Dreaming Wide Awake - Chapter Five
Title: Dreaming Wide Awake
Summary: Sequel to Frozen in Place. With her life coming to a painful and untimely end, Teyla stepped into the stasis pod, never expecting to open her eyes on the world again. Then, one day, she did.
Rating: T
Warnings: none
Pairing: John Sheppard/Teyla Emmagan
Length: ~3000 words
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10302825/5/Dreaming-Wide-Awake
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard, or ... well, much else really. Too bad. For fun, not profit.
Comments: My continued thanks to nacinom for her amazing beta work.
Lost and adrift, a hushed, soothing voice trickled into her subconscious. “Teyla, can you wake up for me?”
Madison.
The doctor’s touch penetrated the thick blanket and layers of cotton-threaded sheets keeping her shielded from the chill outside. Of course, there was no actual chill. Atlantis’ environmental controls maintained the air inside the city at an invariably temperate level, but in her debilitated condition, Teyla was always cold.
Despite the bed sheets that had been carefully draped over her in a warm den, she had curled into a ball sometime during the night; a minor feat considering her current state. Deeply mired in the healing process and the waste that the poison had left behind, the smallest movement was an effort for her. The way she found herself shrouded in her snug cocoon, Teyla suspected she had been seeking refuge from something other than the cold.
Her skin crawled.
“C’mon, Teyla,” Madison encouraged at a near whisper.
Teyla forced herself to comply with the request, and cracks of light slowly appeared beneath her eyelids. Her teeth were on edge as her whole body vibrated, every cell seeming to effervesce and bubble into the others, churning and coalescing like ocean waves at the turn of the tide.
With Phase One still in force and Phase Two now in full swing, she had been warned that the tingling feeling she had experienced before was likely to get worse as thousands upon thousands of microscopic robots worked inside her. Tiny impulses skittered over sensitive nerve endings, and as she opened her eyes further, the constant flux was dizzying. Madison was leaning over her, her brilliant blue sapphires peering at her patiently as she continued to gently coax Teyla back into the strange yet familiar world outside of slumber. Groggy and disoriented, Teyla’s gaze wandered toward the one thing she cared about.
Appearing to have finally put his troubling dreams behind him, John still slept. His arms folded over his middle, he slumped in the chair, angled toward her. Around him, early morning lights bounced off the infirmary equipment. Incandescent beams split over the metal's sheen and into the shadows, spraying the room in bright, mesmerizing cascades. A centrifuge, an EKG machine, and a tray of instruments gleamed in polished silver. In her darker moments, she had often wondered how much better those very instruments would look in pieces, but there was a distinct sense of beauty to be found in those objects she had learned to despise. None of them, however, held a candle to the experience of waking up to John, rumpled, sporting a coat of scruff along his jaw in mottled black and silver, and the enchanting tuft of hair tumbling over his forehead.
Her pilot.
She smiled to herself behind heavily lidded eyes, with vivid memories of John’s bedtime story skipping across her mind. He was near enough to touch if she only had the strength to reach.
“You two are close, aren’t you?”
Teyla startled, having almost forgotten Madison was there despite her constant presence and efforts to rouse her. Her late night interlude with John had left her exhausted, far more than she would have expected. The continuous roiling sensation beneath her skin felt like a fever.
She glanced up at Rodney’s niece. Her sunny yet sober expression bore no intent to pry, merely pointing out something that Teyla supposed must be apparent. “Yes, we are close.”
“From everything Uncle Mer’s told me, you’d have to be.”
A tiny smile escaped her lips. “We have … been through a lot together.”
“I can imagine.” Madison observed John thoughtfully. “Still, to do what he did … that’s something special.”
Teyla blinked slowly and turned away. John was not only special, he was extraordinary.
Madison patted her arm one last time and spoke softly. “I’ll tell you what. If he’s going to be spending his nights here, I’m sure we can dig up something more comfortable for him to sleep on.”
Teyla spared her a tired glance before returning it to John, hopeful that he would want to stay. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle waking in this alien world without him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. “I am sure he would appreciate that.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
Tending to her duties, Madison proceeded to help her lay back and uncoil her legs. It was time once again to check her vital signs and it always began the same way, no matter which doctor was attending to her or what year it was.
