Views of the Abyss: Jack: Rebirth

Author: BadgerGater

Email: [email protected]

Category: Epilogue scene to S6 episode, Abyss; Part of my Views of the Abyss Series

Warnings: None

Pairing: None

Spoilers: Abyss and before

Rating: PG

Summary: Jack's POV after leaving the infirmary..... healed in body but in spirit?

Disclaimer: I don't own SG-1 and acknowledge the rights, privileges and power of those that do; I'm just borrowing the characters , and will faithfully return them, a bit worse for wear, in Jack's case, perhaps.

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I can't breathe.

Partly, it's the smothering force of the crushing gravity.

Partly it's because there's this big honkin hole in my chest where the acid is eating through my skin, tissues and bone, etching a hole through my lung where the blood is pooling, blocking the oxygen.

Partly it's because the pain is so intense my throat is constricted from the overwhelming desire to scream, which is blocked by my body's automatic gasping, a desperate and futile search for air that won't do me any good because there's no where for it to go, no use in it reaching a lung that's no longer functioning.

Death would be welcome, if only I could die.

I should have died. Should have died from that virus. Should have died on that sub. Should have died in that ice cave on Antarctica. Should have died by my own hand. Should have died in Iraq. Should have died when my 'chute failed. I should have died… a dozen, a hundred times I should have died.

Then I wouldn't have to go through this dying again. And again. And again and again and again and again…

I don't want to live.

I can't die.

Oh God.

I'm screaming.

Somehow, despite the blood and the lack of air, I'm screaming, releasing the agony, but nobody listens, nobody hears.

And then I wake up.

In my own bed.

Not the dead bed.

Not in Ba'als clutches.

Tangled in my own sheets.

Skin slick with sweat, not blood.

Throat dry and raw from holding back the screams.

Nightmares.

I can't stop the nightmares.

They're hideous.

The worst I've ever had. Well, no, not quite. Worse than Iraq. Worse than after I had to kill what was left of Kawalsky. Worse than after Hathor’s snakelet almost got me. Not worse than the gunshot and the blood on the carpet and my son's small pale body... nothing is worse than that. Oh God, how can I cling to that memory as something that can save me? Because, I remind myself, I survived that, survived the unthinkable, the unbearable, and if I could survive that time, I can survive anything.

Not the same, not whole, not without cost and not without losses, but I can survive.

I must survive.

Survival is everything.

*******

Shaking with the fury of my dream, I crawl out of the bed and look out the window, out to the lake, calm and peaceful in the night.

A sound startles me, and for a moment, I flash back to the darkness of death. My breath rasps in my throat, my heart pounds, terror races through me.

"O'Neill?" his familiar calm voice is reassuring in the darkness.

"I'm fine, Teal'c."

"You are not fine, O'Neill, or you would sleep. You need rest."

"I'm trying," I answer softly.

I'm trying, and it's not working. Nothing seems to work. This is the third night since Doc let me leave the infirmary. I thought coming here to the cabin would help. It's worked before, when I needed to get my head on straight. But this time, it's not happening. I can't sleep, not unless I take those knockout pills Doc gave me, and damn it, that's no solution. The last two nights, when the nightmares woke me, I went outside and sat in the moonlight, staring up at the stars until reprieved by the dawn. Funny, I could sleep during the day, doze off in the bright sun, but in the darkness, it all comes back to me, overwhelming me.

His face floats in front of me, and not just the damn snakehead. When it's not him, it's my father, sneering at me, telling me I'm a loser, a failure, a coward.

I want to stand up to him, shake my fist at him and tell him to go to hell, but I can't because he's right. I failed again. I lost, gave in, caved in, acquiesced, conceded. Fell apart. Lost it. Say it whatever way you want to, but it's all the same thing… I let the pain, fear and despair defeat me.

I was scared.

Been a long time since I was scared for myself, if ever. Jumping out of airplanes, going undercover, stepping through the Stargate, flying combat missions, nothing ever shook the O'Neill bravado.

Well, it’s shaken now.

I don't know what to do or how to help myself and I'm too stubborn to ask for help.

