Face-off (team fic)
I just could NOT think of a title. *grumbles*
Written for the sg1teamficathon.
Title: Face-off
Author: Jennghis Kahn (surrealphantast)
Rating: PG for a bad word or three.
Written for: atomicpagan. I’ll reveal what she asked for at the end as it will spoil the story otherwise. I hope you like it, Jo!
A/N- Thanks immensely to both shutthef_up (I made sure she wasn’t writing for me) and rowan_d for doing beta duties for me. This story is decidedly better for their efforts.
**
This was possibly the worst idea Jack had ever had.
It didn’t quite rank up there with the worst idea in the history of bad ideas, but it was close. What the hell had he been thinking?
It was just that he was so accustomed to SG-1 saving the day. Either Daniel would break the code or make a new friend, or Carter would pull a miracle out of her ass, and that was that. Day saved. Time for a beer. And even when those two options failed, they always had Teal’c’s eyebrow, or his own… well, he wasn’t much for miracles or imposing eyebrows, but he knew how to keep the troops in line. Plus, Carter had always said he had a gift for finding the simplicity of a plan. Not that he didn’t see the backhanded jab in her words, but she was brilliant, so he forgave her.
Even when all else failed and SG-1 was on the brink of certain doom, there was always salvation. In the eleventh hour, one of the natives would fall head over heels for either Daniel or Sam. (And Jack found that extremely unfair by the way.) As a token of their affection, the native would help SG-1 escape by the skin of their teeth, and then they’d wave goodbye with a smile and a wistful glint in their eye. Jack had never known two geeks who’d left such a swath of broken hearts across the galaxy.
Yes, when it came to saving Earth or freeing the oppressed or taking down the meanest System Lord, there was no comparison. SG-1 was the best.
However…
He opened the door to the ice rink and stepped carefully onto the ice before looking back at his team.
Hockey? Not so much.
**
He should never have let Makepeace badger him into a bet. But it was hockey and it was for charity and he’d had a lot of beer in a very short time. His drunken pride in SG-1 had been a little overzealous. He couldn’t help it. He loved them, and when Makepeace had started in with the mocking, he’d sort of flipped.
“I don’t care how good SG-3 is, Makepeace. SG-1 and their overwhelming coolness trump them all.”
“Care to put your money where your mouth is, Jack?”
“I’d even put my money where your mouth is, Makepeace. You are SO on!”
Makepeace had laughed, and Jack had been smug and they’d had more beer, and Jack had woken the next morning with a horrible feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with a hangover.
Hockey? SG-1? Ohh… what the hell did I do?
**
Well, there was nothing for it now except forge ahead. Makepeace’s team was made up of 550 pounds of lean, youthful Marine with freshly shorn high-and-tights. Jack had watched them practice last week, all of them with sharpened skates, blades snicking across the ice, the wake of their wind stirring his hair as they sped past his post at the boards.
He stepped aside to allow his team onto the ice. They’d been practicing the skating on their own for a few weeks now. Carter had assured him that Teal’c had picked it up quite easily.
She was right. Teal’c stepped onto the ice in his skates and pushed calmly out, gliding smoothly.
This was good! He felt hopeful.
Carter hopped out onto the ice as if she had been born there, flashing him a grin as she nimbly moved her skates and started on a loop around the rink.
Jack smiled.
Daniel stepped through the doorway, looked around, and promptly fell on his ass.
Jack sighed.
Daniel gave an embarrassed grin. “I’m okay once I get going,” he reassured Jack. Jack helped him up.
“I thought you’d been practicing?” He held his hockey stick horizontally and motioned for Daniel to take hold.
“I have been. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
Apparently not. They skated a few laps, Daniel holding the hockey stick for balance. Even so, the archeologist often tilted too far forward and nearly toppled himself onto the ice.
“Jeez, Daniel. Even I learned how to skate when I was a kid,” Sam smirked as she skated by them.
“Yeah?” Daniel called after her, “Well, try playing hockey while living in a desert for most of your childhood!”
Jack finally shook him off after a few laps, and Daniel skated around the boards, legs stiffly moving back and forth and arms held away from his body for balance. For a geek, Daniel had always had a fair amount of athletic grace, but apparently all that deserted him as soon as he touched ice.
When Jack called them together at center ice to work on some puck handling, Daniel continued to circle around the boards. The others stood and watched him for a moment.
“Daniel?”
“Be there in a second.” Daniel tilted in a bit, pushing with one skate as if he were on a skateboard, and his course corrected by minute degrees, taking him on a circuit just slightly closer to the center. Jack had to give him credit, he was going at a good clip now, and he was smoother, despite the fact that he was staring at the ice in front of him and still had that ‘big arms’ thing going on for balance. They needed to practice with the puck though.
“Daniel!”
“I’m trying!” Again there was another correction and Daniel skated by, a little closer to them.
Sam hid a laugh behind one bulky glove. Jack blew a frustrated breath out through his nose and turned away from the circling archeologist. He dumped several pucks on the ice.
“Okay, slap shots. I’ll do one; you guys practice. Um, try not to hit Daniel as he circles in for a landing.”
He took a few shots on goal, some of the trepidation over the challenge fading away as he felt that old familiar tug and ache in his muscles. The right moves came back to him instantly as if he’d never left the game. Like riding a bike, you just never forgot. He put several pucks in the net, pausing each time Daniel passed in front of it.
“I’m almost there!” Daniel called.
Jack glanced briefly skyward in irritation. “You know, Makepeace’s archeologist played hockey in college, Daniel!” he called back.
"Makepeace's archeologist also misread important cultural signs on P2X-300 and came home married to Makepeace,” Daniel snapped.
Good point.
Jack turned to watch Teal'c and Carter practice and was instantly regretful. "Carter! What the hell are you doing?"
