Chapter 8

"You know, darling, I can practically hear the cogs spinning in your head," Vala sleepily observed, as she lightly ran her fingers down his chest.

'Cogs spin…oh, gears turning' he mentally translated, but thankfully was not so blissed out that he voiced the correction. Talk about killing the mood.

And he quite liked the mood right now. Vala was contently quiet, almost still, and warm against his side, as he slowly ran his fingers in a light caress up and down her back. And he was happy, the happiest that he had ever been in – gods, ancients, whatever – knew how long. The only fly in the ointment was …

"I was just wondering if I should have taken advantage of your grief over Aharon like that."

Vala snorted, her warm breath tickling across his neck, as she drawled with mild exasperation, "Only you, my Daniel."

His arm stilled and he looked down at her, "Is it really that silly? I don't want to be that guy."

Vala reached up and put her finger to his lips to quiet him, as she asserted archly, "In case you have forgotten, I prefer my comforting to come in the form of physical affection."

Before he could roll his eyes or make some arrogant asshole snark, as had become his bad habit with her, she settled back down, resting her head on his shoulder, her hand over his heart, as she thoughtfully confessed, "I think, it grounds me in my body, reminds me that it is fully my own."

And then in typical Vala fashion, after hitting him with that emotional sucker punch of her host days gone by, she followed it up with a sweet verbal jab that knocked the wind out of him, as she declared:

"Besides, darling, I don't think your declaration of desire could ever have had bad timing."

"Really?" he asked doubtfully, thinking of all sorts of instances – mid-mission briefings, negotiations with the Russians, mid-testimony in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee…

"Not for me," Vala replied with an indifferent shrug, and then her shoulders shook a little as she chucked, "I, at least, am not embarrassed by public parades of affection. But if you had waited years and years until we were on our death beds of old age, then maybe."

"Touché," he agreed. "That would have been a tragedy."

Silence fell after that, and he would have thought she had drifted back to sleep (and he himself might have), if it had not been her restless drumming of her fingers on his chest.

"Now I can feel you thinking."

Vala sighed and rolled over so that she was staring up at the ceiling and actually using her own pillow, before admitting softly, "'Years and years' and 'old age' – they made me think about that time on the Odyssey that only Teal'c remembers."

"Yeah?"

"I always knew I would have hooked up with somebody – because well, it's me – but I never dared to hope that it had been with you."

He inhaled sharply at the echo of that long-held pain. Reaching over, his left hand squeezed her right in the space between them, half in apology for all the hurt his repeated rejections must have caused her and half in reassurance that things had definitely changed between them.

She squeezed back, interlacing their fingers together, as she mused aloud, "But now that we have proven that it is definitely possible in at least one reality… Well, I wonder that if it was more than just 'hooking up' and we had been in a long-term relationship there, somehow not driving each other too batshit crazy or killing each other, then… was it only because we were trapped?"

"And couldn't run away from each other, you mean?"

"Yep."

"I think…" he started to say but stopped. What did he think?

Well, for one, he had always assiduously avoided thinking about that alternate reality, because he had been too scared shitless to contemplate what he would have wanted to happen in that situation. Imagining such a thing would have led to facing the true depth of his feelings for this woman that he hadn't been ready for. And even he had limits on how much he could lie to himself.

"I think," he began again. "That being stuck on that ship indefinitely would have forced that other version of ourselves to face things that we are so excellent at avoiding…But I don't think that we need to be forced into a similar situation for us to succeed now."

"No?" she asked with a hint of wistful hope.

"No," he repeated with a soft smile, satisfied that he had guessed correctly about her underlying fear.

"I think, we just need to commit to not run away from each other and our feelings, whether that's our work or … ahem," he cleared his throat, barely catching himself before ruining his proposed vow with an insult.

"Or my many con artist personas?" a hint of wry amusement tinging her helpful suggestion.

"Yeah that," he agreed meekly.

"Do you think we can actually do it?"

If she had asked him a week ago, he would have 'no'. They were too broken, too guarded, too stubborn in all the wrong ways.

But now…

Now that their walls had been broken down, they could put that tenacity to good use.

"I think if we commit to doing our best to try and keep on trying, then yeah, it's achievable. You know, progress not perfection."

He hadn't known he had been holding his breath until he let it out in a rush, when she declared determinedly, "Okay, deal."

And then she was rolling back over, swinging her leg over him, and straddling him, all before leaning down and whispering huskily, "Shall we seal it with a kiss?"

The sight of her, the sound of her, the smell of her, and the feel of her flooded his senses, and the knowing of her, that she was his, all his, his Vala, filled his mind, body, and soul like no other truth of the universe had.

And all he wanted to do was taste her.

He surged up, threaded his fingers in her hair, gripped the back of her head, anchoring her to him, and kissed her with all he had.

When they broke off for air, Vala chuckled lowly, "I think I will take that as a yes."

"No more thinking, no more talking," he pleaded with a low growl before capturing her lips again.

But because she was Vala Mal Doran and had to have the last word, she gasped out, "As you wish, darling," before plundering his mouth yet again.

~S~

THE NEXT MORNING…

"Hey, Mitchell!"

"Hello, General," Cameron greeted Jack O'Neill. "What brings you to our neck of the woods?"

Jack gave a little ambiguous shrug, as he answered noncommittally, "Oh this and that and some other bureaucratic thing."

Cameron would have gladly let his curiosity go and been on his way, but the man turned the tables on him, slyly eyeing him and the two cups of pricey coffee and bag of muffins that he had picked up from the artisanal café near his apartment, before asking with knowing delight, "And what exactly brings you to this stretch of concrete hallways with those?"

"Oh, uh, Caro- Dr. Lam worked the overnight shift, and she asked me to pick her up some on my way in," he stammered, carefully leaving out that he had stopped by his on-base quarters for a spritz of the cologne that he was out of at home first.

Fortunately, for him, a distraction came along that snagged the General's attention before he could question him further.

A distraction in the way of Vala Mal Doran.

A Vala Mal Doran, leaving Jackson's room with mussed hair, a very contented smile, and far too much pep in her step as she sauntered towards the other end of the hall.

Before he could pick his jaw off the floor, Jack was holding out his hand and ordering happily, "Twenty bucks, cough up."

He juggled the coffee cup tray and muffins into one hand, so that he could dig the cash out of his pocket with his other, as he grumbled with a muttered, "How'd you know?"

He certainly hadn't thought they were anywhere near taking their bizarre relationship to this level, especially not after their behavior recently.

"Aside from my long-term association with the man?" his superior drawled, and then as he pocketed the money, he added with a smug grin, "I'm smart like that."

Arching his eyebrow in his best imitation of Teal'c, he retorted dryly, "Be sure to give the Major her cut, sir."

Jack eyed him up and down, observing with mock irritation, "You're a cheeky monkey, you know that, Colonel?"

"That's what my grandma would always say, sir."

Jack's eyes twinkled with mirth, and then with a dismissive nod, he declared, "Best not keep the Martinet of the Infirmary waiting any longer for her caffeine and carb fix."

"Yes, sir," he agreed.

He took a few steps to head towards the elevator, but stopped when he realized that the General was still standing outside of Jackson's room.

And he could have sworn he heard the man happily mutter under his breath, "Daniel, you dog."

But as he made it to the end of the hall, he definitely heard the man call out, "Hey, Carter! Do you got change for a twenty?"

And so begins the (second) next fifty or sixty years…

A/N: and that's all folks, at least for this tale. I hope you enjoyed.

Please, let me know what you think and if you are interested in more. I have a few ideas for some one-shots at least.

Anywho, thanks for reading!