Daughter
Chapter 7 – Prolonged Travel
"We're here," Cameron announced.
Vala stared at the displays, hands now frozen. She took in a quiet breath. The weight of what was about to happen felt heavy on her chest. Until now, she'd been able to distract herself with piloting the ship. Cameron's hand reached over to squeeze one of hers tightly in support. He nodded at her with seriousness. Vala swallowed.
Behind them, the elder Daniel had already gotten up. He briefly checked his service weapon, then resheathed it in its holster. He tapped at his earpiece to activate his radio. "Omeir." He listened. "Yes, I'm coming down." He turned to address Cameron. "Bring out the platform."
The General nodded, tapping commands into the console.
Motors whirred as the floor of the main compartment split in two and retracted. Behaving like conveyor belts, they crept up the inside of the ship walls like a second skin. The eyes of Jack, Daniel, Vala, and Gracie grew wide as a set of transport rings was revealed, hidden underneath the deck this entire time.
"Damn, that's cool," Jack murmured in awe.
The white-haired Daniel smirked. "We've come a long way in 17 years." Jack made eye contact with him, then simply nodded in wonderment. Daniel stepped toward the ring platform and opened a panel inlaid into the wall nearby. Cameron remained in his seat, but Vala got up to join the others. The group drew closer to see that the panel contained the standard set of controls. Daniel set the system to seek out the nearest set of rings.
Cam sounded off from the pilot chair. "Three minutes, Jackson." He set a visible timer on the heads-up display. His hand hovered over command functions to activate both it and the rings on Daniel's order.
"Got it." Daniel ventured into the center of the platform. He turned to face the group, arms loose at his sides and service weapon within easy reach. "Go." The air hummed as the rings rose up in succession, encompassing Daniel in a glow that only accentuated his white locks further. When the rings retreated back into their resting place, he was gone. The timer began its countdown.
Vala pulled Gracie into a tight hug. Jack and Daniel hung back as she whispered into her daughter's ear. These would be some of their last moments together.
"Gracie," Vala began shakily.
"Mom," Gracie responded, voice beginning to waver. "I promise I won't forget." She hugged her mother tighter. "You'll never stop being my mother to me."
"I know, Darling. Don't leave with regret. This is a chance at a better life. You deserve this." Vala didn't know if she said those encouraging words to keep Gracie from changing her mind or herself.
"What will you be like? In the past?"
Vala leaned back to study her daughter's face adoringly. She swept her now loose golden hair behind her shoulders. "I don't even know anymore. But, if you let Daniel help, I think I'll come around to caring for you again as much as I do now."
"Daniel?"
"We've always had a special bond. If there's anyone I'd listen to, it would be him. Whether I liked it or not." Vala smiled ruefully.
Gracie considered her words. She knew there were strong feelings involved, but the extent of them were still mysterious to her. He was the reformed villain in her mind. It continued to be difficult for her to reconcile her previous impression of Daniel with reality. She was trying, though. "Okay, I'll let him take the lead."
Vala smiled in approval. "Say hello to your birth mother for me. Tell her I miss her greatly. Tell her… that I tried to fill her place as best I could." Tears now welled up in Vala's eyes. She didn't try to stop them from falling now.
Gracie's tears followed. She hugged her mother again. "I promise to tell her."
Vala whispered hoarsely into Gracie's ear. "I love you."
Gracie shut her eyes tight. "I love you, too."
"Mitchell, it's been a Hell of a ride," Jack said, addressing the pilot.
Cameron got up to shake Jack's hand. "That it has, sir."
Daniel moved in to grasp hands with him as well. "Cam, thanks for everything."
"Go back home and fix the timeline. That'll be thanks enough."
"You're not worried, are you?" Daniel said in realization.
"Nah. I've lived the best life I could here. Married the most beautiful woman I could have ever dreamed of meeting. If it all ends today, I'm cool with it. My other self will find his way. I'm sure of it."
"That's pretty optimistic of you," Jack commented.
"Pessimism never did me any good. Thought I'd try the complete opposite instead and it's served me well."
"Almost sounds profound."
"Almost." Cameron chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment, sir." Jack smiled at him and clapped him on the back in respect.
