Caught in the monkey jar: Blackbeard Interludes

Love changes everything, love makes you fly, spread your wings…. (Climie Fisher)

Jack woke up alone in the bed. He wasn't surprised- he'd had an interesting day yesterday. Coming home and walking in on the CNN Iraq TV report spooked him badly. Then he'd scared Sara by his reaction, stomping off into the garden. He topped off the night by smashing the mirror doors on the bathroom cabinet. So angry at himself. But instead of ruining everything it had finally brought them together.

Things weren't perfect by any stretch of imagination but they would get there in time. He wanted life to be normal, like they were before…He wanted Sara back more than anything and didn't want to go too fast in case something ….went wrong…didn't work…if he loused things up. He remembered the tears they'd both shed last night or early this morning and didn't regret them. He focussed on last night's memory of the snug fit of her body against his as he got dressed. It was wonderful and scary. He liked the idea of someone being there to hold his shattered self together.

He was hungry- he'd given up on dinner last night he remembered. So he looked for something to snack on. Nothing in the fridge he fancied so he went to the larger chest freezer in the garage and rummaged. And came up surprised and confused by what he found. 'Why is it all out of date?' he wondered. He poked further and uncovered many tubs of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, 'Phish food' his favourite flavour….

He retraced his steps to the house and found Sara in the lounge at the bureau, sorting bills.

"Sara, what's this out of date stuff doing in the freezer?" he asked.

"It's your favourite food. I made it or bought it for you. I went shopping as normal. I put stuff in the basket, realised it was stuff only you like and went to put it back. And then I thought maybe if I did that, you wouldn't… it was silly really. I had to carry on as normal, Jack. Making dinner, doing the washing, taking Charlie to school. I saved the food. Sure I can't be the only military wife that's done that when their husband gets deployed to a hot zone…"

"You thought that I wouldn't come back if you put the supermarket's ice cream back?" he asked slowly.

She nodded, upset. "Told you it was stupid!"

Jack was at a loss to grasp what she'd gone through without him. It was the little things in life, which meant the most… It was too much. He was selfish. "I didn't know, okay. I didn't think you would…it never occurred to me…" he said helplessly.

"What? Care you were gone, Jack?! We missed you every minute of every day. Yeah I know it was dumb not to put that food back for some other wife whose husband was coming home to dinner but I just couldn't do it. Not to me or Charlie or to you. It was crazy but it worked. Okay?"

"Okay." He agreed after all he was the crazy one wasn't he?

"Charlie made me save it too…"

Jack didn't know what to say round the lump in his throat. He was one lucky flyboy.

"Hey, c'm here," he said holding out a hand, last nights bandages on his knuckles swapped for Band Aids. "I didn't mean to get you all angry and defensive on me, it was just unexpected that's all." Sara came over to him and walked into his arms. He tensed slightly at first and then relaxed. She sighed. "It's okay, crazy works for me too." he murmured his chin resting on her head.

Sara was tired; she'd watched him sleep for a change. He was fast asleep when she woke up and she decided to leave him to it. It was Saturday, Charlie was away. It didn't matter if he slept the whole day out. And then he suddenly popped up asking her about frozen food…

As she hugged him back she noticed he was wearing a short sleeved shirt. A step away from the long sleeved shirts he'd worn ever since coming home all those months ago.

"Hey," he said "You didn't wake me!" but he was smiling.

"You were fast asleep. I couldn't bear to wake you." She looked up at him, unsure of his mood.

"What were you doing?"

"Paying bills, paperwork stuff."

"Leave it. Let's do something you wanna do." he suggested

"Well it's a nice day, let's go to the park and maybe get a boat ride…remember?"

"Yeah I do."

"No, that was my line…"

In the rowing boat, apple juice ran down Sara's chin. Jack leant forward and wiped it way with a thumb, his hand cupping her face. He leant in to kiss her gently.

"Jack, we're in the middle of the boating lake!"

"Let 'em look I don't care."

He looked at her intently with the promise of things to come.

"Do I pass?" she asked.

"You never failed."

Military hospital

The following Monday morning Doctor Maywood waited for his next patient, Major O'Neill. Like so many of the officers and serviceman he'd dealt with over the years- they all challenged him. They queried his expertise, his authority and his 'right' to tell them that they were ill. It was his job to reassure them that they would recover and go back to their duties. Whole men again. But how they railed against it. Fought hard. Just as they had done as prisoners.

O'Neill with his dark eyes blazing defiantly back at him from day one, challenging him, testing him -even as he sat there frail, hollow and in pain from his injuries. Sarcasm and flippant remarks used as a cover for the deep hurts done to him. The doctor could see though that this was just a defence mechanism, that there was much more to this officer than at first glance.

Early sessions when the officer seemed bored not blinking, just sitting there, when he was struggling to pay attention to what the doctor was telling him. That he was seeing other images and overwhelmed by it all. But he said nothing about how he felt, just relayed the facts- the minimum to get through the sessions. But that gradually changed.

Glancing again through the officer's jacket on his desk, he turned a page. He'd certainly been through a lot. At least he had a stable home life and that helped a great deal. He only hoped they were all strong enough for the last big hurdle in O'Neill's recovery. This would make or break them, he reasoned. The problem was trying to get the Major to even acknowledge the event.

He remembered the day O'Neill hadn't turned up for either his PT session or appointment with himself. When he did speak to O'Neill on the phone later that day he persuaded him to come in. It was a while before his patient admitted that he'd got lost and ended up at the park for a few hours.

