True North
Author: BadgerGater
Email: [email protected]
Category: Missing Scene to S4 episode The Curse
Warnings: None
Pairing: None
Spoilers: The Curse
Rating: PG
Summary: What else happened on that fishing trip?
Disclaimer: I don’t own SG-1 and acknowledge the rights, privileges and power of those that do; I’m just borrowing the characters and concepts for fun, and will faithfully return them.
Author’s Note:
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I can’t believe I’m finally here.
Minnesota.
Granddad’s cabin.
Fishing.
Teal’c has been silently looking out the window for the last two hours as we drive through mile after mile of forest. I can hear the question he isn’t asking, the one about O’Neill and his constant tree jokes.
See, everyone misunderstood. I *never* said I didn’t like trees, just that I get bored with trees, trees everywhere we go. You’d think God or Mother Nature or Father Zeus or whoever invented the universe would have been more imaginative, you know?
But I like trees, trees like these, the trees of home.
Mile after mile of greenery, pine scent filling the cool air, deer grazing in small meadows set back from the highway, here and there the flash of blue water, stream or pond or lake.
Once in a while a driveway leads off the road to a cabin; every few miles we meet a car or a four wheel drive pickup, winter road salt rusted.
The wilderness beckons.
Home calls.
God, I needed this.
I’m tired. Not tired in the physical way, though I am that, but weary in body and soul, weighed down by losses and failures, drained by too many adrenaline highs and too many crisis, one piled atop another and another. Never enough time to recover from one hair raising disaster before the next one was upon us.
Yeah, even I get worn down. Saving your team, saving yourself, saving the world doesn’t get old, but it does get exhausting.
The last two years have been hell to pay. Started with that bitch Hathor, telling me everyone I knew was dead, and then when I found out she was lying, snaking me. Shit. Then trying to be Mr. Diplomat making the treaty with the Asgard and the snakeheads; Urgo in our heads; aliens taking over the base; stuck out there on Edora for three months believing I’d never again see anyone or anything I knew; risking my neck and pissing off my team because of traitors in our own midst; meeting those freakin’ replicator mechanical spider thingys; being a fraction of a second from being blown to bits on that Russian sub; submitting to Anise’s Zatarc thingy; being propositioned by a woman with a snake in her head; thinking we’d found the technology we needed only to find a power crazed megalomaniac and his hundred thousand clones.
And those are only a *few* of the highlights.
Can you blame me for being tired? For wanting a couple of days off?
I need to feel normal for a few days. Well, as normal as I can.
Fishing is what I need, have needed for months and months now. No aliens. No NID. No galactic intrigue. No responsibilities.
Too much sleep, too much beer and too much of nothing.
Surprises you, doesn’t it, that Mr. Can’t Sit Still for a Minute O’Neill actually enjoys sitting on the dock with his feet up and his fishing hat on and his mind gone blank?
Hell, surprises me, too. But it’s true.
“Teal’c, you are gonna love the fishing,” I insist with a smile.
The big Jaffa turns that look on me, the 'oh yeah' one.
“Hey, I did promise to show you the rest of the planet…”
“All the rest of the planet looks like this?” he asks, faux innocently.
“Just the best parts,” I assure him. “We’re almost there.”
“Did you not say that several hours ago, O’Neill?”
“Yes I did, T, but almost there is a relative term…”
“Relative to what, O’Neill?”
“To one’s own perspective. Just, take my word for it. Fishing will be the next great passion of your life.”
“It does not appeal to Daniel Jackson or MajorCarter.”
“Ach. Academics. Scholars. Bookworms. People who don’t know how to have fun. This,” I waved a hand at the woods around us, “this is fun.”
“I see,” he stated, and obviously did not.
“Yes. Fun. You’ve really never been fishing?”
“There was no need to fish on Chulak. The creatures in the water there were not edible.”
“Not edible?”
“Not edible. And since we had no need to ‘fish’ to obtain food, there was no purpose.”
“But Teal’c, half the fun in life is doing things that have no purpose.”
“But if the purpose of an activity is to have fun, then is not fun the purpose? And therefore, it has a purpose.”
He really has been spending too much time around Carter and Daniel, I thought with a sigh. “The purpose is to be purposeless, Teal’c.”
He nodded. “I see.”
I shut up.
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At last, I pulled off the highway and onto a gravel drive, threading back through the trees and up to a log cabin. The place looked good, I thought, but then, I’d loaned it out to a few folks over the years. And, of course, I’d hired the Fergusons, who lived at the far end of the lane another mile down the road, as caretakers.
“We’re here,” I announced happily, climbing out of the rental car and stretching.
Teal’c looked around, his expression never changing.
“It’ll grow on you,” I assured, patting him on the back and heading for the front door, duffel bag in hand.
The key turned stiffly in the lock. Finally, it gave and the knob turned. I pushed open the door, stepping across the threshold.
Inside, dust motes danced in the sunshine streaming through the windows facing the lake. The place looked smaller than I remembered, older, darker. Emptier. So much emptier.
It had been a long time since I’d been here, only once since, I swallowed, since Charlie was gone. I’d brought my family up here nearly every summer, at least every summer I could, because I’d wanted my son to understand his heritage, to understand the power and strength of places like this, away from the trappings of civilization, a place where one learned to be at peace with oneself.
That’s why I hadn’t come back for so long. I hadn’t been at peace. Maybe I never would be again, but this was still the one place where I hoped I could come close to being who I’d once been. It was a place where the me I used to be still lived, where Charlie and my grandparents and even Sara still abided, still filled the room with their spirit.
