Title: Intimate Hearts:
Charity
Date: April 1, 2000
Status: Complete
Author: Jmas
Category: Series, drama, angst, h/c…various other things….
Rating: PG-13 for language
Email: jmasg1@bellsouth.net
Archive: Stargate Fan, Heliopolis, Belle, Place of Our Legacy
Disclaimer: Characters are property of MGM, etc.
Spoilers: Stargate the movie, Fire and Water, Thor's Hammer,
Politics, Broca Divide, Shades of Grey
Summary: "Every good act is charity…" Mohammed
(570-632)
Author's note: A continuing series…at least ten total…on
the complexity and simplicity of friendship…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Intimate Hearts: Charity
charity: n. compassion, kindness toward others
"Every good act is charity…" Mohammed
(570-632)
He was such a dork…and God knows I was in no mood to
be very charitable back then…even to myself.
I was a total ass. The limit of
my compassion toward Daniel at that point in time extended
only so far as what would keep him in one piece to get us
back home from Abydos. Part of me wouldn't have minded a
bit watching Feretti and Kowalski knock a little sense into
the four-eyed sneezing hope that was Dr. Daniel Jackson.
Then he got killed for me…
Talk about a kink in your world-view…and
admittedly my world-view was pretty screwed right about then
anyway. A whole lot of ugliness had gone into making me that
way, but in the end even I realized that I alone had let
myself go down that road.
So a long, cold night trying to
sleep standing up in waist deep water had me thinking maybe,
just maybe, there was more to Daniel Jackson than I'd taken
the time or interest to look for.
His smoking body taught me more
than his gentle words ever could have. Things like giving
everything for the sake of an arrogant bastard who was only
there to get himself killed in the first place. Things I'd
known and believed in a long time ago, but managed to forget
along the way to Abydos. Daniel's sacrifice reminded me of
some of those things; stirring memories of the person I had
been…so long ago…
A person…I realized just before
returning home…I really wanted to become again.
I'd made a good start on it in the
year I was retired. I'd managed to find some contentment…an
understanding with myself, a way to cope with…everything…and
still be 'me.' The 'me' I'd been before Black Ops, before
Charlie…left.
Then Apophis came…and Samuels…and
Hammond with his bomb intended to blow up the good people
of Abydos…including Daniel. I tried to protect them
and almost wound up getting them killed. Thank God Hammond
is as good a man as he is under that uniform or they'd be
nothing but toast right now.
Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't
have been better if that bomb had gone through…
No, as bad as things got for Daniel
after we came back for him I know he wouldn't have wanted
that…
God, he looked so lost that first
night.
Lost and alone and so totally bereft…
I couldn't just leave him there,
holding up the wall like he was supporting the weight of
every one of the twenty-eight floors above him.
I took him home and in the dark
hours of that first night back, I found something in Daniel
Jackson that I not only liked, but wanted to keep around
me. He was just so…open…to everything. In the
midst of his own pain and uncertainty, Daniel found the time
and the caring…the charity of spirit…to give
a damn that my own marriage was just as hopelessly cut apart
as his. It 'mattered' to him at a time when anyone else would
have been totally lost in self-pity.
I liked that about him…still
do.
For all the garbage he's had to
deal with, he doesn't let it pull him under.
Time after time I've watched him
pull it all together and do the right thing…when it
would have been so damn easy to just break down and give
up. Not the right thing according to Colonel Jack O'Neill.
Not the right thing according to ubiquitous regs of the US
Air Force and its little offshoot called the SGC. Not even
the right thing according to the US by God of A Constitution.
No, I'm talking about 'the' right thing…that cosmic-universal
harmony, way-beyond-civilized, ultimate-sacrifice, no-matter-that
-he's-hurting-and -scared-shitless-right-down-to-his-soul
kind of right thing.
Look at what happened with Nem.
For all the pain the old fish guy put Daniel through, Daniel
still tried to make nice with him. I mean for Pete's sake
the kid had nightmares for weeks afterward. He tried to pass
the whole thing off as 'not too bad,' but we knew. Screaming,
shaking night terrors told us it was pretty damn awful.
Then there was the whole thing with
Teal'c. I mean…Daniel did the one thing I never would
have expected when he accepted Teal'c not only as a member
of the team…but as a friend. I'm not sure I could've
done it in the same circumstances. It took some time, and
I wasn't totally sure until the business with the Hammer…but
against every odd I'd've given on it…it happened. Teal'c
would have given his right arm and a dozen other body parts
up for Daniel even then. Now, it's not so much the protector-warrior-guilt
trip thing as a genuine respect for each other. Even after
the thing with Sha're, Daniel accepts Teal'c easily into
his very elite circle of friends.
There are very few people he trusts
with a portion of his heart and his soul. There's me, Carter,
Teal'c, Feretti, Fraiser and, surprisingly enough, Hammond.
That one was a real shocker to me. Hammond was such a total
hardass at first where Daniel was concerned. The general
was totally convinced Daniel was an accident waiting for
a place to happen and had no place on off-world missions.
Boy did Daniel burst that little bubble, proving time and
time again he not only had a place…he was essential.
The first time we thought he was
dead…the second if you count Ra…when the whole
Stargate thing was new and scary and bigger than any of us
had ever imagined, I said Daniel had made the SGC happen.
At the time I think I was talking about the fact he'd opened
the thing in the first place. But after we got him back and
I watched him go toe-to-toe with the general, the NID nitwits,
and the senator from hell…not to mention snakeheads
and other assorted aliens I realized just how true that statement
was.
Daniel made…makes…SGC
'happen'. We've learned a lot from his highly evolved humanity.
We learned to look at the big picture in a world full of
Kennedy's and Samuels' and Maybourne's and Kinsey's. To look
beyond a world that trained us to check our humanity at the
door and get the job done. Daniel shows us everyday through
words, actions and very fine example how to get the job done…and
still remember the universe consists of more than just the
party line mission statement of acquiring what we need to
defeat the Goa'uld or any other threat that might come down
the galactic turnpike.
I didn't really understand how well
I'd learned that lesson until I found myself spouting a load
of garbage for Maybourne's benefit. It made me sick inside
to hear the voice of the son of a bitch I used to be. There'd
been a time early on when I believed exactly those words…and
fought tooth and nail against any deviation from that mission.
It was a relief to discover the words and the feelings really
were a lie to me now…and had been for a long time.
I'm not saying Daniel was the only
reason for the change, but he was a damn big part of it.
I lied when I told him I couldn't relate to him. I relate
to him in ways I could never have imagined four years ago
when he sneezed his intellectual way into my life. I hate
that lie, hate the reasons for telling it, hate the look
it earned me…the hurt, confused let-me-help-you-through-this-Jack
look that even up to the last minute wasn't completely giving
up on me.
Thankfully that charity of spirit
thing is still in place…he forgave me. He made me pay
a little while, but he forgave me and I swore to myself to
work a little harder at keeping anything like it from ever
happening again…to be a better friend.