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mhalachaiTOO LONG CHAPTER IS TOO LONG. I'll sum it up. Vala Mal Doran guest-stars in a dialogue-heavy episode of the Gilmore Girls. With great lolz.
Summary: How exactly can Rory tell her mother goodbye? With Vala's help, obviously.
Disclaimer: None of these characters or shows belong to me.
Rating: PG
Setting: Post-series for Gilmore Girls; spoilers for early parts of Season 4 of SGA. We are officially diverging from SGA canon after Miller's Crossing (for the most part). Post SG-1 series finale.
Words: 18,220 OH GOD.
Notes: This is a long chapter. And I'm really, really sorry. But this is the last earth-side chapter, so you can't kill me. Um, right?
Part I: Something About Blue Eyes
Part II: The Physics of the Spin
Part III: The Girl With Numbers In Her Eyes
Part IV: The Precise Point Of Impact
Part V: Under the Mountain
Part VI: Play Smart For The Home Team
Part VII: Almost Everything About Almost Everything
Part VIII: Studies in New Paris
Part IX: Secret Keeper
Part X: With Friends Like These
Part XI: Home For A Rest
The story at TTH.
Vala slipped through a herd of Marines and emerged on the other side of the corridor beside little miss Rory Gilmore. Vala followed Rory into the elevator and waited until they were headed deeper into the mountain to ask, "Who's winning?"
Rory never lifted her eyes from her papers. "Colonel Darsen, in the chemistry lab with the acetone."
"And here I had all my money on Dr. Freyd in the Gateroom with a ZPM," Vala lamented. She thrust her hand in her pocket and emerged with a handful of linty mints. "Candy?"
Rory made a face. "I'm not sure that's the kind of fiber the FDA wants us to add to our diet," she said as the elevator doors opened. "Why are you down here? Are you coming to my final scientific briefing with the General?"
Vala shook her head, picking lint from a mint. "Daniel is in the middle of working on something... somewhere," she said. "As much as I'm going to miss you in Atlantis, darling, I wouldn't sit through a science briefing for all the tea in China."
"You don't like tea," Rory pointed out.
"For all the Smirnoff in Russia?"
Rory laughed, a startled happy sound that Vala had not heard enough in the last few months. And now, Rory was going to leave the galaxy for Atlantis and Vala was going to be left behind. Again. This sort of thing always happened when she made a friend; they would pack up their things and leave. At least she still had Daniel and Mitchell and Teal'c, which was solely an observation and not any kind of sappy emotional lamentation.
"Are you still going home afterwards?" Vala asked, bounding ahead of Rory up the stairs.
"I think so," Rory said. "Unless the General needs me to do any extra work before I leave for Atlantis."
Vala emerged into the briefing room to find General Landry and Mitchell leaning stiffly around the briefing table. Sure, Mitchell called that pose the 'military parade lounging', but Vala refused to attribute the word 'lounge' to anything a person did while vertical.
General Landry broke off his side of the conversation when he spotted Vala. "You're early for the briefing, Vala," he said with a hint of humor in his voice. "All of that hanging around Ms. Gilmore finally starting to rub off on you?"
"I sincerely hope not," Vala said with a grimace. She hopped up onto the table beside Mitchell. "Don't tell me you're becoming an ego-head."
Mitchell sighed. "That's 'egg-head'," he corrected.
"I don't know, I like ego-head," Rory said shyly. For some reason that Vala could not torment out of her, Rory was still inexplicably hesitant around General Landry.
"Ooh, or Eggo-head," Vala added.
"Would that make someone a waffle brain?" Mitchell tossed in with a grin. Rory blushed and Vala added one more weapon to her 'Tease Rory' arsenal, the girl's minor crush on Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell.
Vala said to the General, "Are you going to be mean and keep Rory here instead of going home to see her mother?"
"No, Ms. Gilmore is free to go home for a few days before the personnel move out to Atlantis," General Landry said. "As long as she manages to stay out of casinos."
"It wasn't my fault that we were arrested in Las Vegas," Vala protested. "Blame Daniel and his paranoia!"
"It wasn't his idea for us to stay in the hotel that looked like a pyramid," Rory reminded her. "And you were the one acting suspicious around the roulette table."
"Only because you were ignoring me while you were breaking the bank at the black jack table." Vala sighed wistfully. "I still don't see why they were so mad at you for counting cards. Isn't that the point?"
Mitchell coughed. "Rory wasn't counting cards, Vala, she's just got good luck at gambling."
"It wasn't luck, I was just playing the odds on when to fold," Rory told him. "And I gave most of the money back to the casino and they decided to forget we were there." She was smiling, though. "It's been a while since the cops came to break up one of my birthday parties. I was the talk of the school in grade three."
"Grade three?" Mitchell repeated.
"The cops arrested the clown and then the fire department had to come to get me and Lane down out of the church roof. Mom got one of the firefighter's phone numbers and I still have to hear about it at Thanksgiving."
"Sounds like loads of small-town American fun," Vala said pointedly. She was not scowling. That would have been immature and sulky, two things that Vala was certainly not, thank you.
"It's home," Rory said. She placed her papers on the briefing table and adjusted them very straight. Glancing up at the General, Rory began, "I know it might not be possible, sir, but..."
"Yes?" the General prompted, not unfriendly under his gruffness.
"I mean, things around here are going to be slow for a few days," Rory said, her eyes wide and innocent. "Would it be okay if Vala came with me to Connecticut?"
After nine months of being around Rory Gilmore, not much surprised Vala anymore. But still, whenever Rory brought out the 'cute and adorable little girl' face, Vala was amazed how people fell for it. Well, not 'fall', Vala mentally amended. But perhaps were weakened by it. Like by radiation poisoning, or low blood sugar.
General Landry glanced at Mitchell and surprised the hell out of Vala by saying, "Sure."
Vala sprang off the table, tripping over Mitchell in the process. "I can go?" she demanded, not believing she'd understood.
"Yes, yes," the General said irritably. "You're free to have a few days of leave, after all this time on post."
"But you do realize that I'll be gone without military escort," Vala said. "No Daniel hiding in the trunk or Mitchell in the closet."
"Why am I stuck in the closet?" Mitchell asked, but he was ignored.
"I am aware of what I'm saying," the General said. He made a shooing motion at Vala and Mitchell. "If Ms. Gilmore can put up with you for a few days, that's her call."
Rory grinned widely as she caught at Vala's sleeve. "You can come to Stars Hollow!" she exclaimed.
"Excellent!" Vala slung an arm over the girl's shoulders and hugged her quickly sideways. "You can explain all about these insect customs on the plane."
"Insects?" Rory asked, then shook her head. "Not 'wasps," Vala, the acronym is W.A.S.P. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants."
Vala dismissed the explanation. "Maybe I'll ask Daniel for a guidebook," she mused as other white coats began to drift into the room. "But don't you leave without me!"
"Of course not," Rory promised. She turned back to her papers as Mitchell and Vala headed out of the room, narrowly missing more scientists.
Vala made it as far as the control room before she caught Mitchell's arm. "What's going on?" she demanded.
Mitchell hitched his shoulders in that annoying way he had, which he only did when he was trying to be sneaky and subtle. "The General just wants you to have some time off, that's all."
Vala glared at him with all the withering contempt she usually reserved for the Goa'uld. "The last time I asked to leave the base without you or Daniel, he told me it'd be a cold day in hell."
Mitchell shrugged. "You know, there is this global climate change thing--" He danced back as Vala's hand sailed through the air, narrowly missing his arm. "No beating up your commanding officer!"
"Says who?"
Their 'conversation' was beginning to turn heads in the rest of the control room. "There's regulations somewhere," Mitchell shot back. "Can't you just go along with this?"
Vala narrowed her eyes. "This isn't about me at all, is it?"
Mitchell motioned with his head and they escaped into the hallway, away from the insatiable gossips that inhabited the control room. "It's sort of complicated," Mitchell said in a low voice that was probably supposed to be confidence inspiring or something.
Vala didn't buy it. Cam Mitchell was many things; buff, brave, and adorable in dress blues. One thing he was not, however, was versed in the arts of subtlety. "Do you think something might happen to Rory? Is that why you're letting me go with her?" she asked.
Mitchell pursed his lips while he thought of an answer. Vala rolled her eyes. She didn't have the time for this.
"Here's the deal, sunshine," she said. "I'll go with Rory and keep an eye out and if anything happens, I'll call you and you can ride in, blasters blazing."
"There's not going to be any need for calling out the cavalry," Mitchell protested.
"So why the big deal? Who could possibly want to hurt Rory?"
Mitchell crossed his arms over his chest, hunching towards Vala to keep the conversation private. "McKay junior is quite possibly the smartest brain Earth has on its side right now," he said in a low voice. "The General wants someone to keep an eye out for her. Someone who has experience in looking over their shoulder."
"Rory is Earth's last, best hope," Vala said.
"Yes."
"And you're sending her to another galaxy."
Mitchell looked confused. Adorable, true, but confused. "Yeah, so?"
Vala looked to the heavens and prayed for some external guiding source to gift her with patience in working with these foolish Earthers. "Fine, I'll go with Rory and be the beauty and brawn to her brains."
"Good." Mitchell gave Vala a soldierly pat on the shoulder. "Don't get into too much trouble."
Vala waited until Mitchell was almost to the end of the hallway before shouting after him, "I expect hazard pay for this!"
"Talk to me about it when you get back!" Mitchell called, passing Daniel at the bend in the corridor.
Daniel twisted around, almost losing his handful of papers, looking first after Mitchell, then switching his befuddled glassy gaze to Vala. "Where are you going?" he asked.
Vala beamed ear to ear. "Bat country," she said, sauntering towards Daniel. "Don't stop the car."
Daniel went back the way he came.
~~~
Vala put down her duffle bag on the curb and took a deep breath. So this was small-town America. Gods, she was already bored.
Rory tucked her wallet back into her bag before joining Vala on the curb. The taxi's red taillights faded into the darkness, leaving Rory and Vala the only two apparent occupants in the town square. Dry leaves blew across the pavement, skittering over the playground, moving in time with the empty swings. Vala had seen cheerier worlds after the Ori had left. "Nice place you've got here," she observed.
"Where is everyone?" Rory wondered. "Come on, let's go to Luke's." The girl picked up her suitcase and moved across the street towards a brightly lit and seemingly empty diner.
Vala followed, suddenly regretting leaving her smuggled zat gun at the bottom of her duffle. Things were strange in this little town, and the one motto that Vala lived by was that strange was only good when Vala was the one making things strange.
So that wasn't really her motto, but good words to heed, if one could remember the general meaning under fire.
