Memories of the Heart by Betty Bokor
Sam/Daniel. A mission goes horribly wrong while Sam's life is changed forever. Spoilers: All seasons, including 10 to the end.
Disclaimer: The Stargate original characters belong to MGM/Showtime, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Film Corp. This was written strictly for the purpose of entertainment. No attempt at copyright infringement has been made.

Memories of the Heart

Chapter 1

"Are you leaving?" Sam asked Cameron as she crossed paths with him in the corridor.

"Yep. I'm going home."

"Has Daniel left, too?"

"No. Last I saw, he was fretting about some symbol on the walls we explored. He's probably still in his office."

Cam left and Sam walked towards Daniel's office. Cam was right. She found her friend surrounded by a multitude of books on his desk and taking notes feverishly.

"Hey," she greeted him. "You're not going home yet? It's getting late and you're scheduled for a mission in the morning."

"That's why I'm still here, Sam. I found something that doesn't add up and I haven't been able to figure out why."

"Can I help you with it? I know I'm not part of this mission, but-"

"Don't worry, Sam. You must have tons of things to prepare to go to Atlantis. I'll be fine."

"Why don't you show me anyway? Maybe I can give you a fresh point of view."

"Well, most of it is in my quarters. I stayed up almost all night last night trying to solve this."

"Let's go see it. After that, you can go to sleep for a while. You look tired."

Daniel thought for a minute and then decided to share his dilemma with Sam.

As soon as they entered his private quarters, Sam realized how obsessed Daniel had become with the problem at hand. Everywhere there were pictures of the Ancient wall they had been exploring during their last mission. Some were hanging on the walls, many were carefully arranged on top of the bed, others on the table, and more were on the floor. Some of them had been marked with strong red symbols. She walked around the room trying to decipher a pattern to what seemed just madness. Finally she turned to Daniel, who had been quietly observing her as she looked around.

"Do you see it?" he asked.

"See what?" Sam countered.

"The extra symbol on the wall," he answered as he pointed to one specific symbol in some of the pictures.

"It's not in all the sections of the wall," Sam said after looking again.

"It's not in all the pictures. All these are from the same wall, Sam. This group here are the ones you took; these are the ones Vala took after you handed her the camera. Neither group has the symbol in it. Then comes the group that I took. The symbol is in all of them."

"How is that possible? Could anyone else have added the symbol?"

"You know there were no life signs on the planet. Besides, after I saw this, I asked Teal'c to go back and get more pictures. Cameron went with him. All these pictures were taken by them. None has the symbol."

Sam sat in one of the chairs around the table. "I don't understand," she finally said.

"I don't either, Sam. What we know is that the inscriptions on the rest of the wall give us clear directions as to how to procure a weapon that would allow us to defend Earth from any enemies. That's why we're going on this mission tomorrow. The rest, I'm just guessing."

"Do you know what the extra symbol means?"

"I think I have deciphered it. Let me show you." He got a clean piece of paper and drew a circle on it. "This is the edge of the symbol, the circle. It usually means life, as something with no beginning or end, just the continuum. Then, on top of it, there's this other sign. We've seen this one before. It means death, the interruption of life."

Sam squirmed in her chair. She did not like where the story was going.

"Then," Daniel drew one more sign, "this one opposite death, means reward, and the one between them to the left, is pain."

"What's the last one to the right?" Sam asked, feeling more and more alarmed.

"That one I haven't seen before. After checking every material we have and all my notes, I think I can positively affirm that it means torture."

"Torture? I don't understand, Daniel."

"I'm not sure either, Sam, but if I got it correctly, these lines that connect the symbols through the center are related to the general meaning of the drawing."

"How so?"

"Well, they show different paths between those four elements. Sometimes a line ends up in death. Sometimes in reward. Those are the two possible outcomes. They all go through torture and pain. I suppose it means that if you survive the pain of the torture, you'll get the reward. Otherwise-"

"Why do you think the symbol is only in your pictures? Do you think that you captured it because you were ascended before?"

