Jack had entirely given up his pretense of maintaining a semblance of military reserve long before Dr. Fraiser came into the briefing room. Hammond had escaped to his office, saying that he had reports for the Joint Chiefs to finish, although Jack could clearly see the general’s chair from his own, and it was unoccupied. Teal’c sat impassively, as always, but he was twiddling his thumbs, which signaled that the Jaffa was practically out of his skin. Sam was writing something down on the papers in front of her, a look of intense concentration covering her near panic. Jack couldn’t see exactly what she was scribbling, as it appeared to him upside down, but he thought it might be a list of prime numbered elements and their various isotopes.
Jack was on the verge of making spit balls when Janet could finally be heard mounting the spiral staircase. Hammond, also alerted by the noise, was settled in his chair at the head of the table but the time Janet had taken her seat beside Sam.
“You three are clear,” she announced, palpable relief in her voice. “Your blood chemistry matches Esser’s and a few of the other children.
“Daniel’s on the other hand has been altered.” She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “There are some additional protein markers that were also present in the Sanoctem samples you brought back with you.”
“Do you have any ideas, Doctor?” Hammond asked, his voice very quiet.
“Well,” Janet’s professional façade cracked ever so slightly, and she made no attempt to recover it. “The closest Earth disease I can come up with is Porphyria. Sam described the Sanoctem symptoms to me, and they are actually quite similar. Someone with acute Porphyria suffers from chest and abdominal pains, vomiting, personality changes and fits of madness, all of which are triggered by exposure to the sun.”
“Is there a cure Dr. Fraiser?” Teal’c asked.
“No. There’s no cure. All you can do is keep the patient out of the sun.”
“Well that should be easy enough,” Sam said. “Our sun doesn’t emit the same sort of radiation. All Daniel has to do is never go back.”
“Theoretically, yes,” Janet agreed. “But that doesn’t solve the planet’s problem.”
“Can you make them sunscreen or something?” Jack asked, his tone and choice of words indicating his relief.
“I’d like something a little more permanent than that, Colonel. Sir,” she directed at Hammond, “Permission to begin developing a treatment and preventative measures?”
“Granted,” replied Hammond, without missing a beat. “Will you be releasing Dr. Jackson?”
“Yes, but I’d like him to remain on base for observation.”
“Right,” Hammond nodded. “Colonel, SG-1 is on stand-down until Dr. Fraiser has time to figure out if she can manufacture a cure. Don’t go too far away, though. If something comes up with the Sandiem, I want you to be around to handle it. Dismissed.”
Hammond went back to his office. Janet had flown out of the room almost before the general had finished talking. Jack, Sam and Teal’c were a bit slower to rise. It had been almost 36 hours since they had last slept, and the tension of waiting for Janet’s diagnosis had left them all feeling drained. The time lag made it even worse. Jack felt like it had been eleven o’clock in the morning for hours.
Teal’c excused himself to go and meditate. Sam looked down at her papers as though seeing them for the first time and not understanding why she had written anything in the first place. She tore them in half and threw them in the recycling bin.
“Do you have plans, Major?” Jack asked.
“Yes sir. I thought I might get some blood from Janet and run a few tests of my own,” she said. “I’d like to see if I can artificially create the radiation and see exactly what effect it has.”
“Right.” Jack had absolutely no idea how this would help, but at least it was work. “I’ll walk you to the infirmary. I think I’ll take Daniel to the mess and make him eat something.”
He paused, fixing her with a piercing look that she returned unflinchingly.
“I’ll eat something too, sir. I promise.”
------------
“How are you doing, Janet?” Sam asked, as soon as Daniel and the Colonel exited the infirmary.
“I’m fine, Sam.” Janet began sterilizing equipment, and refused to meet Sam’s look. “Why would I be anything else?”
“Do you really want me to speculate the answer to that question?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. So how are you?”
“Worried as hell.”
“That sounds about right. Still, the best person possible is handling the situation.”
