A/N: I'm baaack- early this week. Fair warning, I'm not going to upload at least the next two Saturdays. I'm coming back, I promise.

Jack walked quickly down the hallway to the makeshift lab that the Carters had created. After the first day, he had affectionately dubbed it "The Nest'', and it had lived up to its name. Carter had been cleared for light work, mostly because her counterpart no longer had the willpower to keep her pinned to a bed after she regained consciousness. Clearly, she needed patient management lessons from Fraiser.

The two of them had drug in practically every table in the whole base, and then piled them high with a seemingly random assortment of electronic gadgets.

During Jack's last visit, he was pretty certain that he'd seen an honest-to-goodness toaster in there.

Now, they'd called him over to share their findings with him. Why him specifically, he wasn't sure. Heck, Daniel was probably more equipped to understand at least some of the words they were about to throw at him.

As he walked in the door, Colonel Carter stood to greet him.

"Sir. Thank goodness you're here. We desperately need your help."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Moi?"

"Yes. Here's the issue. We've run countless simulations on this, and we can't decide whether to leave this extra energy booster on or disable it. It has a 50/50 shot of working or overloading and shutting down. We've been debating this for over two hours now, and we just need someone to look over the basic facts and help us decide."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I'll see what I can do. Where's the programming for this thing?"

Carter looked confused, but she pulled up the code on her laptop. "Here, sir. This is pretty much everything."

Surprising both of them, Jack O'Neill took a seat at her desk and began to sift through the lines of code, occasionally writing down a line or two on a peice of scratch paper he found lying nearby. After ten minutes, he asked to see the device itself.

He carefully examined each piece, asking Major Carter to partially disassemble the contraption so he could get a better look inside. He drew a rough diagram of several parts, then scribbled some more unintelligible notes.

Finally, he sat back, eyeing the device warily. By this time, both Carters were thoroughly invested in his verdict.

O'Neill stood up, fished around in his pocket for a minute, then extracted a coin. He flicked it up in the air, before catching it deftly and glancing at the face.

"I'd say keep the energy doohickey off," he deadpanned before turning on his heel and walking out of The Nest.

o-O-o-O-o

Daniel walked through the hallways of the SGA focused on the folder of paperwork in his hand. He was currently working with, well, himself, to translate some kind of scroll.

His knowledge of the Ancient language far surpassed that of his alternate, and he was helping the guy out tremendously.

He almost didn't see MacGyver, standing at a computer terminal near the gate room.

"Mac?"

MacGyver turned at the sound of his voice, video camera in hand.

"Oh, hey Dr. Jackson. I was just, uh, taking some video of this thing."

Daniel smiled. "Okay." As he was about to turn away, he remembered that Mac was supposed to stay away from the base computers.

"Oh, Mac? General Hammond told you that you weren't allowed-"

"Right! Sorry. I'll just-" He clicked off the camera and shoved it into his bag. He flashed Daniel a sheepish smile. "Sorry."

"It's fine Mac. No issue. Hammond said that you had to stay away from the computers..."

"Oh. It's okay if I take some video, right?"

Daniel smiled. "Sure." He was pretty sure Jack would freak out if he told him that he'd let MacGyver take pictures of the most highly classified project on the planet, but he also liked to look for the good in people. And MacGyver just looked curious. What was the problem if he didn't actually touch anything?

He didn't think twice about it.

o-O-o-O-o

It was during the meeting with General Hammond over video call that the next member of SG-1 was struck by entropic cascade effect.

The Carters had just finished a long and lengthy summary of what they'd been up to in The Nest- Jack was pretty sure that a presentation of that length wasn't qualified to be a "summary"- when he felt a strange tingling sensation in his fingers.

Not having experienced the warning signs of entropic cascade effect before, he wrote it off as too much- or not enough- coffee, and went back to half listening to the briefing. Therefore, he didn't have time to say anything a few moments later when he was overcome by a wave of dizziness. Next thing he knew, he was on the floor with Teal'c and Carter kneeling next to him.

Wasn't double vision usually blurry? Oh. Right. There are two of them this time. How about that.

He blinked sluggishly at them, too tired to actually say anything. Somewhere in the back of his brain he wondered what had happened. Collapsed? Shot? Fell asleep?

