Morning Surprises
By: dvshipper
CATEGORY: General
SEASON/SPOILERS: References to Season 10’s “Memento Mori” and to “Ark of Truth”
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Sequel to “Stop Button”. It can stand by itself, but it’s also helpful to read “Stop Button” first. Thanks to taraleesg1 for being my beta on this one.
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://dvshipper.livejournal.com/
Vala woke up to soft light streaming through the sheer curtains. Her eyes still closed, she stretched her arms above her head, letting out a sound of contentment. Vala turned on her side, planning on waking Daniel up with her soft touch. However, Daniel wasn’t there, where she thought he’d be still sound asleep. Vala wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion. “Daniel?” she called softly. No response. “Daniel!” she raised her voice a little louder, her frustration growing.
Daniel walked around from the bathroom with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. He was wearing only loose drawstring pajama pants and his hair was sticking up in all directions, still wet from a shower. “Yeah?” he replied to her call with a mouthful of blue toothpaste.
“Just wondering where you were. I thought you’d want to sleep in,” Vala told him with a smile and a wink. She sat up pulling the puffy down comforter around her waist and leaned her back up against the wood headboard. Daniel grinned around the toothbrush, holding his finger up telling her to hold on a second. With that he disappeared back into the bathroom.
Vala got out of the warm bed and grabbed her iPod that was on the bedside table. She clicked and scrolled until she found her favorite album and set the mp3 player on the docking station that was the alarm clock. Vala grinned as the familiar first notes played and she turned the volume up.
Daniel was putting his still wet toothbrush back in his bag when he heard the music come on. He smiled when he recognized the song as “Better Together” by Vala’s favorite artist, Jack Johnson. Since the beginning of their relationship five months ago, the song had become their song. Daniel came out of the bathroom and saw Vala standing there wearing only a tiny pair of orange boyshort style underwear, swaying back and forth with the music.
Vala reached out her hand as he got closer, inviting him to dance with her. Daniel held her hand in his as he matched her motions in time with the music. She could feel his bare skin on hers, warm and familiar. If only this was the scene of every morning, Vala thought as she pressed her body closer to Daniel’s and let her head rest on his shoulder. “You still haven’t told me why you got up this morning,” she said as the song came to an end and the next one started.
“I was going to surprise you with breakfast,” Daniel answered, just as they heard a knock on the door.
Almost as if on cue, a voice called from behind the door, “Room service.” Daniel left Vala’s embrace and tossed her the robe that was hanging in the closet. As she slipped it over her shoulders, he opened the door. A short man in a blue uniform pushed a cart with a white tablecloth over it into the room. “Thanks,” Daniel told the guy and gave him the five dollar bill that was sitting on the dresser. He closed the door behind the man and turned to see Vala’s grinning face.
Vala pulled two chairs up to the cart that doubled as a table, smelling the aroma of rich coffee and fresh bacon. As Daniel joined her she took off the silver domes that covered the plates of food. Her eyes looked over the pancakes, meat, and fruit but soon her gaze was held by the bottle of champagne and pitcher of orange juice. “Oh, Daniel, you remembered!” Vala exclaimed, clearly pleased.
“Of course I did,” he told her as he sat down across from her. Daniel thought back to their first date which was in the commissary after their return from the Ori galaxy, the second time. Daniel knew that whenever Vala couldn’t get to sleep, she went to get a snack. He had met her with a bottle of cheap champagne, orange juice from the commissary self serve machine, and ripe strawberries. It was the first time Daniel had admitted that they weren’t just friends; there was something more he felt for her. “So much for a surprise breakfast,” he told her.
“It’s perfect,” Vala said with a beaming smile. Whenever she thought things with Daniel couldn’t get any better, he did something incredibly romantic like this. When she started eating the pancakes she noticed there was something different about them. “You didn’t,” Vala said looking at Daniel with a loving smile.
“Yes, I had the chef make them special,” Daniel replied as he clicked the remote control of the music, switching to the song “Banana Pancakes.” Feeling very cheesy and cliché he repeated the lyrics of the song, “Want to close the curtains and pretend there’s no world outside?”
“Oh yes!” Vala’s heart fluttered at the sight of his charming grin. Her face dropped slightly as a thought hit her. “Don’t we have to get back to the SGC though?”
“No because before we left I got permission from General Landry to stay an extra day. We don’t have to leave until tomorrow,” Daniel told the beautiful woman in front of him. He had been nervous about the dinner and her meeting his old classmates, but he was sure they both needed a break from the base. After they had defeated the Ori and their followers had been neutralized, things for SG-1 had been slower than usual. The team mostly went on recon missions and dealt with the stray Goa’uld problem. Earth wasn’t under the threat of impending doom and Daniel liked that feeling.
