"Level 28"

By "AriadneInLove"

DISCLAIMER: This Fanfic is based on Stargate SG-1 right after Daniel returned from Ascension and before Mitchell joined the team and Jack O'Neill became a general. (Circa Season 7, Death Knell) I did not invent Stargate or own any part of it or its characters.

SUMMARY: (Sam has recently been MIA and has just been rescued. This takes place as soon as she gets back to Stargate Command and 48 years after.) A powerful stranger from the future seeks asylum at Stargate Command. What will happen when SG-1 discovers she's the daughter of one of their own and wants to kill her parent before she can be born? What will Daniel's feelings for her develop into when he realizes who and what she is? READ and REVIEW!

MAJOR 'SHIPS: Jack/Sam, Daniel/Adrienne.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: First, I'd like to thank all of those who've reviewed my story. But oh are you wrong…

--What makes you think Adrienne even has a mother… let alone that it's Sam?

--Is Teal'c's distance from the storyline for a reason, maybe?

--Is she really here to kill someone or rescue someone?

--Who tried to kill her in the future?

--And most importantly… Why do you think she was the only one left alive in the future?

Thanks again for all the feedback. Made my day. Pass the story along. STARGATE FANS UNITE! lol.

And now…

PART TWO: Justified Conclusions

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Three days later, Adrienne was released from the infirmary and given her own room at the SGC, though Sam was too in her world to know the particulars. Her burns and injuries had healed entirely and, aside from a slight limp that she assured them would go away by the next day, she was otherwise in eerily perfect health.

That night, Sam went over her reports in the mess hall. There were only scattered souls enjoying their Jell-O in peace and she had to organize some final research on their next mission, if they ever got to it. SG-1 had been taken off duty until the issue with Adrienne was resolved. Jack still refused to admit her to any other team but SG-1 and Hammond refused to let her in before more tests had been done and she had provided them with the information promised.

Bang! Someone jumped down onto the seat in front of her. She looked up, startled.

Adrienne.

"Hello," she said.

"What are you doing out of the infirmary?" Sam asked.

"Let's just say I got tired of waiting for you to visit."

Sam didn't respond. She closed the reports in front of her and leaned in.

"You don't trust me, do you?" Adrienne asked. "It's a justified conclusion, I'm sure. I'd be even less trusting were I in your position."

"'Justified conclusion'? You sure you're Colonel O'Neill's daughter?"

Adrienne's gentle face curled into a smile. She was so young, it was sickening. Sam thought maybe it was jealousy over her position but she felt better making herself belief that rather than admit the truth.

Sam asked, "You're not, are you?"

Adrienne refused to look away, leaning forward onto her arms on the table. "What makes you think I'm anyone's daughter? He assumed. Who was I to contradict?"

Sam looked taken aback. She sat back on her chair and looked at her with tired eyes.

I knew it, she thought. I knew there was a reason I couldn't trust her.

"We haven't been asking the right questions, have we? Will you tell them to me?"

"Oh I could never lie to you. See, you understand why I've kept silent. You know what my presence here can do. Who it can affect… What it can do to him if he should ever find out the truth."

Sam was curious again, jumping forward closer to her and whispering, "You don't want to hurt him, do you?"

Adrienne whispered back, "No, I could never… That's not a pertinent question, Sam."

"See I think it is. If you really were sent here rather than came of your own accord, you'd get close to him to hurt him, not do the whole father-daughter charade. Why are you so eager to go off-world?"

"First, I'm not lying to him if that's what you mean. Frasier can check our DNA. What's his is mine. And did it ever occur to you that maybe I have no intention of going off-world? If I really did want to hurt you, this is where I could commit the most damage." She opened Sam's papers and pulled out her own medical history from Dr. Frasier. "You know I have the power to do it whenever I want. No man could stop me."

"Maybe it'd take an army, but I'll prove who and what you really are, Adrienne. You can count on it," Sam said, getting up from the seat, taking the papers from her hand and storming off for the door out of the mess hall.

But before she could step through, Adrienne, without so much as turning around, said, "I await the day with open arms, but I'd make sure you have his support before you go doing or saying anything crazy, Sam."

Sam slowly pushed the door open and stepped through.

