Chapter 10

"You're going to what?" Daniel exclaimed.

"We have to extract the memories from the other timeline, Daniel," Sam said gently. "That's what's killing you."

"And if you do that, we won't remember any of this?" Daniel asked.

"That's right."

Daniel clung to Vala's hand like it was his lifeline, and Vala did the same to his. "No." He said it softly, but with determination. "No, you can't take this away from me."

"Daniel-"

"No!" Daniel refused to hear Sam's logic. He didn't care. "I finally figured this out. Vala and I found each other again, and now you want to take that away from us?"

"Darling," Vala said gently. "We don't have a choice."

"Yes, we do."

"We'll die!"

"Then I'll die happier than I've ever been."

"Daniel, please," Sam begged. "You don't have much time left. Hours, maybe. We need to do this now."

"NO!" He knew he was being unreasonable, but he couldn't make himself give in. How could they ask this of him? How could they insist that he give this up?

"Darling." Vala sat next to him, still holding his hand. He didn't think she'd stopped crying in the past few hours. "I don't want to watch you die."

"But you're okay with forgetting this? Forgetting us?"

"Of course not. But this doesn't have to be the end, Daniel. We've found each other twice now; what's to stop us from doing it again?"

Sam put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Daniel, but we have to do this. Now."

Daniel closed his eyes. He knew they were right. He could feel how weak he was. He didn't have much time. But how could he do this? How could he willingly let go of Vala?

"I won't give up on us, Daniel," Vala said, pressing her hand to his cheek. "I promise. No matter how much nagging it takes."

He smiled at her and slowly nodded. "Alright."

It was strange. Not quite the same as waking up. He hadn't been asleep. Yet, it felt like he was waking up. Daniel looked around the room at the faces of his teammates, confused. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Hey there, Sunshine," Mitchell said.

"How are you feeling?" Sam asked. "Headaches?"

"No," Daniel answered, still confused. "I feel fine. What happened?"

"What do you remember?" Sam asked.

"I don't know. I guess the last thing I remember was Landry telling us we were getting a few days off."

"Nothing after that?" Mitchell confirmed.

"I don't think so, no. Why?"

"You and Vala started having memories from the erased timeline, when we were in the time dilation field on the Odyssey."

"How is that even possible?"

"Honestly, we don't know," Sam admitted. "But it was killing you, having two sets of memories – one from then and one from now. We had to remove them."

"Okay," he said slowly. "Well, I guess it worked. I don't remember any of that." He looked around the room again and realized Vala was sitting next to him. She looked as though she had been crying. "You okay?" he asked.

She nodded, biting her lip. "My head's just a bit wonky. I haven't gone through the whole memory removal thing yet."

"Why not?" He looked back at his other teammates. There was something they weren't telling him, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"You were worse off than I was," Vala answered. "Don't worry. I'm next."

"Speaking of which, we should get started," Sam said.

"Sure," Vala said with a smile that didn't seem sincere. "Just give me a minute." She took Daniel's hand in hers and looked as though she might start crying.

"Vala? What is it?"

"I want you to know that I'm not going to forget."

"But that's what we're doing. If you don't forget-"

"I don't care what that thing does to me. I don't care. I'm not going to forget. I promise you."

Daniel looked at Sam, Mitchell, and Teal'c, but none of them seemed to want to give him an explanation. Instead, Sam crossed to Vala and pulled gently at her arm. "Come on, Vala. It's time." Vala let herself be led away.