By Biltong

"I want bacon and eggs."

Jack O’Neill looked despondently at the gray glop Dr Fraiser had obviously ordered the canteen staff to give them and sighed.

"Bacon, extra crisp. Toast, and a mound of scrambled eggs," he said dreamily, making the others sat round the table frown unhappily.

"Jack," Daniel snapped, staring at his own bowl. "Will you kindly shut up?"

"What’s to stop us from ignoring this oatmeal and ordering the canteen staff to comply?" Samantha Carter asked, pushing her own bowl away from her with a disgusted air. "After all, we outrank the lot of them."

"Sure we do," growled O’Neill, "And I outrank everyone here, but there is one person besides General Hammond that can outrank me, and she’s on her way."

"She looks upset," Daniel noted.

"I wonder why?" O’Neill replied, but the others noted that he had gone pale.

…

"Colonel," she snapped, making a bee line for their table. "What are you doing here?"

"I’m in search of cholesterol," O’Neill said, trying and failing to look equally as ferocious.

"I was under the impression that anything that tasted good was unfit for the human body," Teal’c said, raising an eye at his teammates. "Was I wrong?"

"Yes."

"No," Janet Fraiser said, glaring at O’Neill, who contrived to look innocent. "Especially Salami pizza and beer," she said evilly.

"So we are reduced to eating this?" Daniel moaned, allowing the oatmeal on his spoon to rejoin the rest on his plate with a plop. "Please, surely we can have something else?"

Janet sighed, and found herself a chair. The issue of Colonel O’Neill’s whereabouts could be addressed in a moment.

"Daniel, If you can guarantee, without a shadow of a doubt, that you can keep whatever you eat down, then I’ll allow you to have some eggs."

The silence was deafening.

"Thought so," she said, feeling sorry for them.

"How were we to know that the food on M19 H84 wasn’t good for us?" Daniel asked.

"You should know better than to just eat what you’re given," she said sternly.

"Surely…"

"We knew the food was spoilt," O’Neill said, his eyes steady. "We also knew that if we hadn’t eaten it, SG6 would have died."

"You almost did," she said softly, finding herself a chair. "Sam and Daniel weren’t as bad as you, and as for Teal’c, well, he recovered nicely, but you, you almost died. What did they do to you that was so different to the rest of your team?"

They offered me dessert," he said, his expression wry. "Something that looked like week old pancakes."

"And you ate it?" Fraiser said, aghast. "I told you before you went not to eat anything. Why didn’t you listen?"

"Because you had told SG6 the same thing," O’Neill said bluntly, "and they were swinging from the rafters when we arrived as punishment for insulting the king by refusing to dine with him."

"Major Beecham never was a diplomatic type," Daniel muttered

"No scientist is," O Neill sighed.

"So you ate the local foodstuff, even though you knew it was poisonous?" Even to her ears she sounded incredulous.

"We really had no choice." Sam lay a hand on her arm beseechingly. "The Colonel was negotiating for their release, and they were willing to listen, but only after we had broken bread with them."

"So we ate," Daniel said mournfully.

"Hey, we have eaten worse," O’Neill said gently.

"When?" Daniel snapped. He was staring at his oatmeal with a fixed expression on his face as if it was going to turn and bite him.

"Well..." O’Neill took in a choked breath. "PYN PG8?"

‘They had carrots that tasted like chocolate," Samantha said, studiously avoiding her own oatmeal. "That hardly qualifies as spoilt."

"True," O’Neill said quietly, abruptly surrendering. "Okay, you’re right. There was nothing worse than M19 H84."

"I still can’t believe you ate that stuff," Janet said. She was watching O’Neill closely, noting his pale features. "You especially Colonel. I mean, dessert?"

"It was offered," O’Neill said simply. "I figured that I better not decline."

"You almost died," Janet repeated, remembering his clumsy tumble through the gate. Daniel and Sam were mobile, although disorientated. Jack O’Neill had been another matter entirely. If it hadn’t been for Teal’c propping him up he would have never made it. She still recalled how he had looked, the gray pallor and the flecks of yellow vomit staining his uniform.

His smile was thin. "I’m kinda surprised that I didn’t," he said softly. "At least we achieved our aim and SG6 were released."

Janet shook her head, taking careful note of the beads of sweat covering his forehead. He should still have been lying in her infirmary, not attempting to sit upright on a hard canteen chair.

"It was worth it," Daniel said, getting nods of agreement from the others. "The minute they cut down Beecham and the others and escorted them to the stargate we considered our mission a success."

"We knew that the after effects were going to be bad," Sam said, "but that couldn’t be helped."

"You all ingested large quantities of lead, Janet said softly. "None more so than the Colonel. This is what brought on your abdominal pain – the cramps and nausea.

"Are we over it now?" Daniel asked plaintively.

That was what she had been getting to.