"Anything we should go back and tell your younger self?" Daniel offered.
"Now, now, Jackson, let's not get carried away," Cam chided lightly.
Daniel held up his hands. "Just checking in case you might have any more profound words of wisdom." He grinned.
Cam shook his head. "Well…" He shifted his weight from one foot to another. "I'd probably want him to go have some babies."
Jack really looked at him now, recognizing regret in his eyes. He didn't ask for reasons why Cameron remained childless. But he suspected the threats posed by Earthside Goa'uld would have given him second thoughts on the matter. Who would want to bring a child into that realm of constant anxiety and fear? Especially for targets as high-ranking as he and his wife were?
Daniel nodded somberly. "I'll drop hints. How 'bout that?"
Cam grinned now. "Sounds like a good idea."
The radio chimed behind him at the pilot's console. He turned around to press a button to place the audio on speaker. "We're good," the elder Daniel reported. "It's only me and Omeir down here. Everyone can come down now. Cam, mind the ship."
"Copy," his friend replied. Cameron looked over to Gracie. "This is goodbye for now." He offered her a friendly and encouraging smile.
The young blonde stared back. She smiled nervously and bowed her head. "Thank you, General. I guess I'll see you again?"
He stepped forward to shake her hand. "Yep. But I won't see you. Good luck." Cam leaned in more. "Say hi to your Mama for me."
The reminder that Gracie could soon meet her birth mother made her heart quicken in anticipation. She nodded again. "I will." He grinned in response. "Please thank your wife for me," she eagerly remembered to add. Cameron smiled sweetly and nodded.
Vala reached out to squeeze his arm. "I'll be back," she declared. But for good measure, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. He reciprocated, just in case. "Don't have too much fun while we're gone," she quipped, stepping onto the ring platform with the others.
"No guarantees, Princess." Cam hit the button to activate the rings.
Bright light flooded their eyes. When it receded, the group found themselves in a massive underground cavern. It was a perfect cylinder lined with rusting metal walls. Light from an unknown source illuminated the space adequately, allowing them to see another cylindrical structure rising high up through its center. When they peered about at the ground around them, they noted lit walkways trisecting the space. Underneath the walkways was a seemingly bottomless pit.
Another walkway to the right led to a stargate. At the end of the left walkway, the group could see Daniel waiting for them alongside a curious figure. Behind the pair was some sort of control console. "Come on over, here," he called from across the cavern. "Watch your step."
Jack cautiously peered down over the edge. He shared a look with the younger Daniel. They did as they were bid, carefully walking two-by-two along the path. As they drew closer, another man with graying hair watched with anticipation. He wore simple brown robes, commonly adorned for travel throughout the galaxy.
"Vala," his plain voice called out to her. There was not a touch of Goa'uld influence to its tone.
The woman's face was a mixture of shock and relief. She reached out both hands to the man. "Omeir." He grasped her hands readily. Vala looked up and around, then back to him. "This was your doing?"
"Not mine, my friend. Ba'al's."
She nodded. "Of course." She turned to gesture at the others. "You know Jack, and Daniel, albeit a younger version of him." The men in question simply stared wordlessly. "And this… this is my daughter."
Omeir bowed low toward Gracie. "An honor." When he straightened back up, the former host addressed Gracie directly. She stood frozen, somewhat frightened of the famous Goa'uld that had once terrorized her mother. "You share the blood of some of Ba'al's greatest foes. You are a worthy charge indeed."
Gracie blinked.
"Greatest foe, eh?" Jack cut in. "Should I feel special?"
The elder Daniel rolled his eyes simultaneously with the younger one.
Omeir merely smiled in amusement. "Jack O'Neill, you were a great annoyance to Ba'al, more than you would ever have realized."
"Ah. That I can believe."
Gracie looked at her father. "More stories to share?"
Jack smiled slyly. "Lots. Your mom's got a handful, too."
Omeir donned a serious look. "I understand that you intend to go back and prevent her death."
"No intent needed. It's simply going to happen," Jack replied with confidence.
The former host bowed his head as a way of nodding in agreement. "Then let us begin, shall we?" He waved an arm behind him at the console. "Commander, if you will," he prompted the white-haired Daniel.
