TITLE: The End of Despair
AUTHOR: Flora
EMAIL: stt121us@yahoo.com, florastuart@yahoo.com
DATE: March 17, 2002
ARCHIVE: Will be archived at FanFiction.net, Stargatefan.com, Heliopolis, anyone else just ask
CATEGORY: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
SPOILERS: major for Stargate the Movie, minor for A Matter of Time, Solitudes
RATING: R for language, canon death of minor character
SUMMARY: At the beginning of the movie, Jack is offered a way to end his life with honor. What happens when he changes his mind?
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/ Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters,
situations, and story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, I love Jack angst. This is my first Stargate fic! Any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated…let me know what to do to
improve. Thanks so much to Frances and Crystal for betaing this.
I leave the gun tucked under the mattress.
Not like there's anyone left in our house who can be hurt by it.
I don't know what Sara will think, whether she'll even notice. To be honest, I don't expect her to stay long after I leave anyway.
I don't say anything, don't even stop to change, don't even say goodbye. Walk out of Charlie's room, grab my old dress uniform out of my closet, my car keys, and go downstairs.
She is standing by the sink, holding a cigarette in one hand, still staring at the road. She doesn't even turn when I come down the stairs. By this time she's given up. Can't say I blame her. She knows where I'm going, and she knows I'm not coming back.
My arm brushes hers as I pick up a pack of cigarettes from the counter, and that old lighter with the Air Force symbol on it. A present from a friend—former friend—but even if I never talk to the bastard anymore, it's the only lighter I've got. I quit smoking after I came back from Iraq, and didn't start again until after—the accident.
She almost turns, I see it out of the corner of my eye. I turn away, half- expecting her to call me back in spite of everything. But she doesn't, and I'm glad. It's easier this way. Right now I don't know what I might say.
The door to the Jeep makes a satisfying slam. I haven't been driving in days. Haven't been out of that room in days. God, my legs are cramped now. I toss the envelope with my orders onto the front seat, start the engine. Damn but it's good to be driving again. For the first time in a week I feel almost alive again. I am going somewhere, finally, away from that tiny room full of memories, and the dead weight of silence downstairs.
And I won't be coming back.
There is a liberation in that thought, not hope exactly. There is no hope left for me, not anymore. More like a shadow of hope . . . or at least the end of despair
I've had a lot of practice hiding pain, getting over pain, shoving anguish so deep down inside it won't ever see the light of day again. Not that it doesn't come out again screaming as soon as night comes, as soon as I let myself fall asleep. But this is different. This isn't something I can deal with, something I can shield against. I'm a soldier, trained to kill first and ask questions later, trained to look at blood and not care, not care who is dead or how they died or why, as long as I carried out my orders.
You have to isolate that part of you that cares, that part of you that remains human. Isolate it, shut it off, but above all protect it somehow, in spite of everything. Charlie was everything I had, everything I was that wasn't stained with blood and war and death. Charlie was innocent, and he was all that remained of my innocence, if I ever had any. He was everything about me that deserved a chance to live.
Charlie was my soul.
My son is dead. God help me, he's dead, and I killed him.
The sound of that gunshot, and Sara's scream, will echo in my ears until the day I die.
I don't know how we got home from the hospital. I barely remember the funeral, all those people, faces of sympathy and barely suppressed horror. An accident, that's what they said. But deep down no one believes it any more than I do. The gun was loaded. It was in the house. Charlie was in the house. I wasn't watching him. I left it where he could find it.
What the hell did I think would happen when he found it?
The next thing I remember, after my son lying on that gurney like a broken doll soaked in blood, is stumbling back upstairs to that room and finding the gun on the bed. His blood was still there, a round, ragged stain on the carpet. But the first thing I felt when I saw the gun was not horror, or remorse, but rather relief. An overpowering sense of relief that crashed onto my shoulders with a force that drained all strength from me, so my legs would no longer support me and I had to sit down.
There was still one bullet in the chamber.
