Title:
Division
Author:
Christi (christim@comcast.net)
Rating:
PG, maybe PG-13?
Timeline:
Err…technically, I guess this happens across the end of Season 8 and Season 9,
but as it’s a sequel of sorts, it’s more relevant to know that it’s part of my
earlier mini!series.
Disclaimer:
Y’know, belated birthday presents are always nice….
Author’s
Note: R
--
“The
first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you
want.”
-Ben Stein
--
By the time
senior year rolled around, Jack found that their former lives as interstellar
superheroes se
So
surprisingly, he didn’t think about it much. Life as an
American teenager was hard enough—why complicate it more than they had
to? They had their hands full with part time jobs and college applications and trying
to avoid attracting too much attention. All they really needed from their old
lives was the stipend that arrived in the mail once a month without fail.
Though
admittedly, if he asked Sam, she’d tell him that they could have used a
naquadah reactor, too. Y’know, to save on electric bills.
But in
general, they were determined to manage on their own.
--
“The roof
is leaking again.”
“I know.
T and I are going to check it out this weekend.”
“All right. Hey, don’t forget that Daniel and I are taking the car on Saturday.”
“…Why is
that, again?”
“We’ve
got the Academic Challenge tournament, remember?”
He
hadn’t. “Oh. Right. Do you want me and T to come? Because we could do that instead.”
“That’s
sweet, but unnecessary. It’s going to be dreadfully boring. I still can’t
believe Daniel suckered me into it.”
“He has a
bad habit of doing that. You sure you don’t want us there?” There was a side of
him that found watching Daniel and Sam beat self-important teenagers into the
ground without breaking a sweat incredibly entertaining.
Unfortunately,
she simply smiled and kissed him. “No, what I want is not to get woken up on rainy mornings by the incessant
dripping.”
As he’d finally gotten used to being able to
touch her, Jack kept her close. “I can take care of that,” he stated
confidently. And when she leveled him with a slightly disbelieving glance, he just
grinned. “Well, I’ll try, anyway.”
--
Because feeding
and clothing four teenagers on an income regulated by a less-than-generous
federal government was no easy task, it had been clear early on that getting
jobs wasn’t going to be an option, but a necessity. Luckily, SG-1’s freakishly
good luck in the field translated rather well to the rat race of obtaining
gainful part-time
Daniel fell
into the most obvious choice, ending up with a clerk position at the local
library. Sure, it wasn’t the same as translating artifacts from a galaxy far,
far away, but books had managed to make Daniel happy long before the Stargate
program and as it turned out, they still did. Seeing as the guy organized
things into the Dewey decimal syst
They all
thought for awhile that Teal’c might go into some kind of security, but as it
turned out, you had to be eighteen for that sort of thing. Instead, he had managed
to get a recommendation from his Life Sciences teacher for a job as a chef’s
assistant. Why, exactly, T found it so entertaining to slice vegetables for
hours on end, Jack would never understand. But it made the
big guy happy and he often brought home free food, so Jack wasn’t about to
complain.
Sam’s job came about by accident.
She had spent a lot of the last year haunting the local garage, looking for
parts to fix up the mess of a junker that Jack had
been suckered into buying. Eventually, the guys that worked there had just gotten
used to having her around. Now, she was probably the only seventeen year old
girl in the
Jack loved her job too, because
she always came home smelling like engine grease and sweat. He’d always had a
thing for blondes who fixed cars—Sara had been elbow deep in the engine of a
Ford pick-up when he blurted out his proposal. Besides, whenever she managed to
fix some previously unfixable machine, her smile was just as bright as the old
‘I’ve conquered an indecipherable piece of alien technology’ grin he had loved
for so long. But now, instead of being secretly enamored and having to hide it
with a sarcastic r
Hey, even the new and improved
Jack O’Neill, version 2.0 could only handle so much cute before feeling
slightly nauseated.
