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It had started quite small, only a few weeks after Nirrti had healed Cassie. All of a sudden, she would blurt out the most random predictions.
"It's going to rain in the afternoon so you should bring your rain jacket or you'll get soaked on your way to the car."
Or:
"Sam is going to be 20 minutes late to dinner today because she's going to get stuck in traffic, so don't panic about it. She'll be here."
Then after a while it grew and Cassie would come tell her the most intricate little scenes of what she knew was going to play out in school, at the base or even just in the grocery store.
She and Cassie started calling them visions. It was the best way to describe what was going on. The scariest part was, she was always right, down to where coffee stains would land on the kitchen cupboards. Except when Cassie warned her in time, so Janet was able to catch the coffee cup just before it fell off the counter.
They deduced that whatever ability Cassie had acquired must have been triggered by Nirrti's experiments. Janet did make sure to run every test she could to ensure that nothing was actually wrong. And just as Cassie had told her, she was fine. It calmed Janet down, marginally.
Then time passed and soon the visions just became part of everyday life. Even Sam got used to it during their regular Saturday chess games.
"Aha! See I knew you were gonna make that move! Which is why I now can say: Check Mate!"
It was the only time she ever managed to beat Sam.
However, the visions never scared either of them. They were usually harmless and Cassie always delivered the retelling of her visions with the careless teenage air she embodied.
That is, until this morning.
***
The morning had started out like any morning in the Fraiser household. Well, almost. Janet had spent a few extra minutes fixing her hair and make-up for the documentary that was being filmed at the base. Which Cassie noticed almost immediately when Janet came downstairs. Cassie looked up and her eyes went wide.
"Mom. You look good."
"Thank you," Janet said, and tried not to sound self-conscious about it, what was it with teenagers and their perception? "They're filming some kind of documentary at the base today. I wanted to look presentable."
"Wow, a documentary, about the secret Stargate Command! Who pulled that off?" Cassie wondered as she poured some more cereal into her bowl.
"I don't know," Janet said, finishing up her coffee she had let get cold on the counter.
"Well, you're gonna be the best looking one on the whole show." Cassie said and took a spoonful of cereal to her mouth.
"Well, thank you, sweetheart." Janet answered. "I do have to get going though, or I'll be late. I hope you have a good day at school," she said while walking over to give her daughter a goodbye hug.
When she let go she saw how Cassie had gone totally pale.
"What's wrong?" Janet asked, placing her hand on Cassie's forehead. It was clammy. "Cassandra?"
"I saw something." Cassie's voice was careful and sounded much younger than her 17 years. "Just now, when you hugged me. A vision."
Janet went still. This vision was not about the weather or traffic on the way to work. So much became clear by the way Cassie was looking at her, her hands were flat against the table like she was steadying herself.
"You can't go to work today," Cassie said.
"Cass–"
"I mean it." Her voice cracked at the edges. "Something happens to you. Something bad."
"Sweetheart." Janet sat down across from her. "I hear you. I do. But I can't not go in, people depend on me, and if someone needs—"
"Then don't go off-world." Cassie's eyes were fixed on her. "Whatever happens today, you don't go off-world. Promise me."
"If someone needs medical attention off-world, I have to go. You know that," Trying to ignore the dread that was building in her stomach, Janet tried to sound calm as a was to make Cassie feel better.
"Then take Sam." The words came out fast, like she was bargaining with her life. "Whatever you do, wherever you go, make sure Sam is covering you. Specifically Sam. Promise me that much. She's the only one who'll cover you properly."
Janet opened her mouth to deflect and saw Cassie's expression and stopped.
"I saw you die, Mom."
The words sat between them in the quiet kitchen.
Janet reached across the table and took both of Cassie's hands in hers. They were cold. She noticed that Cassie wouldn't quite meet her eyes and understood, there were details Cassie wasn't saying.
"I am not going to die," Janet said, as steadily as she could manage. It’s not like she didn’t understand the risks of her job, but she could not choose not to go to work because of that. It was her duty, and if she didn’t fulfill it someone else would have to.
"You don't know that." Cassie pulled her hands back, "I do. I saw it!"
"Cassandra—"
"Don't." Her voice was tight. "Don't do the calm voice. I'm not one of your patients."
Janet closed her mouth.
"I know what I saw," Cassie said. "You and I both know I’ve never been wrong before…" She stopped. Pressed her lips together. "You can't go in today. I need you to call in sick. Just today."
"People could need me today. Someone could be hurt—"
"Someone is always hurt! That's always the reason!" Cassie's voice cracked and she pulled it back under control with visible effort, "I'm asking you for one day. Stay home. Just today."
Janet looked at her daughter. Really looked. At the cereal going soggy in the bowl because Cassie hadn't been able to finish it. At the way she was holding herself together by sheer force of will across the kitchen table.
"I can't," Janet said. And she hated herself a little, saying it, but it was true. As much as she wanted to make Cassie happy she also had a duty that she couldn’t just ignore. It wasn’t her. “You’ve warned me about things before–”
“Yeah, like coffee cups and the bumper on the car,” Cassie rolled her eyes in frustration, “Mom, this is your life.”