I heard Sara's footsteps following me up the stairs, and I know she saw me pick it up, but she didn't say anything. Not one word. And that, more than anything, told me I'd truly destroyed everything that ever made me less than a monster, a hollow, wind-up tin soldier that could kill without recrimination or regret. Who could kill his own son. Whose wife would not shed a tear as he blew his own brains out.
It was a long time before she walked away, back down the stairs. I stared around the room, at the pictures, the baseball glove, the paper airplanes hanging from the ceiling. The black metal was cold against my hands, so different from two days ago, when it was still hot after it fired.
I'm gonna be just like you when I grow up, Dad. Someday I'll join the Air Force, I'll learn to fly, just like you.
I could see the headlines now. Special Forces colonel, who survived jumping out of airplanes with and without a parachute, dozens of secret missions behind enemy lines, four months of starvation and torture in the Middle East, shoots himself in his own house, in his son's bedroom.
I don't know what kept me from firing that gun. I think I would have, eventually, if the Air Force hadn't come to give me a way out. The next day Sara came back, crying, pleading. Asking me not to leave her, to help her, to let her help me. To let us share our grief, and comfort each other, and talk to each other, because I was all she had left and she was all I had left. In short, not to fail as a husband as I'd failed as a father. To let us find a way to go on with our lives.
I might have answered her. If I'd just turned to look at her, instead of staring fixedly at the gun in my hands, if I'd put it down and wrapped my arms around her, let her cry against my shoulder . . . the smallest gesture, reaching out to touch her, and we might have been saved. She'd said the same things after Iraq, and I'd turned her out then as I did now. It was easier not to let her in, as if by putting the pain into words I'd somehow make it too real, too near.
Eventually she stopped trying.
And so I stayed there, not sleeping, not eating, not speaking to anyone. I had nothing. I was nothing. It was as if my heart had been torn living from my chest, and whatever consciousness still flickered in my mind would fade and disappear inevitably into darkness, like the flatline on the hospital monitor that told me my son was gone.
And then, like a fuzzy gray light in a starless night, the knock on the door and an officer's voice, uncertain.
"Colonel O'Neill? We're here to inform you . . . you've been . . . reactivated."
It feels almost like the first time I've driven the Jeep. Backing out of the driveway too fast, spinning the wheel around and peeling into the road. It's early fall but I leave the top open, oddly comforted by the wind rushing through my hair. I squint ahead and hit the accelerator, watching the red needle on the dash creep slowly around. Speed limit? What's that? Steering one-handed around a quiet residential curve, I light a cigarette with the other, letting up on the gas as I turn onto the main road without slowing down to look for other cars. Horns sound but I don't hear them. There is a sort of peace out on the open road, that I haven't felt in way too long.
It's a straight road, and I let my brain shut down, seeing nothing but the yellow lines flashing by. Cops usually don't bother with a Special Forces colonel on the way to a top secret assignment. I know this from experience. And right now I don't feel like driving slow. Too many unpleasant thoughts I don't want catching up.
I don't know if it's the pass I wave in his face, or the don't-fuck-with-me look in my eyes that does it, but the guard at the gate to Cheyenne Mountain waves me through immediately. I've been here before, but never as deep underground as I'm going today. I didn't even know the place went that deep. Evidently very hush-hush stuff here. Space aliens or something.
No, that's in Nevada.
"This is a security area . . ." The airman by the elevator trails off at the look on my face, but he doesn't step aside.
"Colonel O'Neill." I turn around, and what do you know. It's one of the guys who came to the house, and from the look on his face he's very surprised to see me walking around, and expects me to go psycho on everyone in the vicinity any minute.
Nice to know the scary look still works even when I'm out of uniform.
"I'm here to report to General West."
He hesitates. No, soldier, I'm not going to change, and I'm not going to cut my hair first. I want to know what's going on around here, and I want to know now. Evidently this is obvious without words. He gestures toward the elevator.
"If you'll follow me, sir."
It's a long elevator ride, and a noisy one. The car clanks as it descends, echoing strangely, and I wonder how deep underground we are.
