Author's Notes: A description challenge...You had to know I'd try this one <g>. Thanks to Joyce for the notion, to Brenda for everything....
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment purposes and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission of the author(s).
Sunlight.
Daniel's smile is like sunlight.
God, that sounds pretty weird coming from me, doesn't it?
But it is...
He spends so much time in dark places; real places and places of his own mind's making. When he finally surfaces and takes a moment to join us, he brings his own particular illumination with him.
Sometimes it's just a spark, there and gone so quickly you wonder if it was ever really there at all. A tiny flash of light barely tugging at the corners of his mouth, a bare ghost of humor he doesn't want anyone else to see.
You see, Danny's got a wicked sense of humor underneath all the facts and ten-dollar words and seriousness he so often presents to the world. I consider myself no small talent when it comes to wit, don't laugh, it's true...but Daniel can cut me down with little more than a word. And half the time he's not even giving it full attention.
The times I like best are when the sun breaks through the clouds of sadness and control, shining with rainbow brightness...curling up one side of his mouth and flashing out of a side-long glance shooting to you then away quickly.
Daniel works hard not to let the darkness come through, and with most people it works. They see what he wants them to see, a serious, studious young man...maybe with a few small shadows around the eyes, but basically just a hard-working kinda brilliant guy...easy to dismiss unless he's got his back up over something.
But I know him better than that.
The rare, bright smiles are like those sunbeams you see in a cloudy sunrise or after a storm. Granny O'Neill used to call them God's smiles...those shafts of light breaking through the clouds shining out over an otherwise dark landscape, warming the places they touch. Daniel's smile warms us all...
Just wish he realized it.
Over the past couple of years, I've come to learn a lot about Daniel's smiles. There's the one he flashes when he's on the edge of some universal 'meaning of life' discovery. Then there's that other one, the one that tells me his brain has overloaded his mouth...asking for patience while the two of them catch up to one another. I like that one.
Then there's the smile, the little twitch-grimace thing I've come to realize means something's gotten too close to the heart he has yet to learn how to protect. The one that's usually accompanied by tears emerging, but not always falling, to cast a heart-breaking sheen over those wide blue eyes. It's the one that makes me want to tear something apart for his sake, knowing he won't do it for myself.
The one that really gets to me though is the one he gives me when it's just the two of us sitting around playing chess or watching the game on TV... the one that tells me he's glad to be with me. Glad for the company, glad not to be alone...The first time I saw it, it was like a sunrise over the Rockies...hesitant, almost slow motion as it came out ever so carefully then sparkling brightly, unfettered, as it found the courage to just be there. I remember still the warmth of that first smile of acknowledgement...a sort of 'hello' to the friendship we'd both needed without realizing how much. I love that one...what it meant then...what it still means.
There's been a lot of stuff over the years, for both of us, that tried and failed to come between us. We both carry some pretty monumental baggage and philosophically we're as different as night and day, but it doesn't matter. Somewhere beneath it all, we both know how much we need this friendship...and that other little smile, the one Daniel gives me when I'm stumbling all over myself trying to put those thoughts into words...that smile tells me he knows it too.
And that's when the light really shines...