(I'm kinda surprised nobody has made any mention about my chapter titles...maybe it wasn't as unique an idea as I though -shrugs- All i know is it takes a good little while to find the right one to match the content in the chapter - just ask my beta...she knows!)

A Dangerous Business

"Is Daniel okay?" Hayden asked as Vala changed her for bed.

Not one to lie to her daughter, Vala shook her head. "I don't know, Hayds."

Hayden helped pull her shirt down. "Did his friend hurt him?"

Identical sets of grey eyes found each other. Vala nodded.

"Yeah, baby, he did."

The five year old lay back in her bed and tilted her head. "What did he do?"

Vala leaned over and gave her a kiss. "I don't know." She pulled the comforter up. "Go to sleep, munchkin."

"Tell him I love him." Hayden said firmly. "I want him to stay."

Smiling, Vala tapped her nose. "I will definitely do that." She stood up and moved to the door. Hand hovering over the light, she turned to look at her daughter. "Night, monster."

Hayden yawned. "Night, mommy."

Vala flicked off the light and closed the door almost all the way shut. She then made her way to the kitchen and set forth making something for her and Daniel to share. Something they both could seriously use. When she finished there, she turned off the kitchen light and opened the door to the back porch.

The moonlight illumined the figure sitting in the large cushioned chair on the porch. She made her way over to him.

"Here..." Vala murmured, holding the mug out to him.

Daniel looked up at her with slightly swollen eyes. "What is it?"

Sinking down into the chair with him, she curled into his warmth. "Irish coffee."

"Oh, well then..." Daniel brought the mug to his lips and took a slow sip. "Thank you." He said after swallowing the liquid, kissing her lips softly.

Vala reached up and stroked her fingers over his hair. "I don't know if it's my place to ask..." She looked into his exhausted eyes. "Will you tell me what happened?"

Breathing in deeply, Daniel tightened his hold on her. "If I do, I'll have to tell you everything or you'll jump to conclusions and I don't want to scare you or anything." He gave her a look that said she could back out. "It's a long story."

"I've got nowhere to be but here with you." She offered him quietly.

Daniel smiled, then took another sip from the cup to brace himself. Only a few people knew about what he was getting ready to reveal to her. "I told you how my parents died when I was eight."

She nodded, sipping from the cup still in his grasp.

"Well, of course, I was put into the foster care system. I jumped from house to house for a while before landing at this certain home. It was a young couple who were having problems having children. They decided on fostering..." Daniel pulled in another deep breath. "They wanted a toddler, and got a slightly rebellious nine year old."

"It was a nice place to live for a little while - I was there so long, I was beginning to think they might actually go through with adoption." He laughed like it was so stupid.

Vala just continued to listen intently.

"Of course things change...people die." Daniel looked into the cup, swirling the creamy liquid around. "It was after Shannon died that Michael started...drinking. She was his one true love, or something. Anyway, the drinking became more frequent - then the beating started."

She couldn't help butting in. "It was never reported?"

Daniel snorted as he drank more of the Irish coffee. "He was good at hiding it and I was too proud to admit it. Though, in the long run, I should have and risked my pride. The turning point was when he got too drunk one night and beat me so terribly, I ended up in the hospital."

"I honestly can't really remember much - actually, a lot of my memories went away from around that period in my life...several of them didn't come back. The first memory I have after the beating was waking up in the ICU...I was heavily sedated, but I remember one of the nurses arguing with this boy."

Drinking from the cup, Vala guessed, "It was Jack."

He smiled at her. "It was...his mom was one of the nurses who had treated me. He was sixteen at the time, and hated the fact that he had to spend his free time helping his mom. She had snapped at him, saying there was a poor boy spending his free time recovering from severe injuries."

"Because of the drugs, it took a while for me to realize she was talking about me. It seemed all surreal hearing this woman retell everything that had been broken or busted in my body because I couldn't feel any pain."

Vala looked at him intently. "How did you and Jack become friends?"

