Darkness

By BadgerGater

Email: [email protected]

Season: 7

Episode: Fallout

Spoilers: Nothing specific except small ones for Fallout

Category: Epilogue, drama

Pairing: None

Summary: Jack looks inside himself

Rating: PG

Warning: Dark

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of SciFi Channel, 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 Note: I’m worried about Jack in S7.

Big huge honkin’ thanks to Jude….

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

He’d enjoyed saying those words, way too much.

And he knew it.

He hated those people, for the way they’d acted, now, when their planet was at risk. He hated them even more so for how they’d acted back then, when they’d tried to blame Daniel, when all he’d done was saved their whole worthless world.

Jack O’Neill took another swallow of his beer, and leaned back in his chair, watching the cloud of his breath puff out into the cold night air. Above him, the stars glittered in the darkness, hard and cold.

Like him.

The space inside him so like the space out there, mostly empty and very, very dark.

When had this happened?

He hadn’t always been like this, he remembered a time when he’d felt normal, when life had been bright and optimistic. That had ended, of course, when he’d killed Charlie, and driven Sara away, the darkness swallowing him, growing inside him until it became so complete he’d thought light would never again penetrate his soul.

And then the Stargate program had come along and rescued him from his own inner Hell.

And given him a new one.

That brief reprieve when SG-1 and the SGC had been new and uncorrupted, filled with adventure and excitement, had let the light back in. Though he’d rarely shown it to others, even his own team, there’d been a time when going through the gate had set his heart pounding in anticipation as great as Daniel’s love for new cultures and Carter’s for new technology.

He’d felt young again.

Purposeful.

Needed.

Alive.

It didn’t last, though.

Slowly, it had all eroded away, helped along by the NID and the traitors in their own midst; the constant warfare against the Gould, the Replicators, Anubis, the fact that you killed one snake and another, and worse one, popped up to take its place. And then there were all the losses along the way, Kawalsky and Frank and Henry Boyd, and oh God, the young ones like Skaara and Elliot and Astor; even the likes of Narim, who in the end he’d come to respect.

So much death and dying.

Sure there’d been the occasional bright spot along the way, like saving Merrin and the Reetou boy Charlie, freeing those poor mutated people from Nirrti’s experiments, and those folks who’d lived under Mot’s thumb. There’d been times when the light had entered his soul once more.

Temporarily.

But it hadn’t been enough.

Somewhere along the way the darkness had once again begun to overwhelm the light.

He didn’t know exactly when, it had happened too slowly, the black pall creeping up and over him like fog drifting through the night.

But he knew the last step, the final brick that had walled him into bitter solitude once more.

The Kelownans and Daniel’s death had been close, but the clincher had been Ba’al and that damned soul-sucking box.

He took another swig of the beer and looked up at the dark sky and saw only himself mirrored there.

=============

He was so deep in his black thoughts that he almost missed the sound of the car stopping on the street below. His neighborhood was a quiet one, it wasn’t often on a weeknight that vehicles pulled in this late.

It was so quiet, he could hear the car door slam and even footsteps on the sidewalk. The dim tone of the doorbell, his own doorbell, chimed softly.

He made no move to leave his perch, to answer the call.

There were more sounds then, muttered words he couldn’t make out as the bell chimed again, and then the footsteps came around the side of the house.

“Jack, are you up there?” the familiar voice called softly. “Jack?”

Damn. He was going to have to get a ladder he could pull up after himself to protect his privacy he thought as he heard the rustling sounds of someone climbing.

A figure soon appeared above the roofline and maneuvered deftly into the spare chair.

That had been another mistake, toting another chair up here, welcoming people to his hideaway.

Of course, they usually came uninvited.

But he shouldn’t have made it so easy for them.

Something he could remedy in the near future, he promised himself.

Silence returned.

Daniel said nothing.

Jack sipped his beer and waited, and pulled his walls in tighter and closer and higher.

“So,” Daniel started, softly. “Nice night for stargazing.”

He didn’t answer.

“What’s that, Venus?”

“Mars.” He hadn’t meant to answer, but he had.

“Sam says we can’t see Langara’s star from here.”

Jack shrugged, drawing his cloak of silence closer.

Daniel sat forward in the chair, and then he raised his face and looked intently at Jack O’Neill. “You weren’t really going to do it, were you?”

Jack knew exactly what the younger man meant. “Hell, yes.”

“You’d have let them all die?”

“Uh huh.”

“Let everyone on Langara die?” Daniel’s voice sounded hurt.

“Except Jonas. He’s okay.”

“You hate the Langarans that much?”

“No, it was more that I like the Medronans that much.”

“It was not.”

“Was.”

“Was not.”

He was so not getting into another one of those arguments with Daniel. “Think whatever you like.”

“I think you’re in trouble,” Daniel answered flatly.

Jack snorted. “Hammond agreed with me, remember?”

“That’s not the kind of trouble I mean.”

Jack lifted the beer bottle to his lips and discovered it was empty. He set it down by his feet.

“Jack, what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked incredulously.

“And I don’t mean the knees or the back you carry on about all the time. I’m serious.”

“The knees and the back *are* serious.”

“Jack…”

“What?” he snapped, finally.

“You know I still don’t remember everything, but I do know you didn’t used to be like this.”