I don’t know who I am anymore; what part is Jack O’Neill, what is the freakin’ Tok’ra, what stuff was put into my head by that gould; what parts the deadbed had sucked out of me. Hell, I’ve had so many… things… in my head, how the hell do I know if anything is left of me anymore? Hathor’s snakelet, the Ancients gobbledegook, the glowing blue mold things, Machello’s bugs, Urgo… God, the list goes on and on, outnumbering me a dozen times over.

“I don’t know how to live with this,” I whisper softly.

“You are stronger than you think, O’Neill.”

I shake my head. “Not anymore…” Too many wounds, too many blows, too many battles and too many defeats, and there’s nothing left inside me, all the reserves are gone, all the motivations, all the reasons to carry on… futile, useless, empty.

I’m drained, all the life drained out of me, and there’s nothing to replace it. Emptiness, a giant void, a great, overwhelming black hole exists where *I* am supposed to be.

All that's left is the fear, terror I cling to, embrace, because paralyzing as it is, it is something, it is the *only* thing I can feel And without it, I'm afraid there's nothing left inside except a huge, gaping black hole that threatens to suck me into it's depths forever.

The abyss is waiting to devour me, if I let down my guard, if I relax, or sleep, or let go.

“Is it not said amongst your people, that living well is the best revenge?” Teal’c questions. “Defeat Ba’al, defeat death, by living.”

“How do I do that?”

"I can help." Teal'c's words are low, filled with understanding.

I peer across the room at him, sitting in the darkness, keeping watch, keeping watch over me. That's what he's doing here. And while in the past, I would have resented such a thing, this time, it gives me comfort. I'm not alone. Not back *there*, with *him*, helpless and hopeless and alone.

My friend, my brother is here with me; he's real, not ethereal, not ghost or hallucination or vision or whatever. He's real, tangible, and he will do whatever he can to help.

Except I don't know how he can help.

I knew, back there, how Daniel could have helped.

But I don't know now.

I've tried all the things that worked in the past… I've kept myself too busy to think, but I think anyway. I've gone swimming, jogging, bicycling, working my body to exhaustion and a desperate physical need for sleep, but that doesn't stop my mind from thinking and the nightmares from claiming me as soon as I close my eyes. I've chopped enough wood for ten winters, washed my truck so many times the gleam will blind ya' and it's only our third night here, and nothing is working. Nothing.

Please help, Teal'c. I wish I could say the words, but I can't, just like I never can.

"I can help you tame your demons," he repeats softly, with assurance, and I want to believe.

Oh, God, I want to believe him, because I have to find a way to live with this or I'll go mad. I'll do what I almost did six years ago… And the truth is, I don't want to do that. I've got a job to do, and I want to go back to doing it. But I can't, unless I can sleep, unless I can close my eyes without seeing his face, leering down at me, without feeling the terror… without fearing it will never end…

The darkness shelters me, hides my frightened eyes. "How?" I ask in a whisper.

He lights a candle, one from another, until the whole cabin is aglow with the soft, cream colored light blocking the remembered harsh white light of the sarcophagus, the scent of the candles driving away the scent of my own charred flesh, his quiet words overriding the resonating Goa'uld voice that echoes through my head, promising the dying will never end.

"Sit, there," he points to a spot on the floor across the room.

Right. I'm supposed to sit on the floor, legs all pretzeled, like he does. Wait. That's odd. I slide down to the floor and there's no creaking in my knees, no throbbing pain. I couldn't do this before, never even tried, because the old O'Neill joints were barely fit for normal wear and tear, much less this twisted yoga position.

Teal'c simply nods. He knows.

I'm not sure if Kanan did this, or the sarcophagus, but for a brief moment, I'm glad. Something is better. My back's not protesting either, come to think of it. I settle myself comfortably on the floor, across from the Jaffa, knees folded, hands in my lap.

"Stare into the flame," he commands.

Okay, now this is getting to be too Daniel-like, I'm thinking. "Ah, I've already done the candle/flame, nobody's home thingy."

Teal'c lifts one eye-brow. "You have not done this, O'Neill."

"Well, no, sort of, I mean, I talked about this with Daniel."

"Daniel Jackson is… gone."

"Well, yeah, but he wasn't…gone. He was there… with me." Okay, so now the secret is out.

Teal'c's eyebrow goes a notch higher, the full amazed Jaffa look. "DanielJackson has ascended."

"Yeah, but he came back to visit."

"Indeed?"

