Thursday
Oh no she didn't.
At the head of the conference table, General Landry is impressing upon SG-1 the seriousness of the situation and the importance of resolving it with courage, invention and initiative. Daniel, if she knows him (and she does), has already tuned him out, punched a mental fast forward button, and is busy brainstorming his morning research trajectory. He's got two notebook pages blackened with his kabalistic shorthand.
Cam, on the other side of the table, is picking up the slack, a model of attentive receptivity. Sam would have said a few months ago that she knew Cam very well, but she's learning that he's sneakier than she's given him credit for. She won't say for sure that she knows what wheels are turning behind his baby blues.
Teal'c, if she knows him (and she does), mostly looks like he has to pee.
Sam flicks her eyes to Vala, who is sitting next to Teal'c with her gaze unfocused and her lips just slightly parted. Twitching.
Last Sunday
It was a gorgeous spring weekend, only the second this year that had been warm enough for short-sleeved dresses and sandals. Sam and Vala were in Denver, on a mission to acquaint Vala with the art and joys of thrift store shopping, which, as Sam predicted, Vala took to like Archimedes to bathwater.
They were strolling along the street a few blocks from Denver's main drag, mouths pursed around straws, crisp bouquets of bags hanging from their fingers, when Vala stopped short, pitched her iced coffee in a bin, and pointed. "Sam, I was beginning to wonder if Earth had those."
Sam observed a cheerful neon sign on the opposite side of the street, and the window-dressing under it. "Um, yes. Earth definitely does."
"Well, we'd better go in and see!"
"...We had?"
"Sam!"
Sam shrugged and followed Vala across the street and beneath the blue and purple awning of Venus Envy.
The interior was cool and pleasant after the hot city breeze. Books and novelties took up the front half of the store. Sam paused to browse the titles and marvel over anatomically correct chocolates and pendants shaped like Georgia O'Keefe paintings only more so. Vala beelined for the back.
"Oh!" she exclaimed as Sam caught up, and clapped her hands. "They're so pretty!" Five shelves of dildos, in Vala's world, were apparently better than all the thrift stores on Colfax Ave.
Sam stifled a laugh. "You sound so deprived. Surely the galaxy at large has dildos?"
"Oh, yes, of course. But not in purple," Vala replied, pointing to illustrate.
"Yeah, Earth might be the only place I've ever seen that exact shade."
"So," said Vala, turning and pinning Sam with wide grey eyes, "What do you recommend?"
"Um," said Sam.
Vala lifted her eyebrows expectantly.
"I...really couldn't say." She tilted her head up, scanning the really rather remarkable range of choices. Some of them, done in colored glass, were actually pretty. Others just looked masochistic, which she supposed was possibly the point.
Vala's expression drifted toward shock. "Don't tell me you don't have one. Oh, Sam. You broke up with your last boyfriend how many years ago?"
"Yes, I—" Sam was annoyed to realize that she'd dropped her voice to a hiss. It was a sex shop in Denver, for heaven's sake, not the middle of the control room at the Mountain. "I have one," she said in absolutely normal tones. "One. If you want reviews of the whole inventory, maybe you should ask the clerk?"
"Fine," said Vala, "be sensible," and then, raising her voice, "Excuse me? We need some advice, please!"
"Who is this 'we' you speak of?" Sam muttered.
The woman behind the counter looked up and shut her book—something thick and scholastic with a fractal pattern on the spine—with a smile to match Vala's bright tone. She had a plain, bespectacled face and plenty of charisma, and was practiced at her basic tour of materials and functions. Sam found herself caught up in the conversation despite the fact that she hadn't come in to buy.
She was holding a medium-sized model with a set of wicked-looking ridges and biting her lip when Vala's, "Ooh," diverted her attention back to her friend. The clerk had produced a watch battery and snapped it into a tiny vibrator shaped like a butterfly, with straps that fit around waist and thighs to hold it secure while fingers roamed elsewhere.
Thursday
Okay, so maybe not twitching so much as—stock still. Which might as well be Vala's version of a twitch.
Sam is apparently the only person noticing anything out of the ordinary. The room feels warmer than usual, but stuffy, despite the HVAC's enthusiastic chirring. Vala sighs inaudibly, licks her lips—and looks straight at Sam. Her hands aren't visible. Sam swallows spit and looks pointedly away, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Vala finally shift in her seat, a minute side-to-side.
Cam's eyes cut toward Sam. She gives him a closed-mouth smile and his eyebrow lifts fractionally. Teal'c's eyes have drifted to half-mast. Daniel scribbles on.
By the time the briefing's over, she's worked herself past amazement and up to ire. Sam's spent a lot of years trying like hell to keep work and personal concerns apart, failing over and over again, and lately she's had some conversations that might have changed her feelings on whether it's possible or even good to keep them so wholly divorced, considering the unique insanities of her job. But this? It's pulling other people into your most personal of personals, without their say-so. On work hours. It's so deep into the realm of inappropriate it would take a 303 to retrieve it.