“Let’s stay in bed all day and watch movies! You can rent them on the TV you know,” Vala said, having figured out almost everything you could possibly charge to a credit card.
“Yes we can watch movies, but we don’t need to rent them,” Daniel told her as he popped the cork on the champagne. He poured some into the two tall glasses between them.
“Why?” Vala was confused and watched Daniel pour orange juice into the half full glasses of the bubbling alcohol.
“Look in my suitcase,” Daniel tilted his head, motioning in the direction of the black bag that was in the closet. He watched as Vala walked to the closet and pulled out the bag. She fished through the contents until she pulled out a stack of DVD cases. She giggled when she read the titles.
“You really did think of everything,” Vala grinned as she looked over the movies. Titanic, Pride and Prejudice, The Notebook, and all three Lord of the Rings movies. Daniel knew her all too well.
After they had finished breakfast, Vala scampered off into
the bathroom to take a shower. Daniel slipped on a white t-shirt and turned on
the news. Headlines of war in the
If Hindu mythology was right and everyone had a person somewhere who fit them perfectly, Daniel knew Vala was his destined match. Vala was so the opposite of him, but it was like a puzzle piece clicking together; where one of them was lacking the other filled in. There had never been anyone else in his life that completed him in every respect. Well, there was Jack but Daniel knew there was nothing romantic there. He hoped.
Vala looked into the mirror and pulled the hairbrush through her wet hair. She thought how lucky she was to have Daniel in her life. She trusted him, which was a big step for her in a relationship. With every man before him, with the exception of Tomin, Vala couldn’t let go of her thieving nature. Whenever she left the room, she worried if he might steal from her or do something that would break her heart. She didn’t worry with Daniel; it was as if he was the only one who could set her mind free. Vala, done getting the tangles out of her hair, reached for the small bottle of perfume that Daniel liked so much and dabbed some onto her skin.
When Vala emerged from the bathroom draped in one of Daniel’s big button down dress shirts she saw that there were sepia toned pictures moving across the television along with familiar music playing. She smiled at Daniel, who was lying on the bed propped up with pillows. “How’d you know I wanted to watch Titanic first?” she asked Daniel before she hopped onto the cream bedding next to him.
“Because you always do,” Daniel told her, letting her use his arm for a pillow. This wasn’t their first movie marathon. On a couple of the rare weekends they had off, they had holed up in Daniel’s apartment with stacks of DVD’s. He liked to spend the day watching movies with Vala; however there was the one time when she discovered that musicals were very entertaining. If he ever had to hear the words ‘la vie boheme’ again, he was sure to kill himself. Titanic on the other hand, was a movie he secretly enjoyed.
The film rolled on and the couple was comfortable snuggling in each other’s arms. However, just as Rose was about to break Jack free of his handcuffs and the ship was filling with water; Vala announced that Daniel should make a trip to the vending machine at the end of the hall. Daniel sighed as he got his wallet and the room key from the top of the dresser. When he closed the door behind him, he stood and waited for a second. Sure enough, Daniel heard Vala loudly remind him to get Twizzlers, just like he knew she would.
Vala sat in the warm bed watching Rose and Jack wade through freezing cold water as she waited for Daniel to return with the candy. This was the most relaxed she had felt in a long time. Watching romantic movies with Daniel in a fancy hotel room was better than the embrace Daniel held her in when she got her memory back. More peaceful than the quiet nights they had spent in a tent at the ruins of Dakara. There were many moments in her life that in hindsight were perfect but she didn’t realize at the time. Vala saw that this day was perfect.
Vala heard the door open and saw Daniel walk in with a stack of candy in one hand and two sodas in the other while trying to balance the room key on top of them. She started to giggle before getting up to help him. “Thank you, darling,” Vala said and kissed his cheek while taking the Twizzlers from his hand.
Daniel put the other snacks on the nightstand and sat back in his spot on the bed. The smell of red licorice filled his nose when Vala opened the wrapper next to him. She appeared so innocent when he watched her bite down on the red candy. Daniel leaned over after watching her for a minute and kissed her, tasting the sugar on her mouth. When he kissed her there was always something new he discovered. The way she tilted her head a certain way when he laid his palm on her cheek or how she breathed in quickly when he brushed his tongue on her lower lip. With this kiss though, he discovered how she could make sugar and corn syrup dyed red be so sexy.
** The End **
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