Oma's Gift
Oma's Gift
by Panther
Summary: Janet can't sleep, not that she minds.
Category: Angst, Smarm, Thoughts
Season: Season 7
Pairing: Daniel/Janet
Rating: GEN
Warnings: character death
Author's Notes: Thanks, as always, to Beck for the beta help!
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story was created for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 12/18/05
Warnings: The following tiptoes around character death. Nothing dark, but if that kind of thing bothers you please procede with caution. Also contains non-sexual snuggling!
Janet lay in the quiet of the room listening to the steady sound of Daniel breathing. It was late, well past midnight, but she felt no desire to sleep, something she would probably regret when the alarm blasted her from her dreams later that morning. Still she saw no reason to waste a perfectly good cuddle with Daniel by sleeping through it.
Once upon a time she had longed for those moments with an ache that was beyond words; a lifetime of sorrow and loneliness packed tightly into what the calendar informed her had been only slightly more than a year. The only thing that had made it bearable was the knowledge that she wasn't alone in her feelings of loss. Daniel's tragic death had torn at all of them, but those thoughts were miles away from her now. Emotions she hoped never to revisit.
Now he was here, the warmth of his body protecting her from the night air's chill. An arm draped almost possessively around her chest, holding her securely to him even in his sleep. It had taken them a while to get back to this place. The moment she'd seen him wandering into the infirmary, blue eyes wide with curiosity, she had wanted to throw her arms around him and never let go. Unfortunately, it hadn't been just his memory of the SGC that had been erased. He had glanced at her, twitched a distracted smile and then looked right past her without even a hint of recognition let alone emotion. The heart that had been racing at the sight of him walking, talking, completely healed had suddenly plunged into her stomach. Professional faade firmly in place, Janet had smiled pleasantly as Colonel O'Neill reintroduced them and then set to work inspecting him, trying desperately to remain detached before eventually giving the job over to her nurses and hiding in her office pretending to be busy. She might have been able to paste on a happy face, but her trembling hands had been giving her away.
It had taken several weeks for Daniel's memory to fully return and the two of them to ease past the nervous tension and back into comfortable companionship, Daniel discovering her all over again. In a way it had been heavenly to rewind their relationship to the days when they had barely been able to keep their hands off each other, completely infatuated. It had also been terrifying; Janet hoping the second time around he would find her just as desirable as he had the first. She smiled to herself and snuggled closer to him, pressing against his chest. Obviously she'd had nothing to worry about. His absence had changed them both, but not so much that they hadn't been able to find their way back to each other.
Daniel's breath grazed her ear as he let out a sigh followed by a mumble of something she couldn't understand; then once again he was still. Just like old times, Janet mused. Back then she had often heard him muttering in his sleep, sometimes in English, but usually in languages she didn't understand. He had been plagued by more than his share of nightmares in those days, moans and brief snatches of urgency filling the night air on a regular basis. In fact, for weeks before he had died it had been almost nightly, something that had worried her. Obviously he had been nearing the end of his rope, frustration and the ever present ache of not being able to fix things as well as he would have liked wearing on him; his ideals and the SGC's priorities clashing violently. Janet had spent many a night wondering what was going to happen when it finally, inevitably, became too much for him to take. She had never found out.
A part of her had wondered on that mind-boggling day when he'd miraculously reappeared, what would happen when he remembered what he'd left behind. Would he pick up where he had left off, the amnesia giving way to a familiar sense of helplessness leaving him right back where he'd started? Would the frustration settle in again and send him running for cover? However as the days had passed she realized a variable besides his amnesia had been added to the equation. While many things about Daniel had remained unchanged, he wasn't exactly the same man they had always known. He walked the same way, spoke in the same tone of voice, thought and felt much the same way he always had, but there was a quiet calm at the center of him that seemed to give him a strength unlike anything he'd had before. That strength had apparently changed everything. During the many nights they had shared her bed since his return there had been no nightmares, no terrors, no moans. Even with his memory almost fully restored and the transition back to the insanity of life in a field unit completed, things didn't shake him to the core the way they once had. They bothered him, even had him walking around now and then with a contemplative scowl on his face and once in a while succeeded in making him angry, but the frustration didn't touch him the way it had. It seemed to have lost the ability to wind itself around his heart and threaten to choke the life from him.
That odd sense of serenity effected everything about him, including the way he held her. Once upon a time they would snuggle under the covers together, wrapped around each other, Daniel giving comfort and seeking it simultaneously. His arms surrounding her, he had radiated an almost desperate need to have her near him, as if she were a talisman that kept his demons at bay. Now he lay beside her, her head tucked under his chin, his arms holding her tightly in a mated expression of possession and affection. Whatever she needed he would give, asking only for her love in return.
He had also become more attentive than she'd ever seen him. On more than one occasion she had caught him watching her, studying her, trying to interpret the scowl on her face or the tilt of her head. That wasn't to say he had returned a perfectly flawless man. He still had the ability to completely lose track of time, could be stubbornly single-minded when the mood struck and continued to worship the coffee bean above all else. However, perfection had never been what she wanted from him.
Janet didn't completely understand what had changed in Daniel, what new bit of retained enlightenment had calmed him, settled him, grounded him. All she knew was for some reason Oma had healed him, transformed him and then chosen to give him back; a precious gift that had forced her to confront the anger she had been harboring since his death.
The glowing alien was a Being Janet understood little of, but one she had often thought of with annoyance and what she knew was an unreasonable amount of blame for taking Daniel from her. Deep inside she knew Oma didn't really deserve her hostility, but she had been unable to help herself. In the days after his death she had hurt terribly, coming apart at the seams and the blame simply had to land somewhere. Rational or not she had tossed it squarely in Oma's lap.
She couldn't bring herself to fault Daniel for his actions. After all, she could hardly have expected him to behave any other way. Innocent lives were at stake, three of those belonging to his friends who had been wandering through another part of the complex. She could have easily blamed the leaders of Kelowna, but it wasn't really their fault the accident had happened. Their reaction to it had been absolutely unconscionable, true enough, but they hadn't caused it. She could have even blamed Colonel O'Neill for stalling Jacob and Selmak long enough for Daniel's last breath to escape him, but according to the Colonel he had only been granting Daniel's request. One final act of friendship. Though to this day she had no idea how he could possibly have known what Daniel wanted.
As far as Janet was concerned that had left the Being who had spirited Daniel away, convinced him death was a rational option, encouraged him to give up the fight and move on. Convinced him to leave his life behind. Leave her behind. She knew it was harsh. She knew it was excluding important details like the fact that Daniel would never have been completely healed even with Selmak's help. He would have been sick and in pain, suffering horribly until the day the inevitable cancer had appeared to finally claim his life. Her only explanation for the hostility she had felt toward Oma was that the path of mourning wasn't always logical. Some people blamed God. Some people blamed the medical staff. Some people blamed themselves. She had blamed the Being who had done for Daniel the one thing she hadn't been able to do: relieve his pain.
The glowing digits on the clock by the bed broadcast into the night that it would soon be a more recognizable version of morning. Quieting the thoughts swirling through her mind Janet closed her eyes and tried to focus on the sensation of the rise and fall of Daniel's chest behind her. Twining her fingers with his, she let herself drift into sleep sending out a grateful prayer that had become her nightly ritual of late.
"Thank you, Oma, wherever you are."
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