A Hero's Death
By
Denise
Jack knocked on Hammond's office door, scrubbing his hand over his face. He felt old…incredibly old.
"Come."
Jack entered the office, giving the man in the chair an appraising look. He felt a pang of sympathy. If he felt old, George looked ancient. Every time they lost someone, it hit the man like he lost a member of his family, which in a way, they had. "My report, sir." Jack handed the folder to Hammond.
"Thank you, Colonel." Hammond accepted it and set it aside.
Jack's eyes scanned the desk, settling on two small items sitting to the side. "I see Carter's already been here," he said, nodding at the Tok'ra crystal and the dog tag, still stained with Mansfield's blood.
"Yes, Colonel. I sent her home, which is where you should be," he said tiredly.
"I will be." Jack took a seat, reading the hand written note in front of the general. 'I regret to inform you,' the paper said at the top. It was a form letter, a sample given by the Air Force to guide officers in writing those letters you don't want to write. The ones that you know will break someone's heart. Jack had written a few of them in his career, a few too many. "That the…"
"Notification? Yes, Colonel," George interrupted tiredly. "You know, you'd think they'd get easier the more you do them."
"Is it still a training exercise?" Jack asked, trying to recall the lies the government cooked up to tell the families in lieu of the classified truth.
Hammond nodded. "Yes."
Jack shoved his hand into his pocket, his fingers caressing the two little pieces of metal residing there. "Does Elliot's family know yet?"
Hammond shook his head. "No. It's 2300 Colonel and they live in Denver. A clergyman will be dispatched in the morning."
"I'd like to do it sir," Jack offered, surprising himself.
"Colonel…Jack? Why?" George asked.
"I…" Jack drew out the dog tags. "Elliot gave these to me. He said his mother wanted them. I should…give them to her."
Hammond held out his hand. "I can send these with the chaplain," he offered.
Jack shook his head. "No, sir. I…I want to."
Hammond sighed. "Very well. I'll have the letter ready by 0800," he said.
"Thank you, sir." Jack got to his feet.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Jack parked the staff car, taking a minute to study the street. Elliot's parents lived in a nice quiet suburb of Denver with wide, tree-lined streets and manicured lawns. Down the block, a handful of children played soccer in the street while a couple of others skated up and down the block.
Getting out of the car, he could hear the distant whine of lawn mowers and weed eaters and smell the sweet odor of freshly cut grass. It was a perfectly picturesque, almost Norman Rockwell-ish neighborhood. One any kid would be happy to grow up in. A perfectly peaceful scene that he was about to shatter by telling them that one of their own was gone.
Sighing, he put on his hat, his face schooled to an emotionless mask and walked purposefully up to the neatly painted front door. The lawn was freshly mown and nicely landscaped. He rang the doorbell and stood there, a tiny part of him hoping that they weren't home.
"Can I help you?" He turned to see a woman coming around from the side of the house, wiping her dirty hands on her jeans. He guessed she'd been gardening.
"Hello, ma'am. I'm looking for Dorothy Elliot," Jack said, recalling the name in the file. William Elliot, only son of Dorothy and Edward Elliot, the latter deceased.
"I'm Dorothy. Are you one of Billy's friends? He's not here right now. He's off with the Air Force, some special training," she said, taking off her soiled gloves and shading her eyes against the sun.
"Yes, ma'am. I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill. Can we go inside?" Jack asked, cursing himself for wanting to do this alone. He should have brought the pastor like Hammond suggested. He wasn't any good with this stuff.
"Something's wrong isn't it?" Her smile faded to be replaced by fear. "Something's happened to Billy?"
"Mrs. Elliot, maybe we better…"
"Tell me," she ordered, steel in her voice.
"Ma'am…"
"Oh, God…" She sank to her knees in the grass. "You wouldn't be pussy footing around if he was just hurt."
