DISCLAIMER: I do not own any Stargate characters, ideas or themes. They all belong to MGM. I'm just playing with them a little.

Summary: Daniel / Vala story from Daniel's POV There is a slight reference to Cam/Carolyn and Jack/Sam, but not enough to alter the story in any way.

Rating: T for one mild reference. Probably more like K, but I'm being cautious.

Spoilers: Ark of Truth and Daniel's Appearance on Stargate Universe...I think that's it. Oh! And Unending.

Corrected my little Odyssey foul up - 5 is so close to 8 on the number keypad... :)

Author's Note: This is my first fan fiction. I'm a writer and write my own stories all the time, but I have never written for someone else's characters - so be as brutal as you want. Your comments can only make me stronger! ;)

Etched into Stone
By Evry Me Evry You

It was nearly a year ago, on our mission to Celestis to find the Ark, that the nagging feeling I'd been having for three years became a full-fledged problem.

At first, I tried to ignore the fact that, as I stared across the field under heavy fire, the horror weighing heavily on my heart at the sight of Teal'c being shot was nothing when compared to the cold feeling of dread that spread through me as my eyes met hers and I realized that she may be the next to fall. I pretended not to see my fears reflected in her eyes.

Then, after we had been held captive and tortured by the Doci, I was freed by a surprisingly alive Teal'c, and we rushed to free her and Tomin from their cells only to find that she had (of course) already managed to free herself and was with Tomin in his cell, trying to rouse him. Despite Teal'c's prodding, I stopped short in the doorway soundlessly and watched with wide eyes as she tenderly took his face in her hands. I struggled to ignore the sick feeling I got when I thought she might kiss him and the joy that leapt into my heart when I made my presence known to her and she jumped clear across the room and away from Tomin.

But the event that strangely drove the whole thing home was that moment of desperation when we were face to face with Adria and, by extension, death, and the solution to the code that would activate the Ark flew into my head unbidden. Origin. I had needed a distraction and I looked to her to provide it. And by "looked to her", I mean looked her in the eye and, without a single word, told her. She understood everything I had to say with a few simple eye movements.

That was what had carved the truth deep into the stone walls I had pulled up around me so long ago – and I didn't need a brush and trowel to uncover it. Jeez, what the hell did that even mean? I would never tell her I had even thought that miserable metaphor up. She would laugh mercilessly. There may even be some pointing.

My point is, that feeling – the feeling that had flooded through me in that moment - scared me far more than any other feeling I had pretended didn't exist between us. It made me realize how deeply I was in for it.

I, Daniel Jackson, despite all of my good sense, despite all of my forethought, had somehow come to trust, Vala Mal Doran, a former space pirate who had lied to me many, many times. I trusted her. Not just with my life, for she had long since proven I could do that, but with everything.

The amount of damage she could do to me had just gone up a few notches. It was one thing that she had ingrained herself in my life and the occasional dream I would rather not share the details of. It was one thing that she had practically become my field assistant and I relied on her for help all the time. It was one thing that I found myself less and less annoyed by her constant touching and hugging and comments designed to make me blush. But the idea of allowing myself to truly trust her…

This needed to be rectified.

And my efforts in that direction, was why I was sitting on the cold dirt floor of a cave receiving equally chilly looks from the very object of my current musings. This time she folded her arms in a huff and glared at me.

"I said," I snapped, unable to keep the edge out of my voice. God, how I hated when she could tell I was losing my cool. "Could you pass me my pencil, please!"

"Oh, were you talking?" She drawled. "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of my annoyance!"

"Your annoyance? Really?"

Her mouth dropped open in feigned shock. "Yes, my annoyance! Do you honestly believe yourself to be incapable of annoying me, Daniel?"

I reached across her to get my pencil, ignoring the way my body had to lean across her warm lap to get there. I looked back up at her, my eyes defiant, and haughtily returned to my rubbings of the markings on the cave wall. I had finally bested her.

She sighed loudly.

"What?" I asked through gritted teeth, my blood finally boiling over. "What the hell is your problem?" So much for besting her.

"Did you have a nice adventure, darling?" She asked.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Every mission is an adventure," I antagonized, my mouth twisting into that little smirk I had seemingly reserved for her. "Refresh my memory on the specifics?"

"The one you didn't tell me about," Vala shouted, jumping to her feet and looking down at me where I knelt, her hands flying around jerkily. "The one where you had to follow around Dr. Rush…or was it Colonel Telford? Ugh! I wasn't listening to the boring details, but you got to follow them around and take pictures and stalk him and the like, while I sat here and worked on not wondering what you were doing when you told me you needed to take care of something personal for a couple of days off base! And the worst part is that it was all about the Lucian Alliance and I could have been a valuable asset! I know things, you know. Valuable things!" She pouted, folding her arms against her chest once again.

