All publicly recognisable characters and places are the property of MGM,
World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was
created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on
copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognised characters and
places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Email: livengoo@tiac.net
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Lots of 'em.
Category: PWP
Notes: Blame Amp. She dee-double-dared me.
What Has Gone Before: Good weather, missions, all the usual.
Summary: Jack has a cloud over his head and everyone else shares in the fun.
Warnings: Warnings for bad dialogue, meteorologically ludicrous concepts, and general goofiness.
Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.
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Scribe's Shower Scene Series
Rain on my parade
by livengoo
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He didn't have any warning. No weather forecasts, no Farmer's Almanac, just a low rumble of thunder and then rain on his head.
Which would have been fine if he hadn't been twenty-frickin'-five floors down in the middle of Cheyenne Mountain.
Jack O'Neill, Colonel USAF, retired and not-so-retired, looked up and got a little raindrop right in the eye. He growled and swatted at the cloud and it spat a teeny tiny lightning bolt that gave him a little shock. "Ouch! You goddamn . . . cloud." He stopped and stared at it. It was a cloud. A little eentsy weentsy cloud hanging right over his head, raining on his gray hair and on his scribbled notes. Which were starting to run. He scowled at the pen. "You're supposed to be waterproof."
The pen didn't answer but the cloud chuckled with thunder again and a fat raindrop rolled down his neck. "For crying out loud," he muttered, and shoved his rolling desk chair back trying to scoot out from under it. It followed him like a puff of cartoon smoke follows the Road Runner. He waved a file at it. It scorched a spot in the paper and dive-bombed him with a cloudburst. That was it. He needed answers. And an umbrella. Jack turned up the collar of his BDU jacket and stalked out of his office.
Sam Carter was usually easy to find. She was usually in her lab. She was supposed to be in her lab, he thought, as he slunk back out of it out to the tune of spitting, shorting electronic components. His personal little rain cloud spat one last cute little lightning bolt at her computer and, chortling triumphant thunder, followed him out in the search for the wily and elusive Major Carter.
Not in her lab. He headed down to the 'Gate control room but this time he knew better than to get close to any of the computers. His cloud whizzed around his head, making a few abortive rushes towards the computers but this time it didn't try to cozy up and get friendly with one. Thank God. Maybe Carter wouldn't notice her computer was shorted out. Maybe she'd think someone spilled a glass of water on it. Maybe pigs had wings and leprechauns rode on them, too.
"Is Carter here?"
"Sir?" That little brunette airman had turned around and was staring at him. So was Sergeant Simmons now. And Davis too, little brown noser.
"Carter. You know. Blonde. About this tall . . .?" He held out a hand, trying to ignore the fact that their eyes all kept straying to the air over his head.
"Yessir." She visibly wrenched her eyes back down towards his. "I think I saw her talking with Sergeant Siler earlier, Sir."
"Siler?" He glanced around looking for the guy and that's when the cloud made a break for it, buzzing the assembled personnel in the 'Gate room until they squeaked and squawked and ran for cover, rain darkening the shoulders of their uniforms. Jack ignored them, having gotten used to the feeling of wet shoulders by now.
"Up with the General, Colonel!" Sgt. Simmons pointed then yelped as the cloud strafed him.
"Thanks." Jack tossed a sketchy salute and turned, stalking off towards the stairs up towards Hammond's office. He didn't look behind him but if he had he probably wouldn't have made it to the General's office, not unless he had a high tolerance for the bizarre. Actually, he did have a high tolerance for the bizarre, but a higher tolerance than usual. After all, how often did Stargate personnel see a lieutenant and a sergeant knock down a major and start kissing him blind?
Siler was in the briefing room outside the General's office. Jack winced on general principles as he heard the clickety clackety of a slide projector. Daniel Jackson's slide shows had instilled Pavlovian responses in at least eight people he knew of, and he found himself reflexively salivating and craving coffee even as he heard the clickety clack again. He resisted, though, and peeked into the room. "Sir, Sergeant."
"Jack!" Both men had turned and the general was beckoning him in. "You really should see what Siler's been working o-" He trailed off before finishing the sentence, staring at Jack as the colonel hovered in the doorway. "What in the Sam Hill is that?"
