Getting On
Getting On
by KD
Summary: Jack's got nothing to do but think.
Category: Angst
Season: any Season
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 08/06/03
Authors Notes:
Feedback (care of gatewatcher@hotmail.com) appreciated, criticism only if its constructive.
Getting On
Jack O'Neill kicked the cabin door open, wincing as it swung back much harder than he'd anticipated to bang against the stopper that he'd fixed to the floor the last time he'd opened the door a little too vigorously.
"D'oh," he muttered, quickly nudging the door open again with a shoulder as it began to swing closed again. "Why the hell don't I ever bring the bags in one at a time?"
Once inside, he kicked the door closed again, wincing once more as the door slammed against its frame hard enough to rattle the adjacent windows. Jack sighed, shook his head at himself, and finally dropped the assorted bags onto the floor before slipping the Bergen from his back.
Picking up two of the bags, he wandered away into the kitchen, where he began to unpack the supplies he'd purchased at the mini-mart a few miles down the road, wondering as always if he would ever eat his way through the stuff before his leave expired. Somehow, he doubted it. There was always plenty to throw out before leaving again. At least when he retired...
Jack cut that chain of thought short. As good as retirement often sounded - like when he was getting tortured to death and resurrected in an endless cycle, for instance - he knew from experience that the lack of action slowly wore him down, grinding away at the years of soldiering that had been his chosen career.
Peace and quiet, the opportunity and ability to fish or read or watch TV whenever he wanted - all these things seemed at times like little pieces of Heaven. But there would always be a part of him that railed against such a sedentary life, a part of his soul that now belonged to action and violence; a piece of him that the air force had claimed for it's own and would therefore never entirely be his again.
It was the same when he was on leave. Eventually, he knew, he'd settle into old habits. He'd relax. He'd fish, and maybe tinker about in the garage, and spend long nights in peace and solitude.
But until then, the quiet would chafe at him, he'd miss the sounds of the base, he'd hanker after the action that some other team would inevitably find, and eventually, he'd return to work with something close to relief but that was actually more akin to the drowning man being given oxygen.
He belonged there, on duty, doing what the Government, via the Air Force, had trained him to do, what Earth needed him to do.
Finally, with the supplies packed away, he set the percolator and left it to brew the coffee while he unpacked his clothes.
Some things, like the clothes he habitually wore while fishing, remained at the cabin, but in the main he always brought what he thought he'd need with him on his all-too-infrequent trips. He may have a pretty good salary, as befitting a Special Forces soldier and his rank, and he may have finally found himself in the position of having a nice, quiet retreat with what was possibly some of the best fishing Northern Minnesota had to offer (at least, according to the blurb that had made him want the place so badly), but there was no sense in buying clothes and leaving them to rot for months at a time.
With his clothes neatly stacked or hung in the wardrobe and chest of drawers, and with the rich smell of coffee wafting throughout the cabin, Jack went back to the kitchen, poured himself a mug of the hot, strong brew, and decided to take a look in the study.
A baseball and mitt sat on a corner of the table as though slung there after recent use, though in fact neither mitt nor ball had been touched since he'd dropped them there quite some time before. The mitt had been his for a long, long time. He'd intended to pass it on to Charlie, but his son had died before Jack had had the chance.
The boy's picture stood in a frame on the mantel; a boy with a smile just like Jack's, with a sense of humour not entirely unlike his father's, which he used to drive his mother crazy with. A good kid, Jack thought, again feeling the shocking pain of hurt and loss and guilt tear through him, albeit briefly, before he managed to slam the lid back down to deny those feelings the freedom they sought. He smiled at the smiling boy in the photograph, just catching the movement he made to stroke the flat, textureless glass that protected the picture, allowing himself to feel all the emotions that his son could still inspire within him for just a moment before finally averting his gaze.
To Sam, dazzling smile turned to full wattage as she beamed radiantly for the camera, striking in her beauty, formidable in the intellect Jack was only too aware that she possessed, yet often completely vulnerable and - perhaps - a touch nave by her very nature.
Sam was as complex a person as he had ever wanted to meet, and for some reason caused complex feelings within him. At first, she had bugged him, her in-your-face, I'm-a-woman-but-so-what? approach annoying him almost to the point where he had overlooked her abilities, but she had almost immediately proven that when the going got tough, then she could get going with the best of them. With all pretentiousness finally dropped, he had been able to see the woman behind the officer...and had developed feelings for her that he knew better than to have.
He wanted to be with her, but also knew that it wasn't possible. Not yet, at least. If retirement had one up-side, then the freedom to be with Sam was it.
Of course, whether she'd actually want to be with him should the issue ever arise was something he didn't really know. Perhaps, if push ever came to shove, she would haltingly announce that, while she admired him as a man, a soldier and a fellow officer, there had never been any though of him as a lover, and what would he do then? Assuming he didn't die of embarrassment on the spot, that was.
