A/N: ...working as quickly as I can, under the circumstances. Thanks to those who are still around - I really appreciate it.

Ch 12

"Sam… I think it's time to quit going through all the gate diagnostics," Jack said carefully, not wanting to upset her any more, after they had sat in an unusually still and awkward silence for nearly five minutes as they waited in the infirmary for Janet to come back with the test results and give Sam the okay to go back to work.

"But…" she objected.

"I know how you feel," he continued quietly. "I feel the same way. This is the part you guys are good at. I'm going crazy feeling like I'm not able to be of any help yet - until the time comes when we need to go get her back. But…"

Sam laughed sarcastically. "YOU feel helpless? You're the one who found the only lead we've got to go on so far."

"I just got lucky. Hey, don't get me wrong, I'll take it and be glad we've got something. But I just got lucky that my lead panned out. Now it's your turn to figure out exactly how it pans out. Okay?"

She nodded after a moment, realizing he was right. She had known for a good while now that running the gate code was almost certainly going to turn up nothing - but it was something to keep her occupied and as long as there was the slightest possibility it might be useful… she sighed. "You're right."

He relaxed visibly, pleased that so far they seemed to be getting back towards working together, and glanced towards the gap in the privacy curtain before sliding out of his chair over to perch on the side of the bed. She turned her hand over and he took the invitation gratefully, squeezing her hand and rubbing his thumb over the back of it.

"…But…" Sam repeated, in a completely different tone. "You can't tell Janet about what happened at the house."

"Sam…"

"I mean it, Jack," she interrupted seriously.

The fact that she'd just called him Jack while they were on base and on duty wasn't even the most unusual thing about her statement. As Air Force officers in general, and longtime CO/2IC's to each other, their professional lives were so full of orders that they just flat out never gave them in their personal lives. Never to each other, and rarely to Jordan either, unless the situation absolutely demanded it. But there was no mistaking that tone of voice.

"I'm just worried about you too."

"I will be fine. You know I'll be far worse off if Janet decides I can't go back to work and I've got nothing to do but dwell on the fact that our daughter is no longer on earth, and is at the mercy of some unknown alien, we have no idea where in the universe she is, if she's okay, if she's hurt…"

"Okay. I just…" He wanted to say that he was scared he was going to lose both of them. It had happened to him before. With Charlie. Losing Charlie had ended his marriage to Sarah. And while now, when he looked back on it rationally, he could see that their marriage would have ended eventually anyway, without that catalyst, at the moment he wasn't able to be that objective about it - all he was thinking about was that these situations appeared to have a whole lot of basic facts in common, and if they had the same outcome as last time, he just flat out wouldn't survive it.

He wanted to say all that, or at least try to explain what he meant, but he just couldn't. Fraiser would be back any second, and Sam just wanted to know that he was still on her side - that he wasn't going to try to make her "take it easy." God, she hated that phrase.

"What?" Sam prompted.

"I'm worried too. That's all. Jordan's out there somewhere, just like you said, and at the moment we can't make sure she's all right. But I can make sure you're all right. That's all. I'm just… worried."

"I'm fine," she repeated. "Like I said - just too much coffee and not enough food and water. Look, let's just keep quiet about… it… and hope Janet doesn't ask us directly. She's better than that damn zaytarc detector when it comes to things like this."

"True," he agreed. "Okay. But I don't want us to wind up back in here in two hours. Switch to decaf for a while and… let's go work this new angle with the slower than light travel from your lab."

"Okay… but we have to make sure Teal'c and Daniel don't find out either. I'll try to give you a break, because I love you, but I can't handle all three of you hovering around me like I'm some Victorian doll about to swoon because my corset's too tight."

He chuckled. "Deal. Mum's the word."

xxxxx

Janet Fraiser was rarely stunned… and she certainly never allowed it to happen in her own infirmary. But as she'd been approaching Sam's bed - with one very telling chart in hand - she had stopped just outside the privacy curtain as she heard her best friend talking in a very conspiratorial, low voice so as not to be overheard.

"Just keep quiet about it and hope Janet doesn't ask us directly, my ass," she had thought to herself. Then, after they finished a very telling conversation about keeping something secret from everybody, switching to decaf coffee, too-tight corsets, and 'mum' being the word, Jack and Sam had gone quiet, and she had peeked through the gap in the curtain.

On the one hand, she was glad to see they were back to comforting rather than avoiding each other. Jack was as much on the bed as he could comfortably get, arm wrapped around Sam's shoulders. She was hugging him with her head on his shoulder. He had his cheek resting on the top of her head and they both just looked so… lost. Janet sighed, and found herself stunned that she was actually contemplating letting them off the hook on this one.

