In the Giving (John/Rodney, PG-13)
Title: In the Giving
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~2,800
Pairings: John/Rodney, Teyla/Kanaan. Mention of past Rodney/Jennifer
Warnings: Major (temporary) character death
Summary: John raised his head, and Teyla wanted to cry for both of them, because John's eyes held not a single tear, no shred of pain.
Notes: Still with the fever. On the upside, hey: writing mojo. For the cliche_bingo prompt of Character Death (bingo card to be found here). I owe taste_is_sweet much gratitude for the alpha read and some truly brilliant suggestions, and neevebrody for two beta reads and helping me figure out why I was stuck. Any mistakes you may find are mine alone (I fiddle), but it would be nice if you pointed them out. Thanks.
~~~
In the Giving
Even when she had been but a child, clinging to her mother's skirts, Teyla had known that the greatest treasure was not something she could touch. It was not the necklace her father had given her, or a good trade, or even love, although this perhaps came close.
It was time.
In a world where lives ended faster than it might have taken Teyla to blink, time was something to be cherished. Charrin taught her that the Wraith could take it away - and they did, later; took both her parents and nearly all her childhood friends - and Teyla knew there was no greater theft. Later, she would learn that the Wraith could grant time as well, but surely a gift given by a Wraith could not come without a price that far exceeded its worth. It must not be accepted, she had known this like she had known her mother's bloodline, for it had been stolen from someone else and carried a taint that would stain everything it touched. It would spread its poison like the pale telnak spread on the fields of death. Safe in the comfort of Charrin's tent, she had known this, and looked down with pity on those foolish enough to accept the offer.
Sometimes, Teyla marveled at how young she had been.
Atlantis had opened her eyes in more ways than one. The Ancients, those she had revered as her Ancestors, had been so fearful of dying they had fled, choosing an existence so removed from everything else that time had to be of little consequence to them. Those from Earth too acted as if time was no concern at all, as if they had it in abundance, even as they fought and died. Among the Athosians, Teyla could not have imagined living like that.
But the Earth humans' regard of time was at once their biggest strength and their greatest weakness. They did not fear its loss, but neither did they cherish what time they had. So many opportunities were lost forever because they let them pass, thinking they would come again. So many truths were never spoken because they thought there would be time to voice them later. All too frequently, that 'later' never came, and yet they did not seem to learn.
During the first three years of her stay on Atlantis, Teyla had watched Rodney fall in love with John, turning to him like iron to a lodestone, seeking his company, his attention, his approval. John had never noticed, and Teyla had kept Rodney's secret with a smile as he nurtured his feelings with an earnest sincerity she could not help but find endearing. Just like later she had kept her silence as he slowly fell out of love again, both of them regretful as he turned his attention elsewhere, first to Katie, then to Jennifer, and finally, disappointed, back to science. He still sought out John's company, but he was not quite as eager to please, not quite as desperate to be acknowledged. His romantic feelings had mellowed into a friendship that, while deeper than many she had known, nevertheless felt like a loss.
So it was with something akin to sympathy that through the second three years of the expedition, Teyla had watched as John, in turn, gave his second-greatest gift to Rodney. There was nothing endearing about this: John's love was bafflement and pain and a quiet wistfulness that made her heart ache. He'd reacted to Jennifer with a bewildered jealousy, his eyes growing shuttered once he figured out the reason, and Teyla wished she could have been there for him, but knew that her support in this would have been unwelcome.
John's love did not wane like Rodney's had, but that did not surprise her. In the time she had known him, John Sheppard had always strived towards the impossible. Impossible and Rodney McKay, it seemed, often went hand in hand. So tragic, then, that this was one miracle she would not witness. Another chance passed up, two of her greatest friends forever oblivious about the affection one held - or had held, once - for the other.
Or so she had thought.
It was a Wraith that taught her differently, seven years after she had first met those humans from Earth, after the culling that had changed the fate of a whole galaxy. Rodney might have called this irony, had either of them been inclined to speak of the matter. Charrin might have called it the way of the Ancestors.
Teyla herself called it strange luck, and tried not to think about it.
The Wraith was the one John had named Todd, of course. He was what some of the Earth humans called 'a bad penny', showing up sometimes to fight on their side, sometimes to plot against them. Neither of them trusted the other, but on occasion, it seemed prudent to collaborate if they had a common goal.
