Title: Heroes (3/10)
Author: 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.
Part 3.
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 heater 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.
End Part 3.
Part 3.
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?"
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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 heater 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.
End Part 3.