Markings
Author: Jeanine
Pairing: Sam/Daniel
Notes: It's been a while… For the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Markings" challenge
Their entire history is based on markings; that's how she knew him even before she met him. She knew how his mind worked from studying markings on many sheets of paper; drawings, calculations, everything that he'd written down to make the Stargate work. The insight, the genius behind them had intrigued her, because she and her team, the best and the brightest, the finest minds in American science, had spent two years trying to do what he'd done in a fraction of that time. It had been the focus of their lives, but they were beaten by this man who went and died before she got to meet him, talk to him, find out how his mind worked. So she did the next best thing; pored over every word he'd written on the subject, combinations of words and letters dancing across her mind when she worked, her eyelids when she closed her eyes.
Except that he, and everyone else involved on the mission, had lied. He wasn't dead, was very much alive on another planet, and she met him at last, when she was studying the markings on the first DHD she'd ever seen, marvelling at how small it was. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet at first, embarrassed by her display of geekdom, but embarrassment had vanished when she found herself standing in a room filled with markings, floor to ceiling as far as the eye could see, and they worked out what exactly the cartouche was for. They'd worked it out together, ideas flying back and forth at the speed of light, and she remembers thinking that she'd never met anyone like this before, that she knew she'd like him.
Over the next few years, she worked at his side, as his friend. She watched him search for his wife, mourn her loss, and she never for a moment let herself think that he'd see her as anything more than a friend. Never for a moment let herself consider that she thought of him as anything more than that either, not until the last, when she cried at his bedside, wondering aloud why they waited to tell people how they really felt, how she hoped he always knew.
She missed him when he was gone, mourned his loss, and she never told anyone how it at first killed her to see Jonas in his office. Just like she never told anyone that she'd appropriated one of Daniel's journals, kept it in her bedside locker, just to know that it was there. And she certainly never told anyone that on her worst days, she would go home, curl up in bed and open the book, studying the markings that his hand had made, wishing she could hear his voice, wishing she could have him back again.
When she got her wish, she had to sneak the journal back alongside the others, and hoped that no-one had missed it, hoped that he wouldn't notice that the spine was rather more cracked, the pages rather more worn from handling than it had been when he had left.
There are times when she thinks he knows. Then there are times when she knows he does. But those are the times that she's lying in his arms, her head on his chest, and instead of studying the markings on a page, she's studying the markings on his body; his appendectomy scar, the childhood scar on his left knee, the latest bruises from whatever mission they've just returned from. She traces a finger along them, and he laughs softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead before tracing the markings on her skin, as she closes her eyes and loses herself in his touch.
Their entire history is based on markings.
She's pretty sure their future is too.