A/N: A huge shout out to Snowecat for her invaluable help! If you haven't read 'The Recruit' or 'The Reminder' I would suggest you do that. As always I do not own Stargate or MacGyver (sad day, lol). I do hope that you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Dr. Daniel Jackson yawned as he navigated around a few airmen down the strait hallway back to his office. He had just gotten out of a very long and very boring meeting with SG-7 who wanted to show him what they had found, in detail. Right then all he wanted coffee, sleep, and some time with that artifact that SG-12 had brought back a couple of days ago. He hadn't gotten a chance to really get a good look at it, but he had some thoughts on what it might be. He decided to skip the mess hall's coffee and just go straight for the Nespresso machine that Jack had gotten him for Christmas a couple of years ago. With his mind occupied by thoughts of coffee and the new device he almost slammed into Vala Mal Doran.

"Well if I knew that was all it took for you to plaster yourself to me, I would have stood here long ago." She greeted him teasingly.

Daniel sighed, used to dealing with Vala. "Move. Coffee."

With a sigh she acquiesced, letting him pass by to his precious coffee machine. "I do believe you love that thing more than you do me." She pouted.

Daniel decided it was best to keep his mouth shut. He held up one of the pods, "Want one?"

Even though he wasn't looking at her he just knew the expression he had on her face. The 'Daniel why aren't you paying me enough attention' look. He steadfastly didn't capitulate; instead he stared at the coffee dripping into his 'hopefully' clean cup. When his was done he swiftly switched it out for her favorite mug that proclaimed 'World's greatest Boss'. When she added it to his mug collection she informed him that he should know what kind of boss she was, and he had thought about throwing it away many times. With a sigh he turned around expecting to encounter her wrath, but she was inspecting one of the artifacts he had on his shelf. Content not to rock the boat he waited until her coffee was finished before getting Vala's attention.

"It's ready." He swiftly doctored it the way she liked it and handed it over.

"Thank you, darling." She purred.

He narrowed his eyes, "What is it and how much does it cost?"

"Daniel! Really?" A girl can't simply visit her boyfriend?"

It had taken them a while to get to this point, when they had announced that they were dating Daniel was pretty sure he heard Teal'c mutter, 'finally', but that was neither here nor there.

"Vala, you don't simply drop by for a visit. You usually come because either you want something or you are bored. Which is it?"

Vala pouted like a small child, even going as far to stick her lower lip out. When that didn't work she sighed, "Fine! I'm bored. Samantha doesn't have anything for me to do, Teal'c is off world, Mitchell is on leave with his sick dad, so that –leaves-you." She enunciated the last three words clearly.

Daniel barely suppressed another sigh, it wasn't that he didn't love her, but her presence tended to grate on his nerves after too much time together. And since they were living together, he tried to get some distance while they were at work. "Well since you are here I might as well put you to work." He walked over to where he had stored the artifact SG-12 brought back intending to get Vala's input on it.

"What do you think of …" He trailed off not finding the artifact.

Vala looked at him quizzically, "What do I think of what?"

"I put an artifact that SG-12 brought back from P3X-581 right here, but it's not here now." Daniel started looking around the area for it.

"You know how you can get. Maybe you set it someplace else?"

Daniel noticed that there were a couple of books stacked next to where he thought he had left the artifact. "No, I'm pretty sure that left it right here because I left these books beside it. I was going to use them to help me figure it what it was."

"You don't even know what it was?" Vala sounded surprised.

"I don't know every single artifact brought in. But I'm pretty sure it was Goa'uld in design. Maybe a gift or something of value." He murmured as he searched. "It may have been a….

He stopped his searching to look at Vala. She was sitting on his table twirling her hair. "What did you do with it?"

She stopped twirling. "Are you really accusing me of moving your stupid artifact?"

Daniel narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes…No. I don't know. You've done it before."

"I thought we had gotten further than this." She looked genuinely disappointed. And Daniel felt bad for accusing her.

"I'm sorry Vala. It's been a long day and I just wanted to unwind by studying this new artifact for a while." He opened his arms gesturing for her to come to him. She slid off the table and slowly embraced him.

