2

"Crap," Jack muttered, staring down at the two sleeping figures. BDU's hanging off of them like blankets, their boots had already fallen off and lay haphazardly under the table. He crouched down next to them, his knees creaking in protest. He felt their pulses carefully, and once he felt the strong, if slightly fast beats beneath his fingers, allowed himself a moment to be amazed at the sight in front of him.

He had a feeling he would know both of them anywhere, even if the circumstances of finding them in Carter's lab, in their now over-large BDU's wasn't a dead giveaway.

Daniel's hair looked like it had when they'd first brought him back from Abydos - long, with a lot more blonde highlights mixed in with the otherwise sandy hair. His glasses, no doubt way too big now, were hanging off one ear. Jack removed them carefully and pocketed them for safekeeping, wondering how old Daniel had been when he'd first needed them. And, Jack had to admit, the sleeping little boy was absolutely adorable.

Equally cute, he had less trouble admitting, was the little girl curled up next to him. It was harder to see her face because she was on her side and her face was mostly hidden by a messy mass of wispy looking platinum hair that probably reached about her shoulders, although it was hard to tell from her current position. She was smaller than Daniel, and looked cold, curled up in a tight little ball and snuggled close to the warm body next to her for warmth.

He reached out to her instinctively because she looked so tiny and miserable there on the cold hard floor, and picked her up carefully. She didn't stir at all, as limp as a rag doll, as he moved her. He shifted her till he could hold her securely with one arm and then scooped up Daniel too, securing him against the other shoulder and getting up with a slight groan. Okay, so maybe his knee wasn't quite as good as new yet, he thought to himself.

He groaned as he felt someone's pants and maybe a sock slide off the now tiny bodies of his teammates as he stood up straight with them, but decided getting them both to Janet took priority at the moment.

By the time he got them to the almost-empty infirmary, he knew they were both down to their overlarge tee-shirts, but hadn't exactly been able to stop and pick up discarded clothing with his arms full of sleeping children.

Luckily, he knew Fraiser was spending the night on base because the Lieutenant on SG-9 was still recovering from abdominal surgery from a couple days ago. He knocked loudly on the door to her office with the toe of his boot, knowing she often slept on a cot in there.

Sure enough, a few moments later she opened the door sleepily. "Colonel O'Neill? What… oh my God. Where on Earth did those children come from?" she demanded, waking up instantly.

"Well, Doc, I'd have thought they covered that in medical school, but all right… see, when two people love each other, sometimes they…"

"Colonel, I will not hesitate to give you unnecessary booster shots," she deadpanned.

"Yes, ma'am." He swallowed and said, "Well, here's the thing. My two favorite scientists… are now apparently my two favorite little scientists."

Eyes widening, she brushed the nearest child's hair out of their face and studied it closely. It was hard - the boy was asleep, his cheek smushed against O'Neill's shoulder, but there was definitely some resemblance…

"Here, help me put them down, and look at them properly," Jack instructed.

She nodded and took the sleeping boy from him and carried him to the nearest bed, laying him down gently on his back. She turned on a nearby lamp so the room was more well-lit and studied the little boy's face while she checked his vitals. That done, she turned to Jack, who was standing at the foot of the bed, still holding the sleeping little girl. "Um, sir, you want to put her down on the next bed?" she prompted.

"Oh, yeah." He did as instructed, covering her tightly with a blanket. Janet nudged him out of the way and had to pull the blanket loose again to examine the sleeping girl. Jack pulled a chair out and sat down in between the two beds, looking back and forth between them and frowning. "They were playing with that damn egg," he offered after a few moments.

"Well, whatever happened, they seem okay - just deeply asleep. I'll have to run a lot more tests of course, but I'm inclined to agree with you. I've seen pictures of Sam at about this age and this certainly looks like her. And that one has a birthmark on his underarm exactly where Daniel does, so… I'll have to run DNA and everything else I can think of to figure out what happened and if they're okay but I think you're right, sir. This appears to be Daniel and Sam." She sighed and said, "I'll go call General Hammond."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jack was fighting sleep himself when one of his little teammates stirred. The little girl sat up a bit clumsily, rubbing her eyes sleepily and looking around. Jack watched hopefully, hoping she'd recognize where she was and still be his regular 2IC on the inside, if not on the outside. As he saw her wake, however, he noticed panic starting to set in, the sort of panic that only small children can adequately convey in an expression when they wake up in unfamiliar surroundings. Knowing what usually came next, he said quickly and quietly, in what he hoped was a friendly voice, "Hey, Carter."

She looked at him in surprise, her eyes looking somehow bigger and bluer than usual on the little face, which still had some remnants of babyhood even though she looked about three, in his estimation. "Sam," he corrected himself quickly. "Your name's Sam, right?"

She nodded warily and asked, "Are you a doc-tor?"

He laughed. "Nope. Definitely not a doctor."

"You're a soldier man," she said, leaning over to touch the insignia on the shoulder of his uniform. "My dad has these same ones."

"Your dad's a Colonel," he concluded, confirming in his mind that she was still Sam Carter, just apparently Sam Carter rewound about thirty years.

She nodded. "Is he here?"

"No, sorry, Carter… Sam. But um, I'm a friend of his!"

She looked at him suspiciously. "You are?"

"Oh sure. Me and Jake go way back. Listen, I need to ask you some questions now, okay?"

"Who's that?" she asked, ignoring him and pointing to Daniel, whom she had just spotted.

"That's Daniel."

"Are you his Daddy?" she asked.

