Stars 3: Burden of Command

Author: Badgergater

Email: [email protected]

Season: 8

Episode: Zero Hour

Series: Stars, a series of S8 fics

Category: Missing Scenes, drama

Pairing: None

Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Summary: Jack must cope with his new duties as a general; or can he? A series of missing scene vignettes during the episode

Disclaimer: Don’t own Stargate. Wish I did, well, at least Jack. The fic, though, is mine.

Author’s Note: I loved this ep, loved it loved it loved it… Thanks Jude for the beta

His first lesson in his first day as Brigadier General Jack O’Neill, commander of the SGC: being "The Man" isn’t all you might think it would be.

It’s worse. Much worse.

It started before he could even get to his office.

By the second day, he dreaded the opening of the elevator doors because he knew what would be waiting for him.

Not even coffee could make it better.

No job should ever be this much *not* fun.

How the hell did Hammond ever do it?

People kept asking him questions, and expecting answers, and they wouldn’t go away.

"God give me a problem I can solve with a P-90," Jack O’Neill muttered in despair.

************

Life is in the little things.

Like the fact that his team, his former team he corrected himself, was wearing blue and he was wearing green.

That never used to happen.

It was a little thing, unimportant in itself.

But what it signified cut him to the quick.

He was no longer part of SG-1 in any real way. He was separate, cut off from them even now when he stood so close he could reach out and touch them. A divide had appeared, a hairline crack that would only grow wider, becoming eventually a yawning chasm as the days and the missions passed, and they did what they did without him.

While he was stuck back on the base.

Sure, they’d try to make it otherwise, maybe even work at it at first. Pretend it wasn’t happening.

But it would.

Was already.

A wave of sorrow, of loss, rippled through him.

He hoped it didn’t show on his face.

He hadn’t felt this… adrift… since Sara left, since he arrived home from that first trip to Abydos to find an empty house, doomed to endure his own dark thoughts.

************

Whoever said it was lonely at the top knew what he was talking about.

He started the letter to Hammond out of desperation, because he had to think through what was happening, had to put his feelings into words, even if he wasn’t ready to *speak* the words out loud… yet. His regrets. His worries. His fears. His frustrations. His growing sense of complete and utter inadequacy.

He could write things down, despite the fact that he couldn’t say them even to George because his always locked down emotions demanded he put up the usual all-is-well front. If he wrote down what he was thinking, he could always erase the words, or delete them, or crumple up the paper and toss it in the trash.

He wasn’t committed.

Not like the spoken word, once uttered, never to be taken back. Irreversible. Unrecallable.

Once said, forever known, revealed, unmasked.

And that hurt.

Losing the General, and his team, all in one fell swoop, was just too much.

********

Jack wanted to go with them. Desperately. It took all of his willpower not to run up the ramp after them, even though this should be only a mind-numbingly boring recon mission.

Instead, today he was pushing his children out of the nest. Yeah, they were foster kids, and not kids, hell, Teal’c was twice his age and the other two were both far beyond Generation X. So maybe Uncle Jack was more appropriate. Doting Uncle Jack.

He wanted them to succeed, he really did. Really. Honestly. Truly. Definitely. Yes, he did. At the same time, a part of him needed them to need him, or at least miss him, to feel as incomplete without him as he did without them.

And feared it wouldn’t be so, at least not for them.

They still had each other.

He had… paperwork.

He was excluded now, and every day the gap between them and him would grow. Not purposefully, he knew they wouldn’t do that to him. They were still his friends, after all, but not his teammates any longer. There would be debriefings, sure, discussions of missions, maybe even talks in Daniel’s office or Carter’s lab, or chats over breakfast or lunch or dinner, just like always. But it wouldn’t be the same, because he would only be *hearing* about what they did, not living it with them; missing out on the little details, on the tiny moments that made up the bulk of every mission but would never be recorded in any report.

He’d been through this before, the pledge to retain old friendships, to hang on to things that were over.

Over was over.

Done was done.

As he watched SG-1 go up the ramp without him, Jack O’Neill knew things had changed. Irrevocably. Changed, as he’d always known some day they would have to, a reality he had denied.

And now it was there, staring him in the face, unavoidable, like an elephant in the kitchen.

