The General, The Colonel, their Child and His Mother ~ Teens ~ 3 of 4
Details, disclaimers and Part One here
Part Two here
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Upon re-entering the infirmary, she would have known where Jack was even if she hadn’t been talking to him five minutes previously because he was arguing with Carolyn. A red faced male nurse exited from the privacy screen and stomped by, rolling his eyes at her as he did so.
Ah. Back to normal? Maybe not, but then what was ‘normal’ around here anyway?
Deep breath, Sam you can do it. She checked her son; he was awake but content and slightly sleepy with that wide-eyed look that made children look so wise. Perfect.
Nearing the curtain Sam could hear the discussion more clearly: “I don’t care, General; if you want to hold your son then I insist on a mask and gloves - it’s to protect him as much you… thank *you*”
Ah. He must be complying. Kudos to the doctor.
Father and son reunion, only a moment away.
She pushed through the curtain and this elicited a sharp reaction from Jack as his head jerked awkwardly around and he visibly winced.
It didn’t faze him one iota, however. His gloved hands raised in greeting for the second time today, only it wasn’t Sam that he wanted to pull close and express his love and joy to. Placing her son into his father’s arms was the sweetest, most life-affirming moment of her existence so far, and as far as life-affirming moments went, she’d had a few.
A simple, “Hello little buddy,” as Jack raised Jake’s face to his own was enough to ensure stinging tears to form in her own eyes and Carolyn to beat a hasty retreat.
“Sam.” His eyes were shining at her over the top of his surgical mask as he hugged his child’s body close. “What’s his *name*?”
“OH!” What an idiot! She had neglected to tell her own baby’s father such an important piece of his identity! Reaching over to loosen the blanket around the child’s face, she cleared her throat.
“Jack, meet Jonathan Jacob Carter O’Neill, born at a quarter after four am on November 5th, 9lbs exactly.”
The raised eyebrows said it all.
She squirmed a little under his scrutiny. “Yeah well, I’m not big on the ‘naming after a dead relative’ thing, but after the two men that I loved the most, there just wasn’t any other choice.”
“But I’m not dead.” She could swear she could detect a smirk beneath the pale blue mask material.
Her cheeks burned again and she straightened the bedclothes. “No. No, you’re not.”
He turned his face back to his son’s. “Hi, J.J.”
“Ahh, he gets ‘Jake’.” But as Sam fixed her eyes upon the gentle scene before her, she somehow knew that her child’s pet name would be forever changed.
She cleared her throat. “There was an issue with having him acknowledged as an ‘O’Neill’ - the date for registering his birth was last week; I have to prove paternity first. But I have an attorney assisting me; I thought that’s what you would want.” The name of that attorney stung her thoughts but she squashed it back; a quick fumble with Dave Pryce was the last thing she wanted to remember right now.
Jack was feeling their child’s fingers and rubbing his narrow little feet. Her vision smeared and she contemplated her sneakers.
“You look so good.”
Jack was obviously head over heels in love with his son - until Sam realized that he was talking to *her* again. She lifted her eyes to meet his appreciative gaze. “Seriously, I can’t believe you had a baby two weeks ago; you look fantastic.”
As Sam returned the comment with an unabashed grin, some very strong longings took hold of her heart and she squashed them back as quickly as she could. Now was not the time, but she was grateful for any compliments regarding her post-natal physique even though she had never really been a vain woman.
“Nice *hair*.”
What was it with men and hair? “I was just thinking of having it cut.”
Jack shrugged as he turned back to J.J. who was beginning to squirm a little.
“Or maybe not,” she added and was amused by the quick glance afforded her. Their son began to whimper. “Hey, what’s up?” Jack shifted the baby a little further up his arm so that he was a little more upright and Sam was acutely reminded that he had handled an infant before. J.J. poked his tongue out and began to lick Jack’s thumb.
No, surely not already --
“I think he’s hungry,” Jack clarified.
Sam sighed in exasperation as J.J.’s whimpers morphed into actual crying. “I’ve just fed him!”
“Are you a hungry little man?” his father soothed. “Here, let me feed him, I’ll feed him!”
Sorry to disappoint Pops, Sam began to unbutton her blouse. “You can’t - at least until I express.”
As Jack handed over their now very much complaining son, he pulled off his mask to reveal a massive grin while Sam parked herself on a nearby infirmary chair and expertly unclipped her nursing bra to encourage J.J. to latch on to an already milk-soaked breast.
When the let down reflex had settled, she glanced at the man before her. The dark circles and taut cheek muscles betrayed pain and exhaustion and she wondered if he’d hung on to consciousness simply to see her - and he had gotten her, plus one.
“You can sleep now,” she smiled, “I’m not going anywhere until he’s finished.” She settled herself further onto the chair as if to reinforce her promise.
Jack’s eyelids began to droop and a strand of salt-and-pepper hair fell across his face. “I want to know all about him, I want to know every detail about the nine months I should have been here.”
Again she smiled and thought about a certain e-diary that was safely at home on her nightstand. “You will, but now you should get some rest.”
“Night,” he mumbled.
“Love you,” she replied, even though she knew that he was already asleep.
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The next three days were taken up with Jack being moved to the Academy Hospital’s spinal unit and being subjected to many tests.
Sam lost all sense of time as she and J.J. followed him around the institutional-green rooms with well-meaning white coated professionals. Jack and his son didn’t seem to be affected by their circadian rhythms as they slept when they felt like it but she on the other hand, began to crave quilts and bubble baths. The cramped put-you-up camp bed (and bassinet borrowed from pediatrics for J.J.) were all very well but she wasn’t twenty any more.
At least father and son were getting a chance to bond, and bond in a big way. Jack wanted to hold his son at every possible moment and seemed reluctant to relinquish him so that he could be fed. He had even changed a diaper or two, which he seemed to enjoy and made Sam quip that he must have been hit on the head as well as his ass.
Carolyn Lam was spot-on with her initial appraisal of General O’Neill’s injuries. Following X-rays, a CT scan, an MRI and a myelography - an excruciating injection into the spinal cord canal, it was determined that he did indeed have a severely slipped disc in the L4-L5-Sacrum area, just above the tailbone, as Sam discovered. Jack couldn’t pee or move his bowels properly and this had caused a nasty bladder infection that had remained untreated while incarcerated. Every day a white-coat with a name tag would come in and stick him with pins, bang his knees with a hammer and scrape the soles of his feet.
