Confirming Carter Bk. 03 Changes Ch. 06

Tammy starts working on her own android, Angelo, McKay makes a demand that takes Sam and Tammy by surprise, and he is even more surprised by their reaction...

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Confirming Carter Book Three, Changes

Chapter Six

Interior-Bedroom

0545 Hours

Sam rolled over, her hand reaching out toward Tammy, only to find empty space. She felt around for a moment, then opened her eyes, raising her head and squinting over toward the windows, where Tammy sat at her desk, bathed in the pale blue glow of her monitor.

"You should really turn on a light." She said as she sat up. "You're going to ruin your eyes. What are you doing anyway?"

"I didn't want to disturb you, you were sleeping so soundly, and looked so comfortable." Tammy said, flicking on the desk lamp.

"Have you been up long?"

"About an hour. I had a dream and it made me want to get started on Angelo."

"So we're back to Angelo." Sam laughed, rolling over to the side of the bed and standing up. She stretched, smiled at Tammy, and said, "Let me pee, then you can tell me what you have in mind, okay?"

"Okay, I think you're gonna like him." Tammy said, turning back to her terminal.

Sam went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet, sighing happily as she pee'd. She tore a couple sheets of paper off the roll and wiped, then flushed as she stood up and walked over to the vanity.

Leaning over the counter, she inspected her face, looking closely at the corners of her eyes and mouth. The crows feet and laugh lines she'd had a few months ago were gone, and her forehead was smooth, free of the creases that she had been noticing before.

Stepping back from the mirror, she turned to the side, bringing her hands up to cup her tits, feeling their weight in her hands, then moving them down to squeeze her butt cheeks as she turned a little more, looking back at herself in the mirror.

"Are you going to take a shower?" Tammy called out.

"Not yet." Sam said as she walked out of the bathroom. She stopped and turned up the lights, then went over and stood next to the desk.

"How old would you say I look?" She asked. "And be honest, I'm not fishing for a compliment."

Tammy turned to face her, leaning back in her chair. "I don't know, late twenties maybe. I doubt if someone who didn't know you would guess you were over thirty."

"You look younger than that, I want to say twenty-five or so." Sam told her as she pulled her chair around and sat down next to her. "I've been noticing that I feel alot better than I did a few months ago too. I guess it's just starting to show."

"Part of it is lifestyle, we exercise regularly, our diet is pretty good, and we get plenty of sleep." Tammy told her. "But the korathis is having an impact as well. I don't know about you, but I can still feel changes happening."

"I can sometimes, but I'm not paying that much attention anymore." Sam answered. "Show me what you have in mind for Angelo. What have you picked out so far?"

"Here's what I have for the face, they're close to what I want, and I can make changes like you did with Boris." She said, bringing up a row of images. "I'm thinking of a twenty something surfer boy like the guys I used to hang around with."

"I like this one the best." She said, pointing at an image on the end. "But I want the hair blond, and a little longer, so it hangs down in those pretty green eyes."

"He is cute." Sam agreed. "I like his eyes too."

Changing screens, Tammy brought up a row of headless body styles.

"These two are out, I like my men more wiry that that." She said as she clicked on two of the images, making them disappear. "If you want the truth, Boris is a little too big for my taste."

"Well, we did make him so I'd like him." Sam giggled. "I made some changes to his body though. His chest and arms are bigger and have more definition, and I made his hips smaller."

"I noticed." Tammy said, glancing at her.

"I could live with this one." she said, pointing at an image on the right. "But these two are my favorites." She said, pointing at the two in the center.

"Put the head on those two, and clear the others off." Sam told her. "And put something between their legs too. They need a dick."

Tammy made the changes quickly, and they sat staring at the two figures.

"I still can't decide." Tammy said after a few minutes.

"Do this. Put another figure between them. Scale it to your size and mass." Sam said. "Maybe it will help you decide which one you like better."

Tammy typed for a few moments, and a female image appeared between them.

"Your tits aren't that big." Sam said, shaking her head.

"Shut up." Tammy replied, staring at the screen.

One of the male figures was the same height as the female, while the other was slightly taller.

"I like that one." They said at the same time, but Sam was pointing at the taller one, while Tammy was pointing at the other.

"So you like to look your guys in the eyes when you're dancing, huh?" Sam said. "I like to lay my head on his shoulder."

