Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate SG:1
A/N: Based (sort of) off the second episode and a random thought, how far would you go to escape your grief? Another city? Another state? Another country or continent? For Ferretti, it was another galaxy.
Ferretti never went back to his apartment. After it happened, Colonel O'Neill had brought him back to his house, and the rest of SG-2 had packed up the first place Ferretti had ever called home. He stayed at the Colonel's until his reassignment to Area 51 occurred, but no one mentioned it. People went quiet when they saw him, and nobody said Kowalski's name. As so often happened in these unacknowledged relationships, Kowalski would fade from memory, Ferretti would transfer, and no one would ever mention what might have been.
Ferretti probably wouldn't have gone near the Stargate again, but when General O'Neill came, gave him the device that lit up in his hand and asked him to think about it, Ferretti decided that a one way ticket off Earth and away from the unmentionable ghost was the best idea anyone had ever had. The hardest part, if he was honest, had been to walk the hallways of the Cheyenne complex again and listen to the whispers.
"Who is that?"
"One of the Atlantis people, I guess."
"No, I've seen him before."
"Nametag says Ferretti."
"Ferretti? He's a legend."
"What did he do?"
"He was part of the first team."
"He was SG-1?"
"No, before SG-1; Ferretti survived the first Abydos mission."
"I thought he became a Goa'uld host."
"No, that was Kowalski. Ferretti was the one who quit."
It was all he could do not to say something to the two lieutenants, because he hadn't quit, he'd survived two missions that had taken the lives of so many others and no one should be asked to do more than that. Besides, he didn't want to get kicked off the Atlantis mission because he went crazy and beat up a couple of kids who didn't know the first thing about the Abydos missions or Kowalski.