I am reposting this chapter. I updated a few areas and made a few corrections to how I wanted it to go. Feel free to re-read it, but it is not necessary for following chapters.
**********Tok'Ra Home World**********
Jacob was in the council chambers coordinating the moving efforts both above ground and in the tunnels themselves when he was notified of the arrival of an unknown ship in the system. Given that they currently had no way off the planet, the Tok'Ra were taking shelter in the tunnels and off the surface. As minutes passed with no information, more of the council members began arriving.
They were all currently yelling at Jacob because it was on his word that they would be safe on this planet. He had gotten the information from Jack the last time they were on a mission together as a planet that the Goa'uld were unaware of. Selmac was standing her ground and attempting to calm them all down with varying degrees of success. She was trying to explain that they would never intentionally put them all in jeopardy. She was also reminding them that it was their idea to send all the ships at their disposal to assist in the transport of the remaining Tok'Ra and supplies.
After a very stressful ten minutes or so, Garshaw walked confidently into the council chambers which rendered the entire room speechless as they slowly realized that she was part of the group left on the previous planet to wrap up the move.
"What are you doing here?" "How did you get here?" "Who's ship is in orbit?" Everyone started asking questions at the same time. Garshaw held up her hand asking for silence from the room.
"The Goa'uld attacked the planet as we were making our final plans for the move. Two of the ships were destroyed before we were even aware of their presence. They dialed into the stargate to prevent us from leaving. If it had not been for the timely arrival of the Asgard and the Tauri I would not be standing here right now." She was again bombarded with questions from everyone in the room. "Suffice it to say, there were no casualties. I will answer as many questions as I can later, but first please go let everyone know that we are perfectly safe, and we can resume setting up the base." With a show of respect everyone followed her direction without further question. The council members all stayed behind to get more information. It was not every day that the Asgard lent them any assistance.
Garshaw walked across the room to Jacob. "I believe that you have some visitors outside that would like to see you. I'm sure that they can fill you in while I take care of things here." She held up her hand again as he started to question her. "Just go and enjoy your surprise." She smiled at him.
Jacob walked out the door and into utter chaos. There were people and things everywhere. It took him a second to recognize the uniforms from the SGC personnel, but when he did, he began looking around for Sam. Even with the hat, he caught sight of her blond hair and called out to her before heading in her direction.
Hearing her name from farther down the tunnel she was standing in, Sam looked up and noticed her father. She immediately stopped what she was doing, handed the box she was holding to the man standing beside her, and headed toward the one person she needed to see. As she got closer, her eyes started to tear up and she did everything she could to keep herself composed.
*Something is wrong.* Selmac told Jacob.
*Ya, I can tell. I saw Jack and the other members of her team, so the only other thing I can think of is something happened to Mark.* Jacob began to grow more worried as she seamed to be moving toward him just short of a run.
*Just don't jump to conclusions, she will tell you, but from the looks of things she is going to need your support right now.* Selmac was still attempting to help keep Jacob calm as Sam practically threw herself at her father. She buried her face in his neck and just held on. At Selmac's urging, Jacob did nothing but hold on to her as tight as she was holding him. He glanced up at Jack who was watching the whole thing from further down the corridor. Jack gave him a slight smile and a nod of his head indicating that he was doing the right thing.
"Hey Sammie, I'm right here, I've got you." He whispered in her ear. She tightened her grip at his words, and he could swear that he could feel tears where her face was buried in his neck. There was no indication to the people around them that something was wrong. To the outside observer, it just looked like a daughter happy to see her dad after such a long absence. They all moved around them and went about their business now that the threat was gone.
After several minutes of holding her, Selmac could no longer prevent Jacob from saying something. "Sam, what's going on?" She took a deep shuttering breath and pulled away from him taking hold of his hand.
"Is there somewhere we can talk. It's a bit of a long story." Her eyes were red, but other than that there was no indication that something was going on with her.
"Follow me." He said. "Sam, is Mark…" He really didn't want to ask the question, but he needed to know if he had to prepare himself for the worst.
"Marks fine, so is his family." She could feel some of the tension drain from his posture. Jacob led Sam down a different hallway, and after a few right turns and several left turns of corridors that all looked the same, she found herself in a room very similar to where they were held by the Tok'Ra the first time they had met. She walked to the pool and splashed some water on her face attempting to wash away the traces of her earlier tears.
"There is a place we can sit when your ready Sam. Take your time, I'm not going anywhere." He stayed standing close to her hoping that just his presence would have a calming effect.
"I'm fine Dad, I just got some news this morning and it has been an emotionally stressful not to mention very long day. There has been so much going on I have not really had time to stop and process anything past my initial reaction." She turned toward him indicating she was ready to go sit down. He lead her to a small corner of the room that had comfortable looking chairs with lots of pillows. She knew that the Tok'Ra were minimalists since they moved around a lot over the years.
