Chapter Three

"Jack?"

"Sir!"

"No, don't get up, just an unofficial heads up," General George Hammond, Jack's boss and steadfast friend commanded as he commandeered a heavy wooden chair and dragged it up to sit in front of his 2IC's desk. It was, the general reflected, kind of a mirror image of their usual arrangements.

George studied the man, long enough to cause Jack to fidget under his assessing stare.

"Well, you don't look as bad as Doctor Fraiser painted you."

Jack chuckled, and Hammond smiled knowingly in return. They both knew just how mother-hen-ish the CMO could be. But the thought that she was seldom wrong galvanized the general into asking.

"How are you, Jack?"

"Fraiser is over..."

"Colonel." The use of his rank sobered and silenced his friend at the same time, "I need to know. Honestly... how are you?"

Jack sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I'm just tired, sir. And banged up pretty good. You've punched out a few times. You know what it can be like."

"Yes, Jack. I do, but I gave that up long before I reached your age. And even at twenty-three it felt like I'd been run over by a couple of tanks. You have to be hurting. How bad is it?"

Jack dropped his gaze to his desktop, intent on the empty 9-mm clip that was part of the sparse litter across a usually spotless desk, a sure sign that his friend felt the pressure on his privacy, and might even contemplate lying about his condition. George knew that would cross his mind, but also knew he'd never do it. Yet, every option would be considered and assessed by the keen mind of his second, he had no doubt of getting an honest answer.

"Crap."

"Jack..." Maybe he should have doubted, flashed across George's thoughts.

"Ah, sorry, sir. I feel like crap," Jack offered up a wane smile, Hammond could see him drop his 'I'm okay' act and let go enough for the pain and tiredness to show, until it was hidden once again by his scrubbing a hand across his face to replace the facade he normally wore.

"Son, you were on light duty before this little FUBAR, why don't you take some time and rest up?"

"Hmm, I could now that Bra'tac and Rya'c have left. Teal'c has offered to give Jonas his physical and hand-to-hand combat training. Carter's gonna take him through weapons training. Better her and I." Jack ginned evilly. "Not much to do until the 'gate gets here." He paused a beat. "And how is the rent-a-gate program progressing?"

"They're Russians. How do you think?"

Jack grimaced with distaste. He knew he should try to get along with them, in the interests of detente, blah, blah, blah... but really... "Their oxen died?"

George snorted. "Something like that, they see it as their duty to deliver it to our doorstep. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get clearance for a Russian military plane to fly into - let alone land - in the heart of the United States?"

"Pretty much impossible I'd say, sir," the colonel smirked.

"Astute assessment." Hammond nodded and half-smiled. "Luckily the President got involved. It should be at least eight days before it arrives at Peterson. Plenty of time for you to go home and get some rest."

"Sir..."

Hammond stood; he didn't want to order him. In fact, he didn't want to even pressure him. After all, the man had just saved all of their butts... again.

"Just think about it, Jack. Please."

"For you, sir. Yes."

Hammond was glad his back was to the man; he was having a hard time keeping a straight face. That was a typical O'Neill refusal if he'd ever heard one.

***

Jack groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, one arm outstretched to slap the snooze button on his alarm clock. His shoulder screamed in protest, his chest joined as backup percussion. With a pained grunt, he slowly pulled his arm back, the bruise burning all the way. That chore done, he peeled open one eye and squinted, the better to make out the red numerals on the clock. Oh seven hundred?

"Crap," he muttered. He never overslept, and certainly never this late - no matter the excuse, or how hard he'd partied - or worked - the night before. After twenty-some odd years in the Air Force, he was too well trained for that. His body clock automatically woke him at oh-dark-thirty - usually at around oh four hundred hours. Rain or shine, weekend or not. He only kept an alarm clock as a back up... not that he'd ever needed it in the past.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again, with the hope that he'd been mistaken. The numbers now read oh seven fifteen hundred hours. Not only had he not been mistaken, it was getting later by the minute - quite literally.

