"I want you." Hard muscle. Strong. Male, musky, aroused. Mouth to mouth, but he would not open.
"Why? I mean, no!" Distance, loss. "Carter, this is a little-"
Mouths, again, open this time. Hands under clothes. Growl, dominance, alpha male in action. She whined submission, but kept up the pressure. Clothes tearing; free at last. Flesh on flesh. Cold hard floor. Mouths everywhere...
Captain Samantha Carter, Ph.D., USAF, shot upright in bed. Which was a mistake, she realized as her stomach rebelled against the abrupt change in orientation. She ignored the alarm clock as she brought her stomach under control, then shut it off and lay back limply. The alarm had interrupted a dream she'd had before, though it had never been that clear. The Broca virus had left its victims with only hazy recollections of what had happened after infection; those memories were mostly tied to sense memory. A sound, smell, touch, taste, all could bring flashes to the surface, but only in dreams did whole scenes play themselves out. Sam snuggled deeper into her pillows, closing her eyes to the bare white walls of her bedroom. She really needed to decorate her apartment, but just hadn't had the time.
The few weeks since the virus had been hell. First, Jonas had finally lost it for good; that mission had followed mere days after the disaster that had been the Touched/Broca virus. The side effects of the virus's extreme physical transformation and the massive doses of antihistamine hadn't quite finished wearing off, and P3X-513's intense solar radiation hadn't helped any. Add the stress of an impossible engineering challenge to a woman who specialized in theory, not practical application, and going up against a man she'd once loved, and it hadn't been pretty. Jonas had changed, almost beyond recognition, but he still wore the same face and there had been flashes of his former self.
Then they'd met the weird crystal beings. More radiation to an already stressed body, though at least that time they'd had some proper protective gear. That had been fascinating, but standing in the hospital's drab beige and concrete hall later as the Colonel embraced his ex-wife Sam had been seized by dark emotions she'd rather not put names to. She hoped none of it had shown on her face. He had every right to care for the mother of his son, and Sam had no claim on him. She had assured General Hammond that she could handle the situation professionally, as had the Colonel. It had been an alien virus, not them, and they didn't remember much anyway. No harm, no foul. Unless one of them couldn't take it, and Sam was determined not to be the one to crack. She was exactly where she wanted to be, on the front lines of the greatest scientific discovery of all time, with the greatest team she could imagine. Being transferred for such a reason might jeopardize not only her place on the team, but also her place on any team and the future of her career.
Finally, her stomach was completely settled, and Sam slipped out of bed and into her fatigues. She'd have to mention it to Dr. Frasier that morning; they had a mission the day after and there needed to be time to get the lab results back on any tests. Surely the problem was with the combination of tension, radiation and the virus; the other possibility, brought to mind by the dream, was too horrifying to consider seriously. Besides, the stresses her body had been through had to have been enough to take care of any potential ... problem.
Jack glanced around, taking care to make his dawdling inconspicuous as he made his way through the security checkpoints. Captain Carter normally arrived so punctually you could time your watch by her, but her car (a sweet 1961 Volvo Coupe) wasn't in its usual spot. Jack took his time signing in, making small talk with the guard; there was nothing wrong with noticing his second-in-command's schedule, he told himself firmly. And if he wanted to check with her before getting started on the day's work (reports, tactical discussions with Teal'c, physical training with Daniel), well, it was the best time of the day to touch bases. Once she got buried in her lab, she might not stick her head out for a while. It was all normal military courtesy. And if he told himself that often enough, he would hopefully believe it some day.
Someone came to a stop beside him. A woman's scent. Hands, arms, velvet skin over steel. "Want me?"
"Hey, Carter," he said, reciting constellations in his head as he stepped aside to give her room to sign in. Man, was he thankful for his BDU jacket's length right now. Oh, yeah. Jack's dreams had been in glorious Technicolor since the locker room incident, and he sometimes cursed his blithe assurances to Hammond. But he couldn't have done anything else to Carter. As things were, there was no official problem. If he made one, the black mark would be there forever. And a promotions board or superior officer less understanding than Hammond could kill her career with one negative endorsement.
It was different for him. Even if he'd cared about his career, he'd already made the most difficult jump; once you got to colonel, it was pretty much only a matter of time until you were promoted again. But most careers stalled before you got to that point, particularly in the support branches, such as science; as a double handicap, much as everyone tried to deny it, women in any branch of the military still had to be twice as good to get half the credit. And once you got past the rough edges, Carter was one hell of a smart, tough cookie. The Air Force needed people like her, and she deserved nothing less than the best.
Jack frowned as she finished and they made their way to the next set of elevators. She'd been a full ten minutes behind her normal schedule, and she was obviously preoccupied; she'd barely responded to his greeting. He swiped his access card and punched the floor for the commissary. Over the last few days he and Daniel had been meeting for breakfast, and they were working on getting Teal'c and Sa-Captain Carter-to join them. "So, Carter, gonna join us this morning?" he asked brightly.
"No, thanks, sir." Carter punched in a different floor as the elevator began to move. "I've got too much to do." She stared straight ahead, not even glancing at him, and he followed her lead.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," he said lightly, noting that whatever she had planned evidently didn't involve her lab. "And I hear they're adding Fruit Loops to the cereals."
"Maybe tomorrow."
"Are you okay?" he asked. There were other things on the level she'd chosen besides the infirmary, but for the life of him he couldn't think what. And she looked worn.
"I don't-" Carter checked herself. "I'm sure it's nothing, Colonel, but I want to make sure Doctor Frasier knows ahead of time so she won't have any problems clearing me for the next mission."
"Ah." Jack tried to turn his worry into a more professional concern. "Keep me informed Captain; I like to be kept informed about my team's status." And oh, God, please make that not sound as pompous to her as it did to him. The elevator slid to a stop as he dithered over what to say next. Dithering was not something he did often. But Carter was the one to break the awkward silence.
"Of course, sir." She flashed him a brittle smile as she slipped out the doors.
"So, how long before the aftereffects of the Touched virus go away, Doctor?" Sam asked. The infirmary wasn't large enough to have private examination rooms, so she was perched on one of the beds in a regular ward. As CMO, Dr. Frasier was personally handling all cases that might be related to that incident. Sam had met the shorter woman a few times, but this was her first examination by her.
"Well, judging by the majority of other cases, you shouldn't have any symptoms left. For something that alters the body that radically, I'm amazed at how little permanent damage that little beggar caused." Doctor Frasier finished drawing the blood sample. "I wish you'd come to me earlier about this, Captain; we have no idea what the long-term effects might be, not to mention everything else you've put your body through lately. We don't even have any idea if gate travel has side effects-your nausea might well be caused by that, given the reactions it caused for the first few weeks."
"Actually, Doctor, that's not a problem anymore," Sam said. Her voice became more animated as she warmed to her subject. "See, our dialing program wasn't properly calibrated to interact with other gates; that, combined with the problems caused by stellar drift was what caused the nausea. Now that we've adjusted the dialing program and are compensating for stellar drift, the side effects of gate travel-"
"I know about that, Captain Carter." Doctor Frasier shook her head. "We're still dealing with a complex piece of alien technology, and we have no idea what the long term effects will be."
"The Goa'uld and Jaffa use it all the time without problems," Sam objected, putting her jacket back on now that Janet seemed to be finished. She was cold this morning.
"Yes, but the Goa'uld and Jaffa have something we don't-a symbiote that, from what Mr. Teal'c has told me, can probably either shield them from the problem or heal any damage without any inconvenience." Doctor Frasier made a few more notes on her clipboard. "When I get these results back, I'll let you know. Now, I know this is a personal question, but have you been having dreams about the virus incident?"
Sam blushed. "Yes," she mumbled down at her hands, trying not to remember what was in those dreams. Now was not the time for that.
"Most of those who contracted it have reported having them, along with flashes of memory while awake. Have you considered seeing someone about the dreams? Or anything that's happened recently?" Doctor Frasier folded her arms around the clipboard and smiled sympathetically. "We were just assigned a psychiatrist, Doctor MacKenzie. We're sharing him with the Air Force Hospital, but he's fully briefed on our situation here. He comes highly recommended, and I'm sure he'd be able to help you if you needed anything."
"No, thanks," Sam said indistinctly. She had nothing against mental health professionals, but talking about it would make it too real for her. And then there was the chance something would slip, and others would find out. There were no cameras in the locker room; she and the Colonel had been found trying to raid the cafeteria. Half-clothed or not, the incident had been lost among a host of other similar incidents. But now the base's gossip had moved on to other things, which meant there was no covering fire. If anything came to light, there would be problems.
"Well, if you're sure," the Doctor said doubtfully. "There's no reason for you to wait here for these test results." She grabbed an appropriate pen and began labeling the vials of Sam's blood.
"Thanks," Sam said, taking the hint. She slid off the bed and went off to her lab, in search of a distraction.
Hours later, Sam had managed to forget her earlier worries. That was the great thing about her job. She could so easily lose herself in the pure, abstract beauty of the science and the puzzle of the alien technology that came with it. This particular challenge came from SG-2's last mission; no one was sure what it was, but the power signature was intriguing. General Hammond had agreed, after some restrained begging, to allow her first crack at it before he sent it off to Area 51 for more extensive tests. Not that it would have stayed there long; they were in the process of constructing a still-to-be-named complex for the express purpose of testing and storing alien artifacts, as Area 51 was a bit too notorious to ever be low profile.
Oh, now that was interesting; from what she'd been able to figure out so far, it shouldn't have done that. She wished she'd gotten all the equipment she'd asked for, but much of it had yet to arrive. She checked the readout on a machine that had arrived, frowning at what she saw. Curiouser and curiouser. Engineering had never held the excitement for her that pure science did; after all, where was the fun if you knew what was going to happen ahead of time? But taking an alien device and figuring out blindly what it was and did, now this was heaven. She just wished she'd been able to see the thing in situ; maybe that would have helped.
Her phone rang, jolting her from her musings. "Carter."
"Captain, this is Doctor Frasier."
Sam's heart sank. Her tone was ominous. "Yes?" She turned and leaned back against the gray concrete wall behind her.
"I need to discuss these test results with you. When would be a good time?"
"I'm free right now. Just give me a few minutes to wrap this up and I'll be right down there."
"That would be fine. I'll see you then."
The line went dead. Sam closed her eyes and tried to think positive thoughts about whatever it was the doctor wanted to tell her. She shook her head and pushed herself off to begin securing her lab; it wouldn't do to leave unknown alien devices just lying around loose.
As she headed out the door she ran straight into the person she least wanted to see right now. "Sorry sir, I'm afraid I wasn't watching where I was going."
"That's ok, Carter. Where you headed in such a hurry?" His tone was light, and for a brief second she hated his calm professionalism.
"I'm just on my way to the infirmary. My test results are back. I'll let you know what's up as soon as I know, sir." Sam ducked around him, eager to escape.
"Do that," he said to her retreating figure.
"I'm what?"
"I'm sorry, Captain Carter. I'm afraid you're pregnant." They sat in Dr. Frasier's office, obviously used more for paperwork than patient consultations, judging by the piles of medical files and lab reports sitting everywhere. "I'm going to have to remove you from the mission rotation at least temporarily; we have no way of knowing what gate travel does to fetuses, and I'm not going to use you as a guinea pig." She paused, and lowered her voice. "Is this pregnancy the result of the Broca virus?"
Sam nodded dumbly, still trying to process this new information. She hadn't had a relationship last longer than a few dates since she and Jonas had split, and nothing recently.
"And is Colonel O'Neill the father?" the doctor pressed.
"Yes." Sam flushed and looked away.
"Sam, you're not the only one in this position," Frasier said gently. "There are at least seven other women pregnant from this, several of them with the child of a man in their chain of command. In three cases, one or both of the personnel involved is married to someone else. Two don't even know for sure who the father is. And given the low number of women on this base, that's quite a percentage."
"What happens now?" Sam asked dully. In a way, it would be a comfort not to know who the father was. Then at least it wouldn't be fraternization.
"Now, we tell General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill the situation. The general hasn't decided yet how we're going to handle cases such as yours, but he knows that what happened is not anybody's fault. Do you want to be there when I hand him my report?"
"No." The thought of facing him with that information-it had to happen sooner or later but right now later sounded much better.
"Would you like me to be here when you tell Colonel O'Neill?"
Sam shook her head. "Could you get him here, please? I don't think he spends much time in his office, so you'll have to page him."
"Of course, Sam." The doctor smiled sympathetically. "You can use my office, if you like." She rose and skirted her desk, pausing to lay a hand on Sam's shoulder. "If you need anything, just let me know. Under the circumstances, we're looking for a good OB/GYN to add to the staff here; if there are any complications, we'll need a specialist with the clearance to see the files on the incident."
She left, closing the door behind her. Sam leaned over, resting her elbows on her knees, head and hands hanging, praying for strength and guidance. What was she going to do now? She couldn't keep it, but the thought of an abortion ... she didn't know if she could do that, either. The colonel-how would he react? Would he want to keep it, or get rid of it? If he wanted to keep it, what would he do if she wanted an abortion? Conversely, if he wanted an abortion, how would she handle it? If they kept it, would he want to be involved? And what kind of a father would he be?
Father. Oh, god, Dad. He was going to be furious and disappointed. He'd come around to the notion of women in the service and his daughter being one of them, but it hadn't been his first inclination and he'd tried to dissuade her from her chosen career. He'd see this as a confirmation of his worst fears, and she couldn't even tell him the extenuating circumstances, because he didn't have the clearance. General Hammond was an old friend of his (they'd served together in Nam), but the General wouldn't bend clearance rules for personal reasons like this. Holy Hannah, how was she going to break the news?
"Carter, you okay?" She straightened as the Colonel's concerned voice broke her solitude. She hadn't even heard the door open.
"Yeah." She gestured to the other chair. "Could you sit down, sir?" She carefully avoided his eyes.
"Ok." He sat down, and Sam took a deep breath, gathering her courage. "Carter, what is it?" he asked, when she didn't say anything.
"I'm pregnant." Sam cringed. She hadn't planned on just blurting it out like that.
There was a silence. "Could you ... repeat that?"
She glanced up, looking at him for the first time. His face was white with shock. "I'm pregnant."
"And I take it ... it's mine?" Emotion washed over his face before it closed off. Sam could see his eyes go dead as he waited for her answer. He wasn't angry as she had half feared, but maybe that would have been preferable to this cold stillness.
"Yes. Doctor Frasier can do a paternity ..."
He waved it off. "Carter, I trust you. If you say it's mine, it's mine." He paused. "You're not- you are- are you going to keep it?"
"I don't know. I haven't had time to think about this." Sam ducked her head, trying to hide the moisture in her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to lose his hard-earned respect for her by turning into a watering pot. "I've never really seen myself having kids. I don't ... I don't think I'm the mothering type, really." She looked up, but not at him. If she saw his hard face, she really would lose it. "And I've got a job beyond all my wildest imaginations, the best job I could hope for in the whole world. The whole galaxy! And I know, because thanks to this job I've seen the galaxy. I don't have time for a baby!" Her voice broke, and she closed her eyes, fighting for composure. After a second, she added in a small voice, "but I don't ... I don't think I could ..." Despite her best efforts, she couldn't prevent a bit of moisture from escaping down her cheek.
A hand touched her back, rubbing gently. She opened her eyes to see the colonel crouched beside her, the awful deadness gone. "I wasn't expecting this either," he said softly. "After Charlie ..." he trailed off and glanced away, but his hand never stopped moving.
Charlie, she thought, heart sinking further. She'd seen how he reacted to the alien facsimile of his son; obviously, he had loved the boy deeply. He'd held him close the entire helicopter ride back to the mountain, and hadn't let go of him until he left through the wormhole. To give him another chance at fatherhood, then snatch it away ... it would be cruel. Could she do that to him? It was a strike against the abortion possibility.
"But I want you to know," he continued, "that whatever you decide, I'm here for you. Whatever you need."
"Thank you, sir." Sam put her hand on his arm and regained a little bit of her composure. "This has been a huge shock, and I think what I need most right now is a chance to think, figure out what I want."
"Sure. Take the rest of the day off."
"Sir, I don't need-"
"Carter, you've just had a huge shock which could lead to a life-altering decision," he said. "You do need to think things through, and if you go back to your lab, you'll get so wrapped up in studying that gizmo you begged Hammond for that you'll forget to eat, and will probably stay late trying to figure it out." He gave her a quick smile, and she flushed slightly that he knew her so well already. "You won't be thinking about what it is you want to do. A break will do you good. You can come back tomorrow more prepared to tackle this. That's an order."
"Yes, sir," she said, getting up. She rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tears. "Doctor Frasier is talking with the General now, sir. Apparently we're not the only ... couple in this situation. Call me if he makes any decisions?"
"Of course." He had stood up with her, and now his hands hung loosely at his sides. He looked kind of confused and very worried.
Sam turned and walked to the door, not looking at him. She had enough confusion and worries herself; she couldn't handle his, too. Not right now.
"And Sam?"
She turned at the sound of her name, with the door half open.
"Call me Jack."
Jack watched the woman who was both his second in command and the mother of his unborn child walk out the door and sank back on to the chair she had just left. Man, if he ever needed a drink, it was now. Charlie's face floated in front of his eyes, as a baby, as a kid, and covered with blood as they waited for the ambulance to arrive, praying frantically. Because having another child? So much more terrifying than fighting the Goa'uld. Jack loved kids, but the idea that he might fail another one as badly as he'd failed Charlie was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat.
And that was assuming that Carter-Sam-didn't choose to get rid of it. He'd heard it all, a woman's body, a woman's right to choose, but the kid was half his. Shouldn't he get some say in it? Abortion seemed a worse failure than what he'd let happen to Charlie; at least Charlie had had eight good years in a loving home, which was eight more years than this child would have if Sam didn't want it. He understood why she might want to, under the circumstances, but still. Besides, while he'd been halfway lapsed even before Charlie and hadn't set foot in any church since the funeral, there was enough left of what his devout Catholic mother had tried to pound into his head about abortion being murder.
Pie. No beer because he was on duty, but pie was always a good substitute. It helped him think, which was part of the reason he often wrote at least portions of his reports there. Doc Fraiser could page him if she needed him. He'd mention it to a nurse on his way out.
All things considered, Sam was mildly surprised that she made it home with out killing herself accidentally and therefore solving her dilemma. Between what she suspected might be a mild case of shock and low blood sugar (she'd been so engrossed in that alien device that she'd forgotten lunch), she hadn't exactly been the best driver on the road. Still, she'd gotten home all right.
Now that she was home, the question became what to do with herself. Sam was not a person who spent much time just hanging out, and as a result was uncomfortable doing it. True, she was supposed to be figuring out what she was going to do, but she couldn't just sit around. She wished she'd made more effort make and keep female friends over the years, as she really needed someone to talk to, but working and studying in predominantly male fields as she did, the pool of women she knew was actually pretty small. And she didn't really feel comfortable talking about it with any of her male friends.
Well, Daniel seemed like a good guy, not macho and sensitive enough to try and see things from her point of view, but she didn't know him that well. And the fact that his wife had been a gift, and the way he'd reacted to Melosha's rape on the first trip to the land of the Touched, made her uncertain of how sympathetic he'd be with female issues. Teal'c wasn't exactly macho in the traditional sense either, but he was alien and quiet enough that she still had no idea what his personality was like. The colonel? He had his own issues to deal with. A list of other friends from previous postings came up with the same deficiencies-she didn't really have any friends close enough to talk about this with about something this big.
Unpacking the boxes that still sat around. That would keep her occupied while she tried to sort through her initial reaction to the news. Trying to ignore the suspicion that she was "nesting," Sam grabbed the first box that came to hand. Kitchen supplies. She didn't choose to cook often; it was time-consuming and somewhat boring. With the base cafeteria was always available, and several good places that did take-out near her apartment, it wasn't something Sam had found much need to do since moving to the Springs. Still, she was a good enough cook when she put her mind to it, and liked to have a well-stocked kitchen when she did. It was a boring kitchen with a view over the parking lot and the house next door, but the cabinets were good quality and the appliances were relatively new. All told, it was a much better kitchen than she'd had in DC, where rent was much higher.
Unfortunately, the landlord didn't allow hanging racks for pots; she put some under the stove and found a logical cupboard for the rest of them and the baking equipment. Now that she wouldn't be going on missions for at least nine months, she'd probably have more time on her hands; maybe she'd start cooking more, she thought as she adjusted the wok so it would fit. It'd probably be healthier; the cafeteria wasn't exactly renowned for its high-quality ingredients. No missions also meant no hazard pay as well, which meant she'd have less to live on at a time when her expenses would be going up; not that she'd ever spent enough time off base to really use all that she made. Medical was covered by the Air Force, of course, but baby supplies were her own responsibility. If she chose to keep it.
Which begged the question: would she keep it? Sam wasn't thrilled by the prospect of abortion, though she didn't have any problems with it as a moral issue; as career-focused as she was, she'd never had much time for romantic relationships, despite numerous offers. She might never get another chance, and while it had never been a priority of hers, the idea of having a child (in the abstract) wasn't unpleasant. It would be a lot easier to get rid of it, but she hadn't gotten where she was by taking the easy solution. If she got rid of it, she'd at least be transferred to a different team; she doubted General Hammond would press for any more serious repercussions, under the circumstances. If he wasn't going to bring courts-martial, boards of inquiry, or even letters of reprimand for murders committed while under the influence of the virus, she doubted he'd do so for fraternization violations. She frowned, looking at the book in her hands. So that's where that book had gotten to! How Dr. Kaufman's latest work on string theory had gotten in among her cookbooks she'd never know, but she just shrugged her shoulders and went out to put it in its place on the bookshelves in the living room. They were by far the most put-together part of the apartment so far.
So what would happen if she were to keep the baby? She'd probably be able to join another team, if she wanted to, once she was back in condition after the baby was born. Any other professional consequences would come whether she had an abortion or not; she could only hope the General was willing to continue handling things as he had been. Childcare would be a problem, but the Colonel-Jack-would help, at least financially. She thought. From what she knew of him, he didn't seem the type to forget his obligations and he certainly wasn't the type to abandon his own child. Daycare shouldn't be too big of a problem, should it?
Most of the time she and ... and Jack wouldn't be offworld at the same time; even with the occasional overnight or multi-day mission, all the teams so far spent the vast majority of their time on base. A couple of missions a month was the rule; unless they could speed up the stellar drift calculations (and one of the computer specialists had some interesting ideas in that area) they simply didn't have enough workable addresses to go on more, even if the budget were increased to the level they wanted. Surely she'd be able to find someone to take the baby on those rare occasions when they were both offworld. She'd heard Airman Freeman, for example, complain about how expensive it was to take care of two kids. Maybe he and his wife would be interested in picking up some extra cash every now and again by watching a third child.
Going offworld was very risky; look at the rate of casualties they'd had so far. On the other hand, as they learned more about what was out there, that risk would probably decrease at least a little, and a large proportion of those injuries and deaths had occurred on base, so it wasn't as if staying wrapped up in her lab was so much safer. Jack or Mark could take the kid if anything happened to her; she was not about to give up the SGC. The baby would need the most care during the first few months, and she was likely to be sleep deprived during that time. Maybe she could work as a sort of consultant during that period-going out only when a team found something that was specifically of interest in her field-then returning to a formal team once it was sleeping through the night regularly. It depended on what Hammond thought.
The next box was her mother's fine china. Sam had asked Mark if he wanted it a few years ago, when they'd been on better terms (after all, he and his wife were far more likely to entertain than she was), but he'd turned it down. She hadn't even unpacked it during her two years in DC. She'd leave it packed; it wasn't as if she was likely to need it soon. Besides, if she did keep the baby she'd have to move soon as a one-bedroom apartment wouldn't be big enough for more than a year. It would probably be more expensive, but she could handle that; it wasn't like she spent everything she made as it was.
It sounded like she was seriously leaning towards keeping it, Sam realized. Huh. She was going to be a mother.
Jack sat in the cafeteria, the remains of his pie at his elbow. As active as he was, given the need to stay in shape for offworld status, the extra calories weren't an issue, but he'd never been one to compulsively overeat. Having found that one slice of pie did little to distract him, he'd decided that a second piece would be pointless. Problem was, he had nothing to distract him from wondering what Sam was thinking about, what decisions she was making. Frasier hadn't gotten to him with Hammond's reaction, yet.
"That page must be really interesting, Jack. You've been looking at it for almost ten minutes."
Jack looked up from the report he'd been using as cover for his brooding. "Daniel," he said in mild surprise as his two teammates sat down across from him. "Teal'c. Wat'cha doing here?" That he hadn't heard Teal'c was par for the course; the other man could be damn quiet when he wanted to be. That he hadn't heard the geeky archaeologist whose idea of stealth was not talking too loudly meant he had to have been far deeper into his own thoughts than he normally allowed himself to go. Thar be Dragons, yonder.
"When you missed our session, O'Neill, I endeavored to find you," Teal'c intoned. "Daniel Jackson was assisting me."
"I needed a break, anyway. My translation was going nowhere."
Startled, Jack glanced at his watch. "Crap. I'm sorry, Teal'c, I completely forgot."
"Really? That's not like you, Jack." Daniel sipped at the coffee cradled in his hand. He winced, slightly. Jack sympathized; the cafeteria had the worst coffee on base, and Daniel could be something of a coffee connoisseur. "Is anything wrong?"
"No. Why?" Jack realized as it came out that it sounded defensive. Too late.
"Well, you're normally pretty punctual. I don't think you've ever missed a session with Teal'c," Daniel raised an eyebrow, to which the Jaffa responded with a small shake of his head. "You didn't even notice us when we came in and watched you for a good solid ten minutes, and you usually keep track of what's all going on in the area around you. You weren't even fidgeting, which I don't think I've ever seen except out in the field. Oh, yeah, and during that entire ten minutes you didn't turn the page on whatever report you've got even once. Given that you normally make me summarize my reports so you don't have to read the whole thing, I don't think you were paying much attention to it." Daniel finished his speech with a concerned look.
Jack cursed the fact that the younger man had seen him in the depths of his depression, on Abydos during the first mission. It was obvious he thought Jack might be sliding back into bad old habits, and wanted to help prevent that if possible. On the other hand, the geeky archaeologist had done good on that mission, and on all the missions they'd had since. Reliable and a good guy to have when things got rough, despite his sometimes annoying innocence. And Teal'c was ... solid. They were going to have to know sooner or later, whatever Carter decided. "Let's go somewhere we can talk privately," Jack suggested.
