Chapter Text
"Sick" Series #2 - Cough Syrup
Wednesday, August 19, 1998
DANIEL JACKSON
Daniel woke with a hacking cough. It felt like his chest was all mucked up and there was a big dog sitting on it. Except that he was alone in bed and there wasn't a dog anywhere in sight, so that wasn't a good sign.
The coughing made his nose run. He tried to reach the tissue box, but it was too far away, so he reluctantly pushed himself upright and then leaned over. In the dim lighting, it was further away than it looked, and he toppled over, landing with a thump on the soft carpet by his bed.
Not a great way to start the day, he thought, staring up at the ceiling. He sniffed, then coughed again. His stomach felt hungry. Or maybe not. Last night he thought he was hungry and then he wasn't. He was sick.
Maybe he was still sick! No, Jack said he'd feel better in the morning, so he better feel better. Jack was a busy guy and had lots of work to do. Jack had another big meeting in the morning, so he wouldn't want to stay home because of Daniel. And Daniel was fairly sure that Jack wouldn't let him stay home by himself if he was sick, especially since Jack wouldn't let him stay at home by himself if he wasn't sick.
And Jack wouldn't send him to Catherine's if he was sick, because Catherine was old, and she and Ernest were what Daniel's mother used to call 'frail'. His mother had called the wife of one of their workers 'frail' and then she died a few days later. Catherine wasn't frail like that, but she was wrinkly, the same as the worker's wife. Daniel didn't want to take a chance with Catherine. Being frail was a dangerous thing sometimes.
So I'll just have to be well, Daniel thought, nodding, staring up at the ceiling. He gave a really big sniff in, so his nose wouldn't run when he sat up. It mostly worked, at least long enough for him to get up and find a tissue. He used up almost four full tissues blowing his nose, and he flushed them down the toilet, so Jack wouldn't know.
Jack couldn't find out he was sick, so he had to be smart. He had to convince Jack he was okay or Jack would miss work, and then General Hammond might get mad.
Daniel got dressed, hiding in the closet so if he coughed, Jack couldn't hear him. It worked pretty good, because Jack didn't come in his room at all. Maybe because it was only four o'clock in the morning and Jack was still asleep. But probably it was because Daniel had hid in the closet first to cough.
He poked his head out, curious that his shirts now were so short he could stand beneath them and still see okay. He closed the door to the closet again and coughed inside under the shirts just to make sure he got rid of most of the coughs, then he quickly headed to the kitchen. He'd have breakfast, so Jack would know he was okay.
Daniel stared into the cupboard with the breakfast cereal. Too bad about no Cheerios. Cheerios would have been the perfect thing to eat. You could put whatever kind of sugar you wanted on them, because they weren't sweetened already, so that was good. They tasted even better with lots and lots of sugar on them, Daniel had discovered last week. Brown sugar didn't work right, though. White sugar was best, Daniel had found.
But there weren't any Cheerios. Just Jack's cereal and the granola. He moved the granola aside and stared at the box of Fruit Loops. They almost looked like Cheerios except they were different colors. They were supposed to be fruit colors, but they sure didn't have any fruit in them. More false advertising, Daniel thought, with a sad sigh.
At least Cheerios were honest. They cheered him up and they were shaped like O's, so they were cheery o's. Maybe Fruit Loops should be called Fruit-Colored O's. Because they weren't real fruit and they weren't loops, either. They were Os.
Dejected, Daniel stared at the box of Fruit Loops. He opened up the top and looked inside, but the smell kinda didn't make him feel very good, so he put it back on the shelf. The granola smelled okay, but he didn't feel like eating that either. It was too crunchy. And nutty or something. There were just too many things about it.
He didn't really feel like anything, even though he was hungry, but he had to convince Jack that he felt okay, so he had to eat something or Jack would know for sure he wasn't a hundred percent well yet.
He checked out the fridge again. Then the cereal cupboard, just in case maybe there really was Cheerios in it, maybe at the back somewhere. But there wasn't. So what could he eat?
Or, he could pretend that he ate something...