“Then you didn’t know me very well.”

“Don’t give me that. I do know you, very well. Or did. I know the I-don’t-give-a-damn façade you put up, but I always knew that underneath you were… you.”

“Who else would I be?” he answered, glibly.

“You’re not who you used to be, Jack.”

“None of us are. You were ascended, and now you’re back here…”

“And you used to care about people.”

Jack shrugged, and didn’t care if Daniel could see it in the darkness on the roof. “Not really.”

“Other people might believe that, but I don’t.”

“Believe what you want then. I can’t stop you.”

“No, you can’t.” Daniel paused, the silence growing. “Jack, please, I think you need to talk to someone…”

“I’m talking to you.”

“No, you’re not. I’m talking and *maybe* you’re listening, but you’re saying what you think will get me to shut up and go away.”

He shrugged again, ignoring the words, and the truth of them.

“If you won’t talk to me, talk to someone. Janet or Teal’c or the General, or Doctor MacKenzie.”

Jack laughed out loud at that. “McKenzie? *You* telling me to talk to McKenzie? Oh that’s rich, Daniel.”

“You should.”

“I have. Have you?”

“This isn’t about me,” Daniel pushed, “but yes, I have, I had to get back into the program.”

“And I had to do the same, after I came back...” his voiced trailed away. “I’ve talked to him until I’m all talked out.”

“And you told him what he wanted to hear.”

Daniel had been right about one thing, he desperately wished Daniel would shut up and go away, because he was saying all the things Jack already knew, that inside he was.... he didn’t know what he was, didn’t know if there was a word for it. Hollow, ghostly, a shadow of someone he’d been before, drained. Soul-less was the only word he’d been able to come up with, in all the nights he’d spent up here on the roof, watching the stars and trying to find something vital that he’d lost in that damned box.

“Jack, you are my friend and I care about you and I’m worried.”

“Do what you want. It’s a free country.”

“Jack…”

He didn’t answer. He’d said all he was going to say, he wasn’t going to let Daniel keep probing, and stumble onto the truth, because even he didn’t know what the truth was, or how he could deal with it.

He just kept going on because he didn’t know what else to do.

Because he was a survivor and survivors survived, consequences be damned.

The silence stretched, and broke.

“Jack…”

“Go away.”

“No.”

“Then stay.” Stubbornly, Jack said nothing more, just stared up at the stars and ignored Daniel’s words and finally, with a sigh, the younger man left.

==================

Alone again on the roof, Jack looked up and felt his heart grow heavy. He knew Daniel was right, he knew something was missing, something torn out of him by Ba’al and the sarcophagus. Daniel had been there in that damnable box, too, and he knew what it did, but he didn’t know what Jack knew.

What had left Jack empty and jaded, and more cynical than ever.

What Jack had learned, and couldn’t forget.

What had snatched away the small amount of peace he’d so carefully created for himself out of the shattered remnants of the life he’d once had.

===============

He climbed down off the roof, threw the empty beer bottle into the trash can beside the garage and opened the big overhead door. Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out his keys and opened the door of the pick-up, blinking in the bright light. Jack started the engine and backed out of the garage, flipping on the lights as he turned down the street.

He drove aimlessly, avoiding the one place he knew he needed to go.

The one place he hadn’t been for over a year now, because he couldn’t go there.

And needed to.

Had to.

He hadn’t intended to go there, and when he found himself on the familiar street, he was surprised. His subconscious had won, had taken him where he needed to go.

And dreaded going.

He pulled to the curb and for a long time sat in the truck’s cab in the dark, working up his resolve. Finally, he opened the door and walked through the familiar dark paths until he came to the spot he knew so well.

It was quiet, and empty, as one would expect in a graveyard.

No ghosts, only the ones he carried with him.

And all the questions, that question, mainly, the one he hadn’t let himself contemplate.

And needed to.

Had to.

He’d died.

And Charlie… he’d expected to see Charlie.

And hadn’t.

Over and over again, each death more painful and harrowing and welcome than the one before… but there was no Charlie.

Why?

Why could the Gould revive him and Oma ascend Daniel, but what about Charlie, the true innocent? Why hadn’t Charlie been there when he’d died? Why had there been only darkness? Was that all there was? An end and darkness forever?

He didn’t believe in God anymore, not in any formal church-going way, not that he’d ever been much for any of that. But somehow, he’d always believed that Charlie’s spirit still existed, that a life so vibrant and bright couldn’t just end. He didn’t know much science, but he remembered that energy could be neither created nor destroyed, so the energy, the spirit, the life that had been Charlie, had to be out there, somewhere… he just couldn’t imagine anything else.

Couldn’t live with anything else.

And then he’d died, and there’d been only darkness and silence.

Over and over again.

He dropped to his knees, and fought back the tears. “I need a sign, Charlie,” he whispered into the night and the darkness and the perfect stillness of the cemetery. “Anything. A breeze, a ray of light, something. Anything.”

He waited.

His knees began to ache as he knelt on the cold ground, and still he waited.

But there was no breeze.

No ray of light.

Until finally the sun rose, and the sky brightened, but his soul remained empty and dark as the night.

His soul still empty.

His spirit still lost.

His prayer once more unanswered.

And he was doomed to go on.

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