Chapter 4
Daniel turned to Sam and
grinned.
“Well … off we go,” he said.
Sam smiled faintly and
nodded. She still couldn’t keep her eyes
off of Daniel, pleasantly surprised at how good he looked. She looked at him expectantly as he attempted
to turn the ignition on, and … nothing happened.
Daniel’s brow knitted in
confusion as he removed his key, reinserted it, and tried again. The engine seemed to burst to life for a few
seconds before it died down and the battery symbol on the console lit up.
“Okay, now what the hell is
going on here?” Daniel said as his face started to flush.
Sam grinned slightly as she
saw the faint blush in Daniel’s cheeks.
Her grin faded and was replaced with a look of bewilderment.
“Daniel?” she asked as he
attempted to start the truck for a third time.
He turned the ignition,
watched in futility as the engine once again came to life for a short time, and
the battery symbol lit up again. He shut
his eyes and sighed, folded his arms on top of the steering wheel, and laid his
head down on top of them.
“Oh, God, I don’t believe
this is happening,” he groaned softly, his voice muffled by the sleeves of his
blazer.
A worried frown appeared on
Sam’s face.
“Daniel …” she said
tentatively as she touched his elbow.
Daniel finally raised his
head up off the steering wheel and straightened up. He was blushing furiously, and couldn’t have
appeared more embarrassed.
“I don’t understand this,” he
exclaimed, gesturing to the lit up battery symbol. “It was fine on the drive over here.”
“It was?”
Daniel nodded.
“Well, I guess that’s not
entirely true,” he replied, blushing even more.
“It hesitated – nearly stalled – a few times when I was stopped at
traffic lights. But I didn’t think it
was this big of a deal …” he trailed off.
Sam looked at him pitifully
as he nervously ran his hand through the hair at the nape of his neck and
sighed.
“Okay, what are we going to
do?” he asked, turning toward Sam with a look of misery.
“Do you have jumper cables?”
Sam asked.
Daniel rolled his eyes in
disgust for overlooking something so obvious.
“Jumper cables … I can’t
believe how stupid I am.”
Sam shot him a sympathetic
look.
“It’s okay, Daniel. You’re nervous …”
Daniel looked at her.
“…I’m nervous. We tend to forget even the simplest things
when we’re nervous. I should have
thought of it right away, but it just came to me now …”
Now it was Sam’s turn to
blush.
Daniel stared at her, and
then nodded with a faint smile on his lips.
“Well, I’m glad your brain
was working even a little bit to make up for mine not working at all,” he said
sardonically.
Sam smiled and patted him on
the shoulder.
They exited Daniel’s truck,
and he opened up the back. He sighed
upon noticing some cables lying on the floor.
“Jumper cables,” he said as
he pointed them out to Sam.
Sam looked down at her watch.
“It’s good to know you have
them, but I don’t think we’ll have time to get it working again, Daniel. Maybe we should take my car.”
She gestured toward the white
Ford Taurus sitting in her driveway.
Daniel looked briefly at the
car before nodding wearily.
“Yeah, I guess we have no
other choice,” he sighed.
He locked his truck back up
again and made his way toward Sam’s car.
She noticed that the corners of his mouth were drawn up tensely.
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh … nothing. It’s just that I figured I’d be driving you,”
he answered with a mock look of disappointment.
Sam grinned and handed her
car keys to him. With that, he unlocked
the passenger’s side and opened the door for her.
“You are such a gentleman,
Doctor Jackson,” she said as she sat down.
“I please to aim …” he
blurted out.
Sam raised her eyebrows.
“ … Ah, I-I mean I aim to
please,” he corrected himself as the bright color came back into his cheeks.
Sam giggled affectionately as
he smiled shyly at her before he shut the door and made his way around to the
driver’s side.
Yes, this is definitely going to be a night to
remember, she thought to herself as
Daniel seated himself behind the wheel.
****************************************************************
O’Malley’s lively atmosphere
greeted Sam and Daniel as they made their way inside. The restaurant wasn’t overly crowded, and
Steve Miller’s “Rock’n Me” could be heard over the speakers. The music wasn’t so loud as to drown out
conversation, but it wasn’t so quiet as to make the place seem dead. Sam grinned as she noticed Daniel looking at
the paraphernalia hanging on the walls.
It consisted mostly of old movie posters, street signs and license
plates.
A few seconds later, he
rejoined Sam in front of the “Please Wait to be Seated” sign.
“Nope, still no overly
exciting artifacts,” he remarked, giving her a quick smile.
