Crossover Alphabet Soup
My thanks to the 25 authors who made Crossover Alphabet Soup a delicious reality: 11am_street, aelfgyfu_mead, annerbhp, da_angel729, dannysgirlsg1, elder_bonnie, gategremlyn, greenbirds, jedibuttercup, lizardbeth_j, lokei, lolmac, maevebran, penknife, pepper_field, randomfreshink, sallymn, sentientcitizen, sg_fignewton, sg_wonderland, suzannemarie, tallulah_rasa, traycer_, una_spectre, and wishfulaces.
Special thanks to the wonderful regulars who contribute time after time, and an extra welcome to our new Soup authors: Aces, L.E. McMurray, Tallulah Rasa, Sentient Citizen, Greenbirds, Lizardbeth, Dannysgirl, Lolmac (who contributed twice!), Jedibuttercup. and 11 am Street! (If I missed welcoming a newcomer or accidentally re-welcomed an author, do let me know.) That puts our total number of Alphabet Soup contributors up to 103, which is pretty incredible for gen fic in a closed canon. :)
Story lengths range from less than 200 to over 8,000 words. Eras range from pre-series to post-series. Ratings range from G to PG-13.
Story text is as written by the authors, but minor HTML coding has been changed (removal of smart quotes, for example) and scene breaks have been altered to allow for more uniformity in page style.
As the final count for Crossover Alphabet Soup was over 57,000 words (!!) and LJ only allows 64K per entry, this anthology is abridged. The shortest fics are complete; most stories are excerpted here, with links to the author's journal for the rest of the fic. The complete and (almost) unabridged anthology is mow up on Dreamwidth.
Click on a specific fandom to jump to that particular crossover, or just scroll down!
Amelia Peabody
Battlestar Galactica / Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bones / Blake's 7
Chronicles of Narnia / Chuck
Discworld / Doctor Who
Firefly
Gilmore Girls
Howl's Moving Castle / The Hunger Games
Inception / Indiana Jones series
Leverage / Lois and Clark
MacGyver / Magnificent 7 / The Mummy
NCIS / Nero Wolfe / Nikita
Quantum Leap
Sorcerer's Apprentice / Supernatural
A is for Another Day at the Office (Leverage)
by tallulah_rasa
General Jack O'Neill strode in the Cheyenne Mountain conference room, looked at the six people ranged around the table, and sank into a chair.
"You really didn't have to come all this way, Sir," Cameron began.
"Oh, I think I did," Jack said. "Start at the beginning."
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, with a nod at Jack, "went to the Boston Antiquities Museum yesterday."
"And beyond the obvious, he did this because...?"
"He...saw something online that indicated some of the museum's recent acquisitions might be...not from around here," Sam said carefully, mindful of the non-SGC personnel at the table.
"Online?" Jack asked.
Sam winced. "Apparently Ba'al has a blog," she said.
"Of course he does," Jack said. "So, Daniel hared off..."
"He arranged to view the new acquisitions after hours," Cam said. "The curator was an old friend of Catherine Langford's, and happy to meet with Dr. Jackson. And really, Sir, it was just a recon thing; General Landry agreed it didn't necessitate a full court press."
Jack's expression said he'd be speaking to Landry about that, but he only said, "And then...?"
"Daniel called when he got a moment alone," Sam said. "He said he heard something that sounded like..." She made a gesture the SGC personnel present understood as alien tech, possibly Asgard, and Jack nodded.
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B is for The Bones in the Sarcophagus (Bones)
by sg_wonderland
Dr. Daniel Goodman's visiting archaeologist was on his knees, frowning as he crawled around the sarcophagus. "Dr. Jackson, is there a problem?" He finally asked.
"Well, maybe, yes, probably," came the definitive answer. "Look here, tell me what you see."
Goodman squatted and peered at where the other man's gloved finger was pointed. "Dammit," he swore softly.
"So you think it looks like the seal's been broken too?"
"It's an excellent repair, but a repair just the same." He rose. "I'm afraid I have to agree with you, Dr. Jackson."
"Is there somewhere we can get this X-rayed before we decide what to do next?"
"Dr. Brennan's lab has an excellent set-up. We can have the sarcophagus moved over there and take a look."
Daniel stripped off his gloves and stood. "Great."
***
"I don't know why I wasn't consulted from the beginning." Temperance Brennan said as she mounted the steps to the lab.
"I was unaware you had become an Egyptologist in the past few days," Goodman commented as he followed.
"You don't have to be an Egyptologist to look at a mummy. I am quite capable of determining cause of death."
"We don't really need cause of death. What we need to know is if the sarcophagus has been opened and re-sealed. Dr. Jackson believes it has been."
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C is for Cylon (Battlestar Galactica)
by da_angel729
The security detail guarding the scientists on P5R-093 sent in the SOS on day twenty seven of twenty-eight.
SG-1, on stand-down while they took their turn training new recruits, was called in for the mission, and entered the Stargate only five hours after the SOS arrived, with SG-7 along for back-up.
P5R-093 had excited the astronomers working at the SGC--and Jack, though he'd never admit it--because they'd be able to watch the process of a supernova exploding, though of course the scientists hoped to leave before the event actually happened.
Because the estimated distance engulfed the planet, and the SGC didn't really want to lose their scientists. Especially ones with field experience.
It was the hottest place Jack had been in a while, and he was glad they'd forgone the green BDU jackets as he started to sweat the moment he left the Stargate. The heat was oppressive, and the sun made the landscape look just slightly grayer than Earth's.
"Sit rep," he ordered Major Cassell, who was waiting at the DHD with Lieutenant Jameson.
"43 ships appeared in the air fourteen days ago, but made no attempt to contact us. They're harvesting the algae from the ocean, sir--I sent Sergeant Banile to do recon. She wasn't seen," he added quickly when Jack started to speak. "They're on guard, and very aware of their surroundings, but very busy with their work as well. It's a mixture of military and civilians, but there's a military guy in charge."
"Tech?"
"They've got some sort of transport shuttle that carries them to and from the ships, which are still in orbit. Pistols, semi-auto rifles and machines guns were all seen, and they look similar to our own and use standard projectiles. It looks like it could be a military camp on Earth, sir." Major Cassell had to stop and take a breath.
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D is for Doppelganger (Chuck)
by aelfgyfu_mead
Colonel John Casey sat at the briefing table in Castle and waited for Chuck Bartowski to arrive. Casey liked Castle. They had the best equipment he'd ever seen in his career; most of the wall near him was taken up with computers and large monitors. Castle was clean and well-organized, with steel and bulletproof glass everywhere. Plus, well, Casey had always wanted to work in an underground lair. Not that he'd ever admit it, even on pain of death. Nor would he admit he had begun to enjoy the California weather.
Bartowski came through the secret door from Orange Orange, stumbled down the stairs in his haste to join Sarah Walker and Casey at the table, and Walker contacted General Beckman.
Casey was a little surprised when General Beckman said they had a new assignment particularly for him. He'd gotten used to playing second banana to Chuck Bartowski. He didn't like it, but it had been the story of his life for over two years now. It was bad enough after Chuck had downloaded the first Intersect. With that program in his brain, Chuck could just blink and photographically almost any information the US intelligence community held. But Bartowski couldn't defend himself, so he needed Casey then. Now, with the improved Intersect, Chuck... well, Chuck still needed Casey. He had karate skills, but sometimes they worked like a charm, and sometimes Chuck just stood there like an idiot. Bartowski's flamenco guitar skills hadn't failed since the new Intersect downloaded in his head, but that wasn't particularly useful in combat.
Maybe it wasn't a surprise the General wanted Casey to lead a mission again.
"We've recently learned of an operation that has been going on for years. I've never been briefed on it." Beckman's already-thin lips were pressed tightly together. She was really annoyed. Not many people in the intelligence community ranked higher than her. "I've been trying to get more information for months, but I was stopped every time I used official avenues. 'Need to know,' they told me." Casey had never heard the General say anything like that. He sat up straighter.
"I've had some operatives digging around, and what they've uncovered is extraordinary. In the mid- to late-90s, a program began that seems to have used huge amounts of money--over $7 billion annually a few years ago, if our information is correct, and probably well beyond that by now. We haven't been able to get an accurate count, but dozens of people are involved, possibly more."
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E is for Earth that Was (Firefly)
by lokei
"What the blue blazes is that?"
Zoe shouldered past the comically staring Jayne to get to Mal. "Captain, I thought this planet was supposed to be entirely uninhabited."
"It is!" Mal threw up his hands.
"So, to be clear, sir, we have no idea why there are obvious signs of civilization on what is supposed to be an empty planet."
"It's at least reassuring to know that your sources are as accurate and forthcoming as usual, Captain," Simon's voice floated over Mal's shoulder as the doctor came up from Serenity behind them. Mal rolled his eyes.
"Well, I think it's kinda purty, in a lonesome way, that big ole ring standin' guard," Kaylee piped in from Mal's other elbow.
"Not quite as lonesome as I'd like," Mal muttered. "Zoe, whyn't you take Jayne and have a nice thorough looksee down through those ruins. I ain't aimin' for any more surprises this trip. We're here to give Kaylee'n'Wash the time they need to do their thing. If we gotta get off this rock in a hurry, I'd rather know that before Serenity's engines are all in little bitty pieces."
"That mean we've got a little time to go exploring, Cap'n?" Kaylee's face lit up, and she bounced a little as he turned towards her. Mal glanced at Zoe, who shrugged eloquently.
"You don't go alone," the captain decided, "and you stay in eyesight from the ship. Go play with your gate to nowhere if you like, but stay away from the ruins 'til Zoe'n'Jayne've done their thing."
His girl genius agreed and Mal watched in badly hidden amusement as she dragged the doctor back towards the open cargo bay door, presumably to scoop up River and Book for her little picnic.
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F is for Flying Therapy (Lois and Clark)
by una_spectre
Daniel staggered into his apartment relieved that the day was over and he could brood in peace without any of his team hanging over him. They'd spent the last three days traipsing across a planet that they were told was under the rule of Ammonet only to discover the Goa'uld hadn't gone anywhere near the place in almost six hundred years.
Completely deflated Daniel had managed to keep himself together to get back to the base and give his report. Now he'd escaped he could let go and feel the disappointment.
"You look like you've had a rough day."
Daniel jerked round in surprise and smiled at the man standing on the balcony, "No suit?"
Clark rolled his eyes, "Every time I wear it around you I have to wait ten minutes for you to stop laughing."
Daniel shrugged, "I still say Aunt Martha's punishing you."
"So," Clark said stepping into the room, "Just how bad was your day?"
Daniel sighed leaning back on the couch, "I thought I might have found her but it was just another dead end."
"I'm sorry, Daniel," Clark said sitting at his side, "I wish I could do something."
Daniel smiled at him quickly before frowning in confusion, "Why are you here?"
"I'm going home for dinner," Clark explained, "I thought I'd see if you were here and you could come too."
"I..."
"Mom will make me come back and get you," Clark reminded him, "So make life easier for both of us and just come."
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G is for Gilmore Girls
Flight of the Brochures
by annerbhp
Emily Gilmore is in Washington DC for a Daughters of the American Revolution national summit meeting because she's seen what they laughably call their brochures (as if an organization--an institution--like the Daughters of the American Revolution need advertise themselves like a road kill lawyer looking for idiots to represent). Clearly the leadership needs to be reminded just what is expected of the women who are the backbone of this nation.
Brochures, for goodness' sake! They might as well hang some crepe paper, wear party hats, and call themselves a bridge club.
Striding down the sidewalk towards Constitution Hall, Emily Gilmore prides herself on not having to slow her step as people jump out of her way. Clearly this is a city that understands importance when it sees it.
Only then she's bumped from behind, almost stumbling into oncoming traffic--is she to be flattened by a Washington motorcade, of all things?
"Well, I never--," she starts to bluster even as her life flashes before her eyes (Richard pinning her sweater, his fingers warm and the tiniest bit sweaty as they fumble with the fabric--Lorelai with cake in her hair and the devil in her eyes--Rory in her school girl blues, face lit with passion and curiosity).
Strong arms catch her, pull her into safety and Emily spins about to give her would-be murderer a piece of her mind, only to keep looking up, up, up, up...
The culprit is perhaps the largest black man she has ever set eyes upon. Surely it isn't decent for a man to have shoulders quite that wide. She's getting a crick in her neck trying to take him all in at once.
