SGA - Time For Mourning
Title: Time for Mourning
Author: MajorShipper
Rating: PG
Pairings: John/Teyla
Warnings: Character death, season four
Disclaimer: Don't nothing belong to me...wish it did but it don't. Darn. Just for fun, no profit intended
Size: 2270 words
Comments: I apologize in advance, it may be a bit sloppy, I wrote it in rather disconjointed fasion, and I haven't had a beta...
There was one outcome, one ending, and John didn’t like it one bit. Teyla was asleep now, thankfully, it had been hours ago that she had woken in agony, her now-thin frame wracked by coughs. Now all John did was sit by her side and think of the ways he could have stopped this madness. It had all started two months ago, when she had returned from the team’s overnight mission with a headache and nausea. Carson had deemed it food poisoning, and in a few days she was better. Then, two weeks after the mission, he and Teyla had been sparring. He had gotten a good whack on her upper arm, causing a huge cut and lots of bleeding. He’d taken her to the infirmary, when Carson had delivered the beginnings of what would be the most trying month and a half of John’s life. She got better, then after a week she was worse. It had only been a week ago that she had been feeling fine, and had been clean for nearly two weeks. They had been sparring again, to help keep her in shape, when a sudden blow to her lower forearm shattered her ulna and split her radius. Then Carson discovered what had truly been plaguing her. A disease, a silent killer that everyone contracted at some point in their lives in Pegasus, but it had always carried the signs of a mere bug, and had been treated. But as they learned, as they struggled to gain information, the virus became active in every one out of a half a million who contracted it. It would flicker back and forth, between dormancy and activity, before finally settling on activity, then attacking the body in a unique way. It searched out the white blood cells, eradicating them, and then replacing them. Then the disease spread farther, replacing the bones and bone marrow, the organs and tissue, until the victim was literally full of the disease, and no one could tell. They only discovered it because of the fragility of her bones after being consumed by the virus. It almost seemed engineered, but Carson assured then it was totally biological, and in fact, all of them had the dead virus floating around in their systems, just another part of living in another galaxy. But for Teyla it had been different. Once the virus consumed your body, it had nowhere to go, so it began to disintegrate, and the vital systems it had replaced went with it. Teyla was dying; a slow and excruciating death, and there was nothing to do about it. Her body was swimming in painkillers and anything Carson could put in her to keep away the pain. But she still woke in terrible pain, and when she cried, with tears came a gooey muck that was identified as the disease, leaking out through her pores and any other way it could. She slept more and more, and the team had been told that she would eventually fall asleep and stay that way, even when her heart failed and her lungs disintegrated. She was beginning to thrash, and John could tell she would wake soon, in more pain than before. If she woke now, she might still have enough drugs in her system to become coherent. Her small hand tightened in his grip, and he raised his eyes to look into her bloodshot eyes, rimmed with a pussy muck that was being forced from her tear ducts.
“John…” Her voice was raspy and low and just by listening to her you could tell she was going faster than the doctor had predicted.
“Hey, Teyla.” She managed a slight twitch of her mouth, all that remained of her facial muscles working for just that small movement.
“John...I have...a question…” Her voice degenerated into a fit of coughing, and John felt like he needed to hit something, because there was nothing for him to do but watch as she slowly settled into the bed, her small frame shill shaking. “Please…” She was on her last leg, and they both knew it.
“What is it Teyla? I’ll do anything.” John didn’t have the slightest idea what she wanted.
“On P91-486…when we went…into the room…and the future…do you…think…it could…have…happened?” Teyla’s eyes fluttered, but she fixed her soft gaze on him, her eyes locked on his. John was shocked. He hadn’t though about the All-Seeing Room since before all this had happened with her. One of the last missions they had gone on as a team, it was the last mission before her first illness. It had been a simple scouting mission, first contact, no biggie, but when they had arrived, the village elders’ clamed that because they were not of the village and therefore had not entered the All-Seeing Room, they could not be permitted to speak to the elders. After much debate, John and Teyla had decided to try it together, that way if anything went wrong, their teammates could get them back to Atlantis. His mind flashed back to that world, an eternity of months ago…
There were some people in the town that believed that the man and woman where a couple, but John and Teyla had vehemently opposed their idea that the two should strip down and enter the room in their birthday suits. Teyla had seemed amused that the idea mortified John. They were in isolation while the room was prepared, and she was sitting in one of the chairs provided, snacking on what looked to be berries. John, on the other hand, was pacing the room nervously.
“Calm down, Colonel. It can’t be any worse than Meltar, or even Setra.” Her references made him grimace. Meltar had involved him being tied to a post in the middle of the village and pelted with rotten vegetables for flirting with the waitress in the inn they had visited. How was he supposed to know she was married to the mayor? Setra was a town that they had visited almost six months ago, pre-industrialized, but with a lot of modern habits. Like community service. Rodney had complained once too much, and had been sentenced with insulting and deregulatory words, and sent to clean out a baby orphanage.
“If I see a post in the village square, I’m making a break for it.” Teyla laughed before pulling an apple looking fruit from the bowl.
