Colonel Jack O’Neill hated paperwork.

His job for today was to review the file of one Captain Davis, who was up for transfer to the SGC. The file was thick; this Captain Davis must have had quite a career, Jack thought as he opened the folder.

Jack’s suspicions began as he read Captain Davis’ qualifications. She (for, as he soon discovered, Captain Davis was female) had a black belt in karate, had received the highest scores for marksmanship in recorded history, had extensive medical training, spoke 33 languages fluently (including Goa’uld, which she had learned in 3 days), had doctorates in both astrophysics and archaeology, and could pilot virtually anything.

His suspicion changed to a horrible sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he read on, noting the glowing handwritten recommendations from the USAF Chief of Staff, all the world’s top scientists and archaeologists, Mother Teresa (who had come down from Heaven specifically to write her recommendation), the archangel Michael (who had accompanied Mother Teresa), and last but not least, the President of the United States.

Jack’s hands began to shake and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. This tough Air Force Colonel, who had always remained unbroken under torture and duress, was terrified out of his wits.

Hearing a sound behind him, Jack whirled to see that a young woman had miraculously appeared in the room. She was tall but not too tall, with a perfect figure - slender but very curved in all the right places, and muscular, in keeping with her superb fighting skills, but of course not overly muscular.

She had impossibly shiny chestnut hair that wafted gently around her face in a phantom breeze. Her eyes were very large, almost silver in color, and her eyelashes so long they created a breeze of their own every time she blinked. Her features were perfect and her peach-colored complexion was utterly flawless. She was the most stunningly beautiful five-foot-eight package of perfection, clad in a flowing silver dress that glowed with a light all its own and matched her eyes, that Jack O’Neill had ever seen.

He screamed.

“Noooooooooooooooo!”

She looked innocently confused, the expression on her face so appealing that every SF on the base, General Hammond, Teal’c, the Vice President, several serial killers, three battle worn Jaffa, Apophis, nineteen stray dogs, and a Goa’uld symbiote without a host all rushed to her side, willing to die in her service. She ignored them all, focusing her attention on Colonel O’Neill.

Being a gentle, understanding, sympathetic, friendly, loving, strong, warm, appealing, wonderful, nurturing person, Captain Davis was quite taken aback by Colonel O’Neill’s reaction to her presence.

“Is something wrong, sir?” She asked politely in a voice that was soft but still carried so well that four Asgard an entire galaxy away swooned at the sound of it. “I’m reporting for duty, sir. You no longer need to review my file; my transfer was authorized by express order from the President, and God. In fact, I’ll be joining SG-1 on your next mission. I’m Captain Mary Sue Davis.” She extended her beautiful, perfectly manicured, slender hand in greeting, not seeming to notice that her new CO was cringing away and practicing Zen theology by attempting to make himself one with the wall.

“Nooooo!” O’Neill shrieked again, like a terrified child. Spotting his opportunity, he bolted through the door, still screaming bloody murder.

Needless to say, the following scene was the topic of much conversation at the SGC in the following weeks:

Colonel Jack O’Neill, battle scarred warrior, running down the hall sobbing (pursued by a beautiful, gentle, intelligent, concerned woman who was running so gracefully she was almost floating), and screaming almost incoherently, “Turn me over to a Goa’uld ... hell, put one in my head ... feed me to a tiger ... smother me in raw sewage ... burn me alive ... but keep that damned Mary Sue away from me!”

“Colonel O’Neill,” Captain Mary Sue Davis said patiently (because being such a calm, understanding, gentle person, Mary Sue was not capable of impatience), “I don’t think you understand how this is supposed to work.”

“Oh, I understand all right,” Colonel Jack O’Neill replied a little less than civilly. “I just don’t give a damn!”

“You’re the author’s favorite character,” Mary Sue explained (patiently, of course) for about the fifteenth time in the last half-hour. “That means you’re supposed to fall in love with me.” The only clue to Mary Sue’s changing mood was the fact that her normally silver eyes were turning bright aqua blue. They always changed colors with her moods, but they were never boring or anything like that - they could be bright purple or shimmering silver or aqua blue or lime green. On second thought, scratch the lime green.

