I have a way of sticking my nose into things that really aren’t any of my business.

My name is Jack O’Neill, Colonel Jack O’Neill, at your service. Or not, depending on whether you outrank me. I am forty-eight years old, currently sporting pretty much a full head of gray hair and at least one bad knee, and I am too damn old to go through this again. On Earth, no less.

To make my current situation even more ironic than it already was, I’m really not sure why the girl in the restaurant caught my attention. Maybe it was her ponytail, wavy brown hair pulled up high on the back of her head, bouncing when she moved and making her look like a wide-eyed innocent girl from the ’50’s, the type who brought out your hamburger on roller skates while Richie Valens songs played in the background.

Maybe it was the almost tangible aura of innocence around her, the plain blue summer dress and fresh face noticeably devoid of makeup. She was a little chubby maybe, kind of a pretty kid, but the most compelling thing about her was her innocence.

Maybe it was the thought that suddenly struck me when I looked at her, big blue eyes and a charming smile and a bobbing ponytail - if Charlie was still alive, he’d most likely be regarding her with a great deal of interest. I should know better than to think things like that, but this thought just sneaked up and bushwhacked me: Charlie would be about that girl’s age, if ...

Or maybe it was just the fact that she was singing softly under her breath while she waited for her hamburger, a John Denver song no less. “I’ve seen it rain, and fire in the sky ... the shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullaby ... Rocky Mountain high, Colorado Rocky Mountain high ... ”

She didn’t have a great voice by any stretch of the imagination, and as softly as she was singing she probably didn’t think anybody else could hear her, but I could, and I stood for a minute immersed in memories of what was and possibilities of what might have been - thoughts of my son’s girlfriends and of a daughter-in-law and grandkids, thoughts of a lot of things that would never be.

Probably because I was so completely caught up in my musings, I didn’t even see the guy approach Miss Ponytail. He towered over her; she couldn’t have been more than 5’2” and he was more like 6’5”, built like a football player. By the time I did notice him, he’d bent down so that his face was level with hers and he was talking to her, low and intense. From the expression on her face, she didn’t like what he was saying. In fact, she looked near tears.

She tried to interrupt him a couple times, but he cut her off, and finally she raised her voice a little. “Dave, I told you it’s over. I’m sorry; I can’t handle it any more. Now please, just - get out and leave me alone.” She was trying to sound tough but her voice trembled the whole time and cracked on the last word. She was scared out of her wits.

Her boyfriend - ex-boyfriend, evidently - moved closer to her and said something else, obviously something nasty. She stiffened and turned away from him, and he snapped, “Damn it, Kara, don’t you turn away from me when I’m talking to you!”

He grabbed her arm, spun her around, and slapped her face.

Without even seeming to realize it, Kara put her hand up to her cheek and stared at him, her mouth open, tears welling up in her eyes. She backed toward the counter, really scared now, and he followed, grabbing her arm again.

Everyone else in the restaurant looked away, embarrassed, probably both by what they’d just seen and by the fact that none of them seemed willing to stop it.

Well, I wasn’t one of them.

Let Davey boy discover what it feels like to have your arm grabbed, I decided, and strolled casually up behind him. I gripped his arm hard enough to leave a pretty good bruise, spinning him away from his girlfriend.

“I don’t believe the lady wishes to continue the conversation,” I said, my voice deceptively soft, “so I’d suggest you leave her alone.”

He pointedly looked me up and down and practically laughed out loud; I could see him mentally cataloguing me as an old guy who had just bit off more than he could chew. Which was a really big, honkin’ mistake.

Davey boy jerked his arm away and swung a punch at my face, which I saw coming about a century before it actually reached me. I ducked under it and in about two seconds flat I had him pinned against the bar with his arms painfully yanked behind him. The staff and other customers stared on wide-eyed, obviously not having expected the confrontation to play out exactly like this. Never judge a book by its cover, I always say.

“Dave,” I said quietly, “I don’t know you real well, but I think I’ve seen enough to pretty much be certain that you’re a damned idiot. However, if you have one single brain cell left alive and functioning, you will walk out of this restaurant and not bother the lady again.”

I released him and he spun to face me, his entire body stiff and his eyes absolutely brimming with hate. He didn’t say a single word before turning on his heel and walking out, but he didn’t need to. I had gotten the message loud and clear.

