Title: Break the Lock

Author: UnabashedBird

Summary: Once they take the time to really get to know each other, Daniel and Vala realize there might be a lot more to what they feel than just "friends and co-workers." Not that things are ever that simple. D/V

Spoilers: Unending

A/N: This is my first fic. I'm not exactly sure how long it's going to be, just that this is only the first chapter of many. I'd love to know what you think! And, of course, none of these characters are mine; I just needed to play with them (Daniel and Vala made me!).

. . .

Vala felt restless and out of sorts, and she couldn't figure out why. Which of course only made it worse. Not that she was completely at a loss: she had a pretty good idea who the problem was, just not why he had been getting to her so much lately.

Maybe it was that they'd been getting along too well. When they weren't yelling at each other, that is. She sighed loudly and allowed her head to collapse onto her folded arms, kicking rhythmically at the table leg near her chair.

"If you're bored, leave," Daniel growled, not looking up from the book over which he was poring. "Or at least stop kicking the table," he added, even more frustration creeping into his voice as the table jarred beneath his hand, turning the annotation he was attempting to make into an indecipherable scribble.

She increased the force and frequency of the kicking.

Daniel stood up, walked over to where she was sitting, grabbed the back of her chair, and wheeled it forcefully into the hall before she had time to figure out what he was doing and dismount. He quickly used his key card to close and lock the door behind her, then returned to his seat.

He paused a moment before resuming work. There was a time when what he had just done would have been immensely satisfying, but for some reason the feeling eluded him today.

Vala had always excelled at making him feel off balance, but lately it had been much worse. Maybe he was still adjusting to her bouts of unadulterated helpfulness: about a month ago, practically out of the blue, they had found themselves able to work together peacefully for days at a time, and, hard as it was for him to admit it, her assistance was often invaluable.

BANG.

Then, of course, there were days like today.

BANG.

Days when she seemed to be going out of her way to drive him up the wall, just because she could.

BANG.

It didn't even seem to bring her the prankster's glee it once had, and if he started yelling she yelled back with joyless fervor.

BANG.

Before he met Vala, Daniel would never have imagined that non-verbal yelling could be so irritating. Or loud.

BANG.

Sam didn't know whether it was more funny or sad that, from all the way down the corridor, she could pretty much tell exactly what was going on. Vala was sitting in a chair outside the closed—and probably locked, though she doubted that was much hindrance to Vala—door of Daniel's office. Using the door frame to anchor herself so she wouldn't roll away, Vala was repeatedly slamming both her feet against the door, taking advantage of the chair's rotating seat to increase the force of impact and the volume of the resulting BANG.

They were at it again.

It didn't go like clockwork, exactly, but recently most personnel who worked in the vicinity of Daniel's office had learned that if Daniel and Vala got along for more than a day without at least a minor skirmish, it was time to duck and cover because another big one was brewing.

So when Cam had popped his head around the door of her lab and said, "Tag, you're it," before making himself scarce, Sam had immediately headed for Daniel's office.

Vala hadn't been planning to keep up the kicking for this long—she did have an unauthorized key card to the office stashed in her quarters, so she could let herself back in whenever she wanted. But the impact and the noise felt good. She was pretty sure therapeutic was the appropriate earth word.

She saw Sam coming towards her down the corridor, looking both amused and exasperated. Vala smiled, but she didn't stop kicking.

"Mochaccinos and the mall," Sam said by way of greeting. Vala clearly needed to get off the base for a while, and she wouldn't mind the break herself.

Vala stopped herself mid spin. "When?"

"Now."

"OK. I'll meet you at the elevator in ten minutes." And with that Vala jumped off the chair and skipped towards her quarters to change into civvies. Sam couldn't help but smile at the ease with which her friend could bounce back into a good mood.

Daniel, on the other hand. . .

He looked up, tirade ready, when his office door slid open, but it was Sam instead of Vala. Feeling sulky, he tried to ignore her.

"Do you have a second?" she asked quietly. Even though part of him knew he was being childish, Daniel continued to work.

