Not Quite Comfort

***

He sees her again for the first time ripe with an impossible pregnancy and hitting a slightly taller man in the back of the head with a large heavy object.

It is a surreal situation, but in the last year with the SGC, surreal situations have become something of the norm. He doesn't pause or stare in stunned silence. He just smiles and waves like finding a long-lost whatever Vala is in a lower sanctum of an Orii ship is an everyday occurance.

"Took you long enough," she brats, smiling through the worry and fear and desperation that have painted a map across her features since he'd seen her last. "Had to take care of business myself. But what can I expect when it comes to you men?"

He just shrugs and tries to be comforting without being serious. Because he figures if she wants to play this with banter so she won't break down into whatever Vala would break down into, if she broke down, then he's not going to break that facade. It's not his place and he needs her together for the next bit of time.

"Apparently not very much. Ready to go?"

He ignores the terror and relief in her reply. He's nice like that. "Yes, please."

***

An indeterminate amount of time later - too much running, too much fighting, too much dying later - he finds her sitting in the messhall with a cup of tea and a blank expression.

They'd debriefed earlier and he was just too wired to actually put his head down yet. So here he'd wandered and here she was. He doesn't think too closely on what she has to be wired about.

"Hey," he says. "What are you doing up?"

When she looks at him, he sees entirely too much. What surprises him, is that she keeps looking. Keeps just staring at him, that haunted look firmly planted and not going anywhere. Not at all.

"I don't know what to do."

And then he's holding her hand. It's not enough, but it's something.

"I don't either," he replies. Her fingers are thin and cool under his own. "What do you want?"

"I want to be..." She stops, and he watches as she tries to draw herself back together. Something in his chest rips a little when she can't quite manage it. "I want this to be over."

They both stare at the round lump of her abdomen, now covered in green fatigues.

"It will be soon."

"That's not comforting."

So he just holds her hand.

Back.