“How are you feeling?”
“I am fine,” Teyla said without thinking, asked a thousand times with too little change in the answer.
Madison, however, took her lackluster response with good humor. “The most commonly told lie in the universe, but the infirmary just wouldn’t be the same without it.”
As Madison had explained, Phase Two of her treatment promised to be steady and slow. Elizabeth's experience with nanite healing had been nearly instantaneous, but Teyla’s circumstances were different. Her nanites were not Replicator in origin; completely lacking the aggression programmed into them by the Ancients and incapable of self-duplication, and instead of merely swapping the dead and damaged cells in her body for additional nanites, they were manufacturing new, healthy cells. A time-consuming process by all accounts and, at times, quite discouraging.
“How’s the tingling?”
“Worse, as you predicted.”
“Just let me know if you start feeling nauseated. I can remotely adjust the nanites’ production rates to make you more comfortable.”
Teyla nodded, knowing she would never ask for such a measure. Slowing the nanites would only prolong the healing process, keeping her bedridden and weak. An intolerable state, for life was not kind to the weak.
“Give it time, Teyla. It’ll lessen as you heal.”
“I understand.”
Teyla knew the list of basic tests by rote, having already submitted to each one of them many times since she’d regained consciousness: pulse, blood pressure, respiration, temperature, and neural reactivity. She supposed they had to make certain that Phase One was holding. If for some reason it failed before Phase Two was complete and her internal organs were healed, she might very well die after all. In addition, given the hasty circumstances surrounding the nanites’ insertion, they had also been vigilant about checking the injection site for signs of infection.
One by one, Madison efficiently ran through all the tests while Lucia-a raven-haired nurse with an oval face and squeaky shoes-presented Teyla with her morning meal in the form of an IV bag and a cup of ice chips, and proceeded to hang it up along with the rest. They both worked with as little invasion to her personal space as possible, nevertheless Teyla couldn’t help but feel the intrusion. She turned away, weary of being an object to be fussed over.
Unrestrained fatigue pressed down on her.
She was weary of being weary.
If only she could see the sun. On reflection, Teyla realized it had been far too long since she had done even that. If only she were able to go for a walk, to set her feet to the ground and stand beneath the sky, encompassed in its great blue majesty with fat, white clouds sailing overhead. Perhaps then she would find that she still had some place in this world. She would be able to get to know her son again without all the intrusive trappings of illness unnerving him, to hear about his life and learn what made him happiest. She so badly wanted to be able to finish the conversation she and John had barely begun last night …
Unaware she had drifted off, her eyes snapped open when Madison leaned over her again. “If you’ll excuse me for one second, Teyla.” The doctor carefully reached under the loose v-neck collar of her scrubs, and pressed her third and fourth fingers down on each of the trio of transparent sensor pads taped to Teyla’s chest, directly over her heart. “How’s the soreness? Any better?”
Teyla slowly nodded.
“Good.”
“Everything okay?” a low, raspy voice asked. Teyla rolled her head to the right side of the bed where John was overseeing the small matter with bleary eyes and cool concern.
“Just a little bit loose, that’s all,” Madison assured him, not appearing even remotely surprised that he was awake.
How long had she slept this time? It could not have been long.
Madison peered back over to the monitors and seemed very pleased with the results. “There we go. Nice and stable. You know, if we can figure out a reasonable means of mass production without replication, these little guys are going to revolutionize medicine as we know it. Emergencies, terminally ill patients … As long as there’s a cure that can be written into their programming and a decent window for them to work in, the numbers of lives that can be saved are astronomical.”
John huffed. He dropped his legs and straightened his back with a subtle, throaty groan. “Just don’t mention that to Rodney. Next thing you know,
he’ll want to add an MD to his CV.”
“Ah, but then Uncle Mer would have to admit that medicine is an actual science,” Madison countered with a smile.
John and Teyla’s eyes met and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was. A relaxed, sideways grin broke out on his mouth and she knew he was. All those times Rodney had harassed Carson, mocking him and calling his chosen profession ‘pseudoscience’. Jennifer hadn’t suffered as much, likely due to Rodney’s attraction to her, but even she hadn’t been immune to Dr. McKay’s bouts of scientific superiority.