"I apologize most sincerely," the man says, a low, cultured voice that seems to force calm down her spine despite her best intentions of being annoyed. There is the slight smoky edge of an accent, and she lets herself imagine that he is some African diplomat. She's almost been thrown into traffic by the distant son of an exiled Christian prince, like something out of those emails she gets sometimes from Nigeria that Lorelai is always replying to with nonsense and offers to sleep in their spare bedroom.
"It's quite all right," she finds herself saying even though it is clearly not all right.
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H is for Howl (Howl's Moving Castle)
U is for Unexpected Visitors
by pepper_field
Sophie was just about to set a kettle on to boil when Calcifer roared up from the fireplace, yelling, "Sophie! Sophie! Someone's coming!"
"Oh, bother," said Sophie, crossly. "Keep your hair on." She'd only just managed to keep out of Calcifer's way, and even then, he'd managed to singe the edge of her skirt. She eyed the front door, which was rattling in an impossible wind. If Calcifer was worried, then she needed to be, too. "What kind of someo--" was as far as she got before the door blew open, and four figures blasted into the room, tumbling to the floor like thrown ragdolls.
"Calcifer! Where did they come from?" she demanded, backing towards the nook beside the fireplace, holding on tightly to the kettle. With all the wards that Howl and Calcifer had put on the door, no one ought to be able to come through it. And if they were that powerful, the spells that Howl had been teaching her would be better than a kettle -- even her good iron one. Still, it was reassuringly heavy.
"I don't know! It felt like that wet place Howl goes to, but different," he hissed, leaning out of the fireplace to get a better view. Sophie edged sideways to look through the door, but all she could see was a wall of grey mist.
Howl's home.
The people on the floor were dressed in identical green -- like a uniform, only scruffier. One was from the Sultanates and held a wizard's staff, and one was a woman. The oldest, a grey-haired man, groaned. "Carter, what the hell...?" he said, in a strange accent. It didn't sound like Howl or any of Howl's family who lived through the mist. The man opened his eyes, and immediately saw Sophie. He sat up quickly. "Uh, hey. Hi."
"Hello," said Sophie. It was as good a place to start as any, she supposed. Calcifer had dropped back down and was pretending to be a real fire, as he always did when there were strangers around.
The man poked the nearest body, a younger man with brown hair. "Ah, ow, that was--"
"We've got company," said the grey-haired man, tersely.
The wizard sat up, and stirred the woman with the end of his staff. She opened her eyes and was on her feet in a moment, hands going to the strange, black object slung around her neck. She was tall, blonde, very pretty, and sharp-eyed. She looked around the room, and frowned. "Sir, I don't think this is PY8 93J."
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I is for Intersection Leaps (Quantum Leap)
by suzannemarie
He blinked and began a swift inventory of his situation and surroundings: green military fatigues and boots, his hands shackled in front of him. A healing cut on one palm itched.
He was seated on a bench in the back of some sort of van. Looking around, he saw three men in similar attire. Across from him, a youngish man with shaggy brown hair was looking earnestly at an older man with graying hair who wore a cross expression. He looked to his right to see a formidably large black man with a gold emblem that appeared to be imbedded in his forehead.
The large man suddenly started and stared intently at the person to his left. His expression hardened. "Who are you?" he demanded.
Taken aback, Sam Beckett stared back. "Oh boy," he said under his breath.
***
Bewildered, she looked around the small, featureless chamber in which she unexpectedly found herself.
"Hey!" she shouted as she turned, looking for the exit.
She jumped as she caught a bit of a reflection of herself in the metal along the door frame. Puzzled, she walked closer and peered intently at herself. Why was she was wearing these white, loose-fitting clothes that that looked so much like scrubs? And why did she look like a man?
The door opened and a man of indeterminate age bounded into the room, nearly colliding with her. He was dressed casually in khaki pants and a bright blue jersey. He carried a colorful handheld computer in his left hand. He raised his right hand in a placating manner.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded. "Where's my team?"
"You're perfectly safe," he said in a reassuring voice.
She was not placated. "Who are you? Where's my team?" She asked again.
"My name is Al Calavicci. I'm part of Project Quantum Leap. We'll get you back where you belong as soon as we can, but we need some information from you in order to do that. Could I get your name?"
"Captain Samantha Carter, U.S. Air Force. That's as much as I'll say."
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J is for Deja Vu All Over Again (NCIS)
by greenbirds
A long time ago in a place called Russia (the locals called it Rossija, and sometimes he called it the ninth circle of Hell; it was certainly cold enough. He's been worse places since then), Jack O'Neill learned to tell his life in stories.
(If you could start out with "once upon a time," you could sometimes pretend it had happened to someone else).
Once upon a time, a young Air Force captain had a wicked stepmother (only she wasn't really wicked at all, for all she sent her little ones to do deadly things in secret places). She was tiny and dark-haired and dark-eyed and fierce and dangerous like the sparrowhawk. Her enemies and some of her admirers called her the Duchess of Deception. Her friends called her Hetty Lange.
Her little ones (her ducklings) called her tyotia. It was Russian for Auntie.
Jack (he was the only one who could ever get away with it) sometimes called her Auntie Em.
Once upon a time, Auntie Em had two darling boys, and their names both started with 'J'. Jack. Jenny. Jethro (actually it was Leroy Jethro, but Jack knew all about not liking one part of your given name or another, so he let it pass). In Russia (in Rossija, in Tartarus) they all answered to different names (Vanya and when Auntie Em wore her Russian face -- sometimes Jack thought it was her true face, she was Aunt Anya) and they gave gifts at New Year's instead of Christmas.
They had been a funny little family, they three.
Once upon a time, the two boys (how good and how pleasant, as the saying went) had been as close as brothers and they had talked about wooden boats and clear blue seas and endless summer days and what they would do After. (After was whole worlds, strange as storybook land: after was pale American beer and wearing your own name and your own clothes and listening to whatever you wanted on the radio. After didn't involve secrets. After didn't include sniper rifles).
After was a gingerbread house with gumdrop trim and a witch with an oven lurking inside. After was the yellow brick road, complete with flying monkeys and poppies. After was, as it turned out, Baba Yaga's skull filled with fire.
After was too good to be true.
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K is for Khan (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)
by 11am_street
It was a beautiful dagger with a fine curved blade that once must have been very sharp. The blade was encased in a bronze scabbard encrusted with garnets, amber and onyx that matched the tang. Based on the style and the accompanying artifacts which were found, Daniel placed the fine weapon around the late 12th early 13th century Mongolia. The dagger must have certainly belonged to a soldier, a magistrate, dignitary or an attendant of high station. There was a great chance it belonged to a member of Genghis Khan's court, or perhaps even to the Mongolian conqueror himself.
Taking a sip of water from the glass on his desk, Daniel mused on the potential tales the dagger could tell, of the blood it may have shed. Had it seen service in Khan's first campaign against the Xi Xia Dynasty in 1205? Or perhaps it saw use in the campaigns against the Western Xia dynasty or the Mongol-Jin War? Daniel would most likely never know, but it never stopped him to speculate. Upon a closer inspection of the darkened blade, Daniel noticed an inscription on the wrought iron. He leaned in closer and began to translate the words. His eyes widened in surprise when he finalized the script on the blade.
"That can't be right," he said to himself before reading the inscription and comparing his notes.
"What can't be right?" Daniel's head shot up towards the sliding metal door, shedding light into his dusky office. A dark shadow filled the doorway, the figure unmistakably that of his teammate, Samantha Carter.
"Oh, hey Sam," he said distractedly as the major entered his office. "The translation of the inscription on this Mongolian blade," he said.
An involuntary shiver ran up Carter's spine and rippled through her shoulders. Daniel could not help the tiny smile from the corner of his mouth. Simarka was one of their first missions as a team and was not one of Sam's fondest memories. The SCG received frequent updates from the Shavadai, a people Daniel theorized were most likely descendants of Mongolians known as the Chagatai. The Shavadai and the other tribes of the planet had progressed remarkably since SG-1's initial visit.
"Oh, did you find it on P3X-593?" Carter asked, using the designation for Simarka.
"No, it was found in a dig in Northeast Asia. It's funny the inscription says: 'In the name of Wyld Stallyns of red and white, most excellent friends.'"
"So what's wrong about that? Other than the fact it does sound odd."
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L is for L-Space (Discworld)
by fignewton
Daniel ran reverent fingers along the the shelf of scrolls, each rolled tightly in its own niche. The library here on P2X-518 was bigger than any other he'd seen off-world. He'd found parchment scrolls, wax and stone tablets, massive leather-bound volumes with metal clasps, modern books bound in a slick, plastic-like material, and even a few Goa'uld tablets with automatic page-turners. Happily, Sam's meeting with this planet's scientists to discuss their intriguing research in perturbative quantum field theory promised to keep her busy for hours. Jack had grudgingly allowed Daniel to spend the time browsing until it was time to leave.
As he turned into the next aisle, he saw the head librarian, a short woman with intelligent eyes peering out of a wizened face. She wore the same quasi-uniform that most people on the planet seemed to prefer, but oddly enough, her feet were encased in the local equivalent of carpet slippers. She had just finished easing a heavy volume back onto its shelf, but now she turned to Daniel with a pleasant smile.
"Did you want something specific, honored patron?"
Daniel considered this. "I know your planet has had dealings with the Goa'uld in the past. Do you have any reference works that describe that era?" That should make Jack happy, anyway.
The librarian rolled her eyes ceiling-ward, finger tapping on her chin as she considered. "Yes, honored patron, we do. One moment, and I'll retrieve them for you."
"Oh, I can get them myself," Daniel assured her. He enjoyed wandering past the different aisles; looking for the books would be part of the fun. "If you could just direct me to the right shelf...?"
She looked a little dubious, but gave him rapid directions to a section of the library. He repeated them aloud, thanked her, and headed off.
Daniel tried not to get too sidetracked as he passed by enticing shelves of massive tomes and tiny pamphlets. The white noise of heavy silence reduced itself to a vague hiss after a while, although he sometimes thought he could hear the faint sound of rustling and scratching somewhere in the distance. He stopped at one point to listen to something that sounded very much like an irritated rattle, but when it didn't repeat itself, he continued on his way.
After nearly ten minutes of walking, Daniel began to feel a little concerned. Surely the building wasn't this large, was it? Perhaps he ought to go back and ask the librarian to help him after all.
When he stopped and turned around, though, he stared. The library appeared to have changed. Instead of slightly threadbare carpet, the floor had somehow morphed into gleaming marble, shot with red and yellow veins. The shelves were suddenly towering high over his head, the heavy books firmly chained into place. How could this be? He broke into a run, anxious to find his way back to the library entrance.
But when he rounded the corner, he skidded to a halt and gaped.
A large, red-haired ape was balanced high on a shelf, thoughtfully eating a bag of peanuts as it ran a leathery finger along the parchment it was clearly reading.
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M is for Magnificent 7
Not the Nine O'Clock Meeting
by sallymn
"Fecaloid, criminally deficient imbecile with not a atom of so much as sub-standard intelligence between the...."
O'Neill blinked. After several years of listening to Doctor Daniel Jackson when in a full-flown snit, he would have sworn he'd heard all the words that could and couldn't hurt you, but this Ezra Simpson certainly had a way with the vocab...
"You don't talk about Charlie that way," he growled.
Simpson, the shady, slippery, over-educated but still small-time criminal who they had been sent to ask a few discreet, 'friendly' questions, glared at him. "Ah'm not," he snarled in a molasses-thick Southern accent. "Ah'm talkin' about you, sir." His glare shifted to Makepeace, who looked like he'd give up his P90 to be able to throttle the man. "Sirs."
"Oh."
Now that, Jack thought, was pretty damn unfair. It hadn't been any of SG1 or SG3's plan (or Hammond's when he insisted that two highly trained units could handle one second-rate shyster) who to start an all-in fight in Charlie le Gurch's roadside bar just off the Denver-Colorado Springs highway - they'd just wanted to ask a patron a few friendly questions. Nor had they started the shooting when the police turned up. In fact, he had a hazy idea that Simpson had been involved in all of this... but he'd been too busy trying to haul Carter and Daniel out of the whole mess, and then bolting for the door, to worry about that.
He was planning to blame the jarheads anyway. And the locals.
Oh yeah, and Simpson.
