Translations (8/19)
Title: Translations ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4a-- 4b Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8
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Chapter 8: Exotic Diseases
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1 November 1997; SGC, Earth, 0800 hrs
"What's happened now?" Janet groaned, appalled, as Colonel O'Neill was brought--or, rather, dragged--into the infirmary, struggling in the grip of two airmen, a third hovering behind and ready to provide assistance. It was far too early in the morning to have to deal with an epidemic.
Not that four people was an epidemic (yet), but this was the way it always started.
"--away from him!" O'Neill was shouting.
"He was totally out of control, ma'am," one of the airmen reported hurriedly. "Assaulted one of the marines--"
"You bastards stay away from him!" O'Neill repeated, twisting as they wrestled him onto a bed. "He's mine! Stay the hell away from him!"
"Any idea what he's talking about?" Janet asked, calling over her shoulder, "Get him in restraints!"
"Something to do with the Jackson kid, I think," the airman said, sounding bewildered. "The colonel grabbed him and sort of...threw him into a corner. Tried to attack anyone who got too close, like he thought they were threatening the kid. I'm not sure he was completely, uh, all there, Doc, if you know what I mean; the colonel--"
"Charlie!" O'Neill yelled.
"--kept calling him that, ma'am, telling us to stay away from him."
Huh? "Who in the world is Charlie?" Janet said distractedly.
"Not sure, ma'am. Wasn't that the name of the major who got snaked couple of weeks ago? They were friends, I think."
"Kawalsky? That makes no sense," she muttered. "Is he all right?"
O'Neill bucked against his bonds, screaming, "I'm gonna kill you!"
The airman looked at him. "Uh..."
"Yes, I can see Colonel O'Neill," Janet snapped. "What about the boy, Jackson--was he hurt?"
"No, ma'am, not that I could see, but we had our hands pretty full with the colonel."
"Fine, then...let's get him calmed down, for a start. Try to keep him from thrashing too much before he manages to hurt himself," she ordered, pulling open a drawer to reach for a dose of diazepam. After a second's hesitation, she took out several more syringes of the same, setting them on a table closer to the gurneys, where they'd be easier to reach.
As they spoke, Sam Carter, awake but in a drugged calm, was wheeled out of the room, headed for one of the holding cells. O'Neill turned his head at the movement and redoubled his efforts to get free. "Samantha!" he shouted. "No--she's mine, damn you! You've got no right to her!"
"Possessive, aren't we, Colonel?" Janet ground out, pulling the cap off a syringe with her teeth. "Now is not the time to be displaying your testosterone levels... Airman, hold him still!" Finding and injecting into a vein would be near impossible now, with the way he was moving, so she plunged the needle into the struggling colonel's deltoid; an intramuscular injection would have to hold him until he was calmer. "All right, you can let go," she told the men, tiredly wiping a sleeve across her forehead. "The restraints should hold him until the sedative starts working. It might take a few minutes to kick in."
"Dr. Fraiser?" She turned at the sound of General Hammond's voice. "What's going on here? I'm hearing reports of my men..." He did a double-take. "Is that Colonel O'Neill?"
"Yes, sir, it is, and I don't know what to tell you right now," she said. "I've got blood samples from Lieutenant Johnson and Captains Casey and Carter. As soon as the colonel settles down, I'll get his, too. There must be a toxin or infectious agent that's causing a psychosis of some kind--no mental illness I know of would naturally progress this fast."
"But you don't know what's causing it," he said.
"Not yet, sir," she allowed, "but we've only just started doing tests. The problem is, it's spreading, and fairly fast from what I've seen so far."
The general looked alarmed. "You're telling me we brought a contagious disease back to Earth?"
Janet shook her head helplessly. "It could be that, General. I have no idea yet what it is. But, yes, I think we should assume that it probably is highly infectious."
"Could it have been something they picked up on P3X-797?" he said.
"Very possible. Which teams were there?"
"SG-1 and -3."
