Chapter Text
By then end of January, he loses his military compensation which includes his medical insurance and access to physiotherapy. Without a doctor to help him use his muscles again, without the x-rays and the novel procedures to his warped spine, to his aching hip, to the metal rod in his thigh—especially without access to his pain medication which they can no longer afford because his air force dues were revoked.
It’s sort of a blessing in disguise, even though he’s in more pain than he’s ever been in his life, by revoking his ability to access pill refills whenever he wanted at no cost, they subverted the growing addiction within him.
It also oddly works to bring both he and Vala closer.
She helps him with physiotherapy every morning. He lays on his back in gray sweats and a black t-shirt, refusing to wear anything with the air force insignia on it, slowly trying to stretch out his muscles that won’t be stretched, that are hard and his whole body shakes until she stops pressing in, telling him it’s enough, and he forces her to continue, despite the pain, despite how red and sweaty his face is, how strained his words are.
Losing the majority of his military dues—they left him with a small stipend a month for his years of loyal service, and when he saw how much it was, he tore up the paper, because those years meant nothing—also meant that they lost the house that was gifted to them in the agreement he made with Landry when the government killed his daughter.
He has nothing to show for her life now.
Except for one other person.
She lays asleep beside him, and even with the pain flaring in his spine and how hard it is to sit up, he does so, and he watches the bedroom door with a baseball bat leaning against the wall at his bedside table, because if they revoked his access to the house—that they have to vacate by the end of February—then they can revoke the base freedom she’s garnered, and he’ll be damned if they’re going to try to take her away from him.
They spend the mornings searching through the papers for available apartments that they can afford. A one-bedroom is all they need, but even with all the domestic attacks lowering a lot of the land value, the pickings are still slim.
The afternoons are spent packing up objects they want to take with them and trying to see the ones they don’t—even though they’re only slightly downsizing, it’s still downsizing, and the extra money helps.
The evenings are spent with his head in her lap, trying to find anything on the tv that isn’t politically motivated.
She helps him hang his legs over the arm of the couch and pets a hand through his hair as they watch reruns of Wheel of Fortune and she kicks his ass because she’s read fifty times the books he has—some of which, she has to separate from and sell because there’s not enough room.
If she minds, she doesn’t show it—apparently some of the books she really hated anyway.
“I don’t want to move,” he states to the ceiling during a political commercial for re-electing President Landry in the midst of the country being on the brink of another civil war.
“What do you need? I’ll go get it.”
She’s so much rolled all into one.
The fact that she would give up her own comfort to run and get whatever he needs in that moment. Ready to give up whatever she can for him because she knows he feels the same way when a few months ago she showered in the early morning behind a locked door, now she showers with the door open in case something happens to him—it’s not likely that he’ll take a fall, but they both have the things that make them worry about the other.
It’s still endearing that she still confuses Earth definitions.
“No, no.” Laughs despite the situation and kisses her wrist because her hands stopped stroking through his hair when she thought he might need something. “I meant that I don’t want to move from this house.”
“Oh.” She grins down at him, and then turns her attention back to the television, her hands resettling in his hair. “Why not?”
“What do you mean?” Stares up at her, how the television screen is reflected in her gray eyes. When she doesn’t answer him, doesn’t offer him a shrug or even glances down at him he continues, “this is our home.”
She stays quiet, for a second, he thinks that she’s too engrossed in an episode of The Price is Right from the 70s and he doesn’t know what’s more entertaining to her—the aspect of gameshows, becoming involved in them as a passive audience member, or the wildly switching fashion patterns that vary by decade.
But then she takes a deep inhale, and her fingers still against him again. “Is it, though?”
“Yeah, this is where we live.”
“But does that necessarily mean that it’s our home?”
“I don’t understand.”
He pushes himself up, digging his elbows into the couch cushions for stability, and waits for her explanation. He’s not mad if she feels like this isn’t their home, or her home, but it’s not exactly a good thing.
“Why do you think this is our home?”
He doesn’t answer, feels his muscles tensing at the question, at the idea that she’s never felt at home with him.
The corner of her mouth twitches into a smile, and she helps him sit fully on the couch beside her, his muscles, regardless of the physiotherapy twice a day, are getting harder to move. “I need to know your answer so I can better explain my own.”
“Well, this is our house.”
“You don’t need a house to make a home, Cameron.”
The tone she choses is odd for the subject, almost a little vindictive, like she’s upset with him that they’re having this conversation, that she has to explain her views to him when they’ve been through so much together, but her body is still soft, not rigid, not ready to bolt or go for a walk—one he cannot keep up on now.
Tries to find a better way to explain it to her, trying to translate his feelings without upsetting her or her trying to explain them away in debate. “This is where we live together.”
“We lived together on Ver Isca.”
“I mean really lived together.” By the expression in her face, he can tell that she’s not into his vague explanation. Tries to dig deeper, find the words for how he feels. “Okay, this is the first place we lived together on Earth.”
“We lived at the SGC together,” she clarifies, reaching forward and muting the television when a news bulletin pops up pre-empting the next bar of gameshows they planned on watching.
“Okay,” he huffs, now a little off put by her attitude, by her correcting him constantly. How he’s supposed to acknowledge her perspective while she stomps all over his. “Why don’t you tell me what you think?”
“I think that you view losing this house as failing.”
And she says it so matter-of-factly that it tears right into him.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve had so much happen to you in the last two years—”
“We both have,” he interrupts, now trying to take the attention away from him because the conversation is taking routes he’d rather ignore.
“Yes, but we’ve only been dealing with your government—which you’ve recently found out wasn’t as clandestine as you thought.”
“All right—” he throws his hands up in the air, a form of surrender, of not wanting to argue about the subject they argue about constantly, the one they tiptoe around everyday of their lives “—I’m an idiot for trusting them—is that what you want to hear?”
“No, not at all.” When she sets her hand gently to his knee, he tenses, a bit at the pain of him jerking back on the couch and a bit at her touch because he’s not in the mood for it right now. “I’m saying that you came away with three things from your government, and two of them are being seized.”
He doesn’t speak a word, can’t look at her, can’t look at the fire blazing against a black background on the tv or white sheets being pulled over bodies.
“This wasn’t our home, Cameron.” She smiles softly at him, her hand never leaving his knee, but her body not shifting closer for an embrace. “It was set up for us for leverage. We didn’t choose it or fix it. We had more autonomy in how to keep our house in Ver Isca.”