Sam sighed inwardly. Much as they hated to admit it, Daniel and Vala could be two peas in a pod: they both reverted to the mindset of aggrieved teenagers when provoked in certain ways.

"OK, then, I'll just talk. I'm taking Vala off base for the afternoon. Change of scenery, retail therapy, girl time, that sort of thing. I'm hoping maybe you'll use some of that time to figure things out on your end, because whatever problem you two are having is getting out of hand. If you have to fight, you really need to find a less disruptive way to do it. I'll see you later."

"Sam—" Daniel finally looked up, but she had already left. He felt guilty for pretending to ignore her like that, especially when she was right. He decided to go talk to Teal'c.

Sam had managed to convince Vala to get the mochaccinos before they hit the mall—she didn't say so aloud, but Sam thought it would be better for Vala's bank account if she completely recovered from today's fight before the shopping began.

"So," Sam began, sitting down opposite Vala and handing her her drink, "want to tell me what Daniel's office door did to deserve getting the crap kicked out of it like that?"

Vala smiled. Sam might not have been a jokester like Cam, but in her own quiet way she was often better at seeing the funny side of things than the boys were, at least where Vala and her antics were concerned. She liked having a friend like that—it made it easier to talk about things. Maybe that's all she needed: to talk through this mess. What was the earth phrase? Verbal something.

"Yes. The door. That could have been related to the person hiding behind it, but I admit nothing. And, OK, I suppose if we're going to be technical about it I may have started this one. But it's his—I mean its—fault that I was all, oh, what's the word? Something to do with insects."

"Antsy?"

"Antsy! That's the one! You have such delightful idioms on this planet. Anyway, it's Daniel's fault that I was antsy, so I didn't really start it at all!"

Sam raised her eyebrows, but she also smiled. She suspected there was more truth in the excuse than Vala would like to admit. "Wait. I'm confused. I thought we were talking about the door?"

"Oh, you know perfectly well who we're talking about, there's no need to rub it in!" Vala retorted, glaring good-naturedly over the rim of her cup as she sipped her coffee.

"Hey, you know me, great with the physics, easily confused by interpersonal metaphors," Sam rejoined, half-heartedly attempting to conceal her grin with her drink.

"You know, for the most intelligent woman I've ever met, you can talk such nonsense," Vala replied. "I'm fairly certain that you're the most interpersonally aware of the five of us. Well, with the possible and recent exception of Teal'c, but he has an unfair advantage, what with those fifty years on the Odyssey."

Sam ducked her head in acknowledgment of the compliment. "Does that mean you won't bite my head off if I ask what Daniel does that makes you antsy?" she asked, steering the conversation back on course.

Vala stuck out her tongue, but Sam only smiled and raised her eyebrows. Resigned, Vala tried to explain. "Oh, you know. He's just so. . . so. . . him. All work no play. 'Don't touch that.' 'I don't care what happened in the episode of Lost you watched last night.' 'Spending hours scrutinizing this artifact is fun, Vala, so shut up or go away.'" She paused for breath, but Sam sensed there was more, so she didn't say anything.

"Except sometimes I sort of get it. Sometimes, when we're on a new planet, or there's something I can actually help with in his office, he'll figure something out about people, actual people. And I get it, because it's a connecting point between us and them. A glimpse of their world. And just because I'd rather get that from your television or by meeting people in a bar doesn't mean I can't see why he loves his way so much.

"Maybe I just wish that he'd make as much of an effort to see my side as I do to see his. Well, I say effort. I mean I do make one. Some of the time. When I'm not already so bored that I somewhat deliberately start a shouting match because at least that might use up enough energy for me to be able to take a nap afterwards. Shut up." She glared at Sam over the rim of her cup.

Sam dimmed her amused grin into an understanding smile. "Feel better?" Vala nodded, sipping her drink. "For the record, I think you're probably right. About why you get so frustrated, I mean."

"Well, thank you Dr. Carter," Vala replied, genially sarcastic.

"Come on, it makes sense. Lately you've been trying harder to understand Daniel's perspective, which is why you've been able to get along so well, but he hasn't returned the favor, which is why the fights have been so bad."

