Something Wicca by Asturiet

[asturiet.livejournal.com]

Title: Something Wicca
Author: asturiet
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Sadly, none of this is mine. No money made, no harm intended.
Summary: Just when you think you know a guy...
Author's Notes: Plotless, but attempting to be funny. The title is a play on an extremely well-known line from Shakespeare's "Macbeth." Warnings/disclaimery things behind the cut but before the fic.



Warnings and disclaimers: I am not Wiccan, but I know quite well that this is about as far from what Wicca really is as you can get. I'm playing off of stereotypes here -- no harm is intended, I swear. (on a side note: the same deal goes for Scots)



Elizabeth smiled around at the others in the meeting. It was a beautiful morning: the sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the fatal overload that would have caused all the naquadah generators to explode, destroying the city and everyone in it, had been fixed just in the nick of time. It was enough to make anyone cheerful.

The near-disaster had been averted the day before, but everyone had been so exhausted that Elizabeth had scheduled the follow-up meeting for the next morning, letting everyone get a good night's sleep. It looked to have been a good choice -- both Lt. Ford and Major Sheppard looked bright-eyed and bushy tailed, and Carson and Teyla were both calmly rested. Rodney, well, he was Rodney.

"Well, Dr. McKay, it looks as if your expertise has once again saved the city," she said, smiling benevolently at the scientist...who didn't respond at all.

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed as she took in the physicist's glazed expression, the eyes that stared at nothing. Maybe one night's sleep hadn't been enough. "Rodney?"

"It's Halloween," he said, his voice as vacant as his eyes. "I was so busy I hadn't noticed."

Sheppard, of course, checked the date on his watch. "It's February, McKay. Valentine's Day, to be exact, but it's NOT Halloween."

Elizabeth watched as Rodney blinked, life rushing back into his eyes, filling them up with his personality.

"I didn't mean on Earth, Major," Rodney said, gesturing impatiently. "I meant here. On this planet. It's Halloween HERE."

"Excuse me?" Weir said, raising an eyebrow.

Sighing, the scientist rubbed a hand over his face. "Look, I can just tell, okay?"

"Rodney, how could ye possibly know that?" Carson asked, and Elizabeth glanced at the doctor -- was that a hint of uneasiness in his voice?

"It's, uh, a...religion thing," Rodney said, squirming uncomfortably in his seat.

"A religion thing?" Sheppard echoed, his brows high.

Rodney coughed. "Yes, well, my family, well, let's just say they didn't go in for Christianity."

Weir smiled reassuringly. "That's not particularly strange, Dr. McKay -- plenty of people aren't Christians."

Her soothing tone didn't seem to be working on the physicist -- he was fidgeting and his ever-present hand gestures were growing more and more jerking.

"Yes, well, not everyone is Wiccan."

"You're a witch?" John asked, a sneer crawling across his face.

Rodney just rolled his eyes and snorted. "No, I'm a scientist. My PARENTS were witches."

"Aren't male witches called warlocks or wizards or something?" Ford asked, leaning forward in his chair. Weir had wondered when he was going to jump in.

"Actually," Rodney began, his usual arrogant tone firmly back in place. "My family never had a problem calling the men witches."

For a long moment everyone just stared at the physicist, the tension in the air palpable. Eventually Sheppard cleared his throat.

"So, what can you do?" he asked, smirking at the scientist.

Rodney snorted. "Nothing."

"Oh come on, McKay," Sheppard drawled. "You can't tell us you're a witch and then back out of the magic stuff."

"No, really, I mean it -- I don't practice. I'm a scientist, remember? Witchcraft is like medicine: based on hearsay and legend; completely fictional."

"But ye just said your parents were witches!" Carson said, his eyes wide and tense.

Rodney smiled smugly. "Yes, well I am extremely good at denial."

"Let me get this straight," John cut in. "You're not a witch, but you just kind of 'know' that it's Halloween? Though honestly, I kind of doubt that, too."

Glancing down at her tablet, Elizabeth frowned. "Actually, Major, the planet's orbit does put us roughly between autumnal equinox and winter solstice, though we're a little closer to the equinox."

"That bloody well sounds like Halloween to me," Carson grumbled under his breath.

John just shrugged. "So he looked it up -- we can all access the planet's specs."

