'Verses this chapter: Stargate SG-1, Doctor Who
Canon Timelines: Early-ish, 10th Doctor
Chapter Two:
In his office, Dr. Daniel Jackson stood over a table full of rare artifacts from a long extinct civilization. It had been three weeks since the latest catastrophe and he felt he was due a little downtime. Which, for him, meant working obsessively until someone, usually Jack, realized they hadn't seen him for a couple days. Then, they'd show up to drag him off for some 'fresh air' and something more substantial than coffee, but until then he was enjoying his peace and quite, doing what he loved, with no threat of an intergalactic disaster looming on the horizon.
There was suddenly a loud pop behind him and a cheery voice called, "Hiya!"
"Ahhh!" Daniel screamed and dropped the artifact he'd been examining. Spinning around, he found their odd 'guest' smiling at him sheepishly.
"Oops," Harry chuckled with a guilty expression. "Was that valuable?"
Glancing down near his feet at the shattered relic, the usually mild-mannered archeologist could feel a case of the twitchies coming on, starting with a tic under his left eye and moving on to the compulsive clenching of his fists. He glared with all his considerable might at the green-eyed menace that had been plaguing the SGC for nigh on eight months now.
Harry shuffled his feet, clasped his hands nervously behind his back and took a half step towards the door. "Eh-heh-heh," he giggled awkwardly. When Daniel took a step forward, he hastily shouted, "Bye!" and disappeared with another pop.
With a growl, Daniel strode purposefully over to the phone and snatched it up. After punching a few numbers, rather viciously, he stated with all the venom he could muster, "The hobgoblin is back."
Meanwhile, Harry was sitting on the ceiling of the SGC canteen, through clever use of sticking charms, sampling each and every dessert they had to offer with great enjoyment. He hadn't bothered with disillusioning himself, as no one ever really looked up. He had gotten a strange look from Teal'c, but the large man was oddly at ease with Harry's eccentricities and casually returned to his Jello stack.
Harry had to admit, if you ignored the fact that he'd arrived in this universe under fire and spent some time as a prisoner, this was one of the better worlds he'd visited. There were apparantly no magic-using humans on Earth, so there'd been no one to stop him from pretty much doing whatever he wanted. He'd apparated here and there, taking in the sights, mingling with the locals and making a general nuisance of himself.
It had done wonders for his attitude. After weeks spent sunning himself on pristine white-sand beaches, getting plastered in various night clubs, gambling away other people's fortunes (stolen, but they deserved it really) and basically glorifying in the debauched decadence of the most hedonistic places on the planet, there really wasn't any way he couldn't have relaxed at least a little bit.
When that alien armada tried to invade a few days into his well-deserved vacation, he'd blown them out of the sky with a super charged Reducto and gone right back to ravishing some diplomat's daughter in his rooftop hot tub. Of course, he'd had to make a hasty exit when SGC personnel showed up, but it didn't take long for him to find other entertainment halfway around the world.
The four individuals he'd come to know as SG-1 had, at first, made a spirited attempt at capturing him, but he'd found it pretty simple to avoid this fate. If they were after him, he'd just not be there. If he saw guns come out, he'd pop off to explore somewhere else, usually with a cheeky grin and a wave at the frustrated group.
They'd panicked the first time he'd disappeared from their custody, but it quickly became obvious that he meant them no harm, for the most part. That one fellow called Mayborne had immediately rubbed him wrong. He'd blustered, shouted, glared superiorly, tried to order him around and threatened him repeatedly. He'd declared that it would be in Harry's best interest to help them with his powers, but only when they said to, of course.
Yeah. As if.
Harry turned him into a newt.
Jack kept him in a little terrarium in his office until someone, namely Hermione the Blonde, had squealed to the general. Harry had refused to turn him back until the marines staged a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He'd sold tickets and made a tidy sum.
Afterward, he'd reluctantly changed him back, minus the inside bits that would have let him breed, God forbid. The odious little parasite had immediately run to the president and whined about the new threat to Earth. Unfortunately for him, Harry'd already been having tea with the man for the past week.
Of course, even such a charming and devilishly handsome young man such as himself could wear out his welcome. He knew when he wasn't wanted. He could take a hint. The banner the scientists had strung up across the Stargate declaring "Go Away, Magical Hobgoblin!" was completely unnecessary.
