Update - A Gift From Above - Chapter 7
Title: A Gift from Above
Author: Milena D.
Rating: T for now
Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure, etc. Daniel/Vala all the way ;)
SPOILERS: HUGE SPOILERS FOR DOMINION!!!
Summary: Something went wrong and they’ve paid for it.
Author’s Note: Before reading this chapter, I would suggest rereading Chapter 4 because the flashback is relevant to this chapter. :)
Chapter 1: Emptiness
Chapter 2: Friendship
Chapter 3: Turbulence
Chapter 4: An Accomplice
Chapter 5: Daring
Chapter 6: Precipice
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Chapter 7: Nosedive
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The scene at Elom’s house was surreal, even for SG-1’s limited previous exposure. They didn’t know where the children might be but the sounds of high-pitched chattering that had become the background of their every moment in the house were no longer present. The empty building leant itself to an eerie atmosphere. It could also have been the tangible tension in the room, all of its occupants on edge with anticipation, the very air oppressive with expectation.
When the small group had ended its trek from Vala’s house, they were met by Elom, Cameron, Daniel, and an incongruent-looking Dr. Lam in full off-world gear. After greeting the medical doctor with a somewhat nostalgic smile, Vala had disappeared into another room with Siremi and Nejaya. They’d been gone nearly fifteen minutes before footsteps were heard again and Vala reappeared alone, her face apologetic but resolved.
“It’s not that I don’t want to believe you, because I do.” She began, her eyes flitting around the room, never really landing on one person. “And it’s not that you haven’t been convincing because quite frankly any more evidence and I’d hardly need my memories back. But if there’s the slightest chance that this isn’t what it’s supposed to be...I can’t have my daughter in harm’s way.”
Samantha gave a strained smile of support, some shades of hurt she couldn’t help not quite clearing from her eyes. Daniel’s expression, what Vala quickly saw of it, was somewhat appreciative, and she didn’t want to think about what that meant.
“Wow,” Cam broke the silence, a teasing grin on his lips, “you really are a full-fledged, card-carrying, pie-baking, time-out-giving Mom, aren’t you?”
“I could still take you down, Cameron Mitchell, don’t you doubt that for a second.” She returned, surprising the team leader with the warmth in her voice. “In fact, carrying a toddler around has given me incredibly powerful arms. So, Muscles, I’m expecting a five year late rematch when this is all over.”
“I would be honoured.” He bent his head, a rare smile relaxing his features.
“Shall we get started?” Dr. Lam asked, opening one of the cases she’d brought with her.
“By all means.” Vala replied, proud of herself for sounding ready and confident. “What is all of this? I remember it being a lot more compact.”
“The memory device is in those two cases,” Dr. Lam said, motioning to the cases Samantha and Daniel were currently unpacking and setting up. “The rest of this is diagnostic equipment. I want to make sure you’re as healthy as possible before we do this.”
“I wasn’t aware there was much risk associated with this procedure.”
“There isn’t physically but the memories you were given were quite emotional and I’m told your real ones aren’t exactly calming. Emotional upheaval can have physiological manifestations - heart rate and blood pressure rising, stomach pains, headaches. I’d prefer knowing you were completely healthy before possibly subjecting you to that.” Dr. Lam explained, positioning the blood pressure cuff around Vala’s left bicep.
“Well, I do appreciate thoroughness in a doctor.” Vala drawled. She suddenly felt a prick of heat on her neck and knew a certain other doctor was looking at her. “So what about my current memories, is there any risk to them?” Vala asked the group as an alternative to acknowledging the gaze.
“No, our technology five years ago was advanced enough to pinpoint memories very precisely and we’ve come a long way since then.” Sam replied before being struck with a thought. “If you want, we could return your real memories but also remove the false ones we gave you.”
“Thank you but no,” Vala replied with a dry grin. “I’d just be left with the memory of five years of bitterness without a cause to attribute it to.”
