Part VI

A Past remembered

Sometimes in the dark of sleepless nights and after more beer than was good for him Jack had known there could be more, was more. If he gave in to it. If he allowed himself to open up to it. But he always stomped it down. There couldn't be anything more.

I

"Are we there yet?"

Jack turned his head, blinked and rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the scruff under his fingertips. He needed a shave. "The answer's the same as the last time you asked, buddy."

"But that was hours and hours and hours ago."

"More like five minutes."

"We're there when we get there?" A deep sigh accompanied the words.

"Yep."

"But I'm boooored." They were lying on their backs, gazing into the cerulean sky and its wispy white clouds. They had played endless rounds of 'I spy with my little eye'. Jack had made up a story of Thor, the Asgard, being on a covert ops mission disguised as a mule and had prompted Danny to continue. They had spun a tale together that had gotten more silly with each twist and turn they added. They had eaten most of their food, counted farm houses, then trees, then clouds...

"I'm booooored, too," Jack replied in the same whiny tone. "I want my yooo-yooo."

Danny giggled. "You're s'pposed to entertain me, not whine with me."

"Hey, I've entertained you for the last couple of hours. Your turn now. Come up with something."

Danny rolled over on his belly and rested his chin on his arms. "Dunno."

"Let's take a nap?"

"No-o-o."

"All right, let me think..." Jack sat up, opened the pack and rummaged around in it. They had two apples left. He pulled them out and threw them into the air, one by one, caught them again, then started throwing them higher and until they were moving in a circle as he continued catching and tossing. But Danny was beyond being excited over juggling two lousy apples.

He wasn't interested in learning how to do it either.

"I want off this train," he informed Jack, bottom lip jutting out in a brilliant pout.

"No can do." Jack put the apples away. "If you need to move, do some push ups."

"We could play train hopping," Danny suggested hopefully. "We could jump from one roof to the next."

"I don't think so."

"But it'll be fun. Like they do in the movies at home. We could pretend some bad guy is after us and wants to shoot us."

"No train hopping."

"But I'm..."

"Bored, yeah, I know."

"Jaaack, the train goes so slow, we could really..."

"No."

"But..."

"Danny, we will not jump from roof to roof, no matter how much fun you think it's gonna be."

"Ja-ack!" The bug was on his feet so fast, Jack had to be quick to get a hold on him before he could run and – god forbid – fall off the train.

Pulling the struggling kid into his lap, Jack wrapped one arm around him to keep him in place. "Are you trying to get into trouble on purpose?"

Danny froze, then relaxed and buried his face against Jack's chest. "'m just tired of sitting around an' doing nothing. My arms and legs are all tingly and want to wiggle and waggle."

Jack couldn't blame him. Heck, he was tired of sitting on his ass this long. All they could do was lie down, sit up again, move here and there a bit. But Jack's one hard and fast rule was; no getting up and walking around on the train roof. Of course he could have walked the length of the roof without being in danger, but he wasn't going to give the kid any ideas so he'd sat tight as well.

He couldn't afford for Danny to have a full-blown tantrum up here either, though. He had to think on his feet to defuse the situation somehow.

He jiggled Danny's shoulder to make him look up.

"Wiggle and waggle?" he asked. "You want to wiggle and waggle?" He waggled his eyebrows. "Like this?"

"Not with my eyebrows!" There was a giggle.

"Well, you aren't going anywhere on this train, Danny-boy, so eyebrow waggling it is."

Danny waggled his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. "That's stupid," he decided.

"Practice makes perfect."

It didn't do the trick. Of course it didn't. Was a stupid idea anyway. Danny tried to squirm away again. "Not funny, Jack."

"Funny? You want funny? I'll give you funny." He started tickling. Danny started kicking and screeching and chortling and Jack held on with one arm and mercilessly let the fingers of his other hand scuttle up and down the small body, poke the soft belly and find their way under one armpit. "That's what you get for being a little bratling. It's the famous O'Neill torture. You givin' up?"

"Noo-ooo-oooo!" He got to wiggle and waggle a lot and he laughed until tears were streaming down his face. It was a risky thing to do up here, but as long as Jack didn't let go of the bug, they were okay.

He pulled up the urchin's shirt and blew a raspberry on his belly and the kid laughed even harder if that was possible. Something jiggled and fell out of the boy's pants. Jack got a glimpse of a silver chain. Probably one of those Ba'th necklaces the kid had liked so much. He didn't pay attention to it, he had his hands full of bouncing limbs...

"Stoooop, Jack, stoooop," the wriggle-worm howled a moment later and Jack immediately complied before the fun turned into tears. Danny gasped for breath and went limp in Jack's arms, but he still managed fits of giggles.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes. But that was SO mean." More giggles and a bit of coughing now.

Jack rubbed his back. "But it helped, eh? With all that want to wiggle-waggle?"

"Yes, but I still wish we were there soon."

"Me too, buddy, me too."

Danny smiled up at him. "I have an idea. A game. I'm gonna quiz you on your memory."

Uh-oh. "I think my memory is fine now. Mostly."

