Faith and Brotherhood
Author: BadgerGater
Email: [email protected]
Category: Drama, Jack's POV
Summary: There's a surprise waiting for Jack at his cabin
Pairing: None
Rating: PG, Jack's mouth
Season/Sequel: Five but not real specific
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, SciFiChannel (?),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 Notes: Badgerfic number 99..... Based on current events (May 2002): Special thanks to Sandra, and to JPo... they know why
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Burglars? The NID? Some other enemy?
Shit. Here, at last, a quiet weekend at the cabin, and what do I find?
It’s occupied.
Damn.
I’d pulled into the quiet country road well after dark, expecting no one and nothing but peace and quiet and if I was lucky, a fish or two. Instead, there’s someone in the cabin.
My peaceful place suddenly doesn’t seem so peaceful anymore.
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I drove on past the place, up toward my neighbors at the end of the road, shutting off the carlights.
Digging through my duffel, I pulled out my 9mm Berreta, cursing the need to carry a weapon here in the one place in the world, hell, the whole universe, where I’d always figured I could relax. Hah. Nowhere is safe anymore, not for me, not with the enemies, and friends, that I have.Sliding silently out of the car, shutting the door softly so the sound wouldn’t carry in the still wilderness air, I stuffed my weapon into the waistband of my jeans, around the back, within easy reach of my right hand. Walking cautiously, placing each foot with care so my steps were silent on the gravel drive, I approached the house.
Odd burglars, turning on the lights. Of course, who’d ever expect anyone to show up here? The place is empty about 99% of the time.
So was it someone waiting for me?
Not many people knew about my cabin, mostly my friends, real friends who I could trust, like Hammond, Teal’c, Daniel, Carter.
Harry Maybourne? Well, I haven’t decided yet if Harry should be classified as friend, foe, or slime,
but I’d never told him about my cabin. Then again, Harry was pretty good at finding things, and people, so maybe… God, I hoped not. I’d have to have the place fumigated if he’d been here.Of course, compared to the other alternatives, Harry might not be so bad.
I mean, there are people out there who don’t like me, who have the resources to find me, and while I don’t openly talk about the cabin, I’m the owner of record on public documents like tax rolls… so this could be someone from Kinsey, the NID, Simmons… a whole herd of slimeballs that would make Harry seem like roses.
I angled across the yard, staying in the shadow of the trees, the gun in my hand now, the safety off. I walked three steps, then paused, watching and listening. Sounded like a radio was on in the cabin, and I could see the shadow of a figure occasionally cross in front of the light. So, at least one person, tall, moving around freely, definitely not hiding his presence.
That was odd.
Either innocent, or very self-assured.
Cloaked in the pitch darkness of the countryside, I worked my way closer to the cabin. A car was parked in the driveway, Minnesota plates, nothing personal in it. Probably a rental.
I moved past it and up onto the porch, my back against the wall, listening intently. No voices. If there was a second person, he/she was silent.
The scrape of a chair across the floor. A sound like silverware on a plate. Eating? Someone had broken into the cabin to dig into my stash of canned beef stew?
Short meal. Within a few minutes, the lone diner was finished. The sound of dishes being rinsed in the sink. Then the footsteps moved across the room.
Shit. Going out the back door, toward the lake.
I dashed around the corner of the cabin, sliding along the wall, reaching the corner just as I heard the door open and footsteps heading my way.
A shadow came around the corner.
Gun in my right hand, my left arm snaked out and around the man’s neck, pulling him back against my chest, my gun shoved hard against his ribs.
“Don’t move!” I hissed into his ear.
“Ummmpph!” was his strangled, surprised sounding reply.
“Are you alone?” I jerked hard on his neck.
“Ummm.”
“Just nod yes or no.”
He nodded yes.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” I questioned.
“Ummm umm.”
Oh, right. I had my arm jacked so tight around his throat he couldn’t reply if he wanted to, and he did seem willing to want to. Keeping the gun tight against his side, I eased the pressure on his windpipe. An indrawn gasp of air as I repeated the question.
“I own the place,” he rasped.
“Oh, now that’s interesting. Because *I* own the place,” I hissed, jabbing the gun into his side for emphasis. I didn’t want him to forget it was there.
“You?” he spluttered, then the head turned, craning around like he was trying to see my face. “Jack? Is that you?”
Oh oh. I knew that voice. “Joe?” I released him. “Joe? Jesus, I could have *shot* you. What the hell are you doing here?”
He had taken a step back, rubbing his throat. “I could ask you the same.”
