She didn't' know how much longer the impasse would have lasted if Janet hadn't stirred to life, smoothed her skirt and said, "We just about finished the consultation we were having about possible medical implications of some recently discovered artifacts."
Daniel chimed in then. "It's really quite interesting Sam. I can show you what we're talking about if you're interested."
Sam thought, "I wonder what you'd come up with to show me if I actually accepted THAT offer."
Janet eased past her through the door on the heels of Daniel's words and said, "I really need to get back to the infirmary. We'll have to do lunch soon, Sam. See you tonight, Danny."
"Talk about blatantly marking territory," Sam fumed. "She'll see 'Danny' tonight, will she? We'll see about that."
"Do you have a moment, Daniel?" Sam inquired as if absolutely nothing had happened.
"Of course, of course," he said, clutching at his hair. "Come on in. I imagine you'd like to get off your feet." Daniel's solicitude over her condition seemed erratic to Sam. His natural kind caring nature seemed to be at odds with some powerful anger he had been holding on to tightly ever since she's turned his proposal down.
Sam settled herself and held the pamphlet out to Daniel. "What's this?" he asked, turning it over.
"It's a pamphlet about childbirth classes. I need to start them," she explained. "I got some misinformation and just now found out that I really need to go to the first class tonight."
Daniel looked at her blankly. He didn't say anything but he clearly was thinking, "You're telling me this because…."
"Daniel, Jack absolutely doesn't want to do this. He had a bad experience as Sara's labor coach. I had initially planned on asking you both to coach. You're both the dad here and being at your child's birth is wonderful, people tell me. It was a luxury to have two coaches but it's a requirement to have at least one. If you turn me down, I'm out of luck. I'm counting on you. Your child is counting on you."
Daniel mumbled something unintelligible and started a couple of sentences only to have them die aborning. While he was still groping for an answer, Sam felt a baby move. "Oh, Daniel, one of them is kicking me. Here feel it." She grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach. She was focused inward, communing with her children. "I think it's Danny that's kicking, not Jackie." She nodded in confirmation. "One of the babies as a real aggressive kicker but the other one has this really interesting rhythm going. Somehow I think the first one is Jackie and the other is Danny." She looked up at him, "What do you think?"
Daniel was still working away at his response. She looked at him, innocently, her beautiful blues wide and fixed on his face. Finally he said, "You're naming him Danny?"
"Of course. You object?" she said, still holding his hand against her stomach.
"No, not at all. I've told you, Sam, that I want to be his father, be part of his life," Daniel said.
"Then you'll be there tonight, right?" She released his hand and started toward the door. "The time and place are on the back of the pamphlet." With that she exited as quickly as she could given that she now moved with an element of a waddle thrown in. No need to give Daniel a chance to back out.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Daniel watched her go, holding his hand out in front of him as if it had been slammed in a door or otherwise needed special attention. It was still warm from her stomach and tingled for reasons that were more emotional than physical. That had been a real flutter against his hand. There was a real child inside her. He cradled the hand in his other arm. For just a moment, he imagined himself lying next to Sam, able to look at her pregnant body because it was his. He imagined her breasts, heavy because of his child. He stopped the daydreaming when he remembered it wasn't just his child. It was his child and Jack's, he reminded himself and there lay the problem.
He thought about how she had suddenly started seeking him out in the past two or three weeks. She had questions about his family history as to genetically related disease. She wanted to talk about what sort of visitation schedule he envisioned. She asked his opinion about godparents. Did he mind if she asked her brother Mark? Did he have anyone in mind? She stood very close to him when she talked to him and she smelled so good. He didn't remember her wearing any kind of scent in the past, just getting by on the clean smell of soap and shampoo, but he really thought she had started wearing something a little musky. He and Jack talked a lot and he knew how serious things were with Jack and Sara. Had Sam decided that there was no hope with Jack and was now going after him in some sort of desperation move to raise her children in a two parent family? He picked up the phone to ask Jack's opinion but then decided he would go talk to him in person.
As he walked toward Jack's office, he recalled the godparents question again which started him on another train of thought. Godparents! Her dogtags said Catholic but he had always thought it began and ended there. She was planning on having the child christened and he couldn't remember her ever going to church, at least not before their period of captivity. He really had little or no idea what she'd been doing lately. Daniel himself had a vague appreciation for something spiritual out there but what he visualized was more like the force. If she was becoming a devout Catholic, he wasn't sure how he felt about her raising their child that way. On the other hand, he didn't see how he could object if it was really important to her and he, in contrast, really didn't have any strong feelings about it. It just pointed out how much there was to work out and how foolish he was for not starting to do so sooner.
Jack was in his office and seized delightedly on Daniel's arrival to shove his paperwork aside. "Take a load off," he said, directing Daniel to his visitor chair. Daniel, of course, needed no direction since he sat in it on a daily basis.
Daniel said, "I've got to warn you, Jack. I'm here to discuss feelings."
Jack made a show of looking at his watch. "You got five minutes."
Daniel objected. "Five minutes? I thought I got ten minutes a day." He was only half joking. Jack didn't really run the clock on him but Daniel tried to be sensitive to the fact that, even with him, Jack had a low tolerance for touchy feely discussions.
