Chapter twenty-five
They had taken the boys to her father's house after he agreed to baby sit for the day, and were now on there way to Denver, to spend the day in the city.
They had left fairly early and arrived well before lunch. Megan had told him on the drive over that it was his day, what ever he wanted to do, they would.
After finding a park in the busy city centre, Daniel got out and opened the door for his fiancée.
"I think we should just wander thru the shops for a while, if you like." He said as he locked the car.
Megan nodded, took his hand and followed his lead towards the shops.
After an hour or so of mindless chatter and aimless wandering, they had bought a few things for the house and ran them back to the car, and were now looking for somewhere to have lunch.
They took a seat at a popular eatery and ordered off of the menu, while they waited for there lunch Daniel started talking seriously.
"Megan, I want to explain why I have been so distant the last few weeks."
"You don't have to tell me, I understand if you don't want to talk about it. I know what it's like to be tortured too, it is definitely something I wish I never had to go thru." Megan said as she took his hands in her own over the table.
"No I need to tell you. You deserve to know the truth." He said as he lowered his head, as if ashamed of what he was about to say.
After quickly looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping, or close enough to hear anything. Daniel slowly lowered his head not wanting to make eye contact with Megan.
"It was horrible. When they first took Sam and I into "the chamber" as they called it they pinned Sam up against a wall, and tied her down. I tried to fight them a bit but they outnumbered me. Eventually they got me on the table and laid me on my stomach."
He paused while the waitress put their food down in front of them.
He took a couple of bites and motioned for Megan to do the same.
After a few moments he continued, still not making eye contact with Megan.
"They left the room for a while. I'm not sure how long they were gone, but I must have dosed off. I was woken up by a bucket of cold water being tossed over my head. They did the same thing to Sam, I heard her gasp as she finally came to. She was pinned to the wall directly in front of me. They started on me first. They would ask me a question, simple ones to start with. Where do you come from etc.? Then they wanted to know other details like why the weapons that we had with us no longer worked."
He took a sip of water to calm his nerves, and then continued.
"The leader had used the guns until the ammunition ran out. Needless to say I wasn't about to tell them how to reload it. So they started whipping me across the back. They only did it once for every question I didn't answer to their satisfaction to start with. After a while and I don't know how many times they lashed me, they seemed to get bored with asking questions and just started to whip me for the hell of it."
"I must have passed out. I don't remember much more. When I woke up I could see Sam going through what they had done to me. A question followed by a fist. They just used their fists on her thank god. Next thing I knew we were being dragged back through the halls and dumped in our cell. I woke up when Jonas and Teal'c freed us. You know the rest."
Megan didn't know what to say, she knew there was parts of the story that he was leaving out to protect her. But she knew that he would open up to her about the rest of it in his own time.
She grabbed his hand over the table and turned it palm up.
Kissing his palm she looked him straight in the eye and with as much feeling in her voice as she could muster, and told him that she loved him.
Nothing more was said on the subject until they got in the car to go home.
Before Daniel could start the car, Megan turned to him and made him look at her.
"Daniel, I know how hard it was to tell me that. I know you want to protect me from the big bad world out there. But I need you to talk to me about this stuff. I hope to god that this never happens again, but in your line of work you never know. I just want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. Look what happened to dad, after Charlie. If I hadn't made him open up, god knows what he would have done. If you need time to sort things out in your own head or if you want to speak to a specialist go ahead, take as much time as you want. Ill be here waiting for you."
"Megan there is nothing in the world or universe for that matter that would stop me from marrying you in two weeks time. I love you with all my heart and soul. I would do anything for you or for our boys. I'm sorry I have been so distant with you, but I get retrospective when stuff like this happens. I know in the grand scheme of thing it is rather insignificant but seeing one of my best friends being attacked and not being able to do a damn thing about it was worse than any beating they could have given me. That is what has made me so so ...... I don't know."
"I love you too Daniel."
Daniel leaned across the car and gave Megan a passionate kiss. One that she wouldn't forget anytime soon. Signalling that that part of the conversation was over.
"What do you say to picking up something for dinner tonite for Jack, Sam and us?" Daniel asked in a seemingly better mood for talking about it.
"Sounds good. Ill ring Dad up and see what they want, and see if the little terrors are behaving." Megan answered as she watched the man she loved bottle up the part of the discussion that he had left out.
Arriving home with a load full of takeaway food from the ribs place down the road, Megan and Daniel headed thru the kitchen into the backyard and into her fathers yard.
Sam was sitting on the deck feeding Nick his bottle, and rocking Lachie in his rocker with her foot.
Jack was in the backyard with Johnny trying to show him how to cast a fishing line, with a small fishing rod he had bought the boy.
Johnny was so engrossed in what he was doing the he didn't even realise his parents had returned until they stood on the deck with Sam.
Once he realised that they had dinner with them he couldn't get to them fast enough.
"Hungry are we little man?" Megan asked her son as he went straight to one of the bags sitting on the table.
Johnny turned to his mother and with a perfect imitation of his grandfather put his hands on his hips and drawled out the word "Starving".
"This is so not a good idea to be leaving the two of them alone ever again." Daniel said motioning towards Jack and Johnny.
After dinner was finished Megan started clearing away the plates and took Johnny inside to get him cleaned up.
She was in the kitchen with a handful of wet wipes when her father walked in the door.
