Still Life With Cliche
by Komos


Sam looked at the report one more time, and fought the urge to put the handheld through the wall.

Aerosolized chemicals, some kind of plant or fungal byproduct.

They hadn't eaten or drunk anything here, they'd learned their lesson ten times over, and the air got them.

The Barishin never traveled through the gate unless they'd just had sex. Although gate worship and superstition factored into it, Daniel had been unable to fully explain it in cultural terms. The primitive Barishin had retained their knowledge of how to work the DHD -- handed it down from shaman to shaman -- and traveled frequently to two of what tthey considered sister realms, to offshoots or forebears of their race, genetic cousins. Either they were the descendants of colonists from one of those worlds, or the denizens of those worlds were descendants of their own emigrants. Theirs was the only world that had the bizarre bonk-before-you-gate ritual. They wouldn't let their visitors go back through without observing it. While the colonel and Daniel argued about whether to just zat them all and go home, Sam had asked whether they could send objects through, and arranged with Hammond and Fraiser to send back blood and skin samples to find out if there was some biological or physiological basis for the cultural taboo. It had taken Fraiser a while to figure out why the skin scrapings had come through necrotized and the blood samples toxicized. But of course, eventually, she figured it out.

Something like a fungal infection. From spores or aerosolized vegetable matter. The hormones released during orgasm changed the active chemical in the bloodstream; exchange of bodily fluids with another infected party then neutralized it. It had to be someone with different DNA. How different was unknown. But you couldn't just masturbate with, say, a couple of lanceted fingertips, exchanging bodily fluids with yourself. Trading fluids wouldn't work either; it had to be pretty much immediate. These people were appallingly good at giving each other simultaneous orgasms.

With starch, taut apology, Fraiser's message reminded Sam that unprotected sex with the natives was high-risk, and might not achieve the required chemical reaction in any event. Given time, Fraiser might be able to synthesize something they could just ingest or inject. Teal'c could go through -- his samples had transited just fine -- but the natives wouldn't believe that, even after seeing his symbiote and listening patiently to a description of its powers.

Which brought them back to the zatting question, still unresolved. Daniel's concerns went a bit beyond ethics; the electrical charge of a zat might negatively affect the alien physiology in a way similar to the wormhole. O'Neill had listed, with more heat than was warranted, a few ways to incapacitate without any electrical charge at all. He thought it was worth a shot. Sam didn’t think so; fifteen guards watched the gate round the clock, and to get past them they'd have to deliver fairly serious injury to people who were only trying to protect them. But it had been nearly a week. The colonel was pretty pissed, and pretty desperate.

There was good reason to be. The Barishin were evacuating. Every eighteen years, a passing astronomical anomaly bathed their planet in radiation. There was nowhere to hide and wait it out, and there was no equipment the SGC could send through to shield them from it. The Barishin went and stayed on one of their light-years-away sister worlds until the radiation cleared, then came home. By the time the anomaly swung back around, the children they'd conceived now would be sexually mature and could engage in the ritual the next time. Why they kept coming home was Daniel's bailiwick. Something to do with religious significance they ascribed to both the planet and the anomaly. Sam really didn't care.

She did care about the anomaly. It was the kind of cosmological mystery that reminded her why she'd gone into her chosen field. She didn't get to do enough in her specialty anymore. She craved this opportunity and cursed the circumstances. She had more hypotheses than you could shake a stick at. She'd set up equipment here to log observations after they left. But she wasn't dying to study it. Not literally.

Passby and the temporary exodus rendered the zatting-versus-conk-on-the-head question moot, since pretty soon the guards would all be gone anyhow. Fraiser hadn't had time to develop chemical protection for them, and wouldn't. The passby was imminent.

The village councilors were distressed. They believed that it was critical that each coupling be witnessed. Daniel claimed that that belief, at least, was soundly cultural -- a ritualized safeguard, to make sure that no one ever bulled through without the requisite shared orgasm. Sam allowed that it was considerate of the councilors to be distressed that if they gave in to the inevitable at the last moment, when all the Barishin were gone, even coupling wouldn't help them. But the constant badgering was wearing on her.

She shut the handheld off and went out to deliver the bad news. "Janet won't have an antidote for us in time," she said. "She's hampered by the degradation of the physical samples we send; she's had to work by simulation, she's doing it herself to keep the situation confidential, and ... " She ground her teeth at the patented cut-to-the-chase expression on the colonel's face. "We're shit outta luck, sir."

"As I was saying," Daniel said, resuming what had become a really tedious argument between himself and the colonel, "it's just sex. Our lives are at stake. In light of that, it's just not that big a deal."

The colonel's back was turned. "Find another way."

One by one, the last of the Barishin coupled and left. The couplings had long since lost any prurient appeal. The last message from the SGC held out no more hope than the previous ones had. And fat chance of keeping this quiet after we get back, Sam thought sourly.

She steeled herself, and said, "Sir, if we're going to find another way, we're going to have to do it in the next hour."

He'd come back from yet another foray in search of something they could rig as shelter. A fruitless search. No lead-shielded caves, no shielding to blow a hole in with C4 to make a bunker. There were no indigenous insects, avians, or mammals on this planet. Only the plant life had evolved to withstand the eighteen-year cycle of radiation bombardment. There was just nowhere for anything else to hide. There was nothing for them to hide in, or under.

"How do you figure that, Major? Passby's not for another twenty hours."

"Well, sir ... for one thing, the magnetic disturbances that precede passby may interfere with the working of the gate, which moves the deadline up to ten hours from now. And ... " She glanced at Daniel, really kind of hoping he wasn't listening; she could deal with this on military terms, but not on personal terms. He was listening. "And there are three of us. The benefits of coupling take eight or nine hours to wear off."

She caught just the slightest wince around the eyes as he turned his face away. For all his claims of flat refusal to consider intercourse as a solution, he'd already done the math. Early on, they'd been told that once you'd coupled and achieved "immunity," you couldn't turn around and help someone else by coupling with them. They'd get no benefit; your blood would already have been chemically changed, and the reaction wouldn't occur in the third party.

She'd have to do Daniel, and then wait nine hours, and then do him.

There were other configurations -- same-sex coupling worked between males -- but she was fairly certain he wouldn't cconsider those.

"Fuck," said the colonel.

She heard, though he hadn't meant her to. "Yeah," she said. "Kind of looks that way, sir."

He sent Teal'c through the gate, leaving the three of them alone in the deserted Barishin village. Then he sat down, with his back to both her and Daniel, and said, "I can't give an order like that."

"I volunteer, sir," she said, keeping her voice utterly neutral.

"You volunteer, Daniel?" he asked, without turning.

"Sure, Jack," Daniel said, in the oddest tone she'd ever heard from him, though when she looked over he returned her only an unreadable lift of brows. He'd been arguing in favor of this for a few days. Then he said, "It has to be me."

Sounding almost irritated, as if Daniel were going off on another one of what he considered his irrelevant tangents, the colonel said, "And how's that?"

"No matter what dispensation is granted for the circumstances and no matter how discreetly this is handled, if you have sex with Sam, she'll be reassigned."

