Title: Missing Scene: Fire & Water

Author: Wonderland

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em, wish I did, you know who does, yadda, yadda, yadda

Summary: Missing Scene – Fire and Water

Season/Spoiler info: Fire & Water

Author’s Notes: This began as a fic for Fignewton’s prompt challenge. But I found myself further and further away from the original prompt and I found myself, and Dr. Fraiser and General Hammond, wandering further and further off topic. But I liked the scene far too much to give up on it. So I’m writing this one my way and I will write the original prompt, I promise!

Missing Scene: Fire and Water

“General, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Dr. Janet Fraiser fidgets uncomfortably as she spots me, exhibiting classic ‘fight or flight’ mannerisms.

“Please, Dr. Fraiser, join me?” I indicate the old-fashioned yard swing in which I’m sitting. She perches next to me, unsure and unable to relax.

“How are you, sir?” Her eyes are soft and full of distress.

“Just taking a breather.” I glance around Jack’s large backyard. “I just needed a moment.”

“Me, too, sir.”

“You know, I’ve lost men before. Hell, you don’t do this as many years as I have without losing men. But...” I’m at a loss to explain.

“But Dr. Jackson is different.” She relaxes a bit, leans back against the swing.

“Civilians generally are.”

“But he isn’t just any civilian, is he?” Dr. Fraiser is, in many ways, the epitome of so many great Southern belles whom people mistakenly think of as fragile flowers. My wife was one such lady who considered persistence not just a necessity but a virtue.

After a long pause, I nod slowly. “Yes, he wasn’t just any civilian. He opened the gate, Dr. Fraiser. In the eyes of the Pentagon, that made him very valuable, not expendable.”

She winces at my use of that word. “And you put him on a front line team?”

“I put him on a front line team and got him killed.”

“Sir, that was hardly your fault!”

“Dr. Fraiser, I’m responsible for every man and woman who walks through that gate. So, yes, it was my fault he got killed. I let myself be persuaded into putting him on SG-1 instead of listening to my conscience and keeping him safely on base, letting him head a department or something.”

She smiles softly. “And he would have driven you crazy in a week. He was destined to go through that gate and you know it. You couldn’t have held him back.”

“He’d have gotten over it. Hell, I should have kept him on base just for his effect on Colonel O’Neill.”

“I must admit, he does seem to be able to keep the colonel from making a variety of questionable decisions.”

I don’t point out that she is still referring to Dr. Jackson as if he were still alive, as if he were going to come bouncing through the gate or charging out of Jack’s back door.

With a pang, I realize I’m thinking the same thing.