For the next half hour, while the scientists toyed with their machine, Dr. Lam ran every possible test for which she could get results in the field and asked many and very detailed questions on everything from her sleeping habits to Nejaya’s delivery. Finally the device was set up, the start-up diagnostic had been run, her memories had been loaded from a cartridge Daniel personally handled with extreme care, and the very good and professional doctor was down to her very last test.
“Is Nejaya still in the house?” Dr. Lam asked as she swabbed the inside of Vala’s cheek. Unable to reply well with the object in her mouth, Vala approximated a “why?”
“Because I’ll need a sample from her as well, I’ve already got Dr. Jackson’s.” Lam replied, sticking the moistened swab in a long, clear tube. When Vala didn’t show any signs of following, she elaborated. “For the paternity test. I assumed you’d want to run one given the circumstances.”
A deaf man could have heard a pin drop. That spot of heat on her neck was back and she was even more disinclined to acknowledge it this time around.
“Yes... I mean, yes she’s still in the house. She’s upstairs with Siremi.” Vala said, she couldn’t remember a time when her tongue had felt so clumsy in her mouth. Dr. Lam grabbed another swab and moved upstairs, leaving the room in a very awkward state of inactivity until Cam came to the rescue again.
“Alright, Big Mama, let’s get you hooked up.” He said enthusiastically, clapping his hands once before ushering her into the chair in front of the table.
“Shouldn’t Dr. Lam be doing this?” Vala hesitated.
“Hey, I’m the resident expert at this.” Cam protested. “Ask anyone. I’ve had my brain scrambled by this thing more than most people combined.”
“Your level of brain damage is not really setting my concerns at ease, Cameron.” Vala retorted sardonically but let him place the sticky tape with the electrodes on various parts of her head.
“Aw, come on, Dorothy. Where’s your sense of adventure?” He grinned.
Before she could answer, Dr. Lam was back with her daughter’s sample, which was tucked away safely in one of the cases. The doctor performed a double-check of all the electrodes and when she pronounced them ready, Vala had to shove back the tide of sudden reality threatening to overtake her because if it did, she knew she’d pull the plug on the whole thing due to nerves along.
“Ready to go to Oz, princess?” Cam asked.
Vala took a deep breath and, for the first time, sought out Daniel’s face. Without breaking their gaze, she gave her assent and before she knew it, she was diving into lost memories.
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.v.v. Five Years Ago .v.v.
It had taken Vala two hours of speed-walking around the mountain and the shedding of exactly two tears of pure, rabid frustration before she’d felt calm enough - or tired enough - to start making her way back to her quarters. She walked slowly back to the entrance and through the hallways, she even took the very long stairs down instead of the elevator. The fact of the matter was, there was no guarantee this plan would work. It had good odds and she was nothing if not a gambling woman. But she’d come to learn, during her time on Earth, that there were some things too precious to gamble away. Her time here had also taught her selflessness and the need to protect what you love which was why she was doing it anyway. Daniel was right to have concerns but they were almost the same as her own and at the moment, she could have used some faith, some reassurance, some...anything.
It wasn’t like her to get attached to people, but she had. And it wasn’t like her to get attached to places, but she was starting to. Maybe she was just getting old and sappy. Or maybe she was just exhausted. Yelling at Daniel for three days straight can take a lot out of a person, the man could throw seventeen arguments in the span of time it took a normal person to say “hello”. Still, despite wanting to attack every soft part of his body with something blunt and very hard, it would have been nice to not spend her last night on Earth (before a mission, of course, she was coming back) estranged from the man responsible for bringing her into this quasi-family in the first place.
Although, it was funny how the moment she swiped her key card and opened the door to her quarters that sense of longing evaporated completely and she was back to the desire for blunt force trauma.
“What are you doing here?” She almost yelled with exasperation. “You may not agree with it but like it or not I do have a mission tomorrow and the least you could do is let me get some unbothered rest before I go.”
“Come in, Vala.” Daniel replied quietly from his place in the chair of her vanity, his eyes hovering unseeing somewhere near her waist.
“‘Come in?’ It’s my room, of course I’ll come in. The problem is you having taken the same liberties.” She seethed despite his tone setting something in her stomach on “flip”. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her anyway, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.
