Fic: "Out of Order (part 2)"
Mar. 6th, 2008 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
so_jangTitle: The 1st of John Sheppard's very bad days (part two) (part one)
Rating: R? (there's some blood)
Pairing: Sam/Jack, Elizabeth/John
Summary: Set six months after The Washington Detour. Time jumps and babies for all!
Notes: I'm slowing joining the Sam/Jack religion. But it goes well with Sparky. This is for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lanna_kitty who betaed this and made sure I did Sam/Jack right.
Doctor Weir was new to some of her team and Sheppard was one of the newest. She only had him because Jack had talked him into coming; that made her more concerned about why the future Jack needed him. The future Sam had McKay and Zelenka talking circles around each other, but unlike the Sam she remembered, this one was spending more time listening than talking.
This future Sam, the one with the wedding ring, was tired; Elizabeth saw it in her face. It wasn't an exhaustion she knew. She had seen Sam work herself to near breaking before, but something in this was different. Sam was being methodical, doubly careful that she understood everything that was being said.
McKay was frustrated and he was starting to become abrasive. Zelenka was more patient, he seemed to appreciate this new method of doing things, but they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. McKay was so annoyed he nearly lashed out at Sam when she called a halt. Sam sank gratefully into a chair and rested her head in her hands.
McKay was still complaining to himself, and Zelenka was talking to himself in Czech as they tried to reason with the computer. "We're looking for a few lines of code in a database of septillions," he ranted as he tossed his hands up in the air. "Do you have any idea what that's like? It's like picking a four-letter chunk of DNA out of the whole strand. We should just run down the ZPM and be done with it."
"Colonel Carter and General O'Neill need the ZPM to get home," Doctor Weir reminded him as she walked by. "That's more important, because they longer they stay here, the more they change our timeline."
"Maybe it's better this way," McKay suggested out of frustration. "Two Carter's can't be bad, right?"
"Figure it out," she ordered firmly as she touched his shoulder. "You can do it."
"I can do soduku too, that doesn't mean it's a good use of my time," McKay muttered under his breath as she passed and Weir decided to ignore him. Zelenka nodded to her and continued to speak in Czech softly.
"Are you all right?" Weir asked Sam as the blonde woman kept her head down.
"Dizzy," Sam complained cheerfully looking up. "Sorry, it's new to me I can't focus like I should. I haven't had a problem like this since I uh--" stopping suddenly, Sam looked chagrined. "Forget what I said."
"I'll try," Weir offered as sincerely as she could. "I don't remember it in the future?"
"It's a little complicated," Sam explained without giving anything else away. "I didn't know this was coming, so I must get home. Jack knew because John, our John, told him. So it he thought it would be all right to involve John--"
Weir nodded and passed Sam the small bag of pretzels from her MRE. "And Sumner?"
"Rank," Sam shrugged and tried a pretzel tentatively. "Thank you."
"So far, these are my favorite," Weir remarked down towards her pretzels.
Sam grinned and shook her head slowly. "I meant for letting me steal your scientists, but I appreciate the pretzels too."
'Do you need anything else?" Weir asked as she searched Sam's face. There was joy beneath her exhaustion and that made her doubt it was an illness.
"Oh no," Sam said as she contemplated dragging herself back to her feet. "I shouldn't even be--"
"McKay needed a break," Weir reminded her gently as she gave up the pretzels on got to her feet. "He has food now, he'll be more reasonable."
"Right," Sam sighed and stared at the computer across the room who was refusing to give up any of her secrets. "I should have remembered that one."
Weir patted her thigh gently and smiled encouraging. "You'll get it," she promised with all the confidence she thought she should have. "I suppose we could just put you in stasis or something otherwise--" she trailed off as Sam made a strange face. "i'll let you get back to work."
Elizabeth shook her head and tried to protest feebly what she worried he was about to do. "I have to look," Jack tried to explain. Holding Sheppard's utility knife, much sharper then the one he thought he'd have to use, Jack studied her clothing. The black BDU trousers she'd been wearing were soaked through with fluid, and so far just the fact that none of it had been blood was enough, but now someone had to check.
Sheppard had her against his chest. He was wedged into the jumper so his back was against one of the benches and his knees were up where Elizabeth could hang on to them. He'd been there well over an hour without complaint. He didn't say much of anything other than to encourage her when she lost her energy. Just having him there seemed to help; she seemed less lost, less afraid of what was happening to her.
"Can't push unless she'd dilated enough," Jack explained to Sheppard as he bent to slice along the seams of her trousers.
Digging through Sheppard's tactical vest, Jack dug up a flashlight and checked it. "I don't know if she'll let me," he wondered aloud as he touched her ankle.
Writhing away to curl on her side as another contraction hit her, Elizabeth screamed into Sheppard's lap as he tried to keep her head off the floor. Sheppard stroked her head, trying to hold her and keep her from hurting herself. "Breathe," he ordered her with more force than Jack had heard him use yet. When she finally drew a breath, it filled her chest so quickly Jack worried she'd crack a rib.
"you might have to do it," Jack sighed and turned the knife in his hand. "I don't think she'll let me."
"She doesn't know me," sheppard protested as he shifted her arm so it wasn't awkwardly beneath her. "Not me- me- I almost feel like I'm lying to her by being here. I'm not-"
Jack reached for her ankle and narrowly missed being kicked in the chest. Shaking his head as he sat back, he sighed. "She'll let you check. I think all you have to do is look, and if you can't see anything, you reach--"
Sheppard swallowed hard and went a shade paler. "Reach?"
Jack made a circle with his left hand and pushed his right through in a fist. "Things kinda open up," he ventured sheepishly. "If your hand fits up enough to feel anything hard, then she can push."
"And we want that?" Sheppard asked as he started to look more nauseated than Sam.
"Pushing's at the end," Jack nodded as he moved over closer to him. "Maybe she let me at this end," he hoped as he reached for Elizabeth's shoulders. "Hey, Elizabeth-" he spoke softly, trying to calm her as if she were simply injured. "I'm going to hold you and John's going to check the baby. We need you to hold still."
Elizabeth's eyes drifted up to his face and she squinted as if she were having a hard time recognizing his face. "Hurts," she hissed as she rolled her head back against his chest and bit her lip against the receding pain.
"I'll hold your shoulders," Jack explained as he nodded to Sheppard. The younger man didn't move. Glaring until the major knelt between her legs, Jack continued to stare at him. "John's going to cut your pants," he warned her as he reached up to hold her knee. "You're going to let him."
"John?" she asked pitifully opening her eyes at the name.
"Talk to her," Jack hissed over her head. "John's right there," he reminded her soothingly. "Do it quick," he snapped at Sheppard. "Before she has another one."
Sheppard swallowed and stared at Jack helplessly. He nodded once before he started to cut. "Do you remember how we met?" he asked her as the fabric tore beneath his hands and he exposed the pale skin of her inner thighs. "How surprised I was? Maybe you don't because you were busy with other things, but I-"
Jack nodded to him, pleased that Elizabeth seemed to be following Sheppard's voice. "Keep going," he encouraged firmly. "Make shit up if you have too, just keep talking-"
Sheppard halted as he reached in towards her skin. Elizabeth jolted back away from her touch and Jack started to feel her tense.
"-Stop!" he warned and twitched his head towards the knife. "Just hold her until it's done."
Pulling herself up and nearly out of Jack's arms, Elizabeth sobbed her way into the contraction. It was almost all Jack could do to keep her from falling out of his arms towards the less protected parts of the jumper. The sobbing built and heightened until she was actually screaming. He'd read everything Carson and Keller could give him. He'd even watched the damn tapes Walter was able to sneak out of the library for him, but nothing prepared him for the sound. There was a keening, grieving edge to it that tore at him. Part of her had lost hope and the pain was that much more intense because of it.
Jack wasn't even sure what he should be telling Sheppard to do. He didn't know what to do for that matter. The major's hands were shaking and Jack watched him drop the knife by her feet. Willing the younger man to work through what had to be one of the most gut wrenching moments of his life, he watched astonished as Sheppard seemed to get it. Insinuating himself between her legs, Sheppard lowered his arms to her and pulled her up. Firmly held against his chest, Elizabeth's scream softened.
Confusion reigned on Sheppard's face as Jack watched him, but he looked less nauseated. Jack put his hands on the those of the younger man and nudged him to hold her tighter. Lifting his own left hand he pointed enthusiastically at his ring finger, Then to Elizabeth. The second time he did it, Sheppard caught on.
He couldn't imagine being thrust into that kind of intimacy. The idea that he was now allowed, even expected to tell Sam he loved her in public tugged at his stomach in a way he wasn't sure he liked. Sheppard had it much harder. In the space of the last two hours, he had to swallow not only the fact that he was one day going to be in love with his boss, but that she would give him at least two children.
When Elizabeth started to calm, Sheppard lowered her back to Jack's waiting arms. "I have to look," he reassured her as he tentatively touched her thigh. "I might touch you, so don't- you know- I don't mean--"
"You turned on the star map," Elizabeth's tongue caught on some of the words. "Best."
Sheppard's face said couldn't remember what he'd been saying for a moment, he was so shocked that she was looking at him again. Moving her hand to his face, Elizabeth held him in her gaze. "I needed you."
"Cut," Jack ordered him harshly enough to startle Sheppard out of his trance. "Look."
"Right," Sheppard repeated as he pulled Elizabeth's hand down to his chest. "I'm right here," he promised her as he bent to catch the black fabric of her panties. "Right here."
The knife sang as it cut through the lycra. Sheppard closed his eyes for a moment before he stuck the flashlight into his mouth. For the moment, Elizabeth was calmly watching him. Her hand still on his chest. His eyes widened as he tried to categorize what he was seeing. A naked woman was entirely different from a naked woman in the final stages of labor. Jack watched him bite his lip and his emotions went sympathetic when Sheppard's eyebrows suddenly shot up in shock.
His hand slipped in and disappeared up to the wrist. Elizabeth made a tiny noise of discomfort and Sheppard started to apologize for causing her pain. "Sorry, sorry, did that hurt?"
Incredibly, she managed to chuckle hysterically for a moment. "Compared to what?" she coughed dryly. Jack stole her moment of coherence and managed to convince her to drink from Sam's water bottle.
Sheppard's already huge eyes suddenly widened still further. "I- uh, sir?" he blurted in surprise.
"Hard spot?" Jack asked as he set the water back down. "Like a baseball or something?"
