Sam pulled up in the driveway to drop Jonas off; she declined an invitation to come in as she had some errands to run, but instructed Jonas to tell Cassie and Janet that she would call as soon as she got home.
As Jonas entered the house, he could see the look on Janet's face as she viciously cut up carrots and beans to put them on to boil.
"Uh-oh, what's the matter?" he asked. Janet glanced up the stairs and then back to the cutting board.
Jonas knew that look; without a word he proceeded up the stairs. She could hear him knock on the door, even though it was muffled by the sounds of the boiling water.
"Hey beautiful, what's up?" he began. She heard the door shut and then the muffled voices were out of hearing range.
Janet breathed a sigh of relief, as she scraped the cutting board contents into the boiling water and set about preparing the remainder of what would be their evening meal. It felt so….homey, she thought, for lack of a better word, to be busying herself making dinner while Cassie and Jonas talked upstairs.
She would never admit this to any of her woman friends, but she secretly enjoyed it, though she knew the novelty would wear off quickly if it were all her life contained. She felt a sudden surge of respect for those women who chose to devote their life to such endeavors; she was pretty sure she never could – her experience with her ex-husband had taught her that much.
The sound of their gentle laughter drifting down the stairs brought her wandering thoughts back to the two of them as she mixed up the ground beef with the seasonings according to the recipe card she kept on the refrigerator.
On some level, she thought it should bother her, their closeness; she was the mother and wasn't she the one that Cassie should talk to? But then, she'd never planned on being a single mom, and truthfully, she was grateful to him for the assistance. She was never really sure why, but her instincts continually told her she could trust him. Cassie always seemed in a much better mood after they talked, and Janet was glad for that. She knew it could not be easy for Cassie and since Jonas had arrived, theirs had been a tight bond. As aliens, they shared common ground that Janet logically knew she could never appreciate.
After Cassie had gone to bed later, she would ask him.
"Anything I should know about?" she would say casually, knowing that the likely answer would be no and trusting that he would tell her if it was.
He would smile that big, disarming grin of his. "Nah, just standard teenage alien angst," he would say, his usual reply to her when she asked this question.
She placed the meatloaf in the oven, her thoughts inadvertently strolling back to the time when he'd first come to stay with them.
She had been watching him in the infirmary after his surgery. He had been lying in bed, restless, alternately trying to read and then sleep. It was times like this when he had been most down, she noticed. His normally broad, warm smile wasn't seen as often during those times, and he had had a distant look in his eyes that she hadn't liked.
Watching him, twirling her pen in her hands, Janet pondered what she should do. She knew that he really needed to get out of this place; most of her other patients had lives and homes and family she could send them to; this nice young man – and he was a nice young man, alien or otherwise – did not.
She bit her lip; a part of her knew what needed to be done, but she was hesitant. On the one hand, she knew Cassie would love it; she'd grown quite fond of him in the many visits she had made. They understood each other on a level that Janet would never be able to comprehend.
On the other hand was the fact that such an arrangement would not be easily explained to people; a good looking young man moving in with a single mom and her teenage daughter. But then, so much about hers and Cassie's current living arrangement already defied explanation.
She looked over at him; the cloud in his eyes was too much. Well, people be damned, she decided defiantly.
She made a telephone call. George Hammond listened quietly.
"Are you sure, Doctor," he asked.
"With all due respect, General, I've done all I can for him here; he needs to get out and about. I've got the room and Cassie will certainly appreciate the company, given the similarity of their situations."
"All right, Major, you have a go," General Hammond had said. Janet's instincts were strong and he trusted her; he'd also seen the changes in the young man since the surgery, too, and though he lacked any formal medical training, he knew she was right.
She stood up from her desk, walking over to the bed. He smiled broadly as she approached, but the distant look was in his eyes.
"Jonas, I've made a decision about your ongoing recovery," she said. "You need to get out of here and get some fresh air and live in friendlier surroundings," she started evenly.
He looked at her questioningly. Janet took a deep breath.
"I've spoken to General Hammond about this and I have his full support," she started in her matter of fact tone of voice. "As I am the doctor with primary responsibility for your well being, and I have the room, it would be best if you came to stay with me," she finished lightly.
Jonas grinned broadly at her; it was true, what she'd been saying since he'd arrived – things always have a way of working out the way they should. This seemed almost too good to be true. He frowned suddenly.
"You're sure I wouldn't be too much trouble to you and Cassie?" he asked hesitantly.
Janet smiled. "Well, how much trouble you'll be remains to be seen, but unless you have reservations about it—"
"No, no, not at all," Jonas interjected hurriedly. "I just don't want to impose on anyone," he said, a note of awkwardness in his voice. The pretty doctor had already been so kind to him, and her daughter was an absolute delight; between the two of them they had made him feel more welcome on this planet than any of the approving glances or heart to heart talks he'd managed to glean from the rest of SG-1.
The awkwardness had not gone unnoticed by Janet; she felt suddenly protective of him. She'd seen him through what seemed like more than his fair share of ailments and tragedies since he'd arrived; it bothered her to see him feeling even more isolated by this latest malady.
"Well, it's settled then. General Hammond has already arranged for you to have the proper accounts and identification for life on the outside; all that remains is for you to gather your things and we'll go home," she said merrily, her convictions in the rightness of this act strengthening as she heard herself saying the words.
A couple of months later, when she'd reported to General Hammond that he was able to return to his regular duties at the SGC, she had held her breath, waiting for the inevitable question regarding his living situation: since he was officially "fully recovered", would he go back to the base?
She knew that she could not have argued against it if he had said that he wanted to, or if General Hammond had ordered him there, but secretly she knew that she would have missed him almost as much as Cassie would have. If not more, a part of her stubbornly pointed out.
But they had simply continued on in this arrangement, one day at a time; a fact that she was continuously grateful for. No one on base had questioned it either, much to Janet's daily relief.
She heard the door shut upstairs then, interrupting her memory replay. They came downstairs together, conversing quietly; at the bottom of the stairs, Cassie reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a hug that he returned with a quiet look of fondness on his face.
"Thanks Dad," she said sincerely. She looked over at Janet.
"Can I help with dinner, Mom?" she asked politely.
Janet smiled, feeling a warm sense of comfort come over her. All was right with the world again.