There was a long silence. Sam bit back a variety of angry retorts and had time to realize that she was furious not for any of the obvious reasons but because she was horrified. She was searching for a tactful way to frame a more reasoned response when the colonel said, "Yeah. I know."

"Sir, respectfully request permission to point out that -- "

"I'm the CO, Carter. Any toasting of careers will be mine. No arguments."

There would be no way to hide who had done whom. One of them would have to go back first. "Sir -- "

"You got nothin', Carter. You can decline to participate. That's your only leverage, and that's not going to work."

Sam turned desperately to Daniel. He was pale, his expression set. He was looking off to the colonel's left. When he felt her eyes on him, he turned, and shrugged. "He's right, Sam."

"So it comes down to protecting me." She said it bitterly, before she could stop herself.

"It's nothing to do with gender, Sam," Daniel said, with a patient tone she could have strangled him for. "I'm not officially in the military hierarchy. That's what it's about."

"You're male, Daniel."

"I'm aware of that."

Tight, furious, she said, "If I screw my direct superior, I'm off the team. If he screws you, he could be discharged, maybe even dishonorably. Maybe even court-martialed."

"None of the above," the colonel said. "Extenuating circumstances. Hammond's judgment call."

"Sir, the military will forgive -- "

"That's enough, Major." He got up, his lean body unwinding like a spring, and turned. "I don't see any other way out of this given the parameters. I'm gonna get lost for a while. Carter, I don't want to see you here when I get back. Understood?"

"No, sir, it's -- "

"Understood, Major?"

"You can't order me -- "

"No. But I can refuse. That's my prerogative." There was no soft, apologetic look intended only for her. He just said, "Don't take it personally," and headed off into one of the village's curved, winding streets, calling to no one in particular, "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

When they could no longer hear his footfalls, Sam strode over to Daniel and said, "Don't do this. You'll ruin him."

"It's his choice, Sam," Daniel said, voice hollow. He looked at his watch, but didn't say anything about the time, or getting the show on the road.

"Daniel, you can't even ... I mean ... "

"It's better if we don't talk about that."

"Suppose you can't? How can I leave you here not even knowing if you can physically pull this off?" She wrenched around the way the colonel had gone. "I should have thought of that argument sooner. I'm no prize, but I know for damn sure he's capable of heterosexual intercourse, which makes me the only -- "

"Don't, Sam."

"But how can he think ... ?"

"I can manage it. OK? That's all it takes."

She was pushed past all interest in decorum. "So fine, you've been a closet bisexual all these years, fooled me all right, but did it occur to you that he might have been sodomized in prison in Iraq?"

"Yes, Sam, that had occurred to me. It was still his choice. He made it. You can't change it now. You could run after him and zat him and rape him when he woke up and he'd throw you through the gate so he could claim it was me, and I'd back him up. I support his decision to take the hit."

"I can't let this happen."

"You don't have a feasible alternative. You can say no to me right now, but then one of us will die here. You really want him to have to choose which one?"

"He'd have to choose me. I'm military."

"And while your self-imposed martyrdom might feel very satisfying, you'd be forcing Jack to leave you behind. What do you think that would do to him?"

"We'll gate to an interim stop. We'll -- "

"We don't know if the benefits of coupling can handle two wormhole transits in a row."

She went on, doggedly. "We'll risk gating to an interim stop. We'll show up at home together. Don't ask, don't tell."

"Then there will always be suspicion. He wants you to go through first. So nobody can ever question what happened."

"They will anyway! They won't be able to prove I did you and not him, not unless they sequence a semen sample, and I'm damned if I'll have my privacy invaded that way."

"You should probably ask Janet to do that then."

"Did you hear what I just said?"

"Your career, and your indispensable participation in the program, on its flagship team, matters more to him than anything but our lives. He protects. That what he does. That's what he's dedicated himself to. Let him do that."

She scrubbed a hand through her hair and looked at her watch. Goddammit. Twenty minutes wasted on this argument.

Quietly, Daniel said, "Time's up, Sam. For this to work you have to come. Given that you're probably not exactly in the mood right now, and given that I'm not someone you want, that could take a while."

"You gonna be able to get it up at all, Daniel?" she shot back, again without thinking. He was right, but she didn't like it being about her sexuality -- some implied inability of hers to perform, even though that was a stupid way to interpret what he'd said.

"Yes," he said. What else was he going to say? "No, I find you repulsive"? He was in a crappy spot. If he wanted her, he was a pig. If he didn't, it was an insult.

"I don't even know where ... " She looked around, hopeless and pissed and humiliated. A village hut, or on the ground in front of the stargate where all the other ones had done it. Oh god. This isn't happening.

Daniel went over to his pack, where it leaned against hers and the colonel's. She heard the crinkle of a tarp and the whisper of a nylon sleeping bag pulled out. He waited for her to decide.

"Inside," she said. "If the cavalry comes to rescue us at the last second, I don't want to be caught out in the open." She moved off to the nearest structure, which was a meeting hut of sorts, with a clear space in the center. Inside it was almost tranquil, obliquely lit with filtered daylight. She'd been here long enough not to notice the strong smell of canvas and other plant textiles, or the bitter reek of smoke hanging in the chill humidity, but she became aware of them again now.

Daniel came in behind her. Together they spread the tarp and the bag.

"Sam, I need you to tell me, um, how to ... I mean ... " He hadn't faltered before. For one painful moment he seemed again the boyish thirty-one-year-old she'd first met. Then he said, "Clothes on or off? Kissing and foreplay or efficient detachment?"

Sam bent down and unlaced her boots. At least one leg was going to have to come out of her fatigue pants. "As many clothes on as possible. Maybe lose the vest and jacket."

He laid his vest and jacket off to the side, took off his boots, and lay down on the bag. She dropped down next to him in pants and T-shirt. My mother always told me to wear clean underwear. I thought it was in case I was hit by a truck.

She lay down. Daniel turned on his side. He didn't touch her.

She thought it should be his job to make her feel more comfortable. He was the diplomat. The one who smoothed things over. The very fact that he was quietly waiting for her to take the initiative, she thought, implied that she was the one with the fragile libido, the one who had to be taken care with. It made her want to take control, rip his clothes off, show him that she could do rough and fast quite effectively, thank you, and -- And that struck her with a familiar old pity and compassion for him as the untrained civilian, which wasn't fair, because he wasn't that anymore. He was buff, he was trained, he was dangerous, he pulled his weight.

This sucked. Way too much baggage.

The colonel would have just made this happen. The colonel would have known exactly what to do.

She hated herself for the thought.

Miserably, from a kind of paralysis, she said, "You're so beautiful, Daniel. There were so many times I thought ... You aren't someone I don't want. But this is horrible. This situation. Horrible and wrong."

"Do you think you can give yourself permission to enjoy it?"

She swallowed and closed her eyes. Tried to calm her breathing. Rage had filled her with adrenaline. She was still in fight-or-flight. "I'm not supposed to enjoy it. This is an objective."

"If you don't enjoy it, it won't work. Sam ... look at me."

She rolled on her side, opened her eyes.

"I love you, Sam. You're one of the strongest people I know. Nothing you could ever do would make me think of you as weak or submissive. That said, I need you to either tell me or show me how you want this."

"Don't beat around the as-it-were bush, Daniel."

