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The not-Charlie apologised, again, when Jack took him back to his planet.
"I meant only to heal you, and I caused more pain."
Jack, practiced at hiding his emotions, practiced at lying, smiled easily and
said that it was fine, no harm done, yadda. Polite empty words that appeased the
Unity but did nothing for the ache in Jack's heart. And then he turned and went
back through the wormhole to patch up the fragments of a life he'd forgotten and
a day he hadn't lived.
It wasn't the battle that killed you emotionally, the running and jumping and
desperation to stay alive. It was afterwards, bandaging the wounds, stopping the
bleeding.
Sara, when he came by, was hurt and confused, shaky from wounds that the not-Jack
had reopened. Jack's explanations had been necessarily vague, and the fact that
she accepted his non-answers without protest somehow made it worse.
"I'm used to it," she said, with a smile that wasn't really a smile.
"You didn't tell me everything when we were married. Why start now?"
"Sara." Jack reached up to stroke her cheek gently with the back
of one hand. "I'm... sorry."
She closed her eyes and twisted her head away, only a few inches but enough
to break contact. "Don't."
Another cold crystal shard, nestling deep inside. "No," Jack said,
dropping his hand back down. "I suppose not."
"This...Stargate thing," she said, "it's important to you?"
Jack thought about his possible answers, thought about the truths and half-truths
and lies and evasions, before finally looking away and saying only, "Yes."
"More important than Charlie?"
She asked the question softly, almost hesitantly, but it felt like a slap.
Jack went cold. "What?"
Sara wasn't looking at him. "You...took Charlie back to the Stargate."
"That wasn't Charlie," Jack said tightly. "Any more than it
was me earlier."
"He was to me." Sara looked up at him then, eyes bright with pain.
"You...I should have known it wasn't you, should have known that you wouldn't
act so...human. That you wouldn't let yourself have any emotions. But you know
how much I'd give to have Charlie back, alive, looking at me like...that."
Her voice cracked.
The crystal was inside him again, seeping through his heart, bringing cold
numbness instead of pain. Jack welcomed that. "It wasn't him," he said
again. "It looked like him, talked like him, but...sooner or later, the illusion
would break down."
"Illusion." Her hands twisted together, turning white at the points
of stress. "Everything's about illusion to you, isn't it? It always has been."
"Sara..."
"I know," she said, with a half-laugh. "If you told me, you'd
have to kill me." She was speaking faster now, words tumbling out, almost
babbling. "I accepted that a long time ago. Your priorities are to the military,
not to me. That's fine. But it means I don't know what's going on, aside from
what I see. And this time? All I know is that you took Charlie away from me again."
Again.
Jack stopped breathing for a moment, and then with too-quick movements stood
up and moved away. Behind him, Sara said, "No, wait, I didn't mean that--"
but she had meant it, and Jack knew it. He didn't even pause, didn't look back,
and in the end, she didn't stop him leaving.
Cold, alone, shattered like the Unity crystals he'd left behind on P3X-562,
Jack went back home. Alone...
...not alone.
Daniel sat in front of Jack's door, hugging his knees loosely to his chest.
Jack closed his eyes, not wanting another confrontation. "What are you doing
here?"
"Waiting for you." Daniel stood in a slightly awkward movement. "I
don't...I mean, if you'd rather, I could..." He stopped, rubbed at the bridge
of his nose.
Jack reached past him to unlock the front door, carefully not looking at Daniel.
"Spit it out," he said. "What did I do?"
"Do?" Daniel sounded startled.
"Yeah. What did I -- the other me, that is -- do to you?"
"To me?" Daniel blinked, and then, as Jack brushed past him into
the house, followed him inside. "No, no, nothing. I mean... I'm not here
about that. I'm...are you okay?"
"Peachy. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because..." Daniel hesitated, and then shook his head. "What
did you tell Sara?"
Jack stared at him for a long moment, tight and cold inside. "Only what
I could. It wasn't enough."
"I'm sure she understood."
"Yeah," Jack snapped, before he could think about what he was saying.
