Chapter 24. Grace

God, her head hurt. Every time she moved, pain split her skull like a bolt of lightning and her vision would momentarily fuzz over. And then there were the hallucinations. She knew she was in a bad way when figments of her imagination started appearing.

Sam sat down heavily at the table in the ship's mess hall. She tenderly touched the wound on her head, wincing when another bolt of pain lanced through her brain like white lightning. The blood had mostly congealed, and her fingers came away with only faint traces of the dark, sticky plasma. Sam sighed, folding her arms across the table and gently resting her aching head upon them. She knew she couldn't sleep – her concussion was too severe – but maybe she could rest her eyes, just for a moment. She was so very tired.

She felt a presence, a change in the air, and looked up. "Dad?"

Her father stood at the end of the table, clear as day, dressed in the brown leathers of the Tok'ra. "I know it sounds corny, but you get to an age where you think about everything you did wrong as a parent." He took the seat next to her, sitting sideways across it so he could face her. She could feel his eyes studying her. "Don't take this the wrong way..."

"I know." Sam huffed, unsure whether to laugh or cry. "I don't look so good."

Her father only shook his head, smiling tenderly down at her. She was a child again, and all she wanted in this moment was for him to hold her and kiss her forehead like he did when she was young. "I wanted so many things for you, Sam. And look what it's brought you." He looked so tragically unhappy and she wanted to wipe that expression from his face.

"Sure, but the massive headache really takes the edge off it all." Sam tried to joke weakly, but her father wasn't laughing.

"Are you happy, Sam?"

"What?" She frowned, caught off guard.

"Just answer the question."

"Well, at the moment things are a little rough," Sam raised her eyebrows, trying to inject some energy into her lifeless face, "but in general, sure, I'm happy."

The General's lips curved upwards, but it wasn't a smile, not really. "No, you're not." He said gently, piercing through her lies without even trying. "You're content, you're satisfied. You're in control. And that's the problem."

Sam shook her head. "Okay, I'm really not following here."

"I'm saying, you're missing something vital from your life. And the sad part is you have no idea what I'm talking about." Sam felt her self-control slowly crumbling. Her head throbbed painfully, reminding her that none of this was real. But still, it certainly felt real. And the need to please her father, her desire to prove herself to him, still felt as real as ever. Sam plastered on a smile. "Dad, I am happy. I've seen and done things most people couldn't even dream of. I have an incredible life."

"And yet you are alone." The words cut through her like a blade, slicing away all her carefully constructed walls and barricades, and freezing her blood like ice in her veins.

"Well, lately the dating scene been a little stale, but then again I am marooned on a spaceship." Her mask was cracking, splitting apart like baked earth, and all the jokes in the world couldn't stop it.

"No. Always. For as long as she was alive, your mother showed me a world beyond just ambition and career. She gave my life meaning, and balance. And it was my honour to love her for the short time she was with me." Hot tears prickled behind her eyelids, and Sam dropped her gaze to the table, trying desperately to swallow the lump in her throat. "And if I were young again, and I met her for the first time, even knowing her fate, I would do it all over again. That is love." Sam felt one fat droplet roll down her cheek, and the dam broke, unable to be stopped once it had begun. "You're a smart woman, Sammy, I know you understand what's happening – what you're doing."

She glanced up through her tears, her brows tightening in confusion. The General sighed. "I know I wasn't around much when you and Mark were growing up, I know that. I was an absentee father, and that's why you've become fixated on him. It's familiar; comforting, even. A much older, authoritarian figure in the military?"

Sam glared at a dark patch on the blue tablecloth, unable to meet her father's eyes, but the tears were falling thick and fast now, and the patch on the tablecloth grew where they fell. She heard him sigh, his voice softening now. "Sam? I know you have denied yourself the experience because you think that it must inevitably end in pain, and loneliness. And you've filled that hole with something that was missing from your childhood." She felt his warm hand slide over hers; his touch felt so real, so familiar. "But it's time to let go of the things that prevent you from finding happiness. You deserve to love someone, and be loved in return."

Sam grit her teeth, her throat closing over. She opened her mouth to refute him, to deny, deny, deny, but it would only be herself she was lying to, and when she looked up again from the tablecloth, her father was already gone. Sam laid her head back down on her arms; her eyelids heavy with the weight of her tears. She did not want these self-introspective hallucinations, these twisted versions of her friends who thought too much, knew too much. She just wanted to go home.