It wasn't exactly unethical… but it certainly fell into that grey area. On the one hand, there was the patient's privacy to consider… but on the other hand the patient was an Air Force officer, so her physical health and status was, often, also government business. Still… Sam was her best friend. And Janet could always keep a closer eye on her and make sure they both stuck to the agreement they'd just made with each other… it really wouldn't hurt anything to let them keep their secret just a bit longer… and it might even end up saving Jordan's life. Sam would certainly be an irreplaceable part of figuring out what had happened…

Janet's mind was made up. She was going to march in there, give Sam the all clear to go back to work, then go conveniently misplace the bloodwork in her hands for a week. Or two. Before she could give herself time to change her mind, one of the way-too-perky-for-the-circumstances nurses practically bounced into the infirmary with two meal trays. Janet stopped her just before she could whip the privacy curtain back. "I'll take those! Thank you!" She took the trays much less gently than she really needed to and said loudly, "Lunch time!" before slipping into the closed off area. Jack moved back to his chair so they could both eat.

"We'll eat it all, you don't have to stand there and watch," Jack glowered after several moments, at which point Janet realized she had just been looking back and forth between them with a semi-happy, semi-knowing, almost-smile.

"Right! Of course! Um, well, Sam, your bloodwork was… fine. Um, some anomalies, of course, but nothing we haven't… seen with you before. If you eat now and rest for another fifteen minutes after you're done, you can go back to work. Clear fluids only though - I'm cutting you off caffeine until further notice."

"All right," Sam agreed, although she barely managed to get it out - it was obvious she wanted to argue some of those finer points.

"Okay. Good. Well, I have work to do so I'll just… go."

Janet turned quickly and hurried out of the room. She was dying to tell them she knew… and that it was pretty ridiculous of them to think that she'd miss something that obvious in Sam's bloodwork… but they were both way too good. They hadn't even blinked at the hints she'd dropped… they played dumb way too well. Jack had always been good at it but Sam used to be lousy - she'd clearly learned a few things over the years from her husband. Janet had to get out of there before she changed her mind and blurted it out that she knew.

She hurried towards her office quickly so she could 'misplace' the file in her hands, and crashed right into a human wall, in this case known as one Dr. Daniel Jackson. She bounced off of him awkwardly and dropped everything she was carrying - Sam's whole current medical file, with the bloodwork results right on top of the folder.

"Janet, I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Daniel asked immediately, bending down to help her gather all the papers.

"It's fine!" Janet accidentally shouted, as she crouched down quickly and began scrambling for all the loose papers. "I mean, I'm sorry too. I wasn't looking. I've got this, Daniel, you don't need to…"

It was too late. Daniel, probably as a result of years of practice speed-reading for key information, had found the one piece of paper Janet didn't want him to see.

"Sam's pregnant?!" Daniel spluttered.

"Shh! Daniel, be quiet! Get in here!" She grabbed his sleeve as she stood up and dragged him into her office, leaving half of the folder's contents still spilled just outside the door. Daniel was still gripping the important piece.

"Sam's… how… why haven't they said…"

"Daniel, listen to me for a second. Yes, I just ran some bloodwork on Sam and she's pregnant. VERY pregnant, judging from these hCG levels. I thought maybe she didn't know yet because she would have known she might as well tell me before I ran bloodwork… but when I came to tell her she and the General were conspiring to keep the whole thing quiet. They don't want anyone to know because they don't want Sam to be restricted in any way when she could be working on finding Jordan… and probably also because it's supposed to be a happy announcement and having to tell people that you're pregnant while your only living child is lost must be… bittersweet beyond belief, to the point where there's not an adequate word for it. I decided to let them keep it to themselves for the time being."

"But… wow, this is a lot to hear at once…"

"Yeah. But it explains why Jordan was grilling me about babies last time she was here," Janet remembered sadly, eyes tearing up as she thought about her adoptive 'niece.'

"Yeah… wait, no it doesn't," Daniel frowned. "Jordan knows already and she got through a whole day with all of us without spilling? I doubt it."

"Good point. But regardless, we're following their lead on this one. Don't you dare let on that you found out."

"Okay, but… what about the… the baby? I mean, it needs food and water and rest, right?"

"The baby will get what he or she needs from Sam - her body will put the baby's needs first, in other words. But yes. I am going to make sure she takes better care of herself. For starters, I'm about to go have all the coffee in the control room and her lab switched to decaf. So you'd better stick to what you have in your own office from now on."

"Okay. So… what else do we do?"

