Disclaimer: Stargate SG1 and all affiliated characters do not belong to me. I'm only borrowing them, and am making no money from this. Just having some fun.
AN: I'm sure I'm not the first and won't be the last writer to not be sure how to write Teal'c, particularly his thoughts, so I hope this feels IC. I chose it to be second partly to get it out of the way, but I rather like how it turned out (although I'm still not sure how it happened, this wasn't where I had planned to go with it at all). Short, but I decided I was done fiddling.
POV: Teal'c
Episode reference: 7x01 "Fallen"
No ships but friendships, canon compliant, reviews and suggestions for other chapters welcome.
Unexpected Warrior
By Lady Callista
Chapter 2
Teal'c sits unmoving for a long time after DanielJackson leaves his quarters.
The look on his friend's face when he first entered keeps replaying through his mind, and Teal'c tries to remember the last time he saw that spark, that level of excitement that had practically radiated from the linguist in the early years of SG-1.
He used to see that excitement every time they stepped onto a new planet, or every time they found a ruined temple, or a village full of people who spoke a language that hadn't been heard among the Tau'ri for thousands of years.
Teal'c had often found himself frustrated and impatient with the linguist in those early years, and had been somewhat surprised to find, that as DanielJackson became a better warrior, as layers of training and control and suppressed emotions made him a better teammate in the field, that he missed those moments of exuberance.
Especially once the man had started saving them from as many disasters as he had caused.
Now one had appeared for something as simple as remembering a woman's name, and Teal'c found it unfortunate to see it vanish almost as quickly as it had appeared. He knew that there were many more horrible and painful memories, more moments that would weigh as heavily upon his friend's shoulders and heart as they had before he'd left them.
His light was already a little dimmer after what Teal'c had finished telling him about Anubis.
DanielJackson had become a formidable warrior over the years, but one thing he had never learned was a soldier's ability to accept that you could not save everyone. You could not always succeed. If there was one thing he hoped his friend had learned in his year among the ascended ones, it was that.
As much as DanielJackson's passion for knowledge and lack of combat experience had bothered Teal'c in the beginning, there was a part of him that wished his friend had been allowed to stay that man. The man who got excited about temples or ruins for the sake of knowledge itself, not because they could give them something, anything, to help them fight the Goa'uld.
He had always taken pride in his part of making his friend into a warrior, although a small part of him, even at the time, had regretted the necessity. He had regretted it even more as the years went on, as he had met more people who weren't stained and strained by war, by the things they'd seen and done.
He had always wanted his son to become a strong, proud warrior like he was, but over the years he had realized that if he had to choose now, he would wish for his son to become more like DanielJackson, as the man was now, as he had been in the first year he'd known him.
He would wish for his son to have the ability to choose what he wanted to do, to have the option of being something other than a warrior.
For the sake of this planet and all others, for the sake of the galaxy, DanielJackson needed to recover all his memories as soon as possible, and become the warrior he had been before he ascended.
Teal'c once again regretted the necessity of that.
