No Unwounded Soldiers
Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 does not belong to me.
Summary: If only sins and blood and burdens could be so easily wiped clean.
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HOSPITAL BOMBED, HUNDREDS DEAD
The stark bold headline was not unusual as of late. So Daniel couldn't even muster a sigh in the face of it. He just placed the paper into its rack next to all the others and ignored their equally depressing proclamations.
He turned to the counter behind him and took his chair at the cash register. As he sipped his coffee he scanned the local paper perfunctorily. His eyes skipped over the jaunty headline that touted Victory! There was little worth reading; he turned a page, sipped, turned a page, sipped. When he drained his mug he'd finished with the back page and stood.
The mug went into the sink in the backroom, the paper into the recycle bin, and he headed for the stockroom. There were only a half-dozen new arrivals today that he scanned into the computer and shelved automatically.
When the bell above his door jingled he called out, "Morning, Carl." He shelved the last book between two thick, dusty volumes – I need to clean – and realized Carl hadn't answered.
Daniel stepped around the shelf and hesitated. The man in the doorway was not Carl. "Can I help you?" He forced a note of congeniality into his voice as he studied his customer. He slipped behind the counter, appreciating the barrier between them, and waited.
"Nice store."
"Thank you," Daniel said. He watched his patron finger one of the myriad of foreign papers before he picked one up. "I don't allow browsing of my newspapers."
He dropped it as if burned and turned. "Daniel—"
"What are you doing here, Jack?"
Jack's gaze skittered away and studied the rows of tomes that lined the shelves. He shifted his weight and leaned against the counter. The pose looked unnatural in his dress blues, the shiny silver star on each epaulet further incongruous. The silence dragged and grew heavy until Jack finally shrugged. "Can't I look up an old friend?"
Daniel snorted and shook his head. He moved back between the shelves and reclaimed his book cart. "I have work to do. You should go back to Washington," he said. He pushed the cart towards the storeroom. He felt Jack's presence behind him.
"I flew all the way out here to talk to you!"
Daniel spun on his heel and almost brushed Jack's chest. Daniel stepped back abruptly. "Well maybe you should have called first. Ever think of that?"
"Would you have answered?"
"No." Daniel bit it off and turned back to his cart.
"Daniel." Jack grabbed his arm and pulled.
He swung around again and glared. "Why today, Jack?" The scar on his friend's temple and hitch in his gait didn't stem Daniel's anger.
"What?"
"You had two years but you showed up today." He pointed at the floor to emphasize his point. "Could it have anything to do with a certain headline?"
Jack's jaw firmed and his eyes narrowed. But Daniel knew he was right. "So what if it does?"
Daniel scoffed and shoved his cart into the storeroom. He slammed the door, stalked past Jack to the front, and flipped the Open sign to Closed. "Just because the war's supposedly 'over' doesn't change anything."
"Yes it does."
He walked by Jack again, headed for the stairs at the back of the bookstore that led to his apartment. "No," he said, "it doesn't." He got to the fourth step before Jack's voice stopped him.
"They're reopening the SGC."
Daniel sighed and dropped his head. It doesn't change anything. "You mean they're turning it back into what it was before the war."
Jack's footsteps clicked on the hardwood floor as he advanced. "I didn't come here to fight," he said.
"Fine," Daniel said. He waved a hand in invitation and continued up the stairs.
--
Jack sat on the couch, rigid and uncomfortable, while Daniel steeped tea in the kitchen. The tick of a clock and clinks of china sounded like gunshots. Jack flinched at that analogy and turned his eyes on the apartment.
He recognized almost everything from Daniel's old place, artefacts and knick-knacks and delicate old books with crisp browned pages. It even smelled as he remembered, a bit musty like a library but spicy from potpourri scattered in small ceramic jars painted with colourful designs.
The clink of the tray startled Jack from his thoughts. He pulled his attention to Daniel who sat across the coffee table and poured tea into two cups. Daniel spooned in a dollop of honey, stirred, and leaned back with his cup at his lips, his eyes shuttered and simmering over the rim of his glasses.
The clock ticked.
Jack claimed his cup and copied Daniel's movements out of a lack of anything better to occupy his hands. The tea scalded the roof of his mouth but he took two more sips because everything he'd planned on saying had fled his mind the moment he'd stepped through the door. Maybe the moment he'd laid eyes on the storefront, the sign that declared the building Jackson's Rare Books indicating he'd found the right place.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
"You moved," Jack finally said.
Daniel nodded slowly. "I couldn't afford the lease on the store and the rent at my apartment."
