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Chapter 7

From the Sorrow

She knows something is wrong.

Her stomach, not so much nausea, rather the hardness of it, the harshness, as if she can feel the entirety of her entrails solidify within her. It's not the baby, can't be the baby's adorable kicks against a kidney or her bladder, because the pain never ebbs, only amasses and grows. The sweat present from her morning sickness, from her extra weight and recalibrated gravity center is different, no longer a glow but a warning. The pounding in her head is similar to the bass of the radio in his car, his Jeep traded in from a Mustang because he wasn't going through a ;midlife crisis' any longer.

But she doesn't focus on any of that, instead holding on to the feeling of his fingers through her clumping hair, gentle tugging to massage. The low mutterings of him and Daniel One—Daniel—acting as a lullaby, similar to the one her mom would sing her of an abandoned baby by a river and an insect whose children were in jeopardy of being burned alive.

That was long ago, before all the atrocities committed both by her and against her, when she would stand on the round pebbled river shore and feel the clear waters rush over her feet and between her toes, while holding her doll solely by the arm. Before Jacek's final abandonment to take his first of filler wives, because although he fails to admit it, her mother was the love of his life and when she—she—

Daniel One is in the middle of the ruin floor, pale and unmoving eye whites only, rolled back into his head and then disintegrating underneath her fingertips, by her action, someone who was with her for four years, and a clone, and that didn't matter. It didn't matter because he wasn't one to her, he was a friend, a confidant, a brother. One who packed up her bag and broke the control panel of her holding cell, kissed her on the temple as they embraced and told her to keep herself safe. The one who slid over his unfinished bowl of cereal to her this morning because he could tell she was still famished.

Who hugged her just as tightly as she hugged him when he accidentally abducted her from her home. He preferred the color blue, didn't like seafood, and always had on jazz music if he was alone.

All of that is gone now.

As her mother is.

As her father might as well be.

Came back once, gifting her a pair of golden earrings inlayed with red rubies to quell her abandonment issues, and cradling a bouquet of lotuses, her mother's favorite. Only her mother had gone to market a few hours before, had been leaving the house more and more frequently and when she asked, still innocent in youth and unmarred, her mother explained she was brokering deals as money was getting tight without Jacek's steady income and the price of their land, of their amenities, wasn't cheap.

Then one time her mother left and didn't come back.

But someone else did.

The neglect, the desertion, the idea of her family ties fraying at both ends and then snapping in the middle made her fear the commitment, made her nomadic in adulthood, marrying frequently but never settling for more than a year in one spot, never loving completely, less she get ensnared in another snapping thread.

"Vala."

But someone else caught her.

Caught her willingly.

He kissed her first. Kissed her, she thought, because she wouldn't stop speaking, but the reasoning wasn't of concern to her at the time. His hands on her hips, sliding up her sides, nesting in her hair, the way he tasted—those were of concern. The smell of his aftershave that is now a scent so inherently him or the snore he does when he's extra exhausted, all little attributes she wouldn't be able to part with should he suddenly disintegrate, that she would still seek out in day-to-day living from the routine attraction.

The baseline for her normality.

"Vala."

From the love she never sought nor wanted.

From her standing across from him chained up with several other men to be sold as slaves, removing herself from the situation and using the coldness, using the distance procured during much of her rearing to allow her to barter for him, to offer money in increments of value that wouldn't tip off the buyer to the amount of their funds and when the man blatantly told her that he was only interested in another method of payment, she accepted without hesitation.

When she was in his quarters, and he lumbered in, large, with a foul-smelling odor, and sleekness to his skin she's only witnessed in those plagued with sickness, she didn't hesitate to end his life the moment he touched her.

"Wake up, Baby."

After she wiped the blood from her face, she crouched beside the body, forcing herself not to think of the idiosyncrasies that this man brought to his familial and work relationships, not acknowledging that perhaps one of his work associates had enjoyed his stench, and plucked the keys from his front pocket.

Found it refreshing that, for once, there were no guards, no men to run towards her using their size, their muscles to intimidate her, no threat of falling victim as a slave of another sort, the kind Qetesh taught her all about.

Walked normally down a stone spiral staircase until encroaching the dungeon and then started to skip. There were guards there, but much to her liking, they were quite stoic and only wanted to do their job in peace, something she allowed them as she flashed them the keys and they let her through.

He sat against a bricked wall, skin a ruddy color from sun and dirt. He'd only been missing three days, the first of which she'd gated out of the mountain and ran as a free agent, more so as a berserker, to locate him. Used funds she'd less than legally procured from the team go bag, and when Muscles chased her through the SGC, trying to settle her down, telling her they needed to formulate a valid plan before barreling in, she ignored him. When he gated to the same place she had, following her thirty-eight minutes later, she'd hidden in plain sight among the throes of people in the marketplace. Paid a few off to tell him she'd left, and she's pretty sure she heard his exasperated sigh as he gated away.

