"Danny boy, you have to help Sam!" Jack exclaims.
Daniel is surprised to hear him say "Sam" instead of "Carter". He jumps up and looks at Sam.
"Not me, the invisible one," Sam says, pointing to Jack's arm. "She's in labor."
"Labor," Daniel says slowly in shock. He turns to Jack with a grin on his face, "You knocked up your hallucination?"
"I married her first," Jack mumbles.
Daniel's grin gets bigger.
"Focus, Daniel! She is in pain," Jack says.
"You know she isn't real, right?" Daniel says, and it's meant to be sarcastic, but it's really not. Because they are all beginning to lose their grip with what is real and what isn't. "It's the island of the lotus eaters," he says in shock. "It's from Greek mythology. See one of the first stops Odysseus made was the Island of the lotus-eaters. A lotus is a type of flower. And these people, that's all they ate. And it made them sleep all the time, and in their sleep they dreamt that all of their dreams had come true. They only woke up to eat more lotus flowers. It was so nice there that the men wanted to stay forever."
"But they didn't?" Jack asks.
"No, Odysseus saw visions of the horrible journey in front of them. He knew it would be awful. He knew they could die. But he woke up anyway, and carried each and every one of his men off the island," Daniel says.
"Well, no one better be afraid to pull an Odysseus if we lose it. But right now, you'd better deliver my… the baby," Jack says, blushing as he makes a motion of lowering a person onto the floor.
Daniel kneels down next to him, and puts his hands out as if he was going to catch a baby.
"You're a mile away," Jack says, laughing.
Daniel moves closer. "Too close," Jack says with a flinch.
"Jeez, I'm sorry Sam," Daniel says, pulling his hands back as if they were on fire.
Sam just laughs. Jack glares at her.
"Ah… Jack? If I'm supposed to deliver an invisible baby, you're going to have to tell me if you see a baby," Daniel says.
"Yeah… there's a head," Jack says, bending down next to him. "If you put your hands right here, you'll be able to catch her."
"Her?" Sam asks.
"Yeah, we found out gender as soon as we could. And we've already named her. Grace Lynn."*
Sam smiles.
Jack looks up at her nervously when he senses the long pause. "You don't like the name?"
"No, I love that name. I've… thought about naming my daughter that for a long time. But there is no way you could have known that unless you read my junior high diary."
He smiles.
"You didn't did you, Sir?"
"Hell no, Carter, but I knew you'd like the name. I knew it as soon as she said it. I… Carefully, Daniel, support her neck."
"I think maybe the person who can actually see her should be the one to do it," Daniel says.
Sam bends down on the floor. "I see her," she says, in an awed voice.
"What?" both men ask in shock, looking at each other.
"I see Grace. I've got this," she nods to Daniel. He moves aside, and she takes the tiny baby in her arms. She tries not to laugh at the irony that she just delivered her own baby.
"She's beautiful," Sam says.
"Well, she looks like a newborn," Jack says, "She's wrinkled and pointed and bloody."
"She changed right before my eyes," Sam says, looking at Jack, startled.
"Tell me what she looks like to you," Jack prompts.
"She's got your eyes. Nothing more than peach fuzz on top of her head. She's got this sweet little face all squeezed together like a kiss."
"I see that too now," he nods. "She's hungry, Sam," he says.
"Well, imagine us up a bottle," Sam insists.
"I'm not sure it works like that…" Jack says.
"If you think I'm going to try to breastfeed an invisible baby, you're crazy," Sam mutters.
"She will," Jack says, nodding towards the ground, "But she does want privacy."
They all step into the next room, and stand there awkwardly for a little bit.
"So, a daughter?" Dan'yel asks.
Jack glares at him.
"I think maybe we should get outta here before…" Jack doesn't finish his sentence with the "before" he's hoping doesn't happen, but the rest of them are pretty sure they know what the before refers to. Before he falls more in love with his tiny imaginary daughter. Before he says things to his second in command that can't be unsaid. Before it gets too hard to leave at all.
"Sir, I really think that these people could be powerful allies. At the very least, this would be a nice place to have refuges while we are looking to relocate. They would certainly be content here," Sam points out.
"So content that they would never leave, and they'd end up becoming pure energy, or whatever these people are," Jack grumbles.
"Jack, that may be true, but I don't really see the harm in that either. If that is the choice they make there are worse ways to live," Dan'yel points out.
"Doesn't it occur to anyone that the real world keeps existing even if you refuse to participate in it?" Jack grumbles.
