Boxes
By Badgergater
Email: [email protected]
Category: Drama
Pairing: None
Season: 9
Spoilers: Avalon 1
Warning: Tissue alert! Sad
Rating: Anyone
Summary: Farewells are hard, even for Jack O’Neill
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate, none of us fans do, we just support it; No copyright infringement intended, no money changed hands. Fic is the property of the author and may not be posted elsewhere without permission
Author’s Pledge: The real Jack O’Neill, always and only, presented with honest, accurate information so that the potential reader has the facts to make an informed decision on whether or not to read.
Author’s Note: Thanks as always, to those who feedback; CB for the beta; and RDA for eight years of insight into Jack O'Neill. If only we'd gotten to see a farewell scene like this one
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A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
(Song: Turn Turn Turn by the Byrds; from a Biblical quotation)
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Jack felt the twinge in his back as he picked up the last box. He probably shouldn’t be carrying boxes, he knew that.
It wasn’t that heavy, not really, not nearly as heavy as his heart.
Carefully, he carried the cardboard container out of the house and placed it on the seat of the truck. He was leaving the car behind, and the motorcycle, both to be sold, just like the house.
The bike, well, much as he loved it, he had to admit he couldn't even remember the last time he'd ridden it. Time being the operative word; there was no time for frivolities when you were a general. And it was a crime to leave a bike like his Harley doing nothing but gathering dust in his garage. They were motion machines, made to be used, not artwork to sit and be looked at.
And the car, well, it had a lot miles on it. Hell, it must be nine, no ten, years old already. He'd bought it used, and had driven it all the time until he'd gotten the truck. Yeah, he knew the big Ford was a gas guzzler, but it was so much easier on his knees and his back than climbing in and out of the low-slung Firebird. Besides, in DC, he was paying enough for one parking space for the pick up, keeping the car, too, just didn't make any sense.
Everything but these last few boxes had gone with the movers, packed up in boxes long ago—furniture, dishes, towels, socks, hockey sticks, opera CDs, even the Billy Bass singing fish that had hung on the wall in his den, a gift from Teal’c. Yeah, the big guy’s heart was in the right place, even if he could use a crash course on decorating the Martha Stewart way.
There’d been a lot of boxes, a lot more than he’d expected, even after he’d left a whole truckload for the garbage man. It was surprising how much stuff you could accumulate when you stayed in one place for eight years.
These last few boxes, though, these were the special ones, the personal ones he wasn’t about to trust to some delivery company. No hands but his were handling these boxes.
His Simpsons DVD collection filled one box in the back seat.
Medals, plaques and award certificates, from both the house and his office, carefully tucked inside bubble wrap, filled another. That included an ordinary looking small velvet box, kept in his desk. He was pretty sure he’d never once taken it out of the drawer since the day he’d brought it home, not daring to display it or wear it. After all, how did someone who worked in Deep Space Radar Telemetry account for having won the Medal of Honor? Besides, he found it sort of embarrassing. He’d only done what needed to be done, done his job, and a lot of other people at the SGC had made it possible. That didn’t mean he wasn’t proud of it, because he was; it just, to be honest, made him uncomfortable.
The model planes and helicopter from the living room were securely packed in a third.
And this, the last box, the most precious of all, the box that contained the treasures of his life, or at least, the best memories of it.
His Air Force Academy graduation photo, in his brand spanking new second lieutenant’s uniform. God, had he ever been that young?
The picture of him in his jump gear.
The snapshot of his old team, the one with Frank and Eddie, right before they’d jumped into Guatemala.
He tucked that box in beside the autographed photo of Mary Steenburgen that his SG-1 teammates had bought for him on E-bay for his 50th birthday.
A worn cigar box filled with old family snapshots, his wedding pictures, his wedding band, the key to the house in Winter Park that had belonged to the family O'Neill and for the past nine years was Sara’s alone, his pilot’s wings, the dog tags he didn’t wear anymore.
The framed picture of him and Charlie, in their baseball uniforms, his boy holding the Little League MVP, on the day Charlie had said was the best day of his life.
