AU: Sam finally decides to come upstairs and really notices how much John has grown.

Part of my Lost and Found Universe.

Triggers: Depression, Underage Relationship, Reference to a Major Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Foul Language, Reference to War.

Please note that this story deals with an underage character and a very mature age character. I DO NOT CONDONE this behaviour, but please remember that this is FanFiction, not real life, and the characters are Sam and Jack in other forms. While Jack's clone is 16 in this story, he is still a 52 year old man.

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to Amazon/MGM. I'm just throwing them a curve ball and making their lives a little derentis!

Chapter 8:

Saturday, 14th February 2004 – Cascade House – Lieutenant Colonel Sam Carter

The steps were daunting.

They mocked me fourteen times from the bottom of the staircase to the top. At least they were carpeted, but still I dreaded the climb.

Nevertheless, I knew I had to go up them. I was out of food and John – the little cretin – had turned the gas off. His latest attempt at getting me out of the pseudo-basement and into the house proper. Without the fire, it would get cold. Correction. Had gotten cold. As much as I didn't want to admit it, he had won.

John had gone back to school yesterday after torturing me all day Thursday only to turn up in the afternoon with Daniel of all people and a suitcase of clothes belonging to the other me. The dead me. Daniel had stayed late into the night, not bothering to say goodbye after I had dressed him down for daring to compare me to his Sam. He had expected me to help Jack, but how could I do that when all I wanted was to die. We would have made the perfect couple - Jack and I - both miserable wretches with a death wish, both mourning what we had lost. I didn't belong here and nothing I could do would bring his Sam back.

I am guessing he knew that which is why I hadn't heard from him or seen him since it happened.

Their incessant chattering – which increased in volume whenever they talked about my self-imposed exile – had driven me up the wall. Jack and Daniel had never talked this much – that I knew of – so it boggled my mind when John opened up to him about everything he had been through these last seven months, and Daniel had in turn discussed the events of the day that allegedly saw Jack pull a weapon on him. By the end of the night, I was seriously considering bodily harm.

But nothing – Nothing! So monotonous, so frustratingly cheerful as the damned whistling John had been tweeting ever since he woke up this morning! I didn't want whistling, or happiness, or excitement. I didn't want to hear it, see it, or feel it.

Grasping the rail tightly and placing my other hand flat on the wall, I took the first step, then the second. My legs ached and hips creaked and clicked, telling me that over a week hunched on the too small, too uncomfortable sofa had not been a wise idea, especially when there was a queen size bed upstairs with a heavy doona and soft pillows.

Another step and I had to stop for a breather. God, when had I let myself get this unfit? Even on the Odyssey, I was never like this. Never unable to make three steps – or in the case of the ship – ladder rungs. Despite my injury, I had still climbed between decks at least twice per day.

Closing my eyes and willing myself to ignore the pain and tiredness in my joints, I stepped again and again and again, making it four steps this time before having to stop. I knew if I called for John that he would help me. I knew because he had been trying to help me since Wednesday. Even if he was unsteady on his feet after going to see Harry.

Turns out he had forgotten that Harry would recognise him as a young man since they had served together a few times. John was under the misguided impression that he still looked like the scrawny teenager from seven months ago. He was wrong. In that time, he had put on more height – a lot more height – he was head and shoulders with me now meaning he wouldn't have much more to go before reaching his final height. His face had filled out and sharpened along his jaw line, and he had bulked up a little. About the only thing left was his voice, though even that had started to change.

Not that I had noticed.

Much.

Taking another step, I felt a sharp twinge in my injured ankle resulting in an unexpected cry of pain. Gripping the railing, I raised my foot off the step, then awkwardly turned and used the banister to ease myself down onto my backside. Dammit. I was barely half way. I couldn't even do fourteen God damned steps.

"Sam?" I turned to look over my shoulder to find him, hands on his hips wearing a tight black shirt, khakis, and a pair of outrageously red basketball shoes. Shoes that I was not looking at because – black t-shirt. Khakis. Damn. I was 89, not 29. I would have thought I'd be past all that, but no. Turning back around so that I could not see him, I stubbornly remained quiet, steadfastly refusing to ask him for help.

Placing my hands on the step behind me, I raised myself up and pushed with my feet to get my backside onto the next step, a cry of frustrated pain emanating from putting pressure on my ankle before I had even managed to move.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Sam." He muttered and stomped down the stairs. "C'mon. Let me help." He said as his hand wrapped around my upper arm.

"No. I don't need help." I growled, batting his hand away and refusing to look at him.

"Like hell you don't! You've been down here for what? A week. Terrible food, no proper bed to sleep in. All because you won't ask for…"

"Fine! I don't want your help." I bellowed back at him before he finished.

"Fine then." He bit back, then promptly sat down beside me, and pulled his phone out. He scrolled through the contacts and dialled a name I could not see.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling the gang, of course."

