Title: Resignation

Author: BadgerGater

Email: BadgerGater@cs.com

Category: Drama, angst,

Pairing: Ah, none, really

Rating: G

Spoilers: None past COTG

Warning: Get out the Kleenex (maybe even buy stock in the tissue company)

Season/sequel: Immediately after the movie, before the series starts.

Summary: Col. O'Neill comes home from Abydos and doesn't find what he expected.

Disclaimer: Don't own Jack O'Neill (who could?), Stargate, et al, I understand they belong to TPTB, Viacom/Showtime/Gekko/Double Secret: no copyright infringement intended, etc; No money exchanged hands; I just appreciate the opportunity to spend a little time with the good Colonel

Author's Note: Feedback, please. Love it.

<><><><><>

The first thing he did, before he debriefed, even before he showered or changed out of his sand crusted, sweat stained BDUs, was call home.

The line rang six times, before Sara's taped voice asked him to leave a message. He glanced down at his watch, 2:10 p.m., the middle of the afternoon. Well, maybe she had gone to work today. He wasn't sure. It was Saturday, or so he thought, but it was hard to keep track of the time and date back here on Earth after Abydos and it's 36 hour days.

The message ended. "Sara, pick up if you're there," he asked. Nothing. He called again, left a message this time. "Sara, I just got back. I've got to debrief and then I'll be home tonight. We'll talk." A sigh, a moment of silence, and the words spilled out of his mouth, unbidden. "I missed you."

<><><><><>

O'Neill debriefed, carefully skirting certain details of the just completed mission, noting the looks on Ferretti's and Kawalsky's faces. They weren't going to dispute his statements. He had talked this over with them before they left the planet. O'Neill would tell the story and they would simply agree, as he had ordered them. Their butts were covered. He was the only one who could be in trouble. And in a few minutes, it wouldn't matter anymore. He had made up his mind about what he was going to do, what he had to do to protect those he'd left behind.

So O'Neill didn't tell General West exactly what had happened to Daniel Jackson. Okay, Daniel had been dead, so that wasn't a lie. He had just neglected to add one tiny detail, that the archeologist was alive again but had chosen to stay behind. And Ra really was no threat to Earth, he was certainly dead, that was the truth. Of course, O'Neill had done as he was ordered, had set off the bomb, back there on that planet, though just not quite exactly where and how he was supposed to. But the mission had been to defeat Ra and stop the threat of an alien invasion, and Col. Jack O'Neill had accomplished that.

Case closed.

Mission over.

Career done.

O'Neill was done with it, done with the Air Force, done with following stupid rules, obeying orders he didn't agree with and couldn't argue with and had no say in. Done with serving under rigid, inflexible commanding officers who wouldn't understand why he had done what he'd done; COs who if they knew what he'd done wouldn't agree with saving the lives of 5,000 innocent civilians, including one young boy who had saved Jack O'Neill's soul.

He was going home to his wife to try to repair his marriage, offering the woman he loved the one and only thing she had ever asked for that he had never been able to give her-- himself, all of himself. She would not have to share him with the Air Force anymore. She would not have to stand on the porch bravely hiding her tears as she hugged him goodbye and watched him leave. He would be home for her birthday, their anniversary, for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's.

His letter of resignation was in his pocket, ready to be handed to General West the moment the briefing was done.

Done and over with.

He didn't know if it would be enough, if it might not be too little too late. Maybe there wasn't enough left to save, but he had to try. Besides, he had found he had no taste left for the job. Not after what he'd just been a part of. Not when he knew what he was going home to. He had to share the grief with Sara; had to find some sort of middle ground where the two of them could heal together.

They had talked about moving when he retired. Moving out of the city to some quiet place in the mountains, some place with a lake to fish in, a quiet life, and a good place to raise their son-- Oh God. Was there anything left for them without Charlie?

Jack had to try.

<><><><><>

When the briefing ended, O'Neill approached the General, "a moment of your time, Sir."

"Of course, Colonel. What is it?"

"Here, Sir," he said, and waited while West opened the sealed envelope and read the brief words. "Effective immediately, I hereby respectfully resign my commission in the United States Air Force. It has been an honor and a privilege serving my country." Signed, Jack O'Neill. West raised his eyes to stare at the officer in front of him. "What is this, Colonel?"

"Just what it says, Sir, I'm retiring."

"Why?"

"Personal reasons, Sir,"

West stared. He knew O'Neill's story, Hell, that's why he'd picked the man for this suicide mission that the Colonel had somehow survived, and seemed to have come home from somehow a different man. Ah, well, there were plenty more good officers out there, a lot of them who would be a lot easier to deal with than this one.

<><><><><>

By the time Jack left Cheyenne Mountain, darkness had fallen. He climbed into his car and started the long drive home, tired and stiff, his body aching from the bruises inflicted by the battle on Abydos.

As he turned down his street, he saw no lights on in their house. A small knot of worry started, and it grew when he saw no sign of Sara's car in the driveway. He unlocked the door quietly, greeted by a deafening silence.

There was a sense of emptiness, a feeling that no one had been here for a long time.

