As We Once Lived

by Otter

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/aso/otter/aslived.php
Summary: Around the time that aliens took over the world, Jack finally decided to retire. If anybody had asked, he would've said that it was his idea

Around the time that aliens took over the world, Jack finally decided to retire. If anybody had asked, he would've said that it was his idea. He would've even made a glib remark like, "I don't know what I was thinking with all of this ‘saving the world' stuff. So much wasted time. I could've been fishing." Or, maybe not. Maybe he would've thought of a better joke, because the real kicker was, he did feel like he'd been wasting his time. If he'd known that his superiors would just hand the world over to the first alien race that asked nicely, he'd have retired sooner and spent more time chasing the elusive Pisces of northern Minnesota.

Nobody did ask, though, so he didn't have to come up with a better joke. He didn't have to admit that really, he'd retired because nobody wanted him there anymore. He didn't have to say aloud that the new commander of the SGC had called him insubordinate, or that the new commander in chief of the entire country had called him a malcontent and thrown him out of the Oval Office. The only people he had to speak to about his retirement were General Morrison, who signed his discharge papers, and the guys from security, who stopped in to make sure he wasn't planning on taking any classified materials with him when he left.

On his way out of the mountain, he went and stood for a little while in Daniel's office, and said, "Hey, Daniel, d'you suppose there's a Goa'uld out there somewhere named ‘Pisces'?" Nobody answered, of course, because Daniel had been gone for months, which was the same reason that nobody had asked about whether retiring was Jack's idea. Jack listened to the silence for a little bit longer, and then he said, "Yeah. Well." He turned and walked out, and he took the elevator up and up, as if from the bottom of the ocean.

He cleared out his house and put it on the market, rented a little trailer to haul those few possessions that he couldn't leave behind, and then he got in the truck and drove east.

When he stopped for dinner at a truck stop just off the I-80, somewhere in Nebraska, the TV mounted at the end of the counter was showing pictures of President Kinsey, smiling that snake-charmer smile and shaking hands enthusiastically with the chief negotiators from the Aschen delegation. Kinsey looked more enthusiastic than any of the Aschen did; but then, the Aschen always looked the same: serious, patient, and just a little queasy. Jack's cheeseburger tasted a little too greasy after that, and his fries a little too salty, so he left his money on the table and made for the exit. He pretended not to notice the trucker sitting near the door who stared at him as he passed and said, "Hey, isn't that…" to nobody in particular.

He stopped for the night at a bare little spot that was marked as a campsite but was so geographically and visually undesirable that no one else had pitched camp there. He slept in the cab of the truck, because it was the best way he could think of to avoid civilization. For a week he detoured from his planned route toward Minnesota, lost himself on hiking trails and set up impromptu camps on the edges of little lakes where it was so remote and dark that it almost would've felt like another planet, if he hadn't been there alone.

On his ninth day in the forest, a park ranger stopped by, made small talk while Jack cooked some fish over his campfire, and then gave him a citation for fishing without a license. While he was writing it, Jack said, "So basically, the world was taken over by aliens, but the National Park Service is still going strong?" The ranger did not smile, but he grunted in a distracted way, so Jack muttered more to himself than anyone when he continued, "I obviously got into the wrong branch of the federal government."

The ranger said, "Have a nice day. And I'd better not catch you fishing again," before he handed Jack the little paper citation and left.

Jack wondered if, a few years down the line, citations for fishing without a permit would be transmitted to an Aschen database via satellite. Maybe they'd just institute on-the-spot euthanasia for all criminal offenses. He wouldn't put it past them.

Jack took the citation as a sign that he ought to continue on to his own cabin on the edge of his own lake, where he didn't need a permit and wouldn't be in danger of catching any fish, anyway. He lived there alone for eight months and didn't speak to anyone except the teenaged clerk at the grocery store in town. He only occasionally looked at the night sky and wondered how Daniel was doing with that Transitional Committee thing on the Aschen homeworld, and how Carter was doing in that research lab on the sixth colony world, and whether Teal'c had united the Jaffa yet, because the big guy had really been dragging his feet on that one for awhile.

When the invitation came, he knew what it was without opening it. He held it in his hands for awhile, rubbed his fingers over the heavy, high-quality paper of the envelope, used a fingertip to trace the careful patterns of ink on the front – her handwriting, his name. Then he put it away in an old cigar box, along with a few ragged medals and some pictures of his dead son and dead friends and disbanded team. He put the box back on the top shelf in his bedroom closet, where it belonged, and he didn't open it again.

