Secrets and Shadows: Taking Sides

Part Three

The rest of the night was understandably subdued.

Jack cooked dinner, Teal'c washed the dishes, Daniel didn't say 'I told you so.' He was quite proud of that.

Sam was mostly quiet as they kept the conversation going on many topics, none of which pertained to the baby or Pete's outburst earlier that evening. And when, as the guys rose to leave, Jack turned to her and said, "Daniel can stay with me tonight, if you prefer," the answer was surprising.

"It's okay." One fine-boned shoulder angled up towards a fine-boned cheek. "He's no trouble."

Jack's eyebrows immediately went up, "We're talking about the same guy, right?"

Daniel looked daggers at Jack, but Sam just smiled. "It's fine, sir. Honestly."

After they were gone, Daniel put away the last few dishes as Sam padded around the room, setting things to rights before going to bed. The scene, he thought with a slight pang, was very much a domestic one. He'd clean up the kitchen, she'd pick up the last bits and pieces, and then he'd sling an arm around her shoulder and they'd go to bed.

Of course, the scenario was just a little disconcerting given that the woman was Sam, whom he'd never really thought of that way.

You have a sick mind, Daniel. Or maybe just a whimsical one.

Or maybe Sam's pregnancy was just getting to him. He'd found himself having more longing thoughts of 'wife-and-family' than he'd been wont to have in the last four years since Sha're's death. And the development of his relationship with Linda... Well, that had surprised them both.

It was understandable that, when presented with a set of 'normal' circumstances like a simple pregnancy, his psyche should think longingly of the things that most people tended to wish for. Someone to come home to at the end of the day, children to bring up, a family to belong to.

SG-1 and the friendships he'd developed there could only provide so much. Which might explain why Sam had plunged headlong into a relationship with Shanahan. Or why Jack was sleeping with Melissa.

In the moment that Shanahan cast his accusations, Daniel had felt the same urge as Teal'c - but, unlike Teal'c, he was injured and had no intention of popping his stitches like a garment tearing at the seams. Besides which, his response would have been verbal, not physical, and Shanahan seemed like a guy more likely to respond to physical intimidation than verbal. Witness his anger about the 'warnings' he'd been given.

"You okay?" He asked Sam as she passed the kitchen on her way to the back door of the house.

The answer was as expected, with a little surprise thrown in that he should ask at all. "Fine, Daniel. I'll just be outside for a moment."

Daniel let her have her space, and set about getting ready for bed. He'd be staying in the spare bedroom tonight - the first time he'd been out of the infirmary in nearly two weeks. Even if it wasn't his own bed, it was comfortable and warm, and soft - quite unlike any of the infirmary beds at the SGC. And he wouldn't have to listen to one more tale of woe, or wonder what happened to the team that came in, bedraggled, dirty and damp from their latest encounter. There would be no three-in-the-morning emergencies that required people to rush about, talking in low, agitated voices and wheel in machines that clicked and beeped and whirred as they were used.

It was nice to be in an actual house, with nothing more than the occassional car passing by outside.

Except that as he prepared to change into his sleeping tracksuit and tee, Daniel realised he hadn't heard Sam come in.

When he checked, she was back out on the deck, leaning back in the recliner in the dark with a candle lit beside her on the little wooden table beside her. Beyond her, the backyard was dark and redolent with deep green shadows that swallowed the light.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door and sat down in the chair beside her.

If she wanted to be silent and say nothing, that was fine. But if she wanted to talk - and Daniel had this feeling she did - then he was here for her to talk to.

"When did it all become so difficult?" The question was plaintive and rhetorical. Their lives were difficult, and Sam knew that as well as Daniel did.

He could have asked so many questions about why Sha're had been taken from him, why Rothman had died, why Sarah had been possessed by a Goa'uld, why Skaara and the Abydonians had ascended... He'd learned not to. If there were answers - and sometimes there were - then they were usually as bad as the question, if not worse.

Sam turned to him then, "I thought that maybe..." Her words stuttered off into stillness, unusual for her; and the blue of her eyes was concealed by the night. "I hoped that it would all come together. That it would work out for the best. Stupid, I guess..."

"Maybe shortsighted," Daniel offered, smiling slightly to show that he didn't mean any offence. Then, because he knew that Sam thought best when she had someone off which to bounce ideas, he asked, "Have you thought about what you're going to do now?"

Her shrug was a little hopeless, and her expression was cynical. "Wait for him to come back saying he didn't mean any of it."

"You think he meant all of it?" He managed to keep his voice even and uninflected. If she chose to take Shanahan back, she was more stupid than Daniel thought.