'Your imagination is running wild, Jack,' he told himself. 'So she's not home. She had no way of knowing you were coming home today. Hell, you didn't even know you were coming home today.'

Turning on the light, he was startled by a stack of boxes sitting in the middle of the living room floor. Who was moving in or out? God, Sara hadn't packed up all of Charlie's things already, had she? He doubted that, doubted she had been able to touch them.

No, he saw with surprise, there were familiar items in the boxes, his things.

His heart hammered. "Sara?" he called, though he knew she wasn't there, knew no one was there to answer. There was a light coating of dust on everything as if no one had been there for days. By the side door he found a stack of newspapers, a week's worth at least, and the mailbox was stuffed with stacks of untouched mail. In the hallway, the red light on the answering machine was blinking steadily. Forty-three messages, it said.

Finally, in the kitchen, he found it, a single sheet of plain white paper, such a simple thing to tear a man's barely healing heart apart once more.

He read it once, then again, unable to believe the words.

He was too late. She was gone.

It was what he deserved for letting her down; for not being there when she needed him, for being responsible for.... even now, he couldn't say the words, could barely think them, for being responsible for their son's death.

How could he have been so wrapped up in his own grief that he hadn't seen what he was doing to her? Well, to be honest, he had seen. He'd just been so paralyzed with his own guilt he couldn't say anything or do anything to comfort her.

How could he have gone off and left her to wait for him again? All their life together, a dozen years, time and time again, he'd packed up and departed for new assignments, hurried off on missions or gone to war, leaving her behind to wait. He had always carried with him, like a shield, the knowledge that he would have Sara to come home to. Meanwhile, she could only wait and hope and wonder when or if he would come home to her. He'd known it was hard for her, but he'd always told himself Sara knew what she was getting herself into when she married him. She knew how important his career was to him...

His career. He didn't have her and he didn't have the Air Force any more either.

Jack laughed, a hollow, empty sound in the eerily silent house. Wasn't there some old romantic tale about a man who had sold his beloved watch to buy a comb for his wife's lovely long hair, while she had cut and sold her beautiful hair to buy him a gold chain for his watch?

He'd waited too long, failed to find himself soon enough, and now she was gone and she wanted him out of the house.

O'Neill prowled through the empty house, past the door to their room and on to the closed door to *his* room, that room, and went in. All of Charlie's things were still there, as if she expected him to come back. His clothes hung neatly on their hangers, his hockey skates sat on the shelf in the back of the closet waiting for winter, his baseball bat and glove stood leaning against the wall in the corner, and the big wooden toy box was stuffed with footballs, Frisbees and what-all-else an energetic boy occupied his time with. The bed was made, the clock on the dresser still ticking.

There were only two changes-- Sara had had the carpet replaced, the dark stained blotch gone. And she had had someone patch the hole in the wall, the hole Jack had punched through the plaster as he watched the EMTs carry his son's body out of the house.

He went back down the hallway. All of his things were gone from their bedroom. She'd done a thorough job of it, that was for sure. His closet was bare and his dresser drawers were empty. His razor, toothbrush and combs were gone from their bathroom. Even his cufflinks and tie tacs were no longer in the little bowl beneath the mirror.

Jack went back downstairs, searched through the cupboards until he found a bottle of Scotch, with trembling hands poured himself a drink, and knocked it back with one gulp. Then he carried the glass and the bottle back to the silent living room. For hours he sat in the dark, drinking and contemplating the wreckage of his life.

Sometime before dawn, still sleepless, O'Neill realized he was very, very drunk, but the alcohol wasn't helping. He was smart enough to know it never did, but stubborn enough to keep trying.

Tonight, nothing would drive away the ghosts or the demons. They were all that shared the house with him.

Finally, he dozed.

Jack jerked awake, the cry 'Daddy!' ringing in his ears. He stumbled to his feet, up the stairs, to that room, his befuddled mind creating the echo of a shot, the image of a child, the all-too familiar smell of blood and the despair in Sara's wailing cry. He sank to his knees beside the small bed, buried his face in his hands, but the tears would not come. They would never come, he thought, despairingly, never; they were locked so deep in his heart.

He couldn't stand to be in the house, not this house, not a moment longer. He went back downstairs, through the kitchen, out the back door to the deck, the one he had built last summer, with Charlie so proud to be his helper. He snagged a lawn chair, sank back in it to look up at the stars, shivered from the cold and the sense of loss that swept through him.

<><><><><>

That's where he was, still, when the sun rose, sleep having eluded him the remainder of that long night. With the dawn, he went back into the house, not his house, not his home, not ever again. Jack signed the papers she'd left on the table, added a note that Sara could have everything he wasn't taking with him. He rummaged through the boxes in the living room, pulled out just a few things, took the rest out to the curb for the trashman, and carried out to his car the meager belongings he'd kept.

He went back in one final time to take from the hallway table a small framed picture of his son, his favorite picture, taken just a few days before... just a few days before Charlie died, of his boy smiling, in his baseball uniform. He put the photo in an old cigar box, and added to it the plain gold band he removed from his left ring finger, threading it through the chain of his dogtags.

