Where's Butch?

Nanny and the Professor/Stargate SG-1/Brady Bunch/The Brady Girls Get Married

Standard fanfic disclaimer that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: these aren't my characters, I'm just borrowing them for, um, typing practice. That's it, typing practice. I'll return them to their actual owners (relatively) undamaged. This is an amateur work of fiction; no profit beyond pleasure was derived from the writing. It is debuting as 'netfic and has not been previously published in any fanzine.

Where's Butch?

Nanny and the Professor/Stargate SG-1/Brady Bunch

Susan M. M.

April 7, 2001, Southern California

It was a quiet Saturday. Professor Emeritus Harold Everett was reading a scientific journal. His son, Dr. Hal Everett, had written the astrophysics article he was reading. Although in his seventies, the mathematician wore his years well: still handsome, with thick white hair. His wife, Phoebe Figailly Everett, sat on the couch beside him, working on her embroidery. Her blonde hair was lightly dusted with silver, although in her case the silver came out of a bottle, so she would appear to be aging at the same rate as her husband.

Suddenly Phoebe started. "Oh, dear."

"What's wrong?" Professor Everett asked. "Did you prick yourself with the needle?"

"No, well, yes, I did, but that's effect, not cause." She stuck her finger in her mouth for a moment and sucked the blood. "It's Butch."

"What about Butch? He's in Colorado," the professor replied.

"He should be," Phoebe said slowly, "but he isn't."

"What do you mean he isn't?" Professor Everett asked.

"He's not there. He's just not there." She spoke in tones of awe and shock.

"It's a Saturday. Perhaps he went on leave to Wyoming or Nebraska?" After thirty-some years of marriage, the professor had given up on trying to understand how his wife knew what she knew. Shakespeare's line about "more things in Heaven or Earth ... than are dreamt of in your philosophies" had become his mantra. In the interests of marital harmony, he repeated it often, and had learned not to ask questions that he really didn't want to know the answers to.

"He's not there," she repeated. "He's not hurt or dead - I would know if he were dead," she said rapidly, as if trying to convince herself, "but he's just not there. One minute he was in Colorado Springs and the next ... he wasn't."

Professor Everett put down the magazine and walked over to the telephone. He called the condo in Colorado Springs that his sons shared.

"Everett and Everett," the answering machine recited. "Neither of us can come to the phone right now. Please leave a message."

"Butch, Hal, it's Dad. Please call home when you get this message. Your Mum's feminine intuition is acting up. Please call and let her know you're all right." He disconnected, then called Butch's work number.

"Cheyenne Mountain. Master Sergeant Brady speaking, please be aware this is not a secure line."

"Hello, Sergeant, I'm trying to reach my son, Major Everett. This is Professor Harold Everett."

"I'm sorry, sir. The major can not come to the phone right now. May I take a message?"

"If he's just in the bathroom or something, I can wait," the professor offered.

"Sir, Major Everett will not be able to come to the phone for a while. May I take a message?"

"No, no message. Just ask him to call home when he gets a chance. "

"Yes, sir, I will relay the message as soon as the major gets back." MSgt. Peter Brady hung up the telephone.

"Hmm, let me try Hal." Back in California, the professor called his firstborn's cell phone. He frowned, then turned to his wife. "Wherever Hal is, it's somewhere his cell phone doesn't get service. And there's no point calling his work number on the weekend."

Phoebe frowned and said nothing.

"I'm sure he's fine. He's a big boy; he can take care of himself."

Phoebe nodded, not willing to contradict her husband. She closed her eyes and reached out. Prudence and her husband Chris were in San Francisco. They were fine. Hal was in Colorado. He was fine. Butch ... Butch wasn't there. She had no sense of danger, just ...absence.

/*/

In SGC's mess hall, Dr. Hal Everett reached for a ham sandwich.

"Hey, Doc," a tall, dark-haired master sergeant greeted him.

"Hi, Sarge." Dr. Everett was the same age and height as the sergeant. The blond astrophysicst was one of SGC's civilian scientists.

"You might want to run interference, Doc," Brady advised as he took a roast beef sandwich. "Your brother got a phone call today. Your father called, wants him to call back. And since SG-9 won't be back for three days, maybe you should return the call for him."

"Wonder what Dad wanted?" Hal grabbed a bag of Baked Lay's Potato Chips.

"Don't know. He called two minutes after SG-9 went through the stargate."

"Two minutes after ..." Suddenly Hal paled, as he remembered all the things his stepmother had done in his youth. And he wondered how on Earth he was going to tell General Hammond that his stepmother was a possible security risk.