Spoilers for "Beachhead"
Two Months Later
Vala knows that she has to do it. It's the only logical way to save the day. Someone has to do it, and there is a very good chance that someone is going to die.
It only makes sense that that someone was going to be her.
Everyone else has kids to go home to. Everyone else would be missed if they went on this foolhardy mission.
If someone doesn't do it, and fast, the entire universe is going to be taken over by the not so friendly Ori.
She was burnt at the stake. She'd died. Everything after that was a gift, really. A gift of the Ori. It was kind of fitting, in an ironic sort of way, that she would use their own gift to destroy them.
"What are you doing?" Daniel's voice reaches out to her over the radio. It's not too late, she could still chicken out. She could still ring aboard the big Earth ship. She didn't have to risk her life.
But by not risking her life, she would really be risking theirs. All of theirs, including their precious children, and that was not something that Vala Mal Doran could live with.
"Trying to help, Daniel, someone had to do something, and you wouldn't listen."
She tells them that she thinks she can make it back.
It's a lie.
She wonders what death is going to feel like. She wonders if there is some kind of an afterlife. She wonders if whoever is in charge of that afterlife is better at separating her action from that of a Goa'uld than the people of her village were.
Then there is unbelievable shooting pain all through her body. She presses the button for the rings, and steps into the platform, because you never know, there might be a miracle coming her way. SG-1 had been handed a lot of miracles.
Then again, she wasn't actually a member of SG-1 now was she? So whatever god, spirit, alien, or force which looked out for that team so carefully, probably didn't care quite as much for her.
Still, one could hope.
-0-
Daniel had passed out when Vala hadn't made it back onto the rings. He would let them think that it was because of the link between him and her. It wasn't though.
He'd lost someone else. He'd lost so many people already. Granted, he hadn't been that close to Vala, and she'd already burnt to death before his eyes. He should be used to it.
You never really get used to death though, not really.
-0-
Some dream, some horrible dream involving a face full of fire hovering over her bed. A face full of fire giving her something, something she didn't want.
Or something she did want very much. Something she wanted so much that it would break her heart when it was given to her.
Vala opens her eyes and finds herself in someone's bed. That's not a huge surprise. It's happened to her before. Only, she figured the next time it happened she'd be in Daniel's bed.
A man walks in. No, he limps in.
She loves the broken ones, she always has. The birds with the broken wings, the bruised and broken soldiers, the men with enough emotional baggage to last a life time. It hurt to love the broken ones though, either they got better-and they left, or they were broken so completely that they left with all their brokenness-like her father left.
Either way she was going to get hurt.
This kind of brokenness, the physical kind, might be safer than the emotional kind she'd been dealing with back on Daniel's planet.
At least he wouldn't be able to run away from her when the flirting got too much like Daniel could. This man, she could definitely outrun.
"Hi, I'm Vala" she says.
"My name is Tomin. How are you feeling?" he asks.
"A little confused, I don't know what happened," she confesses.
"The gods have sent you to me," Tomin replies.
"Ok, what method did they use?" she asks.
"I found you by the rings. You had lost consciousness," he says
"Well, I thank you for taking care of me," she says slowly.
"Only a fool would reject the gift that the gods had given them," Tomin says.
Vala has a strange feeling on her spine as he says the words.
Tomin smiles at her. "It is almost time for prostration. Do you feel well enough to have some food before I go?"
Vala nods her head. She's ravenously hungry. More hungry than she has ever been before in her life.
One Month Later
"I was impressed by your work," the man in the suit says opening the file, and looking across the table at Cassie. His words are kind, but his body language and tone are anything but.
"Thank you," she says. It's a class project. That's all. No reason to break out in a cold sweat just because the project is being graded by actual members of the business community.
"So impressive that I can't believe it was done by a student," the businessman continues.
Oh no, did the man think that she cheated? Because she didn't…well, she had cheated with James, but she had never cheated in school.
"How set are you in finishing you degree?" the man asks.
Was he going to get her kicked out of school? He couldn't could he? Not without some kind of evidence. Evidence that he was not going to find, because she hadn't cheated. "Very much sir."
"Well, that's too bad," the man says pushing back his chair a bit to study her, "because I was going to offer you a job."
"What?" Cassie says in shock.
"I've own a chain of coffee shops. Every single one of them is making loads of money. Except for one of them. I need a new manager."
"I don't want to take someone else's job."
"No, you won't be. The fool is going to be losing his job whether or not you take this one. Since you are so set on finishing school I suppose we could work around your schedule. If you were willing to cut back on classes, and take your time. We would of course make it worth your time as far as the money goes. Assuming you're as good at being a manager as you are were at this project."
"I appreciate the chance, sir," she says.
"Good," the businessman says closing her folder, and walks out of the room.
"So I take it this means that I got an A," Cassie mutters to the empty room.
A Week Later
A baby?
How could Vala be about to have a baby?
She sighted to herself as she pulled away from the bucket where she had lost her lunch, again. This planet was badly in need of some basic pluming infrastructure. Say what you want about Daniel's planet, but they did know how to get rid of bodily wastes.
The mention of Daniel's name, even in her thoughts, is almost enough to unwind her. If she was on his planet. If this was his baby….Hell, if this was anyone's baby, it wouldn't be so scary.
She remember once, when she was a little girl, that monster of a step-mother Adria had left her alone, again. She'd fallen off the cupboard when she was cleaning, and her arm had hurt so bad that she'd known that if it wasn't broken surely something bad had happened to it. The worst part hadn't been the pain, although that was just barely bearable. The worst part had been the cold terror of knowing that there was something horribly wrong, and not being able to put her finger on exactly what it was.
