1.

Ok, so he wasn't the sharpest tack in the box, he knew that. Anyone growing up with a sister whose IQ was higher than Gods would realise that they could be seen as 'lacking' by some.

He didn't mind, he had always been proud of her academic achievements, and at the same time a bit smug when he realised that while he may not be a genius, he DID have something she didn't, he had a LIFE!

She may have certificates and awards, but he knew he had a loving wife and two beautiful children, a decent home, a not-too-bad job. All in all he thought he was ahead in life. She even allowed him to set her up with his friends, how pathetic was that? Well, she needed help, so he gave her it and his friend was a great guy! They got on well together, they were even talking about getting married.

Then something happened, he didn't know what, and their father died too, and within months she had switched from the mountain she had worked at for years, to the dessert not too far away from him, she had started courting her old boss, someone Jacob had mentioned a couple of times as a 'good guy', and she was engaged! The president had allowed them the Lincoln Room to celebrate!

All in all maybe his baby sister was getting it together at last, if she hurried she may even get a couple of kids before she got too physically old, and him too, after all her new boyfriend was 15 years older than her!

He sighed and turned back to his computer screen, he could NOT see where the problem was! He had been working on this same patch of coding all morning, he knew the reason for the error was staring him in the face, he just could not for the life of him work it out. He hated working the bugs out of other peoples software… if they could just let him write them from scratch at least he would know where to look when something went wrong, but that wasn't how the new bosses worked!

A 'ping' alerted him to an Email, he opened it, noting it was not internal, so he would have the web monitors on him if it contained anything personal or in violation of the web use code in place in his office.

The mail said:

Your Cell phone is turned off, please contact Sam

He waited 10 minutes and then slipped out to the bathroom, he knew the monitor would know what he was doing, but hopefully would over look it if he could get back to his desk fast.

He slipped into a stall and opened his phone, he dialled his sisters number and a strange voice answered.

"Carter?"

"Mark Carter, yes. Where's Sam?"

"She's… busy. Is it possible for you to get a few days off from work?"

"Who the hell is this?" Mark asked "and where is my sister, and why do you have her phone?"

"I need to ask you a couple of questions first, make sure you are who you said you were… I'm Jack by the way" So her latest fiancé… ok he could deal with this, but what the hell? Security questions?

"Ok Jack, I'll play for now, ask away"

"Who is Uncle George"

"I don't have an Uncle George" he heard a pause on the other end of the line and then 'Jack' put the phone down.

Mark looked at the phone amazed, he redialled and when it was picked up he said, quickly
"You mean George Hammond…Just because Sam called him Uncle George doesn't mean I did, I am older than her remember! I refused to have any pretend 'uncles' or 'aunts'"

"Ok, how many times has Sammy been engaged and what did I say wrong?"

"Counting the phone call last month, 3, the Bastard Jonas, my friend Pete and now you! And if you call her Sammy to her face she will kick your arse!"

He could feel a bit of tension in the other man drain away, even over this far a distance and over a phone line.

"We have a few things to discuss, but first, we are setting the date for the wedding, Sam wants to know if you will give her away. I know it's short notice but it's going to be next weekend"

"Why isn't Sam asking me?"

"She's busy, I told you that already"

"Doing what? What is so important she isn't even asking me to come to her wedding?"

"She's… away… she will be back for the wedding, I've just been left to sort it all out."

"I want to talk to her first! I had conversations like this with that bastard Jonas, you have any idea how many times he tried to arrange a wedding without telling HER?"

A frustrated sigh came down the line to him, "Leave your cell phone on tonight, I'll try and get a link so she can talk to you about… 18:00 your time"

"Ok, fine" the phone went down on the other end, and Mark sat reviewing the conversation for a while… "he said a FEW things…" He stood and flushed the toilet and washed his hands, hopefully he wasn't gone so long that it would cause a problem.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At 18:02 that evening Marks cell rang and he pulled off the road to answer it and heard Sam, she was telling him everything that Jack had said earlier, plus some other bits. She sounded very echoey… as if she was in a large enclosed empty space. Mark tried to ask her, subtly, why the rush, they had only just got engaged… Hell they had only JUST started courting!

Sam, as she was known to, just answered with "because" or "why not" or other useful phrases, he had heard his dad go on about Sams mouth running away with her when trying to explain things, but he evidently never tried to get her to talk about anything personal, because the average rock was more forthcoming!

However, his baby sister was getting married, and dad was dead, so it was either Mark or Uncle Irvin giving her away, and Mark hoped she had forgotten Uncle Irvin existed! There's always one family member you never want to be connected to in public, at one time Mark thought that it was Jacob… now he KNEW it wasn't!

Mark got home and told Jane about the wedding, she immediately panicked, she had nothing to wear… forget that wardrobe full of clothes she had only ever worn once before, to someone elses wedding! Mark, probably most men, couldn't understand why women couldn't wear the same dress every time, after all men wore their suits, and they didn't insist on new ones for every occasion!

The preparations were done, the Family flew out to Colorado Springs, the wedding was to take place in the small chapel attached to Peterson, Jack booked a hotel suite for them, he said his house was undergoing 'some work' and Sams bungalow already had both of them staying in it, as well as Cassie, a girl Sam looked after since she had lost her mother, in Iraq or somewhere.

Mark didn't get a lot of time to spend with the couple, they flew in Thursday, Sam met them but Jack was 'busy', they had a small rehearsal on Friday, Jack turned up 2 minutes late and left less than 5 minutes after it was over! The wedding was Saturday and the couple left straight after the reception (the president…yes THE PRESIDENT OF THE US of A, left after the toast!) heading back up the mountain for some reason. Sam said she would call, or visit, but it was actually almost 6 months before he heard from her again.

2.
He was at work, looking at yet another computer programme with a glitch in it when he heard another 'ping'. The email was exactly the same as the last time, this time, however it was 12:30 and Mark decided to take an early lunch, he wandered over to the small bench the smokers usually sat on and opened his 'healthy' lunchbox that Jane had started packing for him, he sighed at the sight of yet another salad and opened his phone. He rang the number and this time was not surprised when Jack answered.

"I want to offer you a job" Jack said

"I have a job" Mark answered immediately

"A better one" Jack replied

"I'm happy where I am" that wasn't quite true; he was content where he was, he wasn't happy. Several things over the last few years had lead him from his 'happy' state to one a little less secure. His firm had been bought out by an international, and the new rules and procedures had already cost 7 people their jobs, the pay scales meant that he could look forward to several years without a rise to bring him into line with others of the same level. And the 'perks' of working with a small family business were just gone.

However the job he had, had become more of a challenge, he had no real objections to the new rules, they all made perfect sense, he was not as pleased about the pay, but he had known that Mr Tomlinson had offered him a great pay deal when he joined the firm at 20 years of age, with a fixed .5% above inflation rise per year.

Jane, Marks wife had decided she wanted to cut down her hours at work, which meant that the money coming in would get shorter and shorter over the years, she had wanted to actually finish work altogether but they couldn't afford that, especially as the medical insurance was tied to her job, and she was permanently tired, he had been worried about her health for a while, but she was a nurse and he could guarantee if something was really wrong, she would have known straight away, and told him.

Lizzy was doing well, now getting on for 10 years old, and very VERY smart, but Tom, he wasn't doing so well, he had been bullied for a couple of years at school before they had worked out what was wrong, and now it was a struggle to get him to go at all!

All this flashed through Marks head while he waited for the reply.

"Look," Jack was trying to sound reasonable "would it hurt you to come and have an interview?"

"I don't WANT another job!"

"I promised I wouldn't say anything, but Sam needs you"

"Why, what's wrong?" Mark asked quickly, Sam would never ask for help from him, she was too independent and stubborn!

"I can't tell you" was the reply "I can only ask you to come for the 'job interview'"

"I can't just drop everything and jump on a plane to Colorado!" Mark said. "Just tell me what's wrong with Sam!" he was getting angry now, he had no other way of contacting her.

"I can come interview you there, at your home, if you want… Look, Mark, I know you understand 'Classified', Jacob would have made sure you did. Sam needs her family around her, but the reason she does is classified. If you were to get a job with us, you would automatically have clearance. All you need to do is learn about some certain computer programmes, and we employ you as a contractor."

"My sister needs help from her family, but we are not allowed to give her it because of National Security? What the fucking hell is going on?!"

"MARK!" snapped the older man, and Mark caught himself straightening his back and his shoulders automatically "Look, can I come around tonight? I'll bring Sam with me, we can talk a bit about the job"

"She's OK to travel then?" Mark was puzzled now beyond belief.

"She fine, what time will you be home?"

"About 6pm" he said deliberately not using the 24 hour clock system

"We will be there" the phone went dead. How the hell were they going to get from Colorado to San Diego in 5 hours, Mark thought. Unless they were at Nellis, Mark remembered that Sam had been posted there just as she got engaged, mind even THAT was a good 5 hours drive away!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mark arrived home at 5:45 pm making sure he set off a bit earlier so he could warn Jane and the kids that they would be having visitors. Jane was laid out on the sofa, black circles under her eyes. Lizzy was trying to do some homework on the dining room table and shouting at Tom because he had the radio on and she couldn't concentrate.

Mark ran around quickly picking up the kids discarded clothes and paraphernalia. He warned Jane and she ran upstairs to put make-up on her eyes. At exactly 6pm the doorbell rang, Mark hadn't heard a car pull up, but he had been trying to get Tom to turn off the music.

He opened the door as Jane came downstairs. "Sam" Jane said and gave her sister-in-law a big hug. "You look like shit" she said, always the diplomat Jane. Sam looked tired, as tired as Jane did most nights recently.

"You too Jane" Sam said laughing slightly.

Mark took a long hard look at the man who he had spoken with earlier, Jack was a tall, man, thin, but not weak looking, he was solid muscle from what Mark could see, he had grey hair and wore lose denim jeans and a black Tshirt that clung to his chest and arms, showing off the muscle definitions well. He looked tanned, but that could be from working outside a lot most of his life, his face was a mixture of youth and age. When he looked at Sam he looked in his early 40s, when he looked anywhere else, closer to 60.

The men shook hands and everyone headed into the living room, the kids were still arguing in the dining room, and no amount of door shutting could block them out altogether.

"Don't tell the kids I'm here" Sam said, "we can't stay long and we have to get through it all" Mark and Jane nodded, everyone sat.

"So, Sam, what's this all about?" Mark asked

"I can't tell you Mark. General O'Neill…Jack… has an offer for you, everything depends on what you decide."

Mark was getting VERY annoyed now, it was one thing for the high and mighty AF General to play games, but his SISTER? He had thought that they had gotten over this when his dad and he had made up after all those years of arguing.

"Sam, don't play games. Jack said you needed help, he also offered me a job" Jane looked round at him surprised.

"We need a computer specialist." Jack said

"Bullshit" Mark answered "You are the Airforce, if you need a computer specialist you just get one to come from the academy or you post one to your base. I'm just a lowly grunt, I am not anything special and I KNOW you have much better qualified people available than I"

"Mark…" Sam started to say

"True" Jack interrupted her "but none of them are you!"

"What is so special about ME?" he asked.

"You are Carters brother" as if that explained it all. "Look, I'll make it simple. I, personally, want to give you the job, it is a proper job, it is not just a job we made up for you. I have a budget to make 'this' happen and I am guessing it will almost double your income, added to which you will get full medical cover for everyone, from top AF personnel, you will get a nice house near the base, but actually in the town, the kids will have a great choice of schools, both of the high schools are VERY good. The academy is close if they decide to join the force. And … you will be near your sister"

"I thought you were working at Nellis now Sam?" Mark turned to her. He was having a problem understanding just what was happening, he knew he was nothing special, but he could not understand why SHE was so special they would employ HIM. Especially with the benefits package.

"The medical insurance…" Jane asked, being a nurse she would think of that first "what does it cover?"

"Everything" was the simple answer

"No insurance covers everything" she said "for instance most won't cover pre-existing conditions"

"Everything." He repeated, Sam nodded along with him.

They talked things out for another half hour or so, money, work, the programmes he needed to know, and Mark kept trying but he couldn't get anything out of Sam, she was working at Nellis part time, but she lived in Colorado… Jack was working in DC but HE lived in Colorado too! And they wanted him to pack up his Family and move to Colorado to be close, when he was closer to Nellis where he was! Eventually Jack stood up and stretched.

"We will leave you to discuss the matter… you can reach us on Sam's cell when you decide" and they said goodbye and left the house. It was only when they had closed the door they realised they had been rude and had not invited them to stay for dinner! Jane opened the door quickly to shout, but they were nowhere to be seen!

3.
Mark looked over the folder that Sam had left on the table. He could understand a lot of what he was seeing of the printout, but bits of it were blanked out, as if by a censor, and without those bits he could not see exactly what the programme was for, he could just tell it was controlling power flow to something. Jane was thinking hard about something, and Mark decided to have the kids join in too, so he called them in and explained what little he knew. Lizzy, of course, was worried about leaving her friends, but then she would have a chance to be near her favourite Aunt (she didn't like Jane's sister) Tom actually looked quite interested, for Tom, anyway. He asked a few questions about schooling and where they would live. Both kids in the end knew it was really nothing much to do with them, they would have to do what Mark and Jane decided, but they both seemed OK with the idea anyway.

They ordered a Chinese and Lizzy went back to her books, while Tom went out into their tiny back garden, leaving the adults to talk.

"It's a good offer Mark" Jane pointed out.

"Yeah but they don't want ME, they want Sams brother, I would rather get a job because I earned it"

"I know love, but this way I could finish work AND we don't have to worry about medical, because it won't be tied to my job"

"Yeah but what if something goes wrong? I'll be throwing away over 20 years with the firm!"

"That severance package that Jack told us about would keep us for several years if you wanted, you wouldn't have to go looking for work unless you wanted to."

The more Mark looked at it, the better it looked. The better it looked, the more he knew there was a catch somewhere!

It took a week before Mark decided on what he wanted to do. In that time he learnt something disturbing at work, the web monitor, a man brought into the company from 'HQ' had made a pass at one of the secretaries and when she had turned the slime-ball down her terminal received a 'pornado' a programme that kept opening windows of porn on her machine no matter what she did. She was fired for misuse of web access. Mark contacted a couple more ex-employees, and found that at least one woman had had the same happen and one of the men had challenged the little git about it and ended up going the same route. Mark was getting more and more disillusioned with the whole thing. He wrote a special programme of his own, sent it to the monitors email and left the building, leaving his passes and an "I QUIT" notice on his monitor, once outside he rang 'HQ' and told them about their little spy and his dirty tricks, and then rang Sams cell

"I'll take it" he said.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The day the Carter family went to move into their new home, a month later, was overcast and gloomy, the fact that it was in the mountains and so far inland meant that it felt a lot colder than it actually was to them.

The house was close to the end of a street that seemed to dead end in a forest. There was building work going on at the end, a huge house was almost completed there. They were next door but one to it, and from the back bedroom windows could see a swimming pool already dug and tiled, and landscapers were making a playground close by the trees. The house itself was actually on 2 plots of land, as if there were a couple of houses there that had been demolished before the work had started, there were 2 drives and 2 posts that used to have mail boxes on them, one of the posts, the farthest down the street said O'Neill on it.

