Revelations at the Meridian- Jack

By BadgerGater

Email: [email protected]

Season: 5

Spoilers: Meridian

Category: sequel/missing scenes to Meridian

Warnings: Character death (er, sort of), but we all know that

Rating: G

Pairing: None

Summary: How does Jack cope with Daniel's departure?; Missing scene for Meridian; *Not* a fix

Disclaimer: I don't own SG-1, acknowledge the rights of those that do; and promise not to mess them up permanently. I'm just taking them out to play for a bit and when I'm done, I'll give them back, albeit reluctantly.

Author's Note: This is not a fix; Meridian is cannon, like it or not.

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**General Hammond**

Jack O’Neill was very, very drunk.

Not that most people would notice it. He wasn’t sloppy or nasty or mouthy. If anything he was more quiet than usual, which is usually a very bad sign with the Colonel. He was also very slow and deliberate with his movements and very careful with his pronunciation. Very un-O’Neill-like. Very bad.

Of course, the line up of empty and not yet empty beerbottles on the table in front of him was also another giveaway of the Colonel’s far-gone state of inebriation.

As I walked into the din interior of the bar, and nodded at the bartender, I approached his table slowly.

He’d watched me from the minute I’d entered the door, his dark eyes focused intently on me. He blinked slowly as I pulled up a chair and sat down at the table across from him and the row of Budweiser bottles.

He didn’t say anything.

“I think you’ve had enough, Son,” I said softly.

“No,” he said, quite distinctly and very softly, “I haven’t had nearly enough.” He waved a hand at the row of bottles. “Not even close.”

“You’ve had too many, Jack.”

He raised his eyes to my face, eyes that were black and glittering and filled with anger. “I said I haven’t had enough yet.”

“It’s time for you to go home.”

O’Neill looked away from me, across the room, his eyes sad behind the anger. “I suppose he called you,” one of the long, deadly hands waved in the air again, at the bartender.

“Yes, he did,” I answered calmly. This dive was one of the places SGC personnel came to let off steam, I'd been called here before, when some of my people had gotten out of hand.

“It was none of his damn business,” Jack growled.

“It *is* his business, Son.”

The eyes turned back to me, raking across my face, the anger and bitterness right there at the surface, hot and hard. “Then it’s none of *your* goddamn business.” He paused and added defiantly, “Sir.” Just so I’d know that he wasn’t so far gone in his cups that he didn’t know exactly what he was saying and who he was saying it to.

Oh yeah, he was very, very drunk, the way I’d only seen him once before, after someone else he’d called friend had died an ugly death.

“Jack, I’m not here as your Commanding Officer,” I said slowly. “I’m here as your friend.”

He snorted derisively. “Shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t be my friend, not now, not ever. You’ll end up dead or gone, like all the rest of them, like everything else that ever mattered to me.” He waved once again at the row of empty bottles. “All dead. Gone. Disappeared, never to be seen again. Everyone I cared about. Look at ‘em all. One beer for each of them,” he explained carefully, talking slowly so he didn’t slur his words. He picked up the first bottle, “This one’s my kid.” Picked up another. “This one’s my marriage.” Pointed to the next. “That one’s Kawalsky. Good man. Dead.” He set that bottle down, picked up the next, his long fingers wrapping around the brown glass. “This one’s Frank, Frank Cromwell. Old friend gone. Sucked into the black hole. Dead. Just like," he set down the bottle he’d held and picked up the next, “Henry Boyd. Black hole got him, too. Dead.” O’Neill’s eyes were black in the dim light of the bar. “This bottle's for Miller, Jenkins, Ryder, Washington and Davis, the guys who died trying to rescue us from that Hathor bitch. Lt. Aster. Ambassador Joe and his shiny shoes. Elliot, God, he was just a damned kid, on his first mission, not much older than... Another bottle for SG-5, died 'cuz of that light. And here's SG-11, Hawkins, Loeder, Rothman, a geek, just like…” he stopped, wiped a hand across his face, pointed at the last bottle, the full one. “That ones for Daniel. But he’s not dead dead. You know, just gone.” The hand waved in the air one more time. “Dead to the world,” he chuckled dryly, “might as well be dead.”

“Jack…”

“Gone, General, all gone. All of ‘em gone.”

“Not all gone, Colonel. The rest of your team needs you, Teal’c and Major Carter. They’re mourning too…”

“Not mourning, damn it. He’s not dead!”

“Okay, not mourning, but bewildered. Lost. They need you.”

“Hmmph.”

“It’s your job, Colonel, to help them find their way.”

“I’m not their mother.”

