Chapter
Two: Survivor’s Guilt
“Sam,
Sam, wake up, it’s okay.”
She
heard a soothing voice in her ear and felt a hand shaking her
gently. She recognized Daniel’s voice and felt her
panic subsiding. She couldn’t remember
her dream anymore, just the feeling it gave her of being scared and
alone. But she wasn’t alone.
She
opened her eyes to find light streaming in through the window and
Daniel
sitting on the edge of her bed, looking at her, concern in his
face. He was searching her with those incredibly
sensitive eyes of his. A rush of gratitude
and relief overtook her at seeing him.
She couldn’t help but smile at him.
Instinctively, she reached out a hand and touched his face,
cupping his
cheek. God, he was so sweet.
He had taken care of her last night, and he
was worried about her this morning. She
didn’t know what she would have done without him. If
he hadn’t been there last night or this
morning…
“Thank
you for staying with me, Daniel,” she said, taking her hand away from
his face
reluctantly. “ I am—”
He
put a finger to her lips. “It’s okay,
Sam. I didn’t want to be alone,
either. All I ask in return is some
coffee.”
She
laughed. “Well, you’re easy.”
He
shrugged with the boyish enthusiasm that he used to have when she first
knew
him. He still showed it every now and
again when he delved into some fascinating archeological mystery or
translation, but she doubted she would ever see him jump like he had
with the
crystals from P3X-562 or pretend to be an airplane like he had on
PJ2-445. That man was gone.
Years of loss and war had changed Daniel,
hardened him physically and emotionally.
After yesterday and losing Sarah, she was glad—amazed— that he
could
still smile.
And
joke. “Jack says I’m a cheap date.”
“Daniel,”
she shook her head, giggling a little.
His mood was infectious. “I
shouldn’t have to tell a linguist that he was talking about alcohol.”
“Philologist,”
he corrected, still grinning. She had
heard him arguing the point before. “And
there is a difference. But Jack’s
right. All I’m asking for is coffee, and
that’s cheaper than alcohol.”
“Not
the coffee I buy,” she returned with an even bigger grin.
“Why
do you think we’re such good friends?” he asked, his eyes as teasing as
his
smile. He lifted his head and tilted it
to the side a little in that way that only Daniel did then rolled over
and
hopped off the bed. “I’ll make the
coffee. Why don’t you take a shower?”
She
looked at him, incredulous. I take
back that part about being sweet. “Daniel,
are you trying to tell me that I—”
“Nooo,”
he said, looking away, his face reddening.
He ducked out of the room quickly, presumably heading for her
kitchen. Confused, she sat for a few
minutes trying to figure out what he was up to.
Unable
to come up with anything, she decided that a shower wasn’t a bad
idea. She got up and walked unsteadily down the
hallway, still mostly asleep, into the bathroom. She
started the shower, and it was only when
she began to undress that she realized why Daniel had suggested a
shower: so
she would be partially naked and unable to run after him when she
discovered
what she had been wearing.
She
opened the bathroom door and stuck her head out into the hall.
“Daniel Jackson, you are a dead man!”
“Wouldn’t
be the first time!” Daniel called
back. “Or the second.
Or the third. Or—”
Sam
shut the door, laughing to herself. He
was right. It wasn’t the first time that
he had died. What did it say about her
life that the amount of times someone had died was actually funny? Or
possible,
for that matter. She didn’t like to
think about it because she herself had died more than once, though
Daniel held
the record, as it were, for deaths. That
was also kind of funny, but it shouldn’t be.
Daniel’s last death had not been remotely funny.
He had died a horrible, painful death, and
then he had been gone for over a year.
Things had not been the same without him. She
had not been the same without him.
At least he was back now.
But
Pete hadn’t ascended. He wouldn’t be
coming back. He was dead.
She
hastily stripped the rest of her clothes and got into the shower.
She let the water run over her as she started
to cry. She slid towards the ground,
wrapped her arms around her knees, and continued to weep, letting the
water run
its course down her skin as the sobs shook her body.
Pete. Oh,
god. Pete.
She had
dreamt about him, his death. But it was
not just his death that tormented her in this dream. Everyone she ever
loved,
ever cared about, her father, her mother, Jonas Hansen, Narim, Martouf,
Orlin,
Joe, Jack, Daniel, Teal’c, Janet, and Cassie, had died and left her
alone. Then something terrible
happened—she couldn’t
remember what—and she was scared and alone.
It sounded juvenile, but while she had been dreaming, it didn’t
feel
that way. The pain, the loss, the fear
had been overwhelming. Thank God
Daniel was there.
A
sudden knocking on the bathroom door startled her out of her
thoughts. Daniel again.
He seemed to know just when she needed him.
“Sam, are you okay in there? It’s
been almost an hour.”
“It’s
okay, Daniel, I’m fine,” she assured him without thinking.
She wasn’t fine, and she knew it, but she had
trained herself to say she was. “I’ll be
out in a minute.”
The
water in the shower was freezing. She
didn’t know how long it had been cold, but she was shivering
now. Sam stood and hurried to finish her
shower. She didn’t think she’d ever
cleaned up so fast, not even in all her years in the military.
She turned off the water and stepped out,
drying herself off quickly, her hands shaking the towel.
Dry
but still cold, Sam wrapped a towel around her body and peeked out the
door. Daniel had evidently accepted
her
at her word and gone back to the kitchen or possibly the living
room. She was just grateful that he wasn’t waiting
for her, so that he couldn’t see her like this.
She headed into her bedroom and found herself something
comfortable to
wear. Settling on a worn pair of jeans
and an oversized Air Force sweatshirt, she dressed, snuggling into the
shirt’s
warmth.
A
knock came on the bedroom door. She
crossed to it, opening it to Daniel hiding behind the cup of coffee he
held out
to her. “Peace offering?”
She
laughed. “Did you really think I was
that angry?”
“I
made breakfast, too,” he told her with a straight face.
“Come get some before it really gets cold.”
She
took the coffee cup from him and followed him into the kitchen.
The smell of bacon and eggs hit her nose, and
she sighed as her stomach rumbled.
Daniel smiled at her encouragingly as she went to the stove and
dished
herself up a plate. He hadn’t just made
eggs. He’d scrambled them with bacon,
onions, and peppers.
“You
really must have thought I would be angry,” she observed with amusement.
“You
did say I was a dead man,”
Daniel answered as he refilled his
coffee.
“So
you made me breakfast?”
“Stay
of execution?” he offered with a smile.
“For
that, it had better be good,” she warned him, sitting down at the
island in the
middle of her kitchen.
Daniel
took the stool at the other end of the counter, cradling his coffee cup
in his
hands. He wasn’t eating.
She knew if she asked, he would just say that
he had already eaten. She couldn’t see
any evidence of that, but he had had time to clean up after himself,
and Daniel
was the type of guest that would. Though
she could generally tell when he was lying, he was getting better at
it, good
enough to fool her and the colonel, though probably not Teal’c.
She had already predicted all of Daniel’s
possible responses, so she knew what he would say if she asked and if
she
pushed, but she didn’t know if it was worth it.
She really didn’t know if she could get the truth out of him or
not. She frowned. She
hoped that Daniel had eaten because he
needed it as much as she did. She
decided not to ask.
She
lifted her fork and took a bite. She’d
been teasing when she told him that this had better be good, but he’d
earned
his stay of execution. “This is really
good, Daniel.”
He
shrugged self-depreciatingly. “Any man
can make eggs.”
“Not
like this,” she disagreed, taking another bite.
She closed her eyes and let the flavor wash over her tongue. She
hadn’t known that she had the supplies in
her house to make something that tasted this good.
Normal bacon and eggs, yes, but not the
spices, peppers, onions, or the cheese.
Had Daniel gone to the store? She
supposed he could have. “I didn’t know
you could cook.”
“I’ve
had to fend for myself since I was eight.
Cooking was a form of self-defense.
Or self-preservation. Take your
pick,” Daniel answered, smiling before he drank more of his
coffee. “So…um…you’re going to call Janet and
tell
her you’re okay, right?”
“Daniel,”
Sam sputtered incredulously, choking on her eggs. She
took a sip of her coffee, trying to clear
her throat. “You were supposed to check
in with Janet when we first woke up. I
heard you promise that in order to get us off the base last night.”
“Yeah,
I know,” Daniel looked sheepish. “I was
just hoping you would do it.”
She
looked at him. “Why?”
“Because,”
he drew out the word, “when I talked to Jack, I said I had a slight
headache. If Jack told Janet, she’d want
me to come in for more tests. It’s just
a headache, Sam. I’m fine.
I don’t want to go to the infirmary.”
“You’re
sure?”
“Yes,
Sam. I promise you I’m fine.
I told you before I’m developing an immunity
to the hand device. It’s not that. I get headaches all the
time.
And the coffee helps.”
Sam
shook her head. “You know that’s just an
excuse, Daniel.”
“So?”
he grinned. “It works.”
“Want
to talk about it?” Daniel asked, sitting down on the arm of her
couch.
He had left Sam alone while she called Janet,
pushing her out into the other room while he cleaned up the
kitchen.
Janet had asked about Sam’s condition and
then insisted on speaking to Daniel.
Daniel had taken the phone into the kitchen, leaving Sam by
herself on
the couch until now.
She
leaned back against the other side of the couch, stretching her legs
out across
the length. She studied the dark liquid
inside her coffee cup for a minute.
Janet must have given him similar advice. “Do
you?”
He
laughed bitterly. It wasn’t a pleasant
sound. “No.”
He
rose from the armrest, lifted her feet, sat down on the cushion, and
let her
feet fall onto his lap. He stared at her
bare toes, and she had to wonder if he was thinking about tickling
them. He had better not be.
“I
was supposed to save her,” he said abruptly, causing Sam to look at him
in
surprise.
“Daniel,
you couldn’t—”
“I
was supposed to save her,” he insisted, not allowing her to get a word
in
edgewise. “I couldn’t save Sha’re. When Sarah was taken by
Osiris, I swore that
I would get her back alive. I swore
it, Sam. And I failed.”
