Before I Walk Away Against My Will
By: sorrel_rowan
CATEGORY: Friendship, General
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://www.fanfiction.net/~sorrelrowan
"Don't forget me... Don't regret me... Don't suspect me... Don't
neglect me.
The memory of this still reminds me of you."
She's standing on the edge of a square of grass, and her feet should be sinking into the mud. But in some secret place, she's always believed she could walk on water if she really wanted to, so it's not surprising that they aren't.
She's thought it before, but there's never only one tie that binds you to a place, a time, a being, or a memory. There's thousands - little thin strings that you don't realise may as well be veins to the heart until they're cut. She didn't need to open her eyes to see what should be in front, a house on a flat plane of brown grass with white-washed walls, a well and a squared-off soup kitchen to the left-hand side.
She knows the giggling and the crowds are in her head because when she opens her eyes, she isn't standing on grass. It's been paved over, the house is gone, and the only familiar sight is a well in a square that she doesn't remember. Somewhere in its depths is a hat that toppled from her head when she leaned too far over.
Vala thinks that she's never really stopped leaning too far over wells, and she's never really stopped toppling things into them, occasionally falling in herself.
"Vala?"
That's right. I forgot
to say I've been here before.
The thought drifts across her mind as she blinks.
She grins and nods, running a little to catch up, feeling as though she were forcing her feet to come unstuck from the earth.
The corner she'd stood on was non-descript to them. They only saw the rough paving, had no idea about the grass lying just underneath, that it was a corner to someone rather than a blank patch of an anonymous square. They have no idea what threshold they're crossing into the village inn, because the building used to be half that size or smaller.
She'd given in slowly, had less secrets than when she'd wandered backwards through the gate into their lives and even less than when they'd taken her back, claiming her as their own without thought when it mattered.
We don't leave people
behind.
She'd given up most of her caches. She'd given up the address of the planet her father and Adria had lived on. She termed her stay there 'passing through.' She'd never given up this one.
Teal'c didn't particularly care, knowing the price that fresh starts came with as a general rule and allowing her the payment.
Sam thought her home was with them, now.
Daniel allowed her that secret, knowing that for strays like them 'home' and 'family' were laden with meaning and complications.
They were all right and wrong, and all at once. She knew the price of starting over, she'd paid it for years before running into them. It was cutting those little ties that sustained you, even when you didn't know it. It was being alone and convincing yourself things were better that way. Cameron was wrong, but that was all of the story she could put into words and she didn't believe his 'dumb flyboy act' (Sam) anyway. Sam wasn't right yet, but she was getting there. She felt it - these Tau'ri were the most insiduous of all the people she'd met. They got under your skin and sunk in little hooks that turned to ties over time.
She almost wished they'd forced this last secret-that-mattered from her.
Allowing her to keep it had forced her to hold it, examine it; examine why she bothered keeping it. It was a silly thing. It was a gate address, a square she didn't recognise anymore, an inn that she walks into with a nonchalant grin. By giving in on something they saw as so very pivotal to her very being, something she'd quietly refused to do, she'd be consenting to the final assimilation.
Cameron talks to the town leader while she hangs in the background, bored outwardly and inwardly glad the old village had moved on after the destruction Baal had wreaked on Katesh's former domain. It means they don't recognise her.
"Okay, kids. Three rooms, since they postponed the negotiations."
She doesn't say much at dinner, beyond her usual, still trying to bring together the threads. She played on this floor. Her mother cleaned out that fireplace, but now a loud raucous man is flirting with her in a bar built into her own home before Teal'c appears by her side, his mere presence enough to send the drunkard into the distance.
"Thanks, Muscles."
He inclines his head as she carries the drinks back to the table.
"You're usually quicker off the mark than that, Princess," Cameron states, taking his drink.
She shrugs. "The smell had me pausing to breathe first."
They dismiss the incident with shakes of heads and grins. They're allowed their secrets.
Men flirt with Vala, she knows that. Even plays up to it or exploits it. But something about a filthy, drunken man in this place is wrong enough to paralyse her, because at some level she can't quite acknowledge yet it's still hers.
The double room given to them is her mother's, but Sam doesn't know that. She
comments on the age-marked floorboards, not knowing the marks she points out
are from Vala's mother's bed.
Sam goes to find Daniel. Trade negotiations, discussions of.
Vala runs a hand along the window frame and stares at the
unchanged view out into the forest. She's still staring and remembering when
Teal'c knocks the door,
After a significant look at
Vala grabs her coat with a bright smile. "Of course! But you're paying when you lose."
"With what?"
Sam and Daniel join them later, the five playing with borrowed coloured Triads and betting with a bowl of snacks.
Vala takes another win and when she stops laughing, she holds up her hands. "I'm going to bed. I can't eat anymore of these, and Cameron might not go to bed hungry if I quit now."
She doesn't go to bed. She goes to Daniel's room, letting herself in and crouching in a corner by the long window.
He finds her there ten minutes later, silently watches her scraping the paint from the wall with her belt knife. She doesn't jump when he closes the door.
"I'm sorry I'm in your room."
Her apology is cursory, insincere, and she doesn't stop or change her expression as she says it.
"It doesn't matter. I'm beginning to think I'm in yours."
Vala sits back and put her knife away. Daniel hesitates, then sits beside her. He watches her tracing light fingertips over childish scrawlings on the wall.
"This isn't home?"
"It was, once."
"Could be again."
"It doesn't know me anymore." Vala swallows and looks at him with a small smile. "Home is the place that takes you back, even when they don't know why."
Daniel ducks his head with a grin, then helps her stand.
The next day, as they leave after the trade negotiations. Vala stops on that edge that no one else can see.
Daniel, after a moment, pretends to be very interested in a wall.
Vala pretends to be bored, pretends to be drawing her eyes slowly across the town out of curiousity. She's standing on cobbles in a bustling square, but she feels grass beneath her feet and sees a shadow in the doorway.
I was dragged from
this corner once.
When she lets out a breath, Daniel dismisses the wall as unimportant.
Daniel waits at the edge of the square, where the edge is now.
Vala walks away.
"There's just one
thing that I need to say,
Before I close my eyes and walk away.
There's just one thing that I need to feel,
Before I walk away against my will.
There's just one thing that I need to hear,
Before I walk away for the last time,
There's just one thing that I need to see,
Before I take this chance and set us free."
** The End **
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