Epilogue

Vala was hunched over in her chair, mindlessly poking at some rather distasteful looking mashed potatoes when a tray was set down on the table and Sam slid into the chair across from her, a friendly smile on her face.

"Hey Vala!" she greeted, removing a plastic spoon from its covering and digging into a large cup of blue jello. "How are you?"

Vala smiled and straightened in her chair. "You want to know more about the future I foresaw when I touched that device," she accused. It was a statement, not a question, but Sam argued anyway.

"Come on, Vala. Can't a woman just join her friend and coworker for lunch every now and then?" she asked, stuffing her mouth full of jello in an awkward attempt to stage casualness.

Vala grinned. "It needs work," she said, remembering the time Sam had witnessed her ability to lie when Cam had requested the two attend a hockey game with him. Sam had frowned, her eyes widening at the thought of spending hours frozen to the bleachers with junk food flying over her head and loud drunk men cheering and removing their shirts. Cam had managed to drag her to one of the events once before and she didn't plan on repeating that experience any time soon.

Vala had saved her, explaining coolly that Sam had already planned to take Vala shopping that weekend. Cam had frowned in disappointment and muttered something cute like "oh, ok…" before stalking out of the room.

Sam had been so impressed she asked Vala for lessons. "For security clearance and stuff. You know how it is…" she had said, but Vala was sure she was taking detailed notes for future reference.

Sam frowned, dropping her spoon onto her tray in frustration and struggling to swallow the large mound of jello now in her mouth. She took a swig of orange juice and returned her attention to Vala.

"Alright, I admit it. I'm a little curious." She smiled sheepishly at the other woman. "You kind of kept me hanging there."

Vala took a cookie off Sam's tray, took a large bite out of it and returned it. "You know, I would have thought you of all people would have been against me telling you anything about the future; what with the whole "screw up the timeline" mo-jo," she said, waving her hands to illustrate her point.

"Yeah, but it's never going to happen anyway, right? I mean…" concern suddenly etched on her face. "It's not going to happen, is it?"

"It shouldn't. You're having the device destroyed anyway though, aren't you?"

Sam shrugged. "Just an extra precaution."

"Then we have nothing to worry about."

Sam smiled nervously, watching Vala sip fruit punch out of a multi-colored twisty straw. She wondered where she had gotten the thing…

"So…" she began after an awkward silence broken only by the sound of Vala's slurping. "Guess it wouldn't hurt to tell me, would it? I mean… just out of curiosity?"

Having drained her glass, Vala met her gaze. "I suppose not," she said, wiping her red-stained mouth with a large napkin. "What would you like to know?"

Sam shifted excitedly in her chair. She didn't know where to start.

"Ok… um… you said you met my daughter?"

"Yup."

Sam frowned at the lack of elaboration in the other woman's responses.

"So… umm… what was she like?"

"Well, actually she was very much like you," she said, crumpling the napkin and dropping it besides her tray. "I thought she was you at first, actually. She looked exactly like you."

"Really?" Sam said with interest. "Guess she had to get something from her father though, right?"

"You'd think."

Sam just stared silently as Vala dug into her mashed potatoes distractedly, then remembered how disgusting they were and spit them back out into her napkin. This didn't seem to phase her friend, who just continued to blink expectantly.

Scowling at the fowl taste still looming in her mouth, Vala turned on her with annoyance. "What? Don't look at me!" she said, spitting into the napkin again and looking into her glass for any remaining punch. "I don't know who the father is."

"You didn't even ask?" Sam whined, feeling hurt her friend wouldn't have shown a little curiosity about it.

"Of course I asked," Vala said, mocking her. "She didn't know. Said that everyone who knew was dead."

Sam sighed but let the subject drop.

The two talked for what seemed like hours after that. Vala consuming endless amounts of punch while she talked about her experiences and the people she had bumped into. Sam interrupted her a lot to ask questions, but Vala didn't mind; she found the other woman's enthusiasm for hearing her stories both flattering and entertaining.

After much chatting, laughing, and burping on Vala's end, the conversation finally died and the two fell into a comfortable silence.

"You know what I don't understand though?" Vala said, slouching in her chair and swirling her straw around distractedly. "Why didn't we just destroy the device in the first place? You know, in the alternate version of the future I saw?"

Sam frowned. "Well, speaking for the whole team I can honestly say that we never would have destroyed that thing if we thought it was the only way of saving you."

Vala was speechless. She had known that they were friends and they abided strongly by the "no one gets left behind" policy, but she had never known Sam felt so strongly about it. "Wow…" she said, flustered, as she straightened in her chair blushing. "I don't know what to say…" she said.

Sam smiled. "You don't have to say anything. Just promise you won't go touching strange alien artifacts from now on."

And with that, she stood up and wandered out of the commissary. Vala watched her go, pondering the possible meaning behind the statement. She supposed Sam knew all too well what she had gone through, and Cam's words were weighing heavily on her.

"The hardest part of this job is not risking your own life; it's watching your friends take chances with theirs."

She smiled fondly now at Sam's subtle way of saying she cared about her. She had learned her lesson, and from now on out, she would abide by that advice.