Being Found - Chapter 11: Visions of Sugar-Plums
Title: Being Found
Author: Milena D.
Rating: T for now
Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure, etc. Daniel/Vala all the way ;)
SPOILERS: Up to Prometheus Unbound which is the 12th episode of Season 8, I believe. And although I’m not using any parts of Seasons 9 or 10 yet, I am taking the creative liberty of bringing the team together to include Daniel, Teal’c, Sam, Cameron, Dr. Lam and General Landry. Jack will be making an appearance too! ^_~
Summary: What if Daniel and Vala had been reunited soon after Prometheus Unbound, before any of Season 9?
Author’s Note: The rating will be going up now, for description of torture (not much but still) and dabbling with the idea of writing NC-17 in the future! ^_~ Leave me your thoughts on it!
Chapters 1-10
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Chapter 11: Visions of Sugar-Plums
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Vala almost screamed as she woke. Her mouth was open and her throat was tight with the effort of repressing the sound. She’d managed to remember in the split second after consciousness though, like she always did, that sound would bring much more pain. It was the truth she’d been forced to understand as a young girl, right about the time Adria had come into her life.
Her eyes darted to every corner of the dark room, searching madly for her attackers but could find none. Unfortunately, her mind provided her with the enemies she couldn’t see.
She covered her head as stones were pelted at her body. The crowd was cheering and she felt one of her ribs crack under the power of a particularly large rock. She bit through her lip to keep from screaming,
No, no, no.
Her father was back from one of his ‘trading’ expeditions. He asked her how she’d been and Adria told him she was well. Adria had picked out her dress, it covered the purple bruises on her chest.
Please, no.
Ba’al’s eyes glowed maniacally as he pounded into her body. She wasn’t there, she was never there but she felt everything.
Vala’s shoulders heaved with gulped breaths as she tried to escape the onslaught of memories but they wouldn’t leave her. Her hands flit about nervously trying to distract her from the images in her mind but it didn’t worked.
She couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in and making her feel dizzy. Ba’al was laughing at her, Adria was pushing her to the ground, Narsin was kicking her.
Vala leapt out of bed and threw open her door. She didn’t bother to keep it from smacking against the wall, she just ran. She ran down the hall, almost fell down the stairs, flew across the first storey to fling open the door and run outside. Her dreams chased her the entire way and a brief flash of the Tok’ra Te’sin caused her to stumble and fall to the ground.
She didn’t get up.
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“Daniel. Wake up.” the words interrupted his dreams and the hand pushing at his arm stole him completely out of slumber. He turned over to see Jack frowning with concern, it wasn’t a look he wore often and it served to wipe the last clinging webs of sleep from Daniel’s mind.
“What’s going on?” he asked, sitting up in bed.
“It’s Vala.” Those words coupled with Jack’s anxiety speared his heart with panic and Daniel threw off his covers to look for his pants.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked, pulling on the slacks he’d left on his bag.
“I don’t know, I heard her door hit the wall then she ran out.” Jack said, approaching their window and looking outside. He tilted his head and Daniel quickly crossed the room to look for himself. It was hard to see, there was only a quarter moon out, but after a moment Daniel spotted a figure sprawled out on the ground behind the cabin.
“Oh my god.” he whispered and ran out of the room. Sam and Cam were leaving their rooms when he got into the hall and Teal’c was in the doorway behind his roommate.
“Daniel, I think Vala-” Sam started to say but he cut her off.
“I’m going now, I’ll call if I need help.” he said in a rush as he bolted down the stairs. Jack appeared in his doorway and they all shared a concerned glance.
“I’ll keep an eye on ‘em from up here, I’ll call you guys if anything happens.” he said, dismissing them back to their rooms. They half-heartedly repeated their earlier bids of goodnight and returned to their beds.
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“Vala. Vala!”
Vala’s eyes never left the stars.
“Vala, can you hear me?” A pair of blue eyes disrupted her view of the alien stars and her arm jumped up to strike him down. Her fist was inches from his cheekbone when his startled eyes registered in her memory.
