agentj's Stargate SG-1 fiction

Glimpse

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Dad lies before me, his eyes closed. He fell through the floor of the old ruin, yet his arm still clutches the grip of his gun. I doubt Dad likely has the strength to use it. Dad's fading consciousness realizes that somewhere above him are Jaffa warriors searching for him and his team. As he fades into oblivion, he prays that his sacrifice has given his team time to make it safely away.

Squatting down beside him, I feel his heart beating, and hear his breathing wheezing shallow in and out of his lungs. Strange how he looks so peaceful even with his body splayed, covered in mud, soot and blood. As his life ebbs before me, all I can do is watch him.

Studying his features, I begin to realize -- perhaps for the first time -- how much he looks like me. Or is it how much I look like him? Growing up, I had heard so often, "Oooh, he looks just like his mother!" But here, unconscious before me, I see the same bushy brows, the thin line of mouth, the strong jaw, just like mine. When he last saw me, I was but a boy of 12. Now I am nearly a grown man, just barely 21.

The passing of time has made me realize how young I was when it happened. Having come home days before from his latest top-secret mission, Dad totally forgot about taking me to the big ball game. Dad told me he lost the tickets. Me being me, I had to find them. Instead, I found the gun.

The blow to my chest startled me at first. Had the gun gone off? Boy, would Dad be mad when he found I accidentally fired his weapon, especially in the house! I wasn't even supposed to have it.

Dad burst into the room, and I rushed at him. "Dad! I'm okay! I'm sorry. I know I'm not supposed to play with your gun--"

"Charlie!" he yelled.

I thought I was in for the lashing of my life.

Dad rushed past me and stopped suddenly at the foot of the bed. His brown eyes glazed over as shock and horror bled across his features. I looked questioningly up at him, wondering why he wasn't worried about me.

Then I looked down at my lifeless body.

With a sudden rush, my spirit traveled down a long, dark tunnel, a bright light shining at the end. A being was there, offering me a choice -- continue on, or remain. Life's paths were shown to me, and I saw the forks in the future of my dad's fate. The pain and suffering he would endure because of my death helped me make my choice.

Struggling to regain consciousness, Dad moans as his head lulls to the side. A deep gash along his temple reveals itself, his life's blood oozing from it. I feel Dad's thoughts pierce me like shards of ice. I touch his pain, his guilt; Dad has so much responsibility, and always feels the burden of the world in his hands. He is filled with shame for not foreseeing the Goa'uld's tactics.

"Dad?" I call out to him. "Dad, can you hear me?"

So many nights I called out to him like this. God, I hated those nights, so alone beside him as he watched the fire.

The one that hurt the most was after his first Stargate mission to Abydos. Just hours before, Dad was filled with hope -- even joy -- for the first time since my passing. He brought home a bottle of the best champagne he could find at two in the morning with the intention to not only celebrate his new-found happiness, but also attempt to make up for his depressive behavior around Mom.

But he drank it alone.

Mom had left. Dad found the terrible note on the kitchen table. "Jack. I've gone to Dad's. Please don't come after me. I need time. Sara."

The knife of regret tore through Dad again when he read it. He knew what it meant.

I cried all night as I sat beside him as he drank the bottle of champagne...then the beers in the fridge...and finally every bottle of whiskey he had stashed away under the sink and in the cupboards. I truly began to feel the helplessness that he had gone through as I struggled with my own. "Dad...Dad...it's not your fault."

The words always went unheeded. Even now as I touch his mind, I hear the feelings of guilt and shame wrack him. It was his responsibility...he should have foreseen the ambush...he let down his team. Not true! my mind screams back at him in vain.

His team.

His friends.

His family.

I like Daniel. I think he would like me, if he could have gotten to know me. When I touch his soul, there is such yearning I cannot describe; it's unfathomable, the endless depths I feel inside of him. When I see Daniel and my dad together, I can see their paths forever linked; two separate lines converging together, running parallel throughout time.

I remember my dad's thoughts when he first laid eyes on the archeologist. What's with the flopsy-mopsy geek haircut, anyway? Makes him look like a boy...like my boy.... Sure, Dad has a soft spot in his heart for every kid he's ever met with his means to make amends to me, but it's Daniel who reminds him of what I could have been. And sometimes that's just not easy for him to think about.

