Part 2: Falling Backwards
He didn't hear from Sam for a month.
One night as he lay staring at his ceiling in an absurd parody of actually getting a good night's sleep, the phone rang. Jack almost didn't answer it, not really wanting to know what the hell could have gone so wrong to deserve a call at three in the morning. But some left over feeling of responsibility drove him to pick it up.
"O'Neill," he practically barked into the phone.
There was a long pause and Jack was about to hang up when she finally spoke. "Sir."
Jack sat up in bed. "Carter?"
"I can't talk long, sir, I just wanted…" she trailed off, her voice hushed as if she was trying not to be overheard. "How are you doing?"
Jack got the distinct impression that she wasn't even supposed to be on the phone. He suppressed the urge to demand to know where the hell she had been for four weeks and what she was doing. What could she possibly be doing that required this much secrecy? "I'm doing fine. Same old stuff, you know. You?"
"Good, good," she said rather quickly.
An awkward pause stretched long. They both knew they couldn't speak about work, but there was little else for them to discuss that wasn't taboo.
"I should probably go…," Sam said eventually, her discomfort audible in her voice.
There were a million things Jack wanted to ask, but he knew he couldn't put her in that position, especially considering how paranoid the government in general was getting these days. But he also knew that he had to keep her talking, he needed to hear her voice. He opened his mouth and said the first thing he could think of.
"I miss you."
The moment the words were out, Jack wanted to pull them back into his mouth, no matter how true they were. His embarrassment increased with every passing second as Sam remained silent.
"Uh…look, Carter, I guess I shouldn't have said-."
She cut him off midway. "I miss you, too," she said in barely more than a whisper. "God, I wish I could talk to you about-," she started, frustration clear in her voice.
"Don't, Carter," Jack interrupted. "I'm not worth that. Just be careful. That's enough for me."
Jack heard some background voices over the phone. "Damn," Sam swore, "I'm sorry, I have to go."
"I know. Thanks for calling," Jack said, trying to make it clear that he understood. None of this was her fault.
"I'll call again when I get a chance."
"I'll be here," Jack promised. "Take care of yourself, Carter."
"You, too," she said softly. "Bye."
"Bye, Carter."
The line went dead, but Jack sat holding the phone until the sun dawned.
Four months after Sam's transfer, Jack woke to the news that America, obviously deciding that the stalemate war could be ended by a brute show of strength, dropped a naquadria bomb in the hinterlands of China.
Jack couldn't help but think of what he had once said to Jonas.
All right, let me be clear about something. I think this is the point Daniel was trying to make. A weapon of mass destruction can only be used for one thing. Now, you might think it will ensure peace and freedom, but I guarantee you it'll never have the effect you're hoping for until you use it, at least once. Now, just for the record, the reason we want that stuff is because we think it could be used to create defense shields. But you just go ahead, blow yourselves to hell with it.
He had been so pissed that the Kelownans refused to listen to someone from a planet that knew weapons of mass destruction never wrought anything but more war.
But Earth never seems to have learned that lesson either.
At first it seemed that America had made its point. The peace talks had resumed briefly, but not for long.
In a move so surprising and almost foolhardy to the point that Jack couldn't help but be impressed, the rebelling nations refused to bow down to the bullish move. They knew they had inferior stuff, but they would fight anyway, almost as if the bomb had just proven the intentions of America to rule the whole planet through their monopoly on the Stargate.
Even England, France and Russia were beginning to look at America with new eyes.
Though never outright admitted to by anyone in the American government, it was clear that the bomb's destructive power had been more than they were prepared for. They had purposively chosen a relatively unpopulated area, but a bad combination of not quite hitting the right spot and not accounting for its astounding power ensured that a city of 60,000 was wiped out in the blink of an eye.
Jack wanted to believe it had been unintentional, but faith was harder to come by every day. The government's paranoia and tightening grip was such that they even began to eye their own citizens warily. People began to disappear off the streets, being held in undisclosed locations for indeterminate amounts of time. The government didn't even need a reason anymore, let alone probable cause.
Jack wondered how much longer until they all were all implanted with tracking devices or had monitoring systems in their homes.
Daniel was among the group traveling to witness the fallout of America's new toy. It was the only reason he survived the retaliatory attack on the Geneva Stargate Talks. None of the Ambassadors survived. Including a high ranking American General that had traveled to the talks in hopes of talking some sense into anyone who would listen.
It wasn't how George Hammond was meant to fall.
More blood than ever began to spill all over the planet. Jack started the grisly tradition of keeping tabs on all the former SG personnel, feeling a fierce swoop of anger every time another one of his former airmen fell. Such a waste of life.
And still Jack sat behind his desk, doing his duty, even as a burning lava of anger began to consume him piece by piece.
A few weeks after the disasters in Geneva and China, Jack woke to someone pounding on his door in the middle of the night. Daniel was standing on his porch, seemingly oblivious to the rain pouring down over him. Jack hadn't seen him in almost a year and he was barely recognizable as the man he once knew.
"They won't listen," he said in a gravely voice.
Jack had to bodily pull Daniel into his house, helping him out of his wet clothes and into some of Jack's old sweats. Bundled up on the couch, Jack couldn't help but notice that Daniel looked like a small child. He stared off into space as if suffering from deep shock, and Jack realized that he was.
"I tried to stop it, to make them understand, but people just keep dying," Daniel said in a far off voice.
"It's not your fault, Daniel. None of us wanted this."
"Everything's gone, Jack. We bomb, they bomb and no one seems to care anymore. Hammond's dead, Teal'c's gone, Sam's disappeared, Sha're…," he turned to Jack and his eyes seemed to momentarily clear. "I can't do this anymore."
