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

A.N. This is the end of Sam's account of past days. Tomorrow starts the present. Spoilers for Season 10. Thank you for reading.

Chapter 7

I sat there, thinking about how close to being among the dead we all had been. I shivered as I recalled agreeing with Cam to fire on the satellite, even if it implied we could no longer negotiate for Daniel. I truly feared he had already been hurt. After we left the Prometheus, someone told us that he had not been seen since the last exchange with the ship. I did not have time to dwell on it because we needed to make new plans and, then, I heard him, trying to reach an agreement, no less. I grabbed the radio and I talked to him. He said something like "Good to hear your voice," but to me it sounded subdued, almost unemotional. Perhaps it was the time and place, not conducive to more. Later that day, after Daniel had already gated home, Jared Kane helped the rest of the survivors get to the stargate. He asked me to take a minute to talk with him. I agreed and he said that he wanted me to thank Daniel again and to assure him that no matter what happened next, not even his own people had tried as hard to reach peace. I have not had an opportunity to tell Daniel that. It could help him deal with this.

Kane told me something else. He said that Daniel, worried for us and while still in danger of being tortured or killed by the Rand government, had kept trying to find a solution after Kane had lost almost all hope. So much enthusiasm had bothered Kane somewhat and he had asked Daniel if he ever gave up. "Not until I'm dead… and sometimes, not even then," had been the reply. Kane thought it was a good picture of who Daniel is, but I felt there was something else behind it.

I decided to go home after I finished my coffee. I kept thinking about Daniel and somehow I recalled the days after Jolinar's death. While I was lying on that bed, feeling so hopeless, Daniel tried hard to make me come back, to make me understand there were many reasons to keep fighting. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and failing to see any hope. That is what I saw in Daniel's eyes before he left the coffee shop, emptiness. I have never seen that before in him. He always has a little reserve of hope to recycle and keep going. Like when he had to leave all those wonders behind on Ernest's planet or when he came back from his first encounter with a Unas to find out that Jack had killed his –Goa'uld– friend Rothman, or even after Osiris took Sarah.

It was not there anymore. I wanted to see him again and try to get some hope into him, knock it in, if necessary, but I understood that he needed to try to work on it on his own. I could wait a little longer and step in if he did not get there.

Two days later, after learning about the effects of the Casa corn, we were captured by the Lucian Alliance and tortured for nearly a day. Our captors kept us alive because they thought they could use us to recover their gate, that someone would come to our rescue and negotiate for us. Therefore, the torture was lighter than usual. It was mostly beating and subsequently leaving us under the fierce sun, with no water and no food. They could have done much worse. It seemed to me that Daniel was doing better. He pleaded and tried to bargain as usual. The Odyssey got us out of there right before they killed us. Then we went in search of the stolen gates.

After we finally made it back to the SGC from Ba'al's ship, I went straight to the showers. When I was at the Infirmary getting the usual post-mission exam, I found out that Daniel had already been there and that they had found a hairline fracture in his jaw. The fracture did not require his jaw to be wired, but Dr. Lam had put him on a soft diet for at least three weeks. She asked me if he had complained about the pain and I replied that he had not. I was certain, in any case, of which blow to his face by one of Worrel's men had broken his jaw. It had been the one when he finally let a cry escape.

I did not look for him. He had been cleared. He wanted to be on his own. Soon after, we were sent to baby-sit the representatives of the International Oversight Advisory Board during their visit to the Gamma Site. The whole thing started as a nuisance and quickly became a nightmare. We discovered that the insects that had plagued several planets visited by the priors of the Ori and destroyed their crops, not only could extend their lifespan if they were starved, but also turn into carnivores. It was only one more method the Ori had found to unleash a scourge on our Galaxy.

The Odyssey rescued all of us right in time, again. Back at the base, Daniel surprised me when he asked if we were going to have "movie night" with the team. It felt like a good sign. In spite of it all, he had been in a better mood during the mission, especially when near Shen Xiaoyi. She flirted with him since the very beginning. I asked Cam if he knew what they had been saying in Chinese, but he said that he had no clue of Chinese, except for the "Go to Hell" he had conveniently remembered. He had learned it in the Academy from an airman. Though he did not know what they had said, he thought he needed, just in case, to teach them a lesson for talking about him, in another language, to his own face.

During the movie we finally got Daniel to translate his conversation. He said she had simply stated that his Chinese was supposed to be good and that he had been polite and observed that her English was better. Then she had inquired about Cameron and Daniel had just joked that we were still in the process of teaching him. Cam did not think it was that funny and felt confident that he had done the right thing by sending them both to Hell.