Sheppard was biting his lip so hard Jack was worried he'd draw blood, but he nodded. "Think, uh--"
Elizabeth groaned and pulled her hips out of the way. Sheppard slipped past shock into sheer astonishment. Jack tried to imagine what it must feel like to have the muscles of her body close around his hand, and then he shook himself out of it. He didn't want to imagine. It was almost too intimate, like he was invading something that wasn't his.
Sheppard's hand slipped free and he stared at the clear mucus tinged with blood on his skin. He didn't seem to know what to do with it but he wiped it on his shirt and reached down to Elizabeth when she started to seize up in pain. His dry hand caught her face and turned her eyes up to his face. "I've got you."
"Could you feel the whole thing?" Jack asked as he sat Elizabeth up a little further and let her cling to Sheppard. Helping her up onto her feet so she was squatting helped get some of the pressure of her back and he felt some of her muscles relax against him. It was harder on him and Sheppard, but they were just going to have to make it work.
"Nose," he started pathetically as he stared at Jack helplessly. "I think I felt his- her- nose," Sheppard whispered back in awe.
Weir knew Sam had taken Sheppard to the the big bay full of the smaller space ships McKay was already wanted to call 'gate ships. Sumner was getting ready to head out for first 'gate address Zelenka had found. The colonel wanted Sheppard and even though Weir knew she should have asked Sam if he could come along, for some reason, she had to know what was going on.
Curiosity had always been one of her faults and this time it drew her towards the ship furtherest from the others because she knew it was that one. The hatch was closed and she felt around the ship for the release. It had to be somewhere, everything else in this city was so intuitive, it had to be simple. Eventually Weir found a simple switch she only had to click a few times to the right before the hatch obediently began to hiss open.
Someone inside was pleading so desperately that her voice had been reduced to a scream of agony. She was sandwiched between two dark figures, one had a gray head of hair she recognized as General O'Neill. He was all in black and crouching by the wall of the jumper. The other figure was Sheppard, she knew him immediately by his hair.
The woman had her head buried in Sheppard's chest and she was crying. Her knees were out on either side of Sheppard's waist, and he was kneeling in front of her. Jack seemed to be responsible for keeping the woman's feet beneath her. The woman's stomach was swollen and the bulge that Weir's mind insisted was a baby near delivery was low on her hips.
She'd been in labor for some time already and that's why she was so distraught at Sheppard's instruction that she push. Her hair was long and heavy in sodden, dark curls around her face.
"Come on," Jack urged firmly. "You have to push now."
Lifting her head as she took a breath, the woman lifted her head; Weir felt the universe stall out around her as she locked eyes with the pleading woman. Her eyes were green and deeply familiar. Weir's rational part of her brain filed the thought away and let her emotions run wild with remained.
It was her.
Her hair had grown out and her face had filled out slightly with the extra weight of her pregnancy. Her lips were red because she'd been chewing on them throughout her ordeal, her skin was flushed and soaked with sweat but it was her.
It was her face. Her voice screaming to Sheppard- she called him John- that she couldn't. She couldn't push.
Sheppard's hands rose from beneath her to stroke her face with an affection that seemed to intimate for them. They were strangers, but he was caressing her- not her- but her- face as if he'd known her all his life.
Throwing her hands instinctually over her ears, Weir tried desperately to block out the sound of her own voice screaming in agony. It rang through anyway, the piercing cry tore into her like nothing else ever had. It shredded into her psyche and in that stalling of the universe around her, Elizabeth Weir swore she felt her own incredible torment rip through her.
Marshall Sumner dropped his fist on the back of Doctor Weir's head hard and precisely enough that she dropped like a forgotten toy. Catching her as she fell with on arm, he dragged her over as he sealed the ship Twisting it once extra to the left, he jammed the outside release until it would no longer move.
He disliked having to resort to such measures. He actually was starting to respect the slim negotiator passed out in his arms and he hoped he hadn't actually hurt her. Swinging her feet up into his arms, he held her thoughtfully for a moment. McKay's announcement that he had finally discovered the failsafe had only been a few minutes ago. The second announcement that the city was rising to the surface was bound to follow.
Laying the unconscious Weir on the floor next to the ship, Sumner braced himself and waited. Even with the little ship shut, he could still hear Elizabeth's voice when the pain crossed a certain threshold. He had initially been glad Sheppard had drawn the duty of delivering the child. It might be good for the hot-shot to see some real world suffering. It was after he got a glimpse of her that his mind began to put things together.
There was already something between the doctor and the major. He'd been around long enough to know when two people had something. Sumner hadn't felt it enough to bet that the two of them would be having a baby so quickly, but he wasn't about to argue. Timelines were something he'd learned to steer clear of in his time at the SGC.
Now he supposed he'd have to watch as the inevitable love story followed this incident. Sheppard's crush was going to explode, once he got over the initial awkward feeling that he already knew too much about her, he'd ask her to dinner. It wouldn't be too long after that that Sumner's newest discipline problem would be crawling to morning exercises out of the good doctor's quarters.
McKay's voice echoed over the public address system. "Everyone hang onto something, this might be a little bumpy," he ordered with the same grumpy efficiency Sumner thought was going to make him an asset to the team.
The entire city lurched, like an explosion had suddenly forced them towards the surface. In the windowless bay, most of the rising was wasted on Sumner, but he had his excuse for the welt that Weir was going to have to deal with when she woke up.
Sam had slightly more than enough power to dial Earth once and maintain a wormhole the point three seconds it was going to take them to rematerialize. She didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it, her headache had become nasty enough the the bag of pretzel's Weir had given her were in danger of decorating the floor of the command center.
Closing her eyes for a moment and rubbing her temples, Sam forced herself back to work. She had a puzzle and she was damned if she couldn't solve it.
The jolt of the city rising from the sea knocked Jack off-balance, and Sheppard had to quickly drag Elizabeth to her feet to keep her from falling to the deck with him. Clinging to her to keep her up, he realized, insanely, that he liked the feel of her in his arms. The panting, sobbing of her breathing in his ear was something he had taken to heart.
Jack recovered and added his strength to Sheppard's. Between the two of them, they managed to hold Elizabeth up until the shaking slowed. The contractions were viciously longer in duration then they left Elizabeth time to recover.
"No," she pleaded again in anguish. "I can't- I-"
"Push," Sheppard ordered as he eased her back into a squat. "Push for me."
Jack's hands on her shoulders kept her balanced, but she was loosing strength with each contraction. "I'll catch," Jack promised as they slipped her towards the dividing wall between the cockpit and the body of the jumper. Reaching up, Jack closed it suddenly, and slid out from behind her. "You hold her head, keep her with us."
"Elizabeth," Sheppard begged as he listened to her breath in. "Now," he urged gently. He hadn't known she could make the sounds the edged out of her mouth. The primal, grunted shriek that accompanied the worst of her contractions felt like it was cutting into his flesh. "With me," he coached as she tightened all the muscles of her body in the supreme effort he was demanding of her.
Something splashed at his feet, and new fluids gushed to the join the others the floor of the jumper. The wet stink of the air was part of him as much as the sound in her chest. Sheppard was caught, trapped with her and until they had the baby, he was going to be there in her eyes.
Jack was reaching around his legs, reaching towards something he couldn't see through the roundness of her stomach. That roundness was flattening out, disappearing into her hips.
Elizabeth pushed without being bullied. Gasping in his ear, Sheppard heard her howl of despair break back into speech.
"I love you," she mumbled into his neck. "I love you," she repeated over and over as the baby slipped into Jack's hands. It was a wet, watery sound, like ice breaking and falling into the bay by his father's house.
Fluid ran from her body and dripped slowly onto the floor of the ship. Jack grunted as he angled his hands and tied a piece of string around the cord. Elizabeth was caught in his neck, past her experience to a place where she was entirely lost in her love for the man who had fathered that child.
He didn't belong there, Sheppard realized painfully as the child started to whimper. Jack was wiping the tiny red thing with a t-shirt of Sam's and Elizabeth was collapsing into his arms. He lay back on the deck, letting her fall, eyes closing against his chest. Just listening to the baby's whimpers develop into full throated cries of anger and frustration was enough to make her smile peacefully.
"I love you," Sheppard offered back with his heart naked under the words. It was desperately wrong, and yet, somehow, it was exactly what needed to be said.
Jack was cradling the baby to his chest, staring down at it in amazement as the warmth of his body made it hush. "Girl," he admitted incredulously. "All the parts and big blue eyes."
Elizabeth's mouth trembled into a smile. "Hold her," she directed Sheppard without opening her eyes. "Hold her- she can eat, then she'll hush."
"Eat?" Sheppard repeated as she stared at her breasts. The black t-shirt Elizabeth had been wearing was too wet to pull off of her, so Jack returned the knife to his hand. Cutting the shirt from her breasts, Sheppard felt her kiss his cheek weakly as he tried to free her breast from her bra. The clasp took him three tries, because his hands were shaking, but it finally slid free.
Peeling the bra from her skin, freed a dark nipple and between the two of them, he and Jack managed to get the infant to a place on his chest were she could feed comfortably.
Elizabeth moved one of her hands to rest on his stomach, but she seemed nearly unconscious from the effort. Jack rearranged her clothes, tried to keep her comfortable. "Let her sleep," he suggested as he drew himself up slowly. "I want to check on Carter."
"Stay here, sir?" Sheppard asked in a pained whisper. Elizabeth was nearly naked, half-asleep on his chest, and the newborn baby girl, who shared his DNA but wouldn't be his for another few years, nursed peacefully just to the right of his heart. "Is that right?"
"It's your family," Jack waved away the formality of time as he stretched and started to make his escape from the jumper. "What does it matter when they're from?"
Sumner set Weir down on the bed in the infirmary. It was still a mix of dust cloths and half set up medical equipment. "She missed the announcement," he explained gruffly as Beckett started to fuss. "Must have hit her head pretty good, went down hard."
Peeling back Weir's eyelids, Beckett checked her pupils and shook his head. "Concussion, not bad though," he promised as Sumner waited with a touch of guilt. "She'll have a nasty headache when she wakes up. Might be a little foggy on the details as well."
"That's all right," Sumner decided with enough of a smile to calm the doctor. "Tell her I'm leading a mission to that planet McKay found and that I was careful."
"Aye," Carson replied with a nod. "Will do."
"Doctor?" Sumner remembered as he stopped in the doorway. "Sheppard will be down shortly. Let him stay with her."