Laughing a little, Daniel shrugged. "He was bored and started talking to me. I think he did it because he pitied me at first - he put up with a too smart eleven year old."

"Jumping ahead a month or so, I was finally recovered enough to head back to the foster center." Daniel swallowed as he went to say his next words. "Of course the pain I hadn't felt that first night came with a vengeance, so they gave me a lot of medication - a lot of morphine."

She was beginning to put the pieces together. "How long did it take?"

Blue eyes found hers. "To what? Get hooked?"

Vala nodded.

"Happened almost instantly - that feeling of not feeling when she was saying all those things...it hit me then. And I didn't want to let it go. It helped that I'd become friends with Jack 'cause I kept going back to the hospital to see him - I started stealing the drugs from there."

Daniel stretched his neck, uncomfortable talking about his habit. "To make it simple, I got sloppy and slipped up - Jack caught me, and helped me through the withdrawal before his mom found out." He smiled warily at her. "She wanted to foster me."

"I was good and clean all the way up until the end of my senior year of high school."

Another piece fell into place. "When your girlfriend died."

He nodded. "I was in the hospital that night...and it all became too much. They left me in the operating room alone with her, to say goodbye. I saw the morphine, and the syringes, and felt the already cooling flesh of Sha're under my fingertips, and impulse took over. By the time the doctors had come back in, I was half high and had stashed several more vials."

"I tried to stop before it went too far, but of course judgment is the first thing to go when you want to get high." Daniel continued. "It got to a point where I was almost always on the drugs...I stopped eating, stopped going to classes, stopped living basically."

Vala rested her chin on his shoulder. "Were you living with Jack then?"

"Yeah...I stayed in his guest bedroom. He was married to his first wife, Sara, at the time." He looked at her. "I know Jack had begun to figure it out again, but he just didn't want to admit it. He was finally forced to admit it..."

She waited for Daniel to continue. It took him several moments to get control of himself.

He let out shuddered breath. "I was so messed up one day; I lost my balance and broke my nose against the edge of the bathroom counter. Because of the morphine, I was already coughing pretty badly and the blood dripping down my throat didn't help. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I flipped out and called Jack, then shot up some more while I waited for him to come home, just to stop the overwhelming fear."

"I was practically comatose when he got there...or so he says. I don't remember much of that day - it's all just a haze." Daniel laughed heartlessly. "You'd think that'd be enough to scare me sober, but the following week, I got high again."

Tears came to his eyes. "Sara was done with it by then. She told Jack to kick me out, send me away for good." He lifted his head and looked out at the stars. "But Jack stuck by me... It took nearly four days for the worst of the withdrawal to pass - I don't know how many times he told me to eat or changed those bed sheets after I got sick...but he was there."

Vala stroked a finger over his cheek. "And Sara?"

Daniel shrugged. "She came back when the worst passed...she was eight months pregnant at the time, so she felt she couldn't just leave. I was just through my fourth day without using, and I could barely function...I went into the kitchen that night, ashamed and guilty. Jack told me he was proud - I didn't feel the same excitement and neither did Sara."

He sniffed, thumb stroking over the rim of the nearly empty mug. "I really tried to make it through that dinner without any trouble because I knew I was already walking on thin ice in terms of where I stood with them. But I was just so weak and my hands wouldn't stop shaking...I spilled hot tea in her lap, and she flipped."

"Jack tried to calm her down, but Sara was over it all. She told him she wanted a divorce." Daniel swallowed, his voice cracking as he continued. "He took her to their room, but she said it smelled like a 'fucking junkie's waste dump.' I was so scared because they both started yelling and shouting and I knew it was all my fault. I tried to go to my room and start packing my things, but I couldn't make it that far." His lips started to tremble. "I fell to the floor and listened to them argue and cried."

Vala squeezed his arm. "You don't have to go on, Daniel."

He shook his head, then nodded. "I do..." Tear-bright blue eyes turned on her desperately. "I want you to know this...you deserve to know this. You deserve to have a chance to back out now that you know..."

"I'm not backing out." She emphasized, kissing his lips lovingly.

