Somewhere Only We Know
By: hariboo_smirks
CATEGORY: General
SEASON/SPOILERS: Season 10
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This has been sitting on my HD for months and finally needed to be taken out of the wip folder. I blame the thread because they silently like to enable me.
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://hariboo-smirks.livejournal.com/
It took another fifty years, but finally Teal'c was able to see his long ago mistake rectified, though it hadn't really been a mistake as more a slip of the tongue. He hadn’t meant to tell them, but they had understood.
Nine words and he had changed what he had hoped to see again. But now fifty years later he can see it end like it had ended before.
* *
They had always asked. Even when they chose to follow different paths, they had always asked.
* *
The first one of them to asked had been Vala Mal Doran. It had been on her own 15 year wedding anniversary and she had walked up to his and stood by his side, an slim arm looped around his larger one, like it had done many times before.
"Were we happy?" She asks and he knows what she is asking about. Teal'c looks at her husband and then shifts his eyes over to Daniel Jackson who is playing cards with her son and his daughter - they are smiling and Teal'c can see the millions of possibilities there. He can see the millions, but remembers one.
"Yes." Is the only word he says, because it’s the only word Vala Mal Doran needs. The truth, they had been happy.
Vala Mal Doran had smiled then and drifted from him with a kiss to the cheek, to her husband, not Daniel Jackson. But she had sent a smile to the man and he had returned it warmly.
* *
The next time it had been Daniel Jackson. He had asked six years after Vala Mal Doran on the day on her husband's funeral. Cancer. It had been slow and heart wrenching, but she had stayed and helped her husband fight the disease until his last breath.
Her son, so like her, so like his father, stood comforting her. He stands next to her mother and Teal'c thinks, Little Solider. Daniel Jackson walks in from the kitchen and rests a hand on the young boy's shoulder. He bends and kisses Vala Mal Doran's hair and whispers something to them both. His wife and daughter, sitting next to the grieving mother and son nod in agreement.
It is when Teal'c is leaving that Daniel Jackson asks, "She wasn't alone all those years, was she?"
Teal'c looks at Daniel Jackson and see what he is really asking. Teal'c lets his eyes drift back to Vala Mal Doran, her son, and Daniel Jackson's family. He nods, "She is not alone now."
Daniel Jackson only sighs in relief.
* *
For years they don't ask. For years they live. When Michael moves out for university, Teal'c moves in with Vala Mal Doran.
She protests at first, but by the first week they have a movie ritual. Michael thanks his godfather and so does Daniel Jackson. Neither can bear to see her alone, she might be strong of heart and will, but loneliness can beat the strongest warrior.
So Teal’c stays and helps with her garden and they visit Istha, Rya’c and Vari, his daughter. Vala Mal Doran loves going off-world still, but she is equally happy in her garden, in her house, calling her son on weekend, eating dinner with Daniel Jackson and his family on Wednesdays.
* *
The next time they ask it is when Claire Jackson marries Michael Mal Doran (the young man had never taken to his father’s name, choosing to honor his mother, though only Teal’c knows this).
"This sure would have been different, wouldn't it have been, Muscles?" She asks as they dance. Teal’c nods with amusement and spins her.
Teal’c does not except Daniel Jackson to ask, for they have never asked on the same day, but this is not a normal day, and several hours later he hears the same question, with different words.
"She was always meant to be part of me, wasn’t she?" Daniel Jackson asks as he watches his wife and daughter talk to her. Three women his friend loves more than he can comprehend, Teal’c knows.
Again Teal’c nods and, like Vala Mal Doran, Daniel Jackson says nothing. But they know, Teal’c knows that too.
* *
Still, it takes another eight years for them to even inhabit
the same zip code. After Daniel Jackson's wife dies, he lives by himself until the
day he doesn't. He is tried of
It's not odd that nobody questions this; after all they
share a grandchild and so much more. They buy the house. It is a small house by
a small beach in
With no further need to watch over them, Teal'c returns to his own family in Chu'lak and kisses Ishta for understanding why he had to split his time for so long. He is thankful when she does. His daughter isn’t quite as understanding, but she comes around in her own time.
After, he worries less. He still goes to Earth and sees his
friends but less and less. They all have less to do with the SGC as time
passes, but every trip to
The last time either asks it is Daniel Jackson. He is sitting on a bed holding her hand, wrinkled and soft. He turns to Teal'c with tears in his eyes and pain in his soul.
"Teal'c, we were happy on the ship, weren't we? All those years, we were happy?"
It is not Teal'c who answers.
"Of course we were, darling. We were in love." Vala Mal Doran smiles her last smile in the world to Daniel Jackson - for Daniel Jackson. And for the first time in fifty-three years Daniel Jackson kisses Vala Mal Doran, soft and chastely on the lips and then forehead.
"We are in love." Are the last words Vala Mal Doran hears, from a voice that she has love for more than half her life time, and for two of Teal’c’s. The tears in Daniel Jackson’s eyes are mirrored in his own. Neither man wipes them away, because there is no need too. Their pain is shared, like their love for the woman and the family they have built together.
After, Teal'c once again moves to Earth. Beside himself and Daniel Jackson, they are all gone. Samantha Carter – Alzheimer’s, dead at 86; Jack O’Neill – stroke, dead at 91; Cameron Mitchell – bullet, dead at 40. But this time Teal'c does not stay long. Less than six months later Daniel Jackson dies - old and tired in his bed.
The last time anyone asks about Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran is Claire Jackson - Mal Doran, her husband next to her in front of the gate. It is getting seldom used these days, now that they have faster ships and the program has long been public knowledge. Ironically after the initial excitement of life from other planets and galaxies, the population of the Tau’ri still do not space travel or, in Teal’c silent opinion, care as much as people thought they would.
Claire Jackson hugs him and with tears in her eyes she asks, "They were happiest together, weren't they?' The question is not bitter, just quiet and next to her Michael Mal Doran still reminds Teal’c of a “little solider.”
Teal'c only nods.
He steps through the gate.
It is his last time on Earth.
** The End **
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