ONE

By Lady Grey

“Huh!”

Janet’s last breath left her in a high-pitched scream of surprise and brief pain, cut off in mid-breath. Eyes staring straight upward, she was dead before she hit the ground.

Daniel dropped the camera, shouting Janet’s name, calling for a medic, trying to concentrate enough to give their position, but his mind was a shocked, scrambled mess, his soul shattered in that instant when he saw Janet take the hit.  Daniel’s heart was frozen with fear as he kept calling for help, kneeling over the wounded airman.

When the blast had hit her, Janet had fallen onto her shoulder and rolled with the momentum, onto her back. Daniel saw that her pupils were blown. Her chest no longer rose and fell with signs of breathing, and he knew in that instant that she was gone.

A medic arrived just as Daniel knelt beside her. The man’s fingers pressed up against Janet’s neck. Wordlessly, the medic began to work on her, checking vitals and starting CPR.

Another medic came up and finished working on Airman Wells, while Daniel turned off his video camera and stowed it into his pack. He helped both medics with their gear and their patients.  He did the rescue breathing for Janet between the chest compressions that the medic performed.

Within a few minutes, a soldier came along to help load Wells onto a stretcher.  He and the second medic started to carry Airman Wells toward the gate.

The order came to move out, and the medic who had been working with Daniel pulled his hands away from Janet and leaned back on his heels.  He shook his head, eyes haunted, and started packing up his gear. Daniel stared at him from where he was kneeling on the cold, damp ground. 

“No!” Daniel said forcefully, his eyes glued to the medic’s face. “You can’t leave! Come on, we’ve got to help her!”

The medic had been checking Janet's wound while Daniel had been doing his last round of breaths, and now, his face white as a sheet, he swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, Doctor Jackson," he said gravely. "It won't help. That shot hit her right in the heart. There's no saving her, sir; not here, not at the base. She's gone."

"No!" Daniel protested in a loud voice, startling even himself with its intensity.  "She can't be!"  Daniel couldn't accept that she was gone, that there was no hope. He just wouldn't accept it.  He stared at the medic for a few seconds, his mind trying to grasp that concept, and failing.

The medic looked back at him, wide-eyed.  "Dr. Jackson..." he said in a low tone, as though reasoning with someone who was only partially rational.

Daniel took a shaky breath, determined to do what he had to do, to get through the next few minutes.  The fire went out of him, and something cold and brittle settled in its place. "You're sure?" he asked quietly, his voice shaking along with the rest of him.

The medic nodded, his face drawn. "We have to move out, sir," he ground out, his voice rough, unshed tears of grief and frustration gleaming in his eyes. "We have to get back to the gate." He hurriedly finished packing up his gear, shouldered his pack and reached for Janet's body.

Daniel pushed him out of the way with a grim shake of his head. “I’ll do it, airman.”  He scooped her up and held her close, her dead face cradled against his neck.

“Janet,” he whispered in agony. “You can’t go. We need you.”

Other SG-team members were appearing all around them, sparing them little more than a glance before turning their eyes back to the woods surrounding them, searching for enemy Jaffa, then moving past them, toward the gate and home.

Daniel was in shock.  This could not be happening. Janet had always seemed indestructible, a tiny little dynamo who could make even huge Jaffa quiver in fear. She had been Daniel’s angel of mercy, his own personal Florence Nightingale, one of the handful of people closest to him in his life. His mind could not function for the horror of the truth in his arms.

“Come on, Doctor Jackson,” the medic called. “We gotta move out. Back to the gate. I’m sorry, sir. There’s nothing we can do for her now.”

“Yes, there is,” Daniel insisted miserably. “We can take her home.” He stood with her in his arms, his right tucked under her knees, his left around her back. She felt so small in his arms, yet so heavy.

Weary, feeling like an emotional wreck, he trudged along behind the others and followed them back to the gate. As soon as they arrived, he noticed that Wells’ stretcher was already there and waiting, near the gate. A soldier began punching in the DHD coordinates while the medics hurried to tend other wounded soldiers now arriving at the gate. 

Daniel laid Janet down on the ground beside the DHD and straightened, facing toward their oncoming troops, seeking out other familiar faces. He was numb, but somewhere in the blankness of his mind, he knew he had to tell the others on his team. Janet was gone, and they needed to know.

More men came, two more bearing another stretcher. Daniel couldn’t see the wounded man’s face, but the gleam of silver hair beneath the ball cap and the familiar curve of a lined cheek told him who it was.

