Daniel was through cooperating and broke the kiss immediately. He tried to get out of the hammock and dumped them both on the deck. Daniel untangled himself with difficulty, grabbed the nearest piece of clothing at hand, his abused shirt, and held it strategically in front of him.
He bent his knees and groped for his pants. She lay still watching him. She wore very little and the soft light of the two moons coming in the window glowed where it found her pale skin. Neither of them spoke. Her face was in shadow and her expression unreadable. Finding the pants, he turned his back on her, dropped the shirt, and hastily pulled them on.
"Get dressed," he said, not looking at her. He thought he managed to say it very calmly and unemotionally under the circumstances. He snatched a clean shirt out of his trunk and left the cabin, pulling it on while thinking his temporary watchman had definitely been overpaid.
He was standing in the prow, looking out at the dark water, when she came above deck. "Was I that wrong about how you feel about me?" she asked from a few inches behind him.
"My feelings were never the issue. So where are Mitchell and Teal'c?"
"On our boat. We're moored over there, past the boat with the square sail. I asked to have time alone with you first."
"You bring any one else with? Your boyfriend Jack over there too?" He turned at last to look at her.
"Daniel, if Jack was my boyfriend, do you think I would dare lie in wait for you in your bed?"
"I don't think I know what you are capable of," he said. She moved slightly and he warned, "Don't come any closer."
"Please let me explain. You've never really listened to what I had to say about it all." Her voice was thick and he could tell she was on the verge of tears.
"Oh by all means. Explain away. It's not like there's something worth watching on television." He swept his hand to indicate the sleeping town, innocent of electricity.
"I've practiced this you know but I can't remember any of my words." She was having trouble talking and paused to try win some control. "I don't suppose you could hold me while I'm talking to you?"
"I don't cuddle with something that's likely to bite me." He heard himself from far away and wondered when he had gotten this hard.
She crossed her arms defensively. "All right then. You've got to believe that I only told the oversight committee the truth. Plain unvarnished facts without interpretation except for describing you as heroic. The facts were clear. We were investigating a ruin and you opened a sealed room and, doing so, innocently triggered the release of a biological agent. Something put there long ago for germ warfare. It could have been anyone who did it. It just happened to be you. You did everything you could to help them fight the plague. You risked your own life repeatedly to save those people and you damn near died of it yourself."
"A quarter million of those people, Sam. Accidental or not, if I had never been born, they'd still be alive."
"If you're being that hard on yourself, why are you flogging me over it?"
"Because you had just finished telling me that you loved me. People who love you are supposed to believe in you even when you don't. There were only two people in that ruin, you and me. There is nowhere else they could have gotten the story. If you said what you say you did, how did it translate into a finding that I had been utterly reckless and irresponsible and a decision that I was to never be allowed through the gate again?"
"Daniel, I can't explain it. Maybe they just disregarded the testimony and found what they wanted to find. We both know that the lovely Senator Clanton wanted to crucify you over the Ori finding us but Landry, Mitchell, everyone stood tight and she wasn't able to do it. This time there was only me. Maybe… maybe they knew about us and were able to discredit my testimony based on our relationship." She bit off a muttered curse. "Daniel, I don't know but like you said, when you love someone you have to believe in them. Believe in me."
He stared at her. He wavered for just a moment but then there was the other thing between them, the 500 pound gorilla of a thing. He shook his head. "Go back to your boat, Sam. Tell Mitchell I'll talk to him in the morning. I won't sneak off. I'll be right here but I'm done talking now."
She came right up in his face, angry now. "I'm not done Daniel. You said you'd hear me out."
"No more tonight, Sam. Get off my boat." He went below deck and closed the door. He waited just inside the door for some time before he felt the boat's slight motion as she returned to the deck. He thought she was probably still standing on the deck crying. Just as he decided to go back on deck the boat shifted and he heard her walking away. The hammock smelled like her, damn it, and he didn't sleep at all that night. Instead vivid memories chased each other through his head. Memories of kissing her. Memories of planning a future with her. Much darker memories of how she had put Jack first, once again.
Daniel rolled out of the hammock as soon as the sky grayed and he could tell himself it was morning. He strapped his second knife back on his shin. The knife that hung from the scabbard attached to a thong around his neck never came off. He wondered if Sam had noticed it the night before when it had hung down his back. He carried his pants to the deck above and tossed them over a coil of rope and then dove off into the water wearing nothing but his knives. There were some unfriendly beasts in these waters. If a man was armed and stayed vigilant, they didn't need to be a problem.