Sam shook her head and
grinned. She remembered the first time
they’d been to O’Malley’s. They had been
a team for only a few weeks. Being the
generous guy that he was, and being that he was getting sick of the commissary
food, Jack decided to take them all out to dinner one night. O’Malley’s was a fairly well-known restaurant
in
She sighed as she noticed a
girl approaching them.
“Hi, two for dinner?” she
asked brightly.
“Um … yes,” Daniel nodded.
The girl smiled and picked up
two menus.
“Okay, right this way.”
Sam and Daniel nodded as they
followed the girl toward a booth on the other side of the bar, near the back of
the restaurant. Once they sat down, she
placed the menus in front of them, and told them that someone would take their
order shortly.
“Thank you,” Daniel said as
the girl walked away.
Sam opened up her menu and
began to scan the contents.
“So,” Daniel started as he
did the same. “What do you think we
should order?”
Sam shrugged.
“I don’t know. I’m not really very hungry, you?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Maybe we should just get
appetizers, then. Do they have some sort
of sampler?” his brow furrowed in confusion as he scanned the menu.
“Right here,” Sam replied,
pointing to an item on the menu. “The
‘O’Malley’s Sampler’ … mozzarella sticks, loaded potato skins, chicken fingers
and broccoli poppers. Sounds good, what
do you think?” She looked back up at
Daniel.
Daniel raised his eyebrows
and shrugged.
“Sounds fine.”
A few minutes later, a
waitress arrived at their table. They
ordered the appetizers and two iced teas.
With that, they thanked the waitress and she headed back toward the kitchen.
Sam turned back to Daniel.
“So … um, I’ve been thinking
of what we should say,” she said awkwardly, clearing her throat.
Daniel furrowed his brow in
confusion.
“What we should say …?”
Sam blushed faintly and
nodded.
“To Meri. About how we met,”
Sam finished.
Daniel nodded back as the
waitress returned with their drinks.
Once she was gone, he turned
back to Sam.
“Well, from her email she
seems to think that you’re working for the Pentagon.”
Sam nodded.
“We had our fifteenth high
school reunion about two months before I joined SG-1. At the time, I was planning on relocating to
“I see where you’re going
with this,” Daniel nodded.
Sam nodded back.
“So, she thinks you have
something to do with NORAD,” he continued carefully.
“Yep. She prodded me for more information, of
course, but I just told her that I was putting my astrophysics know-how to good
use. I said that I was dealing mostly
with studies of interplanetary shift, stellar drift. I think a lot of my techno babble went over
her head, because she didn’t ask further questions,” she smirked.
“Don’t you just hate it when
that happens?” Daniel winked.
Sam giggled.
“It’s great to be a geek.”
“Sure is,” Daniel added as
they slapped each other five.
Sam stopped laughing and
sighed as she relaxed a bit. At that
moment, the waitress set their food down in front of them. Sam and Daniel both blushed, as it was quite
possible that the waitress might have witnessed their “it’s-great-to-be-a-geek”
scene.
“So,” she finally said,
picking up a mozzarella stick and biting into it. “What about you?”
Daniel frowned and his brow
creased in thought.
“Well, I suppose I could say
that I’m an archaeologist who also worked for the Pentagon, and got transferred
to NORAD.”
Sam thought for a moment.
“I don’t know, Daniel. That doesn’t sound too believable.”
Daniel sighed and nodded in
agreement. He picked up a potato skin
and dunked it in the little cup of sour cream.
Suddenly, a look of realization came over his face.
“Hey, I know. I’m an archaeologist who worked for the
Pentagon, and we knew each other very well.
You got transferred to NORAD, and about a month later I accepted a
teaching position at Colorado State U, so I moved here, we looked each other
up, and …”
He waved his hands around.
“…there,” he finished
awkwardly. He began to sip his iced tea
and looked at her with his eyebrows raised.
Sam looked at him
thoughtfully as she dipped another cheese stick into a cup of marinara sauce.
“You know, that could work,”
she said.
Daniel set his ice tea down
and picked up a piece of chicken, pulling it apart and dipping it in honey mustard
sauce.
“You think so?” he asked her
in between bites of chicken.
Sam shrugged.
“Yeah, why not? She’s bound to ask about the ‘Doctor’ part,
and you did teach a course at UCLA before you came here, didn’t you?”
“Actually, it was a seminar
that I gave,” Daniel recounted almost dreadfully.
Sam blinked.
“Oh. Well, you’re qualified to teach a course with
two PhD’s,” she said awkwardly before sipping on her iced tea.
“True,” Daniel nodded,
sounding a bit glum.
Sam looked at him
thoughtfully and furrowed her brow.