Jack held out what he hoped was a comforting hand. "Mrs. Elliot, let me take you…"
She looked up to him, her eyes brimming with tears. "What happened?"
"Colonel."
Hearing the weak whisper Jack stopped what he was doing and hurried over to the man's side. "Carter's not back with the water yet," he said, taking in the man's pallid complexion, his gasping breaths.
"No. I…"
"Elliot, rest," Jack urged although he knew it was just prolonging the inevitable. He'd witnessed enough death in his life to recognize when it was coming. "We'll have you back to Fraiser in no time."
"No."
"Lieutenant, are you going to make me order you?"
"Colonel, please." Elliot's eyes flared briefly, startling Jack. "We are dying," Lantash said softly. "I can not repair the damage and neither Elliot nor I have the strength to make it too much longer."
"You'd be surprised what soldiers can do if they set their minds to it," Jack said, avoiding the subject. He had an idea what was coming and he so did not want to go there.
"True," Lantash agreed. "However, there are times when the body subverts the will. Elliot is bleeding internally and I can not stop it."
"What about you?" Jack asked, silently agreeing with the creature. Hell, he was surprised they had made it this far given how badly Elliot was injured. Maybe, if they were headed straight to the gate then the pair might stand a chance. But he knew that there was no way they'd hang on for fifty miles of traveling, even being carried. And that was the best case scenario.
"I wish to ask a favor," Lantash said.
"What?"
"Do not endanger Sa…the others for us," he requested.
"Hey, we Tau'ri have a rule. No one gets left behind," Jack chastised with a forced smile.
"Do not waste your life, their lives, for a corpse. Leave us."
"I can't do that," Jack argued.
"If you leave us here, you will reach the transmitter faster," he reasoned.
"If I leave you here, the snakes will drag you off to a sarcophagus so you can be nice and healthy when they torture you."
"Then kill me now," they requested.
"The Tok'ra may be a pain in the ass, but I'm not going to kill one," Jack quipped. "Although I've thought about hurting Anise a bit," Jack said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. He would never be a founder of the Tok'ra fan club but he did have respect for the group. It took a lot of strength to fight a losing battle for millennia.
Lantash smiled faintly. "You are not the only one to hold her in such regard. You should try to understand. Freya had a truly horrific life before joining the Tok'ra. They both take refuge in Anise's science. I believe the Tau'ri term is, cut her some slack."
"I'll bear that in mind if we ever cross paths again," Jack said.
"You will, Colonel. If Anise has anything to say about it." He reached up and painstakingly pulled his dog tags over his head.
"Elliot," Jack warned.
"It's ok, sir. My aah…my mom will want these." He held them out to Jack imploringly.
With a heavy sigh, the colonel accepted them, slipping the bits of metal into his pocket. "I'm not leaving you here to die."
Elliot closed his eyes. "That's what Lantash said you'd say."
"Lantash said that? The snake barely knows me."
"He knows you better than you think, sir. He knows you feel guilty about shooting Martouf, that you shot to wound not to kill, that you blame yourself for Major Carter having to fire the lethal shot. He knows she doesn't want to accept him dying again and even if she doesn't share his feelings, she won't want to leave us." Elliot opened his eyes and met Jack's gaze. "Sir, he'd rather die than see her come to harm. I know you may not want to believe this, but I willingly took Lantash in the tunnel. We were both hurt and I couldn't just watch him die. The same way I can't let you die because of me. It's bad enough I'm gonna be taken out by some rock. Promise me, sir." Elliot reached out a hand and took Jack's in a grip that belied his tenuous hold on life. "Promise me that if you have to leave me behind to save the others, you will. If my death saves even one life, then it will have meaning."
Jack looked Elliot in the eyes and squeezed his hand. "On one condition. You don't give up. You hang on until I tell you otherwise. Or I'll bust your ass back to airman."
With a resigned smile and slight nod, Elliot closed his eyes again. Jack stared at him a moment longer then returned to building the stretcher, casting concerned glances every few minutes. This day sucked in so many ways.
