Mother-In-Law

Chapter 5

Father-In-Law

A MALP is readied immediately to go to the address. The Jacksons spend a few minutes cross referencing it to the list of potential planets where Anat could be.

"You're better off going to an abandoned planet, and sending in something that way," Jacek remarks half-heartedly, his joviality completely drained. "She'll try to come through."

"And if she makes it?"

"She'll destroy it all."

"You know—" wants to stay silent, but can't because if this all goes belly up, if something happens, he might not have the opportunity to do this again. "Vala's told me a lot—more than most people— about growing up, about things she remembers from her childhood, but she never told me how her mom became a Goa'uld."

Left out how Vala revealed this information to him only a month ago. Vala always takes care of herself better than anyone else can, and that he's always left in the dark until it's nearing too late.

"Then, I guess there's a reason she doesn't want to tell you."

"She blames herself—" he ignores her dad's words, his verbal misdirection so he doesn't have to talk about his ex-wife currently being puppeted by a massacring alien, or the daughter that he used until she didn't fit into his plans anymore. Until she became a commodity. "For everything bad that's ever happened she always blames herself."

When he glances up, Jacek's watching him intently, not hanging his head in shame like he would be. "You know that right?"

"You want to know what happened?" There's an edginess to the older man's voice, one he's never experienced with the usual prankster. "Her mother needed cash and got it in the wrong way."

"Because conning and stealing are the right ways to make money?"

"Over selling yourself to a monster? I'd say so."

After a brief pause, during which all he can hear is the hum of the fluorescent lights, he continues, starting to think that maybe Jacek doesn't have all the info either.

"You know Vala was—"

"I know." Jacek interrupts him tersely, his lips pulled tight and his hands—still wrung with zip ties—are flat on the table. It's the first time he's seen the man actually aggressive, despite everything he's done, the first time he thinks her dad might actually take a swing at him.

There's a lot Vala has told him, but even more she hasn't. Never told him how she came to be host to Qetesh, or for how long, and suddenly, especially adding her mother in the mixture, it seems like she was forced into the family business.

"Look—" Jacek grins, attempting to diffuse the situation, but that has nothing to do with the fact that in a month a baby will be born sharing both their bloodlines, but like everything else he does, it's for his own benefit. "I've given you fellas—who all look remarkably alike, does Earth have a limited gene pool or something?—"

He doesn't even bother changing his expression for a response.

"The point is, you corralled me here for information, which I gave you—"

"I told you, we need to make sure the info you gave us is good. The moment we have confirmation that the address is to Anat's planet, then you'll get your naquadah and be on your way."

"You'll get confirmation through her attacking, and no offense, but I don't want to be anywhere in the vicinity of a God of War on a rampage."

While he understands not wanting to go toe-to-toe with a Goa'uld—hell, he's only had the displeasure of meeting Ba'al about a dozen times, and that was enough for him—but he can't condemn the way he speaks about his family, his former spouse.

"She's your wife."

"She's my ex-wife."

"Uh-huh—" and the unconcerned nature he has concerning Vala, their child, comes off as an act, because from what he knows of Jacek, the guy isn't bad, just annoying. "Did the 'ex' part come before or after the body controlling alien parasite?"

Jacek laughs, trying to cover the offense he can clearly see on his face. "I don't know why you're getting all upset over nothing—"

"To me, she's something."

"Apparently." Jacek leans back in his chair, his hands folded triumphantly over his chest. "But a something that concerns you how, exactly?"

Without a shred of hesitation, he declares, "she's my wife."

"Well, that would explain it."

Expects more of a reaction—hell, when he told his folks, his mom almost knocked him out for not inviting them to the wedding. Even after he told her that there wasn't one, she was still upset, still got that sudden silence to her, the kind she would use when he was a kid to let him know he hurt her.

"You didn't ask my permission." Jacek's got his old sly grin back, the kind she gets when she's doing something to egg him on, to piss him off—lately, she's been wearing that grin a lot. "Unless they don't do that kinda thing on this planet."

"No, they do."

If Vala wasn't from someplace out in the back forty of space, he would've asked her folks for permission—the part of him that's just a bit Southern and a lot old-fashioned. The kind that wants to make sure she's safe at home, knitting oblong baby onesies, while he goes to work saving the planet.

The small snippet of him that just craves a boring life.

But he didn't join the air force for a boring life.

He didn't join the SGC for a boring life.

He didn't start a relationship with her for a boring life.

Everything good that's happened to him has happened because he craves excitement.

"Don't you think it's a bit rude not to ask?"

If it were Vala speaking, she would give one of her little curt huffs at the end. She'd be working him over with that pout, and the twinge of her lips—Jacek just asks it nonchalantly, like he should be ashamed for not tracking him down through half the galaxy.

