Title: The Assistant 05 - Truth is Stranger Than Fiction
Author: dietcokechic
Email: dietcokechic@hotmail.com
Season: 6 (really!)
Related Episodes : Barista 5; 112 - Fire and Water; 601 - Redemption Pt 1 ; 602 - Redemption Pt 2
Summary: Kira survives her first SGC emergency...and her first meeting with McKay.

Notes: This one is just a good old fashioned Barista-style romp. I know many of you have been waiting for this, but I just couldn't plop Kira down into the middle of the SGC without creating a bit of a backstory. I think you'll like this one! Many, many thanks to Julia for her beta finesse and suggestions!

I've always known I'm a bit of a nerd. I've also been aware that I'm slightly eccentric. But I think I've stooped to new lows - even for me. I'm currently at Kinkos making a copy of my very first paycheck.

"You are such a geek!" Stefan says, leaning against the copy machine.

"I prefer nerd," I reply primly, hitting the copy button. "And come on, this is not only the largest paycheck I've ever received in my life, but it's my first real one." I pick up the copy and once again look at all the pretty numbers. I'm not particularly materialistic, but I just can't help but think of everything I can do with all this money. Heck, if I put most of this into savings, I should be able to put a down payment on a condo or something by the end of the year. Whoa. That's certainly not something I ever considered before. I feel Stefan staring at me and realize that several seconds have passed without my saying a word. Oops.

"All I'm saying," I continue, trying to pick up the conversation thread. "Is that I bet you'd do the same." I withdraw the weird block-like contraption from the copy machine and reset the machine for the next person.

"That would be a bet you'd lose," Stefan chuckles as he shakes his head. "And I don't know about you, but I've been receiving steady paychecks from Victor for years now."

"I know that, but it isn't the same, you know?" I fold the copy over so the cashier can't read it and head up to the register to pay.

"Hey, at least with tips, we can fudge a little on our income taxes - you're going to be put into a higher bracket you know."

"I am?"

"Oh definitely," Stefan says nodding. "At least on par with Bill Gates." I give him a good smack on the chest.

"Somehow I doubt that."  I reach the head of the line and hand over the copier key so they can see that I only made a single copy. I pay my nine cents and head towards the door.

"Kira?" Stefan calls out, stopping me right before I exit. I turn around and see him grinning ear to ear.

"Yeah?"

"I know you're in a hurry to start a 401K and all that, but you might want to grab the actual paycheck before you go." He continues to give me that cheeky grin of his as he points towards the copy machine. My face turns a deep, deep shade of red as I gasp, and walk quickly towards the machine I was just on. I hold my breath as I open the cover. I don't think anyone was here after me, but you never know. Thankfully, my check is still there. God, I'm such an idiot! I remove my happiness maker and place it in my handbag before I do something even more stupid with it.

"Thanks," I mumble as we walk outside into the bright sunshine.

 "That's what I'm here for," Stefan replies, chuckling. "It's like I said," he continues as we head towards his car. He pauses for a moment to open my front door.

"You're a geek."

I can't say I have a true routine yet, but I am slowly getting a hang of things. I'm working under Dr. Roy Edwards, a brilliant linguist from Cambridge who transferred to the SGC just the year before. No one at the SGC can speak as many languages as Daniel, but Dr. Edwards comes in a close second for reading comprehension and recognition. Unlike most of the other scientists on my floor, Dr. Edwards is strictly a linguist. He has yet to go off world, for his expertise lies in language research and classification. Surprisingly, there are quite a few scientists around here who are thrilled to do the research, but aren't really interested in going off world. This really floored me. Part of me wishes I worked with Nyan and Dr. Balinsky, as they both go on missions with SG-13 fairly regularly. The fact that Dr. Balinsky is cute is just an added bonus.

I've also met Dr. Lee, who made me laugh by telling me a story about a dig he went on with Daniel back in the early 90s. I guess Daniel and Dr. Lee have known each other for years. Dr. Lee is another one of those "multi-tasking" scientists; his doctorates are in Anthropology and Physics (which is a strange combination even for the SGC ). I like Dr. Lee a lot. He's actually the one who gave all us "soft scientists" our nickname. Dr. Lee was getting tired of saying "Anthropology, Linguistics and Archaeology", so he shortened it to ALA . But rather than call it by its letters (which incidentally is the abbreviation for the American Library Association), he decided to just run it all together to form a single word: we're now known as "Allah".

