Bring it all Back
Chapter 17
Dress
They're trapped, well not so much trapped as imprisoned. To his left is a very thick stone wall. To his right sits the same wall. Behind him, the same wall, and before them very rusty, very thick metal bars. He paces, he hates being trapped. Hates being imprisoned since that one night he spent in the drunk tank and his momma came and got him in the morning, hitting him across the back of the head, literally slapping some sense into him.
While he glares after the not-so-friendly guard who slammed them into this cage, Vala sits on the ground, her knees knocking at an awkward angle. She rolls from her ass to her back.
He arches an eyebrow, deciding she's better to watch. "The hell are you doing?"
"This isn't my first imprisonment, darling." She swoops her arms underneath her socked feet, the bulky army boots kicked off and stranded over the sandy floor and brings her cuffed hands from behind her to in front.
His eyes dart back to his cuffed hands and then back to her as she bounces up like she just finished a gymnastics routine. "Don't think I can do that, princess."
"Oh, don't you worry your—" She yanks her hands apart harshly in a single moment, the movement knots in his stomach, but instead of broken wrists or amputated hands, the broken links dangle at her wrists and she wears them like an accessory "—pretty little head about it."
Wears a proud grin, while she saunters towards him, foot before foot like she's walking a catwalk, and her hand buries in her hair, digging out a silver, jewelled bobby pin. She touches his shoulder gently guiding him to turn around.
"Don't do that again." All he needs is her in two casts, one for each Daniel to sign. She'll still try to sneak out on missions when she can't even hold a fork and he'll have to sign his name to a hundred more leaflets of paper and then keep signing her out to make sure she's still eating.
Cold fingers curl around his wrists as she steadies his hand, dept fingers jittering until the clasp snaps free. The relief in his wrist is instant and he pivots to stand face-to-face with her. He holds the links of the first cuff up and she picks the second lock with ease.
Tugs on the braided links of one of her cuffs with his first free hand while she works over the skin on his wrist of the second. "Okay, now you."
"Not important right now." She stops massaging, cool fingers stilling against his skin, and she nods to the rails. "We need to figure out how to get that unlocked."
He plucks the barrette out of her fingers and shoves it clumsily into the tiny cuff keyhole. "No," the argument spoken into his downturned chin, his bad eyes squinting in the dimly lit cell, "we need to figure out a plan first."
"We have a plan." Tries to pull her hand away but he keeps it stable, still swirling the clip around. "It's breaking out of this cell."
"Then what?"
"Then we run down the hallway, turn right, run down that hallway, turn left, third door on the right is the gate room."
His fingers still, his eyes scrolling up to hers.
"What?"
"How do you know that?"
"I took mark of it when we dialled in." He still stares, how did he forget to do that, how did this mission go so badly so quickly. "We knew it could go bad."
"That's an understatement." The planet had requested assistance in fighting off Athena, one of the last remaining system lords. There were rebellions uprising and just needed a smart head or two to help organize to take her down. With the others off on their own little missions, Vala volunteered to go having led 'more than one rebellion' and, well, it would be reckless of him not to accompany her on a planet neither of them had been to before.
As soon as they walked through the portal, the nice folks of P3S-222 took one look at her and screamed 'Qetesh' and he's never seen a group of people draw their guns so quickly. "What happens if we stay here?"
"You'll be fine, darling." Cool fingers tap his cheek as she pulls a weak smile at him.
"Sorry, let me rephrase that. What will happen to you if we stay here?" Fingers drop from his cheek as she turns away from him, pacing back towards the large, almost cartoonish, keyhole in the chunky metal door. "What will they do to Qetesh?"
"What her survivors failed to do the first time." A guy appears surrounded by two guards, both armed with zats. He's not in the casual peasant-wear they usually see on planets under threat from a Goa'uld, more like a whatever this planet's equivalent of a power suit is. "Destroy her."
"Okay, you need to know that she's not—" The guards train their guns on him and the words sort of drown in his throat. She also floats a bit closer to him. What would she even be able to do if they fired on him, but then again, they're not in cuffs anymore because of her.