"Then I'd say it's likely, since three of the people affected so far were on SG-1 or SG-3. However, Captain Casey wasn't with them on that planet, and his symptoms match theirs exactly. Sir, they might have contracted a disease out there, but whatever this thing is, it's spreading to people in here."
He tightened his lips, then sighed. "I understand, Doctor. I'm ordering this mountain sealed off. No one and nothing in or out. How does this disease spread?"
"I'm hoping it's through direct contact only, sir, but it could be airborne for all I know," she said. "I haven't been able to ascertain whether each victim actually touched an infected person or was simply in proximity. There's clearly an incubation period before symptoms show, so it's hard to know." She shook her head again. "I'm sorry I don't have more for you, General."
"I understand. I'll close off this level of the base as well, in case we can stop its spread to other levels. Tell me immediately if you learn something."
"Yes, sir. I'd also like the rest of SG-1 and SG-3 here, since they're likely to be affected first."
Hammond nodded. "I'll have someone send them down."
"Sir--" He turned back. "Perhaps you should choose a few of the unaffected personnel who have been farthest from the situation and have them report to isolation," Janet said carefully. "In case lockdown isn't enough and we need to take more drastic action, someone needs to be sound of mind enough to be able to make the call."
He knew what she meant. Most of the highest ranking officers were compromised or presumed exposed already. "I understand, Doctor," Hammond said. "I'll see to it."
Janet waited until he left the room before allowing her shoulders to slump. The way this was looking, it was just a matter of time before they all were affected, at least for the people on this level or sharing vents with this level. Gloves wouldn't be much of a protection to her anymore, either. If it was transmitted by direct contact (a transdermal route of entry, perhaps), she'd touched the victims already, and so had most of the nursing staff.
They should have realized from the beginning how dangerous it was to go off-world, not just because of hostile natives but also because literally anything they brought back--a new strain of a dangerous virus, a parasite, a toxin in the air or food--could be deadly to everyone on Earth. She wondered whether the SG teams had unknowingly been infecting alien worlds, too. If they hadn't rushed into starting this program...but maybe that was partly her fault. It was Janet's responsibility to point out things like this.
Enough. They had a problem now, and it needed to be solved.
Colonel O'Neill's eyes had drifted half-closed, and he was no longer attempting to fight or protest. "Sorry about this, Colonel, but I need some of your blood," she said aloud as she tightened a tourniquet around his arm and searched with her fingers for a vein. "We'll get you better, sir." ...I hope.
Janet knew what it meant that she was the one person in close contact with everyone who had what was potentially a contagious disease. If she was going to figure this out, she had to do it fast before she ran out of time.
She huffed exasperatedly. An exotic disease specialist, indeed...what would her colleagues outside the mountain have said about this job? 'Insane' didn't quite seem to do it justice.
"Dr. Fraiser?"
Janet turned slightly. "Yes, Nurse."
"We have the results from Lieutenant Johnson's tox screen. He's negative for every drug we tested that might induce rapid psychosis."
"Damn," she muttered. It didn't tell them anything for certain, of course, since there might be some substance on P3X-797 that they'd never seen before on Earth, but they had no choice but to stick with what they knew and could test. "Did you do a CBC?" A report was placed in her hand. "White count is high... They've all had a fever, too. An infection, maybe."
"No bacterial cultures found so far," the nurse told her.
A virus? "I want to take a look under the 'scope and see if there's any change in cell morphology," Janet said. "You have the...?"
"The blood samples are right here, Doctor."
"Run the captains' and the colonel's blood through the same tests," she ordered. "If you don't see anything new or noteworthy, test them all again for any other substance you can think of--hormones, neurotransmitters, common toxins...anything. Tell me as soon as they're done--I need to get fresh samples."
...x...
1 November 1997; SGC, Earth, 1500 hrs
"We've managed to isolate an organism in all of the victims' bloodstreams," Janet announced, though the usual burst of triumph that accompanied solving step one of the problem was dampened by the knowledge that the number of victims was growing steadily--closer to exponentially, really, since they all kept infecting others. All the members of the two SG teams that had gone to P3X-797 had been sedated and were in isolation, with the exception of Teal'c. "It's a...a parasitical virus of some sort, and it seems to feed on chemical transmitters."
