Jack had said to him once, "Keep asking questions." It was one of the things, after all, that Daniel Jackson did best. But some questions, he decided, shouldn't be asked. Like the one that had gnawed at him since the incident with the bounty hunters, the one that he'd finally asked Mitchell:
"What was Vala doing at your high school reunion?"
Nope, definitely shouldn't have asked that one, Daniel reflected as he examined the document found by SG-14 on P2Y-739. It was written in a variant of Old English. He moved his index finger along a line of text. Ge sinden gecumene ha gatun. "They came to the gates," he murmured.
"She came as my date," Cameron Mitchell had answered him. When he saw the look on Daniel's face, the lieutenant colonel had immediately backpedaled. "No, wait! It wasn't what you're thinking. It wasn't, you know, a date date. A real date."
Plastering a smile onto his face, Daniel had brushed it off. After all, he'd made a similar denial not too long ago. And he didn't care. Really. "That's all right," he said. "If you two want to-"
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Olive-green BDU-clad arms waved frantically. "Hold it right there, Sunshine! There is no 'we two.' She just twisted my arm and begged and generally made a nuisance of herself until I gave in. You know how she is."
Didn't he, though.
"No no no," Mitchell concluded. "Vala is way too big a handful for me. No, sirree. No way." He pivoted on his heel. "She's all yours, Jackson."
"All…what?"
But Mitchell had already left.
Daniel took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then put them back on and continued with his translation. Footsteps announced the arrival of a visitor, who promptly plopped down in the chair next to his desk.
"What are you doing?" Vala Mal Doran asked.
She leaned across his desk to peer at the parchment, and her hair brushed his hand. He breathed in a lemony scent and felt suddenly light-headed. But he didn't look at her. He flipped through his Old English dictionary and jotted a word in his notebook.
"Translating," he said. Ta ascierden hien gim. Then they asked him…
He shouldn't ask her, he really shouldn't. Some questions simply should not be asked. "So," he asked, "how did you like Mitchell's high school reunion?"
A perfectly manicured finger twirled a strand of jet-black hair. "Oh, it was really quite fascinating. The whole notion of reuniting with people from one's past is an intriguing custom. If I were to meet up with some people from my past - well, darling, let's just say it would hardly be an occasion for celebration."
"No doubt." He pretended to read and translate, but a query hovered on his lips. Don't ask it, he said to himself. "So, you were Mitchell's date?" he asked.
She huffed. "Some date he was. He spent the whole time ogling some boring old flame of his. He hardly even noticed I was there."
Daniel's fingers gripping his pen relaxed. So it was nothing after all.
She went on, "Darrell was much more attentive."
His fingers tightened again. Daniel laid his pen down carefully, adjusted his glasses, and looked at her. "Darrell?"
She picked up his dictionary and fanned the pages. "Yes, some chum of Mitchell's. Quite the charming fellow."
Daniel grabbed the book from her and returned his attention to the document, but his mind's eye was filled with the image of a hunky Kansas guy.
"Not a very good shot, though."
"Shot?" Conversation with Vala was a minefield of such non-sequiturs.
"Target practice, you know."
"Target practice?"
"Well, you see, he had these hunting rifles and…"
Daniel thumbed through his dictionary, only half listening. Suddenly her voice penetrated his linguistic cloud.
"…and later on at the social we two abandoned the festivities and found a quieter place to get to know each other."
He rifled the pages madly. What was the word he was looking for? Tobrecan? Or was it toweorpan? "Oh really?" he said.
"Yes, he was much more attentive than Mitchell. In fact, he tried to kiss me."
He frowned, cleared his throat, and finally looked at her. Smug was an inadequate word for her expression. "'Tried'?"
"I wouldn't let him."
Oddly, he felt relief waft through him. "There's a new one."
Her turn to frown. "What? Do you think I'd kiss just anybody?"
"Uh, yes."
A sigh. "Really, Daniel."
"Well, I thought you said he was a charming fellow."
"Yes, but..." She hesitated.
He pressed. "So why didn't you?" Why on earth did he want to know this? Why did he keep asking these questions?
"I told him it wouldn't be appropriate, because…"
Daniel waited, tensing. Hoping? No, don't be ridiculous.
"Because I'm married," she said.
