BLIND SPOT BY PHOENIX E

"I should have seen it coming."

Jack's voice sounds so tired, and full of defeat.  We've lost Teal'c - probably for good this time and of course, Jack is blaming himself for letting it happen.

I know how he feels.  I should have seen this coming as well.  I think - I think I did, I just didn't want to see what I was…seeing.

But enough of that.  Jack's actually talking about what happened on Vorash.  I wasn't sure if he would, when I first asked him if he wanted to.  But he is. And he's saying exactly what I expected him to.  Mea culpa.  All my fault.  He's consistent.  Dead wrong, in this case, but consistent.

I might not have known anything about the actual events on Vorash until Jack started telling me, but I've had some time to think about how they ended up there. Plenty of time to worry and agonise about little else since he radioed us to tell us they weren't on the way back to the ship like they were supposed to be.  I've had too much time to ponder the price of obsession and Jaffa revenge after that Mayday and then silence - nothing - knowing only that they were going down, but not if either one of them was still alive.

I've run through the whole thing over and over in my head and I do know something for sure.  What happened on Vorash - that they were even there at all - it wasn't Jack's fault.  He doesn't believe that, of course.  All he can see is a member of his team, his friend, got taken out while he was on Jack's watch, and even though last time I looked he wasn't omniscient - his claims to the contrary - even though there was no possible way he could have anticipated or prevented what happened, he still thinks he should have been able to.  He should have known, should have seen it coming, shouldn't have let it happen.

That's just not right. Jack did everything he could, considering they shouldn't even have been there in the first place. The wonder is we didn't lose both of them. Stupid, the whole thing was just so stupid.   So damned unnecessary.  Jack's nowhere near being able to see this, so I'm going to have to take it a little slow, here.  Try and break it to him gently.

"But isn't the point of a good ambush that you don't see it coming?" I reply. 

Well, that was clever.  Not exactly overwhelming Jack with my insight, here. He's not with me.  Try again.

"Okay, the point I'm trying to make here is I'm sure you did your best."

Silence.  I haven't once looked at him since I sat down here beside him, but I don't need to.  I can feel the despair and grief rolling from him in waves.  He's not cutting himself any slack about this.  He's to blame, end of story  -  he's not going to see it any other way without a little help. I don't have to look at him to know how he's feeling and why, the same way I know the next words out of his mouth are going to be along the lines of 'well, it wasn't good enough, was it?' Or something like that.

"Apparently, my best wasn't good enough," he softly, bleakly mutters.

Close enough.  He's perched on the brink of that slippery slope that'll shoot him straight down into self-pitysville.  Sorry, Jack, not today.  I'm cancelling your trip.  I know how much this hurts, it's tearing me up as well, but dammit, I'm not going to let you take the rap for the results of a selfish, pointless, deliberate, wilful act that probably got Teal'c killed and maybe will be the end of us as well. I'm sorry about Teal'c, I am, but I'm also so angry with him.  I'm sorry he's - he's - gone - but if he'd taken you with him…

Besides, if anything, I'm just as much to blame for this - maybe, maybe more, even, because I've known - but I didn't want to believe it.  I didn't warn Jack and I should have.  Oh God, I should have warned Jack.   Why didn't I say something!

Well, I'm going to say something now. Jack might hate me for it, but I'm going to tell him the truth.  We can't change what happened, we can't help Teal'c now, maybe we can't even help ourselves.  There's a very good chance none of us are going to be alive much longer so it's likely he won't have long to stew about it if I say nothing, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let Jack hurt himself over this. I just wish I hadn't left my own head in the sand for so long about Teal'c, that I'd said something, especially after what Teal'c told me back on Vorash, everything that's happened, what I know… The signs have all been there for so long. I should have faced it, should have said, maybe if I'd made Jack listen to me, forced him to look at the blind spot he has about Teal'c….

The one we all have.

"Whatever you say, Jack," I begin roughly. "But if we're talking butt-kicking time here, move over. I want a piece of the action.  No reason why you should have all the fun.  You're not the only one who needs their ass booted into the middle of next week."

Jack starts, not just at what I've said, but the way I've said it.  Oh yeah, you heard right.  I'm angry.  I'm not just angry at Teal'c, I'm angry at myself.  I should have seen this coming. I didn't want to believe Teal'c could really do something like this. To Jack.  To - to us.  I guess none of us wanted to see it.  Not me.  Especially not Jack.

