Breaking the Curse
Chapter
One: Beginning at the End
You
think you have won, but you have not. I
will never surrender to you.
Daniel
looked down at the woman in his arms.
She was cold now. He had been
holding her since he heard those words and knew what they meant.
Sadly, he brushed the hair out of her face
and kissed her forehead. He knew it was
over before he reached her, but he had gone to her anyway, held her
long after she
was gone. He had lost her, lost her
forever. He had known that it was possible
that it would end this way, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
He had failed. He
had wanted so badly to save her, save her
as he had failed to save Sha’re, but he had failed.
She wouldn’t suffer anymore. That
was over. But she wasn’t supposed to die. She was supposed
to be captured, not killed.
Only
Osiris had been unwilling to let that capture happen.
He had killed himself and Sarah to prevent
it.
“Sarah,”
Daniel whispered, though she was no longer there to hear him. He
had recovered enough from the hand device
Osiris had used on him to reach Jack and Teal’c after Jack had shot
Osiris, to
hear Osiris speak, and to know that Osiris intended to kill
Sarah. He had pushed past Jack and Teal’c and
reached Sarah in time to hear her whisper Daniel, I am so sorry. It was only now that he had been
able to
speak.
He
felt a hand on his shoulder. Jack. It had to be.
Daniel looked up at him. “Let’s
go, Danny. She’s gone.”
Daniel didn’t need Jack to tell
him that. He nodded.
He felt tears in his eyes and forced them back.
He didn’t want to cry, not here, not in front
of Jack. He got to his feet and shoved
his hands in his pockets to conceal how badly they were shaking.
He had to act as if he was fine, just for
now, just until Jack left and he was alone.
“You
okay, Daniel?” Jack asked. He looked
concerned, or at least what passed for concern for Jack.
“I’m
fine, Jack,” Daniel answered immediately, his eyes down on Sarah’s
still
form. Jack didn’t say anything. Daniel knew what that
meant.
He glanced at his friend. At Jack’s
look, Daniel rolled his eyes. “Jack.
I. Am. Fine.”
“You
sure about that, Danny?” Two
Dannys in less than five minutes. Jack is worried.
He hasn’t called me “Danny”
since before I
ascended. “She used
one of those
damn hand devices on you.”
“Really,
Jack, I think I’m developing an immunity to those things,” Daniel told
him and
was rewarded with another one of Jack O’Neill’s patented looks of
disbelief. “Where’s Sam?”
Asking
about Sam was an almost surefire way to distract Jack.
Stiffly, clearly uncomfortable, Jack
answered, “She went with Pete. Seems it
was a bad hit. They…uh…weren’t sure if
he would make it.”
Sarah
was cold. Pete’s ambulance was long
gone, though another waited for Sarah, to take the dead with them to be
hidden
down at the SGC until she would be released to her family for her
funeral. The van the rest of SG-1 had been
using for
surveillance had already been towed away.
The street looked almost normal again, just a plain, suburban
neighborhood, with gentle, normal people watching the drama at their
newest
neighbor’s house. They’d been fed a
story and told to go inside, but they were still watching at their
windows. Daniel sighed.
Up until a few hours ago, this place had been
his home.
Now
that was gone, too. He knew he couldn’t
stay here anymore. When he first looked
at the house, he had liked the quiet anonymity of the place.
Osiris’ attack had destroyed that. No cover story could ever
fully explain
this. His neighbors would always look at
him differently, treat him differently, watch his house with
suspicion. He wouldn’t be able to live like that,
knowing his neighbors were watching, waiting for something else “weird”
to
happen.
“Come
on, Daniel,” Jack’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Let’s head back to the mountain. Fraiser’ll
want to check you out.”
Daniel
nodded. “Let me change clothes, and I’ll
come with you.”
“Whoa,
wait a minute,” Jack said, grabbing a hold of Daniel’s arm. He
made a show of looking Daniel over, paying
close attention to the back of Daniel’s neck.
“That Goa’uld didn’t get in you, did it?
Your brains get a little scrambled from the hand device?”
“Funny,”
Daniel muttered, rolling his eyes again.
“I’ll end up in the infirmary one way or another, and I want to
check on
Sam.”
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“I
could have told you I was fine,” Daniel complained after Janet’s
assistant
finished the numerous tests Janet had assigned her to do.