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Their talk had disturbed her. Sam thought of Adrienne's choice of words. What's his is mine. It sent shivers down her spine as she walked through the halls. She realized she hadn't talked to Colonel O'Neill in a few days. Was he avoiding her, she didn't know. But she was determined to find out. Even if it would hurt, she had to tell him that Adrienne was most possibly not his daughter.

Perhaps, she was no one's daughter.

Sam had a theory, as she always did, but she needed proof. So before she went to talk to Jack, she asked Hammond to call in the Tok'ra. Sel'mak had found discrepancies in DNA before. He could probably be able to tell these apart, no matter how many there were. Earth-Tok'ra relations had been dangerously weak lately but her father could not be blamed for wanting to see his daughter, right?

Hammond had authorized it and surely enough, two days later, they received a confirmation and the day after, Jacob walked proudly through the event horizon.

Sam, Hammond, Daniel, and Teal'c waited for him at the bottom of the ramp. Jack had apparently somewhere more important to be but surely Jacob would understand.

"Hey, Dad," Sam said, hugging her father gladly. He went on to greet the others with a manly handshake.

"I was told you wanted Sel'mak to check out a few things," he said.

"Yea, Dad, right this way."

Sam led him to her lab where they could speak in private. Papers were spread out over the working island in the middle of the room. Some were pinned on the walls or over the machine screens. Three laptops were running scans and Jacob was pretty sure by now that Sam was obsessed with finding an answer.

He went straight to a sequence of two DNA strands both labeled O'Neill that were taped to the wall. Just by looking at them, he ran straight to the laptops and before he even glanced at anything else, he asked, "What is she?"

Before they could turn to the door, Sam found a very ticked-off Jack leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

"You got something you want to tell me, Carter?" he asked, his tone a tempest over her heart.

She silently gulped as Jacob came up behind her and greeted Jack, minding the way the two were reacting.

But Sam could not help herself. "There's something going on with Adrienne, sir. She's not what she says she is. I brought in Sel'mak to help me go over her DNA scans," she said more sheepishly than she had hoped it would come out.

Jack blinked and looked at her expression. She refused to look at him, focusing on his boots. It struck him how much he had alienated her and decided to calm his thoughts. So he held his contemptuous tongue.

"Always a pleasure, Jacob," he said, avoiding Sam completely. "Major, Adrienne would like to speak with you. She's in the control room."

Sam raised both eyebrows. "In the control room?" she said staring at him. What a fool to trust her.

She ran past him to the control room where surely enough, Adrienne was sitting cross-legged in the chair usually occupied by Walter, wearing a standard issue black T-shirt and green fatigues. She had coffee in one hand and was looking at the screens expectantly, lying back in the chair.

Sam ran in and Jack calmly followed. Jacob remained enthused in Sam's obsession.

Sam turned to Jack who was just at the final step of the stairs and asked, "What the hell are you thinking! She can't be here all alone!"

He ignored her, his eyes tired. Adrienne spun in the seat and said, "If I wanted to do something, I would have done it already, Sam. Calm down and look."

Sam reluctantly moved into the seat next to her. "What am I looking at?" she asked.

Jack sat on Adrienne's other side. "Just wait," he said.

They waited for nearly 15 minutes, Sam impatiently tapping her fingernails on the console. Just as Sam was about to advise him of the complete pointlessness of their wait, the Gate began to turn on and the alarms began to flare. Walter came running in up the stairs and Adrienne quickly parted for him to sit.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" Walter yelled through the speakers.

"And you might want to call off the guns, honey," she whispered in his ear. Walter looked up at Colonel who nodded with a rather triumphant smile.

Walter asked for their evacuation just as Hammond came running in. "What the hell are you doing, Sergeant?" the General demanded to know.

Adrienne put a hand on the General's shoulder and nodded towards the Gate. Just a moment afterwards, several staff weapon blasts came through the Gate. A Goa'uld grenade weapon came through, counting down to explosion.

Adrienne smirked but Jack was getting worried. She moved away from them discretely. Only Sam noticed that she was heading down the stairs towards the Gate room. So she followed her quietly. Jack saw her leave now and realized who she was going after. He followed them. It seemed like a second had passed for everyone else. They didn't even have time to call in a bomb squad.

