Chapter Text
September 2008 PX2-755 Orion's belt
The light of the twin moons reflected off his silver hair and his profile set in deep, like the sculpture of a frowning messiah. In the brightly lit night, his eyes were black pools shining like obsidian. They looked surreal and exotic, pupil-less disks that saw cold truth and held no mercy. But when he spoke, terse and indifferent, the spell was broken. He seemed more like a petulant old man than a general and a leader of men.
"You really want to do this the hard way?" Jack O'Neill scowled at the prisoner. "I hate the hard way. The hard way sucks."
The prisoner simply lifted his head to stare down his nose at the general. Ori minion head to head with the leader of low-life scum, the man felt he had the right. Teal'c shifted on his feet, an expression crossing his features as if he literally needed to wipe that look off the man's face. Cameron Mitchell frowned, his fingers flexing into fists.
"One more time, sonny." The general spoke slowly, his eyebrows rising as he regarded their captive. "Were did they take the Tok'ra called Selmak?"
At the mention of her father's symbiote's name, Sam twitched involuntarily. The anger inside was overwhelming at times. She knew better than to succumb to it. Losing control would gain nothing now. Sam clenched her hands behind her and let cooler heads do the dirty work for now.
"I told you, old man, I don't know… and if I did know, I wouldn't tell the likes of you."
The general sighed, and then he shrugged. He turned as if to move away, to perhaps address Teal'c, but then he spun back, lightening fast, his fist pounding into the man's jaw with all the momentum of his body weight behind it. The man went down hard.
"Ow," Jack said and shook his hand out. "I fucking hate the hard way."
The prisoner moaned on the dry cracked ground. He sat up and spat dark. Sam wondered if the general had loosened teeth for him.
"Mind you," The general addressed the man directly, "That was only step one of the hard way. Step two requires the help of my associate Teal'c here. Step three…. Well, we just hand you over to Carter. Did I mention Carter?" The general jerked his thumb back in her direction. "Her daddy's the Tok'ra. She doesn't like you much right now."
The man looked up angry. "I told you I don't know."
"So you're saying we can skip steps two and three?" The general asked blandly. He looked back over his shoulder at Mitchell, nodding in his direction. Mitchell acknowledged the silent order and headed back up the gangway of the ship. In a few moments, Sam heard the cold fusion reactors hum to life and the port and starboard turbines for atmospheric lift began to power up.
The man stood up and looked at the general. "Gonna run now? You know the command will return. They will come back with more. They will crush those who reject the word…"
Sam turned away. She'd heard all this shit before. It wouldn't be long until the sniveling little bastard started quoting the Book of Origin. Sam looked over at Vala, who crossed her arms before her chest and rolled her eyes.
"Never mind," the general said, and then placed a boot in the man's chest in mid ramble, knocking him backwards into the hard flow of the starboard turbine. The man's scream was short. The shredding sound lasted a bit longer.
"I hate proselytizing," he said with a contrite look as he glanced about at his crew. Sam looked to Daniel, who stood to the side, his face lit by the glow of the ship's cargo bay internal lights, his eyes unreadable behind his glasses. His full lips were turned down in a contemplative frown.
"I'd hate to be the Jehovah's Witness that showed at your door," Daniel said.
The general shrugged. "I never had a honkin' huge GE CF6 turbine engine handy about the house."
Daniel shrugged in return.
"Let's get," the general sighed.
~*~
Daniel followed Sam and Vala up the gangway of the ship. He could see the tension in Sam's shoulders. That Ori toady hadn't known where the last ship took Jacob. He had merely been a cog in the system, too low on the chain of command to possess any real information.
There had been a time when Daniel might have protested the man's senseless death. Now, he had watched it with little concern. When had life become so cheap? Who knew? Who cared? The bigger issue was survival. They had to survive. They were cogs in a system, too, but they were cogs in a system with too few cogs as it was. The wheel could not afford to lose more. They were what were left on the chessboard when the bishops, the queen and the knights had been swept away: a few pawns and a rook to protect the king.
