A Matter of Respect

Author: Badgergater

Season: 5

Episode: Menace

Spoilers: Menace

Category: Drama, angst, epilog to episode Menace

Summary: Jack and Daniel's friendship stands on the brink after the events of Menace

Pairing: None

Warnings: Language. Jack is angry.

Rating: PG

Disclaimer:They're not mine. I acknowledge that the big important people at MGM, Gekko, Double Secret, etc. etc. own them, but I'm only taking them out to play and will return them when I'm done. No disrespect intended, no money changed hands, and I’m just havin’ fun

Author's note: As always, TK, you're the greatest.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“You stupid son of a bitch.”

The words were still echoing inside his head as he entered his office.God. Is that what Daniel really thinks of me? Jack O’Neill wondered as he sank heavily into the swivel chair behind his desk.

Wearily, he rubbed a hand through his gray hair. There’d been a time when he’d jokingly said Daniel had given him most of those gray hairs. Well, he was wrong. It wasn’t Daniel. It was his reaction to Daniel.

He shouldn’t care what Daniel said.

He didn’t.

There'd been a time when he hadn't. Of course, that was back in the days when Daniel wouldn't have said that to him, either.

No one else would dare to say that to him. No one. He was a Colonel in the United States Air Force and he’d earned his rank, earned every last promotion with his own hard work, sweat and yeah, all too often, blood.

He didn’t have to explain anything to anyone. Well, sure, to Hammond, because Hammond was his superior officer. But not to anyone under his command. That’s how the military worked. An officer needed a reason, sure, and he’d better be able to justify his actions, but he also had to have the initiative to do the right thing at the right time, in order to carry out his mission.

Jack O’Neill’s mission was to protect Earth.

He didn’t need to explain that to Daniel, did he?

He’d always been too easy on Daniel. Yes, yes, he knew Daniel wasn’t military, but damn it, hadn’t he earned Daniel’s respect? For anything? Sure, he’d made mistakes. Who didn’t? Everyone erred, no one was perfect, even Hammond and Carter and yes, Daniel, too. Over the last five years they’d all screwed up a time or two.

Just like with Reece.

Jack had been mistrustful of the thing from the start. Sure, he didn’t like robots. What was there to like? Robots were machines, they didn’t have feelings, just pseudo ones because the 'feelings' they had weren’t feelings, they were only programs that some human, er, living thing, had told them to have. When A equals B, feel C. That wasn’t feeling, that was math or science, or something, definitely something *not* human, an imitation, maybe, but not the real thing, outward appearances aside.

And you couldn't tell a damn thing by outward appearances. *That* was something he'd learn a damned long time ago.

Daniel wanted to welcome everyone, anyone, any*thing* into the family of humanity, but Jack knew that you couldn’t look at the universe through rose colored glasses without someone sneaking up behind you and biting you in the ass while all that goodness distracted you.

So yeah, the Reece robot *looked* human, and it *was* sophisticated and life *like*, but it was *still* a machine.

And didn’t Daniel understand, that wasn’t why he’d shot her, for cryin’ out loud? It wouldn’t have mattered if Reece had been flesh and blood, Jack O’Neill would have destroyed whatever needed to be destroyed to protect the SGC? The entire friggin’ planet.

Shit, he'd zatted Carter to save the Earth, when she was taken over by that entity thingy. He'd pushed the button to blow up the Gadmeer ship, believing it would be a fatal decision for Daniel... but he'd done those things, because one life wasn't more important than thousands or millions or billions. He'd done those things, and others, and suffered through long sleepless nights afterwards.

Did Jackson really think he was some kill-happy nut case? That there weren't times he hated what he had to do? That there weren't times he wished there was a better solution, a win-win choice? That he didn't regret some of the things his job required of him? That the weight of command, of making life and death decisions, didn't fall so heavily on his shoulders?