"He's close, but not quite there yet." Tammy said, pushing away from the desk. "We can play with this later. I starting to get hungry. Let's go get something to eat."

"Sounds good to me." Sam said as she stood up. She looked over at the bed and smiled.

"Wake up Boris. Come keep mama company. That's a good boy." She said as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Interior-Medical Center Four, Bldg Thirty-Nine, East Pier

0610 Hours

"He's not awake yet?" Jennifer asked, laying her hands on Sheppard's shoulders.

He shook his head, not looking at her.

"I looked at his chart before I came in." She said quietly. "Everything looks good. He's recovering nicely."

He looked back at her over his shoulder, but didn't say anything.

"Are you going to go to work today?" She asked, reaching down and taking his hand, pulling him to his feet.

"I don't know yet." He said as he let her lead him up out of the room.

"Let's go talk to Sam and Tammy." She said. "They should be up by now. Would you like to get something to eat?"

"Yeah, that would be good." He said.

Interior-Kitchen

0625 Hours

The comm chirped, and Tammy shut off the tap and walked over and pressed a key.

"You've reached the law offices of Dewey, Cheatum, And Howe. Please leave a message, and we'll sue you at our earliest convenience."

Sam choked and spat a mouthful of eggs across the table as she burst out laughing.

The comm clicked, and a moment later chirped again.

She hit the key again and said, "Sam's pool hall, eight ball speaking."

"Uh...Col. Sheppard and Dr. Keller are requesting per..."

"Who? Never heard of them." Tammy said. "Do they have any...

"Send them up!" Sam yelled, laughing.

A minute later, they heard the elevator, and John and Jennifer came into the room.

Jennifer walked over and hugged Tammy, then bent her backwards and planted a sloppy wet kiss on her lips. When she released her, Tammy looked at her with a stunned expression on her face.

"Thank you, you actually got him to smile." Jennifer laughed. "I didn't think that was going to happen today."

"Looks like she just got you back for all those jokes girlfriend." Sam said. She looked over at Jennifer as she sat down.

"How's David doing, Jenn?" She asked as she watched Sheppard sit down next to her.

"It looks like he slept through the night. His vitals are fine, and his color was good this morning, we just left there." Jennifer said. "The nurses will call us when he wakes up. We were wondering if we could join you for breakfast."

"Sure, we can call down and get you whatever you want." Sam said. "We were going to call you in a little while to see if you could...you know..."

"Get us knocked up." Tammy said, squeezing Sam's fingers.

Keller laughed, then frowned as she reached up and tapped her comm. She looked at John as she stood up.

"He's awake." She said, holding out her hand.

He stood up, and they started out of the room.

"Can we come?" Tammy asked.

"I'd like that." He said, smiling at her.

Interior-Medical Center Four, Bldg Thirty-Nine, East Pier

0635 Hours

"How do you feel, David?" Jennifer asked as she stepped up beside the bed.

"Hurt...but can breathe." He said slowly. "Been hard...lately."

"Your heart has been having to work harder than normal because it was degrading." She told him. "The cells of the heart itself were shutting down and dying. Do you understand me?"

He nodded, looking between her and John. "Were?"

John stepped up on the other side of the bed and took his hand.

"We haven't been close for the last few years because of my job, Dave." He said slowly. "The work I did was classified, and I've never been able to tell you about it. We have to tell you a few things before we tell you what else is going on."

David nodded, and John looked over at Sam and Tammy, motioning toward the curtains across the room.

They went over and drew them slowly as he pressed the control to raise the bed.

David's eyes went wide as he took in the view through the windows.

"You need to relax, David." Jennifer said, looking at the monitors. "You're safe, so breathe, take a few deep breaths...that's right...that's better."

"You're not on Earth anymore Dave." John said slowly. "You're in the ancient city of Atlantis, in the Pegasus galaxy. We can explain the how later. I'm going to let Jennifer explain the why."

"Who...who are they?" David asked, pointing at Sam and Tammy.

John smiled as he said, "Dave, allow me to present Col. Samantha Carter, and the Lady Tammy Ford, Queens of Atlantis."

"Your brother is First Knight of our realm, David, and Commander of the Royal Forces." Sam said as she came over next to the bed.

"Not to mention, our most loyal subject, and friend." Tammy said.

