Becpea, it took a bit longer but it worked(?)

Enjoy!

M.

Chapter 96

Monday, January 28, 2013

He notices Harper's missing and wonders where she could've gone. Fear prickles his skin, remembering she'd come by his house with a mission written clearly in her eyes. Since she had said little to him, blabbering about who knows what as she usually did, Jack just knows there's something utterly wrong happening somewhere. He just doesn't know where, why or what… Despite that, he feels he should know.

Shannon is the one that gets to him that night as people are loudly mingling in their parents' house. He's standing outside taking in some air. Breathing in some peace before he has to go into the crazy loud insanity of his family.

"Hey, you hiding out here?" She asks, a knowing smile on her face. "What's wrong?" Jack sighs.

"Where's Harper?" He asks, looking at her from the corner of his eyes. Shannon sighs. "I'm going to be pissed off by that answer, aren't I?"

"Yeah… Kinda… but can you blame her? She drove herself crazy, thinking she'd mistakenly harassed an innocent woman only to find out she'd faced your Sam."

"She went to see her," Jack stated. Shannon nodded.

"I bet she'll get along nicely with Parker. As far as I can tell they're almost cut from the same cloth," she said with a smile.

"Parker's my daughter." Jack left out. He didn't think it would feel so good to confess it to someone, even his own family. But his heart did a somersault when he let those words out.

"I know."

"You know?" Jack asked, frowning.

"Yup. I've known for a while. I wondered why you never mentioned her being your daughter, though. Or why you didn't care about her at all. Or why she made you so damn angry."

"I…" he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I didn't know… How did you?"

"You mean besides the fact she could fit right in with anyone's kid and the blonde hair would have been the only thing helping us to figure out whose kid she was? Damn Jack, she's a perfect blend of the two of you."

"So, you just assumed…" He squinted. Shannon snorted.

"I'm not you, little brother."

"Then?"

"I went to her house and asked." She shrugged dismissively.

"You asked her? And she just said yes?" Shannon nodded. "And it never occurred to you to say something?!"

"Hey! Calm your tits, brother. I went to her house. I spoke to her. She was under the impression you already knew exactly who Parker was to you. That woman was terribly hurt that you would reject not only your daughter but hers."

"I didn't know shit, Shannon. I …"

"Yeah, we were there, J. You thought the worst."

"You should've just knocked some sense into me, why didn't you?"

"She asked me not to. I'm sorry, J. She had very valid reasons, and I had to agree with her. I thought she was right. I thought you got her file and read Parker's birthdate and dunno, counted back? I thought you were just having issues reconciling the fact that you know have an eleven-year-old that you know nothing about. But… You really were an ass that night. You completely shut the girl out."

"I thought she was someone else's daughter. I thought…"

"Again… I was there when you complained the first time. We were all have been there afterward too. You were an asshole. Fuck, Jack… She's the love of your life and you were ready to hang her out to dry because she had a kid. I never knew you to be so shallow."

"I wanted to like her, Shannon. I really tried."

"Oh, brother…" She smiled softly at him. "You were jealous and afraid. You're still afraid. Don't look at me like that. I get it. You've always lost everything when you were happy. It's risky… Putting yourself on that line again. You don't know if this time around you'll survive if you lose everything. But newsflash, Jack… That's life. We can't pretend to live in a bubble, protecting our own little hearts. We can certainly try. You've done that for years before she appeared. You suffered the entire time she was gone, and now, now that she's back… You're afraid to lose her all over again. But have you stopped to think all she had to lose in order to get back?" Jack gulped.

"I have. She lost everything, Shannon. She made a life for herself and gave that all away to return. She could've just stayed wherever the fuck she was. I still don't get why she returned, Shannon. I don't get it. I've tried to understand it but… It comes back blank."

"What if I told you she simply wanted you to meet your daughter? Or let's not make this about you, because I know you won't believe that…. But what if she did everything just so her daughter would meet her dad?"

Opening his mouth, he couldn't find anything to say. It made sense now that she would return. Not for him, but for their daughter.

"Oh, fuck. I screwed this up so badly, Shannon."

"That's the neat thing about love, Jack." She grinned. He raised an eyebrow, confused. "It's blind. I'm willing to bet it'll take some required groveling but… At the end of the day, she just loves you as much as she loves your kid."

