Heroes
by Karen

RATING: R (for violence and some non-graphic sexual scenes. Whoo hoo!)
PAIRING: D/J
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, not a one.
CATEGORY: Angst, Romance, Light Humour.did I mention the angst?
SPOILERS: YES! Up to and including 'Heroes' and then we swerve merrily off into my own little
world.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask and ye shall receive. If you want to.
A/N: This is an episode 'fixer' or 'what if'. I haven't seen the ep or read a transcript, so it may be a little out of whack when the episode airs. In my head, everything is hunky-dory and certain events never happen. Period. Oh, and I'm working on the supposition that Cassie is a senior in high school.
DEDICATIONS: This is completely and totally inspired by the wonderful D/J vids at www.gypsy-gateway.com, specifically 'Words He Doesn't Say' and 'I'll Be Good To You'. Wonderful, wonderful vids, thanks for the inspiration and all your kindness to a D/J newbie, Amy.

---

"Bye, Daniel." Janet stood up and picked up her evening bag from the floor. "I'll see you at work." Daniel watched speechlessly as his lover walked away from him across the crowded restaurant and out into the night. He shook his head to clear it of the mist that flooded his mind and tried to understand what had just happened. He'd picked Janet up from her house on the dot of eight, for once not arriving late and hurriedly smoothing his hair down as he hurried up to her door, they'd come out and enjoyed a pleasant meal in their favourite restaurant and then Janet had very calmly informed him that she was finishing their relationship but, hey, here was a fifty to cover her half of the check.

Daniel jumped as their waiter appeared at his side. "Another drink, sir?"


"Wh.what?" Daniel blinked and then shook his head. "Oh, no thank you, just the check, please." His eyes drifted back to the door, almost expecting to see Janet standing there wearing a big grin and laughing at the effect her joke had had on him. He frowned, she wasn't there, that wasn't good. He felt his heart begin to pound as he realised she really had just told him they were through and walked out on him. "Oh God. Janet."

*************************

Continuing his run of uncharacteristic punctuality, Daniel arrived at the SGC a full hour before he was officially on duty, determined to find Janet and demand an explanation for what had happened the night before. The minute he'd paid the bill at the restaurant he'd jumped in his car and sped to her house, only to find it all in darkness and no matter how much he'd knocked on the door and rang the bell neither Janet or Cassie answered. Feeling sicker by the minute, he'd sat outside her house in his car until the sun had come up and only then realised that Janet's car was missing from the drive way. Swearing foully, and in a manner most unlike the SGC's favourite archaeologist, Daniel had driven to his house and jumped into the shower and then lay on his bed staring at the ceiling until his bedside clock had read 0700 and he could reasonably head out the door to Cheyenne Mountain.



He reached the infirmary already in a foul mood, which wasn't helped when he came face to face with an unknown man in a white lab coat. "Who the hell are you?" Aware that his usual skills as a diplomat were sadly lacking; Daniel just couldn't bring himself to care. "Where's Janet?" His fists clenched as the strange man stared at him in bewilderment and he clarified. "Doctor Fraiser."

"Oh, she's on leave. I'm Doctor Gregor, I'm." The unfortunate Doctor Gregor was treated to yet another impressive stream of curses as Daniel turned on his heel and stormed out of the Infirmary. "Completely irrelevant, apparently." He shook his head, he'd been warned about taking a post here, but would he listen? Oh no, he had to shoot for the stars and go for the glory. Schmuck.

**************************************

"Teal'c!" Daniel burst though the door of the Jaffa's room without knocking and slapped on the overhead lights, destroying the peaceful glow of the candles dotted about the room. "Have you seen Janet?"

Teal'c opened his eyes and looked up at his friend from where he was seated cross-legged on the floor, choosing not to mention Daniel's rude entrance. "I have not. Is there a problem, DanielJackson?"

"I can't find her and there's some guy in the infirmary that says she's gone on leave and he's her replacement." Unaware of the look of panic on his face, Daniel paced up and down. "She's not at home and she's not here."

"That is correct." Resigned to the fact that his morning meditation was effectively ended, Teal'c unfolded his legs and rose to his full imposing height. "Doctor Fraiser has indeed left on vacation with Cassandra, were you not aware of this?"

"No!" Daniel's fists clenched impotently at his sides as he stared at the Jaffa. "She didn't say anything. Where is she?"

"That I do not know." Teal'c raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Why would she not tell you of her plans?"

Daniel shook his head as he paced up and down and tried to think. The obvious answer was that she had known in advance that she would be breaking up with him and had planned to be comprehensively MIA when it came to dealing with the immediate aftermath. He felt his stomach lurch as he realised her cool dismissal of him last night had not been a spur of the moment urge, but a carefully planned decision. He stopped dead as another thought occurred to him, if Teal'c knew that Janet was going away then she'd almost certainly have told her best friend. "I'll see you later, Teal'c."

Without looking back, Daniel exited the room as quickly as he'd entered and left his friend looking after him. The Jaffa waited for a while to see if Daniel might be back, but when a few minutes passed without any sign of the harried doctor he crossed to his door and closed it quietly. He looked at the panel for a moment before reaching out and thoughtfully engaging the lock, muttering to himself. "Tau'ri's."

*********************************

When Major Samantha Carter entered her lab forty minutes later, it was to find an angry archaeologist flying high on several cups of incredibly strong coffee that he'd mainlined while waiting for her to arrive. "Good morning, Daniel."

"Sam." Daniel slammed his mug down on her desk and climbed off his stool, ignoring her greeting. "Do you know where Janet is?"

Sam turned to place her leather jacket on its hanger and hid her face from Daniel's sight. "On vacation." She took a breath and turned back. "Is there anything else I can do for you? I really have a lot of work to catch up on."

"Where on vacation?" Daniel tried to control his hands that didn't seem to be able to stop shaking no matter what he did. "When is she coming home?"

"Two weeks. She and Cass are going on a road trip." Sam frowned uneasily at Daniel's rigid face. "Are you alright, Daniel?"

"Did you know what she was planning?" Daniel could feel the blood pounding in his ears, as he demanded. "Do you know what she did to me last night?"

Sam considered lying, but in the end reluctantly nodded. "Yes. She's been talking about it for a while now." She took a step forward as Daniel flinched. "Daniel, she didn't do this to hurt you."

"She hasn't hurt me!" Daniel's shouted denial made them both jump and he forced himself to lower his voice as he continued. "She hasn't hurt me. It just came as a.shock."

"Ok." Sam nodded and then smiled gently. "Then you're ok with this? I mean, you understand why she did it." For the first time in their long and eventful acquaintance, Sam actually felt a stab of fear as she looked into Daniel's normally calm blue eyes. The man that stood before her was vibrating with fury and hurt and, if Major Samantha Carter was any judge, she was looking at someone who was hanging onto his sanity by his fingernails. "Daniel, maybe you should go home, you look." She jumped aside as he stormed past her and out of the office and finished weakly. "Like you're going to do something really stupid." Sam reached for the phone on her desk and dialled hastily. "Can you page Colonel O'Neil, please? It's Major Carter and I need to speak to him urgently."

*************************************

Jack finally found Daniel pacing restlessly outside General Hammond's office after searching the all the usual corners the younger man liked to hole up in when he was in a snit. It had taken Sam three tries at explaining the situation before Jack had grasped what was going on, and after his usual bitter complaint about missing the memo, he had set out from his office on yet another mission to save Daniel from himself. "Hey, Danny." Jack sauntered towards his stressed friend with a wide grin. "How's it going, buddy?"

"Did you know she was going as well?" Daniel, not fooled for a second by Jack's broad smile, glared bitterly at his best friend. "Did you know what she was going to do?"

Jack held up his hands. "No way, pal, you know no one ever tells me anything around here." He jerked a thumb at Hammond's office. "He's not here, flew up for a two day conference at the Pentagon."

"Then you need to get me a way to contact Janet." Daniel brushed past Jack and started back towards his office.

Jack stood staring at the spot where his friend had been and then wheeled around. "Ah, Daniel."

"Jack, I know she has one. There's no way she would be given leave without having some way of getting hold of her in case of an off-world situation. Now either you help me find it or I go and look through your files myself." Daniel didn't look back as he brushed past two airmen and rounded a corner. "Come on."

"Daniel!" Jack broke into a jog. "Will you just hold on a damn minute?" He snagged Daniel's arm and jerked him to a stop. "Listen to me! Janet is on officially sanctioned leave, not MIA, and I don't think you being pissy about being dumped by your main squeeze is enough of a reason for me to break regulations and several national security codes just so you can plead for her to take your ass back."

"I am not pissy. And I'm not going to plead." Daniel shook his arm free and just stopped himself from pouting like a child. "I just want an explanation."

"She didn't give you one?" Jack looked confused and then glared at a passing marine. "Get lost, airman." He waited until the young man had scuttled off and then lowered his voice. "She didn't tell you why?"

"I." Daniel closed his eyes as he tried to remember and scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth wearily. "I don't remember. We'd just had this great meal, she said we needed to talk, I got this bad feeling and then." He opened his eyes and stared at Jack in bewilderment. "It was like she was talking in a language I didn't know and that almost never happens. I could see her mouth moving but I couldn't hear the words, do you know what I mean?"

"Uh, yeah, you have been at some of Sam's more involved briefings, right?" Jack raised an eyebrow in query. "So she dumped you and you have no idea why?"

"None." Daniel shook his head in confusion. "I thought things were going well. I mean, ok, things were a bit strange what with me being dead for so long, but it's always difficult when you start seeing someone new."

"Huh." Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels thoughtfully. "Weird."

"And now she's disappeared and I can't ask her what the hell is going on." Daniel started to look angry again. "Sam says she's been planning this for a while and I didn't have a clue. Even Teal'c knew!"

"Teal'c, knew?" Jack's mouth fell open in outrage. "Hey, how come the alien found out before I did?" He caught the look on Daniel's face and shifted uneasily. "I mean, the alien knew you were getting dumped before you did? That sucks."

"Thanks, Jack, that really helps." Daniel leaned in exhaustion against the wall behind him and the anger faded as quickly as it arrived. "Why didn't she just talk to me? It didn't have to end up like this."

Jack tried for a diplomatic tone in his voice as he said thoughtfully. "Danny, you're not always so easy to talk to." He held up his hands defensively as Daniel glared at him. "Hey, I think you're great, but you can be a little.distant at times. Maybe she tried."

"I think I would have noticed if Janet had tried to talk to me about something like this, Jack. I'm a bit spacey, not an idiot." Daniel paused as he remembered that he'd just confessed to not having a clue as to what Janet had actually said when she'd broken up with him and Jack gave him a pointed look. "Oh, hell, maybe she did."

"Look, Daniel, there's nothing you can do until she gets back." Jack took Daniel's arm and led him in the direction of the commissary. "Let's get some coffee and then maybe you should take the day off and catch up on some sleep, you don't look so good. We're not due off-world till Friday anyway."

Daniel stumbled over his shoelaces that had come untied during the course of his rampage around the SGC looking for the elusive Doctor Frasier. "Yeah, maybe." He followed Jack blindly down the corridors, indifferent to the personnel bustling past them and still focused on the missing Janet. "I don't understand what happened."

Jack glanced at his friend and sighed. "I know, Daniel, I know." He squeezed Daniel's arm reassuringly. "But she's back in a couple of weeks, you can talk to her then."

"Yeah." Daniel nodded and felt his guts twist at the thought of having to wait two weeks to see Janet again. "Yeah, I can ask her then."

*************************************

"Ok, please tell me Janet's definitely coming back today." Jack O' Neill spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Sam Carter as he watched Daniel de-branch an innocuous looking tree for firewood with a little more aggression than the Colonel thought was strictly necessary. "I don't think I can take much more of Lord of the Pissed, Carter."

Sam raised her eyebrows as Daniel hacked at an innocent branch hard enough to send Teal'c ducking for cover as splinters flew. "Yes, sir, she is." She bit her lip as the branch surrendered and Daniel started chopping furiously at the next branch up. "But I don't think it will help, she'd made up her mind, she won't be seeing him in a personal capacity anymore."

"Why, for cryin' out loud?" Jack turned to face his 2IC and glared. "What did he do, does he snore or somethin'? She's a goddamned doctor, she must be able to give him something for it!"

Sam flashed a brief smile at her commander's attempt at humour and shrugged. "I couldn't say." She narrowed her eyes in Daniel's direction and muttered enigmatically. "And neither could Janet."

"Won't more like." Jack eyed Sam's bland expression accusingly. "Y'know, Carter, I thought we had a good relationship, thought we were friends." He sighed mournfully. "Obviously I was mistaken."

"Obviously you were, sir." Unmoved by his blatant attempt to guilt her into telling her what she knew about Janet's reasons for dumping Daniel, Sam stifled a smile and went back to the scribbled notes she had been studying before she had been interrupted.

"Ca-aaarter!" Looking more like a pre-adolescent boy than a distinguished Colonel in the US Airforce, Jack stuck out his lower lip. "C'mon, spill already."

"Sir, it's not my place to say anything." Exasperated, Sam frowned up at her CO and flicked a glance at Daniel. "I'm sure Daniel wouldn't appreciate us discussing his former relationship like this either."

"Daniel would be over the goddamned moon at us discussing his relationship like this, Sam." Jack crouched down beside his favourite Major and fixed her with uncharacteristically serious brown eyes. "The reason being is he hasn't got a clue what he did that was so wrong and you seem to be the only one around here who does."

"Well if he'd have paid a bit more attention in to Janet in the first place, then maybe this wouldn't have happened!" Sam swore as she realised she'd let slip more than she intended. "I'm going to check the perimeter, sir."

"Denied, Major." Jack gave his best military glare and Sam sat resentfully back down on the rock she had been perched on. "Want to explain that last remark?"

"No, sir." Resisting the urge to cross her arms and indulge in a good, hard sulk, Sam settled for lifting her chin mutinously. "And if you insist on pressing this line of communication, you'll leave me with no choice but to inform General Hammond of your unfair abuse of your superior rank when we gate back to Earth."

Jack grinned wolfishly. "Go right ahead, I'll have you court-marshalled for." The grin faded slightly as he realised he had nothing to blackmail her with, but he recovered after a moment to finish triumphantly. "The absolute worst thing I can think of between now and when we hit the ramp in the gate room."

"Sir!"

"Carter!"

"You know, I'm sick of everyone making out like Janet's the bad guy in all this." Sam threw up her hands in exasperated surrender. "She kept trying long after I'd have kicked his butt out."

Jack blinked at the fierce tone in Sam's voice; she was normally so tolerant of Daniel's little idiosyncrasies. "This is still Daniel we're talking about, right?"

"I honestly don't know anymore, Jack." Sam cast a quick look at Daniel and Teal'c, made sure they were still occupied in mutilating defenceless wood and lowered her voice. "Would the Daniel we know be with a woman for six months and never spend the night with her?" She rolled her eyes at Jack's puzzled look and clarified. "Never sleep in the same bed with her. They'd go out, have a great time, come home, have another good time and then Jan would wake up in the morning and he'd be gone. Every single time."

Looking sorry he'd ever asked, Jack shifted uneasily in his crouched position. "Er, too much information, Carter."

"And it was always at Janet's house, he never once asked her to go home with him." Warming to her theme after two weeks of Daniel making life miserable for everyone he came into contact with and Jack constantly bugging her for information, Sam relished finally deciding to defend her friend. "He never showed her any affection unless they were in an intimate situation and she always chased him to set up dates." Sam sniffed in outrage. "He's damn lucky he wasn't dating me, I'd have shot his ass for sure."

"Well, Sam, he's been through a lot these last few years."And that was as far as Jack got before his 2IC slapped a hand against his shoulder and knocked him on his ass.

"Don't even go there, Colonel." Sam's eyes flashed and Jack stared speechlessly up at the annoyed woman. "Daniel was the one that pursued Janet when he came back not the other way around. If he wasn't ready for a relationship and all it meant then he shouldn't have bothered." She made sure her firearm was in place and stood up. "Permission to check the perimeter NOW, sir?"

"Uh, permission granted, Major." Jack watched as she stomped off into the trees, thought about shouting after her to be careful and then found himself hoping she would run into a squad of Jaffas in her present mood. Bastard snakeheads wouldn't know what hit them and, if he was quick, he could grab the team's camcorder and tape the fun to bootleg around the SGC on their return. He glanced at Daniel and Teal'c as Sam disappeared and rolled his eyes when he saw neither of them had noticed Sam's abrupt exit, being still focused on mutilating the local flora. Way to keep lookout, guys.

**********************************

Daniel was, not unusually, the first one through the infirmary doors when they gated back to Earth but, in an almost unprecedented move, he wasn't bleeding or being wheeled in on a gurney unconscious. He scowled at a nervous looking nurse that smiled tentatively at him and snapped. "Doctor Frasier?"

"She's not here, Doctor Jackson." The nurse clutched the folded blankets she was holding like a shield and prayed to any god she could think of, false or otherwise, that he wouldn't start yelling at her like he'd done the previous week when she'd stitched up a wound on his hand after his last off-world jaunt and he thought the stitches were too big. The unfortunate nurse blinked worried eyes. "She's in a briefing with General Hammond at the moment, sir.."

Daniel's scowl deepened. "What time is she expected to be free?"

"Um." The poor young woman looked pitifully relieved as the rest of SG1 arrived behind Daniel. "Colonel O' Neill, sir!"

"Danny, leave the kid alone." Jack glanced around the room, noted the lack of short redheads and waved the nurse away. "Just relax."

"I am relaxed." Daniel's teeth ground together audibly. "I didn't do anything."

"DanielJackson, you have seemed unusually tense these past few days." Teal'c cocked an eyebrow and moved over to his usual cot to await his post-mission check-up. "It is most puzzling."

Sam hopped up on the cot opposite the Jaffa and whispered fiercely. "Not helping, Teal'c." She eyed her friend as he allowed the slightest hint of a knowing smile to grace his lips and hissed in annoyance. "Stop it!"

"I do not understand, Major Carter, should we not be concerned for our friend?" Teal'c didn't bother to lower his voice and earned himself a fierce glare from both Daniel and Sam as Jack's lips twitched in a smirk behind them.

The tension in the room went up another notch as the sound of familiar heels clicking down the corridor outside the room sounded and then Janet Fraiser marched briskly into the room. "Hello, people." She glanced around with a professional smile, eyes not betraying a hint of any uneasiness at seeing Daniel standing in the middle of the room. "Sorry I wasn't here to meet you but I had an awful lot to catch up on with the General before I could start down here." She moved to the box on the wall to pull out a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. "Any problems?"

Even Sam couldn't help her eyes swinging to Daniel's figure still standing in the middle of the room, staring at the doctor silently. Janet tutted, walked across to take Daniel's elbow in her hand and guide him across to the nearest cot. "I might have known. Ok, Daniel what have you done to yourself this time?" She kept a careful distance between them and her eyes away from his as she visually assessed him. "No blood, that's a good sign and you can still walk under your own steam. What's the problem?"

"I'm not hurt, why does everyone keep saying that?" Daniel bent his head and tried to catch her eye as she wrapped the pad to take his blood pressure around his arm. "I just need to talk to you."

Janet kept her own eyes on the rubber bulb in her hand as she began to squeeze it rhythmically and nodded. "Of course. Is it a medical problem?" She glanced up to see Daniel's confused shake of his head and then looked down at her readings again. "Then, no. I'm not available." Before Daniel could answer her, Janet stepped back and smiled at the rest of SG1. "Well, if there's no broken bones or internal bleeding to worry about then I'm going to leave you in the capable hands of the nurses to take care of the basics. I'll see you all soon."

Jack watched her march out of the room and two nurses edge cautiously back in before giving a shiver. "Is it suddenly very, very cold in here?" He moved as Daniel jumped off the cot he was on and slapped one hand on the younger man's chest as he started to go after Janet. "Not a good idea, kid, calm down."

"Get out of my way, Jack." All but snarling, Daniel was fast approaching meltdown at Janet's casual dismissal of him. "I'm going to talk to her."

"Not here, Daniel." Jack lowered his voice and ignored Sam's pointed stare as he whispered. "Not in front of everyone on base, Danny. She'll be at home tonight, you can catch her then."

Daniel glared at the doorway Janet had just left through and for a moment considered trying to shove Jack aside and follow her anyway, but common sense, and a healthy respect for Jack's hand to hand skills, stopped him. "Fine." He gave his friend a short nod and brushed Jack's hand away. "Tonight."

*********************************

Sam reached across to top up Janet's wine and then tilted the nearly empty bottle over her own glass. "So, good vacation?"

"Great." Curled up in a corner of Sam's deep sofa in sweats and with a towel wrapped around her damp hair, Janet smiled warmly at her friend. "Cassie had a blast seeing all the national monuments and stuff, and it was great to get away from alien invasions and stuff for a while."

Sam, her own hair standing up in careless wet clumps from her own shower, nodded. "I'll bet." She wriggled into a more comfortable position in her own chair and took a sip of wine. "I was kinda surprised when you and Cass decided to stay over here tonight though, thought you'd have a thousand and one things to catch up on at home."

Janet flushed under Sam's guileless eyes. "We did everything we needed to do last night when you guys were still off world. I just thought it would be nice to catch up and." She trailed off under Sam's knowing eyes and sighed in surrender. "Hide out here so I don't have to see Daniel tonight."

"Wuss." Nodding in satisfaction that she gotten the answer she wanted out of her friend, Sam glanced towards the stairs to make sure Cassie wasn't lurking before continuing softly. "So how have you been, really?"

"Confused, lonely, self-pitying." Janet stared into the bottom of her glass. "Your general, run of the mill break-up blues."

"Uh-huh." Sam paused for a moment and then figured the hell with it. "Did anyone say anything to you about Daniel on base today, about how he's been acting since you left?"

"No." Janet frowned uneasily. "Why would they?"

"Jan, I'm your friend, right?" Sam didn't wait for Janet's nod of agreement and swept on. "So I'm not going to lie to you about this. Daniel's been a nightmare while you were away. He's been rude, aggressive, blatantly disrespectful and uncaring of everyone he's come into contact with and, to put it in a nutshell, a complete pain in the ass. He was absolutely insane the first morning when he realised you were gone and, quite frankly, he's been acting like a man who got his heart broken in a big way."

Janet choked on a mouthful of wine and laughed bitterly. "Then I suggest you check whether Jack's been playing with his fossils and dropped one again, because I can promise you he's not that way over me." She tucked a stray tendril of hair back under her towel and met Sam's uncertain eyes. "Come on, Sam, you know what our supposed 'relationship' was like almost as well as I do. He never let me get close enough to him to have that much of effect when I finished it. There's only so long you can be with a man that's empty inside before you start feeling that way yourself. Obviously the ascension had more of an effect on him than any of us realised and, to be honest, you could almost feel Sha're's ghost in the room with us at times." Janet knocked back another swig of wine and shook her head decisively. "I'm through with Daniel Jackson, I deserve more than that."