Rory stopped on the diner's front step, her hand halfway extended to the door handle. She had gone pale in the sickly light of the overhead street lamps. Vala looked at the diner again. This must have been the diner where Rory worked, before Jack O'Neill had found her and brought her to her proper place at the SGC. Vala still wasn't sure about status in the non-military parts of Earth, but from what she had gleaned from prodding Daniel with a stick, a smart person who had graduated from college and who worked in menial labor was considered a disappointment.
As someone who had worked as a waitress in a diner for a few weeks, Vala thought this view was utter trash.
Still, Vala supposed that Rory might have internalized said trash, and would need a little moral support to walk through that door. "Do you think they've been eaten by zombies?"
Rory turned startled eyes on Vala. "I-- huh?"
"Zombies." Vala gestured around the empty town with its shuttered shops. "Do you think we're in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse?"
"What do you know about zombies?" Rory asked, a smile starting over her face. The expression was quickly wiped away. "Oh god, are there actual zombies up there?"
"Of course not," Vala said. "At least not the ones that eat brains."
Rory glanced over Vala's shoulder at the deserted town. "I can't believe we're having a conversation about zombies on Luke's front doorstep."
"You're right." Vala poked Rory in the arm. "Brain-eating-zombies are a topic best had over burgers."
"Luke makes the best zombie burgers in the state," Rory said. She led the way into the diner, a lovely place that smelled of fresh coffee and delicious food, with hardware signs covering the walls in a distinctly anachronistic way. Vala thought the place quirky. Knowing that Rory had pretty much grown up in this diner explained so much.
"Be out in a minute," called a gruff male voice from the depths of the kitchen. "Sit wherever."
Rory placed her suitcase beside the counter, shaking and pale again. Had she really thought how to explain her leaving? So much of Rory's time in the past two weeks had focused on wrapping up her work at the SGC, not to mention finishing something called 'orals' at the university, something Vala had supposed wasn't nearly as fun as it sounded, as Rory had been a sleepless wreck for days before and after.
And now Rory was back at home, in the same place she'd been before all of the excitement of the SGC. Vala probably knew Rory best of all the people in the SGC, but sometimes she didn't understand the younger woman at all.
Maybe that was because the girl didn't know herself, not amid the whirl of knowledge and new discoveries stampeding through her brain. How often had Vala seen Rory surprise herself with some new discovery or observation? It wasn't the McKay influence, or the science, but a fundamental confusion at work within her.
As if Rory had changed in ways that even Rory didn't realize.
A burly man in a baseball cap and a flannel shirt rumbled out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Rory.
"Hi Luke," the girl said, giving him the first honest smile Vala had seen on her in weeks.
The man threw his rag on the counter and rushed Rory, sweeping her up into a hearty hug. "When did you get here?" he asked. He pulled back to give Rory the once-over, managing to look both startled and ecstatic at the same time. "They didn't kick you out of the Air Force, did they?"
That would be the day, Vala thought, perching on a bar stool. Considering the investment the U.S. Air Force had in keeping Rory Gilmore in their employ, the girl's corpse probably wouldn't be getting out of the SGC morgue until three years after her death.
"No, I just have a bit of leave. I mean, time off," Rory said. "It's good to see you again."
"It's been seven months," Luke said. "Your mom didn't tell me you were coming home."
Rory stepped away, twisting her hands together behind her back in one of thirty-seven nervous gestures Vala had catalogued through months of observation. This one Vala had classed as the 'I am keeping things from my mother and it makes me feel like an insect' hand-wringing, just slightly different from 'I just blew up a million-dollar piece of equipment and don't think I'll be able to blink my way out of this one'. The difference was all in the wrist.
"Mom didn't know I was coming," Rory was saying. "I tried to call her at home and on her cell, but there was no answer. I left messages. Also at the Inn, but Michel's pretending he doesn't speak English today and he refused to understand my 'Colonial accent'."
Luke waved his hand. "Paul Anka dropped Lorelai's cell in the sink a few days ago. She's at a business meeting in Hartford all day. She was even going to miss the town meeting."
Understanding dawned on Rory's face. "So that's why the town looks as if it's been decimated by the T-Virus." She turned to Vala. "I've told you about town meetings, right?"
"Ineffective briefings run by a cardiganed megalomaniac who runs the grocery during daylight hours?" Vala smiled at Luke. "I hear that he's your neighbor."
"Yeah, Taylor," Luke agreed. "And you are..."
"Oh, right," Rory said. "Luke, this is Vala Mal Doran, a friend from Colorado. Vala, this is Luke."
"And who else could you be?" Vala asked, holding out her hand to Luke. He was sort of dopy-looking when he was confused, rather like some of the thicker-skulled Jaffa she'd known. "Rory has told me all about you."
"Right." Luke stuck his hands in his pockets, awkward now and uncertain. "Lorelai said she'd be coming by the diner after her meeting, seeing as how I'm stuck here until eleven. Do you want to wait?"
"Actually, maybe we can sneak into the town meeting?" Rory suggested, glancing Vala's way. "It's part of that East Coast Americana you wanted to see. We'll be back after."
"Sounds good," Luke said quickly. "You go and watch. Watching is good."
Vala raised an eyebrow in the man's direction, which he missed but Rory caught and oh, the glare she sent Vala. "We'll be back for burgers later on," Rory promised Luke. "And if Mom comes in, tell her to come crash the party."
"Will do."
Rory pushed her suitcase and Vala's duffle behind the counter and fairly danced out the door, Vala in her wake. They crossed the deserted streets and headed in the direction of a large low hall, so similar to those Vala had seen off-world that it sent a twinge of familiarity down her spine. How many times had she narrowly escaped death in a building just like this?
"How do I look?" Rory asked, smoothing her hands over her skirt. "Do I look okay?" Her dark navy suit and pumps looked wildly out of place in this hall. The clothing was better suited to the going-away briefing she'd had with the Joint Chiefs and IOA reps, where she had dazzled the military men with her smile and understanding of the tactical situation in Pegasus, and deftly handled the egos of the scientists by understanding their research, and had caused Mitchell to mutter under his breath, "That kid's got what it takes."
"Good enough to sell to Bastet," Vala said in a twist of a phrase from her childhood. "Why are you worrying?"
"Because I know these people."
As explanations went, Rory had done better. "Because you knew these people when you were crazy?" Vala tried to stay calm. She was so much better at dealing with Earth culture now, and it wasn't like she was walking into Baal's camp alone. It was just a group of humans who were most likely unarmed and uninterested in sacrificing her to their gods. "You look darling. Stop worrying."
A nervous smile hovered on Rory's lips. "I'm being silly, that's all."
Vala patted Rory's arm. "I know."
The back door of the hall eased open under Rory's touch and the two women stepped in out of the cold. The hall was crowded with strangers, reinforcing Vala's unease. At least there were no large fire pits into which to throw the victim.
The man on the platform droned on, but a few people in the back rows turned around to see the latecomers. Whispers spread out like ripples and by the time Rory and Vala had taken seats by the wall, people were craning in their seats to see Rory.
Finally, the man at the front realized that no one was listening to him. "Honestly, people, what could be more important than a discussion of the town snow-removal budget?"
"Catching up on my sleep?" a capped man in the front row suggested. The plump woman beside him smacked his arm.
"Rory's back, Taylor!" the woman chimed, and the room assented.
"She's so populaaaar," Vala said sotto voce to Rory. The girl blushed, but was smiling.
"And?" Taylor asked, leaning down over his podium. "Would you like me to stop the meeting so you can all say hello?"
A small dark-haired woman popped to her feet. "Would you? Thanks!"
Taylor glared her down. "We are not going to stop the meeting! We've got seven more line-items to discuss in the budget!"
A muted roar rose in the hall. Taylor held up his hands, but it was no good. "Speech!" someone shouted, and the room took up the cry. Vala turned an amused glance on Rory, who by now was crimson.
"It was your idea to visit home," Vala said pointedly.
Still bright-red, Rory stood to a two-person cheer. "It's, um, good to be back," she said when the chanting stopped. "The place looks really good. So do all of you." She paused. "And Luke's will be open after the meeting." Another two-person cheer. "Thank you, I'm here until Saturday. Please tip your server."
Vala didn't understand the roar of laughter, but that was par for the course with most of what Rory said, and she joined in the applause as Rory seated herself. Vala nudged Rory in the side. "That was interesting," Vala said quietly as Taylor took up the meeting again.
"Welcome to my town," Rory said, a flush remaining on her cheeks. "I'd forgotten how much I miss this."
Vala gave Rory's hand a quick squeeze. Nothing in the galaxy would be able to keep Rory Gilmore from Atlantis, but for the first time it seemed as if Rory was realizing what she would be leaving behind.
The standing dark-haired woman had worked her way through the crowd and squeezed onto the bench on the other side of Rory. The two girls hugged and squealed quietly and hugged again, totally ignoring Taylor. "What are you doing here?" the stranger asked. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming home?"
Rory tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, in the Rory Gilmore 'My new life of being the most brilliant person in the galaxy doesn't mesh with my former life of being a journalist and I feel awkward' nervous gesture number four, and shrugged with one shoulder. "It was a bit of a surprise to me as well. I had to come home before-- I wanted to get a chance to come home." She tried to cover her flustered state by gesturing over her shoulder at Vala. "This is Vala. She's a friend from the office. Vala, this is Lane."
"It's nice to meet you," Vala said with a small nod of the head. The young woman was less sanguine, staring at Vala in a guarded way.
"Hi," Lane said quietly. She looked between Vala and Rory. Vala, knowing raised hackles when she saw them, sat back and pretended to listen to Taylor blather on about money.
Rory and Lane resumed their conversation, and Vala drifted in and out of attention, instead looking around the hall (old wood and much-patched beams) and the people (bundled up and slow and not a warrior's bearing amongst them) and the clothing (never in a hundred years would Vala understand Earth fashions, and that was SG-1's one area of blanket agreement). She wished people were at least standing up and milling about; she'd have been able to practice her pick-pocketing.
The words from the front of the hall caught her attention a split second after Rory tensed at Vala's side. Vala almost went for her non-present sidearm. Rory was absolutely frozen, tension screaming through still limbs, her bright blue eyes fixed on Taylor at the front of the room.
The only other time Vala had seen Rory go so still had been on Rory's one off-world mission with SG-1, just moments before a mothership appeared on the horizon. She'd later claimed she'd heard the engines, and for all Vala knew that was the truth, but the snake-like stillness in the girl set Vala's heart pounding with adrenaline.