One of the Carters answered his unspoken question.

"Cascade attack," She said quickly, "Just stay still."

Right. Like he was going anywhere. He mentally sighed and closed his eyes again.

o-O-o-O-o

"Hey." Daniel said, walking quickly to catch up to Teal'c. The Jaffa warrior slowed slightly to allow Daniel to walk beside him.

"Have you, uh, heard anything about Jack? Their Jack."

Teal'c turned towards him. "I have not. Last I saw him, he was in one of the meeting rooms with Colonel Carter. She has created a makeshift infirmary for those stricken with entropic cascade effect, as the infirmary was removed of anything helpful to her objective."

"Great. Thanks Teal'c. I'll, uh, catch you later? Meet you for lunch?"

Teal'c gave Daniel a rare smile.

"It is almost 2300, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel looked at his watch. "Oh. Breakfast in the morning then?"

o-O-o-O-o

MacGyver entered the conference room turned hospital to check in on how things were going and see if he could offer any assistance.

Carter stood with her back to the door, fiddling with some kind of plastic tube next to a sleeping Colonel O'Neill.

Both Jack Dalton and the other Carter were on similar jury-rigged cots with the long side pressed against the wall.

"Major?" He asked. She turned, looking confused. "Me? Oh. Sorry Mac. It's Colonel actually," She smiled.

MacGyver flinched. "Oops."

She grinned. "It's okay. There are two of us running around here after all. What can I do for you?"

"I just came by to see if you needed anything. I can take care of this. Shouldn't you be doing your... science thing?"

"It's okay. I'm waiting for General Hammond to pull some strings up there to let us shut the gate down here for a few hours."

MacGyver walked over to the light switch. "Why do you need the gate shut down?" He asked, as he carefully removed the lightswitch cover.

"Technically we just need the people out. We can't have the public seeing what exactly we're about to do here."

MacGyver nodded. "Of course." He pulled some of the wires from the wall and began sorting through them. After a minute, he picked up a small rubber strip off a nearby table and wrapped it around his fingers before reaching in and cutting off the ends of two wires, plunging the room into darkness. He then reached into his pocket and removed a paper clip.

Carefully, using the rubber as an insulator, he twisted the two ends of the wire onto the unbent paperclip.

The lights came back on, significantly dimmer than they were before.

"What are you doing?" Carter asked, genuinely confused.

"Dimming the lights."

"Why?"

"I've spent a fair amount of time in the hospital. The lights are always too bright."

Carter looked at his contraption. "You made a resistor." It wasn't a question.

"Yup. You can take it off if you need the full lighting."

"A paper clip? Is that what you used on the door lock earlier?"

A brief moment of confusion flashed across MacGyver's face. He hesitated a second before answering.

"Yeah. Is there anything else you need? I can work out some shifts for these guys."

"Sure. I'll take it until morning. They're just sleeping right now."

"We have ears, ya know,"

Both Carter and MacGyver turned at the sound of O'Neill's voice, still thick with sleep.

"Sir. You're awake." She knelt beside him to take his pulse, while carefully inspecting his face for any signs of pain.

He eyeballed her. "Unfortunately."

"How are you feeling?"

"Just fine Colonel. Can I leave now?"

She shook her head. "No. You're sleeping here tonight. If you make it to dinner tomorrow without another attack then you can leave."

O'Neill craned his neck to look up at Mac.

"Who put her in charge?"

Mac just looked away.

"I talked with Fraiser a few hours ago. She said 24 hours without an attack means you're good to get back on your feet for light work. But we know this is only going to get worse."

O'Neill just grumbled and turned away from her. As MacGyver was walking away, he could have sworn he heard him mutter something like I knew the good ol' doc put her up to this.

Mac said good night to Carter, and stole a glance over his shoulder at the sleeping figure of Jack Dalton. No one noticed the slight frown that flickered across Mac's face.

After he got outside, he removed the small device from his pocket. Holding it up to his ear, he carefully rewound the tape. Listening carefully, a slow smile spread across his face as he heard the crystal-clear recording of the last ten minutes.

A/N: What a nice, happy place to leave ya'll on! Maybe now is a good time to abandon this fic? Haha, just kidding. See everyone in two weeks. Please review!