Of Men And Beasts

By BadgerGater

E-mail: [email protected]

Category: Sequel; Angst

Season/Sequel: Five/Beast of Burden

Spoilers: Rite of Passage, Beast of Burden, a touch of Shades of Gray

Rating: PG

Warnings: A few Jack words

Summary: Jack has second thoughts after a mission

Disclaimer: 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 elsewhere without the author's consent.

Author’s note:

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Later, much later, he would come to realize what a mistake he'd made. At the time, however, Colonel Jack O'Neill had one mother of a headache, a way more than Excedrin headache, an absolute migraine sized, over-the-top, killer headache, the kind that made walking, talking, not to mention thinking, the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest and curing cancer, all in one afternoon. He was so damned tired, and every inch of his body ached viciously from that pain stick thingy that sadistic SOB Burrock had used on him. Tired, wet, cold, hungry and really sick of that guy with the jackhammer rattling away at the inside of his head, all O'Neill wanted was to get off that freakin' planet and go home.

Besides, he told himself, the deed was done. The Unas had the weapons and four mere humans, even when one was Teal'c, were no way going to be able to take the things back from the pair of them. Experience told him that. So O'Neill decided not to think about what he'd just done. Instead, he nodded at Daniel and prepared to go home.

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

SG-1 had waved goodbye to Chaka and his friend, dialed up Earth, sent the iris code and stepped into the wormhole, Jack for once letting Teal'c bring up the rear. Sam stepped through first, side by side with Daniel, the Colonel following, emerging onto the echoing ramp facing the usual gate room crowd of security teams, medical personnel, General Hammond, and the ever-present on-lookers.

Home. O'Neill sighed, weary legs stumbling on the steps, Dr. Fraiser immediately appearing at his side. Shit. He hadn't even seen her come in to the gateroom. He was slipping. Then again, the headache that was hammering the inside of his skull like a clapper ringing a bell just *might* have something to do with that.

"Colonel?" Fraiser's voice was filled with worry. "Sir, are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," he snapped, more shortly than he'd intended.

"Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson were held captive and tortured with a pain stick by the trader, Burrock," Teal'c revealed.

The diminutive doctor glanced quickly from O'Neill to Jackson, noting both looked pale and worn out. "A pain stick?"

"It is a Goa'uld device used for punishment and torture, similar to an electrical shock," Teal'c explained. "It is designed not to cause permanent injury, but to inflict the maximum amount of discomfort."

Fraiser was still studying O'Neill and Jackson. "Are you injured?"

"No," the Colonel answered too quickly.

"Headache," the archaeologist admitted, pulling off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Really, really, big headache."

"You, too, Colonel?"

O'Neill simply nodded.

That was all the SGC's Chief Medical Officer needed to know. "The infirmary. Both of you. Now."

The Colonel strode carefully down the steps and walked deliberately down to the medical area of the SGC, wishing his head didn't feel like it was going to explode with each footfall.

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

Reaching the infirmary, Fraiser went immediately to O'Neill. Steering the Colonel toward a seat on an exam table, she watched him with a wary eye as she gathered her equipment. Janet couldn't fail to miss the tight pain lines around his half-closed eyes, his uncharacteristic stillness and the way his shoulders slumped in weariness. "So, you've got a headache?" she asked.

"Yup."

She slipped the BP cuff around O'Neill's upper arm, talking softly while she worked. "About this pain stick, what did it feel like?"

"Painful."

Janet gave him an exasperated look. "Seriously, Colonel."

"I'm serious," he answered, closing his eyes again. That seemed to reduce the headache intensity from half a dozen guys with jackhammers working on the inside of his skull to only five and a half. Maybe.

"How painful?"

He opened one eye and stared balefully at her. "Didn't know you were a closet sadist, Doc."

"Colonel, it's a medical question. What did it feel like?" she repeated as she checked his pulse.

"It was an electric shock. What do you think it felt like?"

"Sir...."

"Doc," his eyes were wide open now, glaring at her, "I was chained up and locked in a cell with a nasty, smelly, self righteous torturer poking me with something that felt like a supercharged cattle prod. It *hurt*, like someone driving a spike through the middle of my skull. So, no, I didn't wait around long enough to measure how many kilowatts or megawatts or gigawatts the damn thing put out. Next time, I'll check it out just for you," he stared defiantly at the doctor.

"Okay, Sir, I get your point," she shone her penlight in his eyes.

He flinched. "Damn it, Doc, that hurts!"

"The light?"

"Yes."

"What else hurts?"

