Notes and disclaimer in Chapter 1...
~&O&~
"So, all I need to do is kiss her?" Pete asked for the third time.
Jack huffed impatiently from his place behind Pete. Daniel, standing next to Teal'c at the foot of the bed, glared at him, and Jack subsided. Dr. Brightman, standing on the other side of the bed, looked at Pete over Sam's unconscious form and smiled sympathetically.
"Just kiss her, Mr. Shanahan," she said, repeating her earlier instructions.
"On the lips?" Pete asked. He was stalling and he knew it, but he just couldn't believe what he was about to do.
"Yes, you doofus, on the lips," Jack said from behind him.
"Jack," Daniel said in warning.
"Oh fer cryin' out loud!" Jack threw up his hands and walked a few paces away, running his hands through his hair until it stood on end. A few deep breaths later and he was back beside Pete, nodding apologetically at the doctor.
"I know, General," she said quietly. She knew how much the Colonel meant to all the men in the room. Looking at Pete, she smiled. "Go ahead."
Pete glanced around him at Sam's friends. He didn't really relish doing this with an audience. He felt ridiculous but, knowing he had no choice, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and leaned over. Touching his lips to hers, he held his breath, expecting to feel her stir beneath him. When nothing happened, he pulled back and glanced worriedly between Sam and the doctor.
"Nothing's happening," he said needlessly.
"Give it a minute," Daniel said. "We don't know how long this should take. There wasn't anything in the instructions."
"Should the effect not have been immediate, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.
Daniel glanced at the doctor and then at Pete. His shoulders dropped minutely. "Yes, I'd imagine so," he said.
"What does that mean?" Pete asked. He glanced from one face to the next, their worry escalating his own.
"It means she didn't wake up," Jack said, stating the obvious.
"It's more than that, Jack," Daniel said quietly.
They all knew what it meant, but it seemed no one was willing to put it into words. Pete finally broke the silence.
"What's the more you're not telling me?"
Teal'c was the one who spoke up. "It indicates that you are not Colonel Carter's true love, Pete Shanahan."
"I'm not—what?" he asked. Now he was getting angry. "If you're suggesting that Sam and I aren't in love, then you're way off base."
"I am not suggesting it," Teal'c said impassively.
"But you just said—"
"The inscription on the wall states that 'only one who loves and is loved truly and well can break the sleeper from the spell,'" Daniel said quickly, hoping to avert a fight. "If your kiss didn't wake her, then maybe you're not as close as you thought you were."
"Not as—" Pete was really steamed now. "I don't believe this! Maybe you just got the translation wrong," he said, pointing an angry finger at Daniel.
"Believe me, at this point, I wish I had," Daniel said. "But I don't think it's wrong. I think we've just got the wrong guy."
"You are correct, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. "Perhaps it is O'Neill who should attempt to wake Colonel Carter."
"Me?" Jack exclaimed.
"You?" Pete asked at the same time, turning to look at the General.
"Teal'c's right," Daniel said, turning speculative eyes on Jack. "If it isn't Pete, it's gotta be you."
"And you know this because?" Jack asked, waving his hands in a 'get on with it' gesture.
Teal'c and Daniel looked at each other, and then they turned as one to look at Jack, who looked back at them, his expression blank. None of them wanted to say it out loud, but each was thinking the same thing. It was perhaps the elephant in the room of SG-1 that Jack and Sam had always had a thing for each other. Teal'c had confided to Daniel what had happened during the Za'tarc testing, feeling that he had a right to know since it was his team too, but they hadn't talked about it since.
"Oh, all right," Jack said. He stepped up beside Pete and glared down at him meaningfully.
Pete, not sure what had just happened but fairly certain it had been significant, stepped back a pace to make room for him. His mind was still stuck on the fact that his kiss hadn't woken up his own girlfriend, so the impact of what was about to happen hadn't really sunk in.
"Hell of a way to have a first kiss," Daniel muttered under his breath.
"It is, in fact, not their first kiss," Teal'c said.
Jack's head swung around, meeting Daniel's surprised gaze. He shrugged. "Groundhog Day," was all he said. The meaning was clear.
"Only you, Jack," he said, shaking his head.
