Bits & Pieces: Aftershocks
Bits & Pieces: Aftershocks
by Hapshetsut
TITLE: Bits & Pieces: Aftershocks
AUTHOR: Hapshetsut
EMAIL: hapshetsut@StargateSG1.zzn.com
CATEGORY: AU/SJ-Alternate ending, 1st person
SPOILERS: Point of View, and a little one for First Commandment
SEASON / SEQUEL: Season 3: part of the Bits & Pieces collection
RATING: PG
CONTENT WARNINGS:Assisted Death
SUMMARY: A really big "What if...?" Sam's thoughts after things don't quite go as planned.
STATUS: Completed
ARCHIVE: Heliopolis
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: To Shau'Bob, thanks for the beta and patience with me and my awful handwritting and spelling. I got this idea after reading another fic about the AU-Sam being pregnant, and fater watching POV again. However, i don't remember the Author or the title of that fic. But if you read this and it was your story, thanks for the idea.
Daniel gave me this journal today.
He's just trying to get me to keep busy during my...confinement.
So, for all posterity, here's the story.
Some of it may be hard to believe, but please bear with me...from the beginning!
It's been nearly a week since my double came through the quantum mirror. And my, has it been bizarre. As soon as I learned about the entropic cascade failure, Janet asked me to make what turned out to be one of the most difficult choices I have ever been forced to make.
It turned out that Samantha was pregnant. Maybe you can see where I'm going with this.
Maybe not.
See, we didn't even know if we would even be able to get Samantha back to her world. And the pregnancy wasn't very far along...Janet implored me to consider- if we couldn't get Samantha back through the mirror- taking over the pregnancy.
I did _not_ know what to say.
So I said yes.
Don't you just hate it when part of your brain acts without warning the other parts?
I mean, I had thought about a child before. I mean, when I take Cassandra out, I feel an ache. And, when I see other women with their "precious littles" in the park, or at the movies; hell, even at the supermarket. But I had resigned myself to living without a family- just part of the life I chose to make for myself.
I didn't really expect the maternal part of my brain to act as fast as it did. But I said yes.
What have I gotten myself into?
And of course Janet carefully neglected to tell me who the father was at first.
Anyway, it turns out that we no longer had the dialing program for the Asgardians in the database.
Damn Y2K refit.
OK, all right, who could have known that we'd ever need it again?
I swear. Sometimes the military can be so...sloppy.
Why would anyone delete that particular piece of important information?!
Maybe it was an accident.
Maybe it was fate.
So, even though we got the generator working, Samantha was trapped here in this world. The entropic cascade seizures were worsening; they were getting more frequent and more violent.
I don't even know how Janet came up with the idea, but she began to prep me for the procedure.
I'm carrying a child that belongs to another me. Granted, we were perfect genetic matches and technically we were the same person...it's confusing.
So Janet- it was funny the way she said it. She said..."The procedure is a risky one, given the age of the fetus, not to mention that your body isn't ready for pregnancy..."
But she pulled it off.
Samantha and I were completely unconscious during the procedure, but I swear that I could feel Jack pacing the halls the whole time. He worries too much.
That's strange.
I just called him 'Jack.'
I never call him Jack.
Even after..._especially_ after Daniel came back through that alternate reality.
OK, I'm just all over the map here.
So after I agreed to Janet's crazy idea, she started me on a crash hormone therapy and stuffed me full of pre-natal vitamins and god knows how many other drugs to jump-start my body for the weirdness I was about to put it through.
But the operation...implantation...whatever...went off without a hitch (Taking her word for it as I was _out_ of it for the whole thing!)
SO why am I confined to this room in the hospital, Janet?!?
++++++++
Samantha died two days later.
She was in a universe of pain. The seizures nearly tore her apart.
By some twist of fate, she didn't even twitch while she was surrendering her child to me.
How she must have felt...giving up your unborn child on the slim chance that it will live on after _you_ die. Not _if_ you die. WHEN you die.
She couldn't even think straight, she was hurting so badly from the aftershocks.
She had signed a DNR before the procedure, and when she woke up from the anesthesia, she started asking Janet to "fix it" for her.
