Sha're was my shining star. Tomin was her silver shield. In so many ways, Vala was my moral inferior, except in her respect for those of her past.
Every eight days, at approximately the time she estimated that her ex-husband Tomin would attend a service for the revised religion of Origin, she lit a candle. The scent changed from week to week, as did the size and shape and quality of the candle, but it wasn't the candle itself that was important. It was the flame that reminded her that, once, she had been with a good man, and that she still cared for him.
Sometimes, when the mood was calm and a candle burned in the corner, she would curl up next to me and tell me about her husband and their marriage which was, to her, one of convenience. She described the fear she had felt, living in a city that worshipped the very forces she opposed, the fear for and of the unsired child in her womb, the fear that Tomin would learn that the child was not his. And yet, in the midst of uncertainty, she painted for me a picture of the peace she had once known in Tomin's house, and the love and devotion he had shown her in their short time together.
In turn, she began to pester me to tell her about Sha're. It was just my luck that I was with a woman to whom stealing, seducing, and pestering were art forms.
Of course, I refused. It was enough that I had told Vala about her in the first place, but to go into detail would shame the memory of my late wife. For all her intelligence and curiosity, Sha're had been dedicated to the customs and traditions of Abydos. Customs that included the ancient belief that to speak of the dead was to disturb them. I'd always been careful to adopt the ways of my adopted people, becoming as Abydonian as I could. Sha're had often teased me about it, insisting that she loved me not because her father told her to, but because I was the only man who could awaken her curiosity with tales of distant lands while performing the duties of an ideal husband.
The memory always made me smile. We had been a real pair. On the outside, Sha're had been the ideal Abydonial woman; quiet, obedient, and beautiful, while my only true deviation had been my insistence upon education. On the inside, we had been so much more. Vala's questions always stirred too many memories.
"What was she like?" Vala would sometimes dare to venture, always careful to sidestep the custom by not mentioning the name.
"Abydonian," I would reply stiffly. Sometimes, when I felt more inclined to humor her, I would go on to say "Beautiful" or "Very wise."
Of course, that was never enough for Vala. She went around asking others about Sha're, but the answer was always the same. "I never really knew her."
On one occasion, Vala mustered the audacity to ask Jack. He surveyed her stonily and, after a long moment, replied:
"None of my business."
It became a pattern with us. Vala would tell me about Tomin, and occasionally hint at the dark recesses of her distant past. I would listen without answering her questions. I was growing to hate the questions.
"What color was her skin?"
The color of nuts or the Abydonian sand after the annual rains. "Brown."
"What was her hair like?"
Black ringlets cascading down past her shoulders, soft as gossamer. "Curly."
"Tell me about her voice."
Soft, like an eternal whisper. The voice of an Abydonian daughter. It was a sound that came from her chest and echoed in her throat, cracking in distress and brushing against my ears in pleasure. "Stop asking me about this, Vala."
Vala began telling me about her family, the happy memories, and only hinted at the darker truths that had led her into the world of thieves and, ultimately, the hands of the goa'uld. I paid close attention, feeling the warmth in my chest that came from the growing knowledge of Vala's past. I was coming to understand her better than I'd ever imagined I could.
The more she revealed, however, the more insistent she became.
"But it isn't fair," Vala insisted petulantly. "I've told you so much and you can't even tell me about her?"
"It's the custom, Vala."
"No, you just don't want to share her!"
The pestering turned into arguments. When we couldn't resolve them, one of us usually slept on the couch. If it was me, she would usually come out and roughly rouse me.
"Come on," she usually instructed. "You know I can't stand to sleep alone."
And, obediently, I would follow her back to bed.
If Vala chose the couch, I would typically do the same thing, with less or no means of explanation. If I didn't want to wake her, if she looked too peaceful, I would simply go back to bed. Sometime in the night, she would slip back into our room in the dead of night and slide between the sheets.
The worst fight occurred on the anniversary of Sha're's death. Habitually, I would go to work, return to my apartment, lock myself in my study with a bottle of brandy and my books and drift in a hazy, not quite drunken stupor of facts and theories until sleep claimed me. I always arrived late to work the next day.
That was my tradition, anyway. Of course, I'd never shared my home with anyone since it had started, so I should have counted on some sort of reaction from Vala. She started by knocking, asking as sweetly as she cold manage that I let her in. I gruffly replied that I was busy and she could go to bed without me. Then the knocking became banging. Wearily, I hid the brandy and staggered to the door. She heckled me, demanding an explanation for my seemingly abrupt change in evening habits. I refused but, after ten solid minutes of her prodding me for information, I finally admit it to her.
The result was unpleasant. I can't quite remember what we shouted at each other, but I remember the intentions. Vala accused me of never really letting go of my pain, that I couldn't possibly love her if I couldn't let her in. I bitterly snapped something along the lines of her hypocrisy, about how she only shared happy memories and, anyway, my former wife was none of her concern. She yelled. I yelled. She threw the brandy in the garbage. I slammed the door.
That night, neither of us slept on the couch. Vala left in a huff, with no explanation as to where she was going.
Half an hour later, I received a worried call from Sam. Vala was with her, and she wouldn't say what we had argued about. Could I please say what happened? No? Did it have to do with Sha're's death? Well, if I couldn't give a straight answer to her then I needed to prepare myself for some serious making up with Vala at work tomorrow.
I hung up and crawled into bed alone. It was the worst night I had had in a long time. I tossed and turned, unable to drive the haunting images of Sha're's dying eyes from my mind. Did Vala truly not understand what her incessant questions stirred in me?