He swore there were more of them every time
he was in the infirmary. He spent too
much time in this place as it was, and he didn’t appreciate the extra
time that
these tests were adding to that tally, especially since he was really
starting
to worry about Sam. Jack’s comment had
set off Daniel’s sense of unease, but after Janet rushed out shortly
after drawing
Daniel’s blood and sent a nurse to finish his work-up, he was getting
near
panic. Janet was as much a mother hen as
Jack and usually made sure that she was the one taking care of Daniel
anytime
he was sick or injured.
If
Janet wasn’t hovering over Daniel, she was with Pete.
If she was with Pete, things were not going
well. Daniel started to rise from the
bed he’d been sitting on, and the nurse restrained him with a
hand. “I think Dr. Fraiser would like you to stay
for observation, Dr. Jackson.”
“I’m
fine,” Daniel insisted. “Where is Major
Carter?”
“She’s
with Mr. Shanahan in recovery,” the nurse answered with a frown.
“But I really think that you should stay
here, Dr. Jackson.”
Daniel
looked at her, took her hand off his shoulder, and got to his
feet. She would have needed Teal’c’s help to
restrain him at this point, and Teal’c was just as worried as Daniel
was behind
that impassive mask of his. Frankly,
Daniel was surprised that both Jack and Teal’c had stayed with him
instead of
going after Sam.
The
nurse backed down. She wasn’t ready to
take on SG-1, which meant that she would not last long around
here. Janet was a great CMO because she didn’t
hesitate to stand up to SG-1. Even Jack
was terrified of her needles. Daniel
smiled at the thought as he walked over to recovery.
Janet
was just coming out of the room. All it
took was one look at her face to know that things had ended
badly. He heard Jack asking what happened, but
Daniel didn’t need to know that, not right now.
All he knew was that Sam needed him, and that overrode
everything else,
including common sense and Sam’s right to be alone.
It was actually typical of the way his brain
worked. A had bypassed Band C was in a
completely different alphabet. The
Cyrillic alphabet was running through the back of his head, but that
didn’t
help Sam right now, so he forced it out of his mind and concentrated on
his
friend.
She
hadn’t heard him enter the room. She was
standing next to the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks, still holding
Pete’s
lifeless hand the way that Daniel had been holding onto Sarah. He
reached out, having crossed the distance
to her without either of them noticing, and gently touched her upper
arm. “Sam.”
“Daniel,”
she said softly and turned into his chest as he wrapped his arm around
her. He leaned into Sam, resting his
head against her hair. She smelled like
flowers, with a hint of smoke underneath.
She smelled good. It was a
strange thought to have, now of all times.
The tests hadn’t caught it, but he knew that he must be in shock
over
Sarah’s death. He knew what shock
was. He had experienced it before; he
knew how it felt. Maybe Jack was right,
and Daniel’s brain was a little scrambled from the hand device.
He definitely had a headache, but he could
ignore that. Sam needed him.
He needed Sam just as much.
He
felt like he should be here. It felt
good to be here, to hold her and be held by her. They
both needed this. They understood each
other, understood each
other’s grief. Daniel wasn’t in
love with Sarah; Sam wasn’t in love with Pete.
But Daniel cared about Sarah; Sam cared about
Pete. She blamed herself for Pete’s
death the way that Daniel blamed himself for Sarah’s.
He knew that Sam shouldn’t blame
herself. This wasn’t her fault. He held her and hoped that
she would
understand what he was trying to tell her.
He
heard Jack cough discreetly behind him, so he lifted his head. He
had distracted Sam long enough for Jack,
Teal’c, and Janet to enter the room.
Janet had gone to the bed and covered Pete’s body with a sheet.
Sam didn’t look up. She
kept her head buried in Daniel’s chest.
“Daniel,”
Jack began. He looked behind him at
Teal’c, then back at Daniel. “Why don’t
you and Carter come back to my house for the night?”
“Actually,”
Janet broke in, “I would like both Sam and Daniel to stay on the base
for
now. They’ve both suffered trauma as
well as—”
“You
could try not talking about us like we’re not
here,” Daniel
suggested,
annoyed and amused at the same time. He
was rewarded with a small smile from Teal’c, Jack pretending he hadn’t
noticed,
and Janet blushing a little.
“Hey,”
Jack said defensively, “I thought I was helping. It’s
not like I thought you wanted
to stay here.
I mean, come on—”
Janet
rolled her eyes. “Colonel, I have the
authority to keep all of SG-1 on the base.
In fact, I can recommend that—”
“No,”
Sam mumbled, clutching Daniel’s shirt.