Daniel’s lips pursed and someone who didn’t know him might think he was angry, but there was nothing Vala knew more than one Dr. Daniel Jackson and his body language. His shoulders were hunched, his eyes were nearly vacant...pursing his lips meant he was trying not to swallow against a lump in his throat.
“Daniel?” Vala questioned, her voice still hard but inquisitive instead of outright aggressive.
“I don’t not trust you, Vala.” He admitted, his eyes not straying from some non-existant point near her belt. “I...I have every faith that you’ll do your best.”
Vala scoffed. “'Do my best'. Well don’t I feel invincible now with that backing me up.”
Finally, his vacant eyes were returned to life and they fixed themselves magnetically on hers.
“You can’t account for everything, Vala.” He said. “None of us can. Ever. Anything could go wrong at any time.”
“And yet we still go through the gate every time we have need to.” Vala returned.
“Exactly.” He said. “‘We’. We go as a team.”
“We’ve all had solo missions before, Daniel.” She sighed, loosening her crossed arms to rest them against her stomach.
“Never without the knowledge of exactly what we were doing.” He pressed, his lips pursing again. “And almost always with back-up just a radio away. We won’t even be on the same planet this time. It’s pretty much as reckless as it gets, Vala.”
“The odds are good, Daniel. And we won’t get another opportunity like this” She gritted out through clenched teeth, her jaw tightening when he leant forward and place his elbows on his knees.
“Some things shouldn’t be gambled away, Vala.” His all-but-whispered words blowing out the fire she’d stoked so passionately and leaving her cold. They sounded suspiciously familiar, she wondered if they meant the same to him as they did to her. His defeated demeanor told her they did.
“It’s a great opportunity.” She repeated softly, cringing internally at the lameness of her argument.
“It is.” He said, raising his head to nod. “And if it was...I don’t know, Captain Dennis from SG-5 or Lieutenant Green from SG-8 or, god Vala, anyone else. Pick someone, anyone. Let them go. I should care but I don’t. I don’t anymore.”
Vala could see he was struggling with something so she stayed quiet but moved to sit on the bed opposite his chair.
“I’ve been doing this for ten years, Vala. An entire decade.” He told her. She already knew. “Eleven if you count the very first mission to Abydos. I’ve watched my wife die, I’ve watched my friends die, I’ve died myself more times that I can honestly keep track of and there has got to be something very wrong with that.” She couldn’t tell if his hands were shaking of if he was gripping them too tightly but it was easier to keep her eyes on them than the naked desolation in his eyes. “I don’t know why - honestly I don’t... I’ve literally been to Hell and back and I don’t know why but, Vala, I think you’re my last straw.”
If not for the hammering in her chest and tightness in her throat, she thought she might have been able to respond to that.
“I can feel it. Viscerally. My entire body, my mind, my heart, my soul if I’ve still got one - they’re all screaming not to let you go. Not to let you go where I can’t save you.” He let out a laugh but it was a painful sound. “See, two years ago, I could have thought that but another part of me would say ‘she’s a grown woman, she knows the risks, it’s her choice’ That voice is gone Vala. At the end of the day you’re your own person. But a bigger part of me now wants to lock you away until you understand that you’re a part of my person too and I don’t think I’ve got enough left to...I can’t lose you, Vala.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d ever had me.” She retorted quietly, her voice rough, after an extended moment of silent recuperation. To his credit, he did give her a small smile, allowing her this small measure of lightness in the oppressive weight of the conversation.
“Well it didn’t help that for the longest time I was under the impression I didn’t want to.” He admitted, leaning back into the chair, torment was still ever-present behind his grin.
“And that’s changed, has it?” She pressed him with an attempt at a saucy smirk; it came out tremulous at best.
“What, you didn’t get that with the running after you yelling bit?” He teased her gently. “I thought women loved that.”
“Well I am a special kind of woman.” She relented with a nod, hesitating before placing her hand over one of his. It had been shaking after all.
