AN: My thesis on why Daniel and Vala can't work. It's not that I don't love Vala, I think she's awesome, I compared her to the awesome Cher. But sometimes people just can't work together. It's not that they're bad people, just bad for each other. Vala deserves who is best for her.
A Matter of Worth
Vala cautiously stepped into Daniel's office, hoping that he wouldn't yell at her again. "Hey, you know your little man's education in manners is seriously lacking. He was sitting on my bed when I went to my quarters to take a bath."
"I'll talk to him, but you do know that I can't physically stop him from doing what he wants right?" Daniel replied distractedly, as he packed his go-bag. "Wait," his head snapped up as dread filled his eyes. "Did you say take a bath?"
"Relax, Daniel I walked into my room, took my shoes and my jacket off, and then I saw him. I put my jacket back on just in case you might think that seeing my arms would contaminate the precious darling," she sneered.
"Vala!" he snapped.
"No! I want to know why you treated me so abominably in the gate room. You vouched for me to let me join your people, we have been through the Ori, Ba'al, and a million other horrors. I know you have the orneriest personality of any man I have ever met, but I want to know what I have done to prompt you to be so hateful!" she screeched.
"How about the fact you accused me of fathering a child with an ascended being and abandoning them twice!" he yelled, as his handsome faced twisted in anger.
"Excuse me!" she snarled. "Forgive me for drawing a conclusion that seemed totally reasonable considering I had just watched an ascended being enter the SGC and you embracing the corporeal form of a child. You never mentioned the Harcesis by name, so how could I know?"
"It's none of your damn business! Nothing about Sha're, her son, or my relationship with them has anything to do with you!"
"I see, so I am actually nothing to you at all. Not even a friend," she choked out as the tears she fought demanded to be shed.
"Wait, that's not true and you know it!" Daniel groaned, collapsing into his office chair. "Vala, please try to understand what's happening. Sha're ascended, and all this time I thought she was dead, dead. The kind of dead I have never quite managed to achieve even when I wanted nothing more. Now, Shifu tells me she was imprisoned and now human again. Can we at least agree that these are fairly acceptable reasons for complete emotional upheaval?"
"I gave birth to the Orici! Sorry, but you are getting back your oh-so-perfect-precious wife it does not excuse you being a complete ASS to me!" Vala roared as a sob escaped her throat. "Why do you hate me so much? Why did you ask me to stay on this planet to begin with? WHY!" she screamed, unable to control her emotions at all.
Her anguish cut through the chaos of his own heart and shame quickly followed. "Vala, forgive me. It's been a long time since I screwed up this badly, and I can't even blame it on alien influence," a sad smile touched his lips. "Sometimes I forget that I have a tremendous aptitude for hurting people when I can't focus," he sighed.
"So, you just say, 'I'm sorry' and all has to be forgiven. I don't understand you, I've tried, but you're impossible! You know, I am a very intelligent person despite not being a scholar or having any true education by most galactic standards, and I've survived as long as I have in part because of my instinctive ability to read people and I cannot read you," she sighed and rubbed her temples. "You probably have no idea how difficult it is for me to admit that."
"Actually, I know exactly how much that cost you," he murmured, drawing her into a gentle hug. "I've made a mess of things, I see that now. I vouched for you to join us because I see the tremendous potential in you, Vala. You are so much more than a former host/con-woman/mercenary blah, blah, blah. You needed a home, and a chance to tap into your full potential. Believe me that's something I understand all-too-well. There's a lot I haven't told you about my past, things I've never even told Jack, Sam, or Teal'c. I offered you the chance to stay because eighteen years ago the Abydonians gave me my first true home since I lost my parents. I wanted you to have the same thing."
"And now what? You're getting Sha're back. Where does that leave me?" she asked, her voice quivering as she relaxed in his arms.
"Vala, you're a member of SG-1. Nothing will change that. You know what that means, we don't leave anyone behind! I won't lie to you, Sha're is everything to me, and having her back is… I actually don't have words to describe how I feel," he chuckled.
"For someone who speaks as many languages as you, that must be irritating," Vala drawled, stepping out of his embrace.
"It is," he agreed. "Vala, I swear as long as you want to be here you're welcome. Earth holds me responsible for you, and I don't turn my back on my family ever!"
Vala's eyes widened as her throat went dry. "Your family?" she repeated, stunned.
Daniel shrugged, deciding the simple answer would do for now. "Yes."
"Have you felt this way long?" Vala asked, her eyes wary but her voice tinged with hope.
"Yeah, quite a while. Don't ask me for a specific date when it happened because I don't have one," he answered honestly.
"Well you certainly have a crappy way of showing it!" she shrieked, hauling back and slapping his face with her open palm as hard as she could.
"OW!" Daniel shouted as he fell back hitting the floor with a solid thud. "Okay, I totally deserve that!"
