disclaimer: I own nothing

Somewhat Important Author's Note: Special thanks to everyone who has read this story so far! And thanks to everyone who read and liked 'The Sun Can Not Exist Without the Moon'. That will generate a longer story, eventually. But when it does, it will be a different story. The story that is there is a one-shot/prologue to a different story that I forgot to label as complete. It has also been suggested to me that I get an AO3 account. I don't know if I will (I can barely figure this site out and I gave upon trying to figure out how to make a YouTube trailer for 'Bird Cage'), but a complete list of my stories and their content is on my profile, with warnings, ratings, and summaries.

Happy May Day, Beltane, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and whatever else! Please enjoy this chapter!

Sam was having a nightmare about some long ago battle on a different planet when she was woken up. She was disoriented and confused, having no clue what had woken her up. Her back ached and so did her neck, because she had fallen asleep draped over the work surface in her lab.

Daniel was the culprit, it turned out, sitting across from her with a legal pad in front of him, tapping his pencil against the edge of the table.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked, shoving a hand through her hair and blinking.

She had no idea how long she had been asleep. She had been exhausted by being on conference with Area 51 for hours straight. It probably would have been better and easier if she had flown out there, but she couldn't leave Grace. Well, she could. But she didn't want to. She couldn't leave her daughter, especially now.

"I just came to see how you were doing. Then I thought I'd stay. It's quiet in here." Daniel answered, writing something on the legal pad.

"Vala bothering you that much?"

"No. She's not there, actually. She went off with SG-14 about an hour ago."

That was news to Sam, as she straightened her materials and the countless pages of math and schematics.

"Oh?"

"To talk to the next planet on the list. She thinks she can convince them to help us. I didn't ask why."

"Ah. What are you doing?"

Sam was trying to be normal. She needed to be normal. Since McMurdo and the Antarctic site had been destroyed three days ago, she had been even more stressed than before. The production for the gliders was being bumped up, Cam had taken her place, and so many other things that she was not getting the sleep that she needed and even when she did take the time to sleep and eat and be with Grace, it felt like she shouldn't have been doing so, because someone else always needed her more.

"I'm trying to figure this out." Daniel said.

"What? The war?" Sam snorted a little, though she didn't mean to. "There's no reason to this, Daniel. Not to any of it. Except that somone decided they wanted to dominate the world and some people said 'oh, that's a good idea' and other people said 'no'."

Daniel gave her his typical smypathetic, creased brow look. She had seen it since that first mission together. She wished that he wouldn't give it give it to her now. She didn't want to be the cause of him looking like that.

"There's a pattern." Daniel insisted, setting the pad down and turning it so that she could see what he was working on.

Daniel had drawn a world map on it and marked certain areas. It was intricate and Sam studied it, wondering what the marks meant. They didn't mark many areas that meant anything to her.

"I don't see it."

"Look at what's been spared so far, Sam." Daniel tapped the pencil. "Tokyo. London. Athens. Rome."

"So?"

"And these? Huge pockets left alone."

"Including North America."

Sam rubbed her forehead, feeling tired.

"But look." Daniel insisted, tapping other spots.

"What am I looking at?" Sam snapped.

"All the places that have been avoided have ancient history. Meaning. Seats of civilization. Powerful places. They're being left alone."

If that was signifigant, it was lost on Sam. And she was losing patience with all of this. She pulled out a red pen and made marks on the map, little marks that didn't do justice to how much had been wiped out and how many had been killed.

"All these places are gone, Daniel. Big places. 'Powerful' places. You're looking for sense where there isn't any." Sam threw the pen down as she spoke.

Daniel looked slightly hurt. But he took the pad back and set it aside.

"They hit Paris again." he said.

Sam winced.

"When?"

"About an hour ago."

