Title: Broken Promises
Written By: Drea Jackman
Email: DreaJackman@hotmail.com
Rating: G
Summary: Just when did Daniel begin to doubt himself, feeling like nothing he did could make a difference to anyone? In what instant did he fail himself as well as another? After Reese's death, Daniel spends a sleepless night at the SGC.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. Any original characters, situations, and story are the property of Drea Jackman.
Archive: The Abydos Cartouche. Others E-mail me to lemme know where first. Thanks!
Feedback: Much appreciated and craved, hehe. Thanks!
Author's Note: A fic I'd started a little while ago, but only just got around to finishing. Much of it is a closer look at the final scenes of Menace, but we all love Danny angst right?  Feedback desperately craved, lol. 

Broken Promises

Daniel felt numb. He didn't even remember anything that had happened on leaving the Gate Room. Sitting alone in the infirmary, he had watched Dr Fraiser treating his wrist and he was sure he had even passed off assurances that he would be fine. Still, the rest was a blur. All he could think of was what had happened in the last few hours.

* * *

With Colonel O'Neill and the others watching his back, Daniel approached the sealed door leading to the Gate Room. Stopping in front of it, he looked up at the security camera watching him, knowing that it was Reese. She was in complete control.

"Reese, please let me in. I just wanna talk to you."

His voice was monotone, every fibre in him hating the fact that it had come down to this – that her life rested in his hands. Lately it had felt like he'd been battling to make a difference at all. How could he ever hope to change the outcome he felt looming on the horizon?

A brief moment later the thick metal door slid into life, unblocking his path. As he stepped inside, his eyes came to rest warily on the replicators at his feet. The floor between him and the ramp was covered by them. Before he could react any further, the large door slid closed behind him and he had to move further inside to avoid being trapped in its path.

Reese watched him enter from her position in the centre of the ramp, only returning her blank gaze forward again when the door was secured.

"Activate the Stargate."

Daniel didn't really know how to handle the situation, but he went with his gut and took a few more steps.

"No," he replied calmly.

"You hate me," she stated plainly.

Daniel picked his way between her 'toys' to get closer still.

"No, I don't. No one does."

"They're afraid of me."

He stopped at the foot of the ramp and inhaled ready to deny her claim, but then sighed lightly instead. He couldn't honestly deny it. They were afraid of her, or at least, what she was capable of. They didn't see the shades of grey between the black and white lines they'd drawn, but he could.

"They don't understand you, Reese."

"I never meant to hurt anyone."

She still refused to look at him. He risked a few more steps.

"I know," he replied immediately. He didn't believe she had intended for her world's destruction at all. "Please stay."

"It's too late now. I've accessed your computer system. I'll figure it out for myself."

"Reese, I don't want you to go."

Reese didn't avert her gaze for a second, her mind busy working through the SGC's computer systems trying to activate the Stargate. But she was listening.

"Why not?"

"I wanna be your friend?"

Daniel's response came out as more of a question, one that asked her how she'd accept the offer he was willing to make. She responded immediately, her blank stare shattering as an expression of childlike curiosity took over her features and her eyes locked with his. Did he mean it?

"I've never had a friend," Reese whispered, close to tears.

"I'll be your friend," Daniel said, giving her a pure affirmation of intent. This was it, he was reaching her. With new confidence, he approached her as she did him. "Your toys might be a lot of fun, but they're not human like us."

"They protect me."

"I'll protect you," Daniel replied, blue eyes shining back at her.

Reese looked so surprised and touched by his words – her first real friend.

"You promise?" she asked quietly, hardly daring to hope.

"I promise." Daniel's promise was firm and true, backed completely by the sincerity in his voice and the light in his eyes. Reese trusted him; cared about him over the others. "No one will hurt you."

Reese stared at him.

"C'mon," he said softly, hand reaching out for hers. "I'll show you my world."

