Jack feels unwell after a night out, but, as he's our favorite Colonel, it's more than just a hangover....
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“Jack?”
Jack O’Neill groaned and perched on the edge of his bed, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“Wha?”
“That does not sound encouraging,” a soft two-toned voice said with a sigh. “Oh well, in times like these I guess it is up to the second in command to take control.”
His body rose to its feet and plodded to the bathroom.
“Tofu, do you mind?” Jack said irritably, trying to wrest control back from a tiny Tok’ra resident in his brain who really should have asked first. The mere fact that he hadn’t been quite conscious yet had been no excuse…
“No, not at all,” Tofu said, vigorously brushing his host’s teeth.
“Well, you should,” Jack said grumpily, finally relinquishing his struggle for supremacy of a body that, truth be known, still felt like shit.
“Why?” Tofu asked, spitting a frothy wad of white foam into the sink. “You never asked my permission last night when you downed all those beers, so why should I ask for permission now?”
Jack immediately felt shit – this time mentally.
“I’m sorry,” he said, cringing as Tofu took them into the kitchen and started to prepare breakfast.
Fresh fruit came out of a white container he swore he never owned.
Yogurt came out of a tub he didn’t remember buying.
And bran flakes came out of…
“Are you trying to kill me?” he finally burst out as Tofu sat down with a happy sigh.
“Not at all,” Tofu said, speaking aloud and sending bits of soggy bran flying. “You seemed quite slow this morning, so I decided to give you a health boost.”
“Eating Daniel’s food is not a healthy thing to do,” Jack muttered, finally figuring the real ownership of all the containers.
“He’s in Washington at that scientific lecture thingy, so he won’t notice them gone for a while, and seeing as Sam is with him, I decided to rescue her yogurt from the bacteria experiment I am sure you would have subjected it to.”
“It might have been a cure for AIDS,” Jack said morosely. “Besides, mistakes like that found a cure for polio you know.”
“I doubt that,” Tofu said, rinsing out his bowl. “And even if there was a cure for something exotic in your fridge, I doubt that you would have bothered to send it to the CDC, or even USAMIIRID.”
“You never know,” Jack said, still sounding depressed. “Maybe there is a cure there, or perhaps a deadly disease. “Maybe we can synthesize some and throw it at Anubis.”
“You still upset about Hellana?” Tofu asked.
From the slight catch in his host’s breathing Tofu knew that he had hit the nail squarely on the head, so to speak.
“She was a bitch, asking us to intervene in a war that no one had a prayer of winning.”
“I know that Jack,” Tofu said soothingly. “I reviewed the stats too, you know.”
“Anubis has that planet sewn up tight,” Jack said angrily. “What right did Hellana and the Tok’ra high council have in asking us to intervene? We’re not suicidal, you know.”
“She was desperate,” Tofu said, steering Jack towards the garage where his truck was housed. He would do the driving today; his host was still too sick to be let loose onto an unsuspecting world. For a brief second he thought about curing him, before deciding that Jack should pay for such excesses of alcohol. “….I guess she used some of that desperation to twist the high council’s arm into letting her come to earth to appeal to us,” he finished.
“I don’t blame her in a way,” Jack said with a sigh. “But still, to remind me of what Prenna looked like when SG1 visited there a year ago? That was a low blow.”
“It’s her planet,” Tofu said soothingly. “She has a right to be agitated by your refusal to help.”
“I guess,” Jack said slowly. “But she didn’t even wait for me to explain, to rationalize my refusal to send any SGC personnel to help. Instead she stormed off, threatening our demise if I didn’t reconsider. Not that I would ever reconsider. But still, her threats hurt…”
“Hence the beer,” Tofu said understandingly.
“I didn’t have that many,” Jack muttered. “But you’re right. I was after sweet oblivion. I should have stuck to coffee.”
“It didn’t work, did it?”
“I gave up too early.”
Tofu’s icy silence almost made the headache worth it.
…
Jack was in a miserable mood for most of the morning, something the astute personnel working in the SGC soon picked up on.
Some equated it to the news of Prenna’s demise; a fact confirmed when the first weeping survivors stumbled through the gate, en route to a new home via the alpha site.
Others equated his foul mood to the Tok’ra Hellana’s attempted blackmail – and in this, they were partially right.
The more astute personnel on base – his inner circle, if you will, - knew the real cause for his depression.
He was missing his team.
