Everything in its Right Place by sorrel

Everything in Its Right Place

By: sorrel_rowan

CATEGORY: Romance

SEASON/SPOILERS: Season 10 “Unending”

WARNINGS: None

AUTHOR’S NOTES: Title from Radiohead. Thanks to iheartvala from Gateworld for the beta :) Dedicated to Stef, who semi-challenged it.

AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:

http://www.fanfiction.net/~sorrelrowan

“No one else will know these lonely dreams,

No one else will know that part of me.

I won’t always love these selfish things,

I won’t always live not stopping.

No one else will have me like you do,

No one else will have me, only you.

You'll sit alone forever,
If you wait for the right time,
What are you hoping for?
I'm here, I'm now, I'm ready,
Holding on tight,
Don't give away the end,
The one thing that stays mine.”

- Jimmy Eat World, ‘23’

Vala

“So you and Jackson.”

I turned my head a little and blinked, registering that it wasn’t so much a question as a request for information via a point blank statement and a smirk. Couldn’t he at least have waited until I was properly awake? Okay, so he saw me stumbling out of Daniel’s room. But still.

“Do you know what time it is?” I replied tiredly, taking a sip of my hot chocolate and drawing my knees up to my chest.

Cam slowly, deliberately looked at his watch and then at me. “Yes. Two in the afternoon, Princess.”

“Ah,” I said philosophically, dragging the syllable out with a slow nod and looking beyond him to the black outside, pursing my lips and gesturing at the window, “You know, it’s kind of hard to tell when it’s so space out…” I trailed off with a yawn, my lame evasion and capitulation clearly amusing my commanding officer.

“Do I even need to ask why you look so tired?”

My mind jammed up for a minute and the bottom fell out of my stomach as I absorbed the sensation of heat rising to my cheeks. Oh no, this is not good. There was no way he could let that-

“Ho, ho... Vala Mal Doran blushing. He really did a number on you,” Cam remarked with a laugh. I looked at the table in front of me and squinted, wondering where my jello – my blue jello, which I’d specifically begged Sam for only that morning – had gone.

Okay, that I couldn’t leave lying.

“What, like a…how do you call it, sixty-nine?” I asked sweetly, putting on my most wide-eyed and innocent ‘me, steal anything, good sir?’ expression, “Because in your culture I understand that that means-”

“Whoa!” Cam raised his hands and his eyebrows, sitting back, “That’s so much more than I need to know about you and…” He shook his head violently as if trying to dislodge his brains.

I sat back with a triumphant grin and my arms folded as Cam’s face returned to its normal shade and his eyebrows to their normal position, thieving back my blue jello while he was distracted.

“You’re messing with me,” He accused flatly, and I simply smiled and shrugged, leading to another one of those head shakes. “You do that to everyone, but not as much as you used to,” Cam said quietly, a bit more contemplatively.

I shook my head with a tiny smile I knew should have been on a lovesick thirteen year old’s face and meet his eyes. “Not Daniel,” I said with a hint of pride.

He sat very still and tilted his head slowly, then nodded. “So this isn’t a…frustration thing then?”

This time it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. He held up his hands.

“Hey, I have to ask, because if you two are gonna be arguing and beating each other into pulps whenever things spill out from behind closed doors and if it’s some crazy friends with benefits thing…” Cam stopped and looked at me. “You really are a piece of work.”

I would have been offended if he hadn’t been grinning helplessly, so I nod with a grin and let him off the hook. Well, the last time someone had been that mean I’d left his quarters barely dressed, so it couldn’t end too badly. “Just wanted to see how long you could keep that running.”

“Nice.”

“Thank you.”

“I did read that mission report, you know.”

“From when I stole the Prometheus and Daniel and I bashed each other on the head?”

“Yep, that one,” Cam grinned again, “Gotta say, it was one of my favourites.”

“Mine too,” I replied with a grin, remembering the raised eyebrow I’d gotten from General Landry for requesting that file. What, a girl can’t be curious if a gentleman kisses and tells? “I especially loved what he didn’t tell the SGC about me.”

Cam laughed, nodding.

“How did you get the whole story?” I asked, curious.

“Beer,” was the simple answer.

“Ah. For someone used to Abydonian moonshine, you’d think he’d be less of a lightweight,” I say, rolling my eyes a little but feeling a smile creep back onto my face.

