Vala is lucky that this is one of those planets that has a very fast engagement. After you say you're going to marry, sew you sew a few things for around the house, and then you bake a couple of cakes, and then one day after Prostration everyone stays over for the three-hour wedding.
She's on her knees the whole time, and she is pretty sure that the incense is going to make her throw up. Half way through, all she can think about is not peeing in her simple gown.
How is she going to keep a person she lives with from noticing that she's already pregnant?
The Prostration ends, and her new husband helps her stand. She looks into his eyes, and sees that he loves her. That makes everything worse.
-0-
Usually Vala would disappear somewhere and put on sexy clothes, and go back to her husband's room. That's how Quesh lured her men, when she didn't have to resort to Nisma, at least.
There isn't another room to change in, unless she changes in the sunlit kitchen or living room. These people don't have a bathroom, they also don't have sexy underwear.
So she just goes into a corner of the room, and removes her dress. She hangs it on the peg, and turns to her husband. She tries not to shiver under his gaze or the air on her body.
"Do you need nightclothes?" he asks, trying to look into her eyes, though they're focused much lower.
"Am I going to need them?" she asks seductively.
He blushes, and breaks eye contact with her boobs.
A horrible thought occurs to her. What if the injury that makes Tomin limp also mean no sex? Then he would never believe the baby was his. Also, she would feel pretty stupid standing in front of him naked.
"Tomin," she says, walking toward her husband, and putting a hand on her shoulder, "What's wrong?"
"These thoughts, they have been forbidden so long, it is hard to adjust to them not being forbidden anymore."
"There are other things that are not forbidden any longer," she reminds him.
Even with this permission he doesn't move.
She starts a kiss. Gentle and sweet at first, and then growing in intensity until she doesn't feel weird running her hands across his back, taking his clothes off piece by piece.
His blush covers his whole body. She hooks a leg around his body in order to bring the most interesting parts of their body into close contact. This causes Tomin to lose his balance, and they both crash to the floor.
"I am so sorry!" she exclaims climbing off him.
"It's ok," Tomin says.
"No it's not, I practically attacked you on our wedding night," she helps him sit on the edge of the bed, "Look, Tomin, I would understand if you didn't want to do anything tonight."
It's a generous offer, because if he agrees her, baby will have to be one more day 'early'.
"No, I want to. I'm sorry that I do not have more to offer you," Tomin says hanging his head.
"Are we talking size here? Because I really believe it does not matter," Vala lies, with a quick glance at his still-clothed crotch.
"I mean the curse of the Ori. A strong man would be able to hold his wife," he says, looking sad.
"Oh, Tomin, that was my fault. I have to be more sensitive to this whole thing," she says, waving his concern away.
"I hope that you will not come to wish you had married a whole man."
"You are more man than anyone I have ever known," she lies. There was… just one that was better.
He leans forward and kisses her. She lightly eases him back in the bed, and slowly, carefully, the two of them make love.
-0-
"Would you guys please stop it!" the waitress across the room at three children.
Cassie puts on her best manager face, "What seems to be the problem?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, my day care lady is sick today," the waitress says, looking frantic and running across the room to pull a child down in each arm.
"It's ok, I understand, family is important," she says, grabbing the third child. The girl lets out an inhuman scream.
"What honey, stranger danger?" she asks the girl.
"I'm so sorry, she's autistic. She won't put up with being touched."
The girl starts making laps around the room, screaming.
Cassie considers. This changes things. Having three kids running around the coffee shop is bad enough. One who is screaming and can't understand directions is something different.
"Maybe you should take them home. I'll cover your shift," Cassie offers.
"Right," the girl nods her head, but Cassie detects what looks like the start of tears as she goes to the door.
She tries to remember the girl's name. Right, it was Renee, but her friends call her, "Nea, what's wrong?"
"I understand, ma'am. Only, it's hard. I gotta pay rent and buy food whether I work this shift or not…"
"Go home, and you'll get full pay," Cassie says.
"Really?" Wanda looks confused.
"Really," Cassie assures her.
"Thank you, ma'am," the woman says, impulsively giving Cassie a quick hug before she makes her exit.
The girl stops mid circle, and launches herself at Cassie, wrapping her in a hug, no doubt in imitation of her mother.
"I'm so sorry ma'am, she's never done that before," her startled mother says before the family leaves.
It's an odd feeling Cassie has, then, of being claimed by a stranger.
One Week Later
The weather in Colorado, even in late December, is some days warm enough for outdoor activities. Jack would probably be willing to barbeque in a blizzard, but the weather for their Christmas get-together is nice enough that everyone else is willing to endure the outdoors. It's the first time in years that the whole clan has been in the same place at the same time. Often they splinter into groups which all head into different room of a house, ever since they got too big for one house to hold.
