A Brief Light

By: BadgerGater

Category: Drama for the Word a Month, Spark

Pairing: None

Season: Season 5

Spoilers: A couple of small spoilers

Category: Drama

Summary: The thoughts of someone watching Jack across a campfire

Disclaimers: Sadly, I don't own these characters, or any part of Stargate; they belong to MGM/Showtime/Gekko/Double Secret and whoever else; I only borrowed these characters for a few moments fun, and am returning them asap; for entertainment purposes only, no money exchanged hands

Author's Note: A gentle little fic. More Word-A-Month is on www.Frondfic.com

---------------

She didn't know what woke her, nothing much probably, maybe just the wind, or the crackling of the fire, its sparks shooting upward into the chill night air. There was nothing wrong, she knew, though, because he was sitting, calm and quiet.

He, being Colonel Jack O'Neill, her commanding officer, the leader of SG-1.

Snuggled into her lightweight Air Force issue sleeping bag, waiting for sleep to return, Major Samantha Carter watched him.

The firelight bathed his face in a ruddy glow, highlighting the deep lines of his strong face, but leaving the brown eyes shadowed. His face seemed quiet as it so often did out in the field. He was so very different at times like these. On base, in briefings or the cafeteria, or anywhere public, O'Neill was a very different man-- working the room, playing to his audience, letting people see what they wanted to see, or expected to see. Loud and brash and often downright annoying, someone you couldn't miss because he wouldn't let you.

But it was all camouflage, all subterfuge, all smoke and mirrors, because that wasn't the real Jack O'Neill. He showed you what he wanted you to see. You had to look long and hard to see the truth behind the facade. Maybe it was all those years he'd been in Special Ops that had taught him to hide behind that smokescreen. Maybe it was just who he was, how he'd always been.

She'd worked with him a long time before she'd begun to realize what he was really like. Hell, they'd been on SG-1 together for months before she'd learned a single thing about his personal life. Then there'd been her accidental discovery that his only child had died and his wife had left, and his work really had become his life. Come to think of it, it hadn't even been O'Neill who'd let the info slip, it had been the blue crystal alien she'd seen looking through his photographs that day in the locker room.

The Colonel had kept his private life shut off from the rest of them all that time, because he was still mourning what he'd lost, a loss so monstrous she couldn't imagine it, to lose your only child and believe yourself to blame for it. She couldn't imagine how he'd survived it, except by burying the memories and the pain so deep that all that was left was a shell of a man.

Somehow, he'd found a way back, but the pain was still there, lurking beneath the surface, something she knew he rarely allowed himself to feel, and never allowed himself to show.

Now that was something she understood, hiding the pain away inside. She'd suffered losses too, the death of her mother, breaking off her engagement to Jonas, her estrangement from her brother and his family, even her uncomfortable relationship with her father. She didn't even include her relationships, if that was what she could call them, with Narim, Martouf and Orlin. Sam understood what it meant to be alone, to lose people you cared about.

But she didn't understand O'Neill.

After all these years, she knew so little about him.

He'd never been at all what she'd expected. She'd studied his report of the first Stargate mission so long and so hard she knew that even now, years later, she could still recite it, word for word. The dry, factual prose had revealed nothing of the thoughts and feelings of the men who'd been first through the gate, the fear, the wonder, the excitement. But she'd known it was there, hidden between the lines in the terse words typed on plain white double spaced pages detailing the simple facts.

It was her first look into the mind of her future commanding officer, the cynical, cool and calm leader she'd discovered lurked under the brash exterior of Colonel Jack O'Neill.

From the first day, he'd surprised her. Knowing he was a former Special Ops combat veteran, she'd expected a gung ho, spit and polish, macho, hard-ass.

There were a lot of ways she could describe her commanding officer, but none of those words even approached the truth.

Cynical, calculating, caustic. Short tempered but never short sighted. Expecting a lot and assuming nothing. Demanding, but never one to back down, or let you down. His team was his; no qualms, no questions. You had to earn his respect, but once acquired, it was absolute. The same with his trust.

Unorthodox.

