Pay for Love
Disclaimer: I don’t own "Stargate: Atlantis." I am in no way trying to make a profit off this story, I am merely writing it and posting for my and other people’s enjoyment.
Synopsis: Sequel to "Love’s Promise." An offworld accident involving her mother causes Kyana Dex’s past to come back to haunt her. . .
Rating: T
Warnings: Violence
Pairings: Ronon/Teyla, Sheppard/Weir, Kyana/other (kind of), mentions Sam/Jack and Cameron/Carolyn from SG-1
Chapter 1
Disaster
"Did you know there’s two new recruits coming in on the Daedalus today?"
Kyana Dex looked up from her lunch, trying not to seem too interested. "Really? Any idea who it’s going to be this time?"
Kayla Mitchell, a recruit from Earth who had been on Atlantis for two months, shrugged and took a sip from her cup of Athosian tea. "Not sure. It could have been anyone I was training with before I came here." The young Air Force officer stretched out her legs under the table and grinned happily. "However, I must say that we’re about due for some cute guys."
Kyana shook her head and took another bite of her lunch. "I’m not going to say anything to that one for fear of losing, for a week, all privileges I have on Atlantis."
Kayla shook her head, setting her shoulder-length dark hair to swinging, as she bobbed the tines of her fork at her friend. "One of these days, Kyana, you are going to meet him and then you’re gonna know what I’m talking about." Her blue eyes sparkled, and she playfully swooned.
Kyana shook her head and set down her fork to pick up her glass. "You’re a sappy romantic, you know that?"
Kayla shrugged and smiled impishly. "You’re going to come with me just to see, aren’t you?"
Kyana rolled her lips thoughtfully and squinted, acting like she was giving it serious consideration. "No, I don’t think so. I’ve got a meeting with Aunt Elizabeth in a half hour anyway, just about the time the Daedalus is due to land. The IOA wants to talk to me."
The playful grin slid off Kayla’s lips, and she leaned forward with wide eyes. "What? Why?"
Kyana shook her head. "I don’t know. All I was told was that a representative for the IOA wanted a closed-door meeting with me, Aunt Elizabeth, and Uncle John this afternoon. AR-1 is due back in another fifteen minutes. . .just in time for the meeting."
Kayla, completely serious now, shook her head and sighed. "I’m sorry, Kyana. If you ever need to talk. . ."
Kyana smiled and nodded. "I know, Kayla. Thanks. You’re a great friend."
The two girls stood, hugged, and then went their separate ways, Kyana heading to the Gateroom so she’d be there when her mother and father’s team arrived, and because she had no better place to go, anyway.
Kyana waved up at her aunt, Elizabeth Weir, who smiled tightly and waved back. She looked concerned, her hands gesturing in short, sharp movements as she spoke to the slick looking man standing before her. There was a confident smirk on the man’s face, and something about him made Kyana’s skin crawl.
Surely he wasn’t the representative of the IOA? The thought made her shudder.
The Stargate coming to life behind her yanked her attention away from the man and woman standing at the top of the stairs and to the device, which now had the protective shield covering the event horizon to prevent anyone unfriendly from coming through.
Her stomach tightened as one of the technicians in the control room above her called: "It’s AR-1. They’re coming in hot!"
Kyana slipped back behind the relative cover of the grand staircase, watching as a group of well-trained security officers took up positions in front of the Gate as the shield fizzed out of existence in anticipation of who would hopefully be coming through.
The horizon rippled and Doctor Rodney McKay stepped through, madly waving his arms. "Medical team!" he was yelling, an expression of mixed anger, fear, and hate on his face as he ran straight past the defense team and up the steps to the control room.
Two people came out of the Gate simultaneously only a few seconds later; one of them Kyana’s father and the other her uncle.
"Shield!" Ronon Dex and John Sheppard yelled at the same moment, both falling to their knees as two bullets whizzed over their heads and harmlessly pinged against the Gateroom steps.
The shield was raised only moments before the Stargate shut down, and the Gateroom was plunged into utter silence as Kyana’s world spun to a standstill.
Her father was still kneeling on the Gateroom floor, his hands pressed firmly against Teyla Emmagan’s side. Blood oozed between his fingers and over his hands, mingling with the stream of red that was running down his own arm from what looked like a gunshot wound in his bicep.
Kyana slipped a little from behind her shelter, hands clutching the edge of the staircase to try to keep herself upright. All she could see was her mother lying on the pristine floor of the Gateroom, crimson staining her bluish-grey team jacket black and making a puddle underneath her body.
"Mom. . ."
Ronon looked up sharply at her whispered word of shock, an expression of anguish flitting across his face when he saw her standing there. He opened his mouth to say something, but the appearance of the medical team forestalled his words as the loaded Teyla onto a stretcher and rushed her off in the direction from which they’d appeared, Doctor Carson Beckett calling orders as he ran after them.
Kyana shook herself out of her trance and ran over to her father, looking back and forth between him and Colonel Sheppard. "What happened?" she asked, starting to walk as another member of the medical team started to escort Ronon to the infirmary.
With a distracted sound of anger, Ronon shrugged off the technician and winced as the movement jarred his arm, looking at his daughter with haunted eyes and whispering: "Your mother took the bullet meant for me."
To Be Continued. . .