Bring it all Back
Chapter 26
Hitchhiker
A month passes, then two, then more.
She's the same Vala.
But's she's not the same at all.
The nightmares, which he's sure are more like repressed memories, happen less infrequently, but are still just as severe. She doesn't want to be touched during them, sometimes after them. Sometimes she pulls on her clothes without saying a word to him and leaves before 0300. Sometimes when he gets up at 0500 she's left without kissing him goodbye. He knows.
Sometimes he only sees her in in the hallways, or at a debriefing before she goes out on a lengthy mission with Teal'c and SG-7. He hates those days, he hates not knowing how she is.
Stops her in the hall once a month to go over his boss checklist. How is she doing? Does she feel like she wants to talk to anyone about what happened with Athena's goons? She always says no. She completed her mandatory session with the psychologist, he happened to be strolling by when the doctor pushed her from the office after seventeen minutes and said he couldn't help her if she wasn't taking it seriously. She beamed at him and he wanted to be mad.
He didn't want to be mad at all.
He loves her.
He's going to marry her.
He still has the ring.
Only, now she's not talking to him too much. She's not sneaking into his room and throwing his arm around her to keep warm. When he swipes his pass at her door, she says she wants to sleep alone and he's been sleeping alone for a week and he has no idea how he did it for so long.
Stops her in the hall and this time she has the audacity to ramble off, "I'm doing fine. I don't need to speak to anyone. Thank you."
He whips out an arm, grabbing her by the bicep and dragging her to the side of the hallway. She rolls her shoulder to shake him off. "What the hell is going on with you?"
"Nothing, I'm—" she attempts to wrench her arm away, but he holds it stationary. "Ugh, just let me go, Mitchell."
"Mitchell?" He does let her go, watches as she preens her clothing back into perfect order and starts to walk away. "So I'm Mitchell now?"
That halts her. She pivots, a few feet away from him, standing in a reflection of the fluorescent lights hanging above. "I just—" she pauses, fingers wringing around her wrist. "I just need time."
He shrugs, the futility of the action catches in his voice, "I've given you time, Princess."
"Well, I need more."
*
Two nights later he's laying in bed staring at his ceiling and remembering those little plastic stars that glowed in the dark that his momma glued above his bed when he was a kid. They stayed there until he replaced them when a poster from the swimsuit issue of vogue. It's still there in his room, untouched by time or his parents, and maybe he'll take a trip down there soon. Bring her. She probably won't want to come, but she did like his parents. Learned to make pie and knitting from his momma, kept up in drinking whiskey with his dad.
He gets emails from them, sometimes the odd phone call and his momma's always asking when he's going to settle down. When are they going to settle down because he's not getting any younger, he knows, his thigh aches and he has glasses. Asks when he's going to marry her, and he wants to blurt out that he's trying but she's making it so goddamn hard.
The door whooshes open and bright light from the hallway bursts across his bed. He's surprised because it's been almost two weeks. He tries to play it cool. To pretend to be asleep, or just continue to mull over his life choices and staring at the starless ceiling. Instead he shifts over to accommodate her while she strips down and climbs into bed beside him.
She still fits against his side perfectly.
She lets him play with her hair, run his finger down her back. He chances dropping a kiss to her forehead and she sighs. He doesn't know what made her come back. Never knows what makes her come back, to the SGC, to him, but maybe she knows that as many times as she leaves, he'll still be here.
"Cameron." Her hand stills against petting his chest. He doesn't answer just glances down at her to find the whites of her eyes peering back in the darkness. "Something's wrong with me."
Doesn't know how to respond. Nothing's wrong with her, wants to tell her that, that whatever she thinks is wrong just adds to her character, but she might misinterpret his puppy love views as support for all the bad shit that's happened to her.
"Do you want to talk to me about it?"
"Not particularly."
So they're at a standstill and he should say something pertinent, something to drench her fears, but he's not good with words, which is good because she's more of an action woman, but he's also not so good with actions.
