The next several weeks are split between regular duties related to exploration and the tracking and gauging of the Ori threat, gathering and assessing further intel on the attack on the Jaffa summit, and spending time talking with Teal'c and helping him through the recovery process. Daniel and Vala tell their friends and fill out paperwork, and for a brief time their new relationship is the hottest base gossip, but everything soon dies down and they all carry on more or less as before.
Teal'c recovers and nothing they say will convince him to either stay or accept help, so he goes to hunt Arkad. What Bra'tac tells them when he wakes up not long after Teal'c's departure is not reassuring.
Things only escalate from there, with the supposed threat to Earth and Arkad's likely duplicity and orders to stop Teal'c, which none of them like not just because it feels like betrayal but because as Mitchell puts it, Teal'c gives the Juggernaut a run for his money when it comes to inertia and unstoppability.
Still, all's well that ends well, as long as Teal'c once again badly injured but out of danger of death or permanent damage, one dead bad guy, and a mission report that plays more than a little fast and loose with the truth count as "well."
Daniel and Vala go back to Daniel's apartment as soon as they've debriefed and gotten confirmation that Teal'c is going to be fine and none of them are getting in trouble over the mission report, which they're all pretty sure General Landry knows is not entirely faithful to reality.
They kick off their shoes and Vala collapses onto the couch, expecting Daniel to join her, but he's hovering almost nervously. "What's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing," he says. "Just . . . trying to figure out . . . Um. I know you just sat down but would you come over here?"
She cocks her head at him but does as he asks. He puts his arms around her and pulls her close. "I noticed that today is exactly two months since we decided to see how things would go between us. I'd say it's been a good two months, at least as far as we're concerned. What do you think?"
"Oh, I absolutely agree," she says, smiling.
"Good," he says, returning her smile and kissing her.
Kissing her like he did in the parking lot the first night they slept in his apartment instead of in her quarters on base. And then he spins them around, backs her up against the wall, and starts kissing her neck.
"Daniel?" she asks breathlessly.
"Come to bed with me?" he murmurs in her ear.
She pushes gently against his shoulders, and he leaves off kissing and pulls back so she can look him in the eye the way she wants to. "You mean—?"
He pulls her tight against him and leans his forehead against hers. "I'm ready if you are," he tells her.
She smiles, heart racing in anticipation and excitement.
They spend the rest of the afternoon in bed.
Everything was going so well.
Her relationship with Daniel is progressing in a way that feels right to both of them. Her friendship with Sam is deepening. Teal'c is making a full recovery.
Then her father had to show up.
Sure, Daniel was right that intel like what he claimed to have is always looked into even when it comes from the goa'uld. She's fine with that, she can live with that comparison, as long as everyone around her understands that she is, in fact, making that comparison.
But why did her good-for-nothing father have to actually have good intel, good enough that the decent, honest Tau'ri with whom she has thrown in her lot feel obligated to honor the bargain Jacek asked for?
Initially, she thought it was a good thing that she reminded General Landry, who seemed inexplicably inclined to give her father the benefit of the doubt and to accommodate him as much as possible, that the SGC didn't make a habit of letting aliens, especially aliens with criminal pasts, loose on the civilian population as soon as they arrived on Earth. She thinks Landry might have actually shot her down if the rest of SG-1 hadn't backed her up.
Now, however, she's regretting speaking up, because, confined to the base, Jacek will not leave her alone. Not only that, but General Landry is oddly reluctant to put measures in place to keep Jacek away from Vala, at least while she's working, so Daniel had to go to HR to get Jacek banned from Daniel's office and Sam's lab. Unfortunately, even with those rules in place, there are still meals and the gym and the rec areas and Vala's quarters, which admittedly she's been using less and less, but she still keeps things there to which she needs access, and it seems like every single time she remembers she needs something, Jacek just happens to be in the corridor.
She loves spending time with her teammates, but needing one of them with her constantly to help ward off her father is taking its toll. She's never been more grateful for Daniel's willingness to leave her alone during the evenings at his apartment, if that's what she needs.
But it's all very exhausting, and she doesn't know how much more if it she can take.
Daniel would feel worse about going straight to the IOA if Landry hadn't already stonewalled him after the "little Pepito" incident.
Amazing, really. Jacek was on Earth, in a U.S. military base, for less than three weeks, and had already managed to pick up racist stereotypes and a total misunderstanding of Spanish nicknames.
