duck

When Daniel walks into the briefing room and sees Vala sitting on the edge of the table, legs crossed and holding General Landry's tie, his first impulse is to jump out of a window.

Instead, he clears his throat. Vala looks at him and offers the biggest, brightest smile. Daniel actually considers turning and running, but she'd love that.

Landry extracts his tie from Vala's hand and gets up, looking a little weary.

"Doctor," Landry says as he leaves, insinuating a whole command into it, with the words 'get her out of here' sounding the loudest.

Daniel doesn't move far from the doorway, just in case he does need to run. Vala slips off the table, straightens up and puts her hands on her hips, her brows rising up in a strange expression of defiance.

"What?" Daniel says with a sigh.

Vala smiles. "Now, that's no way to greet your wife."

"You are not my wife," Daniel says slowly, like he's talking to an insane person. Which he probably is.

Vala looks shocked. "I've given you the best years of my life and this is what I get? You don't even care about the children, do you?"

Daniel wants to cry, seriously, he does. She makes him want to cry big girly tears and stamp his foot like a child because she drives him that insane. It's a good thing that Jack's not around because for that reason alone, he'd probably offer her a job.

Not that the dress sense wouldn't have an influence. This time it's a leather top without the benefit of any straps to hold it up, yet there it is, staying up, with leather pants and knee-length boots, her hair around her shoulders.

Daniel takes a deep breath and bites his bottom lip. "Okay then," he says before turning to leave.

Vala runs after him and then cuts him off, standing in front with a little smile. "I have something."

"I'm really hoping it's something that can be cured," Daniel says slowly.

Vala rolls her eyes and then blinks at him. How she can make a mere blink so obnoxious is almost fascinating. She holds out a small black box, covered in gold inscriptions, in front of Daniel's nose.

Daniel stares at the tiny Ancient-like inscriptions and thinks of Atlantis, the place where he should be, his heart sinking a little. Still, the little black box looks intriguing and mysterious. Daniel reaches for it and Vala snatches it away. A whole slew of ideas flash through Daniel's mind about Vala and he instantly shoves them to the back of his head because he does not need to go there. No matter how many interesting ways she has of wearing leather. No matter how long it's been since he...well, he doesn't need to go there either.

"This a new scam? A new get rich quick scheme? A new refreshing way to try and get me killed?" Daniel asks, tilting his head at her as he puts his hands in his pockets, itching to get a hold of that interesting little box.

Vala looks mock disappointed. "It hurts me, Daniel, that you think of me as nothing more than some kind of beautiful, con woman."

"I never said beautiful."

"You didn't say con woman either," Vala says, sticking the tip of her tongue out and biting it with a smile.

Daniel sighs. God, he really hates her.

"It's definitely an offshoot of Ancient," Daniel says, frowning at the tiny inscriptions through a magnifying glass, bent over the edge of his worktop. "Where'd you find this?"

Vala is walking around his office, picking up things, touching them, making bored noises. He looks up to see her slump into his chair, swivel around and then turn to face him, looking lazy and boneless.

"I made a trade."

Daniel nods. "You stole it, didn't you?"

Vala smiles, scrunching up shoulders, her hand going to cover her mouth as though she's committed a naughty faux pas. Daniel rolls his eyes and shakes his head as he goes back to the small box.

"Know anything about it?" he asks, scanning the small gold lines.

Vala gets up from the chair and leans on the adjacent side of the worktop, propping up her chin on her hand as she looks at the box. Daniel glances her way and for a split second, when she's not grinning, smiling or being generally insufferable, she seems quite normal, her inquisitive eyes locked on the object in his hand.

Daniel looks back down, his thumb sliding over the lettering.

"Some kind of key, I gather," Vala says thoughtfully.

Daniel straightens up, his full attention on Vala. Her gaze slowly comes up to meet his, a satisfied smile on her face.

It occurs to him that she is an incredibly beautiful woman. Her hair is an amazing black, with that one streak of daring and outrageous blonde. Her skin is pale and smooth. Her eyes wide and blue. And she has the most incredibly playful and mischievous mouth he's ever seen.

Yet, all he can think of is the word 'key'.

He really needs to get a life.

"I thought you'd be turned on by that," Vala says knowingly, picking up the box and tossing it upwards.

Daniel catches it before she can and then holds it in front of her face and enunciates carefully, "Key to what?"

Vala frowns at it. "I have no idea."

Daniel clamps his mouth before he can utter an obscenity that will give Vala ammunition for more innuendo.

She shrugs and says insistently, "Well, I don't. The man that I...traded with, said he found it in some old ruin. He couldn't decipher the markings, but he recognized it as some kind of key. Since it has all those Ancient scribbles on it, I thought, maybe you could find out what exactly it's a key for."