Bringing Teal'c to their team had been a stroke of genius, the kind of original, out of the box thinking that she would never have imagined a career military Colonel like O'Neill was capable of, at least back then. He'd assessed the situation, decided the Jaffa was trustworthy and valuable, and then stood up and made his case. The Colonel must have been extremely persuasive to convince Hammond, and then Hammond's superiors, to let an alien join the flagship SG team.

Not to mention the surprise of discovering him capable of that type of thinking, an openness that allowed him that trust in the first place. What did he really have to go on besides Teal’c’s actions in that instance? Granted, they were pretty significant actions, but Jack was able to see the truth and honesty behind the Jaffa’s facade…pretty impressive when you think about it.

She'd seen right off the bat that he had a special relationship with Daniel Jackson. If not father and son, then certainly protective big brother to beloved little brother. There was something about Daniel that brought out those kinds of feelings, Sam thought, because she felt the same way herself toward the civilian member of SG-1. Maybe it was the man's initial innocence, his unwavering belief in honesty, fairness and decency.

So opposite to the Colonel-- goal oriented, pragmatic, cynical, sarcastic, dark, demanding, set in his ways and opinionated. Yet, Daniel could make him set aside all that, and listen. The Colonel didn't always agree, but he did listen. Well, she thought with a grin, usually he listened, or at least pretended to.

Early on, O'Neill had seemed so hard and unyielding, still did sometimes. It had taken her a long time to break through his reserve and discover the heart that lurked beneath. He had more compassion than anyone she'd ever met, at least, anyone in the military. That was his flaw, as an officer, that he cared too much-- cared for his team, the people they encountered in their work, his mission, his world. Yet, he couldn't accept that same sort of concern or compassion in return. She understood that, that was a military mindset, that reserve, that tough as nails exterior that reminded her of her father.

He could talk all day about inane things, about hockey games or tv shows, but ask him to talk about himself, especially about something serious like his feelings, and he'd go silent. O'Neill showed his affection covertly, though, through the little things; the way he'd tease, the unexpected appearances to chat in her lab or Daniel's office; dragging his team off to lunch as though taking his family out for dinner.

She knew the Colonel hadn't wanted her on his team, but, like the good officer he was, he'd followed his orders, and made the best of them. Once he'd given in, he'd insisted that she be a real part of SG-1. O'Neill included her in a hundred little ways that she'd not always even been aware of until she'd talked to some of the other women serving on SG teams. He hadn't made it easy at first, she'd give the Colonel that, but once she proved she wasn't some delicate little woman who needed to be catered to or taken care of, he'd accepted her as, quite literally in this case, one of the boys. Only later did she realize he hadn't tested her because she was a woman, he'd tested her because she was put on his team. Anyone on O'Neill's team was going to earn that place, earn that trust and that respect, regardless of who had assigned her.

Being the only woman on SG-1 hadn't been easy. But then, being Samantha Carter had never been easy, and she'd forced her way in and made them, made him, respect her.

That meant a lot, that this officer accepted and respected her.

Yeah, she'd grown up in the military. The brass didn't impress her just because they were the brass. Her own father was a general, she knew dozens of Generals and Colonels. But there wasn't a one of them she respected as much as Jack O'Neill.

He was different. He didn't care about honors or rank or advancement or politics. He wanted to get the job done and done right and get his people home in one piece. That was what mattered to him, and only that.

He loved his work. Not that he'd ever say that, because it was a deep and mortal truth, and those were the kinds of things he'd never put into words.

O'Neill let his actions speak for him. Risk life and limb and sanity for your country, and your team. Do whatever needs to be done, regardless of the personal price. Never let them see you hurt, or how much you hurt, or that you even can be hurt. Hide the real you behind a mask of stoic military indifference. She wanted to be as good an officer as he was, and she knew she never would or could be, because his kind was as rare as pure trinium. Lead by example, lead by who and what you are, lead because it's what you do, lead because it's as natural to you as breathing. Don't think about it, don't plan it or analyze it, just do it.

What he knew, what he did, wasn't something you could learn in a classroom or from a book, it was something you were born with and honed in the school of life.

Out here, in the field, she'd come to know the real Jack O'Neill.

