Title: Hold On To Me Rating: PG
Keywords: Challenge fic, Angst, Daniel/Janet
Spoilers: Meridian
Disclaimer: Daniel? Not mine. Janet? Not mine. Stargate...ah you get the picture.
Summary: she's losing him...he can't hold on to her.
Note: for the Stargate ficathon. May I add, my first Daniel/Janet fic. I swear, these ficathons are slowly wittling down the pairings I haven't written. :-p written for seramercury

"Hold On To Me"
by M.
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The air was thick and heavy, cloying in her office. It was choking her, filling her nostrils, dragging her down. In a sharp, biting way it was funny. In all the years she'd been working in the mountain, she'd never felt its bulk pressing down on her. Crushing her. But now, in just a few hours, the weight she'd blissfully ignored for five years came crashing down with violent pressure. All her strength was going into the simple act of taking a single breath. Defeat threatened to crush her but Janet couldn't summon the energy to care.

Daniel was dying.

Her focus was fixed entirely upon that point. Daniel was dying and there was nothing she could do but pray. Pray for a miracle. Pray Jacob arrived in time. Pray that he could make the healing device do what Sam could not. Heal Daniel. Give him back. Janet was not a woman accustomed to prayer. She preferred the miracles medicine could supply. She'd been lucky enough to participate in a few of her own in her time with the SGC and, in many ways, that made it worse. All the medical advancements she'd made, all her discoveries, all her knowledge was useless. None of it could save Daniel.

Passing a hand over her face, Janet pushed back the weariness in an attempt to focus on the reports lying before her. There had to be something, she had to find it, some treatment, some drug...

The simmering frustration that lay beneath the surface of her grief exploded and she shoved the papers to the floor before hiding her face in her hands. The sobs came then, rushing up from a place deep within her self, a source of absolute, utter despair. The force of them shaking her body, draining the last of her energy. Leaving her spent.

Time seemed to slow to an imperceptible crawl as she lost herself to the grief. She was losing him and she thought, just maybe, the force of it was killing her too.

Janet was changing his bandages again...

The softness of her touch drew him back to his body: and the pain, but his pain was a secondary concern. Maybe it was the intimacy of the relationship they had shared or maybe it was the contact with Oma but whatever the reason, Daniel could feel the despair radiating off of her in relentless waves.

He tried to speak her name, tried to comfort her, to stop the self-recriminations she was doubtlessly heaping upon herself.

It's not your fault... he wanted to tell her. You can't save everyone...

His voice failed him, what came out was a garbled, gurgling noise that didn't sound anything remotely like speech. Whatever it was it didn't fail to draw her attention.

"Daniel?"

He tried again, forcing one hand -- his 'good' one, and the irony of that thought made him want to laugh -- to cover hers. This time, he was able to push the words past his lips. They came out garbled and she had to lean close to hear but hear she did, as he whispered, "...not your fault."

He felt as much as heard her sharp intake of breath. "Daniel?" A gentle hand came to rest on his head, he could feel it's light pressure through the bandages, and he found a smile. Janet always could make him smile. Even now. "I'm sorry..." She apologized, voice thick. "I can't..."

"Not." He insisted again, his voice faint. "Don't blame..."

"Myself?" She finished for him. "Logically...you're right. But, there's nothing logical about this. I can't lose you."

She wouldn't. Not if Oma had her way and, in the back of his mind, he felt the ascended being taking that information into account. No doubt considering how to use it to help him see. He was beginning to understand that much. "Not..."

"Daniel, you need to rest. You're pushing yourself too hard...you don't need to tell me this."

Daniel swallowed, the action taking everything he had, and said, "Sorry." And he was. He couldn't regret what he'd done on the planet, not knowing what he knew, even knowing how the Kelownans had reacted, but he did regret what it was doing to his friends. To the people he loved. The person he loved. He regretted that more than anything -- another hurt to add to his list of sins.

"You did the right thing, Daniel," Janet insisted softly. "You can't believe differently. You did the right thing."

He wanted to sit up, to pull her into his arms, to whisper reassurances. Kiss her, hold her. He wanted to do a thousand different things that were suddenly beyond him. Things he hadn't done enough of before. Never enough. He'd waited too long before, too long to tell her the truth, to tell her how he felt. Too long to accept what she'd quietly offered. Those memories were some of his most precious, among the ones he held closest to him, and they were the memories he'd carry with him. Into death or Ascension. Whatever lay at the end of the journey lying before him. They would go with him and, he knew, they would stay with her. He only hoped they were enough for her. Comfort for the loneliness. She loved him. He knew that as surely as he knew he loved her and he knew, dead or Ascended, he would still be gone and she would be alone.

God, I love you... he thought and wished he could say. Wished he could say it in the way it needed to be said. He wished a lot of things but...all of them lay beyond him now. Beyond them both. All that was left was what might have been and the uncertainty of what would be. The only certainty he had lay in the knowledge that, no matter what happened, what choice he made, nothing was ever going to be the same again. Whether that was good, or bad, he didn't know beyond the fact he didn't want to let her go. Didn't want to lose her as much as she didn't want to lose him.

If there was one lesson life had bothered to teach Daniel...it was that people rarely got what they really wanted.

But that didn't stop people from hoping...

Least of all him.

finis