Medea: Part 10
Ten wrapped up pretty quick, and eleven is on its way. This was supposed to end at 10, but I'm feeling a little naughty and so I'm adding an extra bit to the plot.
Also, I downloaded Sims 2 and got the Wraith skins from roguenebulan . Unfortunately the download for the blue tinged skin doesn't work.
So far its two females living in a small house, both ill tempered and one a single mother to a little girl (who she left outside for an entire night after refusing to go out and get her).
I'm using the game for screenshots to get some neat references to draw later.
The second stands at the entrance to the cargo bay, his hands held behind his back, clasping one another. Silently he watches as the Commander gives orders to the Drones unloading the delicate cases.
Each case was wrapped in several layers of the organic material the facility provided, to insure the embryos received a continuous supply of nutrients until they could be safely tucked away in the Hive. While this hive in particular had no Queen to actively provide sustenance to them, the residual leftovers of the Primary would provide enough until they reached T9X-4769.
The facility there has remained neutral through the civil war, despite bribes and empty threats. No Wraith would dare attack a breeding facility.
Whoever caused all of this was no Wraith, the second muses as two Drones pass him with the last container.
“No it was not,” the Commander replies, having heard the rather open thought. “Where is the hybrid?”
“She is contained in one of the holding cells on the fifth level.”
The Commander nods. The older Wraith was filthy; covered in a layer of red dust that gave his hair a rusty matte appearance. His face is streaked with sweat where he had wiped his face upon entering the hive. “Order the Drones assigned to her to keep her drugged until I am ready to have her transported to our research facility.”
“She does not seem to be a threat, Commander.”
“That is an order, unless you wish the fate of that facility on my Hive.”
She…
The second needs no further conformation as his Commander frowns. The Wraith lowers his head to his superior, the gesture of asking for forgiveness due to the questioning a direct order. “Understood.”
With an incline of his head, the older Wraith leaves him to carry out his task. While he would rather look over the task to insure the hybrid was fully incapacitated, the Wraith sorely needed to wash.
Upon returning to the Hive, the familiar scents made his own rather unpleasant.
In passing by the common area on the second level, the Commander issues the order to “Escort the humans to the public baths while they wait. Do not allow them more than twenty minutes.” The Wraith, barely considered an adult, bows deeply, overly so. He did poorly in masking the pride of receiving a direct order from the Commander.
The young Wraith immediately redirects his route to the third waiting room once the Commander vanishes around the corner. He carries himself straight and tall as he passes Drones and various Wraith of every caste. While he could not openly express his joy of such a command at his position, it did carry him to the room swiftly and lightly.
When the door opens for him and the guards step aside, the humans look at him; two males and a female. The thickest of the three still had food on his plate while the other two had long pushed theirs away.
“Hi, so are you the entertainment to go along with our dinner?” The dark haired human asks with dripping sarcasm.
At a loss for words for a moment, though the Wraith could conjure up a few insults, he frowns. “The Commander has ordered me to escort his guests to the baths,” the Wraith says at last.
“Sounds great. I didn’t see you as the comedian type.”
“That’s every Wraith,” the other male mutters through a mouthful of xivix steak.
“Forgive me if our humor is not of your liking,” the Wraith replies coolly as he turns to lead them out of the room.
The baths were on the sixth level of the Hive. The lower caste and new recruits were housed on this level, where they did not enjoy the luxury of a private bathing facility as did the upper caste. It was their job to earn the right or make do with what they had. Those in the position not to climb the rank ladder enjoyed the chance to socialize and exchange news from various quadrants of the ship.
Jennifer’s heart flutters with embarrassment as she steps through the large doorway and into the humid room. She alone is the sole female here and notices more than one glance in her direction from the occupants.
“Um,” Jennifer looks up to their escort. “Is there a private bath? I mean, I don’t want to be demanding, but…” she pauses and looks around the large room. “I really don’t feel comfortable you know, taking my clothes off in front of others.”
The Wraith gives an exasperated sigh; he had thought this task would be simple; just take them to the bath and fetch them when the time is up. Quickly, he searches through the web for the Commander’s signature. Upon finding it, he requests the older Wraith’s permission to open a conversation.
Slight annoyance from the Commander replies, but he allows the young one to speak.