…
“You know, if one more person looks at me with that doe eyed look, I’m gonna leap to my feet and beat the living crap out of them,” Jack said aloud as yet another airman gave him a sympathetic glance. “This is not the first time I have recommended against military action where civilians were involved, and I dare say it won’t be the last. It’s known as a command decision, and that’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
He waved a chicken drumstick in the air and glared at his eating companion.
“I mean, Doc, what’s with everyone?”
“They understand your anguish,” Doctor Janet Fraiser said. “Unlike most situations, this time you had actually been to Prenna, knew the people there, yet when it came to crunch time, you still had to obey your training.”
“Training? ” Jack asked. His shoulders suddenly slumped. “There ain’t no training that can prepare you for turning your back on people who considered you their friends. It’s a hard thing to do, but to compound things by throwing away good Earth lives in the futile liberty of a planet two short steps away from total annihilation is not an option.”
He raised his dark eyes to Fraiser, pinning her in place. “Anubis has three Motherships in orbit around Prenna, did you know that?”
“That I didn’t know,” Fraiser said, shocked. “Why then, if she knew this, did Hellana even bother to ask for our help? There was nothing we could have done.” She shook her head, despairing. “Nothing anyone could have done.”
“Sheer desperation,” Tofu said, effortlessly taking over from O’Neill. “Hellanas is Prennan.”
“I should have known,” Fraiser said, not missing a beat. She was well used to Tofu inhabiting O’Neill’s body by now. Everyone was.
“Hey, don’t blame her,” Tofu said. “I know the Colonel would do the same had it been Earth that was under attack, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed to it, as Lox did with Hellana.”
“Lox is?” Fraiser asked curiously.
“The Tok’ra symbiote,” Tofu supplied. “Hellana is the host.”
“What will they do now?” Fraiser asked.
Tofu shrugged. “I have no idea. She said something about a final solution, but Jack’s certain she was bluffing.
“A final solution on earth usually means a last option,” Fraiser said thoughtfully. “I hope that she’s not planning a suicide run or something.”
“She would get nowhere close,” Tofu said. “We are, after all, talking Anubis here.”
“Perhaps,” Tofu mused aloud after rapidly recanting what Jack had said.
“That would still be one mothership out of three.” Fraiser said. “A blow for Apothis, sure, but not nearly enough to force him to withdraw.”
“Not unless the one ship takes the other out,” Jack said, taking control again. “We have no idea as to how close they are to each other, but Prenna is a really small planet, so it conceivable that she could do it.”
“Or maybe exploding a ship isn’t her plan at all,” Fraiser said, her medical expertise coming into play. “Perhaps she has something biological planned.”
“You mean, like a plague?” Jack asked thoughtfully. “It’s possible, but rather…shall we say improbable.” He shifted in his chair, making it squeak in protest. “I mean, you would have to come up with a disease that works almost instantaneously, infecting Goa’uld and Jaffa alike, yet not harm the humans on the planet below.”
“It is feasible, you know,” Fraiser said defensively.
Jack held up his hand. “I’m not saying that it isn’t,” he said. “I just don’t see it happening.”
“Why?” Fraiser asked.
“Because she would take out Tok’ra as well as Goa’uld, and she’s a Tok’ra. She would be, in a way, committing suicide.”
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of…” Tofu said deep in his brain. “If she thinks it’s feasible she might go for it.”
“I hope not,” Jack said to his tiny companion. “Because if she has done something that drastic, we could be in trouble.”
“How?” Tofu asked, mystified.
“Remember what she said?”
“Sure,” Tofu said mystified. “She ranted at us for not getting involved, turned on her heel and left.”
“Not quite,” Jack said. “She also said she had a solution for the liberation of Prenna, a final solution, if you will, and like it or not, the people of Earth were involved.”
“Oh that,” Tofu said dismissively. “She was ranting.” He turned uncertain. “Wasn’t she?
Jack ignored him, asking a question of Doc Fraiser instead.
“Janet, tell me truthfully, just how certain are you that Hellana, if given a chance, would use something biological on Prenna?
Janet Fraiser considered the question carefully.
“I’m not certain at all,” she said after a while. “All I can go on is what I know about her, and that is the fact that she is a Tok’ra geneticist, quite a famous one according to what records I have of the Tok’ra.”
“She has records?” Tofu asked, again getting ignored.
