When Janet Frasier reached the Air Force base with Jack O'Neill, the officer seemed calm and balanced. But she knew how quick that could change with his head hurting. Janet watched Jack, wanting to make sure he really was ready for this meeting.

"Ready sir?"

The officer nodded and took his way to Cheyenne Mountain.

It was a difficult decision for the man. Today would mark the end of his military career. And although he wanted to deny it, he was nervous. He never planned on his desire for retirement being allowed due to him dying. Wistfully he stepped into the elevator and rode along with Janet into the depth of the mountain. So, this was his last official meeting with his team. He could not help but wish that Sam could be by his side.
Jack bounced uneasily from one foot to the other, his nerves finally showing. Janet reached for his upper arm to assure him that she was present to help him through this hard situation. When the two officers entered the meeting room, the rest of his team and the general were already sitting at the large table, waiting. Jack hesitated, he seemed glued to one spot and clung to the railing, as if looking for help. Janet tugged on his arm, gently encouraging him until he moved slowly to his friends. It felt as if his heart was beating twice as fast as usual. He was trying desperately to calm himself when Daniel immediately jumped up and grabbed his friend. The officer became even more tense and before realizing it, acted very strongly towards being confined in one area.
Jack was trying desperately to pull away from Daniel and Janet noticed immediately. The whole situation seemed to overwhelm her patient and she too begin to pull Daniel away from Jack. Because of his emotions going crazy, his head begin to ache worse than ever before. He cursed inside, praying that he would not vomit or worse yet, loose consciousness in front of his teammates.
General Hammond, seeing what the rapid advance on him had caused Jack to do, called out to Daniel, who moved back and sit down. Thankfully this gave the Airforce officer the chance to breathe and get used to the situation. Although Daniel Jackson had taken his seat – he and the Jaffa did not let their friend out of their sight. Jack felt himself being watched by them. He was the time of man that could not stand to be watched, or stared at and it soon begin to grate on his nerves. Finally, General Hammond stood up and taking the floor, said a few preliminary things before handing the conversation over to the Colonel.

Jack needed a few minutes to find the right words. He had literally put all his words together before coming to this meeting, and now, when it was important, he could not remember a single sentence. The intensifying headaches did not make it any easier for him. As he stammered through a few sentences, he searched nervously in his trouser pocket and finally finding what he was searching for pulled out the bottle with his tablets. He tried to catch one of the pills but his fingers did not want to obey him. When he finally steadied his hand long enough to pop the pill into his mouth, he picked up the cup of water to swallow the pill. Everyone watched him anxiously. His hands trembled so much that he spilled some of the water.

"Colonel, are you okay? Shall we move the meeting to another time? "His boss asked anxiously.

Janet Frasier, who had been scrolling through her papers during this time and had not notice what had happened with Jack and the pills, looked up in surprise. The officer gave her a signal that he was okay and wanted to go through with the meeting. He began again from the beginning with his well-rehearsed speech. Time after time, Jack would rub his head, looking more tense, trying to make his case as intelligible as he could.
Jack explained to his team that his intention for holding the meeting was his retirement. When he brought up the reason, his voice suddenly changed. He noticed how uncertain he spoke and left the rest to Dr. Frasier. As Janet spoke, Jack began to feel nauseated again, his stomach hardly containing the turmoil inside. Jack knew he was going to be sick and suddenly he could no longer stay in his chair. Concentration was never one of his strengths, but lately it seemed his concentration was gone to the point where even the mere thought of concentrating bothered him. He stood up, held his head between his two hands, and looked as if he were wanting to run from the room. Janet watched him for a moment and thought it advisable to free him from the seemingly very stressful situation.

"Sir, you can go to the infirmary, I'll come as soon as I can, Nurse Price will know what to do and will take care of you."

Jack was so thankful to Janet that he was almost running from the room. As he reached the door, he turned around and looked back at his friends. They stared at him expectantly, as if the man wanted to say something. But he turned his back on them and went without a word. Finally, finding a place far enough away to be sure he was unobserved, he leaned against the cold concrete wall of the base and buried his face in his trembling hands.
Jack knew he had never imagined his departure to go this way. He could not help but hope that Teal'c and Daniel knew that. He would never have walked out like that if his head had been right. In his mind, the situation had been completely different. He had known what he was going to say, and everything was going to go just like he had planned, but as Jack found out – that had been far from the truth. Groaning, he dragged himself to the elevator.

