Wild Goose Chase
She left the SGC in the middle of the night. Somehow fired up the locked DHD mechanism—something they still don't know how she did.
He's not really surprised she knew how.
What was surprising was how long it took for them to realize.
He'd stayed on base overnight in order to be present for a 06:00 item transfer from the SGC to Area 51. Usually it's Sam's thing, Lee's thing, or even Jackson's thing, but this one was on him and he rubbed his eyes, standing in the cargo bay, exchanged papers, and thought for once something was going according to plan.
Then he sat in the cafeteria and waited for her to bounce in and collect one of each breakfast pastries offered with a plate full of what she still considers to be exotic fruit. But she didn't. it was 07:00 when Teal'c marched in from morning meditation for a tea and some porridge, sitting across from him.
"Good Morning, Colonel Mitchell."
"Morning Big Guy."
"I trust your merchandise transferal occurred without any concerns?"
"Not-a-one."
Neither of them mentioned her absence and in retrospect, because hindsight is twenty-twenty, he thinks it reflects poorly on them.
At 08:00 Sam and Jackson arrived on base. They'd both been in Antarctica for the last week, and his first thought was maybe Vala hitchhiked her way down there due to her two closest friends holding a party and not inviting her. But he and Teal'c aren't that bad. She tags along for the odd day out with the 'boys' every now and again, watching Star Wars or gun slinging westerns or cheesy karate movies and stuffing her mouth full of popcorn and candy.
They waited in the conference room for her, and it wasn't until he stood when General Landry entered, that he realized she wasn't there. Landry waved them off, taking his chair at the head of the table, but stopping before dropping his ass in the seat, his face pulled in the middle, questioning, knowing something was off.
Just as he had the same thought Landry questioned, "Where's Vala?"
Sam and Jackson checked their labs, Teal'c went to the caf and then took the long way back passed the workout room and basketball court. He checked her room, had a security officer override her code, and when he went it, it was a mess.
Not a usual mess with dog-eared magazines and a few day-old bottles of water—but ransacked, like someone had come to get her.
Like she had to leave in a rush.
After that they all sort of started running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Everyone questioning why she would want to leave, where she could possibly go. Sam kept reverting back on private conversations trying to decipher clues that Vala wasn't well or safe. Jackson kept asking—his tone growing more panicked until he was shouting—what happened when they left. What he specifically had done—which was nothing—which was either a good thing or a bad thing.
"Perhaps instead of focusing on why Vala Mal Doran left," Teal'c stood stationary in the chaos around him, of Sam running a hand through her hair blaming herself, of Jackson's very red face blaming him, of him still not comprehending what the hell happened. "We should try to determine where she would go."
By 10:00 they were in the gate room, talking with Harriman, reverse engineering the last dial outs from the secure DHD. Her code, unlocked by her biological signature—in this case, a fingerprint—showed her accessing the gate at 02:17 when the security cameras played a loop of a happy Harriman playing solitaire.
"I wasn't here. I clocked out and shut the system down for about twenty minutes between 02:00 and 02:30 for my break." His face was whiter than usual, his brow sweating a bit. If he didn't know the man, he'd assume he was worried about being reprimanded. "It's possible that she rebooted the system and—"
Chin resting in his fist, knuckles bunching against his lips, he mumbled, "that's exactly what she did."
She encrypted the gate address. Didn't mess up the system at all, the gate was still functional and not just a pretty conversation starter, but she covered her ass like a snug pair of jeans. Like they forgot she knew how to.
Like she wasn't doing it out of necessity for years.
While the engineering team tried to unencrypt her whereabouts, or more likely, her first stop on the road, they stopped for a quiet lunch of hamburgers and allegations. Sam still blamed herself and her food went untouched, then cold, and then into the garbage.
"I should have asked her along. I didn't even think how she would feel not being included." Never once blamed him, or Jackson, or the apparently piss poor security around the gate. Just herself as she bowed her head in her hands, staring at stale French fries.
"Vala Mal Doran did not like to stay stagnant, perhaps she simply wished to take a vacation while you were absent."
"Then she should've booked the time off." He took a sip of the watered-down soda to cover his own self-doubt.
Silence consumed them more than they consumed any of the subpar food, and when it became overwhelming Jackson exploded. "You had to have said or done something, she wouldn't have just left."
He slurped from his soda loudly, then set the cup down on the table. "As upsetting it is that she's gone, maybe we're all kicking ourselves because we really don't know her that well."
At 13:00 they were all in her room, cleaning up clothes, toiletries, makeup, all thrown into a cyclone onto her floor, like the room of a teenage girl who doesn't give a shit about her parents' rules. It was pretty useless, and unless she had written something down, left them a note or a clue, there was no way this would help. She doesn't have a cell phone to call, but she does have a—
"Her tracker," announced into the soundless room. Sam stopped folding clothes, Jackson stopped rearranging books, and Teal'c hung the mirror Vala had been bugging him about for the last two months. "We can trace her tracker."