He swam a mile up river and let the current carry him back to the boat. He pulled himself aboard, whipping his long wet hair back, to encounter SG-1 as a welcoming committee. He showed no embarrassment. The truth be told, he felt none. It was different than facing Sam the night before when his lust couldn't be hidden. Nakedness was common on the water if the weather encouraged it and he was tan all over. On this planet, a man naked on his own boat was no scandal, but anyone else boarding that boat without an invitation was. Daniel knew he could raise a hue and cry and boatmen would come spilling out of their vessels up and down the wharf and deal with the breech of good manners for him.
"Hand me my pants, eh Teal'c," he requested in this planet's trade language, a simplified Jaffa dialect. Teal'c bowed slightly and did as requested. "My thanks," Daniel said and pulled them on.
"It's good to see you Jackson, more of you than I was looking to see, but still good to see you," Cam said in English, the smallest of smiles twitching at the corners of his mouth.
"And I am most pleased to see you again, my friend," Teal'c said gravely. Sam didn't speak.
"I'm glad you're all well, but it doesn't make my day to have you showing up on my boat, unless you're looking to hire her at my highest daily rates," he responded, cutting Cam a break by sticking to his native tongue.
"Pimping your boat? I'm surprised at you, Jackson," Cam said, still on the brink of a smile.
Teal'c looked at Cam with studied bafflement. "I do not believe it would be safe to attempt to satisfy one's physical needs with a maritime vessel, Colonel Mitchell. There would be grave risk of splinters in tender places."
"This is what he has learned to pass off as humor," Cam observed, "deliberate obtuseness in dealing with the language.
Daniel realized then the close bound that had formed between Cam and Teal'c in the years he had been away and he felt a little jealous or perhaps more accurately, bereft. It reminded him of the friendships he had lost and his late foster father. They all stood looking at each other, Teal'c at parade rest, Mitchell almost sleepy looking, leaning against the mast, and Daniel throwing everything he had into a portrayal of studied disinterest. Only Sam, standing stiffly, wound tight as piano wire, allowed her inner feelings to show.
At last Daniel said, "I have a job. I took an advance last night to carry a message up to the next town and bring back a reply by day after tomorrow. If you have anything to say to me, it needs to be said quickly. I cast off as soon as you are off my boat and I've had a chance to drink my breakfast."
"You have a much bigger job with us, Daniel," Mitchell said. "We came to bring you back."
"I'm not going. I've been responsible for the deaths of enough people. I need to stay here where the low technology keeps me from screwing up more than a handful of people at one time." He began to move about, getting the boat ready to cast off.
Teal'c stepped directly in his path and clamped down on his shoulders. "DanielJackson, there have been developments. The Ori have become even more dangerous than we supposed but, at last, the Ascended seem disposed to possibly fight them for us. The problem is that they are not united and one faction has succeeded in making our treatment of you a litmus test as to whether we are worth defending or not." Teal'c spread his hands, palms up. "You hold the answer DanielJackson. I do not believe you were guilty of anything up until now, but if you do not come back with us, you could be guilty of the deaths and enslavement of billions."
Daniel remained standing only because Teal'c was holding him up under the guise of forcing him to pay attention. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to defend himself against black spots that swirled across his vision. He had been drawn to the Destroyer of Worlds once, all unknowing that she was perhaps his fittest mate. He didn't want to show weakness, but he slumped against Teal'c at last and let the steady beat of Teal'c heart as he rested against his chest soothe him on some primal level.
Teal'c spoke so low, a whisper really, that Sam and Cam could not have understood, "You won't be alone."
Daniel looked up quickly into those deep brown eyes and steadied himself. "Thanks, my friend. I never had any problems with you," he said, speaking loudly enough that he knew Sam would be able to hear him. Again he marveled distantly at the hard, petty thing in place of his heart.
He straightened. "I took a job and I finish work once I've accepted money for it." He broke off then as there was a loud hail from another boat, almost the twin of his, gliding toward them. There were two men standing at the helm. One had silver streaks in his dark hair and, although rugged and vigorous, was unquestionably in his early fifties. His companion, leaning against him, was roughly Daniel's age, and the type that once was called a blonde Adonis.
"Lodi, you dog. We've been expecting to see you any time the past two weeks. Where you been hiding yourself?" the older man called.
"Here and there. It's good to see your faces," Daniel answered, his voice warm and affectionate.
"We wanted to be with you to lift a glass to Carlos what with his day of remembrance coming up," the younger man said. "We miss him something fierce." His face was upset and his friend gave him a squeeze and ruffled his hair.
"It still cuts like a knife," Daniel said. "I've got a message to run up to Karkach but I should be back in two days. Will you yet be moored here? I can think of no better way to remember Carlos than with our two closest friends."
"Done," the older man said and their boat passed on.
"Who are they?" Cam asked curiously, "and who is Carlos or I guess who was Carlos?"
