disclaimer: I own nothing
READ THIS Author's Note: In response to black1988's questions: I'm not sure that this is entirely an AU, despite the elements, because things in the show did happen up to this point, I just went rogue from a certain point. The Ancient outpost in Antarctica was destroyed with McMurdo in the last chapter. Atlantis is still sitting on its planet with the Pegasus expedition, removed from all this (for now). As for the matter of Earth's ships: Daedalus is in Pegasus. The Odessey, I'm not sure, but around Earth somewhere. At least one belongs to Russia and one belongs to China, in orbit around Earth and threatening to attack any American ship that comes near. America isn't willing to reveal the Stargate and all that by waging war in space like that when they don't have to.
I think I mentioned this (except for Atlantis) in previous chapters/notes. Hope this helps.
Also: Confession time! I write chapters between updates on this story (unusual for me). So what's up is what exists. Also, I have not seen Stargate: Atlantis. I am a die hard SG-1 fan, but have only seen a few episodes of Atlantis from season one and when Carter is in charge. I couldn't see these shows when they premiered and ran, so I've only been watching them since 2017, after seeing Sanctuary and hearing them mention SG-1 in a commentary (thank God I did!). So any discrepancies with the Atlantis storyline or arc isn't dissing the show, it's just ignorance.
Here is the next chapter (the last one that will be posted this late in the day!) and please enjoy!
There came a point where you had to stop looking at the horror and destruction. A point where the screen wasn't enough to keep you standing there. Especially when sooner rather than later, you were going to be one of the people that had to respond to this happening.
Jack knew that he was going to have to at least be on another call with Washington soon enough. He would probably have to fly out there again. But for the moment, he was trying to focus on his wife, who was crying silently in his arms.
"Sam-" he started, but she interrupted him.
"No, Jack. Don't say it. Please, don't say it."
Jack had no idea what Sam thought he was going to say. He turned her around to face him, pulling her away from the screen and the devastation.
"They might be alive." he said firmly. "Not all of the city was hit."
He might have been trying to give Sam false hope. He didn't know. But she didn't need to be assuming the worst when they had no idea if it had happened yet. He brushed some tears off of his wife's face. He knew that her reaction wasn't uncalled for or anything like that, but he hated seeing her in tears and they didn't know yet.
"Jack, you know the likelihood-"
"Damn it, Carter." Jack said fiercely. "Don't give up on him. He wouldn't give up on you. Now go upstairs. Try to call."
"Jack, a phone call isn't going-"
"It could work. And then I'm going to make sure that the people that are looking for survivors know that they need to find Mark and his family."
Jack had that kind of pull. He knew that he could get it done. He had never liked his brother-in-law all that much, but he was Sam's brother. And she was in tears thinking that he could be dead. He held Sam's gaze. She nodded. Jack kissed her gently.
Some people were leaving and some were coming in. Jack had things to do. But he lingered for another few moments as Carter headed upstairs. Teal'c had set Grace down and his daughter had come over to him, hugging him tightly. Jack patted her on the back, staring at the screen.
"Daddy-" Grace started, but Jack cut over her.
"It's going to be all right."
That may have been a flat out lie, but it wasn't like Jack was going to tell Grace that they were all doomed or something like that.
"Daddy-" Grace started again, staring up at him with huge blue eyes.
"Stay with Daniel and Teal'c, Gracie. Please."
Jack bent to kiss her on the head and headed for the staircase that led up to the briefing room.
"Daddy!"
Grace followed him. Jack turned on the stairs, annoyed. He didn't have time for this right now.
"Grace, stay with Daniel and Teal'c." he repeated firmly, turning and heading back up the stairs.
Grace followed him still. Sam and Hammond were both in the briefing room. The monitor in there was playing some of the same scenes as the ones in the control room.
"Daddy!" Grace said, tone changing to angry.
Jack turned to her. Grace was standing there with a look worthy of her mother on her face, staring at him.
