SG-1 and the Importance of Interpretation
A/N: I have no excuses for this one. Just a ridiculous fic for Ship Day! Hope you all have a great one!
Enjoy!
…..
"Explosion on level 19, repeat, explosion on level 19, this is not a drill. Medical team required-,"
The rest of the emergency announcement was lost to Jack as his heart pummeled against his ribs, blood roaring too loudly in his ears.
Carter's lab was on 19. Carter's lab often had things that could explode. Ergo…
The klaxons blared as he barreled down the corridor, nearly slamming into walls as he took corners way too fast. "Move, move!" He half-growled, half-yelled at faceless people in white coats and BDUs as he ran, trying not to actually hit anyone but damned if they were going to slow him down.
"Out of the way!" He shouted as he skidded around the last corner, Sam's hallway finally coming into view. Time seemed to slow as his feet carried him towards a sight that made his heart sink and his stomach clench – the iron grip of fear squeezing the air from his lungs.
Black soot crept around the doorjamb of Carter's lab, bursting in chaotic lines and whorls across the opposite wall. Ash hung in the air and the staticky smell of an ozone burned his nose and eyes as he inhaled sharply. 'No, no, no-,'
There was a flurry of activity immediately outside the door to the lab; at least 3 whitecoats were doubled over at the waist, leaning against the walls or against the nearest stumbling SF. Half a dozen airman were scattered down the hall, some on their knees and others crawling away from the lab, hands over their mouths…
All shaking. All crying.
'Not Carter, not Carter, not Carter.' As far as Jack was concerned, those were the only two words in the English language. His brain couldn't fully process what he was seeing – so many people, too many people. Why were they all on the floor? Why were they all trying to get away from the lab instead of towards it to help?
Nearly tripping over an airman who was half sprawled in the hallway convulsing from head to toe, Jack used his momentum to fling himself forward into the lab. Grabbing the edge of the door for support, his wild eyes took in the scene before him with horror.
The lab was absolutely covered in black ash, the air sick with whirling soot, and Carter's little machines that usually blinked so brightly were dulled to sad whimpers of pulsing light. The stark starburst pattern on her worktable told Jack the story of a small device that had caused this quasi-volcanic destruction. "Carter?" His throat was dry but Jack knew it wasn't from the air or the smoke or soot.
As he stood there, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, he was suddenly reminded of the existence of another one of his senses – hearing. A high-pitched keening sound broke through his stupor and Jack found that his body had the audacity to become very rigid and absolutely unwilling to move so that he could locate the source of that painful sound.
"J-Jack." Another sound, his name through the gloom. But that voice…rough and raspy, yes. Tight with strain, yes. Carter? Definitely not.
"Daniel?" Jack's tongue was thick in his mouth, struggling to form words as confusion clouded his panic momentarily. Daniel had been in the lab—was Daniel hurt too? And why was nobody coming in to help them? "Daniel!" Snapping back to his senses, his feet finally relented and Jack stumbled around the worktable.
Two pairs of booted feet met his eyes as Jack took in the familiar figures on the floor. Daniel was on his side, face screwed up as he clutched at the shoulders of Teal'c who lay curled in on himself.
'No, no, no.' Jack's brain was now just one incessant scream. Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c – his whole team, his whole family. "Somebody get help in here!" He didn't care that raw panic sharpened his words like knives. "Daniel, Teal'c what the hell happened? Where's Carter?" Like a spell broken, Jack found that the familiar sound of his own voice barking something akin to orders had a steadying effect on his increasing dread.
Hand shaking violently, Daniel pointed to the opposite corner of the lab where one other pair of booted feet lay just outside of the arc of black volcanic spew. "Okay, okay. You guys okay?" Jack knelt briefly, not caring when his knees popped painfully.
"N-no." Daniel gasped as Teal'c ground out a tense, "Most certainly not, O'Neill."
"Okay, alright." Jack forced his brain to start compartmentalizing. Daniel and Teal'c were in distress, but they were conscious and talking. Jack couldn't see their faces clearly through the haze, but neither was bleeding from anywhere Jack could immediately see.
Where the hell was help?
Jack jerked forward - that high-pitched noise had started again, guttering and scraping against the inside of his head. "Carter -," Nearly toppling over as he half lunged, half crawled to her prone form, Jack almost cried out when she yanked her legs away from his hands.
"No, n-no, don't!" She was definitely crying. Sobbing, Jack would say, if he didn't know better.
But he knew better, right?
"Carter! Where are you hurt?" Catching one of the hands that was suddenly thrust out of the darkness, he pulled her forward, just barely able to glimpse her tear-streaked and red face before she curled into herself. Her eyes were squinched almost closed and her teeth were bared as her body tensed and shook against his. "Jesus Christ, Carter, are you okay?"
