A/N: I did warn you that this one was going to have much slower updates than usual, but I didn't intend for them to be quite this slow. At least this one is long, as promised. Thank you all for your continued interest (and patience) with this story.
Ch 4 - In the Making
Jordan had just finished her little vehicle and was now confident that it would work once she could get some help with tying it into a controller, when her Uncle Teal'c showed up to pick her up. From her spot on the floor behind the work bench, she recognized his big feet and legs, but he couldn't see her.
"Colonel Carter, where is young…"
Jordan hopped to her feet, grinning at her largest 'uncle.' "I'm right here!"
"Greetings, Jordan O'Neill. Are you ready to accompany me?"
"Yeah sure you betcha!" She turned to her mom and asked, "Can you save my mini-MALP for me?"
"Of course. I'll put it back in the box until next time you're here. Have fun with Teal'c, sweetie. I'll see you at five, you and I are going home then."
Jordan scowled. "Without Daddy?"
"Yes, unfortunately Daddy will be here until pretty late tonight. We'll just have to have an extra-special girls-only night, okay?"
Jordan decided she quite liked that idea and nodded, hugging her mom tightly and kissing her goodbye. "Bye, Mommy. Have fun with the aliens."
"I'll try, sweetheart." She smiled at Teal'c gratefully. "Thanks, Teal'c."
"My pleasure, Colonel Carter," Teal'c said as he swung Jordan up into the air and settled her on one of his shoulders, one of her regular 'perches.' She was now tall enough that Teal'c had to duck while going through the doorway.
Jordan enjoyed her bird's eye view down the corridors, which were bustling with activity. She overheard enough snippets of conversation to know that the ambassadors had already arrived, and she heard somebody say something about her dad and Grampa George being in a big meeting. "Uncle Teal'c what do you have to do with the visitors?"
"I have a weapons demonstration in the afternoon, and I am required to attend the luncheon."
"Oh. Can we go to the gym?"
"As you wish."
"Can we spar?" she asked immediately. Teal'c had only very recently begun teaching her some basic martial arts, and she loved it. Her dad thought she was still a little bit too young, but her mom had pointed out that lots of karate schools took kids as young as five or six, and she would be in much safer hands with Teal'c than anybody else on the planet. "Oh! Can we do the training stick? Please? I remember all the moves you taught me last time - I practiced in the den with Mommy's old pool stick… only it was longer than the stick I used here and I accidentally broke the lamp at the end of the table, you know, that one with the fish? Nobody cared though - Mommy said she always hated that lamp anyway."
They reached the gym, and Teal'c set her down in front of him. He crouched down next to her, but he was still taller. "If you devote an equal amount of time and energy to meditation afterwards, we will retrieve the training staffs."
"Awww… come on, Uncle Teal'c, I don't want to kel-no-reem," she whined.
"Do you wish to be a balanced warrior?" Teal'c asked patiently.
"I… guess," she said reluctantly.
"Young Jordan, I appreciate and admire your enthusiasm. Your parents are the greatest of the Tau'ri warriors. I am certain that you will grow to be a great warrior. However, as you well know, the mind is even more important than the body. As your godfather I would be doing you a great disservice if I only instructed you in your physical growth."
"All right," Jordan acquiesced. "But we better do something really cool with the sticks!" she stipulated firmly.
"As you wish," Teal'c said, going over to one of the storage lockers. He got two Jaffa training staffs as well as a Blocker, a piece of training equipment that was essentially a big foam block on the end of a plastic bat.
He also got a boxing headgear and put it on Jordan's head despite her protests, in case she accidentally struck herself with the staff weapon. "Demonstrate what you remember before we begin again," Teal'c said, handing her one of the training staffs and stepping aside to give her room on the sparring mat.
Jordan went through the short kata she had already learned. She finished and looked at him expectantly.
"You have indeed been practicing," he said. "Did you know that such forms were intended as one half of a fight?"
"Really?"
"Indeed. I will show you."
For the next twenty minutes, he taught her the way to block and counter an opposing attack based on the form she already knew.
