AN: Everything is OK. My part time manager was on vacation last week and she normally takes the night shift most of the week so someone had to cover for her. As I'm the one who's schedule would swing least by covering her shift I took her hours. I was just too tired to write in the morning after scrubbing a store every night. MKH is doing well and has had his first PT appointment. In a move of solidarity our whole family has adjusted their diet to consume less junk. The kids are mostly on board... As a relatively lazy writer if you have read Bose Condensate you have met both my kids. Heh. A bit younger then they are now.

"Don't you dare walk away" – Episode 17

It had started out normal enough. A mission. Natives. Artifacts. Daniel honestly wasn't really sure where things started spiraling out of control. And by control he mostly meant his control as no one else seemed to give any craps what happened but him.

Cameron was too busy having a good time running around playing G. I. Joe. Teal'c was either ignoring or encouraging what was going on depending on how one looked at things and Vala… well... Vala was… the problem.

As Jack might have put it Vala was one big giant honkin problem.

She'd made friends with the natives. Very good friends. Such good friends that now half the male population that wasn't married was vying for her attention and the other half were accusing her of casting a spell on the first half.

This seemed familiar somehow but he couldn't put a finger on it.

He almost missed the days of Jack and Sam having to explain another offworld wedding to Hammond after some diplomatic misunderstanding about their relationship. He chuckled to himself. It had never been any sort of misunderstanding. Jack and Sam were just not good at subtle.

So here he was trying to figure out how to extract his team from their own folly with only Teal'c to help and Teal'c seemed to find the whole thing funny and was therefore disinclined to intervene.

Daniel told himself it wasn't the flirting as so long as she flirted with other men she left him alone but he was lying to himself. It was defiantly the flirting. She'd profess to have feelings for him one moment then go make out with a random man the next and not once had it yet occurred to Daniel that the problem wasn't her behavior as he never expressed that he returned her regard therefore he had no claim on her in any sort of way. Daniel was too busy assuming that life revolved around his feelings to consider Vala's and in another reality that would come to a head on a doomed ship but in this one, things just kept dragging out with Vala unable to break past Daniel's barriers and Daniel unable to accept her behavior was a direct result of his emotional indifference to her and not in fact caused by her feelings being shallow. Rejected at every turn Vala was simply trying to get over her feelings the only way she knew how.

By throwing herself at men who did want her. At least at the moment.

And this was a big honkin problem for Daniel who told himself he did not want this fast forward woman who reminded him far too much of his beloved and dead wife for comfort. He wanted someone sweet and kind and well... a bit more docile. What he wanted and what his heart wanted were at odds but Daniel had been ignoring his heart for a bit over a decade now and wasn't about to stop given the option.

The object of his lack of affection was walking past with an entourage of male admirers.

"Don't you think that's enough?" Daniel asked her dryly as she passed.

"Enough what darling?" Vala asked him coyly and patted a young man's cheek affectionately.

"Do you think acting that way will make me care?" he demanded.

"Not at all darling." Vala said dismissively and accepted a handful of flowers from one of her suitors.

"Then why are you doing it?"

"Because you don't care." She said dismissively and turned away from him to continue on her way.

"Vala." Daniel said in a huff.

But Vala ignored him and hugged one of the men with her.

"Vala!" Daniel yelled when she was a bit further away.

"Don't you dare walk away!" He yelled.

Vala stopped and slowly turned towards him. A glint of challenge in her eyes. "Daniel darling you have no claim on me. I don't know why you think you get to order me around when you clearly don't want what I'm offering."

"Oh and what's that. A roll in the hay?"

She shrugged though. "For starters. We both know what I'm talking about darling. Don't play at being stupid. You aren't good at it." She told him in mild annoyance.

"Maybe I would take you seriously if you didn't sleep with every guy that catches your fancy."

"Oh I doubt that darling. So much so that I see no reason to bother entertaining the thought. Besides… you're hardly one to complain about anyone else's proclivities. I hear you've tussled every space princess from here to, oh what did Jack call it? Alderran."

"What? I most certainly have not." Daniel huffed, advancing on her.

"Would you like a list darling? I'm certain I have one somewhere."

Daniel grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly. "Would you stop it already?!"

"Why should I?" Vala shouted at him.

"Dammit." Daniel growled and found himself kissing her. It was meant to be fierce, punishing, but seconds into the kiss Daniel's heart was hammering in his chest and his arms had gone from gripping her shoulders to one buried in her hair and the other at her waist. "Dammit." He muttered against her mouth as he gentled the kiss and pulled away for a second to look into her confused eyes then bury his face in her neck. "Quit making me feel this way." He admonished her.

"I can't help it." Vala said, clinging to him. "I don't mean to."

Daniel sighed. "We can't go on this way." He finally said.

"Then stop." She told him. "Stop pushing me away to protect yourself."

Daniel sighed. "I don't know how." He admitted.

She looked at him thoughtfully. "Talk to Jack. He figured it out."

Daniel's shoulders slumped. "The day I have to go to Jack for relationship advise…" But he chuckled a little and Vala grinned.

"Is the day you go to a wiser man for help." She told him.

"Right." Daniel said with a resigned sigh.

"I mean you could ask Cameron but he hasn't had a date in—"

"I heard that!" Cameron yelled from the other side of the market square they were in.

"See, there you go." Vala said with a shrug.

Daniel chuckled then shook his head. "Why you. Of all people why you?"

"Because darling. Just like Jack. You have a type."

Daniel looked at her in thoughtful surprise. He'd call it more an alarming consistency but he supposed type worked too.

AN2: If some of this stuff sounds an awful lot like it's part of the Fate series or ought to be... It might be eventually if I ever do a consolidated version of some of the story arcs. But Daniel and Vala certainly deserve their own love story to tell.