“No, but you’re their team leader, which means you might as well be their mother. And they’re not the only ones. Lots of other people will miss Dr. Jackson, and they’ll all look to you to know what to do, how to handle this…”

“Oh great…”

“People look up to you, Colonel…”

“They shouldn’t…”

“But they do.”

“I don’t want them to…”

“You can’t stop them. You’re the leader of SG-1.”

He was quiet a long moment. “I should have stopped him.”

“It was his decision.”

“It was a stupid decision,” he snapped, vehemently. “Stupid.”

“He saved millions of lives.”

“Bullshit. He *wasted* his life. Those people will blow themselves up anyway. What he did won’t make a difference; in a few days or a few weeks, it’ll happen anyway.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We can hope not.”

O’Neill looked down at his hands, his voice suddenly sounding as lost as the emptiness in his eyes. “He shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have left him there…”

“You couldn’t watch him every minute.”

“I was supposed to. That was my job, keep the civilian alive,” he said, angrily. “And I failed again.”

“Jack, you didn’t fail. Daniel Jackson did the kind of brave, foolhardy thing he’s done a dozen times before, when you and your team did save him. This time his luck ran out.”

O’Neill simply shook his head, slowly, carefully. “No,” he said. “Not bad luck. Failure. My failure. Again.”

“You didn’t fail him, Jack.” I waved a hand at the bottles cluttering the table. "Son, I know these images are the ones we hold onto, they're the most vivid. It’s our failures that haunt us. It's human nature. But we forget, you forget, all the ones that aren't represented here, the ones who are alive because of you. The ones who are alive because of what you've done. Cassandra, the Reetou boy, Loren, Merrin, Martin, those young people who were in Seth's cult, Ernest Littlefield, that alien who was 'Tyler,' those people on the Land of Light, all those who once worshipped Pelos, the people you freed from the Gamekeeper, and from slavery on that ice planet. That guy right there," I pointed at the bartender and then at a man sitting at the bar "and that guy right there, and that couple sitting over in the corner, and their families, every one on this whole damned planet. They're alive because you've done some good things. Yes, sometimes you’ve failed. Yes, lives have been lost. But lives have been saved, too. Many lives."

He raised his face, looking haggard and older than his years. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but for a moment I thought I saw something flicker in his eyes, and then they went flat and blank. “A hundred successes can’t erase one failure.”

We sat wordlessly for several minutes, and finally he said, “I had to do it before.”

I waited for an explanation of the cryptic statement, and finally, when minutes had passed and he didn’t explain, I asked, gently, “Had to do what before, Jack?”

He was looking down at his hands. “Tell them to stop. Tell them it was enough. Tell them to let him go.”

“What?”

O’Neill raised his eyes to look at me, eyes filled with the despair of a memory he could never erase. “Charlie. My kid. I had to tell them to turn off the machines and let him go,” each word was agonized, torn from deep within his soul. “I told them to stop what they were doing and let him go. Just like today…”

I didn’t know what to say. Jack O’Neill is a complicated man, a man filled with deep, dark secrets, carrying terrible burdens weighing down his soul, some of which I know, some of which I can only guess at.

“Jack…”

With a sweep of his hand, he knocked all the empty bottles to the floor with a tremendous crash. Wordlessly, he picked up the last beer, the full bottle, and threw it across the room, smashing the mirror above the bartender’s head. The man ducked, covering his head as glass and beer rained down all around him. Then O'Neill stood, and very carefully pulled out his wallet, peeling off bills until a stack stood on the table. “If this isn’t enough, you know where to find me,” he told the bartender, and started toward the door.

I followed, afraid he was going to try to drive himself home. But he didn’t. He walked straight to my car and stood waiting for me, leaning against the fender, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

“Did that make you feel better?” I asked. At least it hadn't been my car window this time.

He shrugged, kicking at the ground. “I couldn’t tell him…” he raised his eyes to look into mine, self loathing clouding his gaze. “When I went to see him, I couldn’t tell him. All these years, and I couldn’t say… All I could tell him was that I admired him.”

“You didn’t have to say the words, Jack, he knew.”

The brown eyes looked over at me in gratitude. “Did he?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes, he did. He knew, son. He didn’t need the words…”

“But words were his life…”

“Of course, but sometimes what we don’t say is more clearly understood than what we do say. He was on your team, Jack. And he knew you well enough to know that meant he had your respect.”

“He told me once I didn’t show him any respect.”

Despite everything, that made me smile. “You don’t show anyone any respect, Jack. That’s just you. And he knew that. He also knew that you don’t tolerate fools or charlatans or phonies or anyone that does less than his or her best.”

O’Neill shook his head and after a moment, opened the car door and slid his long, lean body into the passenger seat of my car.

We didn't say anything more as I drove him to his house.

