It takes three more days for the other shoe to drop, and by the time it does, Cam's like to jump out of his skin with the waiting. When it comes, it's eleven o'clock on Friday afternoon, and the world outside is white and perfect with new-fallen snow. The house full of children have mostly packed themselves into snow gear and gone out to build and conquer forts in the back forty. He's not listening for the car -- he made himself stop jumping at shadows, because he was starting to get some penetrating looks. He's sitting at the kitchen table, with his laptop in front of him and a mug of coffee going cold, and the doorbell comes as a complete surprise.

"I got it," Carter yells, thumping down the stairs, and Cam can just hear the choked off "oh, God" as Carter opens the door, which tells him that it's gotta be one of the official government cars sitting out in the driveway and a bunch of men in uniform on the other side of the door. Carter's wife is in Qatar right now, and she's not the only one who's overseas.

Cam closes his eyes and braces himself. The murmur of voices from the hallway is indistinct, but he can imagine what they must be saying. He knows how he would write the script: reassurances first, because no matter that this whole pageant is as scripted as a reality TV show and staged for one single purpose, the man who's directing it still knows what it means to be kind. Then the requests, no less ironclad for being phrased in a gentle fashion.

He closes the lid of his laptop and pushes it out of the way, then gets himself up from the table. He wants to be standing on his own two feet when his curtain cue comes.

A minute later, Momma is leading the party of callers into the kitchen, her voice drifting ahead of her. "--happy to help in any way we can, General, but I just don't know how much help we can be," she's saying. Cam's already reaching for the cabinet doors, ready to fetch down glasses for the sweet tea Momma's going to be offering any minute now. He doesn't turn around when he hears the kitchen doors open.

"This is my son, Cameron," Momma says, and Cam takes a second to make sure he's not going to be giving anything away with the look in his eye before he turns around.

Momma's standing straight and tall, but Cam can tell -- by the look on her face -- that she knows something's going on here. The men who've come to call are two and two: two in class As, two in suits and ties. Cam doesn't recognize either of the men in suits. One of them has a broad and welcoming face, cleanshaven, brown-haired, looks to be in his early forties; the other is older, his dark hair streaked through with grey, wearing a pair of glasses and holding a briefcase. Cam doesn't know the man in the Marine dress uniform and the colonel's silver eagles, but he knows who it must be: Colonel Reynolds, from the SGC, the man JD once called maybe the most competent man left there. And he knows the man in the General's uniform, and it hurts about as much as he thought it would to see Jack O'Neill standing in his momma's kitchen and looking back at him.

O'Neill barely spares Cam a glance. "Colonel Mitchell," he says. There's nothing of JD in his eyes, in his carriage, but Cam can read the undercurrent anyway: don't screw this up.

"Retired," Cam says. He holds up his cane. "Not my choice."

It isn't fair that he can read O'Neill and O'Neill can't read him, but he thinks O'Neill might get the message he's trying to convey: yeah, I know. "This is Colonel Reynolds," O'Neill says, making the introductions. "Agent Barrett. Agent Martinson. We need to ask you a few questions."

Cam doesn't pay Martinson any more attention than he pays any of the rest of them, no matter how much he'd like to. It isn't every day that you find yourself having to invite someone who's on the payroll of the only Goa'uld (known to be) active on Earth into your momma's kitchen, and it's harder than he thought it would be to keep from wanting to put himself in between Martinson and the rest of his family, no matter how little use he'd be if it came down to a fight. "Colonel," he says, instead, nodding to Reynolds, who nods back, his face impassive. "Agents. What can I do for you?"

"I'll leave you to it," Momma says, "and keep the rest of the house out of your hair."

She makes a move to the door, but O'Neill holds up a hand. "Sorry, ma'am," he says. "We're going to have to talk to you all, if you don't mind. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience."

Cam can see Momma's spine straighten -- Generals or government or God himself, nobody tells Momma what to do in her own house. But she flicks her eyes over to him, and he doesn't know what's showing in his face -- doesn't know what he's giving away -- but whatever it is, it makes her nod. "All right," she says. "Cameron. You pour these gentlemen something to drink while they tell us what they're here for."

"Jonathan Nielsen," Martinson says. "We need to know everything you might be able to tell us about his current whereabouts."

It's a song-and-dance more delicate than any Cam's ever done before. And if JD'd had his way, it would have been honest, or at least less pretense; JD had been planning to get up and walk out with nothing but a time-delayed email telling Cam what to say when this party came calling. Cam's glad he put his foot down, because if he'd tried to play this as an improv, he would have wound up fucking it up. Even with knowing, even knowing that Martinson is the only interrogator who actually believes a word of what he's saying, it's hard as hell to hear them spinning a tale of JD as someone wanted for questioning by Homeland Security.

