Paradox
Colonel Samantha Carter, USAF, stormed down the corridors of the Pentagon. General Hammond, President Hayes, the former President of the United States, former Vice-President Kinsey, the various joint chiefs…stuff them all! She was going to tell him, dammit! She was going to tell him everything. He deserved to know.
She didn't know why or how it had all started, but it began shortly after they met the Asgard called Thor. She didn't know what had happened let alone how or why, but for the last eight years, she had periodically gotten pregnant with and given birth to three of his children. And they had barely even kissed! And to make matters worse, she had just found out a little over a week ago that she was pregnant again.
She marched into Jack's secretary's office and before the captain was able to open her mouth to utter a welcome, Sam reached for the door handle that connected to Jack's office and turned it.
"The General's on a call. You're not allowed…"
By now, the door was open and Jack turned his chair toward the door in surprise. The poor secretary shrugged as Jack indicated a need for silence. He nodded and motioned for the secretary to leave. Once she had left, he placed his index finger carefully midair to indicate that she should wait a moment while he ended his phone call.
"Hey, guys, I'm sure you know what you're doing. You wouldn't be here otherwise. Now, do me a favor and call Hank. Tell him about it. Something just came up."
Without waiting for a reply, he hung up the phone. Then, as he stood up, reaching for his jacket, he spoke. "They're probably going to come down to curse me live in a few minutes. We should go to lunch."
Without a word, Sam sank down into the chair by the desk and began sobbing. This was Jack, and she'd missed serving daily with him. Hell, she'd just missed being with him.
He stood awkwardly positioned with one arm in his jacket sleeve and the other behind his head. "You okay?" He asked, recovering slightly.
He finished putting on his jacket and then, as he walked around the desk, he reached for the Kleenex and offered the box to her.
"Thank you." She said, sniffling as she took a tissue from the proffered cardboard box.
Jack sat, perched against the desk. "What's going on?"
She wiped her nose and turned her red, puffy eyes upward. "You may want to take the rest of the day off. I've got quite a story to tell you."
--
They sat across from one another at the restaurant, Jack looking at the menu and Sam sitting nervously watching him. They sat in silence until the waiter arrived.
"May I get you something to drink?" He asked, politely, his notepad and pen in a ready position.
"Beer." Jack said, closing his menu, decisively.
The waiter quickly jotted it down and turned to look at Sam. Her stomach was doing flip flops and it was not just because she was nervous. "Just water, please."
A few minutes later, he brought out their drinks and retrieved his pad and pencil. "Are you ready to order.
Jack nodded. "I'll have the hamburger with French fries."
"Okay." He said, scrawling the order down, and turning to Sam without looking up. "And you?"
"Oh…nothing."
The waiter and Jack eyed her quizzically.
"She just needs another minute or two." Jack said, effectively dismissing the waiter.
"What's up?" He asked, studying her.
"I had something on the plane." She lied.
He saw through the charade, and nearly mentioned that he had been planning on paying for the meal, but decided that might be a bad course of action. If Samantha Carter even suspected a trace of pity, she'd clam up and that'd be the end of that.
A few minutes later, the waiter returned, after Sam and Jack enjoyed an anxious companionable silence. "Do you have a soup of the day?" Jack asked, without looking at Sam.
"Yes, we do. It's a French onion soup. It comes in a bread bowl."
"We'd like that."
Inwardly, Sam groaned. She was one of those women that had relatively light morning sickness, but today was one of her worse days. The very thought of seeing anything even used to prepare food was making her stomach turn with nausea, let alone a rich French onion soup. Though Jack had thought that he was being fairly stealthy, she knew that the bread bowl of soup was for her. And it made her gag.
"You know, you didn't have to do that." She said, as the waiter walked away.
"Do what?" Jack asked, returning his gaze to her.
She tried to laugh, but in doing so, she was afraid that she would lose the contents of her relatively empty stomach.
"So, how's things?" He asked.
"Bumpy." She said, honestly.
"Still with…what's his name?"
"Nick."
He'd been gone almost the minute that she'd found out that she was pregnant. She thought that they had been relatively close to marriage, but apparently, she had been wrong.
Some friend of her brother's he had turned out to be. Then again, some brother Mark had turned out to be, continually thrusting single men in her direction to hide the "affair" that she'd been carrying on with her commanding officer.
If it hadn't bothered her father, why had it bugged her brother that much? After all, wasn't this the man who was dead set against all military types? And wasn't her father the one who insisted that every military regulation was in place for a reason and was to be carried out with exactness?
