disclaimer: I own nothing

Author's Note: Despite my attempts, I have to accept the fact: I am Friday's bitch. I thought I'd try to stop positing on Friday and here we are again. Oh well. Sorry this chapter is late, it was hard to write! Unbeta'd.

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed!

Please enjoy!


The world really was ending. And there wasn't a damn thing that Jack could do to change that. He wanted to. He wanted to be able to just run through the Stargate, battle some Goa'uld and then everything would be okay.

This time it was impossible. Jack didn't know how to do anything to stop this from happening. He didn't know what to do to make this better. It had been just over a week since the attacks on San Fransico and San Diego. Over a week since he had told his wife that her brother had died. And things had just gotten worse.

A large chunk of Hawaii was gone now. More of Alaska had been hit. The main fighting didn't need to come to American soil because they could just be picked off with nukes. A lot of Europe had fallen. Asia was following. South America had suffered a few hits. Military installations around the world had been targeted.

Even though he was head of Homeworld Security, there wasn't anything that Jack could really do. They could plan. They fought back -and they were fighting back as hard as they currently could- but there wasn't much that they could do. Not America. They had no idea who they could trust anymore now that they knew that there was at least one Goa'uld in a world leader.

They still had no idea if there were more and Jack knew that the day was coming where they were going to have to expose Grace to even more than they already had. He didn't want to that, but Jack didn't think that they were going to have a choice. He took a breath and let it out as he walked down the corridor.

He had just come from yet another meeting where they had ben discussing what to do. Discussing the future of the country. There wasn't really much that could be done. Not from the standpoint of Homeworld Security, which shouldn't have even been doing this. But they needed all hands on deck and Jack had two of those hands.

There wasn't a damn thing that he could do with them, though.

Which was a large part of what he hated. There wasn't really anything that he could do, but he still had to be here in the damn Petagon away from his family, because it made the suits and ties above him feel better.

He needed to be with his family!

Jack stewed on this thought, ignoring everyone he passed in the hallways, even when they acknowledged him by his rank. He didn't care. He was going to go to his office and was going to call Carter. Maybe talk to Grace and Cassie too. He needed to hear their voices. He needed to know that they were okay, even though he knew that they were. He needed -but couldn't- tell them that Los Angeles was about to go too, from the information that was being passed around.

There wasn't one thing that they could do about it, though, no matter how much they wanted to be able to. The fight had to come to American soil or they had to know who was with them before they could make any real move. Allies had suddenly become enemies by the simple virtue that they had no way to tell. Better safe than sorry.

But being safe might make them sorry anyway.

Jack practically ground his teeth. A part of him was highly tempted to just resign his command, pass the job along to the next unlucky bastard, and go home to Colorado. He couldn't do that for multiple reasons. Chief among them being that his own sense of duty would never allow him to do such a thing.

Duty to so many things was hard. It had been different, long ago, when he'd had Charlie. But now that he had Sam and Grace and Cassie too, Jack felt that he needed to be there for them more. He needed to somehow protect them when there wasn't really anything that he could do. His country had come before his family had existed, but his family definitely outranked his country.

He wanted to say that they outranked the entire world. That the planet could be blown to hell for all he cared, as long as they were safe.

But the thing about Jonathan J. O'Neill was that he couldn't say that. He wanted to say it. He wanted so badly to say that it was his family above everything else. But when he had seen what he had seen, done what he had done, fought what he had fought, he couldn't say that he would doom the planet for him family. Not without it weighing so heavy on his soul.

What you wanted to be right and what was right often were not the same things. He had learned that a long time ago. Jack had bent the rules where he had needed to. Wanted to. But he had never let himself cross lines that shouldn't be crossed.

All of this kept him company as he walked into the offical offices of Homeworld Command -he still called in Homeworld Security because it sounded better and was funny- and to his office. He picked up the phone. He had a phone just like Hammond did, like the one he'd briefly been in posession of during his tenure over the SGC.

Jack hated it more and more with every passing day.

The only good thing about the red phone was that when he made a call from it, it was garuanteed to be answered by whoever was on the other end.

So Jack called the SGC. He was put through to Sam's lab instead of Daniel's. He vaguely wondered what that meant. He wondered if she and Daniel had made any progress with their theory or if they had just called it quits at this point.

"Hello?"

"Sam." Jack couldn't help the relief that flooded into his tone at the sound of his wife's voice.

