Five adults and eight kids all in residence makes for a hell of a lot of noise. By Wednesday, which is the fourth day straight where Lucy -- who's crawling now, and has moved on to a tentative exploration of the joys of her own two feet, if she has something to pull herself up with -- nearly drags somebody's laptop off the surface of the spare bedroom they're using as an office, JD has a quiet word with Momma.

An hour later, he's running phone cable out to the workshop in the back; an hour after he's done with that, Momma must have put the word out on the family grapevine, because Ricky and Jim and Jessie turn up and start hauling things. The family's teenagers and JD have established a mutually wary pact of ignoring each other; JD doesn't speak their idiom, either body language or slang, and they know there's something wrong about him. But it's long since been family custom to bribe young bodies into doing the heavy lifting.

The workshop's an office by late afternoon, and not soon enough, because Cindy and AJ get sprung from the hospital after dinner and AJ -- for all that the doctors kept him for five days, fearing the faint echo on his heart monitor was something serious -- has a set of lungs on him that won't quit. Cam expects Cindy to take it in stride, the way she did when Lucy was born; all of their children yelled their damn fool heads off for at least the first month or two of their lives. Cindy's pale and short of breath, though, and watching her, Cam thinks they didn't just keep Cindy at the hospital to let her bond with AJ.

Momma's dancing around ordering Cindy to bed, which is unlike Momma, but she's been giving Cindy wide leeway since Ash died. Cam knows why -- Momma doesn't want to give Cindy the impression she thinks Cindy's not capable -- but if there ever was a time for a dose of Momma's pragmatism, it's now. AJ's screaming, Cindy looks near to tears, and Miranda's trying her best to get both Cindy and AJ down for a nap, but Miranda's got Jason to deal with (of an age with Lucy, but a little behind her on the development curve) and Jason thinks that if AJ can scream, so can he. It kicks off Keith (who belongs to Cousin Elizabeth, who finally wised up and kicked Keith's father out the door, right before Elizabeth's number came up and she got shipped out), and the next thing anybody knows there's three screaming babies and Lucy looks like she might be gearing up to chime in.

JD saves the day before anybody else can do much more than take a deep breath. He takes AJ out of Cindy's arms and cradles him up against his chest. "No screaming," JD says, light and mild. "Your momma's head will fall off her neck." AJ, bless the saints, shuts his mouth between one wail and the next. JD looks at Jason. "That goes for you too, kiddo."

Jason cuts off mid-howl. "Oh, thank God," Miranda says, and scoops him up to prop on her hip. "Someone find me a gag."

She means a pacifier -- family joke -- and Cam fetches one from the bowl of baby stuff that's on the counter. In a minute, Momma's got Keith, Miranda's got Jason, Cindy's got Lucy, and Cam's got the kettle on the stove to make a round of chamomile tea for everyone.

He puts a shot of bourbon in Momma's; she's earned it (and God only knows how Momma managed to deal with him and Ash at the same time, with Daddy on assignment; Gran'ma helped, Cam knows, but he doesn't doubt for a minute that the two of them were more than a double handful). He hugs Cindy, tells her he loves her, tells her Chandler and Stewart are off in the treehouse in the woods under the perfectly adequate supervision of Ricky and Jessie, and gets her and Lucy off upstairs to get some bonding time, by which (he hopes) he means "double nap".

When he gets back in the kitchen, Miranda's taken Jason off for his own nap, Momma's got Keith in a babyseat on the kitchen table and is rocking it with one hand while she sips the last of her tea with the other, and JD's pacing the floorboards with AJ's head cradled against his shoulder, bouncing him gently and talking to him in calm, low tones. Momma's watching him like a hawk, but she can't fault his handling; AJ's quiet, and that's something the pediatric nurses hadn't quite managed to accomplish any of the times they went to visit the hospital.

Cam slumps into the chair next to Momma and picks up his own tea, which is, of course, thoroughly cold by now. "We're moving to Montana," he announces, to the kitchen at large.

He's been threatening to move to Montana (three people per square mile, and eighteen cows) since he was in his early twenties, which is when the latest round of the familial baby boom started in earnest. Momma laughs, the same way she always does. "Won't do you any good," she says. "We'll just ship 'em FedEx."

