"Sam?"
The voice echoed in her subconscious mind as she groaned inwardly at the pain in her stomach. Cramping...she hadn't cramped this badly since college.
"Sam, are you okay?"
Her husband's voice slowly woke her from her sleepy haze.
"Hm?" She asked, finally managing to open her eyes to find Jack's worried brown eyes staring into her own.
"You've been groaning and moving a lot. You okay?"
"Fine." She said as another cramp overcame her.
She grimaced as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to find some way to alleviate the pain.
"Sam?" He prodded again.
Suddenly, her eyes widened in fear as she remembered her pregnancy. She wasn't supposed to be cramping.
"Jack..." She whispered, looking over at him worriedly.
"What?" He asked, noticing the panic in her eyes.
With a trembling hand, she removed the sheets to find a rapidly spreading red stain. She clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out and waking Grace.
"I'm calling a sitter and an ambulance." Jack said, jumping out of bed instantly as he reached for his cell phone.
Sam felt tears well up in her eyes as she stared at the blood in horror. "No," she murmured. "No...no, no, no, no, no..."
-
"I couldn't think of anyone but Lt. Johnson - my assistant..." Jack murmured as he returned to the master bedroom.
Sam nodded, numbly. She could feel her body going into shock. This couldn't be happening. Not to her. Not to Jack.
Her skin felt cold and clammy, and her thoughts were moving more slowly than molasses.
"Ambulance will be here any minute. Can you walk?"
She managed to slip out of bed. Her legs began to buckle beneath her, and she felt the blood rush from her face. She turned an eye to Jack as if she was going to say something, but she didn't get the chance before her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed.
With a bolt of adrenaline, Jack managed to catch her before she could injure her head as well.
He looked up from her face in an effort to determine how much blood she had lost. He felt somewhat faint, himself, when he saw the blood on the sheets. It was a miracle that she was still alive by his experienced estimation. If he hadn't woken her when he had...
He refused to finish that thought.
"Sam," he murmured, gently tapping her face. "Sam, honey, wake up..."
There was no response from his unconscious wife.
"Don't do this to us," he prayed, feeling for a pulse as he bent his ear to feel and hear her breathing. Her pulse was weak, but still there. And she was breathing intermittently.
There was a knock at the door, and he struggled to get Sam back onto the bed before he could go and answer the door.
As he was just laying Sam down, he heard the door open. "General, sir? Are you here?"
Jack turned to meet Marcie as he heard a smaller, more timid voice.
"Daddy?"
Grace was such a light sleeper that she must have heard the whole commotion, he thought to himself as he looked down and realized that he was covered in his wife's blood.
"Be out in a minute." Jack called, quickly mopping up the blood as well as he could before he opened the door. He heard the sirens of the ambulance come closer. He looked over at Sam who still lay in bed, unconscious. That didn't bode well, he thought for a moment as the paramedics knocked on the town home door.
"I'll get it," Marcie announced, taking in the sight of her commanding officer, dressed in his pajamas which were already stained with his wife's blood.
Grace stood outside the door with wide eyes, and he tried to hide both Sam and the bloody parts of his clothing from her view. "Honey, I need you to go back to bed, okay?"
"What's wrong?" She asked, astutely.
"Mommy's sick. She'll be fine, but we need to take her to the hospital."
"I want to take Mommy to the hospital too." She said, her eyes on fire with determination.
"No, sweetheart." He said, bending down and picking her up. He took her down the hall to her bed. "But we'll get her all better, and you can see tomorrow, okay?"
Grace's lower lip trembled as Marcie walked into the room. "I sent them down the hall to your room, sir." She said, soberly.
"Can you take over here?" Jack asked, looking over at her.
She nodded, and he left the room quickly.
"What happened?" One of the paramedics asked as he entered the room.
"Bedroom. She's pregnant. She must have started cramping somewhere during the night." He explained. "She awoke a few minutes ago to find that she was bleeding. I called 9-1-1 and a sitter. When I came back, she fainted from the loss of blood." He felt himself going into shock. On the battlefield, he could handle this sort of thing with precision. At home...
"I...I can't wake her up..." He whispered, numbly.
"We'll get her taken care of, sir." The paramedic assured as he returned to taking care of Sam.
Jack watched helplessly as they cared for his wife.
He didn't know what he would do if Sam lost the baby or if she died alongside it.
He certainly wouldn't let himself go to the same place he'd gone with Charlie. He'd never lose Sam like he'd let himself lose Sara.
-
Jack paced in the waiting room of the ER. They'd taken Sam straight from the ambulance to the OR, having deduced in the ambulance that the pregnancy had already been naturally aborted, and that Sam's hemorrhaging was the next priority.
His cell phone rang, and he looked at it absently. The caller ID read Daniel Jackson.
He pressed the "send" button as he pressed the small device to his ear. "Hi, Daniel."
"Jack, what's going on? I tried to call Sam on her cell and at home...there was a bit of an emergency on base, and I wondered if she had any idea how to handle it, but all I got was a...Lieutenant Johnson saying that she was in the hospital."
"She woke up cramping and bleeding." He said, knowing that the archaeologist would know how hard it was for him to talk about saving the planet right now as he swallowed down hot tears. "The baby's gone. They're just trying to save Sam now..."
"What can I do to help?" Daniel asked after a moment of shocked silence.
"At this point?" He asked, wearily. "Just pray."
-
Several hours later, Jack sat in one of the chairs with his elbows resting on his knees as he covered his face with his hands. The last time he'd really prayed was when they'd brought Charlie to the hospital.
