Twisted Senses
Here's the first of the S3 bingo ficlets! This is for The Mind's Eye square, and is a bit of Janet POV from Legacy. What do you when you can't trust your own perceptions? 420 words, rated G.
Twisted Senses
As a doctor, Janet applies all the tools of her trade to measure and assess her patients' conditions, from a manual thermometer to magnetic resonance imaging. She wields neuro navigation as expertly as her stethoscope, comparing official baseline to current reality and determining cause and effect. She is grateful to be a doctor in an era when so many instruments are available to help her save lives, even if the overwhelming complications of alien diseases and damage inflicted by otherworldly weapons will sometimes leave her scrambling.
But for all the computerized machines and sophisticated instruments at her disposal, Janet values her own human senses more than anything else. She knows that what some would call "intuition" is actually the slow accumulation of years of experience and observation, allowing her to connect the dots and recognize what others might fail to perceive. With the benefit of having seen so much before, a sharp gaze and a probing hand can often discover what routine testing might overlook. Particularly in the fraught atmosphere of Stargate Command, when so much of what they know (or think they know) simply doesn't fit with the bizarre reality of their everyday lives, Janet listens, watches, breathes in the scent of pain or unease or distress until she knows what to do to help her patients heal.
But this time... This time, her senses are failing her. There are voices in the room, but they sound like they're underwater. Her clothing prickles as the temperature soars until she gasps for breath, tearing at her collar. It's the Goa'uld, she knows it is, they've coming for her and -
"Janet!"
She looks up and cowers back, seeing Sam's eyes take on that demonic glow, hearing the menace of her phlanged voice.
"You're a Goa'uld!" she whimpers. "Stay away!"
Sam is still speaking, the ugliness of that echo in her voice failing to mask the urgency, and Janet struggles to listen. Her ability to think coherently is failing her, just like everything else. There is a tiny part of her that is urgently whispering, reminding her that Jolinar is long gone, that Sam is still a friend.
But her mind, seeing only a confused and twisted landscape, insists otherwise.
Despairing, she gives up on sound touch taste sight smell. She can only fall back on pure instrumentation now. That's what Sam is asking about, Janet forces herself to recognize. Blood types, plasma, centrifuge...
She chokes out what instructions she can, then curls into a ball, waiting for the horrors to stop.
Twisted Senses
As a doctor, Janet applies all the tools of her trade to measure and assess her patients' conditions, from a manual thermometer to magnetic resonance imaging. She wields neuro navigation as expertly as her stethoscope, comparing official baseline to current reality and determining cause and effect. She is grateful to be a doctor in an era when so many instruments are available to help her save lives, even if the overwhelming complications of alien diseases and damage inflicted by otherworldly weapons will sometimes leave her scrambling.
But for all the computerized machines and sophisticated instruments at her disposal, Janet values her own human senses more than anything else. She knows that what some would call "intuition" is actually the slow accumulation of years of experience and observation, allowing her to connect the dots and recognize what others might fail to perceive. With the benefit of having seen so much before, a sharp gaze and a probing hand can often discover what routine testing might overlook. Particularly in the fraught atmosphere of Stargate Command, when so much of what they know (or think they know) simply doesn't fit with the bizarre reality of their everyday lives, Janet listens, watches, breathes in the scent of pain or unease or distress until she knows what to do to help her patients heal.
But this time... This time, her senses are failing her. There are voices in the room, but they sound like they're underwater. Her clothing prickles as the temperature soars until she gasps for breath, tearing at her collar. It's the Goa'uld, she knows it is, they've coming for her and -
"Janet!"
She looks up and cowers back, seeing Sam's eyes take on that demonic glow, hearing the menace of her phlanged voice.
"You're a Goa'uld!" she whimpers. "Stay away!"
Sam is still speaking, the ugliness of that echo in her voice failing to mask the urgency, and Janet struggles to listen. Her ability to think coherently is failing her, just like everything else. There is a tiny part of her that is urgently whispering, reminding her that Jolinar is long gone, that Sam is still a friend.
But her mind, seeing only a confused and twisted landscape, insists otherwise.
Despairing, she gives up on sound touch taste sight smell. She can only fall back on pure instrumentation now. That's what Sam is asking about, Janet forces herself to recognize. Blood types, plasma, centrifuge...
She chokes out what instructions she can, then curls into a ball, waiting for the horrors to stop.