Coming Along

By: Divine Joker

CATEGORY: Angst, Romance

SEASON/SPOILERS: Season 10. Up to “Momento Mori”.

WARNINGS: Sexual Situations

AUTHOR’S NOTES: I was struck, after watching Moment Mori and my sleeping OTP was brought to life. I’m sorry for any glaring mistakes, but this fic goes AU directly after Momento Mori. My first Daniel/Vala… tell me what you think?

The first time she came, it was only a few days after they had rescued her from the Ori vessel. He’d noticed that day that her eyes were a little darker and her voice carried less… perk.

In truth, he had woken up when the door to his quarters had cracked open. Blurred vision watching the shadow of her figure on the wall he was facing, he waited patiently for her to slip the door closed again and move towards his bed. With all the stealth that she had learned through her life on the run, she had slipped into the bed behind him, her breath caught when she was finally settled and she listened to see if he had woken up.

Regulating his breathing, he listened for another moment. She didn’t curl up to him, didn’t touch him and he thought that if she shifted further away from him she’d slip right off the bed. It was a few long minutes before she finally relaxed and let herself start to fall asleep.

Surprisingly, he found himself falling back into sleep and when he woke up, she was gone.

It was several weeks before he woke to find her sneaking into his room again. This time, they were on Atlantis - the amazing city that he should have been awake studying. He had noticed that she was disturbed by the words that he’d admitted on the balcony earlier in the evening. She’d been so quiet after he said that they were alone in their fight, her eyes darkened as she watched him in silence. They’d spent some time after that in silence, watching the moonlight off of the water as it broke against the pier below them. Finally, she moved off, her hand resting momentarily on his shoulder before she slipped back into the city.

This time when he woke up, he couldn’t stop himself from sitting up in surprise.

She froze in the light of the doorway, suddenly uncertain. Caught in her mission, she was seconds from turning and fleeing when he sighed, and settled back into his bed.

“Come on.”

There was a long time before she moved towards him. He could feel her hesitation at intruding before she succumbed and slid under the covers with him. Again she refused to settle next to him, but he couldn’t stop himself from turning towards her; and while he didn’t touch her, he felt better himself to discover that he could feel the heat radiating off of her body.

She was gone again when he woke and when he met up with her in the mess hall, she offered him a cup of instant coffee with a somewhat sheltered look in her eyes. It wasn’t until he smiled his thanks at her that she seemed to relax and spent the rest of the day at his side with the same enthusiasm of discovery about the city that he felt himself.

She kept to herself for the following weeks, even though he was almost sure to see her after the rest of the group had seemed put out by her attempts at money making when Martin Lloyd dropped in on Command.

However, he’d barely turned off the lights the night after they had run into Adria when there was a soft knock on the door.

“Daniel?” She cracked open the door and slipped into the room, not even waiting for him to acknowledge her. She stepped lightly in her untied boots as she moved towards the bed and he turned towards her.

Without hesitating, he reached out to pull down the edges of the sheets and moved a little further into the bed to allow her room. She settled into her spot, inches from him and then, after a few short breaths she took a deep breath and moved to settle against him. He started in surprise, not expecting the touch and she started to pull away and get out of the bed when he reached out and grabbed her by the waist.

“Come on,” he soothed, waiting for her to overcome her hesitation.

She did, allowing him to pull her back into the sheets and against him. He settled behind her, realizing that now it was his tangible presence that was what she was looking for and not just his being near. He let his arm drape over her waist, holding her tightly with his hand splayed over her stomach.

Long, ragged moments passed and he could feel her breathing shift, shorten and then without indication, she flipped over and buried her face against his chest. Her fingers gripped his t-shirt tightly, both fists tugging on the material as if it would bring him closer to her. His hands drifted against her back, long soothing strokes to try and settle her. It was only a few seconds later that he realized that the warmth seeping through his shirt was caused by her tears and not her breath.

Without a word, he let her cry.

She was gone again in the morning.

He found himself sitting across from her at lunch a few days later, with Mitchell and Sam talking about the way that training could be changed to make recruit’s a little more prepared for the absurdities of their work when he was struck with how much he appreciated her.

It was odd, he thought, when while he still found some of her irritating and self-serving, there was so much in her actions that was depicted by her past. Self-preservation was the name of the game when an entire planet was looking for your blood. But there was a lot to her that she seemed to want to hide from everyone; save himself.

She was honest and loyal, intelligent and even with all the pain in her past, she loved life and had fun. She was everything that he had found himself missing over the last few years. Life in the Stargate Program had turned him cynical - something that he had truly discovered on Atlantis.