"What! Why?" I demanded loudly.

"Well, if you won't let me help, I'll get Janet and Cassie, Daniel and Teal'c over here. We don't have to worry about Jack since he's in the loony bin." He replied casually. What the hell was he on about? Loony Bin? I looked into the depths of his brown eyes and saw that he was not kidding around. I could hear the phone ringing.

"What do you mean?" I asked, a spike of concern racing through my mind. Jack was the most solid man I knew. For him to be committed, the pain of Sam's loss must have been… well I didn't know a word short of cataclysmal, for him to be in such a bad way.

"You know what I mean, Sam. You remember him after P3X-562." He responded, his finger pressing the red hang up button. It took a while to remember, but then the word 'Unity' popped into my mind, and I remembered his pain. He may have come across to others as sane and in control, but there was a reason we started having frequent team nights, and it wasn't for team bonding.

"You mean he drank himself into a stupor?" I asked, remembering the mess of a man I had found in his living room the evening after the Unity had gone home. I remembered sitting on his sofa, his head in my lap while I ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, the other dialling Daniel to ask him to come over with Teal'c.

"No." He looked away more to compose himself than anything else before speaking again and I knew that memories of Charlie were haunting him. I had seen the same look on Jack's face more times than I cared to remember. "Look. I'm not supposed to know this – clearance and all – but Danny needed to talk. Yesterday. Jack murdered five unarmed Jaffa, then threatened Daniel's life and demanded Teal'c kill him." John confessed, his hands wringing together between his knees and his voice hitching.

Breathing in harshly, I found that covering my mouth was fruitless in stopping the broken sob from working its way out of my throat. "I – I didn't realise it was that bad. Oh God. Why? Why would he do that?" I asked searching his eyes for some truth that I didn't think I would find. While I had heard some of their conversation, I hadn't heard all of it.

"Why? Oh Sam, are you really so clueless?" He said as he turned his head to look down the half flight of stairs. I was about to rear up and give him what for when he looked at me again, a new sheen of unspent tears filmed over his brown eyes. "He loved you. He loved you so much it hurt. I know. I know because I feel the same. It's as if everything good and kind and perfect has been ripped out of the world. Everything that was slowly built up, repaired if you will, after losing Charlie is gone."

I was speechless. This young man sitting beside me was in pain. He had lost everything when Loki created him. His whole life – friends, found-family, his home. Now I had hurt him again with my steely resolve and hellbent desire to be done with this life. Despite all that, I could not think of him as Jack O'Neill. He had to remain as John, a separate entity so that I did not fall in love all over again. I knew if I wasn't careful, if I wasn't vigilant that I would have no defence against his charm, even if he didn't mean anything by it. Why would he, I mean surely he had a girlfriend, one his own age.

"Please, Sam. Please, let me help you. I promised him I would. Don't make me break that promise." He said, coming to his feet in one easy movement. A movement that I envied. He took one step down and reached out toward me. It was then that I noticed his hands were large and strong just like Jack's. Dammit! Not like Jack's. Silently, I placed my hands on his then ran them up to grip his forearms feeling very muscle that moved beneath his tanned skin as his hands gripped my forearms.

"Good. Now use your good foot only. I'll do the rest. Ready. On the count of three." I nodded my assent. "One – Two – Three!" On his mark, I pushed with my foot as he pulled me up. "Arms around my neck." He ordered as he stepped up to share the same platform, bringing his body so close, my Naquadah laced blood started singing in response to his own. Damn, I had to distance myself from him if I had any hope of convincing myself he was not Jack.

"What, why?" I breathed, but did as he instructed anyway, a part of me longing to be close to him. Living a fantasy that I was much, much younger, and this was my one day. An old lady could dream. With a deftness I was not expecting, he lifted me into his arms and walked up the remaining seven steps then over to the armchair to sit me down.

"Stay, I'll get the medical kit." He ordered and then disappeared into the main bedroom. I had to close my eyes and breathe deep to rid his scent from my nostrils all the while internally chanting that he wasn't Jack. Not my Jack. A few minutes later, I opened my eyes when I heard him re-enter the room carrying a combat field med kit and a moonboot.

"Ah, why do you have a whole ambulance with you?" I asked amusedly, eyeing the contents when he unzipped the bag and rolled it out. It was even larger than what SG-1 would ever carry off world.

"Well, sometimes me and boys came back here in a very bad way. The kind of bad way that you can't really go to the hospital for." He explained then chuckled. "Over the years. The old man accumulated a good stash of supplies. You know just in case." He explained while he wrapped my ankle in a heavy compression bandage, then slid a clean sock over the top.

"Where did you get that?" I asked pointing to the boot. I had had them before, but always had to give them back when my injury had finished healing. At some point, I had stopped considering him as being different from Jack and I had to remind myself that he wasn't. He was John.

