14

Landry couldn't have quite got to the '28 when Daniel burst out of the nursery.

"Jack!" he gasped "Sam… 'gate room"

Jack looked at him and shouting "DOCTOR" he ran off, leaving Daniel to explain to the young woman what was happening.

He gave her credit, by the time he got there she was only 5 steps behind, carrying a portable defibulator and she was 100 professional.

She pushed everyone out of the way to find Sam laid on the floor, a coat off an SF covering her, the hospital scrubs she had been changed into when she dropped into the coma all that was between her body and the cold floor, but no one had tried to move her, all these men were combat trained and knew not to do anything if there was no immediate danger.

Carolyn fell to her knees, pressing her stethoscope to Sams chest, she opened one eye and shone her penlight into it, and Sam battered her hand away!

"God what is it with you people and those lights?" she said annoyed. She rolled on her side and started to get to her feet, "WOW! Dizzy" she said and decided the floor was not so bad after all.

Jack dropped behind her head and supported her upper body as they waited for the gurney to arrive, he pressed his lips into the top of her head and held her tight "Welcome back" his voice choked.

"What am I doing here?" she asked, "last I remember Thor had given us a shield, you made me shower and then we went back to the children and… that's it" she said.

"You slipped into a coma, Thor had no ideas why. Anise," he felt her stiffen, he knew how she felt about that particular Tok'ra "tried to heal you but it didn't work, and then you disappeared again." He reached into his pocket and drew out the amulet, slipping the chain over her head and placing it inside her scrubs next to her dog tags. "Shield" he said, she nodded.

The gurney arrived and with the help of one of the guards he helped her onto it, and Carolyn got to the bottom and started dragging the whole thing herself. Jack gestured and he and a couple of SFs grabbed the head and sides and helped the little medic along.

Sam actually admitted to being tired as she was taken to the lift, and she let out a breath and slipped into sleep before the car arrived, Jack poked her and she moved away from the offending digit, at least she was sleeping, not worse, Jack thought.

Jack stayed by Sam as she was hooked up to various monitors, she woke as her blood was drawn and saw Anise sat on the bed next to her studying her like a lab rat. "What is she doing here?" she asked

"She wants to study the kids" Jack told her in an undertone, putting one hand firmly on her shoulder to hold her down "I know… I know… regardless she DID try to heal Richard and Danielle and yourself with the hand device. She failed, but she did TRY"

"What about Jonathan, I thought he was the one that was poorly" Jack took a breath and she jumped to the wrong conclusion "OH GOD! HE'S DEAD?"

"Hush… hush love," Jack climbed onto the bed, holding her "he's not dead. Thor put him into a stasis pod when his body started poisoning itself" he told her in a low voice.

"Anise thinks we only have the two children she has seen, she came out with 'Jacob would want his grandchildren to help the Tok'ra' bullshit, don't let her play you into revealing more than she already knows. Oh and Carolyn is not a happy camper either, but that can wait" he saw the object of his latest disclosure bearing down on them.

"General O'Neill, please remove yourself from Colonel Carters bed" she said it in a loud crisp voice, Jack smiled, if she thought that anyone would be shocked at the thought, or that they could be accused of breaking the frat regs, she was in for a huge disappointment.

He gave his most insolent grin and leaned over Sam, kissed her thoroughly and then got off the bed. Making sure the doctor knew he was doing her a favour by complying.

Sam lay back and stared at the ceiling. Anise came across to the pair. "Colonel Carter may I congratulate you on the … arrival… of your children?" Damn the woman/snake/thing was trying to charm Sam, Jack thought it amusing considering what Freya had revealed before. He watched the barely dressed woman pick up the healing device and explain what had happened from her point of view, and apologised for being unable to heal her. Then she asked her about her disappearance and any treatment she may have undergone, but Sam was a blank.

Carolyn had a tray of food brought in but Sam was not really hungry she said, and when Jack tried to push her to eat she refused outright. He tried to persuade her, cajole her, order her and even tried emotional blackmail! But she would not touch the food.