As for Jack himself, well, that
had been a little more difficult. He’d tried a number of jobs, and they were
all...fine. His stint as a tour guide for the local planetarium had been fun
for awhile, and he’d liked working at the daycare, too. The pizza delivery job
meant lots of free food, but the junker hadn’t liked
the amount of driving. A t
Finally, after going through six
jobs and more than his average amount of patience, Jack landed the perfect gig.
Now, three days a week after
school and alternating weekends, he drove the Zamboni at the local ice rink.
--
It was
the state hockey finals, but instead of enjoying a nice long warm-up like the
rest of the guys, Jack was being served the third degree.
“You’re
sure you’ve got all your pads on?”
“Yes.”
“And the
ice is clean and smooth or whatever?”
“Finished it an hour ago.”
“Is that
long enough? I mean, is it all refrozen or whatever?”
“For God’s sake, Daniel. I’d swear you were my mother.”
Daniel
made a face. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t concern. It’s just that when
you broke your arm last year playing this infernal sport, it cost us a small
fortune to get it set.”
“This
coming from the guy who tripped down the stairs and broke multiple ribs not
even three months ago.”
At least
Daniel had the grace to look chagrined. Really, neither one of them wanted to
admit that being a teenage boy was just damn awkward. Sometimes, your feet got
away from you.
While Sam
laughed at their antics and ate popcorn, Teal’c glowered at the rink. “I still
feel that this sport is inferior to football, O’Neill. I do not understand why
you persist in participating.”
“You’re
just grumpy because we won’t let you play, T.”
Everyone
had agreed that the idea of Teal’c on ice skates while wielding a hockey stick
was enough to strike terror into the hearts of teenagers everywhere. As such,
he had been forbidden to play.
Teal’c,
of course, saw it as a form of tyrannical oppression and had on several
occasions, threatened to overthrow them. In-between these bursts of rebellion,
however, he tended to sulk.
Sam, in
her blue winter hat and (mostly) blue mittens, leaned forward and slapped
Jack’s helmet. “What are you still doing here? Go kick some ass.”
He
fastened the chin guard and smirked at her. “And to think those peppy
cheerleading skills come completely naturally. A waste of god-given talent, I’m
telling you.”
On his
way back towards the ice, he had to duck the popcorn kernels she pelted in his
direction.
--
Romance,
as it turned out, was a bit of a sticking point. Oh, Jack was set just fine—he
had Sam, who was beautiful and brilliant and devious. She somehow managed to look
deceptively sweet and innocent while secretly hoarding a repertoire of sexual
positions that even made him blush
from time to time. (What’s more, thanks to the extr
Daniel
and Teal’c, on the other hand, had no convenient fellow clone with whom they had unresolved issues to fall for. Strangely, for
Teal’c, this turned out not to be much of a probl
After all,
he had been over a hundred before the
whole cloning incident—if he only dated women that matched his intellectual
age, he’d be forced to become a permanent fixture at the local nursing home. So,
Teal’c did not hesitate to date.
And date.
And date
some more. Oh, he always treated the girls with the utmost respect (it wasn’t
in Teal’c to do otherwise), he just enjoyed playing the field.
Realistically,
his dating habits were probably a good thing—the constant entrance and exit of
girls in Teal’c’s life forced th
No,
Daniel found the whole prospect of dating someone who didn’t r
--
“I kissed
her.”
Seeing as
Jack hadn’t even known Daniel was dating someone, this was quite a surprise.
“You kissed who?”
“Julie.”
“Er…Julie who?”
Why did
Daniel se
“Julie Be…wait. You kissed Miss
Beech? The AP history teacher?”
“Yes. I
did.”
To be
clear, Daniel could do worse than Miss Beech, a very pretty woman in her early
thirties. But the fact r
“Daniel,
that’s bad on so many levels.”
“I know!”
“I mean,
she’s your teacher.”
“I know!”
“You’re
her student!”
“Jack,
for God’s sake, I know! I just…we
were arguing over the order of the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs and she was laughing
and I just…forgot. Don’t worry, I apologized. Promised it
wouldn’t happen again.”
