Category: Daniel/Janet, angst.
Rating/spoilers, etc: M, not explicit. The Light and mild Beneath the Surface. ~2000 words.
Summary: Too close
Disclaimer: No profit is being made and no infringement is intended.
A/N: pellucid provided the kernel of this, long ago, in her personal canon post. Thanks to Cole for the flying beta.
Also – I'm not sure I ever had title-fu, but if I did, it has certainly abandoned me now.
xxxxxxx
There isn't much to be done, afterwards.
General Hammond gently suggests she take five, so Janet goes and sits in her office with the door locked while the adrenaline drains away. Always leaves her with the shakes, though she usually has a better handle on it than this. It is quiet now and she's trying very hard not the think about why the infirmary is so empty. Or how Lieutenant Barber developed suicidal depression right under her nose. Or how quickly the rest of his team had succumbed as well.
That first night, she dreams of a whispered confession. The man by her ear has no face but she knows who he is. In her dream, as in reality, she pulls back – not ready; too aware of their pasts and too afraid of making herself vulnerable. As she pulls back, the faceless man lets go and falls from an 8th floor balcony toward the street below.
The same night she wakes from another dream in which her gateroom risk didn't pay off. Where she, somehow, sees Daniel sprawled on the floor of an alien room, not responding to the device or to the colonel's attempts to revive him. The entire scene plays out to a background noise – the long drawn-out beep of a flatline.
She gets up then, detangles herself from the twisted sheets, and ends up staring at the moonlit shadows on her kitchen table through two fingers of Glenmorangie. She only risks alcohol because she knows she's alone, but it's that loneliness which makes her keep drinking until she can't feel her toes or the hot tears on her cheeks.
By the fourth day, Janet has changed her alarm setting so the strains of the radio wake her instead of a beep. She has started timing oven-cooked food on her watch instead of setting the timer. She's stopped using the microwave altogether. She has begun fearing the dark.
At work on the tenth day, after she's lost count of dreams of death, she entertains the notion of approaching the General to suggest implementing a 4-year limit for the post of SGC CMO. She discards it straight away, but the little voice remains. Too close. She's gotten too close to these people.
On the seventeenth day, SG-1 returns, apparently clean of their dependency. After she's given Sam a thorough check-up, she's pulled aside to make arrangements for the coming weekend with Cassie. Daniel emerges from behind the curtain at the far end of the infirmary and catches her eye. He smiles and she's gripped by the sudden need to break something. Stunned, she doesn't quite catch Colonel O'Neill's kvetching behind her.
"Yo, Fraiser! You with us?" She turns to face him. "We all check out okay?"
"Yes. Sir," she adds, leaning heavily on the disapproval.
Mistaking the reason, he holds up his hands. "Hey, it wasn't our fault. Blame mimeograph paper in second grade." He narrows his eyes in fond exasperation. "Doesn't excuse Daniel though – too young."
The dark feeling returns at the mention of his name. Janet takes a deep controlled breath. She just needs to get through a few more hours, then she'll be home, in her bed, feeling more human and less prone to destructive urges. But first she needs distance, away from SG-1's restless energy. Two and a half weeks on a beach and they are practically bouncing off the walls.
Teal'c's eyebrows notch down in confusion, and she leaves a bemused Sam to try and explain the addictive properties of 1950s educational stationery.
She thinks she's feeling considerably more functional by the time the weekend comes around. But she hasn't gotten to see Daniel properly yet and when he appears at her door, late at night and unannounced, she realises that it's all still there, buried under her layers of self-preservation. It occurs to her not to let him in, but she does anyway. They exchange pleasantries for a while, until, against her better judgement, she offers him a drink and he accepts. Not coffee – they've had a cup already – but something a little stronger. Harder. More likely to numb the edge off the ache of near-loss, or so she hopes.
She is on her third glass, he on his second, before she recognises the prickle of imminent tears and realises she's miscalculated terribly. She'd ask him to call a cab and leave right now if she thought for a second he'd do so. Instead, she puts her tumbler down before he can see her hands are shaking, pressing them together on her lap.
He sees anyway and starts to reach for her. Stops and thinks better of it. Good man. She's really not up for any contact right now.
"I heard what happened," he says, softly.
She doesn't respond, doesn't trust herself to speak. He throws back the remainder of his drink, places his glass beside hers, then sits back again. She can feel his intense scrutiny playing over her face, burning like magnified light. She closes her eyes.
"You were coding." It's barely a whisper. She hears the sound of material on material, feels him shifting closer in the vibrations through the back of the couch. Alcohol has always dulled her senses before, why is she so hyper-aware now? "You were coding and I didn't know what to do. Sending you through the 'gate was a guess. I had no idea if it'd work or..."
He grips her upper arm gently, making her jump. "But it did."
"One day we're going to run out of luck," she says, with conviction and a small hiccup. His attentive expression crumples into a smile. "I'm serious! One day something will happen and you'll never come back and I won't know why. You'll get shot or captured or eaten." She starts making chomping motions with a beaked hand before catching herself. His lips waver again. "You'll live out your life as...as Karlan or something." They're crushing fears of hers, these unknowns.
