Title: Accidents Happen
Author: BrynnH87
Fandom: SG1
Pairing: Janet/Daniel (Friendship)
Rating: Anyone
Summary: Janet and Daniel go for a late meal and get more excitement than they planned for.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta Meg for encouraging me to write this for a Jan/Dan ficathon.
Accidents Happen
Janet knocked on the door jam to Daniel's office, and waited for him to look up.
"Hey, there," he said at the welcomed distraction.
"How's it going on the translations?" Janet gestured toward the papers and photos spread out on Daniel's desk.
"Not well, actually. I'm not getting anywhere with this. What about you? Any luck on identifying the pathogen from PS9-674?"
"No," Janet sighed. "None at all. I've been working on it for so long; I'm starting to go cross eyed. I was going to take a break and go into town for a while…get something to eat if I can find any place serving food at this hour. Want to come with me?"
Daniel ran his fingers through his hair. "Yes. That sounds like a good idea. Maybe if I step back for a while, I'll be able to look at it with fresh eyes when I get back. But why not the cafeteria?"
Janet just grinned. "Daniel, it's 2:00 in the morning. Even around this crazy place the cafeteria doesn't serve food at 2:00 in the morning."
Daniel grinned back. "You have a point. "
They made their way to Daniel's car, and headed toward town. They were discussing the short list of possible places to get any decent food at this time of night, when Daniel saw headlights on his side of the road. The oncoming car was all over the road, first on Daniel's side, and then on the other. Daniel had no time to anticipate where the car would go, so as to avoid it. He swerved drastically to miss a head on collision, but his car went through the guard rails, and over a bank, flipping over twice before slamming into the base of a tree.
Daniel awoke, not quite sure where he was. There was something sticky on his face, and in his left eye, and there was a terrible pain in his ribs and left ankle. If he could just remember where he was….
Janet! He remembered being with Janet in his car….. 'Oh, God, the car… I wrecked the car'. He looked to his right to find Janet. He couldn't see her clearly, as it was dark this far away from the road lights above, but the moon was bright, so he could use that to find his way to Janet.
He unbuckled his seat belt and moved gingerly toward the passenger side of the car, pushing off with his uninjured right ankle, and trying to guard his ribs as much as possible. Janet was slumped against the mangled car door. Daniel couldn't see how badly she was hurt, but she was definitely unconscious. He put his hand on the side of her neck, and felt a steady heartbeat. 'Thank God' Daniel thought. He thought he could make out a good bit of blood on the right side of Janet's head, and on her right arm. He couldn't see her lower body clearly, but as mangled as the car was, he thought she could be injured pretty severely. He knew he had to get help for her quickly.
The passenger door window was smashed, the door was crushed and was blocked by a huge tree. So, he wasn't going to get her out that way. Daniel looked up at what he could see of the incline they had tumbled down. He definitely wouldn't be able to get up that with his injuries, and there was no way he could get Janet up there. He finally remembered his cell phone, and called 911, hoping and praying that it got reception here. He tried three times before he got a static-filled connection, and tried to get as much information out as possible before he lost service. He thought he heard the 911 operator say that an ambulance was being dispatched just before he lost the connection.
"Okay, Janet," he said, hoping she could hear him. "The ambulance is on the way…I think."
Janet moaned and started moving her head.
"No, Janet," Daniel said urgently, "Don't move. Just wait until the ambulance gets here. Can you talk to me? Are you awake?"
"Dan'l," she slurred. "Head hurz."
"Yeah, yeah. I know Janet. We had a car accident. I drove us over a cliff. I'm so sorry."
Janet started moving again, and Daniel moved closer to her. He put one hand on her shoulder, and the other on her forearm, and started stroking her arm to try to soothe her. "Janet, you've got to stay still for me, okay? I can't see how badly you're injured, but I don't want to take any chances of making it worse, okay?"
"Okay." She still didn't seem really coherent, but at least she stopped moving. But then she seemed to be drifting away from consciousness again.
Daniel knew Janet had some kind of head injury and didn't want her to fall unconscious again. "Hey, talk to me. Stay awake, okay?"
"Can't…Head hurts."
"Hey, tell me about the pathogen you were working on. How is that going?"
Janet moaned, and starting thrashing her head. "Can't think. Don't know…Don't know, Daniel."
"Okay, calm down. Stay still, okay?" Daniel rubbed her arm some more and took a chance of touching her head on the uninjured side. He stroked her hair, and talked softly. "Forget work, but talk to me, okay? Stay awake."
Janet moaned, and started to drift off again.
"Hey, Janet. How did Cassie do in the Science Fair? I know you were helping her with those mold samples."
Despite her injuries, Janet smiled a weak smile. "She … came in second."
"Second, huh? Who won?"
"Some kid with…a volcano."
"They seem to have a volcano in every school science fair, don't they?"
Janet smiled, but started to go back to sleep.
"Janet." Daniel spoke firmly. "You have GOT to stay awake here."
"Bet you…never turned in … a volcano." Janet was fighting hard to stay awake.
"Nope." Daniel smiled, and continued stoking her arm. "No volcanic eruptions from me…though I DID blow up the school science lab once."
Daniel looked up when he heard sirens. 'Finally,' he thought.
"Hey Janet. Hang in there a little while longer, okay? The ambulance is here. They'll get us out of here in no time."
An hour later, both Daniel and Janet were finally on their way to the hospital.
They had admitted Daniel after diagnosing and treating a broken ankle and three badly bruised ribs, and placing three stitches in a laceration on his forehead. He had called Jack, who had called Hammond and the rest of SG-1, all of whom were waiting in Daniel's hospital room for news about Janet. They had taken her to surgery as soon as she got to the hospital, and were repairing compound fractures in her right arm and lower right leg. Daniel hadn't known about those injuries until he had seen the rescue workers bring her up into the light of the street lamp near where the ambulance was parked. He had been so worried about her head wound.
At last, someone came in to tell them that Janet was out of surgery. They fixed the fractures with no complications, and, though Janet had a concussion, the doctors said her head CT's looked good, and they anticipated no problems with that.
It was well into the morning now, and Janet was awake off and on all day, becoming more and more lucid. By evening, she was talking to the staff to try to piece together what had happened. She often had to ask the same question more than once in order to retain the information, and each time she asked about Daniel.
The next day, while waiting for Jack to pick him up after having been released from the hospital, Daniel hobbled into Janet's room. He was so glad to see her looking so well. The doctor had said he would keep her for several more days to watch the head injury and make sure the other injuries were healing well, but she'd be able to get out much sooner than Daniel had thought.
"Hey there." Daniel grinned. "You look better than the last time I saw you."
Janet smiled. "So I hear."
"Janet…I'm SO sorry about all this. God, I thought I was going to lose you there for a minute. It would have been my fault."
"Daniel, from what I hear, and the bits and pieces I can remember, there was no way the accident was your fault. They recovered the other driver, too. They told me he was drunk, and he was all over the road. There was nothing you could have done."
"Well…I still wish I could have spared you all this."
"I'm okay Daniel. You got help quickly and you kept me awake since you didn't know how bad the concussion was. That's all anyone could have asked for. But I am curious about one thing…"
"What's that?"
"How, exactly, did you blow up a science lab?
Daniel's grin promised that this was going to be a good story…if she could ever get it out of him. All he said, for now, was, "accidents happen!"