“Daniel?” she asked perplexed.
Daniel held himself very still, she seemed confused and she hadn’t yet lowered her fist. He leaned back slightly and was relieved when her hand didn’t follow.
“Yeah, Vala, it’s me.” he said slowly, keeping an eye on her curled fingers hovering in the air.
She looked at her hand and her eyes widened. She’d almost struck Daniel, fantastic. She unclenched her fist and sat up suddenly noticing the ground beneath her. Oh lovely, she’d made it outside, had been lying on the grass and had almost knocked Daniel out.
“Daniel, what are you doing out so late?” she asked casually, praying to no one in particular that he’d let the whole thing go. His eyes narrowed and she knew there was no chance of her prayers being answered.
“That’s a good question. Jack woke me up and told me you’d ran out of the house, I saw you collapsed on the ground, I thought you’d hurt yourself.” Daniel told her.
“Jack woke you?” she asked embarrassed.
He nodded.
“The others heard you too, they’re all concerned.” he said and she wished she had a shovel with which to start digging a hole in the ground beneath her where she could bury herself. She brought her hands to her face and shook her head in disbelief.
“Hey,” Daniel spoke, trying to pry her hands off her face “what’s going on?”
She let him take her hands away but she couldn’t look at him.
“It’s nothing.” she said tiredly before cursing herself, were there any words more incriminating than an outright denial?
“Well it’s not nothing nothing,” she tried to continue smoothly “it was very stuffy in my room, I needed some air. Do you know of a better place to get air than the outdoors?”
Her wide grin was 100% fake and he knew it.
“The stuffiness of your room caused you to dash out of the house, fall to the ground and almost punch me after I called your name half a dozen times?”
Ah, she’d forgotten those details. She ventured a quick glance to his face and didn’t like what it held. He still regarded her with a cross between exasperation and concern and suddenly she felt very defensive, she was desperate to deflect the attention away from her problems. She stood up quickly and he followed her.
“This is all your fault!” she accused him out of the blue and his brows fused together in confusion.
“What!? What’s all my fault? What did I do?” he questioned as loudly as he dared without attracting the attention of his friends though he was sure they were watching from their windows. Vala crossed her arms and glared at him.
“It’s what you didn’t do. If you’d just slept with me this wouldn’t have happened!” she snapped at him. “What kind of man rejects sex anyway? It’s unheard of!”
“What!?” Daniel shot back flustered “What the hell are you talking about? I thought you were okay with all that, we talked about it last night and you said you were fine with it!”
Oh, this was shaping up to be an ugly night. She’d wanted his anger, not insecurities. Anger dissipated quickly, feelings of hurt lingered, something she knew well.
“I was.” she conceded.
“Then what the hell is this all about? You changed your mind in your sleep?” he posed sarcastically and she shot him an annoyed glare.
“No, I didn’t change my mind in my sleep.” she threw back “I changed my mind when I woke up!” Damnit, the cold she’d felt coming out of her nightmare still clung to her bones and the effort of keeping that in and not running into his arms was straining her nerves.
He looked so confused and she hated that she’d made him that way needlessly. He was too flustered to speak though strange bits of words were trying to escape his lips. It would have been comical if the heavy weight in her chest hadn’t been crushing her making it hard to breathe.
This was all so ridiculous, she could just be honest and have done with it. Her secrets wanted to be let free, hell she wanted them to be free but sharing made you vulnerable, letting people in meant they could tear you apart from the inside out and she’d been through enough torture sessions - physical, mental, emotional and sexual - to be willing to risk it all again on feelings.
But this was Daniel, he wasn’t just some man she’d met in some tavern or during some deal, he was the one who’d been nice to her despite her capture of his ship and his kidnapping, he was the man who’d led his people to save her without asking for anything in return, he was the stranger who brought her back to his planet to heal and let her into his life, he was the man who’d chipped away at her defenses without her noticing.
