Spoilers for Redemption Part 1
One Week Later
"Hey, Shel, you're hunksband is here," a nurse who likes Teal'c just a little too much for Shelby's taste announces with a crude joke.
"Teal'c, is something wrong?" Shelby asks, coming out to greet him.
"I regret to inform you that I am going to be taking on unscheduled trip through the gate."
"Why?" she asks.
"Drey'auc is ill."
"Ok, well, I'll come," she says.
He shakes his head, "The Jaffa resistance camps are not completely safe."
"I've gone there before with you, to visit your son," she protests.
"They are not the sort of place that you would bring an infant."
"Right, and I'm carrying two infants within me right now," she says with a sigh.
"Indeed," he says.
"Ok, well, if Drey'auc is too sick to take care of Rya'c, you can send him through the gate, and I can look after him for a couple of days. It might actually be nice to have him meet the girls, since you've always said they were too young for gate travel."
"There are people among the Jaffa who will watch out for his welfare, and he is old enough to take care of his basic needs himself."
"I know, but I am here," she says.
"You will be busy enough caring for two children," he says, giving her a quick kiss before he disappears out the door.
-0-0-0
"Dray'ac refused to accept the new symbiote," Bray'tec informs Teal'c as they walk through the Jaffa camp, which is only a little better than the refugee camp that his ex-wife and son lived in when he first defected from Apophis.
He was good at providing for his wife and child. They never lacked anything. And he'd given all of that up, his freedom, and luxury, all for the chance to bite back at this parasitic plague on the galacy.
But it hasn't just cost him his own luxury. It had cost his wife and son far more than luxury. It had cost them some of the basic parts of life.
"Was a symbiote procured?"
"No. She did not wish us to sacrifice the life of another Jaffa to save her own, even one who still foolishly worships the false gods. We would all chose the same fate," Bra'tac explains.
It was a womanly thing to think, and to feel. It was the same kind of logic that Shelby used when she would not hit someone who was abusing her. It was a logic he did not understand. If the choice was to die or kill, you choose to kill. If the choice was to hit or be hit, you hit.
But you did not have to understand an objection to factor it into your plans. You could work with the least rational of rationalizations, "In the past…" he begins.
Bra'tac interrupts him, "It is not the past, my friend. The dissent we have bred has brought about many changes. The Goa'uld no longer trust the Jaffa priests with their young as they once did…"
Rya'c comes out of the tent, and gives his father a look that could wither daisies. Teal'c puts out his arms, expecting his son to run to him, excited, as he has so many times in the past.
"You dare show your face here? She is dead… because of you," he says, pushing past his father.
Teal'c walks into the tent where the woman he married lies dead. He feels a little guilt about this. He loves Shelby. He loves her more. But Drey'auc, he loved her first, and longest. And the years he had with her, they were not the happiest of his life. But they were the most successful.
Sometimes, on a bad day, he misses that. He misses people bowing whenever they talk to him. He misses people staring at his forehead because they recognize there the mark of the best man of a thousand planets, not because they think he's odd.
He misses everyone doing what he says.
And he kneels before Drey'auc and remembers. She was a good women. Perhaps she was a bit petty, a bit caught up in the material things.
But he was, too, when he married her.
And she did bear him a son.
He stands from his knees and leaves the tent to go find his son. Rya'c is sitting among some trees.
"She believed in you… in the fight you have chosen," he says, still angry.
"As you once did," Teal'c tells him.
"How long were we to live like this? Are we all to die like she did?" Rya'c demands.
"The Goa'uld can be defeated," Tealc assures his son.
"As long as we must carry symbiotes, we will depend on the Goa'uld for our lives," the boy says. He can't believe that his father doesn't have the reasoning power to figure out what he, not even a full warrior, has figured out.
"We will find a way to be free," Teal'c assures his son.
"My mother will never know this freedom you speak of. She had no choice. You brought this upon her. You chose for the both of us," he says, with fury in his voice. He reaches down, and picks up a staff weapon. He levels it at his father, "Now, as any warrior would, I choose to avenge her death."
"Everything I have done, I have done for you," Teal'c says, making no motion to defend himself.
"Then I am ashamed… for you have done nothing but bring pain and misery, and above all, false hope, to countless Jaffa," Rya'c says with bitterness in his voice.