He hadn't realized just how badly he had needed to hear her speak until just now. But a ball in his chest that he hadn't even noticed loosened and the weight on his shoulders seemed to shift just enough for him to straighten up.

"Jack." Sam sounded relieved too. "Why are you calling? Has something happened?"

"Just needed to hear your voice."

Jack wasn't really one for sentiment most of the time and certainly not sappy things, especially when it came to Sam -who viewed most sappy with an adorably puzzled or amused expression even after all this time- but he really had needed to hear her voice.

"It's good to hear yours too. How are things?"

He wished that she hadn't asked him that, though Jack had known that question was coming.

"Just as bad as they have been. More useless meetings. More planning defenses that might not work because we don't know who's against us and who's not."

"I hear you. Did you hear about the glider test?"

He hadn't, but Jack imagined that it was sitting on top of the pile of files in front of him that he was currently choosing to ignore. He didn't have time to get to it yet. Frankly, he didn't want to. Bad enough the world was ending. Why did it have to come with paperwork too?

"Not yet. How'd it go?"

"Perfectly." Sam's voice wobbled with relief that Jack could almost feel. "Cam said that it's perfect. One of the best he's ever flown. They're going forward with production. Building as many squadrons as possible. Take the fight to them."

"Sam. That's great."

It really was, from the standpoint of America as a whole. But it was even better for his wife, who hadn't felt like her contribution was doing anything. Who felt like she was sitting back while others fought and died. Sam finally had something concrete to show for her work and it would help in a big way.

"Yeah. It really is. I watched the test flight live over the computer. It's pefect. But we still can't cloak them."

That was his Carter. She would call something perfect -something of her own design- and then immediately find a fault in it.

Cloaking was still a technology that they couldn't master, but Jack didn't exactly see anything wrong with that.

"If you cloaked them, squads wouldn't be able to see each other or the rest of their squadron. We'd probably end up with plenty of crashes and friendly fire if we cloaked gliders." Jack told her, leaning back in his chair.

That actually earned him a small laugh.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. We don't have time to teach a whole new form of flying."

They were both silent for a few beats, just listening to each other breathe.

"How are Grace and Cassie?" Jack asked.

"As well as can be expected. They're both down. Neither of them will talk to me about it."

That was probably natural, even for four year old Grace, but Jack felt that he probably shouldn't say anything like that to Sam. She was trying and she was struggling. And it wasn't like he understood women all that much. Adored them? Hell yes. Understood them? Hell no.

He dreaded Grace's teenage years.

"Maybe you should do that girl's night thing you mentioned." he suggested.

"Jack, do you really think now's the time for that?"

"I think that Grace and Cassie need it. I think their mom does too. Hell, snag Vala into it while you're at it. She's always good for a party."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Jack knew that she was weighing both sides.

"I can make it an order."

"Is that a threat, General?"

It amazed Jack how their light banter, their normal back and forth, could survive everything that was going on. How they could find it in the sucky days they were having. Hell, the sucky months. They were holding on and carrying on because they had no choice, but the moments where things were normal, where they could be themselves, was what enabled those things to happen.

"A statement." Jack paused. "Sam, about Mark and-"

"I don't want to talk about it, Jack." she whispered and Jack almost kicked himself for bringing it up, but he plowed ahead.

"I was just going to say...when this is all over, we'll bring them home. Bury them right."

The dead from the two cities were being buried in mass graves that would take years to properly sort out when this was all over and their families wanted them home. But, with the pulling of strings, Jack had the information of where Mark and his family were tucked into his desk, so that they could do such a thing.

"Jack..." Sam's voice cracked.

Great. He'd made her cry and he wasn't even there to hug her and try and make it better. Before Jack could say anything else, he heard noise on the other end and Sam shift the phone as she said something to someone else.

"Your daughter wants to speak to you." Sam said a moment before the phone was moved again.

"Daddy!" Grace's cry was loud enough that Jack had to pull the phone away from his ear a little.

"Grace. Hi, kiddo."

"Daddy, when are you coming home?" Grace demanded.

"I don't know, Gracie."

"That's not fair!"

"I know it's not. But we've talked about this, haven't we?" Jack said gently.

"Yes." Grace muttered, then paused. "Are you fighting the bad man, Daddy?"

"Not me, kiddo. But we're sure as hell fighting."

"Sure as hell?"

"Jack!" Sam's voice said in the background, sounding exasperated.

Whoops.

"That's right." he said, ignoring the slip up.

