Daniel rushes into my lab and grabs onto me, pulling me into a tight hug.
"Hey, what happened?" I ask after I've held him for a while.
"Fire rain," he says.
"Ok, apparently I don't know your language as well as I thought."
"Ah, that was the local name for it. It was a meteor shower. We lost Jack."
"Jack died?"
"No, ah… maybe?" he says.
"What happened?" I demand.
"Meteors were falling from the sky. Jack went back to save some kid. We can't make contact with the gate."
"So we'll find a ship," I say.
"We're trying, but you know that we can't always get a hold of our allies when we need to."
"So the gate is probably just buried. All we have to do is wait for Jack to unbury it."
"Maybe, but he might not know exactly where it is. And the gate might have been destroyed."
"I don't want to hear this. We have to get him back!" I say, trying to head to the gateroom. Eshe lets out a wail of protest as I move. For some reason this happens every time I move.
"Honey," he says, touching my arm trying to calm me.
"He doesn't know he's a father," I say.
Daniel pulls me into another hug. "I know honey."
"I should have told him."
"Your friend asked you not to. It was her choice not to tell him, not yours."
"He might not have done it if he'd known," I protest.
"Oh, honey, he was being Jack. He would have gone back to save that kid no matter what."
I know he's right, but I still don't like it.
"I have to tell Sara."
"No, you don't," he says, holding me closer, "You could have me do it. Or you could wait, and she would be officially informed by General Hammond."
I shake my head. I know that I'd rather hear it from one of my friends, and this is what military wives do for each other.
"You'll watch the kids?" I ask, pulling away from him.
I see a tiny flinch. Daniel is afraid to be left alone with the baby. It's been like this ever since Eshe was born. Her older sister never caused this fear in her father. Even though the fear pains me, I do understand it. Eshe is a tough baby.
She cries before you feed her, and for an hour afterword. Sometimes, she even cries when you are feeding her. We switched her from breast milk to three different kinds of formula since her doctor thought it was intestinal difficulties. The last one we switched to helped a little, but nothing helped much.
She also cries whenever she isn't being held. But when you are holding her, and make the slightest move there are tears anyway.
Daniel really can't take care of her, and work, so I usually take her wherever I go unless it's to college classes. But this is really not the sort of conversation that you drag along a two month old baby for.
"I'll be back as soon as I can be," I assure him.
"You take as much time as you need to," he assures me.
-0-0-0-
As Sara opens the door I can't help but glance at her stomach. Her baby bump is just large enough that you can see it if you know it is there, but small enough that you can't see it if you don't know it is there. She couldn't have waited much longer before she told him. Now, he might never know.
"Missing, dead, or injured?" she asks.
"Missing," I say.
She ushers me into the house. She sticks her head into the kitchen and says, "Cassie, can you take your homework upstairs?"
"What's wrong, Mom?" Cassie asks in concern.
"Honey, I'll tell you what's going on after Sha'uri leaves. But Jack is going to be alright," Sara says with a weak smile that even someone is far dumber than her daughter would not believe.
Nonetheless, Cassie heads up the stairs. As soon as she is out of sight the two of us head back to the living room and sit down right next to each other on chairs. I wrap my arms around her, offering her as much comfort as I can.
"So is he stranded on an alien planet?" she asks.
I'm not sure how honest I want to be with her. Then I look into her face, and I put myself completely in her shoes. I would want honest. Gentle honesty, but honesty nonetheless, "We hope so."
"What exactly does that mean?"
"There was a meteor shower. They were evacuating people off of the planet. Jack went back to save a kid. They can't get through the gate. It's really too soon to tell if the problem is the gate being buried or… something else. We might also be able to borrow a ship from an ally. We're going to get this figured out."
She puts her hand on her stomach, "I was going to tell him when he came back from the mission. He had a few days off. Now, he… he's stuck somewhere and he doesn't even know," she sighs.
"It's ok," I say.
"No it isn't! My husband is missing!" she yells.
"I know he is," I say.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be yelling at you," she says softly.
"Go ahead and yell if it makes you feel any better," I tell her.
I hear the floor creak in the corner of the room. I look up, and I see Cassie standing there.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Come here," Sara says holding out her hands.
"How much did you hear?" I ask her.
"All of it?" Sara says.
Cassie nods as she crawls onto her mother's lap.
"Do you have any questions, honey?" Sara asks.
"What doesn't Dad know about?" Cassie asks.
"I'm having a baby," Sara says.
Cassie smiles, but it was a short lived smile. "Is Jack ok?" Cassie asks me. I really wish she'd directed the question at her mother. I glance at Sara for clues to how honest I'm supposed to be with this question. Based on Sara's face I should probably be pretty honest.
"We don't know, honey. All we really know was that he was stranded in some pretty dangerous circumstances," I tell her.
