Title: Downgraded
Author: Brenda A
Author Page: Brenda A
Summary: How did Jack, Daniel and Sam deal with the aftermath of losing their super powers?
Spoilers: S4 Upgrades and S2 Need; Epilogue to S4 Upgrades
Rating: PG
Category: Drama
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

Jack O'Neill wandered through the hallways of the SGC feeling strangely depressed and unsettled. SG-1 was on stand-down until medically released for duty, and he couldn't seem to make a decision about the simplest things. Should he go home? Or stay here? Go out to eat? Or hit the cafeteria? He was hungry, but it was a normal, haven't-eaten-in-too-long hunger, not the overwhelming food craving of before. He was tired, too; absolutely bone weary. Fraiser said his body was slowly re-adapting to life without the alien armband, but it might take a day or so. That was fine, but that didn't account for why he felt so damned miserable.

He had just decided to go to the cafeteria to see if feeding his hunger pangs would help when he took note of his surroundings. Daniel's office was right around the corner; maybe he could coax the archaeologist into joining him. Daniel usually forgot to take time to eat when he was involved in his work, and Jack really didn't feel like being alone. Besides, if Daniel was excited about whatever he was working on and Daniel was always excited about whatever he was working on Jack could just kick back and let him carry the conversation without any required participation. That was one thing about Daniel: he never noticed if you weren't listening. Besides, Jack acknowledged, for some reason having an enthusiastic, caffeine-enhanced Daniel by his side usually made him feel better.

His decision made, Jack walked the remaining few feet then paused at the open door, looking inside. Daniel was hunched over his desk, open books spread out in front of him, his glasses lying on a stack of books off to the side. Apparently the super powers granted by the arm bands included enhancing his vision to the point where he hadn't needed his glasses. Fraiser said his eyes should be returning to their normal myopic state now, but from the way Daniel was squinting and massaging his temples it didn't look like it was being a very smooth transition.

Jack walked into the office. "Hey."

Daniel looked up from his books, looking every bit as weary as Jack felt. "Hey."

Dropping into a chair by the desk, Jack asked, "What's up?"

The younger man shrugged, sitting back in his chair and pushing indifferently at one of the books with his index finger. "Nothing much. Same old, same old."

Jack cocked his head and studied his friend. He had asked Daniel that same question, oh maybe a hundred times in the years they'd worked together. It was just automatic when he walked into this office and found Daniel hard at work. And he usually had to look for the 'off' switch afterwards because Daniel always took the question seriously and told him at great length what he was doing, why he was doing it, and how it was being done. Jack had never before gotten such an apathetic answer from the always enthusiastic linguist. If Daniel had one fault (and he had more than one), it was that he loved his work too much and assumed everyone else would be as interested in it as he was.

"Meaning?" he asked carefully, eyebrows raised.

Irritation flickered across Daniel's face. "Meaning, I've been working on this translation for the last three hours and so far I've got exactly one line transcribed."

"Daniel, I've known you to work on translations for weeks before you get them translated. You get the ones no one else can figure out."

"I know that." The answer came a little too quickly

As Jack watched, Daniel snatched up his glasses and put them on. A few moments later he took them off and dropped them onto the desk again. Jack winced in sympathy.

Finally the younger man sighed. "It's just...I keep remembering how it was when I was wearing..." He motioned toward his wrist. Jack nodded his understanding, and Daniel blurted plaintively, "I could do everything so fast."

Jack had a flash of memory of sparring with Teal'c -- and winning. "Yeah," he sighed.

Daniel was frowning at the books laid out in front of him like they were the cause of his unhappiness. "Everything just seems so...slow and difficult now."

Jack pursed his lips. Never, in all the time he had known Daniel, had he heard the man ever complain that anything to do with his work was 'slow and difficult'. He dove into every new project, no matter how hopeless it seemed, with boundless energy and passion. Jack thought of his own depressed state and realized they were probably both going through some sort of emotional withdrawal from the effects of those arm bands. And if they were, that meant Carter was probably going through the same thing.

Reaching up, he snapped off Daniel's desk light.

"Hey! What --"

"Come on, let's go." Jumping to his feet, Jack took the younger man's arm and tugged him out of his chair.

"Go where?"

"Out," he answered succinctly. The one thing they didn't need was sitting here on base feeling sorry for themselves.