She was skating from side to side, studying the puck and the goal and occasionally holding her stick out to gaze down its length. She glanced up at him. "Determining the correct angle and speed that I need to put the puck precisely into the upper corner of the net. I watched a few games on TV and took some notes, and I think statistically the upper right corner is the least guarded place on the goal."
Oh, for...
"Carter! Do not, I repeat, do NOT do math while you're playing hockey. Just shoot the damn puck!"
"But, sir! Once I figure out the proper... "
"Carter! For God's sake!"
She might have rolled her eyes at him, he wasn't sure. She was too far away, and she turned away at the last second. He regarded her suspiciously, but then she drew back and slapped the puck toward the net. It wasn't a bad shot, but it hit the crossbar of the goal and skidded away on the ice to the boards.
She turned to shoot him an irritated look. He ignored it. "Teal'c. Be my savior, here! Hit it hard. You don't want to give the opposing players a chance to stop it."
Teal'c calmly skated up and faced the net, pulling a puck to his side. He held the hockey stick like a golf club and suddenly took a huge swing, crushing the puck, lifting it in the air and sending it like a shot over the net, the safety glass and into the stands where it ricocheted around the metal seats with a painful clanging.
"Holy... " Sam muttered in awe from beside Jack. Jack stood with mouth open, silently agreeing.
Teal'c turned with one raised brow. Jack had the distinct feeling that T was somehow mocking him.
"Uh... that was good, T. But... it needs to go into the net to actually count, you know that."
Teal'c lifted his head a bit. "I will practice."
"We don't actually want to kill any bystanders. You realize that, don't you?"
Teal'c just lifted the imposing eyebrow. Jack heaved a great sigh. They had exactly five days until the showdown with SG-3. How the hell was he going to whip them into shape by then? Like Austin Powers, he could feel his mojo slipping away by the second, and SG-1's overwhelming coolness would soon belong to Makepeace.
"I'm here!" Daniel appeared suddenly in his line of vision, coming straight for him.
"Turn! Turn!" Jack yelled.
Daniel flew into him, gloves grabbing at his jersey to keep from falling. Jack was dragged down with him, and they collapsed into an ungainly heap on the ice. He heard Sam laughing from a distance.
A brown face appeared above them. "O'Neill! Is that what is called, 'checking'?"
T. Always with the comedy, that guy.
**
Unfortunately, the next 4 days of practice didn't make Jack feel any better. If you looked at Daniel wrong, it sent him into a flailing whirl until his skates slipped out from under him and he sprawled onto the ice with a groan. Jack repeatedly had to order Carter to just stop with the thinking and hit the damn puck. Teal'c apparently saw no need to do anything in a hurry, and skated casually around the ice holding his stick horizontally behind his back as if this whole thing were a Hallmark Christmas movie. Except for the times he hit the puck violently into the seats, leaving dents in the cheap, red metal. And Jack was pretty sure he was doing that on purpose just to add to Jack's pain.
His attempt to demonstrate 'checking' to Teal'c resulted in Jack basically bouncing off the Jaffa and doing a bit of flailing of his own before he slammed backwards into the boards and then took a header onto the ice. He laid there, flat on his back, and wondered if Colonel Makepeace would use his stolen mojo for good or for evil? Then Daniel tripped over Jack's legs and pulled a passing Sam down with him, both of them letting out a surprised yelp.
Teal'c skated a slow circle around all of them, corners of his mouth turned faintly upward in a smug smile.
Jack shoved his stick out and tripped him.
**
"Ready to lose, Jack?"
Jack bent forward over the face-off circle and glared at Makepeace. Makepeace smirked. Jack thought about lifting an elbow into his jaw.
"If by 'ready to lose' you mean ready to kick your ass, then yeah, I'm ready." It sounded lame, even to his ears. Damn it. He used to be so smooth with the comebacks. He needed that mojo back.
There was an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd as the referee dropped the puck. Jack raked at it with his stick. Makepeace scooped it in and passed it back to one of his wings, a young Marine Lieutenant. Jack dropped back into defense, turning to yell at SG-1’s own goal, "Siler, get ready!"
A gung-ho, "Yes, SIR!" came back at him. He grinned.
The padding needed to be a goalie was excessive and expensive, so all of the teams drew lots and shared a small pool of goalies that were already outfitted. Jack drew Siler. He was thrilled to put it lightly. Finally, someone he could count on. Siler didn't practice with them, but he showed up bright and early on game day and seemed eager to play when their turn came that afternoon.
SG-3 came barreling down the ice with all the speed and grace and horror of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. A well-placed pivot took Carter out. Daniel was busy trying to keep himself upright. They simply skated around Teal'c, and Jack couldn't cover them all by himself. He took on the LT, who promptly passed the puck forward to where Makepeace hovered near SG-1's goal. Jack turned to watch Daniel make a lunge in front of the goal, trying to defend. He tripped and slammed into Siler, sweeping him out of the net and allowing Makepeace to casually flip the puck in for the score.
"Aahh!" Jack shouted in horrified frustration. Daniel looked up guiltily from where he lay sprawled over Siler. "Daniel! Stay away from the net!"
He pulled Daniel up by the hand and shoved him to the side. Siler climbed to his feet by himself. "Sorry, sir!"
"Not your fault, Siler." Jack shot Daniel an accusing look.
Daniel furrowed his brow and muttered something that sounded a lot like, "It's just a game."
Jack pointed to an area to the side of the net. "Right there, Daniel. Just skate over there and try not to take out our own team, okay?"
"Sure, coach."
Wiseass. He bet Makepeace's awesome hockey-playing archeologist didn't talk back. The rest of the first period was a blur, his own shouts echoing in his head.
"Teal'c! Would you please DO something? This isn't a skating party with tea and crumpets!"
