Reconsidering Failure – Part Two
Thanking his driver, Jack O'Neill slid out of the staff car and walked the short distance to his mailbox, finding only the usual advertising flyers. It was an unusual occurrence to discover anything other than bills or junk mail in the box, his contact with his few remaining relatives severed after Charlie's death.
Turning as the car drove off, he spotted the Grantham's teenage son coming out of the front door of the house across the road. He couldn't help but smile at the look of annoyance on the boy's face as he tugged his mother's miniature poodle after him on its bright red lead. The little dog looked as enthusiastic as the boy did at having to go out into the icy air, despite being warmly dressed in a smart knitted coat of bright pink and blue wool. Jack didn't wave, knowing that the teenager would rather not be noticed.
The alarm deactivated, Jack slipped quickly into the house, shutting the door behind him as rapidly as he could, the cold wind snapping at his heels. Quick side trips to get changed, and into the kitchen and he was soon ensconced in his favourite chair, his hands wrapped around a large steaming mug of coffee. The fire he had lit was already warming the room as he settled back and picked the folder up from the cushion beside him.
The file was much thicker than he remembered, only to be expected given the events of the last year or more, but the sheer bulk had still managed to surprise him when he had slipped it from the locked filing cabinet in the CMO's office. He could have looked at it on his laptop and avoided bringing it home at all, but somehow this hardcopy seemed so much more real than pictures on a computer screen, and right now he felt he needed to hang on to what was real and not drift back into memories.
The first pages were very familiar – the photos less horrifying now so far down the track from the bad days of missions gone wrong and injuries sustained in the line of duty. His face stared up at him, haggard, skin splattered with vivid purple and yellow, eyes unfocused, the clinically written reports dehumanising the actuality of misery and pain.
He turned the pages, his face expressionless. Every few minutes he paused to take another sip of the hot drink, before moving on through the years, pages fluttering down to join those already read. Outside, the storm gusts rattled the gutters and set the trees to moaning.
Afternoon turned to evening and the mug was long empty. Now, shoes off, his feet were up on the couch and his head was resting on one of the large cushions. The file was in pieces, reports spread on the floor around the chair, all but one – that was propped up on Jack's chest, held in place by a hand that was not quite as steady as the owner would have liked.
Nowhere in all the vast number of pages of his medical record had Jack O'Neill found anything to surprise him – until now. He had set out to do a little digging to find out just who had known about what he had gone through with Ba'al, instead he found this – a file of reports from the nurses, the doctors, and the specialists.
Carol Thompson: Duty Nurse - 0208 hours: Colonel O'Neill extremely restless, crying out in his sleep. Attempted to leave bed but very weak. Called Doctor Fraiser.
Doctor Fraiser: CMO – 0211 hours. Administered IV Versed to Colonel O'Neill as he was agitated. Monitored with oximeter.
Carol Thompson: Duty Nurse – 0324 hours. Colonel O'Neill talking in sleep. Relieved early by Doctor Fraiser.
Doctor Fraiser: CMO – 0336 hours. Took over care of Colonel O'Neill. Patient distressed. Administered further increments of IV Versed.
And so it went – page after page of notes and reports for all the weeks he had been suffering withdrawal in the infirmary. All those weeks he thought he was aware of, that he could remember every minute of. How many of his memories of that time were the fabrications of a delusional mind? The evidence was here – there were even transcripts of recordings MacKenzie had made. He cringed as he read his own words – raving and crying, telling Ba'al he couldn't answer and screaming as he died. There, in stark black and white was an entire conversation with Daniel, telling him he couldn't go on, couldn't do it anymore. Page after damning page.
The windows shook as the storm grew, and the rain poured down, running in ever increasing torrents into already overloaded drains, and still the General read.
Teal'c had been there. His reluctance to commit the words to paper fairly shouted out of the page, every word well considered and economical. Teal'c had helped to restrain him, held him down as the doctors drugged him. God – Teal'c had held him as he shook and shivered and sweated.
Not once in all those months since had Teal'c even hinted at what had happened.
The pages were flipped faster now, as words piled onto words – a vast heap of statements becoming a mountain that was tumbling down as he read. Carter, the General, Reynolds, orderlies, nurses, – hell, everyone in the SGC – they had all been affected in some way. There were referrals to MacKenzie for the nurses that had had to sit and listen as he relived his torture, there were incident reports for injuries sustained as he fought them, requests for replacement of equipment broken – all chronicled by copies held together with paperclips and pins and stuck into the pocket at the back of the file, as if whoever had put them there had intended to go through them, maybe to only keep the most important, but had never had the chance.
Shit, Janet. What else had she intended to do that would never now get done?
Finally he finished, the last reports slipping from his hands to join the rest on the floor.
The fire had died out, the flames reduced to embers.
His quest was over, but there was no apportioning of guilt. Like the death of Julius Caesar there was no one guilty party, except instead of murder the conspirators had given him life. The conspiracy of silence hadn't been one sided, while he thought he was shielding them from the reality of what had been done to him, they had shielded him from himself – treating him as they always had, and not letting him succumb to the memories. Even when he had crawled home, feeling as alone as he ever had, they had been watching – the last notes between Hammond, Fraiser and MacKenzie outlining a course of action that allowed him to regain trust in himself.
God! Jack shuddered. If they had known how close their plan had come to failure, how he had held and caressed that gun...but it had worked. He had found his own way out of that dark pit, just as they knew he must.
They had all trusted him, and judging by the incident in the Gateroom, they trusted him still. Reynolds and the others had shown him, the only way they could, that they understood and supported him, just as they always had.
Jack sat up, the chill air making him shiver. He stretched joints that gave audible cracks of protest, and stood, making his way to bed, the papers forgotten. As he climbed under the covers, he realised one clear and somewhat startling thing.
He had survived, and on his own terms. With the quiet assistance of so many people, he had gotten back his life and gone on. He had survived something that no one should ever, in their wildest dreams, have imagined could be endured.
Maybe it was something to be proud of after all.
The End