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1.
I’m too old for this shit.
Jack continued to stare at the TV wall, at the pictures of aliens, spaceships and round metal things called stargates. The tone was at nearly the max volume, and some sort of ambience-spacey-new-age instrumental floated through the room. One of his hands was in the bowl of popcorn (this was better than any movie, except maybe Simpsons), the other reached for the phone. But he couldn’t tear his eyes from the images of Earth military teams. Both Air Force and Marines, American and foreign, these heroes held his planet together for the last two decades – while he’d been living his quiet retired life here on the outskirts of the suddenly most famous city in the U.S.
A surprised “Oh, my God!” and a shift on the sofa brought his thoughts on the here and now, and he looked at Sara’s astonished face.
“What?”
“I know him!” Jack looked at the direction her finger pointed, and there was a photograph of some guy, a Major, judging from his uniform, the name in the TV’s lower corner reading “Major Daniel Jackson, PhD”. “He comes to the library often, I leave books for him he orderes in advance, said he travels a lot, but I’d never…!”
Her eyes were wide, and Jack felt something like awe or maybe jelaousy because, well, this Jackson guy was a big name in all this, and Sara knew him up close. Cool. He smiled a little at the glint of hero worship in her eyes, then turned his attention to the phone. Before he could push the button, there was a beeping sound and Charlie’s face appeared on the small communication screen.
“Dad! Mom! You watching this?” He sounded like an excited kid, and Jack’s “Ya think?” was overlapped by Sara’s “Oh, honey, I wish you’re all here!” Charlie promised to bring his family over in an hour, since the schools were closed for the week and the boys wanted Grandpa to explain some of the military stuff to them.
Arrangements made, Jack sat back and took Sara’s hand in his, eyes never leaving the unfolding history in front of them. And there was only a small pang of longing, of almost-regret, that his name and picture were not among those parading across the screen.
2.
The knock on the door was sharp and loud, and Daniel hurried down the stairs and peeked though the side window. His smile turned into a worried frown at the sight that greeted him once he opened the door.
“Charlie? What’s wrong?”
Instead of the answer, the teenager just rushed by him and into the house, trying hard to hide his tear-stained face by keeping his eyes on the floor. “Charlie?” Daniel shut the door and went to search for the young O’Neill.
He found him in the living room, sitting on the couch, shoulders slumped and face in hands. Daniel sat on the coffee table just across from the distraught young man and tapped his arm lightly. “Hey. What’s up?”
“W’dhd’fht”, mumbled through the tears and firmly pressed hands was barely understandable, but Daniel didn’t have that linguistics diploma just for show.
“You had a fight?”, he asked, keeping his tone carefully neutral.
There was a weary sigh, a sniff, and finally the familiar face appeared in front of him. “Sorry, I’m behaving like a baby”, Charlie whispered, clenching and unclenching his hands in his lap.
“You’re not, and there’s nothing to be sorry for. Who’d you had the fight with?”, Daniel asked, even though he already knew the answer. “Your Dad?”
A nod was short and resigned. “I told him I wanna join the Air Force and then join the SGC as a recruit – Uncle…General Hammond said he’d take me as a sort of volunteer, maybe to work with his assistant for a few hours a day, or help in tech labs, or something…since I have the clearance and all…”
There was a hesitation in Charlie’s voice and Daniel prompted him with a quiet “And?”
Charlie sighed, then continued, residual anger leaking with every word. “I told him that my goal is to join an offworld team one day, as an engineer and a soldier…his answer was one single loud “no”, and he refused to discuss it any further.” He raised his eyes to look at Daniel, a stubborn frown marring his young face. “I’m not a kid anymore! I know what I want and he can’t tell me what to do with my life! But he said he’d never let me go offworld, and I know that’s one thing he can do, fuckin’ old…”
“Hey, hey, none of that!”, Daniel said, his stern words gentled by a pat on Charlie’s shoulder. “There’s…” A loud ringing interrupted his next words, and with a sigh Daniel got up to answer the phone. Charlie was watching the machine like it was a living alien monster. They both knew who was on the other end of the line.
