Happy new year!
Loved the reviews, please keep them up. They give me motivation to write more fics and to become a better writer. And I'm bored, and a review means a little interaction with someone new or someone I already know. And it also means some human interaction in which my family is sorely lacking today (they've spent the better part of today sleeping), and I'm not in the mood to go out in minus ten degrees Celsius for some interaction in a bar and all of my friends are out of town.
As promised, this part is much longer. This will get me reviews, won't it? I'm bored, wake me up before I fall asleep here and maybe that way I'll come up with a good title and summary for a JAG Harm/Meg fic I have already completed.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Rachel was working in her lab with the listlessness and disinterest that had become characteristic for her over the past few months, even to the point that the new CMO had become concerned.
But no medicine can cure a grieving heart and even three months after Jack had been frozen tears would still well up and a sob would still break out whenever she thought of him. Which was nearly every minute.
She'd lost weight and the bags under her eyes were a constant feature on the now haggard face. She was still a beautiful woman, but the grief was obvious in every feature of her body and every move she made. Her life had become a routine, so different than when Jack had still been there with them, and she moved like a robot from one errand to another, not having any enthusiasm in life anymore.
The only feeling except for grief and heartache that she was still able to feel, was hope that they would find the Asgard and that Jack's little buddy, of whom the man was so very fond of, would be able to help Jack and bring him back to her.
And just because she was not SG-1 and was too personally involved she was not allowed to join in the effort to get help for the Colonel.
Too personally involved... why did they then allow SG-1 to be involved? But teammates are viewed differently by the military than lifemates.
True, she and Jack hadn't been dating, yet, much less were married, but in all honesty she was mourning like only a true mate, something not even many spouses were, would be capable of. She was sure that if Jack was dead for real, never to return, she would die herself from grief.
She remembered a documentary on wolves she'd seen a few years back. Wolves mate for life and when one of the mates dies, the other will soon follow. It will die from grief. It will mourn and miss it's mate so much that it will stop eating and begin sleeping increasingly longer, until one day it won't wake up.
The first time this analogy had come to her Rachel had scoffed, but with each passing day she was beginning to see more and more why it happened with the wolves.
Her friends tried to get her to start living again, they tried to get her out of the lab, to get her to come with them to a bar or do something else, but she was already too lethargic and the promise of sleep was becoming more and more attractive. The only thing that was keeping her from going to sleep and never waking up was the fact that Jack wasn't dead yet, though what he was going through couldn't be called 'life' either.
Two pictures, one of him alone and one of them together, the one that had been taken during the past few months, were standing on her desk in her lab and another set of copies on the nightstand in her on-base quarters, where she now spent most of her nights, and at her apartment, where she had more pictures of him and them together. They were there to remind her why she had to keep on going, why she was not allowed to give in, why she had to fight and live. Jack was still alive and would be coming back. She had to keep hope alive.
On the other hand she was seriously considering asking Daniel Jackson that when he died again, to put in a good word for Jack with the Ancients, to convince them to tell her how to save Jack.
Or to just give her the chance to join him until they could both be rescued.
Somehow Rachel had the feeling that Jack's conciousness wasn't in stasis until he could be de-frosted, but that he was probably up there with the Ascended. Jack was practically an Ancient and the Ancients who had built the weapon knew what would happen to them once they'd use it. So, it was only logical for them to insure that their consciousness would still be active, perhaps on another plane of existence, waiting there until it could return to it's living, de-frosted, body.
Would the Ascended, but mostly the Oma Desala of whom she'd heard so much, took pity on her and allow her to join Jack where-ever he was until they could both be rescued, if they wouldn't be willing to rescue him?
To top it off, everyone on the base knew that they'd been spending almost all of their off-duty time together, albeit as friends. That was enough for TPTB to put Rachel in the same category as wives... to be fed an occasional bit of information in order to try to keep her on the leash and to stop her from rocking the boat, like going to the media with how callous and wasteful the military was even with the personnel that were stationed on home soil and not in a foreign country fighting for their country's economic interests.
On the other hand, she wasn't allowed to mourn openly because she and Jack weren't married, they hadn't even been dating. Dating would require a permission from Hammond and they hadn't been that far yet. As far as Hammond was concerned, he didn't know anything about any romantic relationship between them.