I'm not the youngest scientist here (Lt. Haley gets that distinction), but I am the youngest civilian scientist. There isn't a single person on this floor who doesn't have at least one doctorate. I'm woefully undereducated for this and I think there are more than a few others who resent my being here. I mean, it isn't like I'm a threat to them or anything, but there are those who wonder how the heck I got this job.

Thankfully, Dr. Edwards isn't one of them. He is rather "old school" in his approach to languages and how they should be organized for research is fascinating. He worships this 1930s librarian and information scientist by the name of S.R. Ranganathan. Ranganathan was an eminent librarian in India and came up with a new way of looking at classification schemas. He believed that the traditional Library of Congress subject headings weren't flexible enough for all the different subjects out there, and designed a new system using faceted classification. Faceted classification is pretty much the reason why the SGC can successfully find anything in their databases. Well, in theory anyhow, there are still a few bugs in the system. The key is to create a variety of "subject" categories that will enable users to cross reference say the Asgard, a piece of alien technology, and a trade dispute on P3X-412. It sounds simple, but there's a heck of a lot of work that goes into it.

Dr. Edwards is working on syntax and how the system will handle "foreign" languages with completely different scripts and fonts. I'm working more with coming up with words associated with offworld cultures and their religions. It is incredibly fascinating and as a by-product of being able to read old mission reports, I'm able to learn a heck of a lot about the history of worlds I didn't even know exist. I am even starting to get the occasional research question! The best part is that every now and then I get to read about an SG-1 mission. These I tend to savor, and will hole up in the base library or a corner of the commissary to read.

The last report I read had to do with a mission SG-1 was on over five years ago. I was given the file in order to find out all I could about a race of beings called the Oannes. It was color-coded as an SG-1 mission (red of course), but I had no idea what I was going to find. Imagine my surprise when I read about a mission where everyone believed Daniel had died. Jack had written his report after they had gotten Daniel back, but it was obviously that he was still shaken up about the series of events. Daniel had had a bad time of it afterwards and had even managed to "escape" the infirmary. I know I gasped aloud when I read in Dr. Fraiser's words, how they had found Daniel at a coffee shop in central Colorado Springs . Jack had written something along the lines that he had been called by the shop's "quick-thinking" barista. I realized at that moment that this was the day I first met Sam and Dr. Janet. This was also the day when my relationship with Daniel had changed and he became something more than another quirky (yet cute!) patron. For me, this was the day Daniel became a person I really cared about. He became my friend.

I really wished I could copy this file for myself. I also know for a fact that if Stefan could have heard my thoughts he would have laughed his butt off.

I am so absorbed in my work, that I don't even hear him come in. Of course, he being Jack O'Neill with his ever impressive stealth skills, I don't feel too bad.

"Hey," Jack greets, leaning against my doorway. Well, the doorway really. I'm way too far down on the food chain to merit my own office quite yet.

"Hi Jack!" I put down my file on SG-9s mission to P4X-623 and flash him a smile. "I heard you came back early." I eye Jack's right leg critically. It might be my imagination, but I think I can see the outline of an ace bandage. "How's the knee?" Jack shrugs.

"Partially torn ligament - I'll be fine."

"So how many are you up to now?" Jack rolls his eyes. We both know I'm not talking about ligaments.

"Nine," he replies nonchalantly. "But I don't know if you should count Captain Mathison. He really didn't last too long." I nod in agreement.

"You heading out again soon?" I try to sound nonchalant. I can't help it; I miss Jack when he's not here. Maybe it's normal for SG-1 to go offworld three or four times a week, but judging from how often I supplied Daniel with his coffee, I think once or twice a week was more the norm. I think they (especially Jack) are volunteering for more missions in order to avoid the SGC and I don't think it's because of the paperwork. All I know is that I miss them when they're not here, and I know I'm not the only one. It doesn't take a genius to see that Jack and his team make up a very real nexus here at the SGC . Sam is the head of the "hard" scientists, Teal'c trains most of the new recruits on both weapons and hand to hand combat, and Jack is the second in command of the entire base! Everyone respects the heck out of these guys. And we all acutely feel their absence when they're not here.

"We're on downtime while my knee heals," Jack continues, interrupting me out of my thoughts. "Which reminds me...," Jack pauses as he turns around and bends down to pick something up on the other side of the door. "This is for you." He holds out an old fashioned Russian samovar; a samovar overflowing with an exceedingly healthy-looking leafy green philodendron.

"Jack!" I'm pretty much beaming ear-to-ear as I take the hefty plant from him. "Thank you!"

"It's a much-belated welcome to the SGC gift," Jack begins. "I wanted to bring it by earlier, but we've been offworld much of the time..." I hold up a hand to stop him.

