Training Day (PG)

This is my first SG fanfic... Actually, it's my first fully non-Farscape fanfic. OK, so it's Cam/Vala so it's a bit of a cheat. That said, when this fic came to me, it was Jack/Vala. But A. I couldn't work out how to make that work and B. I'm not sure if anyone wants to read that pairing. So Cam/Vala it is. If the muse and any readers agree, I may do more 'training day' type fics with Vala and other members of the team, including Jack.

Setting and Spoilers: Sometime in S10, Cam takes Vala on an off-world training assessment. Stuff ensues.

Warnings and stuff: No graphic violence, no graphic sex. Some non-graphic violence, smutty dialogue and angst, so PG rated. I'd describe this as shippy action/adventure.

Thanks: To Vinegardog for the beta. Can we split the difference and give Cam size 12 feet? ;-)

Disclaimer: No money or claims to ownership being made by me.

Training Day

Chapter 1:

Colonel Cameron Mitchell checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, causing more than one of the security detail in the embarkation room to crack a smile. Where the heck had Vala gotten to? If she didn't get her pretty little ass in gear he was going to have to fail her even before they'd stepped through the gate for her latest assessment. Did the woman have no sense of discipline at all? If she wanted to become a fully-fledged member of the SGC then there were procedures to follow.

His mind drifted for a second, imagining what she might be like if she was a natural military type, born and bred. Probably a ball-breaker, part of him thought, before another part of his mind ran away with embellishing the whole idea and started imagining her as some officious junior military officer, maybe a pilot: bossy and full of herself. Whoops. Down boy, he told his libido. Best get a grip. She was a flake. A flake with a lot of useful skills and contacts, but a flake nonetheless.

"Walter?!" He called, shaking the image from his head and looking up to the operations room. "Does anyone know where Ms Mal Doran is or when she plans on getting….?"

"I'm right here, Colonel," Vala replied, strolling into the room and parking herself right in front of him, stationary except for the seemingly ever-present and frankly distracting to-and-fro swing of her hips. "When and where did you want me?" She continued with a broad grin and a flirty wink which caused more than one of the airmen present to struggle in suppressing a laugh.

"You got your P90….?" Cam responded, determined to ignore the suggestive undercurrent of her question, even though he could see that she did indeed have her regulation weapon, along with regulation black BDUs and far from regulation twin ponytails framing her suggestive smirk. "Got your spare magazines, your radio, your GDO and your MREs?" he continued as sternly as he could manage.

"All present and correct, SIR!" she replied with a sloppy salute and an attitude that bordered on insubordination. Behind him he could hear the welcoming sound of chevrons engaging. "I'm pretty sure I've got everything you could ever want." She pouted a kiss his way. He ignored it. "Have you got the champagne, the sheepskin rug and the candles?" she asked sotto voce, but still loud enough that everyone present must surely have heard.

Cam reddened visibly. "This is a training assessment, not a date," he snapped back, determined to regain his equilibrium. Just then the final chevron locked behind them. Without another word Cam turned on his heels and began marching towards the event horizon. He could hear the rapid click-clack of Vala's heels on the ramp as she scurried after him. What sort of boots was she wearing to make that sound, he wondered to himself with a shake of his head? Surely not regulation?

Cam was forever finding her irritating: he sometimes reckoned that she must have a little book where she kept note of what wound guys up. But he'd been around the block enough times to recognize that finding her so annoying so often was partly just his subconscious way of dealing with how hot she was. Not that he needed it: she wasn't his type. He liked his women quiet, demure... boring. He didn't go for women like Vala because... well, because they scared the crap out of him, a little voice in his head whispered. Anyway, women like her? Who was he kidding? He didn't know any women quite like her. They didn't grow 'em like that out in Farmville and she sure as heck wasn't the sort you'd encounter in the Air Force. Yep, Cam found her fascinating, scary, and a host of other things he wasn't comfortable with. So, his brain just substituted 'irritating' to try to cover it all up. Not that she couldn't genuinely be darned irritating at times.