She was still alive after all she’d seen.

He was beginning to understand that old adage of ‘opposites attract.’

He spent a long moment staring at his door contemplating his life as it stood in the light of Vala. It wasn’t something that he had been expecting in the least.

The invitation he had issued for dinner had come out unexpectedly, and while half of him dreaded spending that long alone with her in such a setting, the other half was thinking that he should make the most of this gracious opportunity.

And in the dim, isolating atmosphere of the restaurant, he couldn’t stop himself from admiring the picture she presented and felt oddly gratified that she’d taken the time to dress herself as she had.

Still by the time that she excused herself, he could feel his nerves stretching thin with anxiety and nervousness. He took those few moments and breathed deep, calmly and methodically sorting himself for the rest of the evening.

And then the waiter had told him that she’d been escorted out of the restaurant and all that he’d found of her had been the flower she‘d worn in her hair.

Three weeks before they’d heard anything about her. Very little work done and even less sleep and he was sitting near his wits end when finally, they’d hit something… hit her.

She’d been so scared, so lost when he’d first seen her. He’d barely noticed the gun she’d been pointing at him, he’d been so focused on the tears that were threatening to fall. It was only the third time he’d seen her cry.

He’d watched her intently the night she’d been cleared - even after his half-hearted attempt to write off their date as a non-event. As the five of them had sat around the table, beer, soda and water abounding, he’d watched her explode with vibrancy. Talkative, amusing and full of one-liners and jokes that he didn’t know that she would have possessed. It hit him again that she was a sum of her experiences; she didn’t ignore anything, push anything into the back of her mind. It was there with her, just not as important to her as what was happening in the moment.

He was not surprised to see that she seemed to manipulate the system when they left, leaving with him while Mitchell and Sam drove Teal’c home.

He couldn’t say that he was disappointed.

Oddly, he didn’t seem to need her to ask anything, and stopping in at the video store was something of a common understanding.

Walking in, she moved directly to the new release wall and with a nose for what she wanted, snatched the cover off the wall, turning and presenting it to him with a flourish.

“Oh no.” He said, immediately dismissing the film.

“Daniel.” She pleaded.

“Vala.” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

Her gaze shifted, her lips parted slightly and all of a sudden he was overcome with the urge to allow her anything. He tried to square his jaw and suppress the desire but caved in an embarrassingly short amount of time. He sighed and with the triumphant grin of a four year old having won her first argument, she sauntered off to the counter. The clerk there just eyed him with a pathetically simple glance that spoke of his limited understanding of the situation.

Passing over the money, he watched with fascination as she fingered the case of the movie with a distant look in her eyes; the Vala from the dinner had disappeared and was leaving behind a contemplative and somber one.

“Come on,” he said softly, his fingers touching her shoulder and gently guiding her out the door.

His house was dark when they pulled in and he turned on one switch in the entrance even as she slipped her shoes off and moved in his den. Even in the darkness, she moved with the grace of a thief; built in night vision, he remembered having thought of her once.

The blue light from the preview screen brought his attention back to the present, watching her settle herself into his sofa and catching the questioning glance that she threw him.

“I’m just gonna…” he absently waved to the back of the house and disappeared into the darkness.

Washing his hands, he found himself looking into the mirror. Honestly he considered himself; not how he looked, not how he spoke, but for the first time, simplifying his life into emotions and thoughts. He’d seen so many things in the last years that everything and nothing seemed to fit. He’d grown pessimistic, cynical and seemed to expect the worst from everyone but his family.

And now he was presented with the anomaly called Vala. Vibrant, optimistic, enthusiastic former-Goa’uld Vala; probably one of the few people in the universe who had more to blame on fate than himself. She irked him, pissed him off on the good days and made him smile on the bad ones. She was contrary, blunt and aggressively argumentative when she believed that she was in the right.

She rubbed him in all the wrong ways and it brought out nothing but the best in him.

“Daniel?” Her voice snapped his concentration and he turned to find her standing in the doorway. “Are you all right?”

He looked at her intently, the thoughts of the last minutes still sitting in the foremost of his mind. Spurred by her, though, he found himself contemplating the way worry made her eyes darker, and questions seemed to end on a high note. She began to fidget under his hard stare and her eyes darted around in confusion, not sure where to look.

He moved, slowly so as not to startle her and he found her tipping her face to the side in a mild form of defence, looking at him through the corner of her eyes. His fingers lightly touched her chin and she took in an instinctive breath of surprise. Her lips parted and he watched as she bit her lower lip, waiting for his next move.