Sam awoke in a dimly lit restaurant, soft classical music playing somewhere in the background. Jack sat across from her, cutting into his steak. "So, how was your day?"
"Great, actually." She found herself answering. "I've been working on a new model of flux capacitor that uses oscillating frequencies to-"
"Hey Carter? In English?" He raised his eyebrows at her before taking a swig of his beer.
Sam's mouth snapped shut, heat rising to her face. "Err... got a new, shiny toy to play with?" She tried instead, and was rewarded with a nod. She toyed with her food, waiting for him to say something else, but his eyes remained on his plate.

Daniel appeared at her side, offering her his hand.
"Would you like to dance?" He smiled down at her; one of his rare grins that chased away the shadows from his eyes.
She looked back to Jack, who had gone back to chewing his semi-masticated cow. His eyes flicked to her and then to Daniel. "You wanna dance with this geek? Fine, be my guest. I don't dance anyway."
Sam's frown deepened at the offhanded insult. She knew it wasn't the first time Jack had called Daniel a geek, but the snub still rankled.
She took Daniel's hand and he pulled her close, one hand in hers and one hand on her back, they twirled around the dance floor and swayed to the music, cheek to cheek.
"You look so beautiful tonight." He murmured in her ear, and his hot breath sent a shiver down her spine.
He spun her, the room twirling about her faster and faster in a blur of colours and when she finally stopped, she found herself on Jack's back porch.

Jack sat in his old armchair, a beer in his hand, staring out at the lake.
"Jack, I have to ask you about something." She heard herself saying. "What would you think about…about kids?"
"Kids? With who?" She frowned at him. With who else would he have kids, other than his wife?
"Sorry Sam," he shook his head, "I just don't think I can go through that again."
She turned away sadly and walked inside, but found herself standing in her own kitchen.

"Daniel?" She called, and he turned from where he was pouring two cups of coffee to look at her. "Hmm?"
"How would you…feel about kids?"
A slow grin spread over his face, and he dropped what he was doing and quickly closed the distance between them to take her into his arms. "Kids, Mrs Jackson? How many do you want? Two? Five? A whole battalion? I could think of nothing better. In fact," his voice lowered, taking on a sultry tone, and he waggled his eyebrows at her, "why don't we start making them right now?"
She laughed when he lifted her up onto the kitchen bench, and he kissed her until she stopped laughing. She closed her eyes, his shoulders warm and solid under her hands, and then suddenly they weren't, and she fell off the bench and landed in soft grass.

She was crying. She had no idea over what, or who, but she was on her knees in the grass by a pond, sobbing openly into her hands. Overwhelming despair bore down on her, crushing her chest until she had to gasp for breath between sobs.
She became aware of a presence behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see Jack standing there, a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. She reached out to him and called his name brokenly. He looked up at her, his face sad but distant, and he eventually wandered away, leaving her alone.

Her tears came harder than ever, and her chest and throat and head ached as she wept. She felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up through her tears to see Daniel crouched next to her, tears also brimming in his eyes. He pulled her into his arms, letting her tears wet his shirt as she clung to him. He smoothed her hair and rocked her gently, holding her tight and making soothing noises as the sobs wracked her body. "Shhh. It's okay Sam. I'm here. I'm right here." And he was. He had been all along.

Sam jolted awake, the sudden movement causing pain to spear through her forehead and remind her where she was. She found she was now sprawled across the floor, the chair she'd been sitting on lay on its side. Is that what woke her? Sam sat up and scooted back until her spine met the cool metal of the wall. She rubbed at her temples, trying to repress the aching that was slowly driving her insane.

"Alright Carter, come on, on your feet, let's go." An all too familiar voice barked out orders, and out of habit, she almost obeyed. She lifted her head from her hands to see Jack standing in the doorway, dressed in his usual khaki fatigues.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up." She murmured, but he seemed to ignore her.

"You just gonna sit there?"

"Too tired, sir." She sighed, letting her hands drop between her knees. He moved towards her, coming to her side and slowly sliding down the wall to sit next to her.

"Samantha," he drew her name out, smiling, and Sam frowned. He never called her that. "I'm a figment of your imagination; you're gonna call me sir?" She shrugged, "Old habits, sorry."

