Second Chances
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis/Stargate SG1
Pairing:
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Ripple Effect
Word Count: 1,205
Notes: The only Sky One ep I’ve looked at this season, and it inspires fic… go figure! For Meesh, on the occasion of her birthday.
“Are you going to tell me what’s the matter?”
The voice at her side shocks Janet out of her reverie, and she blinks as she looks around, more than a little surprised to find that not only has the car stopped moving, but they’re actually parked right outside her front door. There’s a vague light visible through the living room curtains, a bright light shining from the front porch, her house looking so welcoming and inviting that it would bring a lump to her throat if there wasn’t one there already.
She knows that they’ve just had a twenty minute car journey, and she can’t remember a single thing about it.
All she can remember is the warm bundle that had been in her arms a little while ago, the blue eyes that had stared up at her with such intensity, such complete and utter trust. That little girl doesn’t know anything about imminent plagues and world destruction, doesn’t know anything of the Orii and the Goa’uld, or any of the other dozen or so threats that Janet deals with on a daily basis. All she knows is love, peace, contentment.
Janet envies her that.
“Janet?”
Her companion sounds a little more worried
now, and she forces a smile to her lips, turns to face him. His usual dimples
are conspicuously absent – nothing new there; until she and SG1 returned with
the cure to the plague, no-one had had much to smile about. She’s got used to
his smile since then though, and its absence now bothers her more than her
worrisome thoughts. “I’m fine
“Hmph,” he says, a distinctly Scottish rumble deep in his throat, used for a variety of meanings. She recognises this one as the one that means “I don’t believe a bloody thing you’re saying love,” and his next words bear that out. “Janet, we just spent twenty minutes in this car together. And you didn’t say a thing.”
She waves her hand. “I’m just tired.”
He gives her a look that’s faintly reminiscent of the one she used to give Jack O’Neill whenever he told her that no, he was fine, he really didn’t need a shot, thank you very much. “Hmph.”
She’s not going to get out of this, and she knows it, so she shakes her head, smiling slightly. “You know me too well,” she murmurs, and he chuckles in response.
“Well, you not singing along to Big Spender kinda gave me a clue,” he tells her. “And the not making any amorous gestures towards me during the song, of course…”
He’s half-joking, but half-not, and she laughs as he takes her hand, brings it to his lips. “I wouldn’t blame you for bein’ tired though,” he says seriously. “After all, it’s not every day you get trapped in an alternate reality… end up saving the world… though, I’ll grant you, the latter is an every day occurrence for SG1…” He meets her eyes then, holds her gaze. “But that’s not what you’re thinking about, is it?”
Slowly, she shakes her head from side to side, and for a moment, it’s not his blue eyes she sees. It’s Daniel’s, and he’s looking at her as if she’s some sort of apparition, some sort of ghost.
And of course, to him, that’s just what she was.
The thought still makes her shudder, and,
seeing that,
“But she was,” Janet objects, pulling back a little so that she can see him. “She was me… and she died… and she left Cassie alone, and you… and everything Daniel said about P3X-666… it was exactly the same. Exactly the same. Except here I lived, there I died.”
He nods, rubs at her hands, ice cold between his warm ones. “And you want to know why.”
“No… not really.” Janet squeezes her eyes shut, tries to sort out her jumbled ideas. “I just... I keep going over and over the last two years in my head, and I think about all the things I got to do that she didn’t get to do… and there’s so much Carson… so much… and then I think about all the things that I still haven’t done…”
“Love, you’ve got plenty of time,” he tells her, opening his mouth to say something else, but she cuts across him, her fragmented thoughts finally coalescing into some sort of order.
“Do I?”
Frowning, he tilts his head, sounding puzzled when he speaks. “You’re not going anywhere for a long time yet, not if I’ve got anything to do with it…”
“That’s not what I mean… just… some things
come with time limits.” He still doesn’t understand; she can tell by the furrow
of his brow, the narrowing of his eyes, and she’s too tired and too emotional
to come up with delicate language for her revelation. “
He blinks, a look of total and complete
shock settling over his features, and she can’t say she blames him. It’s not a
subject that’s come up much in conversation between them, though when Sam had
found out that she was pregnant, as the months had progressed and Janet saw how
happy her friend was, it had been a possibility she’d considered. Sometimes,
she’d thought she’d seen
Then the threat of the plague had come, and she’d found herself in an alternate reality where her alternate self was cold in her grave, and she’s come to realise that life is just too damn short.
In the second that all this flashes across
her mind,
“Och love,” he says, Scottish accent far more pronounced than usual, a sure sign of emotion. “I’m so bloody glad you said that!”
Janet’s had a lump in her throat most of the day, but this is the first time it’s felt anything close to happiness. “Really?”
“Really,” he says, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “There is nothing I want more, Janet Beckett… in fact… I think we should start trying right now. Purely from a medical point of concern, of course… these things can take time y’know…”
“Of course.” Janet can’t keep the smile from her face, doesn’t even bother to try. It feels like the last few days have given her a second chance when she didn’t even know she’d lost her first one, and she’s not going to waste a moment.
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