So began his jaunt across the globe, taking in all the finest things this Earth had to offer. Of course, he couldn't let his new friends at the SGC forget about him, so he popped in every so often to say hi.
After learning of a certain alien race's habit of 'beaming' Jack away at inopportune times, he'd mimicked the technology with magic and whisked the man away for a vacation more than once. Hawaii may have been beautiful, but they quickly learned that Harry's odd brand of luck struck most favorably in Vegas. Now that was a wonderful city. Sin City. What a lovely name, and it certainly lived up to it.
Once, on a wining streak involving three jackpots, lots of booze and many women (and a few men, but we won't speak of that), Harry had tried to explain exactly where he came from to Jack. Unfortunately, his alcohol loosened tongue was apparantly too loose and it ended with Jack thinking he was some sort of benevolent traveler from an advanced race that hopped from planet to planet, 'wherever the solar winds may take him'.
Yes, apparantly he was an alien hippie. He didn't even try to correct him.
Speaking of Jack...
"Harry!" the man exclaimed as he entered the mess with a team of scientists in tow. One of their toys beeped loudly and the labcoat-wearing leader pointed upwards. Turning his gaze to the ceiling, and invariably to Harry, Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud! Get off the ceiling! You're making the lights flicker!"
Sure enough, his multitude of sticking charms was causing havoc with the wiring in the ceiling, making the lights flicker all across the base.
Harry shrugged his shoulders, canceled the charms and dropped to the floor, landing gracefully on his feet. A cacophony of crashing echoed throughout the room as his plates and bowls full of desserts also fell, without the natural feline grace he possessed. Everyone glared. He shrugged once again.
He was saved from having to explain why he had stolen one hundred and sixty-two bowls of orange sherbert by the blaring of klaxons and a call to stations to the tune of "Offworld Activation." It was a catchy little number.
Harry grinned brightly. "I saw a movie like this once."
Jack and a half dozen others immediately took off for the gate room at breakneck speed. Harry felt slighted. Was he no longer considered a priority? Did they not fear his awesome powers? Did they not want to go bowling next weekend? He, the magical space alien hobgoblin hippie, was supposed to be the center of their attention. He would have to remedy this.
Having nothing better to do, Harry followed them.
Of course, he felt no need to exhaust himself by running willy-nilly through the base, especially since he didn't have any of those handy cards which allowed him access to the most interesting of places. Instead, he just apparated directly into the control room, startling a short shriek out of a tech and making the general jump.
"Hiya!" he greeted Hammond, who he had learned did not like being called Georgie-Porgie, Georgie-poo or Georgette. Hey You was acceptable only during the first few weeks, until the man had realized that his last name was not actually a foul curse word in Harry's native tongue.
Said man scowled at Harry. "Hello," he responded with as much respect as one can give someone they clearly despise. "Don't touch that," he added when Harry moved to play with the flashing lights on a control panel. Harry reluctantly withdrew his hand.
Hammond was fun. He had come to the conclusion, along with most of the SGC, that Harry, while appearing to be a young human just out of his teens, was actually an alien child that just happened to look like an adult human. Thus, he treated him with the mixture of respect and wariness that he gave most alien races, but also seemed willing to put up with a lot that he probably wouldn't have had he known that Harry really was an adult. In fact, Harry was much older than he looked. He just liked screwing around on worlds where he wouldn't have to live with the consequences of his actions.
SG-1, out of breath and panting heavily, ran into the room at pretty much the same time. Well, Daniel was panting slightly. Sam just made a beeline for the same blinking lights that he himself hadn't been allowed to touch. He pouted. Teal'c raised an eyebrow at him. Jack smirked, somehow knowing exactly what he was pouting about.
"It's the Tok'ra," Sam declared after a brief moment of fiddling with something.
The tech, whom we shall call Bob, glared at her. It was Bob's job to inform the room who was coming through the Gate. It was his only job. It was stupid, but he did it and he did it well. He did not like her usurping his assigned task. He didn't go through the years of intense training needed to read that damn machine just to have some uppity astrophysicist come in and do it for him.
