Downtime. Not R&R, but real downtime. Doc Frasier's simple lingo for 'the team needs a rest because of temporary mental breakdowns.'
Jack O'Neill stared at the tiny squares of light-grained plastic in front of him on the small black rack, wondering how he'd been dragged into such an idiotic game.
All they had to do was suffer through two days of no gate travel, no running off the base, no work, and they could get back to normal, which meant going off to other worlds to get shot at. It was amazing how Frasier could overrule General Hammond just by waving some clipboard with numbers and notes on it in his face. In the meantime, they could all go slowly … nuts -- boy, did that word have a totally new meaning now -- in the Cheyenne Mountain complex.
Just forty-eight hours ago, he'd been hallucinating that Sam was a Goa'uld, complete with those spooky glowing eyes. The room had wavered in shimmering colors like some LSD-inspired rollercoaster ride, and all he could do was curl up on the floor and try to hang on to his sanity. He'd heard Doc Frasier hadn't fared any better, pretty much freaking out thinking the Goa'uld were trying to suffocate her. If Sam hadn't caught her attention, Jack might have seen a lot more of Frasier than he'd ever seen before. Well, he might have if he'd had his eyes open, if he hadn't been inwardly screaming as his mind filled with the hideous squeaking of an imaginary Goa'uld larvae slithering around inside his skull.
And seventy-two hours ago, Daniel had been losing his mind inside a padded room at Mental Health.
Now all of SG-1 was sitting in the drab confines of one of the complex's several breakrooms. Four gray walls, with tables, chairs, coffee, and of course vending machines that spit out the latest and greatest in prepackaged junk food.
Jack pushed another letter around on his tray. Daniel was seated opposite him, while Sam and Teal'c occupied the other sides of the battered old card table. Daniel was busy rearranging his tiles for the umpteenth time. It was really beginning to bother Jack. The archeologist was probably gearing up for some seven-letter word that would make the rest of them look like grade-school morons.
The vision was still too clear in his mind, and Jack figured it would take weeks if not months to stuff it permanently into the dusty recesses of his mind -- Daniel, curled up in the corner of a white room, pressing hands to his face and moaning hysterically about footsteps. Jack hadn't known what to do. Dr. MacKenzie had left the team with strict orders not to touch or approach Daniel. The doctors didn't know what might set him off. Daniel had acted somewhat normal when they'd first entered the cell. Yeah, it was a cell, a prison. Padded with lovely white quilted whatever so its occupant couldn't bash his head into a bloody pulp against a hard floor or beat his fists into splinters.
Teal'c had then mentioned the Linvris. Daniel had blinked oddly. The young man's mind then shifted, and suddenly, he was in a different reality, populated with voices and visions that tormented only him. He could see in it Daniel's red-rimmed eyes, a distant unfocused gaze into which his friend's sanity was rapidly slipping away. Jack had tried to pull him back, ordering him to stay with them, but Daniel had buried himself into the corner of the room as if he could blend into the very fabric itself, laughing hysterically, pointing at a nightmare vision only he could detect. God, that hideous laugh had just torn into Jack, ripping at his very soul. He wanted to run from the room and block it out of his mind forever.
The board game yanked him back to the present.
It.
It hadn't really helped that Teal'c had begun the game of Scrabble by plopping down those two innocuous letters. Of course, had he done any better himself? He had such a rotten hand, or whatever you called it when you randomly chose seven dumb glazed little tiles of plastic, that all he could contribute was an 'a' above the 't'. Sam had made a face at the mess on the board, and stuck a 'p' in front of the 'it'. Great, now they had a 'pit.'
Daniel spun the square board around to face himself. He held one tile in his hand and stared intently at the gridwork of plastic squares below. Oh no. Jack really, really should have insisted on poker. At least then they'd be talking and joking around. No one talked during Scrabble. Everyone shushed each other, deep in thought as they tried to best their opponents. The only time anybody talked was to ask for the dictionary.
Jack crunched down another pretzel stick, slowly, one bite at a time. Daniel glanced at him, frowning slightly, and went back to studying his tiles. He seemed to be making some monumental decision. It wasn't quite the same as when they'd been playing chess not long ago, when Daniel had been preoccupied. Did Jack really think the archeologist would leap across the table to try to rip a hole in the back of his neck to remove a Goa'uld that didn't exist?
Daniel placed his tile down. Rats. Or, rather, 'rat.'