Now the four of them were stuck out here in the decaying half-shell of an ex-hotel, with the sounds of a full-scale riot in the carpark over the road - and the really, really bad country music from inside - still echoing through the evening air. Makepeace was concussed and furious, Daniel had been nicked in the leg by a random slug, Carter and the rest of SG-3 were god knows where (and had better be sending for backup), Ezra Simpson was making their lives hell...
And what the hell did 'fecaloid' mean? He'd have to ask Daniel.
Sometime.
Right now he was more interested in trying to stop Daniel's leg bleeding, and wondering how the hell the guy had gotten hold of what he damn well knew was an SGC-issue gun.
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N is for Nikita
by lizardbeth-j
Malcolm Barrett got his coffee and started for the train station, keeping his head down and wishing he'd brought a scarf. The clouds promised snow eventually, but for now the storm was bringing an icy wind that cut through his trench coat as if it wasn't there.
There was a woman in a long, puffy black coat, leggings, and boots to his left, in the alcove of the stationery store entrance. He started to pass her, thinking of his meeting later, when she spoke in a dry voice, "You should try shaking up your routine once in a while."
He automatically reached for his weapon, though it was holstered under his suit jacket, even as he started to turn to face her.
But her gloved fingers had a hard grip on his, holding his hand still. He looked into her face - she was almost as tall as he was. Her face was Chinese, framed by long black hair and punctuated by fierce dark eyes.
"Don't," she warned quietly. "I'm here to talk."
"About what?" he asked. He remembered seeing that face from somewhere. Inter-bureau announcement maybe. CIA? State Department? Something not his department, and not something to do with his work.
"You've been cleaning up NID," she said. "Which is way overdue. But you're also pushing parts of it deeper into the shadows."
The Trust, in other words, he thought, and nodded. "I know. But I can't get them all."
"No. And some parts won't let you get them."
"Are you threatening me?" he asked, keeping his voice level. "Because I'm not going to back off."
She gave a little smile and then let go of his hand. "Neither am I. We have something in common. I'm going to take down Division."
He started in surprise. Now there was a name to bring a chill to the heart of anyone in the business. "Division?" he repeated. It didn't need another name-- it had started as the Black Ops wing of NID, but been formally disbanded even before his tenure. "It still exists?"
She nodded once, not taking her eyes from him.
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O is for Off Hours (Nero Wolfe)
by randomfreshink
"A detective?" Jack said, managing to make the word an insult and an issue, as if he hadn't already been doing that the entire trip up from DC. "We're spending down time stopping by to see a detective?"
Daniel winced, knew he shouldn't react, couldn't stop it. He put a hand up to lift the brass knocker of the brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth. "It's not...we're not. I...look, just, think of this as...as...as I need a consultation. You know, you didn't have to come." But he was relieved Jack had insisted. Who knew what radar Jack had for sensing trouble, but something had set him off and he wouldn't be talked out of it.
Leaning back to glance up at the brownstone, sunglasses in place, Jack said, the words thrown away so they wouldn't cut sharp, "Like any of us are letting you out on another auld lang syne after Chicago?"
Daniel's frown tightened. "Two years, Jack. Two."
"And...consultation? As in for...?" Jack wobbled a hand left and right, left the sentence hanging, meaning for something wooby. Daniel didn't finish the thought, and Jack's frown deepened behind the aviator shades. He stuffed his hands in his pockets--never a good sign because it meant he was missing a gun to cradle. "Just who okayed the paperwork for this little field trip anyway?"
Jack already knew that answer, which meant he was fishing, and Daniel opened his mouth to tell Jack a few things he wouldn't want to hear. The door swung wide on oiled hinges, saving Daniel from having to do more than turn and smile. He knew the man in the doorway from a meeting that had been a few years back. Shockingly, the man hadn't changed--not a bit. Daniel stood there, opened mouth, trying to put together scattered thoughts. He'd expected....well, not this. The man was tall, slim, looked to be mid-thirties, had a face kept carefully blank.
Eyes narrowing, he stared at Daniel. "Don't I...?"
"Daniel Jackson," Daniel said, getting the words out before anything else slipped. He held out his hand. There was such a thing as TMI--and there was one more little thing buried here that Jack really was better off not knowing. He couldn't do anything about it now, so it would only irritate.
The man took his hand, his eyebrows lifted, but the frown didn't, so Daniel added, "My grandfather was a friend of...."
The light went on, and Archie Goodwin snapped his fingers. "Ballard. Nick Ballard. You're that Jackson. Come on in."
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P is for Physics (Chronicles of Narnia)
by sentientcitizen
When Ernest dies, Catherine copes in the way she knows best: she keeps busy. There's a funeral to plan, and his (quite small) estate to deal with, and when she writes the final thank-you-for-attending and finds herself with nothing to do she takes the wedding money and Ernest's savings ("It should be yours, dear," his tearful mother had said, "Ernest would have wanted it to be yours") and enrols for courses at Lamar Community College.
She tries a bit of everything; they've no anthropology courses at all, no language courses worth bothering with, and so remembering Ernest she begins to take math, biology, physics. It's physics that captures her mind, in the end, although she can't explain why even to herself. What they teach her is so painfully simple, but she thinks she can see something grander hidden within it, lurking behind the equations in her books.
At the end of her first term, she sends off an application to Cornell's undergraduate physics program.
She picked Cornell more or less on a whim, because she likes that it has women's dormitories and no denominational ties and, more importantly, it's across the country, as far away from Colorado Springs and Ernest's ghost as her limited funds will take her. And she gets in, even wins a scholarship, because there's a war on and the boys in the trenches are in no position to be studying, and besides, her marks are excellent.
Father makes vague noises about being proud of her, but doesn't she really think this is a little drastic? But Father's mind has been a million miles away since Ernest's accident, and in the end she leaves home with relatively little fuss.
And then the war is over, and suddenly the boys from the trenches have plenty of time to study. She doesn't have the scientific background that most of the boys -- men, now, really -- have, and it only takes her a term to realise that she doesn't even have the brains that all of them have. And that's a bitter pill to swallow, to realise that her mind, which had always carried her so easily wherever she wished to go, would never be able to leap as lightly through numbers as her classmates' can.
But if they could run faster, she'd run harder. Late nights in the library, early mornings pacing the paths as her mind chews over some particularly hoary bit of math, and at the end of her first year she surprises them all by taking fifth in her class. Next year, she's third. The year after, she slips to fourth, but she doesn't mind ceding her place to smiling, round-faced Owen. The grade on her papers matters less than the knowledge in her head.
In her fourth year, Dr. Walter Morrison, who helped her fight her way through his class on special relativity and then began making pointed noises about graduate school, hears that her money is all but gone and promptly hires her on as an assistant. And so she finds herself in front of his first year Physics class, delivering a stern speech on academic integrity and walking them through the syllabus.
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Q is for Quest (The Mummy)
by traycer_
This had to be a dream, Jack thought as he stared at the creature heading his way. He and his team had come to look for an artifact rumored to hold the symbiote of a Goa'uld, but they ended up stepping through the Twilight Zone and facing a creature that shouldn't exist.
"What is that thing?" he shouted to be heard over a particularly loud roar.
"I think it's a mummy," Daniel yelled back.
"A mummy?" This was from Carter, who looked like she had seen a ghost. Jack could certainly relate to that. That thing scared the heck out of him too.
"The Goa'uld speak of such a creature," Teal'c said, his staff weapon primed and ready. "They believe it has regenerative powers. It was considered bad luck to try to find one."
"Gee, I wonder why," Jack said dryly.
"Perhaps it was because the creature was extremely dangerous," Teal'c said in response.
The creature stopped at the edge of a crevice left over from a prior disturbance. Jack didn't know what caused the crevice, but he didn't care either. As long as it kept the mummy over on the other side, he was happy.
"Now what?" Carter wanted to know.
Jack didn't answer right away. He was trying to calculate how much time they would have if he just went ahead and destroyed the chamber they were in, and hopefully annihilate the mummy while they were at it.
"Daniel," he said. "What will happen if we drop the ceiling on top of that thing? Will that kill it?"
"I don't know," Daniel said with a resigned sigh. "The only mummies I ever heard about were products of someone else's imagination."
"Well, we're about to find out," Jack said, having made the decision. He reached down, pulled out a grenade and yelled at his team to run.
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R is for Resisting the Darkness (The Hunger Games)
by dannysgirlsg1
Daniel watched the pair of men from the opposite cave wall, contemplating them and the current predicament he now found himself in. He still hadn't quite grasped how he'd managed to get mixed up in another fine mess before he'd been thrown for a loop by people he'd felt he could maybe trust.
"So what did you call it?" He questioned, rising to his feet gingerly. He favored his right leg, sporting its latest gash. Just another scar to add to the ones already obtained over the years.
Grey eyes glanced over a shoulder as he moved towards the pair slowly. They seemed unsure by Daniel's silence-breaking question.
He pointed to the other man, unconscious against the cave wall. "With him," Daniel swung a hand out towards the mouth of the cave. "Out there."
"Hijacking," Gale answered. "Peeta's been hijacked."
Daniel awkwardly placed himself down next to the pair, watching as Gale meticulously cared for the superficial wounds scattering Peeta's arms. His eyes lingered on the handcuffs binding the unconscious man's hands together.
"It's a mind altering thing?" He questioned.
He got an incredulous glance for it. "You saw what happened."
"I did..." Daniel drew out, hoping Gale would elaborate. When the silence stretched on, he sighed. "Look, I'm trying to understand how a guy like Peeta, who I'd thought I'd come to know well enough since we found ourselves stuck here, could flip like that."
Daniel closed his eyes and dropped his head. "I'm just looking for a reason to trust here."
"Then you picked the wrong people." A slurred voice answered. Daniel and Gale turned their attention on Peeta, who was now gazing at them with half-lidded, pain-filled blue eyes.
"Peeta," Gale's response was a mix between greeting and admonishment.
Peeta grabbed Gale's hand between his cuffed ones. "We can't be trusted, Gale." He mumbled, his face a contortion of sadness. "We break promises."
Daniel watched Gale's face pale.
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S is for Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Sorcerer's Apprentice)
by jedibuttercup
"Remind me why we're here again?" Daniel asked, eyeing the non-descript door with lifted eyebrows.
Sam sighed and threw him a long-suffering look. "Because this is the address of record for the people questioned after the disturbance in Bowling Green Park two nights ago," she said. "225 Washington Place."
"...Right. And we expect them to actually be here because?" he replied.
He exchanged unimpressed glances with Vala; on the other side of the former galactic thief, Mitchell offered him an eloquent shrug. Nominally, Mitchell was the leader of their motley crew as he had a few months' seniority over Sam in their respective lieutenant colonelcies, but given that Daniel was a civilian, their other two team members were aliens, and Sam had far more SGC experience, he usually let whoever had the most knowledge in any given situation have their head. Today, that was Sam.
"I read the police reports on our way over," she replied, as she pulled a palm-sized device from her jacket pocket and aimed it toward the building. "They were uploaded this morning. There's no mention of the energy burst the Odyssey picked up, which isn't really a surprise, given its unusual nature. The local authorities only became involved after reports started coming in about a disturbance in the park-- several people running around, someone yelling in the fountain, and then what looked like a lightning strike before the power went down briefly throughout the entire financial district. When they arrived, they discovered the Charging Bull statue knocked off its pedestal, and two people on the ground: a man suffering from the aftereffects of what appeared to be a heart attack, and a woman wearing, quote, some kind of fancy party dress, tending to him."
"Lightning strike?" Daniel asked, skeptically.
"Fancy party dress?" Vala echoed.
Sam looked past both of them to Mitchell, smiling wryly. "Aht! Don't say it-- yes, someone made the inevitable Highlander joke. But there weren't any swords around, or severed heads-- just a fancy lacquered cane, some shattered concrete, and a bunch of electrical wires wrapped around lampposts. Kind of a lot of effort to go to for a prank, or some live action role play game."
"Unless it wasn't a prank, or a LARP...." Mitchell drawled.
"But some kind of Ancient technology," Teal'c continued.
"Especially if they gave this as their address," Vala added, skeptically.
Daniel conceded the point with a sigh. "Why is it always warehouses?" he groused.
