Daughter of My Heart, Chapter Thirty-Three
Daniel arrived at six-o'clock, sharp, as instructed. He still had no idea what Sam wanted to discuss this evening, especially without their standard buffers safely in place. No Janet. No Cassie. Not even Jack for back-up. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he was nervous. They'd existed in a state of quasi-friendship ever since he'd retaken human form. This invitation was almost eerily personal.
"Hi," Sam said, smiling, as she answered the door. "Come in."
"Thanks," Daniel replied, letting her take his jacket to hang in the entryway closet.
"Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, but I can start you with a glass of wine, if you'd like."
"No thank you," he said, figuring alcohol would only lead his thoughts astray. There was a purpose to this visit, even if he didn't fully understand what it was yet.
"Okay. Well, come in," Sam said, gesturing him into the living room. He dutifully took a seat, then waited for Sam to break the silence. "How are you feeling?," she asked at last, sounding almost as uncomfortable as he felt.
"Better," he replied, nodding. "I still don't understand how Pharrin could hold as many personalities as he did, or for so long, but I'm glad to be me again."
"That's good," Sam said, a flash of guilt crossing her face.
"How's Cassie?," Daniel asked, changing the subject.
Sam grinned. "Completely in love with those books of yours." She shook her head ruefully. "You know, at first I thought she was holding on to them as a way of holding on to you, but now I think she just genuinely enjoys the subject matter."
"You find that hard to believe?," Daniel asked teasingly.
"Well, yes!" Sam confessed. Daniel chuckled.
"You know, I was sixteen before I started getting interested in any of this stuff," he admitted.
"Travelling with your parents as a kid didn't pique your interest?," she asked.
He shook his head. "Not at all," he laughed. "I didn't understand any of it, and as far as I was concerned, all it was good for was taking my parents away from me when I wanted to play." He smiled wistfully. "I never wanted to be an archeologist when I grew up. It never did my parents any good, and it hadn't done my grandfather any good. I wanted something different."
"So what changed?," she asked, ignoring the oven timer as it went off.
"I got into languages, and somehow, from there, found my way back to history," he replied simply.
"You know, she's read all their work," Sam said, rising to check on dinner. Daniel followed.
"Who?"
"Cassie. She's read everything written by your parents and grandfather. You too, I think."
"Good lord. What a waste of time," he said, frowning.
Sam arched an eyebrow. "All your theories have been right. Nick's too, if you'll recall."
"True. But we're both still academic pariahs."
"Well, don't tell Cassie. I think she's actually very proud of you."
"You don't think she's going to follow through with this, do you? As a career, I mean?"
"Why? Would that bother you?"
"Four generations of archeologists...the first labeled insane, the second killed on the job, the third discredited... Not exactly a stellar track record, if you ask me."
"Well, at least she has my name to fall back on," Sam offered, grinning in spite of Daniel's apparent seriousness.
"True," Daniel snorted. "I'd hate for her to have my name going into the field."
Sam placed a large casserole dish of steaming food on the table, alongside a salad and dinner rolls, before motioning for him to sit. He recognized the smell as one of his favourites. Sam hadn't made this dish since he'd ascended... He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Just what exactly is it you wanted to talk about?," he asked, looking up from the food. Sam sighed.
"I owe you an apology," she stated simply.
"If it's about the nose, don't worry about it," Daniel hastened to reassure. "I really didn't like that Sovereign guy either."
Sam chuckled. "No, it's not about the nose, but I'm sorry about that too."
"What is it?," Daniel asked softly as Sam squirmed in her seat.
"I misjudged you," she confessed, startling him.
"Misjudged?," he asked. She nodded.
"When you first came back... I didn't think you could ever be the same as before. And I held on to that, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, until this week."
"I – "
"Daniel, let me finish," she said, effectively cutting him off. "Seeing you like that, as someone else...it really made me realize what I've been overlooking all along. You really did come back, the same Daniel we all remember, and it took losing you again to understand."
"Sam, it's okay," he reassured. "I've never blamed you for not liking what you saw. I made my choice, and it was wrong, and hurtful, and..."
"It wasn't wrong," she interrupted again. "Hurtful. But not wrong."
"I left you for the unknown."
Sam sighed. "Daniel, I've known since the day I met you that you were brilliant, inquisitive, and limitless in what you would put yourself through just to satisfy your own curiosity. You were true to your nature when you chose to follow Oma."
"That doesn't make it right," he said.
"No. But I'm not sure it makes it wrong, either." She paused, staring down at her hands. "Look, Daniel. The point is, I shut you out of my life because I didn't think you could ever be you again. I was wrong, and I'm sorry."
Daniel sat back, stunned. Of all the conversations he'd imagined for this dinner, Sam apologizing was definitely not one of them. He mentally shook himself, reaching across the table to clasp her hand.