She lay down her fork and stared at Jack. “Is there a reason for this question?”
He shrugged, uncertain. “I’m not too sure. It was just something she said that seemed…odd.”
“About involving the SGC?” Fraiser asked. “I was there too, remember. It struck me as funny as well at the time, but she was desperate for help.” She smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure it was just a threat, and even if it wasn’t, she didn’t strike me as the suicidal type.”
“When was the last time you saw a suicidal type?” Jack asked sarcastically.
Janet flushed, but held her tongue. She had realized that he needed someone to talk to the minute he zeroed in on her, and from previous experience, she knew how irritated he could get when his team were away.
“I could tell you,” she said calmly, “but that would violate doctor patient confidentiality.”
This time it was his turn to flush.
“Forgive me,” he said humbly. “I’m not feeling well this morning.”
“Oh?” she said interestedly. An unwell Tok’ra was almost unheard of. “Tofu revenge perhaps?”
“More likely Hellana’s revenge,” Jack said softly.
“What?” Janet exclaimed leaning forwards. “What do you mean?”
Jack was staring at his hands.
“This morning Tofu complained that I had drunk too many beers the night previous,” he said.
“He accused me of having a hangover. In fact, he was so upset he took over and treated me to a muesli breakfast.”
“So?” Fraiser said. “Healthy food is good for you, especially after copious amounts of alcohol.”
Jack raised his eyes to her, a small smile on his face. “The problem was, I didn’t consume a six pack. I drank two.”
“Oh shit,” came the soft voice from the back of his brain.
“Infirmary,” came the order from an adamant doctor. “Now.”
…
Janet’s voice was tinny on her cell phone, but Samantha Carter wasn’t the least bit upset with the quality of her voice when it finally reached her in distant DC. What did upset her, and greatly, was the news Janet was imparting.
“We’re almost certain that Hellana bought the contagion in with her when she came to ask for help yesterday. I believe that when the Colonel refused her request, she was so upset that she released it into the air.”
Sam was horrified.
“But she would be committing suicide herself,” she whispered, feeling sick.
Janet came back immediately.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “We obviously contacted the high council through the….you know when we realized just how sick the colonel was. According to them, she definitely isn’t suicidal. Desperate yes, but suicidal? No. According to them, she had a laboratory on a…. an island called Roma. In times past their young population was kidnapped by the…a bad man called G’tan. The survivors were so upset about what he had done that they advertised for someone to come up with some sort of plan so that it would never happen again.”
“Hellana responded to their pleas and accepted an offer to stay with them until she could perfect a contagion that they could release into the air, thus preventing it from ever happening again.” Janet’s voice deepened. “According to the high council, she succeeded and, and now Roma is included on their list of undesirable places to be.”
“Does the high council believe that she intends using this contagion on Prenna?” Sam asked.
“I sent the Colonel’s bloodwork to them, and they have confirmed that the virus is one and the same,” Janet said. “If she hit us with it, then you can bet your socks that she’ll hit Prenna as well.”
“Damn,” Sam moaned. “So she gets refused help, and retaliates by trying to kill the Colonel?”
“It looks like it,” Janet said grimly. “The SGC, like Roma, is now off limits to all Tok’ra.”
“Damn her,” Sam hissed, almost beside herself with fury. “The Colonel needs us.”
“He needs you more on the trail of a cure,” Janet said. “Don’t you get it? If Hellana succeeded in releasing a contagion on Roma and is still alive, then she has a cure as well. And if we’re really lucky, perhaps the good people of Roma know about it.”
“Maybe,” Sam said doubtfully. “Or maybe she released this virus just as she stepped through the gate, and there is no cure.”
“It’s all we’ve got,” Janet snapped; the tremendous stress she was under suddenly apparent in her voice. “It’s all the Colonel has as well, dammit. There has to be a cure.”
“What does General Hammond want us to do?” Sam asked, stretching her head and looking for Daniel. His lecture on Chaos Theory and its impact on the modern military mind should be finishing soon. Not finding him she leaned against the nearest wall and pressed the phone tightly to her ear.
“He wants you to go to Roma and…”
“Find this cure?” Sam asked mildly. “God, we’re grasping at straws here. You do realize that they might not know anything about it?”
“There is always that risk,” Janet said. Her voice deepened. “For the Colonel’s sake, I hope they do.” She drew in a deep breath and rushed on before Sam could speak. “Your dad is here.”