“Okay, explain to me again how this works?” Jack said, trying desperately to stay as far away from Mary Sue as he possibly could. She kept creeping closer and he kept creeping farther away. Sure, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but he just didn’t like Mary Sues!

“Well, I’m a representation of all the author has ever wished she could be - beautiful, perfect, intelligent, skilled, exotic - and since she has a crush on you and thinks you’re really cute, that means you’re supposed to fall madly in love with me and we’re supposed to get married and have lots of babies,” Mary Sue said (patiently) in her silky, beautiful, captivating voice.

Jack practically gagged at the thought and surreptitiously pointed his gun toward Captain Mary Sue Davis. He’d protested until he was blue in the face to try to get the woman off his team, but how could you argue when she’d been placed there by express order from the President of the United States, and God?

“A crush?” O’Neill’s voice was incredulous. “That sounds like something teenagers get!”

“Well, um ... ” Mary Sue cleared her throat and looked at the floor of the large abandoned temple they were standing in. She didn’t want to say anything bad about the author, and not just because she was so sweet and guileless that she never wanted to say anything bad about anyone; the author had after all created her, but there really wasn’t any way around it. “That would be because she is a teenager.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Jack mumbled, beating his head against the wall a couple times for good measure. Why, oh why did the universe have it out for him? Why did some teenage fanfiction writer have to think he was “cute”? 47-year-old battle-worn men weren’t cute, damn it!

“God, save me,” he whispered hopelessly as Mary Sue edged closer to him; then he remembered that she had been put on his team at God’s order in the first place. “Apophis?” He said hopefully. “Hathor? Nirrti? The Creature from the Black Lagoon? Hitler? Senator Kinsey? Maybourne? One of those really ugly cockroach aliens that used weird devices to duplicate everybody at the SGC?”

Alas, no evil and diabolical villains appeared to take Mary Sue’s attention away from her prey (O’Neill knew that if he could only get himself into a dangerous situation, Mary Sue would be compelled to save his life and would hopefully die in the process).

Jack and Mary Sue both ignored Daniel’s squeal of utter glee as he suddenly realized that the squiggles on the wall almost looked like a hybrid between ancient Kapahuatiliwawa writing and the Squibaterioid cuneiform they found on P3X-998, if he took off his glasses and looked at it upside down with his eyes squinted almost shut.

“Jack!” Daniel yelped, distracting Mary Sue for only a split second, but not nearly long enough for Jack to escape. “You’ve got to see this, it’s amazing! You remember those little blue squid-shaped people we met on P3X-998 the planet where there was so much water and Sam fell into the lake and you had to pull her out but you fell in when you tried and I ended up pulling both of you out and we all got wet and ended up with colds and didn’t get back to the SGC until two days after we were due back and General Hammond was really mad and you said it was Sam’s fault and Sam said it was your fault and I said it was both of your fault and Teal’c didn’t say anything at all ’cuz I think he was mad at both of you and he just raised one eyebrow really really high? Well, I think this writing could possibly be a hybrid between the Squibaterioid writing - you know, that’s those people on P3X-998 - and the ancient Kapahuatiliwawa people, who - ”

“Help,” Jack squeaked.

“ - lived in what’s now Hawaii years and years ago,” Daniel continued blissfully, completely caught up in his new discovery. “You know those people who used to spend half the year worshipping the Mighty Frog God and they thought frogs were sacred and if you stepped on a frog your punishment was to be tied on a beach in monsoon season because that was certain death and if somebody stepped on a frog when it wasn’t monsoon season they would be locked up until monsoon season and there’s this story about the Kapahuatiliwawa ruler named Ogosmortietateiu whose daughter stepped on a frog but he loved her too much so he - ”

Okay, no help from Daniel, Jack thought as he tried first to go through the wall like Daniel did after he looked into the eyes of that weird crystal skull. Jack soon discovered that it didn’t work quite so well for people who were in ordinary form. He had a revelation almost as inspiring as the one that Daniel was still rattling on about: brick walls are really hard.

On to Plan B.