"If you're willing to take some clothes off and lie back and let go, let me make love to you, I think I can make you come. If it would work better for you, I can open my pants and lie back and close my eyes, and you can mount me and bring yourself off. If there's another option, tell me or show me and I'll try. Getting it up is not a problem. Since you've been very polite about not looking, let me say that just talking about this has gotten me hard. What I'm concerned about is preejaculation. I haven't had penetrative sex in a long time." He took a breath. "I'm sorry. I don't know if being clinical about this is better or worse."

What shocked her wasn't the choices he outlined, but that option number two would be among them, after what Hathor had done to him. The only time she'd been able to get him to talk about that at all, he'd said bitterly that he didn't know if he could ever stand to be on the bottom again during sex. Then he'd been very pissed at himself for admitting that, and shut her out. With a typical Daniel apology for shutting her out. He was the most meta guy she'd ever met, and an impossible nut to crack where his own suffering was concerned.

"What do you want to do, Daniel? Tell me the truth."

"I want to get all these clothes off and make love to you. I'm very uptight right now, but if we did that I think maybe we could both relax and let the rest come naturally. The problem with that is that I don't trust my own control. My best refractory period's about an hour, and that's an hour we don't have. I ... "

"What?"

"Sam, are you just letting me talk as a delaying tactic, am I just making a fool of myself here, or are you -- "

"What were you going to say? Say it, Daniel."

"I hesitate to suggest what I think is the safest approach to this."

"Oral sex," she said quietly. "You bring me to the brink of orgasm, then come inside me."

"Yeah."

"Would that gross you out?"

"No." He swallowed, winced. "I'd love to do that for you. I don’t know if admitting that is the right thing."

"That's what we'll do then. Take your clothes off." She sat up, stripped off her T-shirt and sports bra, then lay back and pushed out of fatigues and briefs. "These socks look stupid," she said. "But my feet are cold."

"Stupid is not a look that it's possible for you to achieve," Daniel said softly, stretching out on his side, bare from head to toe.

She turned, and looked at him. "Oh my god," she murmured.

"Sorry," he mumbled, averting his eyes.

"Sorry?"

"For being hard. For being a creep. I don’t know."

"Daniel ... " She rolled up onto her side and pressed into his arms, a shock of naked flesh on flesh, a warm, delicious rightness of his erection up against her. "You're not a creep. You're beautiful. You're so beautiful." She nuzzled up to his mouth. It was the most natural thing in the world. His lips were full, satiny, sweet; hard muscle came under her hands, up against her thighs, her belly -- an intense masculinity, that gentle soul inside that incredible body; when she parted his lips with hers, he gave her his tongue, and she was suddenly so aroused she couldn't think. Her hands slid down his back, cupped muscled, rounded buttocks, pulled them toward her. His penis rubbed sweetly between her lips. A moan came out of her, involuntary. She tried to roll him on top.

He fumbled back, wincing. "SamSamSam -- ah, god. Fuck. Fuck." He'd rolled away from her, hand plunging down to grip himself. "I'm sorry. Give me a second."

She was shaking. She wanted to run her hand down the sinuous curve of his spine, over the beautiful butt. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to reassure him. She wanted to go down on him. It was too much. She tried to get ahold of herself. "It's OK," she said. "It's very flattering." She winced. What an idiot. But what else could she say?

After a minute, he rolled onto his back. He was deeply flushed -- arousal or embarrassment. "I think I’m OK," he said.

She rolled onto her back too, and laid her knuckles firmly but gently against his shoulder. "Your hand will be enough," she said, softly. "Just use your hand."

With something close to irony, he said, "I'm really better with my mouth." She almost said no. No, that's too intimate. No, if you do that I'll never be able to look at you across a briefing table again. No, I won't let you abase yourself like that if it's not necessary. Then he added, "And to be honest, I'm less likely to lose it if I'm down there."

Weirdly, she knew what he meant. If the situation were reversed, she'd be more likely to come herself, from lying beside him while he came into her hand. Seeing his beautiful body arch in pleasure. Seeing his face. Oral sex was somehow more anonymous, more detached, even though it was one of the most intimate things she could imagine.

"Yeah," she said. "OK. I'd, um. I'd love that, Daniel."

He let go of himself, and turned. Leaned over her, brushed her lips with a light, gentle kiss. "I love you, Sam."

"I know. I love you too. I wish ... "

"I know. Me too." He smiled, sad and wan but obviously trying to be reassuring, too. Then he said, "Mouth and fingers, or just mouth?"

"Both's good," she said, mesmerized by his sculpted features. Wanting his hands on her, his mouth on her. "Foreplay would make you come?"

"Probably."

"OK." She stroked his lips, his sideburn, then moved her arm away. Cocked one leg slightly open. Invitation. Willingness.

He ducked his head before she could see his expression, and leaned down to kiss her navel as he shifted his body between her legs.

"I'm going to keep my eyes closed," she said. "So you won't be self-conscious. Is that OK? It's not because I'm trying to pretend it isn't you."

"OK," he said, and kissed the inside of her thigh. "Tell me if I'm not doing it the way you like. If I'm doing it wrong, tell me what to do."

"OK." It came out almost without breath. His big, smooth hands ran warmly, slowly down the insides of her thighs, spreading them. A surge went through her at being opened. She found herself fighting it. She shouldn't do that. If she could come she should just come. That was the objective. But this was so good. Her social life was for shit, but when she needed sex she went and got sex; her "girls' nights out" with Janet and some of the other female personnel were a lot more than the innocent chick-flicks-and-shopping she let the men on her team believe them to be. But she hadn't let anyone do this for her in a long time. She wanted it to last, even though it shouldn't.

She heard his knees slide back, then stop. He'd been going to slide down the bag, lie flat instead of leaning over her, but he must have realized that it would rub his erection against the nylon and risk him coming from the stimulation.

Tender fingers spread her lips. She felt his breath first, warm and fluttery. Then his tongue, firmed to a point, sliding up. She grunted, fighting not to lift her hips, force his tongue anywhere he didn't mean it to go.

That was the last conscious, in-control thought she managed to have.

His tongue circled, teasing, and then his lips came in around it.

"Oh god." She arched, her hands twisting in the sleeping bag. "Oh god. Daniel."

He sucked, eased. Sucked, eased. The fingers of his left hand slid down, slicked themselves. He stroked her for a long time, paying tender attention to the outside of her. His mouth opened wider, took more of her in. The flat of his tongue rubbed warm and firm, up and down. His fingers began to move inside. Not pushing in, not penetrating, not pretending to fuck her. Running lightly around, teasing, stimulating. She was more turned on than she'd been in maybe ever. Two fingers, turned up, slid gently in. It wasn't penetration. It was a caress.

"That's so ... " she said, on a helpless, sighing moan. "Daniel, that's ... "

"Mmm," he murmured. He turned his hand inside her, sweetly, and pressed in farther, with the suggestion of a gentle in-and-out. She felt herself dilate, her body begging him to come in deeper. He stroked deeper, making little circles with his fingertips. As if he could know what she was feeling.

"Daniel ... " she breathed from inside the suspension of time and space that was i'm going to come.

His fingers spread inside her, and his tongue did something astonishing.

