Full Circle
By: Divine Joker
CATEGORY: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
SEASON/SPOILERS: Season 10 “Unending”
WARNINGS: None
Ever since returning from the Odyssey with the Asgard
technology, she’s felt something tickling her stomach and wonders if maybe,
while they were going backwards in time, some kind of alien from an alternate
dimension buried itself under her spleen. Of course, she’ll never tell this to
anyone, much less Dr. Lam, but it still isn’t stopping her from thinking about
it.
And she tries to decipher Teal’c’s immovable look when she had asked him if she
had hooked up with anyone on the boat while they were stuck out there in space.
She finds herself unconscionably obsessed with knowing that answer, not
allowing herself to even think that what she wants right now, she had then. It
never seems fair to her, to find that what one wants in the immediate sense,
one had in the past tense.
Damn the Ori.
Missions come and go and she finds the routine comforting, real and somewhat of
a stay in a life usually measured by successful cons and harrowing escapes with
her life. Still, she has the death-defying job – has potentially seen more
death in the past two years than in all her other years combined – but it seems
different somehow; not so serious.
Passing fascinations with Earth culture are satisfied, including a truly
eye-opening adventure with the newly-decorated Teal’c – whose white hair seems
to leave him even more unique, in her eyes – where she was introduced to the
hazards of American football in Denver.
She isn’t quite sure that she wants to do that again, though both Teal’c and
Mitchell seemed to have a good time, she found herself thinking of what Daniel
could have been doing while touchdowns were scored and fumbles were lost. She
is sure that either Teal’c or Mitchell would have an easy time finding someone
on base that would enjoy those tickets with more enthusiasm that she might have
been able to dredge up.
It’s all fine until some Jaffa outpost is massacred by the remaining Ori fleet.
Life isn’t going to solve itself; after all, she figures, that’s why there’s
SG-1.
She rolls her eyes more often now, remains cynical of her life, refusing to
hope that she’s right and what Teal’c won’t tell her is that she finally became
the recipient of Daniel’s feelings. Because if that’s true, if she has had it
once, she can have it again.
* * * *
It’s three months later and she’s still in the unending cycle of flirting,
annoying and spending as much possible time of her life in Daniel’s presence…
more so than she hopes she’ll ever have to admit to.
She’s turned to denial in the event that Daniel ever comes up with something
more than an eyeroll and huff of frustration.
So when she’s sitting in his office, ironically helping him for once, and he
seems to look at her a little more intently, she self consciously tugs at her
hair, wondering if something is out of place. She tries to shrug off his stare,
convincing herself that he’s thinking too hard to realize that his eyes are on
her. It has happened before; this isn’t something new.
* * * *
She’s stopped showing up at his room when she knows that he’s on base; mostly
because she can’t seem to handle his off-handed rejections anymore. She knows
that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but that doesn’t seem to make her gather
her courage to tell him what she’s feeling or what he does any less painful.
Her temper is short and vicious, something that she’s always known, but has
always valiantly hid from everyone here at the SGC. It’s her home now and she
never wants them to think that the trust that they put into her is anything
less than what she deserves…at least on the outside. But her temper has always
been right near the surface and right now, fighting all her feelings, hopes and
fears, it’s regained its short fuse.
It’s Sam who finds out first, when nothing seems to trigger her anger by a
passing airman. He’s done nothing, she’s probably never said a word to him in
her time here and still, the look that passes his features as they’re walking
down the hall hits all the wrong nerves and she hisses some swears in a
language that she’s sure that Daniel doesn’t even know. Without looking at Sam,
or the look that she knows her friend is wearing, she slams the side of her
fist into the cold concrete, almost thankful for the clarifying pain that
shoots up her arm.
It’s nothing and everything at the same time. Sam is silent as they keep
walking, but even she can tell that she’s not completely comfortable at the
moment. The look that her friend throws her as they part at her room seems to
convey everything that she never wanted anyone to feel for her. She’s sure that
she can see pity, sympathy and empathy all at the same time.