"Oh, let's see, probably just every bone, muscle and joint in my body. And oh yeah, my head. I've got one big honkin' headache. But I think I've already mentioned *that*," he growled.

Fraiser used her most soothing voice. "Sir, I know you're uncomfortable..."

"Uncomfortable? Huh. Nice pleasant word, that," he snapped. "A damn sight more than uncomfortable," he stopped suddenly, mid-rant, realizing what he'd just said, raising his eyes to briefly meet Doc's. His voice was softer as he finished, "I need something for this headache, is all."

"Colonel, I have to finish your check up first, then I'll have a nurse bring you something for the pain."

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

Half an hour later, having just completed the standard post mission check up, O'Neill sat uncomfortably on a bed in the infirmary, still in his BDUs. Jackson was sitting on the bunk across from him, both of them wearing frowns, neither one meeting the other's eyes. The Colonel, in fact, let his eyes slide shut and left them closed, hoping that might ease the throbbing headache. Didn't work. The jackhammer guys were definitely working overtime.

"Colonel," O'Neill jumped when Fraiser's voice was suddenly close.

"Doc," he answered, non-committally.

"Headache any better yet?"

Jack simply shook his head, carefully, no.

"Well, gentlemen, the good news is that all the tests came back negative, on both of you. As Teal'c suggested, there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage. Dr. Jackson, you seem fine, but Colonel, all your vitals are a bit elevated, blood pressure, pulse, respiration, all slightly higher than normal."

He nodded, said nothing.

Fraiser began to worry again. "Sir? How *do* you feel?"

"I have the mother of all headaches, remember?" O'Neill told her tonelessly. "That just might explain things."

"I'm sure it does, Colonel, pain *will* negatively affect your vitals. But regardless, I'm going to keep you here tonight as a precaution." The brown eyes opened and bored into hers. "And Dr. Jackson as well. You both received a dangerously strong shock on top of getting zatted."

"I'll be fine with a couple of aspirin and some sleep," O'Neill insisted.

"I'm sure you will, Colonel, but I'll feel better keeping you here to make sure." She turned to look at Daniel, and he nodded in agreement, worried about Jack, knowing Janet had made him stay because she was worried about O'Neill's quiet, almost listless responses. "I'll have Nurse Lee get you some scrubs to sleep in. We'll get you something for the headache, and, providing you feel better in the morning and your vitals are back to normal, you'll both be able to go home tomorrow."

"Sure," he agreed too readily, raising Fraiser's worry meter another notch higher.

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

<<<Chaka and the newly freed Unas peered through the brush at the isolated farmstead. A family lived there, a large family, a human and his wife and children, from a tiny baby carried in the mother's backpack all the way up to a boy of 10 or 12, working in the field beside his father. There were several Unas also helping with the work.

Resolving to die bravely, the boy lunged forward, the staff weapon charged, the bolt of energy surging outward, engulfing him, and he screamed in rage, pain and horror...>>>

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

"No!" O'Neill shouted, lunging upward on the bed to sit upright, breathing in ragged gasps. "No!"

"Jack?" Daniel asked sleepily from the next bed over.

O'Neill rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, staring around in momentary confusion before remembering where he was, and why. God, that had been an awful dream. The children, the Unas were killing the children of that world, all those children, innocent children, dying because of the decision *he* had made, or rather, the one he hadn't made, because he'd been tired and walked away from an ugly situation that would only grow uglier and uglier.

"Jack? You okay?" Daniel's quiet voice inquired again.

"Yeah," the Colonel lied, and sank back down onto the bed, pulling the covers up to his shoulders, turning on his side, away from Jackson, to stare at the blank wall.

Janet Fraiser was staring in at the doorway, a worried scowl marring her face as she watched the Colonel pull up the covers and turn away to feign sleep.

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

O'Neill didn't sleep. He couldn't. He wouldn't let himself, because every time he did, those nightmares returned, nightmares filled with horrifying, bloody images of children screaming, dying....

God, there was no worse nightmare. Sometimes Charlie was there, one of the dying children; sometimes it was Cassie, or the General's granddaughters, or even that little boy he'd talked to, the one whose father he'd shot back in the barn.

O'Neill lay sleepless on the bed until the morning shift change arrived. In the confusion, he quickly slid out of the bunk, climbed into his own clothes and headed out, leaving Daniel still asleep.

Dr. Fraiser intercepted him at the door. "Colonel O'Neill? What are you doing?"

"I'm on my way to my office, Doc. I've got a report to finish."

"Colonel, I haven't released you. I need to check..."

