audience
by Pares

"Don't tell me. You're starring in La Cage aux Folles for charity? God, please tell me it's for charity."

Jed rubbed his eyes, but when he opened them again, Leo was still there, and still wearing… a red dress.

"Sir, it's not a dress." Leo, as usual, sounded long suffering. "I told you he'd go there."

Leo was accompanied by an exceedingly tall, bearded man also wearing a dress, this one in a rather becoming shimmery white.

"Hey, how ya doin'. I'm the President of the United States. Now… who the hell are you?"

"Gandalf the White, sir."

"It must be hell having an article as your middle name. Did you know that in the entire English language, there are only two of them?"

Gandalf lifted his bushy eyebrows.

"Two, my lord?"

"Articles. And here in the Oval Office you can feel free to call me, 'Mr. President.' I like to keep it real."

"I see. Mr. President."

"Leo…"

"Actually, Mr. President, there are a few more people outside I'd like you to meet."

"Bring 'em on."

In walked a bewildering mass of people, led by his own inner circle.

"Okay. Sir, I'd like to introduce men who are in love with their best friends."

Jed nodded at the group.

"Good to see ya."

They seemed to consist largely of cops, if the gunbelts and handcuffs meant what he hoped they meant. One of them was wearing a Mountie's uniform in stopsign red. He seemed to have brought his dog with him. He was flanked by a bald guy and a wiry blond. Beside them were two guys he recognized from those rare moments he got to catch up on the Patriots on cable sports.

"Leo, a coup would really be inconvenient right now, couldn't you just get Abbey to poison me later--"

"Special circumstances, sir. All will be explained. These guys over here are elves, sir, including a special party from Elrond of Middle Earth."

"Pardon me, Leo, but did you say elves?"

"Yes. Yes he did, Mr. President." Toby sounded even more beleaguered than usual.

"Thanks for comin' out." Jed then mock-whispered to an aggrieved looking Toby, "Did he hit his head?"

"Forgive me, my lord," Leo said, "I should have introduced you at once. Please accept my apology."

Toby waved him away, "Yeah, yeah."

Jed dropped back into his chair, and smiled cheerfully at Leo.

"Okay, I get it. You've already poisoned me, and now I'm just enjoying the hallucinations before I go down for good."

"Mr. President, allow me to present His Majesty, Toby Zeigler, The High King of Gondor."

"Sure." Jed shook Toby's hand firmly.

"And over here are --"

Jed held up a hand.

"You're about to say aliens, aren't you?"

Leo looked apologetic.

"Yeah."

"Leo, are you telling me I have an audience with illegal aliens?"

"Well, technically, sir. They did arrive in this country outside of legal channels. But generally through some mode of space transport."

"Okay." Jed blew out a breath. "Before we go any further… Sam, get me a drink. Make it a double."

… twenty minutes later…

"All right, all right, quiet down. Let's try this one more time. Just raise your hand if you're an alien."

A tall and astonishingly pretty boy with a pearly smile guiltily raised his hand. Beside him, a man with a dramatic profile elbowed his long-haired companion.

"What?"

"Raise your hand, you lummox."

"But I'm not-- you're an alien!?"

The first man nodded patiently, "Yes, Mac, and so are you. Why else did you think you were here?"

Mac flushed and dropped his gaze.

"I'm in love with my best friend."

"I know," and he smiled roguishly and touched his friend's cheek. Then he clapped it briskly and continued, "But you're also form outer space." He raised Mac's hand for him.

"Since when?" Mac wondered aloud.

"Oh, the third film, I think? I don't really remember. They were all so awful, I've tried to block them out…"

Next to him, a tiny redhead was kicking a tall fellow in his expensively-suited shins.

"God damnit, Mulder. More than a decade of my life and you're an alien???"

Jed sighed and consulted his notes.

"All righty. And how many clones we got here today?"

A crowd of identical young, impeccably dressed men with shaven skulls, all save one, raised their hands. The one who didn't appeared to have hooked his finger into the tallest alien's belt loop; they were smiling at each other as if they were the only ones in the room. After a moment, Mulder hesitantly raised his hand a second time and the little redhead took her shoe off and threw it at him.

"Immortals?"

Mac and his friend raised their hands, as did a dainty little blonde accompanied by a crowd of kids in their late teens. There was one older man with them, absently polishing his glasses.