Then there were the weeks he missed through ill health. Whilst he admired the following of orders he didn't expect patients who didn't want to come in to arrive ill and practically collapse in his office…on second thought he'd seen all sorts of things in his time. He'd called the medical doctors in to his office and they'd examined O'Neill and reluctantly sent him home with antibiotics. He refused to be admitted to the base hospital where they could hook him up to the good stuff. O'Neill had roused himself enough to get back in the provided car to go home again. The doctor had seen the look of despair cross his patient's face that he was ill again and resignation that maybe he deserved it and should get used to it.

A reduced immune system could not win against a cold and getting soaked in a thunderstorm definitely hadn't been a good idea. But by then the doc understood about the heat, the 'black box' and the water situation and O'Neill's reason for standing in the rain. Even if O'Neill himself hadn't consciously thought about it he just reacted. Needless to say he hadn't mentioned to his wife that he felt unwell .It was a familiar pattern.

The doctor closed the file at the sharp rap on his door that signalled O'Neill's entry. Still lean but with a more respectable weight on him, O'Neill sat down. He seemed wary but…brighter. Something had happened. Something good, by the look of it.

"Sorry I'm late -overslept." O'Neill admitted with a small smile.

"What happened?" he asked, pointing at the Band Aids on the Major's knuckles.

"Turns out I need new mirror doors on the bathroom cabinet." replied Jack dryly.

"I see."

"I'm okay."

"Were you alone?"

"No, Sara was asleep in the bedroom. She's okay, we're both fine."

"You got angry over something?"

"You could say that."

"I just did."

There was a pause while O'Neill gathered his thoughts.

"I came home on Friday and walked in on a report on the TV from Iraq. I…it….brought back some things…."

"What did you do?"

"Argued with my wife, got angry. She thought I was going to break the glass in the patio door..."

"Self harming won't help anybody."

"You rather I hit her instead, doc? I couldn't do that!"

"We've discussed this before about bottling up emotions and reactions. It isn't healthy in the long run."

"I… might have….panicked…a bit."

"Might have? You mean you had a panic attack?"

"Yes, but she…I …got through it. It wasn't as bad as some I've had…"

"Then what?" prodded the doctor.

"What do you think? I stayed in a bad mood all evening. Sat outside thinking bad thoughts," He said flippantly.

"So…you were planning something?"

"No, doc, I wasn't trying to kill myself!"

"But you have thought about it?"

"Where is this coming from?"

"Answer the question."

"Jeez doc, I was feeling alright until I came in here!"

Despite himself the doctor laughed. It was good to see some humour return.

O'Neill scrubbed a hand through his hair.

"Of course I thought about dying, hard not to with a gun to your head!"

"But on some occasions it was you holding the gun to your head, Major," the doctor softly reminded him.

"We've been through that again and again. I was forced to play Russian roulette. Yes, I'm glad the other guy died not me. I was happy to be alive at that moment. Sure. But there was no way to control what they did to us apart from not answering their questions and staying alive just to piss them off. Because they tried very hard to kill us all."

"Thank you. I wanted to hear you say it one more time."

"Happy now, doc?"

"Ecstatic, Major. So what happened between you hitting the patio glass and needing new mirror doors in the bathroom?"

"She pushed and I shoved back."

"You mean..?"

"No! No, not that! I didn't touch... hurt her! I keep telling you!"

"Okay, then explain it to me."

"She realised I knew another soldier who was killed in that place. It was on the TV. The family wanted information the British Army won't give them and she thought I could tell them."

"But?"

"But I can't tell them what really happened to him. They don't need to know that. Isn't it enough that they killed him?"

"What did your wife say to that?"

"She said if it was her, she'd want to know what happened to me, no matter what."

"What do you think?"

There was a long pause and the doctor wondered if O'Neill was going to reply at all.

"What I think is… that I made a promise to a dead man and I can't keep it yet…"

"Is that what had you tied up in knots all night?"

"That and other stuff."

"So... the bathroom mirror?"

"Got the brunt of my anger and frustration, yeah."

"You didn't like what you saw in the mirror did you Jack?"

"Guess not."

"I'm going to ask you again if you intended to harm yourself."

"No! I didn't. I just got a little mad. If I wanted to be dead, we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation doc, nobody would know. I'd be a sand pile in the desert, I wouldn't have waited 'til I got home!"

"Your wife's been solidly with you throughout the whole of this. Do you not think that maybe this was a cry for help? For her to rescue you? You told me how hard it was to adjust to being home with your family, to be close to them. But you can't live without them either. She's been waiting for you to tell her things she needs to know. How you feel, what happened to you, what you want from her…"

"I didn't want pity."

"But she didn't, did she, Jack?"

"No."

"She gave you love instead."

"Yes...she did. How did you know?"

"It's written on your face, and you wouldn't be here now if she hadn't. If she didn't love you enough she'd be gone and you'd be dead. I can't put it any plainer than that."

"Jesus, doc."

"Tell me if I'm right or wrong, Major"

"You're right. Godammit but you are."

"So are you trying to get closer, working some things out?"

"Yeah, she's being very understanding. I…ah…had to explain a few things, you know? We can be together, but not exactly together. She's being patient. But I think it's going to be okay."

"Excellent."

"So what now?"

"I think we can scale down our appointments again to every two weeks unless you feel the need to see me earlier. In which case pick up the phone. My door, as you know, is always open."

"I'll be okay."

"Yes you will be."

"Wasn't just you. I couldn't have done it without Sara."