If we were normal soldiers in a normal war zone, we’d have been rotated out long before now. Granted, not every trip through the Stargate ends in a firefight. But it might, and the anticipation alone is stress enough. Five years. Five years I’ve been doing this job I was never trained to do. A job I never wanted to do. A job I’ve had to do.
The first year was exhilarating, frightening, fun and disturbing.
Exhilarating because of all the discoveries we made, the peoples we met, the knowledge that we are not alone in the universe.
Frightening because after our first, near fatal, encounter with Apophis and Amaunet there was no news of Sha’re. As time passed desperation faded to determination and then to mere hope. Hope that someday, one day, I would find her.
Disturbing because I was learning to handle weapons; learning to survive; learning to kill, Learning to cope with the losses.
Fun came in discovering the lighter side of Jack O’Neill, Air Force colonel and juvenile delinquent. The man who picked me up, dusted me off and took me in. The man whose biting sarcasm, gentle humor and forceful personality kept me grounded when the stress became too much.
We had no idea what we were getting into, but we learned. We learned and we survived.
The second year was better in some ways, in others not so good. A year of new allies and old enemies, loved ones still lost then found and lost again. Another year older and still no closer to my ultimate goal.
We were closer - strangers became colleagues, became friends, became family.
Finding Sha’re was a hope fulfilled, her child was not. At least not then. Teal’c’s words knocked the panic and blind prejudice from my head and made me see that she was in no way to blame for what had happened - the consequences of becoming ‘Beloved’ of the Goa’uld being different for her than they were for me. We might have saved her then, Teal’c and I, if I had behaved like the loving husband I thought myself to be, instead of the jealous lover. But I was able to hold her, to tell her that I loved her, would always love her.
The third year was a year of old allies and new enemies. A year of despair and joy.
Losing my mind, losing my wife, losing my friend who had claimed that he was no friend at all, losing my only living relative. Losing the last of my innocence in a cage in a far away place. Dying is easy, being tortured is not.
The only happy memories are of Skaara and his nephew. Sha’re’s son - a nameless child being cared for by a nameless race.
The fourth year was a year of treacherous allies, old enemies and new friends. An old friend who became a new enemy.
More threats to life, limb and sanity. Being given, I thought, all the knowledge of the Goa’uld...
To paraphrase someone else’s paraphrasing, ‘I have seen the enemy and he is me’.
The fifth year was the year of being the good little soldier, making more kills than ever before.
Actually agreeing to commit mass murder for the sake of expediency. The man I was would never, could never, have done such a thing. The man I was no longer exists, as much an anathema to me as I would be to him. I remember his death throes, in a cage in a far away place.
I don’t want to stay, but I can’t leave. Held by a conscience that won’t allow me to abandon the blissfully ignorant people of Earth while I am capable of doing the job. But that’s all it is. A job I no longer need or care for - my loved ones now all accounted for, for good or ill.
Knowing so much, would I even be allowed to just walk away? Even if I was allowed to leave, would I just become a target for the NID? At least being part of the SGC gives me a measure of protection from them and their ilk.
And where would I go? There’s nothing and no one to hold me here outside the SGC, and precious little within it these days.
How have I come to this? A soldier in a war I want no part in, handling a P-90 like a pro, capable of killing anyone or anything that stands in our way. Our way. It’s not my way. I loathe the man I’ve had to become. All I wanted to do was find my wife and brother-in-law. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it? I help you, you help me? Now I don’t need your help anymore, and I’m still here.
Trapped.
I don’t want to stay but I can’t leave.
I don’t want to die.
What choice do I have?
No choice at all.
"I’m ready to go with you."
***Finis ***
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"We have met the enemy and they are ours." - Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. 1785-1819
"We have seen the enemy and it is us." - Pogo cartoon strip
"Death is the last enemy: once we’ve got past that I think everything will be alright." - Attributed to: Alice Thomas Ellis (b. 1932), British author.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: I was just looking through some old WIPs on my hard drive. This one must have been on there for a couple of years, but what I was planning to do with it, and why I still considered it a Work in Progress, I have no idea. It’s time to let it go…
FEEDBACK: Any feedback would be welcome.
© April 2004 They ain’t mine. Just borrowing.