"No, Riley, I'm not okay," Ethan said as he turned to face him and shot him a mean look. "I hurt my sister. She was just trying to help me and to thank her for that; I stabbed her with a knife. Is she okay?"
"Cassie's mom is taking care of her." Riley crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at Ethan. "You want to tell me what's really wrong."
"Nothing's wrong." He then slammed a fist into the stargate and sank down to the ramp.
"You really want me to believe that?" Riley sat down next to him and got comfortable. "You need to tell me what's bugging you. I can't help you if you won't tell me."
"I'm scared, Riley. I don't know if I can handle what my body soon will be able to do in the near future. Jesse has stories about what happened when she went through, but it was nothing like this."
"Of course it wouldn't be the same. You and your sister are two different individuals. Your bodies are total opposites. Plus she wasn't going through withdrawal from the orange serum when she went through hers, like you are."
"I didn't mean to hurt her."
"Okay, how did it happen?"
"It's kinda fuzzy."
"Okay, let's take this from the beginning."
"I was pounding on the door when it broke and went flying on the other side of the hall. I then hit the guards before they hurt me. I didn't hurt them did I?" Riley shook his head no, and Ethan shot him a fake smile. "That's good. I was running when Jesse came out of nowhere and slammed me into the wall. She grabbed my arm and asked me what I was doing. I know that she was holding me like that to keep me from hurting others."
"You're doing great. Then what happened?"
"I somehow got free from her, blurred, grabbed a knife from someone, and rushed back to her. I then stabbed her before she could stop me from attacking her. I thought she would blur away when she realized what I was about to stab her, but she didn't. There was so much blood and I couldn't force my hands to stop."
"Your sister will be back to her normal self in no time. You guys heal very quickly. I think all they need was to put some blood into her for what she lost and she'll be okay."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Okay, after you stabbed her, what happened?"
"I took off. I left her where she was at and took off. I ended up here. I don't know why?"
"It's because you want to go home," a voice called from the door and they looked up to see Jesse standing there with a bandage around her middle. "Ethan, you owe me a new shirt."
"I'm sorry that I hurt you," he said as she came up to them and sat down next to them.
"I'll heal." She quickly grabbed his arm just as he was about to take off. "Ethan, you're going to sit here and listen to what we have to say."
"No."
"Yes, you have to. You are going through a major change right now and I know that you're scared. When it happened to me I was terrified."
"But I can't control my actions." That got a smile to both Riley's and Jesse's faces. "What?"
"We couldn't control them either at first," Riley said as he shot a look up to see that SG-1 was in the observation room looking down at them, and simply ignored them. "It took us some time. I used to blur everywhere when I meant to walk. I couldn't do anything slow for about two weeks. Finally it took a wall to make me realize that I had to slow down."
"You hit a wall?"
"Yes, Eth, I hit a wall, but that's not important right now. We're here to help you learn."
"Okay, where do I start?" He jumped to his feet and blurred to the door only to pause at the door to look back at them. "I guess I'm taking this too fast."
"A tiny bit." Riley got to his feet and helped Jesse to hers. He then turned to face Jesse and shot a glance down at the bandage around her wound. "How did you get out of the infirmary?"
"I checked myself out. I knew that I had to show Eth that I was okay, or he would be freaking out right about now."
"You checked yourself out? I'm sure that Cassie's mom won't be all that happy with you. You'll be in an isolation room next."
"I'm sure that they'll understand." She started to blur towards Ethan only to fall to the floor as a seizure took over her body. "No." She let out a scream as the pain became extreme. "This can't be happening to me."
"Jesse!" Riley dropped to his knees next to her and took her up in his arms. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"What that I am as addicted to the orange serum just as much as Ethan is? I don't have any with me. I was one of the test rabbits to see how long humans could go without it. I did pretty good since it's been two months since I last had a shot. I knew that I would have seizures but I didn't know when I would get them. The others were within days, not months."
"We're going to get through this." Riley shot a glance up to see that Carter, O'Neill, and Frasier were in the door way. "We might need to talk some more."
"I think so," O'Neill said, as Frasier rushed forward to check on Jesse's vitals. "How is she?"
"She's going through the same withdrawal that Ethan's going through, sir," Frasier said, as she grabbed onto Jesse's arm as she began to seizure only to let go of her when she remembered what Ethan had done to the Colonel.
"I can handle her," Riley said to her, as he grabbed her arms and held her down. "She needs that serum."
"We don't know what it'll do to her. I can't take that risk."
"Then I will." Riley nodded and Ethan took off. "She's my responsibility, not yours."
"But you can't take care of her. She's in extreme pain."
"What? You don't think that I realize that."
"Riley, get off of me," Jesse ordered him, as she tried to get away from him only to find that she could not. "I need to go home."
"Sorry, sugar, I can't let that happen."
"Riley, let me go!" She got her footing and threw him off of her. Riley landed hard on his back on the ramp and she slowly got to her feet. "When did you ever think that you could control me?" She then turned to face the others. "No one can stop me."
"Jesse, stop." Riley quickly jumped to his feet and she turned to face him. "It's me you're upset with, not them."
"They don't think that I can handle myself. They want to hurt me."
"No, they don't."
"How do you know that? Did they tell you? They put Eth into a room because they didn't know how to take care of him."
"I know, but you have to trust me."
"Trust you? I don't think so." She blurred towards the door only to have Riley grab her arm and slam her against the wall. "Let me go."
"Jesse, we need to talk."
"Let me go!" She fought to free herself from his grasp, but couldn't. "Let go of me, now!"
"Riley, here," Ethan said as he rushed in with a surengie full of the serum and tossed it to Riley. Riley grabbed it and stuck into Jesse's arm. She let out a gasp before she sank to the floor in a heap. "What did you do to her?"
"Nothing, she's just taking a short nap." Jesse's eyes quickly snap open. "Talk about short."
"We need to talk."
"I know."
TBC