Then there's Sam. It's hard for Dad to think about being happy again, to imagine being loved. When the alternate Sam planted the seed of love and joy that she had found in her Jack...it blossomed in him. But here, in this reality, she was his 2IC.

Since Dad's best friend Kawalasky died, Teal'c has taken his place. Teal'c's soul, although alien, is pure. He gives his heart to Dad, although Teal'c may be older and wiser. Their energies feed off of one another, growing in strength as they do so. In the not-to-distant future, I see their paths going in different directions, but for now they're together, and together, they're stronger.

"Dad?" I try again to reveal myself to him. "Dad, it's me. It's Charlie."

"Hmm?" he murmurs, and I feel his spirit slip back inside him again, afraid of the pain that engulfs his body.

I watch him in frustration. He always slips away from me whenever the opportunity presents itself. I know he's not doing it consciously. He can't help it. I guess I don't blame him. How do you face your own kid when you feel you've failed him, let him die?

Dad's nightmares are always the same -- hearing the gun shot, running up the stairs, coming into the room, seeing me on the floor.... He remembers screaming my name, kneeling beside me, and holding my bloodied body close to his.

Once, I tried to enter his dream.

"Dad," I called out behind him. "Dad, it's Charlie."

"Oh, God!" he screamed again, looking down at his vision of my lifeless face.

"Behind you, Dad," I implored.

"Why?! Why?! Why?!" Dad beseeched as he rocked my body back and forth in his arms.

Desperate, my spirit bent over and picked up the gun beside my dead form.

"No!" Dad jumped up in desperation. He looked directly at me, but he never saw me, even in his dream. For he wasn't looking at me -- he was looking at his gun, the evil instrument of war that had taken away the life of his only child.

"Listen to me, Dad!" I screamed back at him, holding the gun away from him as he desperately attempted to take it away from me. "It's not your fault!"

But he wasn't listening.

"No! Don't!" he cried, clamoring against my soul to get at the gun. "Just -- give it to me. Give it here, son."

My chest tightened to hear him actually address me, even though he was really addressing his memory of me. I lowered the weapon. As Dad lunged for it in my hand, I threw it past him. Dad swerved and dove after it, forgetting all about me. Sadly, I watched him confiscate the gun and pull it apart. His dream mind turned the gun to peanut brittle, and it became dust in his fingers.

As Dad pressed the gun's remains to his forehead and cried, I left his dream.

But I could never leave him.

"Charlie?" I hear him whisper my name.

Refocusing on my dad, I stare back in disbelief. Dad's eyes are looking at me. Right at me.

"Dad?" my voice trembles as I answer him.

Slowly, his eyes blink. A hundred and one questions rush through his mind. Is he seeing things? Is he suffering from a hallucination from a concussion? Is he dead?

"No, not yet, Dad!" I answer him, a smile spreading across my face. Relief ripples through me like the pounding surf.

His fingers unwind from the hilt of his gun as he reaches out for me. "Charlie?" he questions again.

I reach out my own hand to his. Our fingertips touch and slip through each other.

The pain of his physical body pulls him back again.

"No!" I cry as I feel his spirit slip away from me.

His hand falls.

"Dad? Dad!" I call out in desperation.

It's not his time.

A voice shouts out from behind me, "Jack!"

Daniel, covered in soot and mud, stumbles into the room. He turns his head to call behind him, "Sam! In here!"

Running through me, Daniel kneels beside Dad, calling his name. Dad responds by calling out mine. "Charlie...Charlie, don't leave me!"

"I won't leave you, Dad," I reassure him, though he can't hear me.

"Jack, it's me. It's Daniel," Daniel tries to get Dad to focus on him.

"Dan--? Daniel?" Dad sputters.

I realize he is gone from me once more. Dad's spirit removes itself from my plane, slipping back into his body, back into the living.

The rest of his team arrive. A flurry of activity brushes around him with reassurances that he will be taken home and be all right. I say softly, "I love you, Dad."

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