Opening the door to his apartment, Daniel just stood there for a minute in surprise. Of all the things he had expected to see, a soaking wet Janet Fraiser, dressed only in pants and a shirt, was not one of them.
"Janet!" he exclaimed, ushering her in and immediately heading straight to the linen closet. He returned with a large bath towel, which he immediately wrapped around the shivering woman. He led her to the bathroom, before leaving her to go to his bedroom. "Change into these," he said when he came back, holding a pair of jogging bottoms and a t-shirt. "I'll go and put the kettle on."
She nodded silently and locked the bathroom door behind her while he headed into the kitchen and refilled the kettle. He hunted through his cupboard, cursing under his breath as he realised just how empty they were. Eventually he found the box he was looking for, and when Janet emerged from the bathroom, drying her hair with the towel, two steaming mugs were on the coffee table.
"You still look a bit cold," he said, draping the navy blue fleece blanket from the bottom of his bed around her shoulders. She smiled at him briefly as he sat her down on the sofa and handed her a mug. Taking his own, he sat next to her.
Janet took a small sip of the drink, then looked at him in surprise.
"It's camomile tea," he said, anticipating her question.
"So, the rumours that Doctor Jackson drinks something other than coffee are true then," she said with a small smile as she took another sip.
He grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, well," he replied, taking a mouthful of his own drink and replacing it on the coffee table. He turned to face her. "Janet, not that I don't enjoy your company, but what are you doing here?"
She tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "You said, if I needed anything…" she told him, referring back to their conversation in the infirmary. "I just needed someone."
"There's nothing wrong with Cassie again, is there?" Daniel's thoughts immediately leapt to the girl, thinking that perhaps Nirrti hadn't quite healed her.
Janet shook her head. "No, she's fine. She's gone out with some friends tonight," she explained. "I just couldn't face the empty house anymore." She put her mug on the table and shifted herself so she was looking at him. "The weather forecast was wrong."
He grinned slightly. "They usually are," he said. "Although why did you walk?"
She shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time," she replied. "Couldn't have driven anyway."
"Janet, have you been drinking?" he asked, reaching forward and laying a concerned hand on her arm.
"Not much," she admitted. "A couple of shots of whiskey about an hour and a half ago."
"You should have called a cab," he chided her slightly. "Or at least called me. I would have come over to you."
She shook her head. "No, the walk did me good," she said. "It gave me a chance to think about things, and it gave me time to decide if I wanted to turn around and go home again."
"I'm glad you didn't," he said honestly, and she gave him a small smile. "You've obviously got something on your mind. Do you want to talk about it?"
She pulled the blanket closer again, as if drawing strength from it. "I just keep thinking about what I did," she said. "I held a gun on a living being, and God help me I would have pulled that trigger. It goes against everything I believe in, everything I hold steadfast as a doctor. I shouldn't be at the SGC still after what I did. I should be dishonourably discharged and have my medical license revoked."
"You did it to save Cassie," Daniel pointed out. "And you didn't pull the trigger, and Nirrti's alive."
"But what right do I have to hold one person's life hostage for another's, even if it is my daughter? Daniel, I'm not meant to threaten to hurt people. I'm supposed to help them, to make them better. Maybe everything would be better if I just resigned my commission or asked for a reassignment."
"You can't do that," Daniel exclaimed. "Who would be there to patch us up when the natives don't like us? And who would tell me off for drinking too much coffee and not getting enough sleep? And if you're not there to give me my anti-histamines, I'll never remember to go and fetch them. Janet, we need you… I need you, and there's no way that I'll let you get away without a fight."
She smiled at him. "Thank you," she said, reaching out from underneath the blanket to take his hand and squeeze it gently. He squeezed back, and seemed quite content to just hold her hand as he watched her eyes dart around the room.
"What time's Cassie due back?" he asked after a minute when he saw that the clock read nearly eleven. "I don't want her to worry when you're not there when she gets in." Janet shook her head. "She's not coming back tonight. She's staying over at one of her friends, then they're all off to the mall tomorrow, so she probably won't be back until tomorrow evening."
"Do you want to stay here tonight?" Daniel asked, not even stopping to think about what he'd just asked. He didn't want her to go back to an empty house tonight.
She smiled at him again. "That would be nice, thank you."
Daniel could see that she was exhausted, and rose, pulling her to her feet. "Come on," he said, finally letting go of her hand and immediately missing the warmth of it. "Let's get you into bed."
"Daniel, I can just stay on the couch," she protested, not moving. "It's not fair on me throwing you out of your own bed, and I'll be just fine on the couch. You're too tall for it anyway."
"I've slept in worse places," he pointed out. "Come on." He placed an arm around her shoulders and guided her towards the bedroom. She stumbled slightly, tripping over the bottoms of his pants, which were pooled around her ankles. Daniel looked down at her, making a quick decision before easily picking her up.
Janet cried out in surprise and let go of the blanket to throw her arms around his neck. Grinning, he readjusted her weight before starting in the direction of the bedroom, pausing outside the door so she could turn off the light.
"Daniel, put me down," she said in the voice she usually reserved for when she was dealing with Colonel O'Neill.
"Sure," he said as he gently placed her down on his bed. She rolled her eyes at him, and he just grinned at her again. "Goodnight, Janet."
"Wait," she reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Could you stay? For a bit at least."
He sat down on the bed next to her. "For you, anything," he said.
"Anything?" she questioned.
"Anything," he reaffirmed.
Janet bit her lip, before leaning across and placing a soft kiss on his lips. He tensed at first, but as the kiss continued, he found himself relaxing into it and kissing her back.
Suddenly realising what he was doing, he pulled back. "Janet…" he began, but was cut off with another kiss. He broke it off again, but not before she had managed to pull them down so that they were lying on the bed. "Janet, we can't do this."
"Yes we can," she said, leaning forward for another kiss. "God, Daniel, why do you have to overanalyse everything?"
"I'm not," he said calmly, ignoring his body's reactions to her kisses and not thinking about the recent fantasies he'd been having about the woman in front of him. "Janet, you're in an emotionally vulnerable state at the moment, and as much as I would like this to happen…" He blushed as he watched her eyes widen at his slip. "I think that when we wake up tomorrow, we'll just look back at tonight as a mistake."
"But what if it's not?" she asked. "I'm not drunk, Daniel, and neither are you, so we're both going into this with our eyes open. I know what I want, and at this moment, it's you." "But will you want me tomorrow? We have no idea what impact this will have on our relationship, and I value our friendship too much to risk it on one night of sex. I will be here for you all night, I swear. Just not for that. I don't sleep with a woman on our first date, and considering we haven't been on a date…"
Janet sighed, deflated. "But you'll stay with me?"
He nodded. "For as long as you want me," he promised.
"Even if it is for forever?"
He smiled, and leant across to place a brief, gentle kiss on her lips. "Can we see how our first date goes?" he asked, before moving to pull the covers out from underneath them. "You free tomorrow?"
She nodded, slipping under the covers next to him. "For what?"
"Anything you want," he said, turning off the bedside light before he readjusted his position so that he was lying facing her.
Janet started to chuckle dirtily as she spooned herself in front of him.
"Anything but that!"