This time, the common goal was the thwarting of an alliance between three queenless Hives, for its existence was threatening to both Atlantis and to Todd's plans. They had managed to destroy one Hive through luck more than anything else, and Todd's sabotage had severely damaged another. It was already falling from orbit, and would burn up high above the world beneath them. The third Hive, however, had been warned of their presence, and they encountered grave resistance in its corridors that forced them to split up. The fight was long and hard, and they lost several of the Marines they had brought with them. Major Lorne was hit by 'friendly fire', and Ronon somehow managed to lose most of the hair from the left side of his head, carrying with him the stench of burnt horn. And in the thick of things, they lost contact with John's team entirely, causing everyone great worry.
They searched for them when all was over, of course. They found dead Wraith, which was a given and made Ronon smile with no humour, but they also found the bodies of the Marines who had been with John and Rodney. Teyla's hands tightened around her gun, and Ronon gritted his teeth. Silently, they moved on.
They found John and Rodney two rooms further down the corridor, with more Wraith bodies strewn before the open door. The sight inside caught Teyla's breath; there was too much blood for this to be anything but tragedy.
John knelt on the wet ground, his head bowed as he clutched Rodney to his chest like a child might do a beloved toy. Rodney's body certainly seemed to hold no more life than a doll, hands and legs splayed loosely on a floor that was red from his blood. His head rested in the crook of John's arm, and what she could see of his face looked terribly white, terribly still. His eyes were closed.
"John," she said softly, her heart breaking on his behalf, on her own; on behalf of the city that would now have to learn to live without its brightest son. John raised his head, and Teyla wanted to cry for both of them, because John's eyes held not a single tear, no shred of pain.
His gaze was as dead as the man he held in his arms.
"Get Todd." His voice was frightening, inflectionless, and for a brief moment, Teyla hesitated. Then she nodded and, with one last look at Rodney's face, turned away.
She knew, of course, what John would ask of Todd. Both she and John had already given Rodney their second-greatest treasure, if in different ways, and now John would hand over everything he had to give. He was unable to do otherwise, for all that he knew it was a gift that Rodney would not want. And Teyla... Teyla's choice was to lose one friend today, or two.
So many had died already.
"Teyla," Ronon said in a low voice, his tone one of protest, and she raised her eyes to meet his.
"Go," she urged him, for that was the only way this might still turn out well. "Find a Wraith that lives. Find two. Go."
He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and took off for the end of the corridor. Teyla pressed her lips together, blinked away the stinging in her eyes, and went to find Todd.
He surprised her by coming willingly.
"I would hardly pass up the chance to feed," he told her, but she sensed more than that in his willingness. He looked down upon Rodney with an expression that could almost be mistaken for regret, and asked John, "Are you sure, Sheppard?"
John just stared at him with his frighteningly calm gaze. Todd nodded.
John screamed when the Wraith's hand tore the years from him, and it was this that broke Teyla's composure, made the tears stream freely down her face. John's scream, and the grief on his rapidly aging face, as if Todd's touch was also tearing down the walls he had built around himself, and the way John simply fell to the ground, unmoving, clothes far too large on his frail body, when Todd finally withdrew his hand and turned to Rodney.
At first, nothing happened, and Teyla feared she had just lost both of them after all. Then Rodney suddenly gasped, eyes flying open, his body arching only to be kept down by the hand on his chest. Fresh blood glued his shirt to his side.
He was alive, if not well, and yet Teyla found no joy inside herself.
"John," she breathed, her voice choked by her own grief. Todd stepped away from her friends, and Rodney turned his head, sucking in a sharp breath that ended in a wet cough as he saw John lying beside him, lifeless, old, and his hands slipped on his own blood as he pulled himself to his knees and crawled the short distance between them.
"No," he begged, and the expression on his face as he pulled John in his arms, their position reversed from just a few minutes before, was one Teyla did not want to see ever again. "No, no, no, John."
Sorrow. Sorrow so deep it seemed impossible for one man to bear, and the defeated curl of Rodney's shoulders seemed proof of this. He looked shattered as he cradled John's body to his chest.
"John," he whispered. "John."
John's fingers twitched. Teyla held her breath. Could it be... he was alive!
Slowly, shaking, John's thin hand came up to tangle in the back of Rodney's shirt. Rodney let out a shuddering sigh, his own hands clinging to John as if he were afraid to let him go.
"Take it back," he whispered, then turned beseeching eyes on Todd. "Take it back, make him-"
But John was clutching at him now, shaking his head.
