Title: Ba'al Broke My Box

Author: trynity7

Disclaimer: The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author. © August 2004

Category: Angst

Spoilers: Abyss, Zero Hour (this is a Season 8 episode)

Rating: PG-13 for some language and gore/violence.

Author's Note: Two challenges here: someone on the Jackfic group asked for an angsty Jack story regarding him dealing with the fact that he thought that Ba'al had SG-1. My husband also challenged me to write something shorter than 10 pages. So I took them both on! Here is my short but (hopefully) sweet result!

Email: Feedback is welcome!

Summary: Jack's Ba'al box begins to come apart when he thinks that SG-1 is captured by Ba'al.

Focus? Can't focus. Can't think. P2X-887.

The mind betrays in moments like these. The boxes he'd constructed so sturdily for each and every nightmare in his life kept themselves locked tightly, usually. Yet this was a moment where he could feel the lock turning and the light of memory seeping into consciousness. Images of a chiseled face, that leering grin, flashed like streaks of hot summer lightning in his mind. 'Not a bad looking mug had it not belonged to the most evil bastard I've ever encountered.' The sound of the gravity generator that held him against iron bars for hours…days…at a time, until his treacherous captor would become bored with him for the day and let him die for a little while, again.

He stretched and shrugged, swearing he could feel the bruises from those bars he'd spent so many days against. Not a cage, but his whole world. At times when what was going on in front of his face became too painful to bear he would concentrate on the way those bars felt against his back. He'd memorized their pattern against his body. He'd certainly had enough time there. When he'd first returned to the SGC he'd felt those bars for weeks, but they, like the rest of the memory of his time imprisoned by Ba'al, had been forced into the thickest, heaviest box his mind could create. Then he'd locked it and buried it as deeply as possible under work and fishing and mundane aspects of living that he could pretend were normality asserting itself once again.

But today he could feel those bars. They were pressed as forcefully into his conscious mind at this moment as when he'd been pulled into them by the heavy gravity of the torture chamber.

His team was captured. How could he have allowed this? He knew that Ba'al was out there gunning for them. And not just them: Ba'al was gunning for the entire galaxy. He wanted it all. 'All of what,' Jack wondered. He shook his head. All of nothing. It didn't matter. Ba'al had SG-1. Jack gritted his teeth and tried to refocus himself on the letter he was writing.

"…and so, I regretfully submit my resignation. And to be clear, the regret is not so much about the resigning part, but the fact that I was deluded enough to think I had possessed even one iota of the ability needed to fill you sizeable and shiny shoes."

Interruptions! Quite possibly the most important ability he need to perform his current job was the ability to tolerate interruptions, shift gears immediately, and then continue to make effective decisions that had positive outcomes. So far, he'd discovered that he could tolerate the interruptions, but was seriously questioning his ability to make decisions that effectively led this program, his program.

He had been a part of the Stargate program from the beginning and felt an affection for it and its calling as a career in a way that he was certain most commanders would never experience. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a blessing. Yet it had also been his curse, this knowledge and responsibility. It had brought to his life a measure of fulfillment he'd not known prior, yet the measure of grief that he'd known as a result of going through the Stargate threatened to rival that of the death of his son. The friends he'd lost in battle, the worlds he'd seen torn apart by the ruthless inherent evil of the Goa'uld, and the personal horrors he'd experienced. And yet it all paled in comparison to the torture he'd suffered at Ba'al's hands.

The Goa'uld. They were difficult to fathom. After all the years he'd fought against them and dealt with them on different fronts, he still didn't get them. He pretended to be a grown up, so he just accepted that they are what they are. Still, it astonished him how malevolent they proved to be again and again. He'd often thought, in his years before the SGC, that the embodiment of evil was the ruthless efficiency and barefaced joy of his Iraqi captors as they had tortured him. They had trained carefully in how to inflict pain. They had paid attention; no falling asleep in class that day. In the four months he'd spent in a desert dungeon, he'd come to know pain…and eventually numbness. Hopelessness. It had set in around week ten. But not with Ba'al. He'd lost all track of time there. He had no idea how much time has passed when he finally gave up. The same day that he knew that he could not go on, Daniel had arrived and tried to get him to ascend, yet he wouldn't kill Jack. He wouldn't end it that way. He gave Jack hope, somehow, by not taking his life. Even when Daniel showed up and tried to get him to ascend to avoid the endless cycle of torture, death, and revival-via-sarcophagus, Jack could see it was Daniel doing what they did even from his glowy perspective on things.