General Hammond nodded tightly. "So what does this mean for them, Doctor?"
"Well," she said, "their neurotransmitters are being depleted, which is apparently causing all but the most primitive parts of their brain to just...shut down. They lose their ability to reason, then begin acting on base instincts..."
"That's why they act like animals?" the general said.
Teal'c confirmed, "They are indeed behaving like the Touched."
"Touched?" Hammond repeated.
"That is what the savages on P3X-797 are called. They resembled primitive humans."
"It...does match the symptoms, bizarre as it seems," Janet agreed. "Captain Carter sought out what she saw to be the strongest compatible...well, mate in her clan, of sorts: her team leader. Lieutenant Johnson's instinct for survival--a 'fight or flight' reaction, with emphasis on the 'fight'--overcame his reason, which made him forget or ignore the fact that Mr. Teal'c's symbiote is not currently an enemy Goa'uld. Colonel O'Neill exhibited possessiveness over a potential mate."
"Daniel Jackson is not a potential mate for Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c informed her.
Janet coughed. "I meant Sam Carter--he became quite agitated when she was taken away to isolation. I'm guessing he might have confused Daniel for his own...offspring and then became violent to protect what he thought was a genetic heir."
The general looked like he was finally deciding he was a bit crazy to have taken this job. "Is there any way to cure them?" he said.
"I'm working on it, sir," she said. "It might help if I could find differences in susceptibility. All but one of my staff here so far have shown symptoms, but I'm hoping we'll find that some people are immune. For instance, why hasn't Mr. Teal'c become ill? To be blunt, he should have been among the first to be hit."
The answer disappointed her, though. "I believe my symbiote protects me," Teal'c said.
Right. She was always forgetting the damn symbiote.
On the other hand, if Teal'c was immune...they did need to have at least one person on the base who wouldn't go mad, and at least it was someone physically capable. She caught the general's eye, and he glanced at Teal'c, not looking certain but understanding her meaning.
"Well, I'll keep trying," Janet promised. "Hopefully, we'll find some sort of immunity. That should help give us a clue, not to mention a possible cure."
"You do that," Hammond said.
The infirmary door swung open, and Janet reached automatically for a dose of diazepam, but Dr. Rothman was walking in of his own volition and didn't seem to be about to attack anyone. "Dr. Rothman, is there a problem?" the general asked.
"No, sir," Rothman said, looking apprehensively at the disorganized room. "Or, uh, I dunno. Dr. Fraiser asked me to look at something they noticed about the patients."
"Yes, Doctor," Janet said, hoping he had something good to say. "Anything?"
Rothman shrugged. "It's obviously causing physical changes--like a more prominent brow, new follicle growth... They don't look...well, Homo sapiens anymore. It's like their body structure is regressing to match that of some ancestor species. It doesn't tell me anything about a cure, though, and it's not like I've ever read about anything like this. Sorry."
Janet sighed. "No, I don't suppose it would. Thank you for trying, anyway. At least we can be sure now this is from the planet with the Touched."
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, there isn't--" She stopped, rubbing her forehead, then admitted, "Actually, anyone who can help would could be useful here. If one of us needs help with a procedure or--"
A crash in the corner had her moving before she knew what had happened. She barely registered Teal'c rushing past her as she recognized Nurse Clark, who'd leapt at one of the airmen standing guard and was currently...
Well. It was fair to say this was not the time to think about proper behavior.
"Nurse Clark!" she called as she uncapped a syringe, hoping that talking would help but doubting that it would. "Emily! Let him go!"
Emily Clark ignored her completely, and it was Teal'c who pulled her off the stunned man and held her still until she was restrained. The sedative worked faster through her smaller body, and she slumped, out cold.
