"Our Lives As Happenstance" - Chapter 8
Title: Our Lives As Happenstance
Author: Milena D.
Rating: T (PG-13) for now
Genre: Action/Angst/Romance
Pairings: Daniel/Vala, some Cam/Sam can be seen as shippy
SPOILERS: HUGE SPOILERS FOR CONTINUUM.
Summary: A divergence in the lives of our team from one of the last scenes of the movie causes their future to change radically and permanently. Daniel/Vala and HUGE spoilers for CONTINUUM.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Stargate Continuum, the Stargate Series, any of the characters, I don’t even own the premise which is the plot from the movie. Basically I own nothing and am making no money so please don’t sue.
Author’s Note #1: Can I just say a HUGE GROUP THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed the last chapter? You guys are as amazing and encouraging as I remember. Really brings back great memories of the good old days! :D
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
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Chapter 8: Uncertainties
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Daniel tried hard not to sigh and loudly express his discontent at being roped into this meeting. Only Sam was really necessary to discuss the possibility of recreating the temporal device with the Council. But no, Freya and Anise decided he absolutely had to be there and he was unable to decline the request of their hosts. Even Cam had been invited, probably just in time too since the way he was gingerly sitting in his chair made Daniel believe that their friendly neighbourhood Jaffa still packed a punch.
Sam was droning on about how she believed the temporal device worked, visibly excited with her explanations but Daniel couldn’t seem to reach her level of enthusiasm for one very specific reason.
“I don’t think we should do it.”
His spontaneous declaration brought the room to silence, his two teammates looking at him with shock.
“Jackson?” Cam called from his seat next to Sam.
“Look,” he began haltingly, “I would give anything to go back to our real lives. To get back to a free Earth, free Jaffa, safe Tok’ra, believe me. But I don’t think this is the kind of technology that should ever be recreated. Forgive me for saying this but, especially not with you.” His doubt was aimed at the Tok’ra who looked none-too-pleased with the implications.
“Dr. Jackson, you doubt we would use the device for good?” Martouf asked with a hard edge.
“No, Martouf, not at all.” Daniel replied sincerely. “But I don’t think you’ll use it the way we intend to. To reestablish the original timeline.” The Tok’ra did not look any less affronted.
“Tell me honestly that you wouldn’t try to use the device to save Jolinar.” Daniel accused him gently, feeling bad for the look of pained shock on the other man’s face but no longer willing to beat around the bush. “Tell me that none of you would want to use it to save someone, or to stop someone before they hurt others.”
No one spoke.
“They are noble and good intentions, but we’d be back at square one where the timeline would be drastically altered and who knows what the result could be.” Daniel continued before looking back at Martouf. “I mean, let’s just consider what Jolinar’s death resulted in. Sam never would have made contact with a goa’uld-like entity that wanted to fight on our side, the Earth-Tok’ra alliance might never have been forged, and we’re back to this timeline’s reality where you’re being hunted into extinction because we never had a chance to fight together.”
“Our only goal should be to reset our original timeline.” Daniel concluded. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t trust the Tok’ra of this timeline to uphold that.”
Alright, so maybe it had been a good idea to come to this meeting after all.
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As the Jaffa made his way to the center of her small room, Vala couldn’t bring herself to close the door, at least not with them both on the same side of it. She was in an odd place between terrified and apathetic. It was like a protective blanket of numbness had settled over her shoulders, the same one she’d worn for days before Daniel had come to gently tug it off of her.
“What do you want?” She asked tonelessly, her eyes low and restless, but the Jaffa simply inspected her from head to toe. Teal’c had never seen this woman as she was now. This scared, disheveled woman with a quiet yet rough voice was completely unknown to him.
“ColonelMitchell has informed me that we were once part of a group called SG-1 in the alternate timeline.” He began formally, catching the look of confusion on her face. “Colonels Mitchell and Carter have been keeping vigil outside during your convalescence. They are friends of DanielJackson.”
“He- He told me there were others...” Vala nodded in comprehension.
“ColonelMitchell is attempting to rebuild what they once had,” Teal’c continued, hands at his back, “which he says includes a bond of camaraderie between us.”
“Ha.” Vala chuckled humourlessly. “You know my memories are...well quite frankly they’re something akin to the debris of a naquada explosion. But I get the strangest feeling that not too long ago you were actively trying to kill me.”
“Indeed, I was.” Teal’c intoned with no hint of remorse. “Qetesh needed to be destroyed.”
“That she did.” Vala agreed quietly.