Once in Daniel's office, Jack took a seat at the worktable and began fiddling with one of the artifacts there. Daniel closed the thick blast door as he so rarely did and took a seat across from Jack, while Teal'c remained standing.
A few moments passed. "So, Jack," Daniel broke the silence. "Want to tell us why we're here?"
Jack put the doohicky down and realized that he had no clue how he was going to tell them. "Carter's pregnant," he blurted out. Okay, that worked. A little blunt, maybe, but hey, he was nobody's idea of 'Mr. Diplomacy.' He looked up. Teal'c had a raised eyebrow (did he ever react any other way?), while Daniel was sitting back with a stunned look on his face.
"So, who's the father?" Daniel asked. He blinked a few times and turned a wide-eyed look at Jack. "It's you, isn't it? The virus of the touched."
"Yeah," Jack said quietly. He focused on a point about two feet to the right of Daniel and one above him.
"That's ... I don't know if congratulations are in order or not," Daniel said. "Is she going to keep it? Where is she?"
"Don't know," Jack said. "She only found out this morning. She was in pretty bad shape. I sent her home to rest and think."
"I do not understand, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. "What do you mean by 'keep it'?"
"We have a medical procedure called abortion, which can terminate a pregnancy if the mother doesn't want it," Daniel explained. "The fetus-the unborn baby-is taken out and the mother can then get back to her normal life."
"You have an artificial womb, then, in which the "fetus" grows to maturity?"
Jack snorted. "No. It's killed as part of the 'procedure.'"
"And this is not counted as murder?"
"Not legally." Daniel sighed. "It has to do with what you consider "alive" and what you don't. Since the fetus can't survive on its own until it's almost ready to be born, many people don't consider it alive until that point. That's the position that the pro-choice advocates-those who support legal abortions-take. Then you have other people (we call them pro-life) who believe that life begins at the point of conception and that abortion is murder. Most people are somewhere in between those two extremes; some approve of the choice being available but wouldn't choose to do it themselves. I have no idea what Sam thinks, as it's never come up in conversation."
"And you have no say in this decision, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked. His frown had deepened throughout Daniel's explanation.
"It's her body. Her right to chose." Jack looked down at the table, then up to a spot over Teal'c's shoulder. "If we were married, or even really a couple, I'd have a bit more input, but ... that's the whole point of the abortion advocates. It's the woman's right to chose because she's the person most affected by it."
"But the child is equally the father's responsibility, both in its creation and in the responsibility to protect it. Should not he then have a right to protect it from this 'abortion'?"
Daniel shook his head. "The law doesn't see it that way, Teal'c. Part of the reason the whole issue arose was because of the inequality between men and women in society. It's getting better, but there is still discrimination against women in a lot of areas, and there are also a lot of patriarchal currents in many relationships. Giving the choice to the woman is a way of counter-balancing that."
Jack snorted. "Yeah, that's what the feminists say. I heard once that more men are 'pro-choice' than women." Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "That way, they can screw around and not get stuck with the responsibility for whatever 'accidents' happen," Jack explained.
"But given the choice, you would not choose to kill this child?" Teal'c said.
"No. Not unless Sam was put in danger because of it."
"Well, abortion or not, what happens next?" Daniel asked, changing the subject.
"I don't know that, either," Jack admitted. "A lot will depend on the way Hammond decides to handle the whole situation. Frasier's talking with him now. I'm surprised they haven't paged me to join them yet, it's been a while."
What had she been thinking? She didn't know anything about babies! They cried, they stank, they broke things, they were annoying, and Sam had never even babysat as a kid. How the hell was she supposed to take care of one of her own? Going off on missions and leaving the kid at home with someone else? Yeah, right! There was something growing inside her, right now, taking her body and using it to survive and mature. The image of Teal'c's symbiote, seen briefly on the retreat to the gate on Chulak, flashed through her head and she blanched. Eew. All the pregnancy horror stories she'd ever heard danced through her head. Nine months of hell followed by even worse: labor. Aunt Marcia had mentioned once that Sam's mom had been in labor for almost nine hours with Mark. Nine! Sam was tough, but that sounded like a bit much to her. Maybe she should just get rid of it now. If she did that, she wouldn't even have to tell Dad. Now there was an attractive thought.
And the Colonel. Sure, he said he'd be "there for her," but what did he mean by that? It was a pretty vague statement! How many times had Jonas promised something like that, and then shrugged it off later? Had he ever kept one of those vaguely reassuring promises? Not that Sam could recall. Even if the colonel meant it now, would he be so attentive when she actually needed something? And a recently-divorced man whose only other child to date had shot himself, a smart-ass black ops officer who'd be constantly away on missions, whose file was so black she had no clue even where he'd been stationed prior to this project, didn't make the greatest case for a father. She barely knew the man! He was physically attractive, yes; she liked what she knew of him, yes; but she tended to go for the weirdoes and the lunatic fringe, so the fact that she liked him and found him attractive wasn't the greatest character reference.
Why hadn't they called her yet? She'd had time to drive home and unpack and arrange virtually every box she'd had left, and still they hadn't called. She couldn't stop her mind from spinning in circles long enough to get into any of her books, and TV? Forget about it! What she really wanted to do was go for a jog to blow off some steam, but she'd forgotten her cell phone back on the base and she needed to be near a phone when the colonel called. What was taking them so long?
The phone rang, and she practically dove for it. "Carter." She sat down on a battered-but-comfortable old blue armchair, one of the few pieces of furniture she'd brought from DC. Sam didn't want to be standing for any big surprises. Not on this subject.
"Apparently Doc Frasier's been having a heart-to-heart with General Hammond for the last two hours." It was Colonel O'Neill-Jack-her CO, at least for the moment. That helped put things back in perspective. Even if her life was falling apart at the seams, she could always rely on military courtesy and regulations.
"Have they come to any decisions, sir?" she asked.
"Dunno. They've both clammed up. There's a briefing, tomorrow, with everyone in our ... situation. 1100 hours."
"I'll be there."
"Yeah." There was an uncomfortable pause. "Sam? How're you doing? I mean, personally?"
Sam hesitated. "I'm fine, sir," she said neutrally.
After another awkward moment, he said good-bye and hung up
Sam rode down in the elevator the next morning, not sure if the queasiness in her stomach was due to nerves or morning sickness. No, everyone hadn't been staring at her at the parking lot and the security checkpoints; no one but herself, Doctor Frasier, General Hammond, and Colonel O'Neill knew she was pregnant. Frasier had medical confidentiality, Hammond didn't gossip, and Jack surely wouldn't say anything until they'd at least had time to talk. It would be a while before she began to show, and even if she decided to keep it she'd have a while to get used to the idea and figure out how she was handling it. Today would be like any other day, and thank God. She didn't think she could handle any external stress on top of all the internal stress the news had brought without ripping someone a new one. She just hoped Jack wouldn't turn into an overprotective male and hover over her all day. The elevator came to a stop and she half-expected him to be there waiting to escort her to breakfast. The doors opened.
O'Neill wasn't there. Daniel and Teal'c were.
"Daniel. Teal'c." She exited the elevator and eyed them warily. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, well, we were doing a bit of a language lesson this morning, and wanted to take a break, and realized that you usually get here about this time in the morning, and wondered if you'd like to join us for breakfast?" Daniel gave her his charming, puppy-dog smile.
Sam felt some of her tension easing away. She was just being paranoid. Of course they didn't know about it. They were just being friendly to a teammate. "Thanks for the offer, guys, but I had some toast and coffee before coming in, so I think I'll take a rain check."
Teal'c lifted an eyebrow and glanced at Daniel.
"It means she doesn't want to do it today, but may at some point in the future," he explained.
Teal'c frowned. "Surely, you should eat more healthfully during this time of gesta-"
Sam felt her smile freeze and cut Teal'c off with an abrupt gesture. "Can we talk about this in my lab, please?" She was extremely glad she'd been alone on the elevator and that there wasn't anyone in sight; no one could have overheard it. That was assuming he hadn't gossiped it to the whole base. She was going to kill Colonel O'Neill. She was. It would be slow, and painful.
She stalked off to her office, the guys trailing behind. When they arrived, she gestured them in before her and shut the blast door. It made two days in a row. Much more of this and she was going to get a reputation as a recluse. Either that, or a reputation as loose; both times, she'd been alone with handsome men.
"So, what did Jack tell you," she asked, arms folded across her chest.
"That you're pregnant," Daniel said, seemingly oblivious to her anger.
"He also said that you may be considering killing the child with a procedure known as 'abortion.'" The Jaffa's distaste was obvious. "I do not understand why such a procedure is not counted as murder."
"Yeah, well that depends on your definition of 'alive,' Teal'c," Sam shot back. "Right now the 'child' is nothing more than a group of cells no bigger than the tip of a pen. No brain, no heart, no lungs, no muscle, no bones, just a lump of cells. And whether I'm considering it or not, the colonel should have been discussing the subject with me, not his buddies. I thought it was reasonable to assume we'd make any decisions together about what was happening and when we were going to announce things if we decide to keep it. Silly me! What was I thinking? I'm only carrying it, after all. Why should he ask me?" She clamped her lips together to prevent anything more from spilling out. It wasn't their fault that Jack wasn't here to yell at, after all. Or that he'd been an ass.
"Jack didn't ask your permission before telling us?" Daniel frowned.
"No," Sam bit off, "he didn't. I found out I was pregnant, I told him, he sent me home to rest. That is the sum total of our conversation about this. God, I'd hoped to at least have a day or two to get used to this myself before the whole base started gossiping about it!"
Daniel raised his hands in placation. "I'm pretty sure we were the only ones he told, Sam. I know I haven't told anyone-have you, Teal'c?"
"I have not."
"There, you see? It's not the whole base, just us. I won't say anything about it until you give permission, and, uh," Daniel glanced sideways at Teal'c, "I don't think Teal'c gossips."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but said nothing; Sam cracked a smile at the thought of the stoic warrior gossiping.
"Anyway, don't be to hard on Jack," Daniel continued. "We found him in the cafeteria and it was pretty obvious that something was wrong with him-I mean, he had a piece of pie and a report with him, like always, but he was just kind of staring off into space, like he was in shock or something. So we made him tell us what he was wrong. He did insist we go someplace private." Daniel watched her anxiously, but his defense had just gotten her mad, again.
"How kind of him," Sam bit out. "He was in shock? That's his excuse? Well, then maybe he's the one who should have been sent home like an invalid, not me."
Daniel opened his mouth, presumably to defend his friend, but Sam cut him off. "Don't, Daniel. Just ... don't. I don't want to hear it."
"Okay." Daniel nodded. "Is ... there anything we can do to help, Sam?"
"No. Wait, yes there is." Sam paused until she was sure she had their attention. "You can go on treating me like normal. I'm pregnant, not sick or crazy or stupid. I'm a big girl now. I've been feeding myself for a long time."
"You're sure that's all?" Daniel asked.
"Yes."
"Okay." He nodded. "You know we're here if you do need anything, right?" At her nod, he turned to Teal'c. "I suppose that means we should go and let her get to work."
The Jaffa gave her a slight bow and turned to follow Daniel out the door. She followed them to them to the door, meaning to find Jack and chew him out. This was why people who were involved shouldn't be in the same chain of command.
"Did she seem weird, to you?" she heard Daniel ask faintly as he and Teal'c walked away.
"Jaffa women in that condition are often ... turbulent to be around. Do not women of the Tau'ri share this-"
The rest of his words were lost as they turned a corner, and Sam sagged back against the wall. Holy Hannah, were the hormones messing her up already?
"Oh, sir, I was hoping I'd run into you." Jack paused when he heard the familiar voice. "Yes, Captain?" he asked as he turned to face her. He'd been wandering the halls, killing time and trying to distract himself.
"About what we discussed yesterday," she said, blue eyes boring straight into him. Was she planning on discussing this in the hall for everyone to hear?
"Yeah?"
"It is a personal matter, and I'd prefer if you didn't discuss it with others unless you ask me first." She smiled tightly, a look that was oddly familiar, though he couldn't place it.
"Um, of course," he said, when he realized she was waiting for an answer.
"Thanks," she said, giving him the same smile before brushing past him again.
He watched her walk off. She had a great butt, but her legs were the stuff that dreams are made of. Literally. The feel of them around him came back to him in a rush, momentarily. He shook it off and went looking for a cold shower.
It wasn't until later, as he was settled at one of the tables in the cafeteria with some Jell-O and a stack of paperwork that he remembered where he knew that smile from. Sarah had used one just like it when she was angry with him but couldn't yell at him because they were in public.
After the ordeal of confronting the Colonel while still staying within the bounds of military propriety, Sam escaped back to her lab, where she pretended to work. She did try, really she did, but it was no use. The thought of what she was turning into, combined with anticipation of the meeting to come, left her queasier than what had been normal the last few weeks.
"Hey." Her reverie was broken by a soft call. She turned to see Dr. Jackson leaning against the doorway.
"Am I intruding?" he asked.
"Not really," she said, grateful for the distraction from her own thoughts. And it really wasn't Daniel's fault Jack had been stupid.
"I'm not trying to treat you any different or coddle you or anything, I just wanted to see if you needed to talk with someone." Daniel walked in and sat on the stool across her worktable. He gave his head a slight shake to get the hair out of his eyes; working in the military, Sam didn't often meet guys whose hair was longer than hers. "I know Jack's not really big on communication, not about emotional stuff, unless he's right on the edge. And I figured you hadn't had time to make any good friends since you moved here. So if there's anything you need to get off your chest, I'm here for you."
Sam looked at him thoughtfully. He was a nice guy, and since he wasn't in the military, she didn't have to watch what she said in the same way. "Okay." She pointed to the stool across from her.
Jack and Teal'c were on the shooting range. Teal'c preferred his staff weapon to anything the humans had, and Jack wasn't going to make him give it up despite his personal views on its accuracy, range, and rate of fire, but he still needed to be familiar with his comrades' weapons in case of emergency. You couldn't let your attention wander when using firearms, so it was a great way for Jack to keep his mind off the coming meeting. At least, that had been the idea.
"O'Neill." Jack lowered his weapon and turned to face the bigger man, removing the safety glasses and ear protectors as he did so. Teal'c had already removed his, and held his weapon down at his side. He'd remembered to put the safety catch on, Jack saw, not that he'd expected anything less. Still, it never hurt to check.
"Yeah?"
"You seem distracted."
"I dunno-" One look from the Jaffa silenced him. Jack still didn't know much about interpreting the alien's mood, but the guy had presence. And he didn't take crap often.
"Yeah, I am."
"Is it caused by the choice Captain Carter has to make?"
"Sort of." Jack turned to go back to his shooting, but Teal'c stood there, impassive as ever, and watched him. Jack didn't think he'd press it if Jack was unwilling to talk, but they'd both know he had avoided the subject, and he had the weird feeling T would be disappointed in him. It was the damndest thing; the guy looked younger than Daniel, but Jack kept getting these flashes where it felt like he was just a kid in Teal'c's presence. He sighed.
"Probably the single worst moment of my life was standing in the front lawn with Sara, hearing the gunshot from the house." He didn't turn to look at Teal'c again.
There was a silence as Teal'c considered this. "I am certain that Captain Carter will make the right choice in the end," he said at last. The two stood in companionable silence for some time. Jack took comfort in his friend's certainty.
Sam shook her head. "No, Dad would never understand. He's been a career officer all his life; the Air Force is what he lives for, and has been since Mom died. He might not even accept this if he knew the whole circumstances. Which I can't tell him, because it's classified. Pregnant with my CO's baby?" She checked her watch.
"Is it time for you to go up?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah." Sam stood up and stretched. "This is one meeting I really don't want to be late for." She gave him a half smile. "Thanks for listening."
"Any time." Daniel returned her smile and stood up. "I'll walk you up there, if you'd like?"
"Sure." Sam was grateful for his support, though she was kind of hurt that it was a teammate instead of the father of her child who was the one to give it. She hadn't seen ... Jack ... since their confrontation, and he'd hardly said two words to her then. This whole thing would be so much easier, and not just professionally, if Daniel were the father.
Sam was already seated in the briefing room by the time Jack made it up there, as were several other base personnel. She acknowledged his entrance with a short nod, then went back to studying her hands, pressed flat on the tabletop. As the seats near Sam were taken, he grabbed himself a stretch of wall behind her. He couldn't help but notice the sergeant who normally sat at the desk taking notes and assisting presentations was not there. Jack studied the others in the room; most of them he didn't know, as the base had only been up and running for a few weeks. There was Captain Hiller of SG-2, sitting uncomfortably next to a female second lieutenant Jack thought was one of the nurses. That had to be bad; Jack knew from his personnel jacket that Hiller was married, and not to anyone on base.
General Hammond strode through the door to his office. "As you were," he said, waving at everyone to remain seated. He took the last chair, the one at the head of the table. Doc Fraiser followed him, taking up station behind him, a folder in her hand.
"Obviously, we're going to have to get used to unusual situations not covered by normal regulations if we're going to keep sending missions through the gate," Hammond said briskly. Jack was one of the few people looking directly at him; most seemed to find the table or the walls or empty air infinitely more fascinating. "I've discussed this situation and the general issues arising from it with the Air Force Chief of Staff and General Fiscus of the JAG Department; we've been going over a lot of the unusual things that the SGC may find itself having to deal with in the future." He paused, letting the fact that the top brass considered this situation serious enough to require personal attention sink in. Jack shifted uncomfortably.
Hammond went on. "First, I want to let you all know that we're not going to penalize you for something that was clearly beyond your control. There will be no charges of fraternization or adultery resulting from this incident, nor any reprimands in your files. The situations you find yourselves in are bad enough; I'm not going to make things harder for you folks." He paused again, catching the eyes of anyone who would look up at him. "However. This situation still needs to be dealt with. I've reviewed the circumstances surrounding each of your cases with Doctor Frasier; some are common to you all, and some are unique. Obviously, some of you have significant others who do not work at this facility. They do not have clearance to know the causes of this . . . situation, and we would prefer that they not learn of the situation at all."
"So I'm just supposed to pretend this baby is my husband's?" said a young brunette airman sitting three places down the table from Sam. She didn't sound happy about it.
"Ideally, yes," Hammond replied, "although I'll understand if you have to tell him otherwise."
"We do have a psychologist with experience in relationship counseling at the Academy Hospital, a Doctor Amanda Hiroshi," Doctor Fraiser said. "She's very good at her work. She's been briefed on the situation; if any of you feel the need to talk to someone about all this and don't want to speak with Doctor MacKenzie, I'll give you a referral to her."
Jack shuddered. He'd had encounters with shrinks before, mostly after his time in Iraq and other traumatic missions; none of those encounters had been at all pleasant. For him or the shrink. God, he hoped Sam didn't want joint counseling, or anything. I mean, he'd promised to be there for her, but surely a shrink was beyond the call of duty?
"Also," Frasier continued, "for those of you who decide to keep the babies, there are medical concerns; we're not sure how the virus will affect the fetuses (if at all), so you will be seeing an OB/GYN at the Hospital who has also been briefed. He can come here occasionally to examine you, but you will probably have to go see him there at some point."
"Thank you, Doctor," Hammond said. "For those of you who do not wish to keep the pregnancies, the NID has requested that any aborted fetuses be turned over to them for study. You are not required to do so by any means." Again, he glanced around the table. This time, more were willing to meet his eye. Jack shuddered at the thought of babies ending up as lab rats like some cheesy science fiction movie, and prayed again that Carter would be willing to keep it.
"Now to the more immediate practicalities," Hammond said. "All the women are restricted from further gate travel for the duration of their pregnancies; we don't want to take any unnecessary risks, here. If you are in the same chain of command as your ... partner, one of you will be transferred to a different position within the base. Which one gets transferred and to where will depend on the respective ranks, qualifications, and wishes of the personnel involved after consideration of the base's needs. As you are all aware, we are extremely short on personnel and will be for some time, and that will have an impact on the transfers. I will be meeting privately with each couple over the next few days to sort out transfer requests and any business specific to each individual's situation. Any ... relationships resulting from this situation are your own business. Aside from that, it will be business as usual until further notice.
"This incident is going to lead to at least one permanent change in our SOP. We will be requiring all female personnel who travel through the gate on a regular basis to be on some form of contraceptive; that will at least cut down on the number of ... repercussions if anything like this should happen again. Are there any questions about any of this?"
"What are we authorized to tell?" asked a blond gate technician hovering near the door. She was the only person who'd been later than Jack. "I mean, it's going to be pretty obvious this kid isn't my boyfriend's." She glanced over at a dark, Hispanic sergeant that Jack thought was one of the gate guards. If he was the father of her kid, she was right-there was no way anyone was going to mistake any child of his as Caucasian.
"Anything that doesn't compromise our security or bring undue attention to us," Hammond replied. "In other words, no alien viruses or anything work-related. No spills of experimental chemicals or lab accidents involving inhibition-removers. Other than that, whatever story you think he'll accept."
"So women who are stationed on base but don't go through the gate don't have to be on contraceptives? So women on a team would have to transfer off it to have a kid?"
"That's correct, Airman," Doctor Frasier answered. "Once they conceived, they'd be pulled off the team anyway. This just makes the transition smoother and protects the everyone."
"What kind of child support are we supposed to give?" Captain Hiller asked. "I mean, I want to be there for Connie and the baby, and everything, but I love my wife. I don't want her to find out I cheated on her, however unintentionally. If I start paying something like child support, Crystal's going to find out."
Hammond frowned. "I'm not sure, son. We'll have to work something out, assuming that Airman Franks chooses to keep the child and wishes child support. I believe Doctor Hiroshi may be of some assistance, here."
"If we want to donate the fetus to the NID, will they want to do the abortion?" someone else asked. "I mean, I'm assuming they won't want us to just go to some clinic in town."
Doctor Frasier frowned. "The NID will send a doctor to perform any abortions here in our own infirmary, to provide as much discretion as possible for this program and to avoid disrupting things any more than necessary."
"Are there any other questions?" Hammond asked. None were forthcoming. "Very well. Dismissed."
"Sam," Jack said as his-former?-second in command stood up. She turned to face him. "Can we talk? We haven't really done that, yet."
"Sure," she said, some surprise in her voice. Had she been expecting him to just watch from the sidelines for the next nine months? He wasn't the most talkative person in the world, at least, not about the big stuff, but he'd told her he would be there for her.
"I've been told I have an office, somewhere," Jack said. "Wanna go see if we can track it down?"
"Okay," Sam replied with a small smile.
"So. I'm sorry for telling Daniel and Teal'c without consulting you." He waited for her reaction; she nodded. It wasn't the best reaction, but it was a reaction. They turned the corner into his office and he closed the door behind him. "You've had a day to think about all of ... this," Jack said as he cleared the other chair and brought it around next to him. He didn't want to be on opposite side of the desk for this conversation. "Whatcha think now?"
"I'm not sure," Sam said as she settled herself. "I don't really like the idea of abortion, but I'm not sure I can handle having a kid, either. Not with my job. It's not exactly something I had planned."
Jack settled back in his chair. Well, that was better than he'd feared, at least. "A baby is a lot of work, especially alone. We could get married ..." He broke off as she shook her head.
"With all due respect, sir ... Jack," she corrected herself. "We hardly know each other! Baby or not, a couple of months' working acquaintance isn't enough to build a marriage on."
"You're probably right," Jack admitted. He'd been married to Sara for almost ten years, and while it had been a good marriage, like all marriages it had had its ups and downs. But he and Sara had known each other, loved each other, knew what they were getting into, and had had some time alone to get used to marriage before Charlie had arrived. But a kid should have two parents, together, and call him old-fashioned but that should include marriage. Of course, the obvious solution was: "So, you wanna get together after work some time? Maybe get to know each other a little better?"
"Sir, I don't think-"
"Lose the 'sir,' Sam," Jack put in. He thought furiously, trying to see things from her point of view. She'd shot down his proposal, after all. "It doesn't have to lead anywhere. But if we are gonna have a kid together, regardless of what happens between us, we're gonna need to be on good terms."
"And know more about each other than just our service jackets," Sam agreed, tilting her head. She bit her lip; Jack thought it was kind of cute. "But ... Jack, I don't want to get your hopes up too high. I still haven't decided for sure if I'm keeping it." Her eyes were wide, and she studied him anxiously.
Jack grimaced and looked away. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? She'd said something about her career, earlier, and taking care of a child. Could he? After Charlie, the idea was terrifying. And he wasn't exaggerating when he said that. "If you don't think you could handle taking care of the baby," he said slowly, looking up to meet her eyes, "I could take custody. All you'd have to do would be carry him or her to term."
"But, what about SG-1?" Sam asked. "What would you do when you were away on missions?"
"I'd probably retire again. Don't look so shocked, Sam, I've been retired twice before. I don't care about my career, and between my pension and other things a part-time job would be enough to provide for me and a kid. The SGC can find another grizzled spec ops colonel to take my place. I'd probably have to leave the field after a couple of years, anyway; crawling around in hostile territory is a job for the young."
"Sir, you make it sound like you've got one foot in the grave." Sam shook her head. "You're not old, and I've never seen a field instinct like yours before. The SGC would have trouble replacing you."
Jack smiled. Her protestations were flattering. "I don't have any specialties you can't find in hundreds of other officers. It's no big deal." He dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. "Besides, you're a young officer with a hot career. You're going places, and you're ambitious enough to want to. You're a brilliant scientist, and have the makings of an excellent field officer. If one of us is going to stay home with the baby, it should be me."
Sam looked in the mirror and frowned. It wasn't like this was a real date (at least, she didn't think it was a real date), but an attractive man was taking her out to dinner and she wanted to look good. Problem was, she spent so much time buried in her lab and so little time out doing things that her selection of clothes was a little limited. And she didn't exactly have much experience in putting on makeup beyond foundation, mascara, and a little lip-gloss. And her hair, while regulation and easy to take care of, was a bit on the plain side. Still, he knew how she looked, and it wasn't like she had hours in which to make up her mind. What she had on would have to be good enough; she was meeting Jack at O'Malley's at seven, and if she took any longer she'd be late.
It didn't take her long to spot the colonel's brown hair. O'Malley's Steakhouse was dimly but adequately lit, and he was by the rail on the upper level. He nodded to her as she spotted him, and she made her way over to their table. "Hey," she said as she slung her purse to the chair kitty corner to her and sat down opposite him. He looked good in his civvies, a dress shirt and leather jacket. She'd kind of expected him to stand at her arrival, and was a bit disappointed that he didn't.