Daniel managed to snatch his glasses as he was pulled around the desk and allowed himself to be led to the door, but asked, "Why?" as Jack firmly shut the office door behind them.

"Because."

It was a good indication of Daniel's state of mind that he didn't ask any further questions as they walked to Carter's lab. She was sitting at her laptop, a prodigious frown on her face as she tapped listlessly on the keys.

"Hey, Carter." Carter looked up, and Jack could see she looked just as tired as the man by his side. "What'cha doin'?"

She grimaced at the laptop screen. "Trying to work on my book, sir. But..."

"Slow going?" Daniel asked flatly.

Carter nodded. "Very slow."

"Come on, Carter, take a break. Daniel and I are going to get something to eat."

"We are?"

"Yep."

Daniel gave him a sideways look. "I take it we're not going to O'Malley's?"

"Oh, I don't think any of us will be going back there for a while." Jack pulled his keys out of his pocket and jangled them. "But I do know a place where the beer is always cold and the pizza is all you can eat."

Sam grinned as she snapped the lid shut on the laptop. "Meet you at your place, sir."

"Daniel and I will take care of the pizza," Jack called as he turned away.

"I can meet you there, too."

Jack shook his head. "Eyes," he reminded the other man. "You're grounded until your vision's back to normal, remember?"

Daniel made a face but trailed along obediently. "What about Teal'c?"

Jack winced as he remembered his last conversation with the Jaffa. "Teal'c said something about pulling an all-nighter of Kel-no-reem." He waved a hand dismissively. "Said it wouldn't hurt me either. Something about getting my balance back or whatever."

"Actually, that's probably not a bad idea."

Jack shot the other man a questioning look as they stepped into an elevator. "Excuse me? You think I should sit in a roomful of candles and think?"

Daniel turned his head quickly, and Jack could have sworn he was biting back a smile. "No, Jack, I'd never suggest you do that. I'm just saying...I don't know about you and Sam, but I'm feeling a little unbalanced right now."

Jack punched the button for topside and shrugged, trying to sound casual. "I'm feeling a little --"

"Depressed, tired, angry, foolish?" Daniel supplied helpfully.

Jack shot him a sideways look. "Maybe."

"Yeah, me too."

They rode the rest of the way up in silence.

***

Jack took a drink of beer and studied his two companions. They were seated in his living room around the coffee table. Daniel had switched to soda after one beer and was chewing listlessly on a slice of cheese pizza. Carter was still on her first beer and had only eaten two slices of veggie pizza. The conversation, such as it was, had been desultory, and silence had reigned for the last five minutes because everyone seemed to be lost in their own gloomy thoughts.

This wasn't good, and inasmuch as he was the team leader here, it was up to him to lead his team. As much as he cringed at the thought of talking about what was going on with them, or talking about anything as far as that went, this was clearly something they needed to get out of their systems. Hammond had already warned him they were all going to have to go through psych exams before he released them for active duty

He placed his beer bottle down on the coffee table with a loud thump. "So!"

Two pair of blue eyes snapped up to meet his gaze.

"Sir?"

"So...what?"

He shrugged. "So...what do you miss the most?"

Daniel eyed him warily. "About...?"

Jack just looked at him.

"I miss the speed," Carter answered immediately. "Being able to do all that work so fast. It was incredible. When I think about what I could have accomplished..." She trailed off, looking a little embarrassed, then added in a small voice, "I mean, it was really something, wasn't it?"

Jack nodded, completely understanding. "The Superman act was good," he said, in the understatement of the century. The strength and speed had been fantastic. Mind-blowing, in fact. "Being able to do just about anything."

"Like knocking Teal'c on his ass," Daniel commented under his breath.

"That too," Jack said placidly. "It was all good. The running, the jumping, the super strength. Think what we could have done with all that --"

"Power," Daniel interjected quietly. "It was power. We all miss the power."

Carter shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Daniel, I don't think it was really power."

Daniel was staring into his drink and didn't look up. "Tell me how you felt, Sam. Did it make you feel good, really good?"

"Well, yeah, sure."

"You felt stronger, smarter, faster, better than anyone else, didn't you? Like you could do anything, and no one could stop you."

Jack met Carter's eyes and saw the wince of acknowledgement. He couldn't deny any of that, so he answered for both of them. "Yeah."

Daniel finally looked up, his face bleak. "That was exactly the way I felt, too. And that was just the way I felt after I used the sarcophagus over and over on P3R-636."