"Then fire your weapon," Teal'c says calmly. He was trained, when he was only a child, never to run from a challenge. Never to fear death. He had learned this even before he had learned to control his emotions, a lesson that his son has not learned.
If his son were to kill him, he would be well within his rights. Teal'c has done enough to deserve death, that is to be sure. The fact that he hasn't gotten death yet is some kind of a miracle.
Rya'c hits his father across the face again and again with the staff weapon, and Teal'c still makes no motion to defend himself. Rya'c slams Teal'c in the stomach, and still Teal'c makes no motion to protect himself from the blows. He allows his son to take his fury out on his father; after all, he deserves it.
Teal'c is knocked to the ground. His son has caused him to be bloody, but he just rises up, calmly allowing his son to hit him again.
Rya'c is furious that his father will not fight back. "Fight! Or do you not consider me a worthy opponent?"
He prepares to hit his father again, but Bra'tac comes up behind him and grabs the staff weapon out of his hand, "You should be glad he does not, for if he did, he would snap you in half. You have become skilled, Rya'c, but a true Jaffa warrior does not let grief cloud his judgment."
"I choose my opponent as foolishly as he chose his," Rya'c says.
"Teal'c chose your mother's fate no more than he chose his own. We are all victims of the Goa'uld," the Jaffa master says calmly.
"No, Master Bra'tac, Rya'c is correct. I have failed both he and his mother," Teal'c says, resigned.
"The boy passes judgment without having fought a single battle… hmm? Fighting a war that appears unwinnable does not make one's cause less noble," Bra'tac says with a nod to the older of his students. The two of them have spent their entire lives on the fighting the Goa'uld. And while Bra'tac still can't imagine a win in this war, he has long been prepared for a noble death while fighting it.
"He cares more for dying than for his own flesh and blood!" the teenager accuses.
"So must all Jaffa, if any of us are ever to taste freedom," the master says, handing the staff weapon back to the child. Rya'c walks way, giving his father a glare.
-0-0-0-
Teal'c takes the fire over to the pyre, and watches as his wife goes up in flame. He really didn't want to be the one to do this honor. He tried to give it to his son; after all. he is only her ex-husband. But the others had argued. You needed to be a warrior in order to light the pyre, and his son is not a warrior yet.
"Shel Mak. Shel Assah," Teal'c says to his wife. He looks across the fire, and catches eyes with his son. As soon as the eye contact is made, his son makes a hasty retreat. Teal'c starts to follow him, but is stopped by his teacher.
"Let him mourn," the master says, having seen enough grief in his more than a century to know that it comes in all forms, including spite.
"He has grown to hate me," Teal'c says bitterly.
"He does not. Nor does he truly believe our cause is futile. Drey'auc would not allow it."
"Why does he speak as he does?" Teal'c asks. He is beginning to wish that he had brought Shelby along. She would be much better at understanding all of this than he is.
"Self-doubt. Since the day Apophis brainwashed him, he has believed his own mind is weak."
"It is not true."
"You were no different at his age. After the death of your father at the hands of Cronus, fear almost consumed you. Like Rya'c, it was desire for vengeance that gave you strength," Bra'tac observes. He can see how much the father and son are like one another, even though they quite often fail to see it in each other.
"Rya'c misplaces his blame."
"He directs his malice toward you because he believes you doubt him as much as he doubts himself."
"Why would he believe such a thing?" Teal'c asks his perceptive former teacher.
"Because you are his father, and you have not told him otherwise."
Teal'c walks back to the fire, thinking about how he needs to work on his communication skills. That would make him a better father, brother-in-law, and husband. He is about to have more children, and he does not want that to go as poorly as his first venture into fatherhood did.
Perhaps he could find a book or documentary which could provide him guidance on the subject.
But for now, he has to talk to his son, no matter how bad he is at the talking.
He sits down next to his son, and doesn't say anything for a time, "Not… so long ago, I was captured in battle, and Apophis took control of my mind. He made me believe that… I was once again his loyal First Prime. And I turned on my friends who trusted me. Were it not for Bra'tac and the right of Mal-Sharran, I would have died… believing that Apophis was my god. Whether you believe in me or what I have chosen to do does not change the fact that I have never doubted your heart, Rya'c. You need never win back my trust, my son, for you have never lost it."
His son's face is full of emotion, and this time he doesn't begrudge him it, even if he is going to be a warrior someday. He gives his son a tight hug.