"--will have to cancel the Memorial Day fireworks and festivities next May," Taylor was saying, and the few people who were awake enough to hear him sent up a round of 'boos'. "People, the budget only goes so far and if you want to have the bonfire next year, funds need to be reallocated--"
"Sacrificed," Rory said quietly, her voice normal but she hadn't moved a muscle and Vala was beginning to wonder if there was something Mitchell hadn't mentioned when he sent her to watch (out for? over?) Rory.
"--and we have the Snow festival in a month and the outdoor ice rink isn't going to pay for itself!"
"Come on, Taylor, there's got to be the money somewhere!" said a tiny curly-headed woman with a grating voice.
"Yeah, canceling Memorial Day is just uncool," contributed the man beside her.
Taylor huffed and puffed behind his podium. "To have even the most basic of celebrations, with appropriate permits and everything, would cost five thousand dollars that we don't have."
"At least he's not canceling Christmas again," Lane said, but Rory didn't seem to hear her friend. Voices suggested other public holidays to cancel, but not very enthusiastically.
The previous Memorial Day had been Vala's third on Earth, and she knew how to act at the memorial service in the Gateroom for the members of the SGC who had been killed and injured in the line of duty. She'd known what to wear (that demure black dress Sam had bought her the year before) and where to stand (between Teal'c and Daniel, with Mitchell by the Generals at the Gate) and that there was nothing for her to say on that day. Any other day of the year, she would have questioned or pestered or maneuvered a hasty exit, but remembering the dead was a ceremony known across humanity, and one that even a loner like Vala understood, more so now that she had worked with the young men and women of Earth who had died in protection of their fellows and their world.
Rory stood by Vala and Daniel and Teal'c on that day, and Vala knew the girl had been shaken by some realization, but she hadn't asked and Rory hadn't explained, just followed Vala and Daniel around like a lost puppy until Daniel joined Mitchell and Vala escaped to the rec room where Teal'c had holed up, and they all watched children's movies in silence until the day was over and the Earthers had a chance to properly grieve their dead.
And then Vala understood. Rory wasn't listening for alien fire, she was suddenly, blindingly angry.
As the arguments wore down, and Taylor told everyone that it was all for the best, Rory carefully extracted a checkbook from her bag and wrote something on the paper. This she folded over four times and handed to Lane. "Can you give this to Taylor after the meeting's over?" she whispered. "I have to get out of here."
"Sure, I guess," Lane said. "If you're going to be around tomorrow, do you want to come over? We can catch up, for old times' sake."
Rory nodded, smile brittle. She stood and Vala followed, sneaking out the back door as if they had never been there.
Outside, Rory walked past the playground, across the road, through the square and up the steps of a white wooden pavilion. Vala followed, not knowing if there was anything to say.
The sharp sound of Rory's shoes on the wood echoed around the empty square. Vala perched on the railing and waited.
After the third circuit, Rory crossed her arms over her chest in an expression of 'I can't deal with this but I have to and I'm freaking out'. "You can go back in if you're cold," she said.
"I'm fine." Vala rested her elbows on her knees and watched the girl pace off the nervous energy. "What did you do in there?"
Rory sat down on the steps. "It's been a long time since I've been back here," she said. "I guess I forgot some things, that's all."
"Like what?" Vala asked as she joined Rory on the steps. The trick in situations like this was to get Rory talking, for once the torrent started there was no holding it back.
"Just the usual rigaramole about festivals. Almost every year, one holiday or the other gets shafted and people grumble and then things move around the next year. It's just the way things go."
Vala shifted her gaze from the stars to Rory; the girl's eyes were huge in her pale face and there was something in her expression, one of those things about her that Vala could see from here until the end of the time and never understand. "But this year is different?"
The lights from a billion dying stars reflected in Rory's eyes. "It just wasn't right. I suppose I should say something about how being home reminds me of some small-town American hero who died in the line of duty at the Mountain, but... Do you remember Major Wu?"
"With the Marines?" Vala asked, even though she already knew exactly who, and why, Rory was talking about this.
"He was from San Diego, and he always scared the living daylights out of me," Rory said. Her eyes slid across the skies. "And I don't think he liked very many people, and he really didn't like civilians going out with his team, and... well, you know how he died."
Vala did. SG-16, Major Wu's team, had been trying to evacuate the scientists at one of the off-world posts when that system's version of mercenaries descended with guns blazing. The man had fallen back to give his team some cover to get the scientists out.
They'd made it.
He hadn't.
"I didn't grow up around people who would do something like that," Rory said, more quietly now. "They're not bad people, just different. I'd forgotten how different."
Vala hugged her knees to her chest, shivering a little in the late November cold. "Wu wasn't fond of civilian celebrations of military anniversaries."
"He wasn't." Rory closed her eyes. "He had five kids, did you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
"His wife's taken the family back to San Diego to be around her parents."
Vala watched Rory, and wondered about the sudden interest in a dead Marine, especially one who Rory had gone out of her way to avoid. "Who told you that?"
"Cam."
The pieces clicked into place. "Was that before or after they asked you to uproot your life and take the assignment at Atlantis?"
Rory sighed. "What do you think?"
"I think you're freaking out over if you made the right choice. Don't get me wrong, the life is glamorous and exciting and full of dashing young soldiers, but I can understand not wanting to leave the security of a world where the most dangerous thing that might happen is you eat a bit of suspect cow."
"Suspect beef."
"What?"
Rory rubbed her temples for the hundredth time that week. "You eat beef. You milk a cow."
"And there's another thing, there's no beef or cow in Atlantis. What's wrong with your head?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing nothing, or nothing 'give me an aspirin before my head explodes' nothing?"
Rory sighed. "Middle ground," she admitted.
Vala reached into a pocket on Rory's bag and pulled out a handful of tiny pill bottles. "Does Dr. Lam know how many pretty painkillers you have?"
Rory plucked a bottle from Vala's hand. "She prescribed most of them, so yes," Rory said. She tipped a tiny white pill onto her palm and swallowed it dry. "It's just stress from the flight."
"Have you had any more nosebleeds?" Vala demanded. If Mitchell knew Rory was having more migraines and hadn't told Vala, she was going to glue his butt to the Stargate.
"Nothing like that." Rory shook her head. "I'm fine, Vala." She took the rest of the bottles from Vala's hands and shoved them back into her bag. "I should eat something before the pill melts my liver."
Rory stood and walked across the square in the direction of the diner. Her posture was no longer defiant as it had been in the hall. Rory telegraphed exhaustion and pain in the defeated set of her shoulders, the slow pace of her steps, not that she would ever admit it.
Unease pooled in Vala's stomach as she followed Rory. She wanted Daniel, to be there to deftly manhandle a defeated Rory out of her funk and back to herself, something the man had done over a dozen times since Rory's arrival in Colorado. He'd given up his apartment off-post to ground Rory, he'd told her stories all night more than once as she was coming down from a science-induced paranoid high, he'd arranged that birthday trip to Las Vegas, and when it came down to Rory's choice to go to Atlantis, Daniel helped her make a ten-page pro-con list and kept her honest about it. Rory Gilmore had become Daniel Jackson's pet project in her nine months at the SGC, and Vala didn't think either of them realized it.
Vala wished he was there now.
Luke was wiping a counter in the diner when Rory and Vala stepped through the door. "That was fast."
Rory slipped into a chair, touching the chipped plastic on the tabletop. "It's budget night," she said.
"I could have told you that." He brought over a couple of menus. "Hungry?"
"Starved," Vala said, because she was used to talking for Rory when the girl's mind was a million miles away. "Like I could eat a beef."
"A horse," Rory said absently.
"I thought you said beef was cow."
"The saying is that you're so hungry you could eat a horse."
"But Daniel said no one in this country eats horses."
Rory rolled her eyes. "Ladies and gentleman, my life." She turned her head to give Luke a wan smile. "Can I get a bacon cheeseburger with cheese fries and onion rings, please?"
"Sure thing," Luke said. He squeezed Rory's shoulder. "And I'll set some pie aside for after. It's Cesar's special strawberry lime surprise."
"I'll have the same thing," Vala said. "And double for the pie."
"Coming up." Luke drifted away across the diner to the kitchen.
As soon as Luke vanished, Rory got up. "I'm going to go freshen up," she said to a spot three feet over Vala's head. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"When are you the one saying stuff like that?"
"Well, don't get caught doing it."
Vala looked around the vacant diner. "I'll try my best."
Rory walked off, shoulders still set in pain, and Vala tried to concentrate on the rumbling of her stomach and not on her unease. Rory hadn't acted like this... well, since she'd come back from Connecticut the last time. Vala could understand not getting along with family, but this wasn't like that at all. Rory had seen her mother in Florida a few weeks before and hadn't been ripped to mental shreds.
Maybe Vala should have insisted Daniel come along, after all.
Rory's bag began to vibrate. Absently, Vala dug out the girl's silently ringing Blackberry. Vala hit the little green button. "Hello?" she said in her best Rory impersonation.
"Uh, hey, it's Cam. How's the trip so far?"
Vala raised her eyebrows. Mitchell was calling Rory? Off the clock? Oh, how very interesting. "It's just fine," Vala continued. She giggled. "And how are you, Cam?"
There was a pause on the line. Then Mitchell swore. "Damn it, Vala..."
"What do you expect me to say?" Vala demanded in her normal voice. "You just do such fascinating things."
"This is why I never call you off-hours," Mitchell grumbled. "I called to see how Rory was doing."
"She's got a headache and as of the end of the hour, she'll have shamed a hall full of New Englanders into submission."
"That's bad and... good?" Mitchell cleared his throat. "Is there anything I can do?"
"You can explain why you really called." Vala looked up to see Luke standing over the table and scowling. He was pointing at a sign that read 'No Cell Phones.' Vala pulled the phone away from her face. "It's okay, it's not my phone."
"What?" Mitchell said.
"Nothing. I'll tell Rory you called to check up on her."
"Vala--"
"Bye!" Vala hung up in time to see Rory appear from around the corner. "Your secret Air Force boyfriend says hi."
"Who is that?" Rory asked. Luke put a cup of coffee on the table in front of Rory and received a grateful smile. "Thanks." He nodded and headed back to the kitchen.
"Who do you think it was?" Vala teased.
"How should I know?" Rory sipped at the coffee.
"Doesn't coffee go badly with those pills?"
"Only if you take it intravenously. And while we're being five years old, who's my Air Force Boyfriend?"
Vala smile. "Well, it can't be Daniel because he's not Air Force. Same with Teal'c." She waggled her eyebrows as she said this last, causing Rory to choke on her coffee.
"Oh god, Cam Mitchell is not-- You're twisted!"
"At least you didn't say General O'Neill," Vala continued, wondering how likely she was to give Rory a heart attack. "One, it would he rather out of character for him, then because it would be unseemly, as he brought you into the program, and last, he's got his eye on a girl of his own."
