AU: John and Grace arrive back home to find Jacob visiting. Grace starts to tell stories about her time in Minnesota and Samantha gets a little tactile. Meanwhile, General Sam Carter is on board a flight to Colorado Springs thinking about her next steps.
TRIGGER: Mention of the relationship between General Sam and John O'Neill. Samantha gets close and personal with John despite his reluctance. Please remember John O'Neill is a teenage version of Jack O'Neill.
Chapter 14: Firefighting
Sunday, 20th June 2004 – Colorado Springs – John O'Neill
Grace was thankfully asleep. We had spent the night at the Cascade house and were now just minutes from her home after an entire morning of playing all sorts of games. Outside and inside. Everything from puzzles and word games through to cowboys and aliens in the backyard, or in our case horse-girls and aliens which quickly evolved into a competitive game of 'tag'. We really needed some play equipment up there if Grace was going to visit, then it occurred to me that the Cascade house wasn't ours anymore.
It was Harry's.
As I pulled our truck up on the opposite side of the street, the sheer number of cars at the house was astounding.
"What the…" I muttered as I pulled up the parking brake. Out of the six vehicles parked either in the driveway or on the street, I recognised three – Jack's truck and Sam's two Volvos – one other one I suspected belonged to Teal'c because it was a large black SUV, as for the other two – a non-descript white sedan, and what looked like a brand-new Ford Explorer.
"Are we there yet, Daddy?" Gracie asked with a huge yawn and stretch.
"Yeah, munchkin. We are here." I confirmed. Suddenly she was 100% awake and ready to go.
"Yay!" She squealed and unclipped her seatbelt so fast, it flung itself against the window before reeling up. Her enthusiasm made me chuckle. Jumping out of the driver's seat, I opened the door to let Gracie out and nearly ended up on my backside because I didn't get out of her way fast enough.
"Hold on, my little horse-girl." I said, "All princesses have to arrive in style." She smiled and eagerly jumped up and down with her hands in the air. "Turn around." I motioned with my finger. She did so, then I picked her up and placed her on my shoulders. "Ready to go?"
"Giddy-up horsey!" Grace announced, taking two big handfuls of hair as her 'reins' and a kick of her heels, she indicated for me to move. With a pretend neigh, I started up the path. I would never get tired of being this little girl's surrogate father. Though when Jack came home, I would have to revert to being the silly uncle. I supposed I could live with that. As we approached the door, Gracie relaxed her feet and pulled on my hair with a 'Whoa' as if she were a seasoned rider. Leaning forward, she pounded on the door with her small hand.
"Grandpa!" She squealed loudly with an excited yet accidental and rather pain tug of her 'reins'. Kicking her legs almost violently, she equal parts scrambled, fell and was lifted off my shoulders so she could jump up into Jacob's arms.
"Hey, how's my Gracie?" He asked.
"I'm good. We went to Minnisoda and did walking and horse rides and fishing – lots of fishing – and Old Mum showed Daddy how to play chess and…" She started on a barrage that had me wincing because Jacob was giving me the kind of look that he probably gave all of Sam's boyfriends only worse because I was supposedly 16 and her commanding officer. "…and Old Mum helped Daddy put out a fire, but I didn't see the fire cos it was in the bedroom, and…"
"Whoa there. Gracie. Grandpa so does not need to know about the fire." I interrupted her as a flush of heat spread its way across my face. Jacob's look was an interesting kind of borderline murderous.
"Go on, Gracie. I think I'd like to hear about this fire that John doesn't want me to know about." He prompted with a scowling smile that scared the absolute crap out of me. Her little face lit up at the prospect.
"It was really hot and Old Mum got burned cos she screamed. I was in my room pretending to sleep so I was safe and OK…" She regaled her Grandfather with the story from her point of view. Groaning heavily as I walked in the door, I came face to face to Samantha and immediately felt it, like a low-lying buzz in my stomach, only it wasn't just in my stomach, it was running through my whole system.
"Hi." She breathed, and come closer, her hand automatically reaching out as if she had no control. "You look good, different. I like the goatee." She breathed out a little too familiarly. I ran my hand over the sparse hairs that I had managed to fashion into anything other than scruff and returned a tight-lipped smile.
"Ah, yeah. Figured I might as well grow one while I had the chance." I replied, then looked down, avoiding her lips and breasts, to her very visible baby bump outlined by the skin tight top she was wearing with a pair of jean shorts that should be illegal. "You have a… thing." I said earning myself a smile as her hand ran over and around it.
"You're the third person to call my child a thing, you know that." She chuckled, "Do you want to…" She didn't finish the question, rather she just took my hand to placed it on the side.
"John!" Charlie called out as he bounded up the steps making me pull my hand back as if it had been burned. "What on Earth is that?"
"Charlie." I ran my hand over the goatee again and half smiled. "It's a 'just because I can' moment that kinda stuck."
"Is it just me, or are you way taller?" He asked with a furrowed brow. "And older." That was when I realised, I was looking straight in his eyes rather than 'up' to his eyes. Sam had said I was taller, but I hadn't really noticed that much.