Not deep enough, apparently. We get on a second elevator, go down some more. Walls of solid concrete when we get off, bustling with people, in and out of uniform. Some young scientist-type with long hair and glasses almost walks into me, nose buried in a newspaper. An officer drags him out of the way just in time, but he doesn't seem to notice.
"Come."
The lieutenant opens the door, holds it for me to step inside. "Colonel O'Neill, General," he introduces me.
General West. I've never met him but I've heard of him. Piercing eyes and a moustache without a hint of gray, and an impressive collage of ribbons on his chest. He doesn't get up, but waves me to take a seat. I stand, putting out my cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.
"Dismissed, lieutenant." I straighten, parade rest, clasping my hands behind my back. "Colonel, please have a seat."
I pull up a chair, moving it close enough for me to rest my elbows on the general's desk. He shuffles a few papers, pulls out a folder.
"Colonel, first I want to say how sorry I am about the death of your son," he says. I wave a hand sharply. Perhaps it isn't good manners to cut off a general, but considering they all think I'm a few fries short of a happy meal around here, I think I can get away with disregarding some of the pleasantries. Besides, if this really is a suicide mission, they ought to forgive me.
"All due respect, can we cut the crap, sir?" I say it quietly, but I don't flinch from his eyes. You're not sorry. You need someone for this mission who has experience in covert ops, with a high enough rank and a security clearance—and who doesn't mind a one-way ticket. Someone nobody will miss. I happen to conveniently fit that description. No, you're not sorry at all. "I'm gonna take a wild guess that you wouldn't call me back at a time like this unless there's a very good chance I won't be going home. And to answer your question—no, I don't have a problem with that. I'd just like to know why, how, and who I'll be taking out with me."
He looks at me. I've seen the look before—sizing me up, trying to determine what I'm thinking, if I can be trusted, if I have what it takes. He's a tough character and no mistake, but then Frank told me so once. Impossible to tell what he's thinking. But right now I'm in no mood to give a shit what he thinks of me. Give me the damn mission, General, and let me finish this.
"You've been out of the Air Force for a while," he says. I nod, not taking my eyes from his. "Before that your record is quite extraordinary." He says this with no particular surprise. "You've carried out covert missions in a lot of different countries, under various and difficult circumstances. You've earned several commendations. Your service in the Persian Gulf was particularly exemplary."
"So I've been told." I came here to discuss the future, what little of it I have left, not the past. Particularly not past missions that failed spectacularly, regardless of how exemplary you think my personal conduct was. Get to the point, General.
"I know this is a difficult time, and we would not ask this of you if it were not of vital importance to this nation, and perhaps to the world. I am going to ask this once, and I need your honest answer: considering how long you've been out of the military, and considering recent events, are you fit mentally and physically to lead a Special Forces team into potentially hostile territory?"
"Yes, sir."
He gives me the Look again. "Very well, Colonel. It's good to have you with us." He sits back, folding his hands. "Now let me tell you a little bit about what NORAD has hidden in their basement . . ."
Well, well. Who would have believed it? There was a time when I would have jumped up in the air whooping with joy to be given a space mission. Let alone traveling to a possibly habitable planet. Back when I was a hell of a lot younger, and a lot more innocent, if that word could ever be truthfully applied to me. Now General West is telling me that barring absolute proof that there is nothing on said planet that can threaten our nation or our world, I am to destroy forever all possibility of anyone traveling there again. And get myself blown into a million pieces by a Mark III nuclear bomb in the process. And I'm sitting here nodding, yes I can do that, sir.
Have you ever been into space, Dad?
No, Charlie. I've jumped out of airplanes, but I've never been into space.
Will you ever go into space?
Maybe someday, Charlie.
Can I come with you?
Maybe, if you're old enough. If you don't, I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
Yeah, Charlie, I'll tell you all about it. After I'm dead, if I see you again, I'll tell you all about the wonders of space travel. If you and I end up in the same place. If there is a heaven, and if there's room in it for guys like me.
Two very big ifs.
"They've got a new linguist working on the translation, some whiz kid Langford brought in here a few weeks ago. This project has been going on for two years now, and I don't know if this Jackson will make a difference, but if he does . . . I'm going to need you to be ready."