Daniel turned around to place his palms on a blank surface of the console. It lit up, outlining his hands, interrogating his biosigns.
Omeir explained the process aloud. "The system will first verify his identity and whether or not he has been authorized to use it. Meanwhile, it has begun to passively scan each of you for signs of symbiotes."
Jack looked down, patting lightly at his chest and stomach.
A light flashed on the console. The older Daniel called from over his shoulder, "No Tok'ra here. Satisfied, Jack?"
His friend stared at Ba'al's former host for a while longer. "For now," he replied quietly. Vala grimaced, sensing his distrust. She understood better than any of them how difficult it was for others to separate the man from the monster. Thankfully, Omeir was used to these displays and showed no outward signs of offense.
Gracie focused her attention away from the new, unsettling man in their presence and on the other unsettling man at the console. He seemed to be able to read the text scrolling across the globed screen with ease. She recognized certain words and phrases among the symbols, but could hardly read Goa'uld that fluently. What's more, this text was laden with technical language she knew she wouldn't understand.
Vala stepped closer to wrap an arm around her shoulder. She savored this last opportunity. Gracie instinctively leaned her head on her mother's shoulder, watching as the elder Daniel worked.
The younger version turned around and looked up. Everyone followed. A star map appeared above them near the center column. It glowed brightly with pinpoint dots of light scattered amongst hazes of space clouds. "What are we looking at?"
Omeir answered, "Ba'al installed satellites around each of these stars to monitor them for solar flare activity. This facility receives the data via subspace in real time. The system has been tracking the solar cycles of all these stars simultaneously. It can predict the most likely moments for a solar flare of sufficient size to be of use to us."
"That's an enormous amount of data!"
"Indeed."
"Solar flares?" Jack asked. He glanced askance at the elder Daniel. "Why does that sound eerily familiar?"
"One word for you, Jack: 1969."
Jack cringed instantly. "Doh."
Vala looked back and forth among them. "Care to elaborate on that, Darling?"
The younger one answered for him. "You're going to use one of these solar flares to interact with a wormhole." He turned to Vala. "That's what leads to time travel," he concluded incredulously. "At least, one of the ways that we know of."
Gracie stared at the star map in awe. "Now that is cool."
Jack grinned at her distinctively Earth phrasing. "Your mom would probably think so," he said encouragingly.
"Actually, Jack," the white-haired Daniel interjected, "you shouldn't tell anyone about this place."
"What? Why not? Sam would have a field day in here!"
"Exactly. Once you get back, you need to keep this facility under wraps."
"Please don't tell me we have to blow it up," his younger self complained.
Omeir offered, "That would result in the destruction of this entire star system."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Jack muttered, thinking of one of Sam's previous exploits.
"No," the older Daniel reiterated. "Just keep everyone away from here. This place is dangerous. And it will be free for anyone's use if they find it in the past, before Omeir could have ever secured it. We can't trust anyone, not even people from Earth. You simply won't know who's compromised. It could be catastrophic."
Jack could read the seriousness of his white-haired friend's request. He nodded grimly. "Fine."
"So what now?" Vala asked.
"Now, we wait for the right solar flare to appear that will intersect with the wormhole we plan to open up."
Gracie glanced at the globed screen spitting out technical jargon in Goa'uld. The text continuously scrolled in multiple directions. "How long?"
The base commander studied the star map. "Minutes to hours." He looked back down at her. "But once it happens, you'll have to leave immediately."
The young blonde took in a nervous breath laced with uncertainty. She leaned into Vala more.
"And you're sending us to the planet we had originally intended to gate to before you messed with our wormhole?" the younger Daniel verified.
His older self nodded. "As if you never really left. Except, now, you'll have an extra passenger."
"Not just any passenger," Jack said with meaning.
"A Mal Doran," Vala declared.
He caught her look of challenge. "An O'Neill."
"For cryin' out loud," the younger Daniel grumbled in annoyance.
"Actually," Omeir offered, "I see Colonel Carter in her."
Everyone stopped to consider his observation. Gracie felt all eyes fall to her and her golden hair. She locked eyes with Vala.
"Well… he isn't wrong." Vala smiled at her adoringly. She caressed her daughter's blonde locks.
