'It's all you get
For holding on
To something that will never come.
Am I holding on
To something that will never come?'
"Heartbeats" ~ Aron Wright
In the backwater streets of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, there lived an old woman who had no teeth.
She existed among broken crates and chicken sellers with hens slung over their handlebars. Mud caked to her shoes when rain came down from the mountains, but she lived to sit on that giant spool that had once stored wiring for power lines overhead.
Her eyes had the amber glow of stars witnessed, stars fallen, stars born. She used to read coca leaves.
Once, she grabbed the arm of a lost little boy who'd wandered too far from his parents. His skin was an Irish, pasty white compared to the locals' cinnamon shading.
She'd looked him in the eye, compassionate and otherworldly. Amber met lens covered blue.
"The number thirteen will trip us all in the end," she'd said. "Beware of thirteen."
Everyone called the old woman superstitious. Especially the dig team from New York.
But she was right.
It was on a frozen planet, knocking on the door of a yurt-like structure and having not slept in God-knows how long, that Daniel remembered the old woman who'd warned him about the number thirteen.
"Your friend has not been here," said a man in the yurt. "But three men have. Dressed like the night."
Daniel thanked the man and trudged back to the gate. The tactical team had already dialed coordinates, darted through. Daniel followed.
His boots met the leaf-strewn ground of a temperate, meadow land climate. He shivered as snow melted off his clothes, and he remembered.
Thirteen. This makes planet number thirteen I've followed Jack and these men to.
And yet Daniel was still no closer.
Where are you going, Jack? What are you looking for?
More immediate problems soon emerged—the tactical team had begun a grueling sprint. Daniel's tired legs pumped to keep them in his sights while still being quiet.
He was losing them. In doing so, he was losing Jack.
Daniel's heart rebelled against his rib cage in a rhythm that had nothing to do with exertion.
He was losing Jack.
Daniel was so absorbed that he didn't notice a branch in the narrow boreal path. The archaeologist tripped and crashed to his knees, shredding the palms of his hands.
Stunned, Daniel's vision spun. It was nightfall here and black closed in all around. Daniel pounded the ground, his breath emerging in ragged puffs.
He leaned back on his knees and roared, without care for who heard. Stars shone overhead, similar constellations to Earth's night sky; he was in his own solar system, then.
Amber eyes had watched these stars not so long ago.
So had a grumpy colonel's telescope. Looking for Abydos, looking for Daniel. Looking for hope.
The glasses came off, replaced by a hand. Daniel breathed, shallow sounds with no witnesses but the trees. His whole body trembled.
The fact was immutable, awful, a guillotine that Daniel was about to die upon:
I'm failing Jack.
Jack had saved Daniel's sorry behind more times than any man had saved another and Daniel couldn't even catch up with him. Thirteen planets. Thirteen chances, more than enough. And he failed every time.
I'm failing Jack.
"I was wrong to be bitter," Daniel sobbed. "It…I…you can't…"
He might have hunched there on a planet at the edge of the galaxy, tearing himself apart, for the rest of his life. Just then, however, the moon flashed off a silver glint.
Daniel knew that grey haired silhouette better than his own name.
"Jack!"
Daniel heard arguing voices in the other direction, far away.
The tactical team lost track of Jack! This is it!
Jack moved at a good click, but the sheen of his leather jacket made him easier to follow. The forest slanted downwards, trees thinning in favour of an orange glow.
Daniel crested the hill and gaped at an enormous city below, one that stretched farther than his eye could see.
It was the biggest civilization he had come across in any of the thirteen planets. Though similar to Biblical Jerusalem in modernity, it was a bustling trade hub, even at night. Like an interplanetary Manhattan.
Men wore blue caps and the women lacy pant suits. Daniel barely spared it a second glance before stumbling down after Jack. His hands throbbed.
The general had made it to the edge of the city. Even in their strange clothes, the two men didn't garner any attention.
It was the first time ever that Daniel ignored glyphs on buildings.
Jack flew now. Daniel had never run so fast in his life. It was a cosmic dance, beautiful, founded at the beginning of the world.
Young after old. Friend pursuing friend.
Daniel leapt clean over a fruit stall and landed with an 'oomph.' Jack dodged to the left now in a sudden beeline for the outskirts of the city.
"Move out of the way!" Daniel hollered, waving his arms at pedestrians. "Move!"
He missed a landing and the embers of a fire flew. People screamed but Daniel just kept on running. He ducked under awnings, around children. Sweat soaked his back. His boots were a military tattoo—
ThudThudThudThudThud.
Adrenaline sharpened his eyesight. His younger legs were gaining on the silver blur that was his friend.
"Jack, please!"
At this, finally, the general slowed. He stopped but didn't turn around.
City sounds quieted, replaced by wind through the grasses. Jack's back was a frothy line and he too trembled, unsteady on his feet.
"Danny? Where are you?"
Daniel almost passed out. It was the first time he'd heard Jack's voice in two years. The weak call of his nickname threatened to bring him to his knees.
He dared to smile. "Oh, Jack, you wouldn't believe—"
Without warning, the bombastic ending to an already nightmare-like fantasia, a gloved hand slammed over Daniel's mouth.
He tasted blood. More arms joined the first, one an iron bar around his waist and two others on his biceps. They dragged him backwards. The whole thing happened in near total silence.
Jack began walking away once more. Daniel struggled. No way was he losing Jack with less than ten feet between them.
For every step Jack took, the arms yanked Daniel back towards the city. Tears stung his eyes.
I'm failing Jack.