Knew were Cameron was, was well aware of the men who'd taken him, purchased him really, from a jail where he'd been imprisoned defending her sullen honor, and she knew she had to get to him before he was moved offsite because finding him on a planet was easy, throwing him into an entire galaxy would take years upon years.

"Now that's not a very respectable position for a Colonel." Kept her voice a mixture of lighthearted humor and flirtation as was common between them since working closely for the last year and a half. First treated him as a replacement for Daniel who left her, somewhat reluctantly, to do a stint on Atlantis although she had asked him to stay. Perhaps that was the last push she needed to understand a romantic relationship between them would never occur, or if it did, it wouldn't be out of feigned hesitancy, but forced surrender.

"You going to show me a more respectable one, Princess?" His nicknames, his monikers for her flowed more casually in the workplace, his respect for her grew after work hours when she would play Tau'ri sports games of slamming clubs into balls, or throwing balls into baskets, and then casually drink him under the table. Would sit across from him at three in the morning after a night out and pick at her McDonald's breakfast the way he did his and when their lazy eyes scrolled up to meet each other, they would break into a fit of laughter, two somewhat middle-aged military personnel, giggling like children beside the play place.

The keys were theatrically big, heavy cast iron and they clanked against the door as she switched between the set trying to find the right one. "Your dorm, deluxe pizza, contraband six pack of beer with the game on the television?"

He approached the cell door, wrung his hands around the wrought iron, knuckles dirtied, bruised and bleeding from fighting back, because he, like her, will not go easily into captivity. "Honey, you are singing pure gold."

There's a clank, and then the heavy door squealed open. He raised his arms, and she stuck the smallest of the keys into his manacles, popping them off with ease. Then he did something completely uncharacterized of him at the time, he brought his hand to her face, his thumb over her cheek. Before she could relish in the comfort or recoil because fraternization between two SGC employees, as Daniel frequently parroted back to her, was completely forbidden, he pulled back and showed her the red on the pads of his fingers.

"You're bleeding, Princess."

"Not mine, my dear Colonel."

Upon their return to the mountain, he was immediately taken to the medical bay as she was sequestered for questioning and punishment. Although she had no concrete rights to leave the SGC and travel onto Earth soil outside, she was always allowed to use the gate freely to travel for recreation and diplomatic purposes. However, after her escape against direct orders, Landry revoked her ability to travel, forcing her to remain stagnant under the stone as if it were several years earlier, as if she didn't have the SGC's best intention in mind.

He found her leaning against the wall outside of medical and touched her arm to bring her out of the sour expression. "They grounded you didn't they?"

"Like an adolescent child." They ambled down the hallway, aiming for his room to execute her well-laid plan from before, when she took notice of his limp. "Did those idiots disable you when they meant to sell you for physical labor?"

He glanced down at his soft steps. "No, it's an old injury from a plane crash, the one at the Battle for Antarctica."

"Oh." Nodded but he became quiet under her stare, reddened in the face at what she assumed he must see as an imperfection. No one is perfect, her most of all, and sharing flaws seemed an appropriate response. "We all have our flaws, Cameron."

At his full name he pursed his lips, but nodded, comprehending, his body still walking close to hers. "I just hate it when the damn hip acts up, it makes me feel so old."

"Well if it's a bum hip you're in the market to alleviate, I know an old trick or two." Her wink let him know that the trick was sexual in nature and he rolled his eyes, shaking his head at her but laughing at her tenacity.

And that's how it was before he kissed her, before he changed her life even though she was happy with how it was; risking her life daily with him, and being 'one of the boys' as the other privates called it, but he'd tut them down, adding that she was so much more, elevating her because she was better than one of the boys and she would try to blanch the blush on her cheeks.

"Wake up, Baby."

Then one day he told her that he loved her, and she rolled her eyes at him, not that he saw with his head buried between her breasts and his knees supporting her back. It was just an empty word thrown around during a moment of passion, something she is guilty of as well, but mostly makes her point known with the indents her fingernails and teeth leave in his flesh.

But then he said it to her one day, with no part of her milking it from him.

The word slipped from his mouth haphazardly, falling into the rubble of so many other words as he watched her flit around the room tidying his abandoned undies. He didn't notice it's appearance, his eyes back on the computer screen and his fingers clacking away. But she did, and she stood stunned for a moment, terrified because she shouldn't be the type of girl he loves, not respectable enough, more fling-type material.

