A/N: I guess I'm making this a weekly posting thing. I actually had most of this chap written a week ago… it was just finding the time to doing the rest!

A word of warning: although I have a science degree and some experience with the chemistry I talk about, I don't have internet at home and so basically made a lot of this explanation up. I know it's wrong, but my main concern was to make it sound credible! Just remember it's all make-believe, ok kids?

Chapter 10 – Information overload

Jack's mind reeled as Sam's words slowly filtered through his thick skull and made their way into his mind. His mouth opened and shut like a puffer fish as he tried to absorb the information, not even sure what to think. He stepped away from Sam slowly, and he looked at her from his new distance a couple of feet away trying to formulate a word, let alone a sentence.

"You… you're.."

"Pregnant." Sam said more firmly this time, beginning to get used to the feel of the previously foreign word. Her mouth tugged into a tentative smile as she tried to read Jack's expression. She knew him well, but this expression she didn't think she'd seen before – she didn't know what to make of it.

"H-? Wh-? … Who's the father?" Jack suddenly blurted out, lips moving before his mind knew what was going on.

Sam was so shocked by this response she burst out laughing. "You are, you idiot! Who d'you think?"

Jack was still having trouble internalising the information but his face suddenly cleared into a brilliant grin. He stepped back towards Sam, his arms out wide as he pulled her into the most enormous bear hug, almost smothering her within his embrace.

"You're pregnant!" he beamed at her with a cracking voice.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Colonel Jack O'Neill has returned to the building." Daniel's note of dry humour broke the silence in the room and both Colonels looked to him suddenly, shocked to remember that he was still there.

"Uh Daniel?" Jack said quietly. "Not that we don't like seeing you or anything…"

"It's ok." Daniel held his hand up to interrupt his friend. "I've got to be somewhere anyway. Congratulations – to both of you."

As soon as he had disappeared, Jack looked back to Sam – in wonder this time. "You… and me… we're… … baby!" He finally managed to say the last word, spitting it out with a delighted yelp.

Sam giggled slightly at how this piece of news had completely destabilised the usually impenetrable Air Force Colonel – or at least robbed him of the power of coherent speech. "So this is good news?" She held back from him for a moment, searching for any relics of his painful past. The reason she'd ignored the clues provided to her had largely been out of fear for his reaction; if he didn't want kids… after Charlie.

Jack didn't respond, but instead fused his mouth urgently to hers for a quick but passionate kiss. This moment had changed his entire outlook. He had no idea why Sam's pregnancy would change their situation – or why it suddenly meant they should activate the auto-destruct – but he knew from Sam and Stacey's determination that there was something to explore. Even without this factor, though, Jack's priorities suddenly changed. There was nothing now – no Goa'uld, no rogue NID agent, no sodding cloud of Gas – that would ruin his planet, his life. He'd been given a second chance – with the woman he loved more than he could ever express – and he wasn't going to let anything compromise that.

"We should get back to the lab." Sam said, reluctantly pulling away from Jack. "We're still going to have to move fast if we're going to use this against the Gas somehow."

"Yeah." Jack said quietly, moving towards the hand, clasping Sam's hand as he did so – protectively leading the way. "I assume you and Hindmarsh've got some brilliant plan a-cooking."

"Well," Sam said cheekily just before they both fell silent to steal through the corridors again, "we are brilliant…"

"That you are." Jack murmured under his breath before instantly retransforming into soldier mode. The worst thing now would be if they were apprehended when suddenly a light seemed to have appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Stacey could barely contain the mix of excitement and anguish she felt while waiting for Jack and Sam to get back to the lab. She didn't dare try to contact them by radio for fear of alerting some possessed members of the SGC to their position, but every moment that passed was pure torture.

She strained her ears listening, each time preparing her weapon to fight if necessary. The fact that they could access other levels using the emergency shaft of course meant that undesirables could potentially access their level. According to Sam's instructions, Stacey had remotely closed blast doors near that particular shaft on all levels other than the two they required – but there was no telling that she'd closed those doors with everyone on the outside of them. Besides, the fact that they were now closed should have alerted the Gas as to how the final humans in control of their bodies were moving about the base.

These concerns managed to drain her excitement about Sam's pregnancy until she'd almost forgotten about the good news. Noises of movement in the corridor prompted her to take up position behind the inward-opening door, between the entrance and Teal'c's still, unconscious form.

