Disclaimer Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
Colonel Jack O'Neill hopped off the gurney, absently lifting the cottonball
out of the crook of his elbow, checking to see if the bleeding had stopped.
Seeing a bare drop of blood he tossed the soiled bit of cotton into a waste
basket and shrugged on his fatigue shirt.
"I hear you got a happy
ending this time," Dr. Janet Fraiser said, making a few notes in his chart.
"Yeah doc. No body
count for a change," he replied wryly, remembering the look on Hammond's
face when they returned from their last mission and he'd tallied up the green
clad figures on the ramp...and come up short. "Makes a nice change."
"And all of you came
back in one piece...for once," she teased, a smile on her face.
"Well since you spent
48 hours straight making sure none of us caught a Goa'uld on 888, figured it
was the least we could do," he threw over his shoulder as he walked to
the door.
"Colonel," she
called. Jack turned, absently buttoning his shirt. "Feel free to make injury-less
returns the rule rather than the exception," she ordered gently. He merely
tossed her a wave and proceeded into the corridor.
As he made his way down
the hall, the events of the last 20+ hours played relentlessly through his brain.
He flinched internally as
he flashed back to the frustration and despair he'd felt when he realized their
good deed was going to all be for naught. They'd worked so hard, spend so many
weeks trying to save the Enkarens, only to condemn them to death.
By transporting the Enkarens
to a new world, a new home, they'd unwittingly perpetrated the cruelest trick
of all...they'd given them a month of hope, a month of joy and an illusion of
a future, only to take it all away again.
His 'hosts' in Iraq used
to do that.
It's true, you really don't
miss something if you're not used to having it. People without electricity are
content with candles and lamps...until they see a light bulb for the first time.
Drawing water from a well is fine...until your first experience with a tap.
Typewriters are great...until you use a computer.
You really don't miss something
until it's gone.
He and his fellow prisoners
would spend days on end locked into a stuffy communal cell, usually taken out
only for a beating or something...else. They'd gotten used to the boredom, the
forced inactivity. They were hardly fed enough to survive. Once he'd returned
home, it'd been months before he could eat more than a Happy Meal at McDonalds
and not feel totally stuffed. He'd gotten so used to starving, his stomach had
shrunk, his body had forgotten what it was like to eat on a regular basis.
They'd barely had enough
water to maintain their bodies in the desert climate so bathing was...unheard
of. Everyone grew accustomed to the dirt, dried sweat, caked blood and lice.
Filthy was normal. It was seen as a perverted badge of honor. The dirtier you
were, the longer you had survived. But every so often the guards would change
things. They'd grab one or two of them, drag them outside, hand them a bar of
soap and let them bathe. Then you were shoved back into your stiff, stinking
clothes, and you noticed just how dirty they were. You noticed just how bad
everyone else smelled. How much you liked being clean. How good it felt not
to have your skin crawl. You dreamed about cool running water, about showers.
And you'd do just about
anything to feel that way again.
That little tactic broke
more men than any beating ever did.
When he'd looked into Hedrezar's
sightless eyes, seen the fear on Nikka's face as she and Eliam clutched her
swollen belly, he'd felt like one of those cruel jailers from a decade before.
He'd given them hope, a new life, a future, only to take it all away.
And he HAD to do something...anything
about it.
He'd seen the looks on his
team's faces as he made his choice. Known he was pushing the envelope of trust
and loyalty they'd developed over the years. And for a while, he hadn't cared.
The ends would justify the means.
He knew his career would
be over the second he returned home. Hammond may cut him a lot of slack...but
not this much. He was going beyond bending orders...he was crushing them into
little tiny pieces, maybe declaring war on an alien ship in the process...all
in the name of a few thousand displaced Enkarens.
It took Daniel, placing
himself in mortal jeopardy...again, to make him stop and think. It was Daniel
who reasoned with Lotan, Daniel who came up with a solution everyone could live
with...literally.
Why hadn't he thought of
it? It was so obvious, quite frankly the best of both worlds. The Enkarens would
be returning to their lost home-world, the Gad-Meers would be populating a brand
new planet. Everybody would live. No death. No destruction. No war.
Was he so set in his ways
that blowing stuff up was the only solution he could find? Who held an election
and nominated him god? Since when did he have the right to choose one race over
another? It hadn't been a fast and furious fire fight...his decision had been
cold, calculated, planned.
Still deep in thought, he
walked into his dark office. He snapped on the desk lamp, sat down, and began
to half-heartedly dig through his inbox. Damn, he hated paperwork.
His peripheral vision caught a movement in the corner of the room and his head
snapped up, his body tensing in anticipation of an attack.
He relaxed as he recognized
his team mate Major Samantha Carter detaching herself from the shadowy recesses
of the room and stepping forward, her shoes squeaking slightly on the concrete
floor. In the dim light of the single bulb lamp he could see she had already
exchanged her fatigues for jeans and a T-shirt.
Without a word she pulled
a folder from under the jacket folded over her arm and dropped it on his desk.
"Carter?" he asked
as he opened the folder, squinting at the neatly printed schematics contained
within. "What's this?" He hadn't asked for anything, had he?
"Schematics for the
Naquadah reactor, along with instructions for how to create the feedback loop,"
she said quietly, putting on the jacket.
Jack shook his head, more
than a little confused. "So?" She knew he and schematics didn't get
along. Hell he had a hard time programming his VCR. That's why he had her, so
he didn't have to struggle through this...stuff.
"Sir, with all due...respect,
the next time you want to turn one of my inventions into a vehicle for mass
murder...you can do it yourself," she stated quietly, evenly, as she turned
and left his office.
The quiet click of the door
closing sounding like a bullet in the stillness of the room.
Jack sat there, staring
at the neat lines on the paper, the carefully typed instructions of which wire
to cross where. Each numbered and diagrammed. It was spelled out so clearly
he bet a kid could do it.
"Maybe not a happy ending after all Doc," he whispered into the silence.
~fin~
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