Stargate Fanfic: Unplanned Parenthood Chapter Three
Title: Unplanned Parenthood
Author: LexKitten
Chapter: Three - A Few Awkward Situations
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two
Summary: “Carter, do you ever get the feeling these alternate universes are trying to tell us something?”
Rating: Teen
A/N:
This is the pointless fluff chapter ^^; I have real plot next chapter, but I wanted some awkward Sam/Jack cuteness first =P
Also, does anyone else find it hard to describe Sam’s smiles? Amanda Tapping just has *the* most adorable smiles, but I can’t seem to find the right words to re-create them ^^;
Big big thanks to my lovely editors,
windsparrow ,
tardisinthesgc , and
lilferret ! For being so excellent as to correct my many *many* embarrassing spelling errors. (What is this country's education system coming to!)
***
It was still dark when Sam awoke the next morning. Over a decade in the Air Force had altered her body clock so that, even when she was on leave, she would awake at 5:30 on the dot. The first thing she did when she opened her eyes was check where she was. She had woken up on so many different planets now that it had become habit to assume that she wasn’t at home. So she was pleasantly surprised to find that - for once - she was in her own bed. She let her mind warm up slowly, consciousness filtering back into her brain like the first rays of sunlight that would soon be sneaking below her bedroom curtains.
She had gone to bed early, Sam thought, as she swung her legs out of bed. The last thing she remembered was saying good night to Colonel O’Neill. Now, that was a strange memory - what had the Colonel been doing at her house?
Suddenly, yesterday came crashing down on her consciousness. Jack; dinner; bubble bath; tantrums -- Henrietta. The weight of realization nearly knocked Sam flat. She had a daughter. Right now, in her house, there was a child sound asleep just a few meters away. The thought was even more disorienting than waking up on a strange planet. It was going to take some getting used to.
Sam stumbled out of bed, deciding that a strong cup of coffee was in order. Caffeine always helped her think. It was a warm morning, so she left her dressing gown hanging from the door and padded down the hall in nothing but her thin blue nightgown and the same white socks she had worn yesterday and forgotten to take off before bed. She reached the kitchen and flipped on the light switch. What she saw pushed the air from her lungs like a punch to the chest. Colonel O’Neill was sitting at her kitchen counter. “Sir!” she gasped.
“Wow,” he said, his eyes raking over her - from her tussled bed hair down to her crumpled white socks. “Nice jammies.”
Sam crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to conceal some of her very exposed skin, but there wasn’t much she could do about the expanse of leg left uncovered between the tops of her socks and the end of her very short nightie. She thought about making a dash for her room and the safety of her dressing gown - but it would probably only make her look even more suspect. “What are you doing here?” she spluttered.
“Well, I got bored of waiting around outside, so I jimmied the lock,” Jack grinned. “Black ops training comes in handy once again.”
Sam rolled her eyes, “Ok, that explains why you’re in here,” she conceded. “But you know what I mean. Why aren’t you at your house?”
“I thought you might want ‘daddy’ around for when she wakes up,” Jack said, tilting his head towards the hall, in the direction of Henrietta’s room.
“Hmm, fair point,” Sam agreed. She wasn’t ready for another tantrum if Henrietta woke up to find Jack wasn’t there. As the initial shock began to wear off, Sam found she was oddly comfortable with Colonel O’Neill lounging in her kitchen. She was so used to waking up beside him in a tent, or some alien culture’s accommodation, that seeing him in her house wasn’t that much of stretch. It almost felt natural.
Her tummy growled loudly, and Sam decided it was time for breakfast. She shuffled into the kitchen and made for the pantry with its many variants of instant coffee. “I was going to make some coffee - do you want something?”
Jack didn’t reply, but continued to stare blankly at her, his eyes focused somewhere around the hem of her nightie. Sam slammed a Nescafe tin down on the counter, jarring Jack out of his stupor. “Huh? What?” He had the good manners to look a little ashamed at being caught staring at her.
Sam sighed, rolling her eyes. “Ok, on second thought, I’m going to go have a shower and get dressed. You make us both coffee.”
“Good idea” Jack grunted, keeping his eyes determinedly focused on the kitchen bench.
