Work Text:
His mini-me was doing the Thing again. It was a tendency the clone had developed somewhere in the time since all his thoughts and memories had been copied from Jack and stuffed into a teenage body. The kid would hover, just out of sight, something obviously on his mind, and just… stand there. Or he would open his mouth to say something, then hesitate, before clearly bringing up some other topic.
For the life of him, Jack wasn’t sure if it was something Jonathan did with everyone or just him. Theirs was an admittedly unique situation. A little over a year ago, they had literally been the same person. Then, through no fault of their own, they’d become separate. Jack had definitely gotten the better end of that deal.
Still, in the months since they had gotten back in touch (despite Jon’s initial plan to cut all ties with Jack, the team, and everyone else that he knew), Jack liked to think they had found some sort of equilibrium. At least a little bit. They talked on the phone. The kid almost always showed up for team nights when he was invited. Furthermore, it had taken little convincing for him to accept the invitation to crash in Jack’s spare room while his apartment was being repaired and renovated. Surely, the teen could just speak up without such awkwardness.
Jack continued folding laundry and sorting it into piles on the coffee table in front of him, politely pretending he hadn’t noticed Jon lingering indecisively at his four-o’clock. He had a pretty good idea what was on the boy’s mind. At the current rate, however, Jack might have to broach the subject himself.
“Hey, ah, Jack,” his clone finally decided to speak up, moving closer to where Jack sat on the sofa. (Privately, Jack thanked the Asgard and whatever other occasionally helpful would-be deities might inhabit the universe.) “I was wanting to talk to you.”
“You don’t say. Come. Talk,” said Jack, pausing to frown at an unfamiliar pair of undershorts. “I believe these are yours.”
Jon snatched away the garment in question, tucking it beneath him as he sat down in the armchair. “I want to go to Atlantis,” he declared. Which was rather direct considering all the evasive loitering he’d been doing in the past week.
“So does Daniel.”
“Yes. Yes, but as I’m sure you and Daniel and anyone else who knows anything already know, Daniel is needed here. I, on the other hand, am––” the teen broke off, reaching out to take a brightly colored sock with cartoon rockets on it from Jack with a frown. “—confused as to why so many of my clothes are in your laundry. Seriously, what gives?”
“Did you put your clothes in my hamper?” asked Jack, sitting back to let him sift through the remaining unsorted clothing.
“No, I did not put my clothes in your hamper,” retorted Jon.
Jack watched amusedly as Jon retrieved more and more of his personal items out of his laundry. The teen was starting to collect a modest pile. He gave a chagrined grimace.
“I may have, due to old habits, put some of my clothes in your hamper,” he allowed. “But that just goes to prove my point. Daniel or Carter, Teal’c––they can’t head off to another galaxy because they’re needed in this one. They’re too important. You can’t spare them on a possible one-way trip.
“But you--there’s two of you. And as it turns out, I’m not being utilized anywhere. I’m not… I’m not needed here. Or anywhere,” Jon murmured, then declared much more loudly, “and I swear, if I have to sit through another high school class pretending I’m just another teenager...”
“So, you think you’d be able to contribute to the expedition,” Jack stated.
“We both know that I can! My experience with the program and gate travel alone could prove invaluable, and if nothing else, I have that Ancient gene Weir and her team are so crazy about.”
The older man nodded. “All true,” he conceded. “Let’s say you do go. Officially, you have no rank and no authority. Now, Weir and Sumner know who you are and I think it’s likely they’d be willing to listen to you some of the time, but they won’t be obligated to do so.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” Jack questioned.
“Better than you possibly could,” Jon declared.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other, Jack studying the determination on his duplicate’s features. It was clear the kid really wanted to go. His desperation to be a part of something again was almost palpable. He’d gotten a taste of it at the Ancient outpost and he didn’t want to let go of the opportunity.
There was a lot Jack would never be able to understand about what it was like to be his clone, but he knew a bit about wanting to do something meaningful. It was why he’d already gone through all the proper channels and completed all the necessary paperwork to have an answer for the kid. Because Jon’s request was inevitable from the moment Jack had invited him to Antarctica.
“Okay,” said Jack.
“Look,” Jon began at the same time, still prepared to argue his case, “I know it’s a lot to ask, bu–-wait, what?”
“I said okay.”
The kid gaped at him in surprise. “Really?”
“I mean, it’d be a bit contrary for me to deny you when I already went through all the effort to get you cleared to go,” drawled Jack.
“You did?”
“I had a hunch.”
While there were a few responses Jack might have expected, his clone lunging at him from the chair hadn’t been one of them. He hadn’t anticipated the kid throwing his arms around him, either. As a result, the man sat there frozen for a moment before awkwardly returning the hug. It was oddly nice.
“Thank you, Jack,” Jon told him, and if his tone sounded a little emotional, neither of them were about to mention it. “Thank you so much.”
“Hey,” Jack replied, giving the boy’s shoulder a pat, “you’re welcome.”
#
It had been a long time since Jack could remember seeing quite so many people in and around the gate room. There were representatives from more than a dozen different countries, along with Airmen, Marines, scientists, and civilians. Jack’s gaze was focused on one figure in particular, however, smaller than many of the people around him by simple virtue of physically being the youngest. Even throughout Weir’s speech, Jack found he could barely look away from his clone for more than a moment at a time.
Weir rejoined him in the control room as the gate technician announced the dialing progress. Jack glanced over at her when he felt her watching him. She offered a small smile that he acknowledged with a nod. She turned her attention back to the dialing sequence. Jack’s gaze returned to where Jon had found Sheppard and a young lieutenant in the room below.
The gate connected and before he knew it, they were sending a MALP, verifying that there was viable life support on the other side, that the expedition really was about to proceed. A hand settling on his arm brought Jack’s attention back to Dr. Weir.
“Hey,” she said, tilting her head to indicate his clone, “we’ll take good care of him.”
Jack cracked a smile. “He’s not actually a kid, you know,” he told her.
Weir gave him a knowing smirk, gently squeezing his arm before letting go. “Yes, he is.” She didn’t wait for his response, leaving to lead her expedition into the unknown.
“She’s right, you know,” Daniel remarked from beside him. Jack knew neither of them were really talking about his clone’s physical age or his hormone levels or brain chemistry, the biological things that really did make the younger O’Neill a bona fide teenager despite his origins.
“Yeah,” Jack admitted softly, returning the gesture as Jonathan turned to look up at him and wave as he went up the ramp. “I know.”
After all, Jack was self-aware enough to realize what his clone had come to mean to him. And it took more willpower than Jack cared to admit to just stand there and let his kid go.