Content warning: language

I'm sorry I confused you, zeilfanaat. The last chapter was up to 'Evolution' in the timeline - I hope that helps. Gosh - that's a lovely compliment Queen of Fairyland. Thanks so much for reviewing - it's great to know someone is still enjoying the story.

O'Neill Interrupted – an interlude. Part 8

"Came to give me a pep-talk?"

He rolled, wincing when the light hit his eyes.

Carter was sitting on the cell floor, her back against the wall. He squinted, trying to get his battered lids to open wider. She looked pale, with a bruise on her temple already fading to yellow.

He didn't try to get up as he answered her. "I didn't come to give you anything. You came to me."

Her forehead creased into a frown and she cocked her head to one side. "Friends?"

His laugh was bitter. "Friends? I'd hardly call us that. Not now."

"So as long as I'm thinking about you…"

He cut her off. "Thinking about me? I doubt that. You've gotten on with your life because it's easier than admitting you forgot about me. I'm a complication – one you'd rather do without."

Her dark-ringed eyes stared back at him as if she hadn't heard. "One last thing…"

"There is no last thing, Major. We're done." He rolled back over, turning his back to her. "I said this to Daniel and I'll say it to you – fuck off."

xoxoxoxoxoxo

"You wanted to see me?"

"That was weeks ago."

"I was busy."

Jack straightened awkwardly. The damage that had been done to his leg had taken its toll, leaving it crooked and barely able to hold his weight. The fact Herak and his goons had taken a particular interest in that part of his anatomy hadn't helped either. The days since the attack on the base had been brutal and bitter ones for the colonel, but his new found determination had steeled him, despite making him feel as twisted as his malformed limb.

Now his request for an audience had been granted, he was briefly at a loss for words.

Anubis leaned forward, his hands gripping the arms of his throne. "Well?"

The time had come, but Jack couldn't bring himself to answer. He shook his head, his throat suddenly dry.

"Never mind. I ordered you brought to me for my own purpose." The Goa'uld seemed to really see him for the first time – he sat back slightly and turned to Herak, gesturing towards Jack. "Have him readied for the trip. See he is cleaned up, his appearance offends me."

The First Prime wrinkled his nose. "Yes, My Lord."

And so Jack found himself being bathed, shaved and given a haircut by a resentful Jaffa – one of his many torturers. The shaving may have been a trifle close at times, and the Jaffa hadn't been gentle, but Jack revelled in the feeling of being clean. He had almost forgotten what it was like to not have matted hair hanging into his eyes, to not smell his own putrid breath, and to have clothes that were more than rags.

At one point in the proceedings he caught sight of himself in a mirror. The glimpse was enough to turn his stomach as an emaciated wreck stared back at him through sunken eyes that seemed too large for a face crisscrossed with new lines and scars. His hair had more than a few white strands mingling amongst the gray.

He had become old.

He turned away, mourning the fit warrior he had once been.

And that he could have been again if he had been rescued.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

They ringed down together, into devastation. Jack stared around him, wondering why Anubis had brought him here. He could see nothing he recognised, just bare earth, debris, and in the distance, trees.

"I wanted to thank you, Colonel. I asked you for the new site of your world's base and you gave it to me. Without your information the search would have been long." The Goa'uld walked forward, Jack trailing slightly behind on his left side, one of the skulls flanking him. "Many Tok'ra and rebel Jaffa died here, along with your own people."

They stepped over rocks, skirting the remains of equipment that was horribly familiar. The area they had ringed down into was dominated by the stargate, the huge ring lying flat on its back like some carelessly discarded giant toy. "The battle was short. My kull warriors saw to that."

"Enough with the cryptic comments. Where the hell are we?"

"I believe you call it the Alpha site." Anubis's Ancient had become more and more fluid each time he spoke to Jack, as if he hadn't used it for a very long time. "I'm surprised you don't recognise it. After all, you are the one who gave me the address."

He hadn't. He hadn't known anything about a new Alpha site.

He hadn't.

Jack turned and looked up at the mountains, his eyes recognising what his mind refused to.

He knew this place. It was one of the many sites he and his team had surveyed. It was a planet devoid of intelligent life, and of anything of interest at all. They had deemed it boring as hell.

He lowered his gaze back down to the area they were coming to, seeing the bodies scattered here and there, the dull red of dried blood mingling with the broken wood and fallen rocks.

Faces he recognised. Malcolms from SG-16. Slokav – he had been a new recruit, straight out of training and not assigned to a team last Jack knew. Kerr, barely recognisable, looking like he had been caught in the explosion that had left such destruction in its wake.

He even saw a face or two he knew among the Tok'ra and Jaffa lying dead, and he couldn't help but find himself looking for more faces – ones he was afraid to find.

His own team may have been here. Jonas, if he had escaped Anubis's clutches, Teal'c and Carter.

Did he hope they had been here?

Somewhere deep inside perhaps he did. They had left him. If he found their bodies, he could leave them as well.

Jack was barely aware of Anubis's voice, telling him how he planned to find some Ancient city. Something about weapons.

He had done this – caused these deaths. Careless words had been enough to destroy so many lives.

"One of your teammates, the woman, was here. She was in a building over there." Anubis nodded towards a space devoid of anything except pieces of debris no larger than small boulders. "She was with one of the Tok'ra – her father I believe. An interesting relationship and one I would have liked to explore more fully if given the chance. It is a pity they died."

Jack shook his head, half in denial and half trying to clear it. "No." Now it had been said he knew he did care. The fact that the bodies surrounding them were there because of him was bad enough, but the thought that Carter and Jacob were. . . "No."

The Goa'uld reached into a fold in his robes, bringing out a battered green cap. His face may have been missing but his voice conveyed his pleasure. "Major Samantha Carter."

He held the cap out and Jack found himself taking it without conscious effort. He twisted it in his hands, still staring at the snake, "Nunquamo," unable to look.

He knew the name tag would be there. He could feel it under his fingertips.

He twisted the hat, his fingers dancing on the rim, while his mind danced from emotion to emotion, each stranger than the last, until finally the alien consumed the normal and left him staring at the object in his hand in mute incomprehension.

Jack ignored the kull warrior, left to eliminate any survivors, and limped after Anubis, just one follower among many.

Just before they ringed back up to the ship he dropped the cap in the dust, leaving it and his past behind.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

"Why, O'Neill? Why, after all this time?" Anubis drummed his fingers. "I am suspicious of your motives."

Jack didn't answer immediately. The kneeling position he was in should have been agonising for his crippled leg, but he had found his physical body was now unimportant, pushed to the side while his mind spiralled down new paths.

With some difficulty, he brought his attention back to the Goa'uld. He spoke hesitatingly, almost stuttering. "I need to find. . . to complete. . . what is inside me must be used before it destroys me."

Anubis leaned forward. "What is it that is inside you, O'Neill?"

Jack's voice firmed. He finally looked directly into the Goa'uld's face. "Power, My Lord, vast power. And it is yours to command."

xoxoxoxoxoxo

TBC