"Just like she understood when Charlie--"
His throat tightened, cutting off what he was about to say. Daniel flinched
in sympathy but didn't look away.
"There's beer in the fridge," Jack said curtly, "if you want
one."
Daniel gave him a long look. "This...Unity crystal...it didn't know what
it was doing. Didn't know our ways, didn't know what would hurt, didn't know that
what it was saying..."
"Beer," Jack said. Daniel moved off to the kitchen, not looking happy
but finally quiet. He came back with two beers, handed one silently to Jack, and
then curled up on one corner of the couch, legs tucked up underneath him.
"Don't know if he told you," Daniel said, looking down at his beer,
"but Teal'c, ah, decided to introduce himself to popular culture." A
smile quirked at his lips. "Via television."
Jack took a mouthful of beer and let it roll slowly to the back of his throat
and then down.
"I'm not sure exactly what he saw, but it...uh, traumatized him. That's
why he wanted to take his staff weapon when we went out," Daniel added, and
shook his head. "Poor guy. I think he'd rather face Apophis unarmed."
"Daniel," Jack said quietly.
"I told him that...that we aren't really as bad as all that, not always,
but, uh, I'm not sure he believed me."
"Daniel."
Daniel looked up then, blinking, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Yeah?"
"You're trying to distract me."
Daniel's gaze wavered a bit, and he chewed at his lower lip. "I...ah,
that is..."
"Don't." Jack took another long swallow of beer. "Don't bother."
"Jack..."
"Just don't."
Daniel's eyes flashed. "Should I leave, then?" he asked, challengingly.
Jack looked at him for a long moment, and then shrugged and focused on his
bottle. "You know where the door is."
Daniel coughed, choking on a swallow of beer. "I-- Jack-- I'm not leaving."
Jack shrugged again. "You offered."
"Let me put it this way." Daniel leaned forward, staring intently
at Jack. "Do you...want me to leave?"
Jack's beer was nearly empty; he swallowed the last of it and then tapped his
fingers against the neck. "What would you do if I said yes?"
Daniel pursed his lips. "It depends on whether you meant it. And since
I'd bet you didn't, I'm not going to leave."
Jack's eyes snapped up to meet Daniel's gaze. His entire body felt tight. "And
if I did mean it?"
Daniel opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.
His eyes flicked to the door and then back to Jack, and after a moment, he said,
"You going to get that, or should I?"
Jack rose without comment, but instead of answering the door, he swerved off
to the kitchen for another beer. The doorbell buzzed again, insistent, and Daniel
said, "Jack?", and Jack sighed and answered the door.
Sara stood on his doorstep, hand out in an aborted gesture to ring the doorbell
a third time. "Hello, Jack," she said quietly.
"Sara."
"I wanted to... oh." Her gaze flicked past him. "I'm sorry,
I didn't realize you had company."
Behind Jack, Daniel made a startled "oh," and then, louder: "Hi.
I'm, uh, Daniel Jackson -- I work with Jack, and, uh--"
"Daniel," Jack said sharply, cutting him off with a not-now gesture.
To Sara, he said, almost gently, "What did you want?"
"I just..." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a familiar
nervous gesture. "I wanted to apologise for what I said earlier. It was...
unnecessarily harsh, and untrue."
At another time, Jack might have accepted the apology; at another time, when
he wasn't all shattered crystal inside. Instead, he just took a long drink of
beer, and said, "You weren't wrong."
Sara sighed and ducked her head. "Don't do this to yourself again,"
she said softly.
"Do what?"
"Pulling back. Blaming yourself."
Jack shrugged and focused on his beer, taking another swallow. "But it
was my fault, and we both know that."
"God! I'm not here to find fault. I'm just..."
Mending fences, Jack finished silently, and swallowed the words behind more
beer.
"...mending fences, I suppose. I just want you to understand that I'm
not angry with you for what happened."
"But you are angry."
"Yes, but not with you." Her eyes were troubled, but she didn't look
away. "I don't want this to turn out like it did...before."
Jack took another mouthful of beer, and said nothing.