"So why so worried about facing him?" Sam leant further forward in her chair and fixed her friend with serious blue eyes. "If you're so sure it's over, why are you here hiding rather than telling him all this?"

"Because it took everything I had to walk away from him in the first place and I seeing him today just brought all that back." Janet's quiet murmur was filled with despair and none of her usual strength. "I just needed another few hours before I have to deal with whatever he wanted to talk about. I couldn't deal with bolstering his bruised ego today."

"Daniel has an ego?" Sam laughed wryly. "Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah." Janet reached for the wine bottle again and sighed as she realised it was empty. "He has an ego, alright, but it's not my problem anymore. I finally got myself together enough to cut the ties and that's the way it's going to stay. From now on unless he's bleeding or unconscious, I'm staying the hell out of Daniel Jackson's life."

Sam nodded and rose to head for the kitchen and the next bottle of wine. "Fair enough, but you might want to ask yourself if he's planning on staying out of yours, Jan."

Janet stared after Sam for a moment and then tilted her chin, muttering mutinously. "He doesn't have a choice."

*********************************

Daniel moaned as Janet's hand drifted with slow tenderness across his stomach, skating teasingly close to brushing the top of his arousal, before dancing her way back up his belly and over his chest. "Tease." His happy grin widened as he felt her muffle a laugh against his shoulder and he smoothed one hand across down her back to cup her naked butt as he used his other hand to tilt her face up for a kiss. "Two can play at that game." Their breath mingled in a sigh as their lips came together and Daniel slipped his tongue into her open mouth, playfully stroking against hers as he revelled in the feeling of her in his arms again.

Lazy moments passed filled with soft sighs and whispers before he turned them and pinned Janet beneath him. "I missed you when you were gone." He watched his finger trace the curve of her cheek and then succumbed to the urge to cup her face in his palm as he gently kissed her again. "I got really cold without you."

Janet shifted beneath him restlessly, her naked chest rubbing against him. "I'm still gone, Daniel. You're still cold."

"No, I'm not." Daniel frowned in confusion and pressed himself closer against her, ignoring the usual niggle of worry that he heard in the back of his mind when he had her in this position, terrified that his much greater weight and size would cause her some unintentional injury. "I'm warm, see?" He thrust gently forward and caught her bottom lip between his teeth when their bodies brushed intimately together.

"Not warm enough." Janet shook her head regretfully. "Not for me."

"Wh.what?" Daniel cried out in surprise as he suddenly found himself looking down at his pillow, sans Janet. "Janet!" He rolled onto his back and looked wildly around his bedroom..which was now the banquet room on Chu'lak where he had lost Sha're, complete with two familiar looking figures resplendent in Go'auld finery watching him regally. He scrambled to his feet, acutely aware he was still naked, and glared at Apophis. "Give her back."

"What for, human?" Apophis looked down but, instead of Sha'are, it was Janet held in the graceful curve of his arm. He sneered at Daniel. "You were never going to be enough for her. I can give her whole worlds."

"No, that's not true." Daniel stretched out a hand imploringly. "Janet, please, come with me." Janet watched him coolly for a few silent moments before shaking her head silently and turning away.

"JANET!" Daniel shot upright in bed, woken by his own terrified shout and sat panting as he tried to calm his racing heart. For the third night in a row he had dreamed of Janet be taken and turning from him like he was nothing and it was beginning to get really old. He wiped a shaking hand over his clammy face and squinted at the digital clock beside his bed. Quarter past two in the morning. Daniel buried his face in his hands with a muffled groan and resigned himself to yet another night watching the sun come up, sipping coffee on his back porch. It was now three weeks since Janet had broken up with him, a week since she had gotten back from her vacation, and she had managed to avoid him with all the finesse and skill of a seasoned spy. Whatever he'd tried, from showing up unexpectedly at the infirmary to trying to catch her unawares at home or in her office, she'd managed to avoid any one-to-one contact and he was beginning to think he'd never manage to talk to her face to face again. He shuddered as images from his dream floated through his mind once more and then tossed back the tangled covers. This called for a lot of coffee.

********************************

Jack watched as Daniel sat opposite him the commissary, staring myopically into the bottom of his third cup of coffee in half an hour and said again. "Daniel?" He grunted in irritation as Daniel continued to ignore him and leaned across to rap none too gently on top of the spaced archaeologist's head. "Hey, you in there?"

Daniel jumped and then cursed as he bobbled the cup and hot coffee drenched his hand, sleeve and the surface of the table. "Jeez, Jack, what was that for?" He shook his wet hand out with a curse. "I could have really burnt myself."

Jack grabbed a pile of paper napkins to sop up the puddle of liquid threatening to run off the table and over his lap. "I've been trying to talk to you for the last five minutes. You're not possessed again, are you?"

"No, I'm not!" Outraged Daniel glared at Jack and then his shoulders slumped. "Maybe." He glanced around at the busy dining hall and then back at his friend. "I'm not sleeping so good. I keep having these really weird dreams about Apophis and." He trailed off in embarrassment as Jack nodded sympathetically.

"Sha're?" Jack fidgeted uncomfortably, uneasy at being cast in the role of confidant. "Danny, you've had a rough time and."

"No, not Sha're." Daniel flushed guiltily and found he couldn't meet Jack's eyes as he found himself confiding in a barely audibly voice. "Janet. It starts off with us in, um, bed together and then we're not and Apophis is there and she won't let me save her."

"Oh. Right." Jack's eyes widened and he said slowly. "Well, I suppose after what's happened with the Doc it'd drag up some bad memories. You've taken this thing with Janet pretty hard."

"That's just it, I'm not heartbroken or anything, Jack. I liked Janet a lot, but it was never that serious between us, I'm more worried that we've lost our friendship than anything." Daniel missed the look of incredulous disbelief on his friend's face as he continued with the soothing lies he'd constantly been feeding himself since the break up. "I'm a little angry at her that she won't talk to me and I'd still like an explanation for the way she behaved but."

"Daniel, stop it, just stop it." Jack held up his hands and felt the first warning twinge of temper bubble inside. "I can't believe you're sitting there trying to feed me this crap after the way you've been behaving. I hate to break it to you, pal, but you're head over heels in love with the woman that's just dumped you like trash."

"No, I'm not." Daniel's eyes widened in surprised denial and just a hint of panic. "It was never like that between us."

"So you've been like Jaffa with a staff up his ass for the last few weeks for no reason, right?" Jack leaned forward and braced his elbows on the table as he looked seriously at his friend. "Time to fish or cut bait, Danny. Tell the woman you love her."

"I don't love her!" Daniel cringed as the buzz of conversation in the room halted and all eyes swung to him and Jack. "I gotta go."

Jack jumped up and walked briskly after Daniel, determined to put an end to this nonsense once and for all. If the past few weeks had been difficult for Daniel, then they'd been tortuous for everyone else caught up the situation and it had only further strengthened his own resolve not to become intimately involved with anyone he worked closely with. No matter how cute they looked in really small tank tops or blowing up space ships.

"Daniel, a word?" Jack caught Daniel's arm, ignoring the younger man's protests to shove him inside a fortunately empty briefing room and slam the door firmly closed behind them. "This has got to end."

"Jack, I don't want to talk about it." Daniel squared his shoulders and met Jack's accusing eyes as firmly as he could. "It's really none of your business."

"Oh the hell it isn't, you made it my business the minute you started freaking out on us." Jack folded his arms and gave Daniel his best CO frown. "You've gotta pull it together, Daniel, it's starting to affect the team. Sam's barely talking to either of us in case she slips up and mentions Janet's name, Teal'c thinks you've finally lost it and I'm on constant stand-by waiting for you to snap and do somethin' stupider than usual. You've gotta get a grip."

"Don't you think I haven't tried? I don't understand what's happening to me!" The echo of Daniel's frustrated shout bounced off the bare walls and set Jack's teeth on edge. "I shouldn't be feeling like this, I was so careful to keep it casual, not to get too involved."

"And yet here you are losing your mind. Again." Jack immediately regretted his words and tempered his harsh reply with an understanding smile. "Daniel, you can't choose who you love, you know it doesn't work like that."

"I don't love Janet, I can't." Daniel paced in agitation before Jack, eyes flitting all over the room as though looking for escape. "It was just companionship, mutual respect."

"Hot Spacemonkey sex." Jack clapped an exasperated hand to his head and then slapped Daniel upside his for good measure. "Danny, a guy doesn't act like you have the past few weeks unless he's in deep. Pal, face it, you're gone."

"I'm not a good bet, Jack." Daniel stopped pacing and stared up at his friend. "You know that. I get people killed or I get me killed, but things always end up with people I love getting hurt. If I'd have let myself fall in love with Janet it would have only ended badly."

"Er, hello?" Jack waved his arms around the room wildly. "This isn't badly? Daniel, you haven't let yourself do anything, you moron; you're in love with the woman whether you want to be or not." He narrowed his eyes threateningly. "Now go find her and tell her before I let Teal'c tie you to one of your rocks and throw you through the Stargate."

Daniel held up a finger and took a precautionary step back. "Suppose, just suppose, that I do feel more for Janet than I thought, what good will it do me? She dumped me, remember? She's made it pretty clear that she doesn't want anything else to do with me outside of work and it's not like I can go and talk to her at home with Cassie there." He shook his head helplessly. "And I'm not sure it's a good thing that I talk to her anyway. Maybe she's got a point, a clean break would be."

"Ok, so what about when she starts to see someone else? An attractive woman like the Doc it's only a matter of time." Jack put his hands on his hips and fought the urge to beat some sense into Daniel rather than talk it into him. "You think things are bad now, just wait till you have to see her day-after-day with some other guy, doing all the stuff she used to do with you. Is that what you want?"

"No." Daniel's stomach, already dangerously unsettled from the huge amounts of caffeine it had been subjected to over the last few days, rolled queasily at the thought of Janet falling asleep in another man's arms. "Of course not."

Jack nodded in satisfaction. "Right. And just so you know, that buzzing in your ears and the way your heart's slamming against your ribs, that's good old fashioned, kick ass jealousy. You don't get that unless you're ass over head in love with someone." He peered thoughtfully at Daniel's suddenly blank face and clarified firmly. "For 'someone' read 'Janet'."

"Oh God." Daniel looked around for somewhere to sit, certain his legs were going to give out any minute. He managed to back up to a desk and sat his butt down before burying his face in his hands. "I love Janet."

"I know!" Completely exasperated, Jack threw his hands up in the air and heroically resisted doing the dance of 'I Told You So' around the room. "Jeez, Daniel, don't you listen?"

More terrified than he could remember being in a long time, Daniel ignored his CO and rocked in misery on his chosen perch. "Oh God, I love Janet. And she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you." Jack chuckled and crossed to his unhappy friend to punch him on the arm. "Just go tell her you love her and everything'll be back to normal around here."

"Jack, she won't even be in the same room as me. What am I meant to do, e-mail her?" Daniel pulled his face out of his hands and raked his fingers through his ruffled hair. "And I still don't know why she even finished it in the first place, what if I can't fix what's broken?"

"Hmm." Jack tapped his chin thoughtfully and narrowed his eyes at Daniel's white face. "Ok, so all we gotta do is prioritise, right?" He grinned at Daniel's cautious nod and patted his shoulder. "And the first priority is to get you two talking."

"I don't know how to do that, Jack." Daniel wrapped his arms around himself. "I can't force her to talk to me."

"Daniel, Daniel, Daniel; I think you're forgetting that I am an expert Black Ops..uh.operative." Jack shook his head reproachfully and then rubbed his hands together. "No one's gonna force Janet to do anything. However, a little persuasion never hurt anybody."

Daniel frowned worriedly after Jack as he turned suddenly and headed for the door. "Jack? Jack, what are you going to do?" Not getting an answer he got to his feet and hurriedly followed his Colonel. "Jack, you aren't thinking about shooting her or anything are you? Jack?"

*******************************

Hours later, Janet was having difficulty believing her life had disappeared so comprehensively down the toilet. She stared in disbelief at the dead cell phone in her hand, then around her at the equally useless car she was sitting in and then out through her windshield at the pitch black Colorado night. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." She struck her steering wheel with the dead phone. "Come on!" Another try with the keys in the ignition just produced a rather pathetic choke from her engine. "C'mon baby, you don't hate me that much, do you?" The car conveyed by a complex system of choking and wheezing that, yes, it did indeed hate Janet that much and more. "Oh, you piece of crap." Janet's whisper went almost unheard even by herself it was that low, but she could hear the wind whistling outside the car very clearly. Also the sound of not another soul within three miles made itself pretty damn clear as well.

"Why me? I'm a good person, I don't deserve this." Janet mumbled to herself as she groped under the passenger seat for the spare tyre iron she carried just in case and grabbed her bag. "I save lives all the time, is it too much to ask that my own could be allowed to run smoothly just for once?" She peered through the car windows one last time before she got out of the car to make sure she was indeed alone and then took a deep breath to prepare herself for the long, cold hike back to Cheyenne Mountain and hopefully a ride home from some kind soul. Janet gritted her teeth as she got out of the car and pulled her coat tightly around her as she started back down the deserted road. She kept her tyre iron out of sight by her side and buoyed herself up considerably as she stamped along the roadside by thinking of all the unpleasant alien viruses she could release on her cell phone service provider and her mechanic when she got home. She'd just got to the particularly unpleasant rectal infection that SG12 had brought back from PX25627 when the headlights of a car suddenly came over the crest of the hill she was climbing. "Yes!" Tightening her grip on her weapon, Janet waved an arm over her head. "Hey, mysterious rescuer, over here!" Quietly confident in her filthy mood to help her beat any homicidal maniacs to a bloody pulp, even if her special forces training let her down, Janet sighed with relief as the car slowed and then drew to a stop alongside her. "Hi, I'm sorry to.Daniel!"

Hoping that Janet couldn't see his guilty flush in the dim light of the moon, Daniel tried very hard to look as though he wasn't expecting to run across his ex-lover at half past eleven at night on a deserted road and graced her with a puzzled smile as she stepped back from his car window. "Janet, what are you doing out here all alone?"

By now completely convinced that she was officially having the day from Hell, Janet heaved a weary sigh, muttering under her breath. "Paying in spades for every unnecessary procedure I ever performed on Colonel O'Neill apparently." She shook her head as she caught his confused look. "Never mind. Look, can I borrow your cell phone? My car's broken down and my cell died on me."

"Too bad." Daniel made a mental note to do something incredibly nice for Jack at the very next opportunity and exchanged his puzzled smile for a sympathetic one. "Hop in, I'll give you a ride home and you can call a tow truck for the morning."

Janet took another step back and shook her head again. "Oh no, that's fine, if I can just call a tow truck from your phone that would be great." She darted a look at the road behind him, mentally pleading with whatever deity had forsaken her that night to have a change of heart and allow Sam to come over the top of the hill to the rescue. The road remained obstinately empty.

"Janet, I'm not leaving you alone out here to wait hours for a mechanic to get for you." Daniel followed glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Janet's almost manically hopeful look and resisted the urge to grin triumphantly as her shoulders sagged slightly in defeat. "If you have to get a tow tonight then I'll wait with you."

"No!" Aware her refusal of his offer had been just a tad over the top, Janet tried for a smile of her own, unfortunately what emerged was more a pained grimace. "Don't be silly, Daniel, I'll be fine. You wouldn't worry about Sam alone at night would you?"

Daniel's eyebrows rose and he cocked his head to one side. "Well, no, but she is usually armed to the teeth." He sighed heavily. "Janet, this is stupid, get in the car and I'll take you home. Please."

Janet shot a last longing look back towards the base and then nodded reluctantly. "Ok. Thank you." She opened the door and slid inside, sighing as the heat hit her chilled skin.

Daniel flicked the heated up to full and smiled at her. "Buckle up." He pulled off as Janet clipped her seat belt into place and then cleared his throat nervously. "So, I'm glad I ran into you, there's a few things I want to talk to you about."

Janet looked down at her crowbar still clutched in her hand and regretfully decided that use of extreme force to avoid an upsetting conversation with her ex-lover probably wasn't justifiable. She leaned her head against the back of the seat and sighed, definitely the day from hell.

*******************************

Daniel and Janet drove for a few minutes in uncomfortable silence, Janet wondering why on earth she didn't just follow the rest of the SGC's example and pretty much move herself and Cassie onto the base, thus avoiding situations like these, and Daniel wondering just how to approach the subject of declaring his undying love for a woman that had dropped him like a hot potato three weeks before. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw the lines of tension on her face, even in the dim light of the car. Even her body language was discouraging, legs crossed and away from him, arms folded defensively across her body and face staring pointedly out of the passenger window. He looked back at the road before him and licked his lips. He could do this; he'd saved the world how many times now? Winning back Janet should be a walk in the park.

"So, how have you been?" He mentally cursed himself for sounding like such an idiot and then realised opening the conversation with 'Hey, Jan, I just realised that I'm in love with you and was wondering if you'd like to forget about this whole dumping me thing and giving us another go?' was probably the best way to find himself stopping by an ER when he gave her a heart attack. Yeah, thinking about it, the words he actually said were probably better.

"Fine." Janet didn't take her eyes off the road and only realised when the silence stretched between them again that she should probably say something else. "You?"

"Fine." Daniel ground his teeth at the cool note in her voice and forced himself to persevere, after all Rome wasn't built in a day. Although he had some very interesting theories about..he shook his head in annoyance. Focus, Jackson! "You seem like you've been pretty busy recently, I haven't seen you about much."

"Yeah, well you know the SGC. Busy, busy." Janet cringed and hoped she didn't sound as stupid as she felt. The awkwardness that was almost palatable between them was just one of many reasons that she'd been avoiding Daniel like he had the plague. Which he didn't because she'd just had his most recent blood work this morning, so no excuse there. Dammit.

Daniel cleared his throat and cast around for another topic of conversation. "How's Cassie?" He risked glancing towards her again and added hesitantly. "I've missed her."

Janet felt herself soften slightly at his words and she turned her head towards him with a brief smile. "She's fine, Daniel." She looked away as he smiled back at her and went back to staring at the road. "She's missed seeing you too." She closed her eyes at the light sigh from behind her and firmly resolved to never tell Daniel that Cassie was barely speaking to her these days after hearing that Janet had broken it off and it was a constant struggle to get even one civil word out of her when they were in the same house.

"Um, about that." Daniel mentally gave himself a brisk shake and quick slap around the face to get himself together. "Could we talk about what happened with us? Only there's a few things that I'm not entirely clear on."

"Daniel, I'm tired and to be perfectly honest I don't think we really have anything to say to each other regarding our personal history." Janet winced as her nails bit into her arms through the heavy wool of her coat and forced herself to relax a little. "I just want to go home and get in a nice hot bath."

Daniel drifted slightly as the image of Janet in a bath wearing nothing but bubbles popped into his head and then the image changed and he saw Janet in a bath wearing nothing but the clear, soothing water she was..Goddamit, will you focus, Jackson! He cleared his throat and hoped that she wouldn't notice that his voice was somewhat lower than usual. "I get that, really I do, but I just want to get a few things straight if you don't mind?"

Janet winced and was profoundly grateful that she'd kept her face turned from his and that he couldn't see the panicked look on her face. "Do we have to go through this?"

"Yes, we do!" Daniel frowned as she jumped at the uncharacteristic snap in his voice and said apologetically. "Sorry, it's just I've been trying to track you down to talk for a while now and I've gotten a little impatient."

Janet shifted in her seat and remembered Sam's words of a week ago, it seemed Daniel really wasn't prepared to stay out of her life as she'd hoped. She took a deep breath and said carefully. "Ok, Daniel, obviously this is bothering you and you have things you want to say." She carefully schooled her face into an expression of blandness and shifted in her seat until she sat facing him. "We'll go over this one last time and then I expect you to respect my wishes and keep our relationship on a purely professional level."

"Um, right." Daniel took his eyes off the road again and glanced at her set face. "Sure." He tightened his hands on the steering wheel at her approving nod and made a mental note not to try not to look at her again before he'd finished speaking in case he did something stupid like grabbing her and kissing her senseless and/or throttling her for speaking to him like he was a naughty six year old.

"Well?" Janet re-folded her arms across her chest and firmly stayed in her CMO persona, hoping to hell it would be enough to stop her breaking down and throwing herself into his arms. "You had something to say?"

"Right." Daniel stared blankly through the windshield at the road stretching ahead and tried to think of a way to open the conversation but not hostilities. "What happened with us? I thought it was going pretty well." He glanced at Janet's expressionless face. "I thought we were having fun."

"Daniel, I explained my reasons to you, weren't you listening?" Janet's faintly exasperated tone changed to one of deep annoyance when she saw the guilty wince at her words. "You *weren't* listening to me?"

"No, I was, I swear." Daniel cringed and tried to explain. "You just caught me by surprise. I was so shocked I couldn't take everything in and I just wanted to see if."

"So what did you take in, Daniel?" Janet wouldn't have believed he could hurt her anymore but the pain at his guilty confession was like a needles burrowing all over her skin. "Exactly what *do* you remember?"

"Um." By now wishing he'd never listened to Jack that morning and had left Janet at the roadside, Daniel felt a cold sweat spring out on his forehead. "You dumped me." He coughed at the incredulous huff of air from Janet and mumbled unhappily. "That's pretty much it."

"I see." Ice disdain dripped from Janet's words and she shook her head. "How flattering, I couldn't even hold your attention when I was finishing our so-called relationship."

"That's not true, you always had my attention, Janet. And it wasn't 'so-called' it *was* a relationship." Daniel winced as a car passed on the opposite side of the road and it's high beams shone in his eyes. "I told you, I was just so surprised at what you were doing I couldn't concentrate on the reasons why."

"Wonderful, just wonderful." Janet tightened her arms across her torso and huddled back into her seat. "So because you didn't think to pay attention to relevant information you're expecting me to go through it all again?"

"Please, Janet, it's important to me." Daniel could feel his heart pounding against his ribs and didn't dare take his eyes off the road as his hands began to shake on the wheel. "Please."

Janet chewed on her lower lip for long moments before sighing in defeat. "Fine. I wanted out because I wanted more. More than a series of one-night stands and occasional dinners. Feel better now?"

Daniel ignored the stab of pain that went through him at her brutal summary of their relationship and nodded slowly. "I see." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you felt that was all we had." He took another breath as they came up into the outskirts of town and turned his head briefly to look at her face in the neon glow of the streetlights. "I was very happy with you, Janet, and I'd like you to think about giving us another chance. What we had was a lot more than sex and dinner to me."

Janet nodded slowly; she'd been almost expecting that response. "Thank you for that, Daniel." She turned her head to face away from him again and wished he'd put his foot down to get her home and away from this tortuous conversation. "But I don't think I made myself clear. I wanted more than what we had and part of that means that I don't want you, not anymore." By sheer will she managed to keep her voice steady and emotionless as she told the biggest lie of her life to date. "You aren't enough for me."

