A/N: After trying to update this at 2am and somehow containing my anger at the document manager and not throwing something and my laptop or worse yet, throwing the laptop, I took my dog out. We walked down to the corner and on the way back I froze. So did my dog.

On opposite sides of where the sidewalk met my driveway, two rabbits were facing each other like stone statues guarding an entranceway.

Another hopped across the street. Life was imitating art. The rabbits were out to get me.

I whimpered and after gaining control of my legs, quickly led my dog back in the house.

Anyway, though the document manager is still being pissy, I found a way to update without uploading anything. Hehe. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

The stone on the floor was refreshingly cool, and surprisingly comfortable. If I wasn't surrounded by my boss, an alien, and a major, I wouldn't move, even sober. All I needed was a pillow. Maybe a blanket. Yeah… blanket would be good. I'll name the floor…Bob. No, I use that too much… Logan. Logan's a good name.

I felt hands pulling at my arms, "Are you alright?"

Oh, Dr. Accent. "Yes, I just lost my footing." Though I was drunk, it was slightly drunk… not incoherent. I could fake not being drunk pretty well at that point. Though my inside my head's a different story.

It would've been more convincing if I hadn't fall over.

But then again, I seemed to have a pattern going on, maybe they'd think I was just that clumsy.

I found my feet again… my boss sure seemed to be helping me a lot that day after falls.

"Yes, I can see how a level floor would do that." I shot Major Cutie another glare, but out of sight of Mrs. Vain. He picked up my pack off the floor. Wait, how did I drop that? And when? "This might have something to do with it." He moved it up and down like he was testing the weight of it, "You've been carrying this all this time?"

I stood still. If I stood still my head didn't swirl. "Yes. I've carried packs that weighed that much before. Up hills. They're called twelve pound textbooks."

"If you'd rather carry it now, be my guest." He extended it over to me.

"You already have it." I slowly turned around and faced Mrs. Vain who for some reason looked amused.

Oh, she knew. Well, if she knew I was drunk than did the others? And where the hell are the Marines? Scouring the city? … oh crap. I forgot which was which. One's Lt. Reed, the other Capt. Coffman… I think the blonde's Coffman…is he the Captain? Yeah. CC. Why did Lt. Reed sound familiar?... Lt. Reed… Ahh! Enterprise! Lt. Malcom Reed. Such a great character. Ooo and Archer. Scott Bakula's great, hmm, did I bring my Quantum Leap DVD's? Oh my god, he played Dr. Beckett! Sure he was 'Sam' not ' Carson' and he wasn't Scottish, but still! How weird was that?

"The labs are this way." She started moving down the hall and I stayed next to her, Dr. Accent and Major Cutie behind me. Course, I'd never call them that to their faces. It'd give the wrong impression.

I kept the swaying to a minimum walking down the hall in some part due to Mrs. Vain purposely, I thought anyway, walking so close we could've linked arms. She was like a reference point I could use to keep steady.

The walls were made of light brown brick with little patterns I didn't bother to look at because it would have made my head hurt more than it did. The light was coming from somewhere in the ceiling I couldn't decipher. It was almost like the whole ceiling was a light bulb. Wooden doors were spaced almost evenly on each side.

We stopped since she did and she turned around, "This is one of the Medical Labs. Dr. Beckett, you'll be in there. Dr. Trin will be happy to assist you if you have questions." She smiled and gestured to an older man in the room we were stopped in front of. He was leaning over a table working with something or another.

"Thank you." He disappeared into the lab and she led the Major and me down to the next room.

"I don't know if you'd care to come in, Major. I'm sure there are other and more interesting things you could be doing."

Uh… was she trying to get rid of him?... "Thanks for carrying this." I took back my pack and swung it over one shoulder.

He looked me straight in the eyes, "I'll be out here, Dr. Santella." He moved his gaze shortly to Mrs. Vain and nodded, "Ma'am."

I followed her into the lab. It was about the size of my living room back home, so it was a decent size. Tables lined with glassware were in the center, and instruments were on the counters along the walls. But she kept walking so I kept following.

There was a door on the far side of the lab and once we got through it, there was a smaller room with shelves of books, a table, a tall cabinet, and another woman at one of the said bookshelves.

"This is my sister, Dr. Euil Huwem."

A redhead like her sister but a few years younger and wearing more lab-orientated clothes, she nodded politely, "Nice to meet you."

"And you." I practically squeed at the shelves of books. I love books. I made my guest bedroom at home a library with a big overstuffed reading chair and a window seat and a reading lamp. But I still kept a bed and a dresser in there just in case.

Hmm, I wondered if I could just stay there and read for a week.

If they were in English.

Uh… would what I be reading even be in English?

And how are they speaking English?

Don't tell me they slipped a Babel Fish in my ear when I wasn't looking during my physical.