Tock. Tick. Tock.
"You do good business?"
"Enough," Daniel said.
Tick. Tock. Tick.
Jack sighed softly and leaned forward. He put his cup on the tray and clasped his hands between his knees. "Listen, Daniel…" He paused to find the words.
"So they're offering you General Hammond's old job?" Daniel pounced on the lull and wrested the conversation away from the topic they both knew to be inevitable.
Jack brought his hands to his lips then put his chin against his knuckles. He nodded. "I'm told I'm on the shortlist," he said.
Daniel refilled his cup and spoke with his eyes averted; maybe it was easier. "And the promotion. Am I supposed to say congratulations?" He glanced up fleetingly then stared back into his tea.
Jack dropped a hand and rubbed his leg absently. He remembered hospitals and explosions and the fine, sweet mist of vaporized blood that hung in the air and took days to fade from skin and clothes and senses. Jack both nodded and shrugged, still as unsure how he felt about it as Daniel. "Better than the alternative," he said.
Daniel nodded and idly turned the cup on its saucer. "I suppose."
Jack narrowed his eyes. "Why do you say it like that?"
Daniel's head snapped up. "Like what?"
"With that tone."
"I didn't have a tone."
"Yes, you did."
"No," Daniel slammed his cup onto the table, "I didn't." He stood and turned sharply then leaned heavily on the windowsill. "Do you really want to do this right now?"
"Yeah," Jack said, "I think I do." He stood and moved around the coffee table.
"Fine," Daniel muttered. He drew in a deep breath and turned. All the anger he'd kept restrained flashed in his eyes. "What the hell's your problem?"
"My problem? That's rich, Daniel. I came to try and fix this… whatever it is… but you—"
"How the hell do you expect to fix anything when you don't even know what's wrong!"
"Oh I don't know, I thought that maybe for once you'd tell me the truth."
Daniel flung a hand into the air. "About what?"
Jack gestured at the coffee table. "Why don't you just say that you think I should have taken the discharge over the promotion," he said.
"I never thought that."
"The hell you didn't!"
Daniel brushed past Jack with a scoff. "How would you know anything about what I thought? I didn't even know you'd been hurt until three months after the fact. It's not like you called me, Jack, it's not like I was consulted." He grabbed the tray and whirled. Tea sloshed out of the cups and teapot. "So don't you dare put words in my mouth."
"It's not exactly a leap, Daniel. You hated this war from the second it started, you hated that we were fighting it—"
"But I never hated the people fighting it."
"That's bullshit."
Daniel dropped the tray onto the counter. "No, it's not." His shoulders bunched and when he turned his eyes spat fire. "I'm sorry that I don't believe bombing the living shit out of people is going to get peace for anyone. I'm sorry that I don't see how it's terrorism when they do it but peacekeeping when we do it."
"It's not peacekeeping!" Jack slammed his fist on the counter. "It's putting the fear of God into them. It's showing them that they can't kill Americans, on American soil, in American embassies and just get away with it."
"Right, because killing civilians is really going to win a war!"
"Fear wins wars. And we did win."
They fell silent and stared across the chasm that divided them.
Daniel sighed and pulled his hand through his hair. "You didn't even hear me," he said quietly.
"What?" Jack nearly barked it out, his throat tight and dry.
Daniel pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "Civilians, Jack, how many civilians have died?"
"It's collateral damage. Regrettable, but necessary."
Daniel laughed, low and mirthless and bitter. "Do you realize how you sound when you say that?"
"That's war, Daniel. And we keep it as contained as we can," Jack said.
"Right." Daniel slipped by, back into the sitting room, and pulled a large album off a shelf. "That's the company line." He opened to a page towards the back and motioned Jack forward.
"It's not a line, it's the truth," Jack said. He stopped at the table and looked down at the article. He felt his heart speed up.
"This was about a year ago," Daniel said softly. He flipped the page, another article from a different paper. "When we started winning. I don't know what changed but they just started dying."
Jack swallowed. He knew. He'd put his newly minted stars, his voice in the war room, to good use six months prior. All to ensure that they brought to bear the full force of certain technology and resources he knew better than anyone else in the room.
"It's not the same, is it? As cold, distant numbers in a report."
"Don't preach to me, Daniel," Jack said through clenched teeth.
"I'm not. I'm showing you another perspective because you clearly haven't been exposed to them."
"And that's not preaching?"
"Do you know what was on the front page of our papers the same day as this?" Daniel pressed the page until his finger turned white. "Super Bowl coverage. Do you know when this showed up?"
