Grace

by Aria

Chapter Ten

Rating: Same as the show.

Disclaimer: I don't own them; if I did then I would be a hell of a lot richer. No one's paying me to write this, so I'm not making any profit from writing it. I'm just killing time.

Spoilers: Beneath the Surface, Point of No Return, Tangent, Serpent's Venom, Grace, Heroes.

Synopsis: Grace arrives through the Stargate, and it's not just Sam that can see her. Set a couple of months after Heroes, and Lost City.

Just in case anyone is still confused, I'm telling two stories that will eventually intertwine here. Even chapters are one story, odds are another. It'll become obvious quickly how they join.

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At that moment, Samantha Carter would have given anything for a beer.

Across the room, Jack O'Neill was talking to the latest in a long line of field scientists who had tried to replace her on SG1. "No one can replace you, Sam." Daniel had said to her, indicating she should have been flattered that in the months since she'd been removed from field duty, twelve separate science officers had rotated through SG1.

Ten of them had been male. Only four had done more than a single mission. Kaitlin Turner was an army reservist who had a PhD in astrobiology, or "space plants, bugs and goo" as she had heard Jack O'Neill introduce her to others at the party.

Sam tried to turn her attention back to Daniel. He was regaling her with a story, that she was sure was supposed to be funny, about Teal'C's most recent exploits. He had taken to the movie Shaft so much so that he had explained to a gate airman the double entendre of "…a black private…"

Kaitlin Turner had been on five missions with SG1, and Jack O'Neill was touching her arm.

Daniel had noticed she wasn't paying attention. The rest of the crowd was laughing, obviously knowing how to complete the catchphrase. Daniel's eyes met hers with a lopsided grin. Sam made a weak attempt and then took a long swig of her blackcurrant and soda.

He gaze drifted downwards to her bulge. Whilst the vertical pinstripes on her black cotton jumper created a sleeker silhouette, they couldn't rival the slender figure of Dr Turner, whose silky top rode up to reveal her belly during her joking with her superior officer.

When the laughter from the airmen around Daniel died down, that of Colonel O'Neill's group surged forward. Long blonde hair swung in the breeze and in avid laughter, at the top of five and a half foot of long legs.

Daniel scooped her arm and leant into her side. "You okay?" He whispered conspiratorially. He hadn't caught the direction of her gaze, or if he had, imagined her to be looking wistfully into the distance.

She smiled and nodded. One to one conversation was easier to focus on. "Yeah, would just love a beer."

Daniel bumped her, "you lush." He admonished. "I'm sure you could have one? Janet's about somewhere…"

Sam shook her head ferverently "No way! I'd be terrified the child would end up with a shrunken head or something, as it is, I'm nervous it'll have naquada-mo-globin."

Daniel chuckled. It was easy with him. She didn't feel like they were always catching up. She guessed that was because they'd always have had to explain their work to each other anyway. "So, I know you hate this question, so I don't ask it very often, but…how many weeks?"

Sam had initially wondered if he was asking her so many questions about how pregnant she was, what the father thought of the pregnancy to catch her out, to figure it out for himself. She had felt both a sense of relief and loss when she'd realised it wasn't anything so sinister. "Thirty" she replied, "Kicking and everything, Janet says the scans all look good."

"Although I am sure you will find the role of a mother pleasing, Samantha Carter, you are missed on SG1." Teal'C chipped in, joining the conversation.

This was not the first time he had said such a thing, but it didn't lose its meaning and Sam hoped it wouldn't be the last.

"Any of the replacements getting on well?" Sam asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Daniel shook his head, "No one in quite the same way," Sam's gaze drifted to Colonel O'Neill.

Kaitlin Turner was a lecturer at the University of Colorado when she wasn't working at the SGC. Whilst she was a subordinate on missions, she didn't hesitate to banter and flirt with the men around her socially. Sam had seen her in the commissary. Once in town. She'd enjoyed her company until she'd realised that Colonel O'Neill evidently did too.

Perhaps he had a thing for scientists.

"Not sure if General Hammond likes it this way, different pieces for different puzzles…" Daniel finished. "The guys that've joined us are happy because they get to keep working on the same mystery when they get home – not pick up someone else's toy." There was a note in his voice that someone who knew him wouldn't have picked up on. Sam wouldn't have missed it if she weren't feeling a green demon inside her. He felt like he was missing out on all the lab based fun.

A few moments of awkward silence went past, only half noticed.

Across the room Dr Turner walked out onto Daniel's balcony. Colonel O'Neill turned and spotted Sam. She felt her cheeks burn when he realised she'd been watching him already. Her eyes immediately darted.

Daniel provided an exit for her, "Gosh, look at the time, we'd better get the cake going…"

It was Colonel O'Neill's birthday, which was why the SGC had crowded into Daniel's apartment on a Saturday evening with lots of beer.

And cake, Sam had bought a sheet cake with a thick layer of chocolate fudge icing. Happy birthday was written on it in a white buttercream. "Right! Holy Hannah!" She remarked when it was her turn. "I'll go get it."

Daniel tried to help, but she batted him off, fleeing their small group as Colonel O'Neill approached over Daniel's shoulder.

A couple of labrats were leaving the kitchen as she entered, and she resisted the urge to close and baton the door after them. Her chest was pounding. She was angry and upset. She was jealous and scared.

What felt worse was that she had no right to feel this way.

