Just Imagine What Is Real
by ALC Punk!

He reminds Dr. Elizabeth Weir of someone. "Rodney?" But it's not Rodney. This man is shorter, with darker hair and a beard. Elizabeth wants to break through the fog in her brain. Wants to understand why this feels so very wrong. Why this guy is standing there in a penguin suit complete with flippers. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. Anything. Everything."

The words echo around her and she whirls, trying to find the source of the echoes. Mist shimmers in the moonlight that wasn't there two seconds ago and when she turns back, the man has disappeared. "Hello?"

Nothing.

The button should have clued her in that this is not reality. Impatiently, she crosses her arms. "I'm over with being disturbed. Where the hell am I?"

"Nowhere." This time, the voice isn't quite as pleasant. There's a distinctly grating and metallic flavour to it. The owner of the voice is actually somewhat attractive, curly dark hair, slim-hipped build, but he's filled out at some point. And the arms. Oh, she likes the arms. Camulus shifts, his eyes flashing golden. "Come now, Dr. Weir, aren't you going to grant me asylum?"

A whining goa'uld. Some things never change. "You're not real."

"Neither are you," he counters.

"Actually, I am."

"Then so am I." The mist shifts, spilling colours of the rainbow at their feet until they stand on nothing but sand.

Dimly, for a moment, she hears what sound like other voices. Voices she knows, calling to each other in panic and worry and danger. Danger, Will Robinson, her mind spits at her. Pop culture. Sheppard's influence.

"What's going on?"

The voices swirl away again, and the mist slides back, tangling around her feet.

"Camulus?"

But he's disappeared, like the other did before him.

Shaking her head, Elizabeth decides to walk away. Striking off at what feels like random, she walks forward. It could be north, south, east or west, but there's no sun or stars to guide her. No magnetic pole to align her bones properly. And she wonders if she will remain lost here forever.

Moments later, she comes to a wall. It's cold and damp reminding her of the basement of Simon's house. She swiftly blocks out thoughts of Simon, because she is here and he is not and she refuses to dwell on might-have-beens.

"Lizzie?"

"Sheppard?"

He isn't behind her when she turns, but she knows she heard him. "Major!"

The echoes again, this time accompanied with something that might have been laughter.

"We all float down here."

Oh, now THIS was pathetic. She knows she will be looking at a clown before she faces him.

He smiles cheekily. "Don't we, Dr. Weir?"

"Uh-huh. Fine." She crosses her arms and tilts her head to one side. "Haven't you ever wondered why you're a clown?"

"'Cause I'm scary?" The voice was raspy.

"Scary. Right." She snorts. "Not even Jim Carrey as a clown could frighten me. And I always found Tim Curry interestingly handsome."

"Interesting!?" The clown stamps its foot and glowers. "Damned. I am damned to a life of mediocrity. She finds me 'interesting'. Pah!"

"Indeed." Her voice echoes in the once again empty place.

She is prepared for who appears next, almost. It's not quite the man she was expecting. He stands differently, body language more closed-in, less... well, him. "Simon?"

"I am Narim of the Tollan."

"Ah." There are wild thoughts in her head as she catalogues and registers the race. Tollan. Technologically advanced race that has been destroyed by the Goa'uld. She'd barely skimmed that file while deciding whether to take the job at the SGC. "You're dead."

"So they tell me."

Shifting her stance slightly, she snorts. "So. What is this. Heaven, hell, limbo, the afterlife, the beforelife?"

"You're quick." He tilts his head and looks at her, flashing a soft smile. "You remind me of someone. But she's not dead."

"And neither am I." She snaps to the empty space. This is getting ridiculous.

She's beginning to get an idea that there is something wrong. Or merely something wrong in her own head. Although she doesn't know these people so logic dictates that--

"You're right, of course." This man is younger with a stocky build and an engaging grin. He's missing the top of his skull.

"About?"