"This?" Jack poked his finger into the air over his head without looking. It came away wet and another little lightning bolt stung the top of his head. "This is why I want to talk to Carter, Sir. Have you seen her anywhere?"
Siler had abandoned his slide show and was approaching Jack, eyes fixed on the air over his head. "That's really amazing, Colonel. How are you doing that, if you don't mind my asking, Sir?"
Jack sighed as Siler came so close he damn near stepped on his toes. "I'm not doing it. Not on purpose anyway."
Siler waved his hand through the air over Jack's head and jumped back with a hiss, shaking the hand. A tiny cloud, about half the size of Jack's, followed him. When Jack looked up he saw that his own cloud was smaller, like it had calved off the one that was chasing Siler around the room now. Siler backed away, shaking his lightning-stung hand and watched, fascinated, as his cloud followed. "Huh. I've never seen anything like that. Sir," he added the title as an afterthought.
His little cloud suddenly zoomed over the General and rain spilled down onto the bald pate. "Well I'd be just as happy never to see it again," growled the officer. "Call it off, Sergeant!"
"I don't know how, Sir!" Siler was waving his hands through the cloud now, trying to dodge little lightning bolts. The thing seemed to be playing with him.
Jack sighed and wiped rain off his face. "Siler, have you seen Carter? Somebody said she was up here with you."
"The Major?" Siler left off playing with his cloud and it settled in over General Hammond as he looked towards Jack. "No, I was just getting some schematics from her. I think she's down talking to Dr. Frasier."
Figured. Jack turned, heading off. Behind him, Siler had suddenly turned to General Hammond to find beady, blue eyes fixed on his crotch. "Sir?"
Hammond flushed, then squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "Did you ever realize how much like a cowboy you look, Siler?"
Siler licked his lips, suddenly fixated by the sensual gleam of water on Hammond's smooth scalp. "General, your head is as glossy as the chrome on an antique Harley. Sir."
"I always thought cowboys were . . . sexy," breathed Hammond, sidling close.
"I like to ride Harleys," whispered Siler, tracing one finger over the curve of Hammond's head.
"Would you like to go for a ride, cowboy?" growled Hammond.
"Yippee ki yay. Sir." Siler spun the shorter man towards his office and delivered a sound smack to his little dogie's rump.
And Jack was still not seeing Carter anywhere. He'd passed Teal'c in the hall and fat lot of good that did him when the big Jaffa hadn't seen her in more than a day. He'd tagged along to help, however. Not that Jack was as thrilled by that as he usually was. The big guy was eyeing him funny. Of course, Jack would have eyed anybody funny under the circumstances so he really didn't have a leg to stand on.
"O'Neill. When did you first notice this anomaly?" Teal'c had leaned close and was . . . sniffing. At the cloud. Or thereabouts.
"It rained on Daniel's requisitions," sighed Jack. "Not that I don't agree with it, mind you. I need to have a talk with that boy. Since when do we need to be hiring another six grave robbers? Aren't the ones we've got bad enough? Not a personality between the batch."
"I believe he seeks them for professional reasons rather than . . . social."
It had to be Jack's imagination but he'd have sworn that Teal'c purred 'social.' He turned to eye his friend and found Teal'c right in his face, still sniffing. "Umm. Do I smell funny or something?"
"Indeed, you do not." Teal'c had bent in close and was nuzzling just below his ear.
Jack planted both hands on the broad chest and pushed gently back as he slunk through the door into the infirmary. Might just be a good thing that his search had led him here, if Teal'c was going funny on him. The Jaffa followed him so closely Jack could feel his body heat. He looked around and spotted Frasier counting supplies. He'd never been so happy to see the little needle-fanatic in his life. "Doc!"
"Oh, Colonel! What can I do . . ." She turned and stopped, mid-sentence, face a study in incredulity. She finally cleared her throat. "Can I do something for you, Colonel?"
"You know anything about . . .?" He pointed up and cocked and inquisitive eyebrow at her. His hand hit Teal'c who'd been running his fingers over the wet shoulders of Jack's BDU's. Jack frowned and brushed him away. "Stop that."