Daniel was horribly afraid for one long moment that he would actually throw up as her words hit him with the force of a Mack truck. His mouth opened slightly and his breath came in shallow gasps as she echoed the words of Apophis from his dream and trampled his heart into dust while she did it. He shook his head to clear the roaring in his ears and heard his voice as though from a long way off. "Was I ever enough for you?"

Janet's eyes filled with tears at the detached tone of voice and she nodded briefly. "Yes. Once." They drove on in silence for some minutes until Janet couldn't bear it anymore. "Do you understand now?"

"Yes. Thank you." Daniel felt like he couldn't breathe, every inhalation of air was an effort and he just couldn't seem to get enough oxygen to stop the ringing in his ears and the dizzy feeling in his head to go away. "I care about you and Cassie a great deal, you know."

"I know, Daniel, and as friends we were great." Janet could feel herself start to shake despite the relentless heat being pumped out by the car's system. "We just couldn't take it any further, we should never have tried to." She squeezed her eyes shut as she remembered the gentle touch of his hands on her body and his eyes staring into hers as he entered her slowly and tenderly. "We just weren't meant to be."

"I guess not." Daniel turned the car into her street and fought the urge to stamp the gas pedal into the floor and keep going until he could think of the right words to bring her back to him. One of the things he had always loved about Janet was her innate kindness and sensitivity and the most disheartening thing about their entire conversation had been the lack of emotion in her voice. He felt like he didn't know the woman seated next to him and had no idea how to reach her. "Here we are."

Janet wasted no time in unclipping her seat belt and fumbling for the door handle. "Thanks for the ride." She opened the car door and stuck one foot onto the sidewalk. "I really hope that will be the end of this, Daniel. I'd like to try and get back to normal if we could." Without looking at him she got out of the car and shot up her front path like a squad of Jaffa were on her tail.

"Right. No problem." Daniel sat frozen in the car and concentrated on not throwing back his head and howling in despair at the loss of yet another loved one from his life. "I can do that."

**********************************

"You can't do that!" Jack's mouth dropped open as Daniel finished telling him the outcome of his talk with Janet the night before. "Since when do you give up so easily, Daniel? Hell, you went after Sha're for years and she kept trying to kill you, for Pete's sake!"

"She was being controlled by a parasite and was evil, Jack." Daniel leaned in defeat against his workbench and shook his head. "Despite all evidence to the contrary Janet isn't evil and she isn't possessed. She just doesn't want me anymore."

"Oh, get real, of course she wants you." Jack rolled his eyes and once again resisted the urge to beat some sense into his friend. "She's pissed because she thought you were using her to scratch an itch and you didn't want anything else, that's all."

Daniel winced. "God, don't put it like that. It sounds so."

"Cheap? Tacky? Like somethin' people would expect me to do?" Jack glared. "I know! And you should be ashamed of yourself, by the way."

"Ashamed doesn't even begin to cover how I feel at the moment." Daniel clenched a fist and pressed it hard against his churning stomach. "I can't believe that's what she thinks of me."

"Me neither, but lets move on." Jack O'Neill, man of action and matchmaker extraordinaire, clapped his hands together briskly. "Ok, we know why she dumped you now we just need to find a way to fix it." He held up a cautioning hand as Daniel opened his mouth to protest. "Uh-uh, trust me, Daniel. A woman doesn't kick you to the curb and then avoid you for three weeks afterwards if she doesn't feel anything for you anymore. Janet left the state rather than give you a chance to confront her about what she did, that is not the mark of an indifferent woman." He rolled his eyes at Daniel's thoroughly confused face. "She was running away so you wouldn't change her mind, Daniel."

"You're wrong, Jack." Daniel felt the small spark of hope inside him die as he remembered Janet's cold manner in his car and the distance in her voice. "Janet's not like that."

"Daniel, I may know squat about women but I wrote the book on evasive tactics. The woman was running, trust me." His eyes unfocused as he stared around Daniel's dangerously cluttered lab without seeing the mounds of artefacts and fossils. "We just have to get her to slow to a walk."

Despite himself, Daniel felt a small glow of amusement at Jack's highhanded manner. "What would you suggest, roping and branding her?" The amusement died at Jack's sudden speculative look. "Jesus, Jack, I was joking!"

"Hmm? Oh, me too, me too!" Jack paused again and then reluctantly shook his head. "Definitely joking. Ok, so we just gotta get her to talk to you again." He mulled over the idea for another few moments and could still reach only one conclusion. "Dammit." He waved a hand at Daniel's baffled look and felt his shoulders slump a little. The things he did for his team! "Ok, back in a while, kid."

Leaving Daniel staring after him Jack strode from the lab and towards Janet's office, resolutely ignoring the little voice inside him that was yelling about being a man and ordering Teal'c to go in his place. He jogged briskly along and finally only stopped when he reached his destination. With another put upon sigh he raised his hand and rapped sharply against the door in front of him. "Come in."

Jack squared his shoulders and opened the door to stick his head into the room with a friendly grin. "Hey, Doc, got a minute?"

**********************************

"Colonel O'Neill, what can I do for you?" Janet watched the 2IC of the SGC warily as he entered her office and dropped into the chair before her desk, aware that her tone was more suspicious than welcoming. From the flicker on Jack's face as he made himself comfortable it appeared he noticed it to.

"Just checkin' in, seeing how you are." Jack folded his hands behind his head and beamed as innocently as he knew how at the doctor. Which unfortunately, as he was Jack O'Neill, wasn't that innocently. "Feels like I haven't seen you in weeks."

"I saw you just yesterday at the briefing, sir." Janet folded her hands before her on the desk and tried to ignore the niggle of unease in her belly at the uncharacteristic display of sociability from Jack. "And at your post-medical from your last mission the day before that."

"Yeah, but who can talk when they've got their pants round their knees and a needle in their butt?" Jack's grin widened. "So. How've you been?"

"Fine, Colonel. You?" Janet tried not to fidget in her chair under his assessing eyes and reminded herself if worst came to worst she could order him into quarantine if she had to. Her chin tilted defiantly. Oh yeah, she had the power here.

"Oh fine, fine." Jack continued to grin widely and then leaned forward suddenly, making Janet jump. "Daniel, on the other hand, not so good."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Janet cleared her throat and reached for her prescription pad. "If it's his allergies I can issue some extra medication, Colonel."

"Come on, Doc, we both know what his problem is." Jack propped his elbows on the desk and fixed the top of Janet's head with a piercing look. "You two need to talk."

Janet could feel a flush creeping up her neck and onto her face and it was with great personal satisfaction that she promised herself some time with Jack's ass and a set of specially blunted needles in the near future. "Sir, if you have concerns over the medical situation of someone under your command then my door is always open." She looked up at Jack's sombre face with blazing eyes. "But if you are here to conduct an investigation into how I run certain aspects of my personal life then you're way out of line because it has damn all to do with you."

"Agreed." Jack nodded his head and tried to ignore the fact he was seriously pissing off the woman who had total control over everything that went into his butt in his immediate future. "Believe me, Janet, this is the last place I want to be but I've got a certain archaeologist down the hall who's driving himself and everyone else nuts because he screwed things up with you. The situation between you and Daniel has started to affect my team and that is not something I can ignore."

"Have I been anything less than professional in my attitude towards Daniel as far as you know, Colonel?" Janet stood so fast her chair went skidding back into the wall behind her and her palms stung where she slapped them on the desk to brace herself. "Have I acted inappropriately or neglected my medial duties towards him?"

Jack sighed. "You know you haven't, Doctor." He held up his hands defensively. "Look, I'm just trying to make this a little easier for us all to get through, ok?"

"If Daniel is finding the situation difficult then I'm sorry, but I will not feel obligated to change a decision that is essential to my personal happiness just because SG1 is finding hard to cope when one of it's members won't take no for an answer!" Janet's face was flushed and her chest was heaving as she spat angrily. "Sir."

"Whoa, Doc, let's take a deep breath shall we?" Jack got to his feet alarmed to see the suspicious sheen of tears in Janet's eyes and patted the air uneasily. "Take a minute, huh?"

"I am sick to death of people telling me what I should and shouldn't do about Daniel." Janet advanced around the desk on the retreating Colonel, bearing a remarkable resemblance to an angry lioness, albeit on a much smaller and less fang-ier scale. "The last I checked, this facility was the most important military and scientific structure on Earth and I would think you would all have more important things to worry about than who is sleeping with who." She backed Jack up into a filing cabinet and jabbed a wickedly sharp finger into his unprotected chest. "I do not want to see Daniel Jackson unless he has contracted a disease or is bleeding and I do not want him in a personal capacity anymore. What I want is to be left alone to do my job and not have to worry about people coming to plead poor, mistreated Daniel's case. Is. That. Clear?"

Janet's last three words were punctuated by a hard jab from her finger and Jack winced and grabbed for her wrist as it felt like she was going to punch right through his breastbone. "Ow! Christ, Doc, cut it out!" He eyed her in astonishment as she stepped back and rubbed his bruised skin. "Ok, for the record, I do actually have more important things to focus on than trying to get you and Daniel laid, but out of the goodness of my heart, I decided to put aside my concerns on the constant threat of alien invasion and focus on the happiness of two people I happen to care a lot about." Jack drew himself up and glared down at Janet as she opened her mouth to reply. "Shut up, Doctor, that's an order. Any idiot can see you two are nuts about each other, and God knows that I get Daniel is a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but he's a good guy and he cares about you a lot and I think he's worth taking another chance on. Whadda you say?"

"I say, get out." Janet reached blindly past Jack and felt for the doorknob, almost falling to her knees with relief when her desperate fingers located it. "And I'll tell you the same thing I told Daniel, unless it's a medical or professional emergency I don't want to see you anywhere near me. Now get out." Visibly shaking, Janet raised her voice as Jack hesitated. "I said GET OUT!"

"Ok, ok." Jack backed up and outside Janet's office. "Janet, look, I'm sorry if I upset you, but." He broke off as the door slammed in his face and he found himself talking to nothing but air. "But apparently I'm a big ass with a serious lack of people skills." He swore under his breath and then found himself glaring at three nurses who were staring open mouthed at his sudden ejection from Janet's office. "As you were, ladies." He marched past them with all the dignity he could scrape together on such short notice and stuck his hands in his pockets as he thoughtfully walked away. "Ok, new plan."

*******************************

How Janet managed to get through the next few days she didn't know. After her talk with Daniel and then with Jack she had become increasingly aware of the speculative looks that the SGC personnel were throwing her way and she also had to contend with Daniel appearing at odd moments, staring longingly at her before turning away with deep sighs and slumped shoulders. News of her argument with Jack had spread like wildfire and had reached Sam's ears less than half an hour after Jack had been ejected from her office and now the blonde Major was resolutely taking Janet's side and was in a serious snit with both Daniel and Jack for putting Janet under more pressure than one woman could reasonably hope to bear. Sam had also confided that both Jack and Daniel had been hauled into General Hammond's office and been soundly bawled out for nearly half an hour over a tape that the base security officer had turned over to him but no one was able to give any specifics except that Colonel O'Neill had definitely been caught using his Black Ops training for something it had never been intended for.

If Sam had her own suspicions about what Jack was in hot water for after hearing Janet's tale of how Daniel had come across her that night she didn't let on to her friend but both Daniel and Jack found themselves stranded at SGC headquarters one night after all the tyres on their respective cars went mysteriously AWOL and for good measure bananas had been stuffed up their tailpipes and shaving cream lovingly spread over each and every window on their vehicles. The most peculiar thing about the entire episode was that the security cameras that had caught Jack had been unable to record any evidence of the vandal that had totalled the men's' cars as someone had hacked into the base computer and looped the security camera to show nothing but an empty car park whilst the prankster operated.

Jack had done nothing but narrow his eyes at Sam's bland face the next morning when a routine patrol announced they had found the missing tyres swinging from a bunch of trees on top of the mountain, each adorned with a small stuffed monkey sitting in the centre. Teal'c on the other hand could be heard laughing uproariously behind his bedroom door for a good five minutes when he heard the full details and seriously annoyed both his male team mates by smirking whenever he caught their eyes for two days afterwards.

Janet had begun to seriously consider approaching General Hammond to talk about an extended sabbatical, or perhaps even a transfer, thanks to the constant nervous pounding of her heart every time she stepped on base despite her stern lectures to herself to pull it together, when Daniel suddenly departed to lead an expedition of archaeologists through the jungles of Honduras and Janet felt she could breath properly for the first time in weeks. He had only been gone a few days when Sam and Teal'c were summoned to assist Jacob Carter and Selmak in tracing the origins of a new type of warrior that had possible links to Annubis. O'Neill had been preparing to lead the team when he had been summoned to General Hammond's office and then had come storming out twenty minutes later to find Sam and Teal'c and go into an urgent huddle that had left all three sober faced and Jack behind on Earth when Sam and Teal'c had gated away with Jacob. Janet was alone in her office when Jack rapped smartly on the door in full field regalia and marched in without so much as a by-your-leave. "

"Doc, I need a minute." Jack closed the door behind him and took a deep breath. "I thought you should know that Daniel's in trouble." Although desperately worried himself, Jack was alert enough to notice the sudden whiting of Janet's knuckles where she gripped her pen and the paleness of her face as the blood drained away. He softened his voice and told her what he knew in a matter-of-fact manner, carefully keeping any sign of emotion from his own voice. "He's being held by kidnappers that have taken him and at least one other member of his team hostage in exchange for a ransom from the Government. The president won't authorise payment and General Hammond thinks Daniel's best chance is if I go in and snatch him back."

"Is.Is he alive?" Janet's eyes had lost their habitual coolness that she maintained whenever she was around Jack or Daniel these days and were instead naked with fear and shock. "Do you have confirmation that he's ok?"

"No, only the kidnapper's word." Jack tilted his head to the side and studied the woman for a moment before cracking a big grin as he tried to alleviate the tension. "Come on, Doc, anyone would think you cared. We both know this is just a normal day at the office for Daniel. Hell, I'll get down there and probably find they've let him go in self-defence 'cos they can't shut him up."

Janet tried to laugh and shook her hair back from her face. "Right." She sucked in lungfuls of air and tried to make herself think. "Ok. You're going to need supplies to take with you. Anti-venom, anti-histamines, anti-biotics.." Her voice broke as she suddenly had an image of Daniel lying delirious on a filthy mud floor, bleeding out his life and calling for his team mates to help him. "Oh God."

"Oh yeah, you are SO over him." Jack rolled his eyes and moved hurriedly around Janet's desk, holding her as she folded clutching her stomach and tried not to be sick. "Doc.Janet, he'll be fine. Daniel's tough and I'll have him back here by the end of the week, probably in one piece and needing nothing more than an IV drip of coffee. He's been in worse spots than this."

Janet tried to pull herself together, aware she was revealing too much, but the suddenness of Jack's announcement had left her defenceless against the overwhelming terror for the missing Daniel. "He's always had the rest of you to back him up. He's not a soldier."

Jack frowned as she began to tremble violently and briefly considered calling for another Doctor before just pulling her up and wrapping her tightly in his arms. "You listen to me, Janet, and listen good. Daniel may not have had the formal training Sam and I have but he's just as much a soldier as any man on this base. If he can get himself out, he will and then he'll head home and be back driving us all to distraction before you know it." He cupped a hand to the back of her skull and pressed her head tightly against his chest as she continued to shake. "Daniel doesn't stay alive because of me and the others, we stay alive because of him. I'm gonna go and get him back, ok?"

Janet nodded and squeezed her eyes tightly shut in an effort to rid herself of images of Daniel being tortured and beaten by faceless thugs. "Ok."

Jack patted her back and released her. "I gotta go, there's a plane waitin'. Got anything you want me to tell Daniel when I see him?" He grinned and raised an eyebrow pointedly at her. "Anything special?"

Janet opened her mouth but the words he wanted to hear just wouldn't come, she shook her head and whispered. "Just tell him I'm glad he's ok." She waited for Jack to give a disappointed nod before seating herself once more and staring blankly at the papers on her desk. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention anything about my reaction to anyone, Colonel. I've been working very hard lately and I'm obviously under more stress than I thought. If you'll just stop by the nurses station on your way out they'll supply you with an SG1 field medical kit."

"Ok, Doc." Jack looked like he was going to say something else but in the end shrugged and turned for the door. "I'll see ya."

Janet didn't look up until she heard him leave the infirmary and then she slowly got up and walked to close her office door. Her head tilted forward until she rested against the cool metal and then Janet Fraiser slid to the floor and went very thoroughly and comprehensively to pieces.

**************************************

It had been a busy week for Daniel. Getting kidnapped and nearly tortured into madness, again, will take it out of even the most resilient of men and it was with great relief that he pulled up outside his house late the following Saturday night and promised himself a soak in his tub before falling into bed and hopefully sleeping the rest of the weekend away. He climbed wearily out of his car, wincing at the slight twinge in his injured leg and started to trudge up the path to his front door, not noticing the shape huddled on his front step. "Daniel?"

Daniel stopped short and blinked in astonishment as the moon helpfully came out from behind a cloud and shone on the nervous face of one Cassandra Fraiser. "Cass?" Daniel resisted the temptation to rub his eyes and instead hurried forwards to pull the teenager to her feet. "What's wrong, what are you doing here?" He looked her over for signs of injury anxiously. "Are you ok?"

Cassie nodded and stuttered. "I.I wanted to make sure you were ok." She tried to smile. "I wanted to be here when you got home."

Absurdly touched, Daniel smiled back as he squeezed her arm and then his face creased in suspicion. "Cassie, does your mom know where you are?" One look at her angry pout had him heading for the door and dragging a very unwilling Cassie behind him. "I don't believe this!" He unlocked the door, pulling her inside before flicking on the lights and pointing to his phone. "Call her, she must be going out of her mind with worry."

"No." Cassie folded her arms defiantly and glared back. "She's asleep, she doesn't know I'm not at home. I'll call her in the morning."

Daniel's eyebrows rose. "You won't be here in the morning, you're going back home as soon as you call your mom." His mouth dropped open as Cass sniffed and turned her back on him and he was forced to pick up the phone himself and start dialling as Cassie pointedly ignored him. "Cass, I'm warning you..Janet? It's me, look I'm sorry for calling so late but I thought you ought to know that Cassie's here with me." Daniel winced as Janet's voice on the other end of the phone went from sleepy confusion to wide-awake fury and he held the handset a little way from his ear. "No, I didn't know she was coming. Jesus, Jan, calm down." Another furious squawk from Janet's end of the phone had Daniel wincing once more and throwing a furious look at Cassie's rigid back. "Janet, look stay there, I'll bring her home. Janet? Janet? Will you stop yelling and just listen to me? It's fine, I'll bring her home. We'll see you in a few minutes." He dropped the phone back in its cradle and walked to Cassie's side. "Let's go."

Cassie's eyes widened at the furious tone in his voice and she cocked her head uncertainly at the unfamiliar sight of softhearted Daniel glaring at her. "Aren't you pleased to see me? I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Cass, it's past midnight on Saturday night and you're here without letting anyone know you were coming." Daniel rubbed an exhausted hand over his mouth and then exploded. "For God's sake, what were you thinking? Anything could have happened to you. How the hell did you get over here anyway?"

"I took a cab." Cassie took an uncertain step back as Daniel clenched his fists in frustration at her puzzled tone. "I climbed out of my bedroom window after Mom went to sleep. She told me that Jack had found you this morning and that you were ok, but I wanted to see for myself."

Daniel forced himself to calm down as he heard the slight hitch in her voice and reached out to take her hand. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you." His eyes widened in alarm as Cassie's filled with tears and then his arms were suddenly full of sobbing teenager. "Oh God, Cassie, don't cry. Please." He patted her back awkwardly, wincing as Cassie pushed her face into his chest and began to wail louder. "Honey, calm down. I'm fine."

"I thought you were gonna die!" Daniel's lips twitched in unwilling amusement as Cassie paused and then sobbed accusingly. "Again!" He made wordless noises of comfort as she wrapped her arms around his waist and continued to cry. "And you didn't come to say goodbye before you left and I thought I wouldn't see you anymore and I haven't seen you for weeks and Mom won't let me call you." Daniel grimaced as she wiped her face across his shirtfront and he felt the stickiness of tears and other bodily fluids seep through the thin material to his skin. "All she does is say you're busy and then go and cry in her room when she thinks I'm asleep."

Daniel stopped murmuring comfort and stared blankly over the top of Cassie's head. "Um, what?" He felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. "Your mom's been upset?"

Cassie pulled back and nodded plaintively. "Uh-huh, and I don't even know why she's upset because she ruined it all. Everything was fine until she said she wouldn't see you anymore and now you don't come over and I haven't seen Jack or Teal'c in weeks and when Sam comes she and mom just sit talking for hours in the den and won't let me in. She's ruined everything!"

Daniel pulled a sticky strand of hair from Cassie's face and shook his head. "Cass, that's not true."

"Yes it is!" Cassie refrained from stamping her foot, but just barely. "She told me what she did to you and now you don't come over anymore and Jack and Teal'c have to take your side because they're guys and Sam has to take Mom's because they're best friends and I'm never gonna see you guys because you're going to all go away and." She stopped as Daniel laid a defensive hand over her mouth and silenced the torrent of pent up emotion.

"Cass, I'm taking you home to your mother, but on the way I think we need to have a talk." He took his hand off Cassie's mouth and took her hand, grabbing a box of Kleenex off a table on his way out the door. "Get your face cleaned up and then I want you to listen to me very, very carefully."

*******************************

Daniel turned off the car and turned to his silent passenger. "Do you understand now, Cass?" He squinted to try and get a glimpse of her face, but she swung her hair forward to hide it from his eyes. "None of this was your mother's fault, I did this."

Cass stared down at her hands, folded neatly on her lap. "You were just using my mom for sex?" She tried to clear her numb throat. "You did that?"

"NO!" Absolutely horrified Daniel shook his head and tried to think of a point in the conversation where he had brought up the physical side of things to Cassie and then thankfully reached the conclusion that he hadn't. "I didn't say that at all. Where did you get that from?"

"You said that you wouldn't commit to her." Cassie tried to blink back tears. "You said that she thought she was just convenient."

"Well, yes." Daniel's shoulders sagged and he reached under his glasses to rub his tired eyes, reflecting that no matter how many languages he spoke there was one he'd never manage to master and that was 'woman'. "But that wasn't what I meant. Cassie, look at me. I said look at me, Cassandra." He waited until she reluctantly turned to face him and then took a deep breath as he forced himself to speak honestly to the young girl. "I love your mom but I've managed to hurt her very badly and I don't know if I can persuade her to trust me again. I don't know if I can fix what went wrong between us but I'm going to try because I love her and I love you and this time I want to get things right." He smiled wryly as Cassie's eyes widened hopefully. "Although if I do manage to get things back on track with your mom the first thing I'm going to do is nail your window shut." His smile widened to a grin as Cassie gave a watery giggle and he reached for her hand. "I'm sorry that this has affected you so badly, Cass, neither of us ever wanted that. I honestly didn't think you'd even miss me around."

