The next day, Daniel cautiously poked his head out of the elevator to see if the coast was clear.  When he saw the hallway empty, he quickly headed to his office.  Getting to the SGC very early was his way of avoiding a particular doctor.  Letting out a sigh of relief when he reached his lair, Daniel walked in and turned on the lights.

 

“Dr. Jackson!”

 

The archeologist jumped out of his skin at the harsh female voice that spoke from a dark corner of his office.  Clutching at his chest and trying to bring his breathing under control, Daniel leaned back against the wall.

 

“Heilige scheiße, Janet…” he gasped, “you damn near gave me a heart attack.”

 

Dr. Janet Fraiser cast an evil eye at the unfortunate linguist.  “It’s a good thing I’m your doctor then, huh?  I need to have a word with you, Dr. Jackson.”

 

Daniel inched around the petite, yet very scary woman, towards his desk, trying to get something in between himself and Janet as protection.  Clearing his throat, he questioned innocently, “Um… what can I do for you…  ah, Janet?”

 

Leaning onto his cluttered work surface, Dr. Fraiser fixed Daniel with an icy stare.  He couldn’t stop the shudder that coursed through him.  With an inward smile, Janet revealed in the power she could wield over most of the men at the SGC.  However, in Daniel’s case, it really wasn’t very hard to intimidate the soft-spoken archeologist.  Seeing how much anxiety he was in, she decided to ease up a little.

 

“I understand that my daughter gave you a call last night.”

 

Visibly swallowing, he merely nodded.

 

“I also understand that she has asked you, AND… that you have agreed, to take her to the senior prom.  Am I correct?”

 

“Only if you agree,” Daniel mumbled.

 

Janet’s eyebrow rose, “Mm, hmm.  I see.”  She paused and studied the man before her, “Well…”

 

“Look, Janet,” Daniel interrupted, “I told her that I would take her only if you said it was okay.  I was doing this as a favor to Cassie, ’cause I know that the prom is really important… to, um… girls.”

 

“I know it is, Daniel.  I’m a girl, remember?” Janet smirked at him.  Giving Daniel a lengthy look, she smiled.  “I trust that I don’t have to go over the rules of engagement with you.”

 

Staring at her in disbelief, Daniel grasped for something to say, “Ah… you, um… you’re sure about this?”

 

Softening her voice, she replied, “I cannot think of a better man for the job.  I know that you will show her a good time and that she will be well cared for.”

 

Daniel blushed and ducked his head, “Thanks, Janet.  I’ll try to give Cass a night to remember.”  As soon as the words left his mouth, his head snapped up with a panicked look in his eyes, “I, I… I didn’t mean that…”

 

Janet laughed at the mortified archeologist.  Reaching out and patting his hand she reassured him, “I know, Daniel.  I know.”

 

With a twinkle in her eye, Dr. Fraiser turned to leave.  Pausing at the door, she looked back at him.  “Besides… not only do I know where you live— I also know ALL the places you don’t like getting shots.”  With that, she was gone.

 

Releasing the breath he had no idea he was holding, Daniel sank onto his chair.  Shoving his glasses up to his forehead, he rubbed his eyes.

 

“Ohhhh… what have I gotten myself into this time?” he groaned.

 

“Well, it sounds to me like you have finally got a date.”

 

Dropping his head onto the desk with a thud, Daniel tried his hardest to will himself to disappear into thin air.  When he noticed that it wasn’t going to happen, he muttered, “Jack?  What do you want?”

 

The colonel meandered around the cluttered office, picking things up and setting them down restlessly, he said, “Oh… nothin’.  Just thought I’d come down and say good morning.”

 

“Right.  Sure,”  Daniel replied skeptically, raising his head and replacing his glasses, he glared at Jack.

 

With a smirky smile, O’Neill walked over to the young man and clapped him on the back.  “So… Got a big night to plan for, huh?”

 

With a monumental effort, Daniel kept his voice even, “I have a lot of work to do right now, Jack.  So if you will excuse me, please…”

 

Jack cocked an eyebrow and snorted at him, “Yeah, sure, you betcha!”  On his way out he shot back over his shoulder, “By the way, Cassie loves lilacs.”

 

Jack narrowly avoided the hockey puck that flew at him.  Daniel could hear his C.O. chuckling all the way down the hall.  Getting up to retrieve his puck, he muttered to himself, “This is going to be a long day in hell.”

 

***

 

True enough, in record time it seemed as if the entire base knew that Daniel was taking Cassandra to her prom.  The sly looks from airmen and ones of amusement from the women finally forced him to sequester himself in his office with the door locked.  His head was pounding, but he didn’t want to go to the infirmary.  The day was almost over and when he got home, he’d down a bottle of Tylenol.  Maybe his agreeing to do this for Cassie wasn’t such a good idea.  He really hadn’t expected all the grief that was coming his way.  It was just a kind thing to do for a friend, he figured.

 

At 18 hundred hours a knock at his door startled him out of his work.  Stretching and rubbing his eyes he wandered over to open it.  He poked his head out and the overwhelming relief must have been apparent, as Sam’s grin widened.

 

“Oh, Sam,” Daniel breathed, “Come on in.”