"Come on, airman, time to haul your sorry ass out of bed," he muttered as words of encouragement. Slowly, he tried to raise himself out of bed, and finally settled for rolling off the bed and onto the floor.

He sighed and scrubbed his face one-handed; the other was firmly planted on the carpeted floor as the prop that kept him upright. He leaned back against the mattress once his arm started trembling and threatened to give way and looked blearily around the room. His clothes still lay on the chair where he'd slung them.

As for his boots, they were nowhere in sight. It was just as well; they were backups for his drenched ones, the ones he no doubt would have to toss in the trash. Too soaked with seawater to salvage, so pickled they might have well been carved of stone. Well, he had backups for the backup, any military man who walked as far was he did would.

He managed to maneuver himself so that he was sitting on the bed next to the nightstand and reached for the phone to call the base. There was no way he'd make it in time for his scheduled meeting at oh nine hundred hours. And if he didn't call in, they'd think something was wrong and send somebody out to check. And Doc would use that as an excuse to stick him with more needles. That was something he wanted to prevent at all costs. He so did not like her needles. He was sore and stiff enough now as it was, for crying out loud. His poor carcass did not need any more damage than it already had, no thank you very much.

Narrowing his eyes to better concentrate on his task, with exaggerated care, he punched out the numbers and waited for the answer. "Stargate Command," the operator said.

"General Hammond, please," Jack replied as he ran his fingers across his chest, wincing when his bruises reminded him to be more careful.

"Hammond." The general's voice sounded gruff. It was likely that he hadn't been home at all.

"Good morning, sir."

"Jack? Where are you?"

"At home, sir. I just woke up," he paused. "I don't think I'll be able to make it for our meeting this morning."

"Are you all right?"

Jack grimaced. "Nothing that a couple days of sleep wouldn't cure, sir."

"I could send someone out to check on you," Hammond sounded worried.

"No," he snapped and then stiffened. "Sorry, sir. I'm fine... really." His last words were softer, more of a plea. "And I don't need anybody checking on me."

Hammond chuckled. "Well, if you're sure you're all right, I'll let you be. Why don't you take those few days off that we'd discussed? Everything is pretty much at a standstill until the Russians arrive with the 'gate."

"I'll do that, sir. And you might want to take your own advice, you know." Jack paused and then added. "Sir."

"Point taken, son. I'll see you in a couple of days."

"Yes, sir." He hung up the phone and sat there for a moment, hands propped on his knees as he tried to find the energy to make it to the bathroom. As if it were a signal, a twinge in his groin area reinforced this notion and he rose to his feet with a groan.

As he staggered toward the bathroom, he reflected that it was a good thing he'd convinced Hammond not to send anyone over to check on him. With his luck, it'd be the Doc and she would have a field day if she could see the way he was acting now. He was just getting too damned old for the rough rides anymore. Yep, just getting too old period, Jack.

By the time he had reached the door to the bathroom, his head started to spin and he paused for a moment, hands propped against the doorjamb, to allow the room to settle down. Then he continued on and sank down onto the porcelain stool to do his business.

Jeez, Jack. You must be pooped. You haven't sat to pee since you were too young to know better. Must be those pills of doc's - the ones for the rash? Yep, that was probably it.

His most pressing business taken care of, he limped to the sink and stood there, gazing at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, and the bruises on his chest and shoulders were living up to Doc Fraiser's prediction at his last exam. The reddened areas were darker now, shading into mauves and purples. They didn't look near as painful as they were.

"Aw, to hell with it," Jack muttered to his reflection. Then, with one last look, he shook his head and turned around, his goal to reach his bed and the sleep he so obviously needed. He wasn't a young buck lieutenant anymore. No sirree.

***

"Do you know what your problem is? I'm right and you can't stand it." Rodney McKay's voice followed Major Samantha Carter as she hit the double doors of the science lab and kept going.