“And now she has been.” The massive man pointed out before stepping into her personal space, making her feel like the the universe was imploding in on her and she’d be crushed. She took an immediate step back but she forgot that she’d been in front of the stile of the door and her progress was rudely halted.
“Are you familiar with the adage ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’?” His voice somehow managed to pierce through her haze of panic to reach her.
“It’s...pretty universal, yeah.” She said, managing not to stutter. Out of her peripheral view she saw him move and her body tense until she could process that he had extended his hand, palm upwards.
“You have nothing to fear from me, ValaMalDoran. We were never enemies.” He encouraged her. Vala stared at his hand for quite a few moments, just absorbing the context of this scene. Finally, though, she took a cleansing breath and boldly put her hand in his, shaking it as firmly as her weakened state allowed her. Without letting go, she finally let her eyes rise to meet his.
“No, I don’t suppose we were.”
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“Jackson, wait up!” Cameron cried, jogging with Sam to catch up to their teammate after the Council had adjourned until the next day. Daniel stopped with a small sigh and turned.
“You wanna tell me what that was in there?” Cam questioned, more than a bit confused.
“Guys, I meant what I said in there.” Daniel shrugged. “We don’t know these Tok’ra, we shouldn’t be trusting them with this kind of technology.”
“Okay, so we find another race to team up with.” Cam returned, his hands splayed out to express his inability to understand the problem.
“Which?” Sam asked them both, trying to act as mediator but not able to think of a viable option. “The Asgards would be my first choice but we’ve had no indications that they didn’t destroy themselves like in our time. After them and the Tok’ra, who’s left with the means and willingness to trust us?” Daniel nodded readily.
“Fine. Then we do it on our own, in secret, and rig an explosive with a timer to blow it up after the timeline’s been restored if you’re that paranoid.” Cam interjected.
“Okay, first, if we made it back to our time, the machine we built in this one wouldn’t exist anymore so we wouldn’t need to worry about it.” Daniel replied coolly, looking to Sam for confirmation on his answer. She nodded distractedly and he continued. “Second, how exactly do you propose we do that with no resources, no home world, and arguably no allies?”
“We-We’ll figure it out, okay?” Cam all but yelled. “What’s up with you?”
Daniel bowed his head uncomfortably but didn’t answer.
“Yeah, Daniel...you’re acting as if you don’t want the timeline to be fixed.” Sam approached more calmly, laying a soothing hand on Cam’s arm.
“Of course I want it to be fixed.” He replied honestly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I just... There’s no guarantee that it’ll work perfectly, for one. And can you imagine how long it would take us to appropriate all the material we’d need? To set it up? For Sam to perfect the calculations? Not to mention needing a stargate to hide with this thing because we couldn’t exactly install the device right next to a functional stargate on any old inhabited planet! It could be ten years before it was ready to go.”
“So we’ll have more gray hairs when we get home, I’m not seeing the problem.” Cameron replied slowly, teeth clenched.
“You’re done, aren’t you?” Sam asked, her voice soft but accusing as she faced Daniel down. “You were all fight until we found Vala and now you’re done.”
The empty corridor was completely devoid of sound for long moments until the man in question felt able to reply. “Maybe I am.”
“Are you kidding me with this?” Cam asked, physically removing himself to the farther wall for fear he’d do irreversible damage to a certain archeologist. He didn’t stay turned away for long before he swerved back around, his finger jabbing in Daniel’s direction. “You realize there’s a sane Vala waiting in our timeline right? One who wasn’t made Ba’al’s queen? Who wasn’t tortured for god knows how long? And what about, I don’t know, the six billion people on Earth? They’ve been wiped out and those who haven’t probably wish they were!”
“And we can help them!” Daniel yelled back, his fist coming out of his pocket to rest tensely at his side.
“Not really, Daniel.” Sam got into the mix, crossing her arms. “I mean we can help the handful of survivors who have been made slaves, yes, but what about the millions, billions who didn’t make it? We can save them all by fixing the timeline.”
“Okay,” Daniel returned, his tone sarcastic, his own arms crossing, “what about the countless worlds that have been enslaved or ‘cleansed’ by the Ori that never would have if not for us? The Ori aren’t in this part of the universe at all in this timeline. Hell, Adria isn’t alive either to lead the crusade because Vala never went to the Ori galaxy. How does that enter into your figures?”
His opponents had no rebuttal.
“Look, I’m not saying that we definitely can’t try to get back to what we used to be but guys...you’d resigned yourself, we’d resigned ourselves to a life on the alternate Earth, never having any contact with each other, with Teal’c, with Vala, or anyone we even knew on the planet. Why couldn’t you live with this life?” Daniel asked them.
