A/N1: We have a very good title suggestion from StarrGazer: 'Under the Circumstances.' What do you think?
A/N2: So, Vid Z. You would move in with a guy you only know from work, a guy you know has serious issues, whom you know almost nothing about, who is moody, and in the same line of work as your most recent ex (who just went psychotic). And one who was recently divorced, with all that emotional baggage right on top of that. And everything would be just peaches and cream from there on out. Me, I'd wanna know at least a little bit about what the guy was like off-duty, myself, before commiting to anything that might be hard to get out of. I know that we know Jack's a good guy and the two are made for each other, but this is early first season. They don't know that, yet, and won't in canon for some time. If you didn't know what you do about the way the series will progress, would you say the same thing? If you accidentally got pregnant with some random guy, would you just blithely move in a week later? I wouldn't, but maybe that's just me.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming ...
Jack sat in the cafeteria, the remains of his pie at his elbow. As active as he was, given the need to stay in shape for offworld status, the extra calories weren't an issue, but he'd never been one to compulsively overeat. Having found that one slice of pie did little to distract him, he'd decided that a second piece would be pointless. Problem was, he had nothing to distract him from wondering what Sam was thinking about, what decisions she was making. Frasier hadn't gotten to him with Hammond's reaction, yet.
"That page must be really interesting, Jack. You've been looking at it for almost ten minutes."
Jack looked up from the report he'd been using as cover for his brooding. "Daniel," he said in mild surprise as his two teammates sat down across from him. "Teal'c. Wat'cha doing here?" That he hadn't heard Teal'c was par for the course; the other man could be damn quiet when he wanted to be. That he hadn't heard the geeky archaeologist whose idea of stealth was not talking too loudly meant he had to have been far deeper into his own thoughts than he normally allowed himself to go. Thar be Dragons, yonder.
"When you missed our session, O'Neill, I endeavored to find you," Teal'c intoned. "Daniel Jackson was assisting me."
"I needed a break, anyway. My translation was going nowhere."
Startled, Jack glanced at his watch. "Crap. I'm sorry, Teal'c, I completely forgot."
"Really? That's not like you, Jack." Daniel sipped at the coffee cradled in his hand. He winced, slightly. Jack sympathized; the cafeteria had the worst coffee on base, and Daniel could be something of a coffee connoisseur. "Is anything wrong?"
"No. Why?" Jack realized as it came out that it sounded defensive. Too late.
"Well, you're normally pretty punctual. I don't think you've ever missed a session with Teal'c," Daniel raised an eyebrow, to which the Jaffa responded with a small shake of his head. "You didn't even notice us when we came in and watched you for a good solid ten minutes, and you usually keep track of what's all going on in the area around you. You weren't even fidgeting, which I don't think I've ever seen except out in the field. Oh, yeah, and during that entire ten minutes you didn't turn the page on whatever report you've got even once. Given that you normally make me summarize my reports so you don't have to read the whole thing, I don't think you were paying much attention to it." Daniel finished his speech with a concerned look.
Jack cursed the fact that the younger man had seen him in the depths of his depression, on Abydos during the first mission. It was obvious he thought Jack might be sliding back into bad old habits, and wanted to help prevent that if possible. On the other hand, the geeky archaeologist had done good on that mission, and on all the missions they'd had since. Reliable and a good guy to have when things got rough, despite his sometimes annoying innocence. And Teal'c was … solid. They were going to have to know sooner or later, whatever Carter decided. "Let's go somewhere we can talk privately," Jack suggested.
Once in Daniel's office, Jack took a seat at the work-table and began fiddling with one of the artifacts there. Daniel closed the thick blast door as he so rarely did and took a seat across from Jack, while Teal'c remained standing.
A few moments passed. "So, Jack," Daniel broke the silence. "Want to tell us why we're here?"
Jack put the doohicky down and realized that he had no clue how he was going to tell them. "Carter's pregnant," he blurted out. Okay, that worked. A little blunt, maybe, but hey, he was nobody's idea of "Mr. Diplomacy." He looked up. Teal'c had a raised eyebrow (did he ever react any other way?), while Daniel was sitting back with a stunned look on his face.
"So, who's the father?" Daniel asked. He blinked a few times and turned a wide-eyed look at Jack. "It's you, isn't it? The virus of the touched."
"Yeah," Jack said quietly. He focused on a point about two feet to the right of Daniel and one above him.
"That's … I don't know if congratulations are in order or not," Daniel said. "Is she going to keep it? Where is she?"
"Don't know," Jack said. "She only found out this morning. She was in pretty bad shape. I sent her home to rest and think."
"I do not understand, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. "What do you mean by 'keep it'?"
"We have a medical procedure called abortion, which can terminate a pregnancy if the mother doesn't want it," Daniel explained. "The fetus—the unborn baby—is taken out and the mother can then get back to her normal life."