They're careful. Very careful; there's a part of Cam that feels like it's watching the whole thing play out from a distance, critiquing the performance and giving the director's notes, and that part of him is amazed at how thorough a picture they can paint just by laying out the broad brush-strokes and letting their listeners fill in whatever details they need in order to make the story make sense. They've had practice, Cam thinks. Lots of it. He sticks to the script: he doesn't know anything about where JD might have gone; he's frantic with worry, been looking everywhere. (Carter hadn't said a word when they'd filed the missing-persons report with the police, but his silences had spoken volumes.) He doesn't know anything at all about what JD might be involved in, hasn't seen anything that might make him suspicious.

"Nothing?" Barrett asks, leaning forward across the table. Cam thinks he would almost like the man, if they'd met under different circumstances. There's a sort of integrity to him that Cam can see, shining through the bureaucratic nonsense. But no matter how much he knows Barrett's just playing a role like they're all playing roles, no matter how much JD had accorded the man a grudging respect, Cam can't forgive him the lies. "Books. Papers. Emails, maybe, or phone calls you might have overheard -- anything that might make you suspect where he's gone and what he's gone to do. Mysterious packages --"

Momma interrupts the litany. "I think I'd see what went on under my own roof," she says, tart and sharp. And Cam's just about to open his mouth and try to steer it back on course, because he knows what impressions he's got to get across, when he sees Momma do something amazing; she looks at him, just one quick glance, nothing more, subtle enough that he knows nobody else in the room would see it. And she finishes, as smoothly as though it had been what she'd been intending to say all along, "But he's a quiet boy, and God only knows what goes on in that office of theirs."

Cam wants to close his eyes in relief, but he can't. Can't afford to. Can't afford to give anything away. "I haven't --" he says, playing confused and uncertain and just a little lick of scared. "I haven't seen anything. I don't know what you're talking about. He wouldn't --"

"We just need to talk to him," O'Neill says, sliding smooth like butter in under what Cam's saying. "I don't know how much you know about his past. But we think he may have information that's vital to the security of the nation."

It's hard, so hard, not to break out laughing, in the midst of all the drama -- because really, there ain't nothing wrong with Cam's sense of irony, and this farce is taxing it whole. He can't think of anyone who has more information vital to the security of the nation, by which O'Neill means planet, than JD does. He knows damn well that they lost JD once -- when JD skipped town instead of staying put where they left him -- and he knows how relieved certain parties were when JD was through falling off the face of the earth. They both knew it would be naive to think that JD hasn't been under surveillance since the moment he showed up in Cam's apartment. This is exactly how it would have played out if JD had disappeared again for real.

Right down to the cover story they're feeding him and Momma, and O'Neill and his entourage are playing like they know the real story and think Cam doesn't, and Cam's playing like he doesn't know a damn thing even though he knows damn well O'Neill knows he does, and the whole thing is starting to feel like a French bedroom farce. "I don't --" he says, schooling his face into the expression he's been practicing since the minute he woke up to find his bed alone and empty. "I don't know anything. I just -- I woke up and he was gone, and he didn't tell me anything, and I don't know what happened to him and I just want him back --"

It's easier than he thought it would be, to make his voice crack and break. He can see, out of the corner of his eye, Martinson's expression of disgust. Something to play with there, then. Cam knows full well that the file on JD includes the fact that he and JD are partners in every sense of the word, and apparently Martinson has a problem with it.

Good. It'll make this easier.

Momma's getting angrier and angrier as O'Neill and his entourage go through question after question. Cam can tell. He stretches out a foot under the table, knocks it against hers; she tosses him a look, quick and sparse, and buttons her lip. Plays the part to the hilt, for all that Cam couldn't risk filling her in on what her part would have to be ahead of time: momma bear protecting her cubs, fierce and unwavering, but not stinting in recounting her suspicions, either. It hurts to hear Momma talking about how she's always known there was something not-right about JD, because it could have all too easily been real, and if it hadn't been for their conversation a few days ago, he would have thought it was. And Momma's anger is too real to be faked, and Cam knows full well what its source is: he's brought this home to her, and it's the one thing he didn't want to do.

He's in the middle of letting Barrett and Martinson quiz him carefully about JD's past -- and it's damn tricky to keep from stepping on his own tail, because they're good, coming at things from every different angle possible, doubling back and charging forward and always trying to trip him up -- when the back door opens and Spence, in t-shirt and sweats, comes charging in. He's out of breath and sweaty; he'd been out for a run. And Cam's heart swells with pride for his baby cousin -- no baby any more -- because Spence snaps to attention as he sees who's in the kitchen and stares off into the distance, not looking at Reynolds -- who Cam knows damn well Spence last saw right before Christmas, as he was leaving the SGC -- and says nothing more than "sirs."

Cam doesn't look at Martinson. At all. He keeps his eyes on Barrett, who was the one who'd just been asking him questions, and he doesn't let himself stop to pray that JD was right, that he and Sam and O'Neill had managed to get the SGC records altered so Skipper and Spence's slots are listed as Corporals Maria and Melissa Ramirez, late of Boise, Idaho, and he doesn't let himself hope that Spence remembers everything Cam told him to say when they'd finally gotten a chance to have that conversation. Because this is the one weak spot. Martinson's access to SGC data is limited -- if it hadn't been, they'd have all been sunk long ago. And Ba'al needs to be able to verify that Cam's still friends with Sam, that Sam brought Teal'c home for Thanksgiving, true enough. But having Spence on the SGC payroll might just strain things a little too far.

