"I wouldn't have thought you'd get a signal here," Jon said when her cell rang as they were almost back to the trailhead. He reached over and carefully took Ty from her so she could answer. The little boy, as worn out as much by the emotional upheaval of the day as he was from the hike itself, didn't stir during the transfer.
Jon took the moment of closeness to kiss Maggie's dusty cheek. Travis and Josh who'd both glanced back when her phone rang caught him at it. Josh rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose in disgust before turning to watch where he was going, but much to Jon's surprise, Travis gave him a satisfied grin. Well, that was one thing that was going to work out much simpler than he would have expected. Maybe the only thing the rate things were going.
"Off and on," Maggie said in answer to him before saying, "Hello," to whoever was on the other end of the call.
"So, how was the hike?" a man's voice came just loudly enough that Jon had no difficulty in hearing him.
She glanced shyly over at Jon before saying, "Umm...it had its moments-"
The voice broke in before she could finish, "Good, good. Listen, Sam-"
Now the look she threw Jon was not shy but alarmed. He fought to not let the shock that 'Sam' sent through him show. "I love you whoever you are," he'd promised not three hours before and he didn't want to know, God help him, he did not want to know who she was when she wasn't Maggie Clark.
"Daniel," she said lowly and urgently, the warning as clear as the mountain air they were breathing.
But for all that, the voice--Daniel, kept right on talking as though she hadn't said a thing, "About the weapons platform in Antarctica. If you're really going to get it up, you're going to need a working ZPM, right?"
"Daniel-"
"Maybe, we have one." And whatever a ZPM was, the possibility of having one was enough to make her forget to worry about what Jon could or could not hear.
"What do you mean? Where?"
"Giza...it would still be there, right? Baal didn't go back far enough to stop them from burying it 5,000 years ago. I've searched the journals, no one's unearthed it yet--the dig that found it, never happened here."
Bryan, Zech, and Alex, flying down the path behind them playing who knew what, all but ran into her where she stood stock still in the middle of the path. They parted around her and ran on past but her mind was on other things and she didn't notice them. "Of course. It should be there...why didn't we think of that before? We'll have to retrieve it somehow-"
"Right, I figured we could sic the geek on it...goodness knows they'll never give me the clearance to go. I'm sure he'd jump at the chance for a paid dig."
Jon couldn't help watching her face. It was alive with an interest and intensity he'd never seen in her before--not even up on the trail. He felt a twinge of jealousy that whatever they were discussing could enliven her in a way he couldn't.
"What kind of money would it take, Daniel?" she asked. "If we decide to handle this on our own and bypass the-" whatever she had been going to end with was cut off when she looked up and caught him looking at her. "I'll call you back in an hour or two," she said and broke the connection before Daniel could protest.
What was happening between them was so new and fragile that he knew it could end right here. It was all up to him. Prove to her that her secrets--whatever they were--were safe from him or tell her 'sorry whatever you're involved in it's too much for me'. His life had always been simple, uncomplicated...just the way he liked it. What was he doing standing here in love with a woman whose life was as convoluted as the tributary systems feeding the Great Lakes?
"I didn't hear anything," he told her. "Not a thing."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Great. Three hours. Three hours and she was already involving him in the mess that was her life. He'd heard everything she was sure regardless of his denial. And how long could he keep that up? How long could he swallow down the need to know? How long could he pretend that it would be possible for them to lead a normal everyday life? What did he think she was? A government agent? A spy? He might before have taken her for someone in the Witness Protection Program or maybe an abused spouse on the run, but now? She and Daniel had pretty much laid that to rest and it had only been three hours since she'd admitted she loved him.
She should never have answered the phone, should have let it go to voice mail. Certainly the moment Daniel went off with that particular tone in his voice, she should have broken the connection and called him back later. He'd spent all those years pitching his ideas to Jack and learning to bulldoze his way past every interruption, denial, or distraction until he'd gotten what needed said said...she should have known she'd never stop him until he was done.
A whole year of not saying anything likely to alert their handlers just in case their calls were being monitored, and the one time someone really had been listening...what a mess.