Commander, the female requests a private room.
You called me for this?
Forgive me, but she does not wish to bathe with the males.
Send her to my quarters.
Yes, Commander.
“Follow me,” the Wraith says to Jennifer once the connection closes. He didn’t fully understand why the Commander would allow her access to his private quarters, but an order was an order.
He glances down at the soft featured female following him. If it were not for her flat brows and cheekbones, she had the potential to be attractive. The woman looks at him when she notices him watching her. Her cheeks darken with blood and the Wraith wonders for a moment if she was overheating. Unlike his elders, he had yet to study human reactions to stimuli.
“So,” she says awkwardly, “what do you do here?”
The Wraith tilts his head, “I am tasked with repairing the navigation system’s planet data bank.” He found it odd being asked this, but he was used to the constant link to every member of the ship. The Wraith knew each member’s task, the facility they were birthed. Private matters were taboo to probe into without permission (which was rarely given).
“Where are we going, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Rolling his eyes upward with a sharp grumbling exhale, the Wraith says: “The Commander is allowing you access to his bath.” He was growing frustrated with pointless questions. It was not unlike being with a youngling.
Never in his short life had he ever been so happy to stand in front of an upper caste’s door. The Wraith sends a short burst to alert the Commander of his presence. The reply comes shortly and the door slides open for him.
Remaining outside the door, the Wraith extends his left arm in a gesture to indicate the human should enter. When Jennifer looks at him, hesitating, the Wraith groans without restraint. His patience leaving him, the Wraith places his palm against the woman’s back and pushes her through the door. Once she is past the entryway, the door closes, releasing him from his burden.
“Ah, Doctor Keller, I take it the public baths were not to your liking?”
Jennifer jumps, not expecting Todd to be standing so close to her. The Wraith’s hair was damp, already clean, and now dressed in the leather armor she was so used to seeing him in. “I’m, I’m not used to getting undressed in front of so many…people.”
With a nod, Todd turns his back to her and picks up a tablet. “Go through there,” he nods his head as he runs a finger over the screen to activate the ship’s status. “The water will begin to fill once you step into the pool.”
Jennifer bites her lower lip and slips past the Wraith to the doorway he indicated. “Thanks,” she says before entering the room.
The room didn’t have a door. The archway didn’t fold shut behind her and she rubs her hands over her upper arms. Jennifer trusts Todd not to be as invasive as Rodney, who would check on her when she took a bath. It was sweet that he would ask her if she needed anything, or wanted him to bring his docking station for her iPod, but Jennifer enjoyed her privacy. This would be the best she could get on a hive ship it seems.
Continuously glancing at the door, she steps out of her pants and pulls her shirt over her head quickly. The entryway remains empty as she wiggles out of her panties and unhooks her bra.
Occasionally the sound of a click or the creak of leather came from the bedroom, but Todd remains out of sight. Jennifer wrinkles her nose when she catches the sour smell coming from under her arms. The bath would be very welcoming despite it belonging to a rather intimidating alien leader.
As Todd had told her, the water begins seeping into the organic bottom of the pool. She sits down and enjoys the warm water as it creeps up her hips to her ribs and finally stopping just above her collar bone. Shutting her eyes, she submerges her head and rubs her hands through her hair to shake out the bulk of the red dust.
When she lifts her head out of the water, she smoothes her hair away from her face then nearly chokes on a mouth and nose full of water as Todd appears in the archway. The Wraith tilts his head as she coughs and sputters before saying: “Your companions have dressed and returned to the waiting room.”
“Oh,” Jennifer folds her arms over her chest to cover herself, “I’ll hurry up.”
“Take your time. It will be six hours until we are within communications range of Atlantis.”
“Todd?” Jennifer asks when the Wraith turns to leave her to finish. He looks at her with his brows raised. “Do you have anything like soap or shampoo?”
Todd tilts his head and mulls over the words. He knew what soap was but the other item she required took a moment to find the meaning. The Wraith had heard the word before but had not paid much attention to it. Two females from the medical staff’s midnight shift were discussing what brand of shampoo they used while he was confined to a room on Earth. Aveda and Biolage meant little to him so he had chosen to ignore it.