"Good." Grace said, voice solemn.

"Yeah. It's good."

He just didn't know if they were going to win.

Jack talked to Grace for another minute or two, then she gave the phone back to Sam. He had barely gotten one word out of his mouth to his wife when the door to his office burst open. This annoyed Jack, partially because you did not simply just burst into the office of a general, let alone one that had a command like this. But the young man standing in the doorway looked panicked.

"What?" Jack snapped anyway.

"Sir -you need to come see. Right away."

Jack couldn't ignore that. Especially when he heard a klaxon start blaring on Sam's end.

"Sam-"

"You have to go. I know. Call soon. I love you."

"Love you too."

Jack hung up and followed the young man -he couldn't remember his name- into the main area of Homeworld Command. The bullpen was full of people, almost in a panic.

"What is going on?" he demanded, raising his voice so that they all looked at him.

"We're getting information from NORAD, sir." someone said.

"What sort of information?" Jack demanded.

"Russia has just launched something."

"Something?" Jack echoed. "Something? What does that mean? What the hell have they launched? Is it heading for us?"

A geek on a computer, who must have been getting live updates from a counterpart in NORAD, looked up at him.

"It's not heading for us, sir. It's huge and it's...heading into the atmosphere."

Jack bit back a swear, bending to look at the radar that was being displayed. The shape wasn't distinct, but he was pretty sure that he recognized it. His heart sank.

"Contact the Odyssey." he ordered.

"Right away, General."

Jack was on edge as he waited for the connection to go through. The Odyssey had been unable to do anything to help the war effort so far and had been required to stay out of sight because of the threats from the other ships in orbit. But he wanted to know what they were seeing. To confirm what he was afraid of.

He was patched through the ship, to Colonel Smith, who was currently in charge of the ship. It was audio only at the moment, but that was enough for Jack.

"This is General Jack O'Neill, Colonel."

"General-"

"Take your ship around the planet."

"What?"

Jack felt a burst of impatience.

"Cloak and take her around. I want to know what the hell Russia is launching."

"Another one has been detected from China, General."

"Now, Smith."

"Bringing her around, General."

There were a few moments of tense silence as the Odyssey took position.

"Oh my God." Colonel Smith said.

"What are you seeing, Colonel?" Jack demanded.

"Two 304 class ships are leaving the atmosphere to orbit the planet, sir."

Damn it. Jack had no idea why he hadn't thought of such a thing before. Maybe it was because the ships that Russia and China currently had had been provided by America. But of course, if a Goa'uld was in charge of Russia they would make more ships. They would have the memories of ships, though no Goa'uld had ever built their ships themselves.

"Have they detected you?" Jack asked.

"No, sir."

"All right. Get as far away as possible. Stay cloaked. Keep an eye on them."

"Yes, General."

The connection was broken. Jack now had to deal with the consequences of what had just happened.


XXXXXXXX


Jack wasn't going home any time soon. It was hours after the ships had been launched and he was just now getting out of the meetings that had come with it. There wasn't a damn thing that they could do about this either.

The new ships and the ones that had already been there weren't doing anything. But the threats were the same as the ones that had already been in place. Do anything with your ships and we'll destroy you. The Odyssey was the most powerful of Earth's ships, but it would also be going up against four ships that presumably each had squadrons of gliders on board.

The Odyssey was the only ship that Earth had at the moment. The Daedelus was in Atlantis. The production of America's 304s had been halted when the war had started, in favor of the glider projects. It seemed that they were paying for that. There was no way that the two ships that had been in production would be done any time soon, even if they returned to them today.

Jack stepped back into his office for the first time in hours, too wound up to sleep.

There was a huge stack of papers on his desk that he really didn't want to deal with, but he knew that he was going to have to get through. At least Landry was handling the meetings and the calls now. Jack needed a break.

He dropped into the chair behind the desk and stared mutinously at the files. He didn't touch them. Didn't even look at what was on top. His gaze slid instead to the picture frames he had positioned on the desk.

Behind him was a picture of him, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c taken on P3X-something or other years ago, along with a wedding picture of him and Sam. Sam had insisted on wearing her dress uniform instead of the traditional white dress, because she hadn't wanted a fuss and she thought it unfair that female soldiers were expected to dress up like dolls and not be proud of their service. She had also pointed out to Jack that white signaled virginity and that ship had sailed a long time ago. It had made him laugh at the time and smile at his wife staying true to herself. Now the memory triggered neither of those things.

