They spent a week on Thor’s ship until they reached the Outpost where they departed and used the Stargate to get back to Earth. Ares told Thor his debt was wiped clean and that seemed to make the little guy pretty happy. Thor called ahead to the SGC to let them know their friends were on their way home.

In that week Calla said nothing to Daniel in fact she hardly looked at him and did her best to avoid him whenever possible. It was a strange wonder to her just why he was here. He should have been with Psyche, shouldn’t he? Perhaps he was. Perhaps he wasn’t trying to ride to her rescue but to the rescue of his lover and failed and now he felt stuck with her all over again. Whatever his reasons for being here, they didn’t matter to her. Calla spent most of the time with Ares in his quarters and not taking company.

Daniel couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, he couldn’t even think. All he could do was wonder what they were doing behind that closed door. No matter how much he tried to talk to her she pushed him away. Once he tried to tell her about Nicholas and Colleen, she actually listened for a while. She didn’t say anything to him but she didn’t walk away either. As soon as the conversation turned in another direction she was gone. He tried to tell her that he wanted to help her and that if she’d just let him he could make the physical pain she was suffering through go away. She didn’t want to listen and she certainly didn’t want to get within arms reach of him.

Ares was right. Calla knew Rowan’s true identity and she wasn’t about to forgive him for taking her as mistress. Yeah, well, if he were her then he probably wouldn’t forgive himself for that one either. Come to think of it, he wasn’t her and he probably wouldn’t forgive himself for it.

Their arrival at the SGC was small but very joyous. Jack and Sam were waiting with the children. Sam rushed to pick them up and tell them the good news the moment she heard Calla was with them. The children were excited and relieved to know their mother wasn’t dead and that she was coming home to them.

The woman who stepped through the Stargate, the one with the bewildered eyes and shaking hands was not the same one who’d left them so many months prior. Something in her changed somehow, it…shifted…and she would never be that woman again.

Still reeling from everything that had transpired and the effects of wearing the chains so long Calla didn’t know what to do when the children ran to her. So long she held the secret hope of this moment and now that it was here she was lost. All she could do was hold them tightly to her breasts, cover them with kisses and tell them how much she loved them. Tearfully they made her promise that she would never go away again.

Though she knew it was cruel to do to the children, Calla expressed a desire to go and stay with her Father for a while. She had many things to sort out and didn’t feel she could do that with Daniel around. Calla wanted the children to come with her and they wanted to go.

“Stay with me.” Daniel pled as they stood alone in his office. He convinced her to come and talk with him, just for a moments, before Ares took the three of them away from him for good. He knew if she left she was never coming back. Ares would have her right where he wanted her and, in truth, it was where part of her wanted to be. However, Daniel wasn’t ready to give up so easily, not without one last try. “Kitty, please don’t do this.” Daniel reached for her hand but she wouldn’t let him take it. “I love you.” He confessed. “I’ll do anything you want, baby, please just stay with me. Don’t go.”

“Love me? I am nothing more than a burdensome obligation to you, Daniel.”

“What would make you say something like that? You’re not a burden and you’re not an obligation, Calla. I don’t have to be with you, I want to be with you. You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Did you love her?” Calla asked.

“Who? Rowan?” Daniel was shocked by the question. They had gone over this, even though neither of them knew who she really was he had already told her…”no, I never loved her. Look at me.” He put his hand under her chin to tilt her face up. “I never said I would leave you. I never told her I loved her.”

“David? Did you let him say these things to her?”

Daniel thought and thought and as he did her eyes turned colder. “I don’t know.” He said finally in an exasperated tone. “Where is all of this coming from? You know I only love you.”

“You had her in our new house. In our bed.” She accused.

“I never…”

“You did.” She insisted. “I saw the pictures of you kissing on the front porch.”

“She kissed me.” Daniel contended and felt her pull away. “She was never in our house and she was never in our bed.” His heart was already breaking as he stood and listened to her and Daniel felt for sure that she would never come back to him now. So, that was why Rowan showed up at the house that day. She wanted to make her photographs look good so she could persecute Calla with them. “I didn’t invite her to our home, she just showed up that day. I was standing there on the porch thinking about you, missing you and there she was.”

The image of the photograph of Daniel by himself looking lost and forlorn as he stared out over the horizon came to her. Maybe he was telling the truth. “It’s not that you were unfaithful or even who you did it with,” she said. “I can live with that, it’s just sex, right? It doesn’t mean anything, right?” Her voice was soft but her eyes were full of derision. “Stay with you? I thought you loved me. I went with Kanan so you would be safe, I tried to protect you. How could you forget me so quickly?”

“I never forgot you.” Daniel reached out again and when she tried to get away he didn’t let her. “Not for a single second, I swear.” His arms embraced her. “I could never forget you.” Daniel kissed the side of her head. “We’ll work this out.” He promised. “I know we will. We can’t do that if we’re not together.” Daniel pulled his face away to look at her. “So just stay with me, please, Kitty. I love you more than anything.”

“I don’t want to love you anymore. The price is too high.”

Yeah, between David and Rowan/Psyche he’d done a lot of shitty things to her over the last four years. Not to mention all the time he spent away from her and his family. Husband of The Year material he wasn’t. He could and would do better if she just gave him the chance. “But you do love me.” He smiled at her. “Don’t you?”

“I have always loved you even when you were not with me.” Calla sighed and let them warmth of his embrace begin to wash over her.

“If I swear never to hurt you again, will you stay with me?” Daniel pressed his lips to her finger tips. “Will you give me one more chance? If you do, I swear I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you.”

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, I don’t belong in your world, Daniel.” She shook her head and lowered her eyes. “I don’t belong in mine.”

“You belong with me,” he brushed the hair away from her bruised face, “with Nicky and Cole. We’ll take it one step at a time, I promise. I know you’ve been through a lot,” Daniel stopped talking not wanting to think of the ‘lot of things’ she’d been through just recently. He enveloped in his arms and felt her relax against him. “I love you. Don’t leave me, please, Kitty, don’t leave.”

Naganti Kanan had wanted her to make love with him the same way she once made love with Daniel. Why? Because he was jealous of what he’d seen in the mirror. Looking up into those heavenly blue eyes she found that some part of her still wanted to make love with him like that. There was still trust here, tattered and frayed about the edges but it was still there. The life she wanted for herself was still within reach. Thomas Wolfe said you can never go home again. There was a great deal of truth to that statement. But she was willing to try.

“I love you, Daniel. I don’t know if I can be your wife again but I don’t want to leave you.”

“You don’t have to share my bed. Just stay in my life. I’m begging you, please, don’t go with Ares.”

Against her better judgment, Calla found her arms wrapping themselves around his waist and she was pulling herself closer to him. He was soft and warm and he smelled so good, she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be close to him and feel his heart beating against her. “One step at a time?”

“Yeah, little baby ones, I promise.”

“I will stay with you.” It would be a long road back to the place they left off but as long as they stayed together anything was possible.

The End of
Daughter of the Gods: Escape
An Adult Stargate SG-1 Based Short Story
by
Moon Mistress
a/k/a Lisa Beth Darling

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