Category: Sam/Daniel,Sam/Other, tissue warning.
Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended
Archive: My own site, The Band Gazebo, Heliopolis, Stargate Saga, anywhere else, please ask.
Season: Set years in the future.
Spoilers:Huge for Meridian vague for the rest of series
Summary: A look at Sam's life after the events of Meridian
Author's Notes: Me. Insomnia. Staring at the ceiling. The next night, this crawled out.

"I'll be at the car."

I nod, not looking around as he leaves me, not able to take my eyes from what's in front of me. I hear the worry in his voice, and I know that he's concerned about me, about how I'm holding up. I think he's worried that I'm going to crack, that I'm going to fall apart. He thinks that I don't know that you made him promise to look after me, to keep an eye on me, and he's been doing that every day for the past year. Just like he doesn't know that you made me make the same promise, that I'd always look out for him. Like I was ever going to do anything else. I've looked out for him every day since he was born, just like you did. He's a good kid.

And he's so like you that sometimes I can hardly stand to look at him.

But I always do, and I see your spark in him, your fire. He's got your hair, and your eyes, and damn sure he's got your brains - he's going to get his Masters from MIT next month, and I know that he wishes you were here to see it.

I wish you were here to see it.

I can't believe it's been a year since you left us.

But I know that you're happy now. I know that you're at peace, wherever you are. Because you're finally with him, and that's all you ever wanted.

Oh, I know that you loved me. I know that you and I were happy together.

I also know that he was the love of your life.

If you were here now, you'd be busy trying to convince me that I'm wrong, that it was me you loved, and I know that that's true. I also know that I wouldn't have stood a chance with you if he wasn't out of the picture.

From the very moment you met, you guys had something special. Oh, I know that he was married, I know that he was still in love with Sha're. But I could also see how you two were so alike, so compatible. You went through the gate having never met him before, and came back talking to him like you were some old married couple. And you never lost that, ever. No matter what the topic at hand was, you two were bound to agree on it, or at the very least have these long conversations, ideas flying all over the room, before you mutually agreed on some brilliant conclusion that would have us all scratching our heads going "Huh?"

We all knew that you two were meant to be together.

We just didn't know how long it would take you to realise it.

And when you did, it was too late.

You were broken hearted, feeling that you hadn't done enough to let him know how you really felt, frustrated that the rest of us were going on as normal, as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn't just lost one of the most important members of our team.

And him? He was gone.

There was no body to grieve over, no funeral to be held. We didn't even have a memorial service, not an official one anyway, although we did wake him in style, on several occasions if I recall correctly. And the story of the light, his body vanishing… we didn't know where he was. When he was. What he was.

And you were so angry with him.

None of us really realised that.

I know I didn't.

Not until that night when I was walking by your office. It was late, everyone had gone home, and that's probably why you weren't worrying about who would hear you. That's why I caught you sobbing, as if your heart would break, and when I walked in and saw you there, curled up in a ball in the corner, clutching a pair of his glasses in your hand, you jumped, and you were embarrassed. You wiped your eyes quickly, tried to pull yourself together, and I knew that I couldn't leave you like that. So I made my way to the mess, poured us both two steaming cups of coffee, and brought it back to you. I'd told you not to move, but was half expecting you to be gone by the time I got back, but you stayed. And we talked.

And that was the start of us.

For me it was a dream come true. I'd had something of a crush on you since the first time I met you. A lot of us on the base had. And I could never quite believe that we were together.

For you, it was different. You'd been hurt before, with Jonas, and you were still dealing with losing him. You were afraid that it was some kind of rebound thing; maybe I was too, I don't know. And there had been other losses in between them - Narim, Martouf, Orlin. You joked about it with me. "You sure you want to do this?" you said, and the look on your face was somewhere between laughter and tears. "Face the Sam Carter Black Widow Curse?" And I smiled at you, because I knew what I wanted and I knew it was you. "I'll take my chances," I told you, and you smiled and kissed me.

We kept things quiet for a long time. We had to, because we were working together still. Neither one of us wanted to leave the job that we loved, so at the start, only Janet knew about us. She agreed to keep it a secret, because she wanted you to be happy. She even took me aside, and told me that she hadn't seen you smile as much in a long time as she had when you told her that we were together. She then warned me that if I ever did anything to remove that smile from your face that I would be the sorriest man ever born.

