"You know… if you're not going to take advantage of how cute she is, you should hand her over and let a real man have a chance…"

River looked up from Jessica and over at Andrew, who was holding his arms out expectantly.

"What?"

"I'm saying, hand over the baby, River."

"Why?"

Andrew scowled and glanced as nonchalantly as he could toward a table that held a small group of young women – all of them pretty, and all of them looking over toward the table that Cassie and Gina were sitting at with Andrew and River. They were either looking at the babies – women loved babies, Andrew had noticed – or admiring River, who was completely oblivious to their attention.

"Because she's adorable."

"I know."

"So do they," Andrew told him.

Cassandra chuckled and handed Alexander over to him.

"Here. Use him. Just don't be surprised when he spits up on you."

Andrew didn't look at all concerned. He took Alexander in his arms, smiling down at the baby.

"Hey, big man… what say you and I go get Uncle Andrew a date for tomorrow night, huh?"

Alex responded to the cheerful tone of Andrew's voice with a toothless smile and a chuckle, but before Andrew could come up with a good reason to walk by the women's table, his cell phone rang.

Everyone at the table looked at him when they heard the ring tone, and he didn't have a hand free to stop it.

"Eye of the Tiger?" River asked, raising an eyebrow.

With his arms filled with baby, Andrew could only roll his eyes.

"Get that for me Cass, will you?"

She smiled and picked his phone off the table and opened it.

"Hello?"

"Cassie?"

She frowned.

"Jack?"

"Yeah. Where's Andrew?"

"He's right here."

"Where's Ian?"

"He and Shawn went to pick up Shawn's birthday present with the boys, but they had to stop at the base for a minute. Have you already landed?"

"No. Not yet. What's going on at the base? Do you know?"

There was an odd tone in his voice that she picked up immediately.

"What do you mean?"

"The base is sealed."

"What?"

"Hunt sealed the base, and we don't know why."

"Call him and find out."

One didn't just order the President of the United States to do something, but she knew Jack long before he was the President. He would have been amused if the conversation wasn't so serious.

"The base is locked down, Cass," Jack repeated. "We can't call them. Shawn's there, too?"

"Along with the twins…" now she sounded concerned, and Jack was quick to reassure.

"There's no place safer than the SGC, Cass, you know that. I'm sure everything's fine."

OOOOOOOOOOO

Ian came to with a painful start. He tried to sit up, but found himself held down with someone's hand on his chest.

"Stay down for a minute, Colonel…"

He groaned, and looked around as well as he could considering it felt like every nerve was on fire. To his left Shawn was holding the twins, who were watching him with scared looks despite the fact that he could now hear Shawn trying to reassure them that he was going to be okay. Which was enough to make Ian force himself upright despite how badly he hurt. He beckoned for the boys and they rushed over to him, hurtling themselves into his arms, which hurt worse than he'd ever had admitted.

"We were so worried…" Michael murmured into his ear, his cheek pressed tightly against his. Ian could feel the boys trembling, and he hugged them both tightly.

"I'm okay, guys. Are you hurt?"

Shawn answered before either of the boys could.

"Carter broke his wrist, but we've-"

He trailed off when Ian pulled back, took Carter's hand in his. Not the hurt one, but since Shawn knew what he was doing, he knew that it didn't matter where he was holding the boy. Ian's eyes went distant for a moment, but almost immediately he shook his head and blinked.

"Better?" he asked Carter.

The boy looked surprised, but then he moved his wrist a little and nodded.

"Yeah."

"Good. Help me up."

It was Captain Matthews and Shawn who helped him to his feet, and even though he was leaning a little he was at least on his feet – which calmed the boys immensely.

"What do we have, Captain?"

"Guardian's up. We've got one intruder mowed down in the gate room – must have shocked the hell out of him when they out the blue started shooting at him when they hadn't seen him a minute before." She looked pleased at that, and Ian felt a moment of smugness himself. He'd come up with the program, after all – and he really didn't like the Ashrak. "We took out the two that hit you guys, and according to the control room, we have four more running loose on the base."

"And who knows how many might have gotten out…" one of the Marines said, looking concerned, too.

"They know," Ian said, looking around and deciding what weapons he wanted to take with him. "We need one alive so we can ask."

"Like they're going to tell…" Matthews snorted, reaching over and grabbing a flak vest for Ian.

"I don't need them to tell," Ian told her. "I just need to get hold of him