Gen. Jack O'Neill

Jack has experienced his fair share of weirdness over the years. There's the whole Stargate thing, for one, which basically jump-started his triple black ops career and there's everything he's experienced from the Goa'uld to the Replicators to the Asgard hijacking him more or less against his will and that hasn't even touched the weirdness of the island.

Oh yes, the island. Hotel California wrapped up in an innocuous little paradise wrapping, that was the island, except the part where his former self somehow managed to jump ship only to come back older and with less of a memory. Yeah. That hadn't been awkward at all but he and Carter had pushed through it somehow. He thinks it probably helped (a lot) that Carter had all these memories of being in love with him and married to him and starting a family together - Jack was pretty quick to hop on board that ship because, honestly, that's all he'd ever wanted anyway. But the island had a tendency to screw with people when they least wanted or expected it so what should have been an idyllic little existence was a little on edge and he and Carter were always looking back over their shoulders to make sure the furniture hadn't come to life or their kids hadn't disappeared or, heaven forbid, one of them didn't disappear again.

Carter had gotten through that with grace. Jack isn't so sure he would have been able to manage losing her. She's always been the stronger one.

Today, though, he's not thinking about anything weird. It's a nice little Easter, warm and sunny, and there's nothing weird attacking the island and his kids are happy and healthy. Janet's toddling around on chubby little legs and William's thoughtfully picking up every Easter egg and examining it within an inch of its life before putting it in his basket and it's sweet, in a way, to get to engage in this kind of relaxed domesticity. He pushes open the door to their house and herds the kids inside.

"Get a move on, kids, you're going to miss lunch." Jack leaves the door open for Carter and follows the kids inside, frowning a little when the interior of his little island-built house looks a hell of a lot like a swank hotel and nothing like the house he and Carter had built with their own two hands.

"Carter? You got my six back there? Looks like the island's up to tricks again." Seriously, he's convinced this place is run by Ba'al, even though Carter says that Ba'al's turned up his toes and is completely eradicated. That seems too good to be true, just like this hotel thing that's just shown up inside his house.

"Better leave that door open behind you, too. Might need to make a quick getaway." Janet starts barreling off toward God only knows what and Jack just hopes his knees hold out until she's an adult because he's seriously, seriously too old for this crap.

With one newly-bandaged thumb and a stern warning from Sam-clone the doctor, Jack heads back home. Except, since he's so close to Sam's place anyway having been at the Compound, Jack decides to swing by and see about her and the kids before he goes home for the night. Maybe he can keep from spilling the beans about the house he's building until there's, you know, an actual house to show off. He doesn't suspect he can keep it secret for long but he wants to try.

He's feeling a lot better since he got the good drugs at the clinic (for a given amount of good - it's still really just aspirin, isn't it?) and he's in good spirits when he knocks lightly on Carter's door.

"Carter? You home?"

Jack has been spending the last few days getting his new digs cleaned up and kid-proof because that's an actual concern for him now. He's never really been too terrible but years of being on a desk instead of in the field has bred out some of the order and the neatness and replaced it with good, old-fashioned "just leave shit everywhere."

But that's not good enough for William and Janet and Jack wants to do better. He's mostly got it all sorted out and is settled on his little couch with the fishing tackle his previous version had gotten for some holiday present. Jack had been pleased to learn his boat had not disappeared when the island came back and he wants to go out in it as soon as he can.

He's tying flies when he hears a knock at his door and figures it's either one of two people: Carter, or Jane. Both have small kids so he takes a moment to put all the tackle away before going to answer the door.

He is not going to earn himself a trip to see Carter's twin in the clinic if he can possibly help it.

Of all the fool damn things he’s done over the years, Jack is pretty sure that diving into icy cold water is way, way up on the list. McKay needs him to drain the jumper bay and apparently the only way to do that is to dive down there, look around for some switch, and flip it. McKay seems to think it’s pretty obvious but apparently Jack’s having an obtuse day - none of these controls seem obvious in any sense of the word.

The cold seeps in almost down to his bones and his lungs are burning from lack of air. He can hold his breath for a decent amount of time but he’s got no idea which of these switches he’s supposed to be pushing or pulling. Nothing to do but go back up and bark at McKay until he can give him a better description of what is and isn’t obvious on Atlantis. Damn Ancients. Why couldn’t it have been one of those ATA activated things where he could just think “open” from up on the ground, dry, and skirt around this whole mess?

When he breaks the surface again, Woolsey is there looking all expectant-like and Jack wishes like hell he had something to tell him. Thing is, he doesn’t and Woolsey isn’t the one he needs to talk to anyway.

“Did you do it?” Jack shakes his head and holds out his palm. “Radio.” Woolsey hands it over with a minimum of fuss but he’s still hovering and Jack knows that he’ll have to feed him something just to keep him from panicking and revealing their position. First things first, he’s got to talk to McKay.

“McKay. You and I have very different definitions of the word obvious.” McKay squawks a little, out of his element, and Jack interrupts him. “There are dozens of controls down there and I wouldn’t even know how to describe.” Still, he and McKay come to some kind of consensus that the emergency switch should be toward the middle of the console and extremely prominent. Jack hopes, for everyone’s sake, that he’s right.

