Author's Note: This chapter might be a little medically graphic. If you don't want to know what goes on inside a woman, you might skim through the first part – and definitely read it before you let any kids read it (although you should be doing that anyways when Ian's involved).

It wasn't something he'd ever really done. Or even considered. The closest he'd come was when he'd checked Sam out – and that was desperation and concern for her and Jake. And Sam had already been pregnant, so Ian hadn't had any problem finding Jake and checking him, and then her. This was different.

At nine years old Ian had been curious about human reproductive systems – not so much sex, just where babies came from – and typically he'd done extensive research on the subject. He'd looked through medical books, checking pictures, articles, and everything else he could find that might tell him how things worked. As a result, he had a fair idea what a woman looked like inside – although he'd found it a little gross at nine, and wasn't much more enthused about it now that he was an adult.

It wasn't much like the pictures, though. Oh, some of it was; that was her bladder, and that was her large intestine – ugh – and there was the uterus and other parts. If he hadn't been concentrating so completely, Ian would have been incredibly embarrassed to be looking at the innards of some woman he didn't even know.

His awareness searched through her lower abdomen, looking for something that wasn't right. The body itself knows when there's something that isn't supposed to be there – infections were dealt with by the body's defenses, and materials that had no business being there were almost always absorbed into the system and expelled – and he was looking for some kind of sign that there was something like that going on. There was no sign, however, that her body's defenses were on the rise, which forced Ian to look even deeper.

And then he found it. A mass of flesh attached to the top of her cervix that just plain didn't belong. It was blocking the opening – which explained immediately why she couldn't conceive – and would eventually kill her if not taken care of. Since it was her own flesh, it hadn't drawn any attention from her body's defenses, but the cancer definitely didn't belong where it was, and Ian spent several long, quiet minutes 'staring' at it, trying to figure out what to do about it. He couldn't send the white blood cells after the cancer – they'd never attack her. It wasn't what they did, after all.

Unless he figured out a way to trick them into thinking that that flesh didn't belong…

Which meant that he needed to change the cancer into something else. Something that would trigger the alarms in her body, because aside from cutting it out – unthinkable – Ian wasn't going to be able to do anything about it himself. He wasn't God, after all, despite what they thought. He was brilliant, though, and it didn't take him long to decide that there was something he could do. He opened the small pores in the skin of her belly, and allowed his own DNA to seep into her system from his hand. Instead of sporadically going wherever it wanted to, though, Ian directed it delicately to the cancer and inundated that mass of flesh with his own signature. Which immediately attracted Sabrina's defenses to the spot. He made sure that there was no way his DNA could be separated from the mass – tightly binding it to the mass until there was no way they could come apart. Then he marshaled the defenses, sending white blood cells swarming to the area where they immediately attacked the mass, already starting to break it down and take care of it.

Waiting until he was certain they weren't going to lose that fight – and Sabrina was a healthy young woman who was more than capable of fighting off infections – Ian decided that he'd better take a closer look at the rest of her body. Where cancer was involved, there was always a chance that it could have spread elsewhere – or it might have spread from somewhere else. He just wanted to make sure.

He took his time, ignoring the fact that he was standing – and so was she – and they had been for some time. His hand didn't need to move, either. He already had contact with her, so it was simply a matter of sending his mind through her systems, checking all the normal places; lungs, heart, all the other organs and then her brain and bloodstream. It all looked clear to him. Another quick look to make sure that the mass was being taken care of, and Ian pulled himself away with a tired sigh.

Sabrina hadn't moved a muscle despite the length of time they had been standing there. For one thing, she'd been afraid to. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but he wasn't touching her in an awkward fashion and he hadn't moved his hand from where it had been placed. She felt a flush of heat, but it didn't come from her abdomen; it was just a flush of heat. She didn't know it, but that was the moment that her immune system had kicked in full gear, raising her temperature and causing her to sweat slightly.

Another reason she didn't move was because she wasn't sure if he would fall if she moved. He hadn't moved, either, but as the time had passed he'd ended up leaning against her slightly, and when he finally pulled away, he actually stumbled.

Sabrina reached out to catch him automatically, but Ian had caught himself and he pulled away.

"Thanks. I'm okay."

"What happened, Lor- Ian?"

Ian ignored the question, and turned, heading for the fire and the lean-to. Surprisingly – or maybe not – Jaffer materialized out of the dark and took up a position right beside the cadet, who reached down and ran his hand along the silky black fur.

"Ian?" Sabrina repeated, hesitating in the darkness. She didn't want to go back until she knew what had happened.

He sighed, and stopped.

"How do you feel?"

"Warm."

"Yeah. That's the infection healing."

"Infection?"

"Sabrina, I need to sit down…" He didn't want to stop and talk just then. "Please?"

He was too tired to be angry, but she didn't know that, so she hurried to catch up with him.

OOOOOOOO

Everyone looked up when they reentered the light of the fireplace, and Joshua came to his feet immediately, looking at Sabrina as if to ask her what had happened. Daniel and Jack both looked at Ian, while Jaffer moved from Ian's side and headed to Jack's side.

"You okay?" Jack asked the cadet. In the firelight Ian's face was in shadows, and his dark eyes were hard to see, much less read.

Ian nodded, and flopped down on his bedroll as Teal'c and Jack (the dog) came into the firelight just then as well. Ian had a sudden suspicion that the Jaffa had been guarding him in the dark – just in case something tried to sneak up on them.

"Yeah," Ian said, taking a canteen from Daniel and taking a long drink.

"Did you heal her?" Joshua asked, his arm protectively around Sabrina, who had settled down on her own blankets. Jack wondered why she looked so flushed and sweaty.

"She's going to need a chance to rest and someone to take care of her."

"Why?" Daniel asked, curiously, looking at Joshua's wife. She'd seemed more than healthy enough when they'd met.

"I will take care of her," Joshua said. That was his responsibility, anyways – and his pleasure. She was his wife, after all.

Jack had noticed that Ian had sidestepped the question – and had done it pretty well. He was more than willing to let him get away with it, but Daniel wasn't. Or hadn't noticed.

"What was wrong with her?" The archeologist asked.

Ian leaned back against his pack. He was tired as shit.

"It was cancer."

"Oh, God."

Joshua and the other villagers looked concerned – even though none of them had a clue what that meant.

"You said was?" Jack asked.

Ian's eyes were closed, but he nodded.

"I think I figured out a way to get rid of it… I'll make sure in the morning."

"Cancer?" Joshua repeated, still concerned. "What is cancer?"

Ian didn't answer, though. He'd already dozed off.