Runs in the Family

Chapter 2

Run Hard

It's a great reminder. That's all it is.

They're in a grand marketplace on a commerce planet when she gets the familiar itch, the familiar tug. That her life is growing too stagnant, despite being married, probably due to being married, and that she could simply disappear. Remove the pigtails from her hair, prop it up in a bun, drop her jacket in the crowd and slip down the nearest alleyway towards the gate. Sure he would likely not give upon searching for her, but at least it would give a little electricity to their life, their dreary life of going to work and reading up on Ancients or Asgardians or some other race, and then going home where he continues to read after supper while she does the washing up.

Things have been different in the last few months.

Before he would openly touch her, flirt with her at work, encircle her waist while he whispered exciting suggestions, his lips tasting the skin behind her ear. He'd race home as she shifted towards him in the passenger's seat, her hand sliding over his BDU pants, and squeezing his thigh. Sometimes they would start in the elevator, sometimes he would haul her from the mechanical doors to his apartment door and she would try her best to distract him while he fumbled with keys.

They would have sex on the couch, sometimes not make it to the couch and the wall or the floor would suitably do, sometimes the kitchen table and he always felt guilty about being dirty afterwards. They would order in Chinese or Thai food and when she fumbled with chopsticks and dropped noodles or sauce on her collarbone, he would lick it off.

Their lives were exciting on and off the field. He proposed to her one day after sex in the middle of a hot muggy summer, his air conditioning was broken and only the thinnest of sheets bound them together. Just reached for the bedside table drawer and produced a box with a perfectly ornate and sizeable ring. Knew her size and it slipped on and then she dipped back, and new sweat was born.

But that was the only thing being born.

After a year and a half of marriage and another year and a half of purposefully trying to have a child, they realized something was wrong. Something was wrong with her. A few of their rolls in bed turned out to be successful, but not for very long, and after all the pain, the blood, the tears, she felt less of an equal, less of a woman, and began to yearn for the days when she would fall asleep buried beneath a mountain instead of the unwavering pressure of his hand across her stomach.

Don't jinx it. Everything jinxed it.

Finally, Dr. Lam in working with a fertility expert was able to discern that when tiny, innocent Adria had healed her body, she had effectively and permanently closed the channels for another baby being conceived.

It made sense. No one wanted two Orici's gallivanting around the galaxy.

Daniel reassured her that he was perfectly content living out the rest of his life with her an only her as his immediate family, then nonchalantly suggested they might get a cat.

But she knew him before she left, and only knew him better upon her return.

He dried the blame for her with stoic emotions, with robotic hand holding, with innocent kisses and started wearing more and more layers to bed. Stopped touching her at work, then in the elevator, then all together.

It's their fourth anniversary together and he planned the cursory getaway on an off-world planet with spas and shopping and everything that should make her feel fulfilled and pampered, but she doesn't know if he did it out of love or duty. Doesn't know how deep and how long her denouncement in him removing himself from her emotionally and physically will last.

That's what makes her want to run.

So simple.

Drop the jacket and the pigtails and go. She has more than enough currency in her pocket and her hands move before her thoughts catch up to her, transferring the funds from her jacket into her pants. Her eyes dart around and focus on him chatting to a merchant at one of the stalls, and she walks backwards from him, waiting for him to look up and beckon her closer, to get her opinion on whatever's caught his eye, but he doesn't.

She waits, and he doesn't and with each second that passes, with each flutter of her heart, the back of her throat tingles as if she might be sick. The decision is made then, partly by him in his unknown lack of acknowledgement of her, and by her because her body produces no form of contentment.

Slips down a side alley, ducking in behind a dumpster, and yanks her hair loose, fluffing it around her face until the jacket becomes more poignant and she flaps it off, chucking it into the bin before her. Leans her arm against the side of the cold metal and sighs hard, trembling, trying not to openly sob.

"Vala Mal Doran," a voice calls from behind her and in her weepy, emotional state she assumes it's him and then she'll have to explain what she's doing in the alley and where her jacket got off too, and deal with his seething rage when he realizes she was trying to run again.

Instead she finds a man, one whom she's never seen before, aiming a gun directly at her head and sneering.

"Can I help you?"

"Get your hands up." Juts the gun at her and she does as he requested, not wanting to end up some nameless body in an alleyway.

Then realizes there's an unbalance in her not previously marked, one not brought on by the loss of children, the loss of want in her husband's eyes. That the sentiments swirling within her, while palpable are enhanced and overtaking.

"I've been trailing you for so long." The man's chuckles are malicious, as he motions for her to turn around and she hesitantly complies. Sure, if she was more level-headed at the moment she would be able to strike a plan of attack, but the emotions, the adrenaline mixing in her head are intoxicating, almost swaying her on her feet.

