Doctor Daniel Jackson was not a happy man.

After all this time, why did they have to make him come here? There were too many memories here, too many bittersweet echoes of laughter and things that could have been and hope that died a long, long time ago.

It damn well wasn’t fair.

Of course, he knew on an intellectual level that no one had forced him to do anything; he just hadn’t felt that he could refuse. You’re still hanging on to that misguided sense of responsibility, he told himself bitterly, but he knew that deep down there was something more behind his acceptance of the task General Hammond had asked him to do.

It had been late evening and a call from General George Hammond had been the absolute last thing Daniel expected. He had been sitting in the kitchen poring over a book on archaeology when the phone had rung.

Now, four hours later, he was standing here in the dusty silence, standing quietly as if waiting for this house’s long-dead occupant to step forward and welcome him with a smile. Stop dreaming, Daniel, he ordered himself sternly.

Ironic, wasn’t it? The same person who had tried to protect Daniel’s tenacious innocence and willingness to trust had been the very one who finally extinguished it completely.

Daniel had known nothing would ever be the same again when Sam had fallen so terribly ill on P8R-333, but he couldn’t in a million years have fathomed just how much it would change all their lives. It had been a completely routine mission, until Major Sam Carter had casually mentioned that she had a headache.

It was, in hindsight, the beginning of the end.

Sam’s decline had been more rapid than any of them could comprehend. They’d barely managed to get her back to the SGC when she flat lined, the monitors around her screaming in alarm, warning the medical personnel to take action that would never bring back SG-1’s gorgeous, effervescent Major Samantha Carter.

Daniel still remembered how Sam’s face had looked in that final moment, the last glimpse he had of her as they whisked her away. Her face was sweat-soaked, strands of short blond hair sticking to her forehead. Contrary to popular belief, a person did not close his or her eyes at the moment of death; Sam’s beautiful blue eyes, ringed by long lashes, were open, but empty, completely void of the vibrant personality Daniel had come to love and depend on so much.

He remembered standing alone, hugging himself, wondering in a detached way why the temperature had just dropped fifteen degrees. He hadn’t even realized he was crying until he felt the tears sliding slowly down his cheeks. Sam was gone. Nobody was going to bring her back. They hadn’t even had time to contact her father, to ask him to come with a healing device.

As horribly hard as it had been for Daniel, losing the woman he’d adopted as the big sister he never had, it was harder for Colonel Jack O’Neill.

He hadn’t cried - at least not as far as Daniel had seen. Crying wasn’t Jack O’Neill’s way. No, Daniel thought bitterly, he’d rather lock himself away in damning silence and waste away until there was nothing left behind those brown eyes.

Maybe Jack had loved Sam Carter far beyond what the regulations allowed. Maybe, like Daniel, he had seen her as a close, wonderful friend. Daniel would never really know now, but whatever the case, one thing was for certain: Jack had blamed himself for the beautiful Major’s death.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jack,” Daniel whispered into the stillness around him, almost expecting a reply. The edge of his mouth lifted in a small, mocking half-smile at his own stupidity. He’d spoken those words so many times, too many damn times, and look what good they’d done one silver-haired, quiet, withdrawn Colonel Jack O’Neill.

In all fairness to Jack, he had probably never even considered the possibility that Daniel would be the one to find him. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted it that way. Jack O’Neill knew all too well the emotional trauma that came with discovering the dead or dying body of a loved one.

He couldn’t have known that Daniel would come over early that Tuesday morning, having finally made up his mind that the two needed to have a talk, a long, long talk. He couldn’t have predicted that the young archaeologist would push open the door and find him there in the living room, his pistol still grasped in his cold stiff fingers, blood congealing in an ugly pool around him.

Daniel would never forget Jack’s eyes. Brown eyes that had turned into stone those last few months after Sam’s death; brown eyes that had hidden everything until Jack’s inner turmoil destroyed him. In death, those eyes had ironically enough become windows to the soul that no longer occupied the Colonel’s body. Daniel still ached at the memory of the raw, almost incomprehensible pain that those eyes had revealed. Jack had been hurting beyond what Daniel could have even imagined, despite the grief he himself had endured.

Nevertheless, it damn well doesn’t justify what he did to me.

How could he do it? How could Jack O’Neill take that pistol and place it against his heart and pull the trigger, knowing what it was going to do to Daniel? He of all people knew what it was like to lose someone close to you. He of all people knew just how many loved ones Daniel had already lost. He of all people should have known he was destroying his closest friend.

So why?

Why did he do it?

Why did he go home quietly that night, without even so much as a goodbye or a brief note? Why did he leave them no closure, no farewell? Why did he come home and step inside his house and in the complete darkness, take his own life?

“It’s been three years, damn it,” Daniel muttered to himself, idly wiping the dust off a nearby table. “You’d think I’d be over it by now.”

No. No, he knew better than that. He’d never get over it. He’d never get over the pain, the betrayal, the raw agony of knowing that his best friend had taken the “easy” way out and had left him behind.

“Damn it, Jack, what did you think you were doing?”

He whispered it to the silence and received no response. Not that he’d really been expecting one this time - he’d pretty well established that Jack wasn’t there, hadn’t he? Jack wouldn’t ever be there again. Jack was gone. Jack had left him. Jack, you son of a bitch, I thought you said that nobody was ever left behind. I thought that was your rule. I thought that was your code.

You left us.

The greatest betrayal, the greatest abandonment.

I trusted you completely, and you left me behind. Didn’t you know I was already hurting from losing Sam? Did you think I’d be able to handle one loss so close on the heels of another? Or did you just not give a damn?

Did you stop to think, Jack?