"You and Sam are, and it is you that have been discharged from the infirmary." She turned to O’Neill, seeing him cringe. "The Colonel on the other hand was not discharged at all."

"I just wanted some real food," he whined, not sounding like a Colonel at all.

"You haven’t even touched the food you have," she said gently. "And even if you did try to eat any, it’s doubtful that you could keep any down."

"But," he said, swallowing convulsively.

"But nothing," she said. "Let’s go back to the infirmary and get you hooked up again, shall we?"

His eyes were wide. "Do I have to?"

"You would rather stay here and hurl?" she said brutally. "You will, you know. I can see you heading that way right now."

"Surely Jack doesn’t have anything left in his stomach to hurl," Daniel said, taking sympathy on his friend.

"No he doesn’t," Janet said. "This would mean that he would suffer spasm after spasm for no reason, whereas if he returns to the infirmary I can give him some anti-nausea medicine."

"How?" O’Neill asked capitulating slightly. "How are you going to give me any medicine if I can’t keep anything down?"

He looked at her miserably. "All I wanted were some eggs and crispy bacon."

"Perhaps the day after tomorrow," she said sympathetically, gesturing to a nurse hidden out of sight with a wheelchair. She knew that her call had been spot on, and Jack O’Neill no longer had the strength to return to the infirmary unaided.

"Tonight we’ll get you settled, and give your anti nausea medicine intravenously."

"A drip?" he said wretchedly.

"Your bacon and eggs for the next twenty four hours," she said, smiling as Teal’c immediately rose to help her nurse lift O’Neill into the chair.

"But," he said faintly, still protesting.

"Colonel," she said firmly. "Right now the color of your blood matches the color of your hair, and you will stay in my infirmary until that is no longer the case."

Okay, so it was a bit of an exaggeration, but it did precisely what she intended it do, and knock the resistance out of him.

"Okay Doc," he said meekly, allowing his iron control to slip now he was heading back to the infirmary. Suddenly the super soldier was gone, replaced with the real Jack O’Neill, one keeping awake and upright by sheer strength of will.

Nodding to her nurse to proceed ahead of her, Janet Fraiser turned back to the rest of SG1.

"We didn’t know," Sam said, her eyes luminous. "We thought that you had discharged him too."

"He’s not as young as you are," Janet said. "Nor is he invincible." She sat down in O’Neill’s empty chair and regarded the three of them closely.

"You don’t know this, being as sick as you were, but we almost lost him." She took a deep breath. "I wasn’t kidding when I said that."

"Lost, as in?" Teal’c asked, still struggling to understanding the nuances of Tau’ri speak.

"He almost died," Janet said, noting what little color Sam and Daniel had had drain from their faces.

"Geez Janet, we didn’t know," Sam said.

"Does he know?" Daniel asked.

"I think he suspects," Janet said. "He must have an extremely sore chest from the paddles, and as you can see, he is very lethargic."

"Indeed," Teal’c said. "O’Neill was leaning quite heavily on my person during the trip from the infirmary to the canteen. Had I known that his weakness was due to more than just food poisoning I would have insisted he return immediately."

‘We really didn’t know," Daniel said, eyeing his congealed oatmeal balefully. "We just assumed that when you told us we were free to go you meant him too."

"I’m not surprised that he tried to escape," she said. "You know him." She looked at her watch and rose to her feet. "Nurse Stephens should have him back in bed by now."

Teal’c rose as well. "May I accompany you?"

Daniel waved his fingers. "Me too?"

She nodded. "You may, but be warned; I’m going to lightly sedate him."

"Why?" Sam asked.

Janet raised her eyebrows at her friend. "You have to ask?"

"Guess not," Sam said rising also.

As it was, sedating Jack O’Neill was unnecessary because he was asleep way before they arrived, and stayed that way for the rest of the day and that night, a blessing that Janet and her nurses took with grateful thanks.

The next day found him sat upright in bed, still looking pale but with clear eyes.

"I cannot believe that I slept for 16 hours," he said, shaking his head. "I wasn’t that tired, was I?" He gave Janet a narrow eyed stare.

"You weren’t tired," she replied with a clear conscience. "You were poisoned."

"But I’m better now?" He waved his hand in the air, the one that didn’t have a needle stuck in it. "I feel better."

"You’re getting there," she said with a smile. He wasn’t up to the bitterly complaining stage yet, which meant he still had a days observation ahead of him, but the glazed expression was gone.

"Bacon and eggs?" he asked hopefully.

"Tomorrow," she said, pushing him back into his nest of pillows. "Today it’s oatmeal, and only after some more sleep."

"Aw doc, I’m not sleepy," he said, but she didn’t miss the deep sigh he gave.

"To-mo-row," she said, smiling as his eyelids drooped, proving he wasn’t as wide awake as he thought.

"Tomorrow."

EINDE