“Yeah.”
Really, it was sort of sad—Miss Beech and the older Daniel would have made a
nice couple. But saying that certainly wouldn’t help anyone.
After a
moment of silence, Jack couldn’t help but ask. “Was it a good kiss?”
Daniel
didn’t even hesitate. “Oh,
yeah.”
Definitely a shame. “Well, you can always tell her to call you after
graduation.”
--
Despite
Daniel’s Mrs. Robinson-esque fiasco, they really were
doing okay on their own. And while they didn’t dwell on their old lives, they
certainly didn’t ignore th
When they
heard that the Prometheus (as well as
Daniel) had been hijacked by some alien chick in leather, Jack laughed for
days. The news of Rya’c’s nuptials was celebrated by
the procur
On the
other hand, when news of Jacob’s death arrived, they lit a candle and sat in
the living room with Sam, three friends trying to help her reconcile the loss
of someone who was no longer hers to mourn.
Somehow,
they had managed to find a balance between respecting what had been without
letting it mean everything—they no longer lived and died by the triumphs and
failures of their old lives. They celebrated and mourned briefly because once
upon a time, these people had been their everything.
But eventually, that faded and all they had left was each other—and
surprisingly, they had discovered over the years that it was more than enough.
Still, it
had to be admitted that when the big news came—the end of the Replicators, the disappearance of Anubis,
the effective demise of the Goa’uld—they hadn’t been
quite prepared.
Despite
all of their well-adjusted practices, some small part of th
Now…there
was no reason for th
Because
they didn’t quite know how to deal with it, they quickly fell back on their
tried and true routine: avoidance.
After
all, the SATs were right around the corner.
--
“I still
do not understand the point of these ‘analogies’, Daniel Jackson.”
“That’s
because you’re thinking too hard, Teal’c. There isn’t really a point. It’s just a way for people t
Two years
ago, Teal’c would have stated that judging a young man’s skill in battle
tactics would accomplish this more thoroughly.
Today, he
merely turned back to his studies. “Are my previous achiev
“Ah, the
question teenagers have been asking for eighty years. Don’t stress yourself out
too much, T, you’re a shoo-in for a football scholarship.”
“Jack. He shouldn’t count on that. The
SATs are important!”
“Daniel,
you’re just pissy because they changed the format and
now you have to write an essay.”
“Well, no
one can write an effective essay in twenty minutes or less! Developing a good
argument takes time and research and….”
“And
endless lectures on very boring things. We know.”
Daniel
was glaring at him again. Jack just smirked and went back to his biology
homework. Eventually, Daniel followed suit, turning back to poor, confused T.
“Focus,
Teal’c. Tenet is to philosopher as….”
--
Unfortunately,
avoidance didn’t work that long. Somehow over the course of this bizarre return
to puberty, the four of th
So it wasn’t
really a surprise that when the awkward silences became too much to handle,
Daniel locked them all in the living room ‘to discuss this new development’. And
at first, it was strained and they were pissed at him.
Well,
Jack was still pissed at him. But that was normal.
Still,
the result was one very long
discussion. And while no answers were reached right away, one thing was
clear—whatever they decided to do, they would do it together.
After
all, being together had gotten them this far.
When
Daniel finally let them out, satisfied that they had met their quota of
heart-to-hearts for the next millennia, Jack took a walk, thinking over their
options.
College
was an obvious option. The question was really more where they would end up.
Staying in
And of
course, there was the Air Force. It was probably the quickest way to lead th
Strangely,
Jack found himself toying with the idea of someplace far away. An out of state
school on the East coast, or maybe the Midwest—someplace completely new, where
they could live their lives without the specter of the Stargate hanging over
them.
Because
even though he missed his old life sometimes, upon further reflection Jack
found that he didn’t really want it back.
--
Back in
the living room, they huddled together, discovering that they didn’t really
need to argue about the decision—just the particulars.
