FIC: "Jack O'Neill Does Not Believe" (1/1)
5000 words that came out of nowhere...
Jack O'Neill Does Not Believe
by LJ
Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams.
It has been a year since the mission to Abydos - one year, two weeks and three days to be exact, but Jack O’Neill has no reason to count the days - and the truth is beginning to wear him down.
That has to be the reason.
He hasn’t heard from Sarah since the divorce papers were signed, a month after his return. She had already moved all of her things out of the house by the time he came back. He remembers how bare and empty the closet in their bedroom had looked, and the bathroom cupboards without all those cosmetics and hair sprays that women seemed to require, and her books gone from the shelves in the living room. She must be living a spartan life now; she left him almost everything they had gotten together: the furniture, the dishes, everything. She even left him a can of Barq’s Root Beer in the back of the fridge, a can that she had planned to drink with dinner the day that Charlie died and then never opened, even in the months afterwards. Jack will never drink it, but every now and again when he opens the door of the fridge and peeks inside, he wonders if he should. Do soft drinks go bad?
Jack doesn’t even like Barq’s. He’s a Mug kind of guy himself. The can will be there when the world ends, surviving with the cockroaches and people who spit their chewing gum onto sidewalks and let their dogs run down the street and give their kids fancy cars on their sixteenth birthdays.
He would have at least made Charlie save up for half first. But even now, if Charlie had lived, that would have been years away. When he remembers this, how young his son actually was, and how old he is, with the gray already showing up in his hair, he grabs another beer and hides on the back porch, listening to a game on the radio, or he drives to Minnesota, nonstop for hours until he nearly collapses, and pretends to fish at the cabin.
Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams.
Jack O’Neill tries not to think of Abydos, but sometimes he has no choice.
He watches a lot of TV now, when he isn’t on the roof with the telescope, and sometimes he ends up watching shows on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and PBS about ancient civilizations. It makes him wonder why Ra chose Egypt and not one of the other empires. Jack isn’t so great with the chronology of ancient history, but sometimes he wonders what might have gone differently if Ra had ended up in China, or India or South America with the Maya and the Inca, if Ra had come to Earth earlier or later, or if he had gotten stuck on the moon and never made it to Terra. When he watches the shows about Egypt, he wonders why Ra decided to be Ra and not one of the other gods, and why Ra liked the sand so much.
Thinking about Ra means thinking about Egypt which means sand. And sand means he thinks about Daniel Jackson living on Abydos.
It had been Jackson’s decision to stay there. Jack doesn’t really understand why, but he knows it’s partly because of Shau’re and partly because Jackson’s in love with all things Ancient Egypt, and partly because Jackson doesn’t think he has anything to come back to on Earth.
Jack O’Neill understands that last part. He really didn’t have anything to come back to either, and that’s why he took on the mission without question. Colonel O’Neill fights him about it, saying he’s violating the parameters of the mission, and Jackson, as much as he hated it at first, was part of his team and he wasn’t going home without all the living members of the team.
Leave no man behind.
But Jack tells the Colonel to shove it and lets Daniel Jackson stay on Abydos, with the sand and the ancient inscriptions and Shau’re. They talk it out that last night, before they return to Earth, and set their stories straight for the USAF brass that’ll interrogate them, him and Ferretti and Kawalsky. Daniel Jackson found a way home, but died in the process. Ra is dead; they can guarantee that the bomb blew up in the alien’s freakin’ face. There’s no reason to try to return to Abydos - there’s nothing there. Finito; signed, sealed and delivered to General West and the Joint Chiefs and the President.
Daniel Jackson is never coming home again.
Jack tries to imagine himself in the same situation, day after day, until about three months after it is all over and done with and he realizes that that’s exactly what happened to him.
Jack O’Neill never really came home. A shell came back to his domicile, a shell has been drinking beer and watching too much TV and ignoring the rest of the world for the last three months. Jack O’Neill died the day that Charles O’Neill, aged eleven, died in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Planet Earth. Jack O’Neill never went to Abydos; a shell of a man, pretending to be him, did.
And Jack O’Neill doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
The first dream comes at about ten months After Abydos. The timeline is capitalized in his mind and divided into four distinct and uneven epochs of the Life of Jack O’Neill: Before Charlie Died, After Charlie Died, The Stargate Mission, After Abydos. At first Jack doesn’t remember what the dream was about. All he knows is that it was bad, and intense, and he wakes up in a sweat with his heart racing. In the shower, he tries to remember what it was that had scared him or freaked him out so much in the dream, but it never comes to him. He sleeps the rest of the night on the couch, with the TV turned to one of those educational channels. It’s almost December, so they’ve been showing a lot of documentaries about Pearl Harbor and the Second World War that get rerunned during the middle of the night. He falls asleep to the sound of the Andrews Sisters entertaining the troops.
At ten months and sixteen days the second dream comes to him. Christmas is coming, but he has no one to shop for, not this year, and he has no plans for the special day. He briefly considers going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Charlie had liked the candles and singing the carols with the rest of the congregation, and Sarah had liked that staying up that late would wear Charlie out. He decides not to when all he can remember about the dream is candles and fire. When he goes shopping for groceries, he even goes the long way around to avoid passing by the church they had gone to on Christmas Eve in years past.
A good thing, too, because the long way takes him through less populated areas and when the dream suddenly comes to him while he’s driving, he’s able to pull off to the side without hitting anyone. The direct route would have taken him not only past the church, but also through a housing development almost entirely populated by families with young children.
One child’s blood on his hands was more than enough for him.
In the dream, he was on Abydos again, at the feast with the armadillo that tasted like chicken. He could have kicked Jackson for making such a fool of himself, but he was glad of it later on, because the archaeologist’s antics had broken the communication barrier with Skaara and the other kids when Jackson later disappeared.