"No," he rasped, his eyes fluttering open, their milky gaze fixed on Rodney's face as if it were the only thing in the world. "I can't... not you."
"We can share," Rodney blurted. He swallowed convulsively. "He can... I'm fine, I can spare two decades if it gives you time to-"
"No."
"John." And Teyla's hand flew to her mouth as Rodney bowed down to press an unsteady kiss to John's wrinkled cheek, and then his mouth, so unbearably gentle she thought that surely this would kill them both, that John's death would leave Rodney broken in a way she did not think time could repair. How wrong she had been, to think that Rodney's love had passed. "I can't... you can't die, either. Not like this. Not for me."
"Worth it," John croaked, and Rodney closed his eyes. He rested their foreheads together, his tears wet on John's cheeks, and Teyla turned away from them, could not witness their last moments together.
So she was the first to see Ronon as he pushed the Wraith drone through the door, and her love for him was boundless.
"Am I to feed off my own kind?" Todd asked. "How barbaric."
The amusement in his voice made Teyla's hands drop back to her gun. How dare he make light of this?
"You do if you don't want to die," Ronon answered, and pointed his own gun at him. Todd raised his hands in mock surrender. The feeding slit of his right was smeared with blood.
"And then who will save your Colonel Sheppard?"
"We'll find someone." Ronon's voice was cold, his gaze not flickering even once to where Rodney was kneeling in his own drying blood, John dying in his arms.
"That will not be necessary." Todd took a few steps forward and slammed his hands against the drone's chests. He kept draining its life even as it went to its knees, and didn't step back until it had slumped to the ground. How many years, Teyla wondered, had he just gained. Enough to pull John back from the brink of death? Enough to restore him to what he'd been?
Rodney watched with a wide-eyed mixture of hope and fear as Todd knelt beside him and pressed his hand to John's chest. John moaned as the lines on his face started to smooth, then his body went limp. Rodney groaned as he had to take the increased weight, and Teyla remembered with a start that he was hurt. A Wraith's touch could grant time, but it could not heal.
Ronon took a step closer, his gun pointed at Todd's head.
"What did you do?" he demanded.
"It happens sometimes." Todd seemed unconcerned as he rose to his feet. Rodney was still clinging to John, barely keeping himself upright, but John's body looked now as it had before, with perhaps a little more grey in his hair. "He will wake soon."
As if to prove his words, John's eyebrows pulled together in a slight frown, then his eyes fluttered open. He blinked at Rodney.
"Hey," he said, wincing briefly as he struggled to sit up.
"Hey," Rodney echoed with a relieved smile, then he scowled. "Hey! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I thought you were going to die!"
He raised his hand as if to cuff the back of John's head, but yelped and curled in on himself.
"Rodney!" John steadied him, and Teyla shook herself out of her daze to drop to her knees beside them. Rodney groaned as she pressed the bandage to his bleeding side. Her free hand was carding through his hair before she could stop herself, soothing him and reassuring her of his living presence. He blinked at her, then he squawked as Ronon scooped him into his arms. John had risen with them and seemed reluctant to step away, but he let Ronon pass. It was hard to believe that, just moments earlier, he had been dying of old age in Rodney's arms.
"We must return to Atlantis," Teyla said, perhaps needlessly.
She wanted to go home.
"Yeah." John looked after Ronon and Rodney, then he turned to Todd. "Thanks."
Todd inclined his head.
"I will accept this ship as a token of your gratitude," he said, and John snorted.
"Yeah, knock yourself out." Something seemed to pass between them, and Teyla did not think it had anything to do with giving Todd the remaining Hive. Before she could try and figure it out, though, John laid a hand on her elbow and gently pulled her towards the door.
"Come on," he said, "let's go home."
She caught him looking at her several times that day, as if he were waiting for her to protest his decision. Teyla did not say anything. Not as they sat in the Jumper and watched Todd's Hive Ship escape into hyperspace, and not as John omitted half the day's happenings in the debriefing. She did not say anything, but she could not forget the look that had passed between John and the Wraith who had called him brother, nor the way John had offered up his life for Rodney as if it were nothing.
No, not nothing. As if the years he had left were meaningless to him if he had to spend them without Rodney. Rodney, who had kissed him so tenderly, something that would not have been possible without the help of a Wraith.
"Why are you smiling?" Kanaan asked, sitting down on the bed beside her.
Teyla shook her head, unable to explain.