She heaved a deep sigh. Since McMurdo had been hit, there had been an increase in attacks everywhere. On US military installations. On major cities. The little countries were still fighting, they were drafting people, but it looked like they would be overwhelmed. The countries that were doing the attacking were big and powerful. And they could hit that nuclear button any time. So far, every country that had major nuclear capability was playing chicken with that capability. No one wanted to be the first. But they wanted to be able to retaliate.

"How are you doing?" Daniel asked.

Sam was surprised by the question. Because she didn't really think that it mattered right now. But Daniel asking her that question, with that look, because he genuinely cared, broke her.

Tears started running down her face. Mortified, Sam turned away from Daniel, clamping a hand to her mouth. Daniel, of course, walked around the table and wrapped his arms around her. Sam leaned into him, needing the comfort. Daniel didn't say anything. He just held her and rocked her gently.

She was crying because she was scared. Because she was exhausted. Because she didn't know what to do. Because they had been able to save the world so many times before, but when it apparently mattered the most, they couldn't do a damn thing. They had saved the world just so that the world could destroy itself. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

When she stopped, Sam stayed leaning against Daniel. She needed his comfort. Daniel didn't judge her or try to placate her with false statements. He just hung on. He was her best friend. Her brother. And he seemed to know what she needed more than she did herself.

"Talk to Jack." Daniel said as they pulled away from each other.

Sam wiped her eyes with her sleeves and stared a him.

"What?"

"Talk to Jack." Daniel repeated, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "I know that you haven't. Not in the way that you need to."

Sam wanted to protest, but it died on her lips. Because Daniel was right.

"Jack has enough to worry about without me adding on to it."

"How?"

Sam laughed a little bitterly.

"Uh, the war for one, Daniel. He has to keep going to Washington and doing everything there. We have Cassie and Grace. He shouldn't be taking time to worry about me. I'm the adult. I can survive."

"You're human, Sam, and you need your husband."

Sam wanted to protest against this, but she knew that he was right. She was also pretty sure that Daniel knew more about this sort of thing than she and Jack did. Jack had been married before and Sam had had quite a few relationships herself. Daniel had been married for a relatively short amount of time, but sometimes she felt he had done it better than they did.

She nodded. Then turned away from Daniel, blotting her eyes on her sleeve.

"Who has Grace?" she asked, thinking it was bad that she wasn't certain.

"Teal'c. Jack's in a closed door meeting with Hammond right now. I think they had the president on the phone."

That meant that Jack was going back to Washington soon. Sam's heart throbbed. She ran her fingers through her hair again, thinking that with the amount of stress she was going through it would be gray by the time this was over. That thought soured her, though she didn't consider herself vain.

"Find anything?" she asked Daniel, trying to be normal, trying to mop her sticky face a little more.

"No." Daniel sounded gloomy. "I don't think I'm going to. I want to go running to the Ancients or the Asgard and beg for their help, but they won't."

"Because the threat is coming from within the planet itself." Sam said, not bothering to point out that the Ancients were jerks that wouldn't have done anything anyway.

"Exactly. How are things going with you?"

"The first glider will be ready to roll out in two days. Cam's going to fly out there to test it. I'm trying to figure out how we can cloak our ships so that we can take out theirs. I know that they're just sitting in space and they can't fire from space to Earth...but God, Daniel. I'm the kind of person that wonders, 'well, why don't they just fly them down into Earth's atmosphere and fire on their targest from there?'."

Daniel laughed at her. Sam was stunned by this and she started at him. Daniel quickly stifled it.

"Sorry, Sam. Sometimes I just wonder what it's like to be inside your head."

She had used to think the same thing about Daniel.

"Not pleasant these days."

"Yeah. And I'd probably get some thoughts and images about Jack that I'd rather live without."

Sam burst out laughing. She didn't intend to. But that was just...it was normal. It was Daniel. And it was something that she needed right now. This time, she was wiping her eyes for a different reason. It felt good to be able to laugh.

She looked at her watch and sighed lightly.

"I need to get to the control room. I have another appointment with Area 51."

"I'll walk you."

