Chapter Four

Daniel woke up slowly from a pleasant sleep – not quite as pleasant as Tuesday night's rest had been, but pleasant nonetheless – as he accustomed himself to his surroundings by process of elimination. This was not his apartment, or the dorms at the base, or the room he was sharing with Samantha.

He was in Cheryl's house, more specifically, in her bedroom – in her bed. After a very steamy night. And he felt surprisingly remorse-free. One-night stands had never been his thing, but last night had felt natural.

Barring his lingering anger at Samantha, of course. But he hadn't let that get in the way of his performance. He couldn't help but be just a little bit smug about that. It almost occurred to him that Samantha didn't know what she was missing.

He quickly forgot any lingering thoughts of the blonde he'd stormed out on when he turned to face the brunette he'd spent the night with. She was lying on her back, naked, and he gently ran his fingers down the front of her body. She had certainly liked it last night, and it didn't fail to wake her up this morning.

"Morning," he said casually when she opened her eyes.

She smiled. "Good morning to you too," she said. "Sleep well?"

"Wonderfully," he murmured, stroking her hair intimately. "Although that may have been I was so relaxed before I went to sleep."

"Really?" Cheryl feigned surprise. "What caused that?"

"I have some idea…" Daniel murmured, kissing Cheryl. He let his hand wander down her body until he got the response he was after. "Do you have to be anywhere anytime soon?" he asked suggestively.

"No," she replied. "Do you?"

Daniel glanced over at the clock on her dresser. It was ten am. Samantha would be absolutely furious by now. Well, whether he got home in half an hour, or an hour and a half, she would be just as furious so he may as well enjoy himself. "No," he said, and he leaned down to kiss her again.

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It hadn't escaped Tiegan's notice that Daniel had left later yesterday afternoon and hadn't come home. And there was only ever one reason for a man staying out all night, at least in Tiegan's experience. So he and Samantha clearly weren't that happy. Tiegan knew there had been something up there. She grinned maliciously to herself.

While Samantha wasn't looking, Tiegan had swiped Daniel's phone number out of her phone and took the liberty of calling him

Daniel had put his phone on silent, not switched it off, and Cheryl noticed it light up where he'd left on the chest of draws next to the bed. She took the liberty of answering it. "Hello?" she asked.

"Hi," Tiegan said pleasantly, delighted that a woman had answered the phone, confirming her suspicions. "Is Daniel there?"

"Daniel's in the shower," Cheryl said. "Who is this?"

"I'm a friend of Daniel's, a bunch of us were supposed to meet for breakfast but he never showed. We just wanted to know where he is."

"Do you want me to get him to call you back?" Cheryl asked. She accepted Tiegan's story at face value about being a friend of Daniel's – she didn't sound like a jealous girlfriend, and besides, Daniel had said he was here for the week with friends – but she didn't want to discuss their night together with someone she didn't know.

"No, that's OK, I just wanted to know he's OK," Tiegan said pleasantly. It would be all the better for a confrontation if Daniel didn't know it was coming.

She hung up the phone and walked into the lounge room, where Samantha and everyone else were hanging out following breakfast. Samantha was trying not to look at the door.

"Sam," she said, the syrupy sweetness in her voice doing little to mask the maliciousness, "is it often that Daniel's phone is answered by another woman this early in the morning?"

She had got her, Tiegan thought maliciously when Samantha visibly paled – visible enough that everyone else saw it. The story about Daniel's late wife may have been true enough for Samantha to wing it when confronted, but clearly, she had no such story for this. Daniel had been busted playing around and Samantha had been busted in her pathetic little facade.

"Well?" Tiegan asked impatient when Samantha was at a loss for words. "I'm waiting. Where is Daniel exactly? Or don't you know?" She clucked her tongue in mock-sympathy, although she had no sympathy for a woman who had tried to pull the wool over her eyes. She had always known there was something up with them, no way would someone like Daniel go for someone like Samantha.

For a few moments, Samantha just stared at Tiegan, trying to think of a plausible excuse for Daniel's behaviour. Nothing came. That, and she was struggling to deal with the confirmation that Daniel had spent the night with another woman – she didn't doubt Tiegan was telling the truth there.

Daniel had spent the night with another woman.

She felt like her heart was breaking, and she had no idea why. She had no claim to Daniel – she had made that clear yesterday. She decided she was angry because he'd been so indiscreet. Yeah, that was it. Thanks to Daniel and his stupid male pride he'd exposed their relationship as a fraud and now she looked even more pathetic then if she'd shown up without him.

Damn him.

Instead of bothering to reply with some lame explanation that wouldn't fly, Samantha fled to her room, with Tiegan smiling triumphantly to her retreating back. "I knew she was a fraud," Tiegan said to the other four. "I just knew it – what?" she asked indignantly when she saw the disgusted looks she was getting from Sarah and Alanna.

