A Hard Frost

Description, Rating, & Disclaimers

TITLE: A Hard Frost

AUTHOR: Elysium

SPOILERS: Maternal Instinct

SEQUEL/SEASON INFO: Season 3

RATING: PG-14

CONTENT WARNING: some mature themes, nothing explicit

SUMMARY: Dreya'c learns what happened on Chulak

CATEGORY: Angst/Smarm

AUTHORS NOTES: ok, so its a little melodramatic. what else is new?

DISCLAIMER:

All Stargate SG-1 characters are the property of Stargate SG-1 Productions (II) Inc., MGM Worldwide Television Productions Inc., Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp and Showtime Networks Inc. No infringement of those rights is intended. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author. This disclaimer was shamelessly copied from the 'Heliopolis' site.

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Only the creaking of Bra'tac's armor, and the occasional soft sound of his footfall in the dust, reminded Teal'c that he was not walking alone.

It was morning in the Land of Light; it was always morning in the Land of Light. The plants and creatures of this world knew the day from the night, and the seasons of the year, but man had to take his clue from them. Now, it was spring. Teal'c could tell because the blades of the grain-crops around him were green and new, poking their heads into the endless light of this world for the first time in their brief lives. They grew with a vague curve, as if under a perpetual, breathless wind. Even generations removed from their predecessors on the first-home, there lingered within them a conflict of their instructions for growing, between the influence of gravity and of the endless slanted light of this world's sun, low on the horizon.

It was a long walk from the Stargate to his home here. Teal'c was so accustomed to it that he hardly noticed the way. Today, with Bra'tac beside him, he noticed its length, as though the walk were new.

He smiled as they reached his home, with walls of light stucco and a tile roof, surrounded by greening fields in a little valley between forested hills. It was not so strongly built as had been his stone house on Chulak, when he served under Apophis. But this was a gentler world; it did not need that strength, and it did not suffer Chulak's winters.

May it never suffer a winter such as Chulak's...

Rya'c's voice called from somewhere in the trees.

"Father!"

The boy rushed out of the forest, and hesitated before throwing his arms around Teal'c. In front of his fighting-master, Bra'tac, Teal'c could see Rya'c wanted to appear as a warrior. But he was also a boy who had been missing his father.

Teal'c smiled broadly, and returned his son's hug. The still-small, happy arms around him made him suddenly aware of those pains he had hidden from himself by focusing on his duty. He held the boy too dearly.

"What's wrong, father?"

"I am only glad that you are here," he said apologetically. "Is your mother within?"

"Yes, she's been expecting you," he smiled.

"Master Bra'tac," Rya'c bowed his head formally in greeting.

Bra'tac smiled wistfully at the boy. Teal'c could see his son politely keeping his curiosity in check; on Chulak such control might have been a matter of life and death rather than an act of courtesy.

Rya'c led them to the house.

The door opened; Teal'c felt the arms of his wife slip unexpectedly around him; she greeted him with open kiss, and he could feel her warmth radiating onto him like a halo. She was, to him, as inspiring as those ethereal forms they had seen on Kheb, just hours ago.

Then she noticed Bra'tac, and she stepped awkwardly from Teal'c's hold.

Gods, woman, you are beautiful when you blush, Teal'c smiled inwardly. He hadn't realized how badly he needed her touch, until he felt it.

"Dreya'c," said Bra'tac, "It is good to see you, woman." Teal'c could hear the relief in the old man's voice.

"Please, come. Enjoy our hospitality," she said, leading them into their home. "Our place here is modest, we have no servants, but..."

"Dreya'c," Bra'tac interrupted, apologetically, "We have news, from Chulak."

"From Chulak?" she blinked. Teal'c could see she knew such news could not be good. He eased himself behind her, and hugged her gently as Bra'tac spoke.

"Apophis has taken control of the army of Sokar," he spoke gently, "By his command, that army has attacked our homeworld."

Teal'c felt her stiffen and flush cold. She held her hand over her pouch.