"Th...this is a dream...I'm unconscious and having a...a hallucination." He said, looking around the room wildly.

"I'm afraid not, David." Jennifer said as she pulled the sheet down around his waist. She looked at him, nodding at his chest. "I'm going to remove the bandage, do you remember when we did that last night?"

He nodded.

She grasped the corners of the bandage, then looked up at him.

"Ready?" She asked.

He nodded again, and she jerked it down, making him gasp.

"Oh shit. It's real." He moaned.

Jennifer looked at the incision, pressing lightly around it with her fingers.

"Oh my, this is amazing." She said. "I've never seen a wound heal this quickly. It looks like this is several days old, not one."

She turned around and looked at the door.

"Susan, would you bring the scanner in here please?" She called.

Susan wheeled the scanner into the room a minute later, and Jennifer pointed to the side of the bed.

"We're going to do a centerline chest view, wireframe, then solid, okay?" She said as she lowered the bed to its horizontal position.

"Yes ma'am." Susan said, positioning the scanner arm, then moving over to the control panel.

She tapped on the panel, scrolling through several screens, making adjustments on them. When she was done, a three dimensional image of his upper body appeared over the scanner. "How's that doctor?"

"Good. Can you give me a solid view of the heart inside the wireframe?"

Susan nodded, making a few adjustments on the panel. The image wavered, then firmed up, showing the artificial heart in the center of his chest.

"Th...that's inside me?" David asked quietly. "Wh...what is it?"

"It's an artificial heart." Jennifer said. "John and Tammy went to Earth yesterday and spoke to your doctors. I believe the surgeon that did the first bypass was named Wilson?"

David nodded. "He...He's my doctor. He...wanted to know why I didn't come in sooner."

"Well, after they spoke to him and found out that there wasn't a heart available for a transplant, they decided to bring you back here, where we have other options."

She turned and looked at Susan again. "Can you give me a solid view with the incision highlighted? I want to look at the deep tissues up to the surface layer. He's healing much faster than I expected."

Susan nodded, going back to the panel, her fingers dancing over it.

"That's probably the regeneration fluid." She said, not looking up. "You remember when the machine sprayed that liquid into the chest cavity, then suctioned it out as the clamps were being removed, just before we started the heart?"

"Yeah, I thought it was a sterile solution to clean the area." Jennifer said.

"It is, but it also aids in healing. It's a biological agent designed to help build new tissue quickly."

She made a final adjustment, and the image over the scanner bed wavered, then solidified, showing the rib cage, and the tissues under it.

"That's perfect, Dr. Arbann. Leave it like that." Jennifer said, leaning over the machine and looking at it from different angles.

She looked over at Susan and nodded toward the scanner. "What do you think, Dr. Arbann?"

"Can I speak to you privately, Dr. Keller?" Susan asked, coloring slightly.

"No." Jennifer said, standing and facing her. "You assisted in our patients transplant yesterday, not as a nurse, but as a doctor. You've had the same training I have, more apparently, on the ancient medical systems, because you know more about how the process worked than I do. We're in a new world here Susan, and I'm putting you on staff as my ancient systems expert. Now would you please look at our patient, and tell me what you see?"

"Yes ma'am." Susan said, then leaned over the scanner. "The deep tissue layer around the heart is already rejoined, it looks like what would normally be five to six days growth. That must be because of saturation, the fluid sat longest in that area. The pleural membranes are almost completely healed, but that's not unusual, they tend to heal quickly anyway, and the surface layer, which would have gotten less of the fluid, is still showing at least three days healing."

"And what would you recommend as the next step in our treatment?"

"Standard post-op for open heart surgery. Monitor for clots and pleural occlusions, and walk the patient periodically to prevent them."

"Do you want me to call a nurse to assist you, or would you like John and I to do it?" Jennifer asked.

"Do what?" David asked.

"Get you out of that bed." Susan said, moving the scanner out of the way, then pulling the sheet to the foot of the bed. She raised the bed so he was sitting at an angle, then disconnected the tube connected to his catheter, snapping the cover over it.

She looked at him. "John and Dr. Keller..."

"Jennifer."

"I'm going to help you sit up, then John and Jennifer are going to help you stand up." She told him. "They'll go slow, and I'm going to follow you with a wheelchair, so you just concentrate on moving your feet." She paused, smiling at him. "Ready to go?"

