FIC: Because I Could Not Stop For Love (1/?)
Title: Because I Could Not Stop For Love (1/?)
Genre: Angst, Teyla/Sheppard.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada. Set around S2.
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis is not mine.
Summary:After John gets infected by a techno virus making it impossible to remain in Atlantis, he goes to live on the mainland, with the Athosians.
Notes: This was originally intended for a Five Stages of Love with housework as a prompt (hence the scene in teh kitchen) but I've spun it in another direction. Or rather, my muse did. And the title is a play of words on the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem: 'Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me...' One of my fvorites
So... I've been off LJ for a long time! For starters, I got completely fed up with the show cause S5 was mostly a nightmare for me. There were some great eps but mostly, I cringed and ranted and just plain hated it. I also felt a real need to focus more on
real life and not whatever my overactive imagination cooks up.
Every time I'd come back on my page, I'd literally feel sick and trapped. Took me a while but I realized it was the blue layout *shudders* and the guilt over the 100 page unbeta'ed fic I still haven't posted!! It seems kinda trivial now, especially since I missed you guys and the end of the show (!!!). But some things I'm not good at facing head on.
I'd probably still be in that groove if my sister hadn't gotten mysteriously hooked on SGA. She saw the entire series in about two weeks and of course fell in love with Sheppard/Teyla. She's realy taken, everything reminds her of SGA, Sheppard this, Sheppard that, but luckily, it reminded me of how much I loved the characters and I got back to the 20 or so unfinished fics on my harddrive. This one spoke to me the most. :)
Because I Could Not Stop For Love (1/?)
John hasn’t seen Rodney since the scientist came with Teyla and Ronon in the beginning of John’s exile on the mainland. He’d handed John his own comics stash and had promised to work extra hard to fix John’s problem. That was three weeks ago. Ronon’s been by a few times but hearing about how busy life still is in Atlantis is more torturous than comforting. Only Teyla maintains a steady presence. She checks up on her people, sees to her duties but she always takes time out to talk to him, to be there for him. Unfortunately, as the days pass, the nature of their talks takes a turn for the worse.
“What did I do now?”
She plops down next to him and unzips her flack vest. John looks away from her weary face and takes in her attire. She’s in full gear, like he’s seen her a thousand times before, a leader tying up her loose ends before getting back to the fight. She follows his eyes and nods.
”A mission... tonight and I will not be back for some days.”
She waits for him to ask but there’s nothing he can do anyway, so he has no words. Instead, something in him tightens and he wishes their conversation over and done with. He’ll have no peace until the next one. Until he’s sure they’ve all come back.
“Marin and the other children are now afraid of going to sleep. Something about creatures that attach themselves to people and walk through their dreams?”
She looks expectantly at him, waiting for him to explain but he doesn’t really feel forthcoming. Inducing nightmares in little children is probably just a side effect of him living among ordinary people. All the more reason why the experience should either be avoided or, at the point where he is now, dramatically shortened.
“I calmed everyone down and all will be fine as long as you refrain from telling any more stories. At least any real ones.”
She glances at him again, but today’s one of those days so she’ll be having this conversation on her own. Besides, he’s saving his strength for the storm about to rain down on him. She hides it well, but John sees her restraining her anger and knows what’s coming.
“And then Halling informed me you landed the jumper in our new vegetable patch.”
“I didn’t know it was for crops, I tried…”
“You crashed in it. You had no say in where you wanted to land and so you crashed in our new vegetable patch.”
“Teyla…”
“Someone could have died.”
Someone almost did die. When they saw the jumper weaving left and right, instead of running away, his hosts ran forward to help. He almost landed on Matti, the dimple-cheeked girl who had hounded him with food when he’d first arrived, always a plate of something in hand. She hadn’t really understood the nature of his ‘illness’.
“You could have died, John.”
She whispers it, endowing her words with more force than any amount of yelling could have. Anyone else would have kicked him out on his ass and have let Atlantis handle its own mess, but Teyla treats him with patience and kindness, flying over regularly to reel him in as if he were a difficult child.
“I understand you do not want to be here but you cannot return to Atlantis. It is not safe, for you or others. And you cannot fly a jumper either or handle any piece of equipment left by the Ancestors.”