Jack acquiesced. "Carter's better than O'Neill."
"It's time," Daniel's voice intoned softly.
Vala's eyes instantly flitted toward him at the console. Her expression transformed to dread. She squeezed her hands around Gracie's shoulders. Vala took in a shaky breath as she felt her daughter shudder with anxiety.
The sound of the gate whining distracted them all as its inner ring began to spin. The first chevron locked quietly in the distance.
Omeir respectfully bowed toward the group planning to depart. "I wish you well, and I wish you the best of luck on your mission." They offered back a quiet thank you.
Daniel and Vala walked the trio across the platform to the stargate. Each chevron lit up to signify the gate being dialed successfully. As they approached, the wormhole activated, with its telltale kawoosh reaching for Jack, Daniel, and Gracie as if in desperate hunger. It retreated back as quickly as it appeared.
Gracie stared at the shimmering blue puddle. Somehow it seemed more foreboding than it should. She felt fingers intertwining with her own and turned to look at her mother. Vala's eyes were shining, and she was putting great effort into being brave. They hugged each other fiercely. With no regard for Gracie's vain attempts to maintain her calm, tears began to stream down her face.
"I love you, Darling," Vala said simply into her ear.
"I love you, too, Mom."
Meanwhile, the elder Daniel was shaking hands with the time traveling duo. "Good luck. Hope you get a better deal than we did."
Jack grasped his shoulder meaningfully. "Thanks, Daniel." He stared at the women currently crying and saying goodbye, then around at the facility. "Hell of a thing you've pulled off here."
He shrugged. "You know me. Once I start something, I can't help but finish it."
"Yeah, it's pathological," Jack deadpanned.
The older Daniel smirked, then exchanged a tight nod with his younger self in goodbye. "Gracie." He made eye contact with the young blonde. "Good luck." She bowed her head respectfully toward him, Jaffa-style. Her eyes instantly returned to her mother, desperately memorizing her face.
She reluctantly pulled away from Vala, but never lost eye contact with her. She hesitantly began to walk backwards toward the gate, hands still grasping her mother's. She was flanked by Jack and the younger Daniel, who didn't try to hide their looks of pity. They mouthed silent thanks to Vala, who didn't see it, eyes still glued to her daughter. The last of the women's fingertips parted, separating Vala from Gracie permanently.
The young blonde took in a shuddering breath, took one last look at her mother, and stepped backwards into the wormhole.
Vala stared as the shining blue puddle swallowed her daughter, then dissipated as it always did. She instantly cried out and collapsed onto the ground in a crumpled heap of despair. She covered her face with her hands, feeling Daniel's strong hands wrapping around her shoulders. He knelt down to pull her into his arms and let her cry for as long as she wanted on the floor of the Praxeon facility.
.
Gracie had never experienced gate travel quite like this. It was usually instantaneous. To be trapped within the wormhole long enough to sense herself being dematerialized and rematerialized was frightening. She didn't typically notice colors on her way through the gate, but now she remembered that the ones she was used to seeing were not the ones associated with this prolonged travel. Something was off about it. She couldn't even describe the colors she was used to detecting, nor name the ones she was noticing now. It was as if these were things outside of the normal range of sensory capability for a human to see. Extrasensory.
When the wormhole finally spit them out, it was into a nondescript forest in the middle of the day. Bright orange sunshine blazed overhead. Trees bristled in light wind. Unknown animals and insects chirped all around them. The planet they'd traveled to was certainly alive. Gracie sucked in its cool, fresh air and stared about. If this were the past, she would never have known it.
She whipped around to watch as the last vestiges of the wormhole dissipated, and with it, any sense that she'd see her mother ever again. She blinked, mouth pulling in her lips as she grimaced. Jack wrapped an arm around her shoulders in solace. He chose to remain silent as she stared at the gate, chest heaving as she cried.
Daniel was well aware that he would need to be the one to maintain situational awareness. Jack naturally needed to comfort Gracie. He made brief eye contact with him to acknowledge this, then took a good look around at their surroundings. If the other him had programmed everything right, they'd be on a planet called Zersha right now. Daniel just needed to confirm that this was really the place. He stole a look at a devastated Gracie, then began to wander away.
