Bring it all Back

Chapter 24

Lekon

She spends the next week and a half trailing the Jacksons around the complex, caters to their every need by delivering coffee around the clock or reorganizing a cabinet she's organized at least three times before, or just simple silence as they cast her from the lab telling her to go find something else to do.

He thinks he could stand a Styrofoam cup of coffee placed on the corner of his desk and how he would never shove her out of his office.

At night she doesn't talk with him anymore, doesn't cuddle as much, mostly just jumps him and then skirts to her side of the bed. If he tries to cuddle her, she might shake her shoulders away and tell him no. Sometimes her muscles tense for a minute but then she relaxes and might nestle back against him.

He knows what this is, he's not stupid, he still has nightmares about he crash over Antarctica. Knows what it's like to wake up in a cold sweat of a disorientation. Also knows the embarrassment and the shame that came with him letting her reassure him the first few times, to peek inside his psyche and know what troubles him, but then it became comforting. Having her there meant he wasn't in the crash again, he wasn't wheelchair bound, and though his thigh still aches, she would nuzzle his cheek and whisper things to him and it worked.

It was one of the only things that worked.

But she doesn't work that way.

He doesn't know how she works because she won't talk to him.

Maybe she's not ready yet, maybe she never will be because from what she's told him of her past, she can only rely on herself and he wants that to change but it will take time. The first step is supporting her in however she wants to be supported. So when she asks to be placed on the next mission out, perched on the corner of his desk with wide, bright eyes and the grin that he loves so much and he hesitates for a minute watching her grin disappear and her eyes turn downtrodden, he immediately relents.

And when she flings her arms around his neck, nuzzling the same cheek, he gets goosebumps and tells himself that she'll come back.

Maybe not on time, but she always comes back.

"Hey Mitchell?" The walkie standing like a monolith on the edge of his desk hisses to life carrying one of the Jacksons' voices throughout the room.

Shakes himself awake from where he's laying on the sagging leather of his office couch.

"Mitchell." Probably the other Jackson's voice because they're learning to share responsibilities. They grow up so fast.

Snatches the walkie and tries to clear his voice free of sleep. "What's up, Sunshine?"

"We've got a problem." The first Daniel answers.

"That's an understatement." The second rings in.

"Boy do I hate when you people walkie me to tell me that." Washes a hand over his face, the rolodex in his head flitting over all the 'problems' they could have. Please not torture, they're full up on the quota for torture. "Talk to me."

"We're coming back early—"

"All of you?"

There's a pause on the Jacksons' end, and he figures the puzzle of his and Vala's relationship is about seventy-five percent complete in the Daniel's collaborative minds. "Yep. All of us."

"Good—"

"Plus one."

"What do you mean—"

The klaxons go off signalling off-world activation.

He drops the walkie and runs.

Forgot his participant list, but there's only three names on it. Daniel, Daniel, and Vala. What if she got cloned. What if he did again. If there's a third Daniel he's shooting to kill. They were nowhere near the Xerox ruins, they were in some planet on the outer ring trying to find diplomatic reinforcement. She can usually charm the guys into agreeing, like it or not most of the leaders are male and most of them aren't blind so they fall for her blinks and her swivels, just like he did but probably not as hard.

Counts them as they pop out of the blue. Jackson, Jackson, a pause, while they both give him that Jackson expression of they're fucked but not really caring because they're archeologists. Then Vala, and she's not giving him her general expression of remorse, or her scared look, or shocked or anything he might expect, her face is blank and that's what scares him.

Then another guy pops through, an older fatter guy. He's wearing a white robe with a red shiny shirt underneath and a lot of rings on his fingers and he figures they brought back the planet's pope because of something she did or didn't do. Customs are hard to figure out and it's gotten them kicked off more than a dozen planets before. Can't be friends with everyone.

"Mitchell." The Jacksons greet in unison and they roll their eyes at each other.

"Sunshines," he greets back with a stern nod. His eyes dart to hers for that reassuring blink and smile but she's not looking his way. "Who's he?"

"This is Lekon." Daniel One steps aside and lets the man through. Daniel Two gestures to him and introduces, "this is Colonel Mitchell, he'll be the one you'll need to negotiate with."

"I look forward to a short but prosperous negotiation." Lekon pumps his arm in the handshake with a round faced grin, refusing to let go.

"All right." Yanks his hands away and claps them to clear away any remaining sweat. "I just need to confer with my team here for a second and we'll get these negotiations well on the way."

"Confer what, Colonel Mitchell?" Lekon straightens his back and the ornate golden stitching on his suit, small and almost invisible unless viewed up close, shimmers.

"Well." Claps his hands together again and keeps them clasped this time. "To be quite honest, as to what we're actually negotiating for."

