happening to them too.

I could hear the measured paces of Anubis' soldiers behind me, but forced myself not to think of that. I had to get up and get up now. I half-staggered to my feet, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. Instead of lurching to my feet, I just sank back down into the mud and felt the pain increase until I felt as if my whole body was on fire.

"Sir!" I heard a distraught voice call out, followed by a rapid burst of gunfire.

Finding the strength from somewhere within me, I raised a head that felt like it weighed ten times as much as usual. "Carter!" I bellowed. "Get back to the gate!"

Damn woman never listened to my orders anyway, I thought as I saw her running towards me. Damnit! She should be running in the other direction. The soldiers would be on us in minutes.

"Sir!" she yelled again as she skidded to a halt in front of me, before dropping down onto her knees.

I frowned. How had she gotten here so fast. She had been a long way away before I blinked. I vaguely noticed T and Daniel behind her, laying down cover fire. I caught Danny's eyes when he glanced over at me and saw the truth in his eyes. Not that I didn't already feel it. I was dying.

"Colonel." Carter said, tears falling down her face. "Get up. We have to get out of here!"

"I'm not going anywhere, Carter." I said as I crumpled to the ground, the strength in my arms failing.

I could feel the hot sticky trails of blood sliding down my back and marvelled that so much of it could be held in one person. Who knew that I had that much blood in me?

"I'm not leaving without you!" Carter said, stubbornness clear in her voice.

"You have too." I said, my voice growing weaker as I spoke and there was nothing I could do about it. "You have to get T and Danny back safe." I swallowed. "You have to take care of Shannon."

"I can't leave without you." She sobbed.

I reached up a hand, surprised to see how it shook. "I'm dying, Sam." I said, looking into her bright blue eyes. "You can't save me this time. But you have to save yourself."

I could see the understanding in her eyes along with the denial. She didn't want to believe I was dying, but she had to. For her sake. "I love you, Jack." She whispered.

"I love you, too, Sam." I replied. "I always will."

She nodded as my hand fell away from her face. I just couldn't seem to hold it there anymore. She leaned forward and gave me a brief kiss, before turning and yelling at T and Daniel. I wasn't sure what she said or where she went, because suddenly sound had dulled as had the pain and I couldn't seem to move.

I don't know how long I lay there, clinging that last frisson of pure pleasure that I had felt with Sam's lips on mine, but I knew I had to do something, anything. I needed to buy them enough time to get through the gate. Using the last of my energy, I surged to my knees and then to my feet and staggered three steps to the Ancient chair device in the centre of the temple. With my last surge of strength I slammed my hand on the controls and triggered the weapons, the knowledge coming effortlessly into my mind.

There was a bright flash of light surrounding me, and then everything faded to black.

I gasped as I found myself back in my own body. I blinked a little, before staring at my father, tears on my face. "Oh, dad." I said, before getting up and wrapping him in a big hug.

I had felt and seen everything he had and I knew just how much it had cost him to say goodbye to my mother and accept the knowledge he would never see me again. Dad tugged me forwards and onto his lap, where I clung, just like I had when I was a little girl. After a while, I managed to lean back and wiped the tears from my eyes. I was sure they were all puffy by now. I hadn't cried this much in years.

"So what happened during the flash?" I asked.

"The flash was me triggering the weapon." He said. "What I didn't know was that it also had brought down the attention of Oma Desala. As much as she claimed that humans needed to find their own way, she healed me and brought me here, to this ship."

I frowned, confused. But before I could ask a question, my father put a finger to my lips. "Just listen for a minute." He said. "It turns out that the Ancient knowledge had slowly been changing my DNA, making it so that I could carry the part of the knowledge that I needed. But it also meant something else – something that was far more disturbing."

"What?"

"The changes to my DNA made me into something that wasn't quite human anymore."

"It tried to make you into an Ancient." I said, suddenly understanding.

"Yes." My father agreed. "I am the next step in humanity's journey to becoming the Ancients once more."

I nodded, trying to take all this in. I have to admit, it was a lot to process all at once. Then a thought struck me. "I thought the Ancients frowned upon the whole meddling in other civilisations thing." I said.

"Oh, they do." Dad agreed. "Except for a few select members that carry a specific marker in their DNA. The Ancients made a pact along time ago to equip their descendants with the ability and knowledge needed to protect themselves."

"From what?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.

"The descended Ancients." Dad said. "Like Anubis."

"So that's what you are?" I said.

"Yes." He said. "I and the few others here have the task of ridding the Universe of these beings before they destroy humanity."

I nodded, thinking for a minute. "Okay." I said. "I have just two more questions."

"Only two?"

"Dad." I groaned out. "I'm trying to be serious here."

"Sorry." He apologised. "What are your questions?"

"Number one: Why couldn't you come back and tell everyone at the SGC all this?"

Dad winced. "Well, I'm not allowed. It seems I'm bound by the same rules that prevent me from meddling in other civilisations."

"And telling the woman you love that you're not dead is meddling?" I asked, incredulous.

My father got an angry look in his eyes for a moment. "Apparently, yes." He said, and I could hear the fury behind the words.

"That brings me to question number two: Why have you suddenly told all this to me?"

Dad sighed. "That's not so easy to answer." He said. "You see, because no one really knew I was your father, no one realised what the implications could be."

"What implications?"

"You have the same DNA I have now, except yours is slightly different."

"You mean I'm an Ancient?" I asked, shocked.

"Essentially: yes." Dad said. "You're the first Ancient to be born on Earth for over five million years."

I gaped at him in shock. "When you triggered the altar in the Ancient Temple, everyone realised that you possessed the Ancient DNA." My father explained. Then he gave me a grave look. "And we need you, sweetheart. More than you know. You have the potential to make all my abilities look pale in comparison. We need you to help us save the human race."

Well, damn.

Author's Note: Well, I hope that helps explain a lot more. And I hope it sounds plausible enough. What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Cheeky.