Sam found Ian in the first place she'd looked when she went hunting for him about half an hour later. Not surprisingly, she also found Shawn and Andrew with him. What she wasn't ready for was to find him holding Jake – and for all of them to be liberally smeared with what looked like chocolate pudding.
"Please tell me you're not feeding him pudding…" Sam said as she came up to the table they were sitting at in the commissary.
Ian looked up at her guiltily, and she couldn't help but smile, because he even had pudding in his hair.
"Of course not. Shawn was."
"No, I wasn't," Shawn said, shaking his head. "Jake grabbed mine before I could stop him."
"And you got even with him by dumping it over his head?"
Ian snorted, amused, and Jake gurgled as he stuck his chocolate smeared hand into his mouth quite happily.
"He threw it."
"He dropped it," Ian corrected. "And Shawn wasn't quick enough to catch it and keep it from splattering everywhere."
"We're cleaning it up," Shawn said, holding up a wet towel he'd mooched from one of the workers, who had been more than happy to see that someone was going to clean up the mess.
"Actually," Andrew said. "We're cleaning it up. Ian's going to clean Jake."
Ian made a face, and then looked at Jaffer who was watching the baby with great interest.
"Here, Jaffer…" he said, holding Jake out in front of him at the same level as Jaffer's head. "Help me out, eh, big guy?"
Jaffer eagerly complied, whuffling his velvet soft muzzle against Jake for just a moment before he started licking the chocolate from the baby's face and neck while Ian held him steady.
"Chocolate isn't good for him," Shawn said, scowling. Mainly because he'd expected the chore of cleaning Jake to be much harder – which was why he'd agreed to clean the table and surrounding floor if Ian cleaned Jake.
"Dark chocolate is bad for him," Andrew corrected. "A little milk chocolate won't hurt him."
Since Andrew was the expert on labs, there wasn't a whole lot Shawn could say to that. Sam, however, reached over and took Jacob away from Jaffer and Ian before the dog could decide to get too thorough and chew the chocolate smeared clothing right off the baby.
"He's clean enough for now," she said, amused. "I'll give him a bath and change his clothes when we get home." She looked at Ian as she cuddled Jake close. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
"It was Shawn's pudding," Ian said.
Sam smiled.
"Not about the pudding."
"Oh. Sure."
Sam headed for the door of the commissary, telling him plainly that she wanted to speak to him in private, and Ian frowned, wondering what she was going to try and talk him into now.
"Don't worry, Ian," Andrew said. "I won't leave without you."
Andrew had offered to drive Ian home since he didn't have his car and didn't want to hang out at the base another night if he could avoid it. Ian had agreed immediately.
Ian just nodded, and followed Sam, with Jaffer walking beside him licking pudding off his nose.
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
Sam was quiet as the two of them walked to her lab, and Ian wondered if she really was mad about the pudding thing. When she closed the door behind him, however, the look she gave him wasn't exasperated or annoyed. It was concerned.
"Can I ask you a question?" she asked him, seriously. "And will you answer it honestly?"
He frowned, confused, but nodded.
"Sure."
Sam leaned against the large table that held most of her scientific equipment, Jake in one arm watching Ian almost as intently as she was – although his gaze might have been related to gas.
"Are you happy?"
Ian was surprised by the question. He didn't know what he was expecting her to ask, but that wasn't it. And it confused him.
"What?"
"Are you happy? Doing what you're doing, I mean? With the SGC – and us."
"I like what I'm doing."
"Which isn't the same as being happy…" Sam said.
Ian shrugged.
"I don't understand what you're asking, Sam. Am I happy? Sure. I'm doing important things and working with people I like. What's not to like?"
"Is there something you'd rather be doing?"
"Why are you asking?" he asked.
She hesitated, but only for a minute. He was probably going to find out anyways, and better he hear it from her – and somewhere that the explosion wouldn't be overheard by the Asgard.
"The Asgard seem to think that we're not challenging you enough…"
He scowled.
"What?"
"Thor and the other Asgard want to invite you to return to their home world with them when they leave…"
"You're shitting me."
She shook her head.
"They think your talents and intelligence are being wasted here on earth and they want to offer you the chance to put them to better use."
"Doing what?"
She shrugged.
"Working with them, I guess. We didn't actually get that far. Jack wasn't very impressed by the whole idea, and he didn't let them say too much."
