Disclaimer in chapter 1

24

Sam stood just inside the final check-point of the buildings comprising the Stargate Coalition. She'd been notified SG-1, along with Jack had just landed, and took time out from her experiments to greet her no doubt thoroughly confused. . . boyfriend.

Kawalsky was the first she spotted heading down the hall, with Jack on his heals. As soon as he caught sight of her, Jack pushed past the soldier, running up and hugging her so hard, Sam was wondering if he'd cracked a rib. Her arms came around him almost as tightly whispering, "Miss me?"

His response was to kiss her long and hard in front of everyone. As the chorus of wolf whistles penetrated her consciousness, Sam pulled back, realizing how unprofessional she was acting. She wasn't in this military, but her training was bone-deep. Public displays of affection was something she just didn't do, and she hoped Jack understood her pulling back.

"Cameras," she said in a low voice, nodding to the juncture of the ceiling and wall. Jack looked up, squeezing her hand in understanding, but he wouldn't relinquish her fingers.

Motioning them to keep moving, Kawalsky looked over at her. "Where's the General?"

"Conference room," Sam answered. "He and the Colonel were called there once we'd heard you'd touched down." Kawalsky nodded, taking a right at the next corridor.

Jack was looking around and noticed the colored lines on the cement floor. "Bread crumbs?" he asked, and she smiled. It had only been three days and she felt like it had been weeks since she'd seen him. His goofy humor went a long way to restoring her after the encounter with Samuels.

"More or less." Sam squeezed his fingers back affectionately, basking in his relaxed grin. She was storing up Jack's good mood, because she wasn't sure what his reaction was going to be once he knew the whole story. "Charlie okay?"

"He will be. He didn't understand why I had to go off with Kawalsky and the gang. He was rightly a little worked up when first you disappeared with the Army and then I was going with them as well. Mike was bursting with questions too, but to his credit, he just assured me he'd take good care of Charlie." Jack walked in silence for a few steps then turned to her. "Can I call or text him? Let him know I'm okay, you're okay?"

Sam thought for a moment. "That's the General's decision, but I think he'll allow it if you use the base phone so it's a secure line."

"All this super-secret stuff is new for me. Is this how it always is? Your SGC I mean?" It felt odd to be talking to him about the Stargate program and Jack actually wanting to hear the answers. She hadn't been under any delusions he really believed what she'd told him, but contented herself that he didn't call her a loon any longer.

"If you mean that security is a high priority, then yeah. Really, I should never have told you a thing about the Stargate. I think my only defense is I was talking about the one from my universe and not the one here."

"That's splitting hairs."

"I hope the powers that be are willing to do that," she said. At the moment, Sam wasn't concerned with what disciplinary action the higher-ups would dish out. She was tasked to come up with a planetary defense against the Replicators. And to tell Jack he most likely had a rare gene that could make or break the whole deal. She wasn't sure which was going to be more difficult.

Kawalsky opened the door to the conference room, causing Daniel and Jacob to look up. "General, Colonel," he addressed the men. "This is Jack O'Neill." They both stood, offering him their hands. Jack shook Daniel's, eyeing him critically, then nodded.

"And this is General Carter," Sam pointedly said. Her hands were clasped behind her back and Sam found she was nervously rocking on the balls of her feet.

Jack looked between herself and Jacob. "Dad?" he asked, shaking the man's hand, looking astonished.

"Not exactly," Jacob said, retaking a seat and motioning them all to have one as well. "I thought he was brought up to speed," he said, directing his gaze at Kawalsky.

"Mostly, sir. There were a few finer points we didn't cover."

Jack turned to Sam, "Like your Dad being here!"

Sam tried to keep her voice low. "He's not actually my father."

"Close enough!" Jack whispered none-to-quietly.

Jacob leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach. "I'm not really interested in what your relationship is with Samantha," he said. "so long as you don't abuse her trust, we'll get along just fine. Shall we get on to the business at hand?"