“Yeah?”
“He there?” No introduction, nothing but a clipped anger.
“Depends on who’s asking”. Brave, Jackson. Bury yourself, why don’tcha?
But instead of an explosion, there was a pause, a loud sigh that made Daniel move the receiver away from his ear for a second, and then a resigned, much more composed voice answered his question. “His Dad.”
Well, this was…new… and hopefull.
“Yes, he’s here. Anything else?” Daniel was surprised by his own boldness, but Charlie was family and he was worth of putting a hand in the fire.
More strained, heavy silence on the other end, then the sound of Jack’s weary voice filled his ear. “I may have…might have…overreacted…a little. I think.”
“Might’ve”, Daniel said neutrally after a short pause, like he’d been thinking about the answer.
He could almost see Jack rolling his eyes. “I know I can’t…order him around…and I don’t want to…he just…he’d been talking a mile a minute about the teams and aliens and guns and exploration, and all I could see was…all I could think of was the gun and blood and I couldn’t stand the thought of him going offworld.” There. He’s said it. In the words hushed by old grief and past mistakes.
Daniel briefly closed his eyes, then looked at Charlie, sitting silent and unmoving. “You can’t let the past rule his life, Jack. Or yours, for that matter.”
The teen’s eyes filled with sudden understanding, and something close to pity, but not, crossed over his face.
“…I know”, Jack was saying, and Daniel knew things were going to be fine, eventually.
“Come over?”, he asked, and saw a small curling of Charlie’s lips.
There was only a short hesitation. “Bring pizza?”
“Giant one”.
3.
They all gathered in the Gate chamber of the Great pyramid, the young and old, women and children, all wanting to say farewell to the liberators of their world, to touch them one more time and say a prayer for their safe return home.
Feretti patted the hair of a small boy clinging to his leg, his young mother looking at them with a shy smile on her face. He remembered his own baby son back at home, and thought that this was what they’d fought for. This look of happiness on the chubby face was the reason and the payment for everything that transpired over the last several days. And, boy, wasn’t that the adventure of all adventures!
He looked around, and saw Jackson talking to Sha’re, looking flustered and very uncomfortable, regret written in his posture and on his face. O’Neill was standing just a little off to the side, being obvious in his trying not to be obvious that he was listening to the young couple’s – or, not-couple, as it were – conversation. Yup, explaining to such a lovely lady and her family that you’re not really interested in the marriage, and could she, please, not get mad at the poor visitor from another planet who hadn’t been aware of the local customs? Feretti snorted, and caught O’Neill’s eye. The Colonel grinned, then turned to talk to unhappy looking Skaa’ra, probably trying to smooth the ruffled feathers of family law and tradition.
O’Neill was one lucky sonofabich. His war plan, created in that cave a week ago was completely crazy (giving guns to kids, for cryin’ out loud!), but it had worked, and with help of the smartest brain Feretti’s ever encountered, one Dr. D. Jackson, they’ve turned those alien bastards into dust and freed the people of Abydos.
He turned his attention back to the little guy who was, apparently, still fascinated with big bad marine. By now familiar voices moved closer to his right, and Feretti tuned into the conversation between Jackson and O’Neill who were approaching the dialing device.
“…I don’t know, maybe I should’ve…stayed. I mean, I feel like…”
“Oh, c’mon, it’s one thing to make the informed decision, another to wake up and find yourself married!”
“Well, technically…”
“I don’t care about technicalities, Jackson. Do you really want to spend your life here, on this – sorry – backwater planet….Aht! … when there’s so much stuff we can do now from Earth with the gate and all?”
There was slight hesitation and a sigh, then, “Well, when you put it that way…”
“Good.”
“I just… I don’t know what I’m gonna do…don’t own a thing, got evicted from last appartment, no savings, no…”
“Don’t kill your brain with that stuff! … You can stay with us…”
“Us?”
