"You still haven't answered the question, Teal'c. Whose baby is it, and where did it come from? How did it get onto my ship?"
Teal'c replied, his face emotionless as he cradled the baby in the briefing room of the ship, the Odyssey now having leapt safely into hyper space, "That is three questions, GeneralLandry. Which question are you referring to?"
The General looked exasperated and he looked up at Sam, Daniel, Cam and Vala as they stood against the wall, watching the proceedings with interest, and he asked, "Is he always like this?"
All but Daniel shrugged, three members of SG-1 looking at the Archaeologist, who replied with a shrug of his own, "Pretty much, Sir. And with all respect, he does have a point." Daniel frowned as his gaze moved back to the almost surreal sight of Teal'c holding a tiny baby... a fair-haired baby at that.
Landry raised his eyebrows briefly and then rested his elbows on the table. He said in a careful tone of voice that, had Jack been present, the Major-General would have warned them all to 'cut the crap' to escape potentially dire consequences,
"Teal'c... who is the baby?"
Teal'c nodded and then looked down at the baby. He smiled slightly as he touched the baby's cheek and he replied quietly, eventually looking at a puzzled Sam and Daniel,
"His name is to be decided by his parents."
Landry, and then Cam and Vala stared at Daniel and Sam, who both looked confused, and Sam asked, "Who are his parents, Teal'c?"
As an audience of curious ship personnel gathered outside of the door to listen in, Teal'c replied with a faint smirk, "Yourself and DanielJackson."
The answer had the effect of stunning all present, including Daniel and Sam, who stared at each other, then the Archaeologist asked with a frown, raising a finger, "W-wait a second. You mean to say that that is our baby from an alternate timeline?"
Teal'c stood up and stared at Daniel coldly. "He is your baby, regardless, DanielJackson."
Daniel, as shocked as Sam, struggled to sit down as the rest of their team mates wondered whether there could be anything more shocking to top that revelation short of the General revealing a penchant for ladies' clothing. Sam whispered, horrified as she covered her mouth with her hands in shock,
"Oh God."
She put her hand on Daniel's shoulder, the Archaeologist looking up at her briefly before holding her hand as he looked tired, shocked to the core, "Well... it shouldn't be that much of a surprise considering where you've just come from Teal'c..."
Cam interrupted. "A story would be good..." the Colonel grinned, beginning to enjoy the situation more than he should. "... Uncle Teal'c."
0o0o0o0o0o0
An inwardly amused Landry nodded at Cam and Vala, the three leaving the room once Teal'c had explained everything that had happened, omitting certain details such as what Cam and Vala had got up to during that alternate timeline, and answering a lot of questions.
Sam, sitting next to Daniel, squeezed his hand, and when he looked at her, his glasses on the table, she said, unsure of how to feel, "We wouldn't have sent him back if we didn't think that we'd take care of him."
Daniel gazed at her, trying to work out how to feel, how to deal with the situation, when Teal'c said, almost making them jump, "It was indeed a difficult decision for you to part with your child, and I admire you for that."
Sam said, finally tearing her gaze from Daniel's, "But he isn't ours... he's someone else's. Technically, he hasn't even been born yet."
She looked down, feeling Daniel stroke the hand that he held with his thumb, and Teal'c replied, having already expected their reactions, "He shares both of your chromosomes. The Samantha Carter that gave birth to him was only a year older than you. We were all incarcerated aboard this ship for a year from the moment when you had activated the time dilation field. By giving you the crystal and allowing you to do what you have now done, it equates to proceeding via a different route through time."
Daniel and Sam looking thoughtful as well as perturbed, and Teal'c got up. They got up too and the Jaffa joined them, carefully giving the baby to a stunned Sam, who began to get more than a little tearful as she held the little life in her arms. She looked up at Teal'c, who said with a little smile,
"You are going to be wonderful mother, Samantha."
And with that, he left the room, Daniel and Sam watching him leave, and then Daniel looked at her, a sea of emotions on his face as well as hers. She remarked, her voice hoarse,
"I... I don't know what to do. All those years of training and missions, and this is the one thing that we didn't cover."
His eyes moist, he hugged her over the baby, and whispered as he kissed her, gazing down at the baby, "Well... each time we've been faced with a new situation, how have we managed to overcome it? We just went ahead and got on with things."
She asked, looking at him, scared, "Do you think we can do it this time?"
