Jack ran a bandaged hand over his smooth-shaven head. The doctors said he was lucky that his scalp hadn't received worse burns, but he felt the loss of his hair was worse than a slight toast to his scalp. He winced as the burning in his fingertips intensified. Fingerprints or no fingerprints, he was getting out of here. If his team hadn't come for him by now, there was something seriously wrong. The last thing he remembered was staring up at the fireworks from the deck on his roof… then, nothing. If it had really been a week since then, he was in real trouble.
"Grr!" Jack growled at the offending hospital gown that, once again, had blown open to reveal rather private parts of his anatomy. Tonight was the night. He was breaking out of here. He had been biding his time, playing the good patient, waiting for his team. Well, no more! He tried to move as stealthy as he could in hospital slippers, inching his way past the nurse's station to the stairway door. He barely made it, door hissing shut behind him as the loud clacking of the nurse's shoes echoed down the hall.
He breathed a silent sigh of relief and hurried forward. Time was short; the nurse would reach his room and sound the alert within minutes. Jack made his way to the first floor without encounter. Slipping out the door and into the busy emergency room waiting area, Jack tried to blend in… which was surprisingly difficult in a hospital gown the size of a tea towel. An abandoned coat lay wadded up in a seat and Jack seized the opportunity, wrapping himself in its all encompassing warmth.
Glancing around, he crept stealthily past the attending physician, head down. As the sliding-glass doors opened, the whoosh of icy air sliced through the thin coat, gnawing at Jack's bare ankles. Jack shuddered and then braced himself, braving the sleety downpour of an unusually cold summer day.
He had only gotten a block from the hospital, cabs useless unless he could get some cash, when a beat-up pickup screeched to a halt beside him.
"Mac!" The short, mustached man exclaimed, "What did you do to your hair!?" The man asked, laughing as he grabbed O'Neill in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground.
O'Neill pulled away, glaring distrustfully at the unkempt, paunchy figure in front of him.
"What? Don't tell me you're still mad at your old friend Jack about that pesky little smuggling operation!" Jack Dalton exclaimed, hand over his heart. "I told you that I, Captain Jack Dalton and the Fly by Night Carrier Service were permanently retired! You know you can trust me!" Dalton said, eye twitching.
O'Neill stayed silent, skeptically eyeing his newfound "friend". Before he knew it, he found himself bustled away, riding along to "the houseboat" to change out of "that awful outfit", as Dalton put it. Jack couldn't have gotten a word in edgewise if he had wanted to, but for now he was content to find a change of clothes and learn a little more about this "MacGyver" everyone was mistaking him for.