Author's Notes: This story was inspired by the H/C on base challenge. It doesn't qualify - way too long for starters, but it is set all on the base. Anyway, recently a very generous lady made a substantial contribution to my SG-1 education, on her own time and at her own expense. Though it's hardly a fair exchange, I promised her that I would dedicate a story to her. Cetainly gladly done. So Jan, here it is Babe, thanks for everything and this one is just for you! (And no pillows were harmed in the course of this story...)
DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Jack took another look around the mess hall. Hadn’t changed any in the last five minutes. He picked up the spoon, banged it against his coffee cup. Well, that took care of another couple of minutes. He debated whether or not to get another cup of coffee, and then decided that in deference to his kidneys, what he had already consumed didn’t need any more company. So that left more fidgeting, wondering if purchasing couldn’t have managed to find any chairs for this place that were a little MORE uncomfortable, and trying to think of anything else to do besides look at his watch again.
He wasn’t going to look he wasn’t going to look he wasn’t going to look.
An hour and a half! An hour and a half, for crying out loud! Fifteen minutes, Daniel had said. "Just give me fifteen minutes. Go on ahead, I’ll meet you there."
And he had believed him. Schmuck.
It wasn’t that Daniel did it on purpose. He never did. On more than one occasion Jack had been made painfully aware of the difference between Military Time and Jackson Standard Time. All the kid had to do was get sucked into studying one of those doo-hickeys of his and all bets were off. What for him was five minutes was five hours to everybody else. Normally Jack wouldn’t have minded so much, he just wanted to get the hell out of this place already. They’d been off-world for almost two weeks; it had been a bit of a hairy time but everyone had come back with all their parts intact, always a good thing. Daniel had even found a few new toys to play with. Probably what he was doing right now.
Well, that was all well and good for him but now that all the reporting and report-writing was done and they had all been cleared to go Jack wanted to put an egg in his shoe and beat it already. From the way the kid had been talking, he thought that was what Daniel wanted to do as well. So Jack had suggested that they grab a coffee and put their heads together and see what sort of plan they could come up with. Daniel actually had some pretty good ideas when it came to finding new and interesting ways to piss around and waste time. Must have been the result of an obviously miss-spent youth.
Jack wondered what his own excuse was.
Well, enough was enough was enough. Obviously Daniel had forgotten about him and he wasn’t going to sit here all night being stood up for a rock. He could find better things to do with his time than cool his heels in this place. With or without Mr. ‘Obviously-gotten-a-better-offer.’
Jack put the palms of his hands on the table and pushed himself up to his feet. He started to stride from the room, fully intending to keep going until he got into his truck and off to where ever the hell it was that he was going. Fully immersed in his – disappointment - he ambled down the corridor on automatic pilot and was almost there before he realized that his feet had taken him not in the direction of the exit, but towards Daniel’s office.
Schmuck.
Well, he was here. He might as well see what was more exciting for Daniel than a night on the town with his CO.
Jack gave the door a tentative rap with his knuckles
No response.
Huh. Daniel must really be into what he was doing.
Jack tried again, rapping a little harder this time. "Daniel?"
Still no response. What – was he deaf?
Starting to become more than a bit impatient, Jack grasped the door handle, turned it and flung the door open.
The familiar sight of Daniel’s disordered office greeted him. Desk piled high with books, papers and strange little curios from even stranger places. A couple of empty, unwashed coffee mugs and the decomposing remains of some sort of abandoned, unconsumed, unspecified foodstuff that was rapidly becoming even more – unidentifiable. The Oscar Madison of Archaeology. Jack smiled to himself. Daniel didn’t need to go anywhere else to search for mysteries of the past. He could conduct quite an excavation of his own desk. Enough there to keep him busy for the next six months.
Yup, there was every indication that Daniel had been here. All the signs clearly attested to his presence. Everything was here – but Daniel. Hello – what’s this?
Daniel’s glasses were on the desk. Right beside that really ugly statue. That was odd. Where would Daniel have gone without his glasses? More to the point, how would he have GOTTEN there, without his glasses?
But there was no getting around the fact that the office was empty. Daniel definitely was not here. Unless the kid had learned how to turn invisible. Now wouldn’t THAT be annoying….