"Colonel?" the doctor asked confused.
Shrugging as he headed down the corridor, Sumner called back. "I think he'll want to."
Jack tried to ignore the weird looks he was getting as he hurried up towards Sam. He unreasonably needed to see her. Either because he was emotionally and physically exhausted, or he was actually as sentimental as he thought he could never be.
Sam had her head down and her hands weren't moving on the console. McKay was discussing something with Zelenka, and no one noticed as he moved up behind her. She couldn't have heard him, but Sam instinctually backed away as she lifted her head. "Jack-" she moaned slightly before turning on her heel and running for the balcony behind the control room.
"Damn," he whispered to himself as he followed her outside in time to watch her retching over the railing.
"Stay back," Sam warned as she fought for the breath to keep him away. "There's something on you."
"Lot of things I bet," Jack realized belatedly and kicked himself for not showering or something before he'd stupidly come up to see her. "It's a girl," he explained as he listened to her vomit everything that was left in her stomach and sob for a moment as she sucked in air. "Kinda squirmy little red thing."
"Everything okay?" She gasped still staring down over the edge of the balcony.
Jack stared at her and tried not to picture her in that amount of pain. "We're not having ours in a puddle jumper," he promised himself. "Don't care if you have your heart set on it already, but no puddle jumper." he paused and leaned over the railing. The sea air was making his clothes stick chilly to his skin, but he needed to be braced. "I watched Charlie- I mean, I just watched the doctor lift him up I didn't see-"
Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, Sam swallowed and met his eyes.
"There's all this slimy stuff," Jack rubbed his hands pathetically on the back of his things, where his trousers were still dry. "Elizabeth's screaming and Sheppard's got the worst of it because she can't tell the difference between him and the right John. I never saw her that way--"
"Naked?" Sam teased ruthlessly as she sank to the deck and leaned back against the railing as she smiled at him.
"Well that too," he smirked and rolled his eyes slowly. "It's like she wasn't just her, she was someone- something-" Jack paused and made sure he was downwind of her before he sank down. Yawning as he watched he smile broader at him, he grinned back. "She was past being Elizabeth. If that makes any sense, at all."
Nodding slowly, Sam slipped her hand across the deck towards him and kept smiling. "You're trying to make sense."
"Everything just opened and then she was in my hands," Jack blurted sheepishly reaching for her fingers. "Is this far enough away?"
"It's the blood," she excused herself and tried to soothe him at the same time. "Guess I'll have to stay away from blood for awhile. I can smell it all over you."
He nodded and smirked at her. "Not mine," Jack insisted as he tried not to yawn again.
"Might be mine," she pointed out thoughtfully teasing him. "Someday."
Shuddering, Jack shook his head. "One thing at a time," he begged as he dropped his head to his knees. "I want the other end. Keller can catch, hell, John can catch, he'll owe me a few hundred cases or beer otherwise."
"You'd let John catch?" she asked innocently surprised by his readiness to let someone else see her naked.
"I'm expecting him to volunteer!" Jack taunted playfully turning his head to keep his eyes on hers. "I'm almost glad I saw this first. Get the whole shell-shocked first engagement jitters out when it's not my kid."
"I thought you were there for Charlie-"
"Not the same," Jack corrected her. "I had a mask and I watched. I held Sara's hand and tried to keep her from trying to kill me until they put her under and did the old slice and dice. More blood that way, less screaming and they just kinda lift the kid out. There's so real catching--"
"C-section?" Sam clarified as she settled her hand in his.
Nodding again, Jack was surprised to feel his eyes stinging. "I was back from the action," he explained without going into more detail. "He was blue and then he was pink and wailing. I didn't even hold him until he'd been cleaned first. Less messy."
"What is on you?" she wondered as she wrinkled her nose curiously.
"Don't wanna know," Jack shook his head and leaned back. "No c-sections," he requested as he stared skyward. "I- now- no repeating and getting me in trouble."
"No, sir," she teased as she winked.
"I like it messy," he admitted as the threatening tears actually beat his control in his left eye. "Just me, John and Elizabeth and they- they-" he searched for the words he wanted. "They had this- I don't know really, but- this moment together. You don't really get to be involved, when you're the guy. You don't do the vomiting and the getting kicked in the ribs. Hell, I used to think it was funny when Sara complained about it."
"I'll hit you-"
"I know," he agreed as he squeezed her hand as tightly as he could. "First time I really got to do something, I was the first thing that baby touched in this world. I'm covered in goo, but I was part of her birth. Sam, I did--" he trailed off lamely finally at a loss for words.
"Jack," she began as she let him see the tears running freely down her face. "I'd kiss you but I'd-"
"-Right," he finished for her. "Sorry about-"
"-'s okay," she murmured. "I love you."
"Yeah?"
"Very much, Jack," she promised him as the tears came faster. "Very, very much."
Sheppard wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but Jack was nudging his shoulder. "Hey," the general whispered softly enough not to wake Elizabeth. "Sam's done her genius thing. We have to go home and you probably want to take a shower."
His hands moved from Sheppard's shoulder to the baby and Sheppard almost didn't want to let him lift her away. She'd been on his chest nearly all of her short life and he thought she was safe there. Sam took the baby and held her to her chest. Too sleepy to bother crying, the infant snuggled into the new warmth of Sam.
Jack was in a borrowed t-shirt that read 'marines' and Sheppard wondered if Sumner had given it up. He had jeans as well and as Jack tried to help him shift Elizabeth up into a sitting position, Sheppard realized how wet and sticky he was.
"Elizabeth-" Jack murmured much more gently than he'd spoken to Sheppard. "Elizabeth, I'm going to pick you up."
"Wait," she asked sleepily and her hand feebly landed on Sheppard's arm. "I-"
"Okay," Jack nodded and gave her a moment. "Anything hurt?"
With Jack's and Sheppard's hands on her shoulders, they managed to get her sitting up. "Sore," she hissed when they left her on her own. Sheppard's hands returned when she looked at him. "I'm sorry-" she began weakly. "You're not--"
"Don't apologize," he insisted firmly. "Please don't, I- uh- I know I don't belong, and I wish I could have been him-"
"You were wonderful," Elizabeth murmured as she pulled him down and kissed him sweetly on the cheek. "You'd be proud."
"I suppose I'll see," he realized innocently realizing that he got to live up to this point.
"You're a good man," she assured him as they shakily got to their feet. Sheppard was doing up her bra when she kissed him on the mouth. His tiny noise of shock made Jack grin wickedly and Sam looked up from the baby to see what was happening.
"Your shirt is ruined," Sheppard apologized as a flush ran up his neck. "Pants too--"
"I have clothes," Elizabeth promised him as he grabbed his jacket from the corner and forced her into it. "I-"
"Take it," Sheppard insisted as he took a last look at the baby in Sam's arms. "You can give it back. When you see me, him- you know."
"Be good," Jack glared at him in mocking superiority. "And hey, sorry about your jumper."
Still watching Elizabeth as Jack made sure she was steady enough to walk, Sheppard asked, "Jumper, sir?"
"Uh, yeah," Jack looked chagrined as Sam gave him a dirty look over the baby. "You're going to call them puddle jumpers."
Sheppard looked surprised again. "I am?"
"Yeah," Jack nodded as he avoided Sam's dirty look. "He would have done it anyway."
Beckett was putting his supplies away and wondering how exact the ancient scanners were when Sheppard snuck into the infirmary. Since he'd seen the major last, he'd showered and changed clothes and something less tangible had been altered within him as well. Beckett couldn't shake the feeling that something was irrevocably different in the man standing by Doctor Weir's bedside.
"I heard she got a concussion?" Sheppard asked as he hovered without touching her.
Nodding as he left the room he was intending to use as storage, Beckett peered over at him. "Sumner said she hit her head pretty hard, poor thing," he answered sympathetically. "No permanent damage, though she's going to have a nasty headache when she wakes up."
Sheppard looked at the door, then Weir and finally back at the doctor. His hands were in his pockets but something incredibly difficult was going on in his head. He stopped and started twice before he finally spoke. "Can I stay?"
"The colonel doesn't need you?" Beckett asked curiously watching Sheppard struggle with something new internally.
Shrugging as he looked around the infirmary, Sheppard found a stool in the corner and dragged it over to Weir's bed. "Nah, he's on a mission to meet the natives. I'm in charge of team two anyway. We go when he gets into trouble."
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Beckett asked with a small smile. "Stay up late in the pub your last night on Earth, Major?"
Sheppard scratched his damp hair and shook his head. "No, just kinda had a weird day." He scooted his stool over closer to the wall and leaned against it. "How's medical going to be?" he asked politely watching Beckett move around.
"I think it's going to be lovely," Beckett chirped excited by all the technology. "I have scanners and some of the best medical computers I've ever seen. It's a good space, I haven't been in all the surgical bays yet, but the quarantine rooms are really quite advanced." He continued talking as he wandered the room, putting things away and getting his supplies exactly the way he liked them. With a roll of bandages in his hand for the shelf in the back, he looked back at Sheppard and realized the poor man was asleep. He'd slid forward along the wall and now his head was on the pillow just next to Weir's.
Grinning gently, he made a mental note of it, and went back to work.
"It's actually quite simple," Sam explained as she tried not to go into more detail than Jack would listen to. "It's a little different than when we went back to nineteen sixty-nine. This time, we just dial a point somewhere approximately three light years from here, override the wormhole protocols that keep us from getting time shifted each time we dial and we 'bounce' back to our time."
"Simple, she says," Jack muttered to himself as he held Elizabeth a little tighter in his arms. She was lighter now, without the extra weight of the baby, but he was still a little out of shape to carrying her for long. "Why don't you just wave your hands and say 'I have a Phd in physics'-"
"Astrophysics--"
"Oh it's all hand-wavey anyway!" Jack corrected finally as he stared over at Sam. "Ready?"
McKay nodded and Sam nodded back. The baby was still clutched carefully in her arms and Jack wanted all three of them checked out as soon as they got back. Elizabeth was either exhausted beyond staying conscious for more than a few moments, or something was wrong with her he wanted fixed. Sam looked like death warmed over and she'd been close to vomiting again when Sheppard had helped them hose out the puddle jumper.
"Let's go home," Jack suggested when the 'gate whooshed open. "Before John decides he's going to kill me and the baby stops being so reasonable."