"Oh." Lekon's grin briefly fades but lights up again as he folds his sleeves together reminiscent of the monks she also managed to piss off and he's going to have to hold a seminar for her on customer service and interplanetary relations. "As far as I understand, the Tau'ri wish to purchase a small piece of land as an outpost." He glances at the Jacksons for reaffirmation and when they nod he smiles.

"Great, so what are we negotiating then?"

Both Jacksons eyes grow wide and they each shake their head wordlessly at him, one of them drags a finger across his throat and shit what's he gotten into.

Lekon chortles and his belly bounces underneath the robe. "The payment of course."

"Of course."

The Jacksons are flailing now, two air traffic controls frantically telling him to land the plane before it crashes, but when he looks at her for the same confirmation, her face has no tell on it at all. "Which would be?"

"Taking her as my concubine."

"Explain this to me again." Bows his head to his knuckles and closes his eyes because less than an hour ago he was sleeping and so happy and he didn't have to deal with this.

"I've told you twice already—"

"Once more, Vala, please."

Her voice is level but in the little inflections he can hear it, the stress, the fatigue. "The Daniels and I arrived on the planet, they asked to speak to the boss, it turned out to be one of those backwards planets where women are subservient to men. The Daniels explained the situation, the opportunity to partner with—"

"He knows all this already, Vala." Daniel One tosses himself back in his chair, jostling Daniel Two from a daydream.

"Then why do I have to repeat—"

"Because he's looking for the part where you solicited yourself for trade—"

"Okay." Shoots from his chair and in the absence of the argument he hears squeaky wheels across the tiled floors. "Jacksons go see if you can talk some sense into him."

"We tried that on—"

"Try harder," he presses through clenched teeth. The Jacksons, now about eighty percent complete their puzzle, sniffing closer to the truth like hound dogs, reluctantly push away from the table and out of the room.

He waits about a full minute, staring at her from the opposite end of the table and he can barely make out her face because he's not wearing his glasses, but he can see her eyes shimmer. "Honey, what happened?"

"Everything I told you." Takes her steps slowly but keeps his gaze until she plops down into a chair opposite him. "He assumed I was the Daniels' concubine. Actually, one of the Daniels' concubines—"

"Did he hurt you?"

"Of course not, I'm not his property."

"Your no one's property." The words are so stupid because she knows that and he fucking knows that but he only knows a fraction of what she's been through and maybe, maybe if this is one of those times like he has where he wakes up screaming in a cold sweat, maybe she needs the reassurance. He pats her on shoulder twice as he stands and goes to let Lekon down easy.

"Actually—" Her cold hand snags his before he gets another step away. When he turns back she has a little bit of a mischievous grin o her face and it relaxes him when it should terrify him. "The Daniels wove a magnificent story about how you had last say in it." Her fingers course over his, then slide between pressing her palm flat against his. "It's actually what brought us back here, so they may have saved us from a very unfortunate situation."

Probably eighty-five percent on that puzzle now.

Wants to tell her that he would go there for her. He would wear his prescription glasses that make him look like his pappy, and he would shoot anyone who stood in his way. But he doesn't because he knows, and she knows and they both know this is the unfortunate situation she's talking about, because he's so lost on her that his responsibilities are skewed, but screw that, maybe they were skewed before.

Doesn't say anything to her but taps the side of her face with his finger and lets her smile fall into his hand.

"Explain this to me again." General Landry sits across from him on a roll up stool as he holds an icepack to the split in his cheek.

"Well, basically everything's the same, but when I told my best buddy Lekon that he couldn't have our girl Vala as a concubine, his Buddha act went right down the crapper." He leaves out the nasty words said on both sides. He might have made fun of Lekon's pope robe but only after he said some very unfavorable things about Vala. If his momma was there, she would've slapped the guy blind.

"An IOA hearing on this is going to be unavoidable." Landry groans as he stands, it's late in the night and the general wasn't too happy about being woken up after a red-eye back from Washington. "But since he hit you first, they'll write it off as self defense."

All the potential fires put out, Landry disappears back to bed and Lam lets him keep the icepack for good behavior. The cut isn't so bad, three plastic strips holding his tight skin together and he gets to have another scar to tell the story behind on holidays and at charity functions.

Ones where she hangs off his arm in a gorgeous black sparkling dress and makes small talk with senators where she doesn't insinuate their dicks are small.

She sits on his bed waiting for him, and when the door hisses open her head pops up. "Are you okay?" Pads barefoot across the cold floor and her fingers flutter to the taped cut, the bruise forming around his cheek and the hard bloodstains on his shirt.

"Fine Princess, it'll take more than—"

She flings her arms around him, body flattening against his and she does the nuzzle again and over the sting in his cheek he feels the goosebumps pop.