Rory put the cup back on the table and tried to regain control. "You're not allowed to speak ever again!"
"Why?" Vala settled back in her chair. Oh, this was enjoyable. "What's wrong with Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell? He's a decorated war hero, he drives a motorcycle, and you should see his naked rear end."
Rory glared at Vala with undisguised annoyance. "Cam's like twenty years older than I am, and he's not into scientists. Oh, and by the way, no!"
"You like him."
"I also like cheese, you don't see me mooning over cheese."
"He knows what a big geek you are, that has to count for something."
"Will you shut up?"
Vala stole Rory's coffee cup. "Only if you admit that you like Mitchell."
Rory dropped her head into her hands. "You're nuts." Any further commentary on the state of Vala's sanity was halted in its tracks by the arrival of two large plates. "Thank god."
"I'm known by many names," Luke said. To Vala's utter lack of surprise, he sat in a chair at the table. "So, here we are."
"Mmm," Rory said around a mouthful of cheeseburger. "How's April?"
"Back in school in New Mexico," Luke said. He cast a curious look at Vala. "She really enjoyed Disneyworld. It was good that you could make it down."
"I'm glad she could come with Mom," Rory said as she dumped a pile of ketchup on her fries. "I missed hanging around with her."
"Yes, your daughter is a lovely girl," Vala interjected.
"You've met her?" Luke asked.
"I saw a picture." Vala transferred her gaze to Rory. "Imagine finding out about your real father so late in life, and getting to know him against all odds."
Rory drove the point of her shoe into Vala's shin. "Yes, April's very lucky," she ground out.
"I'm the lucky one," Luke said. "How well do you know Rory?"
Vala shifted her chair back to avoid any more damage from Rory's shoes. "We've worked together for some time," Vala explained with a smile. "We have dinner together on post most nights, and she tells me about her work and I pretend to understand what she's talking about and we come up with ways to torment Daniel."
"Daniel being..." Luke prompted.
Vala started to respond, but she caught her tongue and instead smiled sweetly at Rory.
The girl jammed a fry into the ketchup. "Daniel is one of the archaeologists I work with," she said with deceptive calm. "He was kind enough to let me take over his apartment in town."
Luke blinked. "You're living in some guy's apartment? Your mom didn't tell me that."
"Well, she doesn't know," Rory said succinctly. "Do you mind if I get some more coffee?"
"No, go ahead," Luke said. "Vala, where are you from?"
Vala smiled even more widely and said without blinking an eye, "Burundi."
"You're from Burundi?" Luke repeated.
"Born and raised." The lies tripped neatly out of Vala's mouth. It had been so long since she'd to spin tales like this. It was fun. "Well, born. My parents were missionaries but I was educated by nuns."
Rory slid back into her chair, an eyebrow arched. "Yes, nuns," she said. "From the convent of Saint Trinian, wasn't it?"
Both Vala and Rory turned their smiles on Luke. He shook his head. "I'll get that pie."
Rory took another bite of burger. "The idea of you being educated by nuns is terrifying."
"Well, je suis le président de Burundi," Vala said.
Rory sputtered into her coffee cup. "This is my fault, isn't it?"
"I have no idea what you mean."
"I introduced you to YouTube."
"Sixty-five billion videos online, and all the world wants to watch are dyed blondes, laughing babies, and Harry Potter puppets. It's a miracle your planet didn't kill itself off tripping over discarded clothing in the dark."
"Is Daniel still bothering you about that?"
"No, because then he'd have to admit he was in my room at three in the morning."
Rory shook her head. "You two are such an old married couple."
"Only without much sex."
"See my previous comment. Also, stop it."
"You were perfectly willing to mock Daniel's tribal marriage to a Captain in the Royal Air Force and I can't even mention that the last time I had anything resembling fun with a pair of handcuffs was--"
Rory clapped her hands over her ears. "I'm not listening!"
Satisfied, Vala settled back in her chair. She was going to miss Rory's banter.
Sidling over, Luke deposited two large slices of pie on the table. "You want anything else? The meeting's going to let out soon and I need to prep for the crowd."
"How about some hot sauce and whipped cream?" Rory asked.
"You worry me," Luke grumbled.
"You missed me. Um, right?" Rory's confidence started to slide away, until Luke put his heavy hand on her shoulder and she brightened again.
Once again, Vala reflected on Rory's seriously messed-up paternal relationships. She craved attention and approval from older male role models, and that wasn't even starting on the uncomfortable (abet one-sided) relationship she had with Rodney McKay.
Vala wondered how messy things would get when Rory and her father actually met.
~~~
The cold wind swept along the street, making Vala shiver. "Are we almost there?"
"Almost. Just a few more blocks."
"And you didn't want to wait for your mother to show up at the diner, and chose to walk to your house because..."
Rory sighed. "The meeting was going to let out and I didn't want to talk to anyone."
"And have them ask you why you're suddenly all pro-Air Force?"
"Yeah, that would have gone great. I'd have said that it's because I work with people in the Air Force, and they'd ask why I was so centered on Memorial Day, and I'd say I couldn't tell, and they'd press, and I wouldn't be able to explain because of oh, I don't know, global security issues, and they'd get all worked up and my head would explode all over the diner."
"Ah."
"And it doesn't matter, because here we are," Rory announced. She led Vala up the walk to a blue house with white trim, with lights shining inside. Rory unlocked the front door and pushed inside. "And this is my house," Rory said. She dropped her suitcase to the wooden floor.
"Different from the SGC," Vala commented as Rory closed the door behind them.
"Above ground," Rory agreed. "And not full of security check-points."
"Where's the fun in that?" Vala hauled her duffle bag into a room with couches and chairs. "There's no handsome Marines threatening a strip-search--" She stopped as one of the fuzzy blankets lifted itself up off the couch and growled at her.
"Paul Anka!" Rory exclaimed. She pushed into the room past Vala and hugged the thing. "I missed you!"
Vala flinched as the thing licked Rory's face. "What is it?"
"It's my mom's dog," Rory said. She ruffled the thing's fur. "You've seen dogs before, I know you have. Remember Cassandra Fraser's dog?"
"That was small and pointy. That is all full of hair." Vala jumped back as the dog barked at her. "Go away. Shoo."
"Paul Anka's not going to hurt you." Rory rubbed the creature's side. "He's probably scareder of you than you are of him."
"I'm not afraid," Vala said quickly. "I'm merely cautious."
The dog wormed its way out of Rory's grip and bounded across the floor to Vala. It stopped a merciful three feet away, sat back on its haunches and regarded Vala with beady little eyes.
"Aw, he likes you!" Rory said. She smirked in Vala's general direction. "That's adorable."
"That's annoying." Vala risked taking her gaze off the dog for a moment. "Where do we sleep?"
"My room, I suppose. This is the living room. Upstairs is Mom's room and the good bathroom. I could show you the rest of this place but you'll have to turn your back on Paul Anka."
"You're hilarious, do you know that?"
"Come on." Rory led Vala past the front door into a kitchen. "This is where food should be, but Mom never cooks, which is probably why I can't be bothered to, either. And that's my room," she finished, gesturing at a closed door.
"What would that be like?" Vala opened the door before Rory could protest. She switched on the light to a room with books on shelves and posters on walls, and the whole place felt so unlike the girl Vala had come to know that she didn't know what to say.
Rory crowded into the doorway beside Vala. "This is me," she said softly.
"Interesting." Vala went over and bounced a few times on the bed. "So, give me the stories."
"What are you talking about?"
"This is your childhood room, right? You must have little treasures with stories. Share with Vala."
"You're only doing this to torment me later, aren't you?"
Vala grinned. "I did the same with Mitchell when I went to his high school reunion. Come on, give it up."
Rory looked around the room, hesitating. Then she picked a box of baking soda up off the dresser. "I shoplifted this from Taylor's when I had my first kiss."
"Crime and passion," Vala said sagely. "A good mix."
"It wasn't quite like that," Rory protested. "More like, oh god, what just happened? And then I told Lane, my best friend, and Lane's mom told Lorelai, and Lorelai totally freaked out on me and actually invited Dean over for movie night and totally humiliated me. But it worked out all right in the end."
"Dean..." Vala mused. "That was the married one, right?"
"Yup," Rory said. She paused in putting the box back on the table. "It's cold of me, just saying 'yes' like that, right?"
"Save the shame and embarrassment for the important things, like genocide or accidentally walking into the mess hall naked."
"How does one 'accidentally' walk into the mess hall naked?" Rory asked.
"Ask Daniel," Vala told her. "Okay, more stories."
Rory plucked a book off the desk and flipped it open. "Have I told you about Jess? He stole my book the first time he was here--"
"Why do all of your good stories involve felonies?"
"You're one to talk!"
~~~
continue to part two
Physics of the Spin: Night of the Living Dread Part One
A Stargate/Gilmore Girls crossover
Part Twelve in the Physics of the Spin series
by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mhalachaiswords
A Stargate/Gilmore Girls crossover
Part Twelve in the Physics of the Spin series
by
mhalachaiswordsSummary: How exactly can Rory tell her mother goodbye? With Vala's help, obviously.
Disclaimer: None of these characters or shows belong to me.
Rating: PG
Setting: Post-series for Gilmore Girls; spoilers for early parts of Season 4 of SGA. We are officially diverging from SGA canon after Miller's Crossing (for the most part). Post SG-1 series finale.
Words: 18,220 OH GOD.
Notes: This is a long chapter. And I'm really, really sorry. But this is the last earth-side chapter, so you can't kill me. Um, right?
Part I: Something About Blue Eyes
Part II: The Physics of the Spin
Part III: The Girl With Numbers In Her Eyes
Part IV: The Precise Point Of Impact
Part V: Under the Mountain
Part VI: Play Smart For The Home Team
Part VII: Almost Everything About Almost Everything
Part VIII: Studies in New Paris
Part IX: Secret Keeper
Part X: With Friends Like These
Part XI: Home For A Rest
The story at TTH.
Vala slipped through a herd of Marines and emerged on the other side of the corridor beside little miss Rory Gilmore. Vala followed Rory into the elevator and waited until they were headed deeper into the mountain to ask, "Who's winning?"
Rory never lifted her eyes from her papers. "Colonel Darsen, in the chemistry lab with the acetone."
"And here I had all my money on Dr. Freyd in the Gateroom with a ZPM," Vala lamented. She thrust her hand in her pocket and emerged with a handful of linty mints. "Candy?"
Rory made a face. "I'm not sure that's the kind of fiber the FDA wants us to add to our diet," she said as the elevator doors opened. "Why are you down here? Are you coming to my final scientific briefing with the General?"