"Jack it's beautiful." I place the plant down on my half of the desk and then walk back over to him. I stand on my tip toes and give him a small peck on the cheek. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome," Jack replies looking a little embarrassed at my appreciation. "Sam, helped me pick it out. Apparently, philodendrons are quite content to live in low-light and they're very hard to kill."

"Are you saying I'm a bad botanist, Jack?" I tease.

"No, no- nothing like that," Jack answers quickly. I'd say a little too quickly, but he can't possibly know how poor I am with houseplants. Unless of course that security background check is waaay more detailed than I thought. "I just didn't want you to be worried about the lack of light." He gives me a knowing look. "And you're now working with the eggheads down here, so I'm guessing you're going to spend entire weeks working from dawn to dusk without even glancing at this poor thing."

"Hey!" I try to sound super offended, but the truth is, that's a very real possibility.

"I'm just saying..." Jack's voice trails off as he shoves his hands in his pockets. He does this a lot when there isn't anything in reach to grab or fiddle with. I think Jack's a little ADHD. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to head on up and meet with General Hammond."

"Is it about replacing Daniel?" Jack looks sad for a moment, and then nods.

"Yeah, probably."

"Do you have to replace him?" I ask, thinking how quickly they've been going through replacements. "I mean, do there have to be four people on SG-1?" It isn't just the fact that they're having problems finding a fourth that is making me ask. I can't help it; I don't want anyone replacing Daniel. No one can replace Daniel. Ever.

"There's nothing in the regs that says there has to...but we probably should be a four-person team. Four is a good number for a team - safer." I just nod. I bite my lip slightly as I consider my next words.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"I know you're meeting with the General now, and I know you're going to be heading off world soon, but if you have a chance once you get back..."

"Just spit it out, Kira," Jack says kindly.

"When you get back, can you tell me exactly how Daniel died?"

Silence.

"I mean, I know he's gone, but there are a lot of rumors surrounding how he died, and I don't have any work-related reason to read that report, but..."

"I'll tell you Kira," Jack says finally. "You of all people deserve to know the truth."

"Colonel O'Neill, please report to General Hammond's Office. Colonel O'Neill to General Hammond's office."

"I take it that's you?"

"Unless the other Colonel O'Neil decided to pay us a visit, this one is probably for me."

"There's more than one of you?" I ask incredulously. "I thought you broke the mold?"

"Oh, ha ha," Jack replies, shooting me a dirty look. "No relation, but yeah, there are actually two of me." He pauses in the doorway. "Well, two Colonel O'Neills that is. He spells his name with one L..." Jack's voice trails off as he realizes that he's rambling.

"Anyhow, unless I'm busy saving the planet or something, why don't we meet at Victor's next Monday and I'll fill you in on the details surrounding Daniel's..." he pauses searching for the right word. "I'll tell you all I can about Daniel's final mission."

"That would be great, Jack. But is it safe...?" Jack gives me a small smile and then nods his head in approval.

"Good. You're thinking about security. You continue to impress me, Kira Meyers," Jack says seriously. I look at my feet and try not to blush. "It is true that you now know some pretty top secret stuff, Kira," Jack says continuing, "but that doesn't mean you can't talk about it at all. It's perfectly okay to grab a cup of coffee and then go for a walk with someone from the SGC . Heck, we might even sit on a park bench!" Now it's my turn to smile. "As long as we're not openly conversing about national security matters in a public facility, I think we'll be fine." He gives me a depreciative shrug. "Besides, you'll be with me." I smile.

"I'll see you on Monday then."

"Colonel O'Neill, please report..."

"Gotta go," Jack says as he exits my office and limps his way towards level 28.

I'm both dreading and looking forward to next Monday.

My day is almost over when I find myself smack in the middle of my first SGC emergency. I heard the announcement about an unauthorized wormhole, but didn't think too much of it - we seem to get one or two of these a week. However, this time a wormhole came in and...didn't leave. General Hammond announced that there was a "situation", and by the tone of his voice, it was a serious one. I guess having one end of a wormhole continually at your front door is pretty bad. The General gave permission for anyone not currently engaged in the "wormhole situation" to head on home. I considered it, but not knowing what was going on here would probably be worse. I stayed put.