“Heads up,” She said, tossing him the fruit. He caught it easily, wondering when she had started employing that particular human phrase. He rolled the fruit around in his hands, wondering how safe it was to eat. A knock sounded on the door, and Teyla smoothly rose before saying, “Enter.”
“The Room is ready.” The young woman waved them out of the room and lead them down the hall to a finely gilded door with a large stylized eye on it, wrought in fine gold and set with a brightly shining turquoise gem. The woman stopped in front of the door, turning and facing them.
“The future you see will be yours alone, and may not be shared with anyone else. What is seen behind this door will be yours, and only yours, and it shall go no farther than these doors. These are the terms.” The rules had all been explained to them when they had first agreed, and now all that was required was the ritual request to use the room, and the drawing of lifeblood. John thought it odd that it required them to give blood samples, but Teyla trusted these people, and they did have things to offer Atlantis. He shifted slightly as the small machine in the wall pricked him, but there was no real discomfort. The doors softly closed behind them, and John gazed at the walls in confusion. They stood in a medium sized room that could probably fit around fifteen people in it comfortably. The walls were solid white, with no visible light source. John turned, but the doors were gone, all that remained was more of the white washed wall.
He spun back around to Teyla. “I don’t think this-…” His words caught in his throat as he saw what had appeared where Teyla had stood. A colorful scene, like a mural was stretched in front of him. It was earth. He saw himself, dragging Teyla by the hand to a huge ring that extended into the sky, a Ferris wheel. She giggled, holding the remains of cotton candy and a large stuffed pink bear. He smiled, and led her into the basket. As John was still trying to figure out that scene, the view shifted, this time to his quarters in Atlantis. But it was different. There were various items scattered about that were definitely not his, and judging by the way that Teyla gasped, he guessed they were hers. The bed was larger, and his stuff was all carefully placed in an organized fashion against the wall. The door slid open, and a very pregnant Teyla stumbled into the room, her eyes fixed on the bed. Behind her, John walked in, looking like he wanted to touch her, but knowing better. Teyla spoke, but the words were garbled and distorted. John said something in reply, before waving his hands around. But Teyla wasn’t listening, she had sunk to the floor, and she was grimacing in pain. Quickly, the view flickered again, and this time there were two young children running through the halls of Atlantis. One was a little girl, around five, with green eyes and black hair cut short, so she looked almost boyish. The other was a boy, who looked maybe seven, with brown eyes and brown hair. He smiled rakishly at the girl, then grabbed her arm, and pulled her inside a door. John watched in amusement as Rodney puffed around the corner, obviously chasing the kids. He skidded to halt in front of the room the children had ducked in. He started to berate the children, but once again the scene shifted, and the children were older, the boy now a teen, looking every bit the leader. He was geared up as though he was going offworld. At his side was the younger girl, similarly decked out. On the other side of the girl was Teyla, an older version of the woman he knew. They watched as the Stargate activated and John stepped through the gate, and it shut down. There was enough greenery showing to suggest that this was in fact an alien world, and John watched in rather uncomfortable shocked silence as his older version walked over, nodded at the kids, and kissed Teyla. He walked over to the boy, and wrapped him in a bear hug. The scene faded and the wall returned to white. John began to turn to Teyla when the wall flickered, and showed one last vista. A casket was sitting in front of a closed gate, and a man was standing over the wooden box. The man opened his eyes and lifted his head and John saw that it was Halling. For the first time, John heard a voice, but he knew it was not Halling. “Two people, two futures. Only you can decide the path you take…” The walls all faded to tar black and the doors swung open. John glanced a Teyla, who moved her shoulders in a shrug. Their escort appeared in the doorway, smiling.
“Remember your promise. Keep your future to your self.” She led them from the black room back to the room they had previous occupied. John settled into the chair and exhaled loudly.
“Uh, Teyla-“ But he never got a chance to finish.
“Can we not just forget it?” She was standing at the window, and her previous loose attitude had given way to a rigid exterior.
“Sure. Whatever, I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it…” John was fishing, and they both knew it, but she didn’t respond. Soon they were led back to their team, and they kept their word. They never spoke of it again.
“I remember…it all…so clear…now its-“ She coughed violently.
“Shhh…save your strength, you’re gonna need it when you get better.” John gripped her hand tightly. Teyla smiled wryly at him.
“I…think…not. Promise me…promise me…” she trailed off.
“What is it Teyla? Anything; anything?” She flickered her eyes open.
“Name him…Torren John…” Her eyes flickered to the incubator off to the side of her bed that held the only true remaining parts of Teyla. A son that would have died had the Apollo not been there with their beaming technology. John looked at Teyla, and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.
“I will,” he said softly. She smiled softly and nodded before closing her eyes. John didn’t know how long it was that he sat by her, but he was startled as she squeezed his hand tightly, then her grip relaxed as alarms all around her went off, signaling loss of respiration, heartbeat, among other things. Carson was there in moments, solemnly flipping the alarms off and noting things on his clipboard. John rose from his seat and walked carefully over to the tiny baby held inside. He was very premature, but there had been no choice about his delivery. It was either letting him die for sure with his mom, or taking the chance that he would live. John touched the glass, looking at the tiny boy.
“Torren…John…Emmagen.” The small baby moved in its sleep, and John smiled. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that this baby boy would grow up someday.
Fin