"Contents may settle during shipping," JD says.

"Please God, may the contents settle sometime this year," Cam counters. He drags his hands over his face. "God, Momma, tell me we weren't this bad."

"You were worse," Momma says. "'Specially once you got your teeth in. You bit."

Been a long time since Cam's been in the house with a newborn -- he usually managed to duck the worst of it, stationed here and there and everywhere -- and he'd forgotten the part where nobody sleeps through the night, much less the baby, for the first few months. By two weeks in, everyone's exhausted and on edge; everyone in the house takes turns getting up when AJ yowls -- there are baby monitors in every bedroom -- but even if it's not your turn, you wake up anyway.

Cam's just about at the point where he's wondering how normal people do it with just two parents, let alone an entire damn house -- and yeah, they've got nine kids total and four under the age of two right now, but AJ's more work than the other eight all put together -- when he wakes up in the middle of the night to JD sliding soundlessly out of bed (dislodging the kitten who was sleeping between them) and pulling on a t-shirt.

He's mostly asleep, still, but he can't hear anything from the baby monitor. "Hmm?" he asks, and JD's hand lingers on his hair for one brief second.

"It's okay," JD says. "Go back to sleep. The Mouth's about to serenade us."

"Hmm," Cam agrees, and closes his eyes again. A minute later, he hears little whimpers from the intercom, the sound that presages a full-on explosion, and a minute after that, just as AJ's warming up, he hears JD's footsteps and soft voice, too indistinct for him to make out any words. He drifts back off with a smile on his face.

It stops being Night of the Living Dead sooner or later; they even manage to get some work done, though it only takes a few times of AJ starting up the caterwauling the minute the back door closes on Cam and JD for everyone to just throw up their hands and admit JD's the only one who can get him to hush up. Cindy's eyes are like two bruises in her face, dark and shadowed, but she doesn't begrudge an inch of it. "At least someone can," she says, and reaches across the table to squeeze JD's hand. "Thank you for taking care of him."

"My pleasure," JD says. He doesn't quite mean it -- Cam knows what sort of memories this must be stirring for him, but neither one of them have said anything about it. But Cindy doesn't see otherwise, although Cam thinks Momma might.

Not the first time one of the family babies has bonded so quick and hard with someone else -- Mary Beth was born to Sandra and David at about the same time Danielle was born to Stephen and Suzanne, and six months in, everyone involved threw up their hands and just swapped kids; it happens sometimes. JD's tolerant. After a few days of working on the kitchen table, in the middle of utter chaos, he just straps AJ into the carry-sling, and after that point it's common for Cam to see JD sitting in their makeshift office, carefully typing around the baby sleeping against his heart.

The one good thing about all of this, Cam realizes, as September shades to October and the weather starts turning colder, is that nobody's said a word in weeks to even hint that JD might not be family.

He misses their house (the peace, the quiet, his own kitchen, not having to worry about whether he's decent when he wakes up to pee in the middle of the night -- not that anyone in the family is body-shy, not really, but there's propriety to think of, and JD is never shirtless where anyone else might see his ink and Cam misses that too) but he's glad they're here; they're needed. Momma's got her hands full, and she's glad for the help in the kitchen and gladder still for the help with the kids. Daddy tries, but he's hopeless with anyone under the age of reason, although he's taken Chandler and Stewart under his wing; Chandler's old enough to be trusted with basic tools, and he's been handed some sandpaper and apprenticed to Uncle Bayliss to keep him out of trouble after school.

Cam wipes noses and bandages scrapes and listens to Sarajane (Carter's daughter, six years old and already breaking hearts) tell him about all the boys she's going to marry someday (she's up to five by now). He helps Chandler with his spelling and makes sure Stewart is doing his math homework (kid's in the gifted program, skipped two grades, even up with his brother now, and is still bored out of his mind; he's perfectly capable of doing all the math he's assigned, he just doesn't want to). After a few weeks of arguments over whether or not the math homework is going to get done, Cam finally sends Momma down to the basement for his old textbooks -- Momma never throws anything out -- and starts Stewart in on pre-algebra. Kid takes to it like a duck to water, and by Halloween he's the youngest seven-year-old Cam's ever met who can solve a basic quadratic equation.

