Gigi Sinclair

Eight and a half months into her pregnancy, Carter—I mean, Sam's—lap had completely disappeared under her gigantic girth, forcing her to balance her laptop on her stomach. She looked, I thought as I let myself into their house, like a hippo with an eating disorder. A technologically adept hippo.

Of course, I knew better than to mention this to Sam herself. Instead, I held up the DVDs I'd rented as a sympathy gift.

"What's that?" She barely glanced up from the screen.

"I thought you might be tired of watching Oprah and those birthing videos." Renamed "Night of the Living Placenta" by Pete, they were the most horrific things Daniel and I had ever seen. And bear in mind that both of us had faced the Goa'uld and showered with every man on the base. "'Spiderman Three', 'Hurricane' and 'Nine and a Half Weeks.' That one's in case you and Pete feel frisky."

Sam snorted. "Right."

It was weird being friends with Sam, but I didn't know how else to describe what we were now. True, it was Daniel who'd asked me to look in on her three weeks ago, when the doctors on base ordered her to start her maternity leave early. Since this was her first pregnancy—she was adamant it would be her only, but I knew that'd probably change once the baby was here—and she was over forty, they wanted to be really careful. I visited Sam to appease Daniel and because my…was cancelled that day. I kept coming back because I was worried about her and because, somewhere under that super-soldier-scientist I'd always admired, there was a person I actually liked.

Who'd have thunk it, huh?

"You feeling OK?"

Sam shook her head impatiently. "I'm fine, Gen…Jack." We were down to about three of those slips a day, which was pretty good after a decade of the chain of command. "I just want to finish this email to Colonel Davis, then I'll make some lunch."

"You know, I'm pretty sure the doctors didn't send you home to do more work."

"What am I supposed to do, lie in bed all day?"

"It's called enjoying it while you can." I reached for her laptop. She yanked it away as fast as Daniel did when I was in the mood for a little fun and he was more interested in glyphs and/or pictograms.

"Jack!" She winced suddenly and her hand went to her stomach.

I froze. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head irritably, setting the laptop down on the couch beside her. "I'm fine."

"You don't look it." She was pale, and her forehead was creased.

"It's fine. Just false labour."

"Are you sure?" I tried to remember what had happened when Sara had Charlie, but that was nearly twenty-five years past and pretty hazy.

"I called the hospital this morning. They told me not to come in yet."

"OK." I gave her a smile I hoped was slightly reassuring, although I did remember that nothing you ever said to or did for a pregnant woman was the right thing. I tried anyway. "I'll make you a sandwich."

"I'm not hungry."

"Then I'll make myself a sandwich."

I went into the kitchen. Pete was quite a chef, apparently, and there were fancy looking copper pots and strange utensils that looked like they belonged to the Tollan or the Tok'ra in Ikea storage units. At least we always knew what to buy him for Christmas.

Their fridge was more organized than any fridge I'd ever seen, something else I put down to Pete's influence. The blue Jell-O in the little glass dishes, though, that was all Sam.

I pulled out a jar of mayonnaise and took an automatic sniff. Since I'd stopped going off world and since I'd shacked up with Daniel, my condiments had been less inclined to age to the point where they developed personalities more interesting than the typical Kelownan's, but old habits die hard. The mayonnaise smelled fine, not surprisingly, so I picked up one of Pete's Ginsu knives and slathered the mayonnaise on a piece of white bread. What can I say. Even at my age, there are some days when a good sandwich is worth the Metamucil cocktail that will inevitably follow.

I added some cheese and examined something that looked like baloney, but, knowing Pete, was probably some kind of exotic meat specially ordered from somewhere like Genoa or Lisbon. My hand was on the meat when I was interrupted by a groan. Which wasn't that unusual, but most of the time, the meat was Daniel's and the groan was a pleasurable one.

I went to the kitchen door to see Sam clutching her stomach with one hand and resolutely typing with the other. She frowned up at me. "I said I'm fine. If you're going to keep bugging me, you can just go home."

And to think, just a few short months ago, everything she said was prefaced by "sir" and was excruciatingly polite, even when she was telling me I was an ignorant jackass.

Since I didn't want to leave Sam alone, and since Daniel would have killed me if I had, I went back to the kitchen and finished my sandwich. I ate in there, too, glancing through the newspaper. When I'd finished, I automatically stacked the plates neatly in the dishwasher—which isn't, apparently, a natural instinct for everyone, as living with His Disorganized Highness Daniel had taught me—and went back into the living room. Sam was gone, as was her laptop.

"Are you OK?" I called in the general direction of the stairs.

"Fine," she insisted, from the direction of the bathroom.

OK, then.

