Nope—I wasn't trying to be subtle with Sam's symptoms at all!
This is an over-the-top angsty chapter.
90
Sam's expression is a shocked combination of disbelief, wonder, fear and apprehension. Jack is frozen as he stares at her face... He cannot move for the moment, because he has seen that look before on the face of a woman he loves, and it is burned into his memory.
Sam's face is the mirror of Sara's, the day she found out she was pregnant with Charlie.
The moment when he learned that Sara was pregnant was one of the happiest of his life. But close on the heels of that memory comes another—the sound of a gunshot... the sound of his heart breaking...
Jack grips the doorframe to keep his balance. The feelings that are crashing around inside him... in his brain... in his heart... are almost too much to bear, and his first reaction to this news is sheer panic! God, no! I can't put another child at risk! I'm not fit to be a father...
91
Sam does not know how long Jack has been standing there; she is too shocked herself at the news to be able to count minutes or seconds.
It may have been hours since she woke to find Janet standing beside her bed...
"Hi, hon." Janet is smiling slightly, so Sam figures she can't be too sick.
"Jack said he'd bring me in if it happened again," she says softly.
"And he did," Janet says, adding in her doctor voice, "How do you feel?"
"Mm... tired. Kinda weak. Not sick now, though."
"That's good."
"I don't remember getting here..."
"Jack said you passed out after you threw up. Has that happened before—the passing out, I mean?"
"No," Sam says, shaking her head. "Well, unless you count when we were on the paradise planet and sleeping for—what? Thirty hours? I wasn't sick, then, though."
"No. That didn't have anything to do with this." Janet lifts the clipboard she is holding and makes a notation on the chart.
"Okay. So what is 'this'?" Sam asks.
"I'd like to wait for the blood work to come back, to confirm what I think." The door opens just then and one of the lab techs comes in and hands the doctor a folder. "Thanks, Lisa," she says to the woman as she exits, then opens the folder. Janet glances down at the paper inside and nods to herself.
"Janet? What's happening?"
She puts a hand gently on Sam's arm. "Sam, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you a very personal question. Have you been in a sexual relationship with anyone in the past three months?" The question makes Sam's face turn a bright red. "I'll take that as a yes."
"W... why?" Sam stutters.
She turns to her patient. "Sam, you're pregnant." Sam's mouth drops open in shock as Janet continues; "Just about six weeks along. That means you conceived during the second week of August." Janet's eyes soften with concern. "You were imprisoned on the ice planet—P3R-118—for all of July and August, and until the first week of September."
"Oh my god," Sam whispers.
"What happened there, Sam? Do you remember? Do you know who the father might be?" Janet tries to make her questions as gentle as possible. Sam has gone very pale, and Janet is afraid she is recalling something horrible.
"I... I want to see Jack," Sam whispers. "Where is he?"
"He's outside. But are you sure that's a good idea? If someone hurt you..."
"No. No, it wasn't like that. It's... it's Jack." She forces out the words. "On 118 we... that is, Jonah and Thera were..."
"Oh!" Janet blinks as she absorbs this new information. "You mean, the Colonel... is the baby's father."
Sam nods and stares up into Janet's face, her eyes still wide with shock. The two women are silent for several moments. Finally, Janet straightens. "Okay... I'll get him. If you're sure."
Sam nods again and the doctor turns toward the door.
92
And now Jack is standing there, as Janet leaves the room and closes the door behind her. His eyes are locked on Sam's face, and after a minute he takes a few awkward steps forward and puts his hand on the foot rail of her bed.
"Janet... uh," she begins. "She says... that I'm... that I'm..."
"That you're pregnant." Jack's words come out stronger and steadier than he expected them to.
"She t... told you."
He shakes his head. "No. I just knew. I could tell when I saw your face." He sounds cold to his own ears. He is feeling overwhelmed, and the only way he knows to control his anxiety is to push it aside. But as he looks at her, he sees that Sam is shocked and scared, too, and he knows that he can't let himself back away—because she needs him—and because there is a child's life at stake. Tears have started to overflow her eyes and run down her cheeks, and she is wiping desperately at them, trying to make them disappear—and her eyes are begging him for something, understanding, help, support...
