Unexpected Predicament

[yukitoyu22]

Title: Unexpected Predicament


Chapter One
The shrilling ring of the portable phone sounded somewhere in the depth of the covers as Jack O’Neill slept soundly in his bed. There was no movement from the man as the first ring dissipated and the interval of silence ensued, but as the second ring began, a small, annoyed exhaled escaped Jack’s lips. With his eyes still closed, Jack fumbled around the covers idly until his fingers wrapped around the cordless phone. By the time the phone reached his face and the talk button pushed, it was on its fourth or fifth ring.

“Yeah?”

His voice was groggy as he spoke into the phone which rested on his cheek as Jack continued to lie with his eyes closed in the bed. There was a response from the other side and after licking his lips he managed an “I’ll be right there” before hanging up the phone and discarding it back into the depths of his bed. It took him a moment to actually move, but once he opened his eyes and rolled onto his back, Jack was awake and ready to go.

For once Jack had made it to the S.G.C. in a timely manner and he congratulated himself with a smile as he road the elevator to the twenty-seventh floor. When the elevator doors open, the colonel made his way to the briefing room where he was met by General Hammond, Daniel, and Teal’c. Jack’s hands found the pockets of his pants as he looked around the room and gestured to an empty seat with a nod,

“Where’s Carter?”

General Hammond and Daniel glanced at each other while Jack was pretty certain he saw Teal’c’s eyebrow raise suspiciously. Jack’s eyes moved from one man to the other and then landed on Teal’c before his expression sunk slightly.

“What?”

Daniel cleared his throat, which was never a good sign, and then placed a cautious hand on the table in front of him. He looked Jack straight in the eyes. “Jack, there’s been an… incident.” Daniel saw the glint of panic in his friends eyes and he interjected, “Sam’s fine. She’s in the infirmary. She’s just –” Jack had already taken off towards the elevator leaving Daniel and Teal’c to hastily get up and follow after him.

Jack was making a b-line to the infirmary and those around him in the halls knew better than to get in his way from the look on his face. Daniel and Teal’c were several steps behind him as he turned the corner to the infirmary – passing a very bewildered Doctor Frasier – and stopped dead in his tracks at the foot of Carter’s medical bed. If it would have been anyone else, Jack would have gaped, but instead he just simply stared and blinked.

“Hi, sir.” came the nervous greeting of the blonde major who lay in the medical bed with her hand on a large, protruding belly.

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Jack was back in the briefing room with Daniel, Teal’c, and now Doctor Frasier. There was still a stunned look across O’Neill’s face as he leaned onto the table with his elbows as he glanced distractedly on the paper in his hands. There was a whole bunch of medical jargon written on the page referring to Carter’s ‘condition’ and even though Jack was trying to concentrate on the words, he couldn’t. Thankfully, his mind was distracted by General Hammond who approached the group from his office. It was obvious that the General was worried about Sam and glanced at Jack for a moment to make sure the Colonel was fine before taking a seat.

His eyes then focused on Doctor Frasier, “Any news doctor?”

Janet pressed her lips together and looked down at her sheet before regarding the General. “Well, sir,” She had an apologetic expression in her eyes. “In a word: no.” A small frown formed on her lips as she regarded the sheet of paper again, “There’s nothing in any of the tests I ran that could indicate her… condition.” Even just thinking about the concept that yesterday Sam had been completely normal and now she was in her third trimester was mind boggling.

“It’s human, right?”

Everyone’s eyes moved to look at Jack. Daniel gave him one of his questioning look and Jack reciprocated with a small shrug and threw up his hands a little. It was a valid question according to Jack.

Janet nodded, “As far as we know, yes.” She caught Jack’s eye roll and got a little defensive, “The circumstances are highly unusual. From the ultra-sound it looks like your average baby boy, but I can’t tell anything more until I perform the amniocentesis.”

“Which will tell us what exactly?” The voice of reason, Daniel, leaned forward in his chair and looked over at Janet.

“Well,” She glanced to Daniel, but continued to speaking to all the men in the room, “I’ll be able to extract some of the baby’s DNA and learn its genetic structure and hopefully determine something from the results.” She ended on a positive inflection and offered a half-smile that didn’t exactly scream confidence, but at least she was trying.

The awkward energy in the room was evident as Janet leaned back uncomfortably in the chair. General Hammond cleared his throat and then gave a confident nod, “Alright then.” He turned to Doctor Frasier, “Run your test doctor. I’d like to have the test results as soon as possible. And as for the rest of you,” He turned to regard the male members of SG-1, “until this is all settle, I’m taking SG-1 off of active duty.” Of course that was obvious, but officially he had to make it an order. His eyes glanced over at Jack who was anxiously tapping the table with his fingers before he added, “Dismissed” which sent O’Neill up out of the chair and off down the hall.

