Sometimes Remember
Season 3: After Pretense (spoilers!)
Disclaimer: If only they were mine...
Author's note: I've always thought that this episode gets too little attention, so here is me trying to do something about it. Besides, it gives me a chance to touch on Jack and Charlie, and Skaara. Anyways, please review! I want to know what you think! Criticism is welcome but flames will be used to toast marshmallows.
"I'm the opposite. I'll never forgive myself. But sometimes I can forget... Sometimes."
-Children of the Gods-
Something changed for Jack O'Neill after they returned Skaara home to Abydos. The change was nothing very noticeable. It was just that...
Once, he found himself digging his baseball glove out of his garage and playing catch with the kid who lived across the street.
Another time he flipped through television channels on a Saturday morning only to stop on the cartoons.
He actually accepted one of General Hammond's invitations to go see his granddaughter's school play.
While on some miscellaneous planet he openly told Daniel that one of the children there reminded him of Charlie; and he didn't flinch when he spoke his son's name aloud.
He bought candy for Halloween even though he ended up being off-world when it came time to hand it out.
An old Father's Day note, folded and re-folded into a small rectangle a million times, was unfolded, read, and folded again by his hands to make it a million and one.
He hung a handmade paper snowman, colored by small, clumsy hands, on the Christmas tree SG-1 set up at Sam's house.
A new picture appeared on the door of his locker, finally brought out into the open after years of gathering dust in a Van Dyck cigar box...
He would still never forgive himself for Charlie. He knew he could save every other child in the universe and not forgive himself for that. But sometimes, in between forgetting, he could remember without turning ice-cold inside. Sometimes, knowing that the black-haired, bright-eyed boy who saluted him just like his son had was safe, he could remember and smile...Sometimes.