Author's Notes: This is my favorite part. Cried buckets when I wrote it. So, curl up with a big box of Kleenex and enjoy. Hope you like it.
DISCLAIMER: All 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 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.
It was night. The profound, cold night of the desert. Three moons hung in the star-laden sky. He was ankle deep in sand, and he was cold. Also not more than a bit confused.
Abydos. He was on Abydos! He didn't know how he knew that, he just knew.
Behind him, he heard a woman's low sensual chuckle. A vocalization definitely of the 'come hither' variety. It had been a long time since he had heard a woman make a sound like that. Meaning it for him, that is. He didn't want to, but he knew he had to turn around. Suddenly didn't want to see - the way it was supposed to be. But, he was not here to indulge himself. Let's get to it, Jack.
Grabbing the ends of the mantle of his suddenly unfurled loneliness, Jack wrapped the shabby garment around him and made himself turn around.
Several feet away, a huge bonfire blazed the solitary point of light in the velvet completeness of the desert night. There was a pile of blankets spread before it, upon them reclined a man dressed in long robes. Standard desert garb. He did not seem to know he was being watched. His attention was elsewhere, full upon the woman who stood before him. No small wonder. Jack thought, momentarily dazzled by the beauty of the slight dark woman who held her companion's rapt attention with her every incredible movement.
She was an exquisite, exotic beauty, dusky limbed, and slender with that incredible curling mane of hair and that dark-eyed sensual earthiness that only eastern women have. Her slim, undulating form was clad in a flowing, diaphanous white veil that, backlit by the fire, did not leave a lot to the imagination. She was dancing slowly before the fire, before the devouring eyes of the man who watched her breathless, moving languidly, sensually, her dark skin like burnished gold in the flickering light, her long, raven hair cascading in sparkling waves. She laughed low and husky in her throat as she flaunted her lushness in deliberate, joyful abandon, her dark eyes flashing with that power that women have when they know they have their men in that place where they can deny them nothing. But there was something else in those eyes as well, and when Jack saw it, something in him began to hurt as he had never hurt before.
She was looking at the man lying at her feet, completely under her spell, and she was just as much his as he was hers. Those beautiful, bottomless black eyes would see no one else. They were eyes that spoke of a love and a loyalty that Jack could not even begin to fathom. They were eyes a man would die for. And they were all only for the lucky man she was looking at.
Her every movement a clearly revealed invitation, the woman danced closer to her man, beckoning, inciting, willing .him to come into that sweet embrace.
"My Dan-i-el." he heard her say. "Come to me."
Slowly, like a walker in a waking dream, the man got to his feet. He allowed himself to be drawn to her, willing moth to that sweet flame. Jack shouldn't have been able to, but suddenly he could see his face.
It was Daniel. A Daniel he had never seen before. Daniel, his face flushed with wonder, his eyes wild with love and desire, his heart so open that he glowed. He reached Sha'uri in a single bound. Jack suddenly knew it was Sha'uri, he wasn't sure how he hadn't recognized her before. Daniel took her face in his hands, tenderly, and with a gesture that spoke more love than a dozen tomes of poetry cupped her cheek with one hand, while brushing away a lock of hair that draped her forehead. He held her like that, looking down at her as if to forever brand the image of her face into his mind and heart. She closed her eyes and turned her face into his hand, brushing her lips against one of his palms.
Jack suddenly felt sick, almost dirty, as if he was intruding on something deeply sacred that he did not deserve to see. And yet, he could not look away.
Daniel trembled as he leaned down and began to kiss her. Gently at first, almost reverently. He covered her upturned face with a cascade of small, gentle kisses, and then paused to look at her one more time, before he applied his lips to her mouth and began to drink much more deeply of what she offered him. She moaned with pleasure, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning into him as his kisses began to become more passionate, more insistent, more demanding. She emitted a wild shriek of delight as Daniel, suddenly, without warning reached down, scooped her up from her feet and began to carry her back toward the blanket.
Whoa! Way to go, Daniel! The kid was a caveman? Who knew?