"This does not mean you are forgiven." She muttered into his shoulder. "Remember I like shiny things. And expensive things." Daniel rolled his eyes, everybody knew what Vala liked.

He took a step back separating the two of them. "Let me find this artifact then we will worry about how I can say I'm sorry, ok?"

"All right." She acquiesced with a pout. "But you won't forget, right? I have found the perfect ring, for when you ask me to marry you." She had been dropping hints about getting married ever since she had moved in.

"How about if you look on the right side of the room and I look on the left?"

"I would love to, but I don't know what this artifact looks like."

That stymied Daniel for a second. "It's…" He gestured a height and width with his hands. "Might be made out of … ummm." He stopped snapping his fingers trying to get his tired brain to pull up the information.

"Do you have a picture?" Vala prompted, knowing good and well how Daniel catalogued off-world items.

"Yes! Perfect!" Daniel grabbed his tablet quickly accessing his artifact database and found the one he was looking for. Then the two of them scoured the room, but didn't turn up anything.

"I am beginning to think that it grew legs and walked off." Vala smiled at Daniel. "That is the correct saying, right?" Daniel nodded absent mindedly. "And since it walked off we'll need to get leashes for all of your artifacts so they won't do the same."

"Yeah, sounds good."

Vala sighed. "Daniel you're not even listening to me."

Daniel sighed pushing up his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "Sorry, you're right. I'm going to Sam's office to get her to pull up the security cameras; maybe they will have caught my artifact walking away."

Vala brightened, "So you were paying attention! I'm just going to stay here." The last part was said to Daniel's departing back.

Daniel quickly made his way to Sam's office. Well he first tried to go to her old office, but then remembered that she was now the base commander and turned around. When he finally did arrive, he knocked at her open door frame before going in.

Gen. Samantha Carter greeted him with a warm smile. "Hey! How's it going?" Then reading his expression her smile dropped off her face. "What happened?"

"I think an artifact disappeared from my office." Daniel explained as he settled into one of the chairs sitting in front of her large desk.

"You think?" She questioned.

"Yes." He pushed up his glasses rubbing his eyes and forehead then in a rush answered. "I went to study it today after a long meeting, but it wasn't where I left it. I accused Vala of stealing it," He read the judgment on Sam's face. "I know. Anyway we searched the office, and it simply isn't there. I was hoping that you could bring up the security cameras and I could see who was in there that could have taken it."

Sam nodded, turning to her desktop she quickly pulled up the security system selected the cameras covering Daniel's lab and let them play. Daniel walked around the desk so he could have a better look at the screen.

"About what time did you leave your office?" Carter asked so that they could have a starting point.

Daniel thought for a second, it was before lunch, "Try about 1000 hours."

Sam dragged the curser to the correct time then let it play in real time for a few seconds. "I'm going to speed this up or it'll take us all day." She said as she made it go faster. They caught several people going back and forth, until they finally caught someone going in. Sam froze the frame and zoomed in.

"That's Alexi Zatkoff. He's on the Russian team. Every once in a while I'll have him come in and help me with a translation or with one of the artifacts. He has an undergrad in archeology, and has the ancient gene." Daniel explained as he leaned in for a closer look.

"So do you ask him to come by lately?" Sam asked studying the image.

"No, let it play, I want to see how long he stays."

Sam let it play, and Zatkoff was in Daniel's office for about five minutes, and when he emerged they could tell he was holding something in his right hand. But he was trying to shield it using his body. Like a child might try to sneak something by their parents.

"Ok, it that me or was that suspicious?" Daniel asked backing away from the computer.

Sam pushed back her chair so she could see Daniel. "Highly suspicious. Let's look through the rest of the footage, until you arrive back at your office. But Zatkoff is on my short list."

Sam scooted back up to the computer and they continued looting though the footage. A couple more people including Vala, entered his office, but all left seconds later and none were holding anything.

With a sigh Sam pushed her chair back again. "I'm going to get in touch with Col. Chekov to see what he has to say. Do you want to stay for that or...?" Sam trailed off. It was well know within SG-1 how Daniel felt about Russian politics.

