Wow! I don't know what's considered really good for a first story and only five chapters to boot, but I just have to say that I'm in awe of the 46 reviews I have at this point. And all are good! No flames!

I take it this means you guys and gals want more? ;D I certainly hope so because my Muse just went nuts at the glowing words of praise and frankly I couldn't write it fast enough. (That's not intended to be a hint, by the by, but I won't be offended if you take it as one. /bg/ )

And I'm so glad that last chapter didn't come out sounding implausible and stupid. I was afraid it was (even though my beta, Waves, said it wasn't, but she's my best friend so I expect her to lie a little to boost my ego, ya know?).

Anyway, onto the requisite legalese (a.k.a. disclaimer): Don't own SG-1 or any of the other people you recognize in here from the show.

One last reminder: if you want to see a specific bit of trouble the kids get into or cause then by all means just let me know in a review or e-mail. Not that I'm short on ideas, but I figure I'm not the only with them and you guys and gals probably have some pretty funny things floating around in your heads.

Okay, enough of my drivel, on to the story!

Acting One's Age
by Keaira
Chapter 6 – A Little Fall

Following the ducting around the room was easy enough and it took only a few short minutes to reach a three-way junction where the shaft they were in went to either side, one leading to Sam's escape route, the other leading away. They'd be exploring that shortly, but first it was necessary to rescue Sam. To that end Jack stopped at the junction and turned back to look at Danny, just able to see his face in the faint light coming from the vent into Sam's prison.

"Stay here, Danny," Jack ordered. "I'm gonna go get Sam and then we'll go find a better place to hide."

"I wanna help, Jack," Danny protested.

Jack shook his head. "It'll be too crowded. Just wait here for like five minutes and I'll be back with Sam."

"But-"

"No buts, Danny. I'm older so I'm in charge. Got it?"

Danny pouted, but he nodded. It was a familiar story even if he didn't particularly care for the general theme.

Once again Danny the Baby was being left behind.

Extending his legs to lay on his stomach, he folded his arms on the cool metal before him and rested his chin on his arms and sighed.

Jack took the nod and lack of further argument to indicate Danny's willingness to obey and turned to face forward again before moving off down the tunnel towards the air vent and Sam.

oOoo

"Psst!"

Sam paused in her scribbling to look around, but like with the small scratching and scraping noises she'd heard she saw nothing and no one that could have caused them. With a last glance to either side she went back to her work.

Scarcely had she put pencil to paper, though, when she heard it again.

"Psst!"

She looked up once more at the empty room before she heard her name being called in a loud whisper.

"Sam! Up here!"

She followed the direction of the sound as well as the directions given by the voice and found the source.

Jack's head was sticking out of a hole in the wall above the topmost shelf of the bookshelf that had been found to hold the meager variety of child-friendly books and toys that had been located on short notice.

She blinked in confusion as to how he'd gotten there until she realized the hole was a regular rectangle in shape and, a moment later, that it was an air vent.

"Cool," she said with a smile.

Jack smiled back and waved at her to come up. "Yeah. These things go everywhere! Come on!"

She looked down at the paper she'd been doodling and scribbling on and then back up at him.

"I wanna finish this. Hold on." She bent over the sheet and continued her scribbles.

"Sam!" Jack whined. "We don't have time to wait! That doctor lady's gonna be back soon and then we'll really be in trouble!"

"We're gonna be in trouble anyway for running away," she said matter-of-factly as she finished writing and began folding the paper up, creasing, flipping, and folding again.

"Sam," he growled but she just continued working.

"And her name is Doctor Fraiser and she's nice." The blonde girl didn't seem to notice the effect her words had.

Jack's scowl had only deepened. "She's a doctor, Sam," he said as if that was all that needed to be said to prove her evil nature.

"She gave me ice cream, Jack," Sam retorted, finally glancing up at him, her expression clearly stating that was all that needed to be said to prove her good nature.

Jack's jaw dropped open, the picture of betrayal.

"You got ice cream?" he demanded with all the righteous indignation a seven-year-old was capable of. She could have said she'd been made Queen of the World and gotten less of a reaction.

"Yup," Sam said, not at all concerned by Jack's anger. "And I only got three shots," she said, pausing to hold up the appropriate number of fingers.

Jack made a face of pure disgust.

Three needles were still three needles too many as far as he was concerned. Even if you did get ice cream for it.

Jack had heard enough.

Girl or not, familiar or not, he was out of here. He wasn't going to risk his own butt to save someone who had obviously been turned to the side of the bad guys. She could stay here with her doodles and her books and her toys for all he cared.

That was what he got for trying to help a girl, he told himself as the air vent echoed with Danny's latest sneezing fit. Danny needed to get out of the tunnels anyway or he'd give them away with his 'allerbees'.

"I'm outta here," Jack said, disgust thick in his voice.