That made Sam smile. They walked down together. The control room was crowded, but that wasn't unusual these days. Monitors were still displaying news and the gate activity. Some people were in here to watch the news. It was one of the few places in the base where you could. Especially with other people for some support with what was going on. Cassie was in there too.

Sam squeezed her shoulder gently, seeing the look on Cassie's face.

"We'll talk later. Girl's night, okay?" she said softly.

Cassie nodded, giving her a small, strained smile.

Daniel hung around as Sam sat down beside Walter. She gave him small smile and pulled up the feed for Area 51. Major Jenkinson, one of the people assigned to the glider project, appeared on screen. He smiled at her.

"Colonel."

"Major."

They talked for only a few minutes before alarms started going off on Area 51's end. People started talking and gasping and things like that on hers. Sam looked around. Then she caught sight of one of the monitors and left her seat, horror and disbelief rippling through her.

"No." she breathed, feeling shaky.

The screens were displaying the first direct attacks on American cities. Someone had finally pressed the nuclear button. And they had hit San Francisco. And San Diego, both at once. Sam's mouth went dry.

"Mark." she whispered, shaking as her chest seemed to hollow.

Her brother and his family had not qualified to be in the mountain. And now the unfairness of that decision may have just led them to being killed.

Sam stared at the screen, unable to look away, tears running down her face.

XXXXXXX

Grace frowned as she put another bead on the cord she was holding. She took it and measured it and wrapped it around Uncle Teal'c's wrist, judging how much she had left to do. A lot. Uncle Teal'c's wrist was big.

Grace smiled up at him. She had wanted to make bracelets and she had managed to get him to agree. She had figured out that giving him a certain look and pouting went a long way with the Jaffa warrior.

She loved her Uncle Teal'c. She knew that he loved her too, even though he had never said it in so many words. But Grace knew. The love he felt towards her was different than what her parents felt towards her. Or anyone else, for that matter. There was love and honor and duty, all mixed together. Grace didn't have the words for those things, but she knew it. She didn't understand it, but she knew it was like how he loved her mother. It was an unbreakable bond. That bond, for the two of them, was one that existed since the first moment she had been layed in his arms the day she had been born.

Not that Grace knew any of that. But she was perceptive, far beyond what a normal child her age usually stood at.

She twisted Uncle Teal'c's old bracelet around his wrist. Her parents both wore identical ones. So did Uncle Daniel. She had noticed, but never asked. She wondered if they had made them for each other.

"Here you are, Grace Carter-O'Neill." Uncle Teal'c said in his solemn voice, handing her a small bracelet that looked huge in his hand.

Grace grinned and took it, sliding it on. It was pretty -prettier than she had managed, she noticed- and he had made it for her.

"Thank you, Uncle Teal'c." she said, throwing her arms him.

He hugged her back and Grace let go, sliding more beads on to the one that she was making him. It was going to take a lot more beads and she was determined to finish it. Grace was thinking as she worked. Her parents were both in the mountain, but she hadn't been seeing a lot of them the past few days. She knew that they were working. She knew that it was because of the bad stuff. She just did not fully understand it.

"Uncle Teal'c?"

"Yes?"

"Mommy says that she's scared sometimes. Are you?"

Grace looked up at his face. His expression did not change, but that was something that she was used to from Uncle Teal'c. He was thinking. Grace knew -knew without thinking about it in words- that he would never lie to her.

"Indeed. Any good warrior knows to allow themselves to fear."

Grace had never heard that before and she stared at him, surprised, as she strung a sparkly silver bead on to the cord.

"Why?"

"An absence of fear in more dangerous than fear itself."

Grace frowned at that, wondering why. She felt that she could work it out, if she just thought about it for a little while. Her mother always told her that thinking things through was the best way to figure them out. Thinking was good. But sometimes thinking got boring.

They stayed silent as Grace finished the bracelet. Uncle Teal'c helped her tie it off and then the ends together and let her slide it over his hand on to his wrist. Grace smiled at the rainbow pattern she had made and twisted it so that he could see the full spectrum.

