"Don't forget..."

Jack stopped what he'd started to say, realizing that even as he'd begun saying it, he'd felt an all too familiar sensation as the technology of the Asgards caught him up and transported him elsewhere.

"... to stay in the elevator." He looked around, completely unable to believe what had just happened. And whom it'd happened in front of.

"Shit!"

He didn't see any sign of Thor, who was usually the one that liked to beam him up. The other Asgards tended to come through the Gate.

"Thor!" He stepped to the window-like surface, which Sam had once told him was a forcefield something or the other, and looked down to make sure he was, actually, in orbit above the Earth. Sure enough, there it was.

"Thor!" He had to get back to the surface. Shawn must be going nuts. How was he going to explain this one? Jack felt his temper rising quickly. Bad enough he beamed him up, but to not even be here to meet him and beam his ass back? "THOR!"

"Greeting, Colonel O'Neill." The little alien's calm voice coming from behind him all of the sudden did nothing to ease Jack's anger, but he did try to control it enough to sound civil. He even took a deep breath before he turned around. Thor was standing behind him, having just entered the bridge from the far corridor.

"Thor! You and I really need to talk about this beaming me up whenever the idea hits you."

"The idea did not 'hit me', Colonel O'Neill." The Asgard Commander walked over to sit in his command chair. "I merely had the sensors set to 'beam' you up when they showed you to be on your base and in a relatively confined area."

"Oh, I was in a confined area, all right! I was in the freaking elevator with a nine year old!"

"A nine year old what?"

"What?"

"You were with a nine year old what?"

"A kid! A nine year old kid who absolutely HAS to be wondering where the hell I am, since he was looking right at me when I DISAPPEARED!"

"That is unfortunate."

"Oh, yeah, you might say that."

"I was not aware you allowed your children access to your base."

"We don't, normally. This was an exception to the rule." Jack made an impatient sound. "It doesn't matter! What matters is that he's probably going nuts down there, and I'm up here. Fix it!"

Thor looked at O'Neill calmly for a moment, and then nodded, and there was a flash of light, and Shawn suddenly appeared next to Jack.

"...were on the elevato..." Shawn stopped what was obviously an explanation of what had happened, and looked at Jack, who he was facing when he materialized.

"Jack! What ha-"Shawn had turned to see where he was and saw the Asgard sitting in his chair. "Aaaaaaaaa!"

"ARE YOU NUTS?"

Shawn flinched, but he realized almost immediately that Jack wasn't yelling at him. He was facing the... the... whatever it was. Jack caught the flinch out of the corner of his eye, and reached out to pull Shawn against his side, still glaring at Thor.

"That wasn't what I had in mind!"

"You did not tell me what you had in mind, O'Neill." Thor told him.

"It talks!" Shawn clapped his hand over his mouth, wide-eyed as he stared at Thor. He'd almost convinced himself it was a moving stuffed animal, like the ones on the Disney Land rides, until Thor had spoken up.

Jack looked down at him, and groaned. Why did this stuff always happen to him? He should have been a shoe salesman.

"Yes, it talks." Gathering his temper as closely as he could, since he'd already startled Shawn once and wasn't going to add to what was already probably the weirdest day the boy had ever had in his life, Jack sighed. "This is Thor. Thor, this is Shawn."

"Greetings, Shawn." Thor bowed his head slightly.

Shawn looked up at Jack, questions in his eyes, but Jack had an arm around him, now, and the boy was feeling a little steadier than he had moments before when he'd been walking down the hall with Sam, starting to tell her what had happened. Jack shrugged, and nodded, and Shawn looked back at the Asgard.

"Um... hello."

Jack could feel Shawn trembling against his side, and he held him close. "It's okay, Shawn. He's a friend."

"Wh-what is he?"

"I am of the race known as the Asgard," Thor told him, answering before Jack could even decide what to tell the boy. "We are an ancie-"

"Ass-guard?"

"Azz-gard," Jack corrected, smiling for the first time.

"Correct."

"You're a Martian?" He did kind of look like something they showed on TV every now and then.

"That would incorrectly infer that I am from the planet Mars. I am not."

"But-"

"Shawn, he's from some galaxy far far away." Jack didn't know exactly what it was called, but it didn't matter. He was still trying to figure out what to do next. At least the boy wasn't shaking quite so hard now, although he was pretty pale. Enough so that Jack was worried about him.

"Indeed, I am." Thor, too, saw how pale the boy was, and even though he had no experience with young humans, he was sure it wasn't a good sign when they trembled and looked so wild-eyed.

"But he's in our galaxy right now," Jack said, figuring he might as well cut to the chase. "And I'm kind of wondering why?"

"We need your help, Colonel O'Neill."