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T is for Time (Doctor Who)
Non-Encounters of the Deeply Weird Kind
by wishfulaces
1997
Mission report from P3X-376, excerpt
When interviewed, locals indicated that a tall man with curly brown hair, wearing strange clothes that included a long, multi-colored scarf; and a violent female associate in leather skins arrived on their planet and helped them defeat the Goa'uld Apophis and his guards. Locals don't know how these two strangers arrived--apparently not through the Gate--nor did they catch their full names (man introduced himself as a doctor; woman was Leela something). Locals could not explain how these two people defeated Apophis without more help. "Words and magical devices" were all they would say. Suggest SGC keeps an eye out for these two individuals, see if they would be willing to help us in the fight against the Goa'uld.
***
1998
Transcript from security camera footage, interrogation # 1998_06_23_DOCTOR_c
O'NEILL, COL. JACK: How did you find out about this place?
DOCTOR [no name provided]: Bright lights in the sky, strange readings from numerous amateurs on their telescopes, all at the same time a few months ago? Did you think nobody would notice? [pause] Look. I have no memory about who I am, where I came from, why I'm here. But I know I don't belong here, and I think--I think you can help me.
O'NEILL: [snort] Look, mister, we've had more quacks and loonies showing up knocking at our front door than--than times you've been asked if you're any relation to Oscar Wilde.
DOCTOR: Oh, Wilde, I met him, lovely man, very witty.
O'NEILL: Yeah...sure. Why the hell should we tell you anything?
JACKSON, DANIEL: Jack, you heard what Dr. Fraiser said about his cardiovascular system, his DNA, practically everything about him--
O'NEILL: Daniel, you're not helping.
JACKSON: Maybe we should trust him, that's all I'm saying.
DOCTOR: I think you should, if my opinion counts for anything.
O'NEILL: It doesn't.
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U is for Under (Inception)
The sound of rapid staff weapon fire seared the air behind Jack as he ran, eyes raking the gold walls around him for any sign of an exit. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever.
THERE!
Jack ducked, threw himself toward the open doorway, diving into an empty room. He had only seconds to cock his P90 before the first prime came thundering into the room after him, staff weapon still smoking. Jack's bullets shredded into the jaffa's armor before the warrior had a chance to fire. The jaffa clattered to the ground.
Jack's fingers clawed the black beanie from his head, the hat sweaty in his fingers as he turned and scanned the room closely, looking for...
And there it was nestled. The door to the system lord's vault, a two by two square of smoky obsidian set halfway up the back wall, no distinguishable interface at hand, no way to open it.
Jack slid his hand gun from its holster, fired two shots at the glass. It shattered.
And inside... it was there, the object of his mission. But as his fingerless-gloved hand reached for the communication orb, Jack heard an unmistakable laugh behind him. The deep-chested chuckle of a Goa'uld. He lifted the orb from its tiny pedestal and turned to face the system lord with a half-cocked smile that came no where near his eyes. He quickly and silently registered the fact that the orb sat dead in his hands; his touch hadn't initiated anything. The orb contained no information.
"Was wondering where you'd gotten off to," said Jack as he rolled the orb in his fingers.
The system lord chuckled again, his long black hair shifting as his head tilted. He reminded Jack of a slightly older, Hawaiian-surfer version of Ra. "You have failed," he said to Jack with a low, dual-toned voice.
"Don't count your eggs..." Jack warned.
The system lord gave a long-suffering sigh. "The information that you seek is not here, O'Neill. It never existed. You have been misinformed, your mission was doomed from the beginning."
"I beg to differ."
"You are worthless, O'Neill. Useless. You and your band of friends are pitiful, and I look forward to the-"
He didn't have a chance to finish. The skipping blue energy of a zat weapon encompassed his body and accompanied him to the floor where he lay unconscious, revealing Daniel Jackson behind him.
"Nice timing," Jack snapped, angered to see Daniel there. "But I don't believe this to be the plan we agreed on. You're not supposed to be here, Daniel. This is a bust, by the way," he added, tossing the orb to Daniel who lurched to catch it.
"I know," Daniel said, lifting the zat again. "There was a hiccup."
Jack didn't have a chance to comment before the zat discharged, twice in succession.
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V is for V_la (Blake's 7)
by lolmac
"You don't have to act like it's so funny."
"But it is! I mean - of all people - you got robbed?"
"Not robbed! Robbery is, you know, I'm armed, stick 'em up and hand over the pretties. If he'd tried that, I'd have handed him his head on a stick."
"On a platter."
"That too."
"I didn't know the terminology was so specific."
"Well, you all have lots of really specific terms for things you do. I do too. You should be able to understand that."
"So you weren't exactly robbed."
"No. I had my pocket picked."
"And now we have to go back to the Stargate, dial home, and admit to them that we need a new GDO because you let some low-life steal ours, and we can't exactly go back home without one."
"What did he look like?"
"Oh, you know. Not much. Not very tall, not very short, not dressed fancy. But he had the prettiest brown eyes and a really sexy accent. And he couldn't hold his booze. Well, I thought he couldn't. Maybe he was holding it better than I thought."
"Wait, you were drinking with him?"
"Well, yes. We started talking shop. That's how I knew he was a thief. He told me."
"He what?"
"He did! He said 'Other people's property just comes naturally to me.' I liked that. I think I'll use it someday."
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W is for Wait (Amelia Peabody)
by gategremlyn
Dear Daniel,
You asked about your godfather, Walter Peabody Emerson. I'd be glad to tell you all I know about him.
Daniel smiled at the fine script. Catherine, a consummate scientist and professional, always wrote her personal letters by hand, much to his delight. In this ever mechanized age, it was still nice to get a letter and not an e-mail.
He'd asked Catherine to help him sort through Nick's papers after his death, and the discoveries they'd made surprised him. Nick, who'd turned away a bereft boy of eight, hadn't always been so distant and self-absorbed. As a matter of fact, he'd been a young and enthusiastic archaeologist once--as Catherine had found out. He'd studied in Egypt one summer under Walter Peabody Emerson, a linguist and scholar, and a man Daniel knew mainly by reputation.
I was a little girl when I met my friends the Emersons. My own father, a taciturn man at the best of times, ignored them, but I thought the Emersons a delight. The two children, David-John and Charla, while several years older than I, became my steadfast companions when circumstances allowed us to be together. Their father Walter--or Ramses as everyone called him--terrified me even as he awed me. I'd never met a man more competent or more kind. Mr. Emerson would not allow me to call him anything but Ramses: "A perfect name for a pharaoh like me, don't you agree, Katie." I was always Catherine, even then, except to Ramses Emerson. He was everything my father wasn't; scholarly, thoughtful, and perceptive. His love of languages fueled my own, and when I was of an age to study, I added my father's love of science to Ramses love of languages. It was he who first spoke to me in German and Arabic, telling us, Charla, David-John, and I, stories of the Old Kingdom at bedtime.
His mother, a formidable and rather alarming woman whom I was told to call "Aunt Amelia" even though she was no relative of mine, welcomed my into her family as readily as she did everyone who came her way. Even as a little girl, I could tell she was the center around whom everyone else revolved. That Ramses loved her (even as he balked at her mothering) was apparent. Her husband, known as "The Father of Curses" for very good reason, should have terrified me as well but didn't. His bellow could be heard from across a courtyard or across an excavation. He was even warmer and more generous than his son, and after a few visits, I would scream with glee when he came to take me and his grandchildren to visit their current dig. I didn't know until much later how distinguished an archaeologist he was.
Daniel, I'm sure you remember Professor Emerson from your years at the Oriental Institute--that was Ramses. He and Doctor Jordan were colleagues and friends long before you came to study there. When you arrived, they immediately saw a talented and promising young archaeologist. Long before you ever crossed my path as a candidate for the Stargate program, Ramses said he knew of you as a gifted young man. I wasn't aware that his tenure had overlapped your studies at the Institute until I noticed that one of your scholarships had been awarded in his name. As an archaeologist and linguist himself, he delighted in encouraging new talent. I believe you were the last student to actually receive the scholarship from his hand before his death.
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X is for X Marks the Spot (MacGyver)
by lolmac
It seems like some folks never do get a break -- or when they get one, they're so used to it not working out that they let it slip right outta their hands. My buddy Jack Dalton's like that. He's tried more new schemes and made more fresh starts than I can count, but the only ones he sticks with are the ones that don't go anywhere.
He turned up one day with a treasure map. Well, not exactly a map; he'd been hanging out online with the nutjobs on Usenet, and something he picked up on alt.conspiracy.area51 led him to meeting some shady type in a bar on the bad side of LA. Okay, one of the bad sides of LA. I never did get the details straight, but I know money changed hands more than once, and Jack talked to a whole string of people whose names all seemed to be Smith, and next thing you know he was at the marina, hammering on my door, too excited about his great scheme to answer questions about where he'd been, why he smelled so bad, and who had messed up his face and given him a black eye this time.
What he had was an old handwritten journal, which was supposed to have a map in it. We worked our way through the entries that were supposed to be clues, solved the puzzles, and ended up with nada. No map. Jack handed me the journal and went back to Usenet hoping for a new golden goose, and I gave the journal to my archeologist friend Dr. Lacie Najjar.
Two weeks later, she was pitching an exploratory mission to the Phoenix committee for Research Funding. Six months after that, Pete was helping her patch together enough grants for a dig in the hills inland from Palaepaphos, in southwest Cyprus -- the Greek side of Cyprus, that is, not the Turkish side. By early 1997, she'd got the first reports published on their finds, getting funding for the next season was a heck of a lot easier, and her professional cred had hit the stratosphere. Jack Dalton was mentioned in the footnotes with having 'provided invaluable assistance leading to the original discovery', but since they weren't finding gold coins or jeweled doodads, he wasn't real interested any more.
By the fall of '97, when Dr. Najjar cabled me asking me to come right now please, Dalton had gone back to doing his stage magician act, which gave him plenty of time to hang out online. I didn't tell him I was going out to Cyprus. I didn't think he'd want to hear about it.
The first thing MacGyver noticed, waking up on his fourth day at the dig, was that it was quiet. As in, way too quiet. Empty quiet. Bad quiet.
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Y is for You've Got to be Kidding Me (Supernatural)
by maevebran
Dean and Sam pulled into the parking lot of Sol's Diner just outside of Colorado Springs. They parked the Impala and went in. Dean looked around and noticed the black haired waitress with the pig tails.
"I hope she's our waitress," Dean said as he pointed to her. "She's kind of hot."
Sam looked where his brother pointed, "Isn't she a little old for you?"
"Nahh, " Dean said. "She's more experienced."
Sam shakes his head. They both watch as the raven haired waitress finishes taking the orders of the family she's talking to.
A couple shady guys come in.
"All right, wallets and purses on the floor," the first guy yells.
Before Sam or Dean could react, the waitress had kung fu-ed the guys down and had one of the guys' own gun on them.
"You've got to be kidding me," Dean said as he and Sam walked out of the diner, not wanting to get involved.
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Z is for Zombies (Indiana Jones series)
by penknife
Daniel attends Professor Jones's guest lecture mainly out of a sense of morbid curiosity. Nick has told him on many occasions that he admires the man, which doesn't predispose Daniel to liking him. It's probably not fair to actually blame the man's wild stories about his archaeological discoveries for pushing Nick over the edge, but he isn't expecting to have much fun hearing about crystal skulls and marauding zombies.
Instead, it's a surprisingly sensible discussion of defenses against tomb robbers in the Egyptian pyramids, although some of the things Jones claims to have seen sound under-documented and frankly a little unlikely. Still, if there were anywhere that he'd believe the improbable, it's in Egyptian archaeology; there are so many puzzles there, so many things that he's beginning to think don't add up without a leap of faith that he's still afraid to make.
He lingers afterwards until the little knot of people around Jones thins out. Jones is packing up his briefcase, his hands steady but not quick. He glances up as Daniel approaches, his remaining eye sharp; the eye patch makes him look more piratical than fragile, for all that the man must be in his eighties, his face weathered with age and his hair steel gray.
"Have a question?"
"You didn't mention the Well of Souls," Daniel says. "At Tanis--"
"That's a myth, kid," Jones says. His mouth twitches into what might be a smile. "There's no proof there was ever a chamber at Tanis containing the Ark of the Covenant, if that's what you're asking about. Real archaeology isn't all romantic adventure."
"I know that," Daniel says, stung. "My grandfather is Nicholas Ballard. He told me you'd made a fairly unbelievable find there."
"Nick Ballard has a big mouth," Jones says. "Or he used to. If he's dead, I'm sorry to hear it."
"He's in a nursing home," Daniel says, because it's easier to say than mental institution.
"He can't be that old," Jones says.
