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 36
A.N. Warning. Talk about torture.
I decided to add back some parts of the story I had taken out before posting to avoid making the story too long. The additions start on Chapter 30. I will post it complete from now on.
That afternoon, Sam did not feel very well. She was a bit dizzy and very nauseous, so she decided to go home early. She called Cam, left him in charge, and left.
She had been sick every single morning since she had gotten pregnant, but, usually, she felt better in the afternoons. She knew this week was going to be different. On Friday she would have an amniocentesis and, among other tests, her amniotic fluid would be sent for genetic analysis to figure out if her babies were healthy. As her pregnancy was a high risk one ─she was over forty years old and she was expecting twins─ Jennifer had recommended that she had the procedure done. This test was the one she feared the most, but it was not the fact that she was going to have a needle inserted in her abdomen to extract the fluid that she dreaded, but the waiting for the results. It had been nerve-wracking during Danny's pregnancy ─with a first pregnancy at almost forty Jennifer had considered it necessary─ and after getting the satisfactory results she had still cried for hours. She was not sure if it had been due to happiness or relief, or just the hormonal revolution of a pregnancy, but she had not been able to avoid it.
She wondered if Daniel would agree to go with her this time; he would give her the support she needed.
After she got home, she let the nanny go and sat in the living-room with Danny. She felt very comfortable in the large sofa that was close to the foyer. It was deep and long and allowed her to have space for both of them. Soon, Danny was taking a nap on her lap. She stretched on the sofa and carefully cradled him between the backrest and her body. In a few minutes she was asleep, too.
She probably had slept for a couple of hours, when a faint noise woke her up. She had been waking up at the slightest disturbance since Danny had been born, so she was not surprised. She paid attention and realized it was the tingling of keys in a keychain and, a shortly after, the unmistakable sound of a key turning in the door. She was amazed at the soothing sensation that she got out of thinking that Daniel was coming back home. She could not remember the last time she had given the key of her house to anyone, that was, to someone who would come into the house for her and not because she had been shoot or gotten stranded during a mission. She realized Daniel was not coming for her yet, but after three years of almost hopeless wait, at least, he was coming.
Daniel and Jack walked into the foyer and she called out to them.
"Cam said you were sick," Daniel explained before even saying hello, "so we decided to come check up on you. How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. I think I was just too tired."
Their voices woke up Danny, who asked for cookies.
"Let me help you," Jack said as he picked Danny up. "I'll take him to the kitchen and we'll get some milk and cookies."
"It's almost dinner time," Sam reminded him.
"We'll take care of that, too. You two relax for a while. We'll let you know when we're ready."
"Are you okay?" Daniel asked as soon as Jack and Danny left the room.
"Yes, I'm fine. Why don't you sit here, by my side? I don't want you to start hurting."
She started to sit up and Daniel stopped her.
"Wait. Let's try this." He put his crutch against an armchair, picked up the pillow that had been under Sam's head, squeezed himself in its place, put the pillow on his legs, and then helped Sam lie back down with her head on it.
Sam smiled. "What are you doing?"
"I think you've been doing the brave single mother routine for too long. You need to be spoiled a little. Jack and I will take care of you, not the other way around."
"You're sick; you need someone to take care of you."
"I'm doing great." He fixed her long hair on the pillow. "Now, are you comfortable or do you need to lie in a different position?"
"I'm very comfortable."
"Good." He stretched his left hand and held one of hers. "Let's talk about what's upsetting you."
"What do you mean?"
"In all the years I've known you, you've never gone home because you were feeling sick. You've stayed at work with bandages all over you and under so much medicine that I don't know if you knew your name… but you kept working."
Sam smiled. "I must be getting older."
"Sam…"
"Okay. It's the amnio. It's on Friday and I'm already worried."
"Why?"
"I'm old, seriously. There are more risks for the children."
Daniel sighed softly. "Would you love your children any less if they weren't perfectly normal? Especially now that you've met Danny, can you imagine denying a child like him the right to be born just because he's not perfect?"
