Stars- One More Hero

By: Badgergater

Email: Badgergater@ cs.com

Series/Sequel: part of the S8 Stars series, though it stands alone

Category: Angst, drama

Season: 8

Episode: None but about mid-season or so

Spoilers: Well, other than the big one from New Order, and an old, tiny one for The Devil You Know, there’s none I can pick out

Summary: Jack unexpectedly encounters someone from his past whose presence brings both comforting words and sadness

Pairing: None

Rating: G, I guess

Warnings: Sad, you may need a Kleenex or two for this one

Disclaimer: I don’t own Stargate, its characters or its story. I know big and important folks do. I’m just filling in the gaps, having fun, promoting the show, and expressing my respect and affection for the character of Jack O’Neill. This fic may not be posted without my permission.

Author's Pledge: The facts, and all the facts, about the fic, honestly told, to allow the potential reader to make an informed decision. Read or not, but you deserve to make an informed choice.

Author's Note: For Margo, Sis, Sid; all those who appreciate all General O'Neill can be; and all those who feedback- remember, every muse needs encouragement. They are fickle, needy creatures.

/---------------------------------------\

The familiar name caught my eye as I read through the list of new personnel.

Josh Eisen.

It couldn’t be. He was just a kid.

No, he would be… I mentally counted, backward and forward. Nine years ago, and Charlie had been ten. Josh had been more than a year older.

Twenty-one then. Old enough.

Josh Eisen.

Charlie’s best friend.

I tapped the intercom to my aide’s desk. "Have Lieutenant Eisen report to my office."

/---------------\

He walked in, back ramrod straight, eyes front and center, saluting smartly, but I could see the worry on his face. I’m sure he’d never been called to a meeting with a general before.

"Second Lieutenant Joshua Eisen reporting as ord…" and then he stopped, and, oh, the look of surprise on his face when he saw me. "Mr. O’Neill?" And then he realized what he’d just done, and snapped back to attention. "Sir." He looked flustered, and worried.

I looked up at the young man. "At ease, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, General, Sir."

"One or the other, son, General *or* sir. You don’t need them both."

"Yes, Sir."

"And relax a little."

"General?" he looked confused.

"It’s okay, Josh."

"Then why am I here, Sir?"

I sighed and sat back in my chair. "You didn’t do anything wrong." I waved a hand at the folder on my desk. "I just saw the name and wondered… if it was… you."

"Yes, Sir. The same Josh Eisen."

The room was very quiet. Now that he was here, I didn’t know what to say to him. To be honest, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

The silence stretched.

I could tell he was searching for something to say to break the uncomfortable silence. "How’s Mrs. O’Neill?"

"We’re divorced."

His face turned red. "I’m sorry, Sir," he stammered. "I was just…"

"Being polite. I know."

"I- She was always nice to me. She used to make the best peanut butter cookies."

I smiled thinly. "Yes, she did."

"They were Charlie’s favorite."

I nodded, feeling a lump growing in my throat, the one that always appeared when the topic of my kid was raised. "I’m glad you remember."

"He was my best friend. I’ll never forget him."

My chest ached with a deep dull pain. My son’s life had been cut so devastatingly short, but still, he’d made an impression on people. What could he have accomplished if he’d been with us longer? Damn it, Jack, don’t go there, don’t think about that…

I took a deep breath, and managed to speak. "Josh, I’m not sure you want to be here."

"Oh, yes, General, I do. I asked for a combat assignment, Sir. That’s what I wanted. And this… this place, it’s amazing."

I looked at him, and saw the remembered face of a boy, two boys, really, hanging out in my backyard, laughing and playing, young and carefree and oh so very innocent.

"It was something Charlie and I promised each other, we did the whole blood brothers thing, cutting our fingers, mingling the blood. We were both going to enlist when we got old enough." He stopped suddenly. "Sorry, Sir. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this."

How could he think I didn’t want to know about my son’s life? That I didn't want to know how he’d spent his time, and his dreams for the future that my carelessness had denied him? I waved a hand. "Go on," I encouraged.

"Charlie and me, I, uh, we played soldier for hours on end, day after day, all summer I swear. The only thing we did, besides play baseball, was play war games, dreaming of when we could be heroes."

"War isn’t a game, Josh. And going to war won’t make you a hero, it will only make you dead." I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. I’d see far too many dead boys during my three decades in the military. The glory of it, as if there’d ever been any, was long gone.

Josh wasn’t swayed. "Charlie wanted to follow in your footsteps, Sir. He never stopped talking about you, about wanting to be like you, about what a hero you were."

"I’m no hero, Josh."