Staring down at the tiny sleeping face against her, Sam cooed at her softly. "She's barely cried."
"Give her time," Jack groaned and took a tentative step forward. "Soon you'll be wishing we'd left her here when we get stuck babysitting and she screams all night."
"So positive," she murmured to her husband as she started to walk into the event horizon.
The wormhole the entered flung them across space in one direction before they hit an intangible barrier and began hurtling backwards. The extremely disorienting sensation came to an abrupt halt when they emerged facing the wrong way. Sam swayed slightly and Jack steeled himself to keep his feet. The event horizon popped and dissipated like a bubble in front of him.
"That was weird," he muttered as he turned into the incoming swarm of the medical team. John, the right time's John, nearly stole Elizabeth from his arms entirely. In a look they shared a kind of acceptance. Time was back on the track they knew, the detour was over for now. "Take her," Jack suggested as he realized his knees were shaking. "Hurry."
Teyla had the baby now and Keller was already forcing Sam onto a stretcher. Adrenaline tasted metallic in his mouth as John lifted his wife from Jack's arms. Something was wrong with his knees, Jack realized slowly as he watched Sam's eyes roll back up into her head. The heat in the back of his head was winning out. As soon as the weight was gone, Jack gave in to the hot rush of oncoming unconsciousness.
John was in bed with her when she woke up. Elizabeth was sure it was him, because she knew the way his arms fit around her. She hurt nearly everywhere and her breasts were aching as if they were about to burst. Her stomach had the slowly healing ache she remembered vaguely from the days after Evelyn. "John?" she tested her voice slowly as she moved her head towards him.
"Right here," he mumbled into the back of her head. "The girls are here too. Evie's on the other side of me," he assured her. One of his hands left her stomach and reached out towards something else in the bed. "The new one's here."
"I need to-" she groaned and moved experimentally. "I'm going to burst unless she nurses."
John chuckled and reached over to pull the infant within reach. "She's just been watching," he explained as he helped her pull the sheet down off her skin.
"When did I get naked?" Elizabeth asked as she sighed and felt the pressure start to ease.
"I did it," John said lifting his head and stopping the muffled sound of his words as he got his lips out of the pillow. "Once Jen and Carson cleared you."
"How long have I been out?" she wondered as she rolled over onto her back. Gasping when she found the bruises she'd given herself in labor, Elizabeth found John's gentle eyes staring down at her.
"Few hours," he answered as he kissed her cheek softly. "I missed you."
Raising her free hand to his face, she felt the stubble from a long night without shaving. "You were there," she offered as if it were a prayer of thanks. "You were with me."
"Didn't know what the hell I was doing," John teased as he kissed her slowly. He tasted the way she remembered, deeply familiar, how he was meant to taste. "But I was there."
"Couldn't tell me?" she asked as soon as her lips were free.
"Couldn't risk the timeline," John offered by way of apology. "I'm a little attached to this one. I knew things were going to work out. At least, until the part where you came home."
"It's all really foggy," she complained as his hand rested on her forehead. "I remember you and Jack but most of labor's blurry. If I wasn't empty," she smirked as he grinned at her and the baby attached to her breast. "I wouldn't know it happened. Except you. You're clear."
"Three Elizabeths converging in one place is hard on the timeline and the three yous," he pointed out. Kissing her forehead as he removed his hand, John made sure Evie was safe as he sat up. "Rodney said it must have been hardest on you. He thinks that's what sent you into labor."
"That and my ability to start having contractions at the worst time possible," she added self-depreciatingly sighing up at him. "Three Elizabeths?"
"The elder one was still in stasis," he counted off. "Then you arrived, then the younger- youngest you, the one who wasn't pregnant--"
"I understand."
"Remember that concussion?" John switched tactics as he rested his hand on his daughter's tiny back. "The one when the city rose from the ocean?"
"The first time you kissed me," Elizabeth reminded him with a tiny smile. "When you thought I was too out of it to remember."
"You'd just had my child," John offered defensively. "You'd given birth in my arms. I couldn't just--"
Kissing him again stopped his protests. "I walked in on you and me," she explained gently. "I thought it was a vision or a bizarre hallucination because I'd hit my head. I was freaked out for a long time. I'd wake up and have nightmares about myself screaming."
John's hand rubbed her knee thoughtfully. "You never told me what those were about."
Moving her head closer to him, she sighed contentedly. "When you started sleeping in my quarters they went away."
Lifting his daughter from Elizabeth's chest, John held her upright against his shoulder and smiled down at his wife. "Did I tell you Jack and I named her?"
"Jack?" Elizabeth grinned and closed her eyes for a moment. "You let Jack?"
"He caught," John reminded her when the infant burped and whimpered for a moment before he set her back down towards the other breast. "Figured he deserved it."
Weir was certain someone had been kissing her. There was something in the back of her mind, something about the little space ships in the huge bay of the city, but her head hurt too much to stay on that thought. Instead she licked her lips and found them moist, as if someone had just lifted their mouth from hers. Reaching up to touch them, she groaned aloud as she accidently moved her head.
"Slowly," Sheppard's voice warned her from beside her head. "You took a nasty blow on the back of your skull. It's going to hurt."
"Already hurts," she moaned and slowly opened her eyes. Sheppard was in his off-duty clothes and for some reason he looked different. Had she ever really looked at him? His hair was a mess but it suited him. Weir was most drawn to his eyes. She hadn't really looked at his eyes long enough to realize they were so soft.
He settled onto the stool by her bed and resumed eating his lunch. It took her a few moments to realize he'd been waiting there for her to revive.
"How long?" she demanded as she tried to hold her head as still as possible.
"Most of the night," John said around a bite of a turkey sandwich. "All of the morning, part of today I guess. Colonel Sumner's met our bad guys, but he made us some allies too."
The screaming ache in her head went up a notch. "Bad guys?"
Pausing before he took another bite of his sandwich, John nodded quickly. "They're called 'Wraith' and according to Sumner and Beckett they're like space vampires. Real bad news, kinda feed on your life-force." Shuddered for a moment, he took another bite and set it aside as he reached for a little cup of jello.
"Feel like eating?" he wondered as he held up a spoon. "Beckett wanted you to try and get something down when you woke up."
Weir stared from him to the spoon and then back at his eyes. What was it about him that suddenly seemed so important? "Are you feeding me?"
"If you want," John agreed amenably. "Might move your head around a little less."
Trying to decide if he was serious or if this too was some awfully strange vision, Weir started to nod and then gasped in pain.
"Try not to chew," John warned as he put a tiny piece of jello into her mouth. "Just let it melt."
"What did you pick?" Sam nudged Jack from behind as he lazily rolled to face his wife. "John let you name the baby and you picked?"
"Oh, right," Jack pretended to have forgotten. Staring up at the ceiling, he stretched languidly and then turned to his wife. "Nauseated?"
"Not this morning," she answered cheerfully sitting up and reaching for the cup of tea she had near the bed. "You're easier to handle when you're clean."
"I delivered a baby," he huffed as he rolled his eyes. "It's not exactly rocket science, where you stay clean in a lab."
"And you named that baby what?" she prodded him as she slid her foot along his leg. "Leia? Lisa?"
"I'm keeping 'Lisa' for us," he answered sighing as he sat up. "Any of that for me?"
Sam pointed into the front room of their quarters. "There's coffee on the counter," she reminded him with a lazy hand in that direction. "It's all yours for the next thirty-three weeks, well, thirty-one," she corrected herself. "Ever wonder why they add an extra two weeks to human gestation?"
"No, darling," Jack called as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos and wondered how it had gotten there.
"Chuck," she called in answer to the question he hadn't asked. "He wanted to let us sleep in. Rodney's in charge this morning. John, Elizabeth, you and I all have the day off."
"Are these donuts?" he called as he made a victorious noise and attacked the basket. "Chuck brought us donuts?"
"He was in the infirmary when Keller announced I was pregnant," Sam reminded him as he returned to bed, donuts in hand. "I think he's being sweet."
Digging into a double chocolate donut with sprinkles, Jack made a sound of pure joy. "Can I marry him too?"
"He's second wife," Sam agreed pleasantly taking a donut out of the basket and nibbling on the sprinkles. "He cleans, I have the babies." Yanking his donut out of his hand, she dangled it in front of him and waited. "What did you name her?"
"Name equals donut?" Jack checked before he answered.
"Name equals donut," Sam agreed as she took a bite of his donut for emphasis.
Jack held out his hand and grinned playfully. "Kara," he gave up lightly. "Kara Sheppard Weir."
Handing over the donut, she lay back and grinned at her husband in surprise. "That's pretty and appropriate," she agreed in shock. "Wait-" she thought a moment longer. "Elizabeth doesn't watch?"
"Oh no," Jack replied as he chuckled and gleefully reached for a second donut. "She's never seen the show."
"You got Kara from-?"
"John liked it," Jack sputtered as he defended himself from her grab for his donut. "Elizabeth probably even thought it was pretty."
"Someday she might watch the show," Sam prodded him as she shook her head. "How's she going to feel-?"
"Kara Thrace is a perfectly wonderful, strong, intelligent woman--"
"You're full of shit," Sam teased as she tackled the donut out of his hand and straddled him thoughtfully. There was frosting on his lips as she kissed him. "But I love you."
Cradling her breasts as he sat up beneath her, Jack kissed his way down her chest. "-love you too, Sam."
Rating: R? (there's some blood)
Pairing: Sam/Jack, Elizabeth/John
Summary: Set six months after The Washington Detour. Time jumps and babies for all!
Notes: I'm slowing joining the Sam/Jack religion. But it goes well with Sparky. This is for
lanna_kitty who betaed this and made sure I did Sam/Jack right.Doctor Weir was new to some of her team and Sheppard was one of the newest. She only had him because Jack had talked him into coming; that made her more concerned about why the future Jack needed him. The future Sam had McKay and Zelenka talking circles around each other, but unlike the Sam she remembered, this one was spending more time listening than talking.
This future Sam, the one with the wedding ring, was tired; Elizabeth saw it in her face. It wasn't an exhaustion she knew. She had seen Sam work herself to near breaking before, but something in this was different. Sam was being methodical, doubly careful that she understood everything that was being said.
McKay was frustrated and he was starting to become abrasive. Zelenka was more patient, he seemed to appreciate this new method of doing things, but they didn't seem to be getting anywhere. McKay was so annoyed he nearly lashed out at Sam when she called a halt. Sam sank gratefully into a chair and rested her head in her hands.
