I Did It Again

Author: Badgergater

Email: [email protected]

Season: 7

Episode: Lost City 1-2

Spoilers: Lost City 1-2

Category: Missing scenes

Summary: Jack’s thoughts once he ‘did it again’

Pairing: None

Rating: PG, for Jack’s use of the occasional adult word, but nothing that you wouldn’t hear on the show

Warnings: Nothing more than a swear word or two

Disclaimer: I don’t own SG-1, the Stargate, etc. etc. etc. I acknowledge the rights and power of those that do, and ask them to understand that I don’t do this for money, because there is none.

Author’s Note: I absolutely loved the line "I did it again" delivered in just the right disbelieving, frustrated annoyed with himself tone of voice…

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I can’t believe I did it again.

Oh, hell, yes I can.

What else could I have done?

Time was running out.

None of the others could do it.

And you know, I’d survived before.

Okay, so it had required the help of the Asgaard, and even then it had been a near thing.

Maybe I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had more time to think about it, to find an alternative, but that was the whole point, see, there was no time. No options. No other choice.

So I did what had to be done.

Again.

***************

This time, I know what’s going to happen. It won’t be quite so scary, wondering what the hell is happening to me.

But let me tell you, it’s terrifying nonetheless.

Because I know, no matter how hard I fight, I’ll lose.

Lose myself.

Maybe forever.

But if I’d done nothing, if I’d let that alien thing fall into Anubis’s clammy hands, everyone on Earth would have been singing Sayonara. And there probably wouldn’t even have been any daisies left to push up. So I couldn’t *not* do it, see?

So I did it, stuck my neck out quite literally, let that thing grab my head and looked into that bright light, and the next thing I knew, I was being carried/dragged/hoisted back toward the Stargate.

Dodging energy weapon blasts.

All but shoved through the gate.

Hurried down the ramp past a stunned General Hammond.

Escorted to the infirmary.

Doc would help. I could almost feel my blood pressure reverting to something near normal with the knowledge that her calming influence was just minutes away.

Crap. My heart did a quick flip-flop and the blood pressure ratcheted right back up when I remembered that Doc wouldn’t be there. For all I’d cursed her nasty little penlight and her big honkin’ needles, I had always been able to count on Doc. Always. I knew she’d be there for me, just like I knew that she’d never give up on me because that’s the way she is. Was. She cared, even about me, even knowing how cantankerous I can get.

I missed her already, and the calm confidence she could induce.

I didn’t trust anyone the way I’d trusted her.

And never would.

*********

The time in the infirmary was a waste, of course. There was nothing to find, nothing that seemed wrong with me.

Yet.

Poking, prodding, all to no avail and to no purpose, and yeah, I snapped at the nurses and skewered Dr. Warner with sarcasm and in general was myself to the hilt and beyond… the perfect ass.

Hey, considering what I’d just done, and what I was about to go through, I sort of figured it didn’t make much difference. What people said at my funeral wasn’t going to matter a whole hell of a lot to me, you know?

Guess it’s the Irish in me.

***********

Like I told the General, there really was no reason for me to stay on the base.

And no, I wouldn’t let my team go home with me.

*********

I really did watch The Simpsons. Though, for once, five minutes after it was over, I couldn't have told anyone what the show was about. Sort of hard to think about ordinary things, even something so extraordinary as the best TV show in the known universe, when I knew what was going to happen to me over the next few days.

Sort of hard to forget how it felt when your brain was being eaten up from the inside out by an alien computer, even if it did happen years ago.

I switched off the TV and when I turned my head, my eyes drifted across the things in the room, passing over and then coming back to fix on the pictures. One of Charlie's baby pictures. The last O'Neill family picture. My first Special Ops team, including Frank Cromwell and John Michaels and Eddie Washington and myself.

Pictures of people long gone out of my life.

Only recently had I found the courage to move them into my living room. For years, they were stuffed away in a box in the bottom of my closet. Then, after Frank died, I put them out in my bedroom, where only my eyes could see them. I'd forgiven Frank, and that was the first step in forgiving myself, or at least, learning to live with myself. They'd stayed in the bedroom for years, where I could start every day by looking at them and reminding myself of my worst failures. Curbing my ego. Smacking me over the head with the reality of what I’d done, and what I’d lost. Acting as my incentive to spend every day trying to atone for my mistakes. Driving me on.

