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Sam eyed the heap of junk SG-5 had brought back, and sighed. It was one thing for teams to bring in boxes of parts that someone might actually be able to put together, the way you’d reassemble a short-wave radio or a portable fusion generator. Oh, no; what SG-5 had given her wasn’t a box of components, it was a pile of shrapnel. Whatever the thing was had either exploded or been blasted with sufficient enthusiasm that at least half the parts weren’t even recognizable as parts any more. But everyone in the SGC knew she could work miracles, so they’d brought in the remains anyway.
If they only knew, she thought, allowing herself a faint, wry, smile. Sam dipped a hand into her pocket, drawing out a small and decidedly non-regulation key. She turned away from the lab table and crossed the room to her desk, where she inserted the key into what seemed to be a blank spot next to the lock of an ordinary desk drawer. A quick turn, a click from the concealed lock, and a narrow drawer popped open – which should have been impossible, since there was no space for a drawer of its particular dimensions behind the panel in which the lock had been installed. Ignoring the blatant violation of known physics, Sam took her wand out of the extra-dimensional drawer, closed it, and went back over to the table.
She studied the heap of shrapnel for a moment, frowning thoughtfully, then took a deep breath and focused her mind – not on any particular image, since she had no idea what the device might have looked like, but simply on the raw, abstract concept of wholeness. Then she swept the wand lightly over the alien material and said, “Reparo!”
Before her eyes, the whatever-it-was knitted itself back together. First, the shredded metal and plastic rewove itself into things that were recognizably components of something; then the components put themselves together with the deft elegance of a Rubik’s Cube restoring itself to its original ordered state. Sam let out the breath she’d been half-holding, smiled to herself...
“Um, Carter?”
...and nearly lost her balance as she whirled to find Colonel Jack O’Neill standing behind her. Her wand flew out of her hand as she stared at her commanding officer. For several moments, she stood frozen in a state of pure, unmitigated panic. Oh, hell. I wonder how much he actually saw?
“Sir!” she said, not nearly quickly enough. “What are you doing here?”
“Wondering what the hell that just was,” he said mildly, waving a hand at the newly restored artifact.
This is bad, Sam thought. This is really bad. Her usual lightning intuition had deserted her completely – but then again, it was mostly good for explaining how things worked, and just now she was desperately trying to get out of giving that particular explanation.
When in doubt, she decided at last, tell as much of the truth as possible. She drew herself up, trying to sound as authoritative as she could. “This is a piece of technology SG-5 picked up on PX7-112.” She knelt, collected her wand, and pointed with it. “The wa-um, this thing, acts like a remote to assemble and disassemble it. I haven’t figured out why that would be necessary yet, but I’m working on it.”
O’Neill gave her one of his patented inscrutable looks, nodding slowly. Oh, good, he’s going to buy it.
Then he spoke, crossing toward the table as he did so. “Riiiight. Carter, you’re a horrible liar, you know that?”
Damn. She tried an indignant glare. “Sir, I’m—“ He saw the glare and raised her a quizzical eyebrow. Double damn, he’s not buying it.
“Oh, all right,” she said, giving up. This is Jack, after all. Maybe if I play the truth card the right way.... “The thing on the table is something SG-5 brought back. This,” she held up her wand, “is mine.”
Jack raised his eyebrow again. “And it is...?”
“My wand.” And that’s all you want to know. You hate long technical explanations, remember?
“As in, magic wand?”
Uh-oh. Still, she’d committed herself. “Eleven inches, hand-carved oak, with a dragon-heartstring core.”
Jack gave her a disturbingly thoughtful look, then closed his eyes and pinched his nose. “I think I liked the other explanation better.”
Sam watched him think, hope creeping back into her mind. That’s right, let it go....
Then Jack dropped his hand, straightened, and looked her straight in the eye. “Sam, do you feel okay?”