“I thought you had taught a
course, Daniel.”
Daniel’s expression darkened
somewhat.
“No. I almost did, but one of the faculty members
sort of lobbied against it,” he said quietly.
“What? Why?” she asked
incredulously.
“I don’t know,” Daniel
sighed. “He was aware of my theories,
the pyramids being millennia older than they were thought to be, the cross
pollination of ancient cultures, and so forth.
He obviously thought they were preposterous, and that it wouldn’t be a
good idea for me to get up in front of a group of impressionable kids, even for
an Intro to Archaeology course.”
Sam looked at him sadly.
“Daniel, I’m sorry. I had no idea …”
“It’s not really
important. Not anymore, anyway,” he said
dismissively as he looked into her eyes.
“Well, I think you’re
brilliant,” Sam said as she smiled at him and patted him on the arm.
Daniel felt his cheeks grow
hot, and he averted his eyes and smiled shyly.
**********************************************
It was just after
“Daniel, you don’t have to do
that.”
“Come on, Sam, it’s no big
deal. It didn’t cost that much,” he
insisted as he removed some cash from his billfold and proceeded to count it.
“What’s twenty percent of
$11.50?” he suddenly asked her, his brow knitted in confusion.
Sam giggled and shook her
head.
“$2.30.”
Daniel nodded as he silently counted
out fourteen dollars.
“At least let me pay for the
tip. I mean, I feel bad having to drag
you along and then have you pay for everything,” she added.
Daniel’s blue eyes pierced
Sam’s as he leaned forward and held her hands in his.
“Sam, I don’t know where
you’re getting this from … you’re not dragging me along,” he said softly. “I couldn’t think of a better way to spend
this evening … or a better person to spend it with.”
His face reddened at his
choice of words, and for a brief moment an image of Sha’re entered his
mind. No, I can’t spend it with her because she was taken by that damn
goa’uld …she’s no longer herself, he berated himself. You’re
here with Sam. She’s here and she cares
a great deal for you. And you love her…
Daniel’s eyes widened. Love?
Did I just think that? He noticed
Sam looking at him with a concerned look on his face, and he shrugged himself
out of it.
“Sorry,” he said, clearing
his throat. “I guess I seemed out of it
for a minute there.”
At that moment, the waitress
came and collected the money. Daniel
told her to keep the change, and she smiled and thanked them.
He and Sam made their way
toward the front of the restaurant, where the girl who had seated them was
standing.
“Thank you, have a good
night,” she chirped.
“Thanks,” Sam smiled.
They exited the restaurant
and made their way to Sam’s car. Sam was
about to open the passenger’s side door when Daniel nudged her.
“Here you go,” he smiled as
he handed her a wrapped peppermint candy he’d taken from the bowl just before
they exited.
“Daniel,” Sam smiled widely
as she took the mint from him. “How
sweet of you. Thanks.”
Daniel nodded before getting
into the car. Once he and Sam had their
seatbelts buckled, she turned back to him.
“So, this place is located on
Daniel didn’t say a word, but
pulled a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of his blazer and handed it to
her. Sam grinned when she unfolded it
and realized it was a printout of a map from the MapQuest website.
“You’re remarkably well prepared,
Daniel,” she giggled.
He turned toward her and
shrugged, giving her a little smile. He
loved it when Sam giggled.
“Well, shall we?” he asked
once she had calmed down.
Sam nodded, and with that he
started up the car and they headed off.
*************************************************
Club
Daniel easily found a space
and parked the car.
“Well,” he sighed as he shut
off the ignition. “That was easy.”
Sam nodded absent-mindedly as
she stared out the window. Dusk was
approaching, and from their vantage one of the peaks of the Colorado Rockies
could be seen off in the distance. The
setting sun bathed the mountain in a warm, golden glow, which made it seem
almost supernatural. It was a gorgeous
evening, and a slight feeling of impending dread was starting to creep its way
into Sam’s mind.
“Sam?”
She heard Daniel’s voice
calling her, but it seemed quite distant as she continued to stare out the
window. Suddenly, a tap on her shoulder
brought her back to Earth.
“Sam?” Daniel’s voice
persisted, sounding a bit louder and closer than it had before.
She finally turned her head
and saw Daniel staring at her, concern reflected in his expression.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh … yeah,” she nodded as
she shrugged herself out of it. “I was
just thinking of something.”
Daniel looked at her
expectantly.
“A penny for your thoughts,”
he finally said.
“Oh, I was just gazing at the
mountain,” she said, a dream-like quality to her voice. “It’s so beautiful, the way it’s bathed in
the sunlight. It makes it seem
supernatural, almost like … Mount
Daniel nodded in
understanding as he looked past her and out the window.