"Sam..." he says, low and rough, and he steps around to the side of the bed and comes to her, sits down on the bed facing her, and wraps her in his arms, feeling hers clutching at him tightly. Her face is buried in his shoulder and she is shaking. "Sam..." he says again. "Stop. Shhh. It's okay. You're okay..." He keeps talking softly until she begins to calm down.
"Six weeks ago..." Her voice is muffled against him. "It happened on 118. Thera and Jonah... They... they..."
"That's what Fraiser said?"
"Yes. The middle of August... when we were there..." She hiccups another sob.
"Shh..."
"What do I do?" she demands. "I don't know what to do!"
"You don't have to do anything right now, Sam. Just relax. Being upset isn't good for either you or the baby."
She pulls back and looks at him. "Aren't you upset?"
"Sam..." He closes his eyes and tries to control his expression. "I... I guess I'm just shocked. I never expected this. Never thought..."
"I don't understand how this happened. I had my contraceptive shots."
"We were on 118 for nine weeks. How long are the shots good for?"
"Three months." She pauses to think. "The last one before that was in early May. So it had expired. I had one when we came back—but it was too late." She leans forward against his chest.
"Are you okay?" he asks. "How do you feel?"
"I'm just so tired..."
"That's one of the symptoms," he says. "Sar... Most pregnant women are tired a lot, especially in the first trimester."
She hasn't thought about the fact that he's had a pregnant wife, and undoubtedly knows more about this than she does. Exhaustion sweeps over her again. "I think I need to lie down..."
He lets her lie back, and lies down beside her, drawing her head to his shoulder.
"That feels so good," she says, nestling into his side. "Stay here with me?"
"I will." But what he really needs is to be alone right now...
"We should talk about this," she murmurs.
He squeezes his eyes shut. Not yet! "Yes. We will. But you rest now."
"Are you angry?" she asks after a few minutes.
"What?" he says, surprised. "Angry? No. Of course not."
"Because I wouldn't blame you if you were. I should've thought..."
"You think I'd be angry at you?" he asks incredulously, rolling up on his elbow to look into her face. "There were two of us involved there, if you remember. We didn't know there were rules. We didn't even know who we were."
"Are you sure?" she murmurs.
"I'm not angry, Sam." He holds her closer and kisses her forehead and her eyes. I feel many things at this moment, but I'm not angry.
Her eyes drift shut for a few moments, and she forces them open. "I can't believe how tired I am..." she mutters.
"That's normal," he says. "Go to sleep."
Her eyes close again, and within minutes he can feel her body relax. He waits a while, and then carefully moves away and gets off the bed. He touches her cheek gently, and pulls a chair close, so he can sit beside her and hold her hand. She rolls toward him and grasps his hand in both of hers in her sleep.
He watches her face. Her eyelids flicker a few times, but soon grow still. He feels her hands slacken on his. Gently, he edges his hand out from between his, and sits back in the chair.
He leans his head against the cushion, remembering...
Sara came home from her doctor's appointment so excited Jack could not understand what she was saying for the first few minutes. When she finally calmed down enough to be clear, she got this amazing, scared, joyful expression on her face, and Jack finally understood the word she kept repeating... baby.
Jack is laughing about something with Sara in the front yard when they hear the shot from inside the house. Sara lets out a little scream, and Jack launches himself up the steps, taking all three of them in one bound... "Charlie!" He hears the terror in his own voice as he pounds up the stairs toward his bedroom. He crashes through the door and sees the blood first, and the boy lying there in the middle of the floor...
Sara had wicked indigestion while she was pregnant. Her aunt said the baby would have lots of hair. Charlie was born with a head full of dark brown hair, but it all fell out and came back blond a few months later.
He is on his knees, holding the small body, trying to stop the blood, screaming for Sara to call 911...
Charlie walked before he was a year old. Sara claimed she lost twenty pounds in six months just chasing him!
The EMTs are shoving him aside, taking Charlie away from him... he is begging them, begging them to save his son...
At two he had the greatest laugh! Jack always meant to get a tape recorder and tape that laugh.
Sara is shrieking, hysterical, trying to get to Charlie and one of the medics moves her out of the way... She catches sight of Jack, who is frozen as he watches them working on Charlie, and she turns on her husband, screaming at him, hitting him with her fists, calling him a murderer. He doesn't feel the blows, he barely hears her voice, so focused is he on what is happening on his bedroom floor. Sara's father, Mike, rushes into the room and wraps his arms around Sara, forcing her out into the hall...