Yes, he'd shot the robot. There had only had seconds left before the base blew, before they’d all have been dead. Jack hadn’t had the luxury of putting the auto destruct on hold while he played 20 questions with Daniel to ferret out Reece's intentions.

And neither of them had had the time to wait to see if Reece could actually control her toys, if, and that’s a big if, she decided to stop them at all. After all, when Jack shot her, the replicators had still been going. And they’d only stopped at the very moment her eyes shut. Didn’t that confirm what he’d done, in fact, what Carter had theorized earlier, about shutting down Reece as the way to stop the techno-bugs?

So Reece had told Daniel she was going to stop them. The fact was, she hadn’t. Maybe she’d lied to protect herself. She’d already proven she could and would do that, when she'd lied about what had happened on her home world.

Maybe she didn’t know how to stop them.

Could they have trusted her? Should they have? Sure, while she *said* she didn’t want to hurt Daniel, she’d done that, too. Not only had she thrown him across the room in that first temper tantrum, but she'd done it again in the gateroom when she’d broken his wrist, snapping it like a twig.

So much for not wanting to see him get hurt.

And that didn't mean she would have protected anyone else on Earth.

Maybe, if they’d had more time, Daniel could have talked to her.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But time was running out. The fate of the whole frickin’ planet had been in Jack O’Neill’s hands and he had acted.

Rightly.

^^^^^^^^^^

“Stupid son of a bitch.”

The words kept running through his tired brain.

Okay, so he knew he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp, but he was no bleepin’ idiot, either. He was good at what he did, as good at being a warrior as Carter was at being a scientist and Daniel as archaeologist/linguist/whatever. He wasn’t the leader of SG-1 because he’d sucked up to the General, or because he had the right connections or because someone thought he looked good in the uniform. He was the leader of SG-1 exactly because George Hammond knew that Jack O’Neill could, and would, make the tough decisions, carry out the distasteful orders, and do what had to be done or die trying.

That wasn’t bragging, that was fact. He was good at what he did. You needed a bit of ego to be a Colonel, to reach a rank where you made life and death decisions, not just for yourself, but for others who trusted you to know your business. You’d better believe in yourself and what you were doing or you’d better hang it up.

After five years, didn’t Daniel understand him at all?

Maybe he had overestimated Daniel’s smarts, although that seemed impossible. But no, not smarts so much as practicality, Daniel’s ability to assess risks, no, his *method* of assessing risk was so different from Jack’s they might as well have been from different planets.

So yeah, Jack was military and that meant he thought differently than civilians. He knew that. That didn’t make him wrong, it just made him different, just like here in the SGC it was Daniel who was the different one, the oddball civilian geek in the military world.

And yeah, the scholar did bring in an entirely different viewpoint, one that mostly complemented and yet often contradicted his, like the old Point/Counterpoint debates on 60 Minutes years ago.

Jack leaned back in his chair, grinding the palms of his hands into his eyes.

God, he was tired.

Adrenaline let downs always left him exhausted, and his body must have pumped out a million gallons of adrenaline when those freakin’ Replicators had appeared. Jeesh, he hated those things. He shuddered, remembering the last moments in the Russian sub, when he and Teal’c were being overrun, his gun empty, the mechanical cockroach/tick/spider-like thingies climbing all over him. Now there’d been another nightmare for his large and vivid collection, mechanical beasties you blasted to bits while they put themselves back together and came after you again. Nightmare monsters you could kill and kill and kill again and they'd keep coming at ya'.

The thought of what they could do, let loose on this planet, was terrifying. There was no maybe about that.

O'Neill suddenly realized he had one hell of a headache. Not surprising, since he hadn't slept in the last 36 hours while he'd been in charge of sweeping the base to be sure there wasn't one single remaining replicator anywhere. The work had been painstaking, every nook and cranny of the base needing to be searched methodically. Jack opened his desk drawer and rummaged around until he found the bottle of Tylenol, dumping a pair of the pills into his palm and swallowing them dry.