“Thanks, Sam.” Janet set down the towel and smiled. “Was there something else you wanted?”
If Janet wanted to change the subject, Sam would let her. God knew, Sam did it enough herself.
“Yes, as a matter of fact there is.”
------------
Daniel appeared none the worse for wear. As Jack marched him to the commissary, Daniel babbled on and on about how amazing it was that the Sandiem had developed their religion without any of the conflict that had spawned on Earth. He hypothesized that it might be in part because all of the Sandiem practiced the same religion to begin with, but maintained that it was still a pretty significant accomplishment. Jack murmured non-committal responses and what he hoped were appropriate intervals, having tuned Daniel out almost before they had left the infirmary.
In truth, Jack was happy that he had his archaeologist back. Having Daniel in one piece and relatively healthy was worth having to listen to spontaneous dissertations about subjects he had no interest in whatsoever. Jack was so focused on winding his spaghetti around his fork that at first he did not realize that Daniel had stopped talking. It filtered gradually through Jack’s consciousness that Daniel did not usually stop talking once he got going unless he was forcibly restrained, and certainly not for something so small as a mouth full of food. Jack was tired and his coffee had not kicked in yet, so it was not until Daniel and the chair he sat upon crashed to the floor that he began to register that he might have a problem on his hands.
As soon as the thought sank in, though, Jack was moving.
“Daniel!” he yelled, knowing that it was absolutely useless. He turned to a nearby airmen, who was also on his feet. “You! Fraiser. Now. Somebody else, clear the tables and chairs.”
A feeling of cold terror took root in Jack’s stomach and began to spread throughout his body. This was not a kind of casualty he could deal with. He knew how to make field dressings and resuscitate someone whose heart and lungs had stopped. He was out of his league, and he knew it. Why had he never asked what to do if Daniel had an allergic reaction and went into anaphylaxis?
For that was clearly what it was. Jack remembered reading something, years ago, when Charlie had been diagnosed with his allergy to bee stings, that told him what anaphylactic shock looked like. Charlie had needed his EP-pen. What did you give someone when you weren’t sure what they were allergic to?
Janet burst into the commissary, emergency team hot on her heals, and was shouting for epinephrine before the doors had swung fully open to admit her. Once the anti-inflammatory had been injected, she tried to take Daniel’s pulse, but it was fluctuating so erratically that she abandoned the effort. Issuing orders like drill sergeant, she had Daniel’s still convulsing form on a gurney and out the door in moments.
Jack stood in the centre of the disheveled floor for a few moments, brain still processing what had just happened. He gave a few half hearted orders to return the commissary to order, and then set off for the infirmary.
------------
Janet liked it when the infirmary was silent. Silence meant that there was no emergency; no triage mayhem, no whining colonels, no flat-lining she could not explain. Daniel was breathing on his own now and he had been disconnected from most of the monitors. He was asleep naturally, the combination of his long wakefulness and recent trauma had wiped him out. Janet had finally chased Jack, Sam and Teal’c out of the infirmary two hours ago, insisting that she would sedate them herself if they didn’t leave and get some sleep.
Now a small part of her regretted it. If Sam were here, Janet would have someone to talk to about the file she currently held in front her. It was the results of Daniel’s latest blood test, one taken after this latest episode. And it was clear. The foreign proteins that Janet hadn’t yet had time to identify were gone and Daniel’s blood chemistry had been altered again.
This was more frustrating that Janet was prepared to cope with. She hadn’t even properly diagnosed Daniel yet, and he had managed to stumble on to something that cured him, though, she admitted with a shiver, it had almost killed him in the process. Sighing loudly into the silence that pervaded the infirmary, Janet set the files aside and reached again for the papers she had used to record her sunscreen experiments on. She’d done long perplexing shifts on-call before. She could do it again tonight.
