In The Faith Of The Sky by TeresaD

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Story Notes: SPOILERS: Gamekeeper, Seth, Forever in a Day
SEASON / SEQUEL: post season 3
Y'know, I've always loved the song "Daniel" by Elton John, ever since I can remember, but I never thought I'd write a piece of fiction based upon it. However, I think I've got an idea... see what you people think. And look carefully because there might just be some possible future S/J action at the end.

"Do you still feel the pain
Of the scars that won't heal"
--from Daniel by Elton John

********************************

As I look around at the nearly empty SGC, I think back to something that I was forced into reading back when I was in school. Mind you, those times are distant, and I was always the guy who never paid attention, but that's not the point here. Then again, there was that time when we all got drunk and Carter started reciting poetry off the top of her head...

But again, that's not the point here.

I just remember some poet going on and on about the end coming not with a bang, but a whimper, and that's what it feels like here. Carter has her arm wrapped around my waist and I have an arm over Daniel's shoulder as we watch Teal'c depart through the Stargate.

It was over so fast, after finding that child that Sha're had sent Daniel to find about five years ago. Sometimes I can look at him and see how hard it is just to wake up in the morning, but after the losses I've experienced -- we've all experienced -- I understand, perhaps better than I should.

With the help of the Tok'ra, the System Lords are left in disarray, fighting amongst themselves for the head, at least according to Selmak. I find it all rather amusing myself, since they seem to be more intent on taking each other out to bother with banding together to take out those annoying Tau'ri that caused the problems in the first place.

Then again, that seldom seems to concern them until much later. Yay, go us.

However, with all of that going on, the SGC is going inactive again. Of course, there's going to be guards down here, but the government doesn't see the need of our active involvement anymore, so they split up the family. Yes, family.

For crying out loud, you don't expect me to tell you that after spending close to a decade with these people, bonds don't form, do you? They do, and it's the damn closest thing I've had to family, I'll tell you.

I raise my head in time to see Teal'c make a farewell gesture in that understated way he has, and for a moment, the colour of the Stargate surface reflects off our faces as we stand there, for a moment. Then he's gone, and the wormhole closes.

With a sigh, we stand there together for a moment before pulling apart. I smile at Carter and we both turn to look at Daniel, who is running his hands through that thick blond mess that he calls hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Carter smile, and look Daniel up and down, as if trying to commit his image to memory.

"What time does your plane leave, Daniel?" she asks, and the silence in the Gateroom makes her voice seem to bounce off the walls.

"What? Oh, uh, um... it leaves at quarter till seven," he shuffles his feet slightly and shoves his hands in his pockets. Danny boy looks more than a little bit lost now, even though he knows where he's going and what he's doing.

It came as a shock to me when he popped his head in my office a couple of days ago and told me that he had been accepted as the head of the linguistics department at the University of Spain in Madrid. It shouldn't have, I know, but I was still trying to maintain the belief that most of SG-1 would be close enough to remain in contact.

After all, Carter had been accepted back at the Pentagon with a raise in rank -- she's been a major for five years now, and has long past deserved another increase in rank. I thought that perhaps we might be able to start something that's been a long time coming after we both got to Washington.

However, Danny had to throw a wrench in my plans, and I don't like it, even if I understand it. Being around us has caused both the most painful and the most joyful times in his life, and the boy needs a break. Still, I wish he'd reconsider.

I look at my watch and comment, "Oh, how time does fly when you're having the best time of your life. Need a ride to the airport, Danny? The major and I can drive you."

Carter shoots me a glance even as Daniel looks up at me, almost startled, "If you're sure..."

"We're sure," Carter answers, sounding a lot more certain that I'm sure she feels at the moment. She offers him a smile, one that he returns uncertainly.

"Well, while you two stand around talking, I'm going to get the car," I tell them both, striding off. I can hear groans behind me, and I shake my head, fighting a grin.

After all, you know what they say. Better to grin than to fall down crying. Which I might do yet, though I doubt it. I'm not a man who cries. I leave that best to people like Daniel, sensitive types who don't lose any of their macho by shedding a tear.

I might have resented Daniel's presence when this all began, but damn, I'm going to miss him.

I hear them behind me and I speed my pace just a bit. After all, when Carter catches up to me, she's certainly going to kill me.

*******************

The drive to the airport is made in silence. The colonel drives, making his way through the snowy Denver streets. After all his teasing back at the Mountain Complex, I find that he's really upset by the turn of events.

So are we all, I think. I thought that after Teal'c had killed Sha're, it would be nearly impossible to keep Daniel working at the SGC, but he found another mission to keep him going, and besides that, he told me quietly one night over coffee, he wouldn't have left anyway.

He talked about how SG-1 had, in the strangest of ways, become the family that he had lost when he was a very young child. I remember the pain on Daniel's face when he had to witness the memory of his parents' death over and over again and found himself unable to stop it.

I hurt for him, then.

From day one, though, Daniel's seemed like a brother to me, and Teal'c, as well, in the ultimate of strange ways. The colonel, however, I've had different sorts of feelings for from the very start. It began with irritation, agitation, and homicidal tendencies.

Over time, we became friends, and yet something more exists between us that I cannot yet explain. To even make the attempt and to have gotten caught by someone would have meant possible court-martial and getting thrown out of SG-1, me more likely than him. And I just couldn't take that chance.

I may not have gotten into NASA, but through the SGC, I was allowed the opportunity to travel the stars as I had dreamed of doing from my earliest memories. That memory kept me and my father in communication even after Mom died, and yet when I was able to travel among those stars, I couldn't even tell him.

