Rating: PG-13
Genres: Angst, Romance (Daniel/Vala, some Sam/Jack and Cam/Lam), Hurt/Comfort, Humor, Friendship (SG-1 with each other).
Summary: Daniel and Vala finally "complete" their "date" -- at Disney World, and with the rest of SG-1 in tow ... In this part, they go to Animal Kingdom -- and another person joins the party.
Spoilers: up to "Memento Mori", as well as for assorted attractions at Disney's Animal Kingdom.
Length: 3 chapters, almost 12,900 words -- about 29 pages
Notes: Sequel to "Ribs", "Date with a Pirate Princess", "Date with a Martian Stuntwoman", and "Date with a World Traveller", prequel to "Allies", and "Homecomings and Happy Endings". Why Disney World? Because it's a place I know very well, and I thought they all deserved a break. ;) Note that Finding Nemo: the Musical is currently open to the public, but it wasn't when I started writing this series. Oh, and the little bit about Daniel and bags and foster care was inspired by an episode of Bones and things a friend once told me about her own experiences in "the system".
Feedback: You may post feedback to this fic at LiveJournal, or .

DISCLAIMER: Disney World, Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, the Disney-MGM Studios, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Fastpasses, The Tree of Life, A Bug's Life, It's Tough to be a Bug, Festival of the Lion King, Pochahontas, Grandmother Willow, Stitch, Lilo, Harambe, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Tusker House, Kusafiri Cofee, Wildlife Express train, Rafiki's Planet Watch, Conservation Station, Mombasa Marketplace, Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, Flights of Wonder, Anandapur, Maharajah Jungle Trek, Kali River Rapids, Expedition Everest, Chester and Hester's Dinorama, TriceraTop Spin, Primeval Whirl, Dinosaur, Dinoland USA, Tarzan Rocks, Nemo, The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, and anything else Walt Disney World-related ©, R, and TM the Walt Disney Company. Rainforest Cafe ©/TM itself. This work is not intended as an ad for Disney -- it's just where I chose to set the story.

Vala did her best to stifle a giggle as Cameron Mitchell opened the door to the boys' suite.

"Carolyn?" the man croaked, blinking blearily at the woman standing before him in the hall. He suddenly seemed to realise he was still just in his boxers and, turning a delicate shade of pink, asked them all to wait just one minute as he closed the door.

The door opened again, this time with Jack grinning at them. They could hear Cameron yelling at the man to close the door, then at Teal'c to hurry up in the bathroom.

"Sooo, ladies," Jack began, ignoring the ruckus behind him, "to what do we owe the pleasure?" Then he noticed Carolyn. "Ah, Dr. Lam!" he greeted her, a speculative gleam in his eye. "What a nice surprise!"

"Good morning, General," she greeted him back with a nod. "General Landry decided I could 'use a bit of a break too,' as he put it."

"We just came to see if you were ready to go," Sam added, giving her guy a peck on the cheek.

"Is that our girls?" came Daniel's voice from behind the door.

"Yeah, with one extra," Jack informed him cheerfully as the archaeologist popped into view.

Daniel broke into a silly grin when he spotted Vala, and she returned it with interest. "Hey," he told her bashfully.

"I would have expected more scintillating conversation from a linguist," Jack remarked. Bemused, he gestured to the young doctor standing directly in front of him. "Look who's decided to join us!"

"Oh!" Daniel said, brows raising in surprise before he gave Carolyn a guilty smile. "Um, you've missed a lot of the fun!" he remarked while slipping past her to give Vala a good-morning kiss.

"Yeah, I would have been here sooner, but I had some time-sensitive experiments that needed my full attention. As soon as I turned my report in, though, Dad couldn’t kick me off the base fast enough," she added wryly.

"Well, glad you could make it," Daniel said, albeit more than a little distractedly.

"Wow, I have missed a lot," Carolyn remarked quietly to Sam, who nodded and grinned fondly at the happy couple.

"So did you manage to get everything packed?" Vala asked Daniel. "I had to sit on my suitcase before I could get it to close!" she added, gesturing to her luggage, which was sitting in the hall.

"Uh, yeah," Daniel said in a way that made her immediately suspicious. "In fact, we can move some of your stuff into mine," he added. "Let me just go get it."

Jack retreated with him, and a moment later both men reappeared with two suitcases and a carry-on each. Daniel lay a suitcase Vala didn’t recognise down on the floor and unzipped it, then looked at her expectantly.

"Where did that come from?" she asked. "I could swear you only checked one suitcase in at the airport...."

"It's an old trick of mine -- I always pack a second, smaller suitcase inside the bigger one, for souvenirs."

Just then Vala noted Jack had a second suitcase as well. "You do the same thing?" she asked, brow raised. She didn’t recall seeing Jack buy much of anything other than Sam's Chinese dress.

Sam blinked and gave Jack a confused look, crossing her arms. Vala caught Jack glancing at Daniel and followed his glance. She found Daniel shaking his head with a small but urgent motion.

"Er, yeah," Jack finally responded, clearly lying through his teeth. Sam was giving him a shrewd look, which Vala immediately copied. "Alright, this one is Daniel's too," Jack confessed, eliciting a sound of dismay from the other man. "He asked me to bring it for him."

Vala turned to Daniel, eyes wide. "You planned on buying this much?"

"Er, well ..." He had indeed, but after her words at the Studios about wanting to be independent, he wasn't sure how happy she'd be with that knowledge. Still, he didn’t want to lie either. He decided there was nothing for it: he was busted, and that was that. "Yeah, I figured there was a distinct possibility and wanted to be prepared," he confessed, ducking his head. "I ... I just wanted your first trip here to be memorable ...."

Vala melted. "Oh, Daniel," she sighed, smiling ruefully as she stepped forward and put her arms around him. "It has been memorable, darling. But while I do appreciate the trinkets, really, it's you who made it worth remembering." She kissed him gently.

"You're not mad?" Daniel asked warily.

"No, silly, why would I be?"

"Sooo this means the ban on buying souvenirs has been lifted?" he asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

She rolled her eyes. "Daniel, you don’t need to buy me stuff! I know you love me!"

"Think of it as a hobby of mine," he said with a wink to Sam and Jack.

Daniel, Vala, Sam, Jack, and Carolyn had only been sitting in the lounge by the elevators for five minutes or so when Teal'c and Cameron ambled up with suitcases in tow. Water still dripped from Cam's hair, his shirt clinging wetly, leaving little of his well-chiseled form to the imagination. Vala swore she had caught Carolyn lick her lips at the sight of him.

"You know, Mitchell, you could have stopped to use a towel and dried off before getting dressed," Daniel teased.

The corners of Teal'c's mouth turned up faintly, which told Vala that the Jaffa was nearly bursting at the seams with mirth.

"Well, Carolyn's only got the one day here, so I didn’t want to keep her waiting," Cam told them as he sat next to the doctor and gave her a shy smile.

"Oh, that was very considerate of you, Cameron," Carolyn replied, equally shy.

"It seems to have been an effort wasted, too," Jack remarked, glancing down the hall, apparently keeping an eye out for Cassandra and her friends.

"We could just leave without 'em," Vala suggested, her brows raised hopefully. "Or without Peri, at least?"

No one seemed willing to tell her it was a bad idea, so they sat in awkward silence for a long moment before Carolyn asked, "She's not the most pleasant of company, I take it?"

"Understatement," Cam replied.

"She wasn't so bad yesterday," Daniel allowed. "She's been kinda useful, even."

