Advanced Combinatorics (2 of 2)
See first part for notes and header.
After that, Teyla doesn't bring up the ceremony again, but it's there between them, Teyla waiting for her answer. Teyla walks her home after team movie nights, and sometimes in between making fun of Transporter II and making fun of John's reaction to Transporter II Teyla will kiss her, right there in the corridor, still tasting salty and slick from the popcorn. Meredith catches her looking, too, a speculative, appraising look that Teyla usually reserves for alien grain stores or deployments of Wraith soldiers, when they're playing Ky-Nill late at night, the pieces laid out between them, changing within a fixed pattern. On those nights, it's usually Meredith who kisses first, puts her lips against Teyla's jaw just for a moment, just to feel the skin there.
Sometimes they don't see each other; sometimes Kanaan visits from New Athos, or Teyla goes there to see him. On those nights, Meredith stays up late working in her lab and absolutely fails to not imagine all the sex they're undoubtedly having together. When Kanaan leaves, or when Teyla comes back, Meredith suddenly can't stop looking at her pregnant belly; can't stop seeing it like a mark, a hickey, something between them.
Teyla starts hanging around the lab more often, too, and Meredith actually starts teaching her the basics of the Ancient control-interface system that she and Zelenka have rigged up. Teyla grasps the principles quickly, and unlike most of the people that Meredith has to train, has a much better understanding of Ancient software than Earth software, which makes her an interesting student. Sometimes John and Ronon show up with her, true to their word, and Meredith finds herself teaching a little class on the Ancient technology interface and the crystal configurations. It reminds her of grad school, the semesters of tedious intro courses that she taught to fulfill the department's ridiculous requirements.
Except that her students at Northwestern were never this annoying.
"John, I swear, if you put your hand up one more time . . . "
"I have a question, Doctor McKay," he says, earnestly, raising his hand. She sighs, wishing she'd given Zelenka this job, and glances over to Teyla for support.
Teyla just shrugs, grins, and puts a hand on her belly, as if to say, children.
"Okay, Mr. Sheppard, your question?" she asks, eventually, through her teeth.
"Colonel Sheppard," he says, then continues quickly before she can throw anything at him. "If a Wraith data storage device is hooked up to the tablet at the same time as an Ancient console, how do we manage the different data streams?"
Next to him, Ronon checks his notes and nods his agreement. "There's nothing in here about that, McKay," he says.
Meredith spreads her hands. "In that extremely unlikely event? You call me."
"That's what you said about our last question," Ronon complains reasonably.
"Advanced class is next semester," she says. "For now, I'm just pleased that you can all manage to press the buttons without blowing anything up, okay?"
John shrugs. "We done for the day, then, Professor?"
"Yes yes, dismissed," she says, waving a hand. John and Ronon jump up and make a hasty exit - word is that they're showing The Mighty Ducks in the lounge tonight, which is Sheppard's favourite film - and Meredith starts to pack her stuff up. It got late while they were all cooped up in the lab; all of the other scientists are gone, and most of the workstations are quiet and dark. The lamp on her desk makes a warm pool of light in the shadowy lab.
Teyla picks up her little notebook and comes to stand next to her at the bench. "You did well today," she says, quietly. "I feel much more confident manipulating the Wraith technology, after our lessons together."
Meredith looks up at her, and can't prevent the pleased smile that spreads across her face. "Yeah?" she asks.
"Yes," Teyla says, smiling back. Meredith sits down on one of the stools, just for a moment, and Teyla takes the one next to her. "Their operating system is very different from the Ancient systems with which I was familiar, but I did not realise how vast those differences were until you pointed them out. I believe I will have more success operating the hive ships, now."
"That's great," Meredith says, smiling enthusiastically. "I've been meaning to ask you, actually, how you know so much about the Ancient systems? I mean, I've never seen the Athosians using any kind of computers, much less Ancient ones."
Teyla doesn't speak for a moment, considering her words carefully. "My mother collected Ancient artifacts," she says eventually, her voice quiet in the cool darkness of the lab. "You remind me of her, sometimes. She was a scientist." As is her habit when they're alone, she's sitting with her stool right next to Meredith's, tangling their legs together lazily as she talks. She's over five months, now, and her belly swells softly under her loose shirt.
"She was?" This is news. "Was she an engineer?"
Teyla shakes her head slowly, her eyes far away. "No. Closer to . . . an archaeologist, I suppose, or a historian. She studied the Ancestors."
"But she must've dug up a lot of interesting pieces of technology, right?"
Teyla's eyes snap back to her, and she smiles wide. "I do not have her collection anymore, I am afraid."
A little heat spreads across Meredith's cheeks. "No, no, of course - I just meant, that sounds fascinating. I didn't know that about you."
"I have many hidden depths," Teyla replies, arching an eyebrow. Meredith aches a little, then, at the sheer beauty of the woman in front of her: Teyla's lips crooked upward in a sweet, teasing smirk, her eyes glinting in the low light, her face soft and open. She's never been a good judge of these things, but the moment feels intimate and slow, like the world's been slowed down just for them, just for this.
She reaches out - she has no choice but to reach out, is compelled to reach out - and cups Teyla's jaw in her palm, running her own thick, blunt fingers against the delicate skin behind Teyla's ear. Teyla turns into the touch, pressing against her hand, then turns further and presses a hot kiss to Meredith's palm.
Meredith hears her stool clatter behind her as she gets to her feet, but she doesn't take any notice of it: all of her attention is on her hands, running through Teyla's hair; on the rough, warm pressure of Teyla's lips under hers; on the sweet sensation of Teyla's palms cradling her shoulderblades, pulling her closer, pulling her in. The kiss goes on, now gentling, now speeding up, and Meredith gets a little lost in it, in the deep heat of Teyla's mouth and the wonder of her small, powerful body pressed up against her.
When it ends, Meredith feels hot and crazy with lust, but somehow chaste, too, like a suitor: she feels, simultaneously, that she needs to fuck Teyla right now, and that they have all the time in the world, that this moment extends infinitely around them.
"I want it," Meredith says, her lips still mere millimetres from Teyla's. "The ceremony. I want that."
Teyla's eyes are dark, her pupils blown wide; when she smiles, she shows teeth. "I do, too," she says, digging her fingertips into the soft flesh of Meredith's shoulders, mouthing a kiss to her neck. "Me too," she says again, the words falling welcome against Meredith's skin.
They kiss again, slower this time.
"It will take some time to arrange," Teyla says, when they break apart. "A week, perhaps."
Meredith nods against her neck. "A week, okay," she whispers. She touches a hand tentatively to Teyla's belly, and wonders how she managed to find herself a whirlwind shotgun lesbian wedding out here in the Pegasus galaxy.
-
The next day, Meredith glances at the gate log and sees Teyla's visit to New Athos, right there at the top of the schedule. She blanches, looking at it there in black and white on her computer screen; it seems so final, so certain. She gets her clothes on and rushes down to the gate room, even though she's not sure why - she has some half-formed idea of calling it off, telling Teyla that she needs more time, pulling her away from the gate. But when she gets there, Teyla is sitting in the empty chair next to Chuck, laughing some story that he's explaining with his hands, and Meredith can see, in the flash of Teyla's teeth through her lips, in the way she arches one eyebrow, wickedly - so familiar - and says something that makes Chuck laugh, that she's not here to call anything off.
Teyla catches sight of her, then, and says something to Chuck as she stands up and walks over to where Meredith is standing, just at the edge of the control consoles.
"Hi," Meredith says, on an exhalation of breath.
"Hello," Teyla replies. "You came to see me off?"
"Something like that." They're standing very close, now; too close for the gateroom, maybe.
Teyla leans in, slowly and easily, and kisses her on the cheek, closing the gap between them for a few long seconds. "I will be back the day after tomorrow," she says.
"Oh."
Teyla trails her hand gently through Meredith's short hair. "Look after John and Ronon on T1G-2H4," she adds, tucking a strand behind Meredith's ear.
"I will." Teyla turns, then, to go, but Meredith stops her with a hand on her shoulder. Teyla turns back, and Meredith gets a hand on her other shoulder.
It takes her a moment to understand, but eventually Teyla bends her head and closes her eyes. Their foreheads touch, briefly, and then Teyla pulls away, smiling.
After she slips through the gate, Meredith turns to Chuck, who is staring predictably.
"Yes? Something wrong?"
"No ma'am," Chuck says, smiling.
"I can reassign all the gate functionality reports to you if you're bored, Sergeant," she warns.
"I do those anyway," Chuck shrugs.
"Whatever," Meredith sighs, giving up. Her cheek is still tingling where Teyla kissed it.
-
Later, on T1G-2H4, John waits until Ronon's out of earshot, schmoozing the local mayor, and turns to her purposefully.
"So, you and Teyla, huh?" John's is probably the worst attempt Meredith has ever seen at acting nonchalant, even including some of her own.
"Yeah," she says. "It's kind of new." Except that it isn't, not really.