~ Can you feel that? ~
~ Can you feel this? ~
~ What about that? ~
Jack mumped about the catheter bag and the anal incontinence, but as the pain relief and antibiotics kicked in, his skin lost the slightly yellow tinge and acquired a much more healthy pallor. Sam hovered in the background while the orthopedic consultants and neurosurgeons wittered on about worst case scenarios and by the end of the third day she’d had enough, let alone Jack.
Mentally, he seemed fine. The Ba’als et al had more or less left him alone in his cell, which was what had prompted him to attempt to MacGyver a vamoose in the first place - earning him the staff weapon injury from a Jaffa who was trying to earn his fifth McDonald’s star, according to Jack.
On the first day she called Mark in San Diego and Cassie in Stockholm to let them know the truly miraculous news. Mark ‘Oh, God-ed’ at her and Cassie cried a bit. Both wanted to come back to Colorado but they’d only just got back from visiting her after J.J. was born so she wouldn’t hear of it - there would time enough for celebrations later. At some point, she managed to get a message through to Sara O’Neill. One, to thank her once again for the baby clothes and the lovely ‘welcome baby’ card and secondly, to inform her that her ex-husband was back from the dead. Again.
In between Jack, insomnia, irregular meals and nursing, she could feel herself losing physical control - and rapidly. She needed a shower and fresh clothes and was fervently grateful that the hospital kiosk sold feminine hygiene products because she was going through them rapidly.
Salvation came in the form of General George ‘I won’t take no for an answer, Sam’ Hammond, who arrived with an overnight bag, an armful full of National Geographics and a very self-satisfied Daniel Jackson. If Sam had refused any tag team watches with Dr. Smug, she was not about to refuse her former CO. With a tired kiss on Jack’s adorably pouting cheek, she gathered her own bag under one arm and her kid under the other. Have kid, will travel. Whatever.
The last conversation she remembered that night after Daniel had driven her home, helped her unpack and microwave her dinner while she fed J.J., was him saying something about lending Jack his camcorder so he could see some ‘Fat Sam’ shots.
The last thing she saw as she fell into bed was her Sony VAIO e-Diary, still gathering dust where she’d left it on November 4th.
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For the first time since she became a mother, she was woken by something other than hungry wailing.
Her nightstand hard line phone was shrilling in her ear.
Grabbing it awkwardly, she managed to get the receiver the right way up for her face. “Mmm? ‘Lo?”
Next came those immortal words that have absolutely the opposite affect from what they say:
Daniel Jackson’s anxious voice. “Sam, I don’t want you to worry, but…”
Apparently after an early morning session of physiotherapy, it seemed that the slipped disc in Jack’s spinal column had decided to go walkabouts - the surgery that the neurosurgeons were attempting to avoid was now *un*avoidable.
He was already in surgery.
Crap.
After reassuring Daniel that she was fit enough to drive, she blundered around desperately trying to organize herself only to be waylaid by her son demanding yet another feed. She knew that grabbing an infant from his bed and thrusting a breast at his mouth was really not the way to induce a calm and happy bonding moment and was driven to frustration when her son screamed even louder and kicked away. She had to get going! She had to be at the hospital, not here!
Sam was abruptly overwhelmed with a feeling of entrapment - she stared at this thing that had come into her life and realized with shock that she and he would be bound for the rest of their existence - not just for food, warmth and shelter, but *everything*.
She would never be allowed to think of herself as her own person; she was now somebody’s mother. She could never again jump out of her bed, slap on a bit of mascara and hit the Mall. Someone else was doing her job, a.k.a. her life’s work, and the world hadn’t come to an end. You can’t fit a baby seat to an Indian.
She was suddenly afraid of the screaming child and laid him quickly back in his crib while she scrambled to splash some very cold water on her face.
As if that wasn’t enough, someone was ringing her doorbell!
Ignoring the wails of protest, she marched past her kid, stormed to her front door and wrenched it open, remembering at the last moment that she was clad only in her pink’n’fluffy Hello Kitty bathrobe.
The last person in the world she expected to see was standing on her front step with a raised eyebrow and a very cool line in headgear.
“TEAL’C!” she yelled, before wrapping him in a massive hug.
Ten minutes later, all was calm in the Carter household. After a ‘There is no need to explain, Samantha’, he presented her with an extra large Subway roll with roasted vegetables, a caffeine-free soda and two small bottles of something bearing encouraging green labels with trees on and - teats. Baby milk. Manufactured baby milk. Waving away Sam’s concerns, he reassured her that Young Jonathan Jacob would indeed be satisfied and her breastmilk supply would not be compromised - ‘top ups’ assisted the successful establishment of breastfeeding rather than hindered it. He knew this to be true because he’d seen it proven on Oprah.
Sam watched in wonderment as he strode to her bedroom, (he’d been in her room, like twice before?) scooped up her child and managed to silence him in a few short seconds. Wailing was replaced with contented sucking as Teal’c sauntered back out of her boudoir to settle himself on the sofa with her son plus bottle in one beefy hand and the TV remote in the other.
As she exited from her shower, silence still reigned and Sam was working out how much Nanny T might charge per the hour.
After drying her hair, which actually took less time now it was longer, she finished dressing in peace and was lacing up her left sneaker when her nightstand home phone rang again.
Suddenly, inexplicably, she couldn’t move.
The shrill tone bored into her brain making little gray worms grow. She had chosen the phone specifically for its loud and annoying ringtones so that if the SGC were trying to get hold of after another all-nighter, she would be ready to respond to the next life-threatening problem.
Life-threatening. And still she couldn’t move. Checking the digital clock next to the phone, it was 1036 hours - 47 minutes had passed since Daniel called.
The ringing stopped.
She was such a damn coward! With a shaky hand she reached for the receiver to dial last number call back when she became aware of a muted conversation emanating from her kitchen.
“Teal’c, you’re an angel,” she muttered as she realized he had picked up the extension.
Edging further into the hallway, she acknowledged the irony of eavesdropping on a telephone call that she couldn’t bring herself to answer. She heard the call being ended and had a sudden and overwhelming desire to run into her room and hide under the bedcovers.
Too late. There was Teal’c’s handsome face staring kindly back at her, one tree trunk arm still hefting her son who was now sucking his fingers.
“It may be prudent to collect any essentials necessary for a short hospital visit. General O’Neill is out of surgery and Daniel Jackson has asked me to tell you that ‘the old windbag can move his toes.’”
He nodded at her expression of joy. “I suggest we make haste; your son has consumed two bottles of Grandma’s Organix Breastmilk formula and I suspect he is still hungry!”
