Down in the canteen Daniel pushed the food around his plate, trying to summon up the enthusiasm to actually eat it. He felt brittle with lack of sleep; his stomach hurt, eating made the pain worse and exhaustion had left him feeling vulnerable and entirely lacking in resiliance. The news that McKay was struggling to disentangle Sam's program patch from the computer's main programming had come as a crushing disappointment and the possibility of seeing SG-1 again was as remote as ever. He let out a shuddery breath at the tightening of another cramp and felt embarrassingly close to crying.
"Can I join you?"
Daniel looked up at Janet and managed to smile. With an effort he said lightly.
"Depends. Is it a 'date' or a check-up?"
"Neither!" Janet scolded good- humouredly. She put her tray down, slid into the seat opposite him and leant forward expectantly, "I hear you might have gotten the solution!"
Daniel shrugged noncommittally "Yeah – Rodney is working on it now."
"Rodney?"
"Dr McKay. We got the idea when we were …um.. working together."
Realising that Janet would be unimpressed with nocturnal troubleshooting he stopped before he could reveal too much. He didn't fancy spending nights back in the infirmary again.
"So is it going to work?" Janet asked, enthusiastically buttering her toast.
Daniel grimaced.
"Eventually."
"Oh?"
"Apparently Sam's a better programmer than Rodney" he explained.
"Ah!" Janet smiled, "Sam didn't make it easy then?"
"Uh-uh." Daniel shook his head. "Unfortunately she didn't write out instructions either!"
Despite his frustration, Daniel felt oddly proud of Sam.
"Poor Dr McKay" Janet said sympathetically. "Is anyone helping him?"
Daniel smiled faintly "Uh Zalenka tried. But I'm not sure it was going that well!" He had gone into the control room before breakfast and found Rodney and Zalenka sat in tense silence on opposite sides of the room. It had been fairly obvious that they had recently had another disagreement.
"Not a team player huh?" Janet offered lightly.
"You could say that."
Janet bit purposefully into her toast putting an end to conversation for the moment.
Daniel shifted, imperceptibly arching his back as he tried ineffectually to alleviate the stomach ache. He felt nauseous, but that could well be due to getting less than four hours sleep. Everytime he blinked the room swum slightly as though he were in danger of falling asleep where he sat. Feeling Janet's eyes upon him, he put a small piece of scrambled egg in his mouth and looked over with a deliberate smile, hoping that she bought the charade.
Janet returned the smile but studied his face intently. He still looked ill. He was pallid, his eyes were a bit too bright and the dark circles of tiredness made his face look bruised.
"When did you last get any fresh air?" she asked suddenly.
"Um" Daniel was momentarily thrown by the change of tack, "last week sometime." The answer slightly surprised him. He hadn't realised it had been so long. Normally he went off world or, if he wasn't going off world, he went home. Being stuck in the SGC was unusual.
Janet looked at him with renewed concern; no wonder he was so pale! Clearly she should have thought to prescribe a change of scene alongside the painkillers. Taking the matter in hand she put down her coffee mug decisively. "Let's go for a walk."
Daniel gave her a searching look, trying to read her motives. Finding nothing but friendly concern in her face he relaxed.
"Okay." He realised it sounded grudging and tried to muster a note of enthusiasm, "When?"
"Now?" Janet offered. "I'm not on duty until later this afternoon."
Daniel hesitated and then nodded again. "Fine, I'm not much use here anyhow."
He badly wanted to be around when Rodney finally got the gate online, but he couldn't take any more claustrophobic waiting. The idea of seeing something other than the base and feeling real sunlight rather than harsh electric lighting was appealing and might help him wake up a bit. He pushed his plate away. Janet looked critically at the leftover food.
"By 'now' I meant 'after breakfast'" she clarified. "You can finish your food first."
"I'm done." Daniel said.
"Hmm." Janet tried to interrogate Daniel with a stare.
"I'm fine" he said automatically, not really feeling it but not feeling like explaining himself either. He looked earnestly at Janet and straightened his glasses before folding his arms defensively. "A walk would be nice."
"Okay" said Janet, privately resolving to make sure she packed painkillers. "I'll grab some snacks. Meet you up top in twenty minutes?"
Two chapters left to go! Sorry this one is a bit on the short side.