Jack turned and dropped his head.
"Do you?" Daniel ducked and caught Jack's eyes. "No? Guess what – it never did."
Jack slammed the album closed, narrowly missing Daniel's hand. "This junk could get you into trouble," he said. He headed for the window.
"It's not junk. Twelve foreign papers all saying the same thing and you think the problem's with them?" He scoffed. "And it already did."
Jack turned. "What?"
Daniel met his gaze and squared his jaw. "I said it already did."
Jack's brow furrowed as he studied the other man. "Is that why you have a bug up your ass? Because someone took exception to your precious newspapers?"
Daniel took one sharp step forward. "Freedom of the press, of speech, of thought, of expression. I'm allowed to think and say and read whatever the hell I want and I'm allowed to share it with other people. And those are the rights people like you are ostensibly dying over there to protect so, yeah, Jack, I'm pissed that a bunch of goons practically raided my store!"
Jack met Daniel's advance until they were nose to nose. "And I'm pissed that a twenty-one year old kid blew up in front of me! They fucking blew him up, Daniel, and we couldn't even find the pieces. So if we had to lie to keep doing our jobs and keep more kids from dying because we knew bleeding hearts like you couldn't handle the truth, well I'll be damned if I apologize for that!"
"And you can't see that most of them never gave a flying fuck about us. But now we've killed their children and their siblings and their parents. A thousand families who never had a reason to hate us but we just gave them one. So the bodies and the blood and the vendettas just pile up and all it does is ensure that more people die young!"
They breathed out harshly and stared then turned from each other. Jack returned to the window. Daniel clutched the album to his chest.
The clock ticked.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
"I'm sorry you got hurt, Jack," Daniel said into the air.
Jack unclenched his hands from the sill and tore his eyes away from his car, his driver a slight silhouette through the window. He turned and looked at Daniel's back.
"I'm sorry you couldn't go back out there," Daniel continued. And he did sound sincerely sorry. "And I'm sorry people died." He turned and caught Jack's eyes. "But nothing you, or anyone says, will change my mind about the war. Because I'm just as sorry for all the other people who died, too."
Jack leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. He drew in a deep breath and felt the remains of his anger quell and quiet. "We can't fix this," he said. "Not today."
Daniel shrugged but he dropped his eyes and that spoke volumes. "I told you, it doesn't change anything."
"I thought…" Jack tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. "I thought now that it was over none of it would matter."
Daniel walked to his shelf and replaced the album. He moved like he felt weary and drained and Jack noticed it for the first time; it was how he felt, too. "I need you to know that it was never you, Jack. I was never mad at you or anyone else who fought for this country."
"I know." He pushed off the wall and moved to the couch to reclaim his jacket. Despite the détente between them he suspected he'd overstayed his welcome.
"I just hate what it did to us," Daniel said, eyes still on the bookshelf. "And the SGC."
Jack swallowed as he buttoned his jacket. He knew what the SGC had really been doing the past eighteen months, unlike Daniel. "Yeah," he said. He cleared his throat and moved to the door. "I'm… gonna go." He pointed to the door.
Daniel shook off his thoughts. "Okay," he said. He offered a weak smile and Jack was struck by the fact that it was the first one to pass either of their lips.
Jack twisted the doorknob but stopped and turned. "Oh," he said. "Do you have Carter's number?"
Daniel blinked. "What?"
"Carter," Jack said. "Her phone number. I haven't… talked to her, either."
"I don't have it. I haven't talked to her since that day."
"You're telling me you haven't seen or heard from her in two years? Daniel, she lives like eight blocks from here," Jack said. He heard a note of irritation in his voice.
Daniel's eyebrows drew together. "Lived. Her house went up for sale maybe a week after… everything happened."
"Oh."
"Did you… think she was still at the SGC?"
Jack shrugged. "Well, I figured they'd…" He trailed off and scuffed the floor. Someone who was in the know had to have been running operations at the mountain because Jack knew damn well the place hadn't been entirely shut down. He'd just figured someone like Carter made a lot of sense.
"Can't you just get her file?"
Jack looked to the side. "It's classified."
"Even from you?"
"Just because I have stars doesn't mean I suddenly get to know everything, Daniel."
Daniel raised a hand. "Okay…" He left it there.
Jack scowled at the dead end and nodded vaguely. "Right, well… goodbye."
"Bye," Daniel said. He moved to the door as Jack stepped into the hall.
Jack felt eyes on his back all the way down the hallway and stairs. He fought the urge to duck for cover.