Jack.

His dazed mind stubbornly refused to process seeing Jack like that.  He moved his gaze to Sam, running beside the stretcher, her eyes glancing downward at the colonel, face lined with worry.

That meant there was a chance he was still alive.

Sam raised her weapon and fired at Jaffa coming up behind the gate, clearing the way in that direction.

Daniel looked in the distance, toward the last of the Tau’ri troops advancing on the gate, and found Teal’c among them, last of all, holding off the swarming Jaffa.

Daniel had to tell Sam and Teal’c about Janet. They shouldn’t have to hear it from anyone else. He had to be the one.

Ten feet from the gate, Sam stepped aside and turned to face the oncoming enemy.

Behind Daniel, the men with the stretcher headed into the now stable event horizon with Jack.

Daniel called to Sam. She glanced at him before she picked off another Jaffa. Daniel stepped up, pushed her weapon aside with one hand and took her fiercely into his arms, suddenly aware that he must be wearing Janet’s blood all over the front of his uniform.

He didn’t want Sam to see that.

“God, Sam,” he cried, his voice breaking up, raw with emotion he could barely comprehend.   There was no easy way to do it, and no time to try. “Listen to me. I’m so sorry. We lost Janet.”

From the moment he’d embraced Sam, he’d felt her stiffness and tension from the heat of battle. But as soon as the words sank into her consciousness, she came violently alive, arms coming up to break his grip on her, hands shoving against his chest, making him stumble backward.

“What the hell are you talking about? No!” she yelled at him, refusing to believe him. “You’re wrong. You’re not a doctor. You don’t know!”

He saw her step around him, eyes already seeking out and finding the small, still form of her friend on the ground. Sam rushed to Janet’s body, shrieking out her grief and pain. Daniel watched her kneel down and touch Janet’s face, which was still warm.  He saw the shock of realization in Sam’s horrified expression as she got a good look at the wound.

She rose with fire in her eyes and her face glowing with hatred. Eyes only for the enemy now, she bent her head over her weapon, right eye fixed on the sight, and began to pick off Jaffa like the expert marksman she was.

Daniel knelt down and lifted Janet again, vaguely aware that other troops were streaming past them, into the event horizon.

“This way, Sam,” he called, towing her backward with his voice, watching her take little steps, intent on taking out as many of the enemy as possible, heedless of her own safety.

Teal’c jogged closer, then turned and fired to give cover to the others retreating toward the gate. When he turned back, he saw Daniel and the limp body in his arms, and understanding dawned in those dark eyes that missed nothing. The Jaffa’s face grew grim as he laid down cover for the others bringing up the rear, until only the three teammates remained on the planet.

Daniel felt the coolness of the event horizon touch his back, his pack already well into it.

“Come on, Sam,” he called over the sounds of staff blasts still exploding around them. “Just a couple more steps.”

She backed up in response to his urging, hesitating on the last step.

Daniel looked at Teal’c. “Bring her,” he ordered, and stepped backward into the rollercoaster ride that was wormhole travel, landing firmly on the ramp and pivoting to get out of the way of those coming after him.

He strode down the ramp and moved to one side among the wounded, the soldiers and the medical staff now responding in the gate room to the Search and Rescue mission.

He let go a sigh of relief as Sam and Teal’c came through right after him, Teal’c’s hand on Sam’s shoulder, pulling her through the wormhole and home.

“Close the iris!” Sam shouted. “That’s all of us.”

A staff blast came through the event horizon just as the iris began to close, narrowly missing Teal’c, hitting the ramp and leaving a scorch mark on the grate.

Sam turned to look at Daniel, her eyes still blazing. Mouth firm with rage, the tears began to gather and fall. She turned away from him, plainly suffering, and left the gate room with big, angry strides.

Teal’c stared at him for a moment, grief plain in his usually composed features. He came to stand beside Daniel, offering his presence in silent support and shared mourning. He said nothing as he gazed solemnly at Janet’s body in Daniel’s embrace.

He looked down at Janet’s face for the first time since he had seen her die. She was still staring, eyes wide open, showing unnaturally huge pupils. He couldn’t close them because his hands were full of her. He thought they ought to be closed.

“Doctor Jackson.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look at a nurse, her face wet with her own tears.

“We’ll take her now,” she said sympathetically, gesturing toward a nearby gurney.