"Look," Sara said, a bit impatiently, "I know this," and
her hand waved vaguely, "is your way of... dealing. But it's not going to
help. You know that."
" 'This'?"
"This," she said, reaching forward to take away his bottle of beer.
"Trying to forget again?"
Behind Jack, Daniel made a low hissing noise. Jack just took the bottle back
from Sara and took a deliberately long drink. "Are you going to lecture me?"
"What would the point be? You didn't listen even when we were married.
Now that you've stopped cari--" She broke off, looking away, voice cracking.
"I'm sorry. Again. This... this was a bad idea. I should go."
Jack said nothing, and after a moment, Sara turned and walked slowly away.
"Sara."
She stopped, listening without turning around.
"You're wrong," Jack said, quietly but knowing she would hear. "I
never stopped caring." And then he closed the door before she could reply,
and turned away.
Daniel was watching him with a concerned expression that Jack didn't want to
evaluate too closely. "Not now," Jack said, preemptively.
"I'm not leaving," Daniel said.
"Fine," Jack said, and Daniel looked surprised, as if he'd expected
an argument. "But I am."
"Jack, I really--"
Deliberately interrupting him, Jack said, "You can let yourself out when
you're ready."
"Sure," Daniel said, but he didn't move, nor did his expression change.
Jack pushed past him before he could say anything further, heading for the
refuge of his bedroom. Daniel didn't follow, and an undecipherable sliver of disappointment
threaded through the relief that Jack felt at that knowledge. His thoughts were
spiraling so far into darkness that it seemed only natural to pull out the gun
he kept by the bedside table. Always a gun there, even after --
Jack didn't bother with lights, just sat on the edge of the bed, turning the
gun over and over in his hands, staring blindly into the darkness.
// -- you took Charlie away from me again -- //
He could remember Sara yelling at him, one of the days of their shared hell.
"Why the hell did you have a gun, Jack, why did you have to leave it out--"
Sara again, shaking with anger, "Your gun, Jack, don't you get it, he
killed himself with your gun, doesn't that matter to you?"
Sara, at a different time, asking him why for the thousandth time, "Dammit,
Jack, can't you let yourself feel safe in your own home?", and not listening
to his explanation that it was military procedure, that it had nothing to do with
safety, that she never did understand that...
Sara, sobbing on his chest, hands tight fists against his back, and Jack held
her, feeling like ice, with no idea of what to say, how to make things better.
// -- again -- //
God, Jack thought, and dropped his head down, forehead braced against the top
of the gun, the coolness of the metal seeping into his head.
Behind him, the door creaked open, sending a splash of yellow hallway light
and Daniel-shadow on the far wall. Jack, after a moment, raised his head and slid
the gun under his pillow. For the first time in months he found himself wishing
for a cigarette, wishing desperately that he hadn't quit.
"You okay?" Daniel asked quietly.
Yes, Jack almost said, but Daniel knew him too well for that. I will be, he
almost said, but he didn't even fully believe that himself. What he said in the
end was, "I couldn't help her. Couldn't give her what she wanted, what she
needed."
The Daniel-shadow shook its head at him. "I didn't ask about Sara. Are
you okay?"
Jack smiled wryly at the shadow on the wall. "You already know,"
he said, "or you wouldn't be here."
Daniel was silent for a moment, and then the shadow shifted and disappeared,
blending in with the other shadows of the room as Daniel came deeper inside. His
steps were mostly silent on the carpet as Daniel walked around the bed to crouch
near Jack. "I can't pretend to know exactly what you've gone through,"
he said, "but..." He rested one hand on Jack's knee, a gesture that
should have been intrusive but was somehow comforting. "I know what it's
like to love someone and then lose them. I know what it's like to blame yourself
for it. And I also know what it's like to be alone. If I can do nothing else for
you, I can be here for you."
The wall shadow had been easier to face; it hadn't had Daniel's earnest expression,
hadn't watched him with intense, sympathetic blue eyes. Jack looked down at Daniel's
hand on his leg, swallowing past a tightness in his throat, and then looked away
and shook his head. "You're assuming an awful lot, aren't you?" he said,
which wasn't what he'd intended to say, but Daniel just smiled slightly and didn't
move.