"How's that?" Vala asked, a dangerous note in her voice, eyes narrowed as she glanced up at him.

Daniel swallowed hard. "Er, well, she kept you out of trouble at the stunt show, and her family got us on rides that aren’t open to the public yet ...."

"Oh. Yeah," Vala muttered, clearly miserable at the reminder of her humiliation two days prior.

"She could stand to be a lot less catty, though," Daniel added quickly, rubbing Vala's shoulder. "And less of a know-it-all. Hell, I bet she wouldn’t have known how to destroy an Ori beachhead!"

Vala was mollified.

Two minutes later, Cassandra and her friends arrived, and the party made their way to the check-out, then the luggage check. Once finished, they made their way by bus to Animal Kingdom.

Upon arrival, they stopped at a stand a few hundred feet before the entrance and bought assorted pastries and fruit for breakfast. Daniel shocked his companions by ordering orange juice instead of coffee.

"I read in one of my magazines that coffee is bad for you, so I asked Daniel to cut back on it," Vala explained.

"So just remember, if I bite anyone's head off or fall asleep at some point today, it's not my fault," Daniel playfully groused, smiling to take the sting out. Vala grinned back and shoved a bite of her cream cheese and chocolate chip bearclaw in his mouth.

They walked as they broke their fast, walking through the turnstiles and up a path to the left. Vala was surprised at how thick the vegetation was -- she could make out nothing of their destination as they followed a curving, uphill route. Along the way, they stopped to look for animals that were said to be penned in enclosures to either side, but all they saw were birds and a turtle and the backside of a snoozing anteater. All the same, it was a pretty place, a much tamer version of the more jungle-like planets SG-1 had been to.

At the top of the hill, they found a bridge; across it, Vala saw a very strange-looking -- but beautiful -- tree, it's foliage brighter and lighter than the vegetation around them. "What's that?" she asked, pointing.

"That is the Tree of Life," Daniel told her.

"It looks ... strange."

Daniel laughed. "That's because it's not a real tree. It's man-made, and has over three-hundred animals carved into it. Underneath it is the first attraction we're going to see, 'It's Tough to be a Bug'. It's another one of those 3-D films -- like that Philharmagic one and Honey I Shrunk the Audience?"

"Oooh, I like those!" she said, wrapping both her arms around one of his.

He wondered if he ought to warn her about some of the special effects, then decided against anything more than a gentle reminder that nothing she was about to encounter was real. She wasn't likely to get into trouble over a lack of information, and if she got scared, she might snuggle up to him again. He was beginning to really like that particular behavior ....

They took their time walking through the outside portion of the queue, marveling at the animal sculptures, pointing out the smaller ones hidden within the larger, more obvious animals. Teal'c took plenty of pictures, including another group shot for Vala's scrapbook.

Though it was only a little after 8 am, it was already getting hot outside, but the inside of the tree was nice and cool. The architecture was made up to seem as if they were shrunk down to the size of bugs, wandering among the roots of the tree. On the walls were parodies of pop culture icons, such as "Weevil Kneevil", the "Termite-ator", and "The Dung and I", while the music that played overhead parodied famous Broadway songs and were sung by an insect chorus. Vala tries to sing along to "Beauty and the Beast" until she realised the lyrics had been changed; then she laughed delightedly.

Inside the theatre, they were seated on long, hard benches made to look like wood (they were actually fiberglass). The "curtain" was actually a projection that, when one wore the "bug-eye" glasses, was something like the 3-D pictures Vala had seen in a book once. The theatre, like the indoor section of the queue, made one feel as if one were in a bug's world. Indeed, throughout the show, beside the 3-D film, there were also animatronics that moved about.

Vala, having never seen the movie A Bug's Life, wasn't familiar with any of the characters, but found them charming enough -- at first. She couldn’t say she was too fond of the stink bug. She noted that Daniel seemed to be holding his breath through that portion, and made a mental note to kick him later. The next time she glanced at him, though, she found him snoring lightly, his eyes closed. Her heart melted, as she leaned on his shoulder. She wondered if maybe she should let him have a cup of coffee after all; the poor dear was used to late nights, not early mornings!

A grasshopper animatronic started making threats to the audience. Vala whined a bit when she saw giant spiders slowly descend from the ceiling; they were smaller than the acid-spitting tarantula that had been in the movie earlier, but still a few hundred times larger than a normal spider, and a whole lot scarier! The buzzing of hornets set her on edge as well.

"I hate this part," Daniel said, his eyes still closed.

"I can't say I'm too fo-OW!!" Vala jumped, as did half of the rest of their party. Something had poked her in the back! For a split second, she thought it had been Daniel, until she realised she'd had his arm pinned the whole time. She turned to glare at Cameron, on her other side, until she noted he was rubbing his back and remembered that she'd heard him yelp too.

"I probably should have told you to sit forward a bit," Daniel confessed, his eyes open now. "Really, that part hurts!"

"No kidding," she told him dryly, her eyes promising him pain later. Then she squeaked as the seat beneath her began to move; she hadn’t been paying attention at that point, so she had no idea what was happening! "What the heck?"

"It's the 'bugs' leaving," Daniel explained.

She came to her feet with a yelp; he grabbed her hand and pulled her back down before she could try dusting imaginary bugs off of her.

"Not real ones -- it's just an effect!" he quickly told her, smiling reassuringly.

"Pretty damn convincing, though," Carolyn remarked with a melodramatic shiver. She grinned at Vala, who grinned back.

"Well, if you ever have a bug that needs squashing at the base, just give me a call," Cameron told Carolyn with a wink. "Combat boots are real good for doin' 'La Cucaracha'!"

Vala looked to Daniel for a translation, but he was rolling his eyes at Mitchell and didn’t notice.

Outside the theatre, they walked the path that circled the tree, looking at the animals in the enclosures there. They had a good time watching the antics of the otters -- especially when Mitchell and Jack started doing a running commentary, speaking for the otters, pretending the quick little mammals were doing some crazy sort of relay race.

Next, they went over to Camp Minnie-Mickey, the "kiddie-section" of the park which was home to the Festival of the Lion King, a variety show performed in a square theatre, with the stage in the center. Jack and Cameron moaned quite vocally. Teal'c was customarily silent, but didn’t seem all that serene; if Daniel looked hard enough, he could tell the Jaffa looked as though he'd swallowed something sour. Daniel himself was known to enjoy musical theatre, but he didn’t enjoy this particular show too well, and took the opportunity to nod off again. He would have skipped it entirely if Vala hadn’t been around. He should have followed his gut, though: Vala didn't care for it either!

She had pretty much the same complaints as his own. For one, she didn’t like the stylistic choices made for the music, neither the instruments used nor the vocals, and said that the three movies' soundtracks were all much better. She perked up when puppets of Simba and Pumbaa, as well as a costumed Timon, were brought out on floats. She told him she liked some of the costumes (while she detested others), and that the acrobatics were mildly interesting (though she'd seen better, really). Still, overall, it was a bit cheesy, with a lot of aimless wandering on the part of the dancers. She expressed a wish that the show included more of the actual characters. Daniel flashed back to a Lion King puppet show that the Magic Kingdom had once had (where the Philharmagic was now housed, in fact), and reflected that the puppet show was better, in his book; too bad he couldn’t show Vala that one instead ....

They opted to skip the Pocahontas show, which showcased various animals of North America. They did, however, stop to get their pictures taken with characters of Lilo and Stitch, Vala insisting Daniel pose with her.

