Title: Orpheus and Eurydice
Author: knightshade
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate or any of its characters. I also don't own the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, but I'm fairly certain that any copyright on that one has long since expired.
Summary: Daniel's trying to make sense of things after losing Sha're.
Spoilers: Need, Legacy, and Forever in a Day
Author's Notes: This takes place after Forever in a Day.
Orpheus and Eurydice
Surely, Sam …
But she hadn't. She'd just stared at him with eyes that were tearing up, a mixture of pain and horror.
Daniel sighed and rolled over in bed, running his hands over his face, trying to wipe away the thoughts that always seemed to stick to the remnants of his dreams. He'd been more prone to them lately, the dreams. After Sha're had placed thoughts in his mind, after living out a whole cycle of grief without actually having lost her yet, he was having the most vivid dreams. What Sha're had done was ingenious, he had to admit, but his mind was still reeling, trying to make sense of everything.
He still wasn't sure when he woke up if he was really waking up or just slipping into another phase of dreaming. It felt a little like going insane. Which, unfortunately, was a feeling he knew a little too well.
And that brought him back to Sam.
He remembered being in that padded room. He remembered the whole feeling and process of going insane. It was all just a little too painful to contemplate too deeply. But it bothered him to see his friends' reactions. It bothered him a lot. Sure, Teal'c was Teal'c – handling his emotions with stoicism and silence. He couldn't really blame Teal'c for being who he was. And Jack, well, he couldn't really expect Jack to handle the situation well either. There were a lot of things that Jack handled well, but Daniel never would have put mental illness in that list, at least not the hallucinatory, delusional types. But Jack surprised him sometimes. He'd shown Daniel more kindness and compassion after the incident with the sarcophagus than Daniel had a right to expect -- especially after he'd just failed them all so thoroughly. No, he didn't expect Jack to be able to handle the situation well, but he'd certainly hoped.
But Sam. Daniel had thought that surely she would be the one to understand, to see past the babbling incoherence and know that he was still a human being, still desperately in need of some comfort. But she hadn't. She'd stared down at him and watched in horror as he got worse and worse until he was nothing but a trembling, babbling mess hiding in the corner of the room.
It had made him long for Sha're harder than he had in months.
Jack, Sam, and Teal'c were friends and he knew they cared about him. But maybe that care wasn't as unconditional as he might have liked. Certainly they were willing to risk their lives for him, but when it came to dealing with him in a diminished capacity, they weren't so sure. He knew that if Sha're had found him like that, she would have gone to him, wrapped her arms around him, and held him until the madness went away.
And maybe in that madness, in those moments of desperation, like Orpheus, he'd sung so mournfully that the gods had seen fit to give him a chance. Could it have been a coincidence that so soon after that madness he'd found her -- found his Eurydice? But like the myth, he had looked back and she vanished from him forever. The only person who really loved him unconditionally was gone. His parents had died long ago, he was an only child, and now he was truly a widower.
And maybe he was still that babbling mess in the corner of the room. Part of him couldn't be sure. Part of him was struggling to find a foothold in reality lately.
Part of him didn't care.
For so long everything he'd done was about finding Sha're. Or finding something – some relic or bit of information, some medical procedure or plan – anything that would help her when he did find her. It was all in service of that goal. Sure, he did other things, sure he cared about the rest of the team, but it all came back to Sha're in the end.
He knew why he'd left the SGC in the dream state she'd caused. It's what he would have done if she hadn't forced him to accept what she was telling him, if he hadn't been given the new goal of finding her child. It was what she wanted and Daniel would do anything for her – even after her death.
But part of him really wanted to give up.
Sometimes it all seemed too overwhelming, too painful, and too much of a Sisyphean feat to keep going. It was tempting sometimes to think that he might still be in that padded room, that all of this, this whole madness, was just a hallucination that someday he could wake up from.
He was still human, and still in need of comfort. But for now, there was no one there who could really give it to him.
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-knightshade
January 15, 2007