Category: Fanfiction
Title: A foolish man
Author: me
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Post Season 5, Angst/death
Pairings/Characters: John/Teyla, Teyla/Kanaan, Teyla/Michael, Torren
Disclaimer: The characters, etc, of SGA don't belong to us. For fun, not profit.
Word count: 2,623
Comments: Like many of my fics, this is one that I started a long time ago, but never finished. This should really be the prologue, but now it reads as a one shot. Also, I should really have this looked over, but that's now impossible. Therefore, all errors are mine. Written for the sga_beya valentine challenge on livejournal. Comments are loved!
Summary: Truly, he is a foolish man.
A Foolish Man
The crackling of the fire woke him. He must have fallen unconscious.
He looked up at the blue sky and for a second everything felt better. The pain in the back of his neck was only a dull ache now, but he hurt everywhere else.
He lay on a blanket. The fire was nearby, and beyond it was the sea. His face looked drawn and weary. The sparkle in his eyes dulled, as if something essential had left him. His mouth tasted like dirt, his eyes were full of sand and his ears were ringing.
At first, he thought he was dreaming. That everything that had happened since he had left the city was merely a dream, a nightmare.
But it wasn't.
He broke through his haze, as he heard the rumble of footsteps. Raising his head, he knew what would be hovering in the atmosphere. Strangely amazed, he searched for the apparition that not too long ago meant death and destruction. It now stands as his last hope. For it was very clear, that the one whom he despised the most already spoke his verdict.
Instinctively, as he always did at the thought of the man's mere name, his fingers curled into fists at his sides. No longer did he harbor safety, nor did he have a home, a family, not even allies. Anger seeped through his veins and he went for his weapon only to have remembered its absence. He smiled as he briefly remembered her form, the one that taught him how to use the weapon in the first place. Engraved in his mind were the days when she meticulously and patiently held his arms in hers, teaching him the unknown ways of the apparatus meant to protect him, her and their child. The same weapon, which he only just recently used to threaten her, the one he shot the man that now claimed her as his own. But he had lost the weapon as he fled away from his people's betrayal, his son's cries, her lover's wrath, and from her perfect form.
Deception, fury, venom and affliction are his companions now.
Grimacing, he pulled himself to his feet that sent a dizziness through him that nearly sat him back down. But he steadied himself and let it pass, breathing as deeply as he could.
"You are a very foolish man," he heard himself say out loud. He smiled because he truly hated the words, words that he refused to associate himself with, words that he was used to hearing nearly all his life.
The sounds of footsteps grew nearer from across the sea and he knew it would all come to an end very soon.
"I am sorry," he murmured to nothing and no one, "but it is done."
Soon, he could hear voices-barely-but the belling in his ears would hush over the small sounds of someone creeping upon him. It still amazed him how in-tuned his senses were. No more would he hide in shame and fear. No longer would he walk in the shadows of others; of him.
"No MORE!" he yelled at the emptiness surrounding him.
This was his time and his calling.
He started to move when someone grew closer. It grabbed him from behind and wrapped its forearm across his face. He grunted and tried to throw it off, but he hadn't the strength-not yet. He lost his footing and soon his face was pressed in the sand. Twisting and kicking, vaguely aware of anything anymore, a face came into view. A once dreadful, but very familiar face.
Silently, he said the cursed and forbidden name, Michael.
"Kanaan!" He could feel Michael's confusion and hesitation in his voice.
While most believed that Colonel Sheppard and Teyla had finally killed Michael on the top of the pier in Atlantis, Kanaan was the only one who knew the truth. For though Kanaan had not been present in the city at the time of the siege, he was perfectly aware of the enemy's ultimate plan. Plans that Kanaan had complete access to when he stood as the creature's second-in-command.
At the time, he had truly hated deceiving Teyla, but he also knew that with her exception, the others, including his own people, never fully trusted him after he was transformed back to normal. Instead, he opted to leave certain details to himself, fearing that Teyla would never forgive him for all that he did while in Michael's domain. One of those being his role in creating multiples of the same creature, luring others to believe there was only one, when in fact, there are many duplicates of the first.
