Love's Labor Lost
Chapter 1
That Strain Again
He wakes up and immediately knows something isn't right. The air is cooler and smells different than the dusty, sooty odor he's gotten used to living in for the last seven months. The scent of sweat, and horse shit in the street, and people being burned alive.
The bed he's in isn't the one he's gotten used to at their house—their small row house with the stairs that creak and the cushion on the landing—because they're not as itchy. They're softer, lighter, almost silky against his skin, and he realizes he's not wearing a shirt.
Also, that he's face down into some puffy pillows.
Attempts to do a push up, but his lower back seizes. He can feel the skin tear under the movement and his shaky arms collapse underneath him as he lets out a grunt, hot breath shooting out of his flaring nostrils and bouncing back right into his face.
Tries again, harder this time, using all the strength he has and grinding his teeth through the pain, the burning, ripping through his back.
When he collapses again, even more stressed, more pained, more out of breath, he tries to figure out where he is. Most of the furniture is a pale gray, the designs are too alien to be anything from the village.
The last thing he remembers is speaking with Jackson—he was in Sam's body, sitting in front of some damn camcorder while he talked about what was going on with Ver Isca, about the legion of ships setting course for the Milky Way, about the Ori burning or chaining up anyone who didn't follow the rules, about how Vala was pregnant and the Priors thought it was with someone called the Orici—
"Vala?" Calls reminiscent of stumbling through a forest drunk on the Supergate transference. The mud caking his face and boots, low hanging boughs scraping against his arms, her sleeping so peacefully on a stone slab. "Vala!"
They were with Seevis—the asshole convinced them that he could link to their galaxy if they had a way to end the Ori rule, if they could send ships to liberate the people and villages who lived within the dark ages.
Eventually they agreed, because dying for a chance to get out of this galaxy was worth it. Going back to Earth and watching their child toddle along on green grass within a fenced-in yard while he sipped lemonade and held her hand made it worth it.
She volunteered to use the device, but they didn't know how it would affect the baby, now big enough to be it's own consciousness—if they would share a body again, if it could hurt their kid, so he vetoed that idea and underwent the transfer himself, which wasn't that bad, only Sam had one hell of a headache and needed a decent night's sleep.
He hears the sound of something whooshing open behind him, and footsteps entering the room. They're soft, but not so evenly paced, her left foot landing harder than her right because she carries more weight on that side.
"Vala?"
"Darling." There the lick of cool fingers at the back of his neck, calming him back into laying down. When he struggles to turn his head, to get a look at her and see if she's okay, she pets through his hair and softly coos, "just relax."
"What—what happened? Did I—?" About to ask if he's going for round three of needing to relearn how to walk again, but when he wiggles his piggies this time, they do the dance easily, allowing him to relax a little easier. "Is everything okay?—are you—?"
She helps him turn his head gently, so he can view her from the side. His neck is a little stiff, but she slumps down onto the bed beside him sitting so her back rests against his hip, petting down his neck and over his shoulders.
"I'm fine." She seems okay, but her face has that exhaustion she tries to keep at bay etched all over it. She takes his closest hand and drops it on her stomach. "Baby's fine. Just not as active since we left the birds."
"We left the birds?"
"Yes." She stands again, his hand flopping back onto the bed. "Do you feel as if you could turn over?"
"Been trying, Baby. You told me to stop."
The smile falters on her face, her eyes narrowing, and he knows now is not the time for jokes.
Together, with her pushing as he turns, like when she healed him back in that hospital room a year ago, a decade ago, another lifetime ago, he manages to roll over.
He's not even sure if he's the same man he was when his plane went down in the ice, because he's not sure, before that happened, if he would've been so willing to let things play out the way they did.
As he rolls onto his back, she slips a smaller pillow underneath his hips, propping them up, so he's not laying directly on his injury. He's red-faced from the exertion, but being able to see her face, smell her neck as she reaches behind him adjusting the mountain of pillow behind him, is worth it.
When she ducks back, he slips his hand up the side of her neck to cup her cheek, and gently kisses her, grinning as she closes her eyes. "Did they do anything to you?"
"Quite the opposite, actually." Her hand rubs over the scruff on his chin, and when he reaches up to touch it, it feels about the growth he would after a day or two, which is a relief. "They're still adamant that I'm carrying their answer to winning the Ori battle, so they refuse to harm me."
"These are the same guys who put you on display in the square?"
"I don't ask questions, Darling." Again, she wears that placating grin, the small fake one meant to put him at ease when there's something else he should be worrying about. She steps away from him, dragging over an armchair to sit in.
"Come lay down with me." He smacks the mattress next to him and realizes that he's kinda hogging the whole thing. "I can skoosh over."
"Even though I would love nothing more than to snuggle up next to you," she groans lowering herself into the chair, her hand supporting the underside of her stomach. "You're still recovering from an injury, and we have other pertinent matters to discuss."
"Like how I ended up—where exactly?"
She shifts her body, the chair squeaking beneath her as she tries to find a position that's comfortable, finally settling on sitting angled, her back pressing into the corner. "We're on an Ori vessel, Darling."
He can tell by her cadence, beneath the fatigue stitched into it, that she's not exactly pleased at that outcome.
"That's—not the worst thing, is it?"
"Well, while we are hurdling back to our home galaxy—" she raises her legs onto the side of bed, her heels digging into the mattress, dipping the edge slightly "—we're also on a war ship set to destroy Earth and your friends."
"That's—not ideal, but still we got stuff to work with."
"Like a very pregnant wife with water retention around her ankles?" She does one finally shimmy into the corner, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Of course, that," he chuckles, reaching for one of her feet, ringing his fingers around her ankles finding they are a little swollen. "Is that normal?"
She groans, enjoyably this time, slipping further down in the chair to allow him better access to her feet. "I've been reassured that it's due to the pressure change of traveling through space."
"Do we have a plan?"
"I don't know—were you able to discuss one with Samantha?"
"Well—" he doesn't really want to go into detail about being in Carter's body for an hour, talking to Jackson who could barely wrap his mind around the situation, but as soon as he said the word 'Orici' all the color drained from the other man's face.
After a couple of seconds pass and he hasn't given her a steady answer, Vala pushes her foot to his chest, getting his attention back. "Not really. I guess once we get back to the Milky Way, just try to contact another ship."
"I don't even think you'll be fully mobile by then."
"I'll be shuffling around."
"We're do to arrive in a week. You're not going to be able to shuffle your way off this ship, Cameron. You were shot in the back and—"
"Okay. Okay." He squeezes her foot, tickling until she keens 6her leg away from him. "Just relax. A week is a week. It's plenty of time to figure something out.
A/N: Story title taken from Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost.
Chapter title taken from Twelfth Night