"Already thought of that, Mitchell."
Sam was more responsive to his idea. "We tried to trace it this morning while you were with Harriman. She removed it and stashed it in the bathroom grate."
"She knew she was going, and she didn't want us to follow."
Jackson set down the woodcarving of a pig his father made for her when she visited Kansas a few years ago with him. Suddenly this became a lot scarier. Sure, she's a part of his team and that means that if she's in trouble, he's in trouble by association, but that pig, the pig his father whittled for her in two days because she became obsessed with the one wallowing in the mud out back, because she would coo to the four-hundred pound rack of bacon like he was a kitten and when he waddled to the wood fence, and let her scratch his head with a contended grunt, she said she felt blessed.
That was always a different Vala to him.
Vala as a person, not as a thief, or liar, or mother of the Orici, or teammate.
But her having real qualities, and talents, and quirks, that he never noticed because he removed himself.
It got way worse after that.
He excused himself from Sam's downtrodden eyes as she rubbed the fabric of one of Vala's shirts between her fingers, as Jackson huffed—still a bit accusing—but kept a hand over his mouth trying to keep his words to himself, and Teal'c stared at himself in her mirror that took him less than five minutes to hang.
Moved to the nearest washroom and splashed some cold water on his face. Telling himself that she was capable, that there was a reason she left, and knowing what he knows it wasn't for prosperity, or shame, or anything to benefit her.
It was to benefit the team.
There was a private waiting for him in the hallway. After a salute, he gave a nod, ready to hear some good news.
"Sir, we found the surveillance footage."
At 15:00 they piled back into the gate room control center and watched a small black and white domed television inset in the console showing her sneaking into the room, tugging a jacket on over her bandaged arm—tracker already removed—and dialing up an address, then she turned to the camera to re-patch the feed.
"She's speeding through," Jackson pointed at her flitting from one console to the next, to the camera and then back as Harriman rewound and replayed the tape.
"She looks—" Sam stopped talking as Harriman paused the tape right as her face was before the camera.
"Upset." He finished for her with a hard exhale, crossing his arms and doubling his load of guilt. "She looks upset."
By 16:00 he was in his office pouring over her reports for the last week since Jackson and Sam hightailed it to Antarctica. Tried to read through her sprawling calligraphy, something like the on the front of a wedding card, and then skipped to reading her typed up notes. But in the three missions they'd been on, they'd only been separated once at length—when she'd lost her barrette and begged him to give her a few minutes to go back in the pub to find it. He rolled his eyes and told her to be quick and she nodded her head vigorously before bounding back inside. She was gone less than five minutes. He called to her once, and then shoved his head back through the door to ask her what the hold up was.
If he just went back and helped her look—
They didn't meet up for supper around 18:00 like they usually do. Jackson still harbored blame for him and Sam felt far to guilty to even think of food. He still sat in his office. The lights long switched off from his lack of movement and ran over the twenty-four hours since their last mission. Barely had any exchanges with her because he was so busy prepping for today's mission—which of course was cancelled—that he stayed in the conference room strategizing ways they could help a village defeat the rule of a corrupt leader and make some allegiances along the way.
Then it hit him.
As he sat on hour nine of planning, his head in his hands and in dire need of a coffee. She knocked on the door asking to speak with him. Forgot about it. How did he forget about it? He was too overworked, but the tone of her voice was so different. Promised he would stop by her room on the way to his, and he never did. Wishes he'd heard her out. How did he just forget about it?
On his way to basically admit blame to Jackson, the team stopped him in the hallway.
They finally had a gate address.
The first stop is a desert planet not unlike the one she still ruled under the guise of Qetesh. Sam hooks up her laptop to the DHD and scrolls through a program listing the last fifty uses and the time and date of access according to the clock on her computer. This place being a nearly abandoned world works in their favor, and the only access today was Vala gating out of there.
He knew she'd goose chase them.
Five planets later looks more like a place she'd hole up—well the old her at least—but really any her because they don't know her at all. Wonders if she enjoys seedy places like this filled with seven pubs, one inn and no schools or farms or greenery. Just dusty ground, the stench of smoke, and tons of booze.
Sam's on her knees at the DHD, running through the program, changing encrypted data into dates and times, when gunfire breaks out in the town just down the hill—no more smoke than before, but the sounds of bullets hiccup through the air.
"Think that's our girl?" Asks standing on the curve of the hill, shielding his eyes from the setting sun because now it was nearing 20:00.
Teal'c scoops his pack off the ground, turning towards the town. "I think even if it is not, that it would be prudent of us to investigate."
