A/N:Just a little FYI, I've rewritten the ending of this story because it didn't fit the tone (it was too dark). So the good news is there's going to be an extra chapter to make it a rounded 30. The bad news is I'm going to have to rewrite the sequel. Also the original ending is preserved and will be used for another story, so no worries there. It just really didn't fit with this one.
Bring it all Back
Chapter 28
Fever
He's sitting at his desk going over the scheduled off-world missions when there's a knock at his office door before it bursts open, cracking off the wall so hard that the flag beside his desk starts to wave in the after gust.
It's Vala of course and ironically, since finding out she's pregnant they've been spending less time together. He doesn't understand the force behind it, but she's the one drifting from him. Him fawning over her only fuels her need to be alone, so he suppresses cooing to her still toned stomach or asking her what she's eaten that day.
So, when it's obvious that she wants time alone, he can't do a damn thing but give it to her.
"I need to speak with you." Knew she would seek him out when she was ready, because she looks sick. Sick beyond the restlessness that all the pregnancy books warned him about.
He forgets his promise to himself to not suffocate her with all the prospective first-time parent questions and before he even recognizes it, the words have left his mouth. "Are you okay?"
"No, actually, I'm quite sick from a recent mission with the Daniels to that tundra planet with the melting ice caps—"
"Honey, that was Earth."
"It was?"
"Yeah." Flips closed the manila folder, one of hundreds located throughout his office in more and more interesting areas because he is quickly running out of space. "You and the Jacksons went to Antarctica to look for that ancient artifact that—"
She blows a raspberry at him, her hand waving through the air to shut him up. "That's not important."
"Then what is?" There's a flush creeping up the skin on her chest to her neck and her cheeks. She probably has a fever. His memory is sketchy because of all the missions, but thinks she returned two days ago—two days—and before baby, before Athena, they would've been inseparable.
"Your office attendant is going to kill us."
"Okay, it's assistant." Sits back against the edge of his desk and watches her balance sway between the two chairs aiming his way.
"You don't believe me?"
"Well, I mean, Gloria's not exactly the smartest cookie in the tin but—"
Her hand grips down on the chair arm, but she doesn't let her voice falter. He's watched her talk her way out of executions and parking tickets while having almost no voice or being half blitzed. "She's a mercenary."
He reaches out, his hand touching hers and igniting on impact. "You've got a fever."
"Do not let that dissuade you, your assistant—"
"She's the office's assistant." Grabs her wrist and starts walking her to the door. "And you've got a fever so high I'm not sure why you're not seeing pink elephants."
"What I'm seeing is a—"
"Yes, a homicidal office assistant. Can you get yourself to Lam okay?"
"You don't believe me?" And her face falls. Puppy dog falls and he doesn't know what to tell her because she's probably burning so high that she's hallucinating.
"Tell you what." Clicks open the door for her, the hallway busy with the shift change outside his office. His hand falls to her back, the plain black t-shirt that sticks to her skin, soaked in sweat. "Let's talk about it after you see Lam."
The door to her room opens and despite him knowing full well that the air vents are circulating, a wall of warm stuffy air hits him. He holds back any remarks because she might just kick his ass out of the room. She's laying on the bed in a tank top and shorts trying to cool off, her hair fanned over the back of a pillow and her arms listless at her side. "How are you feeling?"
"Like death." She doesn't turn her attention away from the tv.
"Well, I brought you some chicken noodle soup from your favorite bistro downtown." Raises the paper bag in his left hand, the one that's leaking a little but smells amazing.
"Cameron, I have a fever of 102, I do not want your soup." Her chest raises and falls at a pretty fast rate, like when they play basketball, or have races on the odd morning jog she's awake for.
Sets the soup bag down on her bedside table and starts rustling through a plastic bag filled with from his stop at a pharmacy. Hopefully she'll forgive him after this, but he has a feeling if normal Vala is vindictive, Vala with a cold is going to be on a warpath. "Great because I also got you apple juice, ginger ale, and some medicine to help with the cold."
"I don't want any of it."
"Vala—"
Her arms cross over her chest but quickly deflate to her side again. "You can't win me back with material possessions."