“I own the place,” I snapped. “Well, okay, half the place,” I conceded. “But you never come here. You didn’t tell me you were coming here.”
“You didn’t tell me.” So, yeah, he had a point, I hadn’t. He hadn’t either.
In the dim light coming out the cabin window, I could just make out his eyes. He was staring at me and there was fear in them.
“God, Joe, I’m sorry…” suddenly, I realized what I’d just said, all of what I’d just said, the language I’d used. After all, my brother is a priest. “I mean, I… oh for cryin’ out loud…”
“It’s okay, Jack,” he said softly. “I’m not offended.” He chuckled. “I’m used to the way you talk.” Then he got quiet, his face serious. “It wasn’t the talk that was so upsetting.” He waved a hand at the gun I still held clutched in my palm. “Do you always greet your visitors that way?”
Quickly, I clicked the safety back on, tucking the weapon back into my waistband. “Unexpected visitors, yes. Sorry.”
He tilted his head, looking at me intently. “Just what is it you do that makes you so jumpy?”
I shrugged.
He nodded. “Ah, yes, top secret. Can’t tell.” He paused. “You know,” he looked down at the ground, “I *am* a priest. You could tell me. Rules of confidentiality apply. ”
“As a priest. Not as a brother.”
“Then talk to me as a priest.”
I shook my head. “You know better, Joe.” I talk to Joe as my brother, because he is; not as my priest, because he isn’t. I gave up on God a long time ago, on the day my son died if you must know. Joe knows that.
The silence stretched.
“Ah, maybe we should go inside?” Joe asked finally.
“I’ll go get my car,” he was looking oddly at me. “Left it down the road a piece. The ah, need for a stealthy entrance…”
“Right.”
“Be back in a couple minutes.”
He went back in the cabin, and I hiked back toward the car. By the time I’d retrieved it and pulled into the driveway behind Joe’s rental, he was standing in the doorway, waiting. I grabbed my duffel out of the back seat and went in, tossing the bag on the bed in the second bedroom, the one with the window overlooking the lake.
Returning to the main room of the small cabin, I grabbed one of the two beers he’d set on the coffee table and flopped into an overstuffed armchair. Joe was sitting on the couch. He’d turned the lights back down. The only illumination was the flickering light from the fireplace. He had a rousing fire going.“So, what brings you here?” he asked at last, twisting the cap off his beer.
“Fishing.”
“With a gun in your back pocket?”
“Yes.” I answered matter of factly.
“Going to shoot the fish?"
“No.” Dumb question, and he knew it.
“Then why?”
“I don’t go anywhere without one these days,” I finished with a sigh.
He raised one eyebrow. “You have enemies then I take it? Enemies that would…”
“Yes.” No need to elaborate.
“Care to tell me who?”
I lifted my chin and stared. He should know better than to pry.
“I think you owe me an explanation, brother. You nearly shot me...”
“I didn’t nearly shoot you.”
“You stuck a gun in my ribs. One with the safety off, I noticed.”
“If I’d intended to shoot you, you’d have been shot,” I said with perfect logic. “Guns are the tools of my business.”
“What, you shoot people for a living?”
“Not usually.”
He looked at me, hard, for long minutes, then looked away at last. “I see.”
“No, you don’t…”
“Then explain it to me, Jack.”
“Can’t.”
“Won’t,” he contradicted.
Shit. Joe is stubborn. Family trait, I guess.
I sat forward in the chair, letting my forearms rest on my knees, my hands dangling, staring at the pattern of the old throw rug that covered the floor.I wished I could tell him. It wasn’t often that I’d felt that way, over the years. So much of what I’d been involved with was so dark and ugly, things I didn’t want to think about after I got home, much less ever be willing to talk about, with anyone. And yeah, a lot of what I did now was still dark and ugly.
But there was wonder, too, things that even a jaded, worn out warrior like myself could still appreciate and marvel at. There weren’t many people I was close with, outside of the SGC, there’d never been anyone, other than Sara after the crystal planet, who I’d wanted to tell, like I suddenly found myself wanting to tell Joe. After long moments, I shook my head, and raised my gaze to meet his. “Can’t.”He nodded this time.
“Just be careful, okay?”“I am.”
A sad smile crossed his face. “I noticed.”
“That’s life,” I said with a shrug. Sitting back in the chair, stretching out my legs, ankles crossed, tired from the long plane ride followed by the long drive,
it suddenly struck me as odd that he was here.Joe takes fewer vacations than I do.
My radar suddenly went into search mode.
“So, what brings *you* here?”His gaze dropped to the floor.
Oh oh.
