"When you said dinner, I wasn't expecting this." Sam said as she took in the beautifully decorated, candle-lit balcony. Daniel had driven them just outside the city to an inn accompanied by one of the nicest restaurants in Colorado Springs. It was perched atop a high hill that allowed her to gaze down on the treetops, dimly lit by the rich purples and golds of the sun setting behind the mountains.

She had to admit, Daniel was a great view himself. When he'd shown up at her door, her jaw had nearly hit the ground. She'd seen him dressed up before, but. . . wow. He looked very GQ in a dark grey suit and blue shirt that made his eyes look absolutely striking. To top it all off, he hadn't worn a tie. Of all the times she could remember, Daniel had always worn ties with his suits, and she found his open collar to be very sexy. Not that she thought of Daniel that way.

She was glad she'd made the decision to change clothes when she'd seen his. She'd underestimated what he meant by 'nice' and had chosen a cute floral skirt. She immediately felt underdressed when he'd arrived. Changing clothes had set them back about twenty minutes, but Daniel hadn't seemed to mind.

She'd enjoyed the appreciative look and compliment he'd given her as she walked out in her strappy, red cocktail dress, but now she wondered whether she should have chosen something a bit less revealing. She had plenty of dresses which didn't show as much cleavage. She had even more which didn't have asymmetrical hems that crept dangerously high on her right thigh, and she had a lot which were more appropriate for a platonic dinner date with her friend.

She tugged the hem of her dress down a bit as she sipped from her wine glass. Luckily, no men had been gawking at her, and Daniel didn't seem to mind her clothes at all, so it was better than the awkward feeling of being underdressed.

She looked through the patio doors at the sparkling crystal chandelier inside. Everything about this place was elegant. If they'd visited a few decades earlier, they might have been graced with the presence of Cary Grant or Bing Crosby. At least, that's what their waiter had told them.

If Daniel was trying to impress her, it was working. How could she even think of continuing to give him the cold shoulder after he'd gone to all this trouble?

"How did you get reservations on such short notice?" she asked.

"I told them I know the President," he quipped. She looked at him skeptically, and he admitted, "I made them last week."

Confusion filled her face, and he elaborated, "This is uh. . ." He smoothed his jacket as he stalled. Sam could tell he didn't want to reveal what he was about to say. "I'm sorry. I wanted to go somewhere else, but I couldn't find anywhere this nice on short notice." With an embarrassed grin he finished, "This is where I was going to bring my date."

Sam gasped. It hadn't occurred to her that tonight was the night Daniel had had his date planned. She'd been too caught up in her own problems, and now she felt horrible that she hadn't realized it without him having to tell her. "You cancelled your date?"

"Yeah, I just couldn't go through with it."

She was heartbroken for him. "Why not? I thought you'd decided to go."

"Initially, I did, then I changed my mind. Then I changed my mind again. Then. . ." His voice trailed off. "Well, you get the idea. The point is that I didn't want to lead her on." He smiled at Sam and added, "I'm pretty sure I made the right decision."

"Well if you're happy, then I'm happy for you." With a warm grin, she added, "Just as long as I wasn't your second choice for tonight."

"Sam," Daniel placed his hand over hers across the table, met her eyes, and smiled as he assured, "you could never be my second choice."

His comforting words of friendship filled her with warmth and brought a smile to her face, one that reached all the way to her eyes. When she looked down at their hands, the warmth steadily grew and culminated in her face, making her cheeks feel like they were on fire. It was overwhelming -- suffocating. She withdrew her hand, coughed nervously, and asked, "You didn't cancel because of what happened the other night did you?"

"No, not at all."

Sam wasn't sure he was being completely truthful, but she decided to believe him. After all, he had no reason to lie, did he? The corners of her lips curled upward and she nodded, "Good. I'd feel really bad if you cancelled on account of something I did."

He dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry about it."