And she'd been no better getting caught up in the conversation with Jon so close he couldn't have helped but to hear every word and at least one or two of the boys bound to be in hearing distance as well. And she'd let herself start to believe--hope anyway, that somehow there would be a way to mesh a life with Jon and the boys with the life she'd only just determined to begin again.
Who had she been kidding? Three hours...not quite that even.
She couldn't live a lie and pursue any personal relationship...even if her plans were compatible with the life he and the boys lived.
She had calls in requesting meetings with General Landry, the Chief of Staff, three senators she hoped weren't that changed from the men she'd known, and President Hayes. She had no intention of hanging out in the Land of Sky Blue Waters waiting for the end to come. Just where did she think she was going to fit a family into that? Was she going to fly back from McMurdo for Travis' hockey games or the boys' parent-teacher conferences?
She'd missed every school function Cassy had ever invited her to, every one of them: the plays, the open houses, the games, the debates. She'd even missed her graduation. She'd been able to explain to Cassy where she'd been, why she hadn't made it, but even so she knew Cassy had been hurt every time she hadn't shown up. The boys wouldn't even have the truth to help them get over the disappointments, only lies.
He must have read it in her eyes. Before she could open her mouth to tell him she couldn't go on with this, he said, "We'll make this work...we will."
It was the first time she'd heard the hard, unbreakable will of Jack O'Neill in him, and against her better judgment she let his certainty convince her there had to be a way to work things out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I'll call you back in an hour or two," she'd said, and Jon had understood then this was how it was always going to be. She wouldn't be coming out to the boat with them after all, wouldn't be joining him on the deck after the boys were bathed and tucked into their bunks to talk about what was happening between them. She'd be holing up in her cabin discussing things she couldn't or wouldn't share with him. And every plan they ever made from now on would be just as easily forgotten and discarded when the phone rang.
Jamie had been born on the boat, and she'd spent every summer of her life on the water. She'd grown up telling her parents she was going to marry a man who'd want nothing more from life than to spend summers on the boat with her and to raise a passel (whatever that was) of kids. Somehow she'd decided that day in his grandfather's garage when they were both still kids themselves that he was the one. Although it had taken her some time to convince him, she'd been right. He'd put away his schoolboy dreams of flying in the Air Force and he'd never looked back.
Life on the boat with her and the boys...they'd been free with no demands on them at all except those the water itself placed. Following where the water led them for days or weeks, some years without even a rough idea of how long they'd be out or how far they'd go.
It was a life he loved, and one in which Maggie would never be at home. One she couldn't live. She'd had this summer of sleeping late, sitting on the rocks watching the clouds go by, laughing with his sons, and doing nothing. But it had been just that...a summer of doing nothing, and he could see, now that it was drawing to a close, that it was the life she would leave behind without a backwards glance.
She and he were from different worlds. He looked at her looking at him and knew she was thinking the same thing. Only she was prepared to let it go at that. If he let her, she would before they reached the cabin find an easy way to tell him, "Thanks, it was a nice idea, but..." And maybe he should let her.
"Can you live with that? Can you let the boys live with that?" she'd asked and he'd thought he could. But there was more to 'that' then he'd understood at the time and he thought there might be a lot more of it before this was done.
'Sam' the voice had called her: 'Sam' a nickname for a woman who was supposed to be dead and who just happened to be a dead ringer for her. Oh yeah, did he want his sons involved with something like that?
'Baal didn't go back far enough to stop them from burying it 5,000 years ago. I've searched the journals, no one's unearthed it yet--the dig that found it, never happened here.' What kind of insanity was she involved in and could she really keep it from touching his sons?
Maybe he should walk away and let her go. Probably he should walk away and let her go. Undoubtedly he should. If he hadn't just decided up there on the trail that he wasn't willing to lose what he saw in her, he might have done it. If the boys weren't floating high with excitement and unbridled enthusiasm believing she wasn't going to be just someone they met on the lake one summer; if he hadn't just promised her the world and made her believe he could give it to her, he might have walked away and let her go.
But...he loved her and the boys loved her and he couldn't make himself believe for one moment she was the type of person who could ever bring harm to him or his family. Beneath the lies, beneath the deceits and secrets and mysteries, he knew he could trust her.
