Daniel kept his eyes on Teal'c throughout the short, brutal fight that constituted the second uprising. Partly it was because Teal'c was the most familiar; he wasn't Daniel's friend of ten years--his friend was dead, and this Teal'c was someone else, and Daniel knew that perfectly well--but the congruities were great, the disjunctions only natural. Not like this other Sam, who flinched at gunfire and looked sharply away from dead bodies; not like this other Jack, who stuck protectively close to Sam, whose eyes were dead and dark and only lightened when he looked at her. Teal'c was the nearest thing to a touchstone in this world of shifting sand, and Daniel kept his gaze fixed.
But it wasn't only for his own sake that he watched. Daniel knew what was coming, and he wanted to be ready. He'd had plenty of time to think about things that could and could not be changed, but he knew it wasn't up to him to change this. He could only watch.
So he watched as he fought. He watched as he tallied dead Jaffa and ran and reran tactical plans in his mind. He watched as he moved among the dead and wounded rebels, and Teal'c was always there, silent and invincible in Daniel's eyes.
When the damaged jumper was hit with a stray shot fired in early celebration and exploded, Teal'c helped carry away the wounded, and his face betrayed nothing. When Jaffa fell and died, one after another, Teal'c was always moving on to the next target and the next, never looking back.
When Ra's ship disappeared into the sky, Teal'c face showed a deep Jaffa satisfaction. Daniel remembered seeing that expression--years ago, long before his friend had ever unbent enough to smile or even to call him a friend, before Sha're's death, before everything--and his own grin faltered, his own shout of celebration choking off into silence. Teal'c turned and looked at him then, holding his gaze while everyone else watched the sky and screamed--everyone except Sam and Jack, Daniel tried not to notice, because Sam and Jack were kissing, her legs around his waist as he stumbled backward, overbalanced. Teal'c gave Daniel the tiniest nod of acknowledgment, and Daniel knew then that he'd been right to watch.
Daniel watched Teal'c as they hauled down the gate; he manned his rope alone, while Daniel had two of the Egyptians behind him on his. Jack and Sam were on another rope, Sam's brow wrinkled in concentration, her face red with sunburn and effort. Jack watched her like he was preparing to push her out of the way if the gate fell wrong, even--maybe especially--if it meant being crushed himself.
Daniel looked away from all of them, up at the gate. It was the most truly familiar thing here; naquadah was a hell of a lot harder than stone, and the gate itself was exactly the same one he'd passed through so many times. Would pass through, so many times, if they'd gotten this right.
He jumped down on impulse as the dust settled and crouched to touch the metal. He'd never been able to get close to the gate in the last five years; it had always been carefully guarded, and he hadn't been able to afford the risk.
Daniel jerked his hand back almost before he was aware of making contact, and watched instant blisters rising on his fingers even as he began to feel the heat working up through his sandals. Teal'c's hand appeared in his field of vision, and Daniel took it with his unburned hand and allowed himself to be hauled away from the gate.
"The Chappa'ai holds the sun's heat most jealously."
Daniel looked from Teal'c's steady gaze down to his blistering fingers, reminding himself that putting them in his mouth was actually a bad idea. "Yes," he said slowly, "of course, the naquadah."
He looked up again, opening his mouth to explain about the conductive power of the material that made up the gate, but Teal'c merely nodded to him and went to find a shovel. Daniel stuck his fingers in his mouth and followed.
In the end, it still caught him by surprise. The gate had been covered over and the celebration was into its second day. Sam and Jack had long since disappeared into a tent, and Daniel was a little bit drunk when Teal'c suddenly appeared at his side in full ceremonial dress. Daniel covered his eyes with one hand, as though he could prevent himself from seeing what he'd been watching for, but when he looked again, Teal'c was still standing there calmly, like he had all the time in the world.
He didn't, of course; he only had until his symbiote matured. A few years, at most, if he'd been lucky with the timing. Perhaps less. With Ra and his servants all gone, there was no further source of symbiotes to keep Teal'c alive. The nearest source of tretonin was five thousand years into an uncertain future, and the jumper that had brought this Teal'c here was scattered in fragments across half a mile of dunes. Teal'c opened his hand toward the empty sand beyond the village, and Daniel nodded and turned to walk beside him into the dunes.
"This drug, tretonin," Teal'c said, as the sounds of celebration faded behind them.