"Yeah, well, he's not the only one. What the hell makes them think it's any of their fuc-" he broke off when he saw Jake's lower lip starting to stick out, the baby's eyes widening at the anger in Ian's tone and a soft whimper just beginning at the sudden tenseness in the room. Tension that he could feel through his mother's embrace. Ian continued, his voice as calm as he could make it. "There's no way I'm going with them, Sam. No way. Where's Jack?"
"He's with General Hammond, still, talking to Thor."
"I'll go tell Thor exactly what I think of this stupid-"
"Ian." Sam held her hand up to stop him before he could move for the door. "As far as we can tell, the Asgard are trying to do you a favor. We don't want to antagonize them. They're allies."
He scowled.
"We don't want to antagonize them? What the hell else do we have to do to appease them?"
"You don't have to go with them," Sam said, bouncing Jake slightly to keep him from crying. "I just wanted to make sure they weren't right. We have been asking a lot of you – and not giving all that much in return."
"Oh, no," Ian said, sarcastically. "Nothing at all. Only a great car. A place of my own to live in and all the freedom I could really want."
"You don't think we're taking advantage of the knowledge the Ancients stuck in your head?"
"I think you'd be crazy not to," Ian replied, shrugging. "And you didn't even know about any of that when you guys brought me into the SGC," he reminded her.
Good point.
"So you're not feeling held back?" she asked.
"I didn't say that," Ian answered. "I know I have a lot to learn, though. Things I can't learn out of a book. I'm not going to learn it from the Asgard, though."
"No."
Ian reached over and took Jacob from her, cuddling him close and soothing him with a calm touch. The baby stared at him, but didn't start crying like he'd been threatening to, and Sam felt relieved, because Ian wouldn't have been able to soothe him so easily if he'd been as angry as she'd expected him to be.
"The last place I should be is with the Asgard…" Ian said as Jake tucked his head under his chin. "I don't even like them."
"Jack seems concerned they'll just beam you up when they leave," she said, crossing her arms over her breasts and looking at him. Since they'd somewhat cleared the air about how he was feeling being with the SGC, it was time for her to bring up another subject completely. And this was a good opening for it. "They can't do that, though, can they?"
He hesitated, but then shook his head. Sam was a genius, after all. He wondered how she'd figured it out, though.
"No. They couldn't even if they wanted to. How did you know?"
"Thor couldn't find you when we started looking for you when you'd gone home. Since Loki had no trouble at all finding you – and Thor's been able to do it before – I assumed you came up with a way to block his scanners…"
Ian nodded.
"A device, actually."
"What kind of device? An Ancient one?"
"Yeah. It's in my locker, but I'll show it to you later. I was going to, anyways, once the Asgard were gone."
"What does it do?"
"It's a cloaking device, actually – as science fiction as that sounds. In this case, I can set it to hide the entire SGC from scanners. The Asgard – or anyone else, for that matter – won't be able to start beaming us up at their whim anymore. Once I hook it into a power source here and program it to cover the entire complex."
"Can it be turned off?"
"Sure. We can set it up like the iris on the Stargate if you want… someone can activate it or deactivate it with a touch. But it'll keep any other unfortunate bastard from being plucked out of his bed in the middle of the night."
"Sounds helpful. Did you make it?"
Ian shook his head.
"I got it from Dotty…"
That was the truth – as far as it went. Sam seemed to know he was holding back, though.
"Did you get anything else?"
He hesitated, and nodded.
"Dangerous stuff?" she asked.
He nodded, again.
"Some of it."
"Where is it?"
"I can't tell you…"
"You don't trust me?"
He shook his head.
"You know better than that, Sam. But even if you didn't want to do anything with it – there are those who would, if they knew about it. And you don't have the rank to stop them. I can't risk some of this stuff falling into the wrong hands."
She nodded. That made sense – and showed that he had given things at least a little consideration.
"I need to go see how things are going with the Asgard," she said. "Do you want to come?"
He scowled. The last thing he wanted to do was go hang out with the little bastards – especially since he knew they wanted to make some kind of mascot out of him.
"I'll pass."
"Want me to take Jake?" she offered.
He shook his head.
"I'll clean him up for you. You go tell them that I said they could stick their invitation to join them up their-"
"I'll tell them you've declined," she said, smiling.
He nodded.
"Whatever."
As long as they didn't keep pestering him.