Their house was a very nice four bedroom split level bungalow, with a large back garden, big enough for a patio and a barbeque and bench set and still have room for a tennis net or something, their next door neighbours were called Dixon and had only just moved in the week before themselves. They had 4 children and their house was on the same basic design as the Carters, but they had a couple of extra bedrooms in the attic. Mrs Dixon… Carol, seemed a nice woman, and she and Jane spent a happy half hour chatting about the houses. It seemed that her husband worked at the mountain too, but she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what he did, just that he had recently been promoted and the house was part of the promotion.

Over the road were a couple of smaller houses, three beds or so, one of the occupants was a young woman with a toddler, 18 months or 2 years old at most, she wandered up and down the street with a doll in a pushchair, smiling at everyone, her mother keeping a close eye on her and stopping her every time she headed for the road or the house being built at the end.

The place was lovely, and once the building work was finished at the end of the road, it would be a nice quiet neighbourhood.

Tom had already looked over the new school he was going to, and actually seemed excited about going, Lizzy was still too young for high schools but her mother had found a lovely junior for her, with very high marks when it came to pass rates.

Mark had already received a pay cheque from the AF, even though he had not yet gone to work! He was due to start first thing in the morning, he had yet to see his sister or her husband again, in fact everything had been sorted by phone and mail since that one meeting, and yet he STILL had no idea why Sam wanted him around! She would not say, just that she would tell him once he started work.

They spent the whole day sorting furniture, the kids, for once, didn't argue about anything, having sorted out which bedrooms they wanted early on, Mark also noticed that the bedroom Tom picked was almost soundproof, which pleased everyone! Jane went to lay down around 4pm, she really did look very tired and had bruises from knocking into the boxes on her legs that had come up very quickly. The neighbours came around at 7, and she got up again to greet them, they brought a picnic selection between them and the men offered a hand with anything that needed shifting, if the removal people had got anything wrong (which they had as it turned out) and they lifted and shifted the solid oak dresser from one wall to the other with absolutely no communication between them, Mark started to get a bit suspicious about them then.

He knew Dixon… Dave, his wife called him, but he said he preferred Dixon… was a typical military man, he was of the same type of build as Jack, not quite as tall, but just as muscled and slightly weather-beaten. The others were less obvious, until you saw them as a group, they seemed to … fit together.

The man who lived across the road with the toddler was Wells, Simon, and he introduced his wife as Marci, and their daughter as Janet, the man from the house next to his was called Balinsky and he had a girlfriend, but she was away somewhere, doing something, very vague, Mark dropped the subject when he realised the man didn't want to talk about it. The last of the group was called Bosworth and he had a wicked sense of humour, one his friends seemed to ignore most of the time. Mark liked him! He was single and had the third of the three houses opposite Marks. On the other side of Marks house from Dixons place a young man, maybe about Sams age, lived on his own, he had a girlfriend, but she was also working away, he was called Daniel, or Dr. Jackson if you listened to the others. Sarah was… with SG15 whatever THAT meant. The others seemed to know because they nodded.

All that left was the huge black man who had appeared out of nowhere and his sister and her husband who turned up at about 8 and left before 9 saying they had to get back to 'the shop'. Mark never did catch the mobile mountains name, and no one seemed in a hurry to enlighten the family either.

All in all it was a good day, hopefully tomorrow he would find out what all this was about and he hoped he would be able to cope with it!

4.
He got up at 6am and had a quick run before breakfast, the kids were up and ready for school before he got back and Jane was having a well deserved lie in. He showered and ate his cereal, and then he woke her at 7:30 to get Lizzy to school. He stepped out his front door to get the car when he heard a horn. He turned and there was a huge family van at the end of his drive

"Carter, want a lift?" Dixon shouted at him.

"I'd rather take my car first day" Mark shouted back, after all if he took a lift he was relying on them to finish at the same time to get him home.

"You can't get on base with it, it has to be registered first" Dixon told him "Don't worry you can get a lift home any time you want from an SF, you won't be stuck there, General O'Neill's orders, and when he orders something… you can be sure it gets done!"

Mark shrugged and stepped down to the road, whoever the man was that Sam had married, he had Power! With a capital P.

As Mark had suspected, the other three men from the other side of the road were already in the car, the only person from the street missing was Daniel and they explained he had actually gone back to base after the welcome yesterday. Mark asked about the house at the end of the street as it seemed that the whole road had been bought out by the Airforce and was told that it was for 'the General' whom he assumed meant O'Neill, not George Hammond.

The men were having a laugh about the house, evidently it was supposed to have been built in a month, and here they were 6 months down the road with workmen STILL there! 'The General' was NOT pleased at all, there was talk about how long it would be before 'HE' took a hit out on the foreman, or whether 'HE' would see to it himself. Bosworth even opened a small notebook and offered odds on each probability! Mark just sat quiet and absorbed everything, he was lucky, he had a perfect memory, so any time he wanted he knew he could review the statements he was hearing, knowing they would make sense some day.

The main question for Mark was why would a man O'Neills age, with no family who had just got married to his 40 year old sister, want a house THAT big? Did they entertain that much? Jacob never had, but then, by the time Jacob made General he was a widower, maybe that was the difference.

Dixon noticed Mark quietly sitting there and changed the subject, turning the radio on to cover any low chatter going on in the back, and they made their way up to the base.

It was impressive, Mark had seen bits on the news over the years about the base, he had even seen a documentary about them building/excavating it, it was another thing to see the tunnel into the hillside and know that once past that HUGE steel and lead door you could be cut off from the world. Even the air was not pumped straight into the facility in case of attacks. Ahh the good old paranoid days of the cold war! Mark remembered the 70's and 80's and living on AF bases that would have been some of the first targets in a war, he was glad of the worldwide changes that had come about, at least his kids didn't have to worry about being bombed from on high, or being invaded!

Mark had to wait at the security desk on the ground floor, Dixon had got him into the car park, but not much further. A security detail was dispatched to his house to check his vehicles and register them for passes, and he was photographed, retina printed, finger printed, voice printed, palm printed, and DNA printed!! He said it was a wonder they didn't need a picture of his arse, at which point the SF told him to drop his trousers. Mark grinned at him and put a finger up in the air.

Next the huge man from the day before turned up to escort him to the infirmary, where he had to undergo a full physical. He protested about this, as he said, he was only a computer programmer, but he was told, by the SFs at the desk, that it was routine, if he did not have the physical he would not be allowed on base, everyone down to the cleaners and the catering staff had to have full physicals regularly! So he went down one lift, out of it around a corner past another security point, who scanned him again, and then down to the infirmary.

The doctor who greeted him was what Jane would have called 'an old dear' he was slightly hunch backed, had a shock of grey white hair that reminded Mark of Einstein. He had merry eyes that twinkled with good humour and made Mark feel well looked after, Mark also had to grin when he introduced himself… not every day he met a rock star he said, to Dr. Frankie Lyman! Mark stood being poked and prodded, he had more blood taken and a full medical history, even though he had had his doctors forward their patient notes to the CMO of the base. The man on a bed at the end of the small ward nodded his head in sympathy every time Mark complained, he had a nurse stitching his hand while he was trying to clean his glasses with the other, no easy trick, the doctor just kept on with his job ignoring the man and his actions!

The doctor enquired after his family and took notes on everything he answered, he even wanted to know which childhood diseases the kids had had! Mark was getting more and more irritated when he heard a strange noise, no one else in the room reacted at all, but Mark was sure…

The doctor dismissed him quickly after that and as Mark was walking out of the infirmary, the huge shadow still with him, he could have sworn he heard it again, a baby cry! A door opened at the far end of the infirmary and there it was yet again, definitely a baby! What the hell was a baby doing in a top secret military base? Again, no one else reacted to the noise!

Mark followed… Teal'c… as the doctor had called his guide, back to the lifts and down to the next to lowest level, 27.

They walked along the corridor and as they drew level with a door marked "KEEP OUT! Authorized personnel only" it opened and Jack stepped out, Mark looked behind him and all he saw was a small space, could have been a store cupboard in a past life, but there was no sign as to why it was so special, it was totally empty. Jack shook his hand and gestured further down the corridor, where Mark could see Dr. Jackson getting coffee when the door opened again and Sam stepped out. Now how the hell had they done THAT?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack draped an arm around Sams shoulder and gestured again to the room at the end of the corridor, Mark went down to it. There was a large table in the middle of the room, and a huge picture window/wall that was covered in steel shutters, keeping whatever was on the other side away from his sight.

They sat at the table and Jack asked about the move, and about the kids, and about the computer programme. As soon as Mark started discussing the job he had been employed to do Jack seemed to lose focus, and Sam took over the meeting, she described the bits that were missing and told him that he would have full access by the end of the day, she had a lot to show him, and even more to tell him.

She started to tell him about the laws governing the secrecy of the facility, she then told him a tale of a dig in the early 20th centaury in Egypt that uncovered something, and she had just got up to her being assigned to work on it when suddenly something happened!

In the corner of the room was a red light, it started flashing and a huge siren went off

"UNAUTHORISED OFFWORLD ACTIVATION" said a voice over a PA system. Everyone in the room jumped and ran for the stairs in the corner, Jack shouting "Stay there!" to Mark and an SF who had been stood silently in the corner stepped forward when he went to follow them. He could hear voices from the room below if he concentrated, evidently 'Master Bra'tac' was coming… and then here, and after a 15 minute wait they all trouped back in with an older man with very bad skin and a strange leather skullcap on. When he came fully into the room his whole outfit was strange, most of it black leather, but he wore a long cloak too! And boots that looked, just, wrong, somehow. He also had a huge wooden stick that he held in his hand.

Jack looked at Mark as if he had forgotten that he was there, he then looked back at the man in the strange clothing.

"Ermm Carter" Jack said gesturing to him.

"Yes sir" his sister replied, "I'll take him down to the…" she flapped her hand a bit but he seemed to know what she meant

"Yeah… I'll be down soon" she gestured to Mark to leave the room and as he turned the old man held out a hand to Jack

"Human, I offer my congratulations" he said… WHAT THE HELL… HUMAN?

5
Sam kept walking, as Mark tried to slow her down to ask about the old man who had just arrived (where the hell had he arrived from 28 levels underground Mark wanted to know?). They got to the lifts and as they were waiting she carried on telling the story that had been interrupted.

Mark did not believe half of what she told him! It was too incredible! She had told him of travel to a world called Abydos, which was the name of somewhere in Egypt he thought. And of the mission taken by Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson. He wondered what the hell his normally straight sister was doing spinning this yarn to him when she should be serious, after all he had to know about his job, not fairy tales!

"Come in" Sam said she opened a door with her electronic key card and he was faced with what looked to be a very busy work room. There were monitors and metres of all kinds, a huge bench with tools in racks and microscopes and magnifying glasses. It looked cluttered, but in such a way that he was sure she knew where everything was.

"I'm going to kill Felger" she muttered as she picked up a goose-necked magnifier and placed it on the bench "if he touches my DOOR in future I'll set it to electrocute him never mind my work bench!"

"So are you working back here?" he asked

"Not really, I'm based out of Nellis, most of the time anyway, but I'm going to be here and there for a while yet, let's get back to the story shall we?"

She told him of beings that had snakes, and ones that uses to have them, about a pacifist race who could heal the dead, and she explained that the Roswell grey race that Alex Colson had shown on TV was real, and they were a race called Asgard! He also heard how his father had been saved from his so called terminal cancer by allowing another being to share his body… something Mark really did not want to accept, after all it would mean the man who had finally made friends with him was not even his father!

She told the story of the four races in a galaxy wide alliance, and the fact that they, humans, would soon be the fifth race, and how they had been in contact with all the others, even if the last ones they had only met in the few months or so.

Mark wasn't sure if he should call for the men in white suits or run screaming from her, he just kept absorbing what she said and allowed her to continue.

The PA blared out again "Colonel Carter to the Control room, Colonel Carter to the Control room" and he and Sam headed back out. This time when she went down the steps in the corner of the room he was allowed to follow. He saw a huge metal ring and heard a loud grinding noise. The man who had arrived earlier was stood at the bottom of a metal ramp leading up to it with Teal'c, and Jack turned as they entered.

"Thought by now he would be thinking you were crazy" Jack said to his wife, draping an arm across her shoulder again, she shrugged out of it, pulling a face at him as she moved to sit at one of the terminals. Jack gestured to the ring "See what she's talking about" he said just as the little man at the controls said

"Chevron 7 locked!" there was a huge WHOOSH sound and a boiling wave of what looked like water shot out of the ring heading straight for them! It subsided back and there was no sign of moisture anywhere in the room except for what looked like a blue lake, an upright blue lake, filling the circle!

The old man in the room below, said something to the younger one, they clasped hands and then he walked up the ramp to what looked like the pools surface and walked straight into it. Seconds later the pool disappeared and the man was gone! No one reacted to the fact that he was missing, but then if what Sam had told him was correct, this was an every day thing for them!

Mark looked at where the man had been, then he looked around, everyone was watching him, a couple of people were looking at him in sympathy, Jack was smirking, Sam smiling and Daniel… well he was looking for more coffee by the looks.

Then the grinding noise started again and once again the siren blared, the light flashed and the voice came over the PA "UNAUTHORISED OFFWORLD ACTIVATION" and he could see the little Tech Sergeant was the one who was doing all the announcements. He turned to Jack after a minute and said "Its SG18 sir, coming in from P3X-439"

"The place where I got my head sucked again?" Jack asked and Sam winced as she looked at him.

"Yes Jack, they were doing a survey now Anubis has gone, see if there was anything else left behind by the ancients" Daniel said from the back of the room.

"Open the iris" Jack said and suddenly 4 men appeared out of the pool of water that had reformed, they walked down the ramp, handing off their weapons to someone at the bottom, they looked up at the control room.

"Go get a medical and shower kids, debrief at 14:00" they gave a sloppy half salute and left via the huge blast doors just under the window Mark was watching them through.

"So" Jack said, turning to Sam, "did you introduce Mark to…"

"No Sir, I thought I would wait and we could do it together" Sam interrupted him

What else could they have in store for him?!

They all exited the room and Jack took a deep breath… "Time to get this over with," he said and gestured for Sam to precede him.

They once more stepped out of the room, Sam and then Mark, Daniel and Teal'c, they had travelled half way to the elevator as Sam turned around and said "Oh no you don't!" and she turned and ran towards the door she had come out of earlier, she opened it and entered, it took a full 5 minutes before they both came out again, Jack looking abashed.

"Jack is afraid you are going to kick his arse in about 10 minutes" Sam told her brother

"I miss dad you know, but I am so glad I don't have to face him with this" Jack said

Sam smiled sadly "Selmak would have protected you, she liked you" she said and he put his arms around her and gave her a hug.

"Sir! Not on base" she moved away from him slightly and said, "come on, I bet SG13 are waiting for us"

They headed off again, only being interrupted a couple of times by people on their way down the corridors. They exited the lift at 21 again and the Doctor met them at the doors to the infirmary, he gave Mark the all clear health wise and told them he was "safe to go in" they entered the small ward and everyone headed for the other door Mark had seen earlier, saying a quick "Hi Siler" to the man who was there with his hand being stitched earlier, now he was having a cut on his forehead dressed!

Jack and Sam stood at the doors to another room and both took a deep breath.

"Welcome to the Family" they said and opened the doors for Mark to go through.

6.
The room looked to be just another room, with an observation window along the top of one wall, however the contents were anything but what you would expect on a top secret military base! There were 8… he counted again… EIGHT cots!

He looked at Sam puzzled "Family?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's sort of hard to explain" she said and Mark snorted, after what she had just asked him to believe THIS was hard to explain?