His fingers traveled down the line of her jaw, her neck and settled against his will on her collarbone for a rest. He could see the pulse of her heart on her neck, the tiny twitch of the muscle of her jaw as she clenched her teeth in anticipation. She bit her lips together and held her breath as his fingers moved again, to her other shoulder and back up against to her jaw.

He registered the taste of the kiss seconds after it had ended. Her large eyes were staring up at him in understandable disbelief.

“Did you just…” she trailed off, apparently as confused by his actions as himself.

“Yeah.”

Her eyes dropped to the floor to avoid the intensity of his gaze and she childishly shuffled her feet.

“Does that mean that… you…” she shrugged to finish her sentence and he saw that she was still unable to look at him.

He took a deep calming breath, only to find his senses suffused with her.

It wasn’t wrong. It didn’t feel wrong - even if is was awkward.

Suddenly needing to avoid answering her, but also needing to stay close to her, he grabbed her hand and led her back into the den. Time, he thought, time will make it easier.

Half an hour into the movie, he felt her pushing him, gently urging him further down the couch. Frowning, he complied and then found her head resting on his thigh. Without a word, she continued to watch the movie. With little where else to rest his hand, it dropped to her shoulder and his fingers soothed themselves by idly rubbing against her. Eventually they traveled down her neck and, getting them caught in the elastics holding in her pig-tails, he gently removed them from her hair. He suddenly felt as if he had large clumsy fingers and frowned. He paused halfway through removing the last elastic and she turned to look up at him.

“It doesn’t hurt. Keep going.”

So he did. With the restraints removed, he let the jet-black strands flow over his fingers and absorbed the sensations through his sensitive touch.

The sound of the paper boy dropping his load into the mailbox snapped him into consciousness again. The fingers of his right hand were laced through Vala’s dark hair, as if he’d been combing through the strands in his sleep. He tipped his head to the side and looked at the brightening sky, watching the beauty of the day dawn and there, sitting in the quiet everything seemed to fit.

The unresponded-to question of the night before seemed to have a few different endings in the brightness of the morning.

Does that mean that… you… want to do it again?

Does that mean that… you… would like more?

Does that mean that… you… could love me?

His heart skittered at the thought. He’d been so hardened to loving something new, to letting himself feel that for someone that he might lose again, that to find that he might be able to love her without fear was fearful in itself.

God, she made him hate himself.

And yet, he was so much less of a man without her viewpoint; without her presence to make him consider things that he’d have written off as unimportant only months ago.

She stirred against his thigh and he found that his fingers had continued to move through her hair; soothing both himself and her journey into wakefulness.

Sleep-blurred eyes peered up at him and watching him watching her. She lay quietly, absorbing his curious touch, and waiting patiently. Astounding him again with something that he wouldn’t have expected from her, he smiled peacefully down at her.

“Morning.”

Taking cue, she stretched against him, twisting and groaning in childish pleasure and ended up turned more towards him than before.

“Good morning.” she responded quietly.

His fingers tightened in her hair and stilled, cupping the back of her head. He watched her.

“What?” she asked, her head moving further away from him, closer to his knee.

“I’m really glad that we found you,” he said softly, his fingers tightening momentarily against her scalp.

A small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth and she closed her eyes in thanks. “I am too, Daniel.”

“Vala…” he started, knowing that he wanted to say something greater but swallowing the words as they tried to work out. He sighed. “*I’m* really glad that we found you,” he tried again.

Her eyes popped open to look at him, narrowing slightly as she considered him. Then her hand raised and touched his cheek, her long finger following the lines of his face, tracing his lips, his nose, the curve of his glasses - unresolved over night - and stopping only when her whole palm lay flat against his face.

“I am too, Daniel.”

He couldn’t stop himself. He’d only ever once before had such a strong urge to hold her - days ago in the warehouse - and now he pulled her up against him, settled her across his lap and buried his face in her neck. He breathed in deeply, centering himself and regaining control of himself. As he calmed, he became aware of her hands, the touch she was giving to his suddenly shaking body.

Chills swept over his body, reminiscent of premonition filled moments when something bad is about to happen. Vala repositioned herself and straddled him, her eyes suddenly worried.

“Daniel? Daniel, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t…” he shook hard and pulled her tighter against him, feeling somewhat more grounded as the feeling of helplessness and fear ran amok along his skin. “I don’t know.” He swallowed thickly and clutched impulsively against her back.

