TITLE: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
AUTHOR: Vid Z.
PAIRING: Cam/Vala
CATEGORY: AU, Romance, Fluff
TIMELINE: 2 years after Vala's disappearance in Ori space (eps after that didn't happen)
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc of the TV show Stargate: SG-1 are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fic. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm just a slave to my muse and it demanded that I write this, even though I'd decided to cut down on SG-1. So, I hope you like it. If you have any idea on how to make it better, please share it with me, that's the only way for me to know what I did wrong and how to become a better writer.
SUMMARY: no matter what the title says, this is written in English. A fic for all CV shippers that feel cheated after the past two seasons, especially after the vile Unending.
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Vala woke up, instinctively reaching out towards the warm body that should've been laying next to her.
Her hand found only air and she groaned in exasperation and annoyance.
She knew that she wouldn't get any more sleep, the nightmare had taken care of that. And now her husband wasn't there to provide the distraction she wanted, needed.
Sighing, she got up and tied beautiful the silk robe that he'd given her just last week, out of nowhere for no reason that Vala could think of, though she definitely loved it (the surprise and the robe), around her naked body and started out of the room.
She knew just where to find him.
Carefully she opened the door and peaked inside, finding confirmation to her suspicions.
There sat Cameron with their 3 week old daughter in his arms, singing softly to her.
Jealousy swamped her at the sight, since she joined them he only had eyes for her, never for his own wife. Then she shook her head to clear it of these uncharitable thoughts. 'I'm jealous of my own daughter. How sick is this?' she thought to herself.
Truth was, Vala loved her daughter as only a mother can love her child, she just suspected that she wasn't completely back to her pre-pregnancy self, hormone-wise. She'd heard of post-partum depression and how post-partum hormones can mess with a woman and she was sure this was what she was experiencing. She loved her family, no matter how crazy Cam could be at times, and she wouldn't give them back for all the treasures of the galaxy. And coming from an ex-thief that was saying a lot.
Funny, how things change. 2 years ago she was still that irreverent, hard-partying thief, draping herself all-over Daniel (she shuddered at the mere thought of doing that), now she was a devoted, loving wife and mother.
She figured the change came when she went MIA in the Ori space. Cam had gone a little crazy back then, if what the others had told her was true.
At her disappearance some deeply buried instincts and feelings were awaken, like the age-old male instinct to protect his woman and to bring her back. He'd finally admitted to himself that he was attracted to the stunning raven-haired thief. From what Sam, Teal'c and Daniel had told Vala over time, he'd pushed for SAR missions to be launched for her and, when denied, he'd even gone so far as to reserve his commission and leave his home planet, plunging into the unknown galaxy, just to look for the woman he'd called 'pain in the ass'. It'd taken him 4 months to find her and just in the nick of time, too.
The Ori had been getting ready to conduct some ritual on her (read: procedure) when the building was shaken by loud, powerful explosions. ('He sure knows how to make an entrance.' she smiled at the memory) In the chaos that had suddenly been created he'd managed to grab Vala silently and sneaked out with her, heading directly for his ship, a Death Glider he'd taken from some Jaffa (not rebel ones) hiding on some planet in the middle of nowhere. They didn't need it anymore, after all. Removing the recall system proved much more difficult, but it paid up in the end.
After he'd retrieved her, he flew to the nearest planet with a Gate and gated home, with a maneuver that is called 'threading the needle', something that Teal'c had explained to him how to execute. Much to her later chagrin Vala was unconscious through all of that (she especially regretted missing the threading and the faces of the techs on the other side), due to some powerful drugs the bastards had given her, in order to have her down for the count while they impregnated her with some abomination that had been supposed to conquer the universe. Thankfully it hadn't happened to her and would hopefully not happen to any other woman, as Cam had destroyed the DNA samples, the tools, the DNA and the technology they'd tried to use; with his method of cleaning his tracks, that involved a lot of Ori bodies, a liberal use of mixture of Semtex and Naquadah and a completely destroyed base and a destruction radius of a few miles.