Cassie gripped the hand that covered hers and then leaned forward to rest her forehead against Daniel's shoulder. "Daniel, you've been around since I was twelve, how could I not miss you?" She sighed and mumbled. "You already left once without saying goodbye, I didn't want you to do it again."

Daniel's heart pounded painfully at the lost whisper and he reached out instinctively to pull her into his arms. "I'm sorry, Cassie, I'm so sorry. I didn't think." He kissed the top of her head and then saw the front door of Janet's house open and the woman herself appear. "Look, I'll talk to your mom, ok? I promise, I'll do everything I can to fix this." He waited for her to nod her head and then gave one last squeeze. "Come on, let's get you inside."

They walked up the path side-by-side, coming to a halt at the base of the porch steps and stood staring up at Janet. She looked from one to the other silently and then pulled her housecoat tightly around herself. "Inside, Cassie, I'll talk to you in the morning." She frowned as Cassie looked up at Daniel questioningly and he nodded to her before the teenager walked past her and into the house. "Thank you for bringing her home, Daniel. This won't happen again." Janet turned to go back into the house and then found herself staring at her front door as Daniel reached around her and pulled it closed. "What are you doing?"

"I just need a couple of minutes of your time." Daniel slipped in between Janet and the door, cutting off all escape, and smiled warily. "She's a bit upset, don't be too hard on her."

"Thanks for the advice but I think I can handle it." Janet couldn't stop her eyes travelling anxiously over his body and muttered. "Are you ok?"

"Huh?" Daniel frowned in confusion and then realised she was asking about his condition after his latest disaster. "Oh yeah, I'm fine. How about you?" He bent his knees and tried to look in her eyes. "Cassie says you've been a little unsettled."

Janet scowled and mentally made a note to ground her daughter for the next ten years instead of just the five she was planning on. "I'm fine. I've just been really."

"Busy. Yeah, I know." Daniel stuck his hands in his pockets and ignored her theatrical shiver in the cool night air, sighing wearily. "There's a lot of that going around." He stood staring down at her for a moment. "Look, Cassie was really upset that she hasn't seen much of us lately and I was wondering if you'd let me take her out for something to eat tomorrow. Just for an hour or so."

Janet's head flew up, eyes wide with surprise. "What?"

"I said, I'd like to spend some time with Cass tomorrow if that's ok with you." Daniel shifted from foot to foot and kept his eyes fixed calmly on Janet's surprised face. "I've missed her and she's obviously missed me so I thought it might make things a little easier for her if I made an effort to spend some time with her. I might call Jack and Teal'c and get them to come along as well."

Janet flushed as she realised that her own and Sam's names were blatantly omitted from the list of possible invitees. "I see." She stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Daniel, I don't think that's a good idea. If you'll excuse me." She took a step forward, exhaling loudly with relief as he stepped aside and allowed her to open the door and slip inside.

Daniel waited until the door closed in his face before tapping lightly on it. "Janet?" He paused but didn't hear a reply. He closed his eyes and laid his palm flat on the door as though that could help him see the woman that stood silently on the other side. "Janet, I had some time to think about us while I was away and I just wanted you to know that I'm not going to give up on us and I'm not going away. I'm sorry I hurt you and that I ruined what we had, but I want to do everything I can to make that up to you." He waited another few moments and then turned away. "I'll call you tomorrow and check up on Cassie."

Janet stood in her darkened hallway and listened to his footsteps move off into the night and then the sound of his car pulling away. She leaned back against the wall; scowling down at her shaking hands and bit down so hard on her bottom lip she nearly drew blood. "Damn you, Daniel. Goddamn you." She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. "Just leave me alone."

*******************************

The SGC was under siege. Not by parasitic snakes, small grey aliens or aliens of any description that could take another's shape or become invisible. No, this threat was much worse. The competent and highly trained staff were being pursued by the most feared threat in all the known galaxies.documentary filmmakers.

"If I see you hangin' around my door again I'm gonna get a gun and shoot you with it, Presidential approval be damned!" Jack O'Neill slammed his office door shut with a firm bang and then wrenched it back open to snarl in the faces of the two startled men on the other side. "And don't think I won't know if you go askin' any dumb ass questions about me behind my back. I can have you beamed to the other side of the galaxy like that, pal!" He snapped his fingers under the nose of the man holding the microphone and then slammed his door shut again.

The two men exchanged glances and edged away before the obviously unbalanced Colonel decided to spring back out with a new threat. "Maybe we should try someone else, Bregman? Someone a bit friendlier?"

The man in charge of possibly the most difficult media mission of all time raised an eyebrow. "Who would you like to suggest? That scientist that looks like a Barbie and talks like a physics book, the alien with the personality issues or the archaeologist who keeps smirking and telling us he might be human or he might not be." The man ran a harried hand through his thinning dark hair and sighed deeply. "They were ordered to co-operate with us."

Clive Wright, freshly cleared through National Security and desperate to finish up this particular job so he could get away from the hard-eyed people that populated the SGC, edged further away from Jack's office and clutched his beloved camera to his chest. "I don't think they want to."

"Well of course they don't want to, they want to keep their little 'Star Wars' spectacular all to themselves, but everyone has to learn to share sometime." Bregman's baggy eyes lit up as he caught sight of a small, white-coated figure march briskly past the end of the corridor immersed in a plain file held in her hands. "Bingo. There's that foxy little doctor, let's go see if she wants to chat."

Clive shook his head as he watched his employer head off in hot pursuit of Janet and reluctantly began to follow. Bregman's habit of using less than PC terms to describe the women he came into contact with was normally no more than a slight blip on his embarrassment scale but around the women of the SGC who were used to being seen as equals it could be life threatening. He made a mental note to stand as far away from Bregman whilst he tried to interview Doctor Frasier and, if possible, near something that would supply cover if things got nasty.

Janet had nearly reached the sanctuary of her office when she felt the tap on her shoulder. She jumped and turned to see the filmmaker that had been bugging the life out of her colleagues for the last forty-eight hours beaming at her, whilst his unhappy looking camera man offered her a weak smile and hung back by several paces. "Yes, can I help you with something?" Janet's warm smile of relief that she hadn't been accosted by Daniel was obviously taken as something completely different by Bregman and his grin widened appreciatively as he looked her up and down.

"I certainly hope so." He took hold of one of Janet's hands and raised it to his mouth to brush his lips over her knuckles. "We were hoping we could take up a few minutes of your valuable time and get a few scenes of the most beautiful doctor I've ever seen on film." Gray eyes twinkled in appreciation as Bregman smiled into Janet's amused eyes. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend my afternoon with."

"Colonel O'Neill threatened to shoot you again, didn't he?" Janet gently pulled her hand from Bregman's and surreptitiously wiped it on her lab coat with a wide smile. "And Major Carter tried to tell you all about her newest scientific break through."

Clive couldn't help the snort of laughter as the Doctor's dry tone and hurriedly changed it into a cough as Bregman turned to glare at him. "Sorry."

"Doctor Frasier, or can I call you Janet?" Bregman barely waited for Janet's nod of permission before sweeping on. "Although the flagship team of the SGC is obviously going to be a main focus of our work, we're also wanting to tell the story of the people behind the scenes as it were, the human element behind the heroes. And you, dear lady, are someone I definitely want to know more about."

"Uh-huh." Janet shot an amused grin at the young cameraman now rolling his eyes behind his boss' back and shrugged. "Ok, well I have some time before the next team is due back. Come in and make yourself at home." She led the way into the Infirmary and waved at an empty cot. "Have a seat." Janet leaned against the wall by the bed and stuck her hands in her pockets. "What would you like to know?"

Bregman boosted himself up onto the bed before checking the camera was rolling and turning to Janet with a big smile. "You enjoy a huge responsibility here at the SGC, how do you cope with that?"

Janet blinked at the blunt question and said carefully. "I don't know if enjoy is the right word. I'm certainly expected to maintain a careful monitoring of SGC staff and our allies and provide acceptable answers to unusual questions." She licked her lips nervously and shrugged. "Part of my job is to accurately record the new diseases and treatments we come across and assess the practicalities of using them in our ongoing fight with our enemies and helping our own race."

"But it is a lot of pressure for one person to handle." Bregman smiled encouragingly. "Tell us how you deal with seeing your friends and co-workers injured or near death on a regular basis, that must be hard."

"I, er."Janet shook her head and shrugged helplessly. "Of course, I." She turned gratefully as she heard the sound of heavy footfalls coming through the Infirmary doors and the hopeful look on her face melted away when she met the cool blue eyes of Daniel Jackson. "Daniel."

"Hi, Janet." Daniel folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow in a manner eerily reminiscent of a certain short-tempered Colonel at the two men with Janet. "Mr Bregman, I see you found someone to talk to."

"Dr Jackson." Bregman's smile dimmed a notch as he looked at Daniel's closed face. "We were just speaking with Doctor Frasier about the human cost of the Stargate programme, someone who sees the hurt and frailties of the people behind the heroics."

"Ok-kaay." Daniel stared silently at the two men before suddenly breaking into a wide smile. "Sounds fascinating, mind if I sit in?" Ignoring the stunned expression on all three faces he jumped up beside Bregman on the bed and nodded at Janet. "Don't mind me, go on."

"Daniel, is there some kind of an emergency?" Janet glared at her ex-lover as he wriggled his butt on the bed to get into a comfortable position. "Are you hurt?"

Daniel's eyes darted to Janet's and held. "Well now, isn't that a leading question?" He tilted his head towards Bregman who was almost quivering with eagerness as looked between the tense pair. Daniel held Janet's eyes for another few seconds before suddenly giving her a wide smile. "But I'm not hurt, for once, I just came to pin you down to a date." Daniel wasn't the only one to notice Janet's flinch at his choice of words but he was the only one to smile. "Y'know for us to get together with Sam and go over the latest care package Thor sent through for us. The medical stuff."

"I wasn't aware you were involved in that project, Daniel." Janet frowned as she realised she had backed herself up against the wall and her shoulder blades were actually aching from the pressure. She forced herself to relax and lean away from the wall. "I was under the impression Sam and I would be responsible for overseeing the work."

Daniel's smile widened. "Colonel O'Neill agreed with me that you needed a linguist to work in conjunction with you to ensure the correct translations were being used." He glanced at the two men, avidly observing them and shrugged. "National security, fate of the planet stuff. Y'know, the usual."

"Really?" Bregman forgot all about tension between the two doctors and latched on to the fact that Jackson was being more forthcoming than he had been in the two days they had been trying to interview him. "Are you involved in a lot of high security clearance projects?"


"Ye-ees." Daniel tucked his hands under his thighs and swung his booted feet as he glanced back at Janet's closed face. "I work on the Stargate programme." He grinned as he caught the involuntary twitch of Janet's lips at his dry reply and continued smoothly. "It goes with the territory."

"DanielJackson." All four heads turned as Teal'c walked into the room. "I have been searching for you. Colonel O'Neill wishes me to tell you that our presence is required in General Hammond's office at 1300 hours." The Jaffa stared impassively at Bregman and Clive and then inclined his head towards Janet. "DoctorFraiser, do you wish to be alone?"

"What? Oh, no, that's fine, Teal'c." Janet smiled at the large man and then blinked as he crossed the room to stand impassively at her side. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"No, DoctorFrasier." Teal'c folded his hands behind his back and eyeballed Daniel pointedly over the top of Janet's head. "I wish to remain to observe this documentary making. To ensure it is handled.carefully." The tide of colour that flooded Daniel's face had the Jaffa's nostrils flaring before he moved his bland gaze to Bregman and Clive. "I will remain."

Understandably the two non-SGC personnel in the room looked less than happy at being the focus of the warrior's attention but Bregman tried to rally himself. "Wow, Doc, we should take you around the base with us. You sure do seem to have some influence with these fellas."

"DoctorFrasier is held in high regard by all who know her." Teal'c took another step closer to Janet and twitched his well-developed shoulders. "She is well liked."

"Er, right." Bregman found himself leaning back on the bed and out of reach of the alien's worryingly long arms. "That's great. Actually I've read that you also took in a young girl a few years back, Doc. You're greatly admired by your colleagues for raising a kid and doing such a high-pressure job. She's an alien as well, isn't she?" The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees as Janet flinched at the familiar term being applied to her beloved daughter and Teal'c and Daniel both lost their expressions of blandness and instead just started looking mean.

"You know, I really don't think I like that word when it comes out of your mouth, Bregman." Daniel got off the bed and braced his legs apart as he placed his hands on his hips. "You might want to watch who you say that to around here."

Teal'c nodded coldly. "Indeed."

"Come on, guys, I didn't mean anything by it." Bregman tried to laugh. "We've read the report on the kid, it's not like we don't know she's from another planet. We just figured it'd add a great dimension to the story of SGC. The human woman loving one of the things she's.uuurgh!"

"You are SO lucky I'm not Colonel O'Neill." Daniel tightened the hand that had flown up to grip Bregman's throat and watched with detached interest as the smaller man pulled desperately at his arm whilst he fought for breath. "He'd have killed you before you finished the first sentence. Teal'c, help the nice man with the camera."

"Daniel, stop it!" Janet made a grab for Daniel's other arm and was alarmed when he shrugged her off without even breaking stride as he marched Bregman backwards towards the Infirmary door. "You'll hurt him."

"I believe that is the intention, DoctorFrasier." Teal'c took hold of the petrified Clive's arm in a gentle hand and steered him after Daniel and his captive. "This way please."

Daniel's arm tensed and he thrust Bregman back, smiling as the man fell onto his butt and skidded a few feet back along the corridor. Two passing airmen looked down and the younger one saluted Daniel. "Sir. Is there a problem?"

"I think Mr Bregman probably wants to talk to General Hammond fairly urgently, Roberts. Can you escort him to the briefing room?" Daniel stepped aside as Teal'c escorted Clive past him and waved as the two airmen helped the spluttering filmmaker to his feet. "I'll see you there, Bregman."

"Your commanding officer is going to hear about this!" Bregman was gasping for breath as he rubbed his bruised throat. "This is intimidation and."

"Oh, I can guarantee he will." Daniel tucked his hands under his armpits and rocked on his heels cheerfully. "Colonel O'Neill just loves stuff like this, right Teal'c?"

"That is correct, DanielJackson." Teal'c stood shoulder to shoulder with his friend and smiled. "I believe he will be delighted to have an excuse to discuss Cassandra. She is much loved by us all."

"Daniel, Teal'c!" Janet tried to push past the two men and reach the wheezing Bregman. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what's got into them."

"They're insane!" Bregman backed away from Janet and jerked his head at Clive to follow. "I'm going to make sure they're both court-marshalled for this."

Daniel swapped unconcerned looks with Teal'c and called after the retreating men. "Good luck, we're civilians, you can only get us fired!" He waited until the corridor was empty before looking down at Janet's scarlet face. "Are you ok, he didn't upset you too much did he?"

"Are you INSANE?" Janet's eyes were bugging out incredulously in her head as she looked her ex up and down. "Have you any idea what you've just done?"

Daniel looked baffled. "Um, yes? I just stopped that little weasel bad mouthing Cass and using you both for his tacky little film." He looked at Teal'c. "Right?"

"Correct, DanielJackson." Teal'c eyed Janet's livid face and decided he'd better go and find somewhere else to be. "MajorCarter is expecting me, please excuse me." He bowed slightly to both of them and then took off as fast as his long Jaffa legs could carry him.

"Coward." Daniel watched his buddy desert the field and then turned back to Janet, only to find she'd disappeared. Again. "Dammit, will you stop doing that!" He hurried into the Infirmary and was just in time to see the door to Janet's office slam shut behind her. "Janet!" He stormed after her and threw open the door to march into the office. "What is your problem?"

"MY problem?" Janet slapped her palms onto her desk and leaned forwards. "Daniel, you just assaulted a civilian and you think *I* have a problem?" Her hands curled into fists. "Just get out."

Daniel gripped the edge of the door and slammed it shut with enough force to make the room shake. "I did that for you. Did you want him to talk about Cassie that way?"

"Of course not, but I could have handled it without you and Teal'c losing what little you obviously have left of your minds and throwing him out on his ass." Janet flopped into her chair and dropped her head into her hands. "I can't believe you did that, what were you thinking, Daniel? It's not like you to treat people that way."

By now completely confused, Daniel stared down at the top of Janet's head. "Um, yes it is." He tried to smile at her as she lifted her head and stuck out his hand. "Hi, I'm Daniel Jackson, explorer, archaeologist, diplomat and convicted criminal on eight separate worlds that I know of." He grinned boyishly. "Or did you think I came back injured so many times from missions because Jack got tired of hearing me talk?"

Janet stared at his hand uncomprehendingly for a moment and then dropped her head back down. "Just go, Daniel, please. I'll think of something to tell the General."

Daniel pulled back his hand and titled his head to the side. "Come on, Jan, it's not that bad. General Hammond isn't going to do anything to me or Teal'c, we both know that." He chewed worriedly on his lip as Janet continued staring at her desk top and then moved to cautiously touch her tense
shoulder. "Janet?"

"Daniel, leave me alone!" Janet wrenched out of his light hold and batted his hand away. "I told you to go."

"I'm not military and I don't take orders from you." Daniel's soft voice betrayed none of the tension that was apparent in his eyes or the line of his body. "Is this about what happened with Cassie the other night?"

"No!" Janet gave him her best CMO glower and scooted her chair back out of reach. "I just want you to leave me alone."

"And I told you that I'm not going to do that." Daniel folded his arms and propped a hip on the corner of her desk. "I want to make things right between us." He sighed. "I just want to be with you again."

"Well you can't. I keep telling you that I don't want you like that anymore, Daniel, when are you going to start listening to me?" Janet's eyes were darting around the room, looking anywhere but at the man perched on the edge of her desk. "I don't need you to come swooping in to save me from stupid little bigots and I definitely don't want you following me around like some kind of stray. Why don't you believe me?"

"It's probably got something to do with the fact that you cry over me at night and that you can't look me in the eye when you tell me you don't want me." Daniel smiled almost sympathetically at Janet's stunned face and shrugged. "Cassie talked and I pay attention. I know that I hurt you and I know you're just trying to protect yourself like I was but there's no need anymore, Janet. I swear I won't hurt you again."

"Daniel." Janet leaned back in her chair and tried to swallow as he reached out to skim one finger over the back of one bone white hand where it clutched at the arm of her seat. "I was upset that you were missing. I worry when any of you are in trouble."

"I know, that must be hard, I'm sorry." Daniel kept his eyes on her face as he covered her hand with his and stroked the underside of her wrist with his long fingers. "But Cass also gave me the impression that it wasn't just when I was lost. She said you cried in your room almost every night when we broke up." He edged closer as Janet blanched and tried to pull away from him. "I used to lie awake every night or, when I did get to sleep, have nightmares about you being taken away from me. I was stupid and selfish before and I won't make that mistake again." Daniel bent his head and waited until Janet looked reluctantly up at him. "I love you."

Which was of course the moment the emergency alarms sounded all over the SGC.

*******************************

Janet led her medical team into the gateroom half an hour later and returned O'Neill's nod. "Reporting as ordered, Colonel." She adjusted the straps of her field medical kit on her shoulders and turned to her team. "Just follow orders and do what you can, please. Our priority is to stabilise our people and get them back through the gate, anything else can wait until we're back in the Infirmary. Is that clear?" She smiled bracingly at the nervous nods she received. "We'll be fine."

Sam walked over to join her friend, almost clanking with the amount of heavy weaponry she had hung around her person. "You ok?"

"Yeah." Janet tensed as Daniel and Teal'c ran into the room and then forced herself to focus on the job at hand and not Daniel's declaration in her office. "Do we know how many Jaffa are out there or how badly wounded our people are?"

"Nope." Sam glanced down at her friend soberly. "Just keep your head down, Janet, ok? Leave the rough stuff to us." She turned and narrowed her eyes at the control room where Senator Kinsey stood talking to a grim faced General Hammond. "Kinsey showing up couldn't have happened at a worse time, the last thing we need is to screw up when he's here."

Janet followed Sam's eyes and then flashed a smile. "Hey, you never know, we might get lucky and accidentally bring a stray Jaffa back with us. It'd be a darn shame if it got lose and zatted the man into oblivion."

"I knew there was a reason I always liked you, Frasier." Jack O'Neill smirked at the two women as they jumped guiltily and nodded towards the gate as the chevrons began to engage. "But do you think we can save the planned assassination of our own side until we get back from kicking the crap out of our official enemies?"

"Yes, sir." Sam grinned sheepishly and then her face sobered as the establishing wormhole whooshed outwards. "See you on the other side, Janet."

"Watch yourself, Sam." Janet waited until SG1 had grouped together with the other SG units and then nodded at her staff. "Ok, fall in." They followed her to range themselves behind the frontline teams and stood poised waiting for Colonel O'Neill's order.

"GO!" Jack sprinted up the ramp with his team hard on his heels. "Go, go, go!" The gate room echoed with the sound of pounding feet on metal as the rescue teams sprinted after their CO and then the wormhole was rippling as one by one people hurled themselves through it.

Silence reigned as the ripples calmed from the last person jumping through the gate and then General Hammond nodded. "Close the iris." He watched as the gate shut down and then turned to Senator Kinsey. "Shall we wait in my office?" He walked out without waiting for a reply and wondered if there was any way he could possibly get a zat from the armoury and shoot the Senator without any witnesses.

"While we wait, General, there are a few things I'd like to discuss, namely why two members of SG 1 attacked members of the documentary team sent here to interview them." Senator Kinsey followed closely behind and didn't try and mask the smugness of his tone. "I'm sure the President will be very interested in hearing your explanation."

Hammond grunted and led the way down the steps. Screw the witnesses, he ran this facility; he could just order them to keep their mouth shut. "Senator, have you seen the new weapons that SG 6 brought back from their latest mission? The armoury is this way if you'd like to follow me."

**************************

The noise was incredible. In every direction screams and the thunderous fire of guns sounded as humans and Jaffas battled for their lives. Janet stumbled down the steps on the other side of the gate and followed Perkins and Childs from SG 7 as they took cover behind a pile of boulders. She kept her head down as she turned to her team and yelled over the fire of weapons and shouts of men. "Go to your assigned units and get to the wounded. Be careful!" A swell of pride flowered in her breast as her people nodded and ran through the madness to reach their assigned teams with no thought but to do their jobs and get their colleagues to safety.

