AN: Thank you so much to everyone who joined me on this fun ride. I had an absolute blast reading all your reviews and because of it this will have more side stories than I planned. The first of which is Duplicate which is set a few weeks prior to the events of Fate.
Thank you everyone for all your kind words. I hope you find as much enjoyment in my other stories.
And now... for the exciting conclusion to Shai...
Epilogue – Home Run
They had opted to rent out her old house and keep his for now. She rented an apartment in Nevada with enough room to set up a crib in the spare bedroom. She bought a pull out sofa bed should they have company.
Jack set up a nursery in his old spare bedroom. He'd decorated it with space ships and little green aliens. One of them looked suspiciously like Thor. Sam loved it. It was there that he properly proposed to her with a pale blue round sapphire set between two triangular diamonds set in a metal V with a small dark purple ruby at the tip each triangle on either side. It was uniquely perfect for their love and she knew what he was trying to say with it as soon as she saw it. She cried of course then blamed her hormones. He had it sized a little large so she could wear it for at least part of her pregnancy. She'd wear it on her dog-tag chain while at work for safety reasons.
Shortly after, before everyone had to leave for their new assignments, Jack and Sam got married on the pier outside his cabin in the woods. She wore a pale blue ankle length butterfly sleeve chiffon dress that floated around her like a mist whenever she moved. Cassie later told him she'd helped pick the ethereal dress because she knew it was the one her mom would have talked Sam into. It was as untraditional as Sam was herself. Anyone looking could tell she was beginning to show just a little but you would have to know her to do so. The vows themselves were a small affair with only their closest friends, Cassie, and her brother's family. The reception for everyone who could make it without leaving the mountain understaffed turned out to be a large contingent of SGC teams and a few staff was catered on his lawn and Jack had a buddy set off fireworks at dusk. George kept his word to Henry. He was able to get a discreet team in to set up video and sound equipment out of sight. He told Jack what he was up to first. He didn't want Jack to shoot his surveillance guys. A very nice bottle of scotch smoothed over any objections Jack might have had. The resulting video of their vows that Henry had remastered by a professional was sent by him and his wife as a wedding gift. Sam cried over that too. She didn't bother to blame her hormones that time.
Driving back and forth wasn't ideal but they made it work. It was only an eighteen hour drive from the mountain to her apartment if you followed the speed limit. Neither of them did. They both had a lot of personal time saved up and took advantage of long weekends to be together. Nightly phone calls made up for their time apart. As her pregnancy progressed Jack put a stop to her driving all day to see him and visited her every weekend he could get away from the mountain. He managed to weasel an entire week out when she was about seven months along and no longer able to get her engagement or wedding rings on. They went to the cabin and spent most of their time cuddling and watching movies together. Jack spent a great deal of that time one long fingered hand resting on Sam's belly talking to and making promises to his growing child.
On a balmy early winter evening Jack got a phone call form Area 51
"O'Neill." He answered on automatic pilot while he typed his reply to a requisition.
"General O'Neill, I'm Dr. Bricksdale. I work with your wife."
It took about a second for Jack to register what the other man had said. "Is everything all right Doctor?" His voice was even but his heart was now racing.
"Everything is fine sir. I was instructed to call you should your wife go into labor while you were out of town. If there is any way you could get here she'd really like you to be present sir."
Jack swallowed hard. "Tell her I can be there in about an hour weather permitting."
"We will sir and congratulations."
"Yah sure. You betcha." He trailed off as he hung up the phone. "Walter!" he yelled as he stuck his head out the door. "I need a chopper immediately."
"Yes sir!" Walter said with a broad grin.
Ten hours later, Graciela Janet O'Neill came screaming into the world. Sam had almost broken his fingers a few times during labor and taught him a few new ways to cuss a man out but she'd come through like a champ in spite of his taking off his wedding ring before she crushed it. Sam was now laying propped in her bed in the Area 51 infirmary nursing their daughter, a soft smile on her lips. He had the smug satisfaction of holding his daughter first though.
"She's perfect." Jack told Sam as he kissed her forehead with tears in his eyes. "So are you." Relief flooding him that both were safe in his arms. He stroked his daughter's cheek gently. "Welcome to the world Gracie."
Shai is the Arabic word for fate. It is the closest living language to ancient Egyptian. Coptic is closer but its used as a liturgical language now and rarely spoken outside of Gnostic churches. For the correct pronunciation you will have to find Daniel Jackson ;)
