The week grew, in Daniel's opinion, increasingly vexing as it wore on. He'd been relieved that they'd found Vala, and had been able to restore her memory to her, true. But he hadn’t been very pleased with the constant innuendos and teasing he'd had to suffer through later that night, from Landry and the rest of SG-1, thanks to Vala's constantly referring to the dinner where she'd been abducted as a "date". And it wasn't just for himself that he'd been irritated -- didn’t it occur to them how much it would hurt Vala down the road if they insisted on encouraging her crush on him?

"Come on, Jackson, you can’t tell me you're not attracted to her," Cameron had said that night, when Vala was off in the ladies room with Sam.

It frustrated Daniel to no end that, when he'd tried to deny Cam's claim, he'd found he couldn't. He didn't want to be attracted to Vala, but he was. He'd had to hide his lower regions behind a book too many times to be able to delude himself on that.

"What, are you saying a guy and a girl can’t be 'just friends'?" he'd countered.

"Oh, they can be. I mean, we both are 'just friends' with Sam and Carolyn, and I am with Vala, sure. But you’re not 'just friends' with Vala -- and what's wrong with that? It's ... well, it's not like there's ... you know," he finished lamely. Daniel felt a pang of sympathy for him; it was obvious Cam was trying to avoid saying anything that would remind Daniel of the loss of Sha're. Really, how did one point out that one's friend is a widower, and therefore no longer tied by a vow to anyone, with any tact? "Anyway, I don’t hear any protesting about that attraction ...." Cam pointed out instead.

"Because I’d be lying if I denied it! Yes, I do think Vala is attractive -- I'd have to be a eunuch not to!" Daniel had admitted, exasperated. Mitchell had raised a speculative brow; Daniel had in turn given him a look that suggested the man grow up before continuing, "But just because I do think she's attractive doesn’t mean something is going to happen -- or even that it should."

"Well if nothing happens, I don’t think it's gonna be from a lack of interest or effort on her part," Cam had mused. "Which again begs the question of you, why not?"

"I'm not looking," Daniel had told his glass forcefully.

"And you were looking when you found Sha're?" Mitchell had asked softly in return.

"No. And look what happened to her," Daniel had pointed out bitterly.

Vala and Sam had returned at just that moment, thankfully silencing any reply Cam might have made -- although the man had kept giving him concerned glances the rest of the evening ....

As he'd tried to sleep that night, Daniel had come to realise that his last words to Mitchell on the subject were indeed at the heart of his reluctance with Vala. He'd been overwhelmed by fear and guilt when she'd been abducted: she could have been killed by The Trust, and it would have been all his fault! Now she was a member of SG-1 -- and could very easily be killed anytime they went through the 'Gate. Lying there thinking about it, he'd suddenly and vehemently regretted having convinced Landry to give her a chance. She'd stayed on Earth at least partially because of him, after all. And he'd been happy to finally give her a place to call home -- but what kind of home was it, if she were constantly in danger? Granted, with the Ori threat, nowhere was safe, but when that was taken care of, what if she still wouldn’t leave SGC? He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her on a mission; it scared him to death. And, on a subconscious level, he resented her for making him feel that kind of fear again, like he had for Sha're.

During the course of the week, her constant presence was an endless reminder of what he had lost -- and what he might lose again. He took out his fear on her, being snappish. She would look puzzled and hurt; in turn, he would feel guilty for making her feel that way, then resent her for making him feel guilty. Thankfully, she seemed to sense that any innuendos and coyness on her part would just set him off, and instead did her best to be calm, patient, and rational. Unfortunately, the rest of SGC didn’t seem as clued in to his emotional state, as everyone he met seemed to needle him on the subject of Vala.

It didn’t help that he wasn't having any success with his personal mission: locating Merlin's weapon. He knew they were running out of time, that the lives that were being lost in the millions would have been saved if he'd found the thing already. Vala was a constant reminder of the Ori as well, because it was their fault, hers and his, that the Ori had come to their galaxy in the first place.

He resented her for that, too.

He was afraid of what the Ori had planned for her; he resented her for that fear. He was afraid of what Adria had planned for him, and it made him feel a coward -- he resented Vala for that as well. Completely irrational, yes, but then he hadn’t exactly thought it all out. The resentment was entirely emotional and thoughtless and therefore immune to logic because he wasn't entirely aware of it in the first place -- he just acted on it.