Maybe she's not good with words because no one has ever told her the right ones.
"I'm here for you." Hugs her closer and she stiffens a bit in his arms. "No matter what happens, I'll always be here."
Thinks she does better after that. She smiles at him more, talks to him more, seeks him out in his office for lunches or dinners, sneaks into his room at night and when he creeps into hers, she presses flush against him again. It's like having a huge gulp of fresh air after being on the Odyssey for weeks. It's like walking on his own two legs for the first time in months after the crash.
But then one day he enters the cafeteria, and she's sitting across from the Jacksons laughing at something they said, and of course they're not laughing back because they're both Jackson and both have no sense of humor. They scowl at her, or what she said and she purses her lips together trying to keep in the braying laughter he loves to hear. He waves as he stands in line to grab some food, maybe convince her to come and sit in the privacy of his office with him. She waves a little coquettish and he grins.
It's when the cook slaps down something that's supposed to be Salisbury steak on his tray that it happens. He doesn't know what it is, but she leaps up from the table, her tray clattering, as the Jacksons unsuccessfully try to talk her down with their ramblings while she marches away.
He abandons the brown mess on his plate and approaches the twin thorns in his side. "What the hell happened."
"Nothing." They say unanimously, and then send each other a surprised expression.
"What did you say?"
Daniel Two plays with his food, drawing circles in tan colored mashed potatoes. Daniel One stares him right in the eye. "Nothing she didn't already know."
*
The next day they go back to P3J-505, just him and her, Teal'c, and the remaining half of SG-7 that's not on paternity leave. If she's wary of Athena's henchmen coming to sweep her up from the crowded marketplace, he's even more aware. He stands behind her, or beside her every chance he can manage, makes schematics where she's the guard, the watchman, or the bait. If she's the bait he can stay back and just zat whoever she's swiveling her hip at, tell her she did a good job and kick the guy in the ribs while he walks by.
They run into a hurdle when the magistrate of the village, the kind with pubs and inns and located only a two-day journey from the skyscraper infected New York City wannabe, refuses to let them take pictures of an ancient text, worried that the flash from the cameras will cause the words to fade. He tries to explain that the flash can be turned off and takes a picture of her to prove it, she has the same hooked grin as a certain high school reunion photo and he chuckles.
Despite their little show, the magistrate still refuses, blocking the text and forcing them to leave. She retires to her room early declining to get a drink with him and Teal'c.
"Colonel Mitchell, may I be so bold as to ask you a question?"
"I'll try to answer it, Buddy, if I can." He's on his third ale which is the size of a jug of milk and he's starting to get those high school party sweats. Knows he should stop but it's so sweet, like how beer should taste.
Teal'c takes another swig, he's finishing his fourth and it doesn't seem to have any effect on him at all. "Your relationship with Vala Mal Doran seems to have progressed."
"Progressed?" His face is greasy when he runs a hand over it, should've guessed Teal'c would be able to tell, hell their rooms are right next door to each other and neither him or her are exactly stealthy.
"You are in a romantic relationship, are you not?" Teal'c's jug hits the top of the counter as he finishes the last drops. He drops some money, enough to cover them both, on the counter and when the ale maiden tries to give him change, he waves her off.
"It's supposed to be a secret relationship," he mumbles into his arm.
"When we discovered where Athena was holding her, she asked for you. This is what lead to my assumption."
Teal'c looms above him as he stands, offering a hand for his own less stable body. "You going to rat us out?"
With a grin, Teal'c reassures, "I believe you compliment each other very well. It is not my place to intercept that."
"You should tell her that, you know?" He staggers beside the massive Jaffa who walks calmly with his hands clasped behind his back. "She likes you."
"Perhaps I will, but not at this moment. I am far too inebriated."
When he gets to her room she's gone. The bed is made, everything is in place and she's gone and of course he thinks of Athena, because Teal'c didn't get a chance to kill her last time, laid waste to all the goonies, but never got a chance at the boss battle.
