Author's Note: The next few chapters incorporate some of the adventures and episodes from Season 9. I did say that Jonas was called in for the Daniel-heavy "Prototype" episode, but you may also rewatch the Season 9 episodes with Jonas in place of Daniel. It should usually work pretty well. I'm also shuffling the episode order in order to have a couple of suspenseful Daniel/Vala moments. You can comfortably rewatch "Ex Deus Machina," "Babylon," "Prototype" with Jonas," "Fourth Horseman Part 1 and 2," "Collateral Damage," and "Ripple Effect." Skip "Stronghold" and "Ethon" next and go to "Off the Grid" and "The Scourge." Yeah, the Prometheus had been destroyed and the Odyssey was in those eps so it's not perfect, but you could probably have the Prometheus serve the same functions in "Off the Grid" and "The Scourge."

Anyway, hopefully you can follow along and still enjoy the story as well as Season 9.

Chapter 17

Daniel sat in his office staring blankly at the computer screen. He couldn't concentrate on his work. He couldn't sleep at night. It had been a week since returning to the SGC and nothing was back to normal. He tore out the piece of notebook paper he was writing notes on and threw it toward the trash can.

"Hey there," Sam said, knocking softly on the door.

"What? Oh, hey." Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "How long you been there?"

"Five sheets of crumpled paper and a snapped pencil." She walked over to the trash can and threw away all his missed shots. "Come get a bite to eat with me."

"Sure, maybe there'll be something good in the cafeteria."

"Nope," Sam replied, leaning over his shoulder and putting his computer to sleep mode. "I think you should get off the mountain tonight."

Daniel hesitated. "I appreciate that, Sam, but I should probably stay here, in case…in case anyone needs me."

She walked away from the desk and stopped at the workbench to turn off the lamp. The only lights on now were Daniel's desk lamp and the overhead fluorescents. "Cam's on Vala-watch. No need to worry. Come on. Let's get dinner."

"Wasn't Mitchell visiting a friend in the Academy hospital today?"

"Nope," she replied. "That's tomorrow."

"Well, I…I just don't think it's a good idea for me to leave."

She smiled back at him. "Humor me. Besides, Vala thinks it's a good idea too. You need to get off-base, Daniel."

He was silent for a long time, he didn't want to go. He sighed loudly, he just wanted to wallow in his misery.

"I'm about ten seconds away from coming over there and pulling you up by your ears," Sam said sternly. "Come on, Daniel, let's go."

"All right, all right. I'm coming." He turned off his desk lamp and met her at the office door. "Can I at least have ten minutes to change my clothes?" Sam was wearing her civvies and a black leather jacket.

"Five minutes," she said with a smile, then turned off the lights and marched him to his quarters.

She drove them to a Mexican restaurant in Colorado Springs. Daniel probably would've eaten his meal in near silence just to get the night over with, but he needed to talk. He suspected Sam knew that.

"So, how's Vala doing?" he began.

"She's doing well. Not much better than you, but I think she disguises it better." Sam took a sip of her diet soda and continued, "She met with the base psychologist a day or two after you got back."

"Yeah, I remember that day," Daniel interrupted around a mouthful of enchilada, "oodles of fun."

Sam laughed. "Cam's told me stories about when she was here before, and how she drove everybody nuts, especially you. But it seems like she's calmed down quite a bit." Sam tilted her head, thinking. "No longer overtly flirtatious, but genuinely friendly and charming. Problem is no one knows what to make of it. First impressions and all that."

"I wish I could…" Daniel trailed off, pushing some food around with his fork.

Sam took another sip from her soda and leaned back on her side of the booth, waiting for him to relax and talk it out.

"It was pretty awful at first, Sam, having to pretend to be married to her. Pretend to love her. We had to, of course, we couldn't trust anyone, but it was difficult. Keeping my annoyance and aggravation in check."

He pushed his plate away and leaned back as well. "But everything changed. Not all at once, over time. She became important to me."

"You only had each other. It's common enough for soldiers trying to survive in enemy territory."

"I don't think that was all of it. She's still important to me." They'd finally come to an agreement about their feelings and for once he felt like he was at last on solid ground with her. Then she made the logical decision to remain at the base. "I'm glad she's staying at the base," he explained quickly. "She'd be miserable and lonely at my apartment, and I…I'd be miserable about her being bored and alone. So it really makes sense that she should stay here where I can see her whenever I want."

Daniel could feel himself getting more agitated. "Except that, because of this stupid—albeit, most likely necessary—lie we had to tell the IOA, I can't see her whenever I want. Or smile at her affectionately, or hold her hand. I can't be with her like I want to, let alone go to her quarters at night…" Like he had those first three nights back at the mountain, just staring at her door, deciding whether he should knock or not.

"Must be rough."