To Jackson’s credit, the meat really had tasted a lot like chicken.
But in the dream, after Jackson made a fool of himself, he wasn’t dragged off to mate with Shau’re. Instead, Ra himself showed up with a bunch of his buddies - buddies whose eyes also glowed - and leveled the place, burning it to the ground.
Jackson died before his own eyes.
Jack O’Neill, who doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams, starts the pickup again and continues on his way. He hadn’t planned on buying beer, but he figures he’s earned it with a nightmare like that.
At the store, he realizes that he’d had chicken on his shopping list but the moment he sees the whole birds in their plastic sacks, his stomach churns and he decides against it. Who cares if it’s December in Colorado, with snow on the ground? He’s going to set up his grill and have a steak. The decision made, he promptly forgets half of everything else on his list.
Including the mental addition of beer. It’s just as well, he figures later when he’s back home. He should know better. Alcohol never did cure anything.
Besides, Jack O’Neill doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
Between Christmas and New Year’s he gets a call from a guy he went to the Academy with, who’s heard that Jack’s in Colorado these days, and why doesn’t he come over to Denver for the New Year’s Eve Party he’s throwing? The old classmate doesn’t know a thing about Sarah or Charlie and offers his condolences, saying that there’s even more reason then for Jack to come to Denver for a couple of days.
Jack still says no.
He’s not up to fending off questions about what he’s been up to lately, and telling folks that everything you’ve done for the Air Force the last decade or so has been classified beyond belief is not the most fun conversation in the world. It either scares people off completely - because what kind of man actually does classified work anyway? - or it attracts the weirdos who want to know more and are certain that the truth is out there or something.
Man-oh-man, he didn’t want to have that conversation. Yes, Wannabe Mulder, the truth is out there. And by the way, it’s in Egypt. Or on another planet, over on the other side of the known galaxy.
So he stays at home on New Year’s Eve, falling asleep long before Dick Clark starts his party in Times Square, and wakes up from the third nightmare a little after oh-two-thirty. You’re a civilian now, Jack, he reminds himself. It’s not oh-two-thirty, or even just two-thirty in the morning, but a nice, simple middle-of-the-night. Get used to it.
Once again, he finds himself on the couch - he doesn’t sleep in the bed much these days, since it reminds him of the time Before Charlie Died - and when he tries to roll over, thinking he can just go back to sleep, he falls off the couch. He ignores the sore spot on his shoulder and hip from falling and just collapses there on the floor, holding the pillow that fell with him over his head so that the rest of the world can’t see or hear Jack O’Neill, Air Force Colonel (retired), cry himself back to sleep.
He wakes up to gummy, tired eyes and bruises he doesn’t really remember getting, but he correctly assumes they’re from falling off the couch. He feels stiff and tired, even after his shower and a couple cups of coffee. He’s not hungry, so he doesn’t eat; he’s not thirsty, so he doesn’t drink.
Around five in the evening he gets up and drains his entire supply of alcohol down the sink. A New Year’s resolution: to remember that alcohol never solved a damn thing. He’s not an alcoholic, not yet, but he’s determined not to let it happen. He won’t say no to the occasional beer, or a drink if he ever redevelops a social life, but his days of drinking alone are numbered. They number zero.
His second resolution sends him upstairs. Charlie’s room is silent - like a grave, his grandmother would have said, he remembers - and there’s altogether too much dust. But he sits in there, talks to Charlie as if his son is actually there, and when he leaves the room, he no longer feels the need to lock it. He’s not even sure why he had it locked in the first place; it’s not as if Charlie had had anything worth stealing in there.
But the time has come for him not to lock it anymore.
Until now, his son was only dead in his mind. Now his heart knows it, too, and for once in his life it’s okay to admit that. He’ll never forgive himself, but now he knows it’s all right to move forward, and if that means that - a minute here, an hour there - he forgets a little, then so be it. He’ll be blaming himself for the rest of his life, but Charlie is telling him that he deserves a little peace now and again.
Especially since Jack O’Neill doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
He’s fulfilling his third resolution when he remembers about the dream again. It’s a day later, the day after New Year’s, and he’s taken it upon himself to write Sarah a letter. He briefly considered calling her, but quickly decided against it; he needs this to be polished and perfect. He wants to let her know that he’s not angry at her for leaving, that he’s sorry he sacrificed so much for his career, that he wants her just to be happy if at all possible. If she never speaks to him again, that’s all right; he doesn’t expect her to forgive him for what happened to Charlie. It was his gun, and he was the idiot who didn’t make sure it was secured. He should have hung for that. She’s welcome to come over to the house any time; if she wants anything, it’s hers; if she wants him to stay away for the rest of eternity, it’s done.
He’s fiddling with the pen, doodling around the double-s of “foregiveness”, when he remembers. He nearly snaps the pen - not that a mess of ink would have mattered, considering how much he’d already doodled on the once-clean white paper - and almost falls back in his chair, so quickly he sits up from his slouch. The table wobbles in front of him. This dream had been different.
It had been the same in that it was about Abydos, and death, and destruction. Daniel Jackson was there, too, and Shau’re, and Kawalsky and Ferretti and a couple of airmen he doesn’t know. He figures they’re just a reflection of kids he’s known, nameless red-shirts like on Star Trek. Cannon fodder. They’re in a big room with tall walls, like where Jackson had found the story about Ra and the rebellion in ancient Egypt, and all across the walls are strange inscriptions - some hieroglyphs, some constellation symbols like the chevrons on the Stargate. Jackson is explaining something to someone, using big scientific words that Jack’s out of habit of understanding and talking about concepts that constituted heresy in the world of science when Jack was still in school. So Jack doesn’t know what it’s about, but the person that Daniel Jackson is talking to - a woman? - is excited by the ideas. Suddenly Shau’re and Kawalsky scream, and Skaara comes running from outside the room. Shau’re drops to the floor, suddenly going into labor when she hadn’t been pregnant before.