"Please tell me this is your roundabout way of bestowing your blessing on me giving him a well earned kick in the pants," Vala pleaded.

"I think we both know that would be counter-productive, even though he does kind of deserve it. Which you did not hear from me," Sam replied, and they both laughed.

Vala felt better. Sometimes figuring out the nature of the problem really was the hardest part. . .

"So with the kick in the pants off the table, what are you going to do?" Sam asked.

. . . or not. Vala swallowed. "Umm. I suppose technically I should apologize. . . to the poor door. As a start."

"Well," Sam replied, eyes twinkling, "I think the door is particularly fond of the house roast they sell here," she said, indicating the bags of ground coffee by the shop's counter. Vala beamed.

"Excellent. And now that that's sorted, we can move on to more important topics."

"Such as?"

"Such as you fulfilling your promise to explain about football and why it's so important to so many of the males of your culture in a way that actually makes sense; Mitchell's inability to contain his enthusiasm always renders him incoherent about thirty seconds in."

"Ah. Well . . ."

"Greetings DanielJackson," Teal'c said as Daniel entered his quarters. "Does something trouble you?" he asked.

"Well, I think it's common knowledge by now that Vala and I have been fighting—I mean really fighting—a lot lately," Daniel replied, leaning against the wall.

"Indeed." Teal'c responded, with something Daniel thought looked suspiciously like a twinkle in his eye. It was an unusual expression for Teal'c, but Daniel had noticed it a lot more since their fateful trip on the Odyssey. He wondered what memories lay behind that look.

"Anyway, Sam just took me to task about it, said that if Vala and I have to fight we need to be less disruptive about it, but Vala just, I don't know, gets under my skin, and I know she does at least some of it on purpose, and I don't seem to be able to deal with it anymore." Daniel had pushed himself off the wall and started pacing.

"Mmm."

"And you know, none of this would be a problem if she would just leave me alone to get my work done, but of course she can't do that, because as far as she's concerned my main purpose in life is to be her plaything when she's bored!"

"DanielJackson," Teal'c interrupted, "is it not the case that ValaMalDoran has also been increasingly helpful to you in your work in recent weeks?"

"Well, yeah, on the occasions that she takes a break from driving me nuts," Daniel admitted.

"Does she then assist you only out of boredom?"

"What? Of course. Why else would she. . ." Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Daniel trailed off. Now that he thought about it, Vala had seemed interested in his work for its own sake, and not as the last line of defense against boredom, during the last month or so.

"OK. So she's finally catching on to the fact that my work is fascinating. That doesn't explain why she's even more of a pain in the ass the rest of the time or help me figure out how to deal with it."

"Have you considered devoting some of your time to the things that interest her?" Teal'c queried.

Daniel didn't see what that had to do with it. "I'm not following you, Teal'c. What do fashion magazines and too much TV have to do with Vala driving me further up the wall than ever before? She's been into that stuff ever since she came here."

"It appears to me that ValaMalDoran has recently made an effort to understand why you enjoy your work, but that you have made no reciprocal effort towards her interests. Could this imbalance not be the source of her increased antagonism towards you?"

"Oh." Daniel was ashamed for not figuring that out on his own, and even more ashamed that he probably wouldn't have. Still, he had a potentially non-torturous idea of how to start fixing things.

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about that Lost show she's always going on about, would you?"

Teal'c smiled. "Indeed I do, DanielJackson. ValaMalDoran and I often watch it together. I believe it is considered a very intelligent program, with many references to the religion, philosophy, and literature of your world. Were you to watch it, you would perhaps not find it unpleasant." Teal'c chose not to mention that one of the main points in the show's favor, in the eyes of ValaMalDoran, was what she deemed the attractiveness of several of the male characters.

Daniel thought that sounded surprisingly promising. "OK. Thanks, Teal'c. I really appreciate it."

"I am glad to have been of assistance, DanielJackson."

Daniel went back to his office and worked in peace, both environmental and internal, for the next several hours.