"Gifts," she said simply, and turned to press her lips to his.
.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~2,800
Pairings: John/Rodney, Teyla/Kanaan. Mention of past Rodney/Jennifer
Warnings: Major (temporary) character death
Summary: John raised his head, and Teyla wanted to cry for both of them, because John's eyes held not a single tear, no shred of pain.
Notes: Still with the fever. On the upside, hey: writing mojo. For the cliche_bingo prompt of Character Death (bingo card to be found here). I owe taste_is_sweet much gratitude for the alpha read and some truly brilliant suggestions, and neevebrody for two beta reads and helping me figure out why I was stuck. Any mistakes you may find are mine alone (I fiddle), but it would be nice if you pointed them out. Thanks.
~~~
In the Giving
Even when she had been but a child, clinging to her mother's skirts, Teyla had known that the greatest treasure was not something she could touch. It was not the necklace her father had given her, or a good trade, or even love, although this perhaps came close.
It was time.
In a world where lives ended faster than it might have taken Teyla to blink, time was something to be cherished. Charrin taught her that the Wraith could take it away - and they did, later; took both her parents and nearly all her childhood friends - and Teyla knew there was no greater theft. Later, she would learn that the Wraith could grant time as well, but surely a gift given by a Wraith could not come without a price that far exceeded its worth. It must not be accepted, she had known this like she had known her mother's bloodline, for it had been stolen from someone else and carried a taint that would stain everything it touched. It would spread its poison like the pale telnak spread on the fields of death. Safe in the comfort of Charrin's tent, she had known this, and looked down with pity on those foolish enough to accept the offer.
Sometimes, Teyla marveled at how young she had been.
Atlantis had opened her eyes in more ways than one. The Ancients, those she had revered as her Ancestors, had been so fearful of dying they had fled, choosing an existence so removed from everything else that time had to be of little consequence to them. Those from Earth too acted as if time was no concern at all, as if they had it in abundance, even as they fought and died. Among the Athosians, Teyla could not have imagined living like that.
But the Earth humans' regard of time was at once their biggest strength and their greatest weakness. They did not fear its loss, but neither did they cherish what time they had. So many opportunities were lost forever because they let them pass, thinking they would come again. So many truths were never spoken because they thought there would be time to voice them later. All too frequently, that 'later' never came, and yet they did not seem to learn.
During the first three years of her stay on Atlantis, Teyla had watched Rodney fall in love with John, turning to him like iron to a lodestone, seeking his company, his attention, his approval. John had never noticed, and Teyla had kept Rodney's secret with a smile as he nurtured his feelings with an earnest sincerity she could not help but find endearing. Just like later she had kept her silence as he slowly fell out of love again, both of them regretful as he turned his attention elsewhere, first to Katie, then to Jennifer, and finally, disappointed, back to science. He still sought out John's company, but he was not quite as eager to please, not quite as desperate to be acknowledged. His romantic feelings had mellowed into a friendship that, while deeper than many she had known, nevertheless felt like a loss.
So it was with something akin to sympathy that through the second three years of the expedition, Teyla had watched as John, in turn, gave his second-greatest gift to Rodney. There was nothing endearing about this: John's love was bafflement and pain and a quiet wistfulness that made her heart ache. He'd reacted to Jennifer with a bewildered jealousy, his eyes growing shuttered once he figured out the reason, and Teyla wished she could have been there for him, but knew that her support in this would have been unwelcome.
John's love did not wane like Rodney's had, but that did not surprise her. In the time she had known him, John Sheppard had always strived towards the impossible. Impossible and Rodney McKay, it seemed, often went hand in hand. So tragic, then, that this was one miracle she would not witness. Another chance passed up, two of her greatest friends forever oblivious about the affection one held - or had held, once - for the other.
Or so she had thought.
It was a Wraith that taught her differently, seven years after she had first met those humans from Earth, after the culling that had changed the fate of a whole galaxy. Rodney might have called this irony, had either of them been inclined to speak of the matter. Charrin might have called it the way of the Ancestors.
Teyla herself called it strange luck, and tried not to think about it.
The Wraith was the one John had named Todd, of course. He was what some of the Earth humans called 'a bad penny', showing up sometimes to fight on their side, sometimes to plot against them. Neither of them trusted the other, but on occasion, it seemed prudent to collaborate if they had a common goal.