Refused to go home with him the next night, and the next, until a week had passed. He opened the door to her room, huffing and puffing from her rejection, only she was in the midst of changing, her bareback to the door. Immediately, he apologized, his eyes dropping to scour the floor despite the fact that at this point, they'd slept together hundreds of times. She'd been more intimate with him than Qetesh had been with most of her lovers. The trust was there during sex. Knew what he wanted, knew his limits, and he could have her satiated in under ten if the need be.

But on a relationship front, the trust, the admiration, the love—a word she will not and does not say often or mean—was void. Felt that his love for her was more worship for her body, gratitude that they had a symbiotic relationship of getting each other off and eating pizza afterwards, that these feelings were misconstrued due to them being lonely workaholics.

"I came to see if you were okay."

She tugged a bra strap up, then the other, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I'm fine, Darling," she lied through her teeth, able to keep the calm façade.

"You're not sick, or upset, or just really tired or something?"

Yanked her camisole over her head and spun around. "No, I'm completely content."

"Okay—" his eyes narrowed at her response, but he took a step forward and she willed herself not to take a step back. "Did I do something then? Did I upset you in anyway?"

"No."

"Because I thought we were having a great time, then suddenly you don't want to come to my place, or my room, or want me in your r—"

"It's fine, Cameron."

"You can be upset. You're allowed to be upset. I'd just like to know what I did so we can work it out."

She stared at him, dumbfounded by his sincere words, by his patient attitude, something she'd never been graced with before in this manner, and although she still didn't trust him implicitly, although she still thought that his love was a lie or another masquerading emotion, she blinked way the idea of tears and beckoned him to her with a wave of her hand. "Come here, you beautiful man."

He didn't ask why, just approached her open arms willingly, his arms wrapping engulfing her as she sighed into the familiar scent of him, brushing her forehead against his shoulder. He peppered kisses quickly along her neck and to her cheek, to the tip of her nose, and then her lips, so fast in succession that she laughed, truthfully, giddily like a child.

"You all right?" His lips fluttered against her shoulder as he spoke, still holding her, and she felt his grin against her skin, felt proud that she'd created that.

"Yes." nodded, her cheek almost to his, her finger tracing his ear, rubbing the lobe. "Old habits, Darling, sometimes I just need to be alone."

"Next time just leave me a note or something." He planted one final kiss before pulling back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'd hate to think I did something to make you so upset that you'd want to leave me."

"Baby, please."

And his voice is so broken, so pleading, that she gives up the solace of remaining only semiconscious, his and Daniel's conversations punctuated by the putt putt of Chippie's engine close enough to a lullaby to keep her asleep.

Cracks an eye and is immediately accosted by the bright glow of the torch offset on the wall behind him casting shadows across his face, making him look much older than he is. Frets about looking old, constantly dyeing out gray hairs and pinching skin that's lost it's tautness, skin she pinches for an entirely different reason.

There's a moment before his recognition of her, where she glimpses the worried expression he hides from her, the one that forms when she stands on kitchen chairs to reach their homemade Ketchup, or when she leaves to take a contract to keep her sane. Normally, she's only privy to his hard set brow and tightly crossed arms, the ones that remain that way until she fiddles in the hair there, tickling and grinning and sweet talking, stroking fingers over his jaw until he unclenches the muscles, unwraps his arms from his chest and bundles herself up in them instead. Now that her stomach is prominent enough, she pushes it against his side on 'accident', knowing the baby will defuse his irritation.

But she's never seen the worry before, and maybe she doesn't see it now, just a blink and it's gone into the soft acceptance of his arm cradling the back of her head, his free hand constricting one of hers, and he tries to laugh the tears away in his eyes, but in the light pulling at his age, she can see the twinkle of them.

Her hand reaches up, caresses the side of his face, the stubble that's starting to fill in itching at her fingertips. "It makes you look debonair."

He's so well put together without having to have been put together again. Without recycled sarcophagus trips and bathes in oils and petals and blood.

Her eyes fall closed again and her body tremors, or perhaps the space around her body tremors, shudders until she floats, until she's weightless in love and in light. Bouncing along in the car beside him as a soft summer breeze blows through the jeep, top down. Smelling the mountain meadows and the loamy soil from recent rains.

She fell asleep halfway through the drive because the music was what he called 'classic rock' and not loud enough that they couldn't hold a conversation, and the roads were paved so smoothly it was as if she was being rocked and sung to a gentle slumber.

Awoke sometime later to the sound of his car door slamming. Didn't jolt her, just eased her up from her nap, and as she patted at her sleep mussed hair, he set drinks in the cup holders.

"Shit, sorry Baby, I didn't mean to wake you." Plopped into the driver's side, fumbling with his seat belt. For as coordinated as he is at work, he can never buckle his belt within the first three tries.