He took one last look around, and carrying the small box, he left his key on the table and walked out, closing the door softly behind him.

<><><><><>

Once in the car, he drove, aimlessly, for hours. What did it matter where he went? No one would care where he was. He was leaving no one and nothing behind. He had no son, no wife, no career, no future, no direction. Just when he thought he had found something worth living for again, he had lost it.

He was such a fool.

O'Neill found himself at last at a little park up in the mountains, a place he sometimes came to alone, when he needed quiet time to think. It was a spot where he could come to terms with the things his career forced him to do, to find some inner peace before he went home to his family. Often, he had watched the sunrise or the sunset from here.

But peace eluded him this time. He stared at the sunset, watched the stars wheel overhead through another long, sleepless, agonizing night, found no joy and no solace in the sunrise.

He still didn't have any answers. Hell, he didn't even know the questions.

<><><><><>

Jack had always hated these sorts of places, hated spending a single moment there, felt like he'd spent far too much time in places like this.

He could barely make his legs carry him across the frozen ground, to the small marker that was now in place, the still bare ground marking the spot where.... where Charlie lay. His heart was a frozen lump in his chest. He didn't think he could breathe, didn't know how he could spend another moment here.

He'd been through a lot in his life, a lot of physical trauma and emotional pain. He'd lost friends, fellow soldiers and family, but nothing, nothing could ever prepare a man for this. No man should outlive his child.

'It should be me, here, in this grave, not you,' he thought. 'Son, I'm sorry.'

From his pocket, he took the polished silver eagles that had once proudly adorned his shoulders and the other insignia that had been pinned to the dress uniform he would never wear again: the meaningless shiny metal baubles that Charlie had loved to play with from the time he was a tiny baby. He placed them beside the headstone, turned his back, and walked away.

<><><><><>

Driving again, he suddenly pulled in to a used car lot. Jack sold the man his car without even dickering on the price, pulling the title from the small box of possessions he had stuffed into his dufflebag. Then he walked a couple of blocks down the street to a place he had passed by so often, the place he had sold his old motorcycle to years before, and purchased another with the cash from his wallet.

He climbed on the machine, and started down the street, the wind in his hair, light glinting off his sunglasses. He turned south on the interstate, just because that was easiest. He didn't know where he was going, he was just going.

Jack O'Neill, not Colonel O'Neill anymore, just like he was no longer dad, no longer husband, now just a man, alone, on a bike, headed somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere.

<><><><><>

Resignation: Part 2

Author: BadgerGater

Email: BadgerGater@cs.com

Category: Drama, angst

Rating: G

Season/Sequel: Sequel to my story Resignation; set immediately after Stargate The Movie;

Summary: So what did Jack do after he resigned following the first Abydos mission?

Warnings: None, really

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions; all the powers that be, not me; This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement intended. The story is the property of the author and may not be posted (Heliopolis, Jack's Place excepted) without the author's consent.

Authors Notes: What happened when Jack came home from the first trip to Abydos

Sara O'Neill walked into attorney Phil Greenwell's office. Phil had been her and Jack's lawyer for years, Phil was an old friend, in fact. Well, to be fair, Phil wasn't actually her lawyer anymore, though it was on his advice that Sara had gone to another firm for the divorce from Jack. Keeps it cleaner, he had told her.

She only hoped he would have some news for her.

"Sara, what a surprise," he greeted her warmly. "What brings you here today?"

"I was hoping you'd know where Jack is."

"What?"

"Well, I can't find him. I've got some legal papers for him to sign, on the house, and I don't know where to look for him."

He thought she looked pretty upset over a couple of unsigned documents. But then, considering what the woman had just been through, he thought, it was a miracle she was showing any interest in anything. "What do you mean, you don't know where to look for him?"

"You know I moved out of the house, back in with my dad, and left the divorce papers for Jack to sign, six weeks ago that was..."

"And...."

"And he came home one night, I know that, Judy, my neighbor, she saw his car. So I waited a couple of days and Dad went back to the house. Jack had signed the papers and was gone. Judy saw him carry most of his stuff out to the curb, left it all for the garbage man. She only saw him take a small bag and get in the car...." Sara was fighting back the tears. "Phil, I haven't heard a word from him, nothing. And then yesterday I drove past this used car lot, the one on Ninth, across town? And this car, it looked just like Jack's. So I pulled in and asked the guy about it. The day he signed the divorce papers, Jack drove up to the place, sold the man his car and walked away carrying nothing but a dufflebag. The man remembered, because it was so strange..."

Phil sank back in his chair, stunned. "Let's not jump to conclusions here, Sara. There could be a lot of reasons."

She shook her head. "There's more. At the time, I didn't think much about it, but now..." she took a deep breath. "After he left, I found his eagles and all his dress uniform insignia at the cemetery (she couldn't say Charlie's grave, not yet). I thought that was pretty strange. But then, this morning, I got a call, from the Air Force, wanting to know where to send his retirement checks. He never finished filling out the paperwork."