Mrs. Vain gestured to the ground by the table, "You can set your belongings down in here."

"But won't we be working out there?" I pointed back to the door leading to the lab.

The doctor shook her head. Not the Doctor with the TARDIS of course since 1. This doctor was a woman and regeneration doesn't work like that, and 2. I highly doubt Doctor Who is real. But it would be very exciting, and frightening. Daleks and Cybermen… Gah! The Wraith are bad enough. I wonder what version he'd be though… the show's on his tenth… "I've laid out our information here." She gestured to the table with stacks of books and papers on it.

"Right." Oh, this was going to be fun. Pouring over books being drunk. I looked around and spotted a cot in the corner complete with a blanket and a pillow. Huh? I guessed she loved the lab as much as my friend back home. I set my pack down gently.

"Do you need anything?" Mrs. Vain asked.

"No, I'm good." I really just wanted to sit down. I deduced I was at the same point of drunk as after my grandfather's funeral when I cleaned up, did the dishes, and put the extra chairs in the closest without falling after everyone left. So sitting and reading shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"If you'd like, we have a drink that should help after so much airwe."

I collapsed in a chair at the table, "That obvious, huh?" Then Dr. Beckett and Major Lorne would know too… great.

"You hid it very well."

Closing my eyes I heard the doctor say, "My first experience was worse."

Why the hell were people saying that so often? I felt about to drift off to sleep, something I really couldn't do, "Please tell me there's caffeine in that drink."

"Caffeine?" The doctor questioned.

"A stimulant." I flashed my eyes open, "Do you have a pen and paper?"

She went over to the end of the table and after a few moments passed me a piece of off-white paper and a pencil. I slowly drew out the molecule complete with all the double bonds and passed it over to my fellow biochemist.

I watched her eyebrows furrow and she asked, "These lines are oseon?" She pointed to different places where a few of the lines just met without a symbol.

"If you mean carbon, then yeah." I saw her eyebrow furrow again and I realized that they wouldn't have the same scientific language, not even for elements. I reached down to my pack and dug through it, ignoring my protesting head. Laptop… notebook… tablet pc I was never going to get used to… notebook with my work… enzyme notes… ahh folder. With it still in my pack, I looked through it and found the glimmer of plastic I was after. I slid it out and flopped it on the table.

My favorite periodic table was worn around the edges, but it was one of the few I found with good drawings of what the atoms looked like. I pointed to carbon, "Is that what you call oseon?"

The doctor stood next to me and analyzed the box along with the whole table, "Yes." She looked back at my drawing of the caffeine molecule and after a few moments of translating it to her own scientific language she announced, "Ahh, you mean lohdel. The drink has high amounts of it."

"Do you have any in here?" Mrs. Vain asked her sister.

"What self-respecting scientist wouldn't?" She replied with a twinkle in her eye and headed over to the cabinet.

I laughed, "Good to know that even in another galaxy some things are the same."

"I think you'll find our peoples have much in common."

"Oh! Thank you for…" I lowered my voice, "being so quiet about this. And getting Major Cu- Lorne away."

"It was no trouble."

My eyes were attracted to her dress by the silver thread. God was it pretty. "Could I get one?"

"One what?"

Oh god, did I say that aloud? Stupid airwe. "Sorry, my tongue got away from me."

The doctor appeared at my side with a plain glass filled with a light green liquid. "Here we are."

"Thank you very much, I hate to be a trouble." I picked it up and smelled it, laughing at the familiarity, "No way. You guys do not have Mountain Dew."

The sisters looked at each other and back at me.

"What is Mountain Dew?"

"Soda. From home. Or pop as most of the states calls it. It causes a lot of confusion amongst my people." My people… hehe. "We could just solve the problem by calling it soda pop or a soft drink, or better yet making everyone call it soda, but no. It's not gonna happen." I drank a third of the glass. It pretty much was Mountain Dew in a less sweet knock-off version and without all the fizz. I dubbed it Pegasus Dew.

Their eyebrows rose in the exact same way. It was kinda cute. All they needed was matching outfits instead of one wearing a dress and one in tan lab shirt and pants, and they'd be twins.

Movement from the door caught my eye and who else but my boss walked in. Before he could speak a word, I blurted out, "They have Mountain Dew." I raised my glass for effect.

His eyebrows furrowed too. What is with people and that reaction? "That's unusual."

I nodded suddenly remembering not keep up my act and not to blurt out random things, blaming it on the airwe.

What kind of a name for a drink was that anyway?

Then again, I come from a world where Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, Sex on a beach, Mudslide, London Fog, and Corpse Reviver are names for drinks.

I didn't even want to know what airwe translated to.

He asked after greeting the other women, "I was wondering if you had a…" His eyes fell on my periodic table, "May I borrow that? Dr. Trin and I are having some communication problems."