That’s a look I know. That’s *my* look. That’s an evasion maneuver straight out of O’Neill Tactics 101.
What the hell, oops, what the heck could be wrong in the life of a priest, for heaven’s sake?“Joe?”
He didn’t look up.
My mind was racing. What could have happened? Okay, so I’d been off the planet, literally, for a week, and I wasn’t up on the latest news, but I think I’d have heard if God had been proclaimed dead… or the Vatican had burned down or something. Wait. The priest scandal stuff. Child abuse charges. Don’t tell me, no, Joe wouldn’t be involved in that… that…
“Joe?”
He looked up at me at last, and there was a familiar darkness in those eyes, on that face that was so very much the image of mine, a face that had always been kinder and softer and more content than mine.
Not anymore.
“Joe, you aren’t…” I waved a hand as I searched for the right words “involved in that… that…”
“We are all involved.”
“Huh?”
“The whole church has been tainted.”
“You aren’t…” I sighed in relief at the look of horror that crossed his face, and his adamant headshake of denial.
“No.”
“Good.” I looked over at him. “I didn’t think you were, or could be…”
“No more than all of us are damned because of it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I know a lot about being damned.
I let the silence grow, knowing that when he was ready he’d tell me more. Unlike me, Joe can and does talk about what he feels and believes. Makes up for my reticence, I guess.
The fire had died back, no longer sparking and crackling, but settled into glowing embers.
After a long time, about the time I was beginning to believe I’d misjudged things and Joe really wasn’t going to talk about it, he did.
“When did you know you wanted to be in the Air Force?” he asked.
“Mm, don’t remember. I always liked planes, made those models when I was a kid, you remember.”
He nodded. “Yeah. You wanted to be someone different, different than Dad.
You were the rebel. Griped about school, griped about chores, refused to go to church, chased girls, snuck out to party with your friends.” Joe was staring into the fire. “I was the good kid. Mom’s pride and joy. I think from the time I was born she envisioned me as a priest.” He paused. “It seemed right. Seemed like I had a calling.”“You did. Do.”
He shook his head. “Maybe I only thought so.”
“And what, it’s taken you 30 years to make up your mind?” I asked, exasperated. “You are *not* that slow.”
“Maybe I am.” He wasn’t looking at me, he was looking into the fire, the reflected flames flickering across his face. “It’s not like I never had any doubts. I mean, it wouldn’t be human, to be *that* sure.
There were times I missed things, normal things, wished I’d tried things…” He paused, looking at me, then away. “How old were you, the first time, you had sex?”I blushed. So yeah, talking about sex with your brother, the Father, isn’t easy. “Ah, 14.”
He looked over at me. “Fourteen?”
“Remember Mrs. McLarney, next door? The lady with the…” I held my hands up in the universal gesture for well endowed.
“She, ah, introduced me to the fine art of, ah, ah…”“She was married!”
“Well, yeah.”
“And she was what, 30, and you were 14?” he asked in astonishment.
“Ah, 14 but precocious.”
That actually got a chuckle out of him.
I sipped my beer.
“What was it like?”
I nearly choked, literally and figuratively. Spluttering, spilling beer all over my shirt; astonished. “You never?” I think my eyebrows touched my hairline, and my hairline’s taller than it used to be.
He shook his head.
“Never?” Okay, some things are harder to believe than others. Even about your brother the priest.
“No. Never,” Joe said, matter of factly.
“Not even with… with,” I searched through my head for the girl’s name, the one he’d taken to high school dances, and spent a lot of time with… “Suzy Barton?”
“Suzy Bannon. No. We were saving ourselves for marriage…”
“Oh for cryin’ out loud…”
“And then she moved away and I decided to go to seminary…”
“You never?” Okay, I was stunned.
“No.”
I was stumped. How do you describe it to someone who's never? You can't describe it. At least I can't. “It’s uh, nice, actually. Quite nice.”
He laughed, bless him. Laughed hard. Maybe it was the beer, I don’t think he drinks much. Maybe it was the absurdity of the conversation. Maybe it was just relief at finally talking about it. “Nice? Only you would describe sex as nice,” he could barely utter the words around the laughter bubbling up out of his throat.
“Yeah. Nice. Rather, um, refreshing.
Satisfying.” I sat quiet a moment, peeling the wrapper off the beer bottle. “Always wondered how you could do without it. I mean, not like I’m out there getting… ah, having any, often, now. But when I was married, me and Sara… we did... a lot...”“You loved her very much. You still do.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. He knew.