"Love what you have done with the place dad." Sam gave him a small smile as she sat down. "Looks much more lived in from the last time we were in a room like this." Jacob gave a good laugh.
"If you knew what I had to go through to get Selmac to agree to any of this you would be impressed with my negotiating skills. I have a mattress and blankets on the bed too if you can believe that. I can't convince her to get things to decorate yet since they are not for 'comfort', but I'm working on it." He paused for a second. "So spill! What's going on?"
"Enough small talk huh? At least let me greet Selmac before we jump into things." Jacob bowed his head and when he looked up his eyes flashed. She paused for a second. "Hi Selmac, I apologize for not greeting you sooner. How have you been?"
"Your delay is understandable as it would appear you have had a…" she paused for a second. "rough day. We have been good Sam thank you for asking. But enough about me, I am going to get some sleep so you can talk to your father privately." She started to pass control back to Jacob, but Sam stopped her.
"You don't have to do that; I understand the relationship you have. This is something that you will probably want to be present for as it kind of affects how we go forward from here. If nothing else than keeping my father from trying to kill the Asgard before I can fully explain would be helpful. But I do need my dad in control."
"I will stay present for the conversation then at your request. I can sleep later, as Jacob said we have a really comfortable bed now, no need in letting it go to waste." Selmac bowed her head and gave control back to Jacob. "Okay, now I'm really worried!" Jacob said as soon as he could.
"Before I go into what happened I need to ask you a few questions." At his nod She continued. "Was there anything unusual about mom's pregnancy with me? I mean was I planned or a surprise? Were there any complications at all? Anything that stands out looking back."
"Well, I got to admit, I didn't know what to expect, but that was not it. The answer is both yes and no. When we had Mark there were a lot of complications before he was born. Your mom was on bed rest through the last three months, and we ended up having an emergency c-section. After all was said and done, your moms doctor told her that she would likely not conceive again. If she did, he didn't expect she would survive it. He even went as far as to recommend a hysterectomy, which your mother was very much against. We argued about it for weeks. A few years later when she became pregnant with you, it was a surprise. It happened during one of the rare times I was home on leave from a mission." He looked at his hands in his lap. "By the time she told me she was pregnant it was too late to terminate, which is apparently why she waited to tell me." He leaned forward in his chair. "I have to say that for the next four months I was terrified of losing not just her, but you as well. The doctor was astounded and even went as far as asking if he could write it up in a medical journal of some sort."
Sam listened intently as her dad explained. Other than the fact that she was conceived unexpectedly, and it was a healthy pregnancy, nothing seamed out of the ordinary.
"The one thing I could never understand was how your mother was so sure that everything would be fine. She tried repeatedly to tell me that she had an Angel watching over you both. She was never stressed or concerned. It was like she just knew, and in the end she was right. After you were born, she agreed to having the hysterectomy, said she could only have a miracle baby once."
Sam's head jerked up as his last statement. "So maybe she knew the truth." Sam said mostly to herself.
"The truth about what Sam?" her dad looked at her expectantly. Sam just shook her head at him indicating that she was not ready to answer that question yet.
"Do you remember when Col. O'Neill was cloned by Loki? Loki made a mistake and didn't age the clone properly, so we were not only aware of the situation but were able to get Thor's help in resolving it?"
"Sam you just gave me whip lash changing the subject so fast. What does one have to do with the other?"
"Well Thor was looking into the experiments that Loki had done on Col. O'Neill. It took some time, but what they discovered was that I and another woman had a file connected to his. Thor came to the SGC this morning and started putting up force fields around parts of the base to protect the information he had discovered as he relayed it to us." Sam was relaxing the more she talked. She was used to doing mission reports and she was attempting to treat this like any other mission briefing. It helped to take the emotion out of it.
"Sam your story is all over the place. Just spit it out already and then we can work on dealing with whatever it is okay."
"Its not like this is easy to say you know. But fine! When Loki did his exam of Helen Magnus some thirty years ago, he discovered a mutation in her DNA that he thought may have potential to help with their cloning problems. He needed to see how the DNA would progress over time, so he took some of her eggs and using the DNA from the host parents created a viable embryo and brought the baby to term." Sam took a deep breath after her quick explanation.
"So your telling me that the Asgard created a human child as an experiment?" Jacob practically yelled. "I thought they were our allies."
"No dad, what I am trying to tell you is that Loki created me as an experiment." She held up her hand. "Apparently he made several attempts to use Asgard technology to create a child outside of a human host. The attempts failed. According to Thor, creating a clone using just Helens DNA wouldn't work because the result would be a full size clone. As this would defeat the purpose he had to make adjustments."