"Nothing. Keep your focus on finding Jordan and you can ask her yourself how she managed to keep such a big secret from everybody," Janet instructed, in her 'just try and argue with me' voice.

xxxxx

When Jordan came to, she was hanging upside down over Jormungand's shoulder as he walked back towards the Stargate. He could tell when she woke up and he put her down. She was glad - even though she had a terrible headache and felt like she might throw up, she didn't want him to touch or carry her. His skin felt like a snake's or something. It was really gross, and he was scary even to look at. And the closer she got to him the weirder her tummy felt, even before he made her stick her face in that thing.

She followed him placidly back to the gate, too busy trying not to throw up or pass out from dizziness to remember to shuffle her feet and bend branches. She still remembered her "J" plan and fell a few steps behind Jormungandr to check that the food blocks were still there. They were, luckily. She hid them in her palm while she was behind him.

Jormungand stopped walking and waited for her to catch up, then made her walk in front of him the rest of the way.

He had carried her most of the way back while she was unconscious, and when they got to the gate she had to think fast. If she put the pieces right by the gate they might be caught in the kawoosh and they'd be gone. As they got close to the DHD, she pretended to trip and fall next to it.

"Get up."

"Just a second. My feet hurt." She hunched over into a little ball, pretending to be picking leaves and dirt off of one foot, while the other hand snuck the little pieces of food to the base of the DHD. She put them together in a "J" and got up quickly so he wouldn't see what she was doing.

"Back to the ship?" she asked, joining him in front of the Stargate.

"Yes."

As soon as they were on the ship again, it occurred to her that there might be animals on the planet that would find the food before her parents did. She hoped not. And that food was so gross most animals probably wouldn't want to eat it anyways.

Thinking about the food, plus the dematerialization, wreaked havoc on her already sensitive stomach. She threw up. A lot. Jormungand was not pleased, complaining that she should have done it down on the planet. He gave her some extra bottles of water to rinse out her mouth and wash her face with and sent her to her room. She was glad though, because she felt terrible, and she just wanted to sleep.

She didn't even care at that point that she didn't have a pillow or blanket. She felt so tired and lousy that she just curled up in a ball and went right to sleep with her thumb in her mouth - a habit she had stopped over a year ago. It was understandable - it was the only available method of self-soothing she had at her disposal.

She didn't know it, but she slept for nearly a full day after that.

xxxxx

When Jordan woke up, she wasn't in her room anymore. Jormungand had moved her to the room with the puzzle, and she was strapped onto a bed thing that was really more like a clear plastic table. There was a disc-thing stuck to her chest, recording her vital signs. When she gained consciousness, Jormungand came over from some alien device he was using and studied her.

"What is your current status?"

"Thirsty. Need to pee. And I'm all fronic."

His eyes widened and he helped her get off the table and opened the door so she could go down the hall to the bathroom.

When she came back, she could see that the room was full of lots of things now. The puzzle was out again, and there were some books in one area, and things to write with like markers, and he was wheeling a big clear display screen over to the table she'd been laying on, along with some sort of thing that looked sort of like some of the stuff she'd seen at her Grandpa Jacob's secret base.

"What are we doing?"

"While we travel to my home planet we will be conducting an experiment."

"I don't want to do an experiment."

"From what I know of you and your mother, that is highly unlike you. Are you not curious as to why I needed you? You are a very unique child. And now that you have the knowledge of the Ancients unspooling in your brain, we shall see just how very special you are."

"The what? You're derentis!"

"And you are beginning to speak the language of the ancients. Your father has done the same thing. Twice, if my information is accurate. But your brain is younger and better than his. The mind of a human child is capable of much more than most people realize. Additionally, you have inherited your father's ancient gene. You would not have activated the stone around the feline's neck when you touched it if that were not the case. There is no point in explaining this further to you. Suffice it to say that both of your parents passed on many traits to you that make you extremely valuable to me."

"Why to you?"

"That is not relevant."

"I'm not helping you," Jordan said firmly, feeling suddenly brave. "Whatever you want is bad. You lied to me. You said you wouldn't hurt me if I helped you and didn't try to escape and that thing hurt me. I want to go home. I'm not going to talk to you anymore." Half of it, unknown to her, came out in Ancient. Jormungand still got the basic gist of it though.

He grabbed her quickly, by the upper arms, and started dragging her back over to the table. "At this point, that does not matter. You will not be able to stop yourself from sharing everything in your brain with me."

"You're derentis! I won't tell you anything!" She was struggling against him, kicking and squirming. She got loose and made a run for it, but didn't get far before he picked up his zat and shot her. She had never been so badly hurt before in her life. Then everything went black again.

xxxxx