I stared blankly at her for a moment, attempting to simultaneously process her rant and ignore the part of my brain that was insistently telling me how adorable she was.

"Well," I finally answered albeit a tad playfully, "for one, what you considered to be the boring details, was probably the most essential bit of information involved with that mission. For two, you've been detached from the Lucian Alliance for long enough that your intel would not be relevant in the current situation. For three, why should you be wondering what I'm doing on my personal time? And finally, how the hell do you know about any of this to begin with?"

She narrowed her grey eyes at me and knelt back down to my level. "Well, perhaps part one and two are true, but as for three and four…well, how could I not wonder where you were going? What personal thing could you be doing? You have no life or friends off the base."

"Well, thank you!" I growled at her, my linguistic mind searching for a new word for annoyed at this point. "And that's not even true. I have Jack and Sam."

"Sam was flitting around on the Hammond. And speaking of Jack…" She trailed off.

Of course. Jack. Jack had told her all about the mission once it had concluded, because he thought it would be funny. Sometimes, I wished I was a little more like him so I could dream up an appropriate torture in return. Perhaps Sam could think of something…

"Well, my Daniel, we were having our quarterly lunch meeting regarding how horrifically droll you can be, and that's when he told me about your new role as spy."

My brain wanted me to say "You have quarterly lunch meetings about me?" My mouth actually said, "You have scheduled lunch meetings with Jack?"

If possible, her eyes narrowed even further. She wasn't going to be able to see a thing if she kept that up.

"As usual, you are missing the point of this entirely," Vala rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was classified."

"No, not why didn't you tell me, why didn't you tell me?"

"That's not the same question?"

"No, Dr. Linguistics," she shot back. "Wasn't it you that taught me that words can have many different translations depending upon their context?"

It was exactly these rapid fire conversations that made me insane when it came to her. We barely stopped to take a breath and there was so much…energy…involved in our discussions. Still, sometimes I found myself a bit lost.

"What are you asking me? I didn't tell anyone."

"You told Jack!" She held a finger up in the air to accentuate her point.

"Jack told me!" I gestured wildly with my hands.

"Did you want to tell me?"

"No!"

"And why not?"

"Vala, this was a very sensitive mission. I couldn't have you off running your mouth about it." And there it was. The crux of the argument. Whether or not I trusted her.

She swallowed hard and seemed to deflate, sinking to the ground. "Oh. Okay. Well, you can go back to work now. I have my answer."

I eyed her carefully, unsure. "Ok." I turned. Started to work. Lasted two minutes before her silence became just as disturbing as her incessant prattling.

It wasn't that I didn't like to listen to her go on and on about frivolous things. It was that I liked it too much. If I had allowed myself to indulge in silly things like her favorite television show, I wouldn't have been equipped to help save anybody. Frivolity was a distraction – and we hadn't been able to afford that. But then, the galaxy was relatively peaceful now.

I turned to face her fully, now completely dropping my work. I sat cross legged on the floor, my hands in my lap. It was a mirror image of her current stance.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"You don't trust me," she said and her voice, normally so boisterous, was suddenly rather small.

"Vala –" I shook my head, but she cut me off.

"No," she closed her eyes and held her hand up in interruption. "I deserve some distrust. I mean, I've stretched the truth around you more times than I can count. But I thought after all this time I'd earned…something…"

No. It couldn't be. Were there tears in her eyes?

"You have," I said, certainly. Definitively.

"What have I earned, Daniel?" She asked me boldly.

I began to examine my bootlaces. How could I explain this? How much could I say without tipping my hand? I didn't want to expose myself but I didn't want her hurting either.

Her voice saved me from needing to answer. "I've been tempted since coming here, you know."

"Hmmm?" I looked back up at her. Definitely tears in her eyes because of me and this time I could tell it wasn't an act. I was about to react when she continued.

"I've considered betraying a few people here…mostly out of boredom," she admitted.

"Like?" I tried unsuccessfully to keep the disapproving tone from my voice.

"Like Cameron," she smiled slightly, the tears drying from her eyes. "I've considered telling General Landry that Cameron is shtupping his daughter. I've also considered telling Jack just how badly Samantha wants to shtup hi-"

I threw my hands violently into the air. "Don't! Finish! That! And how is it that 98% of our pop culture references fly right over your head, but you know the term 'shtupping'?" I asked with incredulity.

"That's ridiculous Daniel, references can't fly." She grinned in her toothy, 10,000 watt way. Okay, that one she had done on purpose. "I have even considered finding some tulpit root when we're offworld…it's similar to that Earth chemical sodium penta-whatever. It makes you answer any question honestly. I have considered slipping some of that into Teal'c's food so he will finally tell me what happened on the Odyssey!"