"Shyla's planet?" Carter blanched. "Daniel, this wasn't the same thing at all!"

"No? Sam, all those things you felt, that's exactly what I felt after using the sarcophagus. And Janet said she was afraid using the arm bands was addictive. It was." He turned his head slightly to meet Jack's steady gaze. "I recognize the symptoms."

Jack fingered the edge of his glass for a moment, then said quietly, "So do I."

Carter's gaze darted from one to the other. "So you're saying we're all going through some sort of emotional withdrawal as well as a physical one?"

"The physical effects aren't as bad as what I went through with the sarcophagus, but the depression, the anger --"

"The feeling like an idiot," Jack interjected.

Daniel nodded. "Those things totally screwed up our judgment, and I think it's safe to say they screwed with our minds, too." He rubbed his eyes, then fished his glasses out of his shirt pocket and slipped them on. "When I think about how I started that bar fight..."

Jack lowered his head to hide a grin. He had an idea Daniel had turned the other cheek more than a few times in the past, and it probably felt pretty good to get a little of his own back this time. But on the other hand that wasn't Daniel's way, and he much preferred his Daniel Jackson without super powers, thank you. In fact, he preferred all of them this way if one of the side-effects was acting like an idiot.

"Yeah, well, I've got a few things I'd like to forget too," he admitted. "But like Hammond said, we were under the influence of an alien device." Just like Daniel and that sarcophagus. Whoa. Gave him a whole new appreciation for the seduction of that thing and how Daniel kept being drawn back into it. From the introspective look on the younger man's face he was brooding over that very thing and probably reliving some very ugly memories. Reaching over, he tapped Daniel on the knee. "Hey, tell the truth. Tell me you didn't get just a bit of a rush from throwing those guys around for that geek thing."

As he hoped that brought Daniel out of his thoughts. The linguist threw him a sour look, but admitted, "Yes, Jack, at the time it felt pretty good. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"But you wouldn't do it now?"

"I couldn't do it now," Daniel said pointedly.

"But if you could...?"

The younger man pursed his lips for a moment, then shook his head. "No. I wouldn't do it now."

"I guess you were right," Sam said quietly. "Power trip. It kind of went right to our heads, didn't it?"

"But you don't feel that way now, do you?" Jack asked.

She immediately shook her head. "No, sir."

"Well, there you go."

"But I do feel...depressed, tired, foolish. How long do you suppose that's going to last?"

Daniel rubbed his forehead. "The depressed and tired part maybe for a day or so. We didn't wear those arm bands for that long, really. But it takes a little longer to get over the feeling foolish part."

Sam gave him a sympathetic look. "Voice of experience?"

"Unfortunately."

As far as Jack was concerned, they'd put their finger on the problem of why they were feeling the way they were feeling, and that was more than half the battle. "Well, as long as we all know why we're feeling the way we do..." As two pairs of widened eyes stared at him, he sat up straighter. "What?"

Daniel's lips twitched. "Gee, Jack, you almost sound like you're in touch with your feelings."

He pulled a face. Oh, let's not go there. "More like know your enemy," he said briskly. "At least we all know why we're feeling like crap, and we'll deal with it."

"Wish there was a shortcut to dealing with it," Sam murmured, taking a sip of her beer. "Feeling like this really sucks."

Jack couldn't argue with that. He hoped they were well over it by the time they had to go through their psych evaluations.

"Well, we could always break out the candles," Daniel murmured, peering at Jack from over the top of his glasses.

Jack leveled a severe look at the linguist. Actually it would serve Daniel right if he brought out some of the emergency candles and made him sit here and contemplate his navel for the rest of the night. But he didn't think Daniel's version of Kel-no-reem was the answer. No, they had to re-learn to trust their normal talents, and just as important, the team had to learn to function as a team again. Teal'c had been effectively cut off from the rest of them by virtue of their 'special powers', and that was a schism that needed to be healed.

Carter placed her finally empty glass on the coffee table. "Well, it's getting late. I suppose I should be going."

She didn't look like she wanted to leave. In fact, Jack was sure the last thing she wanted to do right now was be alone, any more than he and Daniel did. "Look, we're all pretty tired. Why don't you two bunk here for the night, and then nobody has to drive home. I've got a spare room and a couch. I'll leave it to you two to fight over who gets what."

He didn't miss the looks of relief that crossed their faces as Daniel shrugged, "I've probably slept on the couch as much as I have the bed in the spare room. You can have that."