“Is there something wrong, O’Neill?” Teal’c was standing behind me, wondering.
His words brought me back to the present. I shook my head, and walked in. “Ghosts, T, just ghosts.”
He nodded, and this time, I think he did understand.
I tossed my duffle into one of the bedrooms, then headed back out to the car for the boxes of groceries and fishing gear. Once we had all our possessions stashed inside, I found the fuse box, and flipped the switches.
Dim light from a bare bulb above the kitchen sink brightened the room.
“Home sweet primitive home, Teal'c.” I pointed to a small room. “Bathroom’s in there, your bedroom is over there. Lake’s out there,” I waved at the window. “That’s about it.”
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After a supper of burgers on the grill, we settled in for the evening. It was quiet up here. Teal’c seemed to miss the TV. Me, I didn’t even miss the hockey games I knew were being played tonight. I read through a couple of the old National Geographics that were still on the coffee table, and later went out to sit on the little dock, listening to the night sounds and looking up at the stars.
The stars were brighter here, so much brighter because we were far away from the light pollution that’s almost everywhere in America these days. Something splashed out in the lake, the wind sighed through the pines, a mosquito whined over my head, frogs croaked out their night songs, a loon’s laughing call echoed through the quiet.
This was why I protected the planet. This was why I risked life and limb and insanity by going through the Stargate. This was home, or as much home as I knew I’d ever have.
This is what the Goa'uld wanted, a place like this, a 'feeling' like this, and it was something they'd never have, because it was something they couldn’t take or steal or confiscate or coerce.
It was something unseen, unknown, untouchable; something that could only be felt deep inside, something I was afraid I’d lost forever. I found myself intensely grateful it still existed.
I sat out there for a long time, far into the night, thinking yet not thinking, letting my mind drift and my spirit soak up the peace and the beauty and the soul of the place.
I hadn't been sure of myself for a long time, hadn't been sure I was still doing the right thing, that it wasn't time for me to quit, to give in to the aching body and the empty spirit and leave the battle to someone younger. Maybe wiser, too.
This place, it's part of me. Part of why I built the deck on my house, the one up on the roof to look at the stars, because the stars in Colorado are pretty darn close to the ones here. The sky looks familiar. It feels like home.
It brings me peace, or as much peace as I can find.
The quiet frees my mind to think, to try to puzzle through the mysteries of life, the unanswerable questions. Once, I knew the answers to those questions, knew why I was here on Earth and what I was supposed to do. And then, well, then, my world crashed down around me and I didn't know anything anymore.
Finding the answers has been a long process, and one that's still not done.
I sighed.
I needed to be here, needed to come home to my roots, to regain my equilibrium, to find myself, to remind myself of who I am and why I exist. To think. Not to dream, I'm not that far recovered, yet, I don't know if I ever will be; I'd like to be able to imagine a future that's not dark or empty; I still hope there's a chance for something better for me, but for now, it's still beyond me.
For a long time I couldn't imagine anything beyond living through the moment, the hour, the day, the mission. But now I’ve found, today is enough. Tomorrow doesn’t matter.
Looking out once more across the silent water, I understand how this place restores my soul, what little is left of it. I realize now I was perilously close to burning out, to sinking back into that black despair that plagued me before, to losing myself completely to the darkness that’s inside me, to not caring anymore.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, I went back in the cabin and laid down on my bed and slept a few hours, a more peaceful sleep than I've slept in many a month.
I'd found true north again.
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Teal'c didn't seem to like the fishing.
I don't know why.
Who wouldn't like fishing?
Damn.
Okay, for some reason the Minnesota state bird, aka mosquito, seemed to love Teal'c, swarming around him like bees to honey. Strange, huh?
He attracted mosquitoes like I repel fish.
I really don't know if there are any fish in that pond, since I haven't seen a single one. But that's okay. Catching fish is not the purpose of fishing.
Fishing is fishing.
Paradise.
Nirvana.
The human version of Kel no reem.
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I think Teal'c is annoyed that I trashed the cell phone.
That's okay. I was annoyed that he snuck it along.
I thought Hammond liked me, hell, I thought Teal'c liked me. It's not so long ago he called me brother. So how could he have brought a cell phone up to the lake? Broke the peace and quiet? Intruded on my perfect place? Disrupted my tranquility? Ruined my serenity? Defiled my sanctuary?
If I ever find the man who invented the cell phone, I'll give him to the goa’uld.
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After the cell phone incident, I tried to make things up with Teal'c. He might not have looked upset, but I can always tell when he's unhappy with me. Experience, you know.
Thinking we needed to try something else besides the fishing, I suggested a little canoeing, which unfortunately turned into a little swimming. Teal'c did not quickly master the understanding that one does not stand up in a canoe, because whatever the heck it was he saw in the water was not a Goa'uld symbiote.
Bike riding was an equal flop. Guess it's not something they ever did on Chulak, either.
So the next day I took him to town. We ate pie at Mrs. Faber's restaurant. Saw a movie at the drive in, yeah, they still have those in some small towns up here. We went shopping at the hardware store, the five and dime, and the farmer's co-op.
He really does look good in those bib overalls. Sort of. <snicker> Actually, I can't wait to hear what the folks at the base have to say. Hey, look, they're better than those cowboy duds he keeps wanting to buy.
Looking at Teal'c decked out in his new pinstriped farmer bibs, I feel a laugh bubbling up out of my throat. A genuine laugh, the laughter of someone who feels good, who feels human and alive and ready to go back to work and go on.
So maybe I didn't catch any fish, but I caught something far more important... I reeled in my own lost soul.
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