Separation
spacegypsy1
Daniel quits, Vala planned on quitting. Cam, Sam, Teal'c and Jack round out this debacle. A short fluffy romance.
~0i0~
No sense in addressing Dr. Jackson's surprising declaration. Or the reason he'd been told to confront the Archeologist. Landry sighed, stood from his chair and walked down towards the Control Room trying to gather his thoughts before attempting to rectify this fiasco. It'd been twenty-four hours – probably not enough time to get things in their right order.
Coming into the control room Landry heard the In Coming and shortly after that Mitchell's voice come through.
"Walter, you there?"
"Colonel Mitchell?" The general answered, disgruntled.
"Sir?" Mitchell reacted to his CO with a tone of confusion and caution.
Shooting a quick disproving glare towards Walter, Landry answered Mitchell, "Something up?"
Mitchell hesitated for a few telling seconds. "Not sure sir. I'm comin' in."
Again Landry frowned towards Walter before asking Colonel Mitchell. "How the hell did you...?"
"Oh, you know how bad news travels... across the universe... Sir."
Landry gestured towards the Stargate and Walter manipulated the controls.
Mitchell literally ran down the ramp and barely reached the Control Room door when the Stargate activated again.
"Now what!" Landry mumbled.
"Colonel Carter, sir."
"Damn."
"Sir?" Walter, looking contrite, replied.
"Send her through."
Mitchell joined them in the control room just as Sam plopped through.
Colonel Carter, looking up, frowned and headed out just as, once again, the Stargate activated.
"That would be Teal'c. Open the Gate. It's like a god damned train wreck!" Landry turned to Mitchell and Sam. "We'll meet shortly. Go!"
~0i0~
The three, shoulder to shoulder, were walking fast down the corridor.
"How's the Hammond running?" Mitchell asked.
"Good." Sam answered. "How were the new recruits on the Alpha Base?"
"Promising." Mitchell punched the elevator and the three filed in.
"Teal'c?"
"Yes, Colonel Mitchell?"
"Good to see you, how's the family."
"They are well. It is good to see you both."
"Anybody wanna take a wild guess as to what's going on?"
Sam shrugged her shoulders. Teal'c raised a non-committal brow.
Heading for Daniel's office the three remained silent as they walked side by side. As they approached their destination they heard raised voices and stopped just out of view of the open door.
"Nothing is making any sense. What's going on, Daniel?"
"Packing is going on, Vala. Hand me that book, no, the one with the gold on the front."
"Why won't you tell me what's going on, really going on?"
"I'm leaving, I told you that. We've talked about that, and now I'm packing. I've asked you to go with me and you won't answer me."
"Of course I'm going with you. But asking? Asking IF I will?"
"Sorry. I know you love it here, I thought I should ask. Just in case."
"Hmph. You love it here, too. Don't you know you don't have to ask?"
So engrossed in their discussion they didn't see the three other members of their team move into the doorway.
"Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know the rules. I just hope you're going with me."
"Where are we going?"
Daniel grinned, touched her face affectionately, and told her, "Cova Gran."
"Oh, that sounds lovely. Why?"
"For the money." He turned back to packing books.
Vala laughed. "Don't be absurd. You don't need money, you have a ton of money in all those artifacts from that woman's estate and from your grandfather's trust. You told me that. Now. Fess up. What happened?"
"Landry knows."
"Oh! Oh, we were so careful! How much does he know?"
Daniel handed her something printed from the internet.
"Uh oh. It's been so long. Why now, and who reads all those names?"
"Apparently someone in the Air Force or IOA found it recently."
"Jack?"
"Jack reads cereal boxes, sports scores, astronomy and/or fishing journals, well, he looks at the pictures, and the occasional mission report - but he only reads the first sentence of each paragraph."
"Well, so you were fired?"
"No."
"Where is this Cova whatever?"
"Spain."
"Hmm, I haven't been there. Why are we leaving if you weren't fired?" Vala suddenly opened her eyes very, very wide. "Did I get fired?"
"You'll like Spain. No you didn't get fired."
"Well, if I didn't and you didn't, did we quit?"
"I quit. You have to do your on quitting. Someone demanded that Landry separate us. For good. I mean on separate teams."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier? What are we going to do in Spain?"
"I had to think this through. And we're going to work an archeology site."
"How'd you find work, I mean since, according to Mitchell, you have a bizarre reputation in your chosen field?"
"A friend."
"One of your friends who knows a bit about what you really do, like Sarah somebody – who by the way I should meet since we share a similar past or was it that Stephen guy Mitchell told me all about?"
"Holy Buckets, he's a mission report wiki!"
"I know. Alright. I'll pack, not much to pack anyway. Some street clothes. Clippies. Shoes. My giraffe, my box of trinkets I showed you and my pillow you bought for me last week. I want that. Separating us is not good, though, I was planning on quitting anyway."
"What? Why?"
"I'm pregnant."
"Holy buckets! Why didn't... how...?"