"He's had some problems," Daniel says. "I'm sorry, it's possible he was just confused. He, ah, that wouldn't be out of character for him these days."
"I'm sorry to hear that, too," Jones says. He seems to be considering Daniel. "Does it matter whether we found anything at Tanis or not?"
"Yes," Daniel says, more hotly than he means to.
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Special thanks to the wonderful regulars who contribute time after time, and an extra welcome to our new Soup authors: Aces, L.E. McMurray, Tallulah Rasa, Sentient Citizen, Greenbirds, Lizardbeth, Dannysgirl, Lolmac (who contributed twice!), Jedibuttercup. and 11 am Street! (If I missed welcoming a newcomer or accidentally re-welcomed an author, do let me know.) That puts our total number of Alphabet Soup contributors up to 103, which is pretty incredible for gen fic in a closed canon. :)
Story lengths range from less than 200 to over 8,000 words. Eras range from pre-series to post-series. Ratings range from G to PG-13.
Story text is as written by the authors, but minor HTML coding has been changed (removal of smart quotes, for example) and scene breaks have been altered to allow for more uniformity in page style.
As the final count for Crossover Alphabet Soup was over 57,000 words (!!) and LJ only allows 64K per entry, this anthology is abridged. The shortest fics are complete; most stories are excerpted here, with links to the author's journal for the rest of the fic. The complete and (almost) unabridged anthology is mow up on Dreamwidth.
Click on a specific fandom to jump to that particular crossover, or just scroll down!
Amelia Peabody
Battlestar Galactica / Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure / Bones / Blake's 7
Chronicles of Narnia / Chuck
Discworld / Doctor Who
Firefly
Gilmore Girls
Howl's Moving Castle / The Hunger Games
Inception / Indiana Jones series
Leverage / Lois and Clark
MacGyver / Magnificent 7 / The Mummy
NCIS / Nero Wolfe / Nikita
Quantum Leap
Sorcerer's Apprentice / Supernatural
A is for Another Day at the Office (Leverage)
by tallulah_rasa
General Jack O'Neill strode in the Cheyenne Mountain conference room, looked at the six people ranged around the table, and sank into a chair.
"You really didn't have to come all this way, Sir," Cameron began.
"Oh, I think I did," Jack said. "Start at the beginning."
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, with a nod at Jack, "went to the Boston Antiquities Museum yesterday."
"And beyond the obvious, he did this because...?"
"He...saw something online that indicated some of the museum's recent acquisitions might be...not from around here," Sam said carefully, mindful of the non-SGC personnel at the table.
"Online?" Jack asked.
Sam winced. "Apparently Ba'al has a blog," she said.
"Of course he does," Jack said. "So, Daniel hared off..."
"He arranged to view the new acquisitions after hours," Cam said. "The curator was an old friend of Catherine Langford's, and happy to meet with Dr. Jackson. And really, Sir, it was just a recon thing; General Landry agreed it didn't necessitate a full court press."
Jack's expression said he'd be speaking to Landry about that, but he only said, "And then...?"
"Daniel called when he got a moment alone," Sam said. "He said he heard something that sounded like..." She made a gesture the SGC personnel present understood as alien tech, possibly Asgard, and Jack nodded.
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B is for The Bones in the Sarcophagus (Bones)
by sg_wonderland
Dr. Daniel Goodman's visiting archaeologist was on his knees, frowning as he crawled around the sarcophagus. "Dr. Jackson, is there a problem?" He finally asked.
"Well, maybe, yes, probably," came the definitive answer. "Look here, tell me what you see."
Goodman squatted and peered at where the other man's gloved finger was pointed. "Dammit," he swore softly.
"So you think it looks like the seal's been broken too?"
"It's an excellent repair, but a repair just the same." He rose. "I'm afraid I have to agree with you, Dr. Jackson."
"Is there somewhere we can get this X-rayed before we decide what to do next?"
"Dr. Brennan's lab has an excellent set-up. We can have the sarcophagus moved over there and take a look."
Daniel stripped off his gloves and stood. "Great."
***
"I don't know why I wasn't consulted from the beginning." Temperance Brennan said as she mounted the steps to the lab.
"I was unaware you had become an Egyptologist in the past few days," Goodman commented as he followed.
"You don't have to be an Egyptologist to look at a mummy. I am quite capable of determining cause of death."
"We don't really need cause of death. What we need to know is if the sarcophagus has been opened and re-sealed. Dr. Jackson believes it has been."
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C is for Cylon (Battlestar Galactica)
by da_angel729
The security detail guarding the scientists on P5R-093 sent in the SOS on day twenty seven of twenty-eight.
SG-1, on stand-down while they took their turn training new recruits, was called in for the mission, and entered the Stargate only five hours after the SOS arrived, with SG-7 along for back-up.
P5R-093 had excited the astronomers working at the SGC--and Jack, though he'd never admit it--because they'd be able to watch the process of a supernova exploding, though of course the scientists hoped to leave before the event actually happened.
Because the estimated distance engulfed the planet, and the SGC didn't really want to lose their scientists. Especially ones with field experience.
It was the hottest place Jack had been in a while, and he was glad they'd forgone the green BDU jackets as he started to sweat the moment he left the Stargate. The heat was oppressive, and the sun made the landscape look just slightly grayer than Earth's.
"Sit rep," he ordered Major Cassell, who was waiting at the DHD with Lieutenant Jameson.
"43 ships appeared in the air fourteen days ago, but made no attempt to contact us. They're harvesting the algae from the ocean, sir--I sent Sergeant Banile to do recon. She wasn't seen," he added quickly when Jack started to speak. "They're on guard, and very aware of their surroundings, but very busy with their work as well. It's a mixture of military and civilians, but there's a military guy in charge."
"Tech?"
"They've got some sort of transport shuttle that carries them to and from the ships, which are still in orbit. Pistols, semi-auto rifles and machines guns were all seen, and they look similar to our own and use standard projectiles. It looks like it could be a military camp on Earth, sir." Major Cassell had to stop and take a breath.
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D is for Doppelganger (Chuck)
by aelfgyfu_mead
Colonel John Casey sat at the briefing table in Castle and waited for Chuck Bartowski to arrive. Casey liked Castle. They had the best equipment he'd ever seen in his career; most of the wall near him was taken up with computers and large monitors. Castle was clean and well-organized, with steel and bulletproof glass everywhere. Plus, well, Casey had always wanted to work in an underground lair. Not that he'd ever admit it, even on pain of death. Nor would he admit he had begun to enjoy the California weather.
Bartowski came through the secret door from Orange Orange, stumbled down the stairs in his haste to join Sarah Walker and Casey at the table, and Walker contacted General Beckman.
Casey was a little surprised when General Beckman said they had a new assignment particularly for him. He'd gotten used to playing second banana to Chuck Bartowski. He didn't like it, but it had been the story of his life for over two years now. It was bad enough after Chuck had downloaded the first Intersect. With that program in his brain, Chuck could just blink and photographically almost any information the US intelligence community held. But Bartowski couldn't defend himself, so he needed Casey then. Now, with the improved Intersect, Chuck... well, Chuck still needed Casey. He had karate skills, but sometimes they worked like a charm, and sometimes Chuck just stood there like an idiot. Bartowski's flamenco guitar skills hadn't failed since the new Intersect downloaded in his head, but that wasn't particularly useful in combat.
Maybe it wasn't a surprise the General wanted Casey to lead a mission again.
"We've recently learned of an operation that has been going on for years. I've never been briefed on it." Beckman's already-thin lips were pressed tightly together. She was really annoyed. Not many people in the intelligence community ranked higher than her. "I've been trying to get more information for months, but I was stopped every time I used official avenues. 'Need to know,' they told me." Casey had never heard the General say anything like that. He sat up straighter.
"I've had some operatives digging around, and what they've uncovered is extraordinary. In the mid- to late-90s, a program began that seems to have used huge amounts of money--over $7 billion annually a few years ago, if our information is correct, and probably well beyond that by now. We haven't been able to get an accurate count, but dozens of people are involved, possibly more."
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E is for Earth that Was (Firefly)
by lokei
"What the blue blazes is that?"
Zoe shouldered past the comically staring Jayne to get to Mal. "Captain, I thought this planet was supposed to be entirely uninhabited."
"It is!" Mal threw up his hands.
"So, to be clear, sir, we have no idea why there are obvious signs of civilization on what is supposed to be an empty planet."
"It's at least reassuring to know that your sources are as accurate and forthcoming as usual, Captain," Simon's voice floated over Mal's shoulder as the doctor came up from Serenity behind them. Mal rolled his eyes.
"Well, I think it's kinda purty, in a lonesome way, that big ole ring standin' guard," Kaylee piped in from Mal's other elbow.
"Not quite as lonesome as I'd like," Mal muttered. "Zoe, whyn't you take Jayne and have a nice thorough looksee down through those ruins. I ain't aimin' for any more surprises this trip. We're here to give Kaylee'n'Wash the time they need to do their thing. If we gotta get off this rock in a hurry, I'd rather know that before Serenity's engines are all in little bitty pieces."
"That mean we've got a little time to go exploring, Cap'n?" Kaylee's face lit up, and she bounced a little as he turned towards her. Mal glanced at Zoe, who shrugged eloquently.
"You don't go alone," the captain decided, "and you stay in eyesight from the ship. Go play with your gate to nowhere if you like, but stay away from the ruins 'til Zoe'n'Jayne've done their thing."
His girl genius agreed and Mal watched in badly hidden amusement as she dragged the doctor back towards the open cargo bay door, presumably to scoop up River and Book for her little picnic.
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F is for Flying Therapy (Lois and Clark)
by una_spectre
Daniel staggered into his apartment relieved that the day was over and he could brood in peace without any of his team hanging over him. They'd spent the last three days traipsing across a planet that they were told was under the rule of Ammonet only to discover the Goa'uld hadn't gone anywhere near the place in almost six hundred years.
Completely deflated Daniel had managed to keep himself together to get back to the base and give his report. Now he'd escaped he could let go and feel the disappointment.
"You look like you've had a rough day."
Daniel jerked round in surprise and smiled at the man standing on the balcony, "No suit?"
Clark rolled his eyes, "Every time I wear it around you I have to wait ten minutes for you to stop laughing."
Daniel shrugged, "I still say Aunt Martha's punishing you."
"So," Clark said stepping into the room, "Just how bad was your day?"
Daniel sighed leaning back on the couch, "I thought I might have found her but it was just another dead end."
"I'm sorry, Daniel," Clark said sitting at his side, "I wish I could do something."
Daniel smiled at him quickly before frowning in confusion, "Why are you here?"
"I'm going home for dinner," Clark explained, "I thought I'd see if you were here and you could come too."
"I..."
"Mom will make me come back and get you," Clark reminded him, "So make life easier for both of us and just come."
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G is for Gilmore Girls
Flight of the Brochures
by annerbhp
Emily Gilmore is in Washington DC for a Daughters of the American Revolution national summit meeting because she's seen what they laughably call their brochures (as if an organization--an institution--like the Daughters of the American Revolution need advertise themselves like a road kill lawyer looking for idiots to represent). Clearly the leadership needs to be reminded just what is expected of the women who are the backbone of this nation.
Brochures, for goodness' sake! They might as well hang some crepe paper, wear party hats, and call themselves a bridge club.
Striding down the sidewalk towards Constitution Hall, Emily Gilmore prides herself on not having to slow her step as people jump out of her way. Clearly this is a city that understands importance when it sees it.
Only then she's bumped from behind, almost stumbling into oncoming traffic--is she to be flattened by a Washington motorcade, of all things?
"Well, I never--," she starts to bluster even as her life flashes before her eyes (Richard pinning her sweater, his fingers warm and the tiniest bit sweaty as they fumble with the fabric--Lorelai with cake in her hair and the devil in her eyes--Rory in her school girl blues, face lit with passion and curiosity).
Strong arms catch her, pull her into safety and Emily spins about to give her would-be murderer a piece of her mind, only to keep looking up, up, up, up...
The culprit is perhaps the largest black man she has ever set eyes upon. Surely it isn't decent for a man to have shoulders quite that wide. She's getting a crick in her neck trying to take him all in at once.
"I apologize most sincerely," the man says, a low, cultured voice that seems to force calm down her spine despite her best intentions of being annoyed. There is the slight smoky edge of an accent, and she lets herself imagine that he is some African diplomat. She's almost been thrown into traffic by the distant son of an exiled Christian prince, like something out of those emails she gets sometimes from Nigeria that Lorelai is always replying to with nonsense and offers to sleep in their spare bedroom.