Sam watched Jack start to fiddle with the papers before him, his gaze locked tight on them. She was so used to seeing O'Neill calling the shots, it was a bit unnerving to see him unsure. She gave Jack a reassuring smile and pushed away from the table.

"In the past day or so you've probably heard the term 'Ancient' either from myself, or Colonel Jackson. It refers not only to a race of people we believe seeded Earth, millions of years ago, but their technology as well. The Ancients were the builders of the Stargates, and when a deadly plague nearly wiped them out, they their city-ship Atlantis with them to the Pegasus galaxy, where they continued to evolve. The majority of their population chose to ascend-move onto a higher plane of existence-but a fair number of them returned to Earth, joining with the local populations."

Sam looked around the room to see if she'd lost anyone, and surprisingly, Jack seemed to be following her explanation. Janet looked up from the papers in front of her, brow wrinkled in confusion.

"If these people were so advanced, why did they choose to come back to a much more primitive Earth?"

It was a question she'd pondered herself on more than one occasion. "I'm not sure," she answered honestly. "Perhaps it was altruistic-wanting to help a budding society take the steps necessary to move forward. Maybe it was to protect the technology that had been left here-the Stargate for example-from falling into the wrong hands. I just don't know. We may never know. But one thing we are sure of, they interbred with the Humans of Earth."

"How do you know that?" Jack asked.

Sam gave him a broad grin. "Funny you should ask that." She fell just short of calling him "sir," feeling the word practically itching on her tongue. "Naturally their genetic material would mingle with the Humans of Earth. If you'll look at the packets before you, you'll see a representation of Human DNA. Ninety-eight percent of Humans on Earth have this form of DNA."

"What about the other two percent?" Ferretti questioned.

Sam shuffled to the next sheet with a similar picture. "They have some form of the ATA gene, or Ancient Technology Activation gene." She pointed to the circled area on her copy. "There is a peptide here on their DNA and it's what actually sets these carriers apart, making them capable of activating, and using Ancient technology."

Janet was studying her sheets intently, then looked up at Sam. "That would be such a minute deviation, you'd really have to be looking for it-specifically testing for it to even find it."

"Exactly," Sam said. "People who possess this gene don't even know they have it, and it doesn't show up on routine blood tests. It's just a slight 'edge' if you will. Like the ability to produce extra melanin to protect against sunburn."

"Is it specific to one racial group?" Janet asked.

"No. It can show up in any population, and as I said, a person can go their entire life and not realize they have it. You can test for it, or see if someone can turn on something of Ancient origin." Sam looked over at Jack who was finally connecting the dots.

"Wait a second! That's why I'm here? You think I've got this thing living inside me?"

"It's not 'living' inside you like some parasite, it is you. Part of who you are. Like having brown eyes, an aptitude for hockey or anything else you have a natural talent for." Sam hoped she was getting through to him because he looked like she'd just told him he was radioactive. Why didn't he see this as the advantage it was?

Sam took her seat, turning to lightly touch him on the arm. "I don't know for a fact you have the gene, but Colonel O'Neill has it. The chances your genetic make up matches his is greater than not. Just see if you can activate the device in my lab. If you can, we'll go from there."

He looks scared, she thought. She couldn't blame him. This had all been a lot to take in, and she wasn't sure how well he was at adapting to new situations. Colonel O'Neill pushed "weird" to the back of his mind to get the job at hand done. Sam suspected it was after missions he actually analyzed what he'd encountered and made peace with it. Or not. Jack didn't have that kind of expertise. "Weird" wasn't normal for him. At least until he'd met her.

"All right," he agreed, gazing intently into her eyes. Sam knew he was doing this for her. If anyone else at the table had asked, she didn't see him being so amenable.

Sam smiled her gratitude at him, squeezing his arm tighter. "General? With your permission I'd like to move this meeting to my lab so we can determine if Jack can make the object work."

