Notes: Much thanks to all you beautiful people who review! It means the world to anyone who writes to have folks say anything about it. Sorry it hasn't been a very regular updating schedule, I intend to be more dependable in the future. Thanks for all the love!
If you think the ending blows, tell me, I may write an alternate ending for those who want it to end happy rather than honest. (Though goodness knows I think Danny Boy deserves some happy.)
Of course he couldn't see fit to drop by her quarters on a night when she wasn't in fluffy bunny pajama bottoms and an oversized jacket. That would mean karma had finally forgiven her and that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. Even worse, the jacket was his University of Chicago sweatshirt. Yeah, that would be fun to explain.
She paced in front of the door as it shook again from his pounding. "Vala, open up, I have to talk to you!" She drummed her fingers on the end of her bed before bolding stepping towards the door. She made it halfway there before turning back and plopping back down on her comforter.
She was tied up in knots, and avoiding him for most of the afternoon hadn't done much to improve her situation. He was just a boy like any other. A boy, a boy, a boy, a boy! Ugh, she sounded like a lovestruck teenager. Normally she would throw open the door and tease him about being a genius who couldn't work a stargate, but today she couldn't, she knew too much.
Daniel and the offworld teams had successfully made contact with the SGC at the four hour mark, but SG-1 still went through the gate to haul Daniel back home. On the last loner mission he was just over 24 hours late, and a few missions before that he went three whole days without contact. Cam referred to their retrieval mission as 'grounding' him, so that next time he would remember to be a good boy and check in.
She'd believed Cam's intent was solely to force Daniel out of future intellectual reveries so Cam would be able to distinguish when Daniel was or wasn't about to get killed, and get Colonel Mitchell killed in retribution. Then Jack sauntered into conference room, when he knew Daniel was coming home, and with beer in tow, that threw the punishment theory right out the window.
Jack had been brought in to get though to Daniel when no one else could, and Vala wasn't sure if that would swing in her favor or not. There was hope, and then Jack gave her the beer.
Daniel had told her that he'd only seen Jack drink a few times while on base, and each and every time preceded or followed profound amounts of emotional trauma. (Usually involving women, because getting shot at just didn't qualify as trauma anymore.)
Jack giving her the beer was a sign this conversation wasn't meant to be good. She would avoid him, that was the only solution. Under no circumstances would she see Daniel Jackson until she knew exactly what had been planned for his imminent return that Jack felt she needed to be buzzed to deal with.
That resolution fell flat on it's face the moment Daniel stepped through the gate. She hadn't meant to spy on him, she really hadn't, she just happened to be around every time SG-1 had their precursors to the Jack conversation.
After restlessly puttering around the base she eventually settled in to her quarters to wait out her overly romantic spell in a place where no one could see it. She waited until the sirens sounded in the hall announcing offworld activation and then walked over to the infirmary to meet up with him.
To be fair it wasn't so much a walk as a sprint interspersed with sauntering sections whenever she happened past observers.
Any time she caught herself meandering just a little too quickly she forced herself to stop and remind herself it had only been five hours. When she finally made it to the infirmary hallway saunter didn't do the lackadaisical pace justice.
She kneaded her hands and forced the butterflies to shut up and leave her be. The last few steps to the infirmary door were painfully slow, and she kept reciting to herself the bountiful reasons to turn back. She'd convince herself of the absolute stupidity in immediately dropping by to check on him, and how pathetically over-attached it would make her seem, and would turn around.
Then she'd feel his smile. It rippled through her and all reason went out the window. She stepped into the infirmary and stopped again at the sound of Sam's restraint. "It's not right Daniel, and you know it.
"Sam, I don't have a clue what you're talking about."
The frustration crept out the more he faked dumb. "Daniel, remember how we always tell one another the truth?"
"Always Sam? Tell me, how's Jack doing?"
"Cheap shot, and he's here by the way, waiting to have this conversation with you if you don't listen to me."
"Sam..."
"Daniel, you can't keep vanishing for days at a time. Given your track record for dying it's not exactly fair to those left behind on your little excursions." (Vala reminded herself to have to cooks make Sam something pretty for being on her side in this matter, not that she would admit to having a side.)
"Sam I've been vanishing for years and we've never had this conversation before. Are you telling me you didn't care every other time I died?"
"That's not what I'm saying and you know it. Things are different now."
"Sam, I have no idea what you're talking about, and unfortunately it seems that Dr. Lam would like to interrupt you for a few blood tests."
Sam and Carolyn shared a glare before she jammed the needle rather violently into his arm and Daniel jumped. He turned to complain, but stopped when he caught the look in Carolyn's eye and decided silence was the most favorable option.