The last picture of him and Sara with Charlie, the one that had stood on the nightstand beside his bed, and later, hung on the living room wall.
A hand colored Father’s Day card, in a child’s crayon scrawl proclaiming him the world’s best dad.
A nearly pristine kid-sized baseball glove with only a few weeks of wear showing on the gleaming leather surface.
Having settled the last box in a secure spot on the seat, he walked back into the house for one last look around. Jack would never consider himself a sentimental man but he had spent a lot of years here.
Good years, and bad.
Good times, and bad.
Memories.
Empty, the house seemed changed already.
It was no longer his home but just another structure of wood and stone, waiting for someone else to give it life.
His footsteps echoed hollowly as he checked to make sure he’d left nothing important behind.
Yeah, right, as if any possession, any *thing* he might forget could be as important as the pieces of himself that he was leaving here in this town.
Still, this place— it had been his haven, his retreat, his castle, the windows letting in all the green that he missed while underground every day.
This house had been part of his rehabilitation, the rebirth of Jack O’Neill. It had been the first step, actually, in rebuilding his shattered soul as he’d hammered and painted, rebuilding *it*.
The house that was his, filled with his memories, was gone already, the memories it held already erased.
The stain on the carpet where Daniel had spilled his beer, the night Jack invited the homeless archaeologist to use the spare room when he came back from Abydos.
The red strawberries and ice cream stain even CarpetKingCleaners couldn't remove, where Cassie had spilled a plate of birthday cake on the same carpet.
The nick in the flooring where an inebriated someone had tipped over a lamp during the wake he'd held for Daniel.
The mark on the dining room ceiling tile where the cork of the champagne bottle had hit, the night Doc, SG-1, and General Hammond had gathered to celebrate Cassie's high school graduation.
The rosebushes he had planted in the backyard during the doctor enforced two weeks off after returning from Hathor's fake SGC.
The view he loved, all the green, even if too often it was ragged from lack of mowing and weedy from lack of weeding.
He hoped the new owners wouldn't change it too much, but he knew it was inevitable that they would. Especially his stargazing deck. Even though, over almost a decade, the town had grown so much that it was getting harder and harder to actually see the stars, it still provided a great view. Most likely, though, it would be considered a hazard and taken down, he thought sadly.
Maybe he should have kept the place, hung onto the house and rented it out. There was always a market in a military town. But no, he already had the cabin and if he got any time off, he had promised himself that he was going there. On the rare occasions he’d be back in Colorado Springs, he’d stay at the Peterson BOQ or in the SGC’s VIP rooms or even over at Hank's place. It was plenty big.
No, if he was going to make this change, and he had to since he’d accepted the promotion and the new assignment that went with it, then he had to make a clean break.
Sever the ties.
Time marches on.
Life changes.
Yes, cleaning out his office at the SGC, that had been hard, even though it had been his for only a year.
Leaving the house was harder, eight years he'd been here, but it wasn’t close to the worst thing he had to do before he left town.
His last deed before departing Colorado Springs, it was going to be the hardest.
He took the long route, driving past the places he’d bought gas, purchased groceries, picked up take-out, dropped off his laundry. Not that he was prevaricating. Nope. Not him, he never tried to avoid the inevitable, he didn’t.
Not usually at least.
He drove all the way over past that other house, half hoping Sara would be standing in the front yard, half hoping she wouldn’t be, but she wasn’t and he couldn’t bring himself to go up to the door and knock. What would he say, after all this time? What could he say to her, the woman he had failed?
He didn’t think he could go back in the house anyway, not even to take one last look at Charlie’s room and his things.
Besides, he’d be back in town once in a while. Even two star generals got time off. Someday, he’d stop. But not today. Not today. He had somewhere else to go, and time was passing.
So he drove on by, one final time taking the once-familiar street, past the trees that had grown tall, the houses that had been painted, renovated, even re-landscaped. It was hardly recognizable as the neighborhood where he’d once lived.