"Understood, sir."
"You'll lead a recon team, already chosen. Captain Charles Kawalsky will be your second-in-command. Your orders remain top secret. Neither Kawalsky nor any of the others will know anything about the warhead. They will receive all the information they need in the official briefing. What has been said in this room is between us, and we will not speak of it again."
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed, then, Colonel." He hands me the folder, and an envelope with something heavy inside it. "Keys to your quarters. Might as well make yourself comfortable. Depending on how long it takes Jackson to translate the artifact, you may be here a while."
I push the chair back. "Thank you, sir." I don't bother saluting on the way out. I'm not in uniform anyway.
My quarters are on the same level as General West's office, which is to say the very deepest bottom level of the base. A tiny, windowless box of cement, with a bunk and a flickering fluorescent light on the ceiling. As a privilege of rank I get a desk, and even a telephone.
I hang up the uniform in the closet. There will be time tomorrow to see about a haircut. Right now what I need is something to eat. I haven't eaten in days. Or coffee will do, if it's strong enough. There is only one other person in the mess hall when I finally find it, and he seems to be a fellow believer in the caffeine-as-one-of-the-major-food-groups school of thought. As well as the haircuts-can-wait school, come to think of it. I don't really want company, though, so I eat quickly and take a mug of coffee back to my room with me.
I flop down on the bed, opening the folder and scanning the report inside. Space aliens. Colonel Jack O'Neill, intergalactic space explorer, off to kick some alien's ass. It sounds like something from a bad science fiction movie. Charlie would've loved it.
I roll over onto my back, rubbing a hand across my eyes. The room smells like damp cement. Unable to concentrate on the report, I reach out for a cigarette. Flick the lighter, watch the end glow. Toss the lighter back onto the desk, take a long drag. If I close my eyes, I could be back at some airbase in Riyadh, listening to Frank in the bunk above me—he always stole top bunk—groaning at my bad jokes as we tried to sleep before a mission.
I sit up abruptly, not at all liking the direction my brain is taking, but not sure what else I can think about that I'd like any better. Pulling off my boots, I hurl them against the wall for no real reason, thinking that the dull thump they make against the concrete is somewhat less than satisfying. Oh well.
Back then I knew why I was fighting. Which might sound screwy, since to some the idea of saving the planet from hostile aliens is a hell of a lot less morally ambiguous than a lot of the things I've done. But in Iraq, even after I got shot down, I knew I had to survive. I knew why I had to survive. I knew I had to go home, to see Sara and Charlie again.
Honestly, I don't know why Sara stayed after I came home from Iraq. After four months of clinging to the image of her face to keep me going, when I finally got home I managed to shut her out of my life more effectively than any prison could. I don't know why she stayed. I didn't deserve for her to stay, not after that.
I crush out the cigarette against the top of the desk, reaching for the phone. It buzzes in my ear, promising a miracle if I'll just move my fingers enough to punch a few buttons. For all I know she's gone already. What would I say, if I called? She knows I won't be coming home. She knows everything I could tell her, and she's tired of me trying to put into words what I've never been able to say. I've hurt her enough.
Still my fingers dial, almost automatically. Now that I've left that house where Charlie died, I want to hear her voice. All last week I shut myself away so I wouldn't have to talk to her, but now I need to hear her.
"Hello?"
I close my eyes. The receiver is cold against my face. What can I say? This was a stupid idea.
"Hello?" Her voice is uncertain. "Jack?"
I press the heel of my hand against my eyes, hard enough to see stars. My lips move, but no sound comes out.
"Jack, for God's sake . . ."
My eyes are dry and stinging. I wish I could cry, alone here in a concrete box where no one will find me, but I have no tears left. Very gently I set the receiver down.
"I love you." The whisper seems loud in the empty room. I throw myself down on the bed again, hearing the paper crinkle as I lie on top of the report from General West, burying my face in the pillow. After a moment the phone rings. I know I should get up and answer it, but I can't move. It keeps ringing, ten, eleven, twenty times. I lie there as if frozen. Finally it stops.
