The Roots That Clutch 7

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by Tittamiire

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ast/tittamiire/rootst07.php
Summary: Life back home after all that's happened.
Info: This is the last one folks, thanks for reading!

A three year old in the two roomed house made sleeping in impossible, but Vala tried. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her face down into the pillow. Around her she heard the normal sounds of a morning, those processes common to humans all over the galaxy; the early morning toilet dash followed by a quest for food. Only when she heard the sound of frying and smelled cooking did she stir and feign waking up. Janet smiled at her knowingly and indicated the bathroom outside. Vala wandered in the direction indicated and paused to look out across the still and somnolent settlement after she had used facilities. The view was still predominantly night, but dawn was beginning to creep in enough that Vala could see the outlines of the buildings and the trees. She stood in a small garden, complete with a knee high wooden fence around it and neat rows of unknown plants. She wandered to the back of the garden and looked into the trees beyond the fence. Birds were singing loudly and animals were stirring out of sight. Vala hated rural areas.

When she came back inside Cassie was placing plates of food onto the table and nodded towards the empty chair to indicate that Vala should sit there. She did, shaking her hair and rubbing her eyes to wake up properly. Sam and Janet had changed outfits. The combat clothes that Vala was so familiar with were gone and had been replaced by equally practical, but more relaxed and comfortable looking garments based around the simple effectiveness of the tube at preserving human modesty. They smiled at her from their side of the table and all enquired politely about each other's quality of sleep. Lise watched Vala suspiciously from Sam's lap and only the tricky process of successfully coordinating knife, fork, mouth and pancake could distract her from her scrutiny (Sam's offer to cut up the pancake received an unequivocal 'no' and a scowl). The atmosphere was relaxed like it had never been on the Alkesh. Walls had come down and Sam and Janet could have been different women. It wasn't as if they were making out, but the level of unconscious physical contact had gone up, as well as the smiles and the intimacy. Yet again Vala wondered why the hell they ever left in the first place. However, there was still a lingering sadness somehow. All through the party the night before she wasn't sure if she'd heard any of those who'd been on the Alkesh really laugh. They'd smiled, chatted and looked amused, but none of them had let go.

In the daylight Vala could see the telltale signs of a higher technology present in the construction of the cottage. The materials appeared to be from the planet, but all joints were perfectly dovetailed, the floor and furniture all perfectly level and no winter winds would find any cracks to whistle through.

"So what's the plan for today?" Vala enquired once they were all close to finishing eating.

"Well there're goats to be milked," Cassie suggested.

"Fire wood to be gathered," Janet supplied.

"Irrigation ditches to be irrigated," Sam added with an evil grin.

"Cloth to be woven"

"Patients to be visited"

"Alkesh weapon systems to be repaired"

"Stop," Vala told them before they got too carried away at this perverse game, "Haven't you heard of taking a day off?"

Janet smiled at her knowingly and caught Lise's fork on reflex before it hit the floor.

"I'll just, take a look around," Vala declared, not wanting to get caught up in anything even remotely resembling work if she could possibly avoid it.

"Don't get lost," Sam advised.

Vala shook her head dismissively and retrieved her shoes from beside the bed. She corralled her bed hair, washed up and then stood in the dew damp morning air and watched the village wake up.

There wasn't a huge amount to explore and it didn't take her too long to establish the limit of the buildings and then the cultivated land. She admired the well thought out layout of the village (despite that fact that it made it look artificial) and the ingenious irrigation system that diverted part of the river into a manufactured channel that ran through the farmland.

She found Daniel standing knee deep in soft mud and rhythmically transferring water from the main channel onto some of the crops. It appeared that his thoughts were a galaxy away and it took him a while to notice Vala once she'd stopped to watch him. It was a kind of relaxed disregard that she'd never seen on him before yet simultaneously appeared exceedingly natural on Daniel here and now.

"Hi," he said eventually when he realised that she was stood watching him.

"Nice irrigating you're doing there," she told him and sort of meant it.

He didn't break his rhythm and looked questioningly at her, "How's the burn?"

"It's getting there"

"Good"

"How long have you been fighting the Goa'uld?"

"Nine years, give or take."

"Why don't you just stop?" The question hung in the air innocently and waited.

"We can't," Daniel finally stopped what he was doing. He climbed noisily out of the mud and stood beside Vala. The water and mud ran down from his bare calves and outlined his feet on the dry grass.

"Teal'c would leave for starters. Jack would go slowly crazy without anything to do. Sam and I would too for that matter. With no new discoveries to make, no new sights to see we'd get cabin fever under the open sky." He recited the reasons easily, as if he'd considered them carefully. He shrugged slowly, "And we can never forgive Anubis, the System Lords or any Goa'uld for the six and a half billion lives and everything else they have taken from us."