Janet was so torn. The whole "First, do no harm" OATH she took versus watching Samantha endure the seizures that were closer and closer together and lasted longer than anyone should have been able to endure. Samantha started asking Daniel if he'd put her out of her misery.
Poor Daniel. Not something his multiple degrees prepared him for.
Poor Janet.
One of them must have reported it to General Hammond, because there was some discussion among the high muckety-mucks on the ethical repercussions of an assisted suicide for a non-personnel patient.
Janet refused. Point-blank. She stood up to Hammond and told him that she'd ease the pain to the limits of her abilities, but she could not- would not- take the life of a patient.
Hammond took pity on her and removed her as doctor in charge in Samantha's case. And told her perhaps a week of leave would be a good thing to take at this point.
Before she left, Janet wheeled me into Samantha's room and talked to both of us. She said that the embryonic transfer was successful and that the fetus was now implanted in my uterus.
Well, whoopdeedoo.
So now I'm going to be a mother.
Samantha asked me love the child as if it were my own...seeing as it _is_ genetically mine.
God. She was being ripped apart by the laws of physics and she gave me the mommy talk. What a woman. Even her tone of voice managed to calm my fears. Wish I could have taped it- because I'm not sure I can be a good mother to this child anymore.
I'm still trying to work out how this mommy hat is going to affect the rest of my life.
Samantha also begged me to let Jack be a part of my life outside of work. Easy for her to say.
That was cruel. She had just watched _her_ Jack- the father of her child- be slaughtered. To her there was really no difference between them at all.
Well, there is to me!
This is strange. Me carrying Jack's child. Her Jack's child. Her child and her Jack's child.
It's confusing. I don't blame him for getting confused with this parallel universe business.
I'm a theoretical astrophysicist- I'm supposed to understand all the probability theories- and I've even managed to confuse myself!
OK. I won't keep him from knowing this child. His child.
Let's face it- I'll need all the help I can get, and he's been through this before.
On the day she died, everyone came to say goodbye to her. General Hammond, Daniel, Teal'c, Kawalsky-- her Kawalsky-- and Jack.
Because of Janet's recommendations about my "condition," Dr. Kerr (the Ob-gyn Hammond picked to replace Janet) wanted to keep me "under observation," and I was not allowed to go with them. Not allowed to ease her pain and hold her hand when she went.
I was rather upset about that decision.
They transferred the unit the AF doctors had come up with back to Cheyenne. As far as Dr. Kerr explained it to me, they had re-fitted a morphine injector to allow her to give herself as much morphine as she wanted. Simple enough...but it had to be removed from such a public place as the base hospital to avoid any leaks to the press about euthanasia.
Kawalsky came to visit me later that day.
I was expecting Jack, or even Daniel, who had managed to drop in every day, but not Charles Kawalsky.
He looked depressed and about as confused seeing me as I was to see him there.
He told me that she had given herself a massive overdose with the machine and that she was gone. As in _literally_ gone. After her breathing and heart had stopped, a massive entropic seizure had destabilized her body on the sub-atomic level, and that there wasn't even enough left from the disintegration to bury. He was pretty shaken up by the whole situation. So we sat in silence for a while.
Then he asked me if I loved Jack.
That threw me. I wasn't expecting anyone to ask that question.
I guess I just stared at him, open-mouthed, so he went on.
He told me about the Samantha and Jack he had known, from the day Jack told him he had met her, to the day they had gotten married, how much they had loved each other, how Jack swore he would die for her, to the day he did.
He said that Jack had once told him that Samantha was his entire world- that he couldn't remember how he had ever lived without her.
And he told me he swore he saw the same look of loss in his best friend's eyes that he saw in the Colonel's- "A long time ago, before they got together..."
At least they're together now, I hope. I mean, parallel universes don't have separate afterlives, do they? Can they? I'd better ask Daniel. Never mind. I don't want to know.
Talking about his loss seemed to make Kawalsky feel better. He was smiling as he remembered some of the goofy things Jack had done to cheer Samantha up- which made me laugh as he talked.