“That you are.” He said thickly, turning his hand in hers and holding onto it as if the touch itself could cleanse him of the fear and weariness infecting his every pore. She didn’t pull away, she didn’t want to. She had never witnessed the man before her so completely...open. She could have thought of why it seemed he had to be in emotional anguish before he’d allow himself to be close with her, or she could simply savour the moment, savour the nearness, savour the feel of his skin under her fingers. She chose the latter.
“I have to do this, Daniel.” She finally said, wishing she could take the words back as soon as they were out. “It has to be me. It’s our best chance to get Adria with minimum risk.”
“Minimum risk to us, you mean.” He returned. Her free hand moved of its own accord to settle hesitantly on his neck, her thumb brushing the stubble of his jaw line. She wondered if Daniel knew he was leaning into her touch.
“I have to do this.” She repeated, resolute.
“I know.” He replied plainly, his eyes closing with the fourth stroke of her thumb. “I knew that the minute you told us about it. Doesn’t mean I’ve accepted it.”
“And what will it take for such a miracle?” Vala asked with quirked lips.
“You.” He replied solemnly, opening his eyes. “Back from this ridiculous mission, alive. I’ll accept it when you come back to us. I’ll even tell everyone on base that Vala Mal Doran had a brilliant plan and I was wrong if you want me to.” He finished with a miniscule, sardonic grin.
“Well now that is incentive.” Vala cooed exaggeratedly, her hand dropping from his neck to rest on his forearm. The hand holding his never let go, and it wouldn’t until he let go first. “But you know, I’m not entirely sure you’d know what to do with me even if - when - I do come back.”
“Oh?” He played along, a hint of dubious amusement shaping his lips.
“Well to be honest, Daniel, you’re making a big fuss about keeping me close but I’ve been here for nearly two years already and you haven’t made a single move.” Vala shook her head with mock disappointment. “I mean, we’re here now, quite close and you still aren’t making a move. I just don’t have faith in your ability to keep your end of this deal.”
“I don’t recall making it that kind of deal.” He replied in kind, an eyebrow cocking.
“I took the liberty of making it for the both of us.” Vala informed him nonchalantly.
“Of course you did.”
“It’s just more efficient, darling.” She told him, waving off any future protests. “You bookish types aren’t very efficient decision makers. For instance -”
Moving slowly but without much other warning, Vala pressed her lips to Daniel’s. His hand tightened around hers on his lap but the rest of his body lost another layer of tension as he melted into her kiss. Her free hand reclaimed its place at his jaw to keep him against her and to her surprised delight, she could feel the warmth of his own hand settling against her back, not pulling her closer but not pushing her away either. When necessity saw them part, Vala took a moment to appreciate what she imagined few people had ever had the privilege of seeing: the almost serene features of one Dr. Daniel Jackson.
“You see?” She said, her voice husky. “Two years.” She said, laying two fingers on his chest. “Two minutes.” She said, bringing those two fingers to her own.
“You may have a point.” He agreed, his voice rough, his lips smiling. When she moved in again, however, his hand fell on her shoulder and she looked at him questioningly. “I’ll accept the terms of this imaginary deal. You come back safe, we pick right back up from here.”
“Daniel,” Vala said quietly. “You’re the one who keeps saying this thing is a bad idea. That I might not be coming back. This could be our-”
Before she could finish - to keep her from finishing - Daniel had darted out of his chair and taken her mouth with such desperation that she had to move her head back just to regain her breath. He had finally let go of her hand but only to snake his arm around her back to pull her to his body.
It took all of three seconds for the deceptively strong archeologist to have them spread out alongside each other on the bed. They had some twelve hours left before they had to worry about anything beyond the four walls of Vala’s room. They didn’t waste a second of them.
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.v.v. Present .v.v.
The end of the memories did not leave Vala with a smooth transition back to reality. One moment she was sitting down at the memory device the morning of the mission, the next she was jolted into opening her eyes and taking in the same damn device but on an alien table, on an alien planet - the one she now called home.
“Vala, are you okay?” She heard Sam ask her from across the table, in the seat across from her. Vala nodded absently once, noticing the room had cleared of everyone but herself, Sam, Dr. Lam and...Daniel, who was perched on the side of the table.