I was scared enough of her to comply - the woman is a fully qualified and very experienced doctor. She knows ways to hurt me that I've never even dreamed of.

But that's not the only reason that I would never hurt you. I'd never hurt you because I couldn't.

It wasn't until after we'd both left Cheyenne Mountain, after the project had been revealed to the public, that we went public with our relationship. And to say that people were shocked is to put it mildly. I could see them looking at us, wondering when it happened, why it happened, how it happened. And I thought, although I could never prove it, that they were looking at the two of us, wondering what a woman like you could possibly see in a guy like me.

Hey, I wondered too.

And then you would look at me, and smile at me, and I'd stop wondering, because I knew that you loved me. For whatever reason, you loved me.

We got married in a quiet ceremony. Some of my family, some of your family. People from the base. But there could have been no-one else in the room because we only had eyes for each other. I felt like the luckiest man in the world that day.

That lasted until the day that our son was born.

We weren't trying to get pregnant. But then, we weren't trying not to get pregnant either. Things just happened, I supposed. They always did with us. All I knew is that one day, you went to meet Janet for lunch. Not that there was anything unusual in that. But when I got home that day, you were already home, and I knew from the look on your face that there was something you weren't telling me. And I tried to pry it out of you, but the more I did, the more you pulled away from me, the bigger your smile got, until finally, you couldn't stand it anymore and you told me.

I think my heart stopped beating.

When it started again, I picked you up and spun you around before I thought that that might be the wrong thing to do to a woman in your condition and put you down again, apologising profusely. You laughed and told me that if I kept wrapping you in cotton wool for the next eight months, you'd strangle me with it.

The next eight months were some of the happiest that I remember. Getting things ready for the baby, decorating the nursery, just spending time with the woman I loved more than anything in the world. We didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, we both wanted to be surprised. We'd both had so many bad surprises in our lives that we welcomed a nice one.

And when he was born, when the doctor put him in your arms, we were both crying. But instead of the tears of sadness that had started our relationship, these were tears of joy, for a new beginning, a new family.

Our family.

And when you told me what you wanted to call him, I couldn't refuse you.

The next few years were idyllic. We'd fought the big fight; we'd saved the world more times than we could remember. The universe owed us, we figured, so we enjoyed our life. We thought that we might have more kids, but it seemed that someone higher up decided that one was enough for us, and we accepted that. Our lives fell into a comfortable pattern of working, spending time with our son, watching him learn to crawl, and walk, and play hockey. Helping him with his homework, going to Little League and soccer games. Telling him to turn down that infernal racket that passed for music. The usual Mom and Pop stuff.

There were little things, every now and then that told me you still thought about him. Days when we'd reminisce about the old days, and you'd get this look in your eyes, this sad look as if you were thinking of what might have been. The anniversary of his death was never a good day, and woe unto the person who tried to talk to you on July 8^th. I knew that there was nothing I could do to help you, that you just had to get through times like that on your own. That the best thing I could do to help you was just be there for you, to be there when you were ready to let me in. You'd never say anything about it to me, but I'd know by the look in your eyes what you were thinking, and I never let you feel bad because of it. Or tried not to anyway. Sometimes you'd feel bad no matter what I'd say. But I knew that my job, as your husband, was to be supportive, to be there for you no matter what.

I never realised just what that would entail.

We were in bed one night when I felt it. A tiny lump on your left breast. To someone who didn't know your body like I did, it was nothing. But not to me. Not to us. You got it checked out the next day, and I came with you to the doctor's office. We knew from the outset that it wasn't good. But you had the best doctors in the country, hell in the world on your side; General Hammond called in all the markers he'd accumulated over the years. And like you kept telling me, you had so much to live for.

"I'm going to see him graduate high school," you told me.

And you did.

You got better, just like you said you would. And for the next few years, we were as happy as we'd ever been. Happier maybe, because we'd been so close to losing it all.

Then, during his senior year at college, it came back. More virulent this time, more widespread.

They told us that there was nothing they could do.

And we saw the same doctors, the same people we'd seen years earlier. General Hammond called the same people, trying to get some of the newer research, the newest drugs. "She helped secure these breakthroughs for Earth," he argued. "She deserves to benefit from them more than anyone else I know."

No dice.

