Fiesta!
Title:Fiesta!
Author:AthenaKTT
Pairing:Sheppard/Weir
Rating: E for Everyone
Summary: It's summer time and Elizabeth is throwing a Fourth of July party. Balloons + Beer + Fireworks = this little fic. :p
Rodney’s cheeks were red as the red balloon he was inflating, while John opted to inflate a gold color balloon instead. Both men occupied with outdoing each other by blowing the biggest balloon, did not notice the wide-eyed three-year-old boy watching them as they sat in the patio of Elizabeth’s backyard.
John pinched the end of the balloon so air could not escape as he let his cheeks take a break. The strain from blowing balloons was hurting his cheeks. He was starting to wonder how Elizabeth talked him into coming to this Fourth of July party early to set up. He thought he could come by and get away from helping by watching television on her big screen TV, but the moment he stepped into the door, Elizabeth gave him two bags of balloons, and told him to sit down and inflate them.
With one hand, John rubbed the side of his cheeks as he watched Rodney continue blowing his balloon. John tilted his head to one side as he observed Rodney’s expression. Who knew Rodney could do a good impression of a blowfish, especially when blowing balloons?
John looked at the golden balloon in his hands then at the red balloon Rodney was still blowing then at the little observer standing between them.
“Ah ha!” Rodney finally said holding out his over inflated balloon proudly. “Mine is bigger than yours,” he announced to John smugly.
John knitted his eyebrows together and prepared to blow more air into his balloon.
“Auntie Elizabeth said you shouldn’t over…over…over…” the little boy stammered.
“Inflate?” John offered.
“Yeah,” the little boy said. “She said you aren’t supposed to do that.” His stubby fingers pointed to Rodney’s big red balloon.
“I think your Auntie Elizabeth needs to stop using big words with young children,” Rodney said as he watched John continuing to expand his gold balloon.
“She said that you guys will pop the balloons if you make them too big,” the little boy insisted.
“What is your name?” Rodney said leaning forward.
“Joshua,” the little boy said.
“Well, Joshua. This balloon isn’t going to pop, watch.” Rodney started to blow some more air into his red balloon.
John had stopped blowing his balloon and tied a knot to it as Rodney tried to prove to that his balloon was not going to burst. Inevitably, the balloon popped. John burst out laughing, while the little boy, surprised by the sudden explosion started to cry.
“Look what you did, Rodney. You made the kid cry,” John said, trying to contain his laughter.
“What happened?” Elizabeth said as she rushed out from the house to comfort the child.
John immediately pointed to Rodney. “He did it.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Rodney exclaimed. “All I did was blow up balloons like you told me too.”
Elizabeth eyed both men skeptically as she wiped the tears from Joshua’s face.
“When I said blow up balloons, I didn’t mean for you guys to pop every single one.” She looked over at the balloon in John’s hand. “Didn’t you guys read the instructions on the bag? It says ‘Do not over inflate’ in big bold letters.” She pointed to the plastic bag of balloons.
John and Rodney shrugged simultaneously. “You didn’t tell us how big you wanted the balloons to be so…” John began.
“You guys decided to see who could blow the biggest balloon?” Elizabeth finished for him.
“Yeah, pretty much,” John said.
Elizabeth brought her hand up to her forehead and sighed. She turned her attention to her nephew who had stopped crying, and she whispered something to the child and his face immediately lit up.
“Can I watch TV?” the boy asked rubbing his eyes. Elizabeth nodded and he bounded into the house.
“Can I go and watch TV too?” John asked hopefully.
“No,” Elizabeth said sternly.
John muttered something under his breath while Rodney started to laugh at him.
“Now can you two genius start doing what I asked you to do?” she said, resting her hands on her hips.
Both men looked at Elizabeth blankly. Elizabeth let out another sigh and picked up a balloon from the bag and started to blow. She blew the balloon to a decent size and knotted the tail of the balloon and tossed it to John.
“That is approximately the size I want you two to blow the balloons. No more of the over inflated ones, especially from you,” she pointed to Rodney.
“Sheppard been over inflating his balloons too,” Rodney protested.
“Well he didn’t make a child cry…yet.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at John.
“I didn’t make your nephew cry either,” Rodney insisted. “Besides why are we blowing red and yellow balloons? I thought this was a Fourth of July Fiesta.”
“They are technically burgundy and gold balloons,” Elizabeth said.
“You mean Langford’s class colors?” John asked.
“We had a bunch of balloons left over from the graduations, so I figured we could use some here. I think it gives a sort of patriotic feel…in a way,” she explained.
“More like academic feel,” John muttered to himself.
“Question. If there is one kid here, does that mean there will be more kids?” Rodney asked.
“Other than the two of you, yes, there will be more kids here later,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t tell other faculty members that have children to leave them at home, especially when I’m stuck babysitting Joshua for the weekend.”
“Sure you can,” Rodney said.
“You’re just one grumpy old man aren’t you, Rodney?” John teased and stretched his arms over his head. “Nothing like a celebrating your country’s birthday with barbequing, having a few beers, burning some money, make sure you don’t blow yourself up, children yelling and screaming, Rodney yelling and screaming…”
“Yes, lots of fun stuff,” Elizabeth said and rolled her eyes. “Anyways when you two finish let me know. I have other things for you to do.”
After Elizabeth returned into the house, Rodney looked at John. “Other things? What does she mean by 'other' things?”
John shrugged. “She might want us to help her carry some stuff. You know things women need us strong men for.”
“Like blowing balloons,” Rodney said sarcastically.
“I’m fine with blowing balloons, as long as I’m not the one stuck at the grill later.”
“Who is stuck barbequing today?” Rodney wondered.
“I think Jack is,” John said, starting to blow another balloon.
“Jack? You mean Jack I’ll-add-some-beer-on-my-burgers-just-because O’Neill?” Rodney grabbed another balloon to blow.
“He does that?” John said in between a puff. “No wonder the last time the burgers tasted a bit tangy.”
“It tasted tangy and you still ate it?”
“What? I was hungry. It didn’t taste bad or anything, just tangy, ” John shrugged.
Rodney looked at John oddly, as he finished blowing another balloon.
“How did we get stuck coming early to help set up for the party?” Rodney asked tying a knot at the tail of an inflated balloon.
“Bad luck, I guess,” John said, tossing the balloon in his hand to Rodney, while Rodney used the balloon he had to bump John’s balloon from hitting his face.
“Bad luck?” a female voice came from behind John.
John raised his eyebrows as he turned to see Elizabeth standing behind him with her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t mean bad luck in a bad way,” John said scratching the back of his head. He wasn’t sure if it was possible for him to charm his way out of this. “What I meant was that everyone else who isn’t here early are the ones with bad luck because…we are the lucky ones that get to help out blowing balloons.” He gestured to the bunch of balloons lying on the floor around them.
“Good try, but I expected more from you. Anyway I need you two to come with me to carry drinks and stuff from Sam’s car,” she said.
“Sam is here?” Rodney’s ears perked up at the mention of Samantha Carter.
“Yes, she just got here with Janet. They are starting to unload stuff from her car. I thought it was about time you guys made yourselves useful.”
John and Rodney were more than happy to stop blowing balloons and help the women with unloading the car. Both men followed Elizabeth to Sam’s car and found two women already carrying bags of things into the house.
