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Title: If Tomorrow Never Comes (#5 in the Radio Series)
Author: OXBastetXO
Category: Romance, Angst
Spoilers: The Enemy Within, The Serpent's Lair, The Gamekeeper
Sequel/Season Info: Second
Rating: PG
Content Warning: Three Kleenex story
Summary: After rough mission, Daniel considers his own mortality and his chance of finding Sha're.
Showtime and MGM/UA owns Stargate: SG-1 and all there in. I'm just borrowing them for a bit, and I promise to give them right back when I'm done. Well, most of them, I might just keep Jack and Daniel for a bit longer.
If Tomorrow Never comes belongs to Garth Brooks, I'm just borrowing it for background music
If Tomorrow Never Comes
by
OXBastetXO
Daniel pushed the door to the break room open and peeked inside. Empty, good. He slipped in and grabbed a cup off the counter and limped to the coffee pot. He filled the cup and sank into one of the chairs at a table. He sighed and sipped the coffee.
Slowly, he became aware of voices. He looked up and saw the little radio playing away on the counter. He glared at it, but didn't have the energy to go turn it off. He closed his eyes and wrapped his hands around the coffee mug. The warmth seeped into him and slowly he began to relax.
He heard the voices shut up on the radio and the slow temp of music replace it.
Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She's lost in peaceful dreams
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark
And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart
Daniel fell in step with Sam as they walked down the corridor. He slipped a finger under his glasses and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. He shoved his glasses back up on his nose and took another sip of the coffee from the Styrofoam cup in his hand. This was one of the thing he had missed on Abydos. Coffee. They had a kind of hot drink sort of like it, but it just didn't have the caffeine kick that good old earth coffee had.
Sam broke the silence. "I'm going to drop by the control room. By the silence around here it seems like the Goa'uld have finally given up." She gave him a sidelong glance. "When was the last time you've slept?"
Daniel sighed, "I don't know," he said softly.
Sam shook her head. "Doesn't help when the base goes on alert every two hours."
Daniel stopped and looked at her. "No, it's not that. It's just that," he paused and glanced away. His looked back to Sam. "My mind races and I can't stop thinking about Sha're. Where she is. What she's become."
Concern clouded her blue eyes. "But you can't stay awake forever."
He held up his coffee cup and joked, "I can try." He grimaced and sighed. "You're right. I'll meet you at the next briefing." Sam smiled and clapped him on the arm heading off towards the labs. Daniel started for the living quarters. 'Sha're were are you? Are you still you? How am I going to fine you?' He tried to push these thought out of his mind, but they keep creeping back to haunt him.
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes
Daniel tightened his grip on the rifles. "Jack!" he yelled. He thumbed the triggers over to automatic and waited. He could hear metal shod boots thundering down the corridor toward him. He bit his lower lip and waited. He had to hold them off while Jack and the others figured out how to stop Apophis and Klorel's invasion plans.
Daniel shook his head, if anyone had told him two years ago that he would someday find himself in outer space, armed to the gills, fighting for earth very survival he would have laughed them right out the door just as surely as the entire academic community had laughed him right out of academia for his theories. 'Well, that just goes to show you how much you know,' Daniel mused. He yanked his attention back to the corridor as the footsteps drew closer. He waited.
Two Serpent guards charged around the corner and Daniel opened fire. He managed to hit the first guard. Bullets ricoshaded against his armor and finally the guard fell. Daniel turned to fire on the second when suddenly he felt himself lifted up off his feet and slammed against the bulkhead behind him the guns clattered from his hands to the deck. He slumped to the floor pain exploding in his chest. Blindly, he groped for one of the rifles with his right hand. Why wouldn't his left arm work? He brought it up fired at the one remaining guard, he crumpled under a hail of bullets. The rifle slipped out of Daniel's hand. He looked down and saw the gaping hole in his chest. 'Oh, not good,' he thought numbly.
Jack burst out of the bridge control room. His eyes locked on the fallen archaeologist. "Daniel!" Jack dropped down and quickly scanned the corridor. He slipped his Zat gun into his belt and swore viciously. He started to check the wound and Daniel watched him.
"I'm dead any way just get out of here," Daniel leaned his head back against the bulk head. He could feel his strength slipping away.
"I am not leaving you here, " Jack snapped grabbing the front of Daniel's jacket to pull him up.