"You learn very quickly. I am proud. Now, for the last ten minutes I will give you permission to attack me in any way you can conceive with your weapon. I will defend myself with the Blocker. If you are good enough, I will consider attacking you back, at which point you will defend yourself. Do you understand?"
"I don't want to hurt you, Uncle Teal'c!"
"You will not hurt me, I assure you. In fact, should you land a single blow, I will not make you perform kel-no-reem today."
"Okay," Jordan agreed immediately.
She had sparred with Teal'c a few times before, with full gear but without weapons, and she had watched Teal'c and her dad box several times, so she knew what was going on, but the addition of weapons was new and exciting.
She made a few hesitant clashes with the blocker. "You are attempting to strike the blocker, not me. I am your target. Attack me. And move your feet when you feel it is necessary."
Jordan came nowhere close to actually landing a blow on Teal'c, but she still had a lot of fun. She wore herself out swinging the stick that was a little taller than she was, over-committing her blows many times and even making herself fall a few times, but she bounced back up unharmed each time.
She was a five-year-old bundle of energy, but after almost an hour of total gym time, she was almost glad when Teal'c put the staffs away. He handed her a towel and a bottle of water and led her to his quarters.
"Your father successfully performed kel-no-reem several years ago. And Daniel Jackson meditates often, as do many humans of your world."
"Are you sure you're not just trying to get me to take a nap?" she asked suspiciously, but she sat down on the floor obediently and crossed her legs while he started lighting a few candles.
"I am not. You are scheduled to dine with Sergeant Siler in an hour. There is not time for a nap even if that were my agenda."
"Oh yeah. Okay. I'm ready."
"Good. Then we shall begin."
xxxxx
Teal'c opened his eyes finally and said, "You may open your eyes, Jordan." She opened them slowly and looked at him steadily. "How do you feel?"
Her answer was immediate. "Hungry."
He smiled and tilted his head. "You are definitely a young O'Neill."
"I'm not as tired as I was before. From the sparring."
"That is good. I believe you have made much progress today. You have been focused for nearly twice as long as the last time we attempted meditation, when you were infected with the pox of the chickens."
"Maybe I just gotta be really tired right before," Jordan suggested, getting to her feet. "Uncle Teal'c?"
"Yes?"
"Can you fix my ponytail? It's all messed up from the headgear."
"Very well," he said, removing the elastic holding her ponytail loosely in place. The few other officers in the gym found the sight of Teal's large hands carefully gathering the little girl's hair up into a ponytail to be quite funny. "There you are. Now we must locate Sergeant Siler."
"Okay. Hey, Uncle Teal'c? Remember when we watched Star Wars Episode I, Phantom Menace, when Darth Vader is a little kid?"
"Indeed I do. It is my least favorite of the Star Wars films."
"Yeah, I remember you said that before. But remember when they're training all the kids to be Jedis?"
"I do."
"Can we be like that? For pretend? You can be the master Jedi and I can be the pad… padwon?"
"Padawan learner."
"Yeah! Can I?"
"I would be very pleased with that arrangement, Jordan. Now, we must fulfill our obligations to the SGC."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you must have a picnic, and I must dine with many unpleasant visitors."
xxxxx
Lunch was okay, but Jordan still would have rather been with her mom and dad, seeing what was going on with all the ambassadors at the base. But Siler had peanut butter and jelly, chocolate milk, cookies, and apples and bananas, and they found a bunch of big flat rocks outside that Jordan climbed around on while they ate. She told him about what she'd done so far that day, and he gave her some suggestions for her mini-MALP she was building.
Almost as soon as she finished eating, she was ready to go back inside, eager to go to the infirmary and spend the afternoon with Janet. Siler walked her to the infirmary, but Jordan broke away in the hallway and ran into the infirmary ahead of him on her own.
"Auntie! I'm here!" she called loudly.
Janet came out of her inner office and smiled as the little girl hugged her tightly. Siler said goodbye to them and left them alone, at which point Jordan immediately said, "I've been waiting to see you all day, Auntie!"