“Self denial is part of the vow I made to God, the vow every priest makes. A vow to set myself apart, to put my own needs after those of God, the church, my parish. A vow to serve. And so many broke those vows, committed mortal sins, abandoning celibacy and abusing children. Using the church to... and yet, the church let them go on.” He shook his head. “I thought my faith was so strong. Unbreakable. I thought I understood. Thought I had conquered my demons. God does strike us down for hubris.”
“I doubt hubris is your problem.”
“I thought I was good and righteous.”
“You are.”
He snorted.
“Joe, no one is perfect, not even a priest.”
“We’re supposed to be.”
“You’re supposed to *try* to be. Big difference.”
He looked at me appraisingly. “You are very good at understanding people, Jack, you know that?”
“Yeah, right.” Just ask my wife and my kid and Frank Cromwell and…
“You are.” He insisted. “Better than me in a lot of ways.”
“Okay, now you’ve gone too far.”
He sat silently for a few minutes. “When you first enlisted you came home a couple of times and I picked you up at the airport. You were dressed in your uniform. That was the early 70’s, and Vietnam was still fresh on people’s minds. I’ll never forget, walking with you through the airport, and the looks people gave you, the contempt on their faces. The loathing. I didn't understand how you could live with it.”
“I remember.” I’d never forget. I was proud of what I was doing and achieving, proud of the uniform I wore, and people looked down on me for it. Opinions have changed, done a 180 since then, but there were a lot of years
when a military uniform was more likely to get a brick thrown at you than a smile or a handshake.“People look at me like that now," Joe went on sadly. "The collar used to be a symbol people respected, but not anymore. They look at me with distaste and distrust…”
“They’re not looking at you. They’re looking at their perceptions of someone they don’t know…”
“It doesn’t matter, Jack. They’ve lost trust. Lost faith. And it’s our fault, the fault of priests and the church.”
“It’s not *your* fault. *You* didn’t do what those others did. You can’t accept their blame. They have to be responsible for their own actions. You can only be responsible for yourself.”
He was looking right at me now. “That’s how you do it, isn’t it? You take responsibility for yourself.”
“I do what I have to do. And I don’t look back.” I'd always admired Joe for the certainty of his convictions. But I understood what it was like to have your bosses, your leaders, let you down, like I'd been let down by my superiors, and my country. “Joe, you can only do your best. Be what and who you are. The others will take care of themselves. The church needs someone to start the healing, to remind people that there’s still good in the world, that there are still decent and honest priests.”
He laughed softly. “You have so much faith in me, Jack.”
“Of course I do. You’re my brother. I know you.”
“I don’t think I’ve got any faith left. I’ve been tested and found wanting. I’ve lost my own faith, how can I inspire it in others?”
“Lost your faith in whom?”
“The church, my brothers…”
“Then have some faith in yourself.”
“That’s not what the priesthood is about.”
“What is it about, then? God right?”
“Right.”
“So the church let you down. Other priests let you down. If God didn’t let you down, isn’t that where your faith is supposed to be? I’m just a long lapsed Catholic well down along the road to perdition and *I* can still see that.”
He sighed, and stared into the fire. “When did you get so sensible, Jack?”
“I’ve always been so sensible. Most folks just don’t see it.”
“Because you don’t let them.”
I shrugged, and yawned. “It’s been a long day, Joe, I need some sleep and I imagine you do, too. Things will look brighter in the morning. They always do.”
Joe nodded.
I climbed to my feet, stretching, the cracking of my back and popping of my knees audible in the quiet of the night.
I’d spent far too many of the last 24 hours sitting in planes and cars.“G’night Joe.”
“Good night, Jack. And thanks.” He grinned as he watched me head for the bedroom. “You know, you’d have made a hell of a priest.”
I laughed. “Yeah right, Joe.”
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We spent the next day just hanging out: fishing, mostly. I don't think we said ten words to each other all day, just let the loons and the wind in the trees and the quiet seep into our bones. That's what a man, this one anyway, comes here for, to get away from the noise and the chaos of the everyday world.
That night, after supper, as Joe and I sat out on the porch, watching the moon rise over the lake, he finally said, softly. "I think I'll be going home tomorrow."
I nodded, not sure if he saw the motion in the darkness. "Back to..."
"The church. Where I belong."
I let out a long sigh. "Good." I was glad one of us understood who he was and where he mattered, or that he mattered. "Good."
"You?" he asked.
"Two days, then it's back to the mountain."
"I'll keep you in my prayers," Joe promised.
We didn't say anymore. We didn't need to. We just let the darkness and the silence and the peace speak for us once more.
-----FINISH-----