Her relief to see the two breathless Colonels moving quickly into the room, their weapons also drawn as a precaution, was just as profound as their joy to see her. Sam's face instantly transformed from the picture of intense concentration to one of elation as she gladly opened her arms to Stacey who moved towards her to give her a congratulatory hug.

"Is it really true? Can I see the test?" Sam was speaking quickly and had already moved towards the bench where Stacey had been working. She was completely ignoring Jack, who had moved to check on Teal'c and kept looking to the two women a bit impatiently, conscious that time was passing.

"Here it is." Stacey's hand reached passed the complicated-looking array of test tubes of varied concoctions to the more benign white plastic stick. A stick that had a tell-tale blue line across the middle striking a stark contrast with the rest of its colour.

"Don't you have to pee on those things?" Jack commented from the corner, trying his best to stay involved in the conversation with the two excited women.

"The basic concept's the same." Stacey said matter-of-factly. "I just had to dilute and treat the blood sample to avoid a false-positive – that way there's no chance the hCG levels could be distorted by…"

"A-ah! I'm sorry I asked!" Jack slammed his palms over his ears like a little kid.

Stacey looked from Jack back to Sam, rolling her eyes as she looked to the latter. "He really doesn't change does he?"

"Oh I don't know…" Sam said with a faint smile. "You should have seen him when he heard the news – gives the word 'flabbergasted' a whole new meaning."

"Um, hello? The hands over the ears thing was all for effect – I can actually still hear you!" Jack protested with mock hurt, before pushing himself off the wall he'd been leaning on and moving slowly towards them, a renewed sense of resignation about his aura. "Not that I wanna ruin the moment, but would one of you two geniuses mind telling me how we're going to kick this Gas' ass?" He paused, scrunching his eyes up with apparent deep reflection. "Does it even have an ass?"

"I've got an idea there," Stacey started, her regard focussed on Sam, "but I'm just a bit worried – are we really sure that the naquada in your blood isn't what's pushed the Gas out of your system?"

Jack's face looked like a shadow had moved quickly over it, the hopeful gleam in his eye had disappeared as he waited, looking to Sam anxiously.

"Well, of course we won't know for sure until we do something…" Sam began, nodding in assent to Stacey's point. "But there was something in the research I did on the Gas." She looked at Jack, seeing his face relax as he realised what she was talking about. "Apparently the breeding of hosts was completely forbidden."

"That and Daniel said it was important." Jack piped up, his eyebrows raised helpfully. "He may be annoying, but he's been more know-all… ish… of late."

"You saw Daniel again?" Stacey asked, surprised. "I thought this whole ascended thing meant he couldn't interfere?"

"Act as his CO for 5 years and see how far you get trying to make him obey orders." Jack grumbled quietly with a wry grin. "That Oma didn't know what she was in for."

"Right, well the short story is that this is our best lead yet." Sam tried to retake control of the situation. "It's not going to be easy to synthesise a large amount of hormones quickly but it's the only chance we've got."

"So you think it's the hormone levels?" Stacey asked, still unsure. "I was kinda thinking of the amniotic fluid – my cousin said something about being a powerful boost to the immune system… to protect the foetus?"

Sam nodded quietly as a small wave of dizziness threatened to overtake her again. Jack was by her side in an instant, supporting her so she could lean on him as she spoke. "In all truth, I can't have been pregnant long – I don't think there'd be a lot of amniotic fluid yet." She grinned slightly as she remembered again that she was actually pregnant. The jolt of excitement perked her up and managed to dissipate the dizziness and nausea. She stood up on her own again, lightly patting Jack's arm in thanks. "Besides, if it was an issue of immune-system boosting, then the naquada in my blood should have taken care of the Gas, or at least delayed the onset of the symptoms."

Stacey nodded quietly, suddenly realising the potential difficulty of their task. She didn't say anything, but just looked at Sam, her eyes showing the uncertainty and fear she felt. She had been literally thrown into the deep end upon meeting SG1 in Australia about 6 months beforehand. Although she would never have thought it possible to find herself in a more dangerous situation, at that exact moment she felt as if she were at the bottom of the deepest chasm in the deepest ocean.