"No problems at all with personal questions, eh, Mitchell? Carlos and I shared the boat and when he died I inherited his half. He was …" Daniel shook his head. "How do you describe someone who's really important to you? You don't see them the way others do." He hesitated thinking of his foster father, of how good it had felt to be someone's son again. "Well, anyway as to Jem and Tomas, Carlos and I spent a lot of time alone out on the water and it was fine but he was older than I am and it was a perfect fit hanging out with Jem and Thomas when we were in port. He and Thomas could talk about their stuff and Jem and I would go do something more active. To get back to what I was saying, I'll think about going with you while I'm gone and let you know when I come back."
"We'll come with you," Mitchell said, looking around the boat with interest. He slapped the mast beside him, "This is a sleek looking little lady you have here Jackson, a cut above the scow we rented in Finlot. I think I'd like a chance to crew. Used to sail back home and I kind of miss it."
"I know nothing of boats, DanielJackson," Teal'c said, "but I also would take pleasure in the trip. I see far too much resemblance between the hapless Skipper of Gilligan fame and the man who is sailing our current waterborne transport. I would like to leave that vessel before we relive the famous three-hour cruise, however much I might welcome an opportunity to meet Ginger and Mary Ann."
Daniel laughed. He couldn't help it. He clapped Teal'c on the back and said, "I've missed you Teal'c."
"I'm hurt," Cam said. "Surely you missed something about me."
Still laughing just a little, Daniel said, without rancor, "Give me until the end of the trip and I'll probably think of something."
Sam still hadn't spoken. "You could stay here on our boat and wait," her team lead told her.
"My place is here whether Daniel wants to acknowledge it or not. I'm going back to the other boat and get my gear. No reason not to give our thanks to our friend from Finlot and send him on his way, is there? Even if Daniel doesn't come back with us, he can still carry us to the vicinity of the gate – for his top rates."
"We'll be along in a minute then," Cam said.
She jumped to the pier and walked off briskly. Daniel looked at the two men and said, "I have to ask you something before you go get your stuff. I know I shouldn't but I have to."
"The Broncos did not win the Superbowl either of the past two years," Cam said, innocently. "I know it's been killing you not knowing."
"Amazingly enough, that really wasn't it nor am I interested in which state's representative captured the Miss America title. What I have to know is what the hell were you at, telling people that the mother of my son needed me?"
Was Cam blushing? He at least looked discomforted by the question. Teal'c lost it. Daniel was flabbergasted. Over two years with the ebullient Colonel had broken down some deep barrier and Teal'c was now a man who could just lose it. What else had changed? Teal'c doubled over laughing, huge laughs. "It's not THAT funny Teal'c," Cam protested.
"Oh but it is," Teal'c gasped. "It is his miserably poor command of the Jaffa language. I work with him every day, DanielJackson, but still he makes terrible mistakes. Sometimes I do not tell him because it is more fun to have him continue to make them. He has confused the word translated as erection and the word for idea. This is very entertaining in some sentences." He mimicked Cam's southern accident. "I think I have a really good …!"
"What!" Cam said in a minor explosion, cutting him off.
"He was trying to bait the hook, to make you think about SamanthaCarter. He was trying to say that the woman who wanted to be the mother of your son needed you. SamanthaCarter had gone on to the next little village to ask questions and was not around to hear him."
They proceeded to fill him in on what they had encountered since they had arrived on the planet. Then they began telling him gossip. Who had gotten engaged, married, pregnant, in trouble. He acted like he wasn't very interested, but he was dismayed to discover that he was acutely interested, starved for information about people he had decided long ago he would never see again.
There was some indistinct noise coming from other end of the harbor, but they were engrossed in their conversation and ignored it at first. Suddenly something made Daniel stop talking and signal for silence. Once he paid attention, Daniel had been living on waterfronts for long enough to realize he was listening to a brawl. He cursed himself for ignoring it for so long. Sam, what if Sam had gotten caught up in it? The boat from Finlot was moored in that direction. He vaulted over the railing and ran off toward the commotion, Cam and Teal'c immediately behind him. As his bare feet slapped against the boards of the pier, he told himself that Sam was a soldier and able to whip his ass. He had been able to defeat every waterfront bully he'd encountered so far. By simple deduction then, Sam should have no problem. Still he ran as fast as he could.
They rounded a pile of crates and found a major free for all winding down. The fight involved boatmen on one side and waterfront toughs on the other. The boatmen were having a good time and, as the Tauri arrived, most of the remaining lowlifes had pulled themselves into a sort of knot and had their hands raised, signaling a truce.
Daniel didn't see Sam among the combatants and began to anxiously scan the handful of moaning bodies struggling to stand up. No Sam. Then, over to the side, as if she had been flung there, was Sam, limp and unmoving. "No, my God, no," Daniel protested to someone he didn't believe in but wished he could call into action nonetheless. Not wanting her in his life and not wanting her to have life were two different things.