19

He was woken at 04:45 by the sound of a transport beam. He jumped up to see Heimdall in the room. He looked around, 2 SG13 members were sitting in chairs, they had been asleep by the look of them, Dr. Cook was leant over his table at the far side of the room, drooling on his keyboard, the babies were all asleep and Sam had turned over as soon as he moved, but had not wakened.

Jack gestured for them to go out into the corridor and Hermiod followed. I have received sufficient neutronium to make the new shield devices, and have built in an EMP shield as well, he held out his hand and dropped a small circle of metal into his palm. The new disk was tiny! It was less than an inch across and only a millimetre thick, if that!

He heard a noise and Sam came out of the room "Hey, tried not to wake you," he whispered.

"I always miss you when you move away from me, used to wake me every time you went on watch offworld," she said in the same low volume.

"Here," he passed her the disks "the new, improved, EM pulse resistant shield"

"Jesus! So small!" she examined it the best she could.

"I have altered the controls because of the size and the fact that your hands are so much bigger" he picked it out of Sams palm and demonstrated "If you press here" the 'top' chevron "it activates the shield," he turned it over and you could see the rear of the chevron glowing "I put the indicator on the rear so it would not look out of place as a piece of normal earth jewellery, if you press here…" he pressed the gap between the two chevrons at the bottom "You get a transport report to the master shields," he turned it over and the bottom two chevrons were glowing.

"The master shields will be the shield devices worn by both of you, the children's devices will not report, though the information will be stored in them for retrieval in case both of you are ever taken and only the children are left" 'Happy camper this Asgard' Jack thought, but then it was better thinking this sort of thing now rather than finding out you needed it after they had gone missing!

"I have been studying jewellery for the hour with Lt. Novak and she has suggested something like this…" another shield appeared on his palm, this one was attached to a chain at either side and made a silver bracelet. "I have designed this so the chain will expand as the child grows so that it always fits and Lt. Novak has suggested each childs name in the centre, so that it looks like an 'ID' bracelet," he put his hand out and another appeared "Or, she suggests, this," and they could see a representation of St. Christopher.

Jack was a lapsed Catholic, and Sam was not a believer in anything but science really, but they both liked both ideas. Eventually Jack, ever one to cut through to the point asked if they could have the St. Christopher on one side and their names on the reverse.

Sam asked that the childrens shields be linked to theirs in some way, so if Jack decided to transport them all to the cabin they did not have to turn all eight off individually and then back on after they got where they were going. This seemed to remind Hermiod of something and he held out his palm and a transport stone appeared in it.

"Thor wanted me to give you this if I could get you alone" he said. She picked it up and looked at him "It is tied to the same points in space as O'Neills stone, but Thor had a feeling that O'Neill would not want everyone to know that you had the ability to travel without him."

Jack blessed the little alien, he had wanted to ask for one for her but thought it may be asking too much, and he was correct Jack, did NOT want TPTB to know she could zip about the country at will without him.

"Any news on the Furlings?" Jack asked.

"Not as yet" the alien replied. "however we are hopeful that everything will settle down now, as the children and Colonel Carter are healthy again"

"We can hope" Jack said.

Hermiod left to make up the other bracelets, taking the ones he had demonstrated with him, Jack felt a slight unease at being in shielded but as Sam pointed out, they may have been healed quicker if it had not been for them having to get around the shield technology to take them, and they had not harmed them in any way.

Jack still had not told her about the loss of her ovaries, and he was still no closer to being able to either.

He asked if she wanted to get a shower and changed and they headed off to her old quarters to do just that, they got a little side tracked once they were naked, but they were sat in the commissary within the hour.

They spent a leisurely time over breakfast, Daniel and Teal'c joining them at about 06:30 they discussed what would be happening now, Daniel was still determined to get to Atlantis and Teal'c had been voted leader of the Free Nation of the Jaffa Ruling Council, for which he got heartfelt congratulations from everyone, he also revealed that he had asked Ishta to marry him, and the wedding was planned for 3 months time. He was also about to become a grandfather, though he was a bit worried that Rya'c was rushing things, after all he had been over 80 before he had had his son!