Then Landry had allowed Sam to accompany Emerson on this latest mission, and for what? Now one of Daniel's best friends was in mortal danger -- if she was still alive at all! He resented Landry for green-lighting the madness, and Sam for going. Then Vala had to go and offer up her 'services' as a card-carrying member of the space-pirating community (well, that's not how she phrased it, but that's certainly how he saw it!). She seemed proud to have those kinds of connections, too! He'd worked so hard to wean her away from that sort of life, and here Landry was encouraging it! Hell, so were Teal'c and Mitchell!! Daniel wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or introduce Landry's face to his fist. He settled for shaking his head in dumbstruck disbelief, then teaching them a few epithets in Ancient.

Vala got them a cargo ship that was practically coming apart at the seams, and seemed utterly blasé about the fact. Lives were at stake -- including their own -- and all she concerned herself with was shutting off the ship's alarm, not the problem it was warning them about?? He'd trusted her to do right by them, and she'd failed, and now they could all very well die because he'd trusted her! And yet she'd seemed genuinely surprised and a little hurt as she asked if he really thought she'd cheated them -- and he'd felt guilty for having been thinking exactly what she'd accused him of. But how could he not think it?? So now he had ... wait, how many more reasons was that to resent her?

They stopped at a planet, both in search of the signaling device of the missing ship and for parts to fix their own ship. He watched in disgust as she literally threw herself at the scum of the universe. It revolted him that she could be counted among such rabble. What if this was the real her, though? What on earth had convinced him that her old life was something that had been forced on her, that she could -- or would -- cast it away? What if being a member of SG-1 was just a costume to her?

To her old friend, she referred to Daniel as a boy, her mentally-handicapped apprentice. Though outwardly he laughed it off, inwardly Daniel bristled. He didn’t like seeing her acting like this, no matter that it was necessary to get what they wanted. He thought she was better than that; the side that believed she was warred with the side that remembered all too well the injuries she'd dealt him in the time he'd known her.

And oh goody, now they were captured. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Well, okay, they were being taken where they'd wanted to go in the first place, so there was an upside, but it wasn't under the most ideal of circumstances. And his clothes chaffed him. And he was hungry. He should have protested more when Vala had stolen the toast off his plate that morning in the mess....

Really, at this point, he could care less if they died. It wasn't like he hadn’t done it before. Getting to be routine, really. What was he so worried for, anyway? Although he was a bit embarrassed to have mounted such a piss-poor rescue....

He tried not to think of Emerson, another friend lost. And while, if it weren't for Vala's ship, it would have been days before they could have even attempted a rescue, Daniel couldn’t help but think if she'd found them a better ship they might have reached their destination in time, never mind his having been angry at her for falling back on her old skills in the first place.

In fact, Sam was the one who ended up rescuing them, after a fashion, causing the power surge that unlocked the door to their prison. Like a well-oiled machine, all parts working in perfect synchronisation, Vala and Daniel took down the enemies in their way and gained access to one of the ship's computers. Though he regretted the need to harm others, for a perfect moment, Daniel allowed himself to revel in how well he and Vala worked together.

Then Vala was having trouble getting the damn computer -- and, through it, the transport rings, their best hope of saving Sam -- to work. Again, he was furious with her for not following through on her word that she could handle the system, taking her failure as a personal affront. The truth of the matter was, though, he was just angry that things just couldn’t go smoothly in general, as angry with the machinery as her, and just as uselessly. He was angry at the Lucian Alliance for putting them in such a position in the first place, but Vala was the closest target on which to vent his frustration. And he was terrified, for Sam, for Vala, for himself, and all their crew; he snapped at her out of sheer panic with no ability to do anything about it.

When she pointed out, quite calmly, that if she rushed she could end up materializing Sam halfway through a bulkhead and kill her, he'd clammed up, properly chastised. It bruised his ego mightily to a) have her be the "sensible one" and put him in his place for once, and b) realise he even needed to be put in his place. His ire still smoldered, but now it did it quietly.

Daniel liked order, liked to be in control of his own destiny, but lately he'd been anything but in control, and life had been anything but orderly. When they'd defeated the Goa'uld, he thought he was finally to have the quiet, scholarly life he'd always intended. Then Vala had walked into his life, and the promise of an end to the adventuring had been snatched from his grasp as easily as she'd snatched anything else from him.