She made haste. Like STRAIGHTAWAY.
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The reunion of SG-1 was a muted but heartfelt affair, sited as it was in the middle of a hospital with one tired and hurting General. Even Cameron Mitchell made an appearance before excusing himself; this was something he was a part of but was respectful enough to let the old friends catch up.
Jack’s surgery was pronounced a cautious success. He would need several weeks - perhaps months - of physiotherapy, chiropractic intervention and a phrase to strike fear into the heart of any nurse who had cared for Mr. Grumpy before: bed rest.
The fact that he could flex his feet a little, extend his toes if he tried hard enough and recovered much (although not all) of the sensation below his groin was the best news anyone could hope for; there was an excellent chance he would recover full locomotory ability. The catheter and the diaper stayed put however, much to his chagrin.
Jack’s sleeping patterns were still shot to hell but Sam had learned her lesson. She would stay at the hospital until 1600 hours and then she was going home and taking J.J. with her; she would be back the next morning at 1000.
Nobody disagreed.
Jack had pain relief, snacks, Kool-Aid, cable TV and video of Fat Sam. He could do without the real thing for while.
George Hammond drove her home while ‘T’ remained with Jack to take the swing shift. Her collection of baby accoutrements didn’t faze Gen. George at all; he unloaded it and packed it all away like the seasoned veteran that he was. Then he snagged a pizza place leaflet from behind her phone and called for a large-with-extra-olives, with fries and slaw on the side. General Hammond knew what her favorite pizza topping was? Her life was too surreal. He paid for it all with his credit card and refused to take a dime as he headed out to ‘leave her in peace’.
As they hugged goodbye, he held her for a moment longer.
“Your daddy would have been so proud,” he said into her ear. With an abrupt pat on the back and much swallowing and nodding, he rushed through the November rain back to his SUV. With a cheery honk on his horn, his taillights were gone into the gloom.
Samantha Carter had the best friends in the world.
Later after both she and J.J. had eaten their fill, she tucked her son up in his bassinet and sung him a lullaby for the first time in days. He stared at her wide-eyed and sleepy, and the thought of that morning’s behavior slammed back. How ashamed she was now; how could she even *think* of hurting her child? So what that she was needed - and she would be needed until her last breath. If J.J. was the reward, who was she to question the union of ova and sperm all those months ago?
She could stir soup, talk on the phone and breastfeed at the same time. She was a mom.
And she had a future with her baby’s father.
Take that, Oprah.
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The next morning when her phone rang, she was sprawled out on her lounge carpet playing ‘Chase the Mig’ with J.J. Settling her son on his playmat (Kick’n’Play, of course) she snagged the cordless handset and inwardly congratulated herself for remembering both her first and last name. “Samantha Carter.”
“Good morning, sexy ass.”
Ha. “Daniel, I told you to stop calling me that, Jack’ll be so mad!”
The responding chuckle broke the game. “How ya doin’?”
“Not too bad. You?” She hitched over to J.J. who was trying to lick a red flower on his play mat. “Hey, sweetie, that’s not mommy.”
She heard Jack chuckle. “Excuse me?”
“It’s your son; he’s fixated on nipples.” She shook a small elephant that Cassie had bought for her nephew before she went back to Stockholm into his eye line.
She would have bet money on his next comment. “That’s my boy!”
“Hmmm,” she grumbled. A nipple obsession was what got her knocked up in the first place. “What are you doing?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Are you changing the subject?”
Damn him. “Yes!”
It was so good to hear him laugh again.
J.J.’s movements were becoming heavier - he was falling over into sleep. She loved the fact that she was beginning to understand her baby without the need for words. They had a language all their own. “I take it you’re feeling better?”
“I worship at the altar of Demerol.”
Ah. Pain relief was a subject close to her heart. “Tell me about it.”
“Actually, I’m watching you.”
“You are?!” She glanced around the room. “Sam-Cam?” She wouldn’t put it past him.
She could hear him catch his breath. “Don’t make me laugh! Giggling is bad for me. I’ve got Dr. Dan’s camcorder.”
Fat Sam Footage! “Oh no-“
“Don’t you ‘oh no’ me; I’m lovin’ this.”
She sighed; well, she could hardly snatch it out of his hands, could she? “What trimester?”
“Third.”
“Oh, crap.”
She heard more laughing. “Jack, I was as a big as a house!”
“Sam, you were beautiful, really beautiful and you still are. This pregnancy thing - it’s a good look on you.”
She swallowed. Her son’s eyes were narrow slits and his breathing was evening out.
“You never were very good at accepting compliments, were you?” He breathed into her silent response. “I was watching footage of your last sonogram earlier. I can’t believe Daniel didn’t figure out that J.J. was a boy.”
She snickered at that. “I think he thought it was a leg.”
“Our child has three legs?”
She was afraid her giggling would wake up J.J. “And the obstetrician was *obsessed* with the placenta, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, yeah! She went on and on about it.”
“Yes! She kept going on about how well I was feeding my baby. And let me tell you, when you see that thing up close and personal-“
“Weird?”
Too true. “Well, I was prepared to give birth to a baby, but they never told me I’d give birth to an alien right after, and you know I’ve met a few.”
There followed chuckling followed by cursing.
Her son was now completely asleep. She could vacuum up his diaper while he was wearing it and he wouldn’t wake. “Still in pain?”
“Yeah, it’s not too bad, more like pressure. It’s the *boredom* that’s getting to me now.”
Snatching a light blanket from the sofa she tucked it round her child’s body. “Give it a chance, you only had surgery yesterday.”
“It’s gonna be a tough few weeks.”
“For you or the nursing staff?” Her leg was beginning to cramp so she shuffled over to an armchair and plunked her ass.
“Daniel said you kept a diary of your pregnancy?”
Her hand stilled from where it was rubbing a leg muscle. It was phrased as a question - thus required a response. “I did.” Well, she couldn’t lie to him, could she?
“I’d like to read it.” All levity had gone from his voice. Serious!Jack was something she found difficult to cope with.
A niggling headache was beginning to form behind her eyes. “I’ll bring it over later.”
“I’d like that. Listen I have to go. Das Kommendant has appeared with tubing and you don’t want a play-by-play.”
She laughed. “No thanks!”
“See you later?”
“Yup.” She glanced at J.J., snoring away on his mat. “After lunch?”
“Yasureyabetacha. Don’t forget the diary.”
“I’ll bring it.”
And she would. After she’d edited it first.