“We were only resigned to that life because Big Brother was watching our every move.” Cam threw back.
“Please, we could have found a way around that. I mean, we weren’t exactly lacking in ingenuity or resources.” Daniel retorted, rolling his eyes.
“You’re saying we were already done too.” Sam concluded quietly. Daniel’s shoulders bunched up and his head bobbed slightly.
“I think we needed a break. Mundanity. Some peace for a while.” He said with the air of great reflection.
“And now that peace has been shattered, wouldn’t you say?” Cam asked darkly, not satisfied with the turn of events. “That was our cue to get our butts in gear, which we did.”
“And got our asses handed back to us.” Daniel drawled, unimpressed.
“We got our people back!”
“Exactly!” Daniel exploded, his hands coming out in supplication for understanding. “We have Teal’c and Vala back in a world that’s gone to hell. Our options now are staying in this world with them or, what? Spending the next ten or more years slowly gathering components? That would likely mean stealing them as we have nothing to trade, no one to vouch for us, nowhere to go. And stealing means sooner or later getting into more trouble with the Goa’uld or whoever else could possibly be out there in this timeline. Is that the life you want to live for the next indefinite period, Mitchell? Sam? On the run or fighting for our own selfish purposes?”
“What do you suggest instead?” Sam asked instead of replying.
“I suggest...finding a peaceful, habitable world and just...live.” He said with a shrug, surprising even himself with the conclusion he reached.
“And just forgetting about everyone who died on Earth?” Cam asked, jaw clenched. “Huh? What about General O’Neill? General Landry, everyone we knew on base? What about Cassie Frasier?”
“We don’t know they’re all dead.” Daniel returned futilely. “And I’ve already said, you had both resigned yourselves to never having any contact with them for the rest of your lives, just like I did. How is that any different?”
“It’s different in that we knew they were alive!”
“Is it?” Sam sighed, wishing there were chairs in this corridor as her strength was just running out of her as her brain processed what she’d refused to let it before. “We had no clue who was and who wasn’t alive on Earth aside from Generals O’Neill and Landry. We don’t know if those who were alive were well or... And Cassie Frasier isn’t a Frasier in this time. She could be safe on her homeworld with her real parents for all we know. Maybe Nirrti never went there in this time.”
“We could find out.” Daniel suggested sympathetically. “We know the address. We know the address of almost every planet we could want to go to and those to avoid. And Teal’c knows this timeline, he could guide us in it just like he did when he first joined SG-1 over a dozen years ago.”
His two friends could no longer reply under the weight of their thoughts so with a grim smile, Daniel left them with some final words. “If we do decide to try to get back, I’ll be there with you. You know that. I just...we do have other options and consequences to think about.”
As soon as he’d rounded the corner, Cam let himself slide to the floor, leaning back into the curvature of the Tok’ra walls, his arms resting loosely on his knees. Sam watched him with torn eyes and moved without reservations when he patted the floor beside him. For a long time, neither said anything, both still reeling from their confrontation with Daniel and comfortable just sharing this quiet moment.
“Could we really do this?” Cam finally ventured, eyes fixed on the opposite wall.
“Daniel could. Vala probably could too, she’s been through a lot. She’d probably kill for some time out of the fray.” Sam replied, absently ticking their friends off with her fingers. “Teal’c...”
She looked over at him and they both grinned. “Not a chance.”
“And what about us?” He asked, nudging her with his shoulder.
“I don’t know.” Sam replied, losing her smile. “Well I’m betting you’ll be able to sit on your hands for all of a month or two.”
“I could do two, easy.” Cam boasted, a playful smirk dancing along his lips, bringing hers back to her mouth.
“Yeah? What about that time we had nothing but reconnaissance missions for a month and Lam had to declare you unfit for gate travel because you’d overexerted yourself working out with Teal’c and tore a muscle?” She teased him, eyebrow lifted. “Face it, you’re an adrenaline junkie.”
“Yeah, alright. Maybe.” He conceded with a lopsided grin. “What about you? You wouldn’t miss kicking ass every so often?” Sam chuckled and smiled broadly.
“I think you underestimate my scientist side. You could lock me in a room with some mysterious device and I’ll spend the month happily forgetting about the rest of the world.”
“Yeah, but I doubt there were be too many of those devices on the worlds Jackson’s suggesting.” Cam pointed out gingerly.