He looked at the photo, remembered the kiss he'd planted on her during the timeloops that had affected him (and Teal'C), and recalled the incident in the locker room shortly before he'd begun to de-evolve. The slightly fuzzy memory of her in that tank top swam back to the surface of his mind, bringing with it the recollection of the need that had been in both her voice and her aggressive actions.
But Air Force regulations existed for a reason, and in cases such as theirs, that reason was to ensure that personal issues did not influence decisions. One soldier might think the world of another, but if they actually were lovers, hesitation, impaired decision-making, and an improper sense of priority could ensue, leading almost inevitably to disaster, and Jack had no doubt that this was correct. If you ignored the fact that if there was already a strong bond between two members of a team, then the question of whether they were lovers or not became irrelevant; the tendency would still be to feel an overwhelming desire to save or free that person no matter what the cost, either personally or to the objective of the mission.
There was nothing he could do. Regs were regs, when all was said and done, and he'd agreed to abide by them when he'd returned to active duty.
Granted, he hadn't counted on falling for his second-in-command, but...
He turned away from the framed snaps, catching sight of another one on the shelves opposite, though this time it was one that caused more dull pain and inspired precious little happiness.
It had been taken some time before Charlie had been killed, back in the days when Jack had still been married and had still been at the head of his own little nuclear family, in the sense that everything went ballistic once in a while, and it showed the pair of them smiling and blissfully unaware of what lay just a few months ahead.
A gunshot. The funeral of a young boy. The divorce.
The mission to Abydos.
The encounter with Apophis and subsequent return to the desert world. Being captured.
Skaa'ra's enslavement by the Goa'uld as he was forced to become a host.
The smiles in the picture were every bit as false as the Gods that Teal'C was supposed to have been trained to believe in, and undoubtedly would have had it not been for his mentor, Bra'tac. They were rictus smiles in many ways, and every thought or memory the picture inspired was somehow negative. There was no hope, no expression that, whatever had happened, things would be basically okay. There was just pain, and guilt, and suffering.
And, of course, there was death.
"For cryin' out loud, snap out of it," Jack berated himself, immediately stalking from a room that suddenly held precious little comfort for him. He was supposed to be on leave; a time to relax and enjoy a few quiet days alone. But therein lay the problem: He was alone.
Daniel was off doing what Daniel always did: Nosing around ancient sites, digging for clues as to the real history of civilisation (even though Daniel knew better than anyone that ninety per cent of what was found remained hidden from public view), and generally indulging in the thing that was so much more than a job to the erstwhile doctor.
Jonas; well, again, Jonas was busy doing what he always did, and again, seemed to enjoy doing more than anything else: Poring over the various reports, finds, and other assorted bits of irrelevant information and coming up with advances that often made Daniel tear his hair out in frustration at not having seen the connections himself or had Sam in a near apoplectic state as Jonas shredded her theories whilst expounding upon his own.
Teal'C - his usual fishing victim - had merely smiled at the invitation before announcing his regret at being unable to attend, as he had already asked permission to pay a visit to his family.
Jack had been disappointed at that, but couldn't begrudge his friend the time with his son. The Jaffa had given up a hell of a lot to switch sides, and although Teal'C was too proud to admit as much, Jack guessed that the homesickness and worry he felt had to be a killer.
Which left Sam, who, after a brief visit to see her father - never an easy thing when your old man was a Tok'Ra operative on the far side of some galaxy or other -was planning to spend a few days with Cassie and was also probably going to go onto the base every day to tinker around with generators and the like. Either that or she would stay at home, writing a book or catching up on the latest scientific advances and newly formed theories.
He smiled at the thought. Sam was a woman who didn't seem to understand the meaning of the word 'rest'. Or 'relax'. Or 'fun', if you came to it. Everything with her seemed to be about work. She, like Daniel and Jonas, was never happier than when beavering away at the very thing they did while at work.
It was an attitude that bemused Jack O'Neill. As action-oriented as he might have been, there was still a lot to be said for taking the time to get away from it all.
Or was there?
With none of his friends from the base here, and most of his other friends being either dead, on missions, or retired to quieter parts themselves, and, thanks to events, lacking any family, Jack found himself all alone in a nice, vaguely luxurious cabin in the middle of nowhere, already wondering what he was supposed to do to fill the time.
Eventually, he went back to the study, picked a book at random, returned to the front room, and began to read it, stretching out on the sofa as he did so.
It was some time later that Jack awoke, the book having fallen to floor at some long-ago point, and most of the light having drained from the day.
So much for the fishing, he thought, but then decided it didn't matter anyway as he was stuck there on his own and lonesome for another eight-and-a-half days.
