LIBERTINES AND LIBERATION – GOING IT ALONE – CHAPTER 23
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any Stargate characters, ideas or themes. As a matter of fact, Stargate can have my ideas if they want them (wouldn't that be great). All standard applicable disclaimers apply to this piece. I have tried to source any materials quoted in furtherance of this story.
Spoilers: Probably some for Season 10 and beyond
Summary: Vala and Daniel centered storyline adventure (hopefully); relationship (okay yes); angst (yup); comfort; etc.
Rating: R to NC-17 in some parts.
Author's Note: This is my first Stargate fiction. I have no betas – not even a beta fish – not even sure what a beta is in fact.
This story will have multiple chapters.
I took inspiration from Milena D's Misappropriation of Lives and a short story called Believe by Random. I really wish those two authors would write more on those two story lines.
I hope for a few comments.
Going It Alone
The first day back had been spent in the briefing room, but they'd had a wonderful evening afterward. It had been a team night at Cam's with Frank and Wendy. Daniel had seemed grumpy on the drive back to the base, so she'd chatted mostly with Teal'c. Vala wasn't sure whether Daniel's mood had more to do with the burden she'd handed him by spending the last two weeks avoiding her nightmares by sleeping with him on his lab couch or with his reaction to some quite innocent photographs of her in Kansas with Cam and Darrell. What's the big deal? They were shorts. He's seen me in less.
Vala suspected that his gloom and distance had more to do with the lab couch. How did I let things get this out of hand? Vala wondered. She didn't want to be dependent on Daniel like that. He'd seemed so annoyed her when they were off world. No matter how comforting, enticing and seductive sleeping with Daniel on that couch was, she didn't want Daniel spending nights with her out of some sense of obligation; what fun was it that if he feels trapped into it because you're a walking basket case? And she didn't like feeling that needy. What she needed was to stay off that couch or Daniel would stop believing in her and start hating her. And SHE would start hating herself too. What she needed was for things to go back to normal.
And the truth was that couch was dangerous for her too. She couldn't stop thinking about the night before they went off world; when Daniel had turned off the lights in his lab and held her in his arms all night. She couldn't help thinking about waking up in the morning; about what led her out of his lab while he was still sleeping, looking so rumpled and innocent she was nearly drunk from thinking of it.
So they'd parted silently in the hallway to the residence quarters. And Vala had had no intention of returning to sleeping on his lab couch. She was over that Emeteo stuff! Or she was getting over it starting tonight! Why not tonight? Vala thought about the lovely evening with Wendy, Frank and the team; all the alcohol Cam had given her and the fact that she'd just come back from off world very tired.
I need to sleep through the night in my own bed; in my own quarters.Vala had told herself.
The first time she'd fallen asleep it had been sheer will power. She forced herself not to see the walls closing in; practically forced herself asleep. She'd woken feeling Emeteo's rough touch and seeing his face inches from hers as he ran his knife over her.
She was sweating; tangled in her sheets and she couldn't be sure, but she might have been screaming her head off. She'd made it to the door and slammed it open before waking up; and it was only 0015.
So she'd gotten dressed and spent the next hour on the jogging track running harder than she'd ever run in her life; she'd taken a shower and then she'd tried sleeping in her own bed again. But it didn't help.
Once again she'd woken up after seeing Emeteo slashing at her breasts and feeling his fingers inside her. She was a tangled mess. She was sweating, crying and she was pretty sure she had been screaming in her sleep. She'd screamed so loudly she'd startled herself awake this time. So she wasn't surprised to hear a knock on her door even though it was 0230. She looked a mess in her cotton pajama bottoms with the little purple flowers and the plain green camisole.
Vala folded the tangled blanket over her body and cracked the door open. She expected that it was the SF come to check what all the fuss was about. She still wasn't sure what she'd say and before looking had blurted out, "I'm alright; just had the television on too loud . . . ." Vala finally looked up to see that the person at her door was no SF, it was Daniel.
"Television?" Daniel asked with an annoyed concern as he stood before her barefoot in a pair of grey sweat pants and a black t-shirt. His hair was rumpled and his glasses were slightly askew like they'd been hastily planted on his face. He'd obviously been woken from a deep sleep by her screams. "Yeah right, you're fine, look at you." She had a strained, on the verge of tears, exhausted look.
"I'm fine. Daniel what are you doing here?" Vala lied and turned the tables on him, the best defense being an offense.
