Bendy time to a couple of days after Geartopia Shore Leave

[valaunbound]

Sprawled out on her front, right in the middle of the spacewalk, is one Vala Mal Doran. She's booked out a mini-player video thingy from the Media Library and is watching re-runs of 'Dallas' of all things, idly kicking her legs around in the air behind her. Maybe the recent shore leave gave her the taste for cowboy hats as she's still sporting the

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[hi_there_aliens]

A few days passed before Daniel finally noticed the absence. Of course, he'd been so buried in catching up on the Taleen work that it would've taken nothing short of a Goa'uld bombing strike around him to get him to look up. it finally dawned on him that was the thing tickling at his neck. Peace, quiet, productive and weirdly Vala-free. After all, she'd been all but glued to his hip earlier. Now she was nowhere to be found

[valaunbound]

Underneath the cover of her hat brim, Vala cringed as soon as she heard his voice. Wasn't he supposed to be all busy with his piles of old things? Why was he out taking a merry jaunt around the ship? "Great." Vala muttered under her breath flatly, attempting to pull her hair over the right side of her face. It would have been much easier if she'd been wearing her hair loose, but pigtail removal was too obvious at such short notice and he was nearly on her.

Vala shifted round a bit, angling herself so that her left side faced him. "Daniel!" she said chirpily but sideways on with a smile that was all teeth. "I was just thinking about you, and how busy you must be."

[hi_there_aliens]

An eyebrow lifted as he looked down at Vala. Then he had to hurriedly look back up, since someone thought it was a good idea to make the floor invisible, and that did hell to the current, ugly feeling of vertigo. Her smile seemed a little forced, all teeth and none of the warmth she'd shown him before.

And if that just now wasn't a barely concealed 'get lost', he'd turn in one of his PhDs.

"I needed some air." Mostly the truth. Not that he missed her hovering or anything, but after the shore leave, things had ended on a weird note. She'd said a lot of things he didn't think she would have under any other circumstances, wildly personal, vulnerable things. He leaned over, peering over her shoulder from where he stood at what was in her hands. "What are you up to?"

[valaunbound]

That's the problem with being drunk, you tend to do things like that. Although it couldn't be entirely attributed to her blood/alcohol ratio, it was difficult to not think of Daniel as Daniel. As in future Daniel, the Daniel that already knew her. She found it hard to consider the differences. Daniel knew her inside out, except he didn't. That much was obvious by the absence of a pointed suspicious 'Vala' which she absolutely expected to come her way the moment she greeted him with a smile that was just the wrong side of cheery. This lack of distinction, in her mind, was also partly responsible for the fact that she didn't remember everything about the hotel detail for detail. If anything she'd said had been a new revelation then she probably would have done, but it was all old cap-hat-whatever on her side of things

[hi_there_aliens]

Dallas. Never heard of it. But from what Daniel could see of the screen, it looked old. He leaned in closer. Not a movie and not something more recent. Probably a comedy or soap opera? If that was the case, he hadn't missed out. Whatever it was, it didn't look like something he'd pictured as Vala's type of show. Or maybe, looking at her hat, it was.

"I'm not quite sure that's what anyone means by culture," Daniel certainly wouldn't have used it as a good example of Earth entertainment. Or anything indicative of Earth storytelling to an offworlder. "Who's JR?"

[valaunbound]

To be fair it had been the first thing that had popped up in the category, and it was a show that one of the customers at Sol's Diner had mentioned a few times, so she was curious enough to pick it. The hat was mostly for the fact it had a wide brim and did quite a good job at hiding her face if she tilted it forwards, which she did as Daniel leaned over for a better look.

"Oh." Well that was a disappointment, she was hoping to score points here and so far she'd been thoroughly enjoying it only to have Daniel dismiss it. There was nothing like Earth soap operas in her world and she'd found the less believable they were and the more plot twists there were, the more she revelled in it. "Well he's a rich oil baron and the eldest son of--I forget her name, but his wife is Sue Ellen and she's an alcoholic and he has enemies around every corner and--" Vala stopped herself, wondering if he was remotely interested.

"Well I like it," she said defensively.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel tried to listen. He did. His eyes just started to glaze over at 'rich oil baron', and by then, his attention was shot. At least what Sam talked about most of the time was more of a brain stimulator, even if most of her hard astrophysics went over his head. He couldn't find it in him to drum up the interest to find out what happened to Sue the Alcoholic and JR the Oil Baron.

His complete lack of interest must've showed on his face. Possibly the blank stare. Or the way his gaze started to float back to the far more interesting corridor. It was the look Daniel tended to get when he found himself wishing he could go back to his artifacts instead, usually when faced with the prospective of a long briefing or having to put on an appearance at hearing just for the sake of politics.

"You like what you like," Daniel was the very image of diplomacy.

[valaunbound]

Vala on the other hand wasn't the slightest bit diplomatic and when she saw an opportunity, especially one that served her purpose so conveniently, she took it.

"Precisely. So if there's nothing of any further interest here, I wouldn't want to be held responsible for keeping you from your mountains of work. I'm sure broken artifacts are infinitely more fascinating to an archeologist of your intellectual calibre than old soap operas."

