Views of the Abyss: Hammond

By BadgerGater

Email: [email protected]

Category: Sequel, Drama, Hammond's POV

Summary: Prequel and Missing scene to episode Shadow Play; Sequel to fic Views of the Abyss: MacKenzie

Pairing: None

Rating: PG

Season/Sequel: Six, after episode Abyss

Warnings: None

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, SciFiChannel (?),Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions; all the powers that be, not me; This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement intended. The story is the property of the author and may not be posted without the author's consent.

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…praying I was right.

Hoping I had done the right thing, for Jack's sake.

I’m not sure. It’s hard to know with O’Neill at the best of times, and I don’t think we could get much farther from the best, and deeper into the abyss of the worst, for Jack.

I know he’s struggling.

He’s trying so hard to hide it, and mostly, with most people, the subterfuge is working.

You have to know him well to see how the humor is forced, the sarcasm has a particular edge, and the eyes, the eyes are hooded and veiled and wary. There’s a darkness there, one that wasn’t there before, like looking into the eyes of a very, very old and troubled soul.

The spark that has made him something special is dimmed. It’s still there, I glimpse it on occasion, but it’s banked, dulled, and flickering.

I can see he’s fighting hard to regain his equilibrium, to rekindle that spark into the flame that sustains him.

My God, how anyone could have survived what he went through.

But, surviving isn’t enough, not for him. He’s blaming himself for what he almost did. Not that he *did* it, but the fact that he *was* about to cave in has left him mistrustful of himself.

Never mind the extremity of the circumstances, circumstances beyond all human endurance, so far beyond the norm as to be unimaginable.

No one is harder on Jack O’Neill than Jack O’Neill.

*****

I’ve tried hard to convey the fact that he still has the trust of everyone here, including mine. Not overtly, mind you, that never works with the Colonel, but quietly, as if everything was still the same. Life, work, the military, the war, goes on.

He has to go on.

We need him.

But he’s not easy to convince.

And frankly, I’m not sure that I, or anyone else here, still has *his* trust.

I don’t blame him for that.

We are culpable, Major Carter, Doctor Fraiser and myself.

We heard his refusal, and yet, we didn’t accept his ‘no’ for an answer.

We kept pushing.

We talked him into accepting the symbiote.

Which led him straight into the hands of Ba’al.

Days of torture.

Death after death.

No escape.

It makes me shudder, just to contemplate it. I’ve seen my share of ugly, nasty, brutal, vicious and yes, even evil, things in my military career. But what he saw, and worst of all, what he thinks he saw inside himself, has left him shaken.

I’m pretty sure Dr. Mackenzie was going to ground him. So I used a little of the two-star muscle I carry to browbeat the shrink into letting Jack come back to active duty because I think that’s the only way he can ever find himself again. McKenzie doesn’t know everything that went on, what really happened to O’Neill. Sure, he knows about O’Neill nearly dying from that virus and about him accepting the Tok’ra symbiote, and that the Tok’ra ran off with his body, and got him captured by Ba’al.

But he doesn’t know what that damn Goa’uld did to the Colonel.

That’s a little secret between O’Neill, Dr. Fraiser and myself.

Maybe we should have put it all in the reports, but quite frankly, I know McKenzie would have tried to force Jack to talk about the whole thing, and Jack would have refused, and McKenzie would have written him off as unfit and ended the Colonel’s career. Of that I have no doubt.

God, I hope I’ve done the right thing for him.

It was the only thing I could think of to do for him.

Every Texan knows that when you get thrown, you have to dust yourself off, get right back into the saddle and ride that bronc to a standstill.

I know he’s been thrown before. Iraq. Just thinking about what happened to him there makes me shiver, I’ve read the reports, the impersonal, emotionless, concealing words.

Worst of all, I’ve seen the pictures.

And I know this man, know him well, as well as he lets anyone know him. I know how hard he works to hide the damage that’s been done to him over the years.

I’ve known other men like him. One of the men I served with in Vietnam was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese. It has to take something out of you, to be confronted with such unmitigated horror and hopelessness; to confront yourself and your fears and the failings of your own humanity. He was never the same.

I imagine it’s that way with Jack, but I can’t tell, since I didn’t know him before Iraq, and before his son died, before he suffered blows that would have destroyed most men. Not that it hasn’t destroyed a part of him. It’s just hard to imagine him, whole, what he would have been like before all this. Doing what we do, serving our country and our world in these top secret military operations changes you. I know what Jack’s been through made him a better officer and a better commander, I’m sure, but at one hell of a price no human being should be made to pay.