Daniel looked at his watch quickly standing up. "You know, I think I'm going to go get some food down in the mess hall. I hear it's sloppy joe day! Maybe I'll grab Vala and call it a date." While he was talking he started walking backward out of Sam's office. With a wave he was gone.

Carter's smile vanished as she picked up the phone to call Col. Chekov. She found the man placating and annoying, so she avoided communication with him as much as possible. With a sigh she punched in his office number, after two rings he picked up.

"Col. Chekov's office, what you want?"

The brusque tone had Carter's hackles raised. "This is Gen. Carter. I need to see you in my office." She made her tone as crisp as possible.

"Why I have to do that? Why don't we talk on the phone, like we doing now?" he wheedled.

Carter stifled the urge to tell him that his fat self needed the exercise, instead she answered him by saying, "Because we have a very important matter to discuss that can't be handled over the phone."

With a sigh he said, "I'll be right there, General." With that he hung up.

A smirk appeared on Carter's face, she now held the upper hand which was always important when dealing with the Russians, well at least their Russians. She didn't have to wait long until the Russian commander made his appearance. With a heavy sigh he heaved himself into the chair that Daniel had just vacated. For a brief seconds she wondered if it would give under his ponderous weight, but the chair held.

"To what do I owe this wonderful trip to your office?" Chekov asked with an air of bafflement. "We could have conducted our business over the phones much easier."

"What do you know about Alexi Zatkoff?" She figured she wouldn't waste any time on pleasantries.

Chekov frowned. With a sigh he pulled out his glasses and brought up the tablet he had brought with him. While muttering Zatkoff under his breath he scrolled through the tablet. "Ah! Here we go. Alexi Stanaslov Zatkoff, Sergeant, went to college, wife, two daughters, brown eyes, brown hair." He threw up his hands, "what more do you want to know?"

Carter leaned forward, arms on her desk, "his current whereabouts."

Chekov frowned again. "How should I know?

Carter gave him her best 'I'm in charge do as I say look'.

It seemed to work because Chekov started grousing while he sent out a message on his tablet. "Why all this interest in a lowly Sergeant?" He narrowed his eyes, "You have no jurisdiction over him, he may work with your team, but according to our treaty he is under my command."

"I'm well aware of the treaty. I simply want to know his whereabouts on MY base." Carter wanted to remind him of who was exactly in charge. His tablet dinged so Carter waited as he read the message.

"He is on vacation." He rose from his seat. "Now is there anything else you needed to know?"

It was obvious that the question wasn't real, so Carter just shook her head letting him leave. Now her suspicious were really raised. She got back on her computer pulling up the SG rotation list. If she remembered correctly the Russian team had been working with SG-12, and she was pretty sure they were due to go off world tomorrow. So that would be an odd time to take a vacation. She drummed her fingers trying to think of how to pursue this. She couldn't actively investigate one of the Russians as per their agreement.

She was mulling over what to do when her personal line rang. Grabbing it without looking at who was calling she answered, "This is Carter."

"Hey Carter. What kind of bread is it that you like? I can never remember."

It was the voice of her former C.O. and current husband, retired Gen. Jack O'Neill. This brought the smile back to her face, he could never remember which was her preferred bread. "The kind in the green bag that has all the seeds." She heard him rummaging around, and figured that he must be at the grocery story.

"Got it!" He said triumphantly. "So how's everything going under the mountain?"

She sighed, leaning back in her chair and proceeded to tell O'Neill everything that had been going on. Silence reigned for a few moments.

"Why don't you get that bird organization to snoop around for ya. They're spies, they live for that shit."

She couldn't believe that she forgot the favor the Phoenix Foundation, well James MacGyver owed her. If they could track down Alexi Zatkoff/the artifact then she would have her answers and not be violating their agreement. "That's brilliant! I could kiss you!"

A throaty laugh was her answer. "I'll be waiting for that kiss when you get off work." Then he hung up.

She pressed the slash button and quickly dialed the number she had for James MacGyver.