“Daniel,”
she began, her heart breaking for him.
He was in such pain, and she wanted to help him.
She swung her feet off his lap and moved
close to him, wrapping her arms around him as he gave into the grief
he’d been
avoiding since Sarah’s death. He needed
to cry, needed that release, but he couldn’t—or wouldn’t, she couldn’t
tell
which—let himself cry. She lowered her
head, resting her cheek against his back and closing her eyes.
She
wasn’t sure how long she held onto him, but eventually he stopped
shaking and
his breathing returned to normal. He
took her hand from around his waist and enclosed it in his own.
“Thank you, Sam.”
She
smiled, lifting her head to look at him, bumping his shoulder.
“What are friends for?”
A
strained look passed over his face, but he quickly replaced it with a
smile
that didn’t reach his eyes. She squeezed
his hand reassuringly. “Daniel, there
was nothing that you could have done. We
had Osiris. She was captured.
You couldn’t have known that Osiris would
kill Sarah. The Goa’uld aren’t
suicidal—we’ve never had a Goa’uld kill itself to prevent
capture. They’re too arrogant to think they’ll ever be
captured, too arrogant to believe that we can hold them.
They believe they’ll escape or that we’ll
worship them.”
“It
wasn’t that, Sam. I think—I know Osiris
killed Sarah because I wanted
to save her.
If we captured her, we would have won. Osiris
couldn’t stand that, so he killed
Sarah. If we hadn’t sedated him, he
would have tried for another host. He
would have gone for me because I went to Sarah.
He might even have planned it,” Daniel spoke with a growing
conviction. “He had access to Sarah’s
memories. He would have known that’s
what I would do.”
Daniel
pulled out of Sam’s hold and got to his feet, starting to pace.
“I think Osiris wanted me for a host. He believed the location of
the Lost City was
in my brain. He went to a lot of trouble
to access my subconscious. He would have
taken me to Anubis and found some way to get at those memories, maybe
another
dream sequence. I don’t know.
The point is, after he killed Sarah, you—you,
Jack, and Teal’c—you would have let him escape because you wouldn’t
have wanted
him to kill me, too.”
“Daniel,”
Sam began. She couldn’t reach him,
couldn’t get through the complex that he had created.
He wanted to believe it was his fault, and
she didn’t know how to convince him that it wasn’t.
“It wasn’t your fault. You can’t
make me believe that Sarah would
have wanted you to blame yourself. It
wasn’t your fault that she was taken as a host, and it wasn’t your
fault that
she died. Osiris killed Sarah, not
you. You did your best to save her. And you know that she’s
not suffering
anymore.”
Sam
stood up, crossed to him, and stopped his pacing. She
held his arms and forced him to look at
her. “You can’t blame yourself, Daniel.”
“Are
you going to take your own advice?” he asked pointedly, fixing his eyes
upon
her. She felt them delving into her
soul.
She
turned away, unable to face him, unwilling to face him.
“What?”
“Are
you going to take your own advice?” he repeated. She
didn’t answer. She wanted to pretend that
she didn’t know
what he meant. “About Pete, Sam. You blame yourself for his
death, don’t you?”
“No. Yes,”
she answered, angry and confused. How did
he do that? How did he know her so well? “Daniel, we’re
talking about you.”
“Not
anymore,” he corrected. He picked up his
coffee cup and returned to the couch.
She watched him with a frown. He
patted the couch next to him. Her
frowned deepened as she walked over to the couch, gingerly taking her
seat. She wasn’t sure how the
conversation had switched gears so quickly, but apparently Daniel now
thought
it was time to talk about Pete, her and Pete.
“We talked about me, Sam. It’s
your turn.”
“Daniel,
I really don’t think we were done talking about you.
I think you’re changing the subject,” she
protested.
“I
am. I’m not denying that, Sam. But I’m not talking about it
anymore,” Daniel
said with finality. “Besides, I asked
you a question that you haven’t answered yet.”
“Daniel—”
“You’re
starting to sound like Jack,” he told her, sounding irritated. He
took another sip of his coffee, evidently
the last sip, and set the now empty cup on the table.
“Sam, you know you don’t have to tell me
anything. You don’t have to say a word
if you don’t want to. You were here for
me. I was here for you.
I’m still here for you if you want me to be.”
He
rose, picked up the cup, and disappeared into the kitchen.
She heard him at the sink, rinsing out his
cup. Sam sat, replaying his last words
in her head. Wait a minute.
Daniel was in the kitchen, cleaning up. Was
he getting ready to leave? Leaving?
Daniel is leaving? He
couldn’t leave. She felt better after
sleeping, her shower, and the food, but her dream had shaken her.
She didn’t want to be alone.
She got to her feet and rushed into the
kitchen.
“Daniel,
don’t go.”
Daniel
looked up from the pot of water he was pouring into the coffee maker
and
frowned at her. “What?”
“I
said, don’t go, Daniel,” Sam told him.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“Sam,
I wasn’t going anywhere,” he sounded surprised, maybe even hurt.
“I was just making more coffee.”
She
let out her breath in relief. She should
have known better. She would have to
kick—practically throw—Daniel out before he would leave her
alone. He was so stubborn, and she knew that. He was also
loyal, and he would not abandon
her, not if he believed she needed him.
He intended to stay. She had her
proof in the second pot of coffee. Daniel
would never let that go to waste. She
couldn’t believe she’d gotten so worked up over this.
She closed her eyes, silently laughing at
herself.
“So,”
Daniel said, drawing her out of her thoughts.
The first thing she noticed was the coffee cup in his hands,
which made
her smile. “You want to talk?”
She
looked at him, torn in two directions.
She did, but she didn’t. She
didn’t know what she wanted, to tell the truth.
Finally, she nodded.
“Tell
me about Pete,” Daniel suggested as they resumed their seats on the
couch.
Sam
started guiltily at his words. Daniel
was her friend, her good friend if not her best friend, and she hadn’t
even
told him that she had a boyfriend until the day her boyfriend
died. She’d only told Daniel about Pete that morning
and only because she had fought with him.
Mostly, she had spent that conversation complaining about the
secrecy
interfering with her relationship.
Daniel had listened, but she knew he had taken a dislike to Pete
because
of his attitude. After seven years with
the Stargate program, Daniel had had time to deal with his
understandable
frustration over his inability to tell anyone of his discoveries.
He understood the reasons for secrecy better
than anyone, and he accepted them. Sam
had a harder time with it, despite her military training, first with
her father
and then with Pete. At least Daniel had
a cover story that made sense. Hers was
ridiculous. Pete—and pretty much
everyone she knew—saw through it.
Daniel, usually the most sympathetic person on the base, had
been rather
insensitive. It was like he didn’t want
to listen.
“Pete
was a friend of my brother’s,” Sam said, not really sure where to begin
or if
she should. “Are you sure you want to
hear this?”
“Uh,
no, actually,” Daniel admitted to her dumbfounded shock, “but I do
think that
you need to say it.”
Trust
Daniel to put her needs before his own.
He had done it last night, and he was doing it again now. He had
stayed overnight without stopping at
his house for clothes, so he was still wearing what he had been wearing
yesterday, and he hadn’t gotten a shower like she had.
He had gotten up before her, made coffee and
breakfast. Now, despite his personal
inconvenience, he was offering to stay longer and listen to her talk
about
Pete. Daniel really was one in a
million.
She
started to tell Daniel about Pete, how they met, and the jokes that
Pete would
make. “He pretended to pick me up when
we met for coffee. I tried to warn him
that most men who get involved with me end up dead.
He didn’t believe me.”
Sam
smiled at the memory, but Daniel frowned.
She hurried to defend Pete. “He
was sweet and funny, Daniel. I wish you
could have met him.”
“I’m
sure I would have liked him,” Daniel assured her. She
looked at him incredulously. “I like
everybody, Sam. Well, not Kinsey. Or Maybourne.
The Goa’uld. The rogue NID. But I like everyone, Sam.
Really, I do.”
She
laughed. Daniel was an eternal
optimist. He gave everyone the benefit
of the doubt. He would have liked Pete. In spite of his
misgivings, Daniel really
would have tried. “Of course, Sam, you
know I would have had a problem with the way he treated you.”
“What?”
Sam didn’t know what Daniel was talking about.
Oh, she had fought with Pete and he had stormed out, but he
hadn’t
treated her badly.
“Sam,
you said yourself he was pressuring you to reveal classified
information. He stormed out of your house
after you
refused to give him that information.
It’s possible he would have used your growing feelings for him
to create
a sense of guilt that—Sam, what was he doing at my house?”
Stunned,
Sam stared at Daniel. She hadn’t had a
chance to think about that yet. She had
been shocked to see Pete there. She had
asked him why he was there, but he hadn’t been able to answer before
Osiris attacked
and after that, she didn’t have time to think about it. Pete had been
wounded,
she had gone to the infirmary with him, waited anxiously during his
surgery,
and joined him in recovery. She’d been
too busy or too dazed to ask again even before Pete developed the
complication
that killed him. After that, everything
was kind of foggy, like she was a spectator in her own body but without
the
terror of being a Goa’uld. The fog had
cleared this morning when she woke, but she hadn’t thought about it
because she
was trying so hard not to think of Pete.
But now that Daniel had asked—
Pete
had followed her to Daniel’s house. No
other explanation made sense.
“I
don’t understand,” she said finally.
“Why would he do that?”
Daniel
took a measured sip of his coffee. He
closed his eyes and spoke. “We look at
the dark so much that it’s hard not to attribute wrong motives to
people. He could have been NID, could have
been from
the Pentagon sent to watch you—again. He
could have been a sociopath. But, given
the benefit of the doubt of the doubt, I’d say he was too curious for
his own
good.”
Sam
looked at Daniel, shaking her head in amazement. “I
don’t know how you do it, Daniel, how you
look at people and still see the good in them.”
“I
have to, Sam,” Daniel told her with a small smile.
“It’s the only way I stay sane.”
Remembering
the time that he had been misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and locked in a
mental
institution and more recently was inhabited by twelve other
consciousnesses,
Sam grimaced. “Daniel, you’re not
crazy. You never were, and I don’t think
you ever will be.”