Dropping his head into his hands, Jack rested his elbows on his desk and closed his eyes, fingers massaging his temples, hoping to ease the headache.

He didn't know how long he sat there before deciding it was time to go home. Past time to go home. Maybe the headache, and his anger, would abate once he'd had a decent amount of sleep, at home in his bed in his quiet house.

He grabbed his jacket and keys and strode toward the elevator. The corridors were still crowded, mostly with repair crews trying to fix the damage done by the lego-bugs. Jack shuddered, just remembering the odd little chittering noises they made as they swarmed.

Reaching the elevator, Jack hurried in, glad to see it was empty and he wouldn't have to talk to anyone on his way out. Punching the up button for the security station at level 11, he leaned back against the wall and let his eyes slide shut, all but asleep on his feet.

"Hey, hold up!" a familiar voice echoed from down the hall, followed by the sound of rushing footsteps.

Jack opened his eyes in time to see a hand reach around to hold the door, followed by owner of said hand, Dr. Daniel Jackson.

Shit, thought O'Neill, the last person he wanted to share a ride with.

From the look on Daniel's face, the feeling was mutual.

Jack let his eyes slide shut, thinking maybe he could just ignore the man, ignore the hard feelings, just like they'd ignored all their disputes over, what, the last three years? Ever since the whole undercover operation to catch the NID rogue team, Daniel hadn't ever cut him a break. Hell, he'd been more understanding of the Unas than he had of his own CO.

"Jack, you okay?" Jackson's question was quiet.

O'Neill cracked one eye open, planning to say nothing. Daniel had his back to his CO, studying the slow moving numbers on the floor indicator. The Colonel noted the cast on Jackson's wrist. The archaeologist had missed the debrief, being down in the infirmary getting x-rays.

"Jack..."

"What?" the word came out sharper, harsher, angrier than O'Neill had intended, but he suddenly didn't give a damn. He was tired of covering up the way he felt. "Just Jack, eh? Couldn't think of a more colorful name you want to call me this time?"

"You know I didn't..."

"Didn't what?" O'Neill snapped, straightening, suddenly wide awake again. "Didn't know you thought that little of me? Didn't think I knew what you thought of me? Didn't mean to let the truth slip?"

Daniel turned around to face O'Neill's angry gaze, and stepped back at the intensity of the glare focused his way. The scholar had seen that look directed at others, but never expected to have it turned on him. "Jack, look, you know I didn't mean it. We're friends..."

"Are we? Friends? Since when? The whole friendship thing we've been working on for how many years," the sarcasm dripped from O'Neill's angry voice as he quoted Jackson's phrase from three years ago, "is a two way street, Daniel. Means both of us have to care, make an effort to see the other person's side. When's the last time you saw my side, huh? The last time you gave *me* the benefit of the doubt? The last time you didn't judge me first? The last time you apologized to me? The last time you acknowledged I was good for anything? The last time you considered the fact that I pay a price every time I do what has to be done? That maybe I don't enjoy seeing more dead bodies? Especially not of the men and women we work with everyday?" He hadn't meant to say those things, the kind of things he didn't normally ever admit to feeling, but at the moment, he was too damned tired and mad to care.

The elevator stopped. Jack reached forward, and Daniel jumped back before realizing O'Neill was punching the door close button in the elevator controls. "Stupid son of a bitch. Is that what you think of me?"

"You didn't have to shoot her. She wanted to help us..." Daniel insisted.

"Wanted to? Or *could?* I don't know what she *wanted* to do, ,and I don't know what she *could* do, but I can tell you what she *did* do. Her little toys killed two SFs. She cracked your skull and broke your wrist. She turned hundreds of replicators loose on this base, and they had already turned into thousands. She *might* have had control, she *might* have wanted to stop them, she *might* have been *able* to stop them, but she'd already lied to us more than once. She'd already destroyed her own planet, and killed her own father. Remember? She couldn't stop them then, couldn't even protect one man. What makes you think this time would have been different?"

