A/N: Well seeing as no one commented on the last post, either everyone hated it and I should never attempt going down that road again or 's little issue with the counters also affected the reviews. And since this is one place where I tend to practice my chosen craft, if the last posting was terrible and I need to never try it again, apologies but now I have to try it again and again until I get it correct. But maybe that was ya'll's intention... Crap! See what no reviews does to us introverted writers? Makes us go around and around in our heads like a teddy bear (drat you Sherlock for this mental picture) on a blasted merry-go-round that there is no hope of getting off of. Help me out here people!
Anyway as the title of this episode may have indicated we reach a climax, not of the "season" but of several minor storylines. So stay with me as some conclude and some new ones begin.
Like, Follow, Favorite, Subscribe, and REVIEW! (lol, but no really do...)
J.R.
Recap:
Resident's Wing. Sophie's Quarters.
Brushing his chest with her lips, she moved to just above where his heart lay and kissed there before she moved on. A mischievous smile crept onto her lips and she nipped at one of his nipples causing him to stiffen beneath her. A sound that lay somewhere between a growl and a groan rumbled through him, his hands tightening on her hips, pulling her close.
Blood heating again in her veins, she pressed against him for a moment, her hands sliding down to the waistband that concealed the rest of his skin.
Then Luca snorted in his sleep and rolled against her legs.
Damn.
Episode 11 Part 4
Medical
How do you tell a man who lost his child in such a tragic way that he was going to have another? How do you reassure the man who lost his wife, his family, to that anguish that you weren't going anywhere should the worst happen this time around? How do you give the man you love a miracle that he never dared hope for?
These questions and more spun around in her brain with enough force to make her dizzy and nauseous as she picked her way through the slowly thinning crowd in Medical. Of course, that might have been the nerves. Give her a System lord to blow up and she was cool as a cucumber. Give her a Replicator queen to assassinate and her blood pressure would barely spike. An Ori? That was just another fanatical Tuesday. But telling Jack that they were expecting a baby? That there were serious health risks and that she and the baby might not survive the pregnancy do to them? She could barely stomach it.
Kara had been brutally honest. She had run every test she could from her home office and then pulled Sam into her lab to run a dozen more when the first came back. Her blood pressure was too high, her nutrition was in the toilet, she had more coffee than blood in her veins and as if all of those normal people problems weren't enough the naquada in her bloodstream, while it was protecting and strengthening the new life in her, was changing it. Then too, Jack had been a host as well, so his genes were laced with the mineral as well. Their baby wouldn't be just a baby.
Kara predicted it would be similar to a harcesis. Not like Luka or Shifu. Somewhere between them and just plain human. Slightly advanced but not deadly.
She doubted the baby would have the ATA gene. But that wouldn't hold their child back at all. The naquada would most likely be present in their child after their birth. But Kara did assure her, that with the lack of sensitivity in Earth-based medical technology in general, their child would be safe from the ever-present threat of experimentation that her own children lived under. It was only the Stargate Program and maybe Area 51 that would notice anything. And much like Cassandra, they would be treated on base anyway since Sam and Jack were so highly placed.
Jack looked up from the game of solitaire that was on the table over him and smiled, catching sight of her standing in the middle of the walkway. "Lost or are you here to break me out?" He asked, holding out a hand to her.
"Can I go with option three?"
Jack's eyes narrowed in confusion but he didn't withdraw his hand. "The only way I'm staying a minute longer than necessary is if you brought pie."
Biting her lip, Sam looked down, her palms beginning to sweat against the plain manila envelope that she held behind her back. It contained the results of all the tests that Kara had put her through and information that she might need. "Actually I have something I hope is better. I'm not quite sure. I'm a little stunned honestly."
She watched tension flood his shoulders, good news or not, he had learned to mistrust anything that had her confused or speechless over the years. So instead of leaving him in suspense, Sam coughed and brought the envelope forward. But she couldn't quite bring herself to move and walk the few steps to him so that he could read the contents for himself.
A worried scowl creased Jack's brow as he pushed from the bed and took the envelope from her hand, quickly sliding the packet of papers from their sleeve. Sam guessed she had maybe ten seconds until his eyes found the pertinent line. It was only five seconds until his hand reached back to find the bed and he sat heavily back on it, his face going blank and the normal pale that colored it drained away.
For a moment she watched as he swallowed over and over like he had a lump that just wouldn't go down. Then his mouth dropped open and he pulled in a breath until his chest couldn't expand anymore. "This isn't some cruel and stupid joke, is it?" He murmured, exhaling. But he didn't even wait for her answer before he dismissed that flicker of a thought out loud. "And you haven't been experimented on recently so this isn't some kind of false positive. And I'm awake so I know this isn't a dream."
Finally looking away from the words on the page, swimming brown eyes turned up to her. Sam could see hope mixed equal parts with fear in them. "Please tell me this is real."
Swallowing past her own emotions, Samantha found that her voice had fled into the slight breeze of the medical air calculators. She nodded before dropping her eyes to the floor.
A moment later, she found herself gathered into a fierce hug and being spun around in her husband's arms while he kissed her cheek and shoulder before he quickly set her back on her feet. "Not good to make a momma dizzy." He said as if to remind himself of a fact he learned long years before. Once more she found herself surrounded by his arms and he kissed her forehead. "Thank you."
