It was a good hour before Jack made it to the infirmary to check on his (former) team. He ran across Teal'c first, sitting patiently on a cot.
"O'Neill," the alien greeted.
"Teal'c. How's the arm?" His friend still held it gingerly.
"The medical staff are repairing Daniel Jackson's leg. I am to be next."
Fair enough. "And Carter?"
"Her head injury is not believed to be serious, though she is to remain through the night," Teal'c said, pointing further into the infirmary with his good hand. "I was told she is sleeping but have not yet been permitted to see for myself."
And Teal'c always checked on his injured teammates personally, so Jack knew how irritating that was for him. "I'll look in on her," he promised.
He walked past a curtained area, shaking his head at the familiar voice that complained, "Ow. Ow. Are you done poking at it yet?" and continued to the last bay. They'd turned off the light above her bed, and his shadow crossed her face as he stepped up beside her.
She blinked slowly, half-asleep. "Sir."
"Carter. How's the head?"
"Mmm. Think I drank too much."
He chuckled. "Not exactly. I take it you're not the person to ask for a mission report, huh?"
"Mission," she murmured. "Oh. Oh." He'd heard her giggle – really, truly giggle – more in the last hour than in eight years. "We fell off the yellow brick road."
"What?" He wasn't really asking her to reiterate that; her explanation wouldn't make sense, anyway. He changed the subject. "You guys made quite the picture up there. Wish I'd had a camera."
She lifted an eyebrow with a yawn.
"Teal'c looked like a bear with a wounded paw, and Daniel was stumbling around against the railing. And you. Upside down."
"Ohhh," she declared with far too much vigor, mitigated only by a complete lack of physical energy. "The lion, the tin man, and the scarecrow!"
Huh? "Okay, the lion makes sense... and I guess I can see you as the scarecrow, but... the tin man? What, Daniel doesn't have a heart?"
"Sir," she insisted, her tone indicating clearly that what she was about to say explained everything, "I have a concussion."
"Right."
Her eyes watered from the fatigue and the yawning, and he probably should have let her sleep, but he just couldn't let that go yet. "Wait. If Teal'c is the lion and Daniel's the tin man and you're the scarecrow, who am I?"
"Thass easy, sir," she mumbled past a goofy, tired grin, her blinks getting longer and longer despite herself. "You're the wizard."
Surely his chest didn't visibly puff as much as he felt like it did. "Oh, yeah? How's that?"
"'Cause you get away with everything," she slurred, eyes closed and less than half-conscious. "Even though... you pull it all... out of your..."
Jack could do nothing but stare at her, shocked (and amused as hell), as the words ceded to mumbles and then silence. "Note to self," he told the air after a moment, "never ask Carter a question you don't want an honest answer to when she's concussed."
Shaking his head, he went to give Teal'c an update. He'd only made it a few feet, though, when Daniel crutched his way through the curtains. "Hey, Jack. How is she?"
Spunky verging on insubordinately cute? "Sleeping. She's still pretty out of it."
"I thought I'd sit with her awhile."
"Sounds good. I'll be staring cross-eyed at requisition forms," Jack quipped.
"Okay."
He tried. He really did. But he just couldn't let it go. After all, this had been a point of contention between the two of them for years. "Oh, and Daniel?"
"Yeah, Jack?"
"It's official. I am the Great and Powerful Oz." Not Daniel. No matter what he said.
"Sam finally voted, huh?"
Jack nodded smugly.
"Then who am I?"
"Uh..." A paint-covered bumbling rust bucket with a hole in his chest?
And then a brilliant idea occurred to him. After all... he ought to share the entertainment, right?
"Ask Carter."