Ch 3

When Jack returned to the infirmary, he was surprised to see Janet still standing next to Sam's bed with a tray of needles and blood-collecting material.

"Aren't you done yet, Doc?"

"She wouldn't let me start until you got back," Janet explained, sounding exasperated.

Sam was smiling at him, or rather, at the cup in his hand. It had taken him a while to track down some hot chocolate mix and a disposable coffee cup with a lid, not wanting her to spill hot liquid on herself, and his quest for marshmallows had been entirely unsuccessful. But, he sat back down next to her hopefully and took the top off the cup, showing her what was inside. "I couldn't find any marshmallows, Sam, but I put 24 seconds worth of whipped cream on top. That okay?"

"Yes!" she agreed quickly. He smiled in satisfaction and put the lid back on, carefully setting it on the table between the beds. He watched while she grabbed an alcohol soaked cotton ball from Janet and carefully wiped her own arm where Janet told her to wipe.

As Janet prepared to draw blood with the tiny butterfly needle, Sam turned to him quickly, holding out her hand. He took it, surprised. Squeezing with all her might, she nonetheless turned her attention back to Janet and watched closely in rapt attention as the needle was inserted into her arm and the blood started flowing into the two small collection tubes Janet had to take. The contradiction amused Jack - Sam's innate curiosity battling with the typical childlike dislike of needles. When she was done, Janet put a band-aid on her arm and Jack noted in amusement that Janet had drawn a smiley face on it with a marker.

"There, that's all for now, sweetie," Janet said. "You were a very brave patient, and as long as these results come back clean, I shouldn't have to give you any more shots."

Grinning, Sam looked at Jack expectantly. "Hot chocolate, please!"

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General Hammond entered the infirmary looking displeased. Well, the man had every right to be grumpy. He'd been awoken at home by his CMO and had to come to the base in the middle of the night for an as-yet unspecified medical 'situation' with SG-1.

It was always SG-1.

"Report, Colonel," Hammond ordered. "And does this have anything to do with the trail of clothing I've found all over my base?" he demanded, tossing a stack of clothes onto the foot of Sam's bed.

Sam, who had been in the bathroom with Janet, came back into the room, the big black tee-shirt she was wearing only hanging onto one skinny shoulder and coming past her knees. Not noticing the new person in the room, she headed straight for Jack and said, "Dr. Janet said you were probably finishing my hot chocolate while I was gone!" as she reached for the drink.

"How dare she falsely accuse me," Jack said, setting the drink down to help her up onto the bed. She could probably have scrambled up there on her own, but the rails were pulled up for her and Daniel's safety. To his surprise, she crawled into his lap instead, apparently seeing it as the quickest route to her coveted hot chocolate. She took the cup carefully in both hands and took a big gulp, settling into him comfortably like sleepy children all over the world. Only after a few long gulps did she lower the cup enough to notice General Hammond.

"Are you another doctor?" she asked.

"He's the General," Jack told her quietly.

"Oh. Sorry, General." she gave him a sweet smile and took another long drink from her cup.

"That's okay, Sammy," General Hammond said automatically.

Jack looked at him in surprise, and saw that the General was turning faintly red. "I'm assuming you're about to give me the only good reason I can possibly think of for you to be holding your Second in your lap, Colonel," he said, his tone all business.

Brushing aside the peculiar way he'd just greeted the little girl - for the moment - Jack said, "Ah, yes, sir. Maybe we should talk about this… away from little pitchers and their big ears?"

"Yes, I agree, Colonel."

"Don't leave me alone with Doctor Janet, Colonel!" Sam piped up quickly, grabbing onto his shirt sleeve.

Hammond sighed. "I'll go discuss this situation with Dr. Fraiser first, then I want to hear from you, Jack," Hammond decided, heading for Fraiser's adjacent office, stopping on the way to stare at the still-sleeping miniature Daniel for a few moments before shaking his head in disbelief and waving Fraiser to follow him into her office.

They didn't shut the door all the way, and although Jack couldn't hear them as they talked quietly, he could still see the General's profile through the partly-open door. He noticed Sam watching him too, just sort of staring at the older man steadily as she finished her hot chocolate. He supposed she was just focusing on the new person in the room while she got closer and closer to going back to sleep, and didn't try to strike up a further conversation with her, hoping she would fall back asleep soon.

Additionally, he was starting to get a little concerned at the fact that she'd been up and alert for a while now, and Daniel hadn't so much as stirred in his bed, continuing to breathe steadily with his mouth open. He thought she must be nearly asleep after about ten minutes, but didn't dare move yet to check, when Hammond and Fraiser came back into the room. Sam continued to stare at the General, which he noticed. Jack couldn't help but be amused at how increasingly uncomfortable the little girl's stare seemed to be making him.

Finally, she announced, "You look a lot like my Uncle George just waaaaaaaaaaay older."

"Uncle George?" Jack asked with a huge grin, looking to the older man. "Ah, the pieces continue to fall into place. Who's Uncle George, Sam?" he asked.

"He's my godfather," she answered promptly. "Only I haven't seen him in a long time because he had to move to another base. In Texas."

"I had no idea she would remember that," Hammond said, looking amazed.

"You are my Uncle George," Sam accused. "How come you didn't say so before? And how did you get so old so fast? Where'd the rest of your hair go?"