At some point in the early morning, I managed to drift off. And dream.
The finer details of the dream were lost the moment I awoke, but the dream itself… the incredible dream I had never thought to have again.
Sha're sat in bed next to me, wearing a lacy nightgown, her beautiful, weathered face smiling sadly at me.
"Dan'iel," she murmured, brushing her fingers against my arm. I reached out to touch her face, but she caught my hand. "Not yet, my Dan'iel," she warned me. "You and I will be together again. But, in life, you must come to love another. For her sake as well as your own."
I protested unintelligibly. Sha're smiled, the same smile she had always worn when I was caught cooking or doing some other chore that wasn't quite right for an Abydonian husband. Tender, a little baffled, but full of the heart that had made me fall in love with her over and over again every day I'd seen her.
"It will not hurt me to speak of me," she assured me gently. "It will only hurt you to remain silent. It will only hurt her."
We spoke more. I begged her to stay with me, or at least tell me where she was, but she refused gently. I would be reunited with her in death, but I still walked among the living. It was not my burden to carry the weight of the dead on my shoulders when they were perfectly happy where they were. Wherever they were. She wouldn't tell me.
\
I awoke and, without hesitating a moment in bed, I changed into clean clothes, shaved, and drove early to Sam's place. The Lt. Colonel met me at the door, but apparently Vala had already gone to Mitchell's house.
I met Mitchell just as he was locking his front door. No, Vala had already left. Did I want to tell him what was going on? No. Of course not. It was likely that Mitchell knew I had been married once before –goodness knows he had read all our mission reports- but he had the decency not to pry or bring up whatever Vala had probably told him.
At last, I found her in my office, playing with an old necklace with the eye of Ra etched onto the surface of its golden medallion; a necklace with far too much meaning behind it for her to comprehend.
Delicately, I sat across from her.
"Do you know where I got that necklace?" I asked. Vala didn't answer, so I continued alone. "A woman named Catherine gave it to me, as a good luck charm the first time I went through the gate."
"That was when you met her." Vala's voice was soft, monotone, so entirely un-Vala-like.
"Yeah," I sighed. Then, without really allowing myself to think of it, I went on to say "I think it's time to tell you about her. About… Sha're."
Her eyes widened, sparking with curiosity.
"What brought this on?"
I swallowed and twined my fingers together.
"I had a dream last night. I mean, it wasn't a dream… exactly. Sha're was there, and I mean really there, not a figment. I don't know how it's possible, I mean, I know for a fact that she didn't ascend but…" I was rambling. Abruptly, I shifted gears and pushed the explanation back on track. "Anyway, she talked to me and… she told me that I was still living, and so long as I did, I needed to focus on the living. And she told me that… that it was okay for me to break the custom. I really need to talk about this, don't I?"
The last part came forth unbidden, unrehearsed. Vala rose from her chair and slipped into my lap, bold and catlike, and pressed her lips against mine.
That night, I began to tell her about Sha're, and our perfect year together. I told her about the wonders we had shared with one another, the pain of our parting, and the endless quest to be reunited with her. I shamefully described my bitter reaction when I'd learned that my wife had become pregnant with another man's child, the ache of our ultimate separation at the hand of a friend. I told her of Shifu, who had been a son to me, and how he had brought me to Oma Desala. I told her about Oma, about Janet, about my parents, about Catherine, about what had happened to Sara. Vala listened with rapt attention, gently teasing about my habit of falling for women who would or had been possessed by the goa'uld. The bewildering truth of it made me laugh. I never thought I could laugh about it.
Vala's stories began anew, painful as my own, and she shed her tears on my shoulder. She told me of her family, to whom she'd never really belonged, and her stepmother, with whom she'd never agreed, and the love she'd once known for a man, a love as pure as mine had been for Sha're. She never spoke his name, and I didn't press for it. She described the agony of being separated from him, the distraction she'd found in other men, the ultimate escape and simultaneous imprisonment the goa'uld had brought her. She told me of her many misadventures until the tears dried and we both laughed until our ribs ached.
I set a candle next to Vala's week by week, to honor Sha're's memory. While Vala's candles were always aromatic and pleasant, mine were only plain wax. Like Sha're. She'd never needed anything fine or luxurious. That was Amaunet. My wife had thrived in simplicity.
Together, Vala and I lit a third candle, in the memory of all those we had loved and lost. Parents, friends, lovers, neighbors, all remembered in our house.
We married in the fall, in a small ceremony that included only those who knew about the Stargate and where Vala had come from. The wedding dinner was a curious mix of Earth cuisine, traditional Abydonian celebrational food (or as close as we could get. It all tasted like chicken, anyway) and several odd dishes Vala had picked up over the years.
The next morning, I woke to find that Vala was already up, lighting the three candles as she did every eight days.
"I don't understand," I mumbled through the lingering haze of sleep.
She smiled at me.
"I married you Daniel, and you married me," she explained. "Which means I also married all the people you keep with you, and you married the ones I keep with me."
"What, so I'm married to Tomin, too?" I grunted, amused and awed by the unexpected wisdom of her statement. Vala's smile turned into a smirk as she returned to the bed, curling up in my arms.
"Best not tell him, of course," she murmured. "But yes. He's now you're silver shield, too. And Sha're is my shining star. Can't keep anything from each other at this point, but who would want to?"
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close, burying my nose in her hair, which still smelled faintly of the previous day's hairspray.
"Not me," I whispered. "No, right now I just want to live with you."