Stargate SG1 Fan Fiction ❯ The Secret Life of a Major General ❯ Chapter 25 ( Chapter 25 )

Chapter 25

Hotel Room, Washington, DC
June 11, 2005
Afternoon

Sam sat on the edge of her hotel bed in Washington. Head hanging in her hands as she worked over her confrontation with the general. In particular his last statement, and the concessive information that had followed, that had so confounded her that she had not been able to gather her scattered wits before the general had escorted her from his house saying it was time for her to leave so he could settle the twins into their afternoon nap.

His sister’s? The twins that looked so much like Charlie from the pictures on display on his house, were his sister’s? Why hadn’t Daniel mentioned that fact when they’d spoken together about the general having children? It would have saved her the incomprehension and then stuttering response when Jack had said those words to her less than an hour ago in his kitchen.

Who she thought were Tyler and Emily O’Neill were actually Tyler and Emily Mayer. His sister and brother-in-law had been killed in a car accident back in January of this year and he had become their guardian.

Sam raised her head from her hands. But why then had he toyed with her when asking ‘did it matter?’ In fact, why did Oceanus’s DNA reader say she was the mother of those twins? And why had Oceanus and Athena been transported off base by an Asgärd-like beam and only the hosts returned?

Sam’s face hardened as she set her jaw, suddenly determined to solve her questions.

And she knew just were to start. With the DNA samples of the general’s that DET 3 had on hand. Samples that was kept to measure the strength of other ATA gene carriers and used to temporarily fool the gene locked technology of the Ancients for accessing low level databases and such.

When the personal cell phone sitting on the bedspread beside her rang Sam flipped it open. She growled underneath her breath when she saw the caller ID. She did not have time to talk with her fiancé as she needed to get back to Nevada but knew he would pester her relentlessly by calling until she answered. Something he had done ever since her kidnapping.

Sam pushed the talk button. “Hi Pete.”

“Hi babe,” Pete’s voice came through clearly. “Where are you? You didn’t answer your house phone.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said dismissively. “I won’t be coming to Denver this weekend, remember I told you I was going to be shopping for dresses with Cassie.”

“I know, I just thought that maybe—”

“Pete, the wedding is on July 3rd. I need to get those dresses this weekend and go for a last fitting of my gown. I’ll be down next weekend and we can book transportation and mail the invites then.”

“I just want to see you Sam.”

“You saw me last weekend Pete,” Sam reminded him as she stood up and grabbed her overnight bag from the hotel chair. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you sometime tonight.”

“Promise?”

Sam sighed at his whiny tone. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I just miss you and want to talk.”

“Well I’m sorry,” Sam exited the hotel room and headed for the lobby to check out, “but I’ve got to go.”

She snapped the phone shut and then powered it down to keep him from calling back. Clipped to her waist was a BlackBerry, a recent purchase that only a select few, like the base, Cassie, and Daniel had the number for, which meant Pete would not be making any calls to it. So she had no concerns about being out of contact with the base with her cell phone powered off.

As she moved up the line at the counter Sam found herself impatiently tapping her foot on the tile floor, eager to get back to Nevada.

Having put Emily and Tyler down for their afternoon nap Jack found himself at loose ends as he leaned against the glass door of the backyard patio. Unsettled from the earlier and very unexpected appearance of Carter on his doorstep.

He knew in retrospect he had handled her questions horribly. It would have been better if he had just said that they were his niece and nephew as he’d done when they had move to the kitchen and explained the whole thing about the Mayers.

But being face to face with her and her questions… it had disturbed his mental equilibrium more than any undercover mission ever had. A fact he cursed, knowing that it was with her and the other two of his old team that he needed those deception skills the most for.

No one would ever hear from him the truth of the siblings’ creation. No one.

Their safety depended upon it.

Kerry was out of his life now. Had been since he had been released from the hospital, and with the official reprimand in her files at using official resources to investigate a personal issue—her lover’s children—he knew that she had gotten the warning from himself and that black mark on her record and would keep her mouth shut.

After recovering the siblings his next concern had been the goa’ulds themselves knowing and revealing that knowledge when the AF debriefed them. He shuddered to know how the AF would have reacted and what scrutiny they would have given to Emily and Tyler’s fabricated background and questions they would ask of him.

Jack thanked whatever true gods out there that Hel had not been averse to removing the goa’ulds from their hosts before the debriefing could happen. And while Hel’s interference was a risk itself, no one had been able to positively ID the transportation method or had Kinsey or Mayfield been aware that they had been beamed onboard an Asgärd ship.

Jack run a hand though his greyed hair and sighed heavily—pleased his ribs no longer protested at the deep breath. They had healed well from Athena’s staged car accident.

There were too many pieces to this lie and it just kept getting more complicated. If more lies were added to this already carefully constructed house of lies then he knew, that like all complicated lies, it would come tumbling down like the proverbial house of cards.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” Jack muttered beneath his breath as the hand he had raked though his hair dropped to his side. Turning from gazing out at his small backyard, he headed into the house and up the stairs to the photo frame that held a picture of the twins beside his bed and shared the table space with an older picture of Charlie.

It was a picture of Tyler and Emily playing in their wading pool some weeks ago, snapped by Kerry as the twins did their best to douse him with buckets of water. The frame was a beach themed with painted sky and sand and beach pebbles and a shell decorating it: ordinary. Or so it looked.

Jack rubbed one of his fingers over a particularly pearly coloured pebble. The stone registered his genetic signature and transmitted it to the Asgärd vessel in planetary orbit. As he set the frame back down onto the table a disembodied voice inquired:

“O’Neill?”

“Hel, I want to talk with Oceanus again. About some of the tech he had with him in Nevada.”

“Certainly O’Neill. I shall have him prepared for your questioning.”

“Thank you Hel, and could you plan the session for tonight? After the twins have gone to bed?”

“I shall O’Neill.”