Author's Notes: Serious topic of suicide in this fic - also, thank you to Heather and Karen for beta-ing this fic. Any mistakes are my own.

From The Table of My Memory
(I'll wipe away all trivial fond records) Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

By Gategrrl

"Why the hell didn't we think of this before it happened?"

I heard Gen. O'Neill through the heavy metal hospital door. He only made my head ache worse, hearing him ranting on.

Daniel's muffled tenor leaked through the hospital door's edges. Then I heard Teal'c's rumble. Carter piped in a word or two. But I closed my ears and shut them out.

" 'From now on, you and me will be different.' " Had I really say that crap? Did I even mean it? The big metal door swung open.

"Hey," I said. I would've waved, but my arm was strapped down with tubes running into it. So was my other arm. Strapped down. Legs too. Jeez, I was surprised MacKenzie hadn't shot me full of psychosomatic drugs. The bugger was fascinated by how SG-1 worked. We'd make his rep for him, if we let him. That and fill up his padded white-walled hotel rooms.

O'Neill Mark 1, otherwise known as Jack O'Neill, didn't mince words. "Suicide is a lousy way out," he fumed. "Jack." He spat my name out like I was a Goa'uld who had particularly offended him.

"Yeah, it is," I agreed, cutting through the mild sedative pouring into me. "But then, my life sucks a lot more than yours does right now." I used to do self-pity really well, back in the days after Charlie died. Do it even better now. Like myself even less.

"You're goddamn lucky Daniel tracked you down, or I'd be looking at your toe tag."

I shrugged. "I have the seen the enemy, and he is us." Wisdom for the ages. Thank god for Pogo. This wasn't exactly a Monty Python moment. But right now, I felt an urge to make O'Neill Mark 1 join the Ministry of Funny Walks. Being tied down to a bed didn't help that situation. I visualized it instead. Must've smirked or something.

"What?"

O'Neill Mark 1's older, lined face registered complete befuddlement. God, when I - he - plays dumb, I hadn't realized how completely that role takes over. He was still deluding himself. I wasn't. That's why I was lying here strapped to a hospital bed in restraints and he was standing in front of me, hands in his pockets wearing that dumbass Norwegian hat. Didn't realize how awful I looked in it. Yech.

I was tired of the kid persona. Just a different act to get Jack O'Neill, Mark II, through another day. Pretenses. I never did make-pretend well, even as a real kid.

"Okay," I said. "I'll stop acting like a bratty kid, and you drop the stupid pet trick act. It'll make things easier to hash out."

There was a knock on the door. O'Neill Mark 1 turned. It was Daniel. O'Neill Mark 1 signaled him to wait, and I saw him, Sam and Teal'c walk past the door, on the way to the cafeteria, I guess. Teal'c had hair? Wow, big change from when he was about to cut my hair off my head. Once they were out of sight, O'Neill Mark 1's whole stance changed. What's the point of pretending to your mirror image? A funhouse mirror image, but still, with all the essentials.

Then the man I recognized as me slid a chair over to the side of the bed. His eyes narrowed. His put-on semi-slouch disappeared. And I could just about see the clicks as his mind locked down into place. Yeah. That was the me I remembered from a long time ago. Hi, me. Nice to meetcha again.

The underlying me. The me I hated with a passion. The one whose choices always seemed to lead to death. Except that one time on Abydos. But it did lead to death for Ra and all those kids and Jaffa and human servants and the scattered Tok'ra or two in there. So, no go there, either.

"The real us, I presume?" I said. I had no idea what he saw, but it obviously didn't please him. "D'you understand now, General?"

His hand squeezed the top of the chair corners. Any humor in his face was gone, and he resembled the pics of me I'd seen right after Charlie's death. Grim. Withdrawn. Tight facial muscles. Just a bit less in the black hole, 'cause it was me/him/us making the hole, not our son. Charlie hadn't killed himself on purpose. L'il ole me had tried.

"There's a lot to live for," he said. He sounded like he meant it.

"Is there? Abydos and Ska'ara. Gone. After Daniel told me about it, I thought I'd worked through it. He said you never mentioned it at all. He had to come to me to talk about it. I felt kinda hopeful for a while. Believe it or not. A whole goddamn planet and its people Ascended. Then I started wondering about Ascension really being all that special. Or maybe the Abydonians had suffered enough, and Oma was just being kind."

His eyes got harder. His mouth set in a line. Nothin' like hearing the hard truth from yourself. Hello, Jiminy Cricket. Good-bye, heart.

"It went away. The hope, I mean." My voice cracked a tiny bit. Had to focus.

