Chapter Seventeen - Jack

It had been a long time since anyone had driven up to retired-Colonel Jack O'Neill's house in a black suburban and demanded that he accompany them to some undisclosed location. Longer still since they'd put him on a plane to Andrews and suggested that the matter had something to do with homeland security.

Jack squinted as he stepped out of the military transport and put his sunglasses on. There, dressed in a navy blue uniform with medals and honors sparkling in the sun, stood a Colonel who instantly offered a snappy salute. "Welcome to Washington, sir."

Jack returned it out of habit. "Congrats on the promotion, Kawalsky. Lose the sir."

Charlie Kawalsky grinned and gripped Jack's hand in a handshake. "Summoned to the White House, Jack? What'd you do this time?"

Jack raised an eyebrow as they walked toward another black suburban. "If I had a clue, I'd tell you."

"Promises, promises."

Jack eyed the Colonel, a friend after all the things they'd seen together. "Well, they sent you, didn't they? What can you tell me?"

Kawalsky just opened the door to the backseat. "That's beneath my pay grade. All I know is I get a message from my commanding officer to meet your transport and get you to the White House. Why they need someone in Spec-Ops to do that—"

Jack grabbed the handle and swung up into the vehicle. "No offense, Charlie, but I think they thought they could keep me in line if they sent a friendly face."

"Sounds like something Reynolds would do."

Jack didn't dignify that with a response as they traveled from the air field to their destination. "What do you know about this president, anyway?"

Kawalsky just shrugged. "Same as you, I'd expect. I mean, she's hotter than any other president we've had."

Jack rolled his eyes, though an amused smirk played on his lips. "Now, there's a statement you don't hear about the commander in chief everyday."

"You don't like her?"

"She's a politician." Jack shrugged, knowing that was all he had to say before Kawalsky would figure out why she wasn't going to be high on his best behavior list.

Kawalsky just nodded. "Yeah, you never did like those, did you?"

Jack eyed his friend. "Does anyone really like politicians?"

There was laughter in Kawalsky's voice. "Yeah, you got a point there."

Another long stretch of silence. This time as they exited Andrews Air Force base.

Then, Kawalsky leaned in quietly. "Hey, Jack, I never got a chance to tell you—I mean, I heard about Sara."

Jack's gaze flickered over to his friend, not letting the crippling pain show on his expression. "It was inevitable, I guess, after what happened to Charli."

"She was a great kid, Jack."

Jack cleared his throat before Kawalsky could go digging up any more of Jack's painful memories. "So, any idea what this meeting with the President is about? Some op that's screwing things up with her Planetary Protection Treaty or whatever the hell it is that she's working on?"

"No idea, Jack. All I know is that apparently, you were the only one invited from the good old days."

Jack's sarcasm was thick as they wound through the streets of DC. "Sweet."

He was escorted into a conference room of some kind. It was as ornate and stately as he'd expected the White House to be, but it also wasn't the Oval Office. Apparently, he wasn't there to see the President herself.

He turned to the Secret Service agents, catching a glimpse of a man with dark hair and glasses wearing a thousand dollar suit getting escorted down the corridor to another room. The plot thickened. "Any idea who the overpriced DC hack is that I'll be meeting with?"

From the door at the other corner of the room, he heard a voice. "That would be me, Colonel."

Jack's attention zeroed in on the blonde who walked into the room, her lean, slim figure highlighted by the subtle stripe of her pantsuit and stiletto heels.

Damn. She was more attractive in person with that silky blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders and those piercing blue eyes that almost mesmerized him with their intelligence.

"Thanks for coming." She extended a hand to him, the giant diamond on her left hand stealing Jack's attention as it reflected the light in the room.

Jack turned his attention back to her crystal blue eyes as he shook her hand. "Didn't exactly have much of a choice, ma'am."

She gave a reluctant smile as she waved for him to sit. "I apologize for that, Colonel. My people can get a little more persuasive than I like sometimes."

Though her manner was easy, her jacket was unbuttoned... And from the lines around her mouth, it wasn't just a fashion choice. She was grappling with something big.

Jack took the seat she'd motioned to, his mind analyzing the dozen or so scenarios he'd come up with for why he was here. "Let me guess. I'm here because France is being a bit difficult about this Planetary Protection thing you're working on. You want me to give you some insight into what happened back in eighty-eight."

Her eyebrow twitched the slightest bit upward, and he had to stifle a smirk. He'd impressed her.

"Actually, no." She grimaced as she stopped herself before she admitted something she probably hadn't planned on admitting. "Well, yes, the French have been difficult about the whole thing, but that's not why you're here."

"Okay..."

She took a long moment to study him before she cleared her throat. "Have you had anything to eat since they secreted you away?"

Jack blinked at her. "Excuse me?"