Daniel gave a long, frustrated sigh and forced his feet to move, to carry him forward into the living room. He’d sat here with Jack many times, watching stupid movies and eating pizza and drinking a beer or two. Teal’c and Sam were usually there too. Those were some of the best times of his life. Who could have guessed it would end this way?

He hadn’t seen Teal’c in nearly two years - the Jaffa was back on Chulak now. Maybe he was trying to recruit more Jaffa to his cause, but Daniel doubted that. Much of Teal’c’s enthusiasm and passion for his cause had disappeared after O’Neill’s death. The big Jaffa was disillusioned. The person who had convinced him to join in the battle against the false gods, who had gained his trust so completely, had broken his own code; had left two team members behind.

If Daniel had known that going through Jack’s things would have this effect on him, he might not have been so willing to accept. Okay, deep down he had known it would hurt like crazy, but he hadn’t allowed himself to realize that the familiar surroundings, the familiar smell of Jack O’Neill that still lingered despite three years of vacancy, would make him miss Jack so much that he could barely stand it.

He hadn’t let himself miss Jack much over the last few years. Mostly, he’d channeled his pain into anger - anger at Jack, for betraying him, for leaving him, for abandoning him; anger at the fates, at all gods false or real who had allowed Sam to catch an alien virus in the first place; anger at himself for being angry with Jack, and even with Sam sometimes, for dying, for beginning the end of SG-1.

Stopping in the middle of the living room, Daniel Jackson drew in a deep breath, telling himself to cool it; telling himself that he was beyond this, that he was cynical and bitter now, that he couldn’t allow this to destroy him.

Jack had died right here.

Right here, arms out flung, that damned pistol still in his hand. Right here, in a pool of blood, in a room that smelled sticky sweet like the precious liquid that had saturated his shirt and soaked into the floor beneath him. The stain was faint now, but still there.

Daniel shuddered.

He needed to get this over with. Quickly. Before he lost his nerve, or worse, his composure. Before he found himself sitting against the couch and crying like the little boy he’d sworn to himself he would never be again.

Maybe they would have gotten Sarah, Jack’s ex-wife, to do this, but she was dead - she’d died in a car accident a year or so ago. Daniel hadn’t heard until several months after the incident. He’d never really known Sarah, but he knew how much Jack had loved her. At the time he had bitterly thought, there goes another piece of Jack. Wonder how long before nobody remembers him?

He swept his eyes around the room, forcing himself to think rationally, to consider what was worth keeping and what had been of value only to one Colonel Jack O’Neill or his now deceased ex-wife. The small coffee table in the corner caught his eye, and he couldn’t repress a slight shiver when he remembered how Jack had been lying right next to that table, one arm stretched toward it.

It was a nice table, he’d always liked it, but he knew for a fact that he could never keep it for himself. Every time he looked at the thing he’d see Jack lying next to it, eyes anguished and unseeing, mouth slightly open. Maybe somebody else would take it.

He moved it away from the wall, then stopped when he spotted something lying behind it, pushed up close against the wall. Dropping to his knees, Daniel picked it up carefully. It was Jack’s pocket knife, rusted slightly now, the blade still open. It wasn’t like Jack to leave an open knife lying around. Maybe he’d put it on the coffee table and it had slid down against the wall.

Daniel was starting to get up when he caught sight of something, a scratch he thought at first, on the polished wood floor. Leaning closer, he saw that it was, in fact, a crude, shakily scratched letter. N. It was followed by other letters ...

Oh God.

Daniel Jackson sat for what seemed an eternity without thinking, without moving. In one hand he held Jack O’Neill’s pocket knife. He closed his hand over the knife, not noticing when the blade cut into his palm. Tears filled his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, and suddenly he was sobbing, his cynicism melting away.

“I’m sorry, Jack, oh God, I’m so sorry ... ”

Daniel was staring down at four words, scratched crudely and painfully, in the dark and silence by a dying man, into the floor beneath the coffee table.

“Not me. NID. Sorry.”

They had put the pistol in his hand; he could feel its cold weight against his palm, confirmation that he was still alive, at least for the moment.

He was alone now; he knew and they knew that he was a goner. He’d never muster the strength to crawl to the telephone, and even if he did, he wouldn’t survive until help came. Colonel Jack O’Neill was a dead man, not for the first time, but he was pretty sure it would be permanent this time.

A spasm of pain ripped through his chest, causing his hand to close convulsively over the pistol. Damn, he hadn’t remembered that dying hurt so much. Not that he would put it on his top 10 list of fun things to do, but this was adding insult to injury. If he was going to die, couldn’t he at least do so painlessly?

Teal’c and Daniel would never believe that he’d killed himself. They’d dig deeper, search out the truth, make sure justice was served. Of this Jack was certain. They knew him too well, didn’t they? Yeah, he’d been hurting over Carter’s death, but they all had. Surely they wouldn’t believe he had committed suicide.

Please, don’t let them believe I killed myself ...

A thought occurred to him suddenly. His pocket knife was in his left pocket; if he could only get it out, open the blade, perhaps he could leave them a final message, give them a reason to believe that he hadn’t skipped out on them of his own free will.

Left-handed he opened the knife, and with the last small reserve of strength left in his failing body he scratched words, one painful letter at a time, into the wood floor under the coffee table. With the sheer force of his will he kept himself alive, kept his hand moving; when the final letter had been formed he dropped the knife and pulled his left hand back toward himself. Now they would know, Daniel and Teal’c and the General and everybody. Knowing Teal’c and his Jaffa revenge thing, some heads would probably roll. He almost grinned at the thought.

“Sorry, Danny,” Colonel Jack O’Neill whispered into the cool air. His dark brown eyes focused on one spot on the ceiling, and he slowly exhaled the last breath he would ever take. The sudden absence of motion left the room in unbroken silence around the cooling body of a man who had not, as his teammates would someday discover, broken his own personal code after all.