There was the well-worn path he remembered using the last time he was here. He couldn't tell if the trees were any different. Every world seemed to have an overabundance of trees of all shapes and sizes, yet none ever really stood out to him. He was usually too distracted by other things. The sound of water churning caught his attention, leading him to a bubbling brook not far off the path. If memory served correctly, then a mountain should be visible in the distance beyond. He sighed in relief when he found it. "Okay, right planet," he mumbled to himself. "Now is this the right time?"
He wandered along the brook, keeping a weary eye on the path to ensure he didn't get lost. Something shiny caught his eye in the water. He leaned down to dislodge a hair barrette trapped under a rock. It looked to be one of Vala's. It couldn't have been in the water for long. The metal was still gleaming perfectly in the sunlight with no trace of rust at all. He nearly tossed the rock but noticed something strange about it. It wasn't real. The words, Made in China, were etched into its base, right next to a plastic clasp sealing a seam closed.
Daniel opened the fake rock, one he presumed to be made for hiding spare keys outside of the front doors of middle-American homes, and found a folded-up piece of paper inside. It had a gate address scrawled across it hastily. He committed the address to memory and quickly pocketed everything. He was not going to leave any trace of Vala nor Earth behind on this planet. He returned quickly to Jack and Gracie.
"Jack."
"Yeah?" He turned his head away from his daughter to look behind them.
"We're here in the right place. I just don't know what the date is yet."
"Is this where they are?"
"No, but it's where she left me a clue about where they went." He held up the paper.
Jack motioned for him to hand it over. He stared at it then glanced at the gate. "Perfect."
"We need to dial Earth."
Jack nodded. Daniel took care of the DHD while Jack used his IDC and radio to make contact. By now Gracie had calmed down considerably. The natural beauty of the planet seemed to be a helpful distraction. She stood next to her father nervously as he spoke with an air of authority to whoever was on the other side of the wormhole. They seemed to confirm the date was what it should be.
"Walter, the second we get back, dial Atlantis. The second!"
"Yes, sir," a compliant voice replied.
"We're coming through. Oh, and we're bringing a friend." Jack released the button on his radio and motioned for Gracie and Daniel to follow him to the event horizon. He paused at its opening to address Gracie. "Once we cross over, I won't be your Dad in front of everyone else, alright?"
She nodded and tried to take in a breath to maintain her calm. They had discussed the cover story with her, but to actually execute it now was going to be the real test.
They stepped through the gate. Gracie's nose was immediately assaulted by stale air tinged with the scent of gunpowder. The bright sunshine was replaced with sparse overhead lighting that accentuated the suffocating gray of an underground cavern. But no, this wasn't a cavern, she'd been told. It was the depths of a mountain.
She could feel her heart banging on the inside of her rib cage. All eyes were on them. None seemed friendly. Uniformed men stood at a distance from the base of a metal incline, rifles in hand. A glass wall towered over them, with techs visibly milling about behind it. A man in a white uniform stood over them all, looking directly at her with calculating curiosity.
Gracie felt and heard her boots clanking along the metal as they traversed the ramp leading down from the gate. It seemed to reverberate in her ears. Or was that just the sound of her heart panicking as it beat loudly in her chest? She surreptitiously jumped when her father suddenly yelled up toward the glass.
"Walter!"
"Dialing now, sir," a disembodied voice calmly acknowledged.
She didn't dare look behind, but Gracie could hear that their wormhole had been deactivated and the gate was now spinning to dial somewhere new.
"Chevron 1, locked," the voice announced.
She idly wondered what the point of that was, but said nothing.
"Sir, she needs to check her weaponry." Gracie noted that a couple of the men were gripping their rifles tighter and staring in her direction. Their eyes were trained on the weapons sitting openly on her hips.
With great annoyance directed at the defense team, Jack gestured for Gracie to step up. He tilted his head toward a metal cart on casters that the men had slid forward. She methodically relieved herself of every weapon in her possession, from a simple blaster (considered outdated to her but still in vogue during these times) to several knives and sharp tools. By the time she was done, the cart was full. Daniel blinked rapidly at it all in wonder again. And they told her she couldn't bring back everything. What more could she have been carrying?
