Losing Myself

Author: Badgergater

E-mail: [email protected]

Season: 7

Episode: Lost City 2

Category: Missing scene, epilogue

Summary: Jack’s thoughts as the end approaches

Warnings: None

Rating: PG

Pairing: None

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 isn’t mine <sigh>

Author’s Note: Thanks to SS for the beta;

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Some things are worthwhile.

Even this.

Imprisoned inside my own head.

Unable to explain myself.

*Everything* cruvis.

There is so much here.

It overwhelms me.

Drowning in information.

Overcome by knowledge.

Awash in wisdom and wonder.

Everything is sooo clear.

And simple.

Yet so complicated I cannot explain, even to myself.

If only I could tell them.

Share it with them.

Make them see and understand.

Give them even a very small part of this.

There are no words to explain, not in any language, not in all the languages of the universe.

I look around me, knowing everything, knowing nothing, knowing only that I am losing myself, fading, becoming shadow more than substance, even within myself.

(((((((((((((((

Teal’c.

My friend and brother.

He speaks words I can no longer understand, but I lay my hand against his face. This simple touch must convey all I feel, replace all the words I can’t find, reveal all the emotions that are here in my heart. This honorable man has stood beside me, not because he was assigned to my team, not because he thought there would be some reward in it, but because he had chosen of his own free will to follow me. At a time I barely trusted myself, he had trusted in me. I had never told him all that his actions had meant to me, back then, when I was still a fragile reconstruction of the man I’d once been. When I wasn’t sure I could hold on, and that the darkness wouldn’t consume me once again, his trust had been a gift that helped restore me.

He had trusted me.

And I had trusted him.

Together, we’d lost much, endured much, accomplished so much more.

Had so much still left to accomplish.

He has the biggest heart, the deepest soul of anyone I have ever met.

I hoped he could read it in my eyes, the brotherhood I felt with him. I have been privileged to serve with some amazing people during my long career, but none more incredible than this one who stands before me.

Just this one moment, while I can, I push through the swelling tide that is overwhelming me, and touch his face, and I know that he understands.

We’ve never needed words to show our trust and respect for each other.

And that was never more important than now.

)))))))))))))))))))))

So little time.

Too little time.

Time is running out for me, and for Earth.

I need the ship to go faster, and there, inside my brain, is the answer, the how. While Carter looks on in astonishment, or maybe even envy, my hands work, seemingly of their own volition. Move this crystal here, that one there, and then, meld them all together with a single zat blast.

Hurry.

Hurry.

Hurry.

And now we are there, and I know what to do, I know how to save Earth.

We must hurry.

Time is running out.

For me, and for Earth.

))))))))))))))))))))))))

Antarctica.

Not my favorite place.

Tossed through the gate and stranded here, I’d nearly died once.

Infected by an ancient virus, I’d nearly died a second time.

Third time, and would it be the end?

(((((((((((((((((((

Focused now, on what I must do.

Nothing else matters.

Time stretches as I sit down in the machine, and call upon the ancient power.

I think the deed and the machine answers, responding to my command. My wish, my desire, my hatred, flows outward, streams upward, delivering destruction upon the evil that is Anubis.

The evil that was Anubis.

The part of me that is/was Colonel O’Neill knows satisfaction.

A part of me, the part that is most truly me, revels in the deed I do, the destruction I inflict upon Anubis, the destroyer of Abydos.

Revenge *is* sweet.

Catharctic.

Never have I killed with such fierce and complete joy.

And such sorrow.

There were good men among the Jaffa.

I feel the regret, even as I rejoice….

Mission accomplished.

A planet saved.

Evil destroyed.

Victory won.

Reluctantly, I release the power and energy wanes and dissipates, leaving me lost. It drains away, and I feel it taking my life force with it.

There is a price to pay for using such power, and now I must pay it.

I see the faces of my teammates, my friends, my family, looking frightened.

I don’t want to leave them, I don’t want to go, and yet, this is the sacrifice the power demands.

Worthwhile.

Images flash across my vision, the faces of those I’ve saved…

Cassie. Sara. Kayla and Tessa. General Hammond. Mrs. Schubert and her fourth graders, well, they’d be in high school now. The Wells’ and their new baby, named after Doc. My clone. Granny Hartwick down the street who brings me Christmas cookies each December. Mary Steenburgen. Uma Thurman. Wayne Gretzky, even if he is retired, he’s still the greatest.

Michael and Jenny. Martin. Vernon. Katherine and Ernest. Dr. Lee. Francine and Osbourne and Woods, living at the bottom of the world. Tolinev, who wasn’t bad for a Russian. Jason Levinson and his son Tommy. And yeah, even the geeks, Hagman and McKay and Felger and Coombs.

The people who write The Simpsons. The SGC cook who makes pumpkin pie on Thursdays. The Tibetans who yearn to be free. All those boys, young men now, who were on Charlie’s Little League team and his youth hockey team and in his Cub Scout pack.

Millie, my housekeeper. The young couple across the street with the baby boy just learning to walk. The lady at the GasNGo who can find a smile at 5 a.m. The Olympic Curling Team. The Chicago Cubs.

The crazy guy in the park with a shopping cart full of cans and a box of National Geographics.

Henry Boyd’s widow and kids. Charlie Kawalsky’s girlfriend. Dixon’s four rugrats that he complains about endlessly but proudly. Judy Cromwell. Barbara Michaels.

Harley Beck. Harper. Reynolds. Pierce. Griff. Connor. Edwards. Ronson. Murphy. Werner. Burke. Lou Ferretti. Paul Davis. Haley. Grogan. Satterfield. General Kerrigan.

My aunts and uncles and cousins back in Minnesota, even if I haven’t seen them for a decade or more. The Nolans who live down the road from my cabin and look after it in my long absences. Nurse Lee and her kids. That doctor down at McMurdo whose name I never knew, but who saved my life. Colleen, my first crush.

Oscar, a cute dog who deserves a better master.

Betsy, who runs the diner down on Third Street. The staff at Taco Take-out.

Dr. Weir, not bad for a civilian.

Carter’s brother and niece and nephew. Daniel’s old girlfriend. Tommy Riley, my best friend in the third grade until his family moved to California.

Davis and Siler and Graham Simmons and all the others who run the gate.

Millions more, billions more whose faces I don’t know, and will never know…

And the face of the precious life I couldn’t save, carried forever in my heart…

Not even the power of the Ancients can erase that….

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((

I’m weary, exhaustion penetrating deep done into my very bones.

Spent.

Finished.

Earth is safe.

I must rest now.

I feel myself being carried and placed into the machine. I don’t know if it will work on a human. I don’t know if it’s already too late. I don’t know if there’s anyone who knows how to undo what’s about to be done.

But that’s okay.

If it has to be, it has to be.

It was worthwhile… even if this is the end.

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