Sam and Jack are enjoying their daily breakfast. Suddenly, Jack is staring over her shoulders.
"What?" Sam asks, glancing nervously over her shoulder.
"Sam, that bottle of buds that Janet gave us is half gone."
She blushes.
He smiles.
"I guess it was presumptuous," she whispers.
He shakes his head, "Sorry you've had to be so patient."
Her eyes meet his, "Past tense?" she asks hopefully.
He leans across the table, and starts kissing her. It's teasing, like all of the other kisses, but it's different too, there is a fierceness to it. His hand snakes around her neck, pulling her closer. His tongue parts her lips, and swaps between stroking and sucking at her tongue.
She moans at the action, and that causes him to increase his attack.
He stands up slowly, and she follows without any conscious effort, desperate to keep contact with him. In the same way, he edges her over to the kitchen wall. He pushes her against the wall, and pushes himself against her. Things are just starting to get quite exciting and fun when… Cassie starts to cry.
Sam makes a groan of disappointment.
"We'll continue this at nap time, Samantha. The kids have got to sleep sometime."
-0-0-0-
A few hours later, as promised, Cassie falls asleep. Jack is singing Charlie to sleep with a lullaby that the two of them learned from Sha're. Sam decides to take this chance to get ready for their first time. She lays her daughter down in the crib in the room she shares with her daughter, before changing into the sexiest piece of lingerie that she bought on that first shopping trip with Sha're.
It's finally happening.
She's excited… right? Why isn't she excited? She's wanted this for a long time, so why does the thought of having sex with her husband fill her with dread?
Normal brides are lucky. They don't have much time to anticipate what is going to happen to them. They don't have any time to develop fear.
-0-0-0-
She's standing in his bedroom, looking amazing. She's wearing a lacy black thing that makes her long legs look even longer, her hair look even ligher, her eyes look even more brilliant. It makes her look overall just even more amazing that she already did.
But those eyes are terrified. She's standing there, almost shaking. If it were nighttime, he might assume she was shaking from the cold; after all, she's not exactly wearing thermal underwear. But in the daytime, in the desert, that can't possibly be the cause.
"Samantha?" he asks, reaching out to touch her arm. The arm turns to goosebumps beneath his feather-light touch. But they aren't the good kind of goose bumps.
She smiles at him, and leans forward for a kiss.
He pulls away, shaking his head. "What's wrong, Sam?"
"Just… quickly, before I lose my nerve," she whispers, and he's horrified to discover tears glistening in her eyes.
"Quickly? You've got to be kidding me. Sam, we don't have to do this. This isn't something to endure."
"Jack, I've never exactly gotten the pre-marriage speech. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and I am terrified that I'm going to suck at it," she says, letting the tears spill over.
He touches her face softly, and that bring a smile to his face. "You're overthinking it. You're not going to suck at it. We're just going to do what feels good. What feels right. If one of us doesn't like it, we stop. You've liked the kissing, right?"
She nods her head.
"Ok, this is just that, but more," he says, leaning forward and taking possesion of her mouth. He's tentative at first, his confidence shaken by her fear. But she responds to the kiss. He lowers her onto bed softly, leaning over her. Then he pulls back for a second to examine her face.
There is no fear now. "I love you, wife," he whispers to her.
-0-0-0-
Jack holds Samantha tight to him in the glorious afterglow. Suddenly her hand slaps him hard across his bare chest.
"What in Ne'tu?" he asks, grabbing onto her wrist in an involuntary self-defense mode. He lets it go immediately. Her move may have smarted a little, but he knows that Sam would really never hurt him.
"I can't believe you didn't tell me," Sam says.
"What?" he asks, repositioning himself so he can see her face better?
"I told you I didn't know what to expect," she says.
He runs a hand across her back. Making her goose bump in a good way this time. "What part was a surprise?"
She leans forward and whispers in his ear. Even after all they shared, she is a little bit nervous about sharing this with him. "I didn't know it felt good for the woman."
He looks at her with concern, "You didn't think you were going to enjoy it?"
She shakes her head, "When women talk about it… it's like a chore. Like the laundry. That was no load of laundry."
He giggles, and she feels the motion reverberating against his chest. Then he gets serious. "Why did you want to do it so bad, if you didn't think you were going to enjoy it?"
"I thought that you would enjoy it."
"That's not enough reason," he says.
"You're my husband, Jack. I would do anything for you."
He leans forward and kisses her, "Ditto. So if our bedroom ever becomes the laundry room, you'll let me know so we can fix it, right?"
"I can't imagine that happening."
"But if it does?"
"Yeah, I'll give you a heads-up." She snuggles against him again. "I do have one more question."
"Humm?" he asks.
"How often do people do the laundry?"
"Whenever your clothes get dirty," he responds.
This time, the smack lands on his back. "Hey! Abuse is not love."
"How often are we going to… you know?" she whispers.
"As often as we want to."
Cassie starts to fuss in the next room.
"Correction; as often as the kids allow us to."
Sam giggles, "Good to hear. You're taking care of the baby, right?"
He groans.
"Loincloths are easier to put on than lingerie."
He giggles once more before getting up.
-0-0-0-
Sam grins as she opens the door to her new friend.
"Jack said you wanted me to come and discus some new invention you have up your sleeve?" Janet says.
Sam nods, though in truth this is only about half of her reason for inviting Janet over today. She really feels like the woman needs some friends, and is more than happy to fill the role for her.
