[Author's Note:
This follows the story 'Epilogue' which I posted earlier… No, wait. Come back here. Let me explain the name. 'Epilogue' was a one-shot story. I wasn't supposed to be writing any more than that. I thought I was just 'getting it out of my system', as it were. Then along came a wonderful person by the name of Pettygrew. She encouraged me and threw me a juicy bunny. As a direct result of her help (encouragement, hounding… goading) and wonderful beta-ing, 'Epilogue' turned into the first in a series of stories. If I'd known that was going to happen when I wrote 'Epilogue'… well… I would have called it something else.
Or look at it this way… maybe I was being witty, calling a prologue 'Epilogue'. Yeah… that's it. Witty. J
Anyway… let's call this season six. Post 'Revelations' but pre-Jonas joining the team. I haven't seen any of season six, so I really can't get the team dynamic with Jonas down on paper. I believe 'Epilogue' could be placed about two months after 'Meridian'. This takes place about a month after 'Epilogue'.
All hail Pettygrew. grin Thanks for your help.]
The QuestionJack walked slowly, scratching the back of his head. It was one in the morning. The base was quiet. Not a creature was stirring… not even an archaeologist. Jack grimaced at that. Six months ago, that would have been funny… but not now.
He'd been stuck after hours doing paperwork. Hell, even Carter had wrapped up her pet projects and gone home. He started walking, wandering. He meant to go to the commissary, pick up some coffee to keep himself conscious on the drive home. Lost in thought, he'd missed the turn to the commissary and headed on auto-pilot to Daniel's office.
If things were the way they should have been, Daniel would be awake… still be here in his office. He would be pale with big dark circles under his eyes. He would probably be slumped in his chair, squinting at some book, some rock, some… god only knows what, trying to figure out what it was, and what made it work. Jack would find two or three empty mugs of coffee and a half-dozen styrofoam cups crushed and pitched in the direction of the garbage. He would badger Daniel into leaving, eating, sleeping… whatever of the many basic human needs Daniel had most neglected to fulfill this time. It was routine. It was Daniel.
Except Daniel had broken that routine and gotten himself… ascended. That left Jack trying to pull together the fractured and bleeding ends of his team. He groaned. There was no splint large enough for this hurt.
His feet stopped moving, and he looked up, surprised. I thought we talked about this, he chided his wayward ambulatory appendages. We realised we were off track and we were going back to the commissary. His feet didn't listen. They never did. Jack looked down and frowned at his boots. He was talking to his feet. God, he must be farther gone than he thought. He was about to turn away when he noticed that a thin sliver of light spilled out from under the door to Daniel's office.
He tried the doorknob experimentally. It was open. His frown deepened and he swung the thin wooden door open quietly and peered in.
Jack stopped, frozen, and stared. Someone was in the office. A slim figure in green fatigues was slumped in a chair, head resting on its forearms. Whomever it was had on a green bandana and thick army boots. There was an SG team patch on the shoulder, but the light was too low for Jack to make it out. His eyes flicked from side to side. A mug sat next to the figure and three styrofoam cups were stacked on the floor. A pair of metal-framed glasses rested on the person's head, on the bandana.
The colonel tried to speak around the lump in his throat, but failed. He licked his lips and tried again.
"Daniel?"
The figure started awake and stretched forward, head down. "Jack?"
Jack's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as the figure turned and blinked sleepy pale brown… no, actually, golden-yellow eyes in his direction. He slumped visibly as Emma sat up and retrieved her glasses from the top of her head and squinted at him.
"God, Jack. I must have dozed off. I was reading his journals and… whoa, what's wrong with you?" Emma frowned. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Jack grinned and cleared his throat. "Yeah… thought I did." He made a gesture with his hand. "Saw you sleeping there and…"
Emma looked down at her fatigues and back up. It took a second glance before she got it and her mouth made a round 'O' of comprehension. "Oh, jeez, Jack. I'm sorry."