"You don't know that. Here's how it works. I'll give you names and places and things and you'll tell me the first thought that comes to mind."

He shrugged. He didn't really want to deal with his memory issue, but if it kept the kid occupied for a while... "Sure."

"Urgo."

"Row row row your boat." That one was easy. If embarrassing.

"Oh! Good one, Jack! Abydos."

"Ra. Sarcophagus. Sandstorms."

"SGC."

"Stargate Command. Or Sam got chocolate."

"Ja-ack. DHD."

"Daniel hates Donuts."

"I don't!" A frown appeared on Danny's face. "You're not taking this seriously. What about the Nox?"

"Little munchkins living in the woods."

Danny smacked the arm still holding him. "Jack! Pay attention! Hammond."

"A bald man from Texas."

"SG-1."

"Danny, you know that I know what SG-1 is," Jack muttered.

"Yes, but what does it mean to you?"

"What do you mean, mean? It's my... our... team, we're on our way to put it back together again, I guess. At least we're going to find Teal'c and Carter."

Danny reached up a small hand and Jack caught it gently, but firmly, in his. "No touching-to-show stuff, remember?"

"But you have to understand."

He shook his head, but asked nevertheless. "Understand what?"

"What's it like. To be you. Who you used to be. What mattered to you."

Daniel mattered to me, Jack thought and felt the knot in his guts again. "I know who I am. I'm here, right?"

Danny gazed at him for a moment. "But you'd rather stay in Ba'th. Daniel was right. You don't want to go back home. You don't want to be Colonel Jack O'Neill anymore."

Jack bit his lip and tried not to read too much into those big blue eyes. But he was sure there was a bit of accusation. "I'm going to do what I have to do, Danny. For now that's all I can give you. We'll find Teal'c and get him out of there and make sure he's okay. Then we'll find a way to leave."

"But you're not sure you want to leave with them."

"I probably have no choice but to leave. I might end up on the most wanted list of this government if we can pull this off." But I can resign. I know there's a place somewhere in the woods I own. It'll come back to me where that is. I could go there and live my life in peace.

He reached between his legs and his fingers closed around the chain that had fallen out of Danny's pants. "Here, you lost your..." The words died on his lips when he held up the rubber-framed slips of metal. His first impulse was to throw them away, down the roof, on the tracks. Instead his fingers closed tightly around them. "Where did you find them, Danny?"

"Oh! I was supposed to give it to you, I'm sorry. Daniel gave it to me when we met at the theater." Danny pulled a face. "I keep forgetting the important stuff. It has to do with being so small. Maybe my brain isn't big enough to hold it all in."

Jack wrapped the chain around the tags and stuffed them into his pants. Out of sight... "Your brain's just right, kiddo. C'mon, let's eat those apples we have left and see how far we can toss the cores. And then I think I have a couple more stories up my sleeve to keep ya happy."

ooo

This place was great. An oasis of peace and harmony. A sanctuary. Jack used to think of his ruins at Ba'th Town as his 'home'. His go-to-place. He had an inkling Carter had felt like that here. Sheltered and at ease with the world.

Jack wondered if she was still struggling with her new-found memories and the concept of going 'home', too. He didn't know her very well in his current state of trying to piece his other life back together. Well, it wasn't like he had tried very hard, yet..

What he remembered of her was her brilliant mind and her being loyal to the core and a great asset out in the field. He remembered not always being able to follow her train of thought. He recalled that she was a physicist and as excellent in her field of expertise as Daniel was in his. He remembered Carter and Daniel being like siblings, the wonder twins, the ones who came up with the genius stuff to save their asses. But it was more an overall understanding of how the team had worked, how they had functioned together. He could put a face to Carter's name and a rank. He knew she was blond and her eyes were blue like Daniel's.

But he still didn't know her.

Except...

She talked to her plants.

That was something he remembered now, probably because Jadah's property was basically a huge blanket of flowers and herbs. They were everywhere. On fields surrounding the garden, in the front yard, the backyard, crawling over the walls of the white washed house. Dots of every color on rich foliage of greens everywhere.

There was a rose garden and a tulip garden up front. In the back were patches of all kinds of flowers Jack didn't know the name of. Further away from the house were an herb garden and a green house. Jadah had shown them around after dinner. Danny had been in awww and ooooh mode over the bee hives and the pigeon loft. But he'd fallen in love with the fluffy brown rabbits living in their very own part of the yard with little wooden houses to sleep in. Getting him away from them and ready for bed had been a challenge in itself.

Jadah had lured Danny away from his new friends with the promise of warm honey milk and a bedtime story. Danny had accepted the milk offer from her, but had insisted that Jack tell the story. When he'd finally been tucked under the covers he'd held onto one of Jack's fingers with his small hand and asked, "You're not going to find Teal'c without me, right Jack? You won't leave me here and go away?"

Jack had stroked the wispy blond hair of his star child and wondered if Danny sometimes read his mind. "I'm not going anywhere tonight, buddy."

"I have to go with you," Danny had murmured, eyes heavy with sleep.

