"Tammy, could you hold Luke for a second?" Shelby asks, handing the child to Tammy.
Mr. Dunn doesn't object to the hand-off, even though he is quietly insulted that she didn't choose to hand the child to him instead.
She returns a few minutes later with the young Lexi in her hands. Her father is taken aback. "You adopted the twins?" he asks.
Shelby's voice is ice. Up until now, she was just uncertain whether or not she liked her father. She was tentative, and scared. Now she knows for a fact that this man is a horrible human being. "No, she's my kid."
"So your boyfriend?" her father prompts.
"My husband… yeah, he's black."
"Oh," her father says blinking. "Where is he?" he looks around the house, as if expecting him to come out of the woodwork.
"He's at work."
"What does he do?"
"He works for the Air Force."
"A soldier?"
"A soldier who used to be in charge of an army far bigger than you can even imagine or hear of."
"Used to be?" her father asks.
"That was before he came to America. He still has a really important job, he's just not in charge of as many people," Shelby explains.
"You married a foreigner?" her father asks in shock.
"Get out of my house," Shelby says in a dangerously even voice.
"I don't understand what I did wrong," her father protests.
"You will not come in here and insult my family. I told you to get out of my house!" she says, marching him toward the door and opening it.
Teal'c is standing on the other side of the door with a key stretched out to where the lock was minutes before.
Mr. Dunn's eyes bulge at the sight. Somehow, he hadn't imagined someone quite so large as his son-in-law.
"Who is this?" he asks.
"It's my father, by biological father," Shelby says.
Teal'c gets very close to him, "Did he harm you or your mother in any way?"
"No," Shelby says, "Well, at least I don't think so. I don't actually remember him."
"I didn't! I swear!" the man says, looking at the figure that is looming over him with terror.
"Why was he being removed from out home?" Teal'c asks.
Shelby is too ashamed to answer. She still hasn't been able to explain racism to Teal'c in a way that will get him to stop attempting to scare the racism out of strangers. She doubts that she'll ever be able to explain the fear of immigrants to him.
Teal'c reaches over, and picks up the man by the back of his neck, and starts to lift him of the ground.
"Hold it!" Tammy exclaims, "Dude, all he did was seem a little surprised you were black, and not from around here."
"You informed him of my extraterrestrial origins?" Teal'c asks, surprised that they would give away such information to someone they barely knew. Shelby never even told her mother.
Tammy smacks herself in the head knowing that Teal'c just informed the man. Her big sister however, is much better at covering, 'alien', man, you are meant to say that you are a legal alien, not extraterrestrial, that means something totally different."
Teal'c catches on immediately, and covers smoothly, "Of course, my grasp of the English language is still not without flaw."
The man looks from one to the other of them, not quite believing what had turned into a rather convincing display.
"I do not believe this is ample reason to evict a family member from our home," Teal'c says to his wife.
"Teal'c, he left me, and then he insulted my husband and my babies. That is more than enough reason to give him the boot."
"Is there not a saying on your planet that erring twice is not the same as making a correction?"
"Two wrongs don't make a right? Yeah. You're saying that me making him leave doesn't make up for the fact that he left when I was a kid. What if he hurts the kids?" Shelby says.
Teal'c's eyes flash almost as much as if he had a Goa'uld inside of him. "I will not allow him to harm the children."
"I'm not talking about physical harm here. I mean, the man has a history of taking off when the going gets tough. What if the kids get attached to him, and then he's just gone?"
"Look, I know that I am probably not part of the kids that you are worried about here. He's no kin of mine, but I'd rather have a grandpa-type figure in my life for a little while, and then have him disappear, than have no grandpa-type figure in my life at all," Tammy says.
Shelby reaches over, and kisses her forehead, "You are always and forever one of my kids, even though you are getting so grown up. Come in," she adds, holding the door open for her dad.
Mr. Dunn gives Teal'c a look which clearly indicates that he believes that he needs permission from him as well. Teal'c gives the man a slow nod before he dares to walk across the threshold.