He remarked with a slight smile, still looking scared, "Well..." he swallowed. "... two fifths of SG-1. What do you think?" They kissed and she gave the baby to him, noticing the wistfulness that appeared on his face for prolonged moments, and she watched him hold their son in his arms. Suddenly he smiled, and he looked up at her,
"We're parents."
She nodded, overcome too, and he whispered, hesitantly kissing the baby on the forehead, "What do you want to name him? Apparently future-Mitchell doesn't like Cameron."
Her arm around his waist as she marvelled at the infant, she replied, her head on his shoulder, "What do you think of Jacob? Teal'c seems to be rather taken with it."
He smiled. "He's right... there's no better name for our son. I've thought about it before but..." he closed his eyes briefly, calming himself. "... I never for one moment thought that we would get the time to start making babies."
She kissed his jaw. "And I thought I was getting too old."
Holding the baby in one arm, his other arm around his girlfriend, he replied as he stroked her waist, "There is no such thing as being too old." She picked his glasses up and he said softly, gazing down at the squirming baby,
"We've got a week 'til we get home. I say we get accustomed to being parents... although I suspect it's going to take far longer than a single week."
0o0o0o0o0o0
On the floor of Daniel's quarters, as the Archaeologist, with his girlfriend's help, opened Jacob's blanket to change his nappy, the infant red-faced and screaming, they exchanged a confused look on finding a smaller blue control crystal tucked into the back of the child's nappy. Grimacing on realising how much pain the baby must have been in when they'd laid him down, Sam smoothed his fair hair as Daniel kissed his forehead, whispering,
"Sorry."
Daniel gave her the crystal and she, gazing at it for a moment, put it into her pocket and continued to help him. As she watched, half-surprised that he appeared to know what he was doing, she said, the situation still not sinking in completely, "You've thought about us having children."
He nodded, forcing himself to concentrate on what he was doing unless he broke down. "Yes. Not seriously though..." He allowed himself to smile slightly as he examined his son's legs which were now almost totally normal. He then looked at her with that same smile. "A little girl with her mother's eyes and staggering intellect."
Sam looked down shyly. "I thought about it too, I must admit... you've got nice eyes."
He touched her cheek as he gazed at her lovingly, and she met his gaze. He said, "We would have been great parents."
She nodded, a hint of sadness in her eyes and then she looked down at her son on the floor, watching him stare into the middle-distance, looking very calm now that his father had changed his nappy. She smoothed his fine fair hair and remarked, glancing at Daniel again, this time smirking,
"General O'Neill's face when we get home."
He smiled at her as he bagged the soiled nappy, replying with a shrug, "Well... it's ours, not his..." His smile widened. "If it's anything like the time I told him that Mitchell assumed he knew all about shiners because of his Irish heritage, it could be YouTube worthy."
She chuckled and picked Jacob up in her arms, gazing down at him with a gentle smile as Daniel left to dispose of the old nappy, and she whispered, now feeling a strange attachment to the baby, the attachment feeling much stronger than the one she already felt for Cassie,
"We're going home, baby."
She kissed his forehead as his eyes closed, and she wondered as Daniel watched her, fascinated, how good a mother her future self must have been, and how hard it must have been to give her son away.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Meanwhile, Vala, in Teal'c's quarters, paced the floor, excited at the prospect of what could have been during the year that now only he could remember. As he blew out various candles around the room, she made wild guesses at what could have happened.
"Oh, come on, it's driving me insane! You know, technically, there would be no danger of creating a time paradox, because we've already changed future events. You would not be altering the future by telling us about something that's not going to happen any more!"
He replied, an eyebrow fighting for real estate on his forehead, "Then why do you care?"
She remarked, unable to comprehend why he couldn't understand how exciting it was for her at least, "A whole year? Somethinginteresting must have happened. Obviously I hooked up with someone while Daniel and Samantha were doing the wild thing and working on a way to do what they did."
He smiled enigmatically as he blew out the next candle, wanting to know whether the words he had eavesdropped before the big rewind had been true, whether or not Cam needed a time dilation field and being stranded aboard a ship to tell her how he felt. For that reason, he couldn't tell anyone about what else had happened unless it influenced what could happen.
She noticed the smile. "Was it you, Muscles? It can't have been Cameron... can it? General Landry? Hmm... what about Daniel?"
He walked out of the room, resigning himself now to the fact that she wasn't going to let it go unless she got distracted by something shinier, and she followed, still excitedly talking, still throwing up more scenarios. "I know! It was all the boys... and Thor's hologram! It was, wasn't it?... Muscles?"
