Chapter Fourteen
"Hey," Daniel greeted as he entered his lab.
Vala quickly jumped back from her position at the desk. "I know I promised I wouldn't touch anything, but I never said anything about snooping," she blurted out, "and while I was snooping, I came across one of the Goa'uld translations and noticed you translated a portion incorrectly – nothing major and it's common mistake; it is a very old and obscure dialect – and I couldn't stop myself from correcting it which turned into me translating the rest of it and – "
"Vala breathe," Daniel commanded with a smile, hands grasping her upper arms, "I'm not mad," he assured her.
Vala took a breath as instructed. "I didn't mean to overstep or anything."
"It's okay. I don't mind," he looked over at the translation she was referring to, "It's actually kind of sweet. Show me what I did wrong."
Vala tried not to gap at him. Who the hell was this man? A few months ago, he would have been upset, if not angry, that she had been messing with his stuff. But she could see that he truly didn't mind it now and it gave her hope that he was serious about wanting to make this work and that he wasn't lying when he said that he had changed, grown from his experience in the other reality. She relaxed and showed him where went wrong with the translation and when they were finished with it, he asked her opinion on another one. She smiled to herself as they spent the rest of the day doing just that. She liked being helpful.
As they sat at his desk, eating dinner from the commissary, Daniel figured he'd bring up what he had been wanting to discuss since his conversation with Jack. "So I talked with Jack," he began cautiously.
"Oh, right! How did it go?" she wondered, "Was he mad or upset?"
"Oh he was mad but not for what you think," he took a sip of coffee, "He was mad about the reasons why we went to that reality, not about our situation. He's actually excited to be an uncle and godfather."
"I'm glad to hear that," she said sincerely, relieved. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you decide to purposely seek out an alternate reality?"
Daniel hesitated, thinking about how, or even if, he wanted to respond. "What do you know about the attack on Earth Anubis planned a few years back?"
Confused as to why he would ask, she responded honestly. "Not much really, but I've heard about his defeat, that the Tau'ri had discovered a powerful Ancient weapon to defend themselves with."
"It's a long story but essentially, we found an Ancient outpost on Earth and it contained this chair that could only be used by someone with the Ancient Gene. Jack was the one who discovered the outpost and used the chair to destroy Anubis his fleet. To power this chair, you need an Ancient power source, we call it a ZPM, and they're hard to find. Ours here is depleted and with the Ori sending their ships through the Supergate, it was only a matter of time before they attacked Earth. We needed another ZPM so we'd be ready once they attacked happened. But we couldn't find one and we looked everywhere. So Sam came up with an idea, one where we intentionally go to an alternate reality and steal the ZPM from Atlantis."
"But you all got caught," Vala supplied.
"Yes, by you no less, which really pissed Mitchel off," Daniel smiled, thinking about how pouty the Colonel had been since it happened. "But it was where we got the intel for the device to destroy the Ori and the Ark to take care of the Priors, so it worked out in the end."
"You were really going to steal a ZPM from another reality?" skeptical didn't even describe what she was feeling as he confessed this. It was so unlike Daniel to do such a thing.
"Yeah," he shamefully admitted. "We were desperate and I'm not proud of it."
"I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that you were going to steal something! The Daniel I met aboard the Prometheus would've balked at the idea!"
"Desperation can make you do some crazy things you'd never thought you'd do," he remarked, "But hey, I don't have a leg to stand on anymore, none of us do, when we bring up your past. We'd be hypocrites, so if Mitchell or Teal'c tries to, just remind them of our true mission to the other reality."
She just smiled at him and let silence fall as they finished the rest of their meal. But curiosity got the better of her once more. He hadn't told her much about his actual time there, only bits and pieces, and she wanted to know more. "What was it like?" when he gave her a confused look, she specified, "The other reality, what was it like? What were we like? You said we had children; did you get to meet them? What did they look like?"
"Well, she, the other you, took less than a minute to realize that I wasn't 'her Daniel,' swiped my zat, and demanded to know what I did with him," he remembered, almost fondly. "She was the first person I really saw there, and it threw me for a loop. I never even considered the possibility that you'd be there, and I think it was right then where I knew I was fucked, even more so when she instantly knew I wasn't her husband. She was a lot like you; strong, confident, stubborn as hell, but also different. It's difficult to explain how," he struggled to find the words to say what he meant, which he found highly ironic since he was a linguist!