Jack was behind him, ambling slowly in his tracks. The prisoner had called him an old man. Daniel had seen that old man kill with a speed and an efficiency that rivaled any younger solider. Jack was not like most men. He didn't seem to believe in his own age except when it was convenient. It was always convenient when he wanted a little more respect out of everyone else.
Not much had changed in how they treated each other, though. Sam and Mitchell called Jack "Sir." Teal'c still called him " O'Neill." Vala called him "Jack" when he was being inviting, but "General" when he was being unpleasant.
Daniel called him Jack, as he always had and usually followed with the phrase "stop being an ass."
Daniel turned as he reached the top of the ramp. He watched Jack, his head bowed and his frown deep, push himself up the last few steps, as if he were exhausted beyond words. Jack's steps ringing on the metal gangway was a muted shuffle beneath the roar of the revving engines. Perhaps he was tired. The last few days had been particularly nerve wracking.
Perhaps he *was* tired, but he was still beautiful. Jack was beautiful. He looked up into Daniel's eyes as he hit the top of the ramp. For a moment, the hard expression that marked the years on Jack's face melted away. Jack took a sharp breath and his brows drew in as he regarded Daniel.
"We have a ways to go," Jack said.
Daniel nodded. They did have a long way to go. The ship was the only home they had left. Their hope was the only thing they possessed. They had each other.
"What do we do if we find the convoy?"
It was a simple question. They needed a strategy, something the other points of the resistance hadn't suggested when the Intel about Selmak became available. Daniel wondered if they were only chasing these leads to satisfy Sam's need to do something.
Jack frowned at Daniel, regarding him as if he had just said something completely out of character. "We'll… think of something."
Daniel smiled. He loved Jack.
Jack moved past him into the cargo hold, and Daniel hit the hydraulic door controls. The gangway moved back with a grating metal against metal sound as the cargo bay doors slid into locked position.
The ship was of Tollan design, secured by a deal with a trader who also had two gliders and a smaller scout class cruiser in a very bad state of disrepair. The cargo ship didn't have weapons systems, but that didn't mean they couldn't retrofit them on. Sam and Teal'c were well on the way to having missile capability at least off the aft bays. They just needed the missiles.
Jack stopped in the middle of the hold, turning to Daniel once more. "I don't suppose you sniffed out more coffee at the last pit stop?"
Daniel walked to Jack's side. "The coffers are full."
"Gotta bad taste in my mouth."
"Me too."
They walked up the bay stairs and out of the cargo hold together.
~*~
He learned to fly the ship from the general. It had been a little harder than it first appeared, but Mitchell was confident. General O'Neill was a very intelligent man and a highly skilled tactician. He was also a skilled pilot who taught himself how to fly Ancient technology craft. The Tollan craft had been a bit more of a challenge, he had said, but it was fly-able. Mitchell had nodded at that and then paid close attention as the general and Teal'c had explained the ship's controls.
It was his job now to pilot the ship, even though everyone except Daniel could probably fly her. He didn't doubt that even Vala knew how to pilot the old cargo/transport vessel. Mitchell always felt one step out of the loop at times like that.
It was harder now that they had no access to the network of stargates. The Ori had seen to that. The stargates were an obvious strategic weakness as long as they stayed unsecured. Once the Ori had gained control of the network through the supergates, it had practically been all over for the protected planets. Earth refused to submit. It had been summarily destroyed.
Sam came on the bridge and sat at the copilot chair. Mitchell looked over to her, noting her profile. There were only a few people she let sit on her blind-side. Mitchell was one of them. Samantha Carter had been a bright and cheerful, sweet and nice, incredibly intelligent and capable woman. Now, she was simply the goddess of revenge. Her hair was cropped almost to the skull and her scarred and useless left eye covered with a black patch, she was still a beautiful woman, just in a harsher kind of way.
Sam had seen too much, survived too much. They all had.
"Take it easy on the burn out," she said softly. "The fuel they sold us on In'takra was a bit watered down. I don't want us to stall out."
"Well, that sucks." Mitchell scowled in her direction, but she didn't turn to face him. She continued to watch the vista beyond the view screen.
