Hammond carefully schooled his features when SG-1 shuffled into his office. Their eyes instantly landed on the dark brown piece of fur sitting on his desk. The general had placed it there deliberately, dispelling any illusion as to why they had all been summoned. All looked slightly guilty yet damned proud at the same time.

The CO’s face was stern. "Tell me, do you think your behavior today reflects favorably on those uniforms you are wearing?" Jack opened his mouth but Hammond cut him off. "That was rhetorical, Colonel."

Uneasily Jack’s jaw snapped shut.

"You are representatives of the United States Air Force. Not only that, you are the primary team to which the rest of the personnel look to, to base their actions against."

The team remained silent.

"Your ambush of the senator today was ill-conceived and I don’t want to catch you doing it again. Do I make myself clear?"

Four of the team gave curt nods and a solemn, "Yes, sir."

Annika on the other hand tilted her head curiously, her sight focused not on the general but on the air around him. Hesitantly she spoke. "Um, General, sir, I guess that means we’ll have to be sneakier next time."

Hammond paused for a fraction of a heartbeat. "That is precisely what I mean. We have spent thousands of dollars and countless man hours teaching you the art of how to be covert, and your operation today was known by over half the base. Major Ferretti even had a betting pool running on how long Kinsey would last. Thankfully the senator was too busy dodging imaginary weasels to notice."

Glances were exchanged and grins barely contained.

"You don't happen to know who won, do you, General?" Jack asked innocently.

"No, Colonel, I do not." Another pause. "I do know that it wasn't me."

"We will endeavor to hone our stealth tactics," Teal’c intoned.

"See that you do." Hammond finally gave in to the chuckle he’d been fighting. "You’re dismissed, SG-1. I’ll see you tomorrow."

"Early secure! Sweet!" Jack voiced what they were all thinking.

Bidding the general a warm goodbye, they started to leave, when the CO called them back.

"I almost forgot. While you were playing, did you manage to figure out what Kinsey was up to?"

Sam spoke up. "He was definitely fishing, sir. He's determined to find out who the zatarc was, asked a half a dozen leading questions hoping I'd slip up."

"Well, unless by some miracle he becomes President, that's not going to happen."

"Sir, don't even suggest that nightmare!" Jack protested. "If that happens I'm jumping universes."

"You and me both, Colonel." Hammond suppressed a shiver of distaste at the idea.

"This...um...'fell' out of Kinsey's pocket in his panicked sprint." Daniel placed a small disc on the general's desk.

"Fell?" Hammond eyed the disc, recognizing it instantly as one of the memory devices Doctor McKay was working on.

Annika nodded. "Right out of the top inside left pocket of his jacket."

Jack's cheek twitched. "Find a hole with your hocus pocus, didja?"

"Why don't we call it testing the new boundaries of my abilities?" she suggested innocently.

"We can call it that," Hammond confirmed with a smile then he became concerned. "Did you suffer any ill effects?"

Everyone's gaze, equally worried, focused on the psychic. To put their minds at ease she gave a nonchalant shrug. "I'm okay. Nothing I can't handle."

Daniel gave an exasperated sigh and gave the real answer. "Instant headache. Slight nausea. Both of which diminished after five minutes."

Annika glared at her husband. "You weren't supposed to feel that!"

"Yeah, well, tough titty, I did," he replied, totally unrepentant. She had been quick to try and mask the side effects from him but he'd been quicker, and apparently more subtle. "And I will continue to monitor you to make sure you don't overtax yourself."

She opened her mouth to object, then snapped it shut at the approving nods of everyone else in room. "You're a bunch of mother hens," she grumbled, ungraciously accepting defeat.

"I wonder why Kinsey wanted this," Sam mused, picking up the memory device. "He's got full access to the ones at Area 51."

"However he would have to use official channels," Teal'c pointed out.

"He's got someone he wants to interrogate below the radar." Jack was sure of it. "Do I look shocked?"

"Maybe I should have let him take it," Annika second-guessed her retrieval. "He was stealing alien technology from a top secret facility. We could have used that to get him at least off the IOA."

