While Doctor Janet Frasier worked on fixing Alan's arm, Virgil worked on fixing HEMERA. He parked himself in the infirmary with his set of microtools and his watch still displaying Alan's vitals, and refused to move from the spot util his little brother was out of surgery. No one tried to make him move.

They knew they wouldn't have been able to.

In the meantime, he very carefully cleaned the arm guard of blood and checked over the complicated circuitry and machinery. The chip with the coding hadn't been damaged at all, thankfully, and the machine itself only needed a few replacement parts. Carter was very willing to provide those parts.

The General had been a little gobsmacked to find that it had been the two world travelers that had essentially save the SGC. That it had been the younger one, the teenager, that had decided to feed a Replicator the code that had destroyed the things. He'd pretty much ordered SG1 to help the two in any way they possibly could that wouldn't be a detriment to the SGC itself.

Carter had even given in when Virgil had asked for one or two of the Replicator bodies while he was working on HEMERA. When asked why, he had simply shrugged and started pulling the machines apart. "You said they had self-healing capabilities, right?" he asked.

"Yes," Carter answered slowly, giving a bit of a frown. "There's something about them that allows the metal to heal itself. Or rebuild itself or something. At first, we thought it had to do with naquadah, but we've never had the opportunity to really study them before so." She shrugged, tapping her fingers against the small table Virgil had commandeered for his work. "We have plenty to study now, though."

"I have no idea what naquadah is," Virgil responded a little absently. "Nor do I care." He started piecing bits of metal together, forming an extra layer of armored protection for the machine. It looked almost like scales. "But this is our only way home and I promised Allie that we would get home. And while I know we could possibly rebuild HEMERA if we really had to, I can't guarantee that any of the other worlds will have the materials needed for that. Add protection is always a good thing, and if that protection can heal itself, that's even better." He glanced up, brown eyes big and earnest. "I promised Allie we would get home, and I'm not willing to break that promise."

"But the part that made it self-healing is dead," Carter pointed out, biting her lip at the desperation in that final sentence. Still, there were certain realities that she needed to point out, just to be sure. She'd never seen the Replicators go down like they had from that code. Whatever virus Alan had fed them, well, it was a vicious one and she wanted a copy of it. Or something like it. She knew it was wishful thinking to hope that that single code had wiped out all the Replicators in the galaxy, after all.

"If HEMERA becomes what we think she's capable of becoming, she'll be able to revive that part hopefully," Virgil murmured.

"You're not afraid that the Replicator programming would come back online and overcome her?" Carter asked hesitantly.

Virgil paused for a moment, heaving a sigh. He tapped at the five green lights on the guard. "I'm hoping that any Replicator programming will be completely defunct, but if not, then our being in a different world will mean it's cut off from the rest of the Hive and will probably succumb to HEMERA anyway."

"Give it at least another two days or so before you decide to jump worlds," Doctor Frasier said with a smile as she entered the little waiting area they had set up for Virgil to work in. He looked up, opening his mouth to ask, but she waved him off. "Alan came through just fine. He's sleeping off the anesthetics right now and you can join him in a moment."

"And his arm?" Virgil asked, because he knew enough about medicine to recognize bad injuries. And an impalement to a forearm was anything but good. There was the risk of nerve damage—and Alan needed his arms and hands to be able to fly. And Alan not flying was something that he didn't think the kid had ever considered. It would be devastating.

"The spike nicked his radial artery, which caused some bleeding issues, but we got all of that under control," Janet said honestly. She didn't really believe in sugar coating issues, especially when she'd been told that Virgil was practically an ER doctor in a mechanic's disguise. "As far as we know, it missed most major nerves. He may experience some tingling in his fingers, but it should clear up within a few weeks. Mostly, it was just muscle damage and should heal completely with time, failing any issues with infection."

Virgil gave a sigh of relief, sitting back in his chair and relaxing for the first time in hours. "Thank you," he said softly, running a bandaged hand down his face. His own cuts and scrapes had been cleaned up by a couple of the nurses hours ago, so he was perfectly content to just wait for Alan to get better.

And they did.

HEMERA's final light glowed that faint green later that evening, a few hours after Alan had woken up. But they ignored it, setting the now extra-armored piece aside for the time being so that Alan could heal up just a little bit more. The young blond instead started talking Carter and Daniel through his coding, while Virgil checked HEMERA for any weak spots in the scaled armor plating.

Carter was interested in getting her hands on a copy of the hive mind destruction code. Nothing else was deemed as important to her, despite her earlier wants for other kinds of code. Daniel was looking at the possibility of his own learning language code—knowing full well that there was a possibility it could go sentient on them. All of the linguistics department had declared themselves ready to baby such a code if needed. And General Hammond was very willing to barter for those codes.

The pros far outweighed the cons in these cases.

The General had finally deemed it necessary to meet the two boys that had save the SGC and—in theory—the world from the Replicators. They'd mostly just waved him off, saying that they really didn't need anything, because they were already pretty ready to go traveling through the worlds. Their not-father from the previous world had gotten them rather well situated. Hammond had stared at them thoughtfully and then shrugged, handing over two embordered SGC patches, to remember them by he said. He then ordered them to let him know if there was anything else they needed before they left.

Virgil didn't let Alan ask for a trip through the Stargate. They were, however, allowed to watch it dial up and connect to another 'Gate galaxies away. And that was a sight they would never forget.

There was something extremely beautiful and mesmerizing about the 'Gate's event horizon. Virgil committed it to memory, promising himself he would paint that scene—specifically the part where it went ka-whooshing out of the ring—as soon as he got home.

It took two days for Carter to have her destroyer code and for Daniel to have the beginnings of a learning code that Alan called HERMES just to keep with the theme. Virgil had also built them a few rudimentary bio-readers as well as a primitive hologram machine (the existing tech just wasn't capable of doing what he needed it to do to be more than just primitive). But by then, rumors were beginning to circulate about the NID getting word of what was happening at the SGC. And Hammond and SG1 decided it was time for the boys to go.

Janet wasn't very happy with that decision, of course, considering Alan's arm was being held together by a bunch of stiches, and Virgil's cast was looking a little ragged (complete with its drawings from their other-family and SG1). But she had loaded them up with more antibiotics and pain killers in addition to what they already had in their kits, and given them a long, strict set of instructions. She understood that they needed to leave.

And so, dressed back in their uniforms, baldrics in place, and HERMERA carefully latched over Alan's bandaged arm, the two shouldered their duffle bags and took their place on the ramp in front of the Stargate. "Thanks for letting us drop by," Alan said with a snicker.

"Thanks for dropping in," Jack grinned back, liking the snark.

"Good luck boys," Hammond said solemnly. "I pray you get to where you're meant to be."

"Stay safe," Carter commanded, arms folded across her chest. She was not happy with sending them on yet, and it was obvious. And it had more to do than just tech-talk, too. Daniel placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling warmly at the two Tracy boys and giving them a nod.

"FAB," the two intoned, giving sloppy salutes, as was the practice in their family.

And then Alan flipped a small switch on HEMERA and they disappeared in a swirl of color.