This fic is very different from what I usually write, but this song kept sticking in my head and a friend agreed that this needed to be written so here I am. nervous grin This contains spoilers for the 1st season show "Cold Lazarus". The song this is based on is called "Cold" and it's by Crossfade. Please review...this is my first angst ever.
Looking back at me, I see
That I never really got it right
I never stopped to think of you
I'm always wrapped in
Things I cannot win.
They'd said that hindsight was 20/20. There was so much thathe could have done differently...but didn't. After it had happened, he'd never done or even said the one right thing that could have changed where he was lying tonight. Instead of being alone, he could have been with someone he loved. Instead of bearing all of his pain alone, he could have had someone to share that burden.
But he never considered how hard it was for her, too. He hadn't been the only one to lose a child that day. He'd been so absorbed in the "what if's" and "if only's" that Sara and her own pain had hardly registered with him
You are the antidote that gets me by
Something strong
Like a drug that gets me high
She had always gotten him through his bad times, especially when he'd come home from the Gulf. Like a medicine to any poison he'd come across in life, she had the ability to cleanse him, to make him happy and whole again. He was even at times euphoric in her presence. She lifted him to heights he never could have even imagined. But that was lost irrevocably to him now.
What I really meant to say
Is I'm sorry for the way I am
I never meant to be so cold to you
He rolled over and contemplated the bare ceiling. There had been fights, and he'd said so many things that he later regretted but never rectified. She'd tried everything to draw him out, to get him to tell her something, anything... but it hadn't worked. That had been his way to deal with it; to pull away so far within himself that even he didn't know the way out anymore. He'd been so frozen, so cold...
And I'm sorry about all the lies
Maybe in a different light
You could see me stand on my own again
How many times had she asked if he'd talked to someone and he'd told her yes, he had? How many appoinments had he broken and told her he'd gone to? He'd used his gift of the Irish Blarney to keep anyone, even her, from getting even remotely close to that black hole in his heart where Charlie had resided. Everything kept stacking up against him until the house of cards finally collasped at his feet, absolutely runined. Maybe someday he could get everything together and rebuild and she'd see that he was okay now.
Cause now I can see
You are the antidote that got me by
Something strong like a drug that got me high
What I really meant to say
Is I'm sorry for the way I am
I never meant to be so cold
As always, his mind ran its circular thought and came back to her again. She'd been everything to him. We were so great together...he thought sadly. The greatest things I ever had in life were her and Charlie...all of that is gone now.
I never really wanted you to see
The screwed up side of me that I keep
Locked inside of me so deep
It always seems to get to me
I never really wanted you to go
So many things you should have known
I guess for me there's just no hope
I never meant to be so cold
After Charlie had died, he'd been messed up. He didn't know which way his head was facing half the time and it had surprised her, he could tell. He had always been the strong, reliable one that others could depend on but when the crisis was so personal, so close to home...in his home...he was so rigid and couldn't bend so instead, he broke and shattered. He could have reached out for her at any time and told her how badly he needed her...but he hadn't. The bitter regret swirled around inside of him so strongly that he thought surely he couldn't feel anything else. His tender nerves felt raw, and so exposed that even the slightest brush would set off a chain reaction within him that he didn't know if he could survive. So much regret, so much time lost...he hadn't wanted the way he'd been to be the only lingering memory she would have of him, but he'd laid every damned brick in that hideous monument to his own selfish sorrow with his own two hands. That would be what she recalled years later when his name would come up. Their parting still left a bitter taste in his mouth, one he knew that time would never be able to completely dull.
What I really meant to say
Is I'm sorry for the way I am
I never meant to be so cold to you
What was the point of going and trying to talk to her now? What was the point ofeven going on? He didn't mean anything to her anymore and "I'm sorry" would not even begin to cover what had gone wrong with them; Jack knew that. Oh, did he know that. They said that hindsight was 20/20...and Jack O'Neill now knew what they meant. It was the worst lesson he'd ever had to learn.