Daniel purses his lips and looks at the cube before wrapping his hand around it. "I suppose you didn't steal anything that can help me translate it, did you?"

Hours later, Daniel has pages of scribbles. The cube promises to bring forth something to the bearer. Vala's eyes light up like lamps when he tells her. She seems to go into some kind of euphoric daze, already imagining all the riches she might find. He watches her standing there in his office, gazing ahead with an entranced look and expectant smile, her hands as if she's holding something.

Daniel actually smiles, biting the end of his pen so he can't laugh at her. "Um, what makes you think I'm going to help you find whatever this is a key to?"

Vala snaps out of her daydream instantly, turning and staring at him, looking a little wounded. "That's not even funny."

"I'm serious. The last time we found buried treasure you ended up...well, you were there," Daniel says with a nod, not quite able to talk about it. He can still smell Vala's charred remains, his stomach churning a little. "You have a knack for finding trouble. That's all I'm saying."

Vala looks offended. "That's not true! Trouble finds me. Besides, are you telling me you don't want to see what that's a key to?" Vala points at the little box with a nod.

Daniel stares at it. Of course he wants to find what it leads to. Just not with the trouble magnet that brought him the box.

Vala taps a finger on it. "For all you know, that could hold something more important than that Atlantis place you keep complaining about."

"And what's in it for you?"

Vala shrugs. "Well, there's always the chance of finding something shiny and expensive too."

Daniel's still not too sure about this. Well, he is. Vala being around just seems to cloud his judgment a little. She's too willing to encourage anything insane and life-threatening.

Vala sighs. "Where's that Mitchell? He'll be interested. He likes adventure."

Daniel looks at her with an amused smile, rolling his eyes. "He's not here. He probably knew you were coming."

"What about Teal'c? Muscles that size are always handy," Vala says, squeezing Daniel's bicep and then curling her lip in mischievous dissatisfaction.

By now, all this is just water off a duck's back. It doesn't even register. No. He hardens his bicep simply because he feels like it.

"Teal'c is on Dakara helping to forge the foundations of a new Jaffa nation," Daniel says absently, reading over his scribbles. "I doubt he'll want to follow you around, trying to avoid getting killed instead."

"Sounds incredibly boring."

"Of course it does. I didn't use the words 'buried' and 'treasure'."

"Doesn't have to be buried. I'm very flexible."

Daniel knows he shouldn't look up when she says that, but he's becoming foolish and he looks and she gives him one of her filthy smiles. He stares at her blankly and he knows she expects that non-reaction. It's their thing. How it became their thing is something that confuses him. They shouldn't have a thing.

Daniel is aware that the road to implosions of a galactic scale are paved with a multitude of things.

Things? Are baaaaad.

Daniel clears his throat. "You hungry?"

And just when Daniel thinks that Vala has run out of faces to make, she proves that there is yet another way of leering at someone.

Vala eats like she intends to hibernate for the winter. Having finished off an assortment of foods and beverages, she sits opposite Daniel, at a table in the quietest corner of the commissary. Daniel divides his attention between the black cube that sits on his notepad and Vala's focused demolition of a deep, crimson, apple.

Vala, meaning 'chosen'. Women seers of the Norse myths. Daniel recalls that in the Mahabharata, Vala meant 'patience'.

No, not really the woman Daniel is looking at. Wasn't there an asteroid out there called Vala?

Asteroids; pieces of space debris, hurtling through space, unpredictable and dangerous, yet, interesting to observe.

Yep. That pretty much sums up the woman in front of him, now licking the front of her teeth and demurely wiping the tips of her fingers on a paper napkin.

Vala the asteroid. Daniel holds back a smile.

Vala reaches into his tray and picks up a small bar of chocolate. "What's this?"

Daniel looks up, frowns and then carefully extracts the bar from Vala's hand with two fingers. "Chocolate. And it's mine."

"Why are you so mean?" Vala asks, giving no indication of being hurt or offended. "It it woman trouble?"

Daniel arches an eyebrow. "Right now? Yeah, pretty much."

Vala smiles, clearly amused. "Maybe it's man trouble. You can tell me, you know. In as much detail as you like."

Daniel offers her one of his non-reaction looks. It only makes her smile wider. She tugs on the bar of chocolate held delicately between his fingers and he just lets go, his hand opening, palm wide.

Daniel takes a gulp of fast cooling coffee as Vala unwraps the bar and takes a bite. Cube held in the same hand as his pen, he frowns at a section he's read a million times now. He's putting down the cube to make amendments to his notes when Vala groans.

