Apologies for the long delay - hopefully it won't be so long again.


Abby's eyes were wide as she regarded Thor, trying to make sense of his words. She looked at the two men flanking her, O'Neill seemed surprised and confused in equal parts, Gibbs closed his eyes briefly then his face went carefully blank. Abby frowned as she recognised from Gibbs' expression that he knew at least something of what the little grey alien was talking about. Angry and hurt, she was about to demand answers when a pod appeared in a flash of light. Jack and Thor were immediately at its side, while Gibbs and Abby waited, unsure of what was happening now. Relief was evident when the retracting cover revealed Sam, and the sight of her waking up had Abby choking back tears.

Sam scanned the room, recognising the steel grey of an Asgard ship, relaxed and pulled herself up, expecting to see Thor and possibly SG-1. First she encountered a pair of concerned brown eyes, and a reflexive smile crossed her face, before she frowned and queried, "Cassie?"

"Safe. You?"

"Fine."

He rolled his eyes at the predictable response, but she looked okay, especially now that she knew Cassie was OK. She nodded and smiled a greeting to Thor, but the next two faces to greet her had her blinking and rubbing her eyes to clear them, disbelieving her senses. They were still there however and she cocked an eyebrow at the General in query.

"Thor." That and a shrug was his ever so helpful response.

This exchange broke the spell that held Abby in thrall and she rushed forward to pull Sam into a desperate hug, as if only feeling her would make it real. Sam quickly reciprocated, whispering gentle reassurances into her ear. Catching Jethro's eye, she held out one hand to him, the other still wrapped around Abby. At her side in an instant, he took her hand in a firm grip, his other hand going automatically to Abby's hair, soothing and reassuring her.

The quiet trio were only pulled back to reality by Jack's uneasy shuffling. He was beginning to get an idea of what Thor's comment had meant and he wasn't sure quite what to make of things. So he fell back on his usual defence mechanism.

"Well I guess we had better get our stories straight, because, ya know, the old 'abducted by an alien' story is not going to fly with NCIS."

A teary chuckle from Abby and a brilliant smile from Carter answered him. He grinned to himself, yup, he still had it.

"On a more serious note, we also need to have a word about non disclosure of everything you have seen."

Gibbs nodded. He recognised classified when he saw it, and this had to be classified into the stratosphere.

"We'll sign whatever we need to back at the base."

"Okay then. Next up then, I am guessing we can't just 'beam' back into your lab, our disappearance has probably already been noticed."

"Yeah."

Abby broke in, her brain slowly getting back into gear again after the rollercoaster of emotion.

"You guys were about to go to the warehouse when we .." an arm wave filled in the gap when words failed "and the plans were up on the screen."

"So anyone would assume we were heading there." Gibbs picked up her line of thought quickly.

"So Thor can send us to the warehouse where we can 'find' Carter and take her home." O'Neill wasn't a slouch in that department either.

"Where would you like me to transport the prisoners, O'Neill?"

The mild query from Thor had everyone staring at him in shock.

"Prisoners? What prisoners? You have the men who did this?"

"They were beamed into a secure room."

"They haven't seen anything?"

"No, they have had no contact with anyone or anything on the ship."

"Okay, I guess..," he looked at Gibbs and Carter for confirmation, then continued, "beam them down after us and we will arrest them on the ground."

Nods of agreement followed and everybody was preparing to 'beam' down when Abby held up both hands and stated firmly.

"Now, just hold on one minute here. I am glad that is all sorted out, and I am very glad that Sam is fine, and all this is very exciting and I am sure I will have like a million questions that I will wish I had asked about how everything on your ship works. And I know the team will be wondering where we disappeared to, well maybe not Gibbs so much, because he appears and disappears a bit like magic anyway, maybe you can explain to me how he does that because you seem to know so much about everything, but before I go anywhere I want to know what you meant about my mother."