"Daniel, get out of the way!"
"Carter, just SHOOT!"
"Daniel, get up!"
"Siler! Good job!"
"Oh, for... "
By the end of the first period, SG-3 was leading 3 to 1. Jack had had a breakaway goal to keep them from being shut out.
It was in the second period that Jack found a way to even the odds. As he struggled to stop SG-3 from advancing, Daniel knocked him down again. He jumped up, frustration in every movement as he watched Siler make another save. The next time Daniel started flailing, Jack gave a quick glance at the ref and gave the archeologist a shove... straight into Makepeace. Daniel's waving stick got Makepeace in the shins. The ref immediately blew his whistle, stopping the game.
"Slashing! Number seven. Two minutes!"
"What?" Daniel stared dumbly at the ref before turning to glare at Jack.
Jack shrugged, telling himself he felt guilty as Daniel trudged off to the penalty box. He lost some of that determination though when Carter scored a goal twenty seconds later.
After that, it was easy. When Carter found herself in a tango with Daniel as he tried to balance himself, Jack barked sharply at her. "Carter!" When she looked up, he waved his arm in front of his chest. She shook her head and glared. He glared right back and nodded his head vigorously. Reluctantly she glanced around and then shoved Daniel into a passing member of SG-3. Daniel gave a frustrated yell as the whistle was blown.
"Interference!" The call came.
"Sam!" Daniel protested, shooting her a betrayed look. She shrugged sheepishly as he stumbled back to the penalty box.
In the third period, Teal'c skated casually toward the net, throwing off players left and right as he concentrated on moving the puck with his stick. Goal! Jack was suddenly elated and full of hope. They were tied. They could do this. He watched Makepeace swearing in frustration with his team across the ice, and he knew... they could SO do this.
SG-1 and their overwhelming coolness could not be beat, damn it.
Siler was working overtime defending their goal, but with Daniel in the penalty box most of the time, and Makepeace frustrated, SG-1 battled victoriously to stay even. As the last remaining minute ticked down, Jack called their final time-out and huddled his team together.
"We can do this," he said, looking at each one of them. "We have to do this now because I don't think we'll survive in overtime, and I'm not accepting a tie, damn it. All you have to do is get the puck to me. I’ll get it in.”
“Would you like me to go out there and take out the goalie for you?” Daniel asked dryly. “Maybe I could fake a broken leg and get taken completely out of the building. How would that work for you?”
Jack glanced at Carter. She hid a smile. He looked at Daniel. “Would you mind? I mean, I could do a Tonya Harding on you and make it real if you like.” Sarcasm. It wasn’t much, but it was his.
Daniel pressed his lips together and shot him a glare.
“Tonya Harding?” Teal’c looked between them.
“Yeah, she was this figure skater who…”
“Carter! Explain later! Everyone just get out there and be prepared to pass the puck to me. Understand?”
They did. Jack coasted to center ice and faced off against Makepeace.
“Time to put away your stick for good, Jack.” Makepeace grinned.
Ah, that Makepeace. What a card. “Stop thinking about my stick, Makepeace,” Jack replied. “It’s creepy.”
Makepeace stopped smiling and started glaring instead. Oh, yes! Score! Jack though with as much glee as he could muster.
The ref dropped the puck, and they both went at it aggressively. Jack’s heart thudded rapidly as he kicked and scraped at the puck. He could hear Makepeace breathing hard as they swung around and around in a circle together. Makepeace’s stick caught him in the knee, and Jack gritted his teeth against the pain. No whistle sounded, and Jack wouldn’t have heard it if it had. He was intent on that puck, clawing at it with the blade of his stick.
Makepeace kicked out, and the puck suddenly shot against Jack’s stick. He pulled it quickly to his side and pushed off, darting down the ice toward the goal. He was dimly aware of the crowd yelling and the rest of SG-1 screaming his name. He skated fast, his vision reduced to a tunnel with the goal at the end. The sound of his own breath drowned out everything in his head.
The goalie looked startled. He waved at Jack, put his hands up defensively. What, he doesn’t think I have another one in me? Jack set up and slapped his stick forward, sending the puck into the air. His heart pounded.
The goalie brought his glove up too late. The puck hit the upper crossbar and ricocheted into the net. GOAL!
Jack threw his stick in the air. “YES!”
The crowd was going crazy, and the buzzer for the end of the game sounded throughout the rink. Jack did a little jump on his skates and turned back to find his team. Carter approached him first, and he threw his arms around her in joy. “Carter! Good job!”
“Sir...” She looked at him uneasily.
He gripped her helmet in his hands. “Carter, we did it!”
Teal’c and Daniel skated up beside them. They had the same uneasy expression as Sam.
He furrowed his brow, still not able to contain his grin. “What?”
Sam bit her lip. “Sir… you shot at the wrong goal. SG-3 just won.”
“What?” He stared at her in disbelief. Carter with a joke? Not funny. When he looked at Daniel and Teal’c, he got a cold feeling in his gut. He turned to stare at the goal he’d just shot at and made. SG-3 celebrated in front of it, and Siler was slowly skating toward them. The truth hit him square in the chest.
He heard a strangled sound come out of his own throat as Makepeace turned to grin at him and pump a fist in the air. “You’re our hero, Jack!” The rest of SG-3 laughed.
Then Daniel was flailing again and grabbing his shoulder, and Jack was falling down, down to the ice below, his tunnel vision back in full force as he stared up at the metal girders in the ceiling.
From a distance he felt Daniel shaking him and Teal’c calling his name. And then Carter’s face appeared in his line of vision and he watched her expression turn mournful. “Sir? Are… are you crying?”