The medical details were quite comprehensive. The doctor tried to explain everything as simply as possible, but all she saw were confused faces after she had reported the most important details. Teal'c had already encountered some of the illness that the Doctor described, after seeing O'Neill in Doctor Frasier's house the night before, but not all of it. However, for Daniel, it was a shock. He was not able to speak for quite a few minutes. After arranging his thoughts, the young archaeologist asked the question that shocked everyone present. The doctor had already expected this and told them about her theory.

"As I've already told the general, I'm sure it was pure manipulation. However, the cancer has gone undetected for a while, and we're talking about manipulation on a grand scale. Several people must be involved, not only here on the base but also in the labs that processes our samples. I've been doing some research to try to find the guilty party, and I will not rest until I have them where I need them to receive punishments."

"So, what you are saying is that they have intentionally hushed up your results. But why, who would be doing something so terrible? If I understand correctly, the tumor is already very advanced. How long would you say this has been covered up? "

"I can't say with certainty Daniel; the symptoms often develop late in the case of tumor diseases. The Colonel had been suffering from increased headaches for a while, so he started coming to me, but all the test results I submitted returned normal, every one of them. To reach the extent that Colonel O'Neill's is at, it had to be there for quite some time.

"And not the first one of us noticed anything, his friends and we see nothing strange going on." Daniel shook his head indignantly.

"Do not blame yourself, Dr. Jackson, what would you have noticed? Even I did not notice anything."

Janet tried to sooth the man, she knew how bad he was hurting for his friend. After all, she was hurting too. Daniel sat and thought about what she had told them ...

"He seems so changed now." He murmured suddenly.

"He has changed, Daniel. Such a diagnosis changes a person, and sadly changes in personality are also part of the disease."

"And you can do nothing more for him?" He asked, bewildered.

"I'll try to convince him that to have the biopsy, which actually confirms the diagnosis, but the recordings of the brain leave little hope, so far. He has rejected all the therapies from the beginning of this and was completely in shock. Because of that, the diagnosis took forever to process. At least he has now happily allowed me to examine him thoroughly here. Everything else is up to him. Forcing him to go to therapy is out of the question. We will not do it!"

Janet took a much-needed breath to not only gather her thoughts but to give the gentlemen in the room a chance to digest what she had said. She knew this was hard on them. But the hardest part was still coming.

"Radiotherapy and chemotherapy would be an option. It could slow the growth of the tumor. He would gain time but would be severely restricted in his way of life. He has stated that he will not live that way."

"And he knows it was manipulation, how did he react to it?" Daniel wanted to know.

"How do you think he reacted, Daniel? It threw him for a loop. But what he needs now are friends who give him support, but do not push him to anything he does not want to do." She stressed.

"Does anyone else know of his diagnosis? I mean here in the SGC?"

"Of course not!" Replied Janet.

"If anyone else knew, it would impossible to lure the responsible persons into a trap." Came the archaeologist, answering his own question.

The general, who had sat quietly during the conversation, finally spoke.

"If Dr. Frasier wants to examine Jack from head to toe, then it is possible to do everything as usual and see what is going on in the examinations. If the results from the testing come back as negative, nothing wrong, as before, we will know then that the person responsible for the false testing was here today, and once a guilty part has been found, the rest can also be found."

"That idea is not bad, General but I have a better one. I mark a planned examination date for Colonel O'Neill, quite officially and visibly for all my employees, to see. Then we can be sure that the culprits are here on that date. That way they have to do the work of trying to make sure what they have been doing so far is still not discovered."

"I wonder how they did it anyway with all the examinations Jack had ..." Daniel said loudly.

"Well, the Colonel, like you, Teal'c and Sam only had check-ups before and after the missions at the hospital and they are usually ..."

"Planned ... I understand."

Teal'c followed the whole conversation without a word, until even the taciturn Jaffa, could no longer suppress his emotions. Hitting the table with a clenched fist, and focusing on Janet with a desperate rather than an angry look.

"Why do we still sit here?"

Both the doctor and the general looked at him, frightened out of their oppressed world of thought.

"We need to do everything we NOW to find the guilty party, we cannot leave O'Neill alone in his last fight," Teal'c seemed to be trembling with concern for his best friend. "He deserves to know who did this to him. That much we owe him."

"Teal'c is right, we should not waste any more time, Jack needs our support." Daniel agreed.

"If I thought for one moment that some of my closest collogues did this ... my patients should be able to trust them ... I should be able to rely entirely on my people."

Janet again got that lousy feeling in her stomach as she rose from her chair. How could she be so deceived in the people that surrounded her on a daily basis? People that worked side-by-side of her.

"In every human being that you know, there is a human being who you do not know." Said the Jaffa.

Teal'c had the talent Janet always admired and it always astonished her at the same time. There was a lot of truth in that little sentence, and it was his way of telling her that she was certainly not to blame.