"Hey," he returned. She picked up her menu and began studying it intently. She'd been here once before-the colonel had taken them all out to eat here after the mission P3X-562, when he'd realized that Teal'c's first time outside the mountain had been the trip to the hospital where the blue crystal alien was. She'd miss out on all future team dinners with SG-1, she guessed, unless she came as the Colonel's significant other, in whatever form. And the idea of just coming to grace someone's arm was enough to make her teeth ache; in her experience, military protocol and culture about wives was the most backward, parochial set of ideas in America.
Sam had an idea of what she wanted, but studying the menu meant she didn't have to talk, and she had no idea what to say. Speaking of military culture's ideas about wives and girlfriends, was that what he'd expect out of her if they were together? Jonas had, she'd found out almost too late, despite the fact that she was an officer herself. That she'd follow him around to all his postings and act the gracious hostess and play bridge with the other wives in the correct pecking order based on their husband's rank, to help him advance his career by mixing with the right people.
Something caught the corner of her eye, and she turned to see the waitress standing there. Stall time was up. "I'll have a club sandwich and a diet coke."
"Soup or salad?" the waitress asked. "Wisconsin Cheese Soup is the soup of the day."
"I'll have a salad with Italian dressing."
The waitress jotted it down and turned expectantly to Jack.
"Steak and a baked potato. And a beer."
With a nod, the waitress left. Now what? What do you say, Sam wondered, to the father of your child? Silence stretched out between them. The colonel cocked his head and leaned back in his chair.
"Carter," he drawled, "how do you feel ... about the Simpsons?"
Across the table, Sam blinked. Whatever she'd been expecting him to say, it evidently hadn't been that. Well, Jack had never been good at the serious stuff-that had been one of Sara's biggest complaints, actually-and the Simpsons was important! He hoped not rising to greet her when she arrived had been the right tactic. You never could tell with women, but her militant feminist stance (he still shook his head over that first briefing, sometimes) led him to think she wouldn't take kindly to being treated like, well, a lady.
Sam smiled. "Actually, I don't watch much TV, sir. Jack, sorry," she said with a blush.
"No Simpsons?" he asked, his voice rising in mock disbelief. Actually, he'd kind of expected that; Sam Carter was smart. Real smart. Probably one of the smartest people in the country, if her records told the truth. What would someone like that smart be doing watching the boob tube?
"No Simpsons," she confirmed. "Actually, even as a kid I never really was into cartoons. Except Rocky and Bullwinkle. I mean, who could resist Moose and Squirrel?" Her voice slipped into the female spy Natasha's husky accent, and Jack relaxed a little. Okay, now they were talking. He could do this. If he could make her laugh, he might have a shot.
"So Dad just stood there, looking at Mark and I, his dress blues dripping wet-we were horrified. I mean, he can really be a hard-ass when he wants to be. If we'd managed to get Mom like we were planning, that would have been one thing. But Dad just picked up the plane that had 'dive bombed' him, inspected it, and shot a look at Mark. 'If that's the best you can do, airman,' he said, 'you're going to be grounded until you're accuracy improves.' And that traitor Mark pointed a finger at me and said, 'But it was her idea! She set it up!'" Sam shook her head and took a swallow of water. "I was grounded for a week, and when that was up Dad and I went over my trap and he showed me what I'd done wrong. He was great, really."
"Your Dad was in the Air Force?" Jack asked, uneasily. They'd been talking for over an hour on everything from Rocky and Bullwinkle to sports to childhood stories, and she'd mentioned her father, but not his career. The idea of having to deal with a man whose daughter he'd knocked up was bad enough. Sam was enough younger than him that her father probably wouldn't be all that much older than he was, and he knew how he'd react if a daughter of his were in Sam's position. He'd skin the guy that did it alive.
"Yeah. Major General Jacob Carter, retired. His last posting was at the Pentagon, and he still lives in DC." Sam looked down on her plate, chewing on her lower lip. "I don't know how I'm going to tell him about ... this. The baby. God, I can just imagine how he's going to react."
Jack leaned back, heart sinking. So could he. What were the odds that Sam's dad knew Hammond? When you got up to that rank, the pool of fellow officers was such that everybody knew everybody else, at least in passing. Jack might not have the greatest respect for rank, but he'd never dated a general's daughter before, either. Sam was an adult woman, fully capable of taking care of herself. But did her Dad realize that? "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, praying she'd say no.
"No." Sam shook her head. "I think having you there when I tell him would only make things worse."
"Can your Mom do anything to help soften him up?"
Sadness passed over her face, of an old grief remembered. "Mom died when I was in High School. Killed by a drunk driver. Mark ... didn't take it very well. He blames Dad and the military for her death. They haven't spoken in years, as far as I know, and Mark doesn't much care for me, either. Being in the Air Force myself."
"Why? What does your Dad's career have to do with some idiot drunk? Unless he was the drunk."
"My dad, drunk driving?" Sam raised an eyebrow. "No. He was supposed to pick her up, but his meeting ran late so she caught a cab. Mark thinks that if Dad had picked her up and she hadn't been in a cab, the drunk wouldn't have killed her. He might be right about it, but it's not like there was anything Dad or anyone else could have done to predict that chain of events. Chaos theory in action. It could just as easily have happened some different way."
"Chaos theory." Jack took a sip of his beer. "Isn't that the one from Jurassic Park?"
"Yeah. The hummingbird flaps its wings in Times Square and causes a hurricane in China." Sam sat up a little straighter as she warmed to her subject. "See, every second there are a million different things going on that can affect the future, some of them we can see and predict and most that we can't." Her eyes were shining, and Jack watched in bemusement as she rattled on, enthusiasm glowing from every pore. "Just sitting here, talking, puts air molecules in motion, which puts other air molecules in motion, which given enough time and enough other factors eventually becomes big enough to affect the weather. It's why a weatherman can't forecast more than a few days in advance-there's no way of predicting all the random interactions that go into forming a weather system. And that's just on the macroscopic level. It works on a quantum level, as well. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that-"
"Sam," he said, desperate to break into her monologue. He'd seen her or Daniel go off into one of those science geek raptures at work a time or two, but seeing her go into one off-duty was kind of scary.
"Sorry, Jack," Sam said with a hint of embarrassment. "I know, not everyone finds all this as interesting as I do. But it's hard to remember sometimes."
"I know," Jack said. "And it's actually kind of cute, most of the time. I was just thinking that with you as the mother, what's the chance I'm gonna understand anything that comes out of this kid's mouth by the time he's five? I'm gonna have to be careful with him, make sure he has some stupid hobbies just out of self-defense. Fishing. And the Simpsons. Early on." He nodded emphatically and took another sip of his beer.
"So you want a boy?" Sam asked carefully, looking down at the remains of her dessert.
"Boy, girl, doesn't matter. All I want is ten fingers, ten toes, and a healthy body in between them."
Sam nodded, then changed the subject as she'd done all evening when the topic turned to the baby. "So, what about your family? What are they doing now? You have two brothers, you said."
"And a sister." Jack looked away. She had a right to know about her baby's family, even if this wasn't a subject he liked to discuss. "Typical Irish Catholic family. Dad was a cop in Chicago. Still lives there. One brother's a priest, the other's a cop, just like every generation of O'Neill's since Noah's Ark. Jenny's a housewife. Mom died a few years ago. Lots of cousins on both sides. I don't keep in touch with any of them, besides Christmas cards."
"Why not?"
He shrugged. "I've been stationed all over the world, mostly in places the US isn't officially involved in doing things the US isn't officially doing. When I'm gone I'm out of contact completely, and when I'm back I can't talk about anything I've seen or done. It's hard to keep in touch with people like that, especially people who aren't military and don't have any idea what it's like. And it's not like I was ever very close to any of them. Sara kept in touch with them more than I did, made sure we didn't miss anything too important. After Charlie's death and the divorce ..."
A brief silence passed before Sam broke it. "Irish Catholic," she said. "How much are they likely to object to the baby being raised Episcopalian? Do you object?"
Jack shook his head. "Nah. I've been lapsed for a long time. Is it important to you?"
"Yes." Sam gave him a small smile. "I know some people think there's this big conflict between science and religion, but I don't think science and religion are mutually exclusive. In fact, I think that they lend into each other very well. I don't follow organized religion didactically-" she must have seen the expression on his face, because she smiled. "Sorry. I mean, I don't go to church every Sunday, and the rituals and formal structures have never been overly important to me." She shrugged. "But I do believe in God, and I do pray. And I'd want any child of mine to grow up with a firm faith foundation in the church I grew up in. How do you feel about it?"
Jack took a sip of his water. "Fine with me."
"And your family?" she asked tenaciously.
Jack paused, considering his relationships with various family members. "Dad won't like it, but I don't really know what the others will think." He paused. "Even Dad won't be too shocked, though, considering I'm the black sheep of the family."
"Black sheep?" Sam frowned. "How? You're a successful Air Force senior officer."
"But I'm not a priest or a cop, and I'm divorced," Jack pointed out. "Besides, they all remember how I came to enlist."
"You were enlisted?" Sam said in surprise.
"Yeah," Jack said with some pride; making the jump from enlisted to officer wasn't easy, but he'd done it. "I wanted to be a pilot. But they thought I was more useful in special ops, so that's where I ended back up."
"Ah." Sam cocked her head. "So, just how did you come to enlist in the Air Force?"
Jack took a deep breath. "Well, that's a long story involving a date with one of the hottest girls in school, a neighbor's car that I 'borrowed' without asking permission, and a juvie judge who didn't want to give jail time to the oldest son of the precinct's Cop of the Year."
"This I gotta hear," Sam said with a smile.
Sam lay in her bed that night staring at the ceiling. This was absolutely ridiculous. She'd hit it right off with Jack, no doubt. He was a nice guy, funny, entertaining, good company. And this unnerved her? True, Jonas had been all of those things, and she'd hit it off with him right away over a meal at a local bar-and-grill. And both Jonas and Jack came out of a special ops background the likes of which she really didn't want to know more about. But that was where the similarities stopped. She hoped.
And then there was the fact that Jack had talked, briefly, about his family, but he hadn't mentioned his son or his ex-wife even once. Understandable, it had to be a painful subject for the poor guy, but they'd been an important part of his life for years. If she was thinking, however hypothetically, of taking the other woman's place as Jack's significant other and the mother of his child, she'd like to know a little bit more about the competition. Besides the obvious physical similarities, that was; now that she thought about it, Sara O'Neill was a leggy blond with short hair, probably a few years older than Sam was. Which brought up another issue; from the outside, it was going to look like Jack had just traded Sara in for the younger model. What were his friends and family going to think? This was so sudden.
Well, she knew he didn't keep in touch with his family much, but he hadn't mentioned many friends either, at least not current ones. Sam had a habit of getting buried in her lab. Her boyfriends before Jonas had generally dragged her out into their social circle, and she'd actually kind of liked that. In fact, come to think of it she'd never really heard him talk about friends outside of his team. Being a loner was bad; Jonas had been a loner. She shook her head. Jack was not Jonas, and comparing the two men was an insult to him. Losing touch with people was hardly an indicator of a disturbed mind, especially in the military where moving every couple of years was the rule, not the exception. It was an issue she almost always had trouble with, herself.
Sam groaned and rubbed her forehead. Whatever happened between the two of them, with her career, with the baby, it wasn't going to get solved by laying here staring at the ceiling. She turned over on her right side, pulled the thick comforter higher, and shut her eyes determinedly.
Jack strolled into the elevator the next morning whistling cheerily. The date had gone well, he thought with a grin. Was it a date? He kind of thought so, but Sam might not agree. And if there was one thing he'd learned, it was that women had their own arcane ideas about what constituted a 'date' and what didn't, and it was best not to question them on the subject.
"Get lucky last night, Jack?" asked the other man in the elevator with a grin. Colonel Robert Makepeace, Jarhead. Not a bad guy, for a Marine, and one of the few officers of equal rank on the base-even if the two didn't have much in common, Jack could speak a lot more freely with him than almost anyone else, just for that reason.
"No, didn't get 'lucky,'" Jack said, though he was unable to completely wipe the grin away. The last thing Carter needed were rumors, and if there was any place rumors spread faster than on a small, self-contained military base, Jack hadn't found it yet.
"Hot date, then?" Makepeace persisted.
Jack grunted, mildly annoyed, then stepped off as the elevator opened, leaving the jarhead behind. Carter's floor. He'd seen her Volvo in the parking lot, and wanted to ask her to breakfast.
The big blast door was open, as it usually was, and he peeked in. Huh. Not there. Oh, well, maybe he'd see her for lunch. Fruit Loops were calling his name.
He got to the cafeteria to find that Sam was already there, with Daniel across from her. No Teal'c, though. The two scientists had their heads together and were discussing something intently. Neither noticed his entrance, so he went over to the line and got his breakfast. When he turned around, Daniel's hand covered Sam's and she was giving the geek a half-hearted smile. Good mood slightly dampened, he made his way over to their table. "Am I interrupting anything?" he asked.
Daniel looked up at him and smiled in greeting. "Oh! Uh, no. Didn't see you come in," he said, letting go of Sam's hand to pick up his fork. "We were just talking. How are you, this morning?"
"Good," Jack said, sitting next to Sam. "You?" He looked from one to the other as he picked up his fork.
"I'm good, Jack." Daniel raised his eyebrows at Sam.
"I'm fine," she said, but Jack could see circles under her eyes. Sara had been tired a lot when pregnant with Charlie, he recalled; had it started this early in the pregnancy? He didn't think so, but he'd spent the first several months on detached duty somewhere, and had been lucky they'd sent him back to his home unit in time for the end of it.
"General Hammond wants to see the two of us in his office at nine," Sam said, moving her eggs around on her plate with a fork. "He wants to formally notify us as to which one of us is going to transfer. Not that there's much question of that." She shrugged, lips pressed together, studying the mess she made.
"Guess not," Jack said after a minute.
"Thank you for coming, Colonel, Captain." General Hammond gestured at the two chairs on the other side of his desk. "Please, have a seat."
Sam steeled herself for what she knew was coming. It wasn't sexism; God knew, she'd seen enough of that in her career, but it would never come from the General. He and her father were good friends, though she hadn't seen much of him as a child. After the last and largest fight with her father on the subject of her joining the Air Force, then-Colonel Hammond had taken her dad out for dinner one night, just the two of them. She'd never found out what Hammond had told him, but the next morning Dad had quietly told her that she was a smart, tough woman and he was proud of her, and that if she thought she could make it in the Air Force he wouldn't stand in her way.
And after West had been removed from the program and Hammond instated as CO, one of his first acts had been to rearrange West's command, giving her and the few other women involved in the project positions and responsibilities more appropriate to their skills. No, George Hammond would not be prejudiced against her or any female officer due to gender. In this case, all inequality was due solely to Sam's own biology. You simply couldn't send a pregnant woman into harms way, which would have gotten her off the team even if there were no worries about possible side effects of gate travel. Which meant that even if fraternization regulations didn't exist, she would have been off the team.
"I want you both to know that I don't think any less of either of you for what's happened," the General said, folding his hands on his desk. "There's no blame and no responsibility, as you were both under the control of an alien virus. The unfortunate thing is, I can't overlook the consequences of what happened to you, and neither can the Air Force.
"Captain Carter, you are off SG-1 effective immediately. For the duration of your pregnancy you will be doing lab work, analyzing objects brought back through the gate, and working to perfect the dialing program and gate diagnostics. After your pregnancy, we will reevaluate your assignment if you desire to be put back on an SG team. Although, as short-handed as we are around here, we may simply keep you on base and loan you out to various SG teams as needed to spread around your expertise. That would also give you the most flexibility and stability, if you keep the baby."
Sam's heart sank. She loved her team. SG-1 was an eclectic bunch of people, all of them interesting and good and (with the possible exception of Teal'c, whom she didn't know well enough to judge) friendly people. They hadn't been together long, but they'd been through a lot, and she didn't want to lose the bonds they'd made. Besides, going through the gate was the biggest adrenaline rush on this or any other planet. She wanted more gate travel, not less.
"'Various SG teams?' Does that include SG-1?" Jack asked.
"Perhaps," Hammond said, leaning back in his chair. "That would depend on a lot of things, including how well the two of you maintain a professional relationship, the extent of the find you need her to analyze, and the level of danger. I won't send you out into a situation where you might be forced to choose between the life of your child's mother and the lives of your teammates; that wouldn't be fair to any of you."
Sam had a thought, a way to stay on SG-1. It was a bad idea; even if Hammond could be persuaded to go along with it, the Air Force would not be. But she had to know.
"Sir?" she asked. "If I had an abortion, would I be able to stay on SG-1?"
Beside her, Jack froze. Hammond regarded her thoughtfully for a few moments. "No," he said. "For several reasons, among them-Jack, would you be able to work with her afterwards?"
"No." She glanced over at him. Jack O'Neill's face was stone solid, dead and cold. Jonas had looked at her that way sometimes. Sam nodded. Well, she'd had to know. And if he'd actually been willing to talk about the subject, she'd have known that without having to ask General Hammond.
"Are you planning on getting an abortion?" Hammond asked gently.
Sam looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. "No," she said. "I ... haven't completely ruled it out, yet, but I'm not planning on it. I'm still kind of in shock over the whole thing, and this is a big decision." She glanced up at Jack, sitting next to her; he could have been carved from stone, he was so still. "I want to know all the consequences, and I don't want to make a hasty decision I'll regret for the rest of my life."
"That's probably a good idea," General Hammond said carefully. Sam looked back at him; he had a slight frown on his face as he studied the two of them. He shifted his gaze back to Jack. "Colonel, as I'm sure you're aware, we are incredibly short handed. Finding people with the right combination of skills who have the proper security clearance is damn hard, and the extra psych profiling we've started to prevent any more incidents like the one with Jonas Hansen doesn't help. I'm afraid Captain Carter's reassignment will put you a man down for the foreseeable future. It's not ideal-we're hoping to someday have enough people to have six man teams for greater tactical flexibility instead of four, and you'll have half that now-but I'm sure you'll do fine with what you've got."
"Sure," Jack said, not looking at Sam. "No problem. Any word on our next mission?"
"You'll be heading out to check that planet with the invisible life form Teal'c mentioned." Hammond leaned back in his chair. "I know he doesn't talk much, but I'd like a bit more in-depth look at what you're going to be heading into before the briefing, if you can get it out of him."
"Teal'c's a good soldier," Jack said with a shrug. "He may not talk much about most things, but if he's got an operational comment he doesn't hold back. Much. I'll talk with him."
Hammond nodded. "Very well. Mission briefing is at 0830 hours tomorrow morning. Dismissed."
Jack got up and headed out the door without pausing. Despite her long stride, it took Sam a couple of seconds to catch up. "Sir?" she asked as she came along side him. "I'm sorry about that. What I asked, I mean. I just-"
"I understand, Captain," Jack said harshly, never glancing at her or slowing down. "You wanted to have all the information. Now you do. Anything else I can help you with?" The words were clipped, short, impersonal.
"No, thank you," Sam said, stopping and letting him walk away as he so obviously wanted. Damn the man!
Jack glanced up at the control room the next day as he, Daniel and Teal'c waited for the kawoosh of the Stargate opening for their trip to pick up this animal of Teal'c's. Captain Samantha Carter stood there in the window, watching them; her face looked strained and pale. He hadn't seen her since that meeting with Hammond. Behind him, he heard the whoosh of the wormhole, and Hammond's voice came over the speakers. "Good luck, SG-1. Godspeed."
Sam sat hunched over her computer; this was the part she hated, loathed, and despised. The reports. Whether it was military reports or scientific reports, it was boring as hell to sit down and type out things she already knew.
"Captain Carter?"
Sam blinked, pulled out of her reverie, and glanced over to the door. Doctor Frasier stood there, backlit by the hall lights. "Doctor Frasier? What can I do for you?"
"I'm going down to the commissary for a coffee-want to come with?"
Sam blinked. Her office was not on the way to the commissary from the infirmary. Still, hadn't she been moaning over her lack of female friends? Besides, given the choice between going for coffee and working on this report, she'd take coffee any day. "Sure," she said as she saved the document.
"Sure you don't want some fruit or something to go with your coffee?"
Sam shot the petite redhead a look as she set her coffee cup down at their table.
"Sorry." Doctor Frasier raised her hands. "I sometimes find it hard to turn the doctor part of my brain off. And you do need to eat healthier, now."
"You're probably right." Sam sighed and got up, heading for the counter where she grabbed a banana. Once back in her seat she began to peel it. "So, was that your ulterior motive for the coffee? Getting me to eat?"
"No, you're a big girl, Captain," Frasier said with a smile. "I think you can take care of yourself. I just moved here, don't have any friends in the area, and there are so few women on base that it's hard to make new ones. Especially considering how much overtime we're putting in due to being short staffed."
"And you figured I could use a friend, as well," Sam said, nodding. She took a bite out of her banana, considering. While Sam didn't like being a charity case, the other woman had a point. She needed a friend, and she liked what she knew of the other woman. "So where are you from?"
Jack stared down at Nefreyu's body, lying on the forest floor. God, it had happened again. Just like Charlie. The boy had come to him, interested in his weapons; Jack had told him to leave it alone; the boy had ignored it and wound up dead. If he were a superstitious man, he'd say that Fate or God or somebody was trying to give him a message. He'd failed as a father, failed as horribly as you possibly could. He knew that. This second chance at fatherhood-maybe the kid would be better off without him around. All he did, it seemed, was draw them into danger.
"O'Neill, could this not be a trap?" Teal'c's bass rumble came from behind him.
Jack tore his gaze from the boy and turned to the forest around them. "Yeah, you're right." Apophis was still out there, and they were on a fairly major trail, with the brightly dressed Nox to draw the eye. He'd had enough practice over the years to keep an eye on his surroundings while thinking of something else. Hell, who was he kidding? There was a good chance the baby wouldn't get born at all. He'd thought that with his offer to take custody, Carter would give up the abortion idea, but clearly that wasn't the case. She was ready to put her career before her child's life, and he didn't like the idea of a woman like that having custody of a child any more than he liked the idea of having another one himself. They were some pair, all right. Hell, she knew about Charlie-that was probably why she'd rather get an abortion than have the kid and give it to him. She probably figured it would save time and effort all around.
Jack knew he was being unfair, but couldn't bring himself to care.
"So, what's it like?" Janet asked. She was on call, but things were quiet in the infirmary and there was no need for her to stay there, so she'd followed Sam to her office to keep her company while she wrote her reports.
"What's what like?" Sam asked, glancing up from the requisition she was filling out. Most of the equipment she really needed was expensive or rare or both, and getting it was taking longer than she'd expected.
"Being pregnant. Getting ready to be a mom." The brunette looked at her seriously, head tilted to the side.
Sam froze, caught off guard. She avoided Janet's eyes for a second. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "There's been so much going on, and I haven't even decided-I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep the baby. But there's just so much going on, and there's been so little time to get used to it." She shrugged. "I never really had the normal teenage girl fantasies, you know, the ones where you find the man of your dreams and lived in the suburbs with a white picket fence, 2.3 children and a dog. But I always kind of figured that if I ever did end up having kids, I'd at least be married to the father."
"I know what you mean," Janet said. "I've always wanted children, but never found the right guy to have them with." She snorted. "I told you about my ex. For a while, briefly, I thought he might be the one. I've always been relieved, when I thought of it, that we didn't end up having kids together. He would have been a horrible father, and it would have meant we'd have to stay in contact." She smiled wistfully. "But I would like to be a mom, someday."
"Yeah," Sam said. "I just ... wish I knew what kind of a father Jack is going to be. I wish I knew more about him. We're going to be raising a baby together, and I hardly know the man!"
"'Jack'?" Janet said with a smile.
"Yeah, he took me to dinner," Sam said. She could feel herself blushing, slightly; that was the curse of fair skin, every little flush showed. "We're not in the same chain of command, any more, there's nothing wrong with it."
"I didn't say there was," the other woman responded mildly. "In fact, it's a good thing. You didn't think the baby was going to grow up calling his daddy 'sir,' did you?"
Sam snickered. "Not really, no."
"So, tell Auntie Janet all about your date."
"Auntie Janet?" Sam raised her eyebrows.
"Well, I'm hoping we'll all be stationed here long enough for me to be an 'auntie,'" Janet returned. "Given the problems they're having finding people for this facility and the clearance level needed to work here I can't imagine they'll be transferring people around and out at the rate most bases go through. And if I'm not going to have kids of my own for the foreseeable future, and if I have absolutely no prospects for a honey at the moment, at least I can live vicariously through you."
"And that way, when the baby is messy or noisy, you can just hand it right back."
"Exactly." Janet smirked. "How else? But you're not getting out of it that easily. The date, Sam!"
Sam cocked her head, thinking. "It was fun," she admitted. "We went to O'Malley's Bar and Grill here in Colorado Springs. We started off with the Simpsons, moved on to Rocky and Bullwinkle, and from there went on to trading funny childhood stories and anecdotes from places we'd been stationed."
"Fun is good, Captain," Janet said with a smile. "But I get the feeling there's a 'but' involved here, somewhere."
"There is," Sam admitted. "We didn't really talk about anything important, like how we're going to handle the child or anything. That's not exactly true," she forced herself to add. "He did say that if I didn't want it, he'd take custody. And he's a lapsed Catholic who doesn't mind the baby being raised Episcopalian. But that's about it. Everything was just surface stuff, you know? Any time we got close to anything important or serious, he'd veer off into funny stories. It was incredibly frustrating. Fun while it lasted, but I didn't learn much about what really makes the colonel tick. I've learned more about Jack from Daniel than from Jack himself."
"I can imagine," Janet said. "Still, in my experience most guys are like that. Especially in the military, which doesn't exactly encourage sharing of feelings and fears."
"I know that," Sam replied. "My dad's a general; I grew up following him from one base to another. It's just ... I know there's got to be something behind Jack's sarcastic façade. And not knowing worries me. You know about Jonas, right? I keep wondering if Jack has a dark side, too."
Janet looked down at her hands, suddenly introspective. Sam frowned. "Janet, do you know something about Jack that I should know?"
"I shouldn't say anything," Janet said. She sighed. "But it doesn't break the letter of doctor-patient confidentiality, I suppose. I was the primary physician for the initial mission to Abydos just over a year ago. The Colonel O'Neill I examined prior to that mission-he wasn't the Jack O'Neill we've all come to know. He was, well, a little scary. He was very focused, no sense of humor, no real personality to him at all. Just the mission. When he came back, it was like he was a different man. Whatever was going on in his mind, whatever issues he had, he'd taken care of them. And he's better now than he was then."