She'd been given so much of the drugs, in fact, that she'd stayed in near-coma for 2 weeks, Cam sitting by her side and holding her hand all the while. When she finally came to she was pleasantly surprised when greeted with a kiss and an invite for a date for when she recuperated. Needless to say, she accepted it immediately, a guy who'd risked his career and his very own life for her several times while being completely on his own in the galaxy, while on a volunteer self-inspired-and-executed quest to rescue her, was definitely something a smart woman like Vala knew to grab immediately and hang on to for life, not even thinking of letting go.
The intelligence Cam had gathered during those 4 months had proven invaluable in the defeat of the Ori and for his bravery, initiative, valor and all those other things the military likes, Cam had been promoted to full Colonel and given the highest medal possible, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Next to the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying the Death Glider through the Gate. Though some techs would've rather have given him a shot to the back of his head than a medal, because the sudden appearance of a Death Glider in the Embarkation Room had had a couple of them releasing excretions into their underwear. It is a story Cam still liked to revisit, much to the chagrin of those techs.
After a year of dating they tied the knot, winning Teal'c a tidy sum in one of the pools. Apparently the Jaffa was quite the old hand in these pools and had already won thousands of dollars.
Which is how Vala Mal Doran became Vala Mitchell. Her former name had had so many links to so many memories she would give anything to forget, so it hadn't been a tough decision to ditch it. On the other hand, her new name was linked to the man who had gone after her on his own and did and went through who-knows-what to get her back.
The time of his search for her had apparently been pretty brutal and unpleasant as he didn't want to talk about it. To her knowledge, he'd never told anyone exactly what he'd gone through during those 4 months, except the special board to whom he'd reported everything he'd found out, but she could guess from some of the recently healed scars and whip marks she'd found on his body during their first night together. She had noticed herself, and her friends had confirmed, that Cam was a much different man than the one who had left all that time ago.
This Cam was much harder, more calculating, calculatively aggressive, instinctively knowing the exact time to explode into aggressive action with terrifying results, and he had a darkness in his eyes that hadn't been there before, but about which the others claimed it disappeared when around Vala or when just talking about her. It was clear he loved her and just the thought of her had a tremendous effect on him. On the other hand, Cam's constant presence and hovering had helped speed up Vala's own recovery.
Cam and Vala had healed together and they'd healed each other.
Vala's recuperation had stretched over a large part of their dating, as the drugs the Ori had given her over the period of 4 months, had taken quite long to get out of her system, especially the hormone shots that are necessary for every insemination procedure to work. She credit Cam, for steadfastily going through her mood swings and depressions without blinking an eye or backing down, the most (which had made her pregnancy for him much easier, since he'd already had experience with those hormones and knew what to expect).
The fact that she'd been immobile for so long had had her muscles in severe atrophy, which is why their early dates had taken place in her private room in the infirmary, watching a movie or just being with each other. The fact that he'd taken over doing the exercises with her, after begging the physio-therapist to teach him, had caused no small amount of wonderment among their friends and a small amount of embarrassment for her. But, that, along with him going through the afore-mentioned mood swings and depressions, and supporting and encouraging her through everything, had dissolved any lingering doubt about his commitment to her and to their relationship and had just made her love him even more.
Her stay off of active duty was then enlengthened by her pregnancy, which had been discovered shortly after the wedding and by now Vala was having serious doubts whether she'd ever be on an SG team again. Due to the special requirements and circumstances of the work they did there, the SGC had adopted the European model of maternity leave, which was one year contrary to US's six weeks, as they needed their personnel at top efficiency and pregnancy, the so-called post-partum syndrome, breastfeeding and general recovery of the female body after pregnancy and child birth; all cause great havoc on the female body and a true and efficient recovery lasts much longer than six weeks (doctors generally prefer women to wait at least 2 years before having another child, because pregnancy deplets the body's resources so much). Thus it would be a while before Vala returned to active duty and by now she wasn't sure she wanted to risk getting killed (or taken again) and leaving her child mother-less and Cam a widower. She'd definitely stay on the staff in some capacity, but wouldn't return to an off-world team.
