And They Call it Puppy Love
Author: a. loquita
A/N: Thank you to letante for her beta work
They'd been here once before, in this very room filled with nearly the same blue uniforms. Like last time, far too much alcohol was about to be consumed for most of the people in the room not to have their careers tarnished in some way by the night's end.
Maybe because it was the same room, the same sort of function, Jack O'Neill considered the differences between now and then. This time, there was no General Jacob Carter among the guests. Back then, Jacob had been dying of cancer, had no symbiote, believed his daughter was throwing her dreams away, and didn't have a clue who Jack O'Neill was other than some guy that happened to be Sam's commanding officer.
Now Jacob was gone, so was the symbiote. He'd known before he died that his daughter hadn't thrown her dreams away. Far from it. And Jack O'Neill…. Well, perhaps Jacob had always been aware that things between his daughter and her CO were much more complicated than a simple working relationship.
Now Jack was one of the several superfluous Generals in the room. He stood relaxed against the far wall and watched Sam and about a half-dozen other officers receiving medals.
Jack was there in an official capacity, representing his office at the Pentagon. A couple of his lackeys had come with him, Lieutenant Jerome Davenport and Lieutenant Marena Gonzales. Both stood at General O'Neill's side, watchful, respectful, and doubtless counting the seconds until the open bar and hors d'oeuvres began.
The speech by the pompous blowhard at the podium had already gone on for over 20 minutes, exactly 19 minutes more than Jack was actually willing to listen. He finally wound down and people began clapping. Jack's lackeys glanced at him, not wanting to ask, but hopeful.
"Yeah, go on," he said, dismissing them with a fleeting gesture. They left his side in search of food, drink, and merriment. Well, at least as much merriment as could take place on a government tab.
Sam exited the stage and was making her way over to Jack though it was slow going since she had to stop and shake hands, accept congratulations, make small talk along the way. Jack watched her incremental progress. He didn't move from his position leaning against the back wall of the room, didn't make any attempt to meet her halfway. She'd either come to him or not, it was her choice. It always had been.
Finally, Sam halted in front of Jack, her hands smoothing down the sides of her neatly pressed skirt.
"Carter." He stared at her face, reading the subtleties there for a moment, perhaps a moment too long. "Congrats."
"Thank you, Sir."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. He didn't need to say it, she knew. But a tiny curve of her lips was the only clue.
"Colonel," he said, to really drive home the point already made. "You'll make General before we know it."
"Well, I'm not sure about that." She fidgeted a little and Jack squinted at her: Carters do not fidget.
He asked cooly, "Saving the world getting boring?"
"No, I just meant… we'll see." She changed subjects. "I have some news for you."
"About?'
Sam took a deep breath. "Well—"
But Jack was forced to interrupt, "These are two of my people." Davenport and Gonzales were returning with brimming plastic cups in hand. Jack added, "I'd like you to meet them."
Sam pulled her eyes from Jack.
"Davenport, Gonzales," O'Neill introduced, "meet the ever… resourceful Colonel Carter."
"Ma'am," they both said.
"Nice to meet you both," Sam returned.
"So, Colonel," Gonzales asked before sipping her drink, "did you used to work under the General's command?"
Sam glanced at Jack. He knew that look; it questioned exactly how much he'd told these people about her. He put on his blank, 'who me?' stare, refusing to give anything away. Besides, it suddenly interested him how she was going to handle this situation.
"I did. For 8 years."
"Wow." Gonzales sounded a little too much like she couldn't understand how someone might withstand torture that long. Davenport nudged her.
"Uh," Gonzales glanced at the General and then back to Sam. "I meant… well you know, the General is great. I mean, very organized. And, well—"
"Gonzales," Jack barked, though he nearly rolled his eyes at the same time. "Forget it."
Sam was doing her classic 'hold in the giggle even if it killed her' expression. In a few seconds she recovered. "Organized, you say?"
Now Jack did roll his eyes. Where along the line had she started to sound like him?
Gonzales nodded earnestly. "Yes, Ma'am. I do a lot of filing for everyone in the department and General O'Neill is always the most organized and on top of things. It's very impressive."
"Never misses a memo, does he?" To other people's ears, Carter didn't sound at all mocking or amused, but Jack knew better.
"No, Ma'am."
"Good to hear." Sam turned to Jack, her grin wide enough for those dimples to come out of hiding. Damn, his secret was out. Would the woman eventually pick apart everything about him? Couldn't even one tiny shred remain a mystery?
A waiter came by and Davenport helped himself to the shrimp niçoise served on toasty triangles.
