Disclaimer: Don't own the character, don't own the events, do sort of own the story text, don't take away, thankyou. (Hmm that felt like a railtrack announcement, just imagine it said through a sock)

Author's notes: I seem to be on a fic a new episode, not that I've got writer's block on any of my other stuff

Reality is a hideous, spoilt thing. It's the too bright lights in the morning, it's the snap of the broken, it's the ache that spreads across your shoulders, it's the tears that well behind your eyes.

Reality always wins.

It's so dark in here, below a mountain; it's what you would expect. I can't see anything, which can only be a good thing. Darkness is good, darkness doesn't expect anything, doesn't wait for action and doesn't breathe down your neck when you're not paying due attention. Evils are imagined in the dark, but they can only be seen in the light. This darkness is reminiscent, other fumblings in darkened rooms, murmurs, breaths, delicious suspension of reality held at bay. Darkness is a refuge for everything others don't want to see in the light. He kissed me here, back hard against the table edge; kissed me and promised me he wouldn't let me go. This darkness was omniscient, it knew it was an unreal promise, but then again, reality sucks. His hands were roaming, over my back, over the desk, hunting something until I could do nothing but giggle against his chest, ebullient relief that bore no basis in reality. My keys were in my pocket, he could come and get them if he wanted to. He was smiling, I could tell, could trace the lines even in the inky blackness, could feel his warmth through the thin material of his T-shirt. Could feel the cold of the locked door as he pressed against it, could feel for a second the whole, all and everything, oily colours spreading incongruously against a backdrop of pure absence like the surface of a bubble in the dark, tension caught on the knife-edge of reality. It's a very sharp knife and it bides its time.

Reality is the dog that yaps at your heels, waiting for you to put a step wrong, the judgement scales that wait with patient delight for you to tip the balance. I should never have accepted that kiss, never acquiesced too eager underneath, never have believed for a second reality would leave us alone. If you murmur a promise, is it any less binding? If you steal a kiss in a darkened corner, are you committing a sin? I don't know, just like I don't know the answer to this question, don't understand why suddenly I'm making this decision, without his view, without his input, without his touch. Do I have a right to make this choice alone? Try putting myself in his place, it's impossible, we're not the same person, even if sometimes it feels that way. I wish I was in his place, I wish he were in mine. Darkness is safe, he's exposed to the light somewhere. Can't find him in the light, can't find him in reality. Need him, want him, can't say that. Can't wish for him except under my breath, can't pray for him unless I include the other children. Can't broach their reality with mine.

It's mine and his and ours, and by the same token it can be nobody else's, not Teal'c, not Jack, not Janet. Don't ask, don't tell, and don't stop playing the game. It's a real game, a game of life and death and love and war, flipsides, seeing one means not seeing the other. Can't imagine him gone, can't say that he loves me. Everything real can't be. Pull it into reality and one becomes the other, reality twists, fantasy straightens, nothing real ever makes sense.

I don't want to find you Daniel, I don't want to know, I don't want to face reality.

I don't want to pay the piper.

End