Stargate Odyssey

Team, Epilogue

I am captive again. Such a brief taste of freedom after so many years of torment.

They send men and women to question me, and I am tempted to tell them of my vision, of the power that would have soon again been mine, of how they all would have trembled at the sound of my name—for I am Attila, and I was born to rule.

Humans such as these, however, could never understand, so I remain silent. I expect to be tortured, but they leave me in the cell and give me food and water.

How is it that such a race conquered the System Lords? How is it that they have defeated me?

Kauket is dead, and I will die before another day passes.

It is over.

********

Jack leaned against the wall outside the closed door, waiting. Typically, Daniel had not told any of them where he was going. He'd gotten fixed up in the infirmary—“Jack, I'm fine, it's seven stitches and two Band-Aids”—showered and changed and walked off before the rest of them had even made it to the locker room. The general was halfway to Daniel's office before the obvious occurred to him.

Belita.

Daniel, barely two hours after they'd returned through the Stargate and three hours since Palita had died, had gone to talk to Belita and Ren, to tell them that two of her grandchildren were gone.

So Jack had done an about-face, gotten back in the elevator and headed for the VIP rooms. The guard had confirmed that Daniel had been there for about fifteen minutes. Now, twenty minutes later, Jack was still waiting. He wasn't sure Daniel would want him there, but he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Finally, the door swung open. He could hear Belita weeping quietly. Daniel said something in Calonian, and Ren answered. Daniel started to step through the door, then turned back. “Belita. . . .” he started, his voice full of sorrow. Again Ren spoke, and Daniel nodded and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He stopped, leaned against the door and closed his eyes. Then, realizing that the guard was watching, he straightened, nodded at the young woman and turned to leave.

And stopped again.

“Jack?”

Jack grimaced a little as he pushed himself off the wall. Parts of him hurt where he didn't even know he had parts.

“I thought you might need some company,” he said, his eyes focusing for a moment on the small bandage on Daniel's throat. Jack raised his eyes to meet Daniel's. He was prepared for, at the very least, an “I'm fine,” and at the most, a tirade. To his surprise, he got neither.

Daniel let out a long breath, and with it his whole body seemed to droop. “Thanks,” he said.

Jack swallowed his surprise and turned to walk with Daniel down the corridor. He refrained from asking how Daniel was or how hard it had been to talk to Belita. Both, he knew, were stupid questions, and Daniel would talk if he needed to.

Finally Daniel broke the silence: “I told her Simis was alive and that we'd lost Hentik and Palita. She didn't want any details, and I couldn't bring myself to. . . . Jack, she actually thanked me for helping to bring back Simis and for trying to save the others, and I still couldn't tell her.” Daniel stopped talking and looked at Jack, guilt and misery marring his face. “She needs me to go with her and Simis to the Tok'ra. There's no one else. I thought if I told her now what I did, that I killed her granddaughter. . . .”

“It wouldn't help anything to tell her, Daniel,” Jack said.

“But you don't know what it felt like, Jack, to stand there and accept her thanks. . . .” Daniel stopped talking, at a loss for words.

Jack waited a beat for him to finish, then said, quietly, “You know you had no choice, don't you?”

Daniel looked down, but didn't say anything.

“Daniel?” Jack said, but his friend still couldn't meet his eyes.

Jack stopped short, a queasy feeling in his stomach. Of course, he thought, Daniel did have a choice: He'd chosen a rapidly aging soldier with a lot of bad history over a seven-year-old child who'd hardly even had a chance to live, a child he'd promised to save. It would make perfect sense for Daniel to think he'd made the wrong choice. . . .

Daniel took a few more paces down the hall before he noticed Jack wasn't with him. He turned and saw Jack standing there looking as if he'd been poleaxed. Daniel looked at Jack in confusion and then his eyes widened in alarm. He took a step back in Jack's direction.

“God, Jack, I'm sorry! It's not that. Of course I realize there was no other choice! If I hadn't shot, you would have died. I know that. I just keep thinking there was something else I could have done, some other way to stop it. I know she probably wouldn't have even survived the extraction, but she was so young and I just wanted to give her the chance. . . .”

Jack still didn't say anything, and Daniel took another step forward

“Jack?” he asked. “Jack? I could no more have let you die than you could have let me, Teal'c or Sam die. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, finally, “I know. . . . I'm just sorry we couldn't save her, Daniel.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said quietly. “Me too.” He looked away again, trying to compose his face, and Jack could practically see the wave of exhaustion wash over his friend.

“C'mon,” he said, “let's go. I'll buy you a cup of coffee before the debriefing.”

Daniel hesitated, then shook his head. “I wish I could, Jack, but I can't. I want to sit with Vala and the others for a while, and I have to leave for the Tok'ra base right after the debriefing. . . . When I get back?”