McKay was still complaining to himself, and Zelenka was talking to himself in Czech as they tried to reason with the computer. "We're looking for a few lines of code in a database of septillions," he ranted as he tossed his hands up in the air. "Do you have any idea what that's like? It's like picking a four-letter chunk of DNA out of the whole strand. We should just run down the ZPM and be done with it."
"Colonel Carter and General O'Neill need the ZPM to get home," Doctor Weir reminded him as she walked by. "That's more important, because they longer they stay here, the more they change our timeline."
"Maybe it's better this way," McKay suggested out of frustration. "Two Carter's can't be bad, right?"
"Figure it out," she ordered firmly as she touched his shoulder. "You can do it."
"I can do soduku too, that doesn't mean it's a good use of my time," McKay muttered under his breath as she passed and Weir decided to ignore him. Zelenka nodded to her and continued to speak in Czech softly.
"Are you all right?" Weir asked Sam as the blonde woman kept her head down.
"Dizzy," Sam complained cheerfully looking up. "Sorry, it's new to me I can't focus like I should. I haven't had a problem like this since I uh--" stopping suddenly, Sam looked chagrined. "Forget what I said."
"I'll try," Weir offered as sincerely as she could. "I don't remember it in the future?"
"It's a little complicated," Sam explained without giving anything else away. "I didn't know this was coming, so I must get home. Jack knew because John, our John, told him. So it he thought it would be all right to involve John--"
Weir nodded and passed Sam the small bag of pretzels from her MRE. "And Sumner?"
"Rank," Sam shrugged and tried a pretzel tentatively. "Thank you."
"So far, these are my favorite," Weir remarked down towards her pretzels.
Sam grinned and shook her head slowly. "I meant for letting me steal your scientists, but I appreciate the pretzels too."
'Do you need anything else?" Weir asked as she searched Sam's face. There was joy beneath her exhaustion and that made her doubt it was an illness.
"Oh no," Sam said as she contemplated dragging herself back to her feet. "I shouldn't even be--"
"McKay needed a break," Weir reminded her gently as she gave up the pretzels on got to her feet. "He has food now, he'll be more reasonable."
"Right," Sam sighed and stared at the computer across the room who was refusing to give up any of her secrets. "I should have remembered that one."
Weir patted her thigh gently and smiled encouraging. "You'll get it," she promised with all the confidence she thought she should have. "I suppose we could just put you in stasis or something otherwise--" she trailed off as Sam made a strange face. "i'll let you get back to work."
Elizabeth shook her head and tried to protest feebly what she worried he was about to do. "I have to look," Jack tried to explain. Holding Sheppard's utility knife, much sharper then the one he thought he'd have to use, Jack studied her clothing. The black BDU trousers she'd been wearing were soaked through with fluid, and so far just the fact that none of it had been blood was enough, but now someone had to check.
Sheppard had her against his chest. He was wedged into the jumper so his back was against one of the benches and his knees were up where Elizabeth could hang on to them. He'd been there well over an hour without complaint. He didn't say much of anything other than to encourage her when she lost her energy. Just having him there seemed to help; she seemed less lost, less afraid of what was happening to her.
"Can't push unless she'd dilated enough," Jack explained to Sheppard as he bent to slice along the seams of her trousers.
Digging through Sheppard's tactical vest, Jack dug up a flashlight and checked it. "I don't know if she'll let me," he wondered aloud as he touched her ankle.
Writhing away to curl on her side as another contraction hit her, Elizabeth screamed into Sheppard's lap as he tried to keep her head off the floor. Sheppard stroked her head, trying to hold her and keep her from hurting herself. "Breathe," he ordered her with more force than Jack had heard him use yet. When she finally drew a breath, it filled her chest so quickly Jack worried she'd crack a rib.
"you might have to do it," Jack sighed and turned the knife in his hand. "I don't think she'll let me."
"She doesn't know me," sheppard protested as he shifted her arm so it wasn't awkwardly beneath her. "Not me- me- I almost feel like I'm lying to her by being here. I'm not-"
Jack reached for her ankle and narrowly missed being kicked in the chest. Shaking his head as he sat back, he sighed. "She'll let you check. I think all you have to do is look, and if you can't see anything, you reach--"
Sheppard swallowed hard and went a shade paler. "Reach?"
Jack made a circle with his left hand and pushed his right through in a fist. "Things kinda open up," he ventured sheepishly. "If your hand fits up enough to feel anything hard, then she can push."
"And we want that?" Sheppard asked as he started to look more nauseated than Sam.
"Pushing's at the end," Jack nodded as he moved over closer to him. "Maybe she let me at this end," he hoped as he reached for Elizabeth's shoulders. "Hey, Elizabeth-" he spoke softly, trying to calm her as if she were simply injured. "I'm going to hold you and John's going to check the baby. We need you to hold still."
Elizabeth's eyes drifted up to his face and she squinted as if she were having a hard time recognizing his face. "Hurts," she hissed as she rolled her head back against his chest and bit her lip against the receding pain.
"I'll hold your shoulders," Jack explained as he nodded to Sheppard. The younger man didn't move. Glaring until the major knelt between her legs, Jack continued to stare at him. "John's going to cut your pants," he warned her as he reached up to hold her knee. "You're going to let him."
"John?" she asked pitifully opening her eyes at the name.
"Talk to her," Jack hissed over her head. "John's right there," he reminded her soothingly. "Do it quick," he snapped at Sheppard. "Before she has another one."
Sheppard swallowed and stared at Jack helplessly. He nodded once before he started to cut. "Do you remember how we met?" he asked her as the fabric tore beneath his hands and he exposed the pale skin of her inner thighs. "How surprised I was? Maybe you don't because you were busy with other things, but I-"
Jack nodded to him, pleased that Elizabeth seemed to be following Sheppard's voice. "Keep going," he encouraged firmly. "Make shit up if you have too, just keep talking-"
Sheppard halted as he reached in towards her skin. Elizabeth jolted back away from her touch and Jack started to feel her tense.
"-Stop!" he warned and twitched his head towards the knife. "Just hold her until it's done."
Pulling herself up and nearly out of Jack's arms, Elizabeth sobbed her way into the contraction. It was almost all Jack could do to keep her from falling out of his arms towards the less protected parts of the jumper. The sobbing built and heightened until she was actually screaming. He'd read everything Carson and Keller could give him. He'd even watched the damn tapes Walter was able to sneak out of the library for him, but nothing prepared him for the sound. There was a keening, grieving edge to it that tore at him. Part of her had lost hope and the pain was that much more intense because of it.
Jack wasn't even sure what he should be telling Sheppard to do. He didn't know what to do for that matter. The major's hands were shaking and Jack watched him drop the knife by her feet. Willing the younger man to work through what had to be one of the most gut wrenching moments of his life, he watched astonished as Sheppard seemed to get it. Insinuating himself between her legs, Sheppard lowered his arms to her and pulled her up. Firmly held against his chest, Elizabeth's scream softened.
Confusion reigned on Sheppard's face as Jack watched him, but he looked less nauseated. Jack put his hands on the those of the younger man and nudged him to hold her tighter. Lifting his own left hand he pointed enthusiastically at his ring finger, Then to Elizabeth. The second time he did it, Sheppard caught on.
He couldn't imagine being thrust into that kind of intimacy. The idea that he was now allowed, even expected to tell Sam he loved her in public tugged at his stomach in a way he wasn't sure he liked. Sheppard had it much harder. In the space of the last two hours, he had to swallow not only the fact that he was one day going to be in love with his boss, but that she would give him at least two children.
When Elizabeth started to calm, Sheppard lowered her back to Jack's waiting arms. "I have to look," he reassured her as he tentatively touched her thigh. "I might touch you, so don't- you know- I don't mean--"
"You turned on the star map," Elizabeth's tongue caught on some of the words. "Best."
Sheppard's face said couldn't remember what he'd been saying for a moment, he was so shocked that she was looking at him again. Moving her hand to his face, Elizabeth held him in her gaze. "I needed you."
"Cut," Jack ordered him harshly enough to startle Sheppard out of his trance. "Look."
"Right," Sheppard repeated as he pulled Elizabeth's hand down to his chest. "I'm right here," he promised her as he bent to catch the black fabric of her panties. "Right here."
The knife sang as it cut through the lycra. Sheppard closed his eyes for a moment before he stuck the flashlight into his mouth. For the moment, Elizabeth was calmly watching him. Her hand still on his chest. His eyes widened as he tried to categorize what he was seeing. A naked woman was entirely different from a naked woman in the final stages of labor. Jack watched him bite his lip and his emotions went sympathetic when Sheppard's eyebrows suddenly shot up in shock.
His hand slipped in and disappeared up to the wrist. Elizabeth made a tiny noise of discomfort and Sheppard started to apologize for causing her pain. "Sorry, sorry, did that hurt?"
Incredibly, she managed to chuckle hysterically for a moment. "Compared to what?" she coughed dryly. Jack stole her moment of coherence and managed to convince her to drink from Sam's water bottle.
Sheppard's already huge eyes suddenly widened still further. "I- uh, sir?" he blurted in surprise.
"Hard spot?" Jack asked as he set the water back down. "Like a baseball or something?"
Sheppard was biting his lip so hard Jack was worried he'd draw blood, but he nodded. "Think, uh--"
Elizabeth groaned and pulled her hips out of the way. Sheppard slipped past shock into sheer astonishment. Jack tried to imagine what it must feel like to have the muscles of her body close around his hand, and then he shook himself out of it. He didn't want to imagine. It was almost too intimate, like he was invading something that wasn't his.
Sheppard's hand slipped free and he stared at the clear mucus tinged with blood on his skin. He didn't seem to know what to do with it but he wiped it on his shirt and reached down to Elizabeth when she started to seize up in pain. His dry hand caught her face and turned her eyes up to his face. "I've got you."
"Could you feel the whole thing?" Jack asked as he sat Elizabeth up a little further and let her cling to Sheppard. Helping her up onto her feet so she was squatting helped get some of the pressure of her back and he felt some of her muscles relax against him. It was harder on him and Sheppard, but they were just going to have to make it work.
"Nose," he started pathetically as he stared at Jack helplessly. "I think I felt his- her- nose," Sheppard whispered back in awe.