"Huh." Janet was looking from Teal'c to the cloud and back down to Teal'c again. She reached tentatively up, couldn't quite make it, braced one hand on Jack's chest, stood on her tippy-toes and waved her fingertips through the cloud. "I've never seen anything like that. I'm not sure if you need me or a meteorologist."
"Actually, I was looking for Carter." Jack hesitated as Frasier planted both hands on his chest and suddenly looked at him with wide, dark-pupiled eyes.
"I'm sure I could help you, Colonel. I think we should start with a physical." She giggled just a little and reached for the zipper of his jacket. "Let's get you undressed."
Whoops. Jack tried to take a step back and ran smack into Teal'c, who wrapped his arms around the colonel and licked a Jaffa-sized warm tongue up the side of his neck, to whisper in his ear, "I think she has made an excellent suggestion, O'Neill."
"Whoa!" Jack let his knees go out from under him and slid out from between the two of them, feeling his heart pump fast as Janet and Teal'c met over his head.
"Oooh," moaned the doctor. "Teal'c. I think you need to get owwies more often. I don't see you nearly enough."
Jack rolled to one side as they seemed to forget about him. Janet Frasier had plastered herself to Teal'c, wrapping her arms around him while the big man had curled himself over to try to plant a kiss on her face. Effectively, it put Janet's eyes at about the level of Teal'c's nipples and she took advantage of the situation even as he was tugging the blouse from her skirt. "Dr. Frasier, as a woman whose twin passions are learning and healing, I would be honored if you would 'play doctor' with me."
"Oh you great big Jaffa stud, I'm going to climb you like a tree," growled the doctor in a low, sexy tone as she suited actions to words.
Jack just rubbed his eyes and shook his head and crawled out the infirmary's swinging doors, hoping the two of them were too busy to notice. He was beginning to realize that something was very wrong. Well, more than beginning, but around the Stargate it took a little more than usual to get someone's attention. But this? Yeah, THIS was wrong.
People were acting crazy. Hell, it was crazy just to have a cloud hanging over your head. Literally. But his cloud rained on their parades and . . . he sidestepped a pair of airmen on guard, seeing the guys watching his cloud. Behind him he suddenly heard soft voices and wet, smacking sounds and decided that it was time not to look. Don't ask, don't tell, don't look back. Maybe Carter wasn't the person he needed. This was crazy. Just crazy. Maybe it was like that stuff with Daniel, maybe the cloud was a Machello thing and this was all just a hallucination. Yeah. Maybe.
He headed down the hall and poked his head tentatively around the corner of Major Doctor MacKenzie's office. "Dr. MacKenzie? Umm, could I talk to you for a moment?"
"Colonel?" MacKenzie's eyes went over his head, came back down, then went up again as his eyebrows climbed. "Ahhh . . . "
Jack watched as the psychiatrist pinched himself. Then slapped himself. Then rubbed his eyes. "I'm having this problem, Doc. I keep thinking there's this cloud over my head."
"Ah. So there's a cloud over your head? I've never seen anyone suffering from such somatic manifestation of existential angst . . ." MacKenzie seemed to be talking to himself.
Jack wanted to slap him silly. But that simplified things, if the base shrink said there was a cloud over his head then at least he was probably not hallucinating this. Unless he was hallucinating MacKenzie. No, if he'd been hallucinating he would have dreamed up somebody who wasn't a quack.
"Right. I'll be back later." Jack turned to go and suddenly Sam was standing there in the door.
"Sir? I heard you were looking for me? What can . . ." She stopped and came forward into MacKenzie's office. Jack watched her go through the by-now-all-too-familiar ritual of poking the air over his head, only to jump back shaking her hand from the itsy bitsy lightning bolt. "Sir. You've got a cloud over your head."
MacKenzie had come around his desk by now and was standing on Jack's other side. Very close by his other side. His voice was low, sort of like a lounge lizard's as he crooned, "Major, have I ever told you how arousing your grasp of reality is?" Jack winced as he smelled the shrink's aftershave. Brut. Ewww.
Sam was running one hand down Jack's chest and had reached the other out to pinch the tip of MacKenzie's nose. "You're such an asshole. What is it about assholes that I find so irresistible?"