"Oh," she burst out, "oh, oh, oh, oh -- " She arched, thrashing. Daniel was moving up, moving over her. His hand slid out and he entered her in one slick, supple thrust, a swell of thick flesh, and she gripped his ass and pulled him into her, fucking herself on him, grunting as the climax sharpened instead of ending. His hands pushed her legs wide. His hips gave three short tight jabs, and his cock pulsed.

The sound he made was something between a sob and a sharp groan, a sound like intense anguish, muffled against the bag. She only half heard it. Her vision and hearing went into whiteout. She clutched at him as if she was trying to protect him from something. As in a delayed reaction, she exhaled hard, with the sound of a hoarse growl. For one endless second they were locked on each other, frozen at the jagged peak. Then she let go, trembling back, easing her clawed fingers out of his glutes. He spasmed one last time, arching slightly off her, then melted into a damp shudder.

She reached up to stroke his hair. The other hand traced apologetically over the crescents her dull nails had dug in the flesh of his butt. He mumbled something she took for "It's OK." They were silent for a long time, waiting for breath and heartrate to come back into normal range.

"That ought to do it," she said, finally. Stroking him one last time.

"Yeah," he said, voice shaky. "Should I get off you?"

"Probably," she said. She watched as he got his arms under him, pushed up, unsticking from her with wincing care. She watched as he withdrew, admiring the dangle of thick penis and testicles, the flex of quads, the contraction of abs. He rolled onto his back with a low grunt and drew one leg up, hand cupping himself. She went limp into the cushion of nylon and goose down, allowing herself one more moment of completely-overwhelmed, ignoring the fluid pooling on the bag under her butt. Then she mustered herself, and said, "Daniel, I really want to do the cuddling thing. I really do."

"But it's probably not a good idea," he said.

"I can't fall in love with you."

"I know."

"You're too important to me."

He laughed, then cleared his throat. "Yeah. I know. I know what you mean. It's OK, Sam. I'm just glad that was OK."

"It was more than OK. I ... That was really good, Daniel."

"Yeah," he said softly. "Here too."

She reached her vest over, fumbled out a seriously inadequate handcloth, wiped at herself. The Barishin bathed in their river. It would be a shock of cold in this season, but it was better than going home like this. "I'll be back in a little while. You can join me if you want to."

"I'll just lie here and be overwhelmed for a few more minutes," Daniel said, laying a forearm over his eyes. "You go ahead."

He could wash up at the basin in one of the nearby homes. She got up, gathered her clothes. Leaned down to touch him, once, before she left. "I do love you."

"I know. Love you too, Sam. Go clean up."

She shocked herself sober in the chill river current, lathered body and hair with camp soap fetched from her pack on the way by, shocked herself more sober by dunking deep to rinse. Tried and failed not to think about how Daniel wasn't done yet. How the worst of it lay ahead, for him.

It made her angry. It made her more than angry, no matter how she looked at it, and there was no point not looking at it, she was going to think about it sometime. She'd seen what some ostensibly straight men found themselves doing when they knew they were going to die the next day. It wasn't as inconceivable as she'd tried to make it, in her own mind, that the colonel would have some experience with this, or would be capable of fucking Daniel. It enraged her to think of him doing that. It enraged her to think of Daniel enduring it, if it wasn't something he liked, and it enraged her more to think of him enduring it if it was something he wanted. She'd seen him go still under the colonel's casual touches. She just hoped to hell the colonel understood what he was dealing with.

If it went the other way, if Daniel penetrated the colonel, Daniel could be just as shattered, and for the colonel it might recapitulate an unthinkable trauma. She got so pissed when they read her the riot act about female airmen going down in foreign territory, what they could expect if they were captured. "And this isn't something the men can expect?" she'd said, bitterly out of line; the asshole speechifying to her had been a superior officer. He'd looked at her with profound disgust.

At least that line of thinking had resulted in the sub-cu implant that obviated an argument about birth control or forced them to ask Fraiser to send prophylactics through the gate. Not much consolation now.

They'll be all right, she told herself. Daniel and I are all right. They'll be all right, too. She'd never seen a deeper, more complicated bond than the one between those two men. Forced sexual contact could profoundly fuck it up, but she didn't think it could break it.

As she walked back, dressed and collected and with her game face back on, she thought, No, actually it can. Even assuming nothing about preferences, there were a thousand ways something like this could turn the colonel into a raging prick or drive Daniel deeper inside that withdrawal he flirted with. And there was nothing she could say to him to help, before the fact. Not without asking him things she had no business asking. Not without knowing more about Colonel O'Neill than she should ever know, or ever wanted to know.

He loves Daniel, she thought, finally, as she came back into the village and saw Daniel, calm and dressed, lounging against the backrest of their packs, tossing pebbles into the bed of one of the rickshaws the Barishin used for local transportation. Sometimes I think he loves him more than I do. That has to be enough. Whatever kind of love it is.

She couldn't think about it past that. Her own feelings toward the colonel were too conflicted.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," Daniel said, and smiled at her.

You could live a lifetime on the memory of a smile like that.

"Do I look OK?" she said. "I don't want to look like I just got laid."

He checked her out openly, carefully. "You're good," he said.

"Normal?"

"Actually you look a little pissed."

"Huh. OK. That's probably good."

"Yeah." He rolled to his feet. "Want me to dial? You ready?"

She let out a harsh breath and hefted her pack. "Yeah. I guess." Walking toward the grounds in front of the gate, the circle of posts where the guards had stood, the depression in the grass where hundreds of people had had sex on groundcloths in full view of all their peers, she said, "I'd like to give you a hug, Daniel. But ... "

" ... it's not a good idea." He started punching in the address, holding his IDC module in his left hand. "Don't fuck with the pissed-off look. It works."

The wormhole established, shimmered in front of her. Daniel transmitted their code.

"Daniel ... "

"It'll be OK, Sam. Really."

She looked back at him, finally, and felt a crack open in her heart at the brave flash of smile he mustered. It's just sex, he'd said. It was so, so, so not just sex. "I'll see you in a few hours," she said.

"Yup. See you then."

She turned, summoning every ounce of rage she could against the pain that threatened to send her running back into his arms, push crazy offers from her like We'll hire prostitutes for you, we'll take civilian volunteers, we'll find another way. Both he and O'Neill would have already considered those options. They'd made their choices. She had to respect that.

But it pissed the living shit out of her. She grabbed on tight to that, and stepped through the event horizon.

>>>>>

Sixty seconds later, the radio crackled with a message from Hammond that Major Carter had come through safe and sound. Daniel, not sure whether or not Jack was in range, acknowledged as the gate shut down. Then he walked past it, up the rise beyond it, and lay on his stomach for about an hour, looking out at the featureless distance. The Barishin had a beautiful world, but their settlements hadn't spread very far from the gate, and they kept their population constant through a fosterage arrangement with their cousin worlds. They were afraid that if they moved outward, they would begin to forget, or bad weather or natural disaster might cut some of them off from the gate when it was time. They played it safe. It seemed to work for them.

Worked great for me, 'til I came here.

