It's only when T'ealc comes through the gate, goes up to Vala pointedly, and tells her that a new wave of fighting is being led by a young woman, that it clicks.
Baby photos. Right.
He's extra-terse with Vala after that. He'd thought she was coming onto him; she'd evidently been thinking of a different kind of possibility. Like if she'd been able to have her baby with someone like John Crichton, rather than a magical Orii, and how that would've been. No wonder she hadn't been staring at Aeryn Sun.
She'd told them a little about what it had been like, when she'd given her report. Daniel had pressed her, asked her how she hadn't realised immediately who this child would be. She told them that they'd taken the baby away from her as soon as they'd pulled her out of her body. And she'd had to lie there, pushing out the placenta, while some horse-faced woman watched the baby take her first breaths and first steps and first words. Mitchell had listened as Vala had reported all of this, laughing as she did, flicking one of her pony-tails, turning it all into some kind of a story. And he'd had his fists clenched under the table the whole time. He'd talked to her a little on the vessel that had brought them back to earth. Talked to her, brought her chocolate, remembering how she'd liked that treat. Listened to her apologise for unleashing the apocalypse. He'd been livid. She should've been livid. She wasn't; but now she'd seen those others, she was wondering whether things could've been different.
He's in his own office, trying to get a report done, but he can't, can't sleep, and it's insane because the Orii are taking over the universe and all he can think of is how he can get his hands on the baby pictures.
She comes as soon as she's called.
"My dear colonel," she drawls, standing in the doorway. "Something to say to a lowly member of – Stargate Command?"
She's leaning against the doorframe, tight black t-shirt, loose khaki pants, and even though it's regulation, he feels like he's never seen anyone more out of uniform. Maybe it's because her hair's loose. She's playing with a tendril of it, looking at him with a tiny smile playing over her mouth. She's furious.
He straightens uneasily behind his desk and then gets up and stands in front of it. He realises he's been checking, ever since the visitors, checking her mouth and her eyes, terrified that there'll suddenly be a flash of Aeryn Sun there, the cold of an unsheathed blade. But right then he realises that she'll always have her own kind of danger.
"John Crichton mentioned a meeting-place, when he was here. We've worked out the gate address. Said that it was a place where – unusual people aren't noticed. No one will care that we look alike."
"Are you suggesting we run away together?" Her eyebrows shoot up and she looks amused, amused and interested. Pushing herself up from the doorway, she moves forward, pressing her hands into the back of the big chair that sits in the middle of the room. He'd interviewed dozens of hopefuls to join SG-1 on his first day, and they'd all sat in that chair, backs like ram-rods, and he imagines Vala coming in on that day, standing in front of him like she was, looking at him like she was. She had turned up, but it had been through a gate and the first thing she'd done had been to ask where Daniel was.
He clears his throat, grins at her. "Only as far as PSX-231. I want to know how bad it is over there for them, and I think it'd be good for them to hear your story. Then, we'll come back."
"All right," she says. Her hands are relaxed on the chair-back, and he thinks that she's maybe not so angry with him as she was before. She tosses her hair back, gives him a wicked look. "I'll pack an overnight bag, just in case we change our minds."
He can't help it then, laughs out loud at her. She gives him a considering look.
"You don't get mad like Daniel does," she observes, and he shrugs, walks over and stands by the door. "Maybe you're a little more used to it?"
"Maybe," he says, and watches as she heads back down the corridor to her own quarters. Used to Vala? He doubts anyone could be.
*~*~*
The gate is in a marketplace; it's hot, very hot, and Mitchell regrets the leather almost immediately, even though it'd been nice to see Vala back in it. The sky is a brilliant blue, and it's not quite the shade he's used to, but he can't work out exactly how. The marketplace is made of red stone, curved passageways, carved walls, and it's beautiful except that it's dirty and it smells of rotting vegetables, dead animals, and human waste. It's loud and busy, busy with all sorts of different creatures of every shape and colour imaginable, heckling and haggling and shouting and laughing, and he thinks he'd love it here except that the stench is giving him a headache and he's so very hot.
