A/N: An actual chapter this time! See? All is well.

Part 14- Tom Foolery

Once in awhile, Rodney McKay was indeed a good liar. It barely happened since the forces of the universes had to be in the correct places relative to each other. In this case it happened by sheer demand of the writer.

A few hours ago, the astrophysicist successfully pulled off a lie.

A big one.

Huge. Gigantic. Bigger than a megalodon. Which is pretty darn enormous, an ancient shark the size of a ranch house.

Too bad he won't be remembering it in a few hours. But, we're getting ahead there… shh. Don't tell Techie.

Wait… why would she care?

Seriously. Not like she hasn't gotten ahead of herself before and she doesn't have power over this writer or knows what she's doing at any given moment of time.

-Snort- "Remember the striped bunny, Carter, Twilight Zone, harem bunnies, and those are just a few of the"-

Shush you!

-"Don't shush me!"-

(puts on aluminum foil helmet to block Techie's brainwaves)

Anyway.

Rodney whistled as he strolled down the hall en route to get some food to stave off hypoglycemia, his hands in his pockets, and in a pretty good mood, partly because the plan to rig the Stargate to the X-302 and the whole thing on top of a 747 was going pretty well, and mainly because he pulled off a lie that he wasn't even sure what he was lying about.

He managed to avoid getting brainwashed by simply shutting up and keeping his hand on his neck.

Ha.

Continuing whistling, (a certain song that you all know well, and if not, go read Parts 7 and 10 again for cryin' out loud) he passed through the doorway to the mess hall, instantly noticing the two women that tried to brainwash him heading to a table.

Great.

His heart flipped and his mind yelled.

Think of it like when… erm… your puppy died? No… Goldfish named Damien? No… um…

Nevermind.

Rodney just really did not want to be within any proximity of the crazy Lennon and her friend since he did not want to be brainwashed into a diabolical plan to take over the world.

He could do that on his own if he wanted.

But he still felt the pull to her.

It kind of sucked.

---Dashing over to the two Busters---

"He's not here yet."

"Your loverboy might have slept in. Nothing to cry over."

Madison continued pouting, "But he said to meet him here when they opened."

Lennon rolled her eyes and plopped ungracefully into a very uncomfortable chair, her tray of breakfast food clattering on the metal table, "So he stood you up, get over it."

Madison lowered herself beautifully onto the chair across the table, tray free since she wanted to wait until he got there, "Jonas would not do that!"

"How would you know? You've only known him for… how long have we been here now?"

"A little over two days."

"Okay. So you've known him for a max of forty-eight hours and spent hardly any time with him at all, you can't possibly know someone that well in that amount of time." Lennon stuffed a couple of bagels (two blueberry and a plain), a couple donuts (krawler, strawberry jelly filled, and a powered), all wrapped up in a system of napkins so they wouldn't get crumbs everywhere, in her pack.

"You seem to know McKay pretty well."

"No I don't."

"You said you know he'd go snooping about us if you didn't erase his memories."

"Well yeah. Wasn't that obvious?"

"No."

Lennon went for another way to explain her behavior. She really couldn't know him that well. She didn't want to know him that well. "I have spent more time with him than you have with prince charming."

"And done more."

"That's beside the point. You're just jealous."

"Of your ship?" Madison looked horrified of the possibility, "No way." She really did not like ship bunnies. They forced love. She didn't like that.

Lennon sunk lower into the chair, "Fine then."

"You okay?" Madison asked, worried, and her face instantly showed it.

"I'm fine." She huffed, "I can't even try and relax in these super uncomfortable chairs without you pestering me about it."

Madison kept pushing since she was not one to back down about stuff that could be hurting her teammates, "Since the…erasing or whatever you've been… off…"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"As if. You're sad about it."

"What if I am?" Lennon snipped.

Madison shrugged, "It's normal. Especially with the ship and everything."

Lennon hit her head on the table and left it there, "Why do you have to be so intuitive?"

"It's what I do."

"It's so weird. I should happy it's all over, no worrying about it anymore… but I'm gonna remember it all. He's not. It sucks."