They made their way towards the African section, the village of Harambe, crossing another bridge to get there. Teal'c stopped suddenly, and called out for the rest of them to pause. His gaze was transfixed on the left side of the bridge, and it was easy to see why: the new roller coaster, Expedition Everest, was visible in the distance, far down the river they were crossing, a breathtakingly beautiful sight. Teal'c got them all to gather together before the image for another group portrait. Afterwards, he got Daniel and Vala to hang back for another shot of just them, and Jack and Sam to stand for another.

"Pose with me?" Carolyn asked Cam shyly. "I don't like to pose alone, but I want a something more personal than that group shot."

Clearly self-conscious, Cameron nevertheless agreed, laying an arm companionably over her shoulder, trying not to shiver as she slipped her own arm around his waist. He hoped he didn’t look like a dork....

They passed the shops and the Tusker House restaurant, Vala's stomach growling audibly. Daniel found himself inadvertently salivating at the scents that wafted from the Kusafiri Coffee Shop. The party stopped at the Fastpass distribution kiosk for the Kilimanjaro Safaris, then moved on to a train station.

The Wildlife Express Train had only two stops -- the Harambe station and the Conservation Station, home of Rafiki's Planet Watch. The seats of the train itself faced leftward of the locomotive's forward motion; someone told them a little about the backstage areas they were passing via overhead speakers. Again Daniel, spurred by the gentle rocking of the train, took the opportunity for a light doze, slouching against Jack's shoulder. Vala gave her beau's sleeping form an indignant scowl; Jack nudged Daniel slightly, toppling him onto Vala's side instead, his temple resting against hers. She granted the general a bright grin, and Daniel a fond one, though neither man could see her face.

"Wakey-wakey, Jackson," Cameron said from the seat in front of them, turning to ruffle Daniel's hair. Daniel got groggily to his feet and followed Jack and the others out of the train, Vala laying her hands on his shoulders, conga line-style, to help steer him.

It was a bit of a walk to the Planet Watch building, with little to see along the way other than some signs making earthwise suggestions and a few cages with cute little monkeys.

Things got a bit more interesting inside the building, whose inner walls were painted with incredible likenesses of hundreds of endangered species. Daniel spotted the face of one of his favourites, the African Wild Dog, also known as the Cape Hunting Dog, and wondered, not for the first time, why there were no other mentions of the animal anywhere else in the park. No memorabilia, no books, no videos, and no sign of them on the Safari. They did pay some homage to another favourite of his, though: the wolf. He and Vala sat in a small, dark corner, her resting in his lap with his arms around her, and watched a video on them. The video made him cringe a bit -- it was a bit misleading at times -- but he supposed it was better to be misleading in favour of the species rather than against it, as had been the case for centuries. He watched Vala a bit as she watched the film, and wondered if she saw a kindred spirit on the screen, a creature much maligned who in truth wasn't what everyone believed. Suddenly overcome with affection for her, he kissed her cheek; she smiled in that way that made his heart dance the rumba, and kissed him chastely on the lips. A grandmother leading her young grandchild by the hand chose just that moment to walk in and, gasping in disgust, quickly lead her young charge the other way. Daniel thought he might actually be glowing red as he blushed in the dimness, while Vala buried her face in his neck in a fruitless attempt to stifle her amusement. Somehow Daniel figured that would just look even worse to any parental units that might stumble along, so he got to his feet and drug Vala back into the central, well-lit area of the building.

They listened to a keeper talk about an owl which he held on his gloved hand, allowing young children to approach and even pet it. Daniel nudged Vala, urging her to pet it too, but she refused, whispering that the poor thing was being ogled enough as it was, when all it probably wanted to do was fly free. She added that, if she were a flying creature whose wings were permanently damaged, she'd probably die of a broken heart.

Daniel had an unsettling thought at that, one that had worried him before: could Vala really handle being confined so much to the mountain? Would traveling with SG-1 to other worlds or off-base with him on Earth be enough to satisfy the wanderer in her? Could she handle being confined by the laws and regulations of his world for the long-term? If the answer turned out to be "no", could he leave SG-1 and Earth to travel the galaxy with her? He'd done it once, sort-of, when he'd decided to stay on Abydos....

Daniel's musings became scattered as Vala tugged him over to a row of sound booths similar to the ones at the Studios. Carolyn towed Mitchell towards them, and Sam did the same with Jack, who gestured to Teal'c to join them. Together they piled inside the next available booth. A voice Daniel recognised as Grandmother Willow's, from Pocahontas (which he hadn’t cared for much at all), began telling them about the rainforests and their plight, while the sound of various jungle animals played about them in "3-D sound". Many of said sounds set his teeth on edge -- the buzzing of insects, the shrieks of monkeys, the buzz of a chain saw -- but he couldn't deny the effectiveness of it all, in making him feel as though the animals were crawling on him. He knew there was a reason he didn’t often come out this way when he visited the parks. He had a feeling he'd be suffering through the experience a lot more often, though, when he noted the grin on Vala's face as they exited the booth.

He wasn't the only one to note it, either: the grandmother from the wolf film area had caught sight of them as they were the last to leave the booth. Doubtless the old woman thought they'd been up to some sort of shenanigans there in the dark. Suddenly very irritated with the nosy old woman, Daniel spun Vala about and gave her a deep, lingering kiss. He tried not to look too smug as they walked past the old woman, who was turning an interesting shade of orchid.

They walked around the building for just a little while more, looking at the small insect enclosures, then through the large windows of the veterinary rooms, which at the moment were largely unoccupied. That was a good thing, in Daniel's book; the last time he'd been there, they had been operating on a warthog. Not something he wanted to view with lunch not that far off!

They finally exited the building; as a wave of hot air hit them, Daniel was half-tempted to retreat back inside. Whimp! No one would ever guess you spent time in Egypt or lived on Abydos.... He followed Vala into the "Affection Section" petting zoo, where the others were already playing with the animals.

One of the sheep seemed insistent on making a meal of Jack's shirt, as it chased him around one of the roofed shelters. Vala found a friend in a small, grey goat; the little fella kept nudging her purse, attracted to the zipper tassels. It didn’t try to eat the things, though, and stopped nudging when she bent over to scratch its head. A sheep walked up, and she used her other hand to scratch it as well. She patted them and moved on to look at a cow, which the others were trying to cajole closer to the fence of its enclosure. The little gray goat followed Vala, and began nudging for attention again. The cow came up to the fence then as well, and deigned to allow her to pet its nose, though it pulled away when the others tried to reach it.

When Vala walked over to look at the miniature donkeys and the llama, the goat followed. She knelt beside it and scratched with both hands. "Awww, Daniel, look how sweet it is! How could people possibly associate something so adorable with the demonic?"

He shrugged; he didn’t figure she actually wanted him to answer that question with a lengthy history lesson anyway. He grew a bit alarmed at her next words, though:

"Can we buy him, Daniel?"

"Er, I don’t think they're for sale, Vala."

"Pish-tosh, Daniel, everything has a price!"

"Yeah, well, even if you could, what would you do with one? Landry would never let you keep one on the base," he pointed out, hoping that would be the end of it.

"What he doesn’t know won't hurt him."

"I think you'd have a hard time keeping a goat a secret. Besides," he added, kneeling beside the creature to scratch its back, "I doubt this little guy would like being cooped up underground." Again, he wondered how long Vala herself would stand it.

"Oh, but I would keep it outside! It could live on the mountain!"

Daniel blinked. "Vala, you do know this isn’t a mountain goat? ..."

"Oh," she said, crestfallen. "Sorry, little guy, I can’t take you with me," she told the goat sadly.