She saw Colonel Jack O'Neill twice a week. Four times at most, in one, since she had left SG1. Whilst she'd relished those brief moments of contact, flirty smiles and teasing comments, she had always told herself that it was entirely likely that he did not. But to see him talking to another woman, enjoying her company in a way that she had only rarely allowed herself to dream about, dashed those thoughts away.

Her cheeks burned, her ears felt full of blood. Her heart was pounding. It was the worst possible time for him to walk in.

"Hey, Carter!" He greeted her with more buoyancy than she expected, "Thought I saw you escape in here. How've you been? I didn't see you arrive."

An inescapable anger welled inside her. If he could greet her so brightly – in a manner that suggested that whatever they had, whatever they'd 'left in the room' was unchanged, it made her intangibly unhappy. "Not surprised." She muttered under her breath.

"You been here long? Have you met any of the scientists we've been lumbered with recently? Quite a few other them are here, you know." He moved to Daniel's tall fridge and retrieved a beer. "They can't hold a candle to you, Carter." He added, twisting the top off a glass vial of Guiness.

Sam remained silent, sliding the cake in its box and plastic bag out from a shelf in the unit where she stood.

Moments passed, the song in the next room changed. She caught a glimpse of the General leaning against the fridge watching her in the chrome cooker hood. Their eyes met again and Sam felt another well of anger.

Watching her, gazing at her, how dare he! "I gather some have worked out better than others."

"Yeah, well…"

She didn't really let him start. "It would appear Dr Turner is settling in nicely with the team." Sam kept her back to him as opened the plastic bag and then the box, revealing the cake. "You two seem to be getting on very well."

Samantha Carter let out a long huff; it wasn't needed for Jack to notice the tension in her voice. Siler wandered in and noticed the cold breeze, retrieving a bowl of chips on the side; out of the thick wires extending between the room's two other occupants.

"What's wrong, Sam?" The use of her first name startled her. It shouldn't have. He'd dropped it in more and more when he loitered in her lab to play with her doohickeys. The look of wonder on his face was a strict opposite to the confusion playing out now, when Samantha finally turned to look at him.

Sam closed her eyes and touched her finger tips to the bridge of her nose. 'Don't cry' she willed herself, cursing, not for the first time, her pregnancy hormones. She realised how cruel she was being. She had no right to try to punish him, make him ashamed of flirting with another woman.

"I'm sorry, sir." The use of his salutation reminded her of the distance between them, helping her composure. "I think I'm going to head out. I'm in a really odd mood, snapping at…must be the hormones." She made a beeline for the door, but Jack O'Neill stretched an arm out to the opposite door frame, blocking her exit.

In an obviously guilty move, she backed into the room, leaving him space to shut the kitchen door.

Instantly the party noise dropped to a low rumble, and their voices seemed louder in comparison. "Carter?" She reminded herself no one could hear them.

She was silent. Was she to elaborate on the nature of the foul mood that had become her? Should it be fictitious elaboration, or should she describe the anguish that she felt at seeing the man she loved enjoying another woman's jokes?

"Carter?" He prodded again.

He was coming closer. She turned away from him, unable to look at his face. He came to rest behind her. To the side enough to place a gentle hand on the small of her spine.

She took a deep gulp. "I saw you with my replacement."

"She's funny." He muttered by way of explanation.

Did he have a 'thing' for scientists? Or was it just blondes? Or perhaps a power struggle – a woman to call him 'sir' in bed? Errant thoughts in an angry, anguished brain. The part of Samantha that was rational, that knew that she had made the choice not to tell him, decided to take a brief holiday, and the heart broken woman spoke out. "Do you care for her?" She paused, for dramatic and spiteful effect. "A lot more than you're supposed to?"

Her mocking elicited a snarl. "What would you have me do? I never see you. Even if I did, you've changed. We've changed. Our relationship has changed."

Sam had never expected such rash comments from her would elicit likewise from him. She hadn't expected reassurance, but his response left searing emotional cuts. There was silence in the room for quite sometime whilst they gathered the strength to speak again.

Samantha turned to look at him and his features softened. Their fingertips made contact on the kitchen worksurface startling them both and their eyes locked.

Daniel burst through the kitchen door, "How's the cake coming…" he asked as he noticed the scene in front of him. Silence ensued as the words took moments to process in Sam's brain. "Right…I'll…come back for it in a minute." He shut the door again.

When Sam had the courage to look back at Colonel O'Neill, his gaze was now fixed on her swollen belly. He retracted his hand from hers. "You're having another man's baby, Sam; I could never…interrupt…a family, like that."

He briskly walked out of the kitchen, collecting his bottle of beer on the way.

Samantha sniffed back a few tears threatening to fall as she placed and lit a packet of candles. A few more minutes, she told herself, as she lit the candles. She opened the kitchen door and had an airman turn out the lights for her as she made her way into the lounge with the birthday cake. The room erupted into a rendition of 'He's a jolly good fellow' as she did so and quickly afterwards 'Happy Birthday'. Kaitlin Turner appeared behind Sam, clapping gleefully as the candles went. Jack O'Neill's vision didn't deviate to her once, not from Sam eyes with a sense of longing. He didn't close his eyes to blow out the candles. He didn't look over when she brightly asked "What did you wish for, Jack?" Sam held the cake for him to cut his slice. Shivers tingled down her spine as she held the cake board for him to cut slices, Daniel passing them around the room.