"Doctor, we're moving forward, be ready!" Perkins fired at a Jaffa that ran screaming towards them and then fired again as another popped up to take his place. "Stay behind us!" Janet took a deep breath and then sprinted after the two men as they raced forwards, clearing a path for her to get to an unmoving body some twenty feet away. As soon as she dropped to her knees beside the figure she knew it was too late. Blank eyes stared sightlessly up at the sky and the wound in the man's chest still smoked from the staff blast that killed him.

"I can't do anything here." Janet rose into a crouch and ducked her head as a group of Jaffas fired at them. Perkins and Childs stood their ground and fired back, spraying the Jaffa with round after round of bullets until they fell. "Move on." She followed the two men to the next body a few feet away and breathed a sigh of relief as she looked into a pair of frightened, but very much alive, eyes. "Moss isn't it?" The airman on the floor nodded and cried out as Janet ripped the material of his pants and exposed a gaping wound on his thigh. "Ok, marine, you're going to be ok. Just try to keep calm and let me help you." The sounds of battle and the screams of the dying faded as her training took over and Janet was oblivious to everything but her patient. "You're going to be ok."

********************************

Daniel had managed to get himself separated from the rest of his team in a worryingly short space of time and had somehow in the melee managed to trip over Wells from SG 13. The airman lay gasping on the ground from a vicious looking stomach wound and could do more than give a muffled cry as Daniel's body landed on top of his. "Oh God, I'm sorry." Daniel scrambled up and then covered Wells with his own body again as a Jaffa fired at them. "Hold on, hold on!" He looked up at a bust of gunfire and saw the Jaffa fall as a member of SG 5 took him down. Daniel looked down at the man beneath him. "It's ok, we're here to get you out of here." He glanced at Wells' stomach and blanched as he saw the glistening of internal muscle through the blood. "You'll be ok."

"I.I.dying." Wells gripped Daniel's jacket like a lifeline as he lay helpless on the floor. "Ba.baby."

"You're not dying." Daniel raised his gun and fired as a Jaffa came out of nowhere and blasted the alien of his feet. "Trust me, I know these things." He stared desperately around for Sam or Jack and caught a glimpse of Carter as she took out two Jaffa that had her pinned down behind a nearby rock. "Just hang on."

"N.No. Dying." Wells lifted his head with a groan of pain. "Tell.my wife.I'm sorry."

"Tell her yourself." Daniel's heart leapt into his throat as he saw Jack and Teal'c erupt from the ground about a hundred feet from his position and run bellowing defiance at a group of at least eight Jaffa. He led out the breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding as they cut through the men like a knife through butter and kept running towards a group of pinned down marines. "You'll see her soon."

"She's having a.baby. Won't see her." Wells head fell back and tears trickled helplessly from his eyes. "Can't tell.her that I love.her."

Daniel thought for a moment he'd been hit the stab of pain in his heart was so strong but when he looked down it was just to see the unmarred material of his jacket. "She knows, I promise you." He crouched lower over Wells and tried to smile. "Women know these things." The look of desolate pain in the man's eyes was enough to take his breath away and Daniel could see his own agony of losing the woman he loved mirrored in the man's face. "Look, you're going to see her again, I swear." He remembered something and fumbled his pack off to rummage in it before pulling out a small camcorder with a grunt of triumph. "But if something stops you seeing your baby born then I'll make sure she still gets to see your face, ok?" Daniel flipped open the screen and focused it on the man's face. "It'll be ok."

"What have we got?" Both men jumped as Janet Fraiser appeared out of nowhere and fell to her knees. Her hair had escaped from its tight knot and was falling in straggly waves from under her helmet as she bent over Wells. "Ok, let's have a look at you."

Daniel felt a stab of something to his heart again, but this time it was unadulterated terror. "Janet, get out of here, it's too dangerous." He stared wildly around them and then looked back at Janet as she pressed a sterile dressing to Wells' stomach. "We could be overrun at any minute."

"Colonel O'Neill's ordering the retreat through the gate with the wounded, we're winning, Daniel." Janet scraped away a trickle of someone else's blood from her cheek and grabbed his hand. "Press down here." She turned back to her pack and then suddenly jerked, flying backwards through the air to land with a crash several metres away.

"JANET!" The camera fell unnoticed from Daniel's hand as he lunged after her and left Wells bleeding forgotten behind him. "Janet, oh no, God no." He scrambled desperately over the blood soaked floor and grabbed for her limp body. "Janet, don't do this."

"Daniel?" Janet gasped with pain as he hauled her into his arms and clutched her against him. "It hurts.."

"I know, I know." Daniel looked away from her face for a brief second. "JACK, SAM, HELP ME!" He looked down at the woman in his arms again and time stopped when he saw her empty eyes. "Janet? Oh God, Janet, don't do this to me. Janet, come on." He pulled her into a sitting position and then saw the charred and bleeding mess that had been her back. "No, God, no. JACK, PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME!" Daniel felt his hand slip and then had to fight back the urge to gag as he touched Janet's exposed spine. "Somebody help me."

"DANIEL!" Sam Carter sprinted towards her screaming friend and then almost fell when she saw what he held in his arms. "Oh no.." She forgot all her training and dropped her weapon as she threw herself down at Daniel's side. "Janet, come on.." Shaking fingers fumbled for the pulse in Janet's neck and then tears sprung to Sam's eyes as she realised there was no pulse to find. "No, no, no, no." She met Daniel's wild blue eyes for a moment and then snatched up her weapon again. "I'll go for help." Unable to look at Daniel's devastated face any longer she stood up and stared helplessly around at the last remaining Jaffa as they were forced back by the SGC teams. "Colonel! Colonel O'Neill!" At last locating Jack and Teal'c, still fighting side by side as they led the victorious marines, Sam began to run. "COLONEL!"

Daniel began to sob as Sam left him and he began to rock Janet tightly against him. "Don't leave, don't leave me." The shouts of another medical team finding Wells went unnoticed as he buried his face in the nape of her neck. "Janet, please don't go, please." He felt like he couldn't breathe and began to sob in earnest as he imagined he could feel the warmth of her body already start to fade. "Please, please."

"Daniel!" Jack O'Neill pelted towards his friend with Sam and Teal'c hot on his heels. "Christ, Daniel. Teal'c hold him." Jack wasted no time in trying to be gentle as he yanked Daniel back and Janet fell out of his arms to flop lifelessly onto the floor. "Oh, hell no. Janet? Janet?" Jack ignored the screaming Daniel as he tried to fight off Teal'c to get back to Janet and bellowed. "I need a medic here!" He undid Janet's helmet, flinging it carelessly aside as he bent to listen at her mouth for any signs of her breathing. "Dammit, Doc, not like this. Carter, help me here." He fastened his mouth over Janet's and began to breath into her as Sam dropped and prepared to start pumping her chest. "Come on, Doc."

Teal'c held onto Daniel with all his considerable strength and watched his teammates battle for Janet's life. Blood began to seep out from under her still body and into the mud around them and the Jaffa swallowed. "O'Neill. O'Neill!" Teal'c's face was as filled with emotion as Jack had ever seen it when he looked up. "She is gone, there is nothing you can do for her."

"NO!" Daniel's scream had tears springing to Sam's eyes. "Jack, please, you have to help her. You have to save her."

"Danny." Helplessly Jack stared up at his friend writhing in Teal'c's arms. "Danny, I'm sorry."

"We've got to get her back to the SGC, the healing device." Daniel stopped fighting and stared pleadingly at Sam. "You can help her, Sam. You can make it work."

"Daniel..I.." Sam looked down at her friend, dead in the mud of an alien planet and started to cry in earnest. "It won't work, I can't help her. This is.there's too much damage."

"Her injuries are too severe." Teal'c shook his head and tightened his hold on Daniel as he began to shake. "We would need a sarcophagus to stand a chance."

"The Tok'ra." Daniel's face was suddenly alive with pitiful hope. "Jack, the Tok'ra could help us."

"Daniel, you know they don't use them. They know what they do to someone remember?" Jack stood up and placed his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "I'm sorry, Danny.."

"Sir." Sam scrambled to her feet and grabbed Jack's arm. "They don't use them but they have them. Or one at least. Selmak and my father were studying it, trying to find a way to alleviate their addictive side effects."

Jack blinked. "What? And no one thought to mention this before, because?" He shook his head. "Scratch that, I don't care. Teal'c, how long have we got?"

"With each moment that passes chances grow slimmer for revival, O'Neill. We do not have time to return to base and send a signal for help." Teal'c looked towards the stargate where medical teams and marines were evacuating. "And we have no way of asking for help from here."

"I wasn't gonna ask." Jack bent and scooped Janet's body into his arms. "Carter, get our people through the gate on the double, Daniel get ready to dial us to the last place we knew they were hidin' out the minute the wormhole to Earth shuts down. Teal'c, take Janet and get ready to move as soon as I give the order." He bundled Janet into Teal'c's arms as the Jaffa released Daniel. "I'm gonna go let someone know we're gonna be late. Let's go, people!"

***************************************

To say the Tok'ra were surprised to see a manic and bloodstained SG1 suddenly in their midst clutching two Tok'ra guards, one moaning weakly and one unconscious, would have been a slight understatement. To then have the human members of SG1 immediately bunch together around their alien team-mate and the limp bundle cradled in his arms and raise their weapons with the clear intention of shooting anyone that tried to come close was downright astonishing.

"Its ok, we come in peace!" O'Neill stepped forward and swung his gun slowly backwards and forth trying to cover twelve trigger happy Tok'ra all at the same time. "Just lookin' for a little help here!"

"Colonel O'Neill?" The Tok'ra scientist Malek, pushed past his tense comrades and stared at the grim faced Jack. "Is that you?"

"Malek, tell your men to lower their weapons, we're not here to fight." Jack relaxed slightly at the sight of a familiar face and his gun barrel dropped a notch. "We need help."

"Certainly. If you will tell your men to lower theirs?" Malek waited until Jack nodded and signalled to Daniel and Sam before gesturing to the Tok'ra. "Put down your weapons. How can we help you, Colonel?"

Jack stepped aside and gestured to Janet in Teal'c's arms. "Our friend's been hurt, our doctors won't be able to help her." He followed Malek as he hurried forwards and assisted Sam in holding Daniel back as the Tok'ra carefully helped Teal'c shift Janet's body so he could examine her. "She needs your help."

Malek straightened and glanced eloquently down at the blood that dripped from Janet's wound onto the floor. "I am truly sorry, there is nothing that we can do for your her. She is dead."

"No!" Daniel broke free of his friends' hold and grabbed at the Tok'ra's tunic. "You help her, get her to your sarcophagus." He stared pleadingly into the alien face. "Please, help her."

"I am sorry for your loss." Malek tried to gently disengage his clothing from Daniel's fierce grip. "I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do."

"Malek, what have you done with the sarcophagus?" Sam pushed past Jack and joined Daniel in snatching frantically at the captive alien. "I know you had one, what have you done with it?"

"Samantha, you know we do not use the sarcophagus like our enemies. It is there to be studied, not to be used. We are not Gods." Malek's eyes pleaded for understanding. "We would become no better than those we fight if we used that technology to further our own aims."

"You sanctimonious bastard!" Daniel's fist smashed into Malek's face and he followed the man down onto the floor. "You can help her! Goddamn it, help us save her!"

Jack lifted his gun again as Daniel pummelled ruthlessly at Malek and Sam tried to drag him off. "Nobody move." The Tok'ra guards froze as he swept his weapon along their ranks. "I won't get all of you but I will get some, we've got nothin' to lose here." He kept his eyes on the Tok'ra as the sounds of Malek having the stuffing beaten out of him ceased and dry wracking sobs filled the chamber. "Carter, everything under control?"

Sam gasped for breath as she held Daniel's arm pinned against the small of his back and glanced at the bloodied Malek. "Yessir, Colonel." She stood and pulled Daniel up beside her. "We're good."

"Samantha." The familiar distorted voice had all heads turning as someone pushed their way into the tense room. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Selmak." Sam bowed her head as she saw the familiar golden eyes of her father staring in bewilderment at her. "I'm sorry, we need your help. Janet's been wounded very badly and we need to use your sarcophagus, it's her only chance."

"And you believe that coming here and assaulting my people is a good way to ask for my help?" Selmak's head shook reprovingly. "This is no way to treat respected friends."

"Selmak, we're not exactly awash with time to spare here." Jack still hadn't lowered his weapon but he managed to keep his voice fairly neutral. "We'll chat about old times as soon as you fix Janet, ok?"

"That cannot be, O'Neill." Selmak's face was awash with pity. "I am sorry, but we cannot allow that."

"Wrong answer." Daniel had his gun in his hands and trained on Selmak before he realised what he was doing. He advanced past Jack, ignoring the sane, rational part of his mind that was screaming at him to stop, and focused on the burning knot of white-hot terror in his gut. "Help her or I will shoot you where you stand."

"Daniel, no!" Sam darted forward and gasped as Jack shot out a hand to grip her arm. "Please, that's my father."

"Carter, fall back." Jack's eyes were darting everywhere at once as he tried to watch the assembled Tok'ra. "Fall back and cover us, Carter, that's an order!"

"Sir." Sam flinched as Jack's hand tightened on her wrist to grind the bones together and she gave a sob. "Yessir." Unable to tear her eyes away from Daniel holding her father and his symbiote at gun point she backed away and bent to retrieve her weapon, moving to cover Teal'c's left flank.

"Wait." Selmak held up his hands and appeared to listen intently for a moment before sighing. "Jacob would like to talk to you." He stared without fear into Daniel's fear crazed eyes. "Please, listen to him."

Sam started and lowered her weapon as she looked round. "Dad?"

Jacob's eyes glowed as Selmak retreated and then Jacob Carter was staring down the barrel of Daniel's gun. He flicked a glance to either side at the tense Tok'ra and then stared for long moments at the limp body of Janet held in Teal'c's arms. "Sam, Jack, I want you all to listen to me very carefully. I'm not only speaking to you as a father and as a friend, but also as a senior officer, is that clear?" He paused and then took a deep breath. "I want you to do what ever you have to do to ensure that Janet goes back to the SGC alive." Jacob jerked as Selmak tried to reassert his control over their body and he hissed through gritted teeth. "Daniel, don't put down your weapon, do whatever you have to do." He staggered. "Sam, do you understand me? Sam!"

Sam raised her gun and pointed it with tear blurred eyes at the massed ranks of the Tok'ra. "Yes sir, General Carter." She backed up until her shoulder blades touched Teal'c's side and kept her weapon steadily pointed at their allies. "Yes, sir."

"NO!" Selmak roared as he pushed Jacob down and took control. "I will not allow this."

"You don't have a choice, Selmak." Jack's eyes were flat and hard as he watched the Tok'ra surrounding his team. "If you don't give us access to the sarcophagus then we will open fire on your people."

"You fool, you have no idea of what you are doing." Selmak's eyes glowed with fury as he glared impotently at the team. "We have offered you nothing but friendship and."

"Bullshit!" Jack's voice cracked like a whip. "That's bullshit and you know it. You use us for your own ends and make use of the contacts we bring you because you're too damn chicken to go out and make them yourselves. Well now it's time for a little payback, Wormy. Our friend needs your help and if you won't give it then we're just gonna have to take it. Sam, Daniel, I'm ordering you to shoot the next person that tries to stop us. Teal'c, stay between us."

"You will destroy everything we have worked for these past years, the trust we have built!" Selmak raised his hands pleadingly as Daniel began to advance on him, eyes desperate and without pity over the top of his gun. "Is the life of one woman, however loved, worth jeopardising that for?"

"Yes. She's worth everything." The barrel of Daniel's gun slammed into Selmek's breastbone. "Now take us to the sarcophagus or I will shoot you." He jabbed the Tok'ra with the weapon hard once more. "Now."

"You heard the man, Selmak." Jack's eyes narrowed as he saw a guard make a move for his weapon. "Don't do it, kid, we're prepared to die over this, are you?" The Tok'ra froze and Jack raised his voice. "Cm'on, Selmak, you know me, I don't do empty threats. Either all my team goes back to Earth alive or none of us do."

Daniel jabbed with the gun again. "And we'll take as many of you as we can with us."

"Samantha." Selmak looked towards his host's daughter, trying to plead with the sanest member of the team. "Please, don't do this."

"I have my orders, Selmak." Sam refused to look away from the Tok'ra in before them. "And Janet's my friend, I won't let her die if I can prevent it."

Jack smiled coldly. "Let's go, people, we have a miracle to perform."

********************************

SG 1 stood with weapons drawn around the sarcophagus, watching the Tok'ra surrounding them as the machine worked silently on Janet. Selmak stood before Jack, eyes blazing with fury as they waited for the lid to part and reveal whether SG 1's desperate gamble had worked. "You will pay dearly for this, O'Neill. You have made a very powerful enemy for your world."

"Get in line, Selmak." Jack blinked cold sweat out of his eyes and wished his arms would stop aching. "Take a number right after, Annubis. Sam, how much longer?"

"I don't know, sir." Sam tried to think past the fact that she had probably just kissed goodbye to any chance she had of seeing her father ever again. "Another few minutes at most."

"See? The nasty humans will be out of your thinning hair before you can blink, Selmak." Jack forced his arms to hold steady, not easy when he'd been holding a heavy machine gun in the same position for the last forty minutes. "Once we get Janet safely back to Earth we'll come right back here and let you do whatever you want to us, ok? The alliance between our peoples won't have to suffer."

"How can we trust you again?" Selmak gestured to Malek and scowled. "You've abused our relationship and everything we have built together. How can we ever trust you again?"

"The Tau'ri are an honourable people, Selmak." Teal'c's deep voice echoed through the room as he half turned from his position at the foot of the sarcophagus to look at the Tok'ra leader. "And we have been victorious so many times against our common enemy because of the very behaviour that we exhibit here today. The Tok'ra have benefited many times from our help."

Jack bared his teeth. "What he's tryin' to say is it looks pretty funny when we're happening to the System Lords, not quite such a hoot when we come knockin' on your door, is it?"

"Sir." Sam tensed as the pitch of the humming machine changed almost imperceptibly. "Sir, I think it's ready."

"Sweet." Jack felt his heart rate pick up as the sound of the sarcophagus lid opening sounded behind him. "Nobody move, we'll know in a minute."

That minute was the longest of Daniel's life as he forced himself to keep his weapon aimed at the Tok'ra before him. His muscles were straining to turn around and see if they had succeeded in bringing Janet back, whilst his heart and mind were screaming in fear that they had been too late and rebelling at the thought of losing the last seconds of hope that she could live again. Endless seconds ticked by when the lid had fully opened and with each passing one, Daniel felt a little bit more of his heart whither and die. She should have said something, made a sound, anything by now but the only sound in the room was the harsh breathing of SG1 the slight scuffle of feet against the floor.

"Janet? Doc?" Jack cleared his throat and prayed like he'd never prayed before. "You in there?" More long moments passed. "Oh crap. Janet, if you're in there now would be a *really* good time to say something." Jack could feel the blood pumping in his ears as he ordered hoarsely. "Carter, report."

Sam edged back until she felt the sarcophagus press against the backs of her legs and transferred her gun into one hand as she groped back with the other. Her eyes stayed firmly before her as she found Janet's head and skimmed her hand down to her friend's neck.and then yelped as a small hand gripped her wrist and yanked her off balance. "Oh my god!" Sam turned awkwardly and found herself looking into the confused, pissed off and very alive eyes of Janet Frasier. "Jack, it worked, she's ok! She's ok!"

"That's a matter of opinion." Janet fought to sit up and stared in bewilderment over the top of the sarcophagus at the massed ranks of aliens held at bay by Jack, Daniel and Teal'c. "Oh my God, what have you done this time?"

********************************

It took a lot to shock General George Hammond into speechlessness but he couldn't help but notice nearly all of the times it had happened over the last seven years SG1 had somehow been at the bottom of it. This time was no exception. He watched with an open mouth as his flagship team stumbled through the stargate, drenched in blood in the company of his CMO that he had been assured had died on the rescue mission and Selmak of the Tok'ra looking none too happy to be there. Silence reigned as the gate shut down and SG1 looked at the marines training their weapons at them and then at their CO. "Hi, honey, we're home!" Jack took off his cap and wiped his forehead with a grunt as he ambled down the ramp towards the General. He waved at the gun-toting airmen. "Really, don't get up."

General Hammond looked past his 2IC at Carter walking down the ramp with her arm around a pale faced Janet and then at the equally white faced Daniel Jackson and ever stoic Teal'c. "What the hell have you people done now?"

Jack looked mortally offended. "Why does everybody keep asking that question? Just for once can you people have a little faith that." He trailed off under Hammond's quelling look. "Never mind."

"Colonel O'Neill, we had reports that you and your team stormed the Tok'ra command base and took several of their people hostage, is this true?" Hammond held his breath as he stared piercingly at O'Neill's suddenly guilty face. *Please say no, please say no. Just for once let the reports be wrong*

Jack glanced at his team and then back at Hammond. "Stormed is such a strong word. I'd go more with 'visited with extreme prejudice', sir. Teal'c?"

"I believe DoctorFrasier requires medical attention, O'Neill. Should our priority not be to ensure her comfort and well-being?" Teal'c side-stepped Jack's attempt to bring him down with him with the skill of a seasoned diplomat and put out a hand to steady Janet and Sam as they stumbled slightly. "I believe medical attention is required *now*."

"Doctor?" Hammond swallowed his questions with an effort, took his first proper look at his CMO and nearly had a heart attack as he realised it wasn't mud she had dripping off her uniform but blood. "Sweet Jesus. Medics!"

"I'm alright, sir, just a little dizzy." Janet tried to smile as her medical personnel rushed towards her. "There's not a scratch on me."

"Yeah, *now*." Jack's quiet mumble had Hammond swinging round to glare at him again and he gave the irate CO an innocent grin. "I coughed."

"Get Doctor Frasier to the Infirmary." Hammond stepped aside as the medical team carried Janet past him and laid her protesting strongly onto a gurney. "Colonel O'Neill, I want SG1 and your guest in my office in two minutes for a full report. Senator Kinsey is also anxious to hear your explanation of your most recent actions."

"Oh, hell." Jack stopped trying to look amused and his head dropped onto his chest with a mournful sigh. "This day's just never gonna end."

"Sir, with respect, I think Teal'c should be allowed to escort Daniel to the Infirmary." Sam nodded her head towards her friends and widened her eyes meaningfully. "I don't think they should be allowed to speak to the Senator until they've been cleared medically, sir."

"Doctor Jackson, are you injured?" Hammond looked Daniel over carefully and narrowed his eyes at the whiteness of his face. "Are you hurt, son?"

"General, Carter has a point." Jack moved to block Daniel from Hammond's assessing eyes and raised his eyebrows meaningfully as he muttered. "The by-the-book-gotta-tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth part of SG1 might be better out of the way for this one, sir."