"Hey, that's great," he says, and Meredith can tell that this is him trying to actually be earnest even though he doesn't know how to do it without irony. "Um. I didn't even know you were, y'know." He makes a gesture somewhere between milking a cow one-handed and conducting an orchestra to adagio.
"Oh," she says. "I always thought you did. Know."
"No. But, I mean, it's great. I'm very open-minded," he says firmly, not looking at her.
"Right." She wonders when Ronon will be done schmoozing so that they can get to the part of the day where she fixes the villagers' technology or gets hit on by the mayor's son or gets chased by a flock of Pegasus chickens or something.
"You know," she says eventually, when it becomes clear that more conversation is required, "if you ever want to tell me about your boyfriends . . . "
"Let's go see how Ronon's doing," John says, standing up.
Meredith sniggers and follows along. She ends up fixing the villagers' technology and eating their excellent free-range Pegasus chicken, so overall it's a pretty good mission.
-
Teyla gets back on Thursday at 16:00, and by 16:20 she's got Meredith up against the wall in her quarters, taking her mouth in a bruising kiss and pushing her callused fingertips under the hem of Meredith's shirt.
"I take it," Meredith gasps in the brief moments when her mouth isn't otherwise occupied, "that everything," her head thunks back against the wall as Teyla applies lips to her throat, "is set to go?"
"Yes," Teyla manages, her hands hot and clever, spanning Meredith's waist under her shirt.
"Does this mean, oh god, can we - " she's lost her vocabulary, but she figures that with the way she's grinding shamelessly against Teyla's leg, Teyla will be able to put it together.
"Yes," Teyla says again, frantically, kissing Meredith's jaw. Then she slows, pulls her lips away and just pants against Meredith's skin. "I mean, no."
Meredith pauses with her hand rubbing against the bare skin of Teyla's lower back. "No?"
"We - it's not - the ceremony is - "
"Sacred?"
"In four days," Teyla says. "We can wait four days."
"Why?" Meredith asks, bending in again to worry her teeth against the soft skin below Teyla's chin.
"I . . . do not know," Teyla sighs, arching her neck a little.
"Okay," Meredith sighs, pulling back.
"Your people do not wait until after the formalization of the union," Teyla says. It's a statement, not a question, but Meredith answers it anyway.
"Well, no, not very many lesbians wait until after marriage. You guys always wait?"
"Traditionally," Teyla answers evasively. She's flushed and panting and gorgeous. Meredith runs the back of her fingers along her jaw. She leans in and puts her mouth next to Teyla's ear, whispering.
"May I challenge you to a game of Ky-Nill tomorrow night?" she asks, lips teasing against Teyla's earlobe. When she pulls back, Teyla has that exasperated look that she gets sometimes, the one that says you're incredibly transparent and I know what you're doing.
"I would be honoured," Teyla says, mocking Meredith's formal tone. Then she rolls her eyes and pushes Meredith out the door.
-
When she shows up at Teyla's door the next night, she feels nervous and jittery, as if something has changed between them, as if spending time alone together no longer means the same thing. The slow build between them has left her with an almost constant thrumming beneath her skin, a sensation of heat and energy that trills along her nerves and leaves her feeling drunk, heady, expectant.
But Teyla greets her in the same way she always does, and lays out the game pieces like she does every time they play, and soon Meredith's forgotten her pseudo-engagement, lost in the unfurling mathematical probabilities of the game-network.
"Skyscraper," she says, finally, laying her piece down.
Teyla stops pretending to snore and looks up from the floor. "Huh? What? You played? Is it still Tuesday?"
Meredith pokes her in the shoulder, rolling her eyes. Teyla could give John a run for his money in the competition for most juvenile sense of humour in Atlantis; it's disgusting.
Teyla does a quarter of a pushup, levering her upper body off the floor. She's lying sort of on her side, propping head up on her elbow and trailing her other hand absentmindedly over her stomach. Meredith's lying on her belly, with the game pieces set between them, and from this proximity she can see the dark smudges below Teyla's eyes, the cracked dry skin at the corner of her lips. She needs more sleep; Meredith resolves to try to get her to sleep more.
"Yes, yes, I played the skyscraper. You have to change your feral beast into a rainstorm."
"Mmmm, I do," Teyla says, studying the pieces. She flips the feral beast over to reveal another side, and . . .
"Hey," Meredith says, "Hey, wait - " Teyla also flips over the two pieces in diagonal relation to the new rainstorm.
"It appears that you have forced me to change both of these pieces into plentiful harvests," Teyla notes, as if surprised. "What a kind thing for you to do for me."
Meredith buries her face in her hands. "You played me! You are such a cheater."
"I never cheat," Teyla drawls reproachfully, arching an eyebrow as if offended.
Meredith looks back down at her remaining pieces; there's no way that a flowering herb and a wheeled cart are going to save the day at this point.
"Okay, fine," she says, feeling her mouth curve down on one side. "Fine, you win this one, Emmagan, but I am still learning, and am going to beat you eventually." She looks up to glare squint-eyed at Teyla, who is grinning that gloating-winner grin of hers that's simultaneously unbecoming and irresistable.
"I am sure that you will," she says kindly, patting Meredith's hand sympathetically. Meredith glares harder, and Teyla laughs, and leans over, scattering the game pieces with her forearms. She kisses Meredith gently on the mouth. They lean together like that for a long moment, mouths brushing softly, wet heat building between them until they start to go a little faster, a little rougher. Teyla likes to kiss a little rough, Meredith's discovered. It goes on for a long time, longer than usual; long enough for Meredith to lose herself in it a little.
Teyla breaks the kiss suddenly, tearing their mouths apart with a low groan, pulling back enough to rest her forehead against Meredith's. Meredith takes the opportunity to breathe a little, shifting her weight to one hand and reaching the other one up to caress the side of Teyla's neck and the taut muscle that slopes down to her shoulder. She runs her fingernails along that muscle, lightly, pleased at the little noises that her action wrings from Teyla, who leans forward again as if unable to stop herself, leans forward to press a series of quick, hard kisses against Meredith's lips.
Meredith kisses back in kind, running her fingernails again and again up and down the curve of Teyla's neck.
"Meredith," Teyla manages, sucking a wet trail along Meredith's neck, "come here, come over here - " she trails off, but her hands make her meaning perfectly clear; she grips Meredith by the wrists, hard, and pulls, sitting back herself to sit up on the edge of the bed and dragging Meredith with her. Meredith crawls up to sit next to her, then immediately gets her hands back on Teyla's body, gets Teyla's mouth back on her neck.
It starts to get fast then, Teyla's skin warm and lavish and encouraging beneath Meredith's hands, her mouth devastating and hot on her throat, her collarbones, the place above her heart. Meredith gasps as Teyla works a hand under her shirt from below, palming her belly and slipping a thumb into her belly button.
"Oh god, Teyla," Meredith says, scratching the pads of her fingers against the nape of Teyla's neck in the way that she likes. Her other hand is under the waistband of Teyla's BDUs, stroking against her spine and the dip of her lower back.
"Mmmmm," Teyla groans, bringing her head back up to meet Meredith's mouth again, kissing her long and hard. Her thumb keeps rubbing back and forth over Meredith's navel, pressing in obscenely, and that one simple touch is taking her apart.
"Should we," Meredith manages between kisses, "Oh, fuck, don't stop - should we, I thought you said - "
"We can," Teyla mutters against her jaw, fierce and fast where before she was always careful and restrained. "We can, we can, we just have to be careful not to, oh, not to tell - " Teyla's shifted so that she's mostly straddling Meredith now, riding herself against her leg, grinding down.
"Kanaan . . . " Meredith says, wishing as she says it that she'd kept her mouth shut.
"I spoke to him this morning," Teyla says, mouthing her neck. "and he said, he said yes, but the others - " Teyla breaks off as Meredith's fingers stroke underneath her clothes. "The others are more, hm, traditional," she says, after a pause.
She manages to get Teyla's top off, letting her breasts spill forward, gorgeous and tempting at Meredith's eye level. She palms one slowly, wonderingly, rubbing her knuckles against the smooth underside curve.
"I'm the soul of discretion," she promises fervently, and then can't help herself: she bites the curve of Teyla's breast where her hand has just been, then moves up to the nipple, sucking its hard brown length into her mouth and lapping against it, rubbing the flat of her tongue against it.
Teyla squeals and shimmies and shifts away, grabbing Meredith's head and pushing her away. "I do not, uh," Teyla mutters. Too sensitive maybe? She's not making eye contact. Meredith pulls back and tries to blink her eyes into focusing again.
"What?" she asks, bewildered. "Did you not want to - "
"No," Teyla says, "I want to," and she reaches under Meredith's shirt, unclasping her bra and tugging at the material until she raises her arms so that Teyla can peel everything off, tossing shirt and bra carelessly to the floor. Her hands keep stroking at Meredith's sides as she bends her mouth to suck at her collarbones, her neck, the dip of her throat. Teyla's tongue is pushy and clever and precise, and Meredith wishes she'd apply it a little lower; she loves having her nipples sucked.
Teyla notices her not-too-subtle attempts to nudge her downward, however, and looks up at her, confused. "What would you like?" she asks, low and husky. Meredith's body throbs at the sound, at the question.