"I dunno." Anger starts to well in him—how everyone expects so much of them when they were just trying to live their own damn lives. They weren't hurting anyone—they were on another damn planet—but everyone came for them anyway. "Isn't it a bit rude that you abandoned her for a few decades."

"She's an adult, she can handle—"

"Then why are you here now, Jacek?" He told Landry—promised—that he wouldn't let his anger get the best of the situation. That he was fine to sit with Jacek while waiting for the gate address to be sorted out. He's trying so hard to keep his word, but knowing what her dad has done to her, how he's only around when he's being compensated—even now when he knows that Vala is in immediate danger. "I mean, aside from the payment."

"Because you guys are dealing with something you've—"

"We've dealt with Goa'uld before. We've gotten rid of a lot—"

"And that cocky attitude is just gonna get you killed quicker, Son."

"Don't call me that."

Jacek grins and it's the one he knows from her. The one she gets when she knows she's struck a nerve with someone—usually a Jackson, or some superior—and that she can pick away at it until they lose face. Until they're so infuriated with her that they let her do what she wants in order to get rid of her. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to call you? You are dating my—"

"We're married."

Points to the ring on his finger, a simple band of metal they purchased at one of the bazaars they went to full of wooden and cloth stalls barely held together. Different species shouting in different languages about what they were selling, and she grinned through the whole thing. Held his hand and directing him confused—nervous—through the crowds of people to a jewelry hut where they picked out a ring for him.

"Congratulations," Jacek responds flatly, then adds, "Son."

"If she doesn't consider you a father, then neither do I."

With a bit of a huff, like he's trying to shrug off how much the comment actually hurts him, Jacek questions, "this your first kid?"

He doesn't want to answer and isn't sure why he does—maybe this is her father's attempt at trying to figure out more about him, since whether they like it or not, they are family.

Maybe it's because his kid isn't even here yet, and he'll still take any opportunity to talk about them because they were a secret for so long.

"Yeah."

"It's gonna be a boy." A wistful look passes Jacek's face, and his arms start to loosen from around his chest. "I never had a son. Eight kids that I know of, and they're all daughters. I always wondered about the dynamic switch, you know? Maybe a son would have loved me more. Maybe they would—"

He ignores the pity grab, the way that Jacek is trying to guide the conversation, so he sympathizes with a man who has eight daughters, and none of them want a single thing to do with him—instead, focusing on what interests him. "Why do you think it's a boy?"

"Because she only has boys." He gives a half-hearted tug on the remaining zip tie, not even trying anymore. "That's one of the reasons Anat's got it in for her."

"What do you mean?"

"When Anat would—wait, you said she told you about this?"

"She hasn't told me much about anything."

Which is still more than she tells most people.

Even if she doesn't want to divulge every one of her past secrets to him, it doesn't bother him. He knows that she trusts him, that he's earned her trust, and he's proud of that.

"Then there's probably a reason for that."

Another Mal Doran tactic, coercing the enemy, bonding with them over one of their interests, or a topic they're into—say an unborn child—and then right when they're on the brink of divulging information, right when they're about to tell something that's life changing, they back track, almost taking the words out of the air and putting them back in their mouths as they grin smugly.

He's seen her do it before when under interrogation.

Sometimes when he, or the Jacksons need info from her and they're rushing their words and already exasperated with her for not participating of freely giving them what they need, she'll say there's a reason why or she'll 'forget' what they were talking about, and despite all the reminders in the world, they'll never get what they need from her.

This tactic is even less funny when they're being interrogated by an outside source, like an off-planet prison, or jail, or police, or the Lucien Alliance. Seen her take a hit more than once for it, when she could have just stayed silent, and when he gave her shit for it, she told him it was important to assert dominance.

To let them know she was still needed alive.

So even if he wants the information—if some part of him wants to bond with her dad, talk about his future kid because he doesn't get the chance to with many other people—he has to remember that Jacek's always looking out for himself first.

That he's screwed over Vala tons of times in the past.

"I'm gonna go see how the team's doing contacting the gate, so that we don't have to deal with—

Without meaning to, he groans when he stands. He didn't bring his pills back with him and he hasn't been down to Lam to get a refill, because he's had more important things to do.

He should have set a little time aside for it though because his leg is killing him, but somehow it still doesn't seem important.

Finding her is still his number one priority.

"Oh, that doesn't sound good—" Jacek gives him that same grin, the one with an evil flair. "Just a question, but how do you plan on keeping up with a toddler if you can't stand up from a table?"

"Let me make this perfectly clear, Jacek." Ignoring the pain in his side, ignoring the want to slip into the workout room and punch the hell out of something, ignoring the fact that he promised her, while laying next to her in bed one night, that he would be there for the baby's birth—he stands straight, tall, military style as he talks down to his father-in-law. "If you impede this mission in anyway, I'll make sure you're tried on the side of your Goa'uld ex-wife."

"What does that mean?"

"It means stay out of our way."