He’d just thrown a sweatshirt over the tank he’d been wearing,
and he
was glad he did. Sam was distraught,
shaking her head against him, and she would be rubbing against buttons
if he’d
actually changed.
Trying
to comfort her, Daniel ran his fingers through Sam’s hair.
This decision should be hers. She
knew what she needed, even if it was
buried underneath layers of grief. He
had known what he needed after Sha’re’s death—she had known, too, that
was why
she gave him that message—and he was confident that Sam knew what she
needed
now. No, she shouldn’t be alone, but she
could cope with this if she was allowed to choose.
“You want to go with Jack, Sam?”
Despite
her earlier outburst, Sam seemed too shocked to speak.
She didn’t really seem aware of what was
going on around her. Daniel attempted to
pull away from her, wanting to look at her, see if she was okay, maybe
shake
some sense into her if she needed it, but she wrapped her arms around
his waist
and tightened her grip the more he pulled away.
She didn’t look up from his chest.
Daniel didn’t like this. Any
minute now, Janet would insist on sedating Sam.
Daniel was sure that Sam needed sleep, but he wasn’t sure she
needed
sedation.
But
he didn’t know. He wasn’t a doctor, not
that kind of doctor. Maybe he should
leave this up to Janet. Sam looked up at
him at last, her eyes pleading with him like she had heard his
thoughts. “Daniel, please, take me home.”
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Daniel
wasn’t sure why Sam had chosen to stay with him. He
knew how she felt about Jack, so it
surprised him that she hadn’t taken Jack up on his offer to stay with
him. She put on the brave Major act in
front of
her CO, but she had come apart in front of Jack enough for that not to
matter. Daniel would have thought that
she would take Jack up on his offer of comfort since she sought it from
him so
often and she had never really refused Jack before.
If not for the regulations, they would be
together and everyone knew it. Maybe she
cared more about Pete than Daniel had thought, maybe enough to make
Jack fade
from her mind. But, then, she had
been
different, especially towards Jack, after that incident on the
Prometheus. Maybe Daniel was reading too
much into
this. Maybe she just wanted a
friend. It was a lover that she had
lost. She didn’t need another, not so
soon. She needed a friend, someone to
share her grief, which Daniel could do.
That
was really why he was here. After the
fight he had put up to get here, to be the one to take Sam home, he
didn’t know
why he was bothering to question why he was here.
He
had insisted on
being here, had badgered Jack and Janet into this by telling them how
much Sam
needed this, how Sam wasn’t the only one who needed this, and how Sam
and he
could solve anything together. Except
how to save Sarah. They had tried, they
had, but they had failed. Daniel had
failed. He should have known what Osiris
would do when faced with capture.
He
sighed. He had to stop thinking about
Sarah. Sam.
Concentrate
on Sam. If he focused on
helping Sam,
he could
get through this. That was why he had
wanted to come—well, a part of why he had wanted to come.
He
looked at her. She was sitting on her
couch, staring ahead at the blank TV screen.
He had already left her alone for too long.
“Sam?”
She
didn’t answer. He went around to the
front of the couch and knelt in front of her, putting his hands on
hers. She was freezing. He
had to do something about this. “Sam, it’s
me. Daniel.
Listen, we need to get you to bed.
Come on.”
She
didn’t respond, so he gently wrapped his arms under hers and pulled her
to her
feet. She didn’t make any move to put
weight on her feet and move on her own. Daniel made a face and dragged
her into
the bedroom. He dropped her sideways on
her bed and sighed. She was still fully
clothed, combat boots, off-duty BDUs, the same clothes she had on last
night
when they set the trap for Osiris. She
couldn’t sleep like that. He frowned at
her. “Uh, Sam, I think you need to
change…”
Sam
mumbled something incoherent. He had
gone on countless missions with Sam, been in so many dangerous,
life-threatening situations with her, and now, while she was mostly out
of it,
he was terrified of her. Well, he was
terrified of what she would do when she realized that he had been in
her
dresser. Sam,
please do not kill
me
for this.
Assuming
that Sam, like most people, would store her underwear in her top
drawer, he
avoided that one. The second drawer
wasn’t much better. Tank tops. He closed the drawer and
opened the next
one. T-shirts. He
took out the largest one he could find,
blue with some cartoon character he didn’t recognize on it, and set it
aside. The fourth drawer was full of
jeans, but the fifth one was sweatpants, jogging suits, and pajama
pants,
including a pink pair with kittens on them.
He blushed even redder than he had when he first went to the
dresser and
hoped that Sam wouldn’t mind that he had seen this.
