O’Neill twitched one shoulder. “He’s letting his personal mission objective go to his head. We’re here to establish mining rights, not research a book about these people’s life story.”
Teal’c lifted an eyebrow. “Is it not possible for us to do both?”
“Possible? Sure. Desirable? No way. Come on, Teal’c. If I don’t ride herd on Daniel, keep him focused, we’ll still be here this time next month. And I don’t intend being here any longer than I have to.”
“Because until this mission is completed you are forced to continue your association with Colonel Dixon. Do you truly believe he is a Pentagon spy… or is he unwelcome because he blames you for Frank Cromwell’s death?”
Birdsong filled the sharp silence. “What the hell kind of question is that?” O’Neill said at last, his gaze rigidly trained on the slumbering village below them.
“I think a fair one, O’Neill,” he replied carefully. “You blame yourself even though it was not your fault. Just as you blame yourself for the loss of Hank Boyd and his team, even though their deaths were not your fault either.”
“Crap,” O’Neill muttered. “You been buying psychology books off Amazon?”
“I do not need to purchase textbooks to understand your heart in this, O’Neill,” he said. “Cromwell was your friend. He perished because of it. You would not be yourself if you did not feel guilt.”
They had never before spoken of the black hole incident, at least not beyond the required debriefings. O’Neill rarely spoke of personal things, revealing only what he wanted others to know. And unlike Daniel Jackson, I am content with that. To demand more is… disrespectful. But now, given the current circumstances, he was prepared to be rude.
O’Neill folded his arms again. “Cromwell and I weren’t friends when he died. We were — ” He shook his head. “I have no idea what we were.”
“To me you did not sound like enemies.”
“Yeah. Like I said. I don’t know what we were at the end.”
“But you are afraid Colonel Dixon will want to know? You are afraid he has come here to complete unfinished business?”
O’Neill slid another look sideways. “Me? Afraid. Surely you jest.”
No, he did not. And O’Neill was aware of that. But if he was reluctant or unable to elucidate his feelings on the matter of Frank Cromwell or David Dixon then the conversation would end here and now.
Unlike Daniel Jackson I know when not to push. But I suspect this time he is in the right. O’Neill is haunted by Cromwell. Though much time has passed his heart has yet to heal. What Daniel fails to realize, however, is that only O’Neill can heal it. And to do that he must first give himself permission to release his pain.
And that was very much more easily said than done. Did he not know it, with his precious wife and child still paying the price for his impulsive decision in the prison on Chulak?
“You should cut Daniel Jackson some slack, O’Neill,” he said, turning away from the light-washed valley before them. “You know as well as I that he is among the best at what he does. Warriors are important, but we are not always the most important.”
O’Neill’s eyebrows were up. “’Cut him some slack’?” he echoed, his eyes bright with derisive humor. “Forget the psychobabble books, you’ve been watching The Simpsons!”
“I have no need to watch The Simpsons, O’Neill,” he replied, letting his own lurking sense of humor reveal itself. “You are quite adept at re-enacting each episode.”
Which was precisely the wrong thing to say. Until recently O’Neill had done so with Jake Andrews. Like a cloud crossing the sun the amusement in O’Neill’s face was blotted out by rewoken grief, leaving it grim, and his eyes chilled to bleakness with memory.
He had erred, and where O’Neill was concerned there were rarely second chances. Before he could speak, make tentative amends, O’Neill was turning away.
“Hey!” he said sharply to the rest of his team, still asleep and oblivious. “Where do you guys think we are, on a dude ranch vacation? Sun’s up! Time to go!”
Major Carter was the first to react, sitting up with her sidearm in her hand. “What? What?”
“Relax, Carter,” said O’Neill. “It’s reveille, not a call to arms.”
Colonel Dixon sat up next, more slowly. Not because he was any less prepared but because he’d taken a moment to assess the situation while pretending he still slept.
He was a canny warrior. O’Neill was right to be wary.
