More Than We Are: Backwinded - Part 5 - ADULT
More Than We Are:
Part 5
Backwinded [Sam and Daniel]
By Jennghis Kahn
Rating- ADULT
Category- Romance
Pairing- Sam/Jack/Daniel
Spoilers- Moebius
Warnings - Slash and het and threesome.
Daniel
“There’s a second gate.”
He watched as Sam hesitated over her book. He waited for her mind to catch up, smiling faintly because he could almost see the gears turning and clicking and whining into high speed in her head. Her big, blue eyes met his over the library table. He licked his lips and tamped down his excitement.
“What?” She whispered it through a dry mouth, proving that she’d heard him the first time.
He nodded at her, used the pad of his index finger to push his glasses up further onto the bridge of his nose. “There’s a second gate.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know?”
He pointed to the photos in front of him. Glyphs carved into a tablet. “It took me forever to figure out, but I… “ He trailed away and his eyes rolled upwards as he tried to get his realities straight. “The other me, I mean… arranged the original information in mixed languages and codes, but the arrangement itself was meant to be a code all its own. Just for this express purpose… to compensate for any lost text.”
Sam’s brows furrowed together. “Like… layers?”
Daniel pressed his lips together, thinking. “Mmm… more like a repeating loop. Like a tape that has two tracks on it. If you listen to one speaker, you’ll hear part of the message clearly. If you listen to both, you’ll have words on top of words and you can’t put anything together in a linear way.”
“Wow.” Sam was staring at him, awe in her eyes. She was usually the existential geek of the two of them. “How long did that take you, uh him, no…you… to do that?”
Daniel smiled. He really did love it when even she couldn’t keep track of the timeline. “I don’t know. Quite a while. Probably less time than it took me to figure it out though.”
Sam was fascinated now. “Is that common in archeology? All that coding? Wait… I want to see it. Show me how-“
“Sam!” He realized he’d said her name a little too loudly when Esther shushed him. He lowered his head a bit and grinned at Sam. “Don’t you want to know where the second gate is?”
Sam winced a bit and nodded sheepishly. Daniel found it amusing and a bit endearing that she got so caught up in the process she forgot about the results. “Sorry,” she murmured.
He slid his foot alongside hers under the table. He knew how her brain worked. He didn’t want her any other way. “It’s somewhere very cold…”
She eyed him. “You’re going to make me guess, aren’t you?”
He thought about this for a moment and then nodded enthusiastically. It’d taken him the better part of a year to figure this out. He wanted to savor it a bit longer. He was the only person on the planet right now who knew what he knew.
Sam sighed. “Canada?”
“No.”
“Siberia?”
“No.”
She eyed him again. “Daniel, are you going to give me more hints or will we be at this all day?”
“There are a lot of penguins living there.”
She blinked at him. “You’re not serious.”
He nodded.
“Why would they put a gate there?”
He shrugged.
“There’s no people in Antarctica. Never has been. Why in the world would they set up a gate there?”
Daniel frowned. She was starting to miss the point again. He started gathering his files together. “I don’t know, Sam. Come on… we have to tell Jack.”
She jumped up with him, shoving the book she’d been reading into the book bag she carried. “I can’t believe you did it!”
He frowned and his eyes slid sideways toward her. She backpedaled. “Oh, um, no, that’s not what I meant. I believe you did it. I just… “ She trailed away, looking at him helplessly as he stepped toward her.
He hugged her suddenly. He felt her relax into him and her breath puff out in pleasure against his neck. “Finally,” he said softly. “Finally.”
**
Jack was noticeably less enthused.
His eyes moved from one to the other of them, and his tone was suspicious. “What do you mean there’s a ‘second gate’?”
“A second gate, Jack.” Daniel floundered for the right words to make him understand. “A, ah, another one. The Goa’uld apparently put two on Earth. At least that’s what I, um, just told myself on the tablet.”
Jack’s forehead wrinkled a bit. He looked vaguely like he was in mild pain. “And you know where this second gate is?”
“Antarctica!” Sam blurted out excitedly. Daniel shot an accusing glance at her, robbed of his big moment. Sam bit her lip. “Sorry.”
Jack waved his hands and shook his head. “Okay, wait a minute! The aliens put a second stargate in Antarctica? Why?”
“Who cares?” Daniel exclaimed in frustration. “Maybe it was a strategic decision. Maybe they wanted to make snow angels… I don’t care! The point is, there’s a second gate there!”
“Snow angels?” Jack’s brows shot up. Daniel felt his blood pressure rise along with them. Jack was deliberately focusing on the wrong thing. It was his way of avoiding issues he didn’t want to deal with, and, while Daniel had a certain understanding of that, it still irritated him to no end. He was saved the inevitable argument though, when Sam stepped between them.
“Jack, it makes a strange sort of sense, doesn’t it? Maybe at some point, the Goa’uld felt the first gate was in danger, so they put one in an area of the world that wouldn’t attract any real attention.”
Jack shrugged in agreement, reluctantly. Daniel let his fingers curl around Sam’s arm in thanks. She gave him a faint smile of encouragement that made him almost ache. He loved Jack, he did. Jack was strong and flawed, and he wore his heart on his sleeve more often than he realized. Having Jack’s dedication was a heady thing. But Sam… Sam was in a part of him that no one else could touch. There was a symbiosis between Sam and him that he’d never had before. Not with anyone.
“I found it, Jack.” Daniel really wanted Jack to be happy about that.
Jack studied him a moment, dark eyes giving nothing away. “Fine,” he finally said. “Where is it?”
“I just-“
Jack cut him off. “No, Daniel. I mean where is it in Antarctica? Do you have any idea how big that place is?”
Daniel felt the words dry up in his mouth and his frustration grow. “Oh, uh… I don’t know exactly where.”
Jack lifted his brows and shook his head.
“Well, there’s got to be a way to detect it,” Sam argued. “It must give off some sort of energy reading.”
“IF it’s there, it’s probably buried in 50 feet of ice, Carter.” Jack narrowed his eyes at her.
Daniel swallowed down his ever-growing irritation and met Sam’s eyes. If anyone could help him with this part of it, it was Sam. “Would it have to be activated to give off energy?”
Sam chewed the inside of her lip, eyes pensive. “Yeahhhh… it probably gives off some sort of residual energy field even when it’s inactive, but I doubt it’d be detectable. We’d need a way to ‘dial it up’, as you said on the tape. Once it’s activated, we could find it in all sorts of ways.”
Daniel felt his good mood plummet. “How the hell do we do that? We’d need another gate or one of those dialing devices from the tape.”
Sam was thinking furiously, but after a few moments had to shrug helplessly. “I don’t know, Daniel. We’d need a way to dial, that’s the bottom line. But you know the general area, right? We go back to the Air Force, and maybe they have a way. There are things we can try. Thermal imaging, seismic activity. All sorts of things.”
“The Air Force isn’t going to spend much time on that,” Jack said. Daniel looked up at him, watching Jack’s dark eyes slide from Sam to himself. He was starting to get an uneasy feeling about Jack now that things were coming together.
“Why not?”
“Daniel, you’re basing all of this on some ruins and a video tape that hasn’t really been all that accurate up to this point. Add into this the fact that President Kinsey is the one who put the stop on the stargate mission in the first place… and I’m not seeing this happening.”
Daniel tightened his jaw, irritation at Jack rising anew. “That’s why we came to you, Jack,” he said, pronouncing each word slowly and forcefully. “Sam and I do the bookwork, you handle the Air Force.”
Jack met his gaze with an intensity that Daniel had rarely seen. Neither of them spoke for a long moment and the air grew heavy.
“Don’t do this,” Sam warned them quietly. Daniel felt a rivulet of guilt at her words. He knew she hated it when he and Jack fought, but he really couldn’t let some things go, and it was rarely Jack who made the compromises.
“You haven’t got anything yet, Daniel,” Jack stated, eyes never leaving his.
“I’ve got enough,” Daniel answered. Beside him, Sam exhaled a frustrated sigh and lowered her head, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.
“This is ridiculous,” Jack said. “You want them to dig up the gate, which is the entire reason we were able to screw up the timeline in the first place.”
“Jack.” Sam stared at him, eyes concerned. Daniel watched as they shared an equally powerful gaze.
“Listen to me,” Jack sighed. He held out a hand to each of them as if they might run in different directions and escape him. “This reality is good. It’s safe. There’s no gate. No way for those snakes to get to us. Daniel!” He raised a finger just as Daniel opened his mouth to dispute that statement. Daniel glared at him but closed his mouth. Jack continued, “We don’t know if they’ll come by ship someday, but we do know that if we uncover that gate and go through it, the snakes will know how far we’ve advanced and they will come.”
“Jack, they already know… “ Sam trailed away as Jack pinned her with a glare. “You promised,” she added weakly.
“My priorities have changed, and yours should have too.”
“Your priorities? How can your priority NOT be fixing the timeline that we messed up in the first place?” Daniel was seething now. He wanted to shake Jack until his eyes rattled.
Jack rounded on him. “Because my first priority is you! You and Sam and… THIS!” Jack motioned between the three of them. “Something you should be concerned about as well!”
Daniel blinked at him. He felt insulted and frustrated and anger bubbled up inside of him like lava. “The only thing I’m concerned about right now is that you don’t seem to give a damn!” He retorted.
He walked away. He had to. He heard Jack saying something in an angry voice, but a glance back told him Sam was stopping the other man from following him.
He slammed the door on the way out.
**
It was dark when he went back. He stood inside the mudroom and listened to the sounds inside the cabin. It wasn’t really very late, but the main living room of the house was dark except for the small, lone lamp they left on during the night for navigational purposes. The bedroom door was mostly closed, a faint sliver of light showing from between the frame and the door itself. He could hear the occasional low murmur of voice from within. Daniel could smell the lasagna that had obviously been made for dinner. It was the only thing Sam could make really well, and he loved it.