"Wait! I'm coming!" she said and stood.

He stopped in his retreat and looked down at her. She paused a moment longer to securely tuck the folded piece of paper—which now resembled a flower—into her braid. Hurrying to the bookshelf she stopped to eye it warily.

"Are you sure this is safe?" she asked dubiously. She didn't doubt it was strong enough to hold books and toys, but they weighed considerably less than she did and they didn't move.

"Danny did it," Jack scoffed. "You can too." He wasn't sure he still wanted her along since she'd gotten ice cream, but he waited anyway, telling himself that if she was with them she couldn't tattle to the adults about their escape route.

Plus they'd be even now. She'd helped him and Danny escape from the infirmary and now he'd helped her escape. The debt was paid.

She studied the shelves for another moment before shrugging and reaching as high as she could for a handhold.

The going was painfully slow from Jack's point of view, but the shelves were as unstable as Sam had suspected and so he waited as patiently as possible.

Until the footsteps stopped outside the door that is.

"Hurry Sam!" he urged as he looked to the door. The footsteps had paused but he heard a soft murmur of voices indicating that someone was there. Whoever it was, they'd stopped to talk to the guard. Now if only they'd have a nice long chat, the two fugitives might make their escape.

Sam had also heard the noise and glanced over her shoulder. She looked back to Jack and reached for her next handhold, knowing that she'd best continue if this was to work.

The shelves had reached their limit, though, and when she heaved her upper body onto the top shelf that Jack had cleared her head jerked up, her blue eyes widening as she started to fall back with the whole bookcase.

Instinctively she reached for Jack's hand as he extended it and they managed a secure mutual grip just as the shelves went down.

She screamed, both from the terror of the situation and the pain from a sharp corner that caught her leg and ripped a jagged tear in her dress and the skin underneath it.

Her cry mixed with the crash of the shelves and filled the room with a cacophony of noise before everything fell silent.

oOoo

Danny waited at the junction as he'd been told, still sulking over having been left behind.

"It's not fair," he muttered as he drew pictures in the dust that coated the vents.

Idly he scratched out various shapes, seven in all and ending with an upside down 'V' with a circle over it. He looked at his work for a few moments and then swept it away with his hand, a cloud of dust rising and turning his impatient sigh into a series of sneezes.

He frowned as he wiped at his teary eyes, but that only made it worse since his hands were covered with dust. Maybe he should just leave and find a way out on his own, he thought. It couldn't be any harder than finding a way out of the tunnels in the pyramids and tombs back in Egypt could it?

His train of thought was derailed at that particular stop as he recalled how he'd just recently been given a brush of his own and with the help of his parents had staked out a spot for him to dig in to find his own artifacts and lost treasures. His eyes teared up again, but this time it had nothing to do with the dust.

He didn't know how he'd ended up in that other place or where Teal'c, Jack, and Sam had come from, but he knew with absolute certainty that it wasn't in Egypt on his parents' dig where he was supposed to be. Nor was this place, which was unlike any place he could remember, though it did seem oddly familiar somehow. He must have been here when he was really little and just couldn't remember it, he decided.

But that didn't explain where his parents were and why they hadn't come to find him yet.

It wasn't the first time he'd gotten lost by any means, but he had a feeling he was more lost than he'd been before.

Dad was gonna be mad. And Mom was gonna cry probably. He hated it when she cried. he never meant to make her cry, but it happened a lot.

Suddenly Danny felt very alone and very small and sniffed as the tears overflowed.

But thoughts of his mom reminded him of something she always said when they had to go away and couldn't take him.

"You are never alone, Danny. Never. Even if I'm not there and your father isn't there, you're still not alone. And if you ever feel like you are and it's hard to remember that you're not then I'll give you a hug."

"But how can you give me a hug if you're gone?" he'd asked.

"Because mothers have a special hug just for their sons when they're apart. I'll give it to you now and then whenever you're alone and I can't hug you, you just wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze as tight as you can and think of me and the hug will come back."

He'd never had occasion to try it since then but he figured now was as good a time as any to test the idea out.

Slowly he shifted to a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his chest just like his mom had shown him and squeezed as hard as he could while thinking of all the good things he loved about his mom.. After a few moments he did indeed feel better and he relaxed with a grin.

He couldn't wait to tell his mom when he got back that it worked!

His sudden joy was interrupted just then by a shrill scream that filled the tunnel and echoed in his head followed by a deafening crash.

Even as he slapped his hands to his ears he recognized the scream.

It was Sam and she sounded really scared.

He didn't even pause to think about whether or not Jack would like him disobeying. Sam needed help and he was close enough to help. He had to at least try.

With these noble thoughts in mind he crawled quickly down the shaft Jack had disappeared into just minutes before.

oOoo

Even as Sam was screaming Jack's other hand was reaching out to grip her wrist as his feet moved to brace him against the sides of the ventilation duct.

