A/N: Sorry for the delay... ffnet wouldn't allow an upload all morning!

Jonas Quinn stretched in bed, luxuriating in the peace and quiet. Though still stuck in the infirmary, he knew he was well on his way to getting better. He could sense it in the way his muscles moved to his command. While it was true he still tired easily, he could now move without feeling as if he was bound by hundred pound weights.

More importantly, the same hundred pound weights that had seemed to drag down his every thought were gone too. The last several weeks had been a complete nightmare for the Kelownan. His mind had more or less seized up on him, and the harder he'd tried, the worse things got. It was only when Dr. Van Huisen had come up with a treatment and he had 'woken' up that he realized just how bad it had been.

He had been dismayed to discover that his 'illness' had actually been a second murder attempt. Dr. Van Huisen, it turned out, had seen a similar case previously in which a woman had been accused of murdering her husband. A medical doctor herself, she had regularly infused his coffee with a drug intended to suppress an overactive pancreas. Dr. Van Huisen's testimony had been instrumental in convicting the woman. A simple test proved the teabags that Jonas kept in his office had been full of the drug in question.

It was frightening to realize that the person responsible had to be in the medical department, because the records of his test results had been tampered with. When Dr. Frasier had first explained the situation to him, Jonas had been hard put not to panic. He felt helpless and vulnerable lying in bed barely able to lift his head. Dr. Frasier had immediately reassured him that she would personally supervise his care, and as another precaution, only two of her most trusted nurses, Rush and Ortiz, would be allowed anywhere near him.

To his surprise, enforcement of these precautions was left to Teal'c, who stayed at his bedside twenty-four hours a day, telling him he would not leave until satisfied that Jonas was well enough to participate in his own defense. Jonas found the statement both comforting and terrifying. For several days, the idea of him participating in anything more than sleep seemed impossible.

Slowly, though, his condition improved. Once his thinking wasn't so sluggish, he reviewed some of his notes on the translations he had done, and, horrified at the errors, had made corrections and finally determined which altar to look for. He felt a flush of embarrassment that he was glad SG1 had headed to the planet this morning to see if they could find the altar in question.

In addition to Teal'c constantly hovering at the foot of his bed, Jonas had been shocked by Major Carter's twice-daily visits. The woman had been filled with remorse for some obscure reason that Jonas still hadn't quite understood. She seemed to consider herself somehow responsible for the poisoning, which made no sense whatsoever. To his shame, on a few occasions, he had faked sleep to avoid her.

Even Colonel O'Neill had visited on a couple of occasions asking how he felt. Mercifully, the visits had been short, neither man comfortable with the situation. Still, it had given Jonas a lot to think about.

He glanced at the marine who was filling in for Teal'c. Jonas tried not to feel relief that the tall Jaffa had finally given in and gone with the rest of SG1 to retrieve the weapons cache. He wondered for a moment if Dr. Jackson had ever felt the way he was feeling. He knew from the mission reports he studied that Daniel had spent time in the infirmary on occasion. He wondered if he had felt smothered by the attention from his teammates.

The thought raised a flush of guilt in the Kelownan. He had fought so hard to fit in, and now that he had proof that he did, at least to some degree, all he wanted was to be left alone for a while. Sighing, he set aside the notebook he had been working on and, laying back, closed his eyes.