![[I saw three ships]](../img/2007icon.png)
It was always startling, coming back into your body.
It was pretty startling coming out of it, too, of course, but he didn't really remember much more than a tugging sensation this time, and then frustration of not being able to touch anything, not being able to reach for anything, not being able to do anything but wander nondescript hallways alone for however long had it been…
But that first gasp of real breath, that first overwhelming sensation of every nerve, muscle and sinew suddenly responding where up to immediately before, only aching phantom sensations had been the responses to his wishful thinking…
Startling, as a word, perhaps didn't actually cover it. At some point, he really should take the time to find the right collection of words in various languages to precisely express the sensation.
But as usual, there wasn't time to do more than to acknowledge it, to give thanks for lungs and heart successfully pumping and limbs all being present, to take a sweet breath and then another of the chill air, and to force himself to move.
And so Daniel moved, looking for a way out, and looking for the rest of the team. At least he had all of his clothing this time, but damn it, his glasses were missing again. Or maybe not, he thought, reaching for them atop his head.
Sam shuddered, wrenched herself free of the table-bed thing that she'd found herself on, and rolled to a defensive position next to it, pulse and mind racing. Her fists clenched… hell, her whole body clenched — what a strange feeling — as she took in the near-featureless stone room and the one doorway out.
She was shaking a bit, but it wasn't all that bad. She still seemed to have all of her weapons, and her radio, so she carefully clicked it twice on her way to the doorway, listening for a response as she peered down the corridor. It seemed clear, and there was only one way to go, so one quick, quiet step at a time, she made her way out.
Hopefully Jack or Daniel would answer. It sure would have been nice to have Teal'c or Cam along on this mission, but it wasn't supposed to have been complicated or dangerous, just a bit of supposedly already-proven-harmless Ancient-related technology they'd needed someone with the gene to check out activating…
Oh, he was really, really getting too old for this shit.
This wasn't supposed to have been a difficult mission at all, but then, their luck hadn't improved all that much over the years, and what was a trip offworld without some sort of out-of-body experience for at least one of them… but being a General was supposed to keep him away from such fun little on-the-job hazards, even if maybe, just maybe, it was possibly his turn for some of this crap.
Speaking of bodies… knees weren't supposed to actually creak, and shoulders shouldn't sound like snap-crackly-popping breakfast cereal, and skin wasn't supposed to crackle and tingle with static everywhere.
Ow.
But… able to move again, check. Not actually bound or locked to anything in this bland room, check. No baddies immediately threatening, check. Team… missing. Bad.
Right, off to find the wayward kids.
The radio clicked twice, and he was halfway down the silent corridor as he answered, the old protocols surfacing right on cue.
Way to go, Carter…
As alien technology messing with them went, this mission hadn't ranked up there with the nasty ones, they had all admitted.
At the same time, it would have been nice to know what this particular technology had intended by disembodying three quarters of Earth's flagship team for three days to seemingly wander the nondescript tunnels, finally zapping them to another part of the structure entirely, and back into what appeared to be fine health.
At least the return trip, courtesy of the security detail that had charged in to rescue them, had gone completely uneventfully. It was just weird, even for SG-1, perhaps especially for SG-1, since most of the time, once missions had started to go wrong, they usually went more wrong before somehow pulling up out of those sorts of nosedives at the last minute.
But in the end they'd all come out of this one in one piece, even if they didn't know precisely why. And the techs were going to have to do a lot more Earth-based research before any team was allowed back to that special little planet. So much for their presumed increases in understanding Ancient technology and its accompanying unhelpful documentation.
Ah, well, can't make sense of them all, Jack had said.
They'd all been having a beer at Jack's place when the reaction had finally settled in.
If Sam had been paying more attention to the game on Jack's ridiculously large TV, she wouldn't have picked up on it, but as it was, when she herself started absently running one hand over the other, intertwining her fingers over and over against the cool glass of the bottle in her hands, she noticed.
Jack couldn't seem to stop rubbing his hands. He'd tossed back most of his beer already, and had taken to smoothing his hands down over his thigh to rub at his knees softly.
Daniel had wrapped his arms around himself, almost as though he couldn't quite get warm.
Sam forced herself to stop entangling her fingers, sat her beer aside, and hoisted herself out of the far corner of the couch to flop into the middle, next to Daniel. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder, … nothing sudden, not moving too fast, just the comfort of touch.
Years back they'd realized that just the simple touch of a caring friend made all the difference after any kind of offworld trauma, and if sometimes that touch became more than that, well, no one asked and no one told and they just went on with the business of saving the planet. Sometimes one member of the team would offer comfort to another as they'd healed, sometimes it had been more of a group activity, but they'd all taken such interactions in stride and somehow, it had all just worked, at least until Jack's promotion…
Daniel stiffened his back slightly, then ducked his head a bit, realizing and accepting, and then sat his beer aside and turned to face her. It had never really been easy for him to admit that he could use the help, accept the comfort, but at some point he had made the conscious decision to do so.
"Thanks, Sam," he murmured.
Just as quietly, she said, "No problem. And it's not just you."
He nodded, and as she leaned into his shoulder, he let her into the solid curl of his arm and settled it around her.
Jack turned the volume up on the game, and then stood and closed the distance over to the couch. "Nope, it's not."
Daniel reached out to Jack. "Yeah, I know. It's like you're not sure you're really back in your own skin, isn't it? Like it doesn't really feel like it's your own body any more."
Sam nodded against his shoulder as Jack took his hand.
"Yeah. C'mon, the bed's bigger." Jack reached out his other hand to Sam, and the next moment, they were all standing. He had Sam tucked under one arm, and his other arm around Daniel's waist, and he wasn't above using his new rank to deal painful bureaucratic death to anyone outside the team who ever gave him any crap about group hug moments, because gosh, it felt good to be home.
And one of them was going to need to have a little chat with the new guy about team dynamics before Jack headed back to Washington.
![[fin]](../img/2007banner.png)