"Hey."  Jack says gently as he bangs his leg against my shoulder.  "What's this all about?"  He's instantly responded to my abrupt change of mood.  Puzzled, concerned for me, forgetting all about his own misery of the moment.  He cares.  That's why he's Jack.

Next time I will not be capable of such restraint.

Teal'c voice is like a death knell in my head.  And an accusation. You told me right there, didn't you Teal'c?  You warned me.  I just wasn't listening.  You sat there and told me the next time you had the chance you weren't going to let Tanith get away.  No matter what it took to get to him.  Or who you took with you.

I heard you.  I just wasn't listening.

"What this is about is who is really to blame for - for -"  I wave a hand in the air, "the mess we're all in.  I'll see your 'I should have seen it coming' and raise you an 'I should have said something'.  I talked to Teal'c on Vorash.  After you came back from searching on the surface for Tanith.  He said some things I should have taken a little more seriously - I should have - "

"Crap, Daniel," Jack grumbles, the defensive edge I was waiting to hear already in his voice.  'You're not starting with the Shan'auc garbage again, are you?  I told you before there was nothing to worry about."

Ouch!  Jack still can't say her name without getting his back up. The fact that Teal'c - his 'brother', chose Shan'auc over him - that hurt Jack.  Teal'c might not have meant for Jack to take it personally, but he did. When he stood there and told us he was leaving the SGC all Jack heard was Teal'c was leaving him.  And when I tried to talk to him about it later, ask him if maybe we shouldn't be a little concerned about the implications of Teal'c's resignation - he vented all over me, then shut me out and refused to talk about it.

He still doesn't get it.  He wasn't angry about Shan'auc.  She wasn't the problem, she was only a symptom.  A very alarming reminder of a pre-existing, longstanding - problem. A problem none of us wanted to acknowledge or look at, and because we didn't - look where it's gotten us.

"Jack," I sigh. "What I'm trying to tell you - it has everything to do with Shan'auc. Or rather, what she represents.  It goes to the heart of who Teal'c is.  What we wouldn't see about him - believe about him.  He chose her over us once and we brushed it aside like it didn't happen. He was going to leave us, Jack!  The only reason he didn't is because Shan'auc was murdered."

"I know that's what he said, but he wouldn't have gone through with it,"  Jack mutters stubbornly.  "He was just, a little - you know - but we would have talked him out of it.  He wouldn't have walked out on us."

Even Jack doesn't really believe what he's saying.  I can hear it in his voice.  He wants to.  He really wants to. Jack might not want admit it, especially to himself, but he has quite an investment in Teal'c.  Jack's the man who scored a big one on Apophis. He's the guy who said the word and turned his First Prime from the dark side.  Just like that.  Jack called and Teal'c answered. Jack's pretty proud of that.  Teal'c is Jack's 'discovery'.  His protégé.   His pride and joy.  He found him, converted him, vouched for him, and sponsored him.  Jack's got a lot riding on Teal'c being everything Jack thinks he is.  His need for Teal'c to be his noble, unimpeachably loyal 'brother in arms' has made him turn a bit of a blind eye to some of the 'blips' along the way -  subtle, troublesome indications there are things in Teal'c none of us want to believe are there, and yet, considering who and what he has been - how could they not be?

"Yes, Jack, he would have," I counter.  It comes out a little harsher than I intended, but Jack needs to hear this.  Almost as much as I finally need to say it.  "He would have left us for Shan'auc, the same way he would have left us for Rya'c if the general hadn't given us permission to go to Chulak.  The same way he's left, and threatened to leave when he didn't think our means suited his ends.  I know when he first came to us he swore to you and Hammond he would pledge his full allegiance to the Earth and the SGC, but there's always been a certain conditional - aspect - to his dedication.  He hasn't always been straight with us, Jack.  I'm not saying he's lied to us, but he hasn't always been completely honest with  us either.  He's withheld information and he's had an agenda from the very beginning.  One he's never strayed from, for all he swore he going with our program."