Harry, unknowing of Bob's ill temper (and let's be honest, he wouldn't have cared even if he had known), smiled brightly. The Tok'ra were even more fun than Hammond. Be it Jacob, Martouf or Anise, he'd find some way to amuse himself with them.
As the Tok'ra party exited the 'Gate, Hammond couldn't help but edge away from Harry. He looked suspiciously excited to see them, especially considering how much he hated Anise. Actually, he was surprised to see the woman back so soon after her last encounter with the boy. Harry had said it was an accident, but the fact that he couldn't stop laughing didn't really lend credence to his claims.
It did look like her eyebrows had finally grown back though.
"'Oh look!" Harry exclaimed brightly, his smile turning positively feral. "Anise!"
In a rather surreal display, Harry cackled and rubbed his hands together like some sort of tv villain. With a quick pop, he disappeared from the control room and reappeared in the Gate room, his nose not an inch from hers.
"Hi!" he exclaimed happily.
"Ahhhh!" she screamed like a little girl. She immediately spun around and darted frantically back up the ramp. Luckily, the Stargate disengaged just before she could run back through, thus saving herself from a rather embarrassing death. Unluckily (for her), she didn't stop and ran right off the back of the ramp. She hit the floor with a loud clang of skull on steel, knocking herself instantly unconscious.
Jacob tried not to laugh. He really did.
XOXOXOXO
Later that day, SG-1 sat enjoying a late lunch when Daniel looked up to a strange sight. Harry was making off with a giant jar of peanut butter with an equally large smile; the one that said "I'm up to something and you better hope it has nothing to do with you." The evil glint in his eyes and the quiet, yet distinctly mad, cackling was also very disconcerting.
"Where's Harry going with that jar of peanut butter?" he questioned his companions.
They all looked up in time to see the boy disappear out the door. After a confused pause, Jack was struck with a dawning horror and exclaimed, "Ah crap! I saw him heading for the conference room with a bottle of maple syrup, six cans of salmon paste and a big mixing bowl about half an hour ago!"
"Sir," Sam started hesitantly. "Isn't Anise in the conference room?"
They all exchanged worried looks. While the thought of whatever mischief he could get up to with those items and an arrogant Tok'ra was amusing, the possibilities were also a bit frightening. After all, they'd once seen him build a nuclear reactor out of a flashlight and toothpicks. Granted, it wasn't on purpose and he'd said he probably wouldn't be able to replicate it...
They all weighed the benefits of a few laughs against the possible repercussions of a diplomatic incident, then launched themselves from their seats, hoping to stop him before he reached his destination.
Several floors away, Harry had Anise bound and gagged, dangling upside-down from the ceiling while he painted her from head to toe with a sticky brown, molasses-like mixture that reeked of fish. Once finished, he winched her up higher before leaping up onto a large steel crate. Lifting the door, he watched the indignant fury in the woman's eyes turn to terror as the nine hundred pound brown bear lumbered from its confinement.
Sniffing the air, it stalked closer to the whimpering woman, curiosity making it give her a long, languorous lick on the cheek.
Anise fainted.
XOXOXOXO
General Hammond steepled his fingers on his desk and leaned forward. "So, tell me again, why has Anise refused to ever return to Earth?"
Sam considered reminding him about the grizzly bear incident or the Tower of Terror reenactment, but before she could, Jack began explaining the latest incident that had sent the woman screaming in terror from the planet, never to return.
"Have you ever seen that episode of Star Trek, with the Tribbles?" he asked. "It was sorta like that. Except Harry called them Nargles and they ate human flesh...but they really only nibbled a bit."
XOXOXOXO
It had been a great year and a half, but Harry had finally decided it was time to move on. Surprisingly, all of the SGC had turned out to see him off, and it wasn't even because they wanted him gone. Well, not entirely.
"Will we ever see you again?" Sam asked, hugging him fondly.
He patted her on the back and reluctantly pulled away. Sure, she was a know-it-all spoilsport, but she could also be a lot of fun when prodded hard enough. Plus, most of the time she really did know it all. "Probably not," he replied a bit sadly. "You guys are great, but I gotta be getting home. It's a long way away and once I'm there, I probably won't be leaving again." Granted, they thought home was another planet, not another dimension. "But hey! I've got presents!"