“My wife and son and me, in our house…we’ve got a spare room, and you can use it till we find you appropriate accomodation…and you’ll get paid, and besides…stop thinking about these things now, willya? This – another planet. You – scientist. Capiche?”
A snort and a chuckle told him the discussion was over – for now, and Feretti glanced around, taking it all in. They’ve lost some people, these people have lost many of their own, but it was still a damn fine day.
4.
Her words echoed in his head like it all happened yesterday, instead of six years ago.
“Do you remember when I told you there was something you could do for me?”
He rememberd thinking … something, anything, but that.
“I want you to give me a child.”
“A child.”
“I wanted to be patient. I wanted to wait until you had let go of the life you left behind. Until you knew that you belonged with us. Tonight, there is something in your eyes.”
Yes, yes there was. Not new, or different, but the nearly desperate resolution to somehow go back, against all odds, meteors be damned.
But what he said was, “I’m sorry … I’m really sorry, but that’s something I can’t give you. “
The hurt in her eyes was painful to watch, but he had to make this clear and definite. “I already have one child. A son. And all I want … all I need to be focused on, is looking for a way to go home … or simply (oh, but it was not simple, not at all) wait for my people to arrive in a ship. I can’t…”
She curtly nodded, turned around and left him standing there, head held high in the face of embarrasment.
“Laira…!”
But she was gone, and he knew he should felt bad for her, and he did; but there were priorities, and she was definitely not one of them. His hand digging through his pants pocket on an auto-pilot, Jack pulled out a crumpled, eary photo of Charlie and Sara. He was going home, gate or no gate.
“Dad?” Charlie was standing at the door to his home office, reluctant to just barge in.
Jack mumbled “Hmm?”, fingering a roughly woven scarf that still smelled of grass, and meandering river, and fiery rain.
“Daniel and Teal’c’re on their way, we should be going”.
Jack looked up and smiled, carefully folding the piece of cloth and putting it back into the bottom drawer. “Great. Reservations made?”
That eyebrow was definitely a’la T. “Of course, everything’s arranged. Sam’s bringing Cassie, and Mom has the birthday cake all prepped.”
“Cool. Let’s get this show on the road, then”, Jack said, clapping his son on one shoulder. Now, where did he put his gift for Daniel?
5.
Another mission, another fucked up day.
Jack scrubbed his hand over his messy hair, trying to will Daniel and Carter into waking up. As he started to rise with a sigh, familiar footsteps sounded in the othewise miracleously quiet infirmary.
“Jack”.
“Doc”. Ah, the fun of one-word exchange. And people thought it was a form of communication reserved for Daniel and himself.
“Go home, Jack. There’s nothing you can do here”, Janet said, hands on hips and a tired face making her look both stern and older.
He frowned, looking at his teammates laid out on the crispy white sheets. “They…”
“…are sleeping and will recover completely as soon as drugs leave their systems. There’s nothing you can do, except land into the next bed once you collapse from exhaustion in a couple of hours”.
Feeling overtired and too old (it’s the mileage, Jack, not the years, Daniel would say, and Jack would nod, giving him The Look while pointing to his silvery hair) Jack glanced once more at the Wonder twins, then looked back at Janet. “Okay…you call me if…”
“Of course. But it won’t be necessary. They’ll both be fine”.
“Okay. Will be here first thing in the morning”.
“Go home, Jack”.
“’kay. Thanks, Doc”.
……………..
The drive home was a blurry adventure, and Jack cursed himself for not getting an airman to take him home. Stupid, O’Neill. Fucked up mission 101: don’t drive home alone. Repeat after me: Don’t drive…
……………..
He somehow managed to park the car in the driveway instead of on the lawn, and Jack sighed with relief. Home. There was light on the porch, and most of the interior was glowing, as well. As he stumbled towards the door, there were voices, and footsteps, and then he was engulfed in a trio of arms. Charlie said “Dad”, Cassie sqeaked “Daddy” and Sara just clung, not letting go.
THE END