She nodded jerkily against his shoulder. He kissed her head again.
“And you need to talk with Daniel about your feelings,” he said. He sent out a tentative reach…. she was feeling better. Calmer.
“Now tell me what I can do to help you feel sexy,” he said. She smiled and hid her face.
“Just keep loving me,” she said. “My mother was beautiful. Tall, thin, pretty. I got her height and Dad’s structure.”
“Hey, don’t knock your old man, he was do-able in his own right. Damned pretty eyes, sexy smile….”
Sam turned red and punched him on the arm. He smiled and leaned over pressed his mouth to her shoulder. “I love you,” he told her. She snuggled against him and was quiet for a while. He tightened his arms. “Honey, I don’t perceive a distance between us. I think it has escaped your notice that you’re the one I go to when I need an emotional adjustment. I need you just as much as I need him. He fixes one half, you fix the other. The two of you make me a complete person. I will try harder to be part of you.”
She shook her head and sniffled. “No,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I really don’t feel all that left out. This insecurity is a recent thing. I’m usually fine, and then all of a sudden I’m feeling emotional. I know I’m not pregnant, so I don’t know what’s going on.”
Jack put his hands on her lower belly. “When was your last physical?” he asked. “Full physical.”
She thought about it. “It’s been a while,” she admitted. “I’ll stop in and see Dr. Lam.”
It was an hour later that she turned onto her side, crying. Jack quickly sat up.
“What’s wrong?” he insisted, trying to see over her shaking shoulders. He got an incredible wave from her, a deep sense of depression which almost over-powered him. He knew that kind of depression, it had almost gotten him many years before.
“H…. hold me,” he heard her beg. He pressed up against her back put his arms around her, holding her tight. He needed to get to the phone, but he didn’t dare let her go as his mind raced back and forth, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” he asked, pressing his mouth to her ear.
“I… don’t know,” she got out between breaths.
“Honey, let me call the doctor,” he said, worried.
“No, just hold me,” she cried, grabbing his arms tighter.
“I’m here, baby,” he said. He pressed his body closer to hers and cocooned her in his arms. She cried for almost two hours as he sensed her fighting the incredible depression. Damned if he knew what brought it on; nothing in their earlier conversations hinted that this was below the surface, not even her confession of being jealous of Daniel or her own physical insecurities. When the crying began to subside, and Jack felt her depression release, he breathed a sigh of relief. She turned and he held her tightly to his chest, her sobs lessening. About a half hour later, she suddenly cried out in real physical pain, bending herself into a fetal position. Jack released her and reached for his cell phone.
“This is O’Neill, put me through to the infirmary NOW!” he yelled into it when the line was answered. Warner was on duty and Jack quickly updated him. Almost ten minutes later, Jack and Sam were beamed out, up, and put down in the infirmary by the Argos which had been on patrol in their own solar system with a group of NASA xeno-geologists. Jack jumped up from the floor, his bare feet cold against the concrete. He lifted Sam in his arms and set her on a bed. The medical personnel crowded him out and took over as he hovered anxiously a few feet away. Someone brought him a blanket and wrapped it around him. He had forgotten that he had been wearing nothing except his pajama bottoms. No wonder he was chilled. …. He was in the Mountain. He grabbed a phone and called home.
Twenty minutes later, Daniel was hurrying through the door just as an SF brought Jack a set of BDU’s to change into.
“She’ll be alright,” Warner came over and told them, slinging a stethoscope around his neck. “Her hormones are off the chart. She had a cyst burst on an ovary. I put her on an IV and gave her pain meds; she’ll sleep for a while.”
“I don’t understand,” Jack said, sitting on a bed to pull on socks and boots.
“The hormones were sent skyrocketing by the growing cyst on an ovary,” Warner told them both. “Ovaries handle a lot of the necessary hormones for women. The depression you described could very well have been caused by the hormonal increase. Same reason women become emotional during their cycles, also during and after pregnancy. The cyst came to a head and burst, which caused all the pain. There’s nothing to do except wait and let her body heal itself. Women get cysts all the time; try to relax, General. Dr. Jackson. She can go home in the morning.”
