AN: Big thanks to Demona for her review, I think it helped a lot but if it didn't then please let me know. Whitewolf you're always a big help, so thanks again.
Chapter 12
When Charlie was gone, Sara would still wait for him. Finding herself some days waiting for him to come down for breakfast, waiting for him before closing the car doors, waiting for him at the park, waiting. A wait that should have lasted forever.
These days the wait is different, the wait is at the front room for the postman, the wait is for her ex-husband to call, the wait is for Alex to come back from his business trip. These days the wait holds promise and hope and Sara never wants to go back to those days when the wait always ended in crippling realisation.
The fear of the wait remains the same however, fear that the wait will end without a result that the wait will stretch on in defiantly, fear that the act of waiting should have been over four days ago and that once again her son will never come.
There is no answer on either his cell phone or the landline at his small Colorado Springs apartment. When Sara went around there she saw the mail piling up in front of the door and her repeated knockings only reward was that it irritated a neighbour enough to say that the man she ached for had not been in for a couple of days. A week to be exact, Sara thought. One week, four agonising days late.
Finally the wait leads her to Jack's house a wooden structure on the outskirts of the town, to the man she once thought could solve any problem and now hopes that remains true.
Sara rings the doorbell apprehensively, if Jack can't help her find Alex then she will be left standing by her front window with a knot in her stomach. The bell inside the house chimes shrilly and Sara waits a few seconds before ringing it again, and then again. 'Please be home,' she begs to herself.
The third ring still brings no one to the door and she takes a few steps back and looks at Jack's truck parked under a small birch tree. Then she walks back down the wooden front steps and peers around the side of the house, male laughter drifts to her ears and although she recognises it isn't Jack's deeper chuckle, she follows the sound anyway.
At the rear of this house she has never been to before there is a small pond and at the waters edge are four fold out chairs, filled with four people who are chatting and laughing together in a friendly familiarity Sara suddenly finds herself jealous of.
She stops moving towards them and nearly turns and leaves before a large black man wearing a ridiculous fishing hat turns and regards her with a careful stare.
" You have a visitor O'Neill." he states formally and Jack turns with a smile on his face that is wiped away by the sight of Sara standing nervously, her arms folded around her.
" Sara?" he asks a note of concern in his voice, because he too is aware that this is her first visit to his home.
Sara can't bring herself to say anything in front of the three people she doesn't know although she recognises them vaguely from when Charlie visited her in a hallucination at the Colorado Springs hospital.
" Sara?" Jack repeats as he jams his fishing pole into the ground and leans it against his chair, he stands and moves towards her. Ignoring the curious looks of his team behind him.
" Jack, I need your help?" Sara says her tone slightly pleading and she glances at the people again and Jack nods as he takes her by the arm.
" Come on inside. Are you all right?" as he asks the question Sara wonders if coming here was a mistake, if Jack will only tell her 'I told you so' and refuse to help. The fear of this thought freezes her in place and Jack steps off without her, stops then turns.
" What is it?" he asks and Sara hugs herself tighter,
" Promise me you'll help?"
Jack doesn't answer for a moment, instead he takes a few seconds to look into Sara's eyes and his own intense facial expression softens a little.
" I promise," he agrees and Sara sighs in relief and allows Jack to lead her into the house.
The inside of the house is a reminder that Jack is a military man, the furniture and rooms are spotless. Everything in it's place with no mess to be seen, just like her house had been before the arrival of a messy child, just like her house was now.
" I need you to help me find Alex?" Sara asks right off the bat as soon as the glass door has been slid shut and they have privacy.
" Why? What did he do?" Jack demands angrily and Sara shakes her head,
" He didn't do anything!" she retorts, " He's missing!" she finishes and Jack's eyebrows are raised in suspicion.
" Missing? How long has he been gone for?" he asks remembering his promise to help, despite the subject matter being one that he doesn't care to think about.
" A week, he said he had a job in a nearby town and that he would be gone two days at the most, that was a week ago!" Sara says agitatedly pacing away from Jack.
" What if something happened to him? Nobody would think to call me, he could be injured!" she exclaims not allowing her mind to take itself to one other possibility that Alex could be dead…again, that she might have lost her son again.
" I'm sure he's fine," Jack says calmly walking back over to Sara and wrapping his arms around her, finding it funny that his ex-wife is still one of the few people he is comfortable comforting through touching.
" You don't know him Jack, if he said he'll be two days, then he would have been back a week ago. Something has happened and I need you to find out what," Sara says into Jack's shoulder and although the words come out slightly muffled Jack hears them anyway.
" He probably met a girl, or got drunk. You know what the youth of today are like," he jokes and Sara glares up at him as he uses the flip tone.
" Don't!" Sara snaps and Jack looks at her as Sara pulls herself from his arms. " I'm worried and scared and all you can do is make a joke!"