"Do you like it?"

"Indeed I do."

Grace smiled at this. Now that they were done, she had to clean up the beads. There were a lot of them. And they were everywhere. Uncle Teal'c helped her, putting them back into the sectioned plastic box. Grace took quite some time sorting them into their proper places. Colors went together.

Grace looked up at Uncle Teal'c again, biting her lip a little.

"Will the scary things go away? Will people stop hurting each other?"

She had no idea why people were hurting each other in the first place. Hurting people was bad. Her mother and father had both told her so. Though once, when Grace had been on the playground and a boy had being mean, hurting him had felt good. Was that why people were hurting each other and soldiers had to protect them? Because other people were mean and hurting them felt good?

Uncle Teal'c was silent again, thinking again. Grace didn't know it, but she asked questions that most children her age wouldn't have. She thought of things that they wouldn't have. She was just a little different from them and that was why her parents sometimes worried about her more than they normally would have. But she had never caused Uncle Teal'c worry.

"All wars come to an end, Grace Carter-O'Neill. They may last for a very long time, but they do not last forever."

"Okay."

Grace snapped the box closed and spun her new bracelet. She smiled at it.

"I want to show Mommy our bracelets."

"Then we shall find her."

They left the room together, going into the corridor. People were rushing down the corridor, all in the same direction. Uncle Teal'c put a hand on Grace's shoulder, keeping her out of the way so that she wouldn't get run over. Grace pressed against him, a little bewildered by this. Uncle Teal'c caught one of the airmen by the arm.

"What is going on?" he asked.

"They've attacked the U.S."

Grace stared, realizing what that meant. Uncle Teal'c picked her up, carrying her after the others. They ended up in the control room, which was packed with people. Grace stared at the screens, frightened when she saw the devastation and fires and everything else that was on the screen. Uncle Teal'c didn't tell her not to look. Her parents were in there, Grace realized. Her father was hanging on to her mother, who was crying. Grace couldn't remember the last time she had seen her mother cry.

Uncle Teal'c carried her through the crowd to her parents. Uncle Daniel and Cassie were standing with them, watching the horror. Grace wasn't certain what cities they were showing, but that didn't matter. She shrank back against Uncle Teal'c.

Grace looked around the room, seeing the horror and some fear on the other adults' faces. That wasn't a good thing. It frightened her to see so many adults looking like that. She wanted her mother and her father, but Grace didn't reach for them. It was clear that her mother needed comfort from her father more than she did right now.

Cassie was rocking back and forth on her heels, looking upset. Grace wanted to hug her, but the height difference was too much. Uncle Daniel put an arm around Cassie and pulled her closer to him.

"It will be all right." Uncle Teal'c told her.

Grace wasn't certain that she believed that. But she had to believe that, because she was four and what adults told her was true. She took a breath and looked around at all the screens that were around her. Pretty much everyone was facing the ones that her parents and uncles were looking at. Grace had her chin resting on Uncle Teal'c's shoulder, looking at the ones behind them all. Those ones were showing different channels. Different feeds.

Grace stared intently as she saw one of them switch to a live feed of a man who must have been very important. He was standing at a podium, addressing a crowd. There were people around him, like there were when the president of the United States talked on the TV. So he had to be a president too. Of where, she didn't know.

She couldn't hear what he was saying, but as he watched, Grace went rigid against Uncle Teal'c, cold and then hot chills sweeping down her body.

It had only been for an instant, but she knew what she had seen.

The man's eyes had glowed.

Author's Note: Smallest chapter, sorry! I wrote it all on the day of posting and it was going to be longer, but I liked leaving it off where I did. It's also not beta'd, so sorry for mistakes. (My beta can't keep up with me, ha ha!) I've also been spending a lot of time on my story Sanctuary story 'Bleeding Through the Blue', so there's also that. Check it out!

Please review!