Jack poked his head round the door. Daniel looked up and grinned ruefully,
"So, what did I miss?" he asked lightly.
"The usual" Jack replied with a shrug. "Beautiful women, unfriendly natives who tried to kill us. Sam blew us up. Teal'c did his thing."
Daniel pulled a face. "Shame – I always enjoy an angry mob." Then added, "What did you do to make them angry?"
Jack ignored the insult. "Carter has … "he paused, looking for the right words "a bunch of old stuff for you."
Daniel cocked an eyebrow quizzically. "Could you be a tad more specific?"
"Really old stuff" Jack clarified. He looked pointedly at his teammate "How you doin'?"
"Fine" said Daniel tersely. "Really old what?"
"Artefacts and things" said Jack vaguely, waving his hands in an outlining motion. "She'll bring them down in a bit. He looked hard at Daniel. Sure you're ok? Fancy some dinner?"
Daniel shook his head. "Think I'll give it a miss. I'll wait for Sam." He stood up, wincing slightly at the movement and breathed carefully. Jack frowned.
"Stomach?"
"Still achy" Daniel admitted reluctantly, "but it's nothing." Jack continued to look at him sternly. "Really nothing".
Jack's eyes narrowed slightly but he didn't comment. For a moment Daniel considered joining Jack for dinner just to prove a point, but his common sense overruled his pride and he knew it would be a bad idea. Besides, he really wanted to see what Sam had brought back for him. It was frustrating being left behind. Especially when he knew for a fact that the planet contained the ruins of a lost civilization. He looked innocently back at Jack, weathering the stare. Eventually, Jack touched his forefinger to his brow in an informal salute and ducked out of the room.
Daniel took another careful breath and pressed the heel of his hand into his stomach trying to massage away the cramp. It didn't have much effect. Stretching hadn't helped either but he did it again anyway, trying to straighten out the tensing muscles. Twenty four hours of worsening on and off colicky pains were beginning to take their toll and he was fed up. He had started feeling crappy off-world on P7X-377 and his sense of social responsibility made him admit as much to Janet during the mandatory post-trip medical. He would have hated to be responsible for bringing back a space bug or worse, for taking earth germs to alien worlds. Unfortunately he was now confined to base - although so far he had managed to dissuade Janet from trapping him in the infirmary. At least he had caught up on some of his backlog of work. Another cramp low in his stomach caused him a sharp intake of breath and, with no one to watch him, he wrapped his arms around his middle and groaned softly. It wasn't a life-threatening injury or alien parasite (Janet had made sure of that) but it hurt worse than he was prepared to let on and the pain was making him feel slightly nauseous. Sighing he hunched back into his chair and tried to focus on translating the tiny ancient symbols on the scrap of stone in front of him. It did not help that the stone was so worn. He tipped the light trying to increase the shadow to make out the faded lines. Something about a flying sunken city? That made no sense. Daniel sighed again and then brightened as he heard familiar footsteps in the corridor. Sam appeared carefully carrying a large and obviously heavy cardboard box.
"Hiya Daniel, I brought you some souvenirs".
"A snowglobe and a 'wish you were here' T shirt?"
Sam grinned "No, although that's an idea. Actually, I think you will like this a bit better!" She looked at Daniel, her eyes sparkling and delved into the box with the air of a Santa at a children's party. "This I think is some type of astrolabe, this is an amulet of some form, some inscribed tablets..." She stacked the small objects in front of him before reaching her piece de resistance "and this…" she reached into the box with both hands and with difficulty withdrew a cylindrical object with carved symbols "this is a puzzle. It gives off EM radiation so I'm pretty sure that it is technological but I have absolutely no idea what it is. We've had it scanned and we are fairly sure it is safe but we don't know what it does. The symbols on the outside look a bit like ancient but - as far as I can tell - they are different. I'd like to have some idea of what they say before we try and open it."
She put it down on the bench carefully and Daniel squinted at it with interest carefully pivoting it around.
"You're right" he said
"Mm?"
"Not ancient… but…" he scooted up and went over to a pile of books in the corner and began rooting around in the heap muttering to himself. Sam, realising that this could take some time sat down upon the stool and glanced around the room, taking in the packet of tylenol and the discarded heat pad.
"Tummy any better?"
Daniel grunted – a grunt that could have meant either 'yes' or 'no' and continued pouring through the books, pausing every now and again to scan a page more closely. Sam watched him with affectionate amusement. Once Daniel had a mystery to solve any communication was difficult. She rested her elbow on the bench and cupped her cheek in her hand and settled down to wait.
Forty minutes later, with apparently no progress she gave up and headed upstairs to write her mission report.