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Money has a bad name. It always had. For Sam, it comes in handy. She knows she could go to Janet and ask for the damn blood test to confirm her suspicions. Although, what she really wants to be confirmed is that she's just delusional, and it's just menopause. However, she knows better. She's been through this before.

Sam knows Janet wouldn't mind doing it and keeping quiet about it. Yet, there's the fact that it would happen at a military facility. The result would end up in a military database. That fact makes Sam decide on a private Doctor. She drops Parker off at school and gets herself to the base.

As easily as she used to connect to the SGC network, she walks herself out of it. To log into her home setup so there won't be registries of what the heck she's doing. It's nothing harmful though, she's just finding some numbers to try to get herself an appointment ASAP.

Money, she knows, is on her side this time around. So, when she mentions, she has no issue paying an extra fee so she can be squeezed on that same day, the magic works.

"I'll need your name to book the appointment, Ma'am." Sam's paranoia also makes a short appearance the moment the woman on the phone asks her for her name. Eleven years of being different people whenever she needed to get to somewhere that might create a record of who she was jumped in. For a minute, Sam's tempted to give an alias. One of the several that still work. The ones she'd kept, almost like a security blanket.

"Samantha Carter." She says shaking her head at her own stupidity.

Then she disconnects from everything. With the appointment settled, she calls Janet to her office. It's not so long before she's sitting in front of Sam's desk.

"Hey… Why am I here?" She wonders. Janet just knows the answer won't be anything too personal.

"I need to step out for an hour or two. Can you manage it?" She knows it's a dumb question. Janet has seen more horrors resulting from this base than she has. But the Doctor, her friend, doesn't say a thing about it, just nods.

"Everything all right?" Sam opens her mouth to say no. But, in the end, she just nods.

"Just something that came up."

"Are you sure?" Janet squints.

"Yeah."

Janet knows Sam's holding something back. But the truth is, Sam's been holding everything back. There's so little what they know of what had happened during all those years. Yet, she knows Sam's not only holding on the edge but using the line to jump around between her sanity and her utmost insanity. Holding together by two thin threads that go by the names of Jack and Parker.

"Can you let General O'Neill know? If he comes by…" Sam asks. Janet stops.

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Jack took off on Friday. According to Daniel, he won't be back until next week."

"Oh, right…" She shook her head. Harper had mentioned he was at the cabin.

"Sam… Is really everything okay?" Janet risks again.

"It's my life, Janet. I'm starting to believe it'll never be okay."

"Want me to stop by your house tonight? We can talk for a bit."

"Can I take a raincheck on that?" Janet eyes her. Sam's now more private than she was before, so Janet understands she wants to lick her wounds alone.

"Only if you promise you'll call me if you need someone to bounce ideas off of. Oh! Also, if you need someone to get drunk with… I'm pretty sure we could add Vala and Cassie to that in no time." Sam snorts at this and then laughs.

It surprises Janet to hear a real laugh coming from Sam. What she doesn't know is that it comes from being the nervous wreck she is. Or that Sam knows, deep down, that she won't be having any alcohol in the next eighteen to twenty months.

Leaving the base, Sam finds the address for the clinic. The moment she announces her name, everything happens really fast. She's sitting in Doctor Green's office in no time.

"Samantha Carter, right?" Sam nods awkwardly. "What can I do for you?"

"I think I might be hitting my menopause." She says, clenching her jaw several times.

"I see." The doctor squinted at her. "How old are you?"

"Forty-four."

"And your symptoms?"

"Symptoms?" Sam frowns. There are no symptoms. Besides the fact that she's missed two periods and a bout of nausea the previous day.

"Vaginal dryness, hot flashes, chills, night sweats, sleep problems, mood changes, weight gain, slowed metabolism, thinning hair, dry skin, your breast are less full…" the Doctor recites from memory with an amused smile. "I know, right? Sounds just like out of a horror movie." She grins. Her smile makes Sam feel a little more at ease. "So, any of those?"

"No?" Doctor Green frowns. "I always had sleeping problems." Sam shrugs. "It came in handy with my career."