AUTHOR: Flora
EMAIL: stt121us@yahoo.com, florastuart@yahoo.com
DATE: March 17, 2002
ARCHIVE: Will be archived at FanFiction.net, Stargatefan.com, Heliopolis, anyone else just ask
CATEGORY: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
SPOILERS: major for Stargate the Movie, minor for A Matter of Time, Solitudes
RATING: R for language, canon death of minor character
SUMMARY: At the beginning of the movie, Jack is offered a way to end his life with honor. What happens when he changes his mind?
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/ Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters,
situations, and story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, I love Jack angst. This is my first Stargate fic! Any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated…let me know what to do to
improve. Thanks so much to Frances and Crystal for betaing this.
I leave the gun tucked under the mattress.
Not like there's anyone left in our house who can be hurt by it.
I don't know what Sara will think, whether she'll even notice. To be honest, I don't expect her to stay long after I leave anyway.
I don't say anything, don't even stop to change, don't even say goodbye. Walk out of Charlie's room, grab my old dress uniform out of my closet, my car keys, and go downstairs.
She is standing by the sink, holding a cigarette in one hand, still staring at the road. She doesn't even turn when I come down the stairs. By this time she's given up. Can't say I blame her. She knows where I'm going, and she knows I'm not coming back.
My arm brushes hers as I pick up a pack of cigarettes from the counter, and that old lighter with the Air Force symbol on it. A present from a friend—former friend—but even if I never talk to the bastard anymore, it's the only lighter I've got. I quit smoking after I came back from Iraq, and didn't start again until after—the accident.
She almost turns, I see it out of the corner of my eye. I turn away, half- expecting her to call me back in spite of everything. But she doesn't, and I'm glad. It's easier this way. Right now I don't know what I might say.
The door to the Jeep makes a satisfying slam. I haven't been driving in days. Haven't been out of that room in days. God, my legs are cramped now. I toss the envelope with my orders onto the front seat, start the engine. Damn but it's good to be driving again. For the first time in a week I feel almost alive again. I am going somewhere, finally, away from that tiny room full of memories, and the dead weight of silence downstairs.
And I won't be coming back.
There is a liberation in that thought, not hope exactly. There is no hope left for me, not anymore. More like a shadow of hope . . . or at least the end of despair
I've had a lot of practice hiding pain, getting over pain, shoving anguish so deep down inside it won't ever see the light of day again. Not that it doesn't come out again screaming as soon as night comes, as soon as I let myself fall asleep. But this is different. This isn't something I can deal with, something I can shield against. I'm a soldier, trained to kill first and ask questions later, trained to look at blood and not care, not care who is dead or how they died or why, as long as I carried out my orders.
You have to isolate that part of you that cares, that part of you that remains human. Isolate it, shut it off, but above all protect it somehow, in spite of everything. Charlie was everything I had, everything I was that wasn't stained with blood and war and death. Charlie was innocent, and he was all that remained of my innocence, if I ever had any. He was everything about me that deserved a chance to live.
Charlie was my soul.
My son is dead. God help me, he's dead, and I killed him.
The sound of that gunshot, and Sara's scream, will echo in my ears until the day I die.
I don't know how we got home from the hospital. I barely remember the funeral, all those people, faces of sympathy and barely suppressed horror. An accident, that's what they said. But deep down no one believes it any more than I do. The gun was loaded. It was in the house. Charlie was in the house. I wasn't watching him. I left it where he could find it.
What the hell did I think would happen when he found it?
The next thing I remember, after my son lying on that gurney like a broken doll soaked in blood, is stumbling back upstairs to that room and finding the gun on the bed. His blood was still there, a round, ragged stain on the carpet. But the first thing I felt when I saw the gun was not horror, or remorse, but rather relief. An overpowering sense of relief that crashed onto my shoulders with a force that drained all strength from me, so my legs would no longer support me and I had to sit down.
There was still one bullet in the chamber.