"I told you I wanted babies when you asked me to marry you and you said and I quote, 'good, I want babies too' so I stopped taking that awful birth control the day we tried the knot."
"Tied. Tied the knot. You're sure you're pregnant?"
"Yes. I have about eight different kinds of pregnancy test strips to prove it."
"Wow. That's wonderful."
"It is, isn't it, darling? I was a bit worried since its been a year. I mean who knows what Adria did with her tiny Ori hand on me after she was born. Now you don't have to quit. But I like the idea of going to Spain. If I've delivered a devil baby through natural childbirth in some spaceship on a death wish mission, I can deliver a real one in Spain."
"My god, I love you." Daniel hooked his arm around her neck, reeled her in, kissed her, hugged her tight, then set her back a ways. "Just when I think I couldn't possibly love you any more than I do, you surprise me, show me that love has no boundaries. But I'm quitting anyway. I don't like the fact that the IOA or the Air Force or both were hell bent on forcing us to be separated."
Batting her eyes to alleviate the sheen of happy tears, Vala grinned wide. "When do we leave?"
"As soon as possible. So go pack your things before the rest of the team gets here, throws a fit and tries to sidetrack us."
"Fine. I'll go..." She turned and saw the three in the doorway. "Oh, hello. Sidetracked are we? And you heard us, didn't you? But how did you know to come and hear if you didn't already hear?"
"A little space birdie told us each that there was a lot of yelling and Daniel quit." Mitchell obviously had been practicing Teal'c's stoic face look because as he spoke his words were monotonic and his face remained blank, without so much as a blink.
Sam kept blinking but she too had no expression.
Teal'c on the other hand was grinning.
They all turned to the long ago recognized yet barely audible hum of a beam.
"Daniel."
"Jack."
"Whatcha doing?"
"Packing."
"What's she doing?"
"Growing a baby."
For a split second, Jack looked taken aback. "Ya don't say? And all I was told was that you two were a couple, nobody mentioned babies. So that's what got the IOA so riled."
"Nope."
"No?"
"No. I just found out."
"Oh. Congrats."
"Thanks."
"Hank called and said you quit and asked me to drop in and tell you that I nixed the separation. Though I thought it was just that you two were dating, but evidently a lot more was going on. I'm always the last to know the details. I guess the details could have been in the report I got a few months ago. Not the details of the more that was going on, but the details of what was thought to be going on. But who reads all that stuff? Anyway, no need in packing."
Mitchell lost his blank stare to an open mouthed look of confusion.
Sam smiled at Vala. "You're married?"
"Um hmm, we just celebrated our one year anniversary last month." Vala nodded repeatedly, grinning wide.
"You are with child?" Teal'c asked, still with a big smile on his face.
"Um hmm." Vala kept nodding.
"Well," Jack said, "I've got some news of my own to share."
"You're pregnant?" Daniel quipped.
"Yes, Daniel, I'm pregnant and it's yours."
"Very funny, Jack."
"Stupid question, Daniel."
"Stupid answer, Jack."
"Stupid thinking you could hide you're... wait, Carter said married? Vala said a year?"
"Stupid not reading the whole report."
"Stupid is as stupid does. Wait, that's not right. I have to think this one through. IOA gets wind that you two are married. Right?"
Everyone in the room nodded and Jack continued. "IOA decides to," Jack made bunny ear quotes, "demand" Landry separate you two?"
Again, they all nodded at the same time.
"But," Jack held up a finger, "They don't know that there's a Earthling/Alien baby on the way?"
"Game changer, Sir?" Mitchell asked.
Jack frowned."No, not really. I mean, no. Not as far as I'm concerned. No, for sure. She can be on stand by after she has the little creature. They may have to take turns going off world. They being Daniel and Vala, not the IOA. I mean, really, they, being Daniel and Vala, wouldn't want to leave the kid with a nanny while they go galavanting all over the universe, would they, them, those two? Who's gonna be the godparents? I'm available. I could keep it when it gets a little older, if they wanna gallivant. Though I don't think Vala will agree to that. She has that look in her..."
"What is your news, O'Neill?" Teal'c interrupted.
"Well, T," Jack turned to address the Jaffa, "seems the Tok'ra have captured Ba'al. And they have him on ice while they gather all their fancy friends to kill the son of a bitch. Scheduled the happy event in four or five months. So I suppose all of SG1 would want to be there."
"Can I come too?" Vala asked loudly over the questions being fired at Jack about Ba'al.
"All, as in every man, woman and now, unborn child of SG1." Jack turned from Vala to Mitchell. "Nobody's gonna break up Mitchell's band. Right? Hmm, well, Carter already put a dent in it. Couldn't be helped. Apparently he's gonna have to find a substitute for a while, or run a three piece band, might be longer than a while depending on how we work this mess out. Not the baby being a mess kinda mess. Actually, babies can be really messy. We'll have to wait and see. Not how messy the baby is, but the situation. There'll be lots of paperwork. It has to be the decision of the parents." Jack turned around to find Daniel and Vala kissing. "For cryin' out loud, do I have to separate you two?"
~END