He shrugged. "Broken foot."

"Another paradrop gone wrong?" I asked, remembering the story Jack told me in the Antarctic ice cavern. He chuckled at my question and gave me a silly look that made my heart thump painfully in my chest. 'He's not Jack. He's John. Just a kid… with memories that aren't his.' I reminded myself yet again. This was going to be harder than I thought it would be. Especially with those eyes. He looked at me and must have read the internal battle going on in my brain because he sighed.

"Nope. He got home from a lovely little mission in a place far, far away, ready for a little re-humanising and healing from two bullet wounds and a broken collarbone." John explained as he slipped the boot onto my foot and did up the straps. "He was walking up the stairs out the front and tripped. Naturally, he tried to avoid landing on the other injuries and ended up breaking his foot. The boot ended up in the stash." With a tap on my booted foot, he smiled and stood up to move away. "Make sure you wear that inside. Your snow boots will be good enough outside."

In an effort to stop him from going anywhere, I quickly asked, "Where'd you get it from?" Instantly cursing at the somewhat desperate tone to my voice and my return to referring to him as the same man that I loved. Unfortunately, I couldn't take my words back.

"Harry patched me up." He replied. It was clear he had picked up on my slip because we were back to first person. "You met him… from the local shop?" I shook my head emphatically; I hadn't left this house once since the day I walked in. "You haven't… really?" Looking away from him in shame, I shook my head again. "Huh." He smirked but didn't make any further comments. The closest I had come to meeting Harry was when he dropped a load of groceries off before I had kicked Daniel and Janet out. That had been a few weeks ago. I had stopped tracking time with one day bleeding into the next seamlessly, living on non-perishable canned whatever for goodness knows how long.

I wanted to ask John where that mission had been, but I knew I wouldn't get an answer. Jack had always remained incredibly aloof regarding any of his black op's missions, and I sensed that John was no different. The only one I really knew anything about was the one before he got scooped up and imprisoned in Iraq when Jack opened up a little one team night after Colonel Frank Cromwell had died. Even then, three sheets to the wind and in an undefined mood that closely resembled mourning, he didn't go into much detail.

"It's warm up here." I commented as I watched him roll the bag up and rezip it.

"Yep. Fixed the underfloor heating unit. The isolation valve on the manifold was stuck closed." He replied, then came to his feet – once again in one swift movement – bringing the first aid swag with him. "I'm surprised you couldn't fix it."

Looking away quickly while twisting my fingers, I muttered, "I didn't try." What an idiot, a stuck isolation valve was so common and a five-minute fix for anyone even remotely knowledgeable about plumbing. I had been able to keep an entire city from freezing to death with substandard infrastructure and shoddy tools, yet now I couldn't even fix a jammed isolation valve.

"Hey! It's OK. That's why you've got me." He said cheerily, reaching forward to squeeze my shoulder. "Now, you rest up and I'll make us some breakfast, then we'll go for a walk." He added with a broad grin making me start and stare after his retreating form.

"What! A walk. Are you mad, it's freezing outside." I yelled after him.

"Yep. You need to meet Harry, you'll like him." He called back, his words slightly muffled from being in another room. "Besides…" He added as he walked back into the living area, "…all old ladies need a good boy scout to help them cross the road."

"Why you little…" I tossed a cushion at him as he laughed and pretended to be injured from my projectile. "If I wasn't chair bound, I'd…"

"You'd what, Sam?" He challenged with sparkling brown eyes and grin so wide, it covered his face. "Hurt me? Gotta catch me first, Colonel." He quipped, then threw the cushion back at me before disappearing into the kitchen, soon after the sound of his whistling and clanging crockery filled the house.

His challenge had sparked something deep inside, something that had fuelled my perseverance in a career dominated my men. The fire of competition that used to burn brightly within my system reignited, combining with the quiescent Carter resilience made me want to get out of this chair and own him. Putting the cushion behind my head, I placed my hands on the arms of the chair and rocked backwards then forwards creating enough momentum to get me to my feet.

Straightening my back and rolling my shoulders backwards, I felt awake for the first time in weeks. My body still ached, but I'd be damned if I let that stop me. Carter's didn't quit, a fact that I had managed to forget since the accident. As I turned my head, I saw the cushion on the armchair and smiled. With my new found energy, I reached for it then took a few tentative steps towards the whistling kitchen, the moonboot providing comfortable stability.

Peering around the corner, I found John with his back turned flipping pancakes, a jaunty tune that sounded a lot like the theme song for the Colorado Rockies emanating from his lips. Moving into the open doorway, I took aim at the centre of seen mass and threw, yelling out just as it made contact.

"Gotcha!"

He merely chuckled and looked over his shoulder, eyes flashing as he laughed, and I hoped we would be OK. As long as he was John and I was Sam, we could be friends, in a weird kind of way.