Daniel walked down the hallway towards his temporary room on the base. Reaching the door, he slid the key card through, opened the door, turned on the lights, shuts door and finds Vala lying in his bed.
"Hello." She said, smiling.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Daniel asked, wondering why Vala was in his room.
"Isn't this my room?"
"Noooo… your room is across the hall… with the… guard in front of it." Daniel said, casting a glance towards the door wondering how she had gotten passed the guard.
"Ah yes, they do all rather look alike don't they?" Vala said, looking around. "Anyhow, since I'm here, shall we make the best of it?" She asked, kicking off the covers to reveal a pink top and matching underwear.
"God she looks so hot." Daniel thought while saying, "No. we shalln't."
"Come on Daniel." Vala said getting to her knees and looking at him. "We're both stuck here on this base and there's nothing else to do."
"Yes there is! There's…there's…there's sleeping, there's working, there's-there's finding a way out of this mess!" Daniel said, trying to focus on getting her out of his room and not on how great her legs looked, or how her hair fell in front of her face in just the right way.
"What if we can't? We might have to spend the rest of our lives together."
"No! Don't even go there." Daniel said, walking away from her. The more distance between the two of them the better. It was all he could do to keep himself from nailing her right then and there.
"There's literally a bond between us. Some people might even find that… romantic."
"uh… I'm not one of those people." Daniel said, unconvincingly. "I do, it's just…complicated." He thought. "I don't want anything happen to you like it did to Sha're."
"Am I really so repulsive?" Vala asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"No… uh…you're gorgeous…I don't want you to go…no!" Daniel said, walking to the other side of the room. "No you're not… repulsive, you're just… uh…ya uuhhh… it's just that I know what you're doing with the whole sexual… thing. It's a defense mechanism." He had to come up with something to explain why he was acting like this. He was never good at playing dumb.
"Really?"
"Yeah. You live a solitary existence, you… move from place to place, you never form any lasting relationships, you use sex as a weapon, prevent yourself from forming any real emotional bonds." Daniel said, ticking off the reasons on his fingers.
"Textbook case." Vala said, flatly.
Daniel shrugged. There wasn't much he could say at the moment.
"Never realized I was so transparent." Vala said standing, the hurt in her voice obvious.
"Vala…" Daniel said trailing off. He had gone further than he meant to, he didn't want to hurt her. He was the one to blame for all of this. He was the one who was pulling away. He didn't want to get involved, because when he did something happened to break it. "Sometimes I feel cursed in the love department." He thought, ruefully to himself.
"No really it's…that's fine Daniel," she said getting up and put on her robe. "you're right. I can see why you wouldn't want to become involved with someone so pathetic. I wasn't always like this, you should know. There was someone once," she said, the tears in her voice evident.
Daniel dropped his head down, feeling even more guilty than before. "I really screwed it up this time." He thought to himself.
"in fact I was engaged - then I was taken as a host and even though the Tok'ra eventually freed me, the damage was already done. And once you have been spat on, and stoned… by the people of your own village... well… you try forming lasting relationships." Vala finished, moving to leave.
"Vala, wait…I love you dammit…just wait…I don't want you to leave…please. Stop." He begged. Vala paused, tying the robe. "Alright I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. I just… sometimes I just…forget what you've been through. If you've actually been through any of that... are you messing with me?" Daniel asked, realizing what she was doing.
Vala gave him a small smile and asked, "Is it working?"
"Ge--Get out, go. Get out." He said, pointing to the door. Vala headed to door, opened it, and turned giving him a look. "Go." Smiling she left. Once the door closed he sat down on the bed and sighed. There were so many things, so many emotions that he needed to sort through. Sure it had been a while since he had fallen for someone, but they hadn't been like Vala. Thinking about how they first met, Daniel shook his head. Whatever that encounter was, she made sure it'd stick in his mind. "I just don't want her to get hurt because of what we do." He thought. "I know she can take care of herself, but still…" sighing, he got ready for bed and turned off the lights, his mind still reeling. Whenever she was around him there were so many emotions swirling inside him that he didn't know what to think. Part of him still loved Sha're and the other half loved Vala. Even though it'd been six years since her death, Sha're had still been his wife and he didn't want to be un-loyal to her memory. He also knew that it was past time for him to move on, but at the same time he didn't want to. There were times where he wished that he was still back on Abydos and that none of this had ever happened. Daniel lay awake, thinking about all of that for a while, unable to fall asleep, thinking about Vala and what she meant to him.