Time doesn't
Author: Jinup
Pairing Sheppard/O’Neill
Rating: PG - 13, maybe, shrug.
Warning: no beta, part fourteen in a loosely connected progression
Jack doesn’t know if he should tell Sheppard about Ford. Would it be better for Sheppard to not know or to know for sure that he had failed in rescuing and healing Ford? Jack hadn’t even planned it, hadn’t felt like dancing, he had just reacted. At least it was fast. A soldier-assassin has to be able to act quickly and instinctively, to complete the mission, to live. Half the art of living is going first.
In the end Jack just doesn’t know which way he is supposed to bend to accommodate Sheppard and Jack isn’t good at pretending, at least not with Sheppard. But who really wants to hear the truth when they could live a comfortable lie.
Jack could have captured Ford if he had thought about it before he acted. But he hadn’t and Jack hates playing “if only”. Game over, no continues and no you don’t get two hundred dollars asshole.
Jack tries to think about the different ways Sheppard could react to the “We regret to inform you” news. If Sheppard will even care that Ford was trying to kill Jack; be happy that Jack is still counted among the living.
Ford was a problem that could only grow and increase in potential lethality for members of the Atlantis expedition, he needed to be neutralized. While Jack hadn’t planned on killing Ford he can’t deny it was an expedient solution to the issue. Jack sincerely doubts that Sheppard will see it that way; Ford was a member of Sheppard’s team. Jack would do anything to keep his team members safe, Sheppard won’t thank Jack for his action.
Jack thinks he should take the easy path. His relationship with Sheppard has been strained lately and Jack is selfish enough that he doesn’t want Ford to be the weight that broke the camels back. But…but Jack also doesn’t want to leave Sheppard to false hope; nights of wondering when Sheppard is going to run into Ford again and if Sheppard will be able to help Ford this time around. If Sheppard never knows what happened to Ford; never running into Ford again could eat at him. What if John decides to go looking? Leaves all of them (Jack) behind to fulfill his sense of obligation.
Jack pops a does of Miltown twenty minutes before he pages Sheppard over the com-net. Jack wants to be nicely tranqued out by the time Sheppard shows. Just in case John says something that Jack isn’t going to want to live with, or through