Jack's not moving, not saying a word.  Which is actually a good thing.  It means he's listening.  Not happy about what he's hearing, but he's listening.  We've been down this road before, although we didn't get nearly this far.  The last time I tried to broach this subject with Jack he froze me out with  an 'I'm not listening' stare and when I persisted he called me a few names I'd never heard before and haven't heard since and stomped away from me.

He's neither insulting me nor walking away.  I'm going for pushing my luck.

"Jack," I begin.  "Have you ever wondered why Teal'c broke with Apophis and  saved us on Chulak?  I mean, really?  He didn't know at the time, we were the Tau'ri - that the Earth was the first world, he didn't find that out until later.  I know how it happened.  I saw it - I was there. I also know what he told us later.  But why, Jack?  Why did he really do it?"

I've never really seen it this way before, but suddenly, the whole scenario, everything that happened on Chulak, how utterly implausible it sounds…  We accepted the validity of what seemed to be the instantaneous conversion of someone we had every reason to believe was a merciless enemy and nothing more, but then we weren't about to question our good fortune at the time and afterwards - he'd saved our lives.  Hard to ignore that as a character reference, for starters.  He proved himself again by stopping Kawalsky. He swore his goals were the same, his loyalty, his allegiance was now to the Earth.  And we believed him.  Took him at his word.

Were we wrong to so readily place such faith in him?  Naïve to be so trusting?  Foolishly optimistic to believe someone who's had the power and influence Teal'c has enjoyed would be content to be SG-1's third banana and Colonel Jack O'Neill's personal reclamation project?

"I didn't have to wonder," Jack responds quickly.  "I know what I saw.  All I needed to know.  Just like I told him."

"But what did we see, Jack?"  I gently ask him. "The man as he truly was, or the way we wanted him to be?"

One mistake all of us made was assuming any of us were capable of truly understanding him.  We've got no frame of reference for any of his experience.  No way to know or even begin to grasp the forces that have shaped him.  We can try to imagine, but we can never know.  And we sure haven't got a prayer of being able to unravel his motivations or the true imperatives that drive his actions

"What's your point?"  Jack snaps.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't have trusted Teal'c, only that we shouldn't have assumed…"

This is hard to say.  Almost as hard as it is to finally admit it.  "If we've learned anything from going out there - from coming into contact with people like the Nox - just for starters  -  you can't judge by appearances. It's a mistake to assume what we know or understand applies in every situation and to everyone we meet.  Our rules aren't everyone else's rules.    And certain concepts we consider to be absolutes, the way we define them - mean entirely different things to  different peoples and cultures depending on who and what defined them  - for them."

We've had our very own object lesson in the danger of making assumptions under our noses all this time, but we didn't get it.  We looked, thought we saw, believed we understood.  We thought we knew him.  And the truth was, we knew nothing.

Even with everything that's happened I have no doubt that right down to the core of his being Teal'c is an honourable man.  What I am no longer sure of, however, is if his definition of honour is the same as mine.

Or if it ever has been.

"What you're saying is Teal'c has been playing by a different set of rules the whole time he's been with us. His rules. That he's been…  I - don't buy it," Jack finishes bitterly.  "I can't believe he lied to us."

"That's not what I'm saying, Jack," I hasten to assure him.  "If anything, it's exactly the opposite. He is a man of honour and always has been. But what that means to him - his terms of reference - the mistake we made was assuming concepts like honour mean the same thing to him as they do to us. We haven't always lost out when he's experienced a conflict of interest.   He's played by our rules and postponed his revenge before, not just over Shan'auc, but his father as well. But he wasn't going to do it this time.  He wasn't going to let anything stop him from getting to  Tanith, and yet he warned me.

"If he wasn't our friend and someone we could trust, he wouldn't have done that.   He could have lied to me when I confronted him on Vorash. If his need for revenge was truly all that mattered to him - if  the only reason why he came back to the SGC was to get another shot at avenging Shan'auc's murder, then he would have needed to do everything he could to hide that fact.   He would have lied to me, tried to keep his true intentions hidden, not told me exactly what he was going to do in case I - "

"Ratted him out?"  Jack grunts.

"Yeah," I nod. "He told me, Jack.  He sat there and told me he was going after Tanith the next chance he got.  He didn't try to hide it.  That's - that's got to count for something."

Yeah.  It does. It does count for something.