"Yeah, him."
"No. He didn't like the instant family."
"What does that make?" He asked, casually, though inwardly he knew the answer. She had gone through about twenty boyfriends since she had gotten pregnant with Grace eight years ago.
She knew that he was referencing the umpteen men she'd dated over the last eight years. The problem was that if she dated them and told them about her family, they'd dump her instantly, not wanting the stability that a family required. Or, if that didn't bother them, and they continued their relationship, she would end up pregnant and they would leave her on the grounds of infidelity. The irony was that by dating them, their grounds were completely justified…to a certain extent. After all, wasn't a woman supposed to be faithful to the father of her children?
"I've lost count," she said, candidly.
Jack bit his lip. When would she ever learn? The guys she dated obviously used her for sex. Then, once she became pregnant, they would leave. Not that she lost her sex appeal…she became much lovelier the more pregnant she was…but that wasn't the point.
Suddenly, everything clicked in his mind: the tears, the nervousness, the water, her green look whenever food was even mentioned…she was pregnant with her fourth child, and this Nick had left her because of it.
"You were practically engaged to the guy." He said, casually.
"Well, some people are stupid like that." She said, taking a sip of the water in front of her, trying to settle her stomach.
"When are you due?" He asked, tired of the small talk rut that they had gotten into.
She choked on her water. "Excuse me?" She asked, as she reached for her napkin, her hands shaking like dry leaves on a fall wind.
"Come on, Sam. I can see the pattern just as well as the next guy. If they don't leave after your first date, they leave you pregnant."
She just stared at him, tears stinging her eyes. Because of her surprise, they didn't fall, but if she didn't get a grip on it soon, she'd be spending the rest of the afternoon in the ladies' room, wiping the tears from her cheeks. If only he knew that she had done nothing to deserve the lonely burden she had been given of single parenthood. If only he knew that he, in some backward way, was responsible for this mess. If only whomever had messed with her hadn't done what they had done. He wouldn't have been sitting in front of her, accusing her of being such a tramp!
Jack noticed her moist eyes, trembling lip and hands. Instantly, he felt bad. He had not intended to make her feel stupid in her relationship management, though he did think that she had a few screws loose when it came to choosing men.
"I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to upset you. It's just that…well, can't you see it from my perspective? And I'm not the only one who feels this way, Daniel and Teal'c are also concerned. We can see that you're dating a great many men and that each of them are the scum of the earth. Can't you tell that they're just using you for sex?"
She slapped him as the waiter arrived with her soup. "Don't ever accuse me of being a tramp again." She whispered harshly.
The waiter placed the plate in front of her and dashed away, obviously uncomfortable with the scene unfolding at this table. Almost immediately, she dashed away to the restroom. The rich smells had wafted toward her nostrils, and her stomach had lurched violently. But in her haste to reach the bathroom before she began retching, she neglected to see Jack's confused look. What had he done to deserve that? He asked himself. Sure, he had been a bit calloused and perhaps even insensitive, but there had been moments in her other pregnancies that he had said something similarly insensitive and she had never gotten physically violent. She hadn't so much as thrown an inanimate object, even during labor and delivery.
In fact, there had been times when either he, Daniel, or Teal'c said something offensive or insensitive and she simply turned on her heel and locked herself in her lab, refusing entrance to the offender, but…he could never recall an instance when someone had offended her so greatly that she had gotten violent.
He sighed. Obviously, he had hit a nerve. Now if only he could figure out what nerve he had hit, he could figure out how he had hurt it and how to fix it.
--
Sam knelt on the floor of the restroom, praying to the porcelain god. In the back of her mind, she realized that throwing up in the restroom of a restaurant would undoubtedly end their stay there, but she didn't care right now.
She wiped her mouth with a few squares of toilet paper. She had slapped him. It had been a reaction to the way he had verbally slapped her, and she wasn't sure that she was entirely sorry about it. After all, even though he hadn't known that he was the father of her children, he had known her, and shouldn't have insinuated that she even had time for…hidden agendas. She had barely been able to have coffee or dinner with these guys. She was too busy saving the damn planet! Every time she thought she was ready to settle down, she would find out that she was, in fact, heading in for another disaster.
Suddenly, she heard the door open. Quite frankly, she didn't care about it as she threw the toilet paper in the toilet and flushed the contents of her stomach down the toilet. She stood up, and walked out of the stall only to find Major General Jack O'Neill standing in front of her, his left cheek looking red.