"It was a training accident Mrs. Elliot. Elliot…William was involved in a live fire exercise and there was a mishap. He was fatally injured by a grenade," Jack repeated the lie kneeling at her side.
"A mishap. That's what you call a mishap? Someone dies and it's a mishap? What do you call it when you really mess up?"
"Mrs. Elliot…"
"Did he suffer?"
Jack peered cautiously over the edge of the fallen log. He could hear the Jaffa a few dozen yards away, the clank of their armor, the guttural tone of their voices. He glanced around, wanting to see, and hoping he couldn't see where the rest of his team were hiding. Sitting beside him, Daniel had his eyes closed, trying to hear what the soldiers were saying. He knew Teal'c had gone off with Jacob and Carter in the other direction.
Pulling out his telescope he could barely make out Elliot, lying propped against the tree trunk where he'd left him. The Jaffa came closer, the pounding of their boots resounding through the quiet of the forest. He watched as the aliens discovered the lieutenant, calling out their triumph. He heard the whine of a staff weapon being primed and Elliot's raised voice, this time speaking in goa'uld. For a moment Jack regretted not learning the language beyond 'kree'.
"Tok'ra traitor…I have what you seek…you lie…I know the formula to the poison, take me to your lord and I will give it to him in exchange for my life…tell me the formula…I will tell only your lord…tell me and I will take you to him…. Take me now or the secret dies with me," Daniel whispered, translating. "They've agreed," he said with a heavy sigh, still staring in the other direction.
Jack watched the Jaffa pull Elliot to his feet and carry him between them. He ducked back down and concealed himself under the log as they passed.
"No, ma'am. He didn't suffer. In fact, it was over in an instant," Jack told the woman. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the dog tags. "He once told me to give these to you," he said, holding them out to her.
They glinted in the morning sun. He'd sat up and washed the tags last night, polishing them carefully to remove every trace of blood or sweat from their surface.
She took them in trembling hands. She reached under her shirt and pulled out another set holding them up. "I've worn Edward's since he died. I always told Billy that I felt closer to his dad, that holding them was like holding him." She wrapped her hands around both sets, clutching them to her chest.
They waited twenty-four hours before approaching the gate, just to make sure the poison had dissipated. And even then Jacob wasn't totally sure if it'd be safe. The Tok'ra hadn't considered releasing the poison into an uncontrolled environment, much less re-entering the contaminated area. They'd spent the night concealed in the forest, crouching among the fallen trees and bushes. It'd probably been the worst on Daniel, his slave boy attire not quite up to the rigors of a night of sleeping under the stars. They hadn't been able to risk a fire so had taken turns sitting together, sharing what body warmth they could. No one had really slept; each lost in their own thoughts. Jacob dozed as Selmac fixed his injuries from the crash. Carter had been oddly quiet. Jack knew Lantash's second death was hitting her hard. She'd barely come to terms with shooting Martouf when they'd gotten word about Anise's and Ren'al's experiments, that Martouf and Lantash weren't in fact dead. That both of them were in stasis.
Over the last several months he'd watched her ram her head against the Tok'ra wall of resistance, fighting to gain access to their research on za'tarcs. She'd pursued it with a single-minded devotion that he honestly thought was a little scary. Daniel had told him she'd been the same way when she'd been working on the particle accelerator.
He knew she and Lantash had spoken and he hoped she'd draw some peace from it. Maybe it would be like lancing a boil, allowing the poison to drain so the wound could heal. At least that's what he hoped.
It was in the early dawn hours that they approached the clearing where the gate was, hoping to use the element of surprise and cover of darkness to aid their escape. The clearing was deserted; not even bodies marred the ground. A fact that concerned Jack.
"If he released the poison here it is possible that the goa'uld retrieved the bodies to study them," Selmac said.
