Chapter 5 Waiting.

Five months later.

Daniel's eyes were aching as he sat in his office, piecing together one of the hieroglyphic covered artefacts that they'd brought back from Monsoon World earlier in the year. It was gone seven in the evening and he'd been working since just after 0800hours. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes and laid his head on the desk.

There was Vala, popping up in his mind, just like she always did when he stopped thinking about work. She was standing in the control room, doing the window washer wave, exactly as she had looked when he had last seen her. His stomach knotted, and he sighed quietly to himself. He would give anything to see her again, to hold her close to him again. Not for the first time in his life, Dr Jackson wished that he could turn back time.

Mitchell had come through to Atlantis as soon as SG-1 had arrived back from Kelowna. Daniel had heard the "unscheduled wormhole" alert but paid no attention to it, until he heard the gate technician put a call out for himself. He thought initially that it must just be a radio transmission from the SGC but as soon as he saw the Colonel standing white-faced and desolate in the centre of the control room, he knew that he was there because something had happened to Vala.

Cameron had difficulty speaking – he stammered and stumbled over the words that he was trying to say. His guilt was drowning him, guilt at being out-manoeuvred, out-smarted and at having lost their team mate. Nothing that Daniel could have said would have made him feel any worse than he already did. And what could he have said? Anything like this could have happened to any of them, at any time. Indeed, it had on numerous occasions in the past. But all of those previous times, no member of the team had admitted to being in a relationship with another member. This time it was different.

Daniel had gone back to his quarters and packed up his stuff immediately, bringing with him only what he could carry and leaving the rest to be brought home by the Hammond at a later date. He'd gone straight back to the SGC with Mitchell and hadn't left since, apart from a weekly check on his apartment. Every SG team had followed leads and hunches – possible sightings and even impossible ones, but they all gave up the same result. Vala had vanished.

Jonas had stayed on Kelowna, and tried to discover anything and everything that he could about where Dalton Frayne may have come from, or headed off to after the encounter. One of their space satellites had picked up an energy signature leaving Langara's orbit shortly after the fight at the mine – he transmitted the data back through the wormhole to the SGC where Dr Lee confirmed that it came from a Tel'tak.

"At least that's sumthin'," Cameron had acknowledged. "I mean, chances are there might not have been anyone else on board. The odds are higher in Vala's favour that she could have beaten the crap out of that loser and survived."

"You mean, the odds are higher than if it was a Ha'tak or an Al'kesh?" asked Daniel bleakly. Mitchell bowed his head.

"Yeah, I know."

Three of Frayne's men had been left alive on the planet when their boss disappeared – one of them had tried to run and been taken down by Teal'c's staff weapon, the other two were locked up in a high security prison on Kelowna. They'd been no help. Dalton Frayne had employed them when he'd landed on their planet – they knew very little about him, and certainly nothing about where he would have gone next.

SG-1 had even gone to Vala's home world in a vain attempt to locate her. Daniel suggested that if she couldn't get back to the SGC unaided she may have gone there to wait for help. Teal'c wondered if the smuggler himself was also from her planet and that was how they had originally known each other. So they had travelled there and stayed for the best part of a week, but turned up nothing, so in the end they had to give up and go home.

The following week Landry had declared her MIA and Daniel had been asked very gently if he would pack up all of her things to put into storage. The archaeologist had to go and physically throw up part way through the procedure – when he held her precious little giraffe in his hands the tears poured down his face. He held it close against him, eyes shut, wondering how this could have happened to him again. How could one man lose two of his true loves in just one lifetime? It wasn't fair.

I won't give up though, he told the giraffe, God help me but I will find you, dead or alive, I will find you like I did my Sha're.

Vala's precious things had thus been packed away, including the little jewellery box that he had found under the bed – all except the giraffe. Daniel couldn't bear to give it up – it sat on the sofa in his office, waiting for it's owner to return.

So life had plodded on, stodgily, every day the same, wake, work, eat, work, sleep. Cameron and Redwell went out with other SG teams occasionally, Teal'c was based mainly on Chulak. General Landry was expecting him back sometime in the next day however, due to the fact that Colonel Carter and the George Hammond were at present in orbit around the Earth. Sam had transported down briefly, with sad eyes, and hugged Daniel and Cameron, before going in to see Landry. They'd met up again that evening and she and Mitchell had gone off to O'Malley's to get nicely hammered, but Dr Jackson refused to leave the mountain.

"What if she comes back and none of us are here?" he whispered, sorrowfully.

The other two had looked at each other, but neither of them had tried to talk him out of it. He'd still been awake however when he heard Mitchell stagger back into the guest room opposite, talking loudly to himself and tripping over his own feet. Consequently both Colonel's looked the worse for wear when they all met up in the cafeteria the next morning.

"General Landry was talking to me yesterday," said Sam, eyeing her pancakes and orange juice dubiously. "He thought that you might like to be seconded to the Hammond – just for it's latest mission. There's a rumour flying around out there about Ori treasure. Lost Ori treasure. Or rather, lost treasure that the Ori wanted to steal – I think that's more the case."

"Seriously?" Cam took a small mouthful of eggs and sausage, chewing carefully. He wished that he had his sunglasses on – the lights seemed very bright in the SGC this morning. "Road trip? How long for?"

"Not long, I'm afraid." Sam sipped at her drink. "Couple of weeks tops. Probably less. He just thinks – you know – might take your minds, I mean, our minds…." She trailed away.

"Might take our minds off of Vala?" asked Daniel quietly.

"Yeah, that's about it." The blonde Colonel pushed away her barely touched breakfast. "I know. It's a terrible idea. And you won't even leave the mountain, Daniel. Forget it."

Mitchell toyed with his eggs, his eyes shadowed.

"At least we'd be doing sumthin'," he said, sadly, looking from one to the other of his friends. Neither of them answered. After a minute or two Sam had to tug a tissue out of her pocket to blow her nose.

"Let's do it," said Cam. "For her. I mean, we're moping about, acting like she's dead, and we don't know for sure. She could easily be out there, waiting for us to find her. How we gonna find her if we never leave the mountain?"

Daniel went to speak but Mitchell stopped him.

"God helps those who help themselves, my Grandma always says," he sat up straighter in his seat. "And we need all the help that we can get right now."

The two Colonels' both looked at Daniel. He'd hidden in the mountain for the past five months hoping that she would come home, but maybe that wasn't the way to do it. Maybe they would have to go out and find her. Alive. Somewhere. He refused to believe anything different.

"Okay," he whispered.

"Okay?" said Sam, incredulously.

"Okay," he repeated.

"Okay!" Mitchell slapped his hands on the table. "Permission to come aboard, Colonel Carter!"

"Wearing that?" Sam indicated his grey T-shirt and jogging bottoms. Cam rolled his eyes.

"Very well, Samantha, I'll go get changed first. When do we leave?"

"Probably not until tomorrow. Daniel?" she looked at her friend, questioningly. He nodded.

"Tomorrow."

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