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As it was, J.J. slept less time than Sam expected and she ended up in a rush as usual. She really wanted to take time to read the whole e-Diary through but in the end she settled for burning entries May 14th 2007 through to July 6th 2007 onto a CD. With her fingers poised over the keyboard, she muttered “What the hell,” and burned the rest up to and including August 24th. She would decide what to do about David Pryce later and all that would surely keep Jack occupied for a while.
Stashing her spare laptop along with all of J.J.’s paraphernalia into her trusty Volvo, she drove through the mizzly Colorado rain that was threatening to turn to sleet. She knew it was chilly outside because her dashboard readout told her, but darn, she felt hot. Her face was so flushed! Guilty conscience she supposed. Well, she had started the damn diary in case Jack returned and now that he was here, he should read it!
Parking at the hospital was its usual nightmare and as she waited patiently for a senior citizen to back oh-so-slowly out of a parking space, she mused at how quickly humans could get used to anything. Her life had been turned upside down on its head and here she was, coping with a baby, visiting her sick - boyfriend - and parallel parking. She just hoped Jack would be in a good mood.
He was. And he looked clean and rested, his still long hair bunched at the neck in a short ponytail.
“Sexy ass!” was his greeting as she blundered through the door of his private hospital room, pushing a mountain of stuff in a stroller - her child was in there somewhere.
“Ignore him, he has no carnal knowledge of me whatsoever,” she reassured the candy striper who was filling Jack’s water jug. ‘I’m his sister.”
“And that’s my kid,” said Jack proudly, wiggling his fingers at J.J. who dribbled back in reply.
The candy striper fled.
“Jack, you’re incorrigible,” she said in exasperation as her hands shook trying to get the stroller harness undone. “Is it cold in here?” Sam asked as she played pass-the-parcel with their son.
He hefted the child easily and shifted his legs under the blankets to accommodate his son’s small body - he was obviously recovering a great deal of movement. “I’m fine, but hospitals are always over heated. Hey!” He smiled at J.J. who had grabbed his thumb and was hanging on for dear life. “Look at this!”
“Don’t get excited, he thinks you’re dinner,” Sam mused as she began to divest the poor stroller of stuff. “But don’t be fooled, I fed him before I left.”
Jack was grinning at her.
“What?” her eyebrows furrowed.
“Nuthin’
She waved a finger. “I’ve seen that look before.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“But I can’t place it.” She admitted, amused by the enigmatic smirk. She turned to free her laptop from its attaché bag. “I have something for you.”
It was his turn to be perplexed. Setting up the portable computer on the patient over-bed table, she depressed the on button and waved a disk under his nose. “My life as a stupidly pregnant person.” Ignoring his beaming smile, she ejected the CD-Rom tray and inserted the disk. The processor whirred while the Word application booted up and the screen changed to the familiar white-headed-with-blue layout.
Writing appeared.
#
May 14th 2007
Okay, Jack.
So Daniel said I should do this, so blame him.
#
She swiveled the screen towards Jack. “There you go. It’s pretty simple-“
“-I doubt that.” He interjected.
“It’s pretty simple to follow,” she repeated, with an admonishing glance that had no fire to it.
He pulled the table towards him and squinted to fixate on the script, using the touchpad to scroll down.
#
I thought I’d try again but I’m having a real big problem getting the words down - but I guess if you were actually here, I would still have an issue with communication. Of course, if we got close, you’d soon figure it out faster than light speed.
I still can’t say it.
#
He was looking at her now.
That deep intense stare that could reduce the enemy to gibbering wrecks and her into bed before the beer got warm.
Sam cleared her throat. “There’s quite a bit more.”
Jack moved J.J. to a more comfortable position so that the baby could see the display. “I’ll bet.”
Sam grabbed her purse. “I’ll get coffee.”
“You’re drinking coffee?” He indicated their sleepy son.
Biting a lip she headed for the door. “It’s a euphemism,” she called behind her and the last thing she heard as the door swung shut was:
“Gotcha”
She sat with him while he paged through the first part of her diary, taking time out to flip through a Scientific American she purchased from the hospital bookstore, feed J.J., share contraband fries and a diet soda with Jack and feed J.J. again.
He stopped reading several times and asked her questions. She answered as well as she could remember and took comfort in his concern.
“Louis Ferretti died.”
“And Paul Garcia. I thought you knew.” Hadn’t Daniel told him?
He nodded, his expression dull. “Seeing it in black and white hammers it home.”
Jack wanted to know every detail about the amniocentesis and Sam did her best to recall those worrying days that she put behind her. They discussed what might have happened if J.J. had been diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, and to her intense relief, he agreed with her that he would have fought for the best for their son also.
He also wanted to know if the banana and mango fetish had continued post partum. Mercifully, it hadn’t.
At 1700, when Jack had got as far as the entry for Father’s Day, she called it quits. Buckling J.J. back into the stroller and gathering up her belongings, she leaned over the medical equipment (thankfully diminishing by the day) to plant her usual goodbye kiss on his cheek, but at the last moment he turned his head and their lips met. Closed-eyed and soft-mouthed, they savored the experience, the first since fate had sought to intervene in their relationship.
Sam felt Jack’s hand on the back of her head, drawing her in further and she responded in kind. Her own fingers found the band securing his hair and she tugged on it, releasing the ponytail so that she could feel the reality of her lover and all that he had lived through without her.
He may not have complete control over his legs, but there was nothing wrong with his hands - they caressed and kneaded, roaming with the practiced ease of a man in familiar territory. By the time they reached her chest, she was having difficulty focusing her attention and was pretty sure the moaning noises were coming from her.
He broke the kiss to mutter, “Oh man.” Cupping her milk-filled breasts through her T-shirt, his appreciation was evident. “They’re so heavy,” he said in awe. “You’re gonna nurse for the next decade, right?”
She laughed softly into his shoulder and then sucked in a breath as his thumb rubbed over an erect nipple. A sudden cramp gripped her groin.
“Uhhhhhh..” she broke the embrace to regain her composure, hands on her hips to get her breathing back to normal.
Jack looked on with worry. “Hey, you okay?” He reached up to lay a concerned hand on her shoulder.
She was; the pain was receding. “Yes, I’m fine; I’m just tired.”
“But-“ he began to protest.
She interrupted and pulled herself upright. “Post natal afterpains. I read they might get worse before they get better. I’ll get some Tylenol from the pharmacy, no sweat.”
“Sorry,” she added ruefully, aware that the tender encounter had been ruined.
Jack smiled. “Oh, phshaw, Carter. There’s plenty of time now.”