She cups a hand under her left breast. "Suck it?" she asks, softly, breathlessly. Teyla breathes hard and shakes her head a little.
"It is - too weird," she says.
"Okay," Meredith says, not understanding. "Okay, c'mere - " she pulls Teyla back down into familiar territory, a deep, wet kiss, mouth to mouth, their tongues stroking slowly together. When Teyla pulls back from it, she's grinning widely.
"Here," she says, and shimmies downward, getting her mouth on Meredith's navel, dipping her tongue inside where she dipped her fingers before. Meredith squirms a little, uncomfortable - no one's ever really paid that much attention to her belly button, and it feels strange.
Teyla's hands span Meredith's ribs, then, fingernails pressing in hard enough that they don't tickle. Those points of pressure against Meredith's sides feel fantastic, distracting her from the slow wet press of Teyla's lips into her navel. Then Teyla presses down with her tongue, suddenly, down hard and in, and Meredith almost levitates off the bed trying to get her to stop.
"Too much, too much," she says, panting. Teyla kisses her way up Meredith's torso, over her stomach, between her breasts, ending with a little bite to her chin.
"Is that what you like?" Meredith asks. She slides her index finger into Teyla's slightly distended belly button by way of explanation.
"Yes," Teyla hisses softly. "Yes, Meredith, your mouth - " Meredith's not a genius for nothing, so she takes the hint and bends and shifts and arches her spine enough to get her mouth against Teyla's navel, to give her the same pressure and wetness and motion that Teyla'd demonstrated on her.
Teyla arches her back, pressing into the touch, and grinds down a little harder, pushing the seam of her pants into Meredith's thigh.
"Wait," Meredith says, pulling her mouth off, "wait, c'mon, we can - let me - "
"Yes, yes," Teyla says impatiently, pulling her hands off of Meredith and unbuttoning her BDUs, shimmying to shuck them and her briefs off her hips. She's not immediately successful, though, and they get caught around her ankles and calves as she tries to shift around and get them off without leaving Meredith's lap.
"I - can you - " Teyla laughs suddenly, giving up and slumping forward against Meredith's shoulder. "Help," she manages, pitifully, between convulsions of laughter.
Meredith, who never thought she'd have Teyla naked and squirming in her lap and think it was funny, laughs too, and bites Teyla's shoulder fondly before leaning over her to peel the pants off her ankles and toss them to the floor.
"Better," Teyla grins, spreading her thighs and settling over Meredith, pressing her hot cunt to Meredith's, grinding at her through two layers of clothing. The little swell of her pregnant belly is pushing against Meredith's stomach. Meredith's helpless against her, rocking with her, giving her the friction that she wants.
Then they're kissing again, kissing still, an endless sliding of tongues and lips, Teyla grazing her teeth roughly against Meredith's mouth, nipping at the soft flesh of her lower lip. Meredith surges upwards a little bit, managing to get their chests together, managing to get one of her nipples aligned with Teyla's, rubbing together deliciously.
"You ever done this?" she gasps, cupping her breast with one hand and deliberately rubbing her nipple over Teyla's.
Teyla pants, pulling her head back and looking down, watching, fascinated. "No," she says, her voice rough. Then she digs her hands underneath Meredith's pants - already unbuttoned - and her fingers push greedily into the soft flesh of Meredith's hips. "Lift up," she says.
Meredith does, and Teyla gets her pants and underwear off in one firm pull, shoving them onto the floor with her own. Then she grins, almost feral, and puts her face between Meredith's breasts; her clever tongue starts marking a trail down, over Meredith's ribs, her belly button, down until Teyla's nose is nudging against her labia.
"Jesus," Meredith says, overwhelmed by the picture in front of her. "Jesus, Teyla, do it."
Teyla slides her fingers in experimentally, reaching and twisting slowly as if memorizing the territory. "What do you like?" she asks, sounding hoarse.
"Anything," Meredith answers immediately, "anything, really, just - oh, that's nice, that'll do fine - " Teyla grins and does it again, letting her thumb push slowly down over the hood of her clit.
"Did you want my mouth?" Teyla asks. She sounds matter-of-fact, like she's at a trade negotiation; or she would, if she weren't breathing roughly, if she didn't have two fingers inside herself, too, rubbing little absent circles against her own clit. Meredith meets her eyes, and they're all pupil.
"Yeah," she breathes, "yeah, please." Teyla bends her head, and her hair falls into her eyes as she gets her hot mouth against Meredith's sex. She's clumsy at it, inexpert, but not tentative; Meredith watches Teyla, and Teyla watches her, watches every drop of sweat and every clenched muscle, listens for every stuttering of breath, every little groan that Meredith makes. Teyla is methodical, which is almost unbearably hot; she keeps her eyes fixed on Meredith with an intense level of attention, watching for a reaction to each little push of her tongue and stroke of her fingertips. Meredith squirms under that gaze; she's never had a lover so focused on her before, and it makes her feel too hot inside her skin, makes it hard to breathe.
She doesn't take her eyes off of Teyla.
It doesn't take long for that too-hot feeling to intensify, to condense into a single point of pleasure that spreads out through her body, that reaches into every cell, rushing and inexorable. The orgasm rumbles through her, washing her mind clean for that one perfect moment as she digs her heels into Teyla's back. Teyla keeps going, her lips making obscene wet noises now as she sucks and licks; it's too much for a moment, too much pressure against Meredith's sensitive clit, but then she squirms away a little and Teyla eases up and it's perfect, Teyla's clever mouth ratcheting her pleasure up again to another orgasm, unexpected but intense, shaking through her already-relaxed body like a tremor. She lets Teyla ease her through the aftershocks, then gently rubs her foot against Teyla's side, meeting her eyes when she looks up.
"Unnnnngh," Meredith manages finally, grinning, letting her ass fall back down onto the bed and letting her hands relax where she'd clenched the sheets. "Oh, wow, Teyla, that was amazing, come up here, seriously, you're great, c'mere," she says, flushed and breathing hard as her vocabulary comes back to her.
Teyla crawls back up her body and kisses her, deep and possessive, her chin still wet and sticky. Meredith groans and arches up against Teyla's body.
"Touch me," Teyla mutters, between kisses. "Touch me, please, oh," her voice trails off as Meredith runs her fingers lightly down Teyla's belly. Teyla makes a high, breathy noise that Meredith doesn't know how to interpret.
"Is that okay?" she asks, her fingertips unsure against the swell of her.
"Yes, it is just . . . sensitive," Teyla says eventually. "Please," she adds, and Meredith lets herself touch more firmly, further down. As she does, Teyla reaches down with her, tangling their fingers together inside of her, where she's soft, where she's already wet.
Teyla brings her fingers up to Meredith's mouth. "Lick," she says, her gaze hot and intense.
Meredith does, taking Teyla's fingers into her mouth and sucking them clean. Teyla's lips part.
"C'mere," Meredith says roughly, shifting Teyla around on the bed and getting her arms under her thighs. "God, you're gorgeous," she says, trailing kisses helplessly up Teyla's inner thigh. When she gets to Teyla's sex, she kisses again, inhaling the scent of her, tongue lapping at her wetness.
"Oh, yes," Teyla moans enthusiastically. "Harder, and faster."
Meredith quirks an eyebrow - she should've known that Teyla would be forthright in bed - and bends in to her task, lipping and licking softly, gripping hard at Teyla's ass and kneading. Teyla squirms against her, the powerful muscles of her legs clenching and releasing next to Meredith's flushed face.
"Lower," Teyla groans. "Just, push in a little - "
She follows the directions and applies herself in earnest, abandoning subtlety and teasing to just give Teyla what she needs, quick and relentless, sucking and licking with a speed and desperation that matches Teyla's rough aborted thrusts. After a few minutes, she brings one hand back up to help out, shoving her fingers in unceremoniously and crooking them up, rubbing in long, smooth strokes against that little rough spot inside.
Beneath her, Teyla arches up, making more noise than Meredith would've expected, all in little gasps and high whining breaths that bottom out into low groans. It's incredibly hot, Teyla sweaty and almost spread-eagled against the rough sheets, her knees drawn up, her belly hanging low and heavy near the top of Meredith's head.
Hesitantly, Meredith brings her other hand out from under Teyla's body and reaches up to stroke lightly against her side, fingers trailing along her ribs, under her breasts, then down over her stomach. Teyla reaches down, then, and grasps Meredith's hand firmly in her own. Meredith goes faster with her mouth and slower with her fingers, alternating slow, firm strokes inside with quick, soft pressure against Teyla's clit. Teyla's grip on her hand tightens, almost painfully, and then there's a gush of liquid against Meredith's chin and neck. She keeps going, keeps the same steady pace, rubbing her mouth gently against Teyla's sex until she hears her breathing slow and feels her thighs shift as she relaxes, boneless, into the bed.
"How're you doing?" Meredith asks, not wanting to ask did you come.
Teyla's hands flail clumsily at Meredith's shoulders. "Come back up here," she says. Meredith does, and Teyla kisses her, and then Teyla says, "That was lovely."