“So what do we start with?” Rodney said rubbing his hands together as he looked into the open trunk.
“Why don’t you start with something light? You don’t want any labor scars on your delicate scientist hands now do you?” Sam teased and grabbed a bag of ice from the truck.
“Now why do you have to be so antagonistic? I thought we have something here.” Rodney shouted to Sam as she walked into the house.
John only shook his head at Rodney and carried several pack of drinks towards the house.
“What? We do have something,” Rodney insisted.
“Rodney, have you been in the sun too long?” A petite brunette appeared next to him, making Rodney jump slightly.
“Janet, please don’t sneak up on me like that!”
Janet chuckled. “You sound like Jack. I wasn’t sneaking up on you. You were too busy talking to yourself. That you didn’t hear me.”
“I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to Sheppard, but he rudely ignored me and went into the house; giving the impression that I was talking to myself,” Rodney explained.
“Maybe you should go inside and have a drink of water,” Janet suggested.
Rodney opened his mouth and was about to argue with Janet, but Janet gave him a look and he decided it better not to argue with the woman. Jack O’Neill was right the petite woman was Napoleonic power monger and sometimes she frightened him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rodney said and grabbed the last bags of groceries from the trunk and marched into the house.
Rodney entered to house to find Elizabeth and Sam going through the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter, while John was peeking into each bag looking for something in particular.
“What are you looking for?” he asked John as he placed the bag he carried on the table next to John.
“I’m looking for this,” John said with a grin as he pulled out a bottle of beer from the bag. Just as he was about to twist the cap open. Elizabeth walked by and took the bottle from his hands.
“Hey!” John looked at his empty palm. “Where did my bottle of beer go?”
“You can’t relax yet. I still need you guys to put some table cloths on the tables outside,” Elizabeth said, holding the bottle in her hand.
“Can’t I have a drink and put the table cloths on at the same time?”
“No,” Elizabeth said flatly and handed John a roll of festive printed tablecloths and a roll of tape.
John sighed and tossed the roll of tape to Rodney. “Let’s go,” John said reluctantly and led Rodney outside again.
“I see you’ve got Sheppard under your thumb,” Janet said with a wink.
“Hardly,” Elizabeth said rolling her eyes.
“What do you mean hardly?” Sam said. “You’ve got him to come here early to help you blow balloons, and now he’s given up his beer to put table cloths outside.” She gestured to the two men outside staring rather confused at one of the tables.
“John is only here early because he lost a bet. Besides Rodney would do anything for you,” Elizabeth teased.
Sam scoffed. “Rodney would do anything but leave me alone.”
“I think it’s kind of charming how Rodney annoys you in an affectionate juvenile kind of way,” Janet grinned.
“You mean childish kind of way. If I had long hair and a ponytail I wouldn’t be surprise that he would pull my hair to get my attention,” Sam said.
“Actually, that seems like something Jack would do too,” Janet pointed out.
“That is why I keep my hair short,” Sam winked.
As the women continued prepping the food and snacks in the kitchen, there was a knock on the door. Joshua was sitting quietly on the couch watching cartoons, but as soon as he heard to knock on the door, he ran to open it.
His little hands reached for the door handle and slowly pulled open the door a crack, as Elizabeth called out asking “who is it?” and slowly made her way from the kitchen.
Jack stood in confusion as the front door to Elizabeth’s house opened by itself. Then he finally looked down and saw the little boy with dark brown hair and green eyes looking up at him. He swore he just heard Elizabeth’s voice.
“Elizabeth, you’ve shrunk and turned into a little boy,” Jack said.
The little boy giggled. “I’m not Elizabeth, I’m Joshua. Auntie Elizabeth is over there.” Joshua pointed towards the kitchen.
“So can I come in?” Jack asked Joshua.
“What’s the password?”
“Password?” Jack gave the boy a befuddle look.
“Yeah, you need a password to come inside,” Joshua said matter-of-factly.
“Okay…I have cake,” Jack said, showing the boy the box in his hand.
“Really?” Joshua’s eyes lit up.
“If you let me in, you can have some cake later,” Jack said.
Joshua scrunched his little face as he thought about Jack’s bribe. “Okay.” He finally said and opened the door wider for Jack to enter and hopped back to the TV.
“Jack, you made it,” Elizabeth greeted as she took the cake from him.
“You know me and parties. I just love fiestas every now and then,” he said with too much enthusiasm. “By the way, nice new security system you’ve installed.”
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth looked at Jack in confusion.
Jack pointed to Joshua. “You’re security guard wouldn’t let me in until I told him the password.”
“Oh and what was the password?” Elizabeth asked, amused.
“I don’t know. I bribed him with cake.”
“Darn, you found my security guard’s Achilles Heel. I’m going to have to find a new guard.”
“I guess so,” Jack said, “and a small suggestion, you should get someone taller next time. Hello Ladies.” Jack nodded to the two women in the kitchen. “So what’s cooking?”
“We are just prepping the things to bring outside as soon as John and Rodney finish. The barbeque grill is out back if you want to get ready,” Elizabeth said.
“Excellent,” Jack said in his Mister Burns impression, grabbed a Heineken bottle from the table, and headed out to the backyard.
Jack squinted his eyes from the late afternoon sun as he took a sip from his beer and watched John and Rodney putting the last tablecloth on the tables.
“Having fun fellas?” Jack asked.
Both men turned their attention to the newcomer.
“Now why does he get a beer?” John said resting a hand on his hips.
“Maybe Elizabeth has a new favorite,” Rodney teased.
“Maybe Elizabeth has a new favorite,” John mimicked Rodney and made a face. “I bet you it was Carter who gave it to him.”
“Maybe he got it himself,” Rodney shot back.
“Maybe,” John shrugged.
“Yes, maybe,” Rodney insisted.
Jack watched the exchange between the two men. “Now I know why the girls made you guys come outside,” he said walking away from John and Rodney towards the barbeque grill.
“So why are you guys here so early?” Jack asked as he poked the grill with a pair of tongs.
“Sheppard here lost a bet to Elizabeth,” Rodney said smugly.
“It wasn’t exactly a bet," John explained. "I let her win that game of chess; she took advantage of the win, and made me agree to come here early to help her today.”
“Sure, whatever,” Rodney said.
“What about you, Mister I’m-the-life-of-the-party?” John asked.
“You know me. Always eager to help,” Rodney said with a proud smile. John scoffed. “What? It’s true!”
“Are you guys always like this?” Jack asked somewhat annoyed and amused by their bickering.
John and Rodney looked at each other and replied simultaneously, “Yeah, pretty much.”
Jack gave a confused nod at the two. “Okay, just wondering. You two can go back to annoying each other.”
“So when is everyone coming?” Rodney asked.
“Soon, I hope,” Jack muttered to himself.
“Mister, Mister, Mister…”
Rodney was trying to ignore the little voice that kept calling him ‘Mister’ and tugging on his pants leg to get his attention.
“Mister, can you blow us a big balloon like you did this morning?” a little boy asked.
Rodney ignored the boy and continued eating his burger.
“Uh, Rodney, I think the ‘Mister’ the little boy is referring to is you,” Radek pointed out.