And there was, there really was.
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To be Continued
Part Two here
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Upon re-entering the infirmary, she would have known where Jack was even if she hadn’t been talking to him five minutes previously because he was arguing with Carolyn. A red faced male nurse exited from the privacy screen and stomped by, rolling his eyes at her as he did so.
Ah. Back to normal? Maybe not, but then what was ‘normal’ around here anyway?
Deep breath, Sam you can do it. She checked her son; he was awake but content and slightly sleepy with that wide-eyed look that made children look so wise. Perfect.
Nearing the curtain Sam could hear the discussion more clearly: “I don’t care, General; if you want to hold your son then I insist on a mask and gloves - it’s to protect him as much you… thank *you*”
Ah. He must be complying. Kudos to the doctor.
Father and son reunion, only a moment away.
She pushed through the curtain and this elicited a sharp reaction from Jack as his head jerked awkwardly around and he visibly winced.
It didn’t faze him one iota, however. His gloved hands raised in greeting for the second time today, only it wasn’t Sam that he wanted to pull close and express his love and joy to. Placing her son into his father’s arms was the sweetest, most life-affirming moment of her existence so far, and as far as life-affirming moments went, she’d had a few.
A simple, “Hello little buddy,” as Jack raised Jake’s face to his own was enough to ensure stinging tears to form in her own eyes and Carolyn to beat a hasty retreat.
“Sam.” His eyes were shining at her over the top of his surgical mask as he hugged his child’s body close. “What’s his *name*?”
“OH!” What an idiot! She had neglected to tell her own baby’s father such an important piece of his identity! Reaching over to loosen the blanket around the child’s face, she cleared her throat.
“Jack, meet Jonathan Jacob Carter O’Neill, born at a quarter after four am on November 5th, 9lbs exactly.”
The raised eyebrows said it all.
She squirmed a little under his scrutiny. “Yeah well, I’m not big on the ‘naming after a dead relative’ thing, but after the two men that I loved the most, there just wasn’t any other choice.”
“But I’m not dead.” She could swear she could detect a smirk beneath the pale blue mask material.
Her cheeks burned again and she straightened the bedclothes. “No. No, you’re not.”
He turned his face back to his son’s. “Hi, J.J.”
“Ahh, he gets ‘Jake’.” But as Sam fixed her eyes upon the gentle scene before her, she somehow knew that her child’s pet name would be forever changed.
She cleared her throat. “There was an issue with having him acknowledged as an ‘O’Neill’ - the date for registering his birth was last week; I have to prove paternity first. But I have an attorney assisting me; I thought that’s what you would want.” The name of that attorney stung her thoughts but she squashed it back; a quick fumble with Dave Pryce was the last thing she wanted to remember right now.
Jack was feeling their child’s fingers and rubbing his narrow little feet. Her vision smeared and she contemplated her sneakers.
“You look so good.”
Jack was obviously head over heels in love with his son - until Sam realized that he was talking to *her* again. She lifted her eyes to meet his appreciative gaze. “Seriously, I can’t believe you had a baby two weeks ago; you look fantastic.”
As Sam returned the comment with an unabashed grin, some very strong longings took hold of her heart and she squashed them back as quickly as she could. Now was not the time, but she was grateful for any compliments regarding her post-natal physique even though she had never really been a vain woman.
“Nice *hair*.”
What was it with men and hair? “I was just thinking of having it cut.”
Jack shrugged as he turned back to J.J. who was beginning to squirm a little.
“Or maybe not,” she added and was amused by the quick glance afforded her. Their son began to whimper. “Hey, what’s up?” Jack shifted the baby a little further up his arm so that he was a little more upright and Sam was acutely reminded that he had handled an infant before. J.J. poked his tongue out and began to lick Jack’s thumb.
No, surely not already --
“I think he’s hungry,” Jack clarified.
Sam sighed in exasperation as J.J.’s whimpers morphed into actual crying. “I’ve just fed him!”
“Are you a hungry little man?” his father soothed. “Here, let me feed him, I’ll feed him!”
Sorry to disappoint Pops, Sam began to unbutton her blouse. “You can’t - at least until I express.”
As Jack handed over their now very much complaining son, he pulled off his mask to reveal a massive grin while Sam parked herself on a nearby infirmary chair and expertly unclipped her nursing bra to encourage J.J. to latch on to an already milk-soaked breast.
When the let down reflex had settled, she glanced at the man before her. The dark circles and taut cheek muscles betrayed pain and exhaustion and she wondered if he’d hung on to consciousness simply to see her - and he had gotten her, plus one.
“You can sleep now,” she smiled, “I’m not going anywhere until he’s finished.” She settled herself further onto the chair as if to reinforce her promise.
Jack’s eyelids began to droop and a strand of salt-and-pepper hair fell across his face. “I want to know all about him, I want to know every detail about the nine months I should have been here.”
Again she smiled and thought about a certain e-diary that was safely at home on her nightstand. “You will, but now you should get some rest.”
“Night,” he mumbled.
“Love you,” she replied, even though she knew that he was already asleep.
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The next three days were taken up with Jack being moved to the Academy Hospital’s spinal unit and being subjected to many tests.
Sam lost all sense of time as she and J.J. followed him around the institutional-green rooms with well-meaning white coated professionals. Jack and his son didn’t seem to be affected by their circadian rhythms as they slept when they felt like it but she on the other hand, began to crave quilts and bubble baths. The cramped put-you-up camp bed (and bassinet borrowed from pediatrics for J.J.) were all very well but she wasn’t twenty any more.
At least father and son were getting a chance to bond, and bond in a big way. Jack wanted to hold his son at every possible moment and seemed reluctant to relinquish him so that he could be fed. He had even changed a diaper or two, which he seemed to enjoy and made Sam quip that he must have been hit on the head as well as his ass.
Carolyn Lam was spot-on with her initial appraisal of General O’Neill’s injuries. Following X-rays, a CT scan, an MRI and a myelography - an excruciating injection into the spinal cord canal, it was determined that he did indeed have a severely slipped disc in the L4-L5-Sacrum area, just above the tailbone, as Sam discovered. Jack couldn’t pee or move his bowels properly and this had caused a nasty bladder infection that had remained untreated while incarcerated. Every day a white-coat with a name tag would come in and stick him with pins, bang his knees with a hammer and scrape the soles of his feet.