He'd held on for a few days in the ICU before he'd finally passed away.
"I'm trusting you," he murmured to the heavens. "Even when everything inside me says I shouldn't. Don't let me down."
The sound of footsteps on the tile caused Jack to look up.
"Mr. O'Neill?"
"That's me." Jack said, standing as he realized that the doctor was there to see him.
"We've managed to stabilize your wife." He said, soberly.
Jack studied the thirty-some-odd-year-old man. He looked worn and tired. Like it had been a fight.
"What happened?" Jack asked, pressing his hands together so that his forefingers touched his nose and lips as they pointed to the heavens. The other fingers were interlocked and his thumbs rested on the underside of his jaw.
"Well, we're still running some tests to find out, but from what we can tell, there was some scar tissue in the uterus which had been neglected from some previous injury. It may have caused some problems in the placenta which resulted in malnourishment of the fetus which may have caused it to spontaneously abort, but regardless, as the placenta was being released from her body, it tore, causing her to hemorrhage." He sighed. "We went in and removed the scar tissue and what remained of the placenta. She should be fine."
Jack removed his hands from his face with a sigh of relief. "When can I see her?"
"Not for a while yet." The doctor admitted. "We want to keep a close eye on her for a little while in case we missed something. That way, we can wheel her in quickly."
He nodded soberly.
"I'll have someone come and get you when you can see her."
"Thanks." He said, tiredly.
The doctor nodded as he turned to leave.
Jack sighed softly as he sunk back into the chair. She was stable. Maybe it would be a little while before he could see her, but she was alive. And she was going to pull through.
While their baby had gotten less than a fighting chance.
He stood instantly as anger welled up inside him. He walked over to the wall, almost aimlessly before he hit it with his fist. He struck another blow with with his other fist. He alternated fists rapidly as one of the orderlies came by. "Excuse me, sir?"
He pulled away, his breath slowing as he looked over at her. "I'm sorry..." He murmured numbly before he walked further down the corridor.
More punishment for the "damned distasteful" things he'd done over the years? And what about Sam?
His heart froze as he thought about his wife. This would devastate her. She'd wanted kids for so long, and though she loved Grace, she'd gotten excited about this pregnancy. More than she'd gotten about any science project he'd ever seen her work on which given his wife's attachment to her scientific explorations, was saying a lot.
This would destroy her.
He sighed. He'd at least faced this pain before, and knew that while it was paralyzing and overwhelming, he could overcome it. He could make something of this broken life he'd been given. He only hoped that she could do the same...
"I need you, Sam," he whispered softly. "I need you more than life itself."
-
She felt groggy. Someone had given her something. Some sort of sedative or pain killer...
She stirred gently. She needed to wake her mind up. What if she was the only one alert enough to get them home?
"Go to the Gate..." she murmured, still somewhat half-under, as she tried to reach anyone who might be in a better position to help than she. "Radio for help..."
"Sam?" Jack asked, appearing in her line of sight as she opened her eyes.
"Sir? What are you doing here?"
"Sam, you're on Earth," he reminded, gently.
"Oh."
She looked around the room. She was in a hospital. She felt a the cold metal of her wedding band. She wasn't out in the field at all. She was married. With a kid. And another on the way.
"What happened?" She finally managed.
Jack's face was suddenly lined with pain, and she looked up at him, worriedly. "An accident?"
He shook his head. "Uh...no..."
Suddenly, it all came back to her. The cramping, the blood, the dizziness, the terror...
"Jack, tell me we didn't..." She began as she felt panic well up within her.
"It was all they could do to save your life," he said, softly.
She inhaled sharply as tears welled up in her eyes. "I'm...I'm s-so sorry," she stammered.
"Hey," he said, gently catching her fingers in his hand. "Not your fault. It happens..."
"But..."
He pressed a finger to her lips as he sat beside her on the bed. "You're still here. And for now...that's enough of a miracle for me."
"I know how much you wanted..."
"You wanted it too," he said, knowingly. "So, for the moment, we're going to get you better. Then, maybe we'll think about trying again."
"What did they say about...why..."
He inhaled. "They said it was probably the scar tissue they found when they went in to stop the bleeding."
"From when I was shot..." She managed. "By the Or...
"It could have been one of countless injuries you've sustained for our country, Sam." He interrupted, trying to keep her from that place in her mind. That was a bad place to go. And he'd been there more than a few times.
"That doesn't matter," she murmured as angry tears welled up in her eyes. "The fact is that my career stole my baby..."
"Hey," he managed with a shaky voice. "Don't start that..."
"How can I not?" She asked through her tears. "All I wanted to do was to..."
She broke down, and as she tried to wipe her tears away, she could see the tears slipping down his cheeks. She reached for and grasped his hand. "How can it hurt this much," she asked after a moment. "To lose something you didn't think you were ever going to get?"
He covered his eyes with one of his hands, trying to hide his tears from her as they turned into silent sobs that shook his body with the effort to keep them locked away.
"Please...Jack..." She whispered as her own tears blurred her vision.
She wanted him to take her into his arms. Despite the fact that it would probably hurt her physically. She needed the comfort more than the respite.
Finally, he dropped his head to lean against her shoulder, and she touched him, turning her closest hand almost backwards as she clutched at his sleeve somewhat awkwardly. His body racked her own as his sobs pierced the silence of the hospital ward. She felt tears slip down her cheeks as she tried to stay strong for her husband. He needed her. She couldn't just fall to pieces like she wanted because he needed her.
That was the only thing keeping her together right now. He needed her.