"What?" this time there was shock in the lawyer's voice. "His retirement checks?"

"The day before he signed the divorce papers and sold his car, he resigned from the Air Force. I think he finally did it, Phil, I think he's dead. I think he killed himself." Tears were running down her face. "What do I do?"

Greenwell grabbed some Kleenex, handed them to her, got her a glass of water and steadied her hand while she drank.

"Sara, I don't know what to say. I know he was pretty depressed but I don't think he'd commit suicide. When I heard he went back to work, I thought that was a good sign, that he was, well, coping with things."

She laughed hollowly. "Coping? Jack? Phil, he sat in his room day after day, with the gun in his hand. I kept waiting to hear the shot, to end it. And then the Air Force came looking for him, and he went. He took the assignment they offered, one more top secret thing. And he left without a word to me, not a single word. This is the only thing I've heard from him since, it was on the table with the divorce papers, the day he disappeared," she said, handing the attorney a single sheet of paper.

In O'Neill's unmistakable handwriting it stated simply, "Sara, I took what I needed. The rest is all yours" and was signed Jack O'Neill.

Phil didn't know what to say.

"No one has heard from him since. I've called everyone I could think of, every name that came to mind, people I don't think he's talked to in years. Not a single one has heard from him. What do we do?"

Phil gathered his thought. "As both his, and your, lawyer and friend, let's be logical here. I may be able to get more information out of the Air Force, but I don't think we'll get anywhere without filing a missing person's report."

"Oh my God. Go to the police?"

"It's the first step we need to take. Sara, if he has... done anything, they might have information," Phil added, thinking sadly that it wasn't uncommon for unidentified bodies to be found. Of course, it was winter, if he'd gone out into the mountains six weeks ago, no one would find his body until spring. If ever. Greenwell shivered, remembering the bleak, stone faced visage of his friend at the boy's funeral, his grim silence. Would Jack have done this? Blaming himself and pushed over the edge by the divorce?

What a mess. He picked up his phone, told his secretary, "cancel my afternoon appointments. I'm taking Mrs. O'Neill down to the police station."

----------------

The police officer was polite, but not very helpful. "He's an adult, Mrs. O'Neill, and he has every right to move out and go anywhere he wants. We can put his name and description on the list, but we won't do an active search. Give me a description, and we'll keep it on file."

'In case a body shows up,' she told herself grimly. "He's six foot two, 190 lbs., brown eyes, light brown hair, cut short, 39 years old, fit. He's in, was in, the Air Force."

"Anything distinguishing tattoos, marks, scars?"

She laughed. "Dozens." 'Get a grip, Sara,' she told herself. "He was in the service 20 years, officer, active duty, Special Forces. He was wounded, had a bad parachute accident--he has lots of scars." Inside and out, she thought.

"Did he have a gun, Mrs. O'Neill?"

"Yes.

"And was there a reason why he'd use it?"

Cold question, Greenwell thought, and answered quickly, so Sara wouldn't have to. "Jack was distraught, over the recent death of their son."

The officer nodded, knowing now why the names seemed familiar. Sad, he thought, first the son, now the father.

"We'll let you know if we hear anything."

Phil helped Sara out to his car. They drove silently back to his office.

"So now what do we do?" she asked.

"We wait. We'll put a tracer on his charge cards and bank account, I can see if his drivers license turns up any tickets-- I've got a man who does investigative work for me. I'll have him do the basics. Maybe he'll turn up. That would be like Jack, scaring us and then just reappearing. He's done it before," said Phil, trying to reassure her but thinking this time might indeed be the last.

<><><><><>

On a New Mexico mountainside, the bearded man awoke in the chill dawn, snuggled into the tattered sleeping bag that was his bed. He hadn't slept much, but it would be enough to get him through another day. He heated his coffee over a campfire as he had done what, thousands of times in his lifetime. He sipped the brew to warm himself, kicking away the empty bottle from last night. He would have to go to town today, the booze was all gone. Kicking apart the embers of his fire, the hangover pounding in his head, he kick started the motorcycle and headed down the mountain.

On the edge of a little town called Skyline, the stranger rounded a bend. In a moment, his eye took in the scene, a small boy standing on the lawn near the road, and a dog-- the man swerved, avoiding the pup, felt his bike tires hit gravel, skid, slide. He fought for control, almost made it, when something caught his rear tire, and he lost it, the big bike slapping down on its side, on his leg, sliding across the gravel. Oh shit, he thought, hearing a woman scream "Tommy." Funny, that wasn't his name, he thought as he passed out.

---------

Grace saw it all, her son playing with his dog by the road, the ball suddenly flung out onto the highway, and then the motorcycle, leaving the road to miss the dog, and tipping, crashing, the rider's body flung free from the impact. "Tommy," she screamed, but her little boy was all right, crying as he hugged his dog.

"What about the man, mommy? He saved Buddy."

"I know honey. You stay here, keep Buddy safe. I'll go help him."

