New Socks

Category: Humor

Season: 6 because Jonas is in it

Rating: PG some language

Disclaimer: nope... don't own it, wish I owned it, with any luck I'll just buy a brick outside of the studio with my name on it. (sighs)

"Damn." Jack said on his way to the chow hall for lunch. He stopped right in the middle of the corridor and turned his right toe into the floor and twisted, like he was putting out a cigarette, and kept walking. He was almost to the entrance to the mess, when he had to stop and adjust his foot again. Getting strange looks from some of the airmen, and annoyed looks from some others, he pretended to squash another cigarette on the concrete.

"Damn Damn." Realizing, that doing the twist in the middle of the commissary was a bit indiscreet, the Colonel quickly got in line for the noon day meal. The server behind the counter plopped a big scoop of some sort of meat-like substance onto his plate, and Jack's stomach growled at the sight. Yum. Well, it was better than the MRE's, and at least there were the potato chips he could count as his vegetable serving. He got his drink and took his tray to one of the tables on the far side of the commissary to eat in peace.

"God this really sucks." Jack stood up from his seat and proceeded to try and adjust his right shoe and it's contents once again. The damn thing just wouldn't budge. He continued to do the one-legged moonwalk until he felt it let up a little, and sat back down to finish eating. Content with the decision to just take his boot off and fix the situation after the meal, Jack let his mind drift to other things.

Standing up to dispose of the remnants of his lunch, the Colonel felt his sock ride up in his boot again. That was it. Back in the corridor from the commissary, Jack sat right down and started untying his boot. He couldn't stand it any more. He had a hole in his right sock from wearing his steel-toed boots all the time, and the hole was just enough to let his big toe through. So he had the big toe out of the hole, and the rest of the toes still in the sock, and it was driving him mad. He only had three loops on his boot undone, and the klaxons started blaring about an unauthorized incoming traveler.

"UNAUTHORIZED INCOMING WORMHOLE! DEFENSE TEAM REPORT TO LEVEL 28!"

"Ahh for god's sake! Couldn't you have just given me two minutes?" The Colonel was looking directly up at the loud speaker above him. He quickly re-laced his boot and jogged to the elevators. Teal'c got in with him, when the elevator stopped at his level.

"Good day O'Neill. I wonder who is attempting a visit?" Teal'c waited for a response from Jack.

"I don't really know, nor do I care. I can't WAIT to get these goddamned boots off. I have a...hole in my sock, and my toe is sticking through it, and it is annoying the shit out of me, and I really just needed to tell someone that, even though it didn't make me feel any better." He stopped for a breath, and Teal'c just looked at him.

"I understand." Was all the Jaffa had to reply with. Really, he didn't. Why did O'Neill not just go and get different socks? Teal'c certainly had plenty of them, and not one had a hole in it. In fact, since Jaffa did not wear socks, he was most fascinated by the concept, and his sock collection was second only to his hat collection on his list of favorite things. Teal'c rather enjoyed wearing socks now that he wasn't required to wear Jaffa battle dress. The doors opened at level 27 and the pair went through to the control room. Sam and Jonas were already there, along with Jacob and General Hammond. The defense team was already dispersing. His big toe temporarily forgotten, the Colonel greeted Jacob\Selmak.

"Hey Jacob! Hey Selmak! How're you doing today? I see you guys are still leading this... double life. How's things treating' ya?"

Sam rolled her eyes, and General Hammond let a slight smirk escape from his lips. Jacob was about to respond, but Selmak cut him off before he could answer.

"We are fine Colonel. Jacob has been missing his daughter quite a bit lately, and the Tok'ra have finally settled onto our new home world. So I made him take a little vacation to journey here to Earth to see her. otherwise, he would have driven me crazy." Selmak lowered his head and Jacob returned.

