Once upon a time . . .
Or maybe twice. . .
There was an unearthly paradise called. . .
Pepperland.
Colonel Jack O'Neill stepped through the Stargate onto the platform and looked around. This wasn't what the probe had shown. The MALP had shown a beautiful utopia. Flowers blooming everywhere. People laughing, dancing, playing music, basically having a great time. Bright colors had filled up the MALP's lens. Strange creatures wandered around. But this was different.
There was a strange silence in the air, only interrupted by the occasional scream of horror. Or what sounded like a short duck call followed by an explosion. Crashing noises. Not the happy sounds from before. Everyone was frozen, a horrified look on each of their faces. Only a few people were still moving, running. Being chased by a giant blue. . . glove? As a matter of fact, everything was blue. There was no black, white, red, green. No pink, yellow, brown or orange. Just blue-gray. Actually, there was some green. There were giant green apple looking things growing on the trees. Behind him, the rest of SG-1 came out of the Stargate and it disengaged. He heard Captain Samantha Carter gasp. "Sir, maybe we should head back to the SGC."
"My thoughts exactly, Daniel-" he turned and found that Dr. Daniel Jackson wasn't at his side. He had jumped off the platform and was walking over to one of the frozen blue people. He ran a hand through his shaggy, blond hair and looked closely at the woman before him. Daniel had won the title of being the curious one of the team. Jack just saw it as being idiotically meddlesome most of the time. Carefully, the scientist touched her shoulder.
"Daniel, don't touch that!" Jack leaped off the platform and raced to Daniel's side. But, surprisingly enough (with Daniel's luck) nothing happened to him. "You, know that could have made you like that," he pointed at the woman.
"She's not a that, Jack. She's a she. A human being." He looked around at the land. "We've got to help them. What if this condition is reversible? I mean, we can't just leave them like this."
"Daniel, we don't even know what this condition is. It could just as easily be permanent. Or contagious. How are we-" He got an inspired look on his face and turned around. "Teal'C, have you ever seen anything like this?"
"I have not O'Neill. I find it as strange as you do."
"Then dial us home, Carter."
"But-"
"No complaining, Daniel. We'll find out more at the base." he walked back to the Stargate.
"What? That makes no sense. How are we supposed to find out anything at the base? With MALPs? That-" A loud booming noise came toward them. Four extremely tall men were coming over. And they didn't look like the welcome wagon.
"Carter, hurry up. Daniel, get over here!" Daniel had wandered over to another person and was even farther away from them then before. He glanced up as the men came toward him. Jack knew something was going to happen. He didn't know what, but he knew it would be bad. The 'Gate opened. "You guys go through." He made sure they were through before heading toward Daniel. He got halfway there before the men reached the archaeologist first.
Daniel stared up at them. "Hello," Jack buried his face in his hands. For such a smart guy, Daniel had no common sense. "I'm Daniel Jackson and-" Suddenly, the men pulled the green apple-looking things out of nowhere and bombarded Daniel with them. They looked around. Jack hid behind a frozen woman, and reached for his weapon. They then walked away quickly.
Jack jumped out and ran over to Daniel. He pulled the apples off of him and sighed. Daniel had done a lot of stupid things, and this was going on the list of most idiotic stunts he'd pulled. Daniel was standing with his hands out in a welcoming gesture, his mouth open, ready to say something, and he was. . . blue. Very blue.
After a minute, Jack figured out a way to pull him over to the Stagate and shoved him through. Then he quickly followed through himself.
He stepped out through the 'Gate at a run, but then slowed down, and, for a fleeting moment, a panicky thought passed through his mind. What if, when Daniel had hit the ramp, he had shattered. It seemed entirely plausible. For two seconds. He looked down and saw Daniel lying there, in one piece, but didn't feel too relieved.
General Hammond called for a medical team and practically charged up the ramp. Teal'C and Sam followed. "What happened Colonel?" He gave Jack the evil eye, which Jack suspected was only because he felt giving it to Daniel was pointless.
"Well, Sir," he bent down and stood Daniel up, because he looked strange lying there in that position, "Well. . . green apples happened."
"Pardon?" The familiar look of confusion passed over the General's face.
He shrugged as Janet and her medical squad rushed over and they all stopped short. Janet looked halfway between confusion and laughter. She simply shook her head and gestured to the doctors to put Daniel on the stretcher and they left. She stared at Jack, speechless.
He shrugged again. "Green apples." It sounded stupider everytime he said it.
"He ate green apples and-"
"No. See, a bunch of really tall guys dropped giant green apples on him." Suddenly all of this seemed incredibly funny and he started laughing. Everyone stared at him. He quickly composed himself and glanced at the General. "Infirmary, the briefing room, right?"
Hammond nodded and led them to the infirmary.
"Well, he's alive. He's just... stiff. And blue. But he's alive." Janet glanced at Daniel, who she had stood in the middle of the infirmary. He looked remarkably like a fountain with his mouth open like that. "Problem is, we don't know how to cure him."
They had briefed the General. Jack had briefed him several times. But Hammond stayed confused. And now they all stood in the infirmary, staring at Daniel.
