Daniel Jackson sat in the dim sanctuary of his office and stared unseeingly at the computer screen. He’d made the excuse that he had some research to do in order to slip away from the others, but in reality he had just wanted to be alone. Alone with his memories and his guilt. He was never truly free of the pain he’d felt since the day Sha’re had been snatched from him, but it was at times like this that the ache flared into something that was close to unbearable.

He knew that recriminations were a waste of time and he was only doing Apophis a favour by tying himself up in an emotional knot, but he couldn’t help it. All day he’d watched his supposedly cold-blooded, military colleagues share conspiratorial smiles while they exchanged envelopes. The civilian personnel had been a lot more overt and Hammond had nearly burst a blood vessel when an enormous bouquet had been delivered at the main gate. About the only moment of unalloyed amusement Daniel had felt all day had come when Jack had picked up a file and an enormous, obviously hand-made Valentine’s card had fallen out, along with what looked like half a ton of confetti. The look on O’Neill’s face had been priceless.

There were flowers on Abydos. True, they only appeared after the rains, but they existed. He could have got them for her, if the thought had occurred. But he had always had some new puzzle to explore, some new project to take on, and he had told himself – when it did cross his mind – that he would do it later.

"Except ‘later’ might just be ‘never’, now," he whispered to himself.

Everyone was so confident that they could win Sha’re back – to his face. But at the back of their eyes, he could see the fear that she was already lost to them. Apophys had laughed in their faces when he had showed her off to them, mocked them for their helplessness, and Daniel had come closer to wanting the absolute and complete destruction of another being that he had ever come. And the horror of it was that he still wanted it. He sometimes lay awake at nights and fantasised about having Apophis in his power. The things he sometimes did in those fantasies gave him nightmares.

Somehow, that was becoming an obsession with him. The fact that he had never given the woman he loved, more than any other in the entire universe, a single flower to express that passion, was looming larger and larger on his horizon. It was probably the fact that everywhere he looked, someone or something was rubbing his nose in it, but he found himself sitting and wondering just why he hadn’t done that one, simple thing.

He picked up the book that had been lying on the desk beside his computer. This is probably what had set him off. It had been in the job lot of books he had bought at the last antiquarian sale he had attended. It was called The Language of Flowers and was supposed to be a complete listing of all the plants and their supposed meanings back in Victorian times. He’d kept it purely because he had been intrigued about the symbolism inherent in such a concept. Always looking for new ways humans had found to express themselves, he had meant to take a look through the book at some point and add the information in it to his ever-growing database.

"What sort of bouquet would I send you now, Sha’re?" he wondered.

Opening the book, he flicked through the first part and then settled on the index of meanings. It didn’t take long for him to find the first entry which he thought was appropriate.

"Absence," he typed into the computer. "Symbolised by wormwood."

An appropriate plant, given its association with absinthe and madness. Having Sha’re torn away from him like that had very nearly driven him mad. If it hadn’t have been for Jack and the others, Daniel thought he would have gone mad, driven to some self-destructive act by his frustration.

"Which takes me to ‘anger’," he said to himself. He looked it up. "Gorse or Peony. I have to make a decision?" He scowled at the screen. "I suppose Peony is the prettier flower, so I’ll choose that one." He inputed that, as well, then remembered the despair he had felt when Sha're had vanished through the Gate.

"Marigold?" He stared down at the page. Despair's represented by a marigold?" It didn't seem appropriate, somehow, for so huge an emotion to be symbolised by so brassy a flower. Still, that was what was on the list. "Okay, so a marigold it is."

He realised that he wasn't doing this is in a logical, alphabetical manner, and went back to the beginning, skimming as he went. A phrase leapt out at him: Am I forgotten? Symbolised by holly, which had so many layers of loaded meaning already weighing down it's branches. "Forget you, Sha're? How can I forget the one who means more to me than my own life? Who made me a whole person instead of a self-absorbed academic?" He flicked forward a few pages. Yes, there is was. "Forget me not. Never, my love. I'll never do that."

He added them to the bouquet he was building on the screen and inside his mind. A bouquet he would one day give her, he swore to himself. Well, he'd found despair. What about the other demon that snarled him from out of the dark every night? It was there, of course. What list concerned with love would leave it out?

"Jealousy - a yellow rose." That was odd. He'd thought a yellow rose meant something else. But he was often swamped by jealousy at the thought of Apophis laying his hands on the flesh of his wife, tainting her with his touch. It was a nasty, base emotion and he threw it out of his mind every time he found it there. But he had to admit that it was there, something he had found difficult to cope with.

But not as difficult as the grief. And wasn't it a surprise to find that the harsh, choking emotion was represented by the fragile harebell? A dainty little flower, easily crushed and often overlooked in the presence of other flowers. But there was no way he could ignore the grief which daily threatened to overwhelm him; no way he could crush it down and keep it at the back of his mind. It clawed and raged against all his controls and sometimes made him want to clutch at his head and just scream and scream.

