It was a long, anxious wait.
Aniyuv's timing had been just about perfect. They had hit the gap in the guard shift change without incident. Aniyuv had remained behind, of course. Carter had invited him to come with them, fearing his people would kill him when they found out what he'd done, but he had assured her that he would be alright, and that he had a plan in place. Carter seemed doubtful, but Jack believed him.
Besides, at that point he'd been mostly concerned with Jonas, who had lost consciousness just a few minutes before they reached the Stargate. Carter had dialed up Earth, Jack had sent their GDO code and Teal'c had carried Jonas through to the other side and into the waiting arms of Dr. Fraser and her medical team. The medical team had immediately departed the 'Gate room, and Jack along with the rest of SG-1, SG-7 and SG-15 had gone for a debriefing with General Hammond.
After that, Jack wasn't surprised to discover that Jonas had been taken in to surgery. It wasn't Jack's usual habit to loiter around the infirmary, so he went to get some lunch from the commissary. What he discovered was that it was later than he'd thought, so he had dinner instead. He ate alone, quietly, and found that for once he just wasn't particularly hungry. He ate anyway, long experience had instilled the behavior of eating when food was available because you never knew where your next meal might come from. At any moment, a crisis could arise and Jack knew he might not have the opportunity eat again for a long time.
Jack remembered all the times Daniel had forgotten to eat or sleep when he was working on something, and Jack or Carter had dragged him off to the commissary against his will. He remembered the team all sitting around the table eating, Daniel usually explaining at length his opinion on something while Jack pretended to listen. Daniel was always the most passionate person at the table, vibrantly alive and emphatic in his statements, lengthy in his explanations and eager for discussion.
Though they were all close with each other, team meals had become much quieter without him. It just wasn't as much fun to make wisecracks about what Carter had to say, and she was much less animated most of the time. Jack just didn't enjoy making a joke out of her brilliance like he did Daniel's. Jack vaguely realized he'd never sat down to a meal with Jonas. Not once.
By the time Jack finished playing with his dinner and went back to the infirmary, Jonas was out of surgery. Dr. Fraser's expert nursing staff was getting the injured Kelownan settled. Jack stayed near the door so he was out of their way, but he didn't leave.
Jonas looked small in the bed, pale and younger than ever. He looked vulnerable and fragile lying there with an IV stuck in his arm. The drugs had taken the tension from his face, but somehow he just didn't look quite peaceful, probably because his body was still trying to fight off an infection induced fever.
"Colonel," Dr. Janet Fraser acknowledged his presence, signaling she had a minute to talk.
"How's he doin', doc?" Jack asked quietly.
"He's pretty beat up, Colonel," Fraser told him, "Those people really put him through Hell."
"Is he gonna be okay?" Jack inquired.
"Physically, I'd say his chances of a full recovery are good. He took some time responding to the antibiotics, but he's doing alright now," she briefly averted her eyes to look at her patient.
"But?" Jack pressed.
Fraser looked back at him, "Well, unfortunately we won't know the extent of the damage to his brain until he wakes up," she smiled wanly, "You've all survived the Goa'uld hand device with no lasting effects, but the fact is that Jonas is physiologically different from you and me. Not much, but maybe enough. There's also the blunt force trauma to his skull to consider."
"Mind if I hang around?" Jack asked.
Fraser raised an eyebrow. She knew well the team's aversion to the infirmary. They would come in regularly to check on a downed team mate, but none of them liked to stay. The only time they stood vigil was when their team mate's life was hanging by a thread. Jonas was nowhere near that badly off.
"Colonel, he probably won't regain consciousness for another few hours yet," Fraser warned, "Even when he does, I wouldn't expect him to be able to stay awake for long. He's exhausted."
"That's okay," Jack said, "I haven't got anything better to do right now."
Dr. Fraser shrugged, gestured her permission and then went about her rounds.
Jack found a chair, pulled it up and sat in it backwards, straddling it and then resting his forearms on the back of it. He settled in to wait. Waiting had never been his strong suit, but he could do it when he had to. The trouble with waiting was that it gave him time to think, to remember, to regret, and he'd already had as much of that as he could stand for one day.