“So this isn’t…?” Cam left the question hanging in the air.

I smiled again against my will and ducked my head.

“Not a fling thing,” Cam finished with a smile, putting a hand through his hair and shaking his head with an ‘oh, boy’ look.

“Not for me, at least,” I answered, feeling that unfamiliar – yet too familiar – sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of it being anything less for Daniel than for me.

“You know, it’s been a long time since he was used to that moonshine,” Cam said quietly, looking carefully out of the window into the black and reaching across the table to touch my wrist with a fingertip.

He looked back when I took a deep breath and swallowed, looking away and back with a smile and bright eyes to meet his part amused, part surprised expression.

“Uncharted territories?”

After a second’s hesitation, I answered, “At least since Katesh.”

Cam nodded in understanding and stood up, leaving me with my hot chocolate, jello and an admonishment to ‘get some rest, Princess.’

Well, I can only follow orders, I thought, sipping my drink and considering going to get some more…well, some actual sleep.

* * * *

Daniel

I yawned and stared dumbly at the Asgard database. Millennia of knowledge. The secrets of the universe, ready at my fingertips. The meaning- of-life stuff. But why, for crying out loud, did they make it so bright?

I took my glasses off and sat them on the console, leaning both hands on either side of it and wondering why we… I …bothered getting out of bed. Really, it wasn’t as if we were really going to do anything useful today…not after…

I bit back a grin.

“Not you as well,” A sickeningly smug voice Southern drawl said from behind me. I shut off the console and turned around, blinking rapidly. “God help us if we’re here in February.”

“What?” I said a little too sharply, to which he only tilted his head.

“Well, she’s up in the mess smiling at her hot chocolate,” Mitchell replied, unphased and deeply amused by my taciturn reply. “Or maybe that’s just the blue jello. Wouldn’t even let me have some.”

“She’s smiling?” I mentally smacked myself, then actually smacked my thigh off of the console as I turned to put my glasses on and avoid the grin Mitchell gave me for that Freudian slip. Yet another thing that was just a little too bright.

He nodded, the smile fading slightly as I walked to leave. “You know,” The drawl followed me, “She didn’t seem so very sure of herself.”

I stopped, the words I’d said that we hadn’t really talked about because we’d been a little distracted by that point flooding back into my mind.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing,” Mitchell answered, “She just…didn’t seem that sure of herself.”

I paused, looking at him, knowing there had to be more to come.

“Or where she stood,” Cam said casually. A little bit too casually. “You know, in general.”

Okay, even I can take a hint.

“So this is in place of the big brother speech?” I asked, amused.

“I just don’t want to clean up the mess,” Cam said with a shrug as he left, not fooling me for a second.

* * * *

So coffee was next on the agenda. Coherent thought: possibly after that, but I wasn’t feeling up to promising anything.

Clearly I wasn’t unlocking the secrets of the universe. How about the secrets of my own demented mind? There was a strange urgency about the latter, which wasn’t quite normal to me. Maybe because although I wasn’t going to start checking around corners with a mirror to make sure Mitchell wasn’t checking up on me, he had made me realise that for once, my own status as an emotional mess might have an impact – or might have already had an impact – on someone else.

Even in my head something chose to emphasise that ‘someone else’ with too much significance for…two-forty-four in the afternoon.

A convenient epiphany: time is relative in space, so you can never sleep in.

I found myself in Sam’s lab, who didn’t say hello.

“How’s Vala?”

I stared.

“Cam,” She offered by way of explanation.

I nodded and sat down, sitting a coffee next to her long-cold cup and asking the obligatory, “Any progress?”

She shook her head. We weren’t quite at the stage of assuming no progress unless otherwise stated yet.

“Daniel?” Sam asked, sitting down and turning off the Thor hologram mid-sentence with a roll of her eyes and tapped her temple with a small smile. “I can hear the wheels turning.”

“Really?” I asked with a wry smile, “Because they’re feeling creaky to me.”

“Well, I would be sympathetic,” Sam said with a grin, “But you weren’t unravelling the meaning of life so…”

I nodded and rolled my eyes, smiling.

“So what’s not right?”

Sometimes I hate that my friends know me.