“Daniel, you’re scaring me,” she said softly, her soft touches more soothing than anything he’d ever felt.

“I know.” He could feel his muscles tiring of their shivering, could feel his breath drawing shorter and shorter. His eyes squeezed shut and he clasped her shirt in balled fists to make sure that she couldn’t leave.

She couldn’t leave.

Can’t. Leave.

God, he was in shock.

He was in shock over her.

“I’m sorry… sorry…” he breathed, feeling himself begin to calm now that he realized what was wrong with himself. She sat above him, patiently; her fingers lightly sweeping through his short hair. She lay her cheek on his head and hummed a soft noise that soothed him to the core of his soul. She swayed slightly, pulled him with her and rocked him.

Taking a deep breath, he moved to stand and pulled her with him. He took her hand and with a yawn, tugged her in the direction of his bedroom.

“Come on.” she said softly as he paused at the threshold and proceeded to pull him in, towards the bed.

She left him standing at the edge of the bed and without preamble, shucked her pants. She stood in front of him in her underwear, unselfconscious and moved to his dresser, opening random drawers until she sighed in triumph and pulled out a t-shirt. She walked back to the bed and cast the fabric onto the bedspread before reaching up and pulling her blouse over her head. Carelessly, she allowed it to fall to the floor and picked up the shirt. After she had pulled it over her head, he watched in fascination as she reached behind herself and released her bra, letting fall out the bottom of the shirt to join the blouse on the floor.

He watched. The tips of his fingers burned as she casually discarded her clothing and covered herself up again. He stood frozen, dragging his eyes as she moved with fluid grace. She was standing in front of him before he realized that he’d stared after her even when she was clothed again.

There was no mocking smile, no pithy remark on her lips. His eyes darted down to her mouth and then without so much as a pause, he leaned forward and kissed her, remembering that when he had kissed her the previous night he hadn’t realized that he’d done it until he had leaned back.

He tasted her this time, felt the shock of her hesitation ripple through his torso and resound in his heart only to be followed by a much more hopeful feeling as she stepped into him and returned the kiss. He relaxed into the kiss for a long, blissful moment and then withdrew, sighing.

As she leaned back, her head cocked questioningly to the side. “Hi.”

He blinked slowly and felt the corner of his mouth twitch in a half-hearted smile. “Hi.” One hand rose and trailed along her brow, moving a stray lock of hair back behind her ear.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked softly.

Sadly, he sighed and taking her hand, guided her onto the bed. He watched her settle and then, assuming the same mentality, slipped off his pants and shucked her shirt down to the floor on top of hers. Wearing only his boxers, he waited until she shifted away from the edge of the bed and joined her, pressing up to her without pause. He felt her legs twine through his and exhaled in contentment.

“I just realized that I’ve been right here all along,” he finally answered. He curled into her and felt the tension drain from his shoulders as the beat of her heart thrummed against his skin.

Having just woken up, he fell back to sleep.

He woke with the sun in his eyes, coming in low on the western horizon. Next to him, and half over him, Vala lay silently, her finger curiously trailing down his side and back up again. Gently, he grasped her hand and held it up, placing her palm against his as he regarded their touching fingers. In the silent minutes that passed, she allowed him his contemplation.

He looked at her hand, the way that it was not quite so big as his, not quite so dark as his and still not quite as strong as his. However, in the relative size, it was something uniquely her: quick, precise and creative. Another thing about her that he wasn’t quite sure why he’d never noticed before. He outlined her hand with his finger, idly watching the path as she lay heavily against him.

He hadn’t felt quite so at ease, comfortable in a long while.

He watched her fingers move with his, thought of the time that they’d spent together over the last two years - and the short time where he’d begun to lose faith of her survival. They could move in tandem with barely a thought now, their minds on the same bent on more than one occasion. She brought other points of view into the picture and, while keeping some of her more erroneous traits, proved to be an invaluable addition to their team… to him.

“I’m proud of you,” he said softly.

She was quiet for a long moment and then, after gently kissing his chest, whispered, “Thank you.”

She turned and settled her chin on his chest. Eyes wide, she watched him watch their hands and smiled gently as he pursed his lips in thought. Why was it that after so many months of her having been gone that life could simply pick up where it had left off? He’d almost begun to believe her dead after long months with only thin hope and no evidence of her being alive.

“I need a shower,” she said suddenly, slipping herself out from his grasp and his bed.

