Sam tries not to notice that her skin is already sloughing off on her forearms as they head back toward the ‘gate, or that Daniel keeps stealing looks of horrified fascination at her as he walks beside her.
How the hell is she supposed to explain this to Jack?
She can picture it now—Jack walking into the infirmary—because he will, inevitably be there to witness this, it’s a natural law—exclaiming over the grayed skin, the slightly rotting fingers, and inevitably coming up with the zombie jokes. Cameron’s already thought of a few. She can tell because he keeps giving her amused smirks.
It really isn’t funny, especially because it’s his fault she landed in this mess in the first place. She knows not to touch the shiny alien artifact, eat gooey alien cake, nod and smile when Daniel points to her when he’s translating, or do any of the other countless things that can get unsuspecting off-worlders in trouble.
She frowns and promptly feels the ligaments holding her jaw to her skull give way.
She catches Teal’c giving her a look she’s learned means, “I’m inappropriately amused.” She should know; he gave her and Jack that same look for at least two years after the time on the planet where she and Jack were forced to strip and run through a field, naked, to celebrate their supposed “union.” That was the time she’d learned about the smiling and nodding thing.
When Cameron threw the rock at her and shouted, “Catch!” she’d reacted and grabbed it out of midair. Apparently she’d also activated it somehow, because there’d been some sort of light and when she’d come to, she’d been zombified.
The leader of the village had been extremely apologetic, bowing and scraping and telling them that it was really nothing to worry about, that a few day’s rest would take care of everything, the boys in the village routinely did this very thing and no one had ever ended up permanently disabled except for young Gregory, and that was only because he’d gone and jumped in front of a cart and ended up slicing his leg right off, just below the knee.
It was alarming how reassuring Sam found that.
The thing Sam really isn’t looking forward to, besides the endless medical tests, the confinement to base, the boredom of the isolation ward, and explaining the whole mess to Jack, is the fact that no one is ever going to let her forget this. People will send her stills from the Gateroom every year, and it will probably be one of those anecdotes that will grace every reunion, every original and modified SG-1 get-together, for the rest of her natural life.
They reach the ‘gate, and Daniel dials. Sam follows Daniel up the stone steps, but just before they step through Vala, who’d been remarkable silent the whole way back, taps her on the shoulder.
“You, ah…dropped this,” she says with no small measure of disquiet. She drops something into Sam’s palm. It’s an ear—her left one, to be precise. Daniel turns slightly green. Teal’c looks more stoic than before, and Sam suspects he is (successfully) hiding his own amusement. She hears a quiet snicker from Cameron.
On second thought, Cameron can explain it to Jack.