Chapter Text
“I need you,” Sha’re sighed, clinging to her husband.
It filled her with wonder, every single time: the way his body and mind both responded to her.
The way he sometimes started out all tense and overly careful, but always, eventually, got lost in their lovemaking.
The way he cried out her name at the end, and poured his very soul into her along with his seed.
She held him through the aftershocks, panting almost as hard as he was, and savored the moment.
His arms encircling her.
His heartbeat against hers.
His whole body relaxed.
They’d both needed this, badly.
I need — you. I need you. I need you.
The words had spilled out of her, raw and jagged.
Sha’re sighed, and immediately felt him pull her closer. She smiled, then, and found no reason to dwell.
Instead, she nuzzled into his neck, and left a trail of kisses along his jaw.
“My Dan’yel,” she breathed into his skin, and he purred deep in his throat in response.
Then she flicked his earlobe with her tongue, and he shivered and let out something he would never have acknowledged as a growl.
She shifted to look at him, and felt that familiar, ridiculous rush of warmth.
Behind the glasses that had slipped halfway down his nose, his eyes were closed, so she could drink him in freely.
He always seemed younger in moments like these: the furrow between his brows smoothed out, the restlessness in his face quieted, his features beautifully slack and serene.
No thoughts racing, no problems turning over, no grief pulling him under when he thought she wasn’t looking.
I wish we could stay like this a little longer, Sha’re thought, regretfully.
“Daniel! We have to move,” she said.
“Whaaa’? Mmmwhy?”
She snorted at his blissed-out lack of eloquence, watching him fondly as he blinked himself back into focus.
He smirked when he reached for the tissues on the side table, and she knew exactly why: her brilliant husband thought his reputation for allergies provided a cover for the Kleenex boxes strategically placed throughout their quarters, and his office, and her office too.
He was always so amused by this little scheme, she’d never had the heart to tell him it didn’t fool anyone.
Minutes later, as she was smoothing the fabric of her dress over her hips and down her legs, she heard him chuckling to himself.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“This— this, um, just reminds me of a different one,” he said, eloquence slowly coming back.
“Oh?” she prompted, walking the few steps to their mini-fridge and returning with a water bottle.
“Not a deep maroon like yours. A blue, stained dress that toppled a presidency.”
She shot him a puzzled look as she drank.
“Or so the tabloids claimed.”
She raised an eyebrow at that, Teal’c-style, and passed him the water.
“Thanks,” he said absently, not drinking. “Remember I told you the president we met today came into power because the previous one resigned? Well, there were several reports that the previous President had had an affair. And in a surprising turn of events, he actually admitted to the affair and apologized to the American people.”
Daniel was gesturing vigorously with the half-empty bottle, seemingly unaware he was flicking droplets onto his shirt and suit jacket.
“And then he resigned. On national television. It was absolutely wild.”
His enthusiasm was so infectious, she could have observed him for hours. But her feet hurt, so she crouched down to deal with the hateful things Janet had convinced her to wear. Stilettos, that was the word.
“I actually bet he was going to deny everything. I lost 20 bucks to Jack for it.”
She looked up from where she was fumbling with the ankle straps.
“We watched it live at Sam’s house. Teal’c was most intrigued,” her husband went on, leaning forward, setting the bottle aside and indicating he wanted to help with her shoes.
Sha’re stood back up, raised one foot and planted her hand on Daniel’s shoulder to stabilize herself.
“I’m intrigued as well,” she said, honestly confused. “Why would people care who their leader sleeps with? That’s for him and his wife to reckon with, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes and no. It’s complicated,” he admitted, fingers working deftly, “It’s not just that he was unfaithful. The young woman was an intern.”
“Intern?”
“Uh, a kind of apprentice,” he explained, placing her bare foot on the floor gently and starting on the other one. “It happened in the White House itself, apparently. The age difference alone was bad, but the power imbalance was staggering.”
She was freed from both shoes now, and took the opportunity to pick up the forgotten bottle and place it in her husband’s hand again.
“And the media shredded her to pieces despite that. It was awful,” Daniel said, shaking his head.
“Poor girl,” Sha’re commented sadly.
“Yeah,” he sighed, finally taking a long swig of water before continuing. “Even so, I doubt the scandal alone would have led to a presidential resignation. I’m fairly certain the Pentagon and the NID were behind it.”
“How so?” Now, she was even more intrigued.
“Weeeell, this was back in January ‘98. Not long after we saved the planet,” he specified with practiced casualness.
“Ah. They forced him out. Because Apophis and Klorel almost destroyed Earth,” Sha’re replied, relieved that her voice didn’t snag on their cursed names.
“Precisely! They couldn’t trust a Commander in Chief who had almost let the SGC be closed off, right before the attack.”
