Rating: PG-13

Category: D/J, angst.

Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine.

Dedication: To Amy. Because it can always be worse.

Summary: He couldn’t save them all.

------

Never Enough

She was asleep when he got home. It was late and he was late and she was lying on her side with one shoulder exposed to the silvery moonlight. He dressed for bed as quietly as he could in the silvery darkness. He knew he wouldn’t actually wake her, no, years of training had given her too much control for that. If he coughed, or sounded otherwise injured, she would be awake in a heartbeat, but as long as he sounded medically fine, nothing short of a fire siren would wake her. Still, he was nothing if not polite.

He slid into bed and stared at her back, helplessly drawn to that moonlit shoulder. God, he had missed her. It hit him rather suddenly, much like everything else that day. Slowly, he leaned across the bed and placed one kiss on her shoulder. She sighed, and somehow, still without waking up, managed to roll over, coming to rest with her head tucked firmly beneath his chin.

Suddenly, he was overwhelmed. Her proximity, his day, her scent, his need; all swept him away. He wove his hands into her hair, and then down her pajama-clad back. She moved. He recognized her movements as pre-awakening, and slid his hands under her shirt to the warm skin of her back.

“Daniel?” She was still in sleep’s fog, brain trying to process why this man in her bed was so very desperate. She propped herself up on her elbows to look at him.

He took advantage of her upturned face and pulled her down, his lips searing against hers with a kiss. She gasped in surprise, and his tongue slid into her mouth, tasting with such fervour, that she wondered if he knew she was real. She moaned and melted into his arms, still not entirely sure why he was doing this, but more than willing to participate.

Surrendering entirely, she let him push her on to her back and lifted her hips when he pulled at her pajama bottoms. He was everywhere and it was so very much unlike him, but she couldn’t put her finger on the difference, because her fingers were busy somewhere else. He was on fire with something, and whatever it was, it was contagious and she burned too.

He was on the edge now, she could feel it. She was right there with him, his heat and desire magnetic, and even if he was less considerate than usual, he pulled her in and then over with him. He moaned her name and his voice was still familiar, even if everything else had been more than a little surreal. As her brain started to function properly for the first time since he’d woken her, she began to realize what it must be.

“Daniel?” she asked, a bit tremulously in the darkness. “Daniel, what was that?”

He was away from her so quickly that it was only instinct which spurred her hand to move fast enough to catch his arm as he left. He stopped, caught on the edge of the bed, and sat there.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was soft, and he would not look at her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

She sat up so she could reach him with both hands. He flinched slightly, but she pretended it was because he was somehow so cold and she still smoldered.

“It’s all right, Daniel.”

“No it’s not. It’s never all right. It’s never enough.”

And then she knew.

“Daniel, what happened on that planet?”

He said nothing for a very long time. She didn’t try to touch him again, just watch his back as he struggled to breathe calmly, illuminated in the silver glow of the moon.

“It was awful.” He said it so quietly she barely heard him. “It was awful and we could have stopped it. But they wouldn’t listen.”

“Tell me.”

He took a deep breath and clenched his fingers on the rumpled sheets. He didn’t turn around.

“They were humanoid. Peasants, really, no technology at all. Theocratic government.” His voice was completely flat. “But there’s naquadah on their planet, so even Jack was playing nice.”

He was starting to relax a bit, and she threaded her fingers through his, resting both their hands on his knee.

“When we arrived at the village, it was like walking into a Renaissance Fair. There were men talking and drinking, women with ribbons in their hair, even children, dancing to the music the minstrels were playing.” Daniel couldn’t help the smile that briefly crossed his face, nor the hard shadow that followed it. “We stuck out. Badly. But they weren’t afraid of us. They welcomed us and sat us at their tables in the village square and shared their food.”

Janet leaned her head against the back of Daniel’s shoulder, wishing she could see his face and knowing he didn’t want her to. He was shaking, and she could feel his heart beat.

“They were celebrating, they told us. A demon had stricken many of their people ill, including the high priest. But they had prayed to their god and he had cured them.

“Sam asked about the demons, and we could tell within about two seconds of their explanation that the demons were Goa’uld. A priest overheard our questions, and came over to where we sat.”

“What know you of the demons?” the priest asked very sharply, a hint of fear in his eyes.

Daniel looked to Jack for some indication of how to handle the situation. Jack said nothing of course, but made a very small gesture with his hands, which Daniel recognized as “as little as possible”.

“We travel throughout the Galaxy through something called a Stargate and fight them.” Daniel replied vaguely. “They are our enemies.”

“Then you are indeed welcome here,” the priest said loudly. “For the demons often walk among us, taking possession of those whom they will.”

Janet stiffened involuntarily. Maybe it was because she knew medically what was involved when a Goa’uld fused to a person’s central nervous system, but the whole idea of it always made her feel a little sick. Daniel reached back over his shoulder to her hair and stroked it for a few moments before continuing.

“Of course, that got to Jack. There wasn’t a lot we could do, sitting there at the table, but Teal’c and Sam were fairly confident that there was no Goa’uld in the immediate vicinity.

“I was about to ask how the demons went about possessing people and how they knew who had been possessed, when there was a noise from on of the houses around the square.”

“What was that?” Jack asked, a bit alarmed.

“A demon has been captured!” the priest replied. “We will try it before God, and then, if it is not saved, we will punish her in His name.”

