Sam was beginning to wonder if there would ever be an end to their confinement. Hours had passed since lunchtime, and Janet had still not come back with any more news about a cure for their itchy affliction.
Once again, Sam was playing checkers with the Colonel, both of them stretched out sideways on the bed, facing each other, with the checkerboard between them.
Daniel was setting up a complex line of dominoes on the floor, each domino balanced upright on its narrowest end, and several paths branching out to wind around each other. When he ran out of dominoes, he snagged some of the captured checkers from Sam and Jack and added them to his path.
Jack finally won his game against Sam, and with a victory shout he threw a handful of checkers in the air. Two of them came down, bounced off the bed, and landed on Daniel's dominoes.
Daniel watched, dismayed, as his carefully-planned trail split in the middle and fell down on all sides. Only the checkers added to one end did not fall. They, instead, simply rolled out of sight under the bed.
Jack winced at what he'd accidentally done to Daniel's masterpiece. "Sorry," he offered sincerely. "...I could...help you set up another one..."
Daniel just gritted his teeth, gathered up the dominoes, and dropped them back into their box.
"...or not?" Getting no verbal answer, Jack shrugged and crawled under the bed to retrieve the runaway checkers.
A knock sounded on the door, and then it swung open immediately after.
Dr. Fraiser stepped in, a round plastic bucket held in her arms like a prized trophy. "I've got it!" she announced triumphantly to the three.
Jack scooted out from under the bed, Sam hopped down from the top of it, and they joined Daniel to gather around Janet and her bucket.
"It's purple," Sam observed.
"It doesn't stink," Daniel mentioned thankfully.
"What is it?" Jack wanted to know.
"It's the stuff I showed you before," Janet answered. "The only difference here is that I added lavender oil to mask the smell." She wrinkled her nose in memory. "A lot of lavender oil. The small amount I tested on Colonel O'Neill's BDUs gave me some results much sooner than I'd hoped for. Let's hope it does as well on larger areas, on human skin."
"Tranquilizers still in there?" Jack questioned, looking down at the bucket of cream again. He did not like tranquilizers; they made his brain feel cloudy and threw off his sense of alertness.
"Yes. They're a necessary component, I'm afraid," Janet apologized. "Which reminds me, I'll have to prohibit your intake of coffee until this is all done and over with. I don't want the caffeine to mix with the tranquilizers and produce some unsatisfactory side-effects."
None of them liked having their coffee privileges revoked, but there was no other alternative. They couldn't even have carbonated sodas, either, unless they were strictly caffeine-free.
Janet explained to them how to apply the cream, how much, and how often. She told them to keep the bucket cooling in the fridge when they weren't using it, as it would keep the cream fresher and the coldness would feel so much more soothing on their rashy skin.
"I'll be back first thing in the morning to check on each of you," she said before leaving. She also gave them each a pair of blue scrubs to substitute for pajamas for that night, and instructed an airman to wheel one prepared cot into the room. Sam would have the large bed, and the guys could decide between them who would have the cot, and who would get the couch.
Dr. Fraiser left, and her three patients dutifully dug into their bucket of medication.
Sam's itchy fingers were starting to really bug her again, so at first she just stuck her entire hand in the bucket and held it there. After a few long moments, she pulled it out to make room for Daniel and Jack to scoop up their dosages.
Jack stripped his shirt off, grateful for a good reason to get the fabric off his tingling back.
Daniel, having more modesty than Jack seemed to have, medicated his own back without removing any clothing from it.
"Stuck in a room with Sam and Dan...doo-dah, doo-dah," Jack sang to himself as he awkwardly smeared some cream onto the middle of his back.
Daniel turned his head to give Jack a questioning look.
Jack continued, "Grab a Zat gun and shoot me now...oh doo-dah-day."
"I wondered how long it would take," Sam commented dryly.
"Well, at least it's not 'Row Your Boat'," Daniel responded.
"Got me a bucket of goop...slather it all around..." Jack gave Sam a mischievous look, finishing his song with: "Fling it at Sam and make her squeal...oh doo-dah-day."
"I do not squeal," Sam informed him with a half-smile. "I might gasp dramatically every now and then, but I never 'squeal'."
Jack grinned. "Oh, we'll see about that."
He reached into the bucket for a fresh handful of the cream. But instead of pretending to throw it at Sam, he tried to attack her with it much like Daniel had done to her in the Jacuzzi that one fateful day.
And Sam did, indeed, squeal. It wasn't an overly girly squeal, but it was just enough to encourage Jack in his mischief.
Almost like two kids they raced around the room, until Jack finally had Sam cornered with her back to the wall and no way out.
Standing nearly nose-to-nose with Sam, and towering quite a bit taller than her, he stared menacingly into her wide blue eyes. He rubbed the cream between both of his hands, working up a good-sized purple mess, and then raised his goopy hands like claws coming at her.
"Don't you dare," Sam breathed, thoroughly convinced that he most certainly would dare.
Jack just couldn't resist. He leaned in closer and closer...
For one very fleeting moment, Sam was tempted to close the rest of the distance between them and attack his lips with her own. Dangerous territory, Jack. Come any closer and I just might kiss you. Oh, the sparks we could make together.
But Jack knew nothing of the thoughts running through Sam's mind. He stopped a hair's breadth away, flashed her a boyish grin and whispered, "Gotcha."
Sam glared into the face mere centimeters from her own, wishing in that moment that Jack's tightly-muscled bare chest had hairs so she could rip them out one by one like he oh-so-rightly deserved.
Jack, seeing that Sam was less than amused by his mock attack, tried to play it off. "Aww, come on, Sam...I was just joking. Aren't you even gonna smile?"
Maybe when those tranquilizers kick in on you, Sam thought to herself. She didn't even know why she'd ran from him in the first place; it wasn't as if the cream on his hands was going to harm her. It was supposed to help her, for cryin' out loud! Once again, she was ashamed of herself. But still, he shouldn't have chased me like that. He'll get what's coming to him...
Impulsively, Sam smiled prettily and held one hand out for a friendly shake, hoping Jack would be stupid enough to comply.
Jack, wondering why Sam was so amiable all of a sudden, decided to just accept it and shake her clean hand with his goopy one without ruining it by asking why.
His curiosity didn't last long, however, for as soon as he let go of Sam's hand, she raised it to his face and smeared the cream down his cheek.
Sam giggled at the look of disbelief on his face.
"Now, now, Major. No giggling," Jack chastised good-naturedly, rubbing the cream away from his cheek with the back of his wrist.
He stepped back under the pretense of letting Sam move out of the corner. But as soon as she stepped past him, he hooked an arm around Sam's neck and deliberately wiped some of the excess cream down her face.
She laughed along with him this time, not annoyed with him any longer. They were buddies again.
When late evening finally arrived and there was nothing else to do but get some sleep, Sam, Daniel, and Jack took turns changing into their medical-scrubs "pajamas" in the tiny bathroom and then bid each other goodnight.
And though they each hoped their extremely inconvenient quarantine would end by the next morning...well, they already knew their chances of that were slim-to-none.
I just hope we can keep from killing each other , Sam thought to herself. She glanced over at the couch her favorite Colonel was stretched out on. Recalling how he'd cornered her earlier between the wall and himself and stood much, much closer to her than their military regs permitted, she added silently: ...and keep from seducing each other, too.