Jack wanted to drag Daniel to the commissary, then order him home until he got some sleep, but he knew he'd probably have to do both at gunpoint, so he just said, “Sure. No problem.”

They started walking again. “Jack?” Daniel asked after a minute, and Jack could tell from the almost tentative way that Daniel said his name that he was about to ask for a favor he wasn't sure Jack would grant.

“SG-13 . . . this was a pretty rough one for them. And Mitchell—I know that look—he blames himself.”

“He got them back alive,” Jack said, “and he did a damn fine job.”

Daniel looked sideways at his friend, weighing his words, then said, “I think someone needs to tell him that, Jack.”

They got to the elevator and Jack punched the button. Daniel was right. SG-1 wasn't the only team that was hurting and a conversation with Mitchell was long overdue. He'd left the man hanging for long enough.

“All right, Daniel, I'll tell you what,” he said as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. “We've got an hour and a half till the debriefing. You join Carter and Teal'c in the commissary for a few minutes and have your cup of coffee. I'll take first shift in the infirmary.”

Daniel hesitated then said, “Thanks, Jack. It means a lot.”

Jack shrugged. Before the doors opened on Daniel's floor, though, he said, “Promise me something in return, Daniel.”

Daniel looked at him warily.

“Promise me that if you do decide to tell Belita what happened, you'll also tell her how you tried to trade places with Palita to save her life. Can you promise me that?”

The doors opened and Daniel stepped out. “Tell Mitchell I'll be there soon,” was all he said.

Jack shook his head. “Right,” he replied to the closing doors, Daniel having already walked away.

********

“Your pain medication working all right, Colonel?” the nurse was asking quietly as Jack walked through the infirmary doors.

Despite his promise to Daniel, Jack wasn't sure he was up to a conversation with the leader of SG-13, but one glance at the officer slumped in a chair watching over his unconscious teammates was enough to tell him he was doing the right thing. Mitchell looked terrible. He'd showered and was in clean BDUs—Jack wondered how he'd managed to talk himself out of a bed so soon after the small chunk of metal had been cut from his arm—but he hadn't shaved, and the dark circles under his eyes were something scary to behold.

Jack recognized the look. He'd worn it himself more than a few times.

The nurse glanced up and nodded, then went about her business. Mitchell continued to look at the floor.

Jack walked over and pulled up a chair. “How are they doing?” he asked quietly.

Mitchell started and looked up. “General!” he said, jumping to his feet. Vala, one bed over, stirred and mumbled something, and her team leader looked toward the bed guiltily.

“At ease, Mitchell. Sit down,” Jack said.

Mitchell looked at Kal'toc and Grogan first, checking to make sure they were still asleep, and sat down slowly.

“You know,” he said, answering Jack's question, “they've got the usual assortment of concussions, fractures, strangulation, knife wounds, burns. . . .” He sighed. “Caroline's a little worried about the aftereffects of the pulse weapon, but she says they're all going to be all right—eventually.”

“They will be,” Jack said. He looked around the infirmary. “What about Spanakoulos?”

“He's still in surgery. His arm was pretty ripped up. I'm not sure how he made it through the Stargate under his own steam.”

Jack nodded. The Daedalus had beamed them up and then back to the Stargate so they could get the wounded and the captive Goa'uld back to the SGC as quickly as possible. Grogan, Kal'toc and Vala had been sent back down on stretchers, although Vala had protested vociferously—until her muscles had started spasming so badly that she couldn't even stand. Jack winced, remembering Vala's face as she tried not to scream.

Cam cleared his throat. “Was there something you needed, General?” he asked, and Jack realized he'd been sitting and staring off into space. God, he was tired.

Jack pulled himself together, reminding himself why he was there. “Yes, Mitchell, there was. I wanted to apologize.”

“Sir?”

“I think you've gotten the impression lately that I believe you're some kind of screw-up, that I somehow didn't think you were good enough for SG-1.”

“Honestly, sir?” Cam said. “Yes, that is the impression I got, and I understand. I mean, they were your people first, and, well, I'm no you, sir.”

“Well, no,” Jack said dryly, “nobody could be me.”

When Mitchell didn't crack a smile, Jack sighed. “Look, Mitchell, the truth is, I thought, we all thought, that you were too good for SG-1.”

“I'm sorry, sir, I'm really not following you here,” Cam said.

“You're a born leader, Mitchell. Saving our butts over Antarctica or not, you never would have been here if you weren't. You showed that today, again, when you organized the Cartinians to take out the men in the village.

“With Carter, Daniel and Teal'c, though, you never really had to lead, never had to make the really hard decisions, because any one of them was as qualified to make the decisions as you were. When you left Daniel behind with Adria. . . .” Cam winced and might have even paled a little, and Jack held up his hand, “. . . .Ach, we're not debating that now, but when you left him behind, you did it because you figured Daniel would be able to find a way out, didn't you?”

