Memories of the Heart by Betty Bokor
Sam/Daniel. A mission goes horribly wrong while Sam's life is changed forever. Spoilers: All seasons, including 10 to the end.
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.
Memories of the Heart
Chapter 4
Five days later, near sunset, when they still had more than a day of walking to reach the gate, they found a strange source of light in the middle of the forest. The light became brighter, until they had to move away from it to avoid getting their eyes hurt by its intensity. Suddenly the light faded and right behind where it had shone they saw a group of strange people. There were about twenty men and women, definitely human, but they just did not look right. Vala thought the difference was in their eyes. They seemed cold and unfeeling.
Cameron introduced his group as Daniel usually did. An old woman, tall and thin, approached them.
"We know who you are and we know why you're here," she said. "You wanted our weapon and now you have it," she finished.
"Your weapon? You mean this is yours?" Cam asked, feeling that there was no point in denying what they so clearly knew.
"Yes, but we won't oppose you leaving with it. It's clear that you want it to defend your world and not to dominate others."
"It is?" Cameron asked without thinking and then he tried to fix it. "Of course we just want to defend our planet. There are pretty ugly guys out there trying to annihilate us."
"As I said, we believe you and, besides, you have already paid its price."
"We have?" Cameron asked and once again he wished Daniel were there to keep him from putting his foot in his mouth.
"Yes," the woman said emphatically and raised her hand to point at something above her. There, hanging by his feet from a very high branch of a tree, was Daniel.
Cameron gasped and Vala run towards him, but she was stopped by some of the men in the group.
"We don't give our people as payment," Cam said dryly.
The woman did not seem to care. She did not move or say a word.
"Hey, listen. This is a mistake. We can negotiate with you for the weapon, but Jackson is out of the question," he said with anger building up.
He was trying to see in what state Daniel was, but he was so far up that there was no way to know for sure. In any case, he seemed to be unconscious; at least, Cam prayed he was.
The conversation did not last much longer. No matter what Cameron and Vala said, the strangers remained adamant that they did not want the weapon back, just to take Daniel with them. Finally, the woman put an end to the discussion –and to all the plans Teal'c was thinking of to liberate Daniel– when she moved her hand in a rapid gesture that brought the intense light back to life.
When it finally subsided, a few seconds later, the whole group of people was gone and, with them, Daniel.
Vala sat on the tall grass, feeling helpless.
Cam hit the tree at the center of the site with fury and soon regretted it.
Teal'c quietly examined the area in search of clues.
"What are we going to do?" Vala finally asked.
"There's nothing we can do here. We need to go back to the gate and get reinforcements. This is too wide a search area and we can't cover it on our own," Cam answered.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
They picked up their gear and then the weapon. Its price had suddenly become to steep to risk leaving it behind.
After five hours of walking, the darkness of the night was complete. It was not only far darker than all the previous nights −none of the two moons of the planet was visible anymore− but the temperature was dropping extremely fast.
Teal'c was walking steadfastly, holding his flashlight with determination. He wanted to get to the gate fast. He wanted to come back to look for Daniel.
Vala followed closely, quiet and sad, and Cam closed their formation, guarding their backs.
They had just crossed a small stream, when Vala suddenly asked them to stop.
"Did you hear it?" She asked excitedly. "It's Daniel! Did you hear it? He was asking us to help him. He must be close."
Teal'c and Cameron looked at each other in the semi-darkness. They had not heard anything. They used their flashlights to look around. Then, they stood in complete silence, trying to hear something else beyond the soft movement of the tree leaves in the wind.
"There! There!" Vala said and started running to her right.
Her teammates followed her, still unable to hear anything.
Vala kept running in the darkness and Cam started to get really worried. "Wait!" He asked. "Wait a minute there!"
Vala seemed not to hear him. She kept running toward a small tree formation.
"Vala, stop!" Cam tried one more time, but it was too late.
A few seconds later they heard her shout in pain.
Teal'c approached and directed his light to the place where he had last seen her. There was a dark hole in the ground. He knelt by its side and looked inside. It was a pit, not too deep, but deep enough that it would make it impossible for her to get out on her own. Besides, she seemed to be unconscious. They would need to get her out.
Cam got some rope out of his pack and Teal'c lowered him into the pit. A few minutes later, he had her secured in an improvised harness so that Teal'c could pull her up.
Once she was on the surface, Teal'c threw the rope back to Cameron and laid Vala on the grass to check her for injuries.
Just as Cam was about to give his final push to get out, he felt someone touching his shoulder and he clearly heard Daniel, painfully begging for help.
Cam lost foot and fell into the pit with a weird sound of broken bone.
"Ah, goodness! That's all I needed. Augh… I think I broke my arm, Teal'c. I'll need help here."
After a few more minutes, Teal'c had him out, too. He bandaged the broken arm and he gave him some analgesics for the pain.
"ValaMalDoran seems not to have any visible injuries. Dr. Lam would need to check for the reason of her loss of consciousness, but I believe she has a mild concussion."
"I agree, Teal'c." Cam moved some of her hair away from her face and she started regaining consciousness.
"What happened? Where's Daniel? Did you find him?" she asked as soon as she sat up.
"No, we didn't," Cam said somberly, "but I heard him, too."
Teal'c looked at him with surprise.
"I even thought he had touched me on the shoulder. That was weird."
"Do you believe there is any reason for both of you to be hallucinating? Jaffas have a far more developed sense of hearing than humans and I have not heard anything."
"I know. I think we have to get out of here as soon as possible and get help. This isn't going to be easy."
As they walked back to the stargate, Teal'c felt in more than one occasion the presence of Daniel close to him, but because of the logical impossibility that he could be following them so closely, he dismissed it as his imagination and kept it to himself. Nevertheless, it worried him that all three of them had felt Daniel in some way. There was something there that they would have to figure out.