Baal Game

Author: Badgergater

Email: [email protected]

Pairing: None

Season: 8

Spoilers: Abyss, Zero Hour, Reckoning,

Category: Thoughts, missing scenes in Jack’s POV, for Zero Hour and Reckoning

Summary: Why Jack acts the way he does when he meets Baal in S8

Rating: Anyone

Warnings: Parts are dark

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, 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.

Author's Pledge: All Badgergater fics are honestly and accurately labeled as to content, warnings and pairings, allowing the potential reader to make an accurate assessment of whether or not to spend the time reading.

Author’s Note: For all those who love the real Jack, and were disappointed that we got no closure, just weirdness, on the return of Baal (guess it foreshadowed the whole 'no closure' with why/for what Jack left the SGC in S9, huh?)

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//Zero Hour//

Why oh why oh why oh why couldn’t he be dead?

Damned snake.

I mean, not that I’m bragging or anything, but we, meaning SG-1, we *have* been responsible for the undoing of quite a few of the slimy little critters— Ra, Apophis, Hathor, Heru Ur, Chronos, just to name a few.

But not him.

Damn that Yu, why couldn’t his aim have been better? He destroyed Baal’s fortress, why not the snake himself?

But no.

Baal’s fortress blown to smithereens, most of his servants and Jaffa killed, but the damned Gould escaped.

If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

And now the SOB is back.

Of course, he’s not really back. He’s just a hollow gram, er, hologram, which is probably the only reason why I’m actually standing here and haven’t run screaming out of the gateroom (which would surely have demolished all semblance of respect for me as a general, if I’ve managed to garner any, of which I’m not sure).

I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with him.

Bad memories, you know?

Really bad.

Just the sight of him makes my stomach churn and my skin crawl and little lights flash behind my left eye.

I put on that brave, okay, okay, not brave, inanely stupid act to hide the way my knees were shaking. My mouth was so dry I probably couldn’t spit for a week. An odd pain sprang to life, centered right in the middle of my chest— and without any conscious thought on my part, my mouth started to run glibly.

Snark. Sarcasm. Slightly, hm, actually, really odd humor.

In case you haven’t noticed, that’s a pattern with me. I tend to talk a lot when things are dicey: deflecting attention, prevaricating, obfuscating, confusing with inane and totally off the wall comments while my brain frantically searches for a way out of the mess.

I know I come across as a little odd on my best days, and any day I’m confronted by Baal is so *not* gonna be one of my best days.

So, odd I definitely was.

I’m entirely sure the people around here think I’m nuts. Okay, to be honest, they’ve probably thought I was nuts for a really long time already. I know I’m not exactly the poster boy for mental health. Then again, the fact that I’m still walking and talking and not locked up in a padded room, drooling and spouting Oma-ish gibberish, probably is a miracle of mental health.

Considering all I’ve been through.

Which, mostly, I don’t think about, which is how I get through it.

Mind over matter.

What your mind ignores, doesn’t matter.

Command, as I learned a long time ago, isn’t about being certain or fearless. It’s about giving the impression that you’re certain and fearless.

Never let them see you sweat.

Never let them see your doubts.

Never let them know that you are scared shitless.

‘Them’ includes your own personnel as well as your enemy.

I’d been a hologram a time or two myself, and while I knew Ba’al could see me, I also was pretty sure that he couldn’t see me well enough to read the dread in my eyes.

Thank goodness for small favors, huh.

-----x-----

Somehow, I got through that first encounter with Baal without coming completely unglued.

Standing toe to holographic toe with him, my mouth opened and words came out and I was so amazed that my voice actually worked that I just let myself talk. It was like someone else was speaking, while the real me was here, inside, silently screaming at the sight of the SOB.

When I was done and Baal had left, I looked around at the stunned faces of the SGC personnel around me, and then, coolly and calmly, like it was a ho-hum everyday thing to talk to the creature who’d tortured me to death, I walked back to my office.

Thank God for the perks of being a general, which includes my very own, very private, entirely soundproof john. No one could hear me in there puking.

-----x-----

McKenzie would have a field day with me, if I’d let him. He and I, we have this weird relationship. Hammond made me go talk to him quite a few times over the past eight years. So, since I’m an officer and a gentleman and I obey the orders of my superiors, well, I do when I absolutely have to I do, I talked, and the shrink listened, and I said nothing of importance, only things that were totally inconsequential. Things that he wanted to hear. MacKenzie knew it and I knew it.