"What, Grace?" he asked.
"There was a bad man on the TV."
That was all? Jack nearly sighed. He didn't have time for this. He didn't like that he didn't have time for Grace, but this was important. He didn't have time for his daughter to be stating the obvious.
"There are a lot of bad men on the TV."
"But he's different." Grace protested. "His eyes glowed."
Jack froze, chills shooting down his spine. Sam stepped forward, face pale, and went to Grace.
"What did you say, Grace?"
"His eyes glowed." Grace repeated as Sam picked her up. "He's a bad man. Like the snakes in my dream."
Grace looked between Jack and Sam, looking unsure and scared.
"Are you sure?" Sam asked.
Jack could tell just how much she was trying to keep her voice calm and level. She had done the same when Grace had told them about her dream of scary snakes with glowing eyes, but this was different.
Grace nodded. She rested her head against Sam's neck, still looking frightened. Sam's eyes had the same look. Jack didn't know how to respond to this. A 'bad man' with glowing eyes could only be a Goa'uld. But that was impossible. There were no Goa'uld on Earth. They would know, because they would have had to come through the Stargate. There was no way that one would have gotten through to Earth and managed to leave the SGC. No personnel had gone missing after coming back either.
"Which man had glowing eyes?" Hammond asked, walking to stand besid Jack.
Grace raised her head and looked at Sam.
"It's okay, Grace. You're not in trouble. Tell us what you saw." Sam reassured their daughter.
"I think he was a president. He had a podium and lots of people. He was talking."
That was all that they were going to get out Grace, Jack knew. But it still wasn't good. It meant that whichever country had launched this attack -Jack still wasn't certain, though there were really only three contenders- had a Goa'uld in charge. He wanted to dismiss what Grace had said. Wanted to believe that there was no possible way that it could be true. But a bad man with glowing eyes that had scared Grace could have only been a Goa'uld.
"Thank you for telling us, Grace." Hammond said gently.
Grace's eyes darted between the three of them.
"Is he bad like the snakes?"
Jack met Sam's red eyes. She gave him a slight nod. He approached Grace and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.
"Yes. Exactly like the snakes."
Jack wished that he hadn't had to say that. But Grace somehow had an idea of what the Goa'uld were and there no point in telling her that they weren't real or anything like that. Grace stared at him with a solemn gaze. Jack didn't know what else to say to her. He was still trying to wrap his mind around what was going on. How this was even possible. As a soldier, he was supposed to have quick reflexes and not have to think before knowing what to do, but that wasn't true this time. Everything had been turned upside down by a few simple words said by his four year old daughter.
"Are you going to make them go away?" Grace asked.
She had complete faith in them. Jack hoped that he would be able to live up to that expectation.
"We're going to try. Your mom and I have dealt with snakeheads before. We can do it again."
Sam gave him a look, but Jack ignored it. He was telling Grace the truth. They had dealt with the Goa'uld before. They could do it again. Just like he had told Sam that they would be able to save the world again. There was no doubt in Jack's mind that they could do it.
"Okay." Grace said.
Sam pressed a kiss to the side of Grace's head and then set her down.
"You need to go hang out with Uncle Daniel and Uncle Teal'c, okay?" she said.
Grace looked between them again and then nodded. They all waited until Grace had disappeared down the stairs to speak again.
"How confident can we be about this?" Hammond asked.
That was a good question. Grace was only four years old, after all. No one else seemed to have seen the glowing eyes. But Jack trusted his daughter. There was no way that she would make something like that up. There was no way that she would be that frightened by it. Grace was different. If she thought that there was a Goa'uld in someone, then he believed her. He knew that if Grace was near someone with naquadah in their blood, like Carter or Teal'c, she could sense it. That had nothing to do with seeing something on the TV, but Grace knew about the Goa'uld in some sense. Enough that the glowing eyes terrified her.