“She’s dead,” he said in a numb voice, sounding hollow and tinny in his own ears. “You can’t help her now.”

“I know.  Let us take her, Doctor Jackson,” said the nurse again, very gently. She guided him by the elbow, giving him a little push to get him moving.

That seemed right, so he laid Janet down. He reached for her and gently closed her eyes.

The nurse patted his arm. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Why don’t you go to the infirmary so Doctor Warner can check you out?”

“I’m not hurt,” he insisted. He knew he was covered with blood, but none of it was his.

He thought it was a little odd to feel so empty. Some part of his mind recalled that Jack had been wounded, and he needed to check on his friend. How could a day that had started out so normally have gotten so messed up so fast?

He took hold of the front of the gurney and started to help push, heading out of the gate room and toward the elevator.

Once on the infirmary floor, he headed automatically for the trauma ward.

“We’ll take her from here,” the nurse told him, guiding him toward triage.

“Okay.”

He let go as one of the other medical staffers took his place and started wheeling the gurney away from triage… toward the morgue.

Janet was dead.

He didn’t know how long he’d stood there, just staring at the floor. Someone came up to him and pulled him into one of the curtained rooms, making him take off his bloody uniform jacket.

“Jack,” he said softly. “He was wounded. I have to go see him.”

“Not yet, Doctor Jackson,” said the physician whose name Daniel couldn’t quite recall. “We’ll check on him for you.”

The doctor questioned him about any possible injuries he might have and gave him a quick once-over. The medical staff kept saying things to him that he couldn’t seem to comprehend, and eventually a nurse stepped in to tell him that Jack had been wounded, but he would be all right.

Daniel thanked her, feeling immediate relief at the good news. Jack was alive. He was okay. That fact Daniel could retain.

After a few more minutes, he was dismissed from the infirmary and headed for the ward for recent admissions. Jack was there, sleeping under a haze of sedation. For a long time Daniel just looked down at him, hands thrust into his pants pockets, watching his friend breathe. There was immeasurable comfort in that tiny motion for Daniel.

After several hours of standing watch, he headed for the elevator in a daze. Moving on automatic pilot, he went back to the locker room for a shower and a change of clothes. He went through the routine without thinking about anything that he was doing, his mind far away from the task at hand. Once clean and dressed again, he unpacked his gear and stowed it away, taking the camera with him to his office, along with his pack, which would need to be cleaned and repacked at some later time.

The little recording device was smeared with blood. Its digital memory contained images of Janet’s last moment of life. For a long time, he just sat at his desk and stared at it. Then the summons came for the post-mission briefing and subsequent interrogation.

He held together through that and returned to work afterward, needing something to do, something familiar, to help bring him back down to Earth. Work was always good for that, for keeping him grounded, and it got him through, hour by passing hour.

Until the journalist came.

That threatened to push him over the edge, forcing him to relive the memories of what had happened, fresh and raw and clear in his mind.

Bregman made Daniel think.  About a lot of things.

He reminded himself that it wasn’t his fault that Janet had died. It was the fault of the Jaffa who had killed her. Daniel and Janet had both been concentrating on their patient. Neither of them had been thinking about the fact that they were in a war zone. Her death was not his fault.

He had been doing his job, offering support to the medical team in whatever capacity had been required of him at the time. He had followed Janet’s unspoken request to film what might have been the soldier’s last words to his wife while Janet worked on him.

They had both been working under tremendous pressure. It could just as easily have been Daniel who died. Somehow that didn’t make him feel any better. A few inches in the other direction… They had been kneeling so close together as they worked on Airman Wells. Part of Daniel wished it had been himself instead.

He paid a visit to Wells, now a patient in the infirmary, and had a use for that same logic when he spoke to the man. Daniel could see in the young man’s face that Wells accepted his reassurances that it wasn’t his fault, either; that it helped the airman assuage his guilt, which was a good thing. It would help him heal.

Later, however, the ghosts of his past caught up with him as another memory fell into place.  Impulsively, he returned to ISO Room 4, where Janet had worked so hard to save him. For a while he circled around the empty bed, lit now by a single overhead lamp, the rest of the lights in the room mercifully off.

I died here, he remembered. Janet worked so hard to save me.

Janet.

He moved toward a small bench in the back where the nurses sat to write up their reports. The space was in almost total darkness, shadowed by a bulky supply cabinet that blocked it off from the rest of the room. Sitting there in the darkness, he remembered all the times he’d been in that room, and in other rooms in the infirmary, under Janet’s skilled care.

