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.

I guess working here does have a few perks, like these nifty armbands. Sure it felt odd at first, having this thing attached to me but…I could read fast!!! That was the coolest part. All of my life I've wanted, needed to know more and now there's nothing holding me back. I read Anise's/Freya's journal in like thirty seconds flat. All the knowledge I want is literally at my fingertips.

As soon as she left I read my library….that sounds so cool, read the library. I just started at A and read my way through to Z and it took me just a few hours. I know it all now. Never again will I need to drag along books or worst of all, come to a wrong conclusion simply because I hadn't gotten around to reading the right book yet. 'I don't know' is no longer a part of my vocabulary.

My head though, my head is swimming with knowledge. Babylon, Carthage, even Budge's silly theories. They're all up here. All in my head. It's like…like having a laptop in my brain that never runs out of batteries.

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Ok, found another perk. Oh, God it was stupid, it was juvenile, it was fun. A bar fight. I actually got into a bar fight. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've gotten into fights before but…it's always been with a sense of dread and resignation. I'd get into a fight because I had to get into a fight. We didn't have to rough these guys up…but it was…fun. It was exhilarating to know that I COULD beat them, I actually had to hold back. For once in my life, I had the confidence that I could whack somebody around. I could see that Jack and Sam were feeling the same. I saw that glint in Sam's eye. A mischievous streak that she usually suppresses. Most folks don't realize this but she's got one wicked sense of humor, a sense of humor that she usually buries beneath a layer of decorum.

Jack had fun too, although I know this is far from his first bar fight. We did all silently agree on one thing though, we didn't want to really hurt anyone; we just wanted to teach them a lesson…they asked for it. They started it when Sam beat them. I never knew that she could play pool like that. General Carter's daughter, the hustler. Who woulda thunk it?

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Oh God, I'm tired. Not just tired, exhausted. I'm lying on my couch and I don't want to move…ever. I'm thirsty but the kitchen is too far away. Anyway, if I drink I'll eventually need to pee and the bathroom is even further away. This sucks. Not that we destroyed the ship, that was good. But…they're gone. We're normal again. And it sucks to be 'normal'. Normal is so….normal. Jack can't knock Teal'c into next week, Sam's back to needing the lights and typing at a speed her laptop can handle and me…it took me ten minutes to read two pages.

I want to fall asleep but I'm afraid to. What if my knowledge fades as well? What if all the things I learned in the past few days goes away? Sometimes since we got back it's been hard to think, and I don't know if it's because I'm tired or because I'm forgetting.

God, I feel stupid. We were so full of ourselves when we left, so cocky. This is just like when I crawled into that sarcophagus, it felt so good. I was so sure I could handle it, so confident. And so wrong, so horribly wrong. I nearly got them killed that time. I guess that's one thing positive about this, we were all in it together. And we're all in this together. And we'll all get through it together.

~Fin~

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