"Yeah," said O'Neill Mark 1. He packed that one word with caution. He tried not to look at the bandages wrapped around my wrists. The stitches itched like crazy. And yeah, there are lots of other more efficient methods to off oneself. But I'd had enough of hurting, painful deaths, thanks to Apophis and Ba'al. But Daniel to the rescue again the one time I didn't want to be rescued.

"I haven't learned to like myself. Have you?" Battin' one-thousand, now.

It's hard to stop once you start. And he needs to face it all, as much as I do. Drop the lame-ass act. It's been there so long, even Daniel is falling for it: or Daniel doesn't care anymore, much, because it's hard to be friends with a man who can't give it back. He doesn't talk a lot about General Jack, to me. He's in a good place, with or without the older me, or me. And I find that sad. Never been so goddamn happy as when I saw him sitting in that coffee house, alive, gathering memories like a kid picking wildflowers. I reached out. O'Neill Mark 1 didn't. And, for me, it hasn't made a bit of difference, either. I'm here in the hospital with bandages on my wrists and tied to a bed. We are worlds unto ourselves. I think Daniel's known that all along. I didn't. Hence, I'm here tied to a bed with stitches on my wrists, and he's walking around mind intact and never a suicidal thought.

O'Neill Mark 1 leaned forward in his chair. "Listen, I - we - have been through this before. If you'd just kept up with those anti-depressants -"

"Can it, wouldja?" I forget I'm talking out of a pipsqueak scrawny sixteen-year-old body and roar at him. "Meds don't cut it! Talking to a shrink won't cut it! Going through the Stargate won't cut it! Not any more!"

I'm breathing hard, now. There's an interruption when a nurse pops in asking if everything's okay. I get a grip. She leaves only after both of us convince her I'll be fine.

O'Neill Mark 1 and I stare at each other for a long moment. It's kinda like that moment with Sarah (a lifetime ago) when I knew she was the one I wanted in my life. We looked into each others' eyes one night, and that was it. We were connected. O'Neill Mark 1 and I reconnect after a year and half of separation, but the sensation isn't nearly as loving and full of revelation as the connection with Sarah. I miss her. I bet he does too. He doesn't want to admit it.

This life has become unbearable. There's no joy left in it at all. I've got more years of it in front of me than he has. And he's got people depending on him. People who love him. God knows why. But not me. Not anymore.

"There's another way out." He's all quiet. His left arm reaches up and messes with his gray hair. My right arm tugs at a restraint, and I realize I'm trying to do the same thing. I force it to relax, and it sinks back onto the mattress.

"Join the junior commandos?" That came out more bitter than I intended, but I don't care. Yeah. Make more death. Like I want to go there again.

He draws out his "Nooooooo" like he's painting a sign with it. Then he taps his head with his forefinger. The drugs may be dulling my senses (my tongue tastes awful) but this is weird. What is he trying to tell me?

"Well, aside from doing this again, I can't ---." I stop in midsentence. I stare at him. He stares back at me. My jaw clamps shut and I narrow my eyes. He's doing the same thing, catches himself, and starts playing with a pen that was in his pocket.

"No goddamn way." There's still some of that Viyan amnesia drug left on the base. The Linnea solution. Forget Me Totally. Not. Forget what you were, and what you'd done. Become someone new. "That stuff only blocks memories. It doesn't erase character flaws," I point out. Linnea as Ke'ra still creeped me out. "I'll make the same mistakes all over again."

"It's not a total reset button," O'Neill Mark 1 agrees. "The neural memory pathways will still be there. But it's better than diving into that black hole and losing yourself again."

"Would you do it?" I ask. "Is this a Daniel solution?"

I know damn well O'Neill Mark 1 loathes this drug and the person who created it. Cowards' way out. Easy. Reversible if you're wanted again. Worse than suicide. Suicide has a finality to it that immensely appeals to me that this drug does not. Can't deal with who or what you are? Forget all about it. Need a clean slate - well, almost? No problemo. The intelligence community dove onto this drug with all its collective little hearts. All the dirty little ways to use it...I preferred not to think of all its uses. Linnea would approve, I think.

"What would happen to me?" I've already got a fair idea, but I want to hear it coming out of his mouth anyway. My turn to play dumb. We do it so well.

"New school. New home. Foster parents. New life." He sounds almost...wistful. Wow. I never thought he'd ever want to be me. Him as me. Whatever. "I've set up a blind trust fund," he finishes.

"You were so sure I'd do this." Glaring at him. Smug bastard. How well does he know me? Or himself? Better than I thought? Have I underestimated myself? My head presses down into the pillow a few inches. As fucked up as Linnea/Ke'ra was - but there was something else about that stuff. "Doesn't it turn the clock back, General? Make you younger than you were? Isn't that kinda pointless with me? Or has the lovely Ke'ra cracked that problem yet?" I don't trust that bitch, and I never will. His grimace tells me he agrees with that line of thought.