Her first eye-opening revelations had come in the Antarctic ice cave. He'd never quit. She'd thought through their situation and known with a scientific certainty that it was hopeless. He'd thought through their situation and knew it was hopeless, but he never let that fact interfere with the drive to his goal: get home. Even as badly hurt as he was, he never surrendered, never conceded an inch. He'd fought as long and hard as he could force his body to continue, and he'd demanded that she fight, too.

That was his gift, the ability to inspire that sort of death defying, illogical, never quit attitude.

It was the most difficult thing she'd ever done, to leave him there to his fate, knowing he would die alone, knowing his sacrifice was for her, knowing that his whole life was about one sacrifice after another. Knowing the only small cold comfort she could give him would be her own survival, because it gave some meaning to his death; knowing he did his job until the end, taking care of those under his command. He'd hidden his own pain to spare her; he'd forged on despite injuries that must have been agonizing; he'd joked through the torture of having her set his broken leg; and in the end he'd begged her to leave him and save herself.

After that, she'd have walked through walls for the Colonel. Anyone would have. Quiet, unassuming, never ending sheer raw courage. Anytime she felt like giving up, like quitting, she remembered his face as he'd ordered her to go without him; she recalled his words, his voice so soft and shaky as to be almost inaudible, but a warrior to the end: "It was an honor serving with you."

He'd done it again, with Hathor, when he'd volunteered to take the larval Goa'uld. Carter knew how he loathed the parasites, how they alone, of all the fearsome things in the universe, terrified him. He'd had long talks with her, after Jolinar and the Tok'ra and her father, and he understood some of what it had been like. To know that despite his own knowledge and his own fears, he'd offered up himself in place of Daniel and her, gave her chills.

Over and over again, he'd done the dirty jobs, the things that needed to be done, and borne the personal consequences: going undercover to ferret out the NID traitors; ordering the destruction of the Russian sub when he was on it; volunteering for Anise's zatarc cure when everyone believed the procedure would cause irreparable brain damage; going after the men who were threatening the General and his granddaughters; and staying behind with Lt. Tyler, even though it looked like a fatal risk.

Courage. Honor. Leadership. Sacrifice. Duty above all.

He embodied them all, and more.

Along the way he'd paid a terrible price to live those words. She knew that, too.

In Antarctica, he'd told her about that horrific parachute accident on the Iran-Iraq border. Her imagination had filled in the horrors his brief dispassionate words had left out; of his nine days, alone, struggling to get home with a skull fracture and who knew what other injuries. He'd rarely mentioned those dark Special Ops missions, never elaborated when he did. His team had only gotten brief glimpses of that world, like when they'd been prisoners of the Gamekeeper, and they'd all relived a mission gone bad behind the Iron Curtain.

After they'd been to Hadante, she'd looked up his personnel file, spurred on by his cryptic comment about being in prison. She'd found he was the one, the mystery man the Air Force grapevine had been abuzz about after the Gulf War. A Special Ops officer taken prisoner, his name never revealed, his courage legendary.

Though she hadn't thought it possible, she'd admired him even more after that.

---------------------

Across the glowing fire, she watched his pensive face. His long, slender fingers were wrapped around a coffee cup, steam rising from it in the cool alien air. He raised his face, and the fire highlighted his eyes, deep and brown and dark and full of hidden depths, sordid secrets and unshared sorrows.

What was he thinking, as he stared into the fire watching the sparks rise swiftly upward into the night? Thinking of home? Of his son? Of old friends long gone? Of the incredible fact that he was sitting beside a campfire on an alien planet, light years from home? Of Minnesota and fishing?

She never knew, never could guess, never would understand these things he would never share, not even with the team he guarded so fiercely.

Glancing across the fire, his eyes met hers for a brief moment.

"You should be sleeping, Major," he said softly.

"Yes, Sir. You okay, Sir?"

He gifted her with one of those rare smiles, the genuine ones people rarely saw. "Yes, Carter, all's well at the moment."

The fire snapped, and another spark drifted upward into the night, a brief light against the universal darkness.

----------------FINIS------------------------