“Jack, what are you trying to do?” Daniel Jackson demanded from the depths of his sleeping bag. “Give us all a heart attack?” With a groan he emerged, and looked to where the Adjoan girl Lotar had chosen to sleep for the night. “Lotar? It’s all right. Don’t be frightened. Jack’s playing a joke on us. He has a poor — sorry, a different — sense of humor.”
After a moment the girl showed her face. “Are you sure we are safe, Daniel? I thought the gods had come to chide me for leaving the shrine before my passing time was ended.”
“No, no,” said Daniel Jackson, with a hot look at O’Neill. “It’s all right. Jack’s sorry he frightened you. Say you’re sorry, Jack.”
O’Neill shoved his hands in his pockets and let his head drop for a moment. Then he sighed and looked up. “Yeah. Sorry, Lotar. Didn’t mean to upset you.”
The girl murmured something, then made herself look at O’Neill. “It is all right.” Her gaze shifted past him. “Good morning, Teal’c. Thank you for the use of your — your sleeping bag.” She fingered the soft nylon, wondering at its slippery silkiness. “It was so warm and comfortable.”
He bowed. “You are welcome, Lotar.”
They still had not told her he was one of the feared Jaffa. O’Neill had decreed that was information best kept secret for now. They would explain his origins to her village elders when it came time for them to learn the truth.
“Okay,” said O’Neill. “Now we’re all awake, let’s eat and break camp. The sooner we wrap up this fun romp through the wilderness the sooner we can do what we came for and call this one mission accomplished.”
After they’d consumed a swift breakfast and prepared to leave, Major Carter found a moment to speak with him unobserved.
“Teal’c,” she said, her voice soft and low. “I don’t want to put you on the spot or anything, but — I’m starting to think I should’ve taken Daniel more seriously back at the base. You know. About…”
She need say no more than that. He knew exactly what she meant. He also knew there was nothing either of them could do. He looked up briefly from relacing his boots, and saw in her eyes she was all too aware of that.
“No matter what O’Neill is feeling, Major, he is first and foremost a professional soldier,” he replied, making sure his own voice would not carry past her. “He will do nothing to endanger this mission.”
“I know,” she agreed, zipping up her pack. “But he’s really bugging Daniel. The last thing we need is those two going at each other because he’s pissed off at Dixon. We both know it’s hell when they’re getting on each other’s nerves.”
“What is it you expect me to do, Major?”
She sighed sharply. “I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do. You know what the colonel’s like. But if you think there’s a moment when you can talk to him, get him to lower his guard for once, maybe — ”
“I have already attempted to do so,” he said, after a moment. “I was unsuccessful.”
“Oh,” she said. “Right.”
Their eyes met in perfect understanding.
“Perhaps you could speak with him yourself.”
“Yeah, right,” she retorted. “Because he’s always confiding in me.”
Beneath the dark humor, a sting of pain. Did she know what she betrayed of her heart at such moments? He thought she did not. He thought perhaps she was yet to fully understand herself where O’Neill was concerned. Just as O’Neill did not understand his feelings for her.
; I cannot help but fear, a little, what will happen when understanding does at last come to them.
Chapter Ten
Unaware of their conversation, fortunately, O’Neill was scattering and stamping out the remains of last night’s fire. Colonel Dixon assisted Daniel Jackson with his pack, making certain all its straps and fasteners were correct. Major Carter watched him, her expression approving.
“I like Dixon,” she said abruptly. “Do you?”
“I have no reason to dislike him,” Teal’c replied. “Nor will I, provided he does not… agitate.”
Again their eyes met.
“Yeah,” she said, after a moment. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed on that one, huh?”
She withdrew, then, to assist Colonel Dixon in clipping his own back-pack into place. Teal’c watched her as he finished relacing his boots. After three years it was still odd to him, how the members of his team kept up this running observation upon one another. And it wasn’t only SG-1. He’d observed it every time he joined another SGC field unit. It was such a human thing, it seemed to him, this impulse to turn every group into a family.
