[Milliways] OOM: Search and Rescue
She’s in Michael’s lab yet again, and he is prattling on about her son and how he will soon be born and how he will change the future of the galaxy.
She confronts him about his plans for her, though she knows what they are already: Once he has her child, he will discard her like all his other tools who have outlived their usefulness.
And Kanaan once again refuses to help her escape when Michael leaves. Her time is growing short. Shorter than even Michael knows. She has begun to have contractions, and she does not know how much longer she can hide them.
Kanaan actually locks her in the lab when he leaves.
She’s close to desperation.
***
She is left alone for several hours, and she knows they are in a battle of some sort, but she has no way of telling with whom. The contractions are getting closer together, and she thinks it likely she will have the child here, on her own. She cannot tell what that will mean for either of them.
And then she hears a noise that makes her nearly sob with relief. Gunfire. From a P-90.
“John?” she calls out, hoping it is her team and not someone with a stolen weapon.
A moment later they are at the door of the lab, and she stands with some trouble. Ronon tries to help her out of the lab, but another contraction hits, and she must sit again until it has passed. When she is ready to go, they discover they must disable the hyperdrive before Michael has a chance to jump away, and she knows there is no point stressing the urgency of her situation.
***
They leave her with Rodney. Sweet, arrogant, hesitant, nervous, self-absorbed Rodney.
He would do anything for her, she knows, as she would for him. They are a team. They are family. But he is so out of his element here, that she ends up coaching him through the birth instead of the other way around.
For a moment, she thinks it was worth all the heartache and pain of her captivity just to see the look of pride and amazement on Rodney’s face when he hands her son to her.
And she laughs, pure joy bubbling out of her.
Her son is safe and healthy, and she has absolutely no doubt her team will bring them both safely home.
So she laughs.
***
Ronon carries her through the corridors of Michael’s cruiser, and she holds her son, cradled gently, tightly in her arms.
They have lost the jumper, but they have found Kanaan, and that merely adds to the joy of the day, and Teyla tells her team that she trusts him.
And she almost does.
***
She can’t stop looking at him-counting his toes and fingers, touching the soft thatch of hair on his head. He is her miracle child.
And John…he risked so much to save her, and that is so like him that she cannot help smiling even as he is wheeled towards the operating room, joking all the while.
“What are you gonna name the kid?” he asks.
“Well, if it's all right with you, I was thinking of Torren John,” she answers, smiling at him over the baby’s head, “after my father and after you.”
As John is taken out of the room, Dr. Keller following in his wake, Teyal looks down at the tiny, sleeping bundle in her arms and whispers, “Torren John Emmagan.”
[ooc: All dialogue from the SGA episode "Search and Rescue".]