He'd put his gear vest back on. His notebook was in it. He'd like to write some of this down; it was how he catharted. He couldn't take the risk. He went back down into the village, pulled a battered paperback from another pocket, found a comfortable hammock in the garden behind someone's canvas dwelling, and read for a while, translating the Russian words into various other languages to keep his mind from wandering. His mind wandered anyway. He had no problem thinking about three problems at one time. He set another part of his mind to working a word puzzle one of the other linguists had brought back from another offworld. That still left one track free to brood.

One too many. It would be better if Jack didn't come back until just before it was time. He considered using his radio to tell him that. It clicked at that very moment, and he startled badly. Crap.

"Go ahead," he said.

"All clear?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to stay lost for a few more hours?"

"Are you lost?"

"Don't start with me."

Warm private amusement morphed into pain. He didn't know what to say. He'd blown all his tact and diplomacy. Out of gas. Do what you want, Jack.

"I'm coming in," the radio crackled.

Whatever. He clicked acknowledgement.

He heard Jack come down to where their packs were propped against each other. He didn't get up. He translated the paperback into Mandarin, under his breath.

After a while, Jack came and found him. "Whatcha readin'?" he said, plunking himself down in a chair made of something like wicker.

"Um ... " He realized he had no idea. He looked at the cover. "Oh."

"What?"

"Dostoevski. I just stuffed it in my vest because it fit. I didn't look at it."

Jack didn't point out that he'd been reading it, speaking in Mandarin under his breath, when he walked up. "Don't tell me," he said. "Crime and Punishment."

"I skipped it in school," he said, as if that somehow attenuated the unfortunate situational irony. "Always meant to pick it up later."

"You didn't skip it," Jack said, with gentle scorn. "You skipped the year where they taught it."

"Well, yeah."

"Most of what they taught in translation in World Lit you'd already read in the original."

"Um. Yeah." He blinked a couple of times. "Missed this one, though."

"You read The Idiot? I hated that book."

"Is that some kind of a dig?"

"Brothers Karamazov was cool. Hated Anna Karenina, liked War and Peace. Crime and Punishment I could take or leave. Guess the Russians were a toss-up."

"Are you actually trying to have a conversation with me about Russian literature?"

"Not really. I only read 'em in English."

"I didn't know you read novels."

"You didn't know I could read."

Daniel picked at the corner of the battered paperback. He'd picked it up in Moscow, when he was brokering the deal for the spare DHD. Jack took a handful of river stones from a decorative basket on the table next to him and turned them in his fingers. The silence was laden, and at the same time weirdly easy, companionable. They'd spent a lot of years in each other's company.

Daniel thought, I can't do this. Seven more hours.

He heard Velcro rip open, fingers dig inside a vest pocket. "Gin rummy?"

"Sure." He put the book away, dug his notebook out, rolled out of the hammock. Jack pulled the little table around, moving the basket of stones to the ground. Daniel took one of the other wickerish chairs and waited while Jack shuffled and dealt.

They played cards for a while. Daniel pulled out a power bar, offered half to Jack. Jack said, "Lemme heat up some MRE's. Save that for dessert."

"OK," Daniel said, and dealt a hand of Solitaire while Jack went off to do that.

They ate what he supposed was lunch, then played cards for another hour. He didn't realize he was dozing off until Jack's shadow fell across him and he said, "Hammock. Grab a snooze. I'm gonna go for another walk."

"No," Daniel said. Feeling weirdly panicked. Jack was backlit by the lowering alien sun. "Stay."

Jack stood motionless for a moment. Daniel put his cards down and looked at his watch. Three and a half hours. He was tired. He could probably sleep for most of that. He shouldn't have said anything.

"Get some sleep, Daniel. I'll be back in an hour."

He didn't look up. He listened to Jack's boots tramp into the distance, then took his gear vest off, got back in the hammock, and went to sleep. When he woke up, Jack was sitting at the base of the treelike thing at the foot of the hammock, propped against its trunk, one knee drawn up, one leg sprawled out, dozing. The hammock creaked, and Jack's eyes opened. He didn't say anything.

Daniel looked at his watch. He'd slept for ninety minutes. Two hours to go. He let his arm drop. Let his head drop back into the sling. "You ever done another guy?" he asked, wearily.

"What happened to don't ask, don't tell?" Jack said -- with some amusement, which struck Daniel as bizarre, and also somehow comforting.

"I'm a civilian, remember?"

"Only technically."

A mirthless grin tugged briefly at Daniel's mouth. "Oh, a lot more than technically. Politically, philosophically ... "

"Been around plenty of it, never participated," Jack said. "When I was a POW, there was some object penetration and other sexual abuse, but no sodomy. You?"

"No," Daniel said. He noted Jack's phrasing but didn't call him on it. "Men were expected to do other men on Abydos. It was considered a healthy part of sexuality, not infidelity; the women were off with each other. I watched a few times, but I never joined in." He didn't mention what Sha're thought of his decision, or the ramifications it had had. Not relevant.

Why he'd made the decision was keenly relevant, but he didn't mention that either, because it was important only to him, and had no bearing on the situation.

Tell me again why oral sex won't cut it, Jack had said, days ago when the Barishin had begun to evacuate, frustrated and pissed and more than a little appalled at the whole thing, the unending coupling taking place in the circle in front of the gate. We don't know why, Sam had said, but it just won't. It has to be intercourse. There's something about the way the body responds electrochemically. It's a mystery, like the question of why we sleep, why we dream, why you never see baby pigeons, why there's no blue food. Blueberries are purple, sir.

When Jack didn't say anything else, just sat there resting, not fidgeting or even fiddling with whatever came to hand, Daniel said, "So have you decided who does whom?"

"It's not a command decision, Daniel. Kinda thought I'd leave that up to you."

"I probably have fewer issues with being penetrated." He didn't come from a homophobic background. Jack did. Though Jack hadn't absorbed the attitude, the taboo must still be in there, deeply ingrained. "But if the whole thing is too repellent, you might not be able to get it up. That's the only hurdle, as far as I can see. Once you get in, a hole's a hole. You come, I jerk off, we're out of here."

He didn't look at Jack, and Jack didn't say anything for nearly ten minutes. Then he said, "Requires some prep."

"I'll take care of that," Daniel said. "Sunscreen should work OK."

There was another very long pause, maybe six or seven minutes this time. Daniel dozed a little, escaping into sleep, and startled slightly when Jack said, "If you can't get off while I'm in you, it's gonna feel like rape. To me."

Daniel waited as long as he could before he said, "I'll get off."

They didn't talk any more after that until it was time. Daniel looked at his watch when there was ten minutes left until they were certain the chemical change in his system would have worn off. Sam had made him promise to wait the extra hour. So after fifty minutes of it he rolled out of the hammock, dropped his jacket into it, and said, "Stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Jack nodded, glancing at him only once -- a little sharply. His dark eyes went fierce and hard that way when he was scared, sometimes. Or he could be raging at the necessity of this abhorrent act. No way to know.

He could genuinely hate me after this, Daniel thought, finally. One of many thoughts he'd been staving off for a long time. Not just for killing his career. Just because.

