Fiction Title: The Laws of Attraction
Pairing: Daniel/Vala
Rating: HIGH PG-13 (for hinted sexual content, language, and torture)
Disclaimer: I own nothing! I just stole the toys out of the toy box because I loved playing with them so much!
Summary: When the events of tracking down an Ancient weapon against the Ori lead to him hungover, with her in his bed and a ring on his finger, Daniel Jackson learns the meaning of marriage and comfort from Vala Mal Duran. (Post TPTB)

Chapter Title: Chapter One: All That Glitters Ain' Gold
Author's Note: This blossomed from me thinking of those old movies where the guy wakes up in a hotel/motel room, hung over, and suddenly married to some girl or another. I thought, since I love the Daniel/Vala ship, and practically think they're married already, that this would the most opportune time to use that plot, and give it a Stargate twist. Won't lie, this fic is an acid trip. You will sigh shippy sighs, scream shrieking screams, and you will want to either hug me for my brilliance, or throw multiple tomatoes at my head. That's ok with me; I'm sort of used to it by now ;) lol! Anyway, here we go! Enjoy!

There were a lot more delicate ways to say how much he hated Vala Mal Duran, and more ways than one he could use them, but Daniel Jackson had grown to be a very blunt man.

A very, very blunt man with not a whole hell of a lot of patience.

"Don't. Touch," he growled, slapping her head away, for what seemed like the umpteenth time, from the various baubles and trinkets, glittering gold, scattered about on top of the tabletops in his office. "They're not for you, will never be for you, and if you don't quit it, I'm going to ask Landry to put you in ISO-1."

Her pink, translucent lips drew up into a puckered pout, while her gray-blue eyes softened with whimpering protest. "Oh, come on, Daniel, they're so tempting, and my fingers twitch," she begged in her usual, lilting accent that sounded not-quite Australian. "You can't expect me to sit here and behave myself when you tempt me with all that's glittery and golden. It's going to drive me crazy, and you know how I get when I get crazy for something."

He could feel more than see her lithe, slender body growing closer and closer to his own, bending over his shoulder and tantalizing him with a clear shot of her cleavage in that tight, black leather corset she wore the first moment she walked through the Stargate two months ago. Having been bored with the usual, military garbs the SGC had provided, she'd slipped back into this number recently, whether it was because she missed the feel of silken leather or to please him, he didn't know. At least her dress wasn't as short as that leather skirt she begged him to buy her with his credit card...

Just thinking about her, how beautiful she was in whatever she chose to wear, was enough to make him deliberately bury himself in his work. And he would've succeeded at it too if it weren't for the damned bracelets, and their pseudo-hold over them didn't make them spend every waking moment together in some degree or another.

Daniel sighed, then realized he'd kept her waiting for a reply. He barely turned in her direction, and cringed embarrassingly when his peripheral vision caught sight of her left breast peeking out of her outfit. "I'm going to go crazy if you don't back off."

Vala, however, wouldn't let him go though, noticing his gazed and smiled in that sly, seductive way she had. Oh, she wouldn't let him go, not after that, and as if to further discomfort him, she contorted her body in such a way as to give him a better show of what she had to offer.

Damn her for being the elusive minx he often, unwillingly fancied about, and berated himself for doing it! Who the hell was she anyway, sauntering in and out, without so much as an invitation, and interfering with the life he had so painstakingly created within the SGC? For the past seven years, excluding the year or so he'd spent dying, ascending and descending again, he'd lived his life within these walls, enjoying his moments of studying ancient cultures, mysteries, and other paraphernalia of the sort. He'd had a system to his life, a scheduled order that kept him on task and on time in order to reach his goals; that first had been to find Sha're, then afterward, her child, then finally getting his feet back on the ground and helping to save the world. He wasn't a big hero, no fanfare would play when he succeeded or achieved his accomplishments, but his ordered life kept him happy, and spoke volumes for what he did for the betterment of humanity.

Then, she went ahead and screwed it up from the moment she whipped off her Kull warrior helmet, shook her long, beautiful black hair, and grinned at him. Since then, every moment within her proximity was one fiasco after another, from the little trip around space in the Prometheus, to the sideshow awaiting them in the Ori home galaxy, to her little slice of heaven, where she was crowned a goddess to all that beheld her...