And now, just as easily, she had ensured Sam's continued existence in his life. Through a stroke of sheer brilliance, she had found a way to turn the malfunction in the rings to their favor: instead of bringing Sam to them, she'd shunted the enemy outside the ship, to die in space. He felt a flush of pride over her genius, even as it needled him that it hadn’t occurred to him to have her do that in the first place.

And then more of the Lucian Alliance had to go and show up when they were basically sitting dead in the water with their pants down, metaphorically speaking (because hey, Cam wasn't with them, or it probably wouldn’t have been so metaphorical). Then he got snarked at by one of the bridge crew -- as if he had Captain anywhere in his title and therefore had any reason to know proper ship etiquette?? As if he'd even wanted to be there at all??? And after all that trouble they'd gone through to save the crew, if Sam and Vala didn’t hurry up with the repairs, now it seemed that their efforts would end up wasted.

It had been a long time since he had felt so eager to live. He wondered why? Why it had been so long, and why he was eager now. A memory nagged at the edges of his mind in the long, endless moments he waited for their ship to be annihilated (funny how not having enough time could seem to take forever).

The memory was of the first mission he and Jack had shared. Jack had confided that he'd been ordered to destroy the Stargate if they'd found an imminent threat on the other side. Daniel had stated, in both accusation and awe, that Jack had known all along that he probably wouldn’t be going home, and Jack hadn’t denied it, saying said that a parent shouldn't outlive their child. Daniel had realised that that was why Jack had been chosen for the mission -- he was suicidal over the loss of his son.

"I don’t want to die," Daniel had admitted. "Your men don’t want to die, and these people here don’t want to die. It’s a shame you’re in such a hurry to."

And yet, somewhere in the decade or so since, Daniel had stopped being so concerned for his own skin, and had come to understand how Jack had felt back then. So what had made him so afraid suddenly to lose a life he'd already lost so many times he'd honestly lost count? Especially he'd probably just Ascend again....

What did he have now that he didn’t want to leave behind?

And then the ship was fixed, and he no longer needed to speculate. Crisis averted, in moments they were on their way back to Earth, safe and sound -- save for the loss of some of the crew. He was sad over losing Emerson, but his relief at having saved Sam and the rest -- and that he and Vala had also made it through -- was just a little bit stronger.

Until Mitchell had pointed out that they were now at war with the Lucian Alliance, as if they hadn’t had enough to worry about.

And maybe he was just a little irritated at how eager Vala was to hear Mitchell's side of the story.

Half an hour later, Mitchell had finished relating said story, with Teal'c arriving from his medical exam about halfway through and, to Mitchell's irritation, offering corrections. The story done, they sat back in their seats, pushing empty plates away -- all save Vala, who was starting in on an enormous chocolate pudding.

"Want some?" Vala asked him.

Mitchell stifled a giggle. Daniel glared at him, while telling her "No thank-you."

"Oh, come on, Daniel, have just a little?" she pleaded. "They say chocolate stimulates the--"

"I said no!" he snapped. "Why is it so hard for you to take 'no' for an answer?"

She stared at him, dumbfounded -- as did everyone else in the room.

Ashamed, angry at himself, and angry once again at her for putting him in such a position, he rose to his feet and stalked out of the room.

Vala rose to go after Daniel, but Sam grabbed her sleeved and tugged her back down. "Leave him be for now. Too bad he didn’t take you up on your offer, though -- if anybody could use chocolate right now, it's him."

Vala sighed. "That's exactly why I tried to get him to eat some!"

Mitchell snorted. "Chocolate -- the cure-all for PMS?"

Vala and Teal'c looked at him in confusion.

"I thought PMS was a ... female affliction," Teal'c said.

"Pre-Menstrual Syndrome is," Sam replied with a grin. "What he's got is 'Pissy Male Syndrome'."

Mitchell grinned back.

In Daniel's hunt for some alone-time, every room seemed to be occupied, or to become occupied soon after he discovered it. His meanderings eventually took him to the room from where Vala had sent their enemy to his doom in the cold depths of space. He smiled with the memory. He really needed to remember to congratulate her for her quick thinking on that one. Why couldn’t he have done so at the time?

He heard the door hiss as it opened behind him, and let out a hiss of his own.

"Master Bra'tac was wrong about you," Teal'c told him.

