[stranger than] Teyla/Sora
Title: stranger than
Author: lilysaid
Recipient: medie
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Teyla/Sora
Rating: G
Word count: 3500
Disclaimer: Not only do the characters not belong to me, the plot AND title are directly lifted from the Will Farrell movie "Stranger Than Fiction"--a great movie, in case you haven't seen it yet.
It starts during an otherwise perfectly normal meeting. The Genii’s diplomatic team-Ladon, Sora and two scientists-are on one side of the table, with Teyla’s team opposite. Elizabeth sits at the head of the table, and Teyla is trying to maintain an interest in the large chunks of information the scientists are sharing with the table, when a woman’s voice, crisp and clear, drops in from nowhere.
“Teyla did not care about the useful properties of naquadah in relation to spaceship engineering. She was only interested in keeping an eye on the Genii.”
Startled, her head comes up, but when everyone continues to speak and nod as though nothing had happened, she realizes the problem. With a small frown, she removes the radio from her ear and places it on the table. She will have Dr. McKay look at it later, assuming this meeting ever comes to an end.
“Her only consolation was that Sora appeared to find the proceedings as tedious as Teyla found them. Yes, Sora’s eyes were alert, but Teyla could see the false construction of every contour on her smooth girlish face.”
Teyla glances around the table, her hands gripping the edge, readying her to stand. No one else has reacted to the voice at all, not even Sora, although Ronon is looking at her with narrowed eyes.
He leans in. “What’s the matter?” Around her, the scientists exchange rapid-fire insults over research priorities.
“I do not know,” she says uneasily. “Nothing.” Slowly, she relaxes her hands and gives Ronon a brief smile.
“It was past lunchtime. Everyone at the table, soldiers and scientists alike, was ready for lunch. If they did not break soon, Doctor McKay was going to unwrap a cran-apple power bar right at the table and continue on with his mouth full, so Elizabeth-“
“Why don’t we stop for lunch,” Elizabeth says, nodding graciously toward the scientists. “We can pick back up in an hour.”
”The tension in the room released like the valve had been pressed on a tire, and they filed from the room much in the same manner, a rush of people followed by a trickle.”
“Do you hear that?” she asks Ronon, who shrugs.
“Hear what?”
She shakes her head as John and Rodney approach.
“What’s going on? You don’t look so good.”
She takes a few deep, calming breaths. There are probably many explanations for what is happening. “I do not know. I hear a voice.”
“Wraith?” John says.
“No, not the Wraith. It is a woman,” she says.
Ronon slides back onto the edge of the table, his legs hanging freely. “What’s she want?”
“I do not believe she wants anything. She is merely talking about our meeting.”
John’s eyebrows lift into a confused angle.
“I know it sounds strange,” she says. At least the voice has stopped for the time being.
“Did she know anything about the meeting?” John asks, his arms folded suspiciously over his chest. He looks as though he is about to call in a security team.
“She knew that I was very bored.”
He smirks at that and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. But did she know anything you didn’t?”
“Did she say anything about me?” Rodney demands.
“Of course Dr. McKay thought it was about him. Dr. McKay was only worried that someone might find out that the injury which had caused his tardiness for the meeting was not the result of, as he had professed, a transporter malfunction, but rather of an over-adventurous masturbatory effort.”
“Ah, no,” Teyla says without meeting his eyes. “She did not.”
***
Twenty minutes later, Teyla is in Dr. Heightmeyer’s office with John, Elizabeth, Ronon and Rodney standing around looking nervous. She does not see the point in visiting Dr. Heightmeyer. Kate is a lovely woman, but her diagnosis is always stress, and the truth is that Teyla is not feeling particularly stressed at the moment.
“So, the voice is describing your life as though it’s a story,” Kate says thoughtfully. “Do you feel that your life is a story?”
Teyla does not even know what that is supposed to mean. She catches Rodney giving the woman an incredulous look, his face scrunched up with disdain. “Oh, for- is she going crazy or not?”
“No one’s going crazy, Rodney,” Elizabeth says as she glances at her watch. “Stranger things have happened. Teyla, give me your honest opinion. Do you feel as though this might be some kind of security breach?”
“No,” she says. It feels odd-annoying, perhaps, but not threatening.