"Jack, they stopped..."

"They *stopped* when she did..." O'Neill's eyes were snapping with anger. "Carter checked the tapes. The moment her eyes shut, the replicators stopped and fell apart. They didn't stop when she *told* you she was going to stop them. They stopped when she stopped."

"Right. When you *killed* her." Daniel was angry now, too.

O'Neill stared directly at his teammate. "Yes. I shot that thing..."

"She wasn't a thing. She was a sentient being, with thoughts and feelings..."

"She was a *program*."

So angry he didn't consider his words first, Daniel blurted out, "Would you have shot her if she was a program that looked like a 10 year old boy?" He knew it was a mistake the minute the words left his mouth.

Jack's face went white. "You sorry bastard," he spat, and, leading forward again, punched the door open button, exiting the elevator. Turning back to the archaeologist, he continued in a voice he fought to control. "If you think so little of me, then I'll be glad to sign your transfer request. In fact, I insist on it."

"Jack, wait..." Daniel started. "Jack..."

Wordlessly, O'Neill spun on his heel, stomping past the security checkpoint without a backward glance.

^^^^^^^^^^

Daniel slumped back against the elevator wall, staring after SG-1's team leader and quite likely his former friend. When had things gotten so bad? When had their friendship turned to anger and distrust and hurt feelings?

Dr. Jackson was lost so deep in thought he didn’t even realize until too late that the elevator door was once again sliding closed and the car was retreating back into the depths of the SGC base. He stared at the wall until the door opened once again and this time he stepped out, automatically heading down the corridor toward his office. Slumping in his chair, propping his elbows on his desk, he let his chin rest on his good hand.

He didn’t know how long he’d sat like that when gentle words roused him.

“Daniel?” Sam stood in his doorway. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he answered without thought.

“Then why are you here? I thought Janet released you to go home.”

“She did. I started to go and then…” his voice trailed away.

“What?” she asked kindly.

He shook his head.

“Daniel? What happened?”

“I ran into Jack, in the elevator.”

“Oh.”

“He’s a little upset with me.”

The blonde major nodded. “I noticed.”

Daniel raised his head to look at her, one eyebrow cocked.

“At the briefing, he was pretty angry,” she continued.

“Gee, that’s a surprise.”

Sam stepped further into the room. “What happened? The Colonel didn’t say. He just said you were trying to talk to Reece, convince her to stop her toys, and that you didn’t agree with what he did, shooting her.”

“Wow. That was diplomatic.” It surprised him, actually, that Jack hadn’t said more. Which, obviously, explained why Hammond hadn’t called him in and given him a talking to already.

Carter looked at him, eye brows raised. “The Colonel? Diplomatic?”

“He obviously didn’t tell you what it was I said that led him to conclude I didn’t agree.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Jackson sighed. “I called him a stupid son of a bitch.”

Sam winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah.”

Carter pulled up a chair. “Daniel…”

“Sam, he killed her, right when I was getting through to her. She was going to stop them…”

“But she hadn’t. I was in the auxiliary control room with the General, and the replicators were coming through the walls. They weren’t stopping. We were only seconds from the destruct sequence blowing up the base. We were out of time.”

“So you agree with him?” the question was more tired than angry.

“Yes, I do. Daniel, she may have wanted to stop them, but there’s no proof of that. And when I reviewed the tapes, they didn’t stop until the Colonel shot her. If she was trying to stop them, it wasn’t working.”

“He never saw her as anything but a machine…”

“No, I don’t think he did. You know he sees life as… biological life."

“He just shot her without remorse.”

“Maybe it seemed like it at the time, but he had to act. He was out of choices. It’s the same thing I’d have done, or the General, or any of us.”

Daniel took his glasses off, tossing them on his desk. “Not me.”

“You’re not military.”

“No. Thank God.”

“Daniel…”

“I’m just so tired of all the death and destruction…”

“We all are.”