On the way out the door, Sam grasps Vala by the elbow and steers her toward her lab.
"Vala," she starts, tugging her over next to a bank of computers.
"Sam?"
"Yeah. Okay. What you were doing in there. Yes, I noticed, congratulations on that. Not cute. Don't do it again."
Vala blinks at her and smiles, all startled innocence. "Sam, whatever are you referring to?"
"The—with the—for God's sake, Vala, you don't bring that stuff to work. It's disrespectful. It's—look, I like you, I'm not out to get you in trouble, but if you're serious about staying here, on the team, then you need to treat this as a job, not a—a diversion! You can't live off in your own little la-la land letting us feed and board and keep you amused you while you hide out from the galaxy at large. So do not do it again. At home, fine, whatever you want. But not here."
Over the course of Sam's speech, the flirt in Vala's smile disappears and her eyes narrow. Then abruptly they go saucer-wide.
"Sam! Samantha Carter, you thought I was sitting there in Landry's stultifying briefing—titillating myself? With that little toy I bought last weekend for a laugh?"
"Vala, you were—"
Vala's hand darts out and locks Sam's in a tight grip, turns and plunges it under Vala's own waistband. Both waistbands. Her hard, bony fingers force themselves between Sam's, splaying them over curls and humid skin. Sam's brain goes to bluescreen.
"No accessories here," Vala growls, completely unnecessarily. "Whatever you saw, darling, it was all in your imagination." She leans in close enough for Sam to feel her breath against her ear and murmurs, "Maybe you should think about that."
Before Sam can muster the mojo to respond, Vala has released her, pivoted, and stalked out of the lab. Sam stands there, too dazed even to sag against the wall, flexing her fingers convulsively. She flicks her gaze up toward the ceiling-mounted security cameras. She's pretty sure they were beyond their sightlines.
*
Sam stays on base through dinner, carries food back to her lab. Hides. Stonewalls the two techs who stop by with questions. Whenever she shuts her eyes, she sees Vala's peeved expression.
She doesn't even bother to leave for the night, and doesn't try to bluff herself: if she goes home, she'll spend all night envisioning nothing but Vala's ire. And she'll have to set her phone and keys on her nightstand, and if she does that she'll think about the bright little bag waiting beside it, and the package inside she hasn't yet unwrapped.
Friday
Is miserable. Sam slept terribly in her uncongenial base quarters. It's a long, dull headache of a research day; no gate travel, just a lot of waiting for another team to return from a mission so they can integrate their intel. When she drops by the mess at noon, Vala and Daniel are seated at a table near the middle of the room having an argument about the lineage of the riddle they're trying to crack. Daniel's at full throttle, glowing in that way he does when someone takes him on and gives him a run for his money. They've attracted an audience. Sam grabs a tray, fingerwaves at Daniel and hightails it back to her fortress of machines and numbers.
Her concentration's good and shot, though. Seeing Vala again, even the back of her head, brings yesterday's shame swooping right back. In hindsight, her accusation just seems crazy, revealing much about Sam's state of mind and diddly-squat about Vala herself. Great. What an absolutely great way for Sam's subconscious to let her know she's muddled. She yelled at her. Sam knows perfectly well what "projection" means.
Occupying her hands and one track of her brain with grunt work she usually leaves to assistants, Sam thinks about why Vala makes her itch. Why she has, apparently, slipped inside Sam's boundaries in ways even Jack never did. Perhaps it's because she never expected Vala to be inside those boundaries. She's spent such a long time defending one quarter that she left another vulnerable without even knowing it.
Vala is flippant, unpredictable, cunning and valiant. Easy to judge. Hard to know. Sam thinks of all the times Vala has pretended not to know things she's really dead sure of—the configuration of a ship's control crystals, the desires and motives of people around her—hiding her intellect and her people smarts to keep herself safe, to seem less threatening. She's badly wounded; a survivor. She gives a damn, but is used to fooling people into thinking she doesn't. Rendered in list format, she's not a little like someone else Sam knows.
Sam tries to imagine Jack O'Neill bouncing and clapping his hands over a display of candy-colored sex toys and hurts herself swallowing a hysterical cackle.
Sam thinks about love and duty and kindness, and of opportunities that have come and gone, not in a flash, like passing comets, but softly and quietly, creeping in and lingering and then slowly, incrementally fading again, unchosen. Desired. But not enough. She thinks that maybe that's a model she's tired of. She's not who she's been.
Before she can start to think about any of that, any more, she owes an apology. So, she thinks. No time like too late. She locks up her lab, changes into jeans and slings her jacket on over her black tee, and heads for Vala's quarters.