She didn't say anything as she swallowed her pride and walked toward the sink where she proceeded to wash her hands and rinse her mouth.
"I've got an extra toothbrush at home." Jack said in response to the thoughts running through her head.
She closed her eyes, still tasting bile. It pained her to admit that he had just read her thoughts. "You shouldn't be in here." She said, her teeth clenched.
"Oh…you mean in the ladies' room? Yeah…apparently it's being cleaned. And our meal is free if we don't say anything." He said with a straight face. Others would have thought that he was being remarkably candid, though she could hear the gentle teasing in his voice. It made her smile.
"So…doing a little better?"
She turned and got a paper towel. "Who?" She asked, "Me or you?"
"Ouch." He said, placing one hand on his chest as if she had just wounded him.
She smiled in response, telling him everything that he needed to know in that mega-watt smile.
"Let's go to my place. You can brush your teeth, I'll get some dry toast, and we'll talk."
She very nearly blurted it out there, but fortunately she realized that he had the right to have the privacy to react in whatever way he did.
"Sure."
He held the restroom door open for her, and she had the fleeting thought that she'd be lucky if he didn't throw her out of his apartment once she finally did gather up enough courage to tell him.
--
Jack unlocked the door to the apartment and opened the door for her. "It's not much, but it's home."
She nodded, walking into the room, nervously.
"Uh, the bathroom's down the hall to the left. I'll, uh, get that toothbrush for you."
She bit her lip as he left. She looked around the living room, the same pictures of Sara and Charlie lining the walls as had done so at his house in Colorado Springs. There should have been four- and nearly five- other people's pictures around this house. She studied the pictures of Charlie with a renewed interest. Michael was growing up to be the spitting image of his older half-brother. In fact, it was frightening to look at that picture and realize that it symbolized a young boy who was no longer living while he had a younger half brother who was laughing and playing much like he had done when he was alive.
Chills ran down her spine. In her own way, she had come to love Charlie, but she had simply fallen in love with a memory that Jack refused to share with her. Actually, that he had refused to share with anybody. But the reality was that she probably would have killed herself if something like that had ever happened to any of her own children.
Jack returned, holding an unopened package with a toothbrush in it. "Here."
She swallowed back the tears that had begun to make their presence known. "Thank you." She said accepting the toothbrush.
She walked humbly toward the bathroom and brushed her teeth. She felt remarkably more refreshed as she walked back into the living room. Jack, who had been standing at the bar, turned to face her as she entered. In one hand, he held a glass of water. "I thought you might like this." He said, handing the glass to her.
"Thanks." She said, accepting it. She sat on the tan leather couch, fingering the glass in her hands. All of the resolve she'd had for the last few hours was slowly slipping from her grasp.
"You ready to tell me what's on your mind?" He asked, sitting diagonally across from her in a matching overstuffed armchair.
She gave a nervous smile. "Not really."
He raised an eyebrow.
She bit her lip. "All of my children, including the one I'm carrying right now, have the same father."
He had believed himself ready for anything, but the thought of Samantha Carter returning to the arms of the same man who was either ashamed of being with her or of whom she was ashamed of being with, was not one that he had anticipated. Meanwhile, she had deliberately planned to have each one of these children. With someone else.
"So…all those guys?" He asked, not wanting to implicate that she was lying. However, he gave her a similar look to the one that he reserved for the likes of Maybourne and Kinsey.
"Actually, I did date all of them." She said, not deterred by the obvious coldness that he was showing her.
"So, you just kept going back to the same scum bag?" He said without thinking.
Tears stung her eyes, and to hide them, she looked down at her hands. She carefully folded her hands together, clasping them together, while allowing her index fingers to lean fully extended against one another as she pointed them to the ground. "You mean you?" She asked, so softly that she was afraid that he wouldn't hear her.
She looked up to see that Jack had frozen in utter surprise. "Excuse me?"
"You're their father." She said, not allowing the tears that had stung her eyes earlier to fall.
"You're joking, right? I mean…I know what it takes for a couple to have kids, and we haven't…I mean…with each other…"
"I know. And I'm not kidding." She responded solemnly to his disbelieving tone.
He just stared at her for a while. "Why the hell haven't you told me before now?"
She flinched with his harsh tone. "Because I couldn't." She said in a quiet voice, but it pierced him to the heart. A few tears managed to find a way past her defenses and they slowly rolled down her cheeks.
"You couldn't?" He asked, almost in shock.
