Title: Rumours - Part 3
Author: Bryn & Nike
Rating: G
Archive: DJA, Nike’s DJFic
Summary: ‘She may just have found the means to buy her
way into the inside track of the base’s grapevine
after all…’
Category: D/J romance, humour
Spoilers: None
Season: 7
Status: WiP (3/?)
Disclaimer: "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."
Author's Notes: Yes! It *is* the third part of the
‘Rumours’ series! You all remember it, right? ;) If
you need to refresh your memory, the first two parts
can be found at the above link. Nobody said we had to
be fast. *g* (or spell correctly *mutters about the
bloody British*)
Feedback: Yes. Lots.
***
Janet wandered slowly towards the infirmary, strangely
reluctant to go in this morning. Her earlier
conversation with Daniel was weighing heavily on her
mind. Much as she had enjoyed sharing breakfast with
the archaeologist, her thoughts were now racing with
ways in which the two of them could infiltrate the
base’s little group of gossip-mongers. She smiled
wickedly. Who knows? Maybe it could be…fun.
Reaching the doors to the infirmary, she paused for a
second to regain her usual brisk demeanour. Running
her fingers through her hair and tugging her white
coat straight, she swung open the doors and strode in,
noting with some satisfaction that she startled quite
a few of the nearby nurses. Picking up a couple of
charts at random, she began flipping through the day’s
work as she walked through the medical rooms, heading
towards her office. She had almost reached it when she
heard a familiar giggly voice floating through the
air. Changing direction, she found Nurse Lucy Elmer,
her back to Janet, engaged in conversation with
another member of the infirmary staff. Keeping just
out of sight, Janet hovered behind them as she
eavesdropped unabashedly.
“…and to top it all off, they were seen in the
commissary eating breakfast together, this morning!”
Elmer recounted, excitedly.
The other nurse, one Lena Smith, answered in a tone
dripping with innuendos, “*Breakfast*? If I had a
vivid imagination, that could say a *lot* about them!”
Nurse Elmer giggled and Janet could just imagine the
look on her face – a cross between innocence and
wicked deviousness. “According to Ness, too, they
were quite friendly,” she replied.
“Aren’t they always?” Smith asked. “Those two can’t
be in the same room without absolutely radiating UST!”
UST? Janet pondered silently, searching her mind for
what in the world that could stand for. It sounded
like something to do with a computer, but she couldn’t
for the life of her imagine Sam and Jack radiating
something like that. She furiously tried to remember
back to that morning in the commissary too, wondering
why she didn’t remember seeing Sam and the colonel
eating breakfast there. Of course, she had been
rather occupied in her discussion with Daniel and
hadn’t paid much attention to who was around… She
realized she was going to have to *start* paying more
attention though, to figure out what exactly Sam and
Jack did to invoke so much speculation and gossip
about their relationship.
“Well,” Elmer continued, “the girls and I think…”
Unfortunately, Fraiser never got to find out what
Elmer and the girls thought, (or, she cursed, exactly
who the rest of ‘the girls’ were), as Colonel Jack
O’Neill clattered into the infirmary, noisy and
irritable as usual.
“Doc?!”
Damn.
Elmer and Smith both shot around, as Janet attempted
to look like she hadn’t been blatantly spying on them.
Wide eyed, the two nurses scattered.
“Colonel O’Neill!” Janet declared through gritted
teeth. “What can I do for you?”
“Just down for some painkillers for my knees, you
know…” Jack shrugged. “They’ve been a little sore with
all the recent activity.”
Janet regarded him levelly for a minute. Recent
activity? Surely the rumour mill didn’t actually know
something… dismissing the treacherous thought as
quickly as it came, she gestured towards her office.
“I’ll just get some for you.”
Alone in her own private sanctuary, rummaging through
her cabinets for some appropriate drug that would put
the colonel in a better mood (legally), she allowed
herself to plot her own course of action for a minute.
There was no way anyone could have serious grounds for
suspecting something was afoot between O’Neill and
Carter, that much she was sure of. It had to be just
idle gossip born of some extremely creative but
dangerously misguided minds.