“I know
Jack
wrinkled his nose. “Sam, a lot of things may have changed over the past few years,
but how I feel about
Sam
snorted with disbelieving laughter. “There’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
Seeing as
he entirely agreed with her sentiment, Jack couldn’t object. “What about
Daniel,
however, winced. “I’m not a huge fan of
When Sam
whispered “Gamekeeper,” Jack understood—as he knew too well, some m
Teal’c,
who had been silently examining a map of the
They sat
in silence for a moment, eyeing one another. “Teal’c…” Jack said slowly, “That’s…not
a horrible idea.”
“Not too
far, but not too close,” Daniel commented. “Great museums.”
“
“It could
work,” Jack reiterated. “What made you think of it, Teal’c?”
Teal’c
appeared very solemn. “I have been told that
Admittedly,
it wasn’t a great reason to move across the country. But together, they decided
that it was good enough.
--
Once the
decision had been made, a curious sense of relief seemed to overtake their
little house. Now, instead of constantly lurking about and avoiding probing
questions about “the future” from every direction, they could make plans. There
were forms to fill out and packing to do and travel arrangements to make.
For the
first time, they could look into the future and see something besides
hypotheticals. They had a definite destination and somehow, it made it easier
to imagine a future that didn’t involve the past.
Daniel
was actually considering going into Sociology instead of Archeology. Sam was
leaning towards Engineering instead of Physics. Teal’c began training for his
first s
Because
he wasn’t brilliant like Sam or Daniel and wasn’t a football hero like Teal’c,
Jack’s major worry was getting into the same school they did. As such, he
agonized over his applications—Sam joked that it was probably the most time he
had spent on paperwork in his entire life.
She was
right, of course.
Good test
scores and a solid acad
It certainly
wasn’t something he could have done two years ago. But then again, that was
sort of the point.
Before
they were quite ready for it, the harried frenzy of the last months of senior
year was upon them. People passed around yearbooks and took ridiculous photos
and played a truly pathetic senior prank. And while they didn’t participate in
any of it, the four of them watched and laughed and enjoyed it.
Surrounded
by hundreds of eighteen year olds throwing themselves into the future at
breakneck speeds, it was hard not to be excited about change.
--
Senior
Week had been one slightly campy activity after another, culminating in the one
event Jack had been looking forward to—Senior Skip Day. Of course,
traditionally you were supposed to use the extra day to prepare for Prom, which
was on the following evening. But considering that they were only going to Prom
because they had all been nominated for Prom King and Queen respectively (despite
their very vocal objections), Jack could ignore the agonizing over every detail
of the ritual.
Instead,
he went searching for Sam, who he found in the driveway, loading a few bags
into the junker. “Going somewhere?”
She
tilted her head. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Well, it
depends.”
“On what, exactly?”
Sam
sighed, slamming the trunk. “I turned eighteen last week.”
Jack
knew—he had been there. There had been cake. Good cake, because Teal’c had made
it. “I remember.”
“And you
were eighteen in January.”
Honestly,
he still had issues with birthdays. But according to the piece of paper the
government had given him when this whole thing started, she was right.
“Yes…and…so?”
“Well, it’s
Senior Skip Day. Meaning no school.”
Eventually,
she’d get to a point. He was almost positive. “Okay….”
“I figure
if we leave now, we can be back in time for the Prom tomorrow.”
“Leave
for where, Carter?”
“…Vegas.”
Whoa. He
had so not been expecting that. But
now that he thought about it, the idea was, in typical Carter fashion,
brilliant. “Really?”
It wasn’t
until now that he could see how nervous she was. “Yeah.
I mean, if you still want to.”
“Sam…you
have no idea.”
--
Because
he really had thought about this day more than he’d ever admit, Jack didn’t let
her rush things. Together with the boys, they scraped up enough cash for plane
tickets (because he didn’t trust the junker not to
break down and strand them in the middle of the desert). It was extravagant,
buying four round trip tickets on such short notice—but this was a budget
breaker they all agreed was worth the trouble.