***
It was another hour before Henrietta woke up. They passed the time in comfortable silence over a plate of toast and jam. Henrietta called an abrupt end to the quiet morning at 6:30, storming out of her room screaming that she was hungry, thirsty, needed to go to the bathroom, and that her clothes were stinky.
Jack calmed her down enough to feed and wash her, and suggested that maybe the first order of business was a trip into town to buy supplies.
They spent an hour in the kids clothes section, picking out an entire wardrobe of miniature skirts, trousers, dresses and cotton t-shirts, in every shade of pink, purple and baby blue imaginable. Then they needed a few furniture adjustments, like a fairy bed-spread, a nightlight, and a little wooden bathroom stool so Henrietta could reach the taps. Finally, they went to buy toys.
Much to Jack’s disappointment, Henrietta was not a “traditional” girl. She didn’t like any of the dolls or tea sets he suggested. She did however pick out three armfuls of soft-toy animals, various complicated Lego sets, and a build-your-own remote control airplane which both of her parents approved of. She also insisted they get several children’s chapter books from the “Keys to the Kingdom” series, because - according to Henrietta - she was already halfway through them. She buried her nose in one on the car-ride home, quietly turning pages and occasionally gasping at a plot twist.
“How the heck can she read that?” Jack asked in astonishment. “Those books are for fourth-graders - she’s not even old enough for kindergarten!”
Sam shrugged. “I could read before school,” she said. “Couldn’t you?”
Jack raised his eyebrows incredulously at her. “Carter, I could barely read by the time I finished school,” he boasted.
Sam spent the afternoon dutifully clearing all of her things out of the spare room, and replacing them with Henrietta’s new toys. Meanwhile, Henrietta and Jack played “Pirates vs. Aliens.” a game that Henrietta claimed to have invented. Henrietta played the brave and daring pirate princess, and Jack was a “Goold” Alien that could shoot lasers from its eyes and liked to eat little girls.
Jack stayed for dinner again- and then after dinner- and then after Henrietta went to bed. It was after ten before he finally seemed to run out of flimsy excuses, and drove home.
All too easily, they slipped into a domestic routine. After only two days, the pattern was established and continued for the rest of the week that they were on leave. Jack would arrive early each morning, spend the day with Sam and Henrietta on some benign domestic adventure, and stay long into the evening, returning the next morning almost as if he hadn’t left. The only slight change was that, after the first two mornings, Sam learnt to get dressed before she ventured into the kitchen.
Neither Jack nor Sam dared comment on the sudden but comfortable routine, for fear of somehow breaking it. And neither of them talked about what they would do when the week was over, and they were both expected to report back to the SGC.
***
On Sunday, their last day of freedom, Jack suggested they go to the park.
“I didn’t even know there was a park here,” Sam admitted sheepishly, as they walked the two blocks down the road from her house to the local playground.
“You drive by it all the time,” Jack reminded her, raising an eyebrow incredulously.
“Park’s aren’t usually on my radar, Sir,” she replied defensively.
Jack grinned, his eyes darting down to Henrietta waddling between them. “They will be now,” he warned.
They played hide-and-seek, chase and tag, for what seemed like hours. But Henrietta never got tired. Jack didn’t seem to get tired either - his enthusiasm exactly matching Henrietta’s, his face a mirror of her infantile excitement. Sam couldn’t keep up with them. She was still too wary to completely let her guard down and enjoy her new ‘family’.
Finally, puffing and tired, she gave up. “I’m out, Sir,” She called, sneaking towards a nearby set of benches. Jack replied with a series of military sign codes: he pointed to his eyes, then to Henrietta, and then motioned left towards the jungle-gym with his hand out flat. Sam interpreted the code perfectly, and grinned goofily in response.
There was already a mother seated on the bench when Sam arrived. They were about the same age, the other woman maybe a few years younger. She had a mop of shiny black hair, and a plain but friendly face. As Sam walked up, she moved down the bench to give her room. “Taking a time out?” she asked cheerfully.
“Yeah,” Sam sighed, sitting down. “I can run five miles through the mountains no problem, but I can’t keep up with all the hide-and-seek.”
“They never get tired do they?” the other woman agreed. “I must have hidden behind every tree in this park, but he still wants to play. I’m Ruth by the way,” she said, extending her hand.