"You have? Why? Are you feeling bad?"
"Nope, I feel great! But Auntie, I have some questions. And you're a doctor so I know you know all about it."
"About what?"
"Babies," Jordan answered firmly, climbing up onto the nearest gurney and looking at her expectantly.
"Oh dear," Janet said, pulling a chair up to the edge of the bed.
Jordan crossed her legs as well as her arms and said, "Yes. Babies."
"Jordan, I'm not sure if your mom and dad are ready to…"
"How long does it take for a baby to be born?"
"Oh. Well, that's an easy question. Nine months."
"How long before somebody knows they're going to have one?"
"Well, that depends on the person. Sometimes it's as little as four to six weeks, sometimes much longer."
"They grow in tummies, right?"
"Well… sort of. The uterus, to be specific."
"How do they breathe in there?"
Janet smiled. She didn't know where all these questions were coming from, but they were easy enough to answer.
She answered question after question about fetal growth, and it wasn't until about twenty minutes into the 'interrogation' that Jordan started asking the 'tougher' questions. "How does a baby get in there anyway, Auntie?"
"Well…" she said carefully. "It takes a mom and dad to make a baby."
"How?"
"Each has half of the required material, so they have to put it together."
"How?"
Janet sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon if this line of questioning continued. "Why do you have so many questions about this all of a sudden?" she asked, trying to redirect the conversation.
"No reason," Jordan said quickly. "I just… wondered. My best friend Alex, his mom just had a baby, so… I just wondered."
"I see. Well, you know a lot more already than most kids your age. The rest… I think I'd better talk to your mom and dad first before I tell you anything else."
That, Janet quickly realized, was the wrong thing to say. The possibility that she might be learning something 'forbidden' piqued Jordan's curiosity and stubborn determination all in one. "Why do you have to ask them? It must be something cool…"
"It's just a grown-up topic," Janet tried to explain. "And usually parents like to tell their children where they came from themselves."
"You're a doctor though I bet you know lots more than they do about it. Please? I won't tell them you told me," Jordan tried, giving her a pleading, innocent look.
Janet sighed. The phone rang, and Janet snatched it up quickly. "Fraiser… oh God. Yes, I'm ready now… I hear them coming, thank you."
She hung up the phone and was immediately overwhelmed as SG-3 hurried into the infirmary, carrying Colonel Reynolds on a makeshift stretcher. He was trying not to scream in agony, and was covered with a fair amount of blood. His 2IC started calling out his vitals and what they had assessed so far as she started having him moved to the nearest gurney. Janet was so overwhelmed by the emergency that it was some time before she remembered Jordan, but by the time the thought occurred to her, Jordan was long gone.
At first, Jordan had backed into a corner, terrified, and watched as Colonel Reynolds was brought in on a stretcher surrounded by the other Marines and a bunch of nurses. He was bleeding everywhere. Jordan knew him - he had two kids a little bit older than her, and a toddler too. She had been to their house to play, and their whole family came over for barbecues sometimes. It was very scary for the little girl, wise and precocious as she was, to see him in so much pain, covered in blood. And everyone was yelling… it was so loud. She burst into tears and ran out of the infirmary with one thought in her head: who was closer at the moment, Mommy or Daddy?
xxxxx
Jack was trying to pay extra attention to the diplomatic discussions Daniel was corralling. Since Hammond left to check on the emergency medical return of SG-3, he figured it was important that he at least appear to be paying attention, as he was now the only General left in the room.
All that went out the window when he heard a hysterical voice scream, "Daaaaaaaaaaddddddddy!" before his daughter ran into the room looking around for him frantically. He had got to his feet quickly at the scream, so that she located him almost immediately and threw herself into his arms, sobbing into his neck so hard that he knew any attempts to verbally calm her down wouldn't work. Holding her close, which was unnecessary considering how tightly she was clinging to him, he stroked her hair away from her face while she cried.
