Breakfast Meeting – Part Three

Percy Curtis had seen a lot of injured men in his time serving with the Marines in the Pacific, but none that reacted quite the way this one did when the young police officer reached into his jacket pocket to remove his wallet.

A hand came up and gripped his wrist, bending it backwards and making the policeman yelp in what was clearly a combination of surprise and pain. Percy had no doubt that if the man on the floor hadn't been weakened by his wounds the wrist would have been snapped. As it was the officer was able to pull back and extract himself from the blood covered hand.

"It's all right, sir. I'm a police officer. I'm just trying to help. You've been shot."

Percy had to commend the boy. He managed to get all the pertinent information out fast enough while still keeping pressure on the gapping exit wound.

The response he got was a grunt and a slight nod, but Percy could see the hooded brown eyes watching carefully, taking everything in.

He slipped his own wad of material behind the man's back, doing his best to stem the blood, and heard another grunt, this one with a note of surprise as if the other man hadn't realised he was there.

"What …?" The words were cut off, ending in a bubbling cough.

The policeman by the window scurried over, holstering his gun as he moved. "Back-up's arrived. They're setting up a perimeter. Shouldn't be long before we're out of here."

"Got … warn …" The grey-haired man was moving, as if trying to get up, his face set in a look of determination.

The sergeant put a hand out, stopping him from rising. "Don't move. You're badly injured. Can you tell us who shot you?"

A nod. Then another eruption of coughing, this time leaving a thin trickle of red running from the corner of his mouth.

Percy had seen it before. Punctured lung. He hoped rescue wouldn't be too long coming. He made a suggestion. "Sit him up. It'll help him to breathe."

Together they dragged him back against the wall, and Percy and the younger of the two policemen kept him upright, awkwardly keeping their improvised bandages in place.

"Sir – can you tell us who shot you?"

It was obvious the sergeant felt he had little time left to obtain helpful information. The question seemed to rouse the man again, and he opened eyes that had shut in pain as they moved him.

A nod again. Then a shallow breath.

The words were almost too soft to make out, made even harder to understand by the wheezing sound of lungs unable to take in enough oxygen.

"Warn … Hall …"

Then the door burst inwards and the room filled with guns.

xoxoxoxoxox

He was moving – fast. He knew that much, but not much more. Except –

He hurt.

And he couldn't breathe.

He was suffocating.

There was something he needed to tell them. They had to know …

O'Neill opened his eyes, seeing a ceiling moving by above him. He managed to turn his head, finding figures all around him.

Where …? Then it hit him – a hospital. He was in a hospital. He didn't have much time. He had to make them understand.

He reached up and grabbed the nearest sleeve, pulling the white clad arm down.

And looked through eyes blurring with pain into the smiling face of his enemy.

Ba'al leaned down, and whispered. "I couldn't risk you exposing me too soon. I am enjoying your planet far too much."

"No."

He managed the one word, but it went unheard, muffled by the oxygen mask covering his face.

Ba'al laughed down at him and Jack coughed, splatters of blood covering the clear plastic and running back down his throat and drowning him.

Epilogue

"He was here for months." Daniel turned, his worried frown making him look years older than he was. "But he must have already had agents here on Earth for years. He couldn't have set up the organisation he had in such a short space of time." His fists were clenched and Jack could see he was furious. "Farrow-Marshall Aeronautics even had contracts with the Department of Defence. The bastard was probably laughing at us. Coming here to Washington right under our noses. He'd even visited the Pentagon. He must have panicked when he saw you – before his plans were finalized."

Jack winced as he shifted a little in the bed, his broken shoulder protesting the movement. No matter how he lay he was uncomfortable.

He thought back to those terrifying moments straight after he had been shot. He remembered the anger that had coursed through him, thinking that Ba'al had won, and the desperate need to leave a warning. He even remembered his fury that his dying words were the bastard's name. Then to see him bending over him, gloating, as he was pushed into the operating theatre . . .Even now he wasn't sure if that was real or an hallucination brought on by pain and blood loss. When questioned, none of the staff could recall a tall doctor with a neatly trimmed beard, but . . .

"Well, he's dead now, right?" Jack moved the oxygen mask to one side to speak. The damned thing was so uncomfortable, but the doctors had promised he'd only need it for a few more days – just long enough for his punctured lung to recover properly. "He isn't going to come and join me for breakfast again anytime soon – right?"

He tried to keep his tone light, but knew he had failed when Daniel left the window and moved over to him, his concern plain.

"Gerak took great delight in gloating about having killed him …"

"But? I can hear a 'but' there."

The heart monitor began to beep a steady warning.

Daniel glanced at it as he put his hand on O'Neill's arm. "There is no 'but', Jack. Gerak definitely killed Ba'al. Relax." He waited a moment, his gaze shifting back to the readout above his friend's head. "Come on now. Calm down."

Jack saw the almost panicked look on his friend's face and nodded, taking as steadying a breath as he could under the circumstances.

Daniel was right. Daniel wouldn't lie to him. The bastard was dead.

At last Jack was free of the presence that had hung over his head for so long.

The monitor's beat increased again.

So why did Ba'al still haunt his dreams?

The End

That's it – my explanation of why Jack didn't appear in the episode 'Ex Deus Machina'. I'm sorryto anyone who hasn't seen S9, but you really need to have seen the episode to understand the end of this fic.

This story is continued in my fics 'Light Lunch' and 'Dinner Date'.