In the end, he did go fishing...in the one forgotten bag for the copy of the TV Guide he'd decided he might need, but as he skimmed through it, every channel seemed to be showing repeats. Even the episode of The Simpsons wasn't new, and one channel even had a MacGyver re-run showing.
"Oh, crap. Not that guy," O'Neill grumbled, quickly leafing through the other pages and making mental notes to watch programmes that he'd probably miss in the end, as well as reading a celebrity interview in which the celebrity concerned complained about the price of fame. "Well, you wanted to earn a few million bucks per movie," he mused. "So quit complaining."
And why am I talking to myself? He wondered.
Loneliness. You're lonely and you're cracking up, Jack, another little voice that was still his own piped up, and he had no doubt that it was right. "Welcome to the rest of your life, Jack O'Neill," he muttered to the empty room, and went to get the first of too many beers.
The float bobbed, rose, and bobbed sharply again, the sudden movement after the long hours of silence and stillness instantly snagging Jack's attention, sharpening his mind again, ridding his senses of the sluggishness that had overcome them as time crept past.
Slowly, Jack eased himself forward, not wanting to spook the catch.
"Four days, you son of a bitch," he muttered softly to himself, forcing a measure of control into his movements until he was finally ready. "Four damn days, and now...your ass...is MINE!"
At the shout, the fish started to thrash around, trying to escape the hook, which Jack helped embed further into the fish's mouth by flicking the rod sharply upwards and towards him, but not so hard that the skin tore. He then began to reel the hapless creature in, grinning in anticipation of landing a huge specimen. No, not just huge; a monster. A fish so big that he would have to have it mounted and take photographs of it to show to disbelieving personnel back at the base.
"Come on, fishy!" he cried. "Come to papa!"
Some ten minutes later, Jack removed his head from his hands and looked at the fish he'd caught. It wasn't even fit to mount on a tea-plate, let alone a wooden display, and eating it would prove of value only to someone who had gone six months without food.
Looking back, Jack could see now that he had actually landed the creature too easily. Experience had been nagging away at him, telling him he only had a tiddler, but after sitting there for three whole days previously without a single bite, excitement - and he smirked at the irony of the term - had gotten the better of him.
"There's gotta be a better way to live than this," he told the dead fish, and disgustedly rose to his feet to pack away his tackle.
Jack returned to work two days early, haunting the base like the spectre of some old soldier who hasn't realised he's actually dead, and he began to wonder if this was the way life was going to go. As a rookie officer, he'd seen several ex-career airmen and veterans of various wars hovering around the bases he'd been assigned to, and as a rather cock-sure, arrogant young man - as most young officers tended to be, Jack realised - he had wondered at what drove the old-timers to do something that, to his way of thinking, was so counter-productive. Surely, he'd thought, these old warriors would be better off just keeping their memories, and allowing the next generation to ease them slowly aside?
The problem was, now that he was in the generation that was being 'eased aside', he was finding it increasingly hard to let go. The military life had long since ceased to be an adventure in and of itself to him, but it was, by now, in his blood. Without the Air Force, what was he? What would he become?
Jack never spoke openly about these things, but he suspected that General Hammond frequently experienced exactly the same emotions and entertained the same thoughts himself, which was why the base commander repeatedly deferred retirement in favour of just one more month, or year. Hell, if Jack was right, Hammond would have to be dragged kicking and screaming from his office, begging for just another hour or two in charge. That wasn't because he was a megalomaniac or was on some sort of power trip or other; it was just because he wouldn't be able to see any sort of meaningful existence beyond the one he had known for so long.
Face it, Jack, he thought. There's a word for what you've become: Institutionalised. That's what you and Hammond and all the other lifers are, just as surely as if you'd spent all your life in the pen.
But even then, there were differences, he realised: Hammond had a family. He could help out with his grandchildren. He could finally get to spend time with all the people he'd been asked to ignore on too many occasions over too many years.
Then there was Jacob, he realised, thought Jacob Carter wouldn't have lived to enjoy retirement. Still, he had ultimately exchanged one life at the sharp end for another and, from all outward appearances, loved every minute of it. Of course, as a general, Jacob hadn't actually been at the really sharp end for years, but that hadn't made much difference in the end.
And as for himself? What would happen when the Air Force finally made him go? Where would he go to, exactly? There were several worlds where a man might make himself content, if not downright happy, but whether he was on Earth or on some remote dust-ball hundreds of light years away, he could never be anything other than what he was.
Again, his thoughts returned to Sam.
He hadn't seen her since the day before they went on leave and he missed her. In fact, he'd missed her way more than he should, which was probably why he'd been so restless and bored up at the cabin.
He'd called her the previous night, hoping they could get together for a few hours, maybe have a bite to eat, take in a movie or something...anything to stop him from being all alone yet again...but Sam had either been out or busy as his call was taken only by her answering machine.