He knew Jack loved him. He was pretty sure he understood the quality of that love, at least as much as it could be understood. Their relationship was prickly, intense. A deep bond whose roots went down into his soul. He didn't question the fundaments of it. The friendship was solid because friendship was the wrong characterization for it. He'd heard base personnel refer to him as O'Neill's best friend. He wasn't O'Neill's best friend. Teal'c was O'Neill's friend. Sam was O'Neill's friend. Hammond was O'Neill's friend. If O'Neill had a best friend, it was someone from his old life, someone outside the mountain. One of the buddies he played poker with in his free time, hit strip clubs with, played ball with, whatever the hell he did on the weekends. What Daniel was doing there, when Jack invited him over to watch sports or a movie, he'd never understood. He knew it was necessary, and important, and he knew that no matter how casual Jack was about it, it mattered to Jack as much as it mattered to him. But he didn't know how to characterize the significance. Some kind of love. Some kind there was no word for in any language he knew.

He didn't know if it would be enough to keep this from making Jack hate him with the virulent coldness that Jack was uniquely capable of. Hate was only the other side of love. Oldest and truest theory in the book.

God, Jack, he thought, pulling sunscreen out of his pack and going off into one of the other huts, not the one he'd shared with Sam. I thought I stopped caring what you thought of me a long time ago. Guess I was wrong.

He dropped to the floor, lay back on the plant-fiber carpet, shoved his pants and underwear down below his knees so he could open his legs wide enough. Mechanically, he lubed himself. He'd done this before. He'd come like this, on his own fingers. He came up while he was doing it. The intense memory of Sam washed over him like warm, sweet water, and then away. Staring hard at the roof of the hut where the poles met, noting their phallicism without interest, he pushed both forefingers into himself. He'd been too tense to take a dump. He'd regret that later, but nothing he could do about it now. He stretched the sphincter as thoroughly as he could, eased his rectum up as far as he could reach.

As he imagined it, Jack was going to be able to sustain an erection only briefly. He could close his eyes, fantasize about something that turned him on, work himself up, but the pheromone cues would be all wrong, and the second he opened his eyes to watch where he was putting it, it was going to be a race against revulsion. He'd have to shove all the way up in one hard stroke and hope the heat and friction and tightness were enough to make him come.

As far as his part of it, Daniel was certain about his response. The entry would shock him, possibly even damage him if Jack overcompensated and rammed too hard, but it would make him come. For him, all the pheromones, all the cues were there. All he had to do was stop fighting them, for one moment, and let go.

He pulled his fingers out, leaving a dull ache. Too fast, he supposed. Too much. But the job was done. Jack would be able to get in, and wouldn't hit so much resistance that he stopped and jerked back out.

He pulled his pants up, washed his hands, capped the sunscreen, washed the bottle, put it in his pocket. Walked back across the village to the little garden where Jack waited. Found him sitting in the wicker chair, flipping cards at the hammock. He'd piled his vest and jacket in it.

"I'm gonna brace up against this tree and drop my pants," Daniel said. He tossed Jack the sunscreen. "My suggestion is, you stand as close as you can behind me, close your eyes, and jerk off to your favorite fantasy. When you're hard enough, shove in as hard and as fast as you can and do whatever you have to do to come. I prepped thoroughly. I promise you can't hurt me. You think that will work for you?"

Jack nodded. His face was dark and unreadable. He rolled to his feet and stood a little ways away while Daniel turned and positioned himself. After a moment, he came up right next to Daniel and leaned down to tug open the laces on Daniel's left boot. "Out of this," he said. Blinking, almost paralyzed by the closeness, Daniel slid his foot out of the boot as Jack held the heel. Jack hooked a thumb through the outside waistband of his bunched briefs and fatigue pants. "Pull your leg out of these," he said. Daniel drew his leg up and freed it. Jack didn't have to tell him to spread. The message was clear.

He'd dropped his left hand to cup his groin so that Jack wouldn't see the aching hard-on. Jack's abrupt proximity, Jack's touch, Jack's quiet, no-nonsense control, the whiff of woodsy, sweaty Jack-smell combined with the act of spreading for him, bare-legged and bare-assed, to make him so hard it hurt.

He hid it, protected it, and waited while Jack did what he had to do.

>>>>>

Jack stood half a step back from Daniel, dropped his pants, and lubed himself. He was already hard; when Daniel spread for him he'd thought his dick would pop all the buttons in his fly. Hadda get the leg out of the pants, though. Make sure he had some mobility and leverage. Hobbled was unacceptable.

He jerked himself lightly so that Daniel would hear something like a slick sucking sound and think he was hard at work, eyes closed, imagining his wife or Carter or Freya or some exotic dancer or supermodel or whateverthefuck. His hand was shaking. He kept the motion going as long as he could. He let himself admire the view, but got an eyeful of faint fingernail marks like a slap for his indiscretion and raised his focus to the middle of Daniel's back.

It was torture not to smooth a hand over the soft brown head, say something reassuring. Daniel had made it clear that fast and efficient was the only way he could cope with this. Anal penetration was ... He had no word for it. Huge. A huge freakin' thing to have happen to your body.

He'd castrate anyone who did what he was about to do to Daniel, but he wasn't unfamiliar with self-hatred and he'd deal with it later. Daniel had acquiesced to circumstances, was making the best of this with his usual courage and commonsense. Whatever Jack could do to make it easier now, he'd do. It would be easier on Daniel if he didn't touch him. So he kept his hands and his voice to himself. If seeing Daniel willingly put himself in a position of sexual submission got him so hot that guilt knifed through his heart, it was his own problem. Heart was old and scarred. Fucking thing belonged to Daniel anyway. Fuck it. He'd do what he had to.

He closed the half-step, mincing in the pants bunched around his ankles, and took a hank of Daniel's T-shirt in his fist, just over his ribs, to balance himself. "Brace," he said, and waited while Daniel got his left hand braced up by his right. A glimpse of cock told him Daniel was hard, so they were a go. He was aware of a peripheral weirdness -- Daniel wasn't left-handed, why had he used that hand to bring himself up? -- but he had no mental space to consider it. He nosed into position, found the hole, felt the tip lock into place. Hang on, buddy. I'll get this over with as fast as I can. "Now," he said quietly, waited a beat, and pushed in.

His head cleared the ring of muscle more easily than he expected. He bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood and the surge of orgasm eased off. He heard a click from Daniel's throat. A shudder went through the dense, muscled body.

Jack fisted his right hand in the other side of Daniel's shirt. Daniel had told him to give a good shove. Fuck that. No way. He eased the rest of the way in. Steady. Careful. Sipping breaths to hold off the orgasm trying to jump him from behind.

Daniel's head dropped, and his hands clawed on the tree trunk, fingernails gouging it. Something indescribable happened inside his body, tightening and softening at the same time.

Prostate, Jack thought, with some amazement, and rocked himself on it.

Daniel's teeth came together so hard he heard a crack.

Come on, Danny. No time like the present. He rocked again, gently, and said, "Daniel. Hand."

Daniel shook his head. Snarled something. If they were words, they weren't English.

Christ, Daniel. Just do it. Do it. Please. His hand twitched. "You want me to -- "

"No." Daniel was shaking. He gritted out, "God fucking dammit, Jack, just come. Push. Thrust. Fuck me. Come."

Daniel should be used to the feel of it now. He should be able to jerk off. He'd promised, he'd fucking promised he'd be able to get off. "Not without you," Jack said.