Did he really think that? Daniel shook his head vehemently and rubbed his already red and watery eyes with a free hand, tapping his pencil against the white legal pad on the table with the other. He needed to stop thinking things like that... "Could you please behave yourself, and not be a distraction? I'm trying to do my job."

"Do I distract you?" she purred in his ear, sending involuntary shivers tap-dancing up and down his spine. "You know, I can do much more than just displaying every wonderful thing above my stomach. I can assure you that I'm well-endowed in other aspects of my body, if you're willing to look at those too."

A sharp breath surged icily down his windpipe so fast he coughed and sputtered, trying to control his growing libidinous urges. "N-n-no, that's the last thing I need right now, Vala." He picked up a silver, metallic locket encrusted with what looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, and began an attempt to pop it open, trying to pay attention to the scrolling Ancient script imprinted on the lid. Unable to read it, he pulled his lamp closer. "Now, if you'll be so kind as to leave..."

Vala slung her arm around his shoulders, a few strands of her long, ebony hair tumbling down her shoulders and his shirt. "And what if I don't want to go? We've already spent a lot of time together, and you haven't shooed me away yet, so I'm assuming that you're more than comfortable with my presence."

"No, I'm not, and I could get rid of you any time I want to."

"Then why don't you?"

"I thought I just did!"

"But, what if I don't want to go?" she responded with a hint of flirtatious playfulness.

"I can still find a way to get rid of you by force. By a woman. Then I know you won't have him on a chain like your personal lap dog."

She changed the subject spontaneously, something he didn't know whether to be comforted or extremely annoyed by. Then again, that was Vala for you, with her undiagnosed ADD. "Why are you doing all this, this cataloging thing now? It's been at least a month since our date in Avalon."

"That wasn't a date! You very nearly got us killed!"

"It was too! An exotic place, lots of beautiful scenery, and we both were happy when we came back out, so I'd call that a date."

He half-smiled under protest from his brain, feeling the giddy, familiar bubble of adventurous excitement all archaeologists were prone to have spring up in his stomach again, especially when they found what could possibly be the find of the millennia. "It wasn't a date, even though the locale was nice."

"See? Anyway, why are you going through all these things? I mean, they're just gold, trinkets, jewels and such, nothing like the usual, dusty old manuscripts written in half-dead languages that you so love to decode. Why bother with a few coins and necklaces?"

"You know, contrary to popular belief, artifacts written in Ancient or Goa'uld aren't the only things worth looking at. Occasionally, I do get a few of these things running around, and since they do fit into the category of 'Things of Great Historical Value', I do have the authority to look them over and make sure they're not dangerous." He glared at her out of the corner of her eye. "To make sure they won't blow up in my face or involuntarily bind me to a certain smuggling sneak thief."

Vala shrugged at his jab, and he saw her nod a few times in agreement. "Then again, you have your job and I have mine. You're one of those 'ologist' things, so I assume this is your version of a Goa'uld power trip. What are you again? Amphibologist, or something?"

Daniel snorted. "Oh yeah, that's what I am alright. Only I flunked biology in high school, and had to take it over the summer."

"Maybe you weren't studying the right specimen."

Damn, she did it again, turned everything he said so innocently into something sexual that he didn't even mean! And he had fallen for it, again, for the millionth time, something he swore up and down he wouldn't let happen. For all his brains, he was beginning to think he was an idiot... at least from Vala's perspective.

He turned to protest but immediately wretched his neck back with a sharp breath, a ruby red blush spreading to practically his ears. Blushing? Around Vala for crying out loud? What the hell was wrong with him? "God, Vala! Would you j-just get out of my face?"

Smiling innocently, she gave a wink for his troubles, and stuck out her chest slightly as if she didn't hear him, something he hated himself for noticing. "See something you like?" she cooed, playing with a few stray hairs on the back of his head. "You could see more than that if you wanted to. I could show you."

"Why'd you put that on again?" he flustered irritably, slapping at her hand and running his own through his short brown hair. "I thought the military garbs suited you."

"Maybe I like wearing this outfit because I knew you couldn't resist it. I mean, I went ahead and picked it out especially for you when I stole--I mean, bought it."