Almost as quickly as she found herself held, he leaned back to look at her. "Are you okay? I know we haven't been married long but is this okay with you? Are you happy with this news?" Worry flooded him. Sam was career military, the same as him. They had never really considered a family, just believing it was impossible since the doctors had given them such a low chance. But now that there was a slight possibility? He found, after the initial shock, he was more than willing to have a genius child or two with Sam. Hopefully, sons because he simply could not handle a little girl who looked like Sam.
"I'm shocked." She admitted, sitting on the bed after a breath. "I'm scared that I won't be able to carry to term, with all the things we've been through." Squeezing his hands as he sat beside her, she forced her lungs to fill with air. "I'm glad that we'll be headed back to Earth for the space station dock construction. I'm terrified of being a mom." Then finding a smile under the weight of all her worries, Sam turned a watery smile on him. "And I'm beyond happy. I just wasn't sure about you. After… Everything."
Kissing her forehead again, Jack pulled her onto his chest as he leaned back on the raised back of the bed. "After Charlie." He nodded into her braided hair. "If it had been right after, I don't think I would be able to handle it. But now?" He sighed, gently rubbing her back. "I think where ever he is now, he would be happy to have a little brother or sister to keep an eye on. And if he is just gone, I still think he'd be happy to have them. And I can handle it now. Won't promise to be perfect though."
Relaxing into his hold with a relieved little sigh, Sam snorted. "You? Perfect?"
"Hey!"
Security Holding Cell
If Naomi could have been impatiently huffing as she waited for Todd to wake up, she certainly would have. But as it was she was sitting on the bench, staring at his collapsed form on the floor observing the minor changes that were very slowly occurring in him with a raised eyebrow.
He would always be a wraith. He would always be pale green with stringy white hair and insect-like eyes. But, although his hands would look the same on the outside much like the human belly button, he would have no need to feed. At least not on humans anymore. But he would probably need to eat his own weight in meat once a week or so unless he decided to eat more regularly.
She smirked. He would probably become a pincushion when someone realized what happened. Honestly, she didn't really care though. But she wasn't cruel enough to leave him alone and thinking he was dying when all of a sudden he didn't need to feed. Heaven forbid he go and get himself fed on by an iratus queen and try to undo all her hard work, just to get himself killed.
She might cry. Honestly. There would be at least one tear. If someone could stomp on her toe. Maybe.
Todd groaned as he came to. Blinking his eyes open, squinting against the light of the room. Finally focusing his eyes on the woman perched on the bench, he groaned again. "You tried to kill me."
"Don't be silly." She snorted, finger-combing her hair over her shoulder. "If I wanted you dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Now get up so I can explain your new reality without getting a crick in my neck looking down at the floor."
"My new reality?"
"Welcome to your new life." A vicious little smile twisted her lips as she sectioned her hair into three and began twisting them together. "Try not to waste my efforts on you."
He felt it then. The burning in his throat and stomach that had nothing to do with the hunger he normally felt. He remembered it from more years ago than he cared to admit. But this time in reverse. It was the muscles and organs that his body would need to digest solid food coming back to life. It spread like acid through him, drip by searing drip. And after the torture, he had received at the Genii's hands? He was all too familiar with the sensation.
"What did you do to me?" He groaned, rolling onto his back to relieve the ache in his shoulder. "What did you make me into?"
"You are not to be like that abomination they called Micheal." She assured of a huffing sigh as she came to the end of her braid. "Have no fear. You are still Wraith. But not in the ways that will get you killed. Venom sacks are still there, but more useful on your fellow Wraith than humans now, so please don't get caught by the insane Lieutenant Aidan Ford."Tying a tiny thong of leather around the end of her hair, she flicked it over her shoulder before leveling him with an even stare.
"I hadn't planned on being caught." He tried to snap at her, although it came out more like a moan of pain. "You've killed me anyway. I can't go back to a hive like this."
"You're damn right you can't go back to a hive." She breathed, setting her hands behind her on the bench and leaning back. "But did you really think you could anyway?" Naomi prodded his hip with her incorporeal toe. "You were never going to leave the city alive and you know it."
Feeling, not the pressure of her touch, but an almost sizzling crack of energy where she touched, much like the electric prods the Genii had used as well, Todd pushed a few inches away and sat up against one of the legs of the bench. "I could have escaped."
She rolled her eyes but said nothing.
"I could have." The wraith insisted, petulantly reminding Naomi of her grandchildren when they had been very young. They had since grown out of that nonsense, for which she was eternally grateful as she had no patience for idiocy. Ronon had so far not shown any tendency for it. And Luka hadn't when he was a toddler, but she would have to wait until his teenage years to see if he was just a late bloomer to that sort of behavior.
"And had you managed an escape without getting mortally injured, you would have been killed by the first wraith whose path you crossed." She reminded none too gently. "You would either be killed in the attempt because shepherd won't let you leave alive, or executed at a traitor to the Wraith species." Once more rolling her eyes, she swung her leg back over the bench and folded both legs underneath her. "Death or death. Maybe quickly, maybe slow and painfully. But you had nothing to look forward to. I gave you another option and you should be on your knees thanking me."
Once more Todd prodded at the aura that emanated from this creature, feeling knowledge of what it was niggle at the back of his very long memory, and then slip away like a handful of mist. A legend he had heard whispered as a child perhaps? A hushed word among the queens that he served but trusted no more than he would a rabid animal?
Something.
And it bothered him more than he could express that the memory just would not come to the fore.
