Not Who He Needed

In my office, book-lined, musty with paper, I shut the door. The picture is clutched in my arms and I let it slip to the table as I close my eyes and let the guilt take me.

Oh God.

Oh, God.

I can't believe I just said what I did.

He'll never forgive me.

I don't know that I'll ever forgive myself.

Jack's been through so much in his life. So many things I've never had to contemplate. Wars and missions, the paranoia of Black Ops, four months in an Iraqi prison camp, his son's death, his estrangement from his wife, and all the times he feels he's personally failed General Hammond, SG-1, and himself. Including Sam's death.

And I've just added to the burden he carries around for the sake of letting off steam.

How do I know I wouldn't have done the same? If our positions were reversed, and Sam had died, and a week later Samantha came through the mirror; how do I know I wouldn't have clung to her like a drowning man?

I'm a selfish bastard.

My friends look back at me from the picture frame: Jack, Sam, Teal'c.

Better times.

When Sam died, the strings between us were severed. Guilt and anguish will do that. They'll shear through your ability to relate to the people around you and cut you off from the ones you love.

I don't know if we can get those connections back. Not after her death and Samantha's arrival.

Not after what I said to Jack in there.

Time passes. I don't know how much and I don't care. It's just me, sitting here in my office, staring at a picture of me and my friends.

Better days.

My door opens without the entry-request knock. Only one person ever came in without asking. Only one person ever will. I look up and meet Jack's eyes.

He shuts the door behind him and leans against it, but he doesn't say anything.

That he's here at all means there's nowhere else he can turn except his own soul - and he can't cope with that right now.

The bond between us was severed both ways; by his relationship with Samantha and my outburst in Sam's office. If we're ever going to be friends again - and I'm not afraid to admit I need him all the more now Sam's gone - something has to cross the chasm between us.

It's up to me to reach out to him after I cast him aside.

"I shouldn't have..."

"I shouldn't have..."

We speak simultaneously, then fall silent. Fleeting amusement flashes in our eyes replaced by shared grief and pain and the ghost of the woman we lost.

"I loved her, too, Jack." Not the way he did, but...love, nevertheless.

"I know, Danny."

*