1st And Amistad (PG-13)
Title: 1st And Amistad
Author: dvshipper
'Verse: Stargate SG-1
Claim/Characters/Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Vala Mal Doran
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Warnings: possibly implied apocafic.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Stargate or its characters, I just play with them. Rob, please don’t sue me, because I don’t really have much money anyway.
Summary: He couldn’t just walk away again. She wouldn’t let him.
Table/Prompt: Inspired By ‘Songs’, You Found Me, The Fray ( master table here)
A/N: Omg, it’s been so long, be gentle with the reviews. Thank you so much, dannysgirlsg1! I truly and honestly don’t know what I would do without you. No beta, btw.
She stood looking at the silhouette straight in front of her. Not since they worked things out did she think she would have to say these words in a most earnest manner, the question she wasn’t sure she could ask without tearing up. There was a part of her that knew he couldn’t be blamed for all of this; held accountable yes, but not blamed. However, in the back of her mind she blamed him for every little hurt his actions had caused, every time she was left wanting because he hadn’t been there, when she needed to talk but he was unavailable. It wasn’t in her nature to let this slide and she was going to tell him that.
“Where you been?” That question she had rehearsed on the long bus ride to Texas sounded so meek, so…feminine. She wasn’t used to not having the powerful strength to combat her emotions with. But that vigor had been pulled away by one long rope leading back to him.
“Ask anything,” the dark figure outlined by the sunset told her without turning around, bringing up his cigarette to take a long drag. The voice was still that same warmth that she had been first attracted to, but the fire in it had been extinguished somehow. Someone or something had dulled his passion to a timid flicker and that made her heart break.
“Where were you when everything was falling apart? When the world was crashing down and in shambles? When I waited and waited for a call that you were okay and that you would be coming home? And ya know what, you never did call or even, I don’t know, at least send a letter! So I had to come all the way out to the middle of fucking nowhere to drag your ass back to civilization where you belong.” Her anger began to surface in full, fueling her words. Deep down, no matter what he had done, she still cared for him. A little tough love never hurt anyone though.
“You found me now, isn’t that what’s important to you?” the defeated sounding man asked her. No. It wasn’t what was important to her. She needed him to know that things would only be better when he knew that what she was doing was out of love. Things were so mixed up.
When he’d gone off to ‘find himself’, to ‘get away for awhile’, when their side was losing and all that they had worked for could collapse at any moment…she was hurt. Devastated. Crushed that he would just walk off when they needed him. When she needed him. But in his long absence, she had had time to think.
“I know you,” she started, interrupted by his huff of disbelief. Ignoring it, she continued. “No matter what you say, deep down you know these people are worth saving. There’s a potential in them that is beyond what any of us can imagine. They trust you. And no matter how much you want to shrug them off, you can’t escape the fact that you care. You won’t leave forever. You can’t. I know that if I let you run off, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. I would be forever guilty if I went on knowing that I could have brought you back to your passion, but chose not to.”
There was a silence marked only by the soft breeze whispering above the dirt road. With his back still turned to her, he tilted his head up to the sky as if asking the opinion of the gods. When no voice of thunder came from the heavens, he turned around to face the only being he considered his goddess.
The expression on his dirty, smudged face surprised the woman in front of him. The deep pools of blue were stormy with pain and guilt, his dark eyebrows furrowed above them. A few days’ beard marked his jaw, adding to the overall gruffness of his appearance. There was the ghost of a lost boy on his features, looking for someone to come and save him. It was, however, just a ghost, having been beaten down by a man who thought he could leave his problems by just running away. The lost boy wanted to be found. The grown man wanted to use his long legs to find new ground.
“I can’t go back,” he told her quietly, willing her with his eyes to accept his statement. It was a lie though, and she couldn’t.
“You have to. We need you out there. I need you.” A single tear escaped her eye at just the right moment to punctuate her last statement. All his insecurities would cease to exist if he just realized that all he needed was love. Her love for him and his for her.
“How do we fix this? Everything’s a mess and….” He trailed off, his hand trembling as he brought up his hand to take another pull off his cigarette. “I don’t think I could handle all the pressure again.”
“One step at a time. And you won’t handle it. We’ll deal together.” Slowly and carefully, she walked nearer to him. Gazing into his eyes, searching for a ‘yes’, she took his large hand in hers. Almost as if you could watch the gears moving in sync again, she saw his mind work out the consequences of yes and no. The worried valleys in his forehead eased into one smooth plane and she had her answer. The lost boy and the grown man became a single human, being found by running into the arms of his lover.
As the world burned to the ground around them, they would take it on and help to forge a new one. One built on justice and truth and all the things that they held dear. He couldn’t just walk away again. She wouldn’t let him. Together, they could stay focused.