"Vala, it's cold in the hall; let me in." Daniel told her. Vala thought Daniel looked pretty annoyed; but she hadn't meant to bother him. She was trying not to come to him; didn't that count?
Daniel was motioning with his hands for her to hurry up; so she shrugged, opened the door wider and let him in.
Daniel was sitting in her easy chair by the time she had closed the door back. She grabbed the other blanket off the bed and put it over Daniel. Then she moved the little area rug a few feet from the side of her bed; tapped Daniel's knee so he lifted his bare feet and she slid the rug so his feet weren't resting on the cold concrete floor.
Daniel watched Vala's little gestures of hospitality and comfort. Funny how she thought of him before herself, he thought looking at her own bare feet.
"Thanks," Daniel said.
Vala silently nodded before she sat back on the edge of her bed curled up in her own blanket.
"Vala this nightmare thing doesn't seem to be getting any better does it?" Daniel began.
"I'm fine Daniel." Vala smiled widely, but her voice trailed off at Daniel's scowl.
"It's been going on for weeks; I haven't said anything, but it's not getting any better. You need to try something else." Daniel said sternly.
Vala's mouth dropped open; Daniel had just pissed her off.
"That's what I did tonight! I tried to sleep in my quarters; then I went running and tried again. Do you think I'm lying? Do you think I'm trying to keep you awake every night? Anyway, I DIDN'T come to you tonight. Look it's my problem not yours; it's really none of your business."
Daniel gave Vala an incredulous stare for a moment, not sure what question or statement to address first.
"None of my business – did you just say this is none of my business? Just shut up Vala; you've been on my lab couch -- keeping ME up at night for over two weeks. I let you make a spectacle of me in front of our team off world! I SLEPT WITH YOU IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE TEAM Vala because of your God damn nightmares! And now you're telling me it's none of my business. I should walk right out that door and let you deal with this on your own." Daniel said whipping himself up into a righteous anger, before realizing that's exactly what she'd intended to accomplish.
"Go ahead. I only came to you after you threatened to lock me up even tighter than you already have!" Vala said on the verge of tears.
"Vala what do you mean? I've never threatened to lock you up over this?" Daniel said, trying to keep calm.
"You told me you wouldn't let me go off world until I got some sleep! Just lock me down here." Vala cried confused by Daniel's calm.
"Just shut up." Daniel got up from the chair; Vala's breath hitched in jaggedly as she braced herself to watch him walk out of her room and sentence her to a sleepless solitary torment. Instead Daniel walked towards the bed.
"Lie down and scoot over," Daniel said in the same pissed off voice. Vala looked up at him as a fat tear broke free and betrayed her by rolling down her cheek. She wiped it off quickly trying to conceal the weakness. "Lie down," Daniel said in a much softer voice.
Vala silently complied. Daniel spread both blankets back on the bed and lay down beside Vala. She'd scooted to the other edge of her bed to give him room – she kept telling herself to hold it together. Then Daniel's hands were reaching around her waist and pulling her towards him. And she could feel his warmth on her back. She could feel the warmth of his hand where it rested on the fabric of her camisole over her stomach.
Daniel felt Vala relax a bit. But then she tensed and rolled over to face him. Her camisole twisted as she rolled over and his hand touched the bare skin of her back. He ignored it and left the hand in place. Daniel felt the weight of Vala's head rest against his chest as she snuggled her body into his side.
"Daniel?" Vala began.
"What!" He said, then more softly, "What Vala?"
"I'm sorry about what I said; you've been so, so kind. But, you don't have to keep doing this. I know how you feel about it; about me," Vala said, though Daniel could tell the words were coming hard to her. He was sure that the thought of facing this torment alone was a sobering one for her. But she hadn't come to him tonight; she'd tried alone, on her own, as she had tried the first two weeks after they'd returned from Danter City, and Daniel had to admire that.
"I'm not sure why I haven't been able to get passed this idiocy. Emeteo isn't the worst thing that ever happened to me. I've managed before; the dreams eventually go away and I sleep great. And, I'm doing fine even now, except for this one little thing."
Daniel hadn't said anything; soaking in the words she'd used. "Emeteo isn't the worst thing that ever happened to me." He'd tightened his grip on her and told her, "We're going to talk about this in the morning. Do you understand Vala?"
"Why do we have to talk about it?" Vala whined.
"Because we do; go to sleep Vala." Daniel said as he held her more closely and more intimately than he'd ever intended.