"I heard your people tortured you for days," the fat bastard gloats and rewets his slimy lips. She doesn't move an inch, not closer or further away, doesn't even blink at him. "That's a pathetic boast."
Finally, her arm cross, and she blinks a few times, ensuring that he's done his song and dance. "Are you going to tell us what you want, I mean other than torturing me to death, which darling, you're going to have to get in line for."
"All I want is to rid the galaxy of the famous whore God."
"Hey—" She stops his movement with a single glare from the side of her eyes, arm fixed in position, never turning away from their gracious host.
"We came here to help rid you of Athena."
"Yes, and lucky me, I get to kill two system lords." A dress splats to the sand in front of her, eerily similar to the one she wore while masquerading as Qetesh on that small mining planet. More macramé than anything else, kind looks like a whole bunch of his momma's knitted potholders stitched together. "Put that on."
"I will not."
"If you are not wearing it upon my return, I will draw and quarter your first prime." That gets a huge glare from him, and a noticeable gulp from her. "You never could choose just one mate, perhaps this one is special—"
"Yes, yes, you've made your party dress demands." She picks up the flimsy dress, dangling it over her arm. "Give a girl some privacy."
"So modest," he huffs turning to retreat down the hallway. "For a whore the galaxy has seen nude a million times over."
He shields her while she shucks out of her clothing. Shrugs his jacket down from his shoulders so it hangs and holds his arms out straight like a bored kid waiting in a grocery store checkout line. She slides the dress up over her hips, and he helps her clasp the back together, the golden ring holding the whole thing together is heavy and cold against her neck.
"Do you remember wearing this as Qetesh?" Straightens a gold chain embedded with rubies at her back, gathering her hair out of the way.
She tugs at her hips where the material bunches, grunting and shifting her hips to get a better fit. "I do and I don't. The memories aren't exactly the clearest for many reasons."
"Does it bug you?" Traces the chain to where it hangs off the halo of a necklace and when she glances back at him, her eyelashes almost brush his hand. "To wear it now?"
"Not really, it's just a piece of clothing, much like how my body was just a body." Tugs again but the wrinkle still sits and she huffs, "Qetesh obviously didn't plan for a me to ever have children judging on how tightly this dress fits now."
He kisses the back of her head, not letting her words sink in and his hands clap to her bare, cold shoulders. "What are they going to do?"
"Probably come back for me, say they're going to take me before a judicial crowd."
"But—"
"But, they'll take me to the viceroy's chambers instead."
It always seems to come down to this. He doesn't address it because they both know but he holds her back to his front, arm slung across her chest, above her breasts, shadowing her collarbone. He speaks into her hair, "escape plan?"
"Already in motion, darling." There's a clanging that echoes down the hallway, the one they need to be down. Right then left then third door? He doesn't remember but lets her lead because unless it's dancing or something that needs a little bit of that homegrown Earth domesticity, she's always the better lead.
They break apart and he knows she's freezing, but composed and her posture is perfect, her head up, broken cuffs still hanging from her wrists and she sends him the side-eye. "Do not show attachment to me."
"What?" The statement alone makes him want to step closer to her, but her tone is what's frightening. Like threatening to leave through the gate, threatening to live with a group of monks before they turned out to be abusers.
"I mean nothing to you," answers point blank and then drops her eye contact before the viceroy, he guesses, and his two guards return.
"Yes, that's more suitable for a whore god." The viceroy's smile is devious and it's unnerving, having to trust her abilities and knowing she can do this because she's probably done it before.
She shrugs, her palms open and flat and a piece of hair tumbling before her face. "Still a God."
The guards enter and retrieve her, though she isn't really retrieved, she goes willingly, and he listens to her, pretends that it doesn't boil his blood, that his hands in fists aren't causing his fingernails to dig into his palm, that he can feel the weight of his entire body on the soles of his feet where he stands planted against the dusty, cracked floor.
She doesn't say anything to him as she leaves, and to be honest he probably wouldn't have heard it because the viceroy announces she's going to face a judgement of those she harmed and he and her both know the true meaning behind the words now.