Everyone under her protection had joked about her needles and the thoroughness of her exams. The entire SGC staff had lived in mock fear of the tiny woman, far more intimidated by her than by any System Lord.  She took no prisoners and brooked no protest. When she had wanted to look at something, or poke at something, or stick a syringe in something, people had let her.

She had also been loved. Her smile had brightened the whole base and had made any medicine go down easier. All of her patients had faith in her, and believed that if they were sick or even dying, Janet Fraiser would somehow find a way to make them well again. They had all been sure of her ability to pull miracles out of her lab coat pocket on a daily basis.

Now she was gone.

Daniel put his head down and released his grief. Tears streamed down his face with silent, liquid heat.

He shut off the waterworks as soon as he heard the journalist come in, and ran the fingers of one hand up under his glasses, wiping his eyes. When he gave Bregman the tape, he knew it was the right thing to do. He was sure it would do more to put the SGC into proper perspective for that man than anything any of the people he’d interviewed could have said.

And it had.

Days later, Daniel stood in the back of the room when the final cut of the presentation was shown to SGC personnel as a group. The footage Daniel had shot of that awful moment had made it onto the screen as he requested, handled with respect and obvious admiration, as was the rest of the piece. It was a fitting tribute that clearly showed the courage of those who had dedicated their lives to “this greatest endeavor of humanity.” He heard that repeated by so many who were interviewed on that tape, and with pride, he remembered that those words had been his own.

Even Janet had quoted him in one of her interviews with Bregman.

Afterward, when Daniel returned home to his otherwise empty, silent bungalow, he wondered why he hadn’t seen any of the others in days, except at the memorial service. He remembered where he’d stood that day, on the opposite side of the ramp, looking at his teammates, but not standing with them. They hadn’t made a place for him on their side of the ramp.  All of them had seemed like little islands that day, as if separated by a sea of emotional emptiness.

Maybe they blamed him somehow. He didn’t think so, but they hadn’t come to see him or called to see if he were all right. He had been the only one of them there with Janet when she died, and nobody seemed to think that might have its own special trauma attached. 

Days later, he was still dealing with that, still waking up several times a night, trying to save her in his dreams, to predict when that blast would come, and be ready for it.  It was not unlike the Gamekeeper’s torment, forcing Jack and Daniel to relive their worst moments over and over, different scenarios all resulting in the same terrible resolution.

Maybe seeing him, talking to him, knowing he had been witness to her death, increased their own pain, and they just couldn’t deal with seeing him right now.  Why hadn’t his teammates talked to him about it?

Maybe, in time, they would get together at Jack’s house, have a few beers, and the words would begin to flow. Daniel hoped that would happen, because at that moment, he felt more alone that he had at any other time in his life, including after his parents’ death. His parents’ separation from him, after all, had not been voluntary.

SG-1’s apparently was.

Daniel wandered his house aimlessly, certain he should be doing something, but unable to recall what that might be. He ended up in his garage and spied a beat-up old wooden stepladder in a corner, left over from previous tenants. Impulsively, he picked it up and carried it to the back yard, setting it up beside the rear wall.

He climbed up, standing on the top step and balancing carefully, then crawling up onto the roof. He followed the slope on hands and knees until he reached the peak, where he sat down, hands loosely clasped around his knees, his back to the street. For a long time he just looked up at the stars, his mind an aching blank.

“It’s over there,” called a familiar voice to his right.

Daniel turned to see Sam walking carefully near the apex of the roof, ambling toward him. A twitch of surprise shot through him, seeing her there on his roof. She was looking up, pointing over her right shoulder into the sky. What the hell was she doing up there?

“What’s over where?” he asked, trying to see whatever she wanted him to locate.

“The star for P3X-666,” she answered.

The place where Janet had died.

His eyes followed her finger, anxious now to find it, to know where it was and anchor its location in his memory. “Which one?”

She told him, moving up beside him, the tips of the fingers of one hand stuck into her jeans pocket.

Daniel nodded. “Thank you. I was looking for it.” He looked at her and tried to smile.

Couldn’t.

He looked down at his feet.

“Let’s go down,” she suggested gently. “Teal’c and the colonel are waiting downstairs. Daniel, you left your front door standing wide open.  We just walked right in.”

“Oh.”  He couldn’t seem to care about the security risk at that moment.