Vala shook her head, picking lint from a mint. "Daniel is in the middle of working on something... somewhere," she said. "As much as I'm going to miss you in Atlantis, darling, I wouldn't sit through a science briefing for all the tea in China."
"You don't like tea," Rory pointed out.
"For all the Smirnoff in Russia?"
Rory laughed, a startled happy sound that Vala had not heard enough in the last few months. And now, Rory was going to leave the galaxy for Atlantis and Vala was going to be left behind. Again. This sort of thing always happened when she made a friend; they would pack up their things and leave. At least she still had Daniel and Mitchell and Teal'c, which was solely an observation and not any kind of sappy emotional lamentation.
"Are you still going home afterwards?" Vala asked, bounding ahead of Rory up the stairs.
"I think so," Rory said. "Unless the General needs me to do any extra work before I leave for Atlantis."
Vala emerged into the briefing room to find General Landry and Mitchell leaning stiffly around the briefing table. Sure, Mitchell called that pose the 'military parade lounging', but Vala refused to attribute the word 'lounge' to anything a person did while vertical.
General Landry broke off his side of the conversation when he spotted Vala. "You're early for the briefing, Vala," he said with a hint of humor in his voice. "All of that hanging around Ms. Gilmore finally starting to rub off on you?"
"I sincerely hope not," Vala said with a grimace. She hopped up onto the table beside Mitchell. "Don't tell me you're becoming an ego-head."
Mitchell sighed. "That's 'egg-head'," he corrected.
"I don't know, I like ego-head," Rory said shyly. For some reason that Vala could not torment out of her, Rory was still inexplicably hesitant around General Landry.
"Ooh, or Eggo-head," Vala added.
"Would that make someone a waffle brain?" Mitchell tossed in with a grin. Rory blushed and Vala added one more weapon to her 'Tease Rory' arsenal, the girl's minor crush on Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell.
Vala said to the General, "Are you going to be mean and keep Rory here instead of going home to see her mother?"
"No, Ms. Gilmore is free to go home for a few days before the personnel move out to Atlantis," General Landry said. "As long as she manages to stay out of casinos."
"It wasn't my fault that we were arrested in Las Vegas," Vala protested. "Blame Daniel and his paranoia!"
"It wasn't his idea for us to stay in the hotel that looked like a pyramid," Rory reminded her. "And you were the one acting suspicious around the roulette table."
"Only because you were ignoring me while you were breaking the bank at the black jack table." Vala sighed wistfully. "I still don't see why they were so mad at you for counting cards. Isn't that the point?"
Mitchell coughed. "Rory wasn't counting cards, Vala, she's just got good luck at gambling."
"It wasn't luck, I was just playing the odds on when to fold," Rory told him. "And I gave most of the money back to the casino and they decided to forget we were there." She was smiling, though. "It's been a while since the cops came to break up one of my birthday parties. I was the talk of the school in grade three."
"Grade three?" Mitchell repeated.
"The cops arrested the clown and then the fire department had to come to get me and Lane down out of the church roof. Mom got one of the firefighter's phone numbers and I still have to hear about it at Thanksgiving."
"Sounds like loads of small-town American fun," Vala said pointedly. She was not scowling. That would have been immature and sulky, two things that Vala was certainly not, thank you.
"It's home," Rory said. She placed her papers on the briefing table and adjusted them very straight. Glancing up at the General, Rory began, "I know it might not be possible, sir, but..."
"Yes?" the General prompted, not unfriendly under his gruffness.
"I mean, things around here are going to be slow for a few days," Rory said, her eyes wide and innocent. "Would it be okay if Vala came with me to Connecticut?"
After nine months of being around Rory Gilmore, not much surprised Vala anymore. But still, whenever Rory brought out the 'cute and adorable little girl' face, Vala was amazed how people fell for it. Well, not 'fall', Vala mentally amended. But perhaps were weakened by it. Like by radiation poisoning, or low blood sugar.
General Landry glanced at Mitchell and surprised the hell out of Vala by saying, "Sure."
Vala sprang off the table, tripping over Mitchell in the process. "I can go?" she demanded, not believing she'd understood.
"Yes, yes," the General said irritably. "You're free to have a few days of leave, after all this time on post."
"But you do realize that I'll be gone without military escort," Vala said. "No Daniel hiding in the trunk or Mitchell in the closet."
"Why am I stuck in the closet?" Mitchell asked, but he was ignored.
"I am aware of what I'm saying," the General said. He made a shooing motion at Vala and Mitchell. "If Ms. Gilmore can put up with you for a few days, that's her call."
Rory grinned widely as she caught at Vala's sleeve. "You can come to Stars Hollow!" she exclaimed.
"Excellent!" Vala slung an arm over the girl's shoulders and hugged her quickly sideways. "You can explain all about these insect customs on the plane."
"Insects?" Rory asked, then shook her head. "Not 'wasps," Vala, the acronym is W.A.S.P. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants."
Vala dismissed the explanation. "Maybe I'll ask Daniel for a guidebook," she mused as other white coats began to drift into the room. "But don't you leave without me!"
"Of course not," Rory promised. She turned back to her papers as Mitchell and Vala headed out of the room, narrowly missing more scientists.
Vala made it as far as the control room before she caught Mitchell's arm. "What's going on?" she demanded.
Mitchell hitched his shoulders in that annoying way he had, which he only did when he was trying to be sneaky and subtle. "The General just wants you to have some time off, that's all."
Vala glared at him with all the withering contempt she usually reserved for the Goa'uld. "The last time I asked to leave the base without you or Daniel, he told me it'd be a cold day in hell."
Mitchell shrugged. "You know, there is this global climate change thing--" He danced back as Vala's hand sailed through the air, narrowly missing his arm. "No beating up your commanding officer!"
"Says who?"
Their 'conversation' was beginning to turn heads in the rest of the control room. "There's regulations somewhere," Mitchell shot back. "Can't you just go along with this?"
Vala narrowed her eyes. "This isn't about me at all, is it?"
Mitchell motioned with his head and they escaped into the hallway, away from the insatiable gossips that inhabited the control room. "It's sort of complicated," Mitchell said in a low voice that was probably supposed to be confidence inspiring or something.
Vala didn't buy it. Cam Mitchell was many things; buff, brave, and adorable in dress blues. One thing he was not, however, was versed in the arts of subtlety. "Do you think something might happen to Rory? Is that why you're letting me go with her?" she asked.
Mitchell pursed his lips while he thought of an answer. Vala rolled her eyes. She didn't have the time for this.
"Here's the deal, sunshine," she said. "I'll go with Rory and keep an eye out and if anything happens, I'll call you and you can ride in, blasters blazing."
"There's not going to be any need for calling out the cavalry," Mitchell protested.
"So why the big deal? Who could possibly want to hurt Rory?"
Mitchell crossed his arms over his chest, hunching towards Vala to keep the conversation private. "McKay junior is quite possibly the smartest brain Earth has on its side right now," he said in a low voice. "The General wants someone to keep an eye out for her. Someone who has experience in looking over their shoulder."
"Rory is Earth's last, best hope," Vala said.
"Yes."
"And you're sending her to another galaxy."
Mitchell looked confused. Adorable, true, but confused. "Yeah, so?"
Vala looked to the heavens and prayed for some external guiding source to gift her with patience in working with these foolish Earthers. "Fine, I'll go with Rory and be the beauty and brawn to her brains."
"Good." Mitchell gave Vala a soldierly pat on the shoulder. "Don't get into too much trouble."
Vala waited until Mitchell was almost to the end of the hallway before shouting after him, "I expect hazard pay for this!"
"Talk to me about it when you get back!" Mitchell called, passing Daniel at the bend in the corridor.
Daniel twisted around, almost losing his handful of papers, looking first after Mitchell, then switching his befuddled glassy gaze to Vala. "Where are you going?" he asked.
Vala beamed ear to ear. "Bat country," she said, sauntering towards Daniel. "Don't stop the car."
Daniel went back the way he came.
Vala put down her duffle bag on the curb and took a deep breath. So this was small-town America. Gods, she was already bored.
Rory tucked her wallet back into her bag before joining Vala on the curb. The taxi's red taillights faded into the darkness, leaving Rory and Vala the only two apparent occupants in the town square. Dry leaves blew across the pavement, skittering over the playground, moving in time with the empty swings. Vala had seen cheerier worlds after the Ori had left. "Nice place you've got here," she observed.
"Where is everyone?" Rory wondered. "Come on, let's go to Luke's." The girl picked up her suitcase and moved across the street towards a brightly lit and seemingly empty diner.
Vala followed, suddenly regretting leaving her smuggled zat gun at the bottom of her duffle. Things were strange in this little town, and the one motto that Vala lived by was that strange was only good when Vala was the one making things strange.
So that wasn't really her motto, but good words to heed, if one could remember the general meaning under fire.
Rory stopped on the diner's front step, her hand halfway extended to the door handle. She had gone pale in the sickly light of the overhead street lamps. Vala looked at the diner again. This must have been the diner where Rory worked, before Jack O'Neill had found her and brought her to her proper place at the SGC. Vala still wasn't sure about status in the non-military parts of Earth, but from what she had gleaned from prodding Daniel with a stick, a smart person who had graduated from college and who worked in menial labor was considered a disappointment.
As someone who had worked as a waitress in a diner for a few weeks, Vala thought this view was utter trash.
Still, Vala supposed that Rory might have internalized said trash, and would need a little moral support to walk through that door. "Do you think they've been eaten by zombies?"
Rory turned startled eyes on Vala. "I-- huh?"
"Zombies." Vala gestured around the empty town with its shuttered shops. "Do you think we're in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse?"
"What do you know about zombies?" Rory asked, a smile starting over her face. The expression was quickly wiped away. "Oh god, are there actual zombies up there?"
"Of course not," Vala said. "At least not the ones that eat brains."
Rory glanced over Vala's shoulder at the deserted town. "I can't believe we're having a conversation about zombies on Luke's front doorstep."
"You're right." Vala poked Rory in the arm. "Brain-eating-zombies are a topic best had over burgers."
"Luke makes the best zombie burgers in the state," Rory said. She led the way into the diner, a lovely place that smelled of fresh coffee and delicious food, with hardware signs covering the walls in a distinctly anachronistic way. Vala thought the place quirky. Knowing that Rory had pretty much grown up in this diner explained so much.
"Be out in a minute," called a gruff male voice from the depths of the kitchen. "Sit wherever."
Rory placed her suitcase beside the counter, shaking and pale again. Had she really thought how to explain her leaving? So much of Rory's time in the past two weeks had focused on wrapping up her work at the SGC, not to mention finishing something called 'orals' at the university, something Vala had supposed wasn't nearly as fun as it sounded, as Rory had been a sleepless wreck for days before and after.