Daniel shook his head. “We killed a unique living thing, the last living being from that planet…”

“A planet she destroyed.”

“And Jack destroyed her.”

“He had no choice.”

“There’s always another choice.”

“Yes, there is. A choice to let one being die, or save a whole race, a whole planet full of people.”

“The life of one to protect the many?”

“That’s the military's job, Daniel.”

Sitting back in the chair, cradling his aching wrist against his chest, Daniel shook his head. “I just don’t understand him.”

“Truthfully, sometimes I don’t either.”

He let his eyes slide closed and sighed, exhausted. “Then how can you work with him? For him? Follow his orders?”

She shrugged. “Because I believe in him. I trust him. He always has a reason for what he does…”

“Does he?”

“Yes. It might not be the same reason you or I would see…”

“That’s for sure.” Daniel paused, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “He said he’d sign my transfer papers.”

“What?”

“Jack told me he wanted me off the team.”

Carter was shocked. “He said that?”

“Not in so many words, but he said if I didn’t respect him…” Daniel ran a hand across his face. “But I do.”

“Then you need to tell him that.”

“He never tells me. He never has. Not once.”

“This is Colonel O’Neill we’re talking about here, Daniel. He never tells anyone anything.”

“Five years I’ve worked with him, and when has he shown he respects me?”

“Every day…”

Daniel opened one eye and stared in surprise at Sam. “He’s never said a word…”

“No, not in words. Daniel, if the Colonel didn’t respect you, you wouldn’t have lasted past the first day on SG-1. He *shows* you his respect and approval by keeping you on his team.”

The archaeologist shook his head. “Okay, so for five years I’ve shown him respect by staying on his team, by following him. So what’s the difference?.”

“Maybe that you called him a stupid SOB?” Carter looked down, then fixed her gaze on her teammate’s face. “He has feelings, too, you know, even if he doesn’t let us see them. He’s our Commanding Officer, he’s not supposed to let his emotions show. It’s part of the job, to carry the load, shoulder all the burdens. He makes it look easy, but Daniel, it’s not, not even for him. He’s human, and though he would never admit it, he needs us as much as we need him.” She reached down and patted Daniel’s shoulder. “Think about it.”

Great, now he had both Jack and Sam ganging up on him, and if he went to see Teal’c, he was sure the score would be the others 3, Jackson 0.

^^^^^^^^^^^

He wanted to turn back, but it was too late now. Taking a deep breath and straightening his shoulders, Daniel knocked on the door.

Nothing happened.

No one came to the door.

Relieved, he was going to leave. See, Jack wasn’t home. This conversation wasn’t meant to be. But no, it had to be, Daniel told himself, they had to talk about what had happened if their friendship was going to survive.

He knocked again.

There was no answer. Maybe O’Neill was up on the roof, that was one of his favorite places to go after a difficult day, up to the small deck with the telescope. Jack seemed to find peace up there when he couldn’t find it anywhere else.

Daniel walked around the side of the house. “Jack, you up there?” he called from the bottom of the ladder. A slight sound, as of someone moving, was the only sign of life. Damn, Jack was making this difficult. With a sigh, Daniel began climbing up awkwardly, having only one usable hand.

Clearing the roof, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the dark form of his team leader slumped in one of the two chairs. Daniel stood a moment, waiting for an invitation. When it became clear no invitation was forthcoming, he went ahead and sank onto the unoccupied chair, pulling his coat tight around him, glad of its warmth.

“Chilly up here,” he started conversationally, not referring to the weather.

“Very,” came the deadpan reply from out of the darkness.

Now what? He was a linguist and he should know how to say what he was thinking and feeling, but it wasn’t easy, it was never easy talking to Jack. Jack just wasn’t the talking type, not about anything serious. And this was serious, and that always made Jack clam up which made him clam up.

“Jack, I…”

“What?” the question was belligerent. Aggrieved.