------------
Jack and Teal’c showed up in the infirmary bright and early the next morning, just as Daniel was finishing his second cup of coffee. Janet was pouring over the list of ingredients from yesterday’s lunch which she had procured from the quartermaster, methodically ruling them out as she compared them to a list entitled ‘Allergies: Jackson, Daniel (Earth Edition)’. She overheard Jack’s greeting and Teal’c’s polite inquiry after Daniel’s health, and made her way over to the three of them.
“Sleep well, Colonel?” she asked, getting only the expected smirk in return. She turned to Daniel. “Daniel, do you remember exactly what you ate yesterday?”
“Well, to be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention.” Daniel replied. Jack swallowed a guffaw. “I was playing with the spaghetti, but I don’t remember eating any of it. I only took one bite of my bread, and then–”
“What was on the bread?” Janet cut in.
Daniel shrugged. “It smelled a bit like garlic.”
“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” Jack burst out. All heads turned to face him. “Can’t go out in the daylight, drinks blood, a bit crazy and now can’t stand garlic? What’s next? Stakes and crucifixes?”
There was dead silence, yet again, as Janet assimilated the idea into a concept she could deal with under a scientific premise.
“That might explain why the allergic reaction escalated into anaphylactic shock,” she mused.
“I’m allergic to a lot of things,” Daniel protested, “But garlic isn’t one of them.”
“I can’t explain it, Daniel, but you were definitely in shock. You even flat lined. Twice. And I have no idea why.”
“I might,” said Sam, appearing in the doorway. “I ran some tests on Daniel’s blood and was able to isolate some of the chemicals”
“You were supposed to be sleeping.”
“I got about four hours. Or so,” Sam admitted with a smile. “Anyway, one of them was sulfenic acid.”
As she spoke, Sam set a beaker, an eye dropper and two small bottles down on Daniel’s bed side table. She poured the contents of one bottle into the beaker, and Daniel realized in a strangely detached manner that he was about to watch an experiment being performed on his own disembodied blood.
“Now, the sulfenic acid reminded me of something, so I checked the commissary menu.”
“And did that tell you that our Danny boy has become a vampire?” Jack did not so much as flinch in the face of the looks Daniel and Janet were shooting him.
“Not exactly, sir,” Sam said, and continued. “You see, garlic is an organic compound, obviously, but it’s made up of some highly reactive stuff, specifically, a chemical called allicin.”
“Which is what makes it a cleanser?” Daniel put forth.
“Exactly.” Sam inserted the eye dropper into the second bottle and squeezed it full. “Now, in regular human blood, there is nothing for the allicin to react with, and it breaks down naturally. Daniel, on the other hand, had sulfenic acid, among other things and....”
Sam squeezed one drop of allicin into the beaker. There was a rather spectacular explosion and quite a bit of cursing as they all dodged broken glass.
“Sorry.” Sam said.
“I believe I now understand the cause of Daniel Jackson’s anaphylactic shock.”
“Indeed,” Janet breathed.
“Wait a minute,” Daniel said. “That reaction was instantaneous. Why didn’t I just explode in the commissary?”
“I wondered the same thing,” Sam admitted.
“Penicillin.” Janet said, more to herself and the file she’d left sitting on her desk than to anyone else. “You were given a routine dosage. It must have just taken out what it thought was another infection.”
“Can you make this into a cure, Doctor Fraiser?” Teal’c asked.
“I think so,” Janet said, a bit hesitantly. “I mean, we know it works, but Daniel is only alive now because he was literally right on top of a state-of-the-art medical facility when it happened.”
Janet had moved across the infirmary while she spoke and ducked into her office for the file with Daniel’s altered blood chemistry.
“I’d say that the garlic is the cure, but the sulfenic acid reaction is lethal unless tempered by penicillin,” she continued. “I’ll run some tests on the other infected samples and I should be able to come up with a cure.”
“What about a vaccine?” Daniel asked. “This is one of those things what should be nipped in the bud.”
Janet glanced down at the file again. “The cure and the vaccine should be almost the same. Your blood has been changed so that it now matches Esser’s. You’re immune.”