"It's not natural," Cam complains to JD, late one night when they're both sprawled across the bed and worn straight through to the bone. "I swear that kid thinks in abstract algebra."

JD just pats him on the shoulder. "It's good for you both," he says, kindly. "Give him another two years and we'll hire him."

"Pretty sure the child labor laws won't let us enslave him until he's at least fourteen," Cam mumbles, and -- just as he's starting to think that it's been a long damn time since he's had his hands on JD's naked skin -- falls asleep.

Cam feels like he's doing three jobs -- riding herd on the herd, helping Momma tend the house as much as he's able, and trying to squeeze in as much hack time as humanly possible. He's developing a tardy appreciation for Momma -- she always made it look so goddamn easy. Miranda does what she can, which mostly involves the kids, and Cindy's flipping back and forth between sleeping sixteen hours a day (which everyone's worried about and nobody's talking about) and descending on the house in a whirlwind of activity to set it to rights.

Cam picks up as much of the slack as he can without falling over; it helps that the family children have been raised knowing that there are some things Daddy just can't do, and they widen that umbrella to include him, too. It helps that the house is built with a cripple in mind, that you can't go too far without finding a chair or a stool sitting and waiting for someone to sit suddenly down on and everybody's careful to keep toys and clothes off the floor. Even the kittens stay out from underfoot, which is partially because they actually (shockingly enough) have manners and partially because Cam accidentally set the cane down on Squeaker's tail once.

He's happy enough. With his family, being useful, being capable, being loved. Through it all, though, there's a constant simmering awareness, down where Cam only lets himself see when he's ready for it: JD is constructing himself an alternate identity that will let him walk into Ba'al's fortress, under his own power this time, and they both know there's a chance he won't be walking back out.

They don't talk about it. For all that's not being said, JD could just be working on raising a baby with half his attention and fulfilling a contract with the other half. Cam's the only one who overhears JD on the (shielded, secured) phone line they've run out to the office, talking with Sam -- mostly listening, a few scattered uh-huh and yeahs tossed in for good measure. Cam's the only one who notices that JD's up to running fifteen miles a day now, that JD disappears into the basement (where they keep the weight machine) and comes back sweaty.

Cam's not the only one who knows that JD's talked Carter into bringing him into the police firing range on Tuesday and Thursday nights, but he's the only one -- other than Carter -- who knows that it's not just a desire to learn how to shoot. Carter catches Cam alone in the kitchen after one of those sessions, looking serious and concerned. "He's not --" Carter starts, and Cam sighs.

"Yeah, I know," Cam says.

Carter studies his face for a few minutes. "He asked me not to say anything to anybody," he finally says. "And I can do that. But I need to know if you know why."

"Why he doesn't want anyone to know?" Cam asks. "Or why he knows what he's doing?"

"Both." Carter leans against the counter, folds his arms across his chest. "Is there something we need to be worried about?"

Cam shakes his head and sighs. "No," he says. And God help him, because he hates lying to his family.

But it's the kind of ticking time-bomb you can't disarm just by wishing it gone. JD disappears into town Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons, and Cam knows he's taking lessons in the dojo; JD talks happily and freely about his classes, passes them off as wanting to keep in shape. He's teaching Ricky what he knows, even, down in the basement-cum-home-gym, and he's always scrupulously careful to avoid either of them coming back upstairs with bruises.

Cam's the only one who knows that JD is taking judo, not tai chi; Cam's the only one who knows that O'Neill is rated sandan, third-degree black belt, perfectly qualified to teach. JD has the skills and the knowledge, but not the official ranking, and -- he says -- he doesn't know this body well enough to be comfortable taking it into potential combat without getting to know it better.

He'd thought JD was in supreme physical condition when they'd met. Now he knows JD considered it nothing more than merely adequate, because he's seeing what JD considers "acceptable"; he watches as JD, already whipcord-thin, turns himself into bone and muscle and callus. Momma watches, too. She doesn't say a word, but Cam can see the blocks sliding around behind her eyes as she pushes another helping of potatoes onto JD at dinner and JD wolfs them down; he's hungrier now than he ever has been, all his calories going to muscle and fuel.