Daniel looked up then and met Sam's eyes. "How did…how did you and Jack…" he waved his arm back and forth, "…survive? All those years with how you felt, how did you do it?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Our military training. Knowing there was a bigger picture. Knowing that what we were doing in the Stargate Program was important and that the risk to get involved was too big." Sam finally sighed and leaned forward. "The point is, I know. And you have to stop beating yourself up."

Daniel shook his head. "Seven months ago I could barely stand her. Now I can't get to sleep without her. I'm only allowed to show her support and sympathy. Nothing deeper. If I appear affectionate or 'in love' everyone on base'll wonder why we don't get married or something else more permanent. But we can't do that because, because…"

"You're thinking too much, Daniel. Who cares what the base thinks? It's your life. It's yours and Vala's lives. When have you cared what the base thinks?"

"I don't. I just…" he trailed off.

Sam was silent for a moment. "Is it Sha're?"

"No." Daniel smiled, becoming a little more at ease. "Surprisingly, I think maybe I've finally gotten to a place where I can move on from all that pain and hurt." He closed his eyes and breathed in. "I guess I'm worried that I can't make Vala happy. That maybe she deserves more than the SGC, more than I can give her."

"Men." Sam rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Look, Daniel, you two seriously need to have a talk. Hey, I know it sucks that we live under a microscope at the base, I get that. But you guys coming back is just the latest news right now. It'll blow over and things will get back to normal. Trust me." She stared at Daniel until he nodded back. "All right then. Your first mission is to get some sleep. You're an absolute wreck and Vala has not been able to stop worrying about you."

"She told you?"

A server came by with their check. Daniel moved to take it but Sam was quicker. "She cracked under my interrogation tactics." Daniel gave her a sideways glance and she shrugged back. "I withheld chocolate."

"Ooh, evil-Sam rears her ugly head," he teased.

"Remember, the point is you both need to relax and take it easy."

Daniel nodded. "My first mission. Got it."

Sam had driven Daniel back to his apartment then picked him up the next morning to get him back to the base. He'd gotten six hours rest, a little more than his average over the last seven nights. It was quite the eight or nine hours Sam was hoping for, but she admitted it was a start.

They both checked in on Vala, who was getting ready for a quick check-up with Carolyn. Sam needed to get back to her lab, so Daniel offered to walk with Vala to the infirmary. He asked about her evening with Mitchell, and she smiled brightly back at him and reported on the movies they'd watched.

Without meaning to, his heart clenched and he wished he could kiss her forehead or tuck her arm in his as they walked. So much for a good night's sleep curing his misery. To make matters worse, Vala seemed completely unaffected. She was bright and bubbly, smiling at everyone in the hallway. He'd noticed her doing that all week. Even chatting up Bill Lee and Walter whenever she passed either of them in the halls. And Sam was right, he could tell that no one knew what to make of her actions.

Once they got to the infirmary, Daniel asked, rather hopefully, if Vala needed him to stay. Vala cheerily waved him off, saying she and Carolyn were going to have some quality time together, no men allowed. Daniel pressed his lips together to hold back his frown as a nurse came by to help Vala into a bed. He finally called over his shoulder as he was leaving that he'd be in his office if she needed anything, and he pretty much fumed the entire way there. Daniel 0: Misery 1.

Vala smiled at a few scientists in white lab coats passing by as she walked into Daniel's office after lunch the next day. She hoped to maybe get a few more minutes alone with him after all these days. It felt unnerving at first, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was always being watched, that someone was always walking by or looking in on them when she was lounging around Daniel's office with a magazine. She would just love to tell all these gossip-mongers to mind their own business and leave her and Daniel alone, but that wasn't her role in this scenario.

Vala was Daniel's space-vixen as she'd learned while eavesdropping on said gossip-mongers in the cafeteria one day all those long months ago. Some of these people need to get lives. Having come back pregnant, well, all these brilliant people—by their planet's standards—could do nothing but guess and whisper and hypothesize about the relationship between the world's top-ranked archaeologist and his sexy con-artist thief. Okay, maybe she'd added the 'sexy' bit.

And even though the role of space-vixen did have some perks, she really wanted to live and work with these Tau'ri people. Their goal to rid the galaxy of evil was noble if not farfetched. She honestly wanted to be able to help them if she could. And it didn't hurt that she got to be near Daniel, even if he was struggling with…well, with something. At least she thought he was struggling with something. She'd hate to think that they'd lost ground after finally admitting to their shared feelings.

Thinking it over, he seemed to be avoiding her. Sure he'd eat with her—in his office when she brought him a lunch tray. And he'd stop by her quarters from time to time—to drop off some reading material on pregnancy that Carolyn had asked him to deliver. He'd ask how she was doing and then be on his way. Never coming in, never really talking with her. It was almost as if he was afraid to show any affection for her, which seemed absolutely ludicrous to Vala. Maybe he wanted everyone to believe that nothing had changed between them while they were in the Ori galaxy, that she was still a pain in his side. She mentally huffed. If that was the case, he was beating himself up over nothing.