"We have several alien allies, or if not allies, friends, anyway one race we had not met until recently decided that we…" she pointed at Jack and then herself… "would make children that could solve a problem they are having, so they kidnapped us both and the next thing we knew we had eight children!"

Mark walked over and looked at Bosworth who was feeding a child, and getting covered in something that looked like puréed carrots. "why didn't you say something earlier?" he asked

"Earlier? You didn't have clearance" she said as if that explained everything "I told you you would have to wait to know"

"NO! I mean earlier! These kids are almost… what 10, 11 months old by the looks? Given that and your pregnancy…" he paused his eyes widening "You sure they are HIS?" he pointed at Jack "You were going out with Pete back then!"

"Mark! Listen to what we are saying! There was NO pregnancy, the kids started arriving here 2 weeks before the wedding, they appeared over the course of 3 days and they had something that made them age fast, until we asked for it to be stopped"

"Damn Octuplets, you any idea how much money you could make from sponsorship deals?"

"We can't make anything Mark, the kids are a secret, not a media circus, we can't explain where they came from, especially as I have never given birth, also you have to add in the fact that the children are special, they have a genetic inheritance that needs to be monitored, this is why we bought the street Jacks house was in, well the president bought Jacks house and the one next door, making us a new one for us and the kids to live in, the SGC bought the rest so nosey neighbours don't go selling the story to the papers, or TV. The children will be taught here on base, and any other children of servicemen or contractors who want to come along once it is set up, will be welcome."

He listened to her, but really all he could think about was how she could leave the Airforce with that amount of money, and get a real life, and then there was a bright beam of white light outside the room and in walked a little grey man, thing, alien.

"Thor, buddy!" Jack said "whatcha doin?"

"O'Neill, I have come to check on Grace, as her speeded maturation is now at 11 months it is time to take another sample for study, I also wish to extend once again the thanks of the entire Asgard race for your help with this."

"Not a problem buddy, you want our doctor to get a sample for you?"

"No, thank you O'Neill we have a method that does not puncture the skin and is totally painless" he went over to one of the babies that was laid in the cot and laid something on her arm, he then straightened and said "Thank you Grace O'Neill" softly.

"I will be in orbit for most of the day if you need me O'Neill, otherwise I will see you next month"

"Any time Thor, you're welcome any time!" the little alien left the room and there was a flash of light again.

"We should remember to move over to the kids when we enter, make it easier for him to beam in" Jack said, fiddling with a St Christopher on his wrist, Mark noticed all the children had them on as well, and Sam too! No one else in the room did though.

The members of SG13, as the men he travelled to work with had been called, Daniel, Teal'c and his sister and her husband all made themselves comfortable, Mark was left standing looking at the kids, some of whom were trying to climb out of their cots, a couple were asleep and one was STILL trying to decorate the room in carrot.

"So, I take it this…situation… has something to do with the job offer and stuff?" Mark asked.

"I will be needing some help, much as I hate to admit it," Sam explained " and Jane writes to me quite a lot, even though I don't usually get time to reply, she was telling me she would like to finish work, but couldn't, and I thought, who better to have living close by but my brother and his family, especially as Jane is a nurse!"

"And the computer programmes you will be maintaining are the ones Carter wrote" Jack chimed in "she always told me you two could understand each other when no one else could, we are not going to be as available as we once were, YOU will be the one on call instead of Carter now"

"Why are you calling her Carter?" Mark asked, he had meant to mention it earlier "You two got married, and I know my sister, she wouldn't have married you and kept her own name!"

"You are correct Mark Carter" said Teal'c, "However there is only one O'Neill"

Was it possible that a 50 odd year old USAF General BLUSHED? Damn it WAS! An odd coughing noise came from the man who then clarified the statement.

"I was Colonel O'Neill here for 8 years, then I became General O'Neill almost 2 years ago, when Carter was promoted. Once we got married she decided to keep Carter on base, and O'Neill everywhere else, it saved us both turning around when called"

That made sense, in a strange twisted military way, as both of them shouldn't be in the same base anyway at the same time, them being married and of different ranks.

"So I take it you are in charge here?" Mark asked

"Not officially no, I'm actually the man in charge of the man in charge, Brigadier General Dixon is officially head of the SGC," Mark looked over at the man named, he didn't seem like a General to HIM! He seemed too… nice. "I'm head of 'Homeworld Security', the government department responsible for everything to do with out… there" he waved vaguely in front of himself.

Mark felt a headache coming on, and asked if there were any aspirins, Sam nipped out to get him a couple when a light box on the wall flashed, Dixon got up to answer it.

"Dixon, yeah put him through Walter, Yes sir, yes, no Sir, I don't know sir, would you like… yes sir" He turned and held the phone out to Jack covering the mouthpiece up as he did so "President" he said and Jack nodded and sighed.

"Yes sir, yes he's arrived, yes sir we were just introducing him… no sir they have NOT" he was gritting his teeth as he spoke now "No sir! They assured me it would be THIS weekend, Yes well, I thought a few well placed Zats…" he sighed "No sir… this afternoon? Yes sir, I'll be there, what time? Right, goodbye to you too sir, I will, thanks" He put the phone down carefully and said "Crap" under his breath.

"What have I told you about swearing in front of the kids Sir?" Sam asked as she entered with a glass of water and some tablets.

"That was the president on the phone, he wants me to meet with the IOC in DC in… 3 hours"

"Jack! I thought you were going to be here all week!" Sam complained,

"I was but… Look, let '13 deal with the kids, come with me and we'll spend a night in DC, help you get a good nights sleep for once"

"Sure we don't mind Colonel" Balinsky and Dixon said at the same time

"You have your own family to go home to Dixon" Jack said, grinning at the man "And you too Wells, the other two, with Danny and T can manage" he grabbed her around the waist and nuzzled into her neck while everyone else pretended they weren't there. "you have not had a night off for almost 6 months love, Doc says you are exhausted and is threatening to sedate you, why not come with me?"

"You could come straight back, that way neither of us will be missing"

"I COULD, but I don't think the kids would mind for just one night, it isn't like we are abandoning them!" Sam was tempted, Mark could tell. Hell! He was tempted to have a day off from HIS kids and he only had the two and they weren't babies!

"You would be better with a decent nights sleep sis" he said gently, "and it'll give me some time to look at the programme without you breathing down my neck"

"I wouldn't do that!" she protested, Mark chuckled

"Sure you would, sis, it's your programme, and if it wasn't for the contents of this room I would call it your baby! Now how about you introduce me to all my nieces and nephews? Then I'll work out what the hell to tell Jane!"

"I knew it was a good idea getting him here!" Jack exclaimed, picking up the first child he came to "Richard… meet Uncle Mark!"

7.

Mark spent an hour or so looking at babies and then the rest of the morning looking at computer coding, and at the machines they ran, he was amazed at the power required to run the place!

He was invited to the commissary at 12:00 by Dr. Jackson, who insisted he was to be called Daniel and when they got there Jack, Sam and Teal'c were already sat down eating

"I thought you two were off to DC for a meeting?" He asked

"We are" his sister scraped the bottom of a sundae dish, getting the last blue gunk onto her spoon.

"You are going to be late" he pointed out, it was already 2 hours since the phone call from the President and Jack had mentioned he had to be there in 3, though even if they had set off straight away it was pushing it unless they took a top speed jet.

"Naww we got it covered" Jack said, a smug look on his face "T…I need a favour this afternoon,"

"How may I be of assistance O'Neill" asked the huge man

"Give Mark a lift home, his cars have been checked, he can bring 'em to work tomorrow, and go see that damn foreman at the house, I want the kids out of here before they are talking! Hell at this rate we will be lucky to get them out before school! It isn't good for them only seeing daylight for a couple of hours a time when we can take them up top."

"Indeed" was the reply "I shall make sure he knows the urgency of the situation"

"Don't break him! The president was quite specific on that" Jack waggled is fingers and received a solemn nod in acknowledgement, Mark wasn't sure of he was kidding or if the warning was justified, it was certain that the huge man could seriously hurt someone if he tried.

Jack got up and held the chair for his wife to stand "I have to go get my blues on… You getting dressed up too Carter?" he asked

"No, I'm going to do a bit of shopping while you are in the meeting, I don't remember the last time I had an afternoon wandering around with nothing to do." She answered, "or actually I may nip over to Nellis this afternoon…"

"Nope! Not going to happen!" Jack stated firmly "day off… get a life… have fun… any of this ring a bell?" Mark watched his sister closely, she would never have allowed anyone to get away with bossing her around in her personal life before, but here was her husband telling her she wasn't allowed to do something, in front of people, and she accepted it! Or did she? Mark thought he saw a gleam in her eye as she looked back at the table to wave goodbye

She headed to the double swing doors, her husband stood still, not moving "Carter?" he said, she looked back, all innocent and wide eyed. He held out his hand towards her and said "Stone" she looked at him, at his hand and then back to his face.

"Sir?" she said opening her blue eyes wide in fake innocence, Mark could see she knew exactly what he meant, she was playing him.

"How far can I trust you Mark?" Jack turned on him quickly

"I have no idea" Mark answered honestly

"Good answer, Ok, T… get her stone off her, Mark stay!" Sam sighed and put her hand in her trouser pocket, and drew out an odd shaped milky pearl coloured stone

"You don't play fair Jack" she said and handed it to him, he gave it to Teal'c.

"She doesn't get it back unless there is an acknowledged emergency for 48 hours T, understand?" The man nodded

"48? You said overnight!"

"Crap" he murmured "sorry 24" he corrected, his hand signals saying 48. Mark smiled, it was about time his sister met someone who would bully her when she needed it, but wasn't trying to turn her into a good little housewife.

Jack put his hand on the small of her back and steered her out of the room.

"I take it I shouldn't expect to see her for a couple of days then?" Mark asked the two men left at the table with him.

"Indeed" said the one

"She works too hard" said the other "Jack was told by the doctor that if he couldn't get her to rest they were going to take her off active duty, that means she will lose SG1, though officially the last base commander retired the team"

"What are these SG teams about? I've heard of several mentioned now"

So Daniel and Teal'c filled him in on the details his sister had left out, especially the fact that she was a front line combat officer, not just a computer/science geek as Mark had been lead to believe. He heard all about them saving the world, several times only because SHE was there, though it was possible that Jack O'Neill had a lot to do with it as Mark couldn't see his sister breaking rules on her own, but from what he was hearing, both the men at the table would follow either of them into hell if they ordered it.

Eventually Mark rose and headed to the control room to get a better look at the computer interface and as the lift opened there were the couple in person, Jack in his uniform with 3 stars on each shoulder, one more than at the wedding, and Sam in jeans and a Tshirt, a leather jacket slung over her arm. They all walked towards the briefing room and the other two stopped outside the cupboard and Jack opened the door gesturing for her to step inside. Mark looked at them both…

"Hold the door, if it closes you can't open it" Jack told him, he stood in the room, put his hand around Sams waist and pulled out a stone identical to the one Sam had handed over earlier "Oval" he said, and there was a bright light, and they were gone!

Well that explained a lot, of course it also raised one hell of a lot of questions! Mark allowed the door to swing shut and continued on past the door to his left and into the 'briefing room' he went down the steps and was in the control room again.

He asked for a terminal and the grey haired, spectacled Tech Sergeant offered him the one next to his, the one Sam had sat at earlier, and Mark started in again on the coding.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was about 3pm… 15:00, he had to remember to use 24 hours again now…when he was disturbed next, and it was Teal'c and Daniel, offering him a ride home, he agreed and was about to ask for a print out of the full programme when the man next to him gave him a 4 inch thick pile of paper.

"What's this?" he asked

"The print out" the man said. Mark rose and patted his pockets automatically for his car keys, realising only then that he had sat all day in his jacket, the Sergeant held out a card key and an ID badge and told him he would need them to get in tomorrow, Mark was about to say he was coming back once he had his car when Daniel shook his head and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't argue with Walter" he said "If he says you won't be back this afternoon, you won't"

"Is he an Alien then?" Mark asked, Daniel laughed

"No, just VERY good at his job!" he replied and steered his way to the lifts.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

They made it out of the mountain, Teal'c walked over to the largest vehicle in the lot and jumped in, Daniel and Mark got in the back.

"Jack tell you, you could drive this?" he asked

"He did not" was the reply

"He's going to be pissed you know" Daniel said

"Indeed" came the smug reply "however O'Neill asked me to get Colonel Carters Asgard transporter stone from her because he was afraid of trying himself, he should not have done that. If we were on Chulak she would have needed a weapon to deal with him"

Mark wondered what the hell he meant by that Daniel looked over and said "He IS an alien!"

8.
Daniel and Teal'c pulled up outside the new house and Mark walked the two doors to his own new home, the O'Neill house made a lot more sense now, but still, how the hell was he going to explain 11 month old octuplets to his wife and kids? They had all seen Sam only 6 months ago and she had not said a word, added to that if they had been born naturally Sam would have been engaged to Pete when it happened, and Jane was a friend of Pete, almost as much as he was! CRAP this was going to be difficult. He rang Sams phone, standing on his drive.

"Sam, how much can I tell Jane about the kids?"

"How much do you think she needs to know? Usually the spouses don't know a hell of a lot they are used to not knowing before they come here, being AF wives or husbands. We told Mari Wells and Carol Dixon that they were the result of some technology I was exposed to, that we had developed, they know nothing about offworld travel, or at least no more than they will work out from the occasional nightmare their husbands go through" she said it so casually, the job was that dangerous that nightmares were an occupational hazard! Damn he didn't think he had EVER had a nightmare about HIS job!

Mark took a deep breath and told Sam he would work it out, and went inside.

"Jane! I'm home!" he shouted, but there was no answer, he went into the living room, the TV was playing some afternoon drivel to itself, there was no sign of Jane anywhere. He went up to their bedroom and she was there laid on the bed fast asleep, Mark smiled to himself and covered her up with the counterpane and went back downstairs. There was a knock at the front door, he opened it to find Carol Dixon on the step.

"I was wondering, do you want me to bring the kids home? As I have to go to get mine anyway, saves us both driving to exactly the same places" Mark accepted gratefully, he wasn't even sure he knew where the schools were! This way Jane could have another hour or so sleep, he hoped it would help. This moving on top of the stress before it, wasn't good for her, she was run down. Mark sat at the table in his new office and put the print out down. He had been told that it had to be locked up when he left, luckily there was a safe in the room, so he could do that when he needed to.

An hour later the kids barrelled into the house, it sounded like they were trying to knock the plaster off the walls! Jane came downstairs, and honestly Mark couldn't tell she had had a lot of extra sleep, she still had bags under her eyes. He kissed her and sat her on the sofa and went to make a coffee.

When he returned he heard all about the new schools, Tom was actually very pleased with his by the sounds. Then it was his turn!

He explained the children using the same story Sam had told him, that she was exposed to something that had made her extra fertile and that unfortunately due to an accident she had ended up pregnant to Jack. He winced as he said it, Jane jumped as he knew she would

"How do you have an accident that gets you pregnant?" she said scornfully

"Look I don't know all the details, just that Sam and Jack have octuplets, the house at the end of the road is for the family and we have NOT to talk about it!"

"Why not? It would make a great story, not to mention the fact that this new thing would be a blessing to infertile couples everywhere. Mark was quick to squash that, Sam had not been infertile (he didn't know that for sure, he was just guessing) he knew Jane, and except for the way she felt the last month or so she would have had a massive enthusiasm for details, her being tired had some benefit after all.

