A/N: So this story can be a bit confusing to read. Each chapter is in an alternate universe meaning the Vala of each chapter is a different Vala under a different set of circumstances. This is set after Ark of Truth, so everything up until that point is canonical. Basically, it's a chose your own adventure of sorts. This is part of currently an 8 story series entitled La Troisième Fois, so there will be more.

A Sure Thing

Chapter 1

Marco Polo

1.

It is a nice gesture. That's all it is.

Friday night, she's learned, should have been a lot more exciting than what she's used to, which is watching all her teammates talk about their plans, their dates, their weekend getaways, getting depressed, turning in at approximately nine to watch the cooking channel, because feeling abandoned doesn't mean the cakes get any less extravagant, turning on her side away from the door and counting down until the weekend is over. Or hoping a pressing mission comes up in the next forty-eight hours, or scheming to cause a pressing mission in the next forty-eight hours.

The General dismisses them after briefing, everyone popping up in a flash leaving empty chairs spinning and she slows her solitary half rotation. There's a clatter and then door clicks shut and if she sits here long enough the lights will flick off at no signs of movement.

But the door clicks back open and Cameron pops into the room jogging towards his seat and spinning it around once. When he isn't satisfied he bends and lets out an exclamation while grabbing his phone from where it toppled under the table. Pausing for a second, he darts up, "Waiting on something, Princess."

"Monday." Crosses her arms on the table and exhaling so deeply the air flutters her bangs.

"Monday?"

"When everyone gets back."

"What do you mean?" Slides the phone in his pocket and gestures to the door.

She sighs again, taking her time to pull up from the chair and shuffle her boots across the floor. "You all get to leave on the weekend. I'm always grounded here."

"You still don't have clearance to leave the complex?"

"Not yet." The hallways are emptying with only the few members on overnights staying around. Sometimes after nightmares or when she can't sleep she breaks protocol and wanders the hallways in her silk robe feeling like a ghost. "Even if I did I don't know how to drive a car, so I couldn't get very far."

"What do you do all weekend."

"Mostly just sit in bed and watch the food network. Did you know there is a whole channel dedicated to watching others construct delicious looking food that you can never eat."

"Okay, we need to get you out of here." He glances at his watch and then at her dirty off world gear. Three days of sifting through sand with an ornery Daniel, searching for tiny fragments of a specific type of crystal she couldn't recognize and just began collecting shells. "Could you be ready in an hour?"

"If the right occasion called for it," adds quickly trying not to spike her hopes, but also decidedly a little upset that she doesn't get to see Cupcake Battles tonight.

"Great. I have a date—"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude." They stop at the female locker room entrance. Sam smirks as she squeezes between them and darts down the opposite side of the hallway. A certain General is in town tonight.

Scrunches his nose and shakes his head, his skin stays the same color and doesn't redden so she knows what he says is true. "We're going to a bar, there's plenty for you to do."

"Will there be men there?" Attempts to level her voice but to be honest she's already had her pick of the litter at Cheyenne, knows fraternizing isn't allowed in the complex but they've literally left her nothing else to do. "Different men than on this base."

"Uh, yeah?"

Pushes away from him and slides into the locker room. "I'll be ready in thirty minutes."

The bar is less swanky than she thought, more of a hay on the wall, hay on the floor, hay in her shoe type place. There is a billiards table to her right and a dart board directly in front of her. The bartender has already flashed his eyes at her and asked for ID which is either stupidity or flattery. She hands him her base ID and he slides her a beer, she would have rather had a martini, but Cameron said that isn't going to happen here.

"Do you know how to play pool?"

"Is that the game where someone closes their eyes and yells to try to find someone around them."

"That's Marco Polo and it's played in a pool."

"Then no."

"How do you know how to play Marco Polo?"

She purses her lips tightly and adds an exaggerated eye roll.

"Alright," elongates his words and his hand pops up ordering them another beer. Wonders how they'll get back to base tonight but remembers him mentioning something about an accountant driver.