I looked through the videos and decided I was really in more of a "Spiderman Three" mood than a "Hurricane" mood. I popped open the fancy audio-visual cabinet, accessorized by framed photos of Sam and Pete, the old SG-1, and their twin Harley-Davidsons, and put the disc into the DVD player. I sat back on the couch and waited for Sam.

And waited. And waited.

Finally, worried that she might have passed out or choked on her vomit or something equally appealing, I went upstairs. The baby's room was the first door on the right, a symphony in gender-neutral pale yellow with a teddy bear border. There was an expensive wooden crib in the middle of the room, and there were already shelves full of picture books and boxes full of toys. Apparently, having a grandfather with a snake in his head isn't an entirely bad thing, especially when said snake has always wanted grandchildren of his own.

Sam wasn't in there. I didn't really want to look into the next room, Sam and Pete's, but I took a quick glimpse, just enough to see a neatly made bed and rows of uniforms, both air force and police, in the closet.

"Sir?" Her voice came from behind the third door on the landing. It was calm, logical and very Carter, so I didn't panic, or even bother to correct her.

"Yeah. You almost done, or can I start the movie without you?"

"I think we should probably go to the hospital, actually." She said it like she was asking for a sweater or suggesting I try the spinach quiche.

"What?" I reached for the doorknob, but the door was locked. "What's going on?"

"Well, you know how I thought it was false labour?"

"Yeah?"

"That might have been a mistake."

It had been a while since I'd driven that fast on an actual road, as opposed to a go-kart course or a flight simulator. When we got to the hospital, I dumped the truck in what looked like a loading zone and helped Sam inside. Or, I tried to. She pushed me off and insisted on walking in by herself.

"Call Pete," she told me, as she approached the desk.

"You sure you don't need me to help?"

"With what, Jack? I think I can get myself…" She trailed off, breathed deeply a few times, then continued. "Admitted."

Mumbling something about admitted versus committed, I flipped open my cell phone. Pete's cell was turned off, and the woman I spoke to at the station told me he was unavailable but they'd pass the message on as soon as possible. "He's about to have a baby. What could be more important than that?" I snapped.

"I'm not at liberty to divulge that information," the woman said. Well, I should have been used to that.

Proving that she could be cool and competent even while clutching her stomach, Sam was already being wheeled into an elevator when I got back to her.

"Is he coming?" She asked.

"Yeah, he'll be here." I was sure he would be, as soon as he actually learned what was happening.

"Are you the father?" the nurse asked.

"No," I answered, with more than a little relief, as I got into the elevator beside them. It had been a possibility, once, but that road would have been the wrong one for all of us.

"Then you'll have to wait outside."

I looked at Sam for some indication as to what she wanted. She bit her lip, then said, "I want Jack with me until Pete gets here."

The nurse looked less than pleased, probably judging Sam as some kind of inter-galactic hussy, as opposed to someone who gave up even dating for a long time because every man she liked ended up dead.

Sam leaned forward a little, her hands clutching her stomach again. I was suddenly hit by graphic memories of Charlie's birth. It had been a hard thing to witness—but just try telling that to Sara and getting any sympathy—and I wasn't sure I wanted to go through it again when it wasn't even my kid.

But then I looked at Sam, and, instead of a scary pregnant woman, I saw a member of my team. Ex-member of my ex-team, but that wasn't important. No one gets left behind. Except Daniel. And me. And Frank Cromwell.

I reached out and squeezed Sam's hand. She squeezed back, harder than I thought any non-armband-enhanced human could.

The obstetrician didn't look old enough to even remember "Doogie Howser M.D.", but then, to me, everyone was looking young these days. Except Daniel, who'd found his first grey hair only a few days before he shipped out on his latest mission. This had spawned a mini-crisis, to which I was less than completely sympathetic. He was forty-three years old, for God's sake. By that time, I was doing a credible impression of steel wool.

He took a quick look at Sam and said, "You have a while yet. I'll be back," and spirited away again.

"Gee, thanks," I called after him, but Sam just shook her head.

Sam and Pete must have had good medical insurance, because she got a private room. I spent what seemed like an incredible amount of time awkwardly patting her back through the thin hospital gown, offering her ice chips and asking if she wanted to watch TV. She didn't, so I put on the golf channel in the background. I thought it would be more soothing than WWE Smackdown.

My cell phone rang twice. Both times, I whipped it out like a zat on a planet full of Jaffa, expecting Pete. The first time it was someone looking for "Lesley." The second time was General George Hammond, retired, who told me he was up from Florida for a few days and wanted to meet for lunch.

"I'm kind of busy at the moment, George."

"Daniel keeping your hands full?" He joked, with forced jocularity. Out of respect for our longstanding friendship, George tried to be open-minded about Daniel and my newfound openness. To a military guy like him, though, accepting two guys like us as a gay couple was about as easy as accepting a Communist as Secretary of Defence. To give the man his due, he was trying.