Their resident archaeologist was staring dumbfounded at the scene. "Dr. Rothman," she said firmly, "if you want to stay, help them get Nurse Clark to one of the holding cells. Here," she added, rummaging through a drawer and handing him several syringes. "Sedative--use it if anyone suddenly gets out of hand and attempts to attack you or someone else, but no more than one dose per person. Can you do that?"
"Uh...right. Yes. I can do that," Rothman said uncertainly, accepting a handful of doses.
"Dr. Fraiser," General Hammond said, "I'll see if I can do anything to help Dr. Rothman and the others outside. Teal'c, come with me, son," he added, beckoning with one hand. "I need to have a word with you first about the base's security protocols." He nodded to Janet.
A little apprehensive--but too grateful for a couple of extra hands to think much about it, she called, "I appreciate that, sir," as he left.
Janet ran a hand through her hair, thinking. All the nurses were out for the count--in fact, she was the only one of the medical professionals who'd been spared so far. "I'm probably next," she muttered distractedly, grabbing a pile of papers and scouring the reports yet again for any hint that could explain this.
She hadn't noticed Teal'c's return until he spoke. "Perhaps you will not be affected at all, Doctor Fraiser."
She snorted. "I appreciate the moral support, Mr. Teal'c, but..."
Wait. What if he was right? Everyone else in constant, close contact with the infected victims was already affected...what if there was a reason why she was still healthy?
"Do you know how to draw blood?" Janet asked.
"I do not," Teal'c said.
"All right. Do exactly as I say. I need to see if my blood shows anything different from everyone else's."
Dr. Rothman came back just as Teal'c was meticulously inserting the needle into her vein. "Okay, we put her in the--oh. Um. What's with the, uh..."
"I want to test the blood from everyone who hasn't shown any symptoms so far," she explained. "Thank you, Teal'c, I can finish from here. In fact, Dr. Rothman, I'm glad you came in--I'll need to test you, too."
"With a needle?" he asked, looking warily at the tube that was rapidly filling with blood.
"Yes, with a needle," she snapped, too frazzled to soothe squeamish people who were nervous about tiny pinpricks. "Mr. Teal'c, I'll take a sample of your blood first. In the meantime, Dr. Rothman, could you please find the general and anyone else on this level who is not yet infected and have them come here to be tested."
"Actually, Dr. Fraiser," Rothman said with a wince, "the general's got it, too."
She stopped. "What?"
"It, uh, it hit him just outside of an empty holding cell, so we got him settled inside without much trouble. But, yeah. He's definitely...you know." Rothman's finger made a circling motion at his temple.
Of course the general could get it; there was no reason why not. It didn't matter. They still had to solve this, with or without him.
"Thank you, Dr. Rothman," she said. "Now, please go and find me a few volunteers. In fact, the airman who was with you--he's been here the whole time, too, without being infected. Bring him back here if you can. His name's Tobinski," she added. The archaeologist blinked uncertainly, then hustled out the door.
"Dr. Fraiser, have you discovered how to stop this illness?" Teal'c asked when she'd finished drawing his blood.
"Not yet, Mr. Teal'c, but I'm not through here yet. I'll be damned if I let this thing beat me."
"That is...good," he said. She spared him a second glance when he hesitated. "General Hammond has informed me that we cannot allow this infection to spread to the rest of your planet."
"That's right," she said. He only stared at her, and she remembered that the general had taken him aside to talk about security just minutes ago. She did not shiver and instead mustered a smile for him. "I understand, and we won't let it. We're gonna figure this out right here."
Janet turned expectantly when the door opened again, but it was Daniel Jackson standing there, not Rothman. "Daniel, what are you doing here? I thought you were upstairs."
"I came to see Sam," he said, glancing into the infirmary, "but then Jack got sick and they closed off this floor before I could leave."
"It's not safe right now...well," she amended, "I suppose the infirmary's as safe a place as any to wait it out."
"Robert came down here earlier, so I just wondered if I could help with something."
