A/N - I am not a writer, I'm a baker and Office Manager. I never planned on writing, but Daniel and Vala won't leave me alone, so I have to write what they tell me to. If you see fit, please give me an honest review. If these characters keep demanding my attention, I need to improve my skills to do them justice.
Chapter 1 – Not a Date
O'Malley's was bustling when they arrived, but then, it always was on Friday night, but hostess said it would only be about 15 minutes or so before a table was available. It was pleasant evening, so Daniel and Vala sat on a wall outside the front doors and chatted while they waited.
Well, chatted wasn't exactly the word for it. They weren't quite sure what to talk about, since they usually had the rest of the team with them when they went to the restaurant. Five people could keep a conversation going. Cam always had a comment that would set everyone off, either with comments or laughter, but he was off flying something, no telling what. Sam was at Atlantis, which was still so new that if felt odd to be without her, and Teal'c was off on Free Jaffa business. So, with no one else to start a conversation, they talked about work.
"Our table should be ready soon," Daniel commented as he looked at his watch.
"Hi Daniel," said a red-headed woman as she was coming up the sidewalk towards them.
Daniel and Vala both looked up, surprised. "Maggie, It's good to see you," Daniel stood up as he greeted her.
"Are you waiting for a table, or leaving?" Maggie asked.
"Um, we," he hesitated and looks down at Vala "are waiting on a table, which should be ready soon. Are you by yourself?
Maggie nods her head, "I don't know many people here yet, but I got a good recommendation about this place, so I thought I'd try it out."
"Why don't you join us?" Daniel asks, wearing a big smile. "That way you won't have to wait on a table like we did."
Maggie gives Daniel a matching smile, but glances down at Vala, who is now very confused, and dismayed at the prospect of female company. Especially female company that makes Daniel smile like that.
"Oh, Maggie, this is Vala, a co-worker. You won't be interrupting anything other than shop talk," Daniel said, almost dismissively.
Vala's heart sinks at that introduction, but she plasters on a big smile that Daniel would recognize as fake, if he were looking at her. But he wasn't, so she stood up and greeted Maggie. "Nice to meet you, how do you know Daniel? I thought I knew everyone from, um, work," she stammered, not wanting to give anything away that Maggie might not be aware of. She looked over at Daniel with a questioning tilt of her head.
"Maggie is the newest member of the Archeology Department at the SGC. I've been trying to get her on staff for a while now, but, you know, paperwork," Daniel said, eyes and smile still never leaving Maggie.
"If I'd have known you were offering me the most exciting job on the planet, I would have agreed to it sooner," Maggie said with a smile that matched Daniel's.
"Dr. Jackson, your table is ready," the hostess announced as she opened the front door for them.
"Join us?" pleaded Daniel.
Maggie tilted her head in agreement and walked along side Daniel to the door, where the hostess was still holding it open. Daniel waved Maggie in first, then looked back for Vala, who was a few steps behind. "Coming?" he asked.
Vala smiled a sad smile and walked in the door, but, once again, Daniel was not looking at her, so he didn't see it. The hostess took them to a round booth close to the game room. Maggie scooted in, followed by Vala, since she was next in line. Daniel went to the other side and slid in next to Maggie.
"So, you two knew each other before?" Asked Vala, trying to get a feel for what was happening to her evening.
"Well, no," said Daniel, "Maggie and I went to the same university, but she was a few years behind me, so we never actually met. Her resume was brought to me when the SGC was looking to replace Dr. Phillips when he retired. Of course, I was interested when I saw her education and background, her training mirrors mine very closely. I'm pretty sure we had some of the same professors, and we have been on a few of the same digs, just years apart."
The waitress showed up then to take their orders, but as soon as she left, Daniel and Maggie took up the conversation again. "Say, Maggie, was Dr. Johnstone still there?" Maggie rolled her eyes and laughed and nodded her head. "I kept a notebook of all the words he mispronounced," Daniel said. "How in the world does a tenured professor take a trip to 'hi-a-why-ya' and take a tour on a 'hee-lee-copter'?" They both laughed so hard their eyes watered.