Before he got up to leave, he said, "I know it's against regs and all, but don't be afraid to love him or let him love you. The child will need it."
He wouldn't listen to my protestations to the contrary, just grinned and scooted out the door, leaving me to sputter in solitary.
Ack.
Yet another thing this stupid quantum mirror situation has left me with.
A child that is genetically mine and Jack's, who has a right to both parents, and a right to know the love of both "parents." But does it _have_ to follow that _we_ need to love each other?
Do I love Jack?
I never really thought about it.
Liar.
I mean, sure, he's attractive. Funny...to a point, anyway. Strong- oh, god, he's strong. Powerful personality, too.
But do I love him?
He's my commanding officer, for crying out...for goodness sake! He's a Colonel, I'm a Major.
Yeah, maybe I've thought about him in brief, fleeting moments, but the idea of me and Jack in a long-term sense just never really crossed my mind.
Sometimes he reminds me of Jonas. Hey, their names even begin with the same letter. But I don't think Jack would pop off and declare himself a god on another planet. I think he might fake it if he could, just to set Daniel off.
I don't know. He's my CO! AND one of my best friends. AND I trust him with my life- unquestionably and unconditionally.
But I don't _love_ him.
(Hey, Sam? Isn't that what love is, anyway?)
Maybe if things were different. She loved him, not him, but her him...ARGH! You know what I mean.
She loved him enough to marry him, to have his child...But I don't love my Jack like she loved her Jack. Not _my_ Jack, he's not _my_ Jack. He's not even really my type, not that I've got such a wide range of guys in my life to have to distill it down to a type, but it certainly wouldn't be a superior officer.
++++++
He came to see me today. I'm always thankful for a diversion. I've been stuck in this bed for too long, JANET!
I was beginning to go stir crazy when Jack strolled in, bearing a book of logic puzzles. Wonder how he knew, guess Daniel told him.
So he talked to me for a while- the doctors have me on stand-down. (I think the word indefinitely was used at some point in the debriefing.) He convinced General Hammond to transfer me into some sort of support staff job for the time being.
Of course, I won't get to go out with the SG-1 team for a long time, but anything's better than enforced medical leave for the duration of this pregnancy.
At some point, I blurted out how I felt about the "twin-thing" (as he puts it) how I really felt, not my mind trying to sort out the technical side of it. I hadn't realized how angry I was.
Who was this woman with my face, my voice, and my life? How dare she exist? I'm the real me! I am the real Major Samantha Carter! Not this long-haired, non-Air Force _female_ stranger who jumped in here and dumped a baby inside of me!
To his credit, Jack bore the brunt of my rant without saying much. He sat calmly and waited until I wound down.
Then he took my hands- IV and all- and asked me if I was happy.
Another moment of Sam Carter with her mouth hanging open. He and Kawalsky must get together and compare notes..."What can we possibly ask her that she can't answer right away? I've got it! _You_ ask her if she loves me and _I'll_ ask her if she's happy!" Evil laughter erupts from the two men "MWHA HA HA."
I didn't know how to answer. What could I say?
So I stalled for time and asked him what he meant.
"Are you happy? With what's happened...the pregnancy and all?"
I couldn't stop it- the hysterical laughter just kept coming. "Oh, that's funny," I managed to gasp out.
And of course he wanted to know why.
So I told him that I had never really seriously considered having a family, at least not since Jonas went psycho. And I certainly NEVER thought about the family including HIS child and that I would never think of him in "that way," Sir. (oh, man what a big fat liar you are Sam, he is, after all, one of the sexiest men you've ever encountered, fifteen year age gap be damned)
And he knew I was lying.
He knew it was a lie and was hoping to god it was and was terrified that it wasn't.
So I went on about the ironic situation we were in- you know, that I was carrying my CO's child, yet we hadn't -and wouldn't have had- the physical contact that would have led to said condition since it was, after all, against the regs. And that nevertheless, we would, biologically anyway, have a "family."
What a smile.
Not even a smile; the biggest, goofiest grin I have ever seen on that man's face. It just klieg-lit his entire face and lifted twenty years of Special Forces missions from his shoulders.
