Daniel turned his back on her and savagely raked his hands through his hair. "You could have been killed!" He shouted.

"I didn't care!" She yelled back.

Daniel froze and slowly turned to face her. A tinge of hysteria entered her voice. "Why do you think I'm panicking right now? Why in the weeks since I came back I've been desperately cramming activity into every corner of my life? I don't want to think about what I did, what I might do again faced with the same circumstances. Nothing mattered anymore!"

He took a step forward, but Vala retreated and left him looking at the thick, dark mass of hair trailing loosely past her shoulders. She wrapped her arms around her torso again. "Everything I worked for, everything I cared about was lost and I was supposed to what…just start over? Leave everyone behind? Pick up the pieces and move on?" Her voice broke on a sob.

"Vala," Daniel called her name quietly, his heart breaking over her pain.

Not done, Vala shook her head and her hair swished back and forth over her uniform. "I've been there before, left with nothing and starting over, and it's hard." Her voice cracked again and she paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I've been there and I've done it more than once and do you know why I could do it before?"

"Why?"

"Because I was hard. I had to be. I didn't rely on anyone, didn't hope for anything, didn't dream of anything and I didn't care about anyone but me. To survive I couldn't care."

"Vala, stop it." Daniel tried to get her to turn around and look at him. She shrugged off his touch and continued to bitterly shred her character.

"Nothing mattered as long as I got ahead, as long as I made the deal, as long as I could keep going. I had been used and betrayed and it was my turn to use and betray."

He grabbed her arm and spun her around. "Just stop it!"

Her eyes flashed with rage, but in a heartbeat, they filled with tears that even pride could not hold back. The fat, silvery drops welled over and spilled down her cheeks unheeded. Her voice, stripped of fury, was colored by only contempt and fear. "But now, I've gone weak, soft. I saw Col. Braden and was instantly reminded that I hid like a coward. I didn't argue or scream; I didn't fight, I just slunk away and who is to say I wouldn't do the same thing in the future? Who's to say that next time I won't just give up again?"

Daniel seized Vala by the shoulders and gave her a firm shake. "You're wrong!" He seethed through clenched teeth. "Vala Mal Doran doesn't give up, it's not who you are."

"But I did!"

Daniel shook his head. "No, you didn't. The implanted memories were supposed to leave you sitting at the tavern and sulking until Adria happened by. You were not, I repeat, you were not supposed to risk your life cheating in a card game to obtain a cargo ship so you could reach any world in the universe, including worlds you could no longer travel to by Stargate." He raised an eyebrow and gave her a knowing look, "Worlds like Earth." Vala flinched; startled he had deciphered her half-formed plan.

Daniel caressed the soft skin on her cheek and a twinkle danced in his eyes. "You're upset Adria showed the tiniest bit of sympathy over your plight, but how do you think I feel having to be eternally grateful she kept you from getting killed." A chill passed through Daniel and he stopped smiling. Vala would have died thinking she was an outcast, all alone.

Alone.

It bothered him almost as much that he had been letting the new Asgard history database consume all his attention in recent weeks. No one questioned his fixation, but Daniel knew he deliberately immersed himself as a way to create a distance from his other growing passion. A way to help him just leave her alone.

Vala's frenzied attempts to elude boredom had sparked a deeper fear in him; that her increasing mercurial behavior meant she was getting restless, that she was going to leave. He had been telling himself her frequent visits to his office were just another way to amuse herself, but now he realized he had fallen back into the same old trap, making the same mistake many others at the SGC still did. He stopped looking deeper.

He jumped to conclusions and didn't stop to ask what was wrong. He let fear of being wrong and fear of getting hurt overtake his certainty about who was the real Vala.

On a surface level, she sparkled and glittered brightly enough to blind casual onlookers to her real depths of character. The indifferent observer didn't see her loyalty and courage or her intellect and ingenuity. They wouldn't perceive the great reserve of hope she layered intimately against an expedient and practical nature.

He marveled at the child-like wonder she retained even while it mixed readily with a heavy dose of cynicism, not recognizing how closely it mirrored his own outlook. Nevertheless, lately he started to push her away, afraid that his inability to easily reconcile her many seeming contradictions meant he was trying to see something that was not truly there.

How many times in the past weeks had he skimmed along her surface and never tried to look deeper? Would he have seen her fears? A fear he shared, that he too would be left weak and helpless if he needed and relied on others too much. Hadn't he been fulfilling her fears by pretending not to need her?