It's not until he notices that her go bag, her supplies, mainly her camera, are missing and he knows exactly where she went.
She almost gets herself killed.
Apparently there have been major threats against the magistrate, who isn't the greatest of guys, so when she breaks into his house intent on taking pictures of an ancient text, and leaving with a fuller pocket, the guards are armed and firing at will.
By the time he and Teal'c arrive, still shitfaced, greatly shitfaced, she's bounding over the meadow the mansion has for a backyard and up the hill towards him. At first, he thinks she sees them, is happy they're there and is ready to scoop her up into a Sound of Music spin. Then he sees the guards and the dogs after her, and the zat blasts burning into the ground she's just trodden
"Vala, run," he yells, like she's not already doing it.
It's a miracle that she climbs the small hill without getting shot. He grabs her hand yanking her up while Teal'c points his own zat at the guards. She grins sheepishly at him, and when the guards train their guns, he shoves her behind him.
"Hand over the thief."
"Oh she's not a thief, she's more like a paparazzi." His sidearm is trained and he's really hoping he doesn't have to use it because he's reaching the stage of drunkenness where it's hard to see, hard to focus.
"She took property that didn't belong to her." There are two Doberman looking dogs, all muscles and slobbering jaws just barking up a storm and the noise is starting to harsh him out of the giddy buzz.
His hand sneaks back laying half on her hip, sort of on her ass. "What'd you take?"
"Just pictures."
And he waits. Teal'c waits. The guards wait. And the dogs keep fucking barking. He wobbles a bit holding his pose and when he finds that he's lowered his gun he raises it again.
"And a gumball. I took one gumball because they looked yummy."
"Give it back."
"Fine." She sets the wad of gum from her mouth into his hand and he hands it back to the guards.
They look at him with disgust and slap from his hand. "She has taken photographic evidence of a sacred text; the camera is now our property."
"No, you can't—"
"Give them the camera."
"Cameron, that text might let us find the—"
"Vala, just give it to them."
The dogs roar over their conversation and she continues bickering with him and he's only losing his patience because his head is starting to hurt and he's only losing his footing because he's so fucking drunk. The guards tire of their married couple routine, married and it distracts him for a brief moment, brief enough for one guard to reach forward and lay his hands on her. Not brief enough for him not to punch that guy in the face.
Not brief enough for him not to get zatted.
Wakes up in the inn bed by himself, but in her room. There's the sound of running water in the bathroom and of her brushing her teeth. His head is killing him, pounding from the ale, pounding from the zat and he's so hungry but also, he's probably going to throw up.
She appears in the doorway wiping her mouth clean, and the most unimpressed expression on her face he's ever seen. "Sleep well, did you?"
"I think I'm dying."
"Why did you come after me last night?" Crosses her arms as she walks towards him, giving him shit, just like a real wife, only—wait, didn't he save her?
"Uh, from what I remember, Princess, I took a zat blast for you."
"You took a zat blast because you punched a guard."
"To protect you."
"I don't need protecting all the time." Tosses her hands into the air and turns her back to him, wiping a hand over her eyes. "I got along before I met you and I'll get along without you as well."
"Hey. Hey—just—" he tries to sit up and the room slopes to the left, His eyes smash shut as he grips the edge of the bed.
"Things have happened to me, Cameron. Horrible things. Before and after I met you. It doesn't change anything." The weight of her creaks the hotel bed, a modest old mattress in a wood lumber frame. He fishes for her blindly, until he hears her sigh and curl her fingers in his hand. "Maybe we should—"
"No." Springs up from the bed, ignoring the need to vomit, ignoring the blinding light of the sunrise leaking through the window. She flinches at his quick movement and he drops the level of his voice. "No."
"Not end it just—"
"No to whatever the hell idea this is."
"I'm not in the right mind to be in a relationship right now."
