Sam's Surprise!

by Bethany

URL: http://www.stargateslash.com/asb/bethany7/samssurp.php
Summary: Jack chooses Daniel, not Sam, but Sam turns up on their doorstep with Jack's baby son, and then, she never comes back for him!!

Daniel sat beside Jack on the sofa.

"Hey..." Jack said affectionately.

"Hey..." Daniel replied, kissing Jack's lips.

Jack smiled, and rubbed Daniel's knee. This was right! This was what he wanted. It hadn't been Sam, but he hated that he had hurt her. He must have done. He could not deny this surge of love for Daniel though... Never could, even when he was supposed to. He kissed Daniel again.

They were interrupted by the doorbell at Jack's place.

***

"Sam!" Jack said, as he opened the door.

Daniel stood close by.

"Hi..." She began.

Neither Jack nor Daniel could ignore the fact Sam held a baby in her arms.

"This is your son..." Sam announced to Jack. "AJ Howard Carter..."

"AJ?" Jack began to digest the news...

"Axel-Jacob... Howard was my Mom's maiden name..." Sam explained.

"Why didn't you tell me..?" Jack asked Sam, as he continued to look to his son.

Sam looked at Daniel, then to Jack. "I didn't want to manipulate you back..." She answered.

"I think you'd better come in the house, don't you?" Jack mentioned. He stepped aside, and looked into Daniel's eyes, as Sam walked into his place, AJ in her arms.

"Sit down..." Daniel suggested, pointing to the sofa on which he'd just almost made love to Jack.

Jack sat on the opposite sofa, and patted the place beside him, for Daniel to sit there. "Are you sure there was no other reason?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked nervously.

Jack couldn't say what he meant.

Daniel knew. He knew that Jack was afraid Sam hadn't said anything because she did not trust Jack – One of his son's had already died. And Jack would always blame himself for that. Forever. "Sam trusts you, don't you, Sam?" He asked, feeling as though he were betraying Jack by speaking his fears out-loud.

"It's not that, Jack... It's not." Sam replied, voice heightened with emotion.

Jack swallowed his own emotions. "Then, what is it??"

"I don't know. I just wasn't ready..." Sam replied.

"And now..?" Daniel pondered.

"And now I'm engaged..." Sam told them.

Jack's stomach turned, to think that Sam had been in love with him, and or possibly hated him all this time... "So..?" He managed slowly.

"Can you, please, look after AJ for a while..?" Sam requested.

"Doesn't your fiancé like our son?" Jack asked protectively.

"We want to go around the world..." Sam said. "Motorbikes and all that... Besides, you deserve to get to know your son." She stood, and took her son over to Jack, their son, and sat him on Jack's knee. She stood back and saw them. Like a new family, Jack, Daniel, and AJ... Tears were in her eyes. "Please."

Jack couldn't speak. His throat was constricted with un-cried tears; his voice unreliable. He looked at Daniel.

Daniel looked at Sam. "Of course we'll look after him..." He told her warmly. He knew what it meant to Jack. He knew he owed it to Sam, and he knew how much, in that moment, and every moment, he longed for a family again.

***

Jack walked to the door with his one year old son in his arms, and Daniel nearby.

Sam kissed AJ on the head, then, turned away in tears, and rushed to her car.

Jack started to walk silently back to the sofa, knowing Daniel would shut the front door for him. He sat down, looking at his son.

Daniel walked back over, and sat down with them.

It was at that moment that Jack began to cry, silently. Afraid of his own tears, and of worrying the baby. Afraid of what letting go of those tears, and having a new son to welcome into his heart meant. Jack didn't often break down, and he hated letting even Daniel see him weak, but he leant on Daniel's shoulder.

"You'll be okay... You'll be okay..." Daniel whispered as he held Jack.

***

AJ had been living with Jack and Daniel for sixth months, and they hadn't heard from his mother at all... But then, Jack received a letter. He sat on the sofa and read it, while Daniel stood rocking the little toddler in his arms as the boy drank warm milk from his bottle.

Dear Jack

This is THE hardest letter I've ever had to write; The toughest words I've ever had to say. Don't worry. I'm not going to take AJ from you.

Jack, I want AJ Howard Carter to stay with you. Please.

I always have the best of intentions, but the truth is, I'm no good at parenting. I can't cope. Always tell AJ it's not his fault, and that's the total truth of it.

I know you can, and will, take care of our son. I know he is safe with you!

I am trying to arrange for my lawyer to contact yours, and arrange for AJ to be adopted by you.

Sam

Jack handed Daniel the letter, and swapped it for AJ, so Daniel could concentrate on reading the document. He didn't want AJ to see that his mother was giving him up either.

"Is she sure..?" Daniel asked. "Or is it this new guy convincing her or something?"

"I'm going to have to go and find out, aren't I?" Jack said, worried that Daniel would fret about this.

"Yes. You are." Daniel answered, matter-of-factly, as he tried to absorb the words of the letter again.

"I want AJ to stay. I so do..." Jack answered, as he grinned at his child. "But his Mom is his Mom, or, at least, she had been... I have to talk this through face to face, don't I?"

Daniel nodded.

"I will come back... I won't be like..." Jack drifted, careful of what his son could hear.