"Yeah," Jackson groans as he stands from beside Sam, "and I would put money on it being her."
Sam stays behind decoding the DHD just in case the ruckus isn't Vala. It takes him, Jackson and Teal'c fifteen minutes to jog into town, and he tries to appreciate the colors the sky throws over the fields, the oranges and pinks and golds, instead of focusing on the gun fray they're about to enter. The town has high three-storey cobblestoned buildings that give away to a courtyard of shared space as a town center. By the time they arrive, the gunfire has died down, but pieces of the central fountain have been blown off, and the only people they can see are huddled inside of doorways.
They wait a beat, guns drawn ready to fire at anything that might come out at them, until they hear demands coming from inside one of the four identical taverns lining the square. He nods to Jackson and Teal'c to take the front door as he sneaks around back. Boots sloshing through the garbage water running through breaks in the stone alley.
Can still overhear a man demanding loudly inside, talking down to someone, saying things like ' there no escape' and how 'this is her fault'—things that make his blood boil, and while he hopes that she's inside because it would make his life a hell of a lot easier if they could pick her up here without anymore gating, he hopes it's not because she's gotten herself into something deep.
The back door is made of heavy wood but is left unlocked, and as he inches it open, the voice comes in clearer clarity, taunting and threatening her about old ties, about screwing over the Lucien Alliance, telling her to give up and they won't be too rough with her. He pushes the door open on that one, knowing what a stupid idea it is, but instead of coming face-to-face with however many guys it took to shoot down a fountain, he finds a small kitchen complete with a cabinet, a sink, a stove and what looks like a makeshift fridge.
Hears her gun click before he spots her wedged in between the sink and stove, but when he stares at her, she rolls her eyes dropping the gun and pushing herself back against the wall to sit. Wants to go into a reprimand, let her know how worried he—they've all been—about her, how they had to chase her through this damn gate trail, but the guy outside the kitchen door already has a monopoly on mean words, so instead he drops beside her.
"What do we have?"
"Five men, armed with assault rifles, all very, very upset with m—" her words stop as he untangles her arms from her chest, and she winces, craning her head back to the wall.
His fingers come back bloody, and he tries not to let her see his concern, but he starts to feel nauseous as he sets down his gun and rifling through the first aid kit in his bag instead. "What happened?"
"Former Lucien Alliance soldiers looking to cash in on loans I'd long since—"
"No Vala," his voice is a harsh whisper as he unravels the gauze and again directs her arm down to her side to find her injury. "What happened here."
"Oh," groans as she straightens her back, curving a bit away from him, making this harder than it should be. "I was shot."
"Where?" Tugs at her jacket, pulling it away from where it's pasted to her skin, then peels the collar of her shirt back, the material damp with blood, to reveal a bullet hole around her collar bone. "Did it go through?"
She smacks his hand, and then digs her palm into his thigh, pushing away from him. "It's fine, just—"
Someone bangs into the door from the other side, jarring both of them, and she winces, sucking breath and for the first time, he notices how pale she is. Removes her shielding arm from her chest once again and slides a piece of gauze over the wound, watching as it turns red right away. "Okay, so we need to get you back to the SGC."
"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" She narrows her eyes at him, but complies when he directs her forward, finding the exit hole of the bullet through the back of her jacket.
Another bang comes from the door, and without breaking eye contact, her chest heaving in pants, he clicks on his walkie. "I got her, you're good to go."
There's another bang, this time from Teal'c most likely kicking down the front door and then a few more shots before everything returns to silent. Grins at her, expecting her to roll her eyes or say something along the line of how she had everything covered—except for the two bullet holes in her chest—but when he turns back, she's on the brink of unconsciousness, her body hitting the side of the stove with a metallic echo.
"Vala?" Hand on her boot, he jostles her leg and when she doesn't respond, he shakes her thigh. Her pulse is steady but light, her body cold and sweating, and he can see the patch of red gauze over the collar of her shirt. "Shit."
"Mitchell, where are you?"
"We're in the kitchen, Princess got banged up. We need back to the SGC now." Speaks as he lifts her, body loose and light in his arms, her head tucking against his shoulder as he steps to the door, unlocking it, and hiking her up a bit, careful not to aggravate her injury.
Jackson is directly on the other side of the door, and his face evolves from emotionless to switching between shock, anger, fear, as words stutter from his mouth. "What—what happened?"
"She got shot in the chest, there's an exit wound. I don't think it hit anything vital, but she's lost a lot of blood." Hands her over to Teal'c without words, the Big Guy seems to understand that they have to bolt back to the gate, and he's got the best strength and stamina out of them.
"Why was she here?" Jackson questions, lost in confusion and concern as they jog out of the building, ignoring the bodies of former Lucien Alliance members, not stopping to check if any of the villagers are injured.