This isn’t over.

Kara still stood frozen in the same spot like her feet were glued to the floor; she was trying really hard not to cry and failing miserably. Her face was red and blotchy, with a clear handprint where that SOB had hit her, and her attempts to choke back sobs were not, shall we say, entirely successful.

“You okay?” I asked gently.

And I thought again of the fact that she could be Charlie’s girlfriend, and how different things would be for her if she was.

I was currently on leave from the SGC for four wonderful days, and I was on my way to my cabin in Minnesota. I hadn’t gotten to leave the base until late evening; it was currently pitch dark outside and I was still in Colorado, albeit some distance from the SGC.

SG-1 had just returned from a particularly stressful mission on which Daniel had been hurt, and the downtime was very much welcome. I was confident that Daniel was in good hands and was recovering rapidly. He was probably already complaining about being confined to the infirmary. Doc Fraiser always gets upset with me, but Daniel can be a bit of a pain in the posterior region when he sets his mind to it.

By the time I finished eating, Kara was gone, with her blue eyes and her ponytail and the John Denver song she hadn’t managed to finish. Damn that Dave for taking something so sweet, so completely innocent, and leaving her hurt and terrified, so flustered she left the McDonald’s without ordering anything.

Maybe it hadn’t been any of my business, but it couldn’t have played out any other way. I may be on downtime and I may have been given a direct order to “for God’s sake relax this time, Colonel”, but damned if I was gonna stand by while a kid got beat up by her ex-boyfriend.

It was a little chilly and very, very dark when I exited the restaurant; a few snowflakes drifted down, visible in the halo glow of the streetlights, and a red light and a faint whistle signaled that a train was coming down the tracks that lay right next to the McDonald’s.

I walked quickly to my truck, still disgruntled that I had had to park behind the building because the main parking lot was full, and anxious to get inside with the heater, and fumbled with my keys, my uncovered fingers already cold enough to be clumsy. I knew I should have worn gloves.

The train approached, I heard its deep vibrating rumble as the engine passed me and the cars started clattering by, and then something hit me.

Just like that, no warning, not even a premonition from my trusty Black Ops-developed sixth sense. I was spun around and I fell right next to my truck, almost under it. I had a clear view of the secondary parking lot, which was completely empty, leaving only one option: I had been shot, probably by someone standing in the shadow of the building.

I had a pretty good idea who that someone was.

This isn’t over.

“Well, isn’t this just peachy,” I said, or tried to say, but what came out was a gurgling gasp that really did not sound good at all. Breathing had become extremely difficult and when I coughed, a horrible hacking cough, blood trickled down my face.

Damn, it hurt it hurt it hurt -

Numbness wore off and I analyzed the situation, my thinking crystal clear, a state I knew would not last if I continued to bleed at my current rate. I had been shot in the chest, the bullet possibly deflecting off my ribs, and a lung had most definitely been punctured. By the sound of my breathing, it was at least mostly collapsed by now.

Certainly not good, and I’m pretty sure I’m disobeying a direct order. If this is relaxing, General Hammond, I think I’ll go visit Anubis armed with a butter knife the next time I want to relax!

Damndamndamndamn ...

It hurts ...

Analyze the situation, the rational side of my mind ordered firmly, with the other side of my mind screaming at it to shut the hell up. Analyzing the situation did seem like a fairly good idea, however, so I proceeded to do so. I had been shot in the chest and was bleeding profusely, I had a collapsed lung and could barely breathe, and I was in a completely empty parking lot, enough in the shadow of my truck that no one glancing out of a McDonald’s window could possibly see me lying there.

Well, shit.

The course of action was obvious. And currently impossible.

I had to go - somewhere. Maybe if I could drag myself out into the dim light, someone would see me, although I knew that wasn’t very likely.

God, please don’t let that nutcase be going for his girlfriend next. A horrible vision popped into my mind - Kara on her back, blue eyes staring vacantly at the sky, blue dress and ponytail blood soaked, John Denver song forever unfinished. God, let him be satisfied with what he’s just done! Please!