A smile split Sam’s face. “Great. Where is he?”
“Heading your way,” Janet said. “He’s picked up SG2, who for obvious reasons, will be going to the…island on your behalf.”
Sam bristled. “We are quite capable,” she snapped.
Janet’s voice turned soft. “No you aren’t,” she said. “You have Diyonne to think of, and Daniel has Arran. Neither Jack nor Tofu would want you to risk your lives on their behalf needlessly. No, SG2 are already en-route to you now and Roma will be their mission.”
“I bet the Colonel is upset, having an entire team looking out for him,” Sam said.
“He would be, if I told him,” Janet said. “Luckily for me, I have decided not to. His weakened system is ill equipped to withstand a bout of rage.”
“Oh Janet,” Sam said, staring at the far wall with misty eyes. “This is…”
Suddenly the far doors slammed open and the corridor was full of people, Daniel included. Tears immediately forgotten, Sam waved at him urgently. “Just how bad is he?” she asked.
Janet gave a tired sigh. “As I told you, this virus is an unknown. All I can tell you is what we already suspected – it works on the host alone. The…Tofu is fine, albeit a bit frantic.”
Sam waved at Daniel again, who backtracked to where she was standing.
“The Colonel is another matter,” Janet said.
“Can we return home for a while before shipping out? I mean. We haven’t seen each other in almost two weeks. He could do with seeing some friendly faces, especially now.”
Janet’s sigh was regretful. “I wish you could, he could do with some of his team by his side. The problem is, as I said, the base is infected.”
“That is not good,” Sam said, her eyes fixed on Daniel’s. She hesitated. “Are you absolutely sure that you can’t replicate whatever this Hellana did?”
Janet sounded exasperated. “No dammit, I’m not that good. If I could I would, and the Colonel would no longer be ill and you would be here. But I can’t. Hellana has decades more experience than I do. I can’t even isolate the F…sucker.” Her voice took on a note of urgency. “It’s leaving the rest of us alone and just zeroing in on him, and it’s slowly killing him.”
“Crap,” Sam said, the Jack’s usual profanity making Daniel look at her, startled.
“Precisely,” Janet said dryly. “She infected the base, and then, if our information is correct, she went on to infect… her country.”
“Who’s on Prenna?” Sam asked.
“Daniel’s nemesis,” Janet said.
“That’s fine,” Sam said irritably. “He deserves a gruesome death after what he did to Abydos.”
Janet’s voice turned dark. “That may be, but as the Colonel quite rightly pointed out, what of his armies? He has hundreds of…men and some must surely be loyal to Teal’c and…his mentor.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Sam said, immediately feeling bad.
“How he did, being as sick as he is, is beyond me too.” Janet said, bringing the conversation back on track.
“How long does he have?” Sam asked, unconsciously biting her lip. “Can you give me any kind of estimate?”
“Well, he’s mobile,” Janet said cautiously, “and complaining, which means good things in my book. The problem is - his good health won’t last.” She took a deep breath. I estimate ten days before things get too serious.
“Ten…” Sam breathed. “It will take us almost that long to find another Stargate.”
“I know,” Janet whispered, echoing her distress. “Tofu says that it’s working on his unique bloodwork, the same blood that you and all other joined people have. Tofu is powerless to help, and I fear that even if the Colonel does eventually…succumb, that Tofu will have nowhere to go.”
Sam’s lip turned bloody and Daniel handed her a tissue.
“This is bad,” she said hollowly.
“Not yet it isn’t,” Janet said. “But if we don’t find a cure soon …” Her voice trailed off and Sam could have sworn she heard a sniff.
“And there absolutely nothing you can do?” she asked, hoping against hope.
“No,” Janet said miserably. “Jack has AIDS, for want of a better word, and there is absolutely nothing that Tofu and I can do.” Her voice strengthened. “There is, of course, something you can do – find a cure, and quickly.”
“You say Dad is here?” Sam asked. “If we’re to do something, we’d better get moving, and fast.”
“Sergeant Davis says he’s right above you,” Janet said, and despite herself, Sam looked up.
“Where do we meet him?” she asked.
“Hanger 3C Smithsonian Museum,” Janet said. There was a rustle of papers, clearly audible through the phone. “Your orders are to take SG2, go to her… country, and find a cure.”
“And when we find a cure?” Sam asked. She refused to say if.