"You are not messing up this operation," hissed a voice in Daniel's ear. He bucked but the arms were too strong. A fist cannon balled him in the gut.
Someone laughed. "You don't think we know you've been following us, Doctor Jackson? Why do you think you've been able to follow a trained unit for so long, hmm? We needed you to keep up. Gotta have a front row seat for the end of the world."
Another laugh and someone spit in his eyes. Daniel didn't process half of this past the panic in his lungs. This wasn't just efficiency.
This is anger. People doing things for money didn't achieve this level of anger. He felt the hate pouring off all three men's bodies. What is going on?
Daniel freed an arm and stretched it out in a futile attempt to reach Jack.
He was eight years old, reaching for parents who would never hold him again. Being restrained.
In pulling against the arms, something gave around his ribs with a loud POP.
The men swore in surprise. And Daniel knew with frosty assurance that he would sooner rip himself in half than lose Jack now.
The hand released Daniel's mouth. Before he could shout in victory, the fist pummeled his stomach again.
And another. Then another. Trained combat hits to inflict maximum damage.
His cracked rib broke completely. Daniel couldn't even double over because the other two held him in a starfish position. He didn't make a sound—couldn't—while more spitting rained down on him.
And Jack walked further away.
Daniel didn't mean for it to happen, honestly. It wasn't even painful. But a bare hand came up to slap him on the mouth and the petty brutality caught him off guard.
Daniel cried out, a sharp, high sound like a bullet firing. It echoed off the night's descending chill.
Jack was there so fast it defied the laws of physics.
He swooped in like an avenging angel and the three men's laughter turned to choked shock. Daniel may have been no match for the three tactical men, but they were powerless in the face of a protective Jack O'Neill.
Even with eyes unfocused, glazed, and shadowed with sickness, Jack managed to kick one man in the sternum and throw another against a stone wall before Daniel's next breath.
His hands were everywhere, bashing two heads together, wrenching a hand off Daniel's arm and breaking someone's wrist in the process. A storm roiled in his irate gaze.
Freed, Daniel leaned over on his knees, one arm around his middle. He wanted to speak but pain lanced through his body.
He gazed at a dark patch on the front of his shirt and realized the blood was his own, dripping from his mouth. Shudders raced through his limbs.
The general continued his furious MMA routine. It was raw force, no finesse.
He only stopped because all three men lay on the ground, groaning. Daniel wondered when he'd lost the Taser.
Jack glanced at Daniel but didn't seem to actually see anything, like he was gazing through Daniel at a distant skyline.
"Jack?"
Jack was a wounded animal, brow confused. "Danny?"
I'm right here! Daniel wanted to scream it to the heavens. He couldn't, though, because just then an arm wrapped around his throat.
"Tell him to give us the Scrambler or I shoot him," said a low, pained voice.
Daniel's lips pulled tight over his teeth. These men understood how to play the game. He cared very little if he died. But if Jack died…
"Do it," the voice hissed. "We need that thing yesterday."
"Ja…" Daniel cleared his throat and tried again. "Jack, hey. Look at me."
Jack attempted to, he really did. His concussed-like eyes roved the air and settled on the city wall.
Though he shivered, he wasn't sweating. It looked unnatural and ominous.
On instinct, Daniel's arm again stretched out for him. "Jack? Can you reach into your pocket for me?"
Jack might not have been able to see Daniel but he certainly heard him. Daniel hadn't even finished speaking and Jack's hand came out with the Scrambler.
Tension suddenly thrummed in the air. The scrolled orb glowed faintly, that horrid, cosmic colour Daniel had no name for and that haunted not only his dreams but all his waking hours.
"Thank you, Jack. Now…just walk forward…"
Despite the lethal grace of seconds before, Jack stumbled over his own toes on the way to Daniel and his captor.
Daniel's heart ached. His Adam's apple bobbed against the rough fabric.
Less than a foot away, Jack halted. The motion was abrupt and the men exchanged uneasy words. Whatever it was about the situation, the atmosphere, the smells, the Scrambler, or the memories that came with it—Daniel had no idea—Jack's eyes sharpened to razors.
He didn't seem concerned about the men. He didn't gape at the uniforms or the elbow around Daniel's throat.
No, his eyes burned at the object near Daniel's head.
"Gun," said Jack with a cement cold tone of righteous fury. "No gun."
The sight of that automatic so close to Daniel's wavering face broke Jack.
"Charlie," he murmured, softer.
Again, Daniel's mind went to that Bolivian lady, the gentle tone that belied her wiry grip on his arm. He remembered the commanding feel of her fingers, her toothless mouth an underscore.
The tactical team never saw Jack coming. His weak tone had fooled them all.
One minute he was standing there and the next he tore the gun away from Daniel's head. He flung it into the grass, as far as he could. His knuckles broke the largest man's nose before anyone registered that he'd pulled Daniel free.
"Daniel?" Jack blinked and for a split second, the two men saw each other clearly. His jaw worked a few times and the paleness was replaced by a tight flush. "Daniel?"
"Jack—"
One of the men reached up from the ground. His fist drove a loaded syringe into Jack's hip.
And then Jack was off. Off into the night, wincing.
"Jack, wait! Jack!"
Daniel lunged for his friend but the man hadn't been a black ops for nothing. He was gone.
"Jackson's getting away! Boss'll kill us!"
"Grab him!"
No choice. No other option—Daniel fled into the trees. It was either do or be caught.
He'd only sprinted a few meters up the tor when the first bullet whizzed by his ear. The second swiped his thigh and Daniel bit his lip to keep from shrieking. Hot blood oozed down his leg.
Make that do or die.
