Passing Glance

His truck found the parking lot almost by accident. One minute he was heading to base, and the next he found himself parked in front of a bank of low, gray buildings. He didn't hesitate this time before heading in.

Brittany wasn't at the desk, and the television sat dark and silent on the wall when he entered the room. The lights were all off. He flipped back the cover on his watch and swore softly when he saw that it was after five.

He turned to leave—how had he missed how late it had become? But there had been a few other things on his mind—and the repository knowledge was starting to take hold. He could feel himself starting to slip around the edges. Life wasn't as sharp as it had been before.

A sound behind him brought him back to the present, and he turned to see Doc Polly standing in the open doorway to her office, her eyes wide with alarm.

"Jack." Her voice echoed relief. She smiled and visibly relaxed. "Brittany must have forgotten to lock the door. I'm so glad it's you and not some axe murderer come to part me from my head."

O'Neill carefully put his hands in his pockets. In his current state, he knew he'd need to concentrate more on each individual action.

"I wondered if you had a few minutes." His words sounded Earth-like enough. He didn't think he'd said anything funny. It must have been all right because Doc Polly smiled and gestured into her office.

"Of course." She said. "I'd been hoping to see you again after the abrupt ending of our previous session."

They took up their previous position, Jack on the tall chair and Doc Polly on the chaise. She didn't pick up the notepad, this time, only settled herself on the long sofa with an expectant expression and an obvious enormity of patience.

"I'm different." O'Neill finally ground out. "There's been stuff happening—at work."

"Yes. Daniel mentioned that something had gone wrong at work and that you had been affected adversely." She folded her hands together on her lap.

"Adversely affected." That was an understatement.

"He also told me that it was classified, so that's all he could say."

O'Neill shrugged.

"Was there something specific, or do you just need someone to bounce ideas off of?"

Jack leaned forward and looked at her, serious. "The light bulb—I'm like the light bulb. I want to change."

"In what way, Jack?"

"I'm tired of—" but his head was telling him to say poena—he struggled briefly before finding English. "Pain. I'm tired of being in pain."

"I understand that you have endured physical and emotional pain throughout your career."

"I've usually been able to handle it."

"What's different this time?"

"I don't know—I guess it matters this time."

"Because you care? Because this time you're emotionally invested?"

"You could say that."

Doc Polly shifted slightly in her seat. "In what way?"

"In what way am I invested?"

"Yes."

This time it was Jack that changed positions. He dropped his gaze to his hands, to his interlaced fingers. He knew the answer, he just didn't want to say the answer.

"You allowed it to become personal." Doc Polly's voice led him along.

"We're supposed to maintain distance—between ourselves and our subordinates. Between ourselves and our targets. There are reasons for the regulations."

"They prevent you from becoming involved in this way. Protect you from being hurt this way."

"Yes."

"And yet, you still fell in love with her."

Jack acknowledged that they were indeed talking about Carter. "Yes, I did."

Doc Polly looked pensive for a moment before positing a theory. "Do you want her? Not in a sex kind of way—but do you want to be in her life? Because what I think you have to decide is—is it worth it? Is pining for her, knowing that she has moved on, worth the pain?"

"She's also a friend."

"It's already crossed that line, hasn't it? It's tough to turn that one off."

"Unring the bell?"

"Unchew the gum."

O'Neill smiled. "She's already moved on. I need to do it, too."

"Yes."

"How?"

Doc Polly's hand moved outwards, palms up. "That's a question for the eternities, isn't it? How do you move on once your heart has been broken?"

"Do you know the answer?"

"It's different for each individual."

"For a guy like me?"

"It will be more difficult, because you feel things more deeply."

She had him there, Jack knew. He internalized things, even as he tried to deflect them with sarcasm and humor. Defensive mechanisms, he knew. "So? How does a guy like me do it?"

"I've found that truth helps. Accept the truth of the situation and the rest seems to fall into place better."

Jack sat silently, waiting.

"I once worked with a woman whose husband was cheating on her. She wanted to fix what was wrong with her so that he would stop."

"Was it really her fault?"

"Her fault? No." Doc Polly shook her head. "But her insecurities made it difficult for her husband to respect her, and respect is essential in a loving, caring relationship. He was no longer attracted to her because she was so insecure—she was insecure because he was no longer attracted to her."

"The proverbial conundrum."

"Oh, yes."

"So what happened?"

"She learned to look honestly at herself. She was a bright, successful middle aged woman, and he didn't want that anymore. He wanted a trophy wife. She had to accept the fact that she wasn't one of those, and that he wasn't going to love her as she was."

"And?"