Sam gave him a hard glance, before her expression softened a little. "He meant some of it at one level, although he probably wouldn't have said it quite that way." In the automatic reflex that she'd developed over the last few weeks, her hand slipped down to her stomach, resting over the child. "And he's right, too," she said, bitterly. "What kind of heritage am I giving my child?"

"Oh, I don't know," Daniel said offhandedly. "I think you'll give your child a lot of things. Intelligence, beauty, the strength to keep fighting one day at a time and the confidence to know what she deserves and what she doesn't have to take. The practicality to think through a problem and find a solution to it, and the ability to stand back and look outside the box. Humour, laughter, love..."

The silence stretched for a few seconds after his litany ceased. "That wasn't what I meant."

"No. But it was what I meant."

"Daniel?"

"Yeah?"

Her voice was a little choked. "If I cry again, I'm going to kill you."

He laughed. "I think I might have a Kleenex in my jacket pocket..."

More silence. Then, "I wish..." Sam sighed heavily. "If wishes were horses..."

"Beggars would ride," Daniel finished for her. "I know."

"I don't understand why he said the Colonel had warned him away..." Her gaze was frank and puzzled in the gloom. "Do you?"

"No..." The word had no sooner escaped his lips when he realised he did know what Shanahan had meant. And it had nothing to do with Jack and everything to do with Daniel.

Damn.

He was saved having to either tell the truth or dissemble, however. Sam was continuing on, talking to herself, setting out her theories and ideas in the air between them, giving them voice and through that voicing, giving them solidarity and possibility. That was the way her mind worked. "I don't know how this is going to turn out, Daniel."

He couldn't help her on that score. "I don't know either," was his admission. "You could put out a restraining order on him..." Shanahan's behaviour certainly warranted it. Pun not intended.

"I don't want to do that." The response was immediate and automatic - that option was no option at all.

Pity, Daniel thought to himself. Then he chided himself for being unkind. "I guess...you wait until he comes to terms with your relationship and the child's heritage." That was all Sam - or any of them - could do in the end. She wasn't going to be able to change Shanahan's mind, and if he didn't change his mind, then there was no way Sam was going to let him anywhere near her child.

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then you're stuck," he told her, bluntly. If Shanahan never came to terms with the protein marker and naquadah in Sam, and if he continued to make a nuisance of himself like this, then Sam was well and truly in the desert without shade, water, or transport.

She winced, ever so slightly. "Not what I was hoping to hear."

"Did you want me to sugar-coat it?" Daniel asked, knowing the answer.

"No." The truth was bitter, but it wouldn't be the first time Sam had been required to swallow such a pill.

They sat in silence for a while, without questions or comments to make. A neighbour's air-conditioner hummed merrily away in the summer evening, while a couple of cats fought out their territorial enmity. A dog barked, and there was laughter coming from a house somewhere down the road.

"Why didn't you tell me about Melissa? That she was a...a..."

"Call girl?" Daniel supplied lightly. It was better than 'prostitute,' 'whore,' or any other word he could think to use. "It wasn't my place to tell you."

"And you think the Colonel would ever have told me?"

"I think that it wasn't my place to tell you," Daniel repeated, irked by the implication that she deserved to know. For a scientist, sometimes Sam could be irrational - although no more so than any other person on the planet, he supposed. "How did you find out?"

"He told me."

"Ah." The conversation that took place in Sam's bedroom, and which Daniel had fervently resisted trying to overhear. Of course, Teal'c's impassive look every time Daniel made any kind of a move towards the hallway had also acted as a very effective deterrent.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Daniel frowned at her. "It means 'Ah,'" he retorted.

The brief glare she gave him faded swiftly and she stared down at her hands as they rested over her stomach. She'd taken to doing that a lot lately, especially when she was stressed, or when things weren't going too well. It was almost as though the presence of the baby, while causing all kinds of hormonal changes in her, was also steadying her, grounding her.

He made a mental note to ask Linda about it.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For being a hormonal bitch."

"Ah. Well, maybe it's just as well that you're off SG-1," he told her, and saw the moment of shock-hurt before he added, "There's only room for one pissy bitch on SG-1, and I have it covered already."

She laughed then. Daniel allowed himself a smile. It was never so bad when you could make Sam laugh. Or smile. That was Jack's philosophy, although he would never have put it into quite those words. Jack had spent seven years eliciting smiles from Sam.

As her laughter faded, Daniel figured he could tell her this much.

"Jack usually sees Melissa on Fridays," he said, and saw the way she stiffened. No, not all the water was under the bridge there. That was plain to see. "But I know he hasn't been seeing her the last couple of weeks."

She was silent for a long time after that pronouncement. Until finally, she asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Daniel looked at her, caught her in profile. "What do you want it to mean?"

Her answer never came.