Janet looked around, amused. It was a few hours later, and she was sitting with eight nurses, Sam, and a few female officers and airmen in an empty room on one of NORAD's floors. They made a funny group, Janet thought: All the women on base today. There were usually about 150 people working for the Stargate program at any one time, and females only comprised 1/15th. But the group was having fun.
Daniel and Jack were the only patients, and they were being tended—as much as they needed to be, which wasn't a whole lot—by Dr. Warner and the two male nurses. The plan was to stay up here for an hour, and then go back down and see if it had made a difference. It had already been almost an hour, so they would be going back down soon. Janet doubted an hour would have made a difference, but she still hoped it had, for her patients' sakes.
Janet was also a little worried about Sam, even not taking into account the fact that the Major hadn't slept in five days. Sam was leaning over her chair, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. Janet walked over and sat next to her, quietly placing a hand on the woman's shoulder. "You okay?"
Sam jerked upright. "What?" She processed the question, then answered, "Uh, yeah. Fine." She looked tense.
Janet raised her eyebrows unbelievingly. "Right," she said. "And I'm dating the colonel."
Sam looked strangely at her friend, but didn't bite. "Sorry," she said. "I really do feel okay, though. Just really, really hyper. I think I might explode if I don't do something."
Janet frowned, silent.
"Think I'll go to the gym for a while after we get down there again," Sam said a minute later.
"I don't want you there alone," Janet said.
Sam frowned. "Fine; there's always somebody there. Why?"
Janet smiled slightly. "Don't beat me up for this, but the last time I saw someone like this it was when you guys had the Attenique armbands on. And the time before that, it was when Daniel was addicted to the sarcophagus. And both times it didn't end all that prettily for you guys."
Sam winced. "Oh. Right." She thought for a minute. "Wait...you don't mean...we were acting kinda weird then..."
Janet shook her head. "No, you're a little edgy, but I don't think you're a danger to anyone—at least not yet. Just...try and go easy on the gym equipment, will you?" Janet said, thinking of the punching bag and wall Jack had damaged accidentally the last time he had acquired 'incredible speed and strength.'
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It had worked, if only for the time the women were up in NORAD. Apparently, Jack and Daniel, had felt much better, and the data taken down by Dr. Warner and the male nurses were better too. But as soon as Sam and Janet walked in they started feeling sick again.
It had taken a while, though. It was as if they were getting sick all over again. The blood tests done when Jack and Daniel were not around the women had still had the purple stuff in their blood, but it seemed to be dormant. As soon as the women came back it started up again.
"So we can't be around girls anymore?" Jack asked, upon hearing that this proved the experiment had proven something. "That's...bad..."
Daniel sniffed, feeling his nose start to clog again. "So what are you going to do?" he asked Janet and Sam.
Janet sighed. "Well, we've discovered something about the disease, but I don't really see how it's helped us...unless you want to be hermits and never see a woman again..." She trailed off as both men shook their heads emphatically. "Right," she said. "I figured." She gave a little smile. "So, essentially we're back where we started. No practical way to treat this, and no information on how to attempt to do so..." Janet sighed.
"Well, actually," Daniel speculated, "This means—" He broke off, thinking, as Jack, Sam and Janet watched him. He closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow: his headache was starting again, dammit. They had to find a way to stop this. "Teal'c said the...thing going on with Sam would make women able to work more, right? And the flaw was that they'd still get as much work done, because the men couldn't do any. But if the men weren't with women, they wouldn't be sick, and they could still do the regular amount of work. If I could get my notes, I could look and see if I'm right..." He broke off, clearing his throat as the mucous found its way in there. "Dammit," he muttered.
Janet sighed again. She knew the only way they were going to solve this one was with Daniel's expertise. But looking at him, she knew he was just starting to feel horrible again. "Later, okay?" she asked, moving closer and settling him into the bed. Daniel grimaced, but thanked her, and Janet moved to Jack to do the same thing.
The doctor got some aspirin for her patients, then looked at Sam, who had been silent for a while. "Hey," she said, slightly worried. "You okay?" The woman was pale and solemn. Sam looked uncomprehendingly at her. Janet put her hand on her friend's forehead, slightly worried at the warmth. Sam stepped away from it. "I'm fine," she said dismissively.
Janet looked at her skeptically. "Right," she said. "I want you to sit on the bed for a minute, okay?" She gestured to a bed close to where they were standing. Sam rolled her eyes, but did as she was told.
Five minutes later, Janet was feeling some serious déjà vu. Aside from the Sam-can-see-in-the-dark thing that had happened last time, this was just like the Attenique situation. Janet had taken Sam's temperature: it was about a degree and a half above normal. She'd drawn blood and sent it off to the lab, and was currently taking Sam's BP.
"Sphygmomanometer," Sam said, smiling slightly, as she looked at the blood pressure cuff currently being wrapped around her arm. Janet looked at her, puzzled, and Sam said, "I was so proud of being able to say that when I was a kid."
Janet smiled, and pumped up the cuff. "A little high," she said, after watching the meter. She removed the cuff and put it away, groaning internally. Now was the hard part. She returned to Sam. "I need you to tell me exactly how you're feeling."
Sam sighed. "Janet..."
"Sam," Janet replied. She was not going to give in this time!
Sam closed her eyes in a plea for patience. "Janet, I really do feel fine. Wired, yes, but fine."
Janet sighed. "Just...humor me, okay? You really don't look fine, so I doubt you feel fine. Just...give me a similar situation or something; we'll try to work from there."
Sam frowned, thinking. "I guess...Kinda how I felt when I was on Apophis's ship when it was about to blow up."
Janet frowned. "Which time would that be?"
Sam grinned. "Strange, how many times we've done that... but I was talking about the time with those armbands. You know, and Anise."
"Okay," said Janet, "So...you had a fever then too. And you had a lot of adrenaline in your system. I think we'd have noticed if your adrenaline levels were higher than normal, but the...stuff could act like it, I suppose. Cause a similar effect in women's bodies."
"But...with the armbands, you said later that our blood tests had shown organ failure, right?"
"Yes, and I don't have enough information to tell if that's happening to you or not," Janet said. "For what it's worth, I doubt that's the case." She smiled reassuringly. "In fact, this may be a good thing. By the time you were on the ship, your body was already fighting the virus, so maybe that's what's happening now."
"A good thing," said Sam. "Right."
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