With this jackass as her father, it's no wonder Vala has trust issues.
Daniel is usually in favor of second chances, but it's painfully obvious that Jacek, 1) has no intention of changing his ways and, 2) is going to keep harassing Vala with no regard for her feelings or needs, because he harbors some screwed-up sense of parental entitlement to her time and affection.
So yes, now that they've caught Jacek selling "stardust" on the Internet, Daniel is taking his concerns to the IOA.
Oversight is useful after all, at least occasionally.
Or . . . not.
Instead of restricting Jacek's movements, they insist he be allowed to carry on as before, except this time his phone and online activities are monitored.
Daniel can understand this decision from a strategic point of view, especially considering that Jacek really did know about those naquadah-filled cargo ships.
But Daniel's interest in this isn't strategic. No, his interest has everything to do with Vala, harried and exhausted, having to watch the dregs of humanity that is her father move about with the kind of freedom it took her months of hard work and devoted service to earn.
Both Daniel and Sam point out to Vala that part of the reason for this is that Vala had proved herself competent enough to be a threat, while Jacek so very clearly isn't, but all it gets them is a tired smile.
Daniel hates to see her step lose its bounce, the way she glances around furtively before turning corners, the way she no longer feels safe and comfortable on this base where she is a member of the flagship team.
It's wrong on so many levels, but of course they have a deal, and General Landry is, apparently, projecting his own issues with Dr. Lam all over Jacek and Vala, which makes keeping Jacek away from Vala more difficult than it should be.
And then Jacek smooth-talks his way into a trip to the mall, gives his escort the slip, and by the time they catch up with him—thanks to the subcutaneous transmitter Jacek doesn't know about, which is admittedly the kind of thing Daniel would normally pitch a fit about but there are exceptions to every rule—he's attempting to negotiate for the naquadah on a cargo ship that is, apparently, here on Earth.
In the report, Daniel will claim that zatting Jacek as well as his Jaffa contact was an accident.
Vala almost wonders if she should feel guilty for how not at all upset she is that Jacek is Area 51's problem now.
The Jaffa talked, they found the cloaked cargo ship, captured the guards, and even General Landry with all his frustrating sympathy had to admit that Jacek had very thoroughly violated the terms of their deal, and definitely could not be trusted enough to simply be sent back through the stargate; if he'd proved one thing, it was that he wasn't afraid to use any information he had for personal gain, and information about the Tau'ri base was undoubtedly a hot commodity.
So confinement at Area 51 it is.
Vala is enjoying being in her quarters without having to worry about her father knocking on the door when Sam, bearing wine and glasses, finds her.
"I'm not messing anything up, am I?" Sam asks as she comes in.
"No, no," Vala assures her. "Daniel's letting me enjoy a bit of solitude and won't be in for another few hours. I could go for a girls' night in."
Sam smiles, and pours the wine.
Daniel passes Sam in the corridor on his way to Vala's quarters.
Noting the empty wine bottle when he arrives, he asks, "Sam's not gonna drive home, is she?"
Vala shakes her head, smiling tipsily. "She's having a base car take her home, and she'll call Mitchell for a ride in the morning."
He nods. "Good. So was that what you needed?" He kicks off his shoes, strips to his boxers, and goes to the tiny bathroom to brush his teeth.
"Yes. I feel almost like myself again," Vala calls, and he hears rustling as she changes into pajamas, then, swaying slightly, joins him at the sink. He finishes before her and gets in bed, waiting for her to join him.
He prefers it when they sleep at his place, but, thanks to Jacek, it's been a month since they've felt like they even had the option of sleeping here, so Daniel is grateful for this reclamation, for this return to what passes for normal for them.
Vala finishes brushing her teeth and crawls into bed, hitting the light on her way. She pillows her head on his chest and sighs contentedly.
He assumes she's dropped straight off to sleep, but after a while she murmurs, "Thank you."
"What for?"
"You know. Being on my side. Having my back. Zatting Jacek."
"Any time," he says, kissing the top of her head. Then, after a moment's thought, he adds, "You know, seeing this part of where you come from, it's . . . I feel like I have a new perspective on how amazing you are. There have been a lot of truly shitty things in your life that weren't your fault, and you've overcome all of them to become, well, you."
