Below you'll find a fictionalized recollection of real military events. I've inserted Jack O'Neill where the series tells me I should by inferring some things based on information parceled out throughout the series. We were never flat out told exactly what he did or where he was or what unit(s) he was a part of, but we know, around about 1980 that Jack O'Neill was injured in a parachuting accident near the borders of Iraq & Iran. That pretty much places him as part of one particular mission that fit in really well with…
Some of his thoughts came about as a result of a segment on This American Life with Ira Glass Episode 515 "The Good Guys". The segment was entitled Deep Dark Open Secret. I encourage you to go take a listen; I've placed a link on my profile.
Super love to my amazing beta who puts up with me even when I'm in a mood (like I am a lot lately).
"When I was a younger man, I went to war."
Natalie watches as Colonel O'Neill's eyes glaze over into his past and take on the softer look of a man with ten years fewer demons. There's a sharpness in them, though, she doesn't usually see and she thinks is probably the harder edges of youth. The lines on his face seem to fill, the gauntness in his cheeks recedes and in her minds' eye she sees the striking younger man he probably was.
"People don't talk about it – the way you feel while you're at war. I signed up because I wanted to be a pilot first and couldn't afford college second and the recruiter made it sound like the Air Force was the answer to all my problems. In a way, it was. Yeah, it put me through college. And yeah, it made a pilot out of me. And then… but after that… well, after that it made a soldier out of me.
"People don't join the Air Force to be soldiers. They join the Air Force to work with planes. Or to be in intelligence. There are all sorts of jobs the other branches consider cushy. You've heard the terms Black Ops? Special Ops?"
Natalie nods because she can't find her voice, so enthralled with his story, the sound of his voice, the wonder of where he's going with it all.
"I joined the service in 1970. I graduated college in 1974 and by the time I was out of flight school a year and a half later we'd pulled out of Vietnam but I knew guys who'd gone down during their missions. There were guys still running flights in Cambodia. They were revered in a way I wasn't prepared for, especially not in my early twenties when I was young, dumb and full of," he pulls up short. "Well, you know.
"In '78, I flew a couple of hairy missions in Zaire where we were only supposed to have transport planes. But who do you send when transport planes are having trouble? You send guys like me who fly the fast, little planes that transport lighter, more useful cargo."
"After that, for a variety of reasons, I was recruited into Spec Ops. In the Air Force we're called STOs – Special Tactics Officers. We did then and still do the jobs other officers in the Air Force don't want to think about. We do the jobs people assign in their minds to Seals or Rangers. We secured air fields. We rescued men. And sometimes, we were the ones who needed rescuing.
"I'm not sure how well you know your military history, so stop me if I…"
"It's fine," Natalie interjects, slightly embarrassed by the nearly breathy, awestricken sound of her voice, "please go ahead."
"In 1979, Iranian activists knocked over the US Embassy in Tehran. They'll make a movie about it one day, and they'll leave out half the good shit, but the aftermath of those events spurred 1980's Operation Eagle Claw. At the time I was based out of Florida with the 1st Special Operations Wing. It was my first STO mission. Anyway, they put a gun in your hands, they train you, they train your brain and it's hard anytime, but especially when you're in your late twenties, to rein in the emotions they try to unleash.
"Tehran and Eagle Claw were right around the time the Joint Special Operations Command was coming together so they're throwing the AF guys in with Deltas, Rangers, Special Forces, and Airborne guys and expecting that the testosterone isn't going to absolutely blow all our dicks up, right?"
Natalie can't help but quirk a grin and he has the decency to blush when he catches her eye.
"But we talked about certain things a lot. More than girls, and music and leave, we talked about what it would be like to kill another human being. We craved it. They guys who had done it had capital the rest of us couldn't compete with. And before long we realized it wasn't just bravado. We really wanted it.
"I really wanted it."
"You wanted to kill another human being?"
He nods. "And not just because they were the 'bad guys' and we were the 'good guys' but because I wanted to know what it felt like. Because I had the power to do it."
"Do you feel that way now?"
He shakes his head. "No. The desire went away after my first kill. Despite my military career and the things I've been able to do, the killing always leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth."
"It's the adrenaline," she shrugs with one shoulder.
"It's guilt," he corrects and she feels chagrinned. "And fear. And knowing every time you kill someone and leave a body behind, you leave a little of yourself behind with it."
