Daniel's voice greets Jack right when he gets off the elevator. "Where is my freaking heating pad?"
Jack hears Daniel's voice again as he nears the infirmary, "My God, this is the worst pain I have ever endured!"
"It is not," Teal'c says.
"Actually I think it is," Ferretti argues.
"When exactly have you experienced worse pain than this?" Daniel asks Teal'c incredulously.
There is a long pause, and Jack has to stop just outside of the infirmary or interrupt something that he is guessing is going to be pretty funny.
"I have experienced pain worse than this on 216 occasions," Teal'c replies.
"Two hundred and sixteen times?" Feretti asks.
"Indeed."
"You're telling me that 216 times you've felt pain that is worse than a badger burrowing its way out of your entrails?" Daniel asks.
"Indeed," Teal'c replies.
Ok, Jack finds himself hoping that was not literal. He rounds the corner, and is greeted by something he never thought he'd see. His team is watching a chick flick. Hey, are there people standing on the Empire state building? That looks like something Sam would really enjoy, he thinks to himself. It's like that affair movie she made him watch. They all have heating pads spread across their stomach, and Daniel has a kleenex bawled up in one hand, and a bag of Hershey's Kisses in the other.
What kind of illness is this?
"Jack, oh my gosh, have a chocolate. I didn't believe they would actually help, I thought girls made that crap up. But it works! Thank God Janet has them on hand," Daniel says, holding the bag out to him.
"What exactly is going on here?" Jack asks.
"Those damn people on P3-Menstrual-X gave us periods," Ferretti informs him.
Suddenly Jack's eyes go wide, and he takes a few steps back.
"It is nothing to worry about, O'Neill, General Hammond authorized a mission through the gate to figure out how to reverse the process. Meanwhile, Doctor Fraiser has provided us with means by which to counteract the effects of the shedding of the lining of the uterus," Teal'c says.
"I do not have a uterus!" Daniel protests.
"The scan conducted by Doctor Fraiser proves otherwise, Doctor Jackson," Teal'c says while adjusting his heating pad. Yep, even the great Teal'c was brought down my Auntie Flo.
"Jack, the good doc's got stuff stronger than chocolate. Did you know they made pills just for this?" Feretti says in awe. "Hey, doc, we need some more of those sweet pills you gave us."
"Honestly boys, I have never experienced such whining!" Janet begins before she turns around. As soon as her eyes catch on Jack's she knows he's freaking out.
"Just exactly how FUNTIONAL are these extra freaking body parts?" Jack bellows.
"I'm not sure. I'll know a lot more if you'll just come with me," Janet says calmly.
Jack takes a few steps toward the door.
"Sir, where are you going?" Janet asks.
"I'm going to go kick the ass of the people who messed with my body and got me PREGNANT!" he screams.
The entire infirmary turn to stare at him.
"We don't know that you are, sir. For all we know, they never gave the stuff to you, or you're going to start… experiencing symptoms tomorrow. The nausea could just be a coincidence."
"How? I mean… where did the egg come from, for crying out loud?" he protests.
"I don't know. Sir, I don't understand the biology of what we are dealing with any more than you do. If you could just calm yourself down, I could do the scan that would give us the beginning of some answers," Janet says.
"He's pregnant?" Daniel asks. "I really need to stop complaining."
"But you won't," Janet points out.
-0-0-0-
Jack is relieved as he looks at the monitor, which he thinks is blank. "All right, so maybe I didn't get the symptoms because my brand new lady business is defective, or hey, maybe it's age, right? I'm probably too old to deal what the boys in there are dealing with."
"Sir," Janet says, using her finger to point to a tiny dot on the screen, "That right there… is your baby."
"No," Jack informs her.
"Sir," she says, looking at him.
"Is it Sam's?" Jack asks.
"Again, I don't really know how this works. Hopefully when the team that the General sent out comes back we will have a few more answers.
"It's got to be, I mean, the way they talked when we were there, it sounded as if the babies were both the mother's and the father's. They wouldn't go through all of this just to have a baby that was pretty much a clone, would they?"
She shrugs.
"Well, is it healthy? I mean… it can't just stay in there and grow, can it?" Jack asks.
"Sir, from what I saw of the other boys, the system does seem to be entirely functional. Apart from the birth part, with which you would need some help, of course. But it appears that you now have two entirely functional reproductive systems. I would like to do some more tests. A blood test to make sure that your hormone levels are what they should be for a pregnant woman. Otherwise, we might have to use supplements. I'd also like to do an amniocentesis when you are another two or so months along. That will tell us what DNA the kid has. It will even tell us who supplied the egg, because of mitochondrial DNA."
"Whatever you need, doc," Jack says with a stunned expression on his face.
Janet pats his arm softly, "Do you want me to call Sam in?"
