Chapter Text
The meeting was... unpleasant. Jack didn't like having his frailties -- very literal ones, this time -- aired so publicly. But there was no choice, not really. As soon as the doctors pronounced him to be in no danger of tottering into the grave, Hammond had demanded a full debriefing. Jack couldn't blame him, considering how close this had come to disaster. So he swallowed his pride and dealt with it, just like he always did.
Despite the arthritic aches and pains that accompanied every move, the debriefing didn't seem too bad. They recounted their actions and decisions, pausing only when Hammond consulted the paperwork in front of him. Things got uglier, though, when Doc Warner delicately mentioned "questionable consent" and started to murmur things about "psychological effects" and "counseling" and...
Jack's palms slammed down on the table, bringing the rambling monologue to a startled halt. All eyes focused on him, and he hated the gleams of sympathy in two of those gazes. Teal'c and Hammond, at least, had the decency to remain impassive.
He held back the wince from the pain that had shot through his gnarled joints at his rash move. It was better than yesterday, after all. He could handle it for the few days more it would take to get back to normal.
"Kynthia was as much a victim as I was," he said distinctly, biting out each word to hide the elderly quaver in his voice. "She assumed I knew that cake was an official offer of marriage. And she was only nineteen days old, for cryin' out loud! She wasn't trying to drug me or force me or --" He stopped, breathed. "Leave it, Doc. I came, I got burned, I got back home."
"There was no way to recognize that the Argosians were essentially children, Doctor Warner," Daniel said smoothly, directing attention away from Jack. "Even if they were physically mature, it's impossible to expect a group of people to learn and grow in only a handful of days. They had no teachers, no mentors."
Carter gave a sudden start. "It just occurred to me," she said, looking slightly horrified. "If baby Danel turned almost two in only a day, how did Thetys manage to get pregnant and carry to term? Do you think the fetus gestated in only nine hours?" She looked appealingly at Warner. "How could her body have survived that?"
Warner, after a thoughtful pause, launched into a detailed explanation that was a lot more graphic than any of the males in the room -- females, too, probably, judging from Carter's squeamish expression -- wanted to hear. But the subject was well and truly changed by now, and Jack subsided gratefully in his chair, comforted by the way Carter and Daniel were watching his back.