There was nothing Charlie loved better than baseball. Whenever his dad was home the two of them would spend hours outside playing catch.
"Colonel," a voice says.
Jack jerks abruptly back to the present, his head snapping forward and the breath leaving his body in a whoosh. It is several seconds before he is able to realize that Dr. Fraiser is standing just inside the door. He shakes his head.
"Are you all right, Colonel?" she asks quietly.
"Yeah..." he mumbles. "Musta dozed..." He rubs his face and avoids looking at Janet. "She's sleeping," he says.
"Yes, I see."
He gets to his feet, bracing a hand on the bed for balance. "I need to go..." He waves a hand vaguely toward the door, and heads in that direction.
She follows him out of the room and closes the door. He starts to walk away, but she stops him. "Colonel, I need to talk to you. In my office," she says when he pauses.
She leads the way to her office; inside she motions him to sit. "I'm good," he says, remaining near the door.
She sighs, but gets right to the point. "Sam told me that the baby is yours."
"Yes." He doesn't look at her.
"She said the two of you had a relationship on P3R-118."
"Yes."
"While you were under the influence of the memory stamps."
"Yes."
"Colonel, I'll need to do a DNA test to confirm the baby's..."
"You're not going to put any needles into that baby... or into Sam!" he interrupts, at last bringing his gaze to bear on her face. "It's too invasive, and too dangerous for them. And it's unnecessary! We've both told you that the baby is mine."
"Colonel..."
"That's an order, Major!"
Pulling rank on her annoys her. He is correct, however; it is not medically recommended at this point. He did not allow her to finish her sentence... if it becomes necessary. But, she understands that he is very upset right now, so she lets it go. "I have to report Sam's condition to General Hammond. And she's restricted from gate travel."
"Of course," he says. He reaches for the doorknob.
"One more thing, Colonel."
He looks at her again.
"I'm going to keep Sam in the infirmary for twenty-four hours. I want to run some more tests." She sees his eyes narrow and continues. "She's been exposed to a lot of alien 'influences' over the past three years—radiation, chemicals, Jolinar. I want to make sure none of that will impact her health now—or the pregnancy. It'll be blood tests and ultrasound. Nothing dangerous."
"Understood." He opens the door, and a moment later he is gone.
93
The walk to his quarters seems miles long and it is with relief that he finally steps over the threshold and locks the door behind him. He stops with his back against the door, breathing hard, feeling as if he's run all the way. The emotions he's been holding in finally overcome him and he sags with the weight; he moves unsteadily to the bed, sitting down gracelessly, and then stretching out on his back. Tears slip from his eyes as memories wash over him...
It is a sunny summer day. He has only been home three days from his last mission—one that, for a change, had gone well, had been resolved just according to plan. He has made love to Sara half a dozen times; he has played ball with Charlie, and the three of them have been to the park for a picnic two days in a row. They are planning a trip to the lake...
Then the gunshot shatters the day...
Mike is driving as they follow the ambulance carrying Charlie to the hospital. Sara is sobbing, but Jack is numb, frozen in silence, cut off from everything around him, his head filled with images of blood...
They wait in the ER for an interminable period of time, barely looking at one another. Mike sits with his arm around his daughter, both of them weeping silently. Jack stands beside the 'restricted' door that they wheeled Charlie through, outwardly unmoving, but shaking violently inside...
He knew it was too late, even as he had screamed for the medics to save his child, but hearing the emergency room doctor say the words... they did all they could, they're very sorry, it was a fatal wound... Devastated, Jack pulls back from reality, and he hears and sees nothing around him as Mike takes his arm and forces him to walk to the car where Sara is crying. He can't comfort her, he has no comfort to give...
His world has come to an end.
At some later time he sits in Charlie's room, on the foot of the bed, the gun that fired the fatal bullet in his hand, resting on his thigh. Jack's gun, kept in the house for protection of his family and home, has now destroyed his family. It was kept on the high shelf of the closet, the shelf that Charlie reached by climbing on the desk chair which he dragged across the room. He stares down at the weapon and Jack knows there is only one thing left for him to do...