Sam was torn between going back to R&D in '51 or giving up entirely to look after the children, a plan that Jack vetoed. "You love your job!" he said "I have a plan in place, lets see how it goes"

They would have to hire a nanny or two any way no one could look after eight babies by themselves, they would soon become exhausted, so long as they could make it home every evening, the kids would not suffer from not having them there 24/7 and of course they would be in school soon, Jack knew that the time flew between birth and school, even Sarah had said it had, so it was not just that he was busy and missed it.

He had asked Sam if they could get married quickly when they were getting showered that morning, and so he told the boys that they would be having the service some time in the following week and hoped they could both stay to attend. The only thing Sam could see that could spoil everything was Mark!

He knew very well that she had not had children last month, she had been visiting him back then, after the cabin, touching base now he was her only family member left. Jack had an idea about that too, but he needed a word with the president before he could say anything.

They got up and headed to the nursery just in time to grab the 4 babies that SG13 did not have, the broad smiles on the faces of the tough soldiers as they sat feeding the children was a sight to be seen. Jack imagined his smile was even broader, after all he was the proud dad!

They had all just settled into chairs when Dr. Cook came over and gave them an update. The bilirubin levels had not increased overnight, but the children were now about 3 months developed. They had no idea, of course, if this would continue, so Jack tried to use his stone to communicate with Thor only to get the equivalent of an answer machine, Heimdalls hologram appeared and said that Thor was busy at present and would respond as soon as he was able. Jack asked Heimdall about the babies aging and he said he would look into it, as there was no sign of the usual nano technology that was usually in the bloodstream of people who aged rapidly. Heimdall disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived.

SGs 1 and '13 spent a pleasant morning looking after the healthy children and beaming with pride at the first teeth that had appeared Dixon suggested that they be started on weaning, baby rice or something, depending on how often they were going to have to be fed, and as he had half as many children himself he was considered the resident expert on mass-baby-handling.

The kids proved him right in wanting a feed less than 2 hours later, and as he pointed out smugly, once there were less than two whole SG teams it would run you into the ground fast trying to just keep them fed. Dr. Cook agreed and baby rice was ordered in… they sent a nurse into town for it… and some larger sized clothes, 6-9 month as well as 3-6, just in case.

Hank was still keeping himself out of the way and Jack went looking for him at lunch time, but what can you say to a man whose child tried to harm yours? Especially when it wasn't some playground stunt, Carolyn was in her 30s! He ended up leaving the General in his office, no closer to forgiving himself than when Jack arrived.

As everyone was sat around the nursery eating finger foods for lunch so they could be available when the kids woke up again, Thor appeared in a flash of light and asked to speak to Jack and Sam alone. The two got up, rather than kick everyone else out, and they headed for the infirmary only to find Dr. Lyman trying to stem the flow of blood pouring from Silers leg. The doc looked up as they started backing up and said "if you are looking for somewhere quiet there's my office" and they went into the little room.

"O'Neill I have been in negotiation with the Furlings since last night" so much for no news "they were not 'ready' to allow you to see them, but are becoming desperate, and ask that you will forgive them and help them."

"They couldn't ask before?" he snapped "Did they explain what all this was about?"

"They did, and now I will explain it to you, if you will listen" Jack realised he was pacing about with his hands in his pockets again, so he too them out and sat behind the desk, pulling Sam into his lap to stop himself jumping up again.

"As you know, we lost touch with the Furlings millennia ago, back then we had been cloning our bodies only a few hundred years, and looked much as you do today. The Furlings have a…problem, and were hoping the Asgard could help them, however when they managed to find us they realised we could not help them after all. They intercepted our communications over the last few years and realised from them that YOU could be what they needed. However they did not know how developed you were and rather than ask you they decided they should take what they needed." Thor lowered his head "I am afraid that this is partly my fault" he said