"Anyway, you will all be getting to see the children on Saturday, but Friday after school you have to go to the base and have a physical first, the babies have not been off the base yet and they don't want them exposed to any diseases as yet." The kids nodded, happy to comply but Jane wasn't so keen, she didn't see why she should be checked before meeting her nephews and nieces, and she wasn't stupid, she knew something was going on. Not surprising, the cover stories were very weak.

Sam and Jack returned on Wednesday, Sam looking a lot better than when she left, she immediately tackled Teal'c for her stone when she got back and then said goodbye and went back into the room. Jack gave everyone a small salute and headed for the nursery, SG13 was going 'offworld' with Teal'c and Daniel, Dixon stated he wanted to go too as General O'Neill was on base, but Jack refused, saying it was his day off and he was spending it with the kids. Mark saw a USAF General in full sulk mode the rest of the day!

Friday morning Sam and Jack were both in the infirmary when Mark spotted something in the programme that controlled power flow that he could improve on, he called his sister to the control room and they discussed it for a while, he showing her his idea. She agreed with him and at last he started to feel like he had something to contribute to the job! He was just about to get himself a coffee to celebrate when the alarm sounded and Walter gave his usual message. "UNAUTHORIZED OFFWORLD ACTIVATION" Dixon ran down the stairs and Sam sat next to Mark, Walter said "It's SG13 sir, code red, coming in hot" Dixon picked a phone off the wall and said:

"Medical team and security to the gate room" the side door opened and soldiers poured into the room, fully armed and pointing their weapons at the gate. Jack arrived within seconds and told them the doc was in the corridor waiting. First through the event horizon was Balinksy, he was dragging Wells, who looked to be covered in blood. Next came Teal'c carrying Daniel over his shoulder, last and firing as he came Bosworth walked backwards through the ring. Sam slammed her hand on the palm scanner and just as the large metal iris was closing a blast came through the wormhole and lifted Bosworth off his feet, slamming him into the wall under the observation window.

The medical team rushed in, Daniel was put on one bed, Wells on another, but the doctor went straight to Bosworth. He stood back until he could see the people above him and shook his head. It was the first time Mark had ever seen someone die, and he felt sick! He rushed from the room, glad that no one was following him, straight to the toilets that were just up the corridor, where he lost his last few meals, and tried to throw up his toenails.

When he eventually returned to the control room it was only staffed by Walter, he was told everyone else went to the infirmary to see the condition of the team. Mark asked Walter how many people had died since the 'gate had been operational and was shocked to hear it was over 100! And his sister went through that thing?! And her husband allowed her to?!

Once again Mark realised, he would never understand the military mind. And he also realised, he didn't WANT to.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark picked Jane and the kids up after school and brought them to the base, he had been going to cancel but was told that they HAD to be screened before meeting the children. He was pleased when the small medic room in NORAD was used rather than the infirmary, as he did not want to explain to his family why two people who they had met only the other day were badly injured and that one more was dead. Daniel and Wells would make a full recovery, Wells only had concussion and a split scalp, Daniel had been shot 3 times, once in the leg, twice in the shoulder, and would be out of action a lot longer. Jack volunteered to go tell Marci but Dixon told him he would do it. She was used to him having injuries like this, and Dixon was always the one to notify her, if Jack turned up she would think he was dead.

The doctor gave everyone a thorough check-up and took blood, then he asked to see Jane privately, Mark was going to object when Jane told him it was OK, she came back in less than 5 minutes, she explained 'womens things' and Mark didn't enquire further.

Tomorrow they would all see the children!

9

Jane was thrilled with the kids, she was shocked at their maturity, chuffed to death that they were not shy and all accepted a cuddle from her without screaming for mum. She also asked several pointed questions but got no answers.

Mark knew his wife, since he had told her on Monday evening she had been trawling the internet, and with the kids being as old as they were he knew something else would be in her searches, he needed Sam to explain it to her better, to allow her to know what happened, Hell! She would understand it better than HE did!

Jack was adamant though, for some reason she had failed the security check, she knew all she could know! Mark was worried even more when he caught Jane counting backwards on her fingers, the only time she did that was when she was working dates out, he knew she had worked out that the kids shouldn't be Jacks!

When they got home Jane went for 'a lie down' but Mark followed her upstairs and heard her pick up he phone, he went into his office and picked his extension up, pressing the secrecy button so she wouldn’t notice the change in reception.

"Pete, when you and Sam split up…had she any kids?" he heard her asking

"No, besides Cassie, who isn't really a child any more, and she usually lived with O'Neill while we were together" he replied

"She has 11 month old kids!" Jane told him, Mark was about to interrupt the conversation when Pete said something that shocked him!

"I wouldn't be surprised at ANYTHING that comes out of the mountain" he said "I take it they aren't mine? No they wouldn't be… O'Neills?" he asked

"Yeah" Jane said weakly

"Yeah…" Pete sounded down now "ahh well, guess my 'get Sam back campaign' isn’t going to work, she finally got the man she has been in love with for almost a decade. Thanks for thinking of me Jane, but, honestly, don't do it again" the phone went down. Mark had to wonder, how much did Pete know?

Mark waited until Jane came downstairs and he hugged her and told her not to do it again, she could get into serious trouble with the authorities telling people stuff she knew was secret.

It took one more week for the O'Neill Family to move into their new house. Bosworths house was cleared by his family, after being swept by the SFs and Teal'c moved in. SG1 was really and finally retired as a team designation, with Sam deciding to stay on Earth most of the time, and Dixon and Bosworth missing from SG13, Teal'c was given command of the unit and he and Daniel were to join them in their missions.

Everything went along smoothly until…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The kids were 18 months old, the papers had been fudged by the AF to make their 'birth' coincide with their maturity, when Jane collapsed in the house when no one was there, it was several hours before Carol next door found her when she came to enquire why the car was still in the drive as it was Janes day to pick the kids up.

She was rushed to the academy hospital, Dr Lyman was contacted and told them her relevant history, and that was the first time Mark knew she had Leukaemia.

Sam insisted that she be brought to the base, and tried a 'healing device' on her, she said she could feel some improvement but not much. Jack took it off her as she started to collapse and took over using it, he used a lot more effort, but still could only help a small amount, he explained he had not used one more than a couple of times since he was 'blended'.

Jane was drifting in and out of consciousness, Dr Lyman explained that she had known she had the disease but had refused treatments, after looking on the bone marrow donor register and realising there wasn't a match for her. She wanted to 'go quick' rather than slow. Mark spent hours cursing her for her selfishness. Then spent hours weeping, holding her hand tightly.

The kids were allowed in to see her, the octuplets were on base that day because Thor was expected, and there was hope that he could help. However he told everyone gently that he could not help with this disease as it was spread through her whole body, he did offer to clone her, but she refused. After getting his sample from Grace he left, upset he could not help his good friends with their problem.

The adults were distracted by the doctor talking and Thor leaving and did not notice something strange happening. The toddlers had gathered around under the bed into a circle, they joined hands and sat still!

The monitors went wild! Jane started bucking in the bed as if in agony and then she fell back! She took a deep breath and fell unconscious. The doctor had rushed to her side and now he was studying the monitors and printouts with a very puzzled look on his face, he snapped at a nurse for a blood kit and as she was getting it he looked around, finally lifting the sheet that had fallen over the edge of the bed. He called Jack and Sam over and they saw their kids, sat still as Buddas hands joined, When Sam reached for the closest the doc told her

"NO" she snatched her hand back looking at him "Look at her!" the doctor pointed and they all looked. Though she was painfully thin, Jane actually looked … well. There were no black circles under her eyes, the lesions on her arms were gone. He pulled a print out from one of the machines and though Mark didn't understand what it measured even he could see a sudden change in the squiggly line, from erratic and small movements to regular bold ones.

The kids all collapsed and the adults dived for them, they were asleep! They were transferred to the nursery again and put in their cots.

"It must be something to do with the Ancient Gene" Sam said "It was like what you did with Master Bra'tac sir, and what Ayiana did with us. Because they are so small it took all eight of them."

"Ya think?" Jack said sarcastically "and if I remember correctly Ayiana died!"

"That was because she had the disease sir, not because she helped us" Sam went up close to him and said in a lower tone "Jack, they will be alright, YOU were after a rest"

"I'm 55 years old Sam, I have a lot more stamina than a bunch of 18 month old kids!" she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, he automatically held her, smoothing the back of her head "sorry Sam" he whispered to her "I just can't lose any of you again"

"I know Jack, don't worry, we will all be here with you, always" Mark thought he saw tears dropping from Jacks eyes, and turned back to the other room, the doctor and nurses were still busy around her, he watched until they allowed him back in and he entered to see her awake, though groggy, he wasn't sure if it was the drugs or the cure, he didn't care!

"What happened?" she asked

"I think you need security clearance" Mark answered, holding her tight and he cried into her neck, as Jack was doing in the other room.

10
Jane was up and about in 2 days, she actually wanted to be up within 8 hours but the doctor wouldn't allow it. The kids showed no effects from what they had done by the morning after, having slept in their old nursery just to make sure.

However the day Jane was released something strange happened, the children started talking, and not the way babies are supposed to! No "mama" or "daddy", the words coming out of their mouths were more in the region of "I need the toilet" and "is it dinner time?"

Jack sent a message to Thor about the situation, explaining about Jane and the sudden development of language skills, Thor replied that he would bring back 'help' in a few days.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Jack and Sam refused to keep the kids on base waiting for the alien arrival, they needed more room than the old nursery could provide nowadays, they did not sleep all through the day any more and did not like being confined to cots, and were vocal about letting the adults know it. Jane went home to her children, with a promise to return when called, she volunteered to work at the SGC, part time, now she had her health back and a future to look forward to. As she had already been filled in after the miracle cure, she was welcomed to the base by both the CMO and base commander.

Mark had become close friends with Dixon, apart from the fact they worked together, they both enjoyed the same sports, and had the same sense of humour, their children being of the same age range meant they spent a lot of time commiserating about their lot in life and the use of prophylactics in future.

Usually Mark and Dixon could be found in the command centre, the information gathered from MALPs and UAVs were now Marks responsibility as well as the dialling programme, and he found it totally fascinating to be allowed to see the surface of other planets and the remains of dead civilisations.

He started to understand what his sister and the rest found so wonderful.

The two men were arranging to see a baseball game when the message that Thor was in orbit came in. It was an unusual message, usually Thor just beamed in, but his message said that 'they' would be beaming down in one earth hour. Mark contacted Jane and told her to get back to base. She agreed and asked Carol to keep her kids until she returned if she was not back before school finished. The two women had become as close as their husbands, complaining not only about their offspring, but spouses at the same time. Carol helped out with the O'Neill children often as well, her daughters loving the real live dolls that stumbled about the yard and sand pit, when everyone was at home the O'Neill back yard was seen as an 'open house' by the children in the street, the pool saw regular use by the teens and near teens, the play area by the younger ones, the O'Neills as well as little Janet Wells, and Michael, the youngest Dixon, the barbeque and furniture by whichever parents or SGC members that were around. As well as a couple of nurses that were being employed to help around the nursery for Sam at home and on base.

Dixon contacted General O'Neill in his office in the Pentagon, and Colonel Carter in area 51, everyone would be gathered when necessary.

By prior agreement the octuplets were on base, with their nurses, but the Generals decided to hold the meeting in the briefing room rather than down where it was already a little crowded.

The humans gathered, Daniel and Teal'c as well as the others, though at the last minute Jack had to go get Sam from '51 as she insisted that she needed to finish her experiment, they had moved the stone pickup point in the base from her quarters to her lab, as she gave the quarters up now she no longer needed them.

The doctor had all of Janes medical files with him as well as the ones belonging to the children. A beam of light covered one end of the room and five figures were left behind when it died away, Thor and Heimdall were expected, Nol, Nom and Fer were not!

Mark studied the new arrivals, he had seen Thor occasionally when he appeared for Graces blood, but he had only seen stills of the Furlings. The three aliens tall enough to use human furniture sat at the table while the Asgard had brought their own.

Thor opened the conversation… "Greetings O'Neill and members of the SGC" Mark had noticed that it was rare the little alien spoke to anyone but members of the former SG1 and if Jack was available, to him, rather than the other 3. "I have brought Nol, Nom and Fer as representatives of their race for two reasons, the first, while the healing abilities of the children could be expected because of their heritage the language cannot. The second is that the Furling race is having problems with the clones we provided."

Jack took over. "Let's get the human kids out of the way first, then we can look at the other problem" he gave Thor and Heimdall copies of Janes records, but only had one spare for the three Furlings to share, Nol took it and gave it straight to Nom, who opened it and hissed slightly, Nol looked up and said.

"We are unable to read this" the humans at the table who had met the Furlings before were all open mouthed, Daniel spoke up

"You speak English now?"

Thor chimed in "The Furlings could only translate by devices the last time we met, as they only knew very ancient earth languages, such as the Goa'uld use, however they asked for the translator I used during our last meeting and have since learnt modern English in the hopes of understanding the subtlety of your language that they were missing by just scanning your audio visual signals."

"TV" Daniel said, Thor and the two male Furlings nodded, "I remember you had been watching a religious programme the last time we spoke"

The front of Thors chair had an interface with a stone on it, and he moved it from side to side and a 3D hologram opened, it was triangular, with the side facing the humans in English, the end of the table in Furling and the side facing himself in Asgard, the charts on the display explained that each was a translation of the medical records. Nom and Heimdall leaned forward and read the screen.

Another hiss, Heimdall nodded and hissed back! The males looked at the Asgard and then gave what could be viewed as a shrug, saying nothing.

Thor asked to see the children and Teal'c went into the Generals office to contact the infirmary.

By the time the children and their escorts, their two nurses and the other two members of SG13, arrived the two aliens had stopped hissing at each other, ending with a nod.

The female Furling strode around the table, her movements very smooth and graceful, and she bent down to examine the small humans, a gentle look on her face, she smoothed one finger down Tildas face "You are very beautiful" she said to the child in perfect English… strangely she had an English accent!

She looked over the other 7 and said "you are all very beautiful, children are to be cherished but you have an inheritance that should make you proud" the children all nodded their heads solemnly, looking like miniature Jaffa warriors! It was obvious they understood every word she said to them.

11
She returned to her seat and hissed, Fer stood and spoke for her to the rest of the gathering.

"The language ability was something I introduced to the children at the time I stopped their accelerated growth, it is an ability we bestow upon our children when they reach the age at which they can communicate, the healing process must have triggered it early, they were not due to use it until they reached 24 of your months maturity," he arose and walked towards the children, he smiled and knelt on the floor, he hissed at them but evidently they did not understand, he nodded and rose, returning to his seat he explained, "They have not developed Furling language, as I hoped, I wished for the human language to be the one they developed in this way, but there was always a chance that they absorbed ours as well. I did not, before, realise that humans did things differently, though since that time I have learnt from your broadcasts of 'schools' and the teaching process. I apologise if I have done something wrong, however it will in no way effect the children except for the fact that they will be able to understand at a young age things that others need time to learn. If you were to start teaching them, for instance, the science of living things, or of energy, or chemical reaction, they are ready and able to learn it now. The human learns best at an early age and therefore it would be advisable to teach them as much as you can before the age of 7 of your years, after that learning would slow, but of course not be impossible"

Jack and Sam looked slightly worried about the fact they had 8 child genii on their hands, especially as they were not even two but had a vocabulary of someone a LOT older, but at the same time pride shone out of their faces. The Doctor looked startled, as did Jane, Mark thought that all that family needed were 8 more Sams! He looked fondly at his sister and smiled slightly to himself.