"General? Colonel?" The food was offered around.
When Sam said, "No, thanks," Jack noticed her hand hovering protectively near her stomach.
"Not feeling well, Carter?"
"I'm fine," she replied, non-committal.
Jack's internal radar went on full alert— if not sick, then nervous? There were only two situations in which he'd ever seen her nervous. One was back when long unspoken things had come to the surface between them. But it had been more than a year since that had been an issue.
The second one was her well-guarded secret fear of snakes, which had been discovered long ago, off-world, in an amusing way. The rest of SG-1 hadn't stopped teasing her for weeks after, but they'd also never told anyone about the normally unflappable, then-Major Carter's secret phobia. He didn't see any snakes around, so Jack was officially baffled.
Sam forced a smile, "I'm fine, Sir, seafood just doesn't sound good right now."
"I'll have some," Gonzales said, oblivious to the fact that Jack was engaged in solving the Carter-shaped puzzle before him.
Carter fidgeting and nervous around him? She had some news that seemed to be big? Was reluctant about ever making General? Feeling nauseous? Nervous? Those things just didn't make sense. Well, unless Carter was pregnant or something.
Why that thought came to him, he had no idea. These were the types of subtle realizations that typically took Daniel three tries and practically hitting him over the head before Jack finally got them. But this time, Jack didn't need any sideline assistance to figure out what was going on. No un-Ascended being had to help out here! Jack smirked as he nibbled on shrimp what-cha-ma-call-it. Carter was pregnant and he had figured it out all on his own and wouldn't Daniel just eat—
Holy crap. Carter was pregnant.
Jack choked as if something hard had slammed into his gut. This was… He needed to… What? Had she eaten today? Was she taking care of herself?
"Sir?" Davenport ventured, "Are you feeling OK?"
Sam was studying Jack. The others were also looking at him oddly.
"Having chest pains?" Gonzales helpfully asked. Which earned another prod from Davenport.
"What?" she said in response. "My dad went totally pasty white like that when he was having his first heart attack."
"Jack," Sam said, and while he registered the slip of his rank in public this was no time to claim victory over their contest of wills on the subject. "What's wrong?"
What's wrong? He breathed in deep. Sam wants to know what's wrong? They hadn't even talked about this. That was just number one, off the top of his head, numero uno.
"Ah," he cleared his throat. His very dry, parched, arid even, throat. "I'm…good. Just a moment of…." He gestured with his hand as if that explained it all.
Sam's concern was written all over her face and in the way she held herself. But no one in the room besides Jack knew the clues.
"General," she said evenly, "maybe you should sit for a moment. Lieutenant, could you get some orange juice from the bartender, please? Maybe it's just low blood sugar."
Given a task, Gonzales turned quickly and headed toward the bar. Jack allowed himself to be guided over to a bench and he sat, Sam at his side. Davenport hung nearby, unsure what he could or should do.
"Did you eat today?" she asked.
Jack just looked at Sam, speechless. He had just wanted to ask her the same question but couldn't for some reason. Was that ironic or sad?
Eventually Jack nodded in response. When Gonzales returned, thoughts began to fly into each other, colliding viciously inside his head, as he silently and dutifully sipped his orange juice.
This was ridiculous. They couldn't do this. He was old enough to be a grandfather by now. The poor kid would get made fun of by all the other kids at soccer practice for having old Gramps hanging around all the time. As for Carter, there was no way she could compromise her career. Even if she swore she wanted to, it would kill her. No, this was never gonna work.
The two of them as parents? It was beyond messed up. They were totally gonna mess the kid up. Who'd want that? After all they'd seen and done, "Goodnight Moon" took on a whole new meaning. How the hell was he ever going to be able to tell normal bedtime stories? Crap.
"Feeling better?" Sam asked.
Jack sighed heavily and put down the half-finished OJ. "Yeah. Thanks."
Gonzales and Davenport had finally drifted off and left the two decorated officers alone once it appeared that Jack would live.
"You're sure?" Sam sounded doubtful.
Jack took some deep breaths and the room came back to him. Colleagues surrounded them. They were professionals. He had to pull it together.
Sam continued, "Maybe I should take you to—"
"I'm fine, Carter." It seemed to convince her.
"Good," Sam said. "Because I have a little surprise waiting when we get home."
"Surprise?" Had his voice just gone up an octave?
That sealed it, not a single doubt now. He'd managed to knock-up one of the nation's treasures. He felt dirty, like he'd defiled the Statue of Liberty.
