With the time approaching one in the morning, the infirmary was quiet as Doctor Janet Fraiser, the CMO, made her early morning rounds. For once, her domain was virtually empty. Captain Walker of SG-7 was recovering from an acute case of food poisoning due to something he’d eaten on M3X-719, and she was keeping Lieutenant Thompson from SG-12 in overnight, as the young officer had suffered a slight concussion falling down a flight of stairs early the previous evening. She had told her night nurse to take a break for half an hour or so, and Marie Saunders had gladly agreed, just to relieve the monotony of the virtually deserted infirmary. At any hour of the day, you were pretty much guaranteed to find someone in the commissary; be it one of Janet’s medical team, SG teams returning at odd hours, or just one of the many scientists in the Mountain who had chosen an intake of caffeine so they could stay up just a few more hours to finish off whatever project they were currently working on. Janet counted herself as the first and last two; her best friend, Sam Carter was classified as the last two, as had her partner, Daniel Jackson, before his ascension a year previously. Janet had lost count of the times she had told them off for overdosing on caffeine instead of getting some much needed natural sleep. At least with Daniel she had been able to coerce him to bed most of the time, although quite often that had involved less sleep for her; not that she had complained. Sam was more liable to fall asleep with her head on the desk, and Janet had on occasion, to save waking her, used the other two members of SG-1 to carry her to her quarters. There had been a few exceptions over the past six years when Janet had just let her continue working; normally when the fate of the world was at stake. However, the one that Janet remembered most clearly was towards the end of the SGC’s third year of operations, when Sam had worked almost day and night for three months just to bring her commanding officer, Colonel Jack O’Neill, home, after he had been stranded on an alien planet. Janet knew that Sam and the Colonel had feelings for each other, especially after she and Teal’c, SG-1’s fourth member, had been privy to a confession of feelings between the two of them when they had been falsely accused of being brainwashed Goa’uld assassins. Janet had never told anyone about what she had witnessed that day; not even Daniel, knowing the consequences that the pair could face as Sam was an officer under Jack’s command. Déjà vu had struck earlier that year, with Jack being trapped off world again, and Sam had been forced to face her fears of losing him, especially having lost Daniel at the beginning of the year.
Losing Daniel had been hard for all of them. To the rest of SG-1, Daniel had been considered a brother, while Janet had lost the man she loved. It had been hard to adjust to having Jonas Quinn replacing their lost friend on SG-1, but he was certainly part of the team now, and Janet considered him a good friend too. But he couldn’t replace Daniel; no one could.
Janet was pulled out of her musings by the sound of movement in the corner. With the main lights turned off for the sake of those sleeping, shadows played across the walls, and the corners were especially dark. Janet couldn’t help but shiver, her mind casting back to the horror stories she had read to her sister when she had been about ten, trying to scare the younger girl. And her own daughter, Cassandra, had loved to read them; surprisingly, considering what she had endured at the hands of the Goa’uld had been a horror story in itself.
“Hello?” She called out softly, not wanting to disturb the two sleeping officers. She cautiously moved in the direction of the sound, which was out of the main infirmary, and in a small room next door used for nurses and visitors to sit in.
Her hand groped around on the wall, reaching for the light switch, and when she found it and flicked it on, she winced slightly at the bright light. Adjusting to the change in light intensity, she gasped as she saw a very familiar figure crouched in the corner; arm thrown across the face to protect from the light.
In front of her, was Doctor Daniel Jackson, huddled on the floor, as naked as the day he was born. “Daniel?” she exclaimed, moving to kneel down by him. His skin was warm to her touch as she placed a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to look up at her.
“Uh, hi Janet,” he said, moving the arm away from his face, seeming remarkably insouciant about his lack of clothing. “Surprise.”
Cue titles and rest of episode, or black screen with “To Be Continued...”