With something like a sob, Daniel shoved back on him, and came.

Contractions ran up the back of him, sucking Jack's dick. He shot without warning. The orgasm tore through him like a bullet. Somehow he clamped down on the sound in his throat. His hips jerked in hard, involuntary spasms against Daniel's ass. Daniel was bucking back into him, silently. The combined motion was like hard fucking. Jack's cock pulsed dry. The fluffy-cotton sparkle of blackout swelled behind his eyes. He breathed. He got control back. He stopped his hips. Daniel went still and trembling, then started to sag. Without thinking, Jack got an arm around him, held him up. The other hand tangled in Daniel's shirt. He'd fisted in it nearly hard enough to tear it off his body; the fabric had held, but it was stretched all out of shape.

"I'm OK," Daniel said. He cleared his throat. Jack felt his legs come back under him. "You can pull out."

Fuck. Jack hadn't thought this through. That was his job, that was what he did, and he'd fucked up. There was going to be come everywhere. Clothes, boots, stuff they couldn't wash. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He had a spare shirt in his pack. He eased his arm off Daniel, made sure he'd stand on his own, then stripped his shirt off and balled it up. Pressed it up between them as he pulled out. "Hold this," he said, gruffly. Daniel's right hand was already coming around to do that.

He stepped back, dragged his pants up just shy of his crotch, turned his back. He'd stuffed a wad of Kleenex in his pocket. He fished it out, wiped his dick, pulled his shorts up, buttoned his pants, re-threaded his belt. "Hang on, Daniel. I'll get you something to -- "

"It's OK. Just ... go. Go get your other shirt."

Leave me the fuck alone. Message received. "Toss that one," Jack said, and walked around to the alley between huts and down the curve of path back out to the village green where their packs stood braced, back-to-back.

That's it, he thought, punching his arms into his spare shirt, hauling it over his head, shoving it down into his waistband, dragging his jacket on, his vest. End of a career? Maybe. End of a friendship, probably. Not the kind of bang I expected to go out with, either way.

He checked his watch. Pushing it on time here. Daniel took a while coming out, probably soaping the smell of sex off himself. Couldn't come back reeking with it. No time for a plunge into the river. Had to hope the semen enema didn't come back to haunt him at the worst possible moment. Jack ran a wetwipe down inside the front of his pants, wincing deeply at the sting. Best he could do. He shouldered his pack, hefted Daniel's, and brought them over to the DHD. He must have seen a hundred couplings on that trampled ground. He might never watch another porn vid.

"Ready?" he said to Daniel, not turning at the sound of his steps.

"Yeah," Daniel said, and came up beside him.

He dialed, then took a look at Daniel in the blue glow from the establishing wormhole. He looked drained, exhausted, but not harrowed. No just-got-laid flush to his cheeks. Hair as tamed as it ever was. Daniel reached down for his pack, slung it onto one shoulder. Any other time, Jack would have lifted it up onto the other, snugged the straps. Now he just punched in their code and tucked the remote back into his vest.

Daniel looked at him, an angle of cool blue through the frame of glasses, jaw slightly cocked. Jack hadn't expected that. It caught him unguarded, in a moment of grief for what casual intimacy they'd had, however meaningless to Daniel, lost now. For a second he had trouble looking away. Daniel's pupils dilated. He hadn't expected Jack to look back. Jack could feel the hopes and offers and apologies and pleas on his own lips, stinging.

With a slight wince, tightening his mouth, he forced his gaze back to the gate. "Let's go."

>>>>>

Sam sat at the gate controls and watched them come through.

"Welcome back," Hammond said into the mic.

Teal'c was waiting down below. He helped Daniel off with his pack. Jack slung his own down to the floor as the wormhole disengaged. There were no SFs, no Marines, no medics in the embarkation room. Just Teal'c, and herself and Hammond up here.

She watched O'Neill, then Daniel register that. She followed Hammond down to them, into the dead silence of the concrete space.

"There'll be no debrief," Hammond said. "What records exist of this mission have already been sealed. Doctor Fraiser is the only member of the medical staff with any knowledge of the nature of the problem. I've already assured Major Carter that there will be no repercussions from this. I now give the same assurance to you. Any questions, gentlemen?"

"No, sir," the colonel said. There was surprise and gratitude in his dark eyes, but his expressionless face was pure military.

Hammond looked at Daniel. Daniel shook his head, then looked at the door. It was clear he was waiting to be dismissed.

"Dismissed," Hammond said quietly.

Daniel walked off. The three other men looked away, very obviously not evaluating his gait. After a moment, Hammond started out. Sam watched Daniel out of sight, then looked at the colonel. He gave a slight, rough shake of his head, granite features impenetrable, then turned to slap Teal'c on the shoulder. "Good to see you, T."

"And you, O'Neill."

Hammond had stopped at the door. He turned and said, "Your team has downtime at your discretion, Colonel. I'll review your next scheduled mission with you tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," the colonel said. Sam thought she heard him swear softly, but couldn't be certain it was some echo from the general's footsteps.

For a moment, the three of them stood alone in the gateroom. The question of Daniel hung heavy. Sam knew that the colonel was waiting for him to clear the gear-up room and get changed. She didn't know if she should go after him. "I'm going back to my lab for a few hours," she said. "I'll catch dinner here. You'll let me know if I should report for duty tomorrow morning?"

"You want the day, Carter? Take a day."

"I don't really want to take the day, sir."

"Decide in the morning, Major. Report to me then. I'll let you know if we're still on for the offworld on Thursday."

"Thank you, sir." She took two steps back, unaware that she was doing it until she saw him notice it just as she turned. Crap. Over her shoulder, she said, "Have a good night, Teal'c," and then got out of there as fast as decorum allowed.

She buried herself in work. Got a sandwich, ate it without tasting it. Picked up the phone three times to call Daniel, put it down without dialing. Hoped against hope that he'd just show up at her office door. He didn't. On her way home, she stopped by his lab. Dark and empty. Even the monitor was turned off. He usually left it on, an endless march of screensaver pharaohs.

Oh, god. Daniel.

In the middle of the night, her cell phone rang.

"I don't know if I should quit," Daniel said quietly, after she picked up and said her name.

"Please don't. Please, please don't."

"It wasn't just sex, Sam. I was wrong about that. Really, grievously wrong."

"I know. Daniel, he loves you. I don't know what happened, but it won't change anything. It saved your lives. That's all that matters."

"It changes everything. I can pretend that it doesn't. That's what we've done for five years. Pretend that the crap that happens to us doesn't change anything. Go on as if everything's OK."

"Isn't that what life is?" she said, sadly, miserably. "Picking up and going on?"

"I don't know if I can do this anymore. This dysfunctional thing where we never talk."

"I'll come over. Give me half an hour."

"No. Don't. That would be worse. I'm not home anyway."

"Where are you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Come over here."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"You know why."

She did know why. Because she'd bring him into bed with her. Hold him, kiss him, try to comfort him. He was achingly easy to fall in love with. She adored him, and she couldn't stand it when he was in pain. But they couldn't do that. They couldn't.

"Then stay on the phone with me. Talk to me."

"You should sleep. I'm sorry I woke you."