"Honey." He unpacks the plastic bag, lining the drinks and drugs along the edge beside her soup. Her skin glistens a bit in the light and he notices that the tv isn't even on. "This is you we're talking about."
She processes his words for a moment, eyes narrowing further and then corrects, "this time you won't win me back with material possessions."
"What did I even do?" He laughs, and her head snaps to the side with a glare and he knows that one is going to cost him. "You didn't come to me last night, I've seen you once all day and—"
"Would you like me to detail your most recent folly of not believing me when I tell you your office attendant—"
"Assistant."
"Whoever she is, she's evil and most likely a spy."
"Vala, Honey, I would take you seriously but—" when he tries to sit, she musters some strength and boots him in the ass, pushing him back off the side of the bed. "You know if you didn't have a fever of a hundred and three—"
"one hundred and two."
"You'd be really annoying right now." Tries to sit again and when she tries to boot him, he catches her foot, holding onto it and settling it in his lap.
"And if I wasn't unceremoniously pregnant with your child, I wouldn't be sick."
Well, she's got him there.
She's spent the last five weeks ignoring every single damn thing he has the nerve to ask her about the baby, about how she's feeling, about if she even wants it, while he plays it off cool like he's not exploding within. He's so dumbfounded she actually acknowledged the pregnancy that he doesn't even think of what to say next. Agreeing with her always helps and at least then he's able to talk her down from her point a bit, like with a royal purple guestroom or when she assures him that she's fine after waking up screaming.
But part of him is tired of rolling over whenever she gets upset with him. Part of him is tired of being the one who loves more. "Well it takes two people."
If he could eat the words before she heard them, he would have. Has no idea where in his mind the blame came from, but he's willing to take the blame, more than happy to and it's not—
"It's feeling very one-sided to me at the moment."
He'll easily take it over the eruption he expected because she's sweating through her clothing in an air-conditioned room. "Is there anything I can do?"
He walks right into it, and maybe it was her unconsciously playing him the whole time, he's seen her do it before with vendors and guards, skirt around a subject and with a few good expressions, wetting her lips and winking, and the mastery of using her body, circling like a wolf while using her curves and sway to elicit the response she wants.
The sick expression washes from her face and her toes pick at the inseam of his pants, and he doesn't care what she says about how she never uses sex as a weapon—well maybe not a weapon, maybe as a defensive tool for debate—it's a skill she's got down. He flies planes—if they would still let him, Teal'c knows hand to hand combat with most weapons, the Daniels speak languages that don't even exist yet, Sam does complex mathematical equations in her head, and Vala has complete control over her own sexuality—and probably anyone else's that she wants.
"Now that you mention it," her voice has that low sultry tone to it. Her toes still pluck at his pants, as his hand trails from her ankle to shin, but then she withdraws, and playfully punts him in the side of the face. "You could fire your office attendant before she kills us all."
"Hey, this is a low-level contact sport, Princess." Reclaims her foot resettling it into his lap. "Besides I can't just fire her, I have to have a reason—"
"How about she's going to attack and probably kill several dozen of us."
"A validated reason."
"I saw her stealing sticky note pads."
"Honey, she probably needs this job to pay rent and student loans and—"
She creeps up behind him, slinging her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek to his and she is almost on fire. Her skin is wet, not even sweaty or clammy, but wet like she just came out of the shower or a pool. "Darling, she's a hired mercenary, probably for Athena."
"Is that what this is about?"
"What?"
"Athena." Turns his head towards her and hear the snuffle in her nose, nostrils closed off as she tries to breathe. "About what happened to you? It's okay to be—"
"That is not even a modicum of what this is about." Pulls away from him, scooting across the bed so she sits on the pillows, back propped up by her headboard.
"So tell me." Cups her knee, also hot, also wet, jostling it a bit. "What's this about then?"
"I suppose it's about me wanting to protect my work environment, my colleagues, my friends, my partner, and myself from an energy weapon wielding mercenary." Jostles her own knee to knock his heavy, warm hand away.
Reaches for her again, this time to get her closer, placate her enough into taking some medicine and drinking some apple juice. "Then you've done that because Gloria isn't—"
But she bucks off his legs, sliding herself further away from him "On a grander scale it's about you not trusting my intuition on these subjects even though you know how well I'm versed in them."
"I trust you."