And Teyla's hands are still all over her, rubbing against her thighs, her stomach, between her breasts and over her collarbones. Her fingers play over Meredith's body, but not anxiously: it's as if Teyla just can't get enough of the sensation of her fingertips against Meredith's skin. Meredith doesn't know how to answer that touch, so she just offers herself up, wrapping an arm around Teyla's waist and pressing her face into her neck. She feels overwhelmed, so she closes her eyes tight and buries her nose against Teyla's skin.
"I did not want to wait any longer," Teyla mutters, kissing her neck hungrily. She sounds almost like she's talking to herself. "I tried, but I could not do it."
"Yeah," Meredith says, eyes still shut. She runs her hands over Teyla, breathes her in. She feels too hot and too sweaty, and she'll have to move in a moment, but just for now she stays pressed against Teyla. "I couldn't either."
-
The ceremony isn't as complicated as Meredith expected. Halling says some things about family and new blood and responsibility and love, a little old Athosian lady draws Ancient letters on their palms, and Kanaan kisses her on the forehead and between the collarbones. The way that he looks at Teyla, after - the way that Teyla looks at him - still raises the hot rush of jealousy inside of her, still raises unkind and uncharitable thoughts about Kanaan that she knows, deep down, he doesn't deserve. She tries to smile at him; tries to make it genuine. He smiles at her, kindly, openly, as if he can see right through her and accepts her anyway. That only makes it worse.
Teyla steps forward, then, and repeats Kanaan's action: presses her lips to Meredith's forehead, then between her collarbones. It's all she can do to remain still. Her fingers twitch nervously at her sides, and she flushes a little at this gesture, so intimate, so public. When Teyla draws back, though, Meredith's own stubborn streak flares up; before she can think better of it, she reaches out and stills Teyla with a hand on her shoulder then - slowly - tilts her head down a little.
Teyla meets her halfway, and they kiss softly, gently, on the lips.
The dozen or so Athosians who came to witness make a little noise at that, but Meredith ignores it in favour of tasting Teyla's mouth, the sweet, barely-there pressure of her tongue that Meredith can never get enough of.
When they pull apart, Teyla licks her lips and raises a knowing eyebrow. "That was an Earth custom?"
"Yeah," Meredith says, her voice sounding a little rough. "That's how we do this ceremony in Canada."
Teyla nods, and reaches back for Kanaan's hand, reaches forward for Meredith's.
There's food afterwards, though mercifully there's no dancing. Meredith picks up one of the vegetable-kebab things that the Athosians make for special occasions and takes a bite. Then she looks to her right, where one of the Athosians is standing and staring at her.
"Hi," Meredith says, around a mouthful of kebab. "How's it going?"
The Athosian smiles, tight-lipped. "Fine," he says, and walks away.
Meredith's long since gotten over caring about what assholes think of her, so she shrugs and goes on eating. But the pattern recurs: though a few of the Athosians - people she recognizes as Teyla's close friends, her cousin, Halling's sister - make a point of congratulating her and smiling, many of them seem uncomfortable.
After the fifth or sixth person gives her the cold shoulder, she turns in frustration to Teyla and Kanaan. "Okay, what's the deal? Do I have something on my face?"
Kanaan sighs. "I told you this would happen," he says, quietly, to Teyla.
"Hello!" Meredith says. "Hi, I'm your wife's girlfriend? You can talk to me. What happened?"
Teyla bites her lip. "They don't - it is because you are not . . . " her brow furrows, the way that Radek's does sometimes when he's translating from Czech to English. "You do not have children of your own," Teyla finishes, gently.
"Oh," Meredith says.
She got into a screaming match with her mother, once, back when she was in college and started talking about girlfriends instead of boyfriends. She'd defended her right to exist at the top of her voice, and she was brilliant and she was right, even if her mother couldn't admit it, and she still looks back on that argument with a kind of hot satisfaction; she'd do it again if she could. But this - this is different; she's not sure how to defend herself against this, doesn't even know the language she would use to do so.
"Teyla's family has always been unconventional," Kanaan says, cupping her shoulder gently. "Everyone will get used to it."
Meredith nods. She feels embarrassed, though she doesn't know why. She shrugs gently out of Kanaan's grip.
"Hey," Teyla says, in that soft way that she's learned from John. "Hey. Come here." And she cups the back of Meredith's neck and takes her mouth, gently, with determination.
-
At the gate, Teyla kisses Kanaan thoroughly, and for a long time. He holds her to him, their bodies comfortable and familiar together. Meredith watches.
"I will see you in a few days," Teyla says, finally, licking her lips and pressing her forehead to Kanaan's.
"You had better; I need your help with the Minarians." Kanaan trails a knuckle fondly against her jawline.
Teyla smiles, lop-sided and genuine, and then breaks their embrace. Kanaan turns to look at Meredith.
"Welcome to the family," he says, smiling.
"Thank you," Meredith answers.
When Teyla walks over to Meredith's side, Meredith takes her hand, trying to remember the advice of her previous girlfriends, who all told her that jealousy was really unbecoming.
But Teyla just presses her palm firmly and dials the gate for home.
-
When they step through the gate, there are streamers. And confetti.
"Oh god," Meredith moans. "Okay, who told?"
John walks up, all loose-limbed, with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Ronon got it from a guy who got it from Teyla's cousin," he says. Then he raises a paper noisemaker to his lips and blows on it. The paper end spins out in front of his face as he waggles his eyebrows.
"You should've told me, Mer," he says, knowing full well that she hates that nickname, "I woulda thrown you a bachelor party."
"Yes, and we can all imagine the horrors that would've induced, so under the circumstances, perhaps it's best that we kept things quiet, hmm?"
"Perhaps," Teyla laughs. "I think we all remember and regret the events of Corporal Anderson's bachelor party, after all."
"I don't remember it so well," Ronon says, grinning. "But I did wake up naked, with a - "
"I'm gonna cut you off right there, buddy," John says, overriding Ronon. Which is too bad, actually; Meredith's never heard that story.
"Anyway, we wanted to say congratulations," Ronon shrugs. Then he wraps them up - first Meredith, then Teyla - in exuberant hugs, squeezing them a bit too enthusiastically.
"Air," Meredith gasps, during her hug. Teyla takes hers in stride, squeezing Ronon right back.
John looks uncomfortable, but then he hugs them too, as if out of social necessity: awkward and distant, upper-body only, his hands ridiculously gentle. Meredith rolls her eyes and loves him a little.
"Congratulations, guys," he says, looking relieved as he backs away.
After that they have to hug their way through most of Atlantis, since it seems that Ronon is something of a gossip and the word is out. Meredith gets far too close to far too many members of her science team - she's seen the personal hygiene regimens of these people, and usually establishes a two-foot perimeter of personal space around herself in the labs as a result. But it turns out that if you have an offworld alien threesome lesbian commitment pregnancy ceremony, all of a sudden everyone has the right to touch you.
When they get through the hordes, Teyla takes her hand again and leads them to her room. Meredith feels hot anticipation bloom in her belly.
"I got you a gift," Teyla says. Her palm is sweaty against Meredith's; nervous.
"Yeah?" Meredith asks. She didn't get Teyla anything; she's pretty much a failure as a wife already.
"Look," Teyla says, dragging them across the threshold and over to the table. There's a set of intricate polished stones laid out across the desk.
Meredith stares. "Teyla, you - did you make these?"
Teyla gives her a look. "When have you ever seen me engrave a stone? No, I had Riyala make them for you."
She runs her fingers tentatively over the set of game pieces. Some of the markings are familiar, but some aren't. "These aren't the same as your set," she says, tentatively.
"Every set is unique. For you, Riyala changed some of the less-familiar Athosian symbols into icons more familiar to you." Teyla comes up behind her and wraps her arms around her, pressing them gently together from shoulder to hip. She reaches around and picks up a stone, holding it up in front of them. "Serpent, water-bearer, ZPM," she says, pointing.
Meredith laughs, touching the piece in Teyla's hand. "The rules don't change, but the pieces do," she says softly, and turns in Teyla's grasp, and kisses her, slowly, on the mouth.
When they break apart, Teyla caresses her face, then runs her hand down to play her fingertips against the soft hairs on Meredith's arm.
"Does it bother you, that I have another lover?" Teyla asks, suddenly. Her tongue comes out to moisten her lips.
Meredith takes a deep breath and runs her hands against Teyla's shoulder, the backs of her knuckles tracing the soft skin and smooth muscle. "Yes," she says.
Teyla nods slowly, then steps a little closer, resting her palm against Meredith's side, just below her breast, almost cupping it.
"Do you," Meredith stammers, then presses her lips together and tries again. "Does it bother you that I don't have a, a child?"
"Yes," Teyla says softly, and then they're kissing again, deep and slow and wet, taking their time.