Despite the amount of goodies Gracie brought along, the check process hadn't actually taken long. She was quite efficient at producing every item, demonstrating that she'd had plenty of practice. By the time she followed Jack and Daniel up a set of stairs to the control room, the gate was finished dialing and a new wormhole was open. She hung back with Daniel while Jack took a seat next to the owner of the disembodied voice she'd heard earlier. The white-shirted man was content to stand quietly off to the side, happy to watch whatever spectacle Jack had brought him today.
"General O'Neill," a bald-headed man appeared on a flat screen in front of Jack. He seemed surprised.
"Mr. Woolsey, I need you to immediately halt the work on the drones."
They could see the man turning his head away to gesture at someone off screen. He turned back. "Mind explaining why, General?"
"I need Colonel Carter on the line first."
Gracie's heart thumped louder.
"Get a feed connected down to the manufacturing facility," Woolsey ordered someone near him. He seemed to nod in acknowledgement. "Bringing her on the line, now, General," the man said pleasantly.
The screen split, decreasing the size of Mr. Woolsey's face and allowing room for another person to join their call. To Gracie's disappointment, it was yet another man she didn't recognize.
"What's going on?" he demanded, clearly irritated.
"Dr. McKay, where's Colonel Carter?" Jack seemed to mirror his expression.
"In the middle of configuring a very sensitive component of the power generation coupling. Look, it's dangerous work, and she can't be bothered. Whatever it is, you can tell me."
"I'm going to say this exactly once, McKay," Jack warned. "Stop."
"Stop?" He opened his mouth and closed it like a fish.
Jack must have given him a look that Gracie couldn't see. The other man seemed to blink, then jumped into action. He called away from the screen, "Sam! Stop!"
"What! Why!?" an aggravated female voice could be heard in the background.
Gracie's eyes went wide at the sound.
"I don't know!" McKay said petulantly. "Ask your husband!"
Daniel cringed as loud clanking noises were generated in the background. Even McKay seemed startled by them. He was turning away from the screen, watching some sort of activity from afar. Meanwhile, Mr. Woolsey was listening in but appeared distracted by a tech giving a verbal report. Eventually, the noises stopped, now replaced by the grumbling of a female voice coming closer.
McKay seemed to hand off whatever device he was using. Sam's angry face replaced his on the screen. "General?"
The General sighed in relief. "Colonel, are you alright?"
The annoyance on her face for being interrupted could not be mistaken. "I'm fine. What's going on?" Her tone was professional, but clipped. Gracie unconsciously stepped closer to see better. It was her! Golden hair just like hers slicked back into a neat ponytail. Blue eyes that mirrored her own when she bothered to look at her own reflection. A fierce expression that Gracie assumed would only be temporary, given the circumstances. She hoped to see her smile soon enough.
"Something's off about the translation you lot are using. You need to suspend the work you're doing and shut it down. Effective immediately," Jack ordered.
Sam pursed her lips but did not argue, though she clearly was itching to do so. She took in a breath and addressed McKay next to her. "Shut it down, Rodney." His retreating voice could be heard complaining in the background as he barked orders at the team supposedly with them.
"How do you know the translation is wrong?" Sam now challenged Jack.
Beyond him, the white-shirted man seemed to cringe at her tone. But he remained silent and stayed out of it.
Jack turned his head to Daniel and looked at him meaningfully. His expression seemed to say, Mind helping me out here?
Daniel understood and stepped into view of the camera. "Sam, it's Daniel. I took a look at what you guys were working on, and I found some key translation errors. I'm no expert, but it looked like the mistakes could lead you in a very bad direction."
Sam squinted at him, then looked side to side. Looking back at him, she clenched her jaw, and asked, "Shouldn't you be picking up my daughter?"
Daniel instantly felt like he was in trouble. As if he was playing hooky and had just gotten caught. Gracie glanced around, noting that everyone was tuned into the conversation, including the techs who had stopped working to listen in.
Jack jumped in to save him. "We'll be doing that next." Suspicion was evident in Sam's expression. Questions seemed ready to be released from her lips, but she held onto them, knowing they had a very large audience. Jack realized he was in for an argument with his wife later, but he didn't care. At least she'd be alive to yell at him. His clenched shoulders visibly relaxed. "Sam, I need you to come home."