Oh my, the "getting to know you phase" was definitely over now. We were heading into Round Two, the "take me, take me now" stuff. This really was more than he needed to know about Daniel. Time to go now.
But whatever it was that had brought him here wasn't done with him yet. Not that he thought it wanted him to get a cheap thrill or anything like that, although there was quite a bit to see now. The kids had made short work of shucking their clothes and were pretty much making like bunnies. Really, really happy bunnies. Lucky Daniel. Lucky Sha'uri.
That was it, wasn't it. That was what he was supposed to see. Love. Plain and simple. How much a real man could allow himself to love a woman, and what letting himself do that made him become.
Suddenly, the scene changed. A swift tableau of various images flashed before his eyes. Daniel. Always Daniel. Daniel chasing Sha'uri, feigning anger as he pursued her as she ran fleet as a deer, shrieking with laughter, his glasses held triumphantly in hand. Daniel telling a story to a group of children around the fire, Sha'uri at his knee, looking up at him with rapt and loving eyes. Daniel carrying home an injured child he had risked his life and three days alone in the desert to find and to save, Sha'uri running to embrace him, her eyes streaked with tears, wild with worry and relief. Daniel holding her as she burned with fever, wiping her brow with a cold cloth and his own hot tears as he begged her not to leave him. Daniel happy. Daniel sad. Daniel angry. Daniel respected. Daniel accepted. Daniel loving. And being loved.
On and on the images poured though him, revealing to him the exquisite weaving of the tapestry of a life Jack had never, ever stopped to realize had once been Daniel's. All the time he had been with them since leaving, it had never occurred to Jack how HAPPY Daniel had been in Abydos. He had to admit that when he had walked away from him over a year ago, he had thought the archaeologist had been slightly nuts to have stayed behind, even for something as tasty as Sha'uri. (No doubt about it, she was sweet.) What could a man from the twentieth century find to do in a place like that?
Plenty, it would seem. Daniel had not only found 'something to do', he had found himself. He had found where he belonged, where he was respected, cherished, VALUED. He had more than fit in. He had thrived. And he had lost all of it, when Apophis had come to call.
Daniel had not just lost a wife when Sha'uri had been taken from him, he had lost a life, a home, a family, his very joy. Everything that had finally given his life purpose, meaning and definition. All things Daniel desperately needed to have. The enormity of Daniel's loss, finally revealed to him, took his breath away. Things were starting to make a lot more sense now. No wonder the kid had kept to himself, lurking around like a ghost ever since he had come back to Earth. Guess in his place he wouldn't have felt much like trying to become one of the gang either. Hard to care about your social standing when your entire world is gone. Oh Danny, what you've been through, what you're dealing with and look at the way we've treated you The way I've treated you. The man who thought he had understood Daniel now realized that he had known absolutely nothing. Mind you, he had learned something that made him want to hang his head in shame.
One man. One overwhelming loss. A hurt beyond understanding. How had he dealt with it? By feeling sorry for himself? By running away? By lashing out? By blaming himself? By trying to hurt everyone around him? By shutting himself away from the world? What had Daniel done to try and deal with what had happened to him? What sort of a man had Daniel Jackson allowed himself to become?
Before he could answer his own question, Jack suddenly saw images of another man. Day after day, night after night, a man alone in a room with a gun and a deep, cold place inside him while locked out and shut out outside a woman who needed him pounded on the door, begging him to let her in.
Don't you DARE look away Jack. Not THIS time. Look at it! Look at what you have done. Look at the handiwork of a much lesser man and see what you learn from this.
It was all there. It was all too plain. It was all too sad. That didn't make it any less real.
Sara would have helped him. Would have loved him, even after all of that. It was worse than that - letting her help him would have also helped her. As it would have helped him. If he had given her the chance. If he had given either one of them the chance.
It would have worked, too. It would have taken time, but they could have gotten through it. Together. But it never was. Because he wouldn't let it. Wouldn't let her in. Wouldn't accept her love, her forgiveness, or give of himself to her of what she needed from him. Would not comfort, would not allow himself to accept, would not believe, turned his back.