“Then, unfortunately, I have to get back to our guests. Keep me updated,” she says to Kate, and exits with John at her heels.
***
“I had a voice in my head once,” Rodney says later, when the Genii are being shown to their rooms. “It was extremely disturbing.”
“I have not heard the voice since this morning,” Teyla tells him. Dr. Heightmeyer thinks this is a good sign. Teyla does not think Dr. Heightmeyer understands what is happening even a little bit. She insists on treating the voice as though it is a product of Teyla’s mind, rather than an outside entity.
“Well, listen. If you wake up naked in a strange bed and need to talk, let me know.”
“That is very kind,” she says. “You will be the first to know.” But he will probably be the second to know if that occurs-which she sincerely hopes it does not-because Ronon has been glued to her side since it began. It is Ronon’s greatest frustration: an invisible enemy.
Sheppard appears from behind Rodney, and catches him with an arm around the shoulders to steer him down the hall. “You coming to eat?” he asks over his shoulder, and she is happy to leave the topic behind.
The mess hall is crowded this time of day. Their usual table is taken, so Sheppard stops them at a table where Sora and Ladon are eating alone. Teyla chooses the seat across from Sora, and Ronon crowds up against her left side.
They all say hello, and it is fortunate that Sheppard is so skilled with small talk, because there are many uncomfortable things between them all. It is the first time Teyla has seen Sora since they released her back to the Genii, since the fight where they had nearly killed one another. Since Sora had wanted her dead.
“But Sora did not seem to want her dead, at the moment.. Between bites of salty potatoes, Teyla searched Sora’s face for a sign, and though she was merely interested in a truce, she couldn’t help but notice the lush curve of Sora’s lip, soft and sensual as it slid against her spoon.”
Teyla frowns. She had noticed no such thing. She notices now, of course, but prior to the intrusive remarks, she had been concerned about mending a once dear relationship. Determined to continue as normally as possible, she looks at Sora-so strange to have such a small space between them-and-
”Their eyes met over their trays, and the two-second stretch of time was long enough for Teyla to be struck by a wave of nostalgia so strong it felt almost like longing in her chest. If there were not so many people around, if Ronon were not crushed to her shoulder, she might have reached right across the table. As it was, she tore her gaze away, pulse pounding in her throat, and took a long drink of tea.”
Ronon leans down. “Is it back?”
She nods, careful not to draw any unwanted attention. If she can just focus, she ought to be able to block out the unwelcome remarks. It is difficult to see Sora, yes, and perhaps she has contemplated what might happen if she were to take Sora aside and make things right, but this disembodied voice seems to be implying more than a simple clearing of the air. The voice doesn’t seem to understand that Sora is here to do a job, and that Teyla has her own duties, as well.
”The tea did nothing to calm her. How could it, when Sora was in such close proximity, her throat taking long swallows of drink, and her nipples pressed so eagerly to the front of her blouse?
Entirely without her permission, Teyla’s gaze flickers up to Sora’s chest, and the sound of her chair pushing away from the table drowns out whatever had come next.
***
She retreats to one of the west balconies where they’ve accumulated a few pieces of furniture, Ronon following at a close distance, and before too long, Rodney and John join them. Ronon stretches out on the small sofa, and Teyla squeezes into the remaining spot.
“What did it say, now?” John asks. He stands with his back against the balcony, hands curved over the smooth rail.
“She,” she corrects. “And she made some observations about Sora.”
“What kind of observations?” Rodney asks. He’s still impatient, but this late at night he becomes more pliable, and he slumps into a large white cushioned chair while he waits. If it were any other time of day, if they were anyplace but this small haven they’ve created, she would hold this close to her chest, but this is a safe place, a place for sharing, not strategizing.
“She had a great deal to say about Sora’s physical attributes,” she admits, unflinching, despite the timid curl of mortification that crawls up her spine.
Rodney’s eyes widen. “Oh. That’s…”
“Dangerous,” John says as he swipes Rodney’s footstool and sits down.
“It is not dangerous, because does not mean what you are thinking,” she says. “However, I would like to look for the source of this voice. Do you have a list of personnel who might be saying these things, or writing them down?” The voice sounds very similar to the few Earth novels she has read, the careful exposition of its character’s private thoughts. If someone is doing this, writing her story, then it needs to stop.
This is not how her story goes.