-0-
Vala doesn't even turn on the light anymore. Her midnight cravings have become so common that her body knows the way to the fridge. There is no danger of her ever-expanding ankles tripping over anything.
She picks a few things out of the fridge which she knows would horrify her husband, and then she sits down to eat them in the dark.
Then suddenly, she isn't in the dark anymore. Olivia is standing there blinking at her.
"You're eating pickles and ice cream," Olivia informs her.
"I know, it's kind of weird. It's that stomach bacteria thing I have makes me crave some pretty strange things."
"Crave?" Olivia says with her eyebrows raised.
Vala nods her head, having no idea what that word causes to spring into most Earthlings heads.
"So you are craving pickles and ice cream?" the girl continues, raising her eyebrows again.
Olivia looks down at the woman's stomach, and can't believe she's been stupid enough to believe the cover story. She'd not even been adopted yet when she'd blown the roof off the whole bit about the Stargate. Yet for months, she'd been believing whatever crap her not-a-stepmom had chosen to feed her about the obviously impending addition to the family.
She sits down in the chair across from Vala. "You could have told me, you know."
"What? That I was eating pickles and ice cream? I didn't know you liked them. I'll wake you up next time," Vala says, pushing the dish toward her.
"I don't like pickles and ice cream!" the girl practically screams, "There is absolutely no way I could ever like pickles and ice cream! Not even close! I'm not going to have pickles and ice cream until I'm, like, 30!"
Vala stares at her for a long quite second. "Ok, clearly in this conversation pickles and ice cream are some sort of a metaphor. I have no idea what they are a metaphor for."
"You're pregnant," Olivia says plainly.
"No, it's this bacterial infection I got, because I'm an alien…" Vala starts to protest.
"Vala, I'm thirteen, not three. There is no weird alien disease that mimics every single aspect of human pregnancy. I should have caught on a long time before now, but I was too stupid. I just don't understand why you and Dad don't just tell us. I mean, we're going to know in a couple of months when the baby comes. Why would you make up this whole like to keep it a secret for just a little bit longer?"
"Your father doesn't know," Vala practically whispers.
Then Olivia's heart shatters, and her lip quivers. She starts to think about how different a not-a-stepmother was from a stepmother. Maybe, if they had really been married, she'd still get to see Vala when it was all over. Maybe, if they were really married, she never would have cheated on him. Maybe, this sort of thing was why they never got married for real.
"It's not Dad's," Olivia says.
Vala feels the accusation piercing her heart like an arrow through silk, "Of course it's your father's! I've never cheated on him. I would never cheat on him! I certainly don't have to with all the things that we get up to in the bedroom…"
"Just stop right there, this completely falls under the category of things I so don't need to know about you guys. So, if it's Dad's kid, how come you haven't told him yet? I mean you've got to be pretty far along. Like, more than halfway."
"I'm more than five months pregnant," Vala agrees, rubbing her stomach. She looks away. She doesn't feel right saying anything bad about this little girl's father to her, but she doesn't know how else to get out of this conversation. "Olivia, your father and I decided before we got married that we weren't going to have any kids together. We were happy with the ones we had."
This earns a grin from the girl.
"This little baby was an accident. Apparently, you have to use back-up birth control for several months when you start taking the pill," Vala explains.
"Ew, gross, I am way too young to know the details of exactly how my little sibling was an accident!" Olivia explains in horror.
Vala considers the girl before her seriously for a second before saying, "No, you are thirteen. That is way too young to be having sex, it's just about the right age to be getting information on how to do it safely when you are all grown up and with a guy as great as your father."
Olivia looks at the woman before her seriously, "Dad would so not approve of you giving me the sex talk."
"Yeah, well, he's also not going to give it to you. So why don't you grab a spoon, and agree never to tell him?" Vala asks.
