Silenced Screams

Chapter Six







Dixon had been at this all day long. He had no doubt he'd been to every bar and 'penny ante dive' in the entire town. He had been searching at least six hours. It was already getting dark. The snow had started to fall again about three hours ago. All the streets freezing over again as the temperature dropped well below freezing. He'd run out of places to search. He really hated to report back to Janet that he hadn't been able to find Jack after searching all day long, but he was completely out of ideas. There was just simply no place left to search. He never knew there were so many Bars in The Springs. The question just kept knocking around in his head...'If I were Jack where would I go? Where would I go to drown my sorrows?' And again he got the same answer he'd been getting all day. Any place he damn well wanted. He was Black Ops trained, if he didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be. It was as simple as that.







He'd seen the look on Jack's face as those elevator doors closed. Not good. Not good at all. Dixon didn't think he had ever seen Jack that bad. Even after Sahara death it hadn't been that bad. He didn't know the particulars of what had happened this morning in Carter's room, but he'd seen the look Jack wore when he'd gotten off the elevator this morning...he'd wrestled with his demons all night long. He was a man on the edge before he went in. He'd heard some of the crying, sobbing, the loud beeping of the machines while he and Doc talked to Carter. He'd thought he was prepared, after all he'd been down this road before. But he wasn't. Not even close. When Jack finally came out of that room almost three hours later he didn't even look like the same man who'd gone in. And that man had been bad enough. Now Jack was the 'walking dead'. He was beaten. He'd slipped over the edge. He was a man out to end his misery anyway he could. And his life had given him ample opportunity to perfect that particular art.







Jack's on a slow slide to self destruct just like he had been after Sahara's death. He was beating himself up over things he had never had control over from the beginning. He made himself shoulder all the guilt and responsibility for every wrong committed. He wasn't very good at sharing that burden, he played the role of martyr too well. He hadn't always been that way. Even after Sahara's attack he hadn't been that bad. We were all a family, we shared...we supported each other...we leaned on each other...because we knew that we were stronger together than apart. Jack knew that back then, he knew how to lean on his friends. But that all changed the day we found Sahara's body. Nothing and no one was ever the same again. Hell, Sue and I almost broke up over it. It was like she held all the things good and pure within herself. And with her passing...well, she had been our glue. The team feel apart. Everybody had their own demons to fight. Everybody had their own guilt to shoulder.







And for Jack, Jack was the worst. He fell into drinking, and I mean drinking a lot. I don't think he had a sober moment for months. But ultimately the pull of the military won out...but only to a point. They had been hounding him for years to transfer out of Special Forces and into Black Ops and I suppose in his own warped mind that was the solution Jack thought would end all his suffering. He was one step away from a dishonorable discharge when he was offered a position with a Black Ops team. He took it...and it sealed his fate forever. They weren't interested in what was best for him, only how efficient he could be at killing. And he was the best. He took risk, he gambled and pushed farther than any other. He buried himself in his new life. Cut us all out of his life and became exactly what Uncle Sam wanted him to become. His skills were second to none. He became cold, and hard and heartless.







But he wasn't the only one. We all changed I suppose. Cromwell moved on the Black Ops, putting his life on the line over and over again. Earning promotion after promotion and praises from all the powers that would deny his existence if he were ever caught. Same as Jack. It took Kowalski a bit longer to fall to that path, but fall he did. I would've followed also I suppose...if it hadn't been for Sue. I could understand their reasoning, their need to pay for their inability to protect our most innocent. I would have followed. I would have.







Our family fell apart, our combined quilt too much to bear together. Everybody set to self destruct as fast as possible. I always suspected that Jack had wanted to go the path Sahara had gone...eat a bullet and put and end to it all. But some part of that Irish Catholic upbringing stayed his hand. Black Ops gave him that chance. His exploits in the field became legendary, daring, skin of your teeth victories. But ultimately it wasn't meant for him to die that way and he was forced to go on with his life. To go on living even if his reason for living was gone. He became cold and hard and uncaring for anything but his mission. But he survived. He even learned to love again...finally. But even that was not meant to be it would seem.







And now this.







