Rating: Mmm... This part's probably PG, but let's go PG-13 to be safe, for language and baseless, nonsensical allegations.
Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 does not belong to me. Nor does (laughs to self) "Say You Love Me", the Fleetwood Mac song. I just couldn't resist.
Notes: Season, eh, whatever this season is, I think it's eight maybe? 2004, fall? I'm working on a couple more fics in this vein, but I don't know if they'll be as funny, and they might get a little... indulgent, self-serving, I don't know. But hey. Just a fic. Can't do any lasting harm. I hope.
(-)
"Okay," said Brigadeer General Jack O'Neill. "There are, of course, a few questions I would like to ask."
The people arrayed on the other side of his desk fidgeted. "Of course, sir," said Dr. Morrissey.
"The first and most obvious one being- who in the HELL ordered pizza!"
Daniel raised a hand. "No, no, that actually wasn't their fault, it seems."
"How the hell could it not be their fault!"
"No one in the SGC ordered it," Daniel answered. "It was, you know, the people upstairs. Who still think we're doing deep-space... something or other."
"You can't remember our cover story?"
"Can you read this?" Daniel held out a photograph.
"Well, no."
"Then stop complaining. Apparently a guard up there ordered a pizza."
"Two pizzas," someone corrected.
"For a group of people," someone elaborated.
"If ANYONE starts telling me the toppings, I'll start to throw things. Okay? Now, since Daniel seems to have appointed himself spokesman, and I know he can tell a story, to the next question. What the hell was that thing?"
"You seriously don't read anything you sign, do you?" Daniel started to grin. "This presents so many possibilities..."
"Daniel."
"SG-7 brought it back from planet
"
"Don't tell me the planet, I do not care about the number and I'll never remember it."
Daniel sighed. "Otherwise known as Planet Jacko, or 'The one with the purple bananas'."
"Purple bananas?"
"Yes."
"Sweet."
"Apparently they're actually very bitter, but- that's besides the point."
"As is this whole conversation."
"The thing was an animal," Daniel said. "It looks... Well. Any suggestions, anyone?"
"Almost entirely unlike a cat," someone volunteered.
"Hey, I read that book," Jack said.
"Really? Maybe I can, well, leave, General, sir?"
"Wow. You're funny."
"That's a no?"
"Yep. Siddown. Any more helpful descriptions, anyone?"
"It's purple," someone else said. "Couple feet tall, looks a little like a dog except obviously not."
"There's a blue spot in the middle of its back," Daniel added, "it's covered in something that looks like fur but apparently isn't."
"What is it, then?"
"You'd really have to ask the biologists. They were using all that scientific, medical terminology. I'm guessing the hairs are hollow, and aren't made up of whatever hair is usually made out of, and, possibly something about venom. They were talking very quickly and I wasn't actually listening, so..."
"Okay, we're past the point where I stopped caring."
"I surmised as much, yes."
"Next obvious question," Jack said. "How the hell did it get out!"
"It wasn't venom, actually," Daniel said. "I thought it was venom when I was trying to hear all of the Greek, but it was actually acid."
"What was actually acid?"
Daniel shrugged. "I have no idea. Esentially, the creature used some sort of acid to burn through its cage. The biologists are working on it now. They seem to be very happy and fufilled about it. It's a little bit abnormal."
"...Raise your hand if you saw the irony there."
The fearful group raised their hands.
"Irony?" Daniel blinked.
"Ah, don't worry your little head about it."
Daniel stared at him for a moment. "This is sexual harassment," he said, indignant.
"...Excuse me!"
"You heard me." Daniel leaned against the wall, pouting. "It's in all the seminars. I could sue you or something now."
"...Okay, I don't know what that was, but it never happened."
"Yes, sir," a couple of people agreed.
"Next obvious question," Jack said. "Omitting the question about how Dr. Jackson should maybe check his allergy medicine for some sort of narcotic or hallucinogen contamination."
"Hey!"
"Been using your word-of-the-day calendar, sir?" someone quipped.
"Been hankering for a nice vacation cleaning toilets in Antartica?" Jack snapped, copying his inflection.
"Uh..." Daniel said, raising a hand again. "He is, sadly, sort of mine. Archaeology student."
"Yeah," Jack said, "where the hell do you find these people, anyway?"
"Generally," Daniel said, "drinking heavily in bars near anthropology conventions, or else looking too closely at the wrong things during digs."
"I'm not going to just sit here and be insulted," the archaeologist said.
"Yeah, actually, you are," Jack said.
"Two years you've had to learn Goa'uld," Daniel said, "and you've hardly gotten past 'kree'. I am very bitter about that."
"Why take everything out on me?" the archaeologist groused.
"Because you do a truly startling number of idiotic things," Daniel answered. "Which is not my fault."
"Anyway," Jack said, "the next obvious question. How the hell did the thing nearly get off the base!"
