Two weeks Later
"Sammy, the baby is coming," Jack says.
"You're sure?" Sam asks.
"There is a giant hole in my stomach, so yeah, I'm pretty sure."
"They said that it would take hours to develop the opening."
"Well, apparently a painless labor means that I missed that," he says, lifting up his shirt to show the opening at the top of his belly.
"Oh my gosh, we should be off-world by now," she says.
"We don't have time for that, just grab her!" Jack says looking into his open womb at his daughter. She looks up at him with a bemused smile on her face.
"I'm going to go wash my hands and get a towel, honey. You call Janet," she instructs, handing him the phone.
-0-0-0-
"Hey, baby girl," Sam says, pulling the infant out of her husband and wrapping her quickly in a towel.
"Why isn't she crying?" Jack asks with concern.
"I don't know. Her entrance into the world was much gentler than most babies. She's fine, though," Sam says, sitting down on the bed next to her husband and holding the baby.
"She's beautiful; she definitely looks like you," Jack says, smiling at his little girl.
Sam starts to cry.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Jack asks, concerned.
Sam leans against him, "Happy tears, the same thing happened when Ty was born."
"I wish I was there," he says.
"You're here for this one," Sam says.
"Thank god you were. It was a little scary," Jack confesses.
"I'm going to go wake up Dad. You alright?" she asks gently.
"Yeah. At some point, you're going to have to cut this umbilical cord."
"I'll start boiling water," Sam says.
"Really? I've heard that in shows forever, and I can't figure out what it's for," he says.
"Yeah, you can," she says with a smile, not buying his dumb act.
"Go sanitize us some scissors, babe," he says.
The baby starts to fuss, "Shh… baby girl, Mommy's coming back," he assures her.
-0-0-0-
Jacob walks into the room a few minutes later carrying a diaper and onesie. "Can't have a granddaughter of mine joining a nudist colony now can I?"
"Come see Little Miss Hannah," Jack says, holding the baby out to her grandfather.
"Oh, she's gorgeous," Jacob says, holding the baby up and putting a kiss on her cheek before laying her down on the towel to dress her in the diaper
"Was it really weird to give birth to her?" Jacob asks.
"I wouldn't exactly call it birth, and it was weird. But it was also really great," Jack says.
"Daddy?" Ty says, walking into the room, rubbing his eyes, "Is you sick?"
"Sorry we woke you, honey, your baby sister decided it was time to enter the world."
"Hannah came out of your belly?" Ty says, taking a tentative step closer.
"Yeah, come see her," Jacob invites.
Ty climbs up on the bed next to his father.
-0-0-0-
Janet walks into the room where Jack and his daughter are sleeping. Sam moves to wake her husband up, but Janet stays her hand. "I might be able to do this without waking him," Janet whispers, softly lifting the baby from his arms.
Jack startles awake. "How do you feel?" Janet asks.
He grins, "Great, did you see how beautiful that girl is?"
"She is," Janet says, giving him a smile, "Can you show me the hole in your stomach?"
"It's getting smaller," he defends.
She peers at it, before saying, "That it is. I brought the drink that's going to make your all of your female organs disappear within a week. At least, judging by what it did to the boys."
"Is Hannah ok?" Jack asks, taking the cup from her hand and taking a long sip out of it.
"She looks really good. I'm going to run some tests on her. You can go back to sleep now."
"Ok, doc," he says.
One Week Later
Janet walks into Daniel's lab, and he smiles, "Did you want to go to lunch?" he asks, standing up quickly.
"Sure, Sam and Cassie are having a girl's day sleep over."
Daniel smiles, "That sounds fun."
Janet honestly can't believe how clueless her genius is sometimes, "So, my house is going to be pretty empty that night."
"Ah… you need someone to scare the monsters away from under you bed, too?" he teases.
"Yep, I'm going to need my daring anthropologist."
"Ok, see you on Friday."
Three Days Later
Suddenly Daniel pushes away from Janet, "I'm sorry I can't do this. It's too soon after Sha're."
"Ok, well, I'm going to need some clarification. When you say 'this' do you mean us, or just sex?"
"Oh God, Janet," he says, putting his arm around her, "I mean sex tonight. You're going to have to work a lot harder than that to get rid of me."
"You want to stay anyway? It's not like we're going to have a bunch of chances to spend the night together."
"Yeah, sorry about that. I can see that you don't want to send your daughter off all the time," he teases, moving his hand down to hold hers.
"No, I don't," she says wistfully.
"We could just tell her that I'm sleeping over," he says hopefully. He really doesn't like being a secret.
"She is only a couple of years away from being a teenager. Do you really want me to give her the impression that it's ok to have sleepovers with boys?"
"God, no," he whispers, making a terrified face.
Janet giggles, "You've never thought of Cassie as being a teenager before, have you?"
"Nope, she's going to stay a little girl forever," he says firmly.
Janet shakes her head, "Nope, sorry, we've only got two years before she hits her teenager years."
"I'm a little worried about this," he mutters, motioning between the two of them.
"Why?"
"People I love don't exactly have the longest life expectancy," he whispers.
"None of that was your fault. You're too smart to believe in some sort of curse," she says.
"I sure hope it has nothing to do with me, because I couldn't stand losing you or Cassie."