"How can this be? We who have served him, we who have carried and protected his young...?"

Bra'tac continued. "He was searching for something he believed was hidden there, but which he did not find."

"Not Teal'c?"

"No. A child--a human child--the offspring of himself on Daniel Jackson's wife."

She shook her head in disbelief, eyes searching the room as though she expected to find some answer there for the hurt and questions in her mind. She released herself from Teal'c's arms, and paced slowly.

"And this child is where?"

"The child is safe. He is being cared for by," Bra'tac looked uneasily at Teal'c, "powerful creatures, whose nature we do not well know but whose intent seems honorable."

"And Apophis knows this?"

"I do not know," said Teal'c, "Those of his armies who pursued them have been destroyed. I do not think a messenger survived, to bring him news."

"What of Cordai? What of my family there, my sisters?"

"I cannot be certain," said Bra'tac, "But I believe not a single city on our world was spared."

"We must go back," she said.

"Dreya'c. There is nothing to save," Bra'tac grabbed her gently by her elbows and looked into her eyes. "The attack was swift, and thorough. Sokar's Jaffa still search the ruins, killing what survivors they find. There is nothing to go back to."

"This is your doing, Teal'c," she spat, jerking her arms from Bra'tac. "It is you who tied our futures into those of the Tau'Ri!".

"Dreya'c," Teal'c winced. Whatever role he had played in the unfolding of events, there were a myriad of choices--a myriad of more effective choices--Apophis could have made in pursuit of the child. Killing everyone on Chulak was merely a frivolous expression of his rage.

He reached to touch her.

"My family is dead!" she seethed, pulling away from him.

"Your family is here, alive, woman!" he growled. "Do not forget that it was the Tau'Ri who made this possible."

"And it was you who made it necessary, Teal'c."

Teal'c's eyes fell on Rya'c, who stood silent, watching them argue, trying to look brave. Every one of the boy's old friends, every one of his relatives, were dead. He now had only those friends he had met upon this world, who were not Jaffa.

But, the Tau'Ri were also not Jaffa; this had not hampered the depths of Teal'c's relationships among them.

"Had I remained Apophis' First Prime, then it would be I who lies dead upon the world of Kheb--assuming I survived the attack upon the Tau'Ri, and you know how many did not. And still Chulak would be destroyed."

"Because you were helping them. You say you wished to save us but you have killed our own people, Teal'c."

"Our people are the thousands on thousands throughout the galaxy who are enslaved by the Goa'uld, who bear their children in our bellies and whose lives are destroyed by them at no more than their whim--not merely those of our home on Chulak. It is only the Goa'uld who set us against one another."

"As though the Tau'Ri do not war amongst themselves! It makes no difference to you, does it, the people that you know from those you do not? But what should I have expected from you, who were born of our enemy Chronos' stock? The blood of Chulak does not run in your body."

"No act of mine has done this, woman. This was Apophis' decision. Had I foreseen it I might have fought..."

"You would have died, Teal'c," interrupted Bra'tac.

Teal'c could see their discord was salting the old man's grief. He did not wish Bra'tac to return to the despair he had so recently shed on Kheb.

"I know you," Bra'tac continued, "You would not have held back, fighting for our world, even when it was more wise to do so." The old man's eyes turned to Dreya'c; Teal'c hoped she would recognize the truth in his words.

"The blood of Chulak runs in my son, and my heart. And in my wife."

"It runs also on your hands, Teal'c."

"I will not argue this foolishness."

"Perhaps I should go," Bra'tac sighed.

"No! No, stay, Tekmahteh Bra'tac." Dreya'c spoke apologetically, but glared at Teal'c, "Our world is dead. You have nowhere to go to."

"Nor, it seems, does Teal'c," Bra'tac said, eyeing Dreya'c harshly up and down.

"Kree, Tekmahteh Bra'tac," Teal'c murmured. "It is her grief speaking."

"You should be glad to be alive. And to have your husband. And your son. That on Chulak now is wealth beyond imagining."