He hadn't known where SG-1 was; were they injured or captured? He didn't know what was keeping them, but Jack also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that SG-1 was looking for him and they'd never stop. That was how it'd been when he was trapped on Edora. SG-1 never gave up on him. He would never give up on them.

As he stood there peering at the Stargate rising into the heights of the SGC's underground embarkation room, he considered these things. Letting Camulus go with the supposedly tainted ZPM had not resulted in a successful trade for SG-1. He hadn't really believed it would. The Goa'uld weren't known for keeping their word and operating fairly. They were, in fact, quite renown for doing everything underhandedly and dishonorably, attaining the power they sought by any means necessary.

But while other Goa'uld System Lords were evil and egomaniacal, Ba'al was ahead of the curve.

And Ba'al still had SG-1.

The 'Gate stood immutable. Silent. The general took a deep breath and left the room, his upper body slightly ahead of the rest of him, as if pulled away by an unseen force; his feet lagging behind – wishing to plant him firmly at the foot of that ramp until his friends returned, unharmed, from their "routine reconnaissance" of Anubis' abandoned secret base. But there was a letter still sitting on his desk that he'd not yet signed.

He was staring at it. It needed something more. He decided to tell General Hammond about the events that led to his decision. So he scrolled up from his closing paragraph and started to detail the last few days to his former commanding officer. He'd just about gotten through explaining how they'd eradicated the plant that had nearly taken over the base when…

Gilmore appeared, requesting that he go to the 'Gate room. Colonel Reynolds was there. All the SG teams that were on the base had come. They were all there. They wanted to say something. They wanted him to know. They stood for him to see, to be counted. The rawness of it, the honesty clawed at his composure. He thanked them and excused himself, as an explosion of memory ran away with him.

The weight of the bars pressing into his back made it hard to breathe. They were on the merry-go-round again. The horses were pumping up and down festively as calliope music mixed with the sounds of joyous children and their parents. Everyone he loved was riding and smiling: Carter, Teal'c, Daniel, General Hammond (on a painted horse and grinning from ear-to-ear), then there was Sara and Charlie together on one. Jack could feel the sweat running into his hair and ears…or was it tears? What had Ba'al done to him now? He was hallucinating. Jack was waiting in line for the ride to stop so he could get on when, from somewhere behind him, the sound of Jaffa advancing on them caused him to turn just in time to see them begin firing on the ride.

Time slowed so that he might see every detail and burn it forever into his fevered, agonized mind. The first to be hit was Daniel. He and the horse beneath him splintered, as if both had been made of wood, sharp pieces flying in every direction and embedding themselves in the horses next to him. The next to die was General Hammond. When the blast hit him he erupted into flames and was incinerated to a horrific black charcoal approximation of a man. Then Teal'c was hit in the back as he struggled to dismount from his cartoonish ride. As the smoke from the blast cleared, Jack saw the charred mass that had become Teal'c's upper torso and Teal'c slumped lifelessly over the head of his colorfully decorated steed. As the carousel continued to spin and play its now discordant music, the sound of staff blasts filled the air and Carter was hit in the head. Her head literally fell from her shoulders as though she was merely a doll and her head and limbs were detachable. It rolled; a face and short blond hair, until it ran against the pole of another horse, stopping with Carter's face staring straight at his, her aqua eyes open, seemingly seeing him.