Finally, he’d put it off as long as he could, but at last, he arrived.
For a long minute, he sat in the truck, his hands still on the wheel, staring straight ahead. With a heavy heart, Jack opened the door, climbed out of the cab and started across the green grass. No, his knees were not wobbly, his throat wasn’t dry and his eyes were not suddenly moist.
He felt cold despite the warm day. He always felt cold here, as if his soul was torn away.
At his destination at last, Jack stopped and stared at the ground that forever held what was nearest and dearest to his heart.
How did you say goodbye to your son’s grave?
Oh, god, he hated this place, he hated coming here, he hated what this place wouldn't let him forget. Because sometimes he did forget. Immersed in battle, engrossed in his work, focused on the task at hand, he did sometimes forget. But never for long.
And, even after eight long years, he could not forgive.
Time didn’t heal all wounds. It was a great cliché but it was crap. Time allowed the deep wounds to scab over, sure, but they didn’t heal, not really. They ached, not with the sharp brightness of raging flames they had when fresh, but rather with a deep, endless smoldering like banked embers. Ever ready to spark, to roar back into life at the tiniest provocation.
Charlie.
The son he had failed.
Charlie would be a man now, if it wasn’t for him.
Instead, he was forever only a boy, alive only in fading memories, because of him.
"Hey, Charlie." He stopped, the words catching in his throat. Quelling the rising sob, he looked up at the sky, blinking rapidly, defying the moisture that threatened his composure. "I think you’d be proud of your old man. They’ve given me another set of stars, and now they want me in Washington. That means I won’t get here so often, not that I’ve been here often, you know me, I don’t handle this kind of stuff very well."
He stopped, swallowing convulsively before inhaling a deep breath, holding it before letting it out slowly, an exercise in control. "Being far away doesn’t mean I’ll forget you. I never have, even when I was really, really far away. You’re never, ever far away, you know that, don’t you?" It was hard to breathe past the ache in his chest. "What I’ve achieved, Charlie, I’ve done it all because of you. Because when you were gone, my life was empty. It meant nothing, and I needed it to mean something. I had to have a purpose, a reason to go on, after, after that day."
He paused to drag in a shaky breath. "That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, why I’m going to Washington. I can’t stop, even though I want to, because I can’t give up the one thing that gave me a reason to go on. I didn’t protect you, but I can protect others. I used to do it with my gun, and now I’ve got to try to do it with my wits." A sad smile flitted across his face. "I know it won’t be easy, but nothing’s been easy since--"
There’d been a time, a very long time, when he’d thought he couldn’t live with that emptiness inside him, with that big, ragged, bleeding hole where his heart and soul had once been. When the only way he could fill that gaping abyss had been with darkness and the hope of death. It had taken him a long time to climb up out of that hole. He was still climbing, actually. In fact, he was pretty sure he would spend the entire rest of his life on that journey.
Kneeling down despite his knees, he laid a hand on the headstone. Warmed by the morning sun, it felt obscenely alive. "I know your Mom will keep coming, she’s always been better about that than I have. But don’t ever think because I’m not here that I’ve forgotten you. Because I never can and I never will." He blinked again, continuing in a hoarse voice, raw with emotion. "Nothing I’ve ever done was more important than being your father, Charlie. Nothing. Ever."
If only he’d realized that, back then, back when he could have saved his son, and his family. Hindsight was always 20/20; now there was a pretty cliché that really was true.
In that moment, when he let a world of might have beens exist inside him for one single second, the disobedient tear escaped his control and slid slowly down his weathered cheek.
A bit of breeze rippled through the grass, ruffling Jack’s hair.
He tried to smile, and failed that, too.
"I’ll be back, son. I promise." Stiffly, he stood, patting the stone one last time, and then, without looking back, he walked away.
Military life was a vagabond life. The last eight years had been an aberration, an oddity, staying in one place so long. Where life would take him over his remaining time, he didn't know. But of one thing he was sure, someday he'd be back to reside in Colorado Springs, to lie here forever beside his son.
*****The End*****