"Come in," Vala calls at her knock. Sam finds her at her desk with a printout of what looks like part of Applied Cryptography.
"Hi," Sam says. "I owe you an apology." Vala puts down her pencil and manages to look equal parts receptive, speculative and wary. Sam forges on; no point in cowardice. She jingles her keys. "Want to go grab some dinner?"
"Mexican," Vala bargains after a moment. "And let's make it takeout, shall we?"
Sam takes a deep breath. Mexican sounds good. It seems fair to let the abused party dictate a few of the terms.
*
"So," Vala starts when they're barely in the door of Sam's apartment, steaming bags of takeout in hand. "I don't know if you're following some kind of apology protocol or script, here, but I'm actually quite nervous right now, so I'm just going to ask. You made an assumption—a very shocking one, I might add, which is all the more intriguing coming from you—but then I made an assumption, and you were wrong and I'm pretty sure I was right, but—" She plops her quesadillas on the table and turns, propping hands on hips. Something in Sam's expression—wall-eyed mortification?— prompts her to back up and start over. "Okay, starting over," Vala says. She marches through the archway and into Sam's living room, seats herself on the couch, folds her hands and says, "This is me, starting over: Sam. What in the bloody hell?"
Sam leaves their food to languish in the kitchen. She's not that hungry anyway. One foot in front of the other, she makes her way to stand in front of Vala. "What, exactly," she hears herself ask, "were you assuming about me?"
Vala drops her eyes and looks, all of a sudden, incongruously diffident. "Well," she says. "Well." And then she squares he shoulders and just says it: "That you want me."
It's funny, how that plain sentence sounds, out loud, in the air. Not once has Sam thought to herself, in so many words, I want her. But hearing it sends a jolt of—something—streaming through her body. Clarity. Primed attention that brings with it a small, unexpected jolt of nostalgia. It feels unbelievably good, like tasting a childhood flavor she hasn't had in so long she forgot it was her favorite. But it also feels—not quite right.
Sam waits until Vala meets her eyes, and tells her, "I don't think I like the term. I'm not interested in having you, Vala."
Vala blinks. "You're not supposed to be the one who's so oversensitive to semantics," she chides.
"But, you are beautiful. Really beautiful, maybe the most striking woman I've ever seen. And I—I like you. And I'm so sorry I said what I did yesterday, because I—I do. I do, Vala. Want to—"
"Touch?" But she's smiling now, as if she can read the rest of it, the messy, half-grown truths that Sam's too stupid to articulate.
Sam breathes out gratitude. "For a start."
Vala reaches out, then, and reels Sam down onto the sofa next to her. She puts one hand on her knee, and taps the other index finger against Sam's forehead: one hard "you blockhead" poke. "I like you, too," she confides.
*
Kissing. With Vala, it's like remembering how to ride a Triumph Bonneville. One moment they're poised, searching each other's faces in wondering, almost giddy, recognition, the next they're a heady rush of heat and motion, hands gripping and sliding, mouths meeting, gasping and meeting again, zero to seventy-five, burn.
Sam falls against the sofa's arm. Vala pushes Sam's shirt up high, grasps the elastic of her cotton sports bra and pulls it up, too. Sam's breasts spill free. Her nipples perk in the cool air, and her groin twinges with a combination of excitement and embarrassment. It's entirely weird to be exposed like this in her sun-streaked living room where colleagues and friends have sat and bantered and snarfed pizza. She's made out on this couch before; boyfriends past have slid their reverent, gentlemanly hands beneath her blouse, but no one's ever left her lying with her bra around her armpits while they slithered down her body on a rasp of denim.
Vala pauses to look up at her. "Okay, Sam?"
All she can do is drag in a breath and nod.
There's no, "Oh, pretty!" from Vala this time. But she's looking at Sam's body like it's an addiction in the making. She dips her head, hair swinging forward, and gently bites Sam's nipple into her mouth.
Sam's back arches. Vala rides it, bringing her hand up to Sam's other breast to fondle and pinch. Cued by Sam's stunned whimpers, she switches to sloppy licks and sucks, using her hands to skim up Sam's sides, waking the nerve endings all across her torso. It's the hungriest touch she's ever felt. Sam is tingling, wet, starting to throb, and getting off not only on the feel of it, but on the fact of it. She puts her hands on Vala's head. She keeps her eyes open.
Soon Vala lifts and starts to slide down farther, but Sam gasps out, "Oh God, please don't stop. Stay." So instead, Vala worms one hand down between their bodies to flick open Sam's fly, and Sam parts her legs, trying to make space for her to work her way in between damp jeans and panties and the skin beneath. It isn't going to take much. Half the time, attention on Sam's breasts is enough to send her all the way to orgasm, and she's been simmering on the edge for the better part of a week. "Suck me," she pleads. "Oh please ohhh." Vala's thumb finds her clitoris, and the rest of her fingers curl under, wedging and pressing in. Just the pressure there is enough. Sam cries out and bucks hard.
