Chapter Text
Daniel was gone. It wasn’t clear whether he was really dead or not, but he was definitely no longer with them. Sam had seen a lot of unknown things in her life, but she’d always been confident there was an explanation for everything, even if she didn’t have it yet. She felt she should know more about Ascension than anyone else left in the room now, but this situation was something totally new. Nothing she’d seen before could’ve prepared her for watching her friend evaporate into a glowing white light in the infirmary. For once, something felt truly inexplicable.
After the team watched Daniel ascend, no one knew quite what to do. They stared at each other, all of them mirroring the same looks of shock, disbelief, and sadness. At least half of them had tears in their eyes. They were mourning, but there was too much confusion to feel the sharp pain of losing one to sudden death. Watching their friend, their brother, transform into an ethereal spirit in front of their eyes didn’t feel like a death, but it did feel like an ending. And according to the Colonel, it was the ending he chose for himself.
Sam thought of Orlin, the Ascended being she befriended months earlier, who once risked his place among his people in order to save a population from self-destruction. How many times had Daniel done the same? She hoped the two would meet wherever they were. If meetings between them were even possible. They would get along well, and they would do a lot of good together. If that was possible.
She shivered. A black t-shirt wasn’t enough to warm against the cold of grief. Beside her, the Colonel shrugged off his BDU shirt and handed it to her. She slipped into it with a nod of gratitude. General Hammond brought out the bottle of scotch he usually saved for visiting VIPs and passed around tumblers. “Dr. Jackson was a VIP in his own right,” he said.
They were all gathered together in the briefing room. No one was speaking, but it felt good to be with her people. She had her dad on one side and Jack on the other. Teal’c, the General, and Janet were across from them. They were all huddled together, too close to even move their elbows more than it would take to lift glass to mouth.
“To Daniel,” Jack said.
They all mumbled echoes of his toast and sipped. Even Teal’c tried it, because one time Daniel taught him about the camaraderie of a good group salud. Sam’s throat burned from both the liquor and the memory.
“This is a damn good bottle, George,” Jacob said.
The General nodded. “It was a gift from a British official at a NATO assembly several years ago. Funny how that conference seemed like the grandest scale of cooperation at the time.”
“Believe me, I know what you mean,” Jacob chuckled.
“Can Selmak tolerate alcohol?” Janet asked. “It was my understanding that—”
“Yeah, it’s not great for him. But he understands this is a special occasion. A couple fingers won’t do any harm.”
“Fingers…” Teal’c said.
“Yeah,” answered Jack. “Because one drink is the height of the width of your finger. Like that.” He put two fingers along his glass.
“That does not seem a very uniform calculation. If the pourer were a small child one would receive much less to drink than if it were a large man,” Teal’c reasoned.
Sam felt herself smile a little bit.
“Hopefully a child isn’t pouring scotch in the first place,” Janet said.
“I see,” Teal’c said with a nod.
“I guess they just didn’t have measuring cups back in the old saloon days,” Jack said.
Jacob and Hammond discussed some of the best whiskeys they’d tried over the years, Jack adding an opinion once or twice, and Janet surprising everyone by telling a story about some particular label’s origin. Sam didn’t listen closely. Instead she heard all of the places where Daniel would have jumped in with some anecdote or piece of trivia.
It wasn’t long until the conversation dwindled. Sam looked at all of them. She felt broken, but being surrounded by the team helped, like the wrapping around a wound. Daniel would have been happy they were here. He would have liked them all taking this moment together. She smiled.
“What?” Jack asked.
“I was thinking about Daniel.”
His warm eyes glistened with a mixture of concern and sadness. Sam couldn’t bear causing that look so she continued. “And I was thinking about our time on the ice planet, you know, P3R-118.”
“What about it?”
“I was just thinking that even when he didn’t know his own name, Daniel was exactly the same person. He was told that we were his rivals but when he got the idea that we were meant to be friends, he believed it and so he befriended us. He knew something was wrong down there even though there was absolutely no evidence, and he was right. He could just feel it. He fought for his friends to be together and safe, just like he always did. You and I would’ve just kept going along with the entire charade, but his instinct always knew what to question and when.”
“You’re right. But it was different for us,” Jack said quietly.
She turned to him. “Why do you say that?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. As soon as she saw his face she understood what he meant. They would have been fine because they had each other. She felt the tell-tale uptick in her heartbeat. The Colonel was not supposed to be looking at her like that in front of all these people. And all these people were not supposed to see her reaction. She guessed no one would deny them a moment of softness on a night like tonight. But still, it was dangerous. She cleared her throat.
“I’m gonna miss him,” she said. “I’m gonna miss his mind.”
“His Danielness,” Jack said.
Everyone chuckled. The others added a few more things they loved about Daniel. Then the room grew quiet again, as they all sipped their drinks and contemplated the night and their fallen friend. After a few more minutes, Janet stood with a sigh. “I need to get home. I have no idea how I’m gonna explain this to Cassie.”
“Give her a kiss from me,” Sam said.
“From all of us,” Jack added.
Everyone was standing now. “I should be getting back too,” Jacob said.
“You can’t stay?” Sam asked. Her voice sounded small to her ears.
“I wish I could, sweetheart. But things are a mess out there. It’s round the clock strategizing and figuring out if there’s a way to expand our numbers.” He hugged his daughter.
“We’d like an update as soon as you can, Jacob,” General Hammond said, shaking his hand.