Sam listened carefully, to what she said and what she didn't say. "So you think whatever demons he has, he's taken care of them?" It wasn't what she'd hoped for, but it wasn't what she'd feared, either. And knowing about it, she could deal with it. Far better than her nebulous fears had been.
"I don't know the man well," Janet said, "but I think so, yes."
Jack hung his cap up in his locker and began methodically removing everything from his pockets, carefully not looking at the old cigar box full of memories stashed at the bottom of the locker. His pants just needed to be laundered, but the rest of the outfit was a total write-off-when the Nox had brought them back to life, they hadn't troubled themselves to mend their clothing.
"Hey, Jack," Daniel said opening the locker to his right and beginning the same process.
"Daniel." It was an acknowledgement of the other man's presence, no more; surely it wasn't too much to hope that even the talkative (and pushy) younger man would notice that Jack Wanted to be Left Alone?
"You got kinda quiet there towards the end of the mission," Daniel continued, oblivious to his Garbo routine, or at least pretending to be. Apparently, it was too much to hope for. "Is anything bothering you?"
"I'm fine."
"You sure about that?" Daniel asked. "Because, I mean, if you need to talk about anything, I'm always available."
Jack finished going through his pockets and closed the locker, stripping off his clothes and tossing them into the laundry hamper. Maybe if he ignored the archaeologist, he'd get the hint and go away. It wasn't likely, but it was better than nothing.
"I know Sam's needed someone to talk to the last few days-it's kind of overwhelming, what you two are going through."
Jack very carefully did not grind his teeth together as he finished shucking his clothing. He didn't want to hear about just how Daniel was comforting Sam, but any reaction would reveal more than he wanted to show. Burying his emotions deeply was an old habit, one that had stood him well before.
"And I can't imagine this is any easier for you," the archaeologist continued. He sounded frustrated. Good. "So I'm here, if you need me." And tired; Jack was hit with a twinge of conscience. The guy had traded his life for Jack's back on the first Abydos mission, and after the second one Jack had given him a place to stay and a shoulder to cry on (figuratively, of course-as far as Jack knew, Daniel had never actually cried about Sha're's kidnapping). All he wanted was to return the favor; he hadn't done anything to deserve the cold shoulder.
"I'm fine, Daniel," Jack heard himself say. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm fine." He grabbed his towel and headed for the shower.
Behind him he heard Teal'c's bass rumble. "I do not believe O'Neill wishes to talk at this time, Daniel Jackson. Perhaps at a later time he might be more responsive."
Sam wandered around the base looking for Jack. Daniel had stopped by her lab after the mission debriefing, but the colonel had not. True to form he wasn't in his office; however, he wasn't in Daniel's office, the commissary, or Teal'c's quarters, either. Finally she tracked him down in the base rec room, teaching Teal'c the fine art of ping-pong.
"Hey," she said, announcing her presence.
"Sam," Jack responded shortly, keeping his eyes on the game.
"Captain Carter," Teal'c said, also focused.
She watched them hit the ball back and forth in a comfortable rhythm. "Having fun?"
"Indeed," Teal'c replied.
Jack ignored her, frowning at the ball as if it were a Jaffa patrol. Well, maybe he just got really involved in his games. Mark was like that; forget talking with him when he was playing pool or foosball. Anything not game related went in one ear and out the other without ever stopping to be recognized.
"How'd the mission go?" she asked. "I hear from Daniel that the Nox are interesting people. Too bad they don't want to talk to us. I bet we could learn a lot from them."
"Yeah," Jack said.
After watching them for a few more minutes, Sam shrugged to herself. Boys and their toys. "Jack, you busy tonight?"
"No."
"I was thinking we could maybe have dinner together, again." She glanced at Teal'c, then back at Jack. The alien was minding his own business, attention solely on the game.
"Sure."
"Where would you like to go?" Sam asked, trying and failing to keep her exasperation with his one-word answers out of her voice. It really was Mark all over again! Oddly enough, she found the terseness kind of reassuring. Jonas had had a dark side, and occasionally had been strange, but he'd always loved the sound of his own voice. She'd been frightening herself over nothing. Whatever issues Jack had, he was not Jonas. The fact that one spec-ops boyfriend had gone nuts did not mean that this one was going to. Holy Hannah. Was the colonel her boyfriend? Well, what else would you call it-they were arranging to meet for their second date.
"Anywhere is fine. O'Malley's is good."
At least it was more than one word. Since she hadn't been in town long enough to have much idea what the options were ... "O'Malley's is fine with me. Say, 1930 hours?"
"I'll be there."
Sam gave him a tight smile. "See you there.
Jack strode through the doors of O'Malley's at 1932 that evening. Captain Sam Carter was waiting for him; he wasn't surprised. "Hey," he said as he slid into her booth.
"Hey," she replied. "Look, Jack, I wanted to apologize for what I said in Hammond's office a couple days ago."
Jack felt his features freeze up. And what a lovely little conversation that had been. Interesting view into Sam's priorities, there.
"I should probably explain about where I was coming from," Sam continued despite his lack of reaction. "My question, at the end. I'm not planning on having an abortion, just so you know," she said. "And I probably wouldn't be planning one even if neither you nor Hammond had a problem with me being on the team afterwards. I'm not really comfortable with the idea of abortion as a form of birth control, though I do think that it's a valid choice for women in different circumstances."
'Not comfortable.' 'Solution' to a 'problem.' Jack looked down at his water glass and wished it were something stronger. Oh, yeah, she'd make a great mom. He opened his menu.
"It's just, I tend to approach all problems like one of my equations or an experiment."
Really racking up the brownie points, there, Sam, Jack noted sourly. This is supposed to be an apology? He closed the menu and shoved it aside; he didn't need to read it. He'd been here enough times before. A single man who disliked cooking as much as he did got to know all the restaurants in the area well.
"I need to know all the variables and all the possible outcomes before I make a decision. No matter how unlikely it is I'll choose that particular outcome. I hope there's no hard feelings?"
A baby's life was a 'variable.' Perfect. "No, it's fine, Sam," he said.
The waitress stepped up and they ordered. Jack ordered a whisky chaser for his beer, this time around. If the conversation kept up like this, he was going to need it. He had no missions scheduled for the next few days (the next couple of weeks, actually, and he really hoped Carter could speed up the computer program that spit out new addresses). He could take a cab home if he needed to; wouldn't be the first time.
"I've been thinking about what you said, about custody," Sam said once the waitress had left. Did she ever shut up? "I don't think it's necessary for you to give up your career, or anything drastic. Since I'm going to be on ... around here more, it only makes sense that I have primary custody. You'd be welcome any time, of course, and I'm sure we could work out an arrangement we could both live with. I don't think this will work if we're both active members of SG teams; that's too much traveling and too much stress and too many risks. I'd still like to go on missions as much as possible, though. We'll have time to work this out over the next few months. I'm sure we can come up with something that we can both live with. Of course, all this is subject to change once the baby actually gets here. Do you have any particular concerns about custody?"
Didn't the woman ever shut up? Sara had liked to talk, but it wasn't this unending stream. And she'd known when to let him be. God, he missed her. He still turned around expecting to see her, sometimes, when he was out around town. Shit. What was he going to tell her about Sam and the baby? Colorado Springs wasn't that big a town, and most of it was military. Most of Sara's friends had been wives of his buddies and teammates. She was bound to hear about this sooner or later, and he owed it to her to tell her himself. She'd be devastated. They'd tried for years to have another child after Charlie. "No, not really," he said.
Sam watched him, concerned. This night was not shaping up well so far. He wasn't talking much more than he had in the rec room earlier, and she was babbling incoherently to fill the silence as she did when she was nervous. And he was drinking a lot more. "Is something wrong, Jack?" she asked.
"I'm fine," he said. "You? Any problems?"
"Fine." Sam shrugged. "The only symptom of pregnancy I've gotten so far is occasional mild nausea. No biggie. They're doing all kinds of tests to make sure that the virus didn't do anything, or the radiation I was exposed to on the two missions after the virus, or gate travel. So far, everything looks good, they tell me."
"So the kid won't have six fingers and glow in the dark?" Jack lifted an eyebrow.
"At this point, it doesn't look likely," Sam said with half a smile. It was the first thing he'd said to her since the meeting with Hammond that wasn't an answer to a direct question. She waited for a few seconds to see if he'd say something more, but all Jack did was play with his beer, which he seemed to find more interesting than actually drinking it would be. As the silence grew awkward, she realized she'd have to be the one to keep the conversation going. She didn't like the Simpsons, had never watched hockey, and Jack certainly wasn't going to be interested in her lab reports; even she wasn't interested in them. "So what did you think of the Nox? Daniel said you only talked to three of them-a man, a woman, and a boy-and never got a look at their technology, but they sound like interesting people.
"Yes, they were." Jack shifted in his chair. "Lya was sweet, even if I did think she was nuts at the time. Still think they're a little whacko, but after seeing their city, at least they're not stupid."
"Yeah, it sounds like they can take care of themselves," Sam agreed. "I still hope Apophis doesn't decide to go after them-superior technology can only do so much. I mean, look at the Goa'uld. Their technology is far more advanced than ours is, but every time we've come up against them so far, we've won."
"Yeah, but we've been lucky," Jack replied. The waitress was there with their food, and he leaned back to give her room. He waited till the waitress was gone to continue. "All it's gonna take is one, maybe two motherships in orbit and we're toast."
"Yeah-I read Teal'c's report on the kind of damage one of those things can do." Sam took a bite of her baked potato. It was so much better than the cafeteria could produce. "Still, you and Daniel took one out at Abydos."
"Yeah. Like I said, we were lucky." Jack shrugged. "Let's hope the Goa'uld never get lucky with the Nox."
"Let's hope." Sam raised her diet coke in salute. "So how did Daniel do?" she asked. "This turned his first real 'combat' mission. He asked me about the military mindset, when he stopped by my lab after the debriefing."
Jack concentrated on cutting his steak, not looking up at her. "He did ok." A sip of beer. "Like he did on Abydos, the first time. So, you two are getting to be good friends?"
"Yeah." Sam smiled. "He's a sweet guy. He's been there for me since this whole thing started."
"Good." He still wasn't meeting her eyes.
"He was so different from last time," Sam said into the phone cradled in her shoulder. "I just couldn't believe it." She really needed more furniture; the recliner was comfy, but she just wanted to stretch out on a nice big couch right now.
"I wonder why he was so different," Janet mused. "Is something bothering him?"
"How should I know? I'm only carrying his baby. Why should he talk to me?" Sam grimaced and shifted the phone to the other side. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to take that out on you. It was just so frustrating. It's like he expects me to be a mind reader and pick up what he wants by osmosis. Okay, I've figured out that abortion's really unthinkable to him. I get that. I'm not going to have one. I told him that. I apologized for suggesting it; he's still giving me the cold shoulder. At least, I assume that's why he wasn't talking tonight. I mean, sometimes he was almost fine. But then he'd go right back into silent mode! When Daniel said he doesn't talk, I thought he was exaggerating. Jack O'Neill has a smart remark for everything, right? No, Daniel was right on target. Jack O'Neill doesn't talk about anything important. And I'm getting sick of it!" Her voice had risen to a shrill high that even Sam barely recognized. Oh, God, were the dreaded pregnancy hormone swings she'd heard about starting to kick in?
"Honey, I don't know what his problem is, but there is no man on God's green earth who is worth getting that worked up over," came Janet's voice over the phone. "If he's going to be a moody bastard, well, you can't change that. But you do have to take care of yourself and the baby."
"I know," Sam admitted, feeling drained and fighting for composure. She was a scientist! A military officer! She'd always prided herself on being as tough as any man she'd come up against, and not a weepy woman. You had to be, to make it in the military. And here she was, turning into the thing she'd always scorned. It was a sad comeuppance.
"You know, maybe he'll get better again," Janet continued. "Maybe he'll turn into a devoted partner and father. Maybe not. But whatever he does, you can't let him get you down. You're a strong woman, Sam, and a smart one. You can handle this. I'll be here for you, and so will Doctor Jackson, no matter what happens."
"Thanks, Janet," Sam admitted. "That means a lot to me." She glanced at the VCR. Was it that late already? On cue, she fought back a yawn. "And speaking of taking care of myself, it's time to get myself and baby off to bed."
"See you tomorrow."
Jack and Teal'c wandered into the cafeteria the next morning to find, as had become usual, Sam and Daniel already there, talking earnestly. Jack wondered what the big guy at his back thought of all this; Teal'c had said little, so far, but Jack knew he observed everything that went on around him. They grabbed their breakfast, and Jack raised an eyebrow at the sheer amount of food on T's tray. Besides large portions of waffles, scrambled eggs, and sausage, he had a mound of fruit and several biscuits. How he ate like that and kept from turning into a blimp had been a question Jack had wondered about since the first time he'd seen the guy eat.
They sat down at the table with their fellow teammates and the three humans watched with a bit of disbelief as Teal'c began attacking his mound of food with a single-minded determination unmatched by most teenage boys.
After a brief silence, Daniel spoke up. "So, how are you doing, Jack?"
"Fine," Jack said, taking a bite of his waffles. "Hammond's given me a stack of personnel folders as thick as I am tall to look over-they're really trying to find people they can bring in."
"I know," Sam said. "They've got a stack of dossiers like that of civilian scientists for me, too. They were waiting for me in my lab, when I got in this morning. Wonder why they all came at once like that?"
"Oh, I gave up pondering the mysteries of the military bureaucracy years ago, Captain."
"Y'know, we do need some more anthropologists and linguistics specialists, too," Daniel pointed out. "That is, if they really are serious about doing cultural studies of the worlds we encounter. Even just to translate the stuff the teams are starting to find to see if it's worth further study, we need more people."
"Don't feel left out, Danny boy," Jack said. It came out a little snider than he'd intended. "I'm sure that as the biggest and best language geek on base, you'll get your very own pile of personnel folders soon enough, whenever they figure out they really do need more geeks. Good luck." He could feel Teal'c's eyes on him, and studiously did not look at the man to his left. He couldn't miss Sam's glare, however, as she was seated across from him.
"Do you have anybody in mind that you'd specifically like to have?" Sam asked him. "If so, you can tell General Hammond, and he can start the recruiting process in motion."
Daniel hesitated. "Well, I burned most of my bridges pretty thoroughly before Catherine Langford recruited me for this project. A lot of the top people I'd like to have wouldn't listen to any offer from me even if they got security clearance. Robert Rothman might be interested, though; he was one of my grad students, and while he didn't buy my theories, he didn't really mind them, either."
Teal'c was great at Ping-Pong. Better than Jack was, usually. He approached the game with the same absolute dedication he gave to everything; Jack was therefore surprised than usual when Teal'c spoke in the middle of a set.
"You should not take your frustrations with Captain Carter out on Daniel Jackson."
"What?" The alien had spoken up at just the right moment, too, Jack grumbled to himself as he retrieved the ball. If he'd said anything about it, though, T would probably give him some inscrutable reply that a mere observation shouldn't have been enough to break his focus on the game. He retrieved the ball from the corner it had bounced to-that was the one thing about uniform gray concrete walls and floor; they made the ping-pong ball stand out.
"Whatever unhappiness or anger you feel about the way Captain Carter is handling the situation you both have found yourselves in, and whatever problems you have with yourself, you should not make Daniel Jackson bear the brunt of them," Teal'c explained patiently, waiting for him to serve again. "You undermine the unity of our team when you do so."
"I'm not taking it out on Daniel!" Jack frowned as Teal'c just watched him impassively. "Okay, so, maybe a little. It's just ... he's annoying me all on his own, besides Sam." He served the ball.
They continued with the game in silence for a few minutes, but Jack could feel Teal'c waiting for him to say more. It was a very effective interrogation tactic, he realized. But, what the hell. Even he needed to talk to someone sometime, and with Kawalsky dead and Lou Ferreti busy with his first command, Teal'c was the only friend he had with clearance that he could talk to about this.
"It's just, almost every time I see either one on base, they're together, chattering away like there's no one else in the world," Jack admitted.
"They are both quite voluble about many subjects," Teal'c said.
"Yeah. And they both keep trying to pester me about how I feel about everything."
There was silence as Teal'c considered this. Just when Jack thought the conversation was over, he spoke up again. "As the mother of your child, Captain Carter deserves your confidences, and requires them. As one of your closest friends, Daniel Jackson sincerely wishes to help you in this difficult time. And if you were to confide in them as they need and deserve, perhaps they would not then need to support each other, and you would have less cause to be jealous."
"I'm not jealous!" Jack missed the ball and threw his racket down on the table. Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow at him in silence.
"So, how has he been today so far?"
Sam looked up from the stack of reports she was diligently working through with a grin. "Hey, Janet." The petite doctor had a stack of files cradled in her arm that looked suspiciously familiar. "They have you doing personnel evaluations, too, huh? Jack and I both have them, but Daniel doesn't and he was jealous."
"Well, if he wants mine he can have them," Janet said, hefting them onto a clear space on the worktable. "I thought we might as well keep each other company as we work through these."
"Good idea." Sam adjusted her piles somewhat so Janet would have more room. "Or are you just jealous that my table is bigger than your desk?"
"Well, you know, Sam, sometimes size does matter." Janet managed to say it with a straight face, only to snicker when Sam began giggling.
"Is that a subtle way to ask about Jack?" Sam asked after a few seconds.
"No, I don't need to ask. Remember all those lovely full-body examinations my nurses and I get to do before and after each mission? I know what all your teammates are packin', dear."
"And?"
Janet raised an eyebrow. "Doctor/Patient confidentiality, Captain," she said loftily, which sent them into giggles again.
Sam hadn't had this much girl-talk in, well, since she could remember. She'd been a geek in high school and a bit of a late bloomer, and she'd fast learned that the only way to get ahead in the military was to be one of the guys. She'd never missed it, but now that she knew how fun gossiping and giggling with another woman was, she'd never give it up.
"But seriously, Sam, how was the colonel today?"
Sam sighed and turned the page on the file she'd been reading before answering. "He was fine, to me. Kind of neutral. He was a bit rude to Daniel, though."
"Really?" Janet followed her lead and opened the top folder in her stack. "I hear he's been spending less time in Doctor Jackson's office and more time in the rec rooms with Mr. Teal'c."
"Yeah, he has. Daniel's a bit bewildered by it. He's trying to be a friend, and Jack is freezing him out."
"Too bad," Janet said. "I'd gotten the impression they were really close."
Jack strolled into Daniel's office, hands in his pockets, to find the archaeologist buried beneath a familiar stack of file folders, larger than the one Jack had been given. "I told you they'd get around to you, Daniel. Complaining was tempting fate. What, did you get twice the number of folders to make up for it?"
Daniel looked up and blinked owlishly. "Oh, hi, Jack." He glanced around. "No, uh, actually not. Someone apparently did a lot of planning last year back when we first got the gate running, about what kind of operations they'd be running through it. They'd already made a short list of military people they wanted here. Same with scientists. So you and Sam have fewer dossiers to go through, and since there are other officers and scientists already in the project the files you do have can be split up with other officers. But since no one really considered that archaeologists, anthropologists, and linguists might be useful to the SGC, they don't have a short list-I'm having to slog through everything. And there really isn't anyone to share the burden. This is on top of the fact that as the only person trained in linguistics and anthropology, I've got to work through everything any of the teams find until I can actually wade through this stuff, find good candidates, get them hired, and get them trained. It's actually ... a bit overwhelming. I had no idea the military had this much paperwork." He looked rather forlorn as he surveyed the sea of manila.
Jack smirked. "Anybody tells you the Air Force flies on jet fuel is lying to you, Danny. Paperwork. Pure paperwork." He seated himself on a stool and glanced around. Last time Daniel had had some doodad or other on the table he could play with, but everything was buried at the moment. "Wait, train people? I thought you were looking at people who were ... already trained." Teal'c was right, he had been giving Daniel the cold shoulder and it wasn't fair to him; Jack wanted to make it up to the guy, but he couldn't bring himself to actually open up. At least not right away.
Daniel pushed his glasses up. "Well, yes, trained in linguistics and such. But I don't think they teach Goa'uld at any colleges or universities that I know of, at least not on Earth. The people I pick will have the right background, but there are some specifics about what we're dealing with that they'll have to learn before they're of much use to me. I'm sure Sam's going to run into the same thing; there's got to be a lot they've learned about physics and astrophysics that hasn't gotten into any scientific journal yet." He frowned. "Which reminds me. The people we want will be a lot easier to get if they're allowed to publish at least some of what we find. I'll have to ask Hammond if there's any way around the security issue."
"Daniel," Jack said with a wince, "I don't think that'll be possible. The paranoid security types would probably restrict so much of the information that whatever you want to print will come out gibberish."
"Oh." Daniel's face fell slightly. "I figured. They really are paranoid, aren't they?"
Jack glanced furtively around. "Shhh," he whispered theatrically, "they might be listening."
Daniel laughed. "Right. I guess it's endemic to top-secret military bases, right?"
"Yup, pretty much." Damnit, there wasn't even a pencil lying around anywhere. What the hell was he supposed to do with his hands?
"So, how's Sam doing?"
Jack's head shot up. "Fine. Why do you ask?" It came out a touch too defensively, and he cursed himself for it.
"No reason," Daniel said carefully. "Do you know she's fine because you've talked to her, or are you just assuming because she hasn't told you something's wrong?"
Busted. He fidgeted a little. Now Daniel sounded like Sara did when she was trying to get him to admit he was wrong.
Daniel apparently drew the right conclusion about his silence. "You do need to talk to her, Jack."
"I know." And Sam wasn't the only 'her' he needed to talk to.
"And not just about the Simpsons and fishing, either. She's under a lot of stress right now, and a lot of that is because she doesn't know much about you or about how you're going to handle this thing."
"I told her I'd be there for her, whatever she needed," Jack said defensively.
"You haven't been, so far," Daniel pointed out.
It took the wind out of his sails. Metaphorically speaking, that was. And why was he using naval metaphors? The closest he ever got to the water was the lake at his cabin in Minnesota, and there were no boats involved.
"I don't want to pressure you or anything," Daniel said, coming around to his side of the table. "And if you need any advice on how to talk to her, I've gotten to know her over the past couple of weeks while you've been ignoring her. And I'm ... married," he said with a glance at the picture of Sha're that had pride of place in his work area. He glanced down and bit his lip before continuing, "so I have some relationship experience-"
"I used to be married, too, y'know," Jack said in some annoyance.
Daniel nodded. "That's true," he said mildly, staring at Jack.
Okay, so the fact that he was divorced probably didn't qualify him for husband of the year.
"I know you can handle this," Daniel continued after a pause, "but if you'd like any help talking with her, I'd be glad to do whatever I can."
The slender man pushed his glasses up and watched Jack some more. What was it, the next Olympic event? Teal'c would take the gold, but Daniel was working himself up to a strong contender for the silver.
"Jack is something else bothering you?" he asked at last.
Jack debated telling him. After that wonderful spill-your-guts moment when he'd first found out, he'd been a little leery of talking about it. Well, more so than usual, anyway. Sam had been right to be mad, and his only excuse was that he'd been in a state of shock at the time and had no defenses against the persistence of his teammates, especially the geek. And it wasn't even a one-time-only event. Daniel'd managed to get practically his life's story out of Jack in the caves on Abydos.
Hell, he was probably going to find out anyway. If nothing else, he'd simply wear him down over the next few weeks; Jack couldn't remember what Daniel's middle name was from the personnel file he'd glanced at the year before, but he'd lay money on 'Persistence.' "I haven't told Sara, yet," he admitted. "I don't think she'll take it well, not this soon after ... Charlie. But I owe it to her to tell her personally, not just let her find out through the grapevine."
"Do you want me or Teal'c to come along when you tell her, for moral support? Or Sam?"
Jack's eyes widened in horror. "Hell, no. It'll be bad enough by myself. I just ... have to get off my butt and go talk to her."
"Then do it," Daniel said. "It won't get any easier."
Sam glanced up at a tentative tap at the door to find Jack standing there, fidgeting. "Come on in, Jack," she said.
"Hey." Jack glanced around the lab, and made a beeline for a magnifying glass she'd left out on a counter.
Sam watched in bemusement as he turned it over in his hands and squinted through it in a manner more reminiscent of a four year old than a forty-something year old. The way he was studiously not looking at her square on completed the illusion of a naughty child in the Principal's office. "So, how are the files going?" she asked, as it became apparent that (once again), Jack wasn't going to talk on his own.
"Well, not as fast as General Hammond might like," he said, wincing. "I can't decide if we need veterans who know how to handle themselves on Earth but have no clue how to handle aliens and scientists, or young kids we can train specifically to handle the wacky things that we're finding out there. And the eggheads, too."
Sam raised an eyebrow in amusement. "As an 'egghead,' Jack, can I say thank you for lumping us in with megalomaniac body-snatching aliens and caveman viruses? You really don't like scientists." She took pity on his distress as he realized what he'd said and waved it away. "Maybe we need some of each."
"Yeah. I thought of that," Jack said, still fiddling with the magnifying glass. "I'm giving Hammond a wide selection to choose from." He fell silent again.
Sam, figuring that since he was interrupting her work it was his job to keep the conversation going, opened the next folder. The sooner she got this done the sooner she could go back to work that was actually interesting.
They sat in companionable silence for a while. Jack played with the magnifying glass, entertaining her when she happened to glance up from the paperwork.
"Sam?" Jack said at last.
"Yeah?" she asked, not looking up.
"About Sara."
Sam froze, every muscle tensing. "As in, your ex-wife?"
"Yeah."
From Jack's voice, this wasn't any easier for him than it was for her. Sam carefully marked her place in the file she'd been reading and set it aside so she could give Jack her full attention. "What about her?"
"I have to tell her about this," Jack said, waving at her stomach and its as-yet imperceptible resident. "I have to tell her myself, in person. It wouldn't be fair to her to have her find out about this through the grapevine."
Sam nodded. She'd tried to avoid thinking about this. "Yeah."
"I'd rather do this sooner than later," Jack went on. "Would you mind if I told her about this over the weekend?"
"No, that sounds fine," Sam said, looking down. "Do you want me to come along?"
"No, thanks," Jack said. "I think I need to do this by myself."
Jack pulled up to a stop in front of the two-story suburban house and stared straight ahead. This was not going to be pretty. He just hoped Sara's dad wasn't there; the older man had never thought he was good enough for his little girl. Well, Jack couldn't really argue that point, but having him hang around sure as hell wasn't going to make this any easier.
