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"Well?" John glared at Doctor Beckett impatiently as he insisted on finishing up all those annoying doctor-y things like taking his gloves off before giving them his report.

To his eyes, Beckett was looking distinctly guilty.

"It appears that the alien life-form you encountered on the mission before this one has set up an irritation in Rodney's lungs."

"How bad?" John instantly demanded the bottom line. The doctor sucked in a slow breath.

"Well, it seems to be under control," he said, and the tension level in the room dropped considerably. "It's not life-threatening, although it could have developed into something nasty if it went unchecked for much longer." He shook his head ruefully. "He came to see me twice and he seemed fine both times, I'm afraid I didn't take him very seriously."

Even though McKay was a member of his team, John couldn't really blame Beckett for that. If ever there was a candidate for 'the boy who cried respiratory infection'...

"Is it contagious?" Elizabeth asked, concerned for the rest of her people now that McKay had a diagnosis. The doctor shook his head again.

"Nobody else is showing any symptoms, not even the others who visited that planet. I can only assume it's down to his close contact with the organism."

"It did pretty much explode right in his face," Ford said.

Beckett sighed. "Aye, and I gave him a thorough check-up immediately afterwards and didn't find cause for concern. He complained of having had breathing difficulties but didn't show any sign of them during the exam."

"Then why is he having trouble now?" Ford asked.

"Well, it seems that pod's explosion when Rodney got too close may not have been accidental. It turns out the spores embedded in his lungs were very much alive and... growing."

The Lieutenant spoke for all of them with a heartfelt, "Ew."

"On a microscopic scale, of course," Beckett hastened to add. "But still enough to cause an irritation. We took samples of the spores from Rodney's clothing after the original incident, but they appeared to be completely dormant - until just now, when we tried altering the balance of oxygen to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

"Like in exhaled breath," John said, for Teyla's benefit. Beckett nodded.

"It's a parasitic relationship. The pod explodes when a living creature moves too close, causing some of the spores to be inhaled. The conditions inside the lungs are ideal for it to grow: warmth, the right atmospheric balance, and moisture. You said the planet where you encountered the organism was like a rainforest?"

"Yeah. Sweaty," John confirmed.

That was why he hadn't worried when Rodney complained of being short of breath during the long trip back to the gate.

"Aye, that's what I thought. It's likely the efficiency of the air filtration inside Atlantis inhibited the growth of the organism, since the humidity is so much lower. He'd get short of breath if he visited one of the balconies, come rushing down here-"

"And by that time, be restored by the effect of the filtered air," Teyla completed, nodding.

"And then we went and took him off-planet." John grimaced.

"Well, there's no permanent harm done," Beckett hurried to reassure them. "We were able to kill off the spores in the sample by steadily increasing the level of oxygen. The stubborn little buggers inside Rodney's lungs are going to be harder to shift, but we should be able to root them out with repeated oxygen treatments. He's not contagious, but he'll need to be kept in an environment-controlled part of the infirmary until he's completely cleared of spores - if he's exposed to unfiltered air again, it could set the treatment back considerably. Bed rest is the best thing for him right now."

Elizabeth nodded. "See that he gets it. Doctor Zelenka can make a start on activating that scanning device while Rodney's recovering."

"Oh, boy, the doc's gonna love that," Ford noted.

"Ten bucks says he'll be making his first escape attempt before the hour is out," John said.

Nobody was enough of a sucker to take that bet.

Daniel always thought Jack looked wrong lying in one of the infirmary beds, which was pretty ridiculous when you considered the amount of time he spent in them. People made cracks about his own disaster-prone medical record, but the truth was Jack got beaten up more often than anyone bar Siler. He just had a knack for doing it in situations that earned descriptors like 'heroic', whereas Daniel's infirmary time tended to be accompanied by phrases like 'really unlucky', 'distracted by an interesting inscription' and 'why does every alien within ten billion light-years feel compelled to keep me as a pet?'