The oils the previous Commander had used should be a reasonable substitute for her. He found little need for them himself, so he had tucked them away in a nook along the back wall.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jennifer shift to better cover herself as he walks past the bath to the back wall. Three glass vials line the corner of the small indentation in the wall. Each neck of the vial fits easily between the fingers of his left hand.
Jennifer draws her legs up as he approaches with three green narrow necked bottles in his left hand. “Use as much as you require, I have no need for these.”
She almost did not want to reach out to take the bottles. Doing so would mean the Wraith might catch a glimpse of something she didn’t want him to see. Jennifer felt foolish thinking this, knowing that if Todd was over ten thousand years old, breasts wouldn’t deter him in the slightest. Still, she hesitates before reaching out to his outstretched hand.
“I want to thank you again,” Jennifer says with beneath a blush and a shy smile. “You could have said no.”
“I could have, but I did not,” the Wraith states. He dips his head slightly before leaving the room.
Unable to stop herself from watching him leave, Jennifer sucks on her lower lip and turns around to look at the bottles. She shakes one of the bottles and watches the liquid slosh about.
Setting them on the edge of the bath, she takes one of them and uncorks it. Cautiously she sniffs it, finding the smell akin to curry powder. Jennifer wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue as she closes it and pushes it away from the others.
The second smells metallic and the third vaguely like beeswax. Being the lesser of all the evils, she picks the third bottle and pours some of the thick oil onto her open palm. Rubbing her hands together, she spreads it over her hair, down her neck and begins scrubbing herself as best as she could without a washcloth. It was like rubbing maple syrup over skin.
Submerging once more, she rinses off the oil and stands up. Jennifer wipes her face and sighs contently. It felt so wonderful to be clean again, and she was reluctant to put on the sweaty, dirty clothes that had been discarded earlier.
The room was rather stark, small and dimly lit in an orange glow which emitted from the bath’s basin. The ceiling had small blue nodules that gave off very faint light. In one corner on a raised growth from the floor is a stack of haphazardly folded towels. Jennifer suppresses a giggle at the thought that a man’s inability to properly fold towels was not isolated to humans. Todd’s job was better than Rodney’s, which was odd, since Rodney meticulously folded his underwear and sorted them by color and brand.
Climbing out of the bath, she takes the towel from the top of the stack and wraps it around herself. The fabric was soft, like a silk blanket. Jennifer runs her hands down her sides and over her hips, loving the smooth, cool glide of cloth against her palms.
The thought about what she should do with her clothes picked at her as she walks to the entryway. Jennifer tightens the towel around her chest and steps into the bedroom.
Todd’s bed was against the far wall. The frame appeared to be growing out of the floor and sunk downward and filled by whatever the Wraith used for a mattress. Maybe that grew from the hive too, Jennifer wonders. It was covered in various blankets. Jennifer recognizes one of the quilt patterns from a village she had visited with Carson to give out booster shots to the local children.
The Wraith was seated on a cushioned bench, his fingers pressed together held loosely in his lap. Jennifer leans down to see if the Wraith was awake; his eyes were closed.
The video feeds of their first captive, Steve, had shown that particular Wraith doing something similar. She steps closer to the Wraith and gingerly touches his leather padded shoulder.
“Doctor Keller?” the Wraith rumbles, lifting his head and straightening.
“Should I just put my clothes on and go back to the room?”
“If you like,” Todd replies, standing.
Jennifer is nearly knocked back as the Wraith stands. She had not realized how close she was to him. She looks up, the crown of her head just reaching under his arms. Jennifer thinks of how much she probably will regret this, then takes that white goatee just above her head in her hand and pulls the Wraith down to her level.
It almost seems too easy, how she manages to pull that brick wall of a Wraith with one arm. Perhaps Todd knew this would happen and was more than welcome to oblige, or he was simply just surprised. Whatever he had thought, Jennifer was sure he wasn’t opposed when she begins to kiss him. The Wraith reciprocates her action, bending to accommodate the height difference.
Jennifer feels his teeth grazing her bottom lip and the tip of her tongue. They were slick, coated in thick saliva. Unsure of what to do with her hands, Jennifer leaves the one hooked around his goatee while the other hangs limply at her side.