“You
don’t think it’s crazy to believe in human goodness after all we’ve
seen? To
seek peaceful resolutions when the people involved are just going to
kill each
other or us anyway? To believe that we
can make any sort of difference out there?”
Daniel sighed and put down his coffee.
He lifted his glasses with his fingers as he rubbed the bridge
of his
nose. “How did this conversation get to
be about me again?”
“I
don’t know,” Sam answered with a smile, “but I’m glad it’s not about me
anymore.”
“Oh,
we can make it about you again,” Daniel began teasingly, but he was
interrupted
by the doorbell before he could make good on his threat.
“Twenty bucks says that’s Jack and Teal’c.”
“No
bet,” Sam shook her head as she got up and went to answer the
door. Jack and Teal’c. Daniel
was right. But they could have debated who
really won—not
that she’d bet or even disagreed—because Janet was with the colonel and
Teal’c. “Daniel, look, it’s the colonel,
Teal’c, and Janet.”
Daniel
said something under his breath that must have been a curse in one of
the many
languages he knew. He rose to his feet
and met the others at the door, crowding the hallway.
He avoided meeting Janet’s eyes and pasted on
a fake smile, clearing his throat and clapping his hands together as he
spoke
in a loud, falsely cheerful voice.
“Great. Guys, now that you’re
here, I’ll leave Sam in your capable hands and go back to my house to
shower
and clean up.”
Sam
shot him a death glare, revoking his stay of execution.
If he left her with them, the good will that
he had bought with his breakfast was gone.
The
colonel nodded, accepting Daniel’s suggestion.
“Sounds good. Hey, T, why don’t
you take Daniel back to his house?
Wouldn’t want to leave him alone, now would we?
He might be stalked by another
ex-girlfriend.”
Daniel
glared at the colonel. Sam didn’t know
how her CO could manage to be so insensitive.
Under other circumstances, that remark would have been funny,
but Daniel
had only lost Sarah yesterday. Besides,
it hadn’t really been Sarah stalking him; that had been Osiris.
Daniel didn’t bother to correct O’Neill; he
didn’t say anything, just handed his keys to Teal’c and walked out of
the
house. Teal’c glanced at the colonel and
followed Daniel.
Sam
looked at Janet. The doctor rolled her
eyes. “Really, Colonel.”
O’Neill looked at her, shrugging in
confusion. “What?”
“Are
you well, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c asked as he stopped the car at a red
light.
Startled,
Daniel jerked his head up and looked over at Teal’c.
He had been staring out the window, then at
the armrest, lost in thought, until Teal’c spoke. “I’m
fine.
Why do you ask?”
“You
have not spoken since we left Major Carter’s house,” Teal’c
answered. “It is unusual for you to maintain such long
periods of silence.”
“Unless
Jack orders me to,” Daniel agreed with a small smile but little
humor. He turned back towards the window as the car
started moving again. “I’m fine, Teal’c,
really. I was just thinking.”
“About
Sarah Gardner?”
Teal’c’s
question was an out, and Daniel should take it.
He knew that. Of course, it made
sense. He should be thinking
about
Sarah right now. After Sha’re was taken,
he couldn’t stop
thinking about her. He remembered
telling Sam about the way that his mind kept racing with all the
possibilities
of Sha’re’s existence. He hadn’t told
Sam about the nightmares, though she probably knew about them
anyway. The whole team probably knew about them. He
couldn’t believe that he had never cried
out in his sleep, not when he dreamt about Sha’re blaming him, killing
him, or
him being forced to kill her. When Sarah
had been taken, he hadn’t dreamt so much about Sarah blaming him or
even being
killed by her, but of being forced to kill her, forced to watch her die
as he
had Sha’re. He had promised himself that
it wouldn’t come to that. Sarah would
not have to die; the Tok’ra could save her.
They hadn’t, but they’d never gotten the chance.
“Then
it is Major Carter who concerns you,” Teal’c interrupted Daniel’s
thoughts. Daniel was grateful for the
interruption, but at the same time, he wasn’t.
He hadn’t wanted to admit it was Sam who had been occupying his
thoughts. Or why.
“I
think I said something to Sam that I shouldn’t have,” Daniel drew his
words
out, made it sound like he was reluctant to say them.
It was enough of the truth that it should
fool Teal’c, who was more observant than he was given credit for.
Hopefully, Teal’c wouldn’t notice.
“You
are concerned about the suspicious nature of this Pete Shanahan’s
presence at
your home,” Teal’c observed with unnerving accuracy.
Daniel
nodded. He glanced at Teal’c, then back
at the window, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.
The last thing Sam needs is to start thinking
that her boyfriend was only trying to get information out of her.
Still, it bothers me. After
what she told me about his questions
about her work, his presence at my house is too…suspicious.”
“O’Neill
shares your concern,” Teal’c informed Daniel, causing Daniel to look at
him. Teal’c’s eyes were focused on the
road in front of him. “He ordered a
background check on Pete Shanahan. So
far, it has turned up nothing. It could
well be that this man was no more than he claimed to be.”
“Just
a cop who got too curious,” Daniel said, shaking his head.
He became overly fascinated with the writing
on the side mirror. Not aware he was
speaking aloud, he continued to mutter to himself.
“I would never say this to Sam, but she sure
can pick them.”
“Of
what do you speak?” Teal’c asked, though Daniel was certain that Teal’c
must
have heard the phrase before and was using his presumed ignorance to
force
Daniel to explain himself.
“Oh,
it’s just Sam’s track record with men,” Daniel tried for a dismissive
tone, but
Teal’c managed to give him that disapproving eyebrow lift before
turning his
attention back to the road. “Sam tends
to attract the intellectuals who are sweet but odd, like Martouf /
Lantash, Narim,
and Orlin. Then she picks the macho
type with issues like Jonas Hansen, Pete, Jack…”
Daniel
cursed, realizing that he had broken the team’s unwritten,
unacknowledged
rule. No one on SG-1 ever discussed the
unspoken feelings between Jack and Sam.
Everyone knew about them, not just the other members of the team.
For the most part, everyone wanted to pretend
those feelings didn’t exist, or if they did, that no one knew about
them. Daniel himself never liked to think
about
them. He knew that Jack and Sam had
never acted on what they felt for each other, but just knowing what was
between
them made Daniel uncomfortable. It
wasn’t only the looks, the glances, or the careful-not-to-touch
touches, but
the knowledge that he had shared that kind of special connection with
Sha’re
and would never have that again made him jealous.
“You
believe Major Carter’s feelings for O’Neill to be ill-advised?”
That
question was too close for comfort.
Daniel should never have said anything.
“He’s her direct superior, Teal’c.
It could cost both of them their careers and the program.”
Before
Teal’c could respond with an observant that is not the only reason
you feel
this way, Daniel Jackson, they pulled up in front of Daniel’s
house, and
Daniel practically bolted out of the car.
He dug his keys of his pocket as he waited for Teal’c, who got
out of
the car slowly, standing next to it.
“This subject makes you uncomfortable, Daniel Jackson.”
“Yes,
it does,” Daniel agreed a bit snappishly.
He stopped, closed his eyes, and sighed.
“Can we drop it, please?”
Teal’c bowed his head in acknowledgement
and
followed Daniel into the house.
Sam
watched her front door close as Teal’c followed Daniel out of the
house. She felt panic overtaking her again, though
she wasn’t sure why. She shouldn’t be
panicking because she wasn’t alone.
Janet and Jack were here. Jack was even standing too close for
comfort. But Daniel was gone, and Sam
found his absence unsettling. She had to
fight a panic driven urge to run after him.
She wished she could have gone with him to his house and hated
herself
for the dependency that she had developed.
She would be fine without Daniel.
Jack and Janet were here, and Sam was determined.
She was going to kick this dependency before
it really took root.
She
forced a smile for the others’ benefit.
She knew what they wanted, why they were here, to make sure that
she was
all right. And she was.
Or she had been until Daniel left. She
wouldn’t call panicking all right, but
the panic that she felt a few minutes ago was almost gone, so she would
be fine
again soon enough.
Janet
immediately started to corner Sam. The
colonel saw the doctor moving and looked at Sam. “Carter,
I know you’ve got coffee somewhere.”
“In
the kitchen,” she answered. He gave her
a thumbs up and headed off into the other room.
She turned back to Janet, dreading what was coming.
“Would you like some, Janet?”
“No,
I’m fine,” Janet told her, folding her arms over her chest, studying
Sam
intently. “The question is, are you?”
Sam
had known that Janet was going to say that.
She smiled again, bemused. “Yes,
Janet, I’m fine.”
Janet
laughed a little. Sam sighed and
shrugged, sitting down on the couch.
What did Janet expect her to say? Oh,
my boyfriend died
yesterday,
but life’s great? My best friend thinks he’s responsible for Sarah’s
death, but
he’ll get over it? She couldn’t say
anything, so she took a sip of her coffee, making a face when she
realized how
cold it was. Janet frowned at the coffee
cup, so Sam put it down and allowed Janet to examine her.
The doctor checked her vitals, listened to
her heart rate and made her follow the movement of her pen.
Apparently
unconvinced, Janet sat next to Sam on the couch. “Okay.
You’re physically fine—”
“Hey,
Carter, these eggs edible?” the colonel called from the kitchen.
Janet
rolled her eyes again, irritated at the interruption.
Sam, on the other hand, was grateful. She
knew what Janet was planning on asking,
and she needed time to come up with an answer that would satisfy Janet
without
telling her much—anything—if Sam could help it.
She shook her head a little. That
would never work, not with Janet.
“Daniel
made them, not me,” she called back to the colonel, sharing a grin with
Janet,
who had already heard Sam rave about Daniel’s cooking.
Her enthusiasm had convinced Janet that Sam
had actually eaten. She hadn’t believed
Sam at first.
Janet
waited, and then decided to try again.
“So, Sam, you’re physically—”
“Are
they edible?” Jack repeated with incredible timing.