"You have an artificial womb, then, in which the "fetus" grows to maturity?"
Jack snorted. "No. It's killed as part of the 'procedure.'"
"And this is not counted as murder?"
"Not legally." Daniel sighed. "It has to do with what you consider "alive" and what you don't. Since the fetus can't survive on its own until it's almost ready to be born, many people don't consider it alive until that point. That's the position that the pro-choice advocates—those who support legal abortions—take. Then you have other people (we call them pro-life) who believe that life begins at the point of conception and that abortion is murder. Most people are somewhere in between those two extremes; some approve of the choice being available but wouldn't choose to do it themselves. I have no idea what Sam thinks, as it's never come up in conversation."
"And you have no say in this decision, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked. His frown had deepened throughout Daniel's explanation.
"It's her body. Her right to chose." Jack looked down at the table, then up to a spot over Teal'c's shoulder. "If we were married, or even really a couple, I'd have a bit more input, but … that's the whole point of the abortion advocates. It's the woman's right to chose because she's the person most affected by it."
"But the child is equally the father's responsibility, both in its creation and in the responsibility to protect it. Should not he then have a right to protect it from this 'abortion'?"
Daniel shook his head. "The law doesn't see it that way, Teal'c. Part of the reason the whole issue arose was because of the inequality between men and women in society. It's getting better, but there is still discrimination against women in a lot of areas, and there are also a lot of patriarchal currents in many relationships. Giving the choice to the woman is a way of counter-balancing that."
Jack snorted. "Yeah, that's what the feminists say. I heard once that more men are 'pro-choice' than women." Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "That way, they can screw around and not get stuck with the responsibility for whatever 'accidents' happen," Jack explained.
"But given the choice, you would not choose to kill this child?" Teal'c said.
"No. Not unless Sam was put in danger because of it."
"Well, abortion or not, what happens next?" Daniel asked, changing the subject.
"I don't know that, either," Jack admitted. "A lot will depend on the way Hammond decides to handle the whole situation. Frasier's talking with him now. I'm surprised they haven't paged me to join them yet, it's been a while."
What had she been thinking? She didn't know anything about babies! They cried, they stank, they broke things, they were annoying, and Sam had never even babysat as a kid. How the hell was she supposed to take care of one of her own? Going off on missions and leaving the kid at home with someone else? Yeah, right! There was something growing inside her, right now, taking her body and using it to survive and mature. The image of Teal'c's symbiote, seen briefly on the retreat to the gate on Chulak, flashed through her head and she blanched. Eew. All the pregnancy horror stories she'd ever heard danced through her head. Nine months of hell followed by even worse: labor. Aunt Marcia had mentioned once that Sam's mom had been in labor for almost nine hours with Mark. Nine! Sam was tough, but that sounded like a bit much to her. Maybe she should just get rid of it now. If she did that, she wouldn't even have to tell Dad. Now there was an attractive thought.
And the Colonel. Sure, he said he'd be "there for her," but what did he mean by that? It was a pretty vague statement! How many times had Jonas promised something like that, and then shrugged it off later? Had he ever kept one of those vaguely reassuring promises? Not that Sam could recall. Even if the colonel meant it now, would he be so attentive when she actually needed something? And a recently-divorced man whose only other child to date had shot himself, a smart-ass black ops officer who'd be constantly away on missions, whose file was so black she had no clue even where he'd been stationed prior to this project, didn't make the greatest case for a father. She barely knew the man! He was physically attractive, yes; she liked what she knew of him, yes; but she tended to go for the wierdos and the lunatic fringe, so the fact that she liked him and found him attractive wasn't the greatest character reference.
Why hadn't they called her yet? She'd had time to drive home and unpack and arrange virtually every box she'd had left, and still they hadn't called. She couldn't stop her mind from spinning in circles long enough to get into any of her books, and tv? Forget about it! What she really wanted to do was go for a jog to blow off some steam, but she'd forgotten her cell phone back on the base and she needed to be near a phone when the colonel called. What was taking them so long?
The phone rang, and she practically dove for it. "Carter." She sat down on a battered-but-comfortable old blue armchair, one of the few pieces of furniture she'd brought from DC. Sam didn't want to be standing for any big surprises. Not on this subject.
"Apparently Doc Frasier's been having a heart-to-heart with General Hammond for the last two hours." It was Colonel O'Neill—Jack—her CO, at least for the moment. That helped put things back in perspective. Even if her life was falling apart at the seams, she could always rely on military courtesy and regulations.
"Have they come to any decisions, sir?" she asked.
"Dunno. They've both clammed up. There's a briefing, tomorrow, with everyone in our … situation. 1100 hours."
"I'll be there."
"Yeah." There was an uncomfortable pause. "Sam? How're you doing? I mean, personally?"
Sam hesitated. "I'm fine, sir," she said neutrally.
After another awkward moment, he said good-bye and hung up.