"And risk contaminating his ship?" Daniel asked.
"If this Anubis was determined enough to attack the planet to gain access to the poison, then a few jaffa on a ship would be a small price to pay," Selmac said.
"If Elliot released it here, how do we know when it's safe for you and Teal'c?" Sam asked.
"I will go," Teal'c volunteered.
"Teal'c?"
"If there is any poison left then it will be greatly dispersed. I will have a greater tolerance to it than Selmac," he said, getting to his feet purposefully.
It had apparently dissipated and they returned to earth without incident. After a short conversation with General Hammond and a few moments alone with Sam, Jacob left via the Stargate. He was going to try to catch up with any survivors and failing that, make contact with any operatives that hadn't been on Revanna during the attack. At the moment, he was the only Tok'ra that knew of Anubis' return from the dead.
"I know this is cold comfort, Mrs. Elliot," Jack said softly, watching the woman hug the dog tags to her chest. "Your son saved my life. And the lives of six others. He did it selflessly and courageously. He died a hero's death," Jack said, swallowing hard.
She turned a tear stained face to him. "Why couldn't he have lived a hero's life?"
Jack left half an hour later after helping Dorothy Elliot call her sister to come over and giving her the information on claiming the body. The body of a cadaver that would be sealed into the coffin, the body of a stranger that would be buried with her son's name, receiving the honors her son earned with his own blood.
He hated this part although he knew it was necessary. Hopefully, the woman would draw more comfort from the lie than the truth of knowing the body of her son was irretrievably lost somewhere among the stars.
He drove back to Colorado Springs and made his way back into the SGC. After changing his clothes and informing Hammond of the events of the day, he sought out Sam, not surprised to find the major in her lab.
"Carter? It's 1900, you should be home by now," he said, striding into the room.
"Colonel. Hi, sir. You just get back?" She asked.
"What?"
"Denver. The general said you were talking to Elliot's mother," she prodded.
"Yeah. Whatcha doing?" He changed the subject.
She looked down at the small crystal then up to him with an appraising look on her face. "What do you think the chances are of us going back to Revanna?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"Ren'al put the formula for the poison onto this crystal but we have no way of reading it here. It'd be like sticking a CD into an 8-track. I'm afraid if that if I experiment with it I'll ruin the data that's on it. But, if I can take a look at the Tok'ra computers or better yet, bring one back here, then maybe I can get the formula," she said.
"Or we could ask dad to burn us a copy when they settle down," Jack suggested.
"We could," Sam said hesitatingly. "But then they'd know we have it."
"They don't know?" Jack raised his eyebrows.
Sam shrugged. "Ren'al and …everyone else in the lab are dead. And…it never came up. I just …forgot I had it," she admitted her face telling him that her forgetfulness was deliberate.
"I'll talk to Hammond. He might go for it. Come on," he said, reaching out to take the crystal from her hand.
"Sir?"
"It'll still be there in the morning. What do you say we round up Daniel and Teal'c and go get something to eat?"
"I should really…"
"Come on, Carter. Don't tell me you're not dying to hear all about Daniel's adventures with Yu?"
"Me?"
"A little joke," he reminded at her blank look.
"I wonder if he's burned that outfit yet?" She asked, smiling a bit.
"God, I hope not or Fraiser will kill him. You shoulda seen the look on her face when he walked into the infirmary." Jack waggled his eyebrows suggestively causing Sam to laugh. "I over heard some of the nurses drooling over his biceps. It was pitiful."
Jack led his second out of her lab and towards the surface, Sam taking a moment to change her clothes while Jack grabbed Teal'c and Daniel. The four of them agreed upon a destination and piled into their respective cars. Opening his truck door, Jack paused and looked up at the night sky. A night sky that he wouldn't be seeing right now if it wasn't for a wet-behind-the-ears- kid with a two thousand year old snake in his head. "Ya done good, Elliot," he muttered. "Ya done good."
Fin