Or what to do about it. She was as clueless today as she'd been then. Eventually, she'd walked next door, and the women had sprinted it up, and taken her to the healer who set it properly, and given her herbs for the pain.
What is the proper treatment for a baby of unknown origin? An impossible baby? A miracle baby?
No, not that. Not for her kid. She understood why women had abortions. She even supported the right of them to do so. When you live a promiscuous life it is always something you have to think about.
Just not for her, or at least not again.
Here are some facts: It is forbidden for Goa'uld hosts to have children, especially by another Goa'uld host. Goa'uld, particularly those nicknamed 'the love goddess' like hers had been have lots of sex, often with other Goa'uld. The Goa'uld don't have any form of birth control.
You do the math.
A Goa'uld abortion was kinder than the back alley thing that Vala had seen on most of the planets she'd been to. Even kinder than the clean antiseptic one she'd held her friend's hand through once when she was a teenager. All the Goa'uld had to was give control of the body to the human, even for a second, and then…reassert itself.
A minute, an hour, a day after implantation, a tiny little bundle of cells lost it's grip, and disappeared forever.
She'd grieved for those babies, each one of them, until she'd lost count (and even after en masse the way you could grieve for an entire people slain by the Goa'uld).
This would be worse though, because, after making her sick for almost a week, this tiny thing inside of her stomach must be a lot bigger than a bundle of cells, and it was hers. At least she hoped so. In any case, after she carried it in her stomach for the better part of the year, it would be hers, even if she didn't have anything to do with it's origins.
"Kid, you are so getting me burned at the steak, and I didn't even DO anything this time. You think if I was going to die for my sin I could have at least had the sin first," she mutters.
She puts her hand on her belly, and leans back against the door. She misses the adobe of her home, or the metal of the spaceships she'd lived in when she was Quedesh (or Quedesh was her), or even the plaster covered walls of the walls of Daniel's house. All of these would have given her some chill as she leaned against them. There was nothing better than a bit of cool when you've just been sick.
Plan wood offered no chill. They also threatened slivers.
"Don't fret little one, Mama isn't going to let them burn us. She just isn't sure exactly how to get around it just yet," she says patting her stomach comfortably. She wonders when babies grow ears. She should probably figure that out so she has a deadline to stop saying terrifying things like that.
Or to start swearing in another language at the very least.
Suddenly there is the sound of a man walking across the floorboards with a limp.
Yes, Tomin, that is her answer. Of course, it was so simple that she wonders why she didn't think of it sooner.
Her mind supplies the answers without her trying, because Tomin is a good man, and she doesn't love him. He deserves better. Because it feels like she is betraying the one that she really does love.
What does that matter? This is about survival!
She puts a big smile on her face, and heaves herself off the ground. "Tomin!" she says with more excitement than her exhausted body actually feels.
A Week Later
Shelby picks up the phone, and hears the voice of Tamara's best friend, Niki, on the other end. "I'll get Tamara," she says, but she hears a voice calling her back to the line before she can call to her sister.
"No, I wanted to talk to you. It's so unfair that you're not letting Tam go to the dance! You're like the strictest mom ever, and you're not even a mom. Well, you are, but not like her mom or whatever," the girl says.
Shelby blinks in surprise, she hasn't heard anything about a dance, but she lets her sister's friend finish the scolding before giving her a polite goodbye. Then she walks into her sisters room, and says, "So, why exactly don't you want to the dance? Niki informed me that it was the first one of your high school career, and the event of the season."
"She got that out of some old book," Tamara says slamming her algebra textbook closed.
"Well, that doesn't automatically make it a lie," Shelby points out, "What's going on?"
"I just didn't want to go."
"Are you fighting with your friends?" Shelby asks sitting down on the bed next to her little sister, and realizing at the thought, that she isn't so little anymore.
Tammy sighs, seeing that there is no way she is going to get out of this without spilling her guts, so she admit, "It's the whole boy girl thing."
"Ok, what part of it?" Shelby asks.
Tammy just shakes her head, "The whole thing. I don't want it. Ever," the last words is firm, and definite, and more than a little bit terrified.
"You are pretty young to be declaring forever," Shelby says softly.
"It just sucks, you know, the end of all of this boy girl thing. I know it, and they don't, and I just don't want to participate in the game when I know it's just headed for…pain."
"Are we talking about sex right now?" Shelby asks in surprise.
Tammy nods.
"Oh honey, sex does not always suck."
"It…hurt," Tammy whispers.
"Well of course it did! When some bastard takes advantage of you when you are a little kid, and he's supposed to protect you it sucks, it hurts, it's awful. When you're in love, and you are married, and you actually WANT to have sex it's amazing."
Tammy blushes, she's finding out more about her guardian's love life than she meant to.
"That being said, I think you're a long way away from sex, but a high school dance isn't about that, or at least it shouldn't be. It's about getting dressed up with your girlfriends, and giggling over a guy, and being awkward, and giving up on the boys, and swing dancing with your best friend, and then being asked to dance by the dreamiest guy in school."
"That sounds like a Disney movie."
"It was my first high school dance," Shelby corrects.
Tammy crinkles up her nose, "It can really be good?"
"Are we talking about sex or school dances? Never mind, both. One of them you get to find out about tonight. When does this thing start? Do we have time to do your hair? I'm thinking very fluffy."
Tammy glances at the clock, and shakes her head.
"Ok, than how about you borrow my nice dress, eh? And Becky's sparkly headband."
"You don't think that's a bit little kiddish?" Tammy asks.
"No, I think it's a little fairy tale, and if you complain I'm going to cover you with sparkles."