Not even the Jaffa he had known — except for Bra’tac — had fostered such close bonds. For Bra’tac it was an unobtrusive way of defying the Goa’uld, he knew that now. For himself, growing up, the friendships he’d formed with his fellow warriors had always been tainted by the need to serve the Goa’uld first. By the fierce competition that was deliberately fostered among them.
Not so with the SGC, at least not in his experience thus far. There was conflict, yes, there were disagreements and grudging dislikes. Not everyone ‘got along’. But transcending the personal was the idea of family. The notion that each man and woman of the SGC belonged to one another, that no matter the conflicts, the clashes, the inevitable collisions of personality, all that was put aside for the good of all.
Hurt one of Hammond’s people and all were hurt. All sought revenge for the dead and risked their lives to bring the missing home. He thought it was that quality which had made him look twice at O’Neill and his team in that Chulak prison cell, so long ago. In his other lifetime, when he was Apophis’s slave.
Perhaps it was this family bond that had driven Dixon to join them, to learn for himself the fate of his blood brother Cromwell. O’Neill’s blood brother, of whom he would not speak.
But is not my brother’s brother also brother to me?
Yes. He was. Which meant O’Neill and Dixon were brothers under the skin, brothers of the blood and heart, connected by Cromwell… whether they wished to be or not.
And until O’Neill accepts that and gives his unwanted brother what he craves there will be no peace between them or for them. Cromwell’s spirit will haunt them to their graves.
A disquieting thought. Not one he would share with O’Neill, at least not yet. SG-1’s team leader had more than enough to contend with in seeing to the successful completion of this mission.
But like Major Carter and like Daniel Jackson I will be watching him. And if it comes time to speak then I will speak my mind without fear, as any brother knows he must.
“You all set there, Teal’c?” said O’Neill, approaching.
Boots re-laced, his pack ready for carrying, he nodded. “I am.”
O’Neill looked over to Daniel Jackson, who had taken off his pack and was wrestling with it as though it were a mortal enemy. “Oh, please,” O’Neill muttered. “Herding cats would be easier, I swear. Daniel! This isn’t your first barbecue! Time to roll!”
Lotar looked startled. “Roll? No, we must walk to the village. Very carefully, for the path is narrow and steep.”
“It’s all right, Lotar,” said Major Carter, not quite hiding her amusement. “It was a figure of speech. Colonel O’Neill means it’s time to leave.”
“Oh,” said Lotar in a small voice, and cast a sidelong look at O’Neill. “I did not know. I am sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” said Daniel Jackson, his pack at last wrestled into submission. “Trust me, it’s not you.”
“That’s right,” said O’Neill. “It’s me, it’s me, it’s all about me. And I say let’s go. I’ll take point. Teal’c, you’ve got our six. Lotar, walk with Daniel and Carter and play backseat driver.”
“And I’ll just tag along in there somewhere,” Colonel Dixon muttered. “No sweat. It’s my pleasure.”
If O’Neill heard the comment he chose not to react.
They left the clearing at the top of the valley and headed down the winding slope towards Lotar’s village.
After half an hour of traversing a barely visible track through spindly trees and low-growing bracken, Colonel Dixon fell back to the rear of the procession.
“So Teal’c,” he said, his tone as ever cheerfully conversational, “how’s about you run me through what I can expect when we reach Lotar’s village?”
Teal’c looked at the man. “I cannot do that, Colonel Dixon.”
Dixon’s smile remained, but his eyes cooled. “Okay. Look. I may not be Carter but I’m not exactly an idiot. I get that you guys don’t really want me here. But — ”
“You misunderstand me,” he said, before Dixon could elaborate. “I have no objection to your presence. But neither can I tell you what to expect from Lotar’s village. Like you, I have never been there.”