Few could tell the difference, but Kanaan could. One of the few things he never lost was the ability to read and sense the wraith. While under Michael's influence, Kanaan had many abilities, including the ability to read and call unto Michael even while not in the same room. He could also block him quite easily, though he didn't know that at the time when Michael had found the city, but he had sense the creature from the mainland, only too late to have done anything about it. He took a chance and risked that theory now, though realizing that it only worked within certain distance. Which meant he had to find Michael first in order to be able to reach him, but he was right, and it had worked. Todd gave him a heads up on where Michael could be and he was able to find him and eventually call him here.
Hence something else was very clear to Kanaan. This was no duplicate. This was the first, the one Atlantis' people feared, the one they thought they had vanished forever.
Forcibly, Michael pressed a finger to his lips and pointed in the ship's direction. Two Wraith soldiers lifted his body and stood him face to face with Michael. He realized his fingers were still closed in fists so tightly that they were numb. If he only had a knife, he thought to himself. Yet death was so near, he had begun to loose respect for it.
Suddenly, he felt a cold chill run up his spine, but whether it was because of a change in the temperature or his fear of the one standing beside him, Kanaan had difficulty calling him by his name. "M...Michael."
"Why have you summoned me here?" Michael demanded.
"I have nothing. I am no more a man," he gasped. "I am much less, but I come with news."
"Why would I trust you?" Michael hissed and the cold breath coming out of the creature's mouth no longer frightened him.
Staring down at the ground in shame, Kanaan recalled upon a memory on the day his life crashed before his eyes, when Teyla told him they would no longer share a bed.
The anger of that memory seeped through his words, "You of all should know!"
Michael's teeth snarled before he spoke. "I have many matters to attend to, and none involve me standing in front of a wretched, minuscule being."
With his eyes closed, Kanaan nodded. He had prepared for this. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing Michael did to him could compare to that night. The night he spotted Colonel Sheppard enter Teyla's tent and not leave until the next morning. The night his heart sunk into complete darkness with her callous words of confession. "I mean to cause you no pain, but I believe you should know before others that I am in love with another man, a man that claimed my heart long before you and I conceived Torren. John Sheppard is that man."
"Teyla has chosen another and I have been shunned from my own kind." Kanaan knew Michael would understand, for he too once longed to have Teyla, and it is well known that Michael's kind no longer acknowledge him.
Finally having the courage to open his eyes, Kanaan wasn't sure if there was a smile or not on Michael's face upon his admission. Whatever it was, it was clear Michael enjoyed seeing Kanaan's misery.
"John Sheppard had her heart long before you thought you had claimed it."
Michael was perhaps the most feared creature of all his kind, but everyone knew he was no fool.
Still, his words came as no surprise to Kanaan. He has always known it, but after the birth of Torren, he thought for sure Teyla would side with him always.
"It bares no further discussion."
Leaning towards him, Michael no longer hid his anger. "Hence, I will only ask you one more time, Kanaan. Why have you summoned me here?"
His head began to hurt as he felt Michael's prodding inside of it with ease.
In the years that Kanaan lived in the city, he had seen much and had learned much. It was all in there, clearly and accessible. Thus, he saw in Michael's eyes when he found the answer to what Kanaan could not voice.
There was no denying now the evil smile creeping across the distorted creature's lips and hope had formed in the eyes of the one whom Kanaan still feared, but whom he now found a new purpose.
Micheal stood taller then, a plan already forming in his head. "You were wise to find me. Many believe you to be just a simple farmer, but I knew the minute I found you that there's great depth to your blemished character."
His words stung deeply in Kanaan's heart, for in his many years of life he had been called many things, but a wise man had not been one of them. "There's no wisdom in my actions. Deception, fury, venom and affliction follow my path now. Still, nothing matters to me, but that of my legacy; my son."
Early in his plans, Kanaan had already decided that he cared nothing for any of the others, except for his child. He was the only one he cared to save. Kanaan was an only child and therefore, Torren's life mattered to continue his mother's name, his name, and his only proof that Teyla once did love him. For he loved him, loved him far more than her.
"Fear not for his life, I have never wanted nothing more for your child than for him to live."