Not once did she look up at him or turn to face him properly, she managed the entire conversation by simply glancing sideways at him.

[hi_there_aliens]

Now even he was getting suspicious here. One moment, Vala's asking him to be there for her, now she couldn't wait to get rid of him, much less actually look at him. He could chalk up the way she felt him up with her eyes to intoxication, but before that, she'd generally had no problems looking at him. Daniel could only frown at her, at the device in her hands that had the woman glued to it. It couldn't be that fascinating that it required her whole attention.

And if it was, some part of him was deeply offended that a second rate soap opera was more interesting than he was. Daniel, deliberately oblivious, let the more blunt signal to leave fly over his head.

"I needed a break. It's not going anywhere. Actually..." Daniel pretended to suddenly remember. He tapped his chin. "I wanted to talk to you about the last shore leave."

[valaunbound]

Vala actually sighed, closing her eyes as she did in exasperation. Couldn't he take a hint? She hadn't gone out of her way to make it subtle. Quite the reverse in fact. She thought she'd made it crystal clear that she didn't want him around.

"Shore Leave." That was a pretty big subject, whatever he wanted to discuss it wasn't going to be over in a matter of minutes. "What about it?" She paused the video player in her hand with some irritation. Obvious irritation.

"You do realise I think J.R is about to get shot?"

[hi_there_aliens]

Oh come on, the show wasn't that interesting! "And you do realize you have a pause button."

Giving him five minutes of her time wasn't nearly the chore she made it out to be. The look on his face could only be defined as either dumbfounded or steadily annoyed. It wasn't like he was about to debrief her on the significance of runes recently found on a set of ruins SG-4 stumbled across.

"Yes, about the night you came into my room," he clarified. Not the day of, not the morning after, he wanted to talk about that night. "You asked something of me. I'd like to know what you meant."

[valaunbound]

"Well it wasn't accidental that I just pressed it." Vala flashed him the paused screen as evidence that she was indeed aware, petulant sarcasm not withheld. Look, there, see, already done it.

She asked him something? What had she asked him? Oh that... the entire reason she was laying low given why she'd got into a bar fight. The momentary confusion followed up by that sinking look on her face was all more then evident. If she hadn't pulled the hat brim forwards another inch or two and completely obscured her sizeable purple souvenir that is. Enjoy your conversation with a brown suede hat, Daniel.

"You'll have to jog my memory," she floundered, buying time.

[hi_there_aliens]

He jumped on the slip immediately. "Exactly, there you go. You're not going to miss anything."

Daniel saw it across her face the moment the hazy memory of the night in question returned to her. And if that wasn't enough to implicate her, Vala making the sudden decision that her hat was just as good as any fortress kind of sealed her fate.

Biting his lip, Daniel considered the hat wall. "You know what I'm talking about." What he didn't see the point of was Vala lying about it. They both knew she remembered enough. She might as well save herself the trouble. Them she could get back to her "cultural immersion". He crouched at her side, a sure sign he wasn't going anywhere else fast now. Cocking his head, he tried to peer under the brim.

"Can we please talk about this like adults?"

[valaunbound]

Vala pursed her lips, tapping the screen with a finger thoughtfully as he hunkered down to speak to her at her level. She turned her head away from him, his perfectly reasonable request breaking through her resolve. He always had this way of pushing until she couldn't keep it up any longer.

Resignedly she removed the hat and faced him properly. There was no use in trying to hide it anymore, he was going to notice it sooner or later and she might as well be the one to relent.

Besides, lying was still an option. Vala smiled at him guiltily, her eyelid was an interesting marbled effect of purples and yellows, her purple cheekbone outlined with orange definitely larger on that side of her face and her eye didn't quite open all the way. All in all it was a bit of a mess.

"You're right. Of course we can."

[hi_there_aliens]

Vala suddenly turned. She removed the hat and smiled at him. All thoughts of being as stubborn as possible until she went and told him something suddenly took a trip out the nearest window. The idea that she might have put the hat on to hide something wasn't something he'd remotely considered for even a second. He wasn't prepared for what happened when she took it off. His jaw fell open.

Vala's face was a mess. The smile might have been lopsided, but attractive-lopsided, on any other day, but today wasn't it. It ended up looking ugly, and worse, painful for her. A rainbow of bruises mottled her face. The area around her eye looked puffy. The only good part was that they didn't look extremely recent, but considering the last time he saw her wasn't that long ago, and she'd been fine then...

Daniel's mouth closed with an audible click of teeth. "What the hell happened to you? Who did this?"

[valaunbound]

Vala bit her lip and considered her options. He wouldn't be that mad at her if she told him the truth, right? No, on second thoughts he probably would. Okay how about an economical truth? That could work. But then there was Jamie and if Daniel spoke to Jamie, well all bets were off. She swears she was going to tell the truth Daniel, absolutely and emphatically, it was on the tip of her tongue...

It just didn't seem to come out that way when her mouth opened. "I was attacked on the planet. Some local thugs decided I must have been easy prey."

Well it wasn't a complete lie, they did attack her.