“Sam,” Sam replied, taking Ruth’s offered hand and shaking it. She felt nervous talking to this other mother - as if Ruth might realize just how out of place Sam felt, and accuse her of being the imposter mother she was. She tried to ignore the irrational fear in her stomach, and concentrate on acting as normal as possible - a surprisingly difficult task. “Which one is yours?” she asked, remembering that parents loved to be asked about their children.
“The little dirty ragamuffin over there.” Ruth pointed out a small boy by the swings with a mess of black hair identical to her own. “That’s my Michael. He’s four.”
“Oh, so’s my -um- daughter,” Sam said, uncertainly stumbling over the unfamiliar words, and even more unfamiliar concept. “Henrietta,” Sam said, pointing to the monkey bars, where Henrietta was hanging, Jack holding her carefully around the waist in case she lost her grip.
“Oh, is that your husband?” Ruth asked, grinning brightly at Jack. “What a looker,” she teased.
“No,” Sam said quickly, almost a shout. “We’re not married.”
Ruth laughed, blushing. “Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t assume,” she said genially. “People have lots of different arrangements these days; I should get out of the habit of saying ‘husband’ and ‘wife’. How old fashioned of me.”
“No, it’s not like that,” Sam said, haphazardly trying to find the right words to correct her. She felt her cheeks heating up and her mouth going dry - though why she wanted to explain herself, Sam didn’t really know. This woman was a perfect stranger. “We’re - well - he’s my Commanding Officer,” she attempted. Ruth titled her head to the side in confusion, as if Sam was speaking with a thick accent she couldn’t understand. “It’s complicated,” Sam sighed finally, which was true enough.
This pacified Ruth’s confusion, and her face broke into a friendly smile again. “Isn’t it always?” she laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you flustered. I only mention it because I can see the family resemblance,” she said, nodding towards Jack and Henrietta again.
“Can you?” Sam asked, feeling a little flutter of something awakening in her stomach. “So can I,” she admitted, feeling strangely compelled to confide in this stranger. “Everyone says she looks like me, though.”
“It’s the same with Mikey,” Ruth assured her. “People always say he’s my little clone. But I see so much of his dad in him - and my father too. I think we see the people we love in our kids, you know? We see what’s best in them.”
Sam felt her cheeks flush, realizing Ruth was probably right. All the qualities she had so quickly come to love in Henrietta - her boisterousness, her sense of adventure, her intentional and unintentional charm - were all things she admired in Jack too.
Sam was saved from further self-scrutiny by the arrival of the Colonel himself, ambling slowly away from the playground towards the two women. “Henry traded me in for a younger model,” he complained playfully, pointing over his shoulder to where Henrietta and Michael were excitedly chasing each other around the jungle-gym.
“That’s Michael,” Sam explained, “Ruth’s son.”
“Is he now?” Jack said, casting another look over at the children. “I’m Jack O’Neill,” he held out his hand for Ruth to shake. “That’s a fine looking boy you have.”
“Oh thank you,” Ruth grinned, flattered on behalf of her son. “I was just saying to your - uh - Sam what a lovely daughter you have.”
“She’s for sale, if you’re interested,” Jack quipped. “But I’m expecting top dollar. She’s from a very good pedigree. Mostly on the mother’s side. The father’s a bit of a mutt.” He grinned at Sam, who blushed and rolled her eyes.
Ruth smiled too, clearly taken in by Jack’s charm. “Is she your first?”
“Yes,” Sam replied quickly, not wanting to get into a lengthy discussion, but unable to stop the instant ‘parental rapport’ that entitled Ruth to ask probing personal questions.
“Plan on having more?”
Jack and Sam looked at each other for a split second, both deer caught in the headlights of this sudden awkward question. Sam looked terrified, unable to fathom a more embarrassing and difficult question. Jack looked confused, then a bit pensive, as if maybe he was considering the possibility - or at least imagining the method- and finally, he became shocked and appalled at his own audacity, snapping out of his playful mood and remembering this was his second in command he was imagining procreation with. “No!” they replied in unison, more forcefully than necessary.
Ruth reeled back from their sudden ferocity, giving them both a wary look, as if afraid they were a little unhinged.
A sudden commotion from the playground caught their attention. There was a jumble of angry cries, and a sudden movement of little arms and legs, as Michael charged at Henrietta. The two of them fell screaming onto the tanbark, scratching and biting and calling each other rude names.