You accepted it with all the grace that I would have expected from you. You decided how everything was going to be. We brought you home for the last time, and Janet and I did everything to make you comfortable.

The drugs that they could give you helped to take the edge off the pain, and you were in and out of consciousness near the end. They couldn't give us a definitive timeframe, but when you began to mention him, I knew that the end was near.

I was with you, holding your hand. And you were awake; you were lucid. And you spoke to our son, and you had some motherly words of advice for him that you wouldn't let me hear. You made me stand over by the door, and you spoke softly. But I'd spent so long listening to your every breath that I heard you anyway. Then you talked to me. You told me that you loved me, and you thanked me for loving you. Like that was some chore, some hardship for me. "You've made my life so special," you told me. Your eyes flicked over to the door, where he was standing with Janet's arm around him, his chin resting on the top of her head, and you made me promise to look out for him. "And tell our grandkids all about me." There was a smile on your face when you said that, even through your tears.

And then you closed your eyes.

I felt like I should cry, like I should drop my head. But I couldn't take my eyes off your face. You looked so peaceful, as if the pain was gone. I hadn't seen you look like that in too long.

And then your eyes opened again, wide, and it was as if you were looking at something that only you could see.

"Daniel?" you whispered.

I leaned forward in my chair, looking down at you, and the other two came closer, probably wondering what was wrong. And I said your name, and you looked at me, and you blinked a couple of times and said my name. But even when you were looking at me, you were looking at something beyond me as well.

And the words came to me easily.

"It's ok," I told you. "Go to him."

You smiled.

And then this white light filled the whole room. None of us who were there were ever able to explain it, but Janet swore that she'd seen something just like it before.

When your body began to dissolve in white light too, he grabbed my hand. "Dad, what's happening?"

I couldn't speak; all I could do was pat his hand, hoping that that would reassure him. I was transfixed by the light, by the light coming from your body joining the other light in the room, and then I saw it. In the middle of this bright light, so bright that it should have hurt to look at it, but yet it didn't, I saw him. And I saw you. Not you the way you were before, older, with a lifetime of memories behind you, and a son of college age. I saw you the way you were when I first met you, back when the Stargate Project was in its infancy. And you were looking at him, and then you turned back to me and you were smiling.

And then you were gone.

Explaining it took some doing. But once again, the General came through for us. And we got through those first few horrible days and weeks and months without you. Got through our wedding anniversary and Christmas. The three birthdays.

Then today.

Which is why I'm here. Why we're both here. He went to the car to give us some time alone…to give me some time alone I suppose. He still has trouble with the whole thing, but he does his best with it. He's a good kid. We did a good job.

I just wish we'd had more time with him.

There's a bouquet of flowers in front of the gravestone, beside them a single red rose. Flowers from the two men in your life. You would have liked that.

A year without you, I think, reaching out to touch the gravestone, the marble cold to the touch despite the heat of the sun.

"I miss you," I say. "Every day. I think of something I want to tell you, or see something that you'd enjoy, or I come home, and I call your name…and it's like I lose you all over again. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. The two of you. But you knew that. But I know that you're at peace now. That you're not in pain. That you're happy… wherever you are. And that makes it easier. Kinda." I take a deep breath, tracing your name in the marble. "I love you."

A breeze blows past me, which is odd, because there was no wind earlier on. There's been no wind all day. And I can't explain how one of the rose petals detaches itself and floats up gently, so that it rests on the top of the stone.

That's when I smile because I know that you're still around somewhere.

That gives me the impetus to stand up, turn around and go back to the car, go back to our son. He's missing you too, and he's going to need me today. But something makes me stop, makes me turn back to the stone.

Maybe I'm seeing what I want to see. Maybe it's a trick of the light. But there's a light around the gravestone. Two lights, one on either side. And then they merge into one and they're gone again, as if they were never there.

It could have been just an illusion.

But I know that it wasn't. I know you're here, that you're still around, keeping an eye on us, making sure that we keep an eye on each other. I know that we're not alone, and that you're not alone either. That you're with him, somewhere, and that you're happy.

You have him, and a life that I can't even know.

I have our son, a lifetime of memories, and the rest of my life to look forward to. After all, I have to keep a promise to our grandchildren don't I?

So I turn back in the direction of the car, away from the black stone, and the words glittering gold in the sunshine.