The logics behind pool are straightforward as are the logics behind all Tau'ri games played with a cudgel, to beat the ever-living hell out of another objects, a ball, a piñata, a person. She taps a black ball with the side of her stick and he laughs, "no you have to use the tip of your cue."

"Q?"

Places his beer down, raising his eyebrows to the bartender who nods and sets two frosty bottles on the counter. He taps the end of the stick. "The cue."

"The queue?"

"For God's sake, Vala," chuckles and it's unaltered and true making his eyes squint in tiny bird feet wrinkles. He clamps a fist around her bottle and yanks the cap clear off, and she stifles a purr from her throat. On any world displays of blunt masculinity always gives her internal shivers. He grabs the stick from her hand, flipping it and placing the polished end up. "Your cue."

"Oh." Grins and nods and jolts the Q right into the one of the balls and they all go clattering across the table, bounce out of the lovely velvet border confining them and roll to all sides of the bar.

He views her through narrowed eyes and she shrugs innocently, hoping the doll eyes and pigtails will ease his outburst. But fortunately, that's when his date walks in and he forgets about her mishap.

He and his date chat into the night. A pretty little thing with bright blonde hair and a nice blue sundress. Cameron grins, leans into her, touches her knee quickly and his date blushes and turns away. He always makes not of where she is, cranes his neck to examine the bar. She chats with a lovely man who owns a motorcycle and enjoys crocheting in his spar time, she nurses her fifth beer and eyes the dart boards because she thinks she could throw perfectly, she speaks with the bartender about his aspirations of hiking through Costa Rica.

Nearing midnight she sways before the dart board. She's been more inebriated, been inebriated to the point of loss of consciousness before, but the rapid fire of the weak beer is starting to take its toll on her system. There are three darts the size of baby birds in her hand that she can toss across the room to the red and white rings.

"What're you doing?" He sidles up beside her, his gait swaying a bit too. He's might be a beer ahead of her now, and in the raucousness of the bar she barely hears him.

"I want to throw the birds, but I don't know how."

"You just toss 'em. "

So she does, tosses one and it hits the board on the second ring in. She has a great eye for fine details and revels in anything that might be of a good defense to her. As a child she would toss rocks before people the make them trip and then grab their money as she helped them up.

"Not bad, straighten your back a bit."

"Like this?" Aligns her spine and offers him a hiccup before he answers.

"Too far." His body inches closer, knows because the warmth spreads through her hips and her behind as his arms swoop to rest on hers. "Like this."

The feeling is amazing, sends bumps up her arms and throughout her body awakening her dulled senses. "Cameron?"

"Hmm?" His chin is on her shoulder and she shudders at his voice lapping at her neck. He smells of beer and peanuts and some unidentifiable musk.

"Where is your date?"

He bends her arms back with his, floating the dart before them as he does a mock up of the throw. "She left a few minutes ago."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine, we really didn't hit it off that much," voice rumbles in his throat and his hands slip to her hips keeping her stance stationary, hot through her pants, his fingers slightly kneading through her jeans. "You have to stay still."

"Then you have to stop doing that," her own words hold the cadence of challenge to them as she flicks and eyebrow his way.

His eyes are heavy-lidded and his grin lopsided, his nose barely brushes against he cheek. "Throw the dart."

So she does. It hits the wall a few feet away from the board, the needle buried deep with probable permanency.

"Whoops," she giggles sliding backwards against him. They stumble a bit, but he steadies her with a palm on her back while the other slides from her hip to her thigh.

"Guess I'm not as good of a teacher as I thought."

"No, I think my aim is just a bit wonko."

He's stares at her a bit dazed, she does the same and doesn't try to jostle out of his hands. Part of her drowning brain is telling her something about this is wrong, not wrong just, inappropriate, but he grins and whispers with a rasp to his voice, "do you want to get out of here?"

Without hesitation she replies, "yes please."