AN: Sorry about the delay guys... uh... well.. I ran out of jars so no canning for a bit at least.

Chapter 3

They had a talk about the situation that next morning. That they accepted how they felt but also that there wasn't much either could do about it currently. Both had suggested keeping things casual for the sake of the other, neither having any intention of acting on that suggestion. That day, Sam is given a project in addition to fixing what was wrong with the Gate and goes into full on workaholic mode. They had just talked about this sort of thing being unhealthy for her and Jack was privately very steamed that he was being ignored. Publicly, he was pretty much being a surly jerk about it so most of the base was tiptoeing around him.

A week later when Jack has hit fed up, Orlin shows up in Sam's life. And suddenly Jack realizes how badly his self-centered behavior is backfiring. He's unable to stop himself from still being short with her until he realizes Sam didn't invite the horny alien into her house in the first place. That the guy had attached himself to her because he saw she's too nice to just tell him to fuck the hell off. When she comes to him half a week later with a hypothetical plan to capture him and send him back, Jack caves but tries not to show it. He was almost glad he'd drunk way too much coffee this morning and had to rush to the head, leaving her mystified in his wake.

A couple more weeks later, Jack is standing outside Sam's house. The door frame was kicked in. "Look why don't you take my bunk at base the next couple nights Sam. Teal'c and I will go to the hardware store and get you a new door tomorrow morning.

One of the SF's was nailing military grade plywood to the shattered door frame of her house.

"Are you sure?"

Jack nods. "I've got a couple days off coming up anyway. I'll come over and help you clean up. It's partially my fault for not believing you initially anyway." He admitted.

Sam gave Jack an odd look. "Are you sure?"

"Yah it's fine. How are you holding up?"

She sighed. "Other than a bunch of Alphabet company goons dug through my underwear drawer like perverts… all right I suppose." She told him.

"I'll buy you new ones." He says with a cheeky grin that makes her laugh. That's better, he thinks. Sam had clearly started to feel bad for the alien guy in spite of the situation. He couldn't fault her that. He'd taken on his share of hard luck cases himself. "C'mon. Let's go get the guys and go have dinner." He told her draping an arm over her shoulder. "I'll drive you back to base after we eat."

"All right sir." She tells him, aware that they have an audience and this needs to look like old friends and not two people who two months ago had been discussing starting a family in the 1800s.

It was almost a month since Jack last spoke with his cousin when Jack gets a call from Bub that he's on his way into Colorado and will drive down from Denver for a short layover. Someone from Phoenix delivered his Jeep to Colorado for him in anticipation of him staying a few days. More than enough time to tell him about Grandpap and Grammy Pratt. Jack snorted a sort of grin.

Two years ago, Bub would have though Jack was yanking his chain but that was clearly Ernie's unmistakable handwriting and Jack could prove it. They had always wondered about the initials scribed under the bed rail. Jack had always secretly thought that was a very sweet inscription yet never used it with Sara for some reason even though Bub had often wondered who it was that shared Jack's initials. Jack hadn't thought about it in years thought. Ernie had told him in his long missive that Abby had also strong armed her son-in-law by insisting the bed was to be given to one of the grandkids if they wanted it and Harry was absolutely not to dispose of it otherwise. Harry was prone to telling his father-in-law his faults at length. Even Abby admonishing him to hold his tongue had rarely had much effect beyond the immediate apology from the man but he kept the bed.

Jack heard excited high pitched yelling and looked out one of the front windows. The kids at the end of the block had started a pickup game of street hockey that some of the dads were joining into as well. Jack grinned and headed to the garage to grab his gear.

The next morning, Bub showed up at an unreasonable hour and let himself in. He made a pot of coffee for Jack and fished around for some tea bags. All he could find was some fruity herbal stuff. Oh well. It's no Earl Grey but at least it's tea. He put a mug of water in the microwave to heat up and went looking for Jack.

"J.J.! I know you're here. That piece of crap truck of yours was in the driveway!" He yells up the stairs. He heard muffled cursing, a thud, and more cursing. Jack limped down the stairs, one hand holding the rail firmly and the other scrubbing his hair.

"What the hell time was your flight?"

"Six AM, why?" Mac asked innocently. Knowing damn well if Jack was on leave he tended to sleep in.

"That better be coffee." He muttered.

Mac chuckled. Give the man a pond and he was up at the crack before dawn. Give him a warm bed and you could just forget about those fish. He made Jack a mug of coffee while he steeped his mug of tea. "So what brings me out to brisk Colorado this time of year, Jack?"

"Huh? Oh… let me wake up first, will yah."

"Okay. What did you do to your knee?"

"Ah! I was playing street hockey with the local kids and my foot zigged but my knee zagged." He grumbled and slugged down half his mug of coffee. "That Carter's tea you're drinking?"

"You didn't have any other." Mack pointed out.

"No, 's fine. Just need to buy more that's all."

"So that's going…. Well?" Mack asked him with mild interest. He'd admit he might have been too rough on Jack about it the last time he was in town. They hadn't parted on good terms though Jack rarely held a grudge for long.