Teal'c arched an eyebrow, which Jack found annoying. Was everything getting to him now? Frasier said that there were no lasting side effects, at least none that she could detect, to Machello's Goa'uld killing device. Of course, they hadn't detected the device in Daniel either before shipping him off to the loony bin. They'd subjected him to countless tests, scans, blood tests, and still he'd gone…. nuts. Jack shifted his 'i' next to the 'd'. They wouldn't let him play the word ID. It was an abbreviation. Daniel was a stickler for adhering to the rules. Poker didn't have rules, at least none like this game.
Oh oh. Teal'c was … smiling? The Jaffa laid down some tiles, and 'rigor' appeared on the board.
Jack suddenly grinned. Fantastic! Now he could get rid of that dumb letter and make some points! He triumphantly placed it right below the 'o.'
Daniel peered down at the board. "Uh, Jack, that's not a real word."
"What do you mean? Of course it's real."
"'Oz' is fictitious, sir," added Carter.
"Everybody knows what it is," said Jack dryly. "You know, ruby slippers, Emerald City."
"Well, it's a proper noun," said Daniel, "and you can't use proper nouns."
"It is unacceptable."
Jack turned to Teal'c, who had made the solemn proclamation. "Since when did you become an expert on Scrabble?"
"I have been studying, O'Neill," replied the Jaffa proudly.
"We try to squeeze a game in every couple of weeks," explained Daniel. "Although last week…."
Yeah, Daniel didn't have to finish that sentence. Last week Daniel had been freaking out over monsters and event horizons in his closet and ghosts lurking about the base trying to take over his body. Thank God that was over.
"You know, you're welcome to join us," offered Daniel. "The game is really relaxing."
"Are you saying I'm stressed?" Jack leaned forward.
Carter poked at her tiles. "Well, you do seem a bit uncomfortable."
"Are you okay, Jack?" Daniel sounded concerned.
Why was everybody looking at him? "I'm fine!"
"Well, Janet said we might feel a little stressed after what happened," said Carter.
"Just a little?" Jack knew the words were too sarcastic, but they were already out of his mouth.
Although Carter hadn't gone through the all-too-vivid hallucinations of the device - her previous encounter with Jollinar had saved her from that horror - she'd suffered just the same. After the aides had forcibly pinned Daniel to the floor and shot him full of God knew what in that padded room, he'd stopped screaming. He'd just faded into a drug-induced haze and passed out.
Carter had taken the lead in leaving the room as McKenzie conversed in dry, clinical terms to Jack about Daniel's grim prognosis. She'd marched down the sterile corridor and headed outside to the jeep. Jack had the car keys, and he could remember her standing by the passenger side, hands against the roof, trying to regain her composure. She'd been close to crying, maybe she had, and Jack didn't fault her one bit. She was human, and watching a close friend and intelligent man descend into madness was agonizing to watch.
None of them even thought - this could happen to me if I go through the gate again.
They'd all just gotten in the jeep. Teal'c sat stoically in the back. That was Teal'c. He kept a tight rein on his emotions, but even Jack could see he was hurting. Jack wanted to do something, anything. He settled on slamming the door so hard the car jerked. Nobody said a thing. Everybody felt the same horrible frustration and anger.
"I'm just not used to sitting around and doing nothing," said Jack finally. He yanked the 'z' off the board, resisting the temptation to drop it under the 'i' and make it 'iz,' knowing he'd get yelled at for such a dumb move. He dumped an 's' at the end of 'rat.'
"Gee, that's a waste," said Daniel. "Are you sure don't have something else you can put down?"
"I'm sure," replied Jack brusquely.
"We are not 'doing nothing,'" said Teal'c. "Scrabble enhances the mind, and increases the vocabulary."
"You know, you're warping his mind," Jack said to Daniel.
A fleeting smile crossed Daniel's face, and Jack suddenly felt better. His friend had been through so much since last week that Jack was concerned, despite the medical clearance, just how he would come through it. After Teal'c's device had been destroyed and everybody was given the medical A-okay, Daniel had just slept. He'd blown practically the whole last day just snoozing away on a bed in the infirmary. Frasier hadn't disturbed him. The trauma of the last several days, compiled with all the medications that still weren't completely out of his system, had finally just caught up with Daniel.
"Ah hah!" Carter laid down a word Jack didn't recognize.
