"What's that?"

Tim looked up to see Piccolo gesturing at the notes in front of him as he dragged out a seat from the table noisily, half leaning over the table as he tried to see. Eyeing the speared broccoli on the end of the other man's fork warily as it was waved around, Tim pushed his glasses back up on to the bridge of his nose before looking back down at his notes, which he pulled a little closer to him.

"Notes"

"What kind of notes?"

"Just…notes…on things, Tony" he replied vaguely, sounding slightly exasperated.

Tony considered this for a moment as Tim returned to looking slightly lost, staring down at whatever he had written.

His stomach growling, distracting his thoughts, Tony's attention was caught by the green thing on the end of his fork as it hovered in mid-air and he decided he would rather attempt the white stuff heaped on his plate than the green thing the cook had made him take with him from the counter. It was ridiculous, expecting them to eat broccoli. Everyone knew it was evil incarnate.

He pushed it off with a finger and attempted to hide it behind a pile of lumpy yellow stuff which he had been told was sweetcorn-something, but he suspected was actually vomit-something. The cook would definitely give him another lecture if she saw he hadn't eaten his greens again, he thought to himself. Looking over his shoulder, he saw she was busy serving, and he sighed in relief before turning back to his plate.

How was he going to hide it? He considered the floor, but she would know it was him. She had, like, cook-sixth sense or something. Lucas was due here any moment – maybe he would give Tony some gum, and he could stick it under the table?

"What things?" he asked, to distract his troubled mind.

Tim sighed, loudly. "Look, it's for my creative writing class, okay?"

"Creative writing?". Tony snorted, a grin on his face. Picking up a pepper shaker, he began dumping seasoning on the food in front of him before taking a decisive and brave swipe into the white stuff, shovelling it in his mouth quickly before he changed his mind. "Is that, like, making stuff up?"

Tim fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Could you eat with your mouth closed? And yes, it is like that".

"Why?"

"Why what?!"

"Why are you making stuff up? Maybe I can help? You were looking a little confused there y'know"

Now Tim did roll his eyes. "I'm doing Creative Writing because I can, and it's something new that's not seaQuest related"

He sat back and thought for a moment as Tony waited for a reply to the latter half of his question. Even though it was Tony, he had offered to help and it was actually nice for someone to be interested in what he was doing for a change. He always felt like the boring one out of the rest of the senior crew, which was why he was especially reluctant to tell Tony what he was doing because out of everyone, Tony was also the one more likely to say exactly how boring he thought Tim was being. Well, maybe I'm laying it on a bit thick, he thought to himself. But I can imagine him saying it. And I could really do without that right now.

"We were told to write about the craziest thing that's happened to us at work, elaborate on it and build a story on the elaboration. But I can't decide which moment we've had has been the weirdest. That's why I was confused. I've been going through my notes, but…" He looked down through the papers in front of him, and sighed. "I just can't pick the most crazy…"

Tony blinked. "Well, I don't get that first part you said, but I can't believe you can't decide. It's easy. Defrosting dinosaur was the craziest moment"

Tim's eyes widen slowly. "Oh…I forgot about that one".

"You – you forgot? How could you forget something like that?!"

Pondering, Tim shuffled through his notes again without really looking at them. "Maybe so many crazy things have happened I've become desensitized?"

"Desensitized to what?"

Inwardly, Tim groaned as the new voice entered the fray. Great. Brody. What faster way to feel embarrassed than to have the resident Superman catch him doing something 'boring'. And geeky.

And…oh, joy – Henderson, Ortiz and Lucas, too.

He opened his mouth to reply 'nothing' as the other crew member pulled up seats at his table, sorry now he'd decided somehow it would be a good idea to go through his notes during his break, when Tony jumped in and joyfully explained the Communications officer's dilemma.

But he was pleasantly surprised when, instead of laughing at him like he thought they would, they actually got excited about it, ignoring their food as they sifted back through their shared moments.

"Giant tube worm forests", stated Lucas resolutely.

Ortiz choked into his coffee. "What? Are you serious? The visit from the aliens was far more weird"

"Nah, it was the defrosting dinosaur crocodile" Tony piped up, determined that his answer was the right one.

"What about the whole Atlantis thing? That was pretty weird. I mean, a cursed helmet that made you go back to Atlantis in your mind when you got pricked by it?".

"No, the Greek Gods! I was Medusa, for God's sake! And there was Neptune…a giant Neptune…"

Tim nodded thoughtfully as a glazed look came over Lonnie's face as she reminisced back.

"Yeah, I thought about those, but then the whole going back to the 1950's to save the future? And then being pulled to the future by a super computer to save the future which would save the past?"

They all thought this one through.

"Huh, yeah, those were pretty crazy", Brody muttered helpfully.

They were quiet for a moment more.

"What about the whole glowing fish poo thing?"

Tim jabbed his pen in the air at Lucas in acknowledgement, writing it down. "Yes! I forgot that one too".

"Yeah, and he forgot about the defrosting dinosaur. Can you believe that? I mean, it was a freakin dinosaur. Like, living and breathing".

They collectively ignored Tony's rant.

"Killer plants", Lonnie offered.

"Evil corrupt psychics", Lucas added wryly.

"Evil corrupt submarines" Ortiz included.

"Wait, which one was that?"

"The one which wanted to fire nuclear missiles at New Cape Quest? Your cousin and Aunt were there, Tony!"

"Oh. Yeah"

O'Neill stopped himself before he rolled his eyes, settling for shaking his head instead. He leaned forward now, really getting into the swing of things.

"What about the time with those ghosts?"

"Oh…yeah. That. Well, compared to aliens, it's pretty tame I think", Lucas offered.

They stared at him incredulously. Then at each other. Then down at the table. When it got to the point you became blasé about possessing ghosts on old sunken ships, you knew you'd landed yourself in one crazy job…

"Wait a minute, are you even allowed to talk about this? It's all UEO-filed away".

"Well, it's an online course and they don't know my real name" Tim began. "And…I'll change everyone's names".

"What's mine going to be? Can it be Max Power?"

Ortiz grinned. "Isn't that from the Simpsons Tony?"

Tim slammed a hand down on the table.

"Okay!"

They all turned to stare at him. Flustered, he pushed his glasses back again onto his nose.

"I'm only re-naming seaQuest, so, no, you can't be 'Max Power'".

"What are you re-naming seaQuest to?"

"oceanJourney. Now can we please focus?"

Ignoring the snickers, Tim held his pen ready again, hovering over the last sentence he wrote. "Come on, help me choose?"
"Oh, what about that evil devil thing that came out of the box? It possessed that guy".

Tim, remembering back to the moment he had watched the researcher suffocate, shook his head minutely. "No. That one's just too sad".

They all sat in silence trying to choose.

"Defrosting dinosaur", Tony muttered under his breath, determined this was the most crazy thing to happen. He'd read back through the files in a bored few moments of off-duty when Ortiz had been borrowing his girlie magazine (yes –he'd been that bored).

Tim looked through his notes. After a few minutes, he sighed, and threw the notes down in frustration.

"They'll never believe any of this".

Slowly, silently, the gathered crew agreed.

"So…what are you going to write about?"

Tim looked across at Lucas. He pursed his lips.

"Penguins"

He thought some more. "I'll say that…penguins…overcame…a killerwhale?"

They all considered this.

"Sounds good", Brody said.

"Sounds…stupid…." Tony muttered.

Tim sighed. His life wasn't easy.

I don't get paid enough for this job…