Author's Notes:  There it is. I hope you've enjoyed reading it, as much as I did writing it...Despite the late nights and strange dreams this engendered...I just had to see it through...

Thanks again to Brenda for seeing it through with me, the woman deserves a medal for putting up with me!

Also thanks to Brenna, who taped the ep and sent it to me... this literally would not have been written without her!

Thanks again to all who've been so encouraging...it truly helped!

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).

Chapter 17: Jack

Daniel falls asleep again in my lap and I just shift around to hang onto him...

*He's been alone with this long enough...*

How long has it been since I thought that while I combed that damnable mountainside looking for him? I can't even remember...

Well, I found him then, but we both know how that ended. And really, except for the few times he's let his control slip, he pretty much has been alone with his pain...

It stops now...tonight.

I don't expect everything to go back to the way it used to be, too much has happened and there's still the big question of how Daniel and Teal'c are going to work things out...and there's that other question about the promise, but now that he's finally let me in it's going to take a truckload of C4 to get me back out...

I just hope that someday, somewhere in that amazing heart of his, Daniel can find a way to forgive Teal'c...I know he said the words, but...deep down, I wonder. Teal'c did make the right choice, the only choice in my book...but right now that part of Daniel is still feeling things with a husband's heart...and that may not be so easily convinced...

As I sit here watching him sleep, head cradled in my lap....he looks too damnably young...

The guy who almost apologetically opened that Stargate three and a half years ago is gone forever. I just hope the guy we brought back with us a year later; the guy who taught us all a thing or two about fairness and enthusiasm and questing for knowledge for its own sake, can find his way back.

Daniel shifts a little, whispering in one of those languages that he's the only one on Earth who can speak; the one they spoke on Abydos...even my untrained ears recognize those tones....

From sad experience, I know he'll spend a lot of time there...hopefully in dreams more often than nightmares. It's good that he remembers...

It was trying to forget that nearly drove me to...

There've been times in the past few days when that dark part of me almost wished that I'd succeeded in my original mission to Abydos, or at least refused Daniel permission to stay there...Daniel would have gone back, and lived happily..or not so happily...oblivious to the Goa'uld, but then I remember his eyes looking at Sha'uri that night we returned to Abydos...

For all the pain he's going through now, I don't think he'd want to lose those memories. Someday, hopefully not too far into the future, he'll be glad of those. The fact that Sha'uri's been separated from him for over two years doesn't diminish those memories...or the pain he feels knowing that she's irrevocably gone....

The loss of hope is just as real and valid as the physical loss. It's the loss of innocence that I find sticking in my throat...and that's something he'll never get back again....

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