"It was shooting acid at us, sir," a Major (Harris, if Jack wasn't mistaken) explained.
"Acid," Jack said.
"Yes, the steam coming from the hole the acid was etching in the wall sort of distracted us, sir," Harris said, seemingly without sarcasm. "Johnson got burned on the leg. And also the thing was really fast, sir."
"So it got to an upper level," Jack said, "where a receptionist was paying a delivery boy for pizza."
"Yes."
"And the pizza boy saw it."
"For whatever reason, it liked him," Daniel said, with a faint smile.
"It was licking his hand when we caught up to it, sir," Harris said. "So yes, I'd say he saw it."
Jack paused. "Well, damn."
"Yes," Daniel said.
"Now what?"
"Sam's interrogating him," Daniel said. Then smiled. "Or attempting to. It's- really sort of sad, really, but it's also very funny."
"Why?" Jack asked, warily.
"Well... you sort of have to be there."
"Good. 'Cause I'm going there." Jack got up; the still-frightened accused jumped up as well, some saluting. "And you all? Go away."
There were a few heartfelt "Thank you, sir!"s as they rushed to obey.
"And file your reports!" Jack bellowed after them.
"This way," Daniel said, and walked out.
"I know where they are," Jack said, following him anyway.
"Well, I can never be sure what you know and what you don't know, because apparently you're in the habit of not reading anything that anyone puts on your desk, particularly not important memoranda and reports."
"Well..." Jack said. "Can't really deny that."
"No, you can't."
"Someone usually tells me if it's important, anyway."
"You just have to make it hard for everybody, don't you."
"Well, I'm sure you'll find a way to slip everything in somewhere."
"In my sexual harassment lawsuit."
"Uh, Daniel? In a hall? With people walking around? And not the time?"
"They say I'm clever," Daniel said airly. "I'll find something, I suppose, but you should still just read the things."
"Yeah, but then I'd have to, you know, read them."
"Given that everyone knows you don't read the reports, they might make interesting reading."
"What does that mean?"
"The tone might be a little less formal."
"Ah."
"They might say vicious things about your mother."
"What!"
"Or that could be just me."
"You did not."
Daniel smiled. "Only one way to find out, isn't there?"
Jack paused to appreciate Daniel's cunning. "Still not reading them."
"Yes, you can believe that if you want to." Daniel, still smiling, opened the door and made an extravagant gesture, motioning Jack in.
"-anything else, let me please just remind you one more time," Sam said, sounding slightly frayed. "This is a top-secret military installation. If you saw anything, we will have to draft you. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," said the pizza boy, a skinny, young-looking kid with a number of fading acne scars.
"Now," Sam said. "Did you see anything unusual when you were dropping off the pizza?"
"Shoot yeah! There was this purple dog thing, it was real weird, an' part of it was blue. An' its tongue was orange! Orange! I thought maybe some weird guy had dyed his dog's hair, but no. Damn. Way. I told you this already. Why d'you keep asking me that?"
"For an hour," Daniel said quietly, even though they couldn't be heard through the one-way mirror, "she's been trying to get him to say he didn't see anything so he can just go home. For an hour, he's been completely oblivious to it."
"...Wow, is that ever a good sign." Jack sighed, watching Sam struggle to gather the spirit to lift her head off of the table.
"Yeah," Daniel said, "we get our archaeologists this way as well. Our system is evidently deeply flawed."
"Okay," Sam said, finally lifting her head back up. "We have to draft you now."
The pizza boy stared at her, uncomprehending.
"You get to be in the Air Force," Sam said.
"Don't you have to, like, sign up for that or something?" the pizza boy questioned.
"No," Sam sighed, "because you saw something you can't be allowed to see. We may send you off to Basic Training, but we'll have to find a job for you somewhere in the SGC."
"The what?"
"Top-secret military installation. This place."
"Uh, okay."
"So you're in the Air Force now."
The pizza boy considered that. "How much does it pay an hour?"
"Uh..." Sam turned to the guard.
"Uh..." the guard said. "I dunno, been a while since I started out. Depends on what you do, too. Ten, fifteen bucks an hour maybe?"
"Oh hell yeah," the pizza boy said, breaking into a grin.
Jack bowed his head. "The Earth is just doomed, now."
"It took you this long to notice?" Daniel smiled.
"Maybe we'll have a vacancy in the kitchens?..."
Sam opened the door and walked in. "Been here long?"
"Long enough," Jack said. "Great. Just great. Why isn't there a midpoint, anyway? Why's it either the best and the brightest or...?"
"Hey," Sam remonstrated. "Go easy on the kid. You haven't read his file."
"What's it say in his file?"
"His mother was, well, for lack of a more accurate phrase, basically white trash. When his parents divorced, he split his time between his father's house, his mother's trailer, and his grandparents' house. Mostly the latter. Then he moved up here, looking for, a change of pace, a job opportunity, I presume. The company went bust and he's still here."
