Snow: XXI
Jonas slept more deeply and soundly that night than he had in a long time, and when he woke up, at ten in the morning, no less, he realized that he must've slept right through Dr. Fraiser's morning visit. Sitting up, he hoped that his tiredness hadn't been a giveaway of what he was up to the evening before. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, wondering, as he had every day for ages, what he could possibly do to break up the monotony of another day confined to his room.
The physical therapist stopped by around 11 and after an hour of working out, Jonas showered then went back to his cell, as he called his room in his mind. Janet had left him a few more puzzles, and while he appreciated the gesture, he couldn't help but grind his teeth at the fact that she was giving him the same tasks that would amuse a toddler. Sitting down at the small table, Jonas dumped out the pieces of one of the puzzles and began sorting them, his mind wandering to thoughts of Jo. What was she doing right now? Was she thinking of him? Did she have fun last night, or had he insulted her by not agreeing with her every word? No, she was too confident to be thrown off by a differing opinion. In fact, she was more confident last evening than he'd ever seen her. Maybe it was the infirmary that made her unsure of herself. Maybe she knew what the other nurses said about her...
Jonas blinked at his puzzle in shock. It was two thirds complete and he intentionally kept his mind relaxed as he watched the rest of the pieces move about on their own, bumping into and sorting each other like ants. Within seconds, the puzzle was complete. He swallowed hard, releasing his focus, and what had felt like a buzzing in the back of his mind ceased and the puzzle sat before him, now a completed picture of several galloping horses. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to retrace what he had done to trigger the response. His mind had been elsewhere, as it had been when Janet had first seen him unintentionally floating a sarcophagus in Dr. Jackson's office all those months ago. His focus had been somewhere else on each occasion, but the back of his mind had been whirling – his subconscious had been analyzing and, literally and figuratively, solving a puzzle.
Jonas stared at the picture of the horses, emblazoning the image in his head. Then he broke the puzzle apart and threw the thousand pieces around his room. Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes and visualized what the puzzle looked like finished, then steadied his breathing, trying to relax into the distant state he had been in moments before. It wasn't working, so he shifted his focus to the steps of solving a puzzle. Find all the edge pieces, start with a corner piece, work from the outside in... Something grazed his ear and Jonas cracked open his eyes. The back of his neck felt tight and the pieces of the puzzle were lifting themselves off the floor and ordering themselves on the table, from the outside in. Jonas willed his mind to remain focused and watched with a growing smile as he maintained the tense energy in his thoughts and watched the puzzle once again finish itself.
Jonas knocked the pieces off the table then hastily dumped out the pieces of the other two puzzles. He took the time to stare at their boxes, memorizing the pictures each was meant to form: the horses, a puppy and a kitten, and a Coca Cola Santa Clause. Licking his lips, Jonas sat down cross-legged on his bed and closed his eyes. He regulated his breathing and focused, seeing the puzzles form in his mind, but nothing happened. Furrowing his brow, he tried to relax his thoughts to achieve the state of steady tension that he'd been in before, but it was slippery.
He began to hum to himself to take off some of the pressure, and within moments, found himself quietly singing.
"Ig haleth ek dios,
Ig haleth yen numios.
Fyè yekth humien
Faltiriros
Shièn mylaketh ek sienier
Yon faronth nough..."
Keeping his eyes shut, he shifted into English.
"White are the far-off plains,
And white the fading forests grow;
The wind dies out amongst the tides
And denser still the snow,
A gathering weight on roof and tree
Falls down scarce audibly.
The meadows and far-sheeted streams
Lie still without a sound;
Like some soft minister of dreams
The snowfall hoods me around;
In wood and water, earth and air,
A silence is everywhere..."
He opened his eyes. Cardboard puzzle pieces were drifting through the air like butterflies, and Jonas watched with a smile in his gaze as they nestled against each other, and within heartbeats, there were two completed jigsaw puzzles on the ground and one on the table. He could hear footsteps approaching and realized that he was picking them up farther away than he usually could, and he let his focus relax as they neared.
