From the Soul by Betty Bokor
Sam/Daniel. Sam needs someone to listen.
Spoilers: All seasons, including 9 and 10.
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.
From the Soul
Chapter 3
Two weeks later, I was surprised when I woke up after the incident with Grace in the Prometheus and Daniel was not there. The Colonel was there and I felt content again. It was very comforting to have him all worried by my side, but, at the same time, what I had experienced in that ship had changed me. I was not willing anymore to wait forever for Jack's love. It had been reassuring over the years, but I needed something else. Something not even Daniel could give me, because what I wanted was a normal life. A husband, children, a house, and all the comforts of modern life. Neither of them was willing to give up the significant fight for Galaxy's peace. I was bent on caring about my own peace those days.
Daniel and Teal'c had really been preparing a small celebration for my return. While everybody was eating and drinking, I approached Daniel and I said, "I missed you there when I woke up today." He glanced at me with an inscrutable look and told me in a whisper, "I didn't want to ruin your Jack moment." He promptly walked away from me and I did not know how to follow up. I simply let it go.
After the scary incident inside Jonas Quinn's planet, I was back home for a few days of stand down when I met Pete. It was all my brother's doing. Pete had been one of his best friends for a long time, since high school. He was handsome and agreeable enough and he looked at me as if I was the main prize in some life contest. It really appealed to me. I was so used to being "one more of the boys" in the military that it felt exhilarating to be just "the girl" for Pete. I even went back to wearing dresses that I had long forgotten in the back of my closet.
I felt some perverse satisfaction when the Colonel discovered our relationship. I was not humming on purpose, I swear. I did it unconsciously, just because… it came to me, and the Colonel, who is not as dumb as he wants everybody to believe, got it in a second. I did not mind finally telling him. In a way I was telling him that I was over him, that I had someone who cared for me the way he was not capable of caring.
The whole thing did not keep me from noticing that Daniel was not doing all right. He was constantly sleepy and tired and we could not find a reason. Teal'c was very concerned, too, until we finally came up with an explanation. The day we were supposed to capture Osiris in Daniel's house, Pete appeared from nowhere and was injured. Consequently, we ended up giving him clearance enough to find out about the stargate and my job. Not much, but enough to make our relationship much easier, as it kept me from having to constantly lie to him about what I was doing at work.
As I was explaining the whole story to Pete in the Infirmary, I caught, from the corner of my eye, Daniel hugging Sarah as if their lives depended on it. I will admit today that it bothered me a lot. I can hear you telling me that that was completely selfish. I had Pete, I wanted Jack, and I also did not want Daniel to be with Sarah. What was next? Feeling jealous of Ishta?
For a few weeks after Sarah was rescued from Osiris, Daniel kept a close relationship going with her. He told me once that they needed each other for moral support and that sex had come easy between them, because they had already been lovers when they dated in Chicago. Daniel felt he owed her because of the nightmare she had had to endure while Osiris inhabited her, but, then again, Daniel always feels he owes someone. I am certain that his support meant a lot to her, but she finally left him and went back to London after her period of adjustment to her free life ended. I did not see what effect her departure had in Daniel. I was too busy enjoying the attentions of Pete. By then, I had put Daniel in a compartment called "Finished business" because, oddly enough, I felt like he had betrayed me with Sarah.
Then the Alpha Site was destroyed and I had to escape from the drone intent on killing me and destroying the weapon. I was saved at the eleventh hour by the Colonel and that morphed him back into my unsung hero. When I rested my head on his shoulder, after the supersoldier had been killed, I knew it was all going to be fine.
Pete was in Denver and we had not spoken in a couple of weeks. It was not really his fault. He hated to leave messages on my answering machine because sometimes weeks passed until I went back home and heard them. So he had opted for waiting for me to answer to actually say a word. It felt like some kind of abandonment and I considered that our relationship had been nothing more than a fling. After all, except for the couple of instances with Daniel or the time with Orlin, there had not been a man in my life since Jonas Hansen. I deserved a break and Daniel did not even really count.
With Pete and Daniel out of the way, the Colonel came back to be the center of my fantasies, that is until that happened. Something so big, so terrible, painful, and unfair, that I have no words to explain it.
We had all been preoccupied by the presence of Emmett Bregman in the base. He was trying to get information we were not ready to share yet. Actually, we were ready. The government was not, but the responsibility to stop Bregman from snooping around fell on us. Then SG-13 was attacked by the Goa'uld on another planet and we all went to rescue them. SG-3 was already there, guarding the gate. SG-1 arrived with SG-5 and SG-7. Janet accompanied us because Airman Wells had been severely wounded and his teammates had been unable to bring him back to command.
While Janet was trying to stabilize Wells, the Colonel ordered us to resist and try to gain some time for her to do her job. The battle was fierce. That was when I saw him get shot. The world went still for a second as I processed the fact that he could be dead. It was nothing compared to what I would feel soon afterwards as the incontrovertible truth of Janet's death hit me.
It devastated me; it devastated all of us. There are few times in my life when I have cried so much and with so much feeling as that time; surely when I lost my mother; probably when I thought Daniel had died on Nem's planet; certainly after Kelowna.
Nevertheless, nobody was as affected as Daniel, especially because he had been there, by her side, and there had been nothing he could do. He had been thinking of Airman Wells and his family, on the chance that he would never see his baby being born.
Perhaps he was also affected because he had been the most assiduous client of Janet's shop, since the very beginning, and he had never failed to give her a hard time, if his vain attempts at leaving the Infirmary as soon as he was taken there, battered, bruise, or bleeding, qualified as a hard time.
Maybe he was feeling that way simply because he is used to carrying the world's weight on his shoulders.
After Daniel made sure Jack did not wake up alone in the Infirmary, after he carefully gave him the bad news, after he tried in vain to stop him from getting up and going to the memorial, we all gave our farewells to Janet. Daniel and I took care of telling Cassie and we made arrangements to have her there for the funeral.
Then I went home, but I could not go in. I did not want to go in. I got back in my car and I drove to Daniel's house. When he finally opened the door, his eyes were as red and swollen as mine. I loved him for that; I loved him for being able to cry for our loss, for not being afraid of showing that he is human, too.
He looked at me and guessed my intentions. Without moving from the doorway, he asked, "Pete?" I sighed and I said, "We're not really together." I was not lying. We had gone on a few dates and we had spent two nights together in the summer. That did not qualify as a relationship. There was no understanding between us; there was no commitment.
Daniel kept looking at me and I saw doubt in his eyes, but he moved backwards and allowed me in. What followed was a frenzy. We made love right there, in his foyer, almost completely clothed, against the wall. It was fast, frantic, desperate. It was primitive, angry, and rough, and different from everything we had done before. When it was finished, he stood with his forehead against mine, still holding my face between his hands, still holding my body against the wall. "This is wrong," he said. "I know," I replied. And he picked me up and took me to the bedroom.
We made love all night, perhaps not as frantically and certainly not as fast, but with the same desperation underneath. It felt that if we stopped, the world would stop and we would be swallowed by some giant pit, an abyss as black as the one we had had in our hearts since that fatal blast.
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