And
if he died, because she was going to kill him, he could at
least die
with a smile and the thought of Sam in pink pajamas with kittens on
them. They must have been a gag gift. Most of Sam’s
civilian clothes were…well,
sexier than these cutesy pajamas. He
grinned and brought the clothes to her.
“Sam? I have something for you to change into…Sam?”
She
was still dazed. He set the clothes next
to her and knelt, taking off her boots, then her socks.
She started giggling as he touched the bottom
of her feet. After she continued to
giggle, far more and longer than was warranted by any ticklishness he
might
have caused, he shook her gently. “Sam?
Sam, please, you need to change, then sleep.”
Sam
sat up abruptly, pulled her shirt off, and threw it at him. It
landed on his head, and she started
laughing again. He sighed, pulling it
off and setting it aside on the floor.
He hoped she had her new shirt on—oh, no, she didn’t. She sat,
laughter shaking her body. He picked up the shirt he’d gotten out
of her
dresser and held it out to her, hoping she would take it.
When she didn’t, he lifted her arms and
pulled the shirt over her. She had
stopped laughing, and he almost wished she hadn’t.
This was awkward as all hell, but at least
when she was laughing she wasn’t really paying attention to him.
Now she was staring.
Feeling
uncomfortable, Daniel assessed the situation.
She was half-changed. Just her
pants left to do. He really wanted her
to finish this so that this wouldn’t be any harder.
He shook his friend, but she didn’t
respond. Muttering to himself in
Ancient, he cursed. He slid his arms
under hers again, picking her up. She
slumped when he tried to stand her up, so he held her, braced her over
his arm,
trying to unbutton and unzip her fatigues.
This was one of the most awkward things he had ever done. The
more he struggled, the more she laughed
at him. With a few more curses in other
languages, he realized this would have been easier if he had left her
on the
bed.
“Stand
up, Sam. I can’t do this on my own.”
She
stopped laughing, stood up and shed her pants before he could do the
decent
thing and look away. She grabbed the
pajama pants and put them on without a word.
Daniel shook himself out of his fugue and forced himself to move.
He went towards the door.
Pausing
in the doorway, he shut off the light.
“Good night, Sam. Try and get
some sleep.”
“Daniel,
wait, please,” Sam said in a small, very un-Major Carter-ish voice that
made
him stop and look back. “I don’t want to
be alone. Stay with me? Just until I
fall asleep.”
When
he hesitated, she repeated, “Please.”
Daniel
nodded, coming towards the bed, careful in the semi-darkness. He
took off his glasses and set them on the
stand next to the bed as she crawled under the covers on one side of
the bed. She snuggled up to her pillow and
patted the
spot next to her. He smiled briefly and
sat down. He leaned against the
headboard and closed his eyes. He
couldn’t stay in this spot long or he would fall asleep.
He
opened his eyes when he noticed the way she was uncomfortably tossing
and
turning next to him. She stopped when
she realized he was watching her.
“You’re on the covers.”
She
looked at him pointedly. He could see it
in the faint light. He smiled slightly
and climbed off the bed. Though she had
asked him to stay, he was pretty sure that she wouldn’t sleep as long
as he was
there, and he knew he would fall asleep before much longer, as
exhausted as he
was. He would be better off on the
couch, so he started for the door.
“Daniel,
where are you going? I thought you were going to stay?”
The
hurt in her voice made him sorry he had even thought of leaving.
“Sam, I—You said—I thought—”
She
laughed a little at his stumbling tongue and patted the bed next to her
again,
this time with the covers pulled down.
He half-smiled, half-grimaced, though she didn’t notice the
grimace, and
reluctantly returned to the bed. He sat
again, his head hitting the board, trying to convince himself that this
was
just like sleeping next to her on a mission.
It
wasn’t.
“Thank
you, Daniel,” she whispered, putting her hand on his chest. Oh,
it really wasn’t.
“For
what?” he asked with a yawn, covering his mouth with his hand.
Sam sat up; leaning over him, then with all
of her military training and physical strength, dragged him down onto
the
pillow. Stunned and a little embarrassed
that she had gotten the better of him, he looked at her in
surprise. “Sam?”
“You
need sleep as much as I do,” she told him sleepily, wrapping her arms
his
stomach and laying her head on his chest.
“So go to sleep, Daniel.”
He’d
already lost the battle, both with her and with himself.
As a silent thank you, he kissed her forehead
just before he found himself drifting off.
Tomorrow would be an interesting morning.