Major Samantha Carter walked down the SGC base corridor, the echo of her footsteps breaking the somewhat oppressive silence. It was after midnight and all non-essential personnel had long since left for the day. The base always seemed so much larger at night when no one was around.
Sam paused for a moment at an office doorway before quietly entering. A soft smile lit her face as she looked down at the man sleeping at the desk, his head resting on his folded arms. A wave of love swept over her. Unable to resist she leaned over to run her fingers lightly through the soft hair resting on his forehead. He mumbled in his sleep, moving slightly and she regretfully moved her fingers away, curling them into her palm to resist further temptation.
Sitting down on a nearby chair she rested her elbows on the desk's surface, palms cupping her cheeks, eyes never leaving Daniel's face. Realistically Sam knew she should wake him but she just wanted to bask in the freedom of simply watching him for a little while. Even after three months, Sam was still occasionally overcome by an irresistible urge to come and see for herself that he was indeed back, flesh and blood after being ascended for that year.
Sam sighed as she looked back over the years she had known Dr. Daniel Jackson. Prior to meeting him, she'd read and re-read the report on how he had opened the Stargate after only two weeks, something her team had failed to do in two years. She'd also read the report from the first Abydos mission, which read more like an action novel - it had captured her imagination like nothing had for quite a while.
During that mission Daniel had saved Colonel O'Neill's life then stayed to live on the alien planet, married to one of the local women. Sam had been in awe of him at their first meeting, not sure what to expect of this young genius. He had more than lived up to her expectations. They had clicked immediately.
With the tragedy of having his wife kidnapped Sam's awe had been tempered with sympathy and, within the first few months of being on SG-1 together, their relationship had settled quickly into what was to become the closest working relationship she had ever developed with anyone in her life before.
Sam had so many different feelings for Daniel: admiration, at bit of envy at his freedom to question the Colonel so openly, a big sister love and, at times, sheer exasperation. She loved the freedom he gave her to be herself, let her barriers down and just be 'Sam' not 'Major Carter' as she had to be with Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c. Sam lost count of the number of times she'd cried on his shoulder at the frustrations she faced being a woman in 'this man's Air Force'. Daniel always understood since, as a civilian, he faced a lot of the same frustrations.
Sam knew, by the time they'd believed Daniel was dead on Nem's planet, how much he had come to mean to her. In just a few short months he'd made a place for himself in her heart. Over the next few years she'd come to rely on him for so much: friend, brother and someone to inspire her to a new direction when she was stumped on a problem. Daniel always came through for her.
Truth was she loved working with him, loved how he constantly challenged her to be the best, loved how their minds clicked and they sometimes finished each other's sentences. The closeness filled a huge hole in her life she had previously tried to ignore.
When he'd lost Sha'ri and pulled away from them, Sam was at a loss for the first time since she had met him, she really wanted to be able to comfort him but wasn't sure how, he was so devastated. She'd watched Daniel put up a wall between himself and the rest of the team. This wall had been battered and broken down by Sam during the three months the colonel had been stranded off world - they had bonded even more while the colonel was on his NID sting. Sam thought that, out of the whole team, she was the only one who truly knew how much that sting had hurt Daniel, how much it had shattered his confidence and belief in the colonel.
The gulf between the two men widened during that horrible mission to Euronda, seemingly too broad to ever truly be bridged. The Enkaran situation only created more problems, again through circumstance, Sam and Teal'c been placed on one side of an invisible line with the colonel and Daniel alone on the other - this seemed to be the way of things so often from then on.
As Daniel and the colonel drew apart, Sam and Teal'c became confidants - together hoping to find a way to repair the relationship, return the team to how it was before.
Sam knew she had let Daniel down, and contributed to making his life harder and that hurt her. She sighed as this brought her wandering memories to the Zartarc Detectors. Sam blushed slightly. How embarrassing. She'd always had a bit of a crush on the Colonel, in fact had confided to Daniel as much. The colonel had admitted to 'caring more for her than he should' and she had been flattered and foolishly entertained ideas of them having a relationship.
It didn't take long before she realized her mistake, both she and the colonel's careers meant far too much to both of them to risk on an affair, and that's all it would have been. Added to this was the fact that she just couldn't think of him as 'Jack' - her inbuilt training and respect for him always saw him as 'Colonel O'Neill' in her mind - not a good sign if thinking of someone romantically.
SG-1 was too important to Sam to even entertain the idea of transferring to another team. Also Sam realistically knew she and the colonel were not suited; she needed someone quite different to share her life, someone more like Daniel, someone whose eyes didn't glaze over whenever she explained her theories.
Sam often thanked her lucky stars that she and the colonel had come to their senses before it was too late. Sam would have lost SG-1 plus respect within the Air Force if she had transferred so they could be together. There would always have been a cloud hanging over her, people would wonder if she only got her promotion to Major because of her relationship with the colonel. It would have been a professional disaster for her.
