Chemical Awareness, by Amaranth Traces

-- Chapter 5 --

After telling Daniel that she’d be back to talk to him again in a few hours, Sam followed Janet into the doctor’s office.

“So,” started Janet, closing her office door gesturing for Sam to have a seat. “How does it feel to have the two most eligible bachelors on the base eating out of the palm of your hand?” She couldn’t have hid her grin if she tried.

Sam slumped in the chair and buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, Janet. Please tell me that this chemical is responsible for everything.”

Janet sighed. “As far as I can tell, all this chemical is doing is reducing their inhibitions – making them more aggressive. But it’s not making them feel things they don’t really feel. It’s just reducing their ability to do nothing about it.”

“You mean that the things they’re saying and doing are things they have wanted to do, but before they were able to restrain themselves?” Sam looked at her friend in horror. She and the Colonel had flirted in the past, but that was a long time ago. She had moved on, and she thought he had as well.

Daniel’s behaviour had her completely confused. He had never given any indication that he was attracted to her, although she would be lying if she said she thought of him in a purely platonic sense.

During the time he was ascended, Sam had done a lot of soul-searching about her feelings for Daniel. She loved everyone on her team as if they were family, but while Daniel was gone, she realised that her feelings for him ran deeper than that. After they found him, and he had regained his memory, things had picked up almost exactly where they had left off, and she never told him her feelings. She had decided that keeping him as a friend was more important.

Janet’s assessment of the situation might just change everything.

There was a quick knock on the door and someone entered to hand Janet a folder. “Here are those test results you’ve been waiting for, Dr. Frasier.”

“Thank you,” replied Janet, immediately opening the folder and examining its contents.

“Is that about Daniel and the Colonel?” asked Sam.

“Yes…” murmured the doctor, engrossed in her reading.

Sam waited impatiently for her to finish. At last, Janet looked at Sam. She was smiling.

“Their second blood tests show a slight decrease in the unknown chemical from the first tests, and no trace of it at all in your and Teal’c’s results. In a few hours, I’ll have the results from the third set of samples we just took. If the concentrations are still dropping, then it should be safe to assume that their bodies will take care of the problem alone.”

“And once this compound is out of their systems they’ll be back to their normal, restrained selves?”

“I don’t see why not.” Janet looked at Sam and sighed. “But I have a feeling that it will take some time to overcome everything that’s been happening here.”

Sam shook her head. “Yeah, I know.” Another thought came to her. “Would it be possible to umm...leave out the details about exactly the effect this thing has had on them? I mean, you’re only speculating that all it’s doing is lowering their inhibitions, right? You don’t know for sure?” Sam barrelled on, not waiting for her friend to answer her questions. “I mean it could theoretically be making them feel things that they don’t really feel, right?”

“Sam, I can’t blatantly lie in my report.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to, Janet. All I’m asking is that if you’re not completely certain what this chemical has done to them that you include other theories about possible effects it might have had. Something like...” Sam thought for a moment, then continued in an official voice. “‘The unknown compound appeared to cause outbursts of aggression between the affected individuals. Additional tests would be required, although they are not recommended, to determine if the compound created a chemical imbalance in the patients’ brains, causing them to exhibit—’” Sam broke off, unable to verbalize what she had been witness to since returning from their mission.

“You know, you might be on to something.” Janet adopted a thoughtful look, and continued. “What about ‘…causing them to exhibit territorial behaviour over the first person of the opposite sex that they came into contact with after exposure.’?”

Sam looked at her friend hopefully. “Would you be comfortable putting that in your report?”

Janet bobbed her head back and forth. “Well, it’s not impossible, and it would certainly help your team mates cope with their behaviour...but it won’t help you. And it certainly won’t keep the base’s rumour mill at bay.”

Sam bit her lip and nodded. “I know. I can deal with my own emotional turmoil, but I don’t want the aftermath of this situation to tear apart the team.”

Janet looked at her for a moment. “Sam, can I ask you a question, as a friend?”

A little nervous, Sam nodded.

“Do you love them?”

“They’re like family to me, Janet.”

“Yeah, I know. But did you know that there’s a pool at the base about which one of the three of them you’re going to end up with?”

“What?!”

“My money’s on Daniel. Most of my nurses have bet on Jack, but I think that’s probably just because they’re holding out hope that Daniel will stay free for them to fantasize about.”

“Are you serious?”

“A lot of people were betting on Teal’c while Daniel was...away. Even I noticed how you really leaned on him for support that year. In fact, I almost changed my bet. A lot of people did after Daniel uh...left. But I had seen him die on my table too many times to believe that he’d never be back again.”

Sam was dumbfounded. She stared at her friend with her mouth hanging open.

“So, I’ll ask you again. Do you love them?”

Sam closed both her mouth and her eyes and sighed heavily. “I doubt that anyone is going to win that pool, Janet. But if anyone did, it’d be you.”

Janet grinned triumphantly. “You do love Daniel!”

“I don’t think I even realised it until after he ascended,” Sam said glumly.

“When this is all over, you have to tell him.”

“I can’t, Janet. In the interest of the team, the best plan of action is to let them think that I believe their actions under the influence were just that – under the influence. It doesn’t matter if it’s true…what matters is that they think they were.”

“I still think you should talk to him. Tell him how you feel. That poor guy deserves some happiness in his life, Sam. And you two really are perfect for each other.”

Sam stared at the floor, lost in thought.

“Besides, I’ve had my eye on a fabulous new outfit. The money from the pool would give it a new home in my closet.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh. She smiled gratefully at her friend. This had been a trying day and it was good to laugh.

Janet gazed at her for another moment before switching smoothly back into military-doctor-mode. “Colonel O’Neill and Daniel both seem to respond to you quite well, so if you don’t mind, I’d like you to make regular visits to both of them. Not in the room with them, of course, but from the observation areas. If you can keep them from tearing the place apart and from injuring my staff, that would be great. When I get the latest test results, I should be able to come up with a timeline to estimate when the chemical will be eliminated from their systems. In the meantime, why don’t you go and get some rest. I’ll wake you if we need you.”

Sam was about to protest, but Dr. Frasier raised her hand to stop her. “No arguments. Have you seen how busy my infirmary is? The last thing I need is an astrophysicist who’s smart enough to save the planet from annihilation I-don’t-know-how-many-times collapsing from exhaustion because she’s not actually smart enough to know when she needs sleep.”

Sam rolled her eyes, but stood up. She knew that the petite doctor could be even more stubborn than Sam herself.

“You’ll let me know if there are any changes?”

“You’ll be the first to know.”

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