He grinned and continued massaging her feet and legs, gradually working his way up her body. He trailed kisses along her thighs and higher as he worked. Her hands were clutched in his hair. The pleasure resonance between empaths fed her pleasure to him and his pleasure in that pleasure back in a loop that had her yearning so fiercely that suddenly the contact wasn't enough. "Come here," she growled throatily and tugged on his head. He didn't obey quickly, but instead worked his way up her body, thoroughly kissing every part of her on the way to her mouth. She was moaning and thrashing her head back and forth by the time he reached her breasts. His detour to savor them was ecstasy.
"Oh…my….God," she gasped.
He was leaning over her now and laid a finger on her lips. "You asked me to remind you we aren't alone in the house," he whispered. She sucked at the finger and nodded.
He came down off his elbows so his weight was fully on her. He knew she loved feeling his strength, his muscles, his male animalness that way. Daniel kissed her long and hard and then nuzzled her neck while caressing her where she so desperately needed him to be. She lost her self control and screamed his name. That was just the first time that night.
Breakfast the next morning was, in a word, strained. Sam was refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Daniel wasn't much better. Both blushed easily. Cam and Jack had joined forces and were having a great time producing blushes.
"You know, when you invited me to stay with you temporarily after Carolyn threw me out on my ear, it never occurred to me to inquire about the sound proofing."
"Me neither," Jack said, "When that bout of the, ur, flu got so serious that it was tough to be alone, I asked about bathroom facilities, but not soundproofing."
"What do you think the decibel level was?" Cam asked.
"We could get some measurement equipment. Be prepared. I'd like to establish experimentally which is more significant, the shared wall you have Mitchell, or being directly opposite like I am," Jack mused.
"It's nice to see you taking an interest in science and technology, Jack," Daniel said, his voice laced with quite a bit of sarcasm, particularly for him.
Sam looked up at both of their house guests. She stood and leaned menacingly, across the table. "You are both having a wonderful time, aren't you? May I remind you that I am perfectly capable of short sheeting your beds, putting spiders in them, or finding some other way of retaliating." She walked away from the table to go back upstairs. They were almost cowed until they heard a faint snigger escape her just as she reached the stairs.
"I guess she's not THAT upset," Jack said. He didn't sound repentant.
"You could cut back on the teasing," Daniel said. "It's a little awkward for both of us knowing that our past and present commanding officers are now aware that my wife is what they call a….
"Screamer?" Jack said helpfully.
"You dog, Jackson," Cam said with admiration. "What are you doing to that woman, anyway?" Jack snorted, his expression mirroring Cam's.
"Not answering," Daniel said. He couldn't help but sound a little smug. Two supermacho Air Force kickass guys were admiring his prowess. It was good for the ego. It almost made up for the craziness of suddenly doubling the size of their household.
Daniel stretched and looked over at Cam. "So, speaking of commanding officers, do you think we'll finally go on this hot, we had to talk about it immediately, but has yet to happen after a week and a half, mission on Monday?"
"You'd really like to get it over with, wouldn't you?" Cam asked him. Daniel knew Cam had seen both Daniel and Sam get tenser and tenser about the mission to try to enlist empaths ever since they'd been briefed on it.
"Hurray up and wait, that's the military," Jack said. He studied Daniel, which made Daniel squirm a little. Jack saw too much, even if he didn't let on. How long would it be before he figured out what Cam had? Daniel was tired of hiding from everyone. Surely they could trust Jack? Jack narrowed his eyes at both of them. "I don't really get why you are so tense about this empath mission."
"Oh really, Jack?" Daniel tried to keep from getting cranked up again on the topic. "You think we should be recruiting empaths? I guess you wouldn't mind an empath sitting around and watching you with Sara and figuring out that you are still desperately in love with the woman."
