I love this story so much! That's good for ya'll, because I get the chapters out quicker. ;) So here's this one, and I can't wait to hear what you think! As usual. Oh, and if you're reading Left Behind: SG-1, just so you know, I updated it yesterday. No-one has reviewed the chapter yet, which is rather discouraging...Anyway, enjoy this one! Thanks!

Chapter 5

Vala was out of bed earlier than usual the next day, even though SG-1 wasn't scheduled to go anywhere. In fact, it was Saturday. Sam and Cameron would be at home, but that was all right.

She dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast in the commissary, and then went to find Teal'c. Not surprisingly, he was still in his room.

"Morning, Muscles!" she said brightly, once he had told her to enter in that booming deep voice of his.

Teal'c nodded. "Vala MalDoran. Are you well this morning?" If he even noticed that her hair was down, he didn't say anything. But that was why she liked him; he didn't make a big deal out of things.

"Oh, I'm fine. Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"You have not seemed well."

The jaffa was seated in his desk chair, so Vala sighed and dropped onto the edge of the bed. "Really, I'm fine now. It was a phase. So do you mind if I ask you a favor?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "I suppose that I do not mind."

"Good!" She leaned forward excitedly. "Could you teach me how to drive?"

There was a moment of silence. "Is there a reason for this sudden interest?"

She shook her head. "No, no, not really," she lied. "I just decided that it would be a good idea to learn if I'm going to stay here." She hesitated. "Before, I…I wasn't really sure if I wanted to stay here permanently, after…"

Teal'c nodded once to tell her that he understood; she didn't have to finish. Vala sighed. "Right, well, anyway, could you do that?"

"I suppose that I could." He glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table. "Today is Saturday. I suppose you took that into account when you considered posing this question today?"

"Exactly."

Teal'c smiled. "Very well."

"You are not entirely unpracticed in this," Teal'c observed. They were in his SUV, driving around the back of the SGC section of the Cheyenne Mountain employee parking lot. Not that it was marked as such, of course; on the contrary, up here it was labeled as the lot of the employees of the 'deep space telemetry' lab that was supposedly stationed under NORAD.

Vala got a kick out of that.

She brought the vehicle to a bit of a jerky stop and shrugged. "When I'm shopping with Sam we stop at the arcade sometimes, so I already had the basic idea."

"I see. You are doing quite well for a beginner."

"Great," she smiled. "Sow how long did it take you to get it right?"

"Approximately four and a half hours."

She punched his arm. "Show-off."

"It was you who inquired," he answered with that small smile.

"I suppose," she sighed. She sank down in the seat. "So who taught you?"

The smile froze, and became more of a sad expression than anything. "It was Daniel Jackson, while SG-1 was trapped in the year 1969."

"Oh…I heard about that." She didn't know what else to say to that. Her heart ached for the fact that she couldn't tell her friends the one simple fact that would stop their pain. She knew it hurt Daniel too, but that didn't make her feel any better.

Teal'c suddenly sat straighter. "Shall we try again?"

Vala sat up slowly. "I suppose so. In my position, how would I go about getting a license for use on this planet anyway?"

"We will inform General Landry when you have gained sufficient skill as a driver. He may or may not wish to observe for himself, and then he will see to it that the license is procured."

"Is that what General Hammond or whoever he was did for you?"

"Indeed."

"You all told me he was that bald man in charge on the Prometheus when I hijacked it, right?"

Teal'c smirked now. "Indeed."

"Hmm. Ooops."

Vala practiced driving with Teal'c a while longer, before Sam called her cell phone looking for her, and asked if she wanted to be picked up so they could go shopping. Vala recognized it as a typical Carter ploy to cheer her up, but she didn't mind. After all, she was already cheered up. She might as well go anyway to thank her friend for thinking of her. Besides, she would need something new to wear in a couple of weeks…

She and Teal'c had to stop driving so she could go inside to get her purse, and then she thanked the jaffa and went up to wait for Sam.

"Hey," she grinned, when she slipped into the front seat of Sam's car when she pulled up.

Sam blinked at her, probably taking in the fact that her hair was still down, and she was happy. "Good morning to you too," she said finally. "You sure are in a good mood this morning."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Vala shrugged.

Sam looked like she was going to let that go, but then she let go of the steering wheel and turned to face her. She sighed. "I guess I have to admit I was worried about you. Something's been bothering you lately."

"It was nothing more than what's been bothering all of us," she said quietly. "Really Sam, I'm fine." She smiled, "I guess that knock on the head a couple of days ago did me some good."

Sam winced. "Yeah, how is your head?"

"Well it only needed a couple of stitches, remember? Nothing serious." She reached up under her long bangs to carefully feel for them. "I never can remember exactly where they are…" Her fingers brushed something. "Nope, ow, there they are." Vala pulled her hair out of the way to show her friend. "See? No infection. I'll be fine." She let her hair drop. "Now come on, I need some new clothes."

Sam chuckled. "Okay, okay. Mall, here we come."

"Yes!"

Sam slapped the steering-wheel replica in front of her "No! Oh, come on!" She whirled to face her friend sitting beside her. "I can't believe you just beat me."

Vala grinned innocently. "I've been practicing. Teal'c was teaching me how to drive this morning."

"Oh, that's sneaky," Sam smirked. She pointed to the game screen. "Want to go again?"

"Two out of three, or three out of five?"

"Oh, definitely out of five."

"You're on."

Daniel had no idea what he was supposed to do when he met Vala in a couple of weeks. Where was this going, anyway? He hadn't been lying…when he'd said what he'd said. The more he thought about it, he realized that it was true.

But due to circumstances, there were a limited number of things they could do, and browsing the internet aimlessly wasn't getting him anywhere.

