Ch 7
In what seemed like no time at all, someone was knocking on the door. Scrambling to answer, in order to stop the knocking before it woke the sleeping four year olds, Jack hurriedly yanked the door open, ready to growl at whomever had risked waking them. Since it was General Hammond, he decided he sort of had to let it go.
"General. You joining us for naptime, sir?" he asked quietly.
"Not exactly, Colonel," Hammond said. "The team I put together to study the device is ready to make their initial report, and Dr. Fraiser has her test results back. I assumed you would want to attend the meeting to get an update on your teammates' conditions."
"Yes sir. Of course. Um, the thing is, they're asleep and I don't think it would be a very good idea to leave them alone. I mean, they've never been in the VIP suite before, they'll wake up scared and confused…"
"I know, Colonel. I wasn't suggesting they be left alone. I have two guards on their way down here, with makeshift baby monitors. They will stay right outside the door while the kids sleep and go get them the moment they wake up, should they wake before you're back."
"Yes, sir," Jack said. He still wasn't certain how the children would react to being greeted upon waking by armed, uniformed strangers, but Hammond wasn't exactly giving him much choice. "I'll be right there, I just need to get back in uniform, sir."
"You do that, Colonel."
Jack quickly changing back into his BDUs and hurried to the briefing room, which was full.
Hammond got the meeting started but turned it over to Fraiser almost immediately.
"Both children are perfectly healthy," she began. "They are also without a doubt Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson. I found no genetic markers or abnormalities to suggest they are clones or anything other than younger versions of themselves. Both children appear to have their normal childhood memories up to the age of four. Unfortunately, there is also nothing in any of their medical tests that might be useful in determining how to reverse whatever happened to them. For the sake of their own psychological well-beings, I recommend strongly that nobody tell them anything that deviates from what Colonel O'Neill told them initially - that their parents had to go out of town unexpectedly and asked him to watch them. So far they are accepting this story and we don't want to upset them by letting them hear that their older selves exist and are missing, or that they aren't supposed to be here and we have teams of people trying to figure out how to get rid of them."
"I agree. Be careful what you say around them, people. Let them think they're just normal kids," Hammond said firmly.
"It's Carter and Daniel," Jack said pointedly. "There's nothing normal about either of them."
Everyone stared at him. He held up both hands. "I meant that in a good way."
"I concur," Teal'c contributed, speaking for the first time during the meeting.
Hammond nodded and said, "And on that note, let's hear how close we are to getting our two extraordinary adults back in place of their shrunken stand-ins."
The head geek now on the project, since Carter was out of commission on this one for all intents and purposes, stood up and cleared his throat somewhat nervously. "Well, we followed enough of what Major Carter had recorded as she examined the device to be able to tell that between what she could tell from exploring the inside of the device and what little Dr. Jackson was able to start translating from the writings on the building it was found in that it had something to do with what he translated as either 'rejuvenation' or 'rebirth.' Major Carter noted very close similarities between the device's energy signature and that emitted by a sarcophagus and the Tel'Chek device. They were both hopeful that this might prove to be a safer version of the same technology, in concept at least."
"Fountain of youth," Jack translated.
"well, clearly that applies now, knowing what it did to them. At the time, Major Carter was just beginning to activate it, starting at only .04% power, to try to determine if there was even the potential for anything like what you saw with the device from South America. She really was being very cautious, General," the scientist added a bit defensively to Hammond. "It's just that this device appears to have a very strong human component requirement that she had no way of detecting by examining the device. We only know that because it's the only thing that makes sense given that it did what it did to her. And to Dr. Jackson."
"What do you mean, human component?" Hammond asked.
"Like that Sentinel thing?" Jack demanded.
"Sort of," the scientist admitted. "Conceptually, basically, yes. We think the fact that she was severely hindering the device's access to electrical power didn't matter so much because it drew a ton of energy from her instead."
"How?"
"Either directly, if she was touching it, or through extremely close proximity, since she was definitely very close to it if not touching it at the time."
"What of Daniel Jackson's fate?" Teal's asked.
They all shrugged.
"If the thing was zapping Carter, Danny probably grabbed her to try to get her away from it," Jack pointed out. "Could that have done it, if he was touching her and she was still touching it?"
"Probably," someone chimed in.
"This is all great speculation, people, but where does it leave us?" Hammond asked. "If nobody can touch it without turning it on, how are you going to study it and get those two back to normal?"
"Well, we have a sort of… system worked out when we need to work with it directly," the lead scientist began, hedging a bit.
"System?" Jack asked, demanding clarification.
"Robot arms," said someone else. "Basically."
"Sweet," Jack said.
"Well, they're not particularly dextrous…"
"Yes, sir, we'd like to order a special machine that would be much more easy to control and much more manipulable, it's this arm that does open heart surgery and…" another scientist started eagerly, looking at Hammond hopefully.
"Will a Hazmat suit not work?" Janet asked. "I mean, we have plenty of those." Jack could tell she was thinking along the same lines he was. If they had to order specialized and expensive equipment to even begin making progress, surely the "kids" would be sticking around for quite some time.