"Crap," Jack expels a weary sigh and taps his balled fist against my shoulder.  Slowly, rhythmically, like he's counting time to a melody only he can hear or tapping out a message.  "What a freaking mess.  How the hell did we get here, Danny? What the hell happened to all of us, anyway?  When did we all start coming unglued?  I stopped listening, you stopped talking, Carter just never stopped and Teal'c - "

Stopped thinking of Jack as his hero?

There was a time it was painfully obvious Teal'c had Jack on a pretty high pedestal.  Worshipped the ground he walked on, not to put too fine a point on it.

It's been wearing a little thin, lately.  Teal'c's been watching all of us, very closely for the past four years, but no one as closely as the man he once idolized.  It shouldn't have come as a surprise Teal'c would regard Jack with the same kind of reverence he once gave Apophis -  what other frame of reference did he have for service that didn't include veneration of and fanatical devotion to a figure that was slightly 'larger than life'?   Jack fit the bill for awhile, but guess what, he's only human after all.  He's made mistakes.  Teal'c's noticed.  Lately the interaction between them has been a lot less 'dutiful' and a lot more Alpha male confrontational. Teal'c has been pushing and Jack has been venting.  They've been butting heads ever since  Jack and I both closed our eyes to the danger he was trying to bring to our attention during the Triad and chose Skaara over the Tollans.  After Teal'c did something he's never done before.  Went behind Jack's back and saved the day after Jack ordered him not to.

That's when it started, the doubts, the cracks appearing in the absolute certainty Jack had of Teal'c's unconditional loyalty. And as much as he's tried to close his mind to it, that niggling little voice has been there, eating at Jack for months now. The business with Shan'auc did drive a wedge between them, whether Jack wants to face up to it or not. He welcomed Teal'c back with open arms, made a big deal of showing Teal'c nothing had changed, but it had.

Jack started to lose his faith that Teal'c would continue to be content to follow him.

I tried to get him to face what he didn't want to see - but I guess he wasn't ready.  Who am I kidding, I wasn't exactly facing up to the cold hard facts myself. We've all done a lot of running around and avoiding over the past few months.  Once again, look where it's gotten us.

This could all be moot in a few hours once we come out from behind the sun and possibly get atomized, but if this really is, finally - it - I want to leave this life with as few things left undone weighing me down as possible.  It's an opportunity to balance the books not many people get.

Jack's my friend.  I don't want him to go with any more baggage than he needs to carry either.

Jack gives my shoulder one final, emphatic tap and then takes his hand away.  "This has been fun, Daniel,"  he growls in a voice conveying anything but amusement.  "But it still doesn't change the fact I screwed up."

"Didn't,"  I fire right back at him.

"Daniel, I don't want to spoil what might be the end of an otherwise perfect friendship by punching you in the nose, but you're starting to get on my nerves. You weren't there," he grates. "You don't know what happened."

"No, Jack, you're right, I wasn't there,"  I shrug.  "I don't know what went on between the two of you but it doesn't matter.  Whether you did your best or not, whether I should have told you what I knew - it's all irrelevant.  There's only one person ultimately responsible for Teal'c's present predicament - ours too, for that matter.  The person who made a deliberate decision to set himself on a course of action he wouldn't let anything or anyone turn him from."

"I still could have - "  Jack starts to protest.

"It shouldn't even have happened, Jack,"  I cut him off at the knees.  "Neither one of you should have been on Vorash in the first place."  I'm trying to keep my voice calm but it isn't easy.  I'm starting to get angry all over again. Teal'c's loss is devastating, tragic, but dammit, it didn't have to happen.  All of this - so fucking unnecessary - not only is Teal'c lost, but the way it happened  - so senseless.  Pointless.  And for what?

Teal'c shouldn't have taken off like that.  He shouldn't have stranded them on Vorash. Tanith was going to get his.  Teal'c knew that.  But it wasn't enough.  He had to make it personal,  just had  to -  Well, he shouldn't have.  He shouldn't have placed Jack in that position - shouldn't have - taken off, shouldn't have -

Shouldn't have put his need for revenge before all of our lives.

"Jack, correct me if I'm wrong here, but who was the one flying that Death-glider?"

Jack doesn't say anything, but he's gone very still.  Not fidgeting or protesting, just lying there very quietly behind me.  He's listening.

