(no subject)
Title: A Space Apart
Author: Annerb
Summary: Teal'c moves back to the SGC and contemplates the decisions he has made.
Warnings: PG
Categorizations: Angst, ‘Affinity’ addition.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A Space Apart
I find it difficult to quiet my mind enough to sink into the comforts of meditation this day.
The grey walls around me, once familiar and everyday, seem to close in on me, a taunting reminder of my recent failure. Even a myriad of candles does nothing to soften the starkness.
But I try to ignore the pressing walls and the hardness of the cold floor, refusing to let my mind wander to the vastly differing apartment I have so recently vacated.
It should not be so difficult to come back to this room. I had long ago accepted that living in this windowless tomb would be a part of the price I pay for freedom, even as the open woodlands of my homeland begin to fade in my memory. All I have known now for seven years are hidden spaces and hushed secrets. They have long since become my reality.
But today it seems to have become a nightmare and I cannot be sure how I have ended up at this place.
I do not often think of the moment that changed everything for me. It is not difficult to comprehend and I still believe with my very being that I chose correctly. O’Neill was my path out of stagnation and vice; he was a chance for all my people to know freedom.
I wonder now, though, if I fully understood the true cost of the choice I was making. I knew there would be sacrifice, that my wife and son would bear the brunt of Apophis’ rage and that I might never see them again. That weighed heavily on me, but I bore it because my goal was a better future for them both. I understood I would be a stranger without a home, living among people who would not understand me and might even fear me. Even this I had been prepared to bear, knowing the prize to be worth the price. But it is only now, when it is perhaps too late, that I finally understand the true price I will pay for my vision, for my dreams: my very being.
I am Jaffa, but I am not. I no longer house a Goa’uld inside me, but rather live off of a Tok’ra potion. I am distant from my brothers. I can see it in their eyes that I have become foreign to them. Everyday I seem more human and less Jaffa to them. Maybe that is why I was so quick to blindly stumble after Kytano, desperate in my need to belong once more.
My true ties to the Jaffa world are few: Bra’tac, my master, and Ry’ac, the son I was not there to see grow up. I wonder if they are both viewed as tainted by their close ties to me, though they both still live the life they were born to. They have not abandoned their people.
Even Ishta, rather than being a tie to my people and their ways is just another black mark- a woman who would dare pick up the battle of a man. There was a time, before I ever knew the great warrior Samantha Carter, when I may have believed the same. A woman was meant to serve in the temple as a connection to the gods. It was a man’s place to master the staff weapon. But now many of those temples stand empty, for which a part of me rejoices and takes pride. The valor and greatness of woman warriors is something with which I am intimately familiar. I approve, even though it is simply another frayed thread in the fabric of Jaffa life. My agony lies in the fear that freedom might ultimately mean an end to all our ways. Will the inevitable price for this rebellion be to never truly belong?
Even as I become less Jaffa, I seem to become no more human. I am certainly not of the Tau’ri, even in the guise of the silent yet affable man named Murray. I had thought, after living among them so long, that I might finally understand them. But I am still alien to them. And not just because of the mark of Apophis emblazoned on my forehead. That is made clear to me this day. I feel foolish now for my attempt to embrace the Tau’ri ways. My boxes, newly repacked, clutter my quarters. They pay dark testament to my inability to blend. The Tau’ri clothes will be stored away with my Jaffa armor…costumes that no longer fit.
I am neither here nor there. Sometimes I fear that I no longer even exist. That one day I will become a transparent thing to be looked through, fading into the gray walls that have become my prison.
A knock at the door breaks my disturbed and ineffective meditation and I am not surprised to find three familiar faces crowding my doorway. Somehow they know that my thoughts have turned dark this day. As far as I can discern, I have offered them no clues. And yet, here they have come, offering solidarity.
Daniel Jackson claims to be helping me unpack, though he seems more interested in the few reminders of home I have allowed myself. O’Neill is sprawled on my bed, ostensibly ‘delegating’ tasks. They argue absently about Daniel Jackson’s propensity for being captured by what O’Neill refers to as the ‘bad guys.’ Their affectionate banter fills the room, softening the austerity of my cell in a way the candles could not.
Colonel Carter stands next to me, watching the pair with fond amusement. The she turns her knowing eyes on me and with a jolt I can tell that she is seeing me and not the contradiction I have become. I am not just a member of her team, her warm gaze tells me. It is only in this moment that I truly begin to understand. No matter what clothes I wear or what space I claim as my own, I am part of her as much as she is part of me. She squeezes my arm briefly, opens the nearest box and pulls out a framed picture of SG-1, placing it on my bedside table.
I let out a long breath that has too long been trapped inside me.
Maybe I am not Tau’ri or Jaffa. Maybe I cannot be defined as hero, father, traitor or alien. But at times like these, I have only to remember one thing: I am not alone. There is one family to which I will always belong.