Vala's eyes are bright – he remembers that the one thing more important to her than sex is treasure, and he lets her look at the different stalls for a moment, even lets her bargain for some coloured stones on a chain, and a tiny puzzle box which is going cheap because no one knows how to open it. He guesses that her long clever fingers will find a way. Then he tugs her towards the tea-house that John had mentioned. They duck under a gorgeous carved archway, hanging with old washing and rags, and head down a flight of grey steps which have evidently been used as a urinal. There's a stall of lanterns just where the stairs curve and end, and Mitchell thinks wildly of Aladdin and geniis, and forgets for a second that one of his three wishes should be about the Orii.
The shop beside it has a closed wooden door, and when he pushes open the door it's dark and he can't see anything at all. Vala grins, pushes aside the hanging drapery, steps into the place. The temperature drop is so significant that Mitchell feels cold. He blinks, lets his eyes adjust to the light, and then sees their doubles in a far corner booth. They're necking like teenagers and it's both a pretty sight and an overwhelmingly odd one. Crichton's got his hand bunched in her hair, and for a second Mitchell bunches his own hand, knows how it would feel.
Vala stands beside him, mesmerised, then laughs out loud. "And I thought it was too cold in here!" she chortles.
They don't jump apart – and Mitchell remembers they've got a young child, probably need to savour any free time alone – and when Crichton looks up at them, he grins unrepentantly. "Sorry about the setting," he says. "Aeryn can't handle the heat."
Mitchell thinks she looks pale, guesses that even the trip from their vessel to this shop has been trying for her. He slides into the booth and tries to ignore her scowl – she's looking at him as though he'd been the one to say it, as though he'd accused her of some terrible weakness – and pulls Vala in beside him. "I'm not too keen on it, either," he says.
A small woman with patterned orange skin comes over, slides square cups filled with a light-green steaming liquid in front of them. Vala inhales the scent and then turns to him with delight. "It's siri tea!" She lifts the cup in her hand, looks at him over it as she sips it. "Try it, it's good."
The cold leaves him. There's something about the way she enjoys the drink that warms him inside, a trickle of heat that he doesn't recognise as lust until he turns away, looks over at Aeryn. They look the same, Mitchell remembers again with the same strange jolt, but Vala likes the heat. He lifts his own cup and tastes it gingerly. "It's like mint," he says, and Crichton nods. "Almost."
It comes out wistfully, and Mitchell realises that everything for Crichton has to be almost. He has to grab at things that nearly taste like chicken or chinese or chilli. Some of the planets he'd be visiting would look something like Earth. The woman sitting beside him is just about human.
He remembers, and brings out some chocolate, hands it over. "It's the good, dark, kind," he says, kind of embarrassed when Crichton gasps over it. "Your dad said you liked it." He gives him a video tape. "He got you this, too."
Crichton grabs it, nods, but Aeryn smiles, and Mitchell realises she saves them up. And he finds himself thinking for a moment of how to make her smile again, and thinks that maybe that's the way Crichton spends his whole life, and for a second it doesn't seem like a bad way to live. Then Vala says "Oops!" and grabs the half-full cup of tea out of his hands, and puts it to her lips with a mischievous grin, and he decides that it definitely is lust, because he only just tasted that drink and yet he can feel its heat right through him.
But he's cold again as soon as they talk of the Orii.
"We've managed to get that cure out, at least," Crichton tells him. "That's – something. Just means that there's war coming. No one can kill ithem/i, and they can kill us pretty easily, and even a fucking great black hole won't do anything this time . .."
"We think, we think there's a weapon. That'll kill them," Vala says, shifting in her seat, sitting up, looking directly at Crichton. "That's what Daniel's working on now."
Doesn't seem fair to be caught between Crichton-jealousy and Daniel-jealousy in the same sentence.
"Didn't know you could kill god-like aliens," Crichton mutters. He brushes his thumb over his mouth, turns his head, looks at Aeryn. "Let me guess. A weapon from another bunch of god-like aliens?"
"Well –"
"Right." Crichton leans forward, grabs his attention, his gaze, absolutely. "Let me warn you, they're never – never – exactly what you want."
Mitchell shrugs. "I don't need to say that we're desperate."
"Desperate, desperate, no choice, no other way, stuck, trapped, up shit creek, don't you know it, we're here again, Aeryn, can you believe we're here again already?" Crichton slaps his hands flat on the table, then raps his knuckles to the beat. "Dum dum de dum! Once again it's the save the world circus, and whose death-defying feats will we see?" He leans back, drops his head to the side. "How the hell did we get here again?"