"Yah… no… I don't know… About that though… Bub, we are about to have one of those hypothetical conversations about something that never happened." Jack told him with a pointed look.

"Ah. Is this one about little green men?"

"Nope. This one is about H. G. Wells. Or… well will be eventually if Yonish had his way."

"Why does that name ring a bell?"

"Because it was great Grandpap's best friend. Well, one of them. There was the Ramos guy but he wasn't around as much as he had a bunch of really little kids and I was kind of busy."

Mac shook his head trying to clear it. "Jack, what the hell are you talking about?"

"A couple months back we were supposed to take a trip to a designation with letters and numbers that are irrelevant. We never got there. What happened instead was the Gate malfunctioned and threw us back in time to 1881."

"Why does that date ring a bell?" Mac said in confusion.

Jack grabbed the signed copy of 'Legend of Cheyenne' and flipped it to Mac.

"Hey! Be careful with that! He signed that one. Looks mint condition too."

"It should be. He only signed it a few months ago."

"Jack… Grandpappy Ernie died when we were ten."

"Yep. And two months ago, I spent eight months living at the Silver King with him and Sam and Danny, T… and Granny Abby."

"All right. I'm impressed. That's a good joke and almost as wild of a story as Grandpappy used to tell." Mac said chuckling.

"No joke Bub."

Bub's face dropped. "But Sam said they fixed that. The Stargate sent you-Wait, can it still do that?!""

"Yah, not usually- Carter knows how it does it... something to do with solar flares? She thought she had it fixed but Felger fubared some of the coding during an update right before we left."

"Hold on- her research was right! The magnetic field- How does that idiot even still have a job?" Mac asked, shaking his head.

"No idea. You want to hear the story or not?"

Mac settled into the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. "Why not." He said agreeably with a smile. Jack had gone back in time and met Grandpappy Ernie & Grandmumma Abby? This he had to hear.

"Mac- our perceptions of Grandpap Ernie may have been a little off-"

"Whada mean?" Mac asked him.

"Ernest really wasn't all that bad after all-"

Jack proceeded to tell Bub how they made it to Sheridan and in spite of knowing he shouldn't stay there perhaps subconsciously he'd stayed at the Silver King just to see if he really had boarded there for years. That Ernest Pratt was indeed the womanizing alcoholic gambling chain smoker Grandpa Harry had always described… and then went on to tell him about Sam's argument with one of Ernie's former lovers who tried to latch on to Jack as a replacement. That Ernie had so much respect for Abigail's choice to be independent that he'd kept his developing feelings about her to himself for at least two years that Jack could confirm. And that Abby, knowing Ernie didn't want to be tied down had done the same until their parents had decided to interfere.

"Interfere how?" Bub asked a little incredulously.

"Grandpap's mom got it in her head to have Granny Abby's dad aggravate the snot out of her until she blew up and went running to Ernie to put a stop to it." Jack chuckled. "It went spectacularly well."

"In what way?"

"Well, you know how your dad always said Gram's mom was a little flighty? Apparently you could frazzle Abby enough that she'd fly off the handle and run off and do something crazy. The first time they met she tried to enlist Ernie into helping her stop her dad from murdering the president"

"Hey, I remember that story! Grant, wasn't it? Used to make me laugh every time he said he admitted no one in Washington would pay a ransom for him." Bub said.

"Yah, so I guess the books she showed up in really were adventures they went on and she fell out of the books because they got married and she had a baby at home… Might I add one conceived prior to the wedding night."

"Well, that I believe. Grandpappy didn't have a reputation for nothing."

"Thing is, not once did he get any of those other women pregnant… only Granny Abby… because he used protection every time except with her."

"If he didn't want to be tied down, that's a hell of a way to go about it Jack."

Jack chuckled and sipped his coffee. "He didn't think she'd stick around otherwise… the thing is, Bub… he was convinced Abby could and should do better than him even though he loved her. Didn't want her to just settle on some loser who couldn't get over a crush."

Bub gave him a long look. "Gee… who does that sound like?" He said sarcastically.

"It's funny… I'm a lot like her. She shot a KKK goon dead for trying to shoot me in the back… Then thought Ernie wouldn't love a woman that could murder a man in cold blood like that and offered to leave. Wasn't even the first time she offered to go. When she figured out what Delilah and Ethan had pulled she offered to let Ernie go and face the shame of being an unwed mother by herself rather than ruin his reputation."

Mac looked at his cousin for a long time. "I'm not gonna even say it." He finally said. They both knew that's exactly Jack's behavior towards Sam the last few years.

Jack sighed softly and Bub got up and made him an ice pack.

"So how did you guys get home? I mean obviously you got home somehow but Samantha told me months ago that the Gate was found in the thirties." He handed Jack the ice pack for his knee and sat back down.

"Apparently, we attracted the attention of some futuristic time cops."

Mac laughed. "Why did you get stopped by the time cops? Wait... let me guess… in spite of knowing not to, you were going to do something that screwed up history."

