When Samantha Jackson made it to Room 2, she only found Doctor Janet Fraiser sitting on the couch, looking around the small room furtively. With a shy smile, Sammy sat down in her designated chair, and busied herself with her notes. She kept sneaking glances up at the woman who was to be her mother, until there was a knock at the door, and Doctor Daniel Jackson made his appearance, almost ten minutes late.
“Sorry,” he apologised, his attention completely focused on Janet. He seemed surprised when he turned around and saw the petite girl in the corner. Sammy had taken after her mother physically, although she had no really distinguishing features that could point her out as their daughter, with perhaps the exception of the eyes. “Uh hi.”
Sammy smiled back. “Hi. Now that you’re here, we can begin. I’m Samantha, but Sam or Sammy will do. You are Doctor Janet Fraiser, and Doctor Daniel Jackson, correct?”
They both agreed, and having taken his seat next to Janet, Daniel spoke up. “What exactly are we here for?” he asked. “And why are you here?”
“We are here to talk,” Sammy replied with the standard answer that all the guides had been trained to give. “And I am here to guide you.”
“Guide us where?” Janet wanted to know. “We’re not going anywhere, are we?”
“Exactly,” the girl informed them, and Janet looked confused. Taking pity on her, Sammy elaborated. “You two aren’t going anywhere. Your relationship is stagnant.”
“We’re friends,” Daniel defended, hoping that a pre-emptive strike would prevent the girl from forcing him to reveal how he wanted his relationship with the petite doctor to develop. “We’ll get together for lunch, or drinks and we talk.”
“Then you’re interrupted,” Sammy pointed out. With Janet being the base CMO, she was always being called back to the infirmary for some reason or another, and Daniel was often required to translate some artefact that could potentially change human life, but never did.
Janet shrugged. “We both have busy lives,” she replied, not further elaborating on what they did inside Cheyenne Mountain, as the girl couldn’t have clearance and would not know what was concealed beneath the natural landform.
“Well, you do,” Sammy conceded.
“Hey,” Daniel protested, as she had expected him to do. She had spent most of her childhood teasing him, and her parents had declared that she spent far too much time around her godfather. “I have a busy life too.”
“You spend half your life in the infirmary,” Sammy argued, although her dancing blue eyes showed that she wasn’t being too serious. “Which gives you plenty of time to talk to Janet, except for the fact that you’re too afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” Janet asked curiously, turning to look at the handsome man sat next to her. She had long decided what Daniel Jackson meant to her, and only her respect for his dead wife Sha’re, and her desire to preserve their friendship had prevented her from asking him out. He had never given her any hint that he liked her more than a friend, and didn’t want to make a fool of herself. She was like her father; very contained and kept her emotions hidden from even those who were closest to her, and to admit that she had feelings for Daniel would be a big step for her. But there was no way she would admit to them, unless she was sure that the feeling was reciprocated, and despite Sam’s constant assurances, Janet wanted to wait until she had some evidence from the man himself.
Daniel’s cheeks were beginning to colour; he had often declared that he was no good with his feelings. “Getting hurt,” he said, hoping that would be enough and he would be removed from the scrutiny of the two women in the room.
Janet knitted her brows together in confusion. “Why would I hurt you?” she asked. “I’m a doctor Daniel, which means that I make people better as opposed to hurt them.”
Daniel mumbled a response, which neither of the room’s other occupants could hear.
“I’m sorry Daniel,” Sammy said. “Could you repeat that for us please?”
“She’s hurt me if she rejected me,” he replied, flushing scarlet as he was forced to reveal what he had previously kept hidden. He could now sympathise with Jack and Sam who had been forced to admit their feelings for one another in order to prove that they hadn’t been programmed as za’tarcs. At least he only had to do it in front of one observer, instead of the three they had.
But Jack and Sam had been flirting and the attraction between them had been obvious since they first met. When they first arrived on Abydos to bring him back to Earth, he had been surprised to see a side of Jack O’Neill that he had never seen before, which Sam had obviously brought out of him. Daniel had always had a respectful admiration of the medical doctor, and had admitted the first time that he saw her that she was very attractive. However, his missing wife had always been in the back of his mind even as his feelings for Janet began to grow. He had always thought that he and Sha’re would have been together forever, and had found it quite disconcerting when he realised that he was falling in love with another woman.
