Thanks for all the reviews, guys! I hope this remains enjoyable for all! - Gia

"Oh, fer cryin' out loud!"

Jonathan O'Neill scowled as his books fell from their precarious position in their locker to land on his booted feet. The fragile balance between potential and kinetic energy had been upset once again, and has gone up must come down in the most painful way possible. Damn Newton.

Take his after-school meeting with Sergeant Namblec, for example. Jon thought he had been performing smashingly as a seventeen-year-old highschooler and JROTC cadet. He kept his grades up for prides' sake, and yet was still able to pull off the immature, sarcastic, angst-ridden teenager bit. Everything anyone could ask for from a creaky old ex-black-ops-Colonel-turned-adolescent. Biting back a growl, he bent down to pick up the astrophysics book that had scraped its edge along his shin.

Sergeant Numbskull had finally had enough of Jon's "juvenile hot-headedness and caustic self-importance." If he had been himself – i.e. about thirty years older – he would have answered the accusation with one of the exact witticisms Namblec seemed to despise. As it was, however, he had respectfully stood at full attention while the Air Force officer reamed him out, taking consolation in the fact that he was a better commanding officer than this puffed-up, jaded, wanna-be flyboy could ever be. If the man had been doing his job, he would be encouraging the loyalty the other cadets seemed to show Jon – the respect he had earned in the last year-and-a-half – instead of jealously trying to subdue his natural ability for leadership.

Still sporting a bad mood, a smarting shin and a frustrated ego, Jon started across the empty schoolyard in the direction of his apartment. It was already half-past five, and he had promised Joan Marie he would be at her house by six to help her with her calculus homework. He snorted. Him. Tutoring other students in math and science, as if he knew something about math and science. Carter would be bursting her buttons in pride. Or shock.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he realized he was not alone. He couldn't see anyone in the fading sunlight, but he was certain beyond friggin' doubt that there was someone hiding in the bushes to his right. He kept walking, however, not keen on showing his cards until he could get farther into the clearing.

He wasn't given a choice.

With speed that belied his size, BushMan silently rose from the brush and rushed him. Not speaking, Jon spun to meet his attacker, surprised but glad that he did not seem to have a weapon. Could it be that this civvies-clad pain-in-the-mikta was under orders to deliver him in one piece? Well, if so, Jonathan O'Neill could not promise the same care. Kidnapping by an unknown evil bastard was so not his idea of a good time.

Before BushMan could touch him, Jon dropped the heavy bookbag from his shoulder and shoved it at his attacker. This bought him about half a second; BushMan was big, burly and determined. Luckily, Jon had experience dealing with his type. Without thinking, he reverted to his black-ops self, and his eyes hooded over.

The following moments were a blur. One second BushMan had his left arm in a painful lock, and the next Jon miraculously had his massive head in his hands, twisting for all he was worth. How he got in that position, he didn't care. All that mattered at the moment was that he remained free. While Jon panted, BushMan's neck snapped again and again in a slow, grating death knell. When he realized his attacker was no longer breathing, Jon dropped him on the ground.

Momentarily stunned, he dropped to his knee next to the body. Still breathing heavily, he drew his hands over BushMan's open, lifeless eyes and shut them. He'd just killed a man. In cold blood.

He'd hoped he wouldn't ever have to do that again for a long time. Especially not without knowing why.

He wanted to have a moment to catch his breath and reconcile with reality, but he wasn't given the chance. Before he could do anything about it, a strong hand had taken hold of his shirt collar and pulled him backward, away from BushMan's body. A bright light bewildered him, and then his heart dropped as he heard the familiar swish of Goa'uld ring devices.

Fighting to regain his footing, he was greeted with golden, gaudy walls and the sound of a zat gun fired…twice. Hearing a thump behind him, he whirled to see a dark-haired man lying motionless on the floor.

Then, he heard an amused voice that turned his blood to ice.

"Tau'ri soldiers are a foolish waste, aren't they O'Neill? I will have to disabuse Zehuti of his reliance upon them."

It was that smug bastard Baal.

"Watcha doin', Carter?"

"Oh, hey, sir. I didn't hear you come in." Sam leaned back from the desk as General O'Neill pulled up the stool across from her with an amused smile on his face and a knowing gleam in his eye. She sighed. This was his "let's-have-a-serious-conversation-while-pretending-to-joke" look. As opposed to the "let's-bother-Carter-for-fun" cocky strut that he usually sported.

"Thinkin' about where our wayward son might be?"

Sam smiled despite her somber mood. Just like the General to make light of the situation. "Yes, sir. Daniel's going over the evidence from the scene and I'm trying to piece together events from Jon's day. Did you know he's in JROTC?"

