A/N: Just a quick upbeat and humorous story I wrote while working on a larger, darker one. The tone in this is perhaps different from most of my stories and to me it makes the characters seem a bit OOC at times, but I hope the lightheartedness and plot entertain you nonetheless.

Four Seasons

Chapter 1

Interlude

It all starts with the view of a window. She's been outside before, on Earth before, on actual soil and grass with the glorious sun hanging in the sky above. Went for a day trip to Washington where she stood on a tarmac in an airport and wondered what the hell the Tau'ri were doing to their planet. Went to Kansas for a weekend and wondered if these Tau'ri knew about the other half of their world, the flying and cities and buildings big enough to pierce the sky.

Her three days of experience on Earth was calm, sunny and warm. So when they were in an upper level office in the mountain, General Landry, Mitchell and Jackson speaking with an IOA representative about the possibility of her being able to leave the base on her own, which was immediately turned down of course, her men started bartering for her to not have to be written out each time because it was just more paperwork. She was learning that there was nothing more unamerican than paperwork. While they were talking her up, she snuck a peak out the window, interested in what she could view from a rugged mountainside, and when she found fat white flakes sailing down from the sky, she screamed.

The men stopped their chatting, observing her with irritation, huffs, and sighs, as she rushed from the window, tossed away a chair from the board room table, and burrowed beneath it.

"Vala," Daniel yelled and surely an eyeroll accompanied his stern tone. "Get out from there."

Brought her knees into her chest ready for another explosion, the ones that rocked her childhood as Goa'uld fought to capture her home planet, blasted it to bits in the meantime, sometimes from space, sometimes through ground war and munitions. The flakes were a sign of a recently dropped bomb and she didn't know why they weren't panicking.

"Ms. Mal Doran, kindly remove yourself from beneath the table."

Her mother taught her how to hide, taught her how to be so quiet she's barely visible, taught her tenacity, she could easily outwit each of them from her position and half view of the window.

"Dr. Jackson?"

"Vala," Daniel was sterner this time. She still did not answer.

There was scuffling of shoes, an impatient throat clearing from their friendly IOA representative, and ruffling of clothes. Cameron took a knee before the table, and his head popped into her view so quickly, she startled.

"What's going on, Princess?"

"The window." Pointed at it, white and bright and muted.

"See something you didn't like?"

Daniel glanced out the window, and then back at her. "There's nothing out there. What did you see?"

"The flakes," she whispered as if the word was forbidden. On her home world, they would never talk about the war, always ignored it, stupidly optimistic that each blast would be the last.

"The snow?" Daniel questioned, turning from the window to look at her still balled up beneath the third seat in.

Cameron shot his head to the right. "It's snowing? Ah hell."

"Gentlemen, today, please?" From what she could view of the General's feet, he shifted with probable impatience.

Cameron shook her foot, clad in dirty red running shoes that she plays basket's ball with. Wore them to show how incognito she would be among Earth's populace. "What about the snow?"

Daniel stopped before the tabled and crouched a bit to view her, he was always their truth test on her, can spot her lying in just a few words. Darted her eyes to him and his contemplating lips fall in disbelief. "Are you afraid of snow?"

"What's snow?"

After that they, the General, Cameron, and Daniel, decided that she needed to be off base more often and agreed with the IOA agent that there would be a mandatory excursion for her every three to four months to get her acclimated with the planet she defends every day.