Title: When the Cold Creeps In
Author: Flatkatsi
Email: flatkatsi@optusnet.com.au
Status: Complete
Category: Angst, Series
Pairings: None
Spoilers: None
Season: Any
Sequel/Series Info: Sequel to When the Tide Turns
Rating: PG
Content Warnings: None
File Size: 26kb
Archive: Incoming Wormhole, Jackfic
Summary: Nothing is ever easy.
Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
Author’s Note: Oh Dear! Now I’m depressing myself. Someone stop me – please!
Jack sat, cocooned in blankets. Despite the coverings he still felt the cold, a bone aching wearying cold that reached down deep and grabbed at him. He had felt like this since he had been released from the infirmary.
Since he had come home.
To his house surrounded by trees.
He was sitting in the window, glaring out at the falling rain, feeling the dampness settle around him.
He never seemed to be able to get warm.
He coughed, the same deep hacking cough that had kept him in the doctor’s clutches for so long. The same cough that he had taken so much effort to conceal.
“Sir?”
He had forgotten that he had company, let his guard down for a minute. The worried sound in Carter’s voice was enough to bring in the others, concerned looks on their faces.
“What?” Denial was his only weapon. That and distraction. “I thought that you were getting me a drink. Throat’s getting dry here.”
But even the drink, when it was handed to him, annoyed him. Beef bouillon. To build him up. The only thing that it had to recommend it was that it was hot and eased the tightness in his chest, if only for a short time.
They had worked out why he had both water and smoke in his lungs. It had been Carter that came up with the answer after looking once again at the original UAV footage of the planet. The stream, some distance from the gate, had sparkled in the bright sunlight, wending its way between the forest giants. How he had reached it they could only guess, but they knew that he must have. It was the only answer. Just how long he had had to stay under, holding his breath while the fire roared above him, was also conjecture. They had never asked the Colonel what he recalled. If he wanted to talk about it, he would.
He was a private man and not given to bursts of emotion. It was enough to know that he was alive.
All of them held their guilt tight within themselves, unable to let it go.
All four of them had secrets.
The coldness of the day permeated the open room, causing Daniel to shiver and reach for the controls to the nearby heater. He felt ready to weep with frustration. Frustration that he couldn’t bring out into the open what was eating at him. Frustration that his friends were hurting. And, by far the most important – frustration that Jack had closed himself off to them, as he so often did.
He looked at his friend huddled in the chair, looking weary beyond his years. Jack should never have left the base. Daniel could feel the brittleness surrounding him, as if he was frozen. As if the slightest touch would break him. It hurt to see Jack like this. So vulnerable.
The ice crystals settled around Jack, making him fold into himself even more. He didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to talk, be hospitable. He had been silent for so long now, unable to speak, that it had become a habit - one that he was reluctant to break. If it broke and the ice melted, who knew what would be revealed.
The trees around his house shook in the bitter breeze. Daniel shivered once again and Jack looked up to give him an irritated stare.
He didn’t need them here.
If they weren’t here he could let the coldness in.
It might quench the flames that he could see whenever he shut his eyes. Silence that awesome sound that he had heard through the water. Douse the embers that still ate at him. Stop the fire from consuming him.
He was afraid that unless he let the cold creep in, he would burn up.
He sat in his chair and his friends sat with him, unable to break through the solid wall of ice that he had allowed to grow.
Jack coughed. A deep hacking soul destroying cough.
And they looked away.