I think that hurt me most of all.

And now that the SGC is closing down, it is unlikely that I will see him at all. Mark and my other brothers thought him dead, and in fact, Mark is the only one other than me who knows him to be alive, although I know more about the whys of the matter than he ever will.

Suddenly, the car comes to a stop, shocking me out of the thoughts that I had been dwelling over. I look over at O'Neill and he grins at me, "Wake up, Carter. We're here."

"Shut up, Jack," I respond as I turn to get out of the car. Damn the man, anyway, for grinning like that.

However, when I turn to look at him, he has this shellshocked look on his face, and I have to hide a grin of my own behind my hand.

'I'll have to do this kind of thing more often,' I can't help but think to myself as I help Daniel unload the luggage from the trunk.

With surprise, I let out a grunt as I nearly drop one of the bags he was carrying. With a smile, Daniel slips the strap of his laptop case over one shoulder and reaches for the bag that I had tried to lift, "Hey, Sam, give me that."

"Holy Hannah, Daniel! What do you have in there anyway? Bricks?"

"Just some books. That's all," he gives me a grin that suggests that there's not just *some* books in that bag, but rather, the majority of his archaeological journals. Hell, he wouldn't be Daniel if it wasn't.

O'Neill walks around the car, then, carrying a box of some sort under one arm. He looks at Daniel and shook it with an amused expression on his face, "Looks like I found your rocks, Danny."

Daniel rolls his eyes and reaches for the box, "How many times do I have to *tell* you, Jack..."

"I know, they're artifacts. Now c'mon before we miss your plane."

"We have half an hour before his plane leaves, sir," I comment and he just looks at me.

"If I know the people at this airport, it'll take that long to get coffee. Come *on*, Carter," he comments and walks ahead with Daniel.

With a shake of my head, I follow them.

*********************

While it doesn't take as long as I figured to get coffee, we do spend the half hour in the coffee shop at the airport, just talking. The last time we talked like this was the night when we heard that the SGC was closing down, and at least this time, we aren't drunk.

Not that it takes much to get Daniel drunk anyway.

We talk of missions and the people we've met, the places we've been, the danger we've experienced. Hell, we even talk about how many times Danny boy almost died, and managed to come back like some sort of immortal. He just laughs and shakes his head, denying it all.

That's our Daniel for you...

However, more importantly, we talk about ourselves for a change. I never knew Carter likes to listen to classical music while she cleans her apartment or that Daniel listens to techno when he really gets angry at circumstance. Then again, they probably never knew about my jazz and blues fixation, either.

Daniel admits that he's a poet and had written a few love poems to Sha're during the year that they lived together on Abydos. When I tease him about it, Daniel protests that there's no better way to get the flow of the language down as well as the words. Surprisingly, Carter jumps to his defense, saying that she's written a few poems over the years herself.

Hmm, I'd like to see a few of those poems, and I tell her so. In return, she gives me a shocked expression, and promises that if I drop in on her after the move to Washington, I might just get my wish. As if I hadn't planned on doing so anyway...

I catch Daniel giving the two of us a suspicious look, one that's mixed with wistfulness, almost as though he wishes that he could be joining us in Washington.

"You okay, Danny?" I ask him.

"Yeah," he comments after a moment, the wistful look replaced by a more introspective one. "I just kind of wish that it didn't have to go like this."

I know what he means. In a million years, I didn't think that the team would be split up, even though it's been threatened a hundred or more times over the years. One wrong step and we could have had our startravelling taken away from us, like it was a favourite toy of disobedient children.

"We'll stay in touch, Daniel," Carter promises him. "Whatever it takes. They can't just split us up as friends just because the team is gone."

"Yeah, Danny..." I echo, but I can hear the loudspeaker announcing that it's time for the passengers for the flight to Madrid to board. We all rise as though we share a mind.

Perhaps, after all we've been through, we do.

Walking out to the plane together, Carter embraces Daniel, then I do before he slips away from us. Carter leans her head on my shoulder and I wrap an arm around her waist. I look up to see Daniel standing at the top of the stairs leading up to the plane, waving, and I wave back.

For a moment, his image blurs, then it's gone. I don't understand the reason for the blurriness, but if I didn't know better, I'd say that I was crying. Then I look down and see that Carter is too, and somehow, I don't feel so bad.

"I miss him already, sir," Carter admits in a quiet voice.

I continue to stare at the plane that's carrying Daniel across the ocean. "So do I, Carter. So do I."

We watch the plane until it disappears, then I feel Carter pulling away from me and pulling herself together. I turn to face her, "Before you go, Carter..."

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you like to share a drink with me?" I ask with a half-grin. "For old times sake, if nothing else."

She gives it a moment of consideration before telling me, "You know, sir, I think I'd like that."

"Good. You pick the place," I drop the keys in her hand and she smiles.

"One condition."

"You name it."

"No ranks tonight, and no last names. Just call me Sam."

"And you'll call me... Jack?"

She gives me a mischievous look, "Maybe."

"What else would you call me?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm sure I could think of something."

I just laugh and we walk out of the airport side by side, and somehow, just somehow, I get the strange feeling that everything's going to be okay.

And if the look Carter -- oh, forgive me, the look *Sam's* giving me is any indication, things tonight are going to be more than okay.

Daniel, my friend, I wish you the best of the luck for the future. I'm sure you're going to need it.

********************

-End-

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