The Next Day
Daniel is dropping off his sons at his daughter's house. He never imagined that he would be sharing child care responsibilities with his daughter. At this stage in his life, it just makes sense. It's hard to find someone to watch small children overnight. So when he has an overnight mission, he drops them off with their sister. On his days off, he takes his grandkids. When they are both busy, the children are looked after by separate nannies.
He can see that something is wrong the second that he walks through the door. "What is it?" he asks.
She shakes her head, hoping that he is going to let it pass.
He doesn't. He touches her shoulder gently, "Are you ok?"
"It's nothing," she repeats.
He stares at her a moment longer.
"It's Ry'ac," she confesses.
Terror and confusion fills his heart.
"Not like that!" she says in horror, "I'm in love with him."
Daniel raises his eyebrows, "You're in love with your nanny?"
"I know!" she bemoans.
"Ok, well, Ry'ac is a good man. A big step up from James. I don't really see what the problem is."
"He doesn't feel the same."
"You told him how you feel?"
"No, but he sort of found out by accident," Cassie says.
"Well, honey, I'm sorry, what did he say?" Daniel asks, worried.
"I didn't really give him time to say anything. I was way too embarrassed for that!"
"Then how do you know that he doesn't feel the same way?" Daniel asks.
"I could just sense it," at the raise of her father's eyebrows she adds, "We were meditating. You can find out a lot of stuff about someone just by meditating with them."
"Right, Teal'c and I have had some sessions together," Daniel says, flinching ever so slightly at the memory of a particularly nasty Jaffa battle which had accidently leaked into his mind.
"So, he doesn't love me, and I still love him," Cassie says.
"Oh, I am so sorry," Daniel says, pulling her into a nice long hug.
-0-
"You're here early," Cassie says. She's now faced with the unpleasant dilemma of losing an hour with her children, or spending an hour with someone she is so embarrassed to be around.
"The next hour I will be here for the kids, but this hour I am here for you," Ry'ac says.
"I'm sorry about what you saw, what you felt last night," she says, looking down so Ry'ac can't see her face.
"I'm not," Ry'ac says.
She looks at him, "Don't you lie to me. I felt your heart as clearly as you felt mine. I know that you don't love me."
"Didn't," he corrects.
"Well then, is your heart so fickle as to change its mind in a single night? I don't know if would be worth being loved by a heart like that."
"I'd never felt your soul before," he explains. "My dear Cassandra, you have a beautiful soul."
She blushes, but her eyes are still hard. She doesn't believe him, not yet. So he leans forward, and lets their foreheads touch, and then there is not a region of her mind left untouched enough by his mind that it can doubt a word he says.
"You're crying," he says as he pulls away. He takes the pad of his thumb to wipe the tears away from her eyes.
"I can't help it… It's like when you hear a really good song. Beautiful, but also… true," she says.
"Plato said that truth and beauty were the only things worth searching for in life," Ry'ac says, smiling at her.
"You've read Plato?" she asks in surprise.
He nods his head.
"Is that required to be a teacher?" she asks.
"It's required to live. But do you only read what is required of you? This planet has a great wealth of philosophers. I like that they write them down. In my culture, we spread the word of wise men from mouth to mouth. It is not a perfect system, and I do not think it is capable of reaching back as far as Plato, even though my people live far longer than the people of this world."
Cassie finds herself more than a little amazed. She can't remember if she's ever heard that many words from the quiet man before in her life. "I'm afraid that I haven't read much philosophy," she says.
He nods his head. He knows all of this and more from the examination of her head that he's just had, "It's a pity, because your mind is like the mind of a philosopher already," he tells her.
She smiles, "So we're dating?"
"Courting," he corrects.
"Is there a difference?" she asks.
He nods his head, but doesn't bother to explain. She doesn't ask him too. She figures she'll find out before too long, and it will be an adventure as she finds it out.
"What about Amy?" Cassie asks nervously.
"Amy and I made no promises to each other before she left. Nonetheless, I sent a letter this morning that more officially absolves our relationship."
"Are you sorry?" she asks, searching his eyes for the truth that a forehead touch would have offered her.
"No; Amy and I could never have made one another happy. I would always be a millstone around her neck, preventing her from flying off on a great adventure."
"Are we going to tell the children?" Cassie asks.
"No, not until…" he doesn't finish the sentence, but there is a little bit left of the connection form their meditation, and Cassie feels the rest of it anyway. She quickly learns the difference between dating and courting. Ry'ac is already thinking of marriage.