Reluctantly drawing her eyes away from John, Teyla pivoted her head to face the other side of the bed where Madison had scooped up her chart and was scribbling off a few notes. “Surely, he does not still profess to believe that.”
“‘Fraid so.”
John smirked and settled back in his chair. “So, if McKay still acts like medicine is one step above witchcraft and voodoo dolls, how is it that his favorite niece became a doctor? Probably would've paid to be a fly on the wall at that little family meeting. He probably held a full-on intervention.”
Madison chuckled and glanced up from her paperwork. “Not quite, but he definitely had plenty to say when it came to my career choice. I had a knack for physics, engineering, math and all that, and I went to college figuring I’d settle into one of them, get my degree, and see what it was about Atlantis that he and my mom found so compelling.”
“A legendary city chock full of highly advanced alien goodies wasn't enough by itself?” John teased.
“Well, there was that,” Madison answered with a wink. “But, frankly, after a while I found it all pretty boring.”
John snorted.
“I think the idea that medicine isn’t an exact science is what drew me to it in the beginning. Things aren’t neat and the situation doesn’t always fit in a nice little mathematical box. Every person to walk through those doors is completely unique. One-of-a-kind. The puzzles are more challenging and I like the mess that the human factor brings to the table,” she said with a passion Teyla couldn’t help but admire and, perhaps, envy. “As a doctor, I get the chance to save a life. Or to bring one into the world. Or to clean up a scraped knee and make a little kid’s day just a bit better. What else could possibly compete with that?”
“I am sure Rodney was glad to see you here in Atlantis in any capacity. He was never one to say so, but family means a great deal to him,” Teyla said quietly, looking up again.
“I know,” Madison said. “And it turned out to be pretty handy when Uncle Mer needed a medical doctor with a decent grasp of engineering and programming to collaborate with on his pet project.”
Teyla looked over at John and they exchanged a meaningful glance. “I am sure Rodney was grateful for the help.”
“If he keeps on making wisecracks, we could always smack him around a little bit,” John offered. Then his face scrunched up in chagrin as though he’d just remembered that Rodney was quite a bit older than he used to be and cuffing him across the back of the head might not reap the juvenile pleasure it once did. “Well … I could think of something else.”
Madison let out a light, airy laugh. “I appreciate that, General, but I think I’ll be okay. He hasn’t actually mentioned it much since I took his side on the tofu issue.”
John grinned, but it seemed to fall a little flat. There was no hint of discomfort in his body language, but she knew it was there. John had been such a stalwart support for her and seemed to take everything in his stride, it was easy to forget he was going through a transition too.
Madison tucked her chart under her arm and laid a caring hand on Teyla’s arm. “You’re looking good. I’ll be back to check on you a little later.”
“Good enough for visitors?” John asked.
Madison pursed her lips, studying Teyla carefully. “She really needs to rest. I can’t stress that enough, General, but … I suppose it’d be okay. As long as she’s alright with it, of course. And take it easy, please. Her system isn’t to a point yet where it can take a lot of strain.”
“Right,” he quickly assented.
“Thank you, Dr. Miller,” Teyla murmured.
Madison smiled and Teyla watched as she walked toward what used to be Jennifer’s office. It was strange to think that it wasn’t any longer.
John got to his feet and stretched his limbs. Feeling somewhat guilty for being the reason he had spent the entire night in a chair, Teyla said, “Perhaps you should go to the mess hall and get something to eat.”
He smirked. In his unshaven, disheveled state, he looked more roguish than ever. Careful of her IV lines, he perched on the edge of the bed. His hazel eyes sparkled in the early morning glow. “Eager to get rid of me?”
Woozy with fatigue, she smiled. “I simply do not wish for you to end up occupying the next bed over.”
“It’d probably be less lumpy.”
“But more trouble than it is worth.”
John glanced out at the infirmary, considering the nurses, orderlies, and all the other things he’d run away from on countless occasions. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He reached out and his hand slipped wonderfully around her own. “I just wish you could come with me.”