She was always the best peacemaker of the three of them. He and Jack would rub each other into husks without her. Sometimes she worried about them, he knew. He’d catch her watching them sometimes, bottom lip firmly between her teeth, eyes sliding over both of them, a troubled expression. It then made him worry. If he and Jack ever walked away from each other, what would she do? She’d have to choose. Sometimes he wasn’t at all sure that he’d be the one she’d choose. Sometimes when he watched her and Jack together and saw how soft Jack could be with her, how affectionate, it made him nervous. Jack could be that way with him as well, but… it was more fire and ice instead of a steadfast heat.
Daniel checked the oven. There was a covered plate inside with a slice of the lasagna on it. He cut himself a good-sized chunk of bread and poured the last of the red wine to have with it. He ate slowly thinking about the timeline and what his life was like there. And about a wife he’d never met.
He loved both Jack and Sam. He loved them more than anyone else he’d ever met in this life, but he still felt like this life was… wrong. He wasn’t meant to be here. He was meant to be with them, he felt that… but none of them was meant to be here. For good or bad, they’d set certain events into motion in their former lives, and now they had to see that through. There were no free rides in life. Not really. Who knew what the consequences of their actions had cost others? He couldn’t sit idle and let his mistakes ride. He couldn’t be that selfish.
He rinsed his plate and leaned against the kitchen counter in the dark, finishing his glass of wine. His life had been one small failure after another. He lost his parents. He lost his grandfather. He lost his job and his credibility. Most of the time he felt like a stranger on his own planet. But not with them. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Not since Sam Carter had smiled at him across a room deep inside Cheyenne Mountain. Not since Jack O’Neill’s dark eyes had pierced right through him from across a broken down heap of a boat.
He’d been surprised when he kissed Sam on a hill above Jack’s marina, and she had kissed him back. He’d been surprised the first time he and Jack had had serious eye contact and it had jolted him to the bone. He’d been less surprised when they all ended up in bed together. It had seemed logical to him after a time. He’d studied many different sorts of societies over his career. He’d tried things he never thought he’d ever try. This… wasn’t as surprising to him as the thought of a wife was. A wife he’d been cheated of when his other self had been party to screwing up the timeline.
Daniel finally braced himself to push the door open to the bedroom and show himself, although he was fairly certain they’d known he was home and were simply allowing him to approach them in his own time. He was feeling calmer but a little desperate that their window of opportunity in which to fix the timeline was growing smaller.
Sam and Jack were standing in an embrace next to the bed. Jack was shirtless, his back to Daniel, his mouth hard and long on Sam’s. Daniel watched her hands sliding up Jack’s back, following the ridge of his spine. She was in those ragged flannel sleep pants she’d had for years, Jack’s hands on her waist under the thin tank top she wore for bed.
He felt a twinge of jealousy and irritation. They couldn’t have been that worried about him. He’d embraced this non-traditional relationship from the start, seeing it as a way for all of them to be happy. For the most part, it was the happiest he’d ever been in his life, but sometimes it was hard. Sometimes he wished he could have Sam back, just her and him. Sometimes he wanted Jack, wondered if things would be smoother between them if they had only each other to concentrate on. Sometimes he was deathly afraid that they’d realize how good they were together and go off and leave him alone. Or worse, that they’d keep him around out of some sort of sense of obligation, and he’d watch them grow closer and closer while they subconsciously shut him out.
He cleared his throat.
“Daniel,” Sam smiled at him, relief bright in her eyes. Daniel felt that trepidation fade away, replaced by an overwhelming affection. He missed them. Even after a few hours, he missed them.
Sam slid into his arms, burying her face in his neck. Daniel smiled, feeling a little flush of embarrassment at the knowledge that she’d been worried about him. He glanced at Jack who stood apart from them, arms folded over his bare chest, eyes dark and serious.
“Sorry I made you worry,” Daniel murmured, eyes locked with Jack, hands soothing up and down Sam’s back.
There was a flicker in Jack’s eyes that only showed itself for one brief moment. Then the dark glitter was back. “Are you all finished with your tantrum then?”
Daniel stiffened. He wasn’t far enough away from the argument that afternoon to be on a slow burn. Anger flared instantly.
Sam’s fingers twisted in his shirt and held, even as she moved to his side so she could see both of them. “So help me God, I’m going to kill you both…” Daniel heard her mutter.
“No,” Daniel stated, knowing he was doing his own part to fan the flames and not caring. “I’m not.”
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” Jack’s voice rose.
“Why do you have to be so selfish?” Daniel matched him.
Sam tore her hands from Daniel’s shirt in disgust, and plopped down on the side of the bed, glaring at both of them. “Why do I always have to pick up the pieces around here?”
They both glanced at her and then each other. The room was silent and tension-filled for a long moment.
Daniel took a deep breath. “What about Teal’c?” He asked.
“What about him?” Jack’s voice was tight.
“Right now he’s still a slave to the Goa’uld. It was our appearance in his life that changed all that. We can’t just leave him there without any hope.”
“We have no way to find the gate, Daniel. What are we supposed to do?”
Daniel threw his hands in the air, voice incredulous. “Try!?”
“Daniel… “
“This isn’t just about me, Jack! This is about the entire world. Hell, the fate of mankind!”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Jack was being long-suffering now. Daniel’s whole body tightened, his hands curling into fists at his sides. Jack studied him and then deliberately lowered his voice. “Look Daniel, even if we could find the gate, how do we know this is the right time to do anything? We could just make things worse.”
“Worse than being enslaved or wiped out by the Goa’uld?”
“There’s no indication that will ever happen.”
“There’s no indication that it won’t!”
Jack glared. “Well a decided lack of snakes of in our heads seems to qualify!”
“This is not optional, Jack! We have to do this.” Why did he have to be so deliberately dense? It was infuriating!
Jack’s jaw flexed and he swallowed hard in anger. He looked away from Daniel, seeming to gather himself together. When he met Daniel’s eyes again, his gaze was piercing and his words were clipped and short. “Daniel, the fact of the matter is that you don’t know the exact location of the gate. We have no way of finding it without one of those D…R… “ He shook his head, annoyed, and then glanced at Sam, who was now lying on her back on the bed, arms spread helplessly to the sides as she stared up at the ceiling and listened to them.
“DHD,” she answered without looking, even though he hadn’t asked the question yet.
“Yeah, that. A DHD thing,” Jack continued on, eyes back on Daniel. “If I go to the Air Force now, they’ll take that information, maybe check it out, maybe not. Either way, there’s a real possibility we’ll be cut out of the loop. President Kinsey has made his wishes on the stargate situation crystal clear.”
“Then we have to change his mind.”
Jack laughed at that. “You are such a dreamer,” he said, shaking his head. “Whether you like it or not, we’re in a holding pattern right now. Can’t we just drop this until it actually matters?”
Sam sat up again, eyes darting between them, hopeful.
Daniel stared at him. “And then what happens when we do find the gate? You find another excuse to get out of this?”
Sam flopped back down with a groan.
“I’m not trying to get out of this,” Jack growled. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From the Air Force, from yourself, from this nutty plan you’re obsessed with that doesn’t have a chance in hell of working!”
Sam stirred on the bed. “We don’t have an actual plan yet, do we?”
Jack pointed at Sam. “Exactly.”
“Not helping, Sam,” Daniel seethed.
Her patience had apparently run out for either of them though. “I’m just saying… we don’t actually have a plan yet. We are not ready to do anything until we find the gate. If Jack doesn’t want to talk to the Air Force about it, we could always do it on our own.”
“You will not!” Jack’s gaze turned furious as he locked onto Sam.
“You’re not leaving us much of a choice,” Daniel said quietly, his anger receding to a simmer now that Jack was showing some real emotion.
“Daniel… “ Jack glared at him, eyes frustrated, fearful, angry and an inch away from losing it. He ran lean fingers into his salt and pepper hair and made a disgruntled sound. “Jesus Christ… I can’t deal with this anymore tonight.”
“Of course,” Daniel said sarcastically. He couldn’t resist trying to get one more jab in. “Jack’s sick of talking, so let’s just shelve everything and never speak of it again.”
“Daniel, it’s getting late. We’re not doing anything about anything tonight. He’s right… this can wait.” It was Sam glaring sullenly at him this time, and that added an extra kick to his already aching heart.
“Sam!”
“We need to think about this. We need to plan. We can’t just run off half-cocked here. Too much is at stake.” She stood, reaching for him. He backed away.
“Let’s just stop it for tonight, okay? None of us should go to bed angry at each other.”
“Too late.” Daniel muttered. He brushed by Jack to grab his pillow from the bed and one of the thick blankets stacked on a dresser.
“Daniel,” Sam’s voice was pleading and upset. He ignored her and closed the bedroom door behind himself as he left. She didn’t follow him.
**
Sam
She watched the door close behind Daniel with a resigned ache. Jack was right; he was so damn stubborn. He didn’t know when to stop. On the other hand… she turned around to face Jack. Jack knew exactly how to get to Daniel and drive him nuts, and he rarely restrained that talent in an argument.
“Oh, don’t you start now,” Jack warned her, dark eyes catching the look on her face.
“He has a right to be upset,” she declared. “You agreed to help us with the Air Force part of things and now you’re backing off.”
“I’m not backing off of anything. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to go to them with this. Not right now.”
She just stared at him.
He sighed. “Sam, you’re the one I rely on to be objective about this whole thing. Don’t lose that.”
“I haven’t lost that, Jack. You’re posturing here. There’s something else going on. Why don’t you want this to go any further?”
“Posturing?”
“You heard me.”
“Sam.” He approached her, hands on his lean hips. “What are the odds of finding a needle in a haystack?”
“Jack… stop putting me between you two.”
“You are between us. That’s what this is. If two of us have a problem, the other one is in the middle. We’re all invested in each other.”
“You’re trying to make me choose sides.”
“I’m just asking you a question.”
Sam sighed and bit her lip and stared into the dark brown eyes. Jack wasn’t above manipulation, she knew that. But she also knew he did care about her. And Daniel. They just weren’t going to succeed without Jack’s help. “It depends on how big the haystack is,” she finally answered.
