"We're not dressed yet, give us a minute," Jack calls to the door. He and Sam dart together behind the screen, Sam being wise enough to pick up Jack's clothes on the way. They are only about half dressed before the servants enter without further invite. Jack finds himself very annoyed by the action, but he also thinks he's unjustified to be so. This is the way that things have always been done. It's the proper, and the servants are used to seeing the newly married in all states of undress. The shame he feels about it is the weird part.
The couple finish dressing while the table is set with another feast, and another table is carefully laid with shots, and medical instruments, all in the proper order.
Then the servants put their fifth day afternoon clothing behind the patrician that the couple has recently vacated.
"Enjoy," one of the servants says smirking as the other shoves him out of the room before her.
Jack glances at the timer, "Nearly an hour," he says. Even though they are both trying to eat the meal as quickly as possible so that they can get on to more interesting things, it takes them the better part of the hour to eat the enormous amounts of food before them.
"I'm kind of looking forward the appetite that is going to come with the pregnancy," Sam mutters as she chokes down the last bite.
Then the meditate forehead to forehead, although both are quiet often turning to look at how many minutes are left on the clock.
When the buzzer rings they stand, and both offer their first hope together. Jack is telling her that he hopes their babies have blue eyes. Sam declares that she hopes her babies are as good as him. Then they reach over to each other, and strip off a layer of clothing.
Jack still can't make out any more than the shape of a head under her heavy veils, and he has enough ridiculous coats that you would think his shoulders were misshapen.
She rushes on to tell him that she hopes she can be near him forever. He hopes that she is a good fisherman.
This time he can make the color difference between her fair hair, and fairer skin. He looks a little less like a humpback.
She hopes that they will never take a vacation apart from one another. He hopes they'll always be able to wake up wrapped in each other's arms.
He can see the blueness of her eyes beyond the veil now, and his body is showing its true shape beneath the marriage clothing. Their bodies are coursing with electricity already.
He tells her that he loves her more than he thought it was possible to love another human being. It's not a hope, but she does not give a shit. She tells him that he makes her feel safe.
The last veil is lifted off her face. It was only an hour ago that she put on the veils. He woke up tangled next to her naked body, so her face should not have made him gasp as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world, but it does. He shrugs the last coat off his shoulders leaving nothing but a vest, and leaving his arms free. She feels like she is seeing his muscles for the first time, although she knows that she's seen them often enough before.
"I hope we have lots of children," Sam offers the hope that is so traditional it would almost not be a wedding if one of the couple didn't say it. Her brain is too fried right now for something more profound. She reaches forward to unzip the vest slowly, playing with his chest hairs on the way.
"I hope we get to keep them all," he returns her traditional hope with one that is definitely not so, pulling the dress over her head. Underneath the dress is a bra that doesn't seem to be particularly practical, a pair of underwear which hides pretty much nothing, and some strange bow meant to highlight the belly that will very soon be full of babies.
She reaches for his belt, and it takes all of his strength to stop her, to remind her that she is supposed to say something first. "I hope….I hope we remember," and the belt is pulled off so quick that it hurts him. Not that he's complaining.
"I hope we won't regret remembering," he says going for the bra first. It's a bit of a wrestling match for him, "I've never dealt with one like this before," he objects. Her fingers go to help them, but it's quite clear that she is no more familiar with the clasp than he, and their fingers are tripping over each other more than doing anything else. Finally, it falls to the floor.
"I hope some of our children grow up to be scientists," she says jerking the loosely fitting pants down.
"I hope we get to teach them to walk," he replies pulling the panties down, and leaving the bow for last.
"I hope I love you until the day I die," she says making his underwear join the pants on a pool on the floor.
"I hope I die first," he says unwrapping her like a present.
The wrestle each other into the bed, fighting over who gets to do what first.
His lips remove the numbing lotion from her, and work her into a state of eager throbbing excitement.
Then she pushes him onto his back and returns the flavor. The shot has worn off now, and his excitement is allowed to show in the eager growth of his member.
He'd meant to play around and tease like he had the day before, but the drugs from breakfast have overtaken his mind, and all he can think of is the final act, as quickly as possible, without delay, he needs to be inside of her.
It's like a finely choreographed dance they've been practicing for years, and they have been, if only in their own minds. Never in the history of the universe have there been two people who moved together in such perfect harmony.
Somehow, Jack's brain on sex manages to overcome part of the programing. It doesn't help him though, but only causes him terror. When her orgasm comes, an endless silent thing he becomes alarmed. He tries to stop what he's doing, feeling that anyone with eyes rolled back that far in their heads is not quiet consenting. The drugs, and her convulsing insides hold him captive, and a few seconds later he's over the edge himself.
That scares him just as much. The orgasm seems normal for the first few pulses, but when the liquid keeps draining out of his swollen balls for hundreds of pulses more than he's used to feeling terror squeezes his heart.
"Sam," he pleads in his terror.
"I know," she says mostly come to from her own raptures, "Let it come Jack. Fill me with babies."
The words return him to the programing, and he complies, emptying more into her than all of the previous ejaculations he's had in his life combined.