Her explanation left Daniel feeling strangely disappointed. And something else. He tore out a page from his notebook - his translation was all wrong - mashed it into a ball and threw it toward the trash can. He missed by a foot. "Right. Tomin," he said. The man who'd taken her as wife when she'd been impregnated by the Ori. "I didn't know you still considered yourself to be married."
"Well, I don't really."
The muscles in his shoulders relaxed.
"It just seemed like the easiest way to let Darrell down without bruising him," she said.
"So you didn't want to kiss him, is what you're saying?"
"That's right."
Don't ask. Don't. "Why not?"
"He's not my type," she said.
"You have types?"
"Very funny." She did that head-tossing thing he found so distracting. "I most certainly do, if you must know, and he wasn't even close. I mean, he was fun and all, but I know he wanted to hare off into one of those little rooms with brooms and pails and whatnot, and do - well, you know what. And I really couldn't see doing that. With him."
It blew through him like a sea breeze, the gale of relief, and inwardly he breathed in deeply. Then he remembered himself. He tore his eyes away from her and picked up the parchment and squinted at it. "Will wonders never cease."
She struck the table with her palm, and he jumped. "Daniel, do you think I'd have sex with just anyone?"
"It had occurred to me."
"Well, I wouldn't. I do have some standards, after all. A girl has to."
"I see. And whatshisname, Arlos? The one you stole the bracelets from. He meets your standards?" The thought of that weasly little man with Vala made his skin pucker.
"Well, of course."
Baffled, Daniel shook his head and returned to his translating.
"I needed him," Vala said.
"You needed him."
"Right. Sex for survival, that's my standard."
Daniel looked at her. "That's it? That's your standard?"
"That's it," she said.
"Rather low, that."
"I didn't say high, did I? I just said standards." She met his look. "Look, Daniel, a girl has to do what a girl has to do. It's a hard life out there and I did what I had to to stay alive. It wasn't always pretty, but here I am."
"Yes, here you are."
"Alive."
"I noticed." To put it mildly. He had never known anyone so alive. "So, let me make sure I understand this. You didn't kiss Darrell because he wasn't germane to your survival."
"Now you're getting it."
"And yet you kissed me on the Prometheus." Why the hell did he say that? She smiled, her eyes drifting away, remembering. Daniel furrowed his brow. He said, "That is, in between beating the crap out of me. Anyway, why? I wasn't germane to your survival. You just wanted to knock me out and get me out of your way."
She twirled her hair contemplatively. "Well, that situation was different."
"Different how?" Why, oh why couldn't he let it go?
She looked at him, and for a fleeting moment her impishness dissolved and a serious expression took its place. "You were different."
Daniel felt the back of his neck grow warm. He returned to his reading. He jotted something in his notebook. He kept his pen moving. She was quiet, and he knew she was watching him. Breathe in, breathe out, he told himself.
"Well, you don't have to do that anymore," he said softly.
"Do what?"
"Use sex as a survival tool."
She said, "That sounds all very well and good, but a girl-"
"You're safe now." He turned a page of his notebook. It was the only sound in the room. Vala had fallen silent. He didn't look up, but he felt her eyes on him. His pen scratching the paper sounded loud to his ears. He said, "You can save sex for meaningful relationships."
Something was wrong with the ventilation system. It was too hot in here. He could feel sweat soaking his armpits. He'd have to have a talk with facilities.
She was quiet for so long, he stopped writing and glanced at her. She had picked up a Goua'uld bauble from his desk, which normally she would have been turning over in her hands as though assessing what it would fetch on the black market. But she held it still, her eyes instead on him, wide and staring. He wanted to look away but he couldn't. They held each other's gaze for a long moment, and emotions unfathomable swirled through Daniel like a twister in Kansas. Emotions he would hotly deny under pain of torture.
Finally she looked down. "Well, that's a novel idea." Her voice was small and faint.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe Siler could adjust something in the HVAC.
Suddenly she stood up. "I - I should let you get back to work." She crossed to the door.
He watched her leave, a funny feeling in his chest. Don't ask her. Don't. Just let her go. "Vala?" he said.
She stopped, glanced back at him uncertainly. "What?"
A host of questions clamored raucously in his mind. Ruthlessly he pushed them away. She was waiting.
He asked her, "Do you want to shoot some hoops?"
Her smile was all the answer he needed.