**
Lost! SG-1 had lost. And it hadn’t just been Daniel’s bad skating or Carter’s bizarre, over-analytical mind or Teal’c’s lack of interest. It had been Jack and his zealous desire to beat Makepeace’s stinking, smirking face into the ground. Or ice. Whatever.
How the hell did SG-1 always manage to beat the Goa’uld? Why weren’t they dead yet? Maybe they weren’t even that good. Maybe the Goa’uld were just that bad.
Jack slid across the ice in his boots, hands stuffed in his jeans’ pockets, flannel shirt under the leather jacket to keep him warm. Only the maintenance lights burned above him. The rink was shadowed and silent. He shuffled his feet, sliding until he reached the center face-off circle.
They were so uncool.
“Hey.”
He turned and saw Carter coming onto the ice. She shuffled toward him, burying her hands deep into the pockets of her long, black leather coat. Behind her, Teal’c stepped out and started after her. He towed Daniel along behind, both of them in their civvies.
“I thought you guys were at the party at O’Malley’s with the rest of the SGC?”
“Yeah, we were,” Daniel said as they all stood in a circle facing each other.
“We were hoping you’d change your mind and show up, anyway,” Sam said.
“Yeah, well, a drink sounds great, but the one thing I don’t need is to listen to Makepeace give me crap all night for making the winning goal for them.” He still couldn’t believe he’d actually done that. Him!
“He wouldn’t do that,” Daniel insisted. They all looked at him. He rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Okay, maybe he would.”
“We decided we should be with you, O’Neill.” Teal’c tilted his chin upward.
“Yeah, SG-1 and all.” Sam smiled.
“Where’s Siler?” Jack looked toward the doorway.
“Um…” Daniel glanced at Sam. She lifted her brows in a small shrug.
“What?” Jack asked resignedly. Not Siler, too.
“He’s drinking with Makepeace’s team. They asked him to join their men’s league team on Thursday nights.”
Jack scowled. “Traitor.” He glanced around at them. “You’d have been better off staying at the party. I won’t be good company.”
Daniel shrugged. “We’re used to that.”
Leave it to Daniel… Jack turned his mouth down wryly. “Thanks.”
“It was boring, anyway,” Sam said. “Lots of long speeches, that sort of thing. You’d have hated it.”
Teal’c glanced between them in confusion before declaring, “Colonel Makepeace was becoming most insufferable, O’Neill. Major Carter threatened that if we did not leave immediately, she would insert his ego into a very uncomfortable place on his body.”
Daniel huffed out a laugh. Jack looked sharply at Teal’c, one brow arched high. “Did she now?” He looked back at Carter. She might have been blushing, but it was dark and he couldn’t tell for sure.
“Well, he was talking smack about you, sir,” she muttered.
Smack? Carter and street lingo just didn’t go together. It was like listening to a Jaffa tell a joke.
“He said that maybe it was time for a new commander of SG-1, Jack,” Daniel explained. “Obviously he meant himself. And then something about you not being tough enough on us.”
Tough enough? Who the hell did he think he was? “That son of a bitch,” Jack swore.
Teal’c gave that imperious grin he reserved for special moments. “Daniel Jackson told him he could be the leader of SG-1 when he endangered his own life by downloading the knowledge of the ancients into his own head.”
Jack stared at Daniel. Daniel smiled and said, “And then Sam told him to come back when he’d been either pinned to a wall in the gateroom by microscopic aliens or made the decision to fire on his own position to save Earth from invasion.”
Jack swung his gaze to Carter. She glanced down with a smirk before adding, “And then Makepeace got mad and turned to leave but ran right into Teal’c and nearly fell on his ass. Teal’c told him if it weren’t for you, he’d still be a slave of Apophis, and the Colonel should ‘cease his useless prattling’ and return to his table. Or else.”
Jack slid his gaze to Teal’c. “Or else?”
Teal’c lifted his head indignantly. “I did not feel it necessary to explain further.”
Daniel grinned. “Neither did Makepeace. He beat a hasty retreat. I doubt you’ll hear much from him, Jack.”
Jack stared at all of them, amazed. “I, uh… that’s… pretty cool actually.”
Sam and Daniel exchanged secretive smiles. That made him a bit nervous. Old habits… “What?” he asked.
Sam reached into her pocket. “Actually, sir, we brought a little of the party along with us.”
Jack eyed her suspiciously until she pulled out a small, silver flask. Then he grinned. “Carter! You were always my favorite!”
Now she did blush, but she nodded toward Daniel. “Daniel was the one who snuck into the General’s office back at the SGC and got the good stuff.”
Jack’s eyes widened. “The Macallan?”
Daniel grinned. “30 years old.”
Jack reached across the small circle and clapped him on the shoulder. “Nice! You always were my favorite, Daniel.”
Daniel rolled his eyes a bit but produced 4 small paper cups from his own pocket, holding them as Sam poured. She glanced at Teal’c as they passed them out. “It’s just a sip, Teal’c. You don’t have to drink. Just take the cup, it’s more symbolic than anything.”
Teal’c gave her a warm if faint smile. “I will drink on this occasion.”
Jack lifted his cup, waiting until the other three had placed theirs close to his. He looked at each of them. “To SG-1… and our overwhelming coolness. No one can take that away.”
The others murmured an agreement, and they drank. Jack closed his eyes to savor the smooth, smoky taste of the scotch. When he opened them again, he was glad it was dark and they couldn’t see the affection he was sure was showing in his own eyes. Oh, he did love them. So. Damn. Much.
He couldn’t help it, though, as they all walked off the ice together. “So, is there any sport you guys are actually good at?”
~end~
Atomicpagan wanted SG-1 to lose for once, and not even their overwhelming coolness could save them. I’m not sure this is what she had in mind, but it was either this or unendurable angst. (Which would have been sweet too, but the humor thing sort of bit me.)