Accepts that they're never going to be that couple, the one he always dreamed of being. The one with three kids, maybe an accidental fourth, that take over his parents' farm when they get too old to run it and when he gets too old to be saving the Earth. They'll never have a minivan and sing awful one-hit wonder songs while they drive across the country for a holiday. Hell, the best he can hope for right now is keeping her in his house overnight without getting found out.
But she's what he needs, he didn't grow accustomed to being with her, she grew accustomed to being with him.
She's the one who settled for him.
"I'm not going anywhere. We're not doing this. You want to slow down on the romantic front? Fine. You want no sex, fine. More sex, fine. You want to sleep separately, fine. But I am with you, Vala, and you are not getting rid of me."
She doesn't respond to him, but stands from the bed, dropping a kiss on the top of his aching head, and leaving her room.
And she doesn't talk to him for a week. He falls asleep in his dorm watching the Late Night Show wearing his grandpa glasses and drinking contraband beer, trying not to think about the empty space beside him and how it makes him feel empty inside.
Then she comes to see him in his office as he tries to keep up on the teams, the transfer requests, the rampant barrage of paternity leaves. Rodriguez is the newest candidate, he just rolls his eyes and signs the area for approval.
She knocks at his open door and strides into the room, out of uniform on her off day and he misses when her off days were spent doing crafts, or watching shows and telling him all about it that night over dinner, the way her face brightened, how animated she got over commercials or flyers.
"We need to talk." She's got on a black sweater that's overstretched in the arms and her fingers curl around the end of the sleeves.
"Yeah, sure." He sets down the request forms and stands from his desk, hating those words and knowing she's going to want to call it, but he can't. He can't because he has these feelings and these notions even if she doesn't fit them perfectly.
Can't because he has the ring.
Leans against the front of his desk not expecting her to take a seat, and when she doesn't fall into a monologue about how it's not working again, he dives into small talk. "Hey, did you hear that Rodriguez knocked up Pam from accounting?"
Her eyes squint in confusion for a moment. "Who's Pam?"
"She's the one that give us our pay stubs."
"I love Pam."
"Yeah, he's the fifth person from SG-7 to put in a request for paternity leave, weird right?"
"Actually." Fingers trail over her sweater sleeve cuffs, playing with a loose thread. "On Macha there's a—"
"Matcha?"
She stops pacing and her fingers still. She angles her head at him and when he doesn't call it off as a joke, she answers, "The planet SG-7 has been stationed on for almost four years. P3X-whatever. They have sort of an incantation placed around the whole planet."
"The whole planet?" He lets out a whistle, not really impressed after all he's seen people frozen in time and watched her abandon a hairdryer in order to get out of a temporal hold. He knows the weird shit that can happen off-world. "Must have been one hell of a spellcaster. What's the incantation for?"
"Well," she draws out the word, her fingers poking out of her sleeve once again as she drifts into a position beside him at the desk. "Apparently hundreds of years ago the men weren't exactly holding up their end in procreating—"
Puts two and two together pretty well for a Lieutenant Colonel who can barely hold it in the field anymore. Still sees pretty well without the glasses. "So, it makes the people overly fertile?"
"Just the men." She's so close beside him and he can feel her warmth, feel the haunting of her fingertips grasping the ledge of the desk beside his, feel the air escape her mouth as she talks. She still smells like flowers.
"How do you know this?"
"Because I had a nice chat with a friendly chemist after I stopped in for some advice."
"Why would—" And the twos keep adding in his head, the two of them in bed at the inns, sharing the same tent on stakeouts, in the washroom at one of the parties, two and two and two and somehow it falls back on just them. Just him and her and he knows what she's going to tell him, but that doesn't mean he's ready to hear it.
"I'm pregnant." She doesn't smile afterwards; the corners of her lips fall into a negative, then neutral expression. She's nervous, scared maybe because she's fed up with the nightmares, with the torture, with her body being used up by others, with not getting consent, with him because almost everything he does is for her at this point and she hates it.
"Marry me."