As Reese stepped closer, Daniel offered her a brief smile and his eyebrows rose to warm her greeting and acceptance. She smiled and walked toward him at the bottom of the ramp.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

* * *

That was it, right there. He could have changed the outcome entirely and saved her. Instead he had gone with what was more beneficial for the greater good he was always hearing about.

Thinking about it killed him inside. She'd been so scared. Despite everything that she had experienced at the SGC, Reese had found it in her fondness for Daniel to find trust. No matter what it was in the name of, he knew he had taken advantage of that and it sickened him. Suddenly the greater good didn't feel good at all.

* * *

Reese took Daniel's hand and let him guide her down onto the floor. As she walked toward the doorway, Daniel's hand slid from hers and up over her neck in what could have been mistaken for a fond gesture of friendship.

Instantly, Reese whipped around, her hand catching Daniel's left wrist with a mighty grip. As he cried out in pain, she spun him so that he landed on his knees before her. The surrounding replicators began to move toward him menacingly.

"You're trying to disable me!"

"No!" Daniel managed through gritted teeth.

"Yes! You're lying!"

Reese, having already broken the bones in Daniel's forearm, threw the limp limb from her hand and watched him roll onto his back – her friend's face contorted in pain. He gasped as his back slammed into the hard concrete beneath him as Reese fled back toward the ramp screaming, "Lying is bad!"

The replicators surrounded her and as soon as she was back on the ramp, they awaited her command.

"None of you will ever hurt me!"

The replicators formed orderly patterns and took off, creeping up the walls of the Gate Room to form a protective perimeter, prepared to destroy those that posed a danger to their creator. That number now included Daniel as he writhed on the floor.

* * *

Daniel grimaced and looked down at the fresh cast forming a supportive barrier around his forearm. It ached beyond belief, even though from the dull sting in his shoulder, he was sure he had been injected with pain medication. Perhaps it would take time to work. Then again, Daniel wondered as he glanced at the clock on the wall, maybe it was just phantom pains to go with the thoughts running through his mind.

Slipping down off the infirmary bed, Daniel picked up his shirt and walked out of the Infirmary. In the corridor just outside, he would have passed by Dr Fraiser completely oblivious if she hadn't spoken first.

"Daniel?"

He looked in the direction of her voice and saw the concerned expression on her face.

"Janet," he said quietly.

"Are you okay? I left you in there half an hour ago."

"Oh," he replied a little taken aback. Had it really been that long?

"If you're still in pain I could get you something stronger."

"That's okay."

He was distracted by another bright flash in his mind. There was a strange sound with it too, like rushing air. He glanced back at the Infirmary and then looked to Dr Fraiser again. "I'm just gonna go get some sleep."

"I can arrange for someone to drive you home," she offered.

"Thanks, but I think I'll just bunk down here at the base. The others are staying to help with the cleanup anyway."

As he turned to walk away, Dr Fraiser reached out and laid a hand on his good arm to stop him.

"If you need me, I'll be here, okay?"

Daniel met her eyes for a few brief seconds and mustered an appreciative smile. Nodding his thanks, he turned slowly to go find the nearest place available to bunk down. He felt drained, but he doubted he'd sleep at all. Right now all he wanted to do was haul himself up somewhere that he didn't have to face anyone.

* * *

Daniel had just managed to pull himself around when something behind him burst into life. The bright flame from an O torch – Colonel O'Neill was taking over now that he had failed; cutting his way through the thick metal door to come stop her and save his ass. He still had time.

"Reese, please listen to me," he implored.

Reese stared at the door in fear, suddenly bursting into fits and screams as her toys on the outside were destroyed.

"Oh no, make it stop!" she blurted out. "Make them stop!"

Daniel sat on the floor at the foot of the ramp on his knees, clutching at his broken arm.

"I can't, you can!"

"No, you'll kill me," she cried, tears flowing from her eyes and over her cheeks hot and fast.

"No, no one wants that. We just don't want you to destroy our world the way you destroyed yours."

