Daniel walked into his lab. There was something soothing about the familiar room. He found his notebook and a text he was translating and started to work on it. He paused for a moment so he could make some coffee. After emptied the cup and refilled it, he resumed his work.

An hour went by and then there was a knock on the door. "Hey, can I come in?" The person on the other side of the door asked.

"Sure." Daniel barely looked up from his work.

Jack came in, "Nick's stable. Danny, his parents died of radiation poisoning. That's what's killing him too. He didn't get a lot at one time, like you did…, but he was exposed to a little bit every day for almost a year. Before he came here, there was a considerable amount of work already done on him. The other doctors almost depleted all the radiation from his system, but a little remained. The damage is too severe for us to do anything but make him comfortable. Janet estimated he'll live for another three days." Jack reported.

Daniel pretended like he was working through the entirety of Jack's explanation, but he was listening. He heard every blasted word of it.

"Talk to me Daniel." Jack commanded.

Daniel said nothing; he just sat there, helpless again to save someone.

"Danny…" Jack knew that he was just too stubborn to talk about it.

"Can I talk to him?" Daniel finally asked.

"Yeah, he's in the infirmary." Jack answered.


Daniel walked into the infirmary, a little hesitant of what he might see.

"Daniel!" Greeted Nick who was stilling up in the bed and seemed perfectly fine, "Maybe you can convince these doctors that I'm as good as I'm going to get, so they might as well let me get up."

"I'll see what I can do." Daniel pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. "I've heard about the poisoning."

"Oh, so I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this bed?" Nick asked drearily.

"Don't worry; you'll at least get a tour of the base." Daniel promised.

"Daniel, I don't even know how I got like this," Nick explained.

Daniel thought for a moment how he should answer him. Since he decided that going into a total scientific explanation would be Sam's job, Daniel just asked, "Where did you live before you got sick?"

"Here and there," Nick studied the floor as he was talking, "My parents and I didn't have that much money so we moved to where ever we could find work. The last place my parents worked at was at a radio station keeping the transmitters maintained. Once and a while I'd go up with them if they needed me," Then he laughed, "One time, I went up there alone because my dad wanted me to make sure everything was in tip-top condition and I was so tired that I fell asleep in the lift."

Daniel finally understood, "Microwaves."

"What?"

"You're sick because the transmitters you were around gave you radiation poisoning," Daniel explained.

"That's what killed my parents too?" Nick asked. Daniel nodded, "They tried to get me help, but dad's insurance didn't pay much of the medical bills. Finally they took me to a free community hospital. The doctors took care of my skin damage, but they didn't realize until it was too late that it was worse than that. By then it was too late to do much of anything."

"What about your parents? Did they get help?" Daniel could guess at the answer and be pretty close, but he could tell that Nick never had the chance to talk about it with anyone before and thought it best just to ask.

"No, they never did. They spent practically everything on medications for me before we found the free hospital. Unfortunately, since they had spent so much more time up near the transmitters than I had, they were so much worse than me, so much that the doctors at the free hospital didn't know what to do. They would have lived if we had money to get better doctors. I didn't see them die; actually I never saw them after the last time they walked out of my hospital room. They were cremated since the radiation already half took care of that."

"You're lucky you didn't see them die. I can't forget the moment when I did. And, I do know what it's like to have radiation poisoning. I had it worse than you, but within a shorter time span."

"How? If you had radiation poisoning worse than mine, you'd… well, you'd be dead right now." Nick pointed out.

"I did. So, for about a year I was in a better place. Then, when I couldn't stand it anymore, I came back." Daniel vaguely described his ascension.

"Can I go to this place?" Nick wondered aloud.

Daniel answered truthfully, "Probably not, I was lucky to get there."

"If you didn't get to that place, where would you be now?"

"With Sha're and my parents."

"Daniel, I don't want to die." Nick admitted.

Daniel tried to comfort the poor boy. "But you'd get to see your parents again. Wouldn't that make it all worth while?"

"It would at least give me something to look forward to." Nick felt a little better.

Janet came in and told Daniel that he would have to go because Nick needed his sleep. Therefore, Daniel left to go find General Hammond to talk to him about the tour.


Sorry for the wait for me to get this out... my internet's been acting up. oh well.
I love reviews! please review!