"At ease," O'Neill says, mild and genial. "What's your branch and station, soldier?"

"Captain Spencer Griffith, General, sir," Spence says, his eyes still fixed on the wall. "Air Force. I'm with the 566th, Information Operations out of Buckley."

Momma's eyes narrow a bit -- she knows that's a lie; Spence's official papers read him as being attached to NORAD, just like Cam's official papers had listed him with the 414th out of Nellis. But she doesn't say anything, just chalks up another point against Cam for the day of reckoning he already knows he's in for when O'Neill and his company leave. There's nothing Momma hates more than feeling like she's being played, and Cam doesn't have a way to tell her that this play isn't for her benefit.

Another round of introductions. O'Neill tells Spence to have a seat; Spence grabs himself a glass of water, drapes a towel around his neck, and does. Barrett and Martinson take Spence through the same set of questions they were asking Cam, and Spence fields them magnificently. He's worse at hiding his dislike for Martinson than Cam is, but that's okay. Doesn't have to like the guy in order to lie to him.

Cam hates lying -- always has -- but he's good enough at it when he has to be, and Spence is better at it than Cam thought. Although he should have suspected; he still doesn't know what Spence and Skipper were doing before the SGC came calling, and JD won't tell him, only said that their record was damn impressive, and Cam knows what it takes to get an 'impressive' out of JD. And he knows that all of this is critical -- that it's vital for Martinson to be able to go back to his superiors (his real superiors) and say not only that the Mitchell family had no idea who and what they were sheltering, but that O'Neill and his people -- at the SGC, at the NID, at Homeworld -- are frantic to get JD back. But it's annoying, more than anything else, really; playing a role like this is wearying, and the only thing that keeps him going is the knowledge that JD's playing a far more potentially-deadly role, and this is what's going to prop him up.

Miranda and Carter usually do a pretty damn good job at keeping the rest of the house in check, but they can't keep the screaming hordes quiet forever; after about two hours in, Cam hears AJ waking up from his nap, howling himself stupid, and it makes him want to bang his head against the table, because -- as much as he loves his nephew, and he does love his nephew -- right now all he really wants to do is shove a sock in his mouth. And sure enough, after fifteen minutes of crying, Miranda comes in with a frazzled expression on her face and the baby in her arms. "Cam, I'm so sorry to interrupt you," she says, "but I can't get him to shut up --"

"It's all right," Cam says. He holds out his arms. "Give him here."

And AJ looks like he's not going to stop fussing -- he's worked himself up to a good solid tantrum, the kind that he's been having more and more frequently in the past few days, the kind that can't get resolved by anything short of strapping him into a baby-sling and pacing miles of floor back and forth until it lulls him off to nothing more than quiet hiccups and the occasional whimper. The most Cam can hope to do, really, is to keep it from getting worse (and there's a little bit of Cam that hopes all the yelling gives Martinson a migraine that will last into next week). But Cam takes AJ anyway, cradles him in his arms because he took off the sling when AJ went down for a nap, and AJ shuts his mouth mid-howl and stops.

Except he's not looking at Cam. He's looking at O'Neill. Quiet and fascinated, his big baby eyes fixed on O'Neill's face and a look on his face that Cam would call 'puzzled' on someone older.

Shit, Cam thinks. Because Momma's sitting right there, and Momma's not an idiot.

He stands up -- can't juggle baby in two arms and cane in one hand, and he's aching today, down deep in the bones where putting weight on his bad leg is like swords pushed through his hip, but there's nothing to be done for it -- and says, "'Scuse me for a minute, gentlemen, I left the baby sling out in the office, and if I don't get him tied up and a pacifer in his mouth, y'all ain't gonna be able to hear yourselves think."

Three people -- Spence, Miranda, and Momma -- all look like they're about to offer to go give him a hand. He forestalls it by limping (every step a mile) towards the door; he's gotta get the baby out of here. Because he doesn't want Martinson anywhere near his nephew; because he doesn't want AJ anywhere near O'Neill. Momma doesn't look like she's cottoned on, yet -- it's not like AJ won't hush for Cam, half the time, at least -- but the last thing he needs is more questions.

Behind him, he can hear O'Neill say -- to Miranda, must be -- "If you don't mind, Miss, the agents would like to ask you a few things." And then there's the scrape of chair against floorboard, and O'Neill's footsteps, so much like JD's and so much not. "I'll join you out in the office, if you don't mind me taking a look around, Mr. Mitchell."

Cam minds about as much as he'd mind root canal, but he doesn't have to like any of this. He just has to do it. "That's fine," he says, still facing the door, and takes another step. Then another. It's only a couple hundred feet out to the barn; he can do it. He's gotta.