Grace was scared. A motorcycle, one of those big heavy cycles, the kind those Hell's Angels rode, lay on its side in the ditch, one wheel still revolving slowly as the dust settled. There were bits and pieces of chrome all over, a bag spilling its contents into the ditch. Beyond it, the man was lying in the ditch, face down, still. He was helmetless, and she could see blood glistening in the unkempt brown hair. His jacket was ripped, one pant leg shredded and bloodied. As she approached, she heard him moan, and thrash weakly.

"Mister, hey, Mister, don't move. Are you hurt?"

"Ya think?" he lifted his throbbing head off the ground.

"You shouldn't do that. You might hurt yourself worse."

No that's one thing he knew wasn't possible, thought Jack O'Neill. He couldn't be hurt worse than he already was, not in one sense, anyway. He pushed himself to a sitting position, popped his eyes open half a second, then squeezed them back shut quickly. Everything was spinning. Oh good, another concussion. He held his head in his hands.

"Mister, just sit still, okay?"

The man looked like he'd been sleeping in his clothes, like he hadn't shaved in a couple of weeks, and she could smell the booze on his shirt. He looked like a motorcycle bum on a bender. Oh great. But he had saved Buddy, and that counted for something in her book. "Look, Mister, I'm going to call an ambulance."

Eyes, deep brown eyes, she noticed, snapped open and his hand snaked out to snare her arm. "No," he barked, like a man who was used to giving orders. He paused a moment, shut those deep brown pools, reopened them slowly, gazing sharply at her. In a softer voice, added "no, please. I don't need a doctor or a hospital. It's just a concussion, nothing serious."

"And how do you know it's 'just a concussion?' You're a doctor?"

"No, but I've had concussions before."

"Look, Mister..."

"Jack."

"Look, Jack, I'm sorry, but I can't leave you bleeding here in my yard---"

"Then I'll get out of your yard, be on my way." He pushed himself to his feet, swayed, and she caught him.

"You're not going anywhere on that thing," she said, pointing to the motorcycle, damage evident, "or that," she added, pointing to his cut and bleeding leg. Putting his arm over her shoulder, wondering why she was doing this, she said, "come on then, if you won't go to a doctor, at least come on up to the house and let me do a little first aid."

He didn't refuse, leaning heavily on her, eyes half closed as she helped him up to the house. She pushed him down onto the couch, went to the bathroom for the first aid kit, came back, carrying Tommy's baseball bat, set it carefully behind her.

He watched. "I won't hurt you," he said, a surprisingly hurt look in his brown eyes, she thought.

"Well, don't even think of trying. You're in no shape to anyway."

He wasn't, Jack knew. And didn't care.

"My name is Grace," she told him, "and that's Tommy, and Buddy."

The stranger looked once at the boy and the dog, then away, a pained expression so plainly on his face.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, not looking her in the eye. "Look, I'm okay, just let me get out of here." He started toward his feet.

She pushed him back down on the sofa. "No way." Gently, she washed the blood from the cut on his head, flinching but silent each time the warm water and soft rag touched the wound. His leg was an ugly mess, lacerated, gravel imbedded, bleeding. Grace shook her head, knowing this was beyond her limited first aid skills. "Jack, this is work for a professional. You need stitches in this."

Turning abruptly, she grabbed the phone, dialed a number. "Lisa, I'm bringing someone in to the clinic. He crashed his cycle, Buddy was in the road, and he swerved to avoid him. Yes, Tommy is fine, but this man is hurt." She paused, listening, then continued. "He's conscious, a little wobbly, says he has a concussion, knows what it is 'cuz he's had one before. But his leg is cut up bad, gravel in it, and bleeding a lot." Another pause. "Okay, we'll be there in 10. Thanks."

She turned back to the couch to see the man sitting up again, looking at Tommy. Suddenly, she wasn't frightened any more. There was something sad, very sad and very lost in that face, and she wondered who he really was. 'Grace, this is none of your business. Help the man out, then get him on his way. Be grateful, not stupid.'

She sent Tommy out to her battered little car, helped the stranger into the back seat, and drove to the Skycountry Clinic.

--------------------

Dr. Lisa Overton examined the man quickly. "Well, you're right. You have a concussion. I don't think anything is broken, and I'll clean and stitch your leg. You're very lucky, Mr.?"

"Jack." Yeah, right, he thought very lucky.

"Mr. Jack?"

"Jack is enough, ma'am," the salutation slipping out of his mouth. Too many years in the military, he thought ruefully. Some things become automatic.

The doctor cleaned his injured leg, checked the man's many cuts and bruises, and noted the old scars. This one has led a rough life, she thought. Convict? No, he didn't seem the type. And he didn't have a single tattoo. And then that Ma'am bit. Military, she thought, ex-military. Seemed a little young for a burned out Vietnam vet, but maybe. She shrugged. It was none of her business. But she would warn Grace to be careful.

-----------

When his leg was cleaned, stitched and bandaged, Jack pulled the wallet from his back pocket, thankful it was still there. He paid the bill from his rapidly dwindling cash, and accepted Grace Morley's ride back to his cycle. The machine lay in the ditch, on its side. She had to help him pull it back upright. He groaned. This was going to take some work. And some money for parts.