When he received no response other than that high-pitched sound again, Jack grabbed her chin as gently as he could and forced her to sit up so he could look at her. As her eyes met his for the first time since he'd entered the lab, Jack felt his mind go blank. "Carter, wha…"
"Jack, wait, J-Jack…" Daniel's voice sounded like he was trying to squeeze concrete through a straw.
"S-sir, I can explain-,"
But whatever explanation his major had apparently been about to provide was lost as she dissolved into another fit of laughter. She was doubled over, almost on her side, and the only thing keeping her off the floor was Jack's quickly slackening grip on her arms.
"O'Neill." Jack's head snapped up, not even bothering trying to shut his hanging jaw. Teal'c was now half-sitting up, his weight still leaning heavily on the shaking archaeologist. Daniel quieted for a moment and looked up at his bigger friend, their hands braced on each other's forearms. "We require assistance." Teal'c's stolid gaze held Jack's for a moment before his face crumpled and his body was wracked with fresh guffaws.
Upon watching Teal'c lose his battle with mirth, Daniel collapsed on his side again, loud laughter booming from both men. "Alright, someone better tell me what the fu-,"
"For crying' out loud!" Sam let out a strangled half-yell and tried to wrestle herself away from her colonel's grip. "Colonel, you are squeezing the living daylights out of me." Reacting without thinking – because right now his brain was really struggling, like way more than usual – Jack let her go, only peripherally aware of the muffled thump as her shoulder hit the ground.
The sound sent the three other members of SG-1 into a fresh fit and Jack teetered on his knees, grateful that the worktable was behind him as he leaned back heavily. Pieces clicked like a puzzle in his numb brain and Jack realized that help wasn't coming in because help was in a similar state of debilitation just outside the door.
Only, no one was debilitated because they were hurt. No one was dying.
They were all laughing. Like lunatics, no less.
But laughing was better than dying, he supposed. Right?
"Oww." Sam moaned, arms wrapped around her stomach. "It – it was Daniel's fault, sir."
"Hey!" Daniel shot up, expression affronted behind his crooked glasses. "You touched it!" He pointed an accusing finger at her as his mouth worked against the unwilling laughter.
Sam pushed herself up on her knees and smacked at Daniel's finger, causing them both to giggle. "No, you told Teal'c not to touch it."
"Why would you be allowed to touch it if Teal'c wasn't allowed to touch it?"
"Science?" Sam's wide eyes caused Daniel to lose it again.
"I believe both you and Daniel Jackson are missing the most important question." Teal'c was doing better than both of them at controlling his amusement. Barely.
"What?" Sam and Daniel whipped their heads to look at him, chests already quivering with expectant giggles.
"Why was I not permitted to touch the device?"
All three of them fell over each other as they lost their composure…again.
"Hey!" Jack yelled, hands up in the air like he was reffing a game. "Somebody had better start talking or heads are gonna roll!"
Three pairs of wide eyes met his own and Jack knew his mistake before he'd even finished his sentence. They just laughed harder at him and his dumbfounded expression. Okay, new idea.
"Major Carter!" Dropping back to drill cadence, Jack reached out and caught his major's shoulders. He held her still while she tried to slow her breathing and meet the eyes of her commanding officer with a straight face. In the hallway, he could hear the strained gasps and giggles of the personnel who had gotten too close and were still of absolutely no assistance to him.
"It's true love, sir." For the longest moment since he'd entered this bizarre nightmare, she held his eyes without laughing.
"I'm sorry?" Could oxygen deprivation from laughter cause brain damage?
"To – to make it stop." Her lips trembled as she fought the urge to laugh so hard that the tendons in her neck stood out in stark relief.
"True love's kiss." Daniel hummed against the wall where his face was now pressed. "Guys, this wall is so cold and nice."
"I'll say again – I'm sorry?" His team was definitely suffering from brain damage.
"Why is O'Neill unaffected?" Teal'c also leaned against the wall, his cheek pressed flat. "The others who came in here were incapacitated as we were." Daniel reached up a hand to pat Teal'c's cheek but the bigger man shooed him away, causing them both to fall apart again.
Jack had heard Teal'c laugh exactly once prior to this incident.
Jack decided he did not ever need to hear it again.
Jack also decided that Teal'c had a valid point. Why was he unaffected?
"It's because he's too grumpy." Daniel sing-songed.
"Grumpy colonel." Sam cracked up again, nearly headbutting Jack as she leaned forward in an attempt to control herself.
"Well, this is going to be a problem then." Jack tallied at least 15 people in need of preventative measures, more if someone hadn't figured out that everyone needed to be kept back and away from the lab for now. "I don't suppose anybody has anyone's true love on speed dial?" That sentence wasn't even the weirdest thing about the day – go figure.