Since when has she not been able to fend for herself?
* * * *
She’s turned to starting fights with Daniel if only to get some kind of emotion
out of him. Little things seem to explode into uncontrollable fits of pique
that neither seems to be able to stop. She has always known him to be a
passionate man, in beliefs and feelings, but this seems to be more than she
bargained for. Language is Daniel’s weapon of choice – be it for good or evil –
and he certainly knows how to use it.
She hates that she’s turned angry and vicious, hates the venom that spills to
her lips whenever he pushes her buttons in just the right way. She has always
suspected that he’s always known her weaknesses and she finds out for certain
when his words leave her in such an emotionally destroyed state that she finds
she can’t meet his eyes for days following.
Life had become everything she had hoped it would be in the last two years –
minus her time in the Ori Galaxy – and here, moments crumbling useless at her
feet, her heart has never felt so dry and brittle. Minus the incentive of
staying near Daniel, she stays on Earth because she can honestly say that it is
her home now and even with the pain of seeing her heart walk around with a man
who is blind to almost everything about her, Sam and Mitchell and Teal’c and
General Landry still make her smile and laugh and take her out to see the
world.
* * * *
She tries to avoid finding herself alone with him and still it happens. It is
awkward and silent and full of a brimming love/hate tension that she can’t find
it in herself to do anything about it. She knows that cowardice is something
she inherited from her father and here she wishes anything that it was
something more visceral like vindictiveness or malice.
Still, something in her heart trips a little at the sight of him, pride swells
in her gut when she sees him with the weak and abused and times when she’s
really needing someone to just listen to her, he’s the first one that come to
her mind.
And she’s more mad with herself than devastated by him – mostly because she’s
in as much denial as he is.
But she can’t seem to find it in herself to even tell him.
So finding herself alone with him, just coming back from an unusually boring
recon mission to a supposedly – though falsely reported – Ori-taken world, she
holds her tongue and hopes that thirty seconds can pass in silence so she can
leave without spilling her guts.
“Vala?”
She blinks hard and is shocked by the sting of tears the trail coolly down her
cheek. Her eyes open in disbelief and she finds herself staring straight at
Daniel, who looks so hurt and torn and sympathetic and…
Pain and broken hopes crash into her shabbily built walls and she’s almost
annoyed with herself that she didn’t see this coming. But she’s crying too hard
and pushing him away so stubbornly when he moves closer to her that nothing is
there to hold her up when her knees give out and *everything* pushes her to the
floor.
And he’s kneeling there beside her, warm hands rough against her face as he
tries to turn her head so that he can look at her. She cried harder as she
pushed away and in the weird calmness of her mind that accompanies varied bouts
of hysteria, she thinks that she better take from him what she can, because she
doesn’t know if this will ever happen again.
He’s not asking her any questions, which part of her thinks is a good plan. If
he was, she knew that the cowardice in her would make her throw them right back
on him. But she can feel her anger washing away with her tears and finds
herself almost resigned to the inevitability of finally baring her soul. At the
beginning, Daniel may have been soft and gentle with turning her away, but
after months of hurting him and hurting each other, she’s not so sure that
she’ll be able to walk cleanly away from this.
Her tears stutter to a stop and she hiccups indelicately against his shoulder.
Taking a breath, mostly to show that she’s stopped crying and to fortify
herself, she tries to push him away. He resists at first and she pushes a
little harder, panic welling in her.
“Stop touching me!” she hisses, clumsily shoving him to the side. She glares at
him in dumb-founded shock, at herself for not taking the opportunity to stay
next to him, and at him for thinking that she might want to be there.
He’s just as awed with her emotional u-turn as she is, she sees with the
wide-eyed stare. But he tries to reach out to her again, seemingly blind to his
actions when all she can do it shift away from him.
“What’s wrong?”
