AN: Sorry about the delay. My coworker's hubby was in the hospital so I picked up a bunch of extra half shifts and was mostly just sleeping when not at work. Also I am now the ASM. our former ASM has decided they want to go back to stock manager to have more time with their new baby.

Chapter 3 - Suprise

"Why do you sound so off, Aunt Sam?" Cassie asked her over the phone, after apologizing for waking her up.

"I'm just over tired. Even though they basically fired me from that last position, they still wanted to evaluate my performance. Before I knew what my next assignment was going to entail, Gracie got a part in Sammy and Jon's school play. Then they gave me the Hammond, so I've been bouncing from Colorado to DC and too many other places in between for weeks now." Sam delicately yawned before she explained the recent events to help Cassie catch up on (what the girl affably called her cousins). She settled herself more comfortably against her pillows as she lounged in bed.

"And Dad missed you." Cassie said slyly.

"Cass…" Sam said but laughed.

"I'm an adult and I'm not dumb. I knew dad was in love with you when Jolinar happened." Cassie said pointedly while she warmed up a cup of coffee in her apartment. "You know, even when he left the infirmary room, so you'd felt like it was just me there, he was standing right outside the door."

She hadn't known then. But Daniel let it slip that Jack did not leave her side until he was confident that her overwhelming depression had passed. "I know. He always hovers when he's worried."

"Tell me about it. I had the flu while you were… overseas, and he flew out and forced tea and Jell-O into me." Cassie said laughing.

"What did he do with Gracie?"

"Dropped her off at Nana and Grandpa Amos's house. She loved it. Didn't even miss him. Dad said that Sammy cried because she was so glad to see her."

"Aww, that's kind of cute."

"Yah. You're turning out pretty well." Cassie teased.

"Thanks." Sam said dryly but she grinned at the off-hand compliment.

In many ways, Sammy was turning out considerably better adjusted than Sam had been at the same age, despite her current insecurity about Jon graduating before her. When she decided to go to the Academy (knowing that Mark had rejected the idea), Jacob had pushed her to honor the Carter name. Wil was the kind of dad that told Sammy she could be anything she wanted to be and offered her whatever tools she needed to do it.

He was doing the same for Jon who had long ago decided to go to the Air Force Academy at the end of this summer. But unlike his older counterpart, Jon had decided to also aggressively pursue his art skills, something that the older man absently continually did, as seen by his doodling in the margins of his mission reports and the way he frequently left funny sketches around her lab. Even after they married, she still found several erotic drawings from her husband that featured the two of them in various positions which they enthusiastically recreated before the birth of their daughter.

Cassie chuckled. "Maybe you're pregnant." She quipped flippantly.

"Oh yah, because that's what I need right now."

"Right. So, when are you guys moving back?"

"Probably in about two months. It's too hard to work out of Peterson from DC. According to scuttlebutt, they want me to continue to command the Hammond for at least another year so I'll be stationed out of Peterson for a while after that." Since they married, she and Jack spent more time living apart than together, and Gracie was being bounced from home to home. Jack had managed to convince the IOA into making DC one of their drop points for the simple reason that he should have quick and easy access to orbital command because he was its figurehead. A bonus was that any other senior leader would be able get to DC with similar ease. For her though, logistically, her command center was in Colorado, and she felt out of touch when she wasn't in close proximity to the flagship.

"Good thing dad didn't sell the house."

"Indeed." Sam said in a fair impression of Teal'c which made Cassie chuckle.

"Okay, well, I need to get to work, Sam. I'll talk to you later in the week."

"Sure thing, Cass. Love you."

"Love you more." Cassie told her and hung up.

Sam got out of bed. Jack had taken Gracie to the park for a couple of hours and let Sam sleep in after her lengthy debriefing this week. But she knew they would be home shortly.

Sam grabbed her multivitamins off the shelf next to the mirror and saw an abandoned pregnancy test box from over a year ago. They hadn't even bothered with her last depo shot, figuring it might be a year or more if she got pregnant at all. They had been trying before she'd been assigned to Atlantis, but being in two separate galaxies was not conducive to getting pregnant. She'd honestly thought she'd be there for a solid two years, or possibly more, and that once Jack retired, they might have moved there as a family for a while. She'd been pushing to let the Atlantis crew be allowed to treat Pegasus assignments like being stationed in Okinawa. If she was honest that might have been part of why she'd been reassigned. Jack would have gone to bat for her, which in retrospect, only made it more obvious that her motivation was very personal.

Now that she was back and being offered the position of her dreams, Sam was worried she'd picked a bad time to start trying for another baby. Even though they were both on the same planet, they hadn't had time to be intimate very often the last few weeks. All these 'obstacles' were the story of her current life.

Sam sighed heavily. She should have known they would never have released Jack from the program to move to another galaxy. She looked at the pregnancy test. Cassie was probably wrong, but what the heck? It was likely expired, and the odds of a positive test were pretty low. Sam wasn't getting any younger and getting pregnant at her age got harder and harder naturally.

In spite of Cassie's teasing, Sam told herself she was just coming down with a cold again. Everything smelled funny lately. Even the sweat on her pajamas smelled odd, so she tossed them into the hamper. Sam used the last test in the box and set it on the counter while she turned on the shower and loaded her toothbrush with toothpaste. She shoved it in her mouth as she stepped in the shower to wash off the funk.

Six minutes later, she turned off the water and toweled off her now shoulder length hair. Casually, she looked over at the counter….

Jack walked in the door, his nearly four-year-old daughter in tow. Gracie was filthy from the sand box and Jack had teased her about Uncle Danny being her real daddy. Gracie had giggled and told him 'No, daddy, mommy loves only daddy.'

Jack really didn't want to think about how his preschooler understood what being married meant in an adult sense.

He heard a startled yelp of panic from upstairs and instantly went into command mode. "Gracie, go hide." He told her quietly and cursed in his head that because of their daughter, both their sidearms were locked in the safe in their bedroom.

Gracie nodded and silently scuttled off to one of her better hiding places while Jack worked his way silently up the stairs. He didn't hear anything at all, which seemed unusual. Even if someone caught Sam off guard, he should hear something. Concerned, he made a quick decision and took the stairs two at a time, no longer caring if he was heard at this point.

Jack watched for movement when he breached the bedroom door at the top of the stairs. "Sam?" he said softly. No response. "Sam?" He called out a little more concerned at her failure to answer. He noticed the half-open bathroom door and cautiously made his way to the room.

She was sitting on the floor, holding something tightly in her hands. "Sam, are you all right, sweetheart?" He asked her gently as he carefully approached his wife so he wouldn't startle her.

Very slowly Sam's head turned to look at him, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open. A look of shock in her blue eyes – an emotion that Jack rarely associated with his wife. She finally swallowed hard and stood, still nude, jammed whatever was in her hands into his then fled the bathroom.

Perplexed, Jack looked down at the contents of his hands and flipped it over wondering if he'd missed something when he let out a startled yelp.

Two blue lines. Both dark.

Jack sank slowly down to the floor of the bathroom, not caring the seat of his jeans were getting wet from where Sam had sat moments ago and leaned heavily against the cabinet door.

He stared at those lines for a long time until a tiny hand reached out and wiped a tear off his cheek. "Daddy, why are you and mommy crying?"

Jack looked up at his daughter and grabbed her into a fierce hug. "How would you feel about being a big sister?"

"Can we get a kitten instead?" She asked him.

Jack chuckled. "Sure, Sweet Potato. We can get a kitten too."