“As do I.” She would give anything to do just that, but even she had to admit she wasn’t capable of it at this point. “I am sorry, John.”
His fingers reached up to gently sweep the hair off her face. “Don’t be. Don’t be sorry. It’s gonna take time, that’s all. You just need to be patient.”
“You have never been what I would call a patient man, John Sheppard,” she accused with a small smile. Her eyes heavy with lethargy, she could scarcely keep them open.
“Well, maybe I’ve learned a thing or two. Ten years is a long time.”
The offhand remark hit her unexpectedly, and Teyla blanched. Her head listed to the side, feeling foolish for letting the full decade they had been apart slip her mind once again. Ten years he had waited for her, never having forgotten her. He was a man out of his own time, relearning the world around him and getting reacquainted with those he had left behind. He was having to go through that because of her, and she was too damaged to do him the courtesy of remembering it.
“I know, I … I do not know what is wrong with me.”
A tender smile graced his lips, his chiseled features locked in sweet and engaging certainty. “You’re tired.”
“I am,” she admitted, speaking beyond merely this moment. In all the months she had been ill, she had never once said that out loud. Not to anyone. She had been ravaged by an insidious poison, endured physical pain beyond imagination, had been confined to a sickbed, and suffered the piteous glances that inevitably followed when her caretakers had seen what illness had done to her. Even though the physical ailments keeping her here would soon be a memory, Teyla would know until the end of her days the feeling of being slowly eaten from the inside out, of being left a ghost in her own life.
It was all just … too much.
“I am so tired, John,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
He didn’t leave. Neither of them spoke and there was no expectation that they should. It was one of the things Teyla found most remarkable about their friendship. It was not demanding or awkward. They knew how to find rest in the silences, taking what comfort they needed from the other solely from their presence and knowing they were welcomed to do so. They stayed together, lapsed in companionable silence, his hand continuing to lightly stroke her hair as she stared absently ahead, only partially aware, electric sensations rippling through her body in fluid streams.
Soon enough, nestled in the soft cushion of her pillow and under John’s watchful eye, Teyla sank peacefully into darkness.
Summary: Sequel to Frozen in Place. With her life coming to a painful and untimely end, Teyla stepped into the stasis pod, never expecting to open her eyes on the world again. Then, one day, she did.
Rating: T
Warnings: none
Pairing: John Sheppard/Teyla Emmagan
Length: ~3000 words
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10302825/5/Dreaming-Wide-Awake
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard, or ... well, much else really. Too bad. For fun, not profit.
Comments: My continued thanks to nacinom for her amazing beta work.
Lost and adrift, a hushed, soothing voice trickled into her subconscious. “Teyla, can you wake up for me?”
Madison.
The doctor’s touch penetrated the thick blanket and layers of cotton-threaded sheets keeping her shielded from the chill outside. Of course, there was no actual chill. Atlantis’ environmental controls maintained the air inside the city at an invariably temperate level, but in her debilitated condition, Teyla was always cold.
Despite the bed sheets that had been carefully draped over her in a warm den, she had curled into a ball sometime during the night; a minor feat considering her current state. Deeply mired in the healing process and the waste that the poison had left behind, the smallest movement was an effort for her. The way she found herself shrouded in her snug cocoon, Teyla suspected she had been seeking refuge from something other than the cold.
Her skin crawled.
“C’mon, Teyla,” Madison encouraged at a near whisper.
Teyla forced herself to comply with the request, and cracks of light slowly appeared beneath her eyelids. Her teeth were on edge as her whole body vibrated, every cell seeming to effervesce and bubble into the others, churning and coalescing like ocean waves at the turn of the tide.
With Phase One still in force and Phase Two now in full swing, she had been warned that the tingling feeling she had experienced before was likely to get worse as thousands upon thousands of microscopic robots worked inside her. Tiny impulses skittered over sensitive nerve endings, and as she opened her eyes further, the constant flux was dizzying. Madison was leaning over her, her brilliant blue sapphires peering at her patiently as she continued to gently coax Teyla back into the strange yet familiar world outside of slumber. Groggy and disoriented, Teyla’s gaze wandered toward the one thing she cared about.