Daniel slowly looks up at her across the table, eyes closed, chocolate not far from her mouth, which is closed with an utterly satisfied look about it.

A moment later, she opens her eyes and stares at Daniel. "This...is amazing."

Daniel frowns. "What?"

"This," Vala says, pointing at the bar, which has gone down in size by a third. "This chok-lutt."

"Chocolate," Daniel corrects.

"Yes, chok-lutt, that's what I said," Vala says impatiently. "Is this legal?"

Daniel raises his eyebrows. "I hope so."

Vala is completely fixated on the chocolate. Daniel knows he should be amused that Vala has something in common with Chaka now, but really, it's kind of frightening.

When Vala doesn't speak for a while, Daniel begins to worry. "Whatever it is you're thinking? No."

Vala looks up at Daniel, her eyes glittering with insane ideas. "What kind of value does this have on Earth?"

"Depends on the variety," Daniel says, wishing he hadn't said that. "Why?"

Vala just gives him a huge grin that makes the contents of his boxers shrink up into his body.

Daniel is scrolling through a linguistic database for cross referencing alien languages he's encountered since joining the SGC. It's something he compiled for himself during a short stint of espresso addiction and insomnia. He still insists that the two things were not related.

There's a real and larger database for such things, of course, but his has an Egyptian theme and has the subjects connected in a way only he and higher life forms understand, as pointed out by Sam when she tried to use it.

He misses Sam. He misses them all. It's like losing family. It is losing family. But they all wanted this amicable divorce. Jack wants to be in Washington. Sam wants to be in Area 51. Teal'c wants to be in Dakara. And Daniel really wants to be in Atlantis. A lot.

They all have their own paths to follow, but Daniel is still in the SGC, so he waits for the next opportunity to go to Atlantis and in the meantime, he misses them. Working with Cameron Mitchell seems to have that affect because Mitchell wants a SG-1 that will only exist in the past and as Daniel knows, you can only study the past. You can't actually ever re-live it. Crazily enough, sometimes you can change it, but not re-live it.

"Do you have any idea how valuable something like this can be out there?" Vala is saying as she sits at his worktop, putting her arms around a pile of bars of chocolate and sweeping them towards herself.

Daniel gives her a brief look before making notes from the database and mumbles words over the cube in his hand, trying to block out the asteroid stuck in his orbit.

"I could have servants," Vala says, arms embracing chocolate and her chin resting on the highest point of the mountain.

Daniel shakes his head and stares at her. "I'm pretty sure there are worlds out there that have discovered chocolate or something vaguely similar."

Vala sits up, still embracing her bounty. "You really need to get out more. I've been to hundreds of worlds and I've never tasted anything this good. Something this potentially addictive can only mean many shiny and expensive things for me. I mean this is better than anything I've tasted. Or drunk. It's better than, better than-" Vala stops, frowning and looking for something that really does bring home the amazing thing that chocolate is.

"Sex?" Daniel asks, and he regrets it the moment he says it and promises himself he'll never read the paper again unless it has something to do with a Goa'uld invasion.

Vala has let go of her chocolates and is smirking at Daniel. "Well, I wouldn't go that far. Of course, I'm not surprised you did."

Daniel narrows his eyes at her and goes back to the translation. "It's a well documented fact that consuming chocolate produces a similar feeling of happiness that people experience with sex," he says flatly, because Vala is water off his duck-like back.

"But you'd rather have sex, wouldn't you?" Vala asks.

He looks up at her smiling face, almost expecting to see a bear trap on the ground between them. The silence stretches.

"Well, it's not a trick question," Vala says, giving him an exaggerated flutter of eyelashes.

Daniel holds up the cube. "There's something missing from this."

Vala arches an eyebrow. "Nice subtle change of subject. Didn't notice it at all."

Daniel tosses the cube at Vala, almost wishing it might hit her on the head and knock her out.

She jumps from her stool and catches it with both hands and then holds it up for him to see. "This could be the key to untold riches."

"It's not," Daniel says flatly.

"It could make us richer beyond our what do you mean it's not?"

Daniel switches off the monitor and gets up, walking over to the worktop, where he sits down and opens one of the bars of chocolate.

"I mean, it's not," he says, about to take a bite, only to have Vala snatch the bar away so his teeth find nothing but each other.

He frowns at his empty hand and then at Vala who looks distressed.

He takes her wrist and brings it towards himself, pointing at a small circle on the cube that looks decorative, but is deep enough to have had something attached to it. He points his finger at the little circle.

"See that? I'm guessing that the key part of this cube was attached there."

Vala frowns down at the cube in her hand. "How can you be sure?"