At night, he holds JD, and thinks: if it hadn't been for eight hours in his life, he'd be right there at JD's side, running and shooting and training alongside him. It doesn't make it any easier to know that if it hadn't been for eight hours in his life, he wouldn't have JD there to hold at all.

"You sure you don't have anyone you want to invite for Thanksgiving, JD, honey?" Momma asks, one Friday night when she's sitting at the kitchen table making lists and building headcounts, and that careless "honey" takes Cam's breath away.

JD's doing the dishes. "No, ma'am," he says, his voice soft, and Cam thinks he hears something there, underneath the casual offhandedness. "All my family's right here already."

Not true -- or rather, partially true; JD's family is right here, but O'Neill's family is scattered to the winds. But Momma only nods. She's been told the cover story, and JD and Cam are both excellent at deflecting questions that could poke holes in it. But later that night, Momma sits Cam down in the living room with a hank of laceweight alpaca and instructions to hold his hands still, and the first words out of her mouth, after ten minutes of patient winding, are, "You wanna tell me what war he's gearing up to fight?"

If Cam drops the yarn, he'll be the one who has to untangle it. Momma's good at getting him pinned down when she needs to. "Momma," he says: wordless plea. Don't make me have this conversation with you.

"Don't you 'Momma' me, young man," she warns. "What trouble are you boys in?"

"I can't tell you," he says. "I really can't. Please, Momma, don't make me."

"You hush," she says. "Now, I've sat here and I've kept my peace for nearly a year now, and I've watched the two of you and I've thought things and changed my mind a hundred times. I've watched him take care of you, and I've watched him stand up with us, and I haven't said a word, because it's clear that whatever he's been through, whatever brought him here to us, he was raised up right. And you know your father thinks he's going to break your heart, and me, I haven't made up my mind on that one way or the other yet. But any damn fool can see that you two are into something big, and he's sure there's a chance that whatever it is, he's going to need to do something about it. And I need to know what kind of trouble is going to come calling at my door."

"It won't," comes the voice from the doorway, and Cam looks up to see JD standing there, AJ strapped in against his chest and the dish-towel from kitchen cleanup still tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He's wearing his O'Neill seeming again, something about the way he cocks his head or holds his shoulders that makes Cam painfully aware of all the decades of knowledge locked inside his lover's head. "I won't let it."

Momma harrumphs. She's surprised to see JD standing there, Cam thinks; JD is always careful to make noise when he moves around the house, and he shouldn't have been able to do his ghost-foot impression while wearing a baby that everyone in the house has picked up JD's nickname of "the Mouth" for. But her chin just comes up, and she stares him down with a look that Cam learned to fear as far back as he remembers. "Could be you won't have any choice in the matter."

"Yes," JD says. "I can, and I will. And he's not lying to you. He can't tell you. Don't ask him to."

It's like a sudden cloud passes over the sun. "Don't tell me what to do in my own home," Momma says.

Cam's daddy and JD have arrived at a truce, mostly brokered by both of them having agreed -- without anything so crass as words -- that what transpired last Christmas will never be spoken of again. They give each other a wide berth, and Cam knows JD's decided to let actions speak louder than words and give Daddy plenty of space and time to come around. Momma doesn't hold with giving things time. Momma doesn't hold with being spoken to like that, either.

"No, ma'am," JD says. "I'm not. But I love him. And I know you do, too. I'm asking you not to make his burden any harder to carry than it already is."

It's the only argument that would have a hope in hell of reaching Momma, and Cam's a little surprised -- though not at all startled, really -- to realize that JD knows it. "Don't fight," he says, and oh, that's his voice cracking, damn it; he'd promised himself he wasn't going to let this get to him. "Please, both of you. Don't fight."

"We're not fighting," JD says. His eyes are dark in his face; he's holding AJ not just because AJ screams his damn fool head off if JD leaves the room, Cam thinks. He's holding AJ because it makes him more harmless. "I'm not lying to you, ma'am, and I'm not going to. I can't tell you what's going on, and neither can he. All I can say is that your son's a good man, and he doesn't let a little thing like being disabled stand in the way of duty. And both of us have skills and knowledge that nobody can afford to waste."

Momma raises an eyebrow. She's cooling down from that first spike of temper. "Boy your age has no right saying something like that."