She waved to his uniform, the dress blues he'd dug out of his closet yesterday when the Air Force had come knocking on his door. "I know how the Pentagon works, Colonel. I asked them to send for you, and you probably didn't get so much as a bag of peanuts on the plane. You want anything?"

She was unlike any president he'd ever met. Then again, that was probably why the party had chosen her over her husband. "Sure. Whatever you've got is good."

She laughed softly. "This is the White House, Jack. They don't just rustle up leftovers."

There was something in the way she said his name that sent a thrill down his spine. This was dangerous. She was married. She was the President of the United States. "Uh, fine. Tuna."

She stood and walked to the door, whispering with someone on the other side.

"Food should be here in a few minutes, although I might need to warn you. If you're expecting a regular tuna salad with relish, you might be disappointed. The chefs here tend to go international if they can, so you might end up with Tuna Niçoise."

Because he'd already made it clear how much he liked the French. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but why am I here?"

President Samantha Carter crossed her legs and studied him. "There's been an incident. Believe it or not, I'm trying to figure out how to explain it to you."

"I'm smarter than I look."

She pursed her lips. "I can tell."

Now, it was his turn to be impressed. "Oh?"

"It's my job to rub elbows with the world's best and brightest. Some of them live up to their name. Others, not so much." She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "Last night, four people showed up at the White House, uninvited."

That didn't seem like news. Tourists likely tried to get opportunities to see in the White House. "Your people have to be trained for that kind of thing."

She nodded. "They are, and if it was an ordinary incident, I wouldn't even have been informed."

He squinted at her. "I still don't understand why I'm here, ma'am."

She seemed somewhat overwhelmed as she stood again, agitated. "Oh, you will in just a moment."

She reached for a remote to a computer screen that had been hidden behind a panel in the wall. The part of Jack that was still a twelve-year-old boy marveled at the technology. Cool.

She cycled through a handful of pictures. A ring in the desert. Pictures of the ancient Egyptian gods. A light green car that looked nothing like anything he'd ever seen before. Four individuals. The man with the dark hair and glasses Jack had seen out of the corner of his eye. A woman with dark brown hair who shook her fist in the air as she shouted something into a megaphone. That picture looked like it had come from the seventies.

"Colonel, do any of these pictures mean anything to you?"

Jack looked back at her, his eyes scrutinizing her for her response as much as trying not to give away whatever leverage he had. "Should they?"

She went back to the photo of the four young adults. "These are the intruders. They don't look familiar to you at all?"

He took a second look at them. Again, he just turned back to her. "Should they?"

She stiffened and crossed her arms. "Well, according to the DNA test we got back this morning, the blond one is our son."

Jack just stared at her. "Our what now?"

There was a satisfied smirk on the president's lips. "I thought that might get your attention."

Jack's tuna fish sandwich sat untouched on the edge of the table. He leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face in an effort to either wake up or prove to himself that he was already awake. He didn't know which he was hoping for. "Okay, so what? You want to restore this timeline where apparently you joined the military and became this brainiac scientist?"

The president shed her suit jacket and dropped it onto the back of the chair. "I don't know. Frankly, I don't think I have enough information yet to make my decision."

He eyed her. "Your decision."

She stiffened, apparently detecting the skepticism he'd barely tried to hide. "Why do you say it like that?"

He was going to regret going here, but what the hell, he was too far in to back out now. "Look, aside from the fact that it's a little presumptuous for you or anyone else to take that kind of decision into your hands unilaterally—"

She frowned at him as if she wasn't used to having people challenge her ideas so radically. Well, she was just going to have to get used to it because he was through jumping through political hoops.

"It's just a little strange to hear you saying it would be your call."

She folded her arms, putting all her weight on one leg as if affronted by his statement. "I am the president of the United States, Colonel. Maybe I shouldn't be able to unilaterally make this decision, but who else in our country would you ask to make that call?"

Jack took a bite of the sandwich he'd neglected while the president ran through the list of things she already knew. "Well, there's the fact that the only reason you got on the ticket was because you're a woman."

Her eyebrows shot up. "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, come on, the obvious candidate was your husband, but they couldn't very well have put him on the ballot when the other party announced they were going to put a woman at the front of their ticket. For better or worse, the writing was on the wall. The year you won the presidency was the year we were going to get our first woman president."

She scoffed. "For better or worse?"

He raised his hands in surrender. "No offense."

She rolled her eyes and grabbed her jacket from off the back of the chair. "You know what? You finish your sandwich. I have a few other people I need to see before we figure this whole mess out."

She stormed out the way she'd come, and Jack watched her go. Strange that it had never occurred to this rather intelligent woman that she might have been chosen as a political strategy rather than for her own merits.

He just shrugged and looked over at the secret service agents. "Any chance I can get some salt and vinegar potato chips with this?"