"Because the inscriptions promise to bring forth much luck to the bearer of the key that this charm is attached to, wherever their destination might be. It's the same message said in a number of varying ways. Actually, they're like small poems all on the same subject."

Vala looks disgusted. She curls her lip at the cube. "So what exactly is this?"

Daniel pouts at the cube for a moment and then it hits him. "Huh. I think it's a key chain."

Vala frowns. "What?"

"A key chain. Something you attach to your keys for decorative purposes and usually to keep them all in one place," Daniel says with a nod. "Actually, it's quite nice."

Vala's disgust goes up a few notches and is this time directed at Daniel. She snatches her wrist and throws the cube across the room. Daniel gives her a look of non-reaction with the smallest hint of a smile.

Checkmate.

"Well that's just brilliant," Vala says. "He said it was a key. I can't believe he lied. Why would someone lie? It's just, just...so wrong."

"Yes," Daniel says slowly. "I guess you'll just have to steal from honest people in the future."

Vala sags a little, her arms by her sides as she sighs. Then she looks up at him and smiles. "At least I still have my chok-lutt."

Daniel looks at the pile on the worktop. "That's funny, I don't actually remember you paying for it."

"Well, I didn't ask you to pay," Vala says simply.

"You kicked the vending machine. I had to. People were beginning to notice." Daniel offers a tight little smile. "Although, I'm not surprised the dollar signs in your eyes didn't just make the vending machine empty out at your feet."

Vala mulls the statement over. "I don't know what dollar signs are, but I think I'd like them very much."

Daniel smiles without meaning to, shaking his head a little. "Well, I think you ought to forget about your plans for mass distribution of chocolate. I don't see General Landry wanting to go into business with you."

Vala looks smug already. "You don't know that for sure."

Daniel is watching the MALP video from the control room. US soldiers are passing through the gate and arriving on another planet, loading large cardboard boxes into some kind transit vehicle. Vala Mal Doran is standing near the ramp with General Landry, touching his shoulder briefly.

Daniel is sure that if he shakes his head anymore, it will probably fall off. He can see Landry beginning to leave the gate room, so he leaves the control room to meet him in the middle.

They run into each other in the corridor.

"General," Daniel says with a nod.

"Doctor," Landry says with a special kind of weary tone that seems Vala specific.

Landry is about to rush on and away to other business. No time to chat and find things funny yet. He's still getting used to the place.

"Sir," Daniel says before Landry can leave. "I was just wondering why-"

"Why I agreed to give that woman all the chocolate on this base?"

"Actually, yes."

"She was threatening to stay," Landry says plainly. "Don't get me wrong. I've got a sense of adventure like the next guy, but I'm not insane."

Landry smiles and pats Daniel on the arm before leaving. Daniel is still thinking that if he's the next guy, does that make him insane?

He walks on into the gate room where Vala is pulling on her jacket.

"That's the last of the boxes Ma'am," Walter's voice announces.

Vala looks up at the control room window and smiles, giving Walter a little wink and then turning to Daniel.

"Couldn't stay away I see," Vala says.

"Had to make sure you were leaving, actually," Daniel says, learning to smile in that teasing way that Vala does.

Vala leans in and whispers. "I can tell you're crying on the inside."

"I'm sure I'll learn how to cope," Daniel offers.

Vala eyes Daniel with an arched eyebrow as she puts one foot on the gate ramp. "Well, I'll be off. It's been a pleasure," she says, wrapping her mouth around the word.

Daniel waits for it.

"For you, obviously," Vala adds.

Daniel nods because it's water off a duck's back. A wooden duck. A metal duck. No. A plastic duck, thoroughly water resistant.

No. An ascended duck. There is no back for the water.

Daniel looks at Vala with her mouth pursed, lined with silliness and ready to smile.

"Well, don't I get a goodbye kiss?" Vala asks, rather haughtily.

"The word 'goodbye' implies we won't be seeing you again," Daniel explains.

Vala smiles. "I'll take that as an invitation then."

Daniel rolls his eyes and folds his arms across his chest as Vala steps onto the gate and starts towards the event horizon. She stops half way and he can see her hand go into her jacket.

Daniel watches her turn slightly, bringing out a small bar of chocolate and he's amazed that her outfit even has enough room for the material to make a pocket. She throws the bar towards him and he steps forward to catch it.

"Thank you for the lovely stay, Daniel," Vala says loudly. "Your sexual prowess has improved in leaps and bounds since our last encounter." Vala gives a wicked smile and walks on, disappearing into the event horizon.

Daniel clears his throat and nods, unsure of why he didn't expect the parting shot. Nevertheless, he smiles and heads back to his office, saving the parting gift for later.

- the end -