"You went over yesterday, Danny boy," Jack explained. "All that stuff about how sweet Janet is and how you feel like the king of the world after you spend an evening with her, Yada yada yada."
"She's so adorable," Daniel said, getting a dreamy expression on his face.
"Daniel you're going to waste all your feeling discussion time on yesterday's topic," Jack warned.
"Yeah. Right. Well here it is. Sam is all of a sudden around like ALL the time. Everyday she's at my office with something about the baby. You haven't said anything to indicate she's been doing that with you."
"We do have a lot of conversations about it," Jack said, surprising Daniel, "but the thing is, she spends so much time with Sara, that a lot of it gets discussed between Sara and Sam and then Sara and me."
"Sara and Sam? How did I not know this?" Daniel wondered aloud.
"Well, for one thing, a lot of our conversations lately have been monopolized with the whole Janet topic. And you made it pretty clear to me a while ago that you really didn't want to talk about Sam so I've been easing back on it," was Jack's reply. "Daniel, Sara's going to be Jackie's stepmother. We all know it even though I haven't officially asked her." Daniel nodded, smiling broadly. He was delighted for Jack that it was working out. "Anyway, her involvement with Sam has helped her to go from feeling like the baby is competition to feeling like she's part of it, like the baby is a little bit hers. Maybe you need to try to get something like that going with Janet and Sam."
"There you go again, Jack," he admonished his friend. "I haven't asked Janet to marry me. We haven't even discussed it. And there's some bad blood there all of a sudden between Sam and Janet. They used to be such good friends but my dating Janet seems to have created a rift I don't really understand."
"Daniel, good grief, did you just fall off a turnip truck? They both want you. This is not a recipe for girls' night out together." Jack snorted in disbelief at his friends' obliviousness.
"Jack, surely not. I mean, Sam turned down my marriage proposal."
"Daniel, that was then, this is now," Jack said. "So to get back to your initial point: Sam is around a lot and…"
"Well, you said she wants me. I'm beginning to think she is going after me but I am afraid of why," Daniel said leaning back and scrubbing his face with his hands.
"Now Daniel. Life as a sex toy is difficult but you can learn to live with it," Jack joked, looking at Daniel with half closed eyes and trying to figure out what it was that Daniel thought was the why.
"You need new material, Jack," Daniel said, having had that particular piece of teasing before. Jack was always telling him that half the women on the base wanted to jump him but Daniel thought it was a base somewhere in Jack's mind. He certainly hadn't seen any evidence of it. Well there was that woman who worked in the cafeteria who had dropped mashed potatoes in his lap. Not really a memory he wanted to focus on.
"So, what's the 'why' you're so afraid of?" Jack prodded.
"She has to be aware of how serious it's gotten with you and Sara. There's no way to continue to harbor hopes that you'll marry her. Now that she's further along with the pregnancy, the reality of being a single mom is bearing down on her more heavily. She's totally desperate and I'm her only option." Daniel finished his dismal scenario and sat, glumly studying his hands.
"Danny, Danny, Danny," Jack said, and then continued, "Danny, Danny, Danny. I guess being so hideous and stupid has just caused you to have incredibly low self-esteem."
"Cut it out, Jack. I came down here for help not a comedy act," Daniel said, not the least bit angry but knowing he had to move Jack past the almost obligatory smart aleck response to get what he needed from him.
"It's hard to stay serious when your question is so crazy. Sam is a very strong woman and I do not think there is any way she would be so desperate in the face of single motherhood, something that a huge percentage of mothers in this country face successfully every day, that she would marry someone she didn't want." Jack leaned forward and looked intently at Daniel. "Personally, my friend, I don't think you WANT her to want you at this point. It really complicates your life. You're all lovey dovey with the doc and able to put your feelings for Sam aside because she rejected you. Now she's making you sit up and take notice that you've managed to let yourself be in love with two women." Daniel was sputtering, trying to voice a coherent protest. "Oooh yes. You know I'm right," Jack said, a little smugly.
Daniel stood up abruptly and started pacing. "God help me then. I hate the way you do that being right thing although you are occasionally wrong, you know." He wheeled and looked at Jack. "How can I make a choice like this?"
"Does the Muslim faith look appealing or maybe you should talk to some of those renegade Mormons that are still practicing polygamy," Jack said and then sobered up. "I'm sorry, Daniel. It's pretty impossible for you. Particularly since you're a nice guy and you don't want to hurt anyone. I'm biased in favor of Sam. I was half in love with her myself for a long time. And, if you want my opinion, there is no way you could have enough history with Janet yet to have built the same depth of feeling. I hate to say it, my friend, but you are terrified of the power Sam has to hurt you." Jack relaxed back in his chair then. "Here's where I'm supposed to say, but this is your decision. And it is. But personally I think you're a fool if you choose Janet."
Daniel collapsed back into the chair and gave Jack a dirty look, "Why don't you tell me how you really feel, Jack?"
"Daniel, I do the sarcasm. Stick to the sympathetic nice guy you do so well and stay out of my territory," Jack said.
Daniel looked upward. "Now, Oma. Now would be a really good time to take me again."