(no subject)
Title: The Night That Changed All Others
Chapter Title: Chapter 8 - Goaded Into Action
Author: Nytel
Rating: PG-13, (maybe even only PG)
Spoilers: Up to 203 for sure, but very light spoilers, if any, after that.
Summary: Teyla and John spend one night together, and they could never have imagined the series of events that would unfold because of it. These events would change the lives and the future of everyone in Atlantis.
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis.
Prologue: http://nytel.livejournal.com/6539.html#cutid1
Chapter 1: http://nytel.livejournal.com/6715.html#cutid1
Chapter 2: http://nytel.livejournal.com/7290.html#cutid1
Chapter 3: http://nytel.livejournal.com/10722.html#cutid1
Chapter 4: http://nytel.livejournal.com/13158.html#cutid1
Chapter 5: http://nytel.livejournal.com/13707.html#cutid1
Chapter 6: http://nytel.livejournal.com/14574.html#cutid1
Chapter 7: http://nytel.livejournal.com/15691.html#cutid2
Previously:
John jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whipped his head around to see who was there. It was Teyla.
She didn’t say anything. She merely pulled up a chair beside his and sat down. She then surprised John by reaching over and taking his right hand in her left. As their fingers intertwined John suddenly felt a little better. Somehow knowing that Teyla was there beside him made the whole situation seem that much more bearable.
Chapter 8 - Goaded Into Action
The next morning John found himself sitting with Teyla at a table in the mess hall. They were eating breakfast, although John didn’t feel at all hungry. They had only been sitting there for a few minutes when Rodney walked in, followed by Ronon and Ford.
Once the men had gotten their food, they made their way over to the table that John and Teyla were sitting at. John was next to Teyla, and it didn’t go unnoticed that Ronon chose to sit on her other side of Teyla.
She gave him a weak smile, before staring at her food again. It had been a rough night. Neither Teyla nor John had gotten much sleep. They had sat up in the infirmary for the majority of it.
When John glanced at Ronon he noticed that he was glaring at him. Well if he wants to play the ‘I blame John for making Teyla leave’ game, let him. John was in no mood to deal with that right now. Pretending that he did not notice John turned his attention back to his food.
When he looked at the pile of eggs in front of him, he realized that he hadn’t eaten them. Instead he had merely moved them around on his plate until they looked like a big pile of mush. Setting his fork down on top of the plate, John pushed it away from him and rested his forehead on the table.
For a long time the only thing that John was aware of was the light chatter of voices in the background, and the scraping of cutlery on plates. Two days ago, John had been sitting at this very table eating and joking around with Rodney. It seemed like two decades ago. It was hard to believe that so much had happened in that short period of time.
John, who still had his forehead resting on the table, heard someone cough quietly. Probably Ford.
“Um…sir?”
Yep, definitely Ford. “Yes Lieutenant.” Was John’s muffled reply.
“Sir, pardon my asking, but what are we going to do about the wraith?” Ford’s voice was quiet and almost apologetic.
John lifted his head wearily from the table. “Truthfully Lieutenant, I have no idea.” John heard Teyla sigh as he said this. “I wish I had an answer, but I don’t.”
Ford nodded his head once in understanding. “But we are going to do something about it. Right?”
This time it wasn’t John who answered. “Of course we will.” Ronon said in his deep voice. “We’re not just going to take this lying down.”
John almost smiled when Ronon used the Earth expression. Almost.
“You’re going to talk to Weir, right Sheppard?”
John could hear the underlying challenge in Ronon’s voice. “Of course I am.” John replied, his voice bordering on anger. How could Ronon just think that he would, as he so nicely put it, take it lying down. Those were his kids that were lying in the infirmary and he was going to do everything in his power to help them, and he was going to do more than that. He was going to make sure that the wraith were destroyed once and for all. Then there was no chance that this could ever happen again.
“Excuse me.” John said roughly, as he got up and pushed his chair into the table. “I am going to talk to Dr. Weir.” And with that John walked defiantly through the mess hall doors to go find Elizabeth.
***
Teyla was shocked by John’s sudden departure, and Ronon’s goading that had caused it. It seemed that Rodney and Aiden were shocked too. She knew that Ronon was mad at John for what he had done, but he had no right to antagonize him at a time like this.
Before Teyla could begin to reprimand Ronon for his horrible behavior, he spoke. “Sorry Teyla, but someone had to motivate him.”
Teyla’s eyes widened it shock. “What do you mean?”
“He’s different now Teyla.” Ronon began. “He’s not the same Sheppard that you remember. The old Sheppard would have already made some insane plan to save the galaxy and would have been half way through carrying it out by now.”
Teyla knew that Ronon was right. “If someone didn’t say something, then he would have been sitting around here all depressed, and that’s not what we need. We need him to be focused on destroying the wraith.”
Teyla sighed, the John Sheppard that she remembered wouldn’t have been found sulking at the breakfast table. For some reason that scared Teyla. If John had really changed, then was there anything that she could truly count on? He had been the one constant thing in her life, even when she was on Atria.
But then Teyla remembered back to the time she had spent with John since her return. During those times he had seemed exactly like the John she remembered. Maybe the old John was still there, but he was just buried beneath the surface. At least Teyla could hope that was the case. If her kids were to have a good chance of surviving this ordeal, they needed the old John back.
***
John found himself pounding on the door to Elizabeth’s office only a few minutes after he left the mess hall. He had his fist raised and was about to knock again, when he heard Elizabeth’s voice. “Come in.”
John quickly activated the door and stepped into Elizabeth’s office. From the looks of things she was in the middle of doing paperwork. It seemed rather stupid really, all this technology yet they still had to do paperwork.