Jack had told her that Hammond had called him to him and had asked him about their relationship. Jack had explained to him that in the light of recent events (this is the beauty of 'don't ask, don't tell', both Jack and George knew what he was talking about, but because Jack didn't come right out and say it there was no reason for repercussions) and the steady degradation of SG-1, each of them slowly going their own way, Jack had realized that if he did nothing he would end up alone and lonely, without any friends, when SG-1 broke up if he did nothing about it. Thus Jack was working on his existing acquaintances to turn them into friendships. That had satisfied Hammond.
But the minute she'd mourn him like a lover and not a friend in public, considering that what public was concerned she and Jack were only friends, she and Jack would have to pay the price for breaking frat regs by not having gotten permission from their CO first. There was no doubt that the enemies of Jack and SG-1 would take advantage of it and probably courts-martial him even in absentia. And she needed to be here, needed to be here when Jack was returned. Yes, in private practice she would have a paycheck several times larger than what she had in the Air Force and would get more recognition from her peers, yes what they did at the SGC was thrilling and she was honored to be among the few that were deemed good enough to be a part of it, but now she was coming to realize that she was still in this just because of Jack.
A career can be a wonderful thing, but in the end it can not fill your heart with love, it can't compete with having a child with the person you truly love, it can't compete with the love you feel when you see your soulmate play and interact with your child(-ren), career won't ever warm your bed, it's mere presence won't ever prevent you from feeling lonely and alone, career won't be there when you're old and lonely if you've chosen it over love.
These thoughts had Rachel to think about the possible future and be happy about the fact that she wasn't permanently assigned to any SG team. If she'd get married and had a family there would be no chance of leaving Jack a widower and their children motherless. And, while she'd miss it slightly, she'd have no regret if she'd ever choose to resign from the Air Force and the SGC for the good of her family.
She was not given more than just bare scraps of info, nor allowed too close to the search, she'd had to fight like a lioness for even that one single visit to the Antarctic, even though she was assigned to the same command, was an officer and a professional and wasn't married to Jack.
Just because she loved the man it was believed that she either wouldn't be able to handle the stress or would put him ahead of mission objectives.
So out of it she was that she never noticed the bright light that suddenly filled her lab until she heard the sweetest sound she could ever think of. The sound of Jack's voice.
"You know, a guy goes away for a couple of months and when he comes back people act like he doesn't exist."
She froze in shock and certainty that she was just hearing what she wanted to hear.
"Gonna give me some serious complex here."
Okay, this was getting spooky. Figuring that she had nothing to lose anymore (except for her sanity of which she wasn't certain she was still in possession of) she slowly turned around and felt her throat suddenly clog from overwhelming emotions at seeing Jack standing there, devouring her with his eyes before they narrowed in concern.
"Rachel?" Jack was looking her up and down, examining her more closely. What he saw worried him. Plainly put, she looked awful.
"You don't look so good."
At his words she managed to shake off her stupor and with tears in her eyes she strode over to him.
Jack's face widened with a smile which turned into shock and hurt when she slapped him hard.
"Ow! What was that for?" he cried out, pressing a hand to his burning cheek, but bit off any futher words when tears started rolling down her face like a torrent and she started shaking like a leaf in wind.
"YOU! You go and do something stupid like that and then you go and get frozen for months, leaving me behind. You were practically dead, you bastard! And then you're gone for three months and I'm not even allowed to mourn because we're not even involved and then you come back and the only thing you say is that I don't look so good!?" her voice was steadily rising through her tirade, until she was shrieking at the top of her lungs. But that wasn't what shocked Jack the most.
Rachel never babbled. Rachel didn't do the babble at all. The only time he could remember her coming close to babbling had been when he'd almost gotten killed by some drunk moron who'd mistaken the sidewalk for the road and had almost run Jack down before Rachel's horrified eyes 4 months after Christmas.
The fact that she was now babbling spoke volumes of how she'd been affected by the events of the last three months and Jack felt suitable chastened. He'd known that was the wrong thing to say the minute it had left his mouth, but he'd been so overwhelmed by emotions upon seeing her again after he'd thought that he'd never see her again, that his emotional-defence mechanism had kicked in and had him say something stupid, like ti normally did in emotionally charged circumstances. He just didn't deal with strong emotions well.
She was about to hit him again, but Jack intercepted her arm and pulled her against him, immobilizing her. She stood there for a second frozen and then broke down completely.
Jack held her in his arms as she sobbed, finally experiencing a cathartic release of months of grief and other pent up emotions; his hand stroking her hair comfortingly while he whispered soothing words into her ear.
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