“Sure thing, George.”
“Yeah, let us know how we can help. Whatever you need,” Jack said. Sam stared at him. He wasn’t usually so generous with her father’s people.
Her dad reached out a hand. “We appreciate that, Jack. Thanks.” To Sam’s surprise, he pulled the colonel into a hug. It looked like he was whispering something, but she couldn’t make it out. Over his shoulder, Jack watched her watching them.
They all said their goodbyes and parted. Sam walked Jacob to the gate room, hugging him tight when it was time for him to walk through. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she whispered.
“So do I. I’ll check in as soon as I can.” He stepped back and rested a hand on her face. “You take good care of yourself, alright? You and I are losing too many people lately.”
She nodded against his palm, tears threatening beneath her eyelids. “You too.”
She watched as he walked up the ramp. Just before he reached the top he turned. The sad look on his face made her chest heavy. “Do me a favor, will you?”
“Of course, anything.”
“Next time you get a chance, go and hug my grandkids for me.”
She choked on a sob. “Of course.”
“I love you, Sam.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
As he stepped to the edge of the wormhole, he raised a hand and waved to the back of the room. Sam looked to find Jack waiting near the door. He lifted a hand to Jacob’s retreating figure. She turned and watched the wormhole until the iris closed. Tilting her head up to the ceiling, she tried to force her tears back into her head, then pulled her hands across her face, hoping to erase her sadness. A strong hand settled on her shoulder.
“Colonel, I thought you’d gone.”
“I was waiting for you. C’mon, lemme take you home,” he said.
She shook her head and swallowed the emotion trapped at the back of her mouth before turning to him. “Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I’m fine, sir. I only had a few sips of my drink.”
He matched her strides as she began walking toward the corridor. “Still,” he said.
“Actually I feel bad for General Hammond. I think he might’ve wasted his favorite bottle on us tonight.”
“I doubt that’s how he sees it. Don’t change the subject,” Jack said. She kept walking. He took her by the elbow to stop her. “It’s been a long couple of days. Just let me drive you.”
“Sir, I appreciate the concern, but I really am fine,” she said, walking again. Finally they got to the elevator.
“Ok, well, what if I’m not?”
She turned to study him. His eyes were rimmed with red. The creases in his skin were deep. He looked pale. She put a hand on his arm. “Colonel?”
“Maybe I’m just not sure I should be by myself tonight. So, let me take you home.”
She agreed.
They were quiet in the elevator. He followed her to her lab, and then they went together to the locker rooms. He opened the door wide to the men’s room, telling her he’d be just a minute, when the locker straight ahead caught her eye. There was a stray pair of blue pants trapped in the locker door and a black t-shirt on the bench. Daniel’s station was notorious. The rest of them had been trained to keep everything organized and spotless. Military standards were ingrained in them. Daniel had never really adapted, forgetting or discarding things everywhere. Jack always grumbled about hoarders and absent-minded professors. Daniel mostly ignored him. He never had space in that head of his for something so mundane as an organized locker.
“You know what? I don’t really need to change,” Jack said.
“Yeah me neither,” she said. “Oh but your shirt. Do you want it back? I can grab my jacket.”
She started to step away toward her own locker room. “Nah,” he said behind her. “Hold onto this one for now. Looks better on you anyway.”
She felt that familiar uptick in her pulse again at his words. There was nothing suggestive about his tone, but the idea of sharing something was enough. She looked down at herself, the large shirt draping over her body. Then she looked at him. His face might look tired but the rest of him looked fit as ever in his tight black t-shirt. The idea of parting from him, even for the five minutes she would need to change, felt like a burden. “Okay,” she said softly. He nodded, pulling the SG-1 patch from her jacket sleeve and shoving it in his pocket.
In the parking garage, he put a hand on the small of her back to guide her to his truck, and when they arrived he opened the passenger side door for her. On instinct, she glanced around to make sure no one had seen. But it was late, between shift changes, and no one would have questioned them on a night like this anyway.
He was quieter than usual on their way home. Her foot tapped an erratic pattern against the floor as stagnant energy collected inside her. She watched the shadows of mountains roll by as they drove through the Colorado night. They looked so strong. So immortal.
“What did my dad say to you?” She asked.
He glanced at her then returned his eyes to the road. “He said ‘take care of my little girl.’”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
He nodded.
Most days she would have rolled her eyes and pointed out all the ways she had proven she could take care of herself. Tonight though, her dad’s words hung in her ears. ‘You and I are losing too many people lately.’ He was right. Narim and the Tollan, the ambassador, Martouf and the other Tok’ra. Elliott and the other SGC soldiers. And now Daniel.
Sam thought of her mother. She wondered sometimes what she would have said about how her daughter’s life turned out so far. Or how different her life would’ve been if her mother was still with her. She missed her the most on nights like this, when she needed to be loved.
“Hey, it’s gonna be ok,” Jack said.
“Is it?”
He was quiet as he watched the road. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment.
They rode the rest of the way in silence. When they arrived at her house, he parked in front and hopped out of the truck before she had finished unbuckling. He came to her side, opened the door, and pulled her down to wrap her in a hug so tight she could feel his heart beating against hers. She savored the feeling of muscular arms around her shoulders. There was so much comfort in his touch.
“Do you want to come in?” She asked into his neck.
“Is that a good idea?” He asked with his mouth against her hair.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I want to,” he said. He broke from the embrace, but kept her hugged to his body as they walked to her front door.