Chapter Sixteen - Sam

"Come on, Carter, you can do this. It's just a speech." Sam looked at her appearance in the mirror, squelching the urge to splash some water on her face. Anything to stop from seeing the naked fear in her expression.

But there were at least seven people who would have her head if she did that. So, instead, she turned her backside to rest against the double-vanity sink.

Just a speech. Just a history-making, world-changing speech.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach as that sick feeling that seemed to have taken up residence when she'd taken this dumb job acted up again.

There was a light knock at the door before someone entered the bathroom. "Are you hyperventilating yet?"

Sam turned an affectionately annoyed look to her husband as his arms snaked around her waist, her arms linking around his neck. "I don't hyperventilate."

He snorted. "Of course not."

Playfully, she slugged his arm. "I don't."

"Whatever you say... Madam President."

Sam turned back to the mirror as she ran one hand over her carefully articulated updo. It had astounded her when she'd realized just how big a styling team the president had in order to represent the country. "Can you believe it, Joe? I'm the president of the United States. If anything, I would have believed you, Mr. Ambassador, would have been the one to get here."

He kissed her shoulder before he looked her reflection in the eye. "Are you kidding? When I met you at Georgetown, I knew that you were destined for big things. I'm just glad you let me come along for the ride."

Sam rolled her eyes. "My dad says the same thing about when I was born, but he seemed to think I was destined to be an astronaut. I mean, physics was fun in high school, but I'm not sure going into space was ever in the cards for me."

Joe squeezed her tighter. "When are you gonna give up this thing with your dad, Sam?"

Sam stiffened and pulled out of his embrace. The sentence hadn't come out of nowhere—Joe always seemed to ask about her long-standing feud with her father whenever he was mentioned—but she'd still hoped he wouldn't have said anything. "Joe, this isn't the right time."

Joe was quiet for a long moment as Sam stepped out of the bathroom and into the large bedroom with the massive, four-poster bed. She cut across into the closet and pulled the sapphire blue V-neck gown with a wide A-line skirt off the velvet hanger.

She slipped into the dress, turning so that Joe could help her with the zipper and the clasp.

"Your dad's getting older, Sam. The President of the United States should be strong enough to put aside old grievances."

She turned to face him, the satin gown rustling as the netting providing structure to her skirt scratched at her legs. "My mother died of a heart attack alone because he was deployed, Joe. He could have retired. Had adult kids who weren't going to be home to look after her. But he had to take a command in Desert Storm so he could feel important again. That's not just an old grievance."

Joe's expression was serious. "And if you're not careful, your father's going to die without getting a chance to tell you that he's proud of who you've become."

Blessedly, he hadn't mentioned something about how guilty he seemed to think she felt for not being at her mother's side to save her from the heart attack. That was something, at least.

Sam pressed her hands to the bodice of her dress, feeling claustrophobic and dizzy. She hadn't been able to stomach a single thing since breakfast. Too worried about the evening's event. About the speech. "Joseph Faxon—"

He raised his hands in surrender. "Fine. I'll stay out of it, but I should check on the French ambassador. This treaty didn't go over that well with them, and they probably could use a personal visit from the First Gentleman."

Sam groaned as she reached for him. He was just an extra two inches out of her grasp, and apparently not interested in bridging the gap between them. "Joe, don't leave like this."

He turned, almost at the door. "Sam, we've been married for almost thirty years. Maybe I was naïve, but when I first heard about your issues with your dad, I thought it might last five years. Then, I thought that when we had kids—"

"But we didn't, Joe." Her tone was sharp, a warning for him not to go down that particular road.

Joe bobbed his head slowly. "No. We didn't."

He took a few steps toward her again, his hands going into the pockets of his tuxedo. "Sam, I love you. I just want you to get a chance at the same kind of peace your brother's found with your dad."

Sam rolled her eyes. "They've bonded over the military. The only thing my father ever really cared about."

Joe dropped his hands to his sides. "Look, Sam, I'm not going to keep having this argument every so often. If you don't want to have a relationship with your dad, that's your choice."

He walked out of the presidential suite, and Sam tensed before she turned back to face her reflection. It felt so ridiculous for her to scour her wardrobe for the right pair of shoes now...

There was a discreet knock at the door to the residence before a figure walked in. "Madam President."

Sam raised an eyebrow as she looked at her Chief of Staff, flanked by the head of her security detail. "What is it, Walter?"

The short, gray-haired man frowned. "We have a situation."

Sam stiffened, ready to get back to her job. "What kind of situation?"

Walter Harriman exchanged a look with Siler, the head of Sam's secret service detail.