Marshal had been released from the infirmary while they were on Guf'yn, and the place was practically empty except for the medical staff. Once they finished settling Jonas in, they went off to do whatever it was doctors and nurses did between patient checks. The lights were low, the place was quiet now. The SGC always felt bigger at night, like all those open spaces started closing in on the few people who stayed after normal business hours. It was at night in the SGC that Jack felt most the enormity of what it was that they did here, when he realized that nothing he'd ever done in his life before now had ever been as huge as what he now did almost every day with the rest of SG-1.
Their job wasn't about border disputes or political maneuvering. It wasn't a conflict between this country or that one. They weren't out there hunting for criminals or even mere terrorists. The job they did, while mostly entailing exploration, investigation, research and meeting new cultures, was fate of the world stuff. More than the world, the whole damned galaxy. It was the greatest job in the universe, but the stakes were always high, the risks great, the consequences for mistakes dire.
It was a privilege to be here, but also an enormous weight of responsibility for a person to take on. It was a burden no one man could carry alone. But it was also a duty that every individual person involved had to perform. Each of them made a difference, sometimes all the difference in the world.
Jonas had never been a victim of Guf'yn. Whatever had happened to him there, in the end he had fought like a true member of SG-1, and he had killed a Goa'uld all on his own. He couldn't have gotten there alone, and he'd never have made it back home if his team hadn't come for him. But in that moment, in that room, alone with Belith, Jonas had made good on his promise. He had been -if only in that instant- everything that Jack had hoped he was capable of becoming. He'd done what it took, consequences to himself be damned. He had understood the threat posed by Belith, had seen his opportunity to eliminate that threat, and had done so. Whether or not he should have been there in the first place didn't really matter at this point. What mattered was the choice he'd made. He had erased himself from the equation, and gotten the job done. He'd seen the face of evil and spit in it, denying fear its power.
No one could have asked anything more of him than that.
Jack didn't realize he'd dozed off sitting in the chair until he heard the distinctive click of Dr. Fraser's heels on concrete when she came by to check on Jonas. Jack didn't say anything, just raised his head from where it had been resting on his arms and looked at her questioningly.
"The anesthesia has worn off," Fraser whispered, "He's sleeping now."
Jack nodded slightly, pretending that meant more to him than it did. Despite having undergone more than one surgery in his life, Jack had somehow managed to miss almost all of the relevant specifics about medicine. It was as foreign to him as the technobabble that came out of Carter's mouth on an almost daily basis. He understood it only a little better than he'd understood Daniel when the man occasionally lapsed into another language when babbling about history.
What he did know for sure was that some of what was in that IV had to be painkillers. Part of how he knew was that he knew what post-op felt like when your painkillers got delayed. You wouldn't be asleep. He knew also because Jonas' face was still fairly relaxed, though not quite as slack as it had been when he'd been in drug-induced unconsciousness. Somehow, there was just a difference between real sleep and the drugged up kind. You could just see it.
"You really should go home, Colonel," Fraser said, laying a hand gently on Jack's shoulder, "I wouldn't expect him to wake up before tomorrow morning at the earliest."
"Nah, I'm good," Jack assured her.
Fraser looked like she might press her doctoring credentials at him, but then she pursed her lips thoughtfully. With a sigh, she shook her head and smiled, recognizing that Jack was going to be stubborn.
"Alright, Colonel. I'm sure he'll appreciate having the company."
Jack doubted that. He enjoyed keeping people off balance, because it kept them alert and thinking, and it was also just so darn fun to see confusion or frustration on people's faces. Some part of him knew that he was constantly challenging Jonas, trying to find ways to push the Kelownan's buttons, not because he disliked the man so much but because he missed fighting with Daniel. Jack knew he intimidated Jonas, and usually that amused him. Not today.
A few minutes after Dr. Fraser left, Jonas began to become upset. Jack noticed when Jonas' brow furrowed. Jonas began to shake his head and tense up, and fresh sweat broke out on his forehead. Despite his obvious distress, he didn't utter so much as a sound. Jack realized he hadn't heard a thing from Jonas since the checkpoint in Kiri when he'd told the Kelownan to be quiet.
Realizing Jonas was becoming more agitated and that he might hurt himself, Jack got up from his chair and laid a hand across the Kelownan's chest.
"Easy, Jonas," Jack said softly, "I've got you. You're safe now, kid. You're home."
Without actually waking, Jonas responded. He relaxed almost immediately, and his breathing eased. Once certain Jonas was settling again, Jack returned to sitting on the chair. The sound of Jonas' regular, almost easy breathing was soothing after having heard him struggle to get air in around the pain the whole ride to the Stargate. It wasn't long before Jack fell asleep again.
