Season 7 Episode 18 – Heroes pt 2

Episode summary: Dr Janet Fraiser is killed in the line of duty by a jaffa's staff weapon, while tending to a wounded airman off-world. Jack is also hit, but thanks to a new armour insert in his vest, he survives.


The night Janet died, Sam slept in Cassie's bed, holding the orphaned eighteen year old through the night.

In the days and weeks that followed, Sam was proud beyond words of Cassie and the maturity and strength she showed in how she dealt with the blow, especially given her history. This was the third parent she'd lost in her short life.

Cassie was already in college, and insisted on going back much sooner than Sam thought she should. Jack convinced her to let the girl go – if Cassie felt that college was where she wanted to be, they should respect that. They would just keep in close contact with her, and make sure she always knew she could come home any time.

Of the five stages of grief, most people at the SGC spent longer than usual inhabiting the anger stage, because of the kind of person Janet had been. She was a doctor – her job was to help people, not fight them. That she should die in such a violent manner wasn't fair.

Sam felt that she'd gone through the stages of grief backwards. At first she'd been devastated and depressed, then she'd gone through bargaining, imagining a hundred different ways she could have prevented it, and then she uncharacteristically got stuck in the anger phase. Weeks after the event, her temper was like a high-wire act. The slightest thing could make her want to throw something across the room. She could tell her team had noticed and were trying to give her some space to work it out, but eventually she snapped one too many times, yelling at Sgt Harriman in the control room, and landing herself in General Hammond's office for a dressing down.

Humiliated, she went home that night with every intention of quickly drowning her sorrows in a bottle of scotch and then passing out in her bed.

Unfortunately, her CO had other ideas.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that Jack would want to talk to her after her meltdown in the control room. He probably wanted to follow General Hammond's lead and give her the 'What the hell were you thinking, pull yourself together' speech.

He was leaning against her house by the door, and she just walked up to him and stopped, presenting herself wordlessly for the inevitable reprimand.

"Are you going to let me in?" He asked, instead of the yelling she'd been expecting. She blinked.

"Uh, sure." She said, reaching past him to put the key in the lock.

Inside, he went straight to her kitchen and fished around in her cupboards for the bottle of scotch she'd been planning on drinking. He poured them both a glass, and handed her one, before leading her into her own living room and settling himself on her couch.

She sat down apprehensively, watching him. He still wasn't yelling. It was starting to freak her out.

"What's going on?" He asked eventually. His tone of voice had been gentle, and almost solicitous – the furthest thing from the yelling of an angry CO.

She took a sip of her drink to stall for time, feeling the burn of the liquid as it slid down her throat.

"I yelled at Walter." She said.

"I know."

"He didn't deserve it."

"No."

"I've been snapping at other people too."

Jack just raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to answer his original question. She sighed.

"I'm angry." She admitted. "All the time."

"Because Janet died." He supplied.

"No." She said, shaking her head.

Jack looked a little stunned. "No?"

"I mean, yes, I was angry about how she died, it was so … so wrong. But that's not why I'm still angry now."

Jack watched her for a long moment. "So …" he prodded when she didn't explain.

"Janet died." Sam said. "My best friend died, and … and I could have stopped it and I chose not to. Which means all the pain and the hurt that Cassie has been through and is still going through right now is on me."

Jack looked thoroughly confused. "Carter … you weren't there. You were with me. You couldn't have stopped that jaffa from shooting her."

Sam shook her head angrily. "That's not what I mean! Jack, we went to the future, and we met me. General Samantha Carter knows exactly what happened to Janet, and she … and I didn't warn us! She didn't say a word, even though by telling us she could have saved Janet. She's me, which means I made that decision. I decided not to save Janet."

Jack had stood and moved to crouch in front of Sam, taking hold of her forearms. "Sam, stop it. You can't do that to yourself. You aren't responsible for this. And you know that General Carter couldn't warn us or she'd have messed up the timeline. For all we know if she'd said anything, it could have caused some kind of awful chain reaction that ended the world, or something."

Sam started to cry. She knew Jack was right. She'd tried to rationalise it that way a hundred times in the last few weeks. But she couldn't forgive herself.

Jack pulled her into a hug and just held her while she cried. It felt like a release, finally admitting what she'd been feeling and letting herself cry on someone's shoulder about it. Rather than calming down though, she was getting more worked up, and Jack started rubbing soothing circles on her back and telling her to breathe in and out slowly before she passed out from hyperventilating.

She forced herself to focus on his voice and follow his orders, and eventually she was breathing normally again, her head rested on his shoulder and her arms around his neck with tears still falling from her eyes to dampen his shirt.

"Are you feeling any better?" He asked eventually.

She shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know."

Jack pulled back, and she wiped at her eyes, embarrassed at how completely she'd broken down.

"You should have talked to me about this sooner." He said.

She nodded. She knew that. She'd just been too ashamed to admit it.

Jack patted her hand. "Ok, here's the plan. Go wash your face. I'm going to order a pizza. We'll eat some food, watch a crappy movie, and then you're going to take a sleeping pill and get a good night's sleep. And I'm withdrawing your drinking privileges." He said, confiscating her barely-touched scotch.

"You're the one who poured me that in the first place." She argued.

"And now I'm the one who's going to drink it." He said. He gave her a sad smile. "Go on. Do what I say, and I promise you'll feel better in the morning."

She nodded reluctantly and stood, heading off to the bathroom to wash her face while he ordered them some dinner and chose a movie on pay-per-view. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, her face blotchy and red from crying, and for the first time in weeks she didn't see General Carter staring back.

Maybe she wouldn't feel better in the morning, but at least it was a step in the right direction.