~~-~~
Jack doesn't live here anymore~~-~~
December 24th, 2010
Dear Sam,
Took a while to write this letter. I've rewritten it a dozen times or more before I just gave up trying to make sense of everything. Too much to tell you and not enough time or space.
I guess I should just start with Merry Christmas. I expect you to be showing up here in a few hours, happy, relaxed, ready for our yearly routine of you scolding me for not showing up for Christmas dinner and me coming up with yet another lame excuse for not making it. Your arms full with Christmas turkey and stories just waiting to tumble forth. Glad that the rush of the holidays is over and the kids finally settled.
I'm happy for you, Sam, really very happy. You've got a good life, a great husband, two great kids, but this year I really do have somewhere else to be.
You've been a good friend to me over the past ten years. Watched my back, even tried to fix me up on a couple of dates. We've had some times together haven't we?
I guess what I'm trying to say is good bye and that I owe you this; owe you an explanation for what I'm about to do. I've already sent the General my resignation via email. No, I haven't lost my mind. No, this isn't sudden. It's something I've been thinking about for a while. Something I wanted to do for years.
We've done it, Sam...saved the universe. Time to give it up and leave all the exploring to those young faces we see crawling all over the SGC now. You have your work, your family, the military. Me? All I have is my work and most of that is classified. I come home every night to this house that gets colder every day. I could go back to Abydos, but that not what I want.
Someone stopped by the house today and made me realize that I want more. I deserve more. You'd think after ten years that wouldn't be so hard to say, would you? But it is. Terrifying in fact. And I'm about to embark on the greatest journey of my life. Even bigger than the Stargate. Bigger than Abydos.
I'm going to go find Jack. Something I should I have done years ago. I wish I'd listened to you when you said that something was wrong with the way he resigned. Sometimes I can be so blind.
I guess I should tell you what happened today...the reason I finally made the decision to leave. The day started out pretty simple, typical stand down routine; cleaning, laundry, reading. Then I remembered it was Christmas. I can almost forget if I try hard enough. Ignore the songs on the radio, and change the channel when 'It's a Wonderful Life' plays for the hundredth time. Yet another year with nothing to show for my life.
All this *stuff* and the house still feels empty. It's not a home and hasn't been for a while. The spirit is missing. It's so empty you can sometimes feel things before they happen. I don't know, could just be me hallucinating or the ghost of what could have been, but something told me to grab my jacket and run. Run fast.
It's the feeling you get when you know something momentous is about to happen. You don't know if it's going to be good or bad, but it still scares you. It's the same kind of feeling you get when you go through the Gate knowing what's on the other side, but still knowing anything could happen. Or a roller coaster climbing to the top praying that you'd get there soon so the bad part will be over.
My first clue should have been the photo. I don't know how it happened; it just...fell. Glass was everywhere and the frame shattered beyond repair. The one picture I had of Jack and me before SG1, before the program really took off, and it crashed to the floor.
It was the beginning of everything, of our friendship, my career, Abydos. Made me laugh every time I looked at it, the stuffed shirt that was Jack O'Neill actually cracking a smile and not breaking. I wish you could have been there Sam. We were such different people then. I never did tell you the full story behind that picture, did I?
And it didn't stop there. The mail arrived and what's waiting for me, my Christmas card to Jack. He sent it back 'again'. I know, I know, but I keep thinking this will be the year that it won't come back.
No, that's not right, I don't think at all; I just send the card and hope. If I stop to think, the pain starts...what is he doing, is he happy, why doesn't he write or call.
It's been ten years, Sam. Ten years, two months and nineteen days. Not that I'm counting.
That's a laugh isn't it? You want to make sure they're still alive, so you torture yourself a little bit more, a little bit longer, just a little bit harder. All so you know that they still exist. Waiting patiently to see if this is the day. 'Return to sender, Addressee unknown' in that oh so familiar scrawl. And it always manages to arrive before Christmas Eve. Guess now you know why I never came to Christmas dinner.
Just as I'm about to rip the card up and spend yet another holiday buried in my work, someone knocks on my door looking for Jack. You'd think I'd be suspicious, but I wasn't. I just thought it was odd or maybe that some relative of Jack's died and was now trying to locate him. But no, he really was looking for Jack...thought he still lived here. How's that for ironic?
That sounds so final, doesn't it? Jack. Doesn't. Live. Here. Anymore. Five little words that speak so many things, have so many meanings. And I hadn't listened to any of them.
I was ready to shut the door when something in his voice caught me. Disappointment? Yearning? I'm not too sure what it was, but I stopped, just had to know. Who was this man? So I asked.
His name was Tom Reilly, an old friend of Jack's from high school. I think you would have liked him, Sam. He had one of those faces you just instantly want to trust. There was nothing memorable about his appearance; it was simply the way he carried himself. He knew what he was doing, where he was going, and how long it was going to take to get him there. He reminded me of Jack.
We stood there looking at each other for a few minutes when Tom spits out with this perfectly straight face....'Well are you going to invite me in or are we both going to freeze our asses off.' God, I wonder how that town survived with the two of them.
