A/N: Bonus for loyal readers: two chapters in one day :-)

A short time later, however, Cam was beginning to think he'd been seriously overconfident in his abilities. They'd gotten a tray with some pasta and some Jell-O for Abbie, but at least 75% of it had so far ended up on the table, on the floor, on them, or pretty much any other location that wasn't the little girl's mouth.

"Come on, one bite?" Cam asked as he offered a little Jell-O cube on his fork. "Just one?" Abbie giggled and waved a hand, which struck the fork and sent its cargo flying across the room to splatter against the wall. "Okay, I give up." He picked up the napkin and waved it as a white flag. "Your turn," he told Teal'c.

The Jaffa regarded her seriously. "Abigail O'Neill. You must eat your food or you will not grow up to be strong." She stared back for a moment, but then opened her mouth to accept something. Teal'c nodded in thanks and gave her a square of Jell-O.

"Unbelievable!" Cam exclaimed when she closed her mouth with the food inside and started chewing. "I can't believe that worked." However, a moment later, Abbie blew a raspberry, spraying them both with Jell-O. "Ha! I knew it wasn't just me!"

"Indeed," Teal'c reluctantly responded.

"Okay. I say we clean up and try again. There is no way I am taking her back to Sam and telling her that neither one of us managed to get her to eat anything."

"Agreed." Cam picked Abbie up and put her on her feet, and then they used paper towels to wipe everything off. Teal'c went to get a new tray, but by the time he got back, Cam realized they had a new problem.

"Where's Abbie?" he asked his teammate. They both looked all around the room; the toddler was nowhere to be seen. "Oh, crap."

They quickly headed out into the hallway to start searching. "She couldn't have gotten very far on those little legs, right?" Cam asked. Teal'c didn't answer.

As they rounded a corner, they realized that they'd found her, but they weren't the first ones to locate the toddler. Janet raised an eyebrow at them as she stood against the wall, holding Abbie on her hip. "Lose something?" she asked.

"Um… she's stealthy," Cam replied.

"Between the two of you, you honestly couldn't manage to keep an eye on one child?"

He was fully aware that she'd had to keep track of TWO kids in an environment FAR more chaotic than the SGC mess hall. Pleading his case wouldn't get him anywhere, so he skipped straight to the important stuff. "It won't happen again," Cam promised. "Just… can we not mention this to Sam?"

Janet was amused by the idea that the F-302 pilot was scared of his teammate's wrath – as he rightfully should have been. "I don't know," she told him, pretending to think about it. "Did you actually manage to get any food in Abbie, or is it all on you?"

Both men looked down at their clothes; they'd gotten the table and chairs in the mess hall cleaned up, but hadn't thought about themselves. Pasta sauce and Jell-O were splattered on them. "It's not all on us," Cam told her. "There was a good bit on the table and chairs, too…"

"And the walls," Teal'c added.

Janet couldn't help a smile. "Go clean up. I'll feed her and take her back to Sam. And I'll tell her you had a meeting to go to or something."

Cam smiled. "Thanks, Doc."

"Mmm-hmm." She smiled at Abbie as the two guys left. "You like terrorizing boys a little too much," she told the little girl, who giggled.

Once Abbie was happily fed (and Janet had gotten her own lunch), she took the toddler back to Sam's office. "Hey," the Colonel said when she saw her friend in her doorway. "What happened?"

"Nothing big," Janet replied as she put Abbie back down in her play area. "Cam and Teal'c had something they needed to take care of; I told them I'd bring her back."

Sam looked at her skeptically. "What did they do?" she suspiciously asked.

Janet smiled. "She may have ran off on them, but you didn't hear it from me."

She sighed. "She didn't get far?"

"No, I found her in the hall outside of the mess. She's fine."

"Maybe having her here was a mistake. I just thought getting to spend more time with her might be helpful…"

"I don't see why having her here on slow days is a problem. When Cassie was young, I would bring her in with me sometimes when I had to work weekends."

"Cassie was twelve, not under two. She had a bit more of an appreciation for what could be dangerous around here."

"So we keep an eye on Abbie. I don't think the guys are going to let that happen again. In fact, I'm not sure they're going to be volunteering to babysit again." Sam laughed, but sobered after a minute and went back to their previous topic.

"I've been thinking a lot about how my work is going to affect Jake and Abbie. I mean… I don't have a normal schedule all the time, and as careful as we are, things can happen. My life completely changed the day that you came through the gate; I guess I'm still figuring out all the ways."

Janet smiled. "Would it make you feel any better to know that I've already heard this conversation, twice?" she asked. "You had the same concerns in my reality, both after Jake was born and with Abbie."

It did help a little. "How did I make a decision?" Sam asked.

"Well… you loved what you did. You also loved your kids. After Abbie was born, you decided to leave SG-1, but stay with the Stargate program. Focused more on science."

Sam nodded. "I've been considering that option…or leaving altogether. But then we'd probably end up moving away from Colorado Springs so I could find something else, and I don't want to do that to Jake and Abbie… I just don't know."

"You've got to still be you, Sam. If you lose yourself in the process of figuring out what to do for them, they're not going to be any better off."

"Yeah."

"How'd Jake do this morning?" Janet changed the subject. Sam had a lot to think about and they weren't going to resolve anything on the spot.

"Pretty shaky, but he managed."

"Good. He's a tough little guy."

"Yeah, he really is."

That evening, when Sam arrived at Jake's after-care program to pick him up, she was steeling herself for the worst. Totally prepared to console a child who'd had a miserable day, she was surprised to see him sitting on the floor, happily building a LEGO creation with two other boys.

"Hi," he called when he saw her. "Can I stay ten more minutes?"

"Uh, we gotta get home and get dinner, buddy."

"Please?"

"You can finish your masterpiece tomorrow. Come on." Jake sighed, but said goodbye to his friends and got up. The after-care teacher retrieved his backpack for him and he waved to her before following Sam out the door.

"We were making a castle," he told her as they walked out to the parking lot. "It had a drawbridge and a dragon and a knight."

"Sounds impressive."

"Mmhmm. Can I have LEGOs at home?"

"I think that's a reasonable request. We'll go to the store this weekend and you can pick out which set you want, okay?" Jake nodded.

Once they were on their way home, Sam decided to bring up the rest of his day. "So it sounds like you like after-care; how was actual school?"

"Okay. We did math and read a story and got to play on the playground for a whole half hour after lunch. They have swings and a slide and monkey bars. And we have pen-pals that live in Japan. Well, I don't have one yet, but Ryan said I can write a letter to his."

Sam smiled. "So you had a good time? You like school?"

Jake shook his head, "No. I love school."

TBC...