It feels surreal, and a flicker of doubt passes through her mind. This would destroy what she had with Rodney, but what she had was not what she really wanted. They were both successful and well educated of course, but she wanted someone she felt could protect her. Ronon was a previous choice, although his stubbornness had pushed her away. Since the mission, her regret grew and the frustration broadcasts outward, allowing the Wraith to pick up on the strong emotion.
Todd is the first to pull away, his pungent breath rolls over her nose and mouth as he straightens. The Wraith lifts his brows as the human presses her forehead against his chest and releases a powerful stress pheromone.
Stupid, I’m so stupid, Jennifer says to herself, feeling Todd’s steady heartbeat against her temple.
“Sorry,” she mutters after a moment. The Wraith had not moved while she torments herself with all the horrible outcomes of what she just did. At least he killing her was marked off the list, as Todd gave no indication of doing so.
A deep rumbling “hmm?” was her answer. Jennifer felt the vibration of the sound through the leather. It reminds her of the family dog, Buns, growling and grumbling while she pressed her ear to its belly. Not that she thought of Todd like a dog, oh no, but the sound was comforting in a way.
I didn’t mean to kiss you? It was an accident? I’m an idiot? Maybe it’s was the sunlight and it’s fried my brain? “I was just…” Jennifer sighs and lifts her head to look at the inquisitive alien. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You certainly seemed determined despite not knowing what you were thinking,” Todd says with a discordant chuckle.
Cheeks flushed with red, Jennifer focuses on the tablet lying on the bench behind Todd. “I was frustrated.”
“Really now?”
“You saw how Rodney was acting. It,” her shoulders droop as she lifts her gaze back to meet his. “It escalated after you left.”
“Ah-h, so you seek solace to spurn him, Doctor…”
“Jennifer. And no, I don’t want to hurt him. I’d rather take the brunt of it than stoop down to his level.” Covering her eyes for a moment, Jennifer places the hand on his chest, just below the sternum. It amazed her still, how strong a Wraith’s sternum was. Nearly five times that of a human’s. “But…” No, I can’t do that.
She didn’t want to give in or even admit that she had such thoughts about even considering doing such a thing. That leather covered wall she had her hand against shifts and a clawed finger trails along her jaw so lightly it tickles.
“I want to,” she says.
Also, I downloaded Sims 2 and got the Wraith skins from roguenebulan . Unfortunately the download for the blue tinged skin doesn't work.
So far its two females living in a small house, both ill tempered and one a single mother to a little girl (who she left outside for an entire night after refusing to go out and get her).
I'm using the game for screenshots to get some neat references to draw later.
The second stands at the entrance to the cargo bay, his hands held behind his back, clasping one another. Silently he watches as the Commander gives orders to the Drones unloading the delicate cases.
Each case was wrapped in several layers of the organic material the facility provided, to insure the embryos received a continuous supply of nutrients until they could be safely tucked away in the Hive. While this hive in particular had no Queen to actively provide sustenance to them, the residual leftovers of the Primary would provide enough until they reached T9X-4769.
The facility there has remained neutral through the civil war, despite bribes and empty threats. No Wraith would dare attack a breeding facility.
Whoever caused all of this was no Wraith, the second muses as two Drones pass him with the last container.
“No it was not,” the Commander replies, having heard the rather open thought. “Where is the hybrid?”
“She is contained in one of the holding cells on the fifth level.”
The Commander nods. The older Wraith was filthy; covered in a layer of red dust that gave his hair a rusty matte appearance. His face is streaked with sweat where he had wiped his face upon entering the hive. “Order the Drones assigned to her to keep her drugged until I am ready to have her transported to our research facility.”
“She does not seem to be a threat, Commander.”
“That is an order, unless you wish the fate of that facility on my Hive.”
She…
The second needs no further conformation as his Commander frowns. The Wraith lowers his head to his superior, the gesture of asking for forgiveness due to the questioning a direct order. “Understood.”
With an incline of his head, the older Wraith leaves him to carry out his task. While he would rather look over the task to insure the hybrid was fully incapacitated, the Wraith sorely needed to wash.
Upon returning to the Hive, the familiar scents made his own rather unpleasant.