He sighed and got out of the car, and made his way over the treacherous snow to her front door. Shoveling the snow had been his job, when he was home during winter; Sara hated the cold. The only thing that had reconciled her to the Springs was that his posting to Peterson-that had been before the SGC, of course-meant he was no longer in covert ops and had been supposed to last a long time, long enough to buy a house and settle down. The only thing that could have kept her in the area, now that his career was no longer a consideration for her, was Charlie's grave.
He knocked on what had once been his front door, and steeled himself to the task ahead of him. After a few minutes, he heard feet behind the door and a lock being turned. Sara opened the door and stood there before him, just as beautiful as he remembered her.
When she saw who it was, she frowned in suspicion and looked him up and down. "You're not some weird clone thing that is going to start shooting off electricity, are you?" she asked suspiciously.
"No." The carefully planned speech froze in his throat. They stood there staring at each other while he tried to figure out what to do next. "Your walk needs shoveling," he said at last.
Sara frowned, a pinched look covering her face. "We are not getting back together, Jack," she said.
"I know," he replied quietly.
She studied him some more. "You know where the shovel is." She disappeared back into the house. Jack went around to the side of the house, grabbed the shovel, and got to work.
When he was finished he knocked on the door again. Sara had been expecting him, for she opened the door quickly and handed him a mug of hot coffee as she gestured silently for him to come in. When they were seated in the living room he glanced around, stalling for time. She'd repainted, he saw, and though the furniture was mostly the same it had all been rearranged ...
"Okay, Jack," Sara said, interrupting his thoughts. "Thanks for shoveling the snow. What's this visit about?"
Jack looked down at his cocoa. "I'm seeing someone," he said quietly. As the silence stretched out, he played with the mug she'd given him. He didn't recognize it.
"I kind of figured," Sara said. He looked up to find her staring out the window blinking rapidly. "What's she like?"
He considered what to tell her. "She's in the Air Force. A captain. She's an astrophysicist; works in Cheyenne doing Deep Space Radar Telemetry."
"A captain?" Sara asked in some surprise. "So she's younger than ...." She trailed off, and Jack winced internally. Yeah, she was younger than Sara was, and women were sensitive about that; he shouldn't have mentioned Sam's rank. "An astrophysicist, you say? Well, you always did love astronomy and such things. I suppose you two have some fun with that telescope of yours."
Jack studied his coffee some more. If he didn't say anything, he couldn't say the wrong thing again.
"So, she's smart," Sara said, evidently deciding that she needed more detail. "What else is she like? Does she have a good sense of humor? Is she nice? Does she have any family? What's her name? What does she look like? What's her favorite color, for God's sake!"
Jack sighed. "She can be funny, and she can also be very enthusiastic. Blonde, blue-eyed,"
"Tall and leggy?" Sara interrupted.
"Yeah." Jack gave a short nod.
Sara gave a mirthless laugh. "Why am I not surprised. Go on."
"Her dad's Air Force. She likes blue jell, but she won't eat the red kind." Jack paused. There really wasn't any good way to say this. "And she's pregnant."
"Pregnant?" Sara stopped abruptly and bit her lip, staring at him. "God, you really didn't waste any time replacing me and Charlie, did you?"
"What?" Jack yelped, so angry and ashamed it felt like a physical pain in his chest. "No, wait, Sara, it wasn't anything like that. God, we were married for over a decade! No one could take your place, and sure as hell no one could take Charlie's. Do you really think that little of me?"
"Well, that's sure what it looks like from this angle!" Sara shot back. "The divorce was finalized what, four months ago? And you've already replaced me with the newer, smarter model and not only that, you've knocked her up already. Well, I'm sorry to interrupt your game of happy families, Jack, but the wounds are still a little too raw for me to smile and say 'congratulations.'"
"It's not like that," Jack repeated. "We didn't plan this, it just sort of happened. I didn't approach her; she came to me." From what little he remembered through the haze the virus had left, that was true. "And it wasn't supposed to develop into anything serious." He clamped his mouth shut. That was all more than Sara needed to know. They weren't married any more. He was not cheating on her. He did not have to justify his actions to her.
"So what was it, a one night stand?"
Jack tried to keep his face still but after years of marriage Sara knew him too well. "It was, wasn't it?" she said in wonder. "I never figured you for that type." She wrapped her arms around herself and stared out the window.
The silence stretched out and Jack began to fidget. He wasn't about to break it; there were too many things he could say wrong. He didn't want to hurt her, but it seemed like that was all he'd done to her for the past two years. It was why he hadn't contested the separation and divorce. He'd wanted to stop hurting her more than anything else, and giving her the divorce she'd asked for had been the only way he could see to do that, even though it had felt like it tore his newly rediscovered heart out. "I'm sorry, Sara," he said at last. "I never meant to hurt you."
"I know," she said, still looking out the window, blinking back tears. "I'm sorry, too. About a lot of things. Including what I said just now. It was cruel and uncalled for. Thank you for telling me, and I hope you will both be very happy. I'd like to be left alone, now."
Jack put his mug down, knowing that Sara would not accept any comfort he could give her; not now. It wasn't his right, any more. God, he wished it was. But all he could do was leave her to her grief in peace. "I'm sorry, Sara," he said again.
He let himself out the door. Once back in his truck, he rested his forehead on the ice-cold steering wheel for a while before starting up the car and driving away.
Sam stood in the briefing room overlooking the gateroom and watched her former team go through the Gate without her. She rubbed her stomach. "Well, guess it's just you and me, kid," she murmured, trying to suppress the green-eyed monster. As the wormhole shut down, she sighed and turned towards the stairs.
The nice thing about Stargate travel was that even when the weather in Colorado Springs was nasty, you could step through the gate to P-whatever and find yourself in a paradise like this. It said something about his life that he was more relaxed on an unknown alien planet than he was back on Earth. He wasn't sure what it said, but it said something. Jack soaked in the sun while Daniel and Teal'c discussed something about Greece, and health, and the natives. Well, actually, Daniel did most of the talking and T said stuff like "indeed" a lot. Still, the Jaffa was talking more than he had when Sam had been on the team.
A pretty young brunette was giving him the eye. He gave her a brief grimace that might have passed for a smile if one were charitable, and dragged his attention back to the mission. "Um ...do things feel a little ... 'off' here?"
Daniel frowned at him. "Are you crazy? It's a paradise."
"Yeah, sure, have an apple. What could happen?" Jack glanced around at the happy, healthy villagers. Yep, this was definitely too good to be true. The brunette had given up watching him and started over towards him with a dish of some kind.
"Uh, Jack, aren't you being a little negative, here?" Daniel asked.
Jack shot him a glance. "No." He turned his attention to the brunette, who was now standing before him.
"I am Kynthia," she said with a smile directed only at him. "Welcome to our village."
Jack glanced at his teammates. He supposed there was no need to be rude. "Thank you. Jack O'Neill," he introduced himself. "That's Daniel Jackson with the hair, and Teal'c without it." He gestured at them in the hopes she would transfer some of her attention to them; he had enough trouble dealing with women lately, he didn't want more.
Kynthia smiled at them both briefly, but returned her focus to Jack. She uncovered the dish she held, revealing some bread-like ... stuff. She offered it to him.
"No thanks," he said, which seemed to disappoint her.
"Jack, we don't want to refuse their hospitality," Daniel put in.
Jack shot him a glance, but shrugged and took a piece. Daniel was the cultural expert, after all. Jack took a bite and flashed a smile at the girl.
"It is pleasing?" Kynthia asked hopefully.
"Very," Jack replied. Again, she was singling him out. "You should have some," he said to Daniel.
Kynthia moved the tray before Daniel could take any. "It is only for you," she told Jack, giving him the dish. She walked back to the group of women she'd been standing with and a lot of giggling began. That was never a good sign, when grown women started giggling like teens.
"'Only for you'?" Daniel repeated. "Jack, it sounds like she's taken quite a liking to you. Uh ..."
"I know, Daniel," Jack said. "Don't worry. Given the situation back home I'm not going to pull a Captain Kirk, here."
"Who is this 'Captain Kirk' you speak of?" Teal'c asked.
"A character on an old TV show," Jack explained. "He liked to fool around with the native girls." This cake was really good. Really, really good. He ate more, dimly aware that Daniel was nattering away about television off to his right. It seemed to be coming from a long ways away. And he knew he should probably be a bit worried about the way his vision was becoming blurred around the edges, but just couldn't work up the effort. Carefully, he put the dish down next to him. He eyed the piece left over, but decided not to eat it. Maybe not such a good idea.
He glanced up at nearby movement, and saw some local beauties crowding round. "Hello, girls," he said as they moved him to another bench. Nice view. Lots of pretty girls. Oh, look, there was the one who offered him the cake. Dancing. Sweet.
Sam knew there was no real need for her presence in the control room for every incoming wormhole. However as the foremost expert in Gate technology, and one of the most experienced officers in offworld travel currently on the planet (not that that necessarily meant much given that the SGC had only been in operation a few months), she figured it was justified. Not that SG-1 were expected back any time soon (they'd only been gone a few hours out of a two-day recon), but she hated when they were offworld without her. So when the offworld activation sirens went off, she headed for the Gate room immediately.
She made it just in time to see Daniel walk through the Stargate, alone.
"Doctor Jackson, where are your teammates?" General Hammond asked through the microphone.
"They're okay," Daniel said, but Sam knew him well enough to know that wasn't the whole truth even from a story above him. "Teal'c and Jack are ... building ties with the natives. We just wanted to get this analyzed." He held up a standard sample container.
"Analyzed for what, Doctor?"
Daniel shrugged. "I'm not really sure, General. Some kind of drug or narcotic, probably."
"Very well. Take it to Doctor Frasier and get it and yourself checked out."
"Me?" Daniel frowned. "I'm fine, sir."
"You're probably right," General Hammond replied. "But as a new policy, no goes through the Stargate-either way-without a thorough examination. We don't want to take any chances."
Daniel was avoiding her. He'd managed to use his post-mission exam as an excuse to dodge her questions about the mission, then slipped into the locker room where Sam couldn't follow. The more uncomfortable he got and the more evasions he made, the more worried and suspicious she got. Sam was still trying to figure out how to make him talk when General Hammond showed up. Daniel was soon back in the infirmary to answer his questions, and Sam figured that was as good a way as any to find out what was going on.
"Doctor Jackson, would you mind telling me why Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c were the ones to stay and make friends with the natives while the SGC's best language and cultural expert was sent back with samples?"
Sam couldn't quite see General Hammond's face from where she stood, behind and to his left. She could, however, see Daniel's face, and he would never make it as a poker player. Something was wrong, and from the way he kept glancing at her it was something he didn't want to tell her. If Jack or Teal'c were injured or in physical danger he would have said something, already. Which left ... what?
"Jack was ... getting to know one of the Argosians better," Daniel said hesitantly. "We didn't want to ... interrupt that. Teal'c and I were just sort of standing around watching things. And if something does ... go wrong, somehow, Teal'c would be better able to ..."
It was odd to watch the normally articulate Daniel flounder so much. "You think the Argosians might be hostile?" Sam asked. Combat was the only situation she could think of where Teal'c would be of more use than Daniel.
"No, no." Daniel shook his head. "The Argosians are peaceful; I doubt they'd have any idea how to fight even if they wanted to."
"You think a Goa'uld might come?" General Hammond asked.
"I doubt it. None of them can remember the last time Pelops came. Pelops was their Goa'uld. We don't think there's any danger, we just wanted to be on the safe side."
We. In all that fumbling, Daniel hadn't mentioned Jack giving an order. She'd only been on a few missions with Jack O'Neill, but he never made decisions by committee. The click of heels announced Janet's presence in the room. Her frown was ... not reassuring.
"We have the preliminary analysis of that pastry you asked for, Doctor Jackson," she said.
"And?" Daniel asked.
"There were indeed narcotic substances in it." Janet opened the file and flipped through it. "Some we can't identify, but one was a close analogue to ketamine hydrochloride. Without further testing, we can't tell exactly what they would all do to a human, precisely, but the Ketamine-analogue would probably act much the same."
"Ketamine, that sounds familiar," Sam said, trying to place it.
"It's an anaesthetic that can be used for humans but is more commonly used for animals," Janet said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Veterinary offices are frequently robbed for it, though, because it is one of the three major date-rape drugs. That's probably why you've heard of it."
Sam could feel the blood drain from her face, putting the pieces together. No wonder Daniel couldn't look her in the eye.
"What are the symptoms?" Daniel asked. He looked slightly pale. Damn right, he should be, Sam told herself. To let someone drug Jack, then take him off somewhere and ... She couldn't finish the thought.
Janet shrugged. "Again, without further testing, there's no way of knowing just how similarly this thing affects humans. But Ketamine can cause hallucinations, memory problems, distorted perceptions, sense, time, and identity; impaired motor control, problems breathing, lack of self-control, slurred speech, aggressive behavior, etc." She turned to Daniel. "Doctor Jackson, is there any particular reason you wanted me to analyze this?"
Daniel looked miserable. "One of the Argosian women gave that cake to Jack. She said it was only for him. A little later she took him inside one of their buildings. Teal'c and I thought he might be acting kind of odd, but it wasn't anything too obvious."
Sam listened to all this, feeling sick to her stomach. Oh, God. Since the meeting with the Shavadai, she'd had to think long and hard about the risks she took, as a woman, going through the Gate. Risks that (she thought) her male co-workers didn't share. Now ... that wasn't a safe assumption to make. And Jack ... she cringed to think of what he must be going through.
Even from the back, Sam could tell that General Hammond was about to blow a fuse. "Do you mean to tell me that you allowed those people to drug and kidnap one of my men? And after that, you don't think they're hostile?"
"General, it wasn't exactly like that," Daniel protested. "It wasn't obvious at all that Jack had been drugged. In fact, if it weren't for a comment he made just prior to being given the cake, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. He was talking and walking just fine. Second, the Argosians have no contact with anyone outside their own culture, and they all seemed to know what was going on. They spend a great deal of time partying, from what we could see, and we were trying to be courteous."
Sam listened to Daniel trying to justify himself, temper rising. She looked away, concentrating on reigning herself in. Jumping all over Daniel wouldn't help anything, he was obviously worried himself, and Hammond (as a General) had first crack at yelling at him anyway.
"It may not have occurred to them that none of us would know what was in that pastry," Daniel continued, shaking his head. "I have to get back to Teal'c, tell him what's happened."
"That's right," General Hammond snapped. "And you're taking SG-3 with you."
The archaeologist blinked. "I don't know if the Marines are really necessary, General; from what we saw, these people don't do much besides party. They didn't even seem to work. Even if they do become hostile, I doubt we'd have trouble dealing with them."
"Hostile, Doctor Jackson? I'd say they're already hostile. And if, as you say, they don't think anything's wrong with their behavior, then maybe they need to be told otherwise. And I think the Marines will give the message a certain point, even if they don't have to do anything."
"Daniel, it can't hurt and it might be a very good thing," Sam said, heading him off. "Better safe than sorry when someone's safety is at stake." That came out a little harsher than she intended, but under the circumstances she thought she was entitled to it. Sam would take anger over fear any day; experience had taught her it was less likely to paralyze you. And Daniel saw the world through rose-colored glasses, sometimes ignoring harsh realities. If he weren't so idealistic, so convinced that everyone was good until proven otherwise, maybe Jack wouldn't have been hurt. She breathed a quick prayer that this would all turn out to be a misunderstanding, and that Jack would be just fine.
"Well, whoever's going, I want Colonel O'Neill brought back to base as soon as possible," Janet said. "I'm not familiar with the effects the Ketamine-analogue would have, much less any of the other unidentified substances. If they're consumed regularly by these people they probably aren't too toxic, but it never hurts to be sure."
Hammond nodded. "Of course, Doctor."
Daniel shrugged and nodded. "Okay, but I want to leave as soon as possible. How long to get them briefed and geared up?"
"Not long," Hammond said grimly. "Is there anything else I need to know about the situation on P3X-8596?"
Daniel thought for a second, then shook his head. General Hammond nodded to her and Janet and strode over to the phone mounted on the wall. A few minutes later, Harriman's voice came over the loudspeakers, calling SG-3 to gear up for a mission.
Sam watched Daniel gather his gear. "So, you were avoiding me to spare my feelings," she said. "Jack was with another woman, and you were covering for him."
He looked up at her and blinked, as if he'd forgotten her there. "Yeah ... yeah I guess so," he said, putting on his vest.
"Next time, don't," Sam said. She paused, biting her lip. It wasn't really Daniel's fault, or at least it probably wasn't. He had come back with the cake the minute he thought something was wrong; she shouldn't be too harsh on him. "It was obvious you were trying to hide something," she said in a more even voice, "and that worried me. And I'd rather know what's going on than wonder. And be afraid."
"Right." Daniel shifted uneasily and glanced at the door. "I'd better get to the briefing room so we can leave as soon as possible."
Sam nodded. "I know."
Daniel started for the door.
"And Daniel?"
He paused, looking back at her.
"Take care of him."
About twenty minutes after SG-3 and Daniel left for Argos, they dialed back. Sam had been studying some of the raw, unprocessed read-outs from the Gate interface. They were still pretty much guessing when it came to interpreting a lot of the signals the Gate sent to the dialing computer they'd cobbled together, and Sam wasn't sure if they'd ever figure it all out. Still, every little bit helped-and it kept her in the control room while waiting for SG-1.
The iris was open, but no one stepped through. The radio crackled to life. "This is Colonel Makepeace. I need to talk with the General and Doctor Frasier."
A hundred worst-case scenarios danced through Sam's head. She bit her lip.
General Hammond waved at someone to get Janet. "Someone's getting the doctor, Colonel," he said into the mike. "What do you need?"
"Colonel O'Neill is unconscious, as are all the Argosians," Makepeace replied. "We can't wake anyone. According to Teal'c, they all went to sleep at sunset, a little over thirty minutes ago. It could be some kind of drug, or it could be some kind of virus. After our last encounter with an alien bug, I didn't want to take any chances without asking you and consulting the doc first."
Sam let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Unconscious wasn't good, but things could be a lot worse. A lot worse.
"Good thinking, Colonel," Hammond replied. He glanced aside. "Doctor Frasier's here. Could you tell her what you told me?"
Sam was startled; she'd been so intent on the radio conversation that she hadn't noticed Janet's entrance.
"When we arrived on Argos, we found everyone but Teal'c asleep," Makepeace said. "According to him, everyone lay down simultaneously either inside or outside as the sun set. We can't wake anybody by noise, shaking them, or even dumping cold water on them. We can't even get them to stir. Is it safe to bring Colonel O'Neill back, or could this be something contagious?"
"It could be," Janet replied, leaning into the mike. "Chances are it's not, however. Ketamine is a strong sedative, and if these people ate it or something like it, it's not surprising you're having trouble waking them. Doctor Jackson's blood-work when he came back through didn't show any anomalies, either. And ... you said they all lay down at the same time, Teal'c?"
"That is correct, Doctor Frasier." Teal'c's bass rumble came over the speakers.
Janet shook her head. "I've never seen or heard of a virus striking with that amount of simultaneity. Or a drug, for that matter. I'd say it's probably safe enough to bring the Colonel back through the Gate. To be on the safe side I want everybody-especially Colonel O'Neill-to wear a breath mask, and I'll want you all to take a disinfectant shower immediately and put Colonel O'Neill in an isolation room." She looked over at Hammond and raised an eyebrow.
He nodded. "Agreed."
"General, I think Daniel and Teal'c should stay there and see if there's anything on the planet that could cause this, if Janet doesn't think it's strictly medical," Sam said. "There could be some kind of device or something that would explain why they all fell unconscious at the same time. It's possible the drug makes you more susceptible."
"I suppose anything's possible," Janet said dubiously. "If nothing else, I might want samples of their food and drink and other contaminants. If that turns out to be the case, it would save time and effort to have them readily available."
"That sounds reasonable," Hammond said. He leaned back over to the microphone. "SG-3 will bring Colonel O'Neill through with breath masks and full decontamination procedures. Doctor Jackson and Teal'c, I'd like you to stay behind and look for anything else that might be related to this problem. Doctor Frasier would like samples for analysis, and Captain Carter believes there might be a device hidden somewhere that could account for the concurrent collapses."
"Yes, sir."
"Well," Janet said, "sounds like I need to go prepare."
Sam had finished the set of readouts she'd been working on and gone back to the various projects in her lab. Not that she expected to get all that much done, distracted as she was, but she needed something to occupy her mind while waiting for Janet to finish her first round of tests. The doctor had promised to call her as soon as she had anything, no matter how insignificant. They were keeping Jack in the isolation lab they'd had Kawalsky's surgery in, with the large windows from the observation area, and Sam wished she dared go there to watch over him. But she was on duty and she knew what kind of gossip that would cause, especially as they were no longer teammates, and she couldn't stand that, not as emotionally fragile as she felt.
Her phone rang, and she knocked over her stool in her haste. "Carter."
"Sam?" It was Janet. "I've found something in Colonel O'Neill's blood that I'm not quite sure how to identify."
"I'll be right there."
Sam entered the Infirmary and looked around for Janet, who'd evidently been waiting for her.
"Hey, Sam," she said with a tight smile. "I have something to show you."
Janet led her through the main infirmary to a smaller lab room and sat down at a computer.
"What is it?" Sam asked, joining her.
Janet sighed. "I'm not sure. First I ran a routine check for antibodies...nothing. So then I thought, all right, maybe this alien bug found a way to hide from the immune system, so I ran a protein analysis." She gestured at the screen. "Take a look at what I found."
Sam frowned at it. Most of it was, as far as she could tell anyway, fairly normal for a blood sample. Due to the dyes, it was orange-yellow instead of red. What caught her attention were a number of small, identical objects. Janet hit a key to magnify it, and Sam blinked in surprise to see that all of them were perfectly regular triangles. In her admittedly limited biology experience, she'd never seen anything like it. "Wow. What is it?"
"Something we don't have a word for ... yet." Janet shook her head. "I'm going to need blood samples from the Argosians for comparison. Frankly, I have no idea what I'm dealing with yet, how it works or even what it does."
Fourteen hours later, Sam sat in the briefing room and waited impatiently for Daniel and Teal'c to be medically cleared for the briefing. They'd sent the blood samples back as requested, but had stayed on Argos to look around some more. They'd apparently found something of interest. After what seemed like hours (but was less than fifteen minutes), the pair showed up with Janet in tow. Sam gave each a brief smile but was too distracted for more.
General Hammond was out of his office before they'd taken their seats. "All right, Doctor Jackson, what have you found?"
Daniel took a sip of his coffee; he and Teal'c had been up all night. "First, the Argosians have woken up, and they all woke up simultaneously. We found some interesting things when we talked to them."
"But, Jack is still unconscious," Sam protested. "Why is he different?"
"They don't know," Daniel said. "They all act as if what happened last night was normal. They party until sundown. Then they fall asleep and they wake when the sun rises. They've never had someone not wake up who wasn't dead, not in living memory. Which ... brings us to the most interesting part of all. Their 'living memory' isn't exactly as long as we might expect. They have no concept of 'years,' which puzzled me until Thetyes brought Dan-el to see me."
"Dan-el?" Sam asked.
"When we arrived yesterday Thetyes, an Argosian woman who appears to be about twenty years old, was in labor in the temple the Stargate sits inside. They didn't have a midwife there, so I helped deliver the baby, and they named him after me. Except ... he's not a baby anymore. If I had to judge how old he was just by looking at him, I'd say he was at least a year old, possibly two. He looks and acts like a normal toddler, but he's only a day old. Thetys says that she's twenty days old, not twenty years. Kynthia, the woman who gave Jack that cake, is thirty-one days old. By the way, that cake is the traditional wedding cake of the Argosians; by accepting it, according to their law, he married Kynthia. She'd assumed that he understood what it was she was offering, and is upset that he didn't."
Sam tried to keep her hurt off her face. After all, Jack hadn't known what the cake meant when he took it, and even if he had, she'd turned him down when he'd asked to marry her. Sure, they'd met for dinner a few times but that was to get to know each other for the baby's sake. There was no commitment made on either side. She did have an urge to hit this Kynthia woman, though. Hard. Thirty-one days old or not, if she didn't know how to act responsibly in a relationship she shouldn't go around propositioning people.
"Doctor Jackson, that's impossible," Janet said, and Sam forced her attention back to the briefing. "No one can grow to maturity in only twenty days. The human body simply is not capable of such rapid development."
Daniel shrugged. "In this case, there are extenuating circumstances. The Argosians have no written language of their own, but there is an inscription on the base of the statue of their 'god' Pelops in the temple that Teal'c calls an obscure dialect of Goa'uld but is actually a variant on the linear-A script of ancient Greece and Crete, which is exciting because we've never been able to translate it-"
"Doctor Jackson, I'm sure that's fascinating," General Hammond interrupted, "but what does it have to do with the problem at hand?"
Daniel blinked at the interruption. "It was a kind of a combination lock which," he gestured at the alien sitting beside him, "Teal'c was able to open. Inside we found this device." He set an inscribed tablet and a stone on the briefing room table. "It's apparently some kind of Goa'uld book. You 'turn the page' by moving this stone over the surface." He demonstrated it, and sure enough the inscriptions changed. Sam leaned forward, fascinated by the technology and itching to take it apart.
"What does it say?" General Hammond asked.
"The Argosians believe that they were so favored by Pelops that he brought them across the stars to the garden they now inhabit. They call themselves the 'Chosen.' Well, Pelops did choose them, but not just for a life of luxury. I think Pelops brought humans there to be lab rats. From what we've been able to translate so far he wanted to know how humans evolve, so he shortened the life span to about 1/250th of normal."
"So," Sam said, "instead of having to wait a hundred thousand years to see how human physiology evolves, he could do it in a hundred?" She sat back in disbelief.
"That is correct," Teal'c said. Sam turned to him in surprise; she'd almost forgotten he was in the room. "Pelops wanted to determine what the human host body would become in the future, and perhaps accelerate the process."
"How did he do it?" Janet asked incredulously. "Was it some form of genetic alteration?"
"We do not know. It is an archaic dialect." With that, Teal'c sat back in his chair, having made his contribution to the meeting.
Sam noticed that Daniel was very carefully not looking at her. "Daniel?"
He sighed. "Okay ... I didn't want to say this till I was absolutely sure but ... I think he may have created some kind of virus ... and viruses are often spread through bodily contact."
"Some are, and some are passed by other means," Janet said. "But I've already run every test I know on the Colonel, and he doesn't have a virus in him. I'm not sure what the substance in his blood is, it's not a virus."