"Oh, yeah?" Cam said. He looked very interested. Daniel winced a little guiltily. He'd tried to set up a code of ethics for himself on what he could do with what he sensed and he had just broken it. Because Cam knew he was an empath, Cam knew that this wasn't teasing - this was the truth. It really wasn't any of Cam's business.
"That turned ugly fast," Jack said, making light of the comment but Daniel felt the absolute agreement going on in Jack's mind. He had to get this man together with Sara as fast as possible. Who knew how much longer Jack had? "What we need is another of those dancing sessions," Jack said. "That was a lot of fun. It'd help to relax you."
Cam and Daniel looked at Jack in disbelief. Sam had returned as Jack was speaking and she also regarded him incredulously. Daniel could imagine what was going through each of their minds. While Jack and Sara had floated by, gracefully demonstrating how it was to be done, most of the rest of the group had been miserable. Even when they had partnered with the others in turn, Jack and Sara were mentally still dancing together, smiling at each other across the room. Of course Teal'c hadn't really had a bad time. The big man was amazingly graceful and had caught on immediately and Liz MacDuff had seemed to be enjoying herself. She had been a last minute replacement for Dr. Bay DeBar, Carolyn's colleague and close friend, as Teal'c's partner. Bay had unexpectedly been called out of town and Cam had invited Liz on the spur of the moment, unable, like most of the men on the base, to resist the attractive and winsome young woman. Liz's presence had ruined the evening for Sam who had watched Daniel like a hawk. The more he knew he shouldn't be noticing Liz as a woman, the harder it was for Daniel to ignore her.
Carolyn and Cam had been very awkward together. When the evening had been planned, they had been expected to be partners. Then they had their giant blow up and Cam had been summarily asked to leave their shared home. Carolyn danced with Teal'c and Cam with Liz. Liz smiled sunnily and seemed to enjoy the Colonel's southern charm. Carolyn had spent the entire time looking daggers at both Cam and Liz and stepping all over Teal'c from lack of attention. Cam had done a better job of hiding his misery, but just being in the same room with Carolyn but not WITH her had made him a black hole of unhappiness. Daniel, of course, felt Sam's unhappiness as well as much of the other misery in the room. He'd had a headache for at least 24 hours afterwards.
Rousing himself from his unpleasant memories, Cam said, "We do have a mission on Monday but it's to P5G893. The word is that they actually were able to fend off a prior. Command wants us to go and check out what they did."
"Routine, right?" Sam asked. She continued to detest Daniel going into danger without her and had been talking more and more frequently with him about resigning her commission so that they could perhaps work together.
"Completely routine," Cam assured her.
He lied, unintentionally of course. Mid-afternoon of the next day, the claxons sounded and an unscheduled activation of the gate galvanized everyone in the gate room. The access code for SG-1 was received and immediately afterwards, they literally tumbled through, Cam and Daniel stumbling under Teal'c's inert weight. Surat rapped out, "Man down. We need a stretcher stat."
Teal'c was raced to the infirmary, Cam and Daniel right behind him. They got him into the operating room. They heard a scream and a clatter of instruments outside. Daniel investigated and found a white faced Carolyn, shaking in reaction. "They just said that there was someone wounded on SG1." She searched Daniel's face anxiously. "Tell me it's not Cam."
"It's Teal'c." She tried to break free, to go to the operating room. "Carolyn, what happened? Who did you lose?"
He watched her straighten, put her mask back in place, and her walls up. "I don't know what you're talking about Dr. Jackson."
"You loved a soldier and he died, am I right?" Daniel asked, piecing together her emotions at this moment and other reactions he had observed.
She didn't have to answer him out loud. He felt the answer. He hated to press her when she was upset, but this was when he would get the answers. "You were part of the medical team that should have saved him." He received confirmation for that stab in the dark as well.
"That's enough," she snarled. "Let me go to my patient."
Oh my, Cam, Daniel thought as he watched her go into the operating area. She's afraid to love a soldier all the way because they die. She doesn't feel like she deserves to be happy because she couldn't save the man she loved. Cam had told her that Carolyn had revealed a previous marriage. He now thought that she probably married some bozo, quite on purpose on some level, because it was all she thought she deserved.