It's rather silly, but I hope you enjoy. :)
Written for the sg1teamficathon.
Title: Face-off
Author: Jennghis Kahn (surrealphantast)
Rating: PG for a bad word or three.
Written for: atomicpagan. I’ll reveal what she asked for at the end as it will spoil the story otherwise. I hope you like it, Jo!
A/N- Thanks immensely to both shutthef_up (I made sure she wasn’t writing for me) and rowan_d for doing beta duties for me. This story is decidedly better for their efforts.
**
This was possibly the worst idea Jack had ever had.
It didn’t quite rank up there with the worst idea in the history of bad ideas, but it was close. What the hell had he been thinking?
It was just that he was so accustomed to SG-1 saving the day. Either Daniel would break the code or make a new friend, or Carter would pull a miracle out of her ass, and that was that. Day saved. Time for a beer. And even when those two options failed, they always had Teal’c’s eyebrow, or his own… well, he wasn’t much for miracles or imposing eyebrows, but he knew how to keep the troops in line. Plus, Carter had always said he had a gift for finding the simplicity of a plan. Not that he didn’t see the backhanded jab in her words, but she was brilliant, so he forgave her.
Even when all else failed and SG-1 was on the brink of certain doom, there was always salvation. In the eleventh hour, one of the natives would fall head over heels for either Daniel or Sam. (And Jack found that extremely unfair by the way.) As a token of their affection, the native would help SG-1 escape by the skin of their teeth, and then they’d wave goodbye with a smile and a wistful glint in their eye. Jack had never known two geeks who’d left such a swath of broken hearts across the galaxy.
Yes, when it came to saving Earth or freeing the oppressed or taking down the meanest System Lord, there was no comparison. SG-1 was the best.
However…
He opened the door to the ice rink and stepped carefully onto the ice before looking back at his team.
Hockey? Not so much.
**
He should never have let Makepeace badger him into a bet. But it was hockey and it was for charity and he’d had a lot of beer in a very short time. His drunken pride in SG-1 had been a little overzealous. He couldn’t help it. He loved them, and when Makepeace had started in with the mocking, he’d sort of flipped.
“I don’t care how good SG-3 is, Makepeace. SG-1 and their overwhelming coolness trump them all.”
“Care to put your money where your mouth is, Jack?”
“I’d even put my money where your mouth is, Makepeace. You are SO on!”
Makepeace had laughed, and Jack had been smug and they’d had more beer, and Jack had woken the next morning with a horrible feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with a hangover.
Hockey? SG-1? Ohh… what the hell did I do?
**
Well, there was nothing for it now except forge ahead. Makepeace’s team was made up of 550 pounds of lean, youthful Marine with freshly shorn high-and-tights. Jack had watched them practice last week, all of them with sharpened skates, blades snicking across the ice, the wake of their wind stirring his hair as they sped past his post at the boards.
He stepped aside to allow his team onto the ice. They’d been practicing the skating on their own for a few weeks now. Carter had assured him that Teal’c had picked it up quite easily.
She was right. Teal’c stepped onto the ice in his skates and pushed calmly out, gliding smoothly.
This was good! He felt hopeful.
Carter hopped out onto the ice as if she had been born there, flashing him a grin as she nimbly moved her skates and started on a loop around the rink.
Jack smiled.
Daniel stepped through the doorway, looked around, and promptly fell on his ass.
Jack sighed.
Daniel gave an embarrassed grin. “I’m okay once I get going,” he reassured Jack. Jack helped him up.
“I thought you’d been practicing?” He held his hockey stick horizontally and motioned for Daniel to take hold.
“I have been. It’s not as easy as it looks.”
Apparently not. They skated a few laps, Daniel holding the hockey stick for balance. Even so, the archeologist often tilted too far forward and nearly toppled himself onto the ice.
“Jeez, Daniel. Even I learned how to skate when I was a kid,” Sam smirked as she skated by them.
“Yeah?” Daniel called after her, “Well, try playing hockey while living in a desert for most of your childhood!”
Jack finally shook him off after a few laps, and Daniel skated around the boards, legs stiffly moving back and forth and arms held away from his body for balance. For a geek, Daniel had always had a fair amount of athletic grace, but apparently all that deserted him as soon as he touched ice.
When Jack called them together at center ice to work on some puck handling, Daniel continued to circle around the boards. The others stood and watched him for a moment.
“Daniel?”
“Be there in a second.” Daniel tilted in a bit, pushing with one skate as if he were on a skateboard, and his course corrected by minute degrees, taking him on a circuit just slightly closer to the center. Jack had to give him credit, he was going at a good clip now, and he was smoother, despite the fact that he was staring at the ice in front of him and still had that ‘big arms’ thing going on for balance. They needed to practice with the puck though.
“Daniel!”
“I’m trying!” Again there was another correction and Daniel skated by, a little closer to them.
Sam hid a laugh behind one bulky glove. Jack blew a frustrated breath out through his nose and turned away from the circling archeologist. He dumped several pucks on the ice.
“Okay, slap shots. I’ll do one; you guys practice. Um, try not to hit Daniel as he circles in for a landing.”
He took a few shots on goal, some of the trepidation over the challenge fading away as he felt that old familiar tug and ache in his muscles. The right moves came back to him instantly as if he’d never left the game. Like riding a bike, you just never forgot. He put several pucks in the net, pausing each time Daniel passed in front of it.
“I’m almost there!” Daniel called.
Jack glanced briefly skyward in irritation. “You know, Makepeace’s archeologist played hockey in college, Daniel!” he called back.
"Makepeace's archeologist also misread important cultural signs on P2X-300 and came home married to Makepeace,” Daniel snapped.
Good point.
Jack turned to watch Teal'c and Carter practice and was instantly regretful. "Carter! What the hell are you doing?"