"Ok Carter." Jack broke the silence, reverting to calling Sam by her surname due to the familiarity of being in mortal danger with the weight of the world on their shoulders. "What's the plan – and don't go telling me you haven't got one," he scolded her, wagging his finger ahead of time. "No matter how much you think it's not going to work – I know it will."

"The tall female, Colonel Carter," the Gas through Janet was saying to the man appeared to be General Hammond, "she is the one to have betrayed the iron-clad rule against procreation."

"And the others?" The hissing quality in the General's voice added to the coldness of the tone; both clues to the fact that it was not in fact the man who spoke.

"They are not the same." Janet said simply. "Their genetic structure is… different." Part of the colony inside her had wanted to say 'advanced', but could not bring itself to do so. It was hard enough to hide the sentiment from the entire swarm – it was only one of the feelings her colony was pained to hide from them. Such individuality could prove fatal; the moment would have to be right.

"Irrelevant!" The General hissed, anger crossing his features. "They will not last long enough to realise their difference." He stood up and started pacing behind the desk. "Above all, the resistants must not realise the significance of Colonel Carter's pregnancy."

"Although it's unlikely that will occur," the colony in Janet was scheming against him as it spoke to the general, "they are capable and were performing medical tests before the complete infiltration of other hosts on the base."

"Then we need to get through the barricades to them." General Hammond wheezed. "There were reports of isolation doors activating near the escape shafts on certain levels. Their movements are not discreet and they've provided us with a way to find them." His eyes gleamed through the watery hue. "They will not have the time to do anything before we have neutralised them for good."

As he sat back down in the chair to read absorb some more information about their new world, the buzzing message went out to the rest of the colony. Personnel began streaming in an organised fashion towards the promise of complete victory.

Sam was perched on a stool next to Stacey, trying to decide what exactly to do with the rest of blood sample they'd taken. Despite all her general knowledge, that didn't actually extend to the techniques required to do everything Janet always managed so effortlessly.

"Well, I think we could propagate a hormone using a cell culture," Stacey was saying, scrunching her face up as she tried to remember all that Janet had told her. "But we'd need the bacterial vectors and, oh no it's mammalian cell cultures we'd need…" she sifted through the recently gained knowledge in her head, hoping she had the terminology right. Janet had showed her examples of what she was talking about but it was going to be difficult to know if she was doing the right thing. "But above all," here Stacey looked around to Jack apologetically before appealing to Sam for help. "I don't know what exactly we need to make – we need to know which hormone."

Sam thought about this for a second. Her mind had been trying to make a connection but she couldn't force it – she was so tired and drawn out with everything that had happened. With what Stacey had said, however, something had begun moving towards clicking.

"Hang on," her face lit up as it all suddenly made sense. "We know which hormone it is."

"Of course we do!" Jack exclaimed from his position on the other side of the room, leaning against the gurney holding the still unconscious Teal'c. The two women looked around to him, curiosity adorning Stacey face and a look of amused expectation characterising Sam. "Just contributing to the brainstorm…" he said meekly, shutting his mouth to let Sam continue.

"Well, you're right – we do know." Sam said with a giggle, before turning back to Stacey with an explanation. "The pregnancy test you used," She said, as if that explained everything. "Pregnancy tests look for a particular hormone – human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG. The levels are elevated by at least 200; it's one of the most immediate and enduring physiological signs!"

"But I thought that hCG was always present…" Stacey was sceptical. "its level just rose in pregnancy."

"That's true," Sam nodded. "hCG is actually a combination of two hormones – lutenising hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone, or LH and FSH. In both men and women, they exist independently, with a small proportion forming the hCG complex; but in pregnant women the proportion forming the complex rises to almost a hundred percent…"

"Carter," Jack's voice wasn't impatient or angry, but instead had the tone of defeat. "You know I don't understand the first thing of what you just said – just tell me you know what to do to try and kill the Gas!"

"Well, we know what we need to do…" Stacey said quickly, "the only problem is, I don't know if we can do it here…"

"You're forgetting we're in the biotech lab." Sam said, moving towards the edge of the space where a line of fridges were built into the wall. "Biotechnology means anything based on biological systems – such as those mammalian cells you were talking about."

"But do we have enough time?" Stacey wasn't ready to accept that luck might have fallen their way like this. "It can take weeks to engineer hormones, they're so complicated."