Jack paused, momentarily confused by this development. Okay – now he knew what Daniel had said. This was where he was going to be until he joined him up in the mess hall. So, where was he? Jack wasn’t angry with him now. Far from it. Daniel might be absent-minded, but he wasn’t inconsiderate. He wouldn’t have just – ditched him. Not without a very good reason and not without telling him about it first.
So where the hell was he?
Starting to get more than a bit concerned, Jack was about to back out of the office, fully intending not to stop until he had tracked Daniel down, even if it was only to make sure that everything was okay. As he turned to pull the door closed he spotted something he had missed on his first visual sweep of the room.
The feet that were poking out from just behind the desk. Shit! Daniel?
"DANIEL!"
The word tore from him as he scrambled around the desk and threw himself to his knees beside the man who was lying on the floor there. Face down. Not moving. Not making a sound. Daniel was wringing with sweat; his black T-shirt soaked right through with it, sticking to his skin. Jack turned him gently over, concern biting through him as he felt the heat rolling in waves from every part of Daniel that he touched in the process. Jesus – what the hell was going on here…?
Daniel was unconscious, burning up with fever. His flushed face was like a blast furnace; Jack could feel the heat coming up to meet his hand as he moved away the drenched strands of Daniel’s hair that were plastered to his forehead in order to place his hand there in a futilely unnecessary gesture of confirmation. He didn’t need to touch him to know what his eyes already told him. Crap – this was nuts – didn’t make any sense at all. He had just left him, just been talking to him. Daniel had been – fine. What the hell was this?
Jack wasted a few more seconds shaking him and calling his name. No response. In over his head. Get help. Still not quite able to accept what he had just seen, but forced to by the fact that it was indeed happening, Jack shot up from Daniel’s side in order to call put in the call for help.
"I’m sorry, Colonel, but I have absolutely no idea what is causing this."
Jack looked down at the man who was burning up in the bed beneath his eyes. Daniel was still out of it, but he was starting to move fitfully in the throes of delirium, muttering under his breath in snatches of unintelligible, exotic phrases. Jack wished he could curse in as many languages as Daniel apparently could rant in.
He kept looking at Daniel because he didn’t want to look at the Doc, to see how desperately frustrated and unhappy she was. Janet Frasier was the epitome of the competent, dedicated medical professional, and she hated being stumped as much as he did. For it seemed that they had one very dangerous mystery on their hands here.
"I’ve run every test I can think of, Colonel." Dr Frasier continued. I can’t find any organic cause for Dr Jackson’s condition. He seems to be exhibiting a massive systemic reaction to some sort of infection or invading organism, but I can find no trace of it in his bloodwork. There is no evidence of any bacterial or viral infections, no alien organisms, and no toxins in his system. I can try and deal with the symptoms, but without being able to identify the causal factor – I don’t know how to administer any sort of treatment. Or if I there even is anything I can do at all. "I’m sorry, Sir."
"What can you do for him?" Jack said softly.
"Well, until we find out what is causing this all I can do is try and bring the fever down. Right now that is my biggest worry – brain damage and febrile convulsions."
"That’s what the vat of ice water is for – right?"
"Yes Colonel, now if you don’t mind, we have to get him in there. I won’t say don’t worry – but I can assure you that everything that can possibly be done will be done."
"Got that right, Doc," Jack set his jaw with determination. "You keep him alive, I’m going to see if I can get you some answers. Gonna back track him, see where he has been, what he has been doing. Something caused this, and I mean to find out what."
"Good luck, Colonel," Janet said earnestly. "Daniel could use some."
Three hours later Jack was back at Daniel’s side, a thoroughly defeated man. The trail hadn’t been a very long one; for once Daniel hadn’t done much since coming back to base besides go where he had supposed to. The infirmary, the showers, his quarters, the briefing room, his office. That was – it. Jack had talked to anybody and everybody who had seen him, talked to him, passed him in the halls, thought about him, even. Nothing. Not a clue.
Whatever the hell was going on with him, it seemed it was only happening to him. There had been no reports anywhere on base of anyone developing similar sorts of symptoms. Hadn’t really been expecting it; Janet had said there didn’t seem to be any sort of alien organism involved. Still had to look for. Look and look and look, although it seemed there was nothing to find.
He was getting mighty steamed about it. Especially in light of what seemed to have been happening while he was on his fruitless quest for answers.