Going back to Daniel and Shen, I noticed that they had some kind of confrontation during lunch, but by the time we were on the run, they seemed to have gotten over it. Still, they seemed very serious about their conversation subject. Later, I saw Daniel helping her when she broke her ankle. It made me unreasonably jealous and it also made me think that perhaps Daniel's problem was related to the fact that he has been alone for so long.

At least I have had Pete, and a brief thing with Orlin, and the General has had someone in his life now and then, too. Laira is a good example. Kerry Johnson was just another one I found out about. Teal'c has something going on with Ishta that even his son has acknowledged.

Daniel, on the other hand, has been alone since he left Abydos. You could say I should count that night with Ke'ra or his comeback to Sarah after Osiris, but the first did not last long enough to even be mentioned –though it left many scars– and the second was all for her benefit. We have talked about it and he admits he knew from the start that they were not going anywhere, that they were just holding on to each other to deal with the pain.

I made up my mind that I would find a way to talk about that with Daniel. The following day I tried hard to get him alone for a while, but he was so busy working on the Glastonbury artifacts brought from England, that it was impossible. That night I stayed late working on one of the Ancients devices he had found, hoping I would catch up with him before going home, but when I next thought of it, it was already later than 2300. I checked, but Daniel was gone, so I decided to stay in my quarters and talk to him in the morning. It was not easy, considering that first thing in the morning Cam and I were shifted out of phase by the device. While Teal'c was checking on the distress call from the Sodan, Daniel figured out the meaning of the legend of Arthur's Mantle and understood the purpose of the artifact. The problem got worse when Dr. Lee accidentally sent Daniel to the same dimension where I was. He was pretty frustrated, but I was very relieved to see him by my side. With him there it was easy to end the translation of the message from the device. Despite the fact that Bill depleted its energy supply, Daniel was able to make it work to sent all of us back to the right dimension. Cam helped Teal'c and they stopped the alienated warrior who had massacred his people.

After the debriefing, I saw Daniel talking to Bill Lee. He was in good spirits and I thought I should not bring up something that could ruin his mood. That night the team went out for dinner and then we got a couple of days of down time. We really needed them.

The next time I saw Daniel, he was not Daniel anymore. Vala was in his body and wanted to talk to us. By the looks of it, we would soon start our own crusade in search of the Holy Grail, or I should say the San Greal, and Vala's information was very helpful. After General Landry told us about the ship we had to give to the Russians, we tried to convince him to let us use the address that Daniel had found in the Ancient device to find Merlin's weapon. What surprised me the most was that when he finally agreed, he looked at Daniel, not Cam, and said, "Go." For a second I thought Cam would come up with a joke about it, about Daniel taking his place as commander of SG-1, but nothing came. That really made me happy. I think finally Daniel is getting the respect he deserves for what he means to this program. After all, Shen summarized it very well when she called him "The man who solved the riddle of the stargate." We would not be here if not for his participation. I know that perhaps someone else could have solved it –we had tried for at least two years and we were still working on it– but what Daniel has brought to the SGC is much more than just opening the gate. Just as an example, I doubt the Nox would have ever helped us if they had not found hope that we could improve ourselves by looking at Daniel's soul. Lya once told him, "Your race has learned nothing, but you have."

In any case, the next day we were in Camelot. Daniel and Cam remained there as Teal'c recruited the Lucian Alliance and I joined the Odyssey to get to the point where we suspected the Ori where going to come through to this galaxy. Cam was almost killed by the Black Knight, but Daniel deactivated it in time. Then the Korolev brought them to where we were and the terrible battle began. I was stranded in space for most of it, but as you know, I am all right. All of SG-1 survived, but many, many courageous and brave people are dead.

I thought I had lost Daniel again when the Korolev was destroyed, but then I found out that he was aboard an Ori ship. Vala is here with us now. Her daughter, Adria, who by all accounts should still be a newborn, is already what we consider a twelve-year-old girl. We know the threat she represents and I do not know yet what will come of all this, but we need Vala with us to try and help recruit Adria for our cause.

My main concern, anyway, is that Daniel is back into his depression. He is silent and almost absent. He will soon finally have the chance to go to Atlantis, with Vala unfortunately, but though that is what he has wanted for so long, it is not lifting his spirits.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Any comments? Please, take a minute and give your opinion. It is very important for me to know what the readers think in order to decide how to continue a story or write the next one, or, if there is no interest, stop posting it here.