I winced at the memory, even though I wasn’t exactly sorry and I wasn’t exactly regretful but it still didn’t sit quite right. “Oh, we had a bit of an argument. We haven’t exactly talked about it.”

Sam raised an eyebrow and something about the action made me interested in my coffee rather suddenly. “Before or after…?”

“Before,” I answered hurriedly, not wanting to know how she would dance around finishing that sentence.

She muttered, “Why am I not surprised?”

“Hmm?”

“You said?”

“Nothing.”

“Thought so.”

“So you two screamed at other and ended up kissing,” Sam said succinctly after a pause.

“That’s the funny part,” I said hesitatingly, “I did most…okay, all…of the shouting. She didn’t say anything.”

“Do I even want to know what-”

“Never in a million years could I be with her, couldn’t see what an actual relationship would be like with her, couldn’t trust her on a personal level.” I wasn’t looking at Sam by this point.

Another pause. “Was that all you said?”

“Oh no, I said that she was an emotional wreck as well,” I added then paused. “You were being ironic.”

“Yes, and please tell me it loses something … like tact maybe…in paraphrasing,” Sam shot back with a pained expression.

“No, no,” I continued, “That’s pretty much it verbatim.”

Sam looked at me, closed her eyes and dropped her head as I suddenly remembered being hauled up in front of the head for skipping phys. ed. in junior to read in the library.

“I was perhaps a bit harsh,” I ventured tentatively into the silence.

“A bit.”

“Okay, I was harsh,” I admitted, “But she just sat there, Sam.”

“And this would be a cue to continue tearing her to shreds how?” Sam’s eyes were faintly amused and faintly exasperated, her tone almost without rebuke.

“Well, I couldn’t see her,” I said defensively, “She had her back to me.”

Sam nodded and looked away, muttering something about Vala and I being idiots. “I always thought you were better at picking up hints than that.”

“I can take a hint.” So mature of me, I know.

“Oh the last few months beg to differ,” Sam said and then looked away with a grimace as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have.

“Sam…?”

“Do you really want an honest answer?”

Did I? Not really. Did my macabre sense of humour find that question being asked of me amusing? Oh yes.

I looked at her, bracing myself a little.

“You’ve been a bit blind,” Sam said bluntly. “She’s done everything but throw herself at you and you didn’t notice the change.”

I lowered my head a little, accepting that charge. “I noticed yesterday,” I pointed out.

Sam smiled one-sidedly. “Talk to her. Preferably before dinner, otherwise that’s going to be buckets of laughs. But Daniel? Decide what you want out of this first.”

I nodded, getting up to leave and stopping at the door, turning back. “Sam?” She looked up, already in another world full of numbers and dilemmas, and blinked. I covered her wrist with my hand and smiled. “Thanks for telling me when I’m an ass.”

She shrugged and smiled. “That’s what friends are for.”

* * * *

I walked along the corridor to the mess hall, stopping in the doorway when I saw it was empty and heading to the area of the ship designated for residential purposes. I put a hand on the pad next to my door and stopped, leaning my forehead against the door and closing my eyes. I could have really used a sleep, but I had something more important to do.

Knocking quietly on the door to Vala’s room, I got no reply and heard no footsteps. Leaning on her door this time, I yawned and had a rather smart thought. Well, she surprised me by turning up in my bed once. It was only fair to return the favour. And my quarters suddenly seemed so very far away.

Hitting the panel, I stepped inside the darkened room and took off my t-shirt and trousers, slipping under the covers with a yawn.

* * * *

Vala

I’d been in two minds all of the day that I’d been waking and coherent. I’d been in two minds for about two hours.

I went to my quarters, intending to nap for a few hours, then get up and go to dinner with the rest of the team. Maybe after that Daniel and I would go somewhere to talk about things.

There really hadn’t been much in the way of pillow talk. Pillow throwing, yes.

I let out a long breath, dozing where I lay as Daniel rolled across to the other side of the bed. I would’ve thought I would have pulled him back, but all I could do was lie exactly where I was and smile at the ceiling. Everything else was going to have to wait.

As it was, he didn’t roll far away. The other side of the bed I would have taken issue with. A foot or so away – enough to let some air actually circulate and to give me space to feel the artificial breeze, being suddenly aware of the heat in the room. And slowly turning my head with a lazy smile, I met his eyes as he did the same, reaching out and entwining the fingers of his hand with mine.