Just then they hear a tiny baby scream. They rush into the room that used to contain Jack's hallucination of Sam and the baby. Daniel and Teal'c of course see nothing. Sam and Jack see the baby screaming on the floor.
"Did she drop her?" Sam asks, confused.
"She's just… gone," Jack says, stunned. He swoops in to pick up the baby. "Can we get a bottle in here or something? Yo, Echo!"
Echo appears, and hands the bottle to him. Jack drips some on his wrist, and then begins feeding the baby.
"Why did she disappear?" Jack asks in a clearly annoyed voice.
"You and Samantha wish to share a vision. You have already begun, since you both see Grace. Having other versions of each other would only add to the confusion."
"So you got rid of the extras," Sam says.
"Ya could have waited until she'd set the baby down!" Jack exclaims in anger.
"The infant suffered no harm," Echo says in a voice marked with confusion.
"Because she isn't real," Daniel points out.
"I know, but it just seems like you could treat even an imaginary person with a little bit of kindness and respect," Jack grumbles.
"Let me hold her," Sam says as Jack finishes the feeding.
"Alright, Carter, but you have to burp her. Hold her up to your shoulder like this, and tap on her back," Jack demonstrates before handing her over.
Sam does it all while bouncing a little. Jack smiles thinking how much she's a natural. Daniel tries really hard not to laugh at what looks like a mime show of infant care. Teal'c contemplates how this is exactly how it should be. One generation of warriors raising the next.
Then suddenly Daniel and Teal'c have nothing to laugh at or contemplate. They find themselves, each in their private vision.
Daniel is on Abydos. He'd forgotten that Sha're was dead. Forgotten that she'd ever been a Goa'uld. Forgotten everything, but the fact that he loved her more than life itself.
"My Dan'yel," she whispers, "The fire has gone cold."
"Mmmm," he muttered trying to pretend he is asleep.
"What a lazy husband I have!" she exclaims, slipping out from the covers to put another log in the fire. In the desert, the days are warm, but the nights are chilly. Chilly, not cold. So Sha're doesn't slip into her clothes before warming the fire.
She turns to see him staring at her. Enjoying all the things the cold does to her bare body.
She laughs, "You are not lazy husband, but you are incorrigible."
"And you love it," he whispers, drawing her back under the covers.
"I love you," she says.
Teal'c is on the planet of his birth. In the tent in which his mother raised him. It's not his tent anymore. He is a warrior now, brining honor to his mother's name by fighting battles.
"How did you know that he would come and try to murder me?" his mother asks.
"I only predicted his behavior based on past experiences," Teal'c says.
"If you hadn't been able to predict his behavior as accurately I would not be with us anymore," she says.
"I am glad was able to save you," Teal'c says seriously.
"And to free your people from millennium of slavery," Teal'c's father says as he enters the room, "You ought to be very proud of your father," he says, lifting Ray'ac up onto his shoulders.
Teal'c has a nagging feeling at the back of his mind. He is happy, but… he feels as if there is something he ought to remember. Something that needs to be done, or protected, or saved.
Sam and Jack find themselves waking to bird's chirping. The sound is soon interrupted by the cry of their daughter.
"I'll get her," Jack says, hopping out of bed.
He looks down, somewhat surprised that he only sleeps in his boxer shorts. He thinks he can remember… another time or place where he used to sleep in sweatpants and a t-shirt.**
She hears him talking to the baby in the room next door, and her heart is filled with love. He is such a good father. He doesn't think he's a good father… why was that?
After the baby is changed, and fed, and he brings her back to his wife.
"I think I had a strange dream last night," he says.
"Me too," she admits, squinting.
"I had a dream, that we had a son… and he died," he says in horror.
She moves closer to him, "It was just a dream. We have a beautiful daughter, and she's fine, and maybe someday we'll have a son."
"I know, it just felt so…" he says slowly.
"Real," she says, "But it wasn't."
He nods his head. "What was your dream?" he asks.
"I don't remember, but I do know that it wasn't as good as this. There was… I think I liked wormhole physics."
"Are you sure you aren't bored? After moving to Minnesota with your retired husband?"
"Of course not! Educating the next generation of physicists is exciting stuff, and with my husband and daughter life could never be boring."
Daniel runs his finger down the columns of hieroglyphics.
"What are you discovering, husband," Sha're asks him.
"It's about the meaning of life," he says.
"What does it say about it?" she asks with excitement.
He blinks at her.
"What is wrong husband?" she asks.
"It just doesn't seem right. No one ever… cares what I find out."
"Are you kidding? The whole village hangs on every word you publish."