“Sir!” hissed Sam. “I still don’t sense anything.”

“Sit still, Major!” Jack ordered. “I don’t like this, so keep quiet for now.”

“A man came out of the house then. It was a nice house. Much grander than those around it. I realized that it must belong to somebody with a fair amount of power.”

Someone who did not know Daniel Jackson, might have thought that this was just moonlight musings of a side-tracked story-teller. Janet knew Daniel very well, and she knew that he was setting the scene for what was to come.

“He was wearing a cowl,” Daniel continued. “Like a monk. We couldn’t see his face, but it was obvious from the crowd’s reaction that it was the high priest, cured by his god.”

Janet winced at Daniel’s tone. She was starting to not like this story, but he knew he had to tell it to someone else besides whoever read his sterile and likely highly edited official report.

“He walked up on to a terrace in front of what I had originally thought to be a maypole. And then he spoke.”

“My children!” the high priest cried. “God has cured your brothers and sisters!”

The crowd cheered. Jack steeled himself, waiting for the other shoe.

“But even better, God has given me a sign! He has led me to the demon who brought this plague upon us. I have paid a high price for this knowledge, my children, but I do so willingly for you and for our God!”

“The priest was working himself into a frenzy, the crowd too. And then he showed us the price he had paid.” Daniel’s tone was sick again. “He was all dramatic and threw his cowl back. He was horribly scarred, Janet. His face was a mess. It was terrible.”

“This I have suffered for you, my children! This I have suffered for God that I might do his work and destroy an evil. Bring forth the demon!”

The door to the high priest’s house opened again, and out came four men. They carried a figure, a woman, on their shoulders. She was bound and gagged and helplessly struggling. They set her down before the stake Daniel had mistaken for a maypole and tied her to it. They did not remove the gag, but the woman did stop struggling, and instead stared unflinchingly out into the crowd.

“This demon pretended to be a Healer of God! And heal she did. But there is no God in her. No, my children, these marks I bear are her mockery of your God!”

“And then the trial began.” Daniel’s pronunciation of the word ‘trial’ indicated how loosely he was using the term. “The other survivors, the unmarked ones, told of how she had made them drink foul tasting potions that smoked. Then the high priest talked of his god and his sacrifice. The woman was not even allowed to defend herself.”

“She wasn’t…” Something sick had crawled into Janet’s heart.

Daniel finally looked at her and shook his head, his heart in his eyes.

“No. Her voice, they made her say her name, was normal, and Teal’c said he felt nothing. She was no demon. She was their doctor!”

Janet was starting to understand.

“The hand of God will drive the demon's light out of that body!” the high priest declared, suddenly brandishing a Goa’uld pain stick. “If your soul deserves forgiveness, God will grant you your life.”

“Wait!” cried Sam, standing up, unable to take it anymore. “We have technology that can tell if she has a demon inside of her!”

“Carter!”

it was too late. Sam had the high priest’s attention. The first priest tried to explain that we also fought the demons, and were friends of the god, but the high priest wouldn’t listen to him.”

Daniel had turned away from her again, and she pressed her face back into his shoulder.

Jack did not like what he saw in the eyes of the high priest when the raving man looked at Sam. Jack didn’t know if it was because his 2IC was obviously smarter than the high priest, if it was because Sam had interrupted, or if it was because she was female, but she had just painted a very large and flashing target on her forehead.

All of SG-1 were on their feet now. The villagers were drawing away from the tables to the side of square, not entirely sure what to expect.

“We have indeed killed many of these demons of which you speak.” Teal’c tried again. “And we can detect their presence. There is no demon in this woman.”

“Lies! Lies!” screamed the high priest. “God has sent us these demons and we will destroy them all!”

all happened so quickly then,” Daniel’s voice was sick and tired, and the moonlight was pale. “Teal’c threw the table over, and we ran. I started to go for the woman, but Jack literally manhandled me down the trail towards the ‘Gate.

“Teal’c fired his ‘zat gun once, trying to put her out of what was sure to be real misery, but we were too far away.”

Daniel picked up her hand from where it still lay, entwined with his, resting on his knee. He idly traced each digit, each nail and knuckle, as though every part of her was suddenly overwhelmingly precious.

“They must not have wanted us very badly, because they didn’t chase us. I thought I would be sick. And then we heard her start to scream.

“She screamed and screamed and screamed and it didn’t stop until I stepped through the event horizon.”

Janet straightened, pulling her hand out of Daniel’s as she moved away from him.

“She was short. She was short. I don’t remember what she wore or the colour of her hair, she was just so very short.”

He looked at her, and it hung there between them, pale and sick and utterly hopeless.

And then she took him in her arms and lay back on their pillows, cradling him against her. She kicked the blankets back over him, as though a warm bed and someone to share it with solved all the problems in the universe.

“You can’t save them all, Daniel.”

“I know. And that’s why it’s never enough.”

And they cried together in each other’s embrace, mourning a woman whose name they didn’t know and whose life they couldn’t save.

------

finis

AN: Ah, the therapeutic qualities of writing angst. I’d forgotten how very cathartic it is.

Also, the religion in this story is just your standard bigotry. No label is implied, although the similarities to Salem are kind of hard to miss. I was raised Judeo-Christian, it’s bound to show up in my writing. There have been witch hunts in just about every religion. Please do not be insulted.

gravitynotincluded

November 21, 2004