He only had a short momentary pang of losing her body heat before he was pleasantly distracted by her scarcely-clad body moving out of his bedroom and into the bathroom down the hall. Smiling in his still unexpected contentment, Daniel threw off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, contemplating his feet. A slow, pleasant smile etched his face and catching up his shirt, he tugged it on as he moved through his house towards the kitchen and his coffee machine.

He’d just poured himself a fresh cup when he heard her bare feet padding down the hallway.

He poured her a cup and set it on the counter next to him while he fished in his fridge for something to eat. He felt like he should find some breakfast food, but looking at the darkening sky, decided that any food was good food.

Silently, Vala took the cup and leaned back against the counter while she watched him moving around the kitchen. He glanced at her in the silence and saw that she’d stolen a pair of his boxers to wear with his shirt and her hair was damp, staining the shoulders with water. When he turned back to his hunt, he didn’t hear her sigh. He started in surprise when she began to talk.

“Several years ago, I was moving through several different communities as nothing more than a drifter. I would steal when I had to - mostly when I didn’t have to - and move on before anyone would know the difference. I only had to depend on myself - and I liked that.”

He could only stand in awed silence.

“Then I ran into you. Well, you ran into me, but…” She shrugged diffidently. “And the way you were - strong and… stubborn and…” She closed her eyes and cupped her mug with both hands. When she opened her eyes again, she was staring blankly across the empty room to the blank wall on the other side. “You did everything you could to get your friends back and it was something that I didn’t know how to handle.”

He watched her, his heart hurting and expanding at the same time. She’d grown so much in the last months on Earth - more than he had ever thought she could have become.

“I wanted it.”

He smiled at that: an emergence of her masking traits under which lay her true desire. A family. Friends. People to love her.

“You have that, you know.”

She set her mug down on the counter, sidled over to him and kissed him soundly. When she leaned back again, she smiled becomingly at him. “I know.” Then she curled her arms around his waist, spun behind him and rest her cheek against his shoulder blade. “You’ve changed me, you know,” she stated.

“Vala…”

“No, you have. Like you told me when you took me out for our non-date - I proved you right. And I wanted to do it, not because I knew I could but because I knew that *you* wanted me to.” She took a deep breath and lessened her grip when she felt him starting to turn. She laid her forehead against his chest and sighed. “You’re the first person I’ve known who’s actually cared if I changed or not. Thank you.”

Pursing her lips, she turned her head to look down the other side of the counter. As she moved, some of her sleep-tousled hair caught in the stubble of his day-old beard. It was the briefest of things, one of the most innocent touches he’d ever felt and all of a sudden, everything of the last few days caved in on him.

He wanted her.

Several scenarios flashed through his mind in a matter of seconds.

The counter.

The table.

The fridge.

Hell, even the floor sounded good in the two seconds he lost mental capacity.

And she, obliviously, asked, “What’s for eating?”

The word slipped from his tongue before the implications hit his mind. Still, as he stood in the aftershock of the revelation, he waited for the repercussions, the guilt, the fear… hell, for anything but the pure, blissful anticipation that he felt at that moment.

“I’m sorry. Could you say that again?” she said, half teasing, half truly perplexed.

“Vala.” he said, his fingers softly starting to travel around her clothed hips.

“I’m glad you know my name, Daniel, but that wasn’t what I asked.” Despite her words, he could feel her body shift against him - not away, but closer. He could feel her bare thigh press his; knee to knee, hip to hip and finally, with a tilt of his head, lips to lips.

There was nothing preventing him from taking her then, not even her. His every nerve and sense was alive with the sensation of her against him.

And everything was right.

He had never allowed himself the opportunity to remember what had happened on the Prometheus, mostly because she had had a way of making it seem trite and functional when relating it to the here and now, it was a precursor to something explosive. It had been nothing then; a release of tension, a whim, a fancy.

She was beautiful and someone that he would never see again and she had irked him in so many ways that he had been dying to show her something solid and steady. He had wanted to prove something to himself as well.

Now though, now that brief sensational release was playing in his head in slow-motion; vivid, technicolor detail.

In his kitchen.

As their kiss continued, all the feelings she evoked in him coalesced into a burning, consuming passion. She responded in kind, fervently digging into his arms and holding onto him as he roughly moved against her. It wasn’t a polished seduction; it had no clear plan, and the longer he kissed her, the less he cared. The only feeling reverberating in his empty chest was the need to be with her.

“Daniel,” she groaned as he seemed to press into her in just the right way.

Her fingers jumped from his hair to the hem of his shirt, pulling it up, up and catching the bunched fabric under his chin. He grunted in frustration and violently finished its removal before doing the same to her shirt.

