Secrets and Shadows: The Thin Blue Line
Part Two
"So," Daniel said, looking up from the pregnancy test and its pronouncement. "What now?" He'd already said his congratulations, all the while wondering if they were appropriate, given how Sam had put on her 'locked away' face and how Jack looked as though he wanted to hit something.
Daniel made a mental note not to cross Jack in the next few days. This had to hurt, at least a little.
"I'll be leaving SG-1."
One look at Teal'c showed him to be nodding his head as though the news was expected. Daniel supposed it was; Stargate travel exerted tremendous stress on the body, and while they'd sent pregnant women through the wormhole before - to the Alpha site during SGC evacuation scenarios - regular travel through the Stargate while pregnant would be asking for a miscarriage. Daniel was pretty sure Sam didn't want that.
Still...
"Is that necessary? I mean, that drastic? You could just be seconded to the labs for a while, not completely leave..."
"Daniel," she said gently, "I'm leaving the military entirely."
That was a shock. "Resigning? Why?" The SGC was her career and she loved it, Daniel knew she did, it was plain to see.
Her gaze was fixed on her hands, clasped tightly before her; she didn't look at any of her team-mates seated around her dining table. Glasses of water littered the table, untouched, and the medical report and the pregnancy test sat squarely in the midst of them.
"Because I want to bring up my own child, Daniel," she said quietly. There was no elaboration on her reasons for doing so, although Daniel suspected it might be related to Jacob's extended absences through the years.
"And that's it?"
"What more do you want, Daniel?" Jack demanded, a little more sharply than Daniel would have expected.
"I don't want more," Daniel said, irritated with Jack's aggression. "After seven years I kind of feel as though we should at least get to know why she's decided she's going to give up the SGC and everything in it that she loves..."
"I'm not going to leave the SGC," Sam interrupted him. "I'm resigning from the military."
"You could work at the SGC without being in the military?"
"You do."
"But I've never been in the military," Daniel pointed out. "It's never been an issue for me..."
"Daniel, this isn't about being in the military or not." Sam caught his gaze and held it. "This is about having the time to be a parent to my child."
Daniel couldn't help a glance at Teal'c, wondering if the other man felt Sam's decision as a reproval of his own choice to fight against the Goa'uld and leave others to bring up his son. Teal'c looked as usual, without any evidence of approval or disapproval in his mien. " So you'll be working at the SGC in a civilian context?"
"Hammond would be happy to retain Carter," Jack pointed out. "Civilian or military."
That was a given. Sam's input to the SGC was incalculable, both in terms of technological expertise and her initiative in providing solutions when problems loomed. If you counted in her possession by Jolinar which led to meeting the Tok'ra, she could be considered responsible for one of Earth's alliances. Former alliances. "And you're sure about this?"
She met his gaze, blue eyes to blue eyes. "I'm sure."
This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but a whimper. Daniel grimaced. "So...what are you going to tell Shanahan?"
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "I don't know.
He knew it was a dangerous question to ask. Sam had left Pete Shanahan for reasons of her own, few of which she had elaborated to her team-mates. Daniel had done the unthinkable - at least to Jack and Teal'c - and asked her why. And she'd told him some of the reasons, although not all - at least he suspected not all. Her reasons for telling him seemed to be as much because she'd needed to justify them to herself as because she needed to justify them to him.
Maybe she'd told the other two, maybe not. Daniel suspected not.
"He'll find out sooner or later," Jack said, shortly. "The man's not an idiot, he can count the months, and Carter's hardly low-profile."
"You're not advocating she actually tell him..."
The set of the older man's jaw was stubborn - as stubborn as Daniel's. "He's the father, Daniel. He should get to be told."
"Even when he's..." Daniel hesitated as he met Sam's gaze, and he bit down on what he'd been going to say. She'd told him her personal reasons in confidence. He wasn't quite so tactless as to betray that. Not quite.
"It's better that he's told up front, now. Because if she puts it off, he'll want to know why she didn't..." Jack had this look on his face - as though someone had stabbed him in the back and was twisting the knife. Daniel knew how that felt. He'd looked at Sha're, pregnant with Apophis' child, and wanted to scream and rant and sob until there was nothing left of him but the empty husk of his body, shelled on the dry sand of Abydos.
"Well, uh, I don't know, maybe she didn't tell him because they're no longer together?" Okay, so perhaps the sarcasm was unnecessary, but it felt good.
He'd definitely been around Jack too long.
"Together or not, a man has a right to know..."