The horrible thing about Jack when he was unconscious was that he was so still. The only time Jack O'Neill went perfectly still was when somebody was about to get handed their ass. And possibly the asses of everyone else within a mile radius, too. Even in sleep he squirmed like a hyperactive five-year-old - although he never, ever snored off-world. Daniel was not entirely clear on how he could silence himself completely when the enemy was near and yet sound like someone chainsawing a donkey when slumped on his couch after half a dozen beers, but that was Jack all over, really.

Jack could be many, many things, most of them contradictory, but common to all of them was the fact he was always in motion.

The infirmary had never been the vacation spot of the year, but now every time he walked in there the absence of Janet was like a stab to the heart. Daniel missed her desperately, and no amount of friendly familiar faces among the nurses could make it better. He detected a definite undercurrent of extra nervousness as they performed their checks tonight. Jack was a General now, and as such, supposed to be out of the firing line.

His old teammates, of course, knew better, and coming home to the news that Jack was once again unconscious for reasons unknown was not at all surprising.

Still enough to make Daniel's guts twist up the way they'd always done... but not surprising.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a twitch from the still form beside him. A moment later, the eyelids cracked open, and a narrow slice of brown showed through. Jack's shoulders tensed and then relaxed. Even now, in this state, his first reaction was always the threat assessment. Daniel had no doubt that if his instincts had told him to get up and run, he would have leapt up and... well, at least lurched.

Jack licked his lips to wet them and spoke with a slightly raspy voice. "Carter? Teal'c?"

"No, and no. Just as well you get three guesses." Daniel smiled, but didn't draw the teasing out any further. "They're fine. So's Jacob. Baal wasn't even there, and neither was his project. We busted a minor Goa'uld called Teshram who was even more surprised to see us than we were to see him. Jacob's promised to get back to us as soon as the Tok'ra have finished decrypting what he could get from the computer files."

Jack nodded, relaxing further now that he knew his team were safe. Daniel could see that he was on the verge of slipping back into sleep, but nonetheless he struggled to sit up. "Did you bring pants? I'm a General, I can't bust out of this place with my ass hanging out."

"It's good to know you'd have had no hesitation if you were still a Colonel." Of course, likely to be true; military to the core, Jack had no discernible sense of modesty, and would probably think nothing of making a break for freedom butt naked if it won him a respite from the infirmary. Hell, Daniel himself would have considered it some days. It was tough to cling to his high school mentality of hiding behind a towel in a dark corner of the locker room after seven years of communal showering, unpleasantly thorough medicals, and weird alien ceremonies. The incredibly depressing ratio of people who'd seen him naked to people he'd actually had sex with was fairly high on his list of things best not contemplated.

"Pants, Daniel?" Jack raised an eyebrow imperiously.

"I should get a nurse," he said, standing up.

Jack countered with his best attempt at a wounded pout. "Aw, come on. You know they'll want to keep me in for the whole human pincushion routine. I just wanna sleep in my own bed for a change."

Daniel hesitated, almost swayed. It was certainly true that Jack didn't spend nearly enough time at home anymore. As a Colonel he'd never hesitated to seize every scrap of downtime owed to him - half the time, galactic circumstances conspired to stop him actually taking it, but still, the intent was there. Putting Jack in charge of the SGC had been a double-edged sword: he was unquestionably the best man for the job, utterly devoted to the men under his command, but that very devotion meant he might as well have been anchored to the base by a bungee cord. There was always work on base that required the General's presence; it was just that General Hammond had possessed the level of objectivity that Jack - and, to be fair, the rest of SG-1 too - completely lacked, knowing when it was time to step back and call it a day.

Jack needed his rest all right. And if this had been any of the standard bumps, bruises and broken bones SG-1 collected on a regular basis, Daniel might have been willing to help him get it at home, but...

"They were picking up some unusual brain activity earlier," he warned. He'd glanced over photographs of the inscriptions on the device, but they would take time to piece together - whoever had taken them wasn't familiar enough with Ancient to spot the cues that would clarify what direction it should be read in. It would be quicker to wait until Siler brought the artefact in so he could study it in person.

"That's what they always say." Jack cracked a smile, which Daniel returned. After a moment he sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll sit through a check if it makes you feel better. Then you can bring me my pants."