Nodding his head, Jacob stood. "Agreed." Sam's gaze met the general's and she barely smothered a grin. He had the same look on his face her father used to give her. The one that said: you better not be wasting my time.

Daniel and the rest of SG-1 were following slightly behind, talking among themselves, leaving Sam, Jack and Jacob walking side-by-side. No one spoke, and sandwiched between the two men, Sam could feel the tension rolling off each. Jacob's protective and distrustful, Jack's nervous at the presence of her almost -father. She wished she could shake the both of them.

Fortunately, they'd arrived at the lab, pushing any confrontations from Sam's mind. Looking up at the disruption, Bill and Chloe almost stood at attention as the group crowded the smallish workspace.

Sam stepped up to her work bench, showing Jack the still non-operational device. She'd put it back together in anticipation of his having a look at it, but she still couldn't make it work.

"This is it?" Jack asked, moving forward. He didn't touch it, but looked at it from several sides. "What's it do?"

"I don't know. I was hoping you could tell us."

Jack continued to inspect the device without touching it. Finally he shrugged. "I got nothin'."

"Touch it, Jack!" Kawalsky yelled at him. "It's what we dragged you here for!"

Looking back at his friend, Jack flexed his fingers, as if he was about to sit down to a piano. Tentatively, he touched the object which remained as inert as it had been.

"Nope. Nothing," Jack said. "Guess I don't have this gene thingy after all. Sorry you brought me all this way. I suppose I'll be going now. . . ." He turned to leave but Daniel caught him by the shoulders, forcing him back around.

"Put your arm inside."

"All the way inside?" Jack's eyes were wide, looking at the device as if it was a shark ready to take his arm off. Sighing, Daniel pushed past him and put the gauntlet over his arm.

"Like this." He pulled is arm out and thrust it towards Jack. "You're turn."

"It doesn't weigh very much," Jack commented, and cautiously slid his hand in. Daniel held the barrel and pushed Jack's arm at the elbow, forcing it into the device.

"Whoa!" Jack exclaimed. "It's like it's conforming to my hand or something!"

"That keeps it from falling off," Daniel told him. Everyone looked to see if anything else was happening, but so far, nothing was.

"Try wiggling your fingers," Sam suggested. Suddenly, the object sprang to life, causing everyone to take a step back, including Jack, despite the fact he was bringing the device with him. After a moment, his trepidation turned to delight.

"This is really cool!" he pronounced, touching different spots on the exterior which lit up at his contact.

"I wonder what it is," Janet spoke from the back of the group.

Jack was examining more of the details and off-handedly answered, "It's a disrupter."

"How do you know that?" Sam asked in disbelief.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just do. Just sort of came to me." He slid it off his arm and handed it to Ferretti. "It should work for any of you now. It just needed to be turned on."

Sam stared at him in complete fascination. "What?" he asked, looking around at the band surrounding him, equally shocked.

"No doubt about it," she confirmed. "You've got the gene." Sam was thrown for a moment, then started asking questions. "What did it feel like? How did you know what it was called? Was the information in your brain like a memory or something else?"

Jack took her by the shoulders. "Easy, Tiger. We'll get to that." Turning to the senior Carter he asked, "General, I'd like to call my son, if that's possible. Let him know everything is okay."

Jacob considered for a moment, then agreed. "I can't tell you how long this is going to take," he said. "That's up to you and the major."

"Understood. Sam? Can you come with me? Talk to Charlie for a minute?" She wanted nothing more than to play with her newly-activated toy, but she knew how much it would mean to Charlie to hear her voice.

"Of course." Turning to SG-1 she said. "Maybe you guys can take the 'disrupter' to the firing range and see what it can do. I'll bring Jack by when we're done." Sam watched them filing out of the lab. She was already anticipating going through the storeroom with Jack, wondering what other Ancient technology she and Daniel had missed.