"Sam's in labour.".

"Oh." I smiled at the surprise in his voice. Then Sam groaned, and I thought I'd better wipe the smile off my face.

"I'd better go, General."

"Let me know when I can come," he ordered. "I can't wait to see the little guy." "That was what Daniel said," was on the tip of my tongue, but instead, I said,

"Will do."

"Who was that?" Sam asked, irritably, as I snapped the phone closed.

"George."

She grunted, and I obligingly held out my hand for her to attempt to crush. She took it, but didn't bruise my bones. This time. She did mutter, "I wish Daniel was here."

"Hey, I'm doing my best, OK? It's been twenty-five years since I went to a pre-natal class." And my attendance had been pretty sporadic, even then. Daniel, on the other hand, had volunteered to go with Sam whenever Pete couldn't make it. The first time, he'd come home from the class with a worryingly wistful look on his face.

"Do you ever think about having one?" He said, as he sat next to me on the couch.

"A Ruben sandwich?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the screen. "Sure, but we never have the right ingredients."

"A baby, Jack." His voice was light, but I could tell this wasn't joking banter. Unfortunately.

"Seems like one of us is lacking the proper equipment," I replied, equally lightly. "And I'll tell you right now, I'm too old to make any more life changes."

"We could adopt," Daniel suggested. "There are lots of kids who need a good home. A good father." He looked at me pointedly, and, of course, I was the one who felt like a selfish bastard when I protested,

"I'm too old, Daniel." That was partly true. I didn't want to be going to my kid's high school graduation when I was seventy years old, and I didn't want to spend those intervening eighteen years worrying and agonizing and stressing out. I wanted to spend them with Daniel, fishing, having sex whenever we wanted, taking exotic vacations to far-off places with no trace of Goa'uld, Tokra, or Stargates.

Daniel hesitated for a long moment, and I thought he was gathering arguments about how age wasn't an obstacle to parenthood, especially since I was home all day anyway. Instead, he said, "I know, Jack." He sighed a little. "You're completely right." It was a rare admission, but for once, I couldn't take much enjoyment from gloating over it. "We'll just have to spoil Sam's kid instead."

I could live with that option, so Daniel kept going to the prenatal classes with Sam and I kept staying home with the Cheetos and the TV all to myself.

I was kind of regretting that now. "Shouldn't you breathe or something?" I suggested. Lamaze had been "in" when Sara had Charlie, but for all I knew that was "out" now. After all, when my mom had been pregnant with me, she'd smoked a pack and a half a day and downed three glasses of whisky every Saturday night. As Daniel is fond of saying, "That explains a lot."

"Thanks, Jack." Sam snapped. "And I don't want him here for me, I want him here for you."

"What?"

"You're freaking out."

"I'm perfectly calm," I replied coolly, then winced as Sam went through what looked like another contraction. A pretty painful one, from this angle. "Anyway, he doesn't affect me like that." I was the ex-Brigadier General. I was in always in control, no matter who happened to be in the room and who happened to be off-world with Teal'c and the two newer members of the newest SG-1.

Sam snorted. "You've got to be kidding. Even before you got together, you were different when Daniel was around."

She was in labour, I reminded myself. When Sara had been at this stage, she'd been pelting me with profanities graphic enough to make a Marine blush. This was probably the Carter equivalent.

"OK, Sam," I said. "I'm not going to argue."

"Because you know I'm right."

Just let it go, I told myself. Cut her some slack. "No, you're not." Daniel and I have always, and will likely always, fought like dogs over every reasonable issue to fight about, and quite a few issues that aren't so reasonable.

"When Daniel was ascended, you drove us all nuts. Especially poor Jonas."

God. Jonas. There was a name I didn't want to hear again. Although I admit, towards the end, he was starting to grow on me a little. Like a fungus. "I don't remember you being all that nice to him, either."

"That's why you haven't changed that much since you and Daniel got together." She said it like it was a revelation, some equation she'd been battling with for months only to find the answer staring her in the face. "It's because your feelings for each other were always there, we just never noticed."

Well, I hadn't noticed either. Until it hit me like a freight train called Oma Desala.

Before we could get deeper into that topic, though, Sam groaned again and the nurse came back in. She unceremoniously flipped up the lower half of Sam's sheet, and I locked my eyes firmly on my ex-2IC's face. She was holding up well, all things considered.

"That was fast," the nurse commented. "Looks like we're almost there. I'll get Dr. Neary."

