Cameron should have been surprised when they actually found a buried treasure. But he wasn't and couldn't honestly pretend to be. Being part of Star Gate Command was turning out to be everything he'd expected. He had read the reports and longed to be one of the good guys, one of the elite out there saving the world on a monthly basis.
Okay, he knew better. He was actually going to be one of the body guards for the Uber-brains and brawn who actually saved the world on a regular basis.
Then they had found the Ancient device and the stones and the next thing he knew Jackson and Vala were lying side by side in a kind of stasis. Not moving. The med personnel walking around them talking in hushed whispers, the ones they used in hospitals when they needed to talk but didn't know how to say these things too loudly. There were wires and sensors and monitors and it was way to much like the place he had spent way too much time in, trying to relearn how to use his legs.
If he flexed his hands he could still feel the parallel bars and sometimes he wanted to leave and not sit in what felt like a deathwatch.
Vala's flat line shocked him. Suddenly he couldn't breathe, convinced there was no air in the room to draw into his lungs. He couldn't look at her or watch them trying to revive her. He fixed his gaze on Daniel and willed him to do something.
Wherever they were and whatever they were doing Daniel was the one certified in cultures, experienced with being off world. He had an honorary degree in 'dealing with weird shit.' Daniel would fix it; and even when Lam called Vala's TOD, Mitchell continued to believe it. Death seemed to fear Daniel Jackson. The Doctor treated it with very little respect.
His faith is vindicated when Vala come back to life with a vengeance.
She still doesn't move or sit up but her breathing is there and so is her heartbeat – and suddenly so is his. Life flooded back into his veins.
Daniel is there. Daniel is with her and no matter how much Vala annoys him, Jackson won't let her die.
Cam believed this with ferocity that he recognized but found unsettling.
He wanted to leave but found he couldn't. So he stood and watched them through the glass, side by side, existing but not really alive.
Many long hours later the second flat line took them both – Vala and Jackson. This time it went through the floor, up the wall, and invaded Mitchell's soul.
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Teal'c was bigger, stronger and Mitchell had no doubt faster than he was. Somehow he managed to keep up with him, the thrice-damned Ancient device balanced awkwardly between them the entire time. They hurled it into the billowing wave as if they'd rehearsed it and it hit dead center.
Cam almost couldn't believe it and there was something in Teal'c's expression that said he couldn't quite believe they'd made that shot either.
Then they told him Vala and Daniel were conscious and he had run out the door with the Jaffa hard on his heels.
He made it to her side in record time. She was up on her elbows, breathing in hard shallow gasps, eyes wild, face pale. Her heart monitor was frantic. Vala's defenses were shattered. She looked like she was going to bolt if she could just determine a direction. Cam came skidding to a halt and realized he had no idea what to do.
He barely knew her. But he already did know that she was a whole different ballgame than the one he was used to playing with women. Vala had a different set of needs, wants, desires, instincts, different triggers than any woman he'd ever known. He didn't have the foggiest idea what made her tick or even what had just happened to her.
Vala stopped looking around and looked up. Her gaze settled on him. A long solid minute passed before she made a sound like a sob and it broke him. He sat down on the bed and gathered her in his arms.
There was no pretense in her now, no bravado. Tears leapt into her eyes and made her look scared and alone. She didn't wrap her arms around him, didn't hug. She clung to him, hands fisted tightly in his shirt, face buried in his neck. He stroked over her back for a moment and then laced fingers into her hair, gripped the back of her head and held her there.
Vala made a strangled noise, desperate and sad. He rocked her for a moment. It was unnerving the way she rested so still against him, cocooned in pain.
From the other bed he could hear Jackson gasping, "They're dead. They're both dead," while Dr. Lam tried to get his heart rate down.
Vala shivered violently in his arms and he murmured, "Shhh," in his soft Midwestern drawl and it seemed to soothe her.
It made him feel… strange…. And good. Strong in a way he didn't understand.
Vala made a very small sound, almost a whimper.
"Hey," Cameron said. He put two fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. "Look at me."
She did, gray eyes glazed.
"It's over," he went on, "You're here. You're safe. Nothing is going to hurt you here."
"No," she said. There was a razor chill in her voice. "No. I'm not sure anyone is going to be safe ever again."
He wanted to ask what she meant. But Vala leaned forward and rested her head against his chest again, closing her eyes. Cam clamped his mouth shut on the questions that he wanted to ask.
There would be time for that later. Sometimes, he guessed even women who played by an utterly different set of rules came face to face with something that rocked the foundation of the world; and even those women just needed to be held.
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