A/N: Pardon my exposition. I promise there will be action soon! And the site won't display any of my scene markers, so i'm using horizontal lines as it seems to find those acceptable. Does that make it easier to read?
Oh, and I think i forgot a disclaimer before. Here it is: Disclaimer: Only Paige and Helen are mine. I'm just borrowing the rest.

Jack and Daniel stood there in shock for a moment, staring at each other in surprise, before Jack motioned for them to step away from the curtain. They claimed two chairs in the waiting room and sat down next to each other.

"What just happened?" Jack asked, with confusion evident in his voice.

"I think...I think...it sounded like Sam has a daughter," Daniel answered, hesitantly. "But that doesn't seem possible, does it? We've known her for years!" Daniel exclaimed in a low voice, trying not to alert Sam to their presence just yet. "How could we not have known? How do hide the fact that you have a daughter? I mean—" he stopped. "Why do you hide it?"

Jack didn't answer, staring over at the curtain. Carter had a daughter? When did this happen? Who did this happen with? He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

As he watched his musings were broken by movement as the curtain was pulled aside and a stretcher was wheeled out. He couldn't see the child, as she was shielded by a nurse and Carter, who walked beside it. A doctor trailed behind, writing orders on a chart. Carter stopped, allowing the doctor to catch up to her. She had one arm wrapped around her waist, and had her other hand resting against her lips. It was body language that broadcast a sense of insecurity neither Daniel nor Jack had ever seen from her. The doctor spoke some final words to her, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she nodded. Carter then watched as the doctor followed the gurney out of the ER before turning and collapsing into a chair with her head in her hands.

Daniel glanced over at Jack, looking to him for some clue as to how to alert her to their presence. Neither wanted to be the one to do it, but she certainly looked as if she needed some support. Jack shrugged back, uncomfortable in what was obviously an emotionally charged situation. Daniel shook his head and pointed to Jack. This was his idea! So Jack bit the bullet, and walked over to her with Daniel trailing hesitantly behind.

"Carter?" he asked warily.

Her head shot up in surprise, and she quickly wiped what looked suspiciously like tears from her face. "Sir?! What are you doing here?" She spied Daniel behind him. "Daniel. I thought I told you guys to stay out of this?"

Uh oh. Now she sounded angry, which had definitely not been their intention. Jack looked to Daniel, indicating that they were in need of his diplomatic skills. Bracing himself, he stepped forward.

"Its not like that Sam! We were just worried, and wanted to make sure you would be alright."

Sam's anger deflated, as did she. She looked exhausted. "I'm guessing now you have more questions than answers," she said falteringly.

"Uh, yeah," the Colonel answered honestly.

She nodded. "Call Teal'c," she said with a sigh. "Tell him to come here, and I'll explain everything." This was not a conversation she was looking forward to. She had secrets. Secrets she had kept for a very long time, for some very good reasons. She trusted the guys with her life, but this was different. This was somehow even more important than all of that, and she hoped they would understand.

The Colonel called Teal'c and had him arrange for a ride over, then called the General and explained the situation. He and Daniel had kind of left the base without warning. The General sounded understanding, but left him with a warning. "Listen to her Jack. She needs your support right now, not your judgment. She had her reasons." Jack couldn't wait to hear her explain all of this. His imagination was taking a stab at it, and he didn't like the results.

Teal'c arrived a half an hour later, looking unassailable as ever. Sam greeted him, and led her team-mates out of the ER to the pediatric surgical waiting room in an adjacent wing of the hospital. She explained as they walked that a nurse would be bringing her updates periodically.

They sat, watching her expectantly, as she braced herself for the conversation to come.

"The emergency call I received during this morning's briefing was from a pre-school here in Colorado Springs." She paused. "My daughter's pre-school."

At this Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and responded, "I was not aware you had any children Major Carter."

She shook her head. "Most people aren't."

Having by this time come to terms with the fact that Sam had a daughter, though he still didn't know how, Daniel was curious as to the nature of the phone call and subsequent hospital visit. "What was the phone call about?" he asked with concern.

Sam took a deep breath. "Apparently during recess she took a bad fall from the monkey bars, broke her right arm badly and hit her head. She was unconscious for several minutes, so they suspect she has a concussion. They just went into surgery now to set her arm. It needs a couple of pins to hold it in place." At this point her voice cracked in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, and Daniel took her hand. Jack wanted to, but held himself back. She collected herself and continued. "She will be spending staying in pediatrics under observation at least overnight to monitor the concussion. They don't want to take any chances. She should be fine, but it was still quite a scare."