Honestly, it would be completely natural for them to grow closer together being trapped away from everyone they knew for so long. Vala was willing to bet that a great many people on this base understood that. They'd see nothing unusual about the two of them caring about each other. Obviously, Daniel didn't see that.

Then again, he could be right, he knew these people better than she did after all.

At the very least, her sunny attitude and charm over the last week or so had produced a rather small gem of freedom for them. She looked around the empty office again and sighed. Daniel just needed to be here for them to take advantage of it.

All of a sudden, the object of her musings swept into the office and went over to his desk, looking through files and clearly agitated.

"What's wrong?" Vala asked from the corner of the room.

"Huh?" Daniel looked up, distracted. "Oh, sorry, didn't see you there." He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, then plopped down in his desk chair, breathing out slowly, covering his eyes with his hand.

"Daniel, what is it?" Vala asked again firmly, closing the door and taking a few steps toward him.

He leaned back in his chair and exhaled again loudly. "I have to go. Bra'tac is here and he told us that Teal'c is missing, he suspects captured. I'm going back with him to Dakara to help." Daniel stood up wearily. He looked exhausted and worn out.

Vala took the last few steps closer to him, and cupped his face in both hands. "Find him," she said. "Be careful. And come see me when you're back." She finished with a tender kiss, soft and sweet and, with any hope, a little rejuvenating.

Daniel shook his head as he pushed away slightly, both hands on her hips, putting a few more inches between them. "Vala, we can't. There's a security camera in the corner of the room." He tilted his head slightly in its general direction. "We're being watched."

Vala glanced over at the wall clock and took another step back from him, a more respectable distance. "We are now, but not a moment ago. Charm and even a little flirting can get a lot of things accomplished," she said cryptically with a final wink.

"I don't understand." He squinted at her yet also gave her a small half-smile that the camera probably wouldn't pick up.

"I'll explain later. But you need to help Teal'c." She walked toward the door and opened it. "Go find him," she ordered. "And be careful not to injure that handsome body of yours," she said a touch louder for anyone out in the hallway to hear and further whisper about later.

They stood in the doorway and Daniel looked up and down the hallway for people passing by. It was empty, so he reached out to squeeze her hand. "I'll come see you when I get back."

Vala nodded and walked away in one direction toward the elevators and her quarters, wringing her hands together in worry. She turned back to see Daniel lock the door to his office and hurry off in the other direction toward the gateroom. She raised a hand to her lips and bit at her thumbnail.

Daniel thought about knocking on her door even though it was well after three o'clock in the morning. He had to make a decision fast on the off-chance that someone else would be wandering this level's halls late at night too. In the end, he tested the doorknob and discovered that the magnetic lock on the door controlled by the card reader was disengaged. He could open the door and go right in.

Vala sat up immediately as he entered her fully-lit quarters, upsetting the mountains of magazines, comic books, and CDs all over her bed, each one a loan from either Sam's, Mitchell's or Teal'c's collections. None of them were Daniel's, again, him not wanting to show too much sympathy for the woman who had supposedly turned his life upside-down. But he was here now, because she had somehow been able to make it happen, to let him know they could drop the façade for a while. As he shut and manually locked the door behind him, he watched her clear off the bed, dumping her distraction efforts unceremoniously on the floor. She was about to get up and come to him but he waved her back down into bed and instead sat down next to her and started unlacing his boots. He was going to stay. He'd decided it as soon as he entered her room.

"Teal'c is fine now. We found him." He finished with one boot and tackled the other, hearing her sigh of relief and letting it warm him. "I'm sorry I couldn't come back in between and tell you everything we'd learned. It all happened kinda fast."

"I got Walter and General Landry to fill me in on most of it."

"Charm and a little flirting?" Daniel asked.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Well, I have learned over the years that flirting doesn't work with everyone. Though Walter appreciates the attention, I think." Vala paused and looked away, focusing on the glass of water on her bedside table. "But he's a good person, and I think when I wandered into the control room, he could sense that I was worried about everyone." She reached for the glass, took a sip, and then continued, "Anyway, he let me in to see Landry, who obviously knew of my concern and told me not to worry. He said to get some sleep and before I knew it you'd all be back." She replaced the glass on the table and fussed with the comforter.

Daniel looked quietly at her, lifting her chin. "But you couldn't sleep, could you?"

Vala let out a short laugh. "I haven't slept well since the night at your apartment," she admitted, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it in comfort.