Dixon decided to make just one more run before giving up and heading back to the mountain to report his failure. He'd check Jack's place. Knowing that would be the last place Jack would go because he would reason it would be the first place anyone would look for him. But he'd checked everywhere else. Some places more than once. As he drove by his mouth fell open. “Well, I'll just be damn.” He cursed himself such a fool. “Damn, I shoulda known better.” He continued to rail against his own stupidity. Parked nicely in his own driveway was Jack's truck, obviously having been there all day, if the amount of snow covering it were anything to go by. Of all the places he'd searched all day long, the one place he'd neglected had been Jack's home. He kicked himself again as he pulled up behind his truck and killed his engine. 'I should kick his ass all the way back to the mountain for making me drive all over town for nothing.'







His front door wasn't locked and in Dixon's present mood that was a good thing. 'It would serve him right if I kicked his door in anyway.' He found Jack sitting at his dinning room table, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a table full of pictures spread out before him. From the looks of things he had been at this for several hours. He didn't even bother looking up as Dixon made his way on into the room and pulled up his own chair. Dixon spotted a couple of empty bottle of Jack Daniels near his kitchen trash can and several boxes of old scrap books and other memorabilia in the other chairs around the table.







“What took you so long. Grab a glass, I started without ya.”







For someone who'd been drinking all day Jack seemed remarkably sober as he moved from one photo to the next. Just as he figured, the table was covered with picture after picture of Sahara and Charlie. Everything from some of the baby pictures he remembered from that lifetime ago right up to their clowning around while Sahara and her date tried to look serious all dressed up and ready to go out to her first Prom. Pictures of a little boy who was the spitting image of Jack right down to that silly smirk on his face. Holding one picture particularly close to his chest Jack drained the last of his current bottle and moved to replace it with the next one sitting in row to be used. He exchanged the photo for one of the many trophies Sahara had won, it looked like the first place award she'd won at the 'Science Fair'.







Before he knew it they were laughing and exchanging stories of that much happier time. It was impossible to talk about her even all these years after her passing and not feel the warmth and joys that so defined her life. She had been everyone's little oasis in the middle of a desert. That's what her parents had always told her. Nine years of every doctor telling them she was barren, unable to have more children. 'As barren as the Sahara one doctor had said.' And then along came their little angel. And so she had been named.







And just as fast as the laugher had started, it ended.







“You can't drink this problem away, Jack” Dixon stated into the quiet that had gathered around them.







“Ya, tell me about. I've been trying all day. It's no use.” The room was heavy now with his surrender, where minutes ago it had been light and airy. “I can't do this again Dix. I can't fail somebody else. I can't lose anyone else. You don’t know what it’s like.”







“Like hell I don’t. She was as much my kid sister as she’d been born that way. To all of us. We were all a family. We all lost her. We all failed her. So don’t you dare sit there and act like we didn’t. You Doc and me, we're all that’s felt of that family. We’ve buried the rest. So get your hands out of your ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t let Carter be the next.”







“This your idea of how to make someone feel better?”







“Ya, you want sweet words, buy a freaking card.”







“You need to get your shit together Jack. You can't do anything about the past...but you can be here for Carter now. You gotta pull yourself together, you just gotta do it. Cause if you don't...and she don't make it...well it will be your fault this time. Can you live with that?”







Dixon couldn't be sure if he'd gotten through to him or not, but there wasn't much more he could do. He didn't do that emotional shit. Hell, he was a Marine...suck it up and keep going. He didn't have anymore words for him, no miracle answers that would make everything all better. What ever that was would have to come from into of Jack. He could only hope and pray that it was still there, because God help them all if he lost her too.







They continued to sit at the table, going through all the pictures and memories they'd shared, even getting Jack to tell a little about Charlie...not much, that subject it seemed was still too painful. Dixon was a father four times over, he could understand that. And quite frankly if it had been him who lost a child he was pretty sure he'd have eaten a bullet right away. Jack had a strength he didn't even realize, he just needed to be shown it was there. Dixon wasn't sure he had shown him, he could only hope. But he felt better.







Sometime before day, after they had both collapsed from drinking and reminiscing Jack came out all showered and shaved and announced he was heading back to the mountain to check on Carter. Maybe, just maybe he had tamed at least one or two of his demons, at least enough to function. Only time would tell for sure. But that was alright, they were use to living life one minute at a time, Jack could do that now. Just one minute at a time until he'd gotten through.







To Be Continued





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