"You don't though, not all the time."
"Like when?"
"Like right now, Cameron," huffs and her eyes are growing half-lidded, her body sliding down resting on the pillows.
"Okay. Okay." Cracks the bottle of apple juice for her to drink while she's still mostly sitting up. "Tell me why you think she's working for Athena?"
"When you've been around Goa'uld long enough you start to recognize their mannerisms." Sips at the juice, then takes a big chug of it.
He fights with the bubble packaging on off brand cold medicine. "Gonna need something more than that."
"The way she holds her head, it's not entirely human." She drains the rest of the apple juice, capping the bottle, tossing it to him, missing by a mile and it clatters to the ground.
One of the pills finally pops free into his palm and he hands it to her with the ginger ale. "Okay?"
"The bubble gum popping is a cover, it's a forced idiosyncrasy to cover aloofness in human reactions." Swallows the pill and hands him back the bottle before cuddling back down into the pillows.
"How do you know that?" He pulls her hair out from behind her head, fanning it back over the pillow, and her quick breathing starts evening out.
"Because there is no pattern to the gum popping, it's not anxious or happy." He kisses her forehead, his hand resting on her neck, then trailing down the side of her body, the skin on her arms and shoulders is starting to cool from the air conditioning. He chances letting his hand rest against her stomach. Her breathe hitches and she shifts onto her side away from where he's leaning over the bed. "There is no emotion behind it."
He's dead ass tired, probably not as tired as she is because she hasn't woken up since he's gotten into the room and just stared at her for a few seconds. One of her legs sticks out from under a blanket, a blanket too heavy to be on her when she's entering day two of fighting a fever. There's a sheen of sweat on her forehead making wisps of hair stick in place, she looks drenched like when they were stuck in that cave on that crappy rain planet.
The soup, the ginger ale, and cold medicine are still lined in the same way he set them and maybe she hasn't even been awake again since her fevered rambling about Gloria being evil.
Despite everything they've been through she still won't let him in, not all the way, just sort of foot in the door because she can't admit to when she's scared.
She still doesn't completely trust him.
Sits on the edge of the bed, and the bounce in the mattress springs her immediately awake, her eyes wide and her body rigid as she sits up.
"Just me, Princess." Toes off his boots by the heels and he kind of misses how they were three years ago when they were on the same team, when he was the leader and they did cool shit all day, like stop wars, and help trapped people, and take down the Lucien Alliance, and take down Ba'al, and take down the Ori. Before they were together, when he wasn't hurt that she had a thought she didn't tell him about, before he wished she relied on him just half as much as he relied on her.
"Cameron, what—what?" Smacks her hand to her forehead clearing away the hair and the sweat, and then to the corner of her mouth clearing away the spit. Her eyes never fully open, still heavy and her nose gurgles as she tries to inhale. "What."
He puts it all away. Because he loves her. Because she loves him. Because he loves the baby she refuses to acknowledge. Part of loving her so much is settling, letting go of the things he can't change.
Cups her jaw with his hand and she's wet, hot, sticky, and sick as all hell, but he presses his lips to her forehead and feels her grin with fatigue. "Same day, just night now. Are you hungry?"
"A bit." Her hand covers his own and her eyes close for so long he thinks she might have gone back to sleep. But then they crack open again and she skews her mouth. "I don't feel hungry, but I feel as if I should eat something."
"Okay, want me to heat up your soup?"
She shakes her head and their hands drop to the clumping sheets. "I think I might overheat if I eat it hot."
Nods, and pushes his creaky thigh back to standing while he searches around her room for something to use as a makeshift tray, settling on a glossy fashion magazine. Sets it on her lap and adjusts the pillows behind her back before handing her the soup and the ginger ale.
"How was your day?" Questions nonchalantly as she starts spooning soup into her mouth.
"Long and boring without you there." Kisses her temple and she stops eating to grin.
Untangles the sheets without getting in the way of her only meal and straightens the objects on her end table again. Then he yanks his shirt over his head and curiosity gets the better of him. "Still think Gloria's a Goa'uld mercenary?"
"Who is Gloria?"
"The office assistant."
"Oh." She accepts the napkin he offers and wipes her lips clean of chicken soup. "Then yes."
