Prompt 28.05

[paian]

Five headaches SG-1 gave George Hammond, which he was finally able to laugh about at his retirement party.


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Five headaches SG-1 gave George Hammond... (part 1)

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

1) During General George Hammond’s tenure at the SCG, some personnel had been better known for their caffeine dependency than others. Doctor Jackson, for instance, was legendary for sheer rate of consumption, and then-Major Carter had a well established reputation for picking up and drinking whatever was in the mug next to her while she was working, with no consideration whatsoever for temperature, freshness, or even, on one or two memorable occasions, for what substance the mug contained. George, on the other hand, had once liked to think he was more circumspect in his devotion. Then had come three days of an escalating headache that led him to the infirmary, prescription painkillers, and a precautionary CT scan, before he realized that someone – and he had a pretty good idea of now-General O’Neill’s taste in pranks – had switched his coffee for decaf. He knew, laughing about it in his kitchen with the four original members of SG-1 as they helped him with the final preparations for his retirement party, that he should have appreciated the humor sooner, but it had been one hell of a headache.

2) In George’s experience, there was a point of maximum inebriated hilarity at most parties, after which either the alcohol ran out or the dedicated drinkers began their slide toward unconsciousness and the not-so-dedicated drinkers finished their last drinks. It was just at that point during his retirement party that someone, who had been at the SGC long enough to remember back that far, brought up the time Teal’c had attempted to have a pizza delivered to him on base. As George remembered it, the guards outside the complex had called NORAD, and NORAD had called him. The whole thing had ballooned into a migraine-inducing operation complete with emergency security clearance, armed escorts and one extremely nervous seventeen-year-old delivery girl, but Teal’c had gotten his pizza. George looked around the crowd for Teal’c, worried that he’d be offended, but Teal’c merely inclined his head serenely and made his way over to offer his thanks for the extreme pains George had taken to permit him to experience that particular aspect of Earth culture. At that point, George felt free to chuckle to himself over the memory of the delivery girl and her four guards and Teal’c solemnly receiving the pizza box at the door to his quarters.

3) Shortly after the incident with Jolinar and the ashrak, George had been at the Pentagon for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs. He had no idea how General Carter had found out about his daughter’s injury, but Jacob had waylaid him in the hallway after the meeting, grabbed him by the lapels, and demanded to know how the hell Samantha could possibly have been so seriously injured in the line of duty doing deep-space radar telemetry. George hadn’t been able to give any answer to satisfy or reassure Samantha’s irate father. He’d nursed the resulting headache all the way back to Colorado Springs. He wasn’t sure why he ended up telling Colonel Carter about it at his retirement party, but she laughed, and he did too, although it wasn’t much of a laugh, with Jacob gone. Sam might laugh at her overprotective father, but for himself, George knew that until he saw the stars pinned on her shoulders and her field career behind her, he was never going to rest much easier than Jacob once had, knowing the risks she routinely ran. He laughed, not at the helpless concern of fathers, but because Sam did, and because he was still certain, seven years later, that had they not both been generals in a very public hallway in the Pentagon, Jacob Carter would have punched him then and there for failing to protect his daughter.