"Tell me about it. You're not going to be the one cleaning the gunk out of the injectors for the next few days we get planet-side."
Mitchell snorted in reply. It was Sam's job to keep the space-born Buick Regal flying. It was Mitchell's job to fly her.
Mitchell took another hard look at Sam. The lines of worry etched into her face could have been age or could have been anxiety. All Mitchell knew was that she had seemed to age visibly more since the fall of Earth than she had over any other time. He remembered how she was, bright and pretty, looking like a ray of sunshine out in the deep, cold of space. He wondered if the sunshine would ever come back. He wondered if rescuing her father would be enough.
Sam sighed and rose from the seat. "Well, I assume that at current course and speed, we may overtake the convoy's next logical pit-stop. I'm going down to the galley to grab a snack. Want something?"
"I'll wait for dinner."
"Vala's cooking."
"Oh, dear god," Mitchell groaned and pressed the heel of his hands to his eyes, then slid his hands down to rub his face.
"I'll take that as a 'yes, get me a snack too.'" Sam smiled at him as he peeped past his fingers. For the most infinitesimal of seconds, the sunshine was back, but then she turned and was gone.
Mitchell sighed. Just another day in chez Buick.
~*~
Daniel once taught him a Tau'ri word: karma. Teal'c understood karma. He knew the concept had a name in every language and culture, possibly over several galaxies. Karma was like dinner that evening. Vala had served up something that had caused other members of the group to moan and grumble. Teal'c had eaten it, accepting it for what it was. He would always eat what was sat before him when it was all he had to keep his body nourished, and he would not waste time on complaints. Needless to say, he did agree with O'Neill's assessment that the casserole tasted like it was made with a rubber chicken. He merely nodded in agreement and continued to eat.
Karma was not a remarkable concept. Perhaps it was that he served a false god for so long that his karma brought him to this place. His fate was sealed with the Tau'ri, even now that the System Lords were all but extinct. His wife was long dead, as was his son. The battles continued. What was left of the Jaffa, like most others who stood against the Ori, were scattered, weak little pockets of resistance, trying. Always trying; never giving up their hard won freedom.
Kelnorim no longer brought the serenity it once had.. How still and quiet it had been in his little room in Cheyenne Mountain.
Samantha Carter came in. She rarely disturbed him once he stared the cycle. He was aware of her, accepting the comfort of her presence in the room as she moved about, settling, fixing, unwinding. Finally she settled at his back, curling in a ball to sleep like the Tau'ri pets they called cats.
"It will be four days until the next planet-fall," Teal'c said. In a manner of speaking, it was his way of telling her that his Kelnorim was not so deep that it excluded her. He was willing to talk if that was what she needed.
"They had a two day head start and far better ships. Only thing I suppose we will find are rumors," she replied and then sighed heavily.
"You must not despair."
Samantha didn't answer, but Teal'c knew the quality of the silence behind him. She wouldn't speak of her fears unless he prompted her. He wished she would join him in Kelnorim. It seemed to refresh her far more than anyone else of the Tau'ri he taught it to. Perhaps Samantha was just too tired. There were far too many cares to consider.
Samantha's breathing evened out to a slow, steady rhythm. Teal'c listened to it, focusing on it and on the light of the single candle he allowed himself on board the ship. He slipped down into himself to commune with his own soul. It was a lonely place now that the symbiote was gone: his friend and his enemy. He made a new choice once that option had been taken from him. Karma.
Much later, he was disturbed from the deepest part of Kelnorim, coming back quickly to awareness. There was restless movement at his back and soft, sighing moans. Samantha was having disturbing dreams. Carefully, he pulled her over, positioning her so that her head rested on his lap. She barely woke up before she settled again against him into a deep, calm sleep. Tenderly, he stroked back the silk-fine, short blonde hair and watched over her with solemn and loving regard. His soul was not so lonely.
~*~
She never took it to heart. She didn't have time or patience for that. She had spent most of her life living by her wits. When they hit her with the off-handed snide comment, she rolled with it. She figured there was probably still a little part inside of each of them that did not trust her. She could actually see why.