"You were to him, Sir." He looked around my office. "He’d be really proud, that you’re a General."

It was a good thing Josh kept talking, because I was no longer capable of it myself.

"Please don’t transfer me, Sir, just because…" he paused, swallowed. "General O’Neill, I really want to be here. I want to go through the Stargate."

So I let him. It wouldn’t have been fair, to do otherwise. I could no more penalize him for being someone I knew than I could have shown him favoritism.

Though maybe, as it turned out, I should have.

/-------------\

I assigned him to a good team and team leader, hell, they’re all good, or they wouldn’t be here. For the next couple of months, I saw him at briefings and de-briefings, and once in a while passed him in the hallway. His CO gave him good performance reviews, and he seemed to be enjoying the job.

/---------------\/-------------\/-------------\

The first sign of trouble was Walter’s announcement of an unscheduled gate activation.

Hastily, and yes, gladly, I dropped the report I was reading and hurried across the briefing room. I could see the gate spinning as I reached the top of the spiral stairs, trotting down them taking two at a time. "Who is it?" I asked before my boots hit the control room floor.

"SG-16, Sir. They’re sending the emergency code."

"Major Perez’s team?"

"Yes, Sir. They’re on PX4-7…"

"Studying a temple dedicated to Zeus." I do know where each team is and what it’s doing, which always seems to surprise Walter, who I guess had always bought into my dumb as a brick routine. It was just that, in the past, I didn’t need to know all this stuff, not like I need to know it now. SG-16 was, in addition to Perez, Captain Dunn, a civilian biologist named Johnston, and… Lieutenant Eisen. "Open the iris."

"Bur Sir, we’ve got the new Naquadah generator for Riesop sitting at the base of the ramp, waiting to go through the gate. If weapons fire hits it…"

"Open the iris," I repeated to Walter, then grabbed the microphone, shouting orders down to Siler and the techs clustered around the device sitting at the base of the ramp. "Get that thing out of there," I ordered.

I watched as Walter slapped his palm on the security authorization pad, and the iris retracted.

Another communication came through from off-world. Perez’s voice sounded tinny and distant over the loudspeaker, punctuated by the muffled yet recognizable noises of battle. "… Jaffa patrol. We’re taking fire, Sir.…." The rattle of gunfire drowned out his next words. "… . Go! Go! Go!"

I slapped Walter on the back and ran for the gateroom. Okay, not the brightest move, since I neither wore armor nor carried a weapon, but damn it, I just can’t stand up there and watch. Not me. Not when my guys are coming home on the run.

Sliding inside just as the door was closing, I knelt down behind one of the SFs who was carrying a shield. The rest of the armor clad security team was arrayed around the gate, weapons up and at the ready.

"Watch for our guys!" I reminded them, though I knew it was unnecessary. They were good at this, they’d done it hundreds of times.

The eyes of the security team members never wavered from their focus on the swirling blue center of the huge ring.

Even before the first body emerged, several energy bolts shot through, hitting the walls and gouging deep holes in the hardened concrete.

Damn. There goes the maintenance budget again, I muttered to myself.

Even as I heard the rumble of the shield closing over the control room windows, a third shot burst out of the wormhole. It hit something on the back wall that created a momentarily bright explosion of sparks and the clatter of flying debris. I ducked as I felt something burning hot hit my arm a sharp, stinging blow. The room dimmed as the majority of the lights went out. The place was illuminated now only by the eerie red emergency lighting.

Glancing at my arm, I saw a tear in the material of my shirt, and something dark soaking my forearm.

Crap. Shrapnel. I clamped one hand over the slowly bleeding wound, and refocused my attention on the action looming in front of me.

Just then, two figures glad in green BDUs appeared out of the gate. One seemed to be all but carrying the other as they both staggered and slipped, slumping on the ramp. Before anyone could move to help them, another person emerged, shouting incoherently. A fraction of a second later, one more leaped through the gate, this one dressed in armor and carrying a staff weapon. I heard the SFs firing, praying they were careful of their shots as the fourth and final member of SG-16, Perez himself, came through last.

"Close the iris!" he screamed, even as more figures poured through… three, four, five, six, seven Jaffa made it out of the wormhole in the endless seconds before the iris closed. The dull thuds of more bodies hitting the barrier were nearly drowned out by the sounds of battle, the rattle of gunfire, the snap of staff weapons discharging, the shouting men, the clash of steel on steel as hand to hand fighting commenced.