“John.” Elizabeth said in the way of a greeting.
“Look,” John said, “I’m going to get straight to the point.”
“Alright.” Elizabeth said. She seemed to be surprised by the forcefulness of his words.
“We need a plan.” John stated.
“A plan for what John?” Elizabeth asked, keeping her voice calm.
“What do you think?” John asked sarcastically. “A plan for defeating the wraith.”
“John…”
“Elizabeth…” he replied as he placed his hands on her desk and leaned over her. “The wraith are back. They are coming for us. We are not going to take this lying down.” By this time John was quite worked up and he didn’t even realize that he had used the exact same phrase as Ronon. He had even begun to pace.
“Of course we aren’t.” Elizabeth said as she stood up, though she still remained behind her desk. “But I do think that we need some sort of strategy here John. If you happen to have one, then by all means please enlighten me.”
When he remained silent, Elizabeth continued. “I know that you want to be doing something John, but I don’t know what we can do until we get some more information about the wraith. They might not even be coming for us.”
John raised his eyebrows at Elizabeth’s last comment. She sighed. “Alright, that may be a bit of a stretch. There is a very good chance that they are coming to attack us.”
“Probably to get revenge.” John said.
“That would be logical.” Elizabeth stated. When John didn’t reply, Elizabeth quietly sat back down. “John, you are right about us needing a plan, but I just don’t know what we can do given how little information we have.”
“We get more information.” John said bluntly.
“From where John?” Elizabeth questioned. “Atria is the only place that we know the wraith have been to since their return. And it sounds as if we are lucky to know even that much.” Elizabeth sighed. “John we have no way to find out more information. We’ve been scanning the deep space radar, and even that is yielding no results.”
John nodded his head, acknowledging all of what Elizabeth had just said. “But there has to be something that we can be doing.” When Elizabeth sighed again John continued. “We defeated them last time Elizabeth. And we can defeat them again.”
“John, you must understand that last time the circumstances were completely different. The wraith didn’t know what was happening to them. We would take out a few ships at a time, leaving no survivors to tell the others what was happening. The wraith were scattered around the galaxy in little isolated clusters, and it was, dare I say, easy enough to take out each cluster at a time. But now it seems that the few wraith we didn’t kill escaped, only to return again in far greater numbers.
“Truthfully John, we were in a far better tactical position last time and I don’t think that I need to be telling you that. I wish I knew how we could acquire some more intel on the situation, but quite frankly I don’t.”
John sighed and sat down in a chair across the desk from Elizabeth. She was one hundred percent right. They needed more information but had nowhere to get it. John was just about ready to admit defeat and head to his room when a he heard a little nagging voice in the back of his head. Surprisingly it sounded like Ronon. ‘Give up now? Come on Sheppard, we aren’t going to take this lying down.’ It was that little voice that instigated his next actions.
John abruptly stood up and once again leaned over Elizabeth’s desk. “We are going to find more information about the wraith Elizabeth. We have to.” Elizabeth wasn’t as shocked at John’s outburst as he had expected her to be. “If we don’t find out more about the wraith then we will get hit, and we will get hit hard.” John spoke with assertion.
“The wraith will attack us and we won’t know when or how bad it’ll be, but you can guarantee that the attack will come. If we want any chance of being ready we need to get more information and get it soon. If we don’t…” John faltered. If we don’t then there may be no way to help my kids. John didn’t say this out loud, but it was the thought that was running through his mind.
“If we don’t,” John repeated. “Then we will find ourselves in one hell of a situation. And keep in mind, that we only have one ZPM right now and it is already partially depleted.”
Elizabeth nodded, clearly accepting the truth in John’s words.
“If Atria is the only clue we have, then that is where we will have to start looking for other clues.” John paused for a moment before continuing. “Let me take my team to Atria to look for more information. That at least gives us a place to start.”
“Alright,” Elizabeth said calmly. “You have a go, but only on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Let Teyla rejoin your team John. This situation must be extremely hard on her and I think it’ll be best for us all if she can be busy doing something productive.”
“Actually Elizabeth,” John said. “I was already planning on it.”
“You were?”
“Well,” he began. “With your permission of course. We actually talked about it last night.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened slightly with shock. John wasn’t sure if she was shocked about the fact that Teyla wanted to rejoin his team, or about the fact they had talked. John was fairly certain that it was the latter reason.
“Alright then. Have your team ready to leave first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Why not today?” John asked heatedly.
“Because Teyla still needs to let her ankle heal a bit more, and I think that by tomorrow it should be in sufficient condition.”
John felt a little ashamed. He had completely forgotten about Teyla’s injuries in light of more recent events. She was no longer using her crutches, but she did still have a slight limp.
Elizabeth’s voice brought John’s thoughts back to his present situation. “So see that you are ready to depart at 0800 Atlantis standard time tomorrow.”
John nodded.
“Now I suggest that you go inform the rest of your team about what is going on, and then get some rest. You don’t look like you slept at all last night.”
John turned and headed for the door, but just before he opened it he heard Elizabeth’s voice from behind him. “John, I want you to know that I’m sorry about what happened to the twins. And I promise you that I have everyone available working on a way to revive them without letting the wraith take control over their bodies again.”
“Thank you.” John said quietly, very quietly in fact. But he knew that Elizabeth had heard him.
John exited Elizabeth’s office to go find Teyla and the rest of his team. Considering the current situation John was doing everything that he could, and that made him feel the tiniest bit better. As mad as John had been at Ronon for making his biting comments, he was glad that he had done so. John now realized what Ronon had been trying to do. And he was glad that it had worked.
TBC