But then his eyes turned sad. He looked me straight on and asked me, "Is that all that's stopping us? From trying?"
OK, heart, you can beat again any time now, I thought. I just stared back at him, not knowing what he wanted to hear. What was he saying? Just what did that little question imply?
Great. Everything I'd...we'd...managed to tuck away in our psyches gets stirred up by Samantha's brief appearance in our universe, and now we get to deal with the way she'd changed us.
As he got up to leave, he leaned over and kissed my forehead (and all I could think of was he must have come back from an away mission because he smelled like the shampoo and soap he keeps in his locker), smiling at my shocked expression.
Dr. Kerr knocked on the door then and told me it was time for another round of test-the-mother-and-child. Those things were beginning to get monotonous. I must have made some kind of dissatisfied noise at that point because Jack squeezed my hand and bent to whisper in my ear, "Give 'em hell, Sam," and kissed my cheek. He mouthed "I'm proud of you" behind Dr. Kerr's back. He waited outside until Dr. Kerr wheeled me out. When Kerr turned to make some notes on my door charts, he stood next to my bed, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I'll always love you, Sam..." Then he squeezed my hand again and shot off down the hall.
What possessed him to say that?
I do _not_ remember the rest of my tests that evening.
I just kept replaying the conversation with Jack in my mind.
Man, I wish I was going off to P4G-277 with the guys tomorrow.
But Dr. Kerr doesn't even want me walking anywhere, much less Gating anywhere.
He loves me.
I never imagined.
I must have been grinning like a fool, because Daniel got this funny look on his face when he walked in the room. So he asks me if I'm OK, and _I_ blurt out that Jack loves me and BOY did he stop short and look at me then.
And then he slays me with this: "I knew. I'm surprised you didn't, Sam."
Just how long has this been going on and why didn't I notice it?
So Daniel makes some mumbly comment about visiting hours being nearly over and heads out. "Not that we care about visiting hours, he said, "Especially Jack. Did you know he's stayed here the past couple of nights, outside your door?"
I made some kind of squeaky noise and he went on, "Yeah, he didn't answer when I called him at home and nothing on his base office number, but when I came in to check on you yesterday morning before we went out on recon, he was asleep in a chair out there. I don't know how he managed to be coherent for the mission, but he pulled it off and raced back here as soon as we got home."
Daniel looked at the floor for a second and smiled, not knowing what else to say. He loves me, too, but it's different for us. I'm the sib he never got after his parents were killed.
It's not like the way that Jack loves me.
Jack loves me.
It's still processing in my mind.
Sometimes that man can be so devoid of emotional attachment or motivation on a mission that it drives me batty.
I never thought he might love me.
So Daniel, having dropped that little bomb in my lap, starts to head out, and I tell him to be careful on P4G-277 tomorrow and to watch out for Jack's safety.
Daniel starts laughing at that. "I think it's usually the other way around," he reminded me. Then he asked (almost stated, really) "You do love him, too, right?"
Well, jeez. Do I? How can I?
I care about Jack, yeah, but I care about all of them. I guess I love all of them in their own way, but never in "that way."
Maybe if things (my career) were different, if given half a chance, I could love Jack the way Daniel and Kawalsky says that he loves me.
Maybe I already do and don't know it yet.
Maybe I will, in time.
Who can tell?
So I shook it off and grinned and told Daniel that he'd better make sure they all come back in one piece safely because I sure didn't want to go after them and save their sorry asses from the powers of hell.
"Again," we both said at the same time.
"Come on," he added. "Don't worry. We'll be fine, even though it doesn't seem like a mission without you, Sam."
How sweet. But it didn't make me feel any better about being separated from the team. I think I know those three too well. Man, I wish I was getting ready to Gate with them tomorrow.
But I get to stay here and do some serious soul-searching.
With everything that's happened this week, all the choices I made, and all the general weirdness going on, the question its boiled down to isn't Am I ready for this, or Can I handle motherhood, or even Is this a good thing I'm doing, but Do I Love Jack.
Funny how things work out, isn't it?
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