Yes, at first, her allegiance had seemed ambiguous at best, but she had proved herself. There were things she wanted that they wanted too, and those things were just important enough to make her appear a little more noble than maybe she actually was.
The general was under foot in the kitchen, not that she minded much. He took dishes and plates from her and proceeded to rinse and load them in the dishwasher. Vala sighed, leaning against a counter. At the table, Daniel lingered over coffee.
Coffee, the drink the Tau'ri prized so well that they brought it with them to cultivate on three different planets. Carefully contained on small stretches of green mountainous regions, the earth plants grew under alien suns, the last plants to survive from a dead world.
These people had lost their home. Vala understood that. She knew loss. When one played dangerous games, sometimes one lost. Sometimes one lost big, but she also knew how to turn it into opportunity. That was one of the reasons why they still needed her.
The general passed her carrying the carafe of coffee. He offered to pour her a mug as he passed. She shook her head, and he continued past. She watched him unconsciously refill Daniel's mug. Daniel drank without skipping a beat. He didn't add anything to his coffee the way Cam and Sam did. He just drank it straight, black, and hot. Sam had told her that Daniel was an addict. Coffee was a mild stimulant much like the teas they made on that planet were everyone bowed a lot and looked like they needed a good night's sleep. When did that planet fall to the Ori? It went pretty darn fast. They all did.
The general sat a mug down next to Daniel's and poured. Sitting the carafe on the table, he took his seat beside Daniel. The general added nothing to his coffee as well. He didn't seem like a black coffee man when she first met him, and she had to wonder when he stopped adding the sweeteners and milk. Jack was a fascinating man, really; perhaps even more fascinating than Daniel, in a way. He was resilient in a manner that Vala understood and respected. He cut through the niceties and the etiquette to get to the heart of people, but that didn't mean he couldn't stand on the highest civility. He was what he was.
She was never foolish enough to allow his appearance to deceive her. His sliver hair and careworn face made him appear older than he was. Jack was a canny warrior. He was good at utilizing what little he had. He took nothing for granted.
Daniel, on the other hand, he had been an open book when she met him, full of noble ideals and endless hopes. He was a rarity in this galaxy: a genuinely kind person. He had believed in the decency of people. It was this, his candor, and his ability to still see reality beyond the hope-tint of his character that had drawn her to him. Perhaps it was an instinct for an easy mark, or perhaps it was true interest in the attractive qualities of noble ideals.
Daniel was a realist, but at heart, he was still a scholar, seeking to learn and understand. Pickings were slim these days for learning and understanding. Knowing that, he moved into place at the general's side, his trusted companion.
That was when Vala realized that although she was interested in the man, Daniel would never be all that interested in her. His focus turned to Jack O'Neill, and he would follow his command to his dying day. The intensity of Daniel's loyalty was not all that shocking. When a man who had lived for an art was deprived of it, but was given something else suitable to him to take its place, it stood to reason that he would pour his passion into his proxy and be content. Daniel Jackson was no longer a scholar. He was Jack O'Neill's right-hand man.
Vala turned to the cupboard and retrieved a mug. She then reached for the carafe on the table.
"I thought you didn't want any." The general frowned, confused.
After filling the cup, she leaned in to pour in sweetener. "Oh… no, this is for Cameron." She smiled at the two men silently commiserating over cups of scalding, bitter stimulant. She then left them to it and headed towards the bridge.
~*~
Daniel often hugged his mug to him as if it were as precious as a chalice of ambrosia. Jack contemplated the man as he contemplated his coffee. It was not hard to see that Daniel was thinking, gathering his thought and putting all his ducks in a row. Jack only wondered what he had in mind.
In another place and time, Jack would have headed for the hills. Daniel thinking meant he was just steps away from rambling on some heady subject matter pertaining to ancient civilizations, myths and legends, and the scribbles they left of broken bits of clay pots. All very fascinating when one is watching the history channel at 2:30 AM while eating cold pizza, but not necessarily what one wants to spend the evening discussing.
These days, Daniel rarely discussed artifacts and age-old cultures. How someone else lived yesterday seemed unimportant when you were constantly working on how to stay alive today… Unless those long dead bastards had something they could use, some lesson to be learned.