Weir knew Sam had taken Sheppard to the the big bay full of the smaller space ships McKay was already wanted to call 'gate ships. Sumner was getting ready to head out for first 'gate address Zelenka had found. The colonel wanted Sheppard and even though Weir knew she should have asked Sam if he could come along, for some reason, she had to know what was going on.
Curiosity had always been one of her faults and this time it drew her towards the ship furtherest from the others because she knew it was that one. The hatch was closed and she felt around the ship for the release. It had to be somewhere, everything else in this city was so intuitive, it had to be simple. Eventually Weir found a simple switch she only had to click a few times to the right before the hatch obediently began to hiss open.
Someone inside was pleading so desperately that her voice had been reduced to a scream of agony. She was sandwiched between two dark figures, one had a gray head of hair she recognized as General O'Neill. He was all in black and crouching by the wall of the jumper. The other figure was Sheppard, she knew him immediately by his hair.
The woman had her head buried in Sheppard's chest and she was crying. Her knees were out on either side of Sheppard's waist, and he was kneeling in front of her. Jack seemed to be responsible for keeping the woman's feet beneath her. The woman's stomach was swollen and the bulge that Weir's mind insisted was a baby near delivery was low on her hips.
She'd been in labor for some time already and that's why she was so distraught at Sheppard's instruction that she push. Her hair was long and heavy in sodden, dark curls around her face.
"Come on," Jack urged firmly. "You have to push now."
Lifting her head as she took a breath, the woman lifted her head; Weir felt the universe stall out around her as she locked eyes with the pleading woman. Her eyes were green and deeply familiar. Weir's rational part of her brain filed the thought away and let her emotions run wild with remained.
It was her.
Her hair had grown out and her face had filled out slightly with the extra weight of her pregnancy. Her lips were red because she'd been chewing on them throughout her ordeal, her skin was flushed and soaked with sweat but it was her.
It was her face. Her voice screaming to Sheppard- she called him John- that she couldn't. She couldn't push.
Sheppard's hands rose from beneath her to stroke her face with an affection that seemed to intimate for them. They were strangers, but he was caressing her- not her- but her- face as if he'd known her all his life.
Throwing her hands instinctually over her ears, Weir tried desperately to block out the sound of her own voice screaming in agony. It rang through anyway, the piercing cry tore into her like nothing else ever had. It shredded into her psyche and in that stalling of the universe around her, Elizabeth Weir swore she felt her own incredible torment rip through her.
Marshall Sumner dropped his fist on the back of Doctor Weir's head hard and precisely enough that she dropped like a forgotten toy. Catching her as she fell with on arm, he dragged her over as he sealed the ship Twisting it once extra to the left, he jammed the outside release until it would no longer move.
He disliked having to resort to such measures. He actually was starting to respect the slim negotiator passed out in his arms and he hoped he hadn't actually hurt her. Swinging her feet up into his arms, he held her thoughtfully for a moment. McKay's announcement that he had finally discovered the failsafe had only been a few minutes ago. The second announcement that the city was rising to the surface was bound to follow.
Laying the unconscious Weir on the floor next to the ship, Sumner braced himself and waited. Even with the little ship shut, he could still hear Elizabeth's voice when the pain crossed a certain threshold. He had initially been glad Sheppard had drawn the duty of delivering the child. It might be good for the hot-shot to see some real world suffering. It was after he got a glimpse of her that his mind began to put things together.
There was already something between the doctor and the major. He'd been around long enough to know when two people had something. Sumner hadn't felt it enough to bet that the two of them would be having a baby so quickly, but he wasn't about to argue. Timelines were something he'd learned to steer clear of in his time at the SGC.
Now he supposed he'd have to watch as the inevitable love story followed this incident. Sheppard's crush was going to explode, once he got over the initial awkward feeling that he already knew too much about her, he'd ask her to dinner. It wouldn't be too long after that that Sumner's newest discipline problem would be crawling to morning exercises out of the good doctor's quarters.
McKay's voice echoed over the public address system. "Everyone hang onto something, this might be a little bumpy," he ordered with the same grumpy efficiency Sumner thought was going to make him an asset to the team.
The entire city lurched, like an explosion had suddenly forced them towards the surface. In the windowless bay, most of the rising was wasted on Sumner, but he had his excuse for the welt that Weir was going to have to deal with when she woke up.
Sam had slightly more than enough power to dial Earth once and maintain a wormhole the point three seconds it was going to take them to rematerialize. She didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it, her headache had become nasty enough the the bag of pretzel's Weir had given her were in danger of decorating the floor of the command center.
Closing her eyes for a moment and rubbing her temples, Sam forced herself back to work. She had a puzzle and she was damned if she couldn't solve it.
The jolt of the city rising from the sea knocked Jack off-balance, and Sheppard had to quickly drag Elizabeth to her feet to keep her from falling to the deck with him. Clinging to her to keep her up, he realized, insanely, that he liked the feel of her in his arms. The panting, sobbing of her breathing in his ear was something he had taken to heart.
Jack recovered and added his strength to Sheppard's. Between the two of them, they managed to hold Elizabeth up until the shaking slowed. The contractions were viciously longer in duration then they left Elizabeth time to recover.
"No," she pleaded again in anguish. "I can't- I-"
"Push," Sheppard ordered as he eased her back into a squat. "Push for me."
Jack's hands on her shoulders kept her balanced, but she was loosing strength with each contraction. "I'll catch," Jack promised as they slipped her towards the dividing wall between the cockpit and the body of the jumper. Reaching up, Jack closed it suddenly, and slid out from behind her. "You hold her head, keep her with us."
"Elizabeth," Sheppard begged as he listened to her breath in. "Now," he urged gently. He hadn't known she could make the sounds the edged out of her mouth. The primal, grunted shriek that accompanied the worst of her contractions felt like it was cutting into his flesh. "With me," he coached as she tightened all the muscles of her body in the supreme effort he was demanding of her.
Something splashed at his feet, and new fluids gushed to the join the others the floor of the jumper. The wet stink of the air was part of him as much as the sound in her chest. Sheppard was caught, trapped with her and until they had the baby, he was going to be there in her eyes.
Jack was reaching around his legs, reaching towards something he couldn't see through the roundness of her stomach. That roundness was flattening out, disappearing into her hips.
Elizabeth pushed without being bullied. Gasping in his ear, Sheppard heard her howl of despair break back into speech.
"I love you," she mumbled into his neck. "I love you," she repeated over and over as the baby slipped into Jack's hands. It was a wet, watery sound, like ice breaking and falling into the bay by his father's house.
Fluid ran from her body and dripped slowly onto the floor of the ship. Jack grunted as he angled his hands and tied a piece of string around the cord. Elizabeth was caught in his neck, past her experience to a place where she was entirely lost in her love for the man who had fathered that child.
He didn't belong there, Sheppard realized painfully as the child started to whimper. Jack was wiping the tiny red thing with a t-shirt of Sam's and Elizabeth was collapsing into his arms. He lay back on the deck, letting her fall, eyes closing against his chest. Just listening to the baby's whimpers develop into full throated cries of anger and frustration was enough to make her smile peacefully.
"I love you," Sheppard offered back with his heart naked under the words. It was desperately wrong, and yet, somehow, it was exactly what needed to be said.
Jack was cradling the baby to his chest, staring down at it in amazement as the warmth of his body made it hush. "Girl," he admitted incredulously. "All the parts and big blue eyes."
Elizabeth's mouth trembled into a smile. "Hold her," she directed Sheppard without opening her eyes. "Hold her- she can eat, then she'll hush."
"Eat?" Sheppard repeated as she stared at her breasts. The black t-shirt Elizabeth had been wearing was too wet to pull off of her, so Jack returned the knife to his hand. Cutting the shirt from her breasts, Sheppard felt her kiss his cheek weakly as he tried to free her breast from her bra. The clasp took him three tries, because his hands were shaking, but it finally slid free.
Peeling the bra from her skin, freed a dark nipple and between the two of them, he and Jack managed to get the infant to a place on his chest were she could feed comfortably.
Elizabeth moved one of her hands to rest on his stomach, but she seemed nearly unconscious from the effort. Jack rearranged her clothes, tried to keep her comfortable. "Let her sleep," he suggested as he drew himself up slowly. "I want to check on Carter."
"Stay here, sir?" Sheppard asked in a pained whisper. Elizabeth was nearly naked, half-asleep on his chest, and the newborn baby girl, who shared his DNA but wouldn't be his for another few years, nursed peacefully just to the right of his heart. "Is that right?"
"It's your family," Jack waved away the formality of time as he stretched and started to make his escape from the jumper. "What does it matter when they're from?"
Sumner set Weir down on the bed in the infirmary. It was still a mix of dust cloths and half set up medical equipment. "She missed the announcement," he explained gruffly as Beckett started to fuss. "Must have hit her head pretty good, went down hard."
Peeling back Weir's eyelids, Beckett checked her pupils and shook his head. "Concussion, not bad though," he promised as Sumner waited with a touch of guilt. "She'll have a nasty headache when she wakes up. Might be a little foggy on the details as well."
"That's all right," Sumner decided with enough of a smile to calm the doctor. "Tell her I'm leading a mission to that planet McKay found and that I was careful."
"Aye," Carson replied with a nod. "Will do."
"Doctor?" Sumner remembered as he stopped in the doorway. "Sheppard will be down shortly. Let him stay with her."
"Colonel?" the doctor asked confused.
Shrugging as he headed down the corridor, Sumner called back. "I think he'll want to."
Jack tried to ignore the weird looks he was getting as he hurried up towards Sam. He unreasonably needed to see her. Either because he was emotionally and physically exhausted, or he was actually as sentimental as he thought he could never be.
Sam had her head down and her hands weren't moving on the console. McKay was discussing something with Zelenka, and no one noticed as he moved up behind her. She couldn't have heard him, but Sam instinctually backed away as she lifted her head. "Jack-" she moaned slightly before turning on her heel and running for the balcony behind the control room.
"Damn," he whispered to himself as he followed her outside in time to watch her retching over the railing.
"Stay back," Sam warned as she fought for the breath to keep him away. "There's something on you."
"Lot of things I bet," Jack realized belatedly and kicked himself for not showering or something before he'd stupidly come up to see her. "It's a girl," he explained as he listened to her vomit everything that was left in her stomach and sob for a moment as she sucked in air. "Kinda squirmy little red thing."
"Everything okay?" She gasped still staring down over the edge of the balcony.