***
Rodney sends out an inquiry by email the next morning, and by the day’s end they’ve got a small list of women who have published stories like the one that has been intruding in Teyla’s life. She discreetly visits each of the women, but none of them sound familiar, and they all seem to have abandoned writing for the careers that have brought them to Atlantis.
It has become more difficult to block out the voice as it narrates with increasingly rapid pace. And the peculiar thing is that the more quickly the voice describes events, the more quickly things seem to occur. Rising action, Sheppard says proudly when she mentions it, and mumbles something about a climax before slouching off toward the armory.
Whatever it is called, she is not surprised to find Sora at her door that evening.
“Hi,” Sora says, peering past Teyla into her empty room. There is a basket in her arms, and she shifts the weight of it from one arm to another as she waits for Teyla to find her words, which she does not. Instead, she can only look at Sora. In contrast to the suspicion which immediately settles onto Teyla’s shoulders, the narrator’s voice greets Sora with an admiring eye, chasing away that suspicion and painting Sora instead as a timid supplicant, which Teyla finds hard to swallow--and yet there she is, basket in hand, demure black turtleneck drawn across every inch of bare skin.
“Can I come in?”
Teyla snaps back to awareness. She is not bound to follow this path, the path being carved out by some unknown author, but it is too easy to step aside and allow Sora to enter, and then to allow Sora to sit on her bed, when there are two perfectly good chairs nearby.
“Come sit,” Sora says. “It makes me nervous with you standing there like that.”
“I am the one who should be nervous,” Teyla says, but she is not.
Sora holds her eyes for a moment.
“It is clear that Sora knows something Teyla does not. The hint of mirth at the corner of her mouth, the expectant lift of her face into the light, it all makes for a charming picture, and at the heart of it, Sora’s legs folded beneath her on Teyla’s bedspread.”
“This is a purely social visit,” Sora says. “And if you sit down, I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
Teyla moves toward the bed while the voice describes her reluctance and gives three perfectly good reasons for her to obey Sora’s request. She has never liked excuses, and this voice is nothing but a grand excuse for her to make foolish decisions. She sits, the basket between them, and with an expression of deep satisfaction, Sora lifts the lid and draws out a soft pastry the size of a cracker.
“Double-folded flatbread,” Teyla says.
“Teyla looked at the soft shape of dough in Sora’s hand, taken aback by the treat. She had expected something else entirely.”
She truly had.
“We have more time for pleasure, under Ladon’s command,” Sora says, and hands Teyla her offering. “And I spent some time in the kitchens last week.”
Teyla takes a small bite from the corner. The taste is familiar; faintly almond, both salty and sweet. She has eaten this during countless winters, always at Tyrus’ fireplace, always with Sora standing by in a flour-dusted apron.
“There’s more,” Sora says, and reaches inside the basket. She opens the basket and shows Teyla the full contents: ripe sunberry peels, sugared tarts, and an enormous cookie with gooey pockets of rich cocoa that smear her fingers when she dips her hand into the basket.
“Why?” Teyla asks, when she has seen everything Sora has brought her.
“Why, indeed? It was a ridiculous question, particularly since it was being asked from Teyla’s bed, where she had allowed Sora to rest. Teyla licked a smudge of sweetness from her finger and swallowed the last of the flatbread. Sora had still not given an answer, but there was no need. Teyla knew why the gift; she knew why they were there; she knew that at any moment she was going to push the basket aside and-“
“I just remembered,” Teyla says abruptly, and stands so quickly her knee nearly gives out. “I must meet with Colonel Sheppard. Thank you for the gift,” she adds, and leaves Sora there, reclined on Teyla’s bed like she’s got nowhere else to be.
***
“I think Heightmeyer would have a lot to say about how pissed off you are over a voice that’s-well, let’s face it. It’s in your own head.”
Teyla narrows her eyes at John, who does not understand the situation at all. “Just because it is in my head does not mean it is mine,” she protests. “I would not tumble into bed with someone over a cookie.”
John frowns at his laptop, where he is methodically typing reports. “Maybe you would,” he says without looking up. “Maybe time really does heal everything.”
“Maybe Colonel Sheppard was the wrong person with whom to discuss the situation. And so was Ronon, for that matter, because Ronon was, at the moment, about to base his opinion upon what type of cookie it had been.”