She was skating from side to side, studying the puck and the goal and occasionally holding her stick out to gaze down its length. She glanced up at him. "Determining the correct angle and speed that I need to put the puck precisely into the upper corner of the net. I watched a few games on TV and took some notes, and I think statistically the upper right corner is the least guarded place on the goal."
Oh, for...
"Carter! Do not, I repeat, do NOT do math while you're playing hockey. Just shoot the damn puck!"
"But, sir! Once I figure out the proper... "
"Carter! For God's sake!"
She might have rolled her eyes at him, he wasn't sure. She was too far away, and she turned away at the last second. He regarded her suspiciously, but then she drew back and slapped the puck toward the net. It wasn't a bad shot, but it hit the crossbar of the goal and skidded away on the ice to the boards.
She turned to shoot him an irritated look. He ignored it. "Teal'c. Be my savior, here! Hit it hard. You don't want to give the opposing players a chance to stop it."
Teal'c calmly skated up and faced the net, pulling a puck to his side. He held the hockey stick like a golf club and suddenly took a huge swing, crushing the puck, lifting it in the air and sending it like a shot over the net, the safety glass and into the stands where it ricocheted around the metal seats with a painful clanging.
"Holy... " Sam muttered in awe from beside Jack. Jack stood with mouth open, silently agreeing.
Teal'c turned with one raised brow. Jack had the distinct feeling that T was somehow mocking him.
"Uh... that was good, T. But... it needs to go into the net to actually count, you know that."
Teal'c lifted his head a bit. "I will practice."
"We don't actually want to kill any bystanders. You realize that, don't you?"
Teal'c just lifted the imposing eyebrow. Jack heaved a great sigh. They had exactly five days until the showdown with SG-3. How the hell was he going to whip them into shape by then? Like Austin Powers, he could feel his mojo slipping away by the second, and SG-1's overwhelming coolness would soon belong to Makepeace.
"I'm here!" Daniel appeared suddenly in his line of vision, coming straight for him.
"Turn! Turn!" Jack yelled.
Daniel flew into him, gloves grabbing at his jersey to keep from falling. Jack was dragged down with him, and they collapsed into an ungainly heap on the ice. He heard Sam laughing from a distance.
A brown face appeared above them. "O'Neill! Is that what is called, 'checking'?"
T. Always with the comedy, that guy.
**
Unfortunately, the next 4 days of practice didn't make Jack feel any better. If you looked at Daniel wrong, it sent him into a flailing whirl until his skates slipped out from under him and he sprawled onto the ice with a groan. Jack repeatedly had to order Carter to just stop with the thinking and hit the damn puck. Teal'c apparently saw no need to do anything in a hurry, and skated casually around the ice holding his stick horizontally behind his back as if this whole thing were a Hallmark Christmas movie. Except for the times he hit the puck violently into the seats, leaving dents in the cheap, red metal. And Jack was pretty sure he was doing that on purpose just to add to Jack's pain.
His attempt to demonstrate 'checking' to Teal'c resulted in Jack basically bouncing off the Jaffa and doing a bit of flailing of his own before he slammed backwards into the boards and then took a header onto the ice. He laid there, flat on his back, and wondered if Colonel Makepeace would use his stolen mojo for good or for evil? Then Daniel tripped over Jack's legs and pulled a passing Sam down with him, both of them letting out a surprised yelp.
Teal'c skated a slow circle around all of them, corners of his mouth turned faintly upward in a smug smile.
Jack shoved his stick out and tripped him.
**
"Ready to lose, Jack?"
Jack bent forward over the face-off circle and glared at Makepeace. Makepeace smirked. Jack thought about lifting an elbow into his jaw.
"If by 'ready to lose' you mean ready to kick your ass, then yeah, I'm ready." It sounded lame, even to his ears. Damn it. He used to be so smooth with the comebacks. He needed that mojo back.
There was an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd as the referee dropped the puck. Jack raked at it with his stick. Makepeace scooped it in and passed it back to one of his wings, a young Marine Lieutenant. Jack dropped back into defense, turning to yell at SG-1’s own goal, "Siler, get ready!"
A gung-ho, "Yes, SIR!" came back at him. He grinned.
The padding needed to be a goalie was excessive and expensive, so all of the teams drew lots and shared a small pool of goalies that were already outfitted. Jack drew Siler. He was thrilled to put it lightly. Finally, someone he could count on. Siler didn't practice with them, but he showed up bright and early on game day and seemed eager to play when their turn came that afternoon.
SG-3 came barreling down the ice with all the speed and grace and horror of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. A well-placed pivot took Carter out. Daniel was busy trying to keep himself upright. They simply skated around Teal'c, and Jack couldn't cover them all by himself. He took on the LT, who promptly passed the puck forward to where Makepeace hovered near SG-1's goal. Jack turned to watch Daniel make a lunge in front of the goal, trying to defend. He tripped and slammed into Siler, sweeping him out of the net and allowing Makepeace to casually flip the puck in for the score.
"Aahh!" Jack shouted in horrified frustration. Daniel looked up guiltily from where he lay sprawled over Siler. "Daniel! Stay away from the net!"
He pulled Daniel up by the hand and shoved him to the side. Siler climbed to his feet by himself. "Sorry, sir!"
"Not your fault, Siler." Jack shot Daniel an accusing look.
Daniel furrowed his brow and muttered something that sounded a lot like, "It's just a game."
Jack pointed to an area to the side of the net. "Right there, Daniel. Just skate over there and try not to take out our own team, okay?"
"Sure, coach."
Wiseass. He bet Makepeace's awesome hockey-playing archeologist didn't talk back. The rest of the first period was a blur, his own shouts echoing in his head.
"Teal'c! Would you please DO something? This isn't a skating party with tea and crumpets!"