Daniel had also returned, and Teal'C was due back the next day, but there was still nothing for Jack to do but kick his heels and wait for the return to duty.
After pottering around the base some more, Hammond finally ordered him to go home and enjoy the final few hours of his leave, instructing his subordinate not to even think of setting foot on the base again until 0730 the following day.
Jack went home, read for a while and got bored, watched TV for a while and eventually turned it off in frustration, finally heading for bed, bored out of his skull.
Colonel O'Neill was not a happy bunny. The ground they lay upon was too rocky, the bush they'd selected too prickly and thick, and to top it all off, a steady rain was falling from clouds that were a sulphurous grey-yellow.
There were three of them in the OP: himself, Carter, and Teal'C. Daniel was back at the Gate with two other SG units, assisting them in setting up a forward operations base. The SGC may well have had an Alpha site already in place, but there was never any harm in having more: In the event of Goa'uld attack on Earth and the Alpha site, by having more bases humanity would not be entirely destroyed.
The OP was itself just a precautionary measure, and the boredom factor was probably higher than it had been up at Jack's cabin, making him wonder just why he had thought being at work was so much better than the down-time. At least he'd been warm, comfortable and dry back in Minnesota.
Talk about hard times, he thought, sourly.
"I took Cassie to a sea-life centre," Sam was saying, her voice soft but enthusiastic.
"Great," Jack muttered, squinting through the spyglass and panning it around a few degrees. "What d'you do, T?"
"I taught Rya'c how to defend himself against multiple opponents," the Jaffa rumbled. "He had learned much, but selected his enemies unwisely."
"Bet he's better now, huh?"
"Indeed he is," Teal'C smiled. "He is now much feared by his fellow students."
"You must be very proud," Sam said, but the precise nuance of her tone was lost on the alien warrior.
"I am," he said. "One day, my son will be a fierce and noble warrior, loyal in our fight to free all Jaffa from Goa'uld tyranny."
"Amen to that," Jack muttered, to which Teal'C merely inclined his head in acknowledgment.
"How long 'til we're relieved, sir?" Sam asked, shifting uncomfortably and slowly moving a stray branch away from the corner of her eye.
Jack checked his watch. "Another two hours," he said, and smirked when Sam groaned.
"What I wouldn't give for a hot bath right now," she complained.
Teal'C looked as though something unpleasant had crawled up his trouser leg. "O'Neill, I am afraid that I must be excused."
"Sure," Jack said. "You got your shovel?"
Both men ignored Sam's groan of distaste.
"Indeed."
"Then knock yourself out."
"I sincerely hope it does not come to that, O'Neill," Teal'C said, and slowly rose to his feet before moving stealthily away. It took Jack some moments to realise that the Jaffa had actually attempted to make a joke.
"Guy's been hanging around me too long," he mumbled.
"You can say that again," Sam replied, before pointedly inspecting the surroundings through her scope.
Jack stopped glaring at her to make the routine radio check, and then returned his attention to the attractive blonde beside him. The temptation to reach out and 'accidentally' brush against her was immense, but somehow he resisted. Sexual harassment charges never looked good in black and white, no matter what the situation had been at the time.
"So did you enjoy your leave, sir?" she asked after some moments, turning to look at him.
"Not really," he said.
"Sorry to hear that," she replied. "What was wrong? Fish not biting?"
"Not any worth having," he muttered. "Actually, it wasn't the fishing that was the problem, it was the loneliness. I kept thinking about what I was going to do after all this ends, and I really couldn't see anything worth doing."
Sam looked at him much more closely than before. "You're thinking of retiring? Are you serious?"
He shrugged. "Gonna happen sooner or later," he said. "And let's face it, I'm not getting any younger."
"But you're not old, either," Sam retorted.
He sighed. "Maybe not that old," he conceded. "But I've been at this for so long now, Sam. I don't know how much longer my body can take the punishment."
"You're in great shape," she said. "Besides, who'd replace you?"
Jack gave her a sidelong glance that fortunately she didn't pick up on.
"I missed you, Carter," he said quietly, and she looked hard at him again.
"I missed you too...sir," she replied.
Jack sighed, listening to Teal'C trying to be unobtrusive just a few yards behind them as he allowed them a few extra moments together, and jumped as Sam's lips brushed gently against the coarser skin of his cheek. Shocked, he looked at her, noticing the small smile of bashful amusement playing around her mouth.
"Carter?" he said, bemused.
"Just a little something I thought you needed," she said. "See? You're not getting on that much if you can still get embarrassed by a little peck on the cheek."
"No, maybe I'm not 'getting on' at all," he said. But then, maybe I am, he thought, though the thought was about something else entirely. Maybe I am.
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to KD
Heliopolis Main Archive
A Stargate: SG-1 Fanfiction Site
Getting On
by KDSite Navigation
Support Heliopolis