Heimdall stood next and took the meeting over. "The Ancient Gene, while present in O'Neill from birth has bonded to the Naquadah introduced via their mother and magnified the childrens natural abilities, the ancients would not have been able to heal at all at that age, no matter how many tried, the ability usually only developed in puberty."

"Don't I have Naquadah in my bloodstream?" Jack asked "Though I hate to be reminded of it, I did have a snake or two in my time"

"The Naquadah in your blood is not bound to the gene as you were not born with it, and the spem you produce does not contain any, the female gamete is a lot larger and able to contain Naquadah, so it is from their mother that they have inherited this." Sam was nodding, Jack blushed when they mentioned his sperm and coughed into his hand… Mark just loved the fact that he blushed, he found it highly amusing. "Another thing we have observed from human biology, that we did not think to mention before, was that females of a certain biology, when a sudden cessation of reproductive hormones is triggered, by removal of reproductive organs, can suffer some side effects, when Thor has visited he has also discreetly scanned Colonel Carter, and we wish to offer to clone her ovaries and replace at least one them, we saved sufficient cells to do it. However there is no sign that the lack of the hormones Oestrogen and Progesterone are having serious effects on her, and it is actually doubtful that they will."

"What about Osteoporosis?" Dr. Lyman asked he explained what it was "A lot of women develop it when they have had a drop in those hormones"

"A human female naturally stops the production of those hormones at menopause, though Colonel Carter was several years away from the age that she could expect that to happen, it is a natural event, there is really no need to artificially boost the levels of the hormones, a regular dose of what her body used to produce is only necessary for a few years, replacing an ovary will have the same effect."

"Studies have shown that women in the menopause or who have had their ovaries removed show a marked bone density drop and several other side effects, we have a treatment known a Hormone Replacement Therapy to combat it" He opened his laptop and accessed something while he was talking, Heimdall scanned the screen with a stone and the 3D display reappeared with the study on it, again Nom and Heimdall read what was on the screen, and hissed slightly at each other.

"Who produced these 'studies'?" Heimdall asked

"Doctors and the drug companies I suppose" the doctor answered

"Then I respectfully suggest that they are a means to encourage the use of the drugs, human females on thousands of worlds manage quite well without the use of them, this includes the races that are in advance of yours, as well as those behind" the alien seemed to dismiss the doctor and his argument totally, Mark notice that Jane wasn't happy either, she was about as anti drug-company as she could get, considering her job, he could see papers refuting the use of HRT in their future!

"If there is no real need, then why offer to replace the ovaries?" Sam asked

"There are two reasons, the first is so your body can produce the hormones until such time as your biology stops naturally, this is to prevent symptoms that you are not actually displaying, admittedly, but there is another reason" she raised an eyebrow at the small grey, Mark wondered if it was catching, all the former SG1 did it, Teal'c best of all however. "We were hoping that we could persuade O'Neill and yourself to reproduce naturally, we have noticed from observing you while we are in orbit that you frequently attempt reproduction even though you are no longer capable of it, we would like to give you back the ability so your efforts are not wasted, the energy the two of you expend trying to copulate is being wasted by having no end result, and the fact that you are trying on such a regular basis shows that you view it as imperative" Mark almost choked as what was being said sunk into his consciousness, Sam was bright red, as was Daniel, Teal'c looked amused, the nurses were trying to remove the children with help from Balinsky and Wells who had helped bring them from level 21 from the room, both females were blushing as well. Dixon went into his office and shut the door, Mark could see him double over laughing through the glass window.

"What?" Jack said looking around at people. Sam wrote something on a pad of paper and passed it to him, as Mark expected he blushed furiously "For cryin' out loud! THOR that is PRIVATE!!" he shouted

12
Mark daren't look at his sister much, not only because she was so embarrassed but because he was going to laugh if he did. Dixon returned into the room, bright red trying to suppress the laughter, after all Jack was his boss! He failed miserably and excused himself to the control room, they could hear his laughter floating upstairs every so often for the rest of the meeting.

"What about the clones then?" Jack changed the subject, "you said you had problems? What kind of problems?"

Nom hissed and Nol stood. Jack held his hand up.

"If you are asking for our help I think it would only be polite if YOU spoke to us!" he directed the speech at the female, "after all you speak to the Asgard"

"The Asgard are our equals" Nol spoke

"Then let THEM solve your problem" Jack told them and he stood and started to leave the room, Thor hissed at the party and a translation came through his chair

"Do not upset O'Neill, we are unable to help in this matter, and if you alienate him we will be willing to sever the ties we have with your race once again, he is important to us, YOU are not"

Mark was astounded by the speech! He had read the mission reports, especially the one about the planet K'Tau as it was part of the 'this is why we stopped messing with the safety protocols' lecture he received, and his earlier visit to the Asgard homeworld in the 'we don't know how this happened but it did' part, he knew that the Asgard held the General in high regard, he did not realise just HOW high. He watched as Jack came to a halt on hearing the speech, surprise on his face, but he did look as though he were willing to walk out of the room, Mark was not sure if it was a bluff or not, because if HE had been in that position he doubted he could have walked.

The female Furling stood and crossed to Jack, who stood watching the aliens, she bowed her head and held out a hand, which elicited a gasp from the males of her species. Jack shook hands with her and she said "I apologise, I was very arrogant, however our policy has always been that contact with the younger races should be kept to a minimum, and since we have started to decline so much it has become engrained in our customs"

"Now you see that really is downright rude, I'm glad you came to your senses" He gestured to her to be re-seated and then asked "So, what can we do for you" Jack may not be a world class diplomat, but Mark realised when you held that much power, you didn't need to be!

"Our main problem is a strange one, as you will recall Thor offered to copy the personalities of your children and download them into clones, as we created four of each sex we chose four of each sex of Furling to host the souls, everything seemed to progress satisfactorily, we speeded up maturation, however we chose a factor of 4 for the children here, we chose a factor of 15 for the children at home. Conception to 'birth' takes less than an hour and they were fully mature exactly 486 earth days from the day we arrived home" Sam looked up

"You mature at 20?" she asked, Mark was always astonished at how quickly she could do that! He needed a pen and paper to work something out that complicated.

"Yes, Furlings have several stages of maturity, the last, at which we consider ourselves to be full adults happens at 20 of your years, after that our major changes are all heading towards death. However, the problems with the children started before they reached this level, they started approximately 364 days after birth, what you would call a year." No one corrected the alien, she was only out by one day after all, or two if it was a leap year, which was being a bit of a pedant Mark knew, but he couldn't stop himself thinking it even if he could censor what came out of his mouth.

"So what went wrong?" Jack asked

"The children started defying authority! They insisted they be allowed to do things that we told them were not allowed, or even, in some cases, dangerous. The males especially were almost self destructive in their actions, always finding more and more danger to put themselves into, while the females seemed to go through enormous emotional upheaval and would fly into great rages"

The parents around the table looked at each other, but it was Jane who said what they were all thinking, "Teenagers"

"Have they not returned to rational behaviour recently?" Teal'c asked with a straight face.

"The problems have abated somewhat since, however they are insisting we allow them ships, or access to the Stargate network so they can 'go explore', the males are exhibiting aggressive behaviour to any Furling not of their group who approaches a female, the females seem to accept this, in our society a practise you call 'marriage' is no longer a viable option, the population is so small, and females are outnumbered 3:1 and as such the leader of any household, the female, must take at least 2 and more often up to 5 mates, this being the case we attempted to introduce the cloned females to prospective partners and the males caused several injuries to them, though luckily no deaths as yet! We cannot afford for this to continue, our society is breaking down as it is! We need help!"

"Do you have ANY form of military?" Jack asked, Mark thought that the question was totally non sequitur if he was honest, but he had already decided not to bring attention to himself as he really shouldn't be in the meeting anyway, but unless someone noticed him they wouldn't ask him to leave.

"We have no military, we do not have the population to sustain casualties, we therefore do not engage in military action and have no need for the institutions that are needed to support such actions"

"Shame" Jack said, "You ask almost any military man why he joined and he will tell you it was to curb his natural wildness, burn off extra energy, or it was a choice between gaol and joining up. It's a great way to tame young men, women tend to want to serve their country and stuff, lads just want to beat the crap out of people" It was an insight into the General that Mark was glad to get, though he had to wonder which was his decision. He wasn't wondering long, Thor asked for him

"And what reason closest resembles your motivation for joining the Airforce O'Neill?"

"I was recruited" he told them, they all looked at him but he didn’t expand on it.

"Sir?" Sam asked, Mark was looking him right in the eye, he saw something there that unsettled him.

"I was at a summer camp, we had 'war games' I managed to 'kill' 45 other students single handed, I had signed up before I left at the end of the week."

"Impressive" Teal'c said

"Yeah, well the camp management weren't best pleased that last day, they set 5 teams of 4, all armed with blanks up against me, I actually put 7 in hospital, and most of the rest needed first aid, none of them got off a shot, I wasn't armed. The AF recruiter was VERY pleased however"

"Wow!" Sam said, she was impressed "some achievement sir,"

"Yeah well, if I had known then… I was in special ops within the year, and we weren't playing pretend by that time," he scrubbed his face with his hands, as if brushing away the memories "I just hope Jon remembers and doesn't fall for it again, even though he is already being watched by the CIA for recruitment"

Mark wrote 'Jon?' on his pad, he would ask later, he continued observing.

"This is all well and good General O'Neill, however it does not help our problem, we dare not risk even a single life, there are too few of us, we need help"

Jack looked down at the table as if trying to read an answer in the wood grain.

"All I can say is that you are in more trouble than you know. The children, clones… whatever are acting as their human counterparts would in the same situation, if you try to share the females you will have casualties, and still nothing will be resolved, if you don’t the only breeding you will see will be amongst the children and they will not be producing Furlings, they will produce DNA that is yours, but I am guessing that they will be in all other respects human."

Fer dipped his head "This is what our philosophers believe as well, we do not want just our DNA to survive if WE cannot!"

"What if…" Sam said "you were to clone HUMANS and put Furling personalities into them? Would the same happen?"

"We cannot know for sure" Thor said, "You are such a strong and unwielding race that it is possible that your DNA would overwrite the weaker Furling souls, why do you ask?"

"Just bear with me a moment, Heimdall, you have genetic samples from both humans and Furlings?" The small doctor nodded "I am wondering is there any way to make a hybrid?"

"It is very unlikely, though the races look similar, the same degree of difference exists between the two as between the Asgard and yourselves, we would not be able to make a hybrid of our two races"

"Then how is Graces blood helping you?"

"We are using it to study the changes over time of the blood, we keep it viable and expose it to various things, such as radiation, or even repeated cloning, so far her cells have remained almost impervious, only high doses of radiation seems to effect them, but it will be a long time before this information can be used to save our race, we have no illusions about that"

"Oh" she looked disappointed "Then I doubt that my idea would work, I was going to suggest artificial insemination of a human/Furlings by the Furling/humans. If the laws of genetics plays out you should get 1 Furling/Furling out of every 4 offspring of the second generation" The aliens looked at her surprised.

"How do you arrive at that Colonel Carter?" asked Heimdall Sam explained all about the monk Gregor Mendal and his experiment of cross breading wrinkled peas and smooth ones, she moved over to the doctor and used his laptop to get a page about the man and his research.

"Fascinating" Nom said after reading the translation, "such an experiment done by such simple methods, in such detail over so many generations! It is something we never considered as our knowledge of such things was passed to us by the ancients"

"Yes well, Thor always comes to us if he wants stupid ideas" Jack said "Will it work?"

13
"Yes well, Thor always comes to us if he wants stupid ideas" Jack said "Will it work?"

"Not in the way you may think, but it has given me an idea" she spoke in her hissing voice and Heimdall almost started dancing with excitement

"Yes Yes that may work," the mannequin said

"What may?" asked Sam

"We have a machine that the ancients used to use, to resequence DNA, it is possible that the DNA of CELLS rather than of full beings can be altered to make them compatible, and so produce gametes that we could fuse and grow, we will need more gametes from you O'Neill, and we will have to grow that ovary anyway Colonel Carter to complete it."

"DNA resequencer? Like the one Niirti had on P3X 367?" Jack asked, Mark saw Sam go white, Teal'c gripped the edge of the table tightly, Thor manipulated his stone again and he replied

"It is possible, that is one of the worlds the ancients medical branch was centred on when the plague wiped them out."

"And you want to go messing with that thing?" he almost shouted

"O'Neill, there is no danger"

"You wouldn’t say that if you had seen 2 men dissolve into puddles of water before your eyes! Crap, she almost killed Carter that way too!" Mark saw his sister reach under the table and grab her husbands hand, his eyes switched to hers and he started to calm down. "Sorry folks" he said, "just got some REAL bad memories of that damn machine, and she never even used it on me!"

"It is the use of this machine and the copies of your children that could lead to our salvation" Nom said

"Yeah you said you needed something from me? Games or something?"

Sam held her hand up to stop everyone talking and wrote something down, Mark watched gleefully as once again the man who had been in the Airforce for his whole adult life blushed.

"I still think a drill sergeant and a hard workout could solve a lot of the problems" Jack said he looked at his watch, which Mark noticed was still the type covered in a fabric strip, rather than a dress watch, it was 18:00, they had been in the meeting almost all day, Jack said "That's it, lets reconvene tomorrow, it's time we got the kids home and fed, not to mention I am in the need of a huge piece of cake" the humans all smiled at this and Sam called for the kids and nurses to come up, she messed with each St. Christopher on the childrens wrist and sent them all home from the closet, Dixon returned to the room and waved everyone else out, saying he needed to do some things, and Sam offered to send Jane and Mark home, they agreed and as she followed the last of her children Jack stood behind them in the closet, put a hand on each of their shoulders and said "Home" and they appeared in a small study in the O'Neill house.

They walked to Carols and picked up the kids and thanked her for it, Jane asked if she would mind doing the school run tomorrow, it was only at that point that Mark realised both their cars were in the SGC carpark. He hoped Dixon would offer them a lift tomorrow, he didn't fancy jogging up the mountain!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The next morning Sam was around before breakfast, she offered Mark and Jane a 'lift' into work, she and Jack were going to their respective jobs later, but there was that meeting at the SGC to start with, and Sam explained to her family that they were going to look into getting tutors for the children straight away.

The kids had proven how much they understood when Sam, trying to be diplomatic asked if Jack was going to donate his gametes and Jacob had asked why Thor wanted Dads sperm, as she was telling the two of them about the look on his face she was laughing so hard she had to stop walking, Jack, stood on his doorstep waiting for them didn’t appreciate the humour by the glare he was directing at her, she swallowed and straightened up! It seemed the children had absorbed their language direct from Jane, they did not know a lot of the terms Sam used, but anything medical and they understood.

They arrived at the SGC and Jack went to the briefing room, Sam headed off with the kids and the Carters went to their respective posts.

Thor appeared in a flash of light as Mark was walking through the briefing room. "Mark, you can stay of you want" Jack told him. Mark sat down in the same seat as the day before and pulled out his laptop waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Jack had already dismantled all the pens in the pot by his place and was looking for something else to destroy when he snapped "Thor! How long do we have to wait?"