Appearing to have finally put his troubling dreams behind him, John still slept. His arms folded over his middle, he slumped in the chair, angled toward her. Around him, early morning lights bounced off the infirmary equipment. Incandescent beams split over the metal's sheen and into the shadows, spraying the room in bright, mesmerizing cascades. A centrifuge, an EKG machine, and a tray of instruments gleamed in polished silver. In her darker moments, she had often wondered how much better those very instruments would look in pieces, but there was a distinct sense of beauty to be found in those objects she had learned to despise. None of them, however, held a candle to the experience of waking up to John, rumpled, sporting a coat of scruff along his jaw in mottled black and silver, and the enchanting tuft of hair tumbling over his forehead.
Her pilot.
She smiled to herself behind heavily lidded eyes, with vivid memories of John’s bedtime story skipping across her mind. He was near enough to touch if she only had the strength to reach.
“You two are close, aren’t you?”
Teyla startled, having almost forgotten Madison was there despite her constant presence and efforts to rouse her. Her late night interlude with John had left her exhausted, far more than she would have expected. The continuous roiling sensation beneath her skin felt like a fever.
She glanced up at Rodney’s niece. Her sunny yet sober expression bore no intent to pry, merely pointing out something that Teyla supposed must be apparent. “Yes, we are close.”
“From everything Uncle Mer’s told me, you’d have to be.”
A tiny smile escaped her lips. “We have … been through a lot together.”
“I can imagine.” Madison observed John thoughtfully. “Still, to do what he did … that’s something special.”
Teyla blinked slowly and turned away. John was not only special, he was extraordinary.
Madison patted her arm one last time and spoke softly. “I’ll tell you what. If he’s going to be spending his nights here, I’m sure we can dig up something more comfortable for him to sleep on.”
Teyla spared her a tired glance before returning it to John, hopeful that he would want to stay. She wasn’t sure she was prepared to handle waking in this alien world without him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. “I am sure he would appreciate that.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
Tending to her duties, Madison proceeded to help her lay back and uncoil her legs. It was time once again to check her vital signs and it always began the same way, no matter which doctor was attending to her or what year it was.
“How are you feeling?”
“I am fine,” Teyla said without thinking, asked a thousand times with too little change in the answer.
Madison, however, took her lackluster response with good humor. “The most commonly told lie in the universe, but the infirmary just wouldn’t be the same without it.”
As Madison had explained, Phase Two of her treatment promised to be steady and slow. Elizabeth's experience with nanite healing had been nearly instantaneous, but Teyla’s circumstances were different. Her nanites were not Replicator in origin; completely lacking the aggression programmed into them by the Ancients and incapable of self-duplication, and instead of merely swapping the dead and damaged cells in her body for additional nanites, they were manufacturing new, healthy cells. A time-consuming process by all accounts and, at times, quite discouraging.
“How’s the tingling?”
“Worse, as you predicted.”
“Just let me know if you start feeling nauseated. I can remotely adjust the nanites’ production rates to make you more comfortable.”
Teyla nodded, knowing she would never ask for such a measure. Slowing the nanites would only prolong the healing process, keeping her bedridden and weak. An intolerable state, for life was not kind to the weak.
“Give it time, Teyla. It’ll lessen as you heal.”
“I understand.”
Teyla knew the list of basic tests by rote, having already submitted to each one of them many times since she’d regained consciousness: pulse, blood pressure, respiration, temperature, and neural reactivity. She supposed they had to make certain that Phase One was holding. If for some reason it failed before Phase Two was complete and her internal organs were healed, she might very well die after all. In addition, given the hasty circumstances surrounding the nanites’ insertion, they had also been vigilant about checking the injection site for signs of infection.
One by one, Madison efficiently ran through all the tests while Lucia-a raven-haired nurse with an oval face and squeaky shoes-presented Teyla with her morning meal in the form of an IV bag and a cup of ice chips, and proceeded to hang it up along with the rest. They both worked with as little invasion to her personal space as possible, nevertheless Teyla couldn’t help but feel the intrusion. She turned away, weary of being an object to be fussed over.
Unrestrained fatigue pressed down on her.