It is his fault. He is responsible for his son's death. He is the one who brought the gun into the house, the one who stored it in the box on the shelf. He is the one who knew how curious Charlie was about the gun, asking so many questions, wanting to see it. And Jack always said no, believing that was the right answer... as if Charlie's curiosity could ever be quelled by a simple 'no.'
All that's left is to raise the gun and pull the trigger...
94
Insistent knocking on the door finally penetrates Jack's consciousness, and he comes slowly to himself and opens his eyes. He is lying on his bed curled in a fetal position. His mind is focused on the last image from his memories; the Beretta in his hand, slowly rising toward his head. Jack stares at it, mesmerized, just as he was on that day, five years earlier...
The knocking finally stops and there are voices outside the door, indistinct. Moments later, footsteps recede down the hall.
Jack blinks back to the present. His cheek is pressed against the coverlet. Yellow... Sunflowers...
He rolls over onto his back and studies the ceiling for a time. Someone was at the door a while ago... Who? Doesn't matter...
He sucks in a couple of deep breaths. Might have been Fraiser...
Is Sam okay?
This last thought finally clears his head. He turns over and sits up, swings his feet off the side of the bed, feeling as if he's been hit with a zat blast. And in a way he has—the assault of memory is as painful as any wound he has ever received. He leans forward and rests his head in his hands. After a few minutes he manages to pull himself together and reaches for the phone on his night table, glancing at the clock as he does so. He is surprised to see that over an hour has passed since he left the infirmary.
Jack sits there, staring at the clock, phone in his hand. He does not dare tell anyone, least of all Fraiser, what has just happened to him—that he spent so much time lost in a... what... a memory? an hallucination? She would send him to MacKenzie, and that quack would probably have him committed! He quails at the thought of the padded room where Daniel was confined after being infested with Machello's Goa'uld-killing weapon...
He is startled when the receiver in his hand begins emitting off-the-hook warning signals.
Shaking his head to clear it, he dials Janet's number.
She answers on the third ring. "Fraiser."
"This is O'Neill," he says. "Did you send someone to my quarters a few minutes ago?"
"No, Colonel. I didn't. Why?" Her tone is cool.
"Somebody knocked. I was in the bathroom and didn't get there in time, that's all. I wanted to make sure it wasn't you. How's S... Carter?"
"She's fine. We've drawn blood for testing and she's sleeping again."
"Thanks. Uh..." His voice fails and he clears his throat.
"Are you all right, Colonel?"
"I'm... Yes. I'm okay. Would you... uh... well, just let me know if... if she needs me."
Her voice softens. "Yes, I will. She's fine," she assures him again.
"Thanks."
After hanging up he goes into the bathroom and washes his face, splashing it with cold water several times. He stares at himself in the mirror, but all he really sees is Charlie... Charlie as a chubby laughing baby. Chasing the dog in the backyard on stumbling toddler legs. Climbing on the bus his first day of school. Pitching a ball with Jack out front...
Jack hangs his head, thinking of everything he lost when Charlie died.
Another child? The thought is frightening. Children are so vulnerable, so dependent; a careless parent can do so much damage. He knows that far too well. He doesn't know if he can handle it...
Yet earlier, he instinctively needed to protect this child from Janet's invasive testing. And he can't help but imagine a small warm body snuggled into his arms, sleeping. Or his kid—boy or girl, doesn't matter—running and laughing, swimming in the lake at the cabin...
He shakes his head. He doesn't even know if Carter wants to keep the baby! The thought that she might want to terminate makes him feel physically ill...
He turns back into the bedroom, pacing. After a few minutes he pauses beside the phone again. He picks up the receiver and dials before he can change his mind.
"Jackson." The answer comes after only three rings, usually it is five or six, as Daniel tears himself away from some project of galactic importance. "Hello?" Daniel says, when Jack hesitates.
"Danny..." Even to himself, his voice sounds wrong.
"Jack? Are you okay?" Daniel obviously hears it, too
"I need to talk to you."
"Okay. Sure."
"Can you come to my quarters? Bring Teal'c if you can find him." Jack is surprised at how tentative he sounds.
"Yeah, Jack. I'll find him and we'll be there shortly. Is this about Sam?"
"Just come, Danny. Please."
"...Okay..."
"Thanks."
xxx
I didn't really plan on going that far into Jack's issues, but that's what appeared on the screen, and I've decided to leave it there and go on from here.