This time, the common goal was the thwarting of an alliance between three queenless Hives, for its existence was threatening to both Atlantis and to Todd's plans. They had managed to destroy one Hive through luck more than anything else, and Todd's sabotage had severely damaged another. It was already falling from orbit, and would burn up high above the world beneath them. The third Hive, however, had been warned of their presence, and they encountered grave resistance in its corridors that forced them to split up. The fight was long and hard, and they lost several of the Marines they had brought with them. Major Lorne was hit by 'friendly fire', and Ronon somehow managed to lose most of the hair from the left side of his head, carrying with him the stench of burnt horn. And in the thick of things, they lost contact with John's team entirely, causing everyone great worry.
They searched for them when all was over, of course. They found dead Wraith, which was a given and made Ronon smile with no humour, but they also found the bodies of the Marines who had been with John and Rodney. Teyla's hands tightened around her gun, and Ronon gritted his teeth. Silently, they moved on.
They found John and Rodney two rooms further down the corridor, with more Wraith bodies strewn before the open door. The sight inside caught Teyla's breath; there was too much blood for this to be anything but tragedy.
John knelt on the wet ground, his head bowed as he clutched Rodney to his chest like a child might do a beloved toy. Rodney's body certainly seemed to hold no more life than a doll, hands and legs splayed loosely on a floor that was red from his blood. His head rested in the crook of John's arm, and what she could see of his face looked terribly white, terribly still. His eyes were closed.
"John," she said softly, her heart breaking on his behalf, on her own; on behalf of the city that would now have to learn to live without its brightest son. John raised his head, and Teyla wanted to cry for both of them, because John's eyes held not a single tear, no shred of pain.
His gaze was as dead as the man he held in his arms.
"Get Todd." His voice was frightening, inflectionless, and for a brief moment, Teyla hesitated. Then she nodded and, with one last look at Rodney's face, turned away.
She knew, of course, what John would ask of Todd. Both she and John had already given Rodney their second-greatest treasure, if in different ways, and now John would hand over everything he had to give. He was unable to do otherwise, for all that he knew it was a gift that Rodney would not want. And Teyla... Teyla's choice was to lose one friend today, or two.
So many had died already.
"Teyla," Ronon said in a low voice, his tone one of protest, and she raised her eyes to meet his.
"Go," she urged him, for that was the only way this might still turn out well. "Find a Wraith that lives. Find two. Go."
He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded and took off for the end of the corridor. Teyla pressed her lips together, blinked away the stinging in her eyes, and went to find Todd.
He surprised her by coming willingly.
"I would hardly pass up the chance to feed," he told her, but she sensed more than that in his willingness. He looked down upon Rodney with an expression that could almost be mistaken for regret, and asked John, "Are you sure, Sheppard?"
John just stared at him with his frighteningly calm gaze. Todd nodded.
John screamed when the Wraith's hand tore the years from him, and it was this that broke Teyla's composure, made the tears stream freely down her face. John's scream, and the grief on his rapidly aging face, as if Todd's touch was also tearing down the walls he had built around himself, and the way John simply fell to the ground, unmoving, clothes far too large on his frail body, when Todd finally withdrew his hand and turned to Rodney.
At first, nothing happened, and Teyla feared she had just lost both of them after all. Then Rodney suddenly gasped, eyes flying open, his body arching only to be kept down by the hand on his chest. Fresh blood glued his shirt to his side.
He was alive, if not well, and yet Teyla found no joy inside herself.
"John," she breathed, her voice choked by her own grief. Todd stepped away from her friends, and Rodney turned his head, sucking in a sharp breath that ended in a wet cough as he saw John lying beside him, lifeless, old, and his hands slipped on his own blood as he pulled himself to his knees and crawled the short distance between them.
"No," he begged, and the expression on his face as he pulled John in his arms, their position reversed from just a few minutes before, was one Teyla did not want to see ever again. "No, no, no, John."
Sorrow. Sorrow so deep it seemed impossible for one man to bear, and the defeated curl of Rodney's shoulders seemed proof of this. He looked shattered as he cradled John's body to his chest.
"John," he whispered. "John."
John's fingers twitched. Teyla held her breath. Could it be... he was alive!
Slowly, shaking, John's thin hand came up to tangle in the back of Rodney's shirt. Rodney let out a shuddering sigh, his own hands clinging to John as if he were afraid to let him go.
"Take it back," he whispered, then turned beseeching eyes on Todd. "Take it back, make him-"
But John was clutching at him now, shaking his head.
