What Hurts the Most

Brigadier General Jack O'Neill was startled as klaxons started to blare through the entire underground base at Cheyenne Mountain. He almost swore out loud, but stopped himself when he looked at his watch. He realized that the premiere team of Stargate Command, SG-1 was due to arrive at this time. Getting out of his chair, Jack left his office and the briefing room, down the flight of stairs into the control room.

The sight of the Stargate from the control room window never ceased to amaze him the least. With the last of the seven lights that represented the points of origin, the quartz-made device activated. A water-like substance splashed forward and retreated, like a drop of water on a still surface. A metal shield swirled around, covering the open portal of the active device.

" Receiving IDC. It's SG-1, Sir," An airman informed Jack, who mentally chided himself for not remembering the man's name. It suddenly popped into his mind as the airman spoke again. " Incoming communication. Radio only."

" Patch it through, Wells," Jack ordered the airman. " SG Command to SG-1. Go ahead, SG-1." He imagined that it was Major Samantha Carter calling in with something about Daniel finding something of interest on the planet, mainly ruins or something of the sort, or even a population.

" Sir, we're under heavy fire. Advising that we are coming in hot with Ry'ac," A woman's voice shouted over the weapons' fire on the patched in radio communication.

" Carter, you have a go. Wells, open the iris," Jack said, silently watching as the metal iris opened and four people stepped through the watery substance, or as Carter's mumbo-jumbo called it, the event horizon of a wormhole, dilating time as people traveled to other planets that were many light years away from dear old planet Earth. " Debrief in half an hour, people."

Daniel Jackson brushed a hand nervously through his brown hair as he walked through the corridors, the other hand clasped nervously around a velvet box in the jacket pocket. Blue eyes shifting restlessly as he watched out for her, he idly wondered what Sam was doing. He didn't want to interrupt her while when was in the middle of her work, whatever she probably would be working on at the moment.

He was in luck. Sam was alone, sipping coffee from a mug as she stared at her computer screen, which was dark.

" Hey Sam," Daniel said, entering the room. He startled her with his voice he realized when he saw her jump slightly at the sound of it.

" Daniel. Please don't do that. I was trying to figure out how to get Prometheus' hyper space engine working at a higher capability than it is now," She told the linguist as she put the cup of coffee back down on the desk in front of her.

" Sorry. I wanted to ask you something important and it couldn't wait," Daniel said, closing the door to Sam's lab behind him. He quickly went to her side and knelt in front of her, gazing up into her beautiful face with her grey eyes and short blond hair. " Sam, will you marry me?"

Sam couldn't believe what she had just heard. Did Daniel actually ask her to marry him? Wide-eyed in disbelief, Sam's mouth worked silently. Finally snapping out of her trance, she looked down at the still kneeling Daniel.

" I…. Sure, I mean yes. Yes, I will marry you!" She cried out, hugging tightly him for a moment before letting him put the diamond ring on her finger. They kissed deeply, never hearing the door open as both Jack and Teal'c, the alien member of SG-1, walked in on the spectacle.

" We didn't just see that, did we?" Jack asked Teal'c, who merely raised an eyebrow in silent response. " Just what I thought. Are we interrupting something here, kids? 'Cause if we are…"

" Oh, sorry Sir. We never heard you come in," Sam tried to explain as she broke the kiss she had pleasantly shared with Daniel a moment ago. " I, um, can explain though Sir."

" Please do, Carter. I don't want to think about what might have happened back there on P9X 768," Jack said in his usual air-head manner, hiding his intelligence as he did so.

" Daniel asked me to marry him, Sir," Carter said, holding up her left hand and wiggling her ring finger with the engagement ring encircling it.

" I think that congratulations are in order then. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere or double report duty for you," Jack said and left the lab to order champagne and four glasses from the mess hall, if they actually had any in the pantry, or wherever they kept that stuff.

" And here it was, I thought that he would be mad once he found out," Daniel whispered to Sam after Jack had left the room, placing an arm around her waist. Sam giggled at this and gave Daniel a quick peck.

Finding a priest wasn't hard. Nor was finding all essential people that were needed to fill in the roles for Sam and Daniel's wedding. Jack had offered to be best man and General Hammond had been chosen to give away Sam. Random people on the base had been hand picked to fill in the remaining positions while the rest would be part of the audience. There was one thing that was really making Daniel mad, though.

" I thought that choosing a place was simple," He sighed bitterly. In frustration he picked up a discarded pencil and threw it across the room. It hit the wall, the pencil fracturing, but it didn't break.

" Danny boy, please tell me that you aren't trying to take out your anger on some one," Jack said from the archaeologist's open door way, using a hated nickname.

Once again, klaxons began to blare through out the entire base and a disembodied voice informing the personnel that there was unscheduled off-world activation. Groaning in frustration himself, Jack hurried over to the control room with Daniel following him.

" Who is it?" Jack asked once he arrived at the control room.