Vala sat and listened for a while, laughed when they did, for a bit, and even tried to make a comment or two, but realized she was being ignored. They had turned in the booth seat to face each other and were so engrossed in their reminiscing that they hardly noticed when the waitress came with their food.
Vala picked at her plate and pushed most of it away. Lacking anything else to do, and no way home on her own, she went to the game room and played two games of pool and three games of darts with some friendly guys who didn't even try to hit on her. She wasn't in the mood to flirt anyway. She won all of games, of course, and made a few dollars off the guys, but she was still bored.
She went back to the table and sat down next to Daniel and announced, "I'm bored Daniel, why don't go play pool?"
Daniel looked over his shoulder at her and glanced up to see the game room full of people. "Why don't you go play pool with those guys, I'm sure they'd love to lose a few dollars to you?" he said with a half-smile.
In other words, she was being dismissed, she thought. "Daniel, I'm going back to the base." He had already turned back to Maggie, and they were in deep discussion about the significance of some culture she had never heard of. "Mmm, ok," Daniel mumbled with a slight nod of his head. Vala was sure he didn't hear what she had said.
While she was in the game room, Vala recognized one of men sitting at bar as an SF that worked the front gate at Cheyenne Mountain. She approached him to see if he would mind giving her a ride to the base. Reynolds was name. Maybe. Maybe it was Ryan. Or Randolph. Anyway, he would know who she was, since she flirted with him every time she signed out and he was on duty. Which really wasn't that often, since her entire life was on base, she thought. But she was confident that he would recognize her, she was just that unforgettable!
"Hey soldier, give a lady a ride to the base?", she asked as she sat down next to him at the bar.
Reynolds/Ryan/Randolph, whoever he was, looked over at her, then at Daniel and Maggie at the table. "Date go bad on you?" he asked.
"It apparently wasn't a date," Vala huffed.
"Sure, I'll give you a ride back. I have late shift tomorrow so don't have to be back anytime soon, care to have a drink with me before we go?"
Vala smiled and nodded her head. He ordered them both a beer and they chatted about nonsense things while they drank. She kept glancing at the booth and Daniel never once looked for her or noticed she was gone. After they finished their beer, her soldier asked if she was ready to leave. Vala took one last, sad look at Daniel and Maggie and said, "Oh yes, very ready."
They walked out to his car, she really needed to ask him his name, and Vala opened the door to get in. His BDU jacket was laying on the front seat. She briefly glimpsed the name tag before he tossed the jacket in the back. It said Richards. Well, she was close, she thought.
They discussed the weather, the state of traffic in the Springs, and how long they thought it was going to be before the leaves started turning since Fall was so close, on the drive to the base.
Vala thanked him and gave him a genuine smile as she got out of the car. He turned the car around and headed back to town. She was worried about how far out of his way he went to give her a ride and decided to be extra nice to him the next time she saw him.
Two hours later, Vala was lying in bed, well across the bed, she wasn't exactly in bed, when her phone rang. She'd been staring at the ceiling wondering if he was ever going to miss her. The more time went by, the more despondent she became, the more she was convinced that it would be never. But it was two hours. It took him two hours to realize the person he went to dinner with was no longer there.
She let it ring until as long as she could before it went to voice mail. "Hello?" she said trying to sound as sleepy as possible, like he had woken her up.
"Vala, where are you?" Daniel was very frustrated. Good, she thought.
"I'm trying to sleep," she replied, totally ignoring his question.
His pause was short. "You're back at the base? How'd you get there? Why did you leave? Why didn't you tell me you were going?" His questions were rapid fire. He sounded worried and a bit frantic.
"Daniel, I got tired of being ignored and I found a ride with a very nice man," she said, still not specifying where she was.
"Found a ride? You didn't get a ride from someone you didn't know, did you? Vala, that could be very dangerous!" Nope, he wasn't worried, he was scolding her about the possible inconvenience she could have caused him if she said something wrong to a civilian.
"Daniel, I'm sleepy, you woke me up and I'd like to go back to sleep now." She hung up on him and smacked the phone down on the bed. She had lied to him; sleep was not going to be on the agenda tonight.