At First Sight

Chapter 3 – Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees

A black hole. Why did it matter what a black hole was anymore? My life was no longer a black hole. My life was closer to a star, something so full of life and light, and happiness, that it was the complete opposite. It was like a full circle. Three hundred and sixty degrees different from where I started, or where I ended up after my mother's death. True, I was still distraught about her death, but I realised that it wasn't worth wasting my life, just because hers was. My life had been given a whole new meaning that moment that Jack had walked into that hotel room.

"So..." I said searching for the words. "Uh, what exacaly am I supposed to call you? Second Lieutenant Jack O'Neill?"

"That's quite the mouthful isn't it," he laughed as I stumbled to get all the words out in the right order. "Why don't you just call me Jack. Most people do, unless I'm better than them, then they call me sir. And I'm better than most people," he laughed again. His laugh was infectious.

Over dinner, I had been told that Jack was living in Colorado, near us, and since he was so close, he had been chosen as one of my father's special ops team. My father had high hopes for Jack, constantly saying that if Jack hadn't been ordered on him by the Pentagon, and president, that he would have chosen him anyways. I could understand why. Even though Jack had dropped out of high school at the end of his last year, he had been a very brave and responsible solider ever since.

I saw more of Jack over the week that we were in Washington, but he was always very busy, and never really had time for a chat. He was always dressed very casually, in a flight suit or similar, never the stuck up uniform my father wore on every possible occasion. He always smiled warmly and bustled off to do something that I was sure my dad must have ordered him to do. Every night, he and the two other new members of my dad's Special Forces team would go out for dinner with us and talk about military things that used to bore me to tears. Now, I listened closely as they spoke of new rifles and other people that I knew nothing about.

Over the week, I spent lots of time in museums, absorbing as much as I could, and parks, and shopping until I was sure my dad's bank account was on fire. But as much time as I spent sightseeing, I doubled with trying to catch back up, and get ahead in school. I had realised that screwing up high school would get me nowhere in life.

It was the last day that we were in Washington, the sun was high in the sky, and I was happy to just sit out on the balcony that was attached to the room we were in and finish a lesson from my math book. I knew by now I was over 6 lessons ahead in all my subjects, but I'd already seen everything worth seeing in Washington, and spent enough money to keep the economy thriving for a few weeks, so I settled down with a pencil, my book, and a calculator.

I was starting the fourth question on the page, when someone opened the door to the room. I gave it no notice. I figured it was my dad, or my brother, so I continued to solve the complicated question that was trying to find out the different angles of a bunch of triangles all cramped inside a circle. If there hadn't been so many lines, it might have been a little simpler, but it was hard to decipher what went where.

"See, I knew you were one of those kids who couldn't put down their homework long enough to enjoy a beautiful day like this!" someone said somewhere close beside me. My heart stopped as I jumped about a foot in the air, and then my heart started beating rapidly. I turned slightly to see Jack standing beside me.

"Hello, sir," I said quickly, and sighed in relief.

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jack?" he asked, laughing slightly at my reaction.

"Sorry, and how did you get in here anyways?"

"Your dad gave me the key to see if you were ready to go to the airport," he answered, holding the card key in his hand.

"Oh, yeah, just let me finish this question. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know how to calculate this angle here would you?" I asked.

Jack let out a laugh when he looked down at my work. "If I did, I wouldn't be doing grunt work for your dad," he mused. I raised an eyebrow in confusion. I knew he hadn't finished high school, but never once had he given me the impression that he wasn't smart. He noticed the look on my face. "It wasn't that I'm not smart, I'm just not very..." he paused, searching for the right word, "Motivated," he grimaced, then pointed to my homework, "You can finish that in the airport."

Between the two of us, it took only one load to get all the bags down stairs. I didn't tell him which was mine, but I knew he'd probably guessed by the size of it.

The flight home was uneventful, I finished the math I had started, somewhat satisfied by my progress, and tried to ignore Jack who was sitting in the seat next to me the whole way. When we arrived back in Denver, we drove Jack home; he lived in a nice little house on a large pond about an hour drive from the town we lived in. He smiled and waved as we drove off, and I wished that I would see him again. He was the reason my life had changed from chaos to dancing star.

A/N: So there you go, I wrote two chapters for you (and hid under your deck) because I love you. (ah Up! The best movie ever!). Anyways, just so your aware, the next chapter will not be posted until I have AT LEAST 5 reviews. I haven't really been picky about I, but I do like so feed back, and im sorely lacking in the feed back department with this fic. Anyways, if your curious about that last sentence, it was something I came across today. It's something the German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said: One must have chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star. I personally find it to be a powerful thing and I want to play around with this idea (if not in this fic, in other writings I do) It is also a fantastic song by Allan Bell, and it was based off this quote. Look it up if you can =)

Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate SG-1