There was a brisk knock on the door, then Dr. Fraiser poked her head in. "Jonas?" She spied him cross-legged on the bed and her brows twitched together a little. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah," he nodded, his voice distant and his gaze still on the puzzle on the table.
Following his line of sight, Janet spied the completed puzzle and stepped into the room. She halted when she nearly trampled one of the puzzles on the ground then spied the other and looked to Jonas. "You've been busy."
Jonas sighed softly and rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the focus the back of his mind had strengthened.
Dr. Fraiser stepped closer, her gaze growing worried. "You sure you're all right?"
"Yeah, I was just..." He gestured to the puzzled. "Playing mind games."
Janet studied the puzzles then looked back to the Kelownan. "How so?" Jonas shrugged slightly then shook his head, and there was a distance in his eyes that she hadn't seen in a long while, as if he were only half in their world. The expression uncannily reminded her of when he was suffering from Nirrti's tumor. "Are you seeing visions again, Jonas?"
"No, no, nothing like that." He blinked a few times and met her gaze, appearing much more himself. His heart fell when she sat down on the bed beside him.
"Then what?"
He shot her a wary look and scooted to the side to get off the bed.
Janet sighed. "I'm not going to wrestle you again. And I've been meaning to apologize for that."
The Kelownan ignored her and shuffled over to the puzzles on the ground, kicking at them so that the pieces scattered across the floor. Janet furrowed her brow as he likewise tossed the pieces of the puzzle on the table around the room. Then he sat back down on the bed and closed his eyes, tapping one of his fingers against his leg to distract himself. She was about to ask him what he was doing when movement caught the corner of her eye, and her heart skipped a beat as she watched the small pieces of cardboard on the ground flutter about in a gentle twister as they settled in groups on the floor, forming the picture of the puzzle.
Peering over the edge of the bed, she watched as the other puzzle on the floor did the same, as did the one on the table. Within moments, all the pieces had settled into place. She looked back to Jonas, her lips parted in shock that she didn't know how to voice. He opened his eyes and they had the same lingering sense of detachment that she'd seen earlier before he managed to blink it away as he focused on her. They sat there in silence for several minutes until Janet finally shook her head. "And you feel all right?"
He nodded. "It... it doesn't feel like anything unnatural. Just... something I'm not really used to yet. But I'm figuring it out."
Janet couldn't hide the concern from her face. "Just be careful, Jonas. You don't have to push yourself if you don't want to."
He nodded, knowing she was remembering how he'd waited till the last second to have brain surgery when his tumor had gifted him with foresight that he knew could help his teammates. "I know. And I won't." He offered her a small smile.
"Good." She ruffled his hair. "Just let me know if you need anything, all right?"
She knew he'd completely recovered from his contemplative state when he met her gaze with a mischievous light in his eye. "Anything?"
"Oh, no you don't," she said as she stood up.
"Pleeeease, Rabbit?" He stretched out on his stomach on the bed, as if in desperation. "I'm going crazy."
"You're supposed to be resting and recuperating."
He dropped his face onto the covers in defeat. "I am," he said into the mattress.
"I don't know what to tell you, Jonas," she said with a sigh. "You have a TV, you have books, you have a journal."
"All those things are boring."
"They didn't used to bore you."
"Yeah?" He looked up. "That was before I was stuck in a room with them for two weeks."
"That was also before you started calling me 'Rabbit.'"
Jonas frowned a little. "Sorry about that, by the way. I didn't know Rabbit was a boy."
Janet furrowed her brow. "Rabbit's a boy?"
"Apparently."
"Oh... well, there's always Piglet."
"No," he sighed as he sat back up. "According to Dr. Jackson, Piglet's a boy, too."
Janet just stared. "I guess he's right."
"I always thought they were girls."
"So did I... well, goes to show how far a little gender role conditioning can go. Even if you're from another planet." She smiled. "I need to go check up on Lt. Cross. I'd say that you should work on those puzzles but you've cheated."
Jonas stared dejectedly at the puppy and kitten puzzle on the floor as Janet left. He dragged himself off the bed and cleaned up the pieces, putting them away in their respective boxes before sitting back down and trying to busy himself by picking up some of the heavier objects in his room. With enough tension, he was able to lift his empty plastic cup, but anything heavier than that merely rattled in place. Sighing, he flopped back onto the bed, half tempted to give himself a sedative to sleep off this nightmare of boredom, when he suddenly had in idea.