Pain flared through his chest and he grabbed Jack's arm. "Get out of here! Your just going to blow up on the other ship! What difference does it make? Go!" He swallowed as tears suddenly burned the back of his throat. "Go," he said softer. He could see the anguish in his friend's face, but Jack knew he was right. He was dying and their wasn't anything they could do about it. He would just slow them down and none of them would make it. He struggled to keep his composure. Pain radiated through his shoulder and chest threatening to steal what little breath he had left. "Just go."
Jack knelt down in front of him and cupped his cheek. Who would have ever thought that they would have become such good friends. When they had met on the first mission to Abydos there couldn't have been two men who were such polar opposites: Daniel , a free spirited academic and Jack, a hard line military man. But they had both changed, grown closer. Events had shaped them in ways they could have never known.
Tears started to well in Daniel's eyes and he struggled to keep them in check. "I'll watch your back."
Jack nodded and got to his feet. He gave him one last look and left. Daniel watched him go. 'Sha're,' he thought. 'I tried. I'm so sorry.'
He heard the sound of the ring transport and knew the team had left of Apophis ship. "Be safe, my friends." he whispered. He tried to move and pain flared though his chest again. He closed his eyes tears of frustration squeezed out from under them. They had come so far. There was still so much to do, it couldn't end here. Suddenly, he thought of something. The sarcophagus. If he could just get to it. 'Sha're, I won't give up. Please don't give up on me.'
'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret
That my true feelings for them never were revealed
So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance
Where there's no second chance to tell her how I feel
"I won't play," Daniel said to the Keeper and turned his back on the scene playing out behind him.
The Keeper fumed. "You are a most suborn race!"
"Ok, just a little bit more, Jake." Daniel could hear his father say.
"It's starting to swing." He could hear the concern in his mother's voice.
"I will be alright."
'No it won't,' Daniel thought.
"No!" his father shouted. Daniel could hear his mother scream in fear.
"Look out!"
Daniel flinched when the cover stone smashed down. Tears slipped down his face. Not again. Why this? He had been so young. He still missed them desperately. His missed Sha're, but with her he still had a chance to find her. His parents. It was too late. He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth. There had been so much he had wanted to tell them, share with them, but they were gone, and this wasn't real. He shuddered when he heard the sound of the chain in the winch as the scene reset itself. It wasn't real. It just wasn't real.
So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes.
"There you are!"
Daniel jumped, and nearly dumped his coffee into his lap. He realized he must have nodded off for a little while. He slid a finger in under he glasses and rubbed at his eyes trying to focus on the figure in the doorway. He pushed them back up on the bridge of his nose. "Uh, hi, Jack," he said with a sheepish smile.
"Don't 'Hi, Jack,' me," Jack said, pushing the door open the rest of the way and walking into the break room. "I believe you are supposed to be somewhere right now."
Daniel sighed. "Yeah, I know. The infirmary."
Jack cocked an eyebrow at him. "And why pray tell, Doctor Jackson, aren't you?"
He held up the cup of coffee. "The never ending quest for a decent cup of coffee?"
Jack shook his head, chuckling and pulled out a chair. He straddled it facing him. "You know, you could have gotten one of the nurses to get it for you."
Daniel looked down at his now cold cup of coffee. "Everyone was so busy in there." He glanced up at Jack, "And I'm ok, really."
"Daniel, you go roughed up pretty good by those natives. Doctor Frazier said over-night for observation. I'm pretty sure she meant in the infirmary, not roaming the halls looking for coffee."
Daniel gave him a small smile and rubbed his nose absently. "Probably."
"Come on," Jack said getting up. "I better get you back before, Frazier has a bird."
He slowly got to his feet. Everything hurt now that he had sat down. He glanced over at Jack. "Jack, can I get you to promise me something?"
"Is it going to get you back to the infirmary where you belong?"
Daniel frowned. "I'm serious, Jack."
"So am I." Jack's tone softened. "What Daniel?"
Daniel licked his lips and swallowed. "If something were to happen to me. If I were to..if I were to get killed. Promise me you'll tell Sha're I loved her and I never gave up looking."
Jack sighed. "No," he said, then he added, "You're going to tell her that yourself. I'm going to make sure of it. That is, if you would cooperate and get yourself back to the infirmary."
Daniel smiled. "I'm coming. I'm coming." Then he added quietly. "I'm coming, Sha're."
*fin*