TITLE: Without Open Arms
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: PG
POSTED: Feb. 4, 2006
SUMMARY: Unexpected, and possibly unwelcome.
NOTES: S2 Atlantis and S9 Stargate. For Ellen, who both requested Sheppard and Vala.
DISCLAIMER: Read

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Well, now. This one was different.

Younger, for one thing. Odd that that was her first impression, but she'd noticed, and that was enough to mark it in her mind.

And not disinterested. No, Vala knew how to recognize people who were unlucky enough to respond only to those of their own gender or species, they required a more straightforward approach, and Sheppard responded wonderfully when she brushed against him. Or at least the proper parts of him did; muscles tightening, breath quickening, just as they should. When he looked down...

There was the screw point of irritation. Even Daniel had looked, even when he didn't want to, and Sheppard did look down, but not at her breasts, no matter how she stood, or lounged, or stretched. If she were wearing anything other than the blue sack that Daniel had insisted on on the Prometheus, as if anything else would cause the engines to stop, she would have tested other possibilities. Maybe hips, or legs. But she wasn't. Even that sack was better than the rough cloth these people had offered; she was losing track of the number of planets where they had food was the best she could say for them.

Sheppard had looked her in the eyes when he entered the room, she'd sighed, relieved, and said, So Earth is still in the Pegasus galaxy, and she hadn't seen a genuine smile out of him since.

It was as though he didn't trust her at all.

More than that. No one in the SGC had trusted her, Daniel had taken care of that, but Sheppard, he distrusted her on an entirely different level.

Vala was familiar with fear and anger, grudges and hatred, and Sheppard was aiming none of those feelings in her direction. Daniel had watched her with narrowed eyes and always with one hand ready to slap her away; it was a game, and one she'd loved to play, winding him up and letting him spin into the nearest available wall, until it stopped being a game and became habit. Teal'c had known, she'd seen it, and she had tried not to think about while they had an understanding about the Tau'ri. The closest she'd encountered to the, the distance in Sheppard's eyes was Mitchell, who was hardest to read when he seemed loose and easy, she had learned that quick enough, but even he had taken his cues from Daniel and hadn't kept a hand by a weapon at all times.

Sheppard had said he knew who she was. That was something; time had passed since...time had passed, she could tell, but Daniel must have searched for her for at least a little while, then. He wasn't taking her back to Atlantis, though. He wouldn't let her leave these people behind on their forsaken, overgrown, crumbling excuse for a planet.

And when he came back in, she wasn't at all sure what she was going to say to get him to do so. That was different.

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