It was O'Neill who rescued Thor from the endless questioning, even though he didn't know it. The doors to the bridge opened and he walked in, carrying a half-empty bottle of water, with a couple more stuffed into his pockets, and a carton of ice cream in the other hand.

"Thor?"

The small alien turned away from the boy almost gladly, and looked at O'Neill.

"Do you have any spoons?"

He held up the carton of ice cream.

"Is that ice cream, Jack?" Shawn asked, leaving Thor's side, and walking over.

"Yup. Rocky Road. Want some?"

"Yes." He remembered his manners. "Please."

"We need spoons."

Thor got up from his Command chair and walked to the side of the bridge and pressed a button gently. A drawer of sorts opened, and he closed it, then opened it again, obviously showing them how the mechanism worked.

"In the 5th door down from the exit you just entered through, you will find a number of drawers like these. Just look through them until you find what you need."

Thor wasn't positive what spoons were, but he'd figured they needed something to eat with, and if that's what it took to get a few minutes of respite from the boy, then O'Neill and Shawn could have all his spoons.

"Thanks." O'Neill held out a bottle of water. "You want some?"

"Thank you, no."

"Carter?"

"Yes, Sir. Thanks." She gave him a warm smile as he handed her the bottle. One he returned.

"Shawn and I'll be looking for spoons, if you need us, call."

"We will be fine," Thor said, returning to his chair.

Sam thought she detected a bit of relief in his voice, but she only smiled.

~*~

"So, Thor's not the only Ass-guard?"

"Azz-gard," Jack corrected, opening the 5th door down. "No, he's not. There's a lot of them, I think. I've only met a few."

He stopped, looking at the room. There had to have been a hundred of those mechanisms Thor had shown them. Shawn obviously came up with the same conclusion, because he looked up at Jack.

"The ice cream will melt before we find some spoons."

"Yeah, well... we'll split up. You take that side; I'll take this one. Just look for spoons. If you see something... alien... don't touch it, okay? It might be dangerous."

"Okay, Jack."

They began opening drawers.

There were all sorts of interesting things in the drawers. Even Jack, who'd already told Shawn not to play with anything he saw, found it hard not to pull things from the drawers and examine them. Instruments of all shapes and sizes, crystal thingies, little round thingies, long, thin thingies, some made glass, some made of metal of some sort, all of it interesting. Jack was examining a piece of metal that looked like one of those crazy straws that kids used, when Shawn called his name.

"Jack?"

O'Neill turned and saw the boy holding up a flat piece of plastic that was about the right size to be a spoon – used as a spoon, anyways – which also had a slight curve at the end.

"Looks right to me," Jack said, putting his silly straw looking thing away and walking over. "Is there more than one?"

"The drawer is full of them." Shawn held up another one. "What do you suppose they are?"

"For all I know, they're shoehorns," Jack said, reaching into the drawer and taking one.

"Thor doesn't wear shoes."

"Well, then, he won't mind if we use them for spoons, will he?"

Shawn smiled, and closed the drawer. "I suppose not."

O'Neill opened the carton of ice cream, and looked around for something to sit on, but there wasn't anything. He wondered if the Asgards just all sat around on the floor, or if there was some mechanism that brought chairs out from the wall or the floor. Ah, well, they could sit on the floor.

"Shawn, we need to talk."

He led the boy over to the far wall, and sat down, leaning his back against the cool surface. Shawn sat next to him, and Jack opened the ice cream and scooped some out with his shoehorn thing. It was a bit bigger than a spoon, but it worked fairly well. He handed the carton to Shawn, and watched as the boy took a scoop for himself, although Shawn was watching Jack. O'Neill took a bite of his ice cream, trying to gather his thoughts.

"This is probably pretty strange to you, huh?"

Shawn nodded. "How come I never heard about the Ass-guards before?"

"Azz-guards," Jack corrected. Again. "They're kind of a secret, Shawn. They've been around a long time, but they don't want everyone to know about them, so they hide."

"Why?"

"Well... they have a lot of... um... advanced stuff. Like this ship we're on. The US doesn't have anything like this, you know?"

He nodded.

"If the people of the US – or China, or Russia, or Japan, or anywhere – knew that there were aliens flying around in space in these kinds of ships, they'd probably be afraid. You know how they show aliens on TV and in the movies. Laser beams coming out of their eyes, death ray guns, rounding up people to eat them... People would be afraid of that kind of stuff happening on Earth."

"Thor seems nice."

"Thor and his race are great, Shawn. They've pulled my che – they've helped us out of some serious jams a few times, and we owe them big time for it."

"Is that why you're helping him with these Pe'lonians?"

"It's Pal'oialans," Jack corrected – incorrectly. "And that's a big part of it, yes. But we can talk about that later. Right now, I want to discuss the Asgard."

"Okay."

"They're a very peaceful race of folks, Shawn. But they have some weapons that could do a lot of damage to a lot of people, and they don't want those weapons to get into the wrong hands."

"Like when I found your gun?"

"Exactly!" Jack couldn't have come up with a better analogy himself. "You had a powerful weapon in your hand, and didn't have a clue how dangerous it really was. I knew, because it was mine, which is why I took it away from you before you could hurt yourself with it."

"Or someone else."

"Or someone else, yes." Jack licked the last of the ice cream off his shoehorn spoon and scooped out another glob. "Now, say someone in another country... Canada, for instance, finds out about the Asgard."

"Canada?"

"Yeah. Say they find out about the Asgard, and find out the Asgard have all these powerful weapons. Weapons never seen on Earth before. Chances are, they'd want some. And they'd keep making a fuss until they got what they wanted."

"Like how I got you to let me come with you?"

"Yeah." Another good analogy. "So, say the Canadians get this weapon – somehow. Then they'd have a weapon in their hands that they didn't know how to use or how much damage it could do."

"Like your gun."

"Only a LOT worse."

"Oh."

"So, we keep the fact that we know about the Asgard a secret. That way no one panics, and no one tries to get hold of any of their technology."

"Oh."

"Do you understand what I'm telling you, Shawn?"

"Yeah. You keep the Ass-Asgard a secret because it's better for them to be a secret than be out in the open. Safer, too, I suppose..."

"Much safer."

"Who all knows about them?"

"The President. Some people in the military, like me, Sam and Teal'c. A few civilians, like Daniel. Some-"

"Is that why Cheyenne Mountain is such a secret place, Jack?" Shawn asked. "Because the Ass-guards come and talk to you there?"

"That's part of it, Shawn," Jack agreed. "Although sometimes they just beam us up, like Thor did."

"That was pretty scary."

"I know. I'm sorry. He wasn't supposed to do it when you were with mean, and I know he didn't mean to scare you. He's a pretty good guy when you get to know him."

Shawn nodded.

"They're a secret, though."

"And I can't tell anyone, right?"

"Nobody. Not even your mom and dad."

"Okay, Jack."

It was only fair. Jack had never told his folks about the incident with his gun. Shawn could keep Jack's secret just as easily.

O'Neill nodded. He wasn't certain if Hammond had something else in mind to keep Shawn from spilling the beans about the Asgard, but Jack had done all he could.