Vala took pity on him and his stumbling around for words. "How did she know?" she asked curiously, "that you weren't her Daniel?"
"Apparently by the cologne I was wearing," he answered, "that and I was missing a small scar on my forehead. But I think it was the cologne that really gave it away."
"Cologne?" she questioned cynically.
Daniel smiled and explained further. "She was pregnant, and I guess the smell of that particular cologne makes her sick," he winced slightly, remembering that he actually had made her sick when he got to close in the interrogation room. "I also didn't know the birth dates of their children so that didn't help," he added.
"Are you wearing it now?"
"The cologne? No, it wasn't essential to bring on the mission to the Ori galaxy so I haven't worn it since seeing you again," he told her, "and I probably won't. I don't wanna make you sick."
"You don't even know if it will," she argued lightly.
"Still, I don't wanna risk it, even though you're past that stage."
Just when she thought he couldn't get any sweeter, he proved her wrong. "What about the scar?" she asked, intrigued, "Did she say how he got it?"
"No, she didn't," he quickly responded, pinking up a bit.
Vala narrowed her eyes at him. "But you know he got it, don't you?" when he looked away and wouldn't answer, she pushed harder. "Daniel…" she warned sternly.
"The other me said…I, he… got it from…umm, well you see, they –"
"It's a sex injury, isn't it?" Vala guessed and couldn't stop the smug grin from spreading across her face. She laughed when he turned red. "Did he say exactly how?"
"No!" Daniel firmly denied, "And I didn't ask!"
She laughed at his uncomfortable state before taking pity on him. "What happened next?" mirth still laced in her voice.
Grateful for the change of subject, he immediately dived into what happened next; the interrogation, the original SG-1 coming back, them figuring out that the other SG-1 was from an alternate reality, more teams coming through the 'gate, etcetera. Daniel knew this wasn't what she really wanted to know and eventually told her about the moments he observed the other them. "They constantly forgot that I was there and kept having these secret, private conversations. According to the other Sam, Jonas, and Mitchell, they did this all the time. They fight, not quite like us, but they do. They have squabbles all the time and it's almost like its their way of flirting or even foreplay."
"Kinky," Vala teased, sending him a wink.
Daniel gave her a small, but playful, glare. "That part was weird and a little tough to swallow, but it was this wall he had in his office that really got to me," he admitted quietly.
"What was on the wall?" her soft, smoky voiced asked.
"It was a wall of their family, of their three children," he answered gingerly, still remembering the faces of each child.
"Tell me about them?" she asked hopefully.
"Well, I never met them but there were two boys and a girl; each named after a departed loved one."
"My home world had a similar custom," she interrupted.
"I know," he smiled at her, "it was your, her, idea and that's why they all got their names. The oldest was Kelson and based on his picture, he was a perfect blend between us." He paused to give her time to digest. From what the other him had said, Vala had lost her brother at a very young age and he didn't know if his Vala had as well.
"That was my brother's name," she whispered, both awe and sadness leaking into her voice.
"I know," he admitted gently, "and I know he died when you, she, was only seven, along with your mother. Did that happen here as well?"
Vala swallowed hard and looked down at her plate, picking at the left-over food. It was unnerving that Daniel already knew so much about her, not to mention that he found out from another version of her. Vala hadn't anticipated that her doppelganger would've been so similar to her. Where exactly did their path split off from each other? "That was one of the worse days of my life," she confessed quietly, "and at that time, I wanted nothing more than to be with them. My father coming back mere weeks later with a new wife didn't help matters." When she looked at Daniel, she realized that he already knew this bit of information and didn't look surprised at all, just sympathetic.
"I can understand what that was like, losing your mother and brother," she scoffed slightly and looked away once more, "No, really I do," he stressed, "I lost both of my parents when I was eight. I had no other family besides my grandpa Nick and at that time, he didn't want the responsibility of raising me and I grew up in foster care."
Vala looked at him, slightly stunned. "He gave you up, just like that?" shock and anger were evident in her tone.
"It's all water under the bridge now. We made peace with it and before he died, we had a pretty good relationship," he gave her a reassuring smile. "Other me must've had the same reconciliation as I did with Nick because we named our second son after him."