"Okay," Daniel conceded easily.

He loitered in the hallway while Jack was poked and prodded, taking comfort from the exasperated tone of his grumbles even though he was too far away to make out the words. He wasn't at all surprised, when he popped his head in a short while later, to find Jack curled up in a ball and gently snoring.

Daniel smiled, and crept away to his office.

The Maltok'va Hawkins remained smugly silent in the face of questioning. Although Teal'c admired the strict honour code of his Tauri allies, there were times at which he found it... most confining. Hawkins was a man without honour, without bravery; his security was his belief that none would touch him.

Teal'c could rip that belief from him in seconds, have him babble the details of every plot that had crossed his small and venal mind... but he would not.

O'Neill would condone it in a heartbeat to save any life but his own - and insist on taking all such action himself, in defiance of the fact that Teal'c's hands were stained with far more blood than his own had ever known. Daniel Jackson would never condone it and Colonel Carter only with extreme reluctance, but both would readily forgive should Teal'c choose to take action on his own initiative. It was the knowledge of that forgiveness ready and waiting for him that prevented him from acting.

Honour among the Tauri was a complicated business. The Goa'uld would not understand it, could literally never conceive of it. Yet the Tauri culture was so steeped in such complex values that they could look upon a work of great spiritual depth like the movie Star Wars, and laugh off its lessons as things learned a thousand times over from earliest childhood. His friends and allies were truly quite wondrous beings.

And yet, in many ways, remarkably predictable.

He found Colonel Carter in her laboratory, studying the plans her father had procured for them from the computers at the facility on Kelshan. The codes provided by the Tok'ra had been enough to give them access to the original technical information retrieved from P2C-491, as the Goa'uld had not been able to encrypt the language of the Ancients as thoroughly as they did their own. The notes of the Goa'uld scientists would take much longer to decipher, and it was this task Jacob Carter had returned to the Tok'ra to attempt.

Colonel Carter could read neither Ancient nor Goa'uld, but her innate understanding of machines allowed her to achieve a great deal by, as O'Neill would refer to it, "looking at the pictures".

Teal'c worried at times that long-term exposure to O'Neill was warping his thought process in ways the Jaffa mind was ill-equipped to deal with.

Colonel Carter looked up from her work, and gave him a sunny smile. "Hey, Teal'c." The expression dimmed as she recollected O'Neill's current circumstances. "How'd the interrogation go?"

"The operative Hawkins is being..." He contemplated an appropriate translation for Mik'shok, and deemed it unsuitable for present company. "...Unhelpful."

She nodded. "I spoke to Colonel Reynolds. Aside from the artefact that affected General O'Neill - which is down in their records as being from an archaeological dig in Wales, and for all we know really could be - there was nothing in the building that could tie these guys to the Trust, the rogue NID, or even any legitimate company associated with our offworld interests. Siler's attempting to retrieve any information that might have been scrubbed from the computer network, but it's unlikely that he'll find anything. These guys know what they're doing."

"What of the computer program you and Daniel Jackson discovered at Mountain Springs High School?"

Colonel Carter contorted her lower lip in a grimace. "Siler triggered a self-destruct instruction when he was trying to prevent the program sending out a warning signal. We don't have enough left to prove anything, and even if we could, it's not enough to make Hawkins break a sweat. The program's not much more than a highly sophisticated tracking cookie, and we can't admit we know it was specifically targeted at Jon without drawing attention to him."

"Do you believe they are aware that the boy Jon O'Neill is an Asgard clone?" he asked.

Colonel Carter sighed. "I don't know. But they certainly must have been aware he was connected to our O'Neill - even if they thought he was just a relative, he may have been targeted in the hope that he had the ATA gene."

"Then the device O'Neill triggered may have been intended for use on his clone."

She nodded, looking pained. "Daniel said the General seemed normal when he woke up, but the EEG picked up unusual brain activity. We have no way of knowing what the energy field may have done to him. Despite the discovery of the ATA gene, we're still not really any closer to understanding how Ancient technology interfaces with the human brain, and the General has had by far the most exposure to it thanks to his experience with the knowledge repositories on P3R-272 and P3X-439. Our study of the DHD network has taught us a lot about how Ancient technology is put together and how to use it, but that still doesn't mean we're anywhere near comprehending how it works. Most of their devices are light years ahead of every race we've met bar the Asgard."