Turning over with the force of sheer effort, I put a hand on his cheek and felt my eyes fall slightly closed as his arm curved around my bare waist to pull me across that single foot of space.

Daniel deserved an ear-bashing for the things he’d said. But then there was the issue of him contradicting himself in what he did, meaning I wasn’t quite sure whether I was supposed to be angry or downright giddy and trying to be both was too much like hard work for someone who hadn’t slept yet.

I pushed the pillow that landed across my face away and back to the point of origin, only to have it shoved back at me. Rather than throwing it back, I lifted it up slightly and glared out from under it, hearing a laugh at the sight.

“Daniel, do you see the time?” I said with a yawn and a further glare. “And the fact that I’m the one saying the sensible thing and you’re the one throwing pillows at me should scare you in itself.”

He ignored me, lifting the pillow up and kissing me underneath it only to pull away and let it fall on top of me again.

It was either the kiss or the pillow, but I was awake and clearly not getting back to any pretence of sleep. So I did the logical, sensible thing, and threw the pillow back.

This, of course, ended up with not sleeping in the slightest for reasons completely unconnected with pillow-throwing or pillow talking or talking in general.

I opened my door and fought not to yawn, not even bothering to put on the light. I pulled off my jumper and curled up in bed in shorts and a vest top – shorts I hadn’t told Daniel I’d stolen that morning, oh well – and curled my hand around his.

Then I stopped because yes, I had just put my hand in Daniel’s, who was fast asleep in my bed. Because it was definitely my room. Not his. And it was definitely Daniel, as I put on the side lamp to check just that, making him stir and blink slowly, voice delightfully languid.

“So we should talk.”

“We should.”

“I should go.”

“M-hmm.”

He nodded, arms tightening around me anyway and nose brushing against mine. I smiled and nodded, deliberately brushing his nose with mine in reply.

I sat up and poked him in the cheek, slipping out of his arms and putting my feet tentatively on the floor. I gathered my things from various corners of the room, smiling as he groggily turned over to watch me scavenge my clothes. Kissing Daniel again, I walked out of the room and waved as the doors opened. He tiredly raised an arm from the bed to return it, a smile playing over his lips as he ran his other hand through his hair. I came to a halt, seeing Cam run past and watching disconnectedly as he stopped, looked and then looked again.

I guessed his morning run just got interesting and Daniel and I were going to be breakfast news whether we liked it or not.

A pause.

“Why are you in my bed?”

I can feel him shrug. “Mine was all the way over there. And I thought we should maybe talk.”

“Is this the ‘what are we doing?’ conversation?” I asked, taking his hand in the space between us.

“Yeah, something like that,” Daniel replied casually, with an undertone of tension in his voice.

“Well, right now we’re lying in bed and nearly asleep, I think, for all it’s only mid-afternoon.”

“Beauty of space,” Daniel replied with a yawn, “It’s night whenever you want it to be. And the combination of you being here and that sentence running on in my head is doing strange things to my ability to concentrate.”

I raised an eyebrow with a smile, “Just your ability to concentrate?”

He grinned and shook his head, closing the gap to kiss me then pulling back, falling silent when I put a finger across his lips.

“I listened. You said your piece,” I said quietly, noting that his expression turned serious when my voice did. “My turn.”

“You said a lot that needed to be said, and you needed to say it,” I explained, eyes on his. “And I needed to hear it. You are every bit as messed up as I am, but I won’t mess about with this or with you, and would appreciate if you didn’t shout at me any more. It’s confusing. I don’t like to be confused. Does that clear things up?”

Daniel nodded, noting that my hand had begun to shake very slightly. He took it and looked at me. “And I’m just as serious as you are. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said quietly, putting a hand on his cheek and kissing him. Feeling my shaking ease a little, I relaxed into Daniel’s arms and deepened the kiss, trying to remind myself that I came to my quarters to sleep.

“We’ve got three options, you know,” Daniel said quietly into my ear, “We can sleep or we can get up and go to dinner to get teased remorselessly.”

“That’s two options,” I replied as he kissed my neck and shoulder, “And I don’t like either of them very much right now.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

** The End **

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