She was weary of being weary.
If only she could see the sun. On reflection, Teyla realized it had been far too long since she had done even that. If only she were able to go for a walk, to set her feet to the ground and stand beneath the sky, encompassed in its great blue majesty with fat, white clouds sailing overhead. Perhaps then she would find that she still had some place in this world. She would be able to get to know her son again without all the intrusive trappings of illness unnerving him, to hear about his life and learn what made him happiest. She so badly wanted to be able to finish the conversation she and John had barely begun last night …
Unaware she had drifted off, her eyes snapped open when Madison leaned over her again. “If you’ll excuse me for one second, Teyla.” The doctor carefully reached under the loose v-neck collar of her scrubs, and pressed her third and fourth fingers down on each of the trio of transparent sensor pads taped to Teyla’s chest, directly over her heart. “How’s the soreness? Any better?”
Teyla slowly nodded.
“Good.”
“Everything okay?” a low, raspy voice asked. Teyla rolled her head to the right side of the bed where John was overseeing the small matter with bleary eyes and cool concern.
“Just a little bit loose, that’s all,” Madison assured him, not appearing even remotely surprised that he was awake.
How long had she slept this time? It could not have been long.
Madison peered back over to the monitors and seemed very pleased with the results. “There we go. Nice and stable. You know, if we can figure out a reasonable means of mass production without replication, these little guys are going to revolutionize medicine as we know it. Emergencies, terminally ill patients … As long as there’s a cure that can be written into their programming and a decent window for them to work in, the numbers of lives that can be saved are astronomical.”
John huffed. He dropped his legs and straightened his back with a subtle, throaty groan. “Just don’t mention that to Rodney. Next thing you know,
he’ll want to add an MD to his CV.”
“Ah, but then Uncle Mer would have to admit that medicine is an actual science,” Madison countered with a smile.
John and Teyla’s eyes met and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was. A relaxed, sideways grin broke out on his mouth and she knew he was. All those times Rodney had harassed Carson, mocking him and calling his chosen profession ‘pseudoscience’. Jennifer hadn’t suffered as much, likely due to Rodney’s attraction to her, but even she hadn’t been immune to Dr. McKay’s bouts of scientific superiority.
Reluctantly drawing her eyes away from John, Teyla pivoted her head to face the other side of the bed where Madison had scooped up her chart and was scribbling off a few notes. “Surely, he does not still profess to believe that.”
“‘Fraid so.”
John smirked and settled back in his chair. “So, if McKay still acts like medicine is one step above witchcraft and voodoo dolls, how is it that his favorite niece became a doctor? Probably would've paid to be a fly on the wall at that little family meeting. He probably held a full-on intervention.”
Madison chuckled and glanced up from her paperwork. “Not quite, but he definitely had plenty to say when it came to my career choice. I had a knack for physics, engineering, math and all that, and I went to college figuring I’d settle into one of them, get my degree, and see what it was about Atlantis that he and my mom found so compelling.”
“A legendary city chock full of highly advanced alien goodies wasn't enough by itself?” John teased.
“Well, there was that,” Madison answered with a wink. “But, frankly, after a while I found it all pretty boring.”
John snorted.
“I think the idea that medicine isn’t an exact science is what drew me to it in the beginning. Things aren’t neat and the situation doesn’t always fit in a nice little mathematical box. Every person to walk through those doors is completely unique. One-of-a-kind. The puzzles are more challenging and I like the mess that the human factor brings to the table,” she said with a passion Teyla couldn’t help but admire and, perhaps, envy. “As a doctor, I get the chance to save a life. Or to bring one into the world. Or to clean up a scraped knee and make a little kid’s day just a bit better. What else could possibly compete with that?”
“I am sure Rodney was glad to see you here in Atlantis in any capacity. He was never one to say so, but family means a great deal to him,” Teyla said quietly, looking up again.
“I know,” Madison said. “And it turned out to be pretty handy when Uncle Mer needed a medical doctor with a decent grasp of engineering and programming to collaborate with on his pet project.”
Teyla looked over at John and they exchanged a meaningful glance. “I am sure Rodney was grateful for the help.”