"So," His eyebrows raised, "you gonna save yourself or what?"

"I've tried."

"Just giving up then?" He was rapid-firing questions at her and she barely had the energy to keep her head upright. This was the last thing she needed. "I just don't know what else to do right now."

He studied her for a moment, his dark eyes roaming over her face. She never had been able to discern his thoughts from that dark gaze, could never read him the way she could read Daniel. "You'll think of something." He said, confident as always in her ability to pull a solution out of her ass. Why did it always fall to her to save their bacon?

"Came to give me a pep talk?"

He shrugged lopsidedly, "It's what friends are for."

She snorted, a sardonic smirk pulling at her lips. "Friends. That's what I said to Daniel."

Jack tilted his head to the side, watching her. "Did you mean it?" She didn't answer. Couldn't answer.

"Hey, this is you talking here. Might as well be honest."

She hesitated, sucking in a quick breath before she blurted out her thoughts. "What if I quit the Air Force? Would that change anything or is it just an excuse?"

He smiled at her, almost sadly. "I would never ask you to give up your career."

"Because you don't feel anything for me? I'd let you go right now if I knew."

"That easy, huh?" He raised his eyebrows, his stare piercing. "I s'pose it is easy when you already have someone else in mind."

The words she was going to say caught in her throat, and she swallowed them down. "I didn't say it was going to be easy."

"Then what's stopping you? If you really want to know?"

Sam shrugged. She knew the answer, but she couldn't admit it, even to herself.

"Maybe that's not the problem here. Let's face it, I'm not that complex. Sam, I'm a safe bet."

Sam glanced down at her boots. She had known all along what she was doing, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. It was like instinct; like a turtle recoiling into its shell at the first sign of danger. "As long as I'm thinking about you, setting my sights on what I think is unattainable, there's no chance of being hurt by someone else."

"Someone like me?" A familiar voice interjected, and Sam's head snapped up, her vision blurring for a moment at the sudden movement before her eyes could find Daniel's. His hands were shoved into his pockets, but he was smiling warmly at her, his blue eyes sparkling with unsaid words, and it made her heart flop against her chest.

"Jacob was right." Jack said quietly, drawing her attention back to him. "You deserve more. I will always be there for you, no matter what. Believe me." She could see the earnestness in his dark gaze; a rare instance for her to have deciphered his emotions. She wondered idly what it would be like to kiss him; his spiky stubble scratching her lips, his unfamiliar smell poignant in her nose, his strange taste in her mouth. If they were to be lovers, would he be as closed off physically as he was emotionally?
She looked back to Daniel; kind, bright eyes, so open and full of love. She knew Daniel was haunted by his own demons, just as the Colonel is, just as she was, but she found the difference was when he looked at her. When he looked at her, she could see the pain fade from his eyes; all his tension melt away. He looked at her like he was looking at his whole world. And that scared her most of all.

"Sam." He called her name gently; whispered with reverence as he had done a thousand times during their private moments – their close encounters. Using the wall for support, Sam struggled to her feet, her knees shaking. He moved closer, until he was only a step away. "I would never hurt you, Sam. You know that." He smiled down at her; soft voice and soft eyes and soft hands and completely alien to the hardness that she was used to in a man. In her father. In Jack.

Daniel closed the distance between them, his hand escaping his pocket to smooth over her cheek, his touch as real and familiar as she remembered as he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "I could make you happy, Sam." He whispered, and she knew it was true. But that was not what stopped her.

Sam drew in a deep breath, steeling herself against the traitorous part of her brain that was screaming at her to give in to her desire. "But I could hurt you, Daniel. I could get you killed. Again."

She raised her hand to pull his away from her face, but his fingers slid between the gaps in hers, holding her to him. "I know you know that's not true. You know that's illogical. Superstitious even."

Sam nodded, feeling her eyes well with tears even as she tried to choke back the memory of him lying bandaged head to toe in a hospital bed. Her throat threatened to close over, making it hard to force the words out. "I know. I know, but...it's not worth the risk." She untangled their fingers to lay a hand upon his cheek, his skin warm and smooth beneath her palm. "It's not worth the risk of losing you, Daniel." She whispered, and he wiped away the single tear that had escaped her lashes with a smile.

"So, what now?"

Daniel took a step back, his hands sliding back into his pockets. He nodded his head in the direction of the bridge. "Go save your ass. Come home."