In passing by the common area on the second level, the Commander issues the order to “Escort the humans to the public baths while they wait. Do not allow them more than twenty minutes.” The Wraith, barely considered an adult, bows deeply, overly so. He did poorly in masking the pride of receiving a direct order from the Commander.
The young Wraith immediately redirects his route to the third waiting room once the Commander vanishes around the corner. He carries himself straight and tall as he passes Drones and various Wraith of every caste. While he could not openly express his joy of such a command at his position, it did carry him to the room swiftly and lightly.
When the door opens for him and the guards step aside, the humans look at him; two males and a female. The thickest of the three still had food on his plate while the other two had long pushed theirs away.
“Hi, so are you the entertainment to go along with our dinner?” The dark haired human asks with dripping sarcasm.
At a loss for words for a moment, though the Wraith could conjure up a few insults, he frowns. “The Commander has ordered me to escort his guests to the baths,” the Wraith says at last.
“Sounds great. I didn’t see you as the comedian type.”
“That’s every Wraith,” the other male mutters through a mouthful of xivix steak.
“Forgive me if our humor is not of your liking,” the Wraith replies coolly as he turns to lead them out of the room.
The baths were on the sixth level of the Hive. The lower caste and new recruits were housed on this level, where they did not enjoy the luxury of a private bathing facility as did the upper caste. It was their job to earn the right or make do with what they had. Those in the position not to climb the rank ladder enjoyed the chance to socialize and exchange news from various quadrants of the ship.
Jennifer’s heart flutters with embarrassment as she steps through the large doorway and into the humid room. She alone is the sole female here and notices more than one glance in her direction from the occupants.
“Um,” Jennifer looks up to their escort. “Is there a private bath? I mean, I don’t want to be demanding, but…” she pauses and looks around the large room. “I really don’t feel comfortable you know, taking my clothes off in front of others.”
The Wraith gives an exasperated sigh; he had thought this task would be simple; just take them to the bath and fetch them when the time is up. Quickly, he searches through the web for the Commander’s signature. Upon finding it, he requests the older Wraith’s permission to open a conversation.
Slight annoyance from the Commander replies, but he allows the young one to speak.
Commander, the female requests a private room.
You called me for this?
Forgive me, but she does not wish to bathe with the males.
Send her to my quarters.
Yes, Commander.
“Follow me,” the Wraith says to Jennifer once the connection closes. He didn’t fully understand why the Commander would allow her access to his private quarters, but an order was an order.
He glances down at the soft featured female following him. If it were not for her flat brows and cheekbones, she had the potential to be attractive. The woman looks at him when she notices him watching her. Her cheeks darken with blood and the Wraith wonders for a moment if she was overheating. Unlike his elders, he had yet to study human reactions to stimuli.
“So,” she says awkwardly, “what do you do here?”
The Wraith tilts his head, “I am tasked with repairing the navigation system’s planet data bank.” He found it odd being asked this, but he was used to the constant link to every member of the ship. The Wraith knew each member’s task, the facility they were birthed. Private matters were taboo to probe into without permission (which was rarely given).
“Where are we going, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Rolling his eyes upward with a sharp grumbling exhale, the Wraith says: “The Commander is allowing you access to his bath.” He was growing frustrated with pointless questions. It was not unlike being with a youngling.
Never in his short life had he ever been so happy to stand in front of an upper caste’s door. The Wraith sends a short burst to alert the Commander of his presence. The reply comes shortly and the door slides open for him.
Remaining outside the door, the Wraith extends his left arm in a gesture to indicate the human should enter. When Jennifer looks at him, hesitating, the Wraith groans without restraint. His patience leaving him, the Wraith places his palm against the woman’s back and pushes her through the door. Once she is past the entryway, the door closes, releasing him from his burden.
“Ah, Doctor Keller, I take it the public baths were not to your liking?”
Jennifer jumps, not expecting Todd to be standing so close to her. The Wraith’s hair was damp, already clean, and now dressed in the leather armor she was so used to seeing him in. “I’m, I’m not used to getting undressed in front of so many…people.”
With a nod, Todd turns his back to her and picks up a tablet. “Go through there,” he nods his head as he runs a finger over the screen to activate the ship’s status. “The water will begin to fill once you step into the pool.”
Jennifer bites her lower lip and slips past the Wraith to the doorway he indicated. “Thanks,” she says before entering the room.