Jack waved off her apologies. "Nah, nah. Forget about it. Not your fault." He came closer and picked up a 'rock', scanned it briefly and then put it back. "So… whatcha doing?"
Emma picked up a book, put it down and then picked it up again. She sighed. "Looking for answers, I guess."
Jack dropped into a chair. "Answers?" She did not reply immediately and so Jack started playing with another 'rock'. "I don't get it." He held up the plain beige stone. It was rough and amorphous. "What did Daniel see in these things? It looks like a rock to me."
Emma tilted her head and examined his find over the rims of her glasses. "Uh… actually Jack, that's mine. It is a rock. Limestone, to be precise, or what passes for limestone on P6L-488. We found it-"
"Ahhh!" Jack interjected, cutting her off before she could explain the sedimentation process necessary to create limestone. Emma smiled and returned to her book. After a minute, she sat back, pushing her glasses up and pinching the bridge of her nose. Jack tossed the rock from one hand to the other, "So… you're looking better."
Emma looked over at him. "Oh. That. Yeah. I was pretty much in working order when we got back from P3X-888. Whatever Daniel did healed me up. The plants seemed to have left their, uh, mark. But, I guess I can't complain, huh?"
"Mark… huh?" Jack fidgeted for a moment, then said innocently. "Can I see your scar?"
Emma chuckled and ran her hand over the site of the wound on her chest. She'd have to pull her shirt indecently low to show that one to him. "Uhhh… no."
The book was opened again, and Emma resumed reading. Jack sat patiently, waiting for an opening. Finally, he tried again. "So… answers?"
Emma sat back and pushed the book away. "When Daniel was… placed in the mental hospital, he wrote it down. When you thought he was dead on the ocean planet, he wrote down his feelings afterwards. When you were forced to shoot Skaara to save him…" She flipped the book with her fingers. Jack echoed her as she said, "He wrote it down. Yeah. He wrote everything down. When we lived together in grad school, he still wrote me notes, letters. I'd get back from evening classes, and there would be a list of things he wanted to tell me, something interesting that had happened, whatever. Daniel was… well, he was a scribe." Emma waved a hand at the bookshelf. "Notes, calculations, combinations, permutations, languages, thoughts, dreams, hopes, ideals, successes, failures… it's all there, Jack. All of it."
Jack had an idea where she was going, but decided to let her tell her at his own pace. "All of it… except?"
"Except." Emma pursed her lips and frowned, creasing the skin between her eyebrows. She tapped the table and thought. "Jack… I told you back on P3X-888 that Daniel only ever kept one thing from me. Remember?"
"Yeah." The colonel said softly, scratching at the rock with his thumbnail. "The Tok'ra mission."
"The Tok'ra mission. Yeah." Emma spread her hands wide and spun her chair around. "I've looked through everything here… all of his files… everything. I can't find anything about it." She fixed Jack in place with her pale eyes. "Tell me, Jack. I need to know."
The colonel squirmed in his chair. "Emma… that was a very sensitive mission. Lots of things happened that really aren't for public consumption."
"Public consumption." She barked a laugh. "God, Jack. What do I look like? Who am I?" Her voice turned angry. "He was the closest thing I had to family. He's dead now and I want to know why. I need to know why!" She slammed the book down on the table making Jack jump.
"I know. I understand."
"Do you, Jack? Do you understand? Can you comprehend twenty-five years of absolute, unflinching honesty disappearing? Something that happened, something this organisation did to him snuffed that out. It's like being blind, being deaf." She stood, pacing, wrapping her arms around her chest.
"It won't help you to know…"
"What?" She rounded on him, furious. "What the hell would you know about that? Is that what you think? Yeah… he's dead. Whoopee. Life goes on, sucks to be him." She tossed him a mocking salute. "Yes sir, no sir, three body bags full, sir."