“Say… about as big as Antarctica.”
“The odds would be astronomical,” she admitted quietly.
He walked up to her, buried long fingers in the hair at her temples and kissed her on the forehead. “Trust me,” he murmured.
She did. She slid her arms around his narrow waist and buried her face in his bare shoulder. “You two kill me when you fight like that,” she said against his skin, her voice muffled.
His chest jerked with a soundless chuckle. “We only mean to kill each other. Not you.”
“I’d prefer it if neither of you was grievously wounded, thank you very much.”
He pulled her head back and kissed her on the mouth. “Let him cool off until tomorrow. Come to bed.”
He was hard to resist. There was still an ache inside that didn’t want to rest until Daniel was beside her again, but the tension that had been coiling there relaxed a bit as she watched Jack slide his jeans off and climb into the bed. There was a familiar feeling as she turned the light off and climbed in beside him. Early on, when they’d first moved into this cabin together, Daniel had gone through a strange phase. Maybe it had been because the translations had been frustrating him at the time. Maybe it was because they’d had to adapt to Jack being in their lives and in their bed. Whatever the reason, there’d been a few months when Daniel had frequently spent the night on the sofa, usually after they’d watched the tape of SG-1 again. The memory of a wife he’d never known but had obviously loved so much had been- and still was- difficult for him. More than one night he simply didn’t want their company, and he’d leave them alone to sleep by himself, alone with his thoughts.
He’d seemed distant from both of them during that time. During the days as well as the nights. She’d known he had to work through it himself, but it had frightened her a little bit. She’d been sort of afraid they’d wake up one morning to find him gone.
But he’d stayed, and eventually he’d returned to them as intimately as before. Her and Jack had grown close during that time though. When Daniel retreated from them, they retreated into each other. Even now, Sam felt a slow heat at the thought of it. Where Daniel was quietly intimate and tactile and passionate, Jack was harder and more sexual and determined to pull the response he wanted from her. He was less inclined to be as giving as Daniel was in bed, but his confidence more than made up for that. She couldn’t help but respond explosively to him.
And together? Jesus Christ… how did she end up with both of them? Her whole life was spent quietly learning. She’d never been the class clown or the prom princess. Half the time she’d been the Invisible Girl. There’d been a few men, and women, who’d taken the time to look past the glasses and the stacks of books and who hadn’t been fooled by the blushing and the nervous chattering, but none of them had been like Jack or Daniel.
They had changed her life.
She slid close to Jack under the sheets, the room seeming too quiet without Daniel’s deep breaths. Jack turned toward her and she felt his hand slide over her hip. His face was shadowed in the darkness, the moonlight reflecting dimly off his skin and revealing only the barest glint of eye.
“Sam,” he said softly, fingers curling around her hip beneath the sheets. “Promise me you and Daniel won’t try anything with this stargate thing without me.”
She didn’t say anything for a while, trying to read his shadowed eyes and see his intent. “You’ll help us when the time comes, right?”
“I will. I just… until then, can’t we just be happy with this?” His hand gave her hip a squeeze. She knew what he meant.
“It might be even better in that other reality,” she offered. She felt his dismay rather than saw it. “What?” she asked.
“You really think that it’s like this between the three of us in that other reality?”
She hesitated. “We don’t know, Jack.”
“I know,” he stated. “You and I are both officers in the Air Force. Trust me, nothing like this is happening between any of us.”
Sam felt herself sink into that same shadow of despair. “We don’t know, Jack. Maybe it’s different from what you think it is.”
“It’s not. I know myself. I watched myself on that tape. There’s nothing like that going on.”
She closed her eyes briefly and then shifted her head on the pillow. “Is that why you’re so against us doing this now?”
“That’s part of it,” he admitted. “The other part is that I think you’re both two beers short of a six pack and none of this is going to work. What’s done is done. We ought to just sit tight and enjoy it while we can.”
Sam huffed out a laugh, turning her face into her pillow to muffle the sound. Daniel was hurting in the other room, she didn’t want him to hurt more thinking her and Jack were having a grand old time without him.
“I like hearing you laugh, Carter,” Jack said, reverting back to the name he used to use before they all fell into bed together.
“Jack,” she said soberly, bringing a hand up to rub the pads of her fingertips over the roughness of his jaw. “You know why we have to do this, right?”
He stared at her silently for a moment, eyes closing briefly when she ran one finger over his lips. “Yes,” he whispered. “But I sure as hell don’t have to get all excited about it.”
Sam smiled. Jack being Jack was something she was certain she found just as wonderful and frustrating in the other reality as she did here. She leaned forward and kissed him lightly. As she pulled back, he moved quickly forward, pushing her onto her back, pressing his mouth against hers. She took a moment to savor his warm weight on top of her, his long fingers in her hair and the easy, deep kiss that was never too hard. He gave a quick kiss to the side of her neck before pulling back slightly to meet her gaze in the dark.
“You want to, uh… “ It was a question.
She hesitated, briefly. “Not with Daniel out there so upset.” This was different than Daniel deciding he wanted to sleep apart from them to think about Sha’re.
Jack took a long, slow breath and slid off of her. “Alright.”
“Let’s just get some sleep.” She turned and slid a hand across his chest and into the silver-tinged hair there.
**
She woke a few hours later, in the dead of night. Shadows shifted on the wall in the dim rectangle of light from the lone bedroom window. The tree outside swayed in the wind, branches tapping lightly together. She wondered if it was going to storm and maybe the distant thunder had woken her.
Beside her, Jack lay sleeping on his stomach; long, slow breaths sounding loud in the silence of the house. She shut her eyes to try and sink back into sleep, but the remains of the argument earlier that night crept into her mind. She blinked at the ceiling. Sometimes this whole thing was so hard. It was difficult enough to argue with one person, but when it was two people pulling you in opposite directions…
She slid quietly out of bed and made her way to the bedroom door. She made a quick stop in the bathroom before padding out to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Daniel was a dark shape on the sofa, blanket up to his waist, bare chest pale above.
She filled a glass with water and then opened a drawer and found the aspirin. When she popped the cap and tilted the plastic bottle, tiny tablets sliding along the sides, a voice called quietly from the sofa, “Bring me a couple of those, would you?”
She didn’t answer, but she shook out another two pills and carried them into the living room with the glass. Daniel propped himself up on one elbow and watched her as she sat on the coffee table in front of him. She took two of the aspirin along with a few swallows of the water and then she set the other two pills in Daniel’s palm. He took them, took the water from her, set the glass on the table when he was done.
“Headache?” He asked her softly. There was more swaying light and shadows in here. Trees surrounded the cabin. She suddenly saw the blue of his eyes as a flash of lightning, still distant, came through the window.
She shrugged. “Getting there.”
“Sorry,” he murmured, eyes concerned.
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I should have helped you argue with Jack. You were right, even if you were being a jackass about it. I just…”
“A jackass?” He tried to sound indignant, but he was sleepy. Sam could see the corners of his mouth turning up.
She smiled at him. “Pains in my ass, the both of you,” she said, drawing a grin out of him by using one of Jack’s favorite phrases.
He yawned and slid against the back of the sofa, holding the blanket up in invitation. “C’mon.”
She slid in beside him, turning her back to him and feeling his warmth seep around her as he brought the blanket down and rested one heavy arm over her waist. She settled in, waiting for the lightning to filter in through the slats of the window blind and feeling Daniel press his lips to the top of her head.
“You okay?” She asked in a whisper.
“Yeah,” he answered, voice low in her ear. “But I’m not going to give up on the stargate.”
“I know. We don’t expect you to.”
“Jack wants me to.”
“But he knows you won’t.” She found his hand around her waist and smoothed her thumb over the backs of his fingers. “He knows it’s the right thing to do, Daniel. He just doesn’t want to give this up.”
Daniel sighed behind her and didn’t say anything to that. He buried his face in her hair and then her shoulder. She knew they were both thinking about Jack’s past and all the things he’d lost. Was a little bit of happiness for any of them too much to ask for?
**
She woke again to a voice in her ear.
“Sam?”
Jack was kneeling in front of the sofa, covered in the dark blue light of dawn. Early dawn. The room was still blanketed in shadows. She blinked at him for a few moments, the events of the night before coming into focus.
“Whatsa matter?” She mumbled, shifting her hips, as her stiff back became known. As nice as it was sleeping so close to a warm Daniel all night long, the cramped quarters had been a painful trade-off.
“Come on. Come back to bed,” Jack said quietly. He reached over her to slide his fingers into Daniel’s tousled hair. “Daniel. Wake up.”
She felt Daniel move behind her and his arm tightened around her as he woke. “Hmmm?”
Jack looked at them, brows furrowed in apprehension. He began pulling at both of them. “Come on. Come back to bed. I want you back there.”
Sam sat up sleepily, feeling a bit of worry as Jack pulled her to her feet and then leaned down to pull Daniel up. He pulled Daniel in close, hands on the younger man’s head bringing them forehead to forehead as he murmured, “I’m sorry, Daniel. Just come back to bed.”
“It’s okay, Jack.” Daniel’s voice was deep and rough from sleep. He glanced at Sam. She was starting to shuffle away toward the bedroom when she heard the thunder outside. Her gaze immediately flew to Daniel. He met her eyes in sudden understanding. Jack was herding both of them toward the bedroom, and Daniel turned to him. “Was it the nightmares again?”
Jack hesitated and looked terminally pained and a bit embarrassed before whispering, “Yes.”
It explained things. Sam felt an ache in the pit of her stomach. She knew Daniel was feeling it too. The nightmares didn’t happen often, but when they did, they usually came during times of stress or sometimes when it stormed all night long. Jack hadn’t told them anything in depth to explain exactly why they happened, but he hadn’t needed to. They knew his military history. He always said there were thousands of guys out there who had it worse than he did, and it was true. But she didn’t care about that. She cared about him.
She leaned into his side and let him lead her and Daniel back into the bedroom.