"I didn't do it!" she sobbed.

"Yes you did!" he yelled back. Time was running out, and Jack had almost cut his way in with the other soldiers. He had to make her see. "You created the Replicators, you told them to replicate at all costs! They destroyed your world and you let them!"

Reese was sobbing harder. "It wasn't my fault!"

"You coulda stopped them before there were too many. You could stop them now before you lose control," he fired back.

"No!"

Daniel watched the sobs wrack her seemingly fragile young body and the conflict in her pained face. He hated himself for doing it, but it was the only way. The teams outside had almost cut their way through the doors. He didn't have much time left. He decided to risk it again. Standing up slowly, he held his broken arm close, his tall frame hunched over in yet another show of human vulnerability.

"Reese, your father made you wrong!"

"No!" She screamed, making a run at him.

"Yes!" He glared at her, forcing her to listen. "You destroyed your world!"

"I didn't mean to," Reese sobbed like she had never been in so much pain before.

"I know." Daniel's voice was whisper-soft and tender once again. He glanced back at the door, the glow of the torch almost back at it's point of origin. Time was almost up and desperation set in. "And now you're going to destroy mine too!"

"I don't want to."

"I know," he replied with much more feeling. Part of him had already begun to break. "That's why you have to stop it now."

More sobs shook her body and Daniel's heart ached.

"No one will hurt you. We may be able to fix you."

"How?" Reese cried defiantly.

Daniel glanced back at the door in desperation and then back at her.

"Shut off your toys and go to sleep. We'll find a way."

Reese shook her head, never once taking her eyes off the door that was about to burst open at any moment. She was terrified. "I don't believe you."

The last few inches of the door were almost completely severed.

"I will wake you up myself, I promise!" Daniel cried.

Reese looked at Daniel and everything else faded away. Through her tears, she found the blue of his eyes and locked onto them as she walked toward him slowly.

"I'm your friend," he continued urgently. "I don't want you to die."

Reese stepped closer and shook her head, slowly echoing his sentiments. "I don't want you to die either."

* * *

The elevator ride was the longest Daniel could remember taking in the SGC in the last five years or so. The sublevels seemed to take forever to tick by, one by one, counting upward to one of the more residential-type levels where the locker-rooms, showers and barracks were. Barracks he realised absently, that were never fully manned. Still, right now a bed was a bed and he was sorely in need of one.

The thought itself was fleeting as he remembered the events of the last few hours again. He could still see the look of trust on her face, felt the dim rush of relief when she had accepted his friendship and done as he asked. In that split second, he had believed not only in the greater good, but in himself. Despite the nagging doubt in his own self-worth for the last few months, winning Reese over had made him believe he could make a difference again, even if only for a moment.

Suddenly the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open to reveal an empty corridor. Feeling strangely suffocated by the air around him, Daniel lurched forward through the doors and down the corridor. Finding the room that SG-1 occasionally occupied when the need to stay on base arose, he pushed the door open and stepped inside with haste.

Once inside, Daniel slammed the door closed firmly. Leaning back against the cold wood of the door's painted surface, he cradled his left arm to him closely, head pressed back against the door as he inhaled deeply. Every gasp for air seemed drawn like the last one standing between him and an impending panic-attack.

Slowly, taking urgently deep breaths, he let the darkness of the room work its way into his system to calm his racing heart. Ignoring the gasps from his own throat, his mind seemed to dwell on the hollow metallic echo from the door as it had slammed closed only seconds before.

* * *

Daniel's eyes were clouded by tears and he prepared to reach out his other hand to her when suddenly the door came crashing down, the loud clatter of metal on metal echoing around the room like thunder. As he spun around, everything felt like it had gone into some kind of slow motion. Jack entered the room in a few swift steps and fired.

By the time Daniel could react, flinching as the shot passed him; Colonel O'Neill had turned and began firing at the approaching replicators in the corridor outside. When he turned around, to his horror, Reese lay by the side of the ramp, arms spread out by her sides while her face was strangely serene.