Jacob was silent for a few heartbeats as he processed the information. "Sam I'm not sure what you want me to say. No matter how you came about your still my kid. Even if you didn't carry any of my DNA, it wouldn't matter." Jacob was glad that he had Selmac. She was the calming voice in his head reminding him that no matter how he wanted to react he needed to say what Sam needed to hear.
"Dad, I don't think you understand. I'm essentially telling you that I am a clone and your acting like its not a big thing. I can't believe how calm you are being about this. All this time and I am just some alien experiment." By the end of her statements she was up and pacing the room, throwing her hands in the air. "You haven't even asked about…"
"Sam, please come back over here and listen to what I am about to tell you." He only had to wait a few minutes for her to calm back down enough to sit back down. "If I had told you five years ago that you were adopted, would you see yourself as any less my kid?" Jacob knew that he needed to get her thinking rationally about this and not emotionally.
"No, you raised me, so I guess I may have been interested in learning who my biological parents were, but you would still be my dad."
"Okay, what if instead I told you that after your brother was born we were having fertility issues and used a donner egg and in vitro to conceive you? Would that change the way you view yourself?"
Sam shook her head instead of giving the same answer.
"Then tell me how this is any different. So, you carry her DNA, as well as mine and your mothers. Wouldn't that just mean that you potentially won the genetic lottery. You have the genes from three different people making you into who you are. And who you are is an amazing daughter, a fantastic soldier, a brilliant scientist…" Sam interrupted him.
"I think I get the point dad." She said almost laughing.
"Do you? Because I can keep going if you need me to. You are exactly who you were yesterday and the day before that. Now, tell me about this anomaly that he was so interested in. Is it what they were looking for?"
"Well, essentially, it means that I age incredibly slow. Helen doesn't know the rate, but she is 157 years old and showing no signs of getting older any time soon. Daniel thinks that it is the reason that I survived Jolinar dying as well as a few other incidences that I should not have survived."
"Incidences that you failed to share as not to worry me I suppose?" Jacob leaned forward and took her hand. "So on top of everything else, your telling me that I don't have to outlive you. Sam, I'm not really seeing the downside to this right now. I know that sounds selfish of me and I'm sorry, but I since becoming Tok'Ra, I have had to live with the knowledge that I was going to eventually burry you and your brother it was only a matter of time." He was sitting forward in his chair so that he could look her in the eyes.
"I have to be honest dad, this is not the reaction that I had expected from you. I thought you would be angry or feel betrayed or disavow me as your daughter or something, anything but this easy acceptance." Sam leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Time was really starting to catch up to her, after the lack of sleep the night before and the emotional roller coaster she had been on all day she was exhausted.
"Selmac wants me to tell you that she has apparently done a remarkable job of 'mellowing me out' and…" he paused for a second listening to the voice in his head. Sam smiled slightly knowing that no truer words had been spoken. "She also says that she considers you a daughter even though you don't carry any of her DNA." Sam laughed at the mental picture that provided.
"Okay Sam, up you go! Its time you got some sleep. We can continue this in the morning." Jacob was standing in front of her chair reaching for her hand to pull her up.
"No, I can't yet. I need to tell you about the attack on the base and…" Jacob didn't give her a chance to finish the sentence.
"Nope, Garshaw gave me bare bones when she arrived and I can go get that information from Jack Besides, maybe he can tell me more about her before we return to Earth. Selmac and I agree that you look dead on your feet and we are not giving you a choice. Come on, the bed is this way."
"Aren't we way past you being able to order me to bed? Besides, I don't want to take your bed for the night." Sam protested even as she allowed him to pull her forward. A bed really did sound good. He gently pushed her back on the bed into a sitting position. "And you don't need to ask Jack about her dad, she came with us." Sam had her eyes closed as she made the last statement and didn't see the startled look from Jacob at her announcement.
"*There is much more going on then we are aware if your government allowed her access to this level of information.*" Selmac was clearly as surprised as Jacob given what she knew of Earth from his memories.
"*So what your saying is that I should exercise caution when talking to her and not just jump in head first as it were?*" Jacob responded
"Come on Sam, off with the boots and the BDU top. I'm going to go find Jack, so take the pants off also and get comfortable. I will see you in the morning." He leaned down and kissed her on the head. "I love you kid." Over the years he had gotten good at maintaining two conversations at the same time.
"Love you too dad. Good night Selmac, thanks for letting me use your bed." When she didn't get a response, she opened her eyes to find herself alone. She did as she was told, taking off most of her clothing to get comfortable, crawled under the blankets and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.