First, his left knee was achy (which was normal but still annoying) and his right Achilles was acting up (which was not normal and very annoying). Second, Teal'c was called away last night to help Bra'tac out with something or other (Teal'c had been annoyingly vague about the whole thing when he'd asked for permission to go to Bra'tac's aid), and that left SG-1 a man short for their mission to P7F-385. Sure General Hammond had offered Lieutenant Brecker from SG-12 as a temporary replacement for Teal'c, but Jack was in no mood to break in a second new team member. And that led to his third gripe: Jonas and all his annoying talk about the weather and bananas and--

"Hope I've got the right color on, Colonel," Jonas chirped as he seemingly appeared out of thin air to pop up behind Jack's left shoulder. "Major Carter told me to wear the green ones."

Jack scanned Jonas' woodland BDU and frowned. Was Jonas really asking about his BDU? Who cares about BDUs? Daniel never asked about BDUs. No, Daniel had always been too busy getting himself killed and giving a rat's ass about things he had no business giving a rat's ass about.

"Should I have worn the, uh, tan ones?" Jonas asked, his gleeful expression melting into one of anxiety.

But before Jack had a chance to respond, Carter popped up behind his right shoulder -- okay, seriously, how the hell were they able to keep sneaking up on him like that?! -- to say, "You're fine, Jonas. That BDU's perfect." Then, after Jonas' smile had returned and he wandered off to mess with his pack, she added, for Jack's ears only, "Be nice, sir."

"I'm always nice, Carter," he snapped, which, of course, only proved her point. And that realization did little to improve his mood.

"C'mon," he barked to no one in particular except, perhaps, the general world-at-large. "Let's get this show on the road already."

*

P7F-385 was, by all accounts, perfect. Lush, ankle-height grasses swayed ever so slightly in a warm breeze. Unseen birds twittered melodious tunes from the branches of flowering trees. The temperature was a pleasant seventy degrees.

So Jack, naturally, hated the planet upon arrival.

"Eh," he groused as he shielded his eyes from the planet's bright -- too damn bright, he decided -- sun, "this is the best planet EVER!"

His hands dropped from above his eyes to cover his mouth. The hell? Did those words really come out of his mouth?

"Carter! What'd I just say?"

"What?" She squinted at him and wrinkled her nose. "Uh … something about this planet being perfect. I think."

Something very fishy was going on and Jack did not intend to stick around to see how it played out. It was time to get his team back to the SGC, and fast. Pointing at the DHD, he said, "Carter, don't you dare dial the SGC. This planet's too wonderful to ever leave."

What?! Dammit.

Luckily Carter seemed to notice something was amiss. Of course, his frustrated foot stomping might have tipped her off. Also pointing at the DHD, she asked, "Sir, should I dismantle the DHD so we'll never have to leave this beautiful planet?"

Her open-mouthed gape and wide eyes informed Jack that those were not the words she'd planned to say. Vigorously nodding his head, he gestured back and forth from the DHD to the gate, and mimed walking through the gate as well as 'flying' through a wormhole.

Carter responded by mimicking all his movements back to him. She looked insane, and Jack had no doubt he did as well. And he didn't even want to think about how ridiculous the two of them looked flapping their arms around in semi-unison.

To cap everything off, Jonas, who'd been standing off to the side, joined in their arm flapping and asked, with an enthused grin, "Is this what we do when we arrive on a new planet? Like, a happy dance?"

*

Sprinting through the gate on P7F-385 made Jack's reentry at the SGC a bit more violent than it should've been. He tumbled out of the wormhole (always a tricky affair when dealing with the metal gate ramp) and nearly crashed into Carter before he came to a stop. A score of armed Marines gazed at him through their rifle scopes as General Hammond's concerned voice boomed over the loudspeaker. "SG-1, what happened? Why are you back so soon?"

There were better and more delicate ways to answer the general's questions, but the first words out of Jack's mouth were, "That planet sucked!" Oh, they were music to his ears. "Thank god," he moaned in relief as he plopped on to his back right there on the ramp.

This sent a ripple of laughter through the Marines, which was soon followed by, "Colonel O'Neill, you better have a good explanation for this."

Jack lifted his head to see Hammond striding to the bottom of the ramp. He was clearly Not Amused.

"Sir, you won't believe it, but I swear it's all true," Jack declared as he rose this feet, his achy knee making its displeasure known. "The planet was booby-trapped."

"Booby-trapped," Hammond repeated.

"Yes, sir. With nice thoughts," Jack said, his voice grave and foreboding.

Hammond was not swayed. "Colonel O'Neill," he growled, clearly growing impatient, "if you don't--"

"He's telling the truth, sir," Carter interrupted. "I don't know how it was done, if it was chemical or biological, but we were incapable of saying a bad word about the planet while we were there."

"It was appalling," Jack insisted as he joined Hammond's side and began to escort him out of the gate room.

But good ol' Jonas was there to undercut Jack's insistence of how terrible the planet was. "I don't get it," he beckoned after them, his confusion bouncing off the gate room's walls. "Do we have something against nice thoughts?"

-the end-

More SG1 fic