Five Things: Four Times Jack Cried
Written for the SG-1 Five Things Four times Jack cried prompt.
four times Jack cried and one time he didn't.
1. Sara had been raised Catholic - so had he, for all that it was worth - and suddenly, Saturday evening wasn't enough. Their parish held a mass on Wednesday nights, Friday nights, twice Saturday and Sunday, and she was there for every one, in the same seat, never alone. When it wasn't Mike (it usually was), or her sister, it was Jack. He sat and stared straight ahead and kept breathing as she silently wept into her bible through every service, ignoring the sermons and reciting prayers of her own in her head. Lord, take this child.
Three weeks in, Jack took her home, dropped her off, and kept driving. Third time the thought of swerving into the oncoming lane crossed his mind, he pulled off the road, killed the engine, and sobbed until he had to push open the door and vomit onto the asphalt. His boy was a month gone and his wife was surviving on the promise of a god Jack now knew for certain didn't exist.
2. It was a kind of panic, rising unbidden into his thoughts and rippling out like slow moving bubbles in something thick and heavy, he's gone he's dead he's gone. Jack had lost a lot of good men; he had been here before. He had sat at tables just like this one, looked into cameras just like that one, and given reports just as bad. Worse. No explanation why he should be clenching his hands until the bones ached, gritting his teeth, trying to see through eyes that stung and -- dammit.
Ironic that, in his head, Daniel was burning, and Jack felt as if he'd drown in it.
3. "Well, think about it. If you know in advance that everything will be going back to the way it was, then ... you could do anything ... for as long as you want, without having to worry about consequences."
Teal'c hadn’t reappeared in Daniel's office yet, was probably still off on his mission to determine where the infirmary staff stored the thermometers so that he could start ritually destroying the entire supply every reset before they were hauled in to see Fraiser. It wasn’t that Jack hadn’t been grateful for the big guy -- in fact, Teal'c's was probably the only reason left that Jack hadn’t yet snapped and gunned down the entire base at the slightest provocation. It was just that Jack and Teal’c did the warrior honor stuff, and Jack and Carter did the office stuff. The Stuff He Did Not Want To Do, the messy stuff, Jack usually did with Daniel, and he wasn’t up for an audience.
"Jack?" Daniel asked, the grin sliding from his face.
"You've said that once or twice before."
"Oh. ....oh. And, uh - and now you’re back."
Jack stared straight ahead, scanning the lines of text written out that Daniel hadn’t filled in the translation for yet, reciting in his head the jabber about the glorious world before the plague that would probably be burned into his goddamn brain until the day he died, if he ever got so lucky. "Can't do this anymore, Daniel." Jack said, unable to keep it completely together no matter how many times he's said it.
"We'll find a way out of this." Daniel had gone quiet, the quiet that was all about his personal brand utter, unflappable conviction that only turned up when he was banking on someone else. "Once we figure out how the device works, Sam --"
Jack folded his arm across the table and put his head down on them. Carter had nothing. Daniel sort of had something every seven hours or so, and then he had nothing. The universe had nothing and the most undeserving man in it was going to live forever.
There was a pressure on his shoulder, fingers holding on. There were only a few things in the world that would make Daniel Jackson give up on talking, and apparently Jack breaking was one of them.
4. Jack got through the memorial service all right; the wake. He did his job and turned up for the meetings to discuss a replacement, which happened pretty much as soon as he was up and moving again. He pushed through the recovery, the physical therapy. He was fine fine.
Except, weeks later, he was sitting on a bed getting a blood pressure check, and it was someone else, some new woman, brisk, methodical. Very good, actually. Jack had 15 minutes before they were due in the gateroom, and he took the time to excuse himself to his office and engage is some wonderfully senseless violence that left only damaged drywall, a good-sized collection of brutally slaughtered desk accessories, and that choked feeling he hated.
Right on time, he was in the gate room, ready to go, and no one the wiser for it, which had become a particular specialty of his.
Jack had seen a lot in eight years, and it was beyond him how, for a woman like Janet Fraiser, there was no sarcophagus, no Nox, no Oma. But the universe wasn’t a nice place and death, he'd learned, was a greedy bitch.
...
1. Carter was brittle, edges snapped apart and turned around, pressed inwards to cut; balancing on the edge of breaking; wanting to break, maybe. Teal'c was mostly the same, unless you know him enough to see the difference between withholding words he needn’t say and struggling to find words he couldn’t. They had drawn together in their shared need to be pissed off, specifically at him, and Jack suspected that was what was keeping them upright, for a time. He left them too it, mostly, let them burn down until they could look him straight on in the eye again. Anything else was unacceptable; if they had gotten into it - really gotten into it - they'd never have gotten out again.
Jack mostly sat back and waited for them to catch up. He'd lost a lot of good men, the best men, but he had never mourned them before they were gone. Jack had made that mistake with Daniel once, and he wouldn't do it again. You bury them when they're dead, and not before.
four times Jack cried and one time he didn't.