"Doc, I am fine," he bit off each word. "I need a shower, a shave, a change into clean clothes, and to get some work done. There's nothing wrong with me that getting out of here won't cure." And with that O'Neill stalked past the startled doctor and out the door.

"Colonel O'Neill, you *do not* have permission to leave," Fraiser insisted, following him out into the corridor.

He turned to face her, determination written in every line of the lean face that somehow seemed older this morning, as old as the despair filled eyes leveled at her. "Doc, I'm leaving."

"Sir, I'll have to send security," she threatened.

"Then send them," he answered, and left.

Dr. Fraiser stared after the Colonel, sighing, not liking this at all.

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

It was barely 0700 when General Hammond was surprised to see a haggard looking Colonel O'Neill step into his office. "Jack? I thought you were in the infirmary," he said, concerned.

"I was. I left this morning."

"With Dr. Fraiser's permission?"

"Not exactly."

"Colonel, are you okay?"

O'Neill stared at his commanding officer for a moment, then handed over the papers he held in his hand. "This is my mission report from yesterday."

"When did you write this, Colonel?"

"Most of it at about 4 this morning. I couldn't sleep."

"You look tired." Hammond was worried. O'Neill looked more than tired, he looked exhausted, and maybe something else.

"Yes, Sir, I'd say that's a fair assessment, General," the Colonel looked his CO in the eye. "I'm requesting leave..."

"Leave?" That was a surprise. It was usually as hard to get O'Neill out of the SGC as it was to get Carter and Jackson out of the place. O'Neill loved his work here, he never requested time off. In fact, he usually complained profusely about boredom whenever Hammond tried to force him to take leave.

"General, I need a few days to do some thinking..."

Jack O'Neill thinking was not something George Hammond liked. "Something you'd like to talk about, son?"

"No, Sir. Something I need to think through on my own."

"Sure?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Jack..." Hammond tried to catch O'Neill's eye, but the officer refused to meet his gaze, keeping his eyes glued to the pale gray carpet covering the General's office floor. "Okay, I won't deny this request. You have plenty of time off coming. One week of leave, with one condition. Promise me, Colonel, that you'll talk to me before you make any irrevocable decision. About anything." Did O'Neill understand what he was saying? "Anything, son."

"Yes, Sir, of course, General." With those words, O'Neill disappeared back out the door as quickly as he'd come in.

Hammond sighed. He didn't know what was wrong this time, but something definitely was. Dealing with Jack O'Neill was never easy, there were times he cursed the day he'd selected the man as his 21C. But in his experience, worthwhile things rarely came without a price, and George firmly believed O'Neill was worth the aggravation he caused.

Vowing to talk to Dr. Fraiser later, Hammond turned to the brief report the Colonel had left on his desk, hoping the document would provide some insight into what was happening with the SG-1 team leader.

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

O'Neill left the base quickly, before he had to face any of his team. He needed to be alone, to think, to try to find a way to justify what they'd done, what he'd done, what he'd allowed his team to do.

"He left?" Daniel Jackson, having just exchanged his infirmary scrubs for clean BDUs, was incredulous. "Without telling any of us? He took a week's leave?"

"That's what General Hammond just told me," Major Sam Carter told the SG-1 linguist. "I didn't know you'd sent him home, Janet."

"I didn't. You're telling me Colonel O'Neill has gone home?" Dr. Janet Fraiser wasn't any happier to hear the news. "He stormed out of here early this morning. Against medical advice." She shook her head, worried. "There was no real physical reason to keep him, but he seemed..."

"Upset," Daniel finished for her.

"Yes. Not himself. Worried."

"He had nightmares last night, several. He woke me up a couple of times," Jackson admitted.

"What? What were they about?" Janet wanted to know.

"He wouldn't say. But whatever they were, they really bothered him."

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

Jack was sitting outside on the deck, staring across his backyard. He'd come home and taken a long, hot shower, then refrained from shaving, choosing instead the stubbled look to go with his jeans and sweatshirt. Through it all, the nasty headache persisted, receding now to a dull throbbing echoing unceasingly in the back of his skull, but still there.

He'd just begun to savor his privacy when he heard a car drive up, and then the clatter of the doorbell ringing. Damn.

He ignored it, hoping the visitor would go away.

The visitor didn't. After a few minutes, footsteps sounded around the corner of the house and Jack saw it was Daniel.

O'Neill, leaning back in his chair, feet propped on the deck's railing, waved his beer at his team mate. Jackson climbed slowly up the stairs and stood, jacket in hand, slouching and leaning his back against the deck railing.

Sipping his beer, the Colonel looked out across the green carpeting of lawn. "Drew the short straw again, did you?"

