Bring it all Back
Chapter 20
The Ring
They're on their way to Atlantis and it's not by choice. Sam sent him a message a few days ago requesting help in dealing with removing Ancient treasure from the slowly flooding catacombs under the city. Of course, the Jacksons both jumped at the chance to return to Atlantis without having to give up their prized spot at the SGC, and while Sam was happy to accept both of them, especially on such short notice, she sent him another message pleading for someone else to accompany them to keep her sane.
"We're a few hours out now." Sits beside her at the cafeteria table. Across from them the Jacksons pillow their heads on their arms against the cafeteria table and snore softly.
"Oh, trinkets and baubles." She claps her hand in excitement and then steals a handful of fries from his tray.
He manages to steal two of them back before she shoves the rest in her mouth and he probably would've tried to take those back too if Teal'c didn't clear his throat and raise a judging eyebrow. His hand drops from the air and he takes a long hard swig of his water before reverting to what she said. "You know you can't take anything from Atlantis, right?"
"Right." She nods hamming it up and then winks so no one in the cafeteria misses it.
"No, Vala." He laughs and drops his hand over his fries that she tries to snatch more. "Atlantis has really strict rules about what comes into the city and what's allowed to come out, if they scan you and find an artifact that—"
"All right, all right, I won't steal anything Colonel Party Pooper."
He pokes a fry into the side of her arm and she keeps her lips pursed but snatches it from him anyway. "You need to work on your insults."
"And you need to live a little."
"You live enough for—"
"I am leaving." Teal'c announces with a groan as he pushes himself to stand from the table and lumbers out into the hall.
"What's with him?" she asks with the latest fry sticking out the corner of her mouth.
"I dunno, but I got a lot of straws." Slams down a handful on the table and the Jacksons barely smack their lips. He starts to roll the paper into a long hook and reaches for Daniel One's ears. "First one to wake a Jackson wins."
Atlantis is sort of flooding. Not flooding enough to really sink the city, but there's a split in one of the main water pipes and it's all pouring into not entirely explored catacombs which is making McKay and the Jacksons ramble so much from anxiety that it sounds like a farm auction.
Luckily Shepperd redirects the doctors into some sort of lab where they continue to all speak at once, but only to each other as they overlap plans for fixing or redirecting the water. Sam is taking Teal'c, Vala, and two members of the Atlantean team, one he hasn't met before, down for a closer look to see how bad the damage is and if something unnatural caused it. Which leaves him and Shepperd to just stand around directing traffic and running fantasy football plays against each other.
He's tightening the straps on the pack they've lent to Vala, it's way to big and a little too heavy and he really doesn't understand what harm he could cause if he snuck down there too, but rules are rules and as long as they're going to keep working for the SGC he's going to need to follow them no matter how dumbass they are.
Vala on the other hand shimmies with excitement, making him work twice as hard to tighten her pack and twice as hard to hide his grin. "I can't believe we're going exploring."
"Yeah, well, it's going to be wet down there so make sure—"
"I'm bristling with excitement, just think of all the—" she pauses her eyes darting over to the console where a tall guy, taller than Teal'c but with more hair, has stopped talking to a woman coddling a baby and instead is watching them intently. Vala leans close to him as he rounds her side, yanking on the pack and happy with the way it stays. "Treasure."
"Princess, you can't bring back anything."
"I know." She nods in agreement and gives another big, theatrical wink and a goofy thumbs up.
"No, Vala." But she's staring at him with big hopeful eyes, and her lips roll against each other and she might be playing him, but dammit he loves her. He loves her a lot. He ducks his head and just chuckles, unable to meet her eyes again because she's going to come back with something and there's nothing he can do to stop her. "Just—ask Sam before you destroy the stable catacomb ecosystem."
"Why my dear Colonel, I would never traipse around with the intent of destruction."
"No, it's never your intent."
Before they disappear through the stargate to the underbelly of the city, she turns around waving at him and she might have given them away if the action wasn't so entirely Vala. "I'll bring you back something, darling."
He cups his hands over his mouth so there's no doubt she hears him over the din. "Please don't."
Shepperd stands beside him as they watch their respective teams disappear through the gate. The Atlantis gate is more of a spectacle, prettier to look at, but his is the original and there's something special about it.
When there's no one left in the room but him and Shepperd, the other Colonel voices, "Man it sucks getting old."
They come back a little after supper time. He's sitting in the cafeteria by himself working on insurance forms and trying to reconcile the cost of his second pair of glasses since the first were wrecked. Since she wrecked the first by sitting on them, but honestly, he shouldn't have had them on the coffee table. She was bound to either put them on or sit on them and he didn't do anything to stop it.
"Hey Mitchell," Shepperd shouts from the doorway of the cafeteria, a few other privates narrow their eyes at the interruption. "Teams are back. Apparently, it was a problem with the main water valve. Everyone is soaked.
Soaked is an understatement. She's frozen through to the bone and he just remembers holding her in the cave on that monsoon planet and her bare feet tucking underneath the wet material of his BDU pants.
She shakes and shimmies for a different reason as he helps her shuck the wet, icy, and clinging clothing. Steam pours over the top of the shower and she holds her arms across her chest until she pops in and shuts the door behind her.
Her teeth chatter for a few more minutes before she finally groans into the hot spray of water and turns her back to him.