His notes about me, oh, I bet they’re pretty damn— weird.

Now that I’m a general, I probably could actually look at what he’s written about me. But I don’t want to. Better to let sleeping dogs go right on sleeping, I always say.

-----x-----

So, in my own inimitable and roundabout way, I’m back to Baal.

No one could blame me for hating him.

No one could blame me for fainting dead away at the sight of him.

I mean, everyone around here pretty much knows what happened. Maybe the new geeky guy doesn’t, but I’m sure it won’t be long before someone clues him in to my history with Bocce. I can feel their eyes on me. Sometimes, I think they watch just because they wonder what the heck I’m going to do next. Maybe they expect me to come unglued, fall apart, explode or go postal.

Sometimes, I wonder myself.

And to cover that uncertainty, I talk.

Babble, almost.

Because talking covers up my insecurity.

My fear.

And I *am* afraid.

I’m human. I remember what he did to me, and believe me, only a madman or a masochist, of which I am neither, would want to relive that.

Keeping those memories at bay takes a lot of energy.

But it keeps me functional.

/-----x-----\

No, I haven’t slept for three days.

There’s the plant thing, the president’s upcoming visit, my missing team, er, ex-team, the Yukon gold versus plain old russets issue, and that whole mountain of paperwork slowly engulfing my desk.

Mostly, though, it’s the memories that prevent me from getting any real rest.

Every time I close my eyes to sleep, the nightmares return: knives, acid, bone-crushing gravity, and over it all, a creepy, oily, insistent, egotistical, mocking voice—

I have to fight to hold back the despair.

To suppress the shudders.

To remind myself that he’s actually far, far away.

-----x-----

In the end, we won. Baal was bluffing. SG-1 was safe.

Baal went away.

I locked the memories back up, good and tight.

And that’s where they stayed, for months.

Until Ba’al returned.

/-----x----------x----------x-----\

// Reckoning: Part Two //

Heeee’s back.

And this time, honestly, I'm glad. Baal has returned, not so smug, not so sure of himself; worry, if not outright fear mirrored in his eyes. Looking for a way to save his own scrawny neck.

Asking us for help.

Asking *me*.

Ironic, isn’t it?

I love it. This is oh so doing wonders for my self-esteem.

Pardon me if I take a minute to gloat.

Maybe even two.

Just the thought of it makes me glow. Baal, wanting an alliance with us puny Tau’ri, because this time, for the moment, his goals are at least sort of generally the same as ours.

The enemy of my enemy is supposed to be my friend, I know that, but for me, it just doesn’t work that way.

Not with the gould.

Especially not with this gould.

I mean, have you ever heard of an instance where making a pact with the devil turned out well? Huh? Bet not.

An alliance, with Baal?

Over my dead body.

No, wait, bad image. We’ve already done the ‘my dead body’ thing. And as you might expect, it wasn’t much fun, not for me anyway.

The rational part of me, and yes, there is a rational part left, knows I probably should make the deal. But me, my gut, my soul, can’t.

I look into his slightly grainy, slightly shimmering hologram face, and remember the icy indifference with which he killed me. A lot of what happened to me in his fortress is pretty vague, thankfully; a side effect of the sarcophagus and of all that dying, I suppose. Maybe it’s just my brain’s way of protecting me from remembering what no human being was ever meant to remember.

But the why or the how isn’t so important as the fact that that’s the way it is, to steal Walter Cronkite’s cliché, and a very good cliché it was. Still is.

As I stand in the gateroom, confronting Baal, I know I sound petty, probably even emptyheaded, and really, that’s not such a bad thing. Ol’ Bawl thinks I’m whacked and therefore, not a threat to him. Or so I tell myself, just like I tell Reynolds that what I’m doing is strategy.

I’m not so empty-headed nor am I so egotistical as to risk Earth for revenge. Okay, yes, there are some empty spaces here inside my skull, ones that weren’t there before I rode Baal's gravity roller coaster one too many times.

I’m not exactly who I used to be.

But then, who is?

Jacob glares at me, but I smile enigmatically, and hold my ground, ignoring his grousing. Maybe he knows, just a little, how much I’m bluffing.

Maybe he’s looked into my eyes, and seen the fear.

But if he has, he’s seen the resoluteness, too.

The strength, borne of unimaginable things endured, and survived.

Knowledge that no man should have, of his own frailties, his own weaknesses, his own deaths.

And the power of the will to live.

*********THE END*********