"No," JD says. "But I did. And that's all I can give you." He turns to go, turns back. "Except to say that there is absolutely no chance on Earth that this will come back on you. A lot of very powerful people will make damn sure of that."

Momma watches him go, her lips pursed. Cam's head is throbbing. He knows better than anyone in this house -- or better than anyone in this house but one -- how little the qualifier "on Earth" really means. "You expect me to be satisfied with that?" Momma says. It's not quite a question.

"No," Cam says. "But it's more than it's safe for you to know."

"Don't you give me that," Momma says, sharp and biting. "Don't you -- I watched you, Cameron, I watched you climb out of that bed on nothing more than guts and stubbornness and learn to walk again, and I kept my mouth shut and I didn't say a damn word about that bunch of lies they fed me about how you wound up in that bed in the first place. And I watched you looking like you'd never laugh again and I watched you fading away to nothing and I watched you climb back out of that pit and now you're talking like you're --"

Her voice breaks, and Cam's heart breaks with it. "And I buried my baby boy and I will not bury you too."

"Momma," Cam says. "Momma." He puts down the yarn -- tangles be damned; he'll be careful -- and wraps his arms around her. "It's all right, Momma, it's all right," he says, because there's nothing else he can say. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not. It's all right."

It takes a long minute before she draws back and sniffles. She lifts the neck of her shirt to blot away the tears. "Don't you lie to me," she says. "If it were all right, you wouldn't be so damn worried."

Sometimes, Cam hates living with a family full of perceptive people. "It's as all right as I can make it," he says, and it'll have to be enough.

They get back the first prototype casting from the factory -- three different logic boards for testing and burn-in, and all three of them crash and burn spectacularly. It pisses Cam off to no end -- he's in charge of the circuitry for this project; JD's writing the software. Cam had been the one to argue against using off-the-shelf GPS receivers -- not the kind you'd find on the shelves at Best Buy, the kind that the military has designed to interface with PPS, the second level of the GPS system that's only available to the military, but still. Cam didn't think that anything off-the-shelf would be flexible enough to meet their needs. He's cursing that conviction now.

They're trying to develop a handheld positioning device that can navigate, map, and retain position without having to rely on satellite uplink more than once a day or so, something that can retain a memory of where it's been and what direction it's going and build and trace a map that reflects actual terrain instead of whatever the unit's stored. Cam can sympathize with the desire -- he's gotten stuck somewhere more than once when the car's GPS-receiver was relying on an outdated map to get him somewhere and he was stuck with the cheerful woman's voice telling him to make a left turn onto a road that just plain wasn't there.

The contract, Cam thinks, is for ops that are running covert and can't risk any kind of transmission, and he can sympathize with that, too. But it's a frustrating process, and one that isn't going well. "We are out of our fucking depth here," he says -- all right, snarls -- when the third prototype gives up its little electronic guts in a puff of smoke and a really bad smell.

JD doesn't look up. "Wasn't expecting it to work the first time," he says. "Contract's got a two-year due-date. We've got time. We'll get it."

It pisses Cam off -- he's beyond high-strung at the moment, and he recognizes the anger at JD's equanimity as something that'll blow any second if he lets it. So he doesn't let it. "Taking a break," he says, and gets the hell out of the office before he can say something he shouldn't.

Their office is in the outbuilding that used to be a barn -- way back in the deepest recesses of history, when this was a working farm instead of a lot of land lying fallow with a hobby garden and a single overgrown orchard. The bulk of the barn is Daddy and Uncle Bayliss's workshop -- they're both master carpenters, though Daddy's limited to the small pieces. Cam stomps into the workshop proper, not outside; they're in a cold snap, and he's not that annoyed.

Uncle Bayliss is planing boards; Daddy's settled at the shipping bench, crating up jewelry boxes for the UPS pickup. Their mail-order business had started out as a hobby; these days, they can't fill the orders anywhere near as fast as they're coming in, and Cam knows they're up to a six-month waiting period. Daddy looks up as Cam thumps over to the other side of the bench and settles himself a little more firmly than he should. "Trouble?" he asks.

"Bad day," Cam says. "Nothing's working."

It gets him a look-over. Daddy's just as perceptive as Momma is, but he's quieter about it; all he says is, "Got some pieces that need staining. Could be working on something else might clear your head a bit."