More than that he just knew this was right. They belonged together wherever that led them.
"We'll make this work...we will," he promised and willed her to trust him as much as he trusted her. "We'll talk tomorrow, and we'll figure out a way to make this work. For us and for the boys."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He'd promised her the gaping big hole of her secret past would not be a problem for them, but, of course, it was. How could it not be?
It was the youngest boys, living with their own black holes where the memories of their mother would have been if she'd lived long enough for them to remember her, that found Maggie's missing past the hardest to deal with.
~*~*~
Ty, sad and concerned after helping to unpack her few belongings and find places for them in the house: "Where are your pictures? The ones when you were a little girl? Where are the pictures you drew for your mom? Where are your report cards and the notes the teacher sent home saying you were a star pupil?"
She drew him onto her lap and answered him truthfully, "They were lost in time."
~*~*
Bryan, fingering her driver's license as they drove to the Highway Department to apply for a new one: "You look so sad."
"Everyone looks sad or grumpy or just plain dumb on their license," Jon answered.
"But you were sad, weren't you, Maggie? Because he died? Your husband."
"Yes, I was sad."
"What was his name?"
She bit her lip, glanced at Jon, and answered the question with just the one word, "Jack."
"Jack what?"
"Everyone knows that," Josh said from the back, "Jack Clark, of course." Though he left off the 'dummy' not wanting to draw his father's disapproving glare, it was plainly implied and he got the look anyway through the rearview mirror.
"Then what was your name before?" Bryan persisted after scowling over the seat at his brother.
There was that pause Jon had already learned to hate. That tightening of her eyes, the quick swallow as though she had to fight down the truth before she could force out the lie. He saved her from having to say whatever lie was waiting to be spoken because he'd come to realize she hated saying them as much as he hated hearing them, "Hey, who cares? The important thing is it's O'Neill now."
~*~*
Zech, pensively standing with his hands clasped behind him looking at the family pictures on the living room wall: "How will you remember him without any pictures?"
She looked up from sorting the mound of socks spilling over the couch and onto the floor and frowned, "Remember who?"
"Him. Jack. How will you remember what he looked like without any pictures?"
She looked at Jon before she answered, "I'll remember him."
Jon grimaced in misunderstanding. Later when Zech had wandered off and it was just the two of them still forging their way through the socks, he said, "I'm sorry. I never even gave it a thought."
"What?"
"The pictures," he said nodding his head at the wall where half a dozen Jamies smiled down at them. "I'll take them down."
"They're fine. They don't bother me, and the boys need them."
"You sure?" he asked even though by then he knew he was as likely to get a lie as the truth when he asked her a question.
"Of course, besides I'd miss them if you took them down, especially the one with you in a goatee," she said laughing. He threw a handful of socks in her direction.
~*~*
Alex, running a hand over the eagles on her shoulders as she hugged him one last time before boarding the plane that would take her on the first leg of her trip to McMurdo: "Six months is a long time."
"I know."
"What if...what if you forget us?"
"I'm not going to forget you. We'll call and email and write. And I'll be coming home as often as I can to see you. You're pretty memorable--I'm sure I won't forget you in a month or six weeks or even sixty years."
"What if you lose us?"
"What do you mean, Honey?"
"I mean...you don't have any of your stuff from before you came to the lake. You went to the lake without it because you couldn't take it with you, just like you can't take us with you to McMurdo. But you must have forgotten where you left it because you don't have it anymore--you lost it!"
"Oh, Alex," she said pulling him close. "Is that what you think happened? Honey, the stuff I had before didn't matter. It was just stuff. But you matter. You and your dad and your brothers. You all matter, very, very much. I'm not going to forget you or lose you...and you can call me every night just to make sure I don't."
Jon looked on feeling guilty because she would have taken them if he would have agreed to it.
"You could come you know? Pack up the boys and come with me," she'd said over her half-packed bags spread out on the bed. "It would be an incredible experience for the boys. McMurdo Station isn't that far from the base, and it's equipped to house a good number of civilians-"
He'd interrupted her with the words, "Travis is fifteen," as though they explained everything because to him they did. She'd only looked puzzled. He had frowned at her. So far she had almost instinctively navigated the rough waters of melding their new life together without tearing apart the boys fragile hold on the life they'd always known. But, this was more like on the mountain when she'd thoughtlessly ripped their hearts up saying she was leaving them. The memory of that made his voice hard as he said, "He's gone to school with the same kids all of his life--how can you expect me to take him away from that at his age?"