-
-
-
-
end note: I forgot to say originally! but all credit for Teyla's mom's occupation and general character goes to the_drifter; she let me borrow some of the fanon that she made up. Her conception of Teyla's mom is much bigger and more complex than I've indicated here, though.
back to fic index
After that, Teyla doesn't bring up the ceremony again, but it's there between them, Teyla waiting for her answer. Teyla walks her home after team movie nights, and sometimes in between making fun of Transporter II and making fun of John's reaction to Transporter II Teyla will kiss her, right there in the corridor, still tasting salty and slick from the popcorn. Meredith catches her looking, too, a speculative, appraising look that Teyla usually reserves for alien grain stores or deployments of Wraith soldiers, when they're playing Ky-Nill late at night, the pieces laid out between them, changing within a fixed pattern. On those nights, it's usually Meredith who kisses first, puts her lips against Teyla's jaw just for a moment, just to feel the skin there.
Sometimes they don't see each other; sometimes Kanaan visits from New Athos, or Teyla goes there to see him. On those nights, Meredith stays up late working in her lab and absolutely fails to not imagine all the sex they're undoubtedly having together. When Kanaan leaves, or when Teyla comes back, Meredith suddenly can't stop looking at her pregnant belly; can't stop seeing it like a mark, a hickey, something between them.
Teyla starts hanging around the lab more often, too, and Meredith actually starts teaching her the basics of the Ancient control-interface system that she and Zelenka have rigged up. Teyla grasps the principles quickly, and unlike most of the people that Meredith has to train, has a much better understanding of Ancient software than Earth software, which makes her an interesting student. Sometimes John and Ronon show up with her, true to their word, and Meredith finds herself teaching a little class on the Ancient technology interface and the crystal configurations. It reminds her of grad school, the semesters of tedious intro courses that she taught to fulfill the department's ridiculous requirements.
Except that her students at Northwestern were never this annoying.
"John, I swear, if you put your hand up one more time . . . "
"I have a question, Doctor McKay," he says, earnestly, raising his hand. She sighs, wishing she'd given Zelenka this job, and glances over to Teyla for support.
Teyla just shrugs, grins, and puts a hand on her belly, as if to say, children.
"Okay, Mr. Sheppard, your question?" she asks, eventually, through her teeth.
"Colonel Sheppard," he says, then continues quickly before she can throw anything at him. "If a Wraith data storage device is hooked up to the tablet at the same time as an Ancient console, how do we manage the different data streams?"
Next to him, Ronon checks his notes and nods his agreement. "There's nothing in here about that, McKay," he says.
Meredith spreads her hands. "In that extremely unlikely event? You call me."
"That's what you said about our last question," Ronon complains reasonably.
"Advanced class is next semester," she says. "For now, I'm just pleased that you can all manage to press the buttons without blowing anything up, okay?"
John shrugs. "We done for the day, then, Professor?"
"Yes yes, dismissed," she says, waving a hand. John and Ronon jump up and make a hasty exit - word is that they're showing The Mighty Ducks in the lounge tonight, which is Sheppard's favourite film - and Meredith starts to pack her stuff up. It got late while they were all cooped up in the lab; all of the other scientists are gone, and most of the workstations are quiet and dark. The lamp on her desk makes a warm pool of light in the shadowy lab.
Teyla picks up her little notebook and comes to stand next to her at the bench. "You did well today," she says, quietly. "I feel much more confident manipulating the Wraith technology, after our lessons together."
Meredith looks up at her, and can't prevent the pleased smile that spreads across her face. "Yeah?" she asks.
"Yes," Teyla says, smiling back. Meredith sits down on one of the stools, just for a moment, and Teyla takes the one next to her. "Their operating system is very different from the Ancient systems with which I was familiar, but I did not realise how vast those differences were until you pointed them out. I believe I will have more success operating the hive ships, now."
"That's great," Meredith says, smiling enthusiastically. "I've been meaning to ask you, actually, how you know so much about the Ancient systems? I mean, I've never seen the Athosians using any kind of computers, much less Ancient ones."
Teyla doesn't speak for a moment, considering her words carefully. "My mother collected Ancient artifacts," she says eventually, her voice quiet in the cool darkness of the lab. "You remind me of her, sometimes. She was a scientist." As is her habit when they're alone, she's sitting with her stool right next to Meredith's, tangling their legs together lazily as she talks. She's over five months, now, and her belly swells softly under her loose shirt.
"She was?" This is news. "Was she an engineer?"
Teyla shakes her head slowly, her eyes far away. "No. Closer to . . . an archaeologist, I suppose, or a historian. She studied the Ancestors."
"But she must've dug up a lot of interesting pieces of technology, right?"
Teyla's eyes snap back to her, and she smiles wide. "I do not have her collection anymore, I am afraid."
A little heat spreads across Meredith's cheeks. "No, no, of course - I just meant, that sounds fascinating. I didn't know that about you."
"I have many hidden depths," Teyla replies, arching an eyebrow. Meredith aches a little, then, at the sheer beauty of the woman in front of her: Teyla's lips crooked upward in a sweet, teasing smirk, her eyes glinting in the low light, her face soft and open. She's never been a good judge of these things, but the moment feels intimate and slow, like the world's been slowed down just for them, just for this.
She reaches out - she has no choice but to reach out, is compelled to reach out - and cups Teyla's jaw in her palm, running her own thick, blunt fingers against the delicate skin behind Teyla's ear. Teyla turns into the touch, pressing against her hand, then turns further and presses a hot kiss to Meredith's palm.
Meredith hears her stool clatter behind her as she gets to her feet, but she doesn't take any notice of it: all of her attention is on her hands, running through Teyla's hair; on the rough, warm pressure of Teyla's lips under hers; on the sweet sensation of Teyla's palms cradling her shoulderblades, pulling her closer, pulling her in. The kiss goes on, now gentling, now speeding up, and Meredith gets a little lost in it, in the deep heat of Teyla's mouth and the wonder of her small, powerful body pressed up against her.
When it ends, Meredith feels hot and crazy with lust, but somehow chaste, too, like a suitor: she feels, simultaneously, that she needs to fuck Teyla right now, and that they have all the time in the world, that this moment extends infinitely around them.
"I want it," Meredith says, her lips still mere millimetres from Teyla's. "The ceremony. I want that."
Teyla's eyes are dark, her pupils blown wide; when she smiles, she shows teeth. "I do, too," she says, digging her fingertips into the soft flesh of Meredith's shoulders, mouthing a kiss to her neck. "Me too," she says again, the words falling welcome against Meredith's skin.
They kiss again, slower this time.
"It will take some time to arrange," Teyla says, when they break apart. "A week, perhaps."
Meredith nods against her neck. "A week, okay," she whispers. She touches a hand tentatively to Teyla's belly, and wonders how she managed to find herself a whirlwind shotgun lesbian wedding out here in the Pegasus galaxy.
-
The next day, Meredith glances at the gate log and sees Teyla's visit to New Athos, right there at the top of the schedule. She blanches, looking at it there in black and white on her computer screen; it seems so final, so certain. She gets her clothes on and rushes down to the gate room, even though she's not sure why - she has some half-formed idea of calling it off, telling Teyla that she needs more time, pulling her away from the gate. But when she gets there, Teyla is sitting in the empty chair next to Chuck, laughing some story that he's explaining with his hands, and Meredith can see, in the flash of Teyla's teeth through her lips, in the way she arches one eyebrow, wickedly - so familiar - and says something that makes Chuck laugh, that she's not here to call anything off.
Teyla catches sight of her, then, and says something to Chuck as she stands up and walks over to where Meredith is standing, just at the edge of the control consoles.
"Hi," Meredith says, on an exhalation of breath.
"Hello," Teyla replies. "You came to see me off?"
"Something like that." They're standing very close, now; too close for the gateroom, maybe.
Teyla leans in, slowly and easily, and kisses her on the cheek, closing the gap between them for a few long seconds. "I will be back the day after tomorrow," she says.
"Oh."
Teyla trails her hand gently through Meredith's short hair. "Look after John and Ronon on T1G-2H4," she adds, tucking a strand behind Meredith's ear.
"I will." Teyla turns, then, to go, but Meredith stops her with a hand on her shoulder. Teyla turns back, and Meredith gets a hand on her other shoulder.
It takes her a moment to understand, but eventually Teyla bends her head and closes her eyes. Their foreheads touch, briefly, and then Teyla pulls away, smiling.
After she slips through the gate, Meredith turns to Chuck, who is staring predictably.
"Yes? Something wrong?"
"No ma'am," Chuck says, smiling.
"I can reassign all the gate functionality reports to you if you're bored, Sergeant," she warns.
"I do those anyway," Chuck shrugs.
"Whatever," Meredith sighs, giving up. Her cheek is still tingling where Teyla kissed it.
-
Later, on T1G-2H4, John waits until Ronon's out of earshot, schmoozing the local mayor, and turns to her purposefully.
"So, you and Teyla, huh?" John's is probably the worst attempt Meredith has ever seen at acting nonchalant, even including some of her own.
"Yeah," she says. "It's kind of new." Except that it isn't, not really.
"Hey, that's great," he says, and Meredith can tell that this is him trying to actually be earnest even though he doesn't know how to do it without irony. "Um. I didn't even know you were, y'know." He makes a gesture somewhere between milking a cow one-handed and conducting an orchestra to adagio.