"Patience O'Neill, things will be ready when they are ready"

"Have you been talking to Oma Desala by any chance?" he asked

"I have not" the grey man said, Jack nodded, he picked up some pen pieces and put them together again, the off-world activation announcement sounded. Jack jumped to his feet and went to the window, Dixon ran through the room and down the stairs, Bra'tac came through the gate a minute later and climbed into the briefing room.

"Human, greetings" he said to Jack, he nodded to both Mark and the Asgard "I bring news of Ba'al" Jacks face went a strange colour and he rose to his feet the pen casing in his hand shattered. His hands on the desk were shaking with what Mark decided was suppressed fury as his eyes had gone, what could only be called, hard as stone.

"What we believe to be another clone has surfaced, and this one is trying something new, he has contacted the Lucien Alliance and is attempting to control the Kassa crop on several worlds, he is using the Nish'ta to make the farmers hand over their crop, while the Alliance is quite willing to kill him, they need the crop to continue to supply their customers, and no one knows where he has hidden it. Part of his price for the business is of your concern, however, I am unable to get details but rumour has it that Earth itself and Colonel Carter and yourself in particular are in danger"

"Why Carter? She has never done anything wrong to Ba'al, well not much, why not Daniel or T for that matter?"

"Ba'al has spies on earth, he knows how powerful you have become and he is looking for any way he can to punish you"

"Me? Powerful? He needs to sack whoever is collecting his info." Mark had learnt over the last several months that Jack was not falsely modest, he honestly had no real idea of the power he held, nor of his own importance, he truly saw himself as 'just a normal guy' doing his duty and as nothing special. His show with the Furlings was not to demonstrate how powerful he had become. It was to correct their manners!

In many ways Jack was naïve, not only did he blush at personal things but he refused to see his own self worth. He was a good match for Marks sister, who while willing to fight for scientific principles, or theories, would never contradict anyone who was putting her down, she had zero self confidence when it came to her personal life.

Jack called Walter into the room and one of the strangest conversations Mark had ever been privileged to hear took place

"Walter!"

"Sir…?" Jack explained what Bra'tac had told him

"We need to…"

"Yes sir, that should be easy"

"And make sure…"

"Yes sir will do"

"Don't…"

"Of course she will"

"Make sure…"

"Yes sir, as soon as I can"

"I'll do that actually, oh! They may…"

"Already thought of that sir."

"Good, oh but…"

"Don't think that will be an issue Sir, but I will give the order"

"Well we have…" he was waving his hand at Thor

"That will help sir, we need another of those things that we had in the room above the nursery"

"Yeah, I'll ask, but…"

"Yes sir, just in case we don't, I'll tell security" and the little man walked off without being dismissed! Mark looked at his brother–in-law, he seemed happy with his part in the conversation, and in no rush to explain what just happened.

"Jack?" he asked

"O'Neill?" "Human?" came from the two aliens, Jack literally shook his head and scrubbed his face with his hands

"Oh sorry guys was thinking of what Walter and I just decided. Thor remember when the kids were first arriving, you gave us a device to prevent beaming on the base?"

"The small grey alien nodded "Can we have another one please?" He reached to the table behind him, and poured a coffee while picking up the phone, the PA system activated and the message

"Colonel Carter report to the briefing room" sounded, Jack smiled and put the phone back down. There was a flash of light and a box appeared close to the door, it was about a foot in size along each axis and had no visible markings, Jack picked up the phone again and before he could say a word into it another announcement sounded "Teal'c to the briefing room" he put the phone down again.

"How the hell does he do that?" Jack muttered under his breath, picking something off the surface of his coffee and flicking it onto the floor.

Teal'c arrived first, he noticed the small box and looked at Jack and Thor, he strode over and clasped arms with Bra'tac and then he turned "For what reason do we need another shield generator?" he asked Bra'tac told him of his news, and Teal'c bowed his head.

"I'm thinking the security observation room on '16" Jack said, Teal'c lifted the box and carried it out of the room "don't forget to teach someone how to turn it on and off!" Jack shouted after him. Bra'tac followed his old pupil, presumably to fill him in on other news. They were back in less than 10 minutes and Jack explained to Thor where he would have to appear to ask for it turning off so he could beam in and out, Mark didn't quite understand that, if he was appearing, why would he need it turning off? He filed the question away with the myriad others he had been collecting.

Jack noticed that his wife had not joined them, he picked up the phone again and asked for her to be called once more, the PA blared out, but there was no sign, Mark could see the anxiety building when Thor spoke up.

"Colonel Carter is on board the Samantha Carter with Heimdall and the Furlings" he said

14

"Why didn't you tell me before?" Jack asked

"Your mate did not wish to worry you, though I fail to see why you would worry, as she is undergoing an operation to replace the missing ovary"

"An operation!" Jack shouted, Thor waved one delicate hand at him

"Not such as you know it O'Neill, you know the Asgard better" he sank to his seat.

"The Furlings also have had several ideas overnight prompted by the discussion yesterday, the simplicity of the experiment clarified several avenues of thought, sometimes we need to step back to the beginning, but it is so long ago we do not remember it, they are eager to return to their own world to begin what they hope will be the final phase of their salvation."

"So, no meeting?" Jack asked

"There is little need of a meeting at this time" Thor replied. They sat around for another quarter of an hour, Mark watching as Jack systematically destroyed and rebuilt the pens, then Thor asked "Could someone please turn off the Shield?"

Jack went to the phone and contacted the security room, by the time he had turned to say something to the small alien Sam was already in the room! Jack leapt over to her and pulled her into a massive hug, he barely acknowledged when Thor said goodbye and disappeared into a flash of light.

Sam swatted his back, telling him to stop, she was smiling though as she said it.

Eventually Jack stopped, but Mark noticed he was shaking slightly after letting go of her, he crossed to the phone and asked security to reactivate the shield, he then had Bra'tac explain about Ba'al.

Sam, of course, first thought of her babies and husband, she wanted him to be careful and the kids to be guarded. Jack pointed out that they would need a security detail close to the house, Sam agreed, and she promised not to go anywhere, like shopping, on her own.

Jack said he had to update the president and headed for the small room, he came out in less than half a minute looking abashed, "the stones don't work" he explained, he went into Dixons room and picked up the red phone, he spoke for several minutes and his voice slowly rose until he was shouting.

He stormed out of the room, Sam caught his arm as he passed "What?" she asked

"He doesn’t understand!" Jack snapped, he realised what he had done and put his hand on top of hers where she still held his arm "He wants a security detail to follow me wherever I go, and a tracker implanted under my skin so they can see where I am at all times!"

"And…so…therefore…?" she said

He smiled slightly at her. "I told him, it was all a diversion, they must be after YOU, not me, but he wouldn't listen, he came out with that 'you are too important' bullshit again"

Sam sighed and drew him into a hug "You ARE" she said in a low tone, he was about to object and she went on "What am I going to do if something happens to you? I can't bring the kids up without you!" he closed his eyes and buried his face in her neck. They stood for a minute and then he pulled himself together.

"You will keep us updated Bra'tac?" he asked the old man

"Of course I will, as soon as I hear anything I will either send word or come myself." Jack nodded, he asked the Jaffa master if he wanted to stay for food, but was refused, and he headed back downstairs to return to his home.

Jack sat back in his chair, Mark watched him, he was perfectly still! He continued that way for almost 20 minutes and then he jumped up suddenly and left.

Sam looked at her brother, he looked back "He was working out a strategy to combat the problem" she explained "it is the ONLY time you will ever see him still, when he is thinking like that"

"No energy to waste?" he chuckled

She laughed with him "They don't put 3 stars on your shoulders if you are stupid" she said Mark agreed. He knew that Jack had several qualifications, one in aerodynamics and one in cosmology at least, and Sam had hinted he had more.

She sighed "Things haven't gone according to plan of late" she said, "Teal'c was hoping the Free Jaffa Nation would be the answer to all his problems, he left eventually when it became obvious that petty tyrants were gaining power, the system collapsed soon after, and now the Jaffa of each world act independently. The Lucien Alliance… well…" she shook her head and fell silent.

"Who are Jon and Charlie?" Mark asked her, her head snapped up

"Where did you hear about Charlie?" she asked

"Not sure" he replied, she knew he was lying, he knew she knew, they both knew he never forgot anything he heard, nor where he heard it! Truth was he overheard Carol Dixon telling Jane something.

"Charlie was Jacks son, to his first wife" Sam explained "He shot himself with Jacks gun, he died" Mark was very glad he had not asked the man himself about it! "Jon… well Jon is a clone of Jack, Loki, an Asgard scientist stole Jack for a week to do some experiments on him, the clone was to make sure we didn't realise he was gone, unfortunately the clone stopped growing at about 15 years of age, bit of a giveaway, after Loki was captured and Thor arrived Jack was told that Jon was pre-programmed to die shortly, he asked Thor to help him, so we have an 19 year old version of Jack, who knows everything Jack knew up to 4 years ago. He decided to go back to school, that lasted a full 3 months and then he started taking on odd jobs for the AF, Jack doesn't know!" She told him.

"Jack doesn't know what?" Asked the man himself from the doorway. Mark saw Sam wince, her face went through several changes as he saw her try to decide if she should tell her husband the truth or lie to him. Eventually it seemed the truth won.

"Jon, he's working for the AF" she said

"Special Ops?" he asked her, his voice low and calm

"Not sure, exactly, he just said AF" The man nodded and closed his eyes.

"I hoped to God he would escape, but I knew in my heart they wouldn't let him go"

"I think he was bored love, remember he lost everyone and everything when he left" Jack nodded again

"I don't know, he said he wanted to try again with all he knew so he could avoid the problems I had had, I was hoping his second trip through puberty wouldn't affect him as the first did me. You have no idea what that young man is capable of…" Jack looked up and then grabbed his phone out of his pocket… "Jon got a job for you… guarding… take your pick, Sam or the kids… yes, didn't she tell you?… get to the mountain ASAP and I'll explain… You are WHERE? Ok, leave the phone open I'll ask Thor to deliver you before he breaks orbit"

Jack reached into his pocket and drew out the stone he had, he spoke into it, but received no answer, he got back on the phone "Head to '51, I'll get you clearance, you need to go to Sams lab, when you are outside the door call me"

"Where is he?" Sam asked

"Vegas, he's looking into members of the trust and has followed the money into the casinos"

"I thought we had got rid of most of the trust" she said

"We did, however the symbiotes kept jumping, and more and more arrived, there was a report pass my desk a couple of months ago that a new 'team' had been handed responsibility for dealing with them, since it started operating not a single infection has occurred, and at least 30 top Trust people have died." Mark took the hint, Jack was telling them that this Jon had single handedly assassinated 30 people, and done it in such a way as to prevent escape of the symbiote, something the normal forces had failed to do. And this was essentially the man who had married his sister? Mark was glad he was on the right side of the man, which he so easily could not have been, if he had been just a touch more stubborn.

Walter came up the stairs, he had a pile of paper in his hand. "Whatcha got there Walter?" Jack asked

"The schedule for the Nish'ta and Kassa testing we discussed sir" the sergeant said, Mark could have sworn he had been present when they talked, but he couldn't remember any mention of the two substances beyond reporting what Bra'tac had said!

"Good, how have you arranged it?" he asked

"Proximity to the children first" he said and looked at Mark "You are up first with SG13 and General Dixon, Sir, will you be tested?" he asked.

"May as well, I doubt Carter needs to be, she was just aboard an Asgard ship doing something medical, I doubt they would have missed it"

"I'll get tested anyway Jack, just to be safe"

"I have organised with Dr. Lyman for a 5 day repeat, so we have a fair chance of catching it before it becomes serious, I have also put myself down in the first batch, though not in contact with the children, I am in regular contact with the two of you."

Jack nodded and said "Ok, let's do this" and he left the briefing room.

15
They had just returned from having the bloods taken when Jon called Jack, Sam went to call the security office to turn off the shield as Jack stepped into the small closet. He was back within the minute and the shield was reactivated.

Mark looked at the young man who walked in curiously. He would have been able to spot that he was an O'Neill. Even though the face was so unlined and smooth and the hair was a medium brown, the eyes in his face showed his true age. He walked into the room, his eyes sweeping it once and Mark would bet he could describe everything that he saw, down to how many spots Marks tie had.

He slumped into a chair and put his feet on the desk, Jack looked at him irritated but didn’t say anything.

Sam walked in from Dixons office, Jon jumped to his feet "Carter" he said and Mark at last believed that this WAS Jack O'Neill, the way he spoke his sisters name was exactly the same.

"You've grown" she said looking the youth up and down

"Yeah well, won't reach the lofty heights of this one for another year" he said, "late bloomer" he winked at her and grabbed her around the waist and planted a kiss on her!

Jack jumped to his feet "HEY!" he said

"Keep your blood pressure down old man" he grinned hugely. "I understand he finally knocked you up… wasn't sure he had it in him" Jack was turning purple, Sam smiled at the antics of the young man.

"Stop winding him up Jon" she said, pushing him back to the chair he had come out of, he slumped back down and picked up a pen off the desk and started dismantling it.

"Have a job for you, if you can spare the time from your snake hunt?" Jack said, Jon shrugged and glanced at Mark, he moved his head sideways in a typical O'Neill mannerism, "Oh, sorry, Jon, Mark Carter, Mark, Jon"

"Carter, as in…?"

"Yeah, he works here now"

"Thought Jacob said you hated the service?" the youths eyes pierced into him as if reading his soul.

"Yeah well, some things can change your mind"

"Sorry to hear about dad" he said softly to the Carter siblings. They nodded their heads.

"Snakes are getting thin on the ground at the moment, I finished up one so I could come here, and I don't have a lead on my next yet"

"That make 31?" Jack said

"36" he clarified "37 probably but I was in a rush, the snake is definitely dead, but the man may live"

"So," his mind seemed as incapable of keeping on one subject as his hands were on being still "Job?"

"Got a choice, we have several people who need guarding, depending who you talk to."

"Go on…" he said picking up another pen.

"We need bodyguards for Sam and the kids, I was going to offer you a choice but as you can't keep your hands to yourself I think you should guard the kids" he grinned, "they have shields so that you don't have to worry about Thor or anyone beaming them up, in fact we all have them, he reached into his pocket and drew out another St. Christopher bracelet, he tossed it to the younger man, who caught it automatically.

"Thor says your genes need protecting almost as much as ours, there's always a chance that you will meet someone with an ancient gene either as a dominant or recessive and decide to breed, Carter will explain how to use it"

He slipped it on his wrist, accepting what he had been told without comment or look.

"Kids?" he said and Jack got to his feet, Mark stayed at the table and watched them leave.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He spent the rest of the day thinking about the younger version of Jack O'Neill, the person not that long out of childhood, who had calmly admitted to killing 36 or 37 people in cold blood. Mark knew that being in the forces could mean people got killed and they killed in return, but the way that youth calmly counted how many he had assassinated, and how no one in the room seemed to be bothered by the fact troubled Mark enormously.

Later he asked his sister if he could talk to her privately, she took him to her lab and closed the door. She reached up and pulled the plug on the security camera, something he would never have thought of doing.

"Jon is troubling you?" He should have known that she would know what was bothering him, though he was the elder by a couple of years she had always been the one to look after HIM!

"It's just… How many people have you killed in your time in the AF?"