“I thought you might like some space to process everything.” Daniel said gently, the mix of anxiety and hope in his eyes scarily reminiscent of how he’d looked five years ago in her room. “We can leave too, if you want.”
She didn’t want. What she wanted was to hang onto these memories - these memories that were more vivid now in her mind than her last meal had been. She wanted desperately not to think of how that night of joy had been followed by disaster and years, years of heartache and misery that could have been prevented. She didn’t want to think of anything, she just wanted to hold onto that night.
“Vala?” Dr. Lam asked, getting out her nearest equipment.
“I’m fine.” She whispered, before clearing her throat. “I’m fine, Dr. Lam. I’m sure you have another battery of tests you’d love to run but they can wait a bit, can’t they?”
“I’d really rather-”
“Doctor,” Vala interrupted, “please. Samantha?”
Her friend glanced at her in question but didn’t need any more than a look of request before giving a small smile and leaving the room with Dr. Lam. Slowly, Vala raised a hand to her hand and began removing the taped electrodes one by one. Daniel, with what Vala thought must be incredible restraint, didn’t attempt to help her. It wasn’t until she’d placed the last wire on the table that he reacted at all.
“Vala?” He said, his voice muted, hesitant. She turned to face him, but couldn’t find any words to express what she wanted to say. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say. She just wanted him near.
Daniel took a step forward when she didn’t answer, and when she didn’t flinch, he took another until he was next to her chair. When his hand moved to hover near her arm, Vala pushed herself away from the table, still in the chair and wound her arms around his waist, hands clutching at the material of his BDUs. Not a second passed before his arms were around her shoulders, one of his hands at the back of her head, keeping her to him with more force than was required but less than was desired by either of them. When even that contact was no longer enough, Daniel lowered his hands to her waist and pulled her so she was standing upright and her full length was pressed against him, her head now buried at his neck.
“It was a bad plan.” She said, the drop of one tear darkening the material of his jacket, “I know I didn’t think so then but I suddenly find myself wishing we’d never gone through with it.”
She felt the shudder of a short laugh pass through his body and into her own and held on tighter.
“That makes two of us.” He replied, his voice hoarse. “Four of us actually, or seven, or a whole mountain-full of people. But me most of all.”
“On the plus side,” she said, a watery smile overtaking her lips, “Dr. Lam won’t have to run that paternity test now. There’s one more mystery solved.”
If she’d had time to form any doubts as to how Daniel felt with the news, his tightening grip on her before pulling back with a smile on his face would have dispelled them completely.
“She’s so beautiful.” He whispered, resting his forehead on hers.
“She is. And smarter than I ever was.” Vala told him, her thumb stroking the same patch of stubble it had five years ago. “Must take after her father there.”
The smile on his face grew before he pressed a soft kiss to her cheekbone. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of this alone.” That made her pull back. Not far, just enough to better see his face.
“You’re sorry?” She echoed incredulously. “I seem to recall regaining memories just now in which you tried to get me to change my mind at every step of the way.”
“I should have tried harder.” He told her, no trace of uncertainty in his voice. It was knowledge he’d been carrying around for five long years. If he’d made better arguments instead of reacting so aggressively. If he’d gone to Landry personally. If he’d never let go of her hand when he left her that morning after. “I’m not letting you go again.” He swore to her.
Instead of arguing the point right then, she savoured his promise and laid her head on his shoulder. The vividness of her newly regained memories was already fading slightly and beginning to mesh with those of the rest of her life as her mind tried to sort out the timeline of events. The result was a progressively more confusing conflict of emotions as the joy - the euphoria - of her memories fought against the five years of sadness. She knew now what had happened, she knew she was mostly responsible for having been separated from her would-be family for five years, and she knew the man holding her as if she could single-handedly bring him paradise had never wavered in his affection for her. Until the world saw fit to stay on its new axis, it would be enough to get her through. As long as he never let her go, it would be enough.
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Epilogue is coming up in a few days :)
>>Next: Epilogue