1. Sara had been raised Catholic - so had he, for all that it was worth - and suddenly, Saturday evening wasn't enough. Their parish held a mass on Wednesday nights, Friday nights, twice Saturday and Sunday, and she was there for every one, in the same seat, never alone. When it wasn't Mike (it usually was), or her sister, it was Jack. He sat and stared straight ahead and kept breathing as she silently wept into her bible through every service, ignoring the sermons and reciting prayers of her own in her head. Lord, take this child.
Three weeks in, Jack took her home, dropped her off, and kept driving. Third time the thought of swerving into the oncoming lane crossed his mind, he pulled off the road, killed the engine, and sobbed until he had to push open the door and vomit onto the asphalt. His boy was a month gone and his wife was surviving on the promise of a god Jack now knew for certain didn't exist.
2. It was a kind of panic, rising unbidden into his thoughts and rippling out like slow moving bubbles in something thick and heavy, he's gone he's dead he's gone. Jack had lost a lot of good men; he had been here before. He had sat at tables just like this one, looked into cameras just like that one, and given reports just as bad. Worse. No explanation why he should be clenching his hands until the bones ached, gritting his teeth, trying to see through eyes that stung and -- dammit.
Ironic that, in his head, Daniel was burning, and Jack felt as if he'd drown in it.
3. "Well, think about it. If you know in advance that everything will be going back to the way it was, then ... you could do anything ... for as long as you want, without having to worry about consequences."
Teal'c hadn’t reappeared in Daniel's office yet, was probably still off on his mission to determine where the infirmary staff stored the thermometers so that he could start ritually destroying the entire supply every reset before they were hauled in to see Fraiser. It wasn’t that Jack hadn’t been grateful for the big guy -- in fact, Teal'c's was probably the only reason left that Jack hadn’t yet snapped and gunned down the entire base at the slightest provocation. It was just that Jack and Teal’c did the warrior honor stuff, and Jack and Carter did the office stuff. The Stuff He Did Not Want To Do, the messy stuff, Jack usually did with Daniel, and he wasn’t up for an audience.
"Jack?" Daniel asked, the grin sliding from his face.
"You've said that once or twice before."
"Oh. ....oh. And, uh - and now you’re back."
Jack stared straight ahead, scanning the lines of text written out that Daniel hadn’t filled in the translation for yet, reciting in his head the jabber about the glorious world before the plague that would probably be burned into his goddamn brain until the day he died, if he ever got so lucky. "Can't do this anymore, Daniel." Jack said, unable to keep it completely together no matter how many times he's said it.
"We'll find a way out of this." Daniel had gone quiet, the quiet that was all about his personal brand utter, unflappable conviction that only turned up when he was banking on someone else. "Once we figure out how the device works, Sam --"
Jack folded his arm across the table and put his head down on them. Carter had nothing. Daniel sort of had something every seven hours or so, and then he had nothing. The universe had nothing and the most undeserving man in it was going to live forever.
There was a pressure on his shoulder, fingers holding on. There were only a few things in the world that would make Daniel Jackson give up on talking, and apparently Jack breaking was one of them.
4. Jack got through the memorial service all right; the wake. He did his job and turned up for the meetings to discuss a replacement, which happened pretty much as soon as he was up and moving again. He pushed through the recovery, the physical therapy. He was fine fine.
Except, weeks later, he was sitting on a bed getting a blood pressure check, and it was someone else, some new woman, brisk, methodical. Very good, actually. Jack had 15 minutes before they were due in the gateroom, and he took the time to excuse himself to his office and engage is some wonderfully senseless violence that left only damaged drywall, a good-sized collection of brutally slaughtered desk accessories, and that choked feeling he hated.
Right on time, he was in the gate room, ready to go, and no one the wiser for it, which had become a particular specialty of his.
Jack had seen a lot in eight years, and it was beyond him how, for a woman like Janet Fraiser, there was no sarcophagus, no Nox, no Oma. But the universe wasn’t a nice place and death, he'd learned, was a greedy bitch.
...
1. Carter was brittle, edges snapped apart and turned around, pressed inwards to cut; balancing on the edge of breaking; wanting to break, maybe. Teal'c was mostly the same, unless you know him enough to see the difference between withholding words he needn’t say and struggling to find words he couldn’t. They had drawn together in their shared need to be pissed off, specifically at him, and Jack suspected that was what was keeping them upright, for a time. He left them too it, mostly, let them burn down until they could look him straight on in the eye again. Anything else was unacceptable; if they had gotten into it - really gotten into it - they'd never have gotten out again.
Jack mostly sat back and waited for them to catch up. He'd lost a lot of good men, the best men, but he had never mourned them before they were gone. Jack had made that mistake with Daniel once, and he wouldn't do it again. You bury them when they're dead, and not before.