She looked pleadingly toward him. The look on her face nearly tore at his heart. "I was under orders. Technically, I still am, but…"
By now, the dam of emotion had broken and there was no stopping the tears that flowed down her cheeks. While she loved each of her kids more than life itself, the heavy burden of keeping this phenomena a secret had become nearly unbearable in the last few years. Now that the truth had come out, it was time to let out the feelings of fear, inadequacy, frustration, and pain with it.
He hesitated for a moment before getting up and walking over to where she sat on the couch. He sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulder, and she leaned into him, sobbing into his shirt as she allowed herself to be enveloped in his strong embrace. They sat like that wordlessly for a few moments before Sam wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." He said, reluctantly letting her go from his grasp. "So why couldn't you tell me that I was the father of your kids?"
"It was classified top-secret by the President of the United States."
His eyes widened, in surprise, and then in anger. "So, that's what you get for saving the planet? The President of the United States decides whether or not you need to know about your own family!" He ranted.
"Actually, he decided that our family's safety was the number one priority. That's why he did it."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"The NID have been after the kids just because I was Jolinar's host! How much more interested would they be if they could find a way to discredit SG-1 because of our non-existent personal relationship?"
He grinned teasingly. "I wouldn't call it non-existent."
"Okay…" She challenged, though somewhat amused by his statement. "Did we or did we not get help in conceiving not one, not two, but four children?" She asked.
"Yeah," he said, getting more serious.
She felt bad for getting so serious, so she reached for his hand. "I'm sorry."
He smiled. "You're fine." They sat in silence for a few moments before Jack asked the question that had been on his mind for the last few minutes. "How did this happen?"
Sam looked into his inquiring face and was reminded of the day shortly after she had found out she was pregnant for the second time. Janet had handed her the results of the amniocentesis.
"Guess who?"
Sam looked at her in disbelief. "You're kidding."
"This would be a lot less complicated if I were." She said, sympathetically.
"Ya think?" She asked, sarcastically as she looked up at Janet before placing her head in her hands again.
"You realize you look exactly like him when you do that, don't you?"
She looked up at her friend and physician and gave her a look of venom.
"I'm not trying to rub it in, Sam, it's just that you're going to have to be a lot more careful with that whole za'tarc thing."
"Janet, why is this happening to me?" Sam asked. "No…how is it happening?"
Janet shrugged. "I don't know. You're positive that you haven't had any physical contact with Colonel O'Neill?"
"None." She affirmed.
"I don't know, Sam. It's possible that whomever is responsible for Grace actually fertilized a number of the eggs in your ovaries and that each time one is passed, it attaches itself to your uterus wall, but…that defies everything that I know about the human body. I mean, for any other woman, that would result in an eptopic pregnancy, and that's potentially fatal for both mother and fetus. But when I did the sonogram, I didn't see anything that could even remotely point to an eptopic pregnancy. Whoever did this must have put these eggs in a temporary stasis that ends when it leaves your ovaries. But that's so far beyond the medicine that I practice, that I can't even be sure that I'm speculating correctly."
"The Asgard." Sam said with a sigh.
"What?"
"Well, it fits…Both Colonel O'Neill and I had had contact with the Asgard by the time that I conceived Grace."
"But why would they want to take the risk of potentially killing you?"
Sam took a deep breath. "Look…they're pretty desperate to solve the problems with their cloning technology. They can't keep repeating these ways because eventually, the clone starts to deteriorate. Each copy is a little less physically able to function the way the last generation of bodies did. Maybe this wasn't really about me, I was just the conduit who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You're okay with this?"
"I never really said I was okay with it, but…there are worse things that could have happened."
"Janet and I thought that the Asgard had something to do with it."
"Like Thor?" Jack asked, his eyebrows raised high.
"Not exactly…though I can't be one hundred percent positive. I think it may have been one of the Asgard scientists, like Loki, who took things into his own hands."
"You know…as much as I like Thor, I can't stand anyone else in his race."
She smiled. "As much as we could protest to this, I like to remind myself that if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have…we wouldn't have the beautiful kids that we have."
"You know, that's weird."
"What's weird?"
"Other than the whole thing…I find out that I not only have kids, but you and I have kids…together…and it's all Thor's fault!"
She laughed. "Is that a problem?"
"No, of course it's not a problem, just…it doesn't make a lot of sense to me…"
She smiled. "I know…me either."
"And you're really…I mean…we're…"
Sam reached into her purse. "Somehow I knew you were going to ask that. For some unexplained reason, regular pregnancy tests don't work on me, and so I don't find out for sure that I'm pregnant until I'm about done with my first trimester. So, Dr. Lam ran a sonogram, to see how far along I was."