Daniel pressed his lips together, biting back apologies and excuses. "We only carried a little with us. The supply we brought lasted only a short time, and then Teal'c--" he hesitated, but Teal'c nodded, dismissing the possibility of referent confusion. "He had to take a symbiote again. Jack and I stole it for him."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow at that, and it made Daniel's stomach shake. He was half transported back to the time when earning even that much expression from Teal'c had been an accomplishment and half missing his friend--the one who laughed at and with him and said what he thought--with a force that he couldn't control. He regretted drinking anything at all now, no matter how good Sam looked, how good Jack looked, how their eyes slid away from him like he was just another stranger, locking on each other. "A brave feat," Teal'c said.
Daniel nodded, looking away across the sand. "He was my friend," Daniel said steadily. "I would have done anything for him. He would have done as much for me."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Teal'c's shallow nod. "I only wished to know," Teal'c said, turning to stand beside Daniel, looking out at the desert with him, "whether my--other self ever spoke of what it was like, to use the drug tretonin. I cannot imagine how it would be, to have a warrior's strength without a warrior's burden."
Daniel nodded. "He hated it at first; it was different, less effective." Teal'c nodded, as though he'd been certain there must be a tradeoff. "But he was free, and all the Jaffa were free after him, because of it."
Teal'c nodded again but didn't move. Daniel said quietly, "There was a time once when we--SG-1, the four of us--went into a dangerous situation, stealing from a system lord to create better weapons to defend Earth." Teal'c turned his head, listening, but Daniel kept his eyes on the clear empty blue of the sky. He'd never told this story to anyone before; it had been one of those things they'd never had to talk about among themselves, and no one else would have understood. This Teal'c beside him wasn't the one who never would have needed to hear the story at all, but he was the only person Daniel could imagine saying it to, and he'd been waiting for years to say it to someone.
"Sam became trapped, and Jack wouldn't leave her behind, even though there was a bomb set and the fortress was about to blow up and kill us all." Daniel swallowed, remembering. A force field before him and open air behind, and he'd never, until long after, thought of it the other way around. He forced himself to go on. "Teal'c and I were the nearest to safety; we could have escaped, and we couldn't get back to where Sam and Jack were. They didn't even know we were still there. But we waited. Even then, even when we hadn't known each other for more than a few years, we waited. We would all have died together."
"Yet you did not," Teal'c said quietly.
Daniel swallowed the half-laugh, half-sob that clutched at his throat. It had been years, and he'd thought he'd grieved Sam and Jack and Teal'c, but of course-- "No," he said, "we didn't then, but we meant to, we were meant to. And when one of us died alone, that was my thing. I was always the one who died alone."
Teal'c didn't ask him to explain that; he understood about sarcophagus use, perhaps, or perhaps he was willing to believe anything at all of the Tau'ri at this point. Instead, Teal'c said, "I do not die alone today." Daniel met his eyes again and nodded firmly, pushing away his own grief. That wasn't Teal'c's--this Teal'c's--burden. This was something else.
Teal'c reached beneath the mail covering his belly. Daniel wanted to look away from the wet intimate sound, the tiny sigh of pain or relief or both, but he forced himself to watch. Teal'c held the writhing screaming symbiote in his fist, very nearly the last Goa'uld on Earth. He raised it to eye level and said quietly, "Dal shakka mel," and then tightened his fist until they both heard the muffled crack of bone and the thing went still. Teal'c threw it to the sand and turned away.
I die free. Daniel followed him down the dune and sat beside him as he settled into the position for kelnoreem. Teal'c said nothing, eyes closed, hands turned up, so Daniel said nothing either, only watched as Teal'c's face turned ashen. It had been much slower, on Earth, under Janet's care; out here in the desert, his fate accepted, Teal'c curled down to the sand as the sun set, and did not move again.
Daniel sat beside him as the night turned cold and the stars shone down, still watching. If he watched long enough, maybe this quiet, peaceful death would replace the other one in his mind; maybe Teal'c's silence would drown out the screams in his memory. They had all screamed before the end, while Daniel stood in the crowd, turning himself to stone, to naquadah. If he was already dead inside, he wouldn't need to join them. If he was already dead, then no threat of horrible death could deter him from planning the next rebellion.
But even with Daniel at his side, Teal'c had died alone today, and left Daniel once more alive and alone in the sand.
He realized a few hours before dawn that he was waiting for Sam and Jack to come, and that they wouldn't. Something turned in his gut, and he wished he had the strength to rip it out and leave it dead on the sand, but he was only human after all. Daniel stared up at the blurry blaze of stars until they faded again into emptiness, and then he got to his feet and went to find a shovel.
Email is always welcome at dsudis@yahoo.com
Or you can drop me a comment.