Daniel felt a bit misty-eyed himself as Vala gave the beast a final pat. It really was a cute little bugger. He'd always wanted a pet himself, but his allergies had put him off actually getting one. He didn’t seem to be having any problem with the goat, though .... He shook the thought away. His landlord would never allow it! Besides, there was too much stuff around his place that a goat would probably find tasty ....

The little grey goat tried to follow them out the gate, and gazed wistfully at them as they washed their hands in the sink just outside. As they quickly perused the gift shop, Daniel noted Vala kept looking back at the fence, just as wistfully. Daniel spotted a stuffed goat, and decided to get it for her, asking Sam to distract her by seeking out the restrooms. It was easily done; once Sam announced she was going, every other girl in the group announced that they would do the same. Daniel paid for the plushie and had the package sent to the front gate, since they were no longer registered at the hotel. After, he hit the washroom himself -- and still finished before the girls came back out.

"Do you ever get the feeling there's a wormhole in every women's bathroom, and they're going off-world when they go in there?" Jack mused.

When the group got back to Harambe, they still had time to kill before their Fastpass became active, so they took a walk on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, which featured an assortment of animals, including okapi, hippos, gorillas, gibbons, meekats, and assorted birds. There were big plastic trail-guides at the entrance, but only Carolyn took one. There were also docents at many of the enclosures, there to teach guests about the creatures they were seeing.

At one point on the trail, the party entered a "research center", which had naked mole rats on display, the small mammals' tunnels lined with glass on one side so guests could watch them perform their natural behaviors.

"Rufus!" Vala gasped, grinning when she caught sight of the ugly-yet-cute little critters.

Thinking she'd just named one, Daniel said firmly, "No, you can’t have one of them either."

Vala pouted. "Daniel, don’t you ever watch TV? There's a naked mole rat named Rufus on Kim Possible!" She turned her attention back to the mole tunnels before turning to Daniel a moment later, perplexed, and, pulling him aside, whispered, "They don’t talk?"

Daniel blinked. "Uh, no. Were you expecting them to?"

"But ... Rufus talks in the cartoon?" She scowled. "Ah, well, I guess none of the other things that happen on the show are real; it was silly of me to think his talking might be. I just thought, since he was talking to humans ...."

Daniel came to stand behind Vala and slipped his arms around her, hugging her as they studied a reptile in another case. "Yeah, well, the stuff on Wormhole Extreme might seem fictional to the viewing public, but you and I know differently. I can see why you would think the stuff on other shows could be real. Who knows, maybe on another planet there are talking naked mole rats!"

She grinned. "Remind me to take you to the planet where I met the talking wolves who taught me how to hunt ...." And she slipped out of his arms to follow the others out the door.

He made a mental note to ask Sam if she'd lent Vala The Jungle Book or something.

The hippos didn’t interest Vala much, but like the goats, she thought that the tiny, hoofed dikdiks were adorable, and Daniel had to agree. Thankfully, though, she didn't give him puppy-dog-eyes again and beg to take any of them home this time. Frankly, he wasn't sure he would have been able to resist her if she had.

She danced around like a happy child at the meerkat enclosure. "That one looks like Shakespeare!" she said, pointing to a young one. Daniel cocked his head at it, thoroughly confused. It would have made sense if she'd shouted "Timon!", but what about this meerkat made her think of a late English playwright?

She raised a brow at him. "Let me guess: you've never seen Meerkat Manor? Honestly, Daniel, I would have thought you'd watch Animal Planet at least, if nothing else!"

As if to rub in Daniel's lack of pop-culture knowledge, Teal'c chose just that moment to point to another meerkat and say, "Look, ValaMalDoran! Does that one not remind you of Zaphod?"

"Zaphod Beeblebrox?" Daniel asked, scowling at the meerkat, half-looking for a second head, such as the alien character by that name had.

"Not Hitchiker's Guide, Jackson," Mitchell said, throwing a commiserative arm over his friend's shoulder and sounding a bit disappointed himself. A two-headed meerkat would certainly have livened up the experience.

Cam immediately abandoned the archaeologist, though, when Carolyn drew his attention with a cry of "Bunnies!"

There were three rabbits in the meerkat enclosure. A ten-year-old girl informed her brother, in a loud voice, "Actually, those are hares. You can tell because their hind legs are moving independently of one another, but rabbit hind legs have to move together."

Cameron was struck by how much the girl reminded him of Peri, and was about to correct the child's entirely off-base statement when Peri herself interjected with a snort, "You're thinking of kangaroos, kid. Rabbit hind legs can totally move independent of each other! And those are rabbits down there -- swamp rabbits, to be precise."

"Nuh-uh!" the girl said, sticking her tongue out.

"And how many years of zoological study at a university have you had, kid? How many rabbits have you raised?" Peri asked, raising a brow. "I have a rabbit who likes to stalk people, and her legs most certainly do move independently!"

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, arguing with a child!" the girl's mother said, drawing her children away.

"Oh, it's better to let them stay ignorant and let them spread that ignorance to others?" Peri muttered, crossing her arms. Then she seemed to take note of Mitchell gaping at her. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, in the first act of humility he'd seen from her. "It's just ... misinformation's a pet peeve of mine." She glanced in Carolyn's direction; the other woman was standing a few feet away, engaged in conversation with Sam. Peri smiled slyly, and told him, "Besides, I don’t figure that girlfriend of yours would have looked to kindly on you for arguing with a little girl, so be glad I beat you to the punch!" She winked and moved to rejoin Cassandra and her friends.

"There's more to that gal than meets the eye," Cameron murmured to Daniel, who had caught the whole exchange. "And I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not."

"Definitely strange," Daniel agreed, frowning thoughtfully in Peri's direction.

Vala noted his expression and where it was aimed; her own brow furrowed. "Come on, Daniel, let's get going," she said, pulling him along.

Soon they came upon the gorilla enclosures. "They're so ... human," Vala remarked as they met eyes with a bored-looking ape.

"Well, we did share the same evolutionary path for a while," Daniel replied.

"Really? Hello, cousin!" Vala waved to the gorilla. "Not very chatty, is he?" she whispered, winking at Daniel.

When they finished with the trail, they got into the Fastpass line for the safari ride. Daniel regretted that they missed seeing the section of the other queue where there were signs naming the animals in Swahili, but realised he could always sit down with Vala and watch something about African animals on Animal Planet and teach her.

They were lucky and got the front three rows of the safari truck. Daniel and Vala let Teal'c into the row first, which was shorter than the rest to allow for the occasional wheelchair-bound guest. Vala sat in the middle, and Daniel on the end; he wanted Vala as far away from the sides of the vehicle as possible, in case she got overzealous and tried to stand. Sam, Jack, Mitchell, and Lam sat in the second row, with Cassandra and her friends behind them, in the third row.

Vala gleefully pointed out animals on either side of the vehicle, faster than the driver could even mention them. Teal'c, having replaced his camera's memory card in the line, snapped away on his side of the truck. As they rode, the truck's radio played music, and occasionally received "transmissions" from a park ranger and his scientist friend. They passed a grove with okapi, a hippo pool, hundreds of vultures and cranes, a crocodile pit, and eventually reached a beautiful, open, savannah-like field filled with a large variety of hoofed animals, as well as replicas of termite mounds and baobab trees. That section was easily Daniel's favourite part of the attraction, especially since it wasn't unusual for animals to come close to, and even walk beside, the vehicle. He wished at that point that he'd thought to bring a camera of his own!