I heard Sara's footsteps following me up the stairs, and I know she saw me pick it up, but she didn't say anything. Not one word. And that, more than anything, told me I'd truly destroyed everything that ever made me less than a monster, a hollow, wind-up tin soldier that could kill without recrimination or regret. Who could kill his own son. Whose wife would not shed a tear as he blew his own brains out.
It was a long time before she walked away, back down the stairs. I stared around the room, at the pictures, the baseball glove, the paper airplanes hanging from the ceiling. The black metal was cold against my hands, so different from two days ago, when it was still hot after it fired.
I'm gonna be just like you when I grow up, Dad. Someday I'll join the Air Force, I'll learn to fly, just like you.
I could see the headlines now. Special Forces colonel, who survived jumping out of airplanes with and without a parachute, dozens of secret missions behind enemy lines, four months of starvation and torture in the Middle East, shoots himself in his own house, in his son's bedroom.
I don't know what kept me from firing that gun. I think I would have, eventually, if the Air Force hadn't come to give me a way out. The next day Sara came back, crying, pleading. Asking me not to leave her, to help her, to let her help me. To let us share our grief, and comfort each other, and talk to each other, because I was all she had left and she was all I had left. In short, not to fail as a husband as I'd failed as a father. To let us find a way to go on with our lives.
I might have answered her. If I'd just turned to look at her, instead of staring fixedly at the gun in my hands, if I'd put it down and wrapped my arms around her, let her cry against my shoulder . . . the smallest gesture, reaching out to touch her, and we might have been saved. She'd said the same things after Iraq, and I'd turned her out then as I did now. It was easier not to let her in, as if by putting the pain into words I'd somehow make it too real, too near.
Eventually she stopped trying.
And so I stayed there, not sleeping, not eating, not speaking to anyone. I had nothing. I was nothing. It was as if my heart had been torn living from my chest, and whatever consciousness still flickered in my mind would fade and disappear inevitably into darkness, like the flatline on the hospital monitor that told me my son was gone.
And then, like a fuzzy gray light in a starless night, the knock on the door and an officer's voice, uncertain.
"Colonel O'Neill? We're here to inform you . . . you've been . . . reactivated."
It feels almost like the first time I've driven the Jeep. Backing out of the driveway too fast, spinning the wheel around and peeling into the road. It's early fall but I leave the top open, oddly comforted by the wind rushing through my hair. I squint ahead and hit the accelerator, watching the red needle on the dash creep slowly around. Speed limit? What's that? Steering one-handed around a quiet residential curve, I light a cigarette with the other, letting up on the gas as I turn onto the main road without slowing down to look for other cars. Horns sound but I don't hear them. There is a sort of peace out on the open road, that I haven't felt in way too long.
It's a straight road, and I let my brain shut down, seeing nothing but the yellow lines flashing by. Cops usually don't bother with a Special Forces colonel on the way to a top secret assignment. I know this from experience. And right now I don't feel like driving slow. Too many unpleasant thoughts I don't want catching up.
I don't know if it's the pass I wave in his face, or the don't-fuck-with-me look in my eyes that does it, but the guard at the gate to Cheyenne Mountain waves me through immediately. I've been here before, but never as deep underground as I'm going today. I didn't even know the place went that deep. Evidently very hush-hush stuff here. Space aliens or something.
No, that's in Nevada.
"This is a security area . . ." The airman by the elevator trails off at the look on my face, but he doesn't step aside.
"Colonel O'Neill." I turn around, and what do you know. It's one of the guys who came to the house, and from the look on his face he's very surprised to see me walking around, and expects me to go psycho on everyone in the vicinity any minute.
Nice to know the scary look still works even when I'm out of uniform.
"I'm here to report to General West."
He hesitates. No, soldier, I'm not going to change, and I'm not going to cut my hair first. I want to know what's going on around here, and I want to know now. Evidently this is obvious without words. He gestures toward the elevator.
"If you'll follow me, sir."
It's a long elevator ride, and a noisy one. The car clanks as it descends, echoing strangely, and I wonder how deep underground we are.
Not deep enough, apparently. We get on a second elevator, go down some more. Walls of solid concrete when we get off, bustling with people, in and out of uniform. Some young scientist-type with long hair and glasses almost walks into me, nose buried in a newspaper. An officer drags him out of the way just in time, but he doesn't seem to notice.