"Daniel, get out of the way!"
"Carter, just SHOOT!"
"Daniel, get up!"
"Siler! Good job!"
"Oh, for... "
By the end of the first period, SG-3 was leading 3 to 1. Jack had had a breakaway goal to keep them from being shut out.
It was in the second period that Jack found a way to even the odds. As he struggled to stop SG-3 from advancing, Daniel knocked him down again. He jumped up, frustration in every movement as he watched Siler make another save. The next time Daniel started flailing, Jack gave a quick glance at the ref and gave the archeologist a shove... straight into Makepeace. Daniel's waving stick got Makepeace in the shins. The ref immediately blew his whistle, stopping the game.
"Slashing! Number seven. Two minutes!"
"What?" Daniel stared dumbly at the ref before turning to glare at Jack.
Jack shrugged, telling himself he felt guilty as Daniel trudged off to the penalty box. He lost some of that determination though when Carter scored a goal twenty seconds later.
After that, it was easy. When Carter found herself in a tango with Daniel as he tried to balance himself, Jack barked sharply at her. "Carter!" When she looked up, he waved his arm in front of his chest. She shook her head and glared. He glared right back and nodded his head vigorously. Reluctantly she glanced around and then shoved Daniel into a passing member of SG-3. Daniel gave a frustrated yell as the whistle was blown.
"Interference!" The call came.
"Sam!" Daniel protested, shooting her a betrayed look. She shrugged sheepishly as he stumbled back to the penalty box.
In the third period, Teal'c skated casually toward the net, throwing off players left and right as he concentrated on moving the puck with his stick. Goal! Jack was suddenly elated and full of hope. They were tied. They could do this. He watched Makepeace swearing in frustration with his team across the ice, and he knew... they could SO do this.
SG-1 and their overwhelming coolness could not be beat, damn it.
Siler was working overtime defending their goal, but with Daniel in the penalty box most of the time, and Makepeace frustrated, SG-1 battled victoriously to stay even. As the last remaining minute ticked down, Jack called their final time-out and huddled his team together.
"We can do this," he said, looking at each one of them. "We have to do this now because I don't think we'll survive in overtime, and I'm not accepting a tie, damn it. All you have to do is get the puck to me. I’ll get it in.”
“Would you like me to go out there and take out the goalie for you?” Daniel asked dryly. “Maybe I could fake a broken leg and get taken completely out of the building. How would that work for you?”
Jack glanced at Carter. She hid a smile. He looked at Daniel. “Would you mind? I mean, I could do a Tonya Harding on you and make it real if you like.” Sarcasm. It wasn’t much, but it was his.
Daniel pressed his lips together and shot him a glare.
“Tonya Harding?” Teal’c looked between them.
“Yeah, she was this figure skater who…”
“Carter! Explain later! Everyone just get out there and be prepared to pass the puck to me. Understand?”
They did. Jack coasted to center ice and faced off against Makepeace.
“Time to put away your stick for good, Jack.” Makepeace grinned.
Ah, that Makepeace. What a card. “Stop thinking about my stick, Makepeace,” Jack replied. “It’s creepy.”
Makepeace stopped smiling and started glaring instead. Oh, yes! Score! Jack though with as much glee as he could muster.
The ref dropped the puck, and they both went at it aggressively. Jack’s heart thudded rapidly as he kicked and scraped at the puck. He could hear Makepeace breathing hard as they swung around and around in a circle together. Makepeace’s stick caught him in the knee, and Jack gritted his teeth against the pain. No whistle sounded, and Jack wouldn’t have heard it if it had. He was intent on that puck, clawing at it with the blade of his stick.
Makepeace kicked out, and the puck suddenly shot against Jack’s stick. He pulled it quickly to his side and pushed off, darting down the ice toward the goal. He was dimly aware of the crowd yelling and the rest of SG-1 screaming his name. He skated fast, his vision reduced to a tunnel with the goal at the end. The sound of his own breath drowned out everything in his head.
The goalie looked startled. He waved at Jack, put his hands up defensively. What, he doesn’t think I have another one in me? Jack set up and slapped his stick forward, sending the puck into the air. His heart pounded.
The goalie brought his glove up too late. The puck hit the upper crossbar and ricocheted into the net. GOAL!
Jack threw his stick in the air. “YES!”
The crowd was going crazy, and the buzzer for the end of the game sounded throughout the rink. Jack did a little jump on his skates and turned back to find his team. Carter approached him first, and he threw his arms around her in joy. “Carter! Good job!”
“Sir...” She looked at him uneasily.
He gripped her helmet in his hands. “Carter, we did it!”
Teal’c and Daniel skated up beside them. They had the same uneasy expression as Sam.
He furrowed his brow, still not able to contain his grin. “What?”
Sam bit her lip. “Sir… you shot at the wrong goal. SG-3 just won.”
“What?” He stared at her in disbelief. Carter with a joke? Not funny. When he looked at Daniel and Teal’c, he got a cold feeling in his gut. He turned to stare at the goal he’d just shot at and made. SG-3 celebrated in front of it, and Siler was slowly skating toward them. The truth hit him square in the chest.
He heard a strangled sound come out of his own throat as Makepeace turned to grin at him and pump a fist in the air. “You’re our hero, Jack!” The rest of SG-3 laughed.
Then Daniel was flailing again and grabbing his shoulder, and Jack was falling down, down to the ice below, his tunnel vision back in full force as he stared up at the metal girders in the ceiling.
From a distance he felt Daniel shaking him and Teal’c calling his name. And then Carter’s face appeared in his line of vision and he watched her expression turn mournful. “Sir? Are… are you crying?”
**
Lost! SG-1 had lost. And it hadn’t just been Daniel’s bad skating or Carter’s bizarre, over-analytical mind or Teal’c’s lack of interest. It had been Jack and his zealous desire to beat Makepeace’s stinking, smirking face into the ground. Or ice. Whatever.