Cam emerged in a moment, ejected as non-medical personnel. "She's really upset," he said. He didn't need to identify 'she.' "Do you know what it's all about?"
Daniel hissed, "Cam, I told you. I don't think it's right for me to be sharing things I find out about people without their knowledge with you when it isn't mission related."
Cam steered Daniel toward Carolyn's office. As soon as they had some privacy, he said, "You told me that if Hanna hadn't revealed to you that Sam loved you back, you don't know how much longer it might have been before the two of you got together."
"That was different."
"I fail to see how," Cam said.
Daniel looked at Cam for a long moment. He so clearly loved Carolyn with all his heart and soul and Daniel had come to believe that it was probably hopeless. "Look, Cam, she's really damaged. I can sense her feelings, but I can't fix them. I think she was in love with someone who was a soldier who got hurt somehow and she couldn't save him as a doctor. She's full of guilt and self-hatred over that and she doesn't trust letting herself love someone in the military. I think you need to move on."
Cam shook his head. "No, Daniel, don't tell me that." Black despair filled the room.
"She has to heal herself, Cam. You can't do it. If you want to still hope, hope that she's had something wonderful with you for a little bit and losing that will motivate her to try to get help." He clapped Cam on the back. "We need to go find out what's up with our teammate and," he lifted his head, "my wife just got here and she's really upset."
Sam was moving in their direction when they emerged from the office. "I couldn't find out who was hurt, but as soon as I came in here I realized it wasn't you." The relief was plain on her face. She looked at Cam and her eyes widened. "Is it Surat or is it Teal'c?"
"It's Teal'c," Daniel said gently.
"How bad?" she asked. By now, Daniel had his arms around her.
Cam did the dump of what they knew. "We don't know yet. He took a hit in the upper chest as we were trying to get back through the gate. I don't understand why he's unconscious."
They waited together anxiously, joined by Jean-Claude Surat, until Carolyn emerged and Teal'c was wheeled out and put into a bed. She was very brusque with all of them, but they didn't care when they heard that Teal'c would be fine. By the next morning, he was awake and demonstrably on the mend. They could all believe her in their hearts now that they had they evidence for themselves. Landry told them all to go home and no one argued. They were walking to the car, trying to get their heads back into normal life when Sam gasped, "Daniel, we were supposed to meet the priest last night. I forgot all about it."
"He's getting rather dubious about all the times we've had to reschedule. You think we'll be able to get all the required meetings in before the ceremony? We could always get a justice of the peace or something." Daniel asked, hoping the answer would eliminate the Catholic Church. He really didn't like getting married in a church and Sam knew it.
"Daniel, I know you don't like this part of it, but it would have been so important to my mother and, I guess those years in a Catholic grade school are still buried somewhere in me. It's how I always thought my wedding would be."
"I know," he said and squeezed her hand.
By late afternoon, they were all up and dressed and had joined Jack who was flipping channels looking for and discarding, once he found it, one sports event after another. "Extreme channel surfing, eh?" Cam asked.
"It's the only sport I'm strong enough for any more," Jack said.
"Your head is already in how sick you're going to be tomorrow," Sam said, her voice quiet.
"I do feel like I'm coming down with the flu again," Jack said. He gave her a dirty look for the revealing comment in front of Cam.
Cam expelled a breath. "Jack, don't worry about Sam letting something slip. I already told her I didn't buy the whole flu story. What's going on?"
Jack said, "Is there going to be anybody left on the planet who doesn't know?" He rolled his eyes. "Okay, if you MUST know, I have cancer and my next chemo treatment is tomorrow."
"There is someone else on the planet who should know," Daniel said. "Sara."
"I don't want her being with me out of pity," Jack said. "End of discussion."