"You'll stay here until it's fixed."

"Can't do that, ma'am," again that courtesy, like Lisa had suggested, military she would bet.

"Of course you will. This was our fault, now come on," and together they pushed the cycle up behind the house.

Jack was exhausted by the time they had reached the shed behind the house. Unwillingly, but seeing no other solution for the moment, he let the woman help him back into the house. He lay back on the couch, eyes closed, trying to stop everything from spinning. Suddenly, he shot upright, remembering.

"Hey, what's the matter?"

"My bag, it was on the cycle, it....."

She picked it up from behind the table. "This it?"

He looked relieved, and took it from her.

"I picked up everything I could find. You might want to check. I don't think I missed anything, but I could go back and look."

He opened the battered cigar box, looked through it. Miraculously, the wedding band, on it's chain, was still in the box.

The glass on Charlie's picture was shattered. He ran his hand over it, gently.

"I'm sorry the glass got broken. I'll get a new frame for it next time...."

"No, it's okay," he said softly.

"Is that your son?"

"He was," said the stranger, and lay back, closing his eyes, the picture cradled in his hands.

He dozed.

---------------------

"Is that man going to stay here, Mommy?" Tommy asked her as she tucked him into bed.

She ruffled his dark hair. "Yes, until he feels better and he gets his motorcycle fixed."

"He saved Buddy," said the boy, hugging the dog.

"Yes, he did, son."

-------------------------

As she walked down the hallway, she heard the stranger moan in his sleep. Was he in pain? She hurried down to check, found him thrashing in his blankets, mumbling names, Sara, Charlie. She reached for his shoulder, to wake him, suddenly found his arm flying at her, hand balled into a fist.

Grace ducked back, hitting the coffee table, knocking books and magazines to the floor.

In the dim light from the kitchen, she saw his eyes, bleak and empty, peering apologetically at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't hit you, did I?" he looked around. "I'm just not used to waking up, like this."

"It's okay, I just stumbled over the table in the dark. You were having a nightmare..."

"Just a dream."

<><><><><>

In the morning, he was so stiff he could hardly move, but he hobbled to the kitchen table for breakfast, the most and best food he'd eaten for a long time. After, she insisted he go back to the couch and sleep some more. He was too tired and sore to resist.

The next morning, when Grace came downstairs, he was gone. She found him out in the yard, tinkering on the cycle.

"You look better today," she told him, despite the black eye and the bruises blossoming on his face.

"Umm," he said. "Look, I don't want to trouble you, but if you could give me a ride to town, I could get the parts for this thing and be on my way."

"It's no trouble, Jack, but I don't know if you can get parts in Skyline. It's pretty small. But I know Ed who runs the garage, and I bet he could order any parts you need."

-------------------

She dropped him off at the garage while she went to buy groceries. He would have to wait, probably a week, for the parts, he learned. His remaining cash would just cover them. It meant he would have to make a decision, he thought during the silent journey in Grace's car. O'Neill knew he had money waiting for him back in Colorado Springs. He could call his bank, or just call the airbase, and arrange to send a check here, to cover his expenses. Or he could go back there.

He didn't want to make a decision, any decision. He just wanted to exist. Maybe later, once the parts came, he could decide then.

--------------

That evening, he sat out on the porch, watching the sun set, sipping from the bottle.

Grace came out of the house, saw him, sat down in the chair across from him. "Maybe it's none of my business..."

"It isn't," he snapped defensively.

"You are staying in my house, Mister, and that makes it my business. I'd really prefer you didn't drink, especially in front of Tommy."

Jack made a show of looking around. "I don't see him out here watching."

"He's gone to bed. Look, Jack, please. You got hurt by saving Tommy's dog, and he loves that dog. We don't have much here (You have everything, Jack thought desperately, you have your son. You don't know what you have) and Buddy means the world to him. I am grateful for what you did.."

"Did nothing."

"I saw you swerve to avoid the dog. You probably wouldn't have gotten hurt if you hadn't, don't deny it. So I am grateful."

"Don't be."

"Why do you hate me?"

"Don't. Don't know you."

"Then why do you hate yourself?"

He was silent a moment, in the darkness. "I have my reasons."

She stared at the ground. "You've been here at my home for two days. You've never asked a thing about me, or Tommy or Tommy's father. Joe is on the road, he's a truck driver, gone weeks at a time, so the two of us are alone here most of the time. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you that, maybe you're as dangerous as Dr. Overton thinks. I think you're lost and scared."

"Hmmph" he said, taking another drink. "Don't care what you think."

"Now that I don't believe. I think you are a man who cares a lot. Or used to."

Silence.

"Who's Sara?"

"How do you know that name?"

"You have nightmares. You say it in your sleep every night. Is she your wife?"

"Ex-wife."

"And Charlie?"

"My kid. He's gone." Jack couldn't say the word, dead, he's dead, and you killed him.

"She took him away?"

"No, I did," he answered cryptically. O'Neill took a long swallow from the bottle, said words he'd never ever said aloud before. "I did. I killed him."