He let his head fall forward until their foreheads touched. "You're not weak," he whispered as his hands ran up and down her arms. "It takes a different kind of strength to take up the risk of caring for someone, of relying on others. You've dared to trust, to let yourself need when repeatedly life tried to teach you a different lesson. You've been strong; have had to be for so long, but your life, as hard as it might have been hasn't left you hard."

Vala lifted her head and searched Daniel's face for truth and something else. Daniel was always her giver of truth, maybe she was hoping to find more than a general compassion reflected back in his eyes. Maybe she was seeing it.

She lied before. She never stopped dreaming.

"You care," Daniel said. "Even when it tears you apart, you care. Adria might not have been destined to be a real daughter, but it never stopped you from hoping." A new tear fell. "Hoping and at the same time," he paused and used his thumb to wipe it away, "pushing forward to stop her, even demanding her death." He placed a kiss on her forehead thinking, yeah, they were just colleagues. Not in a million years would he really believe that.

His hands slipped off her shoulders, down her back, and pulled her close, rejecting his fears and giving in to what felt right. Vala dropped her head to his shoulder and clung in return to both the man and the words he was saying. He stroked her hair and said, "You are wrong if you think you could ever get in the same situation again. Maybe the memory device compensated for how you would behave, but it couldn't take in account of how the rest of us would." He held her face in his hands. "You will never find yourself in the same situation. Do you understand?"

Something flickered in her grey eyes. Faith. Belief. Only to be pushed back by pessimism. "I have to be realistic, If Adria becomes as powerful as we fear, she might attempt something, some kind of manipulation and well, that would be it."

"It won't happen." Daniel grinned. "You are too stubborn for her to fool you."

Vala could help but grin back. "I agree, but would have said clever rather than stubborn." Her smile faded. "But what if I know, but the IOA still thought…"

Her insecurity ate at him. "It won't happen. You have genuine friends that will not abandon you. Do you hear me? SG1 will not leave you behind. Neither would Landry nor hell, Jack either."

"General O'Neil?"

"He likes the way you think. Says you're good for me," he casually replied. Her surprise and pleasure made him smile again. There were times when every thought running through this woman's mind was as open to him as a book. Any remaining fear of being taking in by deception slipped away to be replaced by a gut level certainty. She was real.

Maybe that had always been his trouble. From the first time he met her, his instincts were at war with his intellect. His gut feeling could not be quantified or logically proven, so he waffled between certainty and insanity.

Something in the way she clung unconsciously to the front of his shirt, bunching the material un-seductively in her fists, made all his questions disappear. Something clicked deep inside and he knew he could trust his heart.

He ran his fingers through her hair, smoothing it back from her face and wanted Vala to know she could trust his heart too. "I do not believe you have it in you to meekly stand by, just giving in to fate, but I promise you this, if for whatever reason you cannot fight for yourself, I will."

"What?" One word embodied all her longing and hope while still mingled with disbelief.

Warmth lit Daniels eyes and he made a vow. "I will shout, scream, and stamp my feet if necessary. Hell," a rueful smile emerged, "I'll probably do that even if you can still fight for yourself." He gave her shoulders another small squeeze. "Remember that. I won't give up." He took a breath and made sure Vala was paying close attention. "I won't give you up."

Vala's eyes shimmered and she bit her lip to stop it from trembling, afraid to breathe for fear of breaking this spell.

Daniel placed a kiss reverently on her temple. "I couldn't give up when you destroyed the first supergate and the odds of your survival were infinitesimal. I wouldn't give up when the Trust stole you out from under my nose. I'm not about to let anyone else steal you away. I know you Vala Mal Doran. You don't give up either. It is not who you are."

Daniel took his hand and covered one of hers, holding it pressed against his swiftly beating heart.

"I know if I were the one in trouble you would never stay silent. You could never sit meekly. You would always choose to fight. If you get knocked down, there is nothing that will keep you from getting back up again, but whatever happens, you can count on me being there to help."

The power of his words stole her breath away and if not for the strength with which he held her, she wasn't sure she would be able to stand steadily. Her wounded memories wavered and she felt the unsettling insecurity she lived with for the past months, no, for most of her life, vanish. Her heart told her Daniel was offering more than just unwavering friendship, but icy doubt stabbed and stole the courage she needed to ask plainly for his love.

