Disclaimer: 'Stargate SG1' and all the characters associated with the show belong to someone who isn't me. As I doubt that the owners would be willing to trade their rights for some magic beans that aren't in any way magical, this is not going to change at any point in the foreseeable future.

Chapter Two

"…the vines grew as thick as tree trunks, covered with huge thorns that were sharper than blades, surrounding the castle where the Sleeping Beauty lay, waiting for the handsome Prince Charming, whose kiss would wake her from a sleep of a hundred years…"

"Daniel," Jack spoke his name quietly from the doorway, putting a halt to the archaeologist's story. "Unless you want to wake up our little Sleeping Beauty, I suggest that you leave the rest of the story for tomorrow."

"Oh." Daniel glanced down at the slumbering child at his side. "Right."

Janet had been kind enough to offer to take on the task of giving little Sam a bath and getting her dressed for bed but she had left the far more daunting task of actually getting the child into bed and to sleep to the unfortunate men of SG-1.

Jack had thought that his second in command was a night owl as an adult but it seemed that she had been even worse at four and a half and, unlike the grown up Carter, the child version had no qualms whatsoever about defying a direct order to lie down and go to sleep.

Teal'c had been the first to escape, claiming that he needed to kel'no'reem and making is way to his own quarters before anybody had had a chance to object. Jack had swiftly followed his friend's example, muttering vague excuses about paperwork that General Hammond had insisted be done right away as he fled, abandoning Daniel to his fate.

It had taken retellings of Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and most of Sleeping Beauty before Sam had finally drowsed off.

After gently tucking Sam in, Daniel looked up at Jack. "Should I leave a nightlight on? Just in case."

"No need. Carter once told me that she hadn't been afraid of the dark since she was two. Besides, there'll be a couple of SFs stationed in the hall."

"I'll tell them to come and find you if she wakes up in the middle of the night and gets scared, shall I?" Daniel suggested, a smirk that Jack could only describe as diabolical tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Then you can try to get her back to sleep."

"On second thoughts," Jack backpedalled hastily. "Maybe we should leave it on, just to be on the safe side."

"Good idea."

The next morning

Teal'c had not encountered many Tauri children, even after more than a year on Earth and he found the child version of his teammate fascinating, her activities even more so. He had been away from Chulak much of the time when Rya'c had been this age, but he didn't remember his own son having the same focused attention span of his young companion.

"Samantha Carter, should you not be eating your food rather than using it for construction purposes?"

The little girl glanced up from her task and gave him a brief smile. "It's okay." She told him seriously. "I don't even like this stuff. It tastes yucky."

"Then why did you request…"

"Because it's great for building with. Here." She placed a small cube of a vivid green, jello like substance in his large hand. "You try."

Absorbed in their all important task, neither of them noticed Jack and Daniel entering the commissary.

Jack grinned as he watched the two carefully build a structure of some kind from the food he had privately dubbed 'alien glop'. "Looks like Carter's managed to corrupt our innocent Jaffa." He joked.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "You're going to confuse her if you keep that up."

"Confuse who?"

"Sam - I doubt anybody called her Carter when she was little." He pointed out reasonably.

Acknowledging the advice with a nod, Jack made his way over to the table where Sam and Teal'c sat and regarded his two friends with a mock stern expression. "What's going on here?"

"We are building, O'Neill." Teal'c responded in a dignified manner, a hint of pride evident in his tone.

"Building what?"

Little Sam gave Jack a half pitying, half exasperated look, as though disappointed by his denseness. "It's a castle, silly. See." She pointed proudly at a lopsided stack of cubes that, to her mind at least, represented a well constructed turret.

"Sweet. With all the building, did you have time to actually eat any food?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Come on, now, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. How about some Fruit Loops?"

"They're yucky."

"Bite your tongue, young lady - not literally!" He added hastily, not wanting her to misinterpret his joke.

"I had toast and the man at the counter gave me these." She showed him a packet of chocolate chip cookies. "I'll eat them if I get hungry."

"Fine." He looked at the other two men. "Hammond has briefings until twelve, but he said he'd watch her after that and take her to lunch - will one of you remind me to make fun of Carter about the whole 'Uncle George' thing when she's back to normal? - but one of us will have to watch her until then."