She took a deep breath to quiet her nervous stomach and placed her fingers on his lips to stop his blubbering, it was time to stop hiding.
“I said it was your fault because…because if you’d slept with me, I most likely wouldn’t have had nightmares.” she whispered, barely audible. His lips stilled against her fingers and she removed them, she twisted her hands and kept her eyes firmly locked on them as she continued her self-exposure. “I have nightmares, horrible nightmares, every night. About Plitis, about Qetesh and Ba’al, about Caren, about Adria. The only times I haven’t had them was when I slept with someone or passed out from exhaustion, though those two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.”
She was looking at a tree behind him, obviously her attempt at levity hadn’t registered since neither of them were laughing. He stayed silent and when she finally mustered the courage to sneak a quick peek at him, his face wasn’t the picture of concern she’d been expecting. He looked angry. She back up with apprehension.
“That’s what all of this was about? Getting rid of some nightmares?” he spat. She was completely bewildered. How could she have so badly misread him?
“Daniel…” she whispered but he stopped her from continuing with a disgusted shake of his head.
“No, don’t. All this time? Everything yesterday? All of that was to get me in bed to make your nightmares go away?” he asked incredulously “I mean, I understand how taxing having nightmares can be but my god, why play with me like that? Why pretend to actually be interested? Why pretend to - to actually - actually have feelings? Why - ”
He stopped his rant abruptly and turned away from her to face the lake as his heart imploded on itself. He couldn’t look at her. He could sympathize with her, of course he could. He’d been plagued with nightmares often and he could remember how soul-shaking they could be but he’d shared with her, he’d felt something for her that he hadn’t felt in such a long time. He’d taken a chance at a romantic life with her and it had blown up in his face.
Vala walked around him to stand before him and he tried to turn away again but her hands latched onto his arms to keep him in place and force him to look at her.
“Daniel, I wasn’t pretending anything. I do car- I mean, I do have…feelings…for you.” she finally said and continue shakily “Words like that don’t come easily to me when I actually mean them, and I really do, for the first time in memory.” she finished with a wry quirk of her lips.
He looked at her skeptically.
“You just said you wanted to have sex to get rid of your nightmares.” he reminded her with a glare and she looked at him strangely.
“So? It’s just sex.” she sad “Feelings and sex are two completely separate entities, I have sex for business or nightmares but I don’t…I don’t have feelings lightly.”
His eyes closed and he shook his head as if he didn’t understand. The look he gave her upon reopening his eyes told her clearly that he thought she was insane.
“How can - what kind of - what!? How can you say that?” he shot back and now it was her turn to be confused “Sleeping together is supposed to be the ultimate expression of ‘feelings’.” He knew sex had lost a lot of its romantic ties in recent years on Earth, especially in the States but the way she spoke, it sounded like she’d just as easily accept a piece of gum as she would sleep with someone.
“I know what it’s supposed to mean but you try being the host to the Goa’uld playing ‘sex goddess’, have your body used as a piece of currency for a decade and tell me the act still holds meaning to you.” she glared at him before turning her own back to him to stare angrily at the lake.
Waves of guilt buried him as he considered her words. Of course, he hadn’t known any of this beyond the fact that she’d been a host in the past but he still felt like the biggest ass, he really wished he could rewind and start all over.
“Qetesh.” he said softly, recalling one of the many unknown names she’d mentioned having nightmares about. Upon his utterance of the name, Vala tensed and seemed to try to physically shake the word off of her.
Daniel placed his hands on her upper arms and stepped closer to her back.
“Vala, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I-” he broke off, not knowing what else to say. Thankfully, she slowly turned within his hands and finally nodded her acceptance. They were both quiet for a minute before she gave a small snort.
“We don’t really know much about each other, do we?” she noted and he couldn’t help but laugh at the gross understatement. She stepped closer to him and he pulled her tightly against his chest, smiling ruefully against the top of her head.
“No, we really don’t.” he said and she enjoyed the warm vibration that coursed against her cheek as he spoke.