"Ah, yeah. Had a growth spurt or two over the last three months. Crazy huh?" I replied a sheepishly, hoping that explanation would be enough to waylay any further questions about my new age. Samantha's eyes were hooded, and she was worrying her bottom lip in a way that screamed seduction. "So, Charlie." I turned toward the sunken lounge coaxing him to join me in an attempt to get away from Samantha so that I didn't do something that would land me in lots of trouble. "Anything new?"
"Ah… yeah you could say that." He replied, then looked to the corner of the room at a beautiful woman with caramel skin, auburn brown hair and hazel eyes to die for. When she smiled at Charlie, all the beauty became a whole lot more. "Bree." Charlie said as he reached for her hand. They laced their fingers in a way that advertised girlfriend. "This is John. Jack's nephew." He introduced me.
"Hi." She smiled and flicked her eyes to the photograph that I knew sat on the mantle behind me. "I can see the family resemblance." She commented on how much I looked like myself. Not that she would ever know.
"Hi, Bree." I replied and offered her my hand to shake. "So, Charlie. How did you snag yourself such a beautiful girlfriend?" I asked making Bree blush. He beamed and scratched at the back of his head in a way that Charlie always did when he was nervous.
"Well, actually…" He dropped his hand and placed it over her stomach. "She's my fiancée, and in about eight months…" My eyes widened in what I suspected was a comical way, and he smiled again. "Surprise!"
"Damn, Charlie… you do move fast." I replied as a massive smile grew on my face. "Welcome to the clu… ah, I mean… Congratulations on you know…" I tried to recover from my screw-up, but it seemed she had taken it all in. Rather than let it go, I went right on and continued to dig my hole. "Grace is kind of like my daughter, I see her that often, you know."
"You are my Daddy, Daddy!" The little girl piped up from the other side of the room. I knew I was half smiling, half grimacing by the looks on everyone else's face.
"See." I said to Bree just as Jacob passed by and put a beer in my hand. Taking a huge gulp, I internally thanked the man for being my silent saviour. Charlie chuckled.
"It's OK, John. She knows." He confided. At my startled expression, he added, "Almost everything." The minuscule shake of his head meant that I wasn't one of the things she knew about. Taking a deep breath, I looked at her.
"You know…" She nodded, "…and you're still here?" I clarified.
"Yeah. I'm told I'll have lots of paperwork to sign and I can't tell anyone." She whispered.
"Oh, yeah. There'll be a whole tree – maybe two – with your name on it." I quipped.
"Did you find out from your Uncle Jack by accident?" She asked suddenly with an innocent yet strangely suspicious look on her face. Now it was my turn to scratch the back of my neck.
"Ahh… yeah. You could say that. He was pissed, let me tell you." I replied sheepishly, hoping I pulled off the nosey kid image.
Moments later, Samantha approached me from behind making all the hair on my body stand on end. Her intentions telegraphed loudly on the latent Naquadah and Ancient essence that her growing child had bestowed upon her. Since she didn't have any of her own normally, I figured she was still navigating the complexities of the feelings which evidentially arose when you were in close proximity to another person with the same make up. Feelings that were uncharted waters and lacking the years of experience in tamping down and ignoring the constant buzz zinging through my veins every time Sam came close. Sitting beside her at the briefing table generally found one or the other initiating some kind of contact. I looked over my shoulder just as she appeared.
"Hi, Bree. I see you've met John." Samantha said as she appeared beside me, her fingers trailing a burning path down my triceps before threading her arm into the crook of my elbow, resting her thumb along the inside of my arm and slowly swiping it back and forth. Charlie narrowed his eyes at the contact that was way more intimate than it should have been. As much as I didn't want to be rude, I extricated myself from Samantha's hands on attentions.
"Excuse me." I thumbed over my shoulder toward the kitchen. I was in serious need of another beer, but on my current licence, the one Jacob had already given me was already too much. "Gonna grab a drink." I added then turned and escaped as fast as possible. I hadn't been gone for long when another person walked in.
"Jack." It was Charlie.
"That's not my name." I responded, then slowly turned and leaned against the sink.
"Cut the crap. Whether you go by that name or the one you've chosen, she…" Charlie motioned to the lounge room, "…sees you as a version of her husband."
"I'm not…"
"Do you, or do you not remember that day in the closet?" He interrupted as he leaned both hands on the floating kitchen bench. There was probably no point in lying to the man. He knew about me, and he knew about Samantha and Jack. With a heavy sigh, I nodded that I did remember. "Then you remember how devastated she was, how raw, how desperate she was for one last memory."
"Charlie. I…"
"You can't replace him. God knows, I tried." He admitted, "What you can do is be there for her. As a friend." I figured he added that last part as a way of saying not to be there for her too much. Then with a tilt of his chin, he left me in the kitchen alone.
'Yeah, OK. Be there for her.' I thought. There was a major problem with that, well two. Naquadah and the Ancient Gene. My whole body whirred and buzzed whenever she was nearby. It was worse with her than it was with Sam and that was saying something. My teenage brain filled its subconscious recesses with images of her naked body, because despite being 52 for the most part, parts of my cloned physique were most definitely not 52 and they displayed that fact on a regular basis.