On the *other* hand, Colonel O’Neill’s little
announcement through there had to have been caught by
at least half the infirmary staff – he was not, when
it came right down to it, a quiet man. And Elmer and
Smith had been hanging around close enough that they
couldn’t possibly have missed the unconscious innuendo
in his voice (O’Neill’s unique, warped humour could’ve
made the contents of an ordinary mission memo sound
like an innuendo if he’d put his mind to it.) A slow
grin began to spread over her face as she pulled out a
bottle of painkillers for him. She may just have found
the means to buy her way into the inside track of the
base’s grapevine after all.
Quickly dealing and dispensing with O’Neill, she
spotted Elmer and Smith still working diligently over
on the other side of the infirmary, and she casually
sauntered up to them.
“Well,” she began, “looks like the colonel’s been
having a little too much fun lately.” Janet gave them
a mischievous smile. “Nurse Elmer, please make a note
in Colonel O’Neill’s file that I’ve given him 500 mg
of Codine.” With that she turned and headed towards
her office.
With any luck, Janet thought, that should get them
thinking of her as less of a boss and more of a
potential source of information. She knew she was
playing with fire a bit here, what with having to
perpetuate the rumours she was trying to bring to a
halt, but one had to prove oneself useful when
attempting to infiltrate the enemy. Mentally crossing
her fingers, she hoped it worked because she really
didn’t want to think about what she’d just done if it
didn’t.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Daniel sighed loudly and buried his head in his hands.
He was desperately trying to get some work done, but
his mind adamantly refused to concentrate on anything
but Janet… err, what Janet had said, rather. On
departing that morning, she’d left him with the
assignment to think of some kind of rumour they could
use to gain access to the base’s rumour mill *and* a
way to discreetly deliver it.
Why him? He groaned again. Hadn’t he already proven
his complete ineptitude in this little scheme of
theirs? The last time he’s gone along with one of
Janet’s ‘simple’ plans he’d inadvertently convinced
poor Captain Johnston that her work was under scrutiny
by the general! He really should do something to
cheer the poor girl up, he thought, he owed her that
much at least. He could…
Suddenly Daniel’s head shot up as he came across a
very out-of-place, yet endearing idea in his head. He
could kill two birds with one stone. He smiled as he
realized Janet would be very proud of him. Hopping
cheerfully out of his chair, he jogged up to the ‘Gate
room, where he knew Johnston would be working again.
“Captain? Good morning!”
The young woman was slow to turn around, looking at
him with some suspicion and palpable fear in her eyes.
“Doctor Jackson?” she asked, quivering. After
yesterday, she wasn’t taking any chances, even with
Lt. Col. Nichol’s reassurances.
“Uh, yeah. Look, sorry about last night. I didn’t
mean to get you worried,” Daniel offered. Johnston
nodded hesitantly. It was going to take a lot more
than this to alleviate her paranoia, she felt.
“Listen…” Daniel began, wondering how best to phrase
his next sentence. Maybe he should have rehearsed this
first. “I’d like to make it up to you.” Johnston
blinked. “Why don’t you let me get you a cup of coffee
in the commissary? I know that you and some of the
other…umm…” He swiftly decided that ‘gossips’ would
not be the best of terms to use. “…women… go down
there for lunch. I’d just like to get to know you and
your friends a little better… prove that I’m not
completely….” Annoying? Stupid? Insane? “…out to get
you,” he finished lamely.
Johnston was leaning so far back in her chair he was
worried it was going to tip over. “You…you want to
have coffee with…me? Me and the…girls?”
“Yeah!” he declared enthusiastically. “We can get some
coffee, some lunch, and you can catch me up on all the
latest!” Immediately the captain tensed.
“Latest?” she questioned, apprehensively.
Daniel licked his lips. This had seemed a much more
sensible idea in his office. Much easier in theory.
“Yeah. Me and SG-1, we spend so much time off the
base, I hardly know what’s happening around here any
more. And anyway, I may have some stories to tell
myself!” He laughed, maybe a little too nervously. But
this, at least, had peaked her interest.
“Stories? About SG-1?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded somewhat frantically. “Well, you
know, I can’t tell you everything…I mean…not that
there’s things…I mean…well, you know.” Sometimes there
were definite advantages to being known as a
scatterbrain. Johnston was warming to the idea, he
could tell. His little ‘slip’ had caught her
attention.
“Really.”
Looking (he hoped) endearingly embarrassed, he
shrugged in his best ‘Oops-I-Shouldn’t-Have-Said-That’
manner. With that, he saw he had Johnston hook, line
and sinker.