"Yeah yeah, but Sam I can't stay very long. There are many things that need to be done, especially with a bunch of Tok'ra operatives getting prepared to go on several different missions." Jacob continued talking to Sam as they walked out of the control room. The rest of the group broke up as well, leaving just the General and his 2IC behind. Jack realized that in his haste to get to the control room quickly, he had inadvertently made the hole in his sock even bigger. He dug his heel into the floor, and started grinding his foot back and forth, in a sawing motion.

"Colonel? What are you doing?" Hammond didn't seem in the least bit surprised. It was Jack O'Neill after all, and nothing that man did surprised him anymore.

"Nothing sir. May I be dismissed?" Jack wanted to go change his socks.

"Colonel, I never ordered you here in the first place, of course you can go." Hammond waved his hand indicating that Jack was indeed free to go.

"Thank you sir. See you later." The Colonel ran out of the control room and down the hall to the elevators. Along the way he passed Sam and Jacob. They just glanced up as he zoomed by them, shook their heads, and continued walking. Jack got to his quarters, and sat down on the bed to finally take his boot off. Yup. There it was, big ole toe sticking straight out of his worn down black sock.

He took his sock off, and massaged the area between his big and second toes. Damn, it was actually raw where the sock had been rubbing. He got up to scrounge in his things for a fresh pair of socks. Oh yes, there they were. Good thing he had brought three of everything. Always best to be prepared for an emergency mission, or urgent base lock down. He pulled them out of his duffle, and started to put the fresh pair on. As he pulled the sock over his right foot, he realized that this sock too, had a hole in it. But the hole was on the heel of the sock, so Jack tried the other one.

He put the match to the fresh pair over his foot, and got it half way up when he saw the opening at the toe of the sock. Another hole and this one was pretty big too.

"Shit!" Well, I'll have to use one of the other pairs." Jack pulled out the remaining four socks, one by one.

And one by one, he discovered that they all had holes; and that the holes were not little dot-sized holes either. They were equal in size or larger than the one on the sock that he just took off.

"They can't ALL have holes!" Out of curiosity, he removed the laces from the boot of his other foot, and took his foot out to examine the sock. His left foot revealed a sock that had not only one hole, but two holes! One in the ball of the foot, and one in the heel.

"How... in ... the ...HELL did I miss that this morning?!" Jack said, now getting pretty pissed off at his self. He had a suspicious feeling that all of his socks might have holes in them, and he'd been too distracted lately to realize it.

"Well, shit on a stick." Jack sat thoughtfully at the edge of the bed, talking to himself. "I seriously need to invest in some socks. Maybe Hammond will let me take some personal time for the rest of today so I can go shopping. I'll just tell him I am sick or something, he'll buy it" Jack picked out the sock with the hole in the heel, so at least his toes wouldn't stick out. As he started to put his boots back on, the klaxons started blaring yet again, and a voice came over the loud speaker.

"UNAUTHORIZED INCOMING TRAVELER! IRIS BREECH DETECTED! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! REPEAT. IRIS BREECH DETECTED; THIS IS NO DAMN DRILL! "

Jack wasn't going to pay attention to the second interruption of the afternoon, until he heard the part about the iris breech. Forgetting about lacing up his boots, he took off towards the elevators without further hesitation. By the time Jack arrived in the control room, he heard gunfire and what sounded like small explosions. The technicians were all at the controls, pale and wide eyed, but staying at their posts as they should, and the blast doors were down.

"Where's my team? Who's down there? What the hell happened?" The Colonel screamed at anyone who would answer him.

Davis spoke up right away.

"Well, sir, about ten minutes ago, we received part of Sg-5's iris code. The computer recognized it, but the code wasn't complete. There was some sort of malfunction because the iris opened enough to let ammunition through. Apparently Sg-5 ran into some hostiles on the planet they were visiting. Major Carter was down in the gate room with Jacob and the General, when all this started. They were going to send Jacob back sir. We were dialing out and an incoming wormhole established before the seventh chevron locked. I don't know what's happening, General Hammond ordered the blast doors down, and the corridor sealed off. Last I saw sir, he and Jacob and Major Carter were taking cover beside the ramp." The technician's face grew whiter by the second. He truly thought his life was over.