Madison reached over and placed her hand over Lennon's, "Well duh. You do have feelings for him."

"I do not." She raised her hand, showing her pointer finger to make a… point.

Madison quirked her eyebrow, unseen to Lennon, but the silence gave it away.

"Fine. I like him. But it stems from the ship."

---Back to the other side---

Rodney didn't know what to think.

Ship?

Like?

Feelings?

But wasn't it all just part of the plan to seduce him into a secret organization hell-bent on world domination?

He glanced over to the table, trying not to draw attention to himself as he saw the brown-haired woman rubbing Lennon's arm soothingly as she continued to rest her forehead on the table.

Weird.

They didn't seem to be a threat to anyone on the base other than him, so he had let it go. Once the whole Gate thing was solved, he had been ready to enlist some help and find out who they really were.

It was also strange how they just left after that whole bunny thing.

He expected some brainwashing then. Alien-tech induced, or maybe with a pocket watch. It didn't matter.

Things really weren't adding up.

Now they were talking about erasing his memories and she having (gulp) feelings for him.

Very odd.

Not that he didn't have any feelings, but he had stuffed them away after the whole attempted brainwash thing, them being replaced by anger which was now dissipating.

He picked up the glass of juice and brought it to his lips, the smell getting into his nostrils.

Though it was distinctly red, cranberry to be specific, it also had a different and deadly smell.

Rodney immediately stormed over to the serving counter, glass in hand. "Are you trying to get sent to jail, or military prison, or wherever they send you people?"

The KP stared blankly.

"What is this? Hmm?"

The KP, a marine to be specific, answered, "Orange cranberry juice."

"Citrus sends me into anaphylactic shock! You could've killed me!"

"I still could." The marine KP deadpanned.

Rodney sputtered, "That's not… I….I've had enough of that today!"

"Jeeze oh peets, settle down already."

Rodney spun around at the voice, "I don't need you coming into this, Lenny."

Madison's eyes widened to resemble those of a deer.

Lennon stared, her face going from shock to anger.

Rodney bolted.

---Meanwhile, somewhere else on base---

Focusing on the job, mission, the work, whatever it's called was the easiest thing in all the universes and fandoms for our lone Buster Co.

Today was different.

She walked with the APBA Handbook in one hand, the other poised to grab the zat in the side of her SGC uniform black pants. One eye was reading and the other was scanning her surroundings for stray plot bunnies.

Basically, her attention was divided between the job and searching for a way to get the horrid, yet steamy, hallucinations to stop.

There had to be some way. A drug even. Just something to take the edge off.

Charlotte could handle the effects of the (shiver) smut ship, but the hallucinations were just ridiculous.

How could she even begin to focus when canons from every universe she'd been to dotter her vision?

At least there weren't any sounds from them.

That would have driven her bananas.

Though she had read the handbook countless times since graduation from the Academy, and though she knew there was nothing more about smut-side effects than what she had read a couple hours before, she kept looking and held on to a smidge of hope.

Short of jumping Lorne and time, it offered no other solutions.

Well then.

The corridor she was patrolling was hardly wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, it being in the back and hardly used except the corners which were almost always stacked with boxes or those black crates.

She wondered it anyone knew they were even back there since she could have written 'Wash Me' in the layer of dust.

Another group of the seemingly-forgotten supplies sat quietly ahead of her where the hall split off into to separate ways.

Charlotte lowered the handbook, readied her firing hand, and peered behind the boxes.

---Yep, you guessed it…---

Lennon yanked her pack off the ground and ran out the door after him, leaving Madison sitting at the table.

She searched the hallway, movement at the end catching her eye by the elevator.

How did he move that fast?

Rodney waved triumphantly until she couldn't see him anymore through closed elevator doors.

"Lenny, why are you standing here?" Madison asked, tumbling into the hall.

"The punk got away. He was playing us the whole time!"

"But how did he know how to act?"

"Good guess and I did say I never did that before, he was bluffing and hoped we wouldn't find out. How could I not have noticed! Now I have to track him and another bunny down! This is plain insane!"

