Title: Stalking Rodney

Author: Jedi Buttercup

Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.

Rating: PG-13.

Summary: B:tVS, SG-1. Buffy's eyes twinkled, inviting him in on the joke, but Daniel still wasn't quite sure where she was going with this. 600 words.

Spoilers: B:tVS post-"Chosen". SG-1 and Atlantis through seasons 8/1, then AU.

Daniel blinked in disbelief at the scene before him: his girlfriend, dressed all in black with her long blonde hair tucked up under a cap and a zat'nik'atel clutched in one hand, was pressed bodily against one of Atlantis' aesthetically pleasing corridor walls as she snuck a peek around the next corner.

"Buffy..." he said warily, not sure he wanted to know what she was up to. "What are you doing?"

"Stalking Rodney," she said matter-of-factly, glancing back over her shoulder to flash him a quick grin.

"...And why are you stalking Rodney?" he asked, thinking back quickly over the week's events. He didn't think he remembered the other scientist doing anything in specific to set her off; they hadn't been teammates long, but McKay had already had a thorough education in Things Better Not Said Around The Slayer.

"Because it's fun," she replied, still smiling brilliantly. Her eyes twinkled, inviting him in on the joke, but Daniel still wasn't quite sure where she was going with this.

"Come again?" he asked, blinking.

Buffy rolled her eyes, her smile taking on a decidedly mischievous quality as she answered. "Later, dear. I'm stalking Rodney."

"Buffy..." he sputtered, realizing only afterward how his question could have been taken. Really, for a man who thought of himself as one of the top linguists in two galaxies, he seemed to be putting his foot in his mouth on an amazingly frequent basis around this woman. Not that she didn't abuse the language until it cried, herself, of course: one of the foibles he found so endearing about her.

"Seriously?" she replied, straightening her spine a little and shifting into what he thought of as her business expression. "The boy is way too wound, and the sooner I train that out of him, the better."

"And you think stalking him is going to get him to relax?" Daniel couldn't help but reply, visions of being forced to pry the physicist's white-knuckled grip from the ceiling flashing through his mind.

"Oh, not right away," Buffy answered, shrugging off-handedly. "He's got to make it through the five stages of phobia first."

Daniel sighed and took a sip from the coffee mug he'd been carrying from the cafeteria to his office. She was clearly having too much fun with this-- the safest thing to do was to just play along. "I thought that was the five stages of grief?" he asked, feeding her the next line.

She rolled her eyes. "Which of us majored in psychology again?" she asked rhetorically. "It starts with obliviousness, then goes through edginess, outright paranoia, nervous collapse, and finally acceptance," she explained, acting out each named emotion as though she were playing charades.

Daniel narrowed his eyes at her, trying to keep from laughing. "You made that up," he said, accusingly.

Buffy smirked. "I totally did, but it's still true. When I'm done with him, he'll be much, much calmer on missions, and that can only be of the good."

He shook his head. "I still think you're asking for trouble, but as long as you have Sheppard's okay..." he prompted, wondering if she'd thought that far ahead.

"Don't worry! All is of the good." She flitted away from the wall long enough to duck under his coffee-cup-bearing arm, stand on tip-toe, and seal her lips to his in a sudden, enthusiastic kiss. Then she shoved him away and darted back to her corner, peering around it in an exaggeratedly stalkerish manner. "Now, shoo. I'm stalking Rodney."

Daniel chuckled to himself, then resumed his trek toward his office and left her to it.

Go to: Top | Series Index | Buffyverse Xover Series | Fan Fiction Index

© 2006 Jedi Buttercup.