Sam couldn't shake the feeling there was something Daniel wasn't telling her, but before she could probe further, he asked, "So how was your day?" He was deliberately changing the subject, and at that point, Sam knew there was definitely something Daniel was hiding. But instead of calling him on it, she decided to wait him out and see if he would be more willing to talk later.

"It was good." She thought back to her useless attempts at soul searching, her attempt at word association, and the incredibly depressing reason for doing it all. Her features formed a small frown as she finished, "Considering . . ." Daniel gave her an encouraging smile, which she returned. "How was yours?" she asked.

"Good. I got to spend some quality time with Teal'c."

"Sounds nice."

"Yeah."

Silence loomed for a moment, and Sam stabbed a tomato with her fork. Pushing her food around the plate, her thoughts drifted back to what Daniel might be hiding from her. She looked up, and over Daniel's shoulder, through the patio doors and across the restaurant, she saw a couple walking up the stairs to what was probably the inn section of the building. It raised a very pressing question. "Daniel, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

She made certain to state it delicately. "Did you . . . um . . . reserve a room?"

"What?" He gasped. "No! Of course not."

Sam realized how the question might have come off and amended, "I meant for you and Sgt. Mills, not for us."

Daniel's eyelids fluttered before he responded, "That's what I thought you meant."

"Right." Sam's face grew hot, as she realized she'd briefly pictured Daniel's naked body tangled with hers in a moment of sweaty passion. She wondered why the idea wasn't as off-putting as she'd have expected. In fact, she found it somewhat thrilling.

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Daniel watched the blush creep up Sam's cheeks and all the way to her ears as she fixed her gaze on the tablecloth. When he saw her almost sensually lick her lips, he decided to test a theory. He leaned toward her and whispered, "Sam, you're not getting any ideas are you?"

Her head shot up, and her eyes widened. "Oh. . . Um. . . ," she stammered.

Realizing he might be onto something, Daniel smiled and purposefully took a sip of wine.

Shaking her head, Sam finally stated, "N. . . no. Of course not."

He chuckled as he set down the glass. "Oh, wow. I didn't realize it was that horrifying a thought."

She quickly back peddled. "No, not at all. At least, not for the reasons you'd think."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Daniel, you're obviously an attractive guy. It'd be hard for a woman not to notice. It's just that. . ."

"What?"

"You're more like. . . well, it'd be like kissing my brother, Daniel."

He gaped at her. "What? Ouch. Are you serious?" Sam just shrugged, looking apologetic. "You know, Sam, I don't think I believe that."

"Oh really? Why not?"

Daniel spent an extra long time scrutinizing her, considering whether it was safe to say what he was thinking. Finally, he leaned in and whispered, "When's the last time you made out with your brother on his couch?"

Sam's jaw dropped, and she stared wide-eyed at him. "Daniel Jackson, I can't believe you just brought that up."

"Well, you were asking for it. Your brother? Talk about harsh. That's the worst thing a woman can say to a guy."

Sam grinned wickedly. "At least I didn't say 'sister'."

A fiendish smile slowly grew on Daniel's face, and he found himself saying something to Sam that he never imagined being able to say without ending up flat on his back -- and not in the good way. "Very funny. Keep it up, and I'll come over there and give you a second chance to find out what it's like."

Daniel watched Sam's face flush as she shifted uncomfortably, as though the temperature had just jumped ten degrees. Her eyes darted away, and she hastily reached for her glass of wine. Now he was certain he was on to something.

Sam spent an inordinately long time sipping her wine, and as she set the glass down, it was her turn to change the subject. "I talked to Cassie today. She says hello. She really misses you guys."

Daniel took note of the change, but decided to let it slide and see how things played out. He made a half-hearted attempt to smother his smile as he asked, "Really? I should give her a call. I haven't talked to her for months."

Sam's smiled back, almost challenging him. "Well, it's really hard to reach her lately with all her classes and new college friends. She's coming next weekend, though. You should stop by and see her."

"I think I will." He stopped to take a sip of wine, thoroughly extinguished his smirk, then asked, "How are her classes going?"