"Publish?" he says slowly, "That's right… I do publish my work, don't I?"
"Master Teal'c," someone calls out in front of the tent. "We need you at the Council."
"I am a leader of my people?" he asks.
"Of course, Dad," Rya'c says, "You freed them, and now you lead them."
"I am a warrior, not a politician," Teal'c says slowly.
"You stopped being a warrior when there stopped being wars," his mother reminds him.
Grace clearly has perfect timing. She didn't cry until after Sam and Jack finished their shared shower.
"I'll get her," Jack offers, with a special smile still lingering on his face.
"No, my turn," Sam says, putting on his robe even though hers is sitting right beside it. As she goes in to hold her daughter, her heart is filled with such unbelievable love. "Gracie, what would Mommy do without you?" she whispers.
"You're not Sha're!" Daniel screams, pushing her away from him.
"What are you talking about? Of course I am!" she insists.
"No! Sha're is dead! She's been dead for a while, and before that she was… not herself! It's not fair for you to pretend to be her. It's just cruel. Who are you?"
"I'm Sha're," she insists.
"No…" he says with a sudden memory, "No, you're the person I wished Sha're was. Damn me for changing her. If I hadn't, I might have stayed here forever. But now that I know… I don't want to stay in a fantasy world. I can't… and I have to bring them out of here too."
In a flash, he finds himself on a desert planet. A desert planet which is not Abydos. There are ruins in the distance, and for once he feels no desire to examine them. He sees his four friends laying on the floor near where he woke up.
"Sam," he says, shaking her, "Sam?"
"Sam, the baby is crying," Jacks says, toweling off his graying hair as he enters the nursery.
Sam is rocking in a chair, sobbing, and Grace is in her crib.
Jack picks up his daughter, and rocks her tears away. Then he turns to his wife, "Sam, are you ok?"
"She's not real," Sam whispers.
"What are you talking about?" Jack says.
"Grace is fictional, Jack," she says, staring at him.
"Is this post-partum depression or something?" he asks.
She snorts, "It can't be that. I've never given birth. I've never been pregnant," she mutters.
"Honey, I was there," he says, kneeling down beside her.
"No, Jack, you think you were there. This is the dream, and the dreams are truth."
"What are you talking about?" he demands.
"The Stargate, Jack! We went through the Stargate, and we met Echo, and she made this vision for us. But it isn't real. We aren't married. We don't live in your cabin, and we don't have a baby together."
He stares at her in horror, "Jack, Daniel wants us to wake up. He… figured out it wasn't real. And then he came and told me. If he hadn't… we could have stayed here."
"We could have spent out lives playing ostrich and raising imaginary children. Great option, Sam, he's saving us," Jack mutters.
"And yet you haven't stopped bouncing Miss Grace," she points out.
He frowns and puts the baby down, "She's not real."
"No," Sam says, shaking her head, "She's not real."
"Sam!" Daniel shouts again.
"Stop shouting, Daniel!" Sam shouts.
"You're awake?" Daniel says, "We've got to get off this planet, and I can't carry you all off."
"You'd better start shaking Teal'c, because no one can carry him off this planet," Jack says.
"Jack? How did you wake up? No one was shaking you," Daniel asked.
"Sam passed on your message," he says, rubbing his face.
"So where you were, you were there together?" Daniel asks.
"Let's not talk about it," Jack says, standing up.
He offers Sam – no, Carter. He has to remember she's Carter. When they were in the other world she might have been Samantha O'Neill. But here she was not that. He offers her an arm to help her get up. She refuses to take it. "Let's go and get Teal'c."
"The free Jaffa nation!" his right-hand-man proclaims and a whole crowd shouts in joy. Chants in joy.
"Teal'c," a soft voice says. He sees O'Neill standing next to him. "Maybe someday, buddy."
They reintegrate on the other side of the event horizon. General Hammond looks at them. "You're back early, SG-1. What happened?"
"Not much," Jack says, glancing at his teammates and wondering if this lie will suffice.
"I'd go ahead and say nothing," Daniel says, adding in his head that that is technically true. After all General Hammond didn't ask what they thought. And everything that happened on the planet happened nowhere but in their thoughts.
*Yeah, I know that I've used this name before, several times in fact. But I have to call this one Grace for reasons which will later become clear.
**This is what Jack is wearing when Loki abducts him in "Fragile Balance." This story, however, takes place before "Fragile Balance" so Sam would not necessarily know what Jack wore to bed. Nor would she necessarily care. It's her fantasy as well as his, and she could choose to imagine him any way her little heart desired.