But they hadn't talked in the morning. Daniel had slowly come awake to the realization that the bed he was in smelled better than his normal bed; then he became aware that he was in Vala's bed and that he was alone; sprawled across it hugging her pillow.
At first Daniel thought Vala was in the bathroom, he'd gotten out of the bed and walked around the room picking up objects and examining them; something Vala had done in his lab dozens of times. He came across the intricately carved combs he'd seen the last time he was in her quarters and picked them up. He turned the combs over in his hand and examined them carefully. As he did, he noticed the little latch combination on each comb that he hadn't noticed before. He pushed the latch and the comb in his hand fell into 10 pieces. The bar at the top of the comb concealed the heads of nine snakes. The each tooth of the comb consisted of a snake in a different position. Daniel noticed the bar of each comb, the part that held the snake teeth had carvings of three female figures, maiden, warrior or mother and crone, thought Daniel. He was fascinated by the intricacy and craftsmanship of the work. The eye of each snake tooth hooked onto the bar securing it and making it sturdy. Daniel had never seen anything like it. He wondered again about the story behind these combs.
Daniel reluctantly drew his attention back to the bathroom door. It had now been 20 minutes. He concluded the bathroom had to be empty and opened the door to confirm it. Vala wasn't in her quarters.
Daniel left Vala's quarters, dreading running into someone in the halls in his current state, barefoot and obviously just having awoken. He felt a little panicked about feeding the fire of the already hot and heavy gossip that swirled around the base about his relationship with Vala. Most of the rumors she'd started just by walking through the gate that first time looking the part of a dominatrix. Short of a religious conversion, little could stop the excited gossipers after that, not that she'd done anything that first year but feed the frenzy. She'd calmed down considerably since her return from the Ori galaxy, but still managed to keep everything buzzing by calling him darling, calling a dinner out a date, and, then of course, there was her continued penchant for showing off her body in clothes the average woman would eschew.
This time Daniel got lucky; the SF's were posted further down the halls and he'd been undetected. He'd showered, dressed and headed to the commissary for some coffee and something to eat. He'd find her there; he was sure of it. Except she wasn't there.
He'd looked in the gym, the weight room, the little spare recreation room; he'd looked in the gate room, the control room, the briefing room and the conference rooms. He'd looked in his lab, Sam's lab, Dr. Lee's lab, the spare labs, all the computer rooms and even the storage room. He'd asked Cam, Teal'c Sam, Walter Harriman and Airman White.
"That brat! I'm going to throttle her!" Daniel had said annoyed to be spending his Saturday morning looking for her. Then he'd decided to check with the front desk guard; there in the log book he saw that Vala had signed out to the only place she was allowed without an escort -- on base, surface level.
Daniel went top side to look for her and found her sitting under a tree looking up at the sky.
She looked like a busted 7 year old, sitting there in her pigtails with a sheepish expression.
"Hello darling," Vala smiled. She was a little impressed that he'd found her.
"Vala what the hell are you doing? I've spent the last forty-five minutes looking for you!" Daniel complained.
"I'm sorry Daniel," Vala said genuinely apologetic. She was a little surprised he'd spent so much time searching; she was sure he would just go to his office when she wasn't in the room this morning.
Don't yell, Daniel reminded himself; it won't do any good to start out screaming at her.
"Come on let's go to my office; we're going to have our chat." Daniel said holding a hand out to her.
Vala swallowed hard like she was being called to the principal's office. "Could we talk out here instead?" she said quietly in a resigned tone of someone who knows when the jig is up.
Daniel looked around at the billowing clouds in the cerulean blue sky; the sun filtering through the leaves of the quaking aspen Vala had chosen to sit under, making the grass look brilliant in a kaleidoscope of shades of green. He sat down at an angle to her so that he faced her, but could still see a view of the valley below them. The valley below was spread out like a patchwork quilt of fields and roads before it blended its edges towards the city and a sea of houses.
"Okay, let's talk out here." Daniel smiled awkwardly; where's Dr. Freud when you need him.
"What about?" Vala evaded.
"Vala." Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, pushing back his annoyance, reminding himself that he needed to be gentle and reasonable with her. He was asking a lot of her and he knew it.
"Why don't we start with what your nightmares are about?" Daniel said. He knew he'd said the wrong thing when he saw the panic rise in Vala's eyes and her body made a subtle jump.
"Alright, let's start some place else," Daniel said putting his hand on her arm for a minute as a gesture to calm her.