"Right. I was thinking it would be really useful for you to identify which people have Goa'uld's in them, and which people don't. I don't know which myths about the resistance are true, and which ones are not. To be honest, up until a couple of months ago, I didn't know for sure the resistance even existed."
"We've had Goa'uld spies get into the resistance more than once. Not our unit, of course. If they had, we, wouldn't still be here," Janet says with a laugh.
"I was thinking about how Goa'uld are the only ones that can operate some of their technology. I figure there has got to be something different about their physiology. Then maybe I can figure out a way to detect it."
Janet smiles at her, "You're right, there is a metal in their blood. People with the metal can tell if other people have it or not. That's why we can't have our people pretend to be Goa'uld or Jaffa. They see right through us."
Sam grins, surprised that her hunch is working out so well. "Could you get me some of this metal?"
"Sure. I mean, the stuff is rare, but we can spare a little bit of it," Janet says.
"Are you ok? You look kind of sick," Sam says, examining Janet's face.
"I'm fine," Janet says, in the most unconvincing way.
"Have a chair, and I'll grab you something to drink," Sam says, walking out of the room.
Janet really thought she could hold it together, she didn't want anyone to know about this. But she ends up making a run for the bathroom, not long after Sam leaves the room.
"I'm sorry," Janet mutters when Sam comes to check on her a few seconds later.
"Hey, you're sick, that isn't anything to apologize for," Sam says.
"It's nothing," Janet says a bit too quickly.
"Maybe you should go see a doctor," Sam says, "I know that you're the only doctor in this unit, but I'm sure there is someone else you can go to. It's probably not related to the resistance, anyway, so you should be able to go to a regular doctor."
"I don't need a doctor," Janet says firmly.
"Ah… ok, so you know what's wrong?" Sam asks, concerned.
"I'm just pregnant," Janet says, not looking in her eye. She might not want anyone to make a big deal about this, but she also isn't going to let someone worry about her when she is perfectly fine.
"You are?" Sam asks excitedly. She knows that Janet wants a baby, and she can't figure out why her friend isn't over the moon right now.
"It happens sometimes. It never lasts long," Janet says quickly.
Sam feels like the floor has just fallen away beneath her feet. She can't imagine… losing not one baby, but baby after baby. How could you deal with grief like that?
She also knows that Janet is not nearly as so cavalier about the loss as she pretends to be. She'd probably like to be that callous, but she isn't.
"I'm sorry," Sam says, finding that these words are completely inadequate to express her true feelings.
"That's life," Janet says coolly.
"Can I ask? I mean, I know it's rude, but why?"
Janet sighs. There is a part of her that really doesn't want to tell Sam that. But a bigger part of her does. A bigger part of her has wanted to vent on a girlfriend for a really long time. Sam already knows that her husband is an ass, so Janet isn't taking any risks there.
"So, I was only fourteen when I got married," Janet admits.
"It's illegal to marry a girl younger than sixteen," Sam informs her.
"There are a lot of people who break that rule. My parents were desperate, because they were poor, and no-one really looked into their lie that much. My birth was officially recorded, but no one checked it when I was put up for sale."
"That's young," Sam says softly. She knows that she was a very different person five years ago. She can't imagine herself being ready for marriage then. She's barely ready for it now at nineteen. Janet is so confident and able that Sam can't imagine her as the scared teenager that she must have been at her wedding.
"Yeah, it was. And sex terrified me. So I got all… tight. And it left scars. So it's hard for me to get pregnant. But every couple of years, it happens. But I haven't carried a baby to full term since the first one. And that one was conceived before there was any scarring."
"I'm so sorry," Sam says. She's confused by the 'first one' and she debates for a long time before she decides that she has to ask. "What happened to the one who reached full term?"
Janet frowns, "Well, he actually didn't quite reach full term. He was early. I wasn't on the special diet I talked to you about starting if you're planning on having kids. And then I got an infection. Something that I know how to take care of now. Each of these things by themselves increases risk of miscarriage. Both of them together increases the risk even more. He was tiny when he was born, and he wasn't even breathing. Now… I know how to make a baby breath when they are born not breathing. And I know how to keep a premature baby warm so they live. I've saved babies younger than my son. They got to grow up, and he didn't. And I might have carried longer, had I known how to take care of myself," Janet has forgot that anyone else was even in the room. She's saying words that she's need to say aloud for a long time. "I just held his still body. So tiny. So perfectly formed. And he never got to live."
"Janet, I can't imagine what you went through… I'm… I can't imagine how sorry I am."
Janet feels like she needs to explain to Sam more about what she was went through. Sam was lucky enough to escape the horrors herself, but she should know something about what the rest of the womankind goes through.
"That first night, when I was married. I fought. I cried. I bled. I thought I was going to die. And then I wished I would die."
Sam stares at her in horror. How did she not know about this?
"And it's sucked ever since. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the first time. And if I could ever just relax, maybe it wouldn't hurt, but… It's hard to relax, because I know it's going to hurt."
"Janet, that is not your fault."
"Well, it's not like husbands ask permission to have sex. Women just have to deal with it."
"The good ones ask permission," Sam says softly.
"Yeah, well, then the good ones are more a myth than the resistance," Janet says bitterly. She doesn't want to be jealous of someone who is luckier in marriage than herself, but she can't help it.
"Janet, maybe I can help you find a good one."
"Sam, that's not going to work. I have a baby now. My husband would never sell me while I'm pregnant. And after the baby is born it's his, forever. If I get sold again…"
Sam nods her head, but it doesn't escape her notice that Janet seems to be planning for the baby that she didn't think was going to exist a while ago.