And her eyes, and Kawalsky’s, and Skaara’s eyes, too, glow.
A man points a staff weapon at him and Daniel. When they die, he wakes up, and that was when he had fallen off the couch.
For a moment, he wishes he hadn’t emptied his liquor cabinet, sparse though it had been, but only for a moment. He gives up on the letter and watches another special on ancient Egypt on TV.
Eleven months, three weeks and two days after his return from Abydos, Jack is still watching documentaries on TV, but not all the time. Things are beginning to look up. He has finally sent off the letter to Sarah, and so far there haven’t been any letters from lawyers or restraining orders or pipe bombs in return. In the after-Christmas sales, he bought a new telescope, a better one, and a thick, academic-looking book on astronomy. Every day he shuffles through the book, looking for things that sound familiar from the briefings Before and After Abydos. When he does and the sky is clear, he spends a little time searching for those stars in the night sky. It’s bitter cold - winter in Colorado wouldn’t be winter without that - but he’s okay with the cold. He’s okay with a lot of things these days.
It’s been almost a year since he retired again and he’s starting to get restless, now that he’s beginning to warm up to the world again. He’s got plenty of money, so that’s not a problem, but Jack O’Neill is the kind of guy who can’t sit still for too long. He needs something to do. But what kind of a job is there in the world for a guy who’s Black Ops-trained and spent a week on another planet, whose references are all military and will say he’s a stand-up guy, but can’t give details because everything he could put on his resume is classified. He briefly considers trying to write a book, some kind of fictional adaptation of some of the stuff he’s done for Uncle Sam and his planet, but decides not to tempt fate. Non-disclosure paperwork is signed for a reason, and he’s not brave enough - not yet, at least - to try to sidestep the legal mumbo-jumbo. Also, toying with national security and being hung for treason is not how he wants to die. He doesn’t know how he wants to die, but it’s not the immediate wish it was almost a year ago. Abydos had been a suicide mission - no one had said anything, no one at all, until Daniel Jackson asked about the bomb and figured things out, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew what General West was really expecting of him that day. West had expected him to die, and until the very moment that Ra’s ship had exploded with the bomb, Jack O’Neill had been perfectly content with the idea.
Now Jack O’Neill wants to live, but he’s running out of reasons to do so.
He briefly toys with the idea of joining the Air Force again, maybe trying to pull a few strings with some old CO’s or buddies to get into something actually interesting, but what can the Air Force offer him on Earth? Earth is damn boring after saving the universe from Ra. And at his age and his mental history the last two years, he’d probably be tied to a desk for the rest of his life. Suddenly, to the military, he’ll probably be an old man.
He turns off the TV - it’s a documentary he’s already seen twice before - and goes to bed. And dreams.
His grandmother had believed that dreams had meaning - Grandma O’Neill, who’d come to America as a young woman and spoke with that funny accent to the day she died. It wasn’t too funny in Chicago, but when his parents had moved to Minnesota, to be closer to his mother’s family, it had been a shock. Minnesota was full of Swedes and Norwegians and the occasional Dane or Finn, full of Hansens and Nylands and Lundquists. In his school in Chicago, he hadn’t been the only O’Neill, and there had been O’Deas and Galloways and Callahans and MacIntyres, too - in addition to the Poles and the Germans and the Greeks and everyone else from the rest of the planet who had ended up in Chicago. In his class in Minnesota, his was the only family name that hadn’t ended in -sen or -son. He eventually learned to blend in, learned to say “Sureyabetcha” with native ease. His maternal grandmother told him stories just like Grandma O’Neill had, sometimes even old stories that no one had believed in for hundreds of years, but they had funny names in them, like Thor and Loki and Asgard. Grandma Sorensen didn’t know anything about dreams that told the future, or the Little People, or Cu Chullain, who was like Hercules or Superman, even if his first name meant ‘dog’.
Grandma O’Neill had told him about dreams having meaning: sometimes they told the future, and sometimes they sorted out the past when a person was confused about it. Most people don’t remember the dreams that tell the future, she had said on one of those afternoons when he’d come home from school to find her there and his mother still at work. But some people do, and some people have gifts and will always remember, if they let themselves, she had told him. She liked to think that she was one of those people; she didn’t like what her dreams told her about the future, but she was certain they were true. ‘And you, Jackie-me-boy, are right smack dab in the middle of it all. The Little People and the demons, they’ll return, but you’ll be like the Hound of Cullan and fight them off, for sure. You have the gift, Jack, if you let yourself, you’ll have the gift for sure. Skips a generation sometimes, it does, and your da, he’d never believe even if he had it, but you, Jackie, you’re special, lad. Here’s hopin’ you don’t outgrow it. You’ll tell me if you stop seein’ the Little People, won’t you, Jackie?’ He hadn’t had the courage, even then, to tell her that he’d never seen one before, but at the time he had chalked it up to living in the city. The Little People didn’t like big cities.
In Minnesota, he learned how not to believe. Grandma O’Neill died not long after the move and then there wasn’t anyone to try to remind him that he had once believed. Grandma Sorensen would have washed his mouth out with soap for suggesting something of that sort to begin with. And despite the rumors that the Russians were experimenting with psychics that you heard about now and then, the USAF did not indulge the concept, especially from new recruits.