I had to laugh at that. Who wasn't curious about the 50 years he had spent on that ship? Still, Vala was the most dogged in her pursuit.

"I mean, I would never actually do it, but I've thought of it."

"Well," I offered, unsure of where she was going with this, "thank you for not doing those things. I don't think anyone would've forgiven you if you had."

It was her turn now to examine her bootlaces. "Not once, since returning from the Ori Galaxy, have I considered betraying you." Her voice cracked.

I wanted to answer her, but I seemed to be having a problem talking past the lump that was now solidly lodged in my throat. Still my mouth worked, moving around with no sound coming from it. Finally, I pushed something out. "Why?"

The expression on her face when she looked back up at me told me she believed I was daft. "Really? Why? The same reason I didn't run off with Tomin and help him re-direct the energy of the Ori followers!" She jumped to her feet. "You know I had a choice of handsome men with noble causes! There was a very specific reason I chose yours."

Just…what was she trying to say here? I jumped to my feet. "And that was?" I asked, and there was a disgusting tinge of desperation there as I willed her once again with my eyes to say what I couldn't say.

I wasn't even sure I would believe her if she did.

"Like you would believe me if I told you!"

My God, she could read my mind! How was it that we were so connected that we could communicate with a look, but I could never be certain what was going on in her head? And why did it seem so much easier for her to read me than it was for me to read her?

I was stunned into silence, but Vala mistook it for a tacit agreement, in response to which she growled in frustration. "Forget it! I'm going to go find Cameron and Muscles and you can go play with your rocks all by yourself…which shouldn't be new for you, should it?"

Ok, that was enough. If she wanted me angry again, she got exactly what she had been digging for. "What the hell do you want me to say, Vala?"

"Nothing. I don't want you to say anything." She turned towards the cave entrance and sighed when her back was facing me. "I have always trusted you. I trusted you to keep me safe on your planet. To help me to earn a place in your home. I trust you." She stormed off.

The statement was an accusation and her voice was tearful again. That lump in my throat was back with a vengeance. I rushed to catch up with her, grabbing her by the arm to stop her. She didn't turn to face me.

"I do trust you," I admitted, my voice sounding hoarse and strained, foreign to my own ears. "I do."

She whirled on me and she was much too close. Her breath was hot on my face and her body was nearly against mine. Our arms were trapped between us. "Then tell me the other thing you're keeping from me." She challenged.

We both knew what she was talking about, but everything seemed to be a power play between us. I had been the one with the trust issues and I had been the one to make her doubt herself. And so, I should be the one to cave in and say it because I had something to prove.

I couldn't give in that easily. I raised my eyebrows. "What other thing?"

She kicked me hard in the shin.

"Ow!" I complained, but I didn't back up and I didn't pull away. Couldn't. My heart was racing and the air around us was too electric and I was too far gone to ignore it. Damn it – how had I gotten here? Hadn't I been working against this?

"Tell me your deep dark secret, Daniel," she said, my name a whisper on her lips, ever the seductress.

I cleared my throat and considered my answer.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If I wasn't willing to bet on her I could never lose, but then I could never win either. The realization that I wanted to win with her rivaled every other personal realization I had ever made in my life, including realizing I had accidentally married Sha're and realizing I was in love with her. Because this was just so much more unbelievable than that.

She could destroy me. But I trusted her.

I gently pulled my arm free from hers and looked into her gentle eyes. Bringing my hand up to her face, I caressed the soft skin of her cheek lightly before sliding my thumb across her lower lip. "I'm in love with you," I whispered and then I lowered my lips to hers, taking us into a chaste kiss that I was shocked she didn't try to push. She simply accepted and returned the kiss and then pulled back, when it was done, her eyes still closed.

Lazily, they opened. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and a tremulous smile crossed her lips. "I love you too. More than I should, you brilliant idiot. I mean really, how long does it take?"

I didn't bother to stop the smile that lit up my face. "Oh, I don't know. I think our relationship has been etched in stone for awhile."

"Is that an archaeology joke?" She asked, her jaw dropping.

"And if it was?" I teased, suddenly very happy. Even giddy.

"Then I take my love back!" She laughed, reaching a hand around to the back of my neck and pulling me to her. Her soft lips against mine lit a fire between us and I found myself pulling her closer to me as she worked to prove that what she intended to do was very different from what she was saying. Then suddenly, she had pulled away from me and marched back over to my earlier workspace.

"Ok darling," she shouted behind her perkily, "let's get back to work. The sooner you finish working, the sooner we go home. And I have plans for you when we get home."

Never had that phrase held such a positive meaning.