~ Can you feel that? ~
~ Can you feel this? ~
~ What about that? ~
Jack mumped about the catheter bag and the anal incontinence, but as the pain relief and antibiotics kicked in, his skin lost the slightly yellow tinge and acquired a much more healthy pallor. Sam hovered in the background while the orthopedic consultants and neurosurgeons wittered on about worst case scenarios and by the end of the third day she’d had enough, let alone Jack.
Mentally, he seemed fine. The Ba’als et al had more or less left him alone in his cell, which was what had prompted him to attempt to MacGyver a vamoose in the first place - earning him the staff weapon injury from a Jaffa who was trying to earn his fifth McDonald’s star, according to Jack.
On the first day she called Mark in San Diego and Cassie in Stockholm to let them know the truly miraculous news. Mark ‘Oh, God-ed’ at her and Cassie cried a bit. Both wanted to come back to Colorado but they’d only just got back from visiting her after J.J. was born so she wouldn’t hear of it - there would time enough for celebrations later. At some point, she managed to get a message through to Sara O’Neill. One, to thank her once again for the baby clothes and the lovely ‘welcome baby’ card and secondly, to inform her that her ex-husband was back from the dead. Again.
In between Jack, insomnia, irregular meals and nursing, she could feel herself losing physical control - and rapidly. She needed a shower and fresh clothes and was fervently grateful that the hospital kiosk sold feminine hygiene products because she was going through them rapidly.
Salvation came in the form of General George ‘I won’t take no for an answer, Sam’ Hammond, who arrived with an overnight bag, an armful full of National Geographics and a very self-satisfied Daniel Jackson. If Sam had refused any tag team watches with Dr. Smug, she was not about to refuse her former CO. With a tired kiss on Jack’s adorably pouting cheek, she gathered her own bag under one arm and her kid under the other. Have kid, will travel. Whatever.
The last conversation she remembered that night after Daniel had driven her home, helped her unpack and microwave her dinner while she fed J.J., was him saying something about lending Jack his camcorder so he could see some ‘Fat Sam’ shots.
The last thing she saw as she fell into bed was her Sony VAIO e-Diary, still gathering dust where she’d left it on November 4th.
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For the first time since she became a mother, she was woken by something other than hungry wailing.
Her nightstand hard line phone was shrilling in her ear.
Grabbing it awkwardly, she managed to get the receiver the right way up for her face. “Mmm? ‘Lo?”
Next came those immortal words that have absolutely the opposite affect from what they say:
Daniel Jackson’s anxious voice. “Sam, I don’t want you to worry, but…”
Apparently after an early morning session of physiotherapy, it seemed that the slipped disc in Jack’s spinal column had decided to go walkabouts - the surgery that the neurosurgeons were attempting to avoid was now *un*avoidable.
He was already in surgery.
Crap.
After reassuring Daniel that she was fit enough to drive, she blundered around desperately trying to organize herself only to be waylaid by her son demanding yet another feed. She knew that grabbing an infant from his bed and thrusting a breast at his mouth was really not the way to induce a calm and happy bonding moment and was driven to frustration when her son screamed even louder and kicked away. She had to get going! She had to be at the hospital, not here!
Sam was abruptly overwhelmed with a feeling of entrapment - she stared at this thing that had come into her life and realized with shock that she and he would be bound for the rest of their existence - not just for food, warmth and shelter, but *everything*.
She would never be allowed to think of herself as her own person; she was now somebody’s mother. She could never again jump out of her bed, slap on a bit of mascara and hit the Mall. Someone else was doing her job, a.k.a. her life’s work, and the world hadn’t come to an end. You can’t fit a baby seat to an Indian.
She was suddenly afraid of the screaming child and laid him quickly back in his crib while she scrambled to splash some very cold water on her face.
As if that wasn’t enough, someone was ringing her doorbell!
Ignoring the wails of protest, she marched past her kid, stormed to her front door and wrenched it open, remembering at the last moment that she was clad only in her pink’n’fluffy Hello Kitty bathrobe.
The last person in the world she expected to see was standing on her front step with a raised eyebrow and a very cool line in headgear.
“TEAL’C!” she yelled, before wrapping him in a massive hug.
Ten minutes later, all was calm in the Carter household. After a ‘There is no need to explain, Samantha’, he presented her with an extra large Subway roll with roasted vegetables, a caffeine-free soda and two small bottles of something bearing encouraging green labels with trees on and - teats. Baby milk. Manufactured baby milk. Waving away Sam’s concerns, he reassured her that Young Jonathan Jacob would indeed be satisfied and her breastmilk supply would not be compromised - ‘top ups’ assisted the successful establishment of breastfeeding rather than hindered it. He knew this to be true because he’d seen it proven on Oprah.
Sam watched in wonderment as he strode to her bedroom, (he’d been in her room, like twice before?) scooped up her child and managed to silence him in a few short seconds. Wailing was replaced with contented sucking as Teal’c sauntered back out of her boudoir to settle himself on the sofa with her son plus bottle in one beefy hand and the TV remote in the other.
As she exited from her shower, silence still reigned and Sam was working out how much Nanny T might charge per the hour.
After drying her hair, which actually took less time now it was longer, she finished dressing in peace and was lacing up her left sneaker when her nightstand home phone rang again.
Suddenly, inexplicably, she couldn’t move.
The shrill tone bored into her brain making little gray worms grow. She had chosen the phone specifically for its loud and annoying ringtones so that if the SGC were trying to get hold of after another all-nighter, she would be ready to respond to the next life-threatening problem.
Life-threatening. And still she couldn’t move. Checking the digital clock next to the phone, it was 1036 hours - 47 minutes had passed since Daniel called.
The ringing stopped.
She was such a damn coward! With a shaky hand she reached for the receiver to dial last number call back when she became aware of a muted conversation emanating from her kitchen.
“Teal’c, you’re an angel,” she muttered as she realized he had picked up the extension.
Edging further into the hallway, she acknowledged the irony of eavesdropping on a telephone call that she couldn’t bring herself to answer. She heard the call being ended and had a sudden and overwhelming desire to run into her room and hide under the bedcovers.
Too late. There was Teal’c’s handsome face staring kindly back at her, one tree trunk arm still hefting her son who was now sucking his fingers.
“It may be prudent to collect any essentials necessary for a short hospital visit. General O’Neill is out of surgery and Daniel Jackson has asked me to tell you that ‘the old windbag can move his toes.’”
He nodded at her expression of joy. “I suggest we make haste; your son has consumed two bottles of Grandma’s Organix Breastmilk formula and I suspect he is still hungry!”
She made haste. Like STRAIGHTAWAY.