"I'm sorry," hummed as she stretched out her arms, her back, wiggled her toes free of the sandals wedged under her seat. "I didn't mean to fall asleep, but the music was so soothing and—"

"No, I get it, I'm boring," he interrupted with mock hurt, readjusting the rear-view mirror and trying to hide the smirk she saw.

"No," gasped and unbuckled her belt, bringing her bare knees to the warm leather seat. "How could you be boring—" shuffled up against him, hugging her arms around of his, pressing her breasts against him "—when you have a gorgeous alien girlfriend?"

He groaned, rolled his eyes, and turned away from her, but she reeled him back, looking at the new additions to the cup holders. Wrapped an arm around his neck, nuzzling him with her cheek as she climbed side saddle onto the center console. "What have you brought for me?"

"Big Gulp Slushie." With her free hand she snatched the large cup, shoved it between her knees, and churned the straw in it as Cameron explained what the liquid was. When she took a sip from the humorously large straw, instantly the cold hit her mouth, followed by a burst of flavor, then just pure sugar.

"—I didn't know which one you'd want so I striped the colors in—"

Jammed the drink back into the proper holder and almost pounced on him from across the console. The sugar and this man. Him and a blast fruity goodness prickled her cheeks, and the way he always thought of her, even when there was no need to, always took huge steps to accommodate her, to show his adoration in methods beside the obvious.

"Honey—" tried to straddle his lap, and with each of her movements, his beckoning became more anxious. "Honey!" Slid a leg astride his, riding him no saddle, popped kisses along his neck and jaw, before she leaned back too far and depressed the horn.

With an obvious frown she scooted from his lap, slid her bum across the console, back into her now hot seat while he waved nervously at a mother who shielded her children from viewing them. They were still rather new at the sneaking around.

It was their first getaway together, their first time outside of Colorado Springs, roads she'd never traveled, scenery that went unseen. He was still adjusting to her playful outbursts and her limited knowledge of Tau'ri customs and manners. She was adapting to the knowledge that whenever he completed a nice gesture towards her her—told her she looked beautiful, complimented her on how quickly she picked up football, made her breakfast, or lunch, or supper, anything really—that he didn't want sex as a payment.

Curled into her seat, the sundress she wore, a pale yellow with little orange flowers stitched at the bottom, fell over her knees and a portion of her shins as she glanced at the rest stop through her window. "I'm sorry, it's how I know to show gratitude."

"Hey." His fingers skimmed her arm, wrapped around her hand and tugged her to face him. "When I do stuff for you, it's because I'm glad you're here with me, not because I want anything more than you out of it."

He pecked a kiss to her palm, stark blue eyes observed her so sweetly. She flitted her fingers to behind his ear, grinned at him. "You think I'm worthy of such—"

"That and more."

"Vala, Baby, you gotta open your eyes."

She does what he asks, because it's simple enough, should be, scooching from straddling the center console, letting him know, letting him in when there's still the fear of judgement, the act of having to appear nonchalant when she cares about his opinion, particularly of her. It's why she doesn't like to trust, what if she does the wrong thing and he—

"Hey Baby." Snuffles again, his thumb stroking over her cheek.

But she's not asleep against the passenger door, or in the mountain, or at their farmhouse, she's somewhere else, her head rests on one of their packs, and when she tries to sit up, white light, the same white light that One wrought upon them through his ruin exploration, bursts behind her eyes, destroying her balance, makes it hard to breathe

"Cameron—"

"Take it easy." Brushes her bangs from her eyes and helps her recline again. Her stomach roils all acid and empty but sitting so hard.

"Something—Something's not—"

"I know, Baby, I know." Offers her a grin through his tears, and it's frightening because it's a puzzle—there's a puzzle and there's a piece missing so she can't comprehend—doesn't comprehend—

Under her fisting stomach, the movement has ceased. There are no kicks to her kidney or her bladder. There is no light and airy breeze wafting around a little one—floating like her head in a sea of indistinguishable—flattens a palm to her stomach, rubbing, waiting, praying. A moment passes, then another, and her ribs are constricting, restricting her breathes and she's hot—so very h—"Cam—" pants out the curtail of his name "—I can't feel them. They're not—"

His head ducks closer, his nose outlines hers. "It's okay. Chappy said the baby is fine for now, but we need to help you so—"

He continues with his reassurances, his touch and voice calming, consoling—she can't smell him, his aftershave, his normal scent. Can't smell anything, but his voice is so gentle in her ear. He asks a question and she nods, not hearing anything but the cadence, the pitch, the song of his words. He nods back, releasing her, reaching over out of the corner of her sight.

The ground shudders, and it piques her interest momentarily, unusual, concerning, but then her vision, slightly globule, starts to clear and she discerns another one of those tubes just over his shoulder, but this one is different. This one is full. This one doesn't house a Daniel, but the face within is more familiar.

It is her own.