They saw baboons and rhinos and, too far off the road to see very well, cheetahs lounging. They crossed over a bridge at one point that sounded rickety and even dropped a little; Vala freaked out, and even Teal'c looked worried. Daniel couldn't help but laugh, though he guessed Vala would throttle him later for not warning her. Sometimes the drivers triggered the bridge, sometimes they didn't; they'd lucked out this time.

They passed the "red clay pits", which quite convincingly looked as thought it had been gouged out by elephant tusks. They saw the elephants themselves on the opposite side, including a few young ones and even a baby. Daniel liked how the landscaping had been down so convincingly as to look natural, even where there were hidden barriers to keep the animals away from the vehicles. But, like in the savannah, there were still areas where the animals were free to walk through the road, particularly the birds.

Case in point, an ostrich came up to the vehicle and started pecking at Teal'c's camera, then tried to snap at the bill of his cap. Vala scared the daylights out of Daniel and Sam by launching herself into the Jaffa's lap and snarling at the bird. The ostrich seemed to do double take and think better of its proximity to the truck, backing away. Even Teal'c gave Vala a strange look, while the driver demanded she sit back down.

"Taught to hunt by talking wolves, huh?" Daniel said lowly. "They teach you that maneuver?"

"More or less," Vala shrugged.

They saw flamingos, rhinos, and more hoofed animals, and even a pair of lions on a replica of Lion King's Pride Rock. Then came the part of the ride that Daniel hated, where they received a "call" from the ranger asking for their aid in catching poachers that had kidnapped a baby elephant. From then on, the driver whipped around curves like a maniac, until they found first an encampment, then the audio-animatronic poachers being held at gunpoint by the audio-animatronic authorities, with an audio-animatronic "baby elephant" safe and snug in the back of the truck.

After the ride, Peri volunteered to get the Fastpasses from Kali River Rapids while everyone else browsed the Mombossa Marketplace. Daniel found himself looking for something of a Wild Dog, but as usual his hunt came up fruitless. Teal'c was the one who seemed to purchase the most this time; though he lived on the base again, he still collected the African décor that went with his cover as an emigrant from Mozambique. Daniel did buy a couple of shirts, though: one depicting Stitch's head as a tiki carving for Vala, and another with a Tigger tiki-head for himself.

They made their way back across the bridge to the Pizzafari fast food restaurant. Vala and Daniel each ordered a Caesar side-salad, a cheese pizza, and a coke, and agreed to split an order of breadsticks. Daniel placed the order; Vala's eyes nearly popped out of her head when she heard the whole meal was over twenty dollars!

"This is fast food, right?" she asked him as they waited for their meal at the prep window.

"More or less, " he said, shrugging. "They're not as fast as McD's, but it is lunch time and they are busy...."

"No, I mean the price!" she hissed.

"Oh. That. Yeah, it's a bit steep, but that's to be expected in an amusement park, I guess .... "

"Er, well ... I mean ... y-you've been paying for everything since we got here ... But we never really did discuss ... well, I just mean I’ll pay you back, but it might take me a while...." She wrung her hands nervously.

He spun to look at her. "Vala, I haven't been paying for that much of it! I mean, the castle, yeah, but that was the date I’d promised you already! But for things like this meal, I used vouchers!"

She blinked. "Come again?"

"Cassandra's contest package included two meals and one snack a day! Didn’t I tell you that? I've just been holding on to the vouchers because I figured it would be easier for you if I did the ordering, but if you want to hold onto your own, I'll give them to you at the table...."

"Oh. N-no, that's okay!" She let out a nervous laugh.

"Vala, I wouldn't have minded paying anyway," he told her gently. "I told you that before, when we were in that stationary shop at the Studios! It's nothing--"

"It's not 'nothing' to me!" she insisted, trying hard to keep her voice low. "I told you, I don’t ever want you to see me as some kind of burden, and I don’t want to be a-a kept woman!"

"Vala, calm down!" Daniel pleaded. "I--"

Just then, someone came up to the other side of the counter with a tray full of food and called out a number.

"Here, take the drinks," Daniel told Vala wearily.

They stopped at a stand with napkins and condiments, and found Teal'c waiting for them.

"I am to show you where we are seated," the Jaffa informed them.

Daniel caught the man's raised brow; Teal'c apparently could sense the tension in the couple. He gave the man a hopeless shrug and followed.

Cassandra's friends had grabbed a table in a room with fake, brightly-coloured lizards nailed to the ceiling beams and animals painted on the walls in a slightly impressionistic fashion. Daniel ended up seated across from a painting of a wolf; it made him smile.

Vala, seated across from him, with her back to the painting, paused in taking her food from the trays. "What?" she asked, smiling quizzically, her eyes still haunted by the conversation they'd had in the food line. He gestured behind her, and she turned. She was grinning when she faced him again, and he began to laugh. It spread to her like a contagion, and soon they had the whole room looking at them like they were a couple of loons.

Mitchell was smiling at them, shaking his head, bemused. "What is so doggone funny you two?"

"Ol*gasp*old ladies with *hahaaaa* their m-minds in the guh-gutter," Daniel finally managed.

"The*gasp*their mind in the wha-what?" Vala asked, still laughing.

The rest of the table only looked more confused.

"Er, something I probably shouldn’t be mentioning while we eat," Daniel admitted, finally digging into his salad.

Vala went to drink her soda, but stopped short. "They forgot our lids!" She looked at their tray. "And you forgot straws!"

"No they didn’t, and no I didn't," Daniel replied, gingerly sipping his own soda, and wincing at the cold. "There are no soda lids and no straws here -- unless you buy a souvenir cup, which I didn't really want to carry around all day."

"...Why?"

"Because a few stupid humans who insist on throwing their trash into enclosures had to spoil it for everyone," Peri intoned.

Vala made a mew of dismay, then tried a sip of her drink. The liquid nearly froze her lip and hurt her teeth. "Is there a trick to doing this?"

"Try folding the cup a bit," Carolyn suggested, demonstrating. She squeezed her cup so that it had a spout of sorts on either end, holding it on the top so that the ice couldn’t pour out so easily, and took a sip.

"Ain't she a genius?" Mitchell asked, grinning.

After the meal, they browsed a nearby shop, the Island Mercantile. As they made their way through the store, Daniel found himself thinking on Vala's words in the line. She'd insisted she wouldn’t be a "kept woman". Had she been one, once? The thought horrified him -- not because the thought of her being with other men bothered him, because he'd known that from the beginning, but for her own sake. The thought of anyone treating her like a pet and essentially keeping such a free spirit prisoner made his blood boil! And she thought that was what he was trying to do? Apparently he hadn’t been clear enough when they'd discussed the issue at the Studios; he hoped this wasn't going to become a running argument between them! In an effort for damage control, he spoke to Vala quietly while they walked.

"Look, Vala, I know you're trying hard to stay away from old behaviors. I know you've changed. But Teal'c needed help when he first came here and didn’t have anything. I needed help when I first came back from my ascension. Hell, I needed help when I cam back from Abydos! And when I first translated the Stargate, I was broke -- that's how Catherine recruited me in the first place: she knew I was about to be evicted from my place. When Teal'c first came here and it was clear he was going to stay, and it was obvious I would have to stay as well, Jack and Sam and General Hammond brought us both things to make our rooms more hospitable. When I moved to an apartment, they gave me housewarming gifts, which is a time-honored tradition on this world; I did the same when Teal'c moved out for a while. I know what it's like to be a stranger in a strange place and feel like you have nothing to call your own; I just want to make you feel at home. You'd do the same for me, if our roles were reversed."