The entire table full of ambassadors were trying to find out what was going on, making the room very loud, although still not as loud as Jordan's sobbing. Daniel was being questioned in several alien dialects at once, trying to answer them and make sure Jordan was okay. Finally, over all the noise, Jack called, "Five minute recess," and hurried through the connecting door to his office, not caring about the window between the two rooms that would allow the ambassadors to keep an eye on him anyway.
"Jo, Jo, calm down, sweetheart. What happened?"
He remembered that she was going to spend some time in the afternoon with Janet, and connected that to the emergency with SG-3. "Oh, Jordan… were you with the doc when the Marines came back? Did you see Colonel Reynolds?"
"He's covered in blood, Daddy!"
"I know, Jo… they got into a fight off-world. But he's going to be okay. Auntie will patch him up in no time. She does it to all of us all the time."
"But…"
His phone rang and he answered it quickly. "O'Neill."
"Sir, it's Fraiser - I'm about to go into surgery with Colonel Reynolds but I can't find Jordan. She was here and I'm sure she got scared…"
"She did. She came here, it's okay. Just take care of Reynolds. Is he going to be okay?"
"Yes, he'll be fine. It's messy but not life threatening."
"Good to hear. Thanks, Doc." He hung up the phone. "See? That was Aunt Janet, wanting to make sure you're okay. She's going to take Colonel Reynolds into surgery, but he's going to be okay."
"Promise?"
"Y-yes. Doc said he's going to be fine." She relaxed slightly and shifted so the medals on his jacket weren't poking into her as much. "It was still scary to see, wasn't it?" Jack asked quietly, rummaging around in his desk for a tissue. He cleaned her up as much as possible.
Daniel poked his head through the open door. "Jack? Everything okay in here?"
"Yeah. What about yours?"
"They're… they have a lot of questions for you. You really need to get in here."
"Please don't leave me, Daddy," Jordan pleaded, hugging him tighter around the neck. She was still sniffling and looked like she still felt terrible and exhausted from the scare.
"I won't," he said quietly, kissing the top of her head. "Just… keep quiet in there, okay, kid?"
"Jack, I don't think…" Daniel started.
Jack ignored him and went back into the conference room carrying Jordan in one arm, cradling the back of her head with the other hand. "Sorry about the interruption, folks. As you can see, it's not quiet around here for very long at a time. We had a… situation with one of our team leaders off-world. He's in surgery now, but he's going to be okay."
"And what of this child?" the Ambassador from P53X399 asked, looking at Jordan, who was hiding her face in Jack's neck, curiously. "On my planet, a military base such as this would not be considered an appropriate place for a child." Several people voiced their agreement.
"I know. We don't have children on the base as a rule, but… this is my daughter." Jack sat back down in his chair with his daughter sideways in his lap. Jordan glanced at all the men and women in the room once before curling into his chest so that she couldn't see them.
"Does your planet not have educational institutions for your young?"
"Yes, we do. But… she has the day off from school, and it was short notice. I obviously couldn't stay home with all you folks stopping by, so she's been here today, staying out of the way. She was in the infirmary when Colonel Reynolds was brought in. As I'm sure you can understand, seeing him like that was very scary, and she'd like to stay here with me for a while. So, if there's nothing else, let's get back to…"
"What of the mother of this child? On my planet a child is cared for by the mother when not in school. Surely warriors with reputations such as yourself cannot be expected to care exclusively for your children."
"Well… it's a little different here."
"There are many different cultures on our planet," Daniel interrupted. "With many different customs regarding marriage and the upbringing of children."
"We take equal responsibility for our children here, and as far as our highly-prized warrior skills, those go both ways too," Jack said, his jaw clenching. "In fact…"
Daniel could tell Jack was having his buttons pushed, and tried to intervene. "As I'm sure you are all aware after meeting our top scientist, women in our society can choose whatever career they like."
"We all know Colonel Carter and were most impressed with her intelligence and skill," one of the ambassadors cut in. "We were, however, under the impression that she was rather… exceptional."