He's just set his teeth into his lower lip and taken the first step down the porch stairs -- no good way to do it; if he leads with the bad leg there's a chance he'll fall forward, if he leads with the good leg there's a chance he'll fall back, and either way he's heading for a bruising and he's cursing himself for pride and stubbornness and swearing to all the heavens that he doesn't care how bad he hurts himself as long as he doesn't drop the baby -- when O'Neill's hand closes around his elbow. And if there's anything he needed to remind him that O'Neill isn't JD, that they're two separate people with their own separate ways, it's that; JD would have known not to touch. It's only the fact that Cam's arms are full of baby that save O'Neill from an elbow to the gut. "Steady," O'Neill says, in his ear. "I've got your cane. Give me the kid."

And yeah, root canal, but there's no better way to do it. Cam hands AJ over; AJ gurgles, and bangs a fist against O'Neill's arm. Cam takes the cane, cursing its necessity, cursing the fact that he can't even walk down a flight of fucking stairs without needing to be rescued. "Thanks," he says, gritted out from between clenched teeth.

"No problem," O'Neill says. To anyone watching -- and Cam knows there are people watching -- it looks like nothing more than a mild level of solicitousness, appropriate for an important man to be offering someone who's got information he needs. He knows O'Neill nurtures the image of someone who likes to give a hand when he can, anyway. "Come on. Let's go find the evidence he planted."

This close, Cam can smell him. O'Neill doesn't smell anything like JD does. Cam's not sure if that makes it easier or harder.

They make it out to the office, and Cam's never before been more grateful for the fact that there aren't any windows -- either in the office, or in the part of the barn Daddy and Uncle Roy use for a workshop, though he knows damn well that someone's run out to tell them that they have visitors (and he's pretty sure Momma somehow managed to convey the information that Daddy should stay put until he's needed, no matter that Momma's been right where Cam could see her the whole time). He shuts the door behind him and O'Neill and drops down into his desk chair, rubbing at the muscles in his thigh -- they're seizing up again -- and reaching for his bottle of narcotics, which he keeps out here because the door locks and so does the desk and he's always had JD at hand to be his legs when he needed them.

"You can put him in the playpen," he says, to O'Neill, while he's trying to get the pharmacy bottle open (fucking things aren't just child-proofed, they're everyone-proofed). "Sorry to stick you with him. Had to get him out of there before Momma saw the way he was staring at you."

When he looks up, he's a little startled to see the way O'Neill's looking down at the baby in his arms, with both pain and longing written across his face. He's more startled to find that he can recognize them both, because it's nothing more than a crook of the mouth, a narrowing of the eyes. But he knows that expression. "Why's that?" O'Neill asks.

And Cam sighs, because -- for all that O'Neill is-and-isn't JD, for all that he swore up and down and sideways that he would treat O'Neill like a stranger -- there's still a part of Cam, down deep where the lizard hindbrain lives, that recognizes him. And he knows how much this is going to hurt. "Because he took the idea into his fool head that JD's the closest thing he has to a daddy, and it's hard to tell a three-month-old why his daddy's gone away."

There's a second where the words don't -- quite -- penetrate through whatever shield O'Neill's built himself to get through this whole muddy nightmare. Cam sees when they do; it's a flash, a spike, of pain so deep, so quickly buried, that it makes Cam realize just how fucking far JD's come. Had come, even before Cam knew him. Because the man standing in front of him hurts so much, in so many different directions, that Cam's amazed he's even still standing.

But all O'Neill does is nod, and his hands are gentle as he sets AJ into the playpen. Cam isn't exactly looking, but he can't help but see the way it takes an extra second for O'Neill to pull back, the way O'Neill's eyes are sharp with regret as he turns away. O'Neill looks nothing like JD, really, unless you're looking, unless you know. But the eyes are the same, and Cam can't help but read them.

"So," O'Neill says, after a minute of silence. "This is awkward."

The drugs haven't kicked in yet, and Cam would really like to hold this conversation off until they do, but where he could tell JD just shut your damn fool mouth for five minutes until I'm not ready to die from hurting, all he can say to O'Neill is, "Yeah. Yeah, it is." He closes his eyes and presses down with the palm of his hand against the muscle along the outside of his thigh, which repays him by radiating waves of white fire down the entire length of his leg. He only manages to stifle the moan because he's in front of someone he has to consider company. "Let's just ... not talk about it, okay?"

"Yeah," O'Neill says. "Good plan." He pauses again. "We're pretty sure he made it. And we haven't heard anything that makes us think Ba'al hasn't fallen for the story."

It's welcome news, and later on, Cam knows he's going to take it for a comfort. Right now, it doesn't help. He lifts a hand and knocks over the stack of papers sitting on the desk -- better for verisimilitude -- before reaching for the other stack, the one JD left buried for inquiring eyes to find. "Yours," he says. It's the pile of stuff that'll make anyone who looks at it think that JD's been researching Farrow-Marshall for a few months; the irony of it is, they had to dummy it up. JD had been smart enough to keep from leaving a trail. "I got the duplicate of his laptop all ready for you to cart away, too."