"Come."
The lieutenant opens the door, holds it for me to step inside. "Colonel O'Neill, General," he introduces me.
General West. I've never met him but I've heard of him. Piercing eyes and a moustache without a hint of gray, and an impressive collage of ribbons on his chest. He doesn't get up, but waves me to take a seat. I stand, putting out my cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.
"Dismissed, lieutenant." I straighten, parade rest, clasping my hands behind my back. "Colonel, please have a seat."
I pull up a chair, moving it close enough for me to rest my elbows on the general's desk. He shuffles a few papers, pulls out a folder.
"Colonel, first I want to say how sorry I am about the death of your son," he says. I wave a hand sharply. Perhaps it isn't good manners to cut off a general, but considering they all think I'm a few fries short of a happy meal around here, I think I can get away with disregarding some of the pleasantries. Besides, if this really is a suicide mission, they ought to forgive me.
"All due respect, can we cut the crap, sir?" I say it quietly, but I don't flinch from his eyes. You're not sorry. You need someone for this mission who has experience in covert ops, with a high enough rank and a security clearance—and who doesn't mind a one-way ticket. Someone nobody will miss. I happen to conveniently fit that description. No, you're not sorry at all. "I'm gonna take a wild guess that you wouldn't call me back at a time like this unless there's a very good chance I won't be going home. And to answer your question—no, I don't have a problem with that. I'd just like to know why, how, and who I'll be taking out with me."
He looks at me. I've seen the look before—sizing me up, trying to determine what I'm thinking, if I can be trusted, if I have what it takes. He's a tough character and no mistake, but then Frank told me so once. Impossible to tell what he's thinking. But right now I'm in no mood to give a shit what he thinks of me. Give me the damn mission, General, and let me finish this.
"You've been out of the Air Force for a while," he says. I nod, not taking my eyes from his. "Before that your record is quite extraordinary." He says this with no particular surprise. "You've carried out covert missions in a lot of different countries, under various and difficult circumstances. You've earned several commendations. Your service in the Persian Gulf was particularly exemplary."
"So I've been told." I came here to discuss the future, what little of it I have left, not the past. Particularly not past missions that failed spectacularly, regardless of how exemplary you think my personal conduct was. Get to the point, General.
"I know this is a difficult time, and we would not ask this of you if it were not of vital importance to this nation, and perhaps to the world. I am going to ask this once, and I need your honest answer: considering how long you've been out of the military, and considering recent events, are you fit mentally and physically to lead a Special Forces team into potentially hostile territory?"
"Yes, sir."
He gives me the Look again. "Very well, Colonel. It's good to have you with us." He sits back, folding his hands. "Now let me tell you a little bit about what NORAD has hidden in their basement . . ."
Well, well. Who would have believed it? There was a time when I would have jumped up in the air whooping with joy to be given a space mission. Let alone traveling to a possibly habitable planet. Back when I was a hell of a lot younger, and a lot more innocent, if that word could ever be truthfully applied to me. Now General West is telling me that barring absolute proof that there is nothing on said planet that can threaten our nation or our world, I am to destroy forever all possibility of anyone traveling there again. And get myself blown into a million pieces by a Mark III nuclear bomb in the process. And I'm sitting here nodding, yes I can do that, sir.
Have you ever been into space, Dad?
No, Charlie. I've jumped out of airplanes, but I've never been into space.
Will you ever go into space?
Maybe someday, Charlie.
Can I come with you?
Maybe, if you're old enough. If you don't, I'll tell you all about it when I get back.
Yeah, Charlie, I'll tell you all about it. After I'm dead, if I see you again, I'll tell you all about the wonders of space travel. If you and I end up in the same place. If there is a heaven, and if there's room in it for guys like me.
Two very big ifs.
"They've got a new linguist working on the translation, some whiz kid Langford brought in here a few weeks ago. This project has been going on for two years now, and I don't know if this Jackson will make a difference, but if he does . . . I'm going to need you to be ready."