"Let's talk about that tomorrow. It's been a long day."

"Promise me." Danny had suddenly sat up and stared at him, fighting sleep with all his might to get his point across.

"Danny..."

"You won' leave without me. Where you go, I go. You promised."

"You'll be safer here. We'll be back once we got Teal'c out. I said I'd take you with me, and I will. But rescuing Teal'c might be dangerous and I don't want anything happen to you."

"But you'll need me! I'm part of the team, Jack."

He'd kissed the top of Danny's head. "We'll talk about this tomorrow."

A single tear had peeked out from under silky lashes and run down a chubby cheek. "You won't take me with you."

Not a question anymore. Jack had decided he could as well say it as it was. Daniel had never been one to be fooled easily.

"I'm sorry. I can't. It's too risky." He'd brushed that tear away with his thumb. "But we'll be back together in no time."

Danny had turned his back on him and burrowed under the soft covers. Jack put a hand on the boy's back and felt him stiffen. The rejection hit much harder than he wanted to admit. He'd fussed with the blanket for a moment, said goodnight and left quietly.

Now he was sitting on the porch behind the house, absently playing with his dog tags. He listened to the sounds of the night. Different than Ba'th Town. No ocean lapping against the shore, no wind in the beach grass. Rustle of leaves instead. Hushed noises of small nocturnal mammals in the bushes. The faint gurgle of a nearby well or spring. Crickets. The crickets he knew from the beach, too. And from Minnesota...

The place he owned; the cabin with the no-fish-pond was in Minnesota. He'd known he grew up there, but he'd forgotten the cabin was there, too. At least he had somewhere to go now when he got back. Somewhere he could maybe learn to feel at home again.

He looked up briefly, registering the pool of silver reflecting in the huge french doors. The moon was almost full tonight. It illuminated the garden and deepened the shadows.

He smelled Jadah before she made herself known. The scent of lavender seemed to accompany her everywhere, yet it wasn't strong enough to be pungent. Just a whiff of it.

"You are still up." She had spoken softly as though she didn't want to disturb the stillness of the night. Now she moved with surprising ease for a woman her age around the table. She sat a small cup in front of him and settled in the other chair. "You should save your strength and sleep. The tea will help."

He glanced at it. "Thanks, ma'am."

"You are a troubled one, are you not?"

"Trying to sort out two different lifelines is kind of troubling, if that's what you mean." He let the chain slide through his hand. He rubbed his fingertips over the tags, tracing the stenciled words and numbers. O'NEILL, JACK 799 36 6412 B NEG RC.

"You are the leader of the unit Sam calls SG-1," Jadah said. "But you are tired of being a leader."

He closed his fist around the tags. Ya think?

"Sam believes in you and her SG-1. She is out there trying to save Teal'c and she is expecting you to be there when it's time."

"I'll be there," Jack said grudgingly. He hadn't come all this way to just sit here and watch the flowers grow. What did she want from him? She was beginning to sound like the kid.

"But will you be ready?"

He stretched out his legs and leaned back in his seat, glancing at the night sky. "I remember enough to pull this off." How hard could it be? Getting off the planet could be difficult, but they had to do this one step at a time. Tackling a bunch of monks in a monastery was a piece of cake, right? Nothing like going against the troops of Apophis. Or Ba'al.

Something cold and dreadful settled at the pit of his stomach. Ba'al was a memory he could do without. He felt the edges of the tags pressing into his palm as he tightened his fist around them again.

Jadah lowered her gaze to his hands and he slowly relaxed them, leaving the chain dangling between his legs. "What is the meaning of them?"

"It's a military thing. Identification." When she looked blankly at him he shrugged and showed them to her. "If a soldier dies in the field... falls in battle... they can help to identify him so that his family can be contacted."

Jadah raised her eyebrows. "How did you get them back? Authorities usually take away everything that connects you to your former life once you've been stamped."

"It's a long story." And he wasn't exactly embracing the gesture either. If his tags were supposed to tell him something he was missing the point. All they did was remind him of how his old life had taken away too much. How the price he had to pay for wearing them had been too high in the end. They were a millstone around his neck, one he'd been happy to get rid off.

"Do they define you?"

"What?"

"Is being a soldier all you know from your other life? And is that troubling you? That there isn't anything else you will go back to?"

He swiftly pushed the tags back in his pocket. "Never thought about that. I'm just trying to figure out how to go from here."

She nodded and Jack wasn't sure if she bought it or if she was just accepting that he didn't want to have that particular conversation. "I have drawn you a map, but you can't miss the way. There are not many walkable paths leading through the woods."

"Thanks."

"Tell me, Jack O'Neill, is the child part of your other life? I did not see him in Sam's memories and she didn't mention him. But he's special. I can sense powers in him he probably doesn't even know about."

"I adopted him a while ago and couldn't leave him behind." He didn't want to have this conversation either.

She rose from the chair, tugging her robe around her body. "Drink your tea. You will sleep better."

When he heard the french doors closing behind her he gave the tea a dismissive glance and, instead of turning in as well, went for a stroll around the property.