"What this is. What's wrong." He waves a hand. "I'm sure Captain Carter would be able to explain it better, but whatever."

"I'm in limbo."

"Got it in one." He starts to reach up, then stops as if remembering the state of his head.

"What happened to you?" Asking against her will, or maybe to satisfy suddenly sparked curiosity. She isn't sure.

"Long story." A grimace. "And I've got to go."

"But--" Great. She almost stamps her foot like a small child.

"This has passed ridiculous, has it not?"

She eyes the newcomer. He seems... very staged. "And you are?"

"No, no, ma'amselle! I am never to reveal my -- aw, bugger." The demeanor changes and he looks very tired, suddenly. "That horrible accent was always John's forte, not mine."

And he fades away.

"I think," she says carefully, one hand pressing against her forehead, "That I am getting a really bad headache. McKay!"

"Yo."

Elizabeth Weir eyes the short young woman. "You're not McKay."

"So, like," she snapped her gum, "I could be?"

"Uh, no." This was getting pointless.

"Dude, ya don't have to get your panties in a bunch."

"They're not. I simply. Want. This. To. End."

"Well, why didn't you say that?"

She has. Several hundred times. In her head. Not out loud.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Sheppard is bending over her, one hand supporting her head. The sound and voices she heard earlier are much more real now. Rodney is down at one end of the room talking a hundred miles a second at one of his assistants. Beckett has just finished stitching up the hole in her side.

"--don't to that again."

She considers biting the finger waggling in her face, settles for glaring. "I hadn't planned on it in the first place," she informs him.

"Oh, good. You're awake."

"Yes she is." Sheppard still hasn't removed his hand from behind her head, and his eyes dart everywhere, making sure she's still in one piece, that there isn't lasting damage.

"What happened?" Maybe she shouldn't let on how little she remembers.

"You got shot."

"I can tell that." The look she gives him is irritated.

"Right. Well, diplomatic relations were breaking down. We got you out."

Just like that. She's been shot, and they got her out. "How bad is it?"

"Well, you'll have a nice scar," Carson comments dryly.

"Oooo." For a moment, something flickers in John's eyes. Then he changes whatever he was about to say because Rodney has appeared. "It's not your fault, McKay."

"I wasn't going to say it was."

"Hey." Grimacing at them all, she gestures with her left arm. "Injured patient. You can all take your argument elsewhere." Her head was beginning to hurt. Really beginning to hurt.

Carson takes the hint and shoos Rodney off, grabbing at least two more staff people who have been hovering. One is Grodin and she would have asked him to stay but her head is telling her to sleep. Probably a sedative, she thinks in irritation.

"Hey." Sheppard has moved from standing to perching next to her.

She looks at him. "I'm alive."

"Yep." The hand under her head carefully comes away, the thumb stroking her cheek once. "Just think. In two months I can ask to see your scar."

"Two months?"

"Well, sure," He bends close, breath feathering her ear as he whispers softly, "You won't be rested enough until then."

Oh. They would *so* see about that. "Major."

"Doctor."

She wriggles to one side, leaving more open space next to her. "I'm cold."

The pathetic look works on him. Hah. He heaves a long-suffering sigh and carefully stretches out next to her. "The things I do..."

Once his arms are around her she heaves her own soft sigh. Sleep is hovering on the edge of her vision about to take hostages, when something occurs to her. "It wasn't your fault either."

"I know."

But he's lying.

She isn't.

-finis-

Robert Rothman, Camulus, the Clown from It, Narim, Kawalsky, Graham Chapman, random dead Slayer.
Stargate owns: Robert Rothman, Camulus, Narim, and Kawalsky.
Buffy owns: random dead Slayer.
Monty Python owns: Graham Chapman (and John "I have a worse French accent than you" Cleese)
Stephen King owns: It.
(and what do they all have in common? They are... dead. Well, except Rodney.)

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© 2005 ALC Punk!