The prevalence of lights set in the ceiling at the S.G.C. and the fact that Jack O'Neill was taller than most of the people that worked there, meant that it took a surprisingly long time for everyone to notice that he had developed an honest-to-God halo. God was definitely the operative word.
Now everyone in the facility knew that Colonel O'Neill was not an innocent. He'd been in black ops, and the clerk who had been at the corner desk when the Colonel had admitted to having done "some damned distasteful things" in the service of his country was a gregarious and chatty fellow, who loved a good tidbit of gossip. Those who had seen his dossier, including General Hammond and Janet Fraiser knew better than most that this was so. And of course the nurses in the infirmary, who had seen him at his worst, when pain, boredom, and frustration made his native manners vanish under the weight of his need to do something, all knew that he could be the Devil Incarnate, in direct contrast to that sweet and polite Doctor Jackson, who was a perfect Angel as soon as he was permitted his laptop.
Still, it was clearly a halo of white light, and it followed Jack everywhere, and it was obvious to everyone (including, regretfully, Jack himself) that he would have to be confined to the S.G.C. until Carter's geeks could figure out how to cloak it. His beloved green baseball cap didn't do a thing for that.
The thing was, that even those who were not inclined to be particularly religious, like Daniel and Dr. Cavanaugh, and those who were raised in the Baptist Church where High-Church depictions of Catholic saints were not part of the everyday religious iconography of their faith, found it hard not to think of saints and angels in the presence of this otherworldly glow.
O'Neill, who knew full well that he was no angel, could not resist taking advantage. He was stuck indoors, life was boring, and he wanted to push it and see how far it would go.
He'd done all his mission reports out of sheer boredom. They were sitting on his desk, in triplicate, but General Hammond, even with that uncanny ability he had to know all Jack's gambits before he played them, didn't know that. It was almost child's play to get a three week extension.
There was plenty of extra cake available in the commissary, and all the cake came with extra frosting. There was pie too, and always with a scoop of vanilla. And when he needed to use a treadmill to avert the effects of being cooped up inside eating dessert after dessert, his fellow officers scrambled to get out of his way and make sure the treadmill of his choice was available posthaste.
Carter seemed to laugh longer and harder at his more biting and wicked jokes when delivered with a halo. This was very gratifying. Daniel allowed him to wander about his office touching things, because the extra light on the artifacts he was studying was useful. Teal'c was good for hours of quiet companionship when Jack wanted a moment of tranquility, pointing out that the halo was a fine substitute for his large array of rather expensive candles.
If things seemed to be more often out of place than usual, and signage around the facility seemed to be altered here and there, if the number of practical jokes perpetrated by someone who did not come forward to gloat, well no one was pointing fingers, and certainly not in the direction of the S.G.C.'s own Saint Jack. In fact they were pointedly not making that connection.
They never did find out what caused the phenomenon, which vanished as suddenly as it was thought to have appeared. It was merely an unfortunate co-incidence that Jack was in the middle of emptying the bowl of M&M's that Hammond kept in a bowl just inside his office, and used to put those under his command that were inclined to be overly tense when called into The Man's office at ease when necessary.
Jack had just reached into the bowl for a large handful when two things happened. The room suddenly got dimmer, and--
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Oh My Sainted... Colonel?
Now everyone in the facility knew that Colonel O'Neill was not an innocent. He'd been in black ops, and the clerk who had been at the corner desk when the Colonel had admitted to having done "some damned distasteful things" in the service of his country was a gregarious and chatty fellow, who loved a good tidbit of gossip. Those who had seen his dossier, including General Hammond and Janet Fraiser knew better than most that this was so. And of course the nurses in the infirmary, who had seen him at his worst, when pain, boredom, and frustration made his native manners vanish under the weight of his need to do something, all knew that he could be the Devil Incarnate, in direct contrast to that sweet and polite Doctor Jackson, who was a perfect Angel as soon as he was permitted his laptop.
