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It’s getting late, the late afternoon light long having turned to dusk having turned to night. They drove through it all, through the golden hour and the crimson clouds, and now they drive under the star-studded sky, over the moon-lit asphalt.
It’s just the two of them, Daniel driving, Vala asleep in the passenger seat. Mitchell was sent to a medical team for his arm, and Sam and Teal’c stayed behind to coordinate with local law enforcement in the aftermath of the shoot-out with the Trust. He’d have offered to help, but somehow, it had seemed important to get Vala out of here, to bring her back to Cheyenne Mountain as quickly as possible. The others hadn’t objected, maybe feeling the same urgency he had, after the past few weeks. And so, he’d taken one of the SGC-issued cars, a black, sleek thing with government plates, and they’d left.
They’re not far now, maybe an hour or so. Daniel guides them along increasingly familiar roads, headlights cutting through the dark, and does his best not to think. Not to think of the past weeks, spent sometimes fearing, sometimes hoping, always searching. Not to think of how it’d felt, to think he’d never see Vala again — with her gone or dead or worse. Not to think of her tear-streaked face in that warehouse, of the confusion on her face.
All those weeks, where he’d sometimes thought her dead and sometimes thought her a million miles away, on the other side of the galaxy… and she’d been there. Living out of a diner, without memories, without any idea that there were even people looking for her, for good and bad reasons. He can barely wrap his head around it.
She’s been quiet throughout the drive, which had surprised him at first, until it hadn’t, because of course she would be. The chatter, the bravado, the flirtation — they’re all masks. He’s known that for a long time. But this version of Vala, stripped of memories, is also stripped of her usual defenses, because she doesn’t remember that she needs them. And so, there’s no empty words, no antagonism. Why would there be?
It unsettles him, though maybe not for the obvious reasons. It’s just… The lack of defenses seems to imply that she trusts him. She must do, at least in part, if only because she put the gun down instead of shooting her way free.
But then, what does it mean, that she trusts him most when she doesn’t remember him, or at least not completely? And can he really blame her for that?
“Am I from space?”
The question, soft and almost sleepy, startles him out of his thoughts. He’d thought she was asleep, but when he glances at her, her eyes are open, glittering in the low light of the dashboard, in the slivers of moonlight shining through the windshield. Her expression is open, quiet and curious, with no trace of flirtation, no trace of guardedness, and he almost feels like he should look away. Like he’s witnessing something he hasn’t really earned.
Only then do her words register. “What?” he chokes out.
She’s unperturbed, regarding him with a slight tilt of the head. “Something Cameron said,” she says, before repeating, “Am I from space?”
He blinks, keeping his eyes on the road because it’s easier. “Ah, well.” He clears his throat. “Technically, you’re from a planet.”
“But not this one?”
“Not this one. No.”
When he glances at her, she’s turned her gaze to the window, to the sky above the dark shapes of pine trees that blur past, lining the road. They pass a car going in the opposite direction, and bright light washes over her features briefly, lines her hair with gold, before everything falls back to the muted blue glow of the dashboard. She looks thoughtful, and it is so easy to read her, so easy he does it without thinking, so easy that part of him hates it, longs for the fortress that he’s grown used to.
He wonders what that says about him, that he misses the snark and the layers and the steel walls and the barbs, but, well. He’s only ever seen her like this a handful of times, and he can’t shake the remembered smell of smoke.
Eventually, she breaks the growing silence. “Do you know where I’m from?”
Despite himself, Daniel finds himself thinking back to evenings spent on base, in his office. Of nights, after particularly difficult days, when planets fell to the Ori, when they seemed unstoppable. Of quiet spaces, in which Adria’s destruction lingered, too tangible, too real to be spoken about. Of the golden lamplight and dusty textbooks and Vala, lying on her back on his desk, hair fanned out between artifacts and notes, her eyes on the ceiling as she recounted, almost dreamily, the few memories she had of her life before Qtesh had come — a village of fishermen and weavers, lotus flowers in bloom, and the scent of the sea on misty mornings.
They’d never talk about it in the mornings, always fall back to snark and insults like they’d never stopped. But Daniel remembers every word, every blurry image conjured by her recollections.
“Daniel?”
He blinks. Vala’s watching him, eyes lined with concern, so transparent, so devoid of shields and defenses that for a moment it’s like they’re back, back in his office, like they never left. Seemingly the only two people awake on base, or maybe in the whole wide world, where words seep into the air like water through a cracked hull, inevitable and unstoppable and sowing destruction in their wake.
He shakes himself up. Speaks, with a heroically uncracked voice despite a constricted throat. “I know some things.”
“Tell me?”
It’s so hopeful, so blatant and naked and vulnerable that his very skin itches with it. Words crowd in his throat, at the tip of his tongue — unwarranted sharpness and barbs that would cut the thread short, sever it at the source.
But he can’t do that to her; that’s how they work. They mirror each other; his spiked insults to her cutting snark, and her openness to his sincerity. They meet each other where they’re at, broken people who find comfort in each other’s jagged edges. How could he cut her when she doesn’t remember how to hold the knife?
And so, even though it hurts, even though he longs for the sharpness and the ease that comes with it, he keeps himself gentle, keeps meeting her halfway. “Okay,” he says. “Sure.”
Part of him feels, nonsensically, like he’s betraying her confidence, sharing those memories. Like there’s something wrong about talking about these moments, because they’re outside of time, because they’re not meant to exist, and even though she doesn’t remember now, she will later.
But maybe, just maybe, this is one of those moments too; a moment where weapons are down, where shields are left to the side. She didn’t choose it, doesn’t realize she’s creating it, but he’ll meet her halfway. Just like he always does.
And so, as they follow the winding road under the stars, he tells her everything.