Without thinking, I snatched the precious piece of laminated paper to my chest. My precious… OH GOD! I refrained from smacking myself in the head. "Uh… we're using this but…" I leaned over to dig in my pack and almost fell over but managed to stay on the chair. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Laptop… notebook… folder! Success! I brought it out, placed it on the desk, and straightened out feeling my head swirl again. After opening it, I found what I was after, "I come prepared." I handed him a color photocopy of my periodic table.

"Thank you, lass. This should make things a deal easier." He patted my shoulder as he looked it over.

"You're welcome." I looked up and saw a little bit of scruff on his chin. I love scruff… I refrained from reaching up and scratching his chin. I wasn't that far gone.

"How are things progressing?" He asked without removing his eyes from the periodic table.

"We were just getting started." The doctor replied…her name slipped my mind already. I'm terrible with names of people I just met, I need a few repetitive drills of them before they stick if they aren't people like a boss. Ahh well, she's the doctor. But not the Doctor. That'd be weird. I've been through that.

"I'll leave you to it then." Dr. Accent left with a smile and I felt my body relax. The sisters seemed nice and understanding of my… situation and I didn't feel odd around them. I guess I can't call them aliens, they weren't that alien anymore.

Now if I only could remember their names… Mrs. 'Something' Vain and Dr. Eugene? No… Euclid… Euil ! Dr. Euil 'Something.'

Progress.

We finally settled down to work and after a few minutes of staring at us blankly, Mrs. Vain left us alone.

Somehow, someway, amongst the Stinean's works there were words in English, but in science that doesn't mean a thing. They had different names for almost everything and Euil and I struggled to translate it so we could both understand what it was.

Lot of good the Babel Fish was doing.

I had drunk the rest of my Pegasus Dew uncountable hours before Euil noticed since we were both throwing words at each other and getting excited over talking shop. She got up to get herself a glass and refill mine, but I stopped her. "I can get it." I don't like being waited on when not at a restaurant, and she was one of the Stinean lead scientists, not a waitress.

"Oh, thank you. The bottle is on the bottom shelf."

With my glass in hand, I got up and smiled realizing I wasn't lightheaded anymore and went over the cabinet. It was taller than me, which isn't saying much because I'm 5'2," and pulled the handle. Directly in front of me was a canter of green liquid and a row of glasses. The other shelves held what looked like personal effects so I didn't look. The bottom shelf with the Pegasus Dew had hooks attached to the bottom and clothes hung from them.

After pouring the two glasses I carefully closed the cabinet and returned to the table.

"Thank you." She took her glass.

"You're welcome." I sat back down next to her. We had papers strewn everywhere and books sprawled about, along with my Expedition - issued laptop which she practically had a heart attack over when I turned it on.

Now I was forming a headache and my neck was getting stiff. It was only going to get worse, so I dug in my pack for my bottle of naproxen. Instead I found acetaminophen and loratadine. It was always helpful to have different types of painkillers and an antihistamine with you at all times. Along with a camera, which I also found. I finally found the bottle and took out two little round blue pills.

Euil looked over, "What are those?"

"Naproxen. Better known as Aleve or in your language…" I took the pills and searched for my notes, "It's a painkiller." I found them and quickly did a rough translation, "kean bidenlel?"

She shook her head, "We don't have such a medicine."

"I could easily have translated it wrong." I scanned the table for a loose piece of paper, after finding one I drew it out from memory. "I think that's right." I placed it in front of her.

She picked it up and did this lip-curl thing I quickly learned she did when she was thinking. After a couple of nanoseconds her eyes widened. "I've been working on isolating this compound for months!"

"I'd be glad to help." I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. I knew the feeling of discovery and watching someone go through it was pretty great.

She turned to me and I found myself on one side of a hug and gingerly returned it. To say it was awkward on my part would be an understatement.

"That would be wonderful! I've only been able to get small amounts in solution, enough to test its effects, but not to produce on a wide scale." She pulled back and returned to looking at the drawing.

I admitted, "It can be a pretty useful drug."

Euil was smiling so wide it reminded me of the ninth Doctor Who.

Maybe the day wasn't a complete disaster. After all, one good thing could come out of it. I'd make sure she knew about the possible side effects later of course.

I reached out my hand for my glass before my eyes had a chance to look where my hand was going. It grabbed for the glass, but missed and knocked it over. Goram hand.

My eyes widened not with discovery, but anger and shock at the sight of Pegasus Dew all over the keyboard of my laptop and the screen going funny colors.

Ahh frak.

A/N: Thank you for showing the love, please continue.

If anyone doesn't know a reference, feel free to ask. My mind often thinks in sci-fi ref's, esp. while altered. And since she's an older (somewhat wiser, way smarter) version of me, well they got weaved in.

I have 2 (?) chapters to go. Unless the plot bunnies attack me.