They tumbled back into the big bed as a soft rain began tapping against the roof and the window. Sam inhaled deeply as her head hit the pillow, smelling Jack and Daniel and her own shampoo and the familiar detergent that laced all their clothes. It made her feel… content.
Beside her, Jack had pulled Daniel close and was kissing him with an intensity that made her shiver. Daniel’s back was to her, and she watched Jack’s hand move from Daniel’s nape, down along the line of his spine and come to rest on his hip. She tucked an arm beneath her head and smiled faintly, eyes following the curve of muscle in Daniel’s shoulders, in Jack’s arms. She heard Daniel gasp just a bit as Jack rolled him over onto his back, thigh nudging between Daniel’s legs, making room for himself. Daniel opened his legs wide enough to cradle Jack’s lean hips against his. Jack kissed him lightly, murmuring apologies, stroking them both by rocking their hips together in a slow, faint motion.
Sam bit her lip. It was a sweet torture, watching them together. Part of her was captivated by them. By their beauty and motion and her own attraction to both of them. Part of her was a little jealous and wished they’d turn their attention to her. It reminded her of the beginning, when they’d finally decided this was the only relationship they all wanted. Her and Daniel together had been easy. Her and Jack even more so because Jack was so sure of what he wanted. But it had taken Daniel and Jack some time to work things out. Daniel’s experience with other men had been almost nil, Jack’s even less. For a time they had focused in on each other, and she’d suffered a crisis of confidence that had hit bone deep and shaken her. She’d found herself looking for excuses to come home late from work so she wouldn’t have to find them in bed together without her.
Eventually, they’d figured out what was going on with her and proved her wrong in a rather spectacular fashion. And within a few months, Daniel’s retreat from them during his Sha’re Nights notwithstanding, everything had eventually smoothed out. Still… sometimes that small thread of worry still wormed itself into her psyche when she saw the heat between them, the desperation. It had always been her and Daniel, ever since the beginning. She knew Jack worried about that, just as she worried about this.
She watched as Jack pushed himself up onto stiff arms, head ducked low to keep his mouth on Daniel’s. Daniel’s hands were holding Jack’s hips lightly above his. She could see them both getting hard and it made her mouth run dry.
She thought about slipping quietly away, protesting that she wasn’t in the mood, letting them reconnect and make up alone. But then Jack raised his head and looked at her, and she knew instantly from his gaze that she wasn’t going anywhere. He stretched one arm out to cup the back of her head and pull her gently toward them. She went, shifted her body next to Daniel’s. Jack kissed her with that same intensity he’d just employed on Daniel. It was deep and demanding and sort of overwhelming in that way that only Jack had. He directed her head to Daniel’s chest and let her rest there while he moved his mouth with hers. She felt Daniel’s hand smooth her hair back then slide down to slip under the hem of her shirt, fingers stroking small circles on her stomach.
God.
Jack kept one hand on her even as he finally slid to Daniel’s side across from her. He kept eye contact with her, let her turn onto her side, leaned in to kiss her across Daniel’s chest. He pulled back then, let her lean down and kiss Daniel. Daniel slid his hand around her waist and then further up her shirt. He brushed his palm up and down her back as his tongue slid against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her mouth. “Love you.”
She echoed it back to him and dragged her lips over his stubble-roughened jaw to suck lightly at his neck. He groaned. Jack fell in on the other side of him, and together, he and Sam kissed and licked and sucked their way down Daniel’s body. Daniel shifted beneath them, breath hard and occasionally tinged with the hint of voice.
This had always been Jack’s way of apologizing, with or without the whispered words of “I’m sorry.”
Her hand tangled with Jack’s as they both grasped the waistband of Daniel’s boxers and pushed them down his legs. As Jack disposed of them completely, she slid a palm down the length of Daniel’s cock. He was hard and a little wet at the tip, and she swirled her thumb in it making him inhale suddenly.
Jack was leaning over him to her now, tugging at her flannel pants and her shirt, trying to de-clothe them all. She quickly slid out of them, watching him do the same. It was apparent that he was interested in calling the shots this time. One look in his eyes told her he needed it. And…
Oh.
Oh. This wasn’t about apologizing to Daniel. It was, but… it was more about reassuring Jack. She saw it now. Knew it for sure when he huddled up against Daniel and whispered in his ear, and Daniel licked his lips and nodded and then turned on his side, facing her. Jack slipped down behind him.
Neither of them was overly in love with anal sex. She’d read somewhere that even a lot of gay men weren’t into it. It wasn’t for everyone. Oral sex was easier. Daniel had to be in the mood, but when it worked, it really worked. She grabbed the bottle sitting next to the lamp on the nightstand. Jack took it from her, and she moved down onto her side in Daniel’s arms, slowly sucking his bottom lip against her teeth. He kissed her eagerly, and she felt his leg move over hers, heel hooking around her calf. He was preparing for Jack, but she felt encompassed by him.
Jack pulled her hand from Daniel’s hip, and she felt the cool liquid of the lube on her fingers. He pulled her hand further, guiding her, and she wrapped her hand around his cock and slowly worked him until he was slick and smooth. Daniel was groaning against her neck as Jack’s fingers slipped in and out of him.
Then Jack was pushing inside him, not with fingers but with cock, and Sam backed off a bit, as much as Daniel would allow, and watched as both of them seemed to hold their breath in the gray light of a rainy dawn. Daniel shifted a bit, winced, his leg tightening around hers, and then his eyes were closing and his teeth were sinking into his bottom lip. Jack was forgetting to breathe. She could tell by the way the breath shot out of him every few seconds. She leaned up and kissed him, ran her tongue between his lips and felt him shift his attention and focus. He kissed her back and then let her pull away with a groan of his own. He pressed his mouth to Daniel’s shoulder, eyes closed tightly as his hips moved forward.
Sam settled down and concentrated on Daniel, hesitating to lick one taut nipple before he slid his arms around her and brought her in tight against him. She felt him rigid and unyielding and bare against her lower belly. Jack’s thrusts pushed Daniel against her, and Daniel held her fast and tight; arms around her ribs, leg hooked behind hers, his dick sliding between them.
It didn’t take long.
“Jack… “ Daniel’s moan was desperate and warning. Sam eased back, even as Daniel’s embrace turned to iron. She slipped a hand down between them to pull at him firmly, and he bucked against her, muscles tight. Jack buried himself deep and held there, mouth pressed against Daniel’s shoulder, breath hard, eyes open and holding Sam’s with blatant arousal.
Daniel shivered and came, arms clutching at Sam, pushing into her hand and then back against Jack, his breath exploding from his lungs in excitement.
Jack held him tightly as he came down, still hard and buried deep. Sam could see the tenseness of Jack’s jaw and shoulders. He was so close. It would take so little. Daniel’s breath was slowing between them, so she threaded her fingers through Jack’s short hair and kissed him. She felt Daniel sigh and move, and then Jack moaned, a rumble deep in his chest, as Daniel rocked his hips.
She felt fingers slide between her legs and move deliberately through the wetness to slip against her clit. She thought they were Daniel’s, but her mind started fogging up a bit. She had Jack’s tongue in her mouth and could feel him getting closer. He was giving a soft grunt against her lips every time Daniel pushed back against him, squeezing his cock tight again. She was starting to feel that tight line of pleasure coiling between her legs and spreading into her belly.
With a hoarse grunt, Jack came, mouth dropping away from hers as he pressed hard into Daniel and gritted his teeth. She dropped back to watch him, caught by the fierceness of his expression. Daniel slowed his movements and finally stopped. Jack collapsed against him, panting.
They all lay there for a long moment, giving Jack time to catch his breath. Sam watched him, eyes wanting to close as Daniel’s thumb slowly, slowly circled her nipple. When Jack disengaged himself and rolled onto his back with a sigh, Daniel rolled forward on top of her. She was fairly certain he was well and truly spent for the next few hours, but fucking wasn’t his intention anyway. He licked delicately at her nipples before moving lower and mumbling against her hip, “Your turn, Sam.”
She sucked in a breath as he settled his shoulders between her legs and his breath blew warm against the inside of her thighs. His thumb slid in and moved slickly, circling her clit. His tongue followed. She pressed her head back into the pillow with a whimper. He knew how to play her, adjusted his strokes minutely as she reacted, and soon she was lifting her hips against his mouth, wanting more.
She opened her eyes once to find Jack watching her intently, his eyes glued to her face. It was both embarrassing and arousing and she felt another moan rising in her throat. The mattress shifted and then Jack’s mouth was closing warmly over one hardened nipple, warm hands coming in around to lightly squeeze and caress. She had never gotten used to this, both of their mouths on her at once. It was so… much.
When Daniel slid two fingers inside of her with agonizing slowness, she broke. She arched up and shuddered against Daniel’s mouth, her fingers sliding heavily into Jack’s hair, fingertips scratching against his scalp. She moaned and wasn’t sure if she called one or both of their names. It didn’t matter.
Their hands stroked her soothingly until she relaxed lethargically between them. It was warm in the bed and she felt a fine mist of sweat on her upper lip and her forehead. She was lying on the wet spot. She frowned. More than one wet spot. They hadn’t taken care this time; it was messier than usual.
“I’ll change the sheets later,” Jack promised before she could say anything. She had to smile at how he’d read her mind.
“Thanks,” she murmured, closing her eyes to listen to the rain patter against the roof.
“Jack… “ Daniel’s voice was hesitant from her other side.
“And… we’ll talk about it later, Daniel. I don’t want to fight.” Jack’s voice was weary, tired. “We’re on the same side, I promise.”
There was a short, heavy silence before Daniel relaxed beside her. “Okay. Okay.”
“Trust me,” Jack said softly.
“I do,” Daniel answered just as quietly. She heard them kiss above her somewhere.
Things were right again. For now anyway. There’d come a time when they’d have to think about stargates and timelines and maybe giving up what they had, but not now. Right now they were sated and loved and forgiven. She couldn’t ask for anything more.
