Chapter 4. A Kiss To Make It Better

The next few days were hectic at the SGC and no one had a chance to check the internet to see if anything had changed, as far as the TV show went. General Landry returned from a much needed week's vacation and things went pretty much back to normal. Or as normal as they could be in the mountain.

Sg-1 went off world and got chewed up, as usual. Vala sprained her wrist while working with Daniel. They were examining a wall that had some writing on it and it started to fall over towards them. She reached out to block Daniel but some of the stuff landed on him anyway and she hurt her wrist in the process. She radioed for help and when Cam saw that Daniel had been briefly knocked out, he took no chances. Teal'c carried Daniel and Sam helped Vala and they quickly returned to the SGC. Daniel and Vala were immediately whisked off to the infirmary for x rays and observation. Neither one was hurt badly but Doctor Lam decided to keep Daniel over night, just to be on the safe side.

It was pretty quiet in the infirmary the next morning when Vala came in, wearing her black T-shirt and pants and though she could have gone to her room, she decided to come back and sit by Daniel's bed. General Landry had postponed the mission debriefing until first thing that morning and with Mitchell, Teal'c and Sam, it took only a few minutes as they hadn't been on the planet very long when Daniel and Vala got hurt. General Landry dismissed them until further notice. She didn't really have anything to do unless she went back to the Archeology Department to work on something and that wasn't much fun unless Daniel was there. He was able to explain things that she came across and she was learning quite a bit from him.

He had dozed off but when he woke up he noticed he wasn't alone. 'Is that Vala? My eyeglasses must be around here somewhere.' He used the controls to lift the mattress so that he could sit up. He was dressed in blue hospital pajamas and the sheet white sheet was around his waist.

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself, Sleepyhead. Doctor Lam said you have a mild concussion but she's only going to keep you in here another day. How are you feeling? Did you sleep well last night?"

"No, the nurses kept waking me up every hour, so I'm worn out And, I have a headache but I guess that's normal. Why are you here?" He realized as soon as he said it that it sounded a bit rude. "I'm sorry, I mean... I'm sure you would rather be anywhere else."

"No, I'm fine. I really don't have much to do and I don't mind sitting with you." She blushed a bit and was looking around the room, trying not to make eye contact. She remembered when she used to flirt outrageously with him and lately, she seemed to feel uncomfortable doing that. She'd grown a lot of respect for him and it just didn't seem right, somehow.

"Um, thanks by the way. You could have gotten hurt worse." He noticed her arm and said, "Sprained?"

"Yes. I didn't even think, Daniel I heard some noise and looked up. I just reacted."

"Well... I appreciate it." He smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Vala, can I ask you a question?" He said this as he was reaching for his eyeglasses.

"Sure, what do you want to know?"

"I was just wondering why you picked 'Cleopatra' to dress up as the other night at the party?"

"Oh, that. Well, when you explained things and Sam offered to help, I wasn't sure what to do, at first. It took me a while and some research to decide. Then it came to me, and I knew that there was a collar and some arm bands up in one of the storage rooms, so it seemed like the perfect choice. Sam signed out the artifacts because we knew they wouldn't let me have them, if I asked. I hope she won't get in trouble for that, by the way. I did return them as soon as the party was over."

"I know, I checked." Daniel looked a bit embarrassed for admitting that.

"You did?" Vala looked hurt. "I guess you still can't trust me, can you?"

"Give it time, Vala. You have a rather infamous reputation, ya know? It's gonna take a while. I have to say, though, I think you're doing great. You've been a lot of help." He tried to reassure her with a smile.

Vala looked down at her hands and didn't say anything. She was a bit surprised at what he'd just told her. Praise wasn't something she was used to. At least, not this kind. She wasn't expecting it.

"So," she said, "tell me, Daniel, why did you dress the way you did?"

"That's easy. It just seemed like the right thing to do, what with all the commotion about 'The Simpson's' being canceled. Although, I wish now that I hadn't dyed my hair. I had to keep washing it to get the color out and it still looked strange for a few days." He said this while running his fingers across his scalp.

"It was a surprise for me when I walked in and saw you dressed that way. I don't understand this obsession everyone has with that TV show." She crossed her arms across her chest and looked at him, waiting for a reply.

"I know. You didn't have TV on your home planet. It's natural that you would question it. Look, it's been on for 17 years. That's a long, long time for a TV show. Especially an animated one."