“Never mind,” she sighs. “I think that perhaps I will talk to Elizabeth.”
***
Elizabeth is in the art studio, where people go during downtime to paint, draw and write. She sits straight-backed on a chair while Major Lorne paints her likeness, swirling blacks and golds that blend into the shade of her hair, his brush curving across her shoulders again and again.
“It sounds as though you’re under a lot of stress,” Elizabeth says. Her eyes soften with sympathy at the corners, but her neck remains elongated and motionless.
“It is stressful,” Teyla admits. The studio is calming, full of creative and focused energy, soothing on her frayed nerves. “But it is quiet, now,” she says, letting the silence soak in as much as possible.
“Maybe you should get some rest while you can,” Elizabeth says, and Teyla is about to agree when Rodney bursts in and comes charging toward her.
“Teyla, Teyla,” he chants as he moves, fingers waving with impatience. “I found her. I know it’s crazy, but Dr. Fandella has been glued to her laptop for the past few days, getting absolutely nothing done, and, well, naturally I wanted to see what she’d been working on, and it was exactly what you said.”
“What is it?” Elizabeth asks.
“A novel, I guess. More like a romance novel. Really terrible stuff, too. Thank God we caught her before she got to the heaving bosoms.”
“I do not know Dr. Fandella,” Teyla says, puzzled by the news. It is one thing to suspect, but another thing entirely to find out for certain.
“No? Well, she knows you. You and all the rest of us,” he says darkly. “You wouldn’t believe the things she wrote.”
“But how can you be certain she will stop?”
“I can’t. That’s why I’m telling Elizabeth, so she can have a nice long talk with Dr. Fandella about how in the Pegasus galaxy, even the most well-intentioned actions can have a lasting negative effect on others.”
“Rodney,” Elizabeth sighs, but she nods and gives Lorne an apologetic smile. “Another time, Major?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and Teyla nods her thanks before Elizabeth leaves, Rodney eagerly leading her back to Dr. Fandella.
“That’s some pretty weird stuff,” Lorne says, dabbing at his painting with the corner of a rag, but Teyla is mesmerized by the bright dashes of gold on his palette, edged by places where he has coaxed orange in to the mix, so that if Sora walked in right now, he could pick up his brush and put her likeness to canvas. She can imagine the portrait now, the stubborn set to Sora’s jaw, the pale slope of her cheek and the glimmer of accusation in her eyes.
Lorne has captured Elizabeth’s proud generosity; she is certain he could do the same with Sora, so perhaps Teyla is under too much stress after all, because she does not know why she is even thinking about this.
“Very strange,” Teyla agrees, and leaves him to his work.
*
*
Sora is still in Teyla’s bed when she returns. She had not been gone a terribly long time, but certainly long enough for Sora to grow bored. Teyla sees the error in her thinking: for some reason, she had assumed that once Dr. Fandella ceased to write about she and Sora, everything between them would go away.
It is a foolish assumption, of course, and here is Sora as proof.
“What do you want?” Teyla asks.
“I want for you to stop acting like you don’t know me. You treat me like one of the guards in the control room, barely a nod as you walk right past.”
“I do not know you as well as I once thought,” Teyla says, stepping around the basket to unlatch her windows. The sea air drifts in and begins to carry off the scent of baked sunberries and sugared pastry.
“But I am trying to make amends. Do I have to try forever? We’re allies, now; the two of us could do great work for our people. We have…we have something,” Sora says, every word a fierce negotiation. She is as persuasive without a knife as she is with one…perhaps more so.
And it must be the voice-the voice that is absent now, but has left its mark of suggestion on her mind-because Teyla notices things she would not have noticed before: the long line of Sora’s body, the newfound maturity that allows her to wait for Teyla’s response, when she would at one time have acted rashly, as though wearing someone down is the only method of attack.
And when Sora swings her feet onto the floor and approaches, Teyla can’t help but see the situation through the foolish narrator’s eyes, which is dangerous because when Sora reaches for her, her mind is cluttered with phrases about the way Sora’s skin looks against her own, about the tight knot of anticipation in her own belly, and beneath that, a dozen phrases to explain her own behavior, this time in her own voice.
She wanted to do great work for her people.
It was said that to share a kiss that tasted of sunberries brought luck.
This could be how her story goes.