Daniel showed up three months later. Jack came home from a shopping trip into town, and found him sitting around the side of the house, slumped in Jack's sagging lawn chair, nursing a beer that had undoubtedly come from Jack's fridge. The suit he was wearing looked expensive, but he'd draped the jacket and tie haphazardly over the back of the chair, and the shiny dress shoes were abandoned underneath.

Jack shuffled up next to the chair, stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared out across the still waters of his own private little pond. In his peripheral vision, he could see Daniel look up at him and squint against the sun.

Daniel said, "Hey," as if he'd seen Jack just hours ago over coffee in the mess.

Jack peered down at him, took in the open collar of the dress shirt and the bare toes and the relaxed posture, did the math against the tension singing through Daniel's muscles. He said, "Hey. What's with the suit?"

Daniel grunted and made the sort of face he used to make for things like Budge and decaf. "I was at a wedding," he said.

"Oh," Jack said. He was silent, listening to the call of a magpie somewhere on the other side of the water. He waited for Daniel to ask why Jack hadn't been at the wedding, too. He dreamed up and discarded a few excuses, a couple of angry and righteous arguments. But Daniel didn't say anything else. He took another draw off the beer and wiggled his toes in the breeze. So Jack just said, "Come on inside."

When Daniel kissed him, Jack wasn't surprised. He kissed back. Daniel stayed for four days, most of which they spent in bed.

Daniel didn't ask why Jack had left the program. Jack didn't ask how Daniel's work was going. They didn't talk about the Stargate, or Teal'c, or Sam, or Joe. Occasionally, Jack told stories about summers in the cabin with his grandfather, fishing and camping and learning all the constellations. Sometimes Daniel shared tales of college escapades and adventures in foster care. Eventually, Daniel put his crumpled suit back on, kissed Jack with the taste of bacon and syrup in his mouth, and left.

Jack didn't see him again until Hammond's funeral in Arlington, and they weren't alone then. Jack didn't stay long, because he wasn't sure that the world operated on principles he could understand anymore. Carter's smile was too tight and sad, and it was strange to see the way she let Joe guide her with a hand at her elbow. Teal'c seemed smaller than he'd ever been before, still strong, but weary in a way that Jack understood too well. Daniel was quiet, and he snuck away without exchanging a word with Jack. Jack felt like he'd stepped into the wrong world, one where elementary laws like physics no longer applied.

By the time Jack got back to the cabin after the service, Daniel was already there. He still wasn't talking, but when they went to bed, Jack managed to get him to gasp out a nearly silent, "Oh, God," against Jack's throat.

After that they became a habit, like cigarettes and beer, the kinds of things you turned to for comfort because you thought they'd offer help in the form of familiarity and forgetfulness. Daniel didn't visit often, and never stayed long. They went on like that for years, tearing away little pieces of each other like they were ripping scabs from wounds that never seemed to heal.

Jack never saw the others, which was pretty much the way he liked it, because he wouldn't have had any idea what to say to them. He imagined himself sitting on his couch with Teal'c, and Teal'c saying, "This is a very comfortable couch, O'Neill," and Jack saying, "Yeah, Daniel said the same thing the first time I fucked him on it," and Teal'c doing that eyebrow thing and saying, "Indeed."

When Sam showed up, he was surprised by the entire visit. The fact that Carter had come, first and foremost. He was sure that her husband didn't know about it, just like Carter didn't know about any of the choice words he and Ambassador Joe had exchanged in the early days of the Aschen Alliance. He was similarly surprised by the plan she put forward, though not by the fact that she and the others had thought of it. That was how his kids were, always coming up with risky, long-shot, hairbrained schemes with possibly disastrous consequences. Mostly, though, he was surprised that it was Carter who'd come, and not Daniel.

He said no when she asked for his help, but not because the plan was suicidal and the pay-off uncertain. He was used to that. This was different.

Daniel showed up less than an hour later, as if Jack had called him and asked him over for pizza and beer, but they hadn't done that in ten years, and Jack didn't even know where to reach Daniel anymore if he'd wanted to. Jack was sitting at the kitchen table when Daniel arrived, but he was busy, so neither of them spoke for some time. Daniel stood over Jack's shoulder and watched him pull careful knots in fishing line to bind together bright baubles and little fake feathers, a fly to catch fish that weren't even in the lake to begin with.