And now Rory was back at home, in the same place she'd been before all of the excitement of the SGC. Vala probably knew Rory best of all the people in the SGC, but sometimes she didn't understand the younger woman at all.
Maybe that was because the girl didn't know herself, not amid the whirl of knowledge and new discoveries stampeding through her brain. How often had Vala seen Rory surprise herself with some new discovery or observation? It wasn't the McKay influence, or the science, but a fundamental confusion at work within her.
As if Rory had changed in ways that even Rory didn't realize.
A burly man in a baseball cap and a flannel shirt rumbled out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Rory.
"Hi Luke," the girl said, giving him the first honest smile Vala had seen on her in weeks.
The man threw his rag on the counter and rushed Rory, sweeping her up into a hearty hug. "When did you get here?" he asked. He pulled back to give Rory the once-over, managing to look both startled and ecstatic at the same time. "They didn't kick you out of the Air Force, did they?"
That would be the day, Vala thought, perching on a bar stool. Considering the investment the U.S. Air Force had in keeping Rory Gilmore in their employ, the girl's corpse probably wouldn't be getting out of the SGC morgue until three years after her death.
"No, I just have a bit of leave. I mean, time off," Rory said. "It's good to see you again."
"It's been seven months," Luke said. "Your mom didn't tell me you were coming home."
Rory stepped away, twisting her hands together behind her back in one of thirty-seven nervous gestures Vala had catalogued through months of observation. This one Vala had classed as the 'I am keeping things from my mother and it makes me feel like an insect' hand-wringing, just slightly different from 'I just blew up a million-dollar piece of equipment and don't think I'll be able to blink my way out of this one'. The difference was all in the wrist.
"Mom didn't know I was coming," Rory was saying. "I tried to call her at home and on her cell, but there was no answer. I left messages. Also at the Inn, but Michel's pretending he doesn't speak English today and he refused to understand my 'Colonial accent'."
Luke waved his hand. "Paul Anka dropped Lorelai's cell in the sink a few days ago. She's at a business meeting in Hartford all day. She was even going to miss the town meeting."
Understanding dawned on Rory's face. "So that's why the town looks as if it's been decimated by the T-Virus." She turned to Vala. "I've told you about town meetings, right?"
"Ineffective briefings run by a cardiganed megalomaniac who runs the grocery during daylight hours?" Vala smiled at Luke. "I hear that he's your neighbor."
"Yeah, Taylor," Luke agreed. "And you are..."
"Oh, right," Rory said. "Luke, this is Vala Mal Doran, a friend from Colorado. Vala, this is Luke."
"And who else could you be?" Vala asked, holding out her hand to Luke. He was sort of dopy-looking when he was confused, rather like some of the thicker-skulled Jaffa she'd known. "Rory has told me all about you."
"Right." Luke stuck his hands in his pockets, awkward now and uncertain. "Lorelai said she'd be coming by the diner after her meeting, seeing as how I'm stuck here until eleven. Do you want to wait?"
"Actually, maybe we can sneak into the town meeting?" Rory suggested, glancing Vala's way. "It's part of that East Coast Americana you wanted to see. We'll be back after."
"Sounds good," Luke said quickly. "You go and watch. Watching is good."
Vala raised an eyebrow in the man's direction, which he missed but Rory caught and oh, the glare she sent Vala. "We'll be back for burgers later on," Rory promised Luke. "And if Mom comes in, tell her to come crash the party."
"Will do."
Rory pushed her suitcase and Vala's duffle behind the counter and fairly danced out the door, Vala in her wake. They crossed the deserted streets and headed in the direction of a large low hall, so similar to those Vala had seen off-world that it sent a twinge of familiarity down her spine. How many times had she narrowly escaped death in a building just like this?
"How do I look?" Rory asked, smoothing her hands over her skirt. "Do I look okay?" Her dark navy suit and pumps looked wildly out of place in this hall. The clothing was better suited to the going-away briefing she'd had with the Joint Chiefs and IOA reps, where she had dazzled the military men with her smile and understanding of the tactical situation in Pegasus, and deftly handled the egos of the scientists by understanding their research, and had caused Mitchell to mutter under his breath, "That kid's got what it takes."
"Good enough to sell to Bastet," Vala said in a twist of a phrase from her childhood. "Why are you worrying?"
"Because I know these people."
As explanations went, Rory had done better. "Because you knew these people when you were crazy?" Vala tried to stay calm. She was so much better at dealing with Earth culture now, and it wasn't like she was walking into Baal's camp alone. It was just a group of humans who were most likely unarmed and uninterested in sacrificing her to their gods. "You look darling. Stop worrying."
A nervous smile hovered on Rory's lips. "I'm being silly, that's all."
Vala patted Rory's arm. "I know."
The back door of the hall eased open under Rory's touch and the two women stepped in out of the cold. The hall was crowded with strangers, reinforcing Vala's unease. At least there were no large fire pits into which to throw the victim.
The man on the platform droned on, but a few people in the back rows turned around to see the latecomers. Whispers spread out like ripples and by the time Rory and Vala had taken seats by the wall, people were craning in their seats to see Rory.
Finally, the man at the front realized that no one was listening to him. "Honestly, people, what could be more important than a discussion of the town snow-removal budget?"
"Catching up on my sleep?" a capped man in the front row suggested. The plump woman beside him smacked his arm.
"Rory's back, Taylor!" the woman chimed, and the room assented.
"She's so populaaaar," Vala said sotto voce to Rory. The girl blushed, but was smiling.
"And?" Taylor asked, leaning down over his podium. "Would you like me to stop the meeting so you can all say hello?"
A small dark-haired woman popped to her feet. "Would you? Thanks!"
Taylor glared her down. "We are not going to stop the meeting! We've got seven more line-items to discuss in the budget!"
A muted roar rose in the hall. Taylor held up his hands, but it was no good. "Speech!" someone shouted, and the room took up the cry. Vala turned an amused glance on Rory, who by now was crimson.
"It was your idea to visit home," Vala said pointedly.
Still bright-red, Rory stood to a two-person cheer. "It's, um, good to be back," she said when the chanting stopped. "The place looks really good. So do all of you." She paused. "And Luke's will be open after the meeting." Another two-person cheer. "Thank you, I'm here until Saturday. Please tip your server."
Vala didn't understand the roar of laughter, but that was par for the course with most of what Rory said, and she joined in the applause as Rory seated herself. Vala nudged Rory in the side. "That was interesting," Vala said quietly as Taylor took up the meeting again.
"Welcome to my town," Rory said, a flush remaining on her cheeks. "I'd forgotten how much I miss this."
Vala gave Rory's hand a quick squeeze. Nothing in the galaxy would be able to keep Rory Gilmore from Atlantis, but for the first time it seemed as if Rory was realizing what she would be leaving behind.
The standing dark-haired woman had worked her way through the crowd and squeezed onto the bench on the other side of Rory. The two girls hugged and squealed quietly and hugged again, totally ignoring Taylor. "What are you doing here?" the stranger asked. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming home?"
Rory tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, in the Rory Gilmore 'My new life of being the most brilliant person in the galaxy doesn't mesh with my former life of being a journalist and I feel awkward' nervous gesture number four, and shrugged with one shoulder. "It was a bit of a surprise to me as well. I had to come home before-- I wanted to get a chance to come home." She tried to cover her flustered state by gesturing over her shoulder at Vala. "This is Vala. She's a friend from the office. Vala, this is Lane."
"It's nice to meet you," Vala said with a small nod of the head. The young woman was less sanguine, staring at Vala in a guarded way.
"Hi," Lane said quietly. She looked between Vala and Rory. Vala, knowing raised hackles when she saw them, sat back and pretended to listen to Taylor blather on about money.
Rory and Lane resumed their conversation, and Vala drifted in and out of attention, instead looking around the hall (old wood and much-patched beams) and the people (bundled up and slow and not a warrior's bearing amongst them) and the clothing (never in a hundred years would Vala understand Earth fashions, and that was SG-1's one area of blanket agreement). She wished people were at least standing up and milling about; she'd have been able to practice her pick-pocketing.
The words from the front of the hall caught her attention a split second after Rory tensed at Vala's side. Vala almost went for her non-present sidearm. Rory was absolutely frozen, tension screaming through still limbs, her bright blue eyes fixed on Taylor at the front of the room.
The only other time Vala had seen Rory go so still had been on Rory's one off-world mission with SG-1, just moments before a mothership appeared on the horizon. She'd later claimed she'd heard the engines, and for all Vala knew that was the truth, but the snake-like stillness in the girl set Vala's heart pounding with adrenaline.
"--will have to cancel the Memorial Day fireworks and festivities next May," Taylor was saying, and the few people who were awake enough to hear him sent up a round of 'boos'. "People, the budget only goes so far and if you want to have the bonfire next year, funds need to be reallocated--"
"Sacrificed," Rory said quietly, her voice normal but she hadn't moved a muscle and Vala was beginning to wonder if there was something Mitchell hadn't mentioned when he sent her to watch (out for? over?) Rory.
"--and we have the Snow festival in a month and the outdoor ice rink isn't going to pay for itself!"
"Come on, Taylor, there's got to be the money somewhere!" said a tiny curly-headed woman with a grating voice.
"Yeah, canceling Memorial Day is just uncool," contributed the man beside her.
Taylor huffed and puffed behind his podium. "To have even the most basic of celebrations, with appropriate permits and everything, would cost five thousand dollars that we don't have."
"At least he's not canceling Christmas again," Lane said, but Rory didn't seem to hear her friend. Voices suggested other public holidays to cancel, but not very enthusiastically.
The previous Memorial Day had been Vala's third on Earth, and she knew how to act at the memorial service in the Gateroom for the members of the SGC who had been killed and injured in the line of duty. She'd known what to wear (that demure black dress Sam had bought her the year before) and where to stand (between Teal'c and Daniel, with Mitchell by the Generals at the Gate) and that there was nothing for her to say on that day. Any other day of the year, she would have questioned or pestered or maneuvered a hasty exit, but remembering the dead was a ceremony known across humanity, and one that even a loner like Vala understood, more so now that she had worked with the young men and women of Earth who had died in protection of their fellows and their world.
Rory stood by Vala and Daniel and Teal'c on that day, and Vala knew the girl had been shaken by some realization, but she hadn't asked and Rory hadn't explained, just followed Vala and Daniel around like a lost puppy until Daniel joined Mitchell and Vala escaped to the rec room where Teal'c had holed up, and they all watched children's movies in silence until the day was over and the Earthers had a chance to properly grieve their dead.
And then Vala understood. Rory wasn't listening for alien fire, she was suddenly, blindingly angry.