Author: lilysaid
Recipient: medie
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Teyla/Sora
Rating: G
Word count: 3500
Disclaimer: Not only do the characters not belong to me, the plot AND title are directly lifted from the Will Farrell movie "Stranger Than Fiction"--a great movie, in case you haven't seen it yet.
It starts during an otherwise perfectly normal meeting. The Genii’s diplomatic team-Ladon, Sora and two scientists-are on one side of the table, with Teyla’s team opposite. Elizabeth sits at the head of the table, and Teyla is trying to maintain an interest in the large chunks of information the scientists are sharing with the table, when a woman’s voice, crisp and clear, drops in from nowhere.
“Teyla did not care about the useful properties of naquadah in relation to spaceship engineering. She was only interested in keeping an eye on the Genii.”
Startled, her head comes up, but when everyone continues to speak and nod as though nothing had happened, she realizes the problem. With a small frown, she removes the radio from her ear and places it on the table. She will have Dr. McKay look at it later, assuming this meeting ever comes to an end.
“Her only consolation was that Sora appeared to find the proceedings as tedious as Teyla found them. Yes, Sora’s eyes were alert, but Teyla could see the false construction of every contour on her smooth girlish face.”
Teyla glances around the table, her hands gripping the edge, readying her to stand. No one else has reacted to the voice at all, not even Sora, although Ronon is looking at her with narrowed eyes.
He leans in. “What’s the matter?” Around her, the scientists exchange rapid-fire insults over research priorities.
“I do not know,” she says uneasily. “Nothing.” Slowly, she relaxes her hands and gives Ronon a brief smile.
“It was past lunchtime. Everyone at the table, soldiers and scientists alike, was ready for lunch. If they did not break soon, Doctor McKay was going to unwrap a cran-apple power bar right at the table and continue on with his mouth full, so Elizabeth-“
“Why don’t we stop for lunch,” Elizabeth says, nodding graciously toward the scientists. “We can pick back up in an hour.”
”The tension in the room released like the valve had been pressed on a tire, and they filed from the room much in the same manner, a rush of people followed by a trickle.”
“Do you hear that?” she asks Ronon, who shrugs.
“Hear what?”
She shakes her head as John and Rodney approach.
“What’s going on? You don’t look so good.”
She takes a few deep, calming breaths. There are probably many explanations for what is happening. “I do not know. I hear a voice.”
“Wraith?” John says.
“No, not the Wraith. It is a woman,” she says.
Ronon slides back onto the edge of the table, his legs hanging freely. “What’s she want?”
“I do not believe she wants anything. She is merely talking about our meeting.”
John’s eyebrows lift into a confused angle.
“I know it sounds strange,” she says. At least the voice has stopped for the time being.
“Did she know anything about the meeting?” John asks, his arms folded suspiciously over his chest. He looks as though he is about to call in a security team.
“She knew that I was very bored.”
He smirks at that and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, yeah. But did she know anything you didn’t?”
“Did she say anything about me?” Rodney demands.
“Of course Dr. McKay thought it was about him. Dr. McKay was only worried that someone might find out that the injury which had caused his tardiness for the meeting was not the result of, as he had professed, a transporter malfunction, but rather of an over-adventurous masturbatory effort.”
“Ah, no,” Teyla says without meeting his eyes. “She did not.”
***
Twenty minutes later, Teyla is in Dr. Heightmeyer’s office with John, Elizabeth, Ronon and Rodney standing around looking nervous. She does not see the point in visiting Dr. Heightmeyer. Kate is a lovely woman, but her diagnosis is always stress, and the truth is that Teyla is not feeling particularly stressed at the moment.
“So, the voice is describing your life as though it’s a story,” Kate says thoughtfully. “Do you feel that your life is a story?”
Teyla does not even know what that is supposed to mean. She catches Rodney giving the woman an incredulous look, his face scrunched up with disdain. “Oh, for- is she going crazy or not?”
“No one’s going crazy, Rodney,” Elizabeth says as she glances at her watch. “Stranger things have happened. Teyla, give me your honest opinion. Do you feel as though this might be some kind of security breach?”
“No,” she says. It feels odd-annoying, perhaps, but not threatening.
“Then, unfortunately, I have to get back to our guests. Keep me updated,” she says to Kate, and exits with John at her heels.