She must be drunker than she thinks, or maybe he is, because he's having a hard time making the grin go away. Irrational anger thrums though her. She's afraid and he's amused and something in her snaps.
She starts to giggle. Oh God. It's not healthy laughter. She can feel the hysteria bubbling up but all she can do is sit there until she has tears in her eyes. It's only when she wraps her arms around herself that Daniel realises that she's not laughing anymore and by then it's far too late. She tries to move back out of his reach. He catches her hand on the second attempt – he's definitely as drunk as she is – and pulls her to him as her last threads of control disintegrate.
"D-don't laugh," she manages through choking sobs. "Don't you ever laugh."
"I'm not." He isn't, not anymore. Now he looks fairly terrified, from what she can see of his face through the sheen of tears. "I'm sorry."
She clings to his side until the hysteria subsides. She squeezes her eyes shut briefly and her vision clears, leaving everything sparkling around the edges. She's close enough to study the individual hairs along his jaw. Her eyes fall to his neck where his carotid throbs, lagging slightly behind the heartbeat she can feel through his chest where it's pressed against her. Her mind flashes back to her recurring dream – a flatline tone and this face, slack in death.
She presses her lips to the pulse. He stiffens and she wants to take it back. But she can't, so she tilts her head and kisses him again where his jaw meets his ear and the skin is half-rough, half-soft.
"Janet?" His voice is a low rumble, felt more than heard, vibrating in his throat, and it makes her lips tingle. It's all too easy – she'd always imagined it would be so hard – to open up and let him in. To brush her lips against his. Part of her mind wonders how much of it is the alcohol; the rest of her mind just wonders. Daniel exhales, their breath mingles, and then he's kissing her back.
They are mostly horizontal before she can blink. Her attention can't keep up – she's still trying to focus on how good it feels to bury her fingers in his hair and have the warmth of his hands seeping through her clothes, when everything changes. He's nipping her lower lip, crouched, while his hands are gone, fumbling to remove his shoes. Then the ground drops from beneath her and she has to grip his shoulders to keep her balance.
It's only four paces to the wall, though she can't quite remember how he got her there so quickly. She certainly didn't walk it, and now the wall is at her back and the entire length of his body is pressed against her. The hyper-awareness returns. Her brain provides anatomical field notes at random – deltoid when the firm muscles move under her hands as he lifts her up; clavicle when she tips her head back and his mouth makes a detour; suspensory ligament when she wraps her legs around his waist to feel him, hard and hot, exactly where she needs him...
He moans against her. The instant he pulls back, her hands are on his clothes, tugging them up, down, off, any direction that gives her better access. There's a brief position change to aid in the removal of more stubborn items – bras and alcohol are a bad mix, evidently – and then everything just narrows right down to the simple sensation of skin on skin. Some sensible part of her screams that this is not, no way, under any circumstances, rational, but she shuts it out as he fits into the cradle of her hips. When he comes to rest, when their flurry of desperate motion stops, she whimpers into the hazy quiet. Nothing but their breathing, quick and sharp. She can feel his pulse deep inside her and thinks that now is a really bad time for tears. But he's right here, with her. Alive. Alive.
She tenses her muscles, encouraging him to start moving. His gasp is just a delicious side-effect. They find a rhythm, but it doesn't stick. The intense desperate need takes over and he must be feeling it too because he's not letting up. He thrusts harder, the keys on the hook a foot from her head jing together, and she almost laughs. She thought that kind of thing only happened in the movies. Then again, she can't remember ever acting this impulsively before.
The pressure builds, her body humming with pleasure. One final thrust and her orgasm comes roaring through, just as he presses his face to her exposed neck and groans, longer and hotter than she could ever have imagined.
There is awkwardness along with the afterglow, more avoidance of eye-contact than she would've liked, but then, she reminds herself, they have just had drunken sex without so much as a lead-up date.
He collects the rest of their clothes as she slips his shirt on. She tries very hard not to feel exposed, but she can't fight the overwhelming fear that they're damaged now and it cannot be undone. Then he stops. She holds her breath, unsure if he's going to bolt or express regret or do any number of things that will inevitably bring her to tears.
He cups her chin and places a soft chaste kiss on her lips.
"I can't drive like this," he states and all she can do is nod in agreement. She stands there, feeling small in his clothes, until she becomes aware that he's watching her closely. She realises he's searching for her regret, her hasty retreat. She shakes her head, tries to speak. Tomorrow they're going to have to deal with this, but right now she doesn't know where to start, and fatigue is taking over. Instead, she kisses him back, giving him as much reassurance as she can. Then she takes his hand and leads him upstairs. He sits on her bed until she pulls him next to her and folds herself around him. He hesitates minutely, then wraps her tight in his arms.
His heartbeat thuds, strong beneath her ear. When she drifts off, it's into a silence of thick and white dreams. And she can see everywhere.