The three adults made a dash for the children. Jack got there first. He pulled Henrietta - who clearly had the upper hand - off Mikey and dragged her kicking and screaming into his arms.
“Stop that right now,” Sam admonished, doing her best to glare ferociously at the child, while also giving her an anxious once-over for any injuries.
“Mikey, don’t you ever hit a girl, you hear me?” Ruth chided, grabbing hold of her son’s wrists and dragging him to his feet.
“I am so sorry,” Sam said, rushing over to check that Henrietta hadn’t done any permanent damage.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” Ruth said, blushing awkwardly, while struggling to hold her writhing child. “He’s not normally violent. He knows better. Mikey, you apologise to that sweet little girl right now.”
“I will not!” Mikey declared angrily, glaring at Henrietta. “She’s a freak! An’ she called me a imbecile.”
“It’s ‘an imbecile’ - and you are one,” Henrietta retorted just as vehemently. She struggled in Jack’s arms, trying to break free to get at the boy again. “He says he can throw a rock all the way to the moon. But there is no way,” she declared. “Gravity would pull it down. Mommy told me all about it. That’s why rockets need big ‘splosions, to get enough propulsion.”
“See?” Mikey said, looking at his mother for support. “I told you she was a freak. No one likes a brainiac. Bet you don’t even have friends.”
Henrietta stopped struggling and started quivering in Jack’s arms. She drew in a ragged breath, tears welling up in her eyes. Sam recognized with a sense of impending panic the first signs of a tantrum. She could see the utter hurt spreading all over Henrietta’s face, eating up her anger and preparing to convert it into terrible wails.
“I think we better go,” Jack said, and Sam nodded in agreement. He hoisted Henrietta onto his hip and turned to make a hasty retreat from the park.
Ruth was still staring at Henrietta - now peeking over Jack’s shoulder - her wariness turned to outright confusion. Just like her son, she was taken aback by Henrietta’s unexpected techno babble outburst. “Uh, it was nice meeting you,” she said - though from the look on her face, Sam judged that was about as far from the truth as Chulak was from Earth.
“Same to you,” Sam called, backing away after Jack. They hurried back up the pathway towards the house, Sam mentally crossing her fingers that Henrietta would start to forget her injury if they were away from Michael. But it was too late. Sam knew the attack all too well - a stab right at the heart of every smart girl’s insecurities. Even as young as she was, Henrietta was already the odd one out. And it hurt.
Jack pulled Henrietta close to his chest, as the tears broke from her eyes like floodwaters from a dam. She beat his shoulders with her little fists, taking out all her anger. “I h-hate that boy.” She sobbed.
“Yeah, so do I,” Jack growled, hugging her fiercely to his chest, protective anger smacked across his features. “Don’t worry, I’ll send a squadron of marines after him - would you like that?”
Henrietta rubbed her nose on Jack’s collar, sniffing back her tears. “Yes,” she squeaked. “Thanks daddy.”
***
“She’s asleep,” Jack declared as he ambled quietly back into the lounge-room, where Sam was waiting, half-watching television in an exhausted stupor.
“For good this time?” Sam yawned, raising her head off the arm of the couch, where it had lolled without her noticing.
Jack took a seat next to her, resting his shoe-less socked feet on the coffee-table. “I hope so,” he sighed.
Sam lazily checked the DVD clock, “What’s that - nearly three hours after we first put her to bed?”
“Ah, it’s not her fault,” Jack reminded her, his voice softened by his boundless forgiveness for their unruly child. “She had a bad day.”
“Mmm, true,” Sam conceded, wincing as she replayed the altercation in the park over again in her mind.
“So, what’s on TV tonight?” Jack asked suddenly, leaning forward to grab the remote and answer his own question with a bout of channel surfing. He also reclaimed a half-finished Guinness from the coffee-table. The beers had appeared in Sam’s fridge at the same time as Jack - as if the one couldn’t exist with out the other.
“Nothing where I have to think, please,” Sam requested. “I’m too tired.”
Jack gasped at her in mock horror. “Samantha Carter doesn’t want to think? Uh-oh, this sounds serious. We better call Doc Fraiser.” Sam grinned despite herself, and thwacked her CO in the side of the head with a cushion. “Ow, ok ok. Nothing intellectual tonight. Well, you’ve got a choice between the Rams vs. the Falcons, or Futurama.”