"Peen? What on earth is that?"
"It's part of a hammer, sir," she explained.
Daniel quickly turned the board around and eagerly put down another word attached to the 's' in rats.
"Oh, for crying out loud!" exclaimed Jack. "You won't let me play Oz but you're sticking down the name of some Greek god."
"It's otiose, Jack. It doesn't serve any purpose," said Daniel.
"Yeah, so remove it," ordered Jack.
"No, otiose means 'serves no useful purpose'," repeated the archeologist.
"Yeah, like this game," murmured Jack under his breath. He wasted the 's' and Jackson got ten points out of it!
Teal'c shut the dictionary with a resounding thud. "It is indeed a word. It may remain."
"What, Jack?" asked Daniel.
"Nothing. Can you pass the pretzels?"
The basket of munchies came over his way. Daniel grabbed some more tiles from the box lid and noisily arranged them on his rack. Teal'c went back to studying the board as though planning a battle strategy to save the world.
Jack pushed his tiles back and forth on the plastic rack in a seesawing motion. "So, um, when you guys were, uh, had those things in you, did everything look weird?"
Sam looked up. "I got a blinding headache, but nothing else."
"I am afraid I remember little of the event," said Teal'c.
Daniel stared at the board momentarily, lost in some deep, unfathomable thought, then looked at Jack intently. "It was sort of hazy, like someone put gauze over a lens."
"The colors were weird," Jack remembered.
"Yeah, like a kaleidoscope, sort of." Daniel paused, his brow furrowed in concentration. "But I think the sounds were the worst. I could shut my eyes, usually block out what I was seeing, but not the voices…" Daniel abruptly looked straight into Jack's eyes, the concern so apparent it was almost painful to witness. "God, Jack. It must have been awful for you. You had three of those things in you."
Jack hadn't really told anyone just how awful. How do you tell someone that you knew what you were experiencing wasn't real, but it didn't matter anyway because you knew it was in you anyway, that a Goa'uld larvae had literally been crawling around inside his head?
"At least I was prepared," said Jack honestly. "I don't know how you got through it."
"I don't know," admitted Daniel. "If that thing hadn't jumped over to Teal'c…." Daniel offered a guilt-ridden glance at the large Jaffa. "I'm really sorry about that, Teal'c."
"It was not your fault, Daniel Jackson," replied Teal'c. He laid down three tiles that spelled 'mew,' and Jack cringed at the sixteen points the Jaffa scored by placing the 'w' on a triple word score.
"Yeah, if anything, we can place the blame squarely on Machello." If the alien hadn't been dead for six months, Jack would have strangled him on the spot. Besides nearly killing Daniel the first time by 'stealing' his body and taking it for a joy ride, he'd left behind a legacy that had put his friend through horrible physical and mental anguish. "He really should have thought about what those things would do to a normal sane human being."
"Something good did come out of it." Daniel suddenly sneezed. "Sorry, I was off the antihistamines for a few days. They really oughta vacuum those padded rooms. I almost told McKenzie, but figured he might think I was crazy -- well, crazier…."
Sam smiled, and Jack noticed Daniel grin at the bizarre self-deprecating statement. He was the one who had really been through hell, and he was recovering despite the horrors. Lord knew since joining the program he'd been through the proverbial ringer a dozen times over.
"Area 51 has locked up the page-turning devices in a vault," said Sam, breaking the silence. "They figure since the devices breached our containment unit, they weren't safe to study."
"Which means when we find Sha're and Skaara, we can use them again."
And Jack knew it would probably take a presidential order and a commando team to extract those now 'dangerous' items from the blasted Area 51 complex. And he knew that Daniel would risk a re-infection and go through the madness again if it meant freeing Sha're from the grip of the Goa'uld which possessed her. Jack knew he'd do likewise for Skaara.
"It is your turn, O'Neill."
"Geez, hold your horses," Jack said to Teal'c. He grabbed his 'h' and double-scored with the words 'ha' and 'hi' between 'rats' and 'pit.' "Eighteen points!" His elation sunk like the Titanic when he picked up a new tile and got another consonant. Man, he was cursed.
"Well, at least Janet's given us a clean bill of health," said Sam cheerfully. "I'll pass."
"You can't pass," said Jack.
"Sure she can," said Daniel. "You've got a seven-letter word, don't you?"
Carter assumed a very innocent look. "Why would you think that, sir?"