"Yeah," O'Neill says. "Thanks. If I come out of here with goodies, I can probably convince Martinson that he doesn't need to come out here to look."

"Wouldn't find anything, anyway," Cam says. "He's smarter than that. Still. Be nice not to have to clean up a trashed office after y'all leave."

It's weird, he thinks, how neither of them is saying JD's name. Or maybe it's not weird at all.

There's another minute of quiet. Cam can feel the pain receding a little; he took two pills, which is double his doctor's suggested dose, but he's been living with this pain long enough to know that it's set in now, and double the dose isn't going to do anything but take the edge off. He remembers when he used to get lightheaded and swoony when he took them; these days, the most he can feel is his stomach telling him it might be time to lose his lunch. Which he hasn't eaten, today, and he knows they're not going to get around to until after the entourage has departed. Momma might let them in her kitchen, but she's damn well not going to feed them.

He's about at the point where he's ready to decide that he and O'Neill are just going to sit here, quietly ignoring each other, for as long as it would be reasonable for O'Neill to be searching the office, when O'Neill says, "The two of you. You're --"

Hundred different ways that sentence could end, and O'Neill doesn't pick any of them. He just trails off, and Cam tries to read the look on his face, but for once he can't. "We're what?" he asks.

"Happy," O'Neill says. Half question, half statement. Like he's looking to confirm, or condemn, or maybe just describe.

And Cam can't look at him, because if he looks, he'll want to -- well, he doesn't even know, which is why it's safest not to look. He picks up the rattle that's sitting on his desk -- relic of yesterday, when he tried every single damn toy in the office to catch AJ's attention, and none of them did a damn thing -- and turns it over in his hands, just to have something to fiddle with. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah. We are."

There's a lot more he could say; comfort he could offer, absolution he could grant. The secrets of all the things JD found, in those two years he was out looking, the things O'Neill doesn't even know he needs. But it's not Cam's place to offer them, and he doesn't think O'Neill wants to hear.

"I look at you," O'Neill says, soft and quiet and fast like if he doesn't say it all at once he won't be able to get it out at all, "and I know that you know things about me that I never wanted anyone in the world to know. And I don't know who I blame more: you for knowing them, or him for telling them."

Cam makes himself fold his hands over the rattle, keep his head down. "They're his, too," he says.

The noise O'Neill makes is agony. "You have no idea how often I think about going back and stopping Loki before he ever touched me."

And there's something in the way O'Neill phrases it -- the nuances of word choice, the rhythms of delivery -- that makes Cam know, know, he's not talking about hypotheticals. He doesn't know half of what goes on at the SGC, half of all the weirdnesses and outrageous things they've encountered over the years, but he knows this from nothing more than the way O'Neill said it: it isn't a game of let's-pretend. O'Neill could. Whatever form their time machine might happen to take, they've got one, and O'Neill knows how to work it. And it makes Cam see red, makes him want to rise out of this chair and lash out, strike out, because this is a threat and he's had enough of things threatening what happiness he's managed to find.

"Don't you say that," Cam says, and when he lifts his head to stare O'Neill down, there must be something of his temper showing in his face, because O'Neill's face goes blank and shuttered and he knows it for the same look JD used to give him when the shouting was about to start. "Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare. You left him with nothing. Nothing. He didn't ask for this and he didn't want it, and you threw him out the minute you could and you didn't give a shit whether he lived or died and he knew that. He thought he was you. Thought he was himself. And then he found out he wasn't. And don't you fucking dare sit there with your bare face hanging out and tell me that you begrudge him one inch of the life he's managed to make for himself, don't you sit there and tell me you wish you'd killed him or think about killing him now, because you know what, General? It'd still count as suicide, and I'm sorry if your fucking conscience fucked off to Pegasus, but that still don't mean you get to wreck the life he made from yours like you been trying to wreck your own."

He's got just enough presence of mind to remember to keep his voice down, because Daddy and Uncle Roy are right on the other side of that wall, because God only knows who else might be standing right outside the door and straining to hear. He's had enough practice to know just how far voices will carry. So instead of the full-on holler he wants it to be, it's low and soft and vicious instead, and he can see that every word is going straight to O'Neill's heart. Because O'Neill might have known that Cam knew, but hauling out Daniel Jackson is a low fucking blow, and Cam's ashamed of it the minute he hears the words coming out of his mouth.

Would be ashamed of it. Should be ashamed of it. If he weren't so damn fucking livid. Because he knows, he can tell, that O'Neill thinks of JD as nothing more than a -- than a mistake, a copy, a duplicate. Some kind of doppelganger chimera that doesn't deserve to live. And Cam knows, in that minute, that he'd do battle with O'Neill ten times over and kill the man with his bare fucking hands if he so much as thinks about doing something about it, because JD is his.