"He wanted me to get glowy with him. Ascend. Release my burden."

Teal'c's eyebrow slides skyward again in unspoken question.

"But I didn't think the glowy state was for me. They apparently don't play hockey among the ascended. All that glowing probably melts the ice…"

"You are avoiding the subject, O'Neill," Teal'c chastizes me.

"I am not. This is the subject, isn't it." Of course I'm avoiding the subject. I always do. See, right there, something about me is still right, intact, normally abnormal.

"In a fashion, O'Neill. Look into the candle's flame, and concentrate. Think of your enemy…"

"Oh, I don't think so." I'm trying not to think about *him*, not remember *him*, banish *him*…

"You must, O'Neill. To conquer him, you must first conjure him, bring him into your vision."

"He's always in my vision," I mutter, but acquiesce, staring into the flame. It doesn't take any effort to see the fortress and then his face, Ba'al's face.

I'm suddenly shaking so hard I think my teeth are about to start chattering."No," I whisper, closing my eyes, fighting to keep the tremble out of my voice. "No. Don't. No."

"He cannot harm you, O'Neill. You are in control now."

I shake my head no.

"Take control, O'Neill. Now, banish him. Send him away. In your vision, do to him all the things you wished to do when he was torturing you. Turn your mind loose."

I’m trying to break free, but, I can’t, I can’t. I see those cold, calculating eyes and hear that voice and my heart thunders like it’s going to jump out of my chest, my gut clenches, my blood freezes in my veins. My whole body tenses, anticipating the pain, waiting for the knives and the acid and the heavy weight of the gravity… I’m falling, falling down, sucked down into his trap once more and I’m shuddering, shaking, terror rising like a roaring tide, ready to obliterate me… Ba’al has me and there’s no way out, not even death… and I’m alone, alone with that vicious snake… “Alone..” I'm falling, back toward the abyss, and then, out of nowhere, a hand touches my shoulder, pulling me back to to the present.

“You are safe, O’Neill, I am here. You are not alone.”

I scrub my hands across my face, trying to wipe away the memory, giving myself time to calm my raging heart, to bring my nerves to heel. With a deep breath, I close my eyes and try again, summoning up the demon who haunts me, bolstered this time by the knowledge that Teal’c is at my side, adding his towering strength to my own faltering will.

I open up that door once more, the one I’ve been afraid to open, the one holding back my feelings, exposing my fears to the light of day, exposing my soul, searching deep inside for that spark of resistance at my core, feeding it like one nourishes a tiny flame into a roaring blaze, bringing it out into the open, allowing the air to funnel in, it’s heat glowing, hot and fiery inside me, awakening all of me, and now when I picture Ba’als face, it’s no longer gloating, no longer invincible in it’s power and superiority, no longer filled with arrogant pride.

I am Colonel Jack O’Neill, with two L’s, and Bocce boy is no longer in charge.

I'm feeling. Anger. Red hot, blazing, anger. Okay, maybe it's not everyone's first choice for an emotion, but it's an emotion, a real, genuine, honest to God, All-American Real O'Neill emotion. Anger. Hatred. Vengeance. Retribution.

And I know how to deal with it, how to flush the anger from my system.

Don't get mad, Jack, get even.

Okaaay, then, this isn't Daniel and Oma's good guys in heaven scenario, because if someone turned me lose on that sonofabitchin' goauld I'd take him apart, bit by bit, melt him with his own acid, use those daggers to slice him limb for limb, crush his bones with a million tons of gravity, let him fall, fall forever, all the way into the depths of Hell where he belongs.

And it's working.

As I destroy Ba'al, as he kneels before me, as I wield the power of life and death over him, I can feel myself regain control of me, retake my own fate into my own hands, banishing the memories of him and what he did to me, relegating them to a far corner of my awareness, where I am in control.

So this is what it means to release your burden, I think, wishing Daniel was here to acknowledge what I'd just done. No, I don't think Daniel and the other glowy-guys would approve of my gory visions.I'm definitely not ascendant material because I'm not thinking pretty pictures or obtuse cliché's here. I'm thinking good old blood and guts.

I sigh, and look across the room to where Teal'c is smiling, and he nods.

So I've conquered that demon, the glowing eyed one. I don't have to live with his shadow hovering over me anymore.

Now I've just got to find a way to live with myself.

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