As the arguments wore down, and Taylor told everyone that it was all for the best, Rory carefully extracted a checkbook from her bag and wrote something on the paper. This she folded over four times and handed to Lane. "Can you give this to Taylor after the meeting's over?" she whispered. "I have to get out of here."
"Sure, I guess," Lane said. "If you're going to be around tomorrow, do you want to come over? We can catch up, for old times' sake."
Rory nodded, smile brittle. She stood and Vala followed, sneaking out the back door as if they had never been there.
Outside, Rory walked past the playground, across the road, through the square and up the steps of a white wooden pavilion. Vala followed, not knowing if there was anything to say.
The sharp sound of Rory's shoes on the wood echoed around the empty square. Vala perched on the railing and waited.
After the third circuit, Rory crossed her arms over her chest in an expression of 'I can't deal with this but I have to and I'm freaking out'. "You can go back in if you're cold," she said.
"I'm fine." Vala rested her elbows on her knees and watched the girl pace off the nervous energy. "What did you do in there?"
Rory sat down on the steps. "It's been a long time since I've been back here," she said. "I guess I forgot some things, that's all."
"Like what?" Vala asked as she joined Rory on the steps. The trick in situations like this was to get Rory talking, for once the torrent started there was no holding it back.
"Just the usual rigaramole about festivals. Almost every year, one holiday or the other gets shafted and people grumble and then things move around the next year. It's just the way things go."
Vala shifted her gaze from the stars to Rory; the girl's eyes were huge in her pale face and there was something in her expression, one of those things about her that Vala could see from here until the end of the time and never understand. "But this year is different?"
The lights from a billion dying stars reflected in Rory's eyes. "It just wasn't right. I suppose I should say something about how being home reminds me of some small-town American hero who died in the line of duty at the Mountain, but... Do you remember Major Wu?"
"With the Marines?" Vala asked, even though she already knew exactly who, and why, Rory was talking about this.
"He was from San Diego, and he always scared the living daylights out of me," Rory said. Her eyes slid across the skies. "And I don't think he liked very many people, and he really didn't like civilians going out with his team, and... well, you know how he died."
Vala did. SG-16, Major Wu's team, had been trying to evacuate the scientists at one of the off-world posts when that system's version of mercenaries descended with guns blazing. The man had fallen back to give his team some cover to get the scientists out.
They'd made it.
He hadn't.
"I didn't grow up around people who would do something like that," Rory said, more quietly now. "They're not bad people, just different. I'd forgotten how different."
Vala hugged her knees to her chest, shivering a little in the late November cold. "Wu wasn't fond of civilian celebrations of military anniversaries."
"He wasn't." Rory closed her eyes. "He had five kids, did you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
"His wife's taken the family back to San Diego to be around her parents."
Vala watched Rory, and wondered about the sudden interest in a dead Marine, especially one who Rory had gone out of her way to avoid. "Who told you that?"
"Cam."
The pieces clicked into place. "Was that before or after they asked you to uproot your life and take the assignment at Atlantis?"
Rory sighed. "What do you think?"
"I think you're freaking out over if you made the right choice. Don't get me wrong, the life is glamorous and exciting and full of dashing young soldiers, but I can understand not wanting to leave the security of a world where the most dangerous thing that might happen is you eat a bit of suspect cow."
"Suspect beef."
"What?"
Rory rubbed her temples for the hundredth time that week. "You eat beef. You milk a cow."
"And there's another thing, there's no beef or cow in Atlantis. What's wrong with your head?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing nothing, or nothing 'give me an aspirin before my head explodes' nothing?"
Rory sighed. "Middle ground," she admitted.
Vala reached into a pocket on Rory's bag and pulled out a handful of tiny pill bottles. "Does Dr. Lam know how many pretty painkillers you have?"
Rory plucked a bottle from Vala's hand. "She prescribed most of them, so yes," Rory said. She tipped a tiny white pill onto her palm and swallowed it dry. "It's just stress from the flight."
"Have you had any more nosebleeds?" Vala demanded. If Mitchell knew Rory was having more migraines and hadn't told Vala, she was going to glue his butt to the Stargate.
"Nothing like that." Rory shook her head. "I'm fine, Vala." She took the rest of the bottles from Vala's hands and shoved them back into her bag. "I should eat something before the pill melts my liver."
Rory stood and walked across the square in the direction of the diner. Her posture was no longer defiant as it had been in the hall. Rory telegraphed exhaustion and pain in the defeated set of her shoulders, the slow pace of her steps, not that she would ever admit it.
Unease pooled in Vala's stomach as she followed Rory. She wanted Daniel, to be there to deftly manhandle a defeated Rory out of her funk and back to herself, something the man had done over a dozen times since Rory's arrival in Colorado. He'd given up his apartment off-post to ground Rory, he'd told her stories all night more than once as she was coming down from a science-induced paranoid high, he'd arranged that birthday trip to Las Vegas, and when it came down to Rory's choice to go to Atlantis, Daniel helped her make a ten-page pro-con list and kept her honest about it. Rory Gilmore had become Daniel Jackson's pet project in her nine months at the SGC, and Vala didn't think either of them realized it.
Vala wished he was there now.
Luke was wiping a counter in the diner when Rory and Vala stepped through the door. "That was fast."
Rory slipped into a chair, touching the chipped plastic on the tabletop. "It's budget night," she said.
"I could have told you that." He brought over a couple of menus. "Hungry?"
"Starved," Vala said, because she was used to talking for Rory when the girl's mind was a million miles away. "Like I could eat a beef."
"A horse," Rory said absently.
"I thought you said beef was cow."
"The saying is that you're so hungry you could eat a horse."
"But Daniel said no one in this country eats horses."
Rory rolled her eyes. "Ladies and gentleman, my life." She turned her head to give Luke a wan smile. "Can I get a bacon cheeseburger with cheese fries and onion rings, please?"
"Sure thing," Luke said. He squeezed Rory's shoulder. "And I'll set some pie aside for after. It's Cesar's special strawberry lime surprise."
"I'll have the same thing," Vala said. "And double for the pie."
"Coming up." Luke drifted away across the diner to the kitchen.
As soon as Luke vanished, Rory got up. "I'm going to go freshen up," she said to a spot three feet over Vala's head. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"When are you the one saying stuff like that?"
"Well, don't get caught doing it."
Vala looked around the vacant diner. "I'll try my best."
Rory walked off, shoulders still set in pain, and Vala tried to concentrate on the rumbling of her stomach and not on her unease. Rory hadn't acted like this... well, since she'd come back from Connecticut the last time. Vala could understand not getting along with family, but this wasn't like that at all. Rory had seen her mother in Florida a few weeks before and hadn't been ripped to mental shreds.
Maybe Vala should have insisted Daniel come along, after all.
Rory's bag began to vibrate. Absently, Vala dug out the girl's silently ringing Blackberry. Vala hit the little green button. "Hello?" she said in her best Rory impersonation.
"Uh, hey, it's Cam. How's the trip so far?"
Vala raised her eyebrows. Mitchell was calling Rory? Off the clock? Oh, how very interesting. "It's just fine," Vala continued. She giggled. "And how are you, Cam?"
There was a pause on the line. Then Mitchell swore. "Damn it, Vala..."
"What do you expect me to say?" Vala demanded in her normal voice. "You just do such fascinating things."
"This is why I never call you off-hours," Mitchell grumbled. "I called to see how Rory was doing."
"She's got a headache and as of the end of the hour, she'll have shamed a hall full of New Englanders into submission."
"That's bad and... good?" Mitchell cleared his throat. "Is there anything I can do?"
"You can explain why you really called." Vala looked up to see Luke standing over the table and scowling. He was pointing at a sign that read 'No Cell Phones.' Vala pulled the phone away from her face. "It's okay, it's not my phone."
"What?" Mitchell said.
"Nothing. I'll tell Rory you called to check up on her."
"Vala--"
"Bye!" Vala hung up in time to see Rory appear from around the corner. "Your secret Air Force boyfriend says hi."
"Who is that?" Rory asked. Luke put a cup of coffee on the table in front of Rory and received a grateful smile. "Thanks." He nodded and headed back to the kitchen.
"Who do you think it was?" Vala teased.
"How should I know?" Rory sipped at the coffee.
"Doesn't coffee go badly with those pills?"
"Only if you take it intravenously. And while we're being five years old, who's my Air Force Boyfriend?"
Vala smile. "Well, it can't be Daniel because he's not Air Force. Same with Teal'c." She waggled her eyebrows as she said this last, causing Rory to choke on her coffee.
"Oh god, Cam Mitchell is not-- You're twisted!"
"At least you didn't say General O'Neill," Vala continued, wondering how likely she was to give Rory a heart attack. "One, it would he rather out of character for him, then because it would be unseemly, as he brought you into the program, and last, he's got his eye on a girl of his own."
Rory put the cup back on the table and tried to regain control. "You're not allowed to speak ever again!"
"Why?" Vala settled back in her chair. Oh, this was enjoyable. "What's wrong with Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell? He's a decorated war hero, he drives a motorcycle, and you should see his naked rear end."
Rory glared at Vala with undisguised annoyance. "Cam's like twenty years older than I am, and he's not into scientists. Oh, and by the way, no!"
"You like him."
"I also like cheese, you don't see me mooning over cheese."
"He knows what a big geek you are, that has to count for something."
"Will you shut up?"
Vala stole Rory's coffee cup. "Only if you admit that you like Mitchell."
Rory dropped her head into her hands. "You're nuts." Any further commentary on the state of Vala's sanity was halted in its tracks by the arrival of two large plates. "Thank god."
"I'm known by many names," Luke said. To Vala's utter lack of surprise, he sat in a chair at the table. "So, here we are."
"Mmm," Rory said around a mouthful of cheeseburger. "How's April?"
"Back in school in New Mexico," Luke said. He cast a curious look at Vala. "She really enjoyed Disneyworld. It was good that you could make it down."
"I'm glad she could come with Mom," Rory said as she dumped a pile of ketchup on her fries. "I missed hanging around with her."
"Yes, your daughter is a lovely girl," Vala interjected.
"You've met her?" Luke asked.
"I saw a picture." Vala transferred her gaze to Rory. "Imagine finding out about your real father so late in life, and getting to know him against all odds."
Rory drove the point of her shoe into Vala's shin. "Yes, April's very lucky," she ground out.
"I'm the lucky one," Luke said. "How well do you know Rory?"
Vala shifted her chair back to avoid any more damage from Rory's shoes. "We've worked together for some time," Vala explained with a smile. "We have dinner together on post most nights, and she tells me about her work and I pretend to understand what she's talking about and we come up with ways to torment Daniel."
"Daniel being..." Luke prompted.