Janet smiles at him, "We're going to be fine, and I love you, too."
"I didn't quite say that, did I?" he teases.
"Ah, I believe you did. It was called an inference," Janet teases back.
"Inference, assumption, wishful thinking, whatever," he says.
Janet tickles him until he blurts, "All right, I said I love you!" he yells.
"That's right, and you can keep saying it," she says.
He repeats the words, "I love you," over and over, in between kissing her on her face and neck.
The phone suddenly rings. Janet reaches over, and picks it up. "Cassie? What's wrong? No, sweetie, I'm fine. Do you want me to come get you? You're sure? Ok, you just needed to hear my voice. Ah… yeah, Daniel isn't home," she says, looking at him in horror. "He's just at work. Ah, no… sweetie, why don't you let me call him, and tell him to call you? Yeah, he's just not in his office tonight, but I'll get a hold of him. I'm sure he's fine. Ok, I love you, honey."
Janet hangs up the phone, and Daniel reaches for it over her.
"You'd better wait a bit, because it would take a while for me to call you."
"But she's scared," Daniel complains.
"Just a few minutes," Janet says, giving him a kiss to distract him.
The Next Day
Sam comes into Janet's office the next morning, and squeals in delight.
"What?" Janet asks.
"You and Daniel!" Sam says.
"How did you know?"
"I have caller ID, and last night Daniel was calling from your number after midnight. Don't worry, Cassie didn't notice."
Janet grins, and takes Sam into a hug.
"Why is this a big secret?" Sam asks confused.
"It's not really a secret, it's just… we haven't really defined what we are," Janet says.
"Well, considering the fact that he spent the night at your house, I could do some defining for you."
"Thanks," Janet says sarcastically.
"I'm happy for you guys. You both really deserve this," Sam says with a grin.
"He definitely does. I mean, he's lost his parents and his wife. And he is so great with Cassie."
"Is it serious?" Sam asks.
"I think so," Janet says.
Two days later
"Daniel, is something wrong?" Cassie asks as he pushes her on a swing.
"Yeah."
Cassie puts her feet down to look at him.
"It's ok, little one," he smiles at her, "I'm just trying to figure out how to ask your mom something."
Cassie springs up, and wraps her arms around his neck. "You're going to ask her to marry you!"
"W… What? No." Daniel stammers, putting the girl down.
Cassie's lip quivers, "Don't you want to be my Daddy?"
He kneels down next to her, "Remember, babe, I am already your dad, ok? I love you. Your mom and I are still pretty new."
"But you'll marry her someday?" Cassie asks.
"Maybe," Daniel says with a smirk, looking toward the bench where the woman in question is sitting.
"Yeah, you're going to marry her someday soon," Cassie declares.
"You guys ok?" Janet asks, walking toward them with a concerned look on her face.
"Yeah, Daniel just wants to ask you a question," Cassie says flippantly, running off to the slide.
Janet stands with her eyebrows raised.
"Not that question," Daniel says quickly, blushing.
"Ah… ok," Janet says, and he looks at her face quickly, trying to see what emotions are playing on it.
"Cassie's birthday is coming up pretty soon," he fidgets.
"It is," Janet says, somewhat impressed that he had apparently committed the date into memory after hearing it only one time.
"I wanted to ask your permission on a present to give her," he says, his arms quickly crossing over his body insecurely, "I wanted to give her a chance to use those suitcases."
"And you're asking my permission after you told her?" Janet says, nodding her head toward her excited daughter.
"No, I would never do that. She thought… I was asking a different question," Daniel mutters.
"I see," Janet says, and then falls silent for a second, studying his face. His face goes red under the scrutiny. "If you ever decide to ask that question… at some point down the road, I'm going to need to know you're not just asking because Cassie wants you to," she says, looking away from him.
"If I was asking for Cassie, I would have done it. I'm waiting until this is right for all of us," he says, flashing her a smile.
She grins back at him, "So where do you want to take my daughter?"
"I want to take you, too. I was invited to an archeology conference. But I was thinking you guys could come down with me. I know that sounds boring, but you can go do your own thing when I'm at the conference. I was planning on staying a couple of extra days after the conference. It's only a half hour from Disneyworld."
Janet smile at him, "You got invited to a conference? It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
"Not really. I was invited to speak at the last one. Of course, the conference hall was full when I started and empty when I ended."
"Still, that was two years ago," Janet says.
Daniel nods.
"So I'm eye candy?" she asks.
"You're a lot more than eye candy," he protests.
"Don't get me wrong, dear, I like being eye candy."
"You're brain candy, too," he says with a grin. Janet feels quite pleased with herself, she taught the anthropologist to flirt.
"So, as a mom, I have to ask what your motive is in bringing Cassie? Is it about her? Or you? I don't want my daughter to be a price." she asks softly.
"I think it is time that she sees more of Earth than this town," Daniel says, watching her swing form the monkey bars. "You guys will have your own room, and I'll find somewhere with a pool. You guys certainly won't have to spend a whole bunch of time in boring lecture halls or anything."
Janet smiles, putting his hand into hers, "One room is fine. Cassie and I can share a bed. And we're going to go with you to at least some of the lectures."
"When are we going to tell her?" Daniel asks.
"Go ahead," Janet says, nudging him toward her daughter.