Jack had sort of dozed off again, but he was roused by the sense that someone was watching him. He found that Jonas was awake and observing him with a look of concern on his face.
"'bout time you woke up," Jack said, trying to make light of his presence, "I was beginning to think I was going to have to try deciphering Daniel's notes for myself."
Jonas might not have felt very secure in his position, but even he knew that the chances of Jack trying to understand even a fraction of the notes and theories Daniel had written over the last six years were about as good as him learning to breathe underwater. In an infinite universe, anything was possible, but just because it was possible didn't make it likely. Jonas didn't so much as flinch.
But he did apologize.
"Sorry," he barely had a voice to speak with, but Jack managed to hear him, "I guess I was tired."
"Carter and T were worried about you too," Jack said, feeling awkward and uncomfortable being the only one in the room, "But Carter's workin' on a few adjustments for the new 302 design. Very technical. And Teal'c, he's... busy."
Jonas looked slightly uncertain as to whether Jack was pulling his leg or not, but he responded genuinely, "I didn't mean for anyone to worry. I'm sorry."
"Will you stop that?" Jack snapped, a little more harshly than he intended.
Jonas flinched and looked at Jack uneasily, "Stop what?"
"Apologizing all the time," Jack said, "especially for things that are not your fault."
"I'm-" it was just reflex, but Jack cut him off.
"I swear, if you say you're sorry one more time, so help me I'll slap you."
Jonas closed his mouth, and stared at Jack out of wide, dark eyes. He looked profoundly worried now. Jack remembered that he wasn't here to give Jonas a hard time, and he sighed.
"Look, what happened on Guf'yn wasn't your fault. Hell, you shouldn't even have been there."
Jonas now looked genuinely hurt, and Jack didn't at first grasp why.
"Colonel, I know I should have handled the situation better than I did, but-"
"Oh shut up," Jack said and Jonas obeyed, "See, that's exactly your problem."
Jonas had played the good soldier for SG-1. He had done everything Jack ever asked of him, never with the slightest bit of hesitation. And that, Jack realized, had always been exactly the problem.
Confusion clouded the young Kelownan's features, but he said nothing.
"What I meant," Jack said after a moment's thought, "Is that you never wanted to be there. Did you?"
"You assigned me to the mission. What I wanted doesn't matter."
"That's where you're wrong," Jack said, "Dead wrong. Look, Jonas, I'll let you in on a little secret: Danny and I disagreed on.. oh, just about everything. Hell, we couldn't even agree on whether chunky or smooth peanut butter is better. But no matter how crazy he drove me, he had a different perspective and the courage it took to defend what he believed in. As his replacement on this team, it is practically your job to argue with me."
Jonas was silent for a long moment, then finally with his eyes averted, he quietly said, "I'm not Dr. Jackson."
"I know that," Jack responded, "I never had to tell him to stand up for himself."
"Colonel, I'm-"
"Ah!" Jack cut him off, raising a hand, "Don't. Just... don't."
Jonas fell silent. Jack sighed again.
"Look, just because you say something, it doesn't mean I have to agree with you. But even if I ignore it, it's still your job to get it said. Understand?"
Jonas started to nod, then thought better of it.
"No. Not really," he admitted, "My whole life, it's been my job to be agreeable. To do what I'm asked. If I ever had any ideas of my own, I had to sort of... guide my superiors into thinking they thought of it first. I'm not sure I know how to do what you're asking," at least he didn't finish with an apology.
"You don't know how to stand up for yourself?" Jack asked.
"I...," he cut himself off before Jack couldn't, "No... I guess I don't."
He looked so abashed that Jack's heart ached just looking at him. He couldn't think of anything more tragic than not knowing how to stand your ground, to speak with your own voice, to hold your own with the world against you. It was a requirement for this job. The fate of the universe hung in the balance, and they couldn't afford to compromise their beliefs out there. But he took a breath and reached into the pocket of his jacket. His hand found the ring there and he pulled it out.
"Look at me, Jonas," Jack said, and Jonas obeyed, "You say you don't know how," he tossed the ring, and Jonas caught it with one hand, "So just think of it as another skill, and learn. You're good at that."
He didn't wait for a response, he simply got up and left the room, leaving Jonas to stare after him.