Title: Graceless

Author: Carol S. Comer

Email: carolscomer@aol.com

Status: complete

Category: SJR

Spoilers: "Grace;" "Evolution;" mention of "Abyss" and "Urgo"

Season/Sequel info: 7th Season after the events of Evolution

Rating: PG-13

Content Warnings: none

Summary: After being injured, Jack is visited by Grace.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Simple as that. Everything in the world I want is possessed by someone else. Here, its Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. Please don't sue me. I really am that pathetic.

Author's note - just a quickie I knocked out today. Thanks to everyone who responded to my weapons question.

Archive SJD

**********

It would be a graceless fall. Jack knew it from the time his fingers slipped off the dew-soaked block. The colonel turned as he fell, trying to minimize the impact, but nothing short of timely intervention by an Asgard beam would save him from certain injury.

The colonel hit hard and his head bounced twice off the foundation of the temple. He looked up at the ruin in the full light of the moon and swore. `So much for Thor,' he thought as the darkness deepened and consciousness fled.

"O'Neill!" the large dark skinned man called waking the colonel. Jack shook off the fog and squinted into the night. Two, no three, no, just two Teal'cs swam before him. "You must head for cover before the rebels return."

"Yeah, I know Teal'c," he answered. "I just need a little time to clear my head." Jack curled back into a ball and succumbed to the siren-call of dreamless sleep. "Just a little longer," he mumbled drifting off again.

"No time, O'Neill, you must go now."

Jack startled at the loud voice. He took a deep breath and then struggled to his feet.

"Fine, fine!" he complained wearily. "I'm up. Happy now?" Jack looked around to find himself alone deep in the Central American forest once more. The colonel's radio and GPS were all but smashed in the fall. If he was going to make it out of Honduras, Jack would have to do it himself. He lightened his pack of all but the most essential supplies – energy bars, iodine tablets for water purification, first aid, ammunition and the artifact they had came to retrieve – and set off at a ragged pace in the direction of the Salvadoran border.

When he had put sufficient distance between himself and the temple, Jack found a place to settle in until dawn. He built a makeshift structure out of leaves and limbs to shelter himself from the incessant falling rain and provide camouflage from any passers-by.

"That won't give you any cover from fire if there's a gunfight," a voice came in warning.

"Burke?" he yelped in surprise. "Aren't you dead?"

"That's a fine `thanks for watching my back,'" Agent Burke responded with a hearty chuckle.

"Sorry, its just…" Jack started and then he stopped abruptly. "Well, again, aren't you are dead?"

"Yeah," the man responded. "I suppose so. There isn't much chance I survived the four bullets I took, now is there?"

"No," Jack replied quietly. "I guess not."

"Gave you time to get away though."

"Yes, I guess so." Jack was clearly uncomfortable. Finally, he voiced his concern. "But if you're dead…"

"How am I here?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not."

"You're not, what, dead?"

"No here."

"Okay," Jack slurred slowly. "Then how are we having this conversation?"

"Let's just say, its all in your head."

Jack frowned in thought. "Sure, whatever," he said. "Mind if I go inside?"

"Be my guest." Jack crawled in through the hole in his lean-to and cleared the floor of debris.

"Nice," Burke said looking in through the entry. "Airy, spacious… Just like home."

Jack threw a glance at the agent. "Do you have a point to make, or are you here simply to haunt me like Marley's ghost."

"Marley's ghost," Burke grinned appreciatively. "Good one Jack." Jack gestured for an answer. "Oh, yeah, well, you're probably wondering how to get out of here." Jack shrugged a nonverbal "yes, duh!" Burke simply laughed louder. "You saw the maps, colonel," he said. "Head south."

"That's it?" he repeated with disbelief, "just `head south.'"

"Yep, head south. What else do you want from me?"

