Title: Unending Sacrifice
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: The final Episode of Season 10, Unending.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own SG-1
Summary: What if there was someone else aboard the Odyssey just before the reversal of the time dilation field. And they are not part of the crew. Short One Shot.
"The thing is, one of us is going to have to remain old." Sam announced.
"Umm… what about me?" the youngest of the six present asked, causing every other person in the room to pause in shock.
The person who asked was Jonathan Skaara Jackson. He was forty years old, the son of Daniel Jackson and Vala Jackson and he had lived his entire life on the ship. He had cried as a teen when 'Grandad' Landry died. He had learnt honour and discipline from Uncle Teal'c. Aunty Sam had taught him to play the Cello. Uncle Cam had taught him to play chess. His mother, well he had tried to forget some of the things she had taught him, while his father had taught him the importance of knowing where they had come from. This was his family, and all he knew and all he would ever know.
"Would I be able to make the trip?" Jonathan asked.
"That would be perfect." Vala said. "Wouldn't it?"
"No." Sam said, regretfully. "That would create a temporal paradox. You only exist within the time dilation field. The moment we returned to the normal space time continuum you would cease to exist."
"Oh my god." Daniel said.
"I will do it." Teal'c said.
"Teal'c, you've lost just as many years as the rest of us." Mitchell said.
"I am the only logical choice." Teal'c said. "But should this plan not succeed?"
"Then the shields will fail, and you will die with the rest of us." Sam replied.
"Very well." Teal'c said. "Jonathan Jackson, I shall honour you."
"Thank you, Uncle Teal'c."
Teal'c was standing with the rest of SG1 in the gate room getting ready for their next mission.
"You know, as hard as it is for us not knowing, it must be torture for you not to tell us." Sam said.
The memories of an entire lifetime lived aboard the ship flashed through his mind. Joy, sadness, pride and pain. Watching the entire existence of a proud and intelligent young man who was destined never to be and now existed solely in his memories. Memories that would never share, partly because he had promised that brave young man.
"If they get together again, I want it to be because they want to, not because of me. So please do not tell them of me."
That had been Jonathan Jackson's last words to him. Words he would honour, just as much as he honoured all the other fallen that he cared for.
"Indeed." He replied.
These people were his family. They had been a family for many years, even before being trapped on the Odyssey. Like all families, some had drifted away, like O'Neill and General Hammond, and others had come into the fold. He listened to his family recite the simple wisdom catch phrases that the Tau'ri so loved, before he added his own.
"Good things come to those who wait." He said.
In this case, he could only hope that the good things to come would include a brilliant and caring young man called Jonathan Skaara Jackson.
The End.
