Snipit of "Connectiosn"
To be honest, Nick didn't know how to take Vala. She certainly wasn't what he'd picture for his grandson. But then again, perhaps Daniel needed someone who could make him feel more then admiration or respect for an artifact. Daniel had been married to his work for some years now, Nick could tell. Every once and awhile he had a girlfriend but they tended to either be someone using him or someone who in the end wasn't what made him whole.
They weren't Sha're.
That was something Nick could understand. When his wife had died shortly before Daniel was born, he had felt like he was being pulled apart. It had taken years for him to even think about another woman. And when he did he didn't expect to have the same connection. He never did, except he had found a different one just as strong and just as perfect as his late wife's with him. Her name had been Nola and she had been on the last team he had been a part of. When he had admitted himself, she came to see him as often as she could. Half his age, she was often busy traveling over the world giving lectures on Mayans and Incas. She was so alive that it seemed to give to him whenever he saw her.
But shortly before Daniel came back into his life, she stopped coming. One day her brother came in to tell him that Nola had died in a plane crash on her way to a conference. No one had survived the crash.
He had mourned her deeply but remembered the good times. The connection was still there, he realized, just it was with Abby, his wife. He just needed to realize that living was the best way of keeping that connection strong.
Vala kept Daniel on his toes according to the stories he had heard, and not just because he worried she would still his inventory in the office. She broke his barriers. She was a force, and it was slowing seeping into Daniel. Nick smiled. The poor boy didn't know fate if it knocked him on his rear. Wait, it had.
He had laughed hard when Cameron Mitchell, Daniel's new colleague and friend, had told him how his grandson and Vala had first met. Granted it was a second hand account but still he could picture it.
"So you’re Daniel's Grandfather?" Vala asked him. They were alone now. Daniel was down in his lab finishing up some last minute details and Cameron had to go see Samantha Carter about a recent mission. Because of his failing health (he was old you know) he was to stay in the infirmary under the watchful eye of Carolyn Lam. Very watchful eye. Though he wondered if it was because of him or because of Vala. The thought of Vala stealing some of the bed pans and selling them to some unsuspecting alien as some treasure came to his mind and made him smile. She did have the charm.
"Yes. And you must be Daniel's new girlfriend." Vala raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything to refute that comment. She didn't seem to take the same attitude towards Nick as she did with Daniel and Cameron.
"Any stories I can tease him about?" she asked, pulling up a chair and sitting on it backwards. This time if was Nick who raised an eye brow. Not because of how she sat, but the question she asked. He knew full well it wasn't because she wanted to tease him. She wanted to know him. Daniel wasn't one to tell his life story. It had taken him three years to tell his friends his grandfather had been an archeologist too and even then only because he had found a crystal skull.
"I’m not sure there is much for me to tell. I wasn’t a big part of his life at any point. I’m sure you have more stories then I do.” Yes, that was it. Get the girl talking and see how Daniel affected her.