Damn. Oh, well, in for a penny.... “Colonel, I’m not going crazy. I’m a witch. Here, I’ll show you.” Sam glanced around the room, noticed a pencil lying on the table near the alien artifact, and pointed her wand at it. “Wingardium leviosa!” In response to the spell, the pencil rose smoothly into the air, held steady for a moment, and then began fluttering as if it were writing in an invisible notebook.
“Holy hell,” Jack said softly.
Sam murmured the counterspell, and the pencil settled back onto the table. “Satisfied?” Oh, god, please be satisfied.
Jack stared at the pencil for several very long moments, then at the alien artifact, back at the pencil again, and finally settled his gaze on her.
“How?”
Right, now he wants an explanation. “Well, the physics haven’t been completely worked out, and the genetic predisposition for magical talent hasn’t...” Jack gave her a severe look, and she trailed off. Whoops, wrong explanation. “Oh. Well, then. My great-great grandmother was a witch, and the talent passed down to me. I went to school in England for seven years at a place called—don’t laugh—Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
Inevitably, Jack snickered. Sam glared at him, then sighed and went on. “I learned to control my magic there; I had a really excellent Transfigurations teacher. Professor McGonagall and I still keep in touch.” Although what she’s going to say about this.... “So. Is that the how you wanted?”
Jack gave her a sideways look. “England, huh? Is that why you have that funny accent some of the time?”
All right, where did that come from? “No,” she told him, “that’s because I’m really a Canadian.” Jack being Jack, either the snark totally failed to register or he was deliberately ignoring it. “Of course that’s why, sir!”
“I see,” Jack said, packing a whole paragraph of moral superiority into the two words. “So, this is how you work all those miracles?”
“Only some of them,” Sam told him, her mood lightening. “It isn’t all that useful for figuring out how alien technology works – and besides, for my last three years I mostly did independent study in physics rather than developing a magical specialty. Mostly the magic is good for putting really broken things back together – and saving time for more important things.” She twitched her wand in the direction of one of her microscopes, murmured a Latin phrase, and smiled as a small cloth appeared and began polishing. “Housecleaning, laundry, filing – every hour I don’t spend on trivia is one I can use to do real work.”
Jack nodded very slowly, his eyes firmly focused on the floating polishing cloth. “So,” he said, in a tone that carefully hadn’t quite committed itself to being his official colonel’s voice, “were you planning on telling anyone about this little talent of yours, oh, ever?”
Uh-oh, Sam thought again. Damnit, Jack, you really do not want to go there.
Aloud, she said, “It’s not allowed, sir. There are rules against it. I could get in very serious trouble just for telling you right now – which means I’ll have to do a minor memory charm here in a moment, so you’ll forget this conversation ever happened.” Kind of a shame, really, but rules are rules.
“Whaaat?” said Jack, his voice edging sharply toward Official Colonel Mode. “I don’t think so, Major.”
“It really isn’t my call, sir,” Sam said. I hate this, but I don’t have a choice. “As I said, there are rules, and treaties in place to make them stick. As far as I’m aware, the only Muggles – um, non-magical humans – allowed to know of the wizarding world’s existence are the spouses and close relatives of a witch or wizard.” ”
“Treaties,” Jack repeated. “Riiight. So even if I gave you a direct order not to mess with my memory, you’d still have to cast the spell or – what, be sent to Alcatraz or Siberia or wherever it is they keep dangerously antisocial witches?”
“That would be Azkaban, sir. It’s a prison. In England.” Sam eyed him hopefully. If I can just make him understand it’s necessary, maybe he won’t fight me on this.
Jack nodded. “I see,” he said again. “And I suppose there aren’t any exceptions written into the treaties for military officers using witchcraft in the performance of their duties.”
Sam blinked. That’s a good question. “Not that I know of,” she said, “but I can find out. In the meantime, though, I’ll still have to block your memory of this conversation. If it turns out there’s a military exemption, it’ll be easy to remove the spell.”
