SGA Fic - The Fine Art of Diplomacy: John and Teyla Thing-a-Thon
Title: The Fine Art of Diplomacy
Author: Kriadydragon
Summary/Description: Teyla does what she has to.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Teyla and John
Spoilers: Season five speculations. I was purposefully vague on a few things to as not to accidentally cross the spoiler line.
Warnings: None
Recipient:
tielan
Notes: Big smushy hug to
reen212000 for the beta. Prompt - "I don't play your rules, I make my own." ~ Pink, Cuz I Can ~ Written for the
john_teyla_fic Thing-a-Thon
The Fine Art of Diplomacy
A leader is a diplomat, Tagan had once said. She must know and respect