"A right to know? Jack, parenting is a privilege, not a right." Daniel thought of the foster homes he'd been shuffled through; of the men and women who'd taken him in at various points of his childhood after his parents died. "Just because a man is...is capable doesn't give him the right to be a father..."
"And just because the woman gets to bear the child doesn't mean she gets a right to decide whether or not the father should be told!" The knife-sharp edges of Jack's voice cut through Daniel's protests like a new razor through silk.
Sam stood. Without a word, she moved swiftly down the hall, her footsteps echoing through the carpeted wood floor. A moment later, the bathroom door shut firmly behind her and the sounds of retching could be heard.
At least, Daniel hoped it was retching; it would be better than her crying.
"This discussion should not be held before Samantha Carter, O'Neill, Daniel Jackson." Fifty years as Apophis' First Prime gave a man - or Jaffa - a certain authority. Teal'c rarely used that authority since he rarely had cause, but when he did, the effects were dramatic. Daniel felt like a kid who'd been thoroughly scolded. "The child is hers and the decision is hers also."
Jack regarded their team-mate with a quizzical brow. "But if the decision was up to you?"
Teal'c returned Jack's gaze, evenly and emotionlessly. "It is not up to me." And there was no telling which way Teal'c would fall on that matter, either. Not that it made much difference. Teal'c was right; the question of whether or not to tell Pete Shanahan of his impending fatherhood was not theirs to make.
That didn't mean they couldn't try to persuade Sam one way or the other...
"Jack, you didn't like Shanahan anyway," Daniel said, nettled by Jack's position in 'to tell or not to tell.' "What changed?"
Hard brown eyes gave away no secrets, "Nothing changed," Jack said. "And it wasn't that I didn't like him..."
"It was just that you didn't like him?"
"Cute, Daniel."
"You didn't."
Jack's glare could have punched through three-inch blast doors, but he said nothing other than a warning: "Daniel..."
"I'm just trying to understand why you'd advocate her telling Shanahan." Daniel knew he was pushing. He didn't care. He'd push as much as he had to in order to get the reasons out of Jack. Because there were reasons. Just not reasons that Daniel understood right now.
"You know why."
"Actually, I don't. That is, until you tell me why you're so intent on shoving Sam back to a man who wasn't worth the boot scrapings off that planet with the cows."
"And here I thought I was the one who didn't like Shanahan," muttered Jack sardonically.
"You are," Daniel stated. "You're just not the only one." He saw Teal'c's eyebrow go up and shrugged. "I'm allowed to like and dislike the people I choose, right?"
"Don't make it personal, Daniel. Shanahan should know..."
"And what happens when he does, Jack?" Daniel could see the way this would play out. "He claims his 'right' to be a father and is back in Sam's life again."
"If that's what she wants?"
"But it's not a case of what she wants, is it, Jack? It's a case of what you're requiring her to do. If she doesn't want to tell Shanahan, then she shouldn't have to."
"I don't 'require' anything, Daniel," Jack snapped, his eyes dark and hard in the stiff set of his face. "She can't keep it a secret, anyway. The instant she hands her notice of resignation in to Hammond, it'll be all around the base. Within a couple of months, she'll start showing. Anyone with half an eye will know she's pregnant, and anyone with half a brain cell can do the math. The only option Carter has of keeping it secret from Shanahan is to leave Colorado entirely and never appear in the public eye again. Do you want that?"
Daniel didn't. He fingered the edge of the medical report, scowling. "I just want Sam to be happy."
His friend snorted, "Do you think you're the only one? But she's also got to do what's right, Daniel."
They faced each other down with comfortable familiarity in their antagonism; ideologically different men who'd learned to respect and admire each other. And each one stubborn enough to crash against the other and never give way.
Daniel remembered an afternoon spent with Sam in her lab, a few days after she'd broken up with Shanahan. He knew he was right in saying that Shanahan shouldn't be told; Jack was wrong - he didn't have the complete picture. Okay, so Daniel didn't have the complete picture either, but he had a more complete picture than Jack.
Neither man was going to give ground on this, and they both knew it.
Teal'c knew it too. "This conversation should end here," he stated. "And you should not trouble Major Carter with it again."
Jack looked at Teal'c, "Who died and put you in charge?"
"There have been no deaths, O'Neill." Teal'c tilted his head, "Yet."
The threat should have been comedic, but was not. And yet it was not entirely serious, either. Teal'c definitely had a way with words and a tilt of the head.
It was an exceedingly effective conversation-stopper.
As a result, when Sam emerged from the hallway, she found three utterly silent men sitting at her dining table. One eyebrow rose delicately up at the sight of them. "Did I miss something?"
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