"I've never blamed you, Sam. But thank you," he said sincerely.
"There's something else," she said slowly. "Something I've been wanting to know for a long time, but never wanted to ask."
"Anything, Sam. Always," Daniel replied.
"Back on Vis Uban. When you asked me if there was something between us... How did you know?," she asked, flushing.
Daniel felt himself smile at the memory. "How could I see you, and hear you speak so highly of me, and not wonder if there'd ever been something between us? You're beautiful, Sam, inside and out. And when you came to me on Vis Uban... you made me sound beautiful too."
Sam blushed a deep shade of crimson. "You are beautiful, Daniel," she confessed.
Now it was his turn to blush. "Dinner smells amazing," he said, quickly changing the subject.
"Daniel."
"Yeah?," he asked, glancing back up.
"Welcome home," she breathed, closing the short distance between them to press soft, moist lips onto his own.
He shut his eyes, savouring the taste of her. God, it'd been a long time. Too long...
They stood, crashing into each other, dinner forgotten for the time. A year and a half of separation and longing coupled to fuse them at the lips, waves of emotion, regret, and long-buried passion washing over them as they re-explored the feel, taste, and intoxication of the other.
Clothes were quickly done away with, hands roaming purposefully over exposed flesh, eliciting shivers, tremors and breathy sounds of pleasure at ever increasing intervals.
"Bed," Sam breathed, sending the most sinfully pleasurable sparks racing through his veins.
"Too far," he breathed back, reciprocating in kind.
"Here's fine," she conceded a moment later, her entire focus suddenly applied to wreaking magnificent havoc on his senses.
The floor caught and held them as they became more intimately reacquainted. Dinner was long cold by the time they remembered what they'd been doing in the first place.
Sam lay bonelessly beside him, the floor a cooling balm to her over-heated, over-sensitive skin. She'd forgotten how good it felt to be with Daniel like this. No one else could ever make her feel as exquisitely sensual as he could, or as absolutely adored.
"Sam?," he whispered breathlessly, turning his head to catch her eye.
"Hmmm?," she purred, curling into him.
"I don't think I've ever told you this, but...I love you."
Sam smiled into his chest, a radiant ball of happiness all but engulfing her.
"Daniel?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you too," she said.
"Do you want me to come in with you?," Janet asked, as Cassie climbed out of Jack's old green truck.
"Nah, they should be decent again by now," Cassie reasoned, grinning cheekily.
"Cassandra Carter!," Jack exploded, shocked. Janet chuckled.
"Relax, will you?," she said, addressing the apoplectic colonel. "It's not like we didn't all know exactly what would happen here tonight, leaving those two alone like that."
"She's only seventeen!," Jack countered.
"Sam's actually about thirty-five," Janet corrected. "Though don't tell her I said so."
"I meant Cassie!"
"It's okay, Uncle Jack," the teen replied with a wicked grin. "Mom told me all about the birds and the bees years ago."
"If I find out that good-for-nothing slimball boyfriend of yours has taught you anything more than that..."
"You'll hunt him down, beat him to an unrecognizable pulp, and leave him singing soprano," Cassie finished for him. "I know. It's all right, Uncle Jack. Really."
"Gah!," he retorted incoherently.
"Cassie and Dominic are both very responsible teenagers," Janet reassured, placing a soothing hand on his arm.
"Mom and Dad, on the other hand...," Cassie continued suggestively.
"Tell me about it," Janet snorted. "Those two are worse than any teenagers I've ever met."
"I so don't want to hear any of this," Jack groaned, resting his head wearily on the steering wheel.
"Don't worry, Uncle Jack," Cassie said brightly. "I won't do anything you wouldn't do."
Jack's eyes widened in horror.
"I'll call you tomorrow," Janet called after her as the teen skipped laughingly up to the door.
"Breathe," she added, thumping the colonel hard in the chest. "You're turning blue."
"...nothing I wouldn't...," he mumbled, horrified.
Janet chuckled. "Don't take it too literally, Airman," she laughed. "She's just messing with you."
"Do you have any idea the things I've done?," he asked incredulously.
"Yes," she replied patiently. "But I doubt Cassie does, given that most of it is classified."
"Janet?"
"Yes?"
"I think she's going to give me a heart attack one of these days."
"Don't worry Colonel. You're in perfect health," she said, smiling softly.
It was only about 10pm when Cassie got in, but already the lights were off, not a sound to be heard suggesting the presence of anyone else. She went into the kitchen first, smirking when she saw the nearly untouched meal and clothes strewn haphazardly around the room. Wrapping the leftovers, she quietly rearranged things to make everything fit in the already full refrigerator. Then she set up the coffee pot, knowing her Dad would head there first in the morning, before tentatively kicking the wads of clothes toward the basement stairs and eventual salvation-by-washing-machine.