Teal'c nodded soberly. "And that is why it is very bad news that such technology may have fallen into the hands of Baal."

They both studied the engine schematic on Colonel Carter's computer screen. If Baal had truly succeeded in interfacing such a drive with one of his ships, then that gave him a technological advantage that he would surely use to devastating effect.

It was the sun spilling into the motel room from an unfamiliar direction that eventually woke Jamie up.

Well, woke him, anyway. The 'up' part proved significantly more difficult, as did unglueing his disgustingly gummy eyes. He felt like he'd spent the night stuck to the bottom of somebody's shoe.

An irritating clicking noise eventually forced him to give up on going back to sleep. He sat up to find Jon perched on the end of the other bed, swinging his legs and playing with a gadget about the size of a toaster. It looked... well, it looked like what it almost certainly was, some sort of unholy hybrid of a dismantled appliances and duct tape, but it had a strange kind of functional attractiveness. It exuded the impression that it might not be obvious why that part had been stuck there, but you'd better believe it was exactly the right place for it.

It looked like a device that should do something, even if Jamie didn't have the tiniest clue what.

"You finished it," he said.

"Uh-huh." Jon continued to play with several switches on the side of the thing, clicking them in and out... and in... and out... and in... and-

Jamie squeezed the bedcovers very tightly in his fists, and reminded himself that any attempt to cause physical violence to Jon was probably doomed to failure. And also that throwing a pillow at him might damage the... toaster.

"So, um - do you know what it is yet?"

Jon gave an enigmatic smile. "Oh, I have a hunch."

He tilted the thing toward Jamie, so that he could see a small display screen, by the looks of things cannibalised from his cell phone. The clicking, it turned out, was Jon painstakingly cycling through combinations of pixels until they formed the shape that he wanted.

"You couldn't put a keyboard on this thing?" Jamie wondered, and Jon gave him a faint shrug.

It took him a long time to finish, but when he was done he had drawn a strange little symbol, like a letter A missing the cross-bar with a circle above it, followed by four capital letters: T H O R.

Jamie raised an eyebrow. "You're calling on the Norse god of thunder for help?" he said dryly.

"Oh, this guy's not exactly a god, but..." Jon smiled, "close enough." He adjusted several other buttons and levers on the side of the thing, and finally set it down, apparently satisfied.

"That's a codename?" Jamie guessed. "And that thing is sending him a signal." He felt a chill, remembering exactly how close he'd come to death by bullet wound last night. "What happens if the bad guys pick it up?"

Jon shook his head, unfazed. "Not this signal," he said, not quite smug, but rather grimly satisfied.

Jamie had trusted him this far - he could trust him still further. He lay back on the bed, lacing his fingers behind his head. "What happens if your buddy doesn't answer?"

"Trust me," said Jon. "This will get his attention." There was a metallic jangling sound as he tossed something up in the air and caught it again. Hopefully not the techno-toaster that was sending out the Bat Signal, although Jamie wouldn't entirely put it past him.

More codenames and strange technologies. Jamie was insanely curious about Jon's past, but didn't really feel he had the right to ask him. After all, he'd kind of invited himself along on this jaunt, and contributed nothing to it apart from getting shot and almost dying and okay, possibly a little moral support if you were charitable about it.

"So, this Thor is connected to the Atlantis project?" he guessed aloud.

Jon gave a slight grunt that could have been 'yes', 'no', or 'give it a rest'. Jamie shook his head.

"You guys really need to get your mythology straightened out," he advised.

Jon let out a faint huff of amusement. "I've been saying that for years."

There was a brief pause that stretched out into a longer one.

"So, uh... what do we do now?" Jamie asked eventually.

"We wait."

"Until...?"

"Something happens."

"Ah."

Jamie pulled the pillow over his head in an attempt to snatch more sleep, and fought the urge to scream as Jon started tapping his fingers on the bed frame.