"I think she's really enjoying them." Sam beamed as she talked about Cassie. It was as though she was speaking about her own child. "She's feeling pressured to declare her major, though. She says she doesn't want to be one of those people who've made a career out of college and still don't know what they want to do."

Daniel chuckled, recalling more than a couple of individuals from his college days. "So she's met a few of those, has she?"

"Yeah. One of them is continually hitting on her. He buys her flowers and everything."

"Ahh. . . hormonal college boys. Why do I feel like me, Jack, or Teal'c should be there fending them off?"

Sam laughed. "I'm tempted to go do it myself." Letting out a short breath, she added, "At least that guy's better than this other sleaze ball she was telling me about. I would've laid that guy out."

"I hope she let him have it."

"She is her mother's daughter, isn't she?"

They both laughed. "She certainly is."

The laughter faded into uncomfortable silence as the mention of their fallen friend brought back somber memories. "I still miss her," Sam said.

"I know. Me, too."

Sam stared at her plate and bit her lip as though she were fighting back bad memories. "We'll probably go visit her grave." He heard her voice waver before she coughed and continued on. "That is, when Cassie comes down. I haven't been there since the funeral, but I think Cassie will want to go. She went before she left for college. I wanted to go with her then, but I just couldn't. . ." She broke off and rapidly blinked back tears that threatened to burst forth.

Once again, Daniel's hand found its way to hers. This time, she grasped onto it, both accepting and offering support. "We should all go. Together," he assured her. He knew she would understand that 'all' included Jack and Teal'c.

Sam nodded, then looked up at him to ask, "Why don't we ever talk about it, about her? We hardly even mention her name anymore."

He knew it wasn't because none of them thought about her. At least, it wasn't because he didn't. It still kept him awake some nights, reliving the sight of her death, the helplessness and guilt he felt looking down at her lifeless body. "Maybe after all this time. we've all become a bunch of head cases in denial. If we don't talk about it, it never happened. Or maybe we've collectively adopted the Jack O'Neill coping mechanism, as unhealthy as it is."

He'd expected her to nod or agree. Instead, Sam countered, "It's not that unhealthy. He isn't the only person who deals with his feelings that way. It's how soldiers are supposed to handle them, and it's one of the things that makes him a great commander."

Daniel pulled his hand away from Sam's. He blinked at her, not really believing his own ears. "Sam, do you really believe that?"

"Of course."

Daniel couldn't even begin to comprehend what he was hearing. The woman he'd once seen so torn up over both the mistreatment of a twelve year old girl and the lack of her own ability to express her feelings due to military standards actually envied the unhealthy ability to shut out emotions instead of resenting the insane system that valued that in its people. "Sam, Jack is a great leader and a great man for many reasons, but his worst quality is his continual denial of his emotions and his tendency to convince himself that he doesn't even feel."

Daniel had noticed Jack becoming more withdrawn and less emotional over the years, almost to the point of where he'd been before he opened up to Daniel and the Abydonians so many years ago. It had formed a rift in their friendship over the years that upset him to think about. With the animosity produced by that rift and distant memories of Jack's one-time eagerness for a suicide mission clearly on his mind, Daniel's words came out sharper than he'd intended. "That might make the military see Jack as a valuable asset, but it is not what makes him a good leader or a good man." The thought that Sam might find that quality in Jack appealing nearly infuriated him. His voice became bitter as he added without thinking, "And it sure as hell doesn't make him a good man for you."

Sam's back stiffened as she glared at him. Daniel had never spoken to her that way. With fire in her eyes, she demanded, "What the hell do you know about it?"

He leaned across the table and whispered with the intensity of passion and fury, "I know that you will never find what you're looking for in Jack O'Neill."

Sam slid her chair back, away from the force of Daniel's gaze. "I think that's for me to decide, not you," she spat out. He began to respond, but she abruptly stopped him. "I don't want to have this conversation with you, Daniel." She pushed her chair back further, stood, and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Daniel at the table alone.