Cam, meanwhile, was now training teams in the new tactics he'd developed and discovered during his search for Vala; along with taking on more responsibility and paperwork, that would later make him a prime candidate for a General and commander of the SGC. He was keeping his commander status of an SG unit (length of command experience has a great effect on promotions to General) by having created a special unit, SG-IT (SGteam In Training) which consisted of new recruits being trained to fill missing spots on teams. But, to Vala's amazement, he was always home before 1700 and always had time for his family. He left work where it belonged, at work.
Besides, it wasn't as if she was being sorely needed, they'd gone without her for so long as it is and now with the Ori gone they didn't really need her there, just as they didn't need half of the combat-oriented teams. She decided she would just take advantage of it and enjoy it.
Just as she'd enjoyed her pregnancy during which Cam had waited on her hand and foot through the entire 9 months, being there for everything from start to finish, even 3 AM food cravings runs to the store. Before they'd gotten together she wouldn't have expected of him to be so happy about starting a family, but surprises come from the most unexpected people. "Office romances" do have some good sides, namely being constantly in the presence of each other and married quarters being assigned to them, and Vala had taken complete advantage of both when the new hormones were raging inside her, increasing her libido.
With all Earth's enemies having been vanquished, and Cam training recruits, it meant he had a lot of free time and this lead to Vala being seen many a time tugging him behind herself in her hurry to get to their quarters. He was more than willing to help her with her problem and, because of how fat and unattractive she felt (which Cam disputed all the time), his willingness to prove his continued attraction to her made her love him even more.
When she'd finally given birth she had never seen him so happy and her heart had swelled to near-bursting with love for him.
But by now she was ready to hit him over the head.
He'd sneaked out of their bed to go play with the baby, not even waking her.
And now her breasts were hurting terribly because the feeding time was almost upon her and she was again to the brim full of milk. She'd need to breast-feed soon or Cam would get to see a real-life performance of Old Faithful in his own house.
Their daughter, Michelle, woke up suddenly and started fussing.
Vala wondered, not for the first time, whether Michelle had her mother's breasts on some kind of remote control, because the time she got hungry coincided precisely with when Vala's breasts began to feel really warm, heavy, full and painful, which meant that the milk reserves in her breasts were hitting the FULL gauge. Or was it the other way around?
Cam shushed his daughter gently and got up to fix a bottle, when Vala pushed away from the door frame and started making her way towards them.
Cam startled at seeing her there, she'd been so silent until then, and Vala smirked. "No need to fix an artificial bottle, you've got a living one right here."
That drew a chuckle from him and with a loving smile she claimed their daughter.
Cam sat back into the rocking chair, guiding Vala so she could sit between his legs, with her back to his chest, safely.
She then untied her robe, revealing her bare, large breasts to appreciative gazes of her husband and daughter, even though each appreciated the sight for different reasons.
She felt her husband's body's reaction at the small of her back at the realization that she was naked underneath her robe and smiled in satisfaction. It felt good to know that she could still arouse him without problem, even though she still had the baby fat on her stomach, waist, hips and thighs, her ego definitely needed a stroking occasionally. Thanks to the use of the Goa'uld healing device she was well able to take care of his not-so-little problem later in the privacy of their own bedroom.
The baby latched onto her nipple and Vala emmitted a gasp at the sensation, as the small mouth started sucking the life-sustaining fluid from her.
Nature is truly amazing, the female can, not only create life in her own body (with equal role of the male, of course), but can nurture it as it grows, protect it, and even, when it's already born and out of her body, still provide the baby with everything it needs, warmth, safety, love, protection, and, most of all, food. Food that no formula can nor ever will be able to replicate or substitute.
Three years ago Vala couldn't have imagined ever having a different life that the one she was living, especially not having a family, being a wife and a mother; but now... now she can't imagine NOT being a wife and mother.
Cam looked at their child, drinking greedily from her mother's bosom, and leaned his cheek to Vala's.
Vala turned her head and exchanged a tender kiss with her beloved, then just leaned back further against his chest, enjoying the feelings of love, security and warmth he was providing; and watched her daughter as she fed.
And as she basked in the presence of the two people that she loved more than anything in the world, Vala had only one thought in mind.
'I love my life.'
THE END
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