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PART TWENTY-SIX: Two Mothers

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A few days passed and the Kinsey clone was already in plan. His mission: get the hell out of the NID's way. It was a shell, no emotions. It could be terminated at any time without any second thought. Any action it took was based on the emotions and ways of living set forth by Jack's DNA. There was nobody so incorruptible, Adrienne thought when she made him.

But Daniel caught her arm in the hallways and pulled her closer to him, "You ok with all this?" he asked.

"With what?"

"Seeing a new version of you being born."

"Oh Danny, that'll never be me. I'll just think of it as having a little... sibling. Besides, I won't be sticking around remember?"

"Where will you go?" he asked as they started walking side by side down the hallway. To where, neither was sure. "Will you disappear if you were never born?"

"No. I'm separated from my timeline. I can't just disappear. And don't worry. Nobody else will come through the Gate. I made sure the technology can't be reproduced after this."

"Then what? What do you plan on doing?"

"Hmm. Check out some cabins. See a man about some fish... You know. Yeah, sure, you bet'cha kind of stuff."

Daniel smiled and stopped them both before going down the stairs. "Ree, really." Her smile went away and her eyes got a little teary but she disregarded it as she did all her emotions. He didn't. "Stay here, Ree. You can help so much. Everything's different, right? What harm could it do if you joined the team? With Jack retiring, we're going to need a leader."

"Mom's got that covered, thanks. Besides, the Gate's activating. We might want to get down there," she said the last part with a smirk. Danny didn't like it at all. It meant something bad was going to happen.

When they got to the control room, Teal'c was already there. Jack and Sam ran down the stairs a little after the 5th chevron started glowing. The alarms started ringing but before Walter could announce the unauthorized activation, Adrienne put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head. "Don't call it. No need."

Then she made her way calmly down to the Gate room leaving Daniel, Teal'c, Jack, and Sam to look at each other quizzingly. They followed when they saw her waiting patiently at the ramp with her hands in her pockets. They all waited behind her.

It was two minutes of waiting before anyone came through. It seemed like an eternity to SG-1.

And then she came through: an angel in white clothing.

The others didn't recognize her right away, all except Jack who smiled, until she lifted her white hood and revealed a blonde head and blue eyes that shot through the base like a rainbow inside a jail cell. It was a most welcome visitor.

No one dared move. Daniel, Teal'c, and Sam all stood frozen with jaws dropped. Jack stepped forward with a smile and stood beside Adrienne. They had the same look, the visitor noticed.

And then Adrienne whispered, "Mother..."

The visitor smiled. "Hello Ree. We've missed you," she said. Adrienne smiled brightly and ran up the ramp to hug her tightly.

"Hello, Sam," Jack said, walking up calmly to greet her.

"Hello, Jack," Mother said gleefully after Ree let go. He hugged her like he would long lost family.

Sam noticed the smile on her future self's slightly wrinkled face when she saw Jack, the face of someone who had seen too much too soon and had suffered far too much to care of time's damaging effects. She did not like it. It seemed like she'd missed him more than she should.

Daniel waved a quick hello and Teal'c bowed his head in respect. Future Sam waved at Walter and Janet up on the control room. Hammond hadn't come down yet.

"We need you back, Ree. You can't stay here. Your work is done."

"Is it safe?" Ree asked.

"Well the monkey population is getting a bit out of control but otherwise, you did it," Mother joked. Jack gave a concealed chuckle. Nobody else got it but they didn't seem to care.

Adrienne walked down to Daniel and kissed him lightly on the lips, knowing Janet was watching, and said, "Don't forget me, 'kay?"

"What's going to happen without you here to tell us what to do?" She shot him a look of bewilderment. "When the world finds out it's a pawn in a game of chess with only black pieces?"

She smiled and looked down. "Can't you see? The future's draped in white, Daniel. Better a world swollen by light than one where I would need to be born," she responded, grabbed his hand as a sign she'd miss him, and kissed him on the forehead.

She moved on to hug Teal'c beside him. "Arik tree-ac te kek, Teal'c. We do not surrender, even in death."

"You will be missed, Ree," the Jaffa responded.

And then came Sam, who, while still smiling at Ree, kept her eyes on her future self and Jack. They were talking about something. Jack was not smiling. He'd looked back to them and asked her future self, "Will there be things as beautiful as she where she's going?"

Her future self had responded with a kind but tired smile, "There should be only beautiful things. But you and I both know that can never be. I can guarantee you one thing though: she will be loved."

Sam did not hear the rest as she noticed Ree was awaiting a hug. Her face was solemn again. Her daughter, her friend, was leaving her all alone to assure a future that never seemed to have existed.

"Take care of yourself, kiddo," Sam said, her face buried in her daughter's hair as they hugged. "Don't let me forget why I came back. Don't you forget it either. There's just too much that time cannot erase..."

Sam had Jack to live for now, no matter the doubts. Without a future and without a past, all Adrienne had left were shattered pieces of an imperfect present and she still refused to do anything about it.