“Then SG2 toss some through to us and some through to Prenna.”
“Toss?” Sam said uncomprehendingly.
“As in toss,” Janet said patiently. “I don’t care how I get it, just as long as I get it.”
“Amen,” Sam said.
…
How are you feeling Son?”
Jack looked up from the computer in his office to see General Hammond leaning against the door jamb, an almost unheard of occurrence.
“Sir?”
The mountain never came to Mahomet – he always went to the mountain.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay sir,” Jack said through gritted teeth, struggling to rise, only to sink back in his chair with a muttered oath.
“At ease airman,” Hammond said, his face shadowed. “I’m only here to sample some of Doctor Jackson’s rarely seen almond roast coffee.” He poured a cup, and sniffed at the aroma appreciatively. “I should hang the man from his thumbs until he gives me the address of where he gets this,” he said, and hooked a chair with his foot.
“Sorry sir, even I don’t know,” Jack said, a ghost of a smile creasing his face, “and I’m an expert at torture.” He leaned back in his chair with a ghost of a moan. “It was kind of you to allow Sergeant Masters to set the percolator up.” He looked at the floor. “I don’t think that I would have had the strength to do so,” he said softly. “Not anymore.”
“That’s why I’m here, Hammond said, setting down his almost untouched cup.
“Doctor Fraiser would like you to come down to the infirmary now.”
He winced at the flash of annoyance he saw in his 2IC’s eyes.
“I know son,” he said, “but it’s for your own good. We have a bout of flu going around the base, and if you catch that now, you could conceivably die. For this reason she wants you in isolation, just in case.”
“I hate this,” Jack said, rising shakily to his feet.
“I know you do,” Hammond said, glad that he had insisted that he and he alone fetched O’Neill. The proud man he knew so well was slowly being destroyed by the failings of his own body, and it was not a pretty sight to see.
“George,” Jack said, slowly shuffling along the corridor.
“Yes?”
“If I should die, and this Hellana bitch lives … Take her out.”
George Hammond nodded, his face hard.
“It’s being set up as we speak.”
…
“How is he?”
Daniel stared at the communication device, urging the signal to reach Earth faster than it conceivably could. Finally the answer was returned and he relaxed.
“Stable.” It was Janet’s voice. “He’s terribly weak, and we’re compensating for that by pumping fluids into him, but he’s stable for now.”
“And Tofu?” Arran, Daniel’s own symbiote was desperate to know.
“He’s okay,” Janet replied. “Obviously he’s very worried, but there is nothing he can do.”
“How terrible,” Arran said aloud, making some of the assembled SG2 look up, not as used to his and Sam’s symbiotes as others were.
“In more ways than one,” Janet finally replied. “He’s desperate to help, but is powerless to do anything.”
“Tell Jack to hang in there,” Jacob called from his place behind the Teltac’s instrument panel. “Tell him we’re heading to the nearest planet that has a working stargate. The minute we’re there, SG2 will be through like a pack of greased eels.”
The members of SG2 all nodded grimly. “Count on it,” Major Ferretti said grimly. “Besides, Jack still owes me ten dollars and I definitely intend to collect it in person.”
“I’ll tell him all that as soon as he regains consciousness again,” Janet said eventually, causing the mouths of everyone on board the Teltac to compress into a thin line.
…
“Teal’c?”
Janet Fraiser jumped as Jack jerked awake and stared around the room vaguely.
“Janet… Must tell Teal’c to stay away… He…must warn…”
“It’s okay Colonel. He knows,” she said. He didn’t seem to hear.
“Teal’c…”
“He’s fine sir,” she said, impulsively hugging the gaunt man who had only last week been threatening everyone with a chicken bone from his lunch. “He’s still on Chulac. Remember?”
Janet could tell that he didn’t. In fact, she had a hard time believing that he had heard at all.
She decided to change tactics.
“Tofu?”
Sweat soaked eyelashes blinked and a soft two toned voice was heard. “Janet?”
“Can you talk to him?”
Tofu shook his head. “No. It’s like we’re talking two different languages.”
Janet lay him back in his bed and touched his arm, pleased when he looked at where her fingers were resting. “You still have some control,” she said.
“Very little,” Tofu said sadly. He became aware of her chief nurse fluffing up the pillows.
“Steve?”
“Tofu,” Captain Steve Milner said warmly. “I just want you to know, that if…well, I’d be happy to take you on.”