Jack stared at her and tried not to picture her in that amount of pain. "We're not having ours in a puddle jumper," he promised himself. "Don't care if you have your heart set on it already, but no puddle jumper." he paused and leaned over the railing. The sea air was making his clothes stick chilly to his skin, but he needed to be braced. "I watched Charlie- I mean, I just watched the doctor lift him up I didn't see-"
Wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, Sam swallowed and met his eyes.
"There's all this slimy stuff," Jack rubbed his hands pathetically on the back of his things, where his trousers were still dry. "Elizabeth's screaming and Sheppard's got the worst of it because she can't tell the difference between him and the right John. I never saw her that way--"
"Naked?" Sam teased ruthlessly as she sank to the deck and leaned back against the railing as she smiled at him.
"Well that too," he smirked and rolled his eyes slowly. "It's like she wasn't just her, she was someone- something-" Jack paused and made sure he was downwind of her before he sank down. Yawning as he watched he smile broader at him, he grinned back. "She was past being Elizabeth. If that makes any sense, at all."
Nodding slowly, Sam slipped her hand across the deck towards him and kept smiling. "You're trying to make sense."
"Everything just opened and then she was in my hands," Jack blurted sheepishly reaching for her fingers. "Is this far enough away?"
"It's the blood," she excused herself and tried to soothe him at the same time. "Guess I'll have to stay away from blood for awhile. I can smell it all over you."
He nodded and smirked at her. "Not mine," Jack insisted as he tried not to yawn again.
"Might be mine," she pointed out thoughtfully teasing him. "Someday."
Shuddering, Jack shook his head. "One thing at a time," he begged as he dropped his head to his knees. "I want the other end. Keller can catch, hell, John can catch, he'll owe me a few hundred cases or beer otherwise."
"You'd let John catch?" she asked innocently surprised by his readiness to let someone else see her naked.
"I'm expecting him to volunteer!" Jack taunted playfully turning his head to keep his eyes on hers. "I'm almost glad I saw this first. Get the whole shell-shocked first engagement jitters out when it's not my kid."
"I thought you were there for Charlie-"
"Not the same," Jack corrected her. "I had a mask and I watched. I held Sara's hand and tried to keep her from trying to kill me until they put her under and did the old slice and dice. More blood that way, less screaming and they just kinda lift the kid out. There's so real catching--"
"C-section?" Sam clarified as she settled her hand in his.
Nodding again, Jack was surprised to feel his eyes stinging. "I was back from the action," he explained without going into more detail. "He was blue and then he was pink and wailing. I didn't even hold him until he'd been cleaned first. Less messy."
"What is on you?" she wondered as she wrinkled her nose curiously.
"Don't wanna know," Jack shook his head and leaned back. "No c-sections," he requested as he stared skyward. "I- now- no repeating and getting me in trouble."
"No, sir," she teased as she winked.
"I like it messy," he admitted as the threatening tears actually beat his control in his left eye. "Just me, John and Elizabeth and they- they-" he searched for the words he wanted. "They had this- I don't know really, but- this moment together. You don't really get to be involved, when you're the guy. You don't do the vomiting and the getting kicked in the ribs. Hell, I used to think it was funny when Sara complained about it."
"I'll hit you-"
"I know," he agreed as he squeezed her hand as tightly as he could. "First time I really got to do something, I was the first thing that baby touched in this world. I'm covered in goo, but I was part of her birth. Sam, I did--" he trailed off lamely finally at a loss for words.
"Jack," she began as she let him see the tears running freely down her face. "I'd kiss you but I'd-"
"-Right," he finished for her. "Sorry about-"
"-'s okay," she murmured. "I love you."
"Yeah?"
"Very much, Jack," she promised him as the tears came faster. "Very, very much."
Sheppard wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but Jack was nudging his shoulder. "Hey," the general whispered softly enough not to wake Elizabeth. "Sam's done her genius thing. We have to go home and you probably want to take a shower."
His hands moved from Sheppard's shoulder to the baby and Sheppard almost didn't want to let him lift her away. She'd been on his chest nearly all of her short life and he thought she was safe there. Sam took the baby and held her to her chest. Too sleepy to bother crying, the infant snuggled into the new warmth of Sam.
Jack was in a borrowed t-shirt that read 'marines' and Sheppard wondered if Sumner had given it up. He had jeans as well and as Jack tried to help him shift Elizabeth up into a sitting position, Sheppard realized how wet and sticky he was.
"Elizabeth-" Jack murmured much more gently than he'd spoken to Sheppard. "Elizabeth, I'm going to pick you up."
"Wait," she asked sleepily and her hand feebly landed on Sheppard's arm. "I-"
"Okay," Jack nodded and gave her a moment. "Anything hurt?"
With Jack's and Sheppard's hands on her shoulders, they managed to get her sitting up. "Sore," she hissed when they left her on her own. Sheppard's hands returned when she looked at him. "I'm sorry-" she began weakly. "You're not--"
"Don't apologize," he insisted firmly. "Please don't, I- uh- I know I don't belong, and I wish I could have been him-"
"You were wonderful," Elizabeth murmured as she pulled him down and kissed him sweetly on the cheek. "You'd be proud."
"I suppose I'll see," he realized innocently realizing that he got to live up to this point.
"You're a good man," she assured him as they shakily got to their feet. Sheppard was doing up her bra when she kissed him on the mouth. His tiny noise of shock made Jack grin wickedly and Sam looked up from the baby to see what was happening.
"Your shirt is ruined," Sheppard apologized as a flush ran up his neck. "Pants too--"
"I have clothes," Elizabeth promised him as he grabbed his jacket from the corner and forced her into it. "I-"
"Take it," Sheppard insisted as he took a last look at the baby in Sam's arms. "You can give it back. When you see me, him- you know."
"Be good," Jack glared at him in mocking superiority. "And hey, sorry about your jumper."
Still watching Elizabeth as Jack made sure she was steady enough to walk, Sheppard asked, "Jumper, sir?"
"Uh, yeah," Jack looked chagrined as Sam gave him a dirty look over the baby. "You're going to call them puddle jumpers."
Sheppard looked surprised again. "I am?"
"Yeah," Jack nodded as he avoided Sam's dirty look. "He would have done it anyway."
Beckett was putting his supplies away and wondering how exact the ancient scanners were when Sheppard snuck into the infirmary. Since he'd seen the major last, he'd showered and changed clothes and something less tangible had been altered within him as well. Beckett couldn't shake the feeling that something was irrevocably different in the man standing by Doctor Weir's bedside.
"I heard she got a concussion?" Sheppard asked as he hovered without touching her.
Nodding as he left the room he was intending to use as storage, Beckett peered over at him. "Sumner said she hit her head pretty hard, poor thing," he answered sympathetically. "No permanent damage, though she's going to have a nasty headache when she wakes up."
Sheppard looked at the door, then Weir and finally back at the doctor. His hands were in his pockets but something incredibly difficult was going on in his head. He stopped and started twice before he finally spoke. "Can I stay?"
"The colonel doesn't need you?" Beckett asked curiously watching Sheppard struggle with something new internally.
Shrugging as he looked around the infirmary, Sheppard found a stool in the corner and dragged it over to Weir's bed. "Nah, he's on a mission to meet the natives. I'm in charge of team two anyway. We go when he gets into trouble."
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Beckett asked with a small smile. "Stay up late in the pub your last night on Earth, Major?"
Sheppard scratched his damp hair and shook his head. "No, just kinda had a weird day." He scooted his stool over closer to the wall and leaned against it. "How's medical going to be?" he asked politely watching Beckett move around.
"I think it's going to be lovely," Beckett chirped excited by all the technology. "I have scanners and some of the best medical computers I've ever seen. It's a good space, I haven't been in all the surgical bays yet, but the quarantine rooms are really quite advanced." He continued talking as he wandered the room, putting things away and getting his supplies exactly the way he liked them. With a roll of bandages in his hand for the shelf in the back, he looked back at Sheppard and realized the poor man was asleep. He'd slid forward along the wall and now his head was on the pillow just next to Weir's.
Grinning gently, he made a mental note of it, and went back to work.
"It's actually quite simple," Sam explained as she tried not to go into more detail than Jack would listen to. "It's a little different than when we went back to nineteen sixty-nine. This time, we just dial a point somewhere approximately three light years from here, override the wormhole protocols that keep us from getting time shifted each time we dial and we 'bounce' back to our time."
"Simple, she says," Jack muttered to himself as he held Elizabeth a little tighter in his arms. She was lighter now, without the extra weight of the baby, but he was still a little out of shape to carrying her for long. "Why don't you just wave your hands and say 'I have a Phd in physics'-"
"Astrophysics--"
"Oh it's all hand-wavey anyway!" Jack corrected finally as he stared over at Sam. "Ready?"
McKay nodded and Sam nodded back. The baby was still clutched carefully in her arms and Jack wanted all three of them checked out as soon as they got back. Elizabeth was either exhausted beyond staying conscious for more than a few moments, or something was wrong with her he wanted fixed. Sam looked like death warmed over and she'd been close to vomiting again when Sheppard had helped them hose out the puddle jumper.
"Let's go home," Jack suggested when the 'gate whooshed open. "Before John decides he's going to kill me and the baby stops being so reasonable."
Staring down at the tiny sleeping face against her, Sam cooed at her softly. "She's barely cried."
"Give her time," Jack groaned and took a tentative step forward. "Soon you'll be wishing we'd left her here when we get stuck babysitting and she screams all night."
"So positive," she murmured to her husband as she started to walk into the event horizon.
The wormhole the entered flung them across space in one direction before they hit an intangible barrier and began hurtling backwards. The extremely disorienting sensation came to an abrupt halt when they emerged facing the wrong way. Sam swayed slightly and Jack steeled himself to keep his feet. The event horizon popped and dissipated like a bubble in front of him.
"That was weird," he muttered as he turned into the incoming swarm of the medical team. John, the right time's John, nearly stole Elizabeth from his arms entirely. In a look they shared a kind of acceptance. Time was back on the track they knew, the detour was over for now. "Take her," Jack suggested as he realized his knees were shaking. "Hurry."
Teyla had the baby now and Keller was already forcing Sam onto a stretcher. Adrenaline tasted metallic in his mouth as John lifted his wife from Jack's arms. Something was wrong with his knees, Jack realized slowly as he watched Sam's eyes roll back up into her head. The heat in the back of his head was winning out. As soon as the weight was gone, Jack gave in to the hot rush of oncoming unconsciousness.