Coming down feels like dust motes in a pool of sunshine. Sam stretches cat-happy and skins out of her bra. Vala sinks against her and settles, lips on Sam's neck. After a little while, Sam murmurs, "What should I—what do you like?"
"I like you," Vala repeats, muffled. Sam cups her head and subsides.
An idea drifts up; one that seems so obvious and suitable that she almost laughs. "In my bedroom. There's a little bag by the bed. I haven't opened it yet...."
The wide, slow smile Vala rises to give her stirs Sam like a little surge of afterglow. "Wouldn't matter to me if you had," she purrs. She kneels up to extricate herself and sashays down the hall. Sam flops back into the cushions. She hears water running in the bathroom and a faint zip and rustle.
Soon enough, Vala's back and dropping a cold pair of batteries on Sam's stomach. Sam yelps and goes concave, making them roll toward her belly button.
Vala, clad now in panties and her undershirt, moves right back into her former position, legs bracketing Sam's hips. She quickly assembles Sam's new vibrator, tests the power, snaps it back off with a flick. Slyly, she smiles. "This is what you were thinking about in the briefing room, isn't it? Me, with a vibrator pressed against my parts. Like this." She's holding it delicately, just rubbing the smooth silicone slowly across her mons.
"Turn it on."
Vala complies. The thing even sounds sexy, more purr than buzz. She performs a one-handed Houdini move with her panties and eases down, a controlled flex of muscle. Sam's breath hitches as Vala settles over her hips. One of Vala's hands splays on her stomach, rucking her tank top just a little, while the other manipulates the vibe in a leisurely, show-off-y slide. She touches it down, backs off, flirts with dipping it inside herself.
"Wait," Sam orders, and doesn't pause for confirmation before rearing up, abs and quads flexing as she meets and then pushes Vala backward on the couch. Her hand covers Vala's on the vibrator; she takes control. "Me." Vala's fingers are still tangled up with hers as she pushes the device up and in.
Vala shudders hard. Her heels dig into the cushions as she scrabbles back, groping for a throw pillow to support her head. Sam follows ruthlessly, keeping her impaled, kneeing up between her legs and leaning close. Her own body is still oversensitized from orgasm; she's aware of the texture of the sofa fabric, the rub of Vala's thighs against hers, the sheen of sweat between her breasts and running down beneath her tailbone. She tucks her chin, gaze latching on Vala's damp curls and her own blunt-nailed hand; she groans out loud when they touch there for the second time ever.
Vala whimpers, then suddenly curls up in a crunch. "Sa— Help me, I need—" She's got her fingers at the hem of her tank top, trying to get it off. When Sam takes her hand off the vibe to assist, it slides partway out, frictionless. She darts her hand back down to catch it, pulls it out and saws it messily back and forth across Vala's labia. Vala wrenches free of the last of her clothing. "Back in," she gasps. "Put it back in."
"Should I—" Sam bends her head, trying to mouth a nipple.
"No. No. I just wanted"—she has to swallow before she can finish—"want you to see."
Oh, God.
Sam looks. She lets Vala see her looking. Her body is long, angular and pale, not young, not old, scarred here and there, but on the whole better preserved than it should be, which is of course its own kind of scar. Most of all, it's present, utterly honest and real beneath Sam's hands, and there's nothing to do but lift her chin and kiss her deeply and fiercely, on the mouth. Vala opens with a soft, amazed sigh and kisses back with a yielding sweetness, pulling her legs up toward herself on either side of Sam, hugging her with her knees.
After a long moment, Sam pulls back and changes her grip on the vibrator. She nudges the setting higher and finds she can push at the base of it with her palm, rocking it inside in a heavy, insistent pulse, the rhythm of fucking, and at the same time grind the heel of her hand against Vala's clit. Soon Vala's taking deep and loud and shaky breaths, but the rest of her is still, as though all her usual manic energy has zeroed in on one locus. Her arms are loose and bent above her head, fingers in a deceptively relaxed curl. She's staring into Sam's face.
At last she comes with a groan that sinks past her usual contralto down to the deepest tones Sam has ever heard her make.
God. Maybe she does want her a little.
Saturday
There's a new bar in the Springs' downtown with pool tables, a smallish dance floor, and great music.
Vala bends over the pool table to take her shot, then watches as her ball teeters coyly at the lip of the pocket before it commits and sinks with a neat clack. She straightens, and her eyelashes sweep across her cheeks as her gaze follows slow and sidelong. She nudges her hips forward so her pubic bone presses hard against the wood. Vala holds Sam's eyes, breathes, and goes still.