Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 76

Chapter 76 - Unfortunate Encounters

“Now continue focusing on your breath.” The woman on screen instructed. “For your body already knows what it must do, and it is only your mind which needs to understand it.”

“This really doesn't explain anything.” Rayla muttered as she glared annoyedly at the tablet for a moment before tossing it onto the bed.

Honestly, she didn’t know if the woman that had recorded the lesson was just really bad at teaching, or if she had decided that being purposefully obtuse was a necessary part of teaching the subject. Either way though, she would bet her bedtime cup of red jello that she would get farther by just bothering Eventus about it until he took a few hours to walk her through the subject.

Looking around the room to see if there was anything else she could do to pass the time, her eyes settled on the television set and dvd player.

“That’s just mean.” She muttered to herself, wondering why the humans would even include a setup like that in the room if they weren’t going to include any dvd’s to watch on it.

Letting out a sigh, she crept over to the door and cracked it open.

The soldier that had been next to the door when Eventus had been around seemed to have relocated to a position near the elevator at the end of the hall. And she briefly wondered what the reasoning for that was before deciding not to question the useful change in position.

Waiting patiently for something to draw the hall watchers attention away, Rayla’s chance came when a tall dark haired woman walked up and began discussing something with the soldier. 

Quietly slipping out of the room, she turned to head the opposite direction from the Soldier only to run nearly face first into the crossed arms of a man who seemed to have been patiently waiting for something just passed her doors limited line of sight.

Stumbling back slightly, she looked up to see who she had run into only to grin at the good luck.

“You're Daniel Jackson!” Rayla exclaimed in a happy whisper, recognizing the man's face from various pictures she'd seen on Atlantis.

Daniel looked down at her with an odd look that quickly morphed into an almost impish smile. “I certainly appear to be.. So what can I do for you pointy eared young woman?”

“It's Rayla.” She told him, taking a moment to make sure the soldier at the end of the hall wasn't paying attention before grabbing the Archaeologist by the arm and dragging him back into her temporary room.

“You are surprisingly strong for such a small woman.” Daniel muttered, rubbing his arm in a way that suggested to Rayla that she'd probably grabbed him a bit too hard.

“Sorry.” She apologized. “The soldiers here are really over sensitive about people wandering around, and I didn't want to have to stay in the brig for another night.”

“You know, I get that.” Daniel agreed as he glanced over at the still open door. “Though the one here isn't that bad all things considered.”

“It was boring!” Rayla complained with a pout, the memory of spending hours with nothing to do still fresh in her mind. “All I wanted to do was take a look at the treasure I heard you brought back from Merlin's cave.”

Merlin was the wizard the humans thematic idea of wizards was based on after all, so she really wanted to see what kind of treasures he had left behind.

“It was a really nice treasure.” Daniel offered in an oddly wistful tone. “Piles of gold, jewels, the occasional Ancient trinket nobody would let me touch.”

“They were probably afraid it would turn you into a woman like what happened with Grodin.” Rayla returned sagely, Teyla having made sure to drill that cautionary tale about not picking up unknown Lantean devices into her head.

Daniel gave her another odd look. “You know what, sure, let's go with that.”

That was a rather odd response, but Rayla was willing to ignore it in favor of the more important question. “Did one of those Ancient trinkets include his magic staff?”

Opening his mouth to answer, Daniel paused and gave her a suddenly suspicious look. “How old are you?”

Rayle blinked in confusion, not sure what that had to do with her question about Merlin's magic staff.

“Almost two weeks.” She answered, making sure to round up since that seemed to make people feel a bit more at ease.

“Well.” Daniel said, suddenly radiating a feeling of awkwardness that Rayla couldn't quite figure out the reasoning for. “You certainly don't look it.”

“Eventus grew me in a biopod.” She explained with a slight frown. “A lot of people seem to think I should be upset about that. But so far I've really enjoyed being alive, so I really don't understand why.”

“Good for you.” Daniel said proudly. “It's always nice to run into another girl who isn't willing to let the circumstances of her birth hold her back.” 

“Vala!?” A woman’s voice called out from somewhere down the hall.

“Um… Okay?” Rayla continued hesitantly, trying and failing to figure out just what Daniel meant by that. “But you still haven’t told me if you found Merlin’s magic staff or not?”

Daniel bit his bottom lip for a moment, and Rayle started to get the distinct sense that she was missing something rather important.

“I can’t believe it’s me of all people saying this, but you might want to be careful with your phrasing.”

Furrowing her brow for a moment, Rayla attempted to work out just what the man might have been talking about. “Is this a euphemism thing? Because I’m really not good at those.”

“I kind of figured.” Daniel returned with a smirk. “And yes, this is absolutely a–”

“There you are.” The woman Rayla had seen talking to the soldier earlier interrupted as she glared at Daniel through the still open doorway.

“This one’s not on me.” Daniel told the dark haired woman with a grin. “I was just waiting in the hall for you to get done ordering lunch when Rayla dragged me in here to ask if we had brought back Merlin’s magic staff.”

The dark haired woman turned an odd look to the Elf.

“I did.” Rayla confirmed with a nod, not seeing any reason to lie about that given the circumstances. “Though I also kind of wanted to meet Daniel because everyone says he’s a real life Indiana Jones, and I really liked that movie.”

The dark haired woman blinked at her words before blushing slightly. “Ah, well, thanks I…” She stopped mid sentence, frowning and looking over at Daniel with a narrow eyed glare. “Vala, did you tell her you were me?”

Looking between the two as a distinct feeling of confusion settled over her, Rayla tried to work out just what it was that she was apparently missing.

“I didn’t deny it?” Daniel answered in a cautious tone.

The dark haired woman let out a deep sigh before turning to Rayla with a blatantly apologetic look on her face. “I’m really sorry about this. I”m actually Daniel Jackson.”

“And she.” The woman continued, pointing at the man who gave a jaunty wave. “Is Vala Mal Doran.”

Rayla was silent for a moment as she worked to figure out just what the dark haired woman claiming to be Daniel Jackson was talking about before settling on what seemed to be the most likely answer. 

“Is this one of those weird human academic things like not being able to publish papers under your own name?”

The dark haired woman gave her an odd look before slowly shaking her head. “No… We just swapped bodies.”

“Oh!” Rayla exclaimed in relief, glad she wouldn’t have to figure out who did and didn’t have different names from what their files claimed. “That makes a lot more sense.”

“It does?” Daniel, who was apparently Vala in Daniel’s body asked, eyeing her in clear confusion.

“Of course.” Rayla confirmed happily.

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Author’s Notes: I wonder how many people remembered that Daniel and Vala were also staying on the guest floor during this period of time. But I'm sure nothing problematic will arise from this.