"You didn't have to be such a cow about it," Sarah said.

"She lied," Tiegan pointed out indignantly.

"Maybe because you made her feel so inadequate," Sarah retorted. "And anyway," she added, "he must care about her a lot to go along with it." Which is more then I can say for Phillip. Alanna nodded her agreement.

"The two of you are such softies," Tiegan complained, and flounced off to enjoy her victory with the one person who would savour it – herself.

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"I enjoyed last night," Daniel said, not sure exactly how to end this. He wasn't going to be so clichéd as to ask for her number when he had no intention of using it but he didn't know what to do.

Cheryl smiled. "You don't have to act like you want to see me again," she said helpfully." Then she added, "I enjoyed last night, too. It was fun – let's leave it at that."

He kissed her goodbye before getting into his car. He didn't think he'd be doing something like that again anytime soon, but last night, it had felt right. And it had certainly done a lot to soothe his wounded ego. He wondered if she had sensed that his mind just been somewhere else, just marginally, or if she did, if she cared or not. He smirked to himself. He had made her climax three times, he didn't think she cared.

When he got home, he noticed the house was suspiciously quiet, like all conversation had stopped dead when he'd come in. "What's up?" he asked.

"Tiegan knows," Sarah said darkly. "And so does Sam." Daniel opened his mouth but Sarah cut him off. "Don't try and explain anything to us. You need to talk to Sam."

"What do you think their deal is?" Sarah asked Alanna after Daniel had gone to see Samantha.

"I don't know. I don't know if they faked the whole thing or he was cheating on her – but he doesn't seem like the type to cheat. But he must care about her – you can't fake something like that."

"Yeah," Sarah agreed. "They seemed so happy together, the way he treated her – you can't fake that. I hope they work it out." Although from the yelling that was coming from the bedroom, it was hard to believe that.

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"How could you be so indiscreet?" was the first thing Samantha yelled to Daniel when he walked in the door. She had been silently fuming for the last hour and a hour, getting angrier and angrier, all the while convincing herself that she was only pissed off at Daniel because he'd been indiscreet and now Tiegan knew their relationship was a sham.

"Hey, I'm single, you made that quite clear last night," Daniel retorted, resentful that he'd come back from a fantastic night to be greeted by a very pissed off Samantha. What did she want from him, fidelity? He had told her she was playing with fire and she should quite while she was ahead, but no, she'd had to provoke and provoked Tiegan until Tiegan was desperate to get some dirt on them. "What I do is my business."

"You gave Tiegan the ammunition she was after," Samantha accused him.

"No, you did that when you kept provoking her," Daniel countered. "I told you we should go home while we were ahead of the game, but no, you had to give her even more reason to prove that this is a sham."

How dare he act like this was her fault! He was the one who picked some random chick up at some random bar – which she was not upset about, only the fact he'd been indiscreet. "Don't you dare make this out to be my fault!" she yelled. "You're the one who acted like a typical male and went out to get laid at the first sign of trouble!"

Ah, so that was it, Daniel realised. She didn't want him but she didn't want anyone else to have him. "Don't tell me you're jealous?" he asked with a small smirk.

Infuriated, Samantha crossed the floor between them and slapped him with all her strength – which was considerable. "I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole!" she yelled.

She was saying one thing with her mouth and another with her eyes. Daniel wrapped his arms around her tightly, pinning her arms to her sides, and kissed her hard.

She struggled against him for a few seconds and then kissed him back. It was hard and passionate, and after a few more seconds he scooped her into his arms and dropped her on the bed, straddling her and continuing their kiss.

It was wonderful, it was more then anything she had expected – not that she had thought about it, of course. She had never been with a man who could be so passionate, so dominating, who forced her to face up to her feelings, however violent and inappropriate and messy that they were…

He was already working on the buttons on her shirt, and she did nothing to stop him. Her angry words had brought to the surface every intense feeling he had for her and she being putty in his hands while he acted on them was… exhilarating. She inhaled, and she breathed in Cheryl's smell, which was still on Daniel's clothes. It brought her back to reality immediately. Daniel had spent the night with another woman, and now he had the audacity to expect that she would sleep with him – that she would have anything to do with him.

Reverting back to her typical self, she kneed Daniel in the groin as hard as she could. With a howl of absolute agony, Daniel slid off her and stumbled off the bed. "What the hell was that for?" he demanded. One moment she was making out with him, practically begging for him to rip her clothes off, the next she was delivering pain.

"You are an asshole!" she yelled. "You think I'd have anything to do with you after you were with that – that tramp?" she demanded incredulously. Never mind that she had almost given herself to him… it took all her military discipline not to throw herself back into his arms.