The worst was the terrible suspicion that he had brought Sha're's doom upon her by his arrogance in thinking that he could unlock the secrets of the Go'auld all by himself, just be deciphering some ancient texts. He could have passed on what he had learned to others, allowed people who didn't have innocents depending on them to take up the fight. But he had thought he could beat Apophis the same way they had beaten Ra, forgetting just how big a factor luck had played in that earlier battle. And Sha're had been snatched from him. He couldn't find arrogance, but apparently the hollyhock symbolised the 'ambition of a scholar'. That would do.

Further on he came upon 'the bitter truth'. That was nightshade. "I wonder if that's the deadly variety?" he mused as he typed. The truth that Apophis had discovered Sha're because she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time was a bitter one. Daniel didn't think for a moment that Apophis had only chosen her to spite him. That kind of self-importance was beyond him. The same qualities that had attracted him to Sha're would have made Apophis notice her, but he might never have seen her if she had remained safe in her obscure village far away from the power struggles that had suddenly come to Abydos. But she had followed Daniel, and Apophis had seen her.

To see her was to love her. Daniel didn't think he was biased in that regard. From the moment he had first seen her, there had been an attraction stronger than he had ever felt before. He ran his finger along the index. 'Love at first sight'. An old-fashioned notion, but it was represented by something called corcopsis. He had no idea what that was, or what it looked like, but it was added to the list. He had loved her before he had even recognised the emotion for what it was, and as time had passed, that bond had deepened. He found that in the list, and honeysuckle was added to twine itself around the growing bouquet.

He sat and looked at his lift for a while, then thought of something else to look up. Hate was there, represented by basil, but he didn't want to put hate in a bouquet he gave to his wife. He'd ram some down Apophis' throat, and laugh at the confusion on the would-be god's face, but hatred had nothing to do with Sha're. But he found what he had been looking for, and it was a flower he recognised.

"Rudbeckia, for justice. You'll have justice, Sha're, even if I have to hunt him down across this entire godforsaken universe. If I have to tear down every little small-minded, weak-soulled Go'auld's empire to do it, I will find you some justice."

He typed in the flower, then stared at the screen and was torn between laughter and tears. "What the hell use is this? I should have given you the flowers before all this happened. I should have told you that I loved you a thousand times a day. I should have-"

The words failed him, his throat locking against the grief which rose up to swamp everything else. He was just fooling himself. He was falling into the same trap that had resulted in Sha're being kidnapped in the first place. He dropped his head in his hands and desperately tried to keep the tears from falling. He would look such an idiot if someone came into the room and saw him crying like a baby in front of his computer.

He felt the other's presence just as an arm came over his shoulder and picked up the book. He knew it was O'Neill, even without turning around. Jack had a habit of turning up when he wasn't wanted, and an even more annoying one of turning up when he was desperately needed.

"You forgot one," he said now, leaning across to type something onto the screen. "And it's the most important one of all."

Daniel hastily scrubbed at eyes and adjusted his glasses to see what O'Neill had written. 'Hawthorn.' He knew the sacred aspect of that plant in a number of religions, but he hadn't seen it in the list. He grabbed the book and searched for it, wondering what O'Neill meant. Then he saw it: 'hope'. He stared at the tiny word, then shifted his gaze to a sober O'Neill.

"You put a dozen sprigs of hawthorn in, Daniel, because it's the most important flower in the whole bunch," he said quietly. "And then you hold on to that hope, because it's what makes you different from all the Go'auld in the universe. You can use hope like a shield, like a weapon, and it'll never let you down. It can keep your heart warm when you feel like it's going to freeze solid, and it can keep that same heart from breaking when the pressure gets too bad. And you can bet your last dollar, or potsherd or heiroglyph, that wherever she is under that Go'auld influence, Sha're is doing exactly the same thing."

Daniel blinked, and to his surprise, he felt a small stir of warmth inside him. O'Neill had known his share of tragedy, had loved and lost, but nothing had taken away the man's basic humanity. Okay, so sometimes it was buried waaayyyy deep down, but it didn't take much to bring it to the surface. And he was always there for his team, even if he sometimes seemed to show it by yelling abuse at them. Very gradually, Daniel felt the smallest of smiles touch his face. O'Neill saw it, had been watching for it, and once it was there, he gave an approving nod.

"What say we go find some Go'auld base and blown it to hell and back?" he suggested.

Daniel grinned. "Couldn't find out who sent the card, eh, Jack?"

O'Neill scowled. "Have you any idea how difficult it is to get confetti off an uniform? I need to get off-base before General Hammond wants to know if I've been moonlighting as an usher at a wedding!"

Jackson followed his friend and commanding officer out of his office and down the corridor, not believing any of the grumbles for a second. O'Neill always grumbled, it was a fact of life. Almost a law of nature. Just as the fact that he would one day rescue Sha're from the grasp of Apophis was in inescapable result he was steadily working his way towards.

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