The rain lulled her to sleep.
~tbc~
Part 5
Backwinded [Sam and Daniel]
By Jennghis Kahn
Rating- ADULT
Category- Romance
Pairing- Sam/Jack/Daniel
Spoilers- Moebius
Warnings - Slash and het and threesome.
Daniel
“There’s a second gate.”
He watched as Sam hesitated over her book. He waited for her mind to catch up, smiling faintly because he could almost see the gears turning and clicking and whining into high speed in her head. Her big, blue eyes met his over the library table. He licked his lips and tamped down his excitement.
“What?” She whispered it through a dry mouth, proving that she’d heard him the first time.
He nodded at her, used the pad of his index finger to push his glasses up further onto the bridge of his nose. “There’s a second gate.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know?”
He pointed to the photos in front of him. Glyphs carved into a tablet. “It took me forever to figure out, but I… “ He trailed away and his eyes rolled upwards as he tried to get his realities straight. “The other me, I mean… arranged the original information in mixed languages and codes, but the arrangement itself was meant to be a code all its own. Just for this express purpose… to compensate for any lost text.”
Sam’s brows furrowed together. “Like… layers?”
Daniel pressed his lips together, thinking. “Mmm… more like a repeating loop. Like a tape that has two tracks on it. If you listen to one speaker, you’ll hear part of the message clearly. If you listen to both, you’ll have words on top of words and you can’t put anything together in a linear way.”
“Wow.” Sam was staring at him, awe in her eyes. She was usually the existential geek of the two of them. “How long did that take you, uh him, no…you… to do that?”
Daniel smiled. He really did love it when even she couldn’t keep track of the timeline. “I don’t know. Quite a while. Probably less time than it took me to figure it out though.”
Sam was fascinated now. “Is that common in archeology? All that coding? Wait… I want to see it. Show me how-“
“Sam!” He realized he’d said her name a little too loudly when Esther shushed him. He lowered his head a bit and grinned at Sam. “Don’t you want to know where the second gate is?”
Sam winced a bit and nodded sheepishly. Daniel found it amusing and a bit endearing that she got so caught up in the process she forgot about the results. “Sorry,” she murmured.
He slid his foot alongside hers under the table. He knew how her brain worked. He didn’t want her any other way. “It’s somewhere very cold…”
She eyed him. “You’re going to make me guess, aren’t you?”
He thought about this for a moment and then nodded enthusiastically. It’d taken him the better part of a year to figure this out. He wanted to savor it a bit longer. He was the only person on the planet right now who knew what he knew.
Sam sighed. “Canada?”
“No.”
“Siberia?”
“No.”
She eyed him again. “Daniel, are you going to give me more hints or will we be at this all day?”
“There are a lot of penguins living there.”
She blinked at him. “You’re not serious.”
He nodded.
“Why would they put a gate there?”
He shrugged.
“There’s no people in Antarctica. Never has been. Why in the world would they set up a gate there?”
Daniel frowned. She was starting to miss the point again. He started gathering his files together. “I don’t know, Sam. Come on… we have to tell Jack.”
She jumped up with him, shoving the book she’d been reading into the book bag she carried. “I can’t believe you did it!”
He frowned and his eyes slid sideways toward her. She backpedaled. “Oh, um, no, that’s not what I meant. I believe you did it. I just… “ She trailed away, looking at him helplessly as he stepped toward her.
He hugged her suddenly. He felt her relax into him and her breath puff out in pleasure against his neck. “Finally,” he said softly. “Finally.”
**
Jack was noticeably less enthused.
His eyes moved from one to the other of them, and his tone was suspicious. “What do you mean there’s a ‘second gate’?”
“A second gate, Jack.” Daniel floundered for the right words to make him understand. “A, ah, another one. The Goa’uld apparently put two on Earth. At least that’s what I, um, just told myself on the tablet.”
Jack’s forehead wrinkled a bit. He looked vaguely like he was in mild pain. “And you know where this second gate is?”
“Antarctica!” Sam blurted out excitedly. Daniel shot an accusing glance at her, robbed of his big moment. Sam bit her lip. “Sorry.”
Jack waved his hands and shook his head. “Okay, wait a minute! The aliens put a second stargate in Antarctica? Why?”
“Who cares?” Daniel exclaimed in frustration. “Maybe it was a strategic decision. Maybe they wanted to make snow angels… I don’t care! The point is, there’s a second gate there!”
“Snow angels?” Jack’s brows shot up. Daniel felt his blood pressure rise along with them. Jack was deliberately focusing on the wrong thing. It was his way of avoiding issues he didn’t want to deal with, and, while Daniel had a certain understanding of that, it still irritated him to no end. He was saved the inevitable argument though, when Sam stepped between them.
“Jack, it makes a strange sort of sense, doesn’t it? Maybe at some point, the Goa’uld felt the first gate was in danger, so they put one in an area of the world that wouldn’t attract any real attention.”
Jack shrugged in agreement, reluctantly. Daniel let his fingers curl around Sam’s arm in thanks. She gave him a faint smile of encouragement that made him almost ache. He loved Jack, he did. Jack was strong and flawed, and he wore his heart on his sleeve more often than he realized. Having Jack’s dedication was a heady thing. But Sam… Sam was in a part of him that no one else could touch. There was a symbiosis between Sam and him that he’d never had before. Not with anyone.
“I found it, Jack.” Daniel really wanted Jack to be happy about that.
Jack studied him a moment, dark eyes giving nothing away. “Fine,” he finally said. “Where is it?”
“I just-“
Jack cut him off. “No, Daniel. I mean where is it in Antarctica? Do you have any idea how big that place is?”
Daniel felt the words dry up in his mouth and his frustration grow. “Oh, uh… I don’t know exactly where.”
Jack lifted his brows and shook his head.
“Well, there’s got to be a way to detect it,” Sam argued. “It must give off some sort of energy reading.”
“IF it’s there, it’s probably buried in 50 feet of ice, Carter.” Jack narrowed his eyes at her.
Daniel swallowed down his ever-growing irritation and met Sam’s eyes. If anyone could help him with this part of it, it was Sam. “Would it have to be activated to give off energy?”
Sam chewed the inside of her lip, eyes pensive. “Yeahhhh… it probably gives off some sort of residual energy field even when it’s inactive, but I doubt it’d be detectable. We’d need a way to ‘dial it up’, as you said on the tape. Once it’s activated, we could find it in all sorts of ways.”
Daniel felt his good mood plummet. “How the hell do we do that? We’d need another gate or one of those dialing devices from the tape.”
Sam was thinking furiously, but after a few moments had to shrug helplessly. “I don’t know, Daniel. We’d need a way to dial, that’s the bottom line. But you know the general area, right? We go back to the Air Force, and maybe they have a way. There are things we can try. Thermal imaging, seismic activity. All sorts of things.”
“The Air Force isn’t going to spend much time on that,” Jack said. Daniel looked up at him, watching Jack’s dark eyes slide from Sam to himself. He was starting to get an uneasy feeling about Jack now that things were coming together.
“Why not?”
“Daniel, you’re basing all of this on some ruins and a video tape that hasn’t really been all that accurate up to this point. Add into this the fact that President Kinsey is the one who put the stop on the stargate mission in the first place… and I’m not seeing this happening.”
Daniel tightened his jaw, irritation at Jack rising anew. “That’s why we came to you, Jack,” he said, pronouncing each word slowly and forcefully. “Sam and I do the bookwork, you handle the Air Force.”
Jack met his gaze with an intensity that Daniel had rarely seen. Neither of them spoke for a long moment and the air grew heavy.
“Don’t do this,” Sam warned them quietly. Daniel felt a rivulet of guilt at her words. He knew she hated it when he and Jack fought, but he really couldn’t let some things go, and it was rarely Jack who made the compromises.
“You haven’t got anything yet, Daniel,” Jack stated, eyes never leaving his.
“I’ve got enough,” Daniel answered. Beside him, Sam exhaled a frustrated sigh and lowered her head, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose.
“This is ridiculous,” Jack said. “You want them to dig up the gate, which is the entire reason we were able to screw up the timeline in the first place.”
“Jack.” Sam stared at him, eyes concerned. Daniel watched as they shared an equally powerful gaze.
“Listen to me,” Jack sighed. He held out a hand to each of them as if they might run in different directions and escape him. “This reality is good. It’s safe. There’s no gate. No way for those snakes to get to us. Daniel!” He raised a finger just as Daniel opened his mouth to dispute that statement. Daniel glared at him but closed his mouth. Jack continued, “We don’t know if they’ll come by ship someday, but we do know that if we uncover that gate and go through it, the snakes will know how far we’ve advanced and they will come.”
“Jack, they already know… “ Sam trailed away as Jack pinned her with a glare. “You promised,” she added weakly.
“My priorities have changed, and yours should have too.”
“Your priorities? How can your priority NOT be fixing the timeline that we messed up in the first place?” Daniel was seething now. He wanted to shake Jack until his eyes rattled.
Jack rounded on him. “Because my first priority is you! You and Sam and… THIS!” Jack motioned between the three of them. “Something you should be concerned about as well!”
Daniel blinked at him. He felt insulted and frustrated and anger bubbled up inside of him like lava. “The only thing I’m concerned about right now is that you don’t seem to give a damn!” He retorted.
He walked away. He had to. He heard Jack saying something in an angry voice, but a glance back told him Sam was stopping the other man from following him.
He slammed the door on the way out.
**
It was dark when he went back. He stood inside the mudroom and listened to the sounds inside the cabin. It wasn’t really very late, but the main living room of the house was dark except for the small, lone lamp they left on during the night for navigational purposes. The bedroom door was mostly closed, a faint sliver of light showing from between the frame and the door itself. He could hear the occasional low murmur of voice from within. Daniel could smell the lasagna that had obviously been made for dinner. It was the only thing Sam could make really well, and he loved it.
