Pairing: Sam/Daniel
Rating: PG
Feedback: Nicer than the school inspector on his way out the door.
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine.
Spoilers: Brief touch on Rite of Passage and Meridian
Summary: …dance with me darling…they're playing our song…
Author's Notes: This is all Mags' fault - she's the one who mentioned a picture she couldn't get out of her head, and then it wouldn't get out of mine either! Thanks also to Mel and Tk for convincing me that this did not in fact call for the delete key! The title and the summary come from the song of the same name by Neal McCoy.

It started as something innocuous, something that we've done a hundred times before. Me, and Janet and Cassie, a collection of sappy rom-coms and enough popcorn and ice cream to sink the Titanic. We try to get together, just us girls, at least once a month, and sometimes we go out, but sometimes, it's just as much fun to stay in and indulge. After all, Janet and I spend most of our working day surrounded by men, so sometimes it's nice to let our hair down, so to speak. Cassie meanwhile spends all of her time pretending that she's not from another planet, and I think she enjoys spending time with her mom and me, when she knows that she's not going to have to keep the pretence up.

I don't know how we got on to that particular topic of conversation. It might have been after the second pint of ice cream, around the time that we were unanimously agreeing that Ewan McGregor could indeed sing to us anytime. But whatever started it off, we ended up talking about romantic scenes from our favourite films. Which then, in turn, lead us on to the most romantic thing that had ever happened to us.

Cassie's cheeks were as red as her hair when she told us that it was the first time that Dominic kissed her on the front porch, and redder still when we pointed out to her that it was some first kiss, considering that it blew the light out. We didn't talk about what happened in the immediate aftermath of that night, we're very good at only remembering the good things.

There was a wry grin on Janet's face when she told us that the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her was the time that her first husband proposed to her. It involved red roses and a candlelit dinner and an extremely eloquent speech that had her in tears. "Little did I know that they would be the first of many," she observed at the end of her story.

Of course, once they'd spoken of their romantic moments, they turned identical expectant expressions to me, eyebrows raised, as if daring me not to answer. I didn't straight away though, stalling for time.

"Come on Sam," Janet teased. "We've told you, now you have to tell us." She took a sip of wine as she spoke, and I took a gulp of my own. Dutch courage and all that.

Cassie leaned forward, her eyes sparkling too, but her tone was serious. "It was with Daniel, wasn't it?"

A smile came to my face at the mention of his name, a rare occurrence these days. All too often when I think of him, it's like an ache, a physical stabbing pain, and I miss him all over again. It's only at times like that, when I'm with some of the few people who knew the full extent of our relationship, that I can allow myself to remember the good times we had, and that's what I did then.

Of course the most romantic moment of my life was with Daniel. The question was, which one did I tell them about?

The memory rose to the surface quickly, a normal day, or as normal as a day could be for us. Normal meant that we weren't trying to save the world, we weren't traipsing off to another planet, and I wasn't visiting Daniel in the infirmary, where Janet had just been stitching him back together again. Normal was, believe it or not, a day off, one where neither one of us were scheduled to be next or near Cheyenne Mountain, a day where we could just be ourselves, just be Sam and Daniel, not Carter and Jackson.

Normal was a day where he lounged on the couch, poring over ancient texts written in languages that I could never hope to understand, scribbling notes in pieces of paper, only to rip them up and throw them to the ground when a new translation or thought occurred to him. It was a day where I got caught up on emails, on fixing up the bike, on finishing off some housework, and foisting the vacuum cleaner into his hand when I couldn't see my living room floor from his piles of ripped up paper.

Normal was a day where we did nothing special, just stayed around the house, sleeping late in the morning, with him waking me up with breakfast in bed. It was only coffee and a bagel, nothing special he claimed, but it was the thought that counted. It was a day where we talked and laughed and teased one another, and didn't spare a thought beyond those four walls.

It was a day where I had the most romantic moment of my life.

A perfect day for us always meant never having to cook. It's no coincidence that Daniel's kitchen boasts sparkling silver pots and pans hanging all over; after all, he never uses them. And while I might try to cook, and often have, the fact of the matter is that if it's anything more complicated than scrambled eggs and toast, I'm in real trouble.

So that night, we ordered in Chinese, listened to the radio and had a quiet night in. Nothing unusual there. It was when I was bringing the cartons out to the bin in the kitchen that it happened. He followed me, bringing the plates and glasses out, but we could still hear the radio from where we were, the soft music drifting through the house.

I was just straightening up from the bin, washing my hands at the sink when his arms slipped around me from behind, his lips pressing against my neck. I had to fight back a smile, not that I was fighting too hard I must admit, and I reached for a tea towel, drying my hands. "Why Doctor Jackson," I murmured. "Whatever are you doing?"

I expected a hundred different replies, but not the one I got. "Dancing," he told me, spinning me around smoothly so that we were facing one another, his body pressed against mine. His arms stayed around my waist, as mine went up around his neck, but even so, I couldn’t quite believe what it was we were doing.

"Daniel…" I drew the word out, tilting my head and looking at him curiously. "We've got to finish cleaning…"

Looking back, I can't believe I said that either, and at the time, I wasn't trying too hard to get away. Especially not once he looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes and that special Daniel smile and told me, "They're playing our song."

Those four little words had me straining to hear the music, concentrating on the lyrics. When I heard them, made out what they were, I didn't say a thing, I couldn't. Another time, I might have teased him about it, after all, it was some sappy female ballad about this being a perfect moment, and it was never something that I'd normally listen to, much less apply to my own life. There's a little too much of the soldier's daughter in me for that. But just then, at that moment in time, I knew that he was right. Because we were there, and we were together, and there was nothing that could touch us, nothing that could harm us. At that precise moment in time, we were perfect.

So I rested my head on his shoulder, and we slow-danced in my kitchen, and we didn't say a word.

There were tears on my cheeks when I finished recounting the memory to Janet and Cassie, but I was smiling, and they were happy tears. I'm not sure that Janet and Cassie saw it that way, because they were crying too, staring at me with red eyes, and they both apologised profusely, thinking that they'd caused me any pain.

I told them not to apologise. Because remembering things like that doesn't hurt. Remembering the good times doesn't hurt. It's remembering when he left, remembering saying goodbye to him, that's what hurts. Walking into his office, knowing that it belongs to Jonas now, remembering that he's gone and that he's not coming back, that's what hurts.

But remembering that perfect moment makes me smile, and I know that Daniel wouldn't want it any other way. And neither would I. Because after all, it's just one perfect moment in a sea of them. Some people never get that. I had a perfect moment, with a wonderful man who I loved and who loved me back. And I have no regrets.