"You're so sure of that?" she asked, biting her lip.

"Yup," he said, smiling confidently. "And I swear I'm not trying to buy your affection, either! But since it bothers you so much, I’ll make you a deal. If I expect you to pay me back for something, I'll tell you, in no uncertain terms. But if I don’t say anything ... you just accept it. And I promise you, I won’t be splurging like this later, so you should enjoy it while you can. Let me spoil my girl for now, and when you start getting paid you can take me out to dinner sometime. If you want to," he added quickly.

She considered it for a moment, then nodded uncertainly.

Jack came up behind them at that moment and took Vala's arm. "Excuse me, Daniel, but I need a woman's opinion on something they're selling outside." There was an unmistakable note of warning in his voice.

"Er ... okaaay...." Daniel replied warily.

Outside one of the entrances were spinner racks with pins, but Jack pulled Vala off a ways, over to a bench.

"Okay, so you should probably know Sam and I overheard everything in the line, and we were eavesdropping on you two in the shop just now."

Vala's jaw dropped, and she made wordless, indignant noises.

"Now, for all his fancy vocabulary, Danny-boy sometimes just isn't so good with .... well, words. There are things he's not saying -- not because he doesn't want to, or is keeping secrets, mind," he added quickly. "It's more like there are things it's not ... occurring to him to tell you." Jack paused. "How much do you know about his childhood?"

Vala shrugged uncomfortably. "Not much," she admitted. "I know he was in your ... foster-care, I think he called it? -- for a long time. He told me about the trips he'd taken to here with one family or another, but most of what we've talked about were his college years or later."

Jack nodded. "Daniel ... saw his parents die right in front of him, when he was young but was still old enough to understand what was happening. His grandfather wouldn’t take him in, and, like he told you, he was shunted around from home to home. His only belongings fit into a couple of bags. He told me once that those bags became a symbol to him of the transience of his life; no one wanted him, he had no one to call family, and no place was ever really a home -- he didn’t stay anywhere long enough. When he got a place of his own and steady work through the SGC, I noticed that he started collecting objects to commemorate events that were important to him. Most of the time those mementos were objects he would bring back to SGC for further study anyway, so I don't think he ever even saw them as keepsakes, but I've gotten to know him pretty well over the years, I think. I've always suspected that that's a big part of why he became an archaeologist himself -- well, aside from the fact that his parents and grandfather were archaeologists, I mean. I think he would have become one no matter what his folks had done for a living. He--"

"Wait, wait ... his parents and grandfather were archaeologists too? He said it was Indiana Jones that inspired him to become one!"

Jack nodded, unsurprised that she didn’t know about Daniel's family. "I think the loss of his parents, even after all this time, still hurts too much still for him to talk about it -- blaming it on ol' Indy is probably easier on him." After all, it had been ten years since the loss of Jack's son, but some days the pain was as fresh as if it had just happened ... and he'd never tell anyone that.

Vala felt her heart breaking for Daniel -- and for herself. They were supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, but she realised now that, despite all the talking they'd done that weekend, there was much of her life she hadn’t told him yet either. That was going to have to change if they were to have any kind of future together. "You were saying you'd suspected there was another reason besides his family that he became an archaeologist?"

"Yeah. I think it was to reassure himself that our lives matter, that what we accomplish isn’t just ... forgotten when we're gone, even thousands of years later. That the legacy we leave can guide the future. That just because his own life seemed to lack any sense of permanence at the time didn’t mean it had to stay that way. Anyhow, I think he's still afraid of losing another person he cares about, they way he did his family, his foster families, Sha're .... Even I sometimes feel like I abandoned him when I left SGC."

She gave him a sympathetic look, laying a hand on his arm.

"You still talk to each other! And I happen to know for a fact that he still sees you as one of the most important people in his life -- a father figure, even!"

Jack gave her a sad, grateful smile. Daniel really saw him that way? "I'm not that old!" he mock protested. "Still, this weekend has shown me how much I miss him and the rest of SG-1, how I need to ... reconnect with the team, I guess. And it's shown me how much you mean to him, Vala. You know, he talks a lot about you when he calls me? Even when you've done something to aggravate the tar outta him, he would go on and on about how smart and resourceful you are." Jack nudged her. "Between you and me, I knew he liked you from the very first time he told me about you, back when you tried to hijack the Prometheus."

Vala smiled, blushing. "Really? You're not just saying that?"

Jack put one hand on his heart and raised the other with two fingers up. "Scout's honor." He grew more serious. "I know he doesn’t see you as incapable of caring for herself, Vala. If you'll permit me a moment to be blunt, he just knows what it's like to be homeless, friendless, and broke. He didn’t want the fact that you haven't been paid yet spoil this weekend for you, especially since, let's face it, he has money to spare these days. Besides, you saw how many souvenirs he bought himself, so it's not like he was just splurging on you, right?" he added with a wink and a smile. "Daniel just wanted to make sure you weren't left out of the fun. I mean, they say money can’t buy happiness, but really, that's not entirely true, is it? And if he can do something to make others happy, Daniel's the kind of guy who will do it, gladly, no matter what the cost to himself. So let him; it's as much for his own sake as yours. Let him cherish you, Vala; he's good at that sort of thing."

Vala was silent a long, thoughtful moment, unshed tears stinging her eyes. "He did say that putting a smile on my face was worth every penny," she finally admitted.

"And," Jack went on, "I also think that his having bought you all that stuff this weekend was a sort of ... unconscious insurance policy: if he fills your bags enough, anchors you down, maybe you'll be less likely to leave him someday."

Her eyes flew open wide, horrified. "H-how do I prove that he doesn’t need to do that? Because I won't abandon him, I mean?"

"I don’t know if you even can," Jack said, a shrewd look in his eye. "I mean, can you honestly promise that the wanderlust won't take hold of you again someday? That once the Ori threat is over, you'll still stay with us?"

"You think that's why I'm here: just to help defeat the Ori, out of some sense of ... of obligation? I could have fought the good fight anywhere! Besides, do you think I wanted to roam the galaxy all these years before I met Daniel on the Prometheus?" she replied, voice getting heated. "I wandered because I didn’t have anywhere that I could call home! But since meeting Daniel ... I keep finding my way back to him. Even despite the efforts of the Ori and the Trust to separate us! Believe it or not, I didn’t originally come looking for him and slap the Kor Mak bracelet on him just because I was treasure hunting! I ..." She hung her head. "I wanted to make sure he couldn’t just kick me out. I wanted to have a chance to get to know him. I don’t even know why, really." She grew wistful. "I just know I've never felt so drawn to anyone before. Back at that warehouse, when I'd lost my memory, I could have shot him and left again, forever .... Instead, I listened to what he had to say about not running anymore and having found a home. I started to remember who he was, and even though my memory was foggy at best, I knew he was right -- I did want to stay...." She shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. "At any rate, we do plenty of wandering and adventuring through the Stargate, don’t we? And I like having someplace to come back to! I like having Daniel -- and the rest of SG-1 -- to travel with. When I'm on a mission without Daniel, I like having him to come back to -- and when he goes off somewhere, I like having him come back to me ...."

"So do I," came Daniel's voice from behind, startling her. She turned to see Daniel staring at her with an indefinable expression, and odd mix of embarrassment, guilt, longing, and affection. "Like coming home to you, I mean. And you come back to me. And traveling together -- all of that ...."

Sam, standing next to him, smirked and winked, though Vala wasn't sure if she was winking at her or Jack. Vala wondered how long the pair had been standing there. Obviously she and Daniel had been set up -- she wondered if she ought to smack her friend or hug her ....