After sneaking out of the infirmary she was bound and determined that she was going to hold out for him to visit her, and not the other way around. So she resorted to her old standby for emotional pacification, chocolate. (Namely the triple layer cake the cooks had baked her when they heard Daniel was missing, again.) Unfortunately she stumbled across stage two of the interrogation being done by Cam in the hallway outside the mess.
"Stop talking now Mitchell."
"Come on Jackson, you know what goes on around here when you go AWOL. I mean, how could you not, you pace more than she does."
She choked on her fourth piece of cake for the day and shrunk behind the corner where they couldn't see her. Teal'c had followed her out of the commissary, stopping to ask, "ValaMalDoran, are you well?" She gestured at him to be quiet and pointed around the corner all the while trying not to spill her cake and give away their position.
Teal'c nodded in understanding as the conversation continued with Daniel's stress level shooting up several points. "Mitchell, remember how I told you to stop talking!"
"I don't know if you've noticed this Jackson, but this base is populated by brilliant scientists and the best the US military has to offer. I can guarantee you they've noticed that you're not particularly friendly when she's late comin' back from offworld."
They were only a few paces away from her corner, and she had a feeling that if she got caught evesdropping on this particular conversation he'd be too embarassed to speak to her for the next month. She gave Teal'c the doe eyes and mouthed "please." To sweeten the deal she extended her hands forth with the plate of chocolate cake, and after giving her as much a smile as she ever got from the Jaffa he took a fingerfull of icing and stepped around the corner.
"ColonelMitchell, GeneralLandry is looking for you." Cam hesitated for a moment, torn between watching Teal'c take care of Daniel's denial or the call of duty, but the look on Teal'c's face compelled him to dash back down the hallway towards the command center.
"Not you too Teal'c."
"I have nothing more to say on the matter DanielJackson." He stepped around Daniel and followed Colonel Mitchell down the hall, showing his displeasure by declining to give his customary nod in goodbye.
"Teal'c," he called down the hall at the retreating frame, "I have a job to do. I brought them into this galaxy, and intend to get them out."
She heard Teal'c's footsteps cease, apparently close enough for Daniel to drop his voice to a volume more appropriate for holding this conversation in public. "You lied to the SGC about your family when you came here, and we all understood why. Teal'c, you didn't want them to die for you. I understood it then, and all the more now."
The cooks didn't ask when she walked back into the kitchen and left with the tray and a slice that consisted of the remaining half the cake. She ate too much, threw things at the happy sitcom endings on her tv, and when the singing girl on their educational channel suggested that Tau'ri soap could dissolve her attachment (something about washing him out of her hair)
She took an excessively long shower and then, in a complete lapse in judgement, donned his sweatshirt before she even realized she'd done it. She'd snuggled up to cake and the closest she would ever get to Daniel and his galaxy saving tendencies again, and then he started pounding on the door.
Now she found herself pacing and in complete disbelief that she just couldn't open the door. It didn't matter if he wanted her or not, he'd made that perfectly clear. He wanted to keep her and everyone else in the universe alive, even if it meant denying himself the chance to live.
"Vala, come on, open up!"
"No!"
The pounding intensified, she knew she shouldn't have answered. "We have to talk!" She heard the plod of exceptionally uncomfortable marines go past shouting Daniel in the hall, and his voice didn't drop. He was making a fool of himself in front of the best gossipers in the world and he didn't care.
Infernal boy. Everything about him was charming, even when he wasn't trying to he got points for sheer stubbornness.
She swung open the door and tried not to giggle at the look of shock on his face. Apparently he'd prepared his oration to be delivered through the door and never actually expected to be invited in. He went as far into the room as he could get, leaning against the far wall with the assumption that space would make this conversation easier.
"H-how are you?"
"I'm fine Daniel, how are you?" Calm, think calm and collected. You didn't hear him in the hall, he has nothing of importance to say, he's asking about a translation, not dropping by to proclaim his undying love.
"Good...good."
This wasn't going to be awkward at all was it? Such was the trouble with a person who made you feel so off kilter. They both thought they knew how the other felt, but there was still the question. Intuition and overheard conversations could only guarantee so much.
Until the tension between them was given a name, was spoken aloud, there would always be the plaguing sickness of doubt that would stop either from pressing forward.
"So Jack was talking to me today about the whole affair with the Tok'ra and the Zatarc," she nodded (Mitchell wasn't the only one who could read).
"And about what Jack said when he had to tell the absolute truth," (also helped that she and Sam had had a late night conversation concerning that confessional.) She almost smiled at the path he'd chosen to take. Of course brilliant Daniel would pick the traditional method of going roundabout. He would talk about it without talking about it.
"Sam mentioned something once."
"Yeah, I assumed so."
He clenched and unclenched his fists multiple times, all his methodical preparation for this flying out the window. "Was there any reason you brought it up Daniel?"
