Five
Interlude
Sam was in her dim lab, deeply absorbed in her work, but to all outward appearances simply sitting in her desk chair facing the room. Back uncharacteristically straight, feet on the floor with hands hanging limp from the arm rests.
So much to do. All of these are wrong or 'limited'… severely. Its either: modify everything or start from scratch.
As she had glanced over the things in her office and been about to leave for home late the night before, Sam had allowed herself to look into more of her memories. Now, thinking over only a primary school level of the Goa'uld's scientific facts had blown so many findings of Earth's science out of the water.
As yet unnoticed, Colonel O'Neil and Daniel watched from the doorway with grim expressions cast over their faces.
The colonel turned and whispered, "she really needs to relax."
"That could make it worse," Daniel said checking his watch. It was getting past lunch time.
"Hey, Carter…" Jack called with an insecure attempt at a smile.
She tilted her head to stare making him freeze and forget what he was going to say.
"Hey, Sam," Daniel gestured to the time, "I'm heading down to the 'café'. Want a… café?"
Jack muttered behind the hand he'd begun rubbing his cheek with, "decafé."
Hearing that, Daniel was already making his escape and more than halfway down the hall.
"I'll get you something nice," he called back and hurried to the surveillance room to watch.
"Sir, I want something interesting to work on," she demanded standing face to face.
He almost jumped out of his skin.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that. Fragile," he added and winced for effect. Glancing over the potentially, highly catastrophic weapons of mass destruction sitting in her office he shrugged, "Ebay?"
"Area 51."
"No can do."
"Sure you can."
"Can't."
"Can so."
"Can't!"
"This is increasingly tiresome. We want to finetune skills. The technology here is unsatisfactory!" she cried out setting her jaw and pouting.
"We?" he shot. "What's going on, Carter?"
But from the shell-shocked look her face took, he knew. These were the after effects of the Goa'uld symbiote.
"Lets get something to eat," she said ruefully.
As they walked leisurely down to the mess hall, the thought that there would likely come a chance to help her get back to normal eased the colonel's mind.
Meanwhile, Daniel rushed haphazardly through the base to meet them down there.