"A Braxton Hicks contraction," the nurse assured her, "everything looks fine."

She groaned. "I feel so stupid."

"It's not stupid. It's good that you're careful," the nurse soothed.

"Better safe than sorry," Jack told her.

"He's right," the nurse said when Sam didn't look convinced.

Maybe he was, but she still felt stupid. It wasn't like she hadn't been reading the books. She knew what Braxton Hicks contractions were, but she wasn't prepared for how they'd feel – especially once reading that many women never felt them at all. She'd assumed, because she hadn't felt anything yet, that she was one of the woman who wouldn't feel them. How wrong she was!

"You can go home now," the nurse said.

"You're sure everything is fine?" Sam asked once more for good measure.

"Yep," the young woman said. "Right as rain. But I'd take it easy for the rest of the night – stress certainly won't help. Maybe take a nice, hot bath."

"We can do that," Jack said and the young woman gave him a brilliant smile. Sam was used to seeing that look on women's faces when it came to Jack. They all seemed enamored with him.

Sam sat up on the bed and straightened her clothing. "Okay," she said, "I'm ready."

"Thanks for everything," Jack said to the nurse.

"Don't be afraid to come back if anything else out of the ordinary happens," the nurse cautioned Sam, "it really is better to be safe."

"Thank you," Sam said, still slightly embarrassed, but feeling better by the moment.

They drove home in relative silence and, once there, Jack ran her a bath and got her settled in with a glass of juice. "Do you need anything else?"

"Maybe you, in here with me."

He grinned at her and pulled his shirt over his head. "I thought you'd never ask."

While he undressed she let some of the water out of the tub to make room for him. Soon, he was situated behind her, his long legs running the length of the tub and her nestled between them. She could feel his penis against the swell of her backside and she wiggled against him.

"Ah, ah, ah," he cautioned her, "no stress tonight."

"Sex isn't stress. If anything, it's stress relief."

"Still, I don't think we should, not tonight."

She sighed and resigned herself to not getting laid. It would have done wonders for her relaxation, though. Instead, he ran his hands slowly, sensuously over her body. It began to relax her and she let her head fall back on his shoulder. He massaged slow circles over her belly, caressing the sensitive skin. She moaned her pleasure. The warm water, his hands, it really did make for an incredibly relaxing setting.

The water grew cool around them. "You want a shower, to rinse off?" he asked her, lowly in her ear.

She shook her head. There hadn't been any oils or bubbles in the water and she'd taken a shower already before dinner. She felt clean, and warm and loved.

"Thank you for tonight."

"You're welcome."

"I'm sorry I scared you."

"I'm just glad everything is all right."

"Me too."

"I'll try not to do it again."

"The nurse was right. If you're worried, we should get it checked out. I'll drive you to the hospital every night if that's what it takes."

"I don't think it'll come to that," she said with a lazy chuckle.

"C'mon, let's get you to bed."

He got out of the tub first then helped her up. He dried her off with the towel, slowly, thoroughly and then put her into their bed, naked between their cool sheets.

She found she was still latently aroused and, had he not been skittish about it, may have made another move on him. But, as it was, she waited until he climbed into the bed next to her and then curled her body around his. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

From the moment he'd found out he was having another boy he'd been turning over names in his mind. He'd grown up with a name he didn't particularly like and had, as soon as he'd been away, switched to Jack and never looked back. A man's name was important.

And then it occurred to him, his baby could very well have Carter's last name. It wasn't as if they were married and they certainly hadn't talked about it. Being married or the baby's last name.

He figured the evening was as good a time as any to start talking about baby names. She was over halfway there and he had a feeling it was going to be an ongoing conversation. Except...

"I have an idea, but you don't have to say yes," he said to her one evening as they washed the dinner dishes.

"Okay," she said slowly. "What is it?"

He finished washing the plate in his hands and rinsed it carefully before handing it to her and picking up the next plate in the sink.

"Jack?"

"I'd like the baby's middle name to be Charles," tumbled out of his mouth. It felt silly and sentimental, but he understood why he wanted it. He just didn't know if it would be too macabre for her to deal with.

She was, however, nodding slowly. "Okay," she finally said. "And I'd like the baby's last name to be O'Neill. So now we just need to settle on a first name."

"You sure about that?" he asked her, in reference to the last name. "You don't want to share a last name with the baby?"

"Of course I do," she said with exasperation and then seemed to be waiting for him to catch up.

"Oh." He finally did. "Oh!"

She smiled a little. "Not how I envisioned us having this discussion. But, it's out there now. I think we should get married."

"Think we should or want to?"

"Both? Look, it's not just a matter of wanting to be with you, which you know I do, it's a matter of practicality."

"Which is very romantic," he said dryly, but he was pleased.