The room didn’t have a door. The archway didn’t fold shut behind her and she rubs her hands over her upper arms. Jennifer trusts Todd not to be as invasive as Rodney, who would check on her when she took a bath. It was sweet that he would ask her if she needed anything, or wanted him to bring his docking station for her iPod, but Jennifer enjoyed her privacy. This would be the best she could get on a hive ship it seems.
Continuously glancing at the door, she steps out of her pants and pulls her shirt over her head quickly. The entryway remains empty as she wiggles out of her panties and unhooks her bra.
Occasionally the sound of a click or the creak of leather came from the bedroom, but Todd remains out of sight. Jennifer wrinkles her nose when she catches the sour smell coming from under her arms. The bath would be very welcoming despite it belonging to a rather intimidating alien leader.
As Todd had told her, the water begins seeping into the organic bottom of the pool. She sits down and enjoys the warm water as it creeps up her hips to her ribs and finally stopping just above her collar bone. Shutting her eyes, she submerges her head and rubs her hands through her hair to shake out the bulk of the red dust.
When she lifts her head out of the water, she smoothes her hair away from her face then nearly chokes on a mouth and nose full of water as Todd appears in the archway. The Wraith tilts his head as she coughs and sputters before saying: “Your companions have dressed and returned to the waiting room.”
“Oh,” Jennifer folds her arms over her chest to cover herself, “I’ll hurry up.”
“Take your time. It will be six hours until we are within communications range of Atlantis.”
“Todd?” Jennifer asks when the Wraith turns to leave her to finish. He looks at her with his brows raised. “Do you have anything like soap or shampoo?”
Todd tilts his head and mulls over the words. He knew what soap was but the other item she required took a moment to find the meaning. The Wraith had heard the word before but had not paid much attention to it. Two females from the medical staff’s midnight shift were discussing what brand of shampoo they used while he was confined to a room on Earth. Aveda and Biolage meant little to him so he had chosen to ignore it.
The oils the previous Commander had used should be a reasonable substitute for her. He found little need for them himself, so he had tucked them away in a nook along the back wall.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jennifer shift to better cover herself as he walks past the bath to the back wall. Three glass vials line the corner of the small indentation in the wall. Each neck of the vial fits easily between the fingers of his left hand.
Jennifer draws her legs up as he approaches with three green narrow necked bottles in his left hand. “Use as much as you require, I have no need for these.”
She almost did not want to reach out to take the bottles. Doing so would mean the Wraith might catch a glimpse of something she didn’t want him to see. Jennifer felt foolish thinking this, knowing that if Todd was over ten thousand years old, breasts wouldn’t deter him in the slightest. Still, she hesitates before reaching out to his outstretched hand.
“I want to thank you again,” Jennifer says with beneath a blush and a shy smile. “You could have said no.”
“I could have, but I did not,” the Wraith states. He dips his head slightly before leaving the room.
Unable to stop herself from watching him leave, Jennifer sucks on her lower lip and turns around to look at the bottles. She shakes one of the bottles and watches the liquid slosh about.
Setting them on the edge of the bath, she takes one of them and uncorks it. Cautiously she sniffs it, finding the smell akin to curry powder. Jennifer wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue as she closes it and pushes it away from the others.
The second smells metallic and the third vaguely like beeswax. Being the lesser of all the evils, she picks the third bottle and pours some of the thick oil onto her open palm. Rubbing her hands together, she spreads it over her hair, down her neck and begins scrubbing herself as best as she could without a washcloth. It was like rubbing maple syrup over skin.
Submerging once more, she rinses off the oil and stands up. Jennifer wipes her face and sighs contently. It felt so wonderful to be clean again, and she was reluctant to put on the sweaty, dirty clothes that had been discarded earlier.
The room was rather stark, small and dimly lit in an orange glow which emitted from the bath’s basin. The ceiling had small blue nodules that gave off very faint light. In one corner on a raised growth from the floor is a stack of haphazardly folded towels. Jennifer suppresses a giggle at the thought that a man’s inability to properly fold towels was not isolated to humans. Todd’s job was better than Rodney’s, which was odd, since Rodney meticulously folded his underwear and sorted them by color and brand.