“And you would instantly start dying as well,” Tofu said sadly. “No, I will not risk that. Besides, I cannot leave Jack. Not now.”
“Why?” Janet asked.
“He needs me,” Tofu said. “His mind needs me just as much as his body rejects me. If I were to leave, the void I would leave behind would be too much for him to bear.” He shook his head. “No, I’m here for the ride, and if it leads into eternity, so be it.”
“It won’t,” an authoritive voice said from the doorway, and they all looked up with varying hopeful expressions as General Hammond trotted into the infirmary.
“Sir?” Janet asked.
“We have just heard from Major Carter. SG2 are on their way to Roma.”
…
The planet called AL6 2Y7 had nothing special about it at all.
As far as Sam and Daniel could ascertain, it was just a ball of frozen debris that may or may not have held a thriving human population at one time or the other.
Sam could see that Arran wanted to go and investigate, but Daniel did not.
Not that Sam could blame Daniel, not when SG2 had just disappeared through the planets one and only claim to fame – a working Stargate.
It was just a case of waiting. The trip to the first of the Stargates had taken over a week to complete…
Now Sam, Daniel, Diyonne and Arran’s vigil began…..
…
Watching a man die of an AIDS related illness was surely one of the worst things that anyone in the medical profession could witness, Janet Fraiser thought to herself.
Jack was wasting away right in front of her eyes, and there was absolutely nothing she could do for him, apart from trying to make his trip into the next life as comfortable as possible.
Okay, she thought. So it wasn’t the HIV virus that everyone knew so well and all actively hated. Nevertheless, Colonel O’Neill’s symptoms were so similar as to be almost identical.
He was now a skeletal figure, almost two weeks of grimly fighting off the virus taking its inevitable toll, and if it wasn’t for the life support he was now on, his time on Earth could have been counted in hours, at most.
Fortunately for Jack, being the proud man he was, he had given up the fight to stay conscious days ago. Now there was just the snap hiss of a respirator, the final insult.
He was peaceful now, Janet mused, the restlessness shown earlier now a thing of the past, almost as if he knew the end was close. To make matters worse, Tofu was no longer responding either, making her fear that the Tok’ra was now trapped in an unresponsive body, perhaps for good.
The thought was terrible.
Shaking her head, Janet took a deep breath and briefly touched the rosary beads someone had left draped over the headboard of the bed; one of many well wishers obviously leaving it there for whatever help it could give.
At this stage she would any help there was to be had, although Lord knew she would rather prefer the uniformed kind.
“Come on guys,” she muttered half to herself. “Where are you?”
…
Daniel, Sam, Jacob and their symbiotes were thinking almost the same thing. Recalled back to the Teltac by Selmac just in case SG2 did not find a cure and returned infected, they just sat around, waiting impatiently. There wasn’t much else they could do.
Finally, hours later - although to them it felt like days, the radio crackled to life. The sound, after nothing for so long, so startled Arran that he was sent crashing to the floor, where an annoyed Daniel took over.
“Sam,” he yelled. “Gettit.”
Sam Carter was already reacting.
“Report,” she snapped, gripping the radio tightly.
Ferretti’s voice was rich with satisfaction.
“We have a cure and are heading back through the stargate to the SGC.”
Jacob gently took the radio from his daughters slack hand.
“Godspeed SG2,” he said huskily. “Godspeed.”
…
“I simply cannot believe that I still have the sniffles. It just isn’t fair. I mean, a Tok’ra with he sniffles? It’s embarrassing.”
Three weeks of gradual recovery had eventually allowed Jack O’Neill out of isolation, and he was finally back in the infirmary - suffering from nothing worse than a common cold.
He glared at the grinning members of SG1, minus Daniel for some strange reason, SG2, Jacob and a Buddha like General Hammond.
“I mean,” he continued, “I’m a Tok’ra, right?”
Everyone nodded dutifully.
“So why, if I did all the work, do I still have the sniffles?”
He thumped his chest. “I, myself, I…. I had to cure myself, and me with no immune system to speak about anymore. This I did, and how does my symbiote repay me?”
Nobody dared answer that one.
“ By doing nothing. Noth-ing.”
“It’s just a cold,” Janet said, grinning despite herself. “You be good and I’ll let you out of here tomorrow afternoon.”
Jack just glared at her.