Turned his back on grace. More than that, deliberately, willfully, closed the door on any hope of help, absolution, comfort or redemption. Slammed the door on Sara, heaven and any notion of the idea that he could be deserving of any sort of consideration after what he had done.
Oh God! There it is! Just a few steps away. The shame. The secret. It's right there but I can't -
Suddenly he felt a pair of familiar hands on the back of his shoulders. Daniel drew up behind him, silent but there.
"Daniel!"' Jack gasped. "You're here! How?"
"I don't know," his friend said quietly. "But all that matters is that I am here. I'm right here. I won't leave you. It's just a little farther now. You can do it."
"How long have you been here?"
"That doesn't matter, Jack. You have something to do."
"I - I can't."
"Yes, you can. It's not so bad. Not as bad as you think."
"Don't leave me."
"I won't. I promise."
That was all Jack needed to hear. Suddenly rendered fearless by the knowledge that Daniel was watching his back, Jack went onward to confront the part of himself he had hidden from long enough.
There it was. His secret shame. What he had done to himself and a good woman who had deserved better from him. Why he had done it.
Funny thing. Daniel had been right. It wasn't so bad after all.
It was so simple he almost burst into hysterical laughter. It was also so - him.
Promise made to Sara to love and protect.
Promise that was his sacred duty to uphold.
Promise that was broken when Charlie died.
Only one consequence possible.
Only one fate for an oathbreaker.
Punishment.
The sentence - he was no longer allowed to HAVE a wife he had betrayed and no longer deserved.
No longer entitled to enjoy her love
No longer entitled to receive her forgiveness
No longer entitled to or worthy of giving her love or comfort
No longer entitled to call himself her husband, lover and protector.
He had deliberately driven Sara away in order to satisfy the terms of his own self-imposed punishment. He had driven everyone ELSE away just on general principle - if he did not deserve to have a wife he CERTAINLY did not deserve to have friends.
Had he broken his promise?
Had he - really?
It was necessary to believe that in order to justify the guilt, but the plain truth was..
He wasn't God.
He wasn't to have known.
Sometimes, things happen, no matter how hard you try.
And it's what you let it make you
That tells you what you're really made of
Well, so far he hadn't been doing so good.
Had taken the easy path of blame and avoidance
Rather than the higher road trodden by a braver, better man
The man who had made him begin to see the truth of the lie by coming back into his life.
And that was why he had been moved to an almost murderous fury by Daniel. Somehow he had known that Daniel was a threat to his carefully constructed and cherished inner lie. Somehow he had known that Daniel would not let him get away such ridiculous, absurd, neatly rationalized self-pity and moral cowardice.
That's what it was.
That's all it was.
Nothing but foolish pride masquerading as some sort of twisted 'morality'.
That was the big secret that had been making mincemeat out of him all this time.
It wasn't horrible.
It wasn't shameful.
It wasn't even smart.
It was actually kinda - pathetic.
Jack looked in the mirror of himself, saw he was an idiot and started to laugh.
Omigod all that fuss, all that fear all that angst about something so - stupid..
Somehow Daniel was at his side again. Daniel was touching him lightly on the arm, bringing him back to realizing that there was still something else left to deal with.
Now he knew why , he had to face what he had done.
"See Jack," his friend said softly. "It wasn't so bad. You're not so bad."
"No Daniel," it wasn't. "It was just. I've been such a fool. Wasted so much time, been so blind. So selfish."
Daniel turned him around to face him. "You've been human, Jack. You're not perfect. But than neither is anyone else. We all make mistakes. But if we are very lucky, we learn from them, just a little bit. You can't change what you have already done. The finger having writ moves on. It's done. But it can stop here. You can leave this place with what you have learned and use it to be a little better from now on. That's all any of us can do."
"What do I do now, Danny?"
Daniel smiled at him, and squeezed his arm slightly. Holding his eyes, he slowly, deliberate drew Jack into an embrace that he did not resist.
"You wash it clean and start again. Let it go, Jack. It's time."
Feeling Daniel's arms around him, inside and out, Jack finally let the tears go that would wash the dark away.