The shrink was weaving his fingers with Sam's on Jack's chest and leaning in close. "And Colonel O'Neill, you have the sexiest way of mangling cliches. I just shiver with delight." Jack felt his breakfast, lunch, and every meal he'd eaten in the last lunar month threatening to make a reappearance.
"Okay, folks." He reprised his infirmary trick and let Sam and MacKenzie meet over his head. He felt like a traitor as he crawled out the door of the shrink's office, but the cooing and billing and sound of zippers at his back convinced him that when it came to some things, his team was on its own.
The SGC had become a free fire zone as far Colonel Jack O'Neill was concerned, and he was in everybody's sights. He tried hiding in the men's room but his cloud hovered above the partition, raining on the guys at the urinal and he'd suddenly found himself in Lou Ferretti's tender clutches. Ferretti would have to defend his own virtue from the guys at the urinal because Jack knew when it was time to make a strategic withdrawal. The locker room had been an obvious no-go-zone. He'd tried hunkering down in one of the base billets but the rain leaking from under his door had tripped up a passing geologist and he'd found her trying to investigate his stones in no time flat. Not how he'd wanted to rock and roll.
Then there had been the unfortunate encounter with SG3. All of them. And by now even he was feeling the effects of his cloud, getting the itch that needed to be scratched; the woody that declared that men were renewable resources, just watch 'em grow; running the flag up the pole, and all the other things that guys loved to do but NOT with the entire force of SG3's rock'em, sock'em jarheads, thank you very much. A cloud-lubricated free for all with those boys was the type of thing to scar a man's psyche for good. So Jack had run.
Here. Instinct had led him to one of the few places on base he felt safe. He realized his mistake the instant that Daniel had looked up with a sweetly puzzled frown and said, "did you know there's a cloud over your head?"
Jack had looked up. It was still there all right. Smaller, okay, but still lively as he could attest when he turned to go and it planted another lightning bolt on the back of his head. "Yowch!"
"That looked painful." Fingers were suddenly touching the back of his head, parting the hair to see. "You've got a red spot right . . ."
Jack froze as Daniel trailed off. The fingers were still in his wet hair. Then they moved down to the back of his neck and out along his shoulders and soft breath touched the soaking skin at his nape. "Jack. Did you know that rain was what I missed most?"
The kiss below his ear made him jump. Jack suddenly spun to face his friend. "Daniel, stop. You don't want to do this."
Daniel licked the rain off his face and smiled into his eyes. Water was beading the lenses of his glasses. "I love the desert but I missed the rain. You wait for it for years, sometimes, in the dry places. And you let it soak your skin."
It was soaking Daniel's skin as he pushed Jack's jacket off. The soggy fabric made a 'splat' noise on the floor. Jack tried to grab Daniel's hands but the archaeologist pushed him back against the door and kissed him full and hard on the lips.
Okay. Time to show some command quality, thought Jack. Do the infirmary act and drop out from under him, let Danny smack face first into the door and cut and run?
And be chased by every single person on the base. He sighed, seeing it coming. Or going. Or coming, actually. And Daniel really was a good kisser now that he thought about it.
Or stay here and let a really good kisser keep on kissing him really well and hide out here, with Daniel, until this particular storm blew over, so to speak.
Jack's command quality had never been in doubt and it wasn't now, as he settled in for a long, delicious and absolutely reprehensible bit of thunder and lightning with his archaeologist. And sometime in the middle of things, the feeling of cool rain on his skin dissipated, faded, melted away, and all that was left was hot sweat and sweet skin touching his. And all the lightning after that was behind his eyes, and Daniel's, which was just fine with him.
He woke snuggled up with Daniel on the archaeologist's couch, wrapped up in a blanket and wishing that Daniel had had the foresight to turn off the ringer on his phone. Not that either of them had really thought about anything after their particular rainy day got good and stormy the night before.
Daniel mumbled and grumbled and stumbled across his office, to grab the phone. And abruptly straightened as he said, "yes Sir. No sir," in a voice that he only used when answering to General Hammond. He suddenly seemed to realize he was naked, as he leaned over and grabbed a fan-fold print out that he tried to drape around himself. He wasn't particularly successful.