With a grin, he whipped a large box out of nowhere and let it thump to the floor.
"Oh lord," Hammond muttered to himself.
After rummaging through the box, Harry came up with an armful of goodies.
He handed Sam a glass sphere on a base that fit in the palm of her hand, as well as a matching glass band for her finger. "Ya remember when Apophis tried to blow up the Earth?" he asked.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "The time you tried to make popcorn with his sarcophagus and caused a cascading power failure which blew up his entire ship? Or the time you and Daniel tried to hotwire a death glider and somehow created an entirely new form of life? Or the time you got him to eat that candy and turned him into a canary? Or-"
"The last time," he said, waving a hand in the air. "When I made the entire planet vanish." Receiving a nod, he pointed to the object she held and explained, "That's what did it. I used what I learned about that personal phase shifting thingy that I accidentally-on-purpose stole from a certain highly advanced race, combined with what we know about the Ancients' dimensional shifting thingy that I swear I have nothing to do with disappearing, and my own personal version of it," here he waved his not-watch at her, "and made something similar that's light-weight and portable and only usable by one person. Whoever wears the ring, controls the device, and it doesn't need massive amounts of power to use since it makes its own. Cool, huh?"
Everyone stared at him in disbelief. He continued to grin like an idiot.
"It's a snow globe," Sam said, tipping said object over and back, plastic snow flakes floating languorously through a wintery Christmas scene.
Harry was undaunted. "Well, yeah. I figure if anyone broke into your office or house and tried to steal this awesome device, that'd be the last thing they suspected it could be."
"It's a snow globe," she reiterated, looking at him as if he were truly deluded.
"It's magic," he replied succinctly, dismissing any further complaints by turning to Daniel.
"Check it out!" he exclaimed, thrusting a metal cylinder with a little hinged door at him. "Over two hundred years of research, eighty-four lives of lab assistants cut tragically short and thirteen arrests for indecent exposure went into the creation of this awe inspiring piece of technology! Truly, the masterwork of the field of javanology! I present you with the XL4-325.8 Mark 2!"
"What's it do?" Daniel asked, warily accepting the innocuous object.
"Makes coffee," Harry answered simply, turning to Teal'c.
"I, uh, didn't really know what to get you," he began, taking in the big guy's stoically raised eyebrow. "So, how about the liberation of your entire race?"
The first eyebrow was joined by the second.
Harry pulled out a simple swirly pinwheel and what looked suspiciously like a Star Trek hypospray. He handed the pinwheel to Teal'c and the hypospray to Janet. "The pinwheel is an anti mind control device which helps open minds to the 'truth', and that," he said, pointing to the device in the doctor's hands, "is an ever-full immune system booster that will also work on other immunodeficiency disorders."
Janet looked surprised, not at what he had handed her, but that he know what an immunodeficiency disorder was.
"Jaaaaack," he crooned with a fond look that, not for the first time, had people questioning his sexuality. "My favorite alien bait. We had some grand times and I had a hard time deciding what to give you. I already fixed that annoying knee, and made you twenty years younger, so that you can spend more time having sex with Daniel."
Daniel sputtered and turned red.
"Or Sam."
Sam sputtered and turned red.
"Or both."
He dodged a headslap from Sam.
"At the same time."
This time all three hit him.
"Or whatever, or should I say whoever," he finished with a shrug and a suggestive eyebrow waggle. "Finally, I decided there was only one thing that could adequately express my feelings of affection for you." Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a blonde furball with big floppy feet and cute little ears and big blue eyes and big sharp teeth.
"Floppy!" Jack exclaimed, reaching for the Nargle with a happy smile.
Floppy leaped from Harry's hands and into Jack's arms with a happy "Naaaaar-gle!" The man immediately snuggled him against his chest. Floppy took a bite out of his shirt sleeve, swallowed and then purred, pausing a moment to glare at those too close to his favorite human.
Everyone outside SG-1 took a collective step back from the unholy terror.
"Well," Harry said, clapping his hands together. "Looks like my time here is over! So, for everyone else..." He threw his hands upward. "FURBIES!" And Furbies began raining from the ceiling.
While everyone was distracted, he flicked a switch on his not-watch and turned it until it clicked once. He disappeared with a brief ripple effect, a chorus of "Me hungry!" and "Poo-poo!" bidding him farewell.