Vala looked at him with wide, innocent eyes and said, "Where?" Daniel thought about how vulnerable she looked. She was as much of a fish out of water when it came to dealing with her emotions as he was.
"Re Van said that you were doing what I call "Sleeping Warrior Stance" when you were with him and that he cured you. Let's start there." Daniel said. But once again Vala gave him the panicked eyes that told him he'd asked too much.
"Uhhh, Vala we have to start somewhere," Daniel said. He was starting to get mildly exasperated and it showed in his voice.
"Let's start with the fact that you owe me a dinner out." Vala said.
"What!" Daniel looked at her in disbelief.
"That's right; we were supposed to go out the night we ended up off world with Thellas following Laspul'gas around that flea trap of a planet. Are you gonna make good on that Daniel?" Vala looked at him with a bit of mischief in her eyes touching his hand in a flirty way.
"I don't know Vala; are you going to make good on actually talking to me about any of this stuff?" Daniel countered.
"Daniel I don't like to dwell on things no one can change; and I don't want anyone to see me with ... to have ... to feel sorry for me; I am enjoying life. Daniel can you say the same." Vala said quietly defiant.
"Well, I guess we don't have anything to talk about," Daniel said. But he didn't move and he'd grabbed one of her hands to make sure she didn't bolt. He waited for her to speak, but she kept looking at the ground. Finally he shook his head, let go of her hand and started to get up.
Vala grabbed his arm and held tight. "Wait!" She looked up at him, "just tell me how to start."
Daniel sat back down; and realized if he had been asked that question, he wouldn't know how to start either.
"Vala, were you an only child?" Daniel asked her.
"Why?" Vala said with a confused look.
"You always seem like you can have fun in your own little world, like you spent a lot of time entertaining yourself." Daniel observed.
Vala looked like she was contemplating Daniel's question; like she'd never thought about it. Finally she answered, "Yes and No; I spent a lot of time alone as a child, I was the only child, of Jacek and my mother; Jacek was gone most of the time.
Vala had paused and Daniel noticed that her eyes looked unfocused, she looked disoriented and confused, finally she said, "My mother was very busy."
Then Vala's eyes focused as she said, "Jacek married Adria, after my mother died, and they bred."
Vala bit her lip before revealing this piece of information, "And Adria had a daughter from a previous marriage, Jenost, she was older than I was and a hell beast to me and the little one." Vala's face had become a bit drawn.
"Where are they now?" Daniel asked.
Vala looked confused for a moment, "I'm not sure where the hell beast is; I haven't seen her in a very, very long time; the little one died when I was still at home." Vala looked away.
"I'm sorry, Vala." Daniel looked at her. "I was an only child," Daniel changed the subject.
Vala smiled nodding, "The picture in your office of the little boy with the two blond adults. Is that you with your parents?"
Daniel nodded.
"Oh, Daniel you were a beautiful child. And your parents are beautiful; of course they would be, look at you." Vala said and ran her hand down his cheek making him turn red.
"Where are they now Daniel, I'd like to meet them." Vala asked, "I've met Cameron's parents and you've met my father; it's only fair."
"Unfortunately they're dead. They died when I was very young." Daniel said simply with a touch of sadness in his voice.
"What happened to you?" Vala asked quietly.
"I went in to foster care." Daniel explained.
Vala looked confused.
"Strangers agreed to care for me, but then I went to university very young; I was 16 in fact." Daniel said.
"So your grandparents weren't around then?" Vala asked and an inexplicable shadow of confusion crossed her face.
"Well, I have a grandfather; but he didn't want me to live with him." Daniel sighed as if he hadn't thought of these things in quite a while.
"Why?" Vala asked.
"He had bigger goals; then he was in a mental institution for some time; and, we didn't get on; he thought I was a failure." Daniel said thinking of that dark time in their relationship.
"You had to fend for yourself very young Daniel." Vala said, just stating the fact.
"Yeah. You too," Daniel said.
"Oh, I don't know, first I had my mother for a while; I always had a bit of Jacek; then there was Adria, it was evil tending but tending nonetheless; and of course, I went from their house right to Qetesh," Vala said, and after that, "I was under the stewardship of Aton Re Van for some time." Vala bit her lower lip again anxious about her revelations. "In fact, it took me quite a while to earn my freedom and the right to be on my own."
"You've never really talked about any of that," Daniel said.
"I guess this whole mess with Emeteo was part of the price I paid for my freedom." Vala said, and then quietly added, I thought I had already paid in full ... maybe you never finish paying ..."