Her skin was hot, scorching and painfully sensitive. She hissed and bit his jaw when his fingers dug into her side, under her breasts and he responded by removing her bra and cupping the skin bared. He exhaled harshly into the curve of her neck and felt the burn of surrendered emotions drip down his spine and spread like a brush fire along his nerves.

She made him feel so lost, he thought as he felt his fingers dance along her bared flesh. He had lost control of his emotions the moment he had seen her walk through the doorway of that Ori room. And still it felt okay to watch her watch him lose himself.

It helped that she seemed just as adrift as he.

Introspection froze the second he felt her fingers dig into his hips, suddenly bare of clothing as she roughly pushed his boxers to the floor. He buried his face in the dark hair flowing over her shoulders as her fingers gripped him, twisting and pulling and God it felt like everything in him was getting sucked from his soul as she kept moving and touching and…

“Stop!”

Breath stuttered from his lungs in uncontrolled heaves as his hands handcuffed her wrists, desperately holding her away from him. He weakly lifted his head and looked down on her, sitting in his boxers on his kitchen counter.

“Jesus, Vala…” he groaned, feeling something of reality drip into his skull.

She grinned brilliantly, seductively and proudly all in one. She bit her lower lip and stared at him as he tried to regain himself in front of her.

Taking a deep breath, he asked, “Why are we still in the kitchen?”

Nipping playfully at his jaw she whispered, “I don’t care, Daniel.” Her nose gently brushed the line of his cheek and then down across his lips. She kissed his chin as she passed and he sighed.

He closed his eyes and absorbed her movements, allowed the goosebumps of her passing to expand and ignite his passion again. He caught her lips, kissed her with everything he had tried to deny for the last few weeks. Desire pushed him forward and his hand slipped beneath the elastic of the boxers she wore. He was pleasantly surprised to see that she’d kept her panties off and was clean, smooth skin under the cotton.

He pushed them down just as she did his and holding him tight, she refused to let him move. Her feet curled around his thighs and pushed his boxers the rest of the way down. Unable to move away from her, he kissed her instead, ruthlessly swallowed any protests she may have made in an attempt to encompass her every sense. She surrendered willingly, relaxed into his lead and followed him through every caress. Gasping for air at the end of the kiss, he was suffused with her need and arousal. Groaning, his perception of reality other than her disappeared into a fog of something that he didn’t really care about.

Helpless, he felt her tighten her legs around his waist and forcing his eyes open, watched her as she pulled him into her. He couldn’t have stopped her if he had wanted to and there was nothing in his world at that moment that would have had even the remotest enticement to do that.

He took a deep breath and held it for a long moment, watching her eyes flutter shut and a small, satisfied smile appear on her lips. He leaned down and tenderly kissed her.

Her eyes opened and her smile turned into a playful grin.

“I was just thinking about that first time…”

“Oh, come on! Now?” he pointedly looked down to where they were joined together and, distracted by her breasts as he glanced down, allowed his fingers to journey over her skin and settle on them. She seemed pleased with his distraction and cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Only in the contrast that this feels so… much… better…” she purred curling her hands about his neck and drawing him in for a long, deep kiss.

She pushed against him and he pushed back, reminiscent of the rest of their relationship. Nothing worked together; there was a constant battle of wills and ideas and the friction their dissent caused was more than enough to ignite the embers of the physical attraction that had always been between them.

Miraculously finding some mental footing in the flood of lust, he dropped one hand low around her waist and his other braced on the cupboard behind her head. Suitably anchored, he pushed into her with rough precision.

Her head lolled backwards and a satisfactory moan echoed out of her throat. He could feel the tips of her hair tickling the arm around her waist and the faint brush of strands against the hand behind her head. Biting his tongue, he watched her as he thrust into her again. Smiling, he heard the pleasing thump of her head falling helplessly against the cupboard.

He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his teeth bared against her skin. With each push into her, he could feel his concentration melting away, drifting into a pooling mass of dynamite in his abdomen. His control was disappearing and he knew that his climax was soon to explode when her moans became a little more articulate.

“Daniel…” He felt one of her hands drift between them and curiously detached from what was happening, he looked down to watch its journey. It suddenly stopped, clenched in indecision and then restlessly settled against his stomach, her nails biting into his sweat-coated skin.

His eyes suddenly focused on the movement he could see below the hand and he clenched his eyes closed as a rush of uncontrollable arousal suffused his brain, muffling any drive but the one calling for completion.