Later, after Floppy had stopped savagely mauling the Furbies and the bits of broken toy parts had been cleaned up, Daniel found that his gift didn't just make coffee. It made the best damn coffee in the entire universe. The MPs had to scrape him off the ceiling and the device was now a closely guarded secret on par with the Stargate. The rest of the base quickly discovered that Daniel did not like to share, and that he'd taught Floppy to "Sic 'em!"
Two years later, Cassie Frasier accidentally broke Sam's beloved snow globe. The world, permanently hidden for some time and experiencing a remarkable time of peace and prosperity, did not suddenly reappear and leave them vulnerable. Thus, the woman discovered that it really was just a snow globe. The magic was in the ring.
She still thought Harry was an idiot.
XOXOXOXO
Rose Tyler wasn't quite sure what the fuss was about, as they had only just arrived and not had enough time to piss the locals off quite this thoroughly, but she'd had enough experience with lynch mobs to know when she should run.
She ignored her companion's cheerful greeting to the angry throng, grabbed him by the sleeve and began running back the direction they'd come. Ducking into a barn, the two dove into the piles of hay seconds before the pitchfork-toting villagers passed by.
"Oi!" a voice exclaimed from somewhere deeper in the hay. "Watch where you're poking that thing!"
Her companion rolled over and off a small figure, sticking his favorite tool back in his pocket. "So sorry," he said, rising to his feet now that they were safe and pulling what appeared to be a young man up as well. "Sonic screwdriver. Good for all occasions."
"Well, isn't that nice for you?" the boy replied sarcastically while picking straw out of his hair.
Rose looked the boy over and quickly came to the conclusion that in no way did he belong in sixteenth century France. He wore what appeared to be brown leather trousers, a dark green t-shirt and a long black coat. She might have said he was a girl, with his long hair and delicate features, had the trousers not been two sizes too small and giving her a full body blush at the sight they provided. She also took note of a futuristic looking belt with many devices and, strangely enough, a well polished stick hanging from it.
"Where are you from?" she asked curiously.
He paused in dusting himself off to look up at her, making her heart flutter like a schoolgirl when she met the most enchanting green eyes she'd ever seen. "Gallifrey," he quipped, then went back to removing huge handfuls of straw from his coat pockets.
Her companion, who had been babbling about who knows what, suddenly went silent.
"R-really?" she squeaked in amazement.
The boy looked up again, this time with a furrowed brow, as if confused by her reaction. After studying her for a moment, he rolled his eyes, placed a hand on his hip and struck what was a very feminine, yet seemingly natural, pose. "Lord no," he scoffed. "Spent a few years there. Most boring people this side of Krypton. Late twentieth century Earth, that's where it's at! 'Course, those Dwarves of Arda certainly know how to throw a party, but it's just not as fun without strippers, and let me tell you now, you don't ever want to see a Dwarf strip. Then again, the Goa'uld have hot chicks, but most of them take themselves way too seriously. Honestly, you try to give a girl a compliment and she throws you across the room!"
He paused for a moment, eyes drifting upward as he tried to remember what started that monologue. "Oh!" he exclaimed, ignoring the fact that at least one of the two before him hadn't followed more than a quarter of that. "I'm pretty much from all over. I do a lot of traveling. Not quite sure where I was born." It was true. He thought he'd probably been born in Godric's Hollow, or maybe St. Mungo's, but no one had seen fit to tell him before he'd left his universe.
Looking the two over, he took note of their non-period dress and asked curiously, "Who are you?"
Rose blushed as his gaze roved her body and answered, "I'm Rose." Motioning to her companion, who still didn't seem quite convinced that the boy wasn't from Gallifrey, she said, "This is the Doctor."
The boy's eyes lit up and instantly snapped to the other man. 'Great,' she thought wryly. 'His reputation proceeds him again.'
"Really?" the boy asked excitedly. When the Doctor nodded, still watching the boy keenly, he beamed at him. "Did you know, I pretended to be you once." He grinned almost maniacally. "There were a lot of sedatives used that day."
AN: I appreciate all your suggestions. They've given me some absolutely lovely ideas. -evil leer-