Vala knocked on the door frame of Daniel's office. He looked up.

"Can I come in?" she asked, hovering hopefully, hands behind her back.

"Only if you show me what you're hiding behind your back first." He wanted to mend things, but Vala hiding something was always reason to play it safe.

"Oh, this?" she said innocently, bringing the large bag of ground coffee out from behind her back. "It's just my apology. For the kicking." And she walked in and set the bag on the table in front of Daniel, then, after checking for breakable items, hoisted herself up and sat, legs swinging.

Daniel picked up the bag and inhaled the aroma of his favorite coffee appreciatively. "Apology accepted." She flashed him a grin, jumped down from the table, and made to leave the room."

"Wait." She paused and turned to look at him quizzically. "I was thinking."

"Well now, there's a shock," she interjected playfully. Daniel rolled his eyes, but he didn't really mind.

"It's been pointed out to me that you've been showing a genuine interest in my work, but I haven't, um, reciprocated. And Lost sounds like it might not actually be that bad. So, if you wanted, I could watch it with you sometimes. To even things out."

Vala's eyes had lit up as Daniel talked, and he couldn't help giving her a small smile. Only a small one, though: she looked like she was scheming a million miles a minute and he didn't want this to get out of hand.

"Right. Season 3 just finished a couple of months ago, and season 4 isn't in the air yet—"

"On the air."

"Whatever. Teal'c has the first two seasons on DVD, which is what I've been watching. So we'll just use those and start from the beginning!" She ran to him, grabbed him by the arm, and began dragging him from the office.

"Whoa, slow down!" Daniel protested, freeing his arm with difficulty. "I guess that's OK, but I am not marathon-watching. In case you've forgotten, we've still got work and an imperiled galaxy." She began to pout. "But I'm willing to watch the first few episodes with you tonight, after I finish up here," he concluded, indicating the work spread out on the table behind him.

Vala gave the books, papers, and sundry a cursory glance, then nodded. "Meet me in the mess in half an hour for supper," she told him decisively. "After that, your education begins!" And she bounced out of the room before he could either agree or protest.

Seconds after he resumed his seat, she stuck her head around the door. "If you're late, I'm coming to get you. With fluffy pink handcuffs." She was gone again.

Daniel put down his pen and began cleaning up his work for the night.

"Burning the midnight oil again, Jackson?" Cam ribbed as Daniel yawned hugely while they made their way to the briefing room the next day.

"Not exactly. I stayed up really late watching Lost with Vala."

"OK. Who are you and what have you done with Jackson?"

"Hilarious, Mitchell. You shouldn't mock: the theory is that it will help us stop fighting," Daniel retorted.

Cam put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Say no more, say no more. Whatever it takes to get you two back to normal." Daniel looked at him incredulously. "Point. Back to not biting each other's heads off so loudly that we've had complaints from Atlantis." Daniel glared.

"Y'know," Cam said, "I don't think you've had enough coffee yet."

Daniel smiled ruefully. "Yeah, you're probably right. Actually, that reminds me: Vala bought me some of my favorite roast yesterday, and I left it in my office. I'm gonna go make myself a cup, and I'll see you at the briefing."

Sam didn't catch what Daniel said to make Cam freeze, but he hadn't quite recovered from the shock when she caught up to him in the corridor.

"Everything OK?" she asked.

Cam turned to stare at her. "That," he stated emphatically, "is an interesting question, and you might well know the answer better than I do." Sam raised her eyebrows in query.

"Apparently Vala bought Jackson specialty coffee. And Jackson stayed up late watching Lost with Vala. Now, I know we all want them to stop blowing up at each other, but this is just. . ." he hummed the Twilight Zone theme. Sam laughed.

"Admit it, Cam, you're just worried you'll lose the bet about if and when Daniel and Vala get together."

For the second time in as many minutes, Cam found himself rooted to the spot in shock as one of his teammates strode off after dropping what, for him, was a bombshell. Sam was not supposed to know about that particular betting pool. And if she knew about that, the odds were she knew about. . .

Crap.