Chapter 4.
There were more stars out now. In fact, Janet couldn't remember a time in her entire life when she had seen so many. Not that she had ever taken the time to really look. There had always been too much going on in her life, too many distractions, and too much time in the city, or too much time concentrating on her job in the heat of battle. Nothing to make her look up, no reason to even really care. Sometimes, on passing through the Stargate, there would be moments where she'd see a rush of colour, a brief hint of stars - maybe even entire galaxies - spinning past her eyes, but nothing she could get a true sense of. She didn't even know if what she sensed during those few seconds of transport was even real.
But here, now, the sky was almost glowing with silvery pin-pricks of light, making the snowy landscape shine as if touched by moonlight. There wasn't just a single colour, she realised slowly as she watched. There were greens and reds and yellows, twinkling blues, mysterious purples and even a few cheeky splashes of pink. She hadn't realised until now just how colourful the night sky could really be and for the first time, she began to understand just why Sam loved the heavens so much: every time a star twinkled, the sky's mood subtly changed.
Janet was in danger of becoming addicted.
So far this evening, she had vented her frustrations and her fears regarding Cassandra's date and Daniel had complained irritably about his disastrous allergy-afflicted week at work. Somewhere down the road, and she couldn't remember where, they had wound up sitting under one of the trees instead of with the food. Daniel had a blanket wrapped around himself and was leaning back against the tree trunk, with Janet comfortably nestled between his legs, using his chest as a backrest. A second blanket thrown over the top of her not only kept her warm but also hid the fact his arms were loosely wrapped around her waist with her fingers comfortably twined with his. In this weather, he may have had the better deal, except for his secret weapon which had turned out to be a portable heater designed specifically for keeping campers warm when in the middle of nowhere.
It was doing its job quite nicely, she decided.
At some point, as if by mutual consent, they had stopped talking. Janet had lost track of when they'd last said anything but she didn't mind. The silence was pleasant and comfortable. It was easy to spend hours in his presence saying absolutely nothing at all and, more importantly, not feeling any pressure to find something to say. In the company of a good friend, she realised, silence was a topic of conversation in its own right.
Somewhere against her left shoulder, she could feel his heart beating in a slow, soft rhythm. It was almost hypnotic and she could feel her attention beginning to drift away from the stars as drowsiness began to creep over her.
It suddenly occurred to her that Daniel had not only been silent for some time but hadn't moved either. She craned her head up slightly, although it didn't really help her catch a glimpse of his face. "Hey, you're not falling asleep on me are you?" she asked in that hushed tone often used by people who were trying to talk without ruining a peaceful mood.
"No," he murmured immediately. "Just thinking."
"About?"
He was silent for several moments, so long, in fact, that she wasn't sure he was going to answer her at all. "The Tollan," he admitted eventually.
She wriggled slightly, seeking a more comfortable position and felt him shift his weight slightly to accommodate her. "Do you think they're still alive?"
"I don't know," he replied. "But I often wonder."
"Yeah," she hesitated. "I know Sam does too. I think part of her still misses Narim. To tell you the truth, Daniel, I found them a little..." she trailed off, searching for a good word.
"Abrupt?" His chin was leaning into her hair and she could feel him smile.
"That's one way of putting it," she agreed dryly.
"They had a good reason to be," he tugged the blankets a little more securely around them. "Omoc's... bedside manner... may have been a little lacking but I don't think he said anything that wasn't true."
She craned her head back to get a better look at his face but again she mostly failed. "What was it between you two anyway?"
"What?" A little surprised by the question, he shifted slightly so he could get a better look at her face. He wasn't certain whether it was because of the angle, but he found himself unable to read her expression.
"Omoc was about as... well, he was more intimidating than Teal'c in his own way. But he actually seemed to like you."
"Oh," his chest vibrated as he chuckled softly. "Omoc wasn't so bad. Just had to know how to talk to him," he sighed. "This might sound a little crazy but in some ways, he reminded me of Nick."
"Your grandfather?" Janet thought about that for a moment. "No, sorry, don't see it."
Another faint chuckle escaped him. "Short-tempered, suspicious and a pain in the ass if you don't agree with him... but he knew what he was talking about and he really did care about what he believed in." He was silent for a few moments. "I got the impression he was a rather gentle old soul... but I guess when we came on the scene, he suddenly found himself shouldering the burden of history. Tollana's history, I mean." He sighed. "More people should learn from history. On Earth, I mean."
Janet settled her head back against his chest. "War, disease, famine, death, more war, more death... I guess it's not surprising people don't pay attention to history."
He looked down at her in astonishment. "Janet, there's more to history than war and death." He shifted his back against the tree trunk for a moment, before continuing. "There's language, culture, art, music, literature, craft, technology..." he paused then added, with what sounded like a smile in his voice. "... even medicine. It's all about a point of view."
Her eyes drifted shut as she felt him settle into lecture-mode. Once someone challenged him to defend history, he was usually hard to stop but something in what he was saying made her pause.
"Is that why you got into archaeology?"