She handed the black and white photos to him. "So…you tell me."
She folded her hands together as she tilted her head to the side, watching him study the sonogram photos.
"Wow." He breathed.
"Yeah." She agreed.
"Is it just me or are these events almost too perfectly placed around big…'us' events?"
"No, it does."
"I mean, Grace was born when I came back."
"From Edora." She finished.
"Yeah." He muttered softly.
She sat, watching the Stargate as the particle beam generator began to emit radiation that would hopefully penetrate the iris on the Edoran gate. She very well should have been on maternity stand down since she was only two days away from her due date, but she had miraculously been able to convince both Doctor Fraiser and General Hammond to let her continue carefully supervised work on the project.
She had been growing more and more uncomfortable all day, receiving periodic sharp pains shooting down her back. After the first few pains, she had the nagging suspicion that she was in the early stages of labor. But she continued working on finishing the project. After all, she was only a few hours away from getting Jack home. However, with each pain, her fears continued to resurface.
Now, as she sat, watching her work in progress, she was having a hard time concentrating on her work. Suddenly, she received the strongest pain of the whole day. It caused her to groan involuntarily and as she did so, she rubbed her lower abdomen. "Not now," she whispered, her eyes closed as if in prayer.
"Is there something wrong, Major?" General Hammond asked, glancing over at her.
She looked up, trying to look stronger than she felt. "No, sir."
Suddenly, a clear liquid saturated her BDUs and the seat of the chair that she was sitting on. As that happened, she felt another strong contraction overcome her.
"Dr. Jackson, please take Major Carter to the infirmary," General Hammond said, turning to the archaeologist.
He nodded, instantly at Sam's side to help her.
"No!" She gasped, pushing Daniel away. "I have to see if…" She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
"Major, report to the infirmary. That's an order."
She nodded, finally allowing Daniel to take her.
"The generator has now delivered the expected amount of radiation." Sergeant Walter Harriman reported as she left.
General Hammond turned to Teal'c. "Bring him home safe, Teal'c."
"Indeed." He said, bowing.
"You know, I was kind of nervous when you asked me if I wanted to hold her."
She smiled, while giving him a look of questioning. "Really?"
"Yeah, I mean…I was dirty from digging the Stargate out, and…"
"And?"
He bit his tongue, not wanting to think about his farewell to Laira. Now knowing that Sam had been in labor to bring forth his child while he had told another woman that he loved her, he felt ten times more guilty than he had previously. "And I had just gotten back. After being gone for three months."
Jack stood, leaning in the doorway, quietly watching Sam sleep in the isolation room. She was so beautiful, and he had almost given it up for another woman.
Her eyes fluttered open, almost as if she sensed his presence. "Sir?"
He smiled, walking toward the bed. "Hey, Carter, I hear that I missed all the excitement."
She smiled, weakly. "Yes, you did."
"A girl?"
She nodded. "Grace Thea Carter"
"Ah."
There was a moment while he processed the name, then he looked up at her again. "Thea?"
"My mother's name."
There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence as they started to look into one another's eyes. Finally, he mentally shook the haze from his mind. "Teal'c told me that you were the one responsible for getting me home."
She shrugged. "Oh, you would have done the same for me."
"No, I wouldn't have."
She had always thought of them as friends-except maybe that brief moment in their first briefing together- so, when he said this, she looked at him, confused.
"No, I mean…I'd try to get you home, but…I wouldn't be able to build a particle whatever-the-hell-it-is thing and melt an iris to get you home."
She smiled, but exhaustion laced every action that she did.
"So…where's the little lady of the hour?" Jack asked, putting his hands in his pockets as he grew more and more bashful. He probably should have just let Carter rest. After all, she'd been in labor for…well, he didn't know how long exactly, it was just a long time to him.
Sam looked around the room, "Janet just had her..." She said, somewhat confused, and therefore becoming fairly worried.
"'Sokay." He said, trying to relieve her mind. "How've you been?"
"Kinda tired, actually."
"I'll bet. Daniel told me you've hardly slept for three months."
"He's exaggerating." She said with a smile. "Grace forced me to take some breaks."
"Like…" He asked, skeptically.
"Oh, you know, the regular joys of third trimester pregnancy: frequent trips to the bathroom, mess hall and bedroom."
Just then, Janet walked in, the tiny newborn in her arms. "Colonel!" She said, surprised.
"Hiya, Doc!"