Daniel was back in bed. It seemed that they had been able to bring his fever down enough so that he was no longer in any immediate danger of spontaneously combusting right before their eyes, but now there was another phase of this – whatever it was – that was just as worrisome. Daniel was going right off his nut. As far as they could tell, some extremely powerful hallucinations. Caused by what – again, nobody had the first clue. As soon as they had put him back to bed he had started ranting and screaming and babbling in just about every language under the sun and a few Jack wasn’t sure he wasn’t making up right on the spot, thrashing about and becoming increasingly violent and uncontrollable. When Jack got back they were in the middle of putting on the restraints.
Still had no idea what was causing any of it. The fever, the hallucinations – all of it - nobody could even make a half-assed stab in the dark why it was happening. Jack hated to see Daniel like this and so did the Doc, but she had decided against trying to sedate him. Not knowing what the cause was, she didn’t want to take the chance that giving him something to calm him down would make it worse. So they had to rely on the restraints to keep him from hurting himself while Daniel sweated and screamed himself hoarse and all they could do was – watch.
Jack felt his hands curling around the bed rail, tightening with enough force to shatter the bones within. He felt so damned – helpless. He wanted to break something. Wouldn’t help, but at least it would be doing – something. This made no sense. It shouldn’t be happening. He should be able to find out WHY it was happening. He was furious that it was, even more furious with himself that he had failed. There had to be SOMETHING. What had he missed?
Go over it again, Jack. There had to be something. Daniel hadn’t picked up whatever it was off-world. They had all been together, all of the time, and everybody else was fine. So that meant that whatever had happened to Daniel had happened – here. Where had he been that he had been alone? Where? Daniel had only dropped up and picked up at his room; he’d been standing there talking to him while he had done it, they’d all hit the showers pretty much at the same time so that wasn’t it. Not alone during the debrief…
His office. That was the ONLY place. The only place where he had been alone. Where Jack had found him. That HAD to be where it had happened. Where the clue was.
Jack yelped with surprise, shocked by the feeling of a hand clapped around his wrist with a grip that threatened to turn his bones to jelly. Jack looked dumbly down at Daniel’s hand clamped upon him and then up and over to be met by a pair of fever-clouded blue eyes that looked back at him, momentarily alit by a feeble spark of recognition.
"Danny?" Jack breathed?
He was struggling to say something. Tell him something. Trying to push away the madness long enough to tell him something important. Jack leaned closer, trying to help.
"Eyes…" he gasped weakly. "Need to see the – eyes – "
It was all he could manage. He fell back against the pillow again, his hand loosening and falling away as well. He could no longer see that the man beside him was staring down at him with a look of violent happiness on his face.
Eyes. He remembered now. What it was. What he had seen on Danny’s desk. Danny’s desk! Emitting a fierce whoop of triumph that scared half the duty shift in the infirmary Jack tore from the room and pelted down the corridor, on his way, he now knew, to get what Daniel needed.
Jack made it there in what he considered to be record time. He’d bowled a few people over in the process; he’d make his amends later. This was an emergency.
There, sitting on the desk, was the little mother that had caused all the problems. The second he looked at it, Jack just knew. One of the pieces that Daniel had brought back from the one of the sites they had been poking around for the last couple of weeks. Before that little- disagreement - with the locals had caused them to pack up and go home.
Daniel had been quite excited when he had found it. Babbling something about shamans and totems and spirits and he had been saying something else but that was about the point Jack had found himself tuning out. Wished he had listened a little more closely now.
It was an ugly little bugger, that was for sure. The six-inch tall statuette that looked like some kind of crouching toad carved out of black stone with huge, baleful yellow crystal eyes. It was sitting on a thick base that was inscribed with a phrase written in early gibberish. Well, Jack couldn’t read it, but he had a feeling that Daniel could. And had…
Jack held out his hand to pick it up, then wavered. Maybe touching it wasn’t such a good idea. Although Daniel had been swinging it around with impunity on the site. Come to think of it, Jack thought he could remember Sam holding it as well, at one point. And she seemed to be fine. Still, no point in taking any chances…
Jack took of his jacket and held it out in front of the nasty little article that seemed to be glaring at him, daring him to try it. He grabbed a magazine, used it to tip the statue over, then wrapped it up in the jacket, stowed it under his arm and made tracks back to the infirmary.
The word had obviously gotten out. This time people were staying well out of his way.