"I think we're in a bit of a lull now, thankfully," she answered absently, dropping blood on one of the slides. She glanced up and took a closer look--there was a bruise below Daniel's eye, but it didn't seem serious and he seemed otherwise unharmed, though his expression hovered somewhere between nervousness and alarm. "What happened to your cheek?"
"Uh..." He touched a finger to his cheek, as if he hadn't noticed it. "I suppose it was when...uh, Colonel O'Neill got sick. I...fell against a wall. But it doesn't hurt, Janet."
They'd said Colonel O'Neill had gotten a little violent in keeping people away from the boy. Suddenly she wondered whether she'd been right to suggest that he live here on base, since they'd proven more than once already that it wasn't the safest of places. Of course, if Daniel would stop wandering around...but maybe that wasn't fair, either.
"You know he was sick, right, sweetie?" she said, turning back to the microscope to focus on the slide. "I know this whole thing must be frightening to you. The colonel wouldn't have--"
"Oh, I know," Daniel's voice said quickly. "It's okay."
"Well, while you're here, I'd like to test your--"
A sharp intake of breath interrupted her. Daniel had stepped in past the doorway, but he stiffened now and was staring at Teal'c. "You have a Goa'uld inside you," he said, his voice uncharacteristically hard and his eyes burning with...rage?
"Daniel Jackson, it is only my--" Teal'c started.
"I'll kill it!" Daniel snarled, and launched himself at the Jaffa. "Ne natay!"
Teal'c caught and held him easily. "Ne natay," he responded. "Mid'cha, me ni'ya! Hear me, Daniel Jackson! This is not you." The Jaffa's eyes found Janet, who fumbled through her equipment, wishing she could do something more than simply knock her patients out.
"Na'noweia si'taia!" Daniel yelled, trying to beat his fists against Teal'c, then, "Ona arik kek te, Jaffa!"
"Ne'naé, chal'ti. Ne'naé," Teal'c answered, his tone even and calm, but Daniel's words only dissolved into wordless growls and shouting.
Daniel whipped his head around as Janet plunged the needle into his arm, renewing his struggles, but Teal'c's grip was sure. Before long, Daniel fell limply against Teal'c chest, looking ironically like the Jaffa was cradling rather than restraining him.
"Holy..." Janet couldn't help uttering. "What was he saying?"
"He saw me as his enemy and believed that I had come to kill him. He also desired to kill me."
She stared. "Well. You know he'd never say that to you if he were in his right mind."
"He is not, or he would not attempt to speak in several tongues at once." Because, of course, 'not in his right mind' for Daniel would mean 'mixing up languages.' Teal'c bent down to pull Daniel's still form over his shoulders. "I will take Daniel Jackson," he informed her, "and return in the case that you require assistance again."
She nodded and tiredly threw away the used syringe.
When Dr. Rothman came back, Airman Tobinski in tow, he asked, "Did I just see who I think I saw getting carted off to the cells?"
"Yes, Doctor." Janet shook off any distress, adopting her usual, objective, professional tone as she pointed Tobinski to a gurney. "Have a seat, Airman, if you will, and make a fist. Dr. Rothman, you can take a seat as well. I'll be with you in just a minute."
Tobinski sat.
Rothman sneezed. "Sorry," he said, digging in his pocket for a tissue. "Allergies."
"Know the feeling, Doc," Tobinski told him sympathetically. "I've got 'em, too."
"Me, too," Janet said absently, and then, "Huh."
...x...
1 November 1997; SGC, Earth, 1930 hrs
"...and I realized," Janet finished, standing in the briefing room before the general, Colonel O'Neill, Sam Carter, and Colonel Makepeace, "that the three people left here on this level who were unaffected--Dr. Rothman, Airman Tobinski, and myself--all have severe allergies. We all take strong antihistamines every day, and the lack of histamine in our blood essentially starved the microbe and made us immune."
"So, basically, you gave us all allergy medicine," Colonel O'Neill summarized. "That sounds so...anticlimactic."
Thank you for making it sound simple, she thought sourly, but said, "If you'd like to think of it that way, then yes--I gave you a mega-dose of it. And as a medical doctor, I rather prefer the anticlimactic, sir."