He tried to climb the wall.

Nah, that didn’t work either; not enough handholds, and since Mary Sue had been rock climbing since she was 3 months old and could climb anything, he’d never be able to get away from her anyway.

He began to wonder if it would really be so bad to be court martialed for killing an officer under his command. Maybe he could convince them that it was an accident. “I tripped over Daniel’s foot and accidentally pulled the trigger, General Hammond,” he’d say, or, “Daniel was reminding me of that P3X-998 incident and it was so traumatizing that I had a flashback and thought Mary Sue was a lake.”

“I wish Mary Sue was a lake,” he muttered as he edged along the wall with Captain Davis in hot pursuit. “If she was I’d spit in her.”

Mary Sue looked hurt by his thoughtless, mean, insulting words. Her expression was so sad that Anubis threw himself on his knees in front of her, begging to do anything to make her happy again. “I’ll undestroy Abydos,” he blubbered. “I’ll bring Skaara back to life. I’ll give you all my motherships and my Jaffa and all the planets I control.”

Jack looked on in utter disgust - here a villain finally showed up, and he wasn’t trying to kill Jack at all - he was too busy sucking up to Mary Sue. What a disgusting world!

Mary Sue gave Anubis a gentle smile, not seeming at all repulsed by his oily skin and his face or lack of such, because after all she loves everyone and everyone loves her. Except, possibly, one Colonel Jack O’Neill.

And that was who Mary Sue was after.

She had to have him.

He was backed into a corner and he could tell Daniel wasn’t going to be any help. He was still muttering about the squid people and King So-and-so (and so and so and so, with as many syllables as that guy had in his name) who was determined to save his daughter and how that begun such-and-such legend which was best known in Greek mythology and Jack, this is amazing! Daniel didn’t seem to notice that Anubis was behind him bawling because Mary Sue didn’t love him and Jack was just trying to get away.

“Daniel, help,” Jack said firmly, but his words were drowned out by Daniel’s continuing monologue about how King So-and-so-and-so-and-so-and-so might also have been King Wanatutabatrikte of the legends of the ancient Suoicodalaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus people and that meant that the two were tied together somehow which meant that the Suoicodalaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus tribe must have visited Hawaii at some time or the Kapahuatiliwawa people must have visited the mainland or -

Oh, for cryin’ out loud.

Jack was backed into a corner and he couldn’t see help coming from anywhere, so he tried one last maneuver.

“DAMNED WELL GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Neither Jack nor Mary Sue nor Daniel nor Sam nor Teal’c nor anyone else in the universe had known it was possible to shout so loudly. Jack’s yell was so awe-inspiringly loud that replicators several universes away heard it and began to migrate, in one of their supersupersuperfast ships, toward the planet SG-1 was currently exploring.

Mary Sue looked hurt and Anubis melted into a little puddle on the floor, which is what Jack had always suspected he would do anyway if somebody just took off that darn eerie cloak he was always wearing.

“Colonel O’Neill, why won’t you love me?” Mary Sue asked poutily. She had the prettiest pout in the universe, of course, and her eyes turned a deep purple-green-blue-silver color. Jack thought it looked sort of like the day after he fed his dog an entire pack of multicolored chewing gum when he was a kid. That had been the coolest looking puke he’d ever seen. He would have fed the dog more chewing gum except that his dad hadn’t let him. He frowned, momentarily distracted. He was still mad at his dad over that.

“Why?” Mary Sue asked, not altogether happy about being ignored. If it were possible for Mary Sue to get pissed off, one might think she was, but of course Mary Sue is far too perfect to be pissed off, so we’ll just say she wasn’t.

“Because you’re annoying and way, way, way too perfect and you’re not real!”

“She is too!” The author said, sounding very offended.

Jack looked around the room, momentarily distracted from impending capture by the greatest foe he had ever met. “Who said that?” He asked.

“Uh, well ... ” the author sounded very bashful because she really wasn’t supposed to exist in the Stargate SG-1 universe, after all. That was what Mary Sue was for - she occupied the spot the author had always dreamed of having. “I’m the author.”

