One Week Later
"Shelby, it has come to my attention that I have botched the engagement ceremony," he informs her as she leaves the college class.
"No, actually I think you did a very good job of it," she says, skipping a tiny bit as she runs up to give him a quick kiss on his cheek.
"I failed to ask your father for your hand in marriage. I understand that the man who lives with your mother is not your father. Should I ask your current or biological father for permission to proceed with our upcoming nuptials?"
"You're asking if you should ask the guy who abandoned me or the guy who hit me for permission to marry me?"
"Indeed."
"Neither Teal'c, you just ask me to marry you, because I don't belong to anymore. It's an old tradition, and it certainly doesn't work with the jerks in my life."
"I am under the impression that it is a tradition which endears yourself to the family."
"They're going to say no."
"My information suggests that they always assent to the marriage."
"Yeah, well that is not going to happen here," Shelby says, not meeting Teal'c's eyes.
"If there is something about me that they would find objectionable, I will endeavor to change it."
"You're going to change your skin color?" Shelby asks.
Teal'c looks at her.
"You probably don't understand this. Maybe you can't even understand it, because you're not from Earth. But in America…"
"Your country is not the only one to ever treat people unfairly based on things they could not help."
"I'm sorry," Shelby said.
He looks at her with a question in his face, "Do you feel as your family does?"
"What? Of course not! Just because my family is a racist, doesn't mean that I am."
"Then why would you apologize?"
"It's just what you would do. When someone in your family hurt someone you love you apologize."
"If my race will provide you with embarrassment, we could terminate the relationship."
"Not a chance, man."
"I would expect further contact with your family as the nuptials approach."
"No way, I swore I was never going back there."
He stops, and Shelby pauses her steps to stay near him. He touches his arms, the fingers spraying over the long vanished bruise. "I would not allow them to hurt you again."
-0-0-0-
"Jack, look what Emma gave me today," Sam says, holding up a card for her husband alone in their bedroom that night.
"Best Mommy ever," he reads, "Sounds like it fits you pretty well," he smiles.
"I'm not her mother."
"Of course you are. You're her mother. I'm her father. We're a family. She deserves this to feel real, for everyone."
"I know, that, but my point is that she has a mother out there somewhere."
"A mother who doesn't want her."
"A mother who never got rid of her parental right, which is why we're her guardians and not her adopted parents."
"Right, and if we go looking for this imaginary mother, we might lose our daughter," Jack says.
Sam looks away.
"You don't even care, do you?" Jack accuses. "Maybe you even want her gone."
She shakes her head "Jack, when your father left it was a good thing, a blessing. You don't get death… what it's like. When a good person leaves your life… it's different. I can't imagine what it would be like to have someone you love just walk away from you."
"She doesn't remember her mother."
"She knows that her mother left her," Sam insists.
"Samantha, we are not even going to discuss this. We are not going to give our child away to a stranger who didn't want her," Jack says, stomping out of the room.
A Week Later
Teal'c reaches across the table to squeeze Shelby's hand. She gives him a smile. At first he didn't understand these strange Earth things. They could mean so many things that they were completely meaningless. People smiled when they were happy, and when they were sad, and when something was funny, and when they were nervous and for a million other reasons.
But by learning to read Shelby, he had learned to read humanity. He knew this little lazy smile, accompanied by a half circle eyes facing down, was the kind of smile people made when they were trying to lie about their feelings until they themselves believe it.
He gives her a smile, and hopes it says all the thing the meant to say. He hopes it says he's sorry. He hopes it says he's scared too, and most of all he hope it says that everything is going to be all right.
"Shel," Shelby's mother says approaching. Shelby's mother holds out her hands, obviously expecting a hug, but Shelby doesn't move out of the seat.
"Look, Teal'c wanted to spend some time with you before the wedding. That's what we're here for," Shelby says.
"I thought this is what I was doing."
Teal'c stands up, and extends his arms to her. She baulks a little. She had decided to be nice. She had decided that she wasn't a racist, that she didn't care that her daughter was marrying a black man.
But she had never touched a black man before, and the involuntary flinch speaks more than words.
A year ago, Teal'c would have missed it. Little motions didn't matter. If you were close enough to see a flinch like that, your opponent could have already killed you. But in cities, where most battles are social, you had no notice smaller things.
He sits down and tries to understand racism. It should make more sense to a person who has worked around slaves his whole life. But he doesn't understand how skin color still matters when slavery was abolished before any of them was born.
Shelby's mother, Mary Done, sits down and fidgets with the silverware. "I'm sorry your father couldn't be here."
"I assume you're talking about Scott, and not the coke addict who actually contributed to my genes," Shelby says bitterly.
"Right, well, he's watching the kids, so he couldn't be here."
"I didn't want him here," Shelby says angrily.
"I don't know why I even came iffin you don't want to see me," Shelby's mom says, standing to leave.
Teal'c's voice stops her, "We cannot always be the parents that we wish we were."
Mary sits back down, and looks at him.
"When my son was small, I was often on missions as a warrior."
"You have a kid?" Mary asks, acting like a truly worried mother for a bit.
"He will not reside with us."
"Where is your kid?" Mary asks with the same kind of face that her daughter wore, because of the same kind of baggage.
"My child is with his mother."
"But you're not there for him," Irene said.
"Teal'c's son is too far away. He is as involved in his son's life as he can be."
"Like your dad claimed to be as involved in your life as he could be?"
"He was," Shelby says, "You wouldn't let him see me."
"Because he was bad for you!"
"And you were so great! I've taken care of you since I was a little girl! I have taken care of my siblings since I was born. My dad might not have done anything for me, but at least he didn't do anything to hurt me!"
"I didn't come here to argue about the past. I came here to get to know the man who will define your future."
"I do not make decisions on behalf of Shelby," Teal'c says stoically.
"No, no one can do that. I couldn't even do that when she was a little girl. But the decisions that the two of you make together are different than the decisions that she would have made if she was on her own. So this decision… it matters more than all of the decisions."
Teal'c leans back in the both, one of the few social cues that has become natural to him since he first went out into the world and started learning body language by rote.
"So, who are you?"
"I am Teal'c of Chulak."
"Will she be taking your last name?" Irene asks innocently.
Shelby snort, "Mom, Chulak isn't a last name."
"A title?" Mary says hoping that maybe her daughter has tripped onto royalty.
"A place, Chulak is a… country," Shelby substitutes for the word 'planet.'
"It is, in fact, a city," Teal'c corrects.
"Really?" Shelby asks.
"The SGC made an error in listing Chulak on its records."
"And you never bothered to correct them?" Shelby asks in shock.
"At the time that the error was made, I confined by your country."
"Wait a second…you were in jail?" Mary asks.
"No, he was a political refugee, mom, he didn't do anything wrong," Shelby says.
"I have in fact done many things wrong," Teal'c corrects, suddenly panicking that Shelby might not understand the depth of his past.
"I know you did bad things before. But you were following orders. And you don't do those things anymore."
"I still follow orders," Teal'c says.
"Right, but Jack's orders. I mean he doesn't tell you to do… horrible things."
"He is a better leader than Apophis, but does not mean I do not do horrible things. And having orders does not absolve you of moral obligation."
Shelby looks at him, and smiles. And he realizes that she doesn't understand the depth of what she did. She doesn't understand guilt.
He hopes she never will.
But still, there is something missing between them. There will always be a part of him, a large part of him, the majority of him, that she would never understand.
Then he looks at the way Shelby looks at her mother, and he realizes that there is a part of her, the part which was neglected and abused, which was abandoned, and grew up too fast, and that was a part of her which he would never understand.