After awhile, Daniel moved back, stuck his hands in his pockets and said, "I can't believe you said no."

Jack squinted at his fly – not quite ready to admit that he really did need the reading glasses that were sitting on his bedside table – and said, "I can't believe you sent Carter."

He didn't look up, but he was sure that Daniel's eyebrows were getting a workout. "Why? Would you have said yes if the request for your help to save the planet had come with a complimentary blow job?"

Jack smiled, snipped away some stray fishing line with a pair of sharp little scissors, and held his finished creation up under the lamp to display his handiwork. He said, "You know, when a fish sees something like this in the water, it must think that if it could just catch that big, squirmy bug, it'd be set for life. It doesn't stop to think that maybe there's a hook in the middle of all that pretty packaging."

Daniel laughed and dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table. "Jesus, Jack," he said. "That metaphor had all the subtlety of a charging rhino."

Jack sniffed and started putting supplies back into his cluttered tackle box one item at a time. "Yeah, well, your response was a bit cliche, if I do say so myself," he answered. "You're here to change my mind, I suppose?"

Daniel's fingers traced patterns on the tabletop – glyphs, Jack thought, though he wasn't entirely sure – and Daniel said, "No. I don't need to, do I? You're going to help us."

Jack stood and shoved the tackle box into the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink. He said, "Mighty sure of yourself, aren't you?" When he turned back, Daniel was sitting just as he had been, loose-limbed and projecting a completely false air of relaxation, as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Daniel shrugged. "Well, we're doing it with or without you, so think of it this way: if we succeed, then we change the course of time, and none of this will have happened. Life as you know it will cease to exist, and whether or not you participated will be a moot point. Without you, however, it's far more likely that we'll fail, in which case we'll all die, and you'll be left entirely alone in a world that's grinding very slowly to an end. So, when you get right down to it, your options along the not-helping front are incredibly unattractive."

Jack squinted at him and leaned back against the edge of the counter. "It's stupid," he said, "but here's what I keep coming back to: if we do this, then we erase the last ten years."

Daniel nodded and twitched his fingers in a way that meant, ‘Yes, go on.'

"So," Jack said, "You and I won't be… we'll be back to just friends."

"You're telling me you don't want to save the world because of concerns about your love life?"

Jack didn't allow Daniel's incredulously raised eyebrows to sway him. He folded his arms, stuck out his chin and said, "So?"

Daniel sighed and stood, and for one heart-stopping moment, Jack thought he was going to give up and walk out. Instead, he paced closer, right into Jack's space, hip to hip and groin to groin. "Well, in that case," he said, "let me restate the consequences of this in terms you'll understand. If you don't agree to help, I'll walk out right now."

Jack licked his lips, and wished he could lean forward to taste Daniel's mouth. "And if I say yes?"

Daniel smiled, the same sort of filthy smile he usually reserved for making daring suggestions in bed. "I believe a blow job incentive was mentioned," he said. "And then we'll have the rest of the night, and tomorrow morning. I don't have to meet Sam again until the afternoon." Daniel finally leaned forward, and the warmth coming off his body seemed to sink right into Jack's bones. Their mouths met somewhere in the middle.

Daniel left at ten the next morning, but before he went, he woke Jack up and gave him a hot, wet kiss that lasted at least five minutes. When he finally pulled away, he turned around, looking for his shoes, and he said, "You know, Jack, I like to think that some things are inevitable. Who knows? Maybe next time we'll get this right."

Jack didn't say anything. He stared at the ceiling and thought about all the things he'd want to do over, all the lives he could've saved, all the disasters they could prevent if they went back even further. Kowalski, Skaara, Sha're… Charlie. Then he thought of all the ways that those changes could make things even worse, and he wondered whether saving themselves from the Aschen this way would really be an improvement, or if they'd just end up bringing apocalypse along in a less pleasant form. It gave him a headache.

Daniel paused at the door and said, "We'll be going into the SGC this afternoon. There's an original GDO still on display there."

Jack grunted, but didn't answer. He still hadn't actually said yes.

Daniel smiled, rubbed at his collarbone in a spot where Jack had left a hickey, and left.

Jack stayed in bed for awhile, snoozing, before he finally hauled himself up and ambled toward the shower. There was an Aschen transportation platform in the next town, so it'd be a fast trip to Colorado.

The end