12

He woke at 07:00, late for him. As a military man he was used to being up much earlier, damn Pentagon was corrupting him! If he was this bad after a month, what was he going to be like by the end of a year? Pictures of him looking in the mirror and seeing himself naked and the same size as George Hammond appeared in front of his eyes, well THAT managed to distract him from his morning woody!

Anise and her SF guard were gone, the commissary or back to her planet, he presumed.

He staggered to the small bathroom at end of the infirmary, cursing the stiffness in his neck. One day he would learn to get on the beds before falling to sleep, he could have moved one close enough so he could touch Sam.

After seeing to the call of nature he went to sit back down next to Sam, she looked the same as she had when he fell to sleep. He saw Carolyn coming towards him, she looked… apprehensive… his blood chilled, she had faced down his 'big bad General' act without blinking, even threatening him in return. Anything that worried her really, REALLY could not be good!

"Sir, I understand from Wayne that he explained bilirubin to you?" Who the hell was Wayne?

"Wayne?" he croaked, he had not had a drink yet, his mouth was dry. He rubbed sleep out of his eyes

"Dr. Cook?" nope… still not a clue "the paediatrician?" ahh! Had he even asked the mans name before? Had he cared? Damn he was trusting the lives of his children to a man he had not even bothered to be introduced to, but had sat in the same room as for three days! He needed to pull himself together, and start acting like a two star General and not like a confused self absorbed teen.

"Yes, sorry. Yes Dr. Cook did explain about Billy and its possible side effects" she looked at him as if trying to work out who Billy was and then shot him an annoyed glace, some people had no sense of humour.

"Yes, well, the most recent tests are showing that Jonathan now has a concentration of 19 μmol/L and we are going to have to recommend blood replacement" she was so cold in her delivery, no sign of the friendly, sympathetic bedside manner that Janet had radiated. She was a scientists… no she was worse… even scientists showed some emotion about their specialist field, she was a robot, and that was a huge insult to Harlan! "All the children except George are showing increased bilirubin, Danielle and Richard are next highest with levels of 17 and 16 moles respectively Jacob has 15.5, and the other girls are between 15 and 15.5"

"George's level?"

"I told you George's level is not raised"

"I know you told me Doctor" he spat at her "I asked for a figure"

"George is showing a stable 9 μmol/L, the level has not changed since we started recording the levels."

"So why is George not increasing? Is his liver functioning correctly? Are his red blood cells not dying as rapidly? If the latter, why? Is there any significant difference in any other results from George that stands out as not the norm? Have the DNA specialist go over their… graphs… and see if he can see anything that can be genetically linked to what is happening, either to the other kids, or as to why it is NOT happening to George!"

"Call security, I want a team in that room on level 16 going over every second of every childs life since they arrived, did something happen to George that did not happen to the others? The other way around?"

She was stood open mouthed listening to him giving orders. When he finished she was looking at him as if he had grown another head.

"Doctor!" she shook her head "Did you get all that?" she nodded "THEN GO DO IT!" he yelled at her, he looked quickly at Sam after his outburst, but there was no sign she had heard him, he turned his back on the rest of the ward, shaking in temper.

Maybe he had made a mistake in choosing Carolyn, but she had come highly recommended. After watching the way Carter and her dad had come together via the SGC he was sort of hoping he could get the same reaction for his other friend. However Sam had been…distant… but willing to listen to her father, and once he was convinced that Sam was not wasting her life in the mountain watching Radar screens Jacob had been the same.

Hank seemed willing, able, maybe even eager to repair the rift, but not her! He wondered, whose fault it was originally? Was she always this cold or did he do something to cause it? Was it her mother's fault?

Jack knew it wasn't easy for the children or spouses of serving officers. The spouses usually had a choice though, the children didn't, not until they left for college anyway. He shook his head sadly, Charlie had always been so very eager to see him when he got home, and if Sarah had any doubts she had hidden them deep, she was almost as good at that as he was. Mike had mentioned a couple of times that she had been on the verge of packing her bags, especially when he got back from Iraq, but all he could do was pretend nothing was wrong, and she always seemed to go along with it while he was there. They seemed to be on constant honeymoon for the first five years, though in that time he spent less than two months at home… he shook his head, this time it WAS going to be different!

He lifted Sams hand and kissed her palm gently and went to see the children and get a coffee. Only Dave Dixon was there from SG13, he was reading. Daniel and Teal'c were sat at a small table playing cards, there was an empty space where Sams bed had been, he asked one of the nurses to bring another bed in. The medical staff were gathered around another small table, as far away from the soldiers as possible. Could it be that George had only ever been held by one of them? Or never held by one of them? He asked everyone present who had had a turn at holding George and the answer seemed to be everyone… another idea shot down in flames. But not everyone was there, he wrote the question on the whiteboard for when the rest of '13 arrived. He also listed all the thing he had ordered Carolyn to do. There was a slight chance that whatever Sam had he still had a chance of developing, after all the girls had all been healthy until yesterday. He needed them to know what was happening.

He called Dr. Cook over startling the man by using his name, and asked him how soon he could start the blood transfer. He looked worried.

"Colonel Carter has something in her blood that she passed to the children"

"Naqahdah and a protein marker" Jack agreed

"Unfortunately I am not sure that giving the children 'ordinary' blood will work, and the Colonel is not available to give permission for us to draw any from her. And … well… we need a LOT, the babies are small, but there are eight of them" he looked at Jack, gauging if he understood what was being said. Jack was wondering if his blood would work, he had trace amounts of naqahdah from Kanan, but he did not have the protein marker as the snake had run away not died inside him.

"Doctor!" one of the nurses shouted, causing a couple of the babies to start crying, "I can't wake him!" she was holding Jonathan!

The doctor did everything he could, but Jonathan had joined his mother in a seeming perpetual sleep. Jack frantically contacted Thor to be told that he had an idea, the alien hologram disappeared only to reappear seconds later and ask for the shield to be lowered, he needed to get into the facility and couldn't. Jack sent Teal'c up to turn it off as he had been present for the demonstration. Teal'c left at a run and Jack held his unconscious son with tears streaming down his face.

Thor appeared and by his side was a tiny version of the medical bed the Asgard used, he pushed it slightly and it went to hover next to Jack who placed his son in it carefully. The cover closed and the lights inside dimmed slightly. Thor was explaining to them how the child was now in suspended animation, and would not worsen any more when Carolyn ran into the room.

"Colonel Carter has gone!" she announced.