"We have tomorrow off, Daniel. I was going to go in, but I don't have to." The colonel had probably left messages on all three of Daniel's phones, and Daniel had, without a doubt, listened to none of them. "Listen to me. Go home. Go to sleep. I'll pick you up at eight-thirty or nine and we'll go have breakfast. Or we'll cook. OK? We'll shop first. You never have any food there."

"Sam," he said, in a near-whisper. "I can't."

Desperate, she said, "Then go back to the mountain. Talk to Teal'c. I know he helps you when things are really bad. I'm going to call him now and tell him you're coming, and if you don't show up I'll have bothered him for nothing, so you have to show up. I'm dialing him on my landline." She leaned over with the cell phone so he'd hear the taps of her punching in the number.

"Sam. Stop. Don't."

With a ragged sigh, she stopped, and put the receiver back with an audible clatter.

"Thanks. Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do. There's just ... What happened with us ... I can't ... There's no one ... Fuck, Sam. I feel so fucking trapped."

"You're not alone. Do you understand me? You're not. I love you, Daniel. Teal'c's right there. He's not going anywhere. He'd kick your ass for not turning to him. Drive home, or drive there, or come here. Use your keys. Just come in. We'll drink tea and watch infomercials. I can still be your friend. Please, Daniel."

"I have to go, Sam."

"Daniel -- "

"I really have to go. I love you, Sam. Maybe see you tomorrow."

"Remember what I said."

"I will. I do. Good night, Sam."

"Night, Daniel."

She watched the display as the call cut off from his end, then put her cell on the nightstand. She knew she should sleep. She would go in tomorrow. She wasn't going to bang around here worrying. Daniel would expect her to be in. The best thing she could do for him right now was to be where he expected her to be. She wished to bloody fucking hell that she knew what had happened, why it had affected him like this. She could think of a dozen reasons, but she didn't have a clue which one it might be, or what else it might be. If she thought it would do any good, she'd go beat it out of her CO, shake some kind of sense into him, get him to fix it. But it wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't change anything. It was none of her business, and there would still be nothing she could do to help.

She should sleep. Rest up for tomorrow. But she took her cell phone out with her and made tea and sat and drank it and watched infomercials into the wee hours of the morning, hoping against hope that Daniel's keys would turn in her door.

They didn't. At five she woke from a bad dream, showered and dressed, drove to the mountain. Ordered the lieutenant at check-in to call her if Doctor Jackson came in. Ate in the mess with some sleepy technicians and a way-too-chipper pair of Marines. Went to her lab, drank coffee, thought of Daniel, and worked. Went out to pace the corridor a couple of times, listen to the buzz. Got another cup of coffee, listened to the buzz in the mess, now filled with the usual breakfast crowd. Nothing. No whispers. No funny looks. As far as the mountain was concerned, nothing untoward had happened. They really had come through this without consequences.

The message light was blinking on her phone. Doctor Jackson had arrived at 0730. She went down to his lab and was waiting for him when he came in, in fresh fatigues. He set down his coffee and gave her a tired smile. "Don’t tell me you've been sitting here for like hours or something."

"No. I had check-in call me when you came in."

"Big Sister is watching me." He smiled again, to gentle the multiple entendre.

"So. Lunch?"

"Lunch would be good. What's one o'clock, thirteen hundred?"

He knew perfectly well it was. He was ribbing her. She hoped that was good. "One's good," she said. "I'm trying to -- Oh, hi, Teal'c."

"Good morning, Major Carter. Daniel Jackson."

"Don't tell me. You had check-in page you when I showed up."

Teal'c inclined his head. "May I join you?"

"Sure, just move that Arkasian death totem off the chair there and make yourself comfortable."

For a few minutes, everything was OK. They talked about the upcoming mission, hoped it wouldn't be scrubbed, compared notes on what they'd learned about the culture and technology from the communications that had passed through the gate so far. After about half an hour, they were getting ready to break it up, go get some work done; it was pretty much what breakfast in the mess would ordinarily be, and Sam thought, This is good. One normal day to get back on track.

Then the colonel's head poked through the door, a moment after she saw Daniel stiffen and registered, herself, the sauntering steps she'd heard in the corridor, so familiar she didn't notice them. "Hey, Daniel."

"Hey, Jack."

The colonel's eyes had been only for Daniel; it took a nanosecond more than it should have for him to register that she and Teal'c were in the room. "Jeeze louise. Give you people a day off, you get in early."

"We were just talking about Kelowna, sir," Sam said, when Daniel hunched a little closer to his computer. "Are we still a go?"

"Hammond would rather postpone than send another team. As far as I'm concerned, now that I see you all here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we're a go for Thursday." Lightly, he said, "Daniel? You be able to work through the backlog by then?"

Although they were going to investigate the potential of an unusual power source, the lion's share of the preparation had fallen on Daniel for a host of diplomatic reasons. Being stuck on the Barishin's world had put him seriously behind.

Daniel clicked out of whatever he'd occupied himself with on the screen, and leaned back in his chair, making direct eye contact with the colonel. "Not a problem, Jack."

The room crackled with something like electricity. Sam felt Teal'c, beside her, shift in his seat. She pulled her hands in between her thighs to cover a shiver. The last time she'd felt such a charged clash of personalities, attraction and resistance in equal measure, had been in the briefing room nearly six years ago, and it had been her staring at the colonel across the table. Before he'd died, Kawalsky had ragged her about that. Told her that if you looked, you could still see the burn marks in the walls.

"OK," the colonel said. "I'll let the general know we're a go." He turned in the doorway, made one of his flighty, over-the-top gestures. "Carry on, then. Get to work. No time like the present. Time's a-wastin'." He drifted away down the hall, reeling off a thesaurus' worth of equivalent phrases.

"I must prepare for my trainees," Teal'c said, rising.

"We're grabbing lunch at one," Sam said.

"I shall attend," Teal'c said, and with a faint bow of the head to the room in general he went off to get changed.

"Let me know if I can help you with any of that stuff," Sam said to Daniel, not hearing the alternative meaning in it until it was out of her mouth. "I know you have plenty of staff assistants, but I'm a mean typist and I can even alphabetize."

"I may take you up on that," Daniel said, giving her a smile. "See you at lunch, anyway."

"See you then." She didn't say I'm glad you're here. She didn't say If you need to talk. She didn't say anything he already knew; she just moved out into the corridor and turned in the direction of the elevator back to her lab.

At the last moment, she glanced back into the cluttered office, thinking that if he was staring after her, she'd go back in, close both doors, hug him if it killed him. He was looking at his computer screen. He'd lifted his coffee mug toward his mouth. His hand was shaking too hard for him to get a sip. He set it down with care, and put his hand back on the mouse, and got to work.

Sam continued on her way, wondering when her heart would actually break, wondering how many years they could all actually go on like this, one damn thing after another, then just pretending everything was OK.

>>>>>

Five days later, Daniel was gone, his body was gone, the colonel was roughing it off as if it were just another casualty in an ongoing war, and Sam was picking up the pieces of her heart, turning them over in her hands like shards of some fragile, glittering ornament fallen smashed to the floor, and thinking that while she would go on, she would never, ever again pretend that everything was OK.

^^^^^

end


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