Olivia giggles and obediently grabs a spoon from the drawer, but she isn't quite so willing to be distracted from the conversation at hand. "Ok, so you screwed up the birth control, and don't want to tell dad that you're having an oopsie baby. I get that, I really do. But you have to know that waiting isn't going to make it any better. I mean, it's really obvious at this point. The only reason I didn't figure it out a long time ago is the really elaborate lies that you are telling. It's only a matter of time before he sees through the lies. Waiting to tell him is so not going to make things better."
Olivia looks over her rocky road to see a tear falling silently from Vala's face.
"What?" Olivia asks.
"I don't want to go," Vala says sounding more vulnerable, more honest than she has since she was a small child.
"Go? You're leaving?" Olivia says confused.
Vala puts a hand on her stomach.
"You're never going to tell him?!" Olivia stands up horrified, "You plan on leaving with his kid, and never even letting him know?!" she practically shouts.
"Actually, I plan on staying until he finds out. I haven't told him, because I don't want to go. I know it's stupid. I know at some point he's going to figure out that I'm having a kid. I just… don't want to leave you guys quite yet. Is it stupid to fight for a couple of extra months? Probably, but I think you guys are worth it. So worth it."
"What are you talking about, Dad would never let you leave if he knew you were having a baby! I mean, honestly, I don't think he would ever let you leave no matter what." Then Olivia looks up into the eyes of her almost-step-mother, and sees that to the depth of her soul Vala believes that she has to make a choice between her child and the man she loves. Olivia thought she knew her father better than that. She wants to cry as badly as Vala does, but she doesn't, "Where are you going?"
"I haven't decided yet. Through the gate, of course. There are a lot of great planets out there in the universe. Of course, the things that made me consider something a great planet before I had a baby are not the things that make me consider it a great planet now. I don't know. Someplace quiet, maybe. People are supposed to want quieter when they have a baby, aren't they?"
"Vala, you can't leave Earth. If you stayed here, then we could still see you. I could, like, babysit for you, or we could do each other's nails or something. You are the only person who has ever given me a French manicure which I didn't feel the need to remove the instant the polish dried."
"Honey, I don't think your dad is exactly going to want me to be hanging around with you."
"Well, that's stupid. If the only reason you guys are breaking up is because he doesn't want a baby, and he doesn't actually have to see the baby, then there is no reason…"
Vala takes a deep breath, "And here we are back in the sex ed part of the talk. Well, maybe it's the love ed part of the talk. How come they don't teach love ed? Love is way more complicated than sex. Sweetie, break-ups are usually messy. They're usually harder the more you love someone. Is it possible for people to break up with someone, and stay friends? Sure, when they try really hard, and were drifting apart for a long time already. Me and your Dad? Honey, we're never going to be friends again. We've got this love, this passion for each other. And that's good, right? It makes us argue, and it makes us tease, and it makes us look longingly in each other's eyes, and it makes all that bedroom stuff you don't want to know about really great. But when you're done being with someone, and the passion is still there, things are going to be fights, and not the funny ones your father and I have. We're not going to scream at each other and then kiss. It' pretty much going to be all screaming."
Olivia bites her lip, "You're saying Dad is going to be so mad at you for accidently getting pregnant that he's never going to want to see you again."
"No, honey, I'm saying that your father is going to be just as disappointed that his relationship didn't work out that I am. I'm saying that both of us are going to have our hearts broken into a million tiny pieces, and neither one of us is going to be able to look at the other one without screaming or crying for a long while, maybe even forever."
"I don't think I understand," Olivia whispers.
"Well, of course you don't! You're not going to understand love for a long time. That's why all this dating years and years before you're old enough to get married is mostly play-acting. You're not ready for love yet, babe. The kind of love that's a promise, that's a job, that's an entire lifestyle. That kind of love can be the most amazing thing in the world. I would hate to feel like what happened to your father and I messed that up."
The two take a few spoonfuls of ice cream in silence before Vala says, "Now, are you going to let me give you the sex talk? Goodness only knows if I'll have the chance later or not."
Tears brim on the edge of Olivia's eyes as she nods her head.