"Over the course of my career I've worked with a lot of front line guys – all STO. In the AF, if you're running around with a group of people with guns, you're running around with STO. You get used to seeing that look in their eyes like you're looking in a mirror – we all wanted the kill; either at some time in the past or still did. And then they handed me Carter. Her eyes were all big blue skies and possibilities."
"And now?"
"Now sometimes she wants to kill."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
When she hears the sliding glass door whoosh along the runners behind her, she looks over her shoulder and her eyes smile when she sees him. She holds her hand out to him and he pretends for a moment it's not because she wants to snag the bottle of beer he's holding for one long pull while it's freshly cold out of the fridge. He likes how he knows little things about her now; like how she doesn't even really like beer at all except for that first frosty sip but that she drinks it so she can be one of the guys. And how onions make her eyes burn worse than anyone he's ever known. And how she tucks the loose end of a towel between her breasts instead of under her arm when she gets out of the shower.
She likes the smell of the grass right after it's been cut. He likes to watch the way she digs her bare toes into the springy ground as she draws deep breaths into her lungs and makes her rib cage push her now fuller breasts against the fabric of the shirt she's wearing that's probably his. He marvels at those toes and the electric blue nail polish he'd watched her paint on while they watched an episode of History's Mysteries and ate ice cream out of the carton with one spoon.
He taunts her with the beer and a smile because when he does the corner of her mouth quirks up and she says "Jack" in that sweetly exasperated way that makes his stomach tighten pleasantly in the moments before her fingers thread through his to divest him of the bottle and she steals his breath away along with his beer.
And when she grins against the mouth of the bottle as she bumps a shoulder into his chest, he doesn't resist the urge to sling his arm around her, snag the bottle and steal that first sip.
"I wanted that," she pouts in a purely feminine way he'd have never pegged her for before he got to know her this way.
"There's more in the fridge."
She shakes her head and takes the second sip with a shrug. But she crinkles her nose a little as it goes down and she hands the bottle back without complaint.
She turns in his embrace until she can lean solidly against him, pressed to him from her shoulder blades to mid back, careful to avoid tucking her hips back against his but she allows him to wrap his other arm around her waist in counterpoint to the one now loose across her collar bones. He presses the cold bottle to her belly and grins against her ear when she sucks in a sharp breath at the intrusion. She wriggles against him when the vibration of his following chuckle tickles her. "You surprised me," she says.
"You surprise me all the time."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
More often than not she comes home to find Jack passed out in his recliner being shouted at by a hockey game that may or may not be twenty years old. When she's not there in the evenings, it seems, he reclaims a little of his old bachelor days. She usually feels a stab of guilt about what he's given up for her as she turns the volume down to a more reasonable level and then does her level best to wake him up to cook her dinner by banging pots and pans around louder than is strictly necessary.
But tonight she walks in on an intense chess game. Daniel is biting his lip as his fingers hover over the black pieces and his eyes look concerned.
She sets her bag down against the dining room wall and kicks her shoes off under the table. "You'd think by now you'd have learned not to let Jack have the white advantage."
"You're not helping," he says affectionately and reaches over to squeeze her hand while never taking his eyes off the board.
"You're late," Jack says conversationally but she can see the question in his eyes.
She had an appointment with Natalie but she's fine so she tells him so. "I could cook," she offers halfheartedly.
Jack pulls a face, "We ordered Chinese. It should be here any—" he's cut off by the doorbell.
"I've got a couple twenties," Daniel offers but Jack cuts him off with, "My wallet's on the dresser. Sam, would you?"
She answers the door and asks the kid to wait while she retrieves Jack's wallet. Like most urges these days she doesn't resist the one that makes her want to flip through the photos inside. She smiles. He's probably the last remaining person on the planet who carries honest to goodness photos in his wallet. Her smile falters over the last school photo of Charlie – the same one that has several places of honor throughout the house – and then another of Charlie and Jack together with identical big smiles and smudges of dirt on their cheeks.
Back at the door she hands over a couple of bills and tells the kid to keep the change. She delivers the bag of food to the table but curls up in one of the chairs with Jack's wallet instead of fetching plates and flatware from the kitchen.
She pages through to photos nearly oblivious to the small smile she earns from Jack for her curiosity and she wonders, for a moment, at how open he's become with her. It's like there's no place in his life that's off limits to her. She doesn't think she's ever had that kind of freedom. Not anytime or with anyone – not even with a man she was supposed to marry.
