Notes: I should have put this on the last chapter, but I forgot. Everything I 'criticize' from here on out, specifically strange cravings and baby names, is done in good fun. I actually like all of the names I've put into this fic (the real ones obviously, I would never consider naming a child Teal'c-o-lette) and I do hope if you happen to find your own name in here, you won't take offence. Just because Jack or Sam doesn't like it doesn't mean I share their opinion! The same goes for the reference to the show 'Gilmore Girls.' Personally, I have never seen that show, but my poor son was unfortunately born around the time it debuted, apparently, because several people have started to think of his name as a girl's name (an unfortunate coincidence for him, but I mention it in this story only as an attempt at humour). As I've never seen the show, I have no opinion on it either way, although it's one of my sister's favourites.

Ch 22: Name Games

"You're not gonna want to do one of these weird deliveries are you?" Jack asked, quickly shutting the book he had been skimming and pushing it aside. He hid it under a couch cushion for good measure.

"What do you mean, 'weird?'"

"Like that underwater thing or something."

Sam laughed. "I don't think so. I want Janet to do it."

"Oh. Okay. Me too. What about... drugs and stuff?"

"I don't know," Sam admitted, biting her lip. "I've been thinking about it... I definitely want to know what's going on. I mean unless there's some sort of complication and they have to do an emergency Ces..."

"Everything will be fine," Jack interrupted firmly.

"Well... assuming it is, from what I've read there are potential disadvantages to every kind of drug. And the only disadvantage to no drugs is that it hurts more. To me. But I think it's better for the baby, so I guess I'm leaning more towards that."

"Wow."

"What?"

"You're just very... brave. Is all. I mean... if it were me I'd want to be unconscious for the whole thing."

"Jack, no offence, but I think if men had babies the species would have died out thousands of years ago."

"I'm sure you're right," he agreed.

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Now that most of the initial unpleasantness was over, things had settled into a more predictable pattern. They had started 'going to Lamaze class,' which meant that they watched an instructional DVD after lunch every day. Thor had provided a DVD that actually followed a typical delivery, but neither had been brave enough to even suggest watching that one yet.

In the morning, Sam had started doing some weird yoga/pilates thing for pregnant women. Jack had tried to do it with her once, but it was a lot harder than it looked, and all that twisting hurt his knee and back. The next morning, he had tried to sit in the living room while she did it by herself, but for some reason had found it pretty hot. With the way her hormones were lately, it hadn't been hard to convince her to do a little alternative exercising instead. The next day she had politely asked that he go outside and fish while she exercised.

About once a day they had a name debate. Today was no exception.

"Ariel."

"Katharine."

"Belle."

"Morgan."

"Alice."

"STOP NAMING DISNEY CHARACTERS! I said no cartoons!"

"Actually, you said no YELLOW cartoons," Jack clarified. They were squared off on opposite sides of the coffee table, both with their hands on their hips.

"Oh bite me, Jack, you can't be serious about names like Ariel and Belle!"

"Well Morgan is a boy's name and you're always complaining your dad called you Sam!"

"Morgan is a perfectly normal girl's name as well!"

"Are you as turned on as I am right now?"

Sam stared at him like he was the craziest person she had ever seen, threw her hands up in the air in defeat, and left the room.

"Guess not," Jack commented, going after her. Hey, it wasn't a ridiculous question. Just yesterday, she got all hot and bothered when she found him folding towels.

He entered the bedroom cautiously, not sure if she was really mad or just wanted to quit fighting over the names. Until tomorrow, of course. "Sam? How about Ryan? For a boy, I mean."

She looked at him funny.

"What? You like the more normal names..."

"Ryan O'Neill."

"Yeah, so... what, too Irish?"

"That's the name of an actor, Jack."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think it might be spelled differently, but it sounds the same."

"One L?" Jack guessed.

"Yeah. And an 'A,' I think. Come on, you've never heard of him?"

"Er, no..."

"Paper Moon? Love Story? What's up, Doc?"

"Those are movies?" Jack asked.

"You've never seen 'Love Story?' Come on... 'What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?'"

Sam asked this as though not knowing about this movie was similar to not knowing about rain or something. Jack had nothing to reply with except, "Sounds like a chick flick. 'What's up Doc' sounds okay though. Is it like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'"

"Not exactly. It has Barbra Streisand and..."

"Okay, enough said," he interrupted, wincing. "That's a 'no' on Ryan then."

"Yes."

They stared at each other for several moments, then Jack sighed.

"Okay, maybe we do need the book," he finally admitted.