Jack finally had enough, smashing the rock down on the desk with enough force to crack it in two. "God damn it, Emma! Is that what you think? This is somehow easy for me? That this just rolls off my back?"
"Doesn't it?" She poked him in the shoulder with her finger. "What the hell have you done about this? What do you know? What happened to Daniel? Have you considered it, have you looked at it, have you tried to figure it out?! No! Give it a couple days and then back to work, right?" They were face to face now, yelling at the top of their lungs.
"I figured it out!" Jack launched into his own tirade. "Daniel gave up. He took the easy way out. Selmak tried to heal him… could have healed him. He gave up because that was the easy way out!"
Emma looked away with a disgusted face. "Oh, you would think that. God, you can be such an ass, Jack." She turned on him again. They paced now, circling each other like lions looking for weakness. "What did you ask him to do? Lie? Cheat? Did he have to steal something, betray someone? What was it, Jack?"
Jack finally had enough and he ruthlessly told her what she wanted to know, hoping that it would hurt her as much as she was hurting him. "He was an assassin, Emma. Got it? He was supposed to kill seven Goa'uld and their hosts. He was going to release a poison, something we could use on all Goa'uld, and he was the only one who could do it. We made him into a murderer. Does that make you feel any better? Are ya happy now?"
His face flushed with shame as he realised that he may just have delivered a lethal blow. Emma's face went a deadly white and her jaw dropped in horror. "Jack?" She said softly, suddenly drained of all animosity. He moved forward and caught her as she fell, her legs going numb. He followed her to the ground, cradling her against his chest.
"Oh, dammit, Emma. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. He didn't complete the mission. He came back and he rescued us. He couldn't take lives, he saved them."
"Tell me." She took off her glasses and threw them on the couch, allowing her to scrub her eyes with the back of her hands. "God, Jack. Please, please tell me."
The colonel nodded, swallowing heavily. He spoke in a whisper, his voice threatening to break. "The Tok'ra had a poison… something to kill the Goa'uld. Daniel was the only one who spoke Goa'uld. We needed him to infiltrate a meeting of the major players and release the poison."
"No… no." Emma shook her head. "The Tok'ra could do it themselves."
"They couldn't. Only humans could get in."
"What about Teal'c?"
"Jaffa. Daniel was the only one with the language skills who was human."
"Did he say anything to you? Did he question this, try to find another way?"
Jack shrugged. "We could see that he wasn't happy, but there was no other way. He said that to Teal'c. If there was any other way, he wouldn't have done it. He didn't see another way, so he did what he had to do."
Emma shook her head. "How would that help, though? Eventually another system lord would rise and take the place of the fallen. In fact, you would just make it easier for an outsider to consolidate power."
Jack tilted his head back. "Ahhh… Selmak said that it would buy them time to organize a strike against all of the Goa'uld with the poison."
Emma looked slightly green. "Jesus, Jack. What about the hosts?"
Jack delayed. He thought he knew where this conversation was heading. Emma and Daniel had the same quick mind. "The poisons wouldn't hurt them, but the dying symbiote would kill them."
"All those innocent people."
"All those Goa'uld hosts. C'mon, Emma, think about what it would be like for the hosts. This would be a merciful thing."
"Mercy-killing? Ahhh… how many despots have used just that line? You had a Goa'uld, Jack. Should you have been wiped out for that? Seems the Tok'ra decided you were worth saving. How about Sam? What about Skaara, Sha're? How many people do you know have had Goa'uld and fought back? How many would-be Tok'ra will die? How many newly bonded hosts?" She paused. "What about the Jaffa?"
Jack paused and considered. He had not thought of that. "I guess the symbiote larvae they carry would…"
"Die?" Emma shook her head. "Meaning every Jaffa dies with them. When Teal'c's larvae matures, there would be none to replace it and he would die too."
Jack shook his head. "No. I'm sure the Tok'ra would find a way."