He leans over and flips the photos so she's looking at the last one. It's a picture of SG-1 all together, just about to step through the gate. She's grinning at him with a heated affection and his eyes have gone wide and she remembers that moment like it was yesterday. She'd told a bawdy joke and shocked the hell out of him.
"Your dad took that picture," he says.
"I know."
"And he gave it to me."
"He didn't give me a copy," she says, confused.
"He said he never quite liked the way you were looking at me."
"That's the way I always look at you."
He doesn't answer so she looks up at him and he's smirking. "I know," he says, then winks.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It's her screams that wake him up and he's halfway to her bedroom before he realizes he's even out of bed. That's probably why he doesn't realize he's once again bare chested when he sits down on the edge of her bed and places a hand on her shoulder. Well, he doesn't realize until she's clinging to him, her faced pressed into his neck and her fingernails cutting half-moons into the soft places between his shoulder blades and spine. Her breath is hot and moist against his skin, and her tank top is damp where her heaving chest presses against his.
They're sitting hip to hip and even as she's pulling him tighter to her he's worried that he's too close. Then one of her hands falls to his thigh and she digs her nails into the tender flesh just below the hem of his shorts and he wonders if she's trying to hurt him. It wouldn't be the first time.
"Sam." He grasps her upper arms and shakes her a little to get her attention, but her breath is coming in fast pants and her eyes are squeezed tightly closed. She's mumbling and he tucks her head back into the crook of his neck and holds her there so he can feel her lips moving against his skin. "Sam, Sam, Sam…" he says her name in a repeating, soothing mantra until her breaths come evenly and her tears stop.
She either doesn't notice or doesn't care that there's a lot of bare skin in her bed tonight and she slips off to sleep again in his arms.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Jack sits in his recliner and listens to the soft sounds of Sam teaching Teal'c how to play backgammon. After a while it was clear he's gotten the hang of it and they play and make as much idle chit chat as Teal'c is prone to make.
"You haven't been coming to the pool," she remarks quietly. Insecurely.
Jack winces because he hates that little-girl sound in her voice that reminds him in equal parts why he should and shouldn't be with her.
"You have not needed me, Major Carter."
It's quiet for a long while and he thinks how that's true. Also, how it isn't. Sure, Sam's gotten better. She's looking more like her old self all the time – especially now that she's almost back up to her fighting weight and her meltdown haircut has grown out. She puts makeup on and usually wears her own clothes (the Teal'c-sweatshirt she's currently wrapped up in is deference to the chilly night air they just came in from and is not withstanding).
But she still has nightmares, she still jumps if she comes around a corner in the dark and finds Jack standing there. The doctors aren't making noises about putting her back on a front line team and neither is she.
He listens as their pieces make snicking and swooshing sounds as they move them around the board. He turns the volume down on the television one more click.
"I'll always need you, Teal'c."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
In the several years she's been at the SGC she never imagined Jack and General Hammond would sit on his deck together and drink beer. But, there they were and the ease and familiarity with which they sat suggested this wasn't the first time it had happened.
She makes herself busy, nervously, in the kitchen because there's no way they hadn't heard her call pull up and park in the driveway. She certainly hadn't mentioned her new living arrangements to the General. She wasn't sure if anyone else had. But whether they had or hadn't, it was a lot like her dad had caught her with her boyfriend in her bedroom with the door closed. Not that Jack was her boyfriend. Or that anything untoward was going on – in bedrooms or otherwise. She flicks on the hot water and begins to fill the sink.
A few minutes later Jack joins her in the kitchen. He touches her waist, curves his hand with gentle possession around her hip in a way he's come to over the last few weeks – it's a small yet meaningful touch she doesn't associate with her time on Votan. She's elbow deep in dishwater and is methodically washing the two coffee cups and single spoon she'd found at the bottom of the basin.
"General Hammond is here."
"I see that," she tries to say calmly but is pretty sure she's failed spectacularly.
"You wanna come sit outside with us?"
She washes the cups again. "Is that such a good idea?"
"What do you mean?"
She spins around and tries not to let goose bumps flair up where his hand trails around her midsection, unprepared as he was for her sudden movement. Bubbles from the sink flick off her hands and cling to the front of his shirt. "I mean, what is he going to think finding me coming home here after work?"
"Sam," he says gently in that way he has that can make her feel either soothed or stupid depending on her mood, "what makes you think he'd be surprised to find you here at any time of the day?"
"Jesus, Jack," she say and finds she's resting her forehead against his chest, "what the hell are we doing here?"