Cam rubs his hands over his face. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah. All right."

His daddy's right, and the craft work does clear his head a bit -- or at least, the satisfaction of working with his hands reassures him that he's not a complete failure, which is something he'd never say out loud but he's pretty sure everyone, or at least JD, can read. Sometimes Cam hates being an open book. But he takes the afternoon off, stains jewelry boxes and helps Uncle Bayliss fit a replacement leg for the cedar chest Mrs. Miller from church dropped off last week -- locals always get bumped far up on the priority list -- and that night he goes back to the office and draws up the diagrams for revisions four, five, and six.

The whole thing is like waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn't ask JD how his plans are going -- there's a part of him that doesn't want to know, and a part of him that wants to know everything; he'll balance it out by letting JD decide what to tell him and when, because he's pretty sure, by now, that JD has a good sense of what he needs to know. Or at least, he's pretty sure that JD knows that keeping him in the dark forever is not an option.

By Thanksgiving, though, he's about ready to jump out of his skin, and hearing that Sam's promised Momma she's going to make it this year, come hell or high water, doesn't do much to ease his mind. Especially not when Cam hears that she's bringing someone along with her -- which has always been her right; Sam's family just as much as someone who was born a Mitchell, and when you're cooking for sixty, one or two more doesn't make much difference. JD gets very, very quiet when he hears, though.

It isn't until afterwards, when they're settled back in the office, that JD tells Cam why hearing the name "Murray" made him turn pale and quiet. "Murray's the name Teal'c uses," he says. "On Earth. I just don't know why --"

Why Sam would bring him, why he would want to come, what they've got planned. Because he doesn't think Sam would bring one of O'Neill's old team for a visit unless there was a damn good reason; Sam's not that cruel. There has to be a reason.

Sam shows up with Spence in tow -- they met up at the airport -- and trailing a guy who's big as a house and wearing a knit cap tugged down around his eyebrows. Cam never met Teal'c, and JD's never talked about him, but the minute Cam lays eyes on him, he knows what that reason was: O'Neill considers Teal'c his second-in-command, probably always will, and he's sent Teal'c to get the lay of the land. He watches Teal'c (can't bring himself to think of the guy as "Murray") watching everything and everybody, quiet and patient and unfailingly polite, and doesn't go looking for JD, who disappeared into the office the minute he heard the arrival.

JD doesn't come out until well after the ceremonial Wednesday night pizza delivery, which Momma notes (and gets squinchy-eyed about) but doesn't comment on. Cam's putting the finishing touches on the pies; Teal'c offered to help when Sam did, and Cam's been watching him while he's been watching Cam the whole time. Sam's easy with the guy, which gives him a huge check mark in the "plus" column, and he passed the Momma test with flying colors.

Of course, Momma thinks he's a scientist on loan to Sam's lab from a university in South Africa (explains the facial tattoo and the slightly stilted English; it has the sense of a cover story that's been trotted out so many times it's well-polished by now). Still, the guy's got a sort of serenity that manages to make even the kitchen on Thanksgiving Eve a tranquil place, and the kids adore him.

JD's face is composed as he lets himself in the back door, and Cam thinks he might be the only one who can see the sudden electricity crackling through the room. Or maybe not the only one; Sam leaps into the verbal fray quickly, before anyone can say anything they shouldn't. "JD. This is Murray; he's a friend of mine from work. Murray, this is Cam's partner JD."

Teal'c inclines his head. "I am pleased to meet you," he says, with the same quiet gravitas he's carried all evening. "Samantha Carter has told me much of your skills."

JD's eyes flick around the room -- taking stock of who's there and who'll overhear, Cam thinks. Cam can see him taking a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "Welcome to the madhouse," he says, shortly, and brings his hand up to rest against AJ's back. The baby's fussing, but he quiets down at JD's touch. "Anyone seen Cindy? Baby's hungry."

"Upstairs," Cam says, and watches Teal'c watching JD go.

The undercurrents are enough to drown in. He gets Sam pulled aside at the first chance he gets. "You sure this was a good idea?" he asks her.

She pulls an unhappy face. "I know," she says. "Bad enough he has to deal with me. But I don't think Ja -- the General trusts me to be able to make the call."

Cam frowns. "What call?"