General plays with his pen some more. Then: "The folks we met the first time were exposed to the highest concentration of that agent."

"That's why they regressed about fifty years," I filled in.

"Right. The people further out didn't regress as far, or as fast. We landed in ground zero."

That was true. Luckily for the Viyans, no one from a neighboring country decided to invade and enslave, in time honored human tradition. Goa'uld don't have the corner on that market. Everyone was confused and flummoxed by that wacky wacky Vorlix.

I finished putting it together. "So, you know the dosage necessary for me to forget, but not regress too much." My wrists were aching and itching but I tried ignoring it. "I'd have to go through puberty again?" Screw that! Another knock on the door. It opened, and Daniel stepped in. Carter and Teal'c weren't with him.

O'Neill Mark 1's eyes kinda slid over and past him, and he concentrated on his pen like it's a valuable alien artifact. Or a gold watch for retirement.

"How's it going?" Daniel grabs another chair and thunks it down a few feet away from O'Neill Mark 1. At least he's not on the other side of the bed, and I don't have to watch them like it's a tennis match.

"Jack here just suggested I take that Vorlix crap. Your idea?"

Daniel nods. He doesn't make eye contact with O'Neill Mark 1, but does with me.

"It seems a good way to deal with your memories," he says. "Dr. Frasier did some tests on the Vorlix, and I got the reports back from Area 51 on it. A small amount should cover your synapses and um, make you younger by a few years. It should work." He glances at O'Neill Mark 1. Then back at me. He knows. Knows about the shitty memories from me, from that other me, put the pieces together. That's what he does. Put together the little pieces and make a full picture out of the jig-saw.

'How much younger, Daniel?" I pick at the cover. Not easy with the restraints. Daniel opens his mouth, but it's O'Neill Mark 1 that pipes up.

"It won't matter how young you are. You won't remember my life, you won't remember your life, and you'll have time to build new memories and a new life."

"Who's mixing the brew? Ke'ra? You know how much I trust her. Poison is as poison does."

Daniel flinches at that. Oh, and so does the O'Neill Mark 1. Daniel might be my friend, too, but I have less reason to hold back how we really felt about that person. Of course, bringing her back and letting her onto the mainframe...major stupidity. But, maybe the source of my release, too. Talk about getting into bed with the devil. And cosmic Karma. I chew my cheeks to keep from laughing. Do that, and I won't be able to stop, and then the nurse will shoot me with the joy juice, and I'll lose any control I've got. And from there, who knows who'll get custody of me. NID? The psych ward? The Asgard? Shit, no. Thor is nice, but for the long-term?

Deep breaths, I'm good, I settle down. Hints of hysterics bubble here and there to the surface. Next time I open my eyes, Daniel is gone, but O'Neill Mark 1 is still sitting there.

"Where'd he go?"

Instead of answering, General Jack stares at me. "You've got a choice. It's a simple one to make. Go nuts, or --- "

"Hand me a gun," I say, "And I'll show you the choice I take. It's the one I should've taken instead of this." I move my wrists. He stops playing with the pen and puts it back in his pocket.

"You'll go to a good family. You'll get some measure of happiness. If you decide to reintegrate your original personality, after your new one is established, you could do that. I'll have a dose of it put aside for that use in a secure location. Should you ever decide to reboot yourself." He pauses and fists his hands until his knuckles are white. "We're not bad people, Jack."

I blinked. I'd rather not believe him. "You have been talking to Daniel," I said. He shook his head.

"Remember the first time on Abydos," he said. "Remember what happened in the cave? I think you've forgotten."

Echoes of that past. A hard knot in my throat made it hard to swallow.

The nurse picked that moment to come in and check the IV drip. O'Neill Mark 1 gives her a little nod. I might have missed it if I had let myself get distracted by her movements. She tapped the tube, and added a yellowish liquid to it via the shunt. I feel sleepy. She checks my pulse, and I hear her and O'Neill Mark 1 talk, but it's only a murmur to me.

My mouth opens and I say, "Do it." At least, I think that's the sound that comes out of my mouth.

He cat grins at me, eyes crinkling at the corners. "You don't deserve my demons. Get your own." My last thoughts as myself are, Freaking bastard. He was going to do it whether I agreed or not. But I won't curse myself for giving me another chance. Daniel's good at death, but there are other ways to die, and those are the ones I know best. But not this time. Not this time.

PLOT BUNNY ALERT:

MiniJack gets his new home, forgets whom he was. But there are others who can't forget who he is, what is hidden in his mind. NID. The SGC. Daniel. Jack. And does miniJack really want to forget who he is, what he knows? Is he more of his own person now that he has more of a life to remember?

What if something happened to General Jack O'Neill?