"Oh, Daniel, don't patronize me while I'm tipsy or we might both regret what happens next."
"No, sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I meant that . . . that I feel lucky to know you. To have this with you," he says, tightening his arm around her.
"Oh. Well, that's all right then. Now will you shut up and go to sleep, or at least let me? I'm exhausted."
He smiles into the darkness, and before long they both drift off.
Daniel hates this plan.
He hates Vala spending any length of time thinking they turned on her like that.
In fact, "Vala, you can't really think it would be that easy for us all to just . . . just . . . "
"No, of course not, but Adria won't know how implausible it is because I'll believe it."
"Actually, it sounds like there's too much risk of the false memory conflicting with your real memories of us and how much we trust and care about you. You might feel like something's wrong, and Adria could pick up on that and not trust you, and then it would all have been for nothing," Sam says, and relief washes over him that this isn't going to work after all.
"OK, well, what about if it's more clear that the IOA tied your hands completely?"
"You think we'd let that stop us?" The question sounds angrier than Daniel intends, but he hates absolutely everything about this.
"I know it wouldn't," Vala says, looking right at him. "That's why I'd leave before you did something jeopardizing your position here. Before any of you did," she adds, breaking the intense eye contact and including the rest of the team.
That brings him up short.
But I'd look for you. I'd run away with you don't you understand?
The thought surprises him.
In the strange way that something that feels completely natural has of being surprising when you stop to consider where it came from and how it got to be in this place where it just fits.
Well shit.
Or not, because with the way she looked at him when she said what she said, maybe he's not the only one realizing his romantic feelings have reached a new stage without him noticing.
" . . . sets up the gate address and is compatible with your real memories?" Sam is saying.
"Yes," Vala agrees.
"Sir, if you approve, I can calibrate the device today and we can be ready to implant the memories and escort Vala to the planet tomorrow," Sam says to Landry.
The bottom drops out of Daniel's stomach.
He doesn't think he's ever hated a plan in his entire life as much as he hates this one.
Unfortunately, it's completely brilliant, will probably work, and the reasons he hates it are almost entirely personal, so he has to keep his mouth shut.
"You have a go," Landry says.
Vala can feel the misery and tension rolling off Daniel in waves as they return to her quarters for the night.
It's incredibly sweet, really, even gratifying in a twisted kind of way, that he worries this much about her spending a day or two thinking Earth no longer wants her, that her team can't protect her.
There's also the matter of the look on his face when she said she'd leave before any of them could put themselves and their positions at risk for her sake.
Before he could.
Is it really such a shock to him, after everything they've been through? Or is it just that he's never heard her lay it out like that before?
Whatever the case, she wants, needs to do everything she can to assuage his fears before the procedure tomorrow.
She closes and locks the door, then turns to him and takes his face in her hands. "Daniel. It's going to be all right. I'm going to be all right. I don't know what more I can do to make you feel better about this, but if there's something, tell me."
He stares at her with the expression she's used to associating with unexpected finds of archaeological or linguistic significance when they're exploring or researching, the kind of discovery that makes him say things like "Do you have any idea how incredible this is?" or "I never expected to find something like this" or "Do you realize that this could completely change our understanding of . . . ?"
So what does it mean that he's looking at her like that? Like he's seeing something new and rare and precious?
He takes a step closer to her, and she slides her hands off his face and laces them around his neck. He wraps one arm around her waist and cups her cheek with the other hand, gazing intensely into her eyes.
"I realized something today," he tells her, and Vala is abruptly aware that at some point during the last few months they managed a safe landing, managed to not dash themselves to pieces, even managed to start filling a lot of cracks. But now, suddenly, there's another precipice, and they are racing towards it headlong. She raises her eyebrows. He takes a deep breath. "What I realized is, I love you."
There it is.
Something she's known for a while, but avoided putting words to.
Daniel always finds the words.
Time to take his hand and leap.
"Yes, well, now that you mention it, I love you too."
And he smiles, and it's warm and soft and radiant and one of the most beautiful things she's ever seen, but he's also crying, she notices. Just a few stray tears, but crying nonetheless.
"I don't understand," she says, reaching up to brush one of them away.
"Me neither," he says, laughing.
And then they are kissing.
She can feel his desperation and need and finally, it sinks in.
She belongs.
On Earth.
With SG-1.
With Daniel.