"Still trying to convince me." Stands only in his boxers, reaching forward to accept the soup container she hands to him, full of dirty tissues and one plastic spoon. He chucks it into the garbage and set the magazine back onto her dresser.
"No, I realize that's a lost cause." Her hand whaps the bed beside her as she leans over and yanks the cord of the bedside lamp. "Come snuggle the sickness from me."
He climbs into bed beside her, bringing along a new box of tissues and after moving the garbage closer to her. She's still hot, but more awake and more settled, her head resting on his chest and her fingers threading through the hair there. Takes his chances because they're never going to talk about the baby if he doesn't advocate for it. His hand cups her stomach and the muscles are a little harder to find.
"How's the little guy?"
"Little guy?" Her voice is distant, and she smells like chicken noodle.
"Or little gal, I'm not picky."
"Oh, the baby." Nods into him, her head now at his shoulder and they get further and further apart as she starts to fade into exhaustion, but she perks up again. "The baby is probably sick as well."
"I don't think that's how that works." His fingers lap at her skin, at their child beneath.
"Don't do that." She shudders away, pulling his hand from her skin.
"Sorry I just—"
"No, it tickles." Replaces his hand, just stationary onto her stomach, and nuzzles back into his chest.
His exhale bounces her again, but she's gone back to sleep and he doesn't know what to do and what this means. Is this their baby now? Are they having this baby? Should he start letting himself get excited?
Just saves the words and savors the feeling, it's something he's learned to do with her more. He pecks one last kiss to her forehead and she mumbles from her throat barely opening her lips. "Cameron?"
"Yeah, honey?"
"Your office assistant is going to try to kill you."
She gets upset with him the next morning.
He barely slept a wink, just reveling in the touch of her skin, the idea of having a baby, raising a baby, taking them to his mother's for homemade pie and knitted outfits, to his dad for tractor rides and wooden carved toys. All the Christmases, birthdays, Halloweens, Easter egg hunts and when she woke because he was holding her too tightly, she wouldn't answer him when he asked about the baby.
Doesn't know if last night was a lapse in her constitution or just part of a live-action fever dream, but it put them both in a sour mood and while she tried to explain herself, to get him to sit back down at 0300 and have a talk with her about their future, he ignored her and fled from the room like all those warm almost memories in his head.
"Morning Colonel Mitchell," Gloria pops her gum as soon as she enters his office. She has a stack full of white envelopes and one big brown one addressed to him, probably something to do with the new IOA Alien Act from Landry.
"Morning Gloria," mumbles back his lips on the Styrofoam rim of his cafeteria coffee.
"Oh, is Vala around?"
"No." Sips the too hot liquid and realizes he forgot to put sugar in.
"I just figured you had coffee, and she's the only one who brings you coffee."
"Nope." Shuts the ledger on his desk, a new gift from Landry to help him organize the teams better but with SG-6 still MIA, presumed dead, and SG-7 defunct since, well, everyone on the team now has, or is expecting a kid, his job has become a lot harder but easier on organizing. "Still out sick."
"Oh. Okay." She drops the letters in his inbox and turns, her red hair swaying at her shoulders, and walks towards the door, managing to open it, but then closes it again. "Colonel Mitchell?"
"Yes?" Holds the word and screws his eyes up from where he's already ripped open the first letter.
"Are you and Vala dating?"
"What?"
"It's just that you're really friendly with each other—"
"We've known each other almost seven years." Also, they're in love and having a baby and might even get married if she ever remembers that he proposed to her.
"So you're not?"
Yes. "No."
"Okay." She breathes out and holds a hand over her chest in relief. "Good."
And she pops her gum.
Pops her gum in a time of relief instead of anxiety or happiness or emphasis and he angles his head and stands from the desk. "Why?"
"Well—it's—it's nothing." There's no gum popping, not during his entire approach, his slow crawl from the desk to the door, using his sternest face so she knows he's upset with her. "It's just, I heard she used to be a Goa'uld and—"
"Gloria, what do you know about the Goa'uld?"
"Just that they're—"
Her sentence cut short by the gun she draws, quick, quicker than anyone on SG-1 back in the day. And he fucking hates this because he's going to have to tell her she was right later on and she's going to have something else to goad over him. "When did you figure it out."
