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She gets a call a little after one in the morning.
At first she assumes it’s her alarm set for a quarter after four so that she can be showered and presentable for their morning meeting, only it’s not the clock on her bedside table that’s ringing, it’s her phone.
They call her down to the medical bay, and although she’s gotten grief for it before, she refuses to change out of her pajamas this early in the morning. Arrives with her sleeping mask slid up her forehead, clumping her bangs together.
“What is so important that you needed to wake me from a well-earned rest?” Grumps to the fully awake nurse sitting behind the station.
Crying erupts, muffled at first, but then growing in tone as someone moves towards her. She’s still too sleep-addled to figure out whom it might be.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Mal Doran.” A nurse steps through the automatic doors holding a baby—Daniel—in her arms, and he’s almost hiccuping from screaming so loudly. “I’ve tried bottles, lullabies, toys—I even gave him a warm bath. He just refuses to settle.”
She shakes her head, a little befuddled. “So what do you expect me to—”
But Daniel immediately stops crying when he hears her voice, cuts the wail straight from his throat, and over his snuffles and stuttered inhalations, he reaches his chubby little hands towards her, fingers grasping. “Eh.”
“I had a feeling about this.” The nurse holds out young Daniel to her, and she takes a step back, not willing or wanting to receive the baby. His smile wanes, his lower lip trembling, his hands drooping in defeat.
The nurse cocks a curious brow to her while adjusting a now crying Daniel back against her. “I showed him your ID photo and he stopped earlier, I think he just wants to be with you, Ms. Mal Doran.”
She stands unwavering, watching his tiny glasses fog up from being denied, almost like adult Daniel when Mitchell or the general refuse to sign off on a mission of his. Doesn’t understand out of all the experienced personnel—this nurse being a senior something-or-other contracted to deal just with SGC mothers and their children. Judging by her yearly income—she knows how much she makes because she broke into the human resource office to research her before officially handing Daniel over—she must be pretty learned.
“Why does he—umm—”
“From what I can tell.” She shifts Daniel to her other arm. He’s wearing a little dinosaur onesie that he would absolutely detest, from the pattern to the color, and she gives a rueful smile. “You were the first person he saw once he became infantized.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he imprinted on you.”
She rolls her hand through the air, not interested in the big clinical Tau’ri words for child rearing. “Meaning?”
“He thinks you’re his mother—”
“Oh God.”
“—well, not necessarily his mother, but someone he feels safe with. You said what happened at the ruins was traumatic.”
It went about as well as all their excavation trips go: he took too long, it was too hot, and she got impatient too quickly. She complained about everything she could think of, the heat, the waste of time, the way his shoes squeaked, the eggy stench in air, how Mitchell and Teal’c got to sit in the shade of a tree before the entrance while they sleuthed around inside trying not to set off any defensive measures while simultaneously touching everything. His crescendo of a yell resulted in her jumping away, slamming into a panel on the wall and him shoving her out of the way. The ceiling collapsed and when she came to there was a sprawling, gurgling baby in a puddle of Daniel’s clothing, thankfully not as damaged as her.
“That’s how I became all banged up.” She points to a cut on her forehead, one at her temple, and one down her cheek, all held together with fake stitching. “I’m recovering, I shouldn’t be charged with watching a baby, especially if it’s Daniel.”
“Unfortunately, Ms. Mal Doran, you’ve been overruled.” Notices for the first time a bag filled to the brim as it slips down the nurse’s arm as she balances Daniel to one side. “When I told General Landry about the unique situation and showed him how Daniel reacted to your picture, he okayed transferring guardianship over to you.”
“I—I—” Blinks wildly, accepting the bag no doubt full of baby supplies, not acknowledging the fact that her movement closer, being in Daniel’s direct sight, has made him cease crying. “I never agreed to this.”
“You didn’t have to.” The nurse holds Daniel out with both her hands around his torso, he’s now happily jigging in the air and reaching for her again. When the nurse clears her throat, she reluctantly accepts her once teammate, now ward, at arms length, trying not to get any of his drool on her clothing.
The nurse gets places a form on the station, pointing at a line she’s to sign, and she hitches Daniel to her hip, his wet hands scrolling around on her face, pressing in on fresh bruises and her trio of cuts. Her face twists in pain, and she figures at least the expression will entertain him, but he immediately stops, retracting his hands, and watching her with almost concern.
As she analyzes Daniel, fat in his infancy, blue eyes examining her back, the nurse snatches the paper she’s signed.
“Congratulations, it’s a boy.”