"She is," Jack snapped, then forced himself to calm down. Rubbing Jordan's back in comforting circles was doing a remarkable job of keeping him level as well. "But she's smarter than any of the men or women in this room, which should be pretty obvious to any of you if you've heard her talk. None of that is the point here. Look - I'm by no means the only person on the planet who feels this way, but for the moment I'm the only one that matters as far as you folks are concerned: my family is more important to me than my job. If anybody has a problem with that, Walter will be happy to send you home now. Otherwise, let's get on with the meeting."
Daniel was inwardly screaming, positive that the whole alliance was about to fall apart. To his surprise, everyone eventually sat down, silently giving their assent. Some looked less pleased about it than others, but most of them seemed to accept or agree with what he had said.
"Good," Jack said, shifting Jordan slightly in his lap so he could keep her balanced with one arm and write with the other.
Jordan let go of his lapels as the meeting started again and she relaxed slightly, still needing the comforting snuggle after the scare. She wrapped her arms loosely around his middle as far as they would go and dozed off nestled into his chest, exhausted from crying so much.
Jack, when he realized she was sleeping, hoped the ambassadors wouldn't take it personally. Then he realized it was going to be even harder to stay awake himself with her warm, slight weight sleeping against him. He started taking notes to help stay awake.
Hammond returned, apologizing for his absence. He assured them all that Colonel Reynolds was recovering already, and took his seat again, noticing Jordan as he sat down. Jack gave him a look warning him not to bring it up again, and the meeting continued.
xxxxx
Hammond called a half-hour break at five. Jordan was still sleeping, but Jack needed to stretch his legs. He got to his feet carefully, moving her as little as possible. She stirred a little but didn't wake. He walked into his office, wanting to get a little bit away from the ambassadors who were talking in small clumps and having refreshments.
Daniel followed him into his office. "Is she okay?"
"I think so. Just tired. It was a long day before she was scared so badly in the infirmary. Can you go get an update for me on Reynolds?"
"Yeah, I'll go find Walter."
Just after Daniel left, Sam entered. Noticing the open door and window, she resisted the urge to go to them both immediately as she saw Jordan sleeping in Jack's arms, Jack looking very tired himself. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Yeah. She's been asleep for over an hour."
"I was giving the hyperdrive lecture… I didn't know anything was wrong until I went to the infirmary to pick her up and Janet told me what happened…"
"She's okay," Jack repeated. "Just tired. You done for the day?"
"Yeah, thank God."
Jack watched as Sam gathered up Jordan's backpack and the various things she'd brought with her that were still scattered around his office. "Wish I was going with you," he commented as she zipped the little backpack up.
"So do I," Sam said quietly, aware of the curious looks through the Plexiglas window.
"Mommy?" Jordan asked sleepily, hearing the familiar voice. She lifted her head up and looked around sleepily, smiling when she saw Sam.
"Hey, pal. Are you ready to go home?"
Jordan nodded. "But is…"
"I just went down to the infirmary looking for you. I saw Colonel Reynolds and Auntie. He's still sleeping, but he's better now. I bet he'd really like it if you made him a Get Well card when we get home."
"Can I use glitter?" Jordan asked hopefully.
Sam smiled. "Sure."
"Okay." She kissed Jack on the cheek and hugged him extra hard. "Bye Daddy. I love you."
"I love you too, Jo." He set her down carefully and smiled at both of them as Jordan hurried to her mom. Sam crouched down in front of their daughter and hugged her closely, completely enveloping the little girl.
"I'm sorry you had such a scary day, sweetie."
"Just at the end, and Daddy made it better," Jordan said with a dismissive shrug. "The rest was lots of fun."
"Well… you can tell me all about it on the way home," Sam suggested, tipping Jordan's chin up gently so she could kiss her forehead. "Come on, let's get out of here before we make Daddy too jealous that he has to stay."
"Too late," Jack grumbled as Jordan slipped her hand into her mom's. Jordan laughed and waved at him once more before turning to go with her mom. Jack headed back into the briefing room full of diplomats reluctantly, wishing he was on his way home as well.
xxxxx