"Honestly, just a few minutes ago. I mean you're nosey but you're not that—"
"Shut up."
The gun jerks up and he holds his hands out defensively. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want." Gestures with the gun back over to his desk.
"Anything on the Clava Thessara Infinitas?"
She nods standing a few feet away between his two guest chairs. "Put it all on a drive and give it to me."
"We don't really have anything, just so you know."
"Oh, I'm well aware." Flicks the gun and he continues typing his log-in on his laptop. Over the sound of his fingers clacking keys, there's the distinguishable sound of her cocking the gun. "It's sad really, but you're so useless that it really doesn't—"
A shot rings out and he flinches.
Thinks about Vala, about the baby, about how he'll never get to hold it, or hold her again. About how he really shouldn't have left her angry this morning because there's obviously something else upsetting her. Thinks about how he just wants a nice house in the middle of nowhere with her and a big backyard she planted, and some crops. Maybe an old hound dog and a chicken coop and a kid toddling around barely balancing on their own two feet.
How he doesn't want to leave things the way they are now.
But his panicking, his final thoughts are for nothing because Vala, barely balancing on her own two feet, is standing in the doorway, her gun still drawn and the barrel still smoking while Gloria lays crumbled on the ground between his two guest chairs.
She catches his line of sight, the same heavy eyes, the same sticky skin, and she tosses the sidearm on the ground. "I'm going back to bed."
When he gets out of their shower, she's standing at the opposite end of the hallway in front of the guest room that they still haven't painted after almost two and a half years. They could never decide on a color and the idea of having to get her approval to paint a room in his house, well in the house the army delegated to him, upset him, but he liked the way she just placed herself here like his home was her home. And it was, from the first time he brought her, and she just waltzed into his bathroom took a shower and then used all his milk in her cereal the next morning, it's like she was always meant to be here.
Dries behind his ears and tosses the towel back onto the bathroom floor to clean up later, the sidles up beside her and stares at the empty, but primed room. Leans sideways a bit and from the corner of his mouth questions, "penny for your thoughts."
"Oh, they'll cost you more than that." Nods back at him with a weak grin, still distracted by the prospects of filling the room.
"We could still paint it purple if you want." Steps behind her, his chin on her shoulder and his arms daring to slide around to her stomach.
She immediately tenses, rolling her shoulders, knocking him off. "And what will that cost me?"
"A conversation."
Shakes her head, fingers circling his wrists and pulling him away from her. "I don't have the energy for that right now, Cameron."
Grabs her arm before she gets all the way away from him, doesn't tug or pull, just holds her in place. "Then please just answer one question for me. One question honestly." Her eyes hold his in a flare of stubbornness. "Why are you so afraid of having this baby?"
"I don't kn—"
"You do, Vala, I know you do and maybe if you told me I could—"
"Because I know it's yours." His voice dies in his throat and his lungs might completely deflate. "Because I know it's yours, but I don't think it is."
"What?"
"In my mind, in all the memories playing out in my mind each night before I toss and turn and wake up screaming or scared or confused, there are scenarios that have happened, long before this child, long before I met you, and they confuse me and make me doubt the paternity even though this child is yours. Give me an aversion to a child I know is yours."
He knew it was something bigger by the way Qetesh's words haunted him, by the way she recoiled in every way possible once she told him about the baby. He's offered to hear her out, offered up psychiatrists, or even Lam to just listen, but she doesn't want anyone to listen. Doesn't want anyone to talk to, and it makes it so hard to comfort her. "Come here."
She inhales a shaky breath against his shoulder as he embraces her and turns her away from the spare bedroom.
"What if I scream in my sleep and then wake the baby?"
"It would probably already be screaming." Holds her, sways with her in crescent steps to a rhythm neither of then can hear. With a sigh he rests his cheek on the top of her head, pushes all the worry, the concern he has down into the footsteps leaking over the hallway floor. "Who knows, it might be my turn that night to wake the baby up with nightmare screaming."
She halts their dance, apparently not finding any solace in his joke, and when he glances down at her, her eyes are glassy but determined. "I can't do this because you want it, Cameron."
He kisses her once on her forehead and unravels his arms from her hips. "You don't have to do this for me, but you do have to make a decision because I can't do that for you."