“It does look beautiful,
doesn’t it? I don’t think it could be
“… And I’m ruining this,
aren’t I?” he grinned. “I’ll shut up
now.”
Sam giggled briefly, then
averted her eyes and took a deep breath.
“That’s not all, is it,” he
continued.
Sam shook her head.
“I was thinking of something
else, and I hope this won’t make you mad, Daniel,” she blurted out.
She finally looked up at him
and saw confusion in his face.
“What won’t make me mad?” he
asked quietly.
“When I spoke to Meredith,
she seemed really excited that I was apparently going with a date. She even asked me what his name was,” Sam
began.
“And what did you say?”
Daniel interrupted.
“I avoided the question. I made up an excuse to get off the phone,
that I had a … a meeting, or something.
Bottom line, Daniel, I think she’s expecting us to be in a serious relationship,”
she said uneasily.
Daniel blinked, looking
momentarily surprised.
“What makes you think that?”
he finally asked.
Sam shook her head in
frustration.
“I don’t know. She just seemed really excited. I don’t think us being just good friends is
enough for her. As soon as she meets us,
she’ll probably assume that we’re … serious, engaged, I don’t know.”
Daniel furrowed his brow in
confusion.
“So, what should we do?” he
asked slowly.
Sam took a deep breath.
“I hope you won’t be mad if I
ask you to play along. I know you’re still
married to Sha’re, and it would probably feel as if you were cheating on her,
but I don’t know what else to do, and you can tell I’m rambling, can’t you? I
–“
“Sam,” Daniel interrupted as
he held his index finger to her lips.
“Honestly, I don’t mind. I’ve had
to deal with people like that before, so it’s not a problem.”
Sam looked at him curiously
as he removed his finger from her lips.
“It isn’t?” she asked
quietly.
Daniel shook his head.
“No. I have to admit, I asked myself over and over
if this would be like cheating on Sha’re.
When I talked to Jack before I left the SGC, he said the same
thing. I thought about it and I really
don’t think that’s what this is.”
Sam looked at him intently as
he breathed in slowly.
“In a way, I think Sha’re
would want me to do this.”
Sam furrowed her brow in
confusion.
“What?”
“I guess it doesn’t make much
sense, but I know what type of person Sha’re is … ah, was,” he blushed deeply
as he corrected himself. “She wouldn’t
want me to be lonely, to be pining away for her every free minute of the
day. She would want me to go on with my
life, make the most of it, and spend time with friends. I knew it the moment you guys came to
Sam looked at Daniel
thoughtfully as he continued.
“But the fact that she was
willing to let me leave her side to show you guys the cartouche –“
“I don’t know, Daniel,” Sam suddenly
broke in. “I interpreted that kiss she
planted on you before we left as ‘hands off, he’s mine.’”
Daniel blushed furiously and
a faraway look appeared in his eyes.
“I … I’m sorry,” Sam said,
shaking her head.
Daniel’s lips twitched into a
little smile.
“No, you’re right. I interpreted it as that, too.”
Sam grinned slightly and
averted her eyes.
“You weren’t jealous, were
you?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.
At that moment, Sam’s head
shot up and her cheeks grew hot.
“Uh … j-jealous? Me?” she
stammered.
Daniel grinned and nodded.
“Uh, no. What makes you say that?”
Daniel chuckled before
planting a quick kiss on her cheek.
“Believe me; if you were in
my shoes and had an alien boyfriend or groom, I’d be pretty jealous.”
Sam looked at him thoughtfully.
“Really?”
Daniel nodded.
“Huh. Well, in that case, maybe I’ll dial up old
P4X-972 and pay a little visit. There
were some pretty cute guys over there,” she said playfully.
“I’m sorry I said anything,”
Daniel said dryly as he shook his head.
Sam giggled and gave him a
kiss back, and grinned as she noticed him beaming.
“Oh, hey, it’s about ten
minutes to eight,” she suddenly said as she looked down at her watch.
”Oh, you’re right,” Daniel said, a bit flustered, as he looked down at his
watch.
“Okay, pop quiz: What do we
do, and how did we meet?”
“Ah … you worked for the
Pentagon, and now you’re working in the NORAD facility,” Daniel began.
Sam nodded.
“I knew you when I worked for
the Pentagon as a scientist, then I accepted a teaching post at
“Perfect,” Sam smiled. “Ready?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be,”
Daniel smiled back as he exited the car.
He hurried around the other
side and opened the door for Sam.
Beaming, she took his arm and they headed around the corner toward the
club.