She was always the best peacemaker of the three of them. He and Jack would rub each other into husks without her. Sometimes she worried about them, he knew. He’d catch her watching them sometimes, bottom lip firmly between her teeth, eyes sliding over both of them, a troubled expression. It then made him worry. If he and Jack ever walked away from each other, what would she do? She’d have to choose. Sometimes he wasn’t at all sure that he’d be the one she’d choose. Sometimes when he watched her and Jack together and saw how soft Jack could be with her, how affectionate, it made him nervous. Jack could be that way with him as well, but… it was more fire and ice instead of a steadfast heat.
Daniel checked the oven. There was a covered plate inside with a slice of the lasagna on it. He cut himself a good-sized chunk of bread and poured the last of the red wine to have with it. He ate slowly thinking about the timeline and what his life was like there. And about a wife he’d never met.
He loved both Jack and Sam. He loved them more than anyone else he’d ever met in this life, but he still felt like this life was… wrong. He wasn’t meant to be here. He was meant to be with them, he felt that… but none of them was meant to be here. For good or bad, they’d set certain events into motion in their former lives, and now they had to see that through. There were no free rides in life. Not really. Who knew what the consequences of their actions had cost others? He couldn’t sit idle and let his mistakes ride. He couldn’t be that selfish.
He rinsed his plate and leaned against the kitchen counter in the dark, finishing his glass of wine. His life had been one small failure after another. He lost his parents. He lost his grandfather. He lost his job and his credibility. Most of the time he felt like a stranger on his own planet. But not with them. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Not since Sam Carter had smiled at him across a room deep inside Cheyenne Mountain. Not since Jack O’Neill’s dark eyes had pierced right through him from across a broken down heap of a boat.
He’d been surprised when he kissed Sam on a hill above Jack’s marina, and she had kissed him back. He’d been surprised the first time he and Jack had had serious eye contact and it had jolted him to the bone. He’d been less surprised when they all ended up in bed together. It had seemed logical to him after a time. He’d studied many different sorts of societies over his career. He’d tried things he never thought he’d ever try. This… wasn’t as surprising to him as the thought of a wife was. A wife he’d been cheated of when his other self had been party to screwing up the timeline.
Daniel finally braced himself to push the door open to the bedroom and show himself, although he was fairly certain they’d known he was home and were simply allowing him to approach them in his own time. He was feeling calmer but a little desperate that their window of opportunity in which to fix the timeline was growing smaller.
Sam and Jack were standing in an embrace next to the bed. Jack was shirtless, his back to Daniel, his mouth hard and long on Sam’s. Daniel watched her hands sliding up Jack’s back, following the ridge of his spine. She was in those ragged flannel sleep pants she’d had for years, Jack’s hands on her waist under the thin tank top she wore for bed.
He felt a twinge of jealousy and irritation. They couldn’t have been that worried about him. He’d embraced this non-traditional relationship from the start, seeing it as a way for all of them to be happy. For the most part, it was the happiest he’d ever been in his life, but sometimes it was hard. Sometimes he wished he could have Sam back, just her and him. Sometimes he wanted Jack, wondered if things would be smoother between them if they had only each other to concentrate on. Sometimes he was deathly afraid that they’d realize how good they were together and go off and leave him alone. Or worse, that they’d keep him around out of some sort of sense of obligation, and he’d watch them grow closer and closer while they subconsciously shut him out.
He cleared his throat.
“Daniel,” Sam smiled at him, relief bright in her eyes. Daniel felt that trepidation fade away, replaced by an overwhelming affection. He missed them. Even after a few hours, he missed them.
Sam slid into his arms, burying her face in his neck. Daniel smiled, feeling a little flush of embarrassment at the knowledge that she’d been worried about him. He glanced at Jack who stood apart from them, arms folded over his bare chest, eyes dark and serious.
“Sorry I made you worry,” Daniel murmured, eyes locked with Jack, hands soothing up and down Sam’s back.
There was a flicker in Jack’s eyes that only showed itself for one brief moment. Then the dark glitter was back. “Are you all finished with your tantrum then?”
Daniel stiffened. He wasn’t far enough away from the argument that afternoon to be on a slow burn. Anger flared instantly.
Sam’s fingers twisted in his shirt and held, even as she moved to his side so she could see both of them. “So help me God, I’m going to kill you both…” Daniel heard her mutter.
“No,” Daniel stated, knowing he was doing his own part to fan the flames and not caring. “I’m not.”
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” Jack’s voice rose.
“Why do you have to be so selfish?” Daniel matched him.
Sam tore her hands from Daniel’s shirt in disgust, and plopped down on the side of the bed, glaring at both of them. “Why do I always have to pick up the pieces around here?”
They both glanced at her and then each other. The room was silent and tension-filled for a long moment.
Daniel took a deep breath. “What about Teal’c?” He asked.
“What about him?” Jack’s voice was tight.
“Right now he’s still a slave to the Goa’uld. It was our appearance in his life that changed all that. We can’t just leave him there without any hope.”
“We have no way to find the gate, Daniel. What are we supposed to do?”
Daniel threw his hands in the air, voice incredulous. “Try!?”
“Daniel… “
“This isn’t just about me, Jack! This is about the entire world. Hell, the fate of mankind!”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Jack was being long-suffering now. Daniel’s whole body tightened, his hands curling into fists at his sides. Jack studied him and then deliberately lowered his voice. “Look Daniel, even if we could find the gate, how do we know this is the right time to do anything? We could just make things worse.”
“Worse than being enslaved or wiped out by the Goa’uld?”
“There’s no indication that will ever happen.”
“There’s no indication that it won’t!”
Jack glared. “Well a decided lack of snakes of in our heads seems to qualify!”
“This is not optional, Jack! We have to do this.” Why did he have to be so deliberately dense? It was infuriating!
Jack’s jaw flexed and he swallowed hard in anger. He looked away from Daniel, seeming to gather himself together. When he met Daniel’s eyes again, his gaze was piercing and his words were clipped and short. “Daniel, the fact of the matter is that you don’t know the exact location of the gate. We have no way of finding it without one of those D…R… “ He shook his head, annoyed, and then glanced at Sam, who was now lying on her back on the bed, arms spread helplessly to the sides as she stared up at the ceiling and listened to them.
“DHD,” she answered without looking, even though he hadn’t asked the question yet.
“Yeah, that. A DHD thing,” Jack continued on, eyes back on Daniel. “If I go to the Air Force now, they’ll take that information, maybe check it out, maybe not. Either way, there’s a real possibility we’ll be cut out of the loop. President Kinsey has made his wishes on the stargate situation crystal clear.”
“Then we have to change his mind.”
Jack laughed at that. “You are such a dreamer,” he said, shaking his head. “Whether you like it or not, we’re in a holding pattern right now. Can’t we just drop this until it actually matters?”
Sam sat up again, eyes darting between them, hopeful.
Daniel stared at him. “And then what happens when we do find the gate? You find another excuse to get out of this?”
Sam flopped back down with a groan.
“I’m not trying to get out of this,” Jack growled. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From the Air Force, from yourself, from this nutty plan you’re obsessed with that doesn’t have a chance in hell of working!”
Sam stirred on the bed. “We don’t have an actual plan yet, do we?”
Jack pointed at Sam. “Exactly.”
“Not helping, Sam,” Daniel seethed.
Her patience had apparently run out for either of them though. “I’m just saying… we don’t actually have a plan yet. We are not ready to do anything until we find the gate. If Jack doesn’t want to talk to the Air Force about it, we could always do it on our own.”
“You will not!” Jack’s gaze turned furious as he locked onto Sam.
“You’re not leaving us much of a choice,” Daniel said quietly, his anger receding to a simmer now that Jack was showing some real emotion.
“Daniel… “ Jack glared at him, eyes frustrated, fearful, angry and an inch away from losing it. He ran lean fingers into his salt and pepper hair and made a disgruntled sound. “Jesus Christ… I can’t deal with this anymore tonight.”
“Of course,” Daniel said sarcastically. He couldn’t resist trying to get one more jab in. “Jack’s sick of talking, so let’s just shelve everything and never speak of it again.”
“Daniel, it’s getting late. We’re not doing anything about anything tonight. He’s right… this can wait.” It was Sam glaring sullenly at him this time, and that added an extra kick to his already aching heart.
“Sam!”
“We need to think about this. We need to plan. We can’t just run off half-cocked here. Too much is at stake.” She stood, reaching for him. He backed away.
“Let’s just stop it for tonight, okay? None of us should go to bed angry at each other.”
“Too late.” Daniel muttered. He brushed by Jack to grab his pillow from the bed and one of the thick blankets stacked on a dresser.
“Daniel,” Sam’s voice was pleading and upset. He ignored her and closed the bedroom door behind himself as he left. She didn’t follow him.
**
Sam
She watched the door close behind Daniel with a resigned ache. Jack was right; he was so damn stubborn. He didn’t know when to stop. On the other hand… she turned around to face Jack. Jack knew exactly how to get to Daniel and drive him nuts, and he rarely restrained that talent in an argument.
“Oh, don’t you start now,” Jack warned her, dark eyes catching the look on her face.
“He has a right to be upset,” she declared. “You agreed to help us with the Air Force part of things and now you’re backing off.”
“I’m not backing off of anything. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to go to them with this. Not right now.”
She just stared at him.
He sighed. “Sam, you’re the one I rely on to be objective about this whole thing. Don’t lose that.”
“I haven’t lost that, Jack. You’re posturing here. There’s something else going on. Why don’t you want this to go any further?”
“Posturing?”
“You heard me.”
“Sam.” He approached her, hands on his lean hips. “What are the odds of finding a needle in a haystack?”
“Jack… stop putting me between you two.”
“You are between us. That’s what this is. If two of us have a problem, the other one is in the middle. We’re all invested in each other.”
“You’re trying to make me choose sides.”
“I’m just asking you a question.”
Sam sighed and bit her lip and stared into the dark brown eyes. Jack wasn’t above manipulation, she knew that. But she also knew he did care about her. And Daniel. They just weren’t going to succeed without Jack’s help. “It depends on how big the haystack is,” she finally answered.