***
“I had a voice in my head once,” Rodney says later, when the Genii are being shown to their rooms. “It was extremely disturbing.”
“I have not heard the voice since this morning,” Teyla tells him. Dr. Heightmeyer thinks this is a good sign. Teyla does not think Dr. Heightmeyer understands what is happening even a little bit. She insists on treating the voice as though it is a product of Teyla’s mind, rather than an outside entity.
“Well, listen. If you wake up naked in a strange bed and need to talk, let me know.”
“That is very kind,” she says. “You will be the first to know.” But he will probably be the second to know if that occurs-which she sincerely hopes it does not-because Ronon has been glued to her side since it began. It is Ronon’s greatest frustration: an invisible enemy.
Sheppard appears from behind Rodney, and catches him with an arm around the shoulders to steer him down the hall. “You coming to eat?” he asks over his shoulder, and she is happy to leave the topic behind.
The mess hall is crowded this time of day. Their usual table is taken, so Sheppard stops them at a table where Sora and Ladon are eating alone. Teyla chooses the seat across from Sora, and Ronon crowds up against her left side.
They all say hello, and it is fortunate that Sheppard is so skilled with small talk, because there are many uncomfortable things between them all. It is the first time Teyla has seen Sora since they released her back to the Genii, since the fight where they had nearly killed one another. Since Sora had wanted her dead.
“But Sora did not seem to want her dead, at the moment.. Between bites of salty potatoes, Teyla searched Sora’s face for a sign, and though she was merely interested in a truce, she couldn’t help but notice the lush curve of Sora’s lip, soft and sensual as it slid against her spoon.”
Teyla frowns. She had noticed no such thing. She notices now, of course, but prior to the intrusive remarks, she had been concerned about mending a once dear relationship. Determined to continue as normally as possible, she looks at Sora-so strange to have such a small space between them-and-
”Their eyes met over their trays, and the two-second stretch of time was long enough for Teyla to be struck by a wave of nostalgia so strong it felt almost like longing in her chest. If there were not so many people around, if Ronon were not crushed to her shoulder, she might have reached right across the table. As it was, she tore her gaze away, pulse pounding in her throat, and took a long drink of tea.”
Ronon leans down. “Is it back?”
She nods, careful not to draw any unwanted attention. If she can just focus, she ought to be able to block out the unwelcome remarks. It is difficult to see Sora, yes, and perhaps she has contemplated what might happen if she were to take Sora aside and make things right, but this disembodied voice seems to be implying more than a simple clearing of the air. The voice doesn’t seem to understand that Sora is here to do a job, and that Teyla has her own duties, as well.
”The tea did nothing to calm her. How could it, when Sora was in such close proximity, her throat taking long swallows of drink, and her nipples pressed so eagerly to the front of her blouse?
Entirely without her permission, Teyla’s gaze flickers up to Sora’s chest, and the sound of her chair pushing away from the table drowns out whatever had come next.
***
She retreats to one of the west balconies where they’ve accumulated a few pieces of furniture, Ronon following at a close distance, and before too long, Rodney and John join them. Ronon stretches out on the small sofa, and Teyla squeezes into the remaining spot.
“What did it say, now?” John asks. He stands with his back against the balcony, hands curved over the smooth rail.
“She,” she corrects. “And she made some observations about Sora.”
“What kind of observations?” Rodney asks. He’s still impatient, but this late at night he becomes more pliable, and he slumps into a large white cushioned chair while he waits. If it were any other time of day, if they were anyplace but this small haven they’ve created, she would hold this close to her chest, but this is a safe place, a place for sharing, not strategizing.
“She had a great deal to say about Sora’s physical attributes,” she admits, unflinching, despite the timid curl of mortification that crawls up her spine.
Rodney’s eyes widen. “Oh. That’s…”
“Dangerous,” John says as he swipes Rodney’s footstool and sits down.
“It is not dangerous, because does not mean what you are thinking,” she says. “However, I would like to look for the source of this voice. Do you have a list of personnel who might be saying these things, or writing them down?” The voice sounds very similar to the few Earth novels she has read, the careful exposition of its character’s private thoughts. If someone is doing this, writing her story, then it needs to stop.
This is not how her story goes.