[yukitoyu22]

When Sam opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Jack sitting in a chair by her bed side. His arms were crossed over his chest and it looked as if he had fallen asleep, but when she rustled slightly his eyes opened and fell upon her. She paused, like a child who was suddenly caught by a parent while sneaking around, and then repositioned herself so she was in a semi-sitting position. She offered him a meek smile, “Hi.”

“Hey.”

His arms lowered so that his hands were in his lap and he fiddled with his finger nails. A silence hung in the air for several moments before Jack looked up and back to Sam who was still looking at him. “You need anything? Ice cream? Pickles?” He paused, “Peanut butter?” When Sarah had been pregnant, those had been the top three ticket items she craved and he figured that those were probably the basic ones for Sam too – that and blue Jello of course.

“I’m fine sir. Thank you.”

Jack gave a half-smile and brought back his attention to the non-existent hang-nail on his index finger. He didn’t know what to say. What do you say to a woman who woke up to being pregnant? How do you comfort her? He sure as hell didn’t have an answer to that and he knew neither did anyone else on the base.

Thankfully the awkward silence was broken by Janet walking briskly into the room. Jack glanced up with a relieved look on his face while Sam offered a weary smile. From the look on Doctor Frasier’s face, it was easy to tell that she had some sort of result from the tests she ran, but it was always hard to tell whether the results were good or bad.

“Janet,” Sam sounded relieved to see her. Her eyes anxiously regarded her friend as she asked, “Did you find anything?”

Janet looked at Colonel O’Neill and then to Sam before nodding slowly and turning a page from her clipboard. “I have, but…”

“But?” Jack spoke up. He hated surprises, but he also hated it when medical professionals used the word ‘but.’

Doctor Frasier glanced at Jack quickly with a somewhat reassured glint before returning to her patient, Sam. “But,” she repeated herself, “The results are very peculiar.”

“How so?” Sam shifted her weight to try and sit up more, but the pressure from her belly proved to be too much and she sunk back down in her previous position.

“Well,” Janet pressed her lips together for a moment, “Remember how you gave me that DNA sample from the hair brush that Orlin used while he was at your house? While running tests on his blood the other day, I noticed that there were some unique markers in his DNA strand and then while I was running the tissue taken from the baby I noticed that he had the same unique markers. So I did a paternity test and –”

“And Orlin’s the father.” Sam finished the sentence for her friend, but sounded very stunned while doing so. Jack, who was equally as stunning sat up more rigidly and looked back and forth between the women before finally asking the question they were all wondering.

“How’s that possible?” As far as Jack knew, it had only been about a week or two ago the whole Orlin thing happened and he was fairly confident in his biology knowledge to deduce that, even if Sam had had sex with him, she was still farther along that any normal human would be.

Janet turned to Jack with a small frown on her lips, “I don’t know, sir.”

[yukitoyu22]

“So what’s going to happen?” Daniel peered over his glasses to Jack who was absently tossing a yo-yo and rolling it back up once it reached the end of the string and then repeated the process. The two men were in Daniel’s lab. It was quiet and cluttered with the usual books and artefacts from various planets and cultures. Jack had meandered in about an hour ago which had made Daniel aware that it was three in the morning which told him neither of them could sleep.

Jack shrugged like a child being asked a question they didn’t want to answer. He swivelled in his chair while maintaining his eyes on the red yo-yo in his hand. The string got tangled and Jack let out a small sigh before beginning to pull at the knot.

Daniel placed his glasses on the table and peered back over to Jack. “Jack.”

Jack rolled his eyes and looked up at Daniel with the knotted yo-yo still in his palm. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know. It’s not like this has ever happened before.” He looked back down at the tangled mess, sighed, and then tossed the toy onto the table amongst some African-looking masks. He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed.

The archaeologist felt for his friend and didn’t respond negatively to the frustrated outburst. Instead, he frowned and leaned forward, “She’ll be okay Jack.”

“Yeah…” He muttered as he crossed his arms over his chest and exhaled.

Teal’c, who had been kel no’reeming, appeared in the doorway and looked at his friends who turned expectantly to the Jaffa. “The child is coming.”

Jack and Daniel looked at each other for a split second and they both shot out of their seats and joined Teal’c in making their way briskly to the isolation wards.

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“Okay Sam. You’re doing great. Now I just need you to push a little more..”

Janet stood at the end of the medical bed in the middle of the isolation room with one of Sam’s legs on either side of her. Sam’s face was flushed and red with her hair damp and sticking to her forehead. She was breathing hard and fast through her mouth like Janet had described only a few minutes ago as she went into labour. She squalled as she pushed with all of her might. Samantha Carter had gone through the Stargate dozens of times, had been shot, stabbed, and zatted, and fought various alien races, but nothing could compare to what she was going through right now.