"Her..." Daniel murmured. "We'll be okay, won't we, AJ?" Daniel turned to face the baby boy and smiled. AJ suckled at his milk, but his brown eyes flickered up at Daniel. When he wasn't being fed, he was such a talkative baby. He'd soon take after his father!

Jack hugged his family, and tried to pray, like his Catholic background, rather than his Stargate background had once taught him...

***

"Jack!" Sam said, surprised and awkward. "This is my husband, Roger."

Roger Owens stepped to his wife's side.

"You got my letter then..." Sam mused.

"I had to see you, face to face. Make sure it was really you who wrote it!" Jack stated, staring at Sam, and then, he knew man. Physically, he could at least see why she wanted to run off with this man. He bore more than a slight resemblance to Keanu Reeves. Perhaps, not his, Jack's, type, but he was handsome, no doubt! Mind you, Jack was besotted with Daniel. Alone, he could admit that..! And he was angry with 'Keanu'... So, his noting of the man's good looks was only part of a grudging assessment!

Sam felt guilty, and she knew it showed. She had every reason to feel guilty. "I am sorry!" She said honestly. Hating Jack's truthful, bare assessment of her and her new love.

"Why don't you want our son anymore??" Jack asked angrily. "Isn't he good enough for you?" Jack looked from Sam to Roger. "You named him after your father, for cryin' out loud!!" Jack said. "Didn't you love him, your father?? What must he think about all this, wherever he is in Creation!??" Jack knew he sounded a little like Daniel, but it was how he felt. He had always tried to believe in a Heaven, for Charlie's sake. "Did you ever love AJ???"

Sam's eyes flared with anger, but her guilt made her step back again from her movement toward Jack. "Please, take care of him. Let him know this isn't his fault. Always let him know that, Jack!"

"You got too used to calling someone in your life sir, didn't you??" Jack pointedly asked her. "Is this really you, Sam?"

"Yes!" Sam replied.

Jack noted her certainty.

"Sam has not been well..." Roger stated.

Jack looked to her. "Is that why you're here, in the Jungle?" He asked, knowing Roger to be a Sean Connery-esque Medicine Man. Jack also knew that if Sam were ill, and could not be cured by any of the medical advances she herself had helped to bring back from all over the Galaxies, she wasn't going to get any help from Medicines all over this world! "If you're going to..." Jack inferred, "Don't you think you should let AJ get to know you first? Or are you just trying to protect him because your own experiences," Jack paused, and thought of Sam's mother dying, and how his Daniel was still tortured to this day by the death of the parents he knew for too short a time, "have made you consider that option too painful??"

"It's not that kind of ill, Jack... I just can't cope!!" Sam cried. "Look at how I let Janet be Cassie's Mom! It was far easier to save the world!" Sam mentioned more than she perhaps should.

Jack looked at Sam, then at Roger again, trying to determine how much the other man might know, especially if Sam's emotional state really was in a state! "I can be a bit frail of mind sometimes, too, Sam. What makes you think he's any better off with me?" Jack asked her. He didn't mention Daniel's various break downs over the years, most had been induced on other worlds anyhow, and he believed in Daniel's strength! He trusted Daniel more han anyone, ever!

"Because you'll love him. You won't send him away!" Sam answered her one-time lover.

"Have you forgotten that Charlie got sent away, and that was all down to me!!?" Jack shouted.

"That was not your fault, Jack!! It was an accident! You warned Charlie. I know it won't happen again!" Sam told him.

"True that I haven't got any guns in the house anymore, locked away or otherwise..." Jack knew that being that unprotected was a risk he still wasn't comfortable with, especially knowing what he had since the time he first had anything to do with the Stargate Program. But he was still more comfortable with it, than with the fact that he might lose AJ one day... "But Sam..." Jack began again. "He's your son! Are you absolutely sure??"

"Yes!" Sam answered.

***

Jack stood in his own front door frame, gladly receiving his son, and a hug, from Daniel... "The adoption is underway. We will have to be assessed still though.

"Will they let two gay men adopt a baby boy..?" Daniel asked painfully.

"His own mother has recommended this..." Jack assured Daniel.

"But you told me on the phone that Sam's state of mind is frail..." Daniel fretted, holding AJ's outreached hand.

"Frail enough to do this while she can help everyone, including herself, but not so frail, Daniel..." Jack explained. "And we have other character statements being written for us..."

Daniel sighed. Fear in his eyes.

Jack knew that fear. It was fear of losing AJ. Fear of losing again...

***

Daniel sat with the catalogue he'd just got from the cupboard on his lap.

Jack walked into the room.

Daniel looked up.

"He's asleep for the moment!" Jack smiled, placing the baby monitor on the coffee table. "What you lookin' at??"

"Which toys to get him for his second Birthday!" Daniel smiled.

"His first Birthday with us!!" Jack grinned excitedly, plonking himself down on the sofa where it had all began, and looking at the catalogue with Daniel.

"We've got a couple of months, but I have to organise everything!" Daniel said. "Gifts, party!"

"I know..!" Jack said, smiling at the man he loved, and saying a silent prayer for his family, for their family, their adopted son again... May all be well; May this just be the beginning of a Long-Lasting and HAPPY life for everyone... Please, God!!

The End

Author's Note: I make no money, and mean to step on no one's toes at all,by writing my stories... Feedback welcome as long as it is always polite.