"We're not sure. Since it drew power, basically electrical, from humans, we can't really be sure that a hazmat suit would be an effective barrier if it doesn't need direct flesh-to-device contact. If close proximity is enough, we're talking such a subatomic level here that the suits wouldn't do anything."
"So we really need that robot arm…" another scientist started hopefully.
Hammond waved a hand impatiently. "We'll discuss that later. What are you doing in the meantime?"
"We have it sealed off in a room and have scanned its dimensions into the computer so we can run simulations on it and everything without having to actually touch it… and the linguistics department is trying to translate the stuff Dr. Jackson was working on to see if there's anything more useful there…"
"How long?" Jack interrupted. They all looked at each other and shrugged, nobody wanting to be the one to tell him they had no idea. He got the gist however, and demanded, "Days? Weeks? Months? Just an estimate, here, people, I'm not going to hold you to it by the hour."
"Probably months," someone finally ventured.
"Maybe less," the head scientist offered hopefully. "If we can get safe, better access to it directly, maybe a few weeks…"
"All right, you'll get your robot arm and whatever else you need," Hammond promised, clearly disturbed by the vague but lengthy timetable. "In the meantime, Colonel O'Neill, you have your standing orders for the time being. Teal'c, you still have a few things we can't move on your schedule for now, but I'd like you to help your teammates out as much as possible. If we get to the point where the children are still here and O'Neill's knee is fully healed again we'll talk about adjusting the assignments for both of you at that time."
They both accepted their assignments, and Hammond dismissed them, knowing they didn't need to hear the rest of the details to be worked out between the science teams.
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Meanwhile, in the VIP suite
Daniel woke up and sat up clumsily, rubbing his eyes sleepily and looking around the unfamiliar room in confusion. Not seeing any adults, but spotting Sam on the next bed over, he hurried over to her and scrambled up next to her, patting her arm frantically. "Sam? Sam, wake up!"
She rolled over and looked at him in confusion. "Whasswrong, Daniel?" she looked around and frowned. "Where's Colonel Jack?"
"I dunno, I never been in this room before, have you?"
"Nope, but there's all our stuff, I bet…" they heard the beeping they knew meant someone was swiping and ID to get into the room and for some reason, Sam leapt off the bed. "Come on, let's hide!"
Daniel was right on her heels as they scurried into the only open door in the room, shutting it quickly. It turned out to be a tiny bathroom with just a toilet, sink and mirror.
"Who is it, is it Colonel Jack or Uncle Teal'c?" Daniel whispered, peering at the closed door.
"I dunno," Sam whispered back.
"Uh, Daniel? Sam?" a grown up voice called hesitantly, knocking on the bathroom door.
"Go away, please!" Daniel called.
There was quiet laughter, and another voice said, "We were waiting outside for you to wake up."
"Where's Colonel O'Neill and Uncle Teal'c?" Sam called.
"They had to go to a meeting."
"Oh, okay, we'll just wait for them in here then, thanks!" Daniel called.
After a few moments, the first voice said, "I think maybe you guys should come out of the bathroom now."
They looked at each other and both silently agreed that this could turn out to be kind of a fun game in and of itself, after all. "NO!" they called stubbornly.
"Why not?"
"It's a bathroom!" Daniel called. "We need PRIVACY!"
"Oh, sorry, okay."
Giggling, they talked quietly for a few minutes, strategizing. Finally, the voice called back, "Uh, aren't you guys done yet?"
"Nope, we're still going!" Daniel called. Sam giggled, clamping her hands over her mouth, and ran over to flush the toilet.
"Are you even supposed to be in there alone?"
The second voice said, "Dude, they're four, I think it's okay."
Sam called, "It's okay, I got a brother, I know ALL about boy parts already!"
A chorus of strangled choking sounding laughs reached them. They both looked at each other and shrugged, not sure what was so funny.
"Uh, are you sure you don't need some… help, or something? I could call a nurse…"
"Nope, we're fine in here! You guys can just leave if you want," Sam called, spinning the toilet paper roll idly.
Daniel watched her and got an idea. "Hey, Sam, want me to show you how to make a mummy? I learned it from my parents when we were in Cairo."
"Where's that?" she asked in awe.
"Egypt."
"Wow. Cool! Yeah, show me how to make a mummy."
Oblivious to the fact that the two SFs left in charge of them were having a whispered argument about whether or not to force the bathroom door open, and whether or not Colonel O'Neill needed to be pulled from the meeting he was in, Sam and Daniel proceeded to have a great time, Daniel using three rolls of toilet paper to carefully wrap Sam from head to toe in toilet paper, not even pausing in their play when they had to call out through the door to assure the soldier-men on the other side they were "Still going" and "didn't need any help."
Teal'c and Jack went back to the VIP quarters, talking along the way.
"Is it your intention to keep the children here for the duration of their stay?" Teal'c asked. "A military facility seems poorly suited for such a purpose."
"Yeah, I know. I didn't want to bring it up in front of everyone, but I'm going to talk to Hammond soon about taking them home with me. They can't even go outside and play here, for crying out loud. They'll get stir crazy here pretty fast once the newness of their surroundings wears off."
