Four Seasons
Chapter 4
Summer
"What's the next one?" Asks one day after morning briefing her cheek dangerously close to sliding down her arm out of sheer boredom.
"What 'what' is next?" Cameron asked from the other end of the table, in the middle of exchanging inventory requisition forms with Landry. She knows what they are, got here an hour early to snoop.
"The next outing."
"Oh yeah. We haven't had one of those in a while." He scribbles his name at the bottom of the page and hands the clipboard back to Landry.
"I was hoping we'd forgotten about the whole thing," Daniel grumbles sending her a glare from across the table.
"I believe the answer you're looking for, Vala Mal Doran, is summer. It is now summer on Earth."
"And that's not the—" she twirls her fingers in the air to signify a tornado, a word she knew all along yet had no desire to say.
"For God's sake Vala, there is no tornado season."
"Well," Cameron squints his eyes in disagreement and draws out the word. "There technically is but—"
"I don't want to go out in a—" she whistles and twirls her finger again.
"You do not go out outside in a tornado," Daniel repeats his patience already drained.
She opens the door to the same room as twice before and hopes she finally got the outfit right, they're never happy with her shorts and tank top so she switched to a t-shirt and a pair of tight fitting jeans. When she struts in the room proud of her outfit they all groan, even Muscles.
"Go change, Vala." Cameron crosses his arms and leans back against the table.
"Perhaps you could start giving me tips before I get dressed in the morning instead of making me—"
"I'll make this easy. Just go put on the shorts and top that you put on every other time you've come into this room." Daniel doesn't even bother to close the text he's reading, so confident that she'll be gone soon enough.
"That's acceptable now?"
"On the military base, absolutely not," he huffs, Cameron stares down at the ground, a small grin playing at his lips, Muscles says nothing. "But it will save us time in trying to describe to you what you should be wearing."
She thought they would go to the beach, was so excited to hop in the back of an open roofed car, to have the wind pulling in her hair, to throw her legs happily over Daniel's lap and laugh. Lie on a big towel under an umbrella and fall asleep feeling warm and bright.
But they aren't going to the beach, they're going to a park located just a block or so away directed towards the military workers and their families. She grumbles, she already had sandals thanks to one of Sam's shopping trips, but ambles, dragging the soles over the hot sidewalk.
"Pick it up, Princess," Cameron complains while nudging by her, walking a bit faster perhaps to get away from the apparently inappropriate expanse of leg she's showing. What could a bare leg even do?
She holds a hand out to block the sun and feels something tapping the inside of her free hand. Daniel is beside her and trying to give her a pair of those glasses that have the tinted lenses. She opens the pair and flips them one way, then flips them the next until he stills her to stop walking and adjusts them the right way, slipping them on her face with an almost invisible grin.
Cameron calls to them, already at the park entrance with Muscles, and Daniel jogs a few feet ahead leaving her to trail behind. She can see better with the glasses and tosses a loose pigtail over her shoulder meeting the rest of the team near a rather large fountain.
"So, what are we actually going to do at this park?" Daniel asks, slightly breathing though his mouth and examining the other people, mostly mothers with their children, some running around, some confined to buggies.
"I just figured we'd get ice cream and head back." Cameron points to the only construct in the park besides a crudely manufactured washroom shanty which she's already eyeing distastefully.
"That is what you plan to conclude the summer excursion?" Muscles raises an eyebrow in question, shifting on his feet.
"I'll pay." Cameron is almost incredulous now, and both Daniel and Muscles sort of scoff him away. "Look if anyone has any better ideas, I'm kind of getting tired of—"
A yellow and black insect buzzes around her face, apparently enamored with her hair. She ducks her head back, observing it nervously. "What is this?"
"Oh, that's a bumblebee. He's just curious."
"Just leave it alone, Vala. It'll go away."
"In my experience they're completely harmless."
She nods happy to have something interested in her, happy to find something fascinating at the park besides various babies and their parents. Her eyes cross as the insect continues his flight, and then the little darling lands on her arm. "Hello little buzz buzz," she greets as it walks with six craggy legs up the length of her arm. "What are you doing this summer?"
As she asks the question, the insect digs a stinger into her skin on the opposite side of her elbow. She screams, shaking her arm, trying to get the little bugger off, and finally it, panicking as much as her, drops to the ground and zips away. Her shouting of course rouses the attention of the team, along with all the other people in the park.
"What happened?" Daniel questions, his hands forcing her stung arm straight.
"Are you okay?" Cameron asks a hand on her face to draw her attention away from whatever Daniel's doing to her arm.
"She was stung."
"Impossible," Muscles interjects until Daniel lets him see her arm. It's starting to get all puffy and red and stiff to move. "Bumblebees are harmless."
Daniel releases her arm and it feels heavy and hot. Her chest cricks a bit. "We need to get the stinger out."
"It was probably a wasp or something." Cameron digs around in his back pocket retrieving a credit card and using the edge of it to guide the stinger out. Her chest is tight, and she can feel her heartbeat in her arm. "Vala, you okay? You're not talking much."
"I—I don't feel—" Her vision begins to blur, and her heartbeat increases to a running tempo in her head. "I don't."
"Jackson, you got an EpiPen on you?"
"Why would I have an EpiPen on me, I'm not allergic to anything."
"I dunno, I just sort of assumed you were—"
"Well I'm not."
Just as her balance falters, Muscles scoops her up, moving in a jog back to the base. As they discuss how Cameron owes them all ice cream and how it might be beneficial to both her and Teal'c to do an allergy test she hears Cameron say, "Well, this is summer."