Title: The Journey
Summary: Daniel and Vala are on a race against time to save a dying Cameron.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate.
Chapter 6: Puzzles and Poison
The next day, Daniel and Vala headed further into the temple. Daniel was still thinking about the mind tricks that the temple had played on him the night before. He was very relieved that there was nothing going on between Vala and Cameron, not that it would matter if they didn't find the gem soon. Daniel was hit suddenly by what else the 'Sam' voice had said to him. It had said that he was falling for Vala. Was he? Could he really trust her in a real relationship? It was all too much to think about. He decided to put it out of his mind for the time being and focus on finding the gem.
Vala had sauntered in front of Daniel to take the lead. They traveled in near silence, both in deep thought and concentration to save their dying friend.
Vala stopped all of the sudden.
Daniel wasn't paying attention to where he was going so he almost ran into her. "What is it?"
"I don't know, some sort of...writing, care to read it?"
Daniel went over to the place on the side of the wall where Vala saw the writing. "Hmm...I think it is a riddle of sorts...I believe it says: 'At night they come without being fetched, And by day they are lost without being stolen.'"
Vala raised a brow and looked again at the writing. "This reminds me of what we went through to find Merlin's weapon. Do you know the answer darling?"
He thought to himself for several moments before answering. "I think that the riddle is talking about stars. They come out at night by themselves and by day time they are gone without being taken, it makes sense."
Vala nodded. "Okay, stars! Stars!" She yelled at the writing on the temple wall.
When nothing happened, Daniel translated the words stars in Ancient and then Goa'uld, but to no avail.
"What the hell? I don't get it!" Vala threw her hands up in the air in frustration.
Daniel leaned over to inspect the writing, looking for some type of clue. He brushed away at the dust and sand covering the wall. His hand caught on something.
He pulled at the item until it came loose. He was holding an oblong piece of stone.
"What's that?" Vala asked. "It looks like a stone pen or something."
"Yeah, it does, that gives me an idea." Daniel took the stone object and scratched the answer to the riddle into the stone right below the inscription.
A moment later, the floor gave away underneath them and they fell onto soft sand, lower into the temple.
Vala sputtered, trying to get the sand off of her. "Well I hope you were right about your answer."
Daniel stood up and shook the sand off. "Yeah me too. It does look there are more tunnels down here though, shall we explore them?"
"Of course, onward!" Vala pointed ahead of them to where the tunnel began to widen.
They had only gone about twenty feet or so when they came to an odd drawing on the wall in front of them. It looked like a circle with three triangles placed inside. One triangle was red, one blue, and one green.
"Another puzzle," Daniel mumbled.
"Looks like it, any idea what it is?"
For all that Daniel knew about ancient cultures and symbols, he had never seen a puzzle like the one before him. "I don't know, it doesn't look familiar to me."
Vala frowned. "Me neither, should we just try something?"
He shook his head. "No, I have a feeling that if we guess wrong that we will be in trouble. Let's just think about it for a minute."
The minutes ticked by and Daniel could not grasp what the puzzle meant. He looked over at his companion, who seemed just as confused as he was. "Any luck Vala?"
She glanced over in his direction. "Umm...no. The only thing that I keep going back to is the fact that Quetesh loved the color red, reminded her of the blood of her victims."
Daniel looked at her in shock. "Well, that's rather morbid. Do you think that it has anything to do with this puzzle though?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure, I knew several Goa'ulds who had a thing for red as well, and wasn't this temple made so that Ra could come get the Shashana gem? He was a Goa'uld."
Daniel wasn't sure if there was any logic to Vala's idea, but it was either try something or turn back, and it seemed as if turning back was no longer an option.
He sighed. "Okay, I will try the red one." He sucked in a deep breath and pressed the red triangle.
A harsh groaning sound flooded the room as a wall came down from behind them, trapping them between the two walls. They had no time to run out, they were caught.
"Uh, I think I may have been wrong." Vala looked around in fear.
"Look, let's not play the blame game here, look for another way out."
The two began to scramble at the sand under their feet and pounded at the walls around them. Nothing happened.
Vala dug at the sand by the far wall. She let out a sudden scream.
"What? What happened?" Daniel rushed over to her side.
She didn't say anything, just pointed to a white object jutting out of the sand.
Daniel leaned over to inspect it and found himself face to face with a skull. "I think we are in trouble." He looked over at Vala whose face had gone as white as the skull.
She put her hands over her face and shook her head. "It's all my fault! We are going to die here!"
Daniel put his arm around her to sooth her. "Hey, we will find a way out, we have enough air for a while."
"No, you don't understand. Not only are we trapped here, but poison gas is flooding in here as we speak!"
He turned to her in surprise, dropping his arm. "How do you know?"
She pointed to the wall that had come down to trap them. "While you were looking at the skull, I saw the inscription written here, it's in Goa'uld."
Daniel swallowed hard. "What does it say?"
She looked at him with tears welling up in her eyes. "It says: 'You have chosen incorrectly. The room you are trapped in is slowly filling up with a special kind of posion gas, it is both odorless and invisible, but you will be dead within the next twelve hours.'"
Daniel went over to inspect the writing for himself, not that he didn't believe Vala, more like he didn't want to. However, she was correct. They were going to die.
Vala was sobbing uncontrollably now. She sank down to the sandy ground and hugged herself.
Daniel was upset. He had died so many times before, and he doubted that he could ever ascend again. Not only that, but Vala was going to die as well, and that meant that Cameron would die soon too.
The only thing he could do was try to comfort Vala. He sat on the ground next to her and pulled her into his arms. He didn't say anything, just held her and rocked her while her tears soaked his shirt.
He pulled away a little and saw that her face and eyes were red and tear tracks ran all over her face. He gently wiped at her tears with his hand. She leaned into his hand a bit and something passed between them. Daniel couldn't look away from the beautiful woman before him. If they only had hours to live, he was going to comfort her the best that he could. There would be no consequences later to worry about.
His hand lingered on her cheek and he looked her in the eyes and brought his lips gently to hers. A small noise of surprise passed from her lips before she responded.
Daniel pulled her closer and turned the chaste kiss he had started into a deeper, more passionate one. As their tongues met, he felt a fiery passion explode between them.
No words were needed, the fire inside of them would not be ignored. They continued to kiss as they frantically tried to undress each other.
Normally, Daniel wouldn't let himself be overrun by passion, but he only had hours to live. He wanted this, wanted his last moments to be filled with pleasure, not fear.
He may have been giving Vala exactly what she always wanted, but with no possible repercussions, he would give her this one last thing, give them this one last thing before they died.
Finally naked, they fell back onto the sand together. Lips collided, hands groped and moans filled the poisonous air around them.
If Daniel would have known that it would be this good he might have done this with her sooner, but he knew that the logical side of him would never have let him. A strong surge of emotion filled him as they collapsed, breathless. He wasn't sure what he was feeling exactly, but he figured that it wouldn't matter soon.
Vala curled up on Daniel's chest and they huddled together without speaking.
He just held onto her until they fell asleep, hoping that their death would be swift and painless.
End of Chapter 6. Reviews are loved.
-J