How the hell did SG-1 always manage to beat the Goa’uld? Why weren’t they dead yet? Maybe they weren’t even that good. Maybe the Goa’uld were just that bad.
Jack slid across the ice in his boots, hands stuffed in his jeans’ pockets, flannel shirt under the leather jacket to keep him warm. Only the maintenance lights burned above him. The rink was shadowed and silent. He shuffled his feet, sliding until he reached the center face-off circle.
They were so uncool.
“Hey.”
He turned and saw Carter coming onto the ice. She shuffled toward him, burying her hands deep into the pockets of her long, black leather coat. Behind her, Teal’c stepped out and started after her. He towed Daniel along behind, both of them in their civvies.
“I thought you guys were at the party at O’Malley’s with the rest of the SGC?”
“Yeah, we were,” Daniel said as they all stood in a circle facing each other.
“We were hoping you’d change your mind and show up, anyway,” Sam said.
“Yeah, well, a drink sounds great, but the one thing I don’t need is to listen to Makepeace give me crap all night for making the winning goal for them.” He still couldn’t believe he’d actually done that. Him!
“He wouldn’t do that,” Daniel insisted. They all looked at him. He rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Okay, maybe he would.”
“We decided we should be with you, O’Neill.” Teal’c tilted his chin upward.
“Yeah, SG-1 and all.” Sam smiled.
“Where’s Siler?” Jack looked toward the doorway.
“Um…” Daniel glanced at Sam. She lifted her brows in a small shrug.
“What?” Jack asked resignedly. Not Siler, too.
“He’s drinking with Makepeace’s team. They asked him to join their men’s league team on Thursday nights.”
Jack scowled. “Traitor.” He glanced around at them. “You’d have been better off staying at the party. I won’t be good company.”
Daniel shrugged. “We’re used to that.”
Leave it to Daniel… Jack turned his mouth down wryly. “Thanks.”
“It was boring, anyway,” Sam said. “Lots of long speeches, that sort of thing. You’d have hated it.”
Teal’c glanced between them in confusion before declaring, “Colonel Makepeace was becoming most insufferable, O’Neill. Major Carter threatened that if we did not leave immediately, she would insert his ego into a very uncomfortable place on his body.”
Daniel huffed out a laugh. Jack looked sharply at Teal’c, one brow arched high. “Did she now?” He looked back at Carter. She might have been blushing, but it was dark and he couldn’t tell for sure.
“Well, he was talking smack about you, sir,” she muttered.
Smack? Carter and street lingo just didn’t go together. It was like listening to a Jaffa tell a joke.
“He said that maybe it was time for a new commander of SG-1, Jack,” Daniel explained. “Obviously he meant himself. And then something about you not being tough enough on us.”
Tough enough? Who the hell did he think he was? “That son of a bitch,” Jack swore.
Teal’c gave that imperious grin he reserved for special moments. “Daniel Jackson told him he could be the leader of SG-1 when he endangered his own life by downloading the knowledge of the ancients into his own head.”
Jack stared at Daniel. Daniel smiled and said, “And then Sam told him to come back when he’d been either pinned to a wall in the gateroom by microscopic aliens or made the decision to fire on his own position to save Earth from invasion.”
Jack swung his gaze to Carter. She glanced down with a smirk before adding, “And then Makepeace got mad and turned to leave but ran right into Teal’c and nearly fell on his ass. Teal’c told him if it weren’t for you, he’d still be a slave of Apophis, and the Colonel should ‘cease his useless prattling’ and return to his table. Or else.”
Jack slid his gaze to Teal’c. “Or else?”
Teal’c lifted his head indignantly. “I did not feel it necessary to explain further.”
Daniel grinned. “Neither did Makepeace. He beat a hasty retreat. I doubt you’ll hear much from him, Jack.”
Jack stared at all of them, amazed. “I, uh… that’s… pretty cool actually.”
Sam and Daniel exchanged secretive smiles. That made him a bit nervous. Old habits… “What?” he asked.
Sam reached into her pocket. “Actually, sir, we brought a little of the party along with us.”
Jack eyed her suspiciously until she pulled out a small, silver flask. Then he grinned. “Carter! You were always my favorite!”
Now she did blush, but she nodded toward Daniel. “Daniel was the one who snuck into the General’s office back at the SGC and got the good stuff.”
Jack’s eyes widened. “The Macallan?”
Daniel grinned. “30 years old.”
Jack reached across the small circle and clapped him on the shoulder. “Nice! You always were my favorite, Daniel.”
Daniel rolled his eyes a bit but produced 4 small paper cups from his own pocket, holding them as Sam poured. She glanced at Teal’c as they passed them out. “It’s just a sip, Teal’c. You don’t have to drink. Just take the cup, it’s more symbolic than anything.”
Teal’c gave her a warm if faint smile. “I will drink on this occasion.”
Jack lifted his cup, waiting until the other three had placed theirs close to his. He looked at each of them. “To SG-1… and our overwhelming coolness. No one can take that away.”
The others murmured an agreement, and they drank. Jack closed his eyes to savor the smooth, smoky taste of the scotch. When he opened them again, he was glad it was dark and they couldn’t see the affection he was sure was showing in his own eyes. Oh, he did love them. So. Damn. Much.
He couldn’t help it, though, as they all walked off the ice together. “So, is there any sport you guys are actually good at?”
~end~
Atomicpagan wanted SG-1 to lose for once, and not even their overwhelming coolness could save them. I’m not sure this is what she had in mind, but it was either this or unendurable angst. (Which would have been sweet too, but the humor thing sort of bit me.)
It's rather silly, but I hope you enjoy. :)