"But whatever it is, he got it through bodily contact," Daniel pointed out. "Teal'c and I spent a lot longer there than he did, and we're both fine. SG-3 didn't pick it up when they were on Argos, either."
"What I find most disturbing about this whole thing," Janet said, "is the fact that he has far more of that stuff in his blood than is in any of the Argosian samples."
"If they age twenty years in twenty days, what happens when they reach fifty days?" Sam asked, appalled. "Or a hundred?"
Daniel winced and wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Oh, my God," Sam said, sinking back in her chair. It wasn't an exclamation. And they though the stuff that was in Jack was the same stuff that made the Argosians age so rapidly? That meant her child would grow up without a father. Jack would be dead of old age before she'd even reached the third trimester, much less given birth. She blinked back tears and studied the ceiling, trying desperately to keep from breaking down in the middle of a briefing.
"Oh, my God," Sam said, looking at one of her readouts. She wasn't a biologist or a medical doctor, but Janet was so short-handed she'd asked for Sam's help just as an extra pair of hands; Sam at least had been a biology major in college and on the review board for several military science experiments including a few with biological parts, so she wasn't completely ignorant.
Janet came up behind her. "What is it?"
"They're not multiplying. They're replicating."
"What's the difference?" Daniel asked over the microphone. They were in a containment/research lab identical to the one where O'Neill lay, growing older by the minute. Daniel and Teal'c were working constantly to refine their understanding of the tablet, but worked in the glassed-in observation area above the lab.
"Living organism multiply," Sam explained. "Machines replicate."
"Machines inside the body? How is that possible?" Teal'c asked.
"They're molecular devices that take atomic particles from their environment and use them to make more of themselves." Sam shook her head, remembering. "When I was at the Pentagon, I worked for a year with a group that studied nanotechnology. We were looking at it for a lot of different uses. One of them was medicine-creating artificial immune systems, repairing individual cells, even manipulating DNA to stop the aging process." With the confirmation that this was indeed something she had at least some experience with, Sam felt much more confident in her ability to contribute something to Jack's cure.
Janet snorted. "It sounds like Pelops succeeded in what you were experimenting with, only in reverse. Nice guy."
"Now you at least have a place to start," Daniel said. "We're beginning to get someplace."
Janet shook her head. "Chances are, we still won't solve this in time to do Colonel O'Neill any good. I'm sorry, but at the rate he's aging he'll be dead inside a week, two at the outside. The chances of our figuring out how these nanites work and turning them off in that period of time is very remote. I wouldn't even know where to begin!" She turned to Sam. "How involved were you in the technical aspects of that project?"
Sam shook her head. "Not very," she replied unhappily. "I'm a mathematician and a theorist; I worked out some of the programming for them, but they had medical researchers and engineers working on the actual practical side of things. And we never even got close to developing a working prototype." She shook her head again. "I just wish we could at least slow this stuff down so we could have more time!"
"You know," Daniel put in, "why is it working so fast in Jack? It didn't do that in the Argosians."
"Maybe the fact that the Colonel was far older than any Argosian could ever become when he was infected with these things has something to do with it," Janet suggested.
"Or," Sam said, getting an idea, "Maybe it's because he's here and not there. One of the problems we found was there was no way of cramming detailed enough programming into the nanites. They're simply too small to hold much information no matter how tightly you pack it. We tried controlling them remotely by computer, but couldn't get a receiver/transmitter small enough to fit, either. But I bet a Goa'uld could. And it would be the easiest, most reliable way to control and monitor the nanites."
"But Colonel O'Neill is thousands of light-years, at least, from the control device," Janet said. "Maybe they go haywire without it?"
"It is also possible that the nanites are made to do this when they are separated from the control device as a way of punishing any who dare leave," Teal'c interjected.
"Is it possible that that's also the reason he's still unconscious?" Sam asked. She might know the technology, but Teal'c had far more experience with the Goa'uld and how they thought.
"Yes."
"Charming people, the Goa'uld," Janet said.
"In either case, we need to get Jack back to Argos as soon as possible," Daniel said. "You and Sam can stay here and work on a cure on this end, and Teal'c and I can go through to take care of Jack and look for a control device. It's probably in that temple somewhere."
"Sounds like a plan," Sam said.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Jackson, but I can't allow it," General Hammond said. He shook his head. "We can send Colonel O'Neill through by himself, but I'm afraid I can't risk anyone else catching this stuff. I can't risk this base. We all know just how easy it is for an offworld contaminant to pass through our quarantine procedures. You can keep working on the samples you've collected so far, but that's it."
Sam's heart sunk down to the bottom of her shoes. They'd all presented their case to the general, but after his first refusal Daniel had been the one to keep arguing. Not being in the military chain of command had its benefits, and she was a bit envious of his freedom in this. Unfortunately, General Hammond didn't seem inclined to listen. She understood his reasoning, all too well, but ... this was Jack they were talking about.
"Sir!" Daniel exclaimed. "We cannot just leave him there alone, and we need to find that control device!"
"Doctor Jackson," General Hammond said with a sigh, "Colonel O'Neill is one of the finest men it has ever been my pleasure to serve with. It will be a great loss to this country and to all of us in this room, but I am sure he would not hesitate to make the same decision for himself that I'm making now. We can send him through to Argos and hope that will slow these things down, and that he will wake up. We can send him instructions to look for a control device if such a thing exists. But I can't risk exposing anyone else to the nanites if we have no idea how to even slow them down, and I can't risk contaminating the base by allowing people to move back and forth between Argos and here. If you're right and this isn't really a disease, the quarantine and decontamination procedures we've been working on since the Broca virus may not even work on this stuff. I'm sorry." He nodded to Sam and left.
Jack opened his eyes. He was in a HAZMAT suit. He had not been in one when he went to sleep, that was for sure. It was all kind of unclear, but he seemed to recall a brunette, and dancing, followed by dancing of the horizontal kind. He groaned. Sam was going to kill him. But-how had he gotten from Kynthia's room to-he glanced around-the temple? And into a HAZMAT suit? And where was everyone?
Damn, this suit was uncomfortable. His skin crawled, and he wondered how long he'd been in it. He sat up, or tried to, and was surprised by a wave of pain from several of his joints. His knee hurt worse than usual, and damn, he was stiff. After a few seconds to check himself out and figure out what hurt and what didn't, he sat up more carefully and stood up, joints creaking, to check the vicinity. There was no one else in the temple. He'd been lying on the stairs leading to the Stargate. A stretcher was there, too, looking like it had simply been shoved through the wormhole from the other side. With him on it? They hadn't had full HAZMAT suits with them, so either he'd been taken back to the SGC and returned in the suit, or someone had brought it to Argos and put him in it. Either way, something had happened while he was out, and where was his team? The MALP was no longer there, but a FRED was, loaded down with supplies.
There was a note attached to the FRED in Daniel's distinctive scrawl. Jack started down the stairs towards it when a gasp drew his attention. There, standing in the doorway, was the dancing brunette, a young boy clutching her for protection. Both were obviously frightened. She turned to run.
"Wait," Jack said.
She stopped and turned around.
"Do you know what happened to me?" Jack asked.
"Jack?" The woman frowned and stayed where she was.
"Yeah, it's me." What the hell was her name? He'd slept with her, for crying out loud! The last time he'd slept with a woman and not known her name he'd been nineteen, fresh out of Basic, and drunker than a skunk. "Kynthia." That was it! "What's going on?"
Kynthia edged closer to him for a better look. The boy clung to her skirts and peeked out at Jack occasionally. "Is that ... why are you wearing that ..." words failed her "... thing?" She gestured at the HAZMAT suit.
"It's a hazmat suit," Jack explained. "It's designed to protect the person wearing it from harmful things in the environment. I woke up in it, just now, and I'm not planning on taking it off until I know why I'm in it. Which brings me back to my original question, actually. What the hell's going on? My team and I were sitting at the fountain, you gave me the cake stuff, which-" he frowned, thinking back to how out of it he'd felt after eating the cake, and looked at her suspiciously "-what was in that thing, by the way? We went ... off together, and then I woke up here in a HAZMAT suit."
Kynthia bit her lip and looked down. "Jack, I am sorry. The cake I gave you was marriage cake. I didn't know you wouldn't understand what it meant."
"Marriage?" Jack asked raising an eyebrow. "As in, Angel Food in layers with little dolls on top?" Oy. At this point, he was kinda hoping there had been something in that cake; he didn't know Sam all that terribly well, but he could just imagine how Sara would have reacted if he'd ever accidentally gotten married to a local while on a mission. Being drugged would give him such a great alibi.
"I do not know what that is, Jack," Kynthia said, drawing his attention back to her. "But by the customs of our people, we are married." She paused, biting her lip. "The next morning, I woke to find you gone. Your friends had taken you." She glanced away at the statue of Pelops.
Jack followed her gaze, frowning. Damn Goa'uld. They always got their snaky fangs in things somehow. Had to be his fault, whatever it was that was wrong. He suppressed a surge of rage at the snaky bastard.
" ... and then Daniel told us you had not woken."
Jack blinked and forced himself to focus on Kynthia again. He'd missed a sentence or two there. "And?"
Kynthia shrugged. "And then Daniel and Teal'c went back to your world to help care for you, and we have heard nothing since. I have been worried about you. Dan-el was playing by the temple and heard the Stargate engage, and came to find me so I could question whoever came about you." She frowned. "Must you wear that thing, Jack? It looks uncomfortable, and I can't see your face."
"It is uncomfortable," Jack shot back, "but I'm not taking it off until I know why they shipped me back here alone, unconscious, in it." He paused, thinking back. "Wait-Dan'el came and got you? He's only, what, a couple of days old at the most?"
"I'm five days old," the boy said proudly, holding up one hand with all the fingers splayed out to display the number. Jack had forgotten him.
"Five ... days old?" Jack said incredulously. He looked back to Kynthia.
She nodded. "Yes, Dan-el is five days old." She wrapped an arm around him. "Thetys and Alekos are very proud of him. I am thirty-six days old. Why are your people so interested in our ages? Daniel asked many questions about that before he left."
"I don't know what's going on, but I'm gonna find out," Jack said grimly. He walked to the FRED and picked up the note taped to it. Something was massively screwed up, here.
It was several pages long, neatly typed. Daniel had written most of it, explaining what had happened while he was unconscious. "Damn," Jack said as he skimmed it. He fumbled with the hood of his suit; there was no way he was wearing it for ten seconds longer than he needed to, and from Daniel's explanation there wasn't any way he could get more infected than he already was.
A gasp drew his attention back to Kynthia. She was staring at him, eye's wide with horror. "Jack, what has happened to you?"
"I don't know," Jack responded testily. "I haven't been awake, remember?" His voice, he noticed, was a bit quaverier than he remembered it. Granted, he hadn't used it in a couple of days, but .... He removed a glove and put a hand to his cheek, and felt the skin there. It was noticeably less firm. And he'd had a lot more aches and pains since he'd woken up than he was used to. Put together with Daniel's explanations in the note .... "I need a mirror," he muttered to himself.
"Dan'el, go get a mirror," Kynthia said.
Jack glanced over to see her shoving the boy towards the door. "Thanks." He turned back to Daniel's note, stripping off the other glove. The rest of the suit could wait. He read it through more carefully, trying to figure out what all had happened while he was asleep.
"What are you doing?" Kynthia asked, coming to stand by him.
"Reading," Jack said absently as he flipped the page.
"What is 'reading'?"
At that, Jack looked up. "Reading is..." He stopped, wishing Daniel were here. This was his type of stuff. If she didn't know what reading was, she probably didn't know what writing was, either. And how the hell did you explain one without the other? He rubbed his nose absently. "You see the markings on the page?" Actually, he'd been having a bit of trouble with that one. Did that mean he was now an old coot who needed reading glasses?
"Yes." Kynthia touched it gently, then rubbed softly to see if the ink came off. "They have some meaning?"
"Yeah. They're words that Daniel wrote-that is, put on the page-to tell me what happened while I was out."
"The markings speak to you?" Kynthia said in some awe.
"Yeah," Jack said. "Most people can read, where I come from." Wait a minute, why re-read the note when he could dial up the gate and talk directly to them? He was getting forgetful in his old age. He didn't seem to have his radio, but the FRED had a two-directional one.
Kynthia flinched a little at the gate's kawoosh; evidently, she'd never seen it before, because she stared at the puddle in awe.
"SGC this is O'Neil," Jack said into the radio mike. Unlike a MALP, the FRED didn't have a camera. He thought that was a plus, considering he had no clue what he looked like.
"Jack, it's good to hear your voice!" Daniel said. "How are you feeling?"
"Geriatric," Jack replied. "Couldn't you have given an old coot some reading glasses?"
"Sorry, Jack," Daniel said, voice falling in dismay. "I guess nobody thought of that. We'll send some through to you, along with anything else you need. Is there anything else you need?"
"I don't know, I haven't had time to go through all the stuff in the FRED. Do you want me to send it back through once I get it unloaded?"
There was a pause and a rustling sound as Daniel asked someone else. "No. They don't want to risk contamination."
"You can speak to someone who is not here, and they here you and reply?" Kynthia said, in some awe. Her eyes were wide.
"Yeah, it's called a radio." Jack paused, trying to think how to explain it "It's a machine that transmits words to other machines like it. They've got another radio back at the SGC, and the signal is sent through the gate."
"Who's that you're talking to, Jack?" Daniel asked.
"Kynthia."
There was a pause. "Jack, Sam's here." His words were heavy with meaning, and Jack winced. He'd been trying very hard not to think about her, knowing how pissed off she was going to be with him over this. Of course, under the circumstances, it didn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things if she was mad, seeing as how it didn't look like he was ever going home and he'd be dead of old age before the baby came anyway. "Do you want to talk with her?" Daniel said, breaking his reverie.
"What?" Jack blinked. "Oh, yeah, sure." He glanced at Kynthia and jerked his head towards the door, but she didn't take the hint, just looking at him with her wide-eyed stare. He forced his teeth to unclench as he turned back to the radio.
"Jack, I'm so glad you're awake," Sam said.
He blinked. Funny, she didn't sound mad. "Sam, I'm sorry-"
"For what?" She cut him off. "It's not your fault. You didn't know what that cake was laced with the equivalent of a date-rape drug." She paused. "You were infected with the nanites by means of ... bodily contact, as far as we can tell. You seem to be aging much faster than the Argosians do; we're hoping that's only because you weren't in range of the transmitter that controls them, and that now you're back on Argos the aging will slow down to, well, 'normal' for lack of a better word. Or, at least, normal for an Argosian. That will buy us more time."
It was good to hear her voice. Familiar. Soothing. He couldn't for the life of him think why he'd been annoyed with her the last time they'd eaten at O'Malley's; he thought he could listen to her talk for hours. He shook himself as he realized he'd drifted off.
"One of the samples they were working on in a containment lab ate through the rubber gloves the researcher was using," Sam was saying. "Nobody was infected," she hurried to add, "but General Hammond made us destroy all the samples to prevent the base from being contaminated. We're still running simulations on the data we collected before they were destroyed, but it probably won't yield any useful results until it's too late to help you."
"I understand," Jack said, stomach sinking. The last thing they wanted was this thing let loose on Earth.
"You need to look for the control device," Sam went on. "If you can find it, you can probably turn off the nanites. Teal'c says it's probably somewhere there in the temple. He didn't see any sign of it, but he says there's probably a hidden room or two-or maybe several-somewhere in the temple to serve as Pelops's lab, and the control device would probably be there. If you can find it, we'll probably be able to get permission to come through the gate in HAZMAT suits to see if we can turn it off."
"You said this stuff eats through rubber. I don't want anyone else getting this ... shit." Jack cut himself off, and rubbed a hand through hair that was no longer military-short. God, there was so much he wanted to say to her. But even if he were as good at talking as Daniel, there wasn't much he could say with an audience of whoever happened to be in the control room. Especially when Sam didn't want word getting out yet.
"We think the risk will be minimal," Sam said, oblivious to his distress. "Besides, even if they do get exposed somehow, if they have the control device they can turn it off so it won't matter."
And that assumed they could figure out the alien doohicky, which was a pretty big 'if' in Jack's book. But he didn't want to argue with her in what might be the last time he ever spoke with her. "Okay," he said, secure in the knowledge that even if she could convince Doctor Frasier and General Hammond to send her through the gate somehow despite her pregnancy, they'd never let her come to a place that was contaminated like this.
There was a silence on the other side, and Jack wracked his brain for something to say. He had nothing. At last, Sam broke it. "Take care of yourself."
"You too," he replied, trying to put everything he was feeling into his words, pretty sure he was failing miserably. Maybe he could write something that would work. "Look, I'll check out the temple, see if I can find anything, and call you back."
"Okay," Sam replied.
"O'Neill, out," Jack said, switching off the radio. The gate disengaged seconds later.
"Kynthia, here is the mirror you asked for."
Jack turned to see Alekos enter, a small mirror clutched in one hand. He came to a stop a few feet away. "Why did you need-Colonel O'Neill, what happened to you?" he asked, eyes wide. "I heard you could not wake up, but-"
"That's why I need the mirror," Jack growled, snatching the mirror out of his hand. Because having everyone who saw him gasp in horror? So not helping his mood. It was a piece of polished metal, not glass, but it was good enough for what he needed. Slowly, he brought it up to his face and angled it correctly, not eager to see what he knew must be in it.
Damn. A stranger looked back at him, fifteen years older than the last time he'd seen himself. Maybe twenty. His face sagged with wrinkles, and his skin was paper-thin. Age spots were beginning to appear, and his eyes had lost their sharp brown. His hair was white, and far longer than it should be. He touched his face, the movement mirrored by the geriatric man staring back at him. He dropped the hand and closed his eyes, handing the mirror back.
"They believe that Pelops marked him as one of us when he shared my marriage bed, Alekos," Kynthia said. "This is his punishment for straying beyond the boundary Pelops has set."
"Then we must pray to Pelops for mercy, so that colonel O'Neill may be given back the days that have been taken from him," Alekos replied.
"For crying out loud, Pelops is not a god!" Jack exploded. "He's a snakehead! An alien who stole your people and turned them into lab rats! He shortened your lives to satisfy his curiosity!" He kicked the FRED in emphasis and winced; that hurt way more than he was expecting it to. He supposed, given how old he suddenly was, he should be glad he hadn't broken any bones or anything.
"Jack, you shouldn't say such things," Kynthia said, glancing fearfully at the statue of Pelops. "Unto every man and woman the creator gives 100 blissful days."
"A hundred days?" Jack shot back. "Some humans live to be a hundred years. The average lifespan is somewhere around sixty or seventy years. A year is three hundred and sixty-five days long. Do you have any idea how many thousands of days that is? I mean, look at me! Look at me!" Jack took a step forward and jabbed a finger into his chest. "I'm forty years old, or I was. That's ... thousands and thousands of days."
"You do not tell the truth," Kynthia said, upset.
"It is not possible," Alekos added.
Jack snorted. "Bull. It is possible, and it is true. Pelops was an alien who used your people! He shortened your lives to satisfy his curiosity!"
Kynthia looked to be on the verge of tears. She glanced up at the statue, then back at Jack. "No," she said. She turned and ran out of the temple. Alekos followed more slowly, a troubled look on his face.
Jack watched them go, fists on his hips. He turned to the statue that dominated the room and scowled at it. "What're you lookin' at? Think you're hot stuff, doing this to me from six billion light years away?" When the statue declined to answer him, he sighed and dropped his head, anger slipping away and with it much of the adrenaline that had been keeping him going since he'd woken up. He sighed again. He was damn tired. Straightening up, he started a preliminary search of the temple.
"So, how are you doing?"
Sam looked up to find Daniel peering through her doorway. That was taking some getting used to, having a blast door that stayed open most of the time instead of a regular door you could open and close when you wanted to. And she was avoiding Daniel's question. "Okay," she said, forcing a smile. She still hadn't quite forgiven Daniel for letting this happen, but on the other hand, she wasn't sure she'd have been able to do any better if she'd been there.
"That's ... good to hear," Daniel said, coming in to join her.
"Daniel, if you have something to say about it, I'd prefer if the door weren't wide open for the whole base to hear." He was watching her carefully. She shuffled some papers around, trying to look busy and self-possessed while he closed the blast door.
"Are you supposed to be drinking that much coffee?" Daniel asked as he joined her again. "Every time I've seen you in the last day or so you've had a mug with you."
"Not really," Sam admitted, fighting down irritation, "but I need the boost. And really, of all the possible hazards the fetus has been through so far, caffeine is probably the least harmful."
"But that's no reason to take chances." Daniel cocked his head to one side. "Besides, why do you need the boost? You haven't been home since the thing with Jack started, and I don't think you've slept much on base. You can't keep pushing yourself like this-and if I recall correctly, you were the one who told me I couldn't stay awake forever after Sha're was ... taken. It's just as true for you as it was for me. I could drive you to your apartment, if you want me to."
"I can't go home now," Sam protested. "What if Jack dials home and says he's found it while I'm forty minutes away from the base? What if he just wants to talk? I couldn't stand not knowing what was going on, Daniel. I need to be here."
"Okay," Daniel said. "I understand that, really." He gave her a smile, which she returned wanly. He really was genuinely concerned "But that doesn't mean you can't sleep here while you wait for the other shoe to drop, does it?"
Sam shrugged. "Maybe not. And I've tried, but I just lie awake wondering what's happening to him."
"Maybe Doctor Frasier can give you something to help you sleep," Daniel suggested.
Sam shook her head. "I doubt she would. Janet's cautious enough about the possible effects of gate travel and radiation on the fetus; she doesn't want to add any more stresses to my body."
"Then maybe it'll be enough to wait for the caffeine to work its way out of your system. I'll keep you company, Sam, if you want. Or Doctor Frasier could, or even Teal'c. We're worried about you."
"Teal'c?" That caught Sam's attention. The alien was still largely an unknown factor to her. He'd never really paid particular attention to her before; she could see no reason for him to start now. Though, for some reason she wasn't annoyed with him as she was with Daniel. If the physical attack had been more overt that would have been different, but as it was....
"Yeah." Daniel shrugged. "He wants to know how he can help. Apparently, among Jaffa it's a warrior's duty to see to the wife of a comrade who's away in battle, make sure she's taken care of if her own family can't do so. Usually that means sending your own wife over with the Jaffa equivalent of a casserole, but as Teal'c doesn't have a wife-at least," Daniel frowned, "I don't think he has a wife, he was a bit unclear about that-anyway, it falls to him."
"I'm not Jack's wife," Sam protested.
"No, but you are carrying his child," Daniel returned. "Apparently Jaffa society is less concerned with formalities than we are. Teal'c doesn't seem to think there was much distinction between carrying Jack's child and raising it with him and being married."
"Ah." Sam glanced down. Normally, she'd be fascinated to hear about Jaffa custom-after all, they still knew so little about their alien comrade. And part of her longed for a distraction, any distraction, from this useless waiting. But somehow, it felt too much like betraying Jack to get immersed in something so unrelated. She glanced at the speaker that would announce an unscheduled offworld activation, and then at the clock. It had been hours since they'd heard from Jack.
"You seem to be handling this well," Daniel said.
"Yeah," Sam said with a mirthless laugh, fighting to hold back tears. "I'm a professional officer. I can keep a stiff upper lip as long as I have to. Meanwhile, the father of my child is stuck on some godforsaken hunk of rock thousands of light-years away, infected with goa'uld nanites doing their best to kill him, with some manipulative woman who can't keep her hands to herself. I don't have a picture of the two of us. Hell, I don't even have one of him by himself. So if he does die, in ten years when our child wants to know who his father was I'm not going to be able to show him a picture. Neither my dad nor my brother have ever met him, and they don't know I'm pregnant yet, so when I do eventually have to tell them, it'll be by myself and Holy Hannah, I don't think I could handle being a single mother!"
Somewhere in the middle of her rant, Daniel had started rubbing her back. She leaned into it, craving the touch. God, she wished Jack were here. "You know the worst thing?" she said, all her fears tumbling out as the floodgates were loosed. "We never talked about so many things. Important things about life, and how we were going to raise the baby. He didn't want to talk about the serious stuff, and I let him get away with it. I know what his favorite episode of the Simpsons was, but not how he felt about discipline, or curfews, or what bedtime stories he likes, or ... or ... anything. How can I raise the child in a way he'd want if I don't know what he'd want? I can't ask him that over the radio with the entire control room crew listening in! Even if they knew about the pregnancy I couldn't do it!
"God, I wish we'd talked more. I was so mad about that, about how silent he was at our last dinner together, but right now I'd give anything to have him here and healthy even if he never said another word to me." She sniffed and swiped a hand across her eyes, brushing away the water. "I'm sorry, Daniel," she said, closing her eyes and letting the hand on her back soothe her. "It's gotta be the hormones. I can't think straight. I'm turning into a watering pot and I've been absolutely useless at finding anything to help Jack. I didn't mean to take it out on you."
"It's okay," Daniel said. "What are friends for? You needed to let it all out, and I'm glad you trust me enough to do so. In fact, if you have any more that needs to come out, just lay it on me." They sat in silence for a few minutes. "You know, its not you're fault that we can't cure Jack from here. The stuff we need is on Argos, and we can't go there; it's too dangerous. You were the one who figured out what Jack needs to find there; don't sell yourself short."
Sam sighed. "I know, but it just ... feels like I should be doing more."
"You've done everything you can," Daniel replied. He moved around to stand in front of her. "And I'm not going to count Jack O'Neill out until he's in the ground. He'll find the control device. And everything will be fine."
Sam brushed her tears away again and opened her eyes. "I hope you're right, Daniel," she said, trying to twist her mouth into a smile. "I hope you're right."
So far, Jack hadn't been able to find any secret chambers or passages, or any devices of any kind. Of course there were none in the main chamber; that would be too easy. Not that there were many side chambers; there were all kinds of alcoves that looked promising at first glance, but none of them contained doors, hidden or otherwise. Jack frowned at the brightly painted walls. He'd seen pictures of old Greek temples and statues and things; they'd been white. So why was this whole temple painted so garishly? Daniel probably knew, but all Jack really cared about was that it meant he had to look a lot closer to see any stuff that might be hidden under the paint.
"Is it true that you have lived thousands of days?"
At the question, Jack turned. He hadn't heard him come in; either he was losing his hearing along with his hairline, or he'd been distracted by his thoughts, or both. Alekos stood behind him, head cocked to one side. "I should have kept my mouth shut," Jack said. "But wouldn't you rather know the truth? Yeah. I've lived thousands of days."
Alekos turned to the statue. "Why do we deserve this?"