"Yes. You know that the US military doesn't allow for relationships between an officer and their subordinate." Subordinate? He was going to play the 'you're my assistant' card?
"Jack actually beamed over to tell me that was a load of crap."
"What?"
"The military still has their regs, but he said that wasn't why he's gone along with it." He smiled comfortably at the memories, something he was much better at discussing than, well...stuff.
"Jack's never been one for following the rules, and I've always held to the notion that being banned from liking Sam was part of the reason he found her attractive in the first place.
"Anyway, a few missions before the Zatarcs, Sam was trapped on a Goa'uld vessel, and Jack stayed behind to get her out. That decision almost got the both of them killed."
He'd slipped into storytelling mode, the tone he used in briefings that held undulating excitement for dead civilizations, the tone that still intrigued her. No, it was a deeper voice than that. There was the passion that only came from stories he'd lived himself, from the events that changed his world.
"We hold to the practice of 'never leave a man behind,' but sometimes, no matter how much we don't want it to, the mission has to come first. According to the military debriefing Jack should've realized that when his armband failed, so did mine, and he should've come after me to help with the naquadah." The was a growing twinge of anger now, directed towards the fool bureaucrats who deemed an ore more valuable than his much beloved sister.
He was circling in on himself, rambling as he debated whether this was actually the way he wanted to do this, but Vala refused to give him enough time to doubt. "What does that have to do with why Jack did it?" She stepped forward, cocking her head to the side, concerned for his mental well being. (And that was all, she wasn't thinking about how sad he looked for the pain of his friends, or how the light made his eyes shine when he summoned the will to look at her.)
"Jack never told me this before, at least not in words anyway. He thought that someday the stargate was going to get one of us killed. After all, it's gotten all of us almost there more than a few times.
"You've probably been told this, but Jack lost his son right before he joined the stargate program, and lost some good friends in the early days.
"He knew other friends would fall, and he would fight that fact tooth and nail, but he was prepared for that. He said he just didn't have it in him to lose someone he cared about more than his own life all over again."
Those azure eyes finally held hers, and he couldn't stop himself from stepping to meet her in the middle of the room. He brushed a lock of her intractable black hair out of her eyes as she understood him.
Just a ghost of his fingertips traced across her face. It was his favorite motion, and hers too. The weight of every word that roamed through his brain contained in one smooth touch. She never quite understood how he could convey more passion through restraint than any release Questesh had ever seen.
"He will trade his life to make peace Vala. He'll fight to whatever end and give all of himself to make it. All with the hope that someday the world won't be in peril and he'll get to retire back to Colorado Springs. No one will call him general, and he'll finally take that ring out of it's hiding place in the bottom drawer of his desk. But until then just knowing that he's making that day come is all he can give right now."
He rested his hands on her shoulders to make sure she understood, and desperately tried to ignore the fact that she jumped at his touch. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but words failed him. He was besotted with her, they both knew that, but for all this fire he didn't love her yet, he couldn't.
They were a match, she stirred him up as he settled her down, but it wasn't enough. They'd seen too much, lost too much to fall in love like the young could. Logic and duty now made themselves heard in the pantheon of passions that roamed about their heads.
She rested her palms on his chest, feeling his heartbeat weave through hers and summed the will to speak for them both. "She would kill you if it happened. Use you to turn me to Origin."
He played with that strand of loose hair, weaving it around his fingers. "They'd use you to get at what's inside my head. To find whatever Ancient battle plan is locked in there."
They sat for a moment, knowing any other path they wanted would ruin what they were meant to do. But they couldn't break quite yet, tempted for just a breath in time to do the selfish thing, to simply be happy.
Life wouldn't stay that way, and they knew it. There would be bliss for a night, and then the next Prior would come. They'd hunt for the weapon, and be used as a weapon far more powerful against the other.
Quetesh said once that she chose Vala because only that which was strongest grew among the dogs of war, and Vala was proof of that. At the end of it all what she buried would be the strongest love she would ever know, but resting in his arms at the end of this journey seemed painfully far away.
She felt him shift. If they stayed suspended, ready to fall into each other's arms any longer they would never let go, and that couldn't happen. They weren't ready to be in love yet. The fire and passion that would go to the other was needed for the galaxy, and couldn't be split. He brushed his fingers past her cheek again, soaking the feel of her skin on his before he slid out the door to bury himself in his work.
She leaned her forehead against the cold metal of the door, forcing her temperature down, and ran her fingertips across her cheekbone. If they were the sacrifice peace demanded, so be it.
She tugged down the sleeves of the sweatshirt and held them to her lips, drinking in the smell of Daniel's sweatshirt. It would come. Sure, there was galaxy to save and evil ascended being to stop, but the night when she would have more than his hoodie to keep her warm would come.
And it was worth the wait.