"I need a break..." she muttered between clenched teeth. "From work, from the SGC, and most especially from that arrogant, overbearing, self-important know-it-all ass named Rodney McKay."

Walter Harriman met her in the hallway and looked startled. "Are you okay, ma'am?"

"What?" She snapped. "Oh, I'm fine, just fine - despite what certain civilian scientists might say otherwise."

The sergeant's eyebrows climbed in surprise as he paused to speak to her. "McKay again?"

Shifting from foot to foot, Sam bit her lip and fingered the sleeve on her navy-blue fatigue shirt with her opposite hand. "Does it show?"

Harriman nodded, the overhead lights sparkling off his eyeglasses as he moved.

"Oh, sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about, ma'am. The man does have a way of getting under your skin - if you know what I mean."

"Yes, I do." She smiled with embarrassment. "And thanks."

"For what, ma'am?"

"Oh, I don't know, for taking the time to listen?" She licked her lips nervously and looked at her feet. "I guess we've all been under the gun lately, haven't we?"

"Yes, we have, ma'am. And thanks to you, we lived to tell about it - again."

"Yeah, we did, didn't we?" Her grin blossomed into a smile that lit her blue eyes.

Harriman's eyes twinkled as he leaned in close and whispered. "And no thanks to McKay, right?"

"I heard that." The sound of McKay's indignant sarcasm carried amazingly well through the closed doors of the science lab and down the hallway.

"Good, you needed to," Sam shot back with a grin of triumph. "Because I'm right and you can't stand it."

Blessed silence followed her down the hallway and into the commissary. Once there, she headed for the chow line and grabbed a tray. She picked up a salad and was about to leave with it when some pumpkin pie- topped with whipped cream - caught her eye. Sam paused for a moment and then sighed and added it to her tray. After putting up with Rodney, she deserved it, she told herself firmly.

She'd already thought that she'd escaped his attention when he left the first time. But no, the Air Force in its questionable wisdom didn't provide a flight back to Russia, and then decided that since he was already here, he should be put to work - 'installing' the Russian 'gate. Now all he did was bellyache about being expected to do the work of a common technician.

Shaking that whole line of thought from her head, Sam added a cup of coffee to her tray and looked around the room for an empty table. She'd been so preoccupied with her own problems that she'd neglected to see who else was there. And with Teal'c still in mourning over his wife's death, Jack on light duty, and... she steered her thoughts away from completing that thought and instead, concentrated on her visual sweep of the room.

"Over here, Sam," Janet Fraiser called out and beckoned to her with a wave of her hand.

Sam smiled with relief and headed for her friend's table. What with the threat from Anubis, and Jack's narrow save from same, accompanied closely by Teal'c's triumphant return from destroying the weapon that caused the whole problem, she hadn't had the chance to talk with her friend much. Janet's brand of irreverent humor would be most welcome right now, Sam realized. Between the two of them, they'd probably be able to come up with a wonderfully devious and painful way of dealing with McKay. And it would probably involve lemons. The man should have been forced to pay his own way back to Russia.

"You look like you could use a break, Sam," Janet commented as she sipped from her coffee cup. "Salad and pie?"

"And pie... and don't say a word," Sam ground out.

"My, you do need that break, don't you," Janet replied. "Let me guess... McKay again?"

"How'd you guess?" Sam picked up her fork and stabbed her salad several times with it.

"I've met the arrogant prig, remember?"

Sam blushed and held her forkful of lettuce in mid-air. "Yes, you have, and he is, isn't he?"

"What? An arrogant prig?"

Sam nodded and waved her fork emphatically.

Janet waved her hand at Sam and ducked. "Hey, you're supposed to eat that stuff, not get it airborne."

The fork stopped in mid-air while Sam gaped. Then she set it down. "So help me, Janet, if that... arrogant prig says one more word..." her words trailed off as she sighed in exasperation.