Forcing her body to relax, she conjured up a pretty smile and a light teasing tone. "You might not know this, but on at least two planets I've visited, a pretty speech like that would constitute a marriage proposal." She batted her eyes. "Just our close proximity would account for another four." She tensed, waiting either for his discomfort to destroy the moment or for…something more

Daniel smiled into her hair. He knew she brought up proposals to shake him up, but he would not skim lightly on her surface, he looked deeper and didn't let her teasing manner obscure what she was really asking--Was this real? He wouldn't let her go on wondering. Life was too short to put off making the life he knew they both wanted and needed. He was lucky. He'd known love once before and it seemed he was getting another chance.

Daniel deliberately matched her light tone. "On Earth, engagements are often made in fancy restaurants accompanied by lots of champagne. Alternatively, during mass sporting events the question is asked involving a jumbo sized video screen. I think the public settings are used to encourage the appropriate response. But traditionally, actually dating precedes a proposal."

"Oh," she said not entirely masking her disappointment over his reply.

"But then I've never been much of a traditionalist."

"What?" She lifted her head to look at him.

Daniel shook his head, amazed and grateful that life had brought him here. "Vala, I might be slow when it comes to interpersonal communication, but the fact can't be lost on even someone as socially inept as I, that in the last five minutes I've vowed to fight to the end to keep you with me. I also nearly had a near panic attack at the mere retelling of your time on Xylon. And neither of those revelations address the fact that I have you wrapped in my arms and I'm not planning on letting you go."

"It's not like I'm asking," she said somewhat grumpily staring at his shoulder.

"Good." Daniel put a finger beneath her chin and guided her gaze back to his. "There was a time I thought I would never get over my wife. I mean the idea of," he swallowed, "being hurt that way again. It wasn't until I met you that I finally for the first time in a long time thought I could get close to somebody. You made me feel even when I didn't want to."

Vala wet her lips and confessed. "I couldn't stop thinking about you after the first time we met." She swallowed nervously. "So much happened after I found you and then I found myself a galaxy away. However, nothing changed. I still couldn't stop thinking about you, only this time it was much worse. I was unable to stop missing the real man, not just an idea I daydreamed about."

"I missed you too," he said and then shrugged, "though I probably would have denied it."

Vala tightened her grip on the front of his black t-shirt, "Daniel, I want you to know how much your trust means to me and I think I've earned it on a professional level at least. I mean you've said…"

Daniel interrupted, nodding his head. "You have."

A quick smile of relief jumped out before she continued solemnly. "I hope that someday you will believe that on a personal level." She rushed ahead, "Maybe you don't know it now, but you can believe it when I say you mean everything to me and that is not going to change." Feeling exposed and vulnerable, she dropped her gaze.

"Hey," he said softly. Vala kept staring at his shoulder. "Look at me," he insisted, waiting a few seconds until she did. "I know," he told her. "I know."

She stayed lost, happily floating in the loving wonder she saw in his eyes until he cocked his head and smirked.

"You know," Daniel said sounding philosophical, "the only thing keeping our conversation from being an official declaration of mutual intentions is the lack of an outwardly visible seal of affection."

A puzzled line appeared on her forehead.

"A kiss, Vala," he explained.

"A kiss?" She repeated feeling inexplicably shy.

Daniel nodded. He cupped the side of her face and fixed his attention on her mouth. With his other hand, he lightly traced her slightly parted lips before smoothing his hand along side of her face and burying it in her cool, ebony hair. Vala flicked her eyes between his lips and his eyes as he moved closer. She felt the moist heat of his breath on her lips just before his claimed hers. Tenderly, but not hesitantly he explored her softness. A tiny whimpering sound escaped and her hand fluttered gently against his neck. He kissed her again tasting her sweetness before pulling back and memorizing her face.

His lips stopped touching hers, but she could still feel their imprint. Her head was spinning and her heart pounding. Slowly she opened her eyes. The pleased smile on Daniel's face deepened when she met his eyes. Any shields left around her heart fell away in the onslaught on his affectionate gaze. "You better not be messing with me," she threatened and begged at the same time.

"I take my feelings for you very seriously. I'm playing for keeps. How about you?"

Joy bubbled up and extending out even to her fingertips. She threw her arms around his neck and drew him close for another intense kiss. When their lips parted for air she whispered, "Ask me again in fifty or sixty years."