“Mister, can we have some chocolate? A little girl with brown hair tugged on his other pants leg,” Rodney continued ignoring the pair of children until the little girl decided the best way to get Rodney’s attention was to stomp her foot on Rodney’s foot rather hard.
“Ow!” Rodney yelped. The two children started to giggle as Rodney fumed at his midget terrorists.
Rodney had never been too fond of children. In fact, he was sure he was never a child. Though he would admit that his genius adult mind might have been stuck within the body of a child for the first decades of his life, but he usually chose to forget those years.
Moments like right now made him absolutely sure he was never a child. Rodney limped towards a chair and took off his shoe to survey the damage. Rodney glared at the little girl who looked innocently at him.
“Maybe you should have given them the chocolate,” Radek said, obviously trying to hold back a laugh.
“Maybe I didn’t give them the chocolate because I don’t have any,” Rodney said rubbing his feet and glared at the children giggling before him. “And these two don’t need anymore chocolate. Look at them! They are hyper!”
The two children continued giggling until they saw Elizabeth’s dog, Sedge,wander by, and they immediately switched their attention to petting and playing with the dog instead.
“Saved by the dog,” Radek said and wandered off to talk to Carson, who was meandering around.
“What happened to you?” Elizabeth handed a plate with a piece of cake to Rodney.
“I was getting abused by your children,” Rodney said bitterly as he thanked her for the piece of cake.
“My children?” Elizabeth asked puzzled.
“Yes, those three feet terrors you invited to this party.” He pointed to the children playing with Sedge.
“They aren’t that bad.”
“Yes, they are. I’m permanently lame now thanks to that one with the braids,” Rodney said.
“What did she do to you?” Elizabeth asked as she took a bite of the cake.
“She stomped on my foot.”
“Stomped on your foot? Why?”
“Yes, she stomped on my foot because she is a little monster,” Rodney said munching on the cake angrily.
“I don’t think the parents appreciate you calling their little precious a monster, Rodney,” John said as he came up behind Elizabeth with a glass of wine.
“I don’t appreciate it when parents can’t control their kids,” Rodney shot back.
“Don’t look at me they aren’t my kids,” John said.
Elizabeth thanked John for the glass of wine then remembered she did not have any wine for the party at least she didn’t think she did.
“Where did the wine come from?” she asked John.
“From Harry, he said he had a couple extra bottles and thought he'd contribute them, since you were so kind in inviting him to your party as well,” John said.
“Really?” Elizabeth wondered.
“My thoughts exactly,” John said and took a drink. “How many people did you invite to this party anyway?”
“I don’t know. I invited a few people, but a few became…a lot,” she shrugged. “Anyway, please excuse me. I need to talk to Harry,” Elizabeth said and walked towards the makeshift bar where Harry Maybourne had made himself at home.
“Harry, glad you could make it,” she greeted him with a smile.
“How could a man refuse a party invite from a lovely lady such as yourself,” Harry said.
“Always the flatterer, Harry.”
“What can I say? It’s a living," Harry grinned. "It wasn’t hard to convince me to close the pub today, since all my usual patrons are here.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Sorry, to steal your customers.”
“No worries,” Harry winked and brought out a jar that said, “Tip jar.”
“You are planning to make money off my party guest?”
“When they get drunk enough, they’ll tip anything,” Harry winked.
Elizabeth shook her head and glanced at a box on the floor behind Harry. The box looked very familiar.
“Harry, John told me that you brought some wine,” she said holding up her glass of wine.
“Yes, I did,” he said proudly. “Do you like it?’
“It’s quite nice. I was just curious. Where did you get the wine?” she asked.
Harry stopped wiping his makeshift bar and paused a moment to think. “I think this was something Apophis and has boys brought in a while back.”
“Do you have any idea where they got it from?”
“Beats me,” Harry shrugged.
“Harry, did you ever noticed that on the side of the wine box it says ‘Property of Langford Law School?’”
“Really?” Harry titled his head to look at the side of the box Elizabeth pointed too. “I always thought it said ‘Properly if left long & cool.’”
Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows. “That doesn’t even make sense, and my handwriting isn’t that bad. Is it?”
“You wrote that? Well the words are kind of smashed and written at an odd angle” he explained. “Makes it hard to read.”
“I guess that solves the mystery of the missing case of wine from last semester,” Elizabeth said to herself.
“You lost a case of wine?” Harry asked.
“It’s a long story. By the way, make sure Daniel doesn’t drink anymore I think he might pass out any minute.” She looked in the direction of Daniel, who was cradling his bottle of beer like a child.
“Already? The sun just barely set.”
“That’s Doctor Jackson for you,” Elizabeth said shaking her head as she looked in the direction of the archeologist to see Teal’c and Jonas observing Daniel’s current state.
Teal’c raised an eyebrow as he silently watched Daniel cradle a half-filled bottle of beer in his arms.
“Yup, Daniel is gone,” Jonas commented.
“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed slowly.
“Hello boys! So what’s going on?” Jack said drinking from his bottle of beer.
“Daniel is drunk,” Jonas grinned and point to Daniel.
“Did he get past the first bottle?”
“Nope, that is the first bottle.” Jonas pointed to the bottle Daniel was cradling.
“Damn,” Jack muttered and pulled out a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Teal’c. “So has Danny boy found the love of his life?”
“I believe Daniel Jackson is speaking of an artifact he found in one his archeological digs, but the relation of the artifact to the beverage is unclear to me,” Teal’C said.
“I can barely understand a word Daniel says when he’s sober. When he’s drunk, I just take pictures of him,” Jack smiled deviously and raised up his camera and took a picture.
The flash of the camera startled Daniel causing him to scream “Aliens!” as he covered his eyes from the sudden flash.
“Aliens?” Jack wondered as he looked to Teal’c and Jonas. Teal’c only raised an eyebrow, while Jonas was trying to hold back a laugh. “I resent being called an alien. I’m eccentric, but I’m not an alien. Am I?”
Teal’c and Jonas remained silent.
“What’s going on?” Sam said wondering what the sudden outburst from Daniel was about.
“Daniel just called Jack an alien,” Jonas informed Sam.
“Do you think I’m an alien?” Jack asked Sam.
“I don’t think you are an alien, but there are some on the Board of Trustees that think otherwise,” she smiled.
“I’m being surrounded by aliens!” Daniel cried out.
“I thought that alcohol was supposed to give you a buzz, not make you hallucinate,” Sam said.
“That’s Daniel for you,” Jack smirked, “so any ideas on how to get him to stop calling us aliens?”
“Let’s start by taking the beer away from him,” Sam suggested and reached over to carefully plucked the half-empty bottle of beer from his arms and replaced it with a bottle of water.
“What’s next?” Jonas asked. “He still thinks we are aliens.”
After a short pause, Jack announced, “I got nothing.”
“Maybe we should just gag him,” said a new voice. “All this screaming of aliens is starting to scare my kids.”
“Your kids are here?” Sam asked Coach Dave Dixon.
“Yeah, they are somewhere abusing someone. I think the latest victim was McKay.”
“So Daniel’s screaming of aliens isn’t really scaring your kids, right?” Jonas asked.
“No, but I still think we should gag him,” Dixon said hopefully.
“I believe Daniel Jackson has calmed down,” Teal’c pointed out.
Jonas stepped forward cautiously and waved his hands in front of Daniel’s face. Then he started poking Daniel’s arms.
