"Busy?"

Sam looked up from her notes and shook her head.

"Not too busy for you." She smiled when Jaffer stuck his nose into her hand in greeting, and she rubbed his ears. "Or for you."

Jack walked into the lab, and leaned against the huge table that was literally covered with all sorts of doodads and doohickeys that were whirring and buzzing, blinking and beeping, but his attention was completely on her just then.

She was in her 25th week, now – by his reckoning, and Doctor Sawyer's – and was definitely beginning to show. And even though she often lamented the disappearing waistline, Jack couldn't remember her ever looking better or lovelier. And he made sure she knew it. Constantly.

Sam looked up from Jaffer and saw him watching her, and her smile softened.

"What's up?" She asked. "Or did you just come to say hi?"

He frequently stopped in to say hi. But not this time.

"Guess who just called me."

"Shawn."

He couldn't help but look impressed.

"How did you know that?"

"I'm psychic."

Jack snorted, giving Sam a look that plainly said she'd better tell him or he was going to annoy her until she did. And she relented.

"He called here, first, and I'm the one that transferred him to you."

"Ah."

"Is he all right?"

She knew as well as Jack did, after all, that Shawn usually called them at home in the evenings when he wanted to talk.

"He's worried about Ian."

"Ian?"

"The black-haired kid that stayed at our house…"

Sam smiled.

"I know who he is, smart ass. What's wrong with him?"

Jack grinned, enjoying every chance he got to tease her.

"He's short-tempered, and seems distracted."

Sam waited for him to continue, but Jack smiled wryly, telling her without words that he didn't have anything to add.

"That's it?"

Jack shrugged.

"That's all Shawn mentioned. That and that he's heard him speaking Goa'uld a few times."

"Which he probably picked up from Bra'tac last month."

Jack nodded.

"That's what I told Shawn."

"And is he still worried?"

"He hadn't thought about Ian learning from Bra'tac," Jack told her, shrugging, "But I told him we might try and find a reason to stop by and make sure everything is okay."

"You mean visit," she corrected him, smiling. "Otherwise, Ian might think we're checking up on him."

"Exactly."

"I'm not doing anything tomorrow that I can't postpone – if you can come up with a reason to visit."

"I'll think of something," he promised.

"Good." She took one of her smaller devices away from him – he'd picked it up off the table while they were talking and was bouncing it in his hand without really noticing what he was doing. "I'll see you later."

"Kicking me out already?"

"Unless you want to stick around and help me test the conductivity of the new metronomer cable I'm trying to develop?"

Jack shrugged – even though he didn't have a clue what she was talking about – and she knew it.

"I'd love to stick around and help you play with your… cable thingies… but I have paperwork to do."

She smiled and shooed him away, and Jack left, with Jaffer right beside him. He didn't want to test the conductivity of her cable, either.

OOOOOOOO

"Class dismissed," Captain Bruce Patrick announced. Before the class of twenty-two students could rise to their feet, however, he spoke up once more. "Cadet Brooks? A word, please."

Ian scowled and remained in his seat as he waited for the others to file out. Had it been a normal class of regular students, there would have been a lot of good-natured bantering towards a student who was called on to remain behind for a word with the teacher. Of course, the Air Force academy wasn't a regular place, and the students were not ordinary. They knew better than to tease Ian in front of the Captain – and most of them knew better than to tease him, period – even though all of them were older than he was, and many of them were only a few months from graduating. Brooks' reputation preceded him.

When the class had left, Ian stood up and walked towards the front of the room, leaving his stuff on the desk behind him, and Patrick leaned against his desk, watching him for a long moment. Ian didn't say a word, waiting to hear what he had done wrong. It didn't take long.

"Mr. Brooks," Captain Patrick said, softly. "You know I pulled several strings to allow you into this class…"

"Yes, Sir," Ian said, nodding. "And I appreciate it."

He did, too. The advanced Engineering class was almost exclusively reserved for upperclassmen. Ian was the only freshman in it, and had – in the month since he'd been back to the school after being injured during Thanksgiving break – managed to catch up on the work he'd missed from the first half of the class.

"Then I would appreciate it if you wouldn't doodle during my lectures."

Ian had the grace to look embarrassed. He hadn't actually intended to be disrespectful – he almost liked Captain Patrick, and definitely didn't have any reason to make him mad – he'd just had the paper in front of him, and had been working on a problem that had been in his head for a few days, now. Definitely a result of the learning device that the Ancients had tricked him into sticking his head into.

"I'm sorry, Sir."

"May I see what you were doing?"

Ian hesitated, but the request wasn't really a request. It was an order, thinly veiled as request. Patrick wanted to know what had distracted Ian enough that he wasn't paying attention in the class he'd worked so hard to get him into.

"Yes, Sir."

Ian turned and went back to his desk, pulled the drawing out of the notebook, and brought it to the Captain, who took it and looked down at it. It was an incredibly detailed and complicated drawing of what looked to the Captain like some kind of engine of some sort – but nothing he'd ever seen before.

"What is this?"

Ian shrugged.

"It's just a design I've been thinking about for a while…"

"Is it an engine?"

The Captain was an engineer, after all – and one of the best in the United States. Good enough that Samantha Carter had tried long ago to lure him away from teaching at the Air Force academy to work with her – although he'd declined. He liked teaching.

Ian nodded.

"It's not done, though, and I'm not sure what it'll run on… if anything."

Captain Patrick looked back down at the paper, shaking his head. It was impressive.

"In the future, Cadet, I'd appreciate it if you would keep your extracurricular studies out of my classroom."

"Yes, Sir."

Patrick handed the drawing back to Ian.

"If you find yourself needing another perspective on this thing, feel free to bring it to me. I'd be happy to give you whatever help I can."

Surprised, and unable to hide it, Ian gave the Captain a very rare smile as he took his paper back.

"Thank you, Sir." He might even take him up on it – if he had any idea what it was he was trying to draw.

"Dismissed, Cadet."

"Yes, Sir."