"It's easier for everything, if something were to happen to one of us."

"I agree."

"And we've got a child to think about now."

"Sam, I said I agree."

"So we should get married?"

"Yeah. Though, I would have proposed, you know."

"Well, you weren't quick enough," she said with a small, nervous looking smile.

"No, I guess I wasn't," he said with an answering grin. "But I'm glad you know what you want."

He captured her lips with his own and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to her mouth. "I love you, you know that?" he said, matter of factly, and probably with fewer hearts and flowers than she really deserved.

She beamed anyway. "I love you, too."

And just like that they cleared two big hurdles with one jump – maybe in the wrong order, but they'd cleared them nonetheless. He felt... different than he'd felt when he got engaged to Sara. He'd been so nervous when he'd popped the question. He'd had a ring, gotten down on one knee in a restaurant, the whole nine yards. She'd said yes – he was pretty sure she would – and then he spent the rest of the meal with sweaty palms and arrhythmia.

This though, this just felt... right. Like it was the next logical move in a long maze of illogical feelings he'd navigated for his former second in command. "You're not mad I didn't get down on one knee with a ring and give you the whole shebang, are you?" He asked her when they were sitting on the couch watching a hockey game together later.

"Jack, you've got bad knees."

He laughed, the slight tension he was feeling completely dissipated.

"But a ring?"

She shrugged, "As nice as it would be, anything other than a flat wedding band is impractical with my work." He must have stared at her a little too long because she finally looked at him and said, "There's absolutely nothing wrong with the way we got engaged."

"Well, okay then," and they went back to the hockey game.

On the next commercial she turned to him and said, "I like Thomas because Tom is a nice, strong name for a man. Like Jack."

"Thomas Charles O'Neill?"

"Yeah. What do you think?"

"I think if we figured this out in one night, you really are the perfect woman."

"But do you like it?"

"Yeah, I like it."

"Then it's settled."

That and a whole lot more.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Do you want a big wedding?" he asked her one night as they shared a bowl of ice cream after dinner.

She was momentarily struck with the image of herself in a poofy white dress standing in front of hundreds of strangers in a church, and then dancing around the floor in a huge ballroom filled to the brim with people she didn't care about. But... what if that was what he wanted? They'd already spent so much time not talking about what was on their minds that she wasn't even prepared to speculate and decided to just be straight with him. "I really don't."

He gave a relieved-sounding sigh. "So just something..."

"Small. Intimate."

"Just a few of our closest friends?"

She hummed lowly.

"What?"

"Well, what if it was just the two of us?" she asked.

"What? You mean you and me going down to City Hall?" He sounded remarkably excited by the idea and it was nice to know they were on the same page.

"There's no waiting period in El Paso County."

"Know that already, do you?" he asked with a grin.

She blushed. As soon as he'd agreed to getting married she'd called the clerk of court. She wanted to know exactly how it worked in Colorado Springs. She wanted to be married as soon as possible. She didn't want to wait for the baby to arrive. She didn't want to wait to plan a big wedding. She just wanted to go down and stand in front of an official with him, sign a piece of paper, and be his wife.

"So when did you have in mind?"

"Next week? You're not off world at all. And maybe we could get away in the afternoon?"

He reached over and threaded their fingers together, gave her a dazzling smile that said he agreed and said, "Next week, then."

She smiled at him, then leaned over and kissed him, the vanilla ice cream making his mouth sweet and cool.

Later on she'd been lost in thought for a while and when he asked she told him, "It'll make Mark happy we're getting married. He sounded... upset that it happened in this order. But I couldn't very well tell him how it really happened, you know?"

"And so this just makes things easier?"

"Well, yeah, as far as Mark's concerned."

"I'm glad we're getting married, and not because your brother wants us to." he said quietly. "It's important to me."

She linked their hands together. "It's important to me, too." She snuggled into his embrace and drifted easily between sleep and wakefulness as he watched the television.

The next day they went to the jeweler she used to fix her mother's broach when she'd broken it. They looked through ring after ring until they found a matching set that suited both her hand and his in a way that made her stomach flop over with the rightness of seeing the bands on their hands.

"You can't wear it off-," she started then corrected, "when you're in the field, you know. Are you sure you want one at all?" She hoped he would, she liked the idea of him walking around wearing ring, a marker that showed he was taken. It might have been possessive, but she didn't care. She wasn't ashamed of that side of herself.

"Call me old fashioned," he replied, "but a married man wears a ring."

"Well, I think old fashioned would be no ring," she said pragmatically.

Unequivocally he said, "I'm wearing a ring, Sam."

"Okay," she was pleased. She was anxious to see his tanned hand and long, elegant finger with the simple gold band on it. She was excited to slip it into place over his knuckle and know that he was hers, forever. It felt silly and sentimental, but she wanted it.