"I am to engage in a training exercise with SG-3, so I will be unable to supervise Samantha Carter." Teal'c sounded genuinely sorry about this.

"So it's you or me, Danny boy." Jack smirked. "How about we make it the lady's choice? Cart… Sam, what do you want to do? Do you want to go to Daniel's office and play with all of his great roc… artefacts, or do you want to stay with me while I do my nasty, boring paperwork?"

Jack's face fell as she pointed at him.

In retrospect, he reflected that he probably should have known better than to expect Samantha Carter, whatever her age, to fall for reverse psychology.

Much to Jack's dismay, even his beloved GameBoy had failed to hold Sam's attention - at least until she had decided that she wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. When Jack had vetoed the idea of dissecting his toy, she had kept herself entertained by drawing pictures but, after about half a hour, this too had lost it's appeal.

"Why don't you play with the computer for a while?" Jack suggested, looking up from the mountain of requisition forms that needed to be authorized before lunch if he didn't want an exceptionally pissed off Hammond on his hands.

Entertaining a child, especially one as intelligent as this child, wasn't exactly improving his productivity.

"I don't want to. Can we play a game?"

"Look, Car… Sam, as much as I'd like to leave the paperwork and have fun with you, I can't." He felt horrible when he saw her little face fall. "Your Uncle George will be very mad at me if I don't finish my work. Speaking of," He grinned at her, fishing for a little more blackmail information. "How long have you known Uncle George?"

"Always." She shrugged. "He's my godfather."

"Really?" Jack's smile was positively evil.

"Uh-huh. Do you want me to ask Uncle George not to make you do paperwork?"

As tempted as he was by that offer, Jack shook his head. "That's okay."

"Can I help you then?"

He would have refused but the prospect of both entertaining the little girl and shifting a part, however small, of his task was irresistible.

'Four years old or not, Carter's still technically my 2IC - and Hammond never said anything about not delegating.'

"Can you read? Write your name? Count?"

"Of course." Her tone let him know that she was insulted by his doubts.

"Great." Grinning, he jotted a quick memo, noting that he had authorized Captain Samantha Carter to sign requisition forms of his behalf and handed her a small sheaf of papers. "Just look through these and if the numbers here" He pointed to the column where the estimated total cost of each request was listed. "Has five figures or less, just write your name on the dotted line, okay. If there's more than five figures, give it to me."

"Okay." Beaming, little Sam quickly absorbed herself in her task and Jack followed her example, albeit with far less enthusiasm.

General Hammond was hard-pressed to keep from chuckling when he came to Jack's office to collect the little girl over an hour later.

The contrast between the two was comical. Jack was bored and made no attempt to hide it as he hurried through his despised task, wanting it to be over and done with as soon as possible while Sam proceeded with a methodical perfectionism that would have been rather disconcerting, given her lack of years, if it hadn't been so funny.

"You know, Colonel, even the SGC frowns on child labor." He chided mildly when neither of them showed any signs of noticing his presence after a full two minutes.

"Since I didn't get that secretary I requested, I thought I'd improvise." Jack quipped.

"Hi, Uncle George." Little Sam greeted him happily, standing up on her chair to hug him and plant a kiss on his cheek.

"Hi, honey. Having fun?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded enthusiastically before gesturing for him to bend down so that she could whisper in his ear. "I don't think that Colonel O'Neill likes doing paperwork, though."

"That's a shame." Hammond didn't show much sympathy for his 2IC's plight. He smiled down at the little girl. "How would you fancy coming up to my office for lunch? We can have whatever you like, I'll send someone out to get it - and ice-cream afterwards." He added temptingly.

"Okay."

"Am I invited?" Jack queried, only half-joking. After a morning sloughing through various forms, the prospect of food that was actually edible was incredibly tempting.

"Are you finished your work?"

"Not yet." The response was grudging. It was an unwritten rule between the two men that once Jack had started his paperwork, he was 'grounded' to his office, barring emergencies, until it was finished. Otherwise, they both knew, he would happily escape at the first possible opportunity, leaving his task unfinished until the next time he was forced into his office.

"Then no." The general told him heartlessly before lifting Sam down from the chair and offering his arm. "Will you do me the honor, Miss Carter?"

"Of course." Her expression was adorably solemn as she allowed Hammond to lead her from the room, cruelly abandoning Jack to his fate.

TBC.