"Okay, but I'm still really am surprised that General O'Neill is so wrapped up with it. He's a big, strong man... a military leader. It just doesn't seem to fit."

"You have to remember something, Vala. We deal with some extremely serious stuff on a daily basis. Most of us don't have lives, outside the base. He's in charge of a lot of things that almost everyone on the planet will never know about. Watching that show is just a way for him to relax. It's something to focus on that doesn't have anything to do with the Ori, or gate travel or enemies we don't even know about that might be lurking out there, just waiting for the chance to 'Take Over The World," he said, using his fingers to make quotation marks in the air.

"Oh, I see. It's an escape mechanism." Vala still thought it was strange but when Daniel put it into context, it made more sense.

"Yes." Daniel was curious. "Didn't you have anything like that on your planet? Not TV, but something that everyone seemed to enjoy and talk about? Sports, maybe? Or entertainment?"

"I suppose so but I don't remember much."

Daniel was really curious about her home planet. The anthropologist in him would love to go there and look around. But, that wasn't even possible because Vala wasn't sure where it was. It had been quite a long time since she'd been there.

She stood up and reached over to the water pitcher and poured him a glass. As she did so, she winced a bit from the pain in her arm.

"Thanks," he said after he took a drink. "Does it hurt very much?" Daniel had noticed the pained look and was concerned.

"A little. Doctor Lam gave me some Tylenol and said that if I needed something stronger, to let her know."

He got a thoughtful look on his face as he took her hand and said, "You know, when I was a little boy, my mother used to do something when I got hurt."

"She did? What was that?"

"She'd kiss my hurts. If I fell and scraped my knee, she would say, 'Let me kiss it to make it better.'" He got a sly grin on his face and said, "Want me to kiss your arm to make it better? "

She smiled back and said, "Sure, if you want to."

He carefully brought her arm closer and placed a kiss over the bandage, all the while watching her face.

"Turn about is fair play, Daniel." She leaned over, brushed his hair away and slowly kissed his forehead. She looked into his eyes and said, "Better?"'

Daniel didn't say anything. He just sat there watching her face, which was mere inches from his own. She drew closer and they just started to kiss when they heard someone at the door and they both jumped! She quickly stepped back and Daniel sat up and cleared his throat.

Jack stepped into the room and saw the near miss. 'Oh boy, that was lousy timing!'

Daniel was definitely shaken by the encounter and thought, 'Oh, crap!' But, he put on a straight face and said, "Hey, Jack. What are you here for?" His face was a little red but he seemed to recover quickly.

"To see you, although I didn't know you were in the infirmary until I got here. What happened?"

Vala said, "A wall fell on him."

"Oh, as usual? And I see you sprained your wrist. How did that happen?"

Daniel answered, "She tried to stop the wall from falling on me." He grinned and then said, "She saw it start to tumble and tried to shield me and we both got hurt in the process. At least, that's what Doctor Lam said when she was in here this morning. She gave me some pain medication and I dozed off for a bit after breakfast, so I'm not really sure. It's still a bit fuzzy."

Vala stepped towards the door and said, "Sir, it's good to see you. I have some things to do so I'll go and let you two talk." She quickly stepped out of the room and was gone in an instant.

Jack looked a Daniel to see the reaction on his friend's face. Daniel glanced up at Jack and blushed. 'I see,' thought Jack. 'I wonder how far this has gone?'

"Daniel, is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

"No, Jack. You came in here to talk to me, remember? What's up?"

Jack had come to the base for a different reason but since he was there, he decided to ask Daniel about a mission they'd been on a few years before. It had something to do with one of the villages they'd been to, and he needed the information for something he was working on. He knew that Daniel had a great memory for these kinds of things and when Daniel said he did remember, they got into a discussion about it.

A while later, after Jack left, Daniel felt relieved that the subject of the kiss hadn't come up again. He wasn't sure he could explain anything and wasn't really ready to try to. He was just as confused by it as he was sure Vala was. 'I hope I didn't hurt her feelings. I can't believe I did that. What was I thinking?'

He turned the bed back down to a flat position and tried to calm down but the thought of him kissing her was really bothering him. Fortunately, within a few minutes of Jack's leaving, an orderly came in with his lunch. Soon after that, the nurse came in and gave Daniel his scheduled pain medication and before he knew it, he was asleep.