"We still can." Hammond was thoughtful. "The fact that he didn't make it off base with it doesn't change that he was trying to remove the device without authorization."

"We're pretty sure of the time frame. If we run the security tapes we're bound to catch him in the act," Daniel added.

"It'd be a nice little ace to have up our sleeve," Jack was thinking about the other dirt they had on Kinsey that was sitting on a disc in Hammond's drawer. Adding another tidbit was always a good thing.

"I'll give it some thought," Hammond assured, closing the discussion. "Have a good time at O'Malley's."

SG-1 was startled that the General knew of their dinner plans.

"You sure you're not psychic, General?" Annika asked.

"Quite sure. Keelah mentioned it."

The redhead's face lit up. In all the excitement she'd forgotten about the kiss she’d witnessed. Linking arms with the Jaffa, she led the way out of the office. "So, Teal'c, is there something you want to share with us?"

"I invited Keelah to accompany us," he replied.

"Nothing else?"

Teal'c was saved from having to reply as they found Doctor MacKenzie waiting in the outer office.

Jack smirked at the psychiatrist. "Bye, Doc. No offense, but I hope not to see you for the next century."

The doctor laughed. "None taken, and I hope the same." He watched the team casually stroll into the corridor, their unending stream of banter echoing off the walls. When he turned to the general, there was a lingering smile on the CO's lips.

"I take it by your response that you are giving SG-1 the all clear?" Hammond gestured for the doctor to take a seat.

MacKenzie sat down, flipping open his notebook with his daily summary. "I managed to spend a half an hour with them…"

"A whole half hour each without tying them to a chair? I’m impressed."

The doctor gave a wry shake of his head. "No. A half an hour in total."

"Oh."

MacKenzie waved the general’s frown away. "I’m surprised I even managed that long." He shifted slightly in his chair. "My analysis was conducted more by observing them on the move."

"And your conclusion?" Hammond was very much aware that the doctor hadn’t answered his original question.

"They are acting no differently to how they normally are. I don’t know how they do it, but they have taken everything in their stride, coming away with a focus on the positive aspects of what they experienced. There may be a bit of fallout down the track, but I don’t believe it will hinder their abilities on a mission." He paused. "Any issues that arise with one, the others will get them through it. The way they banded together to ‘rescue’ each other from me proves that. Oh, there’s just one thing about Annika…" he searched the pages for the specific reference.

"Yes?" Hammond was immediately concerned at the psychic being singled out.

"I realize that she is still relatively new to the team…

"Uh huh."

"But she needs to work a bit more on her excuse to finish up the session early. It wasn't overly convincing."

"Really?" That was odd. Normally Annika had no problems thinking on her feet. "What did she come up with?"

"That she had to talk to Doctor Jackson’s wife about his wife. Referring to oneself in the third person isn’t a good thing to do with a psychiatrist."

Hammond gave a soft chuckle, the tension instantly leaving his shoulders. "Actually, that wasn’t an excuse. She did have a meeting with Doctor Jackson’s wife from a parallel universe regarding the transfer of Doctor Jackson’s first wife, father and brother-in-laws, who are from yet another parallel universe."

"Oh." MacKenzie blinked then heaved a sigh. "Unofficially, tell her to lie next time. The truth almost got her committed."

"I’ll be sure to pass that along."

The psychiatrist rose. "Well, it’s been an interesting day. I’ll see you next time, George."

Hammond shook hands with him. "Undoubtedly."

Tucking his notebook back in his top pocket, he remembered one final thing. "You were concerned about Doctor Fraiser. Don’t be. SG-1 have taken her under their collective wing, as have SG-2. They rescued her from me even quicker than they did themselves."

"Good to know."

"You don’t happen to know where Major Ferretti hides out do you?"

The general glanced at his desk clock. "Probably in the mess hall." He raised an eyebrow in question.

MacKenzie grinned and picked up the scrap of fur from the desk. "I have some winnings to collect."

Hammond watched stunned as the psychiatrist headed for the elevator. With an added bounce to his step, MacKenzie began to sing softly the nursery rhyme that had been haunting the walls of the base all day.