"How you doing in there?" Stoops and starts collecting the bits of her discarded uniform tossed to the ground.
The water smacks against the bottom of the shower as she rings out her hair. "Better, I'm finally getting feeling back in my extremities."
"Sometimes it pays not to have to go on the missions anymore."
The door cracks open an inch and steam wafts into the room sticking to the small mirror above the sink. "You know, just because you didn't accompany us on the sewer mission doesn't mean you're exempt from the shower."
He cocks an eyebrow at her, placing her bra and panties on the lid of the toilet. "Meaning?"
She cocks an eyebrow back as he wrings out her black t-shirt, the water raining down on the tiles. "Meaning that if you wanted to accompany me in this shower you wouldn't hear me protest."
A sly grin grows on his lips and he folds her heavy pants over his arm. "Well in that case—" Only when he moves to set her pants with the rest of her discarded clothing something clinks out of her back pocket and skitters across the floor.
"Vala, you didn't." She ducks her head back into the shower, shutting the door silently and retreating to the safety of the water stream. "Vala?"
"I couldn't help it, it was so pretty."
Finds it—a ring, under the edge of the bathroom counters. It's black and very detailed with a blue gem in the middle. He watches it catch the light, and it refracts differently. Behind him, her head pops back out of the shower, her makeup running from her eyes, and hair completely flat and leaking water over the bathroom floor.
"I told you not to bring anything."
"I thought you were kidding."
"I thought you were kidding."
"We'll it's a good thing neither of us takes the other too seriously."
"Vala." Pockets the ring and starts tossing towels from the shelves onto the floor, mopping them around by shuffling his feet.
"What?"
Bends his knees and feels the familiar burn dig into his thigh. He doesn't know why after all these years she still needs to steal. If she needed anything, he would be more than happy to get it for her, hell, she probably has enough money stowed away to get whatever she wants for herself. "You know I have to give this back to them."
"I know, but—"
Tosses his head back with an exacerbated sigh. "But what?"
"But it's so pretty."
He wishes he could keep it for her.
Wishes he had enough guts to just steal it away from one military base to another, but then he remembers what happened with Roscoe when he didn't follow the proper protocols and for all he knows this could be the Atlantean equivalent of the Lord of the Rings ring.
He finds the woman first, almost runs into her in the hallway and he feels like shit because he doesn't remember her name. They were introduced to about twenty or thirty people within the span of just as many minutes and unfortunately her name didn't make the cut.
When she stops short of him smashing into her, his hand keeping close contact with the ring in his front pocket of his pants he apologizes, lingering on her name until she blinks once and grins at him. "Teyla."
"Thank you, I'm sorry, meeting everyone at once was just—"
"I assure you it's not a problem, Colonel Mitchell." The fact that she knows his name makes him feel more like shit. "You seem as if you're in a rush. Is there anything I can help you with?"
"Actually yeah." He yanks his hand from his pocket pinching the ring between his index finger and this thumb. "Vala—uh—borrowed this from the catacombs."
"Oh, it is very beautiful."
"Yeah, that's why she took it." He grins because somehow she had to find the right moment to pickpocket the ring while staying in formation all in hip deep water. "Do you know who I can give it back to?"
Teyla stares at the ring now resting in her palm and then turns her attention back to him, the soft smile growing on her lips once again. "You care about her very much."
"We've been friends for a long time."
"I think it's more than that." She flicks the ring back and forth between her fingers, the grin still present, still non-judgemental. "You compliment each other very well."
"Uh—thanks?"
"I think you should keep the ring."
Reaches to hand it back to him, but he holds his hands up defensively. "No, no, I couldn't—"
"You should give it to her."
"I wouldn't want to take something from—"
"There are many of these rings littered around Atlantis making them nearly worthless." Grabs a hold of his hand and places the ring into his palm. "But this ring, this is the one she picked." Forces his fingers to clasp around it. "You should give it to her as a token of your relationship."
Grins a final time and turns, leaving him in the middle of the hallway intersection with the hard bits of blank metal digging into his hand.
Leaving him with a wedding ring.
Two days later they're back on the Daedalus and she slips into his room after curfew. Why they have curfew on the ship and not at base is still a mystery to him. But they're experts at slinking through the hallways in the dark of morning and not being discovered.
"Are you still upset with me, darling?" Her hand flattens against his chest and when he exhales he watches it float in the darkness. They were separated for the last few days, her going to help the Jacksons and McKay—who is now looking into getting his own clone—with research. He was glad for her distraction because he was having a crisis over the ring and what it meant to him. What it meant for them and if he was ready for that. Knows he wants it, to marry her, to be with her forever, but doesn't know how their jobs factor in. Only has a good ten years left before parts actually start falling off him.
"I was never upset." Kisses the top of her head lazily with each word, his hand traveling to his chest to scoop hers up, to feel the cold finger pads.
"You've just been distracted a little in the last few days."
"Hmmm," agrees, his eyes starting to fall closed, but his fingers keep stroking up and down her arm, as her breath evens out in huffs against his chest.
Another beat passes and he thinks maybe she's fallen asleep first, but she continues, "I'm sorry I had to steal. It's just so easy for me to—"
"You don't have to apologize for it. It's who you are." Lips find hers in the darkness and he senses her hesitancy, her doubt of his words. "And I love who you are."