Another Life by Mandarax
Summary: a year into their Odyssey adventure, Sam and Daniel talk. Unending episode tag.
Disclaimer – Not mine but since TPTB stranded them again so I had to help.
Rated T.
**
She'd been sitting on the floor of the observation deck of the Odyssey, staring at the Ori blast that was years from reaching their time bubble for what seemed like hours. She could imagine the blast moving closer and closer while sitting there - her back against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her fingers aimlessly turning a ring round and round on its chain.
It's been a year since she'd stranded them in that damned time bubble. It's been nine months since Vala jumped Daniel and he stopped refusing. It's been six months since she'd given up on wearing the uniform. It's been three months since Cam stopped blaming her.
A whole year had passed. 365 days. Nine months more than she'd expected. And worst of all – she was no closer to a solution than she had been a year earlier.
Hank – they were on first name basis now – told her, kept telling her, not to give up, to keep trying, to go on, there was plenty of time to figure this out. In the meantime they'll have that vacation they all needed. He'd always found the glass half full.
She'd been trying to work on a solution since she woke up that morning and finally her mind couldn't take staying at the lab anymore. She wandered around with no actual destination in mind for a while until she found the observation deck deserted. None of them bothered coming there anymore.
Staring at the flash of light didn't help much. Closing her eyes and leaning her head back, Sam sighed.
She'd known he was watching from the door for several minutes. Since he'd first come to find her, really. They've known each other for 11 years now. They could read each other like an open book. He knew when she needed him to just be there for her. He probably knew better than she did these days.
Long moments pass before he finally slides down the wall to sit next to her.
"Hey," he says simply.
"Hey," is her weak response.
"You okay?"
She doesn't know how to answer that. No, she really isn't, but she's supposed to be the strong one.
"Sam?"
She lifts the ring she's been playing with and shows it to him, holding it between thumb and forefinger.
"He asked me to marry him. Right before this mission."
He nods. "I know. We bought the ring together."
"I know." She sighs again, her fingers fiddling with the ring again.
He takes the ring from her, snaps the clasp of the dog-tags chain open and fishes the ring out.
"You should wear it. He'd want you to."
Taking her hand in his, he puts the ring in her palm and closes her fingers around it.
"I miss him so much," she whispers, her hand still in his.
"I do too, actually." He rubs circles on her hand with his thumb. "Though if Vala is driving us up the walls when she's bored, can you imagine how Jack would have been?"
She chuckles, "He would have tormented you me and Teal'c. Not so much with the others. At least in the beginning."
"Yes, we would have had to suffer the brunt of it," he agrees.
The smile is gone from her lips now. "I would have been happy to… Just to have him here."
He nods. He knows.
The silence hangs between them and he keeps caressing her hand.
"Vala isn't that bad," she smiles softly at him.
He shrugs. "Not with you, maybe." Then he smiles.
She leans her head against his shoulder.
"Took you two long enough."
He snorts. "Took us long?" He gives her an incredulous look. "Eight years, Sam. Eight years of watching you two dance around each other."
She chuckles; they've had this conversation hundreds of times. He knew it wasn't really up to them all that time, and that once they could, once Jack wasn't at the SGC anymore, once she was at Area 51, they got together. He was the only person in the galaxy who knew that they'd spent their last evening under the same chain of command in bed, "sticking it to the man", as Jack put it. At midnight, when he was finally not her CO, he kissed her senseless.
She sighs again, her thoughts lingering on that night.
"What if we die out here, Daniel? What if I can't figure this out?"
He squeezes her hand, still in his. "You will. You always do."
Another several moments of comfortable silence pass between them.
Finally, with a sparkle in her eyes, she says, "You're still in that touchy feely phase. It's disturbing."
He grunts. He isn't going to bother answering that one.
"Were we like that in the beginning too?"
He rests his head against the wall behind him, closes his eyes. "You still are." He had to keep reminding her that this isn't their real life, real as it sometimes seemed. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. You're disgusting, the two of you together. Always a hand here, a finger there, you're always kissing. Like you're both 16 years old. Really disgusting."
She laughs softly and he smiles without looking at her.
"Do you think he's moved on? Found a younger, better looking woman?"
The uncertainty in her voice makes him open his eyes and look at her. His hold on her hand tightens.
"Sam, it's only been, what, a few minutes for him? But had it really been a year? No, I don't think he'd have the strength. He loves you too much. You're his lobster."
She smiles through unshed tears at the old story about lobsters bonding for life.
"You'll get us out of this," he says again as he pushes himself up to his feet, pulling her up behind him. "You have to; I'm not letting you slip out of having this wedding."
She wipes her tears with her thumbs. With a smile she says, "Unlike the last two, I actually want to be in this one."
As they walk out of the observation deck, she slips the ring onto her finger. A reminder of the life that awaits her when this one is over.