Still, it was clearly a halo of white light, and it followed Jack everywhere, and it was obvious to everyone (including, regretfully, Jack himself) that he would have to be confined to the S.G.C. until Carter's geeks could figure out how to cloak it. His beloved green baseball cap didn't do a thing for that.
The thing was, that even those who were not inclined to be particularly religious, like Daniel and Dr. Cavanaugh, and those who were raised in the Baptist Church where High-Church depictions of Catholic saints were not part of the everyday religious iconography of their faith, found it hard not to think of saints and angels in the presence of this otherworldly glow.
O'Neill, who knew full well that he was no angel, could not resist taking advantage. He was stuck indoors, life was boring, and he wanted to push it and see how far it would go.
He'd done all his mission reports out of sheer boredom. They were sitting on his desk, in triplicate, but General Hammond, even with that uncanny ability he had to know all Jack's gambits before he played them, didn't know that. It was almost child's play to get a three week extension.
There was plenty of extra cake available in the commissary, and all the cake came with extra frosting. There was pie too, and always with a scoop of vanilla. And when he needed to use a treadmill to avert the effects of being cooped up inside eating dessert after dessert, his fellow officers scrambled to get out of his way and make sure the treadmill of his choice was available posthaste.
Carter seemed to laugh longer and harder at his more biting and wicked jokes when delivered with a halo. This was very gratifying. Daniel allowed him to wander about his office touching things, because the extra light on the artifacts he was studying was useful. Teal'c was good for hours of quiet companionship when Jack wanted a moment of tranquility, pointing out that the halo was a fine substitute for his large array of rather expensive candles.
If things seemed to be more often out of place than usual, and signage around the facility seemed to be altered here and there, if the number of practical jokes perpetrated by someone who did not come forward to gloat, well no one was pointing fingers, and certainly not in the direction of the S.G.C.'s own Saint Jack. In fact they were pointedly not making that connection.
They never did find out what caused the phenomenon, which vanished as suddenly as it was thought to have appeared. It was merely an unfortunate co-incidence that Jack was in the middle of emptying the bowl of M&M's that Hammond kept in a bowl just inside his office, and used to put those under his command that were inclined to be overly tense when called into The Man's office at ease when necessary.
Jack had just reached into the bowl for a large handful when two things happened. The room suddenly got dimmer, and--
"COLONEL O'NEILL!!!"
D'oh!
Re: Oh My Sainted... Colonel?
Now I want to actually write the scene with Daniel and Jack in the lab . . .
Re: Oh My Sainted... Colonel?
"This?"
"Were you touching anything else?"
"No."
"Well then..."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why is the sky blue."
"What?"
[deep sigh] "What do you think Daniel?"
"That you're annoying!"
"Daniel!"
"Jack?"
"Why can't I touch that? It's a wooden doll."
"Because it's at least five thousand years old. And it's not a doll. It's a fertility fetish."
"It's a doll!"
"Cult object."
"It's got bead hair, and arms. A little low on legs..."
"And an outsized well cross-hatched pudendal area."
"What's a... that"
"A woman's private parts."
[drops item]
"Jaaaaack!!! Careful!"
[Jack is bent over staring at the area in question]
"Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"You know women aren't checkered like that, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Did they?"
"I assume so. Wait! Look at this!"
"Boring! It's a bunch of letters. Unreadable squiggly ones."
"I can read them."
"Well I can't"
"Well I can. Don't move!"
"Why?"
"The light is helping."
"Bent double, here, Daniel."
"Just a sec. Let me get the magnifying glass..."
[picks up another object from Daniel's desk]
"It's endipu not indipu. That changes the whole sense of the paragraph..."
"Did you know the top can be screwed off the bottom on this?"
"So it says 'the pillar of the God,' not the 'stick of the God,'. Perhaps a reference to his manhood..."
"And it's got more squiggles in here. Daniel? DANIEL!"
"What?"
"More squiggles."
"Oh. Good. I'll look at it in a minute. Can you lean over a bit more? No, wait. Sit in that chair, and face that way."
[sits, screws parts of object back together, begins flipping it with one hand...]
************
So what do they say in your universe?
Sits back eagerly to await---
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