Dating is for teenagers, adolescents, children playing at the thing of love. They have both dated before. No; this thing, this is courting, and it is for women and men. It's a way for the two of them to start their life together.
The Next Day
"That was definitely the most exhausting mission in the history of the SGC," Vala complains as she and Daniel step through the gate. She's hanging off him with one arm around his neck, and the other around his waist.
"We're on base," he whispers.
"I know! I thought we'd never get here. I don't think I slept the whole forty hours we were gone!" she exclaims.
"What I mean is you have to get your hands off me now!" he exclaims.
"I'm sorry, but if I let you go I'm not going to be able to stand up," she protests while her head falls against his shoulder.
Frankly, Daniel is glad for an excuse to let her continue to hang off of him. He doesn't actually like the 'no PDAs on base' rule any more than she does. He just has to pretend to be a big fan, because if he doesn't enforce it, neither one of them is likely to have their job for very long. He winds his arm around her, and whispers in her ear, "Well, as long as we have a good sound medical reason for it, I supposed I can help you to the car."
"Daniel, I don't think you are getting how tired I am. There is no way I have the energy for even the laziest sexual position I know, and let me assure you I know more than a few truly lazy ones. I am just going to go straight to sleep."
Daniel blushes at the words coming out of her in a public place, even though she had the curtesy to whisper them. "I don't have the energy for sex either, but I thought you could still come over to my place."
Vala pauses, and looks up at him, "Why?" she asks.
"Well, so you can see the kids and we can cuddle, and wake up next to one another, and have breakfast together," he is about to continue on when suddenly a light bulb goes off in his head, "Vala, you've never actually slept with someone without having sex before, have you?"
She shakes her head, and he kisses the top of it, right where her pigtales are parted from. "You and me, we're more than just great sex," he tells her.
She snuggles her head against his forehead a little bit more as he reaches a hand away from her to press the button of the elevator.
Daniel realizes that he hasn't often said things like that to her. Things that would let her know how much she meant to him. He's going to have to change that. He's not very good with the words, even though he is a linguist, so he's going to have to show her how much he means to her. He has just the idea of how he's going to do it.
-0-
"Would you like to stay for dinner?" Cassie asks nervously. She hopes the Ry'ac understands that this invitation has more to do with their dating relationship than their working one. She hopes he knows that he's off the clock. Otherwise she could end up paying someone to date her. Of course, she isn't even sure if you can call it a date when there are little kids around.
"Yes," he says with a smile that clearly lets her know that he understands her intention.
He takes a seat at the head of the table, and she takes a seat at the other end. The three children sit between them, and more time is spent in teaching table manners and conversational skills than in talking like adults. She begins to regret her decision. Next time, she tells herself, they are going to have to go out, and have a proper date.
Then she looks over at Rya'c, and sees how happy he is. She remembers that they aren't dating. They're courting, and that is way better.
Later, when the kids have gone to bed, the two of them sit down for a long tek-lo-rem, undisturbed. As their souls mingle, any thought that this is too early, that this might not work out, fall from Cassie's mind.
Yes, a few more nights like this, and she'll be ready for an engagement, provided of course it's a decently long engagement.
The Next Day
When Vala wakes up, she is surprised to see Daniel sitting at the end of the bed, looking at an open drawer. She goes to her knees, and crawls up beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders.
"I gave you a drawer," he announces without taking his eyes off of it in order to look at her.
"Oh, this is one of those Earth things, isn't it? It's like a big important Earth relationship thing!" she squeals, bouncing up and down on the bed next to him.
He turns to her, and smiles for a second, before his face grows more serious again, "I tried to give you part of the closet as well, but I ran into some of Janet's things there, and I just couldn't."
"That's ok, we are going to take this thing as slow as either one of us need to," she tells him giving his shoulders a little squeeze.
"I'm sorry that I have so many ghosts in my closet," he tells her.
She slides from her knees to her bottom so she can sit next to him, "I like you all the better for them. There is something good about loving a man who has already loved someone, loved someone really well, with that forever kind of love. It makes me feel safer, you know."
He puts his arm around her, and kisses her on the forehead again. Then he gets up to take care of all of her fatherly duties, and leaves her alone to stare at the drawer for a long minute.
"You know, all the TV shows show people all happy over their drawers. They just don't go on to say what the people DO with their drawers afterword."