Taking Time
Sometimes I think you have strange powers. Every time you're around…
"Sir?"
As if lying in this goddamn bed, hooked up to the base power grid like a Christmas tree on steroids isn't enough, I've now got what's left of my team mother-henning the crap out of me. Carter likes to fuss—tuck in my bed sheets, untangle IV lines, be a general pain in the butt with her sympathetic smiles every time I barf up my last meal. A pity her catching and bowl handling skills aren't up to snuff. I'm getting sick of wearing my own puke. I told her if she can't take exploding vomit and diarrhea then perhaps she should go back to her real job as temporary leader of SG1. In my absence.
Teal'c. Well, he's just plain scary, in that way that sends the infirmary staff skittering when he lifts just one eyebrow.
And Jonas. Not going there. I think of him and the word 'temporary' comes to mind.
Can't interfere, can't touch, can't do a goddamn thing… but…
"Sir?"
"What, Carter!" She's sitting next to my bed with her laptop perched on her lap, wearing it like a teenager hiding a Playboy magazine behind a copy of Shakespeare. No way is she fooling me.
"You didn't answer me the first time. I was worried you might have…"
"What? Might have what? Gone nuts again? Wacked out on happy sarc juice?"
Carter turns away and lowers her eyes, and I can just see her brow furrowing with either concern or hurt. I don't really give a damn which. "That's not fair," she whispers, and then quickly adds, "sir."
"Yeah, well, neither is putting up with this shit." I'd kill to roll onto my side about now, but that would mean relocating the flight deck of equipment Fraiser has strategically placed around my bed. Hell, the woman has monitors to monitor the monitors. Swear she invented the word 'redundant'. "If you're going to sit there pretending to work then how about answering something for me?"
"Sure."
"Daniel…" Just the mention of his name and Carter's right cheek twitches. "He went through this crap when what's-her-face…"
"Shyla."
"Yeah, her. When she got him addicted to the sarc."
"I know what you want to know, sir. And I've been wondering the same thing. How you can go through withdrawal the same way Daniel did, and yet every time Ba'al put you in the sarcophagus you were dead?"
Why bother asking? You could have just done that voodoo you do so well.
"I don't get it."
Carter consigns her laptop to my nightstand and cradles her head in her hands. "Me either," she mumbles through her hands, and I hear her draw in a long breath. Yep, diatribe time… in three, two…
"Perhaps there's more to the sarcophagus, more to how it works than what we thought we knew?" she starts off, eventually dropping her hands to her sides and turning to face me. "Our assumption that addiction and withdrawal happened to someone suffering long-term exposure to the sarcophagus when they weren't injured or dying… dead… may have been wrong."
"So… what? Once is cool, two is pushing it, and anything more turns you into a puking and crapping machine with a bad temper? Carter, I'm one step short of being a regular System Lord minus my own junior. Hell. It's no wonder those guys have such bad tempers."
She offers me a small smile, but thankfully doesn't remind me of my recent membership to the snake club.
"You came and you went. Came and went. They're smart… but no one is that good. It was all you.
"I should let you rest, sir."
Places to be? People to see? My stomach suddenly churns and a wash of bile hits the back of my throat. I am so not going to puke. "Sure you don't want to stick around for a while? Catch the main show?"
Special Occasion?
Christmas?
Groundhog Day?
You've got your journey. I've got mine. Tell me again why I said no to the guy with the super freaky powers?
"Goodnight, sir."
"Traitor."