Another night in the infirmary...another monotonous interval of being poked, prodded, and turned like some slow-cooking morsel as intrusive lights and voices and the controlled chaos of shift changes buzzed hazily all around him. The vaguely irritating sounds of normal base life clanked and clattered and hummed just outside the ward, the discordant blend of noises keeping him from falling into a more restful slumber even as their familiarity lent a strange sense of comfort to his exhausted mind.
Sighing fretfully, Daniel knew that it wasn't only the usual racket here so deep beneath the mountain that was keeping him awake; there was an itching somewhere down his spine--centered right between his shoulder blades and vibrating clear up into his brain--that let him know he would find no peace until he laid eyes on Jack. He had a pretty good idea where in the infirmary his friend was right now, and he knew he was going to do his damnedest to get up out of this bed and go to him...just as soon as his legs remembered how to hold up the rest of him and take the requisite steps to Jack's bedside. And just as soon as that one damnably attentive nurse decided to leave him alone for more than two freaking minutes at a time so he could carry out his little excursion, Daniel fretted drowsily to himself.
"Still awake, Dr. Jackson?" Gwen Larsen's clucking admonition sounded in Daniel's ear as the petite blonde appeared once again at his bedside, one slender hand fussily tucking his blanket back under his armpits and then reaching with practiced ease to take his pulse. "I can get you a sedative, sir; maybe you should take a little something, just to get your rest..."
"I'm fine; really," Daniel murmured, giving her his most guileless, charmingly tousled-and-sleepy look. Surprisingly it worked quite well, regardless of the fact that in his present drawn and pallid condition, calling up even a small measure of charm was much harder than it sounded.
"I can barely keep my eyes open now," Daniel continued, yawning so convincingly that his jaw fairly popped. The almost painfully young nurse gave his arm a little pat and smiled relievedly into his exhausted eyes.
"That's good," she praised him; "I'll just leave you in peace then and check back in a bit. Have a good seeped. Jackson."
"Er...thanks; I will," Daniel replied vaguely; and as soon as the ward was quiet and empty again, he gingerly flung the blanket aside and sat up on the side of the bed. His mind filled with images--with the very recent memory of hauling Jack's limp, barely-conscious body back through the stargate as Teal'c and Sam ran desperate interference behind them, covering their wild escape at the risk of their own lives. Just another work day, Daniel thought glumly as he swayed to his feet and winced at the hard contact of his soles against the cold concrete floor.
Just another day, coming back home with one or more of them barely in one piece, with crazed natives from some new, uncharted world screaming for their blood and souls as they made a mad dash for the sanctuary of Cheyenne Mountain, struggling through the iris into the waiting noise and clamor of alarm klaxons and running medics and Dr. Fraiser's professionally calm but always intense presence looming like an avenging angel to drive away the ugly spectre of death once again...
Daniel didn't know what was worse, having himself lying there as the chosen object of concern or standing worriedly to the side as one of his team mates took a turn at it, having to watch helplessly as one or more of his friends was hustled off to the infirmary and then the inevitable waiting began...
This time it was a double whammy; it wasn't until Jack had been handed off to Fraiser and two medics and Daniel even had a second's space to think straight, that he suddenly felt pain and realized with a sort of detached interest that he'd taken a fairly nasty puncture wound to the back of his thigh. Limping to the infirmary on Teal'c's strong supporting arm, he tolerated his own ride on the medical carousel of cleaning, disinfecting, wrapping, the poking of needles into his person and all the other accoutrements of playing patient, while inside he just wanted to see Jack, see the man's brown eyes look at him with wry chagrin and let him know it was all okay once more. That one more golden tooth of victory had been snatched from the jaws of fate.
Part of him felt that this was getting so old, that their lives were becoming almost a cliché of pain and misadventure and whose-turn-is-it-to-defy-almost-certain-death this week? It was almost like some bad sci-fi episode where everyone wearing red that season was a definite goner and all the main characters took turns gasping their last, faltering breaths only to be miraculously pulled back from death's door in time to make hilarious quips after the hour's final commercial break.
Well, our lives aren't some damned tv show, Daniel thought angrily now as he limped his slow, stealthy way across the ward. I'm not Spock, and Jack is certainly no James T. Kirk. And while I'll admit that Janet is easier on the eyes than crusty old Bones McCoy, I would be quite happy to see a little less of her sometimes...just don't let her catch me right now, if there's a god please please hear me this once...
"Daniel." Jack's voice, slightly slurred from pain meds but still relatively coherent, intruded now into Daniel's self-absorbed musings and startled him so that he almost tripped over a portable iv stand that loomed up in his path. Taking an exaggeratedly careful detour around it, Daniel squinted myopically at the partially curtained bed where his co and best friend lay and found himself giving a rather silly little wave.
"Jack." Clumsily Daniel limped over to stand next to Jack's bed, trying not to frown or wince or show any discernible reaction to the gray pallor of the older man's face. But he felt his arms going up to clutch worriedly at his own chest in an instinctive gesture of dismay, and Jack clucked weakly at him.
"Now, just stop that," he growled wearily. "I'm fine, dammit. Why the hell are you up at this hour, wandering the ward in your cute little backless number, half zonked and blind as a bat without your glasses? Go lie down before you fall down, Daniel."
"Stop ordering me around, Jack," Daniel pouted, then leaned stiffly over the side of the bed to fumble for Jack's hand. Carefully, if a bit clumsily, he avoided the iv line taped to the back of Jack's hand and gave Jack's thumb an awkward little stroke. "I just wanted to say..."
And as Jack's bleary, pain-darkened brown eyes glittered impatiently at him from the pale oval of his face, Daniel leaned in a bit more and whispered almost fiercely:
"I just wanted to say, next time you pull one of your famous Jack O'Neill cultural faux pas and then top it all off by making yourself some sort of human shish-ka-bob, I will turn around and HELP the natives kick your ass! Got that...COLONEL?" And as Jack gaped rather stupidly at him, Daniel gave the iv'd hand a pat and murmured shakily:
"You're such a bastard, Jack; all I can see is you running, running and knowing you couldn't make it, pushing me so hard ahead of you so I could get through the 'gate...me turning back to see you falling...How dare you scream at me to go on, to keep running...No one gets left behind, Jack; pay attention to your own goddamned missive for once. And don't you ever try to play the sacrificial martyr again! Oh, and by the way...I'm glad you're okay." Angry blue eyes softened in exhausted compassion as Jack grimaced against a wave of pain and then reached to touch Daniel's arm.
"You, too," the colonel muttered grudgingly, his own eyes flicking a half-angry, half-affectionate message for Daniel's private edification. "But you know you're gonna pay later for smarting off at your co this way...dontcha?"
"I'm trembling at the prospect even now," Daniel sniffed dryly; but before O'Neill could come back with another caustic rejoinder, a stern, rather terrifying feminine voice interrupted the moment.
"Daniel Jackson, if you are not back in your bed and sound asleep within the next five minutes, Colonel O'Neill's mild little threats will seem like the cooing of a sweet baby compared to what I have in store for you." Janet Fraiser's eyes were lethal, and in the quiet of the night both Jack and Daniel shot each other panicked looks of doom.
Tough break, buddy, Jack mouthed with real sympathy; and as Daniel turned to offer a rather strained grimace of a smile and a lame, "Janet! I thought you'd...gone home for the night...", somewhere out in the vast wastes of ravenous desolation, foul fate gnashed its remaining teeth in futile rage and plotted its next move against those whom it wished to devour.
© July, 2002 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.