He turned, annoyance tinged by curiosity painting his face. "What did Bra'tac say?"

"That you were not a warrior."

Daniel shrugged. He remembered that day. He'd been annoyed back then at the implication that how couldn’t hold his own. Now he was fine with the observation; he was a historian, not a soldier, however much he'd had to wear a gun in his life. "What makes you think he's wrong?"

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to... suffering!" Teal'c replied.

Daniel blinked. It always threw him when Teal'c made pop-culture references. "Okay, Yoda, translation, please?"

"I have seen it happen with many warriors.... They fear for those they love, but fear can be a dangerous liability in battle. So they turn the fear into anger, and use it to help them fight their enemies. But when fighting goes on for too long, sometimes that hate turns in on itself, and they end up resenting the very thing they are trying to protect. It happens with parents all the time," he added. "When a child does something that endangers them, we get very angry -- only because we are so afraid of losing them."

"I wouldn’t know," Daniel told him guardedly.

"It does not happen with just children, DanielJackson. I believe your heart has been damaged by the loss of Sha're. I think you are afraid of going through that again."

"All right, let’s say that's true. What has that to do with anything?" Daniel asked stubbornly.

Teal'cs eyes narrowed. "I feel you have been cruel to ValaMalDoran because you are trying to push her away, and you know she will not leave if she thinks you care for her in any way."

Daniel sputtered, mostly because he had come to that conclusion himself but hadn’t wanted to admit it. "Push her awa--that's absurd! I was the one who talked Landry into letting her join SG-1!"

"It is common for humans and jaffa alike to want conflicting things," Teal'c remarked. "You are attracted to her and wanted an excuse to keep her around even as you are afraid of getting close to her. So long as she was untrustworthy, you had an excuse to keep her at arms length even as you kept her within sight. Now, after what happened with The Trust--"

"Yeah, yeah, I fear for her safety, "Daniel said dismissively, turning to the window. "Or my sanity," he muttered.

"And when one does not have any way to deal with those fears, they fester as anger until one lashes out," Teal'c told him matter-of-factly.

The silence hung heavy in the air until Daniel asked, wryly, "When did you get your PHD in psychology, Teal'c?"

"I only state what you already know, DanielJackson." He paused. Then, "Sometimes we need to see truths through another's eyes before we can accept them."

Daniel didn’t respond.

"It is not an offence to Sha're's memory to love another," Teal'c added gently. "She loved you because you were so capable of love. But if you refuse your feelings for Vala because of her ... I believe that would offend her."

Daniel's shoulders tensed. Was Teal'c right? All this time, he'd felt guilty for his body's reactions to Vala, felt he was betraying his wife -- but was it the opposite that was the truth of the matter? Looking into the glass, he thought, for a moment, that he could see Sha're, feel her encouraging him to follow his heart to new places.

"Senior officers to the bridge!" a voice came over the intercom.

Daniel and Teal'c exchanged looks and, though they weren't technically officers, answered the summons.

Sam and Mitchell were already on the bridge, but Vala was nowhere to be found. Daniel's stab of worry was shunted aside for the moment when he saw the face of a strange old man on the viewscreen.

"Sorry to bother you folks, but I wondered if you could tale a message to your superior officer," the fellow told them through painfully-crooked teeth.

"Um ... sure?" Sam said, exchanging puzzled glances with her companions.

"I wanted to let him know that my granddaughter is doing much better. I know my old cruiser wasn't in the best of shape, but ... I hope it helped you as much as that naquadah helped her. The doctors say she'll make a full recovery." Tears fell openly from his eyes. "Anyway, I've told everyone of your generosity, and ... well let's just say that the Ori won't find it so easy to convince the people I know that the Tau'ri are the evil they claim!" he added with conviction.

Daniel's eyes opened wide. "Vala ... bought the cargo ship from you?" he asked slowly.

"Aye, and for far more than I was asking for. I don’t know if she told you, but my granddaughter was terribly ill. With that money, we were able to afford the operation that cured her! I, Jasper Ma'Ket of Gjovah, am in your debt, sirs! The people I know and can count on may not be wealthy or influential, but they are many; if there's anything within my power to grant, you have only to speak your need," he added earnestly.

Mouth agape, with a lump in his throat, Daniel could only nod. He felt wetness on his cheek as the screen went dark, and quickly wiped it away before turning to his companions, eyes downcast.