“We should probably work on that.” she suggested wisely and she felt him nod against her hair.
“We should.” he agreed and noticed the shiver that suddenly passed through her body. “But could we work on it in a much warmer place, like say, inside?”
Vala was quite comfortable where she was but she had left the house in nothing but her nightgown and the parts of her body that were unluckily not touching Daniel were pretty cold.
“That would definitely be a good idea.” she agreed and pulled away from him. He placed his around her shoulder and they made their way back into the house. Unseen, Jack stepped away from the window with a small smile and returned to his bed.
They entered the house and Daniel closed the door, relocking it. Vala heard the sound and turned around puzzled. He noticed her look.
“You unlocked it when you ran out.” he reminded her but turned curious “You don’t remember?”
The frown she’d been wearing vanished and was replaced with a look of nonchalance.
“I don’t even remember getting out of bed. I remember running away from Qetesh, Adria, Narsin and the Tok’ra and then it was nothing but stars until you showed up.” she said very aloofly.
Daniel frowned and picked up her hand, he wanted to ask who Adria was and why she feared the Tok’ra but she didn’t seem inclined to elaborate at the moment.
“You think you can go back to bed?” he asked.
“Come with me.” she asked, trying not to sound like she was begging…even though she was. Daniel sighed and looked slightly harassed again.
“Vala, I know sleeping with people isn’t a big deal for you but it is for me, I can’t just-” He would have continued but she was shaking her head.
“No, I know, sentiment and all, I understand.” she said quickly before swallowing nervously “But…surely just sleeping can’t be much farther on the scale of intimacy than kissing? Like the times in the van, except neither of us would be conscious for it.” she quipped.
He gave her a considering glance. She look so anxious but there were still so many things up in the air.
“Wait, hold on.” he stalled “If sex has been taken off of your scale of intimacy, then where does kissing rank?” he asked suspiciously. She shook her head, knowing intuitively what he was asking.
“Daniel, it’s different.” she started and he frowned “I can be detached, I can not care about touches or kisses or sex but that’s not the case with you, this isn’t a normal situation for me.” she finished with a self-conscious shrug.
He looked skeptical and she wanted to make him understand but how could she explain something she couldn’t remember feeling before? She pushed him backward and made him sit on the back of the couch, much like she had that evening, while she paced in front of him. This would be the first time she’d ever revealed her inner-most thoughts to anyone without a severely debilitating amount of alcohol consumption and she needed space to breathe.
“Okay, look, I haven’t - I don’t have much experience with - with, you know actual…relationships.” she began, looking at him as she said the last word to make sure he was listening. She had his full attention, and it was making her slightly nervous but she took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “I’ve never had someone that I - that I could really care…about. And I know it sounds completely ridiculous because I’m not some little girl who still thinks all boys are disgusting, though some of you are.”
She was still pacing nervously, shooting him a glance once in a while. He wanted to understand her but she wasn’t making much sense yet. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks and came to stand before him. Fear was evident in her eyes and it killed him to know it was directed at him.
“Look, I went from a girl with an insane stepmother, to host of a sex goddess, to space pirate. I’ve never had time to - what I keep closest to me, what I’ve never had the chance to give,” she said, her body taught with tension “it’s just me, myself. I’m never sincere about myself, my past, I’ve never trusted anyone to not use it against me.”
She was completely terrified before him, he wasn’t touching her but he’d bet anything that she was actually trembling where she stood.
“But I want to, Daniel. I don’t want to keep hiding everything…not from you.”
He still wasn’t speaking. Why wasn’t he speaking? Did he not believe her? Was this too much? Was she too screwed up?
“I know you were doubting the sincerity of my feelings earlier, and probably with good reason, but I’m hoping you understand that I’ve basically handed you my deepest fears in the hopes that you …have feelings…for me…as well.” she trailed off with a shaky smile that fell quickly under the heavy silence.
Vala felt sick, Daniel hadn’t uttered a single word since she’d practically stripped herself bare and her dread was mounting with every passing second, crushing her until she was sure she’d fall to the floor under its terrible weight.