"Oh," she says. "I always thought you did. Know."
"No. But, I mean, it's great. I'm very open-minded," he says firmly, not looking at her.
"Right." She wonders when Ronon will be done schmoozing so that they can get to the part of the day where she fixes the villagers' technology or gets hit on by the mayor's son or gets chased by a flock of Pegasus chickens or something.
"You know," she says eventually, when it becomes clear that more conversation is required, "if you ever want to tell me about your boyfriends . . . "
"Let's go see how Ronon's doing," John says, standing up.
Meredith sniggers and follows along. She ends up fixing the villagers' technology and eating their excellent free-range Pegasus chicken, so overall it's a pretty good mission.
-
Teyla gets back on Thursday at 16:00, and by 16:20 she's got Meredith up against the wall in her quarters, taking her mouth in a bruising kiss and pushing her callused fingertips under the hem of Meredith's shirt.
"I take it," Meredith gasps in the brief moments when her mouth isn't otherwise occupied, "that everything," her head thunks back against the wall as Teyla applies lips to her throat, "is set to go?"
"Yes," Teyla manages, her hands hot and clever, spanning Meredith's waist under her shirt.
"Does this mean, oh god, can we - " she's lost her vocabulary, but she figures that with the way she's grinding shamelessly against Teyla's leg, Teyla will be able to put it together.
"Yes," Teyla says again, frantically, kissing Meredith's jaw. Then she slows, pulls her lips away and just pants against Meredith's skin. "I mean, no."
Meredith pauses with her hand rubbing against the bare skin of Teyla's lower back. "No?"
"We - it's not - the ceremony is - "
"Sacred?"
"In four days," Teyla says. "We can wait four days."
"Why?" Meredith asks, bending in again to worry her teeth against the soft skin below Teyla's chin.
"I . . . do not know," Teyla sighs, arching her neck a little.
"Okay," Meredith sighs, pulling back.
"Your people do not wait until after the formalization of the union," Teyla says. It's a statement, not a question, but Meredith answers it anyway.
"Well, no, not very many lesbians wait until after marriage. You guys always wait?"
"Traditionally," Teyla answers evasively. She's flushed and panting and gorgeous. Meredith runs the back of her fingers along her jaw. She leans in and puts her mouth next to Teyla's ear, whispering.
"May I challenge you to a game of Ky-Nill tomorrow night?" she asks, lips teasing against Teyla's earlobe. When she pulls back, Teyla has that exasperated look that she gets sometimes, the one that says you're incredibly transparent and I know what you're doing.
"I would be honoured," Teyla says, mocking Meredith's formal tone. Then she rolls her eyes and pushes Meredith out the door.
-
When she shows up at Teyla's door the next night, she feels nervous and jittery, as if something has changed between them, as if spending time alone together no longer means the same thing. The slow build between them has left her with an almost constant thrumming beneath her skin, a sensation of heat and energy that trills along her nerves and leaves her feeling drunk, heady, expectant.
But Teyla greets her in the same way she always does, and lays out the game pieces like she does every time they play, and soon Meredith's forgotten her pseudo-engagement, lost in the unfurling mathematical probabilities of the game-network.
"Skyscraper," she says, finally, laying her piece down.
Teyla stops pretending to snore and looks up from the floor. "Huh? What? You played? Is it still Tuesday?"
Meredith pokes her in the shoulder, rolling her eyes. Teyla could give John a run for his money in the competition for most juvenile sense of humour in Atlantis; it's disgusting.
Teyla does a quarter of a pushup, levering her upper body off the floor. She's lying sort of on her side, propping head up on her elbow and trailing her other hand absentmindedly over her stomach. Meredith's lying on her belly, with the game pieces set between them, and from this proximity she can see the dark smudges below Teyla's eyes, the cracked dry skin at the corner of her lips. She needs more sleep; Meredith resolves to try to get her to sleep more.
"Yes, yes, I played the skyscraper. You have to change your feral beast into a rainstorm."
"Mmmm, I do," Teyla says, studying the pieces. She flips the feral beast over to reveal another side, and . . .
"Hey," Meredith says, "Hey, wait - " Teyla also flips over the two pieces in diagonal relation to the new rainstorm.
"It appears that you have forced me to change both of these pieces into plentiful harvests," Teyla notes, as if surprised. "What a kind thing for you to do for me."
Meredith buries her face in her hands. "You played me! You are such a cheater."
"I never cheat," Teyla drawls reproachfully, arching an eyebrow as if offended.
Meredith looks back down at her remaining pieces; there's no way that a flowering herb and a wheeled cart are going to save the day at this point.
"Okay, fine," she says, feeling her mouth curve down on one side. "Fine, you win this one, Emmagan, but I am still learning, and am going to beat you eventually." She looks up to glare squint-eyed at Teyla, who is grinning that gloating-winner grin of hers that's simultaneously unbecoming and irresistable.
"I am sure that you will," she says kindly, patting Meredith's hand sympathetically. Meredith glares harder, and Teyla laughs, and leans over, scattering the game pieces with her forearms. She kisses Meredith gently on the mouth. They lean together like that for a long moment, mouths brushing softly, wet heat building between them until they start to go a little faster, a little rougher. Teyla likes to kiss a little rough, Meredith's discovered. It goes on for a long time, longer than usual; long enough for Meredith to lose herself in it a little.
Teyla breaks the kiss suddenly, tearing their mouths apart with a low groan, pulling back enough to rest her forehead against Meredith's. Meredith takes the opportunity to breathe a little, shifting her weight to one hand and reaching the other one up to caress the side of Teyla's neck and the taut muscle that slopes down to her shoulder. She runs her fingernails along that muscle, lightly, pleased at the little noises that her action wrings from Teyla, who leans forward again as if unable to stop herself, leans forward to press a series of quick, hard kisses against Meredith's lips.
Meredith kisses back in kind, running her fingernails again and again up and down the curve of Teyla's neck.
"Meredith," Teyla manages, sucking a wet trail along Meredith's neck, "come here, come over here - " she trails off, but her hands make her meaning perfectly clear; she grips Meredith by the wrists, hard, and pulls, sitting back herself to sit up on the edge of the bed and dragging Meredith with her. Meredith crawls up to sit next to her, then immediately gets her hands back on Teyla's body, gets Teyla's mouth back on her neck.
It starts to get fast then, Teyla's skin warm and lavish and encouraging beneath Meredith's hands, her mouth devastating and hot on her throat, her collarbones, the place above her heart. Meredith gasps as Teyla works a hand under her shirt from below, palming her belly and slipping a thumb into her belly button.
"Oh god, Teyla," Meredith says, scratching the pads of her fingers against the nape of Teyla's neck in the way that she likes. Her other hand is under the waistband of Teyla's BDUs, stroking against her spine and the dip of her lower back.
"Mmmmm," Teyla groans, bringing her head back up to meet Meredith's mouth again, kissing her long and hard. Her thumb keeps rubbing back and forth over Meredith's navel, pressing in obscenely, and that one simple touch is taking her apart.
"Should we," Meredith manages between kisses, "Oh, fuck, don't stop - should we, I thought you said - "
"We can," Teyla mutters against her jaw, fierce and fast where before she was always careful and restrained. "We can, we can, we just have to be careful not to, oh, not to tell - " Teyla's shifted so that she's mostly straddling Meredith now, riding herself against her leg, grinding down.
"Kanaan . . . " Meredith says, wishing as she says it that she'd kept her mouth shut.
"I spoke to him this morning," Teyla says, mouthing her neck. "and he said, he said yes, but the others - " Teyla breaks off as Meredith's fingers stroke underneath her clothes. "The others are more, hm, traditional," she says, after a pause.
She manages to get Teyla's top off, letting her breasts spill forward, gorgeous and tempting at Meredith's eye level. She palms one slowly, wonderingly, rubbing her knuckles against the smooth underside curve.
"I'm the soul of discretion," she promises fervently, and then can't help herself: she bites the curve of Teyla's breast where her hand has just been, then moves up to the nipple, sucking its hard brown length into her mouth and lapping against it, rubbing the flat of her tongue against it.
Teyla squeals and shimmies and shifts away, grabbing Meredith's head and pushing her away. "I do not, uh," Teyla mutters. Too sensitive maybe? She's not making eye contact. Meredith pulls back and tries to blink her eyes into focusing again.
"What?" she asks, bewildered. "Did you not want to - "
"No," Teyla says, "I want to," and she reaches under Meredith's shirt, unclasping her bra and tugging at the material until she raises her arms so that Teyla can peel everything off, tossing shirt and bra carelessly to the floor. Her hands keep stroking at Meredith's sides as she bends her mouth to suck at her collarbones, her neck, the dip of her throat. Teyla's tongue is pushy and clever and precise, and Meredith wishes she'd apply it a little lower; she loves having her nipples sucked.
Teyla notices her not-too-subtle attempts to nudge her downward, however, and looks up at her, confused. "What would you like?" she asks, low and husky. Meredith's body throbs at the sound, at the question.