She closed her eyes, he wondered if it was because she didn’t want to tell him, or because there were that many she didn't know. "Mark… you have to understand what we do is keeping the whole earth safe, the people Jon is killing are trying to actually sell earth out, and several of them were responsible for killing whole planets of Jaffa, millions of innocents!" he had grown up hearing the greater good speech, he wasn't sure he could hear it again from her.

"You didn't answer the question" he pointed out

"I can't answer" she said, "I can tell you that I have never killed anyone who was not trying to kill me, but if you want numbers, I can't tell. I have been fighting this war for over 9 years Mark, I've blown up ships full of people, I even blew a fleet up once! Face to face there have been…lots."

"How can you do it though? How can you live with it? Are you as hard as he is?"

"Jack…Jon is a special case Mark, he is good at what he does, but he never just kills for pleasure, he always has orders and the men he is taking out would have our children as slaves!"

"But he is so… cold"

"He isn't really, I know, I sleep next to him, Jack has not had a single night without a nightmare since we met, and that included the nights we slept off-world."

Mark paused, maybe he had gone overboard, he needed a break, he had been working without a day off for 10 full months now. Maybe it was about time he had a vacation, but how could he take a holiday with the current situation?

He left the mountain early and drove home in time to pick up his children, and the young Dixons.

He lay in bed that night, Jane had fallen to sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, but he could not put to rest his unease about everything.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He woke the next morning slightly more at ease… he had had a very strange dream, a youth was running around 1920s Germany killing Hitler, over and over. Every time he succeeded, another one appeared. He got the message his subconscious was sending him, he now knew enough about the Goa'uld and the Trust to know it would be worse than the Holocaust if they were allowed to gather power unchecked.

He went to work in a better frame of mind, it was Janes day off again and she offered to help the O'Neill nurses at the house. Sam was expected on base for interviewing tutors, and Jack was going to be in DC all day in meetings.

Dixon had just finished a blow by blow of why the ref sucked so bad in the match he had taped when he was on duty a few days ago when Jon knocked on the door.

"Dave… got a spare Asgard transporter stone?" he asked

"Sorry no, why?" Dixon replied

"Damn, need a car then, I stoned here and need to get down to the house." Dixon gave him a slip and told him to help himself to the pool cars "The old guy didn't tell me where the house was so I take it it's my old place?"

"Yeah Jack… Jon, sorry, it's the old place, just not the old house." The younger man gave him a puzzled look and then left the room.

"What did the old house look like?" Mark asked him,

"Same as yours" Dixon answered, and then went back to the important question of whether the ref was blind or just stupid!

15 minutes later a petrified security guard rang the General to tell him someone had hotwired General O'Neills truck and had driven it off base! Dixon called Jack to call Jon about it, he was NOT going to get into an argument with either Jack O'Neill!

16
Mark got home at a reasonable hour, he had passed several planets for exploration and locked 2 out of the computer, one when the MALP dissolved while they watched… frightening… the other where it was obvious some sort of nuclear reaction had taken place, that had caused a base wide panic for a full 30 seconds, until everyone realised they had done it before. Mark was amazed at how blasé some people were about things like radiation, and bombs.

Jane was not home, and there were no signs of the kids either, so Mark headed to the O'Neill house, Jacks truck was out front, and the kids were in the pool by the looks. A surveillance team were at the top of the road, and the area was also being watched from orbit, as the Daedalus was up there, refitting.

Mark walked around the house without bothering to try the front door, he had just turned a corner when he found himself pinned against the wall.

"Sorry" the young man said as he released him "Doesn't anyone around here knock?"

"Not usually, no" Mark told him, "We just come around whenever we want"

"Crap, NOT my ideal way of guarding people" he said, Mark could understand that, now he was no longer in danger of having a heart attack. "I'm going to have to have a word with Carter and him, we need more containment than here provides. Where else does the beam take them besides here, the SGC and Area 51?" he asked

"The Oval office, Pentagon and a cabin somewhere" Mark supplied.

"Hmm the cabin, sweet, not been there for years… well actually this body has never been there" his eyes swept the area again, pausing slightly at one point but moving on after a second. "Get the kids inside, don't panic anyone, just move them" his voice was soft and low and controlled in the extreme, somehow Mark knew this was no joke, no drill.

He casually sauntered over to his wife, who was sat on a lounger reading while supervising the kids in the pool, he leant down and gave her a peck on the cheek and told her to get the kids inside quick, without letting them know anything was wrong.

Jane stood and stretched and yelled "Who wants ice cream?" at the top of her voice. All the kids scrambled out of the pool or sandpit and made their way towards her, she turned and like a mother duck leading her offspring she went into the huge family room, the nurses gathered up scattered bits of clothing, towels and toys and followed after.

Mark, knowing he had no experience or training of any kind, went in last…Jon was nowhere to be seen.

45 minutes later there was a screech of tyres and a jeep pulled up full of SFs, they went to the rear of the property and when they returned had 3 men with them, 2 of the men looked as if they had run face first into a tree, the third looked worse! A van pulled up and the men were loaded in and driven away.

Jon came in and went straight to Sams study. Within 5 minutes Sam and Jack walked out with him. Jack beckoned Mark and they went into the kitchen.

"What happened?"

"NID" Jon said, Mark had heard of them, that was where these Trust guys had started and grown from. "That's it we have to get them out of here, somewhere more controlled" he said

Both sets of eyes belonging to Jack O'Neill looked at Sam… "It's the only place…" the elder said

"It's controllable" the younger…

"But, Jack…Jon, can't we just increase security here?" she asked… Mark had no idea what they were talking about, they would fill him in if necessary.

Jacks phone went, he listened for a minute and closed it again.

"It seems nurse April is NID" he said standing up and heading out to the kids and their minders, Jon followed him casually and they managed to get April away from the room before tying her up and dumping her outside the house for the SFs to collect.

"That sorts it we have to depend on family, Mark can you and Jane help if we take the kids away?" Mark nodded "Then go get her and pack stuff for a stay in Minnesota for the lot of you, pack for a few weeks. The kids too!" he said, Mark went and got his wife and they headed home.

He told her everything he could as they packed, Jane would do anything to protect the kids, she loved them as if they were her own now, she spent more time with them than she had ever been able to with her own.

Jon was already gone when they got back, 'scouting the area' Mark was told. Each adult took two of the babies and Jane and Mark took one of their own too, soon all 5 adults and ten children were ready to go to 'the cabin' Sam went first. Mark looked at the small office they appeared in, the door was open and Jon was gesturing them to come out.

Jane, Tilda, George and Lizzy were next, after they had left Jack appeared and disappeared several times, luggage in tow. The kids ran off as soon as they were released and Mark decided to have a look around.

The 'cabin' looked to be almost brand new, it was at least 2 stories tall and a ladder to the attic suggested either a play room or bedrooms up there, there were 4 bedrooms on the first floor and the ground floor had a lounge, kitchen, dining room, office and 2 more bedrooms. Mark stepped outside and next to the huge building was a smaller, more rustic affair, maybe four rooms altogether, it was weathered but sturdy, well looked after.

"THAT is the cabin" Jon said, "the old man must have had this built after the kids arrived" Mark nodded, there was a lake in front of the house, but for as far as the eye could see was forest!

"This doesn't look safer than home, you could have an army hidden in those trees and you wouldn't know" he said, surprised that he was sounding like a military man.

"The difference is that in the Springs we can't stop people coming close, I…Jack owns the land for a 5 mile radius around here, the closest town is over 20 miles away, the closest neighbour is 15, and the whole of the property is ringed and rigged with DEW" having grown up in the 70s Mark new what a Distant Early Warning system was, though he was surprised that Jack would have such sophisticated equipment around his rural home.

Jon walked over to the old cabin and went inside with his bags, obviously he had decided where HE was sleeping! Mark returned to the inside of the new building, he caught sight of Jack at the window as he turned, he had been watching them.

Jack waited until everyone settled down before leaving, he had a meeting in DC with the IOA, Jane and Mark decided to take one of the ground floor bedrooms, leaving Sam and the kids upstairs, Jack explained the DEW system and what to do if it went off to both Carter adults. Then he was gone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Next morning Sam and Jane decided they needed to get some food in and with the two Carter children they climbed into a pickup truck that was hidden behind the old cabin and headed for town.

Jon and Mark limited the over energetic toddlers to the living room, so they could cope with them and laughed themselves stupid at some of the antics of the kids, especially when Danielle and Tilda pushed Richard to the floor and then used him as a stepping stone so they could reach the table, it was better than watching wrestling on TV!

A Beep sounded from the study, Jon immediately went to see what it was and was so very carefully casual when he returned that Mark knew the DEW had detected someone.

"Could be Elk" he said as he passed a window, flicking his gaze outside. He opened the front door and said "Just need something from the cabin" in a normal tone of voice and he left.

Mark called the women and warned them about the situation, he also tried to call Jack but he wasn't answering his cell.

A loud noise frightened the kids and Mark looked outside to see a ship hovering over the lake… his work at the SGC enabled him to identify it as a Tel'tak, several men appeared in rings of steel and a bright light, and they marched towards the house.

One came in through the door and gestured to Mark to get outside, and to take the kids, suddenly he dropped where he stood. Jon had broken his neck in one quick motion, Mark was frozen to the spot, watching the youth.

"KREE!" someone shouted and the sound of a weapon firing was heard. When the next soldier… Jaffa came in and herded them all out, he saw four of their number dead, or unconscious on the floor, but so was Jon, his torso covered in blood, it was obvious he was, if not dead yet, dying.

17

The Jaffa collected all the bodies together and the Tel'tak landed in the clearing by the lake, everyone was marched on board and Mark and the kids were put into a room, as a sort of afterthought they threw Jon in as well, the sound he made as he hit the floor proving he was not quite dead.

As soon as the door shut the children stopped crying and gathered together around the broken body of their fathers clone, they held hands and bowed their heads… and suddenly Jon was propping himself up and coughing blood!

Mark rushed over to help him as he cleared his lungs, the kids sat down against the wall, silent and as unchildlike as he had ever seen them. At least they did not collapse this time. It was obvious they were getting stronger, and as a group needed less effort to cure someone than before.

They felt the vessel take off, Jon and Mark just looked at each other, he had no idea what the youth was thinking, but as for himself he was terrified, he had no experience with fighting… what could he do to protect the children? What was he going to face when they arrived wherever it was?

He paced the room until George spoke up "fer crying out loud Uncle Mark… sit down!"

Jon looked at the kids in shock, but Mark knew to expect something like this, after all when they had cured Jane they had picked up her speech and vocabulary!

"Any idea who got us?" Jon asked, Mark shook his head, he had not recognised the glyph on the Jaffa's foreheads. "Warn anyone?"

"Just Sam and Jane, Jack didn't answer his cell when I tried him" he told the young man

"Then it was planned to get us as soon as we were the only two guarding the kids, Jack never EVER does not answer his phone. Damn we walked straight into it by going to the cabin!" he thumped his head back against the wall he was sat against. "They must be hoping for him to give himself up for the kids… which he will of course."

"Not going to happen" Jacob said "We can't let them get Dad, he knows too much"

"I can't see a way to prevent it" Jon said "it's not like we can do much about it here"

"If we get aboard a mothership though we can" Jonathan said "We managed to heal mom last week when she cut her hand, it was enough that we absorbed some knowledge of the workings of a mothership, if we can get into a room with a control panel we can get out"

Mark explained about the kids absorbing things through contact, though he had thought that it was limited to vocabulary, it seemed that maybe it wasn't. He had to remind himself, these kids weren't even two yet! No matter how they spoke, they still had afternoon naps!

The engine sounds changed, slowed and stopped, there was silence. They waited for over an hour before hearing anything else, and when they did it was more like a vibration than a sound.

The doors opened and the Jaffa from earlier walked in and pointed them out the door, if they were surprised to see Jon on his feet they didn't show it.

They walked out the door, and out the cargo ship, into what must have been a hanger, the space was enormous! Several ships were sat on the floor and several more were suspended from the ceiling. Mark was astonished, he had heard of mother ships, and knew they used to sit on top of the Great Pyramid at Giza, but the reality of it was enough to take his breath away. Nothing he read prepared him for the sheer size it!

"Kree!" the Jaffa said and a door at the side wall of the space opened, they went though, Jon first, the kids between in twos, holding hands, and Mark behind.

"Welcome," the strange sounding voice said

"Bocce!" Jon replied the overdressed man who approached looked at Jon puzzled

"O'Neill?" he said

"Close" Jon replied, "not the O'Neill you are thinking of"

"It matters not" he looked down at the children "These are the offspring of O'Neill?" he asked

"Ya think?" Richard said, drawing an incredulous look from the enemies around them.

"Put them in a holding cell"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The cell was quite a large room, the children did a quick survey and Jon levered the cover off a panel next to the door, he pulled wires and crystals out of the interior of the wall and lay them on the floor.

A ventilation shaft was hidden behind a bench against the wall and Jon and Mark moved the bench and got the cover off.

"You lot, hide in here and do NOTHING!" Jon told the children, they entered the shaft and he covered the hole again and they put the bench back against the wall.

The sound of metal clad boots sounded out, coming towards the door, a strange electronic noise sounded, and then a banging on the door Jon motioned for him to move back against the wall.

It took them over 15 minutes to open the door, Jon translating the swearing with glee, the man he called Ba'al was there after the first 5 minutes, pushing them to hurry.

When the door finally opened, 8 Jaffa rushed in, they noticed the lack of children and immediately pulled the bench from the wall.

When they removed the cover, however, there was no sign of the children

"Find them!" Ba'al shouted, most of the Jaffa left the room, the others held onto the two men. "We will see if you can provide the same entertainment as the other one" Jon stiffened and shot Mark a look.

"Bocce, you haven't changed, still got delusions of Godhood and dress like a queen!" he said, "Shame that none of the female Goa'uld will have you, you could work some of your frustrations out on them" Mark thought he had gone mad, goading him into a temper like that! What the hell did he have to gain?

Mark was moved into another room and Jon was dragged away.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Three hours later and Jon was thrown back into the room, his clothes had several holes that looked like acid had burnt through the material.

He dragged the youth onto the bench, "What happened?" he asked

"You don't want to know" he was told as the young man rolled away and faced the wall.

"He was tortured to death and then revived in a sarcophagus" Mark jumped, he looked under the bench, one of the boys was on the other side of the grill.

"He died?" he asked

"Yeah, Ba'al did this to dad years ago, he tortured him to death over 10 times and brought him back, that's why he goaded Ba'al, he knew you wouldn't cope with it"

"Tryin to sleep here" Jon said "you kids OK there?"

"Yeah they can't get into the smaller shafts" the child replied "we found the main armoury… did you know Ba'al had started stocking up on Earth weapons? He has… had a case of C4, Janet is working on a detonator, we drew straws, seems we have a competition going between us… who can fuck up Ba'al best" a giggle sounded

Mark felt like he had fallen into the Twilight Zone, he was talking to a child less than 2 years old, who was using adult phrases and swear words, but doing it correctly, not as a child will usually copy words. Jon seemed to take it in his stride, but then he too was a lot older than he looked.

The boots came close again and even though Jon fought them, they grabbed Mark and dragged him out of the room.

18
He was taken to a room that was decorated in the same gold as the corridors, however that's where the similarity stopped, the furnishings were soft, almost feminine, silks and satins covered the couch and bed, a huge metal grid stretched across one wall, and the figure of Ba'al was sprawled in a chair, he nodded to the Jaffa and Mark was taken towards the grid, they let him go and walked away, Ba'al touched something on his arm and suddenly he was being held upright against the wall as if gravity had shifted.

