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She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, folding laundry. Emmie was in her walker, running between the bedroom and the den, where Daniel was working, jabbering non-stop. She heard Emily in the den, moving around. Sounded like she was trying to get one of the file drawers open. She started giggling, had to see what was happening. She peeked through the open doors of the den. Emmie was standing on her tiptoes in the walker, looking up at him. Daniel had three books open in front of him, and he was scribbling furiously on one of his legal pads. He wasn’t hearing a thing.

Emily squealed, and tried to reach his leg across the tray of the walker. Unsuccessful, she let out with a high-pitched "Daddee!"

Casey bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. Let him ignore that!

Daniel looked downed at his daughter. She smiled up at him. He couldn’t keep the smile from his own face. "Whatcha' doing, Princess?"

The baby grinned, jabbered, then held her arms up, knowing full well that he would pick her up.

He did. He settled her on his lap, and went back to work. She watched for a few minutes, then touched his hand as he wrote. She didn’t pull at him, she just put her little fingers against his thumb. "You want to help me with my notes, huh? Okay. Here we go." He moved her so that she was closer to the desk, then put her hand on the pencil, covered it with his, and continued to write.

Emily was fascinated. She looked from Daniel’s face to the paper and back again. She grinned, jabbered and seemed perfectly content to sit just the way she was.

"So Emily, is does this rune mean sun rise or sun up? I know, it doesn’t seem like a big difference, but if we don’t translate this exactly as it was written, exactly as it was meant to be translated, we’ll lose the entire meaning. So, rise or up?" Daniel asked, speaking to her as if she understood and could give him the answer.

The baby looked at her father, then began to jabber.

"That’s what I thought, too. Has to be rise," he grinned.

Casey couldn’t contain herself any longer, and giggled out loud. Daniel turned to look at her, a smile on his face.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Nothing. It’s just so…cute!" she replied.

"Cute? We’re working hard in here on this translation, and you call it cute?" He put the pencil down, not easy as Emmie had decided she wanted to keep it, then sat back, pulling the baby back against him. "Can you believe that, Princess? She just doesn’t have any appreciation for the hard work that goes into translating runes."

"Hey, I’ve done a bit of translating myself," Casey smiled. "I’ll let you two get back to work. I have my own work to finish."

When Casey glanced into the room a bit later, Emily was sound asleep in her father’s arms, and he was still scribbling away on his notes.

A  A  A  A  A  A

He rolled over. He was alone in the bed. There were no sounds coming through the baby monitor. No, it couldn’t be happening again! That device responsible for her nightmares was gone. He had gone into her dreams and changed them, helped her defeat the demons that lurked there. She wasn’t in the bathroom or den. He turned on the lamp. Not in the living room. Not in Emily’s bedroom. Not in the guestroom. His heart was pounding, his chest ached, he couldn’t breathe.

He stood in the kitchen, feeling as if someone had just punched him in the gut. He heard the front door open quietly. He was standing by the island when she came in, a grocery bag in her hand.

"Did she wake up again?" Casey asked softly, not seeing the tears in his eyes as she put the two items away.

"What?"

"Emmy woke up a little bit ago. I gave her the last fruit stick, and since they help and she’ll actually suck on them, I figured I’d better go get more-" she broke off, looked into his eyes. "Oh, god, Daniel! I’m sorry! I should have left a note!" She stood in front of him, wreathed his face with her hands. "I love you, Daniel." She pulled him towards her.

He kissed her, letting himself get lost in the taste of her, the feel of her. His heart was still pounding, he felt her put her hand against his chest, caress the bare skin. "Love you, Angel."

"I’m sorry, sweetheart! I should have left a note for you. You were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t think you’d wake up," she said, apologizing again.

He smiled. He was sleeping so soundly because she'd worn him out. The bottle of body oil had come out of the bedside table, and that was never an activity that was rushed into. "I got cold."

"Come back to bed, I’ll warm you up," she whispered.

He pulled her closely as they settled back into bed, her head in its customary place on his shoulder, her arm around his waist.

"Daniel?"

"Hmm?"

"I realized something the other day," she said softly.

"What’s that?"

"That it hurts too much to be without you, so even if you were a Goa’uld, I’d be with you, stay with you."

He tightened his arm around her. "I think that’s a good thing," he teased. "I’m not a Goa’uld, babe."

"I know."

"Love you, Angel."

"Love you, too, sweetheart."

THE END

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