"Pffft, we all have Sam's." Daniel waved his hand at the wall mounted phone. "Just dial extension-,"
"Daniel!" Sam hissed, trying to throw herself on top of the other man even while the colonel kept his iron grip on her arms.
"Children." Jack rolled his eyes heavenward.
"Let me go." Sam wiggled her arms free just enough to push against Jack's bad knee – mostly accidentally – and shove herself across the narrow expanse to Daniel. Grabbing the front of his shirt and, surprising even herself, Sam pressed her lips to his suddenly very silent ones.
It was the longest three seconds of Jack's life.
After what felt like an eternity (to Jack), Sam rolled back off her knees and onto her butt, scooting away from Daniel and laughing all the while. Daniel, on the other hand, was sitting very still with an owlish look on his serious face. All at once, the tension rushed from his body and his head thunked against the wall as he passed out.
"Carter, what the hell?" She loved Daniel?
But his major was already scooting forward again, throwing a wink over her shoulder at him as she landed in front of the suddenly squirmy Jaffa. "Major Carter, I do not think-," But he was cut off by Sam's finger shushing him.
"Love ya like a brother, Teal'c. And it worked on Daniel." She jerked a clumsy thumb over shoulder and leaned forward, again locking lips with another member of SG-1.
'Like a brother. Like brothers. Love them like brothers.' Jack was turning the logic over in his mind, trying to make it make sense. Squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the heels of his hands to his temples, he was very sure he would need some very strong drinks very soon.
"It would appear that there are indeed different interpretations of true love." Teal'c nodded his head slowly and then kept going as his chin touched his chest and he slumped sideways, out cold.
Sam flopped down on her back, arms stretched out like she was making a snow angel, laughing. "S-sir." Jack's eyes snapped to hers where she lay near his thigh. "This is the last thing I ever thought I'd say to-today, but-," Interrupted by a giggle interlude, she cleared her throat. "Would you kiss me, please?"
"Would I-?" Jack stared slack-jawed. Could he be brain damaged by proxy of their brain damage?
"Please, sir, my stomach is so sore." She rolled over and back onto her knees so she was eye level with him. "Love me like a sister?" She prodded, testing him.
"Definitely not." Jack narrowed his eyes at her as he caught onto what she was doing.
"Like a cousin?"
"Carter -,"
"I'm definitely not old enough to be your mother." Her laugh spiraled high and loud as his head bumped against the worktable in surprised annoyance.
"You kissed them, how come that didn't solve your problem?" He had thought that was a valid question, but her fit of sniggering told him that, in fact, it maybe wasn't.
"Because they were kissed." Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Watch."
Before he could move, Sam had twisted her fingers in his collar and pulled him forward, her lips finding his and leaving him utterly helpless. He changed his mind; this was the longest three seconds of his life. And they weren't quite long enough. His major broke away, laughing. "See? Didn't work."
She was right – given that she was still way too giggly and also conscious, it hadn't worked. That meant…she didn't love him? Like, at all? Jack wasn't enamored with the idea – but he would have taken brother over nothing.
Sobering suddenly and, most likely, briefly, Sam dropped her hands from his collar. "It's got to be the kisser, not the kissed."
"The – what?" Way too much had happened in the five minutes since he'd come tearing into the disaster zone that was Carter's lab. Had it really only been five minutes? Sam made a whistling sound as she tried to suppress a fresh gale of giggling. "Carter, I cannot concentrate with you making all these sounds!"
"Then just kiss-,"
Thinking hadn't really been working out for him, Jack decided. He'd been trying to use his brain since he'd stumbled into this room and he'd gotten exactly nowhere. So he did what he liked people to think he did best – he stopped thinking.
Taking a page out of her book, Jack grabbed Sam by the front of her jacket and closed the distance between them. She'd kissed him first after all…he was just returning the favor. Her fingers found the back of his head and caught on his short hair as Jack shifted, pulling her closer.
This was definitely longer than three seconds. And definitely not sibling related in any way at all.
Like a light going out, Sam suddenly went limp straight into Jack's waiting arms. Kind of sappy. Defintiely cliché.
But also convenient for Sam since that effectively prevented her from bonking her head and having a massive headache when she woke up.
Blinking slowly and deliberately, Jack allowed himself a moment to fully sit and reflect on what had just happened. Lab explosion. His team incapacitated. Several base personnel also incapacitated. No danger, just laughter. Carter kissing Daniel. Carter kissing Teal'c. Carter kissing him.
Him kissing Carter.
A slow smile turned the corner of his mouth up as a very self-satisfied colonel felt like the cat who finally caught the canary.
A peal of desperate laughter from the hallway brought Jack back to the situation still kind of at hand. Oh yeah.
Who the hell was going to help those guys?
END
A/N: No rhyme, reason, or plot, folks. Happy Ship Day!