After a while, she appeared in the dining room where Charlie had been moments before and asked, "Are you OK?"
I wasn't, not really, but I could hardly say that. So, with the willpower borne from seven years of ignoring my feelings for the Major, I returned her smile and lied through my teeth, "Yeah. Drank that beer too fast, keep forgetting my age."
Her smile grew and she did that thing where she looked down, bit her lip then looked up through her eyelashes and bangs that had always managed to get my blood pumping. "Me too." She replied as her eyes making a seductive journey of my body before coming back to my eyes, and I wondered if that answer referred to her forgetting my age as well. She looked at me a while longer then turned and left me alone with an empty bottle and a raging libido.
Damn. The next two hours were going to be difficult.
~ ~ S 💞 J ~ ~
Sunday, 20th June 2004 – Flight to Colorado Springs – General Sam Carter
There was nothing more peaceful than being above the clouds. Whether as a pilot or a passenger. Fighter or commercial jet. The fluffy whiteness offset against the vivid blue of the sky caused by the scattering effects of Earth's atmosphere always had a way of calming me down or keeping me calm even in the heat of battle.
And what a battle I was heading for.
John.
Regardless of my insistence that he was too young, George and Martin issues orders for him to report to the SGC. They had leveraged his memories as Colonel Jack O'Neill to make him an exception to the strict rules for USAF Academy attendance, and in doing so made any personal relationship between the two of us illegal. Well more illegal because let's face it, our relationship was already illegal under Colorado State Law and most likely even Federal Law considering the physical age gap between us.
The radio crackled overhead, and the pilot announced our imminent approach to Colorado Springs, so I closed my unused laptop and stowed it in my carry bag before pushing the bag under the seat in front of me and looked back out the window. I had hoped to use the flight time to come up with a loose agenda of how to approach the issue of getting Jack out of Antarctica. While I had been commissioned for one month, discovering that John was expected to report in as little as three weeks meant that I had a new goal in mind and for that, I needed Jack.
There was simply no way I could watch the light ablaze in John's eyes be snuffed out a second time. In my time, we had lost him just before I left on my mission for the Odyssey. He had just turned 20 years old and was living in on base housing at Area 51 with no access or contact with the outside world. John had never reached out to SG-1 after being dropped at the high school and the reports Jack received regarding his wellbeing were bogus, filled with crap about his so-called girlfriend and weekend camping trips that never happened. Jack had been convinced by those reports despite our vehement arguments where I tried to make him see the truth. During Jack's time as commander of the SGC, John's treatment had been one of the largest issues that drove a wedge between us. What they did to John was akin to house arrest. Treating him like a common criminal because if he ever managed to leave the base, they knew they would never find him again.
The only reason I knew was because of my stint in Area 51 for eight months and then the ongoing consulting on the new line of ships. I had seen him. Spoken to him. Read in his eyes his plight and misery. We had formed an odd kind of friendship in that time. The constant surveillance they had him under made planning an escape for him impossible. In short, they were killing him while feeding the outside world false stories of a happy young man who wanted nothing more than to serve his country.
Two weeks before I left on the Odyssey, SG-4 escorted home a Repository found deep under the ice in Antarctica. I was sent to Area 51 to accompany it with orders to have John access its contents. As expected, John refused to even enter the room the device was housed in. His defiance was absolute. Nothing they could do would get him to put his head in that thing. They asked me to talk to him, but I refused openly and in front of him. I had seen Jack go through that twice in my life and I refused to watch it happen a third time especially knowing they had no plan to save his life. That was when the unthinkable happened. The General in charge and his flunky had two MP's cuff and drag him into the room while another held me at bay with his M5. I could do nothing but watch as they forced him to accept the download despite my protests that it would kill him.
I saw a jaded Colonel inside an even more jaded young man work solid for thirteen days with little sleep only to put his head down half way through the fourteenth day and not wake up. It was only then that I finally discovered the identity of that General.
Bauer.
Somehow, he had managed to keep his commission after the fiasco at the mountain years before only to wheedle his way into Area 51 and given command of a special projects branch of R that reported directly to the JCS rather than reporting to Home World Security. He sneered and called me blondie, then ordered my silence. Witnessing his death and knowing it could have been prevented caused me to breakdown in the safe privacy of my quarters. Twenty-four hours later, I was on-board the Odyssey for a mission I would never return from.
There was no way I was going to let that happen this time. Not on my watch. No way. This time, I would make sure that Jack knew all about their plans and then we would leave. John and I would disappear before he was expected to report. That gave me a very slim timeline to work with. Given the length of time it took to travel to Halla, taking into account the time dilation that would occur the closer we got, I figured Teal'c and I had to leave before the end of the week. In the event I didn't survive, I would ensure that Jack received a full briefing of what they did to John in my timeline, a copy of John's orders and my final wish that he be kept safe and off the grid.
It was the least I could do for the man who saved my life more than once.