Jack waited. Whatever Daniel was thinking, he was sure Daniel would be soon expressing. His lips pursed in an intense and thoughtful pout, his forehead wrinkled in deep concentration, Daniel was a beautiful man. Long, dark lashes shaded large blue eyes that looked like the bright, glass eyes of a china doll. Daniel's eyes looked unreal, too good to be true. Jack again wondered what his parents had looked like in person. He had seen the photos, but always something was lost in the translation. All that Jack knew was that when he had seen one of the pictures, Jack recognized the eyes smiling for the camera in the face of Daniel's mother: a beautiful woman who gave birth to a beautiful man.
Daniel slowly looked up at him. "We can't free Jacob. Why are we…"
"Reconnaissance, Daniel." Jack stopped him before he could finish the thought. "We have to look. We have to see to be certain that we can't. Never call the game without looking at the playing field."
Daniel looked back down at his coffee. "I saw the message you got from Heath Station. They don't even want us to attempt it."
"They don't have a fucking clue."
"They know that the ship is with a convoy 20 ships strong and are in constant contact across the expanse using the space-born gates. They could jump any time and we wouldn't be able to follow."
"That's why we have to get a look at them now," Jack looked hard at Daniel who looked back up meeting his eyes. "Look, this isn't some hopeless rescue mission. That comes later. Right now, we need to assess. One thing at a time... and before you begin: no, this isn't to just keep Carter from going insane, and yes, 'we don't leave our people behind' still applies."
Then Daniel's brow un-creased slightly and he smiled a small brief smile as he looked at Jack. Daniel understood. He just wanted to make sure Jack understood. Silly as that sounded, Daniel often poked and prodded Jack with a metaphorical finger to make sure they were on the same page of the gallantry manual: Heroic Deeds are Us.
"Ready for bed?" Jack asked softly.
"You?" Daniel countered.
~*~
They shared the small quarters quite well. It wasn't long until their stuff started blending. The picture of Sha're sat next to the small school picture of Charlie. A handkerchief, one sock, a nearly empty tube of K-Y gel, nail clippers, a pair of frayed, navy-blue, fingerless mitts, scissors, they sat on the bedside table, an amalgam of both men's possessions, used indiscriminately between them.
It had been an amazing moment in Jack's life when he realized that he was free from the personal restrictions imposed upon him by the United States Air Force. He stood on top of the tallest structure on Chulak and shouted, "I love you, Daniel Jackson!"
It had blown not only Daniel away, but Carter as well. Teal'c had not been so surprised. That had been an interesting evening. He had gotten exceptionally drunk on the rice and sugar liquor they served at the SG base canteen on the planet and sang the Billy Joel song "Captain Jack." After that, it had been all Verdi all night… or so he had been told.
He had only wished he could have saved Hammond and Landry and so many other good people who had been there when he had not. If he had been there, they could have at least resisted a little better. No one controlled the Ancient's control chair better than he did.
But no, he couldn't give up the fun, and every chance he could, he went gallivanting off through the gate. So he wasn't there when the Ori cruisers had arrived and started ripping the planet's atmosphere off and decimating the land.
It was better not to think of it. He tried nightly not to remember. His hands gripping tightly to Daniel and his leg wrapped firmly about his thighs, Jack buried his face in Daniel's shoulder; his teeth nipping the soft skin there as he tried not to cry out. Instead he grunted like a rutting caveman, pushing himself deeply inside Daniel, as they lay on their sides in their narrow bed. And Daniel let him. That thought never ceased to amaze Jack.
No foreplay, just lubricant and fucking. It was so straightforward, it almost appeared loveless, but he did love Daniel. He loved him so very deeply and completely that Jack shivered as Daniel held him tight afterwards. Daniel pressed him close, shushing him and comforting him; kissing away the silent tears. The words "I love you" flowed between them, well meant and solid. They were special words, and Jack could feel complete when Daniel turned him to his stomach and took him hard and fast, whispering the words over and over again until his body melted under the fugue sensation of possession and love.
"Never stop, Danny."
"Love you…"