"It's quite all right," she finds herself saying even though it is clearly not all right.
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H is for Howl (Howl's Moving Castle)
U is for Unexpected Visitors
by pepper_field
Sophie was just about to set a kettle on to boil when Calcifer roared up from the fireplace, yelling, "Sophie! Sophie! Someone's coming!"
"Oh, bother," said Sophie, crossly. "Keep your hair on." She'd only just managed to keep out of Calcifer's way, and even then, he'd managed to singe the edge of her skirt. She eyed the front door, which was rattling in an impossible wind. If Calcifer was worried, then she needed to be, too. "What kind of someo--" was as far as she got before the door blew open, and four figures blasted into the room, tumbling to the floor like thrown ragdolls.
"Calcifer! Where did they come from?" she demanded, backing towards the nook beside the fireplace, holding on tightly to the kettle. With all the wards that Howl and Calcifer had put on the door, no one ought to be able to come through it. And if they were that powerful, the spells that Howl had been teaching her would be better than a kettle -- even her good iron one. Still, it was reassuringly heavy.
"I don't know! It felt like that wet place Howl goes to, but different," he hissed, leaning out of the fireplace to get a better view. Sophie edged sideways to look through the door, but all she could see was a wall of grey mist.
Howl's home.
The people on the floor were dressed in identical green -- like a uniform, only scruffier. One was from the Sultanates and held a wizard's staff, and one was a woman. The oldest, a grey-haired man, groaned. "Carter, what the hell...?" he said, in a strange accent. It didn't sound like Howl or any of Howl's family who lived through the mist. The man opened his eyes, and immediately saw Sophie. He sat up quickly. "Uh, hey. Hi."
"Hello," said Sophie. It was as good a place to start as any, she supposed. Calcifer had dropped back down and was pretending to be a real fire, as he always did when there were strangers around.
The man poked the nearest body, a younger man with brown hair. "Ah, ow, that was--"
"We've got company," said the grey-haired man, tersely.
The wizard sat up, and stirred the woman with the end of his staff. She opened her eyes and was on her feet in a moment, hands going to the strange, black object slung around her neck. She was tall, blonde, very pretty, and sharp-eyed. She looked around the room, and frowned. "Sir, I don't think this is PY8 93J."
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I is for Intersection Leaps (Quantum Leap)
by suzannemarie
He blinked and began a swift inventory of his situation and surroundings: green military fatigues and boots, his hands shackled in front of him. A healing cut on one palm itched.
He was seated on a bench in the back of some sort of van. Looking around, he saw three men in similar attire. Across from him, a youngish man with shaggy brown hair was looking earnestly at an older man with graying hair who wore a cross expression. He looked to his right to see a formidably large black man with a gold emblem that appeared to be imbedded in his forehead.
The large man suddenly started and stared intently at the person to his left. His expression hardened. "Who are you?" he demanded.
Taken aback, Sam Beckett stared back. "Oh boy," he said under his breath.
***
Bewildered, she looked around the small, featureless chamber in which she unexpectedly found herself.
"Hey!" she shouted as she turned, looking for the exit.
She jumped as she caught a bit of a reflection of herself in the metal along the door frame. Puzzled, she walked closer and peered intently at herself. Why was she was wearing these white, loose-fitting clothes that that looked so much like scrubs? And why did she look like a man?
The door opened and a man of indeterminate age bounded into the room, nearly colliding with her. He was dressed casually in khaki pants and a bright blue jersey. He carried a colorful handheld computer in his left hand. He raised his right hand in a placating manner.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded. "Where's my team?"
"You're perfectly safe," he said in a reassuring voice.
She was not placated. "Who are you? Where's my team?" She asked again.
"My name is Al Calavicci. I'm part of Project Quantum Leap. We'll get you back where you belong as soon as we can, but we need some information from you in order to do that. Could I get your name?"
"Captain Samantha Carter, U.S. Air Force. That's as much as I'll say."
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J is for Deja Vu All Over Again (NCIS)
by greenbirds
A long time ago in a place called Russia (the locals called it Rossija, and sometimes he called it the ninth circle of Hell; it was certainly cold enough. He's been worse places since then), Jack O'Neill learned to tell his life in stories.
(If you could start out with "once upon a time," you could sometimes pretend it had happened to someone else).
Once upon a time, a young Air Force captain had a wicked stepmother (only she wasn't really wicked at all, for all she sent her little ones to do deadly things in secret places). She was tiny and dark-haired and dark-eyed and fierce and dangerous like the sparrowhawk. Her enemies and some of her admirers called her the Duchess of Deception. Her friends called her Hetty Lange.
Her little ones (her ducklings) called her tyotia. It was Russian for Auntie.
Jack (he was the only one who could ever get away with it) sometimes called her Auntie Em.
Once upon a time, Auntie Em had two darling boys, and their names both started with 'J'. Jack. Jenny. Jethro (actually it was Leroy Jethro, but Jack knew all about not liking one part of your given name or another, so he let it pass). In Russia (in Rossija, in Tartarus) they all answered to different names (Vanya and when Auntie Em wore her Russian face -- sometimes Jack thought it was her true face, she was Aunt Anya) and they gave gifts at New Year's instead of Christmas.
They had been a funny little family, they three.
Once upon a time, the two boys (how good and how pleasant, as the saying went) had been as close as brothers and they had talked about wooden boats and clear blue seas and endless summer days and what they would do After. (After was whole worlds, strange as storybook land: after was pale American beer and wearing your own name and your own clothes and listening to whatever you wanted on the radio. After didn't involve secrets. After didn't include sniper rifles).
After was a gingerbread house with gumdrop trim and a witch with an oven lurking inside. After was the yellow brick road, complete with flying monkeys and poppies. After was, as it turned out, Baba Yaga's skull filled with fire.
After was too good to be true.
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K is for Khan (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)
by 11am_street
It was a beautiful dagger with a fine curved blade that once must have been very sharp. The blade was encased in a bronze scabbard encrusted with garnets, amber and onyx that matched the tang. Based on the style and the accompanying artifacts which were found, Daniel placed the fine weapon around the late 12th early 13th century Mongolia. The dagger must have certainly belonged to a soldier, a magistrate, dignitary or an attendant of high station. There was a great chance it belonged to a member of Genghis Khan's court, or perhaps even to the Mongolian conqueror himself.
Taking a sip of water from the glass on his desk, Daniel mused on the potential tales the dagger could tell, of the blood it may have shed. Had it seen service in Khan's first campaign against the Xi Xia Dynasty in 1205? Or perhaps it saw use in the campaigns against the Western Xia dynasty or the Mongol-Jin War? Daniel would most likely never know, but it never stopped him to speculate. Upon a closer inspection of the darkened blade, Daniel noticed an inscription on the wrought iron. He leaned in closer and began to translate the words. His eyes widened in surprise when he finalized the script on the blade.
"That can't be right," he said to himself before reading the inscription and comparing his notes.
"What can't be right?" Daniel's head shot up towards the sliding metal door, shedding light into his dusky office. A dark shadow filled the doorway, the figure unmistakably that of his teammate, Samantha Carter.
"Oh, hey Sam," he said distractedly as the major entered his office. "The translation of the inscription on this Mongolian blade," he said.
An involuntary shiver ran up Carter's spine and rippled through her shoulders. Daniel could not help the tiny smile from the corner of his mouth. Simarka was one of their first missions as a team and was not one of Sam's fondest memories. The SCG received frequent updates from the Shavadai, a people Daniel theorized were most likely descendants of Mongolians known as the Chagatai. The Shavadai and the other tribes of the planet had progressed remarkably since SG-1's initial visit.
"Oh, did you find it on P3X-593?" Carter asked, using the designation for Simarka.
"No, it was found in a dig in Northeast Asia. It's funny the inscription says: 'In the name of Wyld Stallyns of red and white, most excellent friends.'"
"So what's wrong about that? Other than the fact it does sound odd."
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L is for L-Space (Discworld)
by fignewton
Daniel ran reverent fingers along the the shelf of scrolls, each rolled tightly in its own niche. The library here on P2X-518 was bigger than any other he'd seen off-world. He'd found parchment scrolls, wax and stone tablets, massive leather-bound volumes with metal clasps, modern books bound in a slick, plastic-like material, and even a few Goa'uld tablets with automatic page-turners. Happily, Sam's meeting with this planet's scientists to discuss their intriguing research in perturbative quantum field theory promised to keep her busy for hours. Jack had grudgingly allowed Daniel to spend the time browsing until it was time to leave.
As he turned into the next aisle, he saw the head librarian, a short woman with intelligent eyes peering out of a wizened face. She wore the same quasi-uniform that most people on the planet seemed to prefer, but oddly enough, her feet were encased in the local equivalent of carpet slippers. She had just finished easing a heavy volume back onto its shelf, but now she turned to Daniel with a pleasant smile.
"Did you want something specific, honored patron?"
Daniel considered this. "I know your planet has had dealings with the Goa'uld in the past. Do you have any reference works that describe that era?" That should make Jack happy, anyway.
The librarian rolled her eyes ceiling-ward, finger tapping on her chin as she considered. "Yes, honored patron, we do. One moment, and I'll retrieve them for you."
"Oh, I can get them myself," Daniel assured her. He enjoyed wandering past the different aisles; looking for the books would be part of the fun. "If you could just direct me to the right shelf...?"
She looked a little dubious, but gave him rapid directions to a section of the library. He repeated them aloud, thanked her, and headed off.
Daniel tried not to get too sidetracked as he passed by enticing shelves of massive tomes and tiny pamphlets. The white noise of heavy silence reduced itself to a vague hiss after a while, although he sometimes thought he could hear the faint sound of rustling and scratching somewhere in the distance. He stopped at one point to listen to something that sounded very much like an irritated rattle, but when it didn't repeat itself, he continued on his way.
After nearly ten minutes of walking, Daniel began to feel a little concerned. Surely the building wasn't this large, was it? Perhaps he ought to go back and ask the librarian to help him after all.
When he stopped and turned around, though, he stared. The library appeared to have changed. Instead of slightly threadbare carpet, the floor had somehow morphed into gleaming marble, shot with red and yellow veins. The shelves were suddenly towering high over his head, the heavy books firmly chained into place. How could this be? He broke into a run, anxious to find his way back to the library entrance.
But when he rounded the corner, he skidded to a halt and gaped.
A large, red-haired ape was balanced high on a shelf, thoughtfully eating a bag of peanuts as it ran a leathery finger along the parchment it was clearly reading.
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M is for Magnificent 7
Not the Nine O'Clock Meeting
by sallymn
"Fecaloid, criminally deficient imbecile with not a atom of so much as sub-standard intelligence between the...."
O'Neill blinked. After several years of listening to Doctor Daniel Jackson when in a full-flown snit, he would have sworn he'd heard all the words that could and couldn't hurt you, but this Ezra Simpson certainly had a way with the vocab...
"You don't talk about Charlie that way," he growled.
Simpson, the shady, slippery, over-educated but still small-time criminal who they had been sent to ask a few discreet, 'friendly' questions, glared at him. "Ah'm not," he snarled in a molasses-thick Southern accent. "Ah'm talkin' about you, sir." His glare shifted to Makepeace, who looked like he'd give up his P90 to be able to throttle the man. "Sirs."
"Oh."
Now that, Jack thought, was pretty damn unfair. It hadn't been any of SG1 or SG3's plan (or Hammond's when he insisted that two highly trained units could handle one second-rate shyster) who to start an all-in fight in Charlie le Gurch's roadside bar just off the Denver-Colorado Springs highway - they'd just wanted to ask a patron a few friendly questions. Nor had they started the shooting when the police turned up. In fact, he had a hazy idea that Simpson had been involved in all of this... but he'd been too busy trying to haul Carter and Daniel out of the whole mess, and then bolting for the door, to worry about that.
He was planning to blame the jarheads anyway. And the locals.
Oh yeah, and Simpson.
Now the four of them were stuck out here in the decaying half-shell of an ex-hotel, with the sounds of a full-scale riot in the carpark over the road - and the really, really bad country music from inside - still echoing through the evening air. Makepeace was concussed and furious, Daniel had been nicked in the leg by a random slug, Carter and the rest of SG-3 were god knows where (and had better be sending for backup), Ezra Simpson was making their lives hell...
And what the hell did 'fecaloid' mean? He'd have to ask Daniel.