Daniel closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers.

She threaded her fingers through his hair. "So what happened after that?"

Sighing, Daniel settled back against his seat once more. "Uh, they stormed out not long after, Sara with a suitcase in her hand. They didn't even notice me as they went past, both of them yelling the whole time. It didn't take long for Jack to come storming back into the house. I think he had every intention of ripping me a new one and kicking me out."

"Did he?" Vala asked, taking the cup and placing it on the table in front of them.

He shook his head. "No..." His voice was barely a whisper. "I was terrified he would...I remember sobbing over and over about ruining his marriage and his life..." The tears returned, and this time spilled over onto his cheeks. "The divorce went through, and the custody battle started after Charlie was born, and I kept blaming myself."

"But he promised me every time that it wasn't my fault. That there wasn't anything I did..." Daniel cried quietly. "He promised me even when I thought I messed up. He continued to reaffirm the promise as I started to get my life back in line, as I fought through school and for my job. Either way, he promised me...and I'd finally begun to believe him...but now..."

Vala hugged him tightly. "It wasn't your fault." She stated firmly and simply. "Jack was just angry."

He held onto her with all he had. "Because I lied...he's right. I haven't done that since I was using. I don't want to mess up again...I don't think he'd give me a third chance, and I don't want to lose you." Daniel buried his face in her neck. "I can't lose you."

"You're not gonna mess up, Daniel." Vala reassured him, pulling back to look him in the eye. "I can see it in the way you look at my daughter. You look at her in a way no one ever has, not even her father. You see her and you don't want to lose her, and I don't want you to. And I won't let you." She smiled and laughed a little. "I'm not letting you go."

Daniel let out a strangled laugh and kissed her. It started off slightly heated, but quickly lost its force as the humor in the moment slipped away. He quietly pulled back and closed his eyes. He pulled in a slow, deep breath.

"I'm gonna go to bed." He murmured, rising.

She held onto his hand as he went. "I think that's a good idea..." Vala took the kiss he leaned down to give her. "I'll probably be a little while."

"Okay." Daniel placed another kiss to her forehead. "I love you."

Vala smiled softly at him. "Love you too." She watched him slowly head back inside, his shoulders drooped in extreme sadness. It made her heart ache even more now that she knew the basis behind the fight between him and Jack.

She spent the next hour or so finding things to do around the house that would keep her anger in the older man at bay. She'd only met him once, but Vala couldn't imagine how anyone could accuse his best friend of ruining his marriage. Each time she thought on it, she had to find something else to distract her. By the time she headed to the bedroom for some sleep, after checking on Hayden, it was close to two in the morning.

Quietly, Vala opened the door. Her eyes fell on the lump facing away from her beneath the covers. She smiled softly, taking in the fact that he was there, sleeping in her bed. She didn't care about the troubles in his past, but she very much cared about his future. He was her future, and Hayden's as well.

Stepping out of everything but the nightshirt that was actually his, Vala moved over to the bed and crawled under the sheets until she was firmly pressed against his back. Pushing herself up, she placed slow, passionate kisses to his neck.

Daniel stirred under her touch, turning a sleepy gaze on her. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Vala asked, kissing his cheek.

He closed his eyes, lip trembling. "For being such a mess."

Shaking her head, Vala smiled. "Everybody's a mess in some way..." She stroked soft fingers against his forehead. "Go to sleep, Daniel."

"You'll still be here when I wake up?" His voice was soft and uncertain.

Vala settled down against him and snuggled into his chest. "I already told you, baby...I've got nowhere to be but here with you."

A/N: This is a plot twist that can definitely be touched on again down the line. It wasn't anything that was planned, but after watching Need a few weeks ago, somehow the idea of Daniel being a (former) junkie seemed to appeal to this AU's brabbit. I think it gives it a tie in to the canon of the show, but is definitely twisted in a way to match this storyline. Anywho, i've already started on the next chapter. My hope is to finish it by tonight and get it sent out to my beta, but there's no guarantee.

Reviews are LVOE, ofcourse!