Janet was right. Her parents really were worse than teenagers. At least teenagers would make an attempt to hide the evidence...
Shutting the basement door on the offending articles, she moved into the bathroom, quickly going through her nightly routine. She wasn't really tired yet, but she didn't really want to do anything to disturb her parents either. If they were happy...
God, if they were finally happy again, she really couldn't complain about anything. They were good together. Amazing, actually. But apart... it was as if some intrinsic part of them was missing. She'd never say it to her Mom, who openly reviled the idea that any woman should need a man to feel complete, but they really were stronger, happier, more inspired together than they ever were on their own. And truth be told, as glad as she was to have her Dad back in her life, she'd really missed the old dynamic between her parents, that spark that fed so much life and energy into their home. If there was even the slimmest of chances that that spark could return...then Cassie would make damn sure to do whatever it took to preserve it.
Daniel would gladly have stayed in bed forever, but he had more pressing needs. That, and he could smell coffee.
Stumbling blearily down the stairs, he found Cassie sitting perched at the island counter, eating a bowl of cereal. A pot of coffee burbled merrily in the corner.
"I thought teenagers were supposed to sleep in on the weekend?," Daniel asked with a frown.
"I did," Cassie replied brightly. "Twelve blissfully uninterrupted hours of sleep."
Daniel blinked in surprise. "What time is it now?," he asked, casting uselessly around for a clock his bleary vision wouldn't allow him to see.
"Eleven am," Cassie chirped gaily.
"That's not possible," Daniel reasoned. "Sam never sleeps this long."
"Mom hasn't really slept properly since you left," Cassie replied with a shrug. "She probably has some catching up to do."
Daniel poured himself a cup of coffee, drinking it black as Cassandra's words sank in. "She hasn't?," he asked belatedly, with a frown. Cassie shook her head.
"Everything changed when you left, Dad," Cassie said evenly. "Mom did her best to keep things normal for us, but things have never really been the same."
"Cassie, I'm sorry. I didn't know..."
"It's all right Dad. You're back now. That's all that matters."
"You think things will be the same now?," he asked cautiously.
"Not really, no," she replied, without a beat of hesitation, he noted. "But I bet you five bucks Mom comes down those stairs smiling this morning, because of you. And I'll bet another five she'll want to spend the day together as a family, because you're back and she finally believes it."
"You think I have that much of an effect on her?," Daniel asked, surprised.
"I know it," she replied simply, taking another bite of her cereal.
Daniel sat down beside her, nursing his coffee. "I hope you're right," he said softly, after a hesitant beat. "I want this time to be for keeps."
Cassie beamed. "Are you awake yet?," she asked giddily.
"Uh, mostly," Daniel replied tentatively. "Why?"
"C'mon, I have something to show you," she said, darting out of her seat toward the stairs. Daniel followed, skipping the squeaky step as he went.
Cassie hurriedly led him into the room that had once housed his office, and yet now, despite minimal change, seemed to be entirely her own. "What is it?," he asked curiously, scanning the room for signs of some new line of research.
"This," she said, proudly offering him a thick binder of carefully typed pages.
"This is..." he began, frowning slightly as he read on. The thought was lost as old ideas re-emerged in new wording, the voices of his by-the-books parents echoing eerily through his own work. More interestingly, a new voice, not tired or worn, and infinitely more patient, determined and stronger than his own coming to play, dancing through the arguments, circling the hypothesis, drawing the reader inexorably toward the only possible conclusion, while simultaneously keeping things fresh, open, unencumbered.
"Do you like it?," she asked excitedly a few minutes later. Daniel was jolted from his reading.
"How did you...?"
"I studied your work, and your parents' work, and applied their academic tact to your academic brilliance. I think it turned out really well. If you resubmitted it like this, you might be able to regain some credibility with your peers."
"Cassie..."
"Please tell me you like it."
"I've never read anything like it before."
Her face fell. "I'm sorry," she said, reaching for the binder.
"No. Don't be," he hastened, holding it away from her. "Your voice...I mean as a writer... Cassie, this is incredible. Forget my ideas. Your writing is amazing."
"You really think so?," she asked, suddenly shy.
"I've read an enormous body of academic writing in my life, and I have never once come across someone with the ability to turn academia into a page-turning saga. This is incredible. Have you shown your mom?"
Cassie shook her head. "I wasn't sure what she would think...," she trailed, shrugging.
"I think she'd be proud, Cass. I'm proud," he said, meaning it. Cassie threw her arms around him, hugging him tight.
"I'm really glad you're back, Dad," she said, her words muffled by his chest.
"Me too," he replied, resting his chin on her head. "I wouldn't trade you for the world."