“Doctor Fraiser!” Janet heard her name being called, and turned to see Captain Samantha Carter jogging towards her. She stopped and allowed the taller woman to catch up with her.
“Please, call me Janet,” she implored. There weren’t that many women on the base, as their recent situation with the goddess Hathor had further illustrated that fact. Janet had a feeling that she was going to be seeing a lot more of Captain Carter in the future. They had already started to build the foundation of a friendship, although the captain was more likely to hail her as ‘Doc’ rather than Janet.
“Sam,” she returned the favour. “Look, I just came to see if you were okay – what with your arm and everything, and wondered if you were alright for getting home tonight.”
Janet looked down at her injured arm, which was now strapped protectively to her chest. “Yeah, it’s fine,” she replied. “I’m gonna have to take it easy for a few days or so. Colonel O’Neill says that he’ll find an airman to drive me home tonight, then I’m on down time for the next few days, and I’ll get onto the base to get my car.”
Sam moved in closer, checking first that there was no one else around. “Would you mind asking Daniel to drive you?” she asked. At Janet’s puzzled expression, she continued. “It’s just that we think he’s still really quite screwed up about what Hathor did to him. And he’s not talking to the Colonel or me. We were hoping that he might open up to you, as his doctor, what with the doctor-patient confidentiality thing.”
“Of course,” Janet replied. “Where is he? I was hoping to get home soon, so I can just catch up with some sleep.”
“Try his lab,” Sam suggested. “He’s probably high on coffee, pouring over some artefact or something. We did try to persuade him to go home, so if he’s driving you back into the city, then hopefully he’ll go home instead of coming back here again.”
“I’ll go see him now,” Janet agreed. “I’ll see you later then Sam.”
“Yeah, you’ve got my number haven’t you?” Sam asked. “If you want some company, or need some help or anything, just give me a call.”
“Thanks, I will,” Janet replied, turning and heading towards Doctor Daniel Jackson’s lab deep underground in Cheyenne Mountain. The door was half-open, and she knocked on it with her good hand, peering her head around the door.
As Sam had predicted, Daniel was sitting at his desk, a cup of coffee next to him, and his glasses on the table as he massaged his temples.
“Doctor Jackson?” Janet asked, almost hesitantly. She saw him more often than the rest of SG-1, who were all trained fighters and none of whom were allergic to even a quarter of the things Daniel was. She had been surprised to discover that he actually used more anti-histamines than she did, something she had previously thought impossible.
“Doctor Fraiser?” Daniel turned around in surprise. “Uh, can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Janet replied, moving further inside the lab. “It’s just that what with my arm being injured and such, I can’t drive, so I was wondering if you could give me a lift home tonight. Colonel O’Neill said he’d find me an airman, but there’s no one spare at the moment, and I would like to get home sooner rather than later.”
Daniel looked at her sympathetically. He understood her problem all too well, and she was the only one who offered any sympathy when it came to his allergies. “Of course, no problem,” he replied. “Uh, just give me a few minutes to finish up here. How about I meet you top side in ten minutes?”
“That’s fine,” Janet replied. “I need to pick up some pain meds from the infirmary anyway, and get my jacket from the locker room.”
“Good,” Daniel replied, turning back to his artefact as Janet left the lab.
Ten minutes later, he met her just outside the mountain; her jacket hanging over her shoulders. “You okay like that?” Daniel asked, seeing how she was dressed. Janet just grimaced.
“It’s rather hard trying to dress yourself with one hand,” she complained, allowing him to help her get her free arm into the sleeve, and fasten the jacket. “Thanks.”
“It’s no problem,” Daniel replied as they headed towards his car. “I’ve found myself in that situation more times than I would care to admit.”
The drive into Colorado Springs was quiet, with the silence between the two travelling companions only punctuated by the radio, and Daniel asking directions as to where Janet lived. It turned out that she was only about a mile or so from his place, and a couple of miles from Jack’s house in the other direction.
“Will you be alright by yourself, or do you want me to come and get you settled?” Daniel asked, worrying over her so he wouldn’t have to think of himself, and what the last twenty-four hours had entailed.
“Would you?” Janet asked, remembering that Sam was hoping that Daniel would open up to her. Things had been rather tense in the car; maybe they could open a bottle of wine, and hope that the alcohol would further loosen his tongue. Janet felt like she needed a good drink after what the day had been like, and could only imagine as to how Daniel felt.
“It’s no problem,” Daniel assured her, his hand hovering protectively behind her back as they walked up to the front door. He had no desire to go back to his place, which was cold, and bare and not very welcoming, and had been ever since the rest of SG-1 had cleared out his place, thinking that he was dead. Daniel spent so much time at the base that he didn’t see the point of making his apartment seem like a home. Janet’s house however, was truly a home he realised as soon as she let him in. Although small, it was not cramped; instead he would have described it as cosy.
“Do you want something to drink?” Janet asked, heading past the lounge door towards the kitchen. “I was going to get myself a glass of wine, would you like one?”
“Yeah, that would be great,” Daniel replied, looking around the hall, hoping that it would provide an insight into his doctor’s life. The floor was pine and the walls had been freshly painted in a light mint green. There were photos on the wall, and Daniel noticed a number of children in them.
“My nieces and nephews,” Janet explained as she returned from the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand. She handed it to Daniel, before turning to retrieve her own. Daniel mentally kicked himself; he should have offered to help, for she could only carry one with her injured arm. “Go into the lounge and make yourself comfortable.”