She turned away and led him back down the ladder and into the house, closing the door behind them. Teal’c switched on some lights.

For a moment, everyone just stared at each other.

“It wasn’t your fault, Daniel,” said Jack quietly as Daniel’s eyes met his.

“It could have happened to any of us,” insisted Teal’c, grief plain in his usually composed face.

“We all came home,” added Sam, her voice quivering with emotion. “Nobody got left behind.”

Daniel nodded. “Just pieces of our hearts.” His eyes filled.

Sam reached for him, slipping her arms around his neck. He hugged her back fiercely, his head bent into her shoulder, control of his emotions slipping through his grasp. He shuddered, quiet sobs ripping their way up from the pit of his stomach. He felt Sam’s lips against his cheek.

“It’s okay, Daniel,” she whispered brokenly. “We’re here for you. We’re together.”

Teal’c closed in on another side, one arm reaching around Daniel’s shoulder, his hand gently stroking Daniel’s back in small, comforting circles. “In the past, it has been your habit to grieve alone,” Teal’c’s deep voice rumbled softly. “We gave you a little time for that. Now, however, it is time for us to help you remember… what it is to be part of a family.”

Daniel groaned. He pulled away from Sam, took off his glasses and held them in one hand as he reached for Teal’c. He embraced the big man, those huge arms closing around him with the gentleness of a falling shadow. “You are home, DanielJackson,” Teal’c assured him. “You belong.”

With a nod, Daniel felt the tsunami of grief begin to ebb at last. As he drew away, he tucked his glasses into the neck of his shirt, grabbed a handkerchief out of his pocket, then wiped his eyes and blew his nose.  He stepped back, his hands shaking as he tucked the sodden hankie into the back pocket of his jeans. 

He looked up sheepishly at Jack, who had been standing quietly by, watching his team.

Daniel was quite aware that he hadn’t been acting very macho just then, falling apart like that. “Sorry for the waterfall, guys.” He ran a shaky hand over his face.

Jack just nodded, his eyes filled with warmth and pain. “C’mere,” he murmured, holding his arms open. 

Daniel hesitated.

Jack came to him and hugged him, one hand clasped around the back of his neck. He swayed a little, rocking Daniel in his arms. “We’re family,” he whispered against Daniel’s neck.

Jack stepped back and patted Daniel on the shoulder.  “You gotta learn you’re not alone anymore, Danny. This is the stuff we share. Okay? Makes the burden lighter when more than one person’s carryin’ it, and we know that was an awful thing for you to have to carry all alone.”  He dropped his hand, his expression filled with concern.  “You haven’t been alone, you know. Even though it might’ve looked like we were MIA, we were right there, waiting for you to let us know you were ready. We kinda got tired of waiting.”

Daniel nodded with a shrug. “It’s hard for me, you know? I’m never quite sure what to do. Who goes to whom, or when, or what to do when they get there. I have no context for this sort of thing.”

“That’s why we’re here, buddy,” Jack reassured him.

Sam and Teal’c stood close beside him, and the black pall of loss began to lift a little. Daniel felt their hands on his back, big warm ones and smaller, cool ones, stroking and petting, reassuring him of their presence, their love and support. The four of them stood that way for a long time, in silence, giving and receiving the caring and camaraderie that made the team one.

Daniel was certain he could feel Janet’s presence right there with them in that circle of friends, still there in spirit, if not in the flesh.

After a few moments, he straightened his shoulders, heaving a heavy sigh of relief, hoping his gratitude showed in his eyes as he looked at each face in turn.

Jack was the first to move away, heading for the couch. “Let’s get to it, kids,” he said with a slight grin.  “I brought the beer. Carter brought the popcorn. Teal’c brought the videos, so that leaves you to get the pizza, Daniel. And hurry it up. I’m not gettin’ any younger, here.”

Daniel headed for the phone in his kitchen, quietly aware that the storm in his soul was finally abating. There was sunshine looming in the distance, and the welcome sight of his homeport on the horizon. He lifted the receiver as he stood there alone, finger poised and ready to dial.

A brief gust of warm air blew across his face, ruffling his hair. Daniel closed his eyes and smiled. His house was closed up. No windows were open, nor any outside doors. He wasn’t standing anywhere near a vent from the central air.

Peace settled within him as he felt a deep warmth, just about chest high, press against him and vanish.

”Janet,” he whispered. “Thank you.” 

His heart soared.

FINIS

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