To make a long story short, we spent the afternoon talking about Jack. Some of the stories he told, Sam...I haven't laughed so hard in years. Do you remember the time the virtual Kawalsky claimed to still be able to kick Jack's butt in a game of stick ball? Well that's not the only sport Kawalsky could beat Jack at. Jack, Tom, and Kawalsky used to play hockey together. He loved the sport so much as a teenager that they'd play at all hours and in all kinds of weather, breaking a few of the neighbor's windows in the process.
I never thought of Jack as a teenager, only as the tough, stone cold military soldier when we first met, to the person I came to really care about over the years. Here was this whole other 'person' I knew nothing about, someone who made mistakes and played pranks. I wanted it all, the good times, the bad. And Tom told me everything. Everything up to and including the 'why'.
Why he was there.
I had something Tom wanted too, memories of Jack as he was fourteen years ago. I couldn't tell him much, but I told him what I could. I think he was pleased that Jack had come to grips with his son's death, that Jack hadn't buried himself in his work, and hadn't lost his love of hockey or astronomy. It felt good to let go and share all of these things I'd held inside with someone who understood.
I know you would have understood too, Sam, don't get me wrong, but this was different. Not two of Jack's former best friends looking to capture a bit of the past, but a wake. I didn't know it at the time, but that's what it was, a wake for Jack.
Tom had come looking for *me*, trying to find his own explanations I guess. I had my Christmas cards, I'm not sure what he had. It's his way of letting go, getting closure. I don't know if Tom found what he was looking for, but I know I have to go find my own answers.
All I know, Sam, is that I love Jack. I have for a very long time. Fourteen years in love with another man. It's still scary to even think those words. I should have paid more attention. Should have done 'something' sooner. That's why it's so important for me to leave, now. Why I *need* to do this.
He was here last night, Jack that is. He walked around the house touching things, as if he was trying to re-connect this place with himself. The pictures on the mantle? He'd memorized them all, names, dates, places. Why would he do that? Why was he here? What was 'he' looking for? Looking for closure of his own? Why send back the card if he was only going to show up himself?
I didn't know whether to hug him or hit him, Sam. Ten years! And he just shows up out of the blue? I was angry, enough to spend the first hour arguing with him over his resignation. Why he left the SGC. Why he didn't write.
Do you know why Jack left? Because of me. Wanted to give me the chance to have the career I'd always dreamed of. That wouldn't happen if it ever came out that I was gay. I don't care. I would have quit the Stargate program in a heartbeat if it meant that I could keep Jack.
Didn't he know that? Can I just say Jack was stupid? Yeah, this is a first for me in many ways, but Sam, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It won't be easy, I know that. Nothing worth having ever is. Nothing is worth having if you can't share it with someone. I didn't want to be alone anymore.
The first thing I'm going to do when I find him *is* punch him. He's left everything up to me, yet again. I've finally figured out what that picture meant. It was his way of saying he wanted something more, another new beginning.
We are so stupid. The both of us. I have to find Jack and settle whatever this is between us.
I've left you the picture of Abydos with this letter. You'll have to get a new frame for it, sorry. I look at this picture now and I can see what the world must have seen, the start of something unique. Two people who were a part of each other even from the beginning.
I need to be near him more than I can bear to lose him. Our friendship was and is the most important thing in my life. He still doesn't get it. He thinks that he is still protecting me from myself. That I'll wake up tomorrow, change my mind and realize I've made a mistake. I haven't Sam. I knew what I wanted ten years ago, and it's the same today. I want to be with Jack...as a lover, as a friend, I don't care. The rest doesn't matter; we'll work it out.
We spent the evening doing things I won't go into because I don't want to embarrass you, but lets just say I learned who Jack was all over again. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I fell asleep to the steady, comforting sound of his heartbeat under my ear.
Sometime during the night he left. God, he's still thinking stupid.
I vaguely remember a softly whispered 'Merry Christmas, Daniel' and a light kiss on my cheek. I tried to find him. Hoped he was just in the kitchen or the bathroom, at the store. I looked around the place; looked for the laughter that had been there just hours before. The love. All the things I'd been searching for, wanted. But this place is still empty, Sam. I'd been right when I told Tom that Jack doesn't live here anymore.
It's time, Sam. I know you'll find this letter tomorrow. You come every year, just as I beg off every year. I just wanted to let you know...it was never you. It was all those happy, smiling faces. I just couldn't 'celebrate' Christmas anymore. There was nothing for me to celebrate.
I've got my bags packed and tossed the stuff that means the most to me in my car. Do what you want with the rest. I don't know exactly how to get where I'm going, but I've got until the New Year. And then I'll have the rest of my life.
Sell the house. Save it for your kids. Whatever you want. The deed's right there. I know you'll understand, Sam. You always have.
It's just that Jack doesn't live here anymore and neither can I.
Merry Christmas, I'll write.
Always,
Daniel
~~~
End "Jack doesn't live here anymore."
~~~