Three pictures on the desk depicted other life moments. Sam, eight months pregnant with Grace, a black and white image Jack had taken himself. The three of them the day Grace had been born. And a shot of Grace taken just a few months earlier.

Jack stared at the pictures, feeling the same conflict between country and family. One duty and another.

He had left the door to his office open and could hear things coming from the main offices, people scrambling to figure out what to do because even as the ships had been being launched, more attacks had been taking place. Not on American soil again, not yet, but it was just a matter of time. And they were all sitting in one of the biggest targets in their countries.

Jack was going to have to call Sam and tell her that he wouldn't be home for another few days. They both knew that every time he said that now, she had to prepare for the possibility that he was never coming home. There was every chance that they would be hit while he was here and there wasn't anything that Jack could do about that.

His interest in staying alive didn't even have to do with self-preservation. If things had been different, Jack would have just accepted it as a risk. Part of the life of a soldier, even if he did have his name on a door and was sitting behind a desk instead of going through the gate or having his boots on the ground. No. His interest in staying alive was purely do to the people waiting for him to come home.

And none of that should have been on his mind right now. He needed to separate the husband and father from the general. He needed to figure this out. He was supposed to be figuring out where the best places for the glider squadrons to be deployed were, because he would somehow magically have the best insight becase he had flown gliders before.

The newsflash to the president and everyone else should have been that once you'd flown a fighter jet, Earth's modified gliders weren't really any different.

With a heavy sigh, Jack sorted through the stack on the desk until he found the papers relevant to the glider test that Mitchell had performed today. He was reading it when the phone rang.

Jack answered it, feeling a little too relieved for the interruption. He put it on speaker, though, because he really did need to read the glider reports.

"O'Neill."

"Jack."

It was Daniel and Jack immediately became alert at this. He wondered what might have happened. He knew that anything official would have come down from Hammond, but if Daniel was calling Jack here, he knew that it had to be important.

"Is something wrong?"

"What?" Daniel sounded genuinely puzzled at the tone. "Oh, no. I mean, other than the obvious, there's nothing wrong. But I was calling about the Goa'uld."

"What about them?" Jack snapped tiredly.

"China."

"What?"

"The president of China. He's one."

"Daniel, tell me you're screwing with me."

"I wish I could, Jack. But Sam saw it during a press conference we managed to get a hold of it. China just won a battle. They're celebrating."

"Not to mention they just launched a big-ass spaceship to keep our arms tied behind our backs." Jack said bitterly.

"And that. But they're not going public with that. The Goa'uld don't want anyone to know that they're here."

There was something about Daniel's tone that made Jack just want to punch him in the face. It wasn't a good feeling and it was something that Jack would never do, but Daniel's tone that was no different than usual and the way he was treating this like a normal conversation was just something that Jack couldn't handle just now.

"Why are you calling me with this instead of Hammond or Sam?"

"I haven't told Hammond. I'm on my way. And Sam took the night off."

"She did?"

"She said something about orders from a general."

Jack almost smiled at this, realizing that Sam had taken his advice. But he was too tired and worried and a thousand other things to smile. He dragged a tired hand over his face, noting that he needed to shave.

"We're going to have to go public, Daniel."

"What?" Daniel sounded confused.

For such a smart man, Daniel was sometimes incredibly dense.

"With the Stargate. All of it."

"Are you sure?"

"I think it's how things are going to go. I don't think it should, but it's not up to me. Not one part of this that matters is up to me." Jack said, his bitterness and frustration leaking into his tone.

"That's just not true."

"You don't know what's going on here, Daniel."

"I think that you need to take a certain general's advice too."

That was the last thing that Jack wanted to hear. That he was cranky and needed to step back. He couldn't step back. He was making decisions that were effecting people and outcomes and fighting. But not when it came to the things that really mattered. He had passed Sam's theory on how to get rid of the Russian Goa'uld along and it had been shot down. He had argued against halting the production on the 304 battle cruisers.

And now look where they were.

Jack eventually hung up on Daniel and went back to the paperwork, because it was required of him.

Not because it would make one damn bit of difference.


Author's Note: To me, this is slow even for my slowburn. But it's important, so it had to be in here! Don't know when the next update will be. Also, dear Doc Manager: Teal'c and Goa'uld are spelled right. They are always spelled right. Leave me alone.

Any questions, comments, and reviews are always welcome.

Please enjoy!