"If you  had been flying that glider, would we even be having this conversation?  Or be stranded in a crippled ship so far from home if we don't get blown to smithereens the moment we come out of hiding Jacob is going to be the only one who'll live long enough to see home again?"

"Ahhhh, God!"  The slightly muffled sound of Jack's frustrated groan tells me he's talking through the hands scrubbing his face.  He's not happy, but he's hearing what I'm saying.

"No," he admits in a tone heavy with what it's costing him to finally face the truth.  "We'd be on our way home, now."

I wait a beat for him to say the rest of it.  He doesn't.  I hear him moving behind me as he turns on his side toward me and drops his hand on my shoulder.

"All of us."  I say it for him.  "Teal'c too.  We'd all be safe and well and on our way home because you would have broken off and come back to the ship when the one attacking us took off for Vorash and we'd have gotten out of there well before Apophis showed up and the sun blew up.  You wouldn't have gone after Tanith, making us come back for you, crash-landed on Vorash - "

"I get it," Jack says sorrowfully as he pats my shoulder.  "We were screwed as soon as Teal'c realised where the ship was going and why.   Nothing else mattered to him.  Going after Tanith like that was nuts; especially when he knew the damned snake was going to go up with the whole freaking system anyway.  I tried to get him to break off and return to the ship.  He wouldn't listen - wouldn't let it go.   It was like talking to a…."

"A man completely obsessed with revenge at the exclusion of everything else?"  I finish for him.

"Yeah," I can barely hear Jack, he's talking so quietly. "Just like that.  He was cold, Danny. Like a stranger.  I couldn't reach him - couldn't make him give it up."

There's something in his voice, the way it suddenly catches. There's something more, something he's not telling me about what went on in that glider.  He doesn't have to.  I heard what he said on the radio, and what he didn't say.  I won't make him admit it to me now. There's no point. It's still not his fault.  Even if Jack had pushed and pulled rank on Teal'c, it wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference.  I know that, and I think Jack does too, but it's something else he doesn't want to face.

"No one could have, Jack,"  I tell him fervently,  Maybe I wasn't there, but I know just the same.  I did  see - other times, too many times, more than enough to know I'm telling Jack the absolute truth.  "Teal'c made his choice.  He sealed his own fate.  No one is responsible for what happened to him but Teal'c.  I can forgive him for that - for  going off half-cocked and getting himself…captured, for needing his goddamned revenge so badly he was willing to throw his own life away but he had no right to take you with him.  If you'd - if you'd died down there because of some stupid, dumb-ass Jaffa revenge - "

I can't finish.  I understand now, how stupid and pointless hate is.  I've got Shifu to thank for that.  There was a time when I would have given Teal'c a very different answer to his question about Apophis.  The one he was expecting.  There was a time when I cheerfully would have squeezed the life out of Apophis with my bare hands, savoured every moment of throttling him slowly to death.  I would have snuffed him out without hesitation or a single qualm and laughed while I was doing it.

That's a part of myself I never want to see again.

I know a little bit about hate, and wanting revenge.  I also saw, far too clearly, what living for it does to you.  It solves nothing, restores nothing, soothes nothing, just eats you alive and destroys you bit by bit.

Or all at once, when needing it beyond all hope of reason makes you too stupid to live.

Jack squeezes my shoulder.  "It's okay," he says awkwardly.  "I know this looks bad, but we've had worse.  We'll get out of this, you'll see.  Carter and Jacob will pull some sort of scientific - thingee - out of their hats.  They just blew up a sun, for crying out loud.  How hard can it be to fix a hyperdrive and find a way to shave a few years off our transit time?  I betcha we'll be home for Christmas," he finishes with bleak bravado.

"I hope he's dead."  I hang my head as I say the words we've both been avoiding.  Really dead.  Finally and completely.  The alternative, the most probable future Teal'c has ahead of him, until Apophis tires of the sport - endless torture, death and resurrection. Please, please, please, don't let this be happening to Teal'c.  No one deserves to have such suffering inflicted upon them.  Not even Apophis.  And certainly not our friend.

What makes it even worse, we'll never know.  He's beyond our help, beyond our knowledge, lost to us.  We can't help him, can't save him.  Please let him be dead.  Better that than what Apophis will do to him, for God knows how long.