“Daniel, please…”

Attention torn from his own internal battle for control, he looked up to see her eyes squeezed closed and a grimace of pleasure on her face. Her thighs tightened, her fingers dug into his abdomen and when her upper body arched into his, he finally understood her pleading.

She shattered before him. Everything he had once thought her to be - controlling, thieving, manipulative - disappeared in the wake of her climax. She was just a woman in her own world; a world that happened to include him.

“God, I love you.”

Shocked by the oath from her still climaxing lips, he lost all concentration he had claimed on watching her succumb. Reality splintered and he could hear things coming from his mouth, uncaringly as he felt his release to the tips of his toes and the tingling in his scalp.

He found himself leaning heavily against her heaving chest, her fingers restlessly tracing lines of muscle on his body. He grimaced as he pulled himself together and stood up, his knees weak and his arms trembling.

She smiled like a cat.

He watched her and then, pursing his lips, he sighed, “It figures that you’d say that then.”

“Say what when?” she asked.

“What you just… said…” he trailed off when he realized that it had really been the orgasm talking. “Nothing.”

She eyed him curiously for a long moment and he closed his eyes so that she couldn’t see that feeling of hope disintegrate behind his eyes. It was amazing he thought, that such a glorious high could be squandered in such a small second.

His body was still coming down, though, and his head fell forward in exhaustion, settling against her shoulder. Her long, cool fingers traced random patterns against his back and shivers followed her trail. They settled together for long moments, their breaths slowing into sync. Finally, he felt her head tip slightly and her lips rest gently against his ear.

“Daniel?”

He could only grunt in answer.

“Are you paying attention?” he could feel her lips curl in a playful smile.

“Vala?” he sighed, wondering how her humour and playfulness could resurrect itself after such a emotionally - and physically - draining event.

“I love you,” she said softly, the breath passing his ear with such tenderness that it only served to relax the pent-up tension that had begun to gather in his shoulders. He hadn’t known that such relief could wash over him at hearing her say the words - in all honesty, he had been more than prepared to wait for a long time to hear them.

It left him with only one thing to do.

He stood up and kissed her.

He let his kiss linger, break and then kissed her again with a sigh. His heart was lighter and beating in such a way that he was feeling light headed. He kissed her cheek, her jaw, her ear and then, with a complete feeling of peace laid his forehead on her shoulder. Flashes of his life of his dreams rolled over the back of his eyelids and he smiled against her skin as the future expanded and went on to include her and him and *life.*

Leaning against her, bare to the chill of the evening house and each other, Daniel realized that he had given up on anything new in his life until she had waltzed through the Stargate and demanded a portion of the treasure found in Glastonbury Tor.

“Love you too,” he said.

Her fingers didn’t even pause in their trails across his back and her head leaned comfortingly against his.

The phone rang.

Groaning in disappointment for the moment lost, Daniel fumbled for the receiver and picked it up.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Daniel.”

His spine snapped straight and Vala sat up, looking him in the eye. “Sam. Hey.” His eyes darted down Vala’s naked skin and he could feel the corresponding flush rise over his cheeks. He sometimes wondered if Sam could see what it was he was doing over the phone. Vala just cocked an eyebrow at him and listened to Daniel’s side of the conversation.

“Where were you today?” He could hear the sound of keys clicking in the background; she was sitting at her computer.

“Sorry, slept in.” he cleared his throat and nearly choked on his tongue when Vala slipped hand down his chest and let her fingers rest where his hip met his thigh.

He caught the pause in her voice before she asked, “Till 7 in the evening?”

“Yeah, well…” he slapped at Vala’s wandering hand and frowned at her.

“Okay,” he could hear her smile and could almost see the furrowed confusion on her brow. “And I’m hoping that Vala is still with you, cause if she isn’t, I’m going to have to start phoning the cop shops in town.”

The arousal that was now thrumming through his blood was not doused by the playful accusation hinted in Sam’s voice. He could feel the fire of her touch singeing the vocal cords required to get Sam off of the phone. His jaw locked around his words and Vala took pity on him somewhat, taking the phone from his tightened grip and clearing her throat delicately.

“Hi, Sam.”

Daniel could clearly hear the chuckle of his friend on the other end of the line.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

Vala grinned brilliantly and laced her fingers through Daniel’s hair. “Bright and early. Briefing at 8 o’clock then?”

“Oh-eight-hundred, Vala,” Sam corrected playfully.

“Right. I’ll remember that. We’ll see you tomorrow.” Acting as though she had saved him from a fate worse than death, she turned off the phone and set it on the counter. She raised her arms and wrapped them loosely around his neck, meeting his gaze. She cocked an eyebrow and waited for him to say something.

