"Isolation?"
"For his own wellbeing, Colonel."
Jack looked down at Daniel through the observation room window. Nurses buzzed around him while he slept on, still looking as pale and ill as he did the moment Jack stepped through the 'gate and saw him lying on the ramp.
"You took the…" Jack made a sawing motion across his left wrist. "You know, the Nintendo…"
"You mean the neurotoxin capsule?" Janet didn't even bother to hide her smile at his interesting choice of words. "Yes, sir. The device was safely removed with no lasting effects, other than the crude surgical procedure used to insert it. That will take some healing."
"Isolation?"
"The word meaning 'to segregate or separate', among other things."
"Now you sound like Daniel."
"And I take that as a compliment. I chose to put Doctor Jackson in isolation because I can at least control the amount of access his team has to him."
"Us?" Jack looked crestfallen.
"You. Actually, you in particular. Rest and recuperation from his injuries, as well as any potential side-effects from his proximity to the shield device, is what he needs most right now, not you sitting there playing with his IV fluids in an attempt to amuse yourself."
"Carter said there should be no lasting effects from the shield."
"And I have no doubt she's right, but putting that aside for the moment we still have his other injuries to contend with. So, at least for the next day or so, I'm going to leave him in isolation where my staff and I can better dictate visiting hours. Are we all square on that, Colonel? Or do I have to pull rank?"
"You just did," Jack muttered half-heartedly under his breath.
"Good! I hear from Sam that the Otakai leader gave you a little souvenir of your visit."
"Less of a souvenir, more a friendly reminder! You know, the guy actually thought we could find out how the thing works and use it for ourselves. Carter was all over it like a rash."
"Can you blame her, though? Regardless of what they used it for it is still a piece of alien technology."
"Damn instrument of torture. Asmun genuinely believed he could use the remote as a gesture of good faith in any future trade relations we might have with his people."
Janet looked down at Daniel. One of her nurses was smoothing out his bed sheet, while another finished changing the dressing on his wrist. "Knowing Daniel, he'll probably push to maintain some sort of open dialog with these people."
"Have you ever seen the General in a really bad mood?"
"That bad?"
Jack smiled lopsidedly and headed towards the door, stopping to look over his shoulder and nod towards the observation room window. "Mind if I go commune with our resident god?"
"Five minutes, Colonel. And not a second more."
"Thanks, Doc."
To be continued...