Jack calculated backwards, the last time Carter was in D.C. for a weekend had been 6 weeks ago. She'd had several missions that had gotten in the way of their usual one weekend every-other-week schedule. Various memories from that weekend surfaced. Hot memories. Oh crap. They'd conceived a child doing that? The kid was totally going to be messed up.
"I know we never actually talked about it," Sam said. "But I always had the feeling that you wanted it. So, I kind of… well… I suppose I took it upon myself." Jack must have looked a little sick again because she added, "I hope you're not mad?"
"Oh. Probably not," Jack stuttered out.
Mad? Well, yeah, a little bit now that she mentioned it. He had a right to be mad. If it had happened by accident, well, that was one thing. But she'd actually admitted that she'd gone behind his back. That was just… not Carter.
She didn't do things like that. So why would she in this case? Maybe Sam thought if she'd asked him the answer would have been no. That kind of made sense. After all, she knew the reasons they probably shouldn't do this. Carter didn't go against logic very often. Wait, make that never.
"Jack?"
"Look, Carter… we'll be fine." He hoped.
She smiled at him. "Of course we will. I mean, if you don't agree, we can always give it away to a nice home."
"Give it away?" What? She would do that?
Sam titled her head sideways and looked at him carefully. "Are we talking about the same thing?"
"Ah… are we?"
"I got us a puppy. He's at home in your condo right now as we speak."
Everything inside Jack stilled for a moment. Had she just said puppy?
"Puppy?" he managed to ask.
"Yeah. You always hinted that you might like a dog. I thought I'd surprise you."
"With a puppy." Things were instantly back to not making any sense at all. How could he have been so far off? He had to ask, "So why didn't seafood sound good to you?"
Sam blinked a few times. "What?" Her brow wrinkled. "Um, because I had some bad fish on Wednesday when Daniel and I went to dinner. I told you we were going to try that new place near his house."
"Oh." Maybe he did need Daniel after all. Or maybe some downloaded Ancient knowledge….
Sam was studying him again. Jack usually liked when she did that, giving him all her attention for once. Not dividing it between him and, as he often suspected, still doing physics calculations in her head. But in the moment that he had her undivided attention, for once, it was uncomfortable.
"Jack… if you didn't think I was talking about a puppy… what did you think I was talking about?"
"Nothin'. Never mind."
Sam paused. Jack was sure if she had another three seconds she'd figure out exactly what he'd been thinking. And he had no idea what might happen from there. Right now, he could use some kind of diversion. Thor, lil buddy?
"General O'Neill?" boomed a voice to his left. Not Thor.
"General Garrison, have you met Colonel Carter?" Jack said, far more excited than he'd ever been in his life to see the brown-nosing, pencil-pushing, granola-eating dork from three offices over. And with that, Jack and Sam were pulled out of their private moment and back into schmoozing and working the room.
Later, as they were leaving for the evening, Jack retrieved Sam's coat from the coat check. She was busy talking with someone Jack didn't know, but the woman was far too giggly and ditsy for him to believe it was a close friend of Carter's.
He overheard Sam say to the ditsy woman, "I just wish my father had been here to see..."
Jack closed his eyes. He was an ass. So that was why bringing up making General shortly after the ceremony had had such an effect on her. She'd been thinking of Jacob, just like Jack had been, and missing dear old Dad. Making General one day would be just one more accomplishment he hadn't lived to see his daughter make.
Sam came over to Jack's side. "Ready?"
"Yep." Jack held her coat for her as she shrugged it on. "I think Dad would've been just as happy about your new shiny medal as he would've been about becoming a Grandpup."
"Grandpup?" she asked, clearly amused.
"He so would've hated it," Jack said with a smirk. "I would've used it every chance I got."
She smiled but tears brimmed in her eyes as well. "Thanks."
"Hey, I recognized the room, too, ya know. I'm not totally useless."
"No. You're not." She put her arm though his. "So, what should we name our new addition?"
On the other side of the room, Gonzales jabbed Davenport, maybe a little harder than need be, but revenge was painful sometimes.
"Look," she whispered to him.
"What?"
"Them."
Both watched as General O'Neill and Colonel Carter walked out of the reception hall and into the night together.
"Told you," Gonzales declared, "they're totally in love."
"And you can tell that from what? One little look and her arm on his?"
"Yep."
Davenport shook his head. "You're such a girl sometimes."
"I'll bet it's true love and they'll get married and have lots and lots of babies."
"That never happens in real life. You need to stop watching so much TV."
She shoved him and he shoved back.