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Sam was getting very tired of staring at the ceiling in the dark. After spending the first half of her pregnancy sleeping more than she remembered doing since high school, she was now having bouts of insomnia. On this particular night, she woke up with only one thought on her mind.

"Jack? Are you awake?" she asked, stroking the arm that was around her stomach hopefully.

She was pulled closer to him in response and felt his face go into the back of her neck.

"Jack?" She rolled over to face him, peering closely at his face in the dark. "Wake up." Pressing her palm to his cheek carefully to locate him better, she kissed him on the cheek and turned his head towards her. "Please?" She kissed him slowly, smiling triumphantly when he finally woke up.

"Saaam, go to sleep. It feels like I just went to sleep," Jack mumbled against her mouth.

"I can't."

"What time is it?"

Sam leaned over him to get a better look at the clock, plus to wake him up more. "3:29."

"I've only been asleep half an hour? Did you sleep at all?"

"I can't," she repeated, kicking the covers down around their legs so that the cold air would wake him up. He reached for the covers, still refusing to open his eyes. Sam scratched his stomach lightly with her nails, tickling him. "Jack, do you know how to make mashed potatoes?"

His eyes popped open. "Mashed potatoes?"

"Yeah, do you know how to make them?"

"Yes," he groaned. "That's what you want, that's why you're waking me up at 3:29 in the morning?"

"Yes. Please. I really, really need them, Jack."

"Did Daniel teach you how to pout when I wasn't paying attention or something?"

"Maybe. Please? I can't explain it but I HAVE to have them and I have no idea how to make them."

"Okay, okay." Jack sighed and got out of the warm, soft bed, looking around for some warm clothes. As he pulled on his sweatpants and a waffle knit shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on some socks, he hoped the only cookbook they had at the cabin could tell him how to make mashed potatoes.

Sam wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, hugged him tightly, and looked at him sideways. "Can you make them lumpy?"

"They're not supposed to be lumpy."

"I want lumps. Please?"

Jack sighed and said, "Lumpy mashed potatoes coming up."

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"Can you even tell that I'm pregnant?" Sam asked as she entered the kitchen one morning.

Jack turned around and tried to think quickly, because apparently he was already in the middle of a conversation he hadn't known about. Sam was dressed in jeans and a sweater, but Jack had no idea what he was supposed to say. If he said yes, was she going to burst into tears because he was calling her fat, or if he said no was that going to set her off because she still wasn't showing?

"Er..." he stalled. "I don't really know what you mean," he started carefully. "Of course I can tell you're pregnant. You ARE pregnant. Until recently you were puking every five minutes, you've got mood swings, and yesterday I caught you eating salsa straight out of the jar, with a spoon. But... if I didn't know you, or if I wasn't allowed to see ya naked, I wouldn't be able to tell."

"That's what I was afraid of," Sam sighed heavily, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs. "Aren't you concerned about that? I mean we're more than halfway through here, I've got practically every single possible other symptom of pregnancy..."

"Thor says the baby is growing fine," Jack reminded her, moving behind her chair and squeezing her shoulders. "But if you want to we can get out of here and go find out for ourselves."

"No, I trust Thor I just... I don't understand why..."

"You lost ten pounds that you didn't have to lose in the first place, Sam. And you're tall and thin and in good shape, and it's your first baby. Didn't that book with the green cover say all those things meant it would take longer to show?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Okay. You know, most women are worried about having the opposite problem," he reminded her. "And I can tell, sort of, when you're naked, as long as you're not lying on your back. I'm sure little Thor or Thorabelle will start growing like a weed really soon."

"Thor or Thorabelle?" she laughed, shaking her head and wiping her eyes.

"Yup. Come on. That was my way of suggesting we finally get started with that baby name book!" He took her hands and tugged her to her feet.

"Very subtle," she commented as they went into the living room.

"You know me. Subtle's my middle name."

"Right."

They snuggled into the couch so that they could read the book at the same time, curled up under a blanket, each holding a pencil so they could circle a name they liked when they found it.

"Isn't this nicer than yelling across the coffee table?" Sam asked as they opened the book together.

"Yes, so much better," Jack agreed, hugging her tightly and kissing the side of her head.

That nice tranquillity didn't even last through the names that began with 'A.'

Sam was trying to read what each name meant, it's origin, nicknames... Jack reached across her and underlined every other name he saw, reading them out loud as though Sam wasn't looking at the exact same spot on the page. "Oh, Abigail, that's cute... what about Ainsley? Or Ally? You still say no to Alice and Ariel? Amy is nice and short... Annabeth! Ashley? Nah, there are too many Ashleys already... what about Audrey?"