"No, not really." He sat down looking at the symbol he had just drawn. "I think it means that this is my fate. Nobody else's," he finished somberly.

Sam felt a shiver run down her spine. "Maybe you should skip this mission and come with me to Atlantis for a while," she suggested.

"You've never missed a mission because you were wary of your future, Sam. You can't ask me to do that, especially with this mission. So much depends on what we're looking for on that planet... We need to get it."

"Then, you have to explain this in the briefing tomorrow before the mission. They all should pay extra attention to you-"

"Sam, I'm not going to get anyone distracted looking after me. We have an objective and that's all that matters. I'll take care of myself and if I can't change this, then, that's the way it's going to be."

Sam understood what Daniel was saying. She just did not want anything to happen to him. She was feeling particularly at fault because she was not scheduled to be part of that specific mission and she felt that she would have had a better chance to protect him than the others now that she knew the whole story. She felt tempted to tell Cameron or Teal'c, but Daniel would not like it.

"This isn't a fact that could alter the mission, just my role or my fate in it. As long as we get the weapon, the rest doesn't matter," he added.

"It matters to me," Sam said. She stood up and walked toward where he was sitting. He stood up, too, and smiled at her.

"It will be all right, Sam."

"Promise me you'll put all this away and rest for a while. I know you probably won't sleep, but at least relax and stop thinking about this for a moment. I'll help you." She turned around and started carefully collecting the pictures from the bed. Then she put them on the table. "There. I'll leave you alone, now. Promise me you'll relax."

He nodded with a tiny smile and she walked toward him to say good-bye. "I don't know if I'll get to see you tomorrow before you leave, so let me give you a hug for good luck. I'll be thinking of you." She approached him and gave him a tight hug as she had done so many times before. She stayed there against his body for a few seconds, thinking of the possibility that she would never see him again. She tightened the embrace and tried to breath in his scent to remember it later. She suddenly felt the need to show him how much she cared and, without thinking twice, she softly kissed his neck.

All his body stiffened and she thought he would push her away from him, but he remained immobile.

She felt like a rush of adrenaline had run through her; now she could not stop herself. She kissed his neck again a few times, but she wanted a real kiss, so she slowly moved her kisses toward his jaw. That was when she felt his body starting to respond to her and that was exactly when Daniel reacted and pushed her away.

He turned around and mumbled, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

She walked toward him and tried to put her hands on his shoulders, but he moved further away.

"Daniel, I am sorry if I offended you. I don't know why I did this, but I did it. It wasn't your fault. I just needed to do it. If you hadn't stopped me-"

He interrupted her with a gesture of his hand as he turned to look at her. "Sam, I didn't want to stop you. I should have. I'm so sorry that-" He closed his eyes with a gesture of impatience.

"If you're sorry because your body was reacting to what I was doing, don't. I felt the same way. If you stopped me because you didn't want to go further, I understand, but if it was because you think that I've lost my mind or I'm risking my career or something like that, then, you shouldn't, because I definitely didn't want to stop."

Her honesty bewildered him. "I didn't want to stop either," he finally admitted.

"Then don't."

He stretched out his hand and softly caressed her face. Then he got closer and they kissed. In the following minutes they kissed several times, slowly, leisurely, trying to get to know the secrets that each other had kept for the last ten years. Then Sam unhurriedly pushed Daniel's jacket off until it fell to the floor so that she could enjoy the proximity of his body. She lowered her hands, got them under his shirt, and then started pulling it up slowly. Daniel interrupted their kiss and looked at her, asking silently if she would go one step further. She tugged at the shirt once more and he understood. He took it off and then helped Sam with hers. Seconds later he took care of her bra and then they simply held each other in a tight embrace.

It was overwhelming. So many years working with each other, sitting side by side in their labs, risking their lives, fighting, even dying together, and nothing had felt as intense as this simple contact of skin against skin.