“But they couldn’t put it like that,” she guessed, “because your people are kept in the dark about all of this. So they used the affair as the reason to push him out.”
“Yup, that’s my hypothesis exactly,” Daniel confirmed, beaming at her. The look, equal parts radiant and goofy, that said he was currently in awe of her mind, not just her body.
The same way he’d looked at her that first night, when she’d shown him the catacombs and he’d asked her to teach him her language.
Her whole world changed that night because of this man. Her husband, her lover, her partner in everything.
Her home in this strange world she’d never chosen but would choose again, every time, for him.
She bent down to kiss him. Slowly and sweetly and without hurry, for a change.
“I love you,” she said simply, when they parted.
“I love you too,” he replied intensely, holding her eyes for a long moment.
She almost kissed him again, but he went on cheerfully.
“Also, on a completely different note, I cannot for the life of me remember what it felt like to be stressed out of my mind…” he trailed off, glanced at his watch, and blinked. “… 25 minutes ago, when we left the infirmary. So, um, yeah. Wow.”
She laughed, and he gazed back at her brightly.
But then a small shadow crossed his face, the one she’d learned to expect whenever he suspected — wrongly, in this case, and most other cases — that he’d received more than he’d given.
She saw him processing this, and deciding not to bring it up.
He smiled again, deliberately this time.
She matched his expression, and clasped his hand.
This is good. We’re fine. We’re happy, she reminded herself.
He brought their joined hands up to his lips, kissed her palm, then started unfastening her bracelet.
“He talked to me at the gala, you know,” she began. “The President.”
“Mhm, I saw. My amazing wife, dazzling the most powerful man in the world,” he said proudly.
“It wasn’t just idle conversation. We talked about the potential of naquadah ore as a fuel for clean energy. He went on and on and on about how important that would be for the environment.”
“Of course he did,” her husband commented absently, focused on dealing with the rest of his disheveled clothes.
“Daniel. He was— What do you call it? The man was lobbying me.”
He froze mid-motion, suit jacket hanging from one of his arms, and looked at her with understanding and dread.
“What did you say?” he asked, voice careful and measured.
“Nothing. I simpered and pretended I didn’t get what he was really saying,” she shrugged, and started to unfasten her earrings. “The President was too decent to insist. Tonight at the gala, at least.”
Daniel held her eyes for a moment, then nodded and left it at that.
As he continued to undress, the tension in his shoulders reminded her it wasn’t easy for him to keep quiet. But he was doing it, for now. For her.
Because it was a never-ending conversation between them: whether or not they should advise the Council of Elders to reopen the mines back home and start trading with the Tau’ri.
He was firmly against the idea, and had explained all about the dangers of colonialism.
She considered those dangers to be acceptable, compared to the very real social unrest that closing the mines had already caused. Thousands of men of all ages, suddenly taken away from what they knew, and sent to tend the fields or care for the animals.
Women’s work, children’s work, they said, and many of them resented it more than they had ever resented toiling under Ra. They couldn’t see beyond their day-to-day existence. It wasn’t their fault, but it wasn’t good for Nagada and for Abydos as a whole.
And if Earth could provide modern mining equipment like they had done for several other planets, it could only be a good thing, she thought.
But she didn’t rehash any of her arguments tonight.
And she especially didn’t repeat her assertion that Terella was the ultimate positive example. Her husband had done great work reorganizing naquadah extraction there, but he still flinched at any mention of Queen Shyla, despite Sha’re’s repeated assurances that she didn’t blame him for anything that had happened, and besides—
She shook her head when she realized she’d been jumping from one idea to the next, thoughts tangling and looping and spiraling out.
She was beginning to sound like Daniel. In her own mind. Great.
She sighed ruefully. He stopped unbuttoning his shirt, and stepped closer to her.
“My love,” he said, lifting her chin to make her look at him. “Whatever we decide, we’re in this together.”
He was slowly stroking the side of her face with his thumb, and his eyes were completely earnest and tender. She found herself smiling again.
“Yes. And we still have time,” she added. “Months, before Father unburies the gate and we have to go there again.”
When did visiting home become a ‘have to’? she asked herself, but didn’t follow that thought.
Because the last time they’d been there had been pure joy — the five of them celebrating Skaara’s rescue and spending two perfect weeks together as a family. The next time, it would be different.
Daniel searched her face, but didn’t comment on her wording, or say anything else at all. She was grateful for it.
He simply tilted her head up and pressed his mouth to hers, and this time their kiss was tinged with just a hint of bitterness under its usual sweetness.
This is good. We’re allowed to be fine. We’re allowed to be happy, Sha’re told herself again, as she left his arms to enter the bathroom.
She caught his eyes before she closed the door, and she knew that he, too, was telling himself something very similar.