Climbing out of the bath, she takes the towel from the top of the stack and wraps it around herself. The fabric was soft, like a silk blanket. Jennifer runs her hands down her sides and over her hips, loving the smooth, cool glide of cloth against her palms.
The thought about what she should do with her clothes picked at her as she walks to the entryway. Jennifer tightens the towel around her chest and steps into the bedroom.
Todd’s bed was against the far wall. The frame appeared to be growing out of the floor and sunk downward and filled by whatever the Wraith used for a mattress. Maybe that grew from the hive too, Jennifer wonders. It was covered in various blankets. Jennifer recognizes one of the quilt patterns from a village she had visited with Carson to give out booster shots to the local children.
The Wraith was seated on a cushioned bench, his fingers pressed together held loosely in his lap. Jennifer leans down to see if the Wraith was awake; his eyes were closed.
The video feeds of their first captive, Steve, had shown that particular Wraith doing something similar. She steps closer to the Wraith and gingerly touches his leather padded shoulder.
“Doctor Keller?” the Wraith rumbles, lifting his head and straightening.
“Should I just put my clothes on and go back to the room?”
“If you like,” Todd replies, standing.
Jennifer is nearly knocked back as the Wraith stands. She had not realized how close she was to him. She looks up, the crown of her head just reaching under his arms. Jennifer thinks of how much she probably will regret this, then takes that white goatee just above her head in her hand and pulls the Wraith down to her level.
It almost seems too easy, how she manages to pull that brick wall of a Wraith with one arm. Perhaps Todd knew this would happen and was more than welcome to oblige, or he was simply just surprised. Whatever he had thought, Jennifer was sure he wasn’t opposed when she begins to kiss him. The Wraith reciprocates her action, bending to accommodate the height difference.
Jennifer feels his teeth grazing her bottom lip and the tip of her tongue. They were slick, coated in thick saliva. Unsure of what to do with her hands, Jennifer leaves the one hooked around his goatee while the other hangs limply at her side.
It feels surreal, and a flicker of doubt passes through her mind. This would destroy what she had with Rodney, but what she had was not what she really wanted. They were both successful and well educated of course, but she wanted someone she felt could protect her. Ronon was a previous choice, although his stubbornness had pushed her away. Since the mission, her regret grew and the frustration broadcasts outward, allowing the Wraith to pick up on the strong emotion.
Todd is the first to pull away, his pungent breath rolls over her nose and mouth as he straightens. The Wraith lifts his brows as the human presses her forehead against his chest and releases a powerful stress pheromone.
Stupid, I’m so stupid, Jennifer says to herself, feeling Todd’s steady heartbeat against her temple.
“Sorry,” she mutters after a moment. The Wraith had not moved while she torments herself with all the horrible outcomes of what she just did. At least he killing her was marked off the list, as Todd gave no indication of doing so.
A deep rumbling “hmm?” was her answer. Jennifer felt the vibration of the sound through the leather. It reminds her of the family dog, Buns, growling and grumbling while she pressed her ear to its belly. Not that she thought of Todd like a dog, oh no, but the sound was comforting in a way.
I didn’t mean to kiss you? It was an accident? I’m an idiot? Maybe it’s was the sunlight and it’s fried my brain? “I was just…” Jennifer sighs and lifts her head to look at the inquisitive alien. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You certainly seemed determined despite not knowing what you were thinking,” Todd says with a discordant chuckle.
Cheeks flushed with red, Jennifer focuses on the tablet lying on the bench behind Todd. “I was frustrated.”
“Really now?”
“You saw how Rodney was acting. It,” her shoulders droop as she lifts her gaze back to meet his. “It escalated after you left.”
“Ah-h, so you seek solace to spurn him, Doctor…”
“Jennifer. And no, I don’t want to hurt him. I’d rather take the brunt of it than stoop down to his level.” Covering her eyes for a moment, Jennifer places the hand on his chest, just below the sternum. It amazed her still, how strong a Wraith’s sternum was. Nearly five times that of a human’s. “But…” No, I can’t do that.
She didn’t want to give in or even admit that she had such thoughts about even considering doing such a thing. That leather covered wall she had her hand against shifts and a clawed finger trails along her jaw so lightly it tickles.
“I want to,” she says.