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Chapter 21: Colonel Jack O'Neill
I don't have time for this.
Daniel doesn't have time for this so stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something, O'Neill...
But that's the problem isn't it? No way to fight this for him. No real way to help him fight for himself. I can 'be there'...but what real good is that going to do?
I guess that's the thing it all comes down to...
I mean, beyond the friendship thing, what if this whatever in his head...whichever whatever it is...really is going to kill him? What can I do for him except stick with him, be there, watch him die...?
God...
There's two words I never like to connect in my brain. Daniel, death...definitely not a good combo. Pretty damn unthinkable when you get down to it. I mean four years we've known each other now and yet it feels like I've always known him, always had that piercing stare at my side keeping me honest, keeping me on my toes. Funny how all that boiled down to one of the best friendships I've ever known. He expects certain things from me, things I really didn't even know were in there. He doesn't even have to say a word...just give me that sideways, big-eyed...look...and I know he sees something inside me, something...good. And it makes me want to be just that. Something more, something better...
Let's face it, there are times in my life I'd just as soon forget, stuff I'm less than proud of, stuff that makes me sick when I let myself think about it. It's not just a matter of honor, duty, country...more like get them before they get you, follow orders regardless of personal thoughts, feelings or beliefs. It was becoming so lost in those things that you forget what sort of person you once were in those innocent days when conflict was little more than deciding where to go on a Saturday night. It was more than just a loss of innocence, it was a loss of identity...a loss of Jack O'Neill, son of Jake and Gloria from the South side of the Windy City.
Daniel helped...helps...me find that guy again. With Daniel I'm not 'Colonel ' or 'commander' or 'protector' or 'defender'...I'm just 'Jack'. Jack of the bad puns, of the rough affection, of the tough moments when no one else can really understand what he's feeling, of the late nights spent doing nothing more than sitting together on my roof looking at the stars because he just can't spend another night alone. I'm just Jack to Daniel...and that makes me happy. It's so nice now to know I can be just me...it was a real surprise to discover I really was still in there underneath all the crap I let take the place of 'me'. I can't lose that now, I can't lose him now.
I keep praying Carter will come up with something. Hell, all we need is a powerful enough power source, then when can dial out manually. She's got to do it. Soon. I know she and her team have been weeks on that naquada reactor we got from the Orbanians. Last report I had said it was at the testing stage. Hopefully this situation qualifies as sufficient to warrant a field trial.
He's barely been conscious since we came back up here to the cave. He didn't so much as stir when we finally got the cots put together and moved him onto one. Teal'c wakes him up every so often to make him drink something, but half the time he doesn't even open his eyes. Ferretti says Fraiser told him to keep Daniel on those painkillers religiously, so I guess this is normal...but it's also pretty damn scary.
I never have liked seeing Daniel still. I know it didn't...doesn't, dammit stop thinking past tense...always seem like it, but half of Daniel's means of expressing himself is in his eyes and hands. They always tell as much or more than his words. And now he and everything that makes him him is so much a part of my world I can't begin to imagine life any other way.
I don't want to.
"O'Neill!"
Skaara's voice.
Stark fear leaps into my throat and I try without much success to swallow it back down. My body starts to move me back to the cave even as my mind refuses to allow my heart to jump to any conclusions as to what's going on.
Daniel's okay...that's as simple as it is.
I won't let him be anything else.
It just can't happen.
I won't let it.