Leather moccasins, though, aren't really known for their traction against smooth steel and he started to slide forward as Sam's weight pulled on him.

She managed to bring her other hand up as well, but however secure their hold one each other's hands she was still able to see the wall inching past her nose as she continued to slip further from the safety of the vent.

She glanced down and saw that while the drop wasn't that far—it certainly wouldn't kill her and it probably wouldn't even break any bones—it was further than she wanted to fall now or ever unless she had something softer than a concrete floor and the treacherous mess of the bookshelf to land on.

Above her Jack grunted as he tried to stop his forward progress but it was to no avail.

Then a pair of small hands grabbed his ankles and started pulling.

He didn't move back into the ducting, but he stopped falling and Sam gasped as she felt the jerk that indicated they'd stopped.

"I got you, Jack!" Danny's voice echoed out of the vent behind him and Jack scowled even as he felt relief wash through him. Danny hadn't stayed put like Jack had told him to, but falling on his head wasn't exactly high on Jack's list of things he wanted to do that day.

It would only give the doctor lady more reason to poke at him.

This was only a temporary solution, though, so anger at Danny's disobedience would have to wait. As helpful as he'd been in stopping their descent, Danny couldn't hold him forever and Jack very much doubted Danny would be able to help pull him and Sam back up.

"Jack!" Sam's voice jerked him abruptly from his thoughts.

"What?"

"I'm slipping!"

Jack realized she was right and tightened his grip on her hands, but it wasn't enough.

She was going to fall.

He let go with one hand and stretched out to get a better grip on her wrist but the now one-sided support caused her to swing away and he missed. Her fingers then slipped from his as he grabbed at air with both hands.

Her scream was abruptly cut short as her fall was halted only inches from its start.

Cautiously she cracked open one eye and saw a black t-shirt. She opened the other as she felt herself being lifted and looked up to see it was Teal'c who had caught her. In the panic of her impending fall she hadn't even heard the adults open the door and enter the room, but apparently they had.

Jack was coming to the same conclusion at the same time and as soon as it clicked he started trying to push himself back into the vent.

"Danny! Move!" he yelled as he met Teal'c's gaze. Unfortunately faster than he could escape Teal'c was able to shift Sam to one arm and free a hand which promptly seized Jack's arm in a grip the boy knew he wouldn't be breaking this time. It didn't hurt, but it also wasn't about to yield to his attempts to free himself.

As one of the SFs who'd been guarding the door crossed the room to take Sam, Janet hurried on his heels, taking a spot on Teal'c other side and glaring up at Jack.

"You are in big trouble, Mister," she said as Teal'c pulled him from the vent and handed him off to another SF.

"Danny!" Jack called, meeting her gaze and refusing to back down. "Get outta here!" He just hoped Danny listened this time.

"Daniel Jackson, don't you dare go any deeper into those vents!" Fraiser ordered in her best commanding tone. To a five-year-old who knew he'd done wrong it sounded just like Mom and he couldn't have disobeyed if his life depended on it.

When there were no sounds of escape, Janet nodded. At least someone listened to her.

"Okay, Daniel," Janet said, toning down her voice a little, but still keeping that firm note of authority in it. "I want you to come out now."

She heard the sounds of him slowly crawling forward and felt herself start to relax, her voice softening further. "Teal'c will be right here to catch you when-" She was interrupted by the shuffling noise of a hasty retreat.

"Daniel, stop!" she ordered, her 'Mom' voice back in full force. The vent fell silent once more and she took a deep breath. Thank goodness Cassandra was well past this age.

"You need to come out, Daniel," she said, her tone brooking no argument.

Or so she thought. A defiant, "No!" was all the response she got.

She pursed her lips and counted to ten.

"You can't stay in there forever."

"I can too! I'm not coming out!"

"All right, Danny! You tell her!" Jack encouraged his partner in crime, earning him another of Janet's glares. He met this one as he had the last one and after a moment he escalated the staring contest by sticking his tongue out at her.

Her eyes narrowed and she took another deep breath as she turned back to the vent. She could worry about Jack's attitude later. Right now she needed to talk the last of her escapees back into custody.

"Daniel Jackson, come out here this instant," she commanded with as much authority as she could muster.

"Teal'c's out there!" was his response, causing more than a little confusion in the waiting crowd.

"Yes, he is," Janet said cautiously. She glanced at Teal'c but he gave her a look that she was pretty sure meant he didn't know what this was about either.

"Then I'm not coming out!"

Janet sighed in frustration as Jack rolled his eyes and gave his own exasperated sigh.

"Adults are so stupid sometimes," he said to no one in particular.

Janet half turned and shot him another glare. "And I suppose you have a better idea?" she asked acidly.

He simply gave her a insolent look and responded with an oh-so-eloquent, "Duh."