"Ribs proberly isn't a good idea for him anymore." Jack said with a chuckle in his voice looking at the mess that his grandson had created. He had sauce all over his face and clothes and even had it in his hair.
"What are you talking about him?" Megan said as she mopped a wet wipe over his face and showed it to him stained in the same sauce.
"You know it scares me how much he is like you sometimes. I knew he was going to be a terror when he was born. He had your eyes. When he was born he didn't even cry, he was too busy looking around at everything, you could almost see him plotting my demise from the first moment he realised I was his mum." Megan said while she unsuccessfully tried to get the sauce out of the toddler's hair.
"Thanks, I think. I think that the only way you're ever going to get him clean is to put him in a bath. Ill do you a deal, sweetheart. You clean up the dishes, and ill give him a bath." Jack said obviously not realising how much of a challenge it is to get Johnny in the bath.
"Deal." Megan said as she handed her charge over to her father, and turned to the pile of dishes already on the sink.
Heading out to the deck to get the remaining dishes she whispered the word "sucker" under her breath,
Sam and Daniel were clearing up the remaining mess as she opened the sliding screen door to the deck.
"Put them down you two, ill do it." Megan said as she started taking things out of Sam's hands.
After a few protests, Megan took the rest of the mess to the kitchen, leaving Daniel and Sam alone with two sleeping babies.
"Sam, I talked to Megan today while we where out. I told her just about everything. I think you should talk to someone. Me, Jack or even Megan. You need to get it out in the open. I feel a bit better because of it."
"I don't know what to say, that I was so weak that I couldn't protect my team from capture or that I couldn't stop them beating you to a bloody pulp. I must be the worst leader that has ever graced the halls of the SGC."
Daniel got up from his seat and walked the short distance to where she sat. He kneeled down beside her and took her hands in his, urging her to look at him.
"Sam you have to understand, that you couldn't do anything about it. I know control is very precious to you, but this is something that would have been out of anybodies control. I know what you're thinking. You think that if Jack was still in charge it never would have happened. And that is bull. It would have happened if General Sherman was in charge. You did the absolute best in a horrible situation that you could. I know you stopped them from whipping me again, after their initial attack had subsided."
She looked at him with surprise in her eyes.
"I thought you were unconscious."
"Nope, I vaguely remember them telling you when they walked back in the room that they were going to use me to get you to tell them what they wanted to know. I also remember what you promised them if they left me alone." Daniel said as he saw the shame in her eyes.
"You can't tell Jack, you have to promise me you didn't tell Megan." She stammered out as she stood up and backed away from him.
"I haven't told Megan and I don't intend to tell Jack. That is up to you when and if you feel like talking to him. But I will tell you now Sam if you ever do anything so stupid as to offer yourself over me getting a bit of a beating again. Ill hurt you. I could never live with myself knowing that I was the cause of so much pain to one of my best friends." Daniel revealed as he slowly moved towards her.
"Daniel, you have so much more to live for than I do. You have children, a woman who you are about to marry and you are priceless to the SGC program. That's why I did it. I couldn't come back and tell Megan that she had lost you again. That's why I did it."
Sam let Daniel embrace her in a hug as she started sobbing, she put her head on his shoulder and let out all the frustration that she had been feeling at being a failure and getting her friends into trouble.
"Sam you have Jack. That is more than enough to come back to. He loves you so much, you can only guess to its extent. I'm not the geeky little brother you used to think of me as anymore. Hell I'm almost your sort of son in law." He said with a small laugh.
"You don't have to protect me. I know it's your job. But don't you ever think that your life is any less more important than anybody else's. We are so lucky that just as the guard was about to take you up on your offer, his boss walked in and sent us back to our cell. I could never have lived knowing that I was the cause of so much pain and humiliation to you. Do you understand?"
She nodded into his chest not trusting her self to talk at the moment.
Daniel kissed her on the top of her head as he heard the screen door open.
"Your not planning on stealing my girl, are you Dr Jackson?" Jack said as he led Johnny out on to the deck.
"Of course I am, Jack. I'm planning on starting a harem." Daniel answered with a smile in his voice.
"Thank you." Sam stated as she slowly pulled away from her friend and looked over to the man she adored with all her heart.
Megan came outside then and noticed the redness of Sam's eyes. She took Daniels lead and gathered up the children to go home. Stopping briefly to give her father a kiss on the cheek and quickly hug her best friend.
As they entered their own kitchen, Megan and Daniel put the twins down on the bench in their rockers.
Megan turned to Daniel and embraced him in a huge hug.
"You heard, didn't you?' Daniel asked as he rested his chin on her head.
Megan just simply nodded.
"Do you see know why I felt so helpless?"
Megan nodded into his chest again.
"Daniel I can't say that if I was in Sam's position, that I would have done anything different. But I know where you are coming from. I hope she talks to Dad about it. They both need to get it out in the open."
With that, Megan leaned up and gave Daniel a quick kiss on the cheek. Then she picked up one of the rockers and herded Johnny up the stairs to his room to get him ready for bed. Daniel followed with the other rocker a few moments later feeling that the weight of the world had been lifted off of his shoulders for the moment.
NOTE::::::I don't know if this is my best chapter ever, but I would like to hear your response. Please review. Just a hint that the next one will be the wedding. Happy reading.
Ellie Mae