Jacob's eye surveys over the crowd with as much satisfaction as if they were all his blood. He's had a hand, at least a small one, in the raising of every child here. As the only adult without a job, at least since Shelby when back to work last fall, he's always the go-to for emergency child care in this group.
Cassie, at twenty, is really too old to be called a kid. But, if he's still going to consider his daughter a kid, he supposes the girl wouldn't be harmed by it. She is sitting at the adult table, rocking Jenny in her arms. The two-year-old is gently going down for her nap, not something her mother was able to manage despite trying her hardest.
Rya'c's girlfriend, almost twenty herself and halfway through her freshman year of college, has the other youngster, Drew, in her arms. Either she is less skilled at the task of child pacification, or Drew is fussier. The question is settled when Rya'c takes the child in his strong arms, and stills him with a few bounces.
You've gotta love SG-1 kids, they just have a special touch.
The three-year-old twins have no thought of being put down for a nap. Lexi and Luke and Will are playing some game whose rules seem to be a state secret between the three of them. It involves a lot of running, and sometimes requires crawling under tables. Once in a while they stop to pop some fruit from a bowl into their mouths, and obedient to the adults around them, don't run until they've finished chewing. Although it's unclear whether or not the eating of the fruit is actually part of the game or not.
Tammy, Emma (who was borrowed back from her father for the night, as she always was for team nights), and Ty are sitting under a tree having some sort of earnest, although not serious, discussion. Every so often, laughter breaks out from that crowd.
Becky Lynn and Hannah are jumping rope.
The adults, as is almost always the case in any gathering of more than ten or so people, are split into two groups. The men are telling stories, either of the war or fishing variety, based on the way they try to top each other both with volume and with hand gestures.
It's harder for him to guess what the women are doing, because he's never been invited to that side of a party before.
It suddenly strikes him that there is so much to know. That he's lived all of this time, and yet he's managed to discover almost nothing about the world.
He finds a choke in his throat when he thinks about the news he is going to have to give them, all of them, before long. Not today, though, not this week even; he's not going to ruin Christmas with bad news.
It was his own fault really, he'd made the mistake no soldier ever should, he confused the battle with the war.
He just didn't think he was going to have to face cancer more than once, even though the statistics said he would.
"You ok, Jacob?" Daniel asks, having walked across the lawn to see why the older man was standing by himself, looking wistful.
"Of course," he nods his head, and goes to take his place on the bench of men. Like he said, this could wait.
-0-
"Aggravation, rehabilitation, aggravation, this is how we play…" Tammy and Emma say, slapping their hands together across the picnic table.
Jack lets out a sigh as these proceedings stop the flow of food, right before the meat gets to his place, "Aggravation is about right," he says.
They take the hint, and drop the hands to their lap, after, of course, finishing the verse.
"So how is the new job going?" Amy asks Cassie.
"It's hard. The place was badly-managed for a long time, and locality is horrible, but we're building up clientele," she responds.
"Any boys on the horizon?" Jack asks.
"No," Cassie says, spooning some potato salad on her place. She is shocked that it happened already, that transition from being warned that boys were evil to the hints that she should get one. Is she that old already?
"I have a boy on the horizon," Olivia announces.
Ty, Emma, and Tammy are the only people who don't looked shocked.
"Excuse me?" her father says.
"Oh, it's nothing official. I wouldn't start to date anyone without your express approval, your royal highness. I just mean that I think someone I like might like me."
"How is that going to work?" Olivia's sister inquires, "Doesn't everyone at your school think you're dating Ty? He's not going to be very likely to ask you out if he thinks you are already involved with someone else."
"Oh, Ty, and I have just decided to break up. We've already dated way longer than most people are age have. The break-up will clear the way for him!" Olivia says cheerfully.
"Who is this him you speak of?" Daniel and asks while Teal'c begins giving the girl a suspicious glare.
"He's a good kid, I swear," Tammy says.
"How do you know him? She's two years behind you in school. She's not interested in someone in high school, is she?" Daniel says with something that is close cousins to panic.
"No, he's just an eighth grader, but this is the kind of kid you'd known even if he was a couple of grades away from you. He's always getting recognized for some academic quiz team or volunteer work or something. His name is Teddy Green," Tammy offers.
"You're going to let me meet him before you officially date, right?" Daniel asks.
Olivia nods her head, and the conversation turns to different topics. Daniels' mind doesn't turn away from the topic though. A cold dread is in his stomach as he considers one horrible fact. Cassie was sixteen when she started to date, and a year later she was having sex.
What did it mean if Olivia was only twelve when she began to date?
If he thought it would work, he would forbid her all together. That hadn't gone well with his oldest daughter, though. He wouldn't be able to bear it if he pushed Olivia away from him the same way he had Cassie. True, in the last couple of months, he and Cassie had gone a long way in repairing their relationship, but he didn't want to have to travel the same path with his younger daughter.
Thank goodness the rest of his kids were boys! Two girls were as much as he could handle!