"Bra'tac!" Teal'c growled, dropping the honorific. "Honor my household." The effect was as though he had doused the older man in water.

"By your leave, Teal'c, I would walk awhile with your son," Bra'tac leveled coldly.

Rya'c stood quietly, wide eyed at the news and the harsh talk. He edged slightly closer to Master Bra'tac.

"Go with him," Teal'c said to the boy, "but do not be too long."

"Yes, father."

The old man nodded, and scooped his arm around the boy's shoulder, ushering him quickly into the endless day.

"Woman," Teal'c said after a silence, "Why do you defy me in front of Bra'tac?"

"Our world is dead, and you worry about embarrassment. This rebellion has always been about you, hasn't it, Teal'c? You, and how big you are, how important you are--challenge the very gods! You were going to save our world. Well you couldn't. You thought you were as powerful as the gods. You aren't."

"I do not claim to be. We do not need to be. What power we have will be sufficient to defeat them, for without our hands they are not strong."

"What power we have? Our people are DEAD, Teal'c! At least under Apophis, when we were loyal, we were safe."

"Safe? What do you call safe, Dreya'c? To slave until we die, or are killed? To watch our children and our comrades suffer in wars that serve no purpose, and the work of our very hands used against us?"

"We had a home, we had station. Our son had a future...our world had a future..."

"A future I knew too well. You do not know the atrocities..."

"What, committed against the slaves? They were only humans, Teal'c."

He bit back his anger. She was Jaffa; 'they' were human. Yet through the knowledge of the Tau'Ri, Teal'c had come to know that the Jaffa were human, if an offshoot of the main bloodline. He knew this not only in his mind, but in his being; he realized it was something which he had always felt, but never admitted, until living at the SGC.

To Dreya'c, the Tau'Ri were something other--neither human nor Jaffa, strange aliens with unknown power. She did not know them. She knew humans as slaves, and as the simple folk who populated this world--as people she did not know, and did not value. They were not her blood.

"Dreya'c. Would you have been surprised were our people slaughtered by Sokar?"

"No," she admitted reluctantly.

"What duties do you think were mine, in the time I served your god?"

"He was your god as well...I do not know. You would not speak of them."

He sat, quietly, waiting for her to admit to her conclusion. To Teal'c's knowledge, no Goa'uld before Apophis had turned so viciously against those who carried his own young. But such slaughter was not unknown, when the Jaffa of one Goa'uld faced the Jaffa of another. Even Dreya'c, sheltered as she was, would know this.

Teal'c's hands were not red with the blood of Chulak, but they were colored with the blood of other Jaffa worlds.

"You were a warrior. You did not shed the blood of innocents," she said.

He waited. He would force her to admit what she denied.

"You have seen this before?"

"Such attack is most commonly engaged from orbit, where the faces of the enemy are never seen."

They sat silently for a long time. Teal'c heard the flutter of an insect outside, ending with a 'pop' as its small body struck the window.

"I cannot look on you."

"Nor could I look upon myself. Nor my son, knowing the future he was heir to. However difficult it is, you must know these beings are not our gods."

It was an old argument ; neither side would win. It was her duty as his wife to humor him; but her belief would be unshaken. Her husband was easier to blame than her god.

"Then you will not mourn these deaths with the rituals of our people?"

"I will," he said.

He opened his arms subtly, inviting her to approach, hoping she would forgive him for the sins she imagined. She stepped closer, stopping only a breath in front of him, without meeting his eyes. When he closed his arms around her, she began to cry.

Holding her brought forth all his fond memories of their life as it had been on Chulak, and with them, silent tears of his own--in grief for the people they had lost, and in gratitude for the life he still had. Dreya'c was safe; Rya'c was safe. If he had not protected their world, at least Teal'c had protected his family from the slaughter.

But he could not protect his family from their own grief. His wife felt cool in his embrace, and there was nothing he could think of to console her. In this frail spring, on the world of never-night, Teal'c feared there was no fire within him that could warm Dreya'c from the chill of Chulak's final winter.

3/5/00