So in Colorado, years later, Jack O’Neill still doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
The next dream (one year, two weeks and three days After Abydos) is the same - Abydos, sand, hieroglyphs, glowing eyes. It’s all starting to blend in together, and he can’t make sense of anything. For a moment, he considers seeking out Kawalsky and Ferretti and General West and admitting the truth about what had happened on Abydos. For a moment, and then the impulse is gone. He’s sleeping in the bed again, finally, and as he sits up he rubs his eyes, as if it would make him wake up any more quickly. He wonders if Daniel’s actually okay, if he’s regretted his decision to stay on Abydos. He wonders if Daniel will ever have a chance to change his mind. They had agreed that the Abydos boys would bury the Stargate in rubble on their side, and that much had been done, and quickly, because the probe they’d sent back had been destroyed. But what if Jackson tried sending something - or someone - back to Earth? Is the Stargate still assembled under Cheyenne Mountain? Jack honestly doesn’t know. He suspects it is; there are scientists enough to drool over the technology for the next century, and if someone could figure it all out, it could quite honestly prove useful.
He thinks back to the conversation that last night on Abydos, when they had figured out the cover story. There was a celebration - though Jack had suspected that the celebrating would continue for much, much longer - and in the noise and excitement, the Earthling contingent had snuck off for their talk. Daniel was adamant; he wanted to stay on Abydos; all Jack had to do was come up with a likely story. The discussion had gone on for quite some time, but just before Shau’re came looking for them, they had figured things out. Jack remembers, almost too clearly, that moment when he realized that Daniel really was staying, for good: how Shau’re had come in, so very quietly and shyly, and whispered something to Daniel, who had blushed. He pulled her down beside him and - with more guts and passion than Jack had originally thought the archaeologist was capable of - kissed her. Kawalsky and Ferretti had whooped and cheered him on good-naturedly, but all Jack could think of was the certainty that Sarah would not be waiting for him when he got back.
“Daniel,” he had said, just before the happy couple left - Daniel claimed that Shau’re’s father wanted to talk to him - and Daniel stopped in the doorway to look back at him. “Yes, Jack?” he replied.
“Hypothetical situation: a chance to get anything from Earth, anything at all, what would you ask for?”
Daniel had stood there for a moment, taking the question with the same depth of thought and consideration he had applied to everything - except for when General West had asked whether or not he could find them a way home again if they went through the Stargate. Jack figures that had been the first impulsive thing Daniel Jackson had done since high school, if ever, and that’s how he’s able to forgive Daniel for it, looking back. After a moment, Daniel had looked back at him, hugging Shau’re to his side, and said with a perfect poker face, “A box of Kleenex might be nice.”
He was never sure if Daniel was serious about it, and certainly Kawalsky and Ferretti hadn’t believed it, but thinking back on it, Jack’s almost convinced it was an honest answer. At that moment, Daniel Jackson finally had everything he had ever wanted: his theories proven correct, a chance to immerse himself in a culture that was as close as he would ever get to ancient Egypt, a people that respected him, and a wife who loved him. What can a man ask for after getting all that? Truth to be told, he was jealous of Daniel.
In that moment, Jack O’Neill stopped wanting to die.
Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams, but he’s not immune to deja vu. That’s what he feels that evening when Samuels, executive officer to a general by the name of Hammond, comes to his house. It’s a little eerie and for a moment, he has to think quite hard to figure out why he’s feeling deja vu. Then he remembers the day, just over a year ago, when General West had demanded his reactivation and he found out about the Stargate. That is what this feels like, except the part where he’s not suicidal anymore. He’s still surprised when Samuels says that Hammond wants to talk to him about the Stargate, but less than he should have been, thanks to the deja vu.
During the drive to Cheyenne Mountain, he comes up with different scenarios, trying to figure out why Hammond wants to talk to him. It can’t be about Abydos, he tells himself automatically, so it’s not about Daniel Jackson. He’s certain that he’ll go to his grave with the secret. A hundred years from now when the Stargate’s reassembled and someone tries to go to Abydos again, they’ll be surprised by a couple of kids with blond hair and blue eyes who speak a few words of English that they learned from their grandfather. Jack smiles at the thought and reflects on how bad it is that he’ll never get married again and have another kid, ‘cause wouldn’t it be cool if that person going through the Stargate in a century or so was an O’Neill? He likes it when things come full circle.
He endures the rest of the drive with a frown, still trying to come up with ideas why this Hammond character wants to talk to him about the Stargate. The base is like he remembers it; only the people have changed.
It’s not until he sees the staff weapon that he really gets nervous - but strangely enough, it’s a good kind of nervous, like a job interview that you were certain was going to be awful turned out just fine. Hammond’s story about glowing eyes is the cream cheese filling of the cake, and when he sees Kawalsky and Ferretti, well, it’s turned into a triple-layer chocolate-chocolate with ‘Happy Birthday’ scrawled across the top and frosting flowers over everything. He should have known that the truth would come out eventually, but part of him is glad it did. Hammond telling him to consider himself recalled to active duty is a kind of bliss he hasn’t known in almost two years.
Jack O’Neill has a mission.
Daniel and Shau’re look just as they had in his dream, but he does not realize this until much later. He does not warn anyone about an attack on Abydos; he does not remember his dream. Captain Carter’s mind-boggling conversation with Daniel in the address room has a hint of deja vu to it, but he figures it just reminds him of that horrid briefing Daniel had tried to give when he had figured out the symbols on the Stargate. Looking back on things, now that he and Daniel are back on Earth, and Daniel is claiming to get drunk on just one beer and rambling on about yafetta flour, Jack should have known that something horrible was going to happen the moment he was called back to Cheyenne Mountain, the moment Hammond told him about glowing eyes. He’s not sure how he should have known, but nonetheless, he should have. Those dreams he’s had the last couple of months should have been enough to at least make him think about it.
But Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams.