This
time, Sam had to groan. She rubbed her
forehead and grimace. Janet sighed,
trying to control her irritation. Sam
would never be able to admit to Janet how glad she was that the colonel
kept
interrupting them, even if it was for the stupidest reasons. She
still didn’t know what to say to
Janet. Maybe just saying that she and
Daniel had talked would be enough.
Maybe, but Sam didn’t think so.
Janet was incredibly tenacious.
“Sir,
I think you should try them for yourself,” Sam told him.
She turned back to Janet. Maybe
a pre-emptive strike… “To
answer your question, Janet, Daniel and I
talked. It helped. Both of us.”
Surprised,
Janet looked at her. Sam smiled
inwardly. Her plan had worked. Janet was diverted.
“Daniel
talked to you?”
Sam
nodded. While it was true that Daniel
was more the type to listen to other rather than open up himself, Sam
was used
to being the one that Daniel talked to, when he chose to talk.
He’d shared his fears about Sha’re with
Sam. The friendship between Daniel and
Sam was close, their bond was strong, and she had always felt honored
that he
could confide in her. “Yes, he did. Before you ask, Janet,
I’m not going to tell
you what either of us said. That
was—is—private,
but you can guess what it was about. We
both sorted some things out—”
“Damn,”
the colonel remarked, mouth full, as he came back into the living room,
carrying a heaping plate of eggs. “Danny
boy can cook. He’s been holding out on
us.”
Sam
laughed, certain that she had discovered the reason why Daniel hadn’t
told
anyone that he could cook. The colonel
would
have made Daniel cook every meal on every mission.
Daniel considered cooking a means of
self-preservation, which suggested that he didn’t enjoy it. No
wonder he never let on that he could
cook.
Sam
smiled at her CO and teased, “Daniel told me that all men can make
eggs.”
“My
father-in-law would have agreed with you,” the colonel mumbled between
bites. Sam frowned, wondering why he
thought it was okay to eat in her living room, but she didn’t
ask. “My ex-wife would have disagreed.”
“You
can’t make eggs, sir?” Sam asked in a voice that sounded completely
shocked. The colonel pretended to look
hurt, and Janet giggled.
O’Neill
shoveled more of the eggs into his mouth.
Sam watched him and waited for a response. Janet
smiled wickedly. “Sam, the colonel’s
cooking is
dangerous. Dr. Jackson can attest to
that. I’ve had to treat him for food
poisoning twice.”
“I
thought we agreed we were never going to talk about that,” the colonel
sputtered, spewing eggs out of his mouth.
“You
agreed,” Janet corrected without mercy.
“Neither of us did.”
“Uh,
Teal’c, what are you doing?” Daniel asked, stopping in the doorway to
his
living room, still buttoning his shirt.
He had gotten distracted when he saw Teal’c standing in the
middle of
the room, holding one of Daniel’s death masks up to his face.
Normally the death masks were just intriguing
ornamentation, not discounting their cultural significance, but seeing
one on
Teal’c was just scary.
“I
was merely admiring this mask, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c answered,
replacing the
mask where he had found it.
Daniel
raised his eyebrows. Teal’c gave a small
smile, folding his arms behind his back.
“Are you ready to return to Major Carter’s house?”
He
was ready to go back to Sam’s house, and he really wanted to get back
to
her. He knew that she was okay now, that
she was in no danger. The threat Osiris
posed was over, and Sam was not any danger to herself.
She had eaten, so she was not going to starve
or get sick. She had even talked about
Pete. Emotionally, she was safe, well on
the road to recovery; minus the set back that Daniel had given her by
casting
suspicion on Pete’s actions. Even if
something was to go wrong, Jack and Janet were there to take care of
her. Daniel wanted to get back to Sam
anyway. He didn’t want to dwell on his
reasons
why. Sam is my friend, and I want to
be with her. That’s all that matters.
“Who
said I wanted to go back to Sam’s?” Daniel asked, folding his arms over
his
chest. When he opened his mouth, he had
been teasing, but by the end, he no longer was.
He didn’t want to go to Sam’s and be poked and prodded by Janet
or
hounded by Jack over his health.
“I
did not believe you would abandon Major Carter at this time,” Teal’c
told him,
inclining his head towards Daniel, his curiosity apparently
peaked. “Is that your intention?”
“I’m
not abandoning Sam. She’s fine,
Teal’c. Jack and Janet are with her,”
Daniel repeated the mantra that had been going through his head.
He wanted to go to Sam’s, he really and truly
did, but he only wanted to go to be with Sam, which was why he couldn’t
allow
himself to go back to her house. “You’ve
seen me safely home, Teal’c. I didn’t
drown in my shower. You can go back and
tell Jack I’m fine.”
“Indeed,”
Teal’c said in the way that only Teal’c could.
Daniel sighed. After seven years
together, Teal’c saw right through him.
In other circumstances, Daniel would have been grateful. He
appreciated the Jaffa’s insight, but this
time he did not want it. His friend was
too close to a truth that Daniel did not want to admit, not even to
himself.
“Does
General Hammond expect a report from me and Sam?” Daniel countered,
changing
the subject. Teal’c raised an
eyebrow. Daniel chose to ignore it,
still waiting for an answer.
“O’Neill
and I reported to General Hammond after your departure with Major
Carter. He does not wish to have a report
from you or
Major Carter at this time.” Teal’c sounded rather smug.
Daniel supposed he should be. After
all, the Jaffa had Daniel right where
he wanted him. Daniel was not going to
get out of this, however much he might want to; there was no escape.
“I
suppose it wouldn’t help if I said that I just wanted to be alone,”
Daniel
began without much hope.
“It
would not,” Teal’c agreed. “O’Neill and
Doctor Fraiser do not wish for you or Major Carter to be alone at this
time.”
“Teal’c,”
Daniel closed his eyes for a minute, then continued, “I’m fine. I
don’t want to go to Sam’s right now—”
“That
is incorrect, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c interrupted reprovingly.
“You do, in fact, want to return to Major
Carter’s house. I believe you seek to
avoid Doctor Fraiser and the examination that will no doubt take place
after
your return.”
Daniel
let out a sigh of relief. Maybe he was
wrong about Teal’c knowing Daniel’s dark secret. And
it was true that he did not want
to face Janet right now. “So…we don’t
have to go back to Sam’s house, right?”
Teal’c’s
expression did not look promising.
Sam wanted
Daniel back. The colonel had been nearly
insufferable
since he finished eating. She was sure
that it was just his overprotective mother henish instincts running on
overdrive, but he had finished all of the eggs, too, so she couldn’t
even offer
him more to shut him up. She didn’t have
anything else to feed him, so she was stuck listening to one of the
colonel’s
war stories or awkwardly fending off his questions about Pete—or Daniel
for
that matter. In addition to pestering
Sam about Daniel’s health, the colonel had teased her about the
breakfast that
Daniel had made her—Gee, Carter,
Danny must really like you—and
asked
about Pete even after Sam made it clear that she was not going to talk
about
him. Although Daniel had forced her to
talk, it had not been like this.
Janet had
tried to intervene, but that had backfired
and made things worse. The three of them
now sat in an uncomfortable silence.
Janet had taken Sam up on her offer of coffee, mostly, Sam
believed,
because it gave them an excuse to leave the living room for a few
minutes. Now they all sat, drinking coffee
and saying
nothing. Sam wished Daniel was here—he
would know how to defuse this awkward silence.
When the
doorbell ran, Sam immediately jumped up to
answer it. She opened the door and had
to restrain herself from throwing her arms around Daniel.
His presence was like an answer to a prayer,
and she was incredibly glad to see him.
She had missed him, though he hadn’t been gone all that long.
That sense of dependency was back. She focused on his shirt,
trying to hold back
the smile on her face that defied the mix of emotions that she felt.
Right.
His shirt. He was wearing one
of his button-down shirts, blue like his eyes and—her smile widened as
she
realized that he had buttoned it wrong.
“Um, Daniel—”
“Do we get
to come in, Sam?” Daniel asked with a
look of concern underneath his grin.
If she was
going to tell him that he had buttoned
his shirt wrong, it would be better if she did it while he was inside
the
house. She stood back and motioned for
Daniel and Teal’c to come in. Teal’c
bowed his head to her and entered into the living room.
He made his way over to the colonel as Daniel
followed him inside. Sam shut the door
behind them and grabbed Daniel’s arm. He
stopped, frowning at her.
“Daniel,
your shirt’s buttoned wrong,” Sam told him
as quietly as she possibly could.
Cheeks
flaming, he looked down at his shirt. “I,
um, got distracted while I was getting
ready.”
She laughed
as he ducked out of the room and headed
down the hall to the bathroom. She
hadn’t seen him so flustered in years.
She actually missed that, the days when he was more of an
innocent
scholar and less of a seasoned warrior.
Smiling to himself, she went into the kitchen and poured Daniel
another
cup of coffee. After embarrassing him
like she had, getting him a coffee was the least she could do.
Cradling the
coffee in her hands, she rounded the
corner, straight into Daniel, whose mind had evidently been on coffee
and not
where he was going. The cup collided
with his chest and splashed the steaming liquid all over him.
“Oh, Daniel,
I’m so sorry!” she cried, rushing to
put the cup on the counter and grab a towel.
She brought it back to Daniel. He
shook his head, waving away the towel and taking off his glasses.
“It’s okay,
Sam,” he told her with a rueful grin,
“I’ll live.”
He
unbuttoned the shirt, taking it off. He
was wearing a white tank top underneath,
but he had not managed to take the blue shirt off before the coffee got
on the
other one. He held it, frowning at the
wet fabric in his hands and on his chest.
He grimaced and pulled off the other shirt.
Sam extended her hand to him, taking the
shirts.
“I can wash
these for you,” she told him, trying to
ignore the dampness of the cloth in her hands.
“That’s not
necessary,” he began, but she shook her
head.
“It’s not a
problem, Daniel. I needed to do some
laundry anyway,” she
smiled at him, folding the shirts over her arm.
She patted him on the back, sneaking a moment to admire the
muscles
formerly concealed by his shirts. Daniel
had filled out nicely since he descended, and she rarely had a chance
to admire
him. Hey, she was a woman; it was
impossible for her not to notice her teammates.
