Author's Note: Yeah, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't really allow someone to leave the base straight from a mission like that, but I needed them to for this story, and in this chapter I'll try to make it as plausable as I can :)

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

"You look like shit, Cadet."

Ian flipped the Sergeant at the gate the bird, and received an answering grin in return, although the older man didn't return the favor. He was on duty, after all, even if Ian wasn't.

"I'm going home to take care of that."

"You'd better, you're getting water all over the seat, and Major O'Neill'll kill you if she finds out you're being so rough with her car."

Major O'Neill was the least of Ian's worries just then, but he nodded. He liked the Sergeant at the gate – for that matter, he'd found that he liked most of the Marines that were responsible for guarding the SGC. They were solid men and women, who treated him fairly well considering he was younger than most of them and ranked beneath all of them as well. They, on the other hand, loved his cocky attitude and the fact that he wasn't afraid to tell them to go to hell – or be told that in return – and didn't go running to his daddy every time something went wrong or someone called him a name. And of course, all of them knew who his father was, even though Ian hadn't been the one to tell them. Another thing in his favor.

"She's not going to find out, Sergeant," Ian told him, already feeling a little better now that he was out of the confining mountain and away from any need to see Jack for the next two days. "I'll have it cleaned up and dry long before I give it back. If I ever do."

"Good luck on that…"

Ian nodded, and put the car in gear as the Sergeant opened the gate.

"Have a good weekend, Sergeant."

"You, too, Cadet."

He intended to. He was going to go home and shower and fall into bed and try to shake the cold he'd managed to catch. Everything else would have to wait until he felt better.

He drove home with the heat on full force, and was still cold. Of course, it didn't help that his clothes were still soaked, and clinging to him uncomfortably, but he was shivering when he got out and headed into the apartment building, and still shivering when he unlocked the door and went inside.

He stripped to the skin, leaving a trail of wet clothes – completely uncharacteristic for him – all the way to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower to as hot as he could handle without scalding his skin. With a gasp of pain as the spray struck his bruised side and reopened the little cut, he shifted just enough that the water was going onto his face and chest, and braced himself against the wall of the shower, closing his eyes against a wave of dizziness. The water felt great, although it was taking forever for it to get him warm, even though the room was steaming up nicely. His muscles were finally beginning to relax, easing tensions for the first time all day, and easing the aching in his side a little – although it still stung a bit from getting hit with the water. Nothing he couldn't handle, though.

Eventually, the water started turning cool, even though he wasn't completely warmed up, yet. There was a part of him deep inside that was still chilled – although the rest of him was flushed nicely, and overly heated. Which felt great.

He dried off in the bathroom, and then went out into the living room, shivering in the relative chill of the larger room. Pulling the blanket that had been neatly folded over the back of the sofa, he carried that into the bedroom with him and piled it on over the comforter and quilt he already had on the bed. Dropping the towel, he slid under the covers, shivering until his body heat finally started to warm the cold sheets. Only then did he fall asleep, and even then it was restless, with dreams of crazy humanoid creatures that looked like nothing he'd ever seen before but knew existed. Evil and malevolent, they'd been haunting his dreams for days, now… an ancient evil that he knew he'd eventually have a name for.

OOOOOOOO

Since he'd been the last one to get showered, Jack was the last one to get to the briefing room, and he entered a little late. He scowled when he saw Sam sitting between Daniel and Teal'c – which meant she didn't want to sit with him – and frowned deeper when he realized that Ian was absent.

"Where's Ian?"

"Cadet Brooks went home," Hammond told him, before Daniel could open his mouth. Hammond knew that Jack wouldn't have much to say if he assumed it was Hammond who had sent Ian home, as opposed to if it had been Daniel who'd allowed it, and he wasn't ready for any more attitude from Jack just then. He wasn't sure entirely what was going on – any more than Daniel and Teal'c were – but he was glad it was the weekend coming and everyone would have a chance to cool off a bit.

Jack heard the finality in Hammond's tone of voice, and knew the topic wasn't open for debate – although it didn't stop him from being annoyed. He sat down at the table, and Jaffer came over and put his head in Jack's lap in a silent plea for some loving, which Jack was only too happy to give him. At least someone wasn't mad at him.

"So tell me about these buildings, Doctor Jackson," Hammond said, looking over at Daniel once he was certain Jack wasn't going to make a scene about Ian's absence.

"They're great, General," Daniel said, looking over from watching Jack, and warming up to his subject. "There are fifteen of them, and even though we didn't get close to them, I'm certain we'll be able to find at least some clue…"

And so the debriefing went…

OOOOOOOO

Jack couldn't have been happier to get away from the briefing room – even though it meant the next stop was Fraiser's infirmary for a quick check up. Not that he was worried about that, really – they'd been on the same planet for three days in a row, now, and aside from water in his ears he was pretty sure that was about the worst the place could throw at them. He was just glad to get moving again, and hopefully find something to take his mind off of how pissed Sam was at him – and maybe distract her, as well.

When he and the rest of SG-1 entered the infirmary, Fraiser came out of her office. She'd been waiting on them to finish their debriefing – they were the last group offworld that week, and when they checked clean she'd be able to send her medics home – most of them anyways. And she was hoping to get a final crack at Ian, to see if she could get him to tell her what had happened the night before – she was even considering the possibility of trying to do it the way Sam had suggested; without the glares and accusations. Well, as much as she could, anyways, because she still didn't really believe that Sam was right and she was wrong.

But he wasn't with them.

"Where's Cadet Brooks?" She asked Jack, frowning.

"Hammond sent him home," Jack told her as she directed him to sit on one of the tables so she could test his blood pressure and heart rate.

"Why?"

He shrugged.

"Probably to get him away from me."

She scowled. As much as she understood the reasoning behind that, she didn't like the thought of anyone leaving the base after a mission without having passed through her infirmary, first, and wondered if Hammond had even considered that. Jack obviously could tell what she was thinking, though, because he shrugged, again.

"Relax, Doc. If the rest of us are bug free, then Ian probably is, too."

While that was probably true, it didn't necessarily make it so, and Janet knew it – even if Hammond and the others didn't. But she decided that, really, she wasn't going to make a fuss about it, either. The chances were pretty good that if he'd shown up in her infirmary, she'd just ended up yelling at him, anyways, because she was pretty sure she wasn't going to get anything out of the cadet. Not after that morning.

Then she had another idea, entirely. One that didn't require her to talk to Ian at all, and still might get her the information she wanted.

She shrugged, and strapped the blood pressure cuff onto O'Neill's arm.

"Let's get you guys out of here, then. I'd like to get home."