They run until they hit the field, Jackson no longer digging for an answer. A fifteen-minute jog takes half the time, and when they're a minute away he radios Sam telling her to fire up the gate.
Plucks at his shirt outside of the medical bay while Dr. Lam sees to her. It's about 23:00, and his clothes are sticking to him with his sweat and her blood. They're all beyond tired, working off adrenaline they don't have. None of them have eaten since lunch, none have slept in twenty hours, all sitting, staining chairs and stinking up the hallway.
When the doors open, the silence between them amplifies, and he stands, his arms crossed over the now hardened blood on his shirt, ready to hear the news.
"I stitched up her wounds, but she'll be asleep for a while from the blood loss." The smell of them, must hit the good doctor because she flinches, twitching her nose and suggests, "why don't you guys shower and grab something to eat and some sleep. If anything changes I'll let you know."
He showers, watching he water dilute her blood, watching it ribbon off him, then redresses in fatigues to snack on a few slices of the leftover pizza from the last dinner shift. It's cold and greasy and she would love it. The tv in the caf is switched off and he sits by himself, trying to decide whether he should go to post-mission paperwork, or go to sleep, or just wait for her to wake up.
When he shuffles to a stop outside of the medical bay and finds the rest of the team—Teal'c standing with a tea, Sam curled up in a chair with her jacket over her lap, and Jackson pacing across the floor, he knows he made the right choice, and he drops into one of the armchairs beside Sam and waits.
"I still don't understand why she would just go."
It's near 02:00 when Jackson's words jolt him out of a light sleep. Teal'c is now in a chair across from him, eyes sleep heavy and his arms draped over his knees. Sam is sleeping in the chair beside him, and Jackson hasn't stopped pacing.
"Wouldn't she know that we would help her? She's been on this team for years and she still doesn't trust us."
"I don't think it was a matter of trust, Sunshine." He rubs at his eye with the back of his hand and stifles the next yawn. "I think she wanted to keep us out of the line of fire."
"Well, look how good that worked for her."
"Getting mad at her isn't going to change what happened, Daniel." Sam, who blinks herself awake pushes up in her chair with half-open eyes.
"And not discussing the subject is just going to ensure that this is going to happen again."
He's about to volunteer to do a coffee run, when a private salute him at the corner of the hallway. It's so late and he's so tired that he doesn't piece together that the soldier is waiting for his attention, until he realizes everyone else has stopped talking.
That, and Sam elbows him off the armrest.
"I'm awake."
"Colonel Mitchell, the shipping department told me to come get you."
"The shipping—why?" It's nearing 03:00 now and he can't find it in him to care about what they need.
"Apparently the package that went out this morning never arrived at Area 51 and—"
He gets pulled away from seeing her, stuck in the shipping department for over two hours tracing the package, finding it, yawning through the whole thing, moving to fix his hat, and then remembering that he's not wearing one.
At 05:00 he starts to march to his room for a few hours of sleep before something important rouses him, and as he takes the next step, he spins, walking back towards the elevator and resting his forehead against the door until it stops and opens just before the medical bay.
Lam is off duty by now, but the covering physician takes him right to her, sound asleep in the bed, her arm wrapped up in a weak sling so she doesn't tear the stitching. He tries to be covert, thinks about just leaving, but he had her blood on him and that means something, and as exhausted as he is, he doesn't think he'll be able to fall asleep until he knows she's okay.
There's the hiss of some machine and the rapid beeping of two or three different ones hooked up to her, and despite his best efforts not to wake her, he sort of collapses in the chair, his eyes stinging and heavy.
"Am I really that much of a bore to you?"
Recognizes her voice through his closed lids. It's not as rhythmic or strong as before, he can't hear her playful prodding or the grin in her words, but when he opens his eyes, she's watching him.
"Sorry, Princess." Exhales and sits up because if his momma was here, she'd give him a good whack with the rolling pin. "Long day."
"You're telling me." Her words trail off and her eyes fall closed again, but just as quickly she opens them, shifting on the bed with a deep sigh. "Have you come to chide me on my selfish manner?"
"No, I'm sure Jackson took care of that."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because you almost died today."
"I didn't almost die—"
"Vala, I had to throw out my shirt because of how much of your blood got on it."
"While I'd love to argue with you more, I'm really quite tired."
"Me too." He drags the chair forward, it's not really the most comfortable thing he's ever slept in, but right now he could probably fall asleep standing straight up. He scoops up her hand, cold and with some sort of tag on the one of her fingers. "I'll tell you what, why don't you go to sleep, and I'll go to sleep, and if either of us is dying, we wake the other up?"
"Sounds like a wonderful plan." She squeezes his hand and he holds hers until her grip loosens, and only then does he close his eyes.