Thanks guys for all your kind reviews. They are very much appreciated. I hope my restraint is to your satisfaction, Nell.
Irrevocable Decision Part 4
Having made up the spare room, Jacob was not long in retiring, leaving Jack to his own troubled thoughts. He finished off the rest of the wine as he stared into the dying embers of the log fire, trying hard to resist the temptation to make that one single call which would put his mind at rest.
He knew Jacob hadn't told him everything, but he was also reassured to think the father would not have left his daughter if she were desperately ill.
He needed to walk – to walk off his anger and anxiety and also the alcohol which was befuddling his senses. Not having imbibed any hard liquor for so long its potency had gone straight to his head scrambling his thoughts.
Grabbing his rarely used mobile, he went out into the freezing night, oblivious of the stillness of his sanctuary.
'Hah!' he ranted to himself, 'some sanctuary!' His privacy had been invaded with a vengeance and until he had more information there would be no peace for his troubled mind.
He went to the water's edge, intending to get the call over and done with so that he could lend his attention to other things which weren't so disturbing to his equilibrium. The snowfall had stopped sometime during the evening but a good six inches lay on the hard,brittle ground causing Jack to speculate that Jacob might be forced to spend even longer with him. He groaned softly at the notion, shaking his aching head. They were too alike, he admitted, for their own good. Both used to action and getting things done as efficiently and expeditiously as possible. Now that Jack had stepped back from all that, he could see how mystified Jacob was, unable to comprehend Jack's decision to leave the Stargate project and all that it meant.
At the dock he punched in a number committed to memory, impatient at having to wait as the tone rang out.
"Come on, come on…"
Theweird noise he heard at the end of the line didn't sound human.
"Daniel?" he snapped out harshly, impatiently.
'Ja-ack?" Everything was conveyed in that name – surprise, shock, disbelief, hurt, reproach, condemnation!
Jack closed his eyes.
"Do you know what time it is?"
Jack smiled without warmth, picturing the young archaeologist scrabbling for his glasses, and winced when he realized that with the time difference it was after one in the morning where Daniel was.
"Yes." No apology.
Daniel wasn't his usual communicative self – the silence went on unbroken.
Damn. This was going to be hard. When, Jack wondered, had he gotten so resilient.
"I…I kind of wondered how you were all doing." Crap. Even to his own ears he sounded pathetic.
Daniel's silence seemed to last an age but then his cool, disparaging voice penetrated Jack's defences, "Almost six months have passed – we're fine."
"But Sam--." Shit! He hadn't meant to be so explicit.
"What about Sam?" For the first time since they'd started speaking Daniel sounded as if he didn't want this conversation to end.
Jack was trying desperately to pick up on any and every inflection in Daniel's voice. It wasn't easy when the archaeologist had adopted such a neutral tone.
"Jacob told me she was wounded, that she was--."
"Jacob? Is Jacob there? What's Jacob doing there?"
Jack's eyes rolled and he had to bite his lip in order to stifle his curses. "How's Sam?" There! He had said it – he was just glad no one could see his face right now.
"Sam?...What are you talking about Jack?" Daniel was sounding highly irritated – not what Jack had been expecting. "If Jacob is with you as you say, then you should know she suffered a slight concussion when she fell coming back through the Gate."
'Son of a bitch!'
More silence. Jack could feel the blood beginning to pound in his head. It was hurting.
"I…I must've misunderstood…Go back to sleep, Daniel." And with that terse command, Jack terminated the call.
"Son of a bitch!" he ground out more violently, his hands bunching into tight fists as he marched back to the cabin. 'I'll drag the bastard out of his bed if I have to,' he fumed to himself furiously.
"You look as if you're on a mission, Jack."
Jacob stood in the open doorway, a self-satisfied look in his eyes. It drove Jack over the edge and without any warning he lunged at the older man, catching the Tokra on his jaw, sending him crashing backwards. Only just managing to retain his footing, Jacob brushed the back of a hand across his lip, grimacing at the blood.
"Dammit to hell, Colonel--."
"Is it too much for that superior intellect of yours to grasp that I'm no longer in the Air Force?" the younger man snapped icily, gasping from the exertion of his attack, shaking his right hand painfully.
Frowning dangerously, Jacob straightened, gingerly feeling his bruised jaw and split lip.
"Sure of that, are you?" demanded the Tokra sarcastically.
"What the hell does that mean?" Jack glowered threateningly.
"Nothing Mr. O'Neill!" and wincing as he touched a particularly sensitive spot, Jacob watched Jack with a predatory eye.
"I phoned Daniel," Jack spoke it as an accusation.
"Oh," was the soft reply.
"What the hell does that mean?"
Giving Jack a withering look, Jacob snapped, "It means 'about time'. It means it's about time you got off your ass and got back to what you're exceptionally good at, and it means Jack," and now the glare the Tokra threw at the younger man pierced him like a barb, "that you play a fool stunt like that with me again and I'll give you a lesson on manners you will never forget!"
'Jacob, he has had enough,' Selmac intoned gently.
'Hah! If I'd had my way I'd have beaten some sense into that stubborn hide of his a long time ago!'
The hostility between the two men was still palpable when Jacob turned on his heel muttering that he was going to get his head down.
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(Go to Part 5)