"I think we can be one hundred percent confident in it, General." he said.
"I agree." Sam said, though the look on her face and the tone in her voice made it clear that she wished that they didn't have to.
Hammond nodded, clearly expecting that answer.
"Jack, I'll need you on the phone with the president with me." he said.
"Yes, sir."
Jack wished that he didn't have to leave Sam alone right now, but duty called. Sam cleared her throat. Jack knew that she was already trying to shove the emotions she might have had about her brother and his family inside. Doing what he had said, not giving up on him just yet. He knew how hard it was for her.
"I need to make a few calls and I'll try and find the footage that Grace saw. See if it really is a Goa'uld." Sam said.
"Get on that, Colonel." Hammond instructed.
"Yes, sir."
Hammond turned and walked towards his office. Jack lingered for a moment, looking at Sam. She was taking a few deep breaths. Trying to calm herself. He took her hand and squeezed it briefly before going into Hammond's office.
The phone call with the president went about as well as Jack had expected. There was panic and fear and a whole lot of other things. He was going to have to go back to Washington, despite the upped risk of being there. He managed to delay it until the next day and even that was pushing it. Jack was a soldier. He knew his duty. But he also had a family and that was a different sort of duty.
The whole conversation had taken several hours and Hammond told Jack to close the door behind him when he left. The blinds had been turned down, so no one on the outside could look in. Jack stepped out.
Sam was sitting cross-legged on the briefing room table, a monitor and keyboard in front of her, going through news footage. Jack stood next to her. She didn't look at him.
"How did it go?" she asked, eyes scanning the screen.
"I have to go back to Washington."
The set of her shoulders and the clenching of her jaw told Jack that she had already figured that out. Sam still didn't look at him.
"When?"
"I got it pushed to tomorrow."
"If you need to go now, go now."
"Sam..." Jack trailed off. There wasn't much that he could say. "Anything?"
That made her freeze and she closed her eyes, letting out a sharp breath.
"I couldn't get through to Mark."
"That doesn't mean anything. I'll make the call. I promise. They'll find them."
Sam said nothing, her lips pressed together tightly. She was trying so hard to keep it together. Jack felt a pang. He had no family, other than what was here. His entire family was safe. Sam had Mark and his family. And a few other obscure relatives that Jack wasn't certain he had even met. He had never thought that having so little ties beyond the mountain would actually be a good thing. Sam also hadn't been close with Mark since their mother had died. After Jacob had died, they had been working things out more, but for things to potentially be left the way they were... He understood.
"Any luck with the footage?" he asked instead of saying any of that.
"It's still coming in. Grace was seeing a live broadcast, I think, so it's going to take a bit."
"Which country? Russia? China? North Korea?"
Those were the biggest contenders. North Korea had no knowledge of the Stargate or anything to do with that -that would have just been plain stupid- but they were still a potential threat to the United States. They might have been taking advantage of the war to launch an attack of them.
"Russia."
Of course it was the Russians. It was always the Russians. Since they had stolen the second Stargate, Russia had constantly been flipping between being their enemy and their friend. Before the war had started, they had actually been on good terms with the Russian military. But the Russian military was much different than the Russian government.
"It's always the Russians." he muttered outloud.
"To be fair, I don't think the ones we've dealt with had anything to do with this." Sam murmured.
That was probably true. Jack was opposed to Russia being involved in anything to do with the Stargate program in general, but some of the men they had dealt with hadn't been that bad. They had just always made a mess of things.
"I'm leaving tomorrow, Carter." he said, pushing those thoughts away. He needed Sam to know that he was going to stay with her and Grace. That he didn't want to go.
Sam just nodded. They stayed silent as she continued to go through footage. Then Sam jolted. Jack had missed it, but he knew that she had to have found what Grace had seen. The Russian president was speaking. It wasn't in English, but he was making a speech about attacking the United States. He watched as Sam backed it up and slowed it down. Jack felt his gut knot as he saw the unmistakable white eye glow that could only mean a Goa'uld.