One could only imagine what Daniel must have seen in the last few weeks. People torn to pieces, towns leveled and then to go back to try to convince people to stop only to realize that no one was ever going to listen. People's fear, anger and thirst for revenge were now beyond diplomacy. How could anyone ignore how many people were dead?
Jack wanted to punch something. It wasn't enough that people were dying everywhere over something as stupid as a hunk of metal, they also had to do this to his friend. Daniel was broken, his optimism finally sucked away. Seven years of endless battles against a seemingly unbeatable alien foe had not done that. His own people's paranoid stubbornness did it.
Jack finally managed to get Daniel to lie down, to get the rest he obviously needed. Jack watched him sleep for hours, letting his brain wrap around everything that had happened.
It was only when Daniel finally began to stir awake that Jack finally asked him the question that had been plaguing him. "Do they know you're here, Daniel?"
Daniel blinked up at Jack for a moment before shaking his head. "No…I just got up one day and packed. The next thing I knew, I was here, standing on your porch." He seemed a bit more lucid, but he still didn't seem to comprehend what he had done.
Jack closed his eyes. A few years ago it might have seemed like no big deal for a non-military person to walk out on their post, but these days…no one's life was their own. He knew what this would look like to the suspicious eye. Desertion, or worse, evidence that he didn't entirely support the government's agenda.
As Jack regarded Daniel, he seemed to have realized what he had done as well, his face draining of color.
"I….I didn't think," he stuttered.
"I know," Jack said, pushing to his feet and pacing around the room.
They would be coming for him. It wouldn't be too difficult for them to find him either, as he must have passed through a dozen checkpoints to have gotten this far from Washington.
Daniel reached over and grabbed Jack's arm, his eyes beginning to show panic. "I don't know what to do anymore, Jack."
Jack didn't have an answer and he knew there was no way to protect Daniel. So he did the only thing he could. A few hours later with surprisingly little effort, Jack smuggled Daniel off world, depositing him on Chulak with Teal'c's family.
Daniel had protested, but Jack was no longer listening. It was the only way for him to be safe. And Jack was beginning to realize that maybe it was the only way any of them ever would be.
Three weeks after Jack watched Daniel disappear into the glimmering mouth of the Stargate, his sleep was once again interrupted, only this time by the shrill ring of his phone.
Sam.
Something was wrong, Jack could tell from the first word out of her mouth. They hadn't spoken since the latest escalation of the war, but Sam's tone as she discussed one inane thing after another was enough to finally confirm his suspicions as to the nature of Sam's new position.
Goddamned war.
"Sam," he interrupted, using her name to shock her into silence. "Everything is going to be fine, I promise. Just remember who you are, you're a good person."
Sam was silent for a long moment.
"Maybe you don't know me anymore, Jack," she said thickly in a voice that told him she was trying not to cry.
Before he could even answer, she hung up on him.
Jack held the dead phone for a long time, finally realizing what he had to do.
The time for sitting helplessly behind his desk was over.
Nyan and Brenna were the first to go of the alien refugees. Jack had them brought in to the SGC for routine 'check-ups,' before offering them a chance to get off Earth and go anywhere they wanted. They both seemed incredibly saddened by what was happening to their adopted planet, but neither hesitated when they were offered a place by Melosha on the Land of Light.
Jack couldn't blame them.
In the end, about twenty alien refugees living in America were smuggled out through the gate over the next few weeks. This wasn't their war; they all deserved a chance at a real life.
Soon there was only one alien left. Jack went in person to collect her.
He waited for her outside a large lecture hall on the depopulated college campus. It was obvious that the draft was draining students away at an alarming rate. Only a handful of students came out as the bells rang noon.
Her eyes fell on him immediately. She didn't even need to ask what he was doing there. There were only two reasons he would show up, and his opening words ruled out the first one.
"As far as I know, they're all fine," Jack said quickly.
Cassie just nodded and silently led him towards her dorm where she already had a bag packed, her decision made long ago, before the first bomb even fell.
Stepping back out into the sunlight, Jack shouldered her bag and pulled on his sunglasses.
"What about you, Jack?" she eventually asked.
She wanted to know if he was leaving, too. Jack fidgeted, but did not answer. But Cassie knew him well enough to be a step ahead.
"You still haven't decided, have you? It's easy for you to risk everything to get those you care about out of the way, to make sure they're safe. But you're not sure you can get yourself to follow."
Jack wondered when exactly Cassie had become this perceptive. Part of him missed the naïve kid who had bought his bluff that all Earth kids were required to have a dog.
"It's not running away, Jack. It isn't dereliction of duty. And even if it is, maybe it's well past time to be selfish. None of you worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that this would be our future. She didn't die for this," she said with a thrust of her finger towards a bank of newspapers.
The press, as always, was having a field day exploiting the terrors of war for their own circulation benefits. They plastered the country with larger than life color images of death and suffering, breeding and feeding fear. That hadn't been what Janet had been about. She had been about quiet, anonymous sacrifice with no need for acclaim. He couldn't help but think that she would be appalled.
"What do you think she would have done?" The question surprised Jack as it left his lips, but he found that he really, really wanted to hear Cassie's answer. Somehow it was really important to know what Janet Fraiser would have thought.
Cassie paused, staring blindly at the campus quad that was nearly empty except for the presence of a few armed security forces. Eventually she turned to Jack and placed a hand on his arm. "She would have risked everything for us, too."
Jack nodded, but Cassie wasn't done.
She sighed in defeat and ran a hand over her face. "But I don't think she could have left either, not until she had saved as many people as she could. By any means."
There wasn't so much censure in her voice as understanding. Jack forced himself to meet her eyes, realizing that he'd already known what he was going to do all along. And Cassie had known it, too.
Now he just had to figure out a way to do it.