"You'll what, Sam. Shoot him?"

"Don't tempt me."

"It's probably because he has a terrible crush on you," Janet said with a smile.

With an expression of distaste, Sam stabbed her fork into her salad again and then pointed it at Janet, a leaf of lettuce dangled from its tines. "You know, he wanted to watch me get dressed, don't you?"

"So I'd heard," Janet chuckled. "I'm surprised you didn't deck him then." She smiled and her eyes twinkled with mischief. "He certainly deserved it... and I could've sold tickets to everyone that would've wanted to watch you clean his clock but good."

Janet's words didn't seem to register as Sam continued to attack her hapless salad. When she realized what she was doing, she took a deep breath and laid the fork down with an effort, captive lettuce and all. A single sprig stood at incongruous attention, a green flag of surrender that stood perpendicular to her tined utensil.

Her friend chuckled. "My, my, I haven't seen you this worked up in quite some time, Sam. Not since..." The unspoken name held suspended in the air and shattered their feeling of easy camaraderie.

Sam sobered. "Not since... I know, I miss him too."

Janet sobered and peeked over the rim of her coffee cup. "I just wish he would've given your Dad a chance to heal him, but I guess we'll never know, will we?"

"It's just not the same around here now. Even though Teal'c is back, he's been keeping to himself. The only time he comes out of his room at all is to workout in the gym or to eat. The colonel is... well, when he's not dodging Jonas he's... elsewhere." She cocked her head to one side in thought. "Well, I have been kept pretty busy with deciphering the results of the tests we ran on the cockpit module from the X-302. The colonel did drop in once..."

Sam leaned forward, her eyes fastened on her friend's face. "He's all right, isn't he?"

"What?" Apparently, Sam's sudden change of topic took the doctor by surprise.

"The colonel. He's still on light duty and seems, well - not himself lately."

Janet set down her cup and studied it. "There's only so much I can tell you, but then you know that."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Sam ventured and picked up her coffee cup to take a sip. "But it never hurts to ask." She picked up her fork and pried the mangled lettuce off its tines. "You would tell me if something was wrong, I mean, really wrong, wouldn't you?"

Janet took her time to answer and leaned toward her friend. "Have I ever kept anything from his team before?"

Sam looked down and licked her lips, suddenly embarrassed that she'd put her friend in such a position. "No, I guess not. Forget I brought it up."

"You mentioned the test results on the X-302. Was there anything interesting?"

Sam recognized the attempt to steer the topic into safer waters and grabbed it with both hands. "Now that you mention it, there was." Her fork sliced into the pie and transferred a piece to her mouth. Her eyes flickered shut for a moment of culinary ecstasy.

"Yes?" Janet prodded.

"According to the cockpit recorders, the 'gate very nearly exploded before the colonel could get it to the hyperspace window. As a matter of fact, some sort of energy discharge hit the cockpit just as he ejected."

"Oh, really?" Janet's eyes widened and her mouth opened in shock.

Sam nodded as she warmed up to her subject. "Yes, they first noticed it in Area 51 when a Geiger counter registered high levels of radioactivity when the cockpit was brought into the laboratory bay. Then, when I studied a piece of metal from the cockpit, it tested positive for radioactivity emitted from naquadria. When the energy surge from the 'gate struck the cockpit, it must have reacted with the naquadria in the hyperspace window generator somehow. I've already sent my preliminary findings to General Hammond."

Janet set her cup down with exaggerated care. "What did you just say?"

Sam wiped her mouth with her napkin and forked up another piece of pie with whipped cream. "What?"

"I'm not kidding, Sam. Did you just say that the cockpit module tested positive for the same kind of radioactivity that killed Daniel Jackson?"

"Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, that's what I was arguing with that arrogant prig about," Sam nodded and then her eyes widened. "Holy Hannah."

When she looked up, Janet was disappearing out the commissary door on the run.