Who is right: this brilliant plan of hers is going to be absolute hell.
She matches his desperation with her own, and it isn't long before they are helping one another out of their clothes.
The gate activates, and Daniel's eyes lock on Vala as she comes through with Adria.
God, but she looks miserable.
He gives himself a mental shake. He needs to stay focused until they have Adria. Once that happens, he can take care of Vala, can fix this.
Vala's eyes dart towards him, then back to Adria as the Orici turns to her, angry and suspicious.
"I have no idea what's going on," Vala says. "Though I have to admit I don't hate it." She turns to him then. "This all looks very official," she says, her tone falsely casual; he can hear the hope and desperation underneath.
"I'll explain in a—"
That's when the Jaffa beam in, and everything goes wrong.
Yet somehow, that doesn't seem nearly as important as the way Vala stumbles into his arms as soon as the Jaffa beam back out, taking Adria with them.
He holds her tight, feeling the wetness of her tears on his neck. "It's OK," he murmurs. "Everything's gonna be OK now."
Vala is worried. She wants to be back here, back on Earth.
With SG-1.
With Daniel.
She knows they want her here, too, but at what cost? What have they done, what have they risked?
She can't be the reason they get in serious trouble, she can't, that can't be her legacy here, in this place that was finally home.
"Has anything actually changed?" she asks miserably. "I left because I was afraid you'd all do something foolish to try and help me, and I couldn't have that on my conscience, I just couldn't, and I don't understand what could have changed so quickly, or how you found us for that matter. I thought you were taking a-"
"Vala," Daniel interrupts, taking her hand. She looks up at him, waiting. Waiting to hear that he hasn't gone and thrown everything away just for her, not when she broke herself all over again leaving, leaving him, to prevent exactly that. "Nothing has changed, but that's a good thing, because it wasn't the way you remember it."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"This device is a slightly altered version of the memory implant technology we received from a race called the Galarans," Sam says, indicating the thing on the table. "We used it to create a fictional memory and implant it in your mind."
Vala can feel herself beginning to panic. They wouldn't have . . . without her . . .
Daniel drops down from where he was perched on the table and crouches by her chair. "It was your idea, your plan," he tells her, voice low and intense. "We would never have done that to you without your enthusiastic consent. Not ever."
She believes him.
"So when can we put it right?" she asks. "Because the sooner I can get rid of these unpleasant and, I'm glad to hear, false memories, surely the happier we'll all be?"
"Don't you want to know more details?" Sam asks, sounding surprised.
"Yes, but once you give me my real memories back I'll know them anyway, right?"
"Well, yes."
"OK, then."
Daniel wraps an arm around her shoulders as they walk to the infirmary, and she leans into him. There's something niggling at her, something to do with him.
Something good, she hopes.
The way he seems to want to cling to her as much as she wants to cling to him is a positive sign, isn't it?
She supposes she'll know soon enough.
Bad day.
Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Just call her Alexander.
First those hours spent thinking she'd had to leave behind the first home where she'd felt truly safe in decades.
Then, once she got her real memories back, learning that her brilliant plan failed spectacularly thanks to Ba'al's interference.
Ba'al, who took Adria as a host, leaving Vala caught between vindictive triumph that Adria was getting a taste of her own medicine and sickening horror that yet another person was suffering through the atrocity of being trapped in their own body while an invader used it for their purposes.
Having the Tok'ra bring up her own experience as a host was definitely exactly what she needed in the middle of all that. No sarcasm to that thought at all.
"I knew you as Qetesh."
What sort of thing was that to say to a person, anyway? Ta'seem didn't know her, he just knew her face. If he was going to say it, he should've said, "I knew your body as Qetesh," and the inappropriateness of that statement should've been a clue that he should just keep his mouth shut, shouldn't it?
Yes, very bad day.
Because of course the surgery to remove Ba'al from Adria didn't go smoothly, and of course they couldn't replace him with a Tok'ra as planned.
Adria almost killed Daniel.
And managed to cheat death.
When Vala says that they dealt the Ori movement a blow, she means it. Or wants to mean it. Probably something more along the lines of trying to convince herself as well as her friends, while hoping they don't notice she's trying to convince herself.
Daniel notices.
"In or out?" he murmurs as they leave the briefing, a comforting hand on the back of her neck.
"In."
"My place or yours?"