Michael loosened his grip on Kanaan, but he knew there was more to tell; something he deliberately hid from Michael.
"There's more..." And this was the crest of the matter. This had been Kanaan's breaking point and ultimately what drove him to the devil's lair. "Teyla-she is with child once again."
Michael's protruding eyes startled Kanaan, and he knew that there was no going back now. "Whose child?" The pain was now surfacing from Michael's forced prodding inside Kanaan's head.
Yet, there was revelation in Michael's eyes. It was very clear to Kanaan. He knew whose child this was. He just needed confirmation.
Michael's sudden grasp caused the breath out of Kanaan. His mangled hands tightly against Kanaans' tired, injured and fragile's form didn't allow him to speak at once, and it in only fueled Michael's interest and desperation, "SPEAK!"
Dazedly and shaken he replied, "Colonel Sheppard's child."
Kanaan knew the implications of his duplicity. He knew what would ultimately be his demise because Colonel Sheppard was already hunting for him. His verdict had been loud and clear to Kanaan on their last encounter, when he incapacitated the man before his feet. "I won't stop until I find you and kill you!"
John Sheppard's love for Teyla and their unborn child has no boundaries, no rules and no exceptions.
"Yes! A child born of Sheppard and Teyla would create a new breed, a powerful force unlike any ever seen before! More powerful than the Ancients themselves! Imagine, Ancient and Wraith combined. A perfect combination." The excitement in Michael's voice was exactly what Kanaan expected.
If he couldn't do the job, then surely, Michael and his minions could. A simple plan was at the heart of its execution.
Kanaan could plainly envision Michael's next plot. This was what he came here for; this was the reason for his escape, his treachery, and his very own bereavement.
"Vow to me, Michael. Vow to me that no harm shall come to my son." This was his one and only plea.
Forcibly, Michael snatched his prying hands away from Kanaan's crumpled shirt. It was the last one that Teyla had sewn for him. As was with Athosian traditions, a gift from her to commemorate the birth of their child.
"Tell me the location of Atlantis, and you may once again stand by my side with all that you wish granted."
In this, he knew he could not help Michael. However, as risky as it was, he had an alternative.
"I do not possess such knowledge; however, I can bring Atlantis to you." With a press of a button, Kanaan called in the cavalry. A detector encrusted in his body was now in the grasp of his bloody hands and he continued, "Colonel Sheppard is looking for me. He knows of my involvement with you from the past. I am a deceiver and an outcast. I have his marks all over my body from our duel and I only escaped because I formed allies with one of your kind, the one whom they call Todd. Yet, there's no question that Colonel Sheppard will find me for I have replaced his hatred of you with my own. And now, he will surely find us both. Yet, whatever happens after this, is all up to fate."
Suddenly, his breathing was labored, the walls of his neck constricted against their will. "You FOOL! Do you not know what you have done? Today is not the day for me to meet Colonel Sheppard." And his burning eyes drew closer to Kanaan. "However, I do thank you for the information, though sadly, you will not live to see any of this unfold before your eyes."
From his early years, Kanaan had been defined as a fool by many for always being so sheltered by his mother, for never grasping the ways of the wise ones, and for falling for the one that was never meant to be his.
He could feel his life being drawn from him; taste the vile blood drowning his being. And in the pinnacle of his last breath, and against his will, there was only one vision in his mind. After all, he thought he'd never see her again. He thought he hated her, wanted her, Colonel Sheppard and their seed dead!
Yet that was not so.
He lifted his eyes up to the heavens as clarity seep through his mind. For though her lips would never cry out his name, it is her perfect form the one that graces his last thoughts. It is the one that ultimately denied him, and the one that would live the rest of her life in the arms of another man whom he now called out for protection and forgiveness.
To the ancestors he cried, not for himself, but for his child, for Teyla and even for John Sheppard. Because in the end, there is no one else below the heavens that can save Torren from this evil, and there's no other man, not even he, that loves her unequivocally.
She is the forbidden beauty that was never truly his. For her, he cries to the heavens; for her, he curses his existence and for her, he gives up the fight with one last plea and with one last image imprinted in his mind.
Truly, he is a foolish man that only sees in his eyes Teyla's form.
~Fin