Not even he could ignore it any longer.

Sure, the team had gone off world without him before, lots of times. But that had been different. Those were temporary exclusions and they’d all known it. His place was being held for him then, awaiting his inevitable return.

Today, they were SG-1 and he wasn’t.

Permanently.

Letting go was hard, harder than he’d ever imagined. Sort of like Charlie’s first day of school. Jack had led his son up to the building’s front door, and found he didn’t want to release the boy's small hand. He knew he needed to, knew it was time for his child to make that independent step. But it hurt to think that he and Sara would never again be quite so important in their son’s life. That Charlie would have new and important experiences without them. That so many hours of his day would be spent with others who would play a major roll in shaping his life.

Jack felt left out.

Alone.

Superfluous.

His new job offered little compensation.\

None, actually, at least so far; nothing but headaches and endless responsibilities. He just couldn’t find any adrenaline inducing moments when the only danger in his day was the possibility of a paper cut.

Jack O’Neill shook himself, looking around sheepishly to check if anyone had seen him standing wistfully at the foot of the gate ramp, and went back to his office. He tried not to sulk, and failed. Miserably.

He missed seeing the sky and the sun, missed the touch of the wind and the rain, missed the fresh air and exotic scents of alien worlds, missed the good feel of physical tiredness at the end of a long day. He wanted to be out there, aching knees and all. Aching knees, after all, were better than an aching heart. He could fix the former with some Tylenol and a hot soak in the tub; the latter was unfixable.

Staring blankly at his computer screen while the paperwork on his desk was sitting and waiting and undoubtedly growing like mold, he finally ordered himself to straighten up, grow up, and ‘fess up to reality.

If wishes were horses, the infantry would ride.

And he’d still be going through the Stargate.

And Doc would still be there… okay, don’t go there Jack, he reprimanded himself, no time for the maudlin road. Nope, not gonna go down that path.

************

He glanced at his watch. Barely twenty minutes had passed since SG-1’s departure. Were they missing him? At all?

Or feeling free, glad to be rid of him?

He wasn’t sure.

Jumping to his feet, he was suddenly desperate for something to do, some reason to move, to stop *thinking* and be *doing*, because it was all so wrong, him being here and them being out there without him.

He took a walk around the base. An inspection, generals did those, right? Check things out, boost troop morale, get out of the office and stretch his legs…

Riiiight, Jack, keep pretending, while the paperwork grows as fast as Dr. Lee’s feed-the-world plant.

************

Ba’al.

Bastard.

The last son of a bitch Jack O’Neill *ever* wanted to see again, unless it was over the sights of his fully loaded P-90.

Ba’al.

Sneering, slimy, sadistic… there weren’t words enough in the English language to describe how Jack felt.

And SG-1, his team, his friends, were in Ba’al’s hands, at his non-existent mercy.

O’Neill closed his eyes, trying to banish the visions his mind insisted on creating: the sound of his teammates agonized cries, their blood flowing thick and red, the sickly sweet smell of sweat and fear…and death. He swayed, and caught himself.

"General?" Reynolds’ voice was soft, pulling him back to the present.

Suddenly remembering where he was, Jack’s eyes popped open. He waved Reynolds’ concern away. "Headache," he explained, which was true.

"Yes, Sir." The Colonel nodded and didn’t contradict, and for that, Jack was grateful.

Back in his office, O’Neill examined his far too limited options. Finally, the General picked up the phone, "Get me the commander of the detention facility at Area 51," he ordered.

****************

Cammy wouldn’t be arriving until the morning.

Knowing he needed to be at his best to confront the Gould, Jack went home and tried to get a decent night’s rest, a futile attempt. Exhausted by the stress and worry of the day, he quickly fell asleep. Within minutes, however, he was dreaming, a vicious nightmare of flying knives and drops of burning acid and an oily, resonant voice demanding, "Tell me what I want to know."

He woke with a shout on his lips, soaked in sweat, tangled in his sheets, all possibilities of sleep long gone. Jack O’Neill turned on the light and slept no more that night.

*************

It had been a desperate ploy, and if he was honest, one he’d known all along he couldn’t possibly win. But he had to try, because he was Jack O’Neill and they were his team and he could leave no possibility untried.