They were three extremely attractive men,
and she was one lucky woman.
Daniel was
watching her, so she smiled, hiding her
interest behind his shirts as she headed off to the laundry room.
As she
started the washer, she lifted Daniel’s shirt
to her nose. Hmm. It
smelled like coffee and Daniel, a
familiar, comforting scent.
“Something
happen to your shirt, Danny boy?” Jack
asked as Daniel returned to the living room with a steaming mug of
coffee. He was holding it very carefully,
though he
knew that wouldn’t do him much good.
Without his glasses, he was far more likely to spill it, no
matter how
carefully he balanced the cup.
He sat down,
looking at his now bare arms and
chest. It was kind of cold in Sam’s
house, and he was regretting his decision to take off both shirts.
The undershirt hadn’t gotten that much coffee
on it. He could have worn it, and he
wouldn’t have to deal with Jack right now.
“I ran into
Sam.
She had a cup of coffee in her hands, and it got all over me. She
took my shirts to wash them,” Daniel
explained, feeling overly exposed.
Teal’c wasn’t looking—even if he had been, it would have been
with that
Jaffa detachment that would have made it bearable—but Jack and Janet
were
staring at Daniel like he had grown another hear.
“You let
Carter wash your shirt?” Jack asked in mock
horror, “she’ll give it back to you smelling all girly.”
“Jack,”
Daniel began long-sufferingly, “they don’t
make ‘girly’ laundry soap.”
“Sure they
do,” Jack argued, proud of his knowledge.
“You know, the stuff that smells like flowers or perfume.”
Daniel made
a face.
Sometimes Jack could be so infuriating.
Why were they arguing over the fragrance of laundry soap? Daniel
didn’t know, and he didn’t want to
know.
“I was not
aware that your method of cleansing your
garments could be perfumed, O’Neill,” Teal’c observed.
“Cassie
prefers Gain,” Janet added, warming to the
bizarre topic.
“Really?”
Jack asked. “I’m an All man myself.”
Daniel
stared at his friends, wondering if the world
had suddenly gone crazy. Aliens with
technology that greatly exceeded earth’s own wanted to kill them, were
on the
verge of invading every day, but somehow talking about laundry
detergent seemed
more insane than the existence of alien life, paranormal abilities,
time
travel, or alternate universes. He had
finally passed the point where the abnormal was normal and everything
normal
was abnormal. He sighed, closing his
eyes. It wasn’t like he could really see
anyway. He just wished that it was that
easy to turn off his ears.
He felt a
hand on his shoulder and looked up to see
Sam behind him. He couldn’t help a
smile, but she was frowning. “Are they
really talking about laundry soap?”
He nodded.
Jack noticed Sam’s return midway through a discussion of bleach
or no
bleach and stopped. “Nice of you to join
us, Carter.”
“Oh, I
couldn’t miss a chance to discuss the finer
points of detergent,” Sam responded with a grin.
“Detergent?”
Jack’s look was characteristically
blank, a desperate attempt to suggest innocence. “I
wasn’t discussing detergent. When my
clothes are dirty, I just throw them
out. Less hassle.”
The rest of
SG-1 shared a look. Sam patted Daniel’s
shoulder again and came
around the couch to sit next to him. She
wrapped her legs underneath her so that her feet were touching his
thigh. He frowned at her.
“Those better not smell.”
“I showered
this morning, remember?” Sam
teased. “Besides, only my feet are
bare.”
“So, kids,
what’re we going to do today?” Jack
interrupted before Daniel could come up with a response to Sam.
She smirked and picked up her coffee. Daniel shot her a look and
reached for his
own cup.
“Well, I am
needed on the base,” Janet said, rising
from her chair. “So, I’ll see you next
week.”
“Next week?”
Daniel asked at the same time as
Sam. They looked at each other and then
at Jack. Jack, trying again to look
innocent, shrugged. Janet picked up her
coat and walked to the door. She waved
goodbye before opening the door. Teal’c
was watching all of this with interest but saying nothing.
Daniel glanced in Sam’s direction. She
wasn’t going to ask. “Jack, what does
Janet mean, next week?”
“Hammond’s
put us on stand down for a week,” Jack
explained as he leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his
head. “Yep, whole week, nothing to do
but fish…”
“We’re on
stand down,” Daniel repeated, a bit
stunned by the news, “for a week?”
“Even if we
are,” Sam continued, sitting up,
swinging her legs off the couch and resting her hands on her knees,
“why did
she say ‘see you next week’?”
“Nope,” Jack
said, grinning in a way that Daniel
found extremely disturbing. Jack was
definitely gloating. “Hammond said he
didn’t want to see either of you on base for this entire week.
You’re going to have to get a life, kiddies.”
“Jack, I am
in the middle of a translation for SG-12
on the artifact from P4X-932. They’re
using it for a mission—”
“It’s been
given to someone else in your
department,” Jack told him. “And,
Carter, before you ask, your little science project is being handled by
some
other egghead in your department. A
whole week. What are you going to do?”
The trouble
was, Daniel didn’t know. His plan to get
past this was to bury himself
in the backlog of work that he had waiting for him at the SGC.
The way that Jack was talking made it sound
like he was going to be banned from the base, or at the very least his
office. He didn’t have anything to work
on at his house. What was he going to do
for a whole week?
He looked at
Sam, seeing the same look pass over her
face. She met his eyes and understanding
passed between them. He nodded. “I think we should talk to
General Hammond.”
“I should
have reported to him first thing this
morning,” Sam agreed, guilt accompanying this latest realization.
She was a military officer, and she had a
duty to report to her commanding officer.
Jack had come here, taken that responsibility from her, but she
still
felt that she had to report to Hammond.
She was now feeling like she had not lived up to her obligation
as an
Air Force officer, never mind that she had been in no condition to
report to
either the general or Jack this morning.
“Major
Carter, as I told Daniel Jackson, General
Hammond does not want a report from either of you at this time,” Teal’c
interjected.
“I still
think that I should give the general my
report,” Sam said, her eyes shifting to Teal’c and then back to Daniel.
“Did you want to come with me, Daniel?”
“Sure,”
Daniel answered, looking down at his exposed
chest and made a face. “I don’t suppose
you have a shirt that I can borrow?”
Sam stared
at him, her cheeks reddening. “Um, no.
I mean, there isn’t—I don’t—why would I—”
“Carter,”
Jack broke in, “I do believe you’re
blushing.”
Unable to
look at Jack, Sam got to her feet, her
face flaming red even though she was turned away. “I’m
going to go check on the laundry. Be
right back.”
She walked
out of the room. Daniel watched her go and
then looked at
Jack. Teal’c was also watching Jack,
curious. Daniel knew that Sam and Jack
flirted, but that last exchange was not their typical style. Jack
didn’t usually embarrass Sam like
that. Daniel wasn’t even really sure why
Sam was embarrassed. It wasn’t like she
should have men’s shirts around her house.
She lived alone, her relatives didn’t live nearby, and she
didn’t have
a… Oh. That
explained it. If Sam had men’s shirts, it
would mean that
Sam’s last boyfriend, Pete, had been a live-in boyfriend.
In a way, she had just discussed her sex life
with her team.
Yeah, that
would be embarrassing, especially since
Sam was the only woman on the team, and she was in love with Jack.
Definitely embarrassing. “Jack,
did you have to tease her about that?”
“Come on,
Daniel, what’s the big deal? Carter was
blushing. I had to tease her about it,”
Jack said with
a shrug.
“Uh-huh,
sure, Jack,” Daniel muttered, getting
up. He took his coffee cup with him to
the kitchen. He needed a refill.
Sam had a
new mission, even if she was on stand
down. Her mission was to get Colonel
O’Neill
and Teal’c out of her house. She knew
that Teal’c hadn’t really understood why she was blushing, but she knew
that
the Colonel did. He had to
know. Daniel did, too, but she wasn’t
uncomfortable with Daniel knowing because she didn’t flirt with Daniel.
She didn’t have feelings for Daniel that she
shouldn’t have—if she had romantic feelings for Daniel they wouldn’t be
against
regs—and he wasn’t her CO. She was
humiliated, and she wanted her teammates gone.
She was
trapped, though, because she still didn’t
want to be alone. She had already given
the matter thought while she switched the clothes from the washer to
the
dryer. The colonel was the one who had
to leave. Teal’c could stay, but he did
not understand, and as much as he tried, he could not sympathize.
Daniel understood, and he was the most
sympathetic man she knew. He had already
proved that today. Really, he was the
logical choice. How he looked without
his shirt and her strange dependency on him had nothing to do with it.
Besides, they were going to see General
Hammond and they were going to go together, as it would probably take
both of
them to convince the general to change his mind—if he was the one that
made the
decision.
Colonel
O’Neill’s smugness suggested that he was a
part of the decision, if not the one who made it. She
thought it was possible that the colonel
was claiming that the general ordered this when it was what he wanted.
O’Neill had been after Daniel and Sam to “get
a life” since the beginning of the Stargate program, and now the
colonel was in
a position to make them do it. He was
enjoying this. If she and Daniel
couldn’t convince General Hammond otherwise, they would have to do
something to
make Colonel O’Neill regret his plan.
Sam returned
to the kitchen where Daniel stood,
slowly drinking from his coffee cup. He
saw her and smiled over the rim. “Hey,
Sam. You look like you’ve been
thinking.”
She nodded,
wondering just how he knew that. “I think
the colonel may have gotten that
order for our leave—”
“On
purpose,” Daniel interrupted, finishing her
thought, “to force us to ‘get a life’ as he puts it.”
“Exactly,”
Sam agreed, smiling. It always amazed her
when they thought on the
same wavelength, even after all the times it happened, even after all
of these
years. She loved when they completed
each other’s sentences. It was something
that she had really missed when he ascended, their shared communication.
“So, you
think that we should do our best not
to get a life if we can’t change the general’s mind,” Daniel continued,
smiling
widely when she nodded. “Okay. Well, it might sound
strange, but in the
seven years that I’ve lived in Colorado, I’ve never been to the Museum
of
Natural History.”