And he can see O'Neill taking it to heart. In those few words, Cam has done more to make the totality of his and JD's relationship become real to O'Neill, make it rear up and present itself and shove itself into O'Neill's face, than any number of facts and statements and pictures. Because O'Neill could know that Cam and JD were working together, O'Neill could know that they were living together and sleeping in the same bed, O'Neill could see the two of them together and their casual ease, and all of it could have been explained away, if O'Neill had been determined enough not to see. But the wild unrestrained fury Cam's presenting him now, the instinctive and primal need to defend, is something that only comes from love. Love that runs so deep it can't be anything other than what it is.

It's no easy thing for O'Neill to swallow. Cam sees it, and the blend of pain and envy and anger makes him bite back some of his own temper, because as much resentment as he's carrying for Jack O'Neill on JD's behalf -- and it's so much more than he'd thought it was -- he still doesn't take any delight in hurting people who don't deserve it. So he makes himself take a deep breath, let it out on a sigh. "I'm sorry," he says. "That was uncharitable, and uncalled-for, and I shouldn't have said it."

"No," O'Neill says. "No. You shouldn't have."

Back to the silence, and this time it's enough to fill the entire room. Cam buries his face in his hands, tries to keep a rein on his breathing. He's on edge, and he's been on edge for days, and he knows this and the simple fact of knowing should mean he knows better than to let it all loose. He's learned enough self-control over the last few years, and they're playing for all the marbles this time, and he and O'Neill can't afford to be at each others' throats. So he breathes. "Once this is all over," he says, to his hands, giving O'Neill the courtesy of as much privacy as he can, "we'll get out of your hair, and you'll never have to see us again." It's as much of a gift as he can offer.

And maybe O'Neill hears it for what it is (peace offering, promise, a hope Cam's giving to himself as much as he's giving it to O'Neill) and maybe O'Neill just wants to cut the conversation off at the knees. "I'll hold you to that," he says. But maybe there's something else going on in his head -- and Cam can guess at what it is, because he knows JD, knows him, like he knows his own self by now, and JD came from O'Neill and shared history doesn't ever go away -- that makes O'Neill keep going, because he says, sounding like the words are torn out of him, "I am glad he has you."

Cam has an idea of what that costs O'Neill to admit. For JD to admit to any kind of need had been unthinkable, before Cam had taught him that need doesn't mean weakness. For O'Neill to admit to any kind of need -- by implication, by inference -- has to be about as welcome as those men in suits are in Momma's kitchen. It says something, that O'Neill is willing to say it, and it makes Cam feel small and petty in the face of such a gift. O'Neill is raw and aching just as much as Cam is, being forced to confront this evidence of a life he could have been leading, and still he's capable of reaching out and giving Cam what comfort he can offer. It's surprising grace, and it drives home once again the fact that Cam's sitting across from the man who the man he loves used to be.

The seeds of JD were planted in the man he's sitting here with now, and even though Cam's pretty sure that it would take a miracle to get O'Neill to travel down the same road JD found -- or a set of circumstances so bizarre that there's no hope in hell they'll ever be repeated -- it doesn't mean that O'Neill doesn't deserve his respect.

It makes him realize that the overtures O'Neill was making, the desire to know (to confirm) that Cam and JD are happy, came not from a desire for small talk, but from conflicting impulses, a need to know like the grotesque and morbid fascination bystanders have for a car crash pileup warring with a need to think of it as little as possible lest the walls he's built up inside of him break down at the worst possible moment. O'Neill's been torturing himself already, Cam thinks; when he thinks of Cam and JD, the man must vacillate between regret and envy and revulsion. O'Neill is smart enough to know that he can't have what JD has without a damn lot of work done on a damn lot of uncomfortable things, and O'Neill is in a place where the things he'd need to do to get there are unthinkable. But that doesn't stop him from wanting to know what they are.

And it just goes to show, this is a day of irony, because Cam spent a few long hours a few nights ago explaining that very impulse to JD -- the need to know, the simple fact that knowing is better than not-knowing, because the things you build inside your head are worse than anything reality can offer -- and even at the end, JD didn't quite understand it, while O'Neill does. Cam wonders at what point JD stopped being able to see that. Had to have been early. Had to have come from the fact that he knew he'd never be able to know the details of the rest he was missing, the things in O'Neill's life that just plain weren't his anymore, and Cam's known for a while just how much that sucked for JD, but it's been a long damn time since he had it driven home so sharply.

So he reaches out and grabs O'Neill's wrist, and he ignores the part of him that wants to say familiar, beloved, mine. O'Neill's skin is vibrating, like he's touch-starved and hungry, and he doesn't pull away. "It wasn't easy," Cam says. Picking his way through all the things he could say, all the things he shouldn't say. "None of it. We fought like cats and dogs and there were times when we wanted to kill each other and half the times he went slamming on out, I thought he just wasn't coming back. He's got a rage pinned up inside him that's deeper than anything I've seen before. And I can't say whether that's his or yours or something you share --" even though he can, he knows, JD's told him enough for him to be able to guess; it's not his place to say, though, and O'Neill won't thank him for the knowledge. "But I can say this. He got past it. He made himself get past it. He said that the best thing he figured out how to do was to be honest with himself. And I met him when he was already well on the way to getting there, but it's the thing that saved him. It's the thing that made us possible."