"No!" he said quickly, startling her a bit. "He's, uh, another friend. He's your friend too."

"Oh," she said, apparently accepting that for the moment.

Before she could ask him another question, he turned the tables, wanting to get as much information from her as possible before Janet rejoined them, because he was sure the doctor's questions - and exam - would be much more invasive. "How old are you?"

"Four. Hw old are you?" she countered.

He groaned. "More than four."

"More than a hundred?"

"No. but Teal'c is more than a hundred."

"Who?" she asked eagerly.

"Another friend. Never mind. Listen, Sam, do you remember what you were doing right before you woke up here?"

She stared at him for a minute and said, "Well… I guess I was sleeping. I mean, I don't remember sleeping but I remember waking up and you can't wake up unless you've been asleep so I musta been sleeping," she concluded proudly, crossing her arms and looking at him hopefully. "Did I get it right?"

He chuckled, despite himself. Apparently even at four her reasoning skills were top notch and she could talk circles around him. "Yes, that's right. But… do you remember anything else?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I don't think I ever been here before so somebody musta moved me when I was sleeping. My mommy says I can sleep through tornadoes!" she said proudly.

He laughed. "Well, okay, then. So…"

"Is Mommy here? Why am I at the doctor? Am I sick? If I'm sick I want my mommy before you give me any shots!"

"Shhh," Jack said quickly, glancing nervously at Daniel's sleeping form. "You're not sick, Sam. At least, I don't think you are. The doctor is going to want to check for sure though, just in case, but that can wait a little while, okay?"

"What about my mommy?" she asked immediately.

"She's… she's not here. I'm sorry."

"Are you babysitting me?"

Realizing that might be the best way to get her to cooperate, he nodded. "Yes. Your parents… had to go somewhere unexpectedly, so your dad asked me to watch you."

"Oh." She studied him for a moment and said, "Okay. Then can I have something to drink please? I'm thirsty."

"Sure," Jack said, wheeling his chair over to the sink and filling a disposable cup with water. He brought it back to her.

She took it and looked at it with a slight frown. "I really like chocolate milk a lot better," she said hopefully, giving him a big-eyed look that was just about impossible to resist.

Despite himself, he was about two seconds from giving in and hunting down some chocolate milk in the middle of the night when Janet came in, having heard their conversation. "Hey, Sam," she smiled at the little girl, pulling out her penlight.

Sam's eyes flicked from the doctor's coat to the stethoscope around her neck and she cringed. "H-hi. I'm not sick! He said so," she said, pointing to Jack. "What's your name anyway? You never said."

"I'm Jack. Jack O'Neill."

"And you're a Colonel like my Dad."

"Yup."

"Then I'm supposed to call you 'Colonel O'Neill,'" she said carefully, remembering the rules her father had taught her.

Jack rolled his eyes. "For cryin' out loud… you're four years old, Carter, you don't have to call me Colonel O'Neill!"

"Why do you keep on calling me my last name?"

"I… never mind, Sam. Look, your dad won't care if you call me Jack."

"Yes, he will," Sam argued with conviction.

"I have to agree with Sam on this one, Colonel," Janet said, with a suggestive hint to her voice to suggest she wasn't exactly talking about only this context.

"Watch it," Jack growled.

"But Colonel O'Neill, Daddy said…"

"Okay," he relented, giving up. Arguing with a four year old, he quickly remembered, was never easy. "You can just call me 'Colonel.' you don't have to say 'Colonel O'Neill' all the time."

She thought for a moment and then said, "Okay, Colonel" before saluting him with a grin.

He laughed. Janet took advantage of Sam's distraction to start examining her, listening to her chest again with the stethoscope and taking her temperature, then her pulse. "I went to the doctor before school started and got lots of shots," Sam said quickly, once the routine parts of the external exam were over. "I don't need any more!"

"You go to school already?" Janet asked curiously.

Sam nodded. "I'm in kindergarten. I was supposed to be in first grade but Mark threw a fit because he didn't want me in the same grade as him, and Mommy said I didn't have to go to school at all yet, but Daddy said I could go to kindergarten if I wanted and go to a special class that would be almost just like first grade…"

"Wow," Janet said. "Well, then I won't have to give you lots of shots. But I might have to do a couple, because we need to make sure that you're okay. We… think you might have caught something contagious and we just want to make sure you didn't."

Sam thought for a moment and asked, "Can I help then? I want to do the wet cotton ball part by myself. And if I don't cry, I want a lollipop. A green one," she stipulated.

Jack was laughing quietly, enjoying this bossy side of his 2IC ordering Janet around in her own infirmary. As Janet, who seemed flummoxed, started trying to explain that she didn't have any lollipops, Jack interrupted, scooting his chair back up to the side of the bed. "Hey, Sam? We're fresh out of green lollipops, but I bet I can track down that hot chocolate you wanted if you behave for the doctor," he wheedled.

"Okay," she agreed quickly, grinning at him.

Smiling himself, proud that he'd convinced her successfully, he got up to make a run to the mess hall. "Colonel?" she called when he was three steps away. He turned back around patiently. "Twenty-four marshmallows, please!"

Refusing to look at Janet because he could just picture the smug look on her face, he refused to look affected by the fact that someone he'd been giving order to for seven years was now bossing him around quite efficiently as little more than a baby. He made an exaggerated bow instead and said, "Certainly, m'lady," before backing out of the infirmary.

He could hear familiar giggling halfway down the hallway, and knew any attempt to order her not to would not be obeyed this time.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX