DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment purposes and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission of the author(s).
It was good to be home. Jack studied his front door as if he'd never seen it before, then inserted the key, half expecting it not to work. He sighed with relief as he pushed the door open and walked inside. He strode straight for his refrigerator, extracted a beer from amid the unrecognizable, except for the delivery boxes, leftovers, and aimed for his sofa. Collapsing into its cushions, he switched on the TV and stared, unseeing, at the images which appeared.
The last few days had been some of the most... interesting he could remember. P2X-555. The mission that never was. His mind whirled as he sought to make sense of it all. Solar flares, wormholes, time travel, killing his grandfather. ... Where had *that* come from? Oh, yeah, some screw-ball theory of Carter's. Groaning, he leaned forward with his head in his hands.
Hammond had been right - the debriefing had taken an unusually long time. Afterwards, SG-1 had gone their merry ways - Teal'c into Kel-no-reem, Sam into the lab to study the phenomena which had so affected their lives, and Daniel, well, Daniel had vanished to his lab to study the artifacts SG-5 had brought back from P2X-555. Jack had opted for home.
Sitting bolt upright, he unconsciously gulped down a large amount of beer as if it was water, and promptly choked. Sputtering and coughing, he placed the bottle on his coffee table and gasped for breath. What the heck was wrong with him? To the rest of his team, 1969 Earth had been a lark. Something to be enjoyed. They'd immediately bought into his theory that 'where there's a will, there's an OR', although Carter had been a little skeptical, but even she'd come around in the end. And he'd been right, they had gotten home. No sweat. So why wasn't he happy?
His eyes finally lit on the TV screen, and he saw that the History Channel was showing an old war movie, 'The Green Berets', with John Wayne. One of the few moves made during the height of the ... Oh, God! That was it. Michael ... drafted. Vietnam ... war. Michael ... drafted. He couldn't tell him. Couldn't warn him. Didn't have the option to tell the boy to stay alive. To go to Canada. The military man inside of him was horrified to hear him even think the words ... draft dodger. But ... that *war* had been a pathetic excuse for politicians to quibble. A war run by bureaucrats, where the military brass served at the pleasure of the President, and his aides, and could do little to stop the slaughter that was Vietnam. How many men, and women, died, fighting for a country which didn't believe in them or their 'save the world' cause? Too many. Far too many. Had Michael been one of them? Had he fled to Canada after that little concert in New York? Funny, he'd never really thought about it being Woodstock, until after they'd gotten home. Or had Michael gone into the service, served in 'Nam, and come home as one of the physically wounded or perhaps just the psychologically wounded?
The idea of the kind, generous, young man being reduced to the horrors of PTSD made Jack feel suddenly sick to his stomach. He dropped his head to his knees, and took a few deep breaths, waiting for the nausea to pass. In the back of his mind he heard a doorbell ... odd, he didn't think they had doorbells in the Vietnamese jungles. A cold, damp cloth on his forehead caused him to sit bolt upright. "Daniel? What?"
"Your door was unlocked. Are you all right?" Concern and compassion filled the blue eyes that watched Jack.
Sighing, Jack leaned back against the sofa. "Not really."
"What's wrong?"
"That boy, Michael."
"Hardly a boy, Jack. He's a good bit older than you."
"If he's alive..." Jack watched as the words hung in the air between them.
"Alive? ... Oh. Drafted."
"Right."
"Jack, I was a little kid back then, but I do know a lot of people came home okay."
"And a lot didn't. What if I got him killed?"
"You don't know..."
"Dammit! I should have told him."
"Told him what?"
"To run for his life. Go to Canada. Marry his girl, have lots of kids, and grow old together."
"So, why didn't you?"
Jack looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Because, because I was afraid Carter was right."
"What?"
"What if I did something that changed his decision, whatever it was, and by doing it, I changed history. Maybe he was supposed to go to 'Nam, and d..die."
"Maybe he was supposed to go to Vietnam and live."
"You don't know that he lived." Jack angrily pointed out.
"And you don't know that he died."
"No, dammit to hell, I don't. And I don't even know his last name to trace him."
"What about tracing the tag?"
"Daniel..."
"Jack - I know the tag number of the bus."
Jack stared open-mouthed at his younger friend. The tag? Daniel actually had gotten the tag number of the damn bus? Thank God for anthropologists and their insatiable desire to write down ... stuff. But was it possible? After all these years, could he really trace the tags? No, probably not, but Carter could. "Come on, Daniel!"
"Where?"
"Back to the base. We're gonna trace Michael." Please, God, let him be alive.
Daniel hurried after the taller man. "You know, when you find him, you won't be able to contact him."
Grateful that the younger man had said 'when', not 'if', Jack replied. "Why not?"
Daniel grinned. "I'm not quite sure, but I'm betting it has something to do with killing your grandfather."