“Yup, he’s definitely passed out,” he confirmed.
“We can still gag him right?” Everyone stopped and stared at Dixon. “What? Look at him. He’s just begging to be gagged.”
Sam looked over at Jack, Teal’c and Jonas. “You guys aren’t seriously contemplating that are you?”
“Dixon has a point. Just look at him,” Jack said putting and arm around Sam’s shoulder. “Don’t you just want to take a permanent marker and draw a mustache on his face?”
Sam brought her palm to her face. These men were supposed to be teaching the future? They were as bad as the children who were torturing Rodney.
“So are you in?” Jack asked, while Dixon and Jonas were already preparing to gag and draw on Daniel’s face.
“I’ll pass,” she said made a face and sauntered off in the direction of where Elizabeth and Janet were conversing.
“Looks like the boys are having their fun with Daniel again,” Janet said with amused disapproval.
“You know how it is. No party is complete until someone comes out completely scarred for life,” Sam said.
“And that ‘someone’ always seems to be Daniel,” Elizabeth said as she watched John and Rodney join in on the fun.
The three women watched as the group of men did every juvenile prank they could think of to their unconscious colleague.
“This is worse than when I’m chaperoning parties for Cassie and her friends,” Janet commented as she noticed that someone had removed Daniel’s glasses and Jack was starting to draw circles around his eyes with a marker.
“I hope that isn’t permanent,” Elizabeth said.
“Knowing Jack…it most likely would be.” Elizabeth looked at Sam with horror. “I remember this one time Teal’c drew this weird symbol on Daniel’s forehead. It was an oval with some serpent mark in it and this was during the school year.”
“You mean he went to lecture the next day with that on his head?” Elizabeth asked trying to contain a giggle.
“I remember that,” Janet said. “He came to me early in the morning to see if I had anything that could help him remove it. I told him to scrub hard or put make up over it.”
“These guys are worse than the real kids,” Elizabeth said as she watched some of the children run around playing.
One of the children saw Elizabeth and came running in her direction.
“Auntie Elizabeth!” The little boy came running to her.
“Yes, Joshua?” she stooped a bit to brush her nephew’s hair from his face.
“Uncle John said that when it got dark we could play with fireworks!” Joshua said excitedly. “And it’s dark now.” He pointed in the general direction of the sky.
“That’s right. Why don’t you and your friends go and find Uncle John and all the other Uncles over there,” she pointed to the men still surrounding Daniel, “that you guys can play with fireworks now.”
“Okay!” Joshua said gleefully and ran towards the men.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to let those guys be in charge of the fireworks?” Sam asked crossing her arms over her chest.
“Letting those guys be in charge of anything is a bad idea. At least with the children around, they’d have to be somewhat more responsible, right?” Elizabeth said doubtfully.
The smell of sulfur filled the air as everyone stood in front of Elizabeth’s house lighting fireworks. While the men where having their fun of lighting larger fireworks, Elizabeth, Janet, and Sam gave their attention to the younger children and lighted sparklers for them to play with.
After providing the children with sparklers, Elizabeth looked up to see a sudden commotion of laughter break out.
“To think that these men are all professors at a university…” Janet said.
“They look like savages dancing around a bonfire,” Sam commented.
“Nothing like fire to bring out the primitive natures of man,” Elizabeth said.
“hmu umphm umm?” a muffled voice came from behind the three women.
They all turned simultaneously to face the new visitor. Elizabeth instantly covered mouth with her hand. Sam snorted a laugh, and Janet just laughed.
Daniel knitted his eyebrows in frustration and turned around to show the women that his hands were tied and he needed a little help.
In between giggles, Elizabeth untied his hands, but she burst out laughing again when she saw his face. In addition to the spectacles Jack drew, someone had drawn a curly moustache over his lips, a soul patch mark on his chin and on his cheeks one side had a sun and the other had a flower. Across his forehead were the words ‘Space Monkey.’
“They drew on my face again didn’t they?” Daniel said when he finally removed the makeshift gag that Dixon provided.
“Boy did they ever,” Sam said still giggling.
From the uncontrollable laughter from the women, Daniel was curious and wandered over to one of the cars parked in Elizabeth’s drive way and looked into the side mirror.
“Jack! Jonas!” shouted Daniel as soon as he saw his make over and stalked towards his perpetrators.
“I’m going to follow Daniel to make sure they don’t hurt each other,” Janet said.
“I’ll join you,” Sam said.
Elizabeth shook her head, wandered over to her front porch, and sat on the top step. Her eyes gazed into the skies. Up in the skies she could see the colorful lights of fireworks shot up into the sky from the local park nearby her house. She watched the multicolor display of lights blossom in the air followed by the thundering sound of the explosion. Every time another firework exploded in the sky, she could hear some of the younger children oohing and ahhing at the magnificent sights that lit the evening sky.
“Having fun?” Elizabeth asked as John approached to sit next to her on the step.
John grinned. “Did you see what we did to Daniel?”
“Yes, you guys are just too cruel.”
“I drew the moustache,” he said proudly.
Elizabeth shook her head and rested her arms on her knees.
“Why aren’t you out there being a pyromaniac like everyone else?” he asked.
“Because I need to make sure you pyromaniacs don’t burn my house down,” she teased pointing at him, “and I think you guys burnt everything already.”
“Nope, we didn’t burn everything.” He held up two sparklers in his hand. “I saved them just for you.”
“Really? You didn’t steal them from some kid right?” she asked narrowing her eyes.
“Does Rodney count as a kid?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I guess not.”
“Good. Here.” He handed a sparkler for Elizabeth to hold, while he pressed on the lighter’s switch. The lighter sparked a couple times but no flame came out. John shook the lighter a couple of times and tried flick on the flame again. After a couple more sparks, a stable flame finally lit up. Elizabeth held the sparkler out for John to light.
Immediately the fire made its way from the tip of the sparkler and the end started to glow with colorful sparks. John took the other unlit sparkler and used the sparks from Elizabeth’s sparkler to ignite his firework.
“See isn’t this fun?” John asked drawing random shapes in the air with his sparkler.
Elizabeth giggled as she started write her name in the air with her sparkler.
“Thank you. You are such an enigma sometimes, John. One minute you are drawing moustaches and gagging an unconscious colleague. The next minute you’re the sweetest guy in town,” she commented.
“You know me always eager to please the ladies,” he smirked.
“And torture unsuspecting colleagues?” she asked.
“I try to be a well-rounded person,” he said with a shrug.
“Since you are such a well rounded person, I’m sure you won’t mind helping me clean up after everyone leaves,” she said as she watched the sparkle fizz and smoke as it reached its end.
John groaned. “How did I end up being the set up and the clean up crew?”
“You said so yourself you are always eager to please the ladies,” she smirked.
John made a face. “Fine,” he said reluctantly.
“Thanks, John,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. “Now I need to go and see what my other guests are doing.” She pushed herself off the step, took the burned out sparkler from John’s hand, and went into her house.