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The reunion of SG-1 was a muted but heartfelt affair, sited as it was in the middle of a hospital with one tired and hurting General. Even Cameron Mitchell made an appearance before excusing himself; this was something he was a part of but was respectful enough to let the old friends catch up.
Jack’s surgery was pronounced a cautious success. He would need several weeks - perhaps months - of physiotherapy, chiropractic intervention and a phrase to strike fear into the heart of any nurse who had cared for Mr. Grumpy before: bed rest.
The fact that he could flex his feet a little, extend his toes if he tried hard enough and recovered much (although not all) of the sensation below his groin was the best news anyone could hope for; there was an excellent chance he would recover full locomotory ability. The catheter and the diaper stayed put however, much to his chagrin.
Jack’s sleeping patterns were still shot to hell but Sam had learned her lesson. She would stay at the hospital until 1600 hours and then she was going home and taking J.J. with her; she would be back the next morning at 1000.
Nobody disagreed.
Jack had pain relief, snacks, Kool-Aid, cable TV and video of Fat Sam. He could do without the real thing for while.
George Hammond drove her home while ‘T’ remained with Jack to take the swing shift. Her collection of baby accoutrements didn’t faze Gen. George at all; he unloaded it and packed it all away like the seasoned veteran that he was. Then he snagged a pizza place leaflet from behind her phone and called for a large-with-extra-olives, with fries and slaw on the side. General Hammond knew what her favorite pizza topping was? Her life was too surreal. He paid for it all with his credit card and refused to take a dime as he headed out to ‘leave her in peace’.
As they hugged goodbye, he held her for a moment longer.
“Your daddy would have been so proud,” he said into her ear. With an abrupt pat on the back and much swallowing and nodding, he rushed through the November rain back to his SUV. With a cheery honk on his horn, his taillights were gone into the gloom.
Samantha Carter had the best friends in the world.
Later after both she and J.J. had eaten their fill, she tucked her son up in his bassinet and sung him a lullaby for the first time in days. He stared at her wide-eyed and sleepy, and the thought of that morning’s behavior slammed back. How ashamed she was now; how could she even *think* of hurting her child? So what that she was needed - and she would be needed until her last breath. If J.J. was the reward, who was she to question the union of ova and sperm all those months ago?
She could stir soup, talk on the phone and breastfeed at the same time. She was a mom.
And she had a future with her baby’s father.
Take that, Oprah.
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The next morning when her phone rang, she was sprawled out on her lounge carpet playing ‘Chase the Mig’ with J.J. Settling her son on his playmat (Kick’n’Play, of course) she snagged the cordless handset and inwardly congratulated herself for remembering both her first and last name. “Samantha Carter.”
“Good morning, sexy ass.”
Ha. “Daniel, I told you to stop calling me that, Jack’ll be so mad!”
The responding chuckle broke the game. “How ya doin’?”
“Not too bad. You?” She hitched over to J.J. who was trying to lick a red flower on his play mat. “Hey, sweetie, that’s not mommy.”
She heard Jack chuckle. “Excuse me?”
“It’s your son; he’s fixated on nipples.” She shook a small elephant that Cassie had bought for her nephew before she went back to Stockholm into his eye line.
She would have bet money on his next comment. “That’s my boy!”
“Hmmm,” she grumbled. A nipple obsession was what got her knocked up in the first place. “What are you doing?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Are you changing the subject?”
Damn him. “Yes!”
It was so good to hear him laugh again.
J.J.’s movements were becoming heavier - he was falling over into sleep. She loved the fact that she was beginning to understand her baby without the need for words. They had a language all their own. “I take it you’re feeling better?”
“I worship at the altar of Demerol.”
Ah. Pain relief was a subject close to her heart. “Tell me about it.”
“Actually, I’m watching you.”
“You are?!” She glanced around the room. “Sam-Cam?” She wouldn’t put it past him.
She could hear him catch his breath. “Don’t make me laugh! Giggling is bad for me. I’ve got Dr. Dan’s camcorder.”
Fat Sam Footage! “Oh no-“
“Don’t you ‘oh no’ me; I’m lovin’ this.”
She sighed; well, she could hardly snatch it out of his hands, could she? “What trimester?”
“Third.”
“Oh, crap.”
She heard more laughing. “Jack, I was as a big as a house!”
“Sam, you were beautiful, really beautiful and you still are. This pregnancy thing - it’s a good look on you.”
She swallowed. Her son’s eyes were narrow slits and his breathing was evening out.
“You never were very good at accepting compliments, were you?” He breathed into her silent response. “I was watching footage of your last sonogram earlier. I can’t believe Daniel didn’t figure out that J.J. was a boy.”
She snickered at that. “I think he thought it was a leg.”
“Our child has three legs?”
She was afraid her giggling would wake up J.J. “And the obstetrician was *obsessed* with the placenta, wasn’t she?”
“Oh, yeah! She went on and on about it.”
“Yes! She kept going on about how well I was feeding my baby. And let me tell you, when you see that thing up close and personal-“
“Weird?”
Too true. “Well, I was prepared to give birth to a baby, but they never told me I’d give birth to an alien right after, and you know I’ve met a few.”
There followed chuckling followed by cursing.
Her son was now completely asleep. She could vacuum up his diaper while he was wearing it and he wouldn’t wake. “Still in pain?”
“Yeah, it’s not too bad, more like pressure. It’s the *boredom* that’s getting to me now.”
Snatching a light blanket from the sofa she tucked it round her child’s body. “Give it a chance, you only had surgery yesterday.”
“It’s gonna be a tough few weeks.”
“For you or the nursing staff?” Her leg was beginning to cramp so she shuffled over to an armchair and plunked her ass.
“Daniel said you kept a diary of your pregnancy?”
Her hand stilled from where it was rubbing a leg muscle. It was phrased as a question - thus required a response. “I did.” Well, she couldn’t lie to him, could she?
“I’d like to read it.” All levity had gone from his voice. Serious!Jack was something she found difficult to cope with.
A niggling headache was beginning to form behind her eyes. “I’ll bring it over later.”
“I’d like that. Listen I have to go. Das Kommendant has appeared with tubing and you don’t want a play-by-play.”
She laughed. “No thanks!”
“See you later?”
“Yup.” She glanced at J.J., snoring away on his mat. “After lunch?”
“Yasureyabetacha. Don’t forget the diary.”
“I’ll bring it.”
And she would. After she’d edited it first.