I pulled the car up to the curb, and shut off the engine. Silence filled the vehicle for long moments and then slowly, tiredly he reached for the door handle. O'Neill got out of the car and turned away, slamming the door and taking two steps before he stopped to look back at me. “Thanks,” he said softly.

Wordlessly, I watched him walk slowly up the stairs to his front door, and drove away.

-----

I worry a lot about Jack O'Neill, about all he keeps bottled up inside. I know there was a time when he couldn’t handle it all, when he wanted to die, when he’d failed the most important person in his life, a failure he’d never forgotten, never forgiven himself for. He’d vowed he’d never let anyone down again, and over the past five years, he’d had to learn to live with the realization that it was an impossible vow, that he was only human. It had been a hard lesson, one he was still learning, one that was driven home to him over and over again, on days like today.

He never takes losing easily or gracefully. But he’s learned to live with his losses. This was going to be a hard one. But I’d come to know the man well enough to know he’d survive. It wouldn’t be easy for him, which meant it wouldn’t be easy for me or his team, or whatever poor schmuck I was going to have to assign to join SG-1. But he’d adapt. He’d proven he could.

He wasn’t the suicidal man General West had used six years ago. I didn’t know Jack then, but I knew enough about him now to understand the difference. Then, he was hopeless, and worst of all, lost; a man without a future or a place or a task. That wasn’t the case anymore. He knew his world and his country needed him, the SGC needed him, I needed him, the remainder of his team needed him. He’d take out his anger on the enemy, rather than on himself because the one thing I knew most certainly about Jack O’Neill was that he wasn’t a selfish man. His own hurt could wait. He had a job to do, and he’d do it, and to hell with the consequences.

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*Jack O’Neill*

I didn’t go into the house. I wasn’t going to sleep, I knew that. And yes, I knew I was drunk, quite drunk, more drunk than I’d been in a very, very long time, but even at that, not drunk enough to forget. I could never get drunk enough to forget, but I was too stubborn not to make the attempt. Carefully, I walked around the back of the house and climbed the ladder to my rooftop and the little observatory up there.

I’ve spent many a night up there, trying to make sense of my life, of my job, of the universe, of what I was doing out there among the stars, me, a simple soldier. Daniel had joined me up here a lot of nights, nights like tonight, when I was wrung out and confused. Not that we talked much, we’d just kind of sit and be silent together, but finding a comfort in the companionship.

And now he was gone.

Not dead. Gone.

Hard to understand.

Even harder to deal with.

Daniel and I, we never talked about our friendship, about what we meant to each other. I never told him that he saved my life, back there on Abydos, not just by physically saving my life, but by kicking my ass out of the hole I was living in and making me think about something besides my own misery.

He was good at that, making me think about things I’d never thought about before. Making me see his side of the issue, which was generally the opposite side of mine. Totally unlike me in almost every way.

Sure, we argued a lot. He made fun of my hockey games and my fishing and I made fun of his books and artifacts. I’d give him an order and he’d argue it, or ignore it. Of course, he annoyed the hell out of me. On many occasions. Sure, there were days I’d butt into the front of the line to be the first person to wring his neck.

But, like a beloved but annoying little brother, he was…

He was…

Shit.

He was… important to me.

Not in the same way Teal’c is, as a fellow warrior, a brother in arms. Not in the same way Carter is, as my 2IC and a fellow officer I admire. Not in the same way George Hammond is, as a commander I respect.

Daniel was, in some ways, all of those. And something else. He’d helped me find a way back to who I was, and I’d tried to help him find a way to who he was trying to be.

Hard to believe it was all just yesterday when this happened, that 24 hours ago life was normal, or at least as normal as our lives ever were in the SGC. And now, now, hell I don’t know what the hell is going on.

I tell myself it was Daniel standing there beside me, talking to me, telling me to let him go. It sure as hell better have been him. I’m sure it was, considering what happened after, with the whole glowing thingy. And I didn’t tell the others, couldn’t, because I’m not really sure what had happened.

Part of me is mad at him, for making me be the one who had to say the words, make the decision. Another part of me is touched because he turned to me to speak for him. After all the arguments, all the disputes, all the fights, all the trouble we’ve been through, he still counted on me to do what he needed. He counted on me to listen.

That’s Daniel for you. Even when he’s at the point of going cosmic, he’s got to hand me a dilemma. Never made it easy on me, did you Daniel?

Did I get it right?

Please, tell me I got it right.

===============

Daniel. Annoying and aggravating and sometimes just plain downright infuriating, Daniel was my friend. Not a buddy, not a fellow soldier or a hockey teammate, but a friend; a good man, someone who, God forbid, actually understood me, a little. I think.

I know I’m not an easy person to be around. I doubt that I ever was, and the last six years have made me worse, or maybe, left me caring less what other people think of me.