"Ah, yeah. I did, actually. Said he needed to be taking some kind of orders, even if they were fake ones. I don't understand that myself. Doesn't really like his CO, though."

"Yeah, from talking to Sergeant Namblec, I'm taking it the feeling's mutual. In fact, he'd held him after their afternoon training session yesterday for a disciplinary 'talk.'"

"I don't think that's related. Namblec might be a pain in the rear, but half the time he's full of..." Sam giggled despite herself, and he didn't finish. Instead, he shot her a crooked grin.

"No giggling, Colonel! I wasn't even mixing my metaphors!"

Sam stopped snickering immediately and noticed that she was feeling slightly better now that he was here. Still, this situation, coupled with her father's recent death and her split with Pete, was sending her down Miserable Lane. Well, it was now or never.

"Sir, I'd like to apologize."

"For what, Carter? Rigged my PA microphone to make me sound like Bart again?"

"No, sir, that was Siler. I…" she looked at him, and took a deep breath. "I really shouldn't be apologizing to you. I should be apologizing to Jon. But since he's not here, and since he's technically you…I thought I should say I'm sorry. For neglecting him."

The General wasn't saying anything. He simply looked at her, but his grin had slipped a little from his face. So, Sam continued.

"It's just that it was awkward. I know you. I work with you. And he's…you, but not. I didn't know how to relate to him, because I couldn't treat him like he was you. And that would have been…awkward."

Her CO continued to quietly gaze at her, and it threw her off. Was he upset? What did he want to hear?

"I'm sorry if my avoidance of him offended you, sir."

Finally, the General started talking, albeit quietly. "Carter, Jon doesn't blame you for avoiding him, and neither do I. He told me that he's very aware that his existence makes you uncomfortable, and suggested that it would be better for everyone if he had a separate life. He kept in touch with me, well, because we happen to know each other extremely well. And we get a kick out of trying to outwit each other."

"Yes, sir. But Daniel, Teal'c and I should have at least made an effort, sir."

"Maybe, maybe not. Jon's already forgiven you, anyway. He's very gracious." He gave her a smug grin. "He got that from me."

Sam laughed. "Sure, sir." She sighed. "I hope he's okay."

"Me too," the General answered, looking away. "Me too." He picked up a screwdriver from her table and began fiddling with it. "How about you, Carter. How are you doing?"

"What do you mean, sir? I'm doing fine."

"You're about as fine as my grandma when she was ninty-three." He put the tool back where he had found it. "Dad just died. How are you doing?"

Sam sighed again. It wouldn't have been her choice to talk about this right now, but this was General O'Neill, and he very rarely swung towards the deep end. Might as well share.

"Well, I miss him. I've had to make some decisions that I wish he was here for."

The General looked at her for a moment. "What decisions?" His voice was low, and she could tell he was trying to pry gently because he didn't want to upset her.

"Well…" Sam bit her lip. "I called it off with Pete." She held her breath and willed herself not to give in to the sick feeling that settled in her gut. Why the heck was she so upset?

Again, he paused before saying anything, but then seemed to make a decision and put his hand through his grey hair. "Geez, Carter. I'm sorry. When? Why?"

Sam couldn't help but frown; talking about these events with General O'Neill made them seem more real than they had when she'd confided in Daniel. She wanted to cry, which was so very unlike her. And more than anything, she couldn't let herself break down in front of the General.

"Last week. I met him at our…house…and told him I couldn't do it. Dad had said he wanted me to be happy, and I knew I wasn't, and it wasn't fair to Pete."

Something in her voice much have touched a nerve in O'Neill, because he stood, lifted her from her seat and pulled her into a hug. In such close proximity, and overwhelmed by the smell of his aftershave, a few tears did escape her eyes.

"You're right, Carter. You were doing both of you a favor. I'm just so sorry it had to hurt so much."

"Yeah," Sam sniffed, still fighting the urge to sob. "Everything just seems to hurt right now."

"Yeah," he answered. They just hugged for another short while, before the General pulled away. "Let's go to dinner, Colonel, once we get Jon back."

"Sir?" Sam looked warily at him while she wiped her eyes. He was asking her to dinner? He couldn't do that.

"Carter?"

"Dinner, sir?"

"Yes, Carter. We both miss Dad. I'm sure that warrants a little bit of comfort, even if it's only to be had at O'Malley's."

"I thought we weren't allowed there anymore, sir."

"Well, they decided that since I was promoted to General, they'd let me back in. I knew this job had to come with perks."

"Not just free coffee and a personal assistant, sir?"

"Nah. I had you and Daniel before I moved up. In a way, it was a downgrade."

"Walter's not that bad, sir."

"No, he's not. In fact, he's amazingly good at getting me to do all that pesky paperwork. He's just not you."

Sam blinked at him as he resumed his cocky grin and scooted out the door.