"I understand," said the Colonel, drawing her attention. He remembered how every bump or bruise was a source of concern when Charlie was little. She met his eyes and smiled sadly at him, responding quietly, "I'm sure you do."

Unheeding of the understanding being shared by the two, Daniel broke the moment with another question. "What's her name?" he asked. Now that they understood that morning's occurrences, he had a few other questions and figured he should start with the most basic information first.

Sam smiled at this. "Paige Elisabeth Carter. Her middle name was my mother's."

"Its beautiful Sam," said Daniel with a smile. Teal'c nodded his agreement and added, "I am certain your mother would be honored."

"Thanks you guys."

"You said she's in preschool," said Jack, and Sam nodded. "That makes her, what, three? Four?"

"She will be four in a couple of months," Sam answered, then lowered her voice and looked away. "She is the reason I couldn't go on the first mission through the Gate. I was about three months along when you two went through."

Delaying the question he really wanted to ask, considering Paige's paternity, Jack asked, "Who knows about her? And why is she a secret? I can't see why you would need to hide her existence."

Sam hesitated. This was where things got complicated. "General Hammond knows, and Janet. The General because I needed his help to keep this quiet, and Janet because my medical records show I've had a child." And how to explain the rest of this..."She is a secret because she is Jonas'." She paused, practically cringing as she waited for their reactions. The Colonel couldn't help himself, and was the first to speak.

"Jonas Hanson? The ex-fiancé? The one who"—he glanced around him and lowered his voice—"went off the deep end?"

Sam grimaced at his description, but nodded. "I found out I was pregnant shortly before he proposed. It was the reason I accepted the ring. But I couldn't go through with it. I decided I would rather raise her alone then with him. So I gave the ring back. And I never told him I was pregnant."

Her three teammates sat in silence for a moment, absorbing her news. Jack shuddered at the thought of that lunatic raising a child. He had never been so glad she had returned that ring in his life. And he was beginning to understand her situation a little bit better. He broke from is thoughts as she continued.

"The breakup was horrible. And I knew he hated me for it. So I couldn't let him know about her. I couldn't risk him taking her away from me." She looked uncertain as she took a breath, gauging their reactions. "I know I'm not the best mother in the world. I have a job where I risk my life on a daily basis, work long hours, and definitely can't provide any sort of father figure. But at the end of the day Paige is all I have. I do it for her, to keep her safe. I couldn't live with myself otherwise.

"When we were in D.C., while I worked at the Pentagon it wasn't so hard. She was about six months old when we moved here, for the mission to get you, Daniel." Daniel nodded at this, trying to imagine the eager young Captain he had met with a six month old baby. When he remembered how good she was with Cassie, it wasn't so hard.

"When I found out that Jonas was being posted at Cheyenne too, I knew I couldn't let it become common knowledge that I had a child. He would have made the assumption she was his and taken her, or accused me of cheating on him and demanded a paternity test. Or worse. He was dangerous, as I'm sure you remember, and wanted to hurt me in any way he could." Her teammates all nodded at this. "It was hard enough to avoid him as it was and I couldn't take the risk."

"But he's been dead for almost three years," said Daniel, with a frown. "Why couldn't you tell us once he was gone?"

"It's not so much that I couldn't tell you," said Sam, gesturing to the three of them. "I just have chosen to keep it from becoming common knowledge around base. Jonas had an older brother who is also Air Force, a JAG actually, who teaches at the Academy. He has never forgiven me for giving the ring back, and never saw the changes in his brother that we did. I have nothing against lawyers in general, most are decent people. But Thomas would use his legal knowledge to have me declared an unfit mother and get custody. I've run into him when I've guest lectured at the Academy, and our confrontations have never ended well. I can't risk it.

"If I had a less dangerous job with better hours it wouldn't be such an issue. Or if I was married or," she blushed, "even had a steady boyfriend maybe." Jack couldn't say he was sorry about that last part, although he told himself he should be. "As a single mother whose life is constantly at risk…he would win."

"And us?" Daniel pressed, still not certain why she hadn't trusted them. "I'm sure you trust we would have been similarly discrete."

"Of course!" she responded, shaking her head. "But I still didn't know any of you that well when Jonas died. You guys are family now, but then I was still uncertain. Then suddenly so much time had already passed I had no idea how to bring it up." She laughed, but without much humor. "Sorry guys, I can't make it to the team night because I have a PTA meeting. Did I forget to mention I have a three-year-old?" she parodied. "If it makes you feel any better, neither my brother nor my father know either." This surprised even Teal'c.