"Oh I'm sure Carter's got an answer for that." Jack's eyes were squarely on Sam's back as she worked busily, retrieving things from the various cabinets and fridges a couple of feet away.

"We should have…" Sam was talking to herself as she leant all the way into a particularly large cupboard, looking through the plethora of medico-chemical compounds. "A-HA!" She exclaimed suddenly, pulling back from the cupboard and turning around to beam at the other two, a couple of vials held triumphantly in her hands.

"See?" Jack said to Stacey.

"We actually have some hCG in the lab?" Stacey asked with amazement.

"Not exactly." Sam said, studying the vials she had brought out of the cupboard. "But we've got LH and FSH… if we can culture them correctly they should form hCG and then we can propagate that."

"And then what?" something suddenly occurred to Jack and he stood up, raising his hand into the air to point out how they were somewhat trapped. "How are we going to get it out to everyone infected?" He paused as something else – something that to his mind was a LOT more worrisome – occurred to him. "What's going to happen to the men!"

Sam froze for a moment and looked to Jack in confusion. She had an small idea about diffusion of the hormone, but his comment about men confused her. Realising what he was getting at, she suddenly started laughing.

"It's not funny!" Jack whined. "You're talking about subjecting the men of this base with a whole lotta girl hormones."

"Jack, men have these hormones as well – just in lower levels." Sam explained to him. "hCG is even sometimes for men to boost their fertility cos it's a gonadotropin… it stimulates the spermatazoa."

"So it won't do anything to their…"

"No." Sam said firmly. "Apart from the small possibility some initial, unimportant, side-effects, they'll still be as manly as before."

"What side effects?" Jack looked at Sam sideways, wary of the way she'd phrased it.

Sam didn't answer immediately, but looked to Stacey with an impish grin on her face to see if the Aussie knew what she was talking about. By the look of the huge grin on Stacey's face, it appeared that both women were in on the secret. Jack looked from one to the other, getting decidedly worried by their silence and apparent secret joke.

"Well?" He demanded.

"Let's just say sir," Stacey said with a waver in her voice as she tried not to laugh. "There's a small possibility some of the airman might need to invest in some, ah, lingerie."

"WHAT?" Jack said, his mouth wide open, now also fighting the urge to laugh in the full knowledge that he thankfully wouldn't be required to take the treatment.

"You said it yourself." Sam's eyes twinkled as she looked at Jack. "it's essentially a female hormone, although it naturally exists in small levels in men as well. Injecting a large dose could possibly induce some temporary, uh, reinforcement of the breast tissue – even in men."

"I've so got to make sure we've got a camera when we do this." Jack said to himself, grinning from ear to ear.

Just as Sam was going to admonish him and remind him that he'd hardly appreciate it if people document how he looked should he ever happen to develop breasts, a rasping cough alerted them to the fact that Teal'c was again conscious.

Instantly Jack was by his side and Sam and Stacey were only a step behind him.

"Hey T." Jack said quietly. "You just gotta hang in there – the dynamic duo here have got a plan… we'll have that gas outta there in no time."

"Not… fast… enough." Teal'c managed to say through his laboured breathing.

Outside the lab, in the corridor, Jack, Sam and Stacey heard some ominous noises that confirmed what Teal'c had just said. It seemed the Gas had decided to be proactive and was trying with renewed force to get through to them.

"Janet." Teal'c said weakly. "Janet."

"She's gone, T," Jack said sadly, motioning for Stacey to get started with the hormones and for Sam to retrieve their weapons so they could try to hold off the attack.

"No… O'Neill." Teal'c expended almost all his force to shake his head. "Janet will help – she is not like the others… she has a weakness… her colony aspires to individuality."

With that Teal'c succumbed to the inky clouds of sleep that had seemed to be whirling around his brain, but Jack understood what he'd said and was fast forming a plan in his head.

"Ok." He took the weapon Sam was holding out to him as they approached the door. "We've gotta get to Janet before the rest of these wannabe Borg bust in on us."

To be continued…

A/N: I forgot to thank everyone for their wonderful reviews at the top. They really make my day when I'm at work and I check my email!

I really struggled with the last scene of this chap. It just didn't want to be written, so I hope it turned out ok.

Please review and give me your two cents-worth, we're up for some action in the next chap I think… Just remember that I've already admitted my science is dodgy…