Jack turned his attention back to Sam. This was so not how he'd imagined this going—and he'd imagined it plenty. Glancing at the doctor, who gave him an encouraging smile, he took a deep breath and leaned in. Closing his eyes, he brushed his lips against Sam's, feeling the remembered thrill race along his nerves at the intimate contact.
Pulling back, he looked at her face, expecting her to open her eyes and smile up at him. Nothing happened.
"Hah!" Pete exclaimed from behind him. "So, not her true love after all!"
Daniel frowned at Pete's outburst, but had to agree.
"Okay, Daniel," Jack said, turning to give Daniel an expectant look. "Now what? Think T should try it?"
"I will not kiss Colonel Carter," Teal'c said. "It would be … inappropriate."
"Teal'c's right," Daniel said. "They've never had that type of relationship."
"Well, I don't think we can get Narim or Martouf in here, so … "
Pete just watched the exchange, left as little more than an observer at this point. He didn't think the others even remembered he was there. "Are you sure you got the instructions right?" he asked. All eyes turned to him, then swung to Daniel.
He sighed. "I'm gonna head back to my office and recheck the inscription. Maybe there's something I missed."
He ambled off towards the elevator, leaving the rest to watch him go.
"I think I'm gonna go beat the crap out of a punching bag," Jack said. He didn't want to go back to his office, knowing Walter would have corralled more paperwork for him in his absence, but he needed to be doing something and that sounded better than any other alternative.
"I will join you, O'Neill," Teal'c said, turning to follow his friend out of the room.
Pete watched them go. He envied them having some way to keep their minds off what was going on. He didn't have any such distraction, unless he wanted to head back to Denver and work. Glancing down at Sam, he dismissed that idea. Even if his relationship with Sam turned out not to be what he thought it was, he couldn't leave until he knew she'd be okay.
"Would you like something to eat or drink, Mr. Shanahan?" Dr. Brightman asked, breaking into his thoughts.
"Some coffee would be nice," he said, smiling gratefully at her.
"I'll have one of the nurses bring you down a cup," she said. Pulling a stool from a dark corner of the room, she set it next to the bed. "If you need anything else, just press the call button."
And with that, she squeezed his shoulder and left the room, leaving a very confused Pete Shanahan to wonder what had just happened.
~&O&~
Daniel sat in his office, staring at the monitor on his desk, open notebooks and pages strewn about him. The office was nearly pitch black, the only light source the meager lamp on his desk. Not that he'd noticed—he was too deep in thought.
The image on the screen was a still shot of the section of the wall at the temple that gave instructions for what to do with the "sleeper" once the ritual had been completed. Daniel had been staring at it for the last hour, hoping that the glyphs would somehow change, or else he'd have a flash of insight that would answer the one question occupying his mind: why hadn't it worked?
He'd wondered if he'd mistranslated something—misinterpreted the glyphs somehow—or if there was a section missing that he hadn't noticed. The instructions were written in a rare, little used dialect of Goa'uld that neither he nor Teal'c had encountered before. But he'd gone over the translation a dozen times, both before they'd called Pete and after. He didn't think they'd gotten it wrong, and nothing was missing that he could find.
The instructions said that the sleeper could only be awakened by someone that loves and is truly loved. That could mean anything, but Daniel knew from experience that the Goa'uld were rarely oblique in their inscriptions. So it had to be someone that Sam loved and who loved her in return.
Pete's kiss should have woken her, but even though it didn't, that wasn't a big deal. All it suggested was that somewhere in Sam's mind, she had doubts—either about Pete's feelings for her or her feelings for him. But Jack—it should have worked. Daniel knew they had, at one time, had less than professional feelings for each other. Only a fool could have missed that. But Jack's kiss hadn't woken her either. And Teal'c—as he'd so bluntly pointed out—was out of the question.
Which meant that he was the only one of her close male friends left. Daniel tugged his glasses off his face and rubbed at his eyes, sighing as he dropped back in his chair. He let his eyes drift around the room, taking it in but not really seeing it. His mind was a million miles away, give or take.
Ever since he'd returned from ascension, he'd seen everything with new eyes. He'd seen people differently, seen his life experiences in light of the greater universe out there instead of just his small corner. He noticed things now that most people wouldn't give a second thought. He'd noticed Sam.