Teal'c thought about that for a moment, then said, "You appear to be most proficient at raising young humans, O'Neill. It is fortunate for Major Carter and Daniel Jackson that you are here to care for them."
"Thanks, T," Jack said, surprised.
They had reached the VIP room. Jack swiped them in and was quick to spot the two SFs crouched by the bathroom door. His little charges were nowhere in sight.
"Gentlemen?" he asked pointedly.
"Uh, yes, sir," they snapped up to attention. "They woke up about twenty minutes ago and were in there by the time we got into the room."
"They've been in the bathroom for twenty minutes? Unsupervised?"
"They said they didn't need help and wanted privacy…" one guard tried to explain.
"And you listened to them? What's wrong with you?" Jack asked, banging on the door. "Sam! Daniel! Open up now, please."
There was some muffled whispering, some giggles, and Daniel finally opened the door with a big grin on his face. "Hi Colonel Jack, you're back!" He spotted Teal'c and smiled again. "Hi Uncle Teal'c!"
"Greetings, young Daniel Jackson. What have you been doing in the restroom for such a lengthy amount of time? "
"Playing," he shrugged.
"Playing what?" Jack asked.
"Mummy," he answered, stepping aside and opening the door the rest of the way, so they could see the tiny room's other occupant.
Sam was wrapped head to toe in toilet paper, random strips dangling off where it had broken. The top of her head had obviously been hardest to wrap because there was so much piled there it looked more like a turban than anything else, and several strips hung down. One eye was mostly covered as well.
"Hi!" she offered with a huge grin.
"Why didn't you open the door for the Airmen?" Jack demanded, torn between amusement and exasperation.
Sam shrugged. "It was more fun not to."
He supposed that probably made perfect sense to a four year old and had to just start laughing. "Okay, you two, a room full of new toys and all you wanted to play with was the toilet paper?" he asked, chuckling as he started helping them disentangle Sam from the many layers of paper. "You could have saved the Air Force a nice chunk of change if you'd mentioned that when we were at the store earlier."
They looked like they didn't understand him at all.
"We were scared when we woke up and you were gone and we didn't know where we were," Daniel admitted quickly, once Jack had shoved the giant wad of toilet paper into a corner of the bathroom, not quite sure what to do with it.
"I'm sorry," Jack said sincerely, squeezing his shoulder lightly. "I had to go to a meeting. But if you had listened to the SFs, they would have told you that, and brought you to me if you were upset and didn't want to wait here for us."
"Oh." they exchanged sheepish smiles.
Gasping suddenly, Sam drew everyone's attention. "You said we were going to the toy store!" Sam realized suddenly, an accusatory note in her voice as though she was discovering they had been tricked.
"I was driving there but you guys both fell asleep," Jack explained. "So I decided to bring you back here for a nap first. We'll have a late lunch and then go to the toy store after that. If you guys still want to go, of course."
"Yes!"
"We do, we do!"
He chuckled. "Well, lucky you, Uncle Teal'c, you can come with us to the toy store now!"
"Yay!" Sam and Daniel both chorused enthusiastically, hurrying over to Teal'c excitedly. "It'll be so much fun, Uncle Teal'c! you're coming aren't you?"
He looked down at both of them and his eyes twinkled. "Indeed, I will accompany you, children. I suspect we will attract far less attention than the last time I accompanied Colonel O'Neill to a toy store."
"Hey, what the hell! You weren't supposed to tell Carter or Daniel about that!" Jack reminded.
Teal'c merely shrugged and smiled, giving into Sam's insistent pleas that she be given a piggy back ride to the commissary for lunch.
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Luckily, the lunchtime meal consisted of far less tempting sugary offers than breakfast. Both kids were happy enough with the French fries available, but neither would touch their "Salisbury steak…" Not even when Jack tried to convince them it was just a hamburger without the bun. Daniel bravely licked his portion, but the face he made caused Sam to shove her plate away in disgust, and neither could be convinced to try it with ketchup or anything else on offer after that.
Sure that if he let them only eat fries for lunch, Janet would revoke his temporary custody assignment, Jack went back up to the line and convinced one of the Airmen working there to go in the back and fix a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids.
They ate satisfactorily after that, so much so that Jack gave into their repeated pleas for dessert. Daniel ate cookies and Sam, unsurprisingly, insisted on having blue jello.
After lunch was done, it was nearly two. Jack and Teal'c loaded them back into Jack's truck, both kids talking excitedly amongst themselves about all the things they hoped to find at the toy store.
"It is fortunate that they appear to be close friends already, despite the fact that from their perspectives, they have only just met," Teal'c commented quietly to Jack as they drove to the toy store.
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "I wonder if there's some kind of leftover feelings, like they somehow know they know each other, and all of us, already. Or if they're just two peas in a pod and always have been."
Teal'c turned to look at the children for several moments, then turned back around and stated. "They do not in any way resemble legumes to me, O'Neill."
Jack chuckled and said, "Never mind."