“Okay! Well, I have to finish up here, but I’m meeting
everyone in the commissary at one…?”
Daniel nodded happily. “I’ll seen you then!” Rising
from the chair, he beamed at her and was rewarded with
a huge smile back. He practically bounded out of the
control room. Lunch with Them! Who knew what he was
going to find out in half-hints during a leisurely
conversation! Janet would be pleased. Mildly, he
wondered what she was up to this morning. He’d have to
catch up with her after lunch and compare notes.
*~*~*
“He’s what?” Moser sat frozen in her seat, coffee cup
half-way to her lips, eyes like saucers.
“Coming for coffee.” Johnston shrugged, beginning to
get a little worried by her friends’ reactions. “He
just sort of…invited himself along. To make up for
yesterday, he said. He’s coming to... to ‘get to know
us better’.
“He’s *what*?!”
Sergeant Rebecca Ottley was casting furtive glances
over the heads of the other diners as Moser exploded,
while Lucy had produced a mirror from some unspoken
recess of her nurse’s uniform and was busy fixing her
hair. Moser spared a moment to glare at the nurse,
who didn’t really seem to care, then returned to
glaring at Johnston. The captain, for her part,
wondered if she could hide under the table until her
friend calmed down.
“Daniel Jackson, the shy, reserved, *oblivious*
workaholic, who has never before any interest in us
*at all*, suddenly invites himself to lunch and you
don’t find this in any way odd?” Moser queried with a
sarcasm level that rivalled O’Neill’s.
“Uh…no…not at the time…” Johnston answered meekly.
“Bryn,” Ottley cut in in a soothing tone, finding it
mildly amusing that for once she was being the voice
of reason. “Let’s face it, if *you* were faced with
Daniel offering to ‘make it up to you,’ would you
react with anything other than ‘when and where?’”
Moser looked at the younger girl and scowled. It was
always disconcerting when Becca made sense. “Ok, you
have a point…” she admitted. “But it still doesn’t
solve the problem of what we’re going to do with him.”
“He did offer to share some SG-1 stories,” Johnston
chimed in.
Halcyon refilled her coffee cup and smiled calmly.
“See? This won’t be bad at all. In fact, this is
probably perfect. We’ll be able to subtly slip in
your Sam and Jack reference all the while getting a
free session of good gossip,” the major reasoned.
“I suppose,” Moser relented. She gave everyone one
last glare for good measure though. “This better
work,” she muttered.
“Do you think I should put my hair down or keep it
pulled up?” Nurse Elmer asked.
*~*~*
Daniel hesitated outside of the commissary doors.
Peeking through the gap, he could just make out Capt.
Moser and Capt. Johnston engaged in deep conversation.
He took a deep breath. Moser, Johnston,
commissary…wasn’t this where he had started out? Bryn
seemed to be doing a lot of emphatic gesturing, and
looked fairly passionate about whatever topic she had
underway. He couldn’t see Johnston’s face very well,
be he was sure she was rapt. Steeling himself, he
entered. Every head at the table turned instantly.
There were more of them than he had expected. Besides
Johnston and Moser, there were Nurses Elmer and Smith,
Major Halcyon, Sgt. Ottley, and two Lieutenants, Tyler
and Ashe. Coughing nervously, he opened with a smile.
“Ummm…afternoon.”
Moser gave Johnston a less-than obvious elbow in the
ribs, which seemed to jumpstart the captain’s brain
again. “Oh, um… Let me introduce you to everyone, Dr.
Jackson.” Pointing to the woman around the table, she
named them off. “That’s Bryn, Lucy, Lena, Kat, Becca,
Allison, and Isabelle.”
There was a chorus of hellos from the table. On the
edge of his vision, he could see some of the women
exchanging glances and hand signals. He was starting
to think that this was a bad idea. Very, very bad.
Hovering at the edge of the table, he opted for buying
time.
“Anyone want another coffee?”
Three cappuccinos (one iced), an Irish Cream latte, an
Espresso con Pana, a Coco-Mochas, a Macchiato, a black
coffee (his) and a glass of water later, Daniel took
his seat at the table. He was sure the commissary had
only served the sludge he and Sam were addicted to
when he was in here this morning.
“So…” he began.
Eight faces looked at him expectantly.
TBC... (mwhahaha!)
*~*~*
Copyright © Bryn and Nike 2004
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