"Would they? And what about the Tok'ra? What happens when we defeat their mortal enemies leaving them the top of the food chain? Will they allow themselves to die out, or will they continue taking hosts, spreading themselves across the galaxy? What happens when one of them decides that maybe they should rule everything? We're right back to where we started, except everything that would balance out the playing field is gone."
"Whoa, Emma. You're getting way ahead of yourself. We don't know the Tok'ra would do anything like that."
"Jack… their best and
most reasonable solution so far is genocide by indiscriminate chemical
warfare. As far as I'm concerned, that
means anything else is good to go."
"Come on, Emma. Be realistic."
Emma put her finger to her lips, silencing him. She cocked her head, thinking. With a muttered curse, Jack slumped onto the couch, narrowly missing Emma's glasses. He picked them up and placed them on Daniel's desk.
Emma began to pace, walking quickly from one end of the office to the other. She was muttering to herself, Jack was now just along for the ride.
"So… there was no other way. The Tok'ra, lovable creatures that they are, have decided to wipe out everything in their path. I assume that they have tested this poison on captive Goa'uld. Of course, otherwise, how would you know that it works? But… then… what other choice do they have? Uh, they could, what? Uh. Treaties don't work. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Right. Asgard technology is at a premium these days. The Goa'uld are too spread out. No real military solution, so we come back to the poison being the only way." Emma stopped, clenched a fist and put it to her forehead. She pounded her clenched fist softly above the bridge of her nose, trying to jog loose some idea. Her eyes scrunched closed and she thought for a moment, leaning her head back and looking at the ceiling. Jack cleared his throat, earning him a 'shhh' and Emma resumed pacing.
"But Kheb. Maybe no military solution, but what about something beyond what we know? No… see, see? That's why the Tok'ra fail. They limit themselves to the, uh, practical. The possible." Emma was making rapid motions with her fingers. "Daniel knew that. God, he knew that." Emma was getting more excited, and starting to smile. Jack's mouth dropped open, torn between concern and fascination. "He had a chance to go beyond what we know, and he took it. Yeah. Do you know what that means, Jack? Do you get it?"
"Uh… he ascended?" Jack put in lamely.
Emma laughed. "More than that, Jack." She dropped to the couch beside him. "It means he never gave up. He didn't die… he ascended." She took him by the shoulders. "But he never gave up. Not on you, not on me. Not on this planet, not in the program, not in the fight." She shook him as Jack absorbed her words. "Jack. He never gave up!" She was crying now, happy tears, not sad.
Jack shook his head, the guilt and pain he had been carrying for the last three months flooding out of him. "Emma." He croaked. "You sure?" Her only answer was to pull him into a hug. He resisted briefly, and then collapsed forward. He was beyond tears, but a huge weight on his mind broke in half and slid away. He pressed his eyes to her shoulder. "God, Emma. I've been so angry at him. At myself. At everyone. I thought he gave up."
"He didn't, Jack. He believed in us all. He's looking for a solution for this. Not running away."
"Daniel." Jack said softly.
Emma made calming noises and held Jack. She rested her cheek on his head, and left him to talk himself out, purging all of the venom that had been poisoning him. She then leaned back on the couch and they sat in silence for a quarter of an hour.
Finally, Jack groaned and straightened up. "Ahhh, my back."
Emma giggled and stood. She screwed the palm of her hand into her eye, rubbing away the tears. Before she could speak, the door opened and she turned, blinking as the bright hall light spilled over her.
"Hey, professor, thought I'd find you here…" A male voice spoke lightly and then cut off. Heavy boots thudded across the floor as a burly man in green fatigues came forward.
"Sanchez." Emma smiled at the man as he walked into the room. He touched her chin lightly and turned her head to the side.
"Hey, Prof. You okay?" The concern in the man's voice was genuine. Jack's eyebrows went up slightly, but he stayed silent. The man was Major Patrick Sanchez, Jack belatedly recognized, the CO of SG6. Sanchez gave Jack a dark look. "This guy bugging you, Emma?"