"Really?" she asked, intrigued once more. "What did he look like?"
"Pure you but with my eyes," he recounted fondly, remembering the adorable child. "He even had that mischievous look about him and he was only like two years old. I'm a little scared for this little girl to come and what she'll be like," he joked as he rubbed her small bump.
"You're hilarious," she told him sarcastically. "She'll be an angel, just you see!"
Daniel smiled in response. "I keep wondering if she'll look anything like their daughter," he wondered out loud and Vala motioned for him to continue. "Clare, their daughter, was named after my mother and she looked just like me; my coloring, my hair, eyes, nose, you name it. A mini female version of me and I have to admit, she was so fucking adorable."
Vala studied him for a minute before asking cautiously, "Do you want her to? Look like you, I mean?"
He briefly hesitated, thinking before he spoke. "I wouldn't mind," he admitted, "but I kind of want her to be unique from their daughter; I want her to be our daughter. And if I'm honest, I kinda hope she looks more like you. While I would love to have a family like they had, I don't want their exact family. While I love the names they chose for each of them, I don't want to use them for any children we may have."
"Well, I agree to that but why don't we wait and see how things pan out with this one before you start planning on a whole brood of children for us to have?" she quipped with a smile.
Daniel chuckled, shaking his head. "Agreed," and then a thought came to him. "What was your mother's name?"
"What, you mean to say that's the one thing you didn't learn about me in that reality?" she mockingly asked, and he shook his head, so she responded a little more seriously and wistfully, "Her name was Ellery."
"Ellery," Daniel repeated, testing the name on his tongue, "I like it; it's beautiful. What do you think?"
"About what?"
"Naming our daughter Ellery, after your mother."
Vala hesitated, thinking about it for a moment. "On one condition," she countered, and he raised his brows in response, "that her second name be Clare. Ellery Clare, after our mothers."
Daniel smiled in response and it kept shocking Vala how much he was smiling these past few days. She had never seen Daniel Jackson smile so much. She'd have to ask Sam if this was normal or not for him.
Daniel grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "I love it," he told her sincerely.
"Well, now that that's settle, maybe we should move on to more pressing matters," she jested, motioning to the multiple translations he had waiting for him as well as several items he still needed to catalogue.
But there one was more thing they had to discuss. "Move in with me," Daniel blurted out and cringed after the words came out. That was not how he planned on bringing it up. He started to earlier but then got sidetracked when she asked why they originally went to the other reality.
Vala froze, her hand in midair as she was about to grab a tablet. She sat back down and lowered her hand. "Are you being serious?"
"Completely," he assured, "Think about it, it makes sense. You didn't like living on the base last time you were here and I can't imagine you liking it now. Then there's the baby to think about; can you imagine trying to raise a baby here? With all the alarms, noises, and dangerous situations we get into? Who knows what we could bring back through the Stargate? And I wanna be there and present for you and the baby, as much as possible – the way my dad was always present in my life. So please don't decide right now and at least think about before giving me an answer," he implored.
Daniel couldn't tell if he had freaked her out so completely that she was struck speechless or not. He really hoped he hadn't. Maybe he moved too fast, despite his promises to her that he would take this slow and not rush her. To be fair, he was still giving her the control and it was her decision to make – he would force it.
She was quiet once more, processing his request and explanations. "Landry and your leaders have agreed to this?"
Daniel blinked. That wasn't the response he was expecting. "Landry is for the most part. He agreed that a newborn on base wouldn't be prudent. As for my leaders, Jack will take care of them. He's pretty much guaranteed me that you'll be granted of base living privileges. Once you have all the proper documentation and stuff, you'll be good to go."
"And you would still be willing to go slow if I needed you too, despite us moving in together?"
"Of course."
Vala bit her lip before sighing and giving him a small nod of agreement.
"Really?" he asked, wanting to make sure she was sure, and she gave him another nod.
Daniel moved so he was in front of her, gently pulling her from her seated position, and wrapped his arms around her. "I promise I'll do everything to make sure you won't regret this."
"I know you will," and she honestly believed that. This Daniel was almost day and night from the man she'd last seen five months ago and because of that, she believed him.
"I'm gonna kiss you now," he warned, giving her time to stop him if she wanted.
But she didn't and eagerly returned his attentions.