"The only reason I didn't strike some place infinitely more painful is because I think after eighteen years, fifteen of them spent in a non-corporeal form, Sha're will be eager for you to use it. God knows I would be," she leered.
"Okay, we're definitely never discussing that," Daniel muttered.
"Too modest are you," she winked. "We've strayed too far from the main point. If you consider me as a member of your family, how could you say such hateful things?"
"Do you think you're the first person I've hurt like this? Vala, ask Jack, Sam, or Teal'c how many times I've done something stupid and cruel like this to them. I'm not making excuses, nor will I ask you to forgive me," he stated. "We have a saying here, 'you always hurt the ones you love,' and I hurt you. You know me very well, you know I regret it."
"But you meant it when you said that you said that your relationship with Sha're and her son was none of my business," she accused.
"Yes, I did."
"But if you consider me a member of your family it is, Daniel!" she cried out, tempted to slap him again.
"Not the way you think, Vala," he retorted, forcing his temper down. "I am not abandoning you. It's your choice to trust me and believe that, or not. I can't make it for you," he whispered, tenderly cupping her cheek with his hand.
"I want to believe you," she answered, gripping his wrist. "Right now, that will have to be enough I guess."
"I hope so," he replied.
"There is something I need to know, and I don't care how angry it makes you, because I deserve the answer," she demanded, locking her gray eyes onto his with a stare that stripped away any resistance he might have wanted to put up.
"Okay."
"When you believed Sha're was dead, why didn't you think that I am an acceptable choice for a mate?" Seeing him stiffen and back away from her she hastened to reassure him. "Listen to me, I have no intention of doing anything to disrupt your reunion with your Sha're, because I can see you love her in a way I can barely understand, but I need to know WHY. You do find other women and me attractive, that's natural for any healthy human. I even find General O'Neill extremely attractive, and it means nothing. Obviously, you decided against me for another reason. I've always assumed that you kept me around simply because you would eventually decide your physical desires trumped any other reasons you might have had for letting me stay. Since this is definitely not the case, I need an explanation. Why am I not good enough for you?"
Her words uttered in an agonized whisper felt like a staff weapon blast to his gut. "Are you saying that you think I refused a romantic relationship with you because I feel you are somehow beneath me?" he asked, his voice hoarse with dread for the affirmative answer he saw in her eyes.
"What else could it be?" she pleaded, blinking back tears. "I mean according to your standards of right and wrong, I'm just about as wrong as anyone can be, and that's leaving out Qetesh. However, since we've known each other I have changed, and I am changing still, yet it has never been enough."
"Vala, did it ever occur to you that I never acted on my attraction because it is me that isn't good enough for you?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Are you insane?" she cried out, shaking her head incredulously at his words. "You are Mr. Virtue. You are so pure of heart and soul that you have an Ancient Being fan club. How could you possibly think you aren't worthy of me?"
"Actually, in this case my being good enough for you has nothing to do with my morality. I never believed you to be immoral to begin with. I believed that circumstances beyond your control forced you into a less than an ideal way of life, and I was right about that. However, even if I had ever believed myself to be morally superior to you (which I didn't) I still thought a romantic relationship between us could never work because I'm emotionally incapable of providing your emotional needs. Something that I think today has proved beyond all doubt," he answered, his hands gesticulating wildly like they did when he got excited over work.
"But why would you think that?" Vala asked, frowning in confusion.
"Because we're too similar to each other," he answered, rolling his eyes at her obliviousness to the solution. "Remember what Shifu said when you told him he should give his advice about baring burdens to me?" he exclaimed, barely noticing her nod. "He said, 'A magnet can only be joined by opposite forces' in order for a magnet to work, it's magnetic field must be opposite of the object you want it to connect with. When two magnetic fields are the same, they repel each other rather than attract."
"Thank you for the science lesson, Daniel, I learned that just around the time I learned to write my name and use cutlery correctly," she huffed, folding her arms across her chest.
"Well, the same principles apply to our personalities," he retorted, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "We're both incredibly stubborn and difficult people who have a very hard time leaning on others for support. We've both had dysfunctional childhoods and tragedies in our lives that have left tons of damage that we can't handle in ourselves let alone someone else. To put it another way, we can't balance each other out properly for a healthy relationship. My weaknesses amplify yours, instead of helping to cancel both out."
"You're saying we bring out the worst in each other," she replied, turning away from him.
"I'm saying that we don't balance each other out emotionally," Daniel answered, wrapping his arms around her waist so she wouldn't leave. "You need a man who not only accepts you for who you are, but revels in it. I can't do that because I don't even accept those things in myself. You deserve far better than that. Besides, do you really want to follow me around on digs with no showers the rest of your life?"
"Not particularly," she admitted, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "Sha're would," she whispered.