“The cold is the last vestige of G’tan’s legacy,” Jacob said, his voice warm. “Tofu can’t cure it. Just have patience.”
“I have none to spare,” Jack said, abruptly serious. “I used up all my patience just waiting to die.” He pinned the elder Carter with an intense gaze. “Now all I have left is impatience.”
“Maybe some news will help,” General Hammond said. “Like what happened to Hellana?”
“Definitely,” Jack said, settling back into his pillows.
“The high council has her,” Jacob said. “And she is due for judgment any time now.”
“Judgment?” Major Ferretti said, surprised. “How is it possible that she is still alive? According to the Roma Presidium she stole the virus, but not the cure.”
“You’re right, Major,” General Hammond said. “She had no cure, but we sent through SG units 5,7 and 12 within minutes of you delivering the cure to Doctor Fraiser. It was they who found what we thought was her lifeless body amongst hundreds of Jaffa.”
“Prenna is but a small planet,” intoned Teal’c from his place at the door. “Her virus took no time in starting its efficient work, indiscriminately striking down Jaffa loyal to Anubis as well as whatever free Jaffa were hidden in his ranks.”
“Were there many, T?” Jack asked, his face tight.
Teal’c face was dark with anger. “A considerable amount.”
“For what’s its worth, I’m sorry Teal’c,” Jacob said. “Had we known what Hellana had planned, she would have been put to death a long time before this.”
“So now she is being separated,” Ferretti said roughly. “What does that mean?”
It was Sam who realized what her father was trying to say, or perhaps Diyonne, always sensitive to undercurrents within a room that passed the information on to her host.
“Her symbiote had no part in her actions, did she?”
Jacob shook his head. “Dead right Sammie,” he said. “Lox had no idea what Hellana was planning until the deed was done. Of course, by then it was too late to do anything.”
“Is that even possible?” General Hammond asked. “That the host and symbiote keep such massive secrets from each other?”
“Its rare, but it has happened,” Jacob said slowly. “In her case, I believe she was demented.”
“Screw loose,” came the clarification from the bed, making them all smile.
“Suffice it to say that thanks to SG5, she was stabilized; the cure administered and she was sent on to us.”
“What will happen to her once she is separated?” Ferretti asked.
“She will die,” Jack said firmly. His eyes flashed; an eerie sight he very rarely used for obvious reasons. “The host is not mentally prepared for a separation.”
Janet immediately felt guilty, remembering her pleas that Tofu leave O’Neill. “Of course, if the host himself is in danger of dying, then it is obvious that the symbiote leave.” He smiled at her warmly, making her feel better. “Unfortunately for the Tok’ra, that so rarely happens. This is probably why so few of them are around.” He winced as Tofu obviously did something to him that no one else could see.
“So she is separated and Hellana dies,” Ferretti said. “Good.”
“It would have been even better if she had managed to have killed Anubis,” Daniel said sadly, walking into the infirmary and leaning against the wall, the sheer volume of people in the way making it impossible to get any closer.
“Semi Glowey gone?” Jack asked, realizing from Daniel’s face where the young linguist had been.
“Long gone,” Daniel confirmed, understanding Jackese better than he did Chinese.
“You positive about this?” Hammond asked, who also understood Jackese quite well.
Daniel nodded his head.
“Sorry General,” he said. “All we have are a lot of shell shocked Prennans and a lot of dead Jaffa.”
“Goa’uld?” Jack asked, sobering up fast.
“I saw three,” Daniel said. “All displayed symptoms I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
“Tell me about it,” Jack muttered, impressed that Daniel was holding it together so well after seeing what could only be a charnel house.
“Well done, Doctor Jackson,” General Hammond said.
“Colonel Mackenzie is waiting for you on level sixteen,” he continued, proving that he was a astute man as well as a good commander.
Daniel’s shoulders drooped. “Yes sir,” he sighed, and edged towards the door again.
“So now what?” Major Ferretti asked after he was gone.
“You all troop out of here, and leave my patient in peace,” Janet Fraiser said, suddenly realizing just how crowded her personal piece of the world actually was.
…
The voice was low and insistent, waking Jack from a light doze.
“You sure that it was only two beers? I think you’re wrong. I swear I counted at least… AACK! Jaack. That was not a nice thing to do.”
Smiling slightly, Jack the Tok’ra slipped into deeper sleep.
EINDE
BetaTested by CiGiK – Cape Town – 13th December 2003.