Daniel stayed really still for a moment and listened. He couldn't hear him or anything, but he was pretty sure it was Stanley who was excited about seeing if he could fool Jack. And it was for a good reason, too, so that didn't count as anything bad, right?
Daniel got one of the really big bowls out, then sprinkled a few pieces of granola on the bottom of the bowl, and then tilted the milk jug so just a few drops of milk splashed into the bowl. He stirred the little bit around inside the bowl and stuck it where he usually sat now at the table. Then he put the bag of granola and the milk away.
Going to the door of the kitchen, he turned around and came back in and pretended to be Jack coming into the kitchen. Oh, look. An empty bowl on the table. Daniel must have eaten already.
Yeah, it would work. Perfect.
A cough was sneaking up on him, so Daniel ran back down the hall, shut the door to his bedroom, then went into his closet and shut that door. He coughed a few times, then one really big barking kinda cough that almost scared him. He thought the inside of his throat might accidentally be coughed up. And it was really a good thing he hadn't had breakfast, or it might have been coughed up, too.
When he was pretty sure he was all coughed up, he left the closet and got another tissue, blew his nose good, and then flushed the tissues.
Now what? Daniel went back into his room and stared at his bed. He should probably make the bed. It sure looked soft and comfortable, though. It would have been nice to crawl back into it and let his eyes close and go back to sleep.
It sure was a nice bed. And the good part about it was that his feet didn't stick over the edge now. Maybe when he got taller again, Jack would buy one of those extra-long beds for him, in case he spent the night here again. He remembered his feet always stuck out here. His bed at his apartment was extra long, because he liked sleeping all stretched out. Jack liked sleeping kinda curled up, but Daniel often liked to stretch, stretch, stretch.
He jumped on the bed and had a good stretch, trying to see if he could touch the wall with the very tips of his fingers, and see how long down his feet would go, maybe all the way to the bottom of the bed. But they didn't even go down partway.
He yawned, rolling to his side. The pillow felt nice beneath his head. Maybe it would be okay to just stay home today.
No! He had to be good to Jack. Jack needed him to be well.
Daniel jumped out of bed. Maybe he just needed to wake up more. He tried running around the room in circles, but that just made him dizzy, and then he had to go in the closet and cough some more.
Cough syrup! That's what he needed. Daniel tried to remember if Jack had cough syrup, but he didn't think so.
Maybe he could make a cough syrup. Daniel turned his laptop on and headed onto the internet. Ten minutes later he found what he was looking for: a recipe for cough syrup. He carefully wrote down the ingredients and headed to the kitchen.
Honey. Jack had honey, in one of those plastic little bears that you squeezed. It looked kinda old and sticky, but it was honey and that's what counted.
Lemon juice. Daniel rummaged in the produce section of the fridge and found some limes, but no lemons. Jack liked limes with beer. But limes and honey didn't sound very good. He kept looking and found a bottle of lemon juice on the door of the fridge. Perfect.
And then it said to add frozen fruit concentrate to the mix, because kids liked it flavored. Daniel moved the stepstool over to the fridge and tried to open the freezer part on top, but it was a little too difficult. Instead, he found some chocolate syrup in the cupboard and knew that would do the trick.
As carefully as he could -- and only running to the bedroom closet once to cough -- he tried to mix two tablespoons of honey and one tablespoon of lemon juice. But since that was two to one, he just took a little glass and squeezed and squeezed the honey bear and then poured half that much of lemon juice in it. He stuck his finger in it, but it was kind of hard honey, and the juice was just sitting on top of it. So, he put the glass in the microwave just for ten seconds and then the honey was soft and it stirred up good. It didn't say how much of the fruit concentrate, but to flavor it really well, Daniel figured he would just fill up the rest of the glass with the chocolate syrup. It would make everything more syrupy, anyway.
Once it was all mixed to his satisfaction, he looked at his list again. The two tablespoons of honey and one of lemon juice equaled one dose, it said. And then he'd added chocolate. So that meant a dose was about six tablespoons in all. And since he was in a kid's body, maybe half that would work. So back to three tablespoons.
It tasted kinda odd, but then most cough syrups did. It also made him want to cough.
He ran back to the closet with his glass of cough syrup and decided to drink the whole glass, because then it would work quicker. It wasn't like it was drugs or anything, so he wouldn't overdose himself.