Ba'al stood looking at him, "There are several things I wish to know, I have a feeling that you will be more forthcoming than the other one" he said, he picked up a knife and held it out towards Mark.

Mark just looked at him, he didn't know anything that could be helpful, hell he didn't even know the iris codes! Ba'al let go of the knife and it plunged into Marks thigh, he cried out in pain.

He was no solider, he had not spent his adult life being hurt, and he definitely wasn't ready for the pain that came his way. When Ba'al picked up a bottle and squirted some liquid at him the pain was so intense that he passed out, the last thing he heard was a disgusted growl from his tormentor.

He woke in the cell, Jon was leaning over him, trying to get him to sit upright.

"Come on, you will feel better if you get up" he said from long experience, Mark propped himself up against the wall, he immediately felt his leg and stomach where the acid had hit, nothing, not pain, no scars.

"Sarcophagus" he said "you must have died, they put you in there to bring you back so he can do it again."

"And you went through this how many times?" he asked the youth

"Too many… enough trips to the machine and you get bad withdrawal afterwards… listen is there any reason for him to torture you? Do you actually know anything?" Mark shook his head, "OK we will try and get him to concentrate on me, I can stand it better than you can" Mark felt guilty, no matter that this was the clone of a 50 odd year old General, he was a boy!

"No! Don't even think it… Mark I have had special training to resist torture, and like I said, I've done it all before, you won't last in there!" he was right, when Jon had returned there were five or six holes in his clothes, at least three from the acid, Mark hadn't survived one!

He felt like a coward, but he really didn't want to face Ba'al again.

Suddenly the lights flickered and the floor lurched beneath their feet. "I hope that's the old man and not the kids" Jon said calmly, he moved the bench from against the wall and removed the panel… Mark realised that even if Jon could get in the shaft, he never could, he wasn't exactly a small man in girth.

But Jon had no intention of going in, he came out carrying weapons, he strapped a handgun and holster to his leg, pulled out a black jacket with pockets all over and strapped it on and clipped an machine gun to a strap over his shoulder, he shoved similar equipment at Mark, who did his best to copy him, but got hopelessly tangled.

Jon was helping him fasten his jacket when the door opened and two Jaffa came in, without pause the youth swung the huge black gun into his hands and blasted away at the aliens, they fell dead in the doorway, he finished helping Mark get armed calmly and then while he held the door Jon pulled the bodies inside.

Mark looked at the dead men, he had seen his first violent death not long ago, but strangely he felt no nausea this time, just a regret that they had to die.

"Look," Jon held up his machine gun "this is a P-90, you want this switch "he put his fingers on it "on this setting, that will keep firing as long as you pull the trigger, make sure you don't pull it unless you are pointing at the enemy" Mark wasn't sure he wanted to pull it at all! "Aim in their general direction, hopefully the bullets will hit someone, if not it will at least make them duck" Mark nodded, the sounds of feet running towards them grew louder, and as a party of Jaffa rounded a corner they started to fall.

"WIZARD!" Jon shouted

"OZ" came the reply and the automatic fire turned into single shots as the two converging parties tried not to hit friends with their fire. Marks sister came around the corner, every inch a solider, she had safety goggles on and held her gun with ease, she continued firing at a cross corridor and Jon went up beside her and they both fired. Mark decided not to risk it and he ducked in behind them, watching the other 2 directions that enemies could come at them. Jaffa rounded a corner into the corridor to the fighters left and he shouted a warning, Jon and Sam turned as one and fired into the oncoming warriors, killing them all.

"Where are the kids?" Sam asked

"In the ventilation system" Jon told her, "they got us these weapons and were working on C4 last I heard" Sam looked at him in surprise, but evidently decided not to question his sanity, she nodded and headed down the cross corridor she had been firing into as she had found them.

"Engines this way" she explained

"Ba'al?" Jon asked

"Jack is seeing to him" she told him, Daniel and Wells came around the corner from the direction Sam had come from and Mark found himself surrounded by armed guards as they held him in the middle of the pack.

After fighting their way to the engine room they found 5 of the children there, Jonathan was swearing in a manner that would make a drill sergeant blush and Sam looked at Jon, who lowered his head.

"Mom come on, we can't bleeding reach high enough to place the damn explosive" Janet said, throwing a charged block of the explosive at her mother. Sam, Daniel and Jon split up and grabbed the charges placing them from long familiarity where they would do the most damage.

"Where are George, Jacob and Danielle?" Sam asked, having noted which were present.

"The boys are detonating the armoury, Danielle is in the hanger taking out everything but the Tel'tak that brought is here" Sam shook her head, Mark could close his eyes and forget the people talking were under three feet high, so he knew how she felt.

"You lot should have stayed with Jon and your Uncle Mark" she said her voice showing how worried she was.

"And you shouldn't have gone after Apophis, or gone back for dad when Hathor had him… are we going to play the blame game?" Jonathan said, Sam shook her head and picked up two of the kids, Mark grabbed another two and Jon picked up his namesake.

"OK out of here, we have 7 minutes" Sam told her party and Wells and Daniel took point as they exited the room.

Wells held his fist up, everyone stopped, well Mark stopped because he walked into Daniel, but everyone else knew what to do, after a few seconds he pointed along the corridor and everyone turned into it, quietly.

"Can you hold on?" Jon whispered to Jonathan and received a nod, he placed the child on Marks back so he had both hands free and moved up to the front of the party.

They rounded a corner and some of the tension in Jons back relaxed, backing towards them were Jack and Teal'c, Balinsky was nowhere to be seen.

"Jack?" Sam asked, a shake of his head was the reply, Balinsky wasn't coming.

"Where is he dad?" Janet asked

"Back up the corridor" he answered, the children looked at each other.

"Go get him, there's a sarcophagus next to the docking bay" the party moved back along the path the others had come down and found Balinskys body, Jack and Jon lifted him and Teal'c put him over his shoulder in a firemans lift.

Everyone turned and ran back down towards the bay, George and Jacob appeared as they rounded a corner, where from God only knew and detonations could be heard several corridors over.

They ran into the docking bay, then the men…except Mark… went out again as Sam and he loaded the kids into the Tel'tak.

Danielle was stood on the pilots chair, a bag with C4 at the side. "Mom" she said "I couldn't reach the top level of the hanger. Those ships could come after us" she pointed at the ships hovering above them, Sam grabbed the bag and left the ship, climbing up to the higher level using a ladder, she lowered the vessels and attached the explosive blocks to the exhaust systems of each, by the time she had finished the men were arriving, a now alive but still injured Balinsky amongst them.

He slumped in the corner and Jon shouted for the kids… it took them only a minute to surround him and for him to sit up as good as new, the kids didn't even need to rest afterwards!

"Ba'al?" Sam asked her husband

"Another clone" he said "I cut his throat, there was no symbiote"

"Then it's not over?" she asked

"He is the one who put the price on our heads," Jack said "he gloated right before I killed him, but God knows if we can persuade the Lucian Alliance of it, I don't know where the Kassa crop is and they may just try again to get it, their market will be severely diminished if they lose a load of addicts to withdrawal"

"So… it's not over?" she repeated, he smiled at her slightly and pulled her into a hug.

"Hey look at it this way, love, if they do capture us, the kids can come and rescue us" he was obviously joking

"Yeahsureyabetchya" the kids said in chorus

19
They arrived back on Earth within the day and landed in the cabin clearing the same as they had left from. Teal'c then piloted the ship to the Nevada dessert for the scientists to work on. He called within the hour and Jack picked him up from Sams lab and brought him to the cabin.

"So what now?" Mark asked the others, Jane had grabbed him as soon as they arrived and she was clinging onto him as if she couldn't let go!

"Now we have a look at this" Sam said and drew a crystal out of her jacket. "I picked it up when I went to see if any of you were being tortured in Ba'als quarters" she said. Jack, SG13 and Sam all left, leaving Jon, Mark and Jane with the children.

Hours later Jack and Sam returned. Ba'al, the original was no longer interested in Earth, but several of his clones had, it seemed, taken a fancy to the planet and were hoping to take over, instead of the usual Goa'uld tactic though, they were taking over financially, a longer but surer route in the modern day.

The crystal proved that all of the top 100 companies world wide were owned by Ba'al clones, and most of the top 500 were too, there were still a couple of hold outs, but a plan of introducing symbiotes into the CEOs of the ones they did not have control of was detailed on the crystal.

The most annoying thing was that they had no idea of the exact number of clones they were dealing with! It could have been anything from the three they could prove existed to dozens.

Daniel and Bosworth were looking into it, Wells and Teal'c were on board the Daedalus watching the cabin to prevent another ship from landing, the Captain of the ship had already received a stern warning from the President for allowing them through.

Sam spent the day with the kids and then left to work on a radar system for the airspace above the cabin, to give warning when the ship was no longer in orbit.

Jack lounged about, playing with the kids and acting as if nothing could ever bother him. But Mark later found both O'Neills drinking heavily on the back porch, the elder shaking as he contemplated the near loss of his children, the younger trying to hold him together.

After all, no one could understand how Jack felt more than he himself could, Jon kept topping up his glass, and reassuring him that the kids had come through well, and it was not his fault they were in danger. He eventually helped the older man into the small cabin and laid him in the bed to sleep it off.

"Seen enough?" he asked as he headed back to the house

Mark jumped, he was sure he had not been spotted.

"Before you ask, yeah he knew you were there too, he was just in such a bad state that he didn't care"

"But you weren’t?" Mark asked

"I was there, he didn't know what was happening, and to be honest I almost fell apart on the ship when the kids went missing, but even though technically I am their father, I aren't, I wanted to protect them the way I would any kids, but he" he pointed at the cabin "he was seeing Charlie all over again" he picked up the tumbler with an inch of scotch in the bottom and swallowed it.

"Get to bed, guard duty starts all over again in a couple of hours" Mark nodded and made his way to his room, Jane was already asleep, so he quietly used the bathroom and slipped under the covers, she cuddled up to him as soon as he lay still, he didn't sleep.
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The next few days were quiet, though no one went far from the house, the children demonstrated their new knowledge, and Sam speculated that if they could just get everyone to injure themselves the kids could absorb all they needed to know in that way, rather than the tedious method of teaching that kids usually had to go through.

No one doubted that it would work, but usual teaching methods had their uses, they taught how to learn, rather than facts, and the kids could only absorb knowledge that the 'teacher' knew, they could not take it any further without knowing how to learn. Still Sam asked for and received permission to take each of the lecturers at the academy to the cabin, each was asked to injure themselves in some way, usually a cut across their palm and the children healed them. The President himself was on site for the first several volunteers, and they were all made to sign top level secrecy documents before being allowed to see what was happening.

Within the week the children had absorbed each persons knowledge, but with it came a price.

The children had started having nightmares after their rescue, though Tilda said they had started while on the ship. They were not only absorbing knowledge but in some cases actual experiences, it wasn't until Sam recognised a nightmare that George was having as the same one her husband suffered from that she realised he was reliving Ba'al torturing his father, several years ago. George was pleading with Daniel to kill him when she finally woke him up.

Sam called a halt to the programme of learning while she spoke to the kids. Mark and Jane sat by while she gathered her children about her.

"When you 'learn' from people as you heal them…" she started

"Mom, don't worry, we can cope" Danielle said

"George wasn't coping well last night" she said and the other children looked at him.

"Nightmare" he said, they all nodded, Mark decided it was like being in the middle of the Midwich Cuckoos.

"We can sort it out Mom" Grace said, they all gathered around George and concentrated for a short while, when they stepped back it was as if to say 'there we fixed it'

"So what happened?" Sam asked

"We have found that we absorb more than just vocabulary if the person is closer to us… we got medical knowledge from Aunt Jane, we know how to do a lot of things you can do once we helped heal your hand, we got some tactical and weapons knowledge from Jon, and quite a bit of the ancient download that he has hidden in his mind, and we learnt a lot of things from Uncle Mark" Mark noticed that they didn't say what they had learnt and he guessed that maybe it hadn't been a lot, after all everyone else was smarter than he was, they probably only mentioned him because he was in the room.

"What about the lecturers from the Academy?" she asked

"Almost nothing," Richard said "Vocabulary but usually no application"

"A waste of time actually" Jacob told her. "We need to be able to get to know them well before we can get more… or maybe we need to be related?"

"No" Grace said "We aren't really related to Aunt Jane but we got something from her" the others nodded.

"The question is" Sam said "How well do you need to know them before you are taking memories that could be thought of as private?"

"Not a clue" Janet said "However if you want to get a few tutors in, we wouldn't object" Sam nodded and then told the kids to play.

She came and sat beside the Carter couple "What about Lizzy and Tom?" she asked "If I got some tutors for the kids would you allow them to sit in on the lessons? At least while they are here?"

"I was thinking of sending them back to school" Jane said "we can take them to your house every morning for Carol to take them and bring them back every evening"

"What about the danger?" Mark said

"Mark, I don't think our kids are close enough that they will snatch them to get to Jack and Sam, and to be honest we could be looking at years before this is all over" She was right, Jack and Sam had already been fighting this battle for over ten years, maybe it could go on for another ten?

"OK" he said "the kids go back to school" now all he had to worry about during the day was the eight tiny Jack O'Neills!

Jon came into the house at that point, he was dirty and had several scratches on his face and hands. He gestured for the adults to follow him and he made his way into the kitchen where they could watch through the hatch but talk privately.

"Several people are camped outside the perimeter" he said "I've already got rid of one camp that I could prove are working for Ba'al, but one camp is full of journalists, and I'm not sure what they want, and a couple of others could be just tourists, but they could be NID or Alliance, or Ba'al. We have to move"

"They are outside though?" Jane said

"If they coordinate an attack I can't stop them all" he said, "and if they do it once the ship breaks orbit and Sam and Jack are not here we are stuck, I don't have a stone remember, I can't use the transporter to get the kids to safety. We HAVE to go back to the SGC" Sam nodded, she and Jane went to pack while Jon watched the DEW system and Mark explained to the children what was happening.

Within an hour the kids were in the new quarters that had been made up in the huge storage room on level 25. They included eight small bedrooms, a large play room and a classroom, the only thing missing was natural sunlight.

Nurse Carol was there to help look after them, and a new nurse, David, had been employed, a thorough check on both came up clean.

The first tutor, was brought in, an old friend of the family, Sgt. Siler was well known and had volunteered to teach engineering to the kids, he was very pleased to realise that not only were the children bright but he didn't have to spend long in the infirmary when he was injured teaching them.

Other SGC personnel were assigned teaching duties, Dr Lyman was one, Daniel Jackson taught history, he was intending to teach them languages but they persuaded him to wait a while and then they would 'absorb' them direct later.

Sam, of course, couldn't teach them much that they had not already taken though she had a lot of pleasure in helping them learn how to learn and delighted in being able to hold a conversation with people who knew what she was talking about.

Jack kept to the background, he was worried that the only things the kids could learn off him were not things they should know.

Mark and Jane persuaded him to help them and together they taught the kids games that they could play, to help develop co-ordination and motor skills, not something they could absorb directly. An artificial ice rink was brought into the next storage room and all the kids delighted in learning how to skate, their father seemingly everywhere at once picking up fallers and teaching basic techniques.

All in all, their childhood continued along more normal paths, if you could call living in a top security base normal… it would be several years before they were called into action again…
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The End?