The wormhole has been engaged for over two hours and I'm beginning to get worried. I knew Jack and Sam had gone to Area 51 to try and contact the Asgard (there really are little gray aliens out there!) for help, but I also heard it hadn't worked and everyone was getting really anxious for answers. Non-essential personnel (and this meant pretty much everyone) are restricted from Level 28 entirely, and most of the physicists and "hard scientists" were upstairs on level 21 trying to brainstorm some possible solutions. Those of us who didn't have the common sense to go home when we could were recruited to upload various files and documents to a secure, offsite server. It seems there was a very real possibility that the gate might blow up. I might have regretted not going home when I could, but if the gate truly blew, it would probably take the entire mountain and most of Colorado as well so my choices are pretty much six of one, a half dozen of the other. I'm on automatic pilot uploading document 221523 to the server known as "Gandalf" when the lights go out.

"Shit," I say softly, as I reach under my desk for the emergency flashlight. I had just managed to make it out to the hall when I hear the emergency generators kick in and the lights come back on. There is a flurry of activity as people run to and fro - obviously something major has happened in the Gateroom. I'm as curious as the next gal, but I also know I have no reason to be up there, so I decide to try and find the answers out another way. I make my way to the elevator and push "19".

"Can you tell me anything, Chloe?" I ask, taking a bite of day old chocolate cake. Jack was right; they really did do good cake here. I feel a little bit guilty about grabbing Chloe from her lab on the 19th floor and dragging her into the Commissary, but both of us are very junior workers and it isn't like our presence is needed. Well, Chloe's perhaps, but certainly not mine.

"Without using math?" Chloe asks seriously. I try not to roll my eyes. I really like Chloe, but she can be rather...odd. I need to take this girl out for a beer or something.

"That would be preferred."

"Dr. Felger believes..."

"He's the guy you're working under, right?" I ask, taking another bite of cake. "That brilliant physicist you were talking about a couple weeks ago?" Chloe nods and then ducks her head. Oh man! She's blushing.

"Spill," I order, waving my fork at her.

"He's cute."

"Dr. Felger?!" Chloe looks like she wants to muzzle me. I lower my voice. "Dr. Felger?" I repeat. Chloe nods.

"There's just something about him," she begins as her eyes get that moony far away look. As interested as I am in the guy who has Chloe's heart (or at least brain), what I really want to know is what's going on with the wormhole.

"Chloe, next week you and I are headed to my place where you can tell me all about Dr. Felger, but right now I want to know all about the wormhole." Chloe looks a little embarrassed, but nods.

"They've gathered a whole bunch of the astrophysicists into the briefing room," Chloe begins. "You know, the room where we first met everyone on the first day?" I nod and encourage Chloe to continue. "Well, everyone is talking and trying to come up with a solution, but no one, including Dr. Felger can quite come up with a solution that'll work. I mean for sure. Theoretically, Jay's idea..."

"Chloe."

"Right. Sorry, Kira." Chloe takes a sip of her coffee and continues. "Well, nothing was working until this Russian scientist...."

"We have Russian scientists on base?" We do have a smattering of foreign scientists, but I hadn't heard of one from Russia .

"Well, actually I think he's Canadian, but he's working with the Russians," Chloe clarifies. Kind of. "Dr. Mc Kay came up with an idea of sending a massive EM pulse back through the wormhole in hopes of disabling whatever it is on the other side that's sustaining the wormhole.

"That sounds pretty dangerous." Chloe nods her head in agreement. "It is! Dr. Carter thinks it's too dangerous, but since we don't have any other ideas right now..."

"They're going to try the pulse," I finish for her. Chloe nods and looks worried. I am too.

SGC gossip is truly amazing. I think I heard about Sam's accident less than twenty minutes after it happened. Stupid Russian-Canadian and his stupid ideas! I don't know Sam as well as Jack, but I still wanted to check on her and make sure she's okay. I take the elevator to Level 21 and walk briskly towards the infirmary. I'm about to round the corner outside the main entrance, when I'm knocked flat on my butt by a guy walking out of the entrance while mumbling something to himself about pianos.

"Hey!" I exclaim, completely stunned that I've just been run into hard enough to knock me down. "Watch where you're going!" The man stops and looks down at me.

"What are you doing down there?" I look up at him in complete amazement.

"You knocked me down."

"No, I believe it was you who ran into me. You should watch where you're going. I'm a pretty important guy around here." I continue to stare up at him. Who is this guy?! Before I can think of a suitable retort, I realize that he's staring at me. Really staring at me. Oh my God! The guy runs me over with his body and is now taking another couple of seconds to check me out with his eyes? What a creep!

"Cute, but not my type," he informs me, as he reaches down to help me up. I debate between the pros and cons of slapping his hand away, but decide it might not do my career any good to pick a fight.

"Well, you're not my type either," I reply indignantly, grabbing his hand and getting back on my feet. He actually is a little cute, but I'm certainly not going to tell him that.