"She did, and she loved it for herself," Daniel affirmed. "But even if she didn't, she would have loved it because I did. That's the person she is."
"And I'm definitely not!" Vala giggled.
"Neither am I, and that's why we would never work," he whispered.
"So, you're saying I'm a female version of you, and I need a male version of Sha're," Vala teased.
"That's a gross oversimplification, but yes, you could say that," he replied giving her a gentle squeeze before stepping back.
"I'll never understand why you insist on making simple things complicated," she giggled, tweaking his nose.
"It's just who I am," he winked.
"How Sha're can bare it is beyond me," she sighed, flipping her hair playfully. I know, when you bore her (which you will) I'll take her shopping. As much as I adore Samantha, she's very uncomfortable with most feminine rituals and she's busy with the Hammond. Most of the other women here can't stand me, and I don't have any real friends other than you, and the team. "
"Trust me, Sha're will be your friend," Daniel laughed.
Her gaze softened, and a crease of doubt settled around her mouth. "Do you really think so? Most women do not like me at all," she admitted, vulnerability coloring her voice.
"Sha're sees past the surface of everyone she meets. It scared the hell out of me at first," he admitted with a scowl. "One look and she knew me better than I knew myself, and we couldn't understand a single word the other was saying," he continued with a shy glance. "If I know her, and believe me I do, she already loves you because she watched over us while ascended," his eyes grew wide in his standard something bad will happen expression. "I'm a dead man."
"What, again?" Vala shrieked, trying to check his pulse.
"No, she's been watching us, meaning she knows every time I've been an ass to you. Forget about making me pay, Vala, she's already has plans for me if she knows I'm coming."
"Why would she do that? While I don't deny you have been an ass to me thousands of times-" Vala smirked.
"HEY!" Daniel protested half-heartedly.
"Don't interrupt!" she shushed. "However, I will admit that in most of those times I was provoking you…"
"I KNEW IT!" he exclaimed.
"Shush!" she demanded, poking him in the arm. "Besides, why would any woman stick up for a woman who tried their damn best to get their husband into her bed?"
"Well, ordinarily Sha're wouldn't. Six months after we were married a young woman from a neighboring village came to ours for seasonal trade. Let's just say blue eyes are not common on Abydos, and she—" a scarlet wave washed over his fair skin as he trailed off.
"She tried to get you into her bed too," Vala giggled.
"Worse, she tried to convince me to take her as a second wife," Daniel groaned.
"How did Sha're react to that?" Vala asked, like a child demanding the end of a bedtime story.
"She knocked Hagar'a out cold and chopped off her hair with Skaara's hunting knife. On Abydos, cutting a woman's hair off is a punishment for a woman who has relations with a man outside of marriage," Daniel shrugged.
"But you didn't sleep her, and she wanted to marry you," Vala stated cocking her head to the side in confusion.
"Abydonian culture is tribal in nature, while the big things cross over to all the tribes, smaller things like monogamy and polygamy depend on the tribe. Sha're's tribe doesn't recognize polygamist marriages as legal. By suggesting herself as a second wife to me on our lands in exchange for better trade agreements, and ignoring my refusal, Hagar'a was technically guilty of what we'd call solicitation on earth. Offering sex for payment," he clarified.
"So, you let Sha're deal with it. I'm telling Teal'c and Cam you hid behind your wife's skirts!" Vala squealed, jumping up and down!
"Okay, first of all," Daniel groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I did everything I could to get that whore away from me short of strangling her!"
"Daniel, language!" Vala gasped, amazed at the derogatory remark.
"She made Hathor seem sexually repressed in comparison," he snarled. "And she tried to shame my Sha're by implying she was barren. Whore is the politest word I have for her."
"And Oma helped her ascend?" Vala murmured. "Let's hope the Ancients don't have the same complicated rules about sex that they do about everything else. They might send her back."
"Don't even think it!"
"Okay so you tried in vain to evade the rapturous clutches of the evil Abydonian Jezebel, and Sha're kicked ass."
"You spend too much time with Cam," Daniel smirked. "But again, that's an over-simplification. According to the law of Sha're's tribe, she had the right to punish Hagar'a how she saw fit for trying to profane our marriage bond. Jack taught her to punch so, she chose that and shaving her hair down to the scalp."
"I will never flirt with you again, I swear!" Vala shivered, throwing her hands up.
"I won't hold you to it. Like I said, one look and Sha're will love you. We're alike remember," he assured with a smile.
"Two people who needed a home," she whispered, giving him a hug. "The little man was right."
"He usually is," Daniel agreed.
"By the way he did his vanishing trick after he spoke to me. Have you seen him?"
"He said he had to check in with Oma. Apparently, he's on curfew."
"I guess even ascended children have to come home for supper," Vala chuckled.