"No," he rasped, his eyes fluttering open, their milky gaze fixed on Rodney's face as if it were the only thing in the world. "I can't... not you."
"We can share," Rodney blurted. He swallowed convulsively. "He can... I'm fine, I can spare two decades if it gives you time to-"
"No."
"John." And Teyla's hand flew to her mouth as Rodney bowed down to press an unsteady kiss to John's wrinkled cheek, and then his mouth, so unbearably gentle she thought that surely this would kill them both, that John's death would leave Rodney broken in a way she did not think time could repair. How wrong she had been, to think that Rodney's love had passed. "I can't... you can't die, either. Not like this. Not for me."
"Worth it," John croaked, and Rodney closed his eyes. He rested their foreheads together, his tears wet on John's cheeks, and Teyla turned away from them, could not witness their last moments together.
So she was the first to see Ronon as he pushed the Wraith drone through the door, and her love for him was boundless.
"Am I to feed off my own kind?" Todd asked. "How barbaric."
The amusement in his voice made Teyla's hands drop back to her gun. How dare he make light of this?
"You do if you don't want to die," Ronon answered, and pointed his own gun at him. Todd raised his hands in mock surrender. The feeding slit of his right was smeared with blood.
"And then who will save your Colonel Sheppard?"
"We'll find someone." Ronon's voice was cold, his gaze not flickering even once to where Rodney was kneeling in his own drying blood, John dying in his arms.
"That will not be necessary." Todd took a few steps forward and slammed his hands against the drone's chests. He kept draining its life even as it went to its knees, and didn't step back until it had slumped to the ground. How many years, Teyla wondered, had he just gained. Enough to pull John back from the brink of death? Enough to restore him to what he'd been?
Rodney watched with a wide-eyed mixture of hope and fear as Todd knelt beside him and pressed his hand to John's chest. John moaned as the lines on his face started to smooth, then his body went limp. Rodney groaned as he had to take the increased weight, and Teyla remembered with a start that he was hurt. A Wraith's touch could grant time, but it could not heal.
Ronon took a step closer, his gun pointed at Todd's head.
"What did you do?" he demanded.
"It happens sometimes." Todd seemed unconcerned as he rose to his feet. Rodney was still clinging to John, barely keeping himself upright, but John's body looked now as it had before, with perhaps a little more grey in his hair. "He will wake soon."
As if to prove his words, John's eyebrows pulled together in a slight frown, then his eyes fluttered open. He blinked at Rodney.
"Hey," he said, wincing briefly as he struggled to sit up.
"Hey," Rodney echoed with a relieved smile, then he scowled. "Hey! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I thought you were going to die!"
He raised his hand as if to cuff the back of John's head, but yelped and curled in on himself.
"Rodney!" John steadied him, and Teyla shook herself out of her daze to drop to her knees beside them. Rodney groaned as she pressed the bandage to his bleeding side. Her free hand was carding through his hair before she could stop herself, soothing him and reassuring her of his living presence. He blinked at her, then he squawked as Ronon scooped him into his arms. John had risen with them and seemed reluctant to step away, but he let Ronon pass. It was hard to believe that, just moments earlier, he had been dying of old age in Rodney's arms.
"We must return to Atlantis," Teyla said, perhaps needlessly.
She wanted to go home.
"Yeah." John looked after Ronon and Rodney, then he turned to Todd. "Thanks."
Todd inclined his head.
"I will accept this ship as a token of your gratitude," he said, and John snorted.
"Yeah, knock yourself out." Something seemed to pass between them, and Teyla did not think it had anything to do with giving Todd the remaining Hive. Before she could try and figure it out, though, John laid a hand on her elbow and gently pulled her towards the door.
"Come on," he said, "let's go home."
She caught him looking at her several times that day, as if he were waiting for her to protest his decision. Teyla did not say anything. Not as they sat in the Jumper and watched Todd's Hive Ship escape into hyperspace, and not as John omitted half the day's happenings in the debriefing. She did not say anything, but she could not forget the look that had passed between John and the Wraith who had called him brother, nor the way John had offered up his life for Rodney as if it were nothing.
No, not nothing. As if the years he had left were meaningless to him if he had to spend them without Rodney. Rodney, who had kissed him so tenderly, something that would not have been possible without the help of a Wraith.
"Why are you smiling?" Kanaan asked, sitting down on the bed beside her.
Teyla shook her head, unable to explain.
"Gifts," she said simply, and turned to press her lips to his.
.