"Yeah, okay. I am going down there. If they are stuck by the ramp, maybe I can get to the breaker and shut the power down. That should automatically cause the iris to close. Then hopefully when the thirty eight-minute window shuts the gate down, it will be enough discouragement for whoever is on the other side to stop shooting. Give me fifteen seconds, and then open that door" Jack pointed to the one closest to the breakers. The explosions were deafening. The control room shook as one explosion after the other bombarded the gate room.

"Yes Sir!" Davis answered smartly.

As Jack stood outside the entrance to the gate room, he couldn't help but wonder if the three that had been trapped were still alive. The defense team stood behind their Colonel, and waited with him for the doors to open. He turned and spoke to them quickly.

"Get in there and get them out as fast as humanly possible. You rescue Major Carter, and Jacob, and General Hammond. Let me be the one to get to the breakers. This is not defensive tactics, this is a rescue. Understood?" Without waiting for the appropriate response from his men, Jack charged into the gate room the instant the doors slid open, and his soldiers were right behind him.

Not even looking in the direction of the ramp, the Colonel got to the breaker, and shut down the power. Just before the iris closed, and the gate room went dark, Jack saw an object fly through the center of the iris. It landed directly in front of the gate, and stopped. It was a bomb, he was sure of it.

"GET DOWN!!" Was all that Jack had time to say before the explosion literally took him out of his unlaced boots, and sent him flying across the gate room to the back wall. He landed on his bum with a grunt and a "humph", and just sat like that.

"Ow" Jack said to no one. He got up to his knees and crawled over to where the defense team was slowly rolling off of their protected. Jack saw that indeed, Sam, Jacob, and the General were all okay. A little shaken, but no worse for the wear.

"Is everyone okay?" Jack asked as the special forces got up to assess the damage to the gate room.

"We're fine Colonel." Hammond choked back through the thick smoke. "We have to open that gate again as soon as the wormhole shuts down, so we can find out what happened to Sg-5. Jacob, if you don't mind, we'll send you home now." One of the airmen helped the General to his feet.

"That'll be fine George, will you guys be okay? There's a lot of damage here." Jacob was looking directly down at Jack as he spoke.

// Especially to his socks. Do the Tauri not change their socks regularly?// Selmak inquired. Jacob ignored her.

The thirty eight-minute window passed and the gate shut down. General Hammond ordered the new home world of the Tok'ra to be dialed, so that Jacob could return to his new planet. Sam was on her feet at her dad's side giving him final goodbyes. Jack and the General both shook Jacob's hand, and then he was off again through the wormhole to his vacation home on the other side of the galaxy.

Sam left without much to say, and Jack and Hammond were left alone for the second time that day. The Colonel was yet to put his boots back on, in fact, he wasn't exactly sure where they had been sent flying to during the explosion.

"Jack, let's get the damage control crew down here for clean up, I want to try and find out what happened to Sg-5." Exasperatedly, the General turned to leave and head for the control room.

"Oh and Colonel? For god's sake, get some new socks, will you? The ones you've got on now could use a little damage control too. That's an order. And the next time you feel like being a hero again, could you at least keep your shoes on?" Hammond sniggered as he shook his head and walked up to the control room.

"What's wrong with these sir?!" Jack called out to his CO as he looked down at his socks. In all the excitement, he didn't realize that he had torn an additional hole in the right sock, and now both socks had two huge holes in them. His left toes were sticking out of the bottom of the sock on his left foot, and the heel hole had gotten so big on his right sock that his ankle was now showing.

"I like these socks sir! Very spacious, and they even have central air!" Jack said to the General as he found his boots and proceeded to put them back on, holes in his socks be damned.

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Thanks for reading! Didn't that make you curl your toes and try and remember what pair of socks you put on this morning? Feel free to review!