Snowman by madd4the24

Snowman

By: madd4the24

CATEGORY: General

WARNINGS: None

AUTHOR’S NOTES: Future!fic featuring damaged!daniel and damaged!vala. It's like the best combination ever.

Where Vala came from, snow was a horrible and wretched thing. For months on end it blanketed the agriculture, killing without discrimination. It came without warning in the form of deadly storms, often catching people unaware and sealing their fate. Other times it came slowly, a foreboding kind of wind that promised cruel and harsh times. The winter, which brought the snow, was nothing to look forward to.

Vala lived in a small home as a young girl, with her father and stepmother, her older sister having already married and left to start her own family. She despised her stepmother and was misunderstood by her father, which made the long winter months that much more unbearable.

When the first rain came, followed by the always-faithful snow, Vala hurried to harvest the last of the meager crop their family had managed. She worked in the rain, snow and cold to secure their food, knowing it would be the only thing to sustain them through the hard times. If they did not have enough they’d die, because the snow made it impossible to travel from merely one house to another.

No one smiled. There was no laughing, or singing or dancing, not that much of it happened during the summer time either. Instead everyone was solemn and serious.

As predicted most of the animals died yearly. The soil became so iced the planting season was always additional work, and people Vala had known for years had died in the passing storms.

Vala’s own mother had died during a particularly horrible season.

The snow took her sister just a year after she’d moved out.

Vala found herself claimed by the Gou’ald when the first snow fell from high.

Daniel hadn’t known snow for the first decade of his life. He’d traveled his initial eight years with his parents, who stayed in predominantly warm places. They were archeologists, and kept to the high climates, unable to really excavate much in the winter. They stayed in the Middle East for a good part of those eight years, and though he encountered rain, sandstorms and extremely cold nights, he never once caught a snowflake on his tongue.

After their death, Daniel found himself in an orphanage in Texas. His grandfather had rejected him and while the other children drew pictures of frosty the snowman, and watched him on TV, Daniel stood idly by, unable to picture such a sight. It never once snowed while he stayed in Texas.

He was relocated to New York shortly afterwards, and when he felt snow for the first time there was an instinctual fear. He stayed indoors as the other foster children ran out into the yard. Daniel sat by the fireplace, always preferring the warm to the cold, and wouldn’t hear of their exploits outside. He had hot chocolate, while they had runny noses.

He avoided the snow when he could, always reminded of one more thing he hadn’t been able to share with his parents. Snow was cold; it made his nose and hands numb, and only enforced the loneliness he felt continuously. He went to work in the Middle East, just as his parents had, and while escaping the loneness of the snow, he’d only isolated himself in the warmth. Still, the stigma remained attached to snow.

In Colorado there was absolutely escaping the snow.

Unbeknownst to each other, both made a silent promise to each other the moment they became parents. They weren’t to let their own experiences impact the small, innocent child in their arms. The snow would not be the child’s enemy. The snow would not take anything, would not hurt anyone and would not inspire thoughts of loneness. The snow would simply be snow, something to respect, play in, and use as an excuse to snuggle at night.

Now Daniel knelt in front of his daughter, barely able to keep his hands on her. She wiggled in front of him, bouncing from one foot to the other, eyes jetting between him and the window where she could just see the snow. Her brown hair, wrapped up in a simple ponytail, swished against the back of her coat.

“Daddy,” she nearly wailed, fighting him as they both tried to fit her small hands into the mittens. “Hurry up.”

He smiled gently at her. “It’s not going to disappear on you, pumpkin.” He helped her with her scarf, and then finally fitted a handmade hat over her head. Daniel made sure the material covered her ears and remarked, “And you know you’re not going to get out there any faster by jumping all over the place like you’ve got ants in your pants.” He tickled her, relishing in her squeals of delight. “You have to wait for your brother.”

The small girl sighed, hands on her hips, imitating her mother all too easily. “But he takes forever,” she whined, casting a glance over her father’s shoulder to where her mother and brother were finishing up.

“Hey,” Daniel said, tapping her gently on the nose. “That’s your little brother.”

“I know,” she cut back. “But he’s slow!”

“Finished,” Vala announced, leading the small boy by the hand into the foyer.

Daniel’s eyes slipped shut, holding in his mirth poorly. “He may want to breathe.” Daniel bent slightly to adjust the heavy scarf.

“I don’t want to go outside,” the boy complained, turning bright blue eyes on Daniel. “It’s cold.”

“That’s the point!” his sister reminded him, inching closer to the heavy front door.

Vala’s hands found Daniel’s and before long they were battling over their youngest child’s accessories.

“He’ll get too hot,” Daniel reminded her. “You’ll give him a phobia of the snow and the sun.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well excuse me, Doctor Phil.” She took pleasure in the grimace that crossed Daniel’s face. “Where I grew up you could die from just stepping out of your house without the right clothing.”

“Is he gonna die?” Their daughter asked.

“No!” Vala leapt to her feet, pulling the boy up in her arms.

“No, baby. Not ever,” Daniel reinforced, taking a moment to zip his own coat up and slam a hat over his head.

Suited up, Daniel threw open the door, and his daughter was off, streaking across their yard to the largest pile of snow. Daniel followed, tugging an arm around Vala, who clutched their youngest to her side protectively.

“Let him on down,” Daniel told her, leaning over to push his nose into her hair. He took a deep breath, the fresh scent of her hair fighting back the harsh bite of the cold weather. “Go play with your sister.”

Vala and Daniel stood tall on the front steps as their two children gathered snow for what looked like the beginning of a snowman.

“It’s the first snow,” Daniel observed.

Next to him Vala shivered in her own coat. “I don’t like the snow.”

“You know, I don’t much like it either.”

“Mommy! Daddy!” Their daughter waved them over, having just managed enough snow for the first layer of the snowman.

“But she likes it,” Daniel said, tugging Vala forward. “And so does he, no matter how reluctant he was at first.” He turned her attention towards their very young son, trying his best to stand on the uneven show while grasping it in his mitten covered hands.

Vala said quietly and soberly, “It’s just so cold.”

Daniel replied, “Not so much with them.”

Then both parents fell to their knees in front of their children, intent on making the best snowman ever out of the first of the season’s new snow.

** The End **

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