John watched as Elizabeth entered her house. His hand lingered on the cheek that Elizabeth had just stolen a kiss from and smiled to himself. Of all the offices in the Law School, he had to walk into hers and he did not regret it one bit. 3
Author:AthenaKTT
Pairing:Sheppard/Weir
Rating: E for Everyone
Summary: It's summer time and Elizabeth is throwing a Fourth of July party. Balloons + Beer + Fireworks = this little fic. :p
Rodney’s cheeks were red as the red balloon he was inflating, while John opted to inflate a gold color balloon instead. Both men occupied with outdoing each other by blowing the biggest balloon, did not notice the wide-eyed three-year-old boy watching them as they sat in the patio of Elizabeth’s backyard.
John pinched the end of the balloon so air could not escape as he let his cheeks take a break. The strain from blowing balloons was hurting his cheeks. He was starting to wonder how Elizabeth talked him into coming to this Fourth of July party early to set up. He thought he could come by and get away from helping by watching television on her big screen TV, but the moment he stepped into the door, Elizabeth gave him two bags of balloons, and told him to sit down and inflate them.
With one hand, John rubbed the side of his cheeks as he watched Rodney continue blowing his balloon. John tilted his head to one side as he observed Rodney’s expression. Who knew Rodney could do a good impression of a blowfish, especially when blowing balloons?
John looked at the golden balloon in his hands then at the red balloon Rodney was still blowing then at the little observer standing between them.
“Ah ha!” Rodney finally said holding out his over inflated balloon proudly. “Mine is bigger than yours,” he announced to John smugly.
John knitted his eyebrows together and prepared to blow more air into his balloon.
“Auntie Elizabeth said you shouldn’t over…over…over…” the little boy stammered.
“Inflate?” John offered.
“Yeah,” the little boy said. “She said you aren’t supposed to do that.” His stubby fingers pointed to Rodney’s big red balloon.
“I think your Auntie Elizabeth needs to stop using big words with young children,” Rodney said as he watched John continuing to expand his gold balloon.
“She said that you guys will pop the balloons if you make them too big,” the little boy insisted.
“What is your name?” Rodney said leaning forward.
“Joshua,” the little boy said.
“Well, Joshua. This balloon isn’t going to pop, watch.” Rodney started to blow some more air into his red balloon.
John had stopped blowing his balloon and tied a knot to it as Rodney tried to prove to that his balloon was not going to burst. Inevitably, the balloon popped. John burst out laughing, while the little boy, surprised by the sudden explosion started to cry.
“Look what you did, Rodney. You made the kid cry,” John said, trying to contain his laughter.
“What happened?” Elizabeth said as she rushed out from the house to comfort the child.
John immediately pointed to Rodney. “He did it.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Rodney exclaimed. “All I did was blow up balloons like you told me too.”
Elizabeth eyed both men skeptically as she wiped the tears from Joshua’s face.
“When I said blow up balloons, I didn’t mean for you guys to pop every single one.” She looked over at the balloon in John’s hand. “Didn’t you guys read the instructions on the bag? It says ‘Do not over inflate’ in big bold letters.” She pointed to the plastic bag of balloons.
John and Rodney shrugged simultaneously. “You didn’t tell us how big you wanted the balloons to be so…” John began.
“You guys decided to see who could blow the biggest balloon?” Elizabeth finished for him.
“Yeah, pretty much,” John said.
Elizabeth brought her hand up to her forehead and sighed. She turned her attention to her nephew who had stopped crying, and she whispered something to the child and his face immediately lit up.
“Can I watch TV?” the boy asked rubbing his eyes. Elizabeth nodded and he bounded into the house.
“Can I go and watch TV too?” John asked hopefully.
“No,” Elizabeth said sternly.
John muttered something under his breath while Rodney started to laugh at him.
“Now can you two genius start doing what I asked you to do?” she said, resting her hands on her hips.
Both men looked at Elizabeth blankly. Elizabeth let out another sigh and picked up a balloon from the bag and started to blow. She blew the balloon to a decent size and knotted the tail of the balloon and tossed it to John.
“That is approximately the size I want you two to blow the balloons. No more of the over inflated ones, especially from you,” she pointed to Rodney.
“Sheppard been over inflating his balloons too,” Rodney protested.
“Well he didn’t make a child cry…yet.” She narrowed her eyes and looked at John.
“I didn’t make your nephew cry either,” Rodney insisted. “Besides why are we blowing red and yellow balloons? I thought this was a Fourth of July Fiesta.”
“They are technically burgundy and gold balloons,” Elizabeth said.
“You mean Langford’s class colors?” John asked.
“We had a bunch of balloons left over from the graduations, so I figured we could use some here. I think it gives a sort of patriotic feel…in a way,” she explained.
“More like academic feel,” John muttered to himself.
“Question. If there is one kid here, does that mean there will be more kids?” Rodney asked.
“Other than the two of you, yes, there will be more kids here later,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t tell other faculty members that have children to leave them at home, especially when I’m stuck babysitting Joshua for the weekend.”
“Sure you can,” Rodney said.
“You’re just one grumpy old man aren’t you, Rodney?” John teased and stretched his arms over his head. “Nothing like a celebrating your country’s birthday with barbequing, having a few beers, burning some money, make sure you don’t blow yourself up, children yelling and screaming, Rodney yelling and screaming…”
“Yes, lots of fun stuff,” Elizabeth said and rolled her eyes. “Anyways when you two finish let me know. I have other things for you to do.”
After Elizabeth returned into the house, Rodney looked at John. “Other things? What does she mean by 'other' things?”
John shrugged. “She might want us to help her carry some stuff. You know things women need us strong men for.”
“Like blowing balloons,” Rodney said sarcastically.
“I’m fine with blowing balloons, as long as I’m not the one stuck at the grill later.”
“Who is stuck barbequing today?” Rodney wondered.
“I think Jack is,” John said, starting to blow another balloon.
“Jack? You mean Jack I’ll-add-some-beer-on-my-burgers-just-because O’Neill?” Rodney grabbed another balloon to blow.
“He does that?” John said in between a puff. “No wonder the last time the burgers tasted a bit tangy.”
“It tasted tangy and you still ate it?”
“What? I was hungry. It didn’t taste bad or anything, just tangy, ” John shrugged.
Rodney looked at John oddly, as he finished blowing another balloon.
“How did we get stuck coming early to help set up for the party?” Rodney asked tying a knot at the tail of an inflated balloon.
“Bad luck, I guess,” John said, tossing the balloon in his hand to Rodney, while Rodney used the balloon he had to bump John’s balloon from hitting his face.
“Bad luck?” a female voice came from behind John.
John raised his eyebrows as he turned to see Elizabeth standing behind him with her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t mean bad luck in a bad way,” John said scratching the back of his head. He wasn’t sure if it was possible for him to charm his way out of this. “What I meant was that everyone else who isn’t here early are the ones with bad luck because…we are the lucky ones that get to help out blowing balloons.” He gestured to the bunch of balloons lying on the floor around them.
“Good try, but I expected more from you. Anyway I need you two to come with me to carry drinks and stuff from Sam’s car,” she said.
“Sam is here?” Rodney’s ears perked up at the mention of Samantha Carter.
“Yes, she just got here with Janet. They are starting to unload stuff from her car. I thought it was about time you guys made yourselves useful.”
John and Rodney were more than happy to stop blowing balloons and help the women with unloading the car. Both men followed Elizabeth to Sam’s car and found two women already carrying bags of things into the house.