"Sounds good to me." Carter smiled tiredly as she got to her feet. "I'm beat."

"Yeah, me too." Daniel was already pulling the afghan off the back of the couch to make himself at home.

Jack only took enough time to carry the pizza boxes out to the kitchen and dump them in the trash before turning out the lights and heading upstairs. Daniel was already asleep.

***

The next morning Jack grinned to himself as he poured the last of the coffee into his cup and eavesdropped on Daniel and Carter in the living room. Daniel was on his third cup of coffee and was just reaching the coherent stage.

"Sam, do you have any idea why Jack has us up at the crack of dawn?"

"It's almost eight, Daniel, hardly the crack of dawn," Carter corrected. "And no, I have no idea what's going on. I was looking forward to sleeping in until at least noon. I just can't shake this tired feeling."

"Me neither. It feels like my brain is running in slow motion."

"Exactly."

"I guess we just got used to doing everything so fast..."

They lapsed into silence and Jack finished his coffee thoughtfully. The sound of the doorbell a minute later was what he'd been waiting for, and he was heading for the door before Daniel could get off the couch. Throwing it open, he stepped outside, beamed at Teal'c who was waiting on the porch, then waved a thank you to the airmen placing the gear on his lawn. "Morning, Teal'c."

"Good morning, O'Neill. I have brought everything you asked for."

"Good."

"Have you informed Major Carter and Daniel Jackson of your plans?"

"What plans? Hi, Teal'c."

"What's the gear for, sir? Morning, Teal'c."

"Good morning, Major Carter, Daniel Jackson."

Jack rubbed his hands together gleefully and studied the tired faces of his two youngest team members. "I called Teal'c and asked him to bring over your gear. Thought we'd do a little camping."

"Camping?" Daniel blinked owlishly at the packs on the lawn. "Hey, that's my stuff."

Jack patted him on the shoulder. "Can't get anything past you. I had Teal'c pack everything you'd need."

Carter was uneasily eyeing up the selection in the yard. "Did you do my packing too, Teal'c?"

"No, Major Carter. Doctor Fraiser chose and packed the items she though you would need. I thought that would be best."

"Oh. Well." Relieved, she turned to Jack. "Camping, sir?"

"Yep. Thought we'd take a little drive into the mountains and spend a couple of days in the fresh air, hiking, fishing, relaxing." He stopped, waiting for their reaction. This was the best plan he could come up with. What the team needed was some relaxing down time where they could get back into the natural groove of being a team and learn to slow down to normal speed again.

Daniel and Carter looked at one another. "Actually," Daniel said, surprise in his voice, "that's a good idea."

"Yes it is," Carter agreed, sounding equally surprised. "I could go for that."

Trying not to show how pleased he was, Jack waved at the gear. "Okay then, kids, gather up your stuff and get it stowed in the jeep. We leave in five." He waited for the inevitable argument from Daniel about taking along a bag of books, but when the linguist obediently trotted off to grab his gear, followed by Carter, he felt a grin tug at his lips. This was going to work.

"It is a good plan, O'Neill."

Jack glanced at Teal'c, who was watching Daniel and Carter with a slight smile on his lips, then turned back to watch the show on the lawn. They could hear Daniel and Carter squabbling good-naturedly about who was going to ride shotgun as they hauled their gear to the jeep and worked together to stow it. They already looked more animated and a lot less tired.

"It happens," he said, trying not to sound too gratified by the compliment, even though he was. "I was thinking about what you said, Teal'c, about getting our 'balance' back, and this seemed like the best way to do it."

"Indeed. It will be good to be together as a team again."

Jack clapped him on his broad shoulder, then locked the door behind him and headed for his own gear on the lawn. "You know what they say, Teal'c: the team that plays together, stays together." As he gathered up his own pack he called out, "Carter, Daniel called it first, I heard him."

"See, told you."

"I call it for the ride back!"

"You can't call it for the ride back until we actually leave."

"Whose rules are those?"

"That's the way it is. Jack, tell her..."

Jack tossed his gear into the back of the jeep along with Teal'c's and exchanged a look with the Jaffa, who was listening to the exchange with puzzled amusement. Yep, this was going to work. By the time they came down off the mountain, he'd have his team back: his normal, enthusiastic, balanced team.

They'd leave the super powers to the heroes in comic books.

The End