Cam put his head in his hands. After the monumental mess that was today's mission, he really didn't need to be reminded of what was probably the worst command decision of his career. He forced himself to look back up at Jack while he considered the general's question.

“I guess that may have been part of it, sir,” he said.

“Would you have made the same decision if it had been Vala, Grogan or Kal'toc instead of Daniel?”

Cam looked again at his teammates and back at Jack. “No, sir, no I wouldn't,” he admitted. “And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't leave Jackson either.”

Damn straight, you wouldn't, he thought but didn't say it. Instead he said, “And the time you rushed the cannon and went after Teal'c on your own when Ba'al had him—and don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled it worked out the way it did—did you let Daniel and Carter know that was what you were about to do? Did you consider what they would do when they saw you go, whether you had just endangered their lives?”

Cam thought back to that mission. “No, general. I should have, but I didn't.”

“Because. . . ?”

Cam sighed, realizing the general was right. “Because I knew they could take care of themselves, and because I knew they'd pull my bacon out of the fire if I needed them to.” He really didn't see how this list of his failures was leading to his being too good for SG-1.

Jack shifted uncomfortably in the hard chair. “Look, Mitchell, you're a pilot. By nature, you're a hotdog. We all are. With SG-1, you got to keep being the hotdog. You never, not really, had to be the team leader, the one the rest depend on.” Jack looked to the other three members of SG-13. “Now, you do.”

Cam followed Jack's eyes. “Yeah, and look how well that's ended up. I could have lost them all today.”

“But you didn't, Mitchell,” Jack said, standing up. “You did what you were supposed to do. Bottom line, you brought them all home.”

Cam started to stand too, but Jack gestured for him to stay put. “I know it doesn't seem that way now, Mitchell, but you did a good job out there today. And you've put together a damn fine team. You can be proud of that.”

“Yes, sir,” Cam said. “I am proud of them, sir.”

O'Neill gave him a long, hard look that was, somehow, also filled with understanding, then he nodded, turned and walked out of the infirmary.

Cam watched him go and shook his head. He appreciated the general's visit, but he wasn't sure, exactly, what it was all about. His team ends up beaten and tortured and almost dead, and the guy is telling him he did a good job? Not in his book.

“Colonel Mitchell?” a voice next to him asked, interrupting his thoughts, and he turned to find Kal'toc staring at him.

“Kal'toc, you're awake!” Cam said, standing up and leaning over the bed. “How're you doing?”

“Better, Colonel Mitchell. My symbiote has recovered from its wounds and is repairing mine.”

Kal'toc's voice was hoarse and strained, and Cam reached for the cup of water near the bed. He put the straw to the young Jaffa's lips, and the warrior drank a bit and nodded his thanks.

“You blame yourself for what happened,” Kal'toc stated then, and Cam realized he must have been listening to his discussion with O'Neill.

Cam sighed. “Yeah, Kal'toc, I do,” he said. “And I'm sorry. I should have gotten us out of there faster and I should have realized the minute we saw those kids that something was going down, not to mention that. . . .” Cam shook his head. “Anyway, now's not the time for that.”

Cam paused and looked at his young teammate, who had proved himself that day at such a terrible risk to his own life. “Look, Kal’toc,” he said. “You did great today. You saved Grogan from being strangled; you kept General O’Neill from being snaked. . . . Yeah, Vala told me all about it, and you know I’m proud of you, but . . . pretending to want to be Attila’s First Prime? It’s a miracle you’re lying here in the infirmary instead of the morgue. I don’t mean to insult your acting skills, but how in the world did you think you could pull that off?”

“He is a Goa'uld,” Kal'toc responded matter-of-factly. “I knew that his arrogance and disdain for the Jaffa race would serve me in my deception.”

“Still, that was a dangerous game. You must have known it would only be a matter of time before he found you out. What were you thinking?”

Kal'toc squinted at Cam as if he didn't understand why the man was asking such a foolish question. Finally he said, as if stating the obvious, “I knew that you would soon find a way to rescue us, Colonel Mitchell. I needed only stall for time.”

Cam almost laughed and then realized that his young teammate was deadly serious. Cam looked from Kal'toc toward the doors to the infirmary that he imagined were still swinging slightly in the wake of O'Neill's departure.

It was only then that he realized what the man had been talking about.

This was what being a team leader was all about. Sure, you do everything in your power to protect them, to get them home, but here was the kicker—they trust you to do it. He felt at once great pride at Kal'toc's faith in him but also, suddenly, a little fear.

That trust was a gift, yes, but it was also a burden. Cam hoped he was strong enough to carry it.

END

Site by TJW

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