Storm
by Bryn


EMAIL: buddygirl19@yahoo.com
STATUS: Complete
RATING: G
CATEGORY: Daniel/Janet UST, character death (sort of), future.
SPOILERS: small one for "Meridian." (If you don't know those spoilers you won't catch the reference)
SEASON: 6
SUMMARY: Janet contemplates the rain and how her life has turned out.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognised characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Kat (for the beta), Becca (for the nagging), and AJ (for the inspiration for the end)!

The darkened sky had hidden the arrival of the clouds, so it wasn’t until the first lightning flash that she noticed a storm was coming. The night sky was lit brightly several times without the accompaniment of thunder, signaling that the tempest was still a ways off, so the casual observance didn’t alarm Janet. She buried herself deeper into the soft cushions of the couch, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and re-immersed herself in the mindlessness of the television show she was watching.

When the rain started falling a quarter of an hour later, the illusion of her apathy was shattered. With a flick of the remote, she switched off the TV and settled the room into darkness. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and reached for the candles and matches that sat on the mantle. She set the candles, now burning brightly, on the windowsill, and sat in the chair next to it, to stare out at the pouring rain.

Storms weren’t unusual here in the Springs, but, despite their frequency, they always inspired a melancholy mood in the young doctor. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t been raised with them, or because the rain made her feel isolated from the rest of the world, like the fairy princesses trapped in towers, awaiting their knights in shining armor to come rescue them. A romantic notion, yet at the same time a grim and dismal one, if you took the time to think about it. To spend all your life trapped and alone, only to whisked away by a perfect stranger, and in the end still be denied a life of your own.

That was not her sort of fairy tale, she mused. She didn’t need a Prince Charming, magic spells, or any of the other things little girls’ dreams were usually made of. Nope, she didn’t need any of that. She had an exciting career, a daughter she adored, and friends who would quite literally lay down their lives for each other. What more could she want? It was all she’d ever dreamed of, probably even more. She had everything and she was perfectly… content.

At one point she had been happy, ecstatically so. Life, despite its continuous attempts to turn everything on its ass and repeatedly taking the world as she knew it to the brink of chaos, was as good as it got, she thought. But somehow, something had changed, and she hadn’t even noticed it until it was gone.

One day she’d woken up and realized that, from that day forward, she’d never be completely happy again. Because happiness had evolved without her knowledge, to include something she’d never even realized she was missing, and then, before she’d had a chance to enjoy it, it had been snatched away from her. That one last part of her life, which was the defining feature between contentment and bliss, had ascended to a higher level, leaving her behind, in the pouring rain.

Raindrops splattered on her window, combining together to make streams and rivers running down the glass. With her finger she traced the patterns, mesmerized by the complexities. If she didn’t think, didn’t remember, she could almost pretend she was all right. She could let the clouds cry the tears that she no longer could.

He wasn’t dead. He’d even promised to come back. Nevertheless, though, he’d gone. Moreover, he’d *chosen* to go. Of all the options, his choice had been for the benefit of strangers and at the cost of her. He’d chosen everything over her. He had turned away and never bothered to look back to see her standing in the corner, her heart breaking.

It was the way he was, one of the reason’s she loved him. He’d sacrifice everything he had to help others. Even if he had known he had something to stay for, even if she had told him how she felt, he would have gone anyway. He would have felt guilty though, and as a result, she would have as well. So she bit her tongue, kept her secret, and watched the rain alone.

the end.

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