"Hey, at least Cheryl didn't go completely schizo on me," Daniel countered.

Samantha glared at him. "Don't you dare," she spat, "don't…you…dare say her name." She would not cry. She would not act like the betrayed woman. Instead, she channelled her feelings of betrayal into anger.

Daniel took a step towards her. "Please, Sam – " he began.

"Stay the hell away from me," she ordered. If he touched her, she wasn't sure she'd be able to resist him. As it was, she couldn't help look at his lips and want to be kissed again. She gathered her resolve. She would not give into him after he'd been with that – that tramp. What would that say about her? That she would be happy taking sloppy seconds. "You touch me and I'll – I'll have you charged for sexual harassment."

Daniel paled visibly. "You can't be serious," he said.

Good, she'd shaken him – if only as badly as he'd rattled her. "I'm very serious," she said coolly. She wouldn't let him see how baldy he'd hurt her. Clearly, she couldn't mean that much to her if he could sleep with some other woman hours after kissing her.

For a moment, Daniel looked devastated as he realised just how angry Samantha was. Samantha got a perverse sense of satisfaction out of it. You just think about what you lost, buddy, she thought, although she didn't take nearly as much satisfaction out of it as she thought she would have.

Then Daniel's eyes cleared up, became focused. If Samantha was going to hold one little indiscretion against him when she had no claim on him – something she had made very clear – then it was much better that he found this out now then after he got involved with her. That's what he told himself, anyway. His subconscious snuck in a thought about how good it would be to kiss her again.

"Fine," he said, then added quite harshly, just to cut her up as much as she'd cut him up, "it was only sex anyway."

It as a mean, vindictive thing to say and he didn't get nearly as much satisfaction out of her reaction as he thought he would. "I'm going home," he declared before she had the opportunity to say anything. "This stupid facade has fallen to pieces and I'm not hanging around just to see it through."

Samantha knew he was right. She also knew she would never hear the end of it from Tiegan, slinking away in defeat like this. But there was no help for it. The alternative was to stick around and listen to Tiegan crow for another day. The best of a sorry situation was to cut her losses and walk away.

And never speak to Daniel again once they got home.

"Fine," she spat. "Give me fifteen minutes. Oh, and I'd have a shower and change your clothes if I were you. You stink of that whore."

"Just because she's not an uptight ice queen doesn't make her a whore," Daniel retorted.

Needless to say, the trip back to Colorado Springs was icy. Samantha and Daniel didn't say a word to each other which, over two hours, was quite a feat. When he pulled over at the side of the road at Samantha's house, he merely pulled the handle to open the boot. "Make sure you close it again," he said stiffly. They were the only six words he had spoken since leaving the house. She had made it clear what she thought of him, he didn't see that there was anything more to be said.

Perhaps if he'd said something – anything – on the drive home she would have been able to turn it into a conversation. Already, she was sorry she had treated Daniel so badly. She had acted out of jealousy and he had given as good as he got. But he wasn't going to make it easy for her to make it up to him, and she was too proud to grovel.

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A week later, after she was back at work, Samantha got a call from Alanna. At first she was tempted not to answer, but she decided Alanna hadn't done anything to her and besides, she was entitled to some answers.

"Hey, Sam, I just wanted to know how you were going," Alanna said when Samantha answered the phone.

"You mean, you want to know what possessed me to fake having a boyfriend?" Samantha corrected.

"I know why you faked having a boyfriend – Tiegan can be pretty mean," Alanna admitted. "I was more curious why Daniel went along with it. He was really convincing, he must really care about you."

"I doubt it," Samantha said dryly. SG-1 hadn't been on a mission yet, so Daniel had done his best to avoid her. She didn't know what would be worse, Daniel avoiding her when he was able to, or Daniel being forced to stay in close proximity to her and still trying to avoid her.

"Sam, you should have seen the way he smiled when you entered the room. I don't know if he even realised it, but it was obvious to everyone else. What – what exactly happened that he… did what he did?"

"You mean how badly did I reject him when he kissed me?" Samantha asked hollowly. Oh, God, if she could only take things back and kiss him back instead of acting like he was beneath her.

"I didn't want to put it like that but since you mentioned it, yeah," Alanna said.

Samantha sighed. "He kissed me, and I basically accused him of trying to take advantage of the situation, and that there was no way I would ever get together with him." Put like that, she could understand why Daniel had gotten so upset. She hadn't realised she'd been quite so mean about it.

Alanna winced down the line. "He seems like a pretty sensitive guy, Sam, that must have really hurt him."

Since Alanna was being so non-judgemental about it, Samantha admitted to the altercation they'd had on Thursday. "I just – I could smell her on his clothes, and I got so mad so I lashed out," she admitted. She was close to tears and she hated herself for it. She never cried over guys – never.