She crossed her arms over her chest and faced him fully. "Well then, Mr. Smarty-Pants. I'm all ears." She ignored Teal'c inquiring eyebrow. She'd explain later. In her experience, negotiations with children were delicate things and allowing anything to distract you could easily mean failure.

Jack opened his mouth to respond but abruptly snapped it shut. He had almost helped the adults catch Danny!

"Well?" she said when he remained silent, her brown arching in question.

"It's for me to know and you to not find out," he said.

"That's what I thought," she said airily and started to face the vent again. "You don't have an idea."

"I do too!" Jack insisted. "It's perfect too! But I'm not gonna tell you so you can catch Danny!"

She turned back and said simply, "You're idea is that good? Then prove it."

He stubbornly shut his mouth and glared at her and she returned it in full.

The standoff was broken by an unexpected revelation from Sam.

"Danny's scared of Teal'c!"

All eyes went to her and she blushed. "Sorry," she said to Jack who was giving her a murderous glare for her treachery. Janet and Teal'c as well as the SF's were just looking at her with curiosity.

"What do you mean, Sam?" Janet asked. "Why would he be afraid of Teal'c?"

She shut her mouth, unsure as to whether or not she should go on.

"Take him to the infirmary," Janet directed the Marine holding Jack, hoping the removal of the intense peer pressure from the boy would help convince Sam to talk and Danny to come out. "Tell Dr. Warner to begin the appropriate tests. I'll be there momentarily."

The Marine nodded and left, a squirming, protesting Jack firmly in his grip.

"I will not harm Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said when he was gone, but Sam shook her head, her mind made up. They were gonna catch Danny one way or another. They were in enough trouble as it was.

"He kicked you," she explained. "Now he thinks you're mad at him and you're huge. You could squash him like a bug."

A strangled whimper came from the vent and Janet rolled her eyes and dropped her hands to her sides.

"Oh for . . . Daniel-"

"And you keep calling him Daniel," Sam interrupted. "I told you already. It's Danny. When you call him Daniel he knows you're mad at him and you also want to give him a shot. Would you want to get a shot from someone who was mad at you?"

Taking a deep breath and wondering how a six-year-old was so wise, Janet forced herself to calm down.

"Danny?" she said in a much softer tone. "Teal'c's not going to hurt you."

"Indeed I will not," Teal'c affirmed.

"But I kicked you!" Danny protested.

"You did," Teal'c allowed with a nod. "But you did so in an attempt to aid a friend. With the knowledge you had at the time it likely seemed the best course of action. Your intentions were honorable. I do not fault you for that."

A soft sniffle came from the vent.

"So you're not mad?" Danny inquired timidly.

"I am not." There was a pause and then, "You have my word I will do you no harm."

Danny considered this. He couldn't say why but he felt it was okay to trust this Teal'c guy, even though he'd only known him for a few days. It felt like he'd known him far longer. But even with his instincts saying it was okay Danny wanted something a little more concrete.

"Will you pinky swear?"

Teal'c looked to Janet for an explanation.

"You lock pinky fingers like this," she said, demonstrating with her own hands, "and then you swear to do or not do whatever the promise is."

Teal'c inclined his head in gratitude and faced the vent once more.

"I will indeed 'pinky swear' that I will not harm you."

Danny's response was to shuffle slowly forward until his dusty, dirt-smudged, and tear-streaked face was just visible.

After a moment to meet Teal'c's serene gaze he cautiously extended a small hand, pinky finger extended.

Teal'c raised his own hand and wrapped his massive finger around Danny's, engulfing the tiny digit completely.

"You have my solemn oath, Daniel Jackson, that I will cause you no intentional harm and that I will endeavor to protect you from others who may wish to do so."

The pinky swearing process over, Danny edged forward until Teal'c could get a firm grip under his armpits and pull him out.

Janet released the breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding and then glanced at the two remaining children of SG-1.

Danny was as filthy as Jack had been from their adventure and Sam-

Sam was bleeding!

"What happened here?" Janet demanded as she quickly crossed to where she could lift the hem of Sam's skirt to reveal the sluggishly bleeding gash running from her knee to the middle of her calf as it wrapped around her leg.

Sam protested as Janet gently probed the wound, but the good doctor wasn't about to stop until she'd had a good look at the wound. She was relieved to see it wasn't deep and wouldn't require much more than a little antiseptic and maybe a band-aid or two.

Well, and a tetanus shot, she decided as she looked down at the toppled bookshelf. She'd seen Sam's fall and Jack's spectacular catch and was pretty sure the metal bookshelf was the culprit to blame for her injury. The wall hadn't done it after all and it hadn't been there when Janet had left before.

Looking up at Sam she repressed a sigh.

They were going to need more ice cream.

Thanks for the reviews and thanks for reading! Until next time . . .

"Sometimes I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe." - Anon
-Keaira