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As it was, J.J. slept less time than Sam expected and she ended up in a rush as usual. She really wanted to take time to read the whole e-Diary through but in the end she settled for burning entries May 14th 2007 through to July 6th 2007 onto a CD. With her fingers poised over the keyboard, she muttered “What the hell,” and burned the rest up to and including August 24th. She would decide what to do about David Pryce later and all that would surely keep Jack occupied for a while.
Stashing her spare laptop along with all of J.J.’s paraphernalia into her trusty Volvo, she drove through the mizzly Colorado rain that was threatening to turn to sleet. She knew it was chilly outside because her dashboard readout told her, but darn, she felt hot. Her face was so flushed! Guilty conscience she supposed. Well, she had started the damn diary in case Jack returned and now that he was here, he should read it!
Parking at the hospital was its usual nightmare and as she waited patiently for a senior citizen to back oh-so-slowly out of a parking space, she mused at how quickly humans could get used to anything. Her life had been turned upside down on its head and here she was, coping with a baby, visiting her sick - boyfriend - and parallel parking. She just hoped Jack would be in a good mood.
He was. And he looked clean and rested, his still long hair bunched at the neck in a short ponytail.
“Sexy ass!” was his greeting as she blundered through the door of his private hospital room, pushing a mountain of stuff in a stroller - her child was in there somewhere.
“Ignore him, he has no carnal knowledge of me whatsoever,” she reassured the candy striper who was filling Jack’s water jug. ‘I’m his sister.”
“And that’s my kid,” said Jack proudly, wiggling his fingers at J.J. who dribbled back in reply.
The candy striper fled.
“Jack, you’re incorrigible,” she said in exasperation as her hands shook trying to get the stroller harness undone. “Is it cold in here?” Sam asked as she played pass-the-parcel with their son.
He hefted the child easily and shifted his legs under the blankets to accommodate his son’s small body - he was obviously recovering a great deal of movement. “I’m fine, but hospitals are always over heated. Hey!” He smiled at J.J. who had grabbed his thumb and was hanging on for dear life. “Look at this!”
“Don’t get excited, he thinks you’re dinner,” Sam mused as she began to divest the poor stroller of stuff. “But don’t be fooled, I fed him before I left.”
Jack was grinning at her.
“What?” her eyebrows furrowed.
“Nuthin’
She waved a finger. “I’ve seen that look before.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“But I can’t place it.” She admitted, amused by the enigmatic smirk. She turned to free her laptop from its attaché bag. “I have something for you.”
It was his turn to be perplexed. Setting up the portable computer on the patient over-bed table, she depressed the on button and waved a disk under his nose. “My life as a stupidly pregnant person.” Ignoring his beaming smile, she ejected the CD-Rom tray and inserted the disk. The processor whirred while the Word application booted up and the screen changed to the familiar white-headed-with-blue layout.
Writing appeared.
#
May 14th 2007
Okay, Jack.
So Daniel said I should do this, so blame him.
#
She swiveled the screen towards Jack. “There you go. It’s pretty simple-“
“-I doubt that.” He interjected.
“It’s pretty simple to follow,” she repeated, with an admonishing glance that had no fire to it.
He pulled the table towards him and squinted to fixate on the script, using the touchpad to scroll down.
#
I thought I’d try again but I’m having a real big problem getting the words down - but I guess if you were actually here, I would still have an issue with communication. Of course, if we got close, you’d soon figure it out faster than light speed.
I still can’t say it.
#
He was looking at her now.
That deep intense stare that could reduce the enemy to gibbering wrecks and her into bed before the beer got warm.
Sam cleared her throat. “There’s quite a bit more.”
Jack moved J.J. to a more comfortable position so that the baby could see the display. “I’ll bet.”
Sam grabbed her purse. “I’ll get coffee.”
“You’re drinking coffee?” He indicated their sleepy son.
Biting a lip she headed for the door. “It’s a euphemism,” she called behind her and the last thing she heard as the door swung shut was:
“Gotcha”
She sat with him while he paged through the first part of her diary, taking time out to flip through a Scientific American she purchased from the hospital bookstore, feed J.J., share contraband fries and a diet soda with Jack and feed J.J. again.
He stopped reading several times and asked her questions. She answered as well as she could remember and took comfort in his concern.
“Louis Ferretti died.”
“And Paul Garcia. I thought you knew.” Hadn’t Daniel told him?
He nodded, his expression dull. “Seeing it in black and white hammers it home.”
Jack wanted to know every detail about the amniocentesis and Sam did her best to recall those worrying days that she put behind her. They discussed what might have happened if J.J. had been diagnosed with Down’s syndrome, and to her intense relief, he agreed with her that he would have fought for the best for their son also.
He also wanted to know if the banana and mango fetish had continued post partum. Mercifully, it hadn’t.
At 1700, when Jack had got as far as the entry for Father’s Day, she called it quits. Buckling J.J. back into the stroller and gathering up her belongings, she leaned over the medical equipment (thankfully diminishing by the day) to plant her usual goodbye kiss on his cheek, but at the last moment he turned his head and their lips met. Closed-eyed and soft-mouthed, they savored the experience, the first since fate had sought to intervene in their relationship.
Sam felt Jack’s hand on the back of her head, drawing her in further and she responded in kind. Her own fingers found the band securing his hair and she tugged on it, releasing the ponytail so that she could feel the reality of her lover and all that he had lived through without her.
He may not have complete control over his legs, but there was nothing wrong with his hands - they caressed and kneaded, roaming with the practiced ease of a man in familiar territory. By the time they reached her chest, she was having difficulty focusing her attention and was pretty sure the moaning noises were coming from her.
He broke the kiss to mutter, “Oh man.” Cupping her milk-filled breasts through her T-shirt, his appreciation was evident. “They’re so heavy,” he said in awe. “You’re gonna nurse for the next decade, right?”
She laughed softly into his shoulder and then sucked in a breath as his thumb rubbed over an erect nipple. A sudden cramp gripped her groin.
“Uhhhhhh..” she broke the embrace to regain her composure, hands on her hips to get her breathing back to normal.
Jack looked on with worry. “Hey, you okay?” He reached up to lay a concerned hand on her shoulder.
She was; the pain was receding. “Yes, I’m fine; I’m just tired.”
“But-“ he began to protest.
She interrupted and pulled herself upright. “Post natal afterpains. I read they might get worse before they get better. I’ll get some Tylenol from the pharmacy, no sweat.”
“Sorry,” she added ruefully, aware that the tender encounter had been ruined.
Jack smiled. “Oh, phshaw, Carter. There’s plenty of time now.”
And there was, there really was.
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To be Continued