"Hear that? Almost there." I patted her on the shoulder and remembered, suddenly, one of our SG-1 missions, where she'd been knocked out by some kind of leftover booby-trap on a long-abandoned planet, and I'd gotten a spike through my leg trying to get to her. Daniel had sat between us, his big eyes wide and concerned, one of our hands in each of his as he murmured comfort until Teal'c came back with Fraiser and a medical team.

There was no Daniel here now, and there was no Fraiser, so the comfort fell to me. It had never been my strong point, but as the doctor came in and Sam took my hand again, this time looking more nervous than pained, I squeezed gently and leaned onto the bed, putting my other arm around her shoulders. "Let's do this, Major."

She glanced up at me and she knitted her brows determinedly. "Yes, sir."

The actual delivery itself passed in a blur. One minute, I was focusing my eyes on Sam's face and encouraging her to push; the next, the doctor was holding up what looked like a really big crappie covered in goo.

"A beautiful baby girl," the nurse declared, and I decided to take her word for it.

"That's her?" Sam sounded a little stunned. I couldn't blame her. I'd been expecting something a little less symbiote-like myself.

A few seconds later, though, the nurse thrust the newly wiped-off, cordless and shrieking baby into Sam's arms and I could see what the nurse meant. The baby was red, with a lot of wet dark hair and a wrinkled face. I could see a lot of Jacob Carter in her already. Especially when she flailed out one tiny arm and whacked me squarely in the nose.

Sam smiled, a little uncertainly. "She's…" "Beautiful," I filled in, because I knew it was what I was supposed to say. The look on Sam's face told me that, for once, I had said the right thing. I leaned forward and kissed the top of Sam's head.

"Wow." Sam blinked. "I didn't think… I mean, I knew it was happening, but it never really seemed real until now."

I knew what she'd meant. For nine months, I'd known, theoretically, that Sara was having a baby, but it wasn't until I held Charlie in my arms for the first time that I actually believed it.

It was the same when he died.

"Does she have a name?" I asked quickly, to get my mind away from those thoughts. Fifteen years wasn't long enough to get rid of the pain, just enough to dull it a little.

"Caroline," Sam told me, staring at her daughter like she was a particularly fascinating naquadah reactor.

"Nice."

Sam's eyes flicked up to me for a second, then back down. "It was my mother's name." I hadn't known that. "Caroline Janet Carter-Shanahan."

"Poor kid. How's that going to fit on a high school diploma?" Sam shook her head at me. "Guess we'll just have to call her CJ for short." I actually kind of liked that. CJ Carter-Shanahan. Sounded like a right-winger for the Philadelphia Flyers.

"Guess again, Jack." Sam grinned as the baby in her arms flailed and shrieked some more.

I stayed with them for another hour or so. They were moved into the recovery ward, and the nurse took Caroline to be weighed and measured. When she'd gone, Sam closed her eyes. When they brought the baby back, both baby and mother were asleep, although Caroline looked decidedly more comfortable in her pink blanket than Sam did in her drafty hospital gown.

The nurse handed the baby to me, and I suppressed a flash of nervousness and took her. She felt the way Charlie had when he was born; awesomely small, like there was no way she could possibly survive outside her mother's body. I ran one of my fingers over her tiny clenched fists. She looked like Sam, I realized. Which was lucky for her, because Pete sure wouldn't win any beauty contests.

A second later, the non-beauty-contest winner himself burst in. "What's going on? I got here as quickly as I could, but those SOBs at dispatch didn't want to interrupt the stakeout…"

"It's OK, Pete. Everyone's fine." I stood up. He looked from Sam to me to the baby, then back to Sam.

"I missed it?" He sounded crushed, and I felt kind of sorry for the guy.

"There's a lot more stuff to come." First words, first birthday, first bike, first day of school. I almost envied him. Almost.

I handed Caroline to her father. Looking completely poleaxed, a feeling I remembered very well, he sat on the edge of Sam's bed, and Sam opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Hi, Pete."

"Hi, honey. I'm so sorry…"

"It's OK, Pete." She glanced up at me. "Really."

Never let it be said I'm a man who doesn't know a cue when he sees one. "Well, my work here is done."

"You can stay, Jack," Sam offered automatically.

I shook my head. "Me and Daniel will be over as soon as he gets home." Three days from now, unless he found someway to cut the mission short when I emailed him the news. Which I wouldn't put past him, either. It was just a boring survey mission, not a hieroglyph or a pre-industrial culture to be seen.

"Thanks," Pete offered.

"No problem." Really.

I held up the camera phone Daniel had taught me to use—during a very memorable lesson—and took a quick snap of the happy family to send to P72-814. Then I left. I knew where I was needed, and that wasn't here. It was at home, basking in the military neatness until Daniel-the-slob came home and started leaving his underwear on the floor and his dishes in the sink again.

I couldn't wait.