rachel500 | Fanfiction: Remember When I Told You

Fandom: Stargate SG1/Stargate SGA
Series: Five Things
Prompt: Five of the Last Things Janet Told People the Day Before She Was Killed
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Originally published on sg1-five-things.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Written for entertainment purposes only.

Remember When I Told You

Prompt: Five of the Last Things Janet Told People the Day Before She Was Killed

1. 'I love you.'

The words had been hastily thrown over a shoulder following a swift kiss dropped on Cassie Fraiser’s head as Janet rushed to leave for work. Cassie registers Sam’s tear-filled eyes and Teal’c’s grave expression when she finds them waiting for her in the school corridor. She doesn’t actually hear what they say; she just knows deep down what has happened and can barely breathe past the pain. She doesn’t remember her mother’s last words to her – not then. But when she stands at the graveside in brilliant sunshine, the words are what Cassie holds onto as General Hammond hands her the flag.

2. ‘I needed a new challenge.’

Kate Heightmeyer finds Janet Fraiser’s words drifting into her head as she considers whether to accept Doctor Weir’s offer to join the Atlantis expedition. She and Janet had met to discuss patient care and somehow the subject had drifted to why Janet had decided to join the Stargate programme. With the shock of Janet’s death still in the periphery of her mind, suddenly Kate feels like she needs a new challenge too.

3. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you everything; it’s classified.’

A phrase guaranteed to make Carolyn Lam’s blood boil – she’d heard it too often from her father. But there was something desperate in Janet’s voice that made Carolyn reconsider her initial retort and by the end of the conversation on the mysterious disease, Carolyn found herself curious rather than angry. Her first day as SGC Head of Medicine, she finds herself repeating the same phrase to her successor at the CDC and wonders how Janet said the line with such grace when she just wants to scream the truth at the top of her lungs.

4. ‘Once you stop being scared, you’re going to be great at this.’

Doctor Fraiser’s observation about her leaps into Jennifer Keller’s head when Elizabeth breaks the news that she is Carson’s successor. Jennifer had only been on staff at the SGC a month when the CMO was killed, and Jennifer mainly recalls the overwhelming sense that she wanted to be Janet Fraiser when she grew up. As Elizabeth smiles without any sign of changing her mind through Jennifer’s babbling protests and incoherent concerns, Jennifer fervently wishes she’d had the guts to ask Janet how she stopped being scared.

5. ‘I doubt anyone will remember me.’

Sam unexpectedly runs into Simon Wells and his five year old daughter, Janet, in her local deli one Sunday afternoon. They exchange pleasantries and make small talk – his wife is expecting again – before Wells makes excuses and leaves. The reminder of Janet, and the young girl who was named in her memory, takes Sam’s breath away. She recalls a conversation with her friend the day before her death about the documentary that had been filming. Janet had been convinced that she would be no more than a footnote compared with SG1. Sam reflects that Janet was wrong; it is Janet who is, and who will always be, remembered.

fin.