"Well, at least I'm not the only one." Daniel laughed back. Smiling brightly again, he kissed her cheek and stood up, not letting go of her hand. "Come to the bathroom with me and tell me what you've been up to this week. I'm dying to know about the camera thing, but I've got to wash all this dirt and mud off me."

"Thank goodness, because as much as I adore you, darling, I wasn't about to let you in my bed smelling like Ber's pigs," she teased.

Daniel stripped out of his socks and T-shirt, then started the water in her shower. "I think I might smell worse." Getting the temperature just right, he looked back over his shoulder and noticed her silence and maybe a trace of shock that he was letting her watch him undress and shower. He caught her glancing back toward the bedroom as if she thought he'd appreciate the privacy, but it was only a glance caught out of the corner of his eye.

He turned around then, placing his glasses on the sink counter and opening the closet door for some towels. "Seriously, Vala, tell me about the camera thing." He started unbuckling his belt and couldn't help noticing her wide-eyed yet extremely pleased stare. Daniel smiled back and even though this was unusually strange behavior for him, he gave her a pretty good reason for it. "I'm really exhausted and could probably fall over in your shower if you don't keep me awake with a good story," he said, facing the shower once again and stepping out of his pants and boxers in a single fluid motion.

"Well, I…um," she started.

He could hear the indecision in her voice, he could almost feel the heated stare she was no doubt giving him. Talk about role reversals. He tested the water once more then stepped into the shower and shut the sliding, frosted-glass door. She was probably cursing that particular shower feature.

"Camera man?" he called to her over the sound of spraying water.

"Yes, right. Well, it was all part of my rounds as I tried to re-familiarize myself with the base last week…"

The sound of her voice soothed him about as much as the hot water beating against his sore muscles. Daniel figured he should probably be analyzing his bizarre conduct, but after living together in the Ori galaxy, this really wasn't anything new. All right, sure, she'd only been present while he bathed that one time, when he'd first been conscripted for duty at the Ori construction grounds, but it honestly didn't bother him at the moment for her to be here.

"…and the technician, Timothy, is a rather shy man. The poor thing was very easily led to help me…"

Yeah, the flirting thing with the camera guy bothered him at first, but with everything they'd been through together, he truly knew he could trust Vala. It was simply that plain to him.

"The thing is Theresa in exo-zoology has a bit of a crush on dear Timmy. And so I thought I'd do a little match-making."

Huh? He blinked.

"You haven't fallen asleep on me, darling, have you?"

"Nope, I'm still with you," he called back. "Just rinsing off. What happened next?"

"Well, Timmy is very happy now and happy people like to do favors. He asked how he could help me in return and I said it was nothing, I just wanted to help. But he wouldn't hear of it and insisted that there might be something he could do. So I thought about it for a minute and admitted that I was becoming more than a little frustrated with all the eyes on me all the time, indicating the security cameras. He frowned, understandably so, and said there wasn't much he could do about that."

Daniel turned the water off, opened the door, and grabbed a towel from the counter. He gave her due credit, her storytelling didn't waver a bit.

"So I said I wasn't asking much, just five minutes now and then where I could use my wiles on you in your office unobserved." She smiled winningly. "I love saying this: 'the rest is history.' He's giving me five minutes of camera-free time in your office every day on his shift when the other security technician goes for coffee."

Daniel finished drying off, carefully keeping one towel around his waist, while Vala held up a clean pair of his old boxers for him. Now he produced a shocked look of his own.

Vala shrugged as she handed them over and walked back into the bedroom. "They were more comfortable to sleep in than anything else I had when I first got here."

It should've hurt. Seven months ago it would have hurt badly. All her sneaking and spying. All the innuendos and petty-thieving. It had always put him on edge, always thinking she was only around to mess with him. He watched her climbing into bed, and he waited for it, but there was no hurt.

She'd known what she'd wanted from the beginning and done things to make it happen. Her determination was sincere and steadfast. Sure, some of her actions were deceitful, but she hadn't hurt anyone. She just hadn't believed anyone would trust her. And she had no reason to either. Some behaviors become habit after all. But Daniel believed she was changing her ways, he started to believe she might be happy here with him.

He climbed into bed next to her, glancing at a clock that glowed a red 3:52. They turned on their sides facing each other and reached for each other's hands.

"How tired are we tonight?" Vala asked.

"Too tired," Daniel admitted. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." She let her eyes close with a smile. "I've got more than a few juicy images to dream about. And to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to a good night's sleep."

"Me, too." Daniel smiled back, shifting closer to curl his arms around her. Then he touched her cheek and found her mouth with his. He gave her a searing kiss, one that left them both breathless. "Mmm…Now I'll have some good dreams as well. 'Night, Vala."

"Boy, Daniel," Vala whispered into his chest, still catching her breath, "you do know how to torture a girl."