“Why would I reject you?” Janet asked, hoping that he meant what she hoped he meant. She had long decided what Doctor Daniel Jackson meant to her, but never expected him to feel the same way about her. As far as she was concerned, he still belonged to Sha’re, and he would always be in love with his dead wife. She was just his doctor, and his friend and that would have to be enough for her.
Sammy hit a small smile as her future parent’s danced around the subject in question, neither one wanting to mention feeling feelings for the other. However, they seemed to be making some progress, which was more than she hoped for their first session together.
“If I asked you out or something,” Daniel mumbled, trying not to meet Janet’s eyes, fearing what he would see. Having kept his feelings secret for so long, he still didn’t feel ready to tell even the woman in question the truth, but with this persistent young women in the room with them, he didn’t really have a choice.
Janet just sat there, looking at him in amazement. There had never been any indication that he was interested in her as a woman, but why else would he want to ask her out on a date?
It was up to Sammy to prompt Daniel to speak further. “So why were you so afraid of rejection?”
“I have... feelings for her,” Daniel said, falling back on Jack’s tactic of not elaborating any further on the feelings that he had.
“Really?” Janet found her voice, trying to keep her own emotions in control, although inside she was all but jumping up and down with glee. She could never have hoped for this, and only wished she knew where this confession would take them. Her first marriage had been lacking in ‘feelings;’ the main reason she had married so young had been her desire to have children.
Nodding, he turned to look at her and was startled when her mouth descended on his. Initially, he froze with shock, before he responded and kissed her back, forgetting about the young woman on the other side of the room. Parting, he smiled shyly at her as he asked “I take it the feelings are mutual?”
“Yeah,” Janet smiled back, her voice full of love.
“So why didn’t you say anything?” Sammy asked, knowing that the confession of feelings was not going to be enough for the couple. They needed to explore their fears, considering the fact that they had both previous had what could be termed disastrous relationships. Daniel was beginning to think that he was cursed, as every woman he had ever cared about had suffered at the hands of the Goa’uld, and this wasn’t something he wanted to see happen to Janet.
“Fear,” Daniel replied simply. “Fear that my having feelings for her would somehow cause her to suffer, or even worse be killed. Fear that she’d reject me, and our friendship would be ruined. I don’t know. I don’t have a very good track record with relationships – Sha’re, Sarah... They both got infested with Goa’uld symbiotes, and I don’t want Janet to be infested either.”
“Daniel, how often do I go off-world?” Janet asked. “It’s not very likely that will happen to me.”
“Sarah wasn’t even part of the Program,” Daniel pointed out, one hand firmly gripping onto Janet’s, almost as if he expected her to disappear in front of his eyes.
“Okay, so that was just unlucky,” Janet said. “But think about how I feel every time you go off-world, and every time you come back injured? I tried to stop myself from falling in love with you because I’m the one having to work on you. I’m more likely to use you, and I don’t know what I would do if that happened. And even when you’re on base, you seem to come in every other day because something in your office has it in for you.”
Daniel’s face turned a very fetching red, and Sammy watched the scene in front of her curiously. The couple she knew as her parents were very open with their affection, and neither could keep secrets from one another for very long. “Uh, what would you say if I told you that the only reason I kept coming to the infirmary was to see you?” he confessed, not daring to look at either Janet or Sammy. Sammy tried to keep the smile off her face, as she watched the corners of her mother’s mouth twitch upwards.
“I’d say I’d rather you came down to the infirmary to see me without needing an excuse in the future,” she replied, giving up as the smile spread across her face. Daniel looked embarrassed still, and Janet lay her head on his shoulder, and wrapped her arm around his middle.
“Uh, can we go now?” Daniel wanted to know, clearly desperate to get away from the scrutiny of the girl and to show Janet just how much she meant to him.
“Um, I guess,” Sammy was unsure how or when the session was meant to end. That hadn’t been covered in the training she had taken. She supposed that They had believed that the guides would instinctively know when to end these sessions, but Sammy had no idea. “Just remember that you can come back here anytime if you find that you can’t talk about it back home.”
“Thank you very much,” Daniel said, and Janet echoed the sentiment as he wrapped his arm around her waist and led her out the door. Sammy waited until the door closed behind them, before snapping her folder shut with a large grin on her face.
“Yes!”