Emma's jaw dropped slightly and she slapped Sanchez's arm with the back of her hand. "Patrick! That's Colonel Jack O'Neill of SG1!"
"I know. What did I tell you? Mess with one SG6…"
"Mess with us all." Emma laughed. "I know. No… Jack's good. I feel better now than I have in months." Behind her, Jack gave a little grin. He did too.
"Well good." Sanchez stepped back, satisfied. "So… what the hell are you doing up so late? Do I have to escort you to your bunk again? We have a briefing at 0800, you know."
Emma groaned and put her hands to her head. "I forgot."
Sanchez took her by the shoulder and steered her toward the door. "Shower, sleep." Emma opened her mouth to reply. Sanchez held up a finger. "And no coffee. I mean it, professor. I will check."
Emma tossed Sanchez a sloppy salute and then smiled back at O'Neill. "Thanks, Jack. For everything."
The colonel nodded. "Oh… my pleasure. Really." He spoke it dryly, but his tone was warm. "Let's do this again sometime."
"Yah, sure… you betcha." Emma even managed to imitate the pseudo-Scandinavian Minnesotan accent and winked over her shoulder as she left.
Sanchez waited for the sound of her footsteps to fade away before turning back to O'Neill. Jack lifted an eyebrow. " 'Is this guy bothering you', Major Sanchez?"
The tall major's dark skin turned slightly paler. "Permission to explain, Colonel O'Neill?"
"Oh… by all means." Jack settled back into the couch. He had a pretty good idea of why the Major was acting so protectively, but he deserved a little fun after being put the wringer for the last twenty-five minutes.
Sanchez stood at attention, contriteness dripping from every pore. "Sir. I believe the Colonel is aware of Doctor Collier's problem with the former CO of SG9."
"If by 'problem' you mean that Emma was stalked and harassed by an obsessed major who finally ended up kidnapping and shooting her, resulting in a fire fight that got all of SG9 killed and one member of SG1, Emma herself and an adolescent Unas wounded… then, yeah. I was aware."
"Was the Colonel also aware the Doctor Collier filed a complaint with security while she was a member of SG9? The Major used his influence to have her removed from SG9 and threatened that if she made any more trouble that he would have her removed from the SG program?"
Jack sat up, frowning. "No, Major. I was not aware."
"Permission to speak freely, Colonel?"
"Yeah."
Sanchez's head dropped out of the 'attention' pose and he looked the colonel in the eye. "Sir, Emma didn't have a lot of faith in the military system of justice. After Major Harris's death, she decided to rejoin the SG offworld teams. She was assigned to SG6. On our third mission, she saved all of our backsides from a firefight with about twenty Jaffa. We talked a bit about what happened to her in the past while we were recovering in the infirmary. I made her a promise, Colonel, that I would not allow any member of my command to be abused. We've spent the last month as a team, and to be honest, sir, I think we're doing a damn good job of it."
"And you're a little protective of the civilian?" Jack smiled.
"With all due respect, sir, I'm protective of everyone on my team. Emma is a valuable member of my team, and if I may say, Colonel… I think we may even be friends."
O'Neill smiled. "You're a very lucky man, Major."
Sanchez returned his smile. "Sir. Yes, sir. I like to think I model my command on that of the first SG CO."
"Ah… quiet." Jack waved his hand. "Don't you have a briefing at 0800?"
"Yes, sir. Permission to retire and make sure that my civilian has in fact returned to her quarters?"
"Permission granted, Major. Take care out there."
"Thank you, sir. You too." Sanchez nodded his head and left.
Jack picked up a rock and tossed it in his hands. "Yeah. Daniel… I think you'd like the way things are turning out." He grabbed the rock and held it to his chest, looking up at the ceiling. "I think you'd really like it." He closed his eyes as a little breeze slipped through the room, rustling papers and lifting the colonel's hair.