And she can only bark out a sob of laughter at the multitude of answers that
spring to her mind. In her confusion, she doesn’t see him move a little closer
to her.
“Why can’t I touch you?”
Her eyes slip closed at the sensations that wash through her at the thought of
him touching her, holding her…any form of physical contact with him makes her
shudder. Even now, when she’s certain that he feels nothing for her, anything
that she gets from him is a boon in her frustrated and darkened world.
She stands up on shaky legs and takes one step away from him, holds out a
trembling hand to keep him down on the floor and several steps away from her.
She’s never been able to think for herself when he’s been this focused on her
and she knows that this isn’t going to be the first time that she tells him the
truth when she normally wouldn’t have, simply because he’s *looking* at her.
“The pain of living with you and not having you is by far easier to bear than
the pain of never being able to touch you again.”
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she drops her eyes to the floor and
her composure collapses.
The room echoes with her last words and she hears his breath freeze. She pushes
the rule of their relationship with them; feel but don’t speak, look but don’t
touch, bleed but don’t die. It is love from the sidelines like she’d never seen
before and she is right in the middle of it.
Nothing about the next few seconds registers until she finds herself pressed
flat against the wall behind her, her arms pinned next to her head by the rough
grip of his weathered hands. His breath is hot against her cheek and she
grimaces at his hard look.
“I don’t know what you’re on, but if you even think that it doesn’t affect me,
you’re DEAD wrong.”
They stand staring at each other for long, breathless moments and then she
shoves him away roughly, steps from the cold cement behind her. His nostrils
flare in annoyance and anger and he watches her with heated eyes as she
silently picks up her bags and flak vest and leaves the team room with little
more than a kick to the door.
She stops suddenly, right outside the door, fingers nerveless in her abating
anger and frustration. Taking a deep breath, she turns a little and looks back
into the room through the small, rectangular window. His jaw is clenched in
confusion, knuckles white in clenched fists that slap against his thigh. It is
anger and violence and something that she had rarely seen from him. His hands
drop to his sides and his head drops back, shoulders heaving a sigh that she
can hear through the doors.
She is just about to walk away when she hears his soft voice urging the
ceiling, “Why? Why now?”
* * * *
He’s silent when he sees her next; blue eyes taped to the floor when she stops
in his office because General Landry asked her if she could drop something off
for him. As much as she dislikes the sight of Daniel right now, she loves the
General as the father that she never had and can’t find it in herself to tell
him no.
Still she makes it out of his lab with all of her nerves intact and her pride
in place.
She hates that she can’t even look at him without wanting to…love him.
She hates that she does, but really wouldn’t change anything about it.
* * * *
It’s him who finally comes to her. Late at night when all she can hear is the
thrumming of her own heart, she can faintly pick up the approach of his
footsteps in the empty hall. Her sheets are turned and flipped and tossed, and
they aren’t even that way from nightmares. She wishes she could blame it on
that when she opens the door to him.
Most of her wants to turn him away, pull a Daniel-like rejection, but a small
part of her can’t seem to want to see him hurt and she steps back, letting him
in. It’s not everyday that the minority of her wins, but she can’t seem to
think of it as a defeat when he turns to her and starts to speak.
Despite the words that would have passed his lips even a week ago had they
found themselves in their normal arguing, this time it’s heartfelt and solid.
Because as much as he knows how to use them painfully, she knows that he can
use them eloquently too.
She hates that she made him doubt himself, his feelings, but nothing can make
her regret the path that they took to get to the point where she’s staring at
him and he’s watching her cry and he’s afraid to touch her because of what she
told him in the locker room. He’s waiting for her to respond.
It’s only because she’d found herself bound by his words again, that she can
find it in herself to move into him and collapse into his sheltering embrace.
There’s so much about the last few months that she hates with a passion, but
she can’t seem to think of them right now.
After all, what’s not to love when you’re home and cherished?
** The End **
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