Cam remembers something JD said to him once, about O'Neill: he's carrying a hell of a burden because nobody else will, and all he's trying to do is serve a whole bunch of complicated truths. JD's truths are just as complicated, but at least he knows what they are. Cam doesn't finish what he's saying, because the next thing that he could say, the logical conclusion his words lead to, is if he can do it, so can you, and you'll probably be happier for it. But he knows O'Neill knows it's where he's going, and the expression in O'Neill's eyes is equal parts anger, fear, and desire.

O'Neill pulls his hand back. "Yeah, thanks for the lecture," he says, in the tone that means he wants to say anything but. "You got anything else you want to throw in my face?"

Cam knows that tone, though. It means O'Neill is thinking about something. All Cam can hope is that his words might find fertile ground.

He shakes his head. "No," he says, quietly. Feeling old, feeling exhausted, feeling wrung out. Can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped; he's learned that lesson a thousand times over. But he has to add, "For what it's worth, I am sorry."

"Way it goes," O'Neill says, and looks away.

Cam sighs. The drugs have given him just enough of a cushion that he could get up, if he wanted to, if he had to. He doesn't. Want to, that is. But they've got things to do, still, and just because he doesn't want to do them doesn't mean they don't need done. "You about ready for round two?" he says.

O'Neill lifts a hand and rubs it across his face. "Yeah. Yeah, let's get it done. Sooner I can ditch that weasel, the happier I'll be."

With a task to finish, it's a bit easier between them. Cam grabs his cane and uses it to snag the milk-crate sitting halfway across the office, ready to accept the things they're willing to have O'Neill haul off. It's only a minute's work to get it packed up, and a minute after that to test whether his leg's going to hold his weight before he straps the baby into the baby-sling and squares his shoulders. "C'mon, then," he says. "They also serve who only stand and pitch a holy fit in the kitchen."

O'Neill's lips quirk before he gets his face back under control. Then he's out the door, striding across the lawn -- just slowly enough that Cam can keep up with him, and it's interesting, isn't it, that O'Neill knows a cripple's pacing well enough to make it look natural. Cam follows, taking a second to get himself braced for the fit he's about to throw. And it's easier than he thought it might be to take fear and turn it into a good impression of fury; by the time he hits earshot of the kitchen, he's worked himself up to a fair head of steam.

"You can't just do that," he's shouting, as he gets his way up the stairs, and against his chest, AJ is whimpering in sympathy. He feels awful for putting the kid through this, but he couldn't just leave him in the office. "You can't come in here and haul off my things like that. Where's your fucking warrant? I need that stuff, we've got a contract --"

His daddy's sitting at the kitchen table by now, with the rest of O'Neill's entourage questioning him and making notes, and it makes Cam wince -- inside, where nobody can see it -- because he's about to behave badly, and he never likes doing that in front of his daddy. But O'Neill is turning to the other men and saying, "Got what we came here for. We can clear on out now," and Cam grabs O'Neill by the shoulder and spins him on around.

It's only the fact that they're play-acting that lets Cam do this, because if it were in deadly earnest, he'd never dare. "I want answers, General," he snarls, and it does feel good to let out a bit of the worry he's been building up, in the form of a shout and a holler. "You come into my home, you question my family, you and your people insinuate that my partner -- who is missing, by the way, and don't you think that I'm not worried sick about him -- is up to no good, and you are not going to walk off without telling me what the fuck is going on."

"Cameron," his daddy says, sharp rebuke, and Cam whips his head around.

"I'm sorry, Daddy," he says, and he is, but there's nothing for it and it can't be helped. "But I want answers. I'm not going to stand here and listen to JD be accused of something he didn't do, not anymore --"

"Cameron," his daddy says, more insistent this time, and Cam can't help it; he shuts up. He's been programmed to listen to that tone of voice for as far back as he can remember. His daddy settles himself on both his forearm crutches and gets himself up out of the chair. "You be quiet and let these men do their job."

Cam's feeling sick to his stomach -- Lord only knows what his daddy's thinking, and Lord only knows what he's said already -- but he makes himself shake his head and keep playing his role. Momma rushes in from whatever task she'd gone on to, Spence right behind her. "What's all the shouting for?" she asks, and her eyes are darting back and forth between Cam's face and O'Neill's. And Cam's tired, he's worn straight through, but he gets through the fifteen minutes while O'Neill and his men gather themselves up and get themselves gone, railing imprecations down on their heads the whole way. Martinson makes it a point of thanking Daddy for his help before they leave. Cam's all twisted up inside, and he wants nothing more than to hide under the table and never crawl back out. But all he does is slump down and brace himself for the aftermath.

"I'll call around, see if anyone I still know knows anything," his daddy says, in a low voice, when it's just them again. "See if I can figure out where they're from and what they want. See if I can figure out what that boy's gotten himself into."