“So what do we start with?” Rodney said rubbing his hands together as he looked into the open trunk.
“Why don’t you start with something light? You don’t want any labor scars on your delicate scientist hands now do you?” Sam teased and grabbed a bag of ice from the truck.
“Now why do you have to be so antagonistic? I thought we have something here.” Rodney shouted to Sam as she walked into the house.
John only shook his head at Rodney and carried several pack of drinks towards the house.
“What? We do have something,” Rodney insisted.
“Rodney, have you been in the sun too long?” A petite brunette appeared next to him, making Rodney jump slightly.
“Janet, please don’t sneak up on me like that!”
Janet chuckled. “You sound like Jack. I wasn’t sneaking up on you. You were too busy talking to yourself. That you didn’t hear me.”
“I wasn’t talking to myself. I was talking to Sheppard, but he rudely ignored me and went into the house; giving the impression that I was talking to myself,” Rodney explained.
“Maybe you should go inside and have a drink of water,” Janet suggested.
Rodney opened his mouth and was about to argue with Janet, but Janet gave him a look and he decided it better not to argue with the woman. Jack O’Neill was right the petite woman was Napoleonic power monger and sometimes she frightened him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rodney said and grabbed the last bags of groceries from the trunk and marched into the house.
Rodney entered to house to find Elizabeth and Sam going through the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter, while John was peeking into each bag looking for something in particular.
“What are you looking for?” he asked John as he placed the bag he carried on the table next to John.
“I’m looking for this,” John said with a grin as he pulled out a bottle of beer from the bag. Just as he was about to twist the cap open. Elizabeth walked by and took the bottle from his hands.
“Hey!” John looked at his empty palm. “Where did my bottle of beer go?”
“You can’t relax yet. I still need you guys to put some table cloths on the tables outside,” Elizabeth said, holding the bottle in her hand.
“Can’t I have a drink and put the table cloths on at the same time?”
“No,” Elizabeth said flatly and handed John a roll of festive printed tablecloths and a roll of tape.
John sighed and tossed the roll of tape to Rodney. “Let’s go,” John said reluctantly and led Rodney outside again.
“I see you’ve got Sheppard under your thumb,” Janet said with a wink.
“Hardly,” Elizabeth said rolling her eyes.
“What do you mean hardly?” Sam said. “You’ve got him to come here early to help you blow balloons, and now he’s given up his beer to put table cloths outside.” She gestured to the two men outside staring rather confused at one of the tables.
“John is only here early because he lost a bet. Besides Rodney would do anything for you,” Elizabeth teased.
Sam scoffed. “Rodney would do anything but leave me alone.”
“I think it’s kind of charming how Rodney annoys you in an affectionate juvenile kind of way,” Janet grinned.
“You mean childish kind of way. If I had long hair and a ponytail I wouldn’t be surprise that he would pull my hair to get my attention,” Sam said.
“Actually, that seems like something Jack would do too,” Janet pointed out.
“That is why I keep my hair short,” Sam winked.
As the women continued prepping the food and snacks in the kitchen, there was a knock on the door. Joshua was sitting quietly on the couch watching cartoons, but as soon as he heard to knock on the door, he ran to open it.
His little hands reached for the door handle and slowly pulled open the door a crack, as Elizabeth called out asking “who is it?” and slowly made her way from the kitchen.
Jack stood in confusion as the front door to Elizabeth’s house opened by itself. Then he finally looked down and saw the little boy with dark brown hair and green eyes looking up at him. He swore he just heard Elizabeth’s voice.
“Elizabeth, you’ve shrunk and turned into a little boy,” Jack said.
The little boy giggled. “I’m not Elizabeth, I’m Joshua. Auntie Elizabeth is over there.” Joshua pointed towards the kitchen.
“So can I come in?” Jack asked Joshua.
“What’s the password?”
“Password?” Jack gave the boy a befuddle look.
“Yeah, you need a password to come inside,” Joshua said matter-of-factly.
“Okay…I have cake,” Jack said, showing the boy the box in his hand.
“Really?” Joshua’s eyes lit up.
“If you let me in, you can have some cake later,” Jack said.
Joshua scrunched his little face as he thought about Jack’s bribe. “Okay.” He finally said and opened the door wider for Jack to enter and hopped back to the TV.
“Jack, you made it,” Elizabeth greeted as she took the cake from him.
“You know me and parties. I just love fiestas every now and then,” he said with too much enthusiasm. “By the way, nice new security system you’ve installed.”
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth looked at Jack in confusion.
Jack pointed to Joshua. “You’re security guard wouldn’t let me in until I told him the password.”
“Oh and what was the password?” Elizabeth asked, amused.
“I don’t know. I bribed him with cake.”
“Darn, you found my security guard’s Achilles Heel. I’m going to have to find a new guard.”
“I guess so,” Jack said, “and a small suggestion, you should get someone taller next time. Hello Ladies.” Jack nodded to the two women in the kitchen. “So what’s cooking?”
“We are just prepping the things to bring outside as soon as John and Rodney finish. The barbeque grill is out back if you want to get ready,” Elizabeth said.
“Excellent,” Jack said in his Mister Burns impression, grabbed a Heineken bottle from the table, and headed out to the backyard.
Jack squinted his eyes from the late afternoon sun as he took a sip from his beer and watched John and Rodney putting the last tablecloth on the tables.
“Having fun fellas?” Jack asked.
Both men turned their attention to the newcomer.
“Now why does he get a beer?” John said resting a hand on his hips.
“Maybe Elizabeth has a new favorite,” Rodney teased.
“Maybe Elizabeth has a new favorite,” John mimicked Rodney and made a face. “I bet you it was Carter who gave it to him.”
“Maybe he got it himself,” Rodney shot back.
“Maybe,” John shrugged.
“Yes, maybe,” Rodney insisted.
Jack watched the exchange between the two men. “Now I know why the girls made you guys come outside,” he said walking away from John and Rodney towards the barbeque grill.
“So why are you guys here so early?” Jack asked as he poked the grill with a pair of tongs.
“Sheppard here lost a bet to Elizabeth,” Rodney said smugly.
“It wasn’t exactly a bet," John explained. "I let her win that game of chess; she took advantage of the win, and made me agree to come here early to help her today.”
“Sure, whatever,” Rodney said.
“What about you, Mister I’m-the-life-of-the-party?” John asked.
“You know me. Always eager to help,” Rodney said with a proud smile. John scoffed. “What? It’s true!”
“Are you guys always like this?” Jack asked somewhat annoyed and amused by their bickering.
John and Rodney looked at each other and replied simultaneously, “Yeah, pretty much.”
Jack gave a confused nod at the two. “Okay, just wondering. You two can go back to annoying each other.”
“So when is everyone coming?” Rodney asked.
“Soon, I hope,” Jack muttered to himself.
“Mister, Mister, Mister…”
Rodney was trying to ignore the little voice that kept calling him ‘Mister’ and tugging on his pants leg to get his attention.
“Mister, can you blow us a big balloon like you did this morning?” a little boy asked.
Rodney ignored the boy and continued eating his burger.
“Uh, Rodney, I think the ‘Mister’ the little boy is referring to is you,” Radek pointed out.
“Mister, can we have some chocolate? A little girl with brown hair tugged on his other pants leg,” Rodney continued ignoring the pair of children until the little girl decided the best way to get Rodney’s attention was to stomp her foot on Rodney’s foot rather hard.