"I want to take a look at you before you do much more, Colonel." She said, walking to Sam's side.
She handed the infant Sam. "I thought I'd clean her up and bring her back."
Sam smiled and reached out to receive the tiny bundle. Tears moistened her eyes once more. She let her index finger glide against the sleeping infant's cheek. She looked up to see Jack's gentle smile.
"Would you like to hold her?"
The look on his face changed to one of surprise. "Me?"
She nodded as she placed Grace into Jack's arms. He awkwardly held the infant in his arms, nervously looking at her.
"She's beautiful." He whispered softly.
Tears began falling down her cheeks, as she watched the father unknowingly hold his daughter. "I know."
Ever since, Grace had had a special bond with Jack. Actually, all of her children had a special closeness that Jack hadn't had with Cassie and that Daniel and Teal'c hadn't had with Grace, Michael and Jacob. "You know, it means a lot to her when you come to her ballet recitals." She said, breaking the ice again. "In fact, they all light up when you show up to their events."
"Hey, I'm just glad I didn't miss Michael's homerun in little league." Jack said, with a smile. It had been hard at first to watch the little four-year-old play baseball, but he had been unable to say no when Michael looked up at him with those wide eyes. He had looked so much like Charlie then that Jack said yes.
Sam smiled at the memory of Michael's home run. He had struck his first home run only a couple of weeks ago while Jack was visiting Colorado Springs on business. "He's still talking about it."
There was another pause in the conversation before Jack looked her squarely in the eyes. "Do they know?"
"Know what?"
She saw his somber look and bit her lip. "I…I haven't told them anything."
He gave her a questioning glance, and she bit her lip. "Yes, I think they know."
"How?"
A tender smile, accompanied by moist eyes, lit up her face as she reached for his hand. "I don't know. It's possible that the Ancient gene you passed to them helped them to sense your paternity. But…I really have no idea."
He allowed her hand to slip affectionately into his. "But I do know that they have a different relationship with you than they have with either Daniel or Teal'c."
Jack looked at their entwined fingers. "So, we have kids together."
"Uh huh."
"What now?"
She cocked her head, sending her unasked question to him.
"I mean, do I just waltz into your lives or do I try to build a stronger rapport?"
"Our lives?" She asked, tears welling up in her eyes.
"If you want me."
She was silent, letting the tears slip quietly down her cheeks.
Jack put his arms around her, encompassing her in a large embrace. He placed his hand at the back of her neck, encouraging her to lay her head on his shoulder. "Sam, baby, don't do this." He begged.
She laughed in spite of the tears and pulled away, wiping the moisture from her cheeks.
"What?" He asked, confused.
"You thought I was angry?" She asked, somewhat confused.
"Why?" He asked cautiously, wondering what her response would be.
"Because I thought you were going to be angry."
"Me?" He asked, surprised.
"Jack, I kept your kids from you."
"No. You kept the fact that they were MY kids from me. You never kept them from me."
She chewed on that for a moment, before he looked at her with a bit of smile on his face. "Besides, did you really have a choice?"
She got defensive for a moment. "No! I already told you that."
"Okay, then."
"But if someone had done something like that to me, I probably would have…I don't know…I wouldn't have taken it as calmly as you are!" She finally yelled.
"Is that upsetting you?"
She sat, stunned. "I…no, I mean…" She stared at him. "I don't know. I mean, if you cared, you'd be reacting, but…"
Jack reached out and placed both hands on her face. "Sam, those kids have always seemed like my kids to me. And I've had feelings for you for a long time. All I got today was validation."
She opened her mouth to protest and he took one finger and placed it on her lips. "Did anyone tell you that this information had been declassified?"
She froze, then shook her head.
"So, you care for me too." It was a statement, not a question.
Wordlessly, she nodded.
"See, now we don't have a problem except the one that I posed earlier. Do I date you while spending more time with the kids? Do I move back to Colorado Springs? Do I retire?"
She laughed. "You've always had a one-track mind."
He tried not to laugh at that. "What?"
She kissed him. "I love you."
He was somewhat speechless and she smiled. "Ultimately, I think my other relationships failed because of that. Not the family, not the pregnancies…I was just too in love with you."
"You feel like going out tonight? Or should I just get in the car, and rent a chick flick?"
She smiled. "Chick flick sounds good. I'm not sure what I want to do is decent to do out in public."
Jack raised his eyebrows and she raised one of her own as she stood up and started walking. "Haven't you heard of hormones, Jack?" She asked seductively before ducking into the hallway.