She jumped to her feet. "You killed him?" She remembered how he had looked at Tommy, when he thought she wasn't looking, a gut-wrenching, despairing look of loss.

"Just the same as if my hand fired the shot."

"He was shot?"

"He shot himself with my gun."

"Oh my God. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Not nearly as sorry as I am," he said, got up and staggered away into the darkness.

He slept outside that night, in the shed by the motorcycle, wouldn't come into the house in the morning for breakfast. When Ed called to say the cycle parts had arrived, she went out and told him, and silently drove him to town.

He spent the rest of the day working on the bike, hour after hour, and near supper time she heard him start it, the throaty roar of the engine echoing across the yard.

He refused again to go into the house for supper, but accepted the plate she took out to him in the darkness. Between bites, he sipped from the bottle.

Something about this man made her want to help him. "You know, you won't find any answers in that bottle."

"What do you know about it?"

"Nothing, I admit. I can't even imagine what it would be like, to lose Tommy..."

"You don't even want to try," he said in a voice so dark she ached for this stranger and the heartache he carried. She'd thought all along he didn't seem like a common drifter, he'd seemed more lost and alone than anyone she'd ever met.

"Jack, I know I can't understand your pain, but I do know this. You can't run away from it. You can't leave it behind because it's inside you. There's no where far enough away to hide from yourself."

He laughed bitterly. "Oh, I already tried that once."

"Then find a way to go back. "

"There's nothing to go back to."

"I doubt that, no matter how bad it seems. I don't know much about you, don't even know the rest of your name, but I've seen enough, in what you did for my son, to know you're a decent man. Don't you have someone back there," she waved vaguely, "who cares about you?"

The words echoed in Jack's mind, taking him back to a simple village on a planet light years away, and Daniel Jackson's earnest question 'don't you have people who care about you. Do you have a family?' He sighed, staring into the darkness. "The only ones who might still care about me are farther away than you can imagine, Grace," he said softly.

She shrugged. "That day, when I picked up your things by the road, I saw more than just your son's picture. I saw the medals. They're yours, aren't they?"

He shrugged.

"Then you've done some good in the world. Go back, and do some more. You can't hide out here, in the middle of nowhere. It's not you, I can tell," and she walked away.

----------

Jack thought about her words for a long time. There was a hill behind the barn, and finally, he hiked up it, careful in the darkness, trying to go easy on his still sore leg, feeling the stitches pull with every stride. At last reaching a clear spot at the top, he sat, and looked up at the stars, searching for the star that was the sun that shone on Abydos. For the first time in a long time he thought about Skaara, and Daniel and his bride, Sha're.

'I should have stayed there with them,' he thought. Another truth he'd learned too late. That seemed to be the pattern of his life. It always took him too long to figure out what he should have done, but his hindsight never failed to be 20-20.

He sat there far into the night, thinking about what Grace had said to him, knowing she was right, that he couldn't run far enough to escape himself. Even Abydos wasn't far enough away to leave his nightmares behind.

"God, why?" he whispered up into the dark sky. He didn't expect an answer. Knew it wasn't the right question, knew there was no answer, here, or anywhere. Maybe that was it, this was his penance, for killing Charlie, to have to go on alone. He knew how to keep going, he'd been doing that all his life. It was the one and only thing he was truly good at, forging onward, doggedly, stubbornly. That had gotten him out of the Iranian desert and out of an Iraqi prison and back from the battle on Abydos. So maybe that's what he had to do. It's time, Jack, to realize there's no forgiveness, no instant replays, no second chances, no do-overs. No giving up, either. That would be too easy, dying and ending it all.

-------------------

He needed to go back, back to Colorado Springs. It was as close as he could get to Charlie, here, on this Earth. Maybe Sara didn't want him, but he could still be there for her, if she ever changed her mind, if she needed him for anything, for a shoulder to cry on, for a punching bag, for an outlet for her pain and anger. If he couldn't do any good for himself, maybe he could do something for her.

He had always been a survivor. That's who Jack O'Neill was. It had just taken an awfully long time to remember that.

<><><><><>

In the morning, he went up to the house and knocked on the door.

"You're leaving?"

"Yes."

"Well have breakfast with us."

"Thank you."

After they ate, he asked her for a pen and paper, wrote his name, and the name Phil Greenwell and a phone number on the sheet. "I'm going back to Colorado Spring," he told her. "I don't have an address or a phone number, but if you ever need anything, I'll be listed in the book or Pete, he's my lawyer, he'll know how to get a hold of me."

She held the paper in her hand. "Jack O'Neill?"

"That's the name," the shadow of a smile crossed his face. Ah, what a handsome face that must have been, before all the pain and sadness had etched itself there, she thought.

"Thank you Mr. O'Neill, for what you did for Tommy."

He shook her hand, then moved forward and hugged her. "Thank you," and she heard a tremor in his voice as he turned away. His footsteps crossed the porch, and the gravel in the yard. She heard the cycle start and its roar disappear down the driveway. "Good luck, Jack O'Neill. God bless you."

---------------------

Jack got the first nasty surprise at the motel outside of Colorado Springs. The clerk handed his credit card back to him. "Sorry sir, it's been rejected."

