Totally Rad

Chapter 3

Pretty in Pink

They leave together, not exactly hand in hand, but she's walking really close to him, wearing this purple satin dress that's all bows. Her hair is all frizzed up and piled on the top of her head. He thinks that the kid at the desk sneers while they prance by, and if he could see himself right now, he'd probably want to kick his own ass, but he's just so happy that he's not alone.

So happy they can work together to get back.

She takes him to her apartment. A modest one bedroom that overlooks Central Park. There's a small kitchen, a raised living room. The walls are a crazy black-patterned wallpaper, and her furniture is either mirror, glass or teal. It's awful but it's high-end and much better than a single hotel room.

Before he can ask what the hell happened, she drops her keys into a thick crystal bowl on a side table and glances to him over her shoulders—her jacket only slightly padded—and explains, "I came to in the middle of that intersection with all the advertisements." She points vaguely in the direction of Times Square. "They were doing some audition for the next on-air personality of that music channel." Raises a pump behind her, her pink nails flicking at the strap and letting the first shoe topple to the ground before moving to the second. She sets her foot back down and is about two or three inches shorter. Her feet must be killing her. "They saw me in my SGC gear and thought I was a gimmick act."

"You won?"

"I have a winning personality, Cameron." She stretches up on her tiptoes, her pale skin visible through the sheer stockings, then wiggles her toes as she takes a few steps before starting to pull random clips from her hair.

"Never said you didn't, Princess." All the photos on her wall are generic, all the art is gaudy and angled. The apartment looks like a show room, nothing out of place, nothing holding her flair except for the pile of pins she sets down on the coffee table beside an equal sized pile of pins probably leftover from yesterday. "They pick this place for you?"

"It was part of the prize package." Pulls another handful out and the left side of her hair deflates into messy, but more normal waves. "You can come in Cameron, if you're afraid of wrecking something, I promise you that I care for nothing in this apartment."

"Aside present company, of course." He toes off his dusty second-hand store sneakers and walks onto the carpet in his stained socks.

"Of course." She grins, but her eyes flit away, the second half of her hair successfully unpinned, and tries to comb her fingers through the hairsprayed solid mess.

As he climbs the steps to the raise where there's a simple sitting area and a tv, she shrugs out of her jacket and suddenly there's a lot of her skin. Bare shoulders as the angled, silk coat falls into the chair behind her. The dress she's wearing seems smaller now, tighter fitting, but gulping a bit by her breasts, chunky necklaces falling into her cleavage and when she heaves a breath in, clearing her throat and standing, he can tell that she's not wearing a bra.

"I'm going to go shower. I'd be a courteous host and offer its use to you first, but if I don't wash this product out it becomes near impossible—"

Flashes his hands to tell her not to apologize—and since when does Vala apologize—he tries not to scrutinize her as he sits in the vacated chair. It's round, teal, with a black circular pillow that digs into his back until he tosses it to the couch. "Don't let me screw up your routine."

She nods but doesn't seem as confident—since when is Vala not confident—and he allows himself to relax in the chair, trying to scroll through possible means of time travel. They would definitely need a gate but getting access isn't going to be easy. Maybe they could play it straight, just go to the SGC and explain what happened, show their credentials, try to play to the open minds present. If Hammond, Landry, or O'Neill is there, it might work—

Stops thinking of escape plans because he can hear her in the shower. She's singing Jessie's Girl and getting all the lyrics wrong, and he breaks out into laughter, burying his face in his hands because she works for MTV and doesn't know the words.


While he showers, she orders a pizza, and switches from the robe she guided him into the bathroom with, to an oversized shirt. There might be hidden shorts under there, he doesn't know and when catches himself trying to figure out if there is, he feels like a creep. She's sitting on the ground, her long legs stretched out beneath the glass table, toes still flexing. He sits on the couch, also round and teal and there's no give because the furniture is too new, too unused. They watch tv while eating, CNN talks about the Gulf War, MTV screams screechy guitar cords with flickering icons and she rolls her eyes, telling him to switch it.

They end up on Night Court and she slaps his thigh because once Teal'c went through a sitcom phase that she got swirled up with. "It's that show."

"I know."

"The afterhours judgement show."

"Night Court, Vala." Would groan into his hand, but the flicker of the television off her skin is the same blue from his bedroom and it feels ethereal, that he held her in the way he did, in her heavy-lidded afterglow, her hair pasting to his skin as he inhaled against hers. Her kisses relaxed, holding less passion, but existing as gentle, plush pecks that tickled his skin and were somehow more genuine. How despite coming inside her, despite still being inside her, it was more intimate.

But when he focuses on her again, her eyes are glassy with tears she's fighting, when he leans forward, she blinks away from the screen, her eyes landing on the pizza stain she left on the white carpet beside an older stain. "Vala?"

Doesn't acknowledge him, except for a hand she slaps to his thigh covered in a pair of sweats—one of the only changes of clothes he brought because he was thinking—he wasn't thinking—he holds her cold hand, the ones with the press on nails, and cups his hands around it like he's trying to protect a candle flame. "We'll get back."

She only nods.

They fall asleep like that; him on the couch, her on the floor and when he wakes up, her cheek is cushioned against his thigh and through the weak cotton of his cheap sweats he feels the warmth of her breath dance across his skin, feels the limpness of her arms wrapped around him. Like he might do the unbelievable and get up and leave her.

Like he might abandon her.

He woke up next to her hogging his thick wool blanket and pockets of her bare skin popping out in the dim glow of sunrise. Woke up and freaked out. Acted like he didn't remember, when he did, every second of it because it's been so long since he's been with someone where it was just—just—damn near euphoric. Her mouth around him leaving lip gloss smudges and his mouth stamping bruises onto her skin as she arched into him for more.

But he freaked out because it was a cardinal rule broken. Teammate. Team leader. It was the alcohol that did him in. Too many drinks and her hips gyrated to the beat, right with the beat like it was nothing, like the music was inside of her and he just wanted to share it. He just needed a taste of it because the buzzed flush on his face covered how he watched, how he licked his lips tasting bourbon but wanting to know how lap up a riff, a beat, the wrong lyrics to Jessie's Girl.

And he did and it was so easy because she was so complacent. That's what he told himself, that she wanted it, that she was an easy conquest because she was Vala and before that she was Qetesh for as long as he's been in the air force—which was only a year in 1988—and that's how it happened.

It had been his awful idea, but she—she agreed.

Her hair dries soft and when he chances running his fingers through, there's no knots. She sighs, her lips pouting before opening her eyes. Without all the makeup, the heavy shadow, the false lashes, the drawn on brows, the thick black liner, and painted up lips—the same bubble gum gloss—she looks sick, eyebags and red rims from tears, cracked lips from applying and reapplying and mouth breathing from nostrils plugged with emotions she no longer declares, because the last time she did he exploded.

Dark eyes cycle to meet his and in her half wakefulness she offers him a half grin, like she's got a secret. Would bet she has several.

"You should head to bed," tells her and realizes his hand is still caressing through her hair, silky and cold from air drying.

She nods, her chin rolling against his thigh and it rested there once when she stopped, still holding him but giving him a wicked grin and a flick of her tongue.

Doesn't say a word.

But returns briefly with a pillow and some blankets for him to lay on the fat couch and stare out at New York City. He doesn't try to follow her to bed. She doesn't invite him or beckon him. They've been there and done that—much like him with this year already—and it didn't end well.

Ended too well.

Didn't end well because of him.


A/N: Chapter title borrowed from "Pretty in Pink" by the Psychedelic Furs