Sometime.
Right now he was more interested in trying to stop Daniel's leg bleeding, and wondering how the hell the guy had gotten hold of what he damn well knew was an SGC-issue gun.
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N is for Nikita
by lizardbeth-j
Malcolm Barrett got his coffee and started for the train station, keeping his head down and wishing he'd brought a scarf. The clouds promised snow eventually, but for now the storm was bringing an icy wind that cut through his trench coat as if it wasn't there.
There was a woman in a long, puffy black coat, leggings, and boots to his left, in the alcove of the stationery store entrance. He started to pass her, thinking of his meeting later, when she spoke in a dry voice, "You should try shaking up your routine once in a while."
He automatically reached for his weapon, though it was holstered under his suit jacket, even as he started to turn to face her.
But her gloved fingers had a hard grip on his, holding his hand still. He looked into her face - she was almost as tall as he was. Her face was Chinese, framed by long black hair and punctuated by fierce dark eyes.
"Don't," she warned quietly. "I'm here to talk."
"About what?" he asked. He remembered seeing that face from somewhere. Inter-bureau announcement maybe. CIA? State Department? Something not his department, and not something to do with his work.
"You've been cleaning up NID," she said. "Which is way overdue. But you're also pushing parts of it deeper into the shadows."
The Trust, in other words, he thought, and nodded. "I know. But I can't get them all."
"No. And some parts won't let you get them."
"Are you threatening me?" he asked, keeping his voice level. "Because I'm not going to back off."
She gave a little smile and then let go of his hand. "Neither am I. We have something in common. I'm going to take down Division."
He started in surprise. Now there was a name to bring a chill to the heart of anyone in the business. "Division?" he repeated. It didn't need another name-- it had started as the Black Ops wing of NID, but been formally disbanded even before his tenure. "It still exists?"
She nodded once, not taking her eyes from him.
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O is for Off Hours (Nero Wolfe)
by randomfreshink
"A detective?" Jack said, managing to make the word an insult and an issue, as if he hadn't already been doing that the entire trip up from DC. "We're spending down time stopping by to see a detective?"
Daniel winced, knew he shouldn't react, couldn't stop it. He put a hand up to lift the brass knocker of the brownstone on West Thirty-Fifth. "It's not...we're not. I...look, just, think of this as...as...as I need a consultation. You know, you didn't have to come." But he was relieved Jack had insisted. Who knew what radar Jack had for sensing trouble, but something had set him off and he wouldn't be talked out of it.
Leaning back to glance up at the brownstone, sunglasses in place, Jack said, the words thrown away so they wouldn't cut sharp, "Like any of us are letting you out on another auld lang syne after Chicago?"
Daniel's frown tightened. "Two years, Jack. Two."
"And...consultation? As in for...?" Jack wobbled a hand left and right, left the sentence hanging, meaning for something wooby. Daniel didn't finish the thought, and Jack's frown deepened behind the aviator shades. He stuffed his hands in his pockets--never a good sign because it meant he was missing a gun to cradle. "Just who okayed the paperwork for this little field trip anyway?"
Jack already knew that answer, which meant he was fishing, and Daniel opened his mouth to tell Jack a few things he wouldn't want to hear. The door swung wide on oiled hinges, saving Daniel from having to do more than turn and smile. He knew the man in the doorway from a meeting that had been a few years back. Shockingly, the man hadn't changed--not a bit. Daniel stood there, opened mouth, trying to put together scattered thoughts. He'd expected....well, not this. The man was tall, slim, looked to be mid-thirties, had a face kept carefully blank.
Eyes narrowing, he stared at Daniel. "Don't I...?"
"Daniel Jackson," Daniel said, getting the words out before anything else slipped. He held out his hand. There was such a thing as TMI--and there was one more little thing buried here that Jack really was better off not knowing. He couldn't do anything about it now, so it would only irritate.
The man took his hand, his eyebrows lifted, but the frown didn't, so Daniel added, "My grandfather was a friend of...."
The light went on, and Archie Goodwin snapped his fingers. "Ballard. Nick Ballard. You're that Jackson. Come on in."
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P is for Physics (Chronicles of Narnia)
by sentientcitizen
When Ernest dies, Catherine copes in the way she knows best: she keeps busy. There's a funeral to plan, and his (quite small) estate to deal with, and when she writes the final thank-you-for-attending and finds herself with nothing to do she takes the wedding money and Ernest's savings ("It should be yours, dear," his tearful mother had said, "Ernest would have wanted it to be yours") and enrols for courses at Lamar Community College.
She tries a bit of everything; they've no anthropology courses at all, no language courses worth bothering with, and so remembering Ernest she begins to take math, biology, physics. It's physics that captures her mind, in the end, although she can't explain why even to herself. What they teach her is so painfully simple, but she thinks she can see something grander hidden within it, lurking behind the equations in her books.
At the end of her first term, she sends off an application to Cornell's undergraduate physics program.
She picked Cornell more or less on a whim, because she likes that it has women's dormitories and no denominational ties and, more importantly, it's across the country, as far away from Colorado Springs and Ernest's ghost as her limited funds will take her. And she gets in, even wins a scholarship, because there's a war on and the boys in the trenches are in no position to be studying, and besides, her marks are excellent.
Father makes vague noises about being proud of her, but doesn't she really think this is a little drastic? But Father's mind has been a million miles away since Ernest's accident, and in the end she leaves home with relatively little fuss.
And then the war is over, and suddenly the boys from the trenches have plenty of time to study. She doesn't have the scientific background that most of the boys -- men, now, really -- have, and it only takes her a term to realise that she doesn't even have the brains that all of them have. And that's a bitter pill to swallow, to realise that her mind, which had always carried her so easily wherever she wished to go, would never be able to leap as lightly through numbers as her classmates' can.
But if they could run faster, she'd run harder. Late nights in the library, early mornings pacing the paths as her mind chews over some particularly hoary bit of math, and at the end of her first year she surprises them all by taking fifth in her class. Next year, she's third. The year after, she slips to fourth, but she doesn't mind ceding her place to smiling, round-faced Owen. The grade on her papers matters less than the knowledge in her head.
In her fourth year, Dr. Walter Morrison, who helped her fight her way through his class on special relativity and then began making pointed noises about graduate school, hears that her money is all but gone and promptly hires her on as an assistant. And so she finds herself in front of his first year Physics class, delivering a stern speech on academic integrity and walking them through the syllabus.
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Q is for Quest (The Mummy)
by traycer_
This had to be a dream, Jack thought as he stared at the creature heading his way. He and his team had come to look for an artifact rumored to hold the symbiote of a Goa'uld, but they ended up stepping through the Twilight Zone and facing a creature that shouldn't exist.
"What is that thing?" he shouted to be heard over a particularly loud roar.
"I think it's a mummy," Daniel yelled back.
"A mummy?" This was from Carter, who looked like she had seen a ghost. Jack could certainly relate to that. That thing scared the heck out of him too.
"The Goa'uld speak of such a creature," Teal'c said, his staff weapon primed and ready. "They believe it has regenerative powers. It was considered bad luck to try to find one."
"Gee, I wonder why," Jack said dryly.
"Perhaps it was because the creature was extremely dangerous," Teal'c said in response.
The creature stopped at the edge of a crevice left over from a prior disturbance. Jack didn't know what caused the crevice, but he didn't care either. As long as it kept the mummy over on the other side, he was happy.
"Now what?" Carter wanted to know.
Jack didn't answer right away. He was trying to calculate how much time they would have if he just went ahead and destroyed the chamber they were in, and hopefully annihilate the mummy while they were at it.
"Daniel," he said. "What will happen if we drop the ceiling on top of that thing? Will that kill it?"
"I don't know," Daniel said with a resigned sigh. "The only mummies I ever heard about were products of someone else's imagination."
"Well, we're about to find out," Jack said, having made the decision. He reached down, pulled out a grenade and yelled at his team to run.
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R is for Resisting the Darkness (The Hunger Games)
by dannysgirlsg1
Daniel watched the pair of men from the opposite cave wall, contemplating them and the current predicament he now found himself in. He still hadn't quite grasped how he'd managed to get mixed up in another fine mess before he'd been thrown for a loop by people he'd felt he could maybe trust.
"So what did you call it?" He questioned, rising to his feet gingerly. He favored his right leg, sporting its latest gash. Just another scar to add to the ones already obtained over the years.
Grey eyes glanced over a shoulder as he moved towards the pair slowly. They seemed unsure by Daniel's silence-breaking question.
He pointed to the other man, unconscious against the cave wall. "With him," Daniel swung a hand out towards the mouth of the cave. "Out there."
"Hijacking," Gale answered. "Peeta's been hijacked."
Daniel awkwardly placed himself down next to the pair, watching as Gale meticulously cared for the superficial wounds scattering Peeta's arms. His eyes lingered on the handcuffs binding the unconscious man's hands together.
"It's a mind altering thing?" He questioned.
He got an incredulous glance for it. "You saw what happened."
"I did..." Daniel drew out, hoping Gale would elaborate. When the silence stretched on, he sighed. "Look, I'm trying to understand how a guy like Peeta, who I'd thought I'd come to know well enough since we found ourselves stuck here, could flip like that."
Daniel closed his eyes and dropped his head. "I'm just looking for a reason to trust here."
"Then you picked the wrong people." A slurred voice answered. Daniel and Gale turned their attention on Peeta, who was now gazing at them with half-lidded, pain-filled blue eyes.
"Peeta," Gale's response was a mix between greeting and admonishment.
Peeta grabbed Gale's hand between his cuffed ones. "We can't be trusted, Gale." He mumbled, his face a contortion of sadness. "We break promises."
Daniel watched Gale's face pale.
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S is for Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Sorcerer's Apprentice)
by jedibuttercup
"Remind me why we're here again?" Daniel asked, eyeing the non-descript door with lifted eyebrows.
Sam sighed and threw him a long-suffering look. "Because this is the address of record for the people questioned after the disturbance in Bowling Green Park two nights ago," she said. "225 Washington Place."
"...Right. And we expect them to actually be here because?" he replied.
He exchanged unimpressed glances with Vala; on the other side of the former galactic thief, Mitchell offered him an eloquent shrug. Nominally, Mitchell was the leader of their motley crew as he had a few months' seniority over Sam in their respective lieutenant colonelcies, but given that Daniel was a civilian, their other two team members were aliens, and Sam had far more SGC experience, he usually let whoever had the most knowledge in any given situation have their head. Today, that was Sam.
"I read the police reports on our way over," she replied, as she pulled a palm-sized device from her jacket pocket and aimed it toward the building. "They were uploaded this morning. There's no mention of the energy burst the Odyssey picked up, which isn't really a surprise, given its unusual nature. The local authorities only became involved after reports started coming in about a disturbance in the park-- several people running around, someone yelling in the fountain, and then what looked like a lightning strike before the power went down briefly throughout the entire financial district. When they arrived, they discovered the Charging Bull statue knocked off its pedestal, and two people on the ground: a man suffering from the aftereffects of what appeared to be a heart attack, and a woman wearing, quote, some kind of fancy party dress, tending to him."
"Lightning strike?" Daniel asked, skeptically.
"Fancy party dress?" Vala echoed.
Sam looked past both of them to Mitchell, smiling wryly. "Aht! Don't say it-- yes, someone made the inevitable Highlander joke. But there weren't any swords around, or severed heads-- just a fancy lacquered cane, some shattered concrete, and a bunch of electrical wires wrapped around lampposts. Kind of a lot of effort to go to for a prank, or some live action role play game."
"Unless it wasn't a prank, or a LARP...." Mitchell drawled.
"But some kind of Ancient technology," Teal'c continued.
"Especially if they gave this as their address," Vala added, skeptically.
Daniel conceded the point with a sigh. "Why is it always warehouses?" he groused.
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T is for Time (Doctor Who)
Non-Encounters of the Deeply Weird Kind
by wishfulaces
1997
Mission report from P3X-376, excerpt
When interviewed, locals indicated that a tall man with curly brown hair, wearing strange clothes that included a long, multi-colored scarf; and a violent female associate in leather skins arrived on their planet and helped them defeat the Goa'uld Apophis and his guards. Locals don't know how these two strangers arrived--apparently not through the Gate--nor did they catch their full names (man introduced himself as a doctor; woman was Leela something). Locals could not explain how these two people defeated Apophis without more help. "Words and magical devices" were all they would say. Suggest SGC keeps an eye out for these two individuals, see if they would be willing to help us in the fight against the Goa'uld.