[end]
Jack O'Neill Does Not Believe
by LJ
Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams.
It has been a year since the mission to Abydos - one year, two weeks and three days to be exact, but Jack O’Neill has no reason to count the days - and the truth is beginning to wear him down.
That has to be the reason.
He hasn’t heard from Sarah since the divorce papers were signed, a month after his return. She had already moved all of her things out of the house by the time he came back. He remembers how bare and empty the closet in their bedroom had looked, and the bathroom cupboards without all those cosmetics and hair sprays that women seemed to require, and her books gone from the shelves in the living room. She must be living a spartan life now; she left him almost everything they had gotten together: the furniture, the dishes, everything. She even left him a can of Barq’s Root Beer in the back of the fridge, a can that she had planned to drink with dinner the day that Charlie died and then never opened, even in the months afterwards. Jack will never drink it, but every now and again when he opens the door of the fridge and peeks inside, he wonders if he should. Do soft drinks go bad?
Jack doesn’t even like Barq’s. He’s a Mug kind of guy himself. The can will be there when the world ends, surviving with the cockroaches and people who spit their chewing gum onto sidewalks and let their dogs run down the street and give their kids fancy cars on their sixteenth birthdays.
He would have at least made Charlie save up for half first. But even now, if Charlie had lived, that would have been years away. When he remembers this, how young his son actually was, and how old he is, with the gray already showing up in his hair, he grabs another beer and hides on the back porch, listening to a game on the radio, or he drives to Minnesota, nonstop for hours until he nearly collapses, and pretends to fish at the cabin.
Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams.
Jack O’Neill tries not to think of Abydos, but sometimes he has no choice.
He watches a lot of TV now, when he isn’t on the roof with the telescope, and sometimes he ends up watching shows on the Discovery Channel and the History Channel and PBS about ancient civilizations. It makes him wonder why Ra chose Egypt and not one of the other empires. Jack isn’t so great with the chronology of ancient history, but sometimes he wonders what might have gone differently if Ra had ended up in China, or India or South America with the Maya and the Inca, if Ra had come to Earth earlier or later, or if he had gotten stuck on the moon and never made it to Terra. When he watches the shows about Egypt, he wonders why Ra decided to be Ra and not one of the other gods, and why Ra liked the sand so much.
Thinking about Ra means thinking about Egypt which means sand. And sand means he thinks about Daniel Jackson living on Abydos.
It had been Jackson’s decision to stay there. Jack doesn’t really understand why, but he knows it’s partly because of Shau’re and partly because Jackson’s in love with all things Ancient Egypt, and partly because Jackson doesn’t think he has anything to come back to on Earth.
Jack O’Neill understands that last part. He really didn’t have anything to come back to either, and that’s why he took on the mission without question. Colonel O’Neill fights him about it, saying he’s violating the parameters of the mission, and Jackson, as much as he hated it at first, was part of his team and he wasn’t going home without all the living members of the team.
Leave no man behind.
But Jack tells the Colonel to shove it and lets Daniel Jackson stay on Abydos, with the sand and the ancient inscriptions and Shau’re. They talk it out that last night, before they return to Earth, and set their stories straight for the USAF brass that’ll interrogate them, him and Ferretti and Kawalsky. Daniel Jackson found a way home, but died in the process. Ra is dead; they can guarantee that the bomb blew up in the alien’s freakin’ face. There’s no reason to try to return to Abydos - there’s nothing there. Finito; signed, sealed and delivered to General West and the Joint Chiefs and the President.
Daniel Jackson is never coming home again.
Jack tries to imagine himself in the same situation, day after day, until about three months after it is all over and done with and he realizes that that’s exactly what happened to him.
Jack O’Neill never really came home. A shell came back to his domicile, a shell has been drinking beer and watching too much TV and ignoring the rest of the world for the last three months. Jack O’Neill died the day that Charles O’Neill, aged eleven, died in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Planet Earth. Jack O’Neill never went to Abydos; a shell of a man, pretending to be him, did.
And Jack O’Neill doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
The first dream comes at about ten months After Abydos. The timeline is capitalized in his mind and divided into four distinct and uneven epochs of the Life of Jack O’Neill: Before Charlie Died, After Charlie Died, The Stargate Mission, After Abydos. At first Jack doesn’t remember what the dream was about. All he knows is that it was bad, and intense, and he wakes up in a sweat with his heart racing. In the shower, he tries to remember what it was that had scared him or freaked him out so much in the dream, but it never comes to him. He sleeps the rest of the night on the couch, with the TV turned to one of those educational channels. It’s almost December, so they’ve been showing a lot of documentaries about Pearl Harbor and the Second World War that get rerunned during the middle of the night. He falls asleep to the sound of the Andrews Sisters entertaining the troops.
At ten months and sixteen days the second dream comes to him. Christmas is coming, but he has no one to shop for, not this year, and he has no plans for the special day. He briefly considers going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Charlie had liked the candles and singing the carols with the rest of the congregation, and Sarah had liked that staying up that late would wear Charlie out. He decides not to when all he can remember about the dream is candles and fire. When he goes shopping for groceries, he even goes the long way around to avoid passing by the church they had gone to on Christmas Eve in years past.
A good thing, too, because the long way takes him through less populated areas and when the dream suddenly comes to him while he’s driving, he’s able to pull off to the side without hitting anyone. The direct route would have taken him not only past the church, but also through a housing development almost entirely populated by families with young children.
One child’s blood on his hands was more than enough for him.
In the dream, he was on Abydos again, at the feast with the armadillo that tasted like chicken. He could have kicked Jackson for making such a fool of himself, but he was glad of it later on, because the archaeologist’s antics had broken the communication barrier with Skaara and the other kids when Jackson later disappeared.