"What is this...Halloween?" Teyla asked evenly, inclining her head to one side.

Elizabeth nodded. "It's a holiday on earth that is particularly significant for certain religions, which believe that it is the night when spirits walk the earth..."

"...the time when the veil between this realm and the next is lifted and the spirit realm is within our grasp, the night when a witch's power is at its greatest, yadda yadda yadda, whatever, like I said, it's all just hearsay." Rodney waved his hands in the air, unconsciously mimicking conjuring spirits and spells as his voice droned on through a speech he'd obviously heard a thousand times.

"But you said you could tell it was Halloween," Ford said eagerly.

"Aye, Rodney," Carson added. "You really aren't making any sense."

"Since when is that a crime?" Rodney asked, folding his arms over his chest. "I don't have to make sense if I don't want to."

John rolled his eyes at Rodney's toddler impression, but Ford wasn't about to let go that easily.

"The night when your power is at its greatest?" he said, thinking back a bit. "So you CAN do something!"

Sheppard glared at the Lieutenant. "No he can't. Come on, McKay," he said, turning his gaze to the scientist. "You had your fun, now let it go."

Rodney, for his part, was completely ignoring the Major. "Well, I could probably talk to dead people. In fact, I'll probably be stuck seeing them tonight whether I want to or not." His eyes widened as he realized what he had just said, and he shuddered. "Actually, that's a horrible thought I hadn't considered..."

"I can give you something to help you sleep, if you like," Carson said quietly.

Rodney jerked his seat around to face the doctor, his eyes wide and surprised. "You believe in all this?" Suddenly he rolled his eyes and snorted. "What am I saying? Of course you believe this stuff -- you're a doctor."

Carson just smiled slightly. "No, I'm Scottish."

Suddenly a thought occurred to Elizabeth. She didn't believe Rodney for a second, but even so... "Did you say 'talk to the dead?'" she asked. "How recently dead?"

Rodney shrugged. "I have no idea -- I've never really gone out of my way to do it before."

"Would ten thousand years be too old?" Elizabeth asked, raising an eyebrow.

For a long moment the physicist simply sat in his chair, looking thoughtful. "You know," he said finally. "That's an interesting thought. I don't know."

"So you could talk to the Ancients if you wanted to, and you didn't think that was a talent worth mentioning?" Disbelief twined heavily through John's voice, syrupy sweet and tinged with sarcasm.

"Well only on Halloween," Rodney replied. "And only the ones who died here." He gestured briefly with his hands. "Most of the spirits have probably moved on by now anyway."

"I thought you said you couldn't do anything," John said, smirking.

Rodney snorted. "Well I can do THAT. Talking to the dead is the whole POINT of Samhain -- I'm not a completely worthless witch."

John rolled his eyes, but refrained from pointing out that the physicist had once again contradicted his own protests that he was not, in fact, a witch. Ford opened his mouth to correct that oversight, but closed it again at his CO's dark glare.

"So what," Sheppard began lazily. "Tonight you hold a little seance in the Gateroom?" His eyes flitted up and down Rodney's body. "I don't suppose you've got a Ouija board hidden somewhere..."

Ignoring the unbelievers, Rodney shrugged. "Not necessary." Reaching out in front of him, he slid his right hand into thin air, his arm disappearing up to his elbow as if it had passed into a 'jumper's cloak. After rummaging around for a moment, he withdrew his hand, as well as a small, cloth-wrapped bundle, which he lay on the table in front of him, unwrapping it to reveal what looked like a battered deck of cards. Tarot cards.

"Not that I really need the deck tonight," the scientist was saying, rewrapping the silk around the cards. "But it can't hurt." His deck protected, Rodney glanced up at the stunned faces surrounding him. "What!?!" he squeaked. "I TOLD you Halloween made witches stronger."

Ford swallowed audibly. "You just...you...uh..." he stammered, his voice trailing off into nothingness.

Glaring, Rodney waited for his colleagues to round up their wandering wits. Sheppard, of course, was the first to recover.

"So, a witch, eh?" he said, a small, true smile quirking one side of his mouth.

Rodney rolled his eyes and glared at the soldier. "If you ask me for a love potion, I'm leaving."


By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicca this way comes.