Unexpected Effect by Betty Bokor
Sam/Daniel. The ripple effect brought a few more consequences than first thought.
Spoilers: All seasons, including 9.
Disclaimer: The Stargate original characters belong to MGM/Showtime, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Film Corp. This was written strictly for the purpose of entertainment. No attempt at copyright infringement has been made.

Unexpected Effect

Chapter 3

"It's not that, Daniel."

"I know I'm not the kind of guy you've always liked, but I'm not that bad. I may not be as skilled as Jack in combat, but I've come a long way since you met me. I don't need you to protect me like a little brother."

Sam was stunned. Daniel separated from her and went back to putting papers in a folder. "Daniel, I don't see you like a little brother. I know how much you've changed and sometimes I feel guilty that we've taken away the innocence you had when I met you." Daniel made a gesture of understanding with his head, but kept working on his desk. "You're a very special man, very passionate, so bright, and you're also very handsome. You don't see how many women would give anything for you to pay attention to them, in this base alone?"

"Many women, but not you," he said with a little sarcasm.

Sam was still bewildered until she finally understood. She approached him again and made him face her. "Daniel, please. Do you like me? Do you… love me?"

He lowered his head and sighed deeply. He walked away from her one more time. He stood in front of a shelf and started playing with a book. "So what if I did? You don't need to know. You've never noticed before and I'd have never told you-"

"Why not?" Sam wanted to know.

"What for? To make you feel uncomfortable when you were with me? All these years of friendship that we've shared would have been ruined. I've enjoyed every minute with you, Sam, and no matter whom you ever marry, we'd always be friends, but if you put my feelings in the middle, they would separate us, and I don't know if I can live with that."

Sam sat down. This was too much. She was starting to feel like the General. Maybe it was too much 'touchy feely' conversation for a day. "Daniel, I would never let us drift apart. I don't think I could live with that either. You're too important for me. What I'm going to talk to you about in the morning is usually the first thought I have after I wake up." She paused. "How long?" He didn't answer. "Come on, Daniel, how long have you felt that way?"

Daniel turned around and sat on the floor against the shelf, still playing with the book. "I don't really know. It has changed through the years. Probably, since the day I met you on Abydos."

Sam was even more shocked than before. She got up and sat on the floor in front of Daniel. "Abydos? But you were married."

"I know, but- How can I explain this to you? You see, Sha're was an extraordinary woman, smart and brave, and very intuitive. All the time I lived in Abydos I felt loved, I felt that I belonged there, I enjoyed every second, but there was nobody to share the wonders of the discoveries I could make. And that's who I am. I studied Archeology because I wanted to feel the rush of the discovery, the thrill of the search." Sam could see the old Daniel, actually the very young Daniel she had met on her first trip through the gate, in his eyes. "All these things that we use everyday here were foreign there. I couldn't talk about planetary shift with my people when even the concept of a ballpoint pen was alien to them. When you and I talked in the cartouche room, I was talking to an equal, to someone who understood what I was saying and could even take it further. I felt this burst of energy, this sensation that I was alive, in a different way than I had felt with Sha're."

"Not so much of an equal, you were far ahead of me. I admired you so much, long before I got there and talked to you, that I would have done anything to be on that mission," Sam said with a smile.

Daniel smiled a little, but got serious almost immediately. "Then, all those horrible things happened," he sighed, "and I ended up here, lost and confused. I don't know what I would have done without Jack's help. I had to learn to live here again, without Sha're, not really belonging anywhere." Sam got a little closer and held his hand. "And then, very slowly, I started discovering what I felt for you. It was very different than what I felt for Sha're. It was not really physical, it was like this need to be close to you, to share with you what I thought, to see you every morning when I came to work, and to hold your hand every time you needed it"

"That sounds like what we have, like friendship."

"No. I knew it was more than that because every time I thought of you, I felt guilty about it. I felt I was betraying Sha're."

"You didn't. It was to be expected, Daniel. You were suffering and you needed someone to be with you. I always felt that you were so alone, but I thought that the General was helping you get through it."

"He was, but you know Jack, he cannot deal with anything too emotional," he smiled, then went back to his sad tone. "In any case, by then I started noticing that you had an inclination toward Jack, and I decided it was best for everybody if I never said anything. I actually never talked about it with anyone until after Shau'nac's death. I thought Teal'c would understand being in love with two women at the same time. He had been through something similar."

"So Teal'c knew. That's why he- Wait, that was after Sha're's death. If you still felt that way, why didn't you tell me then? And I don't know where you got that about me having a preference for the General."

"Sam, I may have hidden my feelings, but I was not in denial like you. Don't tell me it's not true. I bet you wouldn't have thought it was funny if Janet had said her Sam was expecting Jack's child."