What I’ve put him through the last six years defies description, and yet, he keeps coming back for more, time and again. Sometimes I wonder if he doesn’t seek out the pain and the horror, forcing himself to face up to it over and over again, as a way of proving to himself that he’s still alive.

And I, we, the Air Force, take advantage of that need of his, that need to prove himself, that need to search for a way to atone for the guilt he'll bear forever over the things he’s done, and most especially, over his son’s death.

Yet, here I am, once more finding a way to send him back out there. It’s for his own good, I tell myself, for the good of the planet, for the good of this command, for all the men and women who recognize him as the first to go through that gate; pretending that I'm not doing this for my own selfish reasons. He's the best man for the job, but am I being fair to him in believing he's the *only* man for the job?

Is this the right thing to do? Send him back out there, for more?

I know what his answer would be, I know what he wants, I know what I want, but I don’t know if it’s right. Or fair. Or just. Or humanly possible.

I just know it must be.

Fact is, I don’t know what else to do for him, what more to try, except to show him that I trust him completely, that his team still trusts him.

Send him on a mission. Someplace where he won’t encounter a Goa’uld, or any Tok’ra. I think facing either one of those so soon would be asking too much. So I needed to pick this first mission carefully, and frankly, I’m not sure if this is the best choice or the worst.

Kelowna. Where Dr. Jackson was fatally injured, where O’Neill has… issues, shall we say? But issues that should get his mind off of himself… so maybe it’s a good thing.

I’m not sure.

I wish I were.

********

The pre-mission debriefing had ended. The members of SG-1 stood and began walking silent toward the door.

“Colonel, could you stay a moment?” My words called O'Neill back.

“Sir?” his eyes reflect wariness and mistrust as he turned back toward me.

“Jack, you don’t have to go on this mission…”

His eyes turned dark and hurt flashed across his face.

“Because of what happened there before…” I finished hastily, explaining.

“Oh, right,” he answered, looking away.

“If you can’t work with the Kelownans, I understand,” I added softly.

“And if I can’t work with myself, General?” his question was sharp and blunt.

“That wasn’t my question, Jack.”

He raised his gaze to look into my eyes, to seek answers there, and, seemingly satisfied with what he found, he nodded. “I’m ready, Sir.”

“Good then, Colonel. You have a go.”

He threw me a half-assed salute, for which I knew I ought to ream him out, and turned to go, ambling out of the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

He asked me once for continued patience, latitude and understanding.

I’m trying, Jack.

Just you keep trying, too.

I'd watched SG-1 leave to go to Kelowna, my eyes focussed intently on the team leader. I hadn't missed O'Neill's late arrival in the gateroom, and his hurried departure, devoid of his usual laconic good humor.

I'd watched my number one team come and go twice more to Kelowna, and each time, O'Neill departed wordlessly and returned wordlessly.

This time, they were returning home for good. Teal'c and Major Carter had already arrived. Now, I stood at the base of the ramp and watched Jack and Jonas Quinn step out of the shimmering blue of the wormhole. Jonas, I knew, was going to have a struggle dealing with the aftereffects of this mission to what had been his homeworld, to the sad knowledge of what had happened to a man he'd admired and respected, and to the possibility that his people were on the verge of self-destruction.

Both men were quiet as they came down the stairs, their footsteps echoing on the metal grating. Jonas walked away, lost in thought.

The Colonel paused, looking after the young man, and then his gaze turned to me, his eyes meeting mine for an instant, and with a sigh of relief, I saw the spark was there once again.

"It's good to have you back, Jack," I said softly.

He nodded, and I knew he understood that I was referring to his return from somewhere much further away than Kelowna.

"Yes. Sir." He didn't smile, but a tiny hint of a grin flickered around his lips. "It is good to be back."

"It's been a rough trip," I added.

He looked down at his boots and then back up to meet my gaze and in that brief instant his eyes revealed a darkness that made me shiver. "I've been through worse, General," he said, and I thought he would say no more, and then softly, so very softly I could barely hear he added, "dying's easy, sir. It's living that's hard." With a flippant half salute, O'Neill turned away to follow Jonas out of the gateroom.

I stared after him for long, silent moments.

He's a tough man, Jack O'Neill is, and he's paid a huge price for serving his country, a price I pray none of the rest of us will ever understand.

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