Hammond rubbed an absent hand over his waist as he felt an acid burn start in the pit of his stomach. "This better be good, Colonel." He raised his voice as he made a mental note to pay a visit to the Infirmary himself before the end of the day and get them to check for an ulcer. "Teal'c, please escort Doctor Jackson to the Infirmary and remain there until I send for you." He waited until the Jaffa had led the silent Daniel away and then gestured to the last two remaining members of SG1. "Colonel, Major."

Jack passed his guns to a waiting airman. "Selmak?" He waited until the Tok'ra had moved past him before falling in step with Sam. "Remind me again why I keep doing this job?"

Sam kept her eyes on the back of her father's head and ignored the wide-eyed looks they received from the base personnel as they followed General Hammond to his office. "I really have no idea, sir."

*********************************

If General Hammond and SG1 thought their day was bad, then they should really have tried Senator Kinsey's shoes on for the day. He had gone from mildly pleased that he had arrived at the base in the middle of an emergency to gloating pleasure when things had obviously taken a turn for the worst on the rescue mission and then to out and out euphoria when the message had come through from the Tok'ra that SG1 had lost their minds and were currently holding at least one high-ranking member of the Tok'ra council hostage and had beaten the crap out of at least three other aliens.

Now one of those self-same aliens, one of the very ones that had allegedly been held at gunpoint by the renegade team, was sitting before the Senator insisting that one of his personnel had become over-excited and misread the situation and nothing out of the ordinary had really happened. Euphoria was fast fading into deep, dark misery and Kinsey's mood wasn't being helped by the fact of
Jack O'Neill smirking at him over Selmak's shoulder and then sniggering openly to his 2IC as she tried valiantly to look completely innocent of all wrong doing. "Sir, Selmak, if SG1 have violated the trust between us and caused harm to yourself or anyone under your command then you have to tell us and they will be dealt with." Occupied in looking as sincere as he knew how, Kinsey just managed to stop a snarl as Jack flashed him a wink and the thumbs up behind Selmak's back. "We can take action to ensure they never leave this planet's surface again."

"Senator Kinsey, I have told you that SG1 came to us for help in treating their injured friend and we were only too happy to oblige them in their request." Selmak's face looked anything but happy but still he forced himself to continue. "They were quite naturally distraught and emotions were running high but we were able to calm them down once they realised their friend would live. The only reason I have returned to the SGC with them is to ensure that the situation my people unknowingly created is put right."

"Ok, Senator, you've heard it straight from the Tok'ra." General Hammond leaned back in his chair and nodded to the purple-faced Kinsey. "I'm satisfied with both versions of events and I think we owe our thanks to the Tok'ra people for their invaluable aid to members of our personnel, what do you say?"

"Of course." Kinsey spoke through gritted teeth and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as he tried to smile gratefully. "Words cannot express what we feel."

"*Bullshit*!" Jack looked up with another snarky grin from his fake cough and explained contritely. "Its kinda dusty in here."

"The President is waiting on a full report." Kinsey got to his feet and didn't trust himself to look at any of the faces that watched him in case he gave into temptation and shot the lot of them. "If you'll excuse me?"

Hammons watched him leave and the minute the door closed slammed his fist on the briefing room table. "Colonel, Major, I want to know what the hell happened out there and I want to know now!" He glared at the other three occupants of the room and snarled warningly. "And don't even *think* about spinning me the same line you did that idiot."

"General, the situation has been dealt with." Selmak stood up and straightened his tunic. "I suggest we forget this entire incident ever happened and move on from here."

"The hell we will." Hammond stood as well and braced his fists on the table as he leaned into Selmak's face. "These people are under my command and I have a right to know what they've done."

Selmak looked back at Hammond and then his head dropped onto his chest with a sigh. When the man looked up again, it was the sparkling eyes of Jacob Carter that the General found himself looking into. "George, good to see you again." He turned to Sam and opened his arms. "You did great, Sam. I'm proud of you."

"Dad." Sam jumped up and went into her father's embrace with a relieved smile. "I didn't know if I'd see you again before you left."

"Jacob." Jack held out a hand as he stood and clasped the one that Jacob stretched towards him gratefully. "You saved our butts, buddy. Thanks."

"I think I owe you a few times over, Jack." Jacob patted Sam on the back and eased her out of his arms. "How's Janet doing?"

Sam couldn't make herself let go of her father's hand and squeezed it tightly as she beamed a smile. "Good. She's a little shaky but the wound completely healed and she was lucid enough when we got her out of the sarcophagus."

General Hammond sat down with a thump. "Sarcophagus? What sarcophagus?"

Jacob ignored his old friend and nodded thoughtfully. "She's going to be a little disorientated for a while yet. We've made some adjustments to the original settings to the machine and where we tried to compensate for the addictive side effects of usage the subjects are going to have to cope with symptoms of lethargy and so on for a few days." He smiled at Sam and Jack's suddenly worried faces. "She'll be fine, but it was a major injury and it's going to take time to get her back to normal."

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?" Hammond's roar had Jacob, Jack and Sam starting with surprise and then exchanging uneasy looks. "If I don't get a full report in the next thirty seconds I'm going to have you all arrested and locked in the holding rooms."

Jack quirked an eyebrow at Jacob and the older man nodded. "Ok, but you aren't gonna like it, sir." He gestured to Carter and Jacob to re-take their seats and took a deep breath. "Well, General, it happened like this."

********************************

The Infirmary was buzzing with activity and full to overflowing with the injured from the rescue mission. Daniel and Teal'c had found themselves an out of the way spot near Janet's bed where she was being fussed over by her nurses and were sitting in silence watching her trying to escape prodding hands and needles as she was examined. "I believe DoctorFrasier is looking much better, DanielJackson." Teal'c nodded with approval as Janet grabbed a hand that tried to poke at her back once more and delivered a pithy comment about what would happen if she was touched again. "She is recovering from her ordeal quickly." The Jaffa glanced at his friend sitting silently beside him and frowned in concern at Daniel's wide, shocky eyes. "DanielJackson, are you well?"

Daniel started at the firm grip on his arm and looked up at Teal'c in bewilderment. "What? Did you say something?" He shook his head to clear the buzzing in his ears and tried to swallow to ease the burning in his throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said."

Teal'c leaned closer and held onto Daniel's arm as he began to shake. "I said, are you well? You have not spoken since we returned from the Tok'ra homeworld."

"I.I'm fine." Daniel tried to smile reassuringly and only succeeded in looking like he was going to be sick. "Everything's fine."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and regarded his friend for a moment before nodding and releasing Daniel's arm. "It is often harder to accept a loved one's injuries than it is our own." He obligingly kept his eyes on Janet as he felt Daniel shudder beside him. "You care for DoctorFraiser very much."

Daniel made a strangled sound. "Yes." His hands were twisting together to mirror the snakes that seemed to have taken up residence in his gut. "Yes, I do. I thought I'd lost her forever, Teal'c."

"But you have not." The alien allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. "She is safe and well."

"I know." Daniel could feel the shaking get worse as he remembered the screaming terror of looking into Janet's lifeless eyes. "God, I thought I'd lost her."

"But she is now found." Teal'c got to his feet as he saw Jack, Sam and an incredibly unimpressed looking General Hammond march into the room. "And she will stay that way. General Hammond."

Hammond barely acknowledged Teal'c's respectful nod before turning his wrathful eyes on Daniel's beaten figure. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Daniel somehow found the strength to climb to his feet and meet the General's eyes, the low angry whisper from his CO setting the snakes in his belly rolling once more. "I'm sorry, General Hammond, I'll take full responsibility for the incident and submit to whatever disciplinary measures yourself and the Tok'ra feel are necessary."

"Save it, Doctor Jackson." General Hammond sliced an angry hand through the air. "Thanks to Jacob Carter effectively blackmailing Selmak with the loss of his host body, the Tok'ra have been left with no alternative but to drop all accusations and charges against you and the rest of SG1. As far as the SGC and the Tok'ra high council are concerned this incident never took place." His eyebrows rose at the relived slump of Daniel's shoulders and he hissed angrily. "I, on the other hand, know all about it and I want a goddamned explanation!"

"I."Daniel looked helplessly over Hammond's shoulder and saw Janet frowning in concern as she tried to hear the low voiced conversation over the racket in the Infirmary. "I.we.I couldn't let her die, sir. I'm sorry."

Hammond opened his mouth to reply and then followed Daniel's eyes to Janet's white face. He stared at her for a minute and then abruptly all the tension left his body. "I suppose not." Suddenly very, very tired the General rubbed his hand over his eyes and then turned on his heel to march to Janet's bed. "How are you, Doctor Fraiser?"

"Fine, sir." Janet batted away another questing hand and struggled to sit up. "If I can just be allowed to get changed I can start assessing the wounded and scrubbing up for surgery." She looked confused as her friends stared at her blankly. "What?"

"Denied, Doctor." Hammond held up a pacifying hand as Janet started to protest and turned to Doctor Warner. "Report?"

"Well, sir, as far as I can see there's no physical damage whatsoever. Doctor Frasier appears in the peak of condition and there's not even evidence of blood loss to indicate she's been injured." Warner grinned at Janet. "All she needs is a shower and some rest."

"No, I don't." Janet paused and looked down at her clothing. "Well, I could use a shower but I don't need to rest. General, I'm needed here."

"Actually the only thing needed here is Doctor Frasier's bed." Warner shrugged apologetically at his seething CO. "I recommend that she be allowed to go home and rest. Perhaps if Major Carter could.."

"Can't be spared." Jack jumped hurriedly in and thought fast. "She's needed here for the debriefing and, um, other stuff. If you're sure Janet's ok to go home then maybe Daniel and Teal'c could take her and I'll send Carter along when I can to check on her."

Hammond eyeballed Jack pointedly as Janet and Sam both protested and then crumbled when Jack jerked his head to indicate Daniel's still blank face. "Agreed. Doctor Jackson, Teal'c, take Doctor Fraiser home and stay with her until Major Carter is able to join her." He raised his voice over the babble of protest. "That's an order!"

Sam frowned. "With all due respect, sir, Daniel and Teal'c were both on the mission and they should be debriefed with the rest of us."

"Your objection is noted, Major. Doctor, you're on leave until I say otherwise. Colonel, a word?" Hammond nodded to the team and Janet and walked away with Jack at his heels. He paused at the Infirmary doors and glanced back at Janet's bed. "Colonel, if I allow Doctor Jackson and Teal'c out of here with Fraiser, can I have your word that whatever situation has been stirred up these last few weeks will be resolved?" He huffed at Jack's suddenly shifty look and put his hands on his hips to lean into his 2IC's closed face. "Son, I'd have to be an idiot not to have noticed the change in Doctors Jackson and Fraiser since their relationship broke off. Now, I don't really care whether they end up never speaking again or raising an army of red-headed, be-spectacled geniuses but the next time they come back onto this base to resume their duties I want this matter sorted once and for all, is that clear?" He waited for Jack's nod of acknowledgement and bared his teeth. "And if you ever knowingly allow members of this facility that have an intimate relationship on a high risk mission together again I will hand your ass over to Kinsey myself. Got it?" Jack nodded again. "You and Carter have thirty minutes to get cleaned up and then I want you in my office and prepared to do a lot of talking. Dismissed."

Jack watched his CO walk away and then turned to go back into the Infirmary. He rejoined his friends by Janet's bed and gave a sickly grin as they all looked quizzically at him. "The General says get well soon!"

******************************

Half an hour later, Janet found herself bundled inside a blanket on the backseat of Daniel's sedan, still wearing the clothes she'd died in and staring at the back of one bald head and one tufty one. She was trying to work out exactly what had happened between General Hammond ordering her off base to Teal'c helping her into the car and the only thing she could be sure of was that she couldn't get a shower on base for another hour at least and Jack was insistent she was off the premises before he and Sam went for their debriefing. Hence the sitting in blood soaked clothing and feeling a little fuzzy round the edges. She blinked as the warm air from the heater Daniel had cranked up to full the minute they got in the car made her eyelids droop and tried to shake her head to wake herself up. "I haven't got my keys. I think I left them in my purse. In my office."

Daniel glanced in the rear view mirror and watched as her head dropped and then jerked up again as she tried to fight off sleep. "That's ok, Janet. Teal'c and I will take care of it." He reached out to the heater and made sure it was definitely on full, ignoring Teal'c's curious glance. "Just relax, we'll take you home."

Janet shook her head again and tried to speak but her tongue felt huge in her mouth and she couldn't quite remember how to form words. "I.Dan-iel."

Daniel looked in the mirror again and sighed as her head slipped to the side and her eyes closed in sleep. "I think she's out."

Teal'c turned in his seat and looked at Janet's slack face. "I believe you are correct." He turned back to Daniel as the other man moved to turn down the heater and cracked a window to let in some cool air. "I do not understand, DanielJackson."

Daniel gripped the steering wheel and shifted uncomfortably. "Warmth makes you sleepy, Teal'c." He darted another look at Janet asleep on his back seat. "Jack said there's going to be some after effects from the sarcophagus and she'll be a little weak and disorientated for a while." Daniel returned his eyes firmly to the road and fessed up. "So Jack and I decided it's probably better if Janet comes home with me so I can keep an eye on her." A long silence filled the car as Teal'c processed this new development and eventually Daniel added uncomfortably. "Just to make sure she's ok."

"You have mislead DoctorFrasier as to your true intentions and made me an accessory." Teal'c's calm statement betrayed no emotion and he eyed Daniel as he continued softly. "You are using DoctorFraiser's current vulnerability to your advantage."

"No!" Daniel stopped and forced himself to lower his voice in case he disturbed Janet. "No, of course not. I just want to make sure she's safe and well looked after."

"MajorCarter will join us as soon as she is given leave from the SGC." Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Is she not a sufficient carer for DoctorFraiser?"

"Yes, of course." Feeling more like scum every minute, Daniel shifted in his seat again. "But she's going to be tied up in base for a while." He paused and then flicked a shifty glance at Teal'c before muttering guiltily. "A really long while."

"I see." Teal'c folded his arms and tried not to look as thankful as he felt that Daniel was finally getting his act together. "And what about Cassandra? Will she not be concerned when her mother does not return home this evening?"

"Um." Daniel's guilt increased. "No. She'll be at home with Janet and me. I'm going to get her from school before going to my house."

"You are removing Cassandra from her school without permission." Teal'c was beginning to sympathise with General Hammond and winced as his head suddenly began to thump with the beginnings of a headache. "I do not believe that this is wise, DanielJackson. I was not aware that you were allowed to do this."

"I'm not." Daniel hunched further down in his seat and clenched his jaw determinedly. "But Sam can give permission and Jack seems to think that the school will only have her on record as Major S. Carter. If I need him to he's going to pretend to be Major Samuel Carter and give permission for me to take Cass."

The pounding in Teal'c's temples increased. "I do not think this is wise."

"This is my last chance, Teal'c, I nearly lost her today." Daniel took a deep breath and pleaded for understanding. "I can't lose Janet and Cassie, I just can't."

Teal'c looked at Daniel for long moments before giving a slow nod. "Very well." He glanced back at Janet once more and then turned to stare out of the front window as Daniel sagged in relief. "I will remain with DoctorFraiser whilst you collect, Cassandra."

"Thank you, Teal'c." Daniel pressed his foot down on the gas and felt a small weight ease off his chest as the car sped up. "Thank you."

******************************

It was nearly twenty-four hours later before Janet woke up and she woke slowly, fighting her way to the surface of consciousness. Janet frowned as she registered the feel of soft, warm sheets covering her body and concentrated on lifting her eyelids to stare blearily up at the ceiling above her head. Her frown of confusion deepened as she realised the ceiling above her was neither the SGC infirmary nor the familiar cream of her own bedroom at home, but a sharp, almost blinding, white in the sunlight streaming through the uncovered windows. Which were on a completely different side of the bed to where they usually were. Janet's hands fisted on the sheet covering her and her heart began to race as she realised she had absolutely no idea of where she was, she turned her head to see her own smiling face looking back at her from a photo frame beside a phone on a bed side table and that was enough to galvanise her into sitting up with a gasp of shock.

She stared around at the unfamiliar bedroom with worried eyes and then down at the wide bed she was on. A plain tan coverlet lay rumpled over her thighs and she gasped again as she saw she was clothed in nothing more than an over sized black vest top which, much like the rest of the room, definitely wasn't hers. "It's mine." Janet yelped and snatched the covers up to her chest at the sound of a male voice and then stared bug eyed at Daniel Jackson where he leant with arms folded over his chest against the doorframe. He slowly pulled a hand free, waved it at the room and then nodded at her. "You're in my bed."

Janet blinked. "What?"

"My bed." Daniel pushed away from the door with a jerk of his shoulder and walked forward, frowning slightly as Janet scooted back towards the headboard. "You're in my home."

"What am I doing here?" Janet eyed her former lover warily as he sat himself down on a chair at the side of the bed and then scowled as she finally realised that, aside from the vest she wore, she was naked under the covers. "Where are my clothes?"

Daniel shrugged. "They were dirty." He managed to control the shudder as he remembered the feel of the blood-stiffened cloth as he had peeled it away from Janet's unconscious body. "I put them in the incinerator."

Janet found herself nodding in agreement to his reasonable tone before his words fully registered. "What?" Acutely aware there was nothing between her butt and the mattress beneath her but the loose cotton top that was swamping her, her mouth dropped open in outrage. "You burned my clothes?"

Daniel could feel the flush working it's way up his cheeks as she stared at him in horror. "Uh-huh. That's my shirt you're wearing." He coughed uncomfortably as Janet looked down at the shirt falling off her shoulders and then back up at him incredulously. "Are you hungry?"

"No, I'm not damn well hungry, Daniel!" Janet flinched back as Daniel's hand reached out towards her and spat. "Don't even think about touching me. You said you were taking me home, I trusted you!"

Wincing at her accusing tone, Daniel tried to smile. "But I never said which particular home, did I?" The smile melted away as her eyes burned with betrayal and anger. "I just didn't want to leave you alone, you've been through so much."

"Don't give me that, you know Cassie would have been there." Janet's face paled as she remembered her daughter. "Oh God, Cassie. Daniel you have to take me home, I have to see Cassie."

"No, you don't." Daniel moved from his chair and perched on the edge of the bed to catch Janet's arm as she tried to scramble out from under the covers. "Jan, it's ok."

With reflexes she didn't know she possessed, Janet swung round and slapped Daniel so hard his glasses flew from where they were perched on his nose to smash against the wall. "Get off me! I need to get home."

"MOM!" Cassandra skidded to a halt in the bedroom doorway and clapped a hand to her mouth as she watched her mother draw back her hand to slap the stunned Daniel once again. "Mom, what's going on, are you alright?"

"Cassie?" Janet's hand fell as she saw her daughter in the doorway wearing a pair of pyjamas and her face still flushed with sleep. "Cass?"

Cassandra launched herself across the room into her mother's arms, ignoring Daniel as he scrambled hurriedly out of the way. "Mom!" She wrapped her self around her much smaller mother and burst into tears as she buried her face in Janet's neck. "Mom."

Janet's arms went around the sobbing girl. "Shh, honey, it's ok. I'm ok." Tears began to burn in her own eyes and then leaked from the corners as Cassie shuddered against her. "I'm ok." She squeezed as tightly as she could when her daughter continued to cry brokenly and began to sway awkwardly in a bid to comfort the distraught girl. "It's all over now, sweetheart."

Daniel stooped to pick up his glasses from the floor, ruefully rubbing his throbbing cheek as he looked at the cracked lenses before looking back at the two Frasier women crying on his bed. He shuffled his feet for a moment, arms aching to reach out and pull them to him, but at last decided that they needed a few moments alone. He backed silently away and then realised that neither of them were aware of his presence any longer anyway. With a last longing look towards his bed he turned on his heel to head for the kitchen and make some tea, with the vague idea that it might help soothe tear swollen throats if, and when, the mother and daughter ever managed to let each other go again.

*******************************

Over half an hour later, once Daniel had made tea for all and recovered from his own unexpected release of emotional tears in the kitchen, he carefully nudged the door open with his foot and edged into his bedroom. Two faces turned to look at him from where they sat side by side at the head of the bed, but while Cassie's lit up with a welcoming smile; Janet's was closed and wary as he walked forwards. "I, um, made you some tea. If you're up for it."

Cassie tucked her long legs out of the way and patted the mattress. "Put it here, Daniel." She smiled at him as he put the tray down and then caught his hand as he went to sit back in his chair. "I was just telling Mom how cool you were about taking me out of school and bringing us both here." Not seeing Daniel's pained wince, the young girl turned back to Janet's expressionless face and smiled. "He just marched into my classroom and told my teacher that he was taking me home and grabbed my bag and marched out again. Teal'c stayed with you in the car while Daniel had this HUGE argument with my principal and I thought he was going to hit him, but then we managed to get hold of Sam and she said it was ok and Daniel just scribbled his address down and told Mr Rogers that I'd be here if he needed any further information and dragged me out." Cassie sucked in a much-needed breath of air and continued without noticing the dangerous flash of temper in Janet's eyes. "We all came back here and then Daniel gave me and Teal'c his credit card to get some clothes because he said we won't be going home for a while and he put you to bed and stuff while we were out." Cassie idly picked up a sugar cube from the bowl on the tray and crunched down on it thoughtfully as she screwed up her nose. "He says I still have to do homework so I don't fall behind in my classes but I can definitely have a few days off school and just hang with you guys until you're better." Cassie smiled up at Daniel brightly. "Isn't he just the greatest?"

"Fantastic." The bite in Janet's voice had Daniel wincing again and Cassandra looking at her in surprise. Janet forced herself to smile at her suddenly uneasy daughter and shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry. I'm still a little tired, I guess."

Cassandra's face was instantly flooded with concern and she wriggled down from the bed. "Of course you are." Still clutching Daniel's hand she bit her lip guiltily. "I should have let you rest, I'm sorry." Before Janet could offer a protest the girl bent and pressed a kiss to her cheek and then just as quickly pressed one to Daniel's. "I'm going to go and ring Sam and tell her you're awake, then grab a shower and some breakfast. I'll check up on you later."

Acutely aware of Daniel's eyes on her, Janet reached for her retreating daughter. "Cassie, I didn't mean."

"Its ok." Smiling broadly Cassie waved a hand as she paused in the doorway and looked back at the two adults. "Just have some tea and get some sleep. You too Daniel, you sat up all night with her." The young girl turned to go and then paused once more, smiling shyly. "I'm glad you guys worked things out, I missed seeing you together." She flashed them a blinding smile and then disappeared out into the hall.

Daniel watched Janet as she stared at the spot her daughter had been and then turned suspicious eyes on him. "What exactly did she mean by that?"

Shrugging, Daniel prudently moved the tea tray away from Janet and onto the nearby dressing table in case she felt like hitting him with an impromptu weapon instead of the flat of her hand the next time and said calmly. "She's seems to have the impression that we're back together." He kept his eyes on the dark tea as he poured it out. "I didn't think it was the right time to set her straight, she was upset enough as it was."

