"What's wrong with him doctor?"

Janet Fraiser sighed, setting the medical chart on her desk long enough to rub tired eyes.

"I don't know, sir. He's not responding to anything we try."

Hammond frowned.

"He was on his feet only this morning."

"I know, sir. He wasn't showing any sign of this… whatever it is… this morning. He looked a little tired after his trip up top with Daniel, but I wouldn't have allowed him out of his bed again if we'd seen any sign of something so serious."

"I know that, Doctor."

Hammond trusted her completely with the people under his command. She'd proven long since that she was deserving of that trust. He could see just how frustrated she looked now, though, and he wished he had some way to help.

"He looked pretty tired after breakfast," O'Neill said. "Before, when he came into the commissary he looked fine, but he was dragging by the time we were done eating – even though he was trying to hide it."

"Did he eat anything unusual?" Janet asked, already knowing the answer. She'd already ruled out allergies.

"Eggs and toast – and not a lot of either."

"Is he allergic maybe?" Hammond asked.

She shook her head, gesturing to a file that was sitting on the edge of her desk.

"I've already been through his medical history, sir."

She'd done that when he'd arrived in her care. There was no way she'd risk losing a patient to something stupid, after all, like a latex allergy or something.

"Something airborne?" O'Neill asked.

"No one else is sick," she pointed out. "Something this serious would be knocking down more than one person."

"Except that he's been on a space ship for almost a year," Jack reminded her. "Maybe there's a difference in the quality of the air?"

"There is, Colonel, but it's not enough to flatten him – and even if it was, it would have happened right after we rescued him and brought him here."

Good point.

Jack looked over at Hammond, but he didn't have any other suggestions. Even the ones he'd had weren't that great.

"Perhaps there is something lacking in the air here that was present when he was with Ba'al," Teal'c said, speaking up for the first time. "Something that did not have any affect on Officer Ruff until recently."

"Like what?" Janet asked.

"I am uncertain. I have heard of system lords performing unusual experiments on their slaves, however, perhaps Ba'al has done something to Deputy Ruff."

"Or all of them," Jack said, shrugging. "Maybe it's like that lysine thing in Jurassic Park…"

All of them looked over at him with blank stares.

"What lysine thing?" Janet asked.

"The dinosaurs were all fed a protein – or maybe it was an enzyme, I don't remember – and they were dependent on it. If they didn't get any – and it was only available on the island – then they'd die. It was a failsafe in case one of them escaped."

"I do not remember any such scene in the movie, O'Neill," Teal'c told him.

"That's because it's in the book," Jack told him. "It turned out it didn't work, because the dinosaurs found other things to eat that had this protein, or enzyme, or whatever, but what if Ba'al did something like that to Anthony?"

"Why would he do that?" Hammond asked, looking at O'Neill like he was crazy.

"Because he's a Goa'uld?" Jack asked, holding back the sarcasm in deference to the fact that Hammond was a general – and his friend. "That's what they do, right?"

Fraiser frowned and looked over at Teal'c.

"What do you think?"

"I have never heard of such a circumstance," the Jaffa admitted. "However, that does not mean it is not the case."

"It would have shown up by now, though…" she said, more to herself than to them.

"Unless he wanted whatever runaway slave or whatever to suffer slowly," O'Neill pointed out. He was well aware of the cruelties of the system lords, after all. Especially after almost taking a very extended trip with Teal'c in a hijacked X-301.

"Or perhaps the medications you have been giving him have kept the symptoms at bay until now," Teal'c added.

The doctor nodded, her mind already running through possibilities. By now she was pretty much ready to grasp at any straw she could.

"I took some blood samples earlier. I'll compare them to the samples I took when he arrived to see if there's anything different. She picked up her chart, anxious to get started now that she had a course of action – even if it proved way off base from what was really happening. "I'll let you know what – if anything – I find."

Hammond stood as well.

"You do that, Doctor. And if there's anything I can do…"

Which he knew there wasn't. She had a very good staff around her. The best thing he could do was to leave her – and them – alone so they could work.

"I'll keep you informed, sir."

OOOOO

Author's note: The name of the enzyme from the book might be wrong. I couldn't find my copy to double check it and was going by memory (and I haven't read it in a long time!