To Jackson’s credit, the meat really had tasted a lot like chicken.
But in the dream, after Jackson made a fool of himself, he wasn’t dragged off to mate with Shau’re. Instead, Ra himself showed up with a bunch of his buddies - buddies whose eyes also glowed - and leveled the place, burning it to the ground.
Jackson died before his own eyes.
Jack O’Neill, who doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams, starts the pickup again and continues on his way. He hadn’t planned on buying beer, but he figures he’s earned it with a nightmare like that.
At the store, he realizes that he’d had chicken on his shopping list but the moment he sees the whole birds in their plastic sacks, his stomach churns and he decides against it. Who cares if it’s December in Colorado, with snow on the ground? He’s going to set up his grill and have a steak. The decision made, he promptly forgets half of everything else on his list.
Including the mental addition of beer. It’s just as well, he figures later when he’s back home. He should know better. Alcohol never did cure anything.
Besides, Jack O’Neill doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
Between Christmas and New Year’s he gets a call from a guy he went to the Academy with, who’s heard that Jack’s in Colorado these days, and why doesn’t he come over to Denver for the New Year’s Eve Party he’s throwing? The old classmate doesn’t know a thing about Sarah or Charlie and offers his condolences, saying that there’s even more reason then for Jack to come to Denver for a couple of days.
Jack still says no.
He’s not up to fending off questions about what he’s been up to lately, and telling folks that everything you’ve done for the Air Force the last decade or so has been classified beyond belief is not the most fun conversation in the world. It either scares people off completely - because what kind of man actually does classified work anyway? - or it attracts the weirdos who want to know more and are certain that the truth is out there or something.
Man-oh-man, he didn’t want to have that conversation. Yes, Wannabe Mulder, the truth is out there. And by the way, it’s in Egypt. Or on another planet, over on the other side of the known galaxy.
So he stays at home on New Year’s Eve, falling asleep long before Dick Clark starts his party in Times Square, and wakes up from the third nightmare a little after oh-two-thirty. You’re a civilian now, Jack, he reminds himself. It’s not oh-two-thirty, or even just two-thirty in the morning, but a nice, simple middle-of-the-night. Get used to it.
Once again, he finds himself on the couch - he doesn’t sleep in the bed much these days, since it reminds him of the time Before Charlie Died - and when he tries to roll over, thinking he can just go back to sleep, he falls off the couch. He ignores the sore spot on his shoulder and hip from falling and just collapses there on the floor, holding the pillow that fell with him over his head so that the rest of the world can’t see or hear Jack O’Neill, Air Force Colonel (retired), cry himself back to sleep.
He wakes up to gummy, tired eyes and bruises he doesn’t really remember getting, but he correctly assumes they’re from falling off the couch. He feels stiff and tired, even after his shower and a couple cups of coffee. He’s not hungry, so he doesn’t eat; he’s not thirsty, so he doesn’t drink.
Around five in the evening he gets up and drains his entire supply of alcohol down the sink. A New Year’s resolution: to remember that alcohol never solved a damn thing. He’s not an alcoholic, not yet, but he’s determined not to let it happen. He won’t say no to the occasional beer, or a drink if he ever redevelops a social life, but his days of drinking alone are numbered. They number zero.
His second resolution sends him upstairs. Charlie’s room is silent - like a grave, his grandmother would have said, he remembers - and there’s altogether too much dust. But he sits in there, talks to Charlie as if his son is actually there, and when he leaves the room, he no longer feels the need to lock it. He’s not even sure why he had it locked in the first place; it’s not as if Charlie had had anything worth stealing in there.
But the time has come for him not to lock it anymore.
Until now, his son was only dead in his mind. Now his heart knows it, too, and for once in his life it’s okay to admit that. He’ll never forgive himself, but now he knows it’s all right to move forward, and if that means that - a minute here, an hour there - he forgets a little, then so be it. He’ll be blaming himself for the rest of his life, but Charlie is telling him that he deserves a little peace now and again.
Especially since Jack O’Neill doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
He’s fulfilling his third resolution when he remembers about the dream again. It’s a day later, the day after New Year’s, and he’s taken it upon himself to write Sarah a letter. He briefly considered calling her, but quickly decided against it; he needs this to be polished and perfect. He wants to let her know that he’s not angry at her for leaving, that he’s sorry he sacrificed so much for his career, that he wants her just to be happy if at all possible. If she never speaks to him again, that’s all right; he doesn’t expect her to forgive him for what happened to Charlie. It was his gun, and he was the idiot who didn’t make sure it was secured. He should have hung for that. She’s welcome to come over to the house any time; if she wants anything, it’s hers; if she wants him to stay away for the rest of eternity, it’s done.
He’s fiddling with the pen, doodling around the double-s of “foregiveness”, when he remembers. He nearly snaps the pen - not that a mess of ink would have mattered, considering how much he’d already doodled on the once-clean white paper - and almost falls back in his chair, so quickly he sits up from his slouch. The table wobbles in front of him. This dream had been different.
It had been the same in that it was about Abydos, and death, and destruction. Daniel Jackson was there, too, and Shau’re, and Kawalsky and Ferretti and a couple of airmen he doesn’t know. He figures they’re just a reflection of kids he’s known, nameless red-shirts like on Star Trek. Cannon fodder. They’re in a big room with tall walls, like where Jackson had found the story about Ra and the rebellion in ancient Egypt, and all across the walls are strange inscriptions - some hieroglyphs, some constellation symbols like the chevrons on the Stargate. Jackson is explaining something to someone, using big scientific words that Jack’s out of habit of understanding and talking about concepts that constituted heresy in the world of science when Jack was still in school. So Jack doesn’t know what it’s about, but the person that Daniel Jackson is talking to - a woman? - is excited by the ideas. Suddenly Shau’re and Kawalsky scream, and Skaara comes running from outside the room. Shau’re drops to the floor, suddenly going into labor when she hadn’t been pregnant before.