I remembered the day each one of those photos had been taken. Okay, not the one of Charlie, I wasn't there. I was stationed in Germany then, and Sara used to send me a new picture every week. I wouldn’t let myself think about all the once-in-a-lifetime moments I was missing, like my kid saying his first words and taking his first steps. Vowing I’d make up for it later. Which of course, as I now know, there is no later. There’s only now.

Sara, Charlie and me, in front of our house, my arm around her, my hand dropping down to ruffle his hair. How stupid I was, not to realize what I had, not to protect it. Mostly, now, I could look at that picture and remember the good times, the happy moments, not dwell on the horrible way it had all ended. It was still hard, still painful, still raw but just looking at them no longer sent me spiraling back down into that ugly black pit where I’d once existed and wanted to die.

My first special ops team. Good guys every one of them. John had been gone for many years now. I'd once promised him I'd look after Barbara; when was the last time I had called her? She still sent me a Christmas card every year; had I ever acknowledged them? And Frank, well, Frank... I didn't want to think about Frank and how he’d died saving me, the look on his face as he was sucked into that black hole, resignation and relief and acceptance. Peaceful, sort of. As for Eddie, I didn't have a clue where he might be. I'd heard he left the Air Force after John died in that botched up mission in Germany. Guess Eddie was going to get to drink that bottle of last survivor Scotch after all.

There were a lot of people I should have kept in touch with.

One of a lot of things I should have done.

Damn.

I was not going to wallow in the mistakes of my past. I'd be visiting most of those ghosts all too soon.

Needing to *do* something, I got up and headed for the kitchen. I finished up the Chinese takeout from two days ago, washed down with a beer and a giant sized dish of ice cream. See, I’d found one good thing about this whole mess, I didn’t need to be worrying about the calories, or the cholesterol.

And then I sat down at the dining room table with a pen and a notebook and tried to write the things I knew I could never say...

I said once that you need a hobby. I was right, of course, and you still do. Don't waste all your life in that lab, staring through a microscope. It’ll give you myopia or something. So I'm leaving you my copy of Curling for Dummies, not that I think you’re a dummy. It’s autographed by Bob Weeks, the author. And I’ve included the ESPN curling schedule for the rest of the year. Whatever you do, don’t miss the curling coverage during the next Olympics. It’s a rare treat. Just, relax a little. Enjoy life. There are things beyond science that are fun. Believe me.

Be free, my brother.

I'm sorry that you have lost so much. I wanted to be there for you, but, well, let Carter explain why I did what I did, not because I wanted to lose my life, but because I couldn't stand by and watch you and so many others lose theirs. And yeah, because I have this bad habit of jumping in with both feet before checking the LZ. You have a great life ahead of you. I've left instructions that my house be sold, and half the proceeds go for your college education. Make the success of your life that I know your mother wanted for you, and that I know you are capable of achieving.

I left the most difficult one until last. There was so much I wanted to tell her, and in the end, of course, I couldn't. Go figure. Maybe she’d see that picture on the living room wall, and understand how much she, they, meant to me, right until the end.

Carefully, I folded each letter and put it into an envelope, sealing it and writing the recipient’s name on the front. I stacked the letters on the nightstand in my bedroom, and then, needing to be outdoors, I took the telescope and carried it carefully up to the roof, setting it in place.

I stared out at the stars, and remembered the last six years, all the good people and the bad people, all the good aliens and the bad aliens I'd met out there; the amazing things a simple Minnesota guy had seen and done.

Lara, Garan and the good people of Edora. The fire rain was magnificent, the meteor shower to end all meteor showers. I could have had a good life there, I think, never whole, but as happy as I was capable of being.

Merrin and the people of Orbanna who’d learned so much from her, even if they didn’t deserve it.

Kinthia, Alekos and his wife, and their baby Danyel, who’d once worshiped that Pelops guy and now had more than a hundred days to live their lives.