He didn't think he was in love with her, per se. But he knew her, saw her now as more than the Colonel he called friend. There was a softness in his heart where she was concerned, one that hadn't been there before he'd ascended. Was that all that was required for this to work? He could go up to her room and kiss her, but there was no guarantee that it would work.
And if it did? What did that say about the nature of their relationship, and how it might or could change after this? And more than that, was he ready to go down that road? If he were honest with himself, he'd finally come to terms with his wife's death. He'd always been troubled by the fact that he couldn't save her, but he'd come to realize that he couldn't save everyone, much as he might like to.
He was ready to move on, but did he want it to be with Sam, despite the complications it would bring to their lives? And more importantly, did she feel that way about him? He had no evidence that she felt anything more than friendship for him, so he wasn't convinced that kissing her was the right thing to do, but what else could he do?
He sighed deeply. His thoughts, racing out of control, had circled back around to where they'd started, and he was still no closer to an answer than when he'd begun. Putting a reign on his runaway thoughts, he straightened and stretched, then resettled his glasses on his face.
"There's only one way to find out," he said to the empty room. He closed and stacked some of his reference materials, switched off his monitor and left the room.
~&O&~
Daniel slipped into the darkened room, coming to stand next to Sam's bed. It was late, and shift change had already come and gone so he hadn't encountered many people on his way down. The room was quiet, the only sounds the constant beeping of the various machines connected to Sam and the whisper of her breathing.
Hitching up one hip, Daniel settled himself on the edge of her bed. He watched her for long moments as she slept, seeming so peaceful. Reaching out, he ran his fingertips along her forehead, gently brushing her bangs aside, revealing the smooth skin of her forehead and the arch of her eyebrows. His eyes followed the contours of her face, down along the column of her neck and to her torso.
He saw the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Reaching out again, he settled his hand above her heart and closed his eyes, feeling each beat as it pounded reassuringly in her chest, each one calming his raging nerves.
He opened his eyes again and moved his hand up to the pillow, bracing himself as he leaned down over Sam. He paused, millimeters from her face, waiting. Finally, he closed the distance between them and settled his lips over hers. Instantly he felt the sizzle of electricity over his nerves, as if he'd scuffed his feet across the floor and then touch a doorknob.
Surprised, he pulled back slightly and saw Sam's eyes suddenly pop open. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty," he whispered, a smile in his eyes. "Welcome back."
"Daniel," Sam said, then frowned in confusion. "What happened?"
Sitting up, he cocked his head. "That's a long story," he said, a small smile on his face. "Let me call Dr. Brightman, and Jack and Teal'c; then we'll talk."
She knew she was in the infirmary, could tell by the sounds and smells, but Daniel's face wasn't revealing much. Glancing over his shoulder, she saw someone in the observation room. "Why'd you call Pete?" she asked.
It was Daniel's turn to frown in confusion. Sam lifted a finger to point over his shoulder, causing him to turn and look up. Through the observation room window, he could see Pete standing, hands in his pockets, head down. There was no mistaking the look of defeat on his face.
"That's part of that long story," he said, turning back and squeezing her hand. "I'm just gonna go call the doctor."
Minutes later the room was filled with people; Dr. Brightman and her nurses were fussing over Sam, taking readings and blood samples. Daniel moved backwards until he reached the wall, trying to stay out of the way. Jack and Teal'c joined him moments later.
"She awake?" Jack asked. Daniel nodded. "How'd it happen?"
"I'd like to know the same thing," Dr. Brightman said, walking over to where the three men were standing.
Daniel rubbed his hand over his face. "I kissed her," he said quietly.
"You kissed her?" Jack exclaimed even as Teal'c's eyebrow shot up in surprise.
"So it was true," the doctor said, a hint of awe in her voice. "Did she wake up immediately?"
Daniel opened his mouth to answer, but a nurse interrupted. Dr. Brightman excused herself and returned to Sam's bed.
"Don't think you're going to get out of telling us," Jack said as he turned to Daniel.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he muttered.
Dr. Brightman returned, Sam's chart in her hands. "Well, Colonel Carter appears to be none the worse for her experiences. I'd like to keep her overnight, just as a precaution, but I don't think there will be any lasting effects."
"Then I'd like to see her before I go," Pete said from the doorway, startling them all.
To be continued...