"Argh…." Jack hated when she went all military and polite like that. She was hiding something. He knew it.
"Yes!" Daniel quickly snapped four tiles off the 'peen' word. So that's where the 'q' went. Jack glared as Daniel added another thirty-four points to his score with the word 'quite.' "I'm ahead," the archeologist announced.
"Well, you don't have to--"
In a lightning-fast move, Teal'c laid down his letters off 'rigor'.
"Gloat … about it." Damn, talk about creepy. Could Teal'c read minds?
Now the 'gloat' word taunted him, and it was a double-word score too! Jack had to be able to build something off that word. Too bad he couldn't figure out where to dump the 'z' and the 'v' and the 'y', all high points, but useless in the current scenario. He wasn't going to admit defeat and dump his tray. No way.
Jack slowly stuck a few tiles down on the board off the 't'.
"Um, what is that, Jack?" Daniel thumped the pencil against the table top as he tried to read the upside down tiles.
"Tiff." Jack narrowed his eyes. "You know, a spat, a petty quarrel, whatever."
"Oh, I know what a tiff is, Jack, I just never saw anybody use the blank tile for, uh, for seven points." Daniel looked at the letters as though someone had just defiled the Giza dig by erecting a MacDonald's francise.
"Well, I've had a lousy stack of cards, I mean letters," challenged Jack.
"Can you guys argue later?" Sam looked pissed.
"Oh oh." Jack's eyes widened in alarm. "You do have a seven-letter word, don't you? Okay, nobody likes 'tiff,' I'll remove it."
Teal'c's broad hand suddenly covered the suspect tiles. "They cannot be removed."
"What? Rules?" asked Jack.
"Yes. It is a matter of honor."
Jack's jaw dropped open. He got absolutely no help from either Daniel, who shrugged helplessly, or Sam, who was waiting impatiently to play her tiles.
"Fine, fine." Jack leaned back in his chair and folded his arms against his chest like some petulant child.
"Thank you!" Sam grinned like some school kid as she began building backward from the end of 'tiff'. Aw damn, she was going to get two triple word scores plus an extra 50 points for the darn seven-letter word! She finished, then leaned back triumphantly. "One hundred and nineteen points, please."
Jack stared at the words. Friends.
Daniel read the word too, and his face softened. "Priceless."
"Amen to that," added Jack quietly. They'd started as a team, but instead had become friends, and nothing would ever change that.
"Agreed," said Teal'c.
Jack glanced at Sam, who smiled pleasantly. Had she planned this?
Daniel turned the board around, carefully placing his tiles down on the other available triple word score at the bottom. "Because without friends, some of us might be…." He spun the board back to face his colleagues.
Insane.
"Whoa, a bit of black humor here, Danny?" observed Jack.
"Well, it doesn't really bother me to use the word as I was insane, but not really insane," explained Daniel, "because it was an alien device that was making me…" He looked Jack square in the eyes and grinned. "Nuts."
"And we are all better now, right?" Jack grinned back.
"Except for an overwhelming desire for pineapple pizza." Daniel spun the board around for Teal'c to view.
"Brain damage. Definite brain damage," teased Jack.
"Anchovies," said Sam.
"Sausage and meatballs. None of that weird California junk," ordered Jack in mock seriousness.
"Roquefort cheese." All eyes swiveled in horror at Teal'c's words.
"On pizza?" Daniel looked appalled.
Sam shook her head. "Yech."
"Why on earth?" asked Jack.
"Because it is…" Teal'c laid down his words. "Tangy."
"Oh, this is way too creepy." Smack through 'gloat' ran 'tangy,' and worse, it was another double word score. Jack scanned the faces in front of him. "Can we play poker? Go fish? Something normal? Whose idea was this anyway?"
"What is everybody looking at me for?" Daniel assumed a mock expression of horror. "I just happened to mention to …"
"Doctor Frasier," finished Teal'c.
Sam laughed.
"Does that woman have a license to practice psychotherapy?" Jack dumped his tiles back in the box lid. "I'm game for pizza. Anybody else?"
"Pineapple."
"Anchovies."
"Roquefort."
"We'll get one of each," agreed Jack. "And sausage and meatball." The clatter of tiny tiles cascading upon themselves into the box lid was a blissful sound to Jack O'Neill, but even more soothing were the happy voices of his friends.
© 1999. The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.