"You know… I'm fine. Really…"

Cassandra Brooks nodded, gracing her husband with a cheerful smile, despite the fact that she was giving him a thorough examination in the infirmary of the SGC.

"I know."

"Then why are we doing this?"

"Because it's the rules, Colonel Brooks," she told him. "And if anyone should follow the rules, it's you."

He grumbled, but just shrugged, knowing that he wasn't going to win any argument with her. He'd learned that lesson a long time ago. Instead, he just watched as she took his blood pressure and every other vital that she could measure, and then shined a light into his eyes, obviously making sure that spending a few minutes in the head of an alien hadn't scrambled his own brains.

"Well?" he asked, when she finally handed him his shirt.

"You're fine."

"I told-"

She wagged a finger at him before he could even start that particular phrase.

"But if you have any dizziness or headaches, you need to tell me right away. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good." She set the equipment she'd been using back where it belonged and then smiled and offered him her arm. "Let's go find the boys."

OOOOOOOOOOO

They knew who had the boys. Grandma Janet had swooped in and absconded Alexander before Ian had gone into the observation room, while the twins had decided – once they'd hugged and greeted their grandmother – that they wanted to go with Rodney when he went to check on the rest of the base systems – just to make sure there hadn't been any other tampering they needed to take care of. When Cassie and Ian finally found the three, they were all gathered around one of the servers that fed all the base computers, and Rodney was showing the two exactly how to run a diagnostic. The twins looked up when the door opened, and both grinned at their parents, but both Ian and Cassie could see that their attention was still on what McKay was telling them. With their memories, Rodney knew he'd only have to show them once, but if they didn't understand what he was teaching them, then it didn't matter if they knew the steps, they wouldn't know what they'd found.

Of course, he'd been teaching them since they were old enough to toddle around behind him, so he knew what they could understand and what they couldn't, and – privately – he loved having them as protégés since they were showing every indication of being capable of becoming as brilliant as their father – without the bad temper.

"Are we about ready?" Ian asked as soon as Rodney had finished the discourse he was giving the boys – and the practical application of it.

The boys looked at McKay, who nodded.

"Yes."

"Did you find anything?" Cassie asked.

"No. It looks like Ian was right; they only got into the shielding and gate programs. Nothing else has been changed."

"Then let's get over to Shawn's," Ian said, scooping Michael up into his arms. "The restaurant is going to be too busy now to go there, but Gina has promised a big dinner, and I'm starved."

McKay looked a little startled, because the way he'd said it made it seem to indicate that McKay was invited as well.

"What? Me, too?"

It was Ian's turn to be surprised, but he hid it behind a scowl.

"Why not? You don't want to come?"

"No. I mean, yes, of course I do…" Rodney found himself scrambling to find words, something he wasn't used to doing. "I just thought… you know, that it was just for family…"

Cassie smiled, picking up Carter, who twisted so he could see Rodney, too, but it was Ian who spoke up before she could.

"Don't be stupid, McKay," he said, heading for the door. "You are family."

Cassie followed him, but her smile never faded, even though Rodney stared at their backs as if someone had hit him over the head with a board. Over his father's shoulder, Michael noticed he wasn't coming, and waved at him.

"Hurry up, Rodney! I'm hungry!"

Startled out of his surprise, he moved to the door as well, and then hesitated.

"Does this mean I need to get Shawn a present?"

"Only if you want cake tomorrow," came the reply.

OOOOOOOOOOO

The house was full. Not only with a lot of dogs – including the puppies, which were so active, now, that they were like 6 puppies each – but also with people. Grandparents from both sides of each family were there – including Nathan and Maggie, who had arrived only a short time before Ian and the others returned – but also there were friends and Secret Service agents and a lot of children and babies. It was more than enough to make someone go crazy if he tried to make sense of things. Luckily, there were other things to keep people from focusing on the noise and the bustle so many people could make. The first was dinner, which Gina hadn't actually made – although in truth she'd never told anyone that she was going to. Instead, she'd ordered out from the same place that they'd planned on eating, and had made certain to order more than enough, figuring that people would be in and out all evening and not wanting anyone to go hungry.

After eating, the kids were sent outside to play in the yard – under the watchful eye of all the dogs as well as a couple of Secret Service agents – Gina enlisted help getting things ready for the party the next day, and those who weren't doing that wandered into Shawn's 'den' to watch as he and Ian tried to hook up the new TV and home theater that Ian and Cassie had insisted they stop by the store and retrieve before Shawn could talk them out of buying it for him.

"Are you sure that goes there?" River asked, frowning, as Ian slid a wire into one of the speakers.

"Yeah."

"I don't think it does," Shawn said, looking at the instructions once more. Of course, they were in Chinese, and none of them actually read Chinese, so it didn't help mush. The pictures were all they had to go by, and they weren't much help, since they weren't in color and all the cables were. "It looks like it goes-"

Ian scowled at him.

"You want to do this?"

"No. I'm just saying… I think it goes there."

"It can't go there," Andrew disagreed. "It has to go in this one – otherwise the volume will just be the TV and not the-"

"Seriously?" Nathan asked, watching them from the sofa where he was sitting with Jack, nursing a beer. "You are all geniuses and none of you know how to set up a stereo system?"

Now Ian's scowl was directed at his father.

"It's not that simple, dad."

Jack snorted.

"These are the guys we've turned the SGC over to, you know…"

Nate grinned.

"We should get Jake in here. I bet he could do it for them."