When Duty Calls Once More
Author: BadgerGater
Email: [email protected]
Category: Drama, POV, thoughts: WordAMonth, sequel to episode Redemption
Summary: Jack contemplates duty, honor and retirement
Season: 6
Warnings: None
Pairing: None
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own SG-1 or any of the characters on the show. I just borrow them; reaping no earthly monetary benefit for my obsession; I acknowledge the real owners of SG-1: MGM, Gekko, Double Secret, the SciFi Channel, maybe even Showtime.
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Why do I do this?
Why do I put myself through this?
The words slipped out of my mouth before my brain could stop them. "So this is the thanks I get for saving the world again?"
I saw Hammond flinch.
He understands.
He knows how I feel about the damn Russians. Knows I have history, and issues. Knows I don't forgive.
Funny, just a few days ago, the President was offering me damn near anything I wanted as a thank you for risking my neck, going above and beyond the call of duty to save the planet yet again. Now I'm being ordered to accept a Russian on my team, someone I can't/don't/won't ever trust.
They forget fast, don't they? From hero to just another disposable body to order around in what, two days?
To hell with it. All of it.
Maybe I ought to retire for real this time.
Maybe losing Daniel was a sign to me, too, a sign to give it up, to quit fighting the inevitable, like time and age and the whole freakin' military, the NID and the Commander in Chief; resign myself to the fact that I really am too damn old and tired and battered to go on doing this.
But I can't.
No matter how much a part of me wants to throw in the towel, and oh yeah, there's a big part of me that wants to quit, the rest of me can't. Don't. Won't ever.
I've spent my whole adult life doing the duty/honor/sacrifice thing. It's not something I can just walk away from. I know. I tried before and it didn't work then and it won't work now, either.
Won't ever, probably.
To be honest with you, I never thought I'd find myself in this situation. I always figured I'd die out there, in battle, one mistake, mine or someone else's, and the jig would be up, and someone would be collecting my dogtags and Hammond would be calling my not-so-next of kin with all those useless, consoling words. As if anyone was left to care.
Duty and honor.
Why is it some people can walk away, and I can't?
Maybe because I don't have anything else.
But then, I couldn’t' walk away back when I did have something else, back when Sara begged me to quit, after Iraq, when I should have and maybe my son would still be alive... damn it, don't go there, Jack.
Duty and honor.
I nearly waved sayonara to it all last week, thanks to the almost but not quite end of the SGC. It *was* a near thing. After all, with no Stargate, there's no Stargate Command, no Stargate Program, no Stargate teams. No need for me. Sure, maybe Thor or Jacob would show up with a ship eventually, but, hell, the whole damned circus had folded up the tents and sent the sideshow packing. General Hammond would retire; Carter and Doc and all the others would be reassigned; Teal'c, well, maybe he'd never get back to us, or Jacob or anyone else.
So with the gate exploded into interstallar dust, I had to re-think my future.
I spent a couple of days seriously contemplating that whole retirement thing. Yeah, sure the President himself said I could have any assignment I wanted, anything. I could lead a Special Ops team, or be assigned some cushy Washington job, or teach at the Academy or fly the newest planes.
But, see, I didn't want any of those things. None of them.
I wanted to be here, where I am right now. Where I feel at home. Where I belong.
And if I can't have that, well, okay, call me a bad loser, but I'll just take my hockey sticks and go on home.
Minnesota.
A little cabin next to a little pond that lacks even little fish.
Write my memoirs, not that anyone will ever be allowed to read them.
Tell the whole world to go to hell, and mean it.
Ignore the politicians, the sycophants, the Joint Chiefs and the President. Matter of fact, tell *them* all to go to hell, too.
Sleep better at night. Okay, maybe that wouldn't actually happen, because I'd still know what was out there waiting for mankind.
But it wouldn't be my responsibility anymore. It wouldn't be *my* duty.
I'd done my part, given it my best, sacrificed for God and country, and I was ready to take a hike into the northwoods and never come out again.
~~~~~~~
Of course, that's not how it happened.
Teal'c showed up, and announced the threat to Earth, at least this particular threat, was toast, which meant we could re-activate the Stargate Program.
Duty called once more.
Sure, I could have ignored it. Could have said my plans were made. It *was* the perfect excuse to say 'Hasta la vista' to the Air Force, thumb my nose at all those big wigs, and ride off into the sunset.
Except, I couldn't.
My job wasn't done.
Duty and honor won't let me leave my job unfinished.
~~~~~~~~
Duty and honor.
I've watched too many good men and women die for those words, no, not the words, the reality of them, die while living them, living up to them. Doing their duty. Dying with honor.
Like Elliot, who was just a kid.
Like Aster, who the snakes got to.
Like Kawalsky, who died by my hand.
Like Daniel, who wasn't even military.
Even Rothman, just a geek scientist.
And Martouf, who wasn't even human.
So many.
Too many.
They inhabit my dreams, reminding me the job isn’t done, calling on me to carry on their duty and fulfill their honor, driving me forward until this war is won.
I owe them.
For them, I can't walk away, even when a part of me wants to, even now when my knee throbs with every step as I hobble down the hall towards my office, hoping that my spur of the moment decision to ask Jonas Quinn to join SG-1 won't turn out to be worse than accepting a damned Russian.
So once again, I’ve done my duty to my world, my country, my comrades in arms, my team, my CO. I accept my orders, because it's what I do, all I've ever done, all I know how to do.
Too damn bull-headed to walk away, when duty calls once more.
~~~~~~~THE END~~~~~~~