Opening Scene of a New Story

[emgeetrek]

Hokay, campers, this one has been sitting on my hard drive for quite some time.  The first and final lines of the snippet under the cut are what arrived first in my strange little brain, and try as I might to scrub them away, it appears they are indelible.  At first it all came to me in 1st person, Daniel POV, but it's in 3rd person now.  I do have a couple of scenes following this one written as well, but this story is such an early WIP that I'm not sure it deserves that title yet. 

You would think I have some clue as to why Jack says the final line in this scene, but no . . . I have thought and thought, and have a few ideas, but I encourage you to speculate.  Feel free to send your other SG-1 friends by to speculate as well.  Hell, if anyone's interested in turning this into a round robin, I'm game.  Just help me get this thing out of my brain!

Stargate SG-1, Jack/Daniel
Working Title:  A Prayer for Healing

 

"My father died," Jack said.   

He might have been announcing the latest weather report, his voice flat and cold. 

I'm so sorry, Daniel wanted to say, but he didn't. 

Jack laid the fistful of papers he'd pulled out of the FedEx envelope carefully on the table.  "The lawyer tried to reach me a few days ago, when we were offworld." 

Daniel said, "I didn't know he was alive.  Had been alive.  I mean . . ."  His voice trailed off, and he grew still and watchful.  Jack never talked about his family, and Daniel always had assumed that both of Jack's parents were long gone. 

"There were phone messages when we got back but I didn't return them." 

Why not, Daniel wanted to ask, but he didn't.   

"I have to go to Chicago.  Put his affairs in order, sell the house." 

Daniel wanted to move closer, but he didn't.  His hand lifted a fraction of an inch, and dropped.  "Arrange a funeral," he said. 

"That too."  Jack's voice matched his face.  Not quite expressionless.  Underneath, a trace of . . . annoyance? 

"I'll go with you," Daniel said. 

"No need."  Jack pushed away from the table and stood, and took a step towards the door. 

"Jack, it's your father."  Let me be there for you, he wanted to say.  But he didn't, because at that moment Jack turned back to Daniel, and the look in his eyes stopped him cold.   

"The son of a bitch was already dead to me."

 

Comments

[sid]

Hmm. Dad could've abandoned them when Jack was young, been abusive, cheated on Mom.

Or possibly said or done something when Charlie died that killed any feelings Jack ever had for him.

Or, since this is J/D, been a raging homophobe.

*turns bucket upside down and shakes it* Okay, that's all I've got! :-)

[emgeetrek.livejournal.com]

Good ones. I've been leaning toward your first scenarios. Interesting that I never considered the homophobe possibility--but now I'll be weighing that as an option as well.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Oh, nice! Could have been anything and nothing. Family can burrow into places they have no business being and things can blow up to the point where words are said and feelings felt that though they're seemingly over the top they're no less real.

Let's see... Sid's are all good. Maybe Jack was off on a mission when his mother took ill and wasn't there when she died. Dad took it out on him and Jack took it out on him and it escalated from there.

Dad was anti-military. Do the math.

Dad remarried within a year of Mom's death (*VERY* common, but no less unsettling, at times). Words were said. Understanding lost.

Maybe there was an accident. Maybe Dad was driving and mom died in the accident. Maybe Dad claims to have been sober, but his history argued against it. Maybe Jack's going to go to Chicago and learn that Dad *did* clean up his act, but Jack never believed him until now, and now is too late.

[sid]

Ooh, I like that last one! That seems to be the one with the most 'story' to it.

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Not to mention all the angst potential. :-)

[emgeetrek.livejournal.com]

Family can burrow into places they have no business being and things can blow up to the point where words are said and feelings felt that though they're seemingly over the top they're no less real.

Ain't that the truth!

Anti-military, hmmm. If Jack was born in 1952 (and there seems to be some dispute about the date of his birth in the fan community), then it's likely his dad was either a WWII or Korean vet. I was born a few years after Jack, and my dad is a WWII vet, but he was 37 when I was born, which is late parenthood for that era. ::Muses over whether military service turned dad anti-military.::

Remarriage. ::Nod nod:: Real possibilities there.

Accident--o, think of the twisted web that could be woven, given the subsequent accident with Charlie . . . I fear it could take a better writer than I to do justice to that story . . .

::Puts sid's and tejas's speculations into the mix for further chewing on::

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Canon puts Jack being born in 56 (he said he was 40 when he caught the interstellar clap from Kynthia ;-). His dad could have been a Korean War protester (lots of people were, even WWII vets). His dad could have been too young for WWII, too. Korea was the first of the 'police actions' that started souring people on the military.

[sid]

I've always wondered about that bit with Kynthia. If Jack had said "I'm 39" or "I'm 41" I would take it as canon. "I'm 40" could be rounding down. ;-)

(It could be the lack of sincerity in RDA's delivery, lol)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

It sounded pretty sincere to me. And in that situation, I can't see Jack rounding down. His vanity rarely shows itself in things like that, and when it does, he always stumbles over it. :-)

[sid]

It just always pinged me as a generic term. Not a question of vanity. The precise number would have no meaning to Kynthia anyway. But I think I'm the only one, because I've never seen anyone else mention it in all the numerous discussions about Jack's age.

(sekrit message: pizza rolls were good - gone now. *sobs*)

[tejas.livejournal.com]

People don't generally round their ages, and especially not in that kind of situation. They might miss it by a year (I always have to stop and figure out if I'm 48 or 49 and will until about three months before my next birthday ;-), but rounding would come in things like "tell me your knees don't creak when *you're* in your fifties" or something like that. Given, too, that he was trying to impress upon her just how their 'god' had been cheating them, if anything he'd've rounded *up*. But this is Jack and at the heart of it, he's going to say it like it is.