Jack snorted. "He can't hear you." But the Argosian ignored him.
"We are good people. We love each other and this land you have given us. Why?"
"Science, progress, knowledge..." Jack waved a hand, trying to get his meaning across. He studied the other man. "Alekos, what would you do if you had thousands of days ahead of you?" he asked, curious.
"I would walk out into the world, beyond the borders of the Chosen." The reply was simple, straightforward, almost childlike.
"Why?"
"To see what is there." Now, that sounded like something Daniel would say. "No one knows. Pelops has forbidden us ever to leave."
Again with the child-like trust in a snakehead. "And how has he done that? He's nothing but a big piece of rock. He's a statue."
Alekos looked aghast. "He will strike us down, it is taught."
"No, he will not strike you down," Jack said, annoyed. "Trust me on that, will you? Look, go on out there. Take a walk. See what's there. Go on ..."
"Then I could return and teach the people what I know," Alekos said with more enthusiasm, "... and in their thousands of days they would learn more and teach their children!"
"Now you're talking!" Jack said. He felt a sudden surge of anger at that pretty picture and turned back to the wall he'd been examining. He wouldn't be passing anything on to his children. One was already dead, and the other wouldn't even be born until after he'd bought the farm. God, he wanted to be there so badly. There was so much he wanted to teach the kid, so much he wanted to say. He closed his eyes against the sudden flood of fantasies. Regrets over things left undone were a dime a dozen when you were in a life-or-death situation, and he'd been in enough of them to know. He'd also been in enough of them to know that all the things you promised yourself you'd do if you got out of it usually went undone, left as regrets for the next time. You were better off focusing on what you had to do rather than on such dreams
Thinking like that was a mistake, because it triggered a rapid flood of memories. Botched missions, trapped behind enemy lines, four months in Club Med Iraq. All things he'd survived, but each time a little piece of him had been left behind, a casualty of war.
"Jack?" He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Are you not well?" It was Alekos.
Jack opened his eyes to see the Argosian watching him, eyes lit with concern. "I'm fine, Alekos," he said, pushing away the face of one of the Iraqi guards in particular, one he tried to think of as little as possible. He didn't need a shrink to know what had brought back that particular memory, or to know he'd be having nightmares tonight. "I'm fine."
An hour or so later, Jack was sitting on the steps, resting. Just days ago, he'd have been fine-but days ago he'd been thirty years younger, too. Well, twenty years, at least. He'd been over the whole place once and hadn't found anything that even looked like it might be something. As soon as he didn't feel like he'd just run a marathon, he'd get up and do it again, but he doubted he'd find anything new.
Not wanting to waste what little time he had left, he'd gotten out a notebook and started letters to Sara, Sam, and the kid. He thought under the circumstances he'd done pretty well on 'em; he'd gotten the greeting down on each, but couldn't think of anything more to say. I mean, really, what could he say? He threw the notebook across the room at the statue. It didn't help his mood any, but there wasn't anything else to throw; all his supplies were across the room on the FRED. And that seemed like such a long way.
Jack sighed, feeling most of his anger drain away. He missed it; it covered the vast emptiness inside. He'd known he going to miss Sara; he'd been missing her for a long time, after all. What he hadn't expected was to miss Sam as much as he did, and not just because of the baby. God, what he'd give to see her again. He'd say ten years off his life, but ... he snorted to himself at the thought.
Footsteps sounded, and he turned to the door to watch dear sweet Kynthia enter. It was the first time she'd been back since he'd yelled at her. She stooped to pick up the notebook, turning it over in her hands before bringing it to him. "Thanks," he said gruffly, taking it. Who knew, maybe he'd think of something to write later.
"Come back to the village," she said, taking a seat next to him. "It is not good to be always alone."
Jack rubbed his face, hating the papery feel of his skin. "Whatever time I have left, let me spend it in my own way."
"But you do not spend it. You waste it."
For some reason, all Jack's anger came back at her simple statement. "I don't think reflecting on my life, or trying to figure out how to get the rest of it back, is a waste," he shot back.
She frowned. "You are angry."
Well, that observation sure took a rocket scientist. "Yes. Yes I am. Aren't you now that you know the truth?" He gestured at Pelops' statue, as it stood mocking him.
"What can we do but live in the way we always have? We do not have thousands of days. But we treasure every moment." Kynthia took his hand.
Jack shook her hand loose and scooted a few inches away from her, skin crawling. "I know, Kynthia," he said, getting hold of himself. "But in my heart ... I'm a military man, a warrior. That's my life. To which my ex-wife and my girlfriend will both attest." He still wasn't sure if he and Sam were actually 'dating' or not (or at least if she thought they were), but hey, she wasn't here to object and a dying man should get some leeway anyway.
"Ex-wife? Girlfriend? I do not know those words." Kynthia frowned. "Do they mean something like 'wife?'"
Jack sighed. Where was Daniel when you really needed him? "Yeah, something like that. Look, when you live for thousands of days, sometimes marriages don't work out for one reason or another. Then you get something called a divorce, which means that you're not married anymore. After the divorce, your wife is called your ex-wife. We also try to get to know each other better before we get married-a couple will date for a while before getting married to see if they like each other. While they're dating, the woman is the man's 'girlfriend.'"
Kynthia's eyes widened in horror. "You love them, these women? That you were once married to or were going to marry?" She turned away slightly and wrapped her arms around herself as if cold, despite the balmy room temperature that all Argos stayed. "And now, because of me, you will never see either one again." She bowed her head.
Jack sighed. "You meant no harm."
"Then let me give what I have taken," Kynthia said eagerly, turning towards him again. "The time of one heartbeat can become an eternity." She leaned in to kiss him, but Jack avoided her.
"Sorry, Kynthia," he said, trying to sound sincere. "But I've wasted enough time resting. My people think the control mechanism for Pelops' gift," his voice twisted, "might be hidden somewhere in this place. If I can find it, they might be able to fix us." He tried to push himself up, wincing at the pain in his joints.
"Then I will help you," Kynthia said, rising gracefully to her feet and putting out a hand to help him.
Sam stared up at the ceiling in one of the rooms that had recently been converted to house personnel staying the night or visiting offworld dignitaries. Not that they'd had any visiting alien dignitaries yet, but if they did they'd be ready for it. The furnishings and décor hadn't all arrived yet, and knowing the military wouldn't show up for a while, but the bed was there and there were sheets and blankets, and there was an alarm clock, and that was all that mattered. She rolled over to check the clock; three minutes had passed since she'd checked last. She'd been staring up at the ceiling for about an hour, all told, and didn't feel any closer to sleep than when she'd lain down.
She was just so mad! It wasn't Jack's fault, she knew it wasn't, but God! She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to convince herself she didn't blame him. It was a lot harder now, in the dark alone, than it was when she was in the lab discussing technical details with Janet.
Regret ran side by side with anger and fear in her head. He was a good man, and a fine officer, but she'd been too caught up in her own fears and issues to give him half a chance. Not that he was a saint, but somehow, right this minute, his flaws didn't seem that big.
She had to go to sleep. She needed rest; the baby needed rest. There was nothing more she could do, and Jack would want her to take care of the baby. She knew that much about him, at least. Unfortunately, she'd gotten herself stuck in one of those endless sleep-deprivation loops. The more you worried about not sleeping, the more awake you got, the less likely you were to fall asleep, and the more you worried. She hadn't had one this bad since just after her mother died, and Dad and Mark started fighting more. She'd hated listening to them go at one another, and had lain in bed for hours dreading the next day's fights on a regular basis. Starting that cycle over was the last thing she needed.
Sighing, Sam rolled out of bed. That was the only time in her life that she'd prayed on her knees, those dark hours alone in a quiet house, but it had worked. She wasn't about to kneel on the bare concrete floor, though, so she sat cross-legged on the bed and tried to steady her breathing. Folding her hands, she bowed her head, consciously relaxing each muscle group as she did so. "God," she whispered, "please bring Jack home safe."
Oddly enough, Jack hadn't had any nightmares that night. Maybe it had something to do with the way Pelops' mini bugs knocked everyone out, but he hadn't dreamed at all. He had aged, though; he could tell from how much stiffer his body felt and how long and white his hair was. After the shocked reaction of the Argosians at his appearance (again) he'd refused to look in a mirror.
Kynthia hadn't come to the temple with him today, thank God. She hadn't been any help in the search yesterday, and she made his skin crawl. Jack shuddered in remembrance before continuing his close inspection of the stairs to the Stargate.
"What're you doing?"
Jack straightened stiffly and turned to face the child standing behind him. He had brown hair and dark eyes, and he clutched a toy in one hand. If Jack had to guess, he looked about seven years old. "Who're you?" he asked, voice cracking from disuse.
"Dan-el," the boy said.
Jack winced a little, remembering the real Daniel. He couldn't look after the kid, help him find his wife, if he was dead. Daniel had lost so much so fast, thanks to that slimy snakehead Apophis. "Hey," he said. The kid had been about five just the day before. This goa'uld had taken the kid's childhood, just like he'd taken Daniel's family. "I'm looking for something Pelops hid."
"Why?"
"Because if I can find it, maybe I can stop us from aging so fast," Jack replied. He turned back to the steps.
"Oh." There was a pause, and a crash. Jack twisted to watch the kid pick up the toy he'd dropped-it looked like some kind of crude doll. "What does it look like?" he asked.
"I don't know," Jack admitted. "It'll probably have wires or buttons or blinking lights or something. I'll know it when I see it."
"Why did he hide it?" Dan-el frowned, biting his lip. "That wasn't very nice of him. Mama says I shouldn't hide things other people want."
"Pelops didn't want us to find it and turn it off," Jack said as he went back to inspecting the stairs. "And no, it wasn't very nice of him. He's not a nice person."
"Oh. That's what Dad said today." They stood in silence for a while as Jack ran his hands over the smooth stone, feeling for rough spots or grooves that might indicate hidden panels. "I'm good at finding stuff," the boy announced proudly. "I'll help."
"Thanks," said Jack, grateful for the company.
Jack and Dan-el had worked together for about an hour when a noisy crowd of Argosians interrupted them. They hadn't found anything, and Dan-el hadn't done much besides play, but Jack had enjoyed talking with the kid. Children were, after all, his favorite people. He forced aside the thought of his own unborn child.
Jack turned to see a steady parade of villagers in bright, filmy clothes bringing offerings to lay before the statue. "Excuse me," he said, walking towards them, "what are you doing?"
Alekos, who had led the procession, turned to him. "Your people do not have enough knowledge to help us. We must ask Pelops to return."
His faith in a snakehead infuriated Jack. Hadn't he been listening the day before when Jack told him what the bastard had done? "Oh, for crying out loud!" He grabbed the nearest dish and smashed it for emphasis. "Ol' Pelops doesn't give a rat's ass about things like love and human life! His kind kidnap people like you and take them to other worlds to be used as slaves!" At the blank looks, he went on. "Animals. Objects to be used, owned, studied, thrown away and killed when they're not useful anymore." He seemed to be getting through; the Argosians were looking confused and hurt at least. Jack would've been angry, in their shoes, but from what he'd seen these people didn't know how to be angry.
Alekos frowned. "Pelops thinks of us as his slaves?" He glanced around at his people before lifting his chin high. "Then I will no longer be one of the Chosen."
Amid gasps and fearful glances at the statue, Thetyes stepped forward to take her husband's arm. "Nor will I." She blinked back tears.
"That's the message you ought to be sendin'!" Jack crowed.
Like sheep, the Argosians followed the strongest clear voice and stepped forward one by one or in groups to denounce Pelops. This was followed by much confusion, as the Argosians tried to figure out what to do next.
Seeing more than one glance his way, Jack offered a helpful suggestion. "Y'know, if you're not gonna be Pelops' people anymore, maybe you ought to take down that statue." It was something to do, and its loss would hopefully stop people from turning back to it out of habit.
"But it was erected by Pelops," protested one of the villagers who'd been in the last group to denounce their god. "We cannot bring it down."
"Why not?" Jack asked him. This seemed to take the wind out of his sails and he looked around for support. He didn't precisely get any, but then again, no one was entirely sure they could, either, from the looks of things.
"It is stone," Thetys said. "How could we bring it down?"
Jack shrugged, remembering pictures of Moscow and Berlin in the crumbling of the Warsaw Pact nations. "Got any rope?"
"Hey, how are you feeling this morning?"
Sam looked blearily up from her dry toast and cheerios to see Janet standing in front of her, coffee mug in hand. Normally, Sam hated dry toast, and cheerios were really boring without fruit or sugar on top, but they were soothing to the stomach. "Ok, I guess," she said, glancing around at the others having an early breakfast in the commissary. She was dying to talk things through with the other woman, but not in public. "I didn't sleep too well."
"I can see that," Janet said, eyeing her. "Want to walk me back to the infirmary?"
"Sure," Sam said. "Just let me finish my juice."
With a crash, the statue fell. It'd taken longer than Jack had expected, mostly because the villagers were still half-convinced that Pelops was a god and that he would smite them for their disobedience. Jack was too frail to be much more than a technical advisor, but he'd kept them moving too quickly to think it through; he didn't want anyone having time for second thoughts. Hearing the crash of stone on stone, seeing it lying there, had brought the reality home with a vengeance, though, and the villagers clutched one another in fear.
Jack said nothing, letting them figure out for themselves that Pelops wasn't coming. Besides, his voice was kinda raw from all the arguing and cajoling he'd been doing that day.
After a few minutes, the Argosians started letting go of each other. "He-He did not strike us," Alekos said in awe.
"I told ya so!" Jack said triumphantly as the Argosians started to do what they did best-party.
Jack, tired after his exertions, sat down to watch.
"I just ... feel confused," Sam said. They'd retired to Janet's office, and she'd spent the last twenty minutes pouring her heart out. Janet hadn't had to push hard at all to get her to open up. "Ever since I got pregnant, I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. And it's gotten worse since Jack was infected. I've spent the last couple of days worrying about him, if we'll get him back, what he'll be like if he gets better. I mean, he was raped by that woman. I know she didn't mean to, but that's what it comes down to! I just ... hope he makes it through ok." She ran a hand through her hair. "But sometimes I get mad at Jack, too, for letting it happen. I know he couldn't have done anything to stop it, but ..." She shook her head. "And I feel guilty about being mad, and that I'm not doing more to help. I know there's nothing more I could be doing, but that doesn't help, either."
Janet sighed. "Anger perfectly normal, Sam," she said. "So is guilt. Your feelings don't have to be logical. Feelings seldom are. Just as long as you don't take it out on him, I wouldn't let it worry you."
"I know," Sam said. "And I have no intention of taking it out on Jack. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with on my part."
"I'm sure Doctor MacKenzie would be willing to talk to you about this if you wanted. Or Doctor Hiroshi-she specializes in relationship issues."
"No, thanks," Sam said. "It's not that bad. I just need to talk it through with a friend."
"Any time." Janet smiled. "We could have a girl's night in, complete with nail polish, chick flicks, and ice cream, if you wanted."
Sam shook her head. "Maybe after Jack gets back. For now, I'm fine. A little tired, but I'm okay. This has helped, but I don't want to be too far away from the control room in case Jack calls."
"I understand," Janet sad. "But you need to take better care of yourself. If I hear you aren't sleeping or eating properly, I'll have Mister Teal'c come find you and drag you to the cafeteria and then tie you down in a bed in one of the VIP rooms. Understand?"
"Teal'c doesn't frighten me," Sam scoffed. "Besides, I think I can evade your spies." This gentle banter was the touch of normalcy she needed.
"Even Daniel?" Janet asked mildly.
"Well, maybe not Daniel," Sam said, deflating slightly. "He has an unfair advantage. As the civilian geek who's nice to everyone he's kind of turned into the base mascot. Everyone talks to him. Even the Marines." Inter-service rivalry on the base was at normal levels for a new base; the Marines and Airforce worked together, but a certain amount of friction was inevitable.
"He's just too cute and innocent looking," Janet agreed. "It's a major advantage. Fortunately, he doesn't realize it."
"No, he has no idea how innocent he is," Sam agreed.
Janet raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong, Sam?"
Sam shook her head. "I know there was no way Daniel could have predicted or prevented this whole thing, either. It's just that he's so naïve, even for a civilian. He assumes that everyone except maybe the Goa'uld are as good and honorable as he is. But the thing is, most people aren't. And I can't help thinking that if he'd been a little more wary, maybe he would have figured out something was wrong before Jack got led away by that ... woman."
"Maybe so," Janet said carefully, cocking her head, "but you certainly can't call Colonel O'Neil or Mister Teal'c naïve, and they were both there too. If they didn't catch the fact that the cake was dangerous, how was Daniel supposed to?"
Sam looked down, collecting her thoughts for a second. She looked up at her friend, lips tight. "That's true. But Janet, they're both used to looking for the armed threats. Cultural ones, those are Daniel's area of expertise." She shook her head. "I know I'm being too hard on him, but part of me can't help it. At least, not while Jack's life still hangs in the balance."
Jack watched the party in front of him. Dancing, singing, eating ... every so often a couple would drift off outside the temple. It didn't take a genius to know what they were going out for. Kynthia had been shooting glances at him the whole time, which he'd been trying to avoid as best as possible. Right now she was speaking with a villager he didn't know, playing with the flowers in her hair. He looked away as she turned towards him.
Damn, but his life was screwed up. Wrong planet, wrong woman, wrong age ... he knew that if you took away that last one, a lot of guys would call this paradise. Not him. These innocents with their perfect world grated on his nerves. They didn't know what was out there, and couldn't care less. They'd pulled down Pelops' statue, but with no real purpose of their own behind it. If Pelops were to walk through the Stargate right this very minute, they'd bow before him again. The children were almost worse than the adults-every time he saw one of them, particularly Dan-el, he burned with hatred for the Goa'uld who had done this. He'd tried to explain, but they still didn't get it. None of them. And Kynthia was the worst.
"Why do you hide yourself away alone, Jack?"
And speak of the devil. "I'm not hiding," he said, shifting slightly away from her and trying to make it look casual. "I'm watching the party," he said, eyes following yet another couple as they disappeared, giggling, out the door.
Kynthia followed his gaze. "Would you care to take a walk?"
Jack held back a shudder at the thought of being alone with her. "No. Thank you."
"Alekos said you talked with him of exploring many worlds. Surely, you would like to explore this one?" Kynthia coaxed him as if he were a recalcitrant two year old.
"Still not interested." Jack bit off what he'd been about to say. It wouldn't be fair to dump what he was feeling on the girl; she was just a baby, for all she looked like a woman. Her crimes had been purely unintentional. He didn't have to like her (and he didn't!) but that didn't mean he had to be cruel.
"Then we could stay here in the village and talk ... among other things," she said coyly.
"Absolutely not." Jack shuddered.
Kynthia sat down on the steps next to him. They sat in silence for a while; it wasn't exactly companionable, but it was the closest they'd ever come. "Surely you do not intend to live the rest of your days without making love?" she said at last.
"Oh, God, I hope not," Jack said absently, watching as yet another couple wandered off. There weren't very many adults left in the temple, though the children were still playing on the ruins of the statue. A slight sniffle brought his attention back to Kynthia at his side; she was trying not to cry.
"Then, it is me you do not like," she said quietly.
He had no answer to that. He couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear.
"I'm sorry," she said finally, and stood up slowly, busying herself with straightening her dress. Head bowed, she walked out of the temple, the first one he'd seen leave alone so far.
Jack felt some of the tension drain itself out of his body. He felt exhausted, like he'd just done an obstacle course in full gear-twice. He went back to watching the kids. There were so few adults left here that he figured someone had to keep an eye on them.
"Jack?" Dan-el was peering at the base of the statue. "There's something here you gotta see."
"What is it?" Jack asked, bracing himself to rise. It took a lot of effort to get upright, but he made it. Well, at least as 'upright' as he was capable of at the moment. He began shuffling over.
"Come here and see for yourself," Dan-el said with a smile.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Jack said. "You young whippersnappers don't know how good you got it." The rest of the Argosians still present, adults and children, gathered round and watched. After what seemed like eternity Jack was at the statue, staring down at the thing that had caught Dan-el's eye. It was a device, complete with blinking lights. "Good job, Dan-el," he said, clapping the kid on the back. "Could you hand it to me?" It didn't look like it was attached to anything, and he didn't want to have to bend over to pick it up.
"Sure," Dan-el said. With the grace of the very young he bent down and picked up the device.
Jack took it from him and turned towards the DHD. "Thanks, kid. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a call to make."
"Can I watch?" Dan-el asked, eyes lighting up.
"Course you can," Jack said. If he'd had a free hand, he'd have given the kid a pat on the back, but as unsteady as he was he needed both on the device to avoid dropping it. "Actually, you want to carry this for me?" he asked, indicating the device.
"Could I?" Dan-el's grin stretched from ear to ear as he held his hands out.
"Sure, Dan-el," Jack replied. "Just be careful and don't drop it. We don't want to break it before the geeks get a chance to look at it."
"Okay." Holding the device as if it were a holy relic, Dan-el walked beside Jack up the stairs. He only fidgeted a little at Jack's slow pace. The others clustered around them as they made their way to the DHD.
Jack looked around anxiously for Sam as he came through the gate, but she was nowhere to be seen. The one time he'd talked with her over the radio she'd seemed fine, but he'd been married for too many years to use one public voice-only conversation to gauge her mood. His team wasn't there, either. In fact-
"Colonel?"
He turned his attention to the petite brunette with the caduceus on her collar. What was her name? "Doctor Frasier," he said.
"I'll need you to come with me to the infirmary right now so I can run some tests, and confirm that all the nanites have shut themselves down and are being purged from your system," she said, guiding him towards the doors. "It's good to see you, sir, but we want to be sure that all risk to the base has been eliminated."
"Okay," he said, allowing himself to be led. That would explain why the Gate room was empty except for the team that had turned off Pelops' device and escorted him home, and the medical team that had met them.
Once in the infirmary he was scanned in an MRI or something, and then put in an isolation room like the one Kawalsky's surgery had been in, with the wide observation windows. His team was up there, as was Sam. She and Daniel sat watching, Teal'c standing behind them with his hands clasped behind his back. Sam gave him a smile, which he returned; it seemed like a good sign. Teal'c gave him that trademark solemn nod, while Daniel wrinkled his forehead at something Sam said before waving at Jack. Jack waved back at them.
His attention was caught by a movement at his side that turned out to be a male nurse with a big syringe. "What's that for?" he asked as he rolled up his sleeve.
"Doctor Frasier needs another blood sample to check on the nanites," the nurse replied as he swabbed a piece of Jack's arm with alcohol.
"Y'know, they sent several samples through to the SGC before they let any of us come home," Jack pointed out.
"I know." He jabbed him with the needle. "We need to do some more tests over a period of time to make sure they really are dead."
"How much blood is Frasier going to want?" Jack asked.
"You'd have to ask her that, sir." He took the needle out and put it away. "I'd say she's going to want a lot, though."
"I knew it," Jack said, playing to the guys in the observation lounge. "All docs are vampires."
That garnered a bit of a laugh from the peanut gallery; evidently the room was miked for sound. Daniel leaned over to a microphone near him. "Be nice, Jack. Janet did more than anyone else besides Sam to figure out what happened to you and get you home."
"I'm always nice!" Jack protested mock innocently. "Hello, sir," he said to Hammond, who had just entered the observation room.
"Colonel," Hammond returned. "It's good to see you back, son."
"It's good to be back, sir, but," Jack gestured down at himself, "right now it looks like I should be the one calling you that."
"Maybe, but not for long."
Jack glanced over at the door to the isolation room. It was open, and Frasier stood there with a file folder in hand. Like the nurse who had just left, she wore gloves and a mask, but she pulled the mask down as she stepped further into the room.
"I have some good news," she said to the observers. "As far as we can tell, the nanites are flushing themselves out of his system at a rapid rate. We'll want to keep him for observation, and keep running blood work to keep track of it, but I can't see any cause for concern at this point. Also," she turned to Jack, "from the scans we've taken, the alterations in your body seem to be mostly cosmetic in nature-wrinkled skin, white hair, stooped posture, etc. There does not seem to be any permanent effect on your internal organs, and I don't believe the cosmetic changes will be permanent, either."
"Bottom line, doctor?" Hammond asked over the intercom.
Frasier cocked her head. "The bottom line is that while we'll want to keep him here for observation until this process is completed, Jack should end up the same age he was when he arrived on Argos. I doubt the actual Argosians will regress in age."
"That would make sense," Sam broke in. "They've depended on the nanites for their growth since birth, which means the alterations would have been much more than cosmetic alone."
"Exactly." Frasier nodded.
"How long will it take for Colonel O'Neill to return to normal?" Hammond asked.
"Well, I couldn't say, exactly." Janet put a hand in the pocket of her lab coat. "But at the rate things are progressing, probably about a week."
"So," Jack said, fighting down his annoyance that they'd all been talking about him rather than too him, "bottom line is that I need to pack all my annoying old fart stuff into the next week?"
Frasier gave him an amused smile. "Basically, yes, sir," she replied. "After that, you won't have any excuse."
"Damn," Jack said. "And I was so looking forward to it!" He felt his face split wide in a grin and bounced on his toes a little bit.
A snort from the observation lounge drew his attention back. Daniel's smile looked as wide as Jack's felt. "As if you need an excuse to be annoying," the archaeologist said.
Jack made a face at him, but couldn't muster anything crankier than that at the moment. He looked to Sam, locking eyes with her. God, she looked gorgeous. Her eyes were bright with moisture, but she was smiling back at him. Suddenly shy, he shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet. She'd never looked at him that intensely before. Sara used to, back when they were first together, but even the thought of his ex-wife couldn't dampen his spirits at the moment.
"How long does he have to stay in isolation, Doctor?" Hammond's question broke the moment, and Jack tore his eyes away from Sam. From the amused look, his CO had caught the googly eyes.
"I'd say a couple of days, sir," Janet said, "just to be on the safe side. Especially given Captain Carter's condition, we don't want to take any unnecessary risk.
Jack practically growled at the thought of Sam being stuck behind glass for that long. He hadn't seen her for a while, he'd thought he was going to die, and ok, yeah, he knew it was just near-death nerves and hormones, but he really wanted to see his girlfriend face-to-face, dammit!
"Thank you," Hammond replied. "It's good to have you back, Colonel." He nodded to Jack, glanced at Daniel and Teal'c, and left.
"Well, I think that's all I need from you for now," Janet said briskly. "If you have any problems or concerns, colonel, you can use the intercom to call for help. In the mean-time, I'll be studying these samples." She gave him a smile and tuned on her heel. He watched her leave, bemused.