He offered to send out for her favourite dishes from the Chinese where she lived, but she insisted she was not hungry. "Honestly, I don't feel the need, they probably fed me on the ship" she said, Jack eventually nodded and told her she had a 4 hour reprieve and then she would have to eat something.

Thor beamed into the far corner of the infirmary and headed towards them, "Good news O'Neill" he opened the conversation. "I believe that the ship responsible for the abductions is… Colonel Carter!"

"The ship is Colonel Carter?" Jack asked confused.

"No, sorry. We had not been informed of the Colonels reappearance; I was surprised that is all. The ship, we now believe, is Furling"

"FURLING?" Jack couldn't believe his ears, he had only heard of them the once, when he was cured of the first download. Nothing they had ever found seemed to allude to them, and the Asgard had not mentioned them since.

"Our records of the interaction between the two races are, incomplete. Replicators have damaged much and destroyed more. I myself only met representatives a few times, a couple of thousand of your years ago. But I have been studying the fleeting contact my vessel recorded when I pulled you from the ship, and based on everything I can find I believe it could be a fair extrapolation. There are definitely key points of symmetry."

"Such as…?" asked Sam

"Such as the positioning of the engines, the over all shape of the craft, things that races tend not to change unless they have to, more through inertia than through conscious thought" Sam was nodding, and Jack could see the point as well, why change what works?

"So, Thor, have you any way of contacting them? You did used to be big buddies back in the day" he said

"Unfortunately not O'Neill, we never found out why they stopped communicating totally, and eventually we assumed they had been wiped out by some agency. Whether through nature, malice or apathy."

"Apathy?" Anise asked "how can a race die of apathy?" she asked, Jack shot her a look, but he was interested in the answer too.

"The Furlings were an old race when we met, even older than the 'gate builders, they had reached an almost enlightened plane before ever venturing off their native world." He started the narrative. "Their original home world was in a gas cloud, they could not see the stars and so did not dream of reaching them, as most races that have advanced did at some point in their history. Then something happened, a rogue moon drifted too close to a nearby sun, it had a decided tilt to its core, and when it was pulled closer to the gravitational well, it wobbled, and spun out at tremendous velocity"

"Sling shot around the sun?" Jack mentioned one of his very favourite missions he loved 1969! Sam nodded at him "It go back or forward in time?" he asked

"No, the moon sped through the gas cloud, causing a near miss, and pulled the gas after it in its wake. The society of the Furlings was… stagnant, at the time, peace and harmony are all very well, but without a certain amount of struggle or strife people give up fighting to live. The consequences of the moon passing near by on their planet was violent upheaval, earthquakes, tidal waves, millions died. They had no defence because they never could have imagined needing one.

"After almost fifty years the planet had stabilised and the Furlings decided it was time to go and see what was out in the night sky that had suddenly appeared. They visited their closest neighbours and found the thrill of exploration and of colonisation. However after a thousand years they tired of this occupation too, and started to curtail travel. Not to control the population, nor to save on resources, they just…"

"Couldn't be bothered?" Jack supplied

"Exactly. We met them for the first time as they had started this decline, as the Goa'uld became a threat they seemed to try to rise to the challenge, but their technology was never aimed at defence or attack, they had never gone through a violent development phase. They never had an internal war, several of our scientists were amazed they had evolved at all as there was no struggle to survive in their instincts. Eventually they joined our alliance with the Nox and the ancients and asked to borrow shield technology in exchange for which they offered to teach their cultural values, and their advanced spirituality, and then they turned their backs on the struggle and decided to ignore the Goa'uld altogether.

"They retreated to their planets, and persuaded the Nox into becoming the gentle pacifists they are today, and, of course, they helped the ancients ascend, even though they did not ascend themselves. The Asgard, they started to shun. We DID struggle and fight, we tried to protect people who needed help, and asked for it, and, as to the Goa'uld, well as Colonel Carter put it once, we kicked their asses!" Jack was delighted to hear the colloquialism from the little grey man! Anise looked almost sick at his corruption.