-0-
He must have lost consciousness sometime during his activities, because the next thing he knows she's cuddled into his side.
The programing again in his head, giving him instructions. He moves to stand up, and she objects the loss of content with him with a murmur. "We have to check and make sure that the babies took," he whispers.
The ultrasound wand is shaped like a penis, and this offends him for some reason that he cannot easily explain. He knows that that is the only shape these things ever come in, but he still feels as if it is wrong. Sam apparently feels the same way about it based on the way she looks away from him as he inserts it.
The sensors activate. "Triplets," he tells her.
She's crying and grinning. She knows that she shouldn't be surprised, that pregnancy is inevitable the way things are done, but she still feels like she didn't see this coming. She feels like she's been waiting a really long time to have his babies, and that doing so is going to be a dream come true.
He grins at her, but there is something sad under her eyes.
She touches his arm asking him a question without asking it, because with Jack O'Neill your communication has to be non-verbal.
"I'm just trying not to get too attached. They won't be ours for long you know," he says.
She pictures her children as they will be in a few short months. Newborns hooked to machines as they spiral through space under the care of a couple of nurses. Never being held. Never being loved. Getting all of their information from computer programs, and starting to breed when they were barely grown so that he ships would be full by the time it landed. So, the new planet they were going to could be colonized. So, the Federation could grow…
"We won't give them up," she tells him firmly.
"We don't have a choice."
"We'll run away!" she declares.
He snorts at the suggestion, "And just how do you propose that we do that?" he asks.
"I don't know," she confesses, "I feel like I used to know. A long time ago. Like maybe if I could just get my head clear of all of that crap they give us than I could know again."
"We could stop taking it," he says.
"The servants would report it," she reminds him.
"Not if we poured it down the drain," he goes over to the sink, and makes eye contact with her before he begins, making sure that this is really want she wants to do. She nods, and the tea disappears.
"I know that we aren't going to take anything for ourselves, but I am still going to take the things for the babies, right? I don't want them to be affected by our decision."
"Of course," he says, but he's not really sure that he means it. He wants to shield the babies from the medicine as much as he wants to shield her from it, but he hides that idea from her. After all, the medicine is the only reason that they have the babies to begin with.
She lays down, and he holds the growth machine over her belly for the recommended minutes. She nibbles on food the whole time. Then they put on their clothes and begin walking toward the city center for their babies' first appointment.
-0-
She throws up during the ultrasound. The unemotional doctor shoots her with extra hormone shots which make her feel worse, and then hands her a lollypop. She's so insulted she almost doesn't take it. Then Jack says he'll have it if she doesn't, and she pops it into her mouth just to get revenge on him. After all, he is the reason she's so sick right now. She's glad she does, because as soon as the pop is in her mouth her nausea dissipates.
"All three of the infants are viable," the doctor says in a monotone voice. He spends his days checking on thousands of couples, most of whom don't have an emotional attachment to their babies, but Sam still thinks he could put a bit more excitement into the news.
"I'm going to attach the external nourishment now," he says puncturing her stomach with a needle and rigging the bag that reminds of her an IV. Sam knows that pregnancies speed is limited by the mother's metabolism, and this is a way around it, but she still feels like there is something wrong with what is happening. "This doesn't give you an excuse to eat less. The Federation needs to consume a great many calories for the next couple of months. You are growing the future of our nation within you," the doctor says seriously. Sam's stomach turns when she thinks about how most of the women he works with would be more motivated by that speech than the knowledge that their own flesh and blood is inside of them, and needs her.
Jack holds her hand as they leave the Doctor's office. "Just think, what you've gone though is already a whole month of pregnancy."
She knows that he's telling her the truth, even though it doesn't make sense. Everywhere pregnancy is the same right? The artificial speed of these pregnancies is the only way they can happen. It takes a few hours to get to the point where the babies heart beats. Then, the complexity of the cellular growth slows the process down. It takes almost a month to reach the stage where the sickness leaves your stomach, and then a month and a half before the babies are big enough that emergency could cause them to live on their own. Then, unavoidably, the last three months of pregnancy where brains are growing and fat is accumulating must be suffered through at old fashioned turtle speed. No matter how much food you provide the babies with the uncomfortable end of pregnancy can only happen at the speed it happens.
They are almost back to their cabin when they see a sight which will haunt their nightmares for years to come. It's a woman clinging tightly to the twins in her arms, "No, let me keep one of them please! I've given you ten children! Ten children to the Federation. Why can't I keep just one?"
"That isn't the way it works," the servant says seeming to be confused by her emotional reaction.
"No, don't take my babies away!" the woman screams.
Not wanting to attract attention which may harm their chances of getting away later Sam and Jack walk past the poor women without displaying a single emotion on their faces. It's only when they are safely alone in the privacy of their cabin that Sam breaks down into sobs that are just as real as the bereft woman's.
"It's okay," Jack assures her.
"No, it's not! They are going to take my babies from me!" Sam wails.
"Over my dead body," Jack declares in a voice that is so firm she can't doubt it.
She just really hopes that it doesn't come down to that.