“I made it over here just fine, over an ocean and…”
“It was also foolish to play golf so close to the woods, just as it was a terrible idea to…”
“I’m not a kid.”
“Most definitely not. Most children in this settlement do as they are told.”
His anger flashes hot and strong. He can’t fly, can’t return home and is basically exiled among strangers for an indefinite amount of time.
“Look, I’m still your CO and I’d appreciate some respect!”
Her laugh, a little unkind, a little harsh, tells him he’s used up all of his sympathy points.
“No one can promise you will be able to return to Atlantis. But if it should come to that, you have another home offered to you. You just have to accept it.”
“I know… and I’m grateful.”
Really, most of the time, he is.
”But I didn’t ask for another home.”
She sighs or smiles, or smiles and sighs. It’s hard to tell which one comes first or which emotion is more heartfelt.
“Neither did we but here we all are.”
They sit in silence, shoulder to shoulder till she has to go. He remains in his tent and only ventures out to sit in the moonlight. There are no more stories he feels like telling, no point in even going near the jumper. No one he really wants to talk to and most importantly, no way home.
He knows Teyla’s coming as soon as he sees a band of children tearing off to welcome their leader. He’s never asked who flies her over and the possibility of Carson, or even Rodney, stationed in the jumper, hesitant to come near him occurs to him for the first time.
He hasn’t seen her in a week, since the last time she came and every day he’s kept an eye out for her. He could have picked up the radio of course and Elizabeth would have told him if anything was wrong. But John had asked her to pick a replacement. He’d made the request himself though everyone still harbored hope that a solution could be found. He took himself out of the equation for the good of the city, to keep the chain of command clear and the system efficient. His friends objected just enough to show they cared but they all knew any cure for him would take time, and in the end, it was just easier to stay here, and not feel their eyes on him, their sadness and regret. The ocean isn’t the only distance between them.
Jenna reclaims his attention by handing him a plate of vegetables to shell. She smiles widely, obviously, and seems only to be waiting for him to respond.
“What?”
“Teyla comes here very often. A little more than she used to before you came.”
“I really wouldn’t know.”
Matti chooses this time to pipe in before moving over to turn the roast.
“She would not miss The Night of Remembrance, even if Sheppard were not here. How she is dressed however and in whose honor that will be, is another matter.”
John’s used to their teasing. Both women are alone, Jenna having lost her husband and child in a culling that took place more than ten years before his arrival in Pegasus. Like most Athosians, she speaks little of the dead and thinks mostly of what’s ahead. Matti’s much younger and her parents died when she was little. She grew up as a sort of communal child, belonging to no one and cared for by all. She’s a sweet kid with a slight case of hero-worshipping that has her praising Teyla with every other breath or extolling Ronon’s virtue. John himself barely registers on her radar and try as he may, he can’t quite figure out why.
After John first arrived, he sort of drifted into their care, interacting mostly with the two of them. Their lives are small and comfortable. Steady, grounded. Everyone else is a little wary of him, and he tells himself it’s probably because they aren’t entirely clear as to the disease he’s carrying. Only Halling, Kanaan and the other members of Teyla’s inner circle make a real effort to be welcoming. He’s been invited to join hunting parties and trade delegations, activities supposed to remind him of his former life and role. But he’s not a warrior anymore, no leader.
He prefers this world of women because it is foreign, it doesn’t lie or pretend that he belongs or that he can start over. It bypasses pain and tragedies and deals in meals and laundry and teasing about Teyla. It doesn’t ask about loss or expectations, doesn’t require adaptation or acceptance, but it does guarantee survival. Both women are testaments to that and John relinquishes himself into their care. He plays their game cause these days, it’s the only one that makes sense.
“Teyla’s going to dance in honor of your Ancestors. I’m sure she’d want to look good for them.”
He doesn’t fool them for one second and there’s no way he’d still be alive if most of his enemies had possessed these women’s ability to see right through him.
“Well, just in case I have changed the bedding in your tent.”
“In whose tent?”
Teyla, framed in the tent’s entrance, her body molded in a copper-colored dress hugging every curve of her body, a smile gracing her features. He knows, right then and there, who she’s dressed up for. He doesn’t even need Matti’s giggle or Jenna’s conspicuous attempts at being discrete. Her smile says it all...