***
Rodney sends out an inquiry by email the next morning, and by the day’s end they’ve got a small list of women who have published stories like the one that has been intruding in Teyla’s life. She discreetly visits each of the women, but none of them sound familiar, and they all seem to have abandoned writing for the careers that have brought them to Atlantis.
It has become more difficult to block out the voice as it narrates with increasingly rapid pace. And the peculiar thing is that the more quickly the voice describes events, the more quickly things seem to occur. Rising action, Sheppard says proudly when she mentions it, and mumbles something about a climax before slouching off toward the armory.
Whatever it is called, she is not surprised to find Sora at her door that evening.
“Hi,” Sora says, peering past Teyla into her empty room. There is a basket in her arms, and she shifts the weight of it from one arm to another as she waits for Teyla to find her words, which she does not. Instead, she can only look at Sora. In contrast to the suspicion which immediately settles onto Teyla’s shoulders, the narrator’s voice greets Sora with an admiring eye, chasing away that suspicion and painting Sora instead as a timid supplicant, which Teyla finds hard to swallow--and yet there she is, basket in hand, demure black turtleneck drawn across every inch of bare skin.
“Can I come in?”
Teyla snaps back to awareness. She is not bound to follow this path, the path being carved out by some unknown author, but it is too easy to step aside and allow Sora to enter, and then to allow Sora to sit on her bed, when there are two perfectly good chairs nearby.
“Come sit,” Sora says. “It makes me nervous with you standing there like that.”
“I am the one who should be nervous,” Teyla says, but she is not.
Sora holds her eyes for a moment.
“It is clear that Sora knows something Teyla does not. The hint of mirth at the corner of her mouth, the expectant lift of her face into the light, it all makes for a charming picture, and at the heart of it, Sora’s legs folded beneath her on Teyla’s bedspread.”
“This is a purely social visit,” Sora says. “And if you sit down, I’ll show you what I’ve got.”
Teyla moves toward the bed while the voice describes her reluctance and gives three perfectly good reasons for her to obey Sora’s request. She has never liked excuses, and this voice is nothing but a grand excuse for her to make foolish decisions. She sits, the basket between them, and with an expression of deep satisfaction, Sora lifts the lid and draws out a soft pastry the size of a cracker.
“Double-folded flatbread,” Teyla says.
“Teyla looked at the soft shape of dough in Sora’s hand, taken aback by the treat. She had expected something else entirely.”
She truly had.
“We have more time for pleasure, under Ladon’s command,” Sora says, and hands Teyla her offering. “And I spent some time in the kitchens last week.”
Teyla takes a small bite from the corner. The taste is familiar; faintly almond, both salty and sweet. She has eaten this during countless winters, always at Tyrus’ fireplace, always with Sora standing by in a flour-dusted apron.
“There’s more,” Sora says, and reaches inside the basket. She opens the basket and shows Teyla the full contents: ripe sunberry peels, sugared tarts, and an enormous cookie with gooey pockets of rich cocoa that smear her fingers when she dips her hand into the basket.
“Why?” Teyla asks, when she has seen everything Sora has brought her.
“Why, indeed? It was a ridiculous question, particularly since it was being asked from Teyla’s bed, where she had allowed Sora to rest. Teyla licked a smudge of sweetness from her finger and swallowed the last of the flatbread. Sora had still not given an answer, but there was no need. Teyla knew why the gift; she knew why they were there; she knew that at any moment she was going to push the basket aside and-“
“I just remembered,” Teyla says abruptly, and stands so quickly her knee nearly gives out. “I must meet with Colonel Sheppard. Thank you for the gift,” she adds, and leaves Sora there, reclined on Teyla’s bed like she’s got nowhere else to be.
***
“I think Heightmeyer would have a lot to say about how pissed off you are over a voice that’s-well, let’s face it. It’s in your own head.”
Teyla narrows her eyes at John, who does not understand the situation at all. “Just because it is in my head does not mean it is mine,” she protests. “I would not tumble into bed with someone over a cookie.”
John frowns at his laptop, where he is methodically typing reports. “Maybe you would,” he says without looking up. “Maybe time really does heal everything.”
“Maybe Colonel Sheppard was the wrong person with whom to discuss the situation. And so was Ronon, for that matter, because Ronon was, at the moment, about to base his opinion upon what type of cookie it had been.”