"W-Where's Vala?" he asked.

He found her in the mess, stirring almost-untouched pudding idly with a spoon.

"I ... I wouldn’t mind a taste of that ... if ... if the offer still stands?" Daniel asked hopefully.

She smiled tentatively and gestured to the chair across from her. Before he could grab another spoon, she held her own out to him, pre-laden with pudding. He let her feed him the spoonful, and watched her take a spoonful herself.

"Listen, I--" they said at the same time, then laughed weakly.

"You first," he told her.

"Daniel ..." She couldn’t meet his eyes. "If ... if you've changed your mind about me staying at SGC--"

"No!" He was a bit surprised himself at just how much the idea bothered him. Teal'c had been right. Well, he knew that already, but it still felt strange to think it. "Look, Vala, I ... I owe you a huge apology."

She looked up at him, confused. "I thought I'd done something wrong..."

He shook his head vehemently. "I'm the one who did something -- somethings -- wrong. I've been stressed and worried, I'm terrified of what'll happen if I can't find that weapon, and I've been taking it all out on you. And when you said you could get us a ship--"

"You thought I was falling back into old habits, after all you'd done to help me." She bowed her head. "I don’t blame you for that, Daniel--"

"Except that I was wrong, wasn't I? We know about Jasper, now, Vala."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "Look, I'll pay back every penny if I have to, but ... if you had seen that little girl, Daniel..." Here eyes brimmed with tears.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed, hard. "Vala, we're not going to yell at you for helping those people! You did the right thing! And we're not going to ask you to pay SGC back, either. As far as we're concerned, the cost of the ship was the cost of the ship. It's gone now anyway, so no one even needs to know what a piece of crap it was." They laughed. "Oh, and the little girl is fine now, thanks to you."

She lit up at that, smiling brightly. He felt something inside him defrost. Where there had been such resentment, he found gratitude buried beneath.

"Thank-you," he told her, squeezing her hand again.

She tilted her head quizzically. "For what?"

He chuckled. "I don’t even know where to start. If it weren't for you, we'd never have gotten here in time. Sam and the rest of the crew would be dead, and we'd have lost one of the few ships capable of interstellar travel that SGC has. And that was some pretty quick thinking back there with the rings, especially with me yelling in your ear like that. I'm really sorry for that. And for suggesting you might have bought a cheap ship so you could make a profit. Anyway, as I understand it, you were the one who made it so that we could jump into hyperspace, so thank-you for that, too." His eyes were starting to sting again. He gave her a smile, and was annoyed to feel it tremble. "If it weren't for you, I'd have lost one of my best friends today. I can't do that again." The last came out as a whisper.

She stood up and came around to his side. She sat back down and wrapped her arms around him, one hand in his hair, drawing him to her shoulder, the other rubbing his back. The tension that had been building for weeks left him in a rush, as he sobbed out his frustration and sorrow into the darkness of her hair. He wrapped his arms around her, clinging to her as they waited out the storm of his emotions together.

When it was over, he was left with a sense of peace and clarity that he hadn't had in months. He also couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Like the crystal that she'd known just how to place in the ship in order to make it run, she "fit" within his life; how could he "run" without her?

He prayed he would never find out.

"Oh, here," Vala said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a small white bottle that rattled. "Maybe this will make you feel better." She held it up.

"... Midol??" he asked, confused.

"Er, Sam said you were suffering from PMS?" she offered sheepishly. "She gave me this a while back, and I must say, it does wonders for me!" she added endorsingly.

He buried his face in her neck again, shoulders shaking. Vala thought he was crying again, until she heard him laugh.

"I'm sooo gonna kill Sam," he said when he caught his breath, his face red and scrunched with mirth.

She regarded him for a moment, then deadpanned, "And you called me a fruitcake ...."

He snorted, then guffawed, then grabbed her up in a ferocious hug.

Momentarily confused, she quickly relaxed into it. "Are you sure you don’t want a pill?" she asked into his shoulder. "They say violent mood swings are a symptom of PMS ...."

Still grinning, he looked her in the eye again, face only a couple of inches from hers. "I think I'm doing better now."

His eyes shined with affection, the last wall he'd built up between them finally crumbling away. Brushing a displaced hair from her face, he gave in to the urge he'd denied for so long, his lips finally telling her what he felt without even saying a word.

She responded enthusiastically in kind.