“I like Leela,” Sam said simply.
“Futurama it is,” Jack agreed, flipping channels. “It’s a bit of luck Henry likes The Simpsons, eh? I was worried I’d have to tape it this week.”
“I doubt it was luck, Sir,” Sam replied with a smirk. According to Henrietta, she and her ’father’ had a nightly Simpsons-watching ritual. From the sounds of it, the Alternate Jack was just like this one. Sam plucked Henrietta’s exact words out of her memory, turning them over in her mind like pieces of a puzzle. “Daddy, you and me always watch Simpsons,” She had ’reminded’ Jack. “Well, when you’re home.”
“What do you think she meant by that?” Sam mused aloud.
Jack raised an eyebrow at her, his beer pressed to his lips where he had paused before taking another sip. “Carter, although I have many skills, mind-reading isn’t one of them. And even if I could read your thoughts, I couldn’t follow them.”
“Right, sorry, Sir,” Sam said, smiling guilty. “Henrietta mentioned something, about you being away a lot. Do you think that means the alternate Colonel O’Neill is in SG1? That you - or, well, he- goes off-world?”
“Maybe,” Jack said, taking a swig of his drink. “Maybe I’m a traveling insurance salesman. We’ll never know.”
“But don’t you want to?” Sam asked excitedly, her own mind spinning up with the possibilities. “Don’t you wonder what their lives are like?”
Jack sighed, giving her a side-ways glance, his eyes lingering on her face. His mouth was flat and blank, but Sam thought she saw a little flicker of regret in his eyes. “I’m trying not to,” he replied.
Sam felt her heart falter. He was right, of course. They couldn’t let their thoughts wander to “what if’s” and “in some other world’s.” At best, it was silly, and at worst… it was a kind of torture. Longing for a life they would never have. Still, having Henrietta here, Sam couldn’t help but wonder and theorize, and piece together the little clues the child dropped about the kind of life she and Jack could have had - but didn’t.
“You’ve got the look on your face,” Jack accused, frowning at her.
“What look?” Sam asked innocently, trying quickly to re-arrange her features into a less incriminating expression.
“That bright eyed bushy tailed look you get when you’ve got a puzzle to solve,” Jack said, glaring at her bright eyes as if daring her to deny it. “You can’t solve this one, Carter,” he warned.
Sam sighed, letting her head droop back onto the couch, in a show of resigned acceptance. “Maybe you’re right…” But she didn’t stop thinking about it. And Jack, giving her a last lingering side-long glace as he pretended to stare at the TV, knew she hadn’t given up either.
Sam looked around at what had - only a week ago - been an immaculate, barely lived in house. The lounge-room was littered with Henrietta’s things; books, toys, discarded shoes. The kitchen was full of dishes - the bathroom full of plastic animals. And then of course, there was the addition of Jack himself, comfortably lounging beside her on the couch as if it were his own.
This was what their lives were like, Sam thought. In an alternate reality, this was their home, their clutter, their endless games; their family. Thinking over the last week, Sam felt almost as if it were really she and Jack who had crossed over through the mirror, to be given a glimpse of an alternate life.
But it was a week in a bubble. Jack was right: this wasn’t really their life. Sam could dream all she liked, but the dream was going to end. As soon as she and Jack returned to the SGC, the bubble was going to burst and the fantasy they had lived for the last week would fall apart with it.
Sam’s eyes slid to the clock on the DVD, where the time glowed 11:02. It was the latest Jack had stayed yet. His eyes followed hers, taking in the time and having the same thought. It was late. He should go. The bubble had already burst.
Jack pulled his eyes away from the clock, settling back into the cushions of the couch. He tilted his head to the side to look at Sam. “Looks like it’s a Futurama marathon tonight,” he said, nodding towards the TV. “Got the stamina for it?”
Sam took in his words slowly. He didn’t want it to end yet either. He was going to drag it out as long as he could. She pushed tomorrow out of her head, and pulled her feet up onto the couch, curling her toes against Jack’s leg. “Sounds good to me,” she said. Jack grinned, and let his arm drop down from behind his head to rest over the back of the couch, encircling her shoulders.
The fantasy wasn’t over yet.
***
Continued in: Chapter Four - Out of Nowhere