I don’t know what drew my gaze to him in all the commotion, but something did. A wounded Jaffa, lying on the gateramp, raised his head, still grasping his weapon in his hands. I saw his eyes light on something, and followed his gaze. Damn, the generator, he saw the generator, pushed out of the way against the back wall, and recognized it for what it was. Even as I surged to my feet, racing for the ramp, I knew I’d be too late.

And I was.

Someone else got there first, throwing himself in front of the shot even as the SF sergeant realized what was happening and, a fraction of a second too late, a hail of bullets cut down the Jaffa.

The sudden silence was deafening.

Smoke drifted around the room.

I heard one of the wounded moaning, even as the door opened and a flash of white told me the medical team was there.

I pushed myself up off the gateroom floor, right hand still grasping my bloodied left forearm. Once on my feet, I could see two men down, both of them moving. And then, as I stepped nearer to the gate, I saw him. He’d been the one. He’d thrown himself in front of the blast, taken the hit meant for the generator. He’d saved us, saved the SGC, maybe even saved all of Earth, because if the naquadah generator had exploded, it could have taken the gate with it. The resulting blast would have devastated the whole damn planet, I’d learned that, over a year or so ago, when the first gate was overloaded and we’d had to jettison it out into space.

Staggering forward past the SFs and the techs helping the other wounded, I reached the unmoving body on the gateramp. Dr. Breitman was kneeling beside the wounded man.

I looked down at the doctor, and she shook her head.

"Doctor?" I asked hopefully, but I knew already, seeing the gaping wound, and the singed clothes. He’d taken a staff weapon blast at close range. "Doctor?" I tried desperately to keep the pleading tone out of my voice.

She just shook her head again.

Knees creaking, I knelt down beside him. He was so very, very pale, as if all the blood had already drained out of him. His breathing was shallow and wrong, but when I took his hand, his eyes opened. They drifted for a moment before focusing on my face.

"General…" he whispered.

I reached my blood stained hand out to take hold of his. It felt cold already. "Lieutenant… Josh…"

I could just barely hear his faint, labored words. "I’ll say hello to him."

"To whom?" the doctor asked.

"Charlie," the boy answered.

"Do that, son," I told him, squeezing his hand.

His grip tightened spasmodically. "I’ll tell him… you saved the world."

I felt the tears forming. "No, Josh, you did."

He smiled then. "I did?"

"You did. Tell him…" I paused, fighting to choke out the words. "Tell Charlie…" and I couldn’t go on.

His words were so soft, I had to bend down closer to hear them, my ear inches from his mouth. "He knows, Sir. He always knew."

And then he gave a little sigh, and his hand went slack in mine, and I knew he was gone.

I didn’t move. Around me, the other injured were being helped to the infirmary.

"General?" the doctor was back at my shoulder. "You should come with me. I need to look at your arm."

"Later."

"Sir, you’re going to need stitches..."

"Later, damn it!"

"Okay, Sir," she retreated, leaving me alone with him, at the base of the gateramp. The other personnel drifted out wordlessly, until it was only me and Josh and someone else, someone standing behind me who didn't intrude, but just let me have the time I needed. Finally, he said, softly, "O’Neill."

I didn’t answer.

"He is gone."

"I know," I snapped harshly.

"He was a brave warrior."

I know that’s the highest praise Teal’c can bestow, but it was just so wrong. "No, he was just a boy," I answered wearily.

"He was your son’s friend."

I nodded.

"Then they are together, taking strength from one another."

I shook my head, and looked away.

Sighing, then, I pushed myself to my feet, stiff from the awkward way I’d knelt.

Hurting deep inside.

For another life ended far too soon.

/-------------\/-------------\

Teal’c walked with me down to the infirmary, his presence comforting, saying nothing, because he, like me, knew there was nothing to say.

The medical area was busy, people bustling from place to place, so I walked in and took a chair, staring numbly at the wall.

I’m not sure how long I sat there, feeling frozen and old and useless and hopeless, and far less than a general ever ought to feel. My arm throbbed steadily with each heartbeat.

After a while someone brought me a towel. I wrapped it around my arm and held it tightly, trying not to think about anything, especially not about two smiling, bright eyed boys, both boys who were dead because of me.

Finally, I realized someone was standing in front of me, saying my name.

"General O’Neill?"

I wondered how long the nurse had been trying to talk to me. I simply nodded, too tired to say a word.

"If you’ll come with me, Sir, the doctor’s ready for you now."

I followed the nurse, thinking how crisp and clean her uniform looked, not at all like the blackened, charred uniform Josh had been wearing. We went into one of the treatment areas, and I sat on a chair. Carefully, she unwrapped the towel from around my arm. "I’m going to clean this, General."

"Fine."