"Maybe a little help here," Jack said sarcastically. Burke just shrugged and smiled his enigmatic grin. "Burke," Jack muttered in disgust and rolled his eyes. When he looked back, he was alone among the twigs and leaves. Jack dug the heel of his hand into his temple trying to calm his pounding head and then settled in for the night.

Jack woke to a voice calling to him.

"Jack, woo hoo." The colonel heard a rustling outside and peeked out between the branches to investigate. He jumped back when he was greeted by Daniel mere inches away looking in at him. "You up yet?" the archeologist asked. "Its nearly dawn," he fairly sang, squeezing in through the small hole in the shelter. "Jack, Jack, Jack," Daniel shook his head fondly at the colonel. "Another fine mess you've gotten yourself into."

Daniel was uncomfortably close in the confined space of the shelter. Jack backed himself into a corner to put as much distance between him and the archeologist as the lean-to would allow. "Daniel, do we have to do this again?" Jack asked tiredly. "You couldn't help me when I was held by Ba'al. I'm thinking you probably can't help me here."

"Hmmm," Daniel looked at him appraisingly. "Archeologist, remember?" he said pointing at himself. "I know this area like the back of my hand."

"Right," the colonel sighed. "You can lead me out of Honduras like Moses through the wilderness."

"Come on, Jack," the doctor cried. "It will be fun. We can spend a little time together, chat, catch up on things I missed during ascension. You know, all of that."

Jack repositioned his pack and ducked out of the lean-to leaving Daniel behind. "I'd rather have Urgo back in my head," he muttered as he broke down the shelter.

Jack rolled his neck trying to work the kinks out of his back. The motion made him dizzy and slightly nauseous. In the cool light of morning, the impact of his head injury was glaringly obvious. His vision was blurry and even with glasses fit for the afternoon sun of Abydos, Jack squinted at the brightness. "Damn," he swore.

Finally with a quick assessment of his location, he hoisted the pack over his shoulders and set off to the south.

"I'll walk with you." A young voice said.

Jack looked down at a small girl in a little white dress. She fairly glowed in the low light of sun-up. Jack immediately fell to his knees and began scanning the horizon in all four directions. It had to be a trap. There was no other explanation for her. When the colonel satisfied himself that they were alone in the area, he stood shaking off the moss, but the young girl had gone.

"Hello?" he called to the jungle. "Are you out there?" Not a sound answered. Jack frowned in confusion and began his journey home. The colonel had a long arduous journey ahead of him. He occupied himself analyzing the mission that had brought him to this point.

"Kind of a big pooch screw, wasn't it?" Burke asked.

"Yeah, you could say that," Jack agreed grimly. "By the way, Burke, what are you doing here?"

"Not much else to do in the afterlife," Burke joked. Jack shot him a look. "Okay, okay, see the thing is, I'm not really here. Like I said, I'm just, well, I'm just in your head. How wacky is that?"

"Wacky," Jack agreed dryly.

"So what went wrong?"

"Oh, well, everything," the colonel sighed. "The whole `go in with a two man team' was probably a mistake. We could have used some back up." Agent Burke nodded in agreement.

"Hey, you never did tell me what that thingy in your pack is," Burke reminded him.

"Its classified Burke," Jack warned him.

"Oh, yeah, and like who am I going to tell," Burke snorted in response. "I'm dead remember?" Jack shot a look in agent Burke's direction. "So what is it?" he asked again.

"I don't know," Jack responded. "That's Daniel's department. You'll have to ask him when he shows up to stalk me again."

"Funny Jack," a voice came from the other side. Jack swung around startled and instinctively raised his P90.

"Daniel," he sighed in relief and irritation. "You guys going to double-team me now?" Jack asked the apparitions on both sides of him.

"Jack, you know why that artifact was important," Daniel reminded him.

"Yeah, whatever," he muttered.

"And you know why you have to bring it back with you." Jack glared at Daniel.

"So what kind of wacky back from the dead thing does it do?" Burke asked. Jack turned back to Burke.