"Huh?" Effectively derailed by the question, he staggered to a halt and looked down at her. "Sorry. What?"
"For other points of view..." she thought about it for a moment. "You.. well, you're very good at doing that," she smiled suddenly. "Some say too good."
"People are still mad at me about the Unas thing," he said wryly. "But... uh... to answer your question, no, not really." He thought about it. "Or maybe... I guess it was part of it."
Janet opened her eyes and twisted herself around to get a better look at his expression. A slightly disgruntled mutter escaped him as he shifted again to accommodate her change in position and rearranged the blankets so they wouldn't get cold. As a result, she couldn't pin down any particular emotion that would explain his unusual uncertainty. "What was the other part of it?"
He stared at her for a moment, his eyes startlingly blue as they often were when he was emotionally involved in a subject. "I grew up in that life," he mused. "Apparently, I was practically born on a dig." His gaze shifted away from her to stare into space and his expression changed from amused to slightly wistful. "It was all I ever knew until my parents died. After that... " he shrugged and sighed.
"... you felt you owed it to them?"
His gaze suddenly snapped back to her face with a speed that caught her by surprise. "No," he murmured thoughtfully. "I hated anything to do with history and archaeology for years after that. For a while... " he stopped, blinking rapidly for a moment then he looked away again. He swallowed. "For a while, I hated them for being archaeologists."
Janet smiled sympathetically. "My parents died a few years before I joined the Stargate Programme. They loved to travel... which was ironic because while my father was in the military, my mother complained about travelling all the time," she sighed and leaned back into his chest again. "It was a stupid accident. They went on a cruise and it ran into a tropical storm."
There was silence for a few moments then when it was clear she wasn't going to continue, Daniel's grip on her waist tightened gently. "The ship sank?" his questioned was whispered.
"No," she whispered back. "That was the stupid thing. The ship survived, they limped into port for repairs and were all staying at a hotel near the beach. The day before they were due to depart, another hurricane hit the resort. They were on a cruise... and they died in a damn beach-hut."
One of his hands escaped from around her waist to slip underneath her hair and encircle the back of her neck. "I'm sorry," he said softly.
She sighed. "It's old pain. Well... you know."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."
The trouble with "old pain", as Daniel well knew, was that it wasn't "extinct pain". In his experience, pain never went away. Time didn't cure the wounds pain caused so much as teach the wounded how to live with injury. The end result wasn't so much a healed wound as a scar that ached in bad weather.
Daniel was fully aware that his experience wasn't unusual. There were occasions when Jack still visibly struggled with the death of his son, there were times when the death of Sam's long-estranged fiancé still haunted her. Teal'c lived with the pain of both a lost wife and a lost lover, and the echoes of his father's death coloured his entire fight for a free and functioning Jaffa nation.
"I hated them for going on a cruise," she muttered. "How twisted is that?"
He kissed her hair. "It's not twisted," he murmured. "Grief does that to people."
"You didn't hate Teal'c," she said softly and felt his entire body stiffen as soon as the words were spoken. She lifted her head and looked quickly at him suddenly unsure of the half-question that had slipped out of her mouth. Over the years most of the barriers that usually existed between people, even between friends, had disappeared. There had been no significant destruction, no important event that could be signalled out as a reason why - just a slow erosion over time, leaving behind empty postholes that were gradually filled in by pieces of their own personalities. Very few warning flags were ever raised now, but when they were, it was sometimes hard to precisely define them. Somehow, the years had made them forget how to draw a line in the sand.
His eyes met hers and they were surprisingly steady. Reflected in that intense stare, she could see surprise; he had been caught off-guard by the reference to his wife's death. There was pain, the pain that he was still clearly able to feel over her loss. She could also see a patient understanding, an awareness of why she had raised the subject and acceptance that it was not meant to offend. But there was also a flicker of guilt... and defiance.
"I hid it," he admitted quietly at last. He dropped his gaze from hers and looked away, his eyes searching something beyond the trees and, perhaps, even beyond the stars. "Sha'uri gave me a dream that spanned a lifetime. I... " he swallowed, for a moment blinking rapidly again. "I had the chance to prepare for what I would go through," he said at last. "Not many people get that opportunity."
Janet looked down, her eyes coming to rest on the zip of the fleece sweater he was wearing. For a moment, her fingers absently traced the zip down almost half of its length as she tried to understand the peculiar tone of his voice. It matched the mix of guilt and defiance she had seen in his eyes. "Teal'c did the right thing and you hated him for it. You felt guilty for it because of the awful position he was in but still think that you had the right to feel the way you did."
He didn't answer immediately. Her fingers stopped playing with his fleece and curled into a fist. She looked up, expecting to find him still gazing off into space but instead found him staring right at her. She could see tears lurking in his eyes. "Yes," he said softly, at last.
She swallowed and felt a telltale heat flush through her own eyes. In response to the soft confession, or the raw pain in his face, she didn't know. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek, before settling back down against his chest, resting her head next to his heart. For a moment, he didn't respond at all then she felt his grip shift once more to encircle her waist as he buried his face in hair.