He took her elbow in an unprecedented level of physical contact and led her away from the ditch to somewhere drier where they could both sit on the grass.

Daniel looked out to the clouds and thought for a moment before he spoke. "Apophis took my wife nine years ago. She died while still a host. I've been killed, tortured and tormented at the hands of the Goa'ld and Anubis has damn near wiped us out. We might be little more than annoying mosquitoes now, but mosquitoes carry malaria."

"What's malaria and what's a mosquito?"

"A nasty disease and a horrible insect that carries it respectively."

"Have I mentioned that you lot are crazy?"  Vala said and leant to rest her head on Daniel's shoulder. He didn't pull away so Vala slid her arm through his and placed her hand on his forearm.

"We play at this," he gestured to the field in front of them with his other hand. "I think Janet and maybe Walter could maybe settle down and truly live here, but the rest of us don't belong. There is little use for soldiers, scientists and academics in a farming community so we visit and we pretend for a little while that we can fit in."

"It is a nice play though," Vala reassured him.

Daniel pressed his cheek against the top of her head and sighed quietly. She waited for him to say something, but he didn't.

~~~

The Colonel was slumped comfortably on the bench outside the cottage he called home. He held a tool of some kind in his hand and was cleaning rust from the blade casually. He waved when he caught sight of Vala and waited for her to walk close enough to make conversation possible. His dwelling was on a slight rise in the undulating land and he could effectively look down across almost the entire village from this spot outside. He gestured to the other end of the bench with the metal blade and invited Vala to take a seat. She shared his view and wondered what his eyes saw.

"How're the ribs?" He asked when she didn't initiate conversation.

"Fine, its one more scar for the collection."

"It'll fade"

"They always do." She swung her legs and let her heels scuff parallel tracks in the dirt before she spoke again. "I want to get out of here soon"

The Colonel gave her an appraisingly look, "Let us know when and we'll give you a lift to a nearby planet with a Stargate."

"Thanks," Vala nodded.

The Colonel flicked a hand at a harmless, but annoying insect attracted to his body heat and scowled at the disturbance.

"Where are you going to go?" He wiped the blade and reached for a container of oil.

Vala shrugged, "I dunno. I'll see what comes up. There's always something."

He seemed to consider something, "I doubt you'll take us up on this, but you'd be welcome back here. We have a message box on a planet and we check it once a week if you need to get in touch."

Vala was honestly surprised. She looked at the Colonel to check whether he was joking, but couldn't read anything in his expression. He caught her looking and shrugged.

"Maybe you'll want to settle down some day. I've been thinking of retiring myself."

"Thanks," Vala repeated and surprised herself by filing the knowledge away for future consideration. She was pretty sure she wouldn't ever actually come back here, but it would be nice to think that she had the option. It was her turn to feel herself under scrutiny. It was hard to hide things from the Colonel and she knew that he had inferred a lot of who she was from the last couple of weeks. She felt unusually vulnerable and looked at the view to avoid looking at him. The people here knew what she had been, knew what she was now and they were okay with it and trusted her regardless. It helped that there was little on this planet worth stealing and the few valuable possessions they had referred to vaguely she hadn't had access to. Plus even she wouldn't stoop to steal a village's access to medicine. What they treasured couldn't be bundled into a bag and sold on a street corner, but it could be destroyed if any of the Goa'uld found out where they were and the fact that they trusted her not to tell was weird.

~~~

"Take care Vala," Daniel said with genuine warmth in his voice and embraced her tightly, safe in the knowledge that there wasn't anything worth pinching about his person. Except there always was and Vala took the chance to cop one last feel. He stepped back sharply and glared at her and she smiled innocently.

"Ditto," said Colonel O'Neill and nodded towards her. Sam and Janet both stepped forward to hug her tightly and Vala finally picked her bag up and slung it over her shoulder. They'd flown a short way to a world with a Stargate to allow Vala to leave and the Alkesh was hovering a little way away until they were ready to ring back up.

"It was a fun ride guys, we should do it again sometime," Vala declared, ignoring the sadness in the smiles and opting for flippancy. She waved at them jovially.

"You know where to find us," Colonel O'Neill commented gently, although she didn't actually. She merely knew it was somewhere near this address. Vala grinned to them and turned to step through the gate. There was a whole galaxy out there, a multitude of peoples who had money waiting for Vala to relieve them of it and a plethora of planets where her fortune was potentially going to be made, but it was nice to think that she had a place she could come back to one day, maybe.