Doing as he was told, Daniel switched on the light inside the door, as dusk was fast approaching and the small room was dark despite the large bay window almost covering the front wall. He perched on the edge of the sofa, and watched as Janet entered the room, kicked off her shoes and curled up in one of the armchairs with her own glass. She sighed as she took a sip.
“What a day,” she exclaimed, and Daniel nodded in agreement as he started on his own drink. Although he couldn’t remember most of it, the mess in the locker room and the gate room was enough to show that it had been an eventful time. Plus the number of tranquillised men in the infirmary and a few injuries among the female personnel and Teal’c showed that it hadn’t been a walk in the park. “How are you doing?”
Daniel just shrugged indifferently as he stared at the red liquid in his glass. “I don’t really remember much of it,” he confessed. “I remember Hathor saying that she wanted the code of life from me, and that I was to be her beloved.” He shuddered, and Janet left the room, only to return with a new bottle of wine and a corkscrew in her hand. She just shrugged her shoulders as she set them down on the coffee table in the middle of the room before returning to her chair.
“These two glasses were just finishing off a bottle,” she explained. “And even if we don’t drink that one tonight, I need you to open it before you go home!”
However, as the evening progressed, it became increasingly clear that Daniel was in no fit state for him to even walk home, and Janet wasn’t much better. Although no one knew this, today was the anniversary of the day that she had miscarried her second child, which had led her to believe that she would be unable to carry a child to term. Janet had always longed for children, which was one of the reasons that she had married a totally unsuitable man when she had been younger. Now she was divorced, and not even in a stable relationship, she was not optimistic about her chances of having a child of her own, so instead, much to her sibling’s chagrin, she spoiled her nephews and nieces.
Daniel had just finished telling her his life story, with more than a slight slur to his words the whole way through. Janet had been shocked at the amount of pain and grief that he had suffered in his short life. He had then enquired about her, and she wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the fact that he had been so honest with her that made her confess the truth about the problems she had had with her short marriage, and what today meant for her. As the tears had started to poor down her face, Daniel had wobbled unsteadily across the room and held her comfortingly in his arms. Janet had completely forgotten the fact that she was supposed to be the one comforting after his experience with Hathor, and instead just sobbed in his arms. Her husband hadn’t been there when she lost either of her children, nor was he a very demonstrative man who couldn’t provide the comfort that she needed which Daniel was now offering.
As her tears gradually subsided, she turned her face up to look at him. Neither of them could say who made the first move, but gradually their mouths came together in a hesitant and then more forceful kiss. Daniel’s hands roamed all over the small body under him, while Janet twisted away to ensure that he wouldn’t crush her injured arm.
“Bedroom,” she gasped, pulling her mouth away from his long enough to tell him. His response was to pull her up from the chair, and they stumbled together up the stairs and into the first room on the right. They didn’t even pause to turn on the light, instead collapsing together on the bed and removing clothes by the light of the moon shining in through the open window.
Janet awoke the next morning with both her head and her arm throbbing. She realised that she hadn’t put it back in its support the previous night, not that she could remember removing it in the first place. Lying in bed, she soon became aware that there was a person next to her, and she tried to think back to the previous night. The last thing that she remembered was offering Daniel a glass of wine, which meant that there was only one candidate for the person who could be lying next to her now. SG-1’s archaeologist, one Doctor Jackson who was only part of the team as he was searching for his taken wife.
She heard a groaning next to her, and keeping the covers pulled tight, turned to face her companion. He opened his eyes, and looked at her blearily. “Doc, doctor...” he stammered.
“I think we’re past that stage now Daniel,” Janet replied, as she pondered how she could get up without exposing anymore than necessary.
Daniel made a valiant attempt to sit up, groaning as he leant back against the headboard. “Did we do last night what I think we did?”
“Have sex?” Janet queried, turning around to look at him. “Certainly seems that way.”
Daniel groaned again. “Shit,” he swore uncharacteristically. “Look, Janet, I had no intention of doing that...”
Janet paused in her retrieval of clothes from her drawers next to her bed. “Listen Daniel, I realise that. We were just two unhappy adults drinking ourselves into oblivion then somehow ending up in bed together. It’s the twentieth century – it was just sex.”
“I know, but it’s not like me,” Daniel bemoaned. “I mean, you’re my doctor and I’m married. We probably shouldn’t have done it.”
“Probably not,” Janet agreed, pulling on a night-shirt, taking care of her injured arm. “And it’s not as if it it’s going to happen again. We were both in need of some physical comfort and we provided it for each other in the form of sex.”
“You’re right,” Daniel replied. “I, uh, you’re not going to tell anyone what happened are you?”
Janet shook her head in disbelief, clutching it as the hangover hit. “No, I’m not. Do you want to use the shower while I make us some coffee?”
“Uh, I think I’ll just head on home,” Daniel declared, feeling very awkward as he watched her stand up, dressing only in a long night-shirt. She turned and smiled at him, before heading across the room to pull on a robe.
“Alright then, I’ll let you get dressed,” she replied leaving the room and heading downstairs. Daniel groaned as he began to gather up his clothes, averting his eyes when he noticed Janet's bra. How could he have been so stupid, he wondered. Yes, she was a very attractive woman, and if he wasn’t still married, he may have considered pursuing a relationship with her. But there was still Sha’re to consider, and he was pretty sure that he had thrown away any chance of a friendship with the doctor for one night of sex. Still, she appeared completely unfazed by it all, and Daniel accepted there was nothing that they could do about it now. He would just have to put it behind him; pretend it never happened.
And pray to God that Jack O’Neill never found out.