"I'm not going to leave," Daniel said, "until I know you're
okay."
Jack swallowed again and felt himself shudder. "May take a while."
"I'm prepared to wait."
"Daniel?" Jack closed his eyes, and asked, in a whisper, "Why
are you doing this?"
"Because," Daniel said, as if that was an answer.
It wasn't. Jack murmured, "Because?"
"You did the same thing for me," Daniel said, questioning, hesitant.
That didn't sound like the real reason. Jack shook his head, and said again,
"Because...?"
There was silence for a moment, and then, "...because," Daniel repeated,
a bit reluctantly, "I don't want to lose you."
"I'm not going to retire." Jack smiled thinly. "Not yet, not
over this. I'll just... "
"Lock your feelings up?"
"Deal with it," Jack corrected, "and move on."
"Deal with it?" Daniel's voice had an odd quality to it. "Not
the way you were...dealing with it...when I first met you?"
"That," Jack said quietly, "was different."
Daniel gave him a long, steady look. "Good. I'd hate to think that this,"
and his gaze flickered briefly to Jack's pillow, "meant something."
This -- the pillow? -- no, the gun. Jack felt himself freeze, retreating behind
a too-familiar emotional wall. He considered denial, a bland who-me?-I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about
defense, but Daniel would more likely than not see through that. Daniel knew,
and Jack didn't even have to say anything. "What are you going to do about
it?" he said finally.
"I think the better question is what *you're* going to do about it."
There was nothing Jack could say, nothing that Daniel would accept, and so
Jack stayed silent. After a while, Daniel dropped his head and sighed. "Right,"
he murmured, more to himself than to Jack, and stood.
Jack's leg was cold where Daniel's hand had been. Don't go, he wanted to say,
to beg, but they were words he couldn't say.
Daniel's hand snaked out, sliding under the pillow to pull the gun out. "I'd
feel better if this were out of the room," he said, half statement, half
question for permission. "That's mine," Jack wanted to protest, but
the words died unsaid in his throat.
// -- your gun, Jack -- //
Daniel was still watching him, and Jack had to look away. "Do what you
want," Jack said.
Daniel nodded and left the room, which felt suddenly empty. Jack let his breath
out in a soft hiss, letting himself fall backwards onto the bed, lying crosswise,
hands over his face. Good going, he told himself bitterly. Sara's gone, and now
you're using the same behavior against your friends. You really do want to be
alone, don't you?
He didn't want to hear Daniel leave, didn't want to hear the softly final sounds
of the front door opening and closing and leaving him alone. Didn't want to, but
found himself listening anyway.
The sounds never came.
Instead, there was the soft shuffle of footsteps on carpet, and Daniel said,
very softly, "Jack?"
I'm still here, Jack didn't say. Where else would I be?
The mattress dipped to one side, and then Daniel's hand was on his arm. "Hey,"
he said, still soft. "I didn't leave, if that's what you're thinking. I'm
not going to."
I don't want you to, Jack couldn't say, but Daniel seemed to understand anyway.
The mattress shifted again as Daniel moved, sitting a little closer on the bed.
"You don't have to talk," Daniel said quietly. "I'm not going
to force you. I just..." He sighed and stroked his hand down Jack's arm.
"Two years ago, I didn't have that many friends. No one believed me, and
there was no one I could trust. I have friends now. I have you." His hand
was warm and solid. "I care about you, Jack. I need you. We all do. And I
know that what happened today reopened a lot of wounds, and I know it hurts, know
how tempting it is just to withdraw, to give up." He squeezed Jack's arm,
gently. "And I also know that we're going to get through this."
There was a soft stress on the we: we, not you. Jack swallowed. "Thank
you," he tried to say. The words were close to silent, but somehow that didn't
matter.
"I'm here," Daniel murmured. "I'm not going to leave."
And then he did something that Sara, in his place, would not have done: he fell
silent, seemingly content to just be there. No pressure, no demands, just... support.
Inside, Jack felt the last shard of cold crystal settle and begin to mend.