And her eyes, and Kawalsky’s, and Skaara’s eyes, too, glow.
A man points a staff weapon at him and Daniel. When they die, he wakes up, and that was when he had fallen off the couch.
For a moment, he wishes he hadn’t emptied his liquor cabinet, sparse though it had been, but only for a moment. He gives up on the letter and watches another special on ancient Egypt on TV.
Eleven months, three weeks and two days after his return from Abydos, Jack is still watching documentaries on TV, but not all the time. Things are beginning to look up. He has finally sent off the letter to Sarah, and so far there haven’t been any letters from lawyers or restraining orders or pipe bombs in return. In the after-Christmas sales, he bought a new telescope, a better one, and a thick, academic-looking book on astronomy. Every day he shuffles through the book, looking for things that sound familiar from the briefings Before and After Abydos. When he does and the sky is clear, he spends a little time searching for those stars in the night sky. It’s bitter cold - winter in Colorado wouldn’t be winter without that - but he’s okay with the cold. He’s okay with a lot of things these days.
It’s been almost a year since he retired again and he’s starting to get restless, now that he’s beginning to warm up to the world again. He’s got plenty of money, so that’s not a problem, but Jack O’Neill is the kind of guy who can’t sit still for too long. He needs something to do. But what kind of a job is there in the world for a guy who’s Black Ops-trained and spent a week on another planet, whose references are all military and will say he’s a stand-up guy, but can’t give details because everything he could put on his resume is classified. He briefly considers trying to write a book, some kind of fictional adaptation of some of the stuff he’s done for Uncle Sam and his planet, but decides not to tempt fate. Non-disclosure paperwork is signed for a reason, and he’s not brave enough - not yet, at least - to try to sidestep the legal mumbo-jumbo. Also, toying with national security and being hung for treason is not how he wants to die. He doesn’t know how he wants to die, but it’s not the immediate wish it was almost a year ago. Abydos had been a suicide mission - no one had said anything, no one at all, until Daniel Jackson asked about the bomb and figured things out, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew what General West was really expecting of him that day. West had expected him to die, and until the very moment that Ra’s ship had exploded with the bomb, Jack O’Neill had been perfectly content with the idea.
Now Jack O’Neill wants to live, but he’s running out of reasons to do so.
He briefly toys with the idea of joining the Air Force again, maybe trying to pull a few strings with some old CO’s or buddies to get into something actually interesting, but what can the Air Force offer him on Earth? Earth is damn boring after saving the universe from Ra. And at his age and his mental history the last two years, he’d probably be tied to a desk for the rest of his life. Suddenly, to the military, he’ll probably be an old man.
He turns off the TV - it’s a documentary he’s already seen twice before - and goes to bed. And dreams.
His grandmother had believed that dreams had meaning - Grandma O’Neill, who’d come to America as a young woman and spoke with that funny accent to the day she died. It wasn’t too funny in Chicago, but when his parents had moved to Minnesota, to be closer to his mother’s family, it had been a shock. Minnesota was full of Swedes and Norwegians and the occasional Dane or Finn, full of Hansens and Nylands and Lundquists. In his school in Chicago, he hadn’t been the only O’Neill, and there had been O’Deas and Galloways and Callahans and MacIntyres, too - in addition to the Poles and the Germans and the Greeks and everyone else from the rest of the planet who had ended up in Chicago. In his class in Minnesota, his was the only family name that hadn’t ended in -sen or -son. He eventually learned to blend in, learned to say “Sureyabetcha” with native ease. His maternal grandmother told him stories just like Grandma O’Neill had, sometimes even old stories that no one had believed in for hundreds of years, but they had funny names in them, like Thor and Loki and Asgard. Grandma Sorensen didn’t know anything about dreams that told the future, or the Little People, or Cu Chullain, who was like Hercules or Superman, even if his first name meant ‘dog’.
Grandma O’Neill had told him about dreams having meaning: sometimes they told the future, and sometimes they sorted out the past when a person was confused about it. Most people don’t remember the dreams that tell the future, she had said on one of those afternoons when he’d come home from school to find her there and his mother still at work. But some people do, and some people have gifts and will always remember, if they let themselves, she had told him. She liked to think that she was one of those people; she didn’t like what her dreams told her about the future, but she was certain they were true. ‘And you, Jackie-me-boy, are right smack dab in the middle of it all. The Little People and the demons, they’ll return, but you’ll be like the Hound of Cullan and fight them off, for sure. You have the gift, Jack, if you let yourself, you’ll have the gift for sure. Skips a generation sometimes, it does, and your da, he’d never believe even if he had it, but you, Jackie, you’re special, lad. Here’s hopin’ you don’t outgrow it. You’ll tell me if you stop seein’ the Little People, won’t you, Jackie?’ He hadn’t had the courage, even then, to tell her that he’d never seen one before, but at the time he had chalked it up to living in the city. The Little People didn’t like big cities.
In Minnesota, he learned how not to believe. Grandma O’Neill died not long after the move and then there wasn’t anyone to try to remind him that he had once believed. Grandma Sorensen would have washed his mouth out with soap for suggesting something of that sort to begin with. And despite the rumors that the Russians were experimenting with psychics that you heard about now and then, the USAF did not indulge the concept, especially from new recruits.
So in Colorado, years later, Jack O’Neill still doesn’t believe in prophetic dreams.