“Never mind,” she sighs. “I think that perhaps I will talk to Elizabeth.”
***
Elizabeth is in the art studio, where people go during downtime to paint, draw and write. She sits straight-backed on a chair while Major Lorne paints her likeness, swirling blacks and golds that blend into the shade of her hair, his brush curving across her shoulders again and again.
“It sounds as though you’re under a lot of stress,” Elizabeth says. Her eyes soften with sympathy at the corners, but her neck remains elongated and motionless.
“It is stressful,” Teyla admits. The studio is calming, full of creative and focused energy, soothing on her frayed nerves. “But it is quiet, now,” she says, letting the silence soak in as much as possible.
“Maybe you should get some rest while you can,” Elizabeth says, and Teyla is about to agree when Rodney bursts in and comes charging toward her.
“Teyla, Teyla,” he chants as he moves, fingers waving with impatience. “I found her. I know it’s crazy, but Dr. Fandella has been glued to her laptop for the past few days, getting absolutely nothing done, and, well, naturally I wanted to see what she’d been working on, and it was exactly what you said.”
“What is it?” Elizabeth asks.
“A novel, I guess. More like a romance novel. Really terrible stuff, too. Thank God we caught her before she got to the heaving bosoms.”
“I do not know Dr. Fandella,” Teyla says, puzzled by the news. It is one thing to suspect, but another thing entirely to find out for certain.
“No? Well, she knows you. You and all the rest of us,” he says darkly. “You wouldn’t believe the things she wrote.”
“But how can you be certain she will stop?”
“I can’t. That’s why I’m telling Elizabeth, so she can have a nice long talk with Dr. Fandella about how in the Pegasus galaxy, even the most well-intentioned actions can have a lasting negative effect on others.”
“Rodney,” Elizabeth sighs, but she nods and gives Lorne an apologetic smile. “Another time, Major?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, and Teyla nods her thanks before Elizabeth leaves, Rodney eagerly leading her back to Dr. Fandella.
“That’s some pretty weird stuff,” Lorne says, dabbing at his painting with the corner of a rag, but Teyla is mesmerized by the bright dashes of gold on his palette, edged by places where he has coaxed orange in to the mix, so that if Sora walked in right now, he could pick up his brush and put her likeness to canvas. She can imagine the portrait now, the stubborn set to Sora’s jaw, the pale slope of her cheek and the glimmer of accusation in her eyes.
Lorne has captured Elizabeth’s proud generosity; she is certain he could do the same with Sora, so perhaps Teyla is under too much stress after all, because she does not know why she is even thinking about this.
“Very strange,” Teyla agrees, and leaves him to his work.
*
*
Sora is still in Teyla’s bed when she returns. She had not been gone a terribly long time, but certainly long enough for Sora to grow bored. Teyla sees the error in her thinking: for some reason, she had assumed that once Dr. Fandella ceased to write about she and Sora, everything between them would go away.
It is a foolish assumption, of course, and here is Sora as proof.
“What do you want?” Teyla asks.
“I want for you to stop acting like you don’t know me. You treat me like one of the guards in the control room, barely a nod as you walk right past.”
“I do not know you as well as I once thought,” Teyla says, stepping around the basket to unlatch her windows. The sea air drifts in and begins to carry off the scent of baked sunberries and sugared pastry.
“But I am trying to make amends. Do I have to try forever? We’re allies, now; the two of us could do great work for our people. We have…we have something,” Sora says, every word a fierce negotiation. She is as persuasive without a knife as she is with one…perhaps more so.
And it must be the voice-the voice that is absent now, but has left its mark of suggestion on her mind-because Teyla notices things she would not have noticed before: the long line of Sora’s body, the newfound maturity that allows her to wait for Teyla’s response, when she would at one time have acted rashly, as though wearing someone down is the only method of attack.
And when Sora swings her feet onto the floor and approaches, Teyla can’t help but see the situation through the foolish narrator’s eyes, which is dangerous because when Sora reaches for her, her mind is cluttered with phrases about the way Sora’s skin looks against her own, about the tight knot of anticipation in her own belly, and beneath that, a dozen phrases to explain her own behavior, this time in her own voice.
She wanted to do great work for her people.
It was said that to share a kiss that tasted of sunberries brought luck.
This could be how her story goes.