When Sam couldn’t push anymore, she relaxed and exhaled quickly. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breathe. Suddenly the sound of a wailing infant reached her ears and Janet looked up over Sam’s knees with bright smile. “It’s a boy.” Janet practically whispered as she and her medical staff went about prepping the newborn.

Daniel, Jack, and Teal’c all entered the observation deck second after the baby had come out. Daniel glanced over at Jack whose eyes were on Sam and then the baby with an intense, yet cryptic expression on his face. Suddenly Jack’s face sunk. A deep crease formed on his forehead which was a clear sign of concern. Daniel followed his gaze.

“There’s someone who wants to say hello.” Janet smiled down at the baby’s face before looking to Sam. She was about to hand off the baby to his mother when the doors to the isolation ward opened. Two military officers entered followed by Frank Simmons. The female military officer made her way to Janet and promptly removed the baby from her.

“Janet?” Sam gave a slightly panicked look to Janet.

Janet shook her head to Sam, “I don’t know.” She looked indignantly to Simmons, “What’s the meaning of this?”

Frank Simmons straightened the knot of his tie as he offered a less than sincere smile to the ladies. “I’m sorry, but as of right now the N.I.D. are taking over custody of the baby.”

“What?” Sam looked at him in disbelief and then shook her head, “No!”

“Wait a minute, you have no jurisdiction.” Janet had made her way around the table and tried to retake the child form the military officer’s arms. Unfortunately, the other officer intervened. Janet through up her arms in protest. “This is ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” Simmons raised an eyebrow pompously, “We don’t know what this child is or is capable of.”

“It’s a child” Janet reiterated. Her hands were now on her hips – she was getting rather ****ed.

“Yes, but he could be more than that.” Frank motioned with his head towards the door and the military officers began to make their way out of the room.

By this time Jack had left the observation deck and made his way into the room. When he saw the officer with the child, Jack stood squarely in their way.

“At ease, Colonel.” General Hammond’s dejected voice was accompanied by an equally bitter face.

“Sir, you can’t be serious?” Jack looked incredulously at George.

General Hammond let out a silent sigh and shook his head, “My hands are tied Jack…”

“Yes,” Frank stated, “They are.” He turned to Major Carter, “The U.S. government thanks you for your cooperation.” He turned on his heels and walked out the door with his head held high.

Sam looked forlornly to Doctor Frasier who stood with a stunned expression mixed with hatred. “Janet?” Her voice was a little frightened. Janet looked back to Sam, but Sam had passed out from exhaustion.

[yukitoyu22]

A soft knock came from the front door of the small town house. Moment later Samantha Carter pulled open the door and offered a weak smile.

“Hi, sir.”

It had been a few days since the incident in the iso-ward and SG-1 had continued to be off of active duty. Sam had been sent home by Doctor Frasier and ordered to get some rest while Daniel went to Washington to try and figure the whole situation out. Jack had offered to go with Daniel, but they both knew that he would have been little help with the bureaucrats.

Jack lifted the pizza box and beer he held in his hands with a half smile as Sam stepped aside to let him in. “Thought you could use some company.” He brought the food and beer into the living room and placed them on the coffee table. Neither one of them reached for the items as the sat on the couch. A long silence passed over them. While it was a little awkward, the silence was more comfortable than anything else.

“Sir?”

Jack peered over at Carter who sat on the other side of the couch.

“I wanted to thank you,” She gestured to the food, “For coming to keep me company.”

The colonel’s lips turned up in a warm half smile. “No problem.” He paused for a slight moment, “How are you holding up?”

“Truthfully?” Sam’s lips hinted at a frown, “Not good.” She shifted her weight as she sat, “I have all these thoughts in my head and I can’t seem to sort them out.” Her eyes darkened with sorrow, “And I feel like I could have done more when…”

Jack interrupted her by sliding over to her and wrapping his arm around her. It was a familiar gesture; they had been in this position many times before. He wanted to reassure her because it wasn’t her fault at all. There was nothing she could have done – she had just given birth for Christ’s sake! Just thinking about the bureaucratic garbage made Jack’s blood boil and he took a moment to calm himself.

“There’s was nothing you could have done Carter.”

“I know…” Sam replied softly as she laid her head gently on his shoulder. The warmth of his arm around her back was warm and comforting and for a moment it was as if all the problems in the world could disappear. Jack rested his chin on the top of Sam’s head and they lingered there on the couch in peaceful silence.

It was then and there that Jack made a silent promise to Sam to get her child back.