Vala started to respond, but she caught her tongue and instead smiled sweetly at Rory.
The girl jammed a fry into the ketchup. "Daniel is one of the archaeologists I work with," she said with deceptive calm. "He was kind enough to let me take over his apartment in town."
Luke blinked. "You're living in some guy's apartment? Your mom didn't tell me that."
"Well, she doesn't know," Rory said succinctly. "Do you mind if I get some more coffee?"
"No, go ahead," Luke said. "Vala, where are you from?"
Vala smiled even more widely and said without blinking an eye, "Burundi."
"You're from Burundi?" Luke repeated.
"Born and raised." The lies tripped neatly out of Vala's mouth. It had been so long since she'd to spin tales like this. It was fun. "Well, born. My parents were missionaries but I was educated by nuns."
Rory slid back into her chair, an eyebrow arched. "Yes, nuns," she said. "From the convent of Saint Trinian, wasn't it?"
Both Vala and Rory turned their smiles on Luke. He shook his head. "I'll get that pie."
Rory took another bite of burger. "The idea of you being educated by nuns is terrifying."
"Well, je suis le président de Burundi," Vala said.
Rory sputtered into her coffee cup. "This is my fault, isn't it?"
"I have no idea what you mean."
"I introduced you to YouTube."
"Sixty-five billion videos online, and all the world wants to watch are dyed blondes, laughing babies, and Harry Potter puppets. It's a miracle your planet didn't kill itself off tripping over discarded clothing in the dark."
"Is Daniel still bothering you about that?"
"No, because then he'd have to admit he was in my room at three in the morning."
Rory shook her head. "You two are such an old married couple."
"Only without much sex."
"See my previous comment. Also, stop it."
"You were perfectly willing to mock Daniel's tribal marriage to a Captain in the Royal Air Force and I can't even mention that the last time I had anything resembling fun with a pair of handcuffs was--"
Rory clapped her hands over her ears. "I'm not listening!"
Satisfied, Vala settled back in her chair. She was going to miss Rory's banter.
Sidling over, Luke deposited two large slices of pie on the table. "You want anything else? The meeting's going to let out soon and I need to prep for the crowd."
"How about some hot sauce and whipped cream?" Rory asked.
"You worry me," Luke grumbled.
"You missed me. Um, right?" Rory's confidence started to slide away, until Luke put his heavy hand on her shoulder and she brightened again.
Once again, Vala reflected on Rory's seriously messed-up paternal relationships. She craved attention and approval from older male role models, and that wasn't even starting on the uncomfortable (abet one-sided) relationship she had with Rodney McKay.
Vala wondered how messy things would get when Rory and her father actually met.
The cold wind swept along the street, making Vala shiver. "Are we almost there?"
"Almost. Just a few more blocks."
"And you didn't want to wait for your mother to show up at the diner, and chose to walk to your house because..."
Rory sighed. "The meeting was going to let out and I didn't want to talk to anyone."
"And have them ask you why you're suddenly all pro-Air Force?"
"Yeah, that would have gone great. I'd have said that it's because I work with people in the Air Force, and they'd ask why I was so centered on Memorial Day, and I'd say I couldn't tell, and they'd press, and I wouldn't be able to explain because of oh, I don't know, global security issues, and they'd get all worked up and my head would explode all over the diner."
"Ah."
"And it doesn't matter, because here we are," Rory announced. She led Vala up the walk to a blue house with white trim, with lights shining inside. Rory unlocked the front door and pushed inside. "And this is my house," Rory said. She dropped her suitcase to the wooden floor.
"Different from the SGC," Vala commented as Rory closed the door behind them.
"Above ground," Rory agreed. "And not full of security check-points."
"Where's the fun in that?" Vala hauled her duffle bag into a room with couches and chairs. "There's no handsome Marines threatening a strip-search--" She stopped as one of the fuzzy blankets lifted itself up off the couch and growled at her.
"Paul Anka!" Rory exclaimed. She pushed into the room past Vala and hugged the thing. "I missed you!"
Vala flinched as the thing licked Rory's face. "What is it?"
"It's my mom's dog," Rory said. She ruffled the thing's fur. "You've seen dogs before, I know you have. Remember Cassandra Fraser's dog?"
"That was small and pointy. That is all full of hair." Vala jumped back as the dog barked at her. "Go away. Shoo."
"Paul Anka's not going to hurt you." Rory rubbed the creature's side. "He's probably scareder of you than you are of him."
"I'm not afraid," Vala said quickly. "I'm merely cautious."
The dog wormed its way out of Rory's grip and bounded across the floor to Vala. It stopped a merciful three feet away, sat back on its haunches and regarded Vala with beady little eyes.
"Aw, he likes you!" Rory said. She smirked in Vala's general direction. "That's adorable."
"That's annoying." Vala risked taking her gaze off the dog for a moment. "Where do we sleep?"
"My room, I suppose. This is the living room. Upstairs is Mom's room and the good bathroom. I could show you the rest of this place but you'll have to turn your back on Paul Anka."
"You're hilarious, do you know that?"
"Come on." Rory led Vala past the front door into a kitchen. "This is where food should be, but Mom never cooks, which is probably why I can't be bothered to, either. And that's my room," she finished, gesturing at a closed door.
"What would that be like?" Vala opened the door before Rory could protest. She switched on the light to a room with books on shelves and posters on walls, and the whole place felt so unlike the girl Vala had come to know that she didn't know what to say.
Rory crowded into the doorway beside Vala. "This is me," she said softly.
"Interesting." Vala went over and bounced a few times on the bed. "So, give me the stories."
"What are you talking about?"
"This is your childhood room, right? You must have little treasures with stories. Share with Vala."
"You're only doing this to torment me later, aren't you?"
Vala grinned. "I did the same with Mitchell when I went to his high school reunion. Come on, give it up."
Rory looked around the room, hesitating. Then she picked a box of baking soda up off the dresser. "I shoplifted this from Taylor's when I had my first kiss."
"Crime and passion," Vala said sagely. "A good mix."
"It wasn't quite like that," Rory protested. "More like, oh god, what just happened? And then I told Lane, my best friend, and Lane's mom told Lorelai, and Lorelai totally freaked out on me and actually invited Dean over for movie night and totally humiliated me. But it worked out all right in the end."
"Dean..." Vala mused. "That was the married one, right?"
"Yup," Rory said. She paused in putting the box back on the table. "It's cold of me, just saying 'yes' like that, right?"
"Save the shame and embarrassment for the important things, like genocide or accidentally walking into the mess hall naked."
"How does one 'accidentally' walk into the mess hall naked?" Rory asked.
"Ask Daniel," Vala told her. "Okay, more stories."
Rory plucked a book off the desk and flipped it open. "Have I told you about Jess? He stole my book the first time he was here--"
"Why do all of your good stories involve felonies?"
"You're one to talk!"
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Date: 2008-05-22 09:02 am (UTC)Thanks for writing, I'll just have to wait patiently for the next exciting installment.
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Date: 2008-05-22 07:20 pm (UTC)Glad you liked!
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Date: 2008-05-22 12:50 pm (UTC)OMG, you just *killed* me with this! I have coffee all over my screen! :-P
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Date: 2008-05-22 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 01:34 pm (UTC)WHOO-HOO!!!
Not the least due to the fact I just reread this story earlier this week to get my fix of Mhal-fics.
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Date: 2008-05-22 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 09:43 pm (UTC)and pie.
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Date: 2008-05-22 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 08:09 pm (UTC)Hey if you dont want to have to come up with a guy you could alway do my life long dream of hooking Rory up with Tristin cause that'd be the shit cause if I remember it right he went off and get sent to the Military by his dad. Come on it could work :)
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Date: 2008-05-22 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 10:14 pm (UTC)Yeah, maybe she'll move up from regular law breaking earth boys to space traveling law breaking boys. LOL
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Date: 2008-05-22 06:22 pm (UTC)Okay, I'll have something more coherent for you with the second half, but for now, this is full of win. And I hope that Vala gets that Luke is Rory's future step-father, so it's perfectly acceptable for her to have a father-daughter relationship with him. Or if she doesn't, that someone informs her of that fact.
-- Rosy
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Date: 2008-05-22 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 08:46 pm (UTC)-- Rosy
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Date: 2008-05-22 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 07:15 pm (UTC)One itty-bitty, nit-pick.
"...I was the talk of the school in grade three." In America, or at least in the south where I'm from, it would be "third grade" and not "grade three", fyi.
Again, this is beyond great! Never feel like you have to apologize for the length. :)
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Date: 2008-05-22 08:54 pm (UTC)Thanks for the nit-pick. Regional US dialects aren't my speciality -- I've got that West Coast speak thing going on.
The thing about this chapter is that it doesn't seem long when one goes through it with all that dialogue :)
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Date: 2008-05-22 07:51 pm (UTC)I adore Vala. She and Rory make such a fun and caring team. Well done showing the disconnect between Rory's two worlds and her need for a father figure.
I actually like the idea of Rory and Cam. Very curious to see if that developes.
Still loving this story!!!!!!!!!
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Date: 2008-05-22 09:04 pm (UTC)Vala and Rory are good -- Rory needs someone to play off and Vala's almost as wacky as Lorelai (in different ways, true, but the similarities are there)
Glad you are liking the story! It's a ball to write, for sure.
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Date: 2008-05-22 10:47 pm (UTC)I have not watched Gilmore Girls but Vala in small town america is hilarious enough :)
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Date: 2008-05-22 11:22 pm (UTC)It gets better, I think. This is a great story to write :)
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Date: 2008-05-23 03:58 am (UTC)This fic totally owns my brain right now; I absolutely adore it. I never thought to cross GG and SG, but Physics of the Spin is teh awesome, seriously. And holy clones, Batman! Rodney and Rory really do look alike in that photo manip. That's so freaky.
I can hardly wait for the next chapter.
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Date: 2008-05-23 05:35 am (UTC)"She craved attention and approval from older male role models, and that wasn't even starting on the uncomfortable (abet one-sided) relationship she had with Rodney McKay."
I presume you meant 'albeit'. Just a head's up, 'cause I'd want to know if it were my fic. :)
please please give us more
Date: 2008-09-13 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 12:45 pm (UTC)please, please update. it such a GREAT story. saw the picture and i really can see a resemblance.
^^loves^^
peace...
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Date: 2009-03-18 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 09:46 pm (UTC)"Sixty-five billion videos online, and all the world wants to watch are dyed blondes, laughing babies, and Harry Potter puppets. It's a miracle your planet didn't kill itself off tripping over discarded clothing in the dark."
ROFLMAO! I love Vala!
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Date: 2010-08-27 06:32 am (UTC)