He hadn't realized up until this point how much he had wanted Grace to be wrong. To believe that maybe her imagination had just run a little wild.
"Damn it." he whispered. "How do you think this could have happened?"
How could a Goa'uld have gotten to Earth undetected? Unless someone had found one that was preserved. That was how Osiris had become a problem, after all. People busting open jars that contained Goa'uld and getting possessed by them. He supposed that it could have happened again. However, it was very unlikely.
"I have no idea. But...oh my God."
Sam looked up at him, eyes stretched wide.
"What?" Jack asked.
His wife did not deign to give him the answer to the question, however. She slid off the table and ran over to the staircase. She grabbed the railing and leaned far over.
"Daniel!" Sam shouted down.
It was only a few moments before Daniel came jogging up, looking a little puzzled and concerned. Jack wondered what he had still been doing in the control room. Then he wondered where Grace was. Not that it mattered all that much. He knew that wherever Grace was, she was safe.
"What, Sam? Did you find something?"
"Goa'uld in the Russian president. Other than that, I'm just as out of the loop as you are." Jack offered.
"What?" Daniel looked alarmed at this revelation.
"What you were telling me earlier, about the places that have been left alone. What was it that you were saying?" Sam said, ignoring him completely.
Daniel's eyebrows drew together. Jack had no idea what the hell Sam was talking about, but it was clear that Daniel did.
"About the pattern?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah. What sort of pattern was it? What did you say?" Sam urged, practically bouncing on her toes.
She was clearly agitated, making Jack think that whatever it was she was trying to get Daniel to repeat couldn't have been good in any way.
"I said that the powerful places were being left alone. Places with ancient history. That sort of thing."
Sam bounced this time, her agitation clearly hitting the breaking point.
"What else? How did you phrase it?"
"Seats of civilization."
Daniel shot Jack a look that was clearly asking where Sam was going with this. At this point, his guess was as good as anything that Jack could come up with. He didn't understand where Sam's mind went every time she was working out something. He didn't need to know the road it took, because it ended up in some pretty amazing places.
"Exactly!" Sam exclaimed, spinning around and starting to pace.
"Exactly?" Jack echoed, unable to help it.
"The ancient seats of power for the Goa'uld! They're being left alone."
Jack watched as Daniel's face paled. He gestured for them to follow him. They went down to the control room, Daniel leading them to a map of the world on a wall that was mostly forgotten and left alone. Daniel pulled out a marker -he always had something to write with, didn't he?- and started shading in spots on the map. Then he made other marks, making it appear almost like a perverted treasure map.
"That can't be right." Jack protested.
Both Sam and Daniel looked at him. Jack plowed ahead with what he had to say, though he knew that they might not agree with what he was saying.
"Russia is controlled by a Goa'uld. I get that they hooked up with China and the others, but that doesn't make sense. They're not attacking a bunch of other countries. The Goa'uld don't play well with others. We all know that. So why are they?"
Daniel frowned at the map. Sam seemed just as bewildered by the question. Jack silently cursed this, because he had actually hoped to get an answer. They all stared at the map.
"They're all Goa'uld." Daniel said.
"What?" Jack and Sam's voices blended together when they said this.
"They have to be. That's why they're not attacking each other. Why they're forming alliances. They're working together."
"That's a pretty big leap, Daniel." Sam said with a frown.
"A pretty big leap?" Jack echoed. "How about impossible?"
Daniel shot him a look.
"We would be fools to ignore it as a possibility."
"It can't be a possibility." Jack said stubbornly. "For crying outloud, Daniel, it's next to impossible we have one Goa'uld running around on this planet! There can't be this many!"