Remembering how Jo recommended using imagination to turn the mundane into a game, he sat up and looked around his room then down to his white hospital clothes. They were the same as the white scrubs that the orderlies used. He'd studied enough medicine. It was time to play doctor.
~*~
Lt. Cross sighed and itched his nose. Dr. Fraiser had finished redressing his bandages a few minutes ago then left on her lunch break. Which was why he was surprised when the curtain separating his bed from the one next to his was opened. A man stood before him, clad in all white with a surgical mask. Lt. Cross furrowed his brows. He didn't recognize this orderly...
"Aaaaand how're you feeling today?" Jonas asked in a nasal voice, looking over the lieutenant's chart.
Lt. Cross cleared his throat. "Um, as well as can be expected."
"Good, good." Jonas nodded. "How has Dr. Fraiser been treating you?"
"I'm sorry, but, who are you?"
"Oh!" Jonas laughed. "I'm sorry, how rude of me. I'm Dr. Pinkworth." He stuck out his hand and shook Lt. Cross' good one.
"Pinkworth?"
"I'm filling in for Dr. Fraiser while she's on break. In fact, I'm a member of the SGC Medical Board and if you could fill out this quick survey, it would really help us improve our care."
Lt. Cross cleared his throat again. "Um, okay. I can't write very well at the moment..."
"That's fine. Just circle the letter for your answers." Jonas handed Lt. Cross a clipboard.
Lt. Cross frowned. The survey was written in pencil. He looked over to Dr. Pinkworth, who was busy poking at the tubing and equipment surrounding him. Adjusting the pencil in his hand, he read the survey:
Very Important Survey for the SGC Medical Board
By Dr. Pinkworth, MD, Ph.D, BS
1. Do you think that Dr. Fraiser is:
A) Nice B) Kind of nice C) Not really nice D) Really mean :-[
2. Dr. Fraiser lets you do what you want:
A) Most of the time B) Some of the time C) Not usually D) Never. :(
3. Dr. Fraiser looks like Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh:
A) Very true B) Kind of true C) Not very true E) No truth at all
4. Dr. Fraiser shouldn't have so much power:
A) Agree B) Disagree C) I like cheese D) It's swimming time! :)
5. Bananas are the best in the world:
A) Yes! B) Maybe C) No (if you choose this answer, you will have nightmares for a week) D) They're better than the best! :)
Lt. Cross arched a brow then warily studied Dr. Pinkworth. The other man was trying to get a cord untangled from a pen in his pocket. Sighing, Cross circled A, A, E, C, and was stumped on question five. He caught Dr. Pinkworth looking over his shoulder at his answers, and when the doctor noticed, he hastily looked away. Cross bit his lip for a few more seconds then circled B. "Here you go." He handed the clipboard back to Dr. Pinkworth.
"Oh, thank you," Jonas said, perusing the answers. "Oh..." He frowned at the answer to number two. "You got that one wrong."
"I thought it was a survey."
"It is."
"There are no wrong answers on a survey."
Jonas raised his pen, about to deliver a lecture when Janet's voice rang out in the hallway as she told a nurse to take his break. To Lt. Cross' surprise, Dr. Pinkworth yanked the curtain back shut and crawled away, abandoning his clipboard. Cross craned his neck to try to see where he'd gone off to, but the other man was out of sight.
The curtain was pulled back again by a smiling Dr. Fraiser. "They have roast beef today – would you like some?"
Lt. Cross blinked. "Um, yeah, sure that sounds great."
Janet smiled. "Good. I'll have some brought down for you and you can take your Vicodin."
She was turning to go when Lt. Cross spoke up. "Excuse me, Dr. Fraiser, but one of your co-workers was just here and he left in a bit of a hurry. He forgot to take this with him."
Janet frowned as Lt. Cross handed her the clipboard. The furrow between her brows increased as she read the survey. Without looking up, she shouted, "JONAS QUINN!"
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