A/N: Mmmm, cheese parfait. Ug, that wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Anywho, here's you epilogue!
Jack gazed longingly at the photo in his hand. It showed a smiling Sam about six months pregnant with Maggie, Charlie standing by her side in one of his suits. The photo and his wedding ring were the only two personal items he had been allowed to bring – and now, as he sat around an alien fire surrounded by his team from Earth, he was glad he had.
"Jack? Is that your wife?" a middle-aged man asked him as he leaned closer.
The sixty-five-year-old Major General nodded, "Yeah, that's Sam."
"Where is she, sir?" another young man asked, intrigued by the softness in the General's voice. He was known as a gruff man who rarely showed any other feeling other than cynicism and sarcasm.
"She's in Minnesota, taking care of some long overdue business," Jack said, the hardness coming back into his voice.
"Is that your son, sir?" the first man asked.
"Yes, Major Carlson, that's my oldest – Charlie."
"That's Major O'Neill?" Major Carlson asked, pointing to the little boy. "Wow, he looks so small."
"Yeah, he was five in that picture. Don't tell him I showed it to you guys, okay? He'd be pretty mortified," Jack said, smiling slightly. Seeing Charlie that small again reminded him so much of all he had risked in his early life – and the early years of his marriage. Every mission he had gone on had been a risk calculated acceptable because it kept other people safe.
"How many children did you and … General O'Neill end up having, sir?" Captain Howard asked.
Jack smirked at Sam's official title. It was true, as of last month she was Brigadier General Sam O'Neill, but she would always be Samantha to him. Luckily, he was the only person ever allowed to call her Samantha, so there was never any confusion and he felt somehow privileged by the name. To most people she was Sam, to her children she was Mom, to her grandchildren she was Grammy, and to the general public she was General Sam O'Neill – CO of the Science and Research Department of Stargate Command and one of the five people responsible for keeping Earth alive during the Goa'uld bombardment from space.
"We have seven children, Captain. Two sets of twins included."
"The news only reported about Major O'Neill and Lt. Commander O'Neill. What happened to your other children?" Major Carlson asked. The conversation had attracted the attention of the rest of the team and Jack sighed, resigned to answering a lot of questions about his personal life.
"Well, when Maggie decided to go into the Navy my other three sons decided they were all going to wait until the twin boys were eighteen then go to into Annapolis to join the Marines together. You will find that there are three O'Neill's in the Marines – two Lieutenants and a Captain."
"That's right, there's a Lt. Ryan O'Neill, Lt. Ian O'Neill and Captain Phillip O'Neill. They're raising up a storm in aerodynamics and astronomy," Colonel Anderson responded. He was in the Marine's himself and had heard a lot about the brothers.
"They like to stick together alright," Jack said, shaking his head with a smile. "Those three were always like that. When one of them got in trouble at school all three would take the fall for it so the one who actually did it wouldn't get lonely during punishment."
"What about your other two kids?" a young Captain asked, she was one of two women on the team of fifteen military officers on the planet to set up a treaty with the Furlings and an off-world colony. Ten of the officers would be coming back to set up permanent residence on the planet with their families.
"My two twin girls … they decided to go against the grain of the family and not go into the military. One of them, Heidi, got her Ph.D. in physics and now teaches at a high school in Wyoming. The pay sucks but she likes it. The other one, Alexis, got her CPA and is the manager of a network of inns throughout Canada. They like to keep a low profile relative to their siblings."
The Captain – Lesley Smith – was curious about why Sam was in Minnesota, but she didn't want to say anything then. The other woman, Colonel Jennifer Hailey, wasn't as discreet in her confusion. "Why is Dr. O'Neill in Minnesota, sir?"
Jack snorted harshly, "The trial of one Lt. Colonel Mare Hernandez in regards to something that happened over forty years ago."
All of the officers were shocked at the statement, but no one said anything. Finally, Jack got up, "Let's hit the sack, campers. We've got a lot of negotiating to do tomorrow."
Sam sat through the trial, her sons Ian, Ryan, Phillip and Charlie sitting beside her in support. After she had given her testimony in regards to Mare's involvement in The Group all those years ago, there were over thirty other witnesses the prosecution called. Through it all her four sons sat by her, holding her hands, letting her cry on their shoulders, listening to her talk of her first brush with a bullet.