Adrienne was already at the sliding doors. It brought back memories. She took in a deep breath and realized she couldn't get in. Sam came up and took out her card, sliding open for her.

"Go for it, then," she said trustingly. They smiled at each other before Adrienne stepped through confidently. She walked up calmly to the bomb on the ramp and began to fiddle with it until it was open. She played with some buttons and the bomb stopped ticking. She held it up so those in the control room knew it was safe and the sirens shut off. Then she threw it back into the incoming wormhole so it could disintegrate in the event horizon and walked back down.

"Close the Iris! They're about to send the troops. It's Ba'al's little entourage," Adrienne yelled as she reached the door. It slid closed again behind her. Sam and Jack were still there, looking at each other as if they hadn't gotten together in years.

"Go for it, then," Adrienne said looking at the two with a smile. Sam smiled back at her in recognition of her own words. Adrienne patted Jack on the shoulder before going back to her room, leaving Sam and Jack alone for the first time in days just standing in the hallway.

It took them a few minutes before Sam or Jack said anything. It was just a harmony of apologetic smiles and sad, tired looks.

"You helped her," Jack was the first to speak. "I thought you didn't trust her."

"I don't, but you do. You haven't been wrong so far, no matter how blinded by fatherhood you might be, sir."

"Fatherhood… I know what you mean. I don't trust her completely, Carter, but I know she can help," he responded with a smile.

"What did she tell you about…"

"A bit. She still hasn't told me everything but I can tell she wants to."

"What are we going to do, sir?"

"'We?' So you know?"

"I figured she was ours. How'd you know?"

He smiled. "The eyes. She has your eyes," he whispered, closing in on her against the hallway wall. She didn't pull away, no matter how inappropriate she knew it was. He'd stop himself… right?

"Let's get out of here. We've got to talk," she whispered and led the way up and out of Cheyenne Mountain.

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Daniel was dreading seeing her again. He knew he should let Jack get acquainted with his daughter before he could turn on the bespectacled charm. He hadn't stopped thinking about her for days and yet he couldn't bring himself to speak with her. After all, what could he talk to her about?

Screw it, he thought, jumping up from his seat before the momentary courage surging through him dissipated. But it was too late. Adrienne was already at his door.

"Hey Danny," she said with a smile, coming up innocently. "How ya been?"

Daniel felt the courage seep away with his sweat, and oh my, was he sweating.

She noticed his uneasiness and sat down on the chair in front of his computer. He went and sat in the chair across from her and they looked at each other. She'd sat back and crossed her legs, wearing the same usual uniform with her hair picked up in a bun. She had bangs that fell over her eyes, longer than usually seen. But she still looked quite pretty and innocent.

She was not as cynical and threatening as she had been when they first met. She actually seemed… glad to see him.

"I've been good. How's the leg?" he responded finally. She smiled.

"It's good as new."

"Good."

"You know what's funny? I've had the biggest crush on you since I was little girl."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. Where was she going with this? "So is this a reminder that you had a crush on me or a reminder that I was probably 50 when you were born?"

"You were dead when I born," she said, her smile gone.

"You had a crush on a dead guy?" he tried to turn the tension.

"No. I was in love with the idea of who you were. I'd never met you though you were there when I was born. I don't think you'd agree with me."

"How could I not agree with you? You were a baby. It takes a bit to piss me off."

"No, I mean you didn't agree with how I was born."

"What?"

"Forget it."

"Right… Anyway, you seem pretty ok with the idea of time travel. Do it often?"

"Hmm. No, we have teams for that."

"But you have done it before, right?"

"As have you."

A pause filled the room. "…touché," he said with narrowed eyes and a smile.

"So is this how they flirt in 2004?"

He laughed. "I wouldn't know. I haven't left in a while."

She tilted her head to one side and smiled. "Well I'm kind of grounded for a bit but what do you say we stop by the mess hall and grab a bite before solving the mysteries of the universe, eh?"

He smiled and nodded. He got up and put an arm out for her to take and he led her to the mess hall.

They grabbed some pie (it was today's special), Daniel some coffee and Adrienne settled herself down with some green Jell-O. Danny admired her as she ate. She was so much like Jack, even as she enjoyed her pie, especially from the Simpson's expression at the site of food.

"They have The Simpsons in the future?"