“And I’ve
never been to the Museum of Space
Exploration,” she admitted. “So if you
take me to the history museum, I’ll take you to the space museum.”
“Sounds
good,” Daniel agreed, returning to his
coffee. He finished it and turned to the
counter, refilling his cup. “Any other
geeky things we can do?”
“Geeky?”
“As Jack
would put it,” Daniel explained
distractedly, waving his hand. “Let’s
see… Can you believe I’ve never been to Mesa Verde, either?”
“Really?”
Now, that surprised her.
She wasn’t sure she believed what he told her about the museum,
but she
couldn’t believe this. An archaeological
site like that, only a few hours away from the base, and Daniel had
never been
there?
His grin was
rather wicked. “No, but I’d like to go
again.”
Sam giggled.
She should have known. “Okay,
we’ve got three days of ‘geeky’ activities.
I’m not sure that this qualifies, but I’d like to do some
hiking, take
my bike up to Rocky Mountain National Park.”
“You mean
your motorcycle? I guess we could
spend one day
apart. I mean, um,” his face had gotten
red again. “I mean, it’s not like you
and I were going to spend the entire week together, geeky stuff or not.
I’m sure that Jack won’t let us get away
without a night at his house and—”
“Whoa,
Daniel,” Sam held up her hands, calling for
him to slow down and breathe. It had
been a long time since she’d seen Daniel so flustered that he rambled
for so
long without pausing for air. “Daniel, I
have no objection to spending my leave with you. I’d
rather spend it with you than alone or as
a team. It’s…easier. I
want to go to Rocky Mountain National Park with
you. You can tell me more than I
ever needed to know about the region’s history, and I can give you all
the
insignificant science details that you don’t need to know.”
“I thought
you wanted to take your bike,” Daniel
said, relieved by her last words but apparently unsatisfied.
Behind his coffee cup, he was as nervous and
fragile as a schoolboy.
“The bike
isn’t essential,” she told him, sympathy
overwhelming her. He must feel so lost
and useless after Sarah’s death. He
needed reassurance. “The company is.”
He smiled
widely, giving Sam another glimpse of the
man that he had once been, innocent and vulnerable.
He took a sip of his coffee. “So,
that makes four days. What about the next
three?”
“Set aside
one as the day for the colonel’s house,
and then we each pick another day’s activity.
That way it’s even. You pick
three, I pick three,” she smiled warmly, trying to decide on another
activity
that she could drag Daniel to, not that he would ever admit that she
dragged
him anywhere. “It’s a shame Cassie’s too
old for the zoo now.”
Daniel
looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “We
need an excuse to go to the zoo?”
“No,” she
stumbled awkwardly. “It’s just—I just—”
“It’s geek
week, remember? That means science stuff,
history stuff, and
stuff normal people don’t do, like go to a place like the zoo without
children
as an excuse,” Daniel teased, giving Sam a playful shove.
She laughed.
“What about
the last day?” she asked, deciding to
put him on the spot.
“I haven’t
decided.
Yet.” He held up a hand,
silencing her. “Besides, we might not
need it if we can change the general’s mind.”
“Speaking of
which,” Sam began, trying to ignore her
curiosity. She couldn’t wait to see what
he came up with, knowing that it would be good.
After all, this was Daniel. “I
put your shirts in the dryer. Hopefully,
they’ll be dry soon.”
“Oh, good,”
Daniel said, reaching for his
glasses. “Jack was getting a little…
annoying about me losing the shirt. That
was what started the whole laundry soap thing.”
“Oh,
really?” Sam asked, intrigued. “How
exactly did that happen?”
“It’s a long
story.
Tell me, Sam,” Daniel was grinning wickedly, “is your laundry
soap
‘girly’?”
Sam was
pretty sure that her cry of “What?”
could be heard throughout the house, if not the whole block.
This was
awkward.
Very awkward.
After seven
years of working together on an SG team,
after countless battles, alternate realities, weird situations, and
even death,
Daniel would have thought that there wasn’t anything that could make
things
awkward for SG-1. They’d been
through—and to—hell and back again together.
They bonded. They were a
family. Nothing could make them
uncomfortable, not this team. Or so
Daniel had thought until a few minutes ago.
Apparently,
he was wrong.
Sam had
needed time to cool off after the laundry
soap conversation, so she went down to the laundry room and stayed
there until
the dryer finished and the clothes were dry.
Daniel had waited in the kitchen for her return, two cups of
coffee
later. Jack and Teal’c had stayed in the
living room—Jack was more than likely trying to avoid Sam—so Daniel had
time to
drink his coffee and think.
Unwilling to
think about Sarah, Daniel concentrated
on picking another activity for his “geek week” with Sam.
He knew that Colorado had plenty of
“touristy” sites. He’d asked some locals
before and heard of places to visit or try, but most of them did not
predate
1850. Daniel’s area of expertise, his
specialty and focus was far more ancient.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy later history.
He did.
But all later history was built on the early history that he was
still
learning about everyday. He didn’t know
what to do for his last day.
He was still
considering his options when Sam came
back, carrying the load of laundry. She
set it on the counter and dug out Daniel’s shirts.
He took them with a smile and set the blue
one aside to put on the tank. Sam took
the laundry basket with her when she left, presumably to her bedroom.
Daniel
pulled the tank over his head, smiling to
himself as he caught the faint aroma of flowers—a fresh garden scented
detergent. He stretched the tank—the
shirt was full of static and sticking to him.
He made a face.
Sam returned
to the kitchen, humming under her
breath. He was surprised to hear it, but
glad all the same. He smiled, watching
her pour herself a cup of coffee. He
realized that he was staring, being ridiculous, and shook his head as
he picked
up his shirt.
His arm was
halfway through the sleeve when he
noticed that something was stuck to it.
He yanked it off only to discover that it was a bra.
A black,
lacey bra.
“Uh, Sam,”
he began.
She turned, and he held the garment out to her.
“I believe this is yours.”
Of course,
that was the moment that Jack walked into
the kitchen. Sam heard him and looked up,
her eyes wild and terrified. She
shouldn’t be frightened—maybe horrified was a better word—but she was.
She snatched the bra from Daniel’s hand and
disappeared down the hallway.
< style="font-family:
papyrus;">Daniel
looked at Jack. Jack looked at Daniel. Daniel
coughed. “So,
um, that—”
“Got
a thing for women’s underwear, eh, Danny boy?”
Jack asked.
Daniel
stared at him before stammering a reply.
“Nnnnooo, Jack. I—that—Sam—Look,
Sam washed my shirt. When she dried
it—static—they were stuck together—”
“Sure
they were, Danny boy,” Jack smiled. “You
keep telling yourself that.”
Daniel
glared at Jack as the older man slapped him on the back.
Sam appeared in the doorway, calm and cool,
her military persona in full gear despite her civilian clothes.
“Daniel, are you ready to go?”
He
pulled his other arm into the shirtsleeve and nodded.
Jack smiled, clapping his hands
together. “Great, kiddies.
I’ll come with.”
“Sir,
with respect, no,” Sam told him. “Daniel
and I want to change this decision. You
don’t. Furthermore, our reports need to
given without bias, without influence—without your interference, sir.”
Jack
was momentarily taken aback by Sam’s response.
Then he grinned. “So, you two are
sticking together, then?”
Daniel
inwardly groaned at the pun. Sam rolled
her eyes. With a sigh, he looked at
Jack. “One thing’s for sure.
We’re not going with you.”
Jack
started to protest, but Sam was adamant.
“Let me get my keys, Daniel.”
Daniel
watched her go, and then shot Jack a dirty look. Jack
shrugged. Daniel shook his head and
started buttoning
his shirt. Jack clapped him on the back
again as he walked away, knocking the fabric out of Daniel’s
hands. “Hey, Teal’c, want to come back to the base
with me? I left something in my office.”
“I
would be willing to accompany you, O’Neill,” Teal’c agreed.
Daniel made a face at the exchange, then
sighed, and went back to buttoning his shirt.
“Hey,
Daniel, say goodbye to Carter for me, will you?” Jack asked as he
headed out
the door.
Daniel
muttered a few choice words in various languages under his
breath.
“It’s
okay, Daniel, let it go,” Sam said, touching his shoulder.
He agreed reluctantly. The morning
had been pleasant enough. He didn’t know
why the afternoon had gotten
so screwed up, except that Jack seemed largely responsible.
Daniel forced a smile for her.
She
smiled back, then looked at him and started laughing.
He frowned at her. “Sam?”
She
didn’t answer, just reached for his shirt and started unbuttoning
it. What was she doing? It
wasn’t like he didn’t want her to—Don’t
finish that thought, Daniel. Just don’t.
“Sam, what are you doing?”
She
smiled and pulled his shirt straight, buttoning it again.
She finished and stepped back. “There.”
Daniel
closed his eyes, thoroughly embarrassed.
“I can’t believe I buttoned it wrong twice.”
“That’s
okay, Daniel,” Sam assured him. “It’s
cute. Reminds me of when I first knew
you.”
“Oh,
you mean when I was a geek that couldn’t shoot and was always getting
injured
or captured by the enemy?” Daniel suggested.
He meant it sarcastically. It
sounded bitter.
“Daniel,”
Sam looked straight into his eyes. “You
were never a geek to me.”
Sam
watched Daniel from the corner of her eye as they waited.
He was quiet, subdued, and he had been that
way for the entire drive to the base, ever since she buttoned his shirt
for
him. It was enough to make her second
guess what she had done. She and Daniel
had always been comfortable in each other’s space, so she hadn’t
thought
anything of buttoning the shirt for him.
It probably wasn’t even that, Sam thought. At
least, she hoped. She didn’t want him to
be uncomfortable with
her, especially not now, when she had lost Pete and Daniel’s presence
was so
soothing. She did not want to lose the
physical contact that had been her lifeline.
Daniel
touched her shoulder. “Sam, are you
okay?”
“Yes,
Daniel, I’m fine,” she said, placing her hand over his and squeezing it
reassuringly. She held his hand where it
was.