I would have tried yelling if not for the fact that I couldn’t even get enough air to whimper, and believe me, if I could have gotten enough air, I would definitely have whimpered. The tough soldier act only goes so far, and right then it did not apply. I was alone in a cold parking lot, bleeding to death, and I would damn well whimper if I wanted to!

My body, however, had other ideas.

Okay, I should probably consider moving again.

Rather suddenly, I hit on a plan that was absolutely brilliant except for the fact that it would probably never work. My cell phone was in my truck, on the seat where I could easily reach it, if I could just get the door open. I’d had time to unlock the door before I’d been shot; the keys were still dangling from the keyhole, in fact. If I could just get up -

It’s funny, really, how an injury to a man’s chest can so totally remove all strength from his arms and legs. It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m getting very little oxygen; Doc Fraiser would know all about it, but I’ve never really cared to learn. I figure firsthand experience is good enough.

Hoping Davey boy hadn’t hung around to make sure he’d finished the job, I pushed myself up inch by inch, gritting my teeth against the overwhelming pain, until I could grab the door handle. From there I only had to pull myself into a standing position (much easier said than done), open the door, and get the phone.

My hands were shaking almost uncontrollably by the time I managed to turn the phone on. I stabbed blindly at speed dial, hoping I didn’t get the pizza guy, but figuring just about anybody other than him should be able to help me at least some.

Carter’s voice answered, serene and relaxed, which meant she had probably been studying some New And Improved really sweet doohickey thingamajig for the last four hours. I was terribly sorry to destroy her mood, but I figured she probably wouldn’t be too happy either when she got the call stating that her CO had quietly bled to death alone in an empty parking lot, on Earth. On Earth, dammit! Shouldn’t I at least be allowed exempt status from life-threatening injuries in a McDonald’s parking lot on my own home planet?

I slumped across the seat and tried hard to say something, but only succeeded in making some really strange gasping sounds. Carter said, “Hello?” again, her voice sounding very uncertain. Carter, if you hang up on me right now, I am so gonna ascend and zap you with lightning like Oma Desala!

“Car ... ter,” I managed to wheeze weakly, before adding, “Hurt ... ”

Either she finally looked to see what number the call was coming from, or she managed to tell who I was by my pathetic gasped words, but somehow she knew it was me. “Colonel?” She said, then more urgently, “Colonel, what happened? Where are you?”

Where was I?

Oh, dammit!

I couldn’t remember. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the name of the town.

“Shot,” I gasped. “Don’ ... mem ... ber ... where. Still ... Col’rado.”

“You’re still in Colorado, Colonel? Stay with me here.” She didn’t say anything to me for a minute then, but I could hear her voice in the background; I figured she must be calling somebody on the base phone, probably asking for a trace. Smart woman, Carter.

She came back on. “Sir, please, keep talking to me. What happened? Do you know why you were shot?”

“Is ... long ... story.” I choked, coughing blood all over my cell phone, which was almost new. Now I was really getting ticked. Davey boy had just added insult to injury. I’d never be able to get all that blood off!

“Colonel, are you in a town? At a store? On the roadside?” Carter questioned.

“In ... lil ... town. Mc ... Don ... ald’s. Par ... king ... lot.”

“Parking lot at McDonald’s?” I could hear her talking to somebody else again, relaying what I’d just told her. Her voice was scared but she was in control, keeping herself calm because she knew what she had to do.

I must have zoned out for a minute there - okay, maybe more than a minute - because next thing I knew there were sirens, and Carter was practically screaming at me. Now, Carter is many things, but she is not the screaming type.

“Colonel! Dammit, talk to me! Sir, please!” Oh no. Surely she wasn’t going to cry? I tried to tell her I wasn’t dead yet, but all that came out was a gurgling gasp. That sounded really good, I thought sarcastically. Ever heard the term death rattle?

I lost my grip on the phone; it tumbled into the floorboard and the last thing I heard was Carter’s almost hysterical voice shouting at me to stay with her.

Someone was talking.

Reading, to be more exact. I could hear the cadence of a voice long before the words were clear; they gradually intruded on my consciousness until I could make out the words and realized that I was being read an extremely dull and boring book on archaeology.

Which was not the least bit surprising - that seems to be Daniel’s preferred method of waking me up, he thinks I won’t be able to stand it any more and will regain consciousness just to tell him to shut up - except that it wasn’t Daniel reading it.