"Lenny, don't yell." Madison placed a reassuring hand on Lennon's shoulder.

"I'm not yelling!"

"You are speaking with exclamation points…"

Lennon swatted Madison's hand away, "I am not!"

Madison pointed to the lines above her.

Lennon scowled, "I see your point. Happy now? That ended in a period."

"Yes, thank you." She nodded and looked over Lennon's shoulder, "Jonas!"

"Hey, who's the one with the exclamation points now?"

Jonas looked weary, "Hi, sorry I'm a little late but the alarm clock either didn't go off or I didn't hear it."

"It's fine." Madison smiled.

Lennon mumbled, "Lame excuse."

Madison hit her in the arm.

"Hey!"

"After you." Jonas motioned to the door with a smile.

Madison looked at Lennon, "Uh…"

"I'll find Charlie to 'keep and eye on me.' " She rolled her eyes. "Gotta run lovebirds."

Jonas and Madison blushed as Lennon left with a wave behind her.

---Back over here---

Two brown amnesia bunnies were calmly cleaning themselves and sensing her presence, looked up with beady black and utterly evil eyes.

Man did Charlotte hate amnesias.

She pulled her zat and cleaned them out within a couple seconds.

It was a routine event, but it triggered a line of thought – forgetting memories, altered memories, mental conditions, Cmdr. Riker being captured in TNG and led to believe he was nuts in an insane asylum, ways to play with a person's mind medically, and then magically.

This whole thing led to her thinking of her first Bunny Buster CO.

Lily.

The name does convey delicacy, lots of pink, blonde hair, and a bubbly personality.

All the complete opposite of Lily.

She was… well… a biker chick with natural black hair, olive skin, and built like a female tank. She had virtually controlled the Buster operations in every cop universe, unofficially of course, for years, with the occasional dip into fantasy and scifi.

Lily laughed so hard the ground shook when newbie-Charlotte fell into the Helping Hands in the Labyrinth universe, threw a rope down, pulled her up, slapped her on the back, and handed her a cigar.

A year later she was driven mad.

By a tree.

Insane, wacko, funny farm worthy twelve times over. All because of hallucinations brought on by venom the tree secreted, very rare and not known except to a few people.

Luckily, a certain Beastmaster had helped the very young Charlotte and the other member of her first team by giving them the antidote.

Charlotte smacked herself for not remembering Dar sooner and proceeded to rifle through her pack as it sat on top of a stack of crates at waist level, hoping that the extra vile of orange solution was still in there after all the years.

Her pack wasn't nearly as packed a Lennon's, but it was well-stocked and even organized into sections. There were more pockets in the thing than a dozen pairs of cargo pants.

So to say searching for a vile as big as her pinky that she didn't even know was still in there or not was frustrating, would be underestimating it.

The hallucinations weren't helping either.

She refused to let herself be scarred anymore after catching a glimpse of Vulcan-shaped ears because there were some things Vulcans just should not be seen doing. Ever.

About a minute through the hunt, she determined that she really should sit and take a good look through what she had in there once they got back to HQ.

An old Zippo lighter that she hadn't seen in ages later, she hadn't found it.

Tobacco leaf crumbles later, still nothing.

Same goes for the dry cleaning receipt from the original Law & Order universe after a cab splashed a puddle all over her new pants.

That had been there for awhile…

Charlotte shifted her weight to her other foot, determined to find the stupid little thing even if she had to look through every pocket a hundred times.

Well maybe not a hundred… maybe just twenty-seven.

A/N: Damien just popped into my head while writing that bit with the puppy and goldfish. It comes from Damien, Fish of the Underworld by none other than Elizabeth Bartlett on here.

Great, now she's gonna think I'm obsessed with it… oh well.

I totally made up the hallucinating-venom thing… I thought it might work in the Beastmaster universe. Kinda. Sorta. Whatever.

The megalodon mention was because the Discovery Channel was playing nothing but shark stuff (Shark Week) when I wrote that part.

Oh yeah, the twist with Rodney… anyone see that coming? Because I sure didn't. It's all Techie's fault for sending me the plot bunny.