Jack hastily tried to turn his laugh into a cough.

Hammond was now distinctly pink in the face. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I didn't know if you would recognize me or not. You know, it has been a long time since I've seen you."

"You have no idea," Janet muttered to herself.

"I guess I do look a lot older, huh?"

"Yeah, you look even older than Colonel Jack! And hey! You're s'posed to be a Colonel too like my Daddy… how come everyone was calling you 'General?'"

"I, uh… got a promotion," Hammond explained.

"Wow, good job, Uncle George!" she praised enthusiastically. Then she frowned. "Did you have a party to celebrate without me?" she demanded.

Jack was laughing to himself again, as Hammond held up both hands. "No, no, no party without you. I promise. Now, do you think you can get back in bed and go back to sleep while I talk to Colonel O'Neill here for a few minutes?" he asked hopefully.

"Well," she said after thinking about it carefully for a few moments. "I can get back in bed but I can't promise to fall asleep, Uncle George. If you think too hard about goin to sleep, you can't do it."

He chuckled. "Well, I suppose that's fair. You be good for Janet, okay?"

"I will," she promised.

Jack got up and deposited her carefully onto her bed, tucking her in and making sure the rails were locked into place. He smiled at her and said, "Wish me luck."

"Good luck, Colonel," she said cheerfully, draining the last of her hot chocolate from the cup and setting it on the table next to the bed.

Jack followed Hammond and Janet outside. They left the door open a crack so they could hear if she got out of bed, and spoke quietly so they wouldn't be overheard.

"Okay, Dr. Fraiser has told me that her preliminary tests confirm that those children are both Major Carter and Dr. Jackson, and that they appear perfectly healthy and normal, apart from the fact that Major Carter obviously believes she is only three years old…"

"Four," Jack corrected.

"Whatever. The point is… I'm assuming this had something to do with the egg-like device they were working on?"

"I'd say that's a safe bet," Jack said.

Hammond sighed. "I'll get a team on it first thing in the morning. What else have you learned?"

Jack shrugged and succinctly retraced all of his steps for the General, telling him exactly how he'd found his team, recognized them, and brought them straight to the infirmary. "Well, at least that explains why I found two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, a pair of boxers, and a pair or women's underwear on my way down here," Hammond said. "I was beginning to think someone around here was blatantly defying the fraternization regulations."

Jack raised both eyebrows, and Janet looked faintly embarrassed on behalf of her friends, mentally noting to have the pile of clothes now in her infirmary cleaned and discreetly returned to Sam and Daniel's respective lockers as quickly as possible.

"All right. Dr. Fraiser, since you said you have more tests to run, I'm going to ask you to watch them tonight, Colonel O'Neill."

"Yes, sir," he said automatically. As if he was going to leave them alone in the infirmary all night! Daniel hadn't even woken up yet, for crying out loud! He never left a teammate in the infirmary before they'd at least regained consciousness.

"You can have the empty bed next to Sam's," Janet said, doubting he would take it. No doubt he would doze in the chair so he wouldn't sleep too deeply.

"Since you haven't been cleared for active duty yet again anyway, I'll put you in charge of them until further notice," Hammond continued. "Teal'c can help you with them if he wants, but he still has to go on SG-3's mission with them four days from now."

"Yes, sir."

"Um, sir," Janet piped up.

"Yes, doctor?"

"I don't have anything on hand that will really fit either of them very well, sir, and they can't very well run around in over-large tee-shirts indefinitely," Janet pointed out.

"True," Hammond realized. "All right. I'll have someone find something for them by morning, and Jack can take them shopping after that, once you've cleared them to leave the infirmary."

"Shopping?" Jack winced.

"Jack, the two people most likely to figure that device out in a remotely timely manner are currently still mastering the alphabet and tying their shoes in there!" Hammond pointed out. "The chances are good this will take a while to sort out."

"Great," he groaned. "Then can I put in a request to have someone ask Thor if he can help us speed up the process?"

"Noted, Colonel."

"And I bet they can read already," Jack defended belatedly. At the looks he got, he said, "Well, Sam said she's already in kindergarten, and I bet Danny boy was born with a book in his hands!"

Hammond sighed. "Just take good care of them, Jack. Oh, and watch out for Sam. If I remember correctly from Jacob, she was something of a troublemaker."

Jack looked at him skeptically. "The tiny little blonde in there who is insisting on addressing me as 'Colonel' is a troublemaker, sir?"

Hammond shrugged. "See for yourself then, Colonel. Good luck."

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After telling her every bedtime story he could vaguely recall, the infirmary was finally silent. Jack looked back and forth between the two sleeping children, shaking his head. Only his team would get themselves into a situation like this. And Sam was quickly proving what Jack had always secretly thought true - Carter was entirely too smart for her own good. As a child, she made no attempt to hide it or be respectful of his title beyond studiously addressing him by it, and that was simply a learned behavior her father had clearly ingrained in her at an early age. It had made telling her a bedtime story very frustrating, for one, as she corrected him every other sentence when he misremembered something or got a little creative with the plotline of the three little pigs, Goldilocks, or Cinderella.

She was certainly entertaining, and adorable, and even the bossiness and relentless inquisitiveness was endearing in its own way, but he was damn tired by the time she finally fell back asleep. He slouched down more comfortably in his chair and let his eyes drift closed, just for a few moments…

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