Tony's snoring in the back of the sedan was driving her crazy. For the first hour, she'd found it cute, the way his dark hair stuck up in odd places and his face crinkled when he snorted. For the second, it was tolerable. Past three hours in stop-and-go traffic, and she was ready to trade his Italian ass in for the Labrador in the blue truck next to them.

Scratch that. The Lab would be slobbering all over her, which, luckily for her, Tony had never actually stooped to doing. Though it would be interesting if he tried.

Kate took a drink of her now-cold Starbucks and turned to Gibbs, who was silently weaving in and out of the traffic. He seemed completely unbothered by the fact that a normally two-hour trip from the airport to their office had turned into a four-hour detour of the greater Tallahassee area. Road work. They should have flown directly to Panama City.

"So, Gibbs," she started. "You seemed very accepting of Dr. Jackson's explanation."

Her boss grinned a bit and drove around an old convertible that was moving too slow in the fast lane. "Well, Kate. Orders are orders, and those were orders from the President of the United States." At Kate's disbelieving look, he went on. "And the President is our boss."

"Yes, but you didn't even fight it. That's not like you."

Gibbs smirked at her. "Don't worry Agent Todd. Fornell handed this to me, so I won't drop it completely until he gives me some satisfactory answers."

Jon opened his eyes and groaned. "Not again…"

He was in the place of nightmares, the home of never-ending death, the lair of one of the biggest egos in the universe. Familiar sheer walls, slightly luminescent, rose far above him as he picked himself off of the floor. He was aware of guards standing perpendicular to the ceiling, and reminded himself that Baal utilized something only Carter could understand to change the direction of gravity. What he was using as the floor was actually the wall. The hole in the roof was actually the opening to the corridor.

As if to prove this point, the gravity well shifted, and Jon found himself falling into the wall with a grunt. He gathered his wits just as two Jaffa rushed in to grab him, and, thrusting his foot into the knee of the closest, tumbled him into the second. Rising again, he made to dash for the door, but stopped short at the sound of a zat gun opening.

"Aw c'mon guys!" he cajoled as he raised his hands in surrender. "You didn't expect me to come without a fight, now, did'ja?" The Jaffa who had filled the entryway to his cell merely stared at him as his original wardens grabbed him firmly by the arms and thrust him into the hallway. Figuring there was no point wasting energy with fifteen snake incubators surrounding him, he followed without further struggle.

When he reached their destination, he almost wished he'd forced the Jaffa to kill him.

"Jack O'Neill. A pleasure to have you aboard. Please," Baal gestured towards a chair located across the crafted table from him, "sit."

Jon glared at the Goa'uld as his Jaffa released him and moved to guard the door. With everything within him, he ignored the gravity web on the adjacent wall. "What's the matter, Baal? Feeling a bit miffed that GQ cancelled your subscription after Anubis gave…y'all," he waved his hand around the room to indicate the Goa'uld in general, "a bad name? Well, I'm not mailing you mine. Postage is a bit out of this world."

Baal smirked peaked his hands against the table. "Ah, you are so much like him. I'll admit," he stood to walk up to Jon with a wide smile, "I found the original O'Neill humorous. You on the other hand," he ran a finger across Jon's cheek, causing the teenager to tense and tighten his jaw, "Breaking Jack O'Neill the boy will be so much more enjoyable."

"You aren't going to break me, Baal," Jon fumed through gritted teeth.

"Yes," Baal walked away from him and picked up a device that Jon knew only too well, "I will."

Jon bit back a yelp as the gravity web drew him across the room and held him fast. He struggled, but there was nothing he could do, and he knew it. He swallowed the terror he felt at reliving the torture he'd last received at Baal's hands, knowing there was no Daniel Ascended, no SG-1 to rescue him.

"What do you want from me, you larval ego-maniac?" Jon did his best to both sound and look cocky, but had to admit he probably came across as quite pathetic.

"I've learned, O'Neill, that you have obtained the knowledge of the Ancients." Baal set down the gravity device and pick up a bowl containing…worm things. "I want it."

"Well I don't have it. The Asgard removed it." He wriggled nervously, unfortunately very aware that "I don't know" was never a valid answer with Baal.

"No. They simply re-compressed it. I want you," Baal picked up a black and crusty looking invertebrate with a pair of tongs and released it so that it flew through the air towards Jon, "to remember it."

Damn Newton.

So? What did you think? Please review! I live off that stuff. Feel free to give criticism or comment on comments or tell me you like my hair (which you've never seen). It's all good.

Oh, and I apologize for the "No giggling" bit. That has to be the most overused line in Stargate fanfic-dom! I really just couldn't help myself...

Also, I'm working for the next few days, but will try to get in another chapter before I fly home on Thursday. Wish me luck and chocolate!