Then he had to wait for it to work. He wondered how long it would take, because it made him cough and burp at the same time.
It sure took a long time to work.
A long, long time.
Way longer than he thought.
He didn't have a watch, but it must be almost an hour since he took it.
He still had a tickle on his throat though, so maybe he should just sit there in the closet until the last minute, just before Jack got up.
Yeah.
That's what he would do. That's what... he... do...
JACK O'NEILL
I woke up and glanced at my bedside clock. I needed to go check on Daniel, see how he made it through the night. I had checked on him at ten the night before, then again before I went to bed, and he was sleeping soundly.
I eased out of bed, hit the ensuite bathroom, and then down the hall to Daniel's room. He wasn’t there.
Not in the main bathroom. And not in the kitchen, although there were clear signs he'd been there.
I glanced at the big mixing bowl on the dining room table with a few bits of granola in it and some milk. And a big spoon stuck in it. I checked the cereal cupboard, but although the bag of granola had been opened, it was still mostly full, so whatever Daniel had been doing with the big mixing bowl, it wasn't eating cereal.
The kitchen counter was sticky with what looked like honey, lemon juice and chocolate syrup. I checked the garbage can, and sure enough there was an empty chocolate syrup container in it. How much chocolate milk had Daniel made for himself? Daniel had just bought the chocolate syrup at Safeway the day before!
And where exactly was Daniel?
Not in the living room. The security system was still on, so he hadn't left the house, thank God.
I checked the basement; no sign of Daniel.
Now what? I scratched his head. I clearly wasn't awake enough to deal with a Daniel-mystery at this time of day. I stood in the hallway, yawned, and listened to see if I could hear him and there was a faint cough coming from... maybe Daniel's room? I stood at the entrance to the room and leaned in, listening. Again the cough, coming from...
I walked over and opened the closet door. Curled on the floor, sound asleep in among his shoes, was Daniel. Dressed in his desert BDUs.
I leaned down and picked him up. "Hey, kiddo. What are you doing?" I asked, rearranging the pliant, drowsy body on my hip.
"I'm feeling great, Jack," Daniel whispered, his eyes closed. "I'm ready to go to work so you won't miss your meeting."
"I cancelled my meeting last night, sport. You were sick, remember? I told General Hammond I wouldn't be in today."
"You did?" Daniel opened one eye and looked at me.
"I did. How come you're dressed?"
"But you have a meeting, Jack."
"That why I cancelled it. How's your stomach?" I retrieved an empty glass from the floor of the closet and sniffed it. "What did you drink? Pure chocolate syrup?"
"We're not going in today?" Daniel mumbled.
"Not today. I thought we could use a down day." With Daniel on my hip, I headed down the hallway to the kitchen and put the glass in the sink.
"Oh."
"How's your stomach?" I persisted.
Daniel coughed, and then hiccupped. "Not so good."
"Yeah. Why did you drink the chocolate syrup?"
"It was cough syrup, Jack."
"Cough syrup? More like a sugar rush. I'm amazed you fell asleep with chocolate and honey mixed."
"And lemon juice," Daniel whispered, his head on my shoulder.
Shuddering, I retrieved the newspaper from the front porch, got my brewed coffee that I had set up the night before, and then settled us both on the couch. Daniel was running a bit of a temperature, and I supposed that there was some extremely good reason why Daniel thought chocolate syrup was the same as cough syrup. Even the thought made me want to gag. Then again, this was Daniel who ate all sorts of weird things.
Well, the little cuddler was settled in nicely, nestled up against me and sleeping soundly. Sleep was good, right?
I had just finished the morning's headlines when Daniel raised his head a little from my chest and looked around blearily. "How're you doing?" I asked softly, not sure how awake he was.
Daniel looked up at me, smiled sleepily and put his head back down. "Fine," he whispered, sighing, and going back to sleep, comfortably.
I gave him a gentle hug, kissed the damp forehead, and let him sleep. No matter how Daniel felt physically, at least his spirit was 'fine', which was all I could really hope for.
But... chocolate syrup and lemon juice?
continued...