"Did a damned good job..." he muttered under his breath impulsively, and painfully squeezed his eyes shut for thinking it, let alone saying it.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing at all."

A long, pale finger poked him in the stomach, and he cringed. "No, really, what did you say? I want to know."

Locking his blue eyes onto hers, he couldn't help messing with her. Hell, she'd done it more than enough times to him, so why not? It was her turn. "Then keep wondering Vala, because I'm not going to."

Her leg began to rub against his, something he definitely wasn't used to, and he tried to best ignore her. "Oh come on, Daniel, I do so love to hear you drone on and on over the most ridiculous of--"

Suddenly, the locket drew al his attention and he paused, contemplating the meaning of the script upon it. "Vala, shut up."

"What?"

"Just shut up for a second..."

When she protested, the archeologist cut her off with a quick hiss from his tongue and teeth, continuing to squint at the trinket in his hand. Using the pencil as a crude pick, he gave the outside edge one, two, three jimmies before it finally sprung open with a barely audible creak, the hinges slightly rusted over. Inside the locket was a small device, a little smaller than the container itself, with tiny, dancing lights glittering and twinkling underneath the locket lid's umbra. Within moments, the whole thing vibrated, grew warm, and hummed in his hand. A tinny, metallic sound rose and fell slightly before a seven-inch image projected itself upward, and began to speak.

It was a woman, that much was clear, but a half naked one. Long, curly black hair tumbled from her shoulders like a waterfall, stopping at the side holes cut into the sides of her emerald green dress; the holes themselves allowed for a flap to cover her backside, and one for the front, with her legs, long and slender, to be seen otherwise. A diamond cut framed with a design in gold thread revealed her midriff, tattooed with what seemed like Celtic symbols around her navel. Her arms were covered in symbols of the same genre, gauntlets encasing her wrists to the elbows and adorned with the same sapphires as on the locket itself. The upper part of the dress seemed almost non-existent, just a band of fabric to cover all but where the diamond cut out gouged into it, and attached at the back with four long strips of silk. Everywhere he gazed, Daniel saw some type of see-through, gold and pink silk, wrapping around her neck, shoulders, and even a veil spewing from the back of the golden crown of leaves in her hair.

She was absolutely gorgeous, with deep set green eyes, additionally embellished with a similar shade of eye shadow. Gold paint accented her cheek bones, framed her eyes and tattooed her temples with pagan symbols, perfectly complimenting her tanned skin and ruby red lips.

At first, her voice was drowned from recognition, for time had slurred and distorted the words. But, little by little, the device readjusted itself, and the recording began again, the Welsh language clearly heard. "Dydd da. Fy enwi Morgan le Fey."

Entranced, he completely forgot his companion, who promptly slapped his shoulder. "What's it saying? Is it saying about anything valuable? I don't understand it!"

"Vala, shut up, I can't think..."

"What did she say?"

"'Good day, my name is Morgan Le Fey'. That's what it said." His eyes bugged a bit when he realized what he said. "Morgan Le Fey?"

The recording continued. "--canlyniad gan y anysbryd adwed, fi cael aswy y allwedd at y porth yn hwn crair." Suddenly, the image changed, and a group of symbols appeared in front of them that looked suspiciously like...

"Stargate coordinates," murmured the thief, edging closer to get a good look at them. "Somewhere far. That first symbol is only used for the farthest reaches of this galaxy."

Daniel nodded, continuing the translation. "'In the event the evil spirits return, I have left the key to the door in this relic'..."

"Fi gobaith y gwlad hwnt Avalon bodd cymorth chi yn dy siwrnai at gorchfygiad y cas o ni cwbl."

"'I hope the land beyond Avalon will aid you on your journey to defeat the enemy of us all'."

"Hawddamor, enwi cyfaill. Fi gobaith chi cael gwell damwain na fi."

"'Good luck, my friend. I hope you have better luck than I'."

Vala stared, her eyebrow raising. "What was that?"

Daniel shook his head, as spooked as she was. "I have no idea, but I'm sure I can find out..."

"Landry?"

He nodded. "Give me an hour or two, and then we'll see him. If this means what I think it means, we've just been assigned our newest mission."

She grinned and winked at him. "And you say you're not a treasure hunter."