Title: One True Thing
Author/Email: Jo. R (Jo@ram32.freeserve.co.uk)
Rating: PG.
Season/Sequel: End of the series, whichever season that
is. Also the end of the Light and Dark series. This story follows 'Stupid' or
can follow 'Do What You Have to Do'.
Category: Thoughts, S/J UST.
Spoilers: Lost City slightly.
Summary: Whenever there's a beginning, there's
always an end. Whenever there's an end, there's always a beginning.
Disclaimer: If they were mine, this is probably how
I'd like to see the whole Stargate SG-1 series end.
For everyone who's ever dared to believe in
something, even when it seemed like it could never happen. When I was 13, I
decided I wanted to go to a place called Vancouver because one of my best
friends moved to Canada and sent me a postcard. The friendship died a long time
ago but the dream never did and last year it finally came true.
"You stay the course, you hold the line, you keep it
all together
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in
You're all the things that I desire,
You save me, You complete me
You're the one true thing I know I can believe in."
- 'One True Thing', Sarah McLachlan
=*=
This was it.
The day they'd been waiting or.
The one they'd been dreading; the one they'd been
hoping for.
It was over.
Completely. Utterly. Totally.
Over.
Anubis was dead. The Goa'uld had been defeated –
all of them, not just the System Lords. The Asgard, the Nox, the remaining
Tollan and the Tok'ra had joined forces with Earth and the rebel Jaffa. The
second SGC facility had discovered more information about the Ancients and
their history, so much that they'd been able to give the SGC some new gate
addresses.
One of those had paid off.
SG-1 hadn't been the team to originally go there
but they'd been called in to help with the proceedings, using information from
their past missions to convince the Ancients they were worthy of their help. That
their alliance and the races that formed it were worthy of their help.
General Jack O'Neill had helped a lot there. The
moment he'd walked through the Stargate they'd known what he had done. Knew
what he'd sacrificed for the good of his people. It had been a surreal
experience for the man himself, almost like being welcomed home by a family of
strangers.
It was over.
The war was won and the four original members of
SG-1 found themselves at a loss of what to do next.
After much deliberation, Daniel had decided to do
what most of their colleagues were doing: stay with the program and continue to
explore without the fear that he'd be risking his life every time he stepped
off world.
He wasn't the only one to jump at the chance to
explore the civilisations of the wider universe. Doctor Sarah Gardner had
requested she be ale to join a team after having recovered as much as she could
do from the ordeal she'd been put through at the hands of the Goa'uld. Her
Doctor had advised her it was probably the only thing she could do to complete
the healing process: confront the memories of her former captor by going to
those places she'd been to and realising that there was no longer danger
waiting for her at every turn.
General O'Neill had agreed to her request and one
of his last acts as Commander of the SGC was to create a team of
archaeologists, headed by no other than Daniel Jackson, who would travel off
world to all the planets that had been deemed safe.
His very last act had been to say goodbye to a very
dear friend, a brother, and establish a Goa'uld-free Jaffa colony with Teal'c
acting as the Ambassador between Earth and the newly reformed Chulak. The
parting had been bittersweet for them all but they took comfort in knowing it
wasn't forever.
"The Gate will always be open for you,"
Jack had said, clasping Teal'c's arm before pulling him into an embrace.
"Well, not literally but you know what I mean."
Teal'c had responded with the smallest of smiles, a
nod and the words 'indeed I do, O'Neill.'
The original SG-1 was no more but a new SG-1 was
created.
No one could expect them to last forever. Not at
the rate people grew and changed and chose to follow different paths.
There had been some concern for the President and
Joint Chiefs that Colonel Carter – promoted just days before the Ancients had
been contacted – would choose to follow in General O'Neill's footsteps and
retire but they had been relieved when she'd decided that wouldn't be the case.
Even more so when she'd passed up on the offer to transfer back to the Pentagon
in favour of heading up the newly established science department at the SGC.
Colorado was her home, she'd explained during her
meeting with them. It was the only place in her entire life she'd stayed in for
so long. As a child her family had moved wherever her father's career had taken
him. As an adult, in the years before she'd been reassigned to the SGC for the
second time, she'd moved wherever her own career had taken her and hadn't
stayed in one place for more than a few years at a time. She had made a home
for herself, finally, and that home was in Colorado Springs.
If she was needed to fight again, on or off world,
she'd do what she could but in the meantime she was perfectly content in her lab
with a team of scientists buzzing around her, playing with whatever technology
the exploration units brought home for her.
General O'Neill wasn't so eager to stay. They'd
tried to talk him out of it, offered some very tempting benefits in an attempt
at getting him to stay but he'd turned down every one of them.
His former teammates had moved on and it was time
for him to do the same thing.
It didn't mean it was without more than a little
sadness that he packed his personal belongings into the cardboard box he'd
brought with him. He'd spent more than half of his time as General trying to
get used to having the office with the red phone and the comfy leather chair
and he was going to miss it when it no longer belonged to him but he couldn't
change his mind.
Wouldn't change his mind.
There was a very good reason he wouldn't.
He glanced around the office one final time as he
hefted the box into his arms, a fond smile on his face as he remembered. It was
the place he'd first met General Hammond, the place he'd been recalled to
action after retiring for the first time. There was still a piece of concrete
missing from the wall where he'd kicked at it while under the influence of one
of those damn armband and there was the star chart that separated the office
from the briefing room, wobbling now after the connecting door being slammed in
the heat of the moment so many times during so many arguments.
Most involving him.
His heart was heavy but also strangely light. It
was weird that it could be both things as he left Hammond's office – and he
still thought of it as Hammond's – for the last time and headed for the
elevators.
Box in hand he called for the elevator, smiling
when the doors opened for him. He stepped inside, nodded at the other occupant
and pressed the button.
It wasn't such a bad thing, even though it was
ending.
His life wasn't ending – for a change – and neither
were the lives of his teammates.
One part of their lives, one aspect of it, SG-1 as
a team was ending but it wasn't all doom and gloom. It wasn't all tears and
heartbreak.
He glanced away from the contents of the box in his
arms and looked at the woman standing next to him.
*Really* looked.
Admired.
Like he was finally allowed to do.
One thing was ending and it was sad that it was but
when Sam returned his grin with a shy smile of her own, Jack knew that
something else was beginning.
Something they'd waited for.
Something they'd believed in.
Something that was finally free to leave the room
and be let free in the outside world.
=*=
Fini.
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