The Next Day
Vala doesn't notice that she is humming while SG-1 gears up for a mission, but the rest of the team does. Daniel can't help but smirk to himself that he has that power over her, even though it's been the better part of a day since they were last together, at least in a carnal way.
"What's got you in such a good mood, Princess?" Cam asks.
Vala glances at Daniel for a second, wondering if he is still as good as his word about being willing to tell everyone that the two of them are together. He's looking away from her, and it's enough for her to conclude that he's changed his mind about the whole business. She doesn't know that he's trying his best to keep himself away from locker room bragging about sexual prowess. Vala may be quite the flirt, but he was pretty sure she wasn't up to the level of men in a locker room talk.
Vala is, in fact up to that level. She decides that if Daniel isn't going to tell everyone about them, she is going to use the secret to torture him. "I got lucky last night." She announces.
Daniel almost chokes on the way she presents the news. Teal'c and Cam look at him with sympathy in their eyes, assuming that jealousy is the cause of the reaction.
"I believe you have offered more information than was requested of you," Teal'c tells her.
"It's called TMI," Cam mutters.
"That's not true. I offered just as much information as was required. Cam asked why I was so cheerful, and I told him it was because I had really great sex."
Daniel's cheeks turn red from embarrassment that his teammates mistake for anger.
"Vala," Sam quietly scolds. She's been playing the role of peacekeeper on this team ever since she was assigned when her husband was promoted to General some time back.
"What, Samantha, haven't you ever gotten the kind of sex you feel like you had to brag about?" Vala asks her friend, without the conspiratorial whisper the other women was employing.
"I'm pretty sure Jack would kill me if I ever got the urge to brag," Sam says.
"I can certainly understand that sentiment," Daniel mutters.
The whole room… Vala included, stare at him open-mouthed as he outed himself.
"You?" Cam asks, unable to say the words that would have to follow to make it a more complete question of the mild mannered young man.
Daniel blushes, and comes forward to take Vala's hand, "We're together… I'd planned a much less embarrassing announcement, but what can you expect when Vala is involved?"
"Well, dear, I thought you were going back on your promise to tell the world about us," Vala says.
Daniel looks into Vala with a facial expression which clearly shows that they have lost all track of the world except for the two of them. This declares more completely that the two of them are committed to one another than any act of PDA ever could, "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not ashamed of you before you start believing it?"
"This will definitely help," Vala says.
"You guys are really together." Cam says, realizing to his shock that this is not a booty call that is going to screw with the dynamics of his team. Whatever this is, it's going to be long term. Although, he's still not sure that it won't screw with the dynamics of his team.
"Yeah, we really are," Vala ways with a voice that warms up Daniel's chest. He's relieved that he isn't the only one who thought so.
"Well, I hope you guys are going to be able to keep your hands off one another, because the people of P3X-909 are asexual. It's going to be awfully hard to explain that dopey look on your face to them."
"Don't worry, we'll be professional," Daniel says.
"Yes! Totally professional!" Vala agrees. Daniel turns to leave the locker room, and she pinches his butt as she goes.
He turns around to give her a glare.
"Off world. I mean, I'll be totally professional off world," she amends.
"How about any time we're on base or off world?" Daniel asks.
"I live on base," she whines.
Not for long, Daniel thinks in his head.
"Yeah, well, all of us work on base, so I agree with your boyfriend that you should keep your shenanigans off base," Cam says quickly.
"Shenanigans?" Sam asks with a raised eyebrow.
"I prefer this word to Vala Mal Doran's description of their actions," Teal'c says.
"Amen to that," Daniel says.
"It was all complimentary," Vala mutters in her own defense.
One Week Later
Rya'c had gotten another letter from Amy. For a girl who had written several books of manga by the time that she'd left high school, her letters were pretty short, and far between. What she had to say was mostly about how amazing the tribe she was working with was, and how they were really starting to accept her as a member.
"I've always thought that I would stay just long enough to understand the people that I was working with, and then I would move on to the next group. What I am just beginning to realize is that a lifetime isn't long enough to even begin to understand a group of people, not really."
She wasn't coming back. Rya'c knows that in his heart of heart, even though she hasn't said it yet. He wonders how he ever could have been so foolish as to believe that she was going to come back.
One Day Later
Rya'c puts his head against her forehead, a gentle Tek-no-rem to calm her. Her sisters were already in bed but Aaliyah never went to bed without a bit of protest.
It's like screaming, so loud that it is almost painful, but it isn't words or even sounds that are being screamed, it's pictures, it's feelings.
Jayla in footy pajamas snuggled against her, sucking her thumb to the rhythm of a nursery rhyme read by his own voice. The nursery rhyme is wordless, it is only the rhythm, the predictability that breaks through. Through the picture runs something stronger even than love. It might be called loyalty, but what other people mean when they say that word was a weak comparison indeed.
There was fear, and terror, and blood. Only, Aaliyah didn't know it was blood. It's hard to understand things like that when you're little, and haven't mastered English yet. She only knew that her mother was leaking like a water balloon, and soon there would be nothing left.
Then Cassie's arms around her, holding her, and rocking her back and forth. Back and forth. Just the motion, and the embrace. That was all there was left in the world when the water balloon leaked out… but it was enough.
A chipmunk, her sister, talking always a thousand miles a minute. The noise never stopped. But to Aaliyah, that was a good thing. She liked things that were certain, that could be counted on. Her sister could be counted on to talk, always talk.
He pulls away, startled by the images. It's more than he thought the little girl was capable of thinking about, more than he thought that she knew about the world. He would probably think that the images had really come from his own mind, only he could never think of something so unique, so different.