He nodded, and she leaned down, sliding her hands behind his back.

"Put your arms around my neck." She said softly, pushing her hands under him as he lifted his arms around her neck. "Good, now just follow me up, let me do all the work."

She raised up slowly, lifting him from the bed as Jennifer eased a pair of slippers onto his feet, then lifted his legs and swung them off the side of the bed.

"You're doing great, David." Susan said. "John and Jennifer are going to hold you up while I get a wheelchair..."

"Got it." Tammy said, rolling it up by the foot of the bed.

"Thank you." Susan said, then looked at John and Jennifer, then at David.

"Ready?" She asked

He nodded again, and John and Jennifer helped him stand up. He took a tentative step, then another. He stopped, swaying slightly and breathing hard.

"Hurts." He said.

"It's going to hurt for a few more days, David, at least until your ribs heal completely." Jennifer told him. "We're just going over to the window, then we'll let you sit down. Do you think you can do that?"

"Gonna...try." He grunted, lifting his foot and taking another step.

He moved slowly, but steadily toward the window as they held him between them. Susan fell in behind him with the wheelchair.

It took almost three minutes to travel the twenty feet to the window, but when they reached it, he lifted his arm from around John's neck, and pressed it against the glass. Leaning forward, he looked down, then out across the city.

"How are you doing, David?" Susan asked. "Do you need you sit down?"

"In...a minute." He said. "Want to look."

He looked at John, smiling slightly.

"A knight? She's...kidding, right?"

"First Knight of the Realm." Jennifer said. "And Commander of the Royal Forces."

"Six hundred ground troops, and two starships, but we're working on that." Sam said.

"You live here..."

"He needs to sit down now, his legs are shaking." Susan said. "Let's get him in the chair."

John and Jennifer lowered him down as Susan moved the chair up behind him. They got him seated, and Jennifer knelt beside the chair, putting his feet on the foot rests.

"David, I don't believe you've been formally introduced to my fiancée, Dr. Jennifer Keller, Chief Medical Officer of Atlantis."

"I need you all to step back for a minute." Susan said, shaking out a gown. "Let me get this on him." She laid it over him, then got his arms in the sleeves and tied it in back, then tucked it around his legs.

"We'll get you some pajamas later, but this will give you a little dignity for now." She said softly.

"Thank you...Dr. Arbann." He said, smiling at her.

"You can call me Susan, you earned it." She smiled. "Do you want to stay here by the window, or go back to the bed?"

"I want to look. It's beautiful." He said.

"Okay, you can have ten minutes, then it's back in bed."

He nodded

He looked at John for a long moment, then said, "You've got some...explaining to do."

"I think this story needs to be told in parts, by the people it happened to." Sam said as she pulled two chairs over. Tammy followed her with two more. When they were all seated around him, she continued. "Ten years ago, the Unites States Air Force began using a device called a stargate, which creates artificial wormholes between worlds, allowing almost instantaneous travel between them. I was one of the original members of that program."

It was more than an hour later before Susan called a halt and ordered them all out. She got David back into his bed, and sat with him until he fell asleep a short while later.

Interior-Conference Room

0900 Hours

McKay was in a heated discussion with Andi when Sam and Tammy came in with Boris and Cisco behind them. Jacob was slung on Boris's chest in his babypack, and Sam told him to sit down while they went over to join them.

"What's he bitching about now?" Sam asked

"Ronin let him stay with him last night, and now he doesn't like the quarters I assigned him." Andi said. "I put him in a suite on one forty in this building, and he doesn't like it."

"Put him back in his old quarters, we can move his stuff back there just as easy as a new place." Sam said, smiling at both of them. "Problem solved?"

"But that's even smaller than the one she put me in! And there's no windows!" McKay began. "It's not..."

"Rodney, my personal quarters in the residence are the same as you've been assigned." Tammy said. "Andi actually did you a favor by putting you in staff level quarters. I'm surprised that she doesn't have you sharing a suite with one of the workers from the production piers."

McKay's mouth snapped shut, and he looked at all three of them in disbelief.

"I thought you were going to explain the job and..." Samuels began.

"I thought I had." Tammy said.

She looked back over at McKay. "Rodney, we brought you in as a contractor for the operation I told you about. How well you perform and behave while you're doing that, will help us determine whether we let you stay, or offer you citizenship at some point."