“About Reece. You know…”

“No, I don’t know.” O'Neill's flat, emotionless voice was yielding nothing, not this night.

Daniel sighed, searching for the words. “Jack, you know I was upset.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still upset.”

“Riiiight.”

“I’m not upset with you.”

“Humpphh.”

“Jack, really. Listen…”

“I’m through listening to you.” Daniel thought he'd never heard Jack's voice sound so weary.

He tried to lighten his voice. “You never listen to me.”

“I listen to you all the time.”

“Like when?”

“Like whenever you talk.”

“You don’t listen,” Daniel insisted, his voice rising.

“I do, Daniel. I listen. I always listen. Even when it seems like I’m not listening, I’m listening. I *hear* what you say, even if I don’t always change my mind *because* of what you say. That's my job, to hear you out and then decide based on my opinion and your opinion and Carter's and Teal'cs, and keeping in mind Hammond's orders... I have to juggle all of that, and then decide, not based on what I want or what you want, but based on what's best for all of us. So, no, I don’t always agree with you, just like you don’t always agree with me.”

“That’s for sure.”

“So what’s new?”

Daniel wished he could see O'Neill's face. “Jack, please, you know I don’t want to leave SG-1.”

The dark shoulders shrugged. “So?”

“So I know it seems to you like I don’t respect you. But I do.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Just like you don’t *say* you respect me…”

“What makes you think I do?” came the angry question from the darkness.

“Sam pointed it out, about my being on SG-1, and what that means.”

“So?”

“So just like you don’t say things, I don’t say things, either.”

“Oh really? You talk a lot for someone who *doesn’t say things.*”

“Jack…” God the man was obstinate.

“Daniel…” for crying out loud the man was obtuse.

Taking a deep breath, Daniel blurted out what he’d come to say. “Jack, I'm sorry. You know I didn’t mean what I said.”

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t. You know that. I don’t like what you did today, er, yesterday, now, I suppose, just like there’s been other times when I didn’t like what you did, but I’ve never wanted to be on any other SG-team. I don’t think I could be on any other team. And I know that you do listen, most of the time, or at least you’ll take the time to hear me out.” Daniel stopped and stared down at his hands. “I shouldn't have said what I said, in the gateroom or in the elevator. I didn't mean it."

"Yes, you did."

"Okay, right at that moment, when you shot Reece, yes, I was angry and upset and hurt, yeah, I meant it. Sort of. But that's not what I think of you."

"What do you think of me?" Jack's quiet voice demanded.

Daniel gulped, and thought a moment, choosing his words carefully. "I think you are a very good soldier. I think… I *know*, you always try your best and do what you think is best, and that you see the world differently than I do, and that difference means we disagree sometimes…"

"Often…" O'Neill interjected.

"Often. And I know that I try your patience, even if I don't mean to do it on purpose. But that's *my* job, to try to get you to see things my way, just as much as it's *your* job to protect. I know you have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, and I know that you think before you shoot, and that sometimes the things you do bother you afterward." He paused. "And I know that… that you're the best friend I've ever had, and I miss that friendship, odd as it is."

O'Neill said nothing, staring across the darkness at Dr. Jackson, contemplating.

"Look, Jack, how about we just consider that this was just a really bad day and start over? Forget the past and go on?”

The silence stretched a long time before O’Neill answered softly, wearily. “I don’t know that I can do that, Daniel. Forgiveness has never been my strong suit. But I’ll try.”

Daniel smiled into the darkness. "Me too."

The two men sat quietly then, on the silent rooftop, looking out at the stars spread across the velvet night, both thinking private thoughts.

Finally, Jack stood, the cracking of his knees loud in the silence. “I need some sleep,” he said. “You should, too. The spare room’s all made up if you don’t want to drive.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse, but Daniel suddenly saw the gesture of friendship had nothing to do with the lateness of the hour, but everything to do with a peace offering. “Thanks, Jack,” he said quietly, and meant it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^