Landry came in, having been notified that Jack and Sam had an emergency beam-out and were in the infirmary. Jack and Daniel were sitting close by Sam’s bed. “How is she?” Landry asked. Jack calmly updated him. Both men knew him well enough to hear the stress in his voice. “I know this is probably a useless suggestion, but why don’t you two go to your quarters and get some rest?”
“In a while,” Jack said. Landry nodded and left them. Jack leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Sam’s still hand.
“It was so sudden,” he whispered, sitting back. Daniel slid a hand onto Jack’s thigh. “She was a little upset. She’s been feeling left out. I told her I’d talk to Vidrine about relocating her section at the Yard. Let her have my warehouse for her toys and experiments. She could be home with us everyday. The kids could visit her at work. She and I could have lunch together everyday. Next thing I know she’s crying and thinking about her gun. Then she’s in pain. There was nothing I could do.”
“The doctor will fix this, Jack,” Daniel told him. “And I’d like her home everyday, too.”
Dr. Lam came in a few hours later when the next shift started. She was irritated that no one called her when Sam was brought in, and glared at her father as though it were his fault. She went into a huddle with Warner and they argued under their breaths.
“What’s going on?” Jack finally asked. They avoided looking at him. “Now, Doctors. Spill it.”
“Dr. Lam feels that there is a problem with the inserts, I disagree,” Warner finally said.
“What’s the problem?” Jack asked, folding his arms across his chest and waiting. Lam put her clip board down and huffed.
“A few other women have had problems with cysts after a few years of wearing the insert,” she said.
“And I’m telling you that cysts are normal,” Warner insisted.
“Any documentation?” Jack asked.
“Yes.”
“No.”
The doctors glared at each other.
“When you grow ovaries, you can tell me what’s normal,” Lam informed Warner.
Jack picked up the phone and dialed. “Would you come down to SGC, please?” he asked when the line was answered. “No, I just want the good doctors to take a look at your ovaries. No, Cass, I’m not drunk, just please, come down? Thank you.”
“Cassandra Fraiser has been on this insert since she was sixteen,” Jack told the doctors. “That’s six years, now, almost seven. As far as I’m aware, she hasn’t had any problems.”
“An ultrasound will show any cysts,” Lam said. “She would have had a physical when the first insert was changed out; I’ll look at her chart.”
When Cassandra came in, she saw Sam lying in the bed and immediately went to her.
“She’s fine,” Daniel told her. He updated her on happenings.
While Cass was having her ovaries invaded by ultrasound, Mrs. Arthur brought breakfast in for them. She pet Daniel’s head and patted Jack’s shoulders. Whatever they were doing to Cassandra, the men were shut out of the room. Jack didn’t know the exact details, but all the women in his life tended to snarl about their annuals.
“Why can’t we watch?” he asked. “All they’re doing is squirting lube on her stomach and using that roller thing.
I watched when Sara and Megan were pregnant. Not a big deal.”
“More to it than that, for this kind of exam,” Mrs. A said. “Annuals are about the cervix and looking for cancers and stuff in the mucus lining. For this kind of exam, they need a closer look at the ovaries and uterus so they have to use a dildo thing to look deeper inside.”
“What?!” Both Jack and Daniel looked at her. She wrinkled her nose.
“Something only a man could have invented,” she commented. She went back toward Daniel’s offices to see which of her lambs were absent and which needed TLC.
“I have no idea,” Daniel said when Jack looked at him.
It didn’t take long, and Dr. Lam ushered the men back in when she was done.
“She has a few small cysts, but nothing we need to be concerned about,” Lam told them. She seemed almost disappointed that Cassie wasn’t going to prove her point for her. “Women do get them all the time, and we usually don’t notice them. I will monitor her for a few months and see if there are any changes.”