“What?” he grumbled, still trying to overcome Sam’s discovery.

She huffed and ruffled his hair in mock sympathy. “Is it the end of the world?” Her head tipped to the inside and he paused in his answer. He looked at her carefully, looking into her deep eyes and seeing that there was more to that question than he had immediately thought.

“No, Vala. It’s not the end of the world.” He kissed her lightly and stood back again. Sighing, he bent and pulled up his boxers, smirking at her as she sighed dramatically. He picked up one of his shirts and handed it to her. “Come on.”

They left the rest of their clothes there on the kitchen floor and he led her towards the bathroom. Silently, he turned on the shower and smiling somewhat bashedly, reached for the hem of her shirt and began to pull it over her head. She stood docilely, and as soon as he’d finished his task, she reached for his boxers and quirking an eyebrow at him playfully, she pushed them passed his hips and let them fall to the floor.

“Are you saying I smell, Daniel?”

Dramatically, he bent his head into her hair and took in a deep breath. “Mmmmmm.”

She laughed and tugged herself from his grip, slipping into the spray of the shower.

The shower was relatively staid. Daniel succumbed to the lure of her hair and washed it as she stood still with her back to him. When he finally finished, much to his chagrin, he could feel the lure of her body calling in his blood; still it was more of a comfort feeling than anything urgent. He found that just standing there with her, content with his feelings, his future and the way that she felt for him, he was more than willing to stay in the warm water for quite a while.

Eventually, she pulled back and reached to turn off the flow. He sighed in surrender.

She held out her hand to him. “Come on.”

He let her lead him back into his bed and surprisingly in sleep without so much as a confusion of who got which side of the bed.

He woke when it was still dark out. The warm body next to him was draped half-way over him, her arm limp over his other side. Gentle puffs of breath tickled his chest, but it wasn’t that that woke him from his sleep.

Nature called.

Sighing, he slowly lifted her arm and slipped out from underneath, padding into bathroom down the hall. Finished and drying his hands, he stood stock still on the threshold, looking at the picture of the woman in his bed. It had been a long time since he’d felt at ease waking up to that situation. He found himself watching the rise and fall of her back and the soft flutter of sheets as she shifted further to his side of the bed.

He smiled at the picture she presented: an untroubled woman in the bed of the man she loved - and who loved her - with nothing in her but the vulnerability and innocence of sleep to mar her complexion. It made her appear younger, calmer and with a beauty that he admitted he’d never taken the time to appreciate.

She snuffled and buried her nose further into his pillow, sighing as she rose from sleep.

He drew himself from his lounge against the doorframe. He walked around the bed and sat on the edge, his fingers dropping to pull the hair back that was covering her face. Uncovering her eyes, he found them open and smiled.

“Morning.”

“Hey,” she whispered only a second before turning onto her back and stretching like a cat. The thin fabric of his shirt stretched taught over her skin and he found himself distracted by the disclosure of her lines. She only cocked an eyebrow in admonishment.

He smiled back at her, dipped to kiss her good morning and then shrugged. He knew that she didn’t care that he looked.

“Looks like its back to work,” he said softly, his fingers still resting on her cheek.

“Well, you know how much I love work.” she replied. She took a hold of his wrist and tugged gently, trying to urge him to come back to bed. “It’s still dark, Daniel. Come on.”

He paused for a long moment and watched her in the darkness. “It’s almost time to get up.”

She turned to look at the digital read out on the clock beside the bed and pursed her lips. “But not yet.”

“No, not yet,” he smiled, slipping back into bed beside her.

Complete and utter contentment washed over him as she let her fingers rise along his arm and trail arousal with her touch. The lull of waking up burned away with her journeys and he reciprocated, satisfied to hear her own breath catch as his fingers circled her breast. She sat up and threw off her shirt dipping back against him. Her hands immediately moved to the waist of his boxers and shifted them before he stopped her with a soft touch to her wrist.

She looked up at him through her lashes and waited for him. She knew from his touch and response that he was stopping her, but he wanted to say something. She bit her lower lip and he found his concentration lost again. His eyes drifted closed and he found his words floating aimlessly in his mind.

“This is going to work, right?”

The Vala he knew from several months ago would have made light of his words, would have taken them and laughed. Now, next to him and naked, she only took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yes.”

And it was really all she had to say on that. She knew that that was all he needed to believe her, and that was what she gave him.

He looked up at her and pursed his lips. “Yeah. I think so too.”

** The End **

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