"What?"

"It's been cancelled. Got another?"

He did. It was cancelled, too.

Too late to call the bank. And he wasn't about to call Sara. So he called Phil's home phone.

"Hey Phil, this is Jack. What's going on with my bank account?"

Suspicious tone. "Jack who?"

"Right, very funny. Jack O'Neill, that's who."

There was only silence on the other end. "Phil?"

"Jack, is that really you?"

"Ah, yeah, last time I checked."

"My God man, where the hell have you been? Everyone thinks you're dead!"

"Why would they think that?" Jack asked, puzzled.

"Well, you disappeared off the face of the Earth," (not exactly Jack thought, I did that once, but you wouldn't believe it even if I could tell you) " sold your car, left all your belongings, resigned, didn't pick up your checks. Need any more reasons?"

"Sorry. Look, Phil, I...."

"Sorry? That's it? A glib little sorry, and let's go on to the next topic. You scare us like this and all you can say is sorry?"

"Phil..."

"Good God, Jack, I'm just so glad to talk to you. Where are you?"

"Well, actually, I'm just outside of town and about to get kicked out of this motel because my credit cards were cancelled."

Phil started to laugh.

"It's not funny."

"Yes it is. So, come over to my place."

"Ah, I don't think so. I'd look a little out of place."

"How so?"

"Well, if I pulled up at your door Sally would probably call the cops."

"What?"

"Oh, okay then, just wait and see. And tell her not to call the cops, it's me, not the Hell's Angels."

----------

Phil couldn't believe his eyes. His friend, Mr. Clean Cut military spit and polish, in ragged torn jeans, battered black leather jacket, bruised face beneath a beard and long hair. "You look like an escapee from 1969," said Pete, enveloping him in a bear hug.

Cleaned up, in borrowed clothes, heck, even a borrowed razor to trim his beard, Jack found himself telling Phil his plans. "I always liked to do carpenter work. That guy who fixed the roof on our, er, Sara's house last year, Joe Howard, I helped him a lot. We talked about it, maybe I'd do some work like that when I retired. I've got my separation pay, quite a bit of pay for unused leave. There's enough to finance the project."

A week later, Jack called Phil again. "I found a house. Want to come with me to take a look?" Jack asked.

"This is the place?" asked Phil when they pulled up in front of the house, a real fixer upper, Phil thought assessing it as kindly as possible. "Are you sure, Jack? This looks like a big project."

"Yeah. I'm going to fix it up and sell it. Buy another, do the same," I shrugged. "It's a plan, something to get up for everyday."

Phil looked at his friend assessingly, nodded, pleased to hear O'Neill had plans which meant he saw a future for himself.

<><><><><>

So, I bought the house and Joe and I spent months fixing the place up, while I lived there amid the plaster and the bare walls. I turned out to be a pretty good carpenter, a skill I'd learned on those summers with my grandpa at his fishing resort up in Minnesota, fixing up the cabins each spring after the long Midwestern winters.

Up on the roof, working late one evening on the scaffolding, I suddenly realized what a great view there was from up there. A couple hours later, I went back up with a cold beer and a blanket, sitting for hours, watching the sky.

The next day I went to the mall and bought a telescope. I had a vague notion where Abydos's sun should be, but I never was sure if I found it. It was good to look though, to pick a star and imagine it was the one shining over Abydos. To imagine I was watching the people I had left behind there, to imagine Daniel and Sha're and Skaara and the rest of those kids relishing the freedom we had helped them win. It was a good thought, a good memory, one to carry me through the rough moments (oh, don't worry, those don't go away), a reminder that I had done some good in the world, okay, out there elsewhere in the universe, but it still counted, right, it had mattered that Jack O'Neill had lived.

<><><><><>

I never did get the house put on the market, though, because about the time it was nearly ready to sell, the Air Force came calling. I answered. And the SGC was born.

I kept the house. It's become a gathering place for my team, my new family. It's not the same, but it's enough. People think it's odd, I know, one man living here in this big place, all alone. But it's a place where I can sleep, when I can sleep. And when I can't, well, I never did take that scaffolding down from the roof. Made it permanent instead, along with my telescope. I sit up there a lot, watching the sky.

I don't stare so much at Abydos anymore, there's not much left there for any of us. But there are other places, other stars and the people there, that I can think of and feel good about what we've done. Ending the curse in the Land of Light. Extending the lives of the people on Kinthia's planet. Freeing the women of the Steppe. Fixing the shield on that world SG-9 tried to enslave. Edora. Orban. Vyus. That alternate Earth where we helped the other Carter, Hammond and Kawalsky. . It hasn't all been good, or pleasant, or successful. But I know we've made a difference.

This is what I was meant to do, I tell myself, be a part of the Stargate program. There was a reason I survived, a job that was waiting for me and a place I was needed. No, the guilt will never go away, or the pain, but like I once told Daniel, sometimes, when I'm out there on a planet revolving around one of those stars I watch through my telescope, I can forget for a while.

It's not much, but it's enough.

FINIS