“So there are three types of Sandiem blood then,” Sam said. “Those who are Sanoctem, those who aren’t Sanoctem yet, and those who never will be.”
“Right.”
“So, no sunscreen then,” Jack said, sounding vaguely disappointed.
“No, I’ll do that too,” Janet said. “These people share our genome, and an allergy to penicillin is not uncommon.”
“What do we do if a Sanoctem is–” Daniel began.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Jack cut him off. “How long, doctor?”
“If everything goes perfectly, I should be able to finish today,” Janet said after a moment’s thought. “We can work through the night if we have to.”
“Make sure you and your people are rested enough for a field trip,” Jack said. “If this works, you’re taking your show on the road.”
------------
He was pretty sure that it was cosmologically impossible given the natural and ordered linear flow of time, but it seemed sometimes to Major Griff , especially now that he was getting older, 0400 came earlier and earlier in the morning. He was up 15 seconds before his alarm went off, of course, wide awake and completely prepared for anything the universe might throw at him, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He sighed, the sound doing absolutely nothing to fill his echoy base quarters. He wasn’t that old, was he?
By 0415, Griff and the rest of the SG-3 Marines had gathered in the commissary for their traditional pre-mission breakfast together. All four of them had passed Dr. Fraiser’s blood screening, and didn’t have to take the allicin/penicillin concoction, but they were to wear the sunscreen, just in case. Captain Abernathy, Griff’s scientifically inclined 2IC, was quite excited to examine the data about the Sandiem sun. Griff was not entirely certain if anything useful could come from a sun that had a tendency to turn people into vampires, but stranger things had happened.
SG-1 filed into the commissary around 0430, Dr. Fraiser with them. Janet immediately commandeered two entire pots of coffee. No one questioned why they might need so much. There was not much talk over breakfast, and if Daniel was a little more critical than usual as to what was on his plate, nobody elected to point it out.
By the time it was 0445, SG-1, 2, 3, 5 and 15 and a whole host of support staff had assembled in the ‘Gate room. It was an odd assortment of personnel. There were physicists, archaeologists, marines, medics and regular officers to deal with the sun, the culture, the Sanoctem, the cure and any other eventualities that might arise. All told, about 40 people were preparing to depart.
In the Control Room, Sergeant Davis began the dialing sequence. At precisely 0500, the seventh chevron locked and the wormhole kawooshed into existence. Jack and Teal’c went through first, followed by SG-3 and SG-5. Sam and Daniel helped Janet and her team manoeuver their heavily laden FREDs through the ‘Gate and then followed them. Janet ordered her teams through, and the rest of the soldiers brought up the rear. As Hammond watched almost half of his field officers and a good portion of base staff disappear, he sent his best wishes with them. Then the wormhole shut, and nothing else could pass through.
------------
Janet Fraiser did not get off-world very often. Whenever she did though, she was always surprised to rediscover that regardless of the years and physical distance between Earth and Where Ever, some things never changed. For instance, the Sandiem children invariably shuddered when she showed them the needle she was about to use to inject them. Then, they would cry and ask for their parents and Alison Crombie, one of Janet’s nurses, would show them the stethoscope and have them listen to their heart beat, and Janet would give them the needle while they were looking the other way. Yes, some things never changed.
Janet and Daniel were largely responsible for the inoculations, though Daniel was currently serving as a file clerk. The others of SG-1 were spent their days scouting out Sanoctem camps. Daniel had told an abbreviated version of what happened to him every time someone questioned the validity of Janet’s treatment, in Janet’s opinion largely overplaying her role in it. In truth, Daniel had largely his own luck to thank, but to hear him tell it, she had personally worked a miracle. Still, it was nice to be appreciated.
Being appreciated by Daniel Jackson was still something she was coming to terms with. She assumed that Daniel had always appreciated her as a doctor, if only from the amount of time she had invested into keeping him in one piece. There was, however, a world of difference between the appreciation one showed one doctor and that which one showed after dinner, during moments stolen at work and while lying on the roof staring up at the night sky.
