Janet, Solitudes (for karathephantom)

When Janet arrived on-duty that morning, she found Daniel still unconscious and Teal'c hovering at his bedside. Dr. Warner quietly updated her on the situation, including Sam and Jack's missing status.

Janet approached Daniel's bed, her heels clicking deliberately. Teal'c's courteous nod of acknowledgment failed to mask the tension in his eyes. Seeing that frozen non-expression, Janet chose not to make an issue out of his missing sling.

"Is it normal for humans to suffer unconsciousness for so long?" Teal'c finally asked her.

"Humans are remarkably resilient," Janet answered gently, meaningfully. "We'll get them all back, Teal'c. You'll see."

*

Linnea, Prisoners (for aelfgyfu_mead)

New prisoners were rare now in Hadante. The Taldor's reputation for swift and absolute punishment kept their subjects obedient and submissive.

So when the Great Circle activated at a time when food was unexpected, Linnea hastened to see who had arrived. Newcomers were usually swiftly and mercilessly slaughtered, but they might somehow alter the balance of power.

Of the five who spilled onto the ground, only one seemed the usual prisoner. The others were different, intriguing. Linnea moved swiftly to ensure the woman's safety from the denizens. It was partly compassion, but mostly pragmatic: to serve her craving to know.

*

Sam, Crystal Skull (for ansostuff)

Shaky and strained, Sam sank into a chair and gratefully accepted the glass of water from Janet. None of this made sense! It must have been the crystal skull that caused Daniel to disappear, but Rothman had been completely unaffected. Why?

Her tired mind tried to catalogue the possibilities: muon radiation, residual energy, even pyramid theory. Something, anything that might help them!

A sudden shiver ran through her, and she quickly tightened her grip on the glass. "Did anyone else feel that?" she demanded.

Janet blamed the radiation, but for Sam, it felt more like dread of losing a friend.

*

Janet, The Fifth Man (for curuchamion)

Janet slowly rubbed thumb and forefinger together. Despite the layer of plastic between her own skin and Teal'c's stained uniform, she'd absorbed enough of the chemical to get that visualization of Tyler's smiling face. She had a theory, now; it was more than she'd had before. But what could she do with it?

Sam was right: if she told the general that she'd been exposed, she'd be just as suspect as SG-1.

On the other hand...

Janet's mouth twitched into a grim smile as she headed for the MRI room. A good doctor never minded self-experimentation, after all.

*

Reece, Menace (for zats_clear)

"Go to sleep," Daniel begged her. "We'll find a way."

Go to sleep? Reece shuddered, remembering that not time after her father instructed her to sleep. She'd been cut off from all sensation. Days, seasons, years -- even eons drifted past without her knowledge. Humans dreamed, she'd been told, but for her, "sleep" was blank. Empty. Nothingness.

It must be like being dead.

But her toys were killing humans again, and they couldn't wake up afterwards. Maybe they didn't want sleep, either.

"I don't believe you!" she cried, but she could feel not time creeping up on her, just the same.

*

Sam, Nightwalkers (for penknife)

The prospect of permanent loss of self terrified Sam most.

Jolinar, at least, had been Tok'ra; Sam had been fairly certain that the symbiote wasn't going to use her body to commit atrocities, and she'd believed Jolinar's promise to release her off-world.

Now, though, she felt the horrible slither of scales on skin, felt the sharp pain of entry, sensed her head jerk upwards and eyes open without any direction from her own mind...

She was gambling everything on an untested substance, but only time would tell if she'd ever be allowed to scream outside her own head again.


*

Cassie, Heroes (for da_angel729)

Cassie carefully closed the front door on the two women in dress blues who had brought her the news. As members of Janet's infirmary staff, she knew them both well. Later, perhaps, she would even remember their names.

She walked slowly into the living room and sat on the couch, watching dust motes drifting gently in the air.

This wasn't the first time she'd lost a mother. At least this world still existed, and others that she loved had survived.

But Sam and the others couldn't save her at the last minute any more. Janet's last minute was already over.

*

Lindsey Novak, Prometheus Unbound (for campylobacter)

A friend once asked Lindsey why she'd gone into a such a stressful field when she reacted so strongly to nervous tension. Lindsey had simply stared before finally saying, "So, I should give up something I love for a few hiccups?"

It was embarrassing at times, certainly. But Lindsey wasn't going to let herself be defined by her diaphragm muscles.

After the Prometheus mission, when she'd encountered something even more stressful than defending her dissertation and survived, Lindsey Novak left her hiccups behind. There were two galaxies of wonder out there, and she wasn't going to miss it for anything.

Teal'c, Solitudes

Teal'c saw Major Castleman land awkwardly and off-balance, but he was too far away to stop the man from falling over the side of the narrow ledge. Moving with due caution, Teal'c reached the edge and peered downwards. Castleman's unconscious body sprawled several meters below.

Teal'c considered ignoring the injured man and continuing the search, but he set his jaw and began the perilous descent. While taking Castleman back would mean a dangerous delay, O'Neill would expect no less of him. He would honor his teammates by acting as they would, even at the risk of their own lives.

*

Daniel, Legacy (for maevebran)

Daniel stared hard at featureless white, watching it blur and tilt until a sudden, jolting impact made him realize that he'd fallen sideways. He could feel sanity peeling away, cracking off in chunks that drifted into winking dust. Footsteps echoed somewhere beyond his eardrums, conjured into being with the scent of rotting flesh.

He tried to reach out and grasp the skittering remnants of Daniel, but they skipped away, squeaking with distress. He wondered what it would be like when they'd all gone.

Then the door opened, and what was left tried to focus on the specter of his friends.

*

Jack, The Tomb (for greenbirds)

Peace treaties read very nicely on paper, Jack told himself sourly. But he'd spent years in the field honing his gut instincts for an enemy, and you couldn't turn that off just because of a couple of signatures in Washington and Moscow.

He'd made his protests clear, but Hammond had been even clearer: Jack had to take a Russian team through the Gate.

He checked his weapon one last time, then jammed his cap onto his head.

"After you," he told Zukhov sardonically.

Going off-world with Russians was one thing. Jack wasn't going to let them at his back.

*

Jonas, Abyss (for izhilzha)

As a scientist, Jonas knew that objective, dispassionate observation offered the best results. But it was hard to remain calm and clinical with Colonel O'Neill missing.

He forced himself to take a mental step backwards and position himself as alien, with a mindset different from both Tok'ra and Tau'ri. After all, on Kelowna, Colonel O'Neill's very existence would've been denied. Maybe looking at both the SGC's and the Tok'ra's cultural values from the outside could --

His eyes widened as he suddenly made the connection: what happens when a Tok'ra operative absorbs the Tau'ri determination not to leave their people behind?

*

Mitchell, The Lost City

Cameron was vaguely aware that this new absence of pain in his legs was not a good thing. But the cold continued to creep upwards, a false warmth that was lulling him towards that final slumber.

He blinked slowly, heavily, and tried to focus his waning attention on the crackling voice on his radio.

"It's beautiful," he heard. He wondered what that meant.

"It's SG-1," someone else was saying. "They found..."

"Just exploding everywhere!" another voice cried.

It sounded like they'd won.

Cameron smiled sleepily into the dark. He regretted dying, of course. But some things were worth dying for.