"Dad doesn't know?" Jack asked, practically taking the words out of Daniel's open mouth. He had known she and her brother weren't especially close. But now that her father was a Tok'ra, the two seemed to get along well.

"I was going to tell him after we returned from out last," she paused, and glanced around, before finishing with "trip together." She couldn't think of any other way to subtly mention their mission to Netu. "But he wasn't able to stay long enough for me to broach the subject. He was called back almost immediately after our flight landed." And he had been as soon as they landed at the Tok'ra base to return the Tel'tak and rest before gating back to Earth. There had been no father-daughter vacation, to the disappointment of both.

"Before that he had only been able to visit twice since he recovered from the cancer," she pointed out. "And both visits were business related."

"What about when you both went out to visit your brother after we handled that problem with our mutual friend Seth?" Daniel asked, keeping his voice low near the end of the question just in case. But Seth was a common name, right?

"I considered it." She shook her head. "But neither of us had even spoken to Mark in years, and I didn't want to spring that on him when it had been hard enough to get him to go in the first place. It would only have given him an excuse not to go."

"And I'm guessing your brother wouldn't have taken your revelation as much of an olive branch," Jack agreed.

"No," she said chuckling lightly. "That trip was exciting as it was. And I didn't want Dad and Mark to have anything new to fight about. When I tell them, it will be separately."

"How have you managed to care for such a young child while working such long hours?" Teal'c asked. "I remember well the energy Rya'c had at such an age, and this made parenting no easy task even with a partner."

"I had help, and God knows I needed it when she started walking!" she responded, smiling at the memory. "I have a nanny, Helen, who has been taking care of her during the days. She should actually be here soon," she said, glancing around the waiting room. "I gave her a call on my cell while we were waiting for Teal'c," she explained, "so she wouldn't have to hear it from her teachers when she arrived to pick her up from school, and she insisted on coming down. Helen has been like a grandmother to Paige, and very supportive of me."

"What about when we're…on a trip or…stranded?" Jack asked, thinking of their time in Antarctica. "Keeping to a schedule isn't something we do well."

Sam nodded. "Helen understands, and doesn't mind. If we know we're going to be away overnight Janet takes her at night. And in emergencies where Janet can't take her Helen doesn't mind spending the night at my place, or taking her home with her. I don't always work as much as it appears." She glanced at the Colonel. "I didn't actually turn down your last fishing invitation for work. Paige and I took a little mother-daughter road trip."

"You could have brought her." A three-year-old would definitely have kept things from going too far, Jack thought, but wisely chose not to share. Sam just shook her head.

"It certainly isn't easy, but I do the best I can." She had considered leaving SG1 on multiple occasions, but had never been able to go through with it. This incident had the possibility lingering in the back of her mind again.

"So, wow," said Daniel, his above average vocabulary apparently at a loss. "You have a daughter."

"Ya think?" Jack said as he rolled his eyes. Sam laughed and was about to respond when something caught her eye.

"Helen!" she said, rising and walking to meet an older woman who had just entered the waiting room. She looked to be in her mid-fifties with mostly gray hair and a smart outfit of slacks and a sweater. Grandmotherly, but in a modern way. She and Sam embraced, and she took Sam's hands in hers as she pulled away.

"How is she dear?" she asked, not yet having noticed the now standing trio.

"She went in almost an hour ago, and we haven't heard anything yet," Sam said, the worry she had been distracted from during her conversation with her teammates returning. "I was told a nurse would come to give me an update at some point, but I haven't heard anything yet. Hopefully someone will be by soon."

"Of course. I'm sure everything is going well." Then she noticed the men standing patiently behind Sam. "And who have we here?"

Carter turned, and introduced them. Helen shook hands with each and seemed impressed, saying with amusement, "No wonder you spend so much time in that mountain if you get to work with such handsome young men as these." Daniel tried, but couldn't hide his blush.

Before anything more could be said, a nurse entered and caught Sam's attention. "Dr. Carter?" she asked, and received a nod in confirmation. "The surgery went well and Dr. Miller is just closing. He should be in about thirty minutes to speak with you, and then you can visit her in recovery." Sam accepted the news gratefully, and the nurse left.

"Thank God," she said, releasing a breath she hadn't even known she had been holding. Suddenly weary, she sat down on the nearest couch where she was joined by the other four waiting with her. Helen took the place next to her, and put an arm around her comfortingly.

"The worst is over," she said. "And I'm sure Paige will be back to herself in no time." The guys echoed her sentiments, and Sam tried to take it to heart. But she knew she wouldn't fully relax until her daughter was home safe and sound.