She cups a hand under her left breast. "Suck it?" she asks, softly, breathlessly. Teyla breathes hard and shakes her head a little.
"It is - too weird," she says.
"Okay," Meredith says, not understanding. "Okay, c'mere - " she pulls Teyla back down into familiar territory, a deep, wet kiss, mouth to mouth, their tongues stroking slowly together. When Teyla pulls back from it, she's grinning widely.
"Here," she says, and shimmies downward, getting her mouth on Meredith's navel, dipping her tongue inside where she dipped her fingers before. Meredith squirms a little, uncomfortable - no one's ever really paid that much attention to her belly button, and it feels strange.
Teyla's hands span Meredith's ribs, then, fingernails pressing in hard enough that they don't tickle. Those points of pressure against Meredith's sides feel fantastic, distracting her from the slow wet press of Teyla's lips into her navel. Then Teyla presses down with her tongue, suddenly, down hard and in, and Meredith almost levitates off the bed trying to get her to stop.
"Too much, too much," she says, panting. Teyla kisses her way up Meredith's torso, over her stomach, between her breasts, ending with a little bite to her chin.
"Is that what you like?" Meredith asks. She slides her index finger into Teyla's slightly distended belly button by way of explanation.
"Yes," Teyla hisses softly. "Yes, Meredith, your mouth - " Meredith's not a genius for nothing, so she takes the hint and bends and shifts and arches her spine enough to get her mouth against Teyla's navel, to give her the same pressure and wetness and motion that Teyla'd demonstrated on her.
Teyla arches her back, pressing into the touch, and grinds down a little harder, pushing the seam of her pants into Meredith's thigh.
"Wait," Meredith says, pulling her mouth off, "wait, c'mon, we can - let me - "
"Yes, yes," Teyla says impatiently, pulling her hands off of Meredith and unbuttoning her BDUs, shimmying to shuck them and her briefs off her hips. She's not immediately successful, though, and they get caught around her ankles and calves as she tries to shift around and get them off without leaving Meredith's lap.
"I - can you - " Teyla laughs suddenly, giving up and slumping forward against Meredith's shoulder. "Help," she manages, pitifully, between convulsions of laughter.
Meredith, who never thought she'd have Teyla naked and squirming in her lap and think it was funny, laughs too, and bites Teyla's shoulder fondly before leaning over her to peel the pants off her ankles and toss them to the floor.
"Better," Teyla grins, spreading her thighs and settling over Meredith, pressing her hot cunt to Meredith's, grinding at her through two layers of clothing. The little swell of her pregnant belly is pushing against Meredith's stomach. Meredith's helpless against her, rocking with her, giving her the friction that she wants.
Then they're kissing again, kissing still, an endless sliding of tongues and lips, Teyla grazing her teeth roughly against Meredith's mouth, nipping at the soft flesh of her lower lip. Meredith surges upwards a little bit, managing to get their chests together, managing to get one of her nipples aligned with Teyla's, rubbing together deliciously.
"You ever done this?" she gasps, cupping her breast with one hand and deliberately rubbing her nipple over Teyla's.
Teyla pants, pulling her head back and looking down, watching, fascinated. "No," she says, her voice rough. Then she digs her hands underneath Meredith's pants - already unbuttoned - and her fingers push greedily into the soft flesh of Meredith's hips. "Lift up," she says.
Meredith does, and Teyla gets her pants and underwear off in one firm pull, shoving them onto the floor with her own. Then she grins, almost feral, and puts her face between Meredith's breasts; her clever tongue starts marking a trail down, over Meredith's ribs, her belly button, down until Teyla's nose is nudging against her labia.
"Jesus," Meredith says, overwhelmed by the picture in front of her. "Jesus, Teyla, do it."
Teyla slides her fingers in experimentally, reaching and twisting slowly as if memorizing the territory. "What do you like?" she asks, sounding hoarse.
"Anything," Meredith answers immediately, "anything, really, just - oh, that's nice, that'll do fine - " Teyla grins and does it again, letting her thumb push slowly down over the hood of her clit.
"Did you want my mouth?" Teyla asks. She sounds matter-of-fact, like she's at a trade negotiation; or she would, if she weren't breathing roughly, if she didn't have two fingers inside herself, too, rubbing little absent circles against her own clit. Meredith meets her eyes, and they're all pupil.
"Yeah," she breathes, "yeah, please." Teyla bends her head, and her hair falls into her eyes as she gets her hot mouth against Meredith's sex. She's clumsy at it, inexpert, but not tentative; Meredith watches Teyla, and Teyla watches her, watches every drop of sweat and every clenched muscle, listens for every stuttering of breath, every little groan that Meredith makes. Teyla is methodical, which is almost unbearably hot; she keeps her eyes fixed on Meredith with an intense level of attention, watching for a reaction to each little push of her tongue and stroke of her fingertips. Meredith squirms under that gaze; she's never had a lover so focused on her before, and it makes her feel too hot inside her skin, makes it hard to breathe.
She doesn't take her eyes off of Teyla.
It doesn't take long for that too-hot feeling to intensify, to condense into a single point of pleasure that spreads out through her body, that reaches into every cell, rushing and inexorable. The orgasm rumbles through her, washing her mind clean for that one perfect moment as she digs her heels into Teyla's back. Teyla keeps going, her lips making obscene wet noises now as she sucks and licks; it's too much for a moment, too much pressure against Meredith's sensitive clit, but then she squirms away a little and Teyla eases up and it's perfect, Teyla's clever mouth ratcheting her pleasure up again to another orgasm, unexpected but intense, shaking through her already-relaxed body like a tremor. She lets Teyla ease her through the aftershocks, then gently rubs her foot against Teyla's side, meeting her eyes when she looks up.
"Unnnnngh," Meredith manages finally, grinning, letting her ass fall back down onto the bed and letting her hands relax where she'd clenched the sheets. "Oh, wow, Teyla, that was amazing, come up here, seriously, you're great, c'mere," she says, flushed and breathing hard as her vocabulary comes back to her.
Teyla crawls back up her body and kisses her, deep and possessive, her chin still wet and sticky. Meredith groans and arches up against Teyla's body.
"Touch me," Teyla mutters, between kisses. "Touch me, please, oh," her voice trails off as Meredith runs her fingers lightly down Teyla's belly. Teyla makes a high, breathy noise that Meredith doesn't know how to interpret.
"Is that okay?" she asks, her fingertips unsure against the swell of her.
"Yes, it is just . . . sensitive," Teyla says eventually. "Please," she adds, and Meredith lets herself touch more firmly, further down. As she does, Teyla reaches down with her, tangling their fingers together inside of her, where she's soft, where she's already wet.
Teyla brings her fingers up to Meredith's mouth. "Lick," she says, her gaze hot and intense.
Meredith does, taking Teyla's fingers into her mouth and sucking them clean. Teyla's lips part.
"C'mere," Meredith says roughly, shifting Teyla around on the bed and getting her arms under her thighs. "God, you're gorgeous," she says, trailing kisses helplessly up Teyla's inner thigh. When she gets to Teyla's sex, she kisses again, inhaling the scent of her, tongue lapping at her wetness.
"Oh, yes," Teyla moans enthusiastically. "Harder, and faster."
Meredith quirks an eyebrow - she should've known that Teyla would be forthright in bed - and bends in to her task, lipping and licking softly, gripping hard at Teyla's ass and kneading. Teyla squirms against her, the powerful muscles of her legs clenching and releasing next to Meredith's flushed face.
"Lower," Teyla groans. "Just, push in a little - "
She follows the directions and applies herself in earnest, abandoning subtlety and teasing to just give Teyla what she needs, quick and relentless, sucking and licking with a speed and desperation that matches Teyla's rough aborted thrusts. After a few minutes, she brings one hand back up to help out, shoving her fingers in unceremoniously and crooking them up, rubbing in long, smooth strokes against that little rough spot inside.
Beneath her, Teyla arches up, making more noise than Meredith would've expected, all in little gasps and high whining breaths that bottom out into low groans. It's incredibly hot, Teyla sweaty and almost spread-eagled against the rough sheets, her knees drawn up, her belly hanging low and heavy near the top of Meredith's head.
Hesitantly, Meredith brings her other hand out from under Teyla's body and reaches up to stroke lightly against her side, fingers trailing along her ribs, under her breasts, then down over her stomach. Teyla reaches down, then, and grasps Meredith's hand firmly in her own. Meredith goes faster with her mouth and slower with her fingers, alternating slow, firm strokes inside with quick, soft pressure against Teyla's clit. Teyla's grip on her hand tightens, almost painfully, and then there's a gush of liquid against Meredith's chin and neck. She keeps going, keeps the same steady pace, rubbing her mouth gently against Teyla's sex until she hears her breathing slow and feels her thighs shift as she relaxes, boneless, into the bed.
"How're you doing?" Meredith asks, not wanting to ask did you come.
Teyla's hands flail clumsily at Meredith's shoulders. "Come back up here," she says. Meredith does, and Teyla kisses her, and then Teyla says, "That was lovely."