Daniel was speechless with rivaling emotions of pride, tenderness and lust. This was her greatest intimacy, her sincere self was her greatest gift and she’d just promised it to him freely. The gesture shook him to the core; she’d just jumped blindly across a chasm of fear to prove to him that her feelings were genuine, to reassure him that she wasn’t just using him for sex. He could only stare at her in amazement…except that now she looked really pale and he suddenly realized he hadn’t spoken yet.
“God, Vala, of course I have feelings for you, I have almost since we found you on that damn planet.” Daniel hurried to tell her.
Vala was lightheaded, the heavy dread had been lifted from her shoulders so quickly that she swayed a bit in its absence. Daniel could see her body suddenly unclench from the nervous state it had been locked in and quickly put his arms around her. He spoke to her quietly, giving her time to calm down.
“How could I not care for you? You’re irresistible.” he quipped, trying to put her at ease but she didn’t respond, still shaken from her obvious emotional overload. He tightened his hold around her and pulled her up so that their bodies were touching along their entire length. He leaned back against the couch again and she leaned against him, keeping her cheek firmly against his chest as she tried to gather her wits.
“I’m sorry I was quiet for so long, I was just so blown away. Do you have any idea of the strength you have? The courage? It astounds me. Like after Plitis, my god, your body was cruelly mangled but you never once let on to the other ways it affected you. Then you were sick, delusional and obviously terrified of Ba’al and his Jaffa, but you were still so resilient that you almost managed to escape the base. Not to mention your actual escape not even half a week later. You’re incredible, you know that? You’re invincible.” he praised her with a boyish grin as the last of the tension finally left her body. She rubbed her cheek against his shirt and spoke.
“It’s all an act.” she said impishly and he chuckled but she turned serious “I’m really not, Daniel, I only seem that way because I never let anyone know how terrified I can get.”
He put a finger under her chin and made her look at him.
“But you told me.” he said and she looked shy.
“I trust you.” she said simply and sincerely.
The emotions those three words evoked in him, especially now that he knew what they meant to her, overwhelmed him and he pulled her in for a slow, languorous kiss. It was less hastened than all their previous kisses but meant so much more. When they separated, Daniel pulled her close and just held on to her for a long moment. His watch beeped and the digital face read 3:00 AM.
“We should really get back to bed.” he said quietly. Her body stiffened slightly against his and he knew that she wouldn’t ask for what she needed again but it didn’t matter, he was ready to answer her earlier plea.
“…together.” he continued and she slumped against him with relief for half a second before pulling away.
“Are you sure?” she asked before berating herself for speaking. Daniel smiled warmly at her and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I’m sure, and just so you know, sleeping together is much higher on my scale of intimacy than kissing is.” he answered. She processed his words and understood that he was giving her a part of himself with this act; like she had trusted him with her soul, he was trusting her with his heart.
She grinned then and he took her hand, leading her confidently back up the stairs through the darkness. They passed his room and continued to hers and when they got to her door his heart froze with doubt but he opened it with a show of bravado. He didn’t want her to see his anxiousness concerning this, especially after she’d had the fortitude to reveal herself to him downstairs, but he hadn’t been lying when he’d told her it was a big step for him. Sleeping together conveyed a very strong intimacy, sometimes even more than sex and his hesitant nature was making his heart pound harder the closer they got to her queen sized bed.
Despite his show of confidence, Vala picked up on his unease very quickly; he could smile and walk strongly but he couldn’t keep his palms from sweating. She looked away to hide her disappointment before turning to him with understanding eyes.
“Daniel, we don’t hav-”
He cut her off with a brief but strong kiss, nipping at her bottom lip before stepping away. He kept her eyes deliberately as he took off his pants for a second time that night. She smiled at his determination and wasted no time in joining him again when he held out his hand. He followed her to the bed but stopped before they reached it.
“Oh.” he murmured as he took a look at her back. She turned around with questioning eyes when his hands started swiping it lightly.