"Jack, if you need anything let us know, okay?" Jack turned back to see Daniel standing. Teal'c gave him a slight bow, and the two left together. As they moved out of his line of vision Jack looked back at Sam; she was still watching them go. After a bit she turned back to him.
"I smell a conspiracy," Jack said mock suspiciously.
Sam raised her eyebrows at him. "Do you care?"
"Well, now that you mention it, no," Jack said with a slight laugh. "So, how're you doing?" he asked. "How have things ... been while I've been gone?" He regretted asking, because her face lost a lot of its glow.
"I missed you," she said. "I was so worried. And I felt so useless, especially after General Hammond ordered the samples destroyed and there was nothing more I could do to help." She wrapped her arms around herself, blinking back tears. For the first time, he noticed how red her eyes and nose were. "How are you doing? You were the one who was going to die, after all."
"Well, yeah," Jack admitted, "but I was unconscious for most of it. Besides," he said with a shrug, "I've been in worse situations. Not a prisoner, no real injuries, nice weather, nice people ..." he trailed off, trying to think of something else that would comfort her. "Dan-el was a pretty cute kid," he said, throat tightening. "He helped me search. He was the one who actually found the damn thing-it was hidden inside that statue. The Argosians pulled it down after I told them what Pelops had done to them, and he spotted it while the kids were playing on the statue..."
"Jack," Sam interrupted, voice thick, "please."
That shut up his patter. "I'm sorry."
"I know Argos is a nice place," Sam said, "but after what that woman did to you..." She trailed off, shaking her head, not able to look at him. Jack came up to the window and placed his hand on the glass in front of her. God, he wished he were on the other side of it. She looked like she could desperately use a hug, and he wouldn't exactly turn one down at the moment, himself. She placed a hand on the glass on the other side of his, staring at them.
"I know," Jack said quietly. He tried to remember how to talk about the hard stuff. If he'd ever really known, he'd forgotten a long time ago. Sara had always complained about it, and it had been the straw that broke the camel's back in their marriage, after Charlie's death. "She didn't know any better." He tried to convince himself, but a wave of nausea flooded him. Now that Pelops' damn bugs were out of his system and he was sleeping normally, he'd have nightmares for sure. And he'd be in the infirmary for everyone to see and hear. Wonderful.
Sam snorted. "Maybe so, but that still doesn't make it right. And I really doubt it makes you feel any better!"
"You got me there," Jack admitted, "but like I said, I've been through worse. Don't worry about me."
Sam narrowed her eyes. "What, you've been raped before?" she said sarcastically.
Jack could feel himself shut down, emotionally. "Can we not talk about that?" It came out harsher than he'd intended. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, forcing his thoughts away. It wasn't usually so difficult, but then, the memories weren't usually this clear, either. God, the shrinks were gonna want his ass. He'd had more than enough of their crap after Iraq, and he was so not looking forward to going through the whole thing again.
"Jack?" Sam was watching him, he realized. Well, staring might be a better word for it. "Have you been raped before?"
Damn. He didn't think she was going to let this go; Sara wouldn't have. Sam didn't know him as well, but from what he knew of her she substituted a geek's curiosity and tenaciousness for Sara's wifely instincts. "Can we not talk about this right now?" he repeated. He had no doubt she'd get it out of him sometime; he couldn't exactly freeze her out, not given what was at stake; he wanted to be his kid's dad, and that would be a problem if they didn't get along.
"All right," Sam replied slowly, still eyeing him suspiciously.
They stood in silence like that for some time, hands pressed against the glass, neither quite sure what to say. At last, Jack broke the silence. "How about O'Malley's?"
"What?" Sam looked confused; he made himself a mental reminder to mark that one down on his calendar. It wasn't every day a dumb flyboy like him got to confuse a scientist as brilliant as Sam.
"O'Malleys," he repeated patiently, giving her a bit of a smirk. "You, me, food. As soon as I'm cleared to get out of here. What do you think?"
She gave him a half a smile. "I'd like that."
"Sweet."
Sam paced, waiting for Janet to finish her rounds. The clicking of heels announced the petite doctor's arrival. "Sam, hello," she said. "What can I do for you?"
"Can I talk with you?" Sam asked, shifting from foot to foot.
Janet raised an eyebrow. "Sure," she said, leading the way to a lab room not currently in use. "What is it?" she asked after closing the door.
"I know you have to be careful about doctor-patient confidentiality," Sam said, "but Jack mentioned something to me but wouldn't explain it, and I was hoping you'd be able to at least confirm what I thought he meant." She took a deep breath. "Has Jack ever been raped? I mean, before now?"
Janet's face grew still. "Sam, without his consent I can't talk to you about anything in his medical record."
Sam nodded, blinking back tears. That sounded like a confirmation to her. "Okay." She looked away, biting her lip, trying to figure out what to do from here. Jack wouldn't accept sympathy for it, he'd made that clear enough. He didn't want to talk about it at all. But it wasn't something she could just ignore.
"Sam-" Janet sighed, folding her arms. "Colonel O'Neill is a very private man. You know this as well as I. He was in special ops for many years, doing a lot of difficult, dangerous things. He's bound to have some skeletons in his closet, and if he doesn't want to talk about it, you can't force him. The only advice I can give you is to see a counselor, who can help you find the best way to handle the situation."
"But Jack's the one who needs counseling," Sam objected.
"It might help him, yes," Janet agreed. "But, honey, he has to want it, for it to work. You can't force someone to deal with their problems. That's something they have to choose for themselves. And Colonel O'Neill has been ... resistant to counseling in the past. He doesn't like psychologists. All you can do is learn to give him the support he needs to deal with things in his own way." She shrugged. "A psychologist might be able to help you do that. There are several good ones in the area that I could recommend."
Sam looked down, thinking. "I might ask for that later," she said slowly, "but not now. Let's see how this goes, first."
"Okay." Janet smiled. "How about we go get something to eat?"
"Sounds good to me," Sam said. "Just let me clean up a little, first." She brushed some of the moisture away from her eyes. "I'll meet you there in a couple of minutes."
Eight days later, Jack stood on his deck, closed his eyes, and breathed in the crisp, cool mountain air. The smell of the outdoors was more than welcome after over a week of being stuck underground in that damned fishbowl of an isolation room. And while Argos had been nice, in an abstract kind of way, he hadn't exactly been in a mood to enjoy himself. And now here he was, home at last, nothing to do over the weekend but watch ESPN and hang out on the couch with popcorn and a beer. If it weren't so late in the year he'd drag out the grill, but late September was a little too cold to do stuff like that in Colorado Springs. Then Monday, he'd be back to work at the mountain as usual. He hoped the nightmares would be gone by then. He didn't get them often, but the whole thing on Argos, and then the first conversation with Sam, had brought them back with a vengeance.
The sound of a car pulling in to his driveway brought his attention back to the present. Curious, he followed his deck around to where he could see it; it was Sam's volvo. He frowned. They were supposed to meet at O'Malley's tomorrow night, but had no plans for this evening, and her hints about being ready to listen if he was ready to talk had made their upcoming date lose a lot of its anticipation on his part. He hadn't even known she knew where his house was, though he supposed she could have asked Daniel easily enough. The archaeologist had only moved out a couple of weeks ago; it had taken a while to get his finances and things straightened out after being dead for a year, but the archaeologist had turned out to be a packrat of the most amazing order. It turned out that while Daniel had been living out of a suitcase and a backpack when he'd been originally hired, he'd had a storage unit of stuff back in Chicago. It was mostly books and a collection of old stuff he could have probably sold for a bundle if he'd been willing to part with any of it. Jack shook his head in bemusement at the archaeologist's priorities, then went inside to greet Sam at the front door.
He reached the front door as the doorbell rang. Instead of opening it, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reminding himself that even if Sam wanted to talk about things better left in the past where they belonged, she was the mother of his child and he had to play nicely with her. More than that, he had to keep her happy enough that she wanted to spend time with him and keep him fully involved. He blew out the breath he'd been holding and opened the door.
He raised his eyebrows. "Wow." He stepped aside to let her come in. "You look great. Can I take your coat?"
"Sure," she said, coming in and shrugging it off. He closed the door behind her and took it. She wasn't wearing anything sexy, just jeans and a sweater, but her curves had filled out a little in ways that BDUs just didn't do credit to. He blinked and hung the coat up in the closet. "Can I get you anything?" he asked. "I haven't had time to go shopping since I got back, and I'm kinda afraid to see what might be growing in my fridge, but I'm pretty sure I could manage water or juice or something."
"No, I'm fine," she said with a tense smile. That didn't look good. "So, can I get the nickel tour?"
"Sure," Jack said.
Half an hour later they sat on the couch in the living room. Sam had a glass of orange juice while Jack nursed a beer.
"So, what brings you out to my neck of the woods?" Jack asked, as casually as he could make it sound. He liked the silence-it was better than what they could have been talking about-but Sam seemed uncomfortable.
Sam shrugged, looking down at her drink. "Just wanted to see how you were," she said, in a performance that was so not worthy of an Oscar. Brilliant astrophysicist she might be, but she was no actress.
"Ah." Jack let it hang there to see if she wanted to start the conversation; she was much better at small talk than he was. No such luck. "Is that so?" he asked, proving that he wasn't going to win any awards for conversation, either, tonight.
"No," she admitted with a sigh. She grimaced. "Well, it is, at least partly," she said, partially turning to face him. "When you were unconscious, and then after you were on Argos, I was so worried for you. And then after you got back, you were in isolation and I couldn't touch you, but I could still go into the observation room and see you. And then you went home today, and I guess I kind of needed to come see you and make sure you were still okay. I mean, I know you're fine, and Janet cleared you, and everything, but I needed the reassurance of actually seeing you. I was just ..." Her words trailed off, and she looked to the side, blinking back tears.
Jack studied her for a few seconds. He put his beer down on the coffee table. "C'mere," he said, reaching out and drawing her against his shoulder. She sighed, snuggling in, and he sat back against the back of the couch. She toed off her slippers and curled up against him. He rubbed her back slowly, luxuriating in the feel of her against him. At twenty, he would never have believed how great just holding a woman could be, no sex involved, just solid human contact. Twenty year olds were idiots.
"Thank you, Jack." Sam adjusted herself into a more comfortable position. "This is exactly what I needed, right now."
"All part of the service." And if she'd rather be held than talk about ... what he thought she wanted to talk about, he was all for that.
After about twenty minutes, she stirred. "Jack?" she said.
"Yeah?" He tensed slightly, dreading what might be coming.
It didn't go unnoticed. She began rubbing his chest slightly. "I know you've had a hard life, a hard career. With that long in special operations, you've probably seen a lot of horrible stuff, done some of it to others and had it done to you. Whether or not you tell me about it, and how much you tell me, is up to you. But if you keep me in the dark, I'm always going to wonder. I know a lot of it is classified, but you know my security clearances are very high. I'm not going to drown you in sympathy or anything, I just want to know. I need to know."
Jack gave a light nod, staring off at the wall across from him. God, this was one conversation he did not want to have. If he told her what she wanted to know, he would open up a whole can of worms in their relationship. On the other hand, his slip the day he'd been brought back had already opened it up, at least partly. If he wanted to keep her happy, he had to tell her something. And he had no doubt that her fertile scientist brain had come up with worst-case scenarios way worse than anything that had actually happened to him. In the end, it came down to one question: did he trust her enough to reveal that much of himself? He'd only known her for a few months, after all. Granted, they'd been an intense few months, but he'd known Sara for years and had never told her what Carter wanted to know. And look where it had gotten him. He leaned forward to grab his beer again. For this conversation, he thought he'd need it. "Okay."
The first thing Sam noticed, the next morning, was that she had a crick in her neck from sleeping funny. That somewhat confusing thought brought her to full awareness when it led to a memory of exactly where she'd been when she fell asleep-on Jack's couch. Well, on Jack, actually. And, from the rather lumpy, warm mass underneath her, that's where they'd stayed. All night, judging from the amount of light leaking in through her closed eyelids. Suppressing the urge to just burrow in deeper and go back to sleep, Sam yawned and opened her eyes.
"Morning, sleepyhead," Jack said with a grin. "How did you sleep?"
"Very well, thanks," Sam said, returning his smile. She checked her watch. "Oh, my God, it's almost nine! I never sleep in this late!"
"Not even on Saturdays?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow. "Which this is, I might add."
"Not even Saturdays," Sam confirmed. She thought about getting up, but aside from her neck, she was too comfortable. "Weekdays I'm up at 0530, so sleeping in till 0700 feels like a real indulgence. Usually I get up and jog or go to the gym, or something, on a Saturday morning. Although, since transferring to the SGC I seem to be working more weekends than not."
"Well, you must really have needed the extra sleep, then."
"Yeah," Sam said with another yawn. "I really haven't slept much the last two or three weeks." Which worked out to 'since Jack left for Argos,' and judging by the way he tensed under her, ever so slightly, he had made the same connection. If she'd been more awake, she probably wouldn't have put it like that ... "How did you sleep?"
"Pretty well," Jack said, and it might have been more convincing if he hadn't had bags under his eyes and yawned right in the middle of saying it.
"Jack?" She frowned suspiciously at him.
"What?" he said, trying to pull off an innocent face. It didn't work, and she frowned at him until he caved. "Okay, I didn't get much sleep."
He tried to shrug it off as if it was nothing, but Sam wasn't buying it. "You know, if I was too heavy or uncomfortable, you could have gone to your own bed and left me here with a pillow and blanket," she pointed out, hoping it was just her that had kept him up. He'd told her about some very unpleasant things in his past, and though he'd only sketched the outlines of most of them, she hated to think that telling her about them had stirred up nightmares.
"Nah," Jack said with a wave. "It was my pleasure. Besides," he said with a wink and a playful leer, "my Mom always said that when a gentleman sleeps with a woman, he wakes up with her the next morning."
"She said that, did she," Sam said with raised eyebrows. That was ... awfully liberated for a Catholic wife and mother from his parents' generation.
"Well, no, not exactly," Jack admitted. "There ... may have been something in there about going to Hell for sleeping with a girl outside of Holy Matrimony ... but I don't remember any etiquette lessons for what to do afterwards." He frowned, theatrically. "I'm pretty sure there was something in there about going to Hell for getting a girl pregnant and not marrying her. I think."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "And yet, I am unmoved." She gave him a smirk. "Seriously, though, I wouldn't have minded."
"Seriously, though," he said, mimicking her tone, "I didn't mind." He glanced out across his living room. "Besides, I got a little too much sleep in the last couple weeks, y'know?" He shook his head and smiled at her. "But now that you're awake, I have to go answer the call of nature." He brushed a kiss on her forehead and she sat up, wincing a little as she stretched.
"I guess I'll head out then," Sam said, slightly disappointed but not wanting to show it. "See you tonight at O'Malley's?"
"You betcha," O'Neill confirmed with a grin.
Jack watched her pull out of his driveway, then returned to a house that suddenly seemed much emptier. He leaned back against the door and listened to the stillness, for a while. Damn, he'd forgotten how nice human contact could be when it wasn't strictly work related or a 'one-of-the-guys' thing. Okay, his sloppy sentimental side was showing, but he'd loved just holding her all night, and watching her sleep, despite the fact that his couch wasn't the most comfortable of places to sleep and at his age, you noticed these things. In fact, he wanted to do it again tonight, though maybe in a real bed this time. And the night after that, and the night after that ...
Jack shook his head at himself. Man, he had it bad. Not that that was a bad thing, but if he wanted to be cool and avoid making a total ass of himself, it was something to keep in mind. Wanting to spend hours holding a girl in your arms, no hanky-panky needed, indicated a little more than just your average garden-variety lust. Although, he certainly wouldn't turn down any hanky-panky if it was offered; he shook his head. Only a couple three or four months along, Sam wasn't showing yet, but her normally very nice figure had ... blossomed. Become more lush. In ways his body had found very interesting in the wee hours of the morning with her wiggling on top of him to find a more comfortable sleeping position. He was glad she'd been lying the way she had when she woke up; that had not been his sidearm, standing at attention. But he didn't think she'd noticed it. Hopefully not. Sex-starved was not the way he wanted to come off. He shook his head again and headed towards the bathroom, peeling off yesterday's clothes as he went.
Sam glanced at the clock as she towelled her hair dry. Noon. Since leaving Jack's place, she'd gotten in her run, had lunch, and taken a shower. Running was such a great way to process things, and she'd had a lot to process. Sam wasn't all that cuddly a girl, normally, but last night had been great. Just the snuggling and waking up together would've been fine, as stressed out and worried for him as she'd been lately. Actually talking with Jack, seriously, about his past? That had been a lot of things. In some parts it'd been disturbing; to use his own words there was some 'damned distasteful things' there. Some parts of it had been funny, others sad or tragic. The man had seen and done a lot of things in a life and career that spanned the globe and now the galaxy. Much of it had made her uncomfortable. But she was glad she knew it. Janet was right; he had issues. But now that she knew what they were, she could deal with them, she thought. It was the not knowing that had been the killer.
What to do with the rest of the day? She didn't have any projects that particularly needed attention at work, and she wasn't really feeling social. Last night was just the sort of thing Janet would love to hear about, but her rapport with Jack was a bit too new and fragile for Sam to want to parade it around. Was there anything that needed to be done around here? She was pretty much unpacked; she probably needed to do some laundry. Getting a load started, she wandered around her apartment with a critical eye.
Definitely not a place for a kid. Besides the single bedroom, there wasn't much of a lawn, and there were no parks nearby. Maybe she should start looking for a new apartment now, so she could be moved and settled in before the baby came. That would make the most sense; it'd be easier, and it meant that all the baby stuff she'd need to get wouldn't have to be moved. Which brought up another issue: what baby stuff would she need? Sam hung the towel up on the rack and wandered out to the kitchen, where she got out a pencil and paper.
Crib, car seat, childproofing stuff, clothes ... what else did babies need? Sam wished she had more friends with kids, well, any friends with kids. Never having been around babies much, she had no idea what she was getting into. She rubbed her forehead. Maybe she could get some advice from Mark when she told him. That was one of the few things he had in common with Dad-they both liked to give advice. Which brought up the fact that she hadn't told them, yet. It was only going to get harder, she knew that, but it was an issue that she could procrastinate over for at least another day. Back to baby stuff.
She needed to do some research, was what she needed to do. Sam decided to hit the library later that day to look over their childcare section. And any pregnancy books they might have. Going to browse through baby stores would be a good idea too, but Jack would be upset if she did that without him. She shook her head, amused that it hadn't occurred to her two minutes ago. Jack, being a parent, would already know a lot of stuff about babies. He'd been through this before. The library was still a good idea, and asking Mark's advice would help smooth things over with him, but Jack was the one she really needed to be talking with. He might like helping her look for a new place, too.
They could talk about all this tonight at O'Malley's. Okay, it wasn't very romantic or anything, but Sam was a practical girl, and a romantic evening out while so many issues needed to be dealt with would just bug her. And a steakhouse wasn't the most romantic place, anyway. So what exactly did they need to talk about? After the library, she'd have a better idea of what baby stuff needed discussion. That left the housing situation.
Did she want Jack's help on that? Well, yes. Apartment hunting wasn't much fun alone, and he might have opinions about what kind of place he wanted his child to live in. Sam bit her lip. She needed a list of criteria. Glancing down at the paper in front of her, she drew a line down the middle and started another list.
At least two bedrooms. Lawn or playground for the baby. Good, safe neighborhood. Near the mountain. Near Jack's house. Good kitchen. Affordable rent. Sam paused, unable to think of any other major criteria, and considered her list.
Jack watched, bemused, as Sam made a note on her list. Not that making lists was a bad thing, mind; it's just, he'd never seen anyone plot out their shopping with the precision of a military operation before. He'd also never seen anyone take briefing notes about babies, before. She turned back to the original page she'd brought in and checked something off.
"Y'know, maybe it's just me," he observed, "but I always thought that on a 'date' one ... dated. Flirting, footsy, yadda yadda." He waved his hand in the air vaguely.
"Really?" Sam looked up, eyebrow raised. She studied him for a second and Jack shifted in his seat uncomfortably.
"This is all great stuff," he said, nodding at the notes covering the table, "but do we have to do it now?" After their over night cuddle session he'd been kind of expecting something a little more ... intimate. Personal.
"Why Jack, I didn't know you wanted hearts and flowers," Sam said. She glanced around and gave him a little bit of a smirk. "I don't know how I could have missed it, in this romantic hot spot, after all our passionate rendezvous here."
Jack sat back and raised an eyebrow at the snarkiness that was worthy of, well, him. She didn't seem annoyed, though, just amused. "Why, Samantha, was that a hint?"
The smirk got a little wider. "Maybe."
"So, if I asked you out to something a little more ... intimate, like dancing or an opera or a fancy restaurant or a movie. Or maybe a couple of them together," he hastened to add as she eyed him. "Would you accept?"
"Maybe," she said again, cocking her head. "If you play your cards right." She watched him expectantly.
Jack opened his mouth, then realized he had no idea what to ask her. It'd been a while since he'd been out on a date with anyone besides Sara, and the only thing he was sure of was that he wanted their dates to be distinct from stuff he'd done with Sara. Maybe he should figure out what she'd like to do. Doc Frasier was her friend; he'd have to see about getting some inside information there. "I'll get back to you on that."
Sam studied him for a little bit before nodding and going back to her list. If Jack wasn't fooling himself, that looked like a hint of disappointment in her face. "The last thing is housing," she said. "I was wondering if you could help me out, here. My apartment is too small-only one bedroom-and there's not really any place for a child to play outside nearby. I'd like to be moved before the baby comes, because that'll be a lot less hassle than afterwards. I need a place with at least two bedrooms, a lawn or playground, a safe neighborhood, close to the mountain, near you ... " She trailed off and looked at him expectantly.
"Well, I can help you look for a new place," he said, hoping that was the answer she was looking for.
She tilted her head. "We could do that," she said, scrunching up her face. "Or ..."
He blinked a couple of times, like a deer in the headlights. "Or ... what?" he asked, after frantically wracking his brain to figure out what she was hinting at.
Sam leaned back, eyebrows raised in exasperation. "Or, I seem to recall that you have three bedrooms."
"That's true," he agreed. "Oh." He felt a grin stretching across his face. "And in which bedroom would you be sleeping?"
"That could be negotiated." She would have looked prim if it weren't for the twinkling of her eyes.
"I see," Jack said. He paused. "I thought you wanted to take things slow ...?" he said as delicately as he knew how. "Not that I think it's a bad idea, I'm just curious," he added.
"Well, Jack," Carter said in the same tones she used to explain scientific phenomena. "We are taking it slower than you wanted, if you remember. I wanted time to get to know you before making any big decisions. I have gotten to know you better, much better than I did when you asked me to marry you. Moving in together is the next logical step to seeing if we might be compatible for ...the step after that. If we can live together, that's great. If we drive each other nuts, it's best to find that out before making any legal changes that are hard to undo later." She shrugged. "Besides, like I said, I need to move before the baby comes anyway. Moving in with you saves time, energy, money ..."
"Body heat," Jack said with a playful leer.
"That, too," Sam said, returning it. She sobered a little bit. "Look, this is kind of a hard step for me." She looked down at her plate. "Jonas didn't ... change until after we'd moved in together. And you know how that turned out." Looking back up, she gave him a sad smile. "But I know you're not him, and I refuse to be ruled by my fears. And the one good thing about that whole mess is that it proved to me that if I get into a bad situation like that somehow, I can get myself out of it again."
Jack nodded, touched that she'd shared that with him. That whole issue had never occurred to him, and he wondered what other scars that nutcase had left her with. The man should be glad he was already dead. "So, moving party next Saturday? You, me, Daniel, Teal'c, Doc Frasier?"
"My lease isn't up for another eight months," Sam pointed out mildly, raising an eyebrow.
"It's called subletting, Sam," Jack said. "I don't see any point in putting it off, do you? I mean, once the decision's been ... made?" He raised an eyebrow back at her.
"I guess not."
"Perfect!" Jack rubbed his hands together. "So, it's a date?"
Sam smiled at him. "It's a date."
Heliopolis Main Archive
A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
Consequences
by Beatrice OtterStory Bemerkung:
Everything you recognize belongs to various media corporations.Kapitel Abschlussbemerkung:
AN1: You may note that I have recycled a great deal of dialogue from the episode "Brief Candle," although not all of it happens in the same scene or even (sometimes) is said by the same person. This was made ever so much easier by the archive of episode transcripts at http://www.moon-catchin.net/gatenoise/index.htm, which were made by the Sg1 Transcript group on Yahoogroups. They have all my thanks for their excellent work.AN2: Carter and religion. Her dog tags state that she is a Roman Catholic. In an interview (http://www.gateworld.net/articles/interviews/tapping03b.shtml), Amanda Tapping says that Carter may not go to church every Sunday, but still has a deep faith and prays regularly. I have ignored the RC thing, but kept the faith aspects; in this fic, she's an Episcopalian (that's Anglican for you Brits out there). After all, Episcopalian is, barring Lutheranism, as close to Catholic as you can get and still be a Protestant.
AN3: Jack has a line towards the end of the fic: "I knew it. All docs are vampires." This line was taken almost directly out of a Star Trek novel I read as a teen; I don't know what story it was or who wrote it, but I do remember Chekov saying that line in disgust.
AN4: Thanks to the Department of Health and Human Services website for the specific information regarding date-rape drugs. http://www.4woman.gov/faq/rohypnol.htm. Yes, I know that Jack gets over his rape very easily in this story. The actual episode "Brief Candle" doesn't even mention it as such, which it clearly is; that’s my main problem with the episode-it ignores a very real issue that is integral to the plot. Jack is given the off-world equivalent of a date-rape drug, and from the resulting encounter he receives an STD. Yet, Jack shows no psychological symptoms of assault. He isn't even more irritable than normal!
Degrees of psych trauma (or at least visible symptoms thereof) can vary wildly depending on the circumstances of the rape and the psychological make-up of the victim. Jack has had a hard life (including being captured in an Iraqi POW camp, being tortured, etc.). Over the years (I assume), he has developed efficient coping mechanisms for a wide variety of traumas such as being tortured or (in this case) raped. In addition, Kynthia didn't mean to rape him, or coerce him in any way, and is quite contrite about the whole thing. That, combined with Jack's general avoidance of introspection, is my justification for getting him off as light as he is. I really didn't want to write a rape-fic and deal with those issues, but I couldn't just ignore the whole thing either.
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