"So do I," General Hammond agreed. "It seems we're all indebted to you, Doctor."
"I'm just glad it was something treatable, sir." And that it wasn't too late by then.
"Everyone's been cured?" he said.
"Yes, sir," she confirmed, "and the people on other floors have also been checked. Only two people are still in the infirmary, and we're just waiting for them to rouse fully from the sedative now."
This time it was O'Neill who asked sharply, "But he'll be okay?"
Janet assured him, "They'll both be fine. They were the last to receive a full dose of the sedative, so it's just taking a little longer for it to wear off." Emily Clark was already awake, if woozy, and Daniel should be any minute, as well.
"Sir," Sam suggested, "this means that the primitives in the Land of the Dark weren't primitives at all. They were just sick."
"Yeah," O'Neill agreed, looking irritable, "and thank god for that, or there'd be some crazy...business happening on this planet pretty soon."
Janet explained, "I think Captain Carter is trying to say that the virus on P3X-797 can be treated. We can provide them with enough chlorpheniramine to cure the infected people. Once there are no human hosts to carry the disease, it might stop proliferating and being transmitted once and for all. We could potentially rid their entire planet of a dangerous plague."
"I'm not sure about this," O'Neill returned. "They seemed pretty afraid of anything that had to do with the Land of the Dark. They might not believe us. Hell, we saw that one guy let his own daughter die in the woods because they were so scared to think about it."
"Well, shouldn't we at least try, sir?" Sam said. "If they understood, I'm sure they wouldn't be so callous. Besides, the people of the Land of Light were welcoming to us--it might be useful in the future to have a planet we can think of as an ally, or, at least, a temporary safe haven."
The general frowned, but then nodded. "I'll allow one more mission there so you can show them, but proper precautions will have to be taken. I want no chance of anyone being re-infected or, God forbid, having the virus brought back to Earth again. And you'll all be kept in isolation for observation for several hours after returning, just in case. Is that clear?"
O'Neill shrugged. "Sure. When do we leave?"
Janet broke in, "Sir, if I may...without knowing the condition of the people on the other planet, and since you've all only been cured for a matter of hours or minutes, I'd ask you to hold off for at least twenty-four hours, to make sure everyone involved is fully rested and the virus is completely eliminated."
"If that's what you think best, Doctor," the general agreed. "According to what you've all told me, the people there are not in immediate danger, so I'm not calling this an urgent mission. SG-1 and -3 will go back two days from now at 0900 hours. You're dismissed--and Dr. Fraiser, you have our thanks. It's been a long day."
Understatement of the--well, the week, at least.
When Janet arrived back at the infirmary, Emily had already left, and SG-1 seemed to have decided to gather there. She stopped at the doorway, which was blocked. "Sam? Mr. Teal'c?" Janet prompted.
Both turned at her voice, as if surprised to see her--which they shouldn't have been, as it was her infirmary--but Janet caught sight of Sam's flushed, down-turned face. She almost reached out to check for lingering fever, but she recognized the captain's expression. "Is everything all right?" she asked, stopping.
"Sure, Janet," Sam said, while Teal'c said, "It is not."
The two stared at each other before Sam relented and said, "All right. I guess it just feels a little awkward, for all of us. After...what we all did. All except Teal'c, of course. The colonel...I'm not sure what happened between him and Daniel, but he told us to wait out here."
There was no need for her to ask why. Sam had tried to seduce her CO; Colonel O'Neill had mistaken Daniel for someone else and tried to claw his way toward his second-in-command; and Daniel had tried to attack Teal'c, his friend and mentor, the same way the first victim had.
"If it's any consolation, Captain," Janet offered, "let's just say your case wasn't unique. No action taken under the influence of the virus will be held against you or any other affected party; I've got the general's word on that."
"Officially, anyway," Sam muttered, looking embarrassed.