And Alanna knew this, so she knew Daniel had to mean something special to her if she was crying over him. "Why don't you try talking to him, Sam?" she suggested. "I'm sure if he knows how you feel –"

"No," Samantha interrupted her. "You didn't see the way he was on the way home, and the way he's been ever since. I think he hates me. I blew it completely."

Somehow, Alanna didn't believe Samantha. A man didn't look at a woman the way Daniel had been looking at Samantha and just switch off their feelings overnight. But there was no convincing Samantha of that. Alanna just hoped her friend came to that conclusion on her own.

A few days later, SG-1 went on their first mission since their much-deserved break. Samantha and Daniel would have been glad to have not had the break – or at least had a chance to do things over. Daniel would never have gone away with Samantha, and he certainly wouldn't have been stupid enough to kiss her, and Samantha would have kissed him back the first time.

"Are you going to talk to me?" Samantha asked after they'd walked in silence for half a mile. They were navigating their way down a steep, rocky hill and they really shouldn't have been talking, but the silence was driving Samantha crazy.

"Is it related to the mission?" Daniel asked.

"No."

"There's your answer."

Daniel could be really mean when he wanted to. Samantha supposed she had provoked him, just a little.

"You can't just not speak to me forever more."

"I plan on speaking to you… if it's related to the mission. You made it very clear we are team-mates and that's it." Not to mention he had the memory of an elephant ; he wasn't going to forget that anytime soon.

"You can be a real ass sometimes, Daniel," Samantha snapped.

"And you can be an ice-queen," Daniel retorted. "No wonder Jonas ditched you." He knew that wasn't exactly the truth but he wanted to hurt her like she'd hurt him.

"I dumped him," Samantha reminded him. And in the spirit of meanness – which Daniel had started – she couldn't resist adding, "at least I didn't sleep with a Goa'uld queen… or the Destroyer of Worlds." Behind Daniel's back, there was a running joke about his success with women – Hathor, Leanna/Kera, a wife and an ex taken as Goa'uld hosts. Cheryl must have been the first woman in ten years he'd gone to bed with who was remotely 'normal'.

It was an extremely low thing to bring up, and the reason why it was a running joke behind Daniel's back ; he was extremely sensitive about it, Hathor especially. There weren't many guys who could claim to have nearly been responsible for the creation of a new species of civilisation-destroying parasites. "I didn't realise you could be such a bitch," he retorted.

She reached out to slap him. He grabbed her wrist tightly before she could, and she wrenched it away, in the process losing her footing and falling badly, sliding down the hill nearly thirty meters and landing badly with a scream.

As best as they could, Daniel, Jack and Teal'c navigated their way down to her. Daniel hovered around uncertainly, his heart caught in his throat as Jack gently propped Samantha up. She seemed OK, a few bad bruises but nothing major except for her right arm, which was quite obviously broken.

"We'll have to go back to Earth," Jack stated the obvious. He and Teal'c helped Samantha back up the hill, which proved a lot harder then getting down it in the first place. Daniel trudged miserably behind them, feeling terrible for being partly responsible for Samantha falling. If he hadn't been squabbling with her – he vowed to make it up to her.

They got back to earth where Janet put Samantha through the usual battery of tests, and got the suspected results – Samantha's arm was broken, and badly. "You're lucky you didn't break anything else," Janet said. "Jack described it as a pretty nasty fall."

Samantha whimpered as her broken arm was being set. She had broken bones before, but they had never hurt this badly. "Just let me set it, then I can give you something for it," Janet said sympathetically. "How exactly did it happen?"

"Daniel and I were arguing. I went to slap him and lost my balance," Samantha said. Almost on cue, Daniel appeared at the door to the infirmary, hovering uncertainly. He had been see-sawing between thinking Samantha would want to be left alone and wanting to know that she was OK ; eventually, his desire to see that she was OK won out and he went to see her.

Samantha's arm was throbbing and she was going to be off active duty for at least two months thanks to her fall. She was irritated and wanted to lash out and who was better to lash out at then the person partially responsible for her fall? She saw Daniel standing in the doorway and yelled, "Go away! I don't want to see you!" She turned to Janet. "Make him go away," she begged.

She was clearly agitated, so Janet felt the best thing to do was ask Daniel to leave. "I'm sorry, she's upset at the moment," Janet said. "Give her some time."

"No I get the picture," Daniel said. Samantha hated him. OK, so he was kind of responsible for her fall, but she'd been just as mean to him as he had to her, and she was the one who had gone to slap him. He'd only been defending herself. "I don't need to be told twice." And with that he left. Samantha had made it perfectly clear she wanted nothing more to do with him. He was happy to oblige her.