Walter's silence functioned like a bad omen, and Sam prepared herself to hear that the Planetary Protection Treaty she'd spent the last three years trying to build with Germany, France, England, China, and Russia was going up in smoke. Ironic since the whole point of the treaty was to address greenhouses gases and other carbon emissions.

Siler straightened, apparently taking it upon himself to tell her the bad news. "Ma'am, your children are here."

Sam's heart dropped to her stomach. "I beg your pardon?"

Walter shrugged when she tried to verify the truth with him. "See for yourself, Madam President, but you might want to take whatever they say with a grain of salt."

"Because they're clearly lying?"

Siler grimaced. "Because their story is just outrageous enough that you couldn't make it up."

They certainly were an interestingly dressed bunch, Sam mused as she walked into the Blue Room to find four figures standing between secret service agents.

A young man with golden hair and piercing blue eyes just stared at her, apparently dressed as a Bedouin for some reason. Beside him, a woman with brown curly hair wore a white dress with a pleated dropped skirt and a pink tie, like she'd been dressed for a 1920s themed costume party.

The man beside them was dressed in an Air Force dress uniform, though his face was grimy, like the other two. The last figure had her dark hair wrapped up in a bun, and was dressed in leggings and a cropped top.

She studied their faces. If she was honest, the only person she'd even sort of believe was her son would be the blond man she'd noticed first. But the word had been plural. If she had to guess, the woman with the curls who looked like Mary Poppins's apprentice, after the chimney sweep scene, was the other child. After all, she was the only other one debating something in her mind.

Sam took a few more steps toward them, and she could almost feel them hold their breaths in response. "All right, let's cut to the chase. I have to make a speech tonight, and even though my speechwriters have gone over it, I need a few minutes to prepare before I greet my guests."

All four figures had their eyes on her.

She studied the note she'd gotten from Walter on her way into the room. Ambassador Sartre would like a word. She folded the note back up and stuck it in the hidden pocket she'd had sewn into the dress. She'd deal with that later. "Who are you?"

The four individuals shared looks with one another, as if trying to nonverbally corroborate their stories.

The girl in the black leggings crossed her arms and eyed Sam with open suspicion. "I think the real question is who are you?"

Sam refused to let this fierce young woman dictate the terms of their dialogue. Instead, Sam turned to the two she suspected had claimed to be her children. "I suggest you start talking before the Secret Service takes you to the nearest holding cell."

"Secret Service?" The woman with the curly hair seemed shocked to see all the dark suits in the room.

The blond man didn't let his eyes leave Sam's as he turned to the curly-haired woman. "She's not wearing her uniform."

"So?"

The dark-haired man in the Air Force uniform—or a poor approximation of one, at least—put a hand on her elbow. "Grace, something changed. She's at the White House, but I don't think she's a guest."

The woman with the brown curls, apparently named Grace, looked at Sam with new interest. Her warm, brown eyes seemed to scan Sam and her surroundings, trying to piece together whatever her deductive reasoning told her.

She stiffened as understanding dawned in her eyes. "You're the president."

"You're quick," Sam said, with a droll smile.

That didn't deter the younger woman from taking a step forward and studying her face even more closely, like she was an experiment. An oddity. A fascination. "No, you weren't the president yesterday."

Sam bit back a laugh as she remembered the fifteen hours she'd spent going from crisis to crisis in order to make this treaty a possibility. "I rather think I was."

Siler handed her a tablet that had pictures of a vehicle Sam had never seen before, covered with sand that might have come from the Sahara desert. There was also a strange engine she'd never seen before. Something that Siler said was completely and totally foreign to what was commercially available.

Sam waved to Siler behind her. "My secret service guys seemed to think you said something about time travel? An alternate dimension? Care to explain?"

The blond man was cautious as he spoke. "You're the one who taught us everything we know about M-theory."

Sam looked from the tablet pictures to the young man. "M-theory? What is that? Some sort of molecular physics?"

The Air Force guy exchanged a look with Grace before he stepped forward. "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but you don't know M-theory?"

Sam motioned to Walter. "Listen, I can get one of my science advisors from the Pentagon, a Colonel Paul Davis. He might know what you're talking about, but no, I've never heard of whatever it is you're talking about."

She gestured to the tablet even as Walter whispered to one of the other staff members lining the room. Whether he liked it or not, Sam suspected Paul Davis would be on his way to the White House in the next five minutes. "What can you tell me about the engine in your car? I've never seen technology like this."

"Nobody has."

Grace glared at the blond man. "Jacob!"

He shrugged his broad shoulders and lifted his arms as if to ask what the big deal was. "She's an alternate version of Mom, Grace. Maybe if we're on her good side, she'll get Dad in here."

The raven-haired beauty with the attitude problem softened somewhat. "You can't assume your mom's actually married to your dad in this universe."

