AN: Keep the reviews coming! SG-1 fan - good catch! ;) That's what happens when you rework a scene. Anyhow, I fixed it up. Thanks!

Chapter Twelve

It was just over forty minutes later when the alarms started sounding. I was working on my fifth bowl of Fruit Loops, which I couldn't eat in front of Carter without having to explain to her why I wasn't giving her anymore sugar, when I heard the sirens. I dropped my spoon in my bowl and headed to the control room to see what had gone wrong. I was hoping it wasn't something that Carter would be required to fix.

I met General Hammond on the stairs and he directed me to follow him to the gate room. We walked into the gate room and stopped short. There were somewhere around a hundred Asgard crowded into every available space. I glanced at General Hammond and wondered how I was ever going to pick Thor out of them all. But then I realized that Thor was the one who looked angry, and yes, he can look angry. The rest of them all just seemed baffled.

Carter, of course, was in the center. She was sprawled on the floor with what appeared to be control crystals in her hands. Actually, they appeared to be broken control crystals.

Sergeant Harriman's voice carried over the intercom. "General Hammond, Major Davis from the Pentagon is on the phone."

Hammond looked at me. "Find out what happened." Then he abandoned me.

I looked at Thor. "Thor! Buddy! I didn't know you were bringing friends over!"

Thor, for once, didn't blink. "Major Carter has destroyed our ship."

"What?" Yeah, I'd heard about the house, but that was wood and decidedly human construction. An Asgard ship was another matter entirely. "You mean like it's broken and needs repairs, right?"

Just like in my earlier conversation with Jacob, Thor continued. "Major Carter has destroyed our ship. The vessel was lost."

Carter noticed me and ran over to hug me. She held up a broken red crystal. "I brought this for you!" Then she tugged on my hand and motioned for me to pick her up.

Taken in by her, I ignored Thor for the moment. "Did you have fun with the space aliens?"

Carter nodded happily. "But Thor got mad."

I glanced back at Thor. "I don't think she meant to do it."

"We have never experienced defeat at the hands of a primitive race." If I was reading him right, he was mortified.

"Well, it's not really defeat, Thor. It's more like poor construction." I set Carter down, feeling better equipped to negotiate without holding a baby. "You really need to child-proof ships before you take on children."

"Uh, Jack?"

I turned around to see an amazed Daniel in the doorway. "Danny, come say hi. I think we've pissed off our friends."

"Jack, Hammond just told me that radar reports picked up an Asgard ship crashing into the Atlantic. Several visual confirmations as well." He turned to Thor. "What happened? Goa'uld? Replicators?"

Thor didn't answer. So I did. "Nothing so dramatic, Daniel. It was just Carter."

Daniel pushed up his glasses and made that face he always makes when he doesn't believe me. "Sam disabled an Asgard ship?"

I held up the crystal she'd given me, making certain I didn't cut myself on the jagged edges. "Something tells me it has to do with this."

Daniel took it from me and examined it closely. "What is it?"

Carter reached up and snatched it out of his hands, somehow not cutting herself in the process. "It's for Jack!" I took it back from her and stuck it in my pocket, fearing her luck with not cutting herself wasn't going to last.

Daniel backed up. "I'll go tell the General. The Pentagon apparently feared we were under attack."

I noticed Thor was glaring at me. "Look, Thor, I think overconfidence was your undoing here. I did try to warn you about Carter, but you said you could handle her."

"I must contact the Asgard fleet and request a rescue." Thor began walking toward the control room.

I followed him. "Do you really need to call it a rescue? She didn't do it on purpose."

"She insisted on trying to remove the crystal after I told her of its importance to the function of the ship."

"Thor, she's just a kid. She doesn't understand." I knew it was probably a bad time, but I got the impression Thor was putting on a show for the audience. I didn't think he was really that angry. "Did you have any luck with Carter's medical condition before the ship crashed?"

"Unfortunately, because Major Carter ran away immediately upon arrival on our ship and evaded capture for some time, we were unable to perform any analysis on her. She will not be welcome aboard another Asgard ship until she has matured."

Ok, so he really was mad. "Please, Thor? You've got to help her. If she can do that kind of damage to your ship, imagine what she can do here!" Almost as an afterthought, I turned around to check on Carter. She wasn't behind me. I turned around and returned to where I'd seen her last. "Sam?" She wasn't in sight. "Sam, where are you?"

I looked up to see Jacob in the control room. He was shaking his head. I couldn't tell whether he was disappointed that I'd lost his daughter and let her crash an Asgard ship or if he was as thoroughly amused at my ineptitude as I would have been in his place. I looked around the room crowded with little gray bodies. Then I threw my hands up in defeat.

The room plunged into utter darkness. I waited a beat for the emergency lighting, but it never came up. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach told me exactly who had caused it. "Damn it, Carter!" I heard laughter, but I couldn't tell who it was. I couldn't even be mad. I deserved it.

Within minutes, the entire staff of Cheyenne Mountain was running around with flashlights. People were assigned to work on the emergency lighting. Others were working on the rest of the power. Everyone else, including some of the displaced Asgard, was looking for Carter. I knew it would have been hard enough finding her with the lights on; it was impossible with flashlights. I gave up looking and waited in the control room. I noticed Jacob had done the same thing.

He shined his flashlight on me, temporarily blinding me. "Aren't you worried about finding Sam?"

I shook my head. "We're here to prevent her from doing any more damage." Without access to the computers that controlled the gate, Carter's mischief was limited, especially since I was sure she hadn't escaped the base entirely. She was simply too cute for none of the guards on the surface to have noticed her. "She'll find me when she wants to." I was counting on being able to hear her wail when she got tired of hiding. I was also thinking she wouldn't think it was so much fun if I wasn't looking for her.

Two hours later, we were sitting around the conference table. Carter was nowhere on base, at least not according to the airmen who'd conducted an extensive search of the base top to bottom as soon as they'd rigged the power back up - someone had managed to realign the wires in the gate room until it caused an overload and took out the entire system.

Jacob was accusing Thor of kidnapping. Selmac had already mentioned my inattentiveness. General Hammond was blaming Thor for having so many Asgard in the gate room to conceal Carter. Daniel was blaming himself for not realizing that she hadn't followed me when I'd followed Thor. I was reserving judgment, certain that either myself or Carter was entirely to blame, depending respectively on whether she was injured or not.

Normally, I would have joined in the loud debate that was going on around me. Instead, I followed Teal'c's example, leaning back in my chair, crossing my arms, and waiting for a decision to be made. Hammond was trying to convince Thor to try scanning Carter again, once another Asgard vessel was available, with my help to keep Carter from causing trouble. Thor was pointing out that it was not necessary to make such arrangements as Carter was missing and might never be located. The thought was scarier than I wanted to admit.

I unfolded my arms and dug in my pocket where I'd stowed the broken Asgard control crystal. I twirled it around in my hands, thinking about how Carter had gone to such trouble to bring it back to me. It made me smile, even after I sliced open my hand with it - the hand that Carter hadn't bitten through. I excused myself to go get the cut attended to.

As I stood, my eyes fell on the gate, as they always did whenever I had a moment. I usually paused for a second to marvel at just how spectacular it truly was. But it was even more spectacular at that instant.

"Colonel, I thought you were going to the infirmary." General Hammond seemed concerned, but I was fairly certain it was only to spare him from a philosophical debate with Thor over getting Carter medical treatment.

"I was, sir." I inclined my head toward the glass window. "But I thought maybe you'd appreciate my help getting Carter down."

Everyone turned to look at me. I pointed at Carter who had somehow scaled the Stargate and was, for the moment, perched on top of it.