"Is it safe to go inside, or is your twin brother going to get me on the other side?"

"And sassy. I like that." I try to take my hand back, and it takes two first jerks before I'm free.

"I don't even know you, but you're completely weirding me out."

"Funny, Sam said something really similar. Must be my magnetic personality." I want to retort that having women tell you that you're freaking them out is usually not a good thing, but I instantly glom on to the word 'Sam'.

"You saw Sam? Is she okay? I heard some jerk scientist tried to kill her." Belatedly, I realize that he was probably the jerk scientist. Oops. "Uh, accidentally, that is." I look at least a little abashed. "I take it you're the Russian-Canadian?"

"Russian-Canadian? Where do they come up with these things?" He gives me a disgusted look. "The name is McKay. As in Doctor. Dr Rodney McKay. Astrophysicist. Canadian. Not Russian. Ca-na-di-an." He sounds out Canadian slowly as if it were a country I've never heard of. Pompous ass.

"Sorry." Sorry?! I can't believe I've just apologized to this guy. "Look Dr. McKay, I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot, but you ran into me. All I want to do is check on Sam and then get back to work."

"And I'm sure your work is ever so important. Not like myself, of course. I'm just trying to save the planet from a horrible, all consuming destruction. And you? Where do you work?" I know whatever I say won't be good enough, but I really should have taken that extra split second before replying. I should have said, "In the Anthropology, Linguistics and Archaeology division. But no. That's not what I had to go and say.

"With Allah." McKay blinks once and looks at me as if I were crazy. Really, really crazy.

"Cute," he says finally shaking a finger at me. "But I'm also not into religious fruitcakes."

And with that Dr. Rodney McKay walks away.

"You will not believe my day at work," I say to Stefan as I flop down on his couch, open pint of Ben and Jerry's in my hand.

"Anything you can share?" Stefan asks lightly. God, I love this man! If he were straight, I seriously would be calling a wedding planner right now. He knows I work with some super secret stuff, but he doesn't pry. He also doesn't get all indignant when I say bonehead things like, "You will not believe my day at work", forgetting that I actually can't tell him the good parts.

"Chloe has a crush," I begin, taking a heavenly bite of my Chunky Monkey ice cream.

"Does she still dress like an extra in 9 to 5?" I laugh out loud, spraying bits of chocolate across the room.

"Stefan!"

"Hey, you're the one with the eating problem, not me." I wipe both my mouth and the end table.

"Chloe pretty much wears white lab coats these days."

"Probably for the best," Stefan replies sagely.

"Probably," I agree nodding. "She still likes cherry-red lipstick though."

"I like cherry-red lipstick," Stefan says with a leer.

"I don't want to know." I shake my head and smile. Before Stefan can say anything else, I quickly take another bite of my ice cream.

"I'm sure you can think of something else you can share," Stefan says, nudging my shoulder with his own. I take a moment and think about it. Should I? Ah, what the heck - it worked for Daniel.

"We almost blew up the entire state of Colorado," I offer.

"Really?" Stefan asks in that tone of voice that tells me he seriously isn't buying any of it. Oh my God, it worked. Stefan really doesn't believe me! This is great! It's just like when Daniel told me he was kidnapped by aliens - the truth is stranger than fiction.

"Yep," I say nodding. "Would have been a really, really big explosion." I hold my arms out as far as they can go. "Really big."

"Good thing you stopped it." I want to tell him it wasn't me. That actually it took sending the Stargate into space and through a hyperspace window to save the planet. But that might be a little too specific. Perhaps it's best to reel this conversation back to something a little more grounded.

"Have I told you about Allah...?"

Notes: Well? Did that satisfy all those who missed the old-style musings of the Barista tales? Did you laugh? Guffaw even? I'm not sure if I captured Rodney quite right, but I sure did try! I do hope I didn't offend anyone with the "Allah" acronym - no offense is meant at all. When i looked at all the letters together A L A H stood out - it was just too perfect not to run it all together. The Barista story that Kira is recalling is an oldie, Barista 5 - Hospital Scrubs.

S.R. Ranganathan was a real librarian and information scientist from the 1930s. I might have hate...er disliked the class I took on library classification systems, but the articles I read on Ranganathan obviously stuck in my head. ;)

A samovar is just a really big tea urn. You can see a picture (and read all about it) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samovar

ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

"Six of one, a half dozen of the other" - This is an English idiom that just means there isn't really much choice - both are the same thing.

Ben and Jerry's - Brand of gourmet ice cream.

"9 to 5" is an American movie from 1980 starring Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.

Written May 4, 2006