"Would you two stop this!" he cried in frustration. "Yes, Daniel, I know its Telcheck's scepter and I know it was stolen from the Ancients and brought here. I also know that Burke, here, died trying to help me retrieve it. So now, was it worth it?" he demanded. "Was it really worth it?"

"You know there is more at stake here than one life," Daniel answered softly. Burke just shrugged. Life sucked sometimes. Death did too.

Jack waved them both off and continued on angrily. He seemed to be on some form of path, but he'd still have given his left kidney for a machete. The going got a little tough and the bushes and trees were growing more and more dense.

The colonel checked his compass again to ensure he was still moving south.

"I'll walk with you," he heard the small voice again. Jack looked down at the young girl beside him. She had golden brown hair and hauntingly familiar eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm Grace."

"Yes, but who are you," Jack stopped and insisted on an answer. "Are you real, are you a vision, a memory, what?"

"I am what will be," the child answered continuing on through the brush.

"Oh, well, thank you," he said sarcastically. "That really clears things up for me."

"Come on," she called to him as she disappeared deeper into the rainforest. Jack jogged to catch up but she was gone.

Jack stopped and leaned against a tree. His head was pounding with the effort. The colonel finally gave in to the pain and made camp for the night.

"You have to keep moving," the stern warning woke him. Jack stretched painfully. He was curled in the brush leaning on his pack like a pillow. The colonel sat up and his head swam.

"Teal'c," he acknowledged. "You back again?"

"Yes, O'Neill," he said. "It is time to take up your journey again." Jack nodded his agreement and struggled to his feet with the help of a branch. It was getting harder to get up each time he rested.

"You have rested enough," the Jaffa warned him, "the rebels are still searching for you."

"I know," Jack said lifting his pack with an effort. "I know."

"Shall I walk with you?" Teal'c asked.

"Sure T," Jack said. "I could use the company." The two men walked in companionable silence but it was slow going as Jack plowed through the underbrush and cleared branches from his path. Measuring distances under the circumstances was difficult but the colonel was sure he couldn't have covered more than fifteen or twenty kilometers the day before.

Hours went by in silence. Hours of scratched arms and legs, breaking tree limbs, muddy paths and crossing streams of water. Jack reached the top of a ridgeline and surveyed the valley below him. There were several ruins visible through the mist below but no sign of the village of El Poy. The rain which fell as a constant mist was falling in earnest now. He pulled his cap lower over his face to keep the wet off his sunglasses.

"There are so many Mayan temples to study," the archeologist said gleefully. "Jack, you have to go look."

"No, Daniel," he said turning to the man beside him. "I have what I came for."

"But Jack, think of what you may find inside," Daniel tried to entice him.

"One objective, one mission, Daniel," Jack said. "I'll be lucky to finish this one."

"Could be more artifacts," the archeologist suggested.

"Then we'll just have to come back for them later."

"Jack," Daniel whined.

"Daniel!" Jack put up his hand to stop Daniel from further argument and found himself alone in the woods again.

`I wish that would stop,' the colonel muttered to himself.

Standing above the valley, Jack could hear random gunfire coming from various areas below him. The colonel knew that he was still deep in rebel territory.

"Just like it was in the Eighties, eh Colonel?" Burke observed beside him holding a lit cigar. "Man was that a wild time. Central America was ground zero for all our crazy black ops missions." Burke took a deep drag on the tobacco.

"Yeah," Jack said sarcastically, "I'm all tingly with nostalgia."

"Those were the days, man," Burke said shaking his head. "Those were the days."

Jack just rolled his eyes and began to carefully pick his way down the slope. Yeah, he remembered Nicaragua and El Salvador in the eighties, Jack thought. He also remembered being tied up in a fetid hut with bugs as big as kittens crawling across him. He remembered the dysentery, the fevers and the monsoons. Yep, he remembered, Jack just wasn't eager to relive that.

