AN: This is a fic written for the lover100 challenge on live journal but i thought i'd post it here too because there are so few Sam/Vala fics out there and they're so much fun (really i'm an SJ and DV shipper but i like doing this for fun). Anyway, enjoy and once you've read it please review because i love reviews :)

Questions and Answers

Samantha Carter had never expected to find herself pinned against her lab bench by a crazy alien. Well, maybe she had. But never in this capacity, perhaps by an angry alien, but certainly not by a highly aroused and very sexy female alien. That had never crossed her mind, and if it had she never would have thought that the situation would have aroused her. Yet it did.

Vala MalDoran had been an official member of SG-1 for two and a half months when she dawdled into Sam's lab and leant casually against the bench a broad smile on her face and a toffee apple in hand. Sam smiled, she enjoyed having another woman on the team, even the quirky alien who seemed to know a little about everything, and had a penchant for thinking outside the box and a love for Sam's insane ideas.

"Samantha, how's the research coming?" she had asked, slurping some toffee from the outside of her apple. "These are really quite good" She enthused gesturing to the sickly looking apple on a stick. Sam looked at the younger woman strangely, toffee apples were the type of thing seven year olds liked eating at the fair or Halloween, not something a grown women munched on an air force base.

"Haven't you ever had one Samantha?" Vala asked wrongly interpreting Sam's gaze.

Sam nodded "Not since I was a child"

"Oh well, you must try a bit" Vala decided shoving the stick towards Sam, who gingerly licked the thin layer of toffee. It reminded her of the time she spent as a child, with Mark walking door to door sometimes in a soldier's costume on Halloween "Good isn't it?" Vala continued taking the stick back.

Sam nodded "Where did you get it?" she asked, knowing the woman could not have gotten hold of it on base.

"Daniel took me to the circus today. It was amazing, almost as good as the travelling shows that used to come to my planet when I was young.

"How did you convince him to do that?" Sam asked intrigued.

"I didn't, he offered" Vala replied smugly. The pair were silent for several minutes, Sam returning to her research and Vala to sucking on the toffee apple, that was by then almost completely devoid of toffee.

Sam was distracted by Vala taking a huge bite from the crispy apple.

"Can I ask you a question, Samantha?"

"Sure, just let me finish this calculation" the blonde Colonel replied, while Vala continued to lean casually against the workbench, chomping on her sweet apple.

Sam was true to her word and a few moments later she saved her work and flipped her laptop shut on the bench, "What did you want to ask?" it wasn't uncommon for either Vala or Teal'c to appear near one of their earthling team members with a question about the culture in which they were attempting to immerse themselves. Though Teal'c questions were less frequent than they had once been and Vala's much more unusual than the Jaffa's. Teal'c usually asked questions about holidays and their customs, while Vala had become absorbed in the consumerist and entertainment culture that the United States offered. She often appeared at Sam's side with a question about the exact use of a product or the meaning of a fashion term that was yet to make it to the intergalactic market, or questions about a band, movie or tv show. Often Sam couldn't answer her, and she suspected that she was not the first person Vala nagged with her questions. Even so, there were a lot of them and Vala appearing in her lab with a question was no longer surprising to Sam, mostly it wasn't even annoying. In fact the alien reminded her a little of her former commanding officer, Jack O'Neill who had a similar childlike quality and inability to focus.

Sam's comparison of Vala and the Colonel, sorry General she reminded herself were interrupted by the young alien herself. "I just wondered what the term dyke meant, Daniel wouldn't tell me, just that it's something to do with women, well actually I guessed that, because somebody said the woman sitting in front of us at the circus was one." Vala babbled.

Sam contemplated the woman for a moment, considering her answer "It's a derogatory term that describes a woman who engages in sexual interactions only with other women." Sam explained and found herself continuing "It's also a somewhat ridiculous stereotype that categorises women who don't dress, act, or look femininely."

"So a dyke would be someone who walks around in jeans and shirt?" Vala asked still confused.

"Sort of, they're usually also people with short hair, muscles and a hatred for all things pink"

"Well now, that's just silly. Samantha, using that description they could mean you. Of course I don't know if you engage in sexual encounters with women, but I'd guess from the way you look at General O'Neill whenever he visits that if you do then it is not exclusively." Sam felt her skin flushing a deep red as Vala continued talking and cursed inwardly not for the first time, her fair complexion.

"Well that is the problem with stereotypes isn't it" Sam replied awkwardly, hoping Vala assumed that the blush was caused by her statement about the General rather than the notion that Sam might have lesbian tendencies.

"Samantha" Vala said, her voice low as she approached the blonde "Do you like women?" She asked taking a few more steps closer until Sam was pressed awkwardly between her bench and Vala.

Nobody had ever flat out asked her that question before and Sam found herself without an answer. She'd kissed a few girls, even gone a bit further with one, but she'd been young and rebellious and it had never been anything serious. It was just fun. And it had certainly been that, the memories of soft hands on her face, soft strawberry and cherry flavoured lips against hers and skilled fingers caressing her breasts were some of the most vivid she had. It was those memories that came back to her at night when her bed was empty, it was not Jonas, Pete, Narim, Martouf or any of the other countless men she'd dated whose faces came to her at night, but the teenagers with whom she had explored her sexuality.

She eventually settled on a simple but vague "Of course I like women" Vala was so close, Sam could smell her hair which hung loose around her face and shoulders; vanilla and strawberries, maybe. Vala's hands rested against the workbench on either side of her, just shy of actually touching her BDU clad thighs. Sam didn't dare think about what those hands could do to her.

"Good, I like women too" Vala replied softly, all business.

Sam expected her to pull away then and leave her confused by the strange encounter, instead she felt Vala's lips pressed very softly to the corner of her mouth. Sam felt herself smiling at the almost kiss, her hands reaching up from where they were trapped between Vala's to loop into the other woman's belt loops and pull her closer.

"Samantha, I never pegged you as naughty" Vala said feigning surprise.

"And I never pegged you as a tease" Sam retorted.

"I'm not darling" Vala drawled "I just thought that since we're on base and there's all these security cameras..."

"Vala, just shut up and kiss me" Sam commanded.

"Yes Colonel" Sam laughed when Vala saluted her, a serious look on her face, before leaning in and capturing Sam's lips, her hands coming to rest on the small of her back, after all it was only their first kiss.