"Oh," she said. "I...no, of course, you can't do that."
"Even you, Maggie, were fifteen once. You can't tell me you forgot how important belonging is at that age," he pushed on because he wanted the same thing she did and knowing it wasn't happening hurt.
But the pain he'd felt had been there in his voice, and it had earned him a very rare glimpse into her past. "I'm sorry, Jon. I haven't forgotten, but..." a pause and a sigh while she weighed the consequences of releasing what little information she was about to impart, "my father was military. We moved every year or two." And that was all he got, and what it could possibly have revealed to him of what she didn't want him to know was just one more of the fathomless mysteries loving Maggie entailed.
And it hadn't changed the fact she would be reporting to Antarctica alone for her six month tour of duty, while he and the boys stayed behind praying she didn't forget them while she was gone.
~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~
Landry was no Hammond. If he had been her only option, she and Daniel would have been robbing banks to fund the dig near Giza. Fortunately, he wasn't her superior officer, and she was not obligated to stick with the chain of command. Landry could sputter and threaten all he wanted but she could (and did) with the right hints and innuendos interest Senator Todd without breaking any of the fine print on that agreement she'd signed. He was as forceful as she had hoped, and as well connected. The President may not have wanted to take her calls, but the Senator ensured he did.
The meetings lasted three days. They'd flown Daniel in after the first, and a reluctant Cam the next. Before it was over, she'd stood before the Red, White, and Blue and once again pledged her allegiance to the Constitution and all that it entailed. She'd put back on the uniform of an Air Force officer and the President himself had awkwardly pinned the eagles onto her shoulders. He'd winked when she'd saluted but her deadly earnestness had wiped the grin from his face.
She'd been relieved to learn the Gate had already been recovered though they were all three told they would not be involved with the StarGate Program in any way, shape, or form. No one here was yet ready to believe they wouldn't make a run for it giving half a chance...she'd looked over the table at Daniel and his indignant fury had assured her they were right there. He'd looked back and she'd met his gaze without any hesitation or wavering. And what that meant to the man and boys waiting for her back in Minnesota, she had not wanted to consider.
"Come on!" Daniel had exclaimed. "She wrote the book on the StarGate! You'll be setting yourselves back fifteen years if not more if you don't let her in on getting it up and running." His argument had fallen on deaf ears. Cam had thrown down a gauntlet demanding they be allowed input in the Program if nothing more, but he'd had to back down when it became apparent it was the one thing they were not getting.
Though she itched to get the Gate up and running with an urgency this world could not seem to comprehend, she left D.C. satisfied with how things had progressed. Government men were already liaising with the Daniel Jackson in Egypt for the dig to retrieve the ZPM, and a team was being assembled to begin uncovering the weapons platform in Antarctica. They'd managed to get far more than she had dared hope, and for the first time in over a year she felt useful and productive.
She talked Daniel into flying home with her. She needed the moral support. Facing the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff was nothing compared to facing what awaited her back in Minnesota. It was pointless for her to pretend she could fit Jon and the boys into her life and work especially while having to keep everything else of any importance to her a secret from them.
She'd promised Jon they'd talk about it when she returned from her meetings...but what was there to talk about? She couldn't imagine he'd uproot the boys and follow her to McMurdo for the months it would take to dig out the weapons platform and get it up and running. And after that who even knew where she'd end up...wherever they could find or set up a lab equipped and capable of supporting her research.
So what did that leave them? An occasional weekend's leave stolen from the research, most of it eaten up by travel time. Censored phone calls and emails. Disappointment, frustration and growing resentment until it all blew up in anger and hostility. She'd take the happiness she'd heard and seen on that boat and destroy it just as Baal had her world.
She'd thought about not going back, disappearing from their lives just as she'd always expected she would one day disappear from this world. But...living with integrity and all that didn't make that a viable option even if she could have found it within herself to do it.