"Oh yeah, they're a classic. I inherited all the seasons. They're family heirlooms."

Daniel nearly spit out some coffee laughing. It was hard to imagine The Simpsons as classics. "Really?"

"Yup. They came with the silverware -- pardon, plastic-ware."

"So… what are you going to do? Are you going back?"

She stopped concentrating on her Jell-O and pie and looked up at him through thick eyelashes. "Nowhere to go. I'm the last."

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They met up at a park near his house. It was nearest. They walked quite a bit before either one of them spoke. It was a bit uncomfortable talking to each other so informally. Sam still refused to let go of the "sir".

"What are we going to do, sir?" she asked as they neared a park bench.

"Well I was thinking of buying a dog but I'm worried he'll eat my furniture. What do you think?" he avoided the subject.

"Don't be an asshole, sir. What are we going to do about Adrienne?" she ignored his smiling gaze, bringing up her legs to hug her knees. They'd both changed into jeans and civilian clothes.

"Well you can have her every other week. But don't expect me to take her to soccer practices and all that."

"Every other week? Sir, I'm being serious. Please don't mock it."

"Hmm. Yes, she seems more into football. Think she'll like curling? I've got to take her fishing one of these days. Maybe you'll finally join us."

"Jack, cut the crap!" she yelled but it only made him smile more. He finally raised his hands in a sign of surrender. She'd said his name. No more "sirs" or "Colonels" or confusing psychobabble. He'd gotten her right where he wanted her.

"You know we can't just ignore it anymore. We can't hide it or keep it to ourselves. They're going to figure out you're her mother pretty soon. Hammond's probably already figured it out. Frasier I'm sure knows. Daniel's in denial and for some reason hasn't looked me straight in the eye for a few days and Teal'c is Fort Knox. Even if he knew, he wouldn't say a thing," Jack explained, watching her stare off at the lush green grass.

She still didn't respond.

They all know, she thought. And the thought alone was digging into her soul.

She put down her knees and sniffed. He drew her in so that she rested her head upon her shoulder. It made her think of the last time she was like this with him. She thought she was about to die, and before that, she had no idea who she was. But it felt so natural to be in his arms, how they wrapped around her so seamlessly.

"Is she going to join SG-1?" she asked somewhat muffled through his shirt.

He laughed a bit. She seemed so young and innocent in that very moment. "I don't know. I'm not even sure I want to."

"Think she'll interfere, or do you think she can't be trusted off-world?"

"I have no idea. Fatherly worry, I suppose."

Her stomach seemed to collapse with that idea. It was not the idea of sex with this man but that his heart would just collapse if he knew what she thought Adrienne really was. She couldn't handle seeing him hurt again. Even the mention of Charlie brought his usual wit and charm and tore him up to shreds.

That's when she began to believe. What if she could make him happy again? What if she could make all that pain go away, even if it was just for a little while? So, she kept her mouth shut about her theories and notions.

"We'll work it out, Jack. She tell you anything about what miracle is going to happen that allows us to… make this happen, without getting canned, that is?"

"Nope, sorry but right now it's just us. I don't even know when."

"Let's figure that out first, eh? It might come in handy."

"She doesn't want to interfere with what would happen naturally."

"Hmm. I don't buy it. I'll talk with her."

"Mother-daughter talk?" he said. It hadn't entirely hit her that she might be her mother. Let alone of a genetically enhanced super-girl.

They talked a bit more, of what to do about her and what she might be here to do. They could guess but they could not plan for what was coming. It might be years before anything might happen. They had time, they told themselves. What a lie.

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To be continued in PART THREE:

--Will the Daniel/Adrienne back-story begin to develop?

--How far are Jack and Sam going to go before they get caught?

--What the hell's going to happen with Teal'c?

--Does Sam already know what Adrienne is?

--Is she going to tell Jack, or keep abusing her knowledge to get some nookie?

--Is Adrienne going to finally join SG-1?

--What killed everyone in the future?

--Who will betray them all?

Keep tuned in! It just gets funnier and more ridiculous from now on. Stories develop between characters. We finally see Adrienne relate with the entire team trustingly. The snogging begins! Someone gets married, someone dies, and someone goes all the way down the rabbit hole… READ & REVIEW!