"He's probably digging his way back to us right now," Sara assures her.
-0-0-0-
I feel Teal'c's presence standing at my doorway.
"Do you need something?" I ask.
"Samantha Carter will not return to her residence," Teal'c says.
"Ah," I stammer. I am feeling uncomfortable with this conversation. "You're having a lover's spat?"
Teal'c raises an eyebrow, "Samantha and I have not celebrated any nuptials. Our residences remain separate."
"Ok, so what are you worried about?" I ask.
"Samantha Carter will not leave her work long enough to slumber."
"Oh," I say. That sounds like Sam. I know she has been working on something that could get Jack back. I don't begin to pretend to understand what this thing is, but I do know that it is Jack's best chance of ever getting home. "I'll do what I can," I assure him.
He catches my arm as I walk past him through the doorway. "Do you think I should ask Samantha Carter to partake in nuptials?" he asks.
"What?" I stammer in surprise.
"As an alternative, I could partake in the Earth custom of living together as if we were joined without being joined," he says, but he looks like he is very uncomfortable with the idea.
"I don't think so," I say.
Teal'c is quiet for a bit. I don't rush off to send Sam home right away, but wait for him to say whatever he is about to say. "What is your speculation on the probability Samantha Carter will agree to be pledge-bonded to me?"
"You're asking me if I think she'd marry you?" I ask.
He nods.
"Well, I suppose that all depends on the way you propose and your motives," I say.
He looks confused. Or at least as confused as you can look without a facial expression.
"Do you love her?" I ask.
He looks more than a little offended as he says, "I thought my actions would have made that question unnecessary."
"Of course it does, Teal'c, but I bet you she would like to hear it," I say before I leave the room.
-0-0-0-
"Sam, when is the last time you've been home?" I ask.
"Teal'c's taking care of Jakey," she says without looking up.
My heart clenches when I realize exactly how much his actions have been showing her his love. "Ok, but you still need sleep."
"I need to get Jack home," she says.
"And you can probably do that better if you get a little bit of sleep," I say.
"I know, and I sleep," she says gesturing toward the couch in her room. It's at this point that I take a good look around. The amount of trays from the mess on her table tell me this is where she's been taking her meals. A toothbrush and soap next to the emergency shower tell me more about personal habits than I needed to know.
"Sam, you have to take a little bit of time for yourself."
"You don't get it, Sha'uri! You've never been at war! You don't leave someone behind. Jack is the one who taught me that. And he's been left behind!"
"You're talking about the time with the crystal form of Jack?" I ask, confused.
"Well, that time too, but I was talking about the time he was a prisoner of war."
I know these words are supposed to shock me. And they do, just by her tone. But I still need to ask. "I'm sorry, I don't know those words?"
Her eyes tear up, "He was fighting in Iraq, and the enemy caught him. They kept him for a long time. They… ah… tortured him. You know that word?"
I nod.
"So I just wanted to make sure that that never happened to him again," she finishes.
"He's not getting tortured," I tell her.
"No, but he can't get see his family."
"You're not seeing your family," I point out.
"I told you! Teal'c is taking care of Jakey," she says.
"Ok, but that still means that you aren't going to see your son. Besides, he isn't your only family."
"Mark lives so far away," she begins, but she looks at me in suprise, "You mean Teal'c? He's not family."
"How long has he been taking care of your son?" I ask.
"He's my… boyfriend, my teammate, my best friend, but we're not family."
I bite my lip; it's not my place to say anything. But I feel protective of Teal'c. He may not make very many facial expressions, but he is very sensitive to facial expressions of people around him. If she doesn't look happy when he asks her, he'll be unbelievably wounded. Even if she just looks surprised, it is going to hurt him.
"What?" she asks suspiciously.
"You ever think about having a family?" I ask.
She sighs, and rolls her eyes! She doesn't love him? This will kill him. "Did Teal'c get attached to one of the orphan refugees?"
"Ah… no," I stammer.
A look of confusion comes back over her face, "Then how could my family be expanding?"
"I'm thinking there is a chance it will grow by two Jaffa," I mutter.
She jumps away from me, "This better not be a trick to get me out of the lab!" she exclaims.
"It's not," I assure you, "But we might be getting ahead of ourselves. It's just something he's considering."
"Wow," she says, stunned. "I should probably not be surprised. I mean, he brings me three meals a day, and has been doing everything for my son, including bringing him for nightly visits. He even sits here for hours a day. He doesn't say a word, just sits there quietly and works on his paperwork."
"So if he asks?" I ask.
"I'll be engaged," she says.
We both squeal. "You have to get some sleep, though," I say.
"Yeah, I'll go home. I am just going to finish this up though. I can't just leave a teammate."
"That's fine, as long as you take care of yourself," I say.
"Thanks, Sha're."