"Why not? She's clearly not military. Maybe they've been together for longer here."

Sam's brow furrowed. "Wait—your parents were military? Both of them?"

The Air Force officer just tensed. "I still think we should proceed cautiously. For all we know, this is the evil twin universe."

He offered Sam an apologetic half-smile. "No offense, ma'am."

Sam's smile was terse. "Why on Earth would that be offensive?"

The young man's ears turned pink. "All I'm saying is that we should be just as careful here as we were in the other place."

Grace studied Sam with unnerving persistence. "More, if I'm right."

"More?"

Jacob, the blond man who had apparently been named for Sam's father, just nodded. "Someone must have overheard something we said. Either that or we left some evidence behind that messed things up."

Grace closed her eyes and sank into one of the chairs around the edge of the room. "Perfect."

The Air Force officer was at her side, instantly inquiring about her health.

Though this wasn't her daughter, Sam's heart squeezed as the two whispered back and forth. "If you need a doctor, I can—"

Alarm appeared in her face, mirrored by the man beside her. "No."

Sam rocked back at the vehemence of her response. "Okay—"

Grace managed a thin smile. "I mean, thank you for your concern, but I don't need a doctor. I just need to rest. Unfortunately, when we went to our hotel, they had no record of our reservation."

Sam studied the woman. "Because you came from an alternate timeline?'

Three of the four strangers seemed surprised by her deduction. Only the girl with the bare midriff seemed not to be surprised by Sam's insight.

"How did you—"

Sam handed the tablet back to Siler. "I may not be a rocket scientist in this timeline, but I can put two and two together. Your car—or whatever this is—is actually a time machine. You went to the past. Probably the 1920s. This device also transported you in space. To a desert where they wear robes like Bedouins. My guess, Egypt. Though why you'd want to go there is beyond me."

The Air Force officer murmured something under his breath. Possibly You'd be surprised.

She pointed at Jacob and Grace. "You're the two who claimed to be my children, and the other two are just along for the ride. Right?"

Little Miss Attitude whistled. "I always knew you were smart, Mrs. O, but that was impressive."

Before Sam could respond to the Mrs. O comment, Joe walked in, fiddling with one of his cufflinks. "Sam, what's the hold up? Is it the speech? Because the draft you read me last night sounded great."

He looked up in confusion as he saw the four people Sam had been trying to deal with. He walked over and stood beside her. "What's going on here, hon?"

Grace's brown eyes widened as if in horror. "Hon?"

Jacob took a step forward. "Where's Jack O'Neill?"

Sam frowned at the young man. "Jack O-Who?"

"He worked on the stargate project with Dr. Daniel Jackson, you, and an alien named Teal'c."

Sam would have reacted if the other three hadn't tried to silence the blond man. "Stargate?"

From beside her, Joe seemed equally surprised. "Alien?"

Sam exchanged looks with Joe before she turned back to the people in front of her. "Okay, why don't we start at the beginning?"

There was a long moment before Grace shook her head. "Not until you tell us what happened in Giza. 1928. Starting with Paul and Catherine Langford."

That name. It sounded so familiar. "Dr. Catherine Langford? You mean, the woman who organized protests against the space program?"

The Air Force officer started, the alarm turning to dread on his face. "Catherine Langford protested against the space program?"

Sam nodded. "She almost won, too. If it weren't for her, we might have gotten to the moon before 1975."

All of the strangers blanched. "You went to the moon in 1975?"

"That's different in your timeline, too?"

Grace managed a smile that made Sam wonder if the girl was going to be sick. "There's a lot of things that are different in our timeline."

Joe took Sam's hand in his, and she couldn't tell if he was trying to give or take comfort in this moment. "And it sounds like it's all centered around this Stargate project."

Jacob sank into the chair beside his sister. "It wasn't just another project, Mom—ma'am. It changed the world as we knew it."

Sam thought back to the speech she'd been preparing for the last several days. She'd been so sure that speech would change history, but it sounded like protecting the planet from greenhouse gases was nothing compared with whatever this stargate program was. She turned to Walter. "Track down this Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson. Find Catherine Langford, too, if you can."

Joe turned so that he could whisper in her ear without his lips being read by the visitors on the other side of the room. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Sam? I mean, if they're right, they're going to want to fix the timeline. Everything we know could go up in smoke."

She caught her husband's elbow as she looked him square in the eye. "I'm not making any promises. I'm just using the vast resources at my disposal to figure out what happened and why. That's it."

Joe's mouth thinned into an expression that after thirty years gave away his disapproval.

Sam chewed on the inside of her cheek as she looked back at the four people on the other side of the room. Life had been much simpler before they arrived.

Still, she had the nagging suspicion she would be sorry to see them go.