They moved on, stopping in a few other shops but not buying anything as they made their way to the Flights of Wonder, a show that exhibited the natural behaviors of a variety of birds, including parrots, ibises, cranes, owls, falcons, and hawks. At one point, Vala was asked to hold out a dollar bill, which a hawk promptly snatched from her hand. The keeper seemed more than a little disconcerted, though, when the hawk flew back to Vala, apparently to return the bill to her, then perched on her shoulder and played with her hair.

"Where can I get one of these?" she asked the keeper, when he came over to claim the errant bird.

The keeper looked as though he was about to apologise when he suddenly took note of Peri, sitting in the row in front of them. Daniel saw a strange look pass between them; suddenly the keeper just smiled and nodded to Vala, and brought the animal back to the stage, acting like it was all a part of the act. Daniel didn’t dwell on it, though, just glad that the even hadn't become another bad memory for Vala. Indeed, she was grinning from ear to ear!

Next they went to the very back of Anandapur, the Asian section of the park, where they found the entrance to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The trek was made up to look like the ruins of a Maharajah's fancy zoo, with broken Indian architecture. Like the other trail in the African section, there were plastic guidemaps to borrow -- again, only Carolyn took one -- and many of the enclosures had a docent there to speak about the animals. First up on the trek was an enclosure with a komodo dragon, the world's largest species of lizard.

"Wow!" Cameron said. "That's like ten times the size of the iguana I had!"

"You had an iguana?" Carolyn asked, smiling. "So did I!"

"Well, I guess that's a match made in heaven," Vala whispered to Daniel, grinning. Then she added, "Actually, I thought dragons were bigger? And isn't it a little dangerous having them out in the open? Or do they do something to keep them from breathing fire?"

Despite Vala's having whispered to him, Daniel caught sight of Peri shaking her head, eyes squeezed shut as if in pain. The charity he'd felt towards Cassandra's friend promptly evaporated.

"They just call it a dragon," he explained patiently to Vala.

Vala sighed. "You know, the Tau'ri penchant for not saying what you mean is really getting irritating...."

He laughed. "Try being a translator!"

The tapir, which slept with its back to them in a far corner of its enclosure, wasn't particularly interesting.

"You know, I'm starting to think that fella's a fake," Sam quipped. "He's exactly where I left him last time I was here!"

Daniel nodded his agreement, though neither of them were really serious about it. Still, Teal'c and Vala studied the creature's backside curiously, as if trying to determine whether it was alive or stuffed.

The bat house was much more interesting; from it, guests could view a sunlit grotto that was home to fruit bats and giant flying fox bats. The latter really did resemble foxes with wings; Daniel found the construction of the wings, how they were really like delicate, long-fingered hands with thin, membranous skin stretched between the digits, absolutely fascinating.

Apparently, so did Vala. "I wish I had wings!"

Mitchell snorted. "You get in people's hair enough already!"

Vala stuck her tongue out at him.

"Are those vampire bats, mommy?" a child asked.

"No, sweetie, vampire bats are from Central and South America, not Asia," his mother replied.

Vala turned to Daniel, looking a bit alarmed, and whispered with a questioning note, "I saw a movie with a man who turned into a bat. They called him a vampire..."

Daniel smiled. "Vampire bats aren't actually vampires, and they don’t suck human blood."

"Ah. Okay. Just checking. Oh, and I might suggest we never go to the planet you call PX9-432 then ...."

It was Daniel's turn to get wide-eyed. "You mean ...?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh."

Carolyn and Cam had been listening. "You're kidding!" Carolyn insisted, mouth agape.

"Nope," Vala assured her.

Carolyn turned to Cam, an excited light in her eyes. "Well, we have to go there! Think of all we could learn if we could study them! We might learn something important about blood disor--"

"Ah, no. I'm sure your Daddy would agree with me, and since he's the boss ...."

"I bet I could talk him into it, once I explained how important the information we gleaned could be!" Carolyn protested.

"Provided they didn’t do a little gleaning of their own, first," Mitchell pointed out wryly. He then gave Vala a frustrated glance. "You and your big mouth!" And he steered Carolyn out of the room by the shoulders.

"Trouble in paradise already," Jack remarked. Sam swatted him, but was grinning herself.

The next part of the trail featured a view of a lovely fountain, with a tiger pacing around it while another lounged in the grass beyond it.

"It's so beautiful here," Vala breathed.

Daniel slipped his arms around her and whispered into her hair, "Now it is."

Despite the crowd pressing in around them. for a few glorious moments, it felt as though it was just them standing there watching the great cats, sharing a special -- and slightly surreal -- moment that each would often call up in their memory anytime they were apart. It helped that Teal'c caught a picture of the moment, of course.

Reluctantly, they trailed behind the rest of their party, first to a window that offered another view of the tigers, then to the next enclosure, which featured delicate deer and large-horned cows, as well as peacocks and unusual geese. They crossed a bridge that featured more of the same on one side, and more tigers at another fountain on the other. The next area offered other views of the second set of tigers, though there were so many hand- and nose-prints on the glass, the view had been better through the rope-mesh of the bridge. Teal'c suggested, with some irritation because his camera kept focusing on the dirty glass, that they ought to have someone there to clean the window constantly. The others murmured their agreement, save Peri, who argued that the resort was having a hard enough time hiring enough staff of late without having a constantly-on-the-spot Tigers' Window-Washer.

To get to the next section, they had to walk through not just a heavy door, but a curtain of plastic chains. The portal led to an outdoor but covered enclosure, with a pond, a fountain, rock formations, a large amount of vegetation, and a gazebo holding plastic bird-watching guides. This time each couple took one, as well as Teal'c, Cassandra, and one of Cassandra's other friends. The group made a game of looking for the strange and beautiful birds, with only Teal'c hunting alone. Of course he found the most. The highlight of the game, though, was when one of the birds, to the shock of the docent, landed on Vala's shoulder and sat there for a while as she searched for its cousin. Teal'c got a shot for her scrapbook, then remarked that she seemed to have a great affinity for animals. He added that among his people, such a gift meant that one had a pure spirit.

She gave the Jaffa a skeptical look, but for Daniel's part, he believed it. Any guile on her part seemed a programmed response, something she'd had to learn to do to survive; now that she was learning to trust her teammates, she was shedding the thief-aspect of herself like a winter coat, revealing a kind and even innocent heart beneath. She didn’t need her second-nature anymore: now she was free to be her first-nature. He believed he was now seeing some of the girl she'd been before she'd been violated by Qetesh....

Having finished the trail, it was time to use their Fastpasses to ride the Kali River Rapids. Mitchell remarked on how he couldn’t wait to cool off, having apparently forgotten Peri's warning from before they'd gone on Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, about the downside to getting wet on a hot afternoon. Fanning herself with a map, the girl didn’t seem particularly interested in reminding him, either.

As they hurried through the Fastpass queue, Vala noted a tree covered with silk scarves.

"That's meant to emulate a bodhi tree. The scarves are prayer offerings one would find at a Buddhist temple," he explained.

"Do they ever get taken down? " she asked, puzzled.

He shrugged. "I suppose the caretakers might, I don’t know. For the most part, I think people are unwilling to mess with other people's prayers. It’s kinda like with wishing wells and such -- people don’t usually go climbing into the fountains to take coins other people threw in while wishing." He noted that Vala suddenly looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Actually, while nobody should be throwing coins into any of the fountains or waterways at this particular park -- it says it in the guidemap, if anyone would bother to read it -- they do collect the coins in the other areas of Disney World," Peri chimed in.

