Colonel
Jack O'Neill was thinking about pizza, beer, and hockey—in that
order—when it happened.
He'd had a rather uneventful day
at the SGC with just some paperwork and a few mission reports to
complete. With the rest of the team attending to various projects and
assignments for the duration of the week, it had made for a boring—if
productive—day.
Every now and then his scientists got the
opportunity to join another team and exercise the scientific portion
of their brains a little more than they normally did. As the
frontline field unit of the SGC, it was sometimes difficult for
Carter and Daniel to actually do anything scientific when they were
off world. So, when there came a time when he could send them on
their merry scientific way, Jack tried to do so.
Even though
he dreaded each and every passing minute, he did it anyway.
So
when he'd finally finished his last file and poked his head into
General Hammond's office to say goodnight, he was ready to relax.
He had a slight headache and his eyes were hurting a little—squinting
at the computer screen and the various bits of paper for hours on end
could do that to the people with the best of eyesight—let alone a
slightly worn Air Force Colonel.
He had a date tonight with
his couch, a beer, pizza, and hockey. There was a game on tonight
that he'd been dying to watch for the past few days and it was
scheduled to begin at 2100 hours. He had just enough time to stop,
get food, and get himself home in time to catch the opening minutes
of the game.
Unfortunately, things didn't go quite the way
that he had planned.
It had been raining when he left the
mountain, a pleasantly steady drizzle, just enough to wet the roads
and make them slick. With his big truck and four-wheel drive, he had
no problem negotiating the damp mountain roads.
However, that
was not the case for the other truck.
He had just turned up
the radio—his favorite station was playing some great classic rock
tunes from the 1970s—when the blaring lights of an oncoming vehicle
blinded him.
He reacted immediately. His reflexes were
perfect. He reacted quickly, wrenching the wheel hard to the right in
order to avoid the oncoming car. Unfortunately, the road, the other
vehicle, and his tires had other things in mind.
Jack could
feel his tires slipping and he tried to recover, tried to make his
truck go the way he needed it to go.
He knew that he was going
off the road, into the ditch and the trees that lined the winding
mountain pass. There was no doubt in Jack's mind. This was not
going to be pretty and his insurance company was so not going to like
this.
The vehicle he'd been trying to avoid, however, had
also reacted but instead of turning away, it slid further into
O'Neill's lane, managing to hit O'Neill's truck broadside,
along the driver's side. The impact crushed the metal inward,
shoving the truck off its original trajectory, and spinning both of
the vehicles around before their momentum pushed them both into the
ditch—and into contact with one of the largest trees Jack had ever
seen.
Out of control, with his left arm already pinned in some
of the twisted metal, the last thought Jack had before his truck
slammed into the tree was about pizza, beer, and hockey.
He
was so going to miss dinner and the game.