Silence stretched in the room for long moments before Janet hissed. "Would you mind shutting the bedroom door, please? I don't want Cassie to overhear us." She narrowed her eyes as Daniel nodded before calmly putting down the teapot and walking to softly shut the door. He stood facing it for a moment before turning to lean back against it and cross his arms across his chest as he met her eyes and waited for her to begin. "What do you think you're playing at here, Daniel? What exactly gives you the right to take my daughter out of school without my permission and then tell her a pack of lies?"

Daniel's face tightened for a moment but he managed to say reasonably. "You were unconscious at the time I made the decision to get Cass and I felt she'd be better off here with me than with some sitter or at the base with the others." His chin tilted as he met her furious brown eyes with his cool blue ones. "And I didn't lie to her. She was distraught over what nearly happened to you and clinging to whatever she could to get her through a rough few hours. She assumed that as I was taking you both home with me that we were back together and I couldn't seeing the sense in upsetting her anymore than she already was by telling her the truth."

"Is that right?" Fine tremors of pure fury made Janet's hands shake as she clutched tightly at the cover on the bed and her voice was ice cold with disdain as she spat her next words at him. "And what makes you think that you have the right to make those kind of decisions for me and Cassie? The last I checked, you and I were nothing more than two people that work together."

Daniel's head jerked back as though she'd slapped him again before his skin paled with hurt. "We're more than that, Janet, you know we are. Even before things went wrong between us, we were more than that."

Janet snorted dismissively. "Check your realities, Daniel, because in this one we were never more than that. We worked together and we had recreational sex, that's all." Darkly pleased at the look of deep anguish in his eyes, she sneered spitefully. "The occasional good time between the sheets doesn't give you the right to cart me off to your house or give you rights to my child."

"Well, maybe I want them!" Daniel shoved away from the door and raked his hands through his already dishevelled hair. "Maybe I want the right to put you in my bed and collect Cassie from school if there's a need for it." He spread his arms pleadingly before him. "What was I meant to do, just leave you at the base, hanging around until Jack or Sam could take you home? There was no need for you to stay there and every need for you to be able to recover in comfort." He stared beseechingly at her. "I just wanted to take care of you for a change."

"Very noble." Janet forced herself to ignore the sudden clutch of her heart at his words and lifted her chin defiantly. "But I don't happen want that. What I want some clothes so I can get dressed and get my daughter and go home. My home." She deliberately looked away from him as she swung her legs to the floor and stood with a barely perceptible wobble. "So if you don't mind."

"That's not going to happen." Daniel made himself stay put as she swayed uncertainly by the side of the bed, aware that any move to aid her would no doubt result in an unpleasant physical altercation and he had absolutely zero desire to wear another one of her bruises. "I've told Jack that you're here and I'll keep an eye on you, you're staying until we're all satisfied that you're ok."

"The hell I am." Forgetting she was wearing just an over sized vest top that fell to the middle of her thighs and kept slipping off her narrow shoulders, Janet called on nearly seven years worth of experience of terrifying the SGC into medical submission and gave Daniel her best CMO's glare. "I'm going home."

"No." Daniel raised an eyebrow at her shocked face and clarified firmly. "Not a chance, get back into bed." He nearly smiled at the picture she made squaring off at him, looking for all the world like a mutinous teenager rather than a mature, capable woman in her thirties, but remembered just in time he liked his genitals attached to his body and instead pointed to the bed. "Now."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Janet shook her head incredulously and almost over balanced at the motion. "You have absolutely no right to."

"I LOVE YOU!" The frustrated and overwrought roar of sound burst out of Daniel's chest before his brain had finished forming the words and Janet stumbled back with a surprised yelp as he surged towards her. She yelped again as she tumbled back onto the bed and sprawled there staring up at the usually mild mannered Daniel as he took hold of her ankles in one hand to lift them and tug the cover free, then shoved her legs under it as he wrenched it up to her chin. "I love you and I love Cassie and that gives me the goddamned right to do whatever I think necessary to look after you." He took a deep steadying breath and ruthlessly reined in his temper as he realised her eyes were not just surprised but a little fearful of his sudden outburst. "I'm sorry, Janet." He reached out towards her and nearly cried as she flinched away from him. "Jan, come on, you know I would never hurt you. I'm sorry."

"Leave me alone." Janet pressed further back into the pillows as his hand hesitated and forced her voice to be steady as she whispered almost inaudibly. "I don't know you anymore. The Daniel I used to know would never do anything like this."

Keeping his eyes level with hers, Daniel lowered himself to the side of the bed and smiled carefully. "Wouldn't he? This is the same Daniel that went through the Stargate for over two years searching for his missing wife and then kept going to find and destroy the things that killed her, right?" He tilted his head to the side and the smile died as he looked at her pale face. "Or the same Daniel that saw the woman he loves shot by a Jaffa and risked everything including a valuable alliance with a trusted ally, and nearly shot Sam's father, just so he wouldn't lose her?"

Janet's throat closed over at the intense look in his eyes and she felt the unmistakable sting of threatening tears. "Emotional reaction to a near death experience. You're experiencing a classic case of misplaced emotion in response to a stressful situation. You would have done the same for anyone."

"No." Daniel shook his head and felt the faint tug of shame in his gut. "I didn't do it for the guy you were tending when you were hit. I left him in the mud to die like an animal because all I could think about was saving you." He met her wide eyes squarely. "And I can't even feel guilty about it because what I did brought you back to us and it's not you lying in the mortuary wearing a toe tag."

"You don't love me, Daniel." Janet shook her head and closed her eyes wearily. "In a couple of days you'll be over the trauma and we'll be back to how we used to be."

Despite the icy fist of terror that closed over his heart, Daniel managed to reply steadily. "No. I tried to tell you how I felt about you before we left but you brushed me off." He placed a tentative hand on her arm lying underneath the cover and felt a cautious swell of optimism when she didn't pull away from him. "I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen to me. I love you."

Janet was aware that the words she had waited so long to hear from him should have more of an effect on her but all she felt was a wash of overwhelming exhaustion. She kept her eyes closed and rolled away from him onto her side to burrow into the pillows. "Go away, Daniel, leave me alone. I want you to call Sam and ask her to come get me and Cassie." She wasn't aware she was holding her breath until her lungs began to burn and then just as she felt she would burst the bed shifted underneath her as Daniel got to his feet. She could feel his eyes on her back but resolutely kept her eyes closed as the sound of his heavy footfalls trudging towards the bedroom door sounded in the room. When she heard him turn the door handle, she opened her eyes and said quietly. "Daniel?"

"Yeah?" Daniel turned to face the bed, face filled with wary hope.

"Thank you for saving my life." Janet stared sightlessly at her laughing face in the frame beside the bed for a moment and then closed her eyes slowly once more. "But, unless there's a professional reason, I don't want you near Cassie and I ever again. Now call Sam and ask her to come get us."

***************************

Daniel didn't call Sam, but he did succumb to the temptation to call someone else. One look at his best friend's haggard face told Jack O'Neil everything he needed to know about the current situation as he stood on Daniel's porch. "That good, huh?"

Daniel waved him wearily through the front door and then shut it behind his CO. "Oh yeah." He scrubbed a tired hand over his face and gestured vaguely behind himself. "Coffee?"

Jack followed Daniel's weary figure down the hallway and into the kitchen, jumping slightly as Cassie appeared out of nowhere stuffing a Twinkie hurriedly into her mouth as she caught sight of Daniel. "Opff!"

Daniel sighed as cream dripped down the girl's chin and she tried to swallow her cake. "Cass, I said something sensible for lunch." He peered over her shoulder quizzically. "Are there any left?"

Blushing slightly, Cassie shook her head and finally cleared her mouth. "No, sorry. Hi, Jack." She gave O'Neil a quick hug and then smiled happily up at him. "Mom's asleep right now but she should be awake soon, I bet she'll be glad to see you."

"Me too, kid." Jack flicked an affectionate finger at the tip of Cassie's nose and then dug in his pants pockets for his wallet. "Here, go down to the diner on the corner and get enough take-out for all four of us."

Cassie accepted the money with a roll of her eyes. "You just want me out of the way so you can talk about stuff you think I'm too young to know about." A sudden flash of fear had her eyes widening. "It's not mom, is it? Nothing's wrong with her?"

"Jeez, Cass, you think we wouldn't tell you?" Jack ruffled her hair and grinned at her. "There's nothing wrong with your mom. I need to brief Daniel on a few things but you can't be here 'cos it's."

"Classified." Reassured, Cassie rolled her eyes again. "When isn't it? Ok, I'll take my time. See you in a few." She blew a kiss to Daniel and then walked out of the kitchen.

Jack waited until he heard the front door slam shut before turning back to Daniel. "Ok, spill it, Danny."

"Nothing to say." Shoulders sagging with despair, Daniel leant against his work unit and wrapped his arms around his body tightly. "She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you." Jack punched Daniel lightly on the arm and crossed to switch on the coffee machine, realising just how serious the situation had gotten if Daniel had forgotten to do it. Jack had long held the private belief that it was actually one of the littler known rules of the universe that Daniel Jackson couldn't be within six feet of a coffee machine without it automatically turning itself on. He narrowed his eyes and checked the distance to Daniel, at least eight feet. Pleased his theory was holding, Jack turned with a grin and then remembered they were having a serious conversation. He frowned as he tried to remember where they were. Oh yeah. "You saved her life."

"Which apparently counts for nothing when she thinks you've been using her for casual sex for the six months, you have no feelings for her, you take her kid out of school without her permission and you abduct her while she's unconscious and set her up in your home." Thoroughly miserable, Daniel scuffed an unhappy foot against the floor. "Whatever I say to her she just brushes off. All she wants is for Sam to come and get her and Cassie and take them away from me."

"But you saved her life and punched that Tok'ra." Genuinely confused, Jack put his hands on his hips and scowled on behalf of his friend. "And you were gonna shoot Jacob, and, hey, let's not forget the fact that you saved her goddamned life!"

Daniel rubbed a helpless hand over his sore eyes. "Still doesn't count when she hates you." He choked on a half laugh, half sob. "God, I suck with women, I just can't seem to get it right."

"Aw, Danny." Jack shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Come on, that isn't true."

"Sha're, Hathor, Sarah, Janet." Daniel tried to pull off a careless shrug. "Are we seeing a pattern here?" He flashed a ghost of his old Daniel smile. "I suppose I should be grateful that Janet's just dumped me instead of trying to kill me as well."

"Listen to me, Daniel." Leaving the coffee forgotten behind him, Jack stepped up and took Daniel's shoulders in a hard grip. "Get a hold of yourself, pal. She loves you, she'll probably always love you, and all you need to do is convince her to give you another shot." He gestured sharply at his surroundings. "You did the right thing bringing her here, maybe a little OTT on the whole baser instincts deal, but we can work something out."

Daniel stared hopefully up at Jack. "Really, you think she still cares about me?" He frowned as he registered Jack's last words. "And what baser instincts?"

Jack released Daniel's shoulders and rolled his eyes. "For cryin' out loud, Daniel, for such a smart guy you can be dumb as a brick at times." He sighed at the expression of confusion on Daniel's face and explained slowly and loudly. "You brought her to your home, you put her in your bed, you got her kid from school without any real need to do so because anyone of us would have looked after her and put *her* in your home." The bewildered expression on Daniel's face didn't change and Jack threw up his hands. "Danny, I'll bet Janet's up there right now in nothing but one of your shirts, am I right?" Startled, Daniel nodded and Jack grinned in triumph. "Thought so. Buddy, you're marking your territory, you couldn't have made things any clearer if you'd have pee'd on them."

Looking alternately repulsed and fascinated, Daniel shook his head. "That's ridiculous, I wouldn't do something like that." Silence reigned as he thought over Jack's statement and then he felt a fierce flush sweep over his skin. "Oh god, you're right. I even put a shirt on her that I'd already used. I scented Janet!"

Mortified, Daniel buried his head in his hands and muttered under Jack's amused gaze. "I wouldn't let Cassie go home and get any of her stuff, I just sent her out to buy new things with my card and I told her that Janet didn't need anything, that she was ok." Wanting the ground to open up and swallow him, Daniel groaned miserably. "I might as well have put a leash and collar on her."

Jack chuckled despite his friend's misery. "You did good, kid." He clapped Daniel's shoulder and moved back to the coffee machine to start making their drinks. "Now you just need to go up there and make her realise that you really do love her."

"I can't do that now!" Daniel took his hands away from his face and blinked in horror at Jack. "No wonder she was scared, I can't believe I've done this to her after what she'd been through. Jack, you have to get her out of here!"

"Whoa, slow down there, Daniel." Jack put down the cream and resigned himself to the fact that the coffee was a way off just yet. "Before I come over all heroic and rescue the fair Doc from your oh so terrifying hands, let's just take a moment here, ok?" He waited for Daniel to look at him before pointing at the ceiling. "That's Janet Frasier up there, not some virgin kid from Nowhere, Illinois. That woman is as mean as a snake when she wants to be and I'm thinking it's unlikely that she's been reduced to a quivering mass of fear just because Daniel Jackson finally pulls his head out of his butt and tells her he loves her."

Daniel blinked. "Ok, when you put it like that it does sound stupid." He scowled slightly. "But it doesn't change the fact she told me to call Sam to come and take her away from me."

"Yeah, she's confused and she wants to hurt you like you hurt her." At Daniel's dubious look, Jack threw up his hands. "Danny, you have phones and Janet can still walk, right?"

"Of course." Daniel pointed towards the living room and then in the general direction of the bedrooms. "There's one in there and one by my bed." He paused. "Oh."

"Exactly." Desperately pleased with himself, Jack turned back to the long neglected coffee. "If she wanted out that badly, she could pick up the phone herself and call Sam." He tossed a teasing look over his shoulder. "Hell, she's got a whole mess of marines and one Jaffa who'd be only too happy to come rushing around here to the rescue and kick your ass even if Sam wouldn't. Which she's dying to, by the way."

Daniel stopped nodding in agreement and looked hurt. "What? Why would anyone want to kick my ass, I haven't done anything!"

"Au contraire, Danny boy, while you were busy making up your mind whether or not to tell the good doctor how you felt, she was busy taking it out on the rest of us." Jack winced. "And let me tell you, one of those little umbrella things in the hands of a screwed over Doc Frasier is not something you wanna see when you're bare-assed and at your monthly physical."

"Oh." Daniel winced. "Sorry." He scowled. "Hey, I did not screw her over!"

"Oh, you SO did." For the first time Jack looked seriously annoyed. "If it'd been anyone else pulling a number like that on Janet, he'd have found himself getting a beating on a dark night from a pissed off Colonel and Jaffa. Face it, Daniel, until today Janet's never even been inside your house and you were with her, what, nearly six months before she dumped you?" Pausing to let his words sink in, Jack began to pour the coffee and then continued. "But we figured you'd come around eventually and see things clearly, you just needed a little time."

Daniel opened his mouth to argue and then closed it again. "Shit." He dropped his head and stared at the floor. "Shit."

"Here." Jack handed Daniel his coffee and smiled sympathetically. "Don't sweat it, Danny, you came through in the end and whether Janet realises it or not she wants to be here and have you make it better." He took a sip of his own coffee and winced as he burnt his tongue. "I'll call Teal'c and get him to drop by Janet's and pick her up some of her own stuff, that's bound to help her calm down. All you have to do is choke down your caffeine and go up there and be a man." He smirked at Daniel's confused look. "Grovel, pal, grovel."

*************************************

Daniel took a deep breath as he paused outside his bedroom door and then straightened his shoulders as he rapped lightly at the wood. The silence stretched out until Janet's voice called hesitantly. "Sam?"

Daniel's mouth twisted at the hopeful tone of her voice and he gripped the door handle to push open the door. "No, it's Daniel." He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. "Hi."

"I didn't say you could come in." Janet stood from where she had been perched on the end of his bed and made a hurried grab for the sweatpants she had liberated from his wardrobe as they slipped over her hips. "Get out, I told you I didn't want to speak to you."

"Well, that's too bad." Daniel tucked his shaking hands back against the door and leaned back with a shrug. "This is my house and my bedroom, I've got a perfect right to be in here."

"Daniel, I don't know what's gotten into you, but so far I don't like it." Janet stepped forward and glared at him, still keeping a tight grip on the waistband of her pants. "I told you I just want to be left alone. I don't want to talk to anyone but Sam."

"Sam's not here and I am." Daniel took a deep breath and made the leap from misguided man in love to arch villain, complete with a twirlable mental moustache. "And I'm not letting you out of here until we've talked things out."

Janet's mouth dropped open. "You can't do that!" She backed up a step as he shrugged at her again and repeated angrily. "You can't do that!"

"But I am." Daniel watched her as she stared incredulously at him and tried to smile. "All I want to do is talk, Jan."

"This has gone far enough." Janet shook her head in disgust. "I must have been insane to ever go anywhere near you." She looked wildly about the room and then remembered the phone. "I'm calling Sam myself."

Daniel's heart sank as he watched her trip over the too long pants legs in her hurry to get around the bed and to the phone. "It won't do any good." Janet grabbed for the receiver and held it up to her ear as Daniel concluded quietly. "I pulled the jack out downstairs, it's dead." His eyes widened as Janet howled furiously and heaved the phone at him. "Hey, watch it!"

"Just leave me alone!" Janet's temper spiked as she realised she was on the verge of tears and she shouted desperately. "I don't want you anymore!"

"I know, and if it stays that way then that's something I'll have to deal with." Shooting a last wary look at the tangled mass of wire and plastic on the floor that used to be his phone, Daniel stepped forward. "But I have to take one last shot at trying to get you back in my life, Janet. I love you and Cass too much to let you just walk out on me."

Shaking with impotent fury, Janet slashed a hand through the air to wipe away his words. "Don't. I don't want to hear it." She slapped at her photo on the cabinet beside her and sent it sailing over the bed to bounce off the wardrobe doors. "And don't use my daughter to get to me."

"I am NOT using Cassie!" Daniel's hands bunched into fists at his side as he felt the first stab of his own anger. "Don't ever say something so ugly to me again, I love her for who she is, not for what she can do for me."

"Well, that'll be a first for you, Daniel." Janet's mouth twisted with derision. "Your first unselfish emotion, tell me how does that feel?"

Daniel's temper went from smouldering ember to flash fire in under a second and he completely forgot he was trying to coax Janet into trusting him and back into his arms and life. "What the HELL is that supposed to mean?"

***************************

Jack opened the front door, flinching as Daniel's furious bellow echoed down the stairwell and he met Samantha Carter's decidedly unimpressed blue eyes glaring at him over the top of Cassie's head. "Ladies!" The bright grin fell off Jack's face as Janet screamed a curse that was unsuitable to be heard by his ears, let alone her impressionable daughter's, and punctuated her yell with a loud crash that heralded the end of Daniel's bedside lamp. "How ya doin'?"

"Sir." Carter's face was rigid with disapproval as she nudged Cassie and her burden of several greasy sacks of take out from the diner through the door and then shut it behind her. "I've come to see Janet."

A furious blend of Janet and Daniel's raised voices floated down the stairs, Jack coughed. "Ah, I don't think this is a good time, Carter."

Without taking her eyes off her uncomfortable looking superior officer, Sam gave Cassie a gentle push towards the kitchen. "Go get the plates out, Cass, I just want a word with Jack."

"What's going on?" Nervously Cassie looked at the ceiling and then at the two adults beside her. "Why is mom so mad?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure she can handle it." Sam forced a reassuring smile and finally took her eyes off Jack's guilty face. "Go on now, we'll be there in a minute. Go on." She watched as Cassie reluctantly walked towards the kitchen and then put her hands on her hips as she faced Jack again to say flatly. "Explain."

"I think you're forgetting who exactly the Colonel is here, Major." Jack raised an eyebrow and met Sam's eyes calmly. "I don't take orders from subordinates."

"We're on downtime and I don't answer to you now." Sam glared harder. "You assisted Daniel in hiding my best friend and her daughter and I want to know exactly what the hell you think you're playing at."

Jack managed not to wince that pulling rank had failed so dismally and instead tried a friendly punch to Sam's shoulder, grunting with surprise when Sam moved faster than Teal'c when a Star Wars movie was showing and gripped his wrist to spin him round and press him face first into the wall behind him. "Carter!"

"Don't even go there, Jack." Sam's normally pale face was bright red with strain as she fought to keep Jack's wrist pinned up between his shoulder blades. "I've been kept on base for over twenty four hours running into block after block whenever I tried to get out, going out of my mind with worry when I couldn't get hold of Janet or Cassie at their house and then to top off my day I get a call from Cass' school asking me to confirm she definitely won't be in for her field trip tomorrow. Only they asked for Major SAMUEL Carter who they'd spoken to the day before when he'd given permission for her to be removed from school by a Doctor Daniel Jackson!"

Jack stopped struggling and focused on Daniel's wall. "Uh-oh." He sighed, the game was definitely up. "Carter, if you'll just quit it with the Xena impression then I'll tell you everything, ok?" He waited patiently while Sam forced herself to calm down and released him and then turned with his patented, good ol' boy, charm the birds out of the trees grin firmly in place. The grin never failed him. "Carter, come on, what harm did it do?" The grin flashed charmingly and then withered and died before the flamethrower of Sam's wrath. Goddamit the grin failed, that never happened! "They just needed some time to talk."

"Does it sound like Janet wants to talk?" Sam impatiently blew her bangs out of her eyes and threw up her hands in disgust. "I can't believe you pulled this crap! Of all the stupid plans you and Daniel have cooked up between you over the years this has to be the most.." She stopped short as a knock sounded at the door.

Almost pathetically grateful for the interruption, Jack jumped past her and flung open the door with a wide smile.which quickly disappeared when he saw Teal'c standing on the doorstep holding up a bag stuffed full to bursting with women's clothes. "I have brought some of Doctor Frasier's clothing as requested, O'Neil." A faint flicker of confusion passed through the Jaffa's eyes as he saw Sam's livid face appear over the Colonel's shoulder and when another loud chorus of yelling sounded from upstairs, Teal'c put two and two together and wasted no time in shoving the bag into Jack's arms. "It would appear I have called at a bad time. Please send Doctor Frasier my best wishes."

Teal'c's impressively speedy retreat was brought to a shuddering halt by the crack of Sam's icy cold voice. "Get back here, Teal'c." She glowered at the warrior as he turned on Daniel's front path and looked back at her. "Get in here right now!"

Jack and Teal'c exchanged long, forlorn looks before the warrior heaved a sigh and retraced his steps towards the house. Sam cocked an eyebrow as Teal'c hovered on the doorstep and jerked a rigid thumb over her shoulder. "Kitchen. Now." She waited until both men trudged unhappily past her and then slammed the front door shut with all her strength. "You guys had better have been taken over by aliens again or you're both in a world of trouble."