"Age aside, why do you believe you're menopausal?"

"I noticed I hadn't had my period in a while."

"In a while being?"

"I've missed two periods."

"Okay. Look, I'll make the order so you can get the screening you'll need. It'll point us to what support treatment you'll need. How does that sound to you?"

"Perfect."

"I'll get the order ready. I'll call you the moment I get your results, so you don't have to go out of your way to get them. I can push for priority from my side. However, I'll ask for you to do this with at least 8 hours of fasting."

She calls Janet on her way out. To let her know she won't be returning to the base. Janet tells her she'll inform the next in line so they can reach her in case something goes wrong.

"I wanted to pick Parker up from school today. It's been ages since I've had the chance to do it. That's all." Sam says before Janet has time to ask.

"You miss that, don't you?"

"I do. I miss all the time I would spend with her. Now it feels like I'm abandoning her. The only being who was there for me almost 24/7 for her entire life."

"Enjoy her, Sam. They grow up too damn fast."

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

It's only when her phone rings and the caller id tell her it's from the clinic. That she finally has some time to think about how awful the day she just had was. Feeling a nervous lump in her throat, she closes her eyes but answers the phone, nonetheless.

"Carter."

"Mrs. Carter, the Doctor has your results and wanted to know if you could swing by the clinic anytime soon?" Sam checks her watch and notices she's just half an hour short of her usually leaving time.

"Yes," She says. Looking down at the dress blues she had to wear for a stupid visit they'd had earlier about some shenanigans that had no real purpose. It's done now, so she can skip the last part of her day and rush there. "I can be there in half an hour."

"Great, we'll wait for you."

She tries to escape, but she's stopped on her way to her room. Having been detoured to the science labs so she could help them with some math. She finds herself enjoying that part of her work. Noticing a bit too late that she's going to be late to her appointment, if she doesn't get the hell out of there right then.

The look of shock on the secretary's face tells Sam that the last thing she thought she'd see was Sam appearing on her dress blues. She knows they're imposing just as they are, but with her several wanted and unwanted medals it looks, even more, the part.

"Ah… Doctor Green will see you in a moment, ma'am." She says with a trembling voice. Sam nods, tapping her fingers impatiently on the desk. "Doctor, ah… Mrs. Carter is here. Yes." She says and hangs the phone. "You can go right in, ma'am."

The Doctor doesn't seem surprised by the blues; however, she looks a bit uncomfortable as she looks at Sam's results. "So, you're what? Colonel?" she asks curiously.

"Brigadier General," Sam says. What surprises the Doctor is the lack of pride in her words. "You've got my results?"

"Yes, General."

"Just Sam. Or Carter… or Samantha… just not General," Sam says.

"Well, Sam. You are not menopausal." The doctor grins.

"I'm pregnant, aren't I?" Sam says. Her shoulders slouch for a second as she says this. There's so much sadness and so much pain coming from her that leaves the Doctor speechless.

"Yes. I would say congratulations, but you don't look happy." Sam gives her a half-smile.

"It's a complicated time."

"I can tell you your options…" She offers.

"No," Sam shakes her head. "It's a life. I have taken too many as it is." She remembers having said this before when it was Parker in her belly. The same words were uttered to Logan Wales, back in one of the many lives she'd led. Since he didn't know who she was when she said it to him, the man's eyes were incredulous.

This Doctor looks at her after her statement. Sam finds only understanding. It's the uniform, she knows. That makes that statement all that much heavier than it would have been if she wasn't sitting there in her full-dress blues.

Sam rubs her face tiredly with a hand and then pressed it to the side of her head.

"Well, I'm sure there are some policies and all for your situation, Sam. However, if you want, I can accompany you through the process. Because of your age, you're considered a high-risk pregnancy. No matter how healthy and fit you think you are."

Sam nods in the right places as the woman explains to her all the tests she wants to run. All the precautions she'll need to take. Her mind is only paying half-attention. While the other half is simply panicking.

What the fuck she will do? How does she explain to Parker that she's going to get a sibling after all this time? How will she confess to Jack about this development? When he's gone, and they're even further away from speaking term now? And despite how much she doesn't want to take another life… How she can be so selfish to bring a child into the world of chaos that her life constantly is?