The men nodded, relieved. “I’d like you to send a copy of all the trial documentation to Dr. Gabriel Thorn at WHO,” Jack told her. “I’ll let him know to expect it. I want an outside opinion from fresh eyes. He has clearance.”
“Did you really use a dildo on her?” Daniel asked, leaning in.
Sam was feeling better later in the morning. The pain meds in the IV had been a blessing.
“The majority of the pain should be gone,” Lam said. “You can go home, if you’d like. I’ll give you a prescription for pain meds. Colonel, I need to tell you that other women have had these types of cysts. Dr. Warner feels that they are normal to the woman’s body, I feel there have been too many instances of women with the insert having exploding cysts; too many for my comfort. General O’Neill had me send all the information to Dr. Thorn at the World Health Organization for a second opinion. You’re due for a change-out in a couple of months, I can take it out now, if you’d like, and you can either replace it or not.”
“How many women?” Sam asked.
“Twenty-three out of one fifty,” Lam said.
“Take it out,” Sam . “Guys, we’re now on contraceptives. Carolyn, how long until my periods restart?”
“Probably one to two months,” Lam shrugged. “It’s been different with each woman. Some have gone four months. We’ve been trying to get the rules changed so that women can be off-world during their periods. I talked with several women of the Tok’ra and the Jaffa, and they all seem to think we’re being completely ridiculous with this rule. I think it’s ridiculous, too. The men seem to think aliens will be able to sniff blood and attack, to say nothing of what alien animals will do. Do women who live in tribes on this planet go out of their way to avoid animals when they’re on their periods? Please.”
A simple general anesthetic, twenty minutes and some surgical glue, and Sam was free of the insert. Dr. Lam bagged it for study. Sam was released into the care of her men. She fell asleep in the car on their way home. The pain meds were still stock-piled in her body and kept her on a slightly higher plane of existence. The kids were in school, so Sam was able to walk carefully to the bedroom. Jack offered to carry her but she insisted, walking hunched over, holding one arm across her lower abdomen and Jack’s strong arm under the other hand.
“I walked like that after my appendix was taken out,” Daniel commented in sympathy as he turned down the covers and searched for her pajamas.
“Sam, can I bring you anything?” Jerrie asked worriedly.
“No, thank you,” Sam said. “Yes. A glass of water.” Jerrie nodded and went to the kitchen. Jack and Daniel were allowed to help her undress and get into bed.
“Did you bring our stuff home?” she asked, her face white from the effort of walking and undressing.
“I sent Paul to fetch it and take care of our bills,” Jack told her. She held out a hand and he took it, sitting on the side of the bed.
“I’m sorry our vacation ended this way,” she said.
“Baby, this isn’t your fault,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “There will be other vacations. Besides; we had only a day left, so we didn’t miss much of it.”
She was fading fast, now that she was in her own bed, so the guys left her to sleep. Daniel took the baby monitor from the nursery, touched the cheek of the sleeping baby, and set it next to Sam, keeping the receiver with him.
“Love you,” he whispered, kissing her cheek.
Jack fell back onto the couch, rubbed his face and scratched his head. Jerrie handed them beers. Jack thanked her and then shooed her away.
“Yes, sir,” she said with an understanding smile.
“Danny, when Sam was raving from those hormones, she said a few things,” Jack told him. “I don’t know how much of it was real and how much wasn’t, but she said them. We need to start including her in our lives.”
Daniel sat, frowning. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, actually, but she seems to be feeling a little left out and I think it’s because she isn’t here everyday,” Jack said. “I’m working on that part. She’s a little jealous of our relationship. She’s been insecure about it. I told her it’s just guy stuff, but she needs more inclusion. I don’t know how else to make her feel included. She’s my wife, dammit, how can she be feeling excluded?”
Daniel sat back and half turned to face him. “Does she want me to leave?”
“No,” Jack said emphatically. “She most definitely loves you and wants you here. I asked her that, too. I felt around inside her, and she does love you. Okay, it may have been the hormones talking, but I don’t think they would have been saying that if the seed wasn’t already planted.”