That made Dixon blink. “Okay. That’s true. But even so — ”
“And even if I had,” he continued, “I would hesitate to tell you of my experiences there. Each man sees the world through his own eyes, Colonel. Each man must form his own opinions, untouched by the opinions of other men.”
“That’s… very interesting, Teal’c,” said Dixon, after a moment. “Tell me, how do you reconcile that philosophy with the fact you used your own previous experience to try and stop us from coming here at all?”
He frowned. “If I had not believed there to be danger on Adjo I would not have spoken as I did. My concern for SG-1’s welfare over-rides any other consideration.”
“You’re something else, Teal’c. Do you know that?”
“If you mean that I am not like a human then yes. Of that fact I am well aware.”
“You’re funny,” said Dixon, slowly smiling. “I never got that about you before. It doesn’t show up in the team’s reports.”
“The team’s reports are not personnel profiles but factual accounts of events in which we have participated.”
Dixon stared. “Holy crap. You talk like a college professor, did anyone ever tell you that?”
He let himself smile, ever so slightly. “I believe O’Neill has mentioned it once or twice.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet he has,” Dixon murmured. “Okay. So you can’t tell me specifics. Can you at least tell me about some of the other first contacts you’ve made? I mean, when you were Apophis’s First Prime you must have visited a heap of planets.”
“When I was Apophis’s First Prime I did not make ‘first contacts’” he said, letting his voice chill. “Not in the way you understand that term.” He’d plundered, he’d destroyed, he’d overseen the enslavement of nations. That was not something he wished to discuss with Dixon. It was not something he cared to remember at all.
“Okay,” said Dixon, wisely retreating. “Then tell me about your first contacts with SG-1.”
“Why is that necessary? You have read the mission reports.”
Dixon tipped back his head and stared at the tree-latticed sky. “It’s not the same and you know it. I want to hear it from you, Teal’c, I want to see the world through your eyes. You’re nearly three times my age, you’ve been to places I’ll never even imagine. Experienced things I can’t begin to dream about.”
Time for a sharp dose of reality. “And I have done things, Colonel Dixon, that would give you nightmares for the rest of your short life. Like you I am a warrior. Like you I am stained with the blood of innocents. There is nothing heroic about my former life.”
Dixon’s head snapped around as though he’d been
struck. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He met the man’s molten stare, unflinching. “It means that in my three years on your planet I have done much reading. I have studied your history and current events. Innocents always perish in war, even when their deaths are not intended. And humanity is in love with war.”
“In love with it?” said Dixon, incredulous. “Hell, Teal’c. I don’t know what books you’ve been reading but — ”
“Do you deny that war has been described as glorious?”
“No,” said Dixon, after a difficult moment. “It was described that way, once. By men who didn’t understand what they were saying. But — ”
“And do you deny the brotherhood of warriors? The bonds that are formed between men who fight side by side? Who shed blood together and for each other? Do you deny the intensity of those ties?”
For a moment he thought Dixon wasn’t going to answer. Then the colonel sighed, and shook his head. “Holy crap, you’re a sneaky bastard.” His voice was low, pitched not to carry. “How did a simple question about Lotar’s village turn into a conversation about Frank Cromwell?”
“I do not recall mentioning that name.”
“Yeah, hello,” said Dixon, with a sarcasm worthy of O’Neill himself. “Not Carter, still not stupid, remember? Teal’c, if there’s something on your mind then say it. I won’t be offended.”
Teal’c looked ahead to where O’Neill was striding along in the lead, Daniel Jackson by his left hand, the girl Lotar by his right. She was chattering away now, having seemingly lost her awe of O’Neill. Something she said elicited one of his rare laughs, his face in profile softened with friendly amusement.
“You don’t have to, Teal’c,” Dixon added. “But I really would be stupid if I thought you guys weren’t discussing me behind my back.”
Should he mention the Chinese meal at O’Neill’s house? No. I think not. “There has been no discussion.”
“O’Neill hasn’t said anything? Not even about Frank?”