Jack gestured at the map as indication, then glanced at Sam. She seemed to be on the verge of agreeing with him, but at the same time it was clear that she was leaning towards siding with Daniel. This bothered Jack, mostly because Daniel had had some pretty crazy ideas over the years, but he never really took them seriously unless another member of the team backed Daniel up. And now Sam -who was also Jack's wife- was considering it. That meant that it was a real possibility.
"There's no way that it can be that many." Sam said, voice a little hesitant. "But it would make sense."
Jack dragged a hand through his hair, unable to believe that they were actually entertaining this as a real possibility.
"No. I will give you one Goa'uld. That makes sense. Especially since we saw it. But a whole group of them? There's no way in hell that's possible. The snake might just be making alliances to blow them up later. They do that, you know."
Daniel wilted slightly under Jack's reasoning.
"That also makes sense." he admitted, eyes flicking back to the map.
"Of course it does."
"Maybe we should ask Grace." Sam said.
Jack stared at his wife.
"You think she would know?"
"She saw it when no one else did. We have to be grateful that she felt confident enough to tell us about it. She might have seen more. Or maybe...if we show her more footage, she might be able to tell."
"She's four years old, Carter. She's a little girl." Jack said.
Sam just looked at him. Her eyes were tired and stressed and a lot of other things. He shouldn't have been arguing with her. He should have been trying to comfort her or relieve the burden of what she was going through. But he couldn't. In this situation, they were soldiers, first and foremost. If their relationship ever got in the way of that... They had promised that it wouldn't.
"I know she is." Sam's voice was strained. "But she's also...she's different, Jack. You know that."
Because of the damn genes she had inherited from both of them. Any child Jack fathered would have inherited the Ancient gene from him, so he didn't worry all that much. But Sam carried the Goa'uld protein marker and naquadah in her blood. Both of which had been passed to Grace. Sam had informed them of this after the first time she had held Grace, though she had been convinced throughout her entire pregnancy. The Asgard called Grace special. Said that she was the next step in human evolution. But she was just four years old. And next step or not, this was not something Grace was supposed to do.
"I don't think we-" he started, but was interrupted by the klaxon going off.
"Unscheduled off-world activation." Walter announced behind them.
They all went to stand behind him. What now? No teams were due back today. They hardly had any teams off world right now either.
"What's going on, Walter?" Jack asked.
"It's the Tok'ra, sir." Walter said.
The timing was irony. Jack sighed. He didn't want to deal with the Tok'ra right now. But he had to. Hammond was still on the phone. He was the other general in the SGC. He had to deal with them.
"Open the iris." he said.
Sam and Daniel followed him down into the gate room. The Tok'ra walking down the ramp was Anise. Freya. Whichever. Jack hated that he had to think of both the host and the symbiote. It was strange and if you tripped up, people scorned you for being rude. It was confusing. And he didn't want to deal with it.
"Hey." he greeted, knowing it wasn't the best greeting, but he was trying to avoid names until he knew who the hell he was talking to.
"Greetings, General O'Neill. Colonel Carter. Doctor Jackson."
That was definitely the snake talking. So... Anise. He was almost one hundred percent sure that was the symbiote. He still got confused, sometimes.
"Anise. What are you doing here?"
Jack wasn't feeling very friendly towards any of the Tok'ra right now. They had denied Earth help. Now they were showing up, probably to ask them for help, he was pissed. They wouldn't give them help and now they were expecting help.
"The Tok'ra council has sent me to ask Earth for aid." Anise said.
"No."
"Jack!" Daniel said, looking scandalized.
Jack ignored him. Sam was staring was him and he avoided his wife's gaze. He didn't care. This was something that was up to him. He was the general here. And they didn't have the time to spare to rescue the Tok'ra's asses again.
"I have not even told you what-"
"I don't care. We are at war. Our country was just attacked by a damn Goa'uld and you've refused to help us. We're not helping you. Have a nice trip back."
Jack spun on his heel and walked out of the gate room, deciding to make the call he had promised Sam he would. He was leaving them to deal with things that he should have been dealing with, but he didn't care at this point. They didn't owe the Tok'ra anything.