“Your back, there’s some grass and dirt on it from your stargazing.” he said with amusement and she tried to twist around to see it. She sighed.
“I should change.” she conceded tiredly and he nodded.
“Unless you’re going for the naturalist look.” he teased her and she glared at him good-naturedly. His eyes followed her as she crossed the room to go through her duffel bag of clothes. She found a set of cotton night clothes and reached the hem of her slip to pull it over her head before stopping abruptly and turning around with an upturned eyebrow.
“Do you mind?” she asked Daniel pointedly and his mind blanked for a moment before realizing that he should really be turning around.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, sure.” he stuttered, almost tripping over his feet as he turned around so quickly. He heard her soft laughter and the rustling of clothes as she changed and wondered how she could enthusiastically proposition him for sex but turn bashful when changing. This was probably more of that ‘getting to know each other’ stuff that they’d have to get on.
A hand on his arm told him to turn when Vala had finished changing and he gave her a small smile in the almost complete darkness.
“Ready?” she whispered, still giving him a chance to back out. There was a slight urge to flee but he fought it back and found that he really wanted to go through with this.
“Ready.” he promised her.
She pushed back the sheets she’d tangled and got into the bed, scooting over to the other side to leave him room. Daniel held the blankets in his hand and deftly lowered himself to the mattress. She turned to her side to face him and folded both hands under her head. She smiled at him softly as he settled on his side
“What are you doing all the way over there?” he asked with a teasing smile and her face lit up with delight. She inched closer to him and his arm reached around her back to press her against him. She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arm around his waist, their legs tangling themselves naturally.
“Better?” she asked and he squeezed her to him.
“Much.” he answered her honestly.
“You know how I told you sex barely meant anything to me?” she asked a moment later. He shuddered with pleasure when her warm breath hit his neck and hummed his agreement.
“Well, I just realized that kisses never meant much to me before either but every time I kiss you it’s like this explosion of good feelings in my stomach and the shockwave travels all over to set every part of my body on fire.” she explained to him enthusiastically and his stomach clenched with a feeling very similar to what she was describing. “So I figure, when we do have sex, which involves much more kissing and the use of much more intimate parts, it’ll be more like a naquadah-enhanced explosion and its shockwave will probably consume us both…Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that since you could make kisses intimate to me again, I can’t wait until we have sex.”
She finished her candid description and felt him move his hips away from her.
“What? Can’t we even talk about it?” she asked, lifting her head from his shoulder to take in his tense face.
“No, no, that’s not it, I’m glad you feel that way.” he said sincerely “I just wish you hadn’t been so…descriptive, especially while you’re pressed against me, that’s all.”
He kept his hips away from hers and she giggled into his shoulder as she understood his discomfort.
“Sorry.” she apologized without much sincerity and pressed a hot kiss to his neck. He groaned audibly and led her head back to rest innocuously on his shoulder with his hand.
“Oh please don’t do that.” he pleaded and she giggled again but took sympathy in him.
“Alright, I’ll go easy on you tonight since I’m tired but don’t expect his easy acquiescence every night.” she warned him with a smile. “Exciting you is entirely too much fun to quit.”
“I’m pretty sure you’d excite me if you never tried, Vala.” he admitted and he felt her lips grow into a wider smile against his shirt. He finally ‘calmed down’ and pulled her back fully against him. He let himself fall backward to lie on his back and pulled her with him so that half of her body was on top of his with her arm crossing his stomach. His hand was stroking long arcs of warmth along her side and it wasn’t long before she was asleep.
He brushed away her bangs with his free hand and pressed a long kiss to the skin of her forehead, trying to quiet his mind and his heart before leaning back down and letting himself join her in sleep.
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Wow, 12 pages of one night ^_~ Daytime fun ahead! Please review, I got a ton for the last chapter and it made me soooo happy! ^_^
By the way, sneak peek into later events: there's a reason for her out-of-character shyness when she changed...
Next - Chapter 12: Full Disclosure