Spoilers: Double Jeopardy, Abyss, Fragile Balance

Eighteen months ago

Daniel was gone, dead, sacrificing himself for the team yet again. Carter was down, dying. Teal'c was on the edge of collapse. Jack lay immobile on the floor, fading, gazing up into the face of…himself.

"The real Carter and Teal'c are okay," the other Jack O'Neill was saying to him. "Yours…not so much."

"Are we still not so real to you?" Better. Stronger. Faster.

Jack gazed down at his robot double, patting him on the arm. He got it now. "No. I guess not."

"Then I guess our work here is done."

xxxx

Present Day

Jack huddled against the wall, knees to his chest, resting his head on his arms. Ba'al was going to kill him again, there was no doubt about that. Kanan was dead. The Tok'ra didn't know where he was, so neither did Stargate Command. He wasn't even really sure what he had been doing on the planet in the first place, he just kept getting a visual of a woman. He knew she was important to him…or to Kanan. Or both of them.

He wasn't sure how many days he had been here, or how many times Ba'al had taken advantage of the sarcophagus to make him suffer so deeply, but he knew that he wouldn't last much longer. It was only a matter of time before he told Ba'al everything he wanted to know about the girl. He would hold off as long as he could to give his team as much time as he could to find him, but he couldn't last forever. Not for Kanan.

He shook his head in confusion. Not for Kanan? What did that even mean?

Even as he thought it he knew. He was doing this for the girl. Like so many other battles he had fought, he was doing this for someone else. Ba'al wasn't interrogating United States Air Force Colonel Jack O'Neill, general thorn in the side of the Goa'uld for the past six years. He wasn't asking about Earth's defenses, or SGC tactics, he wasn't asking Jack to betray his country or world. No, he was interrogating and torturing the host of Kanan the Tok'ra. This wasn't Jack's battle, this wasn't his family or his world he was protecting. All of this, this unspeakable and inconceivable torture he was enduring, was all for a girl he didn't even know.

Except he did.

He shook his head, his eyes still closed, his forehead braced on his knees. This made no sense. How could you love someone you had never met?

Kanan had loved her. Jack could sense that. Kanan had come back for her, had kidnapped Jack's body, definitely without his consent, to come back to save her. He had failed miserably, but at least he tried. He tried, because as soon as they had blended he was imbued with the very essence of Jack O'Neill, every thought, every moral fiber that made him who he was. Jack O'Neill would never leave his people behind.

He could only hope that his people wouldn't leave him behind either.

Xxxx

It didn't take Daniel long to figure out where Kanan had taken Jack. Carter, Daniel, Teal'c and David all knew exactly why Kanan had done what he had done, because it was exactly the kind of thing any one of them would have done. Except David, of course, but that was only because he wasn't allowed through the Stargate. And he wasn't much of a soldier. But he could remember what it felt like to leave his brother behind the first time, all those years ago, and he wasn't about to let that happen again.

So now they knew where Jack was, but they had no idea how to get him out. He was being held in Ba'al's fortress, and for all their success against the Goa'uld in the past and the many advances they had made in science and technology, the SGC did not have the resources to launch an attack on such a heavily defended enemy stronghold. Especially one with antigravity fields, and David wasn't going to mention to anyone how awesome he thought the idea of antigravity fields was. Well, maybe he'd discuss it with Carter, later.

SG-1 and David were wracking their brains for any ideas that would help them to rescue Jack, but every idea got shot down, either by the Tok'ra or the General, or even themselves. They couldn't risk sending an assault team; the fortress was too heavily guarded and, despite the many volunteers, General Hammond had already said no.

It was much too early in the morning and none of them had slept. They sat around the commissary table, nibbling on snack food and drinking coffee, trying not to look defeated or angry. David watched Teal'c's jaw clench and he smiled, thinking of a much younger Jack who had looked just as frustrated.

"What are you smiling at?" Carter asked.

He shook his head, still smiling. "Nothing." At their continued stares, he explained. "When we were kids, Jack got in a lot of fights."

"Why am I not surprised?" Daniel muttered.

David laughed. "It's not what you think. He was a good kid. I was bullied a lot back then, but Jack took care of it. He was my baby brother, and he was fighting kids four, five years older than him because I couldn't stand up for myself. After this one fight we were walking home. I couldn't understand why he was fighting so much, especially with boys he didn't even know because they weren't in his class, so I asked him why he liked fighting. He was so angry with me." David laughed at the memory of his little brother with bloody palms and a swollen eye looking so indignant and frustrated. "I don't remember his exact words, but he said if I wouldn't stand up for myself, then he would do it for me. He was fighting my battles because I didn't have the courage to do it myself, because he couldn't stand to see me get hurt."

If it was possible, Teal'c sat up even straighter. "You," was all he said.

David nodded, still reminiscing. "Yeah. Me. I mean, he was my baby brother, for crying out loud, I should have been the one protecting him. Well after I realized what he was doing, I really pulled my act together and…" he looked around the suddenly empty room. SG-1 was gone. "Was it something I said?"

Less than 24 hours later Jack O'Neill came home.

xxxx

Nine months later

Jackie Granseth sat in her dorm bedroom, rereading her history notes and making further notes in the margins for things to look up later when she could get to the library. There were times she cursed the study habits her father drilled into her as a young student, but this wasn't one of those times. She really wanted to ace this test.

There was a knock on the door and she rose to answer it, never one to turn a friend away. She opened the door to reveal her smiling father. "Dad?"

"Hey, girl," he said, pulling her into a hug. "Sorry about dropping in like this. Are you busy?"

"I'm never too busy for you. What's up?"

His grin never faded. "There's someone I want you to meet."

She looked up at him curiously, then glanced at the doorway for her father's guest. She had only recently met her Uncle Jack, an unexpected but very welcome surprise to both her and her Dad, but she didn't expect any other family members to be popping out of the woodwork anytime soon. "Hello," she said warily, wondering who the young boy was and why her father wanted them to meet.

"Hi," the young man replied easily with a little wave of his hand. He couldn't be more than fifteen years old. The boy stepped inside her room and walked right up to her. He glanced at her father and grinned before turning back to her. "So I guess you're my sister."

She gaped at him, unable to think of a coherent response.

"My name is Jack," he told her proudly. "Your Dad just adopted me. So that makes us siblings, right?"

She nodded dumbly. "Adopted?" She looked at her dad, and saw the pride and joy in his face. Comprehension struck and she glared at him. "Why didn't you tell me!" she demanded, then grabbed Jack's hand and pulled him into a rough embrace. "Of course I'm your sister. This is going to be so much fun, I've always wanted a brother."

Jack O'Neill never accepted that he was worthless, or unimportant, or that he didn't have the brains to do something. His fourteen year-old clone certainly wasn't going to, either. He was going to live the life he should have had forty years ago, with a family that loved him and knew his life had meaning.

No matter how many of him there were, Jack O'Neill was never second best.

The End