Once
there, things fell into place. They picked out the cheapest rings they could
find (plain bands of silver) and Sam found a dress that didn’t annoy her to
death (shimmery and blue). Conveniently, the first wedding chapel they walked
into was surprisingly not too garish and had an immediate opening.
There
weren’t any last-minute jitters or doubts, no qualms at all. Just Sam with some
lilies in her hand and Jack in the only suit he had (the shoes were a size too
small already).
Daniel (and
possibly even Teal’c) cried. Jack, on the other hand, couldn’t stop grinning.
Sam, for her part, mocked th
Afterwards,
it didn’t matter that their flight got delayed. They toasted over bad airport
food (Teal’c found the cuisine particularly upsetting) and dozed in
uncomfortable chairs. When they finally got back to
Teal’c
and one of his many girlfriends ended up getting crowned King and Queen. That
was fine, seeing as Jack and Sam were perfectly content with their new titles.
Besides, winning would have been a bit of a cliché—Jack already felt ridiculous
knowing that on prom night, he was so
getting laid.
--
Monday
morning brought the last week of school and a concerned summons from the school
guidance counselor for the pair.
Apparently,
Mr. Bennet was concerned over “this drastic life choice.”
Mr.
Bennet, Jack was amused to note, was all of twenty-six years old.
While the
“older” man droned on about rash decisions and the difficulties ahead of th
I’m having a hard time taking this
seriously.
Sam
glanced at his note and rolled her eyes. I
hadn’t noticed.
Can you blame me?
Not really. But passing notes?
Really, Jack? You never would have done this in a briefing.
Oh, but I wanted to. Daniel can drone on, you know.
I know. I’m just saying. Next,
you’ll be asking me ‘Can we go to second base tonight? Check yes or no.’
Sam...at
this point, we’ve kind of blown second base out of the water. Repeatedly and with great enthusiasm.
He caught
her trying to stifle a giggle at that one. Good
point. Then, she ogled him a little, heaving a sigh. Where’s a storage closet when you need one?
--
Graduation
came and went, and by the end of the next week, everything was ready. Housing
in
When the
time came, Jack found himself dawdling,
double-checking to make sure nothing had been left behind and imprinting
everything in his memory one last time.
Sam fixing the junker in the driveway.
Playing catch with Teal’c in the front yard.
Daniel throwing his history textbook at the TV.
Strange
that he found himself more sentimental over this old dump than he had even been
about the SGC in recent months.
It didn’t
last long though, because he had finally learned that everything he really
needed was already loaded into the junker. Teal’c, behind the wheel waiting patiently. Daniel, studying a map way
too intently. And Sam, stretched along the back seat, ordering him to
get a move on with a smile and sinfully short cut-offs.
Admittedly,
this life had been forced upon him. He had been miserable at the prospect of
it, feeling that he’d been forcibly and unjustifiably ripped from everything
that had been important to him.
Now, he
wondered why he would have wanted anything else.
--
Settling
along the back seat with Sam tucked alongside him, Jack plucked the map
straight out of Daniel’s hands. “That’s
not a good idea.”
With
Teal’c already driving the car down the street, Daniel pouted. “Jack. I can
navigate perfectly well.”
“Oh, I
know you can. But if you navigate,
we’ll somehow find ourselves driving two days out of the way to see a
completely ridiculous and useless artifact, like the World’s Largest Cheeto or
something.”
“I would
never take us that far out of our way for a Cheeto! I don’t even like Cheetos!”
“Fine.
Still, I'd be willing to bet that we'd find ourselves at way more than one so-called 'historical'
landmark.”
“Hmph.”
“O’Neill.”
“Yes, Teal’c?”
“I would
very much like to see this Cheeto.”
“…D’oh!”
Against
his chest, he could feel Sam quaking with giggles. Looking up at him, she
grinned. “Whose idea was it to drive all
the way to
*fin*