"Not really," Daniel said. He leaned over and took the remote from Jack and switched off the TV.
"So now that I'm in a weakened condition, you're going to try to intimidate me, Danny Boy? I remember you when you didn't have any idea which end of the rifle the bullets came out and Sha're could probably have kicked your ass if she hadn't wanted to do something else with it."
Daniel ignored the attack. "Jack, the woman is in love with you. She regrets more than anything else in her life, except the death of your son, letting your marriage end. She spends a lot of time trying to figure out what she could have done differently to have gotten through to you, to have held on. She's scared to death this opportunity will slip away and she'll loose you again."
"She tell you that?" Jack asked challengingly.
"No."
"Then you can't possibly know it. You got nothing but conjecture. You got butkiss."
Cam said, "Actually, Jack, if he tells you something like that, he's going to be right. I've seen his … perceptiveness… in action too many times to doubt it."
Jack just snorted. Daniel looked at Sam indicating Jack slightly with his head. She returned his look steadily. "Yeah, go ahead," she said.
"What, are you reading his mind?" Jack jeered at Sam's answer to a question that didn't seem to have been asked.
"We can't really read minds," Sam said, "just emotions, but if there are enough contextual clues, it's almost the same thing."
Jack was staring at her. Daniel said, "We're both empaths. Something happened on a mission before you came back here for treatment. We've hidden it for a number of reasons, but mainly because our life and our freedom would be over if the NID or any number of other people knew what we can do."
Jack looked at Cam. "You knew this? They told YOU?"
Cam shook his head. "No, Jack. I figured it out. You would have too before much longer."
"And your empathic powers tell both of you, not just Daniel, that Sara is in love with me?" Jack questioned. Jack was so quickly past the wonder of empathy that Daniel's head was spinning. He thought, if you might not have much time left, you've got to focus on what matters most to you.
"Yes," Sam affirmed. "Jack, if I were you, I would tell her about the cancer. That will cause her to want to be your nurse. That's what we women do. We want to care for the ones we love when they're hurting. Forget your pride and work every advantage that you've got. You both deserve to be together and you don't want to waste any time dancing around getting there."
"It wouldn't be fair to saddle her with a possibly dying man," Jack protested, half-heartedly.
"She's already involved. You won't be able to hide your death from her if you do die from this thing. How do you think that would make her feel? If she hasn't gotten over you in ten years, she's not going to get over you any time soon."
Cam's cell phone rang and he ignored it. Then Daniel's cell phone sounded and he also ignored it. They faintly heard Sam's cell phone from upstairs. They were ready to answer by now, but Sam knew she wouldn't make it up there before it went into voice mail. They waited for the phone in the kitchen to ring, figuring that it would be next. Daniel actually got up and walked in the direction of the kitchen so that he was only a step away when it happened. After picking it up and answering it, he said, "It's for you," and extended the phone toward Cam. "Landry."
Cam walked quickly to the phone. "Yes, sir," he said and then just listened for awhile. At last he said, "Sir, is it possible this could be delayed until Friday? There's sort of a personal situation here." He listened further and grimaced. "I see, sir. I'll inform them and we'll be there by," he looked at his watch, "1900 hours."
Cam came back into the living room. "The Poopoo thing is on. After messing around for days, the NID now has to go this exact minute."
There was silence and Daniel and Sam looked at Jack. He shrugged and said, "It might just be a day or two right? I've come home from the chemo alone before. I can manage it."
Daniel pulled out his cell, flipped it open, and put it on the coffee table in front of Jack. "Call Sara. If you don't I will."
Jack took the phone and looked at it as if it was alive. "This is nothing compared to fighting the Goa'uld," Cam said.
A short time later, they watched as Sara's car pulled into the driveway just as they turned off Sam and Daniel's street. Cam spoke for all of them, "One mission successful anyway."
Daniel added, "And let's hope we can have a real big failure on the one to Poopoo."
"Amen," his wife and friend chorused in agreement.