The Land of Light, whose people were no longer lost.

Those gentle, amazing folks, the Nox.

Loran. Harlan. Urgo.

Nem the fish guy.

Kyle and Nelson and those other brainwashed boys playing soldier for the glory of a dead god.

Mary and Simon from that Middle Ages planet.

Those naked white plant people.

Tonane’s clan who believed in spirits. I really liked that guy, you know? I just wished they’d left the arrows at home.

The Tollan, if there are any of them left. Some of them weren’t so bad.

The Kelownans, whom I haven’t forgiven even yet, and probably never will.

Tyler and his chameleon people. I never did get to show him Minnesota. He may have been an alien, but how could I not like a guy who wanted to go fishing?

Hedrazar, Eliam and Nikka and their child named after me, home at last.

Malachi, who like me grieved forever for what he’d lost.

The Medronans who’d forgiven us for stealing their weather machine.

The inhabitants of Juna, helped by our duplicates.

The Nassyans.

Orner and those poor folks on Vyus, who’d been stripped of their memories.

The villagers on Vis Uban who’d taken in amnesiac Daniel. I kind of liked talking to that storyteller guy. I liked his sense of humor. I think we could have been friends.

The gatekeepers captives, whom we had freed.

Those poor… creatures… Nirrti experimented on.

The prisoners on Hadante, some of whom may have been as innocently condemned as SG-1 had been. Maybe.

The Tegreans. That Ashwan guy was all right, for a politician.

The blue crystal being who had tried to heal me by giving me one last glimpse of Charlie.

Moughal of the the Shavadai, willing to let his people change.

Gairwyn and the Viking-style folks of Cimmeria.

Brenna and the workers in the dome on that world buried in ice, free now, to be equals.

Marul and his people who were guarded by the Sentinel, until the NID screwed it up and got I don’t know how many of them killed.

Jamala and the people Jonas Hanson had enslaved.

The women of Hak’tyl.

Aris Boch, who’d turned out to have scruples after all. Though not many.

The people Shyla ruled. Most of them weren’t so bad, except for the prison guards, who could use a lesson in manners.

The other Carter, Hammond and Kawalsky, on that alternative Earth we’d helped make contact with the Asgaard and defeat the Goa’uld.

Nevin and his father and all the others we’d helped escape the clutches of that computer and move out of their dome and onto a real world.

Daniel’s granddad and his cool giant alien friends.

Elrad of K’Tau.

The people we’d help free from servitude to Mot.

Warrick and the other Hebridans, not bad folks for aliens.

The Reetou, the Tok’ra, the Unas, the Pangarans, Burrock’s buddies who used the Unas as slave labor, and most of the Asgaard, who I couldn’t decide if they should be in the good, the bad, or just the self-interested stupid and ugly category. Those blue mold thingies, too. And throw Maybourne into that group, wherever in the universe the slimy little bastard is living these days.

The Aschen, Linea, any of the Eurondans who might have survived, the closed-minded Bedrosians, Administrator Caulder who lived in luxury while we slaved away below; those creepy nameless aliens who’d invaded the SGC and made copies of all of us; Malchus, another narrow-minded idiot: definitely all in the bad guys category.

And to be fair, there are folks on Earth who aren’t any better. Need I name them? Start with Kinsey and his flunkies, move on to the NID, okay, they’re not all bad, just mostly; and megalomaniacs with too much money like Conrad, who got his just reward.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few, but a lot happened in these last years, some good, some bad, some downright awful.

How many planets had I been to? I'd never kept track. Maybe Carter knew, it was the kind of minutiae she would remember.

It was amazing, really, Jack O’Neill travelling to the stars. Fulfilling his own son’s childhood dream of being an astronaut. The irony of that had hit me on more than one occasion over the years, along with the bitter knowledge that I was responsible for him never getting the chance to fulfill…Don’t go there, I ordered myself. Not tonight.

Tonight was a time to remember other things, friends, comrades, family, even enemies.

This whole thing was sort of like I’d just been told I had a terminal illness. I had time to get my affairs in order, as if I had any affairs I thought with a snort; time to sort through my memories, but not enough time to do all those things I'd figured I'd do in that hazy someday that never comes for most people.