"Cass, I can't. You know I can't."
"Then promise me Sam covers you." The fight went out of Cassie's voice, suddenly, and what was left was quieter and more frightening. "I mean it. Not whoever's available. Not whoever's closest. Sam. She's the only one… in what I saw, she is the only one who could…" She stopped again. Looked down. "Just promise me: Sam."
"I promise," Janet said. "Sam covers me. I swear it."
Cassie nodded, once, and didn't look up. Janet understood she was being given permission to leave. She also understood it wasn't forgiveness.
She picked up her bag. She went to work. Because that was who she was, and she had never once found a way to be anyone else. She told herself Cassie would understand that, one day.
She wasn't sure she believed it.
***
She thought about it all morning. It wasn't unusual for Cassie's visions to come upon them suddenly, they just never carried such weight before. This one was so different.
I saw you die.
Janet tried to keep busy. There was always something in the infirmary to keep her busy, and she was grateful for it. She signed off on reports and reviewed labs and when her mind went back to the kitchen, to Cassie's cold hands and the things she hadn't said, Janet picked up the next chart and started reading.
Besides, she didn't have any off-world visits scheduled. And Cassies visions had been prevented before (even if it was just coffee cups, it proved the visions weren’t set in stone…). Cassie’s vision had provided her with a warning, she could use the knowledge to protect herself. She was going to be fine.
The documentary crew arrived mid-morning. It was a nice distraction. She got to speak about her job in a way she rarely did. She felt her shoulders relax and the tightness in her chest loosen a little.
Then the klaxons blared loudly and Janet felt her stomach drop.
The briefing was fast and grim: Airman Wells, shot, off-world, needed extraction and immediate surgical intervention. Janet was already running through the triage in her head before she was out of the room. This was what she did. This was who she was.
She found Sam in the corridor outside the gate room, kitting up, and had maybe thirty seconds before they deployed.
"Sam."
Sam looked up.
"I need you to cover me today. Specifically you. No matter what. Don't ask me why right now."
Sam looked at her for exactly one second, reading something in her face that Janet hadn't meant to show, and nodded. "Understood."
***
It was close.
Closer than she'd understood in the moment, which was typical. It was only afterward, when the adrenaline dropped that the whole experience became clear. How narrow it had been. If Sam hadn't pulled her sideways when the blast came out of nowhere, the shot would have hit Janet square in the chest.
She sat in the infirmary for a while after it was over. Not doing anything. Just sitting. She thought about Cassie making her way through her school day with the knowledge of what she'd seen, not knowing yet how it had gone.
She reached for her phone.
“Thank you,” Cassie said, before Janet could say anything. “Are you okay?”
“I'm okay,” Janet said. “I'm sorry I didn't listen better this morning.”
There was a pause on the other end, before Cassie and, being wiser than she should have to be, spoke: “You listened enough,” she said.
Janet sat with that for a long moment after she hung up. Then she pulled Wells' chart toward her and started writing.
***
She was halfway through the report when Sam knocked.
"Hey." Sam leaned in the doorway. She was still in her off-world clothes, jacket unzipped, and she looked tired in the specific way that meant she'd been running on adrenaline for hours too. "How are you doing?"
"I've had better Tuesdays," Janet said. "Come in."
Sam sat down across from her. She didn't say anything immediately, which was one of the things Janet appreciated about her. Sam understood that silence wasn't always empty.
"How did you know?" Sam asked eventually.
Janet set down her pen. "Cassie had one of her visions this morning. She saw…" She trailed off, steadied herself. "She was very specific that it had to be you covering me. She made me promise."
Sam was quiet for a moment. "What did she see?"
"She told me she saw me die," Janet said, and her voice only wavered slightly, which she thought was pretty good, all things considered.
Sam didn't say anything. She didn't reach across the desk or offer something reassuring. She just looked at Janet with an expression that Janet couldn't quite name, and Janet found, strangely, that it was exactly the right response. Anything else would have broken the damm she was upholding with strong force.
Outside the infirmary, the base hummed on around them. Somewhere down the corridor someone was laughing. Janet picked up her pen again. "Thank you," she said. "For not asking questions and for listening."
"I saw your face," Sam said quietly. "I knew it mattered."
Janet nodded, and looked back down at the report, and didn't say anything else. There was nothing else to say.
Sam stayed in the chair.
That was the thing Janet hadn't expected, that after everything, Sam would still be sitting in that chair like she'd quietly decided she wasn't going anywhere. She'd gone and gotten them both coffee at some point, bad commissary coffee in paper cups, and set one on Janet's side of the desk without comment.
"Jack's going to be okay," Sam said, after a while. "I just heard from the infirmary. They're saying it was thanks to the new protective gear."
"Good," Janet said, and meant it. "That's good." She hadn’t had time to check on the Colonel yet, having been too busy with Wells. And her own mind.
"It was a hell of a day." Sam turned the cup in her hands. "I keep thinking about… there were so many moments where it could have gone differently. Wells. The Colonel. You." She said the last word slightly differently than the others. "I'm really glad you're still here, Janet."
"Likewise," Janet said as she looked up and met Sam’s eyes.