Here there were useless human first-date suggestions, here there were numerous vampire legends that he had already seen, including gruesome and never really satisfying supposed accounts of relations between vampires and humans…All of them were wrong; none of the humans who put stories on these websites knew the true nature of the 'mythical' creatures they were talking about.

He wasn't really looking for anything in particular—it was more boredom than anything—but there was the lingering thought that maybe, by some chance, he would run across something that would give him some kind of clue into what was happening to him.

Like maybe what was making him crazy enough to think that maybe he could have any kind of relationship with Vala. She was human, and these were not the same circumstances Edward and Bella had been under. Nothing could really work out in the end…right?

Shopping gave Vala time to think and wonder, and by the time Sam dropped her back off at the SGC with her purchases, she couldn't help but go straight to the computer in her room. She had seen a few vampire movies in her time on Earth, but that was her only source of information about them, besides what few things Daniel had said. Curiosity raging, she typed the word into the first search engine she came across.

"Oh…bother."

Everything she came across was negative. Vampires were exhaustively old legends, evil creatures, killers who sucked the blood out of living victims. They were the living dead, so said the internet. It was true that Daniel had said there were bad vampires out there…But she wanted to know more about the type of vampires he was living with. What had he said? They were 'vegetarians' who only drank animal blood?

Interesting concept. Though even that made her shudder when she put it in the context of Daniel. It was the part she refused to think about.

None of the listings Vala came across on the internet included everything she knew about Daniel's physical state now. He had mentioned heightened senses, and the speed and strength she had witnessed for herself along with the pale, cold, hard skin, and the physical beauty…Now that she thought about nit, that part made plenty of sense. It was probably a perfect device for luring human prey, for those vampires that did that.

Vala sighed. "Daniel, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

Cameron grinned sheepishly when Sam answered her front door. He held out a single rose in a plastic wrap he'd had to buy hurriedly at a corner store on his way over. "Sorry I'm late?"

Her face was all scorn and annoyance for no more than five seconds before her mouth split into a grin. "Get in here, you big oaf."

Cam chuckled and stepped inside. Sam took the flower and shut the door behind him. She gave the rose a sniff, and that was when he realized that he hadn't pulled off the small price sticker.

"Ahmm…" He tried to grab it before she could turn the flower around, but he was too late. She saw it anyway.

"Hmm. You're late and you only spend three dollars? You'll have to do better next time, Colonel Mitchell," she teased.

Cameron slapped his forehead I embarrassment. "It would be just my luck that the day I'm supposed to help you cook dinner the sink at my apartment starts leaking."

"My handyman," she smirked.

"Not so much, really. It took me all day just to fix that."

Sam lead him back toward the kitchen, where the tempting smell of good food must have been coming from. "Speaking of fixing things, dinner is done."

"I kinda figured. Sorry."

"It's okay." She turned and kissed his cheek, then went to find a vase. She pulled a slender clear one from a top shelf, and Cameron turned the water on for her and leaned back against the counter.

"So what do you do today?"

Sam ran some water in the vase, he turned the tap off again for her, and she slid the rose into the vase and set it in the middle of her kitchen island next to the dish of meat. That brought his attention to the food.

"Oo! Salisbury steak. Now I really feel bad. I'm late, but you made my favorite."

"Good," she smirked. "And as for me, I went shopping with Vala today."

Cameron went to stick a finger in the sauce around the meat, but Sam slapped his hand away. "Ow! Okay, okay, sorry. So uh…I guess you guys had more fun today than I did, huh?"

Sam crossed her arms and frowned just a little. "Actually, yes."

"Was her hair down?"

She seemed understandably surprised by the question. "Yeah. We haven't seen that in months."

"I know, but it was down last night, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Okay, you know how she goes out in the woods sometimes?"

Sam nodded. "Yea, I know. It's another reason I worry about her."

"Yeah, me too. Anyway, on my way out last night I passed her coming in, and her hair was down. Again, that's the first time we've seen it down since the day Daniel disappeared. " There was a long moment of thoughtful silence. "Maybe…maybe she's just the first of us to really be moving on," he said quietly.

She pressed a hand to her mouth. "Maybe," she choked.

"Whoa, Sam?" Quiet tears trailed down her cheeks, and Cameron pulled her into a gentle embrace. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she gulped, shaking her head against his chest. He knew what she meant; this just happened sometimes. It was bad the first time, but not this bad, she had told him months ago, after a breakdown. That time, he had cried with her, even if it was only silent tears. We knew where he was then.

Cam held onto her, and kissed the top her head. We'll get through this, he'd said then. He still meant it.

Sam turned around in his arms. "I just…I don't understand. I know she loved him," she muttered.

He glanced at her. "Wait, you mean—?" She nodded. "Yeah…I kinda figured that too." He paused. "Maybe that's why she can let him go."

After a moment she stepped away from him and wiped at her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said easily, and one of his hands was still on her arm. "You okay?"

Sam dried her face and smiled at him thankfully. "I'll be fine." She motioned to the meat that was getting cold. "Come on; we're supposed to be having dinner, remember?"

"Mmm, dinner."

She wrapped her arms around his waist. "I didn't tell you the rest, either. I made you some macaroons."

He groaned. "Aww, Sam you still hate those things. You went all out in the lets-make-Cam feel-horrible-for-being-late department, didn't you?"

"Of course. But don't worry; there's ice cream for me. You can have some too if you want while we watch the movies I rented."

"Now I'm curious. What'd you get this time."

The grin slipped enough for him to see the amusement-tinged sadness in her eyes. "Indiana Jones."

Cam sighed and leaned in to give her a good kiss. "We can throw popcorn at the screen for him."

"I'll throw the macaroons you don't eat."

He laughed. "Come on; time for dinner."