It had been a long three days since Janet had arrived at the Sandiem village. She had spent all the daylight hours inoculating the townspeople and organizing the SG teams to go out to the other villages. Often, she was up long past The Lighting, working on paperwork and manufacturing more of the vaccine in her makeshift laboratory. Daniel, who understood a great deal about such schedules, had brought coffee with him, and was always on hand to make sure she got at least four hours a night. Still, on the fourth morning, when the roosters crowed and the cathedral bells began to sing out to the morning, Janet had a hard time getting out of bed.
On the table beside her bed lay three things. The same three, in fact, as had been present every morning since her arrival, though she had yet to figure out how he was getting in it without waking her.
The first was a thermos, which she knew contained some of Daniel’s carefully packed and jealously hoarded coffee. Jack had come into see her one day, and had smelled it in the air. When he wondered aloud where on Earth she’d got coffee, Daniel had turned slightly pink. Sam had explained afterwards that Daniel shared the coffee with absolutely no one, and that Jack was planning a lengthy interrogation when they all got safely back home.
The second was a basin of water, which went with the third object, the towel. This she knew had no hidden meaning. Water was water, even here. Spending only a few moments in indecision, Janet reached for the thermos and unscrewed the lid.
Her notes lay scattered around the room, covering the tables she had converted into lab benches and the crate of sunscreen which sat in the corner. As far as everyone else knew, no one was dependent upon the screen for protection for the sun. Janet, however, knew that there was one person who was both allergic to penicillin and susceptible to the radiation, and Janet was drinking her coffee. Accordingly, she had taken as many precautions as she could; limiting her exposure to the sun and applying the sunscreen more often than her own recommendation.
Janet set down the empty thermos and made her way to the basin. There were no mirrors here. Daniel had found that odd considering the circumstances. This made putting up her hair a challenge, but she supposed that her hairstyle was probably the least of her problems.
As she glanced down at the towel she was using to mop her sopping face, she realized that she was dead right.
------------
Daniel double checked his field kit, making sure that all of his gear was properly packed. He, the rest of SG-1 and Janet were heading out to look for a group of Sanoctem that SG-3 had been tracking for about two days now. Esser was going with them, partially because they needed a local guide, but also because Esser had spent much of the last four days in Janet’s general vicinity and had become a competent field medic. The other SG teams were shipping out as well, each taking local guides and USAF medics.
“Daniel! Get moving already. We’re on a bit of a schedule here,” Jack yelled from the bottom of the stairs. “You too Fraiser!”
Daniel clipped his pack into place and headed towards Janet’s room. The SG teams had been billeted out around the village and Janet had elected to set up shop in the attic of Aeronn’s house. Daniel climbed the ladder up to the trap door and knocked habitually before pushing the door open and heaving himself through.
“Janet, are you almost ready? Jack’s about ready to–” he trailed off and stared in horror at the pile of bloody kleenexes on one of the tables. “Janet?”
She blinked at him, uncomprehending, then realized what he was worried about.
“It’s just a nosebleed, Daniel. Calm down. You know how it goes. Lack of sleep, strange planets, and whole world full of new allergies.” Janet calmly picked up the pile and threw it into the fireplace. She hoisted her pack onto her shoulders, spent a few moments rearranging the various straps and took her hat out of her pocket. “Come on, Daniel. You know how the Colonel gets when he had to wait.”
She brushed past him and climbed down the ladder without looking back. Daniel stood looking into the fire for almost a full minute before another bellow from below stairs jerked him out of his reverie and he too left the room.
------------
The mountains, Sam decided, were far less picturesque up close than they were when viewed from the village. There was a particularly vicious plant, with thorns almost an inch long, that seemed to enjoy jumping out unexpectedly and sticking itself into passersby. After the first few brushes, most of SG-1 had learned how to avoid them, but the strangled curses Daniel issued every few minutes indicated that he hadn’t as yet.