***
1998
Transcript from security camera footage, interrogation # 1998_06_23_DOCTOR_c
O'NEILL, COL. JACK: How did you find out about this place?
DOCTOR [no name provided]: Bright lights in the sky, strange readings from numerous amateurs on their telescopes, all at the same time a few months ago? Did you think nobody would notice? [pause] Look. I have no memory about who I am, where I came from, why I'm here. But I know I don't belong here, and I think--I think you can help me.
O'NEILL: [snort] Look, mister, we've had more quacks and loonies showing up knocking at our front door than--than times you've been asked if you're any relation to Oscar Wilde.
DOCTOR: Oh, Wilde, I met him, lovely man, very witty.
O'NEILL: Yeah...sure. Why the hell should we tell you anything?
JACKSON, DANIEL: Jack, you heard what Dr. Fraiser said about his cardiovascular system, his DNA, practically everything about him--
O'NEILL: Daniel, you're not helping.
JACKSON: Maybe we should trust him, that's all I'm saying.
DOCTOR: I think you should, if my opinion counts for anything.
O'NEILL: It doesn't.
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U is for Under (Inception)
The sound of rapid staff weapon fire seared the air behind Jack as he ran, eyes raking the gold walls around him for any sign of an exit. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever.
THERE!
Jack ducked, threw himself toward the open doorway, diving into an empty room. He had only seconds to cock his P90 before the first prime came thundering into the room after him, staff weapon still smoking. Jack's bullets shredded into the jaffa's armor before the warrior had a chance to fire. The jaffa clattered to the ground.
Jack's fingers clawed the black beanie from his head, the hat sweaty in his fingers as he turned and scanned the room closely, looking for...
And there it was nestled. The door to the system lord's vault, a two by two square of smoky obsidian set halfway up the back wall, no distinguishable interface at hand, no way to open it.
Jack slid his hand gun from its holster, fired two shots at the glass. It shattered.
And inside... it was there, the object of his mission. But as his fingerless-gloved hand reached for the communication orb, Jack heard an unmistakable laugh behind him. The deep-chested chuckle of a Goa'uld. He lifted the orb from its tiny pedestal and turned to face the system lord with a half-cocked smile that came no where near his eyes. He quickly and silently registered the fact that the orb sat dead in his hands; his touch hadn't initiated anything. The orb contained no information.
"Was wondering where you'd gotten off to," said Jack as he rolled the orb in his fingers.
The system lord chuckled again, his long black hair shifting as his head tilted. He reminded Jack of a slightly older, Hawaiian-surfer version of Ra. "You have failed," he said to Jack with a low, dual-toned voice.
"Don't count your eggs..." Jack warned.
The system lord gave a long-suffering sigh. "The information that you seek is not here, O'Neill. It never existed. You have been misinformed, your mission was doomed from the beginning."
"I beg to differ."
"You are worthless, O'Neill. Useless. You and your band of friends are pitiful, and I look forward to the-"
He didn't have a chance to finish. The skipping blue energy of a zat weapon encompassed his body and accompanied him to the floor where he lay unconscious, revealing Daniel Jackson behind him.
"Nice timing," Jack snapped, angered to see Daniel there. "But I don't believe this to be the plan we agreed on. You're not supposed to be here, Daniel. This is a bust, by the way," he added, tossing the orb to Daniel who lurched to catch it.
"I know," Daniel said, lifting the zat again. "There was a hiccup."
Jack didn't have a chance to comment before the zat discharged, twice in succession.
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V is for V_la (Blake's 7)
by lolmac
"You don't have to act like it's so funny."
"But it is! I mean - of all people - you got robbed?"
"Not robbed! Robbery is, you know, I'm armed, stick 'em up and hand over the pretties. If he'd tried that, I'd have handed him his head on a stick."
"On a platter."
"That too."
"I didn't know the terminology was so specific."
"Well, you all have lots of really specific terms for things you do. I do too. You should be able to understand that."
"So you weren't exactly robbed."
"No. I had my pocket picked."
"And now we have to go back to the Stargate, dial home, and admit to them that we need a new GDO because you let some low-life steal ours, and we can't exactly go back home without one."
"What did he look like?"
"Oh, you know. Not much. Not very tall, not very short, not dressed fancy. But he had the prettiest brown eyes and a really sexy accent. And he couldn't hold his booze. Well, I thought he couldn't. Maybe he was holding it better than I thought."
"Wait, you were drinking with him?"
"Well, yes. We started talking shop. That's how I knew he was a thief. He told me."
"He what?"
"He did! He said 'Other people's property just comes naturally to me.' I liked that. I think I'll use it someday."
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W is for Wait (Amelia Peabody)
by gategremlyn
Dear Daniel,
You asked about your godfather, Walter Peabody Emerson. I'd be glad to tell you all I know about him.
Daniel smiled at the fine script. Catherine, a consummate scientist and professional, always wrote her personal letters by hand, much to his delight. In this ever mechanized age, it was still nice to get a letter and not an e-mail.
He'd asked Catherine to help him sort through Nick's papers after his death, and the discoveries they'd made surprised him. Nick, who'd turned away a bereft boy of eight, hadn't always been so distant and self-absorbed. As a matter of fact, he'd been a young and enthusiastic archaeologist once--as Catherine had found out. He'd studied in Egypt one summer under Walter Peabody Emerson, a linguist and scholar, and a man Daniel knew mainly by reputation.
I was a little girl when I met my friends the Emersons. My own father, a taciturn man at the best of times, ignored them, but I thought the Emersons a delight. The two children, David-John and Charla, while several years older than I, became my steadfast companions when circumstances allowed us to be together. Their father Walter--or Ramses as everyone called him--terrified me even as he awed me. I'd never met a man more competent or more kind. Mr. Emerson would not allow me to call him anything but Ramses: "A perfect name for a pharaoh like me, don't you agree, Katie." I was always Catherine, even then, except to Ramses Emerson. He was everything my father wasn't; scholarly, thoughtful, and perceptive. His love of languages fueled my own, and when I was of an age to study, I added my father's love of science to Ramses love of languages. It was he who first spoke to me in German and Arabic, telling us, Charla, David-John, and I, stories of the Old Kingdom at bedtime.
His mother, a formidable and rather alarming woman whom I was told to call "Aunt Amelia" even though she was no relative of mine, welcomed my into her family as readily as she did everyone who came her way. Even as a little girl, I could tell she was the center around whom everyone else revolved. That Ramses loved her (even as he balked at her mothering) was apparent. Her husband, known as "The Father of Curses" for very good reason, should have terrified me as well but didn't. His bellow could be heard from across a courtyard or across an excavation. He was even warmer and more generous than his son, and after a few visits, I would scream with glee when he came to take me and his grandchildren to visit their current dig. I didn't know until much later how distinguished an archaeologist he was.
Daniel, I'm sure you remember Professor Emerson from your years at the Oriental Institute--that was Ramses. He and Doctor Jordan were colleagues and friends long before you came to study there. When you arrived, they immediately saw a talented and promising young archaeologist. Long before you ever crossed my path as a candidate for the Stargate program, Ramses said he knew of you as a gifted young man. I wasn't aware that his tenure had overlapped your studies at the Institute until I noticed that one of your scholarships had been awarded in his name. As an archaeologist and linguist himself, he delighted in encouraging new talent. I believe you were the last student to actually receive the scholarship from his hand before his death.
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X is for X Marks the Spot (MacGyver)
by lolmac
It seems like some folks never do get a break -- or when they get one, they're so used to it not working out that they let it slip right outta their hands. My buddy Jack Dalton's like that. He's tried more new schemes and made more fresh starts than I can count, but the only ones he sticks with are the ones that don't go anywhere.
He turned up one day with a treasure map. Well, not exactly a map; he'd been hanging out online with the nutjobs on Usenet, and something he picked up on alt.conspiracy.area51 led him to meeting some shady type in a bar on the bad side of LA. Okay, one of the bad sides of LA. I never did get the details straight, but I know money changed hands more than once, and Jack talked to a whole string of people whose names all seemed to be Smith, and next thing you know he was at the marina, hammering on my door, too excited about his great scheme to answer questions about where he'd been, why he smelled so bad, and who had messed up his face and given him a black eye this time.
What he had was an old handwritten journal, which was supposed to have a map in it. We worked our way through the entries that were supposed to be clues, solved the puzzles, and ended up with nada. No map. Jack handed me the journal and went back to Usenet hoping for a new golden goose, and I gave the journal to my archeologist friend Dr. Lacie Najjar.
Two weeks later, she was pitching an exploratory mission to the Phoenix committee for Research Funding. Six months after that, Pete was helping her patch together enough grants for a dig in the hills inland from Palaepaphos, in southwest Cyprus -- the Greek side of Cyprus, that is, not the Turkish side. By early 1997, she'd got the first reports published on their finds, getting funding for the next season was a heck of a lot easier, and her professional cred had hit the stratosphere. Jack Dalton was mentioned in the footnotes with having 'provided invaluable assistance leading to the original discovery', but since they weren't finding gold coins or jeweled doodads, he wasn't real interested any more.
By the fall of '97, when Dr. Najjar cabled me asking me to come right now please, Dalton had gone back to doing his stage magician act, which gave him plenty of time to hang out online. I didn't tell him I was going out to Cyprus. I didn't think he'd want to hear about it.
The first thing MacGyver noticed, waking up on his fourth day at the dig, was that it was quiet. As in, way too quiet. Empty quiet. Bad quiet.
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Y is for You've Got to be Kidding Me (Supernatural)
by maevebran
Dean and Sam pulled into the parking lot of Sol's Diner just outside of Colorado Springs. They parked the Impala and went in. Dean looked around and noticed the black haired waitress with the pig tails.
"I hope she's our waitress," Dean said as he pointed to her. "She's kind of hot."
Sam looked where his brother pointed, "Isn't she a little old for you?"
"Nahh, " Dean said. "She's more experienced."
Sam shakes his head. They both watch as the raven haired waitress finishes taking the orders of the family she's talking to.
A couple shady guys come in.
"All right, wallets and purses on the floor," the first guy yells.
Before Sam or Dean could react, the waitress had kung fu-ed the guys down and had one of the guys' own gun on them.
"You've got to be kidding me," Dean said as he and Sam walked out of the diner, not wanting to get involved.
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Z is for Zombies (Indiana Jones series)
by penknife
Daniel attends Professor Jones's guest lecture mainly out of a sense of morbid curiosity. Nick has told him on many occasions that he admires the man, which doesn't predispose Daniel to liking him. It's probably not fair to actually blame the man's wild stories about his archaeological discoveries for pushing Nick over the edge, but he isn't expecting to have much fun hearing about crystal skulls and marauding zombies.
Instead, it's a surprisingly sensible discussion of defenses against tomb robbers in the Egyptian pyramids, although some of the things Jones claims to have seen sound under-documented and frankly a little unlikely. Still, if there were anywhere that he'd believe the improbable, it's in Egyptian archaeology; there are so many puzzles there, so many things that he's beginning to think don't add up without a leap of faith that he's still afraid to make.
He lingers afterwards until the little knot of people around Jones thins out. Jones is packing up his briefcase, his hands steady but not quick. He glances up as Daniel approaches, his remaining eye sharp; the eye patch makes him look more piratical than fragile, for all that the man must be in his eighties, his face weathered with age and his hair steel gray.
"Have a question?"
"You didn't mention the Well of Souls," Daniel says. "At Tanis--"
"That's a myth, kid," Jones says. His mouth twitches into what might be a smile. "There's no proof there was ever a chamber at Tanis containing the Ark of the Covenant, if that's what you're asking about. Real archaeology isn't all romantic adventure."
"I know that," Daniel says, stung. "My grandfather is Nicholas Ballard. He told me you'd made a fairly unbelievable find there."
"Nick Ballard has a big mouth," Jones says. "Or he used to. If he's dead, I'm sorry to hear it."
"He's in a nursing home," Daniel says, because it's easier to say than mental institution.
"He can't be that old," Jones says.
"He's had some problems," Daniel says. "I'm sorry, it's possible he was just confused. He, ah, that wouldn't be out of character for him these days."
"I'm sorry to hear that, too," Jones says. He seems to be considering Daniel. "Does it matter whether we found anything at Tanis or not?"
"Yes," Daniel says, more hotly than he means to.
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