Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam/Daniel
Spoilers: Fallen and everything up to it
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo, Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: You hear the voice behind you and it stops you in your tracks…

"You lied."

You hear the voice behind you, and it stops you in your tracks, chilling you to the bone. You know that voice, would know that voice anywhere, even if it hadn't haunted your dreams for the past year.

It's the voice of your best friend, the voice that you shared all your secrets with, all your confidences with. It's the voice that was at the end of the phone all those nights when you couldn't sleep, the voice that you conversed with over coffee on too many sleepless nights in the mess.

It's the voice that you avoided being left alone with ever since he came back, because you knew that one of these days, probably sooner rather than later, he was going to remember the truth. He was going to come to you, and say those two words that he's just said, and you were going to have to face up to what you'd done.

Except that when you turn to face up to what you've done, you end up facing him, and you realise that you never thought it would be so hard.

So you do the only thing you can do; stall for time. "I don't understand-"

He shakes his head, and you stop talking, because you're not convincing anyone. "In the tent," he says, his voice perfectly calm, perfectly neutral, perfectly Daniel. "When I asked you if there had ever been anything between us. You lied."

He's not angry, he's not shocked. The most he sounds is curious, with a side order of amazed, and those blue eyes that you've spent so long dreaming about are levelled at you, beaming blue laser questions that render you unable to look at him. The floor's not safe though, because that questioning look is burned into your brain, and you know you'll be seeing it for a very long time.

In a way, it's a weight off your mind to finally admit it, because you knew this day would come, and you've been dreading it. Now that it's here though, you can meet it head on, get it over with, because you're a soldier, a soldier's daughter no less, and that's what you've been trained to do all your life.

You don't look up at him when you speak. "Yes," you say quietly. "I lied."

There's a long silence after you confirm what he already knew, then his voice comes again, soft, hesitant, wondering. "But Sam… why?"

There are a thousand answers that flood your mind, but some stand out more clearly than others.

Because for the longest time, you and he were simply what you told him you were; very good friends. He would listen to you ramble about science, you would listen to him ramble about history, and more than once, you listened to each other bitch about the Colonel. He would try to get you to leave the lab more often, you would try to get him not to take things too seriously, try to stop him tearing himself apart when he thought he couldn't make more of a difference.

You just never got around to telling him what a difference he made in your life, how much he meant to you. That's what you told him as you sobbed over what you thought was his death bed, adding that he hoped he always knew how you felt. And that's another reason why you didn't tell him just how close the two of you had become in the months before he ascended; because you've got a sneaking suspicion that he meant an awful lot more to you than you did to him, and you're not so sure that you could stand losing him again. If it was a choice between him thinking that you'd always just been friends, and him rejecting you, leaving you, your easy friendship set adrift on a sea of awkwardness, for you, there was no choice at all.

Because you were on a mission, because Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c and Jonas, none of whom were privy to the particulars of your relationship were with you, walking through the settlement, and you didn't want them to find out about it from some slip that he didn't even realise that he was making.

Because you'd spent so long convincing yourself that you really were never going to see him again that you didn't know what to do, what to say, what to think, when you realised that he'd been living as a human among humans for the last two moons.

Because you were just barely holding yourself together as it was, and you knew that if you had to remember how he held you, the way his skin felt against yours, how his fingers danced patterns over your skin, how you fought over the covers or the last cup of coffee in the mornings, you'd fall apart, and you'd never be able to put yourself back together again.

There are so many reasons why you lied to him, but right now they're all mingled together as a lump in your throat, and there's no way you can speak past it. So you suck in a deep breath, dragging your eyes up from the floor to look at him, hoping that he'll start talking, save you from yourself. No such luck though, and even less when he takes one step towards you, then another, until he's standing right in front of you, close enough to touch, to reach out and take you in his arms if he wants to.

"Because I was scared."

The words are out before you realise you're the one who's spoken, or even that you were thinking them in the first place. You know though, in your heart of hearts, that they're the truth.

"Scared?" he echoes, mystified. "Of me?"

You shake your head, because not on the worst day of your life could you ever be scared of him. Indeed, on the worst day of your life, the day he lay dying, shrouded in bandages, you still weren't scared of him. Of your life without him, yes, but not him.

"I never knew," you tell him now. "How you felt about me. I don't think I even knew how I felt about you until it was too late."

"Until I ascended," he supplies, and you nod.

"After Abydos, I thought you were dead. Again." You look down again, swallowing hard against the tears creeping past the lump in your throat, because a good soldier never cries. "And then one day I gate to a planet, and there you are. And I didn't know if you were going to stay, or come with us; all I knew was that you couldn’t remember us. Anything about us."

You see yourself suddenly, the two of you face to face on that planet, feel the ghost of hopeful elation surging up in your heart, see your hand reaching out to touch him, hear your voice forming the words, "It's me, Sam." Then you see his hand reaching out to stop yours, see the distrust in his face. Daniel, your Daniel, had never looked at you like that, and that's when you knew that even though this was Daniel, he wasn't your Daniel anymore.

Then you'd had that conversation in the tent, where things had almost been normal.

Then he'd asked you that question, and for the first time in all the years you'd known him, you looked into those blue eyes that you'd known so well, and you lied.

"I didn't know what you were going to do Daniel," you whisper now. "I didn't know how you'd react if I told you the truth."

"So you lied." He's still close to you, close enough that the breath of his words ruffle the wisps of your hair. You don't look up, don't want to see the look on his face, so you're taken completely by surprise when you feel his hand touch your cheek, moving down to tilt your chin up so that you're looking into his eyes.

"I lied," you whisper, feeling not guilty, but a little breathless, because while you've dreamed of hearing his voice, you've also dreamed about the look in his eyes, that exact look that's in his eyes right now. You need to make sure that you're seeing what's there though, not what you want to see, so you ask, "What do you remember?"

His low voice sends shivers up and down your spine, and you just about process the word, "Everything," before his lips descend upon yours, and you stop thinking after that.

When thought returns, you're pressed tightly against him, your head on his shoulder, his head on top of yours, and you're feeling better than you have in months.

"No more lies?" you hear him murmur into your hair, and you chuckle, not moving.

"No more leaving?" You counter his question with one of your own, and you feel an answering chuckle course through his body.

"It's a deal," he says, and you smile, lifting your head so that you can seal that particular deal with a kiss.

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