***************************

In the bedroom, Daniel and Janet froze in mid-yell as they heard the slam of the front door and then Janet was dodging around Daniel to yank open the bedroom door. "Sam.Aaaah!"

Daniel swore as he lifted Janet off her feet and stumbled backwards to the bed. "We haven't finished talking yet." He yelped as she flailed with a clenched fist and managed to catch his eye. "Stop that!"

Janet abandoned all dignity as she writhed against his hold and raked her nails over his arms. "Put me down, you son of a bitch!" She kicked wildly as his hold loosened and yelled furiously. "Let me go."

Daniel's eyes widened as he lost his balance and toppled to land heavily on the mattress behind him. He oofed as Janet's weight fell squarely on his midsection, but managed to turn them so she was trapped face down between him and the bed while he got his breath back. "Calm down.you'll hurt yourself." He grunted as her elbow slammed into his ribs. "Cut it out!"

"Get off me!" Janet writhed under him and felt hot tears spurt from her eyes. "Just get off me."

Daniel heard her voice catch and hurriedly scrambled up before tugging Janet onto her back. "Jan, God, don't cry. I'm sorry." He gathered her rigid figure in his arms as she began to shake. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"That's all you ever do." Furious with herself, Janet tried to swipe at her tears and wriggle away from him at the same time. "Over and over again, I don't want that any more."

"Neither do I." Daniel tightened his arms desperately. "I don't want that either, Janet. Just give me a chance to make it up to you and I swear I won't do it again. I love you, I just want to make you happy."

Janet went limp in his arms and whispered painfully. "Stop saying that."

"I can't." Daniel pulled her even tighter against him and closed his eyes as he felt his own tears start. "I can't." He brought one hand up to tangle in her hair and rocked her in his arms. "I'm so in love with you."

"Daniel, you need to let me go." Janet tried to sniff back her tears and remain unaffected by his body wrapped around her. "This is never going to happen."

If Daniel hadn't felt the wetness of her tears through his shirt and heard the telling break in her voice he would have had no choice but to let her go and watch her walk out of his life, but he heard and felt her distress and if there was one thing Daniel Jackson had never been called, it was a quitter. "Why not?" He laid her back on the bed and scrubbed one forearm over his eyes as he kept the other on her shoulder to hold her in place. "I love you and I know you still care about me. We could try again, it would be different this time, I know enough now to make it different."

"Daniel, you can't change who you are." Janet's eyes were wide with pain in her face and she shook her head back and forth as she lay on the bed. "You just can't say you'll be different because you want to be."

"Yes, I can." Daniel knelt over Janet and blinked earnestly down at her. "How I was with you before, that wasn't really me, I swear. This is me; the person that's so in love with you that he'll keep you locked in his bedroom until you listen to him or that will cause inter-galactic incidents just to keep you with me. I wanted to show you how I felt before but I just couldn't. I felt like if I let myself get to attached or let myself care too much you'd get taken away from me and I didn't want to lose you and Cass. I know I screwed up, Jan, but all I want is for the three of us to be together and to try and make it work."

"Daniel." Janet closed her eyes wearily. "This isn't fair, you don't know what it cost me to get over you, I can't go through that again."

"You won't have to, I promise." Sensing an opening, Daniel pushed desperately at the small cracks in her armour. "Just let me come back and make it all up to you." He touched her face lightly and smiled shakily as she opened her eyes. "I could be so good for you, Jan."

"Oh, Daniel." Janet's heart turned over in her chest as she looked up at him. "I want to believe you so much, but." She jumped as his lips suddenly brushed hers and felt her body come alive at the familiar touch. "Dammit."

Daniel put everything he had into the kiss, pouring all the love and fear of losing Janet into it, moving his mouth desperately over hers as he tried to stop the words leaving her lips. He groaned as she remained rigid under him for what seemed like eternity and then moaned again as she began to respond to his touch. His arms came around her tightly and he cupped the back of her skull as he angled his head to deepen the kiss, starting to tremble as her hands rested on his shoulders and then speared into his hair to hold him to her. Daniel pulled back and drew the tip of his tongue over Janet's bottom lip. "Don't send me away again, Janet, let me be with you."

Janet shuddered as his breath skated over the wetness of her lips and tried to focus against the pull his nearness always had on her. "Daniel, I can't think straight."

"Good." Daniel let his hand drift over the curves of her body and whispered. "Don't think, just tell me that you still want me."

Janet couldn't help the sigh at the path his warm hand took over her body and tried to fight against the heavenly feel of him so close to her after so long. "It doesn't matter that I want you physically, Daniel." She turned her face to the side as he tried to capture her lips once more and sighed dejectedly. "No, no more. If you want to talk, then we'll talk but we can't do this now."

Daniel bent his head and squeezed his eyes shut as he nuzzled her neck for a moment before nodding reluctantly. "Ok, ok, you're right, this isn't solving anything." He took one more breath and then eased his arms from around her as he sat up. "We'll talk."

Janet lay still on the bed for a moment, already missing his warmth, and then slowly sat up beside him. She ran shaking fingers through her hair and tried to calm her frantically racing heart. "I'm sorry."

Daniel kept his eyes on the floor and shrugged. "What do you have to be sorry for? I'm the one that screwed everything up." He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to smile. "I just don't know a good thing when I have it."

"Daniel, that's not true." Janet sighed and watched as her fingers twisted together nervously on her lap. "We're just in very different places in our lives and what we had just wasn't right for either of us."

Daniel opened his mouth to automatically protest her words and then paused before nodding in agreement. "You're right, it wasn't. Jan, what you offered me I couldn't accept then. You gave everything you had so openly and without any thought for the consequences and I was terrified of hurting you and Cassie. I've got no idea how to be in a family and it was so confusing trying to fit in
with you both, you're such a unit."

Janet sucked in a breath as Daniel revealed more to her in ten seconds than he had in their entire relationship. "Why didn't you talk to me, Daniel? I could have helped you."

"I don't want to always have to be the one that needs taking care of." Frustrated Daniel got to his feet and began to pace. "I wanted, just for once, to be the strong one. I wanted to take care of you."

Janet watched him walk up and down and shook her head in exasperation. "Daniel, I don't need taking looking after, I just needed you to show you cared."

"That was the problem, I cared too much, however much I tried not to." Daniel scrubbed his hands through his hair and tried to find the right words. "I felt like I couldn't breath every time we were apart and then when you told me it was over it nearly destroyed me. I was watching everything I did so carefully, I completely missed the fact that I was hurting you and pushing you away."

Janet stared at his miserable figure and shook her head. "You're a very complicated man, do you know that?"

Surprised into a rueful laugh, Daniel looked up at her with his heart in his eyes. "You have no idea."

Janet held his gaze in silence for a moment before looking away. "I don't know what to believe anymore, Daniel. You were so cold for so long."

"But not anymore." Daniel fought the urge to cup her face in his hands and make her look at him to see the truth in his eyes and instead lowered his voice pleadingly. "I'm not cold anymore, Janet. Just give me one last chance and let me prove it to you. When you died on that damn planet I thought I'd lost you for good, I don't know how to live without you in my life anymore."

Janet kept her eyes on the carpet and her hands clenched against the cover as she tried to maintain the icy wall she had built so carefully around her broken heart. The last few weeks had been pure torture as she had tried to go on with her life without the even the crumbs she had gotten used to from Daniel before and she was almost convinced that even going back to that was better than the purgatory she had found herself in without him. Her head bowed as the tears came once more and her shoulders shook as she tried to fight them back. "Janet, please don't." Daniel's voice rose in his agitation. "I love you, don't cry."

"I.I'm sorry." Janet swiped futilely at her tears. "I'm still shaky from what happened I guess."

"I know, God I know." Daniel felt again the sheer terror of her dying in his arms and cried in anguish. "You have no idea what it was like seeing you so hurt and slipping away from me, I felt so helpless."

Janet froze in the act of swiping at her running nose and raised her head to stare at him. "What did you just say?" She pushed herself to her feet and advanced on him, more furious than she had ever been in her life. "I have no idea what it's like to watch someone I love die? You bastard!"

Daniel staggered back as she swung out wildly and hit his chest. "Ow! What was that for?" Unable to understand the lightening transformation from weeping female to battle-ready Amazon, he could do nothing but stare at her as she swung out again.

"You arrogant, selfish, inconsiderate." Words failed Janet and she kicked out as Daniel caught her wrists and held them immobile above her head. "How many times have I had to watch you nearly die on my table? How many times have I had to watch over you in yet another goddamn coma from whatever damn fool mission you've gone off on without thinking about the pain you put the people left behind through?" She was unaware of the pain in her bare foot as she continued kicking at his shins. "You sonofabitch!"

********************************

Downstairs in Daniel's living room, four people were staring in horror at the ceiling as Daniel's emotional voice had floated down the stairs. Jack was frozen with a burger half way to his mouth and jumped in his seat as Janet's irate reply had set the windows rattling. "Holy cow, Code 9, we have a Code 9 situation, please evacuate the building." Muttering frantically to himself, Jack shoved his food into a paper sack on the table and grabbed Cassie's hand. "We're at Defcon 5 people, lets move it on out."

"Sir, we can't leave them like this." Sam gasped with shock as Teal'c took a firm grip on her elbow and yanked her none to gently towards the front door. "Teal'c!"

"I believe DanielJackson has just made a profoundly stupid remark, Major Carter." The Jaffa hustled Sam through the door after Jack and the objecting Cassie and closed it behind him. "It would be best if we were not here to witness the consequences."

"But we can't just take Cassie and disappear." Sam gasped again as Teal'c opened the rear passenger door to Jack's truck and bundled her inside next to the white faced teenager. "Sir!"

"Teal'c, let's go!" Jack cast a last sympathetic look up at Daniel's bedroom window and punched the gas over Cassie and Sam's protests. "Good luck, Spacemonkey, you're gonna need it."

***************************

"Janet, stop." Daniel was forced to hop from foot to foot in an undignified bid to stop Janet breaking both his shins. "Calm down."

"You bastard." Janet was still tugging on Daniel's hold on her wrists as she continued to kick out. "How can you have said that? How can you think I don't know what its like?"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Giving up on Janet calming down, Daniel let go of her wrists and pulled her into his body to wrap her tightly in his arms. "I didn't think."

"You never do." Janet held herself rigid in his embrace. "You never, ever do."

"I know." Daniel bent his head down to press his face into her hair. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop saying that." Janet pushed her face against Daniel's chest in a bid to block out his words and felt his heart pound furiously against her cheek. "Stop apologising, Daniel, you can't make this better with words and empty promises." She didn't feel his body tense against her, too lost in her own pain to feel his. "It doesn't work like that."

Daniel stared blindly at the carpet as his heart splintered in his chest and was mildly surprised to find that the pain of the final rejection was almost a relief after the intense roller coaster of emotion he had been on for the past twenty-four hours. His arms tightened around Janet's body, desperate to memorise the last moments of her warmth against him before he let her go for the last time. The scent of her body, mingled with the smell of the fabric softener on his sweatshirt, made his senses swim as he breathed her in for the last time and then slowly and reluctantly his arms fell away as he stepped back and nodded. "So that's it. Ok." He kept his face averted as he nodded again. "I'll go and tell Cass to get her stuff together."

Janet watched as he turned away from her and blinked in confusion. "Daniel, where are you going?"

"It's probably better that we just make a clean break, I'll call General Hammond in the morning and tell him that I'm not coming back to the SGC." On automatic pilot, Daniel didn't see the door still hanging open in front of him and walked straight into the edge of the thick wood with a nasty crunching sound. "Christ!" He reeled backwards clutching his face. "Oh Christ!"

"Daniel!" Janet clutched at his arm as he staggered into her and almost toppled under his weight. "Are you alright? Let me see."

"I'm fine." Wanting nothing more than to curl up in a dark corner somewhere and sob himself unconscious, Daniel was forced to endure the humiliation of the woman that had rejected his tender heart trying to care for his battered face. "Leave it, I said I'm fine."

Relieved to be back on the familiar ground of taking care of yet another Jackson self-inflicted injury, Janet went into CMO mode with barely a flicker. "Well I'd feel a lot better if I could make sure that you haven't cracked your skull open. Again." She tugged on his forearm. "Come and sit down and let me take a look."

Daniel found himself being dragged across his bedroom floor, disgusted that he was so desperate for one more touch from Janet's hands that he couldn't make himself pull free of her loose grasp. He let himself get pushed down on the bed, closing his eyes as she stepped between his legs and her hands cupped his face as she tilted it up to the fading light. Soft fingers prodded his sore nose and he sighed as the heat from Janet's fingertips warmed his own frigid skin. "It doesn't look like you broke it." Janet skimmed the length of his nose with one light knuckle and then let her hand rest against his cheek. "Although you're going to have a heck of a bruise, I think."

"It doesn't matter." Daniel opened his eyes and found that Janet was mere inches away, standing between his spread thighs. "I'm ok."

"Liar." Janet felt her heart pick up pace as she looked into his forlorn eyes and smiled as she stroked a strand of hair back from his forehead. "That's one of the things I've always hated about you, Jackson. You could be sitting in my infirmary with a hole in you the size of a baseball and that's the only thing we'd hear until we knocked you unconscious." She inched closer and briefly enjoyed the fact that she didn't have to look up into his eyes for a change but they were on the same level, and sighed in surrender. "It's one of the things I love most about you, as well."

Daniel tensed under her gentle touch. "Don't. Its ok if you don't want to start over but don't say things you don't mean, Janet." His breath escaped his lips on a shaky sigh. "I can't take that."

"See, there's my problem." Janet didn't look in his eyes but watched her fingers trace the line of his cheek and then his full mouth. "It seems I can't help but mean it. No matter how much you hurt me I can't switch off what I feel for you and that really annoys me." She smiled mockingly as his mouth opened slightly under her touch and then skated her fingers down to stroke his jaw. "Why so surprised, Doctor Jackson? You won, you got what you wanted."

Daniel swore his heart jumped into his throat and then fell back into his chest at her soft words. "I did?" He sat, hardly daring to move in case he did something stupid to frighten her off, as he asked the next question. "What did I win?"

"Me." Janet's hands slipped around the back of his neck and she bent her head to rest her forehead against his with a weary sigh. "Me and Cass, if you meant what you said."

Daniel blinked and then slowly, hesitantly, his arms crept around her waist and he pulled her towards him. When she didn't resist but followed willingly, he ducked his head to press his face against her stomach and squeezed as tightly as he could when she wrapped her arms around him and returned his embrace. They rocked together for a long time, both content just to hold the other and then finally Daniel pulled back and looked uncertainly up into Janet's eyes. "So, this means you won't leave me again, right?"

"Yes, Daniel." Janet tried to smile but found she couldn't remember how as she saw the look of wonder and worry in his eyes. "It means I won't leave you again."

"Ok." Daniel felt the sick ball of terror and rejection in his gut loosen and eased her back so he could stand up and cup her face in his hands. "And you'll stay here and won't go back to your house?"

"Well, I'll have to go home sometime." Janet broke off as his lips found hers and kissed her with exquisite tenderness.

Daniel stroked a stray hair back from her face as he broke away and repeated. "You'll stay here with me, won't you? You and Cass. Don't make me pee on you."

"What?" Janet shook her head dazedly and tried to laugh at the intense look in his eyes. "Daniel, we can't stay here indefinitely, that's ridiculous. We can't just move in here." She caught her breath as he continued to watch her silently and spluttered in shock. "You want us to move in here with you?"

"Well, yeah." Daniel frowned at her dumbfounded expression. "What did you think I meant? I figured that we could go and get some stuff from your house this weekend, just to keep you going, and then on Monday when Cass goes back to school we can maybe go through our stuff and decide what we want to keep and then put the rest in storage. When we've done that we could go talk to General Hammond and see when we can arrange everyone's schedules to fit the wedding."

"Wedding?" Janet's mouth fell open and she repeated faintly. "Wedding?"

"Uh-huh." Daniel eyed her suddenly pale face in concern. "Are you feeling alright, do you want to sit down?" Without waiting for an answer he spun them round and pushed her down onto the bed as he placed a worried hand to her forehead. "You don't feel like you're running a fever."

"We're getting married?!" Janet's eyes were bulging in her white face.

"Um." Daniel frowned as he realised that he may have overlooked a vital part of his long-term plan in the confusion of the emotional roller coaster he had been riding for the last few hours and sat next to her on the bed. "I thought I asked you?" Janet shook her head numbly and he stared blankly at her before shaking his own head. "Huh, I could have sworn I mentioned it. Ok, well here goes. Janet, I really love you and Cassie and I want you both to be mine. Will you marry me?"

"Married?" Janet was aware she was squeaking but could think of no way to lower her voice. "You and me?"

Daniel shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "Yeah, I know that you've been doing a great job with Cassie on your own, and obviously she'd nearly grown up, but I don't think we should just live together without some kind of formal acknowledgement as it might be confusing for her, and in many cultures." He sucked in a breath as she silenced him with her lips and then greedily gathered her close to him as her tongue invaded his mouth.

Long, breathless moments later, Janet broke the kiss and smiled tearfully into Daniel's dazed eyes. "You really mean everything you said."

"Uh-huh." Daniel nodded and cleared his throat. "I really did, can you do that again? Please?"

"You really love me." Janet bit her lip and sniffed back her tears. "You really, really do."

Daniel nodded agreeably. "I know, I thought I covered that when I held up our allies at gunpoint to bring you back from the dead and locked you up in my house." He plucked her off the bed and onto his lap to straddle his thighs. "Now, about that kiss."

"I love you." Janet brushed her lips over his and grinned foolishly into his eyes. "I love you so much."

Daniel paused in his attempts to fumble his way under the voluminous sweatshirt she was wearing. "Ok, that works too." He took a deep breath as he realised the pain of the last few weeks was at an end and he'd finally managed to get it right. "And you're going to marry me?" Janet nodded and his smile lit up the room as he turned them and took them down onto the mattress. He paused to fix the memory of her lying in his arms, smiling lovingly into his eyes forever in his mind and then bent his head to kiss her senseless.

*******************************

The following Monday morning, Daniel pulled up outside Cassie's school and turned off the ignition. "Have a good day, Cassie." Janet smiled at her daughter as Cassie climbed out of the backseat of the car and waved to a small group of girls in front of the school. "Don't forget to notify the office about your change of address."

"Ok, Mom." Cassie leaned down and poked her head through the driver's window and held out her hand expectantly to Daniel. "Lunch money?"

"Oh, um." Daniel grabbed his wallet from the side pocket in his car door and fumbled out a twenty. "Is this enough?"

"Cassie!" Janet snatched the bill from Daniel's hand before her daughter's sticky fingers closed on it. "Daniel, you don't have to give her any money, I already gave her some. And a twenty is way too much."

"Worth a try." Completely unrepentant, Cassie straightened and turned as three of her friends drew level with them. "Hey guys."

"Hi." Janine, Cassie's best friend, peered with interest into the car. "Hey Mrs Fraiser."

"Hi Janine." Janet smiled and grinned in amusement as the three girls subjected Daniel to a prolonged session of fascinated staring. "How are you?"

"Fine, thank you." Janine kept her eyes on Daniel. "Hello."

"Uh, hi." Daniel flexed his hands uncomfortably on the steering wheel as Cassie's friends stood silently watching him. "Um, Cass, aren't you going to be late?"

"Nope." Grinning cheerfully, Cassie tucked her arm through Janine's. "We're good."

"Hey, aren't you the guy who came and dragged Cassie out of school last week?" Claire, a perky red head, snapped her gum and tilted her head to the side curiously. "I heard you had a majorly big fight with the principal."

Aware he was flushing a brilliant shade of crimson, Daniel coughed. "No, er, we just had a small discussion and things got a little.heated."

"Well I heard this huge soldier guy went nutso and kidnapped Cassie after he beat up her teacher." Evidently unimpressed with the reality rather than the rumour, the slender black girl at the back of small group sniffed. "You don't look so tough to me."

Cassie sniggered, rather cruelly in Daniel's opinion, and conveniently forgot his current hazardous profession. "Daniel, tough?" She sniggered again. "He's just Daniel." She finally took pity on him and released Janine to bend once more and blow a kiss to her mother before planting her lips on Daniel's cheek. "We're gonna go in, I'll see you later." Open-mouthed, Daniel watched her walk away with her friends, explaining matter-of-factly. "He's kinda my new dad, mom's getting married again."

"No way!" Deeply impressed, the girls turned as one and stared back the archaeologist. "Your mom's marrying him?" Janine stared incredulously at Janet and then at Daniel. "But he's so."

"Daniel." Cassie rolled her eyes and herded her friends towards the school doors. "Trust me, the hotness wears off once he's used your sixty dollar, one of a kind new top to clean some old rock he's had lying around his house since forever." Her voice floated back clear as a bell as she climbed the school steps. "He may look good but, believe me, he's gonna be a pain to live with."

"Hey!" Daniel scowled. "That's unfair."

"You, what about me?" Janet, smarting over Janine's disbelief that she could attract someone like Daniel, glared after her daughter. "You're hot, apparently I'm about as attractive as your average Go'uald. In it's natural state."

Daniel began to grin. "She said I was her dad."

Still annoyed, Janet snorted. "Believe me, the novelty will wear off once you start spending your weekends chauffeuring her and her air head friends around and coughing up cash every five minutes."

Daniel grinned wider as he glanced at the school and then back at his fiancée. "It's never going to wear off. She's going to let me be her dad."

Janet shook her head at the expression of sheer excitement in his eyes at Cassie's easy acceptance of him and then grinned as something over his shoulder caught her eye. "See that kid in the leather jacket?" She waited until Daniel turned and saw a dark haired boy lounging against the school wall, good looking face set in an sneer of teenage superiority as he watched a group of young giggling girls hurry past him. "That's the kid that's taking your daughter out on a date Friday night, daddy."

"What?" Daniel blinked worriedly at the confident looking youth, a small niggle of uneasiness starting in his belly. "He looks way too old for her."

"Joey Abretti, apparently the hottest boy in school." Smirking evilly, Janet patted Daniel's shoulder. "Seventeen years old and five foot eleven of teenage hormones and angst wrapped up in the skin of a born libertine. And he rides a motorbike."

"Hmm, Friday night, right?" Daniel shot the unfortunate Joey a measuring look as he turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb. "That's a coincidence, I'm having Jack and Teal'c over for a couple of beers that night, they should be there when he comes to pick up Cassie." And they'd be there in full uniform and armed with zat guns if he had anything to say about it.

A surprised laugh spluttered from Janet's mouth. "That's mean, Dr Jackson."

"Just call me Doctor Evil from now on." Daniel glanced in the rear view mirror as he turned the corner and smiled happily at Janet's appreciative giggles as he concluded thoughtfully. "And I'm driving them on Friday night." Motorbike his butt!

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