Would never come for me.

I scrolled through my life, and remembered the good and the bad, because if there was one thing I'd learned over the years, it was that you couldn't have one without the other. For me, it seemed for every good there was a bad; for every bright day, there was a dark one that followed. Call it karma, fate or justice, or maybe just living life on the edge. Yet, despite everything, it was a good life, except for that one thing, one day, one horrible mistake I don’t have to name.

No father should outlive his child.

No young life should be cut so short.

No mother should be left bereft.

I couldn’t change what had happened to my own family, but what I was doing maybe, just maybe, well, just had to, stop the same thing from happening to the whole human race.

I was really touched that my team showed up, even if they did have to make incredibly cliched excuses for ringing my doorbell. "Just driving by" ranks right up there with "the dog ate my homework." Of course, they couldn’t admit the real reason why they were there just like I couldn’t admit how much I appreciated having them there.

It was nice.

Normal.

Kept my mind off things.

Until Hammond arrived and dropped his bombshell.

Pretty much took the fun out of the afternoon.

And left me with something even more horrible to contemplate.

What if I’d done what I’d done for naught?

What if I wouldn’t be allowed to do what had to be done?

What if I found the information in my brain, found the Lost City, and wasn’t allowed to really find it?

Why do these things always happen to me?

Hammond’s news pretty well put the damper on our little get-together. Sure, my teammates hung around, but the jokes were even more forced than before, and half the pizza remained uneaten.

In the end, I was glad when they left. I couldn’t miss the looks they kept throwing at me and the worry in their eyes; the way they kept weighing their words before saying them so the subject of what was going to happen to me didn’t come up in the conversation. I couldn’t avoid seeing the fear they were trying to keep off their faces, all the while terrified they’d see the same on mine.

I sighed with relief when they finally made their excuses and left.

And when they were gone, I was sorry they were gone, because now there was no one but myself for me to talk to.

Oiy.

Never a good thing.

I cleaned up the house. Tidied up the deck and the yard. Washed my truck so its future owner wouldn’t think I was a slob. When night fell, I went back to the roof and the telescope and the comfort of the stars.

Tried not to think, but couldn’t not.

Wondered when it would start.

Contemplated how it would end.

Hoping only that it would be, like I’d told Carter, worthwhile.

Somewhere in the darkness, my physical exhaustion overcame my hyperactive brain, and I slept.

***********

At 6 a.m. Monday, I reported to the base.

Not long after, it started.

Weird looks whenever I talked to someone, as if I’d said something they didn’t understand.

Odd thoughts, flitting through my brain.

Looking at things, and not seeing who or what was there, but shadowy numbers, diagrams, equations.

Lost city.

Lost city.

Lost city.

Find the city.

I tried to direct my brain to think about maps, worlds, locations, places. Unfortunately, the old gray matter failed to cooperate. Trying to think about something specific when your brain is stampeding off in its own alien direction just doesn’t work.

It took so much concentration to communicate, to interface with the ordinary world that was falling away.

They kept asking me to explain, and I couldn’t. Didn’t they know I couldn’t? I didn’t know myself what I was doing, at least not the part of me that was me. I saw myself gathering up things, bits, pieces, tools, materials, discordant pieces that couldn’t possibly make a whole.

I damped down the frustration and tried to make myself understood.

I tried to float atop the overwhelming wave of information that threatened to pull me under, like a swimmer caught in a raging undertow. Resisting seemed to make it worse, so I tried to make myself calm, light as a feather, free as a bird, unfettered.

It was just so hard. This wasn’t an enemy I could fight with guns and knives and my bare hands. This one was so much more insidious. Corrupting. Ensnaring me and dragging me under, away from the light, away from everything I knew and understood.

It was like my brain was growing, and there wasn’t enough room inside my skull for it anymore.

As we walked up the ramp to the gate, I just wanted it to be over.

Part of me, the part that the Ancient’s knowledge now controlled, knew what to do.

What was left of *me* knew only that I was dwindling away.

Oh, God, I’m scared.

**fin**