Daniel flinched. "Jack, you know that was a joke."

The gray haired man shrugged. "Sure. Fine. Whatever you say. What do you want this time?"

"Talk."

"Ah, we went over this once before, a year or so ago now, wasn't it? No talk."

"But that time you were undercover."

"Maybe I am again."

Daniel slipped down into one of the deck chairs. "You're not. Hammond verified it. He's worried about you."

Jack didn't answer, just stared out across the green lawn. "You know, I think I need to trim the hedge again. And the grass needs to be mowed."

"Jack..."

"Daniel..."

"So are you going to tell me what's going on?"

O'Neill didn't answer.

"Going to make me drag it out of you?"

"You could try. Better men than you have failed." There was bitterness in the voice.

"Okay, so you're mad at me. About the Unas?"

The gray haired man shrugged his shoulders. "Not mad at you."

"So who are you mad at?" Daniel persisted.

"Myself."

It was quiet on the deck for long minutes.

"Because..." Jackson prodded.

No answer.

"Because..." Daniel tried again.

The silence stretched, and Jackson waited. Finally, he got an answer.

"How many children did we kill, Daniel?" the words were so soft and low Jackson wasn't sure he heard them right.

"What?"

"How many innocents did we kill? By what we did, yesterday, when we turned the Unas loose on that planet, with weapons. How many women and children will die because of us?"

"I told them not to kill."

"Right. They killed Burrock without a qualm."

"He enslaved, tortured and killed the Unas. He tortured us."

"Sure, and *he* deserved it, I'll agree. I'd have happily offed the son of a bitch myself. But once you start killing, it's not easy to stop, it never is. They'll kill more."

"They're fighting for their freedom."

"I know that," irritation leaked from O'Neill's voice. "But that doesn't change anything. Killing is easy, too easy, once you kill the first one, once you start the war. They'll kill. That's what happens in a war, Daniel. They'll kill, even if they didn't start out to kill, and pretty soon they won't be able to stop. Chaka won't be able to control them, they'll kill the adults, and they'll kill the children," he paused to suck in a deep breath. Daniel thought it sounded almost like a sob, but this was Jack and Jack wouldn't, would he...

"So all those kids will die. Their blood will be on my hands, along with the blood of all the others."

"What others? What else have you done?"

"First Nirti and now the Unas."

"What?"

"Nirti, I argued to turn Nirti loose, to save one kid. You and me both, we helped convince Hammond that it was okay to turn a damn Goa'uld free to save one kid because she was important to us. But what right did we have to do that, to decide that Cassie was more important than some other kid somewhere else?"

"We don't know Nirti will re-start her experiments."

There was no humor in O'Neill's laugh. "Yeah, right. I'm not that naive, Daniel, and neither are you. She's a freakin' gould and she'll do whatever she wants, use humans, use kids, for her own purposes. That's what the snakes do, they prey on others, they use those unfortunate enough to be weaker than they are. So we got what we wanted. We saved the kid we judged important by turning loose a monster to do whatever she wants to how many other children? How many, Daniel? Children who are important to their families, like Cassie is to Doc, like Charlie was..."

"Jack..."

O'Neill still had not raised his head, or met Jackson's eyes. "How many kids did I condemn yesterday, Daniel? I helped started a war."

"We didn't start this. We didn't turn the Unas into slaves. We didn't open the gate to Chaka's world. Burrock did that for his own purposes, to enslave Chaka's people."

"We should have sent them back."

"I talked you into letting them go. If you need to blame someone, blame me."

"Nice try, but it won't work. I command SG-1, and the final decision is mine. I let you do it."

"You couldn't have stopped me."

"Wrong there, Daniel. I could have, I could have ended it right there, zatted Chaka and his pal and taken them with us. And there would have been a time in the past when I would have, when I'd have done what I needed to do. Before I got too soft to do this job."

"The rebellion would likely have started anyway..."

"Maybe. Maybe not. We'll never know. But *we* wouldn't have started it, *we* wouldn't have given them ideas and weapons and showed them how to kill."

"We also showed them compassion, Jack. We showed them that not all humans are their enemies. We *helped* them. That should be enough for an intelligent species to understand that not all humans are bad."

"I don't know if it's enough," there was pain reverberating through O'Neill's quiet voice. "Trying isn't enough. It's never enough." After long silent moments, he added, "I don't think I can do this anymore, Daniel, make the hard decisions. I'm tired. I'm tired of making life and death decisions for others. For deciding about Nirti and the Unas. And before that, we almost killed a whole planet on K'tau. I was angry, and ready to condemn a whole world because of the stupidity of a few."

