Author's Note:
Super cheesy fluff piece! Theme or plot or anything like that. Just a gooey ball of cheesiness!
It came to me while watching Dexter and I had to stop and write it down. Lost some train of thought when writing, but then again, what's new?
Let me know them thoughts!
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Stargate SG-1, it's characters, or anything associated with it. I'm just letting my imagination run wild with their creation.
o0o
Letting Go
Daniel couldn't sleep.
It was some time after two in the morning and he had been wide awake since eleven-ish. His mind was going at full speed, analyzing everything again. You'd think after all this time, he would be all thought out on the subject, but it felt there was a new twist to it around every corner. But this wasn't just some twist, and it wasn't an ordinary corner. No, it was the twist, the corner he had been expecting, so he wasn't sure why it surprised him as much as it did.
He loved Vala Mal Doran.
Not as friend. Not as teammate. Not as a co-worker. But as the woman he loved – as the woman he had been dating for the last three and a half months. When they had started their relationship, he knew he cared a great deal for her and she the same. It was inevitable, which is why it was odd that it caught him off guard when he realized it and it had him spinning out. Him spinning out about Vala wasn't anything new, he always seemed to be – he had fought it for so long and everything she did that brought them closer had produced the same results.
But he had relented just over three months ago and he had forgotten that one could be the happy – that he could.
Daniel turned onto his side to stare at the object of his thoughts and smiled at the picture that greeted him. Vala was curled up on the other side of his bed, her back facing him. The sight was almost had a child like feel to it. He had expected Vala to be a cuddler, and to be fair, she had cuddled up to him when they had fallen into a sweaty heap after their…first time together, but twenty minutes after she had fallen asleep, she pulled away, rolling to the other side. She still close enough to where he could feel her body heat, but not quite touching.
It was their first time sleeping together like this so he didn't take it personally – they would adapt as time went on. Last night had only been their fourth official date – unless you were Vala and counted the time she got kidnapped, then it was the fifth date. Despite the Ori being gone, their lives were still busy and finding time over the last three months had been hard to take her out, but she never once complained.
Not about him not taking her on dates and hadn't even mentioned why they hadn't immediately jumped into bed at the beginning of their relationship. He had been expecting her to, but he realized not long after that he had misjudged her in so many ways and had underestimated her. Vala knew him on a whole new level, more than any other woman he had been close to, and once they had become serious about each other and started a relationship, Vala stopped messing with him in ways she knew would set their progress back. So, she hadn't pushed for sex or anything beyond what he could offer. She let him set the pace since he was the more hesitant of the two.
He realized all of this tonight as she smiled serenely across him at dinner, and it was the moment he knew and acknowledged that he loved her.
I love her, he thought to himself. He loved this feeling, so what was the problem? What was keeping him up and his mind going a thousand miles an hour? Why wasn't he able to relish and enjoy his new revelation?
Daniel turned onto his back once again and glared at the ceiling. Not how he imagined this going and to top it off, he was sleep deprived. His head fell to the left where his alarm clock sat but instead of falling on the red numbers, they caught sight of something else and it was his lightbulb moment.
He jumped up as gently as he could, not wanting to wake Vala up, and snatched the object and quietly exited the room. His focus stayed on it as he walked through the house on auto pilot, turning on the living room light once he entered, and headed straight for the mantle over the fireplace. He eyed the photos that lined the mantle, trying to find the most appropriate place to set the photo of Sha're.
It had been a major oversight on his part, keeping the picture of his dead wife on the nightstand by his bed, especially when he brought back his current girlfriend, but Vala hadn't seemed to mind – she never did when it came to his late wife, and it was another testament to how much he had misjudged her. Most women would be jealous or at least a little put out by it, but Vala had never blinked at the same picture that sat in his office, and she sure as hell didn't bat an eye at it tonight during their…activities. God, was he lucky or what? As much as he would always love Sha're, she was his past, and he had to let it go, let her go – officially.
Because Vala was his present and the only option he wanted for his future.
Daniel slid the photo next to the ones of his parents, him and Nick, and the one of Janet and the team – next to the people in his life that he had lost. Loved but never forgotten. He smiled. It felt right as he stared at the mantle – almost. His smile quickly turned to a small frown as he surveyed it once more and spotted the problem, but he had a solution.
He grabbed the framed photo of him and Jack and quickly opened the back of the frame to remove the picture before flinging the photo onto the coffee table. He walked over to the table by his front door and opened the drawer to find what he wanted – a candid photo of him and Vala. It was taken months ago, before they had started dating, but somehow Jack had caught the two of them laughing at something with Vala in his lap, making them look as happy as he felt.
He loved this photo of them and despite Jack's attempts to use it to tease him about his and Vala's nonexistent relationship (at the time), Daniel was grateful now that Jack had done so – though he would never admit it to the man. He carefully inserted the photo, closing up the back, and gently set the frame in the middle of the mantle. He tilted his head, examining his work, before heading for the jacket he had wore earlier tonight…err, last night, and ruffled through the pockets to produce what he was looking for.
The strip of snapshots from the photo booth Vala had insisted doing. He smiled as gazed at the four photos. There was the traditional goofy pose, the serious one, the regular happy, 'smile' one, and a candid of them kissing. It was them summed up in one strip of paper and he loved it. He set it beside the newly framed picture of them and stood back to admire his work.
Perfect.
"Daniel, what're you doing?" Vala's sleepy voice asked, "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
He turned around and smiled. "Sorry," he apologized softly, "I didn't mean to wake you."
Vala groggily shuffled over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck before burrowing her face into his chest. "You gonna tell me what you're doing up so late?"
"It's actually morning," he quipped as he pulled her closer and kissed her head.
Without removing her head, she slapped him on the back of the head, and ignored his exaggerated 'Ow.'
"If you must know, I was letting go," he answered.
"Of what?" she mumbled into his chest.
"The past," he murmured into her hair, "Of anything that's holding me back from you – from us."
That seemed to wake her and she pulled away. Her eyes found the mantle and immediately spotted the differences, and her eyes became glassy. "Daniel, I don't expect you do that," she told him seriously, "I don't expect you to forget about her or to stop loving her or anything."
Daniel brushed away a stray hair, tucking it behind her ear. "I know you don't," he said gently, "and it's one of the reasons why I love you – you've never pushed when it came to that. I just hadn't realized how much that meant to me."
Vala's expression turn to shock.
"What?" he quickly asked, "What's wrong? What did I say?"
"You love you?" she whispered, bewildered.
He grinned. "Yeah, I love you," he confirmed, "More than I ever thought possible."
Now wide awake, she grinned back. "I love you too."
"I suspected as much," he confessed. She had shown it in so many ways, he had just missed it. "It's why its time to let go of the past, so I can move on with my future – you."
Her grin turned to a smirk. "Future, huh?" she questioned cheekily, "Sounds…very permanent."
Daniel cupped her cheek. "I meant it to be," he admitted, "You're gonna have a hard time getting rid of me."
Vala's hands went to the back of his head, fingers spreading through his hair. "I think that's my line," she quipped before turning serious, "But who says I want to?"
He rested his forehead against hers. "Well, then I guess we're struck together."
"Together." She had never loved a word so much until now.
