1205
"What's happening?"
Doctor Lam glanced back at General O'Neill as he headed toward the wall of monitors. "What?"
"What's happening to her? She looks like she's in pain."
There was only one 'her,' and Lam quickly found the screen he was looking at. Colonel Carter did look uncomfortable; her head set to the side, her eyes closed and brows wrinkled. "Her stats are okay," she reassured him, though her pulse rate was much higher than the doctor was comfortable with. "She could have a headache from the anemia. She has a lot of reasons to feel cruddy right now."
The woman in the image pressed a hand to her forehead as she shuffled a bit, trying to settle herself. Siler said something that made her nod a little, and for the life of him, Jack couldn't figure out why they hadn't put in a damned audio feed. He went back to pacing, staring at the timer each lap, waiting as it counted down the last five minutes second by excruciating second.
But when it reached zero, Lam just stared at it. Then everyone in the room stared at her as she told the technician, "Set it for twenty minutes."
"Wait, what?" Jack asked.
Even Teal'c looked perturbed. "Did you not determine the length of treatment from Airman Stolz?"
"I... did," she said. "But they have a higher infectious load than he did. And we can't take a blood sample from them to be sure."
"This is radiation we're talking about," Daniel argued. "What if they get too much?"
"What if they don't get enough?" she shot back. "What if even one organism survives and manages to replicate? By the time we figure that out, it'll be too late. They won't have a chance to do this again."
That was a decent argument, so they waited. And waited more. Jack went back to pacing, Teal'c watched his teammate in the wall of monitors, and Daniel scrubbed his glasses until he was certain he'd taken the anti-glare coating clean off. The moment the counter hit zero again, Landry asked, "Done?"
"Yes."
"Let's get that stuff off my base."
"Agreed. We need to check the room for residual radiation before anyone can return," Doctor Lam said. "And I need to assemble my staff."
With a grunt of irritation, Jack slumped into a chair to wait some more.
~/~
1255
Nearly another half an hour passed before Jack reached Carter's bed with a nurse in tow. Her eyes were still closed, her face twisted in discomfort. "Carter? What's goin' on?" he asked gently.
"Dizzy," she breathed into the oxygen mask. "I think I might throw up."
"That's a really bad idea," the nurse insisted. "Don't do that. I'll get a new nausea patch for you."
"Treatment's all done." She still hadn't opened her eyes, and Jack was trying his darndest to help. "Doctor Lam says you could be out of the woods in a day."
"Mm. Do you think I could sit up a little?"
"I don't... I don't know." But luckily, the nurse chose that moment to come back. "She wants to raise the bed."
"I just, um, I can't really tell which way is up right now."
"Have you tried opening your eyes?" the nurse suggested.
"That's worse."
"Okay. We can try to sit you up a bit, then."
"General?"
Jack spun and found Sergeant Harriman behind him. "Yeah."
"Washington's on the phone for you."
"Take a message."
The look on Walter's face said that wasn't a good idea.
"Is that better?" the nurse asked behind him, and Jack glanced over to see Carter nod, open her eyes, and look at him.
Now? Not in the last countless hours of waiting. They had to talk to him now?
"I'm gonna put another set of patches on your arms," the nurse was saying, "and in a few minutes, if you're up to it, we'll try your sublinguals, okay?"
"Yeah, maybe."
He hated the Pentagon. "Carter, I'll be back in a bit," he promised, earning a nod.
Teal'c was headed in as Jack was headed out, and he snagged the alien's arm. "Distract her," he instructed. "I gotta go. The real world is calling."