"But you didn't, Jack, you changed your mind. You listened to what Carter, Teal'c and I had to say, and you got past your anger, and in the end you helped us find another solution."

"That time. What about next time? What about the time after that and the time after that?" O'Neill raised his eyes to meet Jackson's for the first time, and Daniel recoiled at the intense pain he saw there. "I've killed too many kids already, Daniel, too many, too many deaths, too much blood. What right do I have to make decisions like that? I'm a warrior. I re-act. I see things in military, black and white terms. I don't want to be responsible for the fate of whole societies. I don't want to be responsible for whole planets. Not anymore." He sank back wearily in the chair.

"The Stargate program won't end if you leave. The difficult decisions will still need to be made. Jack, if you're not there, then who *will* make those decisions?"

"Someone else. Anyone else."

"I never thought you'd turn out to be a quitter," Daniel goaded.

"Won't work, Daniel. Enough's enough."

"No, it's not. You can't quit. You can't give up. We need you."

"No, you've grown beyond me. You don't need me anymore, you've shown it often enough. You got along without me while I was on Edora, and while I was undercover. You all go off on your own missions. You've outgrown me."

"We'll never outgrow you."

"Hmmphh. I'm nothing but a glorified bodyguard."

"Jack, we can't be SG-1 without you."

"Hammond will assign you another watchdog. You'll get used to someone else."

"No, we won't. We need you just as much as you need us."

"No one needs me," O'Neill answered, despair clouding the voice. "I'm an anachronism. The Air Force is all about computers and fancy doohickeys, it belongs to computer geeks and scientists, people like Carter. Not dinosaurs like me."

"Jack, you are the heart of SG-1. What you do is as important to us as what we do. You brought us together and you keep us together, you're the glue that holds us together."

"Then maybe it's time to let SG-1 break apart."

"You don't believe that."

"I don't know what I believe anymore, except I believe I'll have another beer." O'Neill pushed himself upright.

Daniel jumped to his feet, stepping between Jack and the doorway. "Would you listen to me for a minute?"

O'Neill shook his head, and tried to brush past the smaller man.

Daniel grabbed Jack's shoulder. "Damnit, listen. SG-1 needs you."

"Hammond will assign someone else in my place. A few weeks and you won't even notice."

"No way. We've been through this before, with Makepeace."

"You don't have to worry. *He* won't be back."

"No, he won't, but Hammond will have to assign someone, probably someone as hardcore as Makepeace."

"The General won't do that to you."

"He probably won't have a choice, you know that. He has bosses, too, and some of them want SG-1 and the SGC to fail."

Jack remained stubbornly silent.

"SG-1 will go on without you, and someone will still be making life and death decisions."

"Well, it won't be me, thank God."

"No, it will be someone who cares less, who has less compassion; someone who understands less and listens less. It will be someone who won't care if the children die."

"It won't be my responsibility."

"Yes, it will. If you walk away, it will be on no one's shoulders but yours. You try, Jack, we argue and we disagree but you and I, we can talk to each other, we can compromise. And we always have the same goal at heart, we want to make the universe a better place. Our methods are different, but we want the same thing, Jack, we want to help people." Daniel touched Jack's shoulder again. "You care too much to walk away. Don't. Those people out there, those children, they need someone like you, someone who cares."

"Caring isn't enough."

"It's better than the alternative."

The quiet voice was agonized. "I can't save them all. I dream about the ones I didn't save."

"Like your son?" Jackson said gently.

Jack turned to meet Daniel's eyes, the pain clearly written across the weary face. "Like my son."

"You can't bring him back, we know that. But there are more children out there, children who need someone like you, someone who cares enough to agonize about whether he's making the right decision."

The gray haired head shook once more.

"We can go back and check on Chaka and that planet, Jack. Try to mediate..."

"Hammond will never go for it."

"He already has. If you'll lead us there."

O'Neill slumped against the deck railing, scrubbing a hand across his face.

"Look, I know you're tired. I'm tired, and I slept better than you did. And I don't know about you, but I've still got that headache and I feel like I was run over by a bulldozer. We'll both feel better with a decent night's rest and a fresh perspective."

Jack stared at the floor, then raised his eyes slowly. "Hammond said we could go back?"

"Yeah, he'll send a negotiation team, try to get the two sides to talk, send all the Unas back to their own planet, maybe. We'll try to find a peaceful solution."

The Colonel nodded. "In the morning."

"Yeah."

"Daniel..."

"Hmm?"

"Want a beer? Does wonders for the headache."

"Yeah, sure."

**FINIS**