With them, I am complete.
Author: Annerb
Summary: Teal'c moves back to the SGC and contemplates the decisions he has made.
Warnings: PG
Categorizations: Angst, ‘Affinity’ addition.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing.
A Space Apart
I find it difficult to quiet my mind enough to sink into the comforts of meditation this day.
The grey walls around me, once familiar and everyday, seem to close in on me, a taunting reminder of my recent failure. Even a myriad of candles does nothing to soften the starkness.
But I try to ignore the pressing walls and the hardness of the cold floor, refusing to let my mind wander to the vastly differing apartment I have so recently vacated.
It should not be so difficult to come back to this room. I had long ago accepted that living in this windowless tomb would be a part of the price I pay for freedom, even as the open woodlands of my homeland begin to fade in my memory. All I have known now for seven years are hidden spaces and hushed secrets. They have long since become my reality.
But today it seems to have become a nightmare and I cannot be sure how I have ended up at this place.
I do not often think of the moment that changed everything for me. It is not difficult to comprehend and I still believe with my very being that I chose correctly. O’Neill was my path out of stagnation and vice; he was a chance for all my people to know freedom.
I wonder now, though, if I fully understood the true cost of the choice I was making. I knew there would be sacrifice, that my wife and son would bear the brunt of Apophis’ rage and that I might never see them again. That weighed heavily on me, but I bore it because my goal was a better future for them both. I understood I would be a stranger without a home, living among people who would not understand me and might even fear me. Even this I had been prepared to bear, knowing the prize to be worth the price. But it is only now, when it is perhaps too late, that I finally understand the true price I will pay for my vision, for my dreams: my very being.
I am Jaffa, but I am not. I no longer house a Goa’uld inside me, but rather live off of a Tok’ra potion. I am distant from my brothers. I can see it in their eyes that I have become foreign to them. Everyday I seem more human and less Jaffa to them. Maybe that is why I was so quick to blindly stumble after Kytano, desperate in my need to belong once more.
My true ties to the Jaffa world are few: Bra’tac, my master, and Ry’ac, the son I was not there to see grow up. I wonder if they are both viewed as tainted by their close ties to me, though they both still live the life they were born to. They have not abandoned their people.
Even Ishta, rather than being a tie to my people and their ways is just another black mark- a woman who would dare pick up the battle of a man. There was a time, before I ever knew the great warrior Samantha Carter, when I may have believed the same. A woman was meant to serve in the temple as a connection to the gods. It was a man’s place to master the staff weapon. But now many of those temples stand empty, for which a part of me rejoices and takes pride. The valor and greatness of woman warriors is something with which I am intimately familiar. I approve, even though it is simply another frayed thread in the fabric of Jaffa life. My agony lies in the fear that freedom might ultimately mean an end to all our ways. Will the inevitable price for this rebellion be to never truly belong?
Even as I become less Jaffa, I seem to become no more human. I am certainly not of the Tau’ri, even in the guise of the silent yet affable man named Murray. I had thought, after living among them so long, that I might finally understand them. But I am still alien to them. And not just because of the mark of Apophis emblazoned on my forehead. That is made clear to me this day. I feel foolish now for my attempt to embrace the Tau’ri ways. My boxes, newly repacked, clutter my quarters. They pay dark testament to my inability to blend. The Tau’ri clothes will be stored away with my Jaffa armor…costumes that no longer fit.
I am neither here nor there. Sometimes I fear that I no longer even exist. That one day I will become a transparent thing to be looked through, fading into the gray walls that have become my prison.
A knock at the door breaks my disturbed and ineffective meditation and I am not surprised to find three familiar faces crowding my doorway. Somehow they know that my thoughts have turned dark this day. As far as I can discern, I have offered them no clues. And yet, here they have come, offering solidarity.
Daniel Jackson claims to be helping me unpack, though he seems more interested in the few reminders of home I have allowed myself. O’Neill is sprawled on my bed, ostensibly ‘delegating’ tasks. They argue absently about Daniel Jackson’s propensity for being captured by what O’Neill refers to as the ‘bad guys.’ Their affectionate banter fills the room, softening the austerity of my cell in a way the candles could not.
Colonel Carter stands next to me, watching the pair with fond amusement. The she turns her knowing eyes on me and with a jolt I can tell that she is seeing me and not the contradiction I have become. I am not just a member of her team, her warm gaze tells me. It is only in this moment that I truly begin to understand. No matter what clothes I wear or what space I claim as my own, I am part of her as much as she is part of me. She squeezes my arm briefly, opens the nearest box and pulls out a framed picture of SG-1, placing it on my bedside table.
I let out a long breath that has too long been trapped inside me.
Maybe I am not Tau’ri or Jaffa. Maybe I cannot be defined as hero, father, traitor or alien. But at times like these, I have only to remember one thing: I am not alone. There is one family to which I will always belong.
With them, I am complete.