"Ohforcryinoutloud, Jack!" Sam finally exclaimed, resisting the urge to stab her pencil into the back of his hand.

"What did you just say?" he asked lightly, surprised by her outburst but amused by the appropriation of 'his' phrase.

"You heard me! I can't even think about the names I'm looking at because you keep suggesting other ones, and then before I can think about what you just said, you've already said three more!"

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Okay. Maybe we should do this differently," Sam suggested, taking a few calming breaths. "Why don't we take turns with the book and each make a list. Then we'll compare them."

"Sounds good to me."

"Why don't we pick one name for each letter, then from that list pick our five favorites," Sam proposed.

He thought for a minute and said, "If there's not one for a certain letter, like Q and X and Y, can I trade it for another name?"

"Sure."

"Okay. Deal."

By the end of the day, they both had their lists ready.

"This was hard," Sam admitted.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Maybe we should just try to come up with one name that works for a boy or a girl and let that be it."

"Well, that's a good idea in theory but we can't even agree on a final list yet, I don't think we'll ever agree on one name."

"Well, whichever ones we don't use we can save for the next babies!"

"Let's just focus on this one for now, please."

"Okay. Let's hear your list."

Sam unfolded the piece of paper that had been tucked into her pocket and said, "For boys I've got Cameron..."

"Wait. Cameron's a girl's name," Jack interrupted.

"No it's not."

"Cameron Diaz?" he prompted.

"It's both, Jack."

"People are going to think Diaz when they hear it," he argued.

"Not when they see that he's a boy. Can I finish?"

"Yes, dear."

"Thank you. So, I've got Cameron, Bailey, Patrick, Tristan, and Rory."

"Bailey and Rory are also girls' names."

"They are not, Jack!" Sam said defensively. Rory was her favorite name, she wasn't about to just let that one go.

"That girl on that show Cassie likes is named Rory," Jack argued.

"That's a nickname for something else, and since when do you watch the WB?"

"Only when Cassie makes me," Jack mumbled.

"Well, that's not where I got the name from. I can't stand that girl. It's a BOY'S name."

Jack sighed. "Sam, honey, look, three of those are also used as girls' names. Even if they started off as boy names originally, do you think other kids are going to know that? And Tristan's kind of... yech... look, you have a very girly name that happens to have a non-gender-specific nickname..."

"That my dad called me from the day I was born."

"Still. Everyone knows Sam is a nickname for Samantha and you STILL don't like it sometimes. It's a MUCH bigger deal for a boy to have a girly name than for a girl to have a boy's name."

Sam sighed, decided she didn't want to argue about it anymore at the moment, and said, "What about Patrick?"

"Well... can't get much more Irish than Patrick O'Neill. I dunno, it's not so bad. Are you ready to hear my boy names?"

"Knock yourself out."

"Okay. Alex..."

"Alex is a girls' name too."

"Hold all comments until the end, please. Now, as I was saying... Alex, Conor, Fisher, Jordan, and Logan."

"I like Conor and Logan. And I have Jordan down too."

"You didn't say Jordan."

"I put it for a girl."

"You like boys' names for girls and girl names for boys - and your own name is Sam and you say you hate it!"

"I don't HATE it... and every child has something they have to get used to with their name."

"Yeah, but... okay, then, there's the answer. We'll just call him or her Baby Carter O'Neill until he or she is old enough to name herself. Or himself."

Sam laughed and yawned. "And then the child will be in therapy until he or she is fifty. I'm tired of arguing about this right now."

"Yeah, me too. Let's do the girl names later."

"Okay. So which is your favorite? On your list?"

"I think Fisher is cool, because we've been here at the cabin for so long and everything."

"Hmm," Sam replied absently, tucking the paper back into her pocket so Jack wouldn't sneak a peek at it.

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"I have a question about names," Jack said as they got into bed one night.

"I'm too tired to fight about the names right now," Sam said, stretching and yawning as she spoke.

"It's not about that," he assured her.

"Oh." Sam toed her socks off after getting under the covers.

"I was thinking about when we get back to work," he explained, turning on his side to face her. "I still get to call you Carter at work, right?"

"Sure," she said with a shrug. She thought for a few seconds, her sleepy brain struggling to kick back into gear, and asked, "Why is that so important to you?"

"I just don't want to lose that part of us, ya know? Does that make any sense?"

She smiled slowly and could only think of one proper response to that. "Yes, sir."