"I'm not here!" hissed Jack, hopefully too low for the phone to pick up.
"You needed to find him, sir?" Daniel glanced over to Jack and blushed a brilliant red. "I think I saw him this morning, sir. I'll be sure to tell him. Of course. Thank you sir."
Jack buried his face against his knees and groaned as Daniel hung up the phone. "Hammond?"
"Hammond."
"He wants to talk to me?"
"Yep."
"You have any poison around?" Jack looked up at his friend. "I mean, just as a precaution. For emergencies."
Daniel gave a very small smile. "You're on your own, Jack. The best I can offer is a sacrificial knife to fall on."
Jack thought about it, then decided that Air Force coffee had a better chance of killing him fast. Or embarrassment. Either one.
He slunk out and this time found he could brave the locker room safely. No cloud over his head, at least not a literal one. A shower, change of clothes and shave made him more presentable but he still wouldn't give a plugged nickel for his chances. Suddenly the recall of Siler and the General . . . he shuddered and wondered if this might be a good time to forget that he'd stopped smoking. Didn't the condemned man get a last cigarette?
Now that he didn't need her, Carter was there. Hanging around outside the locker room, in fact, like she'd been waiting. "Sir. I need to talk to you."
"I'm on my way up to see the general, Carter." He ran a hand over his face. "Do you have anything lethal in your lab? Death ray or something? Or a quick way to erase a twenty-four hour period from somebody's memory"
"I wish." Carter cringed. "You know, why is it that every time I find a guy I LIKE he gets killed, but the one time I need that to happen to a guy it doesn't?"
He didn't need to ask who she was talking about. He had to admit, he'd been sort of hoping her curse would take MacKenzie out himself, at least give them ONE silver lining to this . . . cloud. "Maybe we could just knock him off. With your track record, everybody might think it was just a bad accident."
"Cleaning his gun!" she chortled, getting into the spirit of things.
"Whoops, forgot to get brakes put on this car. And they said it came with all the options." The two of them grinned at each other.
"Oh, Sir!" She turned a bit pink and tugged at his elbow. "Before you go to see the general . . ."
"You have a cigarette and a blindfold for me?"
"No," she looked puzzled for a moment. "But I do have an explanation."
"Was this some insidious new torture device the Tok'ra were testing before using it on the Goa'uld?" He didn't really expect it to be, but that was his current favorite theory for things he didn't like.
She grinned. "Close. Remember Urgo?"
He winced. "How could I forget? It took me a month at the gym to work off that pie."
"When I analyzed the puddles you'd left behind, I found nano-technology consistent with the device that generated Urgo's projection." She pulled a face. "I suppose the . . .the choice of activities should have been a clue. He always was fond of having a good time."
Jack rolled his eyes. "So I'm supposed to go tell General Hammond that his base went nutso because fatso sent a cloud? And we're basing that on everybody having a really good time and waking up next to the wrong people?"
"I've got more than just the 'tequila effect' as evidence, sir," Sam grinned triumphantly. "I dialed out to his creator this morning and found that he's been sleep walking. And that they visited our last planetary stop just a few days before us. AND that they've been working with short term devices that will dissipate. Evaporate, if you will."
"Like water." Jack nodded, starting to feel the figurative noose around his neck loosen. Not that he would have been at fault, really, but still . . .
Sam was waving her hands in the air, eyes alight with that geek-thrill she and Daniel and the rest of the scientific staff sometimes got when they got their hands on something that no one else would give a damn about. "It's really quite fascinating sir! The water acts as a conductor for the internal electrical signals that represent the probe's functioning consciousness. It's essentially alive as long as the cloud doesn't dissipate and it has the ability to synthesize nano-cytes that are engineered to interact with various brain receptor sites to gather data about certain behaviors and sensations. It's supposed to integrate with its host and it has a programmed rate of dissipation and disintegration for its components but -"
"Carter. CARTER!" He brought her up short. "Stop. Write it up. It's over and I take it you got Urgo to promise it'll never happen again?"
"Absolutely, Colonel!"
"Good. Anything else?"
"He wanted me to apologize for him, Sir." She scuffed a toe on the floor. "He asked me to tell you that he's sorry he rained on your brigade."
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