General
Hammond walked into his office. “Sorry
to keep you waiting, Major Carter, Dr. Jackson.
What was it you wanted to discuss?”
“It’s
the mandatory leave, sir,” Sam began, letting Daniel’s hand go.
“Daniel and I both agree that the stand down
is in the best interest of the team, but the part about not coming to
the base
or working on our projects isn’t. Daniel
and I have work that should not be neglected over the next week because
we were
told to take time off.”
Daniel
picked up the thread as she paused for air.
“General, I understand that you and Dr. Fraiser and even Jack
are
concerned about me and Sam, but the situation with Anubis and our
search for
the Lost City is too important for Sam and me to be…wasting our
time. I have several translations that could be the
key to finding the Lost City, and even with the notes on Ancient that
I’ve been
compiling since I…descended, the linguistics department isn’t really
capable of
translating it in the proper context.
And Sam has that work on the super soldiers…”
“The
Tok’ra have been working on that,” the general interjected. “I
have every confidence in Major Carter’s
abilities, but the Tok’ra have access to more advanced technology than
we
do. It is very likely that they will
come up with a solution.”
“Sir,
with all due respect, it’s not just the super soldier problem that I’m
working
on. I have several projects that—”
“Major,
Dr. Jackson, in the seven years that you have been under my command, I
have
seen you both give up sleep and food to come up with solutions to save
all of
our lives. You have literally run
yourselves into the ground. Your
injuries this time may not be physical, but they are no less
important. You both need time to heal,” the general told
them, looking straight at Daniel. “Dr.
Jackson, against my better judgment, I allowed you to continue working
after
the loss of your wife. I do not believe
that was in your best interest.”
“Are
you talking about Ke’ra?” Daniel asked
in a shocked voice. Sam herself was
surprised that the general would bring it up.
“General, that had nothing to do with—”
“I
have already made my decision, Dr. Jackson,” Hammond interrupted.
Daniel
frowned and looked at Sam. His eyes went
back to the general. “Sir, if you
weren’t going to change your mind, why did you agree to see us?”
“’Because
I wanted to hear you out,” Hammond said.
“My decision was already made, but I did
want you to
have a chance to voice your
opinion.”
“Like
Jack already has,” Daniel muttered angrily.
Sam
looked at him. She hadn’t been able to
get much of a word in edgewise, but she thought that Daniel had been
making
their point without her help. This was
the colonel’s idea.
Both of them knew it. And the
general had agreed to it for reasons
that she could understand but didn’t agree with. Further
protests would only make the general
angry, and she knew that.
Still,
she and Daniel had valuable
contributions to make to the SGC’s fight with Anubis.
They should be working, not sitting at home
doing nothing.
She
knew Daniel. He thrived on his
work. He used his work to escape and
avoid problems. He’d told her that, in
the ribbon vision that Sha’re had given him, he had left the SGC,
hoping to
take the most remote dig possible. He
wasn’t running from Sarah’s death, but he was planning on burying
himself in
work. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but what
right did the SGC have to take that from him?
“Major,
do you have anything to add?” Hammond asked.
He had chosen to ignore Daniel’s comment. Daniel
folded his arms over his chest and
glared at the general. Sam almost
smiled. He was pouting.
“I
repeat my position, sir. Daniel and I have
important contributions to make. We
can’t afford to take a week off,” Sam told him.
“Neither
of you are invaluable to this program, Major.
Doctor,” Hammond nodded to the door.
“It’s as much a recognition of your contributions as an order to
take
care of yourselves for a change. Take
this week off. You deserve it, and you
need it. Dismissed.”
“One
week, mandatory leave,” Daniel muttered to himself as he walked out of
Hammond’s office. He crossed the empty
briefing room and went to the window, looking down at the
stargate. One week mandatory leave.
He did not want to hear those words. The
stand down was one thing. This—ordering
him off base—was another. No artifacts, no
translations, just well
deserved time off. Never mind that he
was only getting it because everyone thought he was a head case over
Sarah’s
death and that Sam was a head case, too.
They could say what they wanted, that it was well deserved, that
they
were concerned, but this was a conspiracy.
Jack, Janet, even the general, had joined forces in a conspiracy
to deny
him what he really needed in a ploy to get Sam and him a life.
“Don’t
buy it, either?” Sam asked, coming up
next to him.
He
shook his head, not looking up. “No,
I…I know I have issues with Sarah’s death.
I would rather be working. I’d
feel better with a goal, something to work for.
At first, I focused on getting Sha’re back, then finding the
Harcesis,
then Sarah… When I ascended, I felt like I had failed.
Now I’ve ascended, descended, and failed all
over again. If I had a project or a
mission, it would make it easier to get through this.
I know that’s not dealing with it, but it is
for me, Sam.”
“I
know how you feel,” she told him gently, rubbing his back.
He closed his eyes; that felt good. “At
least we have our—”
“Barbeque
tonight at my house, kiddies,” Jack interrupted, coming into the
room. Daniel figured that he and Teal’c had
probably been waiting outside the other door to Hammond’s office for
Daniel and
Sam. “Beer, brawts, burgers, maybe a
little fishing—”
“No,
Jack,” Daniel said immediately, not turning to look at him.
“We’re on stand down because they want me to
get my head together, and that will not happen if we go fishing.”
He
heard Sam snort next to him. He looked
at her. She was trying—and failing—not
to laugh. Jack cleared his throat. “Okay, no fishing.
What
about the barbeque?”
Daniel
looked at Sam again, catching the smile in her eyes.
Oh, she wasn’t going to say no unless he said
it first. He turned, shaking his head
and looking at Jack. “Not tonight,
Jack. Maybe later this week, but
tonight…No.”
“Daniel,”
Jack began again, his mother hen instincts clear in that single
word. He was going to try and force Daniel into
this. Daniel did not honestly know how
to put him off, but he did know that he didn’t want to do anything with
Jack
right now. A part of him wanted to blame
Jack for what happened to Sarah, even though he knew that no one could
have
stopped Osiris from claiming Sarah’s life to avoid capture. But
if Jack hadn’t taken that shot… Daniel
knew that he blamed himself more, that he only wanted to blame Jack to
alleviate his own guilt. If
Daniel had
only known that trying to take her alive would kill her, he would never
have
done this.
“No,
Jack. I’m not in the mood for company. I think I’ll go
home, watch a documentary on
the History Channel and go to bed early.
I haven’t gotten much sleep lately, you know,” he smiled a
little,
trying to make a joke out of this.
“Yeah,”
Jack agreed, letting Daniel know that while he had “dodged the bullet,”
he
wasn’t “off the hook.” Jack and his
clichés were rubbing off on Daniel. He
smiled, shaking his head and wanting to laugh.
Jack turned to Sam. “What about
you, Carter?”
She
shook her head. “I like Daniel’s idea,
sir. Only I think I’ll pick the
Discovery Channel.”
Jack
rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what
you’re missing. Hey, T, want to hang out
tonight?”
Daniel
looked at Teal’c expectantly. Teal’c
bowed his head. “That would be most
agreeable, O’Neill.”
Daniel
smiled to himself and walked away, heading for the elevator. He
used his keycard and opened the door. He heard footsteps
approaching.
“Daniel, wait, hold the elevator!”
He
put his hand on the door, holding it open.
Sam jogged up and into the elevator, leaning against the back of
the
elevator. He smiled at her and let go of
the door, pressing the button for the ground level.
He joined Sam at the back. “Are you
okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
she asked, and he nodded. They were both
lying, but neither of them
pursued it. She was quiet.
So was he.
The silence was oppressive. He
noticed Sam was fidgeting. So was he.
“So,”
he began, raising an eyebrow.
“So?”
she echoed with a little grin that told him that she was thinking the
same
thing he was.
“So…Let’s
go to your place,” Daniel said. She
looked at him questioningly. He
shrugged. “I don’t really want to go
back to my house just yet. Definitely
don’t want to face my neighbors. I think
I have to move.”
She
laughed. “Maybe you should do that while
we’re on mandatory leave.”
“It’s
not leave, it’s geek week,” he corrected.
He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to think about it. “House
hunting does not apply.”
“I
could argue that it does,” Sam said as the elevator stopped and they
went to
the security check. “I mean, all the
comparisons, fact gathering—”
“Sam,
I don’t do that,” Daniel told
her.
“If a place meets the basics, it’s good enough for me.”
“Daniel,
you’re kidding.”
“Nope,”
he answered, holding the door open for her.
“So… your house?”
“My
house,” she agreed with another grin.
“Popcorn?”
Daniel asked, coming over to the couch with a bowl of popcorn, offering
it to
Sam, who took it with a smile.
“Popcorn
for a documentary?” she teased, tossing
a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
They had had this discussion before, ever since the colonel
teased them
about watching documentaries like feature films, eating popcorn and
drinking
sodas, and occasionally pizza with beer, like they were “watching a
real
movie.”
After the colonel’s additional remarks, Sam and Daniel had
turned it
into a private joke. He would come into
her office, say he had the pizza and beer.
Inevitably, the colonel would try to invite himself until he
heard they
planned to watch something on the History or Discovery Channel.
He hadn’t believed them the first time and
learned his lesson the hard way.
“What,
you’d prefer pizza and beer?” Daniel
completed the routine as he sat down.
Sam
smiled at him. Her heart wasn’t really
in the joke, but somehow he made her a part of hit, got her to smile in
spite
of herself. She had been fine—well, Pete
was dead, how fine could she be? — until Janet and the colonel butted
in. Janet wasn’t even so bad.
It was the colonel—God, she’d been humiliated
in front of him, twice. She
didn’t know how she’d ever live this down.
She
caught Daniel watching her with concern and forced the thoughts out of
her
head. Attempting to relax, she leaned
against him as Leonard Nimoy began to narrate.
He was both Sam and Daniel’s favorite narrator, regardless of
what he
was narrating, and today they were in luck because he was the narrator
for two
documentaries on the History Channel and another three on the Discovery
Channel.
“Is
this accurate?” she asked after a long spiel on the history of
Mesopotamia.