He’s not really fond of going back in the water but a little cold water’s hardly the worst thing he’s faced in twenty plus years of a decorated military career. If Sheppard and his team can pull off this rescue, it will have been more than worth it for Jack to get hypothermia and frostbite. More than worth it. He takes in a deep breath and goes back under, swimming to the center of the room and pushing at a likely switch.

It seems to be draining the room, so Jack releases it, only to see the water rush back in. Great. One more trip topside to inform McKay that he’s a complete idiot and he’s back in the water again, hopefully for the last time. He pushes at the switch and ignores the burn in his lungs, ignores the way his vision goes black around the edges. When everything starts feeling fuzzy and he feels light-headed, he keeps holding on, knowing that everyone’s fate pretty much depends on Sheppard and the rest of them getting into Atlantis to take it back from these damn replicators.

He focuses on that, the rescue, and it feels like time slows down and he’s suspended for a little while. The big difference is that he feels like he’s sprawled out on a flat surface and while he’s wet and cold, it doesn’t feel like he’s underwater anymore. He gasps in a deep breath, chokes on it, and spends the next few seconds coughing and sputtering and wondering where in the galaxy he’s wound up. Replicators. Of course. Like as not, he’s in a room somewhere with some alien’s hand in his head and none of this is even real. When he hears footsteps, he decides to go on the offensive.

“Look. You’re not getting anything from me. Hell, I don’t even know anything. You captured the wrong guy if you wanna know how to get from Pegasus to Milky Way because I don’t even know how the damn gate works, much less that bridge Carter and McKay dreamed up. Completely out of luck.”

There. That should satisfy them, right?

Jack and Sam had talked about kids and about how they wanted to try again but they hadn't really...actively tried. Oh sure, there was sex, plenty of it, but for some reason Jack thought maybe it'd be a little better if they made it special and, besides, it gave him the opportunity to spoil Sam some and that was never a bad thing.

So he picked up around the hut and tried to make it look nice and even put on a clean tshirt and jeans instead of the fishing gear he'd been wearing lately. Trying to make an effort was hard work.

Jack hadn't fought with Sam very often and while he thought they were probably on good terms again, this was the longest they'd gone without you know since they'd finally, officially hooked up.

Maybe that was a stupid thing to be worried about but Jack had worried. He wasn't so good at the talking thing, especially when it came to his feelings, and it was a lot easier and a lot more genuine to express his love and admiration in a caress down Sam's neck and shoulder or a kiss that went on so long that he saw stars.

She was over in her "office" again and Jack rapped lightly at the door frame, giving her what he hoped was a charming grin.

"You busy, Sam?"

Last weekend had been full of the kind of excitement Jack was just out of practice for. Sure, back when he'd been on SG-1 and especially when he'd been in special forces he was used to going days without sleep and being ready on a moment's notice but he just wasn't cut out for that anymore when he was used to lazing around on the island. Today wasn't an ITF day, thank God, and Jack took his time waking up, just enjoying being warm and cozy with Sam instead of jumping up to do whatever needed to be done.

...Sam never slept this late. Jack squinted and checked his watch. After eight. Sam never slept this late, even if he'd kept her up the night before.

"Sam? Getting lazy on me or something?"

Since waking up in that weird timelooping thing, Sam hadn't exactly been her cheery self. Jack had never really known her to stay blue for very long and it eerily reminded him of all the fights and trouble they'd had early in the relationship. He gave her distance for a few days, even went to the Independence Day barbecue without her, but since she didn't seem to be getting better he decided he wanted something to cheer her up. Easier said than done on a deserted island, but Jack thought he'd try.

He looked for shells, but there hadn't been any that caught his eye. He wandered down to the compound to see if there was any chocolate (isn't that what women wanted when they were blue) and he was pure out of luck. On a lark, he wandered down to the clothes box, wondering if he could find a funny t-shirt or a silly hat like the ones Teal'c used to wear. Instead of pulling out either of those, however, he pulled out a pair of socks with rocketships on them. Huh. Was that the box's way of telling him Sam was getting cold feet about the marriage? Hard to get more obvious than that; she was the definition of cold feet.

Still, the socks amused him, and he tucked them into his pocket before heading back to the hut, cheery grin on his face.

"Guess who has a surprise waiting for them?"

[Continued from here]

Jack was quiet for a few minutes, chewing over what Carter had said. It sounded like him, apprehension about promotion, but if Carter (and everyone else, it seemed) thought he'd done a good job at general maybe he'd do a good job at the whole council thing, if it was meant to be.

The walk from the compound to New Atlantis was never long, as much as he traveled it, and he glanced between his hut and Carter's.

"My place or yours, Sam?"

Island life meant a lot of fishing and sitting around twiddling his thumbs but at least the ITF provided him with something to work toward, even if it was Special Forces reserves or something. Something was better than nothing, after all, and it gave him the motivation to do the intense PT that he hadn't really done since showing up on the island.

PT was easy when you were in the field; running for your life didn't really seem like work so much as...running for your life. Jack tried to keep that in mind while he swam and ran and hiked until his lungs burned and his knees twinged. He'd still run with Sam later but he...he'd been having a hard time sleeping since the night she'd stayed with him and he refused to acknowledge that might be because she wasn't sleeping next to him.

He knew Sam would probably be awake; it was first light now and she had always been an early riser. Still damp from the shower, he brought her coffee just the way she liked it and some fruit from the compound and knocked on her door, hoping he'd catch her before she went to go fiddle with whatever she was fiddling with these days.

"Sam? You up yet?"