“Ow!” Rodney yelped. The two children started to giggle as Rodney fumed at his midget terrorists.
Rodney had never been too fond of children. In fact, he was sure he was never a child. Though he would admit that his genius adult mind might have been stuck within the body of a child for the first decades of his life, but he usually chose to forget those years.
Moments like right now made him absolutely sure he was never a child. Rodney limped towards a chair and took off his shoe to survey the damage. Rodney glared at the little girl who looked innocently at him.
“Maybe you should have given them the chocolate,” Radek said, obviously trying to hold back a laugh.
“Maybe I didn’t give them the chocolate because I don’t have any,” Rodney said rubbing his feet and glared at the children giggling before him. “And these two don’t need anymore chocolate. Look at them! They are hyper!”
The two children continued giggling until they saw Elizabeth’s dog, Sedge,wander by, and they immediately switched their attention to petting and playing with the dog instead.
“Saved by the dog,” Radek said and wandered off to talk to Carson, who was meandering around.
“What happened to you?” Elizabeth handed a plate with a piece of cake to Rodney.
“I was getting abused by your children,” Rodney said bitterly as he thanked her for the piece of cake.
“My children?” Elizabeth asked puzzled.
“Yes, those three feet terrors you invited to this party.” He pointed to the children playing with Sedge.
“They aren’t that bad.”
“Yes, they are. I’m permanently lame now thanks to that one with the braids,” Rodney said.
“What did she do to you?” Elizabeth asked as she took a bite of the cake.
“She stomped on my foot.”
“Stomped on your foot? Why?”
“Yes, she stomped on my foot because she is a little monster,” Rodney said munching on the cake angrily.
“I don’t think the parents appreciate you calling their little precious a monster, Rodney,” John said as he came up behind Elizabeth with a glass of wine.
“I don’t appreciate it when parents can’t control their kids,” Rodney shot back.
“Don’t look at me they aren’t my kids,” John said.
Elizabeth thanked John for the glass of wine then remembered she did not have any wine for the party at least she didn’t think she did.
“Where did the wine come from?” she asked John.
“From Harry, he said he had a couple extra bottles and thought he'd contribute them, since you were so kind in inviting him to your party as well,” John said.
“Really?” Elizabeth wondered.
“My thoughts exactly,” John said and took a drink. “How many people did you invite to this party anyway?”
“I don’t know. I invited a few people, but a few became…a lot,” she shrugged. “Anyway, please excuse me. I need to talk to Harry,” Elizabeth said and walked towards the makeshift bar where Harry Maybourne had made himself at home.
“Harry, glad you could make it,” she greeted him with a smile.
“How could a man refuse a party invite from a lovely lady such as yourself,” Harry said.
“Always the flatterer, Harry.”
“What can I say? It’s a living," Harry grinned. "It wasn’t hard to convince me to close the pub today, since all my usual patrons are here.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Sorry, to steal your customers.”
“No worries,” Harry winked and brought out a jar that said, “Tip jar.”
“You are planning to make money off my party guest?”
“When they get drunk enough, they’ll tip anything,” Harry winked.
Elizabeth shook her head and glanced at a box on the floor behind Harry. The box looked very familiar.
“Harry, John told me that you brought some wine,” she said holding up her glass of wine.
“Yes, I did,” he said proudly. “Do you like it?’
“It’s quite nice. I was just curious. Where did you get the wine?” she asked.
Harry stopped wiping his makeshift bar and paused a moment to think. “I think this was something Apophis and has boys brought in a while back.”
“Do you have any idea where they got it from?”
“Beats me,” Harry shrugged.
“Harry, did you ever noticed that on the side of the wine box it says ‘Property of Langford Law School?’”
“Really?” Harry titled his head to look at the side of the box Elizabeth pointed too. “I always thought it said ‘Properly if left long & cool.’”
Elizabeth furrowed her eyebrows. “That doesn’t even make sense, and my handwriting isn’t that bad. Is it?”
“You wrote that? Well the words are kind of smashed and written at an odd angle” he explained. “Makes it hard to read.”
“I guess that solves the mystery of the missing case of wine from last semester,” Elizabeth said to herself.
“You lost a case of wine?” Harry asked.
“It’s a long story. By the way, make sure Daniel doesn’t drink anymore I think he might pass out any minute.” She looked in the direction of Daniel, who was cradling his bottle of beer like a child.
“Already? The sun just barely set.”
“That’s Doctor Jackson for you,” Elizabeth said shaking her head as she looked in the direction of the archeologist to see Teal’c and Jonas observing Daniel’s current state.
Teal’c raised an eyebrow as he silently watched Daniel cradle a half-filled bottle of beer in his arms.
“Yup, Daniel is gone,” Jonas commented.
“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed slowly.
“Hello boys! So what’s going on?” Jack said drinking from his bottle of beer.
“Daniel is drunk,” Jonas grinned and point to Daniel.
“Did he get past the first bottle?”
“Nope, that is the first bottle.” Jonas pointed to the bottle Daniel was cradling.
“Damn,” Jack muttered and pulled out a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Teal’c. “So has Danny boy found the love of his life?”
“I believe Daniel Jackson is speaking of an artifact he found in one his archeological digs, but the relation of the artifact to the beverage is unclear to me,” Teal’C said.
“I can barely understand a word Daniel says when he’s sober. When he’s drunk, I just take pictures of him,” Jack smiled deviously and raised up his camera and took a picture.
The flash of the camera startled Daniel causing him to scream “Aliens!” as he covered his eyes from the sudden flash.
“Aliens?” Jack wondered as he looked to Teal’c and Jonas. Teal’c only raised an eyebrow, while Jonas was trying to hold back a laugh. “I resent being called an alien. I’m eccentric, but I’m not an alien. Am I?”
Teal’c and Jonas remained silent.
“What’s going on?” Sam said wondering what the sudden outburst from Daniel was about.
“Daniel just called Jack an alien,” Jonas informed Sam.
“Do you think I’m an alien?” Jack asked Sam.
“I don’t think you are an alien, but there are some on the Board of Trustees that think otherwise,” she smiled.
“I’m being surrounded by aliens!” Daniel cried out.
“I thought that alcohol was supposed to give you a buzz, not make you hallucinate,” Sam said.
“That’s Daniel for you,” Jack smirked, “so any ideas on how to get him to stop calling us aliens?”
“Let’s start by taking the beer away from him,” Sam suggested and reached over to carefully plucked the half-empty bottle of beer from his arms and replaced it with a bottle of water.
“What’s next?” Jonas asked. “He still thinks we are aliens.”
After a short pause, Jack announced, “I got nothing.”
“Maybe we should just gag him,” said a new voice. “All this screaming of aliens is starting to scare my kids.”
“Your kids are here?” Sam asked Coach Dave Dixon.
“Yeah, they are somewhere abusing someone. I think the latest victim was McKay.”
“So Daniel’s screaming of aliens isn’t really scaring your kids, right?” Jonas asked.
“No, but I still think we should gag him,” Dixon said hopefully.
“I believe Daniel Jackson has calmed down,” Teal’c pointed out.
Jonas stepped forward cautiously and waved his hands in front of Daniel’s face. Then he started poking Daniel’s arms.