"They do?" Daniel asked, irritated that the girl had once again been eavesdropping but grudgingly glad she'd diffused an uncomfortable moment.

Peri nodded. "Everything people throw in gets gathered periodically for that childrens' charity, UNICEF. I mean, they'd have to clean the stuff out now and then, wouldn’t they? Imagine how years of tossed coins would build up over time when you have tens of thousands of guests a day!"

Daniel noted Vala just seemed more miserable at that, and felt bad for her. Once upon a time, the knowledge that she would do something like taking coins from fountains would have upset him; now, he understood that she'd had leave nobility by the wayside in order to survive. Add in the fact that she knew firsthand that the major "gods" in the galaxy, the Goa'uld, were false, and he could see why she wouldn’t feel any compunction against stealing offerings to them -- quite the opposite! And really, after someone made a wish and waked away, wasn't the work of the coin in that regard over? Why should it sit uselessly in the water afterwards if it could put food in someone's mouth? Waste not, want not. But there didn’t seem to be a delicate way of saying that to her, so he left it alone and hoped she would forget this conversation.

There wasn't much to see on the ride itself; the main point, after all, was to get wet. Like every other white-water rapids ride, it consisted of sitting in a circular raft with high-backed, hard plastic seats set in pairs; in the center was a place to stow belongings so they would stay dry, and a circular metal bar to hang on to for dear life. There was a section where they went past a "deforested" area, where trees had been felled and burnt; riders could feel the heat and smell a simulated acrid smoke scent. But really, that part of the ride was practically a footnote. Everyone got pretty well-splashed; Cam and Carolyn got soaked.

Daniel and Jack took great amusement in Cam's painfully-obvious efforts not to ogle Carolyn, whose white shirt was now very translucent. The group stopped at a stand near the exit, and Carolyn bought a new shirt, as well as a towel. Cam bought a towel too, as did Daniel, who shared his with Vala, and Sam, who told Jack playfully to get his own before rolling her eyes and handing hers over. The group made a pit stop at the nearby washroom. After using the facilities, Vala and Sam found Daniel, Jack, and Cam playing in the special fountains made specifically for guests to do that very thing, as a way to cool off. Teal'c looked on with a certain dignity that apparently didn't allow him to indulge in such frivolity. At least not until Jack managed to divert one of the streams directly at the Jaffa's belly. After a tense moment where they Jaffa stared at his friend in the Jaffa warrior equivalent of shock, he walked calmly over to another spout and directed it at Jack's head. The Jaffa then laughed most disturbingly; a nearby child started to wail, effectively ending the game. And impatient gaggle of children moved gratefully in to the now-empty fountainworks.

Happily, Vala had snagged the Jaffa's camera and gotten a few snapshots of the boys at play.

At Expedition Everest, the group was dismayed to discover that the Fastpasses were all gone, and the line was an hour long -- at least until Peri pointed out the Single Riders line. Unfortunately, it meant they had to miss the main queue, which Daniel hadn’t seen yet, since the ride had only opened a short while ago. Well, it gave him something to look forward to the next time he and Vala came to the park, he figured. He smiled.

As luck had it, he and Vala ended up next to each other after all, the main line apparently holding only larger parties at that moment. The coaster reminded him of Big Thunder, until it started moving backwards -- in the dark for part of the way, no less. And he had to admit, the growling of the Yeti throughout the ride, it's shadow on the wall, and it's appearance near the end made for one terrifying ride! The proof was in the photo he bought for Vala, in which he looked, of course, like a total dork. At least it would be in the scrapbook and no constantly on display. And seeing how she clutched at his arm made the photo not a total loss.

He found a new approach to buying her stuff: he suggested they share a cute stuffed yeti, saying it could spend some time in her room, and some time back at his place. Sooner or later, if things went as he hoped, they wouldn't even need to do the joint custody thing -- but he kept that thought to himself.

She expressed interest in a "I traded my boyfriend for a Yeti" shirt, which he promptly and firmly said no to. When she actually beamed at him for his reply, he realised she'd only been testing him -- but for some reason Sam felt Vala should have the shirt anyway, and bought it for her pigtailed friend, saying that it was a belated birthday present.

After stopping at a stand for frozen Chai, they headed for the last area of the park, Dinoland USA. As they walked towards it, they passed a giant area under construction, and Daniel realised with some dismay that the "Tarzan Rocks" show was being replaced by a "Finding Nemo" show. Why?? Nemo already had a ride! He was disappointed that he'd never get to share the other show with her now.

They reached Dinoland from the back entrance of the 50s-style, carny-esque section of it, "Chester and Hester's Dinorama". It was filled with carnival games, as well as a Dumbo-like kiddie ride, TriceraTop Spin, and a bizarre roller-coaster, Primeval Whirl, in which the cars not only followed track, but also spun in circles as they went. Sadly, it wasn't as fun as it sounded -- not enough dips or speed for his liking -- but they got Fastpasses for it anyway before heading over to a ride just outside the carnival, Dinosaur.

The queue for Dinosaur was made to seem like it was some sort of research institute/museum, and had a pre-show explaining about the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs. The premise of the ride was that the institute had time-rovers that allowed visitors to travel back and see real, live dinosaurs. However, in the second pre-show, an employee hijacked the programming and sent the rover to just before the arrival of the meteor, to capture and bring back an Iguanadon he'd tagged. The ride itself was plagues with a nasty -- but, Daniel felt, kinda cool -- dino called a Carnotaur, which seemed like a T-Rex's scarier cousin.

As they stood waiting for their turn to board a rover, Daniel told Vala about how the ride used to be called "Countdown to Extinction" until Disney released a movie that featured an Iguanadon hero and Carnotaur baddies. He really had no idea which came first, the planning of the ride or the planning of the film -- and, shocker of shockers, neither did Peri. "Funny thing is," Daniel added, "until the movie came out, they were calling them Carnosaurs, which is really a catch-all name, but the proper name is actually Carnotaurus -- and it was actually smaller than an Iguanadon!"

"Okay, 'Peri'" Cam said lowly to Daniel over Vala's shoulder, a smile in his voice, "do you wanna pay attention to the line and move your butt?"

"Wha?" Daniel turned and found that a ten-person gap had developed between himself and the next person in line. He mumbled a sheepish apology and moved forward.

The ride, frankly, was not one of his favourites. It was loud, jerky, and dark, and he hated the last bit, where a huge Carnotaur head appeared and roared very loudly, just as the meteor was colliding with earth. It was heart-pounding; he got that enough with his day-job, thanks. Vala, of course, loved it, though. He bought another picture of them being terrified (and him looking like a dork) for her scrapbook. Then he bought a big stuffed Carnosaur/taur/taurus in the ride's gift shop.

"Awwww. Joint custody?" Vala asked with a hopeful note.

He laughed and nodded.

After browsing another shop, the group took a break, ordering ice cream from a nearby cart. Daniel ordered his favourite, an Orange Juice popsicle, which oddly was only available at that park. Vala had ordered his other favourite, the more readily available Tollhouse cookie ice cream sandwich, but was curious about the popsicle that her boyfriend was so enamoured of it. They ended up sharing both, eating the popsicle first, then the cookie.

"Aw, Jackson, that's a surefire way to catch cooties!" Mitchell teased at one point while Daniel and Vala were eating the popsicle.

Vala gave an indignant squawk. "I do not have ... w-whatever it was you just said!