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I get lots of chances to watch him sleep. And every time I do, I wonder at how different he is from when he's awake - all that energy, that enthusiasm, trapped in absolute stillness. He looks so innocent, sprawled there like that, his limbs relaxed, face at peace. Behind that deceptively young-looking face is a lifetime's experience, not all of it good. I like to tease him about being a kid, but that's getting harder and harder to do - when he's awake, all I have to do is look into those blue eyes, so full of life experience of all kinds, and all the jokes fade away. He doesn't smile as much as he should, that's for certain. Not enough for my liking anyway. When he smiles at me, that smile when his eyes join in, I can feel my heart start to pound and I remember all over again the first moment I saw him. All I could think about was how young he looked, how much the fire that burns inside Daniel made him stand out so much from all the others there. I made the mistake of misjudging him, thinking he was naive, an innocent, but nothing could be further from the truth. In his life, he's experienced loss and pain, but still remained the same person despite it all. When he sleeps I can count the lines on his face, the ones that weren't there back then, knowing I've acquired them too along the way, from the things we've shared together, lived through together. It annoys him, I know, that I try to protect him. I can almost hear the 'mother hen' accusations starting whenever he notices that I'm keeping an eye on him, but that doesn't stop me. I've lost too many people I care about, their names marching in a macabre procession past my mind's eye, to ever be prepared to add his name to them. So he has to live with it. Not that he's complained that much. I guess he knows just how far he'd get if he tried and has decided it really isn't a subject that's worth wasting his breath on. Not that it feels as though he listens to what I'm saying anyway, at least some of the time. I've had to learn to live with that - it's not that he ignores what I'm saying, it just seems as though sometimes the person he is just makes him overlook what I've just told him not to do.
And somehow, along the way, Daniel's managed to sneak inside my defences, making me care more for him than I ever thought I'd ever care for anyone again, when I'd told myself I never would. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - despite the high wall I'd thrown up around myself, he took his life in his hands, saving mine at the cost of his own without a second thought. It wasn't till I came back to Earth that I realised how much he'd opened a crack in my armour. At first, I had wondered why I didn't go chasing after Sara when I got back and found that she'd finally had the good sense to leave me. But I knew, somehow, that particular relationship had nowhere left to go, that, whatever happened between us now, Charlie would always be there, casting a shadow over any future we might have together. I still don't really know whether she blamed me for his death or not, but I blame myself and that's enough. And then I got the call. To go back to Abydos, this time with an order to bring Daniel back with us, no matter what. I don't know what I expected to see when we returned there - I'd had a tense couple of hours just waiting for him to reply to my impromptu probe, just to let me know that he was still out there. Until I knew for certain, I was so on edge, wondering if I had done the right thing in letting him stay, though what I could have done to make Daniel come back, I really don't know. A small, petty part of me wanted him to be unhappy, wanted him to have missed me - when it was clear that he had made a life for himself among the people of Abydos, that part kicked in. So I made a fuss of Skaara, practically ignoring Daniel, and I'm not proud of myself for that. I stifled the petty instincts when Sha're was taken, though. I felt so bad about that, seeing the anguish on Daniel's face, knowing first- hand what that kind of pain felt like, that I managed to mean it when I said that we'd keep looking, no matter what.
Daniel seems to have more lives than a cat, but I'm not sure if I can take much more of this. Each time, it's as though my heart has been ripped out again, just like with Charlie. And so far, Daniel keeps coming back, keeps allowing me to stuff that missing organ back in as if it had never left, lets me keep on living. Leaving him behind on Apophis' ship was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I knew he was dying, from the moment that I saw that wound, and I knew that he knew it as well. There were so many things that I wanted to say to him in that moment, but I knew that we didn't have time, that neither of us could afford to do that right now. So I walked away, leaving him alone. I couldn't stop thinking about him, all the way through the rest of the mission and back to Earth. I didn't have the luxury of grief though, knowing that if I fell apart, then Carter would be quick to follow me down into that particular pit and it would take a long time for either of us to come out. Instead, I made a mental date with the nearest bottle of booze I could find when I got home, planning to drink myself into oblivion. I knew, even then, that it wasn't a cure for the pain, but at least this way I wouldn't have to think about what I'd never allowed myself to have. And as for how I felt when I saw him again - how d'you think I felt? The first look told me that he didn't know that we'd definitely survived till a little while before, that as surely as I'd left him behind to die alone, he thought that we'd all been incinerated when the ships blew. I couldn't put into words how it felt to see him, not just alive, but looking better than I'd seen him for a while, but I told myself I'd do it soon.
Okay, I chickened out. What a surprise... I wanted to tell him, really I did, but it never seemed like the right time. It didn't feel right to tell him in the SGC, plus there was too much chance of being interrupted, and then we were plagued with some missions that I'd really rather not think about. So, it wasn't until we went to Shyla's planet and we saw what happened to Daniel there that I knew I had to take my life into my hands and tell him, no matter what else got in the way. Seeing him lying there in that concrete room, having to be restrained because she got him hooked on that damn sarcophagus, that was the final straw. And who knew that he felt the same way about me? He told me how he felt about me, after what nearly happened between us in the storage room. His face was so full of fear that this time he'd committed an unpardonable offence, terrified that I'd hate him, I guess. I was so relieved when he confessed everything - I'm still not sure if I could have been that brave.
Anyone who doesn't know Daniel might get the idea that he's a burden to the team, that he somehow slows us down. Truth is, much as I might moan about him and his impulsiveness, he grounds us, keeps us from forgetting to be human beings. And I want to keep on remembering that, no matter what. I know that it's not going to be easy between us - we've got too many things about us that could drive us apart, way more than we have things in common. In fact, if you made a list of what we have got in common, I'm not sure what you'd put on it!
But, for now at least, we're together. And for as long as our time
together lasts, I'll keep watching over him.
~fin~
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