Well... I need to publish something new like I need another hole in my head! But the idea's been sitting in my computer for a while and I might as well post it. I intend for this to be a series of short, self-contained stories. I've already published one in the series, "Christmas Hockey" and I may take that down and make it part of this group.

The usual disclaimers - which I mostly forget to put in anyway! They aren't mine. I make no money. I don't own nothin'. Original characters are mine, but probably I give them up when I put them in one of these stories.

I have a vague recollection that the first Abydos mission took place in early Fall, so I'm starting Jack's retirement year with October.

I hope you enjoy it!

OCTOBER SILENCE

The house was too quiet, so he kept the TV on nearly 24/7. Sometimes he sat down and watched a game or something, but mostly he kept it on the cartoon channel or kid's shows, turned down low, but just enough to be background noise. He liked to hear the characters voices and music from Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow, because Charlie had loved those shows. Of course, sometimes the sounds made him sad, especially when there were children's voices. When that happened, he would switch to the adult cartoons or the comedy channel for a while.

It was sheer inertia that had made Jack O'Neill stay in Colorado Springs after the mission to Abydos. He simply didn't feel like moving, and he had no place to go. And no one to go home to. Sara had filed for divorce, and was keeping the house in Denver. He regretted the divorce, but raised no objections. She needed to do what was best for her. When he received the papers, he signed them just as she asked.

He even bought a house. It was located in one of the outlying neighborhoods, in the foothills north of Cheyenne Mountain. There was a large yard, and he was separated from his neighbors by rows of trees and hedges. This suited him just fine. It wasn't a new house. In fact it needed a lot of work. That was also fine with him. It gave him something to do.

He spent his days working on the house. He knocked out a couple of walls and made the living room and kitchen one large open space, installing new kitchen cabinets and upgraded appliances. In the living room he refaced the fireplace with stone, and hired a mason to build a new chimney. He expanded the master bedroom by eliminating a small office, and adding that area to the room, then installing sliding glass doors which opened out onto the back deck. He also added an en suite bathroom adjoining the master bedroom. Upstairs there were three small bedrooms, and again he took out walls and created one fairly large guest room (for what guests he had no idea, since he didn't know anyone in Colorado Springs), and a small 'study' which opened out onto the house's best feature—the roof deck.

The roof deck was the whole reason he had chosen this house, and on clear nights he was always up there with the telescope he'd bought and set up. The Colorado night sky was spectacular by any standards, and he stared endlessly at the stars, searching for some clue as to where Abydos might be located. His astronomy degree from college and supplemental physics classes from the Academy were a help—he'd been able to follow a lot of what the scientists working on the Stargate had been saying. The idea of a wormhole was not entirely incomprehensible to him. He'd seen the constellations when Daniel had figured out the symbols, and he understood Daniel's explanation for determining the Stargate destinations. Some of those constellations were visible in the sky above him (others were too far to make out), and so he had made an educated guess as to which part of the sky he needed to search.

After a few weeks he realized that the telescope he had was not adequate to the task he'd set for himself, and so he spent several thousand dollars on a top-of-the-line instrument which was a huge improvement on his old one. The expanded view this gave him was magnificent, and he was still in the process of sorting out everything that he could see. He felt that gradually he was narrowing down the area where the Abydos star was located. It would still take him many months to reach his goal—perhaps even years—but he had nothing better to do with his time. He'd set this as a science project for himself, refusing to acknowledge the true reason for his interest—that Daniel and Skaara and the other Abydonian kids were there, and he needed to feel close to them.

He didn't sleep much. He often had trouble falling asleep, and lying there awake with only his thoughts was not something he looked forward to. Plus sleeping always carried the risk of nightmares, from which he would wake terrified and disoriented. Sometimes after a few beers he would doze off, but it never turned into a restful sleep. He'd always wake after only two or three hours, with a dry throat, an achy head, and probably a crick in his neck or back because he fell asleep on the sofa.

For exercise he would go for a run very early in the morning or in the middle of the day, picking those hours to try to avoid meeting any of his neighbors by accident; he took a route up into the foothills, along an unpaved road that ended at a small lake. Usually he circled the lake and headed back down. The track reminded him of the area around the cabin in Minnesota, where he had spent many summers as a boy. The entire route was about six miles, and he considered it a decent workout, if hardly up to Air Force standards. It kept him in shape, along with the rowing machine and weights that he had in the upstairs study. When the weather turned snowy and cold—way too early in October this year—he added a treadmill to his equipment. Soon he found he was leaving the house less and less frequently.

Late one afternoon after his hour on the treadmill, he was in the kitchen getting a snack before heading for a shower. He'd left the TV on while he was exercising, and a voice caught his attention. Pausing, he watched a scene from a cartoon play out on the screen, and found himself laughing out loud. It had been a long time since anything had truly made him laugh. Forgetting about the shower, he settled himself on the couch to watch the rest of the show. After that he watched 'The Simpsons' often.

The days grew shorter and shorter, and Jack became more and more reclusive. He had his groceries, beer and liquor delivered, and found a retail site online with overnight delivery where he could order just about anything else he needed. By late October, he was just about finished with the improvements on his house, so there was no need to seek out any further materials. He hadn't spoken to anyone face-to-face in weeks.

On Halloween night he left his porch light on, and set out a huge bowl of candy for Trick-or-Treaters, instead of answering the door. He watched from a window to make sure there were enough treats. In the past he would have dressed up and gone to the door, sporting a clown mask or a pirate hat. It had always been great fun to see the kids in their costumes, and talk and joke with them. Now he simply glanced out now and then, and spent the evening sitting in the dark, as the memory of Charlie in last Halloween's Batman costume reduced him to silent tears.

~X~X~X~X~