The Space Between
The Space Between
by Azar
Summary: There's a reason why there was never anything between them.
Category: POV
Episode Related: 701 FALLEN
Season: future Season
Pairing: Daniel/Sam
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 01/28/04
You cannot quit me so quickly
There's no hope in you for me
No corner you could squeeze me
But I got all the time for you, love
--Dave Matthews Band, "The Space Between"
So many years come and gone
And yet the memory is strong
One word we never could learn--goodbye
--Amy Grant, "I Will Remember You"
I guess you really don't remember anything. If you did, you never would have asked me if there was...anything between us.
How could there have been if you knew how much it hurt me to lose you--ascension or no damned ascension--but still appeared to everyone but me? And when you finally did show yourself to all of us...you all but ignored me. You treated Jonas with more respect, which isn't saying much considering you were acting like an alpha male defending his territory around Jonas.
Damn it, Daniel, you relinquished any right to claim SG-1 as your territory the day you left us.
I'm sorry. I guess I'm still a little bitter about that. I forgot all about it when I saw you alive and well and corporeal, but now that I'm outside your tent it's all coming back. You hurt me, Daniel. Whether you meant to or not, and somehow I find it hard to believe you couldn't see what you were doing to me. Even without whatever gifts you had while you were ascended, you know me. You've always been able to complete my sentences, to know what I was thinking with just a look. Okay, right now you don't know me so I can't blame you for saying or doing something unexpected--like asking me if we were ever an item--but the last time I saw you, you didn't have that excuse.
You were my best friend--doesn't that rate a little more than a cursory nod and a curt "Sam"?
I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe you didn't know how hard it was for me to deal with losing you. Maybe it's only wishful thinking on my part that you would have watched over me too, like you apparently did Jack and Teal'c, and seen my grief. Or maybe...maybe you did see. Maybe you saw and understood what I realized sitting there beside your deathbed, and couldn't face me because you didn't feel the same.
If that's the case, maybe I don't want you to remember after all. Maybe we could just start over, without the shadow of Sha're or a thousand other things hanging over us. The shadows that never would've let that look of hope creep into your eyes when you asked me...
But no, I don't think I could stand to be one step ahead of you, to know you just a little better than you know me because of those experiences you've lost. You were always the one who kept pace with me, the one by my side instead of miles behind and not caring enough to try to catch up. I need you there; I always have.
Why do you think I fought so hard not to feel what I feel? Because you weren't mine to want, and I knew that if I was going to have you in my life at all I had to be content with friendship. And I needed you in my life, more every day once it became clear that no one else was ever going to see all of me: both the scholar and the soldier.
So I guess I wasn't entirely honest when I said I didn't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel. I would have waited forever if I'd thought I had forever, rather than risk throwing that forever away.
But you were dying...so I wanted you to know. And even then I still couldn't say the words.
When you were with us, but married, it was easy to convince myself that I was really pining for Colonel O'Neill. After all, he is an attractive man, fun to flirt with under the right circumstances, and available the minute he decides to retire and is therefore no longer my CO. I know his feelings for me left professional a long time ago, though he'd never admit it without extenuating circumstances. If I'd never met you, maybe I really could have felt something for him, like Dr. Carter did. But the truth is, having known you, I could never settle for someone who only sees half of who I am, who only respects what I can do with a gun, not an equation. I may be tempted sometimes, when he's at his most charming or most endearing, but never snared.
Then, since you've been gone, there's Jonas. In some ways, he probably could be everything you were to me without all the baggage that kept us from crossing that line. But I realized very quickly that I couldn't do that to him. I like him too much--respect him too much--to ever use him as a substitute for you. He's a good man; he doesn't deserve that sort of abuse, and I'd like to think I'm better than that.
Now here you are returned to us, and my feelings are a tangle of confusion. All because of a simple little question you only asked because you don't remember me. Because you don't remember yourself, or all the barriers that stood between us.
And I'm torn between wanting you back and never wanting to know why you were so cold to me the last time we saw you. Between missing the man who knows me almost better than I know myself and fearing that the coldness would return if you remembered all the reasons that we were only very, very good friends. Between wanting to hate you for leaving me behind and loving you in spite of myself as I have for years.
No, Daniel, there was never anything between us. Because "between" implies two, and I've always been alone in this place.
It's the only place I ever went without you.
FIN
Acknowledgements: Brian'na, whose beautiful Sam/Daniel video to Amy Grant's "I Will Remember You" inspired me to use that verse here. :-) I've always loved that song...so it's entirely possible that video was partly to blame for me becoming a S/D 'shipper. *g*
Dedication: To Medie, because she was the first to ask for a sequel to "Angels Would Fall." *g*
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