He went to her and knelt by her side. Her dark eyes followed him, taking in the last images of her friend. Daniel's hand reached out to her, hovering as if he didn't know where to touch or how to help. He didn't know what to do. Slowly, her eyes drifted closed and Reese lay motionless before him. As Jack turned to approach them again, he slumped down to his knees to sit on the cold stone floor. He watched in silence as his C.O., his friend, reached down to remove the disk from Reese's neck. Seeing it gave a kind of finality he wasn't ready for and he hung his head heavy as tears began to fall without control.

"Robot has been neutralised," Colonel O'Neill reported on radio.

Daniel barely heard him, but somewhere he realised the pain of how right she had been to doubt what he believed possible. Not everyone could see her as a person, as a living being. For most, she was just a robot, a machine. Realising that he could no longer see even with his glasses on, Daniel slid them off and lifted his head up to blink away the obstructing tears.

"You stupid, sunuvabitch," he sighed and let Jack see tears for the first time in a long while.

"Hey, you're welcome."

"You didn't have to shoot her," Daniel's words were breathed on another sigh, sensing the waste in it all.

"Yes I did," Jack fired back in an attempt to put Daniel onto his wavelength and see it from his point of view.

"She was shutting them down."

"I had no way of knowing that and neither did you."

Daniel closed his eyes briefly and a few more tears flowed down over his flushed cheeks slowly.

"They didn't stop because you shot her; they stopped because she told them to."

"Carter said she was losing control. If just one of those damn things got outta this base, we would be royally screwed!"

"You just killed the only chance we ever had of stopping them," he said with a finality that dared Jack to come back at him.

"Look," Jack began, letting his 'good soldier' routine slip for a moment to comfort his best friend. "I'm sorry, but this is the way it had to go down and you know that."

Deep down, some part of Daniel did know it. It was the part that made him hate himself for trying to befriend her, for giving her false hope. He looked down at her body again and thought it over as Colonel O'Neill went back to join the cleanup.

* * *

Exhaling slowly, Daniel opened his eyes to the darkness of the room he occupied alone. The light from the corridor illuminated the room dimly from the crack beneath the door at his feet. He could now make out the frames on the three bunks; one on the far side of the room – side-on – and the others either side of that, perpendicular to its left and right.

Without hesitating, he crawled onto the nearest bed, taking up the lower bed of the centre bunk. Usually he'd have taken the top, a typical choice for him. There was always some shelf or ledge for him to perch on off-world and for some reason it always felt more comfortable to do so. Not tonight. Hauling himself up onto the top would take the last reserves of energy that Daniel just didn't have.

Drained, Daniel crashed onto the lower bed, lying on his back for a few moments to stare up at the bunk above. He remembered the last time he'd slept up there. He hadn't felt like this. Then again, the dark shadow that had been hanging over him for months, sapping his self-confidence, had been there so long that he could hardly remember not feeling that way. He idly wondered if he'd ever take the top bunk again.

After staring for what felt like hours, Daniel felt his eyelids growing heavy and his arm ached. With a soft sigh, he reached up to remove his glasses, only briefly aware of the wet tainting his cheeks as his hand glanced his face. He folded them against his chest and leaned down to tuck them under the edge of the bunk out of harms way and shuffled to lie on his right side. Back turned toward the door, he intended to keep his face hidden from the others when they came to settle for the night or Dr Fraiser if she came to check on him.

Burying his face in his pillow, Daniel let his eyes fall closed for the last time that night. Long eyelashes settling against still tear-stained cheekbones, he took deep, calming breaths and tried to empty his mind. The nagging voice berating him gradually grew fainter and fainter, as did the image of Reese staring back up at him from the floor of the Gate Room where she'd fallen.

Eventually Daniel managed to surrender to the darkness and silence surrounding him, but he knew in the back of his mind that he'd wake to face it all again soon enough.

The End