“Say… about as big as Antarctica.”
“The odds would be astronomical,” she admitted quietly.
He walked up to her, buried long fingers in the hair at her temples and kissed her on the forehead. “Trust me,” he murmured.
She did. She slid her arms around his narrow waist and buried her face in his bare shoulder. “You two kill me when you fight like that,” she said against his skin, her voice muffled.
His chest jerked with a soundless chuckle. “We only mean to kill each other. Not you.”
“I’d prefer it if neither of you was grievously wounded, thank you very much.”
He pulled her head back and kissed her on the mouth. “Let him cool off until tomorrow. Come to bed.”
He was hard to resist. There was still an ache inside that didn’t want to rest until Daniel was beside her again, but the tension that had been coiling there relaxed a bit as she watched Jack slide his jeans off and climb into the bed. There was a familiar feeling as she turned the light off and climbed in beside him. Early on, when they’d first moved into this cabin together, Daniel had gone through a strange phase. Maybe it had been because the translations had been frustrating him at the time. Maybe it was because they’d had to adapt to Jack being in their lives and in their bed. Whatever the reason, there’d been a few months when Daniel had frequently spent the night on the sofa, usually after they’d watched the tape of SG-1 again. The memory of a wife he’d never known but had obviously loved so much had been- and still was- difficult for him. More than one night he simply didn’t want their company, and he’d leave them alone to sleep by himself, alone with his thoughts.
He’d seemed distant from both of them during that time. During the days as well as the nights. She’d known he had to work through it himself, but it had frightened her a little bit. She’d been sort of afraid they’d wake up one morning to find him gone.
But he’d stayed, and eventually he’d returned to them as intimately as before. Her and Jack had grown close during that time though. When Daniel retreated from them, they retreated into each other. Even now, Sam felt a slow heat at the thought of it. Where Daniel was quietly intimate and tactile and passionate, Jack was harder and more sexual and determined to pull the response he wanted from her. He was less inclined to be as giving as Daniel was in bed, but his confidence more than made up for that. She couldn’t help but respond explosively to him.
And together? Jesus Christ… how did she end up with both of them? Her whole life was spent quietly learning. She’d never been the class clown or the prom princess. Half the time she’d been the Invisible Girl. There’d been a few men, and women, who’d taken the time to look past the glasses and the stacks of books and who hadn’t been fooled by the blushing and the nervous chattering, but none of them had been like Jack or Daniel.
They had changed her life.
She slid close to Jack under the sheets, the room seeming too quiet without Daniel’s deep breaths. Jack turned toward her and she felt his hand slide over her hip. His face was shadowed in the darkness, the moonlight reflecting dimly off his skin and revealing only the barest glint of eye.
“Sam,” he said softly, fingers curling around her hip beneath the sheets. “Promise me you and Daniel won’t try anything with this stargate thing without me.”
She didn’t say anything for a while, trying to read his shadowed eyes and see his intent. “You’ll help us when the time comes, right?”
“I will. I just… until then, can’t we just be happy with this?” His hand gave her hip a squeeze. She knew what he meant.
“It might be even better in that other reality,” she offered. She felt his dismay rather than saw it. “What?” she asked.
“You really think that it’s like this between the three of us in that other reality?”
She hesitated. “We don’t know, Jack.”
“I know,” he stated. “You and I are both officers in the Air Force. Trust me, nothing like this is happening between any of us.”
Sam felt herself sink into that same shadow of despair. “We don’t know, Jack. Maybe it’s different from what you think it is.”
“It’s not. I know myself. I watched myself on that tape. There’s nothing like that going on.”
She closed her eyes briefly and then shifted her head on the pillow. “Is that why you’re so against us doing this now?”
“That’s part of it,” he admitted. “The other part is that I think you’re both two beers short of a six pack and none of this is going to work. What’s done is done. We ought to just sit tight and enjoy it while we can.”
Sam huffed out a laugh, turning her face into her pillow to muffle the sound. Daniel was hurting in the other room, she didn’t want him to hurt more thinking her and Jack were having a grand old time without him.
“I like hearing you laugh, Carter,” Jack said, reverting back to the name he used to use before they all fell into bed together.
“Jack,” she said soberly, bringing a hand up to rub the pads of her fingertips over the roughness of his jaw. “You know why we have to do this, right?”
He stared at her silently for a moment, eyes closing briefly when she ran one finger over his lips. “Yes,” he whispered. “But I sure as hell don’t have to get all excited about it.”
Sam smiled. Jack being Jack was something she was certain she found just as wonderful and frustrating in the other reality as she did here. She leaned forward and kissed him lightly. As she pulled back, he moved quickly forward, pushing her onto her back, pressing his mouth against hers. She took a moment to savor his warm weight on top of her, his long fingers in her hair and the easy, deep kiss that was never too hard. He gave a quick kiss to the side of her neck before pulling back slightly to meet her gaze in the dark.
“You want to, uh… “ It was a question.
She hesitated, briefly. “Not with Daniel out there so upset.” This was different than Daniel deciding he wanted to sleep apart from them to think about Sha’re.
Jack took a long, slow breath and slid off of her. “Alright.”
“Let’s just get some sleep.” She turned and slid a hand across his chest and into the silver-tinged hair there.
**
She woke a few hours later, in the dead of night. Shadows shifted on the wall in the dim rectangle of light from the lone bedroom window. The tree outside swayed in the wind, branches tapping lightly together. She wondered if it was going to storm and maybe the distant thunder had woken her.
Beside her, Jack lay sleeping on his stomach; long, slow breaths sounding loud in the silence of the house. She shut her eyes to try and sink back into sleep, but the remains of the argument earlier that night crept into her mind. She blinked at the ceiling. Sometimes this whole thing was so hard. It was difficult enough to argue with one person, but when it was two people pulling you in opposite directions…
She slid quietly out of bed and made her way to the bedroom door. She made a quick stop in the bathroom before padding out to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Daniel was a dark shape on the sofa, blanket up to his waist, bare chest pale above.
She filled a glass with water and then opened a drawer and found the aspirin. When she popped the cap and tilted the plastic bottle, tiny tablets sliding along the sides, a voice called quietly from the sofa, “Bring me a couple of those, would you?”
She didn’t answer, but she shook out another two pills and carried them into the living room with the glass. Daniel propped himself up on one elbow and watched her as she sat on the coffee table in front of him. She took two of the aspirin along with a few swallows of the water and then she set the other two pills in Daniel’s palm. He took them, took the water from her, set the glass on the table when he was done.
“Headache?” He asked her softly. There was more swaying light and shadows in here. Trees surrounded the cabin. She suddenly saw the blue of his eyes as a flash of lightning, still distant, came through the window.
She shrugged. “Getting there.”
“Sorry,” he murmured, eyes concerned.
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I should have helped you argue with Jack. You were right, even if you were being a jackass about it. I just…”
“A jackass?” He tried to sound indignant, but he was sleepy. Sam could see the corners of his mouth turning up.
She smiled at him. “Pains in my ass, the both of you,” she said, drawing a grin out of him by using one of Jack’s favorite phrases.
He yawned and slid against the back of the sofa, holding the blanket up in invitation. “C’mon.”
She slid in beside him, turning her back to him and feeling his warmth seep around her as he brought the blanket down and rested one heavy arm over her waist. She settled in, waiting for the lightning to filter in through the slats of the window blind and feeling Daniel press his lips to the top of her head.
“You okay?” She asked in a whisper.
“Yeah,” he answered, voice low in her ear. “But I’m not going to give up on the stargate.”
“I know. We don’t expect you to.”
“Jack wants me to.”
“But he knows you won’t.” She found his hand around her waist and smoothed her thumb over the backs of his fingers. “He knows it’s the right thing to do, Daniel. He just doesn’t want to give this up.”
Daniel sighed behind her and didn’t say anything to that. He buried his face in her hair and then her shoulder. She knew they were both thinking about Jack’s past and all the things he’d lost. Was a little bit of happiness for any of them too much to ask for?
**
She woke again to a voice in her ear.
“Sam?”
Jack was kneeling in front of the sofa, covered in the dark blue light of dawn. Early dawn. The room was still blanketed in shadows. She blinked at him for a few moments, the events of the night before coming into focus.
“Whatsa matter?” She mumbled, shifting her hips, as her stiff back became known. As nice as it was sleeping so close to a warm Daniel all night long, the cramped quarters had been a painful trade-off.
“Come on. Come back to bed,” Jack said quietly. He reached over her to slide his fingers into Daniel’s tousled hair. “Daniel. Wake up.”
She felt Daniel move behind her and his arm tightened around her as he woke. “Hmmm?”
Jack looked at them, brows furrowed in apprehension. He began pulling at both of them. “Come on. Come back to bed. I want you back there.”
Sam sat up sleepily, feeling a bit of worry as Jack pulled her to her feet and then leaned down to pull Daniel up. He pulled Daniel in close, hands on the younger man’s head bringing them forehead to forehead as he murmured, “I’m sorry, Daniel. Just come back to bed.”
“It’s okay, Jack.” Daniel’s voice was deep and rough from sleep. He glanced at Sam. She was starting to shuffle away toward the bedroom when she heard the thunder outside. Her gaze immediately flew to Daniel. He met her eyes in sudden understanding. Jack was herding both of them toward the bedroom, and Daniel turned to him. “Was it the nightmares again?”
Jack hesitated and looked terminally pained and a bit embarrassed before whispering, “Yes.”
It explained things. Sam felt an ache in the pit of her stomach. She knew Daniel was feeling it too. The nightmares didn’t happen often, but when they did, they usually came during times of stress or sometimes when it stormed all night long. Jack hadn’t told them anything in depth to explain exactly why they happened, but he hadn’t needed to. They knew his military history. He always said there were thousands of guys out there who had it worse than he did, and it was true. But she didn’t care about that. She cared about him.
She leaned into his side and let him lead her and Daniel back into the bedroom.