Sam got very serious. "I wasn't considering the chance of aborting them. I can feel them here," she touched her belly. "I'm just scared. I don't want anything to happen to them."
"Let me put it this way, if anything goes wrong, this time I'll be there and I'll stay. I'll take responsibility, whatever happens."
"I'm not asking you to do that."
"You don't need to ask. Just stop worrying. At this point, whatever the results are, there's not much we can do to change them, so we'll wait together. On Friday, I'll go with you and then, we'll see. You don't have to do this alone anymore, okay?"
"Okay."
"And, if something goes wrong, then we'll talk about what to do. There's no point on worrying now, because we don't know and because it's not in our hands either."
Sam nodded softly. She understood that he was right, but the fear was not going away. Nevertheless, she was feeling much better.
"You don't have to do this alone," she suddenly said.
"What?"
"That's what you said, when Cassie was sick."
"And you remember?"
"Of course I remember, Daniel. You've always been there when I needed you."
"Don't be exaggerated. I'm sure not always."
Sam smiled and squeezed his hand. "You said you were going to spoil me. Don't contradict me."
Daniel smiled, too. "Okay."
He felt like stroking her hair, but right then Jack called them to dinner and Sam slowly stood up. Then, she helped him walk to the kitchen.
After dinner, Jack and Daniel took care of Danny and made sure Sam went to bed early. The little boy stayed up for a while longer, but then fell asleep while they were watching a cartoon movie together.
Daniel went to bed, too, but, one more time, he could not sleep for hours. He was feeling awfully tired, but he could not get himself to close his eyes and try to sleep. The dreams about Sam had come back the night before and they had seemed so real, that he had found it difficult not to think about them every time he looked at her. It had taken much effort to behave normally with her during the day. Going to work had given him a reprieve, but once at home, everything had come back.
Insomnia got so bad that night, that ultimately he decided to get up and go to the other room to work on the book. Around four in the morning, he finally felt so exhausted that he started having trouble keeping his eyes open. He went back to bed and soon he fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, he was on top of a stretcher. His wrists and his ankles were strapped to the stretcher and he was unable to move. He looked around and he realized he was inside a spacious room, but he did not recognize it. It was very cold and he had started shivering. Every shiver brought pain to many places in his body, but strangely not to his usually tender rib area. He tried to move his broken leg and he realized that he no longer had the cast.
Could he have fallen into a coma or something similar? How long had it been since he was last awake?
Some light was starting to come through the window, so it was probably the early morning hours. He looked up and saw that the ceiling was covered with a sheet of metal. He could see his reflection, but it was not very clear. He saw that he had no clothes but for a sheet over his abdomen and the top of his legs. There were dark bruises everywhere on his body and he was connected to several machines through catheters and electrodes.
Slowly, his mind started filling with a deep-seeded sense of dread. He closed his eyes and the memory of excruciating pain made his breath hitch. He swiftly opened his eyes, but nothing had changed. He was still alone in the room. Nonetheless, now he knew what was coming; he knew what was going to cause the pain and he also knew that he would not be able to avoid it.
His eyes filled with tears. He did not want to go through that again. It had happened so many times…
Why was it so difficult to concentrate? Why was his mind so obstinately clinging to his body, a body that had survived through a torment he had never imagined could be tolerated? He wished he could ascend, even if he never got his body back, and, if that was not possible, he just wanted to die. He had tried to hang on because he wished to have the chance of seeing his son Daniel again, but now he was too tired. Sam would understand if she knew. The only true comfort he had was that she would never know what he had been through all that time. Oh, blessed be the blissful ignorance…
He heard steps approaching. He tried to lift his head, but it was impossible to move. The drugs had taken effect. He was paralyzed, but he had not lost any of his senses. He remembered his sixth grade teacher dissecting a frog. She had used a needle to paralyze the small animal so that she could open it while the organs were still functioning and all the students could learn. He recalled the little heart beating… He had though it was barbaric and he had been called to the principal's office for writing a paper against vivisection.
These days he was the guinea pig; he was the frog. If he could just die and stop it all… but he was still breathing and the monsters were already around him. It was about to start. It was about to start. It was about to start.