Daniel always saw the best in people, why else would he have put up with me?

Maybe we’ll get lucky and get him back. Carter told me about Orlon, about how he came back from being, well, glowy himself. So there’s always a chance. And if not, I know Daniel’s out there doing what he loves to do best… learning, exploring, growing.

Who are we to hold him back?

Back when I got the Ancient’s knowledge stuffed into my brain, I remember thinking how wrong that was, that it should have been Daniel, that he’d have understood; that he’d have coped better; that he’d have used the opportunity much better than I ever did.

I remember the look in his eye, and understanding how much he’d wanted what I’d gotten and didn’t want…

He was Daniel.

Linguist/Archaeologist/Anthropologist. Scholar. Interstellar traveler. Civilian stranger in a strange military land. Grandson of Nick Ballard. Husband to Sha’re. Good Son to Kasuf. Father to Shi’fu. Friend to Chaka. Member of SG-1. Spacemonkey. Plant Boy. Grasshopper.

My teammate and my friend.

I knew him well enough to know he’d want us to go on, to be happy for him that he’d achieved this new thing, that he was still doing what he loved best. He’d told me that it was all right, and I was going to believe him. I didn’t have to understand what he was doing, I only needed to trust him.

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It’s just all so weird, too weird, too far beyond my rational mind to comprehend.

I needed Daniel here to explain it.

And that’s when I realized how much I’ll miss him.

Like I missed him earlier.

When all that, whatever it was, happened in the infirmary, and the glowing Daniel thingy left, we all just sort of stood there. Not just me, but Doc and the General and the Carters and Teal’c. I mean, what do you do when someone just turns into some light show? It’s not like he’s dead, there’s no body. And if he’s not dead, there’s no wake, no funeral, no mourning.

But there is mourning, because even if he’s alive somewhere out there as that glowy light whatever, he’s not here, with us, not part of us, anymore.

It’s just way the hell too much for me to understand.

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I thought about it all night. Dawn arrived, and stiff and cold and exhausted, I climbed down off the roof, showered and shaved and changed and drove to the mountain, did all the routine things of my life. I walked into the cafeteria in search of coffee and started for my office, taking my usual route, the one that takes me past Daniel’s office. Without thinking, I stopped and went in. “Daniel?”

Dumb, Jack, talking to someone who’s not there.

But he is there, in a way, he’ll always be there, and maybe, considering Carter’s friend Orlon could make himself real again, maybe, someday, Daniel will make himself ‘real’ again. So I sat down in his chair, and drank a cup of coffee for him, and thought about the future of SG-1.

You see, if there was one thing I’d learned six years ago, it was that I simply can’t ever let myself wallow in grief. If I started thinking about it, if I let myself dwell on it, I’d go mad, well, okay, more like just plain crazy. I’d been suicidal once and I know I can’t let myself drop down into that deep dark hole again. I know it’s still there, waiting for me, if I’m not careful. And Daniel had been such a big part of what had gotten me past that time, dragging me back into the world of the living; he’d been part of that surrogate family I’d created for myself.

Nothing makes you immune to loss, especially not in the job I do.

So I'd coped by keeping myself busy, never leaving myself an idle moment to think.

Knowing what I needed to do, what we needed to do, I left, and made my way to Hammond’s office.

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*General Hammond*

Frankly, considering how he’d looked when I left him last night, I was surprised to see Jack O’Neill’s face at my door this morning. He still looked like hell, well, most of us around the base did, after what had happened and how it had happened. None of us knew how to act. He knocked and entered and stood there, hands behind his back, looking all the world like a little boy sent to the principal’s office.

“Sir…”

“Jack…” I waved him at a chair.

He shook his head. “I, uh, thanks, you know, for the ride last night…”

“No problem, Colonel.” I didn’t ask how he felt, didn’t have to, I could see it in his face. The hangover wasn’t the half of his misery. Frankly, I was surprised he was here on base at all. He looked like he hadn’t slept a bit. “You could have taken the day off, Jack.”

The gray haired head shook again. “No. I need to have something to do.” Finally, he raised his gaze to meet mine. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d like to request SG-1 stay on active duty…”

“Colonel?” I was surprised. “Don’t you think you all need to take some time?”

“No,” his answer was vehement. “No, I don’t think we need time to sit around and, and, think about…remember. I, uh, think we need to keep busy. *I* need to keep busy.”

“And the rest of your team?”

“I think they’ll agree. Maybe not right away, but they’ll understand. Idle hands make for, uh, well, idle hands, Sir.” A look of determination crossed his face. “We’ve got too much to do to take time off to…” he waved a hand, “and it’s not like he’s dead. He’s just gone on ahead…”

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FINISH