Title: A Brief History of the Bigger Fool
Rating: Safe
Genre: Gen, character study
Length: about 1450 words
Spoilers: Every episode Harry Maybourne has ever been in.
Credits: Thanks to my lovely betas for the help and encouragement.
Summary: Well, the title and spoilers hopefully say it all – a brief history of Harry Maybourne, with a focus on his interaction with Jack O'Neill.
A Brief History of the Bigger Fool
Over time, Harry Maybourne came to believe there were two kinds of people in the military: fools and bigger fools.
It hadn't started out that way. He had joined the military full of ideals about democracy and freedom. He thought he was helping to promote The American Way. What he found was bureaucracy and incompetence at best, and at worst, open corruption. (He was slow – it took him quite some time to realize that was The American Way.)
When the NID recruited him, it wasn't a tough decision. Still holding on to some of his youthful ideals, Harry thought he could do more good working the system from the inside. He could bypass the military machine that was bogged down under its own weight; he could get things done.
He did get things done, eventually – once he'd demonstrated that he had left his scruples at the door. When his superiors were sufficiently convinced of the lengths to which he was willing to go, they began to give him small covert operations. Harry proved to have a particular talent for secrecy. He rose in the NID's ranks. In just a few years time, he was given command of a section of his own and assigned one of the riskiest, and most profitable, operations in the organization's history.
His section conducted off-world activities right under the SGC's nose. In a matter of months, they procured more advanced alien technology for study than the SG teams had collected in almost three years. The methods weren't important; clearly, the ends justified the means. Before long, he thought, they would ensure Earth's safety, and save billions of tax-dollars in the process by making the SGC obsolete.
In a final coup de grâce, he recruited the SGC's golden boy, their resident hero, Jack O'Neill. As it turned out, the NID weren't the only ones who thought to work the system from the inside. That was where his real enlightenment began.
In a flash, Harry went from major player to political pawn. The last tattered remnants of his idealism disappeared when he realized the NID had left him in the cold – quite literally as it turned out. He found himself a wanted man, making deals with the Red Devil. He had never held any illusions that the NID would publicly admit to the operation, but an agency with the political power behind it that they had could certainly exert some pull on his behalf – get him settled on a nice, quiet island somewhere. But there was nothing in it for them, no bang for the buck, no reward for his loyalty and dedication. That was when Harry learned it really was every man for himself.
So, he began to look out for his own interests. The knowledge that had made him an asset to both the military and the NID made him a valuable commodity on the open market. The Russians didn't look like the enemy anymore – not once he found out they paid in American dollars.
Not that he ever got to spend them. For the second time, he'd been on track to have everything he wanted, and for the second time, it had all come to nothing. If he were a bit more poetic, Harry might have said the Stargate had been a fickle mistress; she seemed to love Jack O'Neill best. Even in Russia, she called out to him. Jack answered, and Harry found himself once more back in the U.S. of A. – this time, in a prison cell awaiting his execution for treason.
He wasn't surprised to find out that the NID had no plans of securing him a pardon. Not surprised, but bitter, and determined to find a way to become a thorn in their collective backside. The opportunity to do so presented itself in the form of a power struggle between the very people responsible for putting him away in the first place – Jack O'Neill, and a certain secret branch of the NID. He helped O'Neill stick it to Kinsey and the NID, and then he stuck it to O'Neill. He found his own nice, quiet little island. If only he could have been content.
Unfortunately, Harry had developed quite a taste for intrigue. He enjoyed playing cat-and-mouse when the other side mistakenly believed itself the cat. Especially if that cat was O'Neill.
On the surface, they were a great deal alike. They were both jaded and cynical. Neither had any compunction about throwing the rulebook out of the window to accomplish their goals. Often, their goals were the same; yet, the motivations that led to the formation of those goals were entirely different. Harry was looking for the advantage. Jack had seen all the same wrongs Harry had seen and then some, yet he hadn't learned the every man for himself creed. Harry couldn't fathom it. It nagged at him, it kept him coming back. What was it that had Jack still sticking his neck out for his people?
Maybe the situation with Hammond had been self-interest – Jack knew what would have happened to his career at the SGC with an NID pawn in Hammond's position. But Carter's kidnapping? Or when Teal'c was trapped in the Stargate? There was no question what moved Harry Maybourne to get involved – money, excitement, another chance to learn what made O'Neill tick, another chance to moon the NID. But Jack moved heaven and earth to rescue his teammates with nothing to gain. It was sentiment, pure and simple. Harry was almost disappointed; O'Neill was just another fool.
After all the work Harry had put in just to gain that knowledge, it would've seemed a shame not to put it to use. Harry was going to get his own little paradise after all; he was finally ready to put it all behind him. And if he managed to stick it to the SGC one last time and teach O'Neill a lesson, all the better. But as usual when he tried to work against O'Neill rather than with him, things didn't go quite according to plan. He wound up stranded, starving, and stark-raving mad, and that was before Jack shot him.
That should've been it, the sad conclusion of the story. Harry Maybourne dies in a fool's paradise. The End.
But along the way, Harry had somehow become one of those people Jack got sentimental over – a fact that seemed to have shocked Jack just as much as Harry. In an instant, everything shifted. Everything he'd ever fought for or against was left behind, and Maybourne was dropped off on a backwater planet where he'd be out of the SGC's way and out of the NID's reach. It was a mixed blessing at best.
Whether out of instinct, habit, or boredom, he couldn't have said, but right away Harry began the business of working his way to the top. He got lucky when he found the Ancient writings, in that it gave him control more quickly, but among such simple people, there was no doubt he would've gotten it eventually anyway. Harry was a lion among the lambs on this planet; they didn't stand a chance against him.
Before long, Harry was a hero to them. They loved him. They wanted to do things for him. It was nice for a change and he took full advantage of it. Experience told him that it wouldn't last for long – nothing this good ever did – and he'd be ready to cut his losses and make for the gate when everything came crumbling down. When the real world came knocking, Harry would demonstrate the every man for himself philosophy in action.
That was, until the threat became real. When Harry translated the 'prophecy' and realized the enemy was coming, he stopped to look around him. These people were innocent, harmless, so easily led. Harry had seen what the galaxy had to offer, and knew it would chew them up and spit them out. They put their trust and faith in him. Could he leave these sheep to the slaughter?
That was when he realized he was no longer a lion among the lambs – he'd somehow become a shepherd. For good or ill, he was their leader and they had become his people. The kind of people he'd stick his neck out for, the kind he'd move heaven and earth for with nothing to gain. He couldn't – he wouldn't – leave a single one behind.
If that made him a sentimental old fool, Harry could live with that. He could only hope that when the gate opened, another sentimental old fool would be the one walking through from the other side.