Pride Goeth

By BadgerGater

Episode: None specific

Season: End S6 or after, after Full Circle

Spoilers: small ones for Unnatural Selection, Smoke&Mirrors and Full Circle

Category: drama, angst; Jack’s POV

Summary: Jack has a motivation for doing what he does

Pairing: None

Rating: PG

Warnings: None but it’s sad

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions, SciFi Channel, Showtime/Viacom ; 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 elsewhere without the author's consent

Author's Note: for the WordAMonth, Pride (the word-a-month can be found at www.frondfic.com)

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

They say pride goeth before a fall.

Don’t I know it.

I was a proud man, once, proud of my achievements, of my rank, and most of all, of my family, and especially of my son.

Charlie.

He wasn’t perfect, hell, he was my son, how could he be? Like me, he had gotten a double dose of adventurism, a rules-are-for-breaking streak a mile wide, even at just ten years old a budding defiance of authority, a growing belief that he was capable; and worst of all, the fatal belief that he was invincible.

Maybe he’d watched too much TV where the hero never dies; but somehow, miraculously, finds a way to survive to battle the forces of evil one more day? Like the road runner falling off the cliff and crashing and getting up, unscathed? Like Superman and Batman and the Incredible Hulk, impervious to danger.

I’ll never know why he did what he did.

Did he want to be like me? Or was it a need to be like some TV superhero? To brag to the other kids at school, that he’d held his father’s gun?

Did he want to feel the power of the gun?

Did he just want to look at it, and imagine how he’d use it?

Was it just the need to touch this forbidden thing, simply because it was forbidden? To prove his parents wrong, that he was old enough to handle something so deadly?

The sad fact is, I never knew my son.

Not really.

Sure, I knew he liked to play baseball and hockey, go fishing and stare up at the stars; that he hated to eat broccoli or go to bed on time, but I didn’t know him, didn’t know what he dreamed of, what he feared, what he wanted from life.

He was so young, I don’t imagine even he’d thought about such things yet.

I think he wanted to be an astronaut or maybe a professional hockey player.

I think he wanted to be a hero.

He just wanted to be like me.

And it had killed him.

I’d killed him.

As surely as if I’d pulled the trigger myself.

Even now, seven years after he’s been gone, the ache of loss is still there, so deep, so intense, that, on those rare occasions I let it out of the deep dark heavy box I keep it locked up in, it threatens to overwhelm me.

*****

I hadn’t gone there in a long time, to the cemetery, to his grave. But what First had done to me, on that far off planet, had haunted me. I hadn’t been able to sleep, hadn’t been able to let the memories go, hadn’t been able to rest.

I knew there was nothing I could do there.

But I went anyway, searching for the elusive peace I can never find.

I’d tried before, to talk to Charlie, to tell him the truths I could tell no one else, that I went on with my life, day after day, because it was the only way I could try to make up for what I’d done to him, that I still thought about him and always would, until the day I joined him in the cold ground; that I’d never forget him, and I’d never, ever, stop missing him.

Nothing would ever fill the hole his loss had torn in my heart.

And I’d never forgive myself.

*****

It’s funny.

Every time you start to feel cocky, to feel proud, life kicks you in the teeth.

Save the Earth, sure, save the Asgard and probably the entire universe from those freaky Lego-bugs, sure. But, hey, Jack, don’t forget… you saved everyone else, but you didn’t save your son.

********

Guilt.

It’s been a part of me for so long I can’t imagine living without it.

Sometimes, like I told Daniel so very long ago, I can forget. Caught up in the moment, in the need to focus on my job and on living, on keeping my team alive, and protecting the country I’d long ago pledged my life to protect, I go hours, days, sometimes, hell, even whole weeks without consciously thinking about him.

But, once the crisis is over, once my thoughts are free to roam, it’s there, waiting for me, the ever-resent reminder that I failed the one person who truly and completely depended on me, who believed in me, who trusted me to take care of him.

*****

I’d thought I had the world by the tail.

And it snapped back and bit my ass.

Pride goeth before a fall.

And I’d fallen far, deep down into the blackest pit of hell on Earth, a place of pain so all consuming it eats you alive, of wanting to be dead more than alive, of wanting to sleep forever, of wanting to dive into a bottle or put a bullet into my own head.

Pride wouldn’t let me do that.

No, maybe not pride.

Fear, I think.

Okay, and I didn’t want to do it to Sara, either.

She was the one to save me, though I’ve never had the courage to tell her that. I couldn’t put her through that, the horror of finding another blood-stained body; of another round of useless platitudes; of a church service filled with empty words that can’t begin to dampen the pain.

In the end, what stopped me from ending it all, was realizing that I didn’t deserve to die, to let go of the pain, to let my pain die with me, to leave behind the hurt. The only way I could live was to hurt worse than I’d hurt Sara, to show her that the blame was mine.

I couldn’t let her blame herself for *my* death like I blamed myself for Charlie’s.

*****

I wallowed.

I had no pride left.

I didn’t care about anything, except about what I’d done. I didn’t care what I looked like. I didn’t sleep, and I drank too much and I ate too little. I had no strength to do anything but sit on his bed and stare at the gleaming silver of the weapon that had ensnared my son.

My weapon.

My mistake.

My failure.

My fault.

My penance.

When those Air Force officers came for me, I welcomed them, because they were going to give me the chance to do what I couldn’t do to myself.

I could sacrifice myself to save someone else.

I could save some other mother’s son.

I could pay the penalty I owed, for the death of my child.

West knew.

I saw it in his eyes.

He knew that I knew.

Silent, mutual agreement.

A perfect solution, for both of us.

He was going to get what he wanted, a dirty job done; I was going to get what I wanted, an end, more honorable than I deserved; the Air Force was going to get a mission accomplished without sacrificing an officer who still had value; and Sara was going to get to bury a hero. She would get my pension and my death benefits and my life insurance. She wouldn’t get another bloody body in her house, she wouldn’t have to look at another still and silent, dead face.

A fine solution all around.

And then I’d failed.

Failed upward.

Failed to die, and instead, found a new cause.

Somewhere, amid the dusty, heat soaked dunes of Abydos, I found a new life.

Instead of dying for my son, I realized I could live for my son.

*****

I saw that man on TV the other night, the one who does the TV show where they catch all those criminals. His son died, too, even younger than Charlie, and he blamed himself, and he wanted to die. Finally, though, he found his absolution in starting a crusade in the name of his child. He discovered a way to turn his tragedy, his loss, into a way to help someone else, in the name of his lost child.

Twenty years, that man's little boy has been gone, and his voice shook when he talked about losing his son.

I know how he feels.

I know his hurt, like no other hurt that even the cruelest torturer has ever devised.

A hurt born inside yourself, carried in your soul, eating you alive from deep within.

John Walsh avoided his own self-destruction by giving himself a new purpose, a cause, in life.

No one will ever know about my cause.

But it’s there, with me, every day, on every mission: save all the others, for the sake of the one I couldn't save.

********

Eventually, over the years, my pride returned.

Arrogant fool.

I took pride in my team, in our perfect record, in the fact that we survived, that we faced the impossible and time after time, beat the odds. We were good, damn good.

Pride goeth before a fall.

I failed, and Daniel died.

I died, too.

And the pain didn’t end.

*****

First wasn’t human, but he saw the truth.

The pain is always there.

Nothing will wash it away.

But the pride has been burned out of me, by that snake who killed me, and the Senator who bested me, and that freaky Anubis thing who killed Skaara.

Pride goeth before a fall.

And I’ve fallen far too often.

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The End