“Oh, the author, eh? Mary Sue’s alter-ego? Please tell me you’re not as awful as her?” Jack said with a pleading note in his voice. He was talking to the author! She thought he was cute, after all - maybe if he made his eyes really, really big she’d take pity on him and make Mary Sue disappear in a great big “poof” - yeah, a “poof” would be good -

“It’s not working, Jack,” the author said with an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I think you’re cute, but I can’t actually see your eyes right now, since I’m just looking at the computer screen and typing, and imagining your eyes doesn’t have quite the same effect.”

“Darn,” Jack muttered. “Well, come on, couldn’t you give me a break here? I mean, you’ve already made me get tortured by the Goa’uld, and shot by a Goa’uld, and hit by two staff weapon blasts at once, and you’ve even had me die two different times, and made Daniel think I committed suicide and hate me for it once!”

“Well ... ” the author sounded a little ashamed of her cruel, wicked, evil self.

“Please,” Jack begged. He fell to his knees and began to cry. “Please, please, please, please, please ... ”

Colonel Jack O’Neill, tough Air Force Officer, was bawling.

Oy.

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen,” the author muttered angrily. Jack was supposed to fall in love with Mary Sue, and either they’d live happily ever after and have lots of adorable babies, or Mary Sue would die heroically saving his life and he would sob inconsolably at her graveside for weeks.

He wasn’t supposed to end up on his knees blubbering next to the puddle that used to be Anubis, with Daniel still going on about King So-and-so-and-so-and-so-and-so in the background.

Jack O’Neill.

Blubbering.

Oy.

While the author was trying desperately to decide how to resolve the very sticky (literally, with the Anubis puddle in the floor) and somewhat insane situation she had found herself in, the replicators attracted by the sound of Jack’s voice landed outside the temple and swarmed out of their ship, ignoring Sam and Teal’c who were standing guard outside. They wanted to find the source of that really cool noise they’d heard from nine thousand billion light millenniums away.

“Oh, goody!” The author said happily. “Now Mary Sue can die saving Jack’s life!” She sat back to watch how her story played out.

Of course, as usual, things didn’t go exactly how the author had envisioned. When the replicators streamed into the room in search of O’Neill, the first thing they saw was Mary Sue.

These ugly little spider bugs weren’t human.

They didn’t have to be, evidently.

Because every last freaking one of them fell in love with her.

Jack pointed his gun at the replicators, feeling a distinct sense of trepidation. They were making a noise he’d never heard from them before; maybe they were threatening him, God, please, let them be threatening him!

They weren’t.

They were purring.

The replicators.

Were purring.

Jack O’Neill screamed.

They didn’t notice.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea began to form itself in Jack’s mind. Everyone knew he had an insane aversion to bugs in general and to replicators in specific. Conveniently ignoring the fact that they were far too enthralled by Mary Sue to show any aggression toward him, Jack lifted his P-90 and fired in a wide arc.

A very wide arc.

One that by complete chance and total accident happened to include Mary Sue.

She folded to the ground in mandatory slow motion, blood blossoming on the front of her shirt like a delicate rose, and stared up at the ceiling with her wide beautiful silver-blue eyes. Slowly and tragically she breathed her last breath.

The Asgard became an even more threatened race as half of them committed suicide, followed by every replicator in existence and two thirds of the Goa’uld System Lords.

“Oh no!” Jack shouted gleefully. “She’s dead!” Spotting Daniel’s utterly mortified look, he amended, “I’m sorry, I mean, noooooo, she’s dead! She can’t be dead! Mary Suuuuuueeeeee!” He added a melodramatic sob at the end.

The author sighed and shook her head in exasperation. “Oh well,” she muttered under her breath, “at least she managed to wipe out all the replicators, and two thirds of the System Lords.”

Mary Sue had a beautiful funeral on a beautiful, cloudless day, with over three-fourths of the world’s population in attendance. The remaining one-fourth wasn’t there only because they couldn’t really fit into the US.

Jack O’Neill said he was desperately sick with the flu, and stayed home from Mary Sue’s funeral to have a rather loud celebratory party.

The author decided she liked Daniel.