There's disapproval there, but Cam knows it won't matter. JD might not be family to Daddy, but Cam is, and Daddy knows enough to know that what concerns JD concerns Cam, too. Daddy might not like it, but it doesn't mean he won't deal with it. It doesn't matter how much you disapprove, family's still family. He opens his mouth to protest, because he knows his daddy still knows enough people, here and there, to accidentally stumble on something he shouldn't -- not enough information to figure out what's going on, but enough to put him in more danger -- but thank the Lord, Spence is already there to save him.

"I'll do it, Uncle Everett," Spence says, quick and firm. "I know more people who might know something than you do. Uncle Cam, can I use the phone in your office?"

Translation, I wanna talk to you, and Cam grits his teeth and gets himself upright again. He unstraps AJ and hands him over to Momma. Momma's looking at him like they're going to have words, and Cam is suddenly fucking sick of unpleasant conversations with his family. He wishes to God they'd gone back to Austin first, before all of this got set into motion. Except then he wouldn't have anyone at all, and maybe that would be more of a burden than doing it this way.

"Yeah," he says, to Spence. "You can help me clean up the mess they left."

Back out to the office -- oh, the walk is getting further every time Cam takes it, today, and he's grateful for the space to call his own, but he wishes the outbuildings weren't so damn far -- and Spence is looking at him the whole way, but he keeps his mouth shut until they're both ensconced in the office with the door locked. And it might be three o'clock in the afternoon, and he might have taken his pills half an hour earlier, but Cam fumbles out the keys to the desk and pulls out the bottle of Scotch and the two glasses he's got stashed in the bottom drawer anyway, because if any day's a day for drinking before the five o'clock whistle, it's today.

"Let me get that," Spence says, and Cam surrenders the bottle with nothing more than a faint sigh of irritation. Spence means well. And Cam owes him a lot, after running interference today.

"How'd it go while we were out here?" he asks. He knocks back the shot Spence holds out for him -- not as much as he would have portioned out for himself, but yeah, probably better to have let Spence pour; Cam's got a heavy hand when he's stressed, and he's been trying to watch himself, because all of his shrinks in rehab told him to be careful of using alcohol as a crutch and he doesn't want to find himself falling. "How bad am I gonna have to clean up when I go back in there?"

Spence pours himself a double and drinks half. His face is thoughtful. "Not too badly, I don't think. Aunt Sassy knows something's up. She kept giving Martinson the end-run. He was the one you were playing for, right?"

"Yeah," Cam says. He's not surprised that Spence saw it; he's been nothing but impressed by how Spence has been handling himself through all of this. He always knew his cousin was damn smart, but smart and quick is a blessing. "And the General says that JD made it in, they think, and there's nothing to make him think that Ba'al's not buying the story. Plays to all his weaknesses, JD says. All goes right, JD's on his way to being Ba'al's right-hand-guy right about now."

The frustrated clone. The Xerox. The discard, used and abandoned, thrown away. Somewhere on the other side of the country, Cam knows -- maybe now, maybe yesterday, maybe tomorrow -- JD will be walking into the Farrow-Marshall headquarters, walking straight up to Ba'al, and telling Ba'al exactly who and what he is. The copy, pushed aside, trying to build a life for himself and shove down all his thoughts of vengeance and retribution, until it turns out that his lover is friends with the people who wrote him out of the story. Enough to push him over. Enough to kindle that slow and burning anger that Ba'al knows full well JD, O'Neill, is capable of. You and me, Skippy, we've got issues, and I don't like you and I'd kill you in a heartbeat, but you're the only one who can help me get revenge. Against him. Against them. Whatever you're planning, sign me up. As long as I get to be the one who kills him.

JD says it's going to work. JD says Ba'al trusts enlightened self-interest more than he would ever trust another Goa'uld, no matter how much use Ba'al could get out of the information tucked inside JD's skull. JD says he'll sing like a canary and tell Ba'al everything he wants to know, string him along right proper, and JD says he can make sure the thought of putting a snake in JD's head never crosses Ba'al's mind. JD says O'Neill will be able to feed corroboration, back through the people Ba'al has planted in the NID, and JD says he can give Ba'al a good enough show that Ba'al won't ever doubt.

JD said trust me.

"That's good," Spence says, but he sounds dubious, and Cam knows why. Because the risk isn't that they won't be getting JD back alive. The risk is that what they get back might look like JD and walk like JD and talk like JD, with JD trapped somewhere behind the snake's eyes, screaming.

JD made Cam promise, before he left. If it comes down to it, if there isn't any other choice, Cam's going to have to be the one to free him.

And it's all too much, it's all too raw, and the glass that was in Cam's hand makes a beautiful fragile sound as it crashes against the back of the office door and splinters to the floor. Spence doesn't move, doesn't even flinch, and Cam can't bring himself to look over to see the sympathy in those knowing eyes. "I want this to be over," Cam says, into the silence. "I want this to not be happening."

"I know you do," Spence says, and gets up to sweep up the glass.

. : | read comments - post comment - back | : .