It had failed of course. Cammy had seen right through it, though the geek hadn’t caught on, which gave him some tiny bit of satisfaction. Very tiny.

It was time for Plan B, except, this time, he had no plan B.

************

Colonel Reynolds wanted to see him in the gateroom. What had he done wrong now? he wondered.

When the door slid open, revealing the gateroom packed with SGC personnel, for a moment, Jack thought it was a mutiny.

And then Colonel Reynolds spoke.

What Reynolds said, what these people had done, it helped, only a little, but it helped.

He felt inordinately grateful to them, to each and every one of them, but the words of thanks stuck in his throat.

It restored his self-confidence, a little, at least. They were still willing to follow him, to accept his leadership, to obey his orders. So maybe he wasn’t much of an administrator, but he was still a leader.

And God knew he wanted to do it, wanted to tell them to load up and he’d lead them through the gate on a desperate and almost certainly futile rescue mission.

And he knew he couldn’t, because he was the SGC commander, and he couldn’t spend 100 lives in a vain hope of saving three, even if they were three invaluable lives.

Even if they were his friends.

Especially because they were his friends.

Because he couldn’t let friendship be his first duty.

He couldn’t start a war, and risk billions of lives for personal reasons.

No wonder they called it the burden of command.

************

He’d written to Hammond that his regret was that he’d been delusional enough to think he could do what needed to be done. That hadn’t been honest, a not so little white lie. His true regret was that his folly in thinking he could take over the leadership of the SGC had gotten his friends killed.

**************

He felt better once he’d made his decision. He couldn’t cope with base devouring plants and presidential visits and childish alien delegates and negotiating with one Gould, much less two. And worst of all, he’d screwed up. If he’d let SG-1 go when they wanted to, that first day, maybe they’d have been back before Ba’al’s forces found the planet. What happened to them was his fault. During the last few endless days, he hadn’t let himself think of what Ba’al might be doing to them. He couldn’t think about it without his own hands shaking at the memories of what that bastard had done to him. Over and over and over again. All the Gould were sick, sadistic bastards and Bocce’ was… was… his nemesis.

***********

What he had done might serve as retribution at best.

It was his last desperate bid to rid the universe of the one evil that haunted him most.

But he had little hope it would work.

Ba'al, like the rest of the damned Gould, seemed to have nine lives. Or ten. Or a thousand.

Too weary to face another moment on the base, he decided to go home. Maybe he could get some sleep there, away from the ever-present reminders of his failure. Start getting used to being out of uniform again. Reconnect with the rest of the world. Start packing the fishing gear for that move to the cabin.

He didn’t make it home, though.

He got only as far as the elevator before the klaxons sounded.

A General’s work, it seemed, was never done.

***************

His first thought was that it was a trick, that Ba’al had broken one of them. Jack knew it could happen, he knew all too well just what horrors the bastard could put SG-1 through. But if it was a trick, it was a damn perfect one. No one could put that disbelieving tone into Daniel’s voice, the desperation, the hint of ‘Jack, don’t be dense’ that he could hear. That was what convinced him to break procedure and go with his gut feeling that the transmission wasn’t an elaborate ruse but the truth.

****************

Jack thought he did a pretty good job of keeping his commander’s face in place when the three members of SG-1 finally emerged from the wormhole. Immense relief left him feeling weak-kneed, relief that these three people were okay. Relief that he hadn’t committed a terrible faux pas and opened the iris to an invasion force. Relief that he’d finally gotten something right by listening to the same instincts that had served him so well over three decades of military life. Relief that maybe, just maybe, he’d figured out a thing or two about himself and this place and this job, a job he really could do, if he worked hard enough and smart enough and adapted it to his own style; if he continued to be the stubborn, dogged man he’d always been, counting on his team to help him overcome his failings, and realizing that the whole SGC, even the scientists and the geeks, were part of that team.

************

Hand poised over the delete button, Jack once more read through the letter he’d written. There were things in there he wanted Hammond to see, admissions of what he’d learned and how close he’d come to failure, and disaster. George deserved to know it all. Suddenly deciding what to do, he typed in two more words, then hit print. Without reading the letter again, he scrawled his signature at the bottom of the page, right below the words, "Never mind."

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The End… for now

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