"About whether or not JD's going to be able to handle himself deep under." She sighs. "And he's right. And he won't be able to be rational about it, either." She rubs her eyes. "God, Cam, I've never seen him so torn up about a decision. And we'd drop the plan entirely, but --"

"That bad, huh?" Cam doesn't want to hear this, doesn't want to think this, because if O'Neill's sending out his 2IC to assess JD's fitness, it must mean that they're close.

"That bad," Sam says, plainly. "Farrow-Marshall just filed for a series of patents that -- well, they don't come from here, let's just say. And there's talk among those who know that -- Balim -- is thinking about making a bid for political office."

Cam chokes. Yeah, that's really not good news. "Fuck," he says. It's about all he can muster.

"Yes," Sam agrees. "And you don't want to know where his funding's coming from. And we can't just send someone in to take Balim into custody -- or worse -- because of what happened with Coulson. It'd blow. There are enough leaks around the program that we really don't have more than a few years of grace left, and after that --" She shakes her head. "I don't want to think about it."

The sensation of putting things together all at once, Cam's often thought, is much like the sensation of getting hit between the eyes with a two-by-four. "That's why O'Neill's worried," he says.

Sam looks startled. "What is?"

"I'll lay you money," Cam says. "I'll lay you money that the only reason O'Neill's in Washington right now is because he knows the program's going public sooner instead of later, and he wants to be there controlling the fallout when it does."

It makes sense. It makes a hell of a lot of sense -- he's been trying to figure out what motive O'Neill could possibly have had in accepting the position, because from what he knows of JD, he knows that Washington would be their idea of the special hell. And O'Neill had seemed quiet and tired and a little bit on his way to miserable, and Cam knows -- knows -- that the ability to do a necessary but unpleasant task is something JD brought with him from his point of genesis and not something he picked up after.

"I --" Sam starts, and then closes her mouth again. "You might be right. I just don't know. He doesn't tell me what he's thinking."

There's a little bit of frustration and hurt underneath her even tone, and Cam knows why it's there. She served with Jack O'Neill for nigh on ten years. He met the man once, for less than twenty minutes. She's done something inside her head to reconcile the existence of JD with her knowledge of O'Neill, something that lets her embrace or ignore the fact that Cam's lover is the man she's been carrying a torch for for years. But the fact that JD confides in Cam, enough that Cam thinks he can read O'Neill's motivations, is something she doesn't want to face.

He tucks his cane between his knees and puts his arms around her. She holds back for a second, but when he hangs on, she finally sighs and softens. "I'm just so tired," she says, and in that sentence, Cam can hear all the years she's been fighting on the front lines and all the dreams and ideals she saw fade in the cold light of political reality.

"Come stay out here for a while," he says. He'd been planning on making her the offer -- plea, really; there's no way in hell he can keep going with the R&D on the contract single-handed, not with the added hassles of helping Momma keep house. "Could use your help with the work we're doing. And you could use some time letting Momma fuss over you. And Cindy could use a friend." Cindy's got family, but sometimes a friend can do what family can't, and she and Sam had bonded quick and fast, early on; Sam might be the person who can help pull her out of her haze.

Sam holds on for a second longer, then draws back and makes herself smile. "I'm busy," she says. "It's important."

"We've got an office," Cam counters. "Can't take classified stuff off-base, but I'll bet that you've got more'n a couple weeks of non-classified stuff to get done, stuff you've been putting off. And you haven't taken leave in longer than a month of Sundays, if I know you. And I do. Know you. You won't do anyone any good if you work yourself into the ground."

"We'll see," she says, and it has the sound of finality in it. Cam doesn't push. "We'll see" from Sam is a no more often than it's a yes, but he isn't out of arguments yet.

The sound of a door slamming down the hall reminds them both that they're in the middle of the house on the eve of Thanksgiving, and this isn't the time or the place for a detailed discussion. Cam backs off. "Think about it," is all he says, and heads back into the kitchen.

Teal'c is missing, though, and Peggy gestures to the back porch with her chin: Cam can just see the edge of JD's shoulder through the door, which is open to the screen to let off some of the heat of both ovens going full bore. He's gesticulating, wildly. Cam steps over to see if he needs to step in, and stops when he hears JD's voice, so low it wouldn't carry past the screen door. "--want to," he's saying. "And if he made you think I do, he's projecting. If you want to tell me there's no problem and you don't need me, I'm all for it."

