AN: Really don't know where this came from. Kind of a break from my normal stuff. Not sure if it is in character, appropriate or what it's supposed to mean. It just is.
Set in early season one. SG-1 find themselves with one last enemy between them and freedom. No real background, plot or reason, just an idea that I had to wake up in the middle of the night to write down so that I could sleep again. Unbeta-ed and unedited. I suppose I will do it in a few days, when I get the time.
Summary: If taking a life meant killing a child then Jack O'Neill had always thought he would rather die. But now that he wasn't so sure. The Goa'uld had jumped into a nine year old boy and Jack was faced with a choice. Shoot the kid so that his team could live or let them all suffer at hands of a miniature demon…
UNMENTIONABLE
His eyes flashed with a menace well beyond his years and Jack O'Neill felt his spine turn to ice. Everything in him was screaming not to do it but everything else told him he must. 'He's not a kid anymore.' he tried to rationalise. "You're a Goa'uld monster." he told himself more than the boy. The Goa'uld smirked, using the innocent features of the child, changing his face into something pure evil. It made him falter, it was too much. Child abuse on Earth could never run to this level.
The very next moment the kid, the real kid was screeching, using localised dialectic tones. "Pleeze, pleeze don't kill me! Pleeze zir, pleeze I'm zorry."
He sounded almost Russian.
Jack lowered his gun as the kid cowered, he knew he shouldn't but he couldn't stop himself. The boy had dirty-fair hair and brown eyes, he could so easily be his son, he could be Charlie.
"O'Neill!"
The deep dulcet tones of the Jaffa's warning caused him to sharply raise his head, he hadn't realised he had dropped it. Something was coming straight at him, he didn't know what it was, it was too close…
oOo
Teal'c let the zat gun do its job, he pulled the trigger and watched the familiar response. The threat and his comrade both fell, thankfully in opposite directions. For less than a fraction he hesitated before bolting towards the Goa'uld that used to be a child. Resolutely he stood over the youth waiting for him to stir. It took all he had to turn off his emotions as he trained his weapon on the boy knowing the next time he fired would be the last for the innocent who once was. Even amongst the Goa'uld the taking of a child for a host was distasteful. Mostly because a child's body was not strong enough to facilitate the needs of an aspiring System Lord but even setting that aside children were better groomed first, thereby creating a seamless host when blending time came.
The boy-host stirred, groaning and calling for his mother. Teal'c, once First Prime to Apophis felt his heart waver, even for he, this was to be a difficult task…
oOo
"Don't" Daniel Jackson couldn't help it. He launched himself at the largest of his team-mates. "Don't do it Teal'c." He couldn't stand back and watch a child be killed. No matter what the circumstances it was wrong. "We can save him."
"We cannot."
"Please Teal'c." He took hold of a strong muscular arm. "Let's just take him back with us or something. Don't shoot him, he's just a boy."
Daniel felt the tears stinging the back of his eyes as Teal'c turned his determined eyes back to the seemingly frail threat on the ground…
oOo
Sam looked up from her position at her CO's side. Jack was coming too but the Goa'uld was already fully aware. She could see the malnourished child physically building beyond his own strength and her heart knew what had to happen next but still she shuddered.
"Carter?" Jack asked, clearly disoriented. "Did he do it? Did he kill him?"
"Not yet." Sam whispered, her vision still trained on the scene before her. She wanted to look away but she couldn't, she wanted to look at the Colonel but she couldn't. Underneath her fingers her CO began to move. Before she could register what was happening he sat up and he fired…
oOo
Jack blocked everything out. He refused to register the child falling. He refused to register the blood spilling from his young pale chest. He refused to acknowledge the familiar echo of his berretta…
oOo
"O'Neill?" asked Teal'c as he looked to his friend, comrade and leader. He was showing no emotion.
"Lets go home." the man said as he pushed to his feet with the aid of Captain Carter.
'As you wish.' Teal'c mind answered but he chose to remain silent and merely bowed his head in deference to the man who had stepped up and done what he had hesitated to do…
oOo
"I…you…he…" Daniel hurt from head to toe. "He was just a child." He hadn't actually meant to say it out loud but…
oOo
Sam left the Colonel's side to place her hand on Daniel's shoulder. The archaeologist trembled under her touch. "It had to be this way." she whispered. A hurt set of blue eyes asked her why but she had no answer. She sighed as he dropped his head.
"Carter, take rear."
The words behind Jack O'Neill's military shield were almost broken, she ignored the momentary waver and pulled herself up. "Yessir." she said as confidently and clearly as possible, then guided Daniel towards the door. She did not allow the man to look back. This was one report none of them would look forward to writing…
End.
AN: Thoughts please on this slightly grimmer than usual fic.