"Captain--Sam, if you're worried about what the colonel thinks, he probably doesn't even remember what happened. He became ill pretty soon after you did. Now, if you'll both excuse me, you're blocking the doorway to my infirmary. If you're going to stay and eavesdrop, you might as well just come in." Both stepped hastily aside and let her pass.
"...okay," Daniel was mumbling, still a little groggy from having just woken up. He batted Colonel O'Neill's hand away and sat up. "I'm fine, Jack."
O'Neill was staring at him, his expression rigid. He brushed his thumb against the bruise on Daniel's cheekbone, asking flatly, "Did I do this?"
"No."
"Don't lie to me, Daniel."
"The wall did it," Daniel said. When the colonel didn't seem appeased, he grimaced and fell silent for a moment, watching the man from where he sat on the bed. "Did you think I was...I think you called me..."
"That's my...son's name, yeah," the colonel said, "I remember that part. I wasn't thinking; I wouldn't have made a mistake like that otherwise. It's not like...that."
Daniel opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated, as if trying to choose the right thing to say. He finally settled on, "I know. You were sick." The colonel's expression didn't change, and Daniel turned so that his legs dangled over the side. Very seriously, he said, "Jack, I made a mistake. A big one."
O'Neill shook his head. "You didn't do anything wro--"
"I did," he insisted. "I said...cruel things to Teal'c. I told him I wanted to kill him and tried to hurt his symbiote, but I didn't mean it."
"I'm sure he understands," O'Neill said. "He was watching over you until you woke up."
"Really?"
"It wasn't you, kid. Not your fault, and he knows it."
Daniel blinked up at him innocently. "Okay. Well, I know that, too."
Clearing her throat, Janet stepped forward and picked up a stethoscope, saying, "Glad you're awake. I'm just going to check your vitals. Colonel," she added dryly, "your team is blocking the hallway outside this room. Why don't you tell them it's okay to go home."
Daniel leaned away from her and asked, "You're going home now? What time is it?" He craned his neck to look at the clock, sinking back down when he saw the hour hand on the eight. "Right. It's late."
O'Neill looked over Janet's head at Sam and Teal'c in the hallway. "You know," he said, "we've all had a pretty lousy day, so what do you say you, me, Teal'c, and Carter head out of here and grab some dinner? We're all on stand-down tomorrow anyway. You can spend the night at my place if it gets too late."
"You're sure?" Daniel asked, though he couldn't hide the eagerness in his expression.
"Are you kidding? I've been promising Teal'c I'd show him this planet. First team bonding experience on Earth; I have a feeling we all need it after today."
"I'm not on your team."
"If you can be Teal'c's honorary Jaffa-in-training, you can be honorary SG-1 for one night."
"What I'm learning with Teal'c isn't even close to what a Jaffa chal'ti would have to do for training," Daniel pointed out, but he was smiling.
"Chal-ti," Janet mused. "Didn't I hear Teal'c call you that earlier?"
"Hah! You see?" Jack crowed. "So, c'mon, let's go. That okay with you, Doc?"
Janet hid a smile of her own and waved him away. "Fine, Colonel. Now go collect your team while I finish up here."
He saluted cheekily. "Yes, ma'am, Doctor, ma'am."
She shook her head, telling Daniel, "You know, sometimes I think you're more mature than the colonel is."
"Only sometimes?" Daniel asked innocently, widening his eyes comically and trying unsuccessfully to hide his smirk.
"Don't you start, too, or I'll take it back."
Janet covered a yawn as she watched SG-1 lead Daniel from the infirmary, waving tiredly at their retreating backs and mentally preparing for the next week's crisis.
From the next chapter ("Hammer and Anvil"):
Rothman took a quick look around the room. "The Vikings."
Jack was comforted by the fact that Hammond and Carter looked skeptical, too.
"You see," Rothman continued, clicking forward in his presentation, "in Norse mythology, the gods were powerful warriors. Giants called the Jötnar, or Ettins, or...well there are different names, but either way, they were enemies of mankind with great knowledge and power--which sounds like the Goa'uld--and the god Thor protected humans from them, using a weapon called Thor's Hammer."