Janet was standing at Daniel’s bedside, but she turned to give him a ‘maybe we need to restrain you as well’ look as he came charging back into the infirmary. "Sorry Doc, but I think I found it," was all he was able to get out as he tried to catch his breath. Damn, he had been doing some boogie-ing. Getting too old for this shit.
Before she had a chance to question him or protest, Jack loosened the restraints on Daniel’s arms, unwrapped the statue and put it in his hands. Daniel’s hands clamped around it as if he was a drowning man just being handed his last chance at life itself. He raised his head, locked his eyes with the malefic-looking yellow ones that stared back at him and shouted an unintelligible, guttural combination of sounds.
Suddenly piercing twin beams of yellow light leapt from the eyes of the statue, lancing into the blue orbs of the man that held it. He shuddered for a moment, caught in the grip of that illumination. Jack held his arm out to restrain the forward movement of the woman beside him. Let him be; he knows what he’s doing. It’ll be all right.
And it was.
An hour later Jack re-entered the infirmary. He had finished tying up a few loose ends, making sure that small squat and more-than-slightly-dangerous was under lock and key and he had returned, bearing gifts. Daniel was lying in bed, looking a little wan but a whole lot better than he had been, and definitely in his right mind again. No fever, no screaming meamies. All in all a hell of a way to end the day.
"Howyadoin buckaroo?" Jack grinned at him as he tossed the items on the bed he had gone back to Daniel’s room to get for him. "Since you are going to be sacking out here, at least for tonight, thought I would bring you a few things. You know, your glasses, toothbrush, that sort of crap. Oh yeah, and your pillow. Know how much you hate the ones here."
Daniel smiled at him as he reached over and retrieved the aforementioned item, a rather extravagantly oversized and luxuriously soft pillow. He arranged it under his head and then sunk back into it, half resting his head on it, half hugging it fiercely.
"Thanks. Pillows here are like trying to rest your head on a rock. Funny, you wouldn’t think that someone who has spent as much time sleeping on the ground as I have would be much bothered by that."
Jack had his own theory about why that was, if the way Daniel was hugging that pillow was anything to go by, but he kept it to himself.
"So, how are you feeling?"
"Like I’ve been dragged over ten miles of bad road by a camel caravan. But a lot better than I was. Thanks for figuring it out."
"Shucks, t’weren’t nothing." Jack made a dismissing gesture with his hand. "But next time you don’t want to hang out with me, all you have to do is say so. No need to go to such extremes."
Daniel laughed. "Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. How about tomorrow night? Janet says I have to stay here tonight, but if everything checks out in the morning I should be free and clear."
Jack made a show of pretending to mull this one over. "Well, okay. But if you stand me up again I am going to have to hunt you down and kill you."
"Wouldn’t dream of it," Daniel chuckled. "So, aren’t you going to ask me?"
"Ask you what?" Jack feigned innocence.
"What stupid thing it was that I did this time?"
Well, as long as you are bringing it up…"
"Near as I could tell, the statue was a device used to enable the one to achieve an the altered state of consciousness necessary to accomplish a shamanistic practice called journeying. On Earth, native cultures use a combination of rhythmic drumming, dancing and sometimes drugs to achieve the ecstatic states that these people apparently achieved with this device. I’m not sure if the severe physiological reaction is supposed to be part of the experience, though. If so, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to, but perhaps we can just chalk up what happened to me to a fundamental difference in metabolisms."
"But – you were handling it before with no problem, and so was Carter. How come – "
"You can pick it up and handle it to your heart’s content without turning it on. Apparently it’s sonically activated. Responds to a specific combination of sounds, in this case, the phrase inscribed on the base. Say it aloud and – whammo!"
"Ah," Jack grunted. "You talk out loud, when you work."
"That I do, "Daniel conceded grudgingly. "I was having trouble figuring out the last two words. Wanted to translate the whole phrase before I left it. Guess I succeeded."
"Get any more lucky like that and there won’t be anything left of you next time."
"Good thing you found me when you did or there wouldn’t be anything left of me now."
"That’s me, ole-always-arriving-in-the-nick-of-time-O’Neill." He reached over and ruffled the hair on Daniel’s head, a little rougher than he had intended to. The next phrase came out a little gruffer than he meant it to as well.
"Enough talk, get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning."
Daniel beamed at him and he knew he had to leave the room. Fast.
" ‘Kay. Night, Jack."
"Night, Space Monkey."
Feet, do your stuff…