Mare was being tried for the rapes and murders of over twenty-five different people. It wasn't that she was involved, per ce, in all fifty crimes, but she had known about them while they had been going on and did nothing to stop them. This made her equally responsible with the men and women who committed each act.
Since it was a set of civilian charges, Mare was being charged in a civilian court. It took the jury only twelve hours to come back with a verdict. The man who was speaking for the jury stood and said, "We the jury find the defendant guilty on all charges."
Sam closed her eyes as an onslaught of tears of relief came on suddenly. Charlie walked before his mother and two brothers out of the courtroom, Phillip following to make a phone call while Ryan and Ian helped Sam out of the room. The boys were pleased with the verdict, having heard a few years before about their father's early past and the trouble he got into with The Group. Mare deserved to be killed – or at the very least spend the rest of her life in jail.
Soon they were all back on a plane to Colorado Springs, where their only living grandparent was waiting for them to arrive. Helen had died twenty years before, from kidney failure; and William had died when Ba'al had kidnapped him ten years before to try and force Jack's hand in the war.
"Hey, honey," Sam said with a smile as her husband stepped out of the wormhole behind him. He looked haggard and worn – exactly like he had just spent the last two days in a series of meetings to finalize a treaty. Of course, because he was the leader of the SGC, it became his responsibility to negotiate with all new allies. "How did the negotiations go? Everything work out well?"
Jack grunted, it was Colonel Hailey who answered, "They went as expected, ma'am. I believe General O'Neill found them … boring for the most part."
Sam smirked at her daughter-in-law, "Thank you for accompanying him, Jennifer. Charlie has been … anxious to see you, to say the least. As have Mike and Joey."
"Were they any trouble?" Jennifer asked, handing her weapon to an SF standing nearby.
Sam turned to the door as a five-year-old boy ran in, followed by a big German Sheppard and Sam's first child, Charlie. Charlie ran right up to his wife and picked her up. Jennifer Hailey-O'Neill was a good six inches shorter than her husband, but that only made the scene more humorous for the SF's watching from around the room.
"Mommy!" their son cried, rather irritated that his daddy wasn't letting him hug his mommy. "My turn, Daddy!"
Charlie laughed before picking up his son and handing the squirming boy, who took after his mother in size, to his mother. "Missed you, Mommy," the boy said as he hugged his mother tight.
"I missed you, too, Mike. Were you good for your Auntie Maggie?"
Mike nodded, his eyes wide, "Auntie Maggie let me play with her model X-302!"
"Cool," Jennifer said, trying to sound like it really was. Mike definitely took after his father when it came to hobbies.
Sam turned to her husband and hugged him, "I missed you, Jack," she whispered in his ear softly. "The trial was hard for me to deal with, but Mare got convicted on all charges, thank God."
"Yeah," Jack said, pulling Sam close as they began to walk out of the room. "I missed you, too, Samantha." He leaned down slightly to whisper into her ear, "I even wore your underwear yesterday."
Sam grinned as she whispered back, "I'm wearing yours right now."
Life was pretty good for the O'Neill clan. Babies were being born to Sam and Jack's children, to Pricilla's children, to Joel's children, the family grew and grew and grew in those years. Days were filled with all sort of problems that all families had to deal with, but at family reunions all of that seemed to just fade.
All in all, four of Helen and William's children went into the Air Force, five of their grandchildren went into the Marines, fifteen went into the Air Force, six went into the Navy, and eight went into the Army. Only ten of their grandchildren were civilians, and even from those, only four didn't work for the military. It was a military clan, and one of the most powerful families in the U.S. when Sam retired at the age of forty-eight and ran for President of the U.S. She won.
Apparently being a military brat wasn't all that bad. The O'Neill's thought it was great.
FIN
A/N: The underwear thing is the fault of a conversation I had with Chibi Horsewoman. It is also her doing that I'm going to be writing a spin-off of this story cronicling all of Sam's pregnancies and the cravings she has with each of them. If you have any suggestions for odd cravings please share. I really hope you enjoyed this - it was a blast to write.