Abyss

StarGate SG-1 - Jack/Daniel

It was a bright, sunny day. Birds chirped happily in nearby trees, mocking the solemnity of the occasion. All of it was a mockery to Daniel. It should be dark and gloomy, if not raining. It was always raining at funerals in the movies. That was the way it should be. It was a day for mourning and the world damn well should be mourning with Daniel. Instead it was mocking Daniel's pain.

He should be used to it by now. He was always the one left behind. His parents when he was young. Sha'uri, not once but twice. First when she was kidnapped and taken over by the Goa'uld, then when she had physically died. Now...Now he had lost Jack as well. All the people he loved most in his life were ripped away from him after he'd only had a short time with them. But that short amount of time was more than enough to leave Daniel a shattered mess when they were taken from him.

Being involved with Jack, even just as friends, he'd endured the agonizing fear that the man was dead before. This time...This time there was no coming back. There was no Goa'uld sarcophagus handy. No Asgard technology that would prevent this death. What hit worst of all about it was Jack hadn't died in the line of duty. They hadn't been off world when a mission went wrong. Hell, they hadn't even been on a mission. They had been driving home after a dinner out with Sam and Teal'c. Jack had been teasing him about something, what Daniel couldn't recall, but the last thing he remembered was seeing the sparkle in Jack's eyes, the smirking grin, the unrestrained laughter before the world had seemed to explode in a cacophony of lights, screeching tires, and screaming metal.

He'd woken up in the base infirmary. All it had taken was seeing Sam, Teal'c, Janet and the General waiting for him. Just the presence of General Hammond had told him all he'd needed to know. Jack hadn't survived. He, who seemed to have more lives than a damn cat, had survived a fairly horrific crash with little more than a few scratches while Jack had been killed on impact.

Taking him back to his apartment, Sam had babbled on about the details of it but he hadn't heard any of it. Truth be told, he hadn't heard anything after General Hammond had quietly said, "Colonel O'Neill didn't survive the accident." After that he'd simply existed on auto-pilot allowing Sam to take him to his apartment, a place he hadn't spent more than a few minutes in over the last six months since he became involved with Jack. Hadn't protested when she'd picked out a suit for him to wear for the funeral. Hadn't protested the way there always seemed to be someone with him, someone to make sure Daniel didn't go off the deep end. If there had been anything left in him he might have laughed at that. There was no deep end for him to go off. Losing Jack was the final straw.

The funeral was over and despite Sam's protests he was going back to the base. He didn't know exactly what he said to her, made something up about needing to retrieve something from his office. Knowing how his life seemed to revolve around his work she had finally agreed, telling him they would only stop for a few minutes, that he shouldn't stay long, that he needed to take time to grieve. He knew better than to tell her that he didn't need that time, knew better than to tell her the only reason his life revolved around work was because that was where Jack was. He didn't tell her any of that. Nor did he mention the revolver in the back of the bottom left drawer of his desk. He didn't need to grieve because his world didn't exist anymore. And if his world didn't exist, what was the point of continuing to live in it?

The End