After they bought the rings, leaving them behind to be sized, they went for lunch together and Sam realized it was the first time they'd ever been out in public together, just the two of them, as a couple.

"This is nice, you know, being out with you, not caring who sees us."

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his own. "It is. I never wanted to hide how I felt about you, but I'd have never jeopardized anything for you."

"I know."

"It was just... safer... to not be alone with you. I was bad at hiding how I felt."

"Not so bad," she said. She remembered times she'd wondered if it was all one sided.

"Well, it was hard."

"For me, too."

"But now we don't have to hide anymore."

"Nope. Because next week you'll be my husband and no one can say anything about it."

"I think there will be some talk on base."

"Let them talk."

"Yeah," he said with a little gruff in his tone. "Let them talk."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

They were married by a judge on a Thursday afternoon, just past three o'clock. He was an older gentleman that didn't treat them like they didn't know what they were getting into. They stood there, her dressed in a pretty pink suit and he in grey, and solemnly pledged to love, honor and keep one another. Because it was just the two of them, and they were focused on only each other, it left Jack feeling as if each sentiment was sacred, even if there wasn't a holy man in sight.

After the short ceremony was over, he kissed his wife – and boy was that a word he'd forgotten how much he liked, they signed the certificate and left hand in hand.

In the parking lot by the car he kissed her again, deeply, almost indecently for public. "Well, you're a married woman now," he said to her with a grin as he held open the passenger side door of her car for her. "How's it feel?"

"Fantastic."

He closed her into the car and jogged around to the driver's seat, sliding behind the wheel of her little classic sports car. He loved driving her car, loved that she let him. Loved the way his hands looked on her steering wheel wearing her ring. "And in nine weeks, we'll have a baby."

She looked towards the miniscule backseat and frowned a little but he'd let her come around to the idea that they'd probably want a different car. "It seems so surreal. Like all the things I didn't know I really wanted."

"You're not going to miss the gate?"

"Of course I will, but as General Hammond pointed out, it's not like I'll never go through again, I just won't be on a front-line team."

"I'll worry about you, going through the gate without me." He reached over and threaded their fingers together.

"I can take care of myself, Jack."

"I know," he said quickly. "But I liked being there to watch you do it."

"Things are changing," she said and rubbed her free hand over her distended belly, highlighted attractively by the maternity suit she'd grumbled about buying because when was she ever going to wear it again? He reminded her it was probably less expensive than a wedding dress and she'd acquiesced and bought it. He thought she looked beautiful in it.

They drove along quietly for a while until she asked him, "You're sure it doesn't bother you that I'm going to hyphenate my last names?"

"I told you it didn't."

"But you're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I'm just happy you're taking my last name at all. You're published under Carter, I'm surprised you'd want to change your name."

"I may not have, if it weren't for the baby."

He thought she sounded a little guilty. He was quick to assuage her fears, "That's okay. Sam, I married you, not your name."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

As Sam had worried a little that he would be, Daniel was a little miffed to have not received an invitation to the nuptials. He got over it quickly enough when he realized that no one had been invited and even came around to the way of thinking that perhaps it made the whole thing even more special because it had been just between the two of them. Teal'c, of all people, wanted to throw them a party – the apparent appropriate Jaffa response to a marriage but also likely the product of too much American television – but was outvoted by Janet who said the next thing that happened was a baby shower and she put her foot down on that one. At thirty one weeks pregnant Sam wasn't exactly in a partying mood, but she wasn't going to burst her friend's bubble and it was a very nice gesture.

It took only two days for word to get around that Sam and Jack were both sporting wedding rings, and from there the news they'd married spread like wildfire and the speculation that the baby was his seemed to be more accepted fact than theory. It wasn't as if they hadn't told people, they just hadn't told everyone, and the vine of gossip mongers at the SGC was well grown, much like in any smallish organization where everyone was cooped up together most of the time. It took a couple days more for the rumor mill to die back down but all the scuttlebutt that Sam or Jack caught seemed to be mostly congratulatory, so they hadn't been too concerned about the grapevine anyway.

After an eventful few days, Sam and Jack were curled up on the couch together, sipping at decaf coffee and half watching an old alien invasion b-movie.

"I think it's time we got the baby's room ready."

The hand that had been drawing circles on her shoulder stopped moving. "Then I'll bring the things down from the attic."

"You're sure you want to use them?"

"Yeah. Are you?"

"Yes."

He squeezed her tightly. "Then I'll bring them down tomorrow."

She turned her attention back to the movie, but she wasn't really paying attention. She was too content, too full of love, too... happy, to do anything other than focus on the embrace of her husband.