But then just as Adrienne was about to part from her mother's arms, her eyes opened wide in slight fear and astonishment. She looked at Sam with those same eyes and slowly turned her head to face the Gate -- to face Jack.

They thought of what it could mean and worry automatically reached their faces, turning them pale with the fear of uncertainty. Daniel noticed the looks they all gave each other and soon they realized the 38 minutes was almost over.

Adrienne sighed and walked up to Jack, gave him a hug, and said in somewhat of a whisper, "I'm sorry I couldn't bring you a cigar to celebrate."

Jack raised an eyebrow, his hands back in his pockets. "What are you talking about?"

"I'd tell you but I don't even think she knows... Make her happy ok? She had to go through a lot alone. Company is the greatest gift, through the good and bad..."

And then Jack got it, the eyes and the astonishment and the strange cryptic messages. He stood frozen and tilted lightly to the side so he could face Sam with a slightly open mouth. She gestured a "What?" but he only looked down at her stomach, walking towards her slowly and wrapping his hands around it, lifting her up off the ground in excitement.

The other Sam ignored everything. She'd seen this movie once before. Instead, she looked caringly towards Adrienne and extended a hand for her to take. They walked towards the Gate and Adrienne stepped through. Sam stopped just before the horizon and looked back at the roots of her grand family and shed a tear that fell to the ramp just as she took a step into the unknown.

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EPILOGUE: A look into the sequel, "Endless Night"

One month later -- early November 2004

Sam, Teal'c, and Daniel had returned through the Gate from their latest visit to P4C-570 to see how Aileia was settling in. Teal'c would be leaving them soon to take care of her and Zagreus and then it'd be Daniel and Sam and then in 8 months it'd just be Daniel, and SG-1 would just fade away. Dangers still loomed but it seemed their legacy would be better completed behind a desk. At some point, they realized family came first.

But when they stepped through that Gate onto the planet, there had been four. As soon as they came back, Sam collapsed onto her knees on the cold metal ramp.

She looked up at the control room, at General Hammond's distraught face.

"He's dead," she whispered. "Jack's dead…"

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April 2052

Adrienne stepped through the Gate, her breath leaving her for worthier hosts. She knew she had left the sanctity of the event horizon behind her. A small warning voice in her head told her: just jump back into the horizon. End it once and for all.

But she couldn't, not without seeing the future she had created. She shivered at the thought of new ground, at the knowledge that she could do nothing anymore. That this was where she was meant to stay, even if it held no place for her. So she opened her eyes…

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THE END

The sequel is just a few days away. Add me to your author alert list to get an e-mail notice of its release. Thank you so much for reading this far.

READ? REVIEW!

Endless Night sequel to Level 28 (coming July 2006)

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SUMMARY: Adrienne has returned to the future and things are slowly getting back to normal. Sam and Jack have come to terms with their relationship but a few days before Jack finally retires, he dies horrifically while on a recon mission. Sam is left pregnant and slowly spiraling into depression. She makes a few bad choices and ends up nearly losing the one good thing she's got left in this world: her unborn child. The story then shifts between Daniel's attempts to save himself and Sam's memories of Jack and Adrienne and what was once the greatest team assembled under Cheyenne Mountain, only to realize some may not be mere memories.

And Jack himself returns to set her free...

Meanwhile, Adrienne has returned to the future only to find that not only is there no place for her there but that she was not meant to live there anymore. She had been successful: she was never made. Seeing that she has no place in any timeline, she goes against the SGC's time travel regulations and sneaks back to 2005 where she can still serve a purpose. But not before learning some disturbing facts of what SG-1 had to go through before she was finally free of her past. So she condemns this vision of Utopia and joins Teal'c on the rescue for SG-1.

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SNEAK-PEEKS!

---The name is officially "Endless Night" after one of the chapters in the original.
---Yes, Jack dies during the first chapters. But he'll be back for the end.
---No, it's not Sam-centric. My stories focus on multiple points of view.
---The same story format is going to be followed, except that most is written in flashbacks.
---Why not just keep adding to Level 28? Because the thing is freakin' 20-something chapters long, and that's enough!
---It'll be posted on first and foremost, as always under "AriadneInLove."
---Does Adrienne return? You bet your ass. All characters still alive (and some that aren't) after Level 28 will be back, including Aileia.
---Will Dionysus? Nope. He's gone for good after PART TWENTY-ONE.
---Will Sam give birth before the end? Not sure. We'll see. I can promise Jack will be there for it.
---Who's going to be the new villain? Was there even one in the first one? Character interaction usually makes those lines blurred. But yes. There will be a defined villain who tortures Sam when she tries to save Jack. His/Her background is still undecided but so far, it'll probably be named Taliesin.
---Will this be the end? Who knows? You do. The more fandom I develop, the more enthusiastic I'll be about taking on a third. This will be the last Adrienne novel, though. Frankly, she probably won't be surviving this one.