John was in bed with her when she woke up. Elizabeth was sure it was him, because she knew the way his arms fit around her. She hurt nearly everywhere and her breasts were aching as if they were about to burst. Her stomach had the slowly healing ache she remembered vaguely from the days after Evelyn. "John?" she tested her voice slowly as she moved her head towards him.
"Right here," he mumbled into the back of her head. "The girls are here too. Evie's on the other side of me," he assured her. One of his hands left her stomach and reached out towards something else in the bed. "The new one's here."
"I need to-" she groaned and moved experimentally. "I'm going to burst unless she nurses."
John chuckled and reached over to pull the infant within reach. "She's just been watching," he explained as he helped her pull the sheet down off her skin.
"When did I get naked?" Elizabeth asked as she sighed and felt the pressure start to ease.
"I did it," John said lifting his head and stopping the muffled sound of his words as he got his lips out of the pillow. "Once Jen and Carson cleared you."
"How long have I been out?" she wondered as she rolled over onto her back. Gasping when she found the bruises she'd given herself in labor, Elizabeth found John's gentle eyes staring down at her.
"Few hours," he answered as he kissed her cheek softly. "I missed you."
Raising her free hand to his face, she felt the stubble from a long night without shaving. "You were there," she offered as if it were a prayer of thanks. "You were with me."
"Didn't know what the hell I was doing," John teased as he kissed her slowly. He tasted the way she remembered, deeply familiar, how he was meant to taste. "But I was there."
"Couldn't tell me?" she asked as soon as her lips were free.
"Couldn't risk the timeline," John offered by way of apology. "I'm a little attached to this one. I knew things were going to work out. At least, until the part where you came home."
"It's all really foggy," she complained as his hand rested on her forehead. "I remember you and Jack but most of labor's blurry. If I wasn't empty," she smirked as he grinned at her and the baby attached to her breast. "I wouldn't know it happened. Except you. You're clear."
"Three Elizabeths converging in one place is hard on the timeline and the three yous," he pointed out. Kissing her forehead as he removed his hand, John made sure Evie was safe as he sat up. "Rodney said it must have been hardest on you. He thinks that's what sent you into labor."
"That and my ability to start having contractions at the worst time possible," she added self-depreciatingly sighing up at him. "Three Elizabeths?"
"The elder one was still in stasis," he counted off. "Then you arrived, then the younger- youngest you, the one who wasn't pregnant--"
"I understand."
"Remember that concussion?" John switched tactics as he rested his hand on his daughter's tiny back. "The one when the city rose from the ocean?"
"The first time you kissed me," Elizabeth reminded him with a tiny smile. "When you thought I was too out of it to remember."
"You'd just had my child," John offered defensively. "You'd given birth in my arms. I couldn't just--"
Kissing him again stopped his protests. "I walked in on you and me," she explained gently. "I thought it was a vision or a bizarre hallucination because I'd hit my head. I was freaked out for a long time. I'd wake up and have nightmares about myself screaming."
John's hand rubbed her knee thoughtfully. "You never told me what those were about."
Moving her head closer to him, she sighed contentedly. "When you started sleeping in my quarters they went away."
Lifting his daughter from Elizabeth's chest, John held her upright against his shoulder and smiled down at his wife. "Did I tell you Jack and I named her?"
"Jack?" Elizabeth grinned and closed her eyes for a moment. "You let Jack?"
"He caught," John reminded her when the infant burped and whimpered for a moment before he set her back down towards the other breast. "Figured he deserved it."
Weir was certain someone had been kissing her. There was something in the back of her mind, something about the little space ships in the huge bay of the city, but her head hurt too much to stay on that thought. Instead she licked her lips and found them moist, as if someone had just lifted their mouth from hers. Reaching up to touch them, she groaned aloud as she accidently moved her head.
"Slowly," Sheppard's voice warned her from beside her head. "You took a nasty blow on the back of your skull. It's going to hurt."
"Already hurts," she moaned and slowly opened her eyes. Sheppard was in his off-duty clothes and for some reason he looked different. Had she ever really looked at him? His hair was a mess but it suited him. Weir was most drawn to his eyes. She hadn't really looked at his eyes long enough to realize they were so soft.
He settled onto the stool by her bed and resumed eating his lunch. It took her a few moments to realize he'd been waiting there for her to revive.
"How long?" she demanded as she tried to hold her head as still as possible.
"Most of the night," John said around a bite of a turkey sandwich. "All of the morning, part of today I guess. Colonel Sumner's met our bad guys, but he made us some allies too."
The screaming ache in her head went up a notch. "Bad guys?"
Pausing before he took another bite of his sandwich, John nodded quickly. "They're called 'Wraith' and according to Sumner and Beckett they're like space vampires. Real bad news, kinda feed on your life-force." Shuddered for a moment, he took another bite and set it aside as he reached for a little cup of jello.
"Feel like eating?" he wondered as he held up a spoon. "Beckett wanted you to try and get something down when you woke up."
Weir stared from him to the spoon and then back at his eyes. What was it about him that suddenly seemed so important? "Are you feeding me?"
"If you want," John agreed amenably. "Might move your head around a little less."
Trying to decide if he was serious or if this too was some awfully strange vision, Weir started to nod and then gasped in pain.
"Try not to chew," John warned as he put a tiny piece of jello into her mouth. "Just let it melt."
"What did you pick?" Sam nudged Jack from behind as he lazily rolled to face his wife. "John let you name the baby and you picked?"
"Oh, right," Jack pretended to have forgotten. Staring up at the ceiling, he stretched languidly and then turned to his wife. "Nauseated?"
"Not this morning," she answered cheerfully sitting up and reaching for the cup of tea she had near the bed. "You're easier to handle when you're clean."
"I delivered a baby," he huffed as he rolled his eyes. "It's not exactly rocket science, where you stay clean in a lab."
"And you named that baby what?" she prodded him as she slid her foot along his leg. "Leia? Lisa?"
"I'm keeping 'Lisa' for us," he answered sighing as he sat up. "Any of that for me?"
Sam pointed into the front room of their quarters. "There's coffee on the counter," she reminded him with a lazy hand in that direction. "It's all yours for the next thirty-three weeks, well, thirty-one," she corrected herself. "Ever wonder why they add an extra two weeks to human gestation?"
"No, darling," Jack called as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos and wondered how it had gotten there.
"Chuck," she called in answer to the question he hadn't asked. "He wanted to let us sleep in. Rodney's in charge this morning. John, Elizabeth, you and I all have the day off."
"Are these donuts?" he called as he made a victorious noise and attacked the basket. "Chuck brought us donuts?"
"He was in the infirmary when Keller announced I was pregnant," Sam reminded him as he returned to bed, donuts in hand. "I think he's being sweet."
Digging into a double chocolate donut with sprinkles, Jack made a sound of pure joy. "Can I marry him too?"
"He's second wife," Sam agreed pleasantly taking a donut out of the basket and nibbling on the sprinkles. "He cleans, I have the babies." Yanking his donut out of his hand, she dangled it in front of him and waited. "What did you name her?"
"Name equals donut?" Jack checked before he answered.
"Name equals donut," Sam agreed as she took a bite of his donut for emphasis.
Jack held out his hand and grinned playfully. "Kara," he gave up lightly. "Kara Sheppard Weir."
Handing over the donut, she lay back and grinned at her husband in surprise. "That's pretty and appropriate," she agreed in shock. "Wait-" she thought a moment longer. "Elizabeth doesn't watch?"
"Oh no," Jack replied as he chuckled and gleefully reached for a second donut. "She's never seen the show."
"You got Kara from-?"
"John liked it," Jack sputtered as he defended himself from her grab for his donut. "Elizabeth probably even thought it was pretty."
"Someday she might watch the show," Sam prodded him as she shook her head. "How's she going to feel-?"
"Kara Thrace is a perfectly wonderful, strong, intelligent woman--"
"You're full of shit," Sam teased as she tackled the donut out of his hand and straddled him thoughtfully. There was frosting on his lips as she kissed him. "But I love you."
Cradling her breasts as he sat up beneath her, Jack kissed his way down her chest. "-love you too, Sam."
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Date: 2008-03-07 02:40 am (UTC)I love where you went with this one. Brilliant and surprising direction. Seriously. You're getting good at writing the sam/jack banter and Sparky is so adorable in this. I love your woobie John. Love. lots of it.
erm c.c sorry for inadvertently spawning a huge fic?
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Date: 2008-03-07 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 04:09 am (UTC)This new verse of yours is absolutely fantastic.
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Date: 2008-03-07 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 04:14 am (UTC)glad you like! I'm...wow..there's so much I could do in this universe...
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Date: 2008-03-07 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-08 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 09:40 am (UTC)But I think that Elizabeth will like a word with Jack when she finally finds out where the name Kara comes from!
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Date: 2008-03-08 02:36 am (UTC)thanks very much!
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Date: 2008-03-07 09:03 pm (UTC)*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*
*burst from cuteness* This was so adorable and lovely and just *squeeeeeee*. I love your ideas, your fics are always refreshing and new. This one in particular, because *squeee* Sparky!babies. And wheeee, it's another little girl. Evie the munchkin is the cutest chubby kid I have ever read and I'm sure Kara will be a cutie pie as well or she already is. :P
You definitely have to write more! *nods eagerly*
*melts in a puddle of goo*
*squishes*
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Date: 2008-03-08 02:37 am (UTC)thank you sweetheart. :)
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Date: 2008-03-07 11:29 pm (UTC)And wow! Things really went differently in this universe! Sumner's still alive! (or at least, he was in the past) Loved his private half-irritated, half-amused thoughts about having to watch the "inevitable love story" unfold. Hee!
More Jack/Sam! And Sam's preggers! :)
Past!John having to assist as Future!Lizzie gives birth to their future child... isn't temporal mechanics fun? Heehee! And poor Future!John; having to keep all of what happened a secret must've been torture. But knowing it was all going to turn out okay was great incentive.
"Kara" for BSG's Starbuck! Or, if Elizabeth doesn't like it, Jack could always backpedal and say it's for Kara Zor-El. Supergirl rocks. :)
And Jack's keeping "Lisa" for him and Sam? What happens if it's a boy? Does that mean Jack's going to want to name the munchkin "Bart"? LOL!
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Date: 2008-03-08 02:45 am (UTC)Sometimes I have very strange ideas, but it's nice when they work out. Many thanks!