 

As soon as the astrophysicist cleared the threshold, Daniel had the door closed and locked again.  When he turned back to Sam, he smiled sheepishly at her.  “Tired of all the looks I’ve been getting today.”

 

She only nodded, “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about it.”

 

“I’m beginning to think the entire world knows about it.”

 

Taking a seat on the couch, she patted the space next to her for Daniel to sit down.  He went over and wearily flopped down next to her.  Putting his head on her shoulder, he closed his eyes.  Sam smiled and petted his hair.

 

“Poor Daniel,” she smirked, “dug himself into a hole and can’t get out.”

 

Groaning, Daniel sat up, “Et tu, Brute?”

 

Shaking her head, she smiled, “No.  I think what you’re doing for Cass is really sweet.  But you have to admit, if you look at it from our point of view, it’s just screaming to be made fun of.”

 

Daniel pouted, “Yeah, I suppose so.”

 

Daniel’s phone rang.  Sam looked at him when he didn’t get up to get.  Two… three… four…

 

“Ah, Daniel?” she cocked an eyebrow at him, “You going to get that?”

 

With his eyes closed and his jaw clenched, he shook his head no.

 

“Oh for Pete’s sake…” Sam breathed and got up to answer his phone.  “Dr. Jacks—”

 

She stopped abruptly when she heard the music coming through the phone receiver.  Listening for a moment, she couldn’t help the grin that snuck onto her face.  Looking over to Daniel her smirk quickly vanished.  He was sitting with his head in his hands and his elbows propped on his knees.  Sam hung up the phone and walked back over to him, sitting down.

 

 “It was a wrong number,” she lied, rubbing his back.

 

“Yeah… right,” Daniel mumbled, “I could hear the music, Sam.  It was the same song that has been played the last six times my phone’s rung.”

 

“Six times?!”

 

“Yep.  And I never liked that song in the first place.”

 

Sam giggled, “It’s a classic Police song.  Kind’a catchy,” she started to sing, “Don’t stand, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me…”  If looks could kill, Sam Carter would have been listed as DOA.

 

“Sorry,” she giggled again. “Come on, Daniel.  It’ll blow over by tomorrow.”

 

He looked at her doubtfully and moaned, “I think I’m going to stay here tonight.  I’m not leaving this room.”

 

“Poor, poor, Daniel,” she said as she rested her head on his shoulder.  “Tell you what.  I’ll run interference and take you home with me.  That way, no one will bother you because they won’t know you’re at my house.”

 

“What about my car?”

 

“You’ve left it here before.  And you can stay the night.  I’ll help you out with dinner reservations and all that,” she patted his head gently, “Sound good?”

 

With a deep sigh, Daniel relented, “Sure.”

 

Sam successfully extracted Daniel from the mountain with minimal fuss.  On the way to her house, they stopped and got some take-out Thai.  Daniel was happy that SG-1 was so close to each other.  He knew that he had a set of clean clothes as well as some sweats at Carter’s house.  They casually talked as they ate dinner, with Daniel teaching, or rather trying to teach Sam conversational Thai.  She really wasn’t very good with foreign languages.

 

Once dinner was over, she grabbed the telephone book to look up restaurants, florist, tux rentals and limos.

 

“Tux rental?!” Daniel exclaimed as he watched her peruse the pages.

 

Sam rolled her eyes at him.  “What?  Are you going to take Cassie to the prom wearing your BDU’s?”

 

He frowned at her.

 

Laughing at his pouty face, she teased, “Oh, yeah!  Cassie asked a real mature guy to prom.”

 

Just to press the point, Daniel stuck his tongue out at her.

 

Looking at him innocently, she flirted, “Don’t show it, if you’re not going to use it.”

 

Shocked, Daniel ducked his head in a blush of red.  Instead of a retort, he quietly drank his beer, leafing through the yellow pages.

 

“Soooo…” he decided to rein the discussion back to the prom, “… have you seen Cassie’s dress?”

 

Sam nodded, “Yeah!  It’s beautiful.  A very light shade of lavender.”

 

He nodded, remembering Jack’s earlier comment about lilacs.

 

“Ooo… This place sounds nice,” Sam said pointing to an ad for a French restaurant.

 

“Don’t you mean, Ooo, La, La?” Daniel grinned.

 

She smacked him on the back of his head, “Funny.  What do you think?”

 

Reading the ad and the partial menu, Daniel raised his eyebrows, “I think it’s expensive.”

 

“Don’t be a cheapskate, Daniel,” Sam whined uncharacteristically, “you told her you would give her the works.”

 

Now it was her turn to blush when she realized what she was insinuating.  Daniel looked at her for a moment, then burst into laughter.  The rest of the night was spent trading barbs and writing down phone numbers of places for Daniel to call in the morning.  He had no idea how much work this whole thing was going to take.  Around one in the morning, he stretched and yawned, pushing Sam over with his foot.

 

“Jeesh, I feel like I’m planning a wedding,” he moaned.

 

Yawning also, Sam crawled up beside him on the couch and snuggled in close.  He wrapped his arms around her and then pulled a blanket from the back of the sofa over both of them.  In no time at all they were fast asleep.