"Yours."
She's not sure how she holds herself together for the drive to Daniel's apartment. Stubbornness and a desire to not have to move for a while once she falls to pieces, probably.
And fall to pieces is exactly what she does as soon as Daniel closes the door behind them.
One moment she's standing there waiting for him to close the door, and the next she's collapsing against him, wracked with the most heart-rending sobs, and he guides her to the couch and pulls her into his lap and just holds her while she soaks his shirt with tears and snot.
He wishes, more than anything he wishes that he could carry whatever this pain is for her, could heal every hurt that makes her cry like this.
All he can do is hold her while a few tears of his own trickle into her hair.
Today was so much worse than what he feared. And he's not even sure which parts of the "so much worse" have broken her like this, because he's learned the hard way that he can't make assumptions about what she's thinking and feeling.
"I'm here. I've got you. I love you," he murmurs over and over while she cries herself out.
These are, in this moment, the truest truths he knows, and he hopes they never turn false.
Three weeks on the ship.
Then two more weeks.
And then.
And then.
And then.
She's fracturing along all her fragile fault lines. She's going to break and she's going to smash him and maybe the others on her way down.
But definitely him.
She doesn't want that.
She doesn't know if she can stop it.
There might be a way.
She remembers having a false memory of doing something like it.
But time has passed since then.
She's not sure if she's strong enough now.
She loves him so much, needs him so much, wants him so much.
And to be fair, she's pretty sure she holds him together just as much as he holds her, so perhaps there will be shattering either way, and the only choice is whether they have a modicum of control over it.
For once, the hard thing and the safe thing are the same.
Can she take the ensuing devastation?
She doesn't know.
Is it actually the safe thing, when the risk and plunge has been so rewarding up until now?
Up until they boarded this damn ship that is taking her apart, piece by piece?
She doesn't know.
He knows she can't help it.
Confinement and repetition are anathema to her.
He knows this.
Doesn't make it any easier.
He can't blame her. He's got the Asgard core, Sam has trying to get them out of this, Landry has chess and plants, Teal'c is Teal'c, and Mitchell yells and runs and spars with Teal'c and occasionally trashes his room.
What does she have?
Him, mostly.
So he can't blame her.
But that doesn't make it any easier.
Some days he wonders if maybe it's a mistake, trying to keep what they have going while they're stuck here. After all, if it crashes and burns the way it occasionally feels like it's going to, there's nowhere for them to run or hide from each other.
The mere thought of seeing her every day, yet no longer having what they have now, brings an almost physical pain to his chest.
It was always a risk, being with her.
A risk he takes gladly, because they love each other and hold each other together and make each other better and he knows all her different smiles and the meaning behind each of them and the reason it was always, is always, will always be a risk is because the more he loves her the more he will break if something happens to her, or to them.
Even if that something is a time dilation field on a ship.
He thinks he sees the question in her eyes sometimes.
The horrible curiosity: now or later? Controlled breakage or chaotic smashing? Is it inevitable? Could it be anything other than inevitable, here, in this too-confined place?
Each night they cling to each other with varying degrees of desperation.
Some days are better than others.
Some days are worse than others.
And somehow, somehow, time passes.
And passes.
And passes.
Bodies old and rickety, they know the wrinkles on each other's faces by heart, like maps in their souls.
Like cracks filled in and painted gold.
"We made it," Daniel says.
"We made it," Vala agrees.
They rest their foreheads together and lose themselves in each other's gaze, their old eyes alight with love.
Elsewhere on the ship, Sam hits the button.
"Teal'c, please, we don't need any details, just—"
"You wish to know whether your relationship lasted for the duration of the time dilation field," Teal'c interrupts.
Daniel and Vala glance at one another, then back at Teal'c. "Yes," they say in unison.
Teal'c smiles a slow, knowing smile.
"Indeed."
They are still broken, but they are healing.
Still full of cracks, but the cracks are filling.
In at least one possible future, they survived long enough to paint the cracks gold.
Maybe, just maybe, they'll do it here, too.
A/N: I got the idea for the kintsugi metaphor sunshinesamwinchester's gorgeous entry in the July round of the Sam Winchester Graphic Challenge on tumblr. The metaphor of falling was directly inspired by "Places to Land" by bydaybreak on AO3, the absolute most perfect Leverage OT3 fic that I've read thus far.