"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c stated from the doorway to Daniel's office. He was reluctant to go any further into the room without permission. The dim lighting, the bent head of the archaeologist and the furious working of his hand as he wrote in what looked like a journal, the very air of damage surrounding the young man, all suggested bluntly that this was an off-limits area of the base for the present. "May I speak with you?"
The young man raised his head, staring blankly at Teal'c through clear blue eyes, for once not hidden by glasses, as they currently resided on the top of his brown head. The blank expression cleared, and something else passed through the linguist's eyes as his mouth momentarily tightened, but whatever it was--anger, disappointment, perhaps even welcome--quickly disappeared. "Sure, Teal'c," Daniel Jackson said softly. He sounded tired. "Come on in."
He sat back at his desk, closing his eyes and betraying again his exhaustion. They'd only been back on Earth for a few hours, long enough to be checked out by Dr Fraiser and be debriefed by General Hammond. Daniel had immediately faded away after that, even before O'Neill headed for his home and Captain Carter went back to her lab. Teal'c wouldn't normally use such fanciful language as "faded away," but the linguist certainly did have an interesting ability to melt away when one wasn't paying close attention to him.
Teal'c settled himself in the chair across from Daniel's, on the other side of the industrial-sized desk covered in artifacts, folders, books, and papers, with the occasional computer or coffee mug thrown in for a bit of variety. He could feel Daniel Jackson's gaze watching him the entire time from entering the room to sitting down, but chose not to question it or meet the doctor's eye until he was comfortably secure in his position. When he did look up, Daniel gave him a slight smile and asked, "What can I do for you, Teal'c?"
"I wished again to thank you for disarming the Hammer," Teal'c said.
There was a pause. Teal'c couldn't read the expression presently on the archaeologist's face. In other circumstances, he wouldn't have come here and started this. He would not have pried in this way. But he'd learned since coming to this planet that living among these people meant rearranging some of his personal preferences and priorities. And working with these particular people meant talking to them, earning their trust. Especially Daniel Jackson's, a warrior without training, the "civilian," a man with whom Teal'c especially felt a need to be careful. He didn't feel he could leave certain things from their just-finished mission left unsaid if he wanted to keep that delicately earned trust.
"...You're welcome."
The words were so slow in coming Teal'c was surprised when Daniel Jackson at last spoke. He raised an eyebrow at the younger man and waited. He'd noted when observing the doctor with others, such as O'Neill, that sometimes it was easiest to get the doctor to speak by remaining silent yourself. And Teal'c couldn't think of a way to further the conversation himself, though he knew he had to somehow. It was an unusual dilemma for him...one which had become more common since joining the Tauri. He had never been much of a conversationalist.
"Give me time, Teal'c," Daniel Jackson said gently. He hadn't put his pen down when he'd invited Teal'c into his office; he still held it now in both hands and was examining it, probably so that he wouldn't have to meet the Jaffa's eye. "I just need time... It was you now or Shau'ri later. You obviously took precedence."
The words were eerily familiar to Teal'c. A few months earlier, soon after he'd joined the SGC, Teal'c had come down to this office to speak with Daniel Jackson about his part in Shau'ri's becoming a Goa'uld host. He had honored Daniel with his choice of punishments. The linguist had simply stood by the bookcase situated behind his desk for a long moment, the book he'd been consulting forgotten in his hands, before finally saying tiredly as he pushed his glasses up his nose, "Give me time, Teal'c. Please. Just give me some time." Teal'c had acquiesced to the request with a bowed head and left. Meeting the doctor after that had become easier; there hadn't been so much distance and hurt on the linguist's part.
But that was what confronted Teal'c again today, in this room with the atmosphere that told everyone to leave immediately. Which everyone had done--including Jack O'Neill.
"It was a difficult decision to make," Teal'c said calmly, closely observing the linguist. He didn't want to push too far, he had no right, but more had to be said.
"It wasn't mine to make," Daniel said coldly, voice abruptly tight.
This was what Teal'c had been waiting for. "You have disobeyed Colonel O'Neill's orders before," he pointed out.
Daniel threw down the pen. It bounced over the side of the desk and clattered to the floor next to Teal'c's booted feet. He bent down to pick it up. When he was sitting upright again, he found Daniel Jackson's head in his hands, all facial expression lost behind white fingers and long hair. Teal'c quietly set the pen down on the opened page of the journal in which the archaeologist had been writing, catching Shau'ri's name in the doctor's neat, careful handwriting--it was much more illegible when he was in a hurry or writing on some uneven surface, such as his own hand. Teal'c was still learning to read English. He deliberately made sure not to recognize any other words on the page.
He waited.
At last Daniel looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed and unguarded by any pair of glasses. "He can be a real son of a bitch sometimes," the linguist commented conversationally, rubbing at his temples.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow, inviting further explanation.
"Why didn't he ask Sam to do it?" Daniel asked, the anger almost controlled out of existence in his voice. Almost, but not quite; it hovered on the edges of his words, quivered in his tones. "Is he trying to test me or something?"
Teal'c had no answer for that. "You chose to save my life," he said. "I thank you, Daniel Jackson. I know not why Colonel O'Neill chose you to destroy the Hammer...but you chose to do so. That took great courage."
Teal'c had known from the beginning that Dr Jackson was a very courageous young man. He respected the man's intelligence and abilities and understood his distaste for weapons and combat, even though he personally had trained as a warrior all his life; he knew where that impulse came from, wishing to save lives rather than destroy them. And he respected even more that despite that disgust, the doctor could still do what had to be done when circumstances dictated.
Such as destroying a chance to save his wife.
"Do not blame O'Neill," Teal'c said. "I am the one who could not make it through the Hammer; I am the one responsible."
"No, Teal'c..." Daniel protested and sighed, sitting back in his chair again to regard the Jaffa. He laughed wryly. "Look, you make it impossible to hate you; can't I at least be allowed to be pissed off at Jack?"
Teal'c blinked. "Of course I can't blame you," Daniel Jackson explained gently. "It's not your fault you're a Jaffa; it's not the Hammer's fault that it should have made an exception for you but couldn't." He laughed again, though the laugh sounded more like a held-back sob. "It's just...the way things are. The way they were on Cimmeria. It had to be done." He picked up his pen once more, staring at it furiously. "It had to be done." He seemed to say the words to himself. "It had to be done."
"I apologize for interrupting your work," Teal'c said as he stood up, preparing to leave. What needed to be said had been said. It was time to leave Daniel Jackson in peace again. Give him his time.
Daniel didn't appear to have heard him. But when Teal'c was almost out the door, the linguist said quietly, "Thank you, Teal'c."
Teal'c paused in the doorway without looking back. "You are welcome, Daniel Jackson," he said and left the doctor to the dimness of office and memory. As he walked down the hall, he thought he could hear the scratching of a pen against paper.