"I left the cheating dillweed and married a man who appreciated me as a successful middle aged woman. I know I'm not a buxom beauty, but I still have value. I needed to find someone who would recognize that inner worth. But first, I needed to recognize my inner worth. We forget sometimes that it all starts with us. We are the great definers of self—how we treat ourselves dictates how others will treat us."

Jack dropped his head. He'd been drafted soon after high school—spent most of his adult life in the military. Sara had convinced him to go back to school and complete his degree, and subsequently, he'd risen through the ranks through his black ops work. She hadn't really understood what he did when he left on operations. He'd found it easier to lead her to believe that his work involved intelligence gathering. She didn't want to know how talented her husband was at killing people. She wouldn't have been able to see past that.

She'd been so proud when he'd been made a Colonel—she'd never known the high level target he'd taken out to earn it. She still didn't know. He'd protected her well.

Carter held no such illusions. She knew what O'Neill was, and still respected him. That confused him to no end.

The doctor's voice brought him back to the present. "Can you look inside yourself and see what you are worth? Sure you're Jack O'Neill, but who are you really?"

"Nothing. I'm nothing."

"No, Jack." Her voice soothed him, gently caressed his soul. "You are more than you know. You just may not be who or what she needs just now. But your strength is immense, and your ability astounding. If you could see yourself as others see you—if you could hear some of the things that Daniel has told me. You deserve more than what you believe you do."

"There are things that I've done that cancel other things that I've done. It goes both ways. Let's say I save the world a few times—theoretically."

"Theoretically."

"Does that save me from the other distasteful things that I've done?" He paused. "Does that mitigate the fact that I killed my son?"

Doc Polly studied him for a long while. Finally she took a long thin breath and answered. "Does it?"

A sudden image burst into O'Neill's head. It was a room, and there was a chair in the middle of it. It seemed—out of reach, yet so vitally important that it hurt. He needed to get to it.

He raised a hand to his forehead and gripped his temples with his fingers.

"Are you all right, Jack?" Doc Polly's voice seemed to be coming at him from far away—down long corridors and around corners. When he looked at her, her edges blurred into the room behind her.

He remembered something he needed to do—he reached into his back pocket for his wallet. Pulling it out, he flipped it open and pulled out several crisp bills. He hadn't known how much she charged. The numbers didn't look normal—he gave up trying to decipher them and dropped the whole wad next to the doctor.

"I've got to go." Jack stood. He moved towards the door.

Ignoring the money on the chaise, Doc Polly rose and grabbed his arm as he passed. Through the haze he could see her, concern etching her features. "Look at it clearly—with honesty, Jack. You'll see the truth."

----OOOOOOO----

And he had. He'd seen the truth much, much later. The conversation had lasted mere seconds, but he'd looked at her over the crystal array in the engine room and known.

He'd been able to read her. Her mind? Her soul? He didn't know. He just knew her thoughts as well as if they were his own. He knew her loneliness, her solitude, the pain she'd felt in giving up her hopes of them in hopes of salvaging a little bit of herself. He knew the ambivalence she felt towards Pete, too—and the guilt she'd suppressed after sleeping with him. Jack knew that Sam wasn't capable of recognizing that—but that was better for her, anyway—it would make it easier for her to find happiness with the cop.

Most of all, Jack could see the goodness of her. She hadn't moved on out of spite, or because she no longer loved him—it had been self preservation. She had needed something other than the non-relationship she was allowed to have with her superior officer.

She hadn't stopped loving him, she'd merely stopped hoping for the impossible. And somewhere within the madness unfurling in his mind, he'd understood completely. He could envision himself as she saw him—warts and all, and he felt himself heal a little.

And when Sam had spoken there, amidst the flickering lights of the engine room, Jack knew she'd wanted to say more. She'd wanted to explain—but he hadn't needed to hear it.

"I know." He'd said, and he'd meant it.

----OOOOOOO----

So he'd let it unspool in his mind. He'd stopped fighting the knowledge, and let it overcome him. He'd sat in the chair and used it to fire the weapon and obliterate the threat Anubis posed to them.

In the end, it had drained him so completely that he couldn't support himself, couldn't rise unassisted from the Ancient chair. He hadn't felt Teal'c's hands lift him, hadn't known that he'd been placed in the stasis pod. The one bit of self that remained was the ability to direct a look—a single look—

He'd wanted to tell her to go on. That it was okay. He'd needed to tell her that he wanted her to be happy—wanted them all to be happy. His death or life wasn't worth anything if it didn't facilitate some positive benefit in the lives of his team members.

And in the end, his mind and mouth had formed the words, "Aveo amacus."

He recognized briefly that Daniel translated it as "Goodbye", but didn't have the energy to correct him. It meant so much more than that.

But he couldn't say any more—he could only look at her. A passing glance in the maelstrom of his mind.

And then the pod closed itself around him, blessing him with darkness and rest.