They tumbled back into the big bed as a soft rain began tapping against the roof and the window. Sam inhaled deeply as her head hit the pillow, smelling Jack and Daniel and her own shampoo and the familiar detergent that laced all their clothes. It made her feel… content.
Beside her, Jack had pulled Daniel close and was kissing him with an intensity that made her shiver. Daniel’s back was to her, and she watched Jack’s hand move from Daniel’s nape, down along the line of his spine and come to rest on his hip. She tucked an arm beneath her head and smiled faintly, eyes following the curve of muscle in Daniel’s shoulders, in Jack’s arms. She heard Daniel gasp just a bit as Jack rolled him over onto his back, thigh nudging between Daniel’s legs, making room for himself. Daniel opened his legs wide enough to cradle Jack’s lean hips against his. Jack kissed him lightly, murmuring apologies, stroking them both by rocking their hips together in a slow, faint motion.
Sam bit her lip. It was a sweet torture, watching them together. Part of her was captivated by them. By their beauty and motion and her own attraction to both of them. Part of her was a little jealous and wished they’d turn their attention to her. It reminded her of the beginning, when they’d finally decided this was the only relationship they all wanted. Her and Daniel together had been easy. Her and Jack even more so because Jack was so sure of what he wanted. But it had taken Daniel and Jack some time to work things out. Daniel’s experience with other men had been almost nil, Jack’s even less. For a time they had focused in on each other, and she’d suffered a crisis of confidence that had hit bone deep and shaken her. She’d found herself looking for excuses to come home late from work so she wouldn’t have to find them in bed together without her.
Eventually, they’d figured out what was going on with her and proved her wrong in a rather spectacular fashion. And within a few months, Daniel’s retreat from them during his Sha’re Nights notwithstanding, everything had eventually smoothed out. Still… sometimes that small thread of worry still wormed itself into her psyche when she saw the heat between them, the desperation. It had always been her and Daniel, ever since the beginning. She knew Jack worried about that, just as she worried about this.
She watched as Jack pushed himself up onto stiff arms, head ducked low to keep his mouth on Daniel’s. Daniel’s hands were holding Jack’s hips lightly above his. She could see them both getting hard and it made her mouth run dry.
She thought about slipping quietly away, protesting that she wasn’t in the mood, letting them reconnect and make up alone. But then Jack raised his head and looked at her, and she knew instantly from his gaze that she wasn’t going anywhere. He stretched one arm out to cup the back of her head and pull her gently toward them. She went, shifted her body next to Daniel’s. Jack kissed her with that same intensity he’d just employed on Daniel. It was deep and demanding and sort of overwhelming in that way that only Jack had. He directed her head to Daniel’s chest and let her rest there while he moved his mouth with hers. She felt Daniel’s hand smooth her hair back then slide down to slip under the hem of her shirt, fingers stroking small circles on her stomach.
God.
Jack kept one hand on her even as he finally slid to Daniel’s side across from her. He kept eye contact with her, let her turn onto her side, leaned in to kiss her across Daniel’s chest. He pulled back then, let her lean down and kiss Daniel. Daniel slid his hand around her waist and then further up her shirt. He brushed his palm up and down her back as his tongue slid against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her mouth. “Love you.”
She echoed it back to him and dragged her lips over his stubble-roughened jaw to suck lightly at his neck. He groaned. Jack fell in on the other side of him, and together, he and Sam kissed and licked and sucked their way down Daniel’s body. Daniel shifted beneath them, breath hard and occasionally tinged with the hint of voice.
This had always been Jack’s way of apologizing, with or without the whispered words of “I’m sorry.”
Her hand tangled with Jack’s as they both grasped the waistband of Daniel’s boxers and pushed them down his legs. As Jack disposed of them completely, she slid a palm down the length of Daniel’s cock. He was hard and a little wet at the tip, and she swirled her thumb in it making him inhale suddenly.
Jack was leaning over him to her now, tugging at her flannel pants and her shirt, trying to de-clothe them all. She quickly slid out of them, watching him do the same. It was apparent that he was interested in calling the shots this time. One look in his eyes told her he needed it. And…
Oh.
Oh. This wasn’t about apologizing to Daniel. It was, but… it was more about reassuring Jack. She saw it now. Knew it for sure when he huddled up against Daniel and whispered in his ear, and Daniel licked his lips and nodded and then turned on his side, facing her. Jack slipped down behind him.
Neither of them was overly in love with anal sex. She’d read somewhere that even a lot of gay men weren’t into it. It wasn’t for everyone. Oral sex was easier. Daniel had to be in the mood, but when it worked, it really worked. She grabbed the bottle sitting next to the lamp on the nightstand. Jack took it from her, and she moved down onto her side in Daniel’s arms, slowly sucking his bottom lip against her teeth. He kissed her eagerly, and she felt his leg move over hers, heel hooking around her calf. He was preparing for Jack, but she felt encompassed by him.
Jack pulled her hand from Daniel’s hip, and she felt the cool liquid of the lube on her fingers. He pulled her hand further, guiding her, and she wrapped her hand around his cock and slowly worked him until he was slick and smooth. Daniel was groaning against her neck as Jack’s fingers slipped in and out of him.
Then Jack was pushing inside him, not with fingers but with cock, and Sam backed off a bit, as much as Daniel would allow, and watched as both of them seemed to hold their breath in the gray light of a rainy dawn. Daniel shifted a bit, winced, his leg tightening around hers, and then his eyes were closing and his teeth were sinking into his bottom lip. Jack was forgetting to breathe. She could tell by the way the breath shot out of him every few seconds. She leaned up and kissed him, ran her tongue between his lips and felt him shift his attention and focus. He kissed her back and then let her pull away with a groan of his own. He pressed his mouth to Daniel’s shoulder, eyes closed tightly as his hips moved forward.
Sam settled down and concentrated on Daniel, hesitating to lick one taut nipple before he slid his arms around her and brought her in tight against him. She felt him rigid and unyielding and bare against her lower belly. Jack’s thrusts pushed Daniel against her, and Daniel held her fast and tight; arms around her ribs, leg hooked behind hers, his dick sliding between them.
It didn’t take long.
“Jack… “ Daniel’s moan was desperate and warning. Sam eased back, even as Daniel’s embrace turned to iron. She slipped a hand down between them to pull at him firmly, and he bucked against her, muscles tight. Jack buried himself deep and held there, mouth pressed against Daniel’s shoulder, breath hard, eyes open and holding Sam’s with blatant arousal.
Daniel shivered and came, arms clutching at Sam, pushing into her hand and then back against Jack, his breath exploding from his lungs in excitement.
Jack held him tightly as he came down, still hard and buried deep. Sam could see the tenseness of Jack’s jaw and shoulders. He was so close. It would take so little. Daniel’s breath was slowing between them, so she threaded her fingers through Jack’s short hair and kissed him. She felt Daniel sigh and move, and then Jack moaned, a rumble deep in his chest, as Daniel rocked his hips.
She felt fingers slide between her legs and move deliberately through the wetness to slip against her clit. She thought they were Daniel’s, but her mind started fogging up a bit. She had Jack’s tongue in her mouth and could feel him getting closer. He was giving a soft grunt against her lips every time Daniel pushed back against him, squeezing his cock tight again. She was starting to feel that tight line of pleasure coiling between her legs and spreading into her belly.
With a hoarse grunt, Jack came, mouth dropping away from hers as he pressed hard into Daniel and gritted his teeth. She dropped back to watch him, caught by the fierceness of his expression. Daniel slowed his movements and finally stopped. Jack collapsed against him, panting.
They all lay there for a long moment, giving Jack time to catch his breath. Sam watched him, eyes wanting to close as Daniel’s thumb slowly, slowly circled her nipple. When Jack disengaged himself and rolled onto his back with a sigh, Daniel rolled forward on top of her. She was fairly certain he was well and truly spent for the next few hours, but fucking wasn’t his intention anyway. He licked delicately at her nipples before moving lower and mumbling against her hip, “Your turn, Sam.”
She sucked in a breath as he settled his shoulders between her legs and his breath blew warm against the inside of her thighs. His thumb slid in and moved slickly, circling her clit. His tongue followed. She pressed her head back into the pillow with a whimper. He knew how to play her, adjusted his strokes minutely as she reacted, and soon she was lifting her hips against his mouth, wanting more.
She opened her eyes once to find Jack watching her intently, his eyes glued to her face. It was both embarrassing and arousing and she felt another moan rising in her throat. The mattress shifted and then Jack’s mouth was closing warmly over one hardened nipple, warm hands coming in around to lightly squeeze and caress. She had never gotten used to this, both of their mouths on her at once. It was so… much.
When Daniel slid two fingers inside of her with agonizing slowness, she broke. She arched up and shuddered against Daniel’s mouth, her fingers sliding heavily into Jack’s hair, fingertips scratching against his scalp. She moaned and wasn’t sure if she called one or both of their names. It didn’t matter.
Their hands stroked her soothingly until she relaxed lethargically between them. It was warm in the bed and she felt a fine mist of sweat on her upper lip and her forehead. She was lying on the wet spot. She frowned. More than one wet spot. They hadn’t taken care this time; it was messier than usual.
“I’ll change the sheets later,” Jack promised before she could say anything. She had to smile at how he’d read her mind.
“Thanks,” she murmured, closing her eyes to listen to the rain patter against the roof.
“Jack… “ Daniel’s voice was hesitant from her other side.
“And… we’ll talk about it later, Daniel. I don’t want to fight.” Jack’s voice was weary, tired. “We’re on the same side, I promise.”
There was a short, heavy silence before Daniel relaxed beside her. “Okay. Okay.”
“Trust me,” Jack said softly.
“I do,” Daniel answered just as quietly. She heard them kiss above her somewhere.
Things were right again. For now anyway. There’d come a time when they’d have to think about stargates and timelines and maybe giving up what they had, but not now. Right now they were sated and loved and forgiven. She couldn’t ask for anything more.
The rain lulled her to sleep.
~tbc~