It was horrible. The fire, the water..... and that goddamn taste in my mouth. But even if the liquer tasted bad, it sure helped me calm down. A little bit. Not a lot.
It was so terrible. Started out as a normal mission.... the fire suddenly came from underneath Daniel... God, no, don't think about that. But... the fire... that awful fire that burn him into ashes.... him calling for help... no... help...
Gulping down the rest of the old fashion beer with tears in my eyes, I hadn't notice Colonel O'Neill also walk in the bar. Hadn't noticed until he sat himself next to me.
"You know, I don't think that you should drink any more than that." He pointed out, his voice strangely void of emotions.
I winced. The bar suddenly got read loud, with tons of people trying to talk over each other. But I got to be weary of that. "Just because I'm a female doesn't mean that I can't drink. And I'll keep drinking until I see a written statement signed by the president that I can't drink."
I wasn't looking at O'Neill, but I could feel his agreement.
"I'll have a beer too," He said to the bartender. Then he turned to look at me. "If this is about Daniel..."
"Damn straight it's about Daniel." I snapped at him, harder than I intended. Captains aren't supposed to snap at superiors, but right now, it didn't matter. I felt miserable, and he just wanted in on me when I needed my privacy. "Unless you can tell me that I'm dreaming, and that everything in the past few days didn't happen, I don't think that you should dwell on that matter."
He narrowed his eyes at me. "I can't tell you that. But no one could have known that-"
I laughed. It was an wild, insane laugh. One that would send me to the mental shelters. "No one could have known? Known what? That the fire was going to come from underneith him and snap him up in the jaws of Hell? And don't give me that bullshit. 'Oh, I'm Jack O'Neill and I can make it aaaaall right.'" My heart was jumping. "Daniel here would be all right."
His fist went down hard on the table. Another wince from me. Okay, so I shouldn't snap at him at all... I'm just feeling real bad right now. "You think that I don't feel a loss too?" He nearly shouted at me. My eyes turned wide, but I held my ground there and didn't move.
Seeing my reaction, O'Neill slowly came back to his senses. "Sorry. But you have to know that Daniel wasn't just your friend. He was a good kid."
I was starting to calm down, too. Maybe the beer was taking it's effect. "Yeah," I drawled out slowly. With a sigh, I poured myself more beer as the bartender arrived with the Colonel's beer. "First I've met with any sense."
The Colonel chuckle besides me. "Sense? Who said he had any sense? Runs up to someone and goes, 'Hi! How are you?' in the friendliest manner ever- in enemy grounds. Too naive, I'll say."
"Too innocent." I corrected him, soft enough so that he wouldn't hear.
O'Neill just stared at his beer for a moment. "No one deserves a death like that." I could tell that he was thinking about the fire, too. The vision was so vivd, so real... Then he changed the subject a bit. "He was the only one that I could really take out on. Afterwards, he'd just give me this grin and shake his head, thinking I'm a big joke, and that it was all right. I don't know why, but it made my feel a lot better."
Wow. This made me think. "I remember..." I choked down a dry sob that threatened to come up. "I never met anyone so enthusiastic. After he stopped thinking about Sha're 24 hours a day, he was a really good friend. We would have these big study nights where we'd both just fuss over practically anything and everything. He'd be working on artifacts, and I'd be working on some paper on astronomy." I paused. God. It was just plain hard to express why Daniel was so special to me. He was like a brother.
A brother.
I hadn't even known him for hald a year yet, and yet I held him so dear. And to think, the Colonel's known him for even longer....
O'Neill nodded. "I understand." That was what he said. And for some reason, I knew that he understood. "Danny's held it together for a while. I thought that he would break down when Sha're got taken away. Wasn't as if he didn't- but he actually got it back together."
I smiled. "More than you thought?"
"Well... he surprised me. It doesn't happen often."
I felt tired. Really tires. "Yeah, well, I don't get surprised that much, either. But I just don't get Daniel." I saw the colonel tip his head at me in curiosity. "He'd be bouncing up and down at one thing, then be completely sympathic to something else, then go into a withdrawl as fast as things come and go." I shook my head. "I just don't understand the most- WHY? Daniel is the sweetest, kindest, most sensible person-" I tried to blink the tears that suddenly came into my eyes off. "I have ever met before. Unless he did something really bad before, which I doubt he did, he deserves a lot better than this. If I'm not correct, he had a really hard life, was broke before the Stargate program, and was so smart that he figured something that others didn't want to believe to be true. And he was right!
"Then- he had to suffer being torn away from his wife, and a normal life that he valued above all else, just because we didn't want to leave him alone. He came with us, went through countless missions, and then die in such an... an insunificant manner!" I blurted out, feeling disgusted with myself.
The colonel stayed silent for just a moment. "I don't understand it either." He told me. "But I won't ever forget the time when he told me- well, not directly, but he did... that there was so much more to life." He stopped.
"How?" I urged, wanting to hear this.
"You know of the original mission." He continued.
I knew. I nearly memorized that mission. But there were no personnal details in there. The report hadn't told of what everyone said. It just said that it was a suicide mission.
A suicide mission. Oh, Gawd...
"I was... wondering about blowing the whole place up... Daniel had found out. He hadn't told anyone yet, but he just walked up to me in the chamber where we were hiding. I still remember his words. I... I told him that no one should have to outlive their child." The colonel's eyes were turned down. "Then he told me that no one should have to outlive their parent." His eyes turned back to me. "He told me that it was a shame that I wanted to die- while everyone else wanted to live."
I was quiet. For the first time in a long time, I got to see that I might have judged someone wrong. It was obivous that the colonel had also held Daniel as a good friend, one that was not likely to come around for some time. "Daniel was everyone's friend." I summerized.
"Yes, he was." The colonel said with a smile. Then he clapped me on the arm, something that certainly didn't happen much. "Come on. You don't want to miss Daniel's Wake." He stood up from the bar, turned around stiffly, and walked out the door.
At that moment, I decided that there was still much to know about Colonel Jack O'Neill. And a bit of apologizing to do. But right now, we would join in a common cause of mourning the death of a friend.