Sara walks towards the door angrily,
" Why would I expect you to help?" she demands, " You're only his Father," she continues and looks back as Jack snorts,
" Or so says the man who's up and left. Yeah let's take his word for it," Sara turns back to face him,
" No Jack. Take my word for it. Take my word that he's ours, that he has Charlie's eyes and…" she is cut off,
" My son is dead!" Jack barks and they both turn as someone opening the sliding door makes an embarrassed noise.
" Sorry Jack, it's the SGC on the phone," Daniel apologizes holding out a cell phone.
" The stargate calls, " Sara says bitterly and she stalks into the kitchen grabbing a notepad as Jack demands why the caller is disturbing him.
" I have to go, we have to go," Jack explains to Sara standing in the kitchen as he ends the call without a goodbye and Daniel nods and leaves through the same sliding door he just entered.
" His name is on the pad in the kitchen, if you decide you give a damn then maybe you can help me find him. Otherwise I'll do it myself," Sara says as she stalks to the front door and leaves slamming the door behind her with a bang.
The large black man in the funny hat is standing near the porch and he regards her carefully as she storms to her car and still watches her as she pushes the car into reverse and peels out of the driveway. Trying not to look at Jack who has come out of the house to stand on the porch and watch her drive away.
" Is everything all right O'Neill?" Teal'c asks walking slowly towards his friend and jack nods and looks at Sam who has also arrived on the scene.
" How about you two head in, Daniel and I will catch you up," Jack suggests and Sam smiles.
" Right, we'll see you there," she confirms and Jack nods despite the fact that Sam and Teal'c have already turned towards her car.
Turning back towards the house Jack pushes the door open a nudge more and calls through,
" You coming Daniel?" he calls and from inside there is the sound of the toilet flushing and Daniel jogs into the hallway,
" I hope you washed your hands," Jack deadpans as the duo head for the car and Daniel smiles and then asks as he climbs into the vehicle,
" What's going on with Sara?"
" It's nothing, did Walter say how long the ambassador had been waiting?" Jack asks changing the subject as he starts the car.
" Only an hour, I thought you two didn't see each other much?"
" We don't," Jack answered winding down his window as he drove,
" If you don't see her much and she comes all the way to your house to ask for help, it must be pretty important," Jack turns away from the road to glare at him.
" First and last time I'll say it Daniel, leave it alone," Jack warns turning back to finish the drive to the mountain complex in silence.
Jack slumped into his office chair wearily; the Ambassador for PXY 789 had come unannounced to work out a treaty with earth regarding the trade of naquada for medicines and basic technology. It had all seemed easy enough but the process seemed to go on forever and became increasingly more tense when the Ambassador announced that as part of the bargain he wanted several crates of P-90s. Negotiations had gone down hill at that point.
Jack looks up at his closed door and the coat rack that sat next to it, his fishing jacket hangs limply and Jack's eyes come to rest on the pocket in which he stuffed Sara's note into. Looks away and tries to concentrate on the paperwork that facilitated the running of the base, but every few minutes his eyes were dragged up and his gaze settles on the pocket.
Finally he collects the note the same time there is a knock on the door, and since he is already standing he opens it. Daniel looks at him with a sigh,
" You know you have to release him, you can't arrest visiting ambassadors on the grounds they piss you off," Daniel instructs and Jack rolls his eyes, the ambassador was sitting in isolation and Jack had been so preoccupied by the scrap of paper he'd forgotten.
" Let him go, offer him the deal again but no guns," Jack instructs turning back towards his desk,
" You want me to tell him?" Daniel asks a little surprised and Jack nods as he sits down and looks at his computer in suspicion.
" You want me to tell Teal'c to do it?" Jack asks absently as he switches the machine on and looks at Daniel as the computer boots up.
" What?" Jack asks as Daniel stands opposite him looking a little shocked,
" Nothing, it's just I thought you didn't even know how to turn that thing on," Daniel explains with a chuckle,
" I'm a soldier Daniel, Soldier's can work technology," Jack says irritated and Daniel's smile vanishes,
" I know that, that's not what I meant. So the Ambassador, I offer him the deal without the guns?" Daniel blurts,
" Without the guns," Jack confirms putting his head down and going through the security system on the computer, pulling rarely used passwords from deep recesses of his brain.
" Right, I'll do that now," Daniel mutters as he leaves.
Jack looks up as the door clicks shut and opens the browser he needs to perform a background search on someone, then looks down at the scrap of paper and types in Harris, A. Sunnydale.
The results leave him sitting in the quiet office in shock. Feeling like he'd been walking along and the ground had suddenly fallen open beneath him, sending his stomach flipping inside of him.
On the screen is a photograph of one Anthony Harris, it's a mug shot from when the man was arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and while it's not the best photograph Jack recognises the man immediately, as a former friend, a former team mate.
" My god!" Jack gasps scrolling down the page, " It's true,"
AN: Review if you like it, Review if you find a major grammatical error and can't stand it any longer like Demona did. I won't take offence, I'll take lesson and fix it next time. Oh and Where is Xander?