Jack walked up to him. "Daniel. Daniel? Hey, Danny-boy? Space-monkey? If you don't unfreeze, we'll hide all of your rocks."
"O'Neill, what is your purpose?"
"Figured that maybe if I annoyed him enough he'd. . . Well, it seemed smart at the time."
"Like all of your ideas?" Sam mumbled.
"You say something, Carter?" he turned back around to face them,
"I said, 'That wasn't a bad idea.'"
"Oh."
Suddenly an alarm sounded and all of them jumped. Well, everyone but Daniel. He stayed still. "Incoming wormhole," a voice sounded over the intercom. Everyone (except Daniel) followed Hammond to the gateroom. Men and women had lined up around the 'Gate with weapons pointed at it.
"Open the iris!" shouted the General. The iris opened and out came four people. Actually, they sort of were thrown out and landed in a pile on the ramp. Eventually, they all stood up.
"Quite a ride. I think it scrambled my brains," said the tallest of the four, the one with glasses. He looked down at the group of men and women. "'Ello, mates. Why the guns? All you need is love." He spoke with a British accent. "My name is John. These," he pointed to the other three, "are me mates."
The one with the longest hair, wearing a brown coat stepped forward. "I'm George, that's Paul," he pointed at the only one without facial hair and who was wearing a bright ascot (this was the one Sam was watching intently), "and the short one is Ringo."
"I'm not short. I'm just deprived of height."
They walked down the ramp. George put a flower in the end of a gun pointed at him. "Make love, not war," quipped Paul. Sam giggled. Jack stared at her. Sam had never giggled before that he remembered.
"Young Fred told us someone had seen one of your mates be bonked," said John. "We're here to help."
"Bonked?" General Hammond stepped forward. "Who exactly are you? Are you Tok'ra?"
"Tok'ra? No, we're Beatles."
"Beetles? As in the bug?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You do not appear to be very beetle-like." Teal'C also raised an eyebrow. Ringo looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, too. He was about a foot and a half shorter than the Jaffa.
"I think we look very Beatle like. John looks like John, Paul looks like Paul, and Ringo looks like Ringo. I'm assuming I look like meself. So, yes, I think that we look very Beatle-like. But then again, it's all in the mind."
Jack scratched his head, confused. "You said you're here to help Daniel, right?"
"Yes," started Ringo, finally putting down his eyebrow. "H is for hurry. E is for Urgent-"
"Actually, urgent starts with a U," corrected Sam.
"Yes, Love, but hulp isn't a word." said Paul. Sam giggled again.
"Look," Janet stepped forward, "Can you help Daniel or not?"
"Sure we can. It's simply a matter of using Einstein's-"
"Not now, John," said George, "We've got to help their mate. You can explain later."
"Actually, we'd rather he didn't," Ringo whispered to Janet.
"Wait a minute! No one is going near Dr. Jackson before I get some straight answers. Now everyone to the briefing room. I want to get an explanation."
They followed Hammond to the briefing room and all sat down around the table.
"What happened to P3X-9847?"
"I give up, what happened to P.0. Box 9847?" asked Ringo, reaching for a mug of coffee.
"Don't drink that. It'll stunt your growth," said John.
Hammond sighed. "What happened to that planet where everything was blue?"
"It's not another planet. It's just Pepperland. It's 80,000 leagues under the sea," said George.
"Okay, but what happened to it?"
"Blue meanies tried to take over. But it's okay now. They're our friends now. We're all together now," said George.
"We've come together," said Paul.
"I got them to be our allies," said John, "with a little help from my friends."
"Sir, can't we just take them to help Daniel? They want to help, and, let's face it, he really can't get in any worse condition than he's in now," Jack spoke up, sounding frustrated.
"You're right, Colonel. C'mon, folks, to the infirmary.
They reached the infirmary in a minute's time. Jack sat in a chair, Sam sat on a bed next to Teal'C and the General and Janet watched the Beatles closely. They were cooking a Daniel carefully. "What was he doing when he got bonked?" asked Ringo.
"Trying to have a conversation with the giant people." Jack shook his head. "So, can you help him?"
"Sure," said John. "Any requests?"
"Huh?" they all said at the same time. Actually, Teal'C said. "What do you mean by this?", but hey, that's just Teal'C for you.
"Never mind," said John. "'Nowhere Man' on the beat."
"Oh! Not Beetles, Beatles!" Sam cried out in realization.
"Very good, Love," said Paul. Sam giggled again.
"What?" asked Jack.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8-"
"Must we do this everytime?" asked George.
"Okay, okay, 1, 2, 3."
"He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his nowhere land,
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
Doesn't have a point of view.
Knows not where he's going to.
Isn't he a bit like you and me?"
Slowly, color came back to Daniel. He began to move. The song had freed him. He looked around. He was standing in the infirmary, Jack, Sam, Teal'C, General Hammond, and Janet were watching him. A quartet of men, wearing bright, 60's-style clothing, were singing. They stopped singing when they saw him.
"What happened?
"You were "bonked", Daniel Jackson."
"I was what?"
"It's a long story, mate," started John. "You see, 80,000 leagues under the sea. . ."
Fin
© March 27, 2001 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.