Leaving

By BadgerGater

Episode: None; before the start of the series

Spoilers: none really, unless you haven't seen season one

Category: Angst, drama

Pairing: Jack/Sara, they were married then...

Summary: A mourning Sara O’Neill makes a fateful decision

Rating: PG

Warnings: Sad. Kleenex alert

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Sci-Fi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions, Showtime/Viacom, all kinds of important corporate entities that don't include me, and I know that; 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: In the episode Cold Lazarus, we are clearly shown an affectionate and caring couple. So why did Sara leave?

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Sara O’Neill thought there were no more tears left. She had cried them all, after her little boy… after Charlie… when… when she lost him.

She found out she was wrong.

Today, she was leaving the man she loved.

Not because she didn’t love him, but because she did.

Because she loved him too much to stand by and watch him die, too.

Not physically perhaps, though every moment she feared that.

But the man she knew, the loving, caring, giving man, the man who had protected her, cherished her, made her feel the center of his world, was gone.

He’d already left, swallowed up by a guilt nothing could assuage, that no words or actions could ever repair.

She knew that.

She knew he was lost to her, as surely as Charlie was now lost.

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God forgive her, but she’d been glad when he’d finally left the house, going with those Air Force officers who had come for him.

And she prayed God would forgive her again, because she didn’t want Jack to come back.

She couldn’t bear to see his face or look into his eyes, his empty, lost eyes, soul-less. Eyes that had danced with life and spirit and the joy of living, now turned dull and dead. Eyes that begged her to help him find forgiveness, which she had no power to give.

His silence unnerved her. She wanted him to cry, to shout, to rage, to do *something*, not sit there, day after day, staring at the wall, holding the gun in his hand.

Wrapped up in her own grief, carrying an unbearable weight, empty and crushed herself, she couldn’t carry him, too. She’d needed him, needed his strong arms around her, needed to feel his strength.

And he hadn’t been there for her.

Together, they would have been stronger than either of them could ever be separately.

But he hadn’t been able to touch her, to look at her, to face her, to talk to her. All he’d been able to do was stand, stoic, staring at her with those empty eyes.

She didn’t blame him. She couldn’t. She understood how he felt. There were no words for the loss, no words for the pain, no words for the emptiness.

But she had needed him to try, to say or do something, anything, even the wrong thing.

He had done nothing.

He didn’t eat, he didn’t sleep, he didn’t speak. Sometimes she wondered if he even breathed. Wondered what, if anything, was going on inside his head. Wondered if he wasn’t already dead.

A pall of silence hung over the house.

At night, alone in her bed, she heard him pacing, walking the house in ghostly silence.

And waited for another gunshot.

Relieved, that it didn’t happen.

Fearing always, that it would.

The tension, on top of her grief, left her shaken.

-------

One night, sobbing into her pillow, she’d heard his footsteps approach. Through tear washed lashes, she’d watched him stand in the doorway looking in at her. Sara held her breath, praying he would come, that he would finally be able to reach out to her. She ached for his touch, for his long lithe body to lie down beside her, his long arms to wrap around her, his hands to slide across her skin; not sex, but comfort and love and shared sorrow, a burden they could find a way to carry together.

God, how she’d needed that. Needed him.

He stood there a very long time, and then he silently walked away.

She’d known then that it was over.

He couldn’t provide what she needed. He couldn’t reach out to her, and she was exhausted by his rebuffs.

Sara hadn’t known what to do. He wouldn’t talk to her. When she talked to him, she wasn’t sure he was listening.

And then the Air Force had come calling.

And he’d answered their call.

Mindless military obedience.

She’d never thought of Jack that way. But it seemed that that was all that was left to him.

The military called.

He answered.

She was glad he was gone, and hating herself for it.

And deep down, in her heart of hearts, she knew he wouldn’t be back. Maybe the body would return, but never the soul.

Some things that are broken can never be repaired, like her grandmother’s delicate China teacup, the one Charlie had knocked off the shelf. Sure, you can glue the shattered remnants back together, but the whole is never the same. Scarred, weakened, rotten at the core, despite how it looked, it was doomed to break again at the slightest touch.

-------

Jack was gone.

She hadn’t thought the house could be any more silent, any more empty than it already had been, but it was, stifling, suffocating, choking her with its barrenness, with all the noise and laughter and life that was missing.

She had to leave, had to get out, had to think, had to find herself, if there was anything left of herself to find. Who was she, without her son and her husband? They had been the center of her life for so long now, the core around which her existence had revolved. And now they were both gone.

She felt hollow.

So she’d called her father, and asked if she could come and stay with him for a few days. She needed a break, she told him.

But she’d known it was much more than that.

It was the end.

-------

Charlie, just thinking his name made her heart ache with a loss so immense she thought she would break in two.

Jack, the thought of him made her heart flutter, the man who had given her the best days of her life, and the worst, with whom she had endured so much, gained so much, and in the end, lost so much.

How could she exist without them?

But she must. She had no choice.

She wanted them back, but all the wanting in the world couldn’t restore her family, couldn’t undo one day, one moment, one horrible tragic mistake.

Her knees gone weak at the memory, sinking to the floor in despair, Sara O’Neill felt the tears trickle down her cheeks.

She’d thought she was done with tears, but she was wrong.

Love didn’t end because the one you loved went away. She would never stop loving her son, though he was lost forever. And she would never stop loving Jack, though he was gone now, too.

-------

She would have to be strong enough for all of them.

It was a cowardly way to end this, Sara knew that, too. She should have told him face to face, looked Jack in the eye and explained her reasons. But she knew that she couldn’t do it, knew that, if she looked into his eyes, her courage would desert her and she wouldn’t be able to leave.

But she had to go. She knew that, for herself, and for him, before they destroyed each other. Maybe, just maybe, they could heal separately in ways they couldn’t heal together.

That was her last thin tendril of hope.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she took a deep, shuddering breath, and climbed once more to her feet. Picking up the small bag she had packed, she laid the note upon the table, and walked to the door. Sara paused in the hall, looking back at the life that had once been hers, and with a final sigh, turned off the lights, wishing she could as easily turn off her tears.

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