"So, what?" Jack said. "We send him off to boot camp, he tells his folks he enrolled in the Air Force, we stick him in the kitchens until the SGC comes out? He just... stays here now?"
Sam shrugged. "If it's any consolation, sir, he may be right. It may be just as good, it may even be better, than what he had."
"Can I use him in Archaeology?" Daniel asked hopefully.
Sam flipped to the pizza boy's school records and winced. "Uh, maybe to carry things. Maybe. If they're... not too fragile. I- hate to say that, but you didn't see what the pizzas looked like."
"Yeah?" Daniel said.
"They were all... folded." She put her hands out, face down, and scrunched them together to demonstrate.
"Damnnation," said Daniel. He paused. "You know, that actually might be an improvement."
Sam handed the folder, still opened to the school records, to Daniel.
"...Okay, well, never mind," Daniel said, and snapped the file shut.
"The kitchen staff can have him?" Jack asked, slightly amused.
"Well, I hate to be discriminatory, and after all, grades aren't an absolute indicator of potential, but- yeah."
"Somehow I figured."
"So," Sam sighed, "we're stuck with him. At least the worst is over."
Jack and Daniel moaned.
"Never!" Jack cried. "Colonel, you NEVER say that! Fate goes out of its way to prove you wrong! Cause's Fate's all touchy and twisty and likes seeing people suffer!"
"What else could happen?" Sam asked.
"Here." Jack fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Write down the date and time you said that."
Sam took the paper, unfolded it, and turned it over. "HEL-lo."
"On second thought-" Jack snatched the scrap of paper back.
Daniel looked from one to the other. "What?"
Sam shrugged. "Nothing."
Jack knew his luck wouldn't last that long, and sure enough, Sam burst into an evil grin.
"I swear," Jack said, "it really was nothing."
"..." Daniel did not look like he was buying it. "Well, it doesn't matter. I can subpoena it in my sexual harassment suit."
"Your WHAT!"
"He's on drugs," Jack explained.
"I am not."
"Antihistamines?"
"Nice cop-out there."
"Thank you."
"Where did this come from?" Sam asked, quickly becoming amused.
"Look, it was the debriefing," Jack explained, "it was a nonsensical little phrase he took completely out of context, that's all."
"What was the phrase?" Sam asked, dubious.
"Uh, 'Don't worry your pretty little head about it', I think."
"Ah-HA!" Daniel cried. "You didn't say 'pretty' the first time! Now I know this is harassment!"
Sam bent her head over the file, laughing, slightly red.
"Wha- Daniel! Seriously! What drug is it, that you're on? Can you OD on allergy meds, is that what it is? Maybe we should get your medicine cabinet tested?"
"And now you're trying to cover it up by sabotaging my credibility as a witness," Daniel said, nodding sagely. "It's exactly like it is in the seminars. I should report you."
"Daniel."
"No, no, no, I'm not going to let you intimidate me. I'm going to tell the whole world."
"Daniel!"
"'Cause when the lovin' starts and the lights go down..." Daniel sang.
Sam lost her balance and fell against the wall, laughing helplessly, flushing.
"You see!" Jack cried. "He's on drugs! He's SINGING for gods' sakes!"
Daniel was laughing too. "And there's not another livin' soul around..."
"STOP thaaat!" Jack cried, though the prankster in him was beginning to appreciate the joke.
"You woo me until the sun comes up," Daniel sang as he walked to the door, "And you saa-aay that you love me..."
The door closed behind him. Sam had actually sunk to the floor laughing.
"It's not funny," Jack lied.
"Of-" Sam couldn't stop laughing. "Of, of course not, sir." She started trying to compose herself. She glanced up at Jack. She immediately burst into laughter again. "I'm sorry!" she cried. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's a girl thing I guess, I-" She dissolved into laughter again. "I..."
Jack stood there, vaguely irritated, waiting for her to stop laughing. After a few minutes, she did.
"Uh, s-sorry, sir," she said, standing up and trying to keep her last giggles clamped down. "It was- it was funny, that's all."
"Sexual harassment suit," Jack muttered. "I'll show him a sexual harassment suit. What he's been doing, that's sexual harassment."
"Except that he doesn't outrank you." Jack glanced at her. "Sir."
"Well, I don't technically outrank him, now do I?"
"Well, yes."
"...I do?"
"Yeah, you do. Technically."
"...Wow."
"Yeah, you probably should read all those things we put on your desk. You might learn something."
"Me? Never." He held open the door for her and followed her out.
There was a brief silence in the interrogation room.
"Well," said the guard, coughing a little. "I'll get someone to get you some coffee, or a soda or something."
"This kind of stuff happen a lot?" the pizza boy asked.
"Well... 'Pends on what you mean by 'this kind of stuff'. This specifically? No. Seriously weird crap? Oh yeah."
The pizza boy grinned. "Man, this is gonna be the coolest job ever."
(-)