"Understood, sir."
"You'll lead a recon team, already chosen. Captain Charles Kawalsky will be your second-in-command. Your orders remain top secret. Neither Kawalsky nor any of the others will know anything about the warhead. They will receive all the information they need in the official briefing. What has been said in this room is between us, and we will not speak of it again."
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed, then, Colonel." He hands me the folder, and an envelope with something heavy inside it. "Keys to your quarters. Might as well make yourself comfortable. Depending on how long it takes Jackson to translate the artifact, you may be here a while."
I push the chair back. "Thank you, sir." I don't bother saluting on the way out. I'm not in uniform anyway.
My quarters are on the same level as General West's office, which is to say the very deepest bottom level of the base. A tiny, windowless box of cement, with a bunk and a flickering fluorescent light on the ceiling. As a privilege of rank I get a desk, and even a telephone.
I hang up the uniform in the closet. There will be time tomorrow to see about a haircut. Right now what I need is something to eat. I haven't eaten in days. Or coffee will do, if it's strong enough. There is only one other person in the mess hall when I finally find it, and he seems to be a fellow believer in the caffeine-as-one-of-the-major-food-groups school of thought. As well as the haircuts-can-wait school, come to think of it. I don't really want company, though, so I eat quickly and take a mug of coffee back to my room with me.
I flop down on the bed, opening the folder and scanning the report inside. Space aliens. Colonel Jack O'Neill, intergalactic space explorer, off to kick some alien's ass. It sounds like something from a bad science fiction movie. Charlie would've loved it.
I roll over onto my back, rubbing a hand across my eyes. The room smells like damp cement. Unable to concentrate on the report, I reach out for a cigarette. Flick the lighter, watch the end glow. Toss the lighter back onto the desk, take a long drag. If I close my eyes, I could be back at some airbase in Riyadh, listening to Frank in the bunk above me—he always stole top bunk—groaning at my bad jokes as we tried to sleep before a mission.
I sit up abruptly, not at all liking the direction my brain is taking, but not sure what else I can think about that I'd like any better. Pulling off my boots, I hurl them against the wall for no real reason, thinking that the dull thump they make against the concrete is somewhat less than satisfying. Oh well.
Back then I knew why I was fighting. Which might sound screwy, since to some the idea of saving the planet from hostile aliens is a hell of a lot less morally ambiguous than a lot of the things I've done. But in Iraq, even after I got shot down, I knew I had to survive. I knew why I had to survive. I knew I had to go home, to see Sara and Charlie again.
Honestly, I don't know why Sara stayed after I came home from Iraq. After four months of clinging to the image of her face to keep me going, when I finally got home I managed to shut her out of my life more effectively than any prison could. I don't know why she stayed. I didn't deserve for her to stay, not after that.
I crush out the cigarette against the top of the desk, reaching for the phone. It buzzes in my ear, promising a miracle if I'll just move my fingers enough to punch a few buttons. For all I know she's gone already. What would I say, if I called? She knows I won't be coming home. She knows everything I could tell her, and she's tired of me trying to put into words what I've never been able to say. I've hurt her enough.
Still my fingers dial, almost automatically. Now that I've left that house where Charlie died, I want to hear her voice. All last week I shut myself away so I wouldn't have to talk to her, but now I need to hear her.
"Hello?"
I close my eyes. The receiver is cold against my face. What can I say? This was a stupid idea.
"Hello?" Her voice is uncertain. "Jack?"
I press the heel of my hand against my eyes, hard enough to see stars. My lips move, but no sound comes out.
"Jack, for God's sake . . ."
My eyes are dry and stinging. I wish I could cry, alone here in a concrete box where no one will find me, but I have no tears left. Very gently I set the receiver down.
"I love you." The whisper seems loud in the empty room. I throw myself down on the bed again, hearing the paper crinkle as I lie on top of the report from General West, burying my face in the pillow. After a moment the phone rings. I know I should get up and answer it, but I can't move. It keeps ringing, ten, eleven, twenty times. I lie there as if frozen. Finally it stops.