"This might have been good to know…. Oh, a year or two ago, I suppose."

"Why does Buffy get to have all the cool powers?"

"Now, Dawn. I was going to tell you when you were older, but--"

A second delicate blonde, this one with shorter hair, interrupted.

"You're an elf. You know, with the magic and the eternal life? Plus, you don't have to go through life shopping for long coats to hide your hardware. Sadly, Buffy's days of kicky bolero jackets are numbered."

Dawn beamed.

"Really? Cool!"

"Ah. Anybody else of the elvish persuasion?"

Buffy was staring at a punk with whiteblond hair and a long black jacket.

"But… but... you're a vampire!"

"And I'm also a bloody elf, yeh? All the nancin' about, the hair care-- I'm tellin' you, the vampire gig's a sight easier on the ol' shampoo budget."

CJ and Donna had also both raised their hands, along with Elrond's envoys.

Toby gaped at CJ, who was casually filing her nails, perched on the edge of the President's desk. "CJ-- you can't be serious."

"Yeah, well. It comes with a whole talking to animals thing. You know how sometimes you'd quiz me about a source and I'd say, 'A little bird told me…?'"

"You're saying an actual little bird told you…?"

"That's what I'm sayin', bub."

Josh turned to Donna, who gave him a doleful look, bit her lower lip and admitted, "My cats really do hate you, Josh."

"I knew it!"

"And can I get a heads up from all the wizards?"

Leo, Gandalf, what appeared to be an entire classroom of eighth graders, and their scowling, black caped chaperone all raised their hands. The bespectacled gentleman and a sweetfaced redhaired girl from Buffy's troupe followed suit, as did a blue-eyed fellow with a silk shirt open at the collar, showing off a nasty scar.

Jed did a double-take.

"Charlie!?"

"What can I say, sir? All that Latin must have sunk in."

"Well, good for you! Moving on…. Uh, Sentinels?"

The mountie, a tall blue-eyed cop, and yet another member of Buffy's gang, this time a little redhaired teenaged boy, all raised their hands.

"But it's kinda tied in to the whole werewolf thing," the boy explained.

"Of course it is." Jed decided against a second drink. "And let's see…" He looked over the top of his glasses. "One more time with the guys in love with their best friends?"

Most of the adult male population of the room raised their hands. Mulder was one of them; his little redhaired friend paused mid-shin-kick. And then they hugged rather sweetly.

"Well, okay then. I see you've got a headstart on zero population growth. Good for you." He leaned toward Josh and whispered, "I think Sam's got something he needs to tell you, son."

He tapped the small sheaf of papers against his desk.

"Now that that's all out of the way, what say we--"

Leo cleared his throat delicately.

"Yes, Leo? Can you hear that I'm using my 'I'm running out of patience' voice?"

"Yes, sir, but there's just one more thing…"

"Why, do we have any unicorns in the audience?"

A slender girl with lavender eyes and a tumble of long, faintly pink hair tremulously raised a hand.

"Thank you, dear." Jed stared hard at Leo.

"Other than that, sir. Mr. President… Jed. You're part hobbit."

"Hobbit?"

"He does love to eat," Sam pointed out.

"And he's pretty small," Josh agreed.

"And hobbits are the only beings in Middle Earth that practice any form of democracy," Toby said.

"I beg your pardon, are you calling me some little curly-topped fur-footed rube who only thinks about where his next meal is coming from?"

"C'mon sir, Abbey says you wax your feet every two weeks." CJ didn't even have the grace to look ashamed.

"So I'm hirsute! That hardly makes me a--"

"I'm afraid it does, sir."

"Good god, Leo. What does all this mean?"

"Well, I'm gonna try and explain. First, there's this whole space/time continuum thing, that project we got goin' on over at SG1? And then there are a bunch of evil overlords vying for power on various planes of reality. The upshot is: these kids here represent the entire universe's last, best hope to stop the end of every world, anywhere, ever."

"I see. Sounds pretty serious, Leo."

"It is, sir."

"Sounds like we need armed forces for a maneuver like that."

"We've got 'em, sir."

Leo, two men Jed recognized from the SG-1 project, Mac and his companion, a jug-eared boy from Buffy's crew, the cop who was also a Sentinel, and Toby all stepped forward.

"As you were, gentleman." Jed clapped Leo's shoulder and gave his friend a wry grin. "Leo. This couldn't have waited until after dinner?"

END

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