But her hand does sway a little out of beat as she passes through the opened cell door. His eyes drift to the lock and find the pin in the keyhole and when the door clanks closed it doesn't lock.
He has no idea when she managed to do that, or how she picked that lock so quickly, but he's so proud and he kind of wants to marry her.
When he reaches for the door to the viceroy's chamber, a trail of shot down guards laying fallen in his wake, she opens the door from the other side intent on running out. Her hair is a bit messy, and there's a splotch of blood on her cheek, but her dress is intact and she grins at him.
"Get lost?"
"A little, yeah." He wipes the blood off her cheek and it smudges away. It's not hers.
She walks through the door not bothering to shut it behind her. He chances a quick peek and the viceroy lays facedown on the bed, red soaking into the sheets. "Shall we go to the gate?"
He clips his weapon to his side and in a swift movement sort of flaps out of his jacket, holding it out so she can shove her arms through. The action is domestic. The action is familiar. Her reaction is a hidden blush under smudged viceroy blood. "Honey, I thought you'd never ask."
"I'm still cold."
"You're still cold?"
They're in his office and it's very late. So late that they probably shouldn't even bother going to sleep because by the time they do it won't matter. He's got his grandpa glasses on, sitting under the spotlight of a large lamp as he reads over his mission statement, and hers, making sure everything corroborates. Explaining why they came back from a diplomatic mission to off a system lord, she came back dressed like one.
Man did she ever come back dressed like one, minus his jacket of course, and the guys in the gate room sort of stared. Walter sort of stared. A few years ago, like when they went to that mining planet, he stared. But he knows the other half to the dress, the memories she doesn't own, the actions she didn't take but paid for anyway. He prefers her in a jersey and boy shirts, or sweats and a black top, doesn't care just wants her happy.
She leans back against his side, reading a magazine Sam picked up for her, tented knees support the book. She's doing a quiz on whether she's a lover or a fighter and he already knows the answer. She's in her pajamas, silken yoga pants and a black tank top. She has some sort of thin robe on top of it and he knows at least half her wardrobe is not practical.
He lifts his arm and hugs it around her legs, enjoying the little sigh she makes when his warmth becomes her warmth.
"What did you do with the dress?" It doesn't say on her report and he needs to write it on his.
She tilts her head back so it rests against his thigh, her eyes batting playfully, a little flirty. "I gave it to wardrobe."
"Wardrobe?"
"Yes, in case I need to parade around as Qetesh again." Snaps her head back to the magazine and x's out the last question. The magazine falls with a splat to the ground beside the saggy leather couch and she grumps. "I'm a fighter."
"I think you're both." Just scribbles wardrobe with a question mark beside it in the area where he has to state where assets were transferred to.
Instead of tilting her head back this time, she sort of seal rolls onto her stomach, crossing her arms in his lap and resting her chin on top. "Because I love to fight?"
"What? No." Splats his paperwork to the floor too. Outside a few soldiers walk by, their shadows dancing across the backlit light from the halls against his thin blinds. "Please don't tell me I'm starting to make dad jokes."
"No." She knows what a dad joke is, they've been on a rom com binge. Actually, she's been on a rom com binge, he's just been along for the horrible, horrible ride. "Just seemed like an appropriate answer."
"You fight, yeah. I mean you fight with everyone over everything."
"I don't."
"You love an argument."
"I prefer the term debate."
"Look, you love the few people you do in different way, and part of that love is fighting for them."
"Hmm." She flops onto her back, her head in his lap, and he starts to absently play with her hair, wishes they were at home, because she's going to fall asleep soon and he could just carry her to bed there, let her marvel about how she ended up there in the morning and then try to teach her how to fry eggs again. They always end up scrambled. Her hand reaches up and strokes his cheeks, and under his chin. At two in the morning, it's as refreshing as a cold shower. "I'd fight a galaxy for you."
"Only a single galaxy?" He traces her arm from shoulder to hand and captures her fingers in his. "I think I've already fought at least two, maybe three for you."
"Have you really made that many mad?"
"No, but if you want to fight them I can."