"If you say so, Colonel…" She snorted dismissively in response to his denial, catching him up as they neared the top of the ramp. "What else could it be? Just a man and a woman, heading off alone for a few hours….." She was looking downwards, at her fingernails, not at him, pouting and talking as though to herself, as though he wasn't even there. He knew it was an act, part of her semi-permanent flirting... Irritating. Not hot at all. Honest. Colonel Cameron Mitchell wrapped himself in his stiff, military persona and stepped into the event horizon. The Stargate took him, saving him from enduring the indignity of hearing the rest of her mocking monologue and from the sniggers of the ever-attentive gate room crew.

'~'

"So, is this your idea of taking a girl somewhere special?" Vala asked, casting her clearly disappointed eyes around yet another remote forest-scape which could have been mistaken for Canada by anyone who didn't know better.

"P7M-086 is the standard third-stage off-world training assessment environment for all SGC team members," Cam stated as he watched the event horizon crackle out of existence.

"Oh yeah. Marching through a smelly, bug-infested forest. If this is your idea of a good time, I bet you don't get a lot of second dates." She snarked back at him.

He turned and stared at her, slack jawed. "What?" He shook his head. "This place is not bug-infested! And it sure as hell isn't smelly!" He snapped back. She shrugged, her demeanour implying that it made not the slightest jot of difference to her whether it was truly either of those things. She started wandering off towards the edge of the small clearing in which the Stargate was set.

"And it isn't a date!" He shouted after her.

"If you say so..."

"Hey! How about you begin with a situational assessment!?" He started after her, determined to get the mission back on track.

She spun on her (non-regulation, he noted) heel to face him, cocked her head to one side and gave him a lopsided grin, all the while keeping up that infuriating hip-swing thing of hers.

"Well, Colonel, we've got a forest all to ourselves and six whole hours till anyone expects to hear from us…. We'll just have to..." No! He was not going to let her derail their training mission with any more levity or innuendo!

"Stick to a military assessment, Miss Mal Doran!" He fumed. She smirked and bit her bottom lip, eyes twinkling.

"Whatever you say... Colonel," she replied huskily, batting her eyelids at him, before turning suddenly serious. "The Stargate is secure," she began, ticking things off on her fingers. "No evidence of hostiles." She glanced around theatrically. "Or anyone at all for that matter except us and…" suddenly her face took on a more serious expression. "A bunch of Death Gliders!" She shouted, pointing up into the air behind the gate.

"What?" Cam paused for a moment, his mind thrown into turmoil by her sudden switch from playful to deadly serious. He looked up to where she was pointing, in the sky over the tree line. A trio of small black dots were growing fast, resolving into Death Gliders as he watched. "Where the heck did they come from? Dial us up!"

"Where to?" She shouted, reaching the DHD just as the first shots from the Death Gliders started to impact. The first shots were landing nowhere near Cam and Vala, but they were getting closer each time.

"Earth! Where do you think!?" He shouted back, raising his P90 and firing at the Death Gliders, even as he heard the tell-tale sounds of the first chevron locking.

The first glider passed over them, just as the fifth chevron locked, without a shot landing closer than 50 yards. Then the second glider was past them too, again without coming close to hitting them. Nothing unusual there, Cam thought smugly.

An unusually accurate shot from the third glider caused the ground to explode just behind Vala, pitching her headfirst over the DHD. As she tumbled to the ground between DHD and gate, the last chevron locked and the event horizon erupted out of the gate.

Cam followed the last glider across the clearing with a panning shot, allowing him to see that the first glider was already coming about. He dropped his P90 to hang from its lanyard, punched the iris code into his GDO and ran. He reached Vala just as she had begun to get up. She seemed stunned and disoriented, but not seriously hurt and able to move, so he grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her up the stone steps and into the Stargate.

'~'