Jack gave Bub a self deprecating grin. "Danny was going to marry a local schoolteacher and fade into obscurity having fathered no children… Sam and I thought…" Jack looked off into the distance.

Bub looked thoughtfully at his cousin. Jack was clearly at odds with himself about the whole thing which meant it was something about Sam. Something bad.

"Sam and I went on to get married and have four kids…"

"That's a pretty nice ending."

"Yah." Jack said wistfully and kept staring off into space.

Mac waited him out. Whatever it was, it bothered Jack quite a lot.

"She would have died giving birth to our fourth child Bub." Jack said so softly Mac almost didn't hear him.

Mac nodded slowly. He'd have lost her just the same as Mac had lost Sam's mom. Except instead of hearing about it years later, she'd probably have died right in front of him while he was helpless to stop it. Mac didn't think Jack could handle another loss like that. He'd have pushed through for his kids but… he'd have been a shell of himself doing it.

As if reciting it by route... Jack went on to tell Bub, his great grandson not him would go through the gate as he'd have committed suicide and Sam would die on the Abydos mission before figuring out the very technology said time cops used to rescue them.

Mac cringed. "That's a massive time paradox Jack."

"Yap. That's why we left." Jack agreed knowing Bub knew the real reason but wouldn't call him on it. Not after the arguing last time about this. Jack picked up a large manila envelope off his end table. "Grandpap wanted you to read that."

Bub nods and picks it up. He notices that it's their great grandfather's unmistakable handwriting and settles back to read the months and years of chatty updates from the time Jack and Sam left the 1880s until he and Jack were little boys.

"He really loved her, didn't he." Mac says not quite in surprise but more in awe. Their impression of Grandpappy Ernie was from the perspective of his angry son-in-law that had no idea the understanding Abby had with her husband. She'd never wanted or expected him to change any more than he had of her. He didn't want a housewife clinging to him. He wanted an equal. The smart remarks from her written in the margins and after his entries spoke of an intelligence Grandpa Harry had never seen in her. She'd handled all the ranching things because those were her areas of expertise and Ernie wrote because that was his vocation. He'd never spent a dime of her money even once and the farm Mac vaguely remembered had been prosperous when he was very little. Ernie had sold off the animals because he simply didn't have the energy for them. The only thing he'd kept was a lazy tom cat that had only liked his owner.

What shone through year after year was Ernest Pratt's adoration for his sweet yet sassy wife. Even her own notes of him buying her things she didn't ask for but had needed anyway. After learning to dye yarn as Sam had ordered the tools anyway, Ernie bought her a giant loom to make her own blankets and hired local tribal women to teach her natural dyes and how to weave so she wouldn't be bored during the long often cold Colorado winters.

"Why did Grandpa Harry hate him so much?" Mac finally asked in confusion.

Jack shrugged. "As far as I could tell it was a cultural thing. His upbringing had been old fashioned and Ernie's hadn't so when he saw Ernie letting Abby be herself he saw it as a lazy man not doing for his poor put upon wife and daughter."

"How did he not see that as love?" Mac asked mystified.

"He thought he rescued grandma from her useless father. Harry worked hard all his life. Hell we were grown and in our thirties before he ever admitted there was some value to what you do for a living."

"Yah. He was all for your Air Force position thought."

Jack chuckled. "It looked better on paper than convict."

"So, how are things between you and Sam?"

Jack sighed… "If you tell anyone I said this I'll kick your ass." Jack said.

Mac gave his cousin a smug smile. "Oh?"

"You might have been right about me being too hard on Sam. Ernie was afraid of his own feelings and almost lost Abby over it. Even though she loved him, Abby did the same thing and kept freaking out every time her feelings for him got overwhelming."

Mac smiled. "So you're saying you know where you got it from. Great. Now what?"

"Now I go help her clean up her house because the CIA trashed it looking for evidence of a creepy stalker alien that shacked up with her for a month."

"Wait, she's been shacking up with another guy? How bad did you screw up Jack?"

Jack flapped his hand at Mac dismissively. "I didn't. Not that way at least. The guy was invisible and followed Carter home. I was still trying to figure out how to emotionally go from we're getting married back to 'you're my 2IC' when he showed up so I was being kind of a putz." He admitted.

"So what happened?"

"She cornered me on the way to the can with some screwball plan to draw him out. It worked by the way…" He winced. He knew she probably at least made out with the guy to get him to make mistakes.

"But?"

"The guy handling it is a schmuck. He gate crashed Sam's house. Tore her door off the hinges… trashed her house. I'm going over tomorrow to help her clean it up. T and I already fixed the door but we didn't tell her yet. I don't want her going over there without help to clean it up."

"Not on that knee you aren't."

"I'll be all right. Just wrap it really hard and take a lot of ibuprofen."

"I have an idea and it would be pretty funny as a joke, too. What if I went over there instead?"

"Wadayah mean it would be funny?" Jack asked the other man who looked remarkably like him.

"Just hear me out. I'm due for a haircut anyway… We're about the same size. She'd never notice..."