Cuffs snap against her wrists and the sensation is dangerously familiar. "I lost trail of you when you went to stay with the Tau'ri, but as soon as your signature came through the gate I recognized it."

"I'm sorry," Her mouth is watering, and words are starting to slur out. "Am I supposed to know you?"

"I'm working a proxy position, a mercenary hired by Borwald." A bounty hunter set up by her third husband's family. She groans, her forehead scratching against the rusted bits of metal on the dumpster.

Turns over her shoulder to try to talk some sense into the man still holding a gun dangerously close to the base of her skull, but her tongue is heavy. Does her best to try. "I killed him in self-defence you know."

"I don't care." Slams her back into the dumpster, the metal edge jamming into her temple, and she watches a drop of blood plummet towards the ground. Watches it puddle with a distracting confusion, only vaguely startled when the man whispers something dirty, something dangerous in her ear and slides Daniel's ring from her finger. Attempts to buck back against him, bash him in the nose with the back of her head, but her aim is off, and she only manage to irritate him. His hand clamps around her neck, wrenching her to stand still. "Silly woman, do you think that I won't shoot?"

As if to prove his point, a gun discharges. In her vision, now muddled, growing hazy and smoky, she watches as his body falls forward, bashing off the dumpster by her feet.

"Vala?" Hands cup her elbows and straighten her, but she keeps toppling over, her vision no longer in focus, instead dark and blobby. There's clicking, then the cuffs release from around her wrists, immediately jerks to disengage herself from whoever the man before her is. His voice and hands try to settle or restrain her and she doesn't remember anything else until waking up in the hotel room again.

"My head is killing me." She presses her forehead into his cool arm, willing the high temperature in her body away.

"He drugged you, probably slipped something to you at the café." Daniel dabs at the cut on her temple, trying to clear away the blood without reopening the wound he's secured with two strips from the first aid kit. "You're probably going to feel pretty crappy until it's out of your system."

"When will that be?"

"Probably by tomorrow morning. We're going to have to cut our trip short to get you back and looked over by Lam." Tosses the gauze into the bin and before she even has a chance to pipe up, he continues the conversation one sided, "and don't tell me that you're fine, because you're not. Whatever he gave you made you really paranoid and very complacent, the chemical composition of it could have—"

"Shhh." Hushes him rather rudely as she leans back against the pillows he's piled for her.

Even with her eyes closed she knows he rolls his, and she feels the flits of his movements cleaning up the area. A few minutes later he sets a glass of water on the side table and turns off the bedside lamp muttering, "Who was that guy anyway?"

"He was a bounty hunter."

"And what did you do that someone has a bounty out on you?" To his benefit, his voice only sounds a tad more disappointed in her than usual.

"I killed my third husband, his family must not be too thrilled that I'm still alive."

Daniel doesn't respond, just floats to the edge of the bed, sitting softly, his hand scooping up hers and resituating the ring upon her finger. He clears his throat and then stutters, "Why—why did you kill him?"

"Well he tried to kill me first and I was obviously better at it."

"Vala—"

She sighs, her hand flying out to find his hair or his cheek or neck, something she can caress, but he recaptures it, and kisses her knuckles softly, using his gentleness to get her to spout the truth. "He was very physical, Daniel, and not in the good way. Everyday. No matter how hard I tried, he would just—"

"That sounds like an entirely justifiable reason." The bed bounces with his weight as he crawls in behind her, his arms nudging beneath hers.

"You don't blame me?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Do you blame me for anything else?"

Cranes his head back away from where it's nestled against her shoulder. "Like what?"

"Well, I'm the one stopping us from being a complete family—"

"No Vala."

"What."

"That's out of our control." With a finger on either side of her chin he tips her head towards his, his eyes bright and clear as she fights against heavy lids. "Not once did I blame you."

"I did."

"Did what?"

"Blamed me."

"Vala—"

"When I was with him, my third husband, I got pregnant and I—"

"You're not in the right place to—"

"I couldn't bring a baby into that, Daniel."

"It's not your fault."

"I wouldn't watch as he—"

Daniel's arms crush around her chest, swoop her forward so he's half cradling her against his and his finger pull through her hair, travel up and down her arms in calming caresses and as she wonders why she's realized that she's openly crying.

Takes the comfort, rubs closer to his chest, and snakes her arms around his waist. When her breathing settles and her tears expel less frequently, he dips his head, lips crashing against hers, tongue slipping slightly into her mouth as his thumb swipes away the lingering moisture on her skin.

At separation, he bows his forehead to hers, the tip of his nose pressing hers, and he closes his eyes as if it's the first time he's kissed her and he's reveling in the sensation.

"I don't blame you."