“As
accurate as it can be without knowing about the Goa’uld,” Daniel told
her with
a faint smile. “What he should be saying
is that sometime after the rebellion on Earth, the culture of—”
Sam
threw popcorn at him. He held up his
hands. “Okay, okay, I give.
But you did ask.”
“You
actually enjoy watching these when they’re inaccurate?” Sam continued
to
tease. Teasing kept her mind off Pete
and the colonel, which seemed unlikely since her relationship with both
men was
based on friendly banter, but now her attention was focused on
Daniel. He was good-natured enough to take her
teasing, even if maybe he shouldn’t. She
should be helping him, not using him to escape her own problems.
“Come
on, Sam,” Daniel smiled as he threw popcorn at her.
“You watch science fiction movies. You
know they’re never accurate. Just
don’t get me started on movies like ‘The
Mummy.’ I mean it.”
She
laughed, tempted to ask about Indiana Jones.
She looked back at the TV. Nimoy
was going on about the rivers and fertility.
She turned to Daniel. “I’m lost.”
Daniel
grinned. “Want me to explain?”
“Yes,”
she told him, calling his bluff. But he
smiled, muted the TV, and launched into his lecture.
She leaned against him again, and he wrapped
his arm around her shoulder as he painted a vivid picture of a
civilization
long lost. She missed having him do
this. And she missed the sound of his
voice. His lectures were always
animated, and the more he got into his subject, the more beautiful it
became. She closed her eyes, her mind
drifting off to a far off place…
Daniel
didn’t know when he’d started talking to himself, but he realized that
he was
the minute Sam started to mumble about the pretty flowers.
He stopped mid-sentence and looked down at
her, a smile overtaking his face as he watched her.
She was so calm and peaceful; it warmed his
heart to see her like this. He knew that
she was having a much harder time with Pete’s death than she would
admit—even
to Daniel. She had lost someone that she
cared about—he should probably admit to himself that Sam loved Pete—and
she
needed time to heal. It was too soon to
expect her to be better or at peace, but at least she was able to sleep
without
a nightmare.
He
wasn’t sure he could say the same about himself. He
was coping better than anyone
expected—himself included—with Sarah’s death, but that didn’t mean he
would be
free of nightmares. He couldn’t sleep,
didn’t want to, and he didn’t think that was a good sign.
After
all, he wasn’t sure why he was coping so well.
Helping Sam had given him a place to focus on, a way to escape
dealing
with his problems. Maybe he had become
so good at denying his problems that he could fool himself. Maybe
it was because he and Sarah had been
together for only two months, and their relationship had been over long
before
the Stargate program and Abydos and Sha’re.
The desperation that he had felt to get Sha’re back had showed
him how
different his feelings for Sarah were.
He had let his work come before her.
It wasn’t love. Maybe it was
love, but not the same kind of love as he had felt for Sha’re.
And
Sam… Well, that was a different kind of love, too.
It
was supposed to be a best friends, almost brother and sister kind of
love. And for Sam, he was pretty sure that
it
was. He knew it wasn’t for him, not that
he could—or would, really—ever do anything about it.
He knew she loved Jack. Everyone
on the base knew after the
za’tarcs, but Daniel had seen it long before then.
He’d noticed Sam’s interest in Jack during
the incident with the crystalline entity from P3X-562, and he had seen
the way
Jack reacted to Sam’s decision to stay with Cassie.
That was more than a commanding officer about
to lose a subordinate. If Daniel had any
doubts, the alternate realities erased them, and the za’tarc incident
was just
further proof.
When
Sha’re was out there, when he hoped to get her back, and even for a
while after
his death, he hadn’t cared what went on between Sam and Jack.
When Daniel had finally realized that he
cared, it was like a kick in the gut. He
had found a way to cope, hid it as well as possible, and went on,
slowly losing
the will to stay. Sam wasn’t the only
reason, not at all, but ascension could not have come soon
enough. It was a good thing that ascension didn’t
make someone omniscient, or Oma would have know that he was running.
Now
that he had descended and regained his memories, he knew all over again
the
pain that was loving Sam without ever being able to tell her, knowing
that she
was in love with his best friend, knowing she would never be his.
He was just fortunate that the only time he’d
let anything slip had been before he got his memory back, and he could
blame it
on that.
He
looked down at Sam again. She was
beautiful when she was sleeping. And he
was in trouble. He had to stop thinking
about her this way. He needed to
leave. He needed to get up off this
couch and go home, let distance clear his head.
He tried to get up, but Sam was a dead weight.
After all these years and the physical
improvement that he had made in those years, he couldn’t seem to get
her off
him. It had to be partially
psychological. A part of him didn’t want
to move her.
“Sam?”
he asked, nudging her a little. He
should try and get her to sleep in her own bed.
She stirred a little. “Sam, come
on. You need to go to bed.”
“Here
is good,” she mumbled into his chest, snuggling close, and a part of
him agreed
with her.
“No. Come
on, Sam.
You need to sleep in your bed.
And I need to go home.”
“No,
stay with me, Pete,” Sam whispered in panic, grabbing onto his
shirt. Ouch.
That hurt. He was not
Pete. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be
anything like Pete. He wanted to get out
of here. His chest hurt.
He was having trouble breathing—this was all
so stupid. It was in his
head,
and he knew better than this.
He
jerked himself out from under her, and she fell onto the couch,
waking. She looked up at him, confused.
“Daniel?”
“Oh,
um, sorry, Sam. I had to…I have to go to
the bathroom. It didn’t mean to wake
you. I’m sorry,” he repeated and took
the opening that he’d given himself, disappearing into the bathroom.
Once
behind closed doors, he splashed water on his face.
What was he doing? Yes, Sam needed someone
right now. She shouldn’t be alone. Yes, he was probably the
best person to be
the someone who stayed with her, with the exception of Janet or Jacob,
but
neither of them were here now. He was
just having trouble remembering that Sam didn’t love him, didn’t think
about
him that way. It shouldn’t be that
hard. He didn’t usually think about her
this way that much, either. Sarah’s
death and Sam’s close proximity had lowered his guard, and now he was
facing
the consequences of that loss of control.
He
breathed deeply. He could do this,
shelve and compartmentalize what he felt until he got home. Sam
wouldn’t have to know—she’d never known
before—and tomorrow he would be as composed as usual.
He would have his feelings under
control. He would go back to being Sam’s
friend, nothing more.
It
was all he would ever be.
Sam
was too tired to keep her eyes open. She
didn’t want to sleep; she feared it. But
she could not resist it. Stress and
exhaustion had overtaken her. Her head
was heavy and fell back onto the couch.
Her eyes fluttered, then closed, surrendering to the darkness
all around
her.
She
fell.
Dry leaves and underbrush
crumpled under
her hands
and knees. She forced herself back onto
her feet. She had to move, had to
run. She couldn’t stay here.
It was behind her, that terrible dark shadow
that had taken her away from everyone she loved and cared about.
Everyone was dead; somehow she knew that,
even if she had not seen them die.
She
was alone.
She
didn’t know how long she had been running.
It felt like days, but it could have been only hours. Her legs
and chest were on fire.
Everything ached. She had been
wounded in the hip, making it
difficult to run, and she’d hit her head hard enough for a
concussion. The dizziness and loss of blood were making
her sick. She could hardly see.
She
was surrounded by trees, a whole forest.
She didn’t know which forest. She
could be anywhere. Her pursuer was not
far behind her. She could hear him in
the underbrush. He would not stop until
he found her. He was some sort of
faceless evil, unstoppable, bent on her destruction.
She
didn’t believe in demons. Years in the
Stargate program had disabused her of any belief in the
supernatural. Weird things happened, but they always had a
scientific explanation. Parasites that
claimed to be gods, beings that existed on a higher plane, those she
believed
in. Not demons. This
was not some fiend sent from hell to
destroy her.
But
it was evil. She believed in evil. And its mission was her
death.
It would not stop until it achieved that
goal.
She
tried to think. It was so hard. She was running so fast and
in so much
pain. But her pursuer had to have a
weakness. She’d fired her weapon at
it—she knew she had. She was a military
officer. That was standard procedure. If her weapon—if a
full clip from a P90
didn’t work, then something else had to.
She
couldn’t get a hold of a zat or energy staff, not here, not in the
middle of
the forest. She couldn’t try those. They probably wouldn’t
work, either. She could not kill that thing with a
conventional weapon. She needed
something else.
Think. What
was its weakness? It was hunting her with
a single mindedness
that could be its undoing. That was what
she had to concentrate on, a way to use that against it. She had to
find a way.
If
there was someone else here, anyone else, they could create a
diversion, split
the trail, confuse the hunter. But she
was alone. She was completely alone,
except for the thing chasing her. It was
still out there somewhere, coming, always coming.
She
saw a figure ahead of her, somewhat familiar.
This one was not the same as the one pursuing her.
A friend?
She had to follow it—had to see who it was, if they could help
her. “Wait!”
The
figure ran faster. She couldn’t keep up
the pace. “No, don’t leave me!”
An
energy blast hit her from behind.
She woke up
screaming.
“Sam,
shh, it’s okay,” Daniel told her, rushing into the room.
He took her into his arms, and she shuddered,
sobbing against his chest.
“Daniel,”
she whispered between sobs, “I was so scared, so alone…”
“Sam,
it’s okay. I’m here,” he assured her,
running his fingers through her hair soothingly. “I’m
here.
You’re not alone. I promise I
won’t leave you alone.”
Sam
held onto him tightly. Daniel would
never leave her. She knew that. Then why was she so
scared?
Because he had left her. He’d
died, he’d ascended, and he’d left her
for a year. “Daniel, don’t ever die on
me again.”
Daniel
pulled back a little and looked at her. “What?”
“Don’t
die again. Please. I
need you.
I can’t…you can’t leave me again…”
He
forced a smile. “Sam, I can’t promise
that. I’ll do my best not to, but I
can’t guarantee it.”
“Okay,”
Sam agreed shakily, knowing that she couldn’t really ask that of
him. “But you won’t leave tonight?”
“No,”
he touched her face reassuringly and then hugged her close again.
“I won’t leave, Sam. I
promise.
Let’s get you to bed.”