And Teyla's hands are still all over her, rubbing against her thighs, her stomach, between her breasts and over her collarbones. Her fingers play over Meredith's body, but not anxiously: it's as if Teyla just can't get enough of the sensation of her fingertips against Meredith's skin. Meredith doesn't know how to answer that touch, so she just offers herself up, wrapping an arm around Teyla's waist and pressing her face into her neck. She feels overwhelmed, so she closes her eyes tight and buries her nose against Teyla's skin.
"I did not want to wait any longer," Teyla mutters, kissing her neck hungrily. She sounds almost like she's talking to herself. "I tried, but I could not do it."
"Yeah," Meredith says, eyes still shut. She runs her hands over Teyla, breathes her in. She feels too hot and too sweaty, and she'll have to move in a moment, but just for now she stays pressed against Teyla. "I couldn't either."
-
The ceremony isn't as complicated as Meredith expected. Halling says some things about family and new blood and responsibility and love, a little old Athosian lady draws Ancient letters on their palms, and Kanaan kisses her on the forehead and between the collarbones. The way that he looks at Teyla, after - the way that Teyla looks at him - still raises the hot rush of jealousy inside of her, still raises unkind and uncharitable thoughts about Kanaan that she knows, deep down, he doesn't deserve. She tries to smile at him; tries to make it genuine. He smiles at her, kindly, openly, as if he can see right through her and accepts her anyway. That only makes it worse.
Teyla steps forward, then, and repeats Kanaan's action: presses her lips to Meredith's forehead, then between her collarbones. It's all she can do to remain still. Her fingers twitch nervously at her sides, and she flushes a little at this gesture, so intimate, so public. When Teyla draws back, though, Meredith's own stubborn streak flares up; before she can think better of it, she reaches out and stills Teyla with a hand on her shoulder then - slowly - tilts her head down a little.
Teyla meets her halfway, and they kiss softly, gently, on the lips.
The dozen or so Athosians who came to witness make a little noise at that, but Meredith ignores it in favour of tasting Teyla's mouth, the sweet, barely-there pressure of her tongue that Meredith can never get enough of.
When they pull apart, Teyla licks her lips and raises a knowing eyebrow. "That was an Earth custom?"
"Yeah," Meredith says, her voice sounding a little rough. "That's how we do this ceremony in Canada."
Teyla nods, and reaches back for Kanaan's hand, reaches forward for Meredith's.
There's food afterwards, though mercifully there's no dancing. Meredith picks up one of the vegetable-kebab things that the Athosians make for special occasions and takes a bite. Then she looks to her right, where one of the Athosians is standing and staring at her.
"Hi," Meredith says, around a mouthful of kebab. "How's it going?"
The Athosian smiles, tight-lipped. "Fine," he says, and walks away.
Meredith's long since gotten over caring about what assholes think of her, so she shrugs and goes on eating. But the pattern recurs: though a few of the Athosians - people she recognizes as Teyla's close friends, her cousin, Halling's sister - make a point of congratulating her and smiling, many of them seem uncomfortable.
After the fifth or sixth person gives her the cold shoulder, she turns in frustration to Teyla and Kanaan. "Okay, what's the deal? Do I have something on my face?"
Kanaan sighs. "I told you this would happen," he says, quietly, to Teyla.
"Hello!" Meredith says. "Hi, I'm your wife's girlfriend? You can talk to me. What happened?"
Teyla bites her lip. "They don't - it is because you are not . . . " her brow furrows, the way that Radek's does sometimes when he's translating from Czech to English. "You do not have children of your own," Teyla finishes, gently.
"Oh," Meredith says.
She got into a screaming match with her mother, once, back when she was in college and started talking about girlfriends instead of boyfriends. She'd defended her right to exist at the top of her voice, and she was brilliant and she was right, even if her mother couldn't admit it, and she still looks back on that argument with a kind of hot satisfaction; she'd do it again if she could. But this - this is different; she's not sure how to defend herself against this, doesn't even know the language she would use to do so.
"Teyla's family has always been unconventional," Kanaan says, cupping her shoulder gently. "Everyone will get used to it."
Meredith nods. She feels embarrassed, though she doesn't know why. She shrugs gently out of Kanaan's grip.
"Hey," Teyla says, in that soft way that she's learned from John. "Hey. Come here." And she cups the back of Meredith's neck and takes her mouth, gently, with determination.
-
At the gate, Teyla kisses Kanaan thoroughly, and for a long time. He holds her to him, their bodies comfortable and familiar together. Meredith watches.
"I will see you in a few days," Teyla says, finally, licking her lips and pressing her forehead to Kanaan's.
"You had better; I need your help with the Minarians." Kanaan trails a knuckle fondly against her jawline.
Teyla smiles, lop-sided and genuine, and then breaks their embrace. Kanaan turns to look at Meredith.
"Welcome to the family," he says, smiling.
"Thank you," Meredith answers.
When Teyla walks over to Meredith's side, Meredith takes her hand, trying to remember the advice of her previous girlfriends, who all told her that jealousy was really unbecoming.
But Teyla just presses her palm firmly and dials the gate for home.
-
When they step through the gate, there are streamers. And confetti.
"Oh god," Meredith moans. "Okay, who told?"
John walks up, all loose-limbed, with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Ronon got it from a guy who got it from Teyla's cousin," he says. Then he raises a paper noisemaker to his lips and blows on it. The paper end spins out in front of his face as he waggles his eyebrows.
"You should've told me, Mer," he says, knowing full well that she hates that nickname, "I woulda thrown you a bachelor party."
"Yes, and we can all imagine the horrors that would've induced, so under the circumstances, perhaps it's best that we kept things quiet, hmm?"
"Perhaps," Teyla laughs. "I think we all remember and regret the events of Corporal Anderson's bachelor party, after all."
"I don't remember it so well," Ronon says, grinning. "But I did wake up naked, with a - "
"I'm gonna cut you off right there, buddy," John says, overriding Ronon. Which is too bad, actually; Meredith's never heard that story.
"Anyway, we wanted to say congratulations," Ronon shrugs. Then he wraps them up - first Meredith, then Teyla - in exuberant hugs, squeezing them a bit too enthusiastically.
"Air," Meredith gasps, during her hug. Teyla takes hers in stride, squeezing Ronon right back.
John looks uncomfortable, but then he hugs them too, as if out of social necessity: awkward and distant, upper-body only, his hands ridiculously gentle. Meredith rolls her eyes and loves him a little.
"Congratulations, guys," he says, looking relieved as he backs away.
After that they have to hug their way through most of Atlantis, since it seems that Ronon is something of a gossip and the word is out. Meredith gets far too close to far too many members of her science team - she's seen the personal hygiene regimens of these people, and usually establishes a two-foot perimeter of personal space around herself in the labs as a result. But it turns out that if you have an offworld alien threesome lesbian commitment pregnancy ceremony, all of a sudden everyone has the right to touch you.
When they get through the hordes, Teyla takes her hand again and leads them to her room. Meredith feels hot anticipation bloom in her belly.
"I got you a gift," Teyla says. Her palm is sweaty against Meredith's; nervous.
"Yeah?" Meredith asks. She didn't get Teyla anything; she's pretty much a failure as a wife already.
"Look," Teyla says, dragging them across the threshold and over to the table. There's a set of intricate polished stones laid out across the desk.
Meredith stares. "Teyla, you - did you make these?"
Teyla gives her a look. "When have you ever seen me engrave a stone? No, I had Riyala make them for you."
She runs her fingers tentatively over the set of game pieces. Some of the markings are familiar, but some aren't. "These aren't the same as your set," she says, tentatively.
"Every set is unique. For you, Riyala changed some of the less-familiar Athosian symbols into icons more familiar to you." Teyla comes up behind her and wraps her arms around her, pressing them gently together from shoulder to hip. She reaches around and picks up a stone, holding it up in front of them. "Serpent, water-bearer, ZPM," she says, pointing.
Meredith laughs, touching the piece in Teyla's hand. "The rules don't change, but the pieces do," she says softly, and turns in Teyla's grasp, and kisses her, slowly, on the mouth.
When they break apart, Teyla caresses her face, then runs her hand down to play her fingertips against the soft hairs on Meredith's arm.
"Does it bother you, that I have another lover?" Teyla asks, suddenly. Her tongue comes out to moisten her lips.
Meredith takes a deep breath and runs her hands against Teyla's shoulder, the backs of her knuckles tracing the soft skin and smooth muscle. "Yes," she says.
Teyla nods slowly, then steps a little closer, resting her palm against Meredith's side, just below her breast, almost cupping it.
"Do you," Meredith stammers, then presses her lips together and tries again. "Does it bother you that I don't have a, a child?"
"Yes," Teyla says softly, and then they're kissing again, deep and slow and wet, taking their time.
-
-
-
-
end note: I forgot to say originally! but all credit for Teyla's mom's occupation and general character goes to the_drifter; she let me borrow some of the fanon that she made up. Her conception of Teyla's mom is much bigger and more complex than I've indicated here, though.
back to fic index