Title: Never Knew
Fandom: Stargate SG1
Characters: Cameron Mitchell/Vala Mal Doran
CD & Song: The Fray / She Is
Rating: PG 13
Spoilers: Through 10x08 – Memento Mori
Author's Notes: Thanks to woodface and kajivar for the beta reading.
She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted
She is everything I want that I never knew I needed
She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted
She is everything I want that I never knew I needed
The knowledge that he wants her strikes him from seemingly out of nowhere. He’s always seen her as an annoyance, a pest, someone to put up with. Never as a person. And certainly never as a woman.
So when he puts the patch on her jacket and her smile lights up the room, the flash of desire that jolts through his groin shocks him. Unbidden images of other ways to illicet that grin flood his mind, and when Teal’c suggests going out to celebrate, he has to bite back the words that spring to his lips about a more private celebration. He wonders if subconsciously he suggests the rib joint near his place because he wants to take her home, but immediately dismisses the notion when she makes the remark about finishing her date with Daniel.
Because he knows that no matter how he feels, she doesn’t want him. She’s wanted Jackson since she first stepped through the Gate, and maybe that’s why he’s never noticed her as a woman before.
(He also wonders why these thoughts didn’t occur to him while he was nearly naked and she had him handcuffed to a bed.)
The rib joint is loud and smoky, and the beer is free flowing on the general’s dime. He can’t help but notice the way her tongue works the meat loose, and he wonders when he reverted to being an eighteen year old who gets hard in the presence of a beautiful woman.
They sit and share war stories (carefully edited since they are in public), and the waitress keeps bringing more food, more beer, and the night is young and holds limitless possibilities.
The general begs off first, instructing the waitress to charge his credit card at the end of the night. Teal’c follows soon after, and Cameron wonders if people think he and Sam and Daniel and Vala are on a double date. (A small voice in the back of his mind pipes up and wonders why he’s never looked at Sam as a woman either, but he dismisses that quickly because they’re friends and co-workers and the danger they put themselves in would be unbearable if they were anything more.)
And then the jukebox starts playing an old country ballad, and Vala wants to dance. She begs Daniel for about thirty seconds and then grabs Cameron’s hand and drags him to the miniscule dance floor before he has a chance to object. His arms are full of her, and she’s not shy about pressing right up against him, putting his senses on full alert. He buries his nose in her hair and wonders when she learned about strawberry-scented shampoo. It takes every ounce of willpower he possesses to keep his hands on the small of her back and not let them slide down to cup her backside.
He’s so caught up in the moment that he doesn’t notice the song end and a new one begin. His body shifts to the new rhythm, and as far as he’s concerned, time is standing still and there’s nothing in the world aside from him and the woman in his arms.
After some indeterminable amount of time (part of him feels like it was only three minutes and part of him feels like it was three hours), she leads him off the dance floor, and some part of his brain that isn’t mourning the loss of the contact registers that the song playing now is a fast one.
When they get back to the table, he grabs his beer and doesn’t notice that it’s gone warm or that Daniel and Sam aren’t there, because he realizes she’s watching him and he’s getting that eighteen year old feeling again. The look in her eye tells him that she knows the effect she’s having on him, and the way the corners of her mouth are turned up tell him that it’s deliberate on her part.
Despite the beer, his mouth goes dry and all he can do is nod mutely when she asks him to take her home. Because he knows that she’s asking him to take her home with him and not back to her quarters on base, and he wonders where Jackson and Sam went and if they saw this coming.
But when they get out in the cool night air and she takes his hand, lacing their fingers together, he doesn’t care about anything except what’s going to happen because they’ve all almost died far too many times and tonight they’re going to celebrate life.