They walked in single file through the underbrush. Esser was in the lead, though the expression on Teal’c face indicated that he was not happy with the arrangement. He said nothing, of course, but he walked as close to her as her pack would allow. After Teal’c came Daniel, who was so quiet, except for his occasional outbursts to the plants, that Sam wondered what was wrong but didn’t ask. Behind Sam came Janet and then Jack brought up the rear. Aeronn had not been certain how the Sanoctem dealt with shade, and since the forest was almost completely shaded, Jack was on high alert. The last thing he wanted was a surprise.
Afterwards, Sam always wondered what would have happened if Janet hadn’t chosen that particular moment to reach for her water bottle. In the few seconds her attention was divided between the path in front of her and the location of the bottle behind, she tripped on a rock, over corrected and fell. Both Sam and Jack were right beside her almost before she hit the ground, and managed to get her sitting up.
“I have to check the pack,” Janet said, a little short of breath. “I have to know if anything was broken.”
“What about you, Doc?” Jack asked.
“The fall didn’t hurt me, Colonel.” Janet struggled with her pack until Sam unclipped it for her. “Thank you.”
“Dr. Fraiser,” Teal’c said, “You have injured yourself.”
“No I haven’t, Teal’c. I’m fine.”
“Your shirt is ripped and the skin beneath it is abraded.”
Esser turned white as a sheet and gasped. Everyone looked at her.
“That’s not a cut,” Esser choked out. “That’s a lesion.”
“A what?!” Jack demanded.
“A l-lesion. The second symptom.”
“Janet!” Jack was livid. “How long have you known?”
“Two days,” Janet said quietly.
“You lied,” Daniel said, speaking directly to her for the first time since the attic that morning. “It wasn’t a nosebleed or allergies. It was the tears.”
“I’m sorry. I – Colonel, they needed me.” Janet was apologizing to Jack, but her eyes never left Daniel.
Jack was so angry, he was practically spluttering, unable to channel his fury into words. Sam said nothing, but her eyes were full of concern, and even Teal’c showed signs of worry on his face.
“Dr. Fraiser,” Jack said finally in his coldest, most formal tone once he had gotten a hold of himself. “You are hereby ordered to return to the SGC and place yourself under quarantine until Dr. Warner releases you. Esser, you’ve just been promoted. Take whatever you need from Dr. Fraiser’s pack. If you can’t carry it, give it to Teal’c. Daniel, you’re going home too. I need Carter with me when we find the Sanoctem.”
Esser remained stock still until Sam began to look through the pack and as what she would need. Then, she too got to work. Jack pulled Janet to her feet and after a few minutes helped her into her now much lighter pack.
“You remember where you’re going?” Sam asked Daniel, who nodded. “Keep in touch with base camp. The Colonel will go crazy if he doesn’t know what’s happening to her.”
“She’ll be fine once we get back to Earth, remember.” Daniel’s words were hopeful, but his voice was that of a man who had been kicked while he was down a few too many times. “All we have to do is go home.”
Sam gave him a quick hug and then said good-bye Janet. Jack would not talk to anyone yet, but Sam knew he would cool down eventually. Teal’c and Esser paused in their repacking to luck and farewell, and then Daniel and Janet set off back down the trail.
It was a quiet walk. Daniel was beside himself with worry, having the best understanding of what Janet was going through and Janet wanted to apologize properly, so neither of them said anything. The thorn bushes still made pests of themselves, but Daniel didn’t notice them anymore. He was worried and confused and more than a little bit angry. She had looked him in the face and lied, and that upset him more than he was currently prepared to cope with.
He dialed the DHD on autopilot, mechanically pressing each of the chevrons they had all committed to memory in turn until the wormhole opened. For a moment, he stared blankly into the event horizon, and then reached into his pocket for the GDO. Janet started up the ramp, the sunlight dancing around her as it reflected of the watery aperture of the ‘Gate. Daniel swallowed around the large lump that was suddenly in his throat, and then passed into the cold that always waited on the other side of the universe.