" The Tok'ra, Sir," The marine on-duty replied.

Meeting with the alien in the briefing room, Jack and Daniel revealed what was new on the base and with their missions.

" Sam's getting married? To Daniel?" Jacob Carter, Sam's father, who had been dying of cancer and blended with the oldest known symbiote of the Tok'ra, Selmak, asked, amazed. Even though the Tok'ra were rebels of the Goa'uld, they were a dying race, being killed or mistaken as the Goa'uld on certain planets. " I'm glad to hear that, but I came here on official business this time, I'm afraid."

" What's the Council got you assigned to this time, Jacob?" Daniel asked his soon-to-be-wife's father.

" I've been assigned to infiltrate Ba'al's forces. We've received word that he's assembling armies as we speak," Jacob informed them. " We need to know if you have some available personnel to help us in gathering information, maybe even sabotage their weapons systems."

" I think that SG-14 is free, and take Teal'c. The priest has been given clearance, but not high enough. Teal'c might be a little disappointed not to be at the wedding, but we'll record it for all of you," Jack told the Tok'ra.

" I finally got it!" Daniel suddenly cried out. " Why not use the Gate room to hold the wedding?"

" It could work. I'd have to call the President to clear the priest, but it could work," Jack said and picked up the red phone on his desk.

Jacob left to find SG-14 and Teal'c while Jack was speaking on the phone with the President. Not all that long after Jacob had left with his help through the Stargate, Jack was off the phone and telling Daniel the news.

" The President's giving you kids the all clear to hold the wedding in the Gate room. The priest's cleared to conduct the ceremony here," Jack told the linguist, watching in amusement as Daniel ran out of the briefing room to find Sam and tell her the news.

The wedding day came by fast. Daniel had everything prepared and was waiting for Sam at the base of the Gate ramp with Reverend Colby and Jack.

All too soon, Sam walked in with General George S. Hammond. The music had begun a while ago. Sam's grey eyes sparkled with happiness as she walked in time to the music. He was handsome in a suit, and yet she never realized it, remembering the time she had moved up in ranks to Major.

Daniel watched as Sam made her way to him. She was beautiful in a wedding dress. He couldn't see her face because of the veil, but he was sure that she was smiling behind it. Once she reached his side, they faced the priest, saying " I do" one by one as they were told the vows.

" I proclaim you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride," Came the priest's long awaited words. Grinning, Daniel lifted the veil and kissed Samantha Jackson, his wife.

Some where in the shaft above the Stargate, a pair of eyes glittered maliciously as their owner tightened his finger around the trigger of the silenced sniper rifle.

Daniel jerked as incredible pain exploded across his chest. He crumpled to the ground, vaguely aware of Sam calling out to him, or her arms around him as she begged for him to hold on. He took his last breath in her arms as she held him in shock, her white wedding dress turning pinkish red from the blood.

Marines burst into the Gate room, weapons aimed at the shaft. They fired almost as one, the corpse of the assassin tumbling down lifelessly in a boneless heap.

He couldn't be dead, Sam thought as she left the base weeks later after Daniel's death. Suddenly, the silence was unbearable and she turned on the radio to any station that came in. She caught a part of a song as she drove away from Cheyenne Mountain.

" What hurts the most is being so close. And having so much to say, and watching you walk away. And never knowing what could have been. And not seeing that loving you, is what I was trying to do," The song sang before she turned it off and pounded the steering wheel in anger and sadness.

Stopping her car at the edge of the road, Sam took the keys out of the ignition and slammed the door before she ran up the mountain to Daniel's memorial, tears streaking her face.

" Daniel Jackson. The man who unlocked the gate to the Heavens and helped to save the world a lot. We will miss you greatly Daniel. Semper Fi," The memorial said.

" I love you Daniel. I love you," Sam whispered as she knelt by the stone, the animals scuttling around her as she wept bitterly for the man she loved, a hand absently running over the writing on the metal plaque.

The rumble of not so distant thunder brought her out of her reverie. The rain fell in buckets within a few seconds, but there wasn't any that landed on her. Looking up, she noticed Jack standing over her with an umbrella in his hand held over both of them.

" Sir. Didn't know that you were there," Sam said as she wiped away the tears that fell down her face.

" That's all right. The guards saw you stop your car on the side of the road and start running. I figured that you'd be up here. Come on Carter, don't need you catching a cold, and Teal'c says that you won't get any of the chocolate cake that the cooks made," Jack said, gently chiding her, knowing that she had a weakness for chocolate cake.

" That sounds good, Sir," Sam said as she got up from the ground and brushed the dirt off of herself and her uniform, then made her way back to her car and the base with Jack.

Deep in the dark forest, a figure swathed in sandy brown robes watched the proceedings with some interest. It turned around, changing its form to a ball of energy as it did so and floating away, the whispered words that it said hanging in the air behind it.

" I love you too, Sam," Daniel said as he ascended with the ancients once again.