Jack glances at the wall behind her head. There is only 30 minutes until Jacob has his treatment. Now she's probably ½ mile above his head dropping off their kid at day care. If he called her she would be here in a matter of minutes. But he couldn't do that to Jacob. Jacob really needed his daughter with him right now.
He shakes his head.
Janet draws his blood. "The baby looks healthy. You're about a month along."
"Ah… no, the planet was only two weeks ago."
"Well, the age of the fetus is measured from date of last period, not from conception, it's weird, but…" Janet begins.
"In that case Doc, I'm fifty years along."
Janet smiles.
"You really think I can do this?" Jack asks.
"Do you mean physically or emotionally, sir?" Janet asks.
Jack glares at her.
"Well, you're doing much better with your pregnancy than they're doing with their period, so you'll be fine."
"I don't know, Teal'c was pretty stoic," Jack says.
"You weren't here when he arrived. He was the first one to figure out something was wrong. You should have seen him trying to describe his symptoms."
"Big words?" Jack guesses.
"Took me about five minutes to figure out where exactly he was bleeding from, yeah."
"And then I bet menstruation wasn't exactly your first thought."
Janet laughs, "Not exactly. And about that time Daniel-the-whiner joined the crew. If you want to go out in the main room, I'll come and get you when we get the results or hear anything from the team that went out to investigate."
Jack obeys the chief medical officer's orders, even though he doesn't exactly relish the thought of going to sit down next to his men. When he does they are silent for a few seconds before Ferretti says, "Geeze, I thought I was dying when I woke up this morning bleeding. But suddenly I'm grateful for this stupid thing."
Daniel gives him a smack on the shoulder. But then, like Job's comforters, Daniel finds that he can't be silent, "I'm not sure I exactly understand the process…" he begins.
"Join the club," Jack retorts.
Jack has the sudden urge to fan his hand over his stomach. To create some connection to this thing… this baby that is growing within him. He resists the urge, though, because it's pretty hard to pretend that something isn't real after you've started bonding with it.
-0-0-0-
Sam was surprised by her Dad's chemo. She had somehow expected something more dramatic. Something more painful or sad. It was just like a blood drive, except that it took longer, and that the people had a much less healthful look to them.
She's exhausted by the time that she gets home, even though it is only three in the afternoon. Jack left a message on her phone that informed her that he'd picked up Ty. After she gets her father settled into his bedroom she starts the search for her other two boys.
She finds the two of them in her bed watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It's just not the Schwarzenegger movie she'd expected to see her macho husband watching. "Is this 'Junior'?" she asks.
"Yep," Jack replies.
"Go play in your room, bud," she instructs her son, "And our son is watching this why?" Sam presses.
"We've got to get him used to the idea some way," Jack replies.
"What idea?" Sam asks confused.
"Men having babies. Turns out the doc wanted me to come to the infirmary, because all my men had their periods. But honey… I'm late," he says with something that is supposed to be levity.
She stares at him for a moment, and then starts laughing, "You just about had me, Jack. Thanks for trying to cheer me up with everything that's happening to my dad, but really, you went a bit too far."
"Samantha," he says, looking in her eyes.
She flops down on the bed next to him, "You're not kidding, you're really pregnant?"
"Yeah, it's that damn planet we were on a few weeks back," he mutters.
"I have so many questions," Sam says slowly.
"I have an off-world doctor's appointment tomorrow that might answer some, if you want to come."
"Are you safe?" she asks.
"Yeah, Hammond sent some people through to talk to the nice people who did this to me. Apparently, men on that planet have been having babies for fifty-some years."
"And the kid? I mean, it's going to be all right in there?" she asks, staring at his stomach.
Jack nods his head.
"Wow," she says.
"Yeah," he repeats, letting out a breath of air. "Sam, I'm a pregnant man, what the hell are we going to do?" Jack asks with panic in his eyes.
"Well, sweetie, I'm guessing that that the word has already got out at the SGC, so that's something. For people who don't have clearance, I'll get one of those pregnancy sympathizers, and complain about my feet. And then we'll tease you for gaining some sympathy weight. Luckily, the way men gain weight isn't that different from a pregnancy, women are different," she says thoughtfully.
He closes his eyes, "What about your father, and Ty?"
"Well, Ty wouldn't be that much of a problem. He's good at keeping secrets, and if he did blurt it out, people would think he just misunderstood a joke."
"But we can't tell him unless we tell your father," Jack says gently.
"I know," she whispers.
"He probably has enough to worry about right now."
"Jack dad's going to be excited about having another grandbaby," Sam says, looking directly into his eyes.
"You mean he's going to be excited that his daughter had two kids before she got married?" Jack asks incredulously.
Sam reaches over and puts her hand to his stomach. She only feels her husband's taunt six pack. "I seriously can't believe there is a baby in there."
"You're telling me," he whispers. And then there eyes meet, and they laugh hysterically about their situation.