The ridge was slick with rain and after slipping twice, Jack lost his footing and slid down the incline. He landed in a muddy heap, dirty and bruised. Jack groaned as he picked himself up. There wasn't a part of him that wasn't stiff and sore.

"Colonel, its your duty to your country and to this command," General Hammond said.

"Yes sir," Jack responded with a salute. He picked up the scattered contents of his bag and repacked.

`Just a little farther,' he coaxed himself. `Just a little farther.'

"I'll go with you," she said to him again.

"Hello Grace," Jack said as he looked down. She was beautiful, five, six years old maybe, long curly hair and the eyes of an angel. It made Jack's heart wrench. Children are the reason and reward for everything we do. She reached up and took his hand. Jack was surprised he was able to touch the child. `I must have a fever,' he thought, `this is all too real.'

They walked hand in hand, Grace skipping beside him singing a simple lullaby. It felt dangerously like home to him.

"Do you play hopscotch?" she asked innocently.

"Not with my knees," he said smiling at the girl.

"See," she said bouncing on one foot. "I can."

The woods were thinning and movement was easier, but it was also more dangerous.

He heard the first shots fired and instinctively dove to cover the small child only to land hard on the forest floor alone. Grace had disappeared again. "Damnit," Jack cursed as he realized the hot pain of a slug lodged in his thigh. He rolled for the brush and struggled to his feet as quietly as his wounded leg and the remnants of his concussion would allow.

Jack heard the movement of brush and the low hiss of whispered communications. He had his P90 at the ready, but knew that any shot fired would immediately give away his location. Jack reached down slowly for the knife at his side and unsheathed it quietly. He stood still as death with the knife raised in readiness. Jack concentrated on slowing his heartrate and breathing and listened with the hearing of the blind as the rustling of brush grew closer.

The first man walked unknowingly within Jack's arm's reach and was dispatched with a quick slip of the blade across his unprotected neck. The second man dropped with a plunge and flick into his spine. Jack closed his eyes and listened for movement. None came.

Then with the relief born of temporary safety Jack started shaking and dropped to his knees. His special ops training came back instinctively, but the quick and dispassionate end of two lives still sickened him.

Just in case additional rebel teams were lurking in the area, Jack dropped deeper into the scrub. He constructed a hasty cover of vegetation and then tended to his wounded leg. Jack pulled out the first aid kit and inspected the injury. The gunshot had hit his left leg and shattered the bone just above the knee. Jack cleaned the wound as best he could and then ripped a strip of his jacket and bound the leg tightly above the gunshot. With a stick-crutch he would still be able to move, but it would be slow going and painful.

Jack struggled deeper into the rainforest heading south to the border. He had been walking for two days. It couldn't be far, but the head injury and now his wounded leg was taking a toll on him. Drinking the last drop of water in his canteen, Jack neither had the strength nor the will to continue. Finally, giving in to fatigue, he dropped to the dewy forest floor and curled into a ball.

It might have been a sound that woke him. Jack wasn't sure, but he opened his eyes to find a woman with long blond hair standing over him in a light cotton dress.

"Carter," he acknowledged tiredly. "What's with the hair?"

"Don't blame me," she said fingering a lock. "This is your delusion. I'm just surprised you don't have me dressed in that sweet little tank top number you liked so well," Sam teased him. Jack chuckled as much as his physical condition would allow but soon fell serious again. He sighed and slumped in pain and exhaustion.

"I knew you'd come," Jack said sadly.

"You know I'm not really here," she said softly. He nodded his understanding. Sam reached out and touched his forehead. "I'm here," she said. Jack closed his eyes and sighed. Even if he was imagining it, Sam's touch was comforting.

"Is this where we say goodbye?" he asked.

"There's no reason for goodbyes." Jack nodded without conviction.

"So, then, come to help me build an SUV out of palm fronds and MREs?" he asked in jest.