“Yup, he’s definitely passed out,” he confirmed.
“We can still gag him right?” Everyone stopped and stared at Dixon. “What? Look at him. He’s just begging to be gagged.”
Sam looked over at Jack, Teal’c and Jonas. “You guys aren’t seriously contemplating that are you?”
“Dixon has a point. Just look at him,” Jack said putting and arm around Sam’s shoulder. “Don’t you just want to take a permanent marker and draw a mustache on his face?”
Sam brought her palm to her face. These men were supposed to be teaching the future? They were as bad as the children who were torturing Rodney.
“So are you in?” Jack asked, while Dixon and Jonas were already preparing to gag and draw on Daniel’s face.
“I’ll pass,” she said made a face and sauntered off in the direction of where Elizabeth and Janet were conversing.
“Looks like the boys are having their fun with Daniel again,” Janet said with amused disapproval.
“You know how it is. No party is complete until someone comes out completely scarred for life,” Sam said.
“And that ‘someone’ always seems to be Daniel,” Elizabeth said as she watched John and Rodney join in on the fun.
The three women watched as the group of men did every juvenile prank they could think of to their unconscious colleague.
“This is worse than when I’m chaperoning parties for Cassie and her friends,” Janet commented as she noticed that someone had removed Daniel’s glasses and Jack was starting to draw circles around his eyes with a marker.
“I hope that isn’t permanent,” Elizabeth said.
“Knowing Jack…it most likely would be.” Elizabeth looked at Sam with horror. “I remember this one time Teal’c drew this weird symbol on Daniel’s forehead. It was an oval with some serpent mark in it and this was during the school year.”
“You mean he went to lecture the next day with that on his head?” Elizabeth asked trying to contain a giggle.
“I remember that,” Janet said. “He came to me early in the morning to see if I had anything that could help him remove it. I told him to scrub hard or put make up over it.”
“These guys are worse than the real kids,” Elizabeth said as she watched some of the children run around playing.
One of the children saw Elizabeth and came running in her direction.
“Auntie Elizabeth!” The little boy came running to her.
“Yes, Joshua?” she stooped a bit to brush her nephew’s hair from his face.
“Uncle John said that when it got dark we could play with fireworks!” Joshua said excitedly. “And it’s dark now.” He pointed in the general direction of the sky.
“That’s right. Why don’t you and your friends go and find Uncle John and all the other Uncles over there,” she pointed to the men still surrounding Daniel, “that you guys can play with fireworks now.”
“Okay!” Joshua said gleefully and ran towards the men.
“Do you think it’s a good idea to let those guys be in charge of the fireworks?” Sam asked crossing her arms over her chest.
“Letting those guys be in charge of anything is a bad idea. At least with the children around, they’d have to be somewhat more responsible, right?” Elizabeth said doubtfully.
The smell of sulfur filled the air as everyone stood in front of Elizabeth’s house lighting fireworks. While the men where having their fun of lighting larger fireworks, Elizabeth, Janet, and Sam gave their attention to the younger children and lighted sparklers for them to play with.
After providing the children with sparklers, Elizabeth looked up to see a sudden commotion of laughter break out.
“To think that these men are all professors at a university…” Janet said.
“They look like savages dancing around a bonfire,” Sam commented.
“Nothing like fire to bring out the primitive natures of man,” Elizabeth said.
“hmu umphm umm?” a muffled voice came from behind the three women.
They all turned simultaneously to face the new visitor. Elizabeth instantly covered mouth with her hand. Sam snorted a laugh, and Janet just laughed.
Daniel knitted his eyebrows in frustration and turned around to show the women that his hands were tied and he needed a little help.
In between giggles, Elizabeth untied his hands, but she burst out laughing again when she saw his face. In addition to the spectacles Jack drew, someone had drawn a curly moustache over his lips, a soul patch mark on his chin and on his cheeks one side had a sun and the other had a flower. Across his forehead were the words ‘Space Monkey.’
“They drew on my face again didn’t they?” Daniel said when he finally removed the makeshift gag that Dixon provided.
“Boy did they ever,” Sam said still giggling.
From the uncontrollable laughter from the women, Daniel was curious and wandered over to one of the cars parked in Elizabeth’s drive way and looked into the side mirror.
“Jack! Jonas!” shouted Daniel as soon as he saw his make over and stalked towards his perpetrators.
“I’m going to follow Daniel to make sure they don’t hurt each other,” Janet said.
“I’ll join you,” Sam said.
Elizabeth shook her head, wandered over to her front porch, and sat on the top step. Her eyes gazed into the skies. Up in the skies she could see the colorful lights of fireworks shot up into the sky from the local park nearby her house. She watched the multicolor display of lights blossom in the air followed by the thundering sound of the explosion. Every time another firework exploded in the sky, she could hear some of the younger children oohing and ahhing at the magnificent sights that lit the evening sky.
“Having fun?” Elizabeth asked as John approached to sit next to her on the step.
John grinned. “Did you see what we did to Daniel?”
“Yes, you guys are just too cruel.”
“I drew the moustache,” he said proudly.
Elizabeth shook her head and rested her arms on her knees.
“Why aren’t you out there being a pyromaniac like everyone else?” he asked.
“Because I need to make sure you pyromaniacs don’t burn my house down,” she teased pointing at him, “and I think you guys burnt everything already.”
“Nope, we didn’t burn everything.” He held up two sparklers in his hand. “I saved them just for you.”
“Really? You didn’t steal them from some kid right?” she asked narrowing her eyes.
“Does Rodney count as a kid?”
Elizabeth smiled. “I guess not.”
“Good. Here.” He handed a sparkler for Elizabeth to hold, while he pressed on the lighter’s switch. The lighter sparked a couple times but no flame came out. John shook the lighter a couple of times and tried flick on the flame again. After a couple more sparks, a stable flame finally lit up. Elizabeth held the sparkler out for John to light.
Immediately the fire made its way from the tip of the sparkler and the end started to glow with colorful sparks. John took the other unlit sparkler and used the sparks from Elizabeth’s sparkler to ignite his firework.
“See isn’t this fun?” John asked drawing random shapes in the air with his sparkler.
Elizabeth giggled as she started write her name in the air with her sparkler.
“Thank you. You are such an enigma sometimes, John. One minute you are drawing moustaches and gagging an unconscious colleague. The next minute you’re the sweetest guy in town,” she commented.
“You know me always eager to please the ladies,” he smirked.
“And torture unsuspecting colleagues?” she asked.
“I try to be a well-rounded person,” he said with a shrug.
“Since you are such a well rounded person, I’m sure you won’t mind helping me clean up after everyone leaves,” she said as she watched the sparkle fizz and smoke as it reached its end.
John groaned. “How did I end up being the set up and the clean up crew?”
“You said so yourself you are always eager to please the ladies,” she smirked.
John made a face. “Fine,” he said reluctantly.
“Thanks, John,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. “Now I need to go and see what my other guests are doing.” She pushed herself off the step, took the burned out sparkler from John’s hand, and went into her house.
John watched as Elizabeth entered her house. His hand lingered on the cheek that Elizabeth had just stolen a kiss from and smiled to himself. Of all the offices in the Law School, he had to walk into hers and he did not regret it one bit. 3