Mitchell looks around uneasily, but none of the other patrons seem to have noticed the man's outburst. He clears his throat, wonders if they need to end it there, but Vala gets in first. "He's crazy," she states. "I like him, Mitchell. Although why does he get chocolate on the first date?"
"Second," Mitchell corrects automatically, then blushes, shakes his head. "Uh – meeting in a restaurant isn't a date, Vala. I thought we explained that to you." He wonders when Aeryn became the only other sane person in the room, and addresses the next comment to her. "We didn't just come here to tell you about the weapon, or to hear how far the Orii have come in your galaxy. We thought – I thought – Vala might want to tell you about someone else who's involved here."
Aeryn nods at him, looks at him directly, but somehow he can't help but notice that she's got her right hand tight around Crichton's wrist, her thumb stroking the palm of his hand. He tries to imagine one of them without the other, fails. A tendril of her hair falls on Crichton's shoulder and he knows immediately that even that is of unutterable comfort to the man.
"Vala had – that is, she got – uh, there's a woman who –"
He doesn't know how to put it so it doesn't hurt her.
"My daughter," Vala says. "I got pregnant without having sex. Had no idea who the father was. A very, very strange experience," she muses. "I did get some sex afterwards, though, I suppose, but it wasn't–"
"Vala!" Mitchell utters between gritted teeth.
"No idea who the father was?" Crichton prompts gently, a small smile on his lips, then jumps as Aeryn's elbow connects with his ribs. "Go on," he wheezes.
"She's a child of the Orii. Part human – me – and part Orii. She can do things. And she's leading armies and she can't be stopped."
"A child?" Aeryn asks, and Vala shakes her head. "Now she's a woman. She grew quickly. She grew in a few hours. I have no idea what she looks like now."
Now it's Aeryn, staring at Vala, who's thinking of possibilities. Mitchell watches as Crichton pulls her head onto his shoulder, strokes her hair. "Bet she's pretty," he says, and his blue eyes are filled with sympathy. "That's not always a good thing," Vala replies tersely, and he says, "I know."
The orange-patterned woman comes with more tea, and it seems the perfect moment to stop talking, stop thinking, just inhale the scent of the mint, taste the warmth, feel it around their hands. Vala's sitting up as straight in her seat as the recruits had sat in interview, and he can't stand it. In the mirror there's their others, hands entwined, bodies touching, and somehow it doesn't seem fair. But then Vala sips her tea, looks over the cup at him as though she's entirely aware of how erotic she looks and how aroused it makes him feel, and he decides he's happy enough on his side of the booth after all.
"So that's what we can expect to come," Aeryn says finally.
There doesn't seem much else to say. Mitchell gets a few details straight for the report, suggests they meet up again. Vala slips out of the booth and heads over to the proprietor to bargain for a canister of the tea to take home. He gets out of the booth, begins to follow her, then remembers.
"Oh," he says, and he begins to blush again, standing beside the table. "I wondered if you had any pictures with you, of your baby."
His voice sounds loud in the room, and he can feel Vala stiffen, right across the other side near the kitchen door. But Crichton looks understanding, smiles kindly at him. "Well, you gave us chocolate," he says, and slips out his wallet. "We got these done on Earth."
There's the usual kind of pictures – the baby with Santa Claus, the three of them, a picture with a whole lot of other people including Jack Crichton, and two more pictures – the baby with Crichton, the baby with Aeryn. Mitchell doesn't even realise Vala's crossed the room and is looking over his shoulder at them until she speaks. "He's beautiful," she says. There's not even a wistful note in her voice, but then she says, "About two years old? I never saw her like that."
It seems all right then to slip an arm around her waist, and all right that she leans against him, slightly. Then Crichton puts the pictures away, and they say their farewells, and head out to face the heat and the stench and the others on the other side of the Stargate who'll question exactly why they had to go all that way for not so much news anyway.
Later, when the whole team is together, Vala gets out the tea and makes them all drink it. T'ealc doesn't like it; Sam loves it, and drinks two cups; and Daniel takes a sip, says it's a little sweet, and puts it down. Mitchell doesn't even taste it, just holds the warmth in his hands, watches Vala drink her own, and hands his full cup over to her once she's done. Thinks it justifies the trip across the galaxy. Knows he'll sleep that night.