Occasionally she would feel a twinge of attraction for the colonel, after all he was a good-looking man, but this was quickly tempered with reality and quashed. The Zartarc incident meant that Sam and the colonel would never be close friends; there was always reserve between them now that didn't exist before. Sam felt affection for the colonel like that for a much older brother, a more comfortable feeling than what they may have headed for, had they foolishly allowed the attraction to blossom.
All in all, this time of misunderstandings was a disaster for the team. Daniel, being so sensitive, knew something was going on and Sam, quite frankly, was too embarrassed to tell him the truth. As soon as she came to her senses she threw everything into repairing her relationship with Daniel, a relationship she knew meant far more to her than any other in her life, except for the one with her father.
Their missions changed over the next two years and Sam, though she knew it was necessary, hated that Daniel was becoming more the warrior and less the scientist. She had liked to protect him, like the little brother she thought of him as, now she needed to be able to rely on him to back her up in a military as well as a personal sense.
Sam bit her lip thinking of Kelowna, unbidden tears welling in her eyes. After all this time she still hated that planet and its people, even the time spent getting to know Jonas couldn't change that. Their recent visit only cemented the prejudice in her mind that Kelownas were mostly liars and untrustworthy.
Sam remembered, that terrible day, saying good-bye to a man she loved with all her heart as he lay dying in front of her, in pain and wrapped in bandages, so doped up with pain medication she wasn't even sure he had heard her.
Then Daniel was gone. The hole he left in her life couldn't be filled. Ascension meant nothing to Sam because she wanted him with her, not out there in the universe with Oma and the other Ancients. She struggled, she and Teal'c bonding closer watching the colonel move through each day on auto pilot only occasionally coming out of his grief to act almost normally then fall back into melancholy once the mission was over. He seemed to realize, only when Daniel was gone, how much the young man had meant to him.
Sam had come to like Jonas but there was always that wall there between them, she couldn't help but remember what had happened to Daniel and the part Jonas had played in that, no matter what he had done in an attempt to redeem himself.
The hurt she felt that day in the briefing when it was revealed that both Teal'c and the colonel had seen Daniel since he had ascended and had not told her hit her again and Sam covered her face with her hands remembering her reaction. Why hadn't Daniel visited her too?
It had taken seeing him again on Abydos and then again losing him, maybe forever, before she could step back and try to rationalize, put the hurt behind her. Now Daniel could only remember fragments of the time he had been ascended, maybe he had been to see her and she didn't know? That thought gave her renewed strength.
Her heart still plummeted when she thought of how they had found the descended Daniel - no memory and on a planet they had only visited on pure chance. If things had run their course, the SGC would not have gone to that planet for years - it was the last on the list. They may have never found him - her only consolation was that she believed Oma had put him there and nudged them in the right direction to find him.
Sam felt a great deal of satisfaction that it was her words that had convinced Daniel to return to Earth and pick up his life again. The colonel had no luck. She didn't know what he had said to Daniel in that tent but it seemed to have made so little impact that Daniel had called him 'Jim' while he had remembered and repeated her entire name. Sam chuckled quietly at the memory of Daniel calling the colonel 'Jim' at the briefing and the look on the older man's face - oh, to have had a camera handy.
Jonas had now been gone for nearly three months and SG-1 had settled back into the routine they'd had before Daniel's ascension without a hiccup, except for the colonel's somewhat standoffish manor. At times, Sam found it difficult to even remember Jonas had been a member of the team for a year, his impact on the team dynamic had been so minor.
Movement of Daniel's lashes brought Sam's full attention once again to the man sleeping in front of her. With a start she realized she had sat there for an hour, lost in thought, watching him sleep. Daniel sighed deeply and the blue eyes slowly opened. He sat back quickly when he saw her resting on the other side of his desk. "Sam." Her name was mangled in a yawn.
"Hey," she said with a gentle smile, "it's late, how about we call it a night?"
Daniel looked at his watch then the contents of his desk. "Okay." He rubbed his eyes under his glasses.
"I'll drive," Sam said standing up. "You won't need your car overnight. I'll drive you back tomorrow to pick it up."
"Okay," he said again. Sam watched his tired eyes move around the office, searching for his coat. With a grin she picked it up off the chair next to her and handed it to him. Daniel accepted it with a shy smile.
"We're off now for a couple of days. Why don't you and I do something together tomorrow?" Sam asked.
"Okay. Breakfast is on me," he said with a nod and a smile. Sam smiled in return, draping an arm around his waist to give him a hug and lead him from the office.
"You've got a date, Daniel." Sam's breath caught at the beautiful smile she received in reply as they walked down the silent hallway.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am attempting to write a trio of stories all dealing with SG-1's feeling about Daniel's return. Big thanks to Aloysius for the excellent beta and encouragement.
© July 26th, 2003 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.