She'd face him, say that good by she'd intended to say on the day of the hike to the boys and the one she'd tried to avoid having to say to him, pack her bags, and go.
She hadn't survived her time in the Gulf or the years at the SGC without learning that she could do what had to be done (whatever that was at the time) regardless of how frightening the situation was. And she hadn't served all those missions with Colonel Jack O'Neill without learning that doing what had to be done was sometimes much more than just facing pain or death...sometimes that would have been preferable to what was required.
No, sometimes doing what had to be done meant doing what you hated, becoming what you hated even. And that's why she talked Daniel into coming. When she faltered in breaking those little boys' hearts, when she wavered before Jon's determination just like she always had Jack's, when she couldn't say what needed said to protect that family from the harm she'd do if she stayed--she'd need Daniel to remind her why she was acting in such a despicable and reprehensible way.
It didn't work the way she'd planned, of course. The airstrip was in a town roughly fifty miles away, and Jon had insisted he and the boys would come and pick them up (the Senator having provided her outgoing transportation, her car was still parked beside her cabin). Fifty miles wasn't far, but it was far enough for Daniel to switch sides. By the time they'd rattled their way home in the battered fifteen passenger van Jon had borrowed from a local church to fit them all in, he had seen enough to know he wasn't going to help her in her determined rush to self-destruction.
"You can't do it, Sam," he told her earnestly while they took care of a few things in the cabin. They were supposed to be joining the family for supper on the boat, and the boys had gone ahead to get things started while their dad dropped off the van. Daniel had known he wouldn't have much time to talk to her on his own, but he had had even less time than he realized. Jon was already standing on her step with his hand raised to knock on her door.
He froze when he heard that name again and though he didn't mean to eavesdrop it was several moments before he thawed enough to stop himself.
"You know I have to--I can't devote the time I need to into the weapons project and spend any time with them. It wouldn't be fair to them..."
"Is that really why you're determined to walk away? For them?"
"Of course, it is, Daniel..."
"Are you sure you're not just running away? Come on, Sam...you're right, he's not Jack. But those boys? Why didn't you tell me they were so...so Jack?" Now what in the world was that supposed to mean?
There was an uncomfortable and long silence stretching out after that, and it was Daniel himself that broke it, "Guess it stands to reason doesn't it?" Certainly not. How could his son's be like her dead husband? "Jack was in a lot of ways just an overgrown kid himself..." Okay, he could accept that--sort of. "...but that's not what we're talking about. And I shouldn't have brought it up--it's just...well, just self-projecting I guess. You should have warned me--I miss him to you know."
"Oh, Daniel. I know. I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well you can make it up to me later, right now, before we get overrun again, I've got to tell you, I think you're wrong here. They love you--all of them, and you love them."
"That's the whole point, Daniel. In fact, there wouldn't be a problem if they didn't. I could pop in and out of their lives like a family friend and no one would get hurt. But, this--"
"You and Jack handled a long distance relationship just fine."
"We handled it...I'm not sure I'd say just fine. It was hard. Very hard, and we both understood why it had to be. For all I will ever be able to tell Jon, I just got bored doing nothing and found something to keep myself busy. I can't tell him Baal's coming and Armageddon is just around the corner...how long do you think he'll put up with me being gone before he's had enough? How many times do you think it will take me not being there when they need me before those little boys hate me?"
"Give them a chance--at least talk to him. He might think a weekend here and there is better than nothing...and as for the kids, he's their dad, let him decide what they can and can not handle."
"Come on, Daniel, how can he make a decision like that when he hasn't even been briefed on any of this? We both know there's more to it than whether I'll be there with supper ready when he gets off work or the kids need help with their homework...but we can't exactly lay that out on the table, can we? I didn't bring you here to argue with me, Daniel! You're supposed to help me do what has to be done."
"I'm trying--if you'd just listen."
"It will only make it worse. Drag it out even further than I already have. I need--"
"What you need is out there in that boat!"
Jon forced himself to move and opened the door. He stepped into the room and said, "Actually, what you need is right here."
"How long...how long have you been out there?" she stammered and Daniel breathed a 'whoops' under his breath.