The sudden use of her first name had the woman's expression softening. "What's wrong?"
"Oh… a lot. I'll tell you when you get back." He then sat up straighter and addressed both her and Mr. Woolsey. "I am ordering the suspension of the drone manufacturing operation pending a full review. No work is to be performed until all written material has been thoroughly re-translated."
"Colonel Carter, Dr. McKay," Woolsey said. "Go ahead and shut the operation down safely, then have your team members report back to their normal assignments."
"Alright," McKay responded dejectedly in the background.
"Colonel, dismissed. Woolsey, send her back immediately." Sam's feed cut off without any further word.
"Is everything alright, General?" the bald-headed man asked with concern, face now filling the screen solo.
"We have our own problems on this side. Just continue to keep our people safe over there, Richard."
"That's my number one priority. Good luck, General." He signed off. The gate then shut down.
"General?" the white-shirted man near them now spoke.
Having barely noticed him before now, both Jack and Daniel turned to him in slight surprise. They glanced at each other. Gracie watched as Daniel stood straight up and then Jack did the same. Her father straightened out his uniform. "Let's go on up to the briefing room," Jack suggested. He motioned for Gracie to follow them.
The other man gazed at her curiously, but Gracie now realized he did not intend to be threatening nor intimidating. He was patient enough to wait for Jack and Daniel to explain her sudden presence. They found a spiral metal staircase and used it to go where her father had recommended.
The group settled into plush seats around a wooden table. Gracie gazed around at the room, noting another glass wall that likely looked down over the stargate. She'd never been in a room like this before. She took the seat offered to her next to Daniel, while her father and the other man sat across.
"I thought you were going to find Vala and Gracie," the other man started. "But here you come back instead with someone who could easily be both at the same time."
"This is why I like you, Hank. You never miss a detail," Jack responded. Daniel smiled slightly. "This is going to sound crazy, because it is, but what we're about to share with you is true. Eventually we're going to read in Sam, Mitchell, Teal'c, Vala, and Dr. Lam, too. But long story short, I want you to meet my daughter."
The man's mouth dropped open. He looked back and forth between Gracie and Jack several times. The other men waited patiently for him to overcome his shock. He squinted at Jack. "Time travel? Reality-hopping? Something else?"
"The first one," Daniel answered.
Gracie was surprised that this man seemed able to discern the situation so easily.
"Well, it's an honor to meet you."
Gracie looked between her father and Daniel for confirmation. "It's okay, Gracie, he's on the list of people we're going to tell," Daniel reassured her.
She nodded. "Nice to meet you," she said with a timid smile.
"Gracie, this is General Hank Landry," Jack explained. "He's in charge of the base."
"You're… the father of…"
"Carolyn Lam," Landry supplied. "Yes, that's me." He tilted his head. "You know her?"
"She was so nice to me. Where we came from."
Landry smiled proudly. "I'm glad to hear that. How old are you exactly?"
"By Earth measure, I'm 20."
Landry looked at Jack in surprise. "That's quite a jump."
"You're telling me."
"To everyone else, we're going to refer to her as Vala's long-lost sister," Daniel said. "I'm sure Jack can explain it all while I'm gone."
"Where are you going, Dr. Jackson?"
"I still need to get back out there and bring Vala and three-year-old Gracie home."
"I surmise this is why you want Colonel Carter back so badly."
"Hank, you don't even know the half of it yet." Jack turned to Daniel. "Go on, bring our girls home."
"You're not going with him?" Landry asked.
"I… can't."
Daniel grimaced and stood up. He squeezed Gracie's shoulder. "I'll be back. Hopefully she's at the next planet and I don't have to go searching for more clues."
"You need the address?" Jack asked, fingering the paper in his front pocket.
"I'm good," Daniel said, pointing to his head. "I recognized it." He made to leave but then remembered the fake rock in his possession. He placed it on the briefing room table, then left.
Landry raised an eyebrow at it. "I was wondering where that went."
Jack began to laugh, knowing Vala must have swiped it from his office on her way out.