He went to go find Teal'c after making the call. He thought that he needed to be brought up to speed and he wanted to check on Grace. She had been upset about the revelation of the Goa'uld. And he wanted to talk to her, considering what Sam had suggested.
He had no idea where Teal'c and Grace were and ended up searching for a bit. He checked Grace's room, knowing that she and Teal'c wouldn't be in the daycare and Grace liked being in her room. She wasn't in there. Jack swung into his and Sam's quarters, just to check, because Grace always went into their bedroom when she was upset at home.
No Grace. No Teal'c.
But Cassie was there.
Jack almost missed her, because he just swung in the door, but he spotted her at the last moment. Cassie was sitting in the corner of the room, hugging her knees to her chest. Jack hadn't even thought about her, really, and he felt guilty for that.
He had a million things to do. But Jack decided to ignore them all and sit down next to Cassie.
His knees protested as he got down on the floor with Cassie. Her head was pressed against her knees. She looked like she was trying to make herself as small as possible. She looked like the little girl that Sam had pulled off that dead planet and saved, time and time again. The daughter of Sam's heart. And his too, if he was really thinking about it.
"Cassie." he prompted gently.
Cassie didn't respond. Jack sighed and slid an arm around her curved back, pulling her closer to him, upsetting her position and letting him get a look at her face. Tear streaked, just like Sam's.
"Cassie..." he said it differently this time.
"I'm sorry." Cassie wiped at her eyes.
"Don't apologize. Talk to me, kid." Jack said, nudging her gently.
"I just...it's selfish."
"It's never selfish to feel things."
Cassie laughed a little, a laugh that said she didn't think that was true at all. But she didn't say anything for a few moments, staring at the ceiling. At her feet. At the walls. Anywhere but at Jack.
"It's real." Cassie's voice was so quiet Jack nearly missed it. "I thought that it might just burn itself out. That we would be spared. But it's real. It's happening and there's not going back. This world...it was supposed to safe! And now it's ending too."
A few tears ran down Cassie's face. Jack's heart ached to see them. He pulled her closer, squeezing her tightly and keeping her close. Cassie was going through a lot too. It was unfair, but he and Sam had been worrying more about Grace than Cassie. Because Cassie was older and had been through things. Because she knew how to get through these things. They had been focusing on Grace because she was a little girl. But Cassie was still a little girl too and they had been forgetting it. She was their little girl now and had been for a long time.
"It's not going to end. Do you really think that we're going to let it?"
"Do you think that you can stop it?" Cassie's voice was shaking so hard and held no trace of bite.
She was scared. And upset. And seeing another world starting to collapse around her. Honestly, Jack was surprised that Cassie was handling it as well as she currently was.
"I think we can." Jack murmured, though his mind was drifting back to the Goa'uld. Daniel's theory. The chilling possibility that it could be real.
Cassie squirmed out of his grip just enough to look him in the eye. Jack watched as another tear ran down her face. He wiped it away gently. Cassie was searching his face and Jack knew that she was trying to figure out if he was just saying that to make her feel better. She was apparently satisfied with what she saw, because she leaned back against him. She let out a shaky breath and Jack felt her shake.
"Things are going to get bad, Cassie. I can't say they won't. But we're going to get through it. We always have before. We can do it again."
Jack wasn't good with things like this. He wasn't sure that he was saying the right thing to Cassie. Because she seemed to think so, so that was good enough for him. Jack held on to Cassie as she buried her face in his chest, crying quietly.
He held her close, because it was pretty much the only thing he could do.
Author's Note: Updates might start coming slower, because the deeper I get into this story, the more I have to think about it! I'm also really into writing my Sanctuary story 'Bleeding Through the Blue', so this might take a backseat to that every once and while.
Was Jack too harsh with the Tok'ra?
Any questions will be answered at the beginning of the next chapter.
Please review!