"Long enough," he said taking her by the shoulders and willing her to listen to him. "Long enough to know Daniel's right. The boys and I--we'll be happy with whatever time you can give us...if that's just a day or two here and there, then that's what we'll take. We're pretty self-sufficient, you know. Whatever you can spare from whatever it is you've got to do, we can live with that."
"Can you?" she asked shaking her head.
"Yes! We can!"
"You live out there in that boat, Jon...I don't even belong in this world of yours."
"You can!" he took a deep breath and lowered his voice trying to calm them both. "You can be in our world. You're more than welcome." He tried to catch her eye but she refused to meet his gaze. Instead she looked desperately toward Daniel although she already knew by then he wasn't going to give her the backup she needed.
She pulled out of Jon's grasp and valiantly fought on alone. "If you've been listening, you know there's more to it than that...more than I can tell you. Do you realize that if they even knew we were talking about something like this, they'd be down here vetting you and the boys before morning? No, of course you don't, because you don't even know who they are! I can't join you in your world, Jon, and you do not want to join me in mine!"
She looked at him then pleading him to understand. Looking deep into her anguished eyes, he had the awful feeling that he'd lost.
His uncle had put him to work at the mill when it became obvious to everyone in the family that he wasn't headed to college and that they'd be lucky if he stayed in school long enough to get his diploma. He'd put in his time (doubles, nights, weekend shifts, and holidays when ever possible) and without it he'd never have kept the boat afloat, but he'd never had to fight for it. And though he had gone to the trouble of asking Jamie's dad if he could marry her, it had only been a formality with absolutely no doubt about the outcome: Jamie had told her dad she'd be marrying him even before she'd told him. Jamie had carried all of her pregnancies to term without any complications of note, and all their sons had born healthy and strong. The house, like the job, had come down from his uncle with such easy terms it was almost laughable: the boat from her grandfather.
In short, he'd never had to fight for anything that really mattered in his entire life. He'd never been a fighter, but then maybe he just had never needed to be. Because staring at his defeat in her eyes, he knew he was not about to give in. He wanted her, and he wasn't going to let her drive him away, no matter how desperately she pleaded.
He had nothing with which to counter her arguments because he was afraid she was right. Still he wasn't about to admit defeat. Wildly trying to formulate a plan of attack, he stalled. He pasted onto his face the most confident smile he could muster and said as jauntily as he could manage, "So just come for a visit now and then...we'd love to have you."
He might as well have punched her. She gave a small, wounded gasp and staggered back from him another step. Daniel, too, reacted with a startled exhalation as though shocked by what he'd seen and heard.
"What?" Jon asked in confusion while she put a hand to her mouth and quite obviously struggled to fight down tears. Daniel stepped over to her as though she needed him to hold her up, and Jon thought whatever he'd just done he'd lost the one ally he'd had.
"Maggie?" he asked reaching out a hand to comfort her.
She flinched away from him. "Don't," she said, but it was only a whisper and somewhere she'd lost the conviction and certainty he'd heard in her voice before. He suddenly knew that the tables had turned. Somehow he had gained the upper hand. He was determined to not lose that advantage.
"Look at me, Maggie," he commanded her. She trembled as she lifted her head to obey him. He stared into her eyes and said, "It's going to be all right." He moved to her then and put his arms around her. "It's going to be all right," he said again. "I love you, you love me...everything else will work out."
His words were blatantly untrue no matter how much he wanted to believe them. She knew better, but...
Even without Daniel's aid, she'd almost succeeded in getting away from him. Almost. Of all times, why had she made the mistake of looking at him right when he'd for just that instant become Jack? And why whenever she needed him to be mild-mannered and easy-going Jon did he speak to her with Jack's deceptively quiet but absolutely determined voice? Hadn't this already been hard enough?
Still, she might have rallied, might have gathered her wits and her strength and struggled on if not for Daniel. He'd put a hand on her shoulder and said, "You can't fight this--anytime, every time it's going to happen, no matter what you do. You can't fight it, and you don't want to. You only think you should. Give it up...stop trying to keep it from happening and start trying to make it work."
Faced with such overwhelming odds, she's had no choice but to surrender.
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