Teal'c's voice, in return, is just as quiet. "I would like nothing better than to say that very thing, and I cannot. O'Neill has called me back to provide him with assistance, and I came willingly. Like him, you believe this to be a problem worthy of your attention. And yet I cannot believe your stated reasons are your only reasons."

"Dammit, T." JD's voice is a bleeding wound. "Don't make me do this."

Cam can't see Teal'c -- can't even see JD; they're at the wrong angle, over in the corner of the porch where the knitting circle would be if it wasn't so damn cold out this week. But he can hear both sympathy and inevitability in Teal'c's voice. "You know I must. I cannot trust your abilities if I am unsure of your motivations."

"God damn it," JD says, and Cam almost steps forward, almost opens the door and goes to hold him and soothe him and tell him it's going to be all right. Then JD is speaking again. "I miss you, all right? I miss all of you so much it feels like there's nothing left of me sometimes. I miss being useful. I miss knowing I'm doing what needs to be done, and I miss being the guy who's on the scene and calling the shots. I won't say I miss knowing I'm the only one who can take the blame, but -- you know, you know, how much it hurts to step back and let it fall on someone else's head. You know how bad I am at that."

A moment's pause. "I know," Teal'c says. "I did not ever believe I would hear you say so this plainly."

JD laughs. It's an ugly, strained sound. "Lotta things I'm saying now that I never said before. But that's not the reason I'm doing this. It's not ego-gratification, and it's not for revenge, and it's not because I want some route in to my old life. I know that's what it looks like. I know that's what he probably thinks it is, and I know that's why he sent you here. And I know he sees me with Mitchell and he can't even think straight -- I know exactly how much that hurts him, and I know why, and I'm sorry and I wish it didn't have to go down like that. But that's why I can't just let this go."

Cam can hear the creak of wood, and his mind has no problems filling in JD dropping into one of the rocking chairs and burying his face in his hands; his voice turns muffled. "I could walk away when it wasn't personal," he says. "I could lie to myself and tell myself that the country could take care of itself and that you guys had it covered and I could just step back and relax. But this -- if we're right, this threatens everyone. And I can't stand back and watch my family in danger without doing something about it. Because that's something I couldn't live with myself, knowing."

Another of those long pauses, and Cam would give a great deal to know what's passing unspoken between the two of them right now. "You are both more and less like O'Neill than I had thought you would be," Teal'c finally says.

JD laughs again. "Yeah," he says. "Fucking tell me about it." A pause, and then he says, "I learned to stop thinking of you guys as my family. I made myself stop thinking of you guys as my family. Tell him that. Tell him I've got no claim on his life anymore. I -- I want him to know that, and I couldn't say it to his face. He doesn't have to worry about me."

"I will," Teal'c says. "And though he would deny it if accused, I believe he is grateful."

Cam's just turning around -- he doesn't want them to know he was here, and it sounds like the conversation's winding down; JD usually knows when he's being eavesdropped upon and alters his behavior accordingly, but there's too much raw and open honesty there for Cam to believe it this time -- when JD adds, "If you can, tell Daniel I miss him."

Cam doesn't wait to hear what Teal'c's response might be. Doesn't wait to hear anything else. It's not pain and it's not comfort and it's not a whole lot of things; it's just proof once again that eavesdroppers rarely hear things they want to hear. He backs up from the door, not putting cane to floor lest the sound of his passage be noted, and makes his way through the (crowded, noisy, bustling, real) kitchen without meeting anyone's eye. He takes himself through the kitchen, down the hallway, around the corner into the new wing, into the bedroom he and JD have been living out of for the past three months. The bedroom JD left their house and their home to move into, to tend a family that still views him with suspicion even if they've started to welcome him as kin, all because the two of them were needed and Cam wouldn't have been able to live with himself if they hadn't gone.

It's dark in here, and quiet. Cam sits on the edge of the bed and rubs the curve of his hip, right where the cold weather has settled into his bones and left him aching. If there'd been any doubt in his mind that what he feels for JD is love, it's gone now. If it weren't love, his chest wouldn't feel so tight.

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