Moving my forearm so that it sat over a basin she’d rested on my knees, she slowly poured something on the cut.

"Son of a bitch!" It stung like fire. I snatched my arm out of her grip and jumped to my feet, the basin hitting the floor with a jarring crash. "What the hell was that, acid?"

"S-sir?"

Suddenly, I realized how young she was, and how frightened, undoubtedly of me. Who wouldn’t be, the way I’d just snapped at her? Feeling sorry, for her and for me, I sat down and muttered, "Sorry. Just," I waved my good arm in the air, "just finish. And warn me next time."

"Yes, Sir." Her hands were shaking as she picked up the basin and started again.

This time I was prepared for the sharp bite of the disinfectant. Red tinged fluid sluiced off my arm and into the container. When she was done, she used a clean dressing to blot the wound. By that time, Dr. Breitman was standing, looking over her shoulder.

"Good job, nurse." Breitman, no nonsense as ever, switched places with the nurse. Picking up a needle, "this will sting, General," she informed me. "Your arm will be numb in a few minutes and we’ll get the stitches in."

I nodded and said nothing, only wishing she was done, that all of this was done, that this whole stinking, lousy, worthless day was done and over with.

I didn’t even realize the doctor was finished until she announced, "All through here, Sir. Just keep the stitches dry…"

"I know how to take care of stitches. I’ve had a few before."

"Right, then, Sir, I'm sure you have. Go home and get some rest."

"As if," I answered, and left, heading back to my office and the work that awaited me there.

/------------------\

It’s not only lonely at the top, it’s precarious. Frightening, to have all those lives in your hands. And devastating, when you lose one. Any one.

It’s a heavy burden, to be in command.

You do the best you can.

But sometimes you fail.

I know that, I’ve known that for a long time, since the first mission I led where one of my men was lost. But it doesn’t get any easier over the years.

It gets harder, I think.

Or maybe the burdens on your soul just get heavier and heavier with each failure, each loss, each death, accumulating until, like the proverbial camel, somewhere, sometime, the last one breaks your back.

A brave boy died today.

And, like every death I’ve been responsible for, a part of me, of my soul, died with him.

/-------------\/-------------\

It was really late when I left the base that night. There’s a lot of paper work, debriefings, and infirmary visits to the wounded to attend to after a mess like that one, not to mention the time I’d spent getting patched up myself.

By the time I was ready to leave, it was nearly midnight.

The local had worn off long ago. My arm throbbed, and my head ached, and all I could think of was to find the oblivion of sleep, which I was pretty sure was going to be elusive if not downright impossible.

"We’re here, Sir," the voice of my driver, Airman Edwards, jerked me out of my dark thoughts.

I looked up to see the front of my house. With a sigh, I reached for the doorhandle, then thought better of it. "Son, I’ve got one more stop to make. Oak Street."

I could see his eyes in the rear view mirror. "Sir? There’s nothing there but the cemetery…"

"I know, Son," I answered him quietly.

"Yes, Sir," he re-started the car and drove.

The street was empty, the cemetery dark as I stepped out of the car. "Give me a couple of minutes," I ordered.

"Yes, Sir." He looked worried, wondering, I’m sure, if I’d lost what little was left of my mind, wandering around in a cemetery in the dark.

I couldn’t explain. He’d just have to write it off as another one of General O’Neill’s quirks. God, and everyone at the SGC, knows I’ve got enough of them.

I walked slowly through the dew-dampened grass, feeling every one of my 52 years.

Despite the darkness, I found my way to the spot unerringly. I’d been there enough times, and yeah, odd as it may seem, usually in the dark, too. I guess it’s the only time I can let myself grieve, when there’s little risk of someone seeing me.

Stopping, I stood and looked down. "Hi, Tiger. Bet you’re surprised to see me. It’s been a while, I know. I’ve been busy. They made me a general, for cryin’ out loud, which means I’ve got a lot of responsibility. People to take care of, too many things to do. Not that I’ve forgotten you, and you know I never will. I even put your picture up in my office."

I paused a long minute. "I’ve come to tell you to look for Josh. You boys take care of each other now, okay?"

I leaned down and touched the cold, gray stone, and then I turned and walked back to the car, past Edwards’ mystified gaze and slid into the car.

"Sir?" he asked.

"You can take me home now, Airman."

When we reached my house, he opened the door and held it for me.

I smiled grimly at him. "Thank you, Son. It’s late. You drive careful on your way back."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

I could feel his gaze, watching me, as I walked to the door, turned the key, and stepped into the cold and empty house that tonight matched my cold and empty soul.

-----------------------------------finish-----------------------------