“If he keeps on making wisecracks, we could always smack him around a little bit,” John offered. Then his face scrunched up in chagrin as though he’d just remembered that Rodney was quite a bit older than he used to be and cuffing him across the back of the head might not reap the juvenile pleasure it once did. “Well … I could think of something else.”
Madison let out a light, airy laugh. “I appreciate that, General, but I think I’ll be okay. He hasn’t actually mentioned it much since I took his side on the tofu issue.”
John grinned, but it seemed to fall a little flat. There was no hint of discomfort in his body language, but she knew it was there. John had been such a stalwart support for her and seemed to take everything in his stride, it was easy to forget he was going through a transition too.
Madison tucked her chart under her arm and laid a caring hand on Teyla’s arm. “You’re looking good. I’ll be back to check on you a little later.”
“Good enough for visitors?” John asked.
Madison pursed her lips, studying Teyla carefully. “She really needs to rest. I can’t stress that enough, General, but … I suppose it’d be okay. As long as she’s alright with it, of course. And take it easy, please. Her system isn’t to a point yet where it can take a lot of strain.”
“Right,” he quickly assented.
“Thank you, Dr. Miller,” Teyla murmured.
Madison smiled and Teyla watched as she walked toward what used to be Jennifer’s office. It was strange to think that it wasn’t any longer.
John got to his feet and stretched his limbs. Feeling somewhat guilty for being the reason he had spent the entire night in a chair, Teyla said, “Perhaps you should go to the mess hall and get something to eat.”
He smirked. In his unshaven, disheveled state, he looked more roguish than ever. Careful of her IV lines, he perched on the edge of the bed. His hazel eyes sparkled in the early morning glow. “Eager to get rid of me?”
Woozy with fatigue, she smiled. “I simply do not wish for you to end up occupying the next bed over.”
“It’d probably be less lumpy.”
“But more trouble than it is worth.”
John glanced out at the infirmary, considering the nurses, orderlies, and all the other things he’d run away from on countless occasions. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He reached out and his hand slipped wonderfully around her own. “I just wish you could come with me.”
“As do I.” She would give anything to do just that, but even she had to admit she wasn’t capable of it at this point. “I am sorry, John.”
His fingers reached up to gently sweep the hair off her face. “Don’t be. Don’t be sorry. It’s gonna take time, that’s all. You just need to be patient.”
“You have never been what I would call a patient man, John Sheppard,” she accused with a small smile. Her eyes heavy with lethargy, she could scarcely keep them open.
“Well, maybe I’ve learned a thing or two. Ten years is a long time.”
The offhand remark hit her unexpectedly, and Teyla blanched. Her head listed to the side, feeling foolish for letting the full decade they had been apart slip her mind once again. Ten years he had waited for her, never having forgotten her. He was a man out of his own time, relearning the world around him and getting reacquainted with those he had left behind. He was having to go through that because of her, and she was too damaged to do him the courtesy of remembering it.
“I know, I … I do not know what is wrong with me.”
A tender smile graced his lips, his chiseled features locked in sweet and engaging certainty. “You’re tired.”
“I am,” she admitted, speaking beyond merely this moment. In all the months she had been ill, she had never once said that out loud. Not to anyone. She had been ravaged by an insidious poison, endured physical pain beyond imagination, had been confined to a sickbed, and suffered the piteous glances that inevitably followed when her caretakers had seen what illness had done to her. Even though the physical ailments keeping her here would soon be a memory, Teyla would know until the end of her days the feeling of being slowly eaten from the inside out, of being left a ghost in her own life.
It was all just … too much.
“I am so tired, John,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
He didn’t leave. Neither of them spoke and there was no expectation that they should. It was one of the things Teyla found most remarkable about their friendship. It was not demanding or awkward. They knew how to find rest in the silences, taking what comfort they needed from the other solely from their presence and knowing they were welcomed to do so. They stayed together, lapsed in companionable silence, his hand continuing to lightly stroke her hair as she stared absently ahead, only partially aware, electric sensations rippling through her body in fluid streams.
Soon enough, nestled in the soft cushion of her pillow and under John’s watchful eye, Teyla sank peacefully into darkness.