"You didn't call me to engineer your escape," she said. "You know the only way to do that is to stand up and start walking. And you keep walking until you reach the border."

"I'm done," he said in resignation. Sam carefully sat down next to him and folded her legs elegantly beneath her. How she managed to look so delicate yet so strong at the same time always amazed the colonel.

"No you're not."

"That why you're here?"

"You brought me here for comfort and encouragement." Jack looked around uncomfortably as if someone would have heard that admission. Then he laughed at himself.

"You know I'd give up my command for you," Jack admitted in a moment of weakness.

"And stay at home and wait while I go off on missions?" she asked. "You'd wither and die that way."

"I'd do it for you."

"And you'd hate me for it."

"Is that what you think?" he asked. "Wait, is that what I think?" Jack shook his head in confusion. "I'm sorry Sam, I can't do this with you, you're talking in riddles."

"Actually sir…"

"Carter?"

"Well, colonel, its not so much me talking in riddles as you thinking in riddles, now is it?"

"Please, stop. This is way too complex of a conversation to be having with a head injury and a gunshot wound."

"We wouldn't be having this conversation any other way," she cautioned.

"Yeah, I know." They sat in a companionable silence.

"So what do you want?" she finally asked him.

"To go home."

"And me?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "That's the problem here." He lashed out at the leaves and vines beside him and only managed to pull down rotting, mossy material on top of him. It wasn't a very satisfying outlet for his frustration. The colonel shook of the debris. "Sam, you know how I feel," he continued slowly.

"You can't even say the words out here in the middle of nowhere with nobody to hear?" she asked incredulously.

"Sam, I know you don't understand."

"Then, please, explain it to me," she pleaded.

"Saying `I love you' would make it too real," he admitted. "I could never walk away if I let that in."

"Why would you have to?" she demanded to know.

"Because you deserve better," Jack concluded sadly. "You deserve to love someone that won't jeopardize your career, someone that has at least half the brain you do…"

"Jack," she warned. His self-deprecation did not fool her (and it didn't fool him), he was a very smart man in his own right and he knew it.

"Someone closer to your age who can spend the rest of your life with you," he continued without acknowledging her warning. "Someone with knees that would stand up to the vigorous sex life I'm sure you'd enjoy…"

"You've been thinking about that a little too much, I imagine." Despite his injuries and fatigue, Jack grinned in response.

"Someone who will still be around to walk our daughter down the aisle at her wedding," Jack added a bit wistfully.

"And why couldn't that be you?" she demanded.

"Sam, I'm old, I'm tired," Jack heard the gunshots echoing off in the distance again. "And I'm going to die here."

"You are not going to die," Sam said firmly. "You've almost made it to El Poy. You're almost to El Salvador."

"You can't know that," he accused.

"Why?"

"Because I don't know that," Jack admitted in defeat.

Sam smiled in encouragement. "Oh, but you do," she said enigmatically. Jack looked at her quizzically. "You know the maps. You've memorized the landmarks and the distances and directions," she explained. "You know that the target was about 40 kilometers north of El Poy. You have your compass. You know you are headed in the right direction and you've got a pretty good idea of how much ground you've covered."

Jack closed his eyes. He didn't have the strength to move.

"You also know that, even if your directions are off, the road between Agua Caliente and Santa Rosa all but rings your location. You can't miss it."

The colonel dropped his pack and leaned heavily against it.

"Jack, the road is near, you have to keep moving."

"I can't."

"I hear footsteps," Sam warned. "They are heading this way."

"So do I," he said unconcerned. Jack had made his peace with the inevitable.

"Are you going to go?" He just shook his head sadly.

"Then you deny me what is rightfully mine," she accused him angrily.

"What?" he asked in confusion. "Me?"

"Grace," Sam said forcefully. Jack understood. If he didn't make it to El Salvador, Grace, "what would be," could never be.

Jack sat a while longer before struggling to his feet and headed for the border and home.