It had happened quickly enough, but Jack had had time to react. He fought with all that was in him to reach the only two people surviving on the horrific amusement park ride. He jumped over railings designed to herd those waiting in line. He banged his shin over the last hurdle, tripping and falling to the muddy ground mere inches from the spinning platform. As he pushed himself off the ground and threw himself onto the ride, he had to grab a pole to keep from being thrown back by the centrifugal force of the whirling wood and metal. He found them, Sara and Charlie, still riding and laughing as if they'd not seen the horrors of his friends being destroyed by the Jaffa. He took only a step towards them when they caught sight of him and waved. "Hi, Dad!" Charlie was smaller…maybe four or five. He was nestled comfortably in front of his mother on the horse as they enjoyed the experience of the carousel together. "Charlie…" Jack could only whisper his name. He turned to see the Jaffa still advancing. He saw one raise his staff and take aim.

"NO!" He screamed, and jumped towards his wife and child. But it was too late. The flash of the blast blinded him for a moment. When he could see again, it was Charlie lying dead and bloody in his mother's arms, just as it had been that day when she'd found him. She'd gathered him in her arms, crying and pleading for him to live. Now she was not pleading. She was looking at Jack with silent accusation in her eyes. He was responsible. Jack had not saved their son. He had not saved any of them.

He'd been deeply touched by the gesture of Colonel Reynolds gathering everyone together to show their support and stand solidly behind him. They trusted him, and if he left them who would come in and lead them? Jack knew he was no General Hammond, but he cared about the SGC. He knew what was at stake, and there was no one else with his experience. Suddenly, it occurred to him that maybe he simply owed it to the men and women who worked for the SGC to stay. Perhaps he wasn't the best they could get, but he knew from experience that they could do a lot worse. He needed to get away from the base so he could think, to put some sky over his head instead of heavy low-hung ceiling. He would go home and get some rest. After all, it had been three days since he'd left the base.

Their lockers stood as a vibrant reminder of their absence. SG-1 was still his team. He might not accompany then any more, but when they went through the 'Gate, his heart went with them. Even as base commander, he would always be a part of SG-1. He tried to count the number of times Daniel, Carter, and Teal'c had saved his life. He couldn't do it. It wasn't that the number was too high. It was that as he noted each time it brought back memories of shared adventures and shared horrors, which pried open Ba'al's box a little wider, forcing him to stop that line of thought.

The memory that had assaulted him earlier that day had been more complete than he usually would allow. Sometimes images could slip out of the box and flash momentarily before him, but the box was strong and would hold. It wouldn't let the whole thing out at once. But here he was, bars pressed against his back. Ba'al had SG-1. Jack refused to even consider what he might do to them. It had occurred to him that Daniel might end up having to go through sarcophagus withdrawal all over again, but Jack wouldn't think about it. He didn't have to. The possibilities were leaking out of his box and poisoning his consciousness.

He shook it off. Rest was what he needed. Siler, corridor, elevator, klaxon…he stuck his arm out and caught the doors, as the blaring noise filled the silence around him. In the control room he found that SG-1 was taking fire and trying to come through the 'Gate. Protocol would have prevented him from opening the iris. Jack thought, "Lucky I'm not inflexible…that's a leadership skill, right? Knowing when to bend the rules to save people's lives?" He had to admit, hearing them taking fire was infinitely more preferable to not hearing anything from them for two days at all and thinking that Ba'al was doing unspeakable, unthinkable things to them.

Ba'al didn't have SG-1.

It took another day to get Ba'al's box reinforced and re-situated in Jack's mind. The heavy pressure of those bars in his back had gone. The flashes of memory had stopped. He only wished he could say the same for the interruptions. He was finished with his letter. He'd considered not sending anything, but Jack knew that George would love to read it. If nothing else, he'd love to hear how contrite Jack had become about being so hard on the man. Command was not easy and respect had to be earned. Something told him that he'd gone a long way towards earning the same kind of respect that General Hammond had deserved, but he knew that he had much still to learn and much further to go.

Staying…it wasn't going to be so bad, right? The alternative for the SGC could turn out to be much worse, as Carter has so indelicately yet so accurately put it. Jack had decided, it was time to suck up his feeling of inadequacy and insecurity. Ba'al hadn't had SG-1 after all, and they did have a ZPM, even if they couldn't use it yet.

Jack signed his name to the letter and waited for Gilmore to appear. He knew it would happen soon because it had been ten whole minutes since someone had either appeared at his door or called him on the phone. It didn't take long.

The President had arrived. It was Zero Hour.