The next dream (one year, two weeks and three days After Abydos) is the same - Abydos, sand, hieroglyphs, glowing eyes. It’s all starting to blend in together, and he can’t make sense of anything. For a moment, he considers seeking out Kawalsky and Ferretti and General West and admitting the truth about what had happened on Abydos. For a moment, and then the impulse is gone. He’s sleeping in the bed again, finally, and as he sits up he rubs his eyes, as if it would make him wake up any more quickly. He wonders if Daniel’s actually okay, if he’s regretted his decision to stay on Abydos. He wonders if Daniel will ever have a chance to change his mind. They had agreed that the Abydos boys would bury the Stargate in rubble on their side, and that much had been done, and quickly, because the probe they’d sent back had been destroyed. But what if Jackson tried sending something - or someone - back to Earth? Is the Stargate still assembled under Cheyenne Mountain? Jack honestly doesn’t know. He suspects it is; there are scientists enough to drool over the technology for the next century, and if someone could figure it all out, it could quite honestly prove useful.
He thinks back to the conversation that last night on Abydos, when they had figured out the cover story. There was a celebration - though Jack had suspected that the celebrating would continue for much, much longer - and in the noise and excitement, the Earthling contingent had snuck off for their talk. Daniel was adamant; he wanted to stay on Abydos; all Jack had to do was come up with a likely story. The discussion had gone on for quite some time, but just before Shau’re came looking for them, they had figured things out. Jack remembers, almost too clearly, that moment when he realized that Daniel really was staying, for good: how Shau’re had come in, so very quietly and shyly, and whispered something to Daniel, who had blushed. He pulled her down beside him and - with more guts and passion than Jack had originally thought the archaeologist was capable of - kissed her. Kawalsky and Ferretti had whooped and cheered him on good-naturedly, but all Jack could think of was the certainty that Sarah would not be waiting for him when he got back.
“Daniel,” he had said, just before the happy couple left - Daniel claimed that Shau’re’s father wanted to talk to him - and Daniel stopped in the doorway to look back at him. “Yes, Jack?” he replied.
“Hypothetical situation: a chance to get anything from Earth, anything at all, what would you ask for?”
Daniel had stood there for a moment, taking the question with the same depth of thought and consideration he had applied to everything - except for when General West had asked whether or not he could find them a way home again if they went through the Stargate. Jack figures that had been the first impulsive thing Daniel Jackson had done since high school, if ever, and that’s how he’s able to forgive Daniel for it, looking back. After a moment, Daniel had looked back at him, hugging Shau’re to his side, and said with a perfect poker face, “A box of Kleenex might be nice.”
He was never sure if Daniel was serious about it, and certainly Kawalsky and Ferretti hadn’t believed it, but thinking back on it, Jack’s almost convinced it was an honest answer. At that moment, Daniel Jackson finally had everything he had ever wanted: his theories proven correct, a chance to immerse himself in a culture that was as close as he would ever get to ancient Egypt, a people that respected him, and a wife who loved him. What can a man ask for after getting all that? Truth to be told, he was jealous of Daniel.
In that moment, Jack O’Neill stopped wanting to die.
Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams, but he’s not immune to deja vu. That’s what he feels that evening when Samuels, executive officer to a general by the name of Hammond, comes to his house. It’s a little eerie and for a moment, he has to think quite hard to figure out why he’s feeling deja vu. Then he remembers the day, just over a year ago, when General West had demanded his reactivation and he found out about the Stargate. That is what this feels like, except the part where he’s not suicidal anymore. He’s still surprised when Samuels says that Hammond wants to talk to him about the Stargate, but less than he should have been, thanks to the deja vu.
During the drive to Cheyenne Mountain, he comes up with different scenarios, trying to figure out why Hammond wants to talk to him. It can’t be about Abydos, he tells himself automatically, so it’s not about Daniel Jackson. He’s certain that he’ll go to his grave with the secret. A hundred years from now when the Stargate’s reassembled and someone tries to go to Abydos again, they’ll be surprised by a couple of kids with blond hair and blue eyes who speak a few words of English that they learned from their grandfather. Jack smiles at the thought and reflects on how bad it is that he’ll never get married again and have another kid, ‘cause wouldn’t it be cool if that person going through the Stargate in a century or so was an O’Neill? He likes it when things come full circle.
He endures the rest of the drive with a frown, still trying to come up with ideas why this Hammond character wants to talk to him about the Stargate. The base is like he remembers it; only the people have changed.
It’s not until he sees the staff weapon that he really gets nervous - but strangely enough, it’s a good kind of nervous, like a job interview that you were certain was going to be awful turned out just fine. Hammond’s story about glowing eyes is the cream cheese filling of the cake, and when he sees Kawalsky and Ferretti, well, it’s turned into a triple-layer chocolate-chocolate with ‘Happy Birthday’ scrawled across the top and frosting flowers over everything. He should have known that the truth would come out eventually, but part of him is glad it did. Hammond telling him to consider himself recalled to active duty is a kind of bliss he hasn’t known in almost two years.
Jack O’Neill has a mission.
Daniel and Shau’re look just as they had in his dream, but he does not realize this until much later. He does not warn anyone about an attack on Abydos; he does not remember his dream. Captain Carter’s mind-boggling conversation with Daniel in the address room has a hint of deja vu to it, but he figures it just reminds him of that horrid briefing Daniel had tried to give when he had figured out the symbols on the Stargate. Looking back on things, now that he and Daniel are back on Earth, and Daniel is claiming to get drunk on just one beer and rambling on about yafetta flour, Jack should have known that something horrible was going to happen the moment he was called back to Cheyenne Mountain, the moment Hammond told him about glowing eyes. He’s not sure how he should have known, but nonetheless, he should have. Those dreams he’s had the last couple of months should have been enough to at least make him think about it.
But Jack O’Neill does not believe in prophetic dreams.
[end]