She looks startled by the break in contact, and is pulled too quickly from Tek-no-rem. She blinks at him, and he knows what those blinks mean.
"You heard me."
He leans forward, and puts a kiss on her forehead. She doesn't like it. She doesn't understand kisses, they are too social, too token, too symbolic for her. She understands hugs, and snuggles, for they are real human contact that fills a need she desperately has.
She doesn't want any affection now, she wants his forehead back where his lips have been.
She's been silent for seven years, and she has a lot of catching up to do.
"I love you," he tells her.
The words don't make sense. They are not an action. They are not a song. They have no rhythm. She can't count on them.
He leaves the room with her mind still reaching, striving to touch his.
"I love you," her mind repeats.
That must be a way to tell someone you are leaving.
Like a flash her echoic memory repeats it back to her… Her mother mouthed those words as the water balloon emptied.
-0-
"How was your day?" Cassie asks as she returns from work.
The girls are all fast asleep now, and rooms away from the miracle, it feels far less real than it did when Rya'c was right up against it. He can't actually find the words to describe what happened to him tonight with his forehead against the little girl's, at least not without sounding crazy.
"Fine," he tells her, and leaves.
She watches him go, and wishes… that she was someone else, or that he was. Whatever it would take for him to look at her with the same intensity he looks at the little girls. Well, not exactly the same intensity; a different flavor, but equal force.
-0-
Cassie wakes up to hands on her face. That is a sure sign that Aaliyah is trying to get her attention. She opens her eyes, and takes the sobbing girl into her arms.
"Ry'ac!" she sobs. "I want Ry'ac, please." She can see in her head the blood coming out of him. He's deflating like a water balloon. She has to do something fast, or else he will be gone forever just like her mother was.
"Honey, Rya'c went home for the night. He doesn't live here," Cassie explains.
The words have no rhythm, they are not actions, so she doesn't understand them.
"I want Rya'c," Aaliyah sobs again, desperate to save his life.
Cassie hold the small girl tighter, and reaches for the phone.
-0-
As soon as Ry'ac enters the house, Aaliyah launches herself into his arms.
"I don't know what's wrong," Cassie tells him, having long since given into sobs herself.
He doesn't bother to answer her, but simply but his head against the small girl's forehead.
Aaliyah feels his presence. How can he be here? Is the water balloon leaking more slowly than her mother's?
His voice is calm, and deep. It is completely lacking in pain. He is fine. How is he fine?
'I love you's come through his mind like waves on a beach. Steady, deep, and comforting.
'I love you' isn't what you say before you leave. Aaliyah doesn't know what it means, but she knows that it is a good thing, a very good thing.
He pulls away, minutes later, and looks at a frantic Cassie.
"She thought that I was dead," Ry'ac explains.
"How exactly do you know that?" Cassie asks, trying not to sound to jealous at his special knowledge.
"Well, something happened today, and I didn't tell you about it, because I didn't really know how to explain it. When we were in tek-lo-reem, she spoke to me."
"She probably doesn't realize you're not supposed to talk when you are meditating," Cassie says, defending her daughter.
"No, you don't get it. She didn't use words. When you're deep in tek-lo-reem, you see the other person's thoughts. I mean, usually that is words, or at least words and other things. Aaliyah doesn't think in words though, it was picture, and feelings, and…"
"What did she say?" Cassie asks.
Rya'c struggles to find words to put all the things that Aaliyah thought in to words. "She said that she really likes her family," he summarizes.
"How did that lead to her thinking that you were dead?" Cassie asks.
"Well, when I felt all the things that she as feeling, I realized how much that she cared for all of us, me included. So I told her that I loved her."
"What's the big deal? I tell her that all the time."
"I know, but she doesn't understand how speech words. She understands repetition, and rhythm and pitch, but she doesn't understand that the words actually mean something. She didn't understand what you meant. She only realized what I was saying, because it was so close to a memory of someone else saying it. It was the last thing her mother ever said to her."
Cassie tightens her grip on the girl in her arms, which prevents Aaliyah from falling asleep when she was just about to. "She remembers that?" Cassie asks.
"She worries about it a lot," Rya'c admits.
"Does she understand death?" Cassie asks, trying to find a way to grasp a concept as big, as horrible, as strange as that without the use of any words.
"In her own way, yes, she knows that her mother is not coming back. She knows that it's because she got hurt."
"I want to talk to her like that. Can you teach me?" Cassie asks.
Rya'c smiles, and gives the tiny nod that he and his father both use to agree. Cassie shifts Aaliyah off to the side of the couch, and the two of them face each other with their knees folded under themselves.
Rya'c starts to move in to touch foreheads, and Cassie is surprised by how closely this move resembles the move that boys made when they were about to kiss her. She stares at him in surprise.
"You have to close your eyes," he tells her.
"Of course," she mutters, thinking this is making the kissing metaphor complete. He misses the sarcasm, and touches her forehead.
He goes rapidly into meditation, and his mind reaches for hers. Hers is flighty, and fidgety, and untrained, and it's twenty minutes before he can grasp it for a single second of joint revelation.
But, oh, what revelation it is!
The things she feels for him. There is admiration for his parenting skills. There is love for his stoicism. There is fascination with his origins. Most of all though, there is longing, to trust, and yet… not quite the ability to do so.
It's only a second, and then her soul pulls away from his, "I never meant to tell you," she says, picking up the girl and carrying her out of the room.
Rya'c stares after her, glad that he and Amy made no promises not to see other people, because that felt a bit too much like cheating.