“Just a moment, Major,” Jack said, raising a hand. “Are you telling me that if I did give you a direct order not to mess with my mind, you’d go right ahead and do it anyway?” His tone might have been borrowed from General Hammond at his most severe, but his eyes told another story.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” Sam told him. Her own eyes met Jack’s, reading the shared memory behind his expression. Our doppelgangers from the world next door might have had their problems – but this wouldn’t have been one of them. That Jack O’Neill, being married to that Dr. Sam Carter, would certainly have known about his wife’s...unconventional talents. This one – well, that was another story, and that particular out wasn’t available. She lifted her wand to cast the spell...
...and Jack, suddenly looking very uncomfortable, gently reached out and pushed its point downward again.
“Did I ever tell you,” he asked, “how I happen to have a fishing cabin in Minnesota?”
“I don’t believe so, sir,” Sam said, totally confused by the apparent non sequitur.
Jack took a deep breath. “It used to belong to an uncle of mine – Uncle Tobias Blake O’Neill, to be exact. I spent a couple of summers with Uncle Toby at that cabin when I was a kid, maybe ten or eleven years old. He was a great guy – took me fishing, camping, taught me a lot of survival stuff. And then one night I happened to see this enormous silver-white owl fly into one of the cabin windows—”
Sam sucked in a sudden astounded breath. An owl? When he was eleven? “Colonel, sir,” she asked in a dazed tone, “are you trying to tell me you’re a wizard too?”
Jack’s expression had you’ve got to be kidding written all over it. “Perish the thought,” he said firmly. “Magic makes my head hurt. Uncle Toby, now – he really was a wizard; when I went inside, I caught him stroking that owl like it was a house cat and making our dinner appear out of nowhere because he hadn’t caught any fish that day. He had to explain about magic and owl-mail and a bunch of other stuff, like the wizard school over on the other side of the lake.”
“I don’t – but how – wizard school?” The data didn’t make any sense, and neither Sam’s scientific nor wizardly expertise was helping her untangle it.
“Breathe, Major,” Jack told her, a mixture of sympathy and exasperation in his tone. “Like I said, I’m not a wizard, and neither was anyone else in my family – except Uncle Toby, that is. Apparently we plain old mortals do have wizard babies once in awhile.”
Sam breathed. “It does happen,” she admitted. “Which is one reason the genetics are, well, fuzzy. You said there was a wizard school up there, too?”
“Camp Hollowhill,” Jack said promptly. “Uncle Toby went there, he said – seven-year plan, just like yours – then stayed on and taught for quite awhile after that. He didn’t interact much with the rest of the family, though. My parents thought he was a little weird.”
“They didn’t know he was...gifted?”
Jack laughed. “Oh, no. I was the only one he ever told. He died a few years ago – he was quite a bit older than Dad – and I only found out he’d left me the cabin when his lawyer called. I think the lawyer was a wizard, too, but no way on Earth was I going to ask.”
“Probably very wise,” Sam said, nodding.
“I thought so,” Jack said. “But meanwhile, you were saying there’s treaty language making it legal for relatives of wizards to know about magic, even if it does make their heads hurt. Which means if I have to, I can order you not to hot-wire my brain and make it stick.” The gaze he turned on Sam now was quiet and full of strength, yet somehow mild and almost eerily bright-eyed. But I don’t have to order you not to, do I? it said, clearly enough that she didn’t need magic to read the words.
“This has to stay strictly between us,” she told him. “Daniel can’t know, or Teal’c, or Janet, and especially not General Hammond.”
“Absolutely,” Jack agreed cheerfully. “Of course, now that I know how...gifted you are, I’m sure you won’t mind helping me tidy up my paperwork once in awhile, will you, Major?”
“Don’t push your luck, Colonel,” Sam told him with a chuckle, crossing to her desk and opening the hidden drawer. “That would be an unacceptable security risk; if anyone were to catch me the way you did this afternoon, everything we’ve accomplished would be in jeopardy.”
Jack sighed. “I suppose you’re right. One slip, and you’d be gone with the wand.”
Sam groaned, resisted the impulse to turn him into a teddy bear, and put the wand away. “If you’re quite finished, sir, I do have an artifact to study...”
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