"Me too," Jack echoes quietly, his tone as empty of any hope it could actually be so as I feel.

I might not understand who Teal'c is anymore - maybe I never knew him, only thought I did.  But I do know this.  He let this need to avenge Shan'auc rule him to the exclusion of everything else, but he never meant - he never meant us any harm.  Never meant any of this to happen to us.  I wish I could tell him though I don't understand why he forgot about us I know he didn't abandon or betray us.

"Uhhhh, got any gum?" Jack suddenly grunts the spectacular non-sequiter.

"What?"  I shake my head, not quite sure I've heard right.

"I said - got any gum?"  Jack leans forward and whispers into my ear.

"No," I turn toward him as he pulls back again, seeing his face for the first time. An odd smile is quirking at his mouth.  "You know I don't - why would you think I'd have GUM?"

"Lifesavers?"

"No."

"Breath mints?"

"NO!"

"Peppermints?  Liquorice? Tootsie Rolls?"

"What?" I just stare at him.  Looking for further evidence of his obvious mental breakdown.

"Well, what good are you, then?"  he scowls at me.

"I've got a gun," I scowl right back at him.

"Mine's bigger!"  he gloats.

“Size isn’t important, Jack, it’s what you do with it.”

I can't help it, what he's said is just so absurd, I'm chortling uncontrollably even though laughter was the furthest thing from my mind a few short seconds ago.  There's a slightly hysterical edge to the sound, but I'm still laughing.  And Jack is laughing as well as he scoots around and thuds down onto the step beside me.

I'm still shaking my head and snorting as he screws up his face and peers sideways at me.  "So, no gum, huh?"  He scratches his nose and sighs heavily.  "Poor planning.  Definitely shoulda brought more snacks.  I'll bet there isn't a 7-11 within a hundred and twenty five years of here."

I wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand and reach into my pocket for my notebook. Jack bumps against me and watches me scrawl BRING SNACKS in huge letters across the page.

"You spelled 'snacks' wrong," he accuses as he jabs a finger at the page.

"Did NOT!"  I bristle as I check what I've written.

"Made you look!" he jeers.

I snarl and rip the page out of the book, crumpling it in my hand.  I turn to him, fully intending to make him eat it, when the sudden wave of grief transforming his face…

"He's a good man," Jack tells me in a slightly trembling voice.  "He was  - my friend.

"Yeah, he was," I answer him.  "Mine too."

That much was always true.  It still is.  In spite of everything that's happened, I don't doubt it.   Whatever he might have done, whatever truths he withheld from us,  whatever 'agenda' Teal'c was pursuing when he came to us and stayed with us - he was our friend.

He was a friend.  A damned good one.  And neither one of us is going to let the way he left us change the way we feel about him, or what he meant to us.

Never.

"We'll get that damned bastard Apophis," Jack's face is dark and cold with determination. "I don't care how long it takes or what it takes but we'll get him.  We'll fry his snaky ass good.  We'll get him.  And this time he'll stay dead."

Oh God, it never stops, does it?   Isn't this the way - isn't this how all of this started?

"Jack.."  I can't say anything else, I just look at him, touch his arm and shake my head.

I've already lost one friend to hate.  I don't want to lose another.

He stops speaking as he hears the sound of my voice, his breath catching as he sees my face.  The colour drains from his and his eyes widen as he understands exactly what I haven't said.

"Crap," he groans as he shudders and closes his eyes.  "Deja View."

"Vu," I gently amend.

"Voo?" he echoes sceptically. "Not 'view'? That doesn't make any sense."

"It's French, Jack.  It means already seen."

"That's what I said.  Deja view."

"No you didn't."

"Did."

"Didn't.  You said view, not vu. Not only is it bad French it's even more incorrect English."

"I like it my way."

"But it's wrong."

"Do you think Apophis would have any gum?"

I'm suddenly aware I'm still clenching the wadded up ball of paper in my hand so I decide to get rid of it.  By bouncing it off his forehead.  All I will say in my own defence is I was provoked.  And I sincerely hope he'll keep pissing me off for many more years to come.

Years I also hope we'll actually get to have.  No way to know that right now.  Right now, we wait, we hope, and we - 

We remember.

FINIS