“Well, she sees herself as one of the guys,” Daniel said. “We do tend to talk about things when she isn’t around. I don’t think we intended to exclude her, but I guess she sees it that way.”
“But it’s guy stuff,” Jack said, spreading his arms toward the ceiling. “Doesn’t she talk girl stuff with the girls? So what’s the difference?”
“The difference is that she isn’t here everyday and she doesn’t know what’s going on unless someone tells her,” Daniel said.
Jack frowned. “That’s what I told her.”
“So we wait until she’s feeling better and we talk with her about it,” Daniel said. He picked up Jack’s hand. “And yes, a lot of what she said may have been the hormones talking, so let’s try not to worry. Yet. I’ll try not to worry.”
Sam slept straight through until the next morning. The kids took peeks in at her, making an effort to be quiet during the evening. Jack talked with Vidrine and got permission to move Sam’s sector back to Colorado. Her base CO, Colonel Taylor, would be sorry to see her and the team leave, but he understood. It would be more convenient to have the toys closer to the people who would be using them, anyway, and the hanger bay she had been using would be one more place for ships to be built.
She could get up and about the next day, but she was still a little sore and slow to walk. By the third day, she was feeling back to normal except for a little odd ache here and there. Olivia was a frequent visitor, keeping her company, and Sam was happy to have her.
“She’s trying to crawl,” Sam informed Jack when he came in to check on her. Olivia was making serious attempts to stay on her hands and knees for more than a second at a time. Her little body would wiggle and then fall back to the bed.
“We need to start baby-proofing the house,” Jack commented, sitting on the side of the bed. “She’ll be all over the place in a very short time. Get plugs for the unused outlets, tape down cords, lock lower cabinets, put poisons up to higher cabinets, just in case, and get guards for furniture corners. And a gate for the stairs.”
He paused for a moment, looking at her. “Honey, we need to talk about what you were saying,” he gently told her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to talk about it, I didn’t mean any of it.�
�
“Maybe not as seriously as it was said, but I think the seeds were there,” he told her. “Baby, talk with Danny. We need to clear the air on this one.”
Sam wiped a tear away and reluctantly nodded. Jack took Olivia out to Jerrie and called Daniel in.
“Do we need to go downstairs?” Daniel asked after taking one look at Sam’s face.
“I think we do,” she whispered.
They locked themselves in Daniel’s den. Sam took her clothes off and sat on the floor. Daniel sat behind her. While they could, and did, talk outside this strange 'ritual', there was something about it that acted as a truth serum; there didn't seem to be a way to lie or to withhold anything from each other. There was a sacred space aspect to it, and they all respected the space.
[Daniel] “What's been upsetting you?”
[Sam] “Not being here. Having to hear about everything second-hand.”
[Daniel] “Yes, well, Jack is fixing that. Your people are packing up everything and bringing it all here.”
[Sam] “I know; I spoke with General Vidrine this morning.”
[Daniel] “Since you will be home every day, what would you like to see happening here?”
[Sam] “I’m not asking to be the center of attention; I just want to be involved. I want life to happen and I want to be a part of it.”
[Daniel] “We wake up, make breakfast, get the kids ready for school, sometimes we take the baby to work, sometimes we have lunch together, Jerrie picks up the kids from school, sometimes one of us picks them up from various after school activities, we feed kids dinner, we help with homework, get them into baths and then bed. We check in on their day and we listen before passing out kisses for the night.”
[Sam] “That’s what we did when I was home while Jack was away.”
[Daniel] “Yes, it is. Nothing extraordinary happens, usually, when you are away. You know what happens because you’ve already been part of it. Shall I tell you what I think is really itching at you deep inside? You are doing your very best not to become your father.”
[Sam] “No, I...”
[Daniel] “Wasn't that your complaint about him? That he missed out on your life?”
The Anunnaki Unification, Book 2: A Staraget SG-1 Fan Fiction Story Page 31