I cracked one eye open experimentally, and when no bombs went off and the ceiling didn’t fall in on my head, I opened the other eye too, and just about fell out of my bed.

Teal’c was reading to me!

He was about halfway through the book and by the sound of his voice he was every bit as bored by its content as I was. He looked like he was halfway into kel’no’reem already - eyelids drooping, head bent down until his chin was practically resting on his chest. It did not look like a comfortable position.

“However,” he read with absolutely no inflection whatsoever, “the Azaribans were not correct in their assumption that rainfall would return within the next year and as a result were forced to leave their village and crops for - ”

I had intended to make some kind of smart comment, something like No way, I thought the flying cows drove them away, but when I tried to, I discovered that I had a tube down my throat, and that realization caused me to choke on it, which caused lots of monitors to start screaming their displeasure, which caused the room to be flooded with medical personnel, which caused Teal’c to raise his eyebrow. But then, pretty much everything causes Teal’c to raise his eyebrow.

Then an angel of mercy, or a petite and viciously evil power monger, depending on the situation, was leaning over me and placing her hand on my forehead. “Colonel O’Neill, if you can hear me, you need to stop fighting the tube. It’s there to help you breathe. Your lung collapsed and you were in pretty rough shape for a while.”

No, doc, I can’t hear you; I just prefer to be unconscious with my eyes open, I thought, but couldn’t say it, which was very frustrating, or maybe providential, since Doc Fraiser chose that very moment to take out a needle, and her needles tend to grow in size directly proportional to the sarcasm in my comments.

Oh, goody, I thought, the needle’s not going into me; it’s going into the IV I didn’t know was there. Please tell me you’re not sedating me again, Doc. There’s something I need to do, something - something I need to find out -

Kara.

Dammit.

I tried to sit straight up, which caused a collective Hysterical Monitor Scream, and alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t completely oblivious to the pain from the severe chest injury I vaguely remembered receiving. Dr. Fraiser started trying to calm me down, but my vague “writing in the air” hand signals finally got through to her and she brought me a clipboard.

‘I know who shot me,’ I scrawled on it.

Dr. Fraiser and Teal’c exchanged knowing glances. “Yes, Colonel, so do we,” the petite doctor told me. “A teenage girl who lived near the McDonald’s heard the ambulances pull up and went to see what was happening. When she saw you, she immediately recognized you, and told the police what she thought had happened.”

‘Kara,’ I wrote.

Dr. Fraiser smiled. “That’s right, sir, Kara Sandberg. Her ex-boyfriend David Alderman was taken into custody and his gun was a perfect match for the bullet removed from your chest.” She reached out and almost unconsciously smoothed the hair around my forehead a little, which felt good even though I would absolutely never have admitted it.

I closed my eyes briefly in relief that Kara would be okay, and in recognition of the budding knowledge that I might just have stopped her ex-boyfriend from shooting her. If he had the capacity to do something like that, he would have done it someday to somebody, and Kara was first in line. Made me feel slightly better about sticking my nose where it didn’t belong and just about getting killed on my own damn planet.

‘How long I been here?’ I scribbled on the paper, and held it up. It was Teal’c who responded.

“You have been unconscious for nearly six days, O’Neill,” he intoned calmly. “Your injury was very severe.”

A blond head poked into the room, looking a bit sheepish. “Janet? Can I come in?”

Dr. Fraiser gave a longsuffering sigh and motioned Carter into the room. I quickly closed my eyes and feigned unconsciousness, waiting for just the right moment. When my 2IC was standing right next to my bed, I opened my eyes very wide and was rewarded by her surprised expression. “Colonel, you’re awake!”

‘No shit, Sherlock,’ I scrawled, deeply happy in my rediscovered ability to express myself and just be an all around smart ass.

Carter tried to frown, but she couldn’t conceal the sparkle in her eye. “It’s good to have you back, Colonel,” she said. “Didn’t look good for a while there. Daniel’s doing better; he got released today. Should be by in a little while, actually.”

My team was safe, Kara was safe, all was well with the world. I closed my eyes, the voices floating farther away again, and drifted off to sleep with one last mental vow to give Dr. Fraiser hell for sedating me. Again.