“That’s true.” Sam nodded, her eyes taking on a pensive look. “And...I don’t know that I could really stand aside and just twiddle my thumbs knowing Earth has been taken over. I don’t know that I can stay away from that.”
Cam’s head tilted to the side appraisingly before his arm made its way around her shoulders. “Well, if you couldn’t, you know I’d have your back. Rain, wind or snow.”
She knew that very well and wasn’t sure what her mental state would be at this point if she didn’t have that assurance. “What about hail?”
“Oh,” he started, his face turning into a visible grimace, “I don’t know. That stuff really hurts. I mean, would we be fighting indoors? Because then, yeah, I could just hightail it from the ship or gate to the fighting location and I’d be fine. But outdoors...”
Crystal pure laughter bubbled out of Sam and she dropped her head sideways onto his shoulder. Cam’s face cleared into a pleased smile and his arm tightened around his teammate, enjoying this moment of mindless levity before the hard stuff came back into his mind.
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Daniel pushed the conversation with the guys out of his mind as he rounded the last corridor before Vala’s room. He wouldn’t think about that for now, he needed to be focused on her recovery first and foremost. Daniel hadn’t seen their Jaffa friend in a while but they’d all agreed that there should always be someone near Vala to make sure she wasn’t disturbed and to have someone there should she need anything. He assumed that since the rest of them had been called to the Council, their friend would have come to stand guard...but to be honest, this timeline’s Teal’c still had him a bit on edge, especially where Vala was concerned. And that creeping worry was definitely not allayed when Daniel saw a distinct lack of Teal’c out in the hallway and spotted the door to Vala’s room slightly ajar.
Despite having just argued for a peaceful retreat to a simpler life, Daniel’s years of combat training kicked in and he quieted his footsteps, eyes wide and ears on the alert for anything awry. As he reached the side of the doorway, he paused and was confirmed in his suspicions.
“You can’t do that.” Protested a husky but huffy voice.
“You did not specify that during the establishment of the rules.” Teal’c. Smug Teal’c. Yeah something was definitely wrong with this picture.
“Well I assumed I was playing with someone who wasn’t a cheat!” Vala replied. He could tell by her tone that she was pouting.
“You assumed incorrectly.”
“You know this really isn’t fair. You’ve had decades of training to be statue-stoic. I’ve only regained a barely tenuous control of my emotions a day or two ago.” If Daniel closed his eyes and disregarded the content of her complaint, he could have sworn it was his Vala decrying the injustice. Her voice had the same pitch and intonation as when she knew she had lost but was determined to milk everything she could out of an argument. And the breezy, casual mention of what horrors she’d been through...well that was nothing if not Vala.
Daniel slowly let himself into the room to finally lay eyes on the spectacle he’d been eavesdropping on. Vala sat cross-legged on her bed, Teal’c sat on the chair he’d left, and between them a set of colourful chips spread out in a special array on a second chair.
“Hey guys,” he called, his entrance having been ignored, “what’s going on?”
“Daniel!” Vala greeted joyfully, her smile growing greatly. “We’re playing Reds, you can play on my team.”
“There are no teams in Reds.” Teal’c intoned, his brows furrowing in disapproval.
“Oh, please. Look at him, he’ll probably be more of a detriment to my efforts anyway, let him feel included. Besides, between you and that snake in your stomach, I’d say it’s been teams-play from the get-go.” Vala returned dismissively, already doling out a new round. Her opponent’s single brow of appreciation rose and he nodded, accepting his chips.
Daniel, however, still hovering near the door, was torn between feeling affronted by the implication that he couldn’t hold his own in their game and wanting to grin with the joy of having been teased by the woman before him. The woman he’d just found again, who was sitting with someone who should be her enemy, who was trusting someone she barely knew. The latter emotion definitely won out but he withheld his grin lest he prove her point.
“I’ll just watch for this round, I think.” He said, taking a seat next to Vala on the bed. “I don’t really know how to play this one.”
“You don’t hustle, you don’t shoot at things. Darling, what is it exactly that you do?” Vala asked distractedly.
“Wha- I shoot at things!” He protested.
“No you don’t. My new friendly Jaffa here says you’re some type of intellectual that plays with dirt.” She replied loftily, sharing a solid look with the man across from her that conveyed nothing but amusement.
“Not dir- It’s- I’m an archeologist, I-I uncover and study and protect artifacts.” Daniel answered, eyes closed, bushy eyebrows frowning.
“Like treasure?” Vala perked up, placing a chip down with a sharp clack.
“No, not like treasure.” Daniel sighed before looking up and nodding his head sideways. “Well actually some of it is treasure, yes.”
“Ooh, please tell me we were a gang of interplanetary jewel thieves, or grave robbers. I can see it now: Muscles here with the connections and intimidation factor, you as the resource man and scalper, my lovely self as the extravagant distraction, and Cameron and Samantha as the under-the-radar perpetrators.”
“We were not interplanetary jewel thieves.” He replied, long-suffering though the small grin on his face belied his amusement at the image she painted. Instead of arguing the point further, he turned to Teal’c. “You spent a couple of days with the guys and you didn’t discuss what SG-1 did at all?”
“We did.” The large man replied, playing a chip. “ValaMalDoran refused the explanation.”
“Well I mean fighting the evils of the galaxy is glamorous I suppose. And I’m sure there are good spoils to be had by grateful village-folk and the likes. But honestly, Muscles, look at that face.” Vala scoffed, gesturing towards Daniel before playing another tile. “I haven’t seen your Cameron or Samantha but if they’re cut from the same cloth I’m thinking we kicked some Goa’uld rears while they kept our drinks fresh and our clothes neatly pressed.”
“Hey!” Daniel protested once more. Vala turned her head to the side to catch the blue-eyed man looking down at his biceps and choked back a grin.
“Yes, darling, those are nice, I just can’t see you using them.” She patted his leg sympathetically. Teal’c, across from her, grinned and laid a tile down on the chair, the slightest detectable flutter of his lashes telling her all she needed to know. With a very wide and smug smile, Vala laid down the tile that ended the game softly on top of her opponent’s. Teal’c’s lips straightened in displeasure but he tipped his head in congratulations.
“Thank you, darling,” she said, turning to flash Daniel a victorious smile, “seems we do make a good team after all.”
“We could have told you that.” A new voice came from the door, creating a hush in the room.
“Cameron Mitchell, I presume?” Vala greeted, inwardly pleased to find herself doing so without much fear or anxiety in the face of strangers.
“Yes, ma’am.” Cam replied cheekily as he edged the door open to its full angle and admitted himself into the room. A shorter blonde appeared from behind his tall frame smiled happily at the other woman in the room.
“Hi Vala.” She waved shortly but brightly.
“Samantha, is it?” Sam nodded and came closer behind Teal’c.
“It’s very nice to finally meet you both.” Vala declared softly, her eyes taking in her ‘teammates’ before sniffing and shrugging. “To be honest, I was starting to think Daniel had just made you up to lull me into a false sense of security and make off with me in the middle of the night to suit his deep-seated carnal instincts.”
As the three other occupants in the room who weren’t archeologists started laughing, Vala took a moment while reshuffling the stack of tiles to savour the feeling of being surrounded by real people, real people who actually seemed to care about her. And then she got back to what she did best.
“Up for a round of Reds?” She invited the two late-comers.
“Um, sure, if you wanna teach us.” Sam said as Cam got a few extra chairs from the hallway. Someone could have suggested going out there where there was an actual table and room to move but somehow it just wasn’t brought up.
“Apparently it’s a game where you have to out-bluff others.” Daniel explained, still nearly pouting from earlier.
“Meaning Sam’s gonna kick all our butts, again?” Cam whined, setting the chairs down.
“Nonsense,” Vala interjected, “there’s plenty more to this game than a battle of bluffs. On a completely unrelated note, I think Samantha should be on my team. You know, girls vs. boys. Any objections? Perfect. Samantha, come sit by me.” With an indulging grin, Sam scooted her chair over to Vala’s side of the table-chair and the game was on.
After several rounds (and several more wins for the ladies), Daniel, bored as the unofficial referee, brought up a question he’d seen steadily creeping back into the eyes of his friends after the initial giddiness of the reunion.
“Have you guys given any more thought to what you want to do?”
Cam and Sam looked at each other from across the middle chair and seemed to have an entire conversation the rest weren’t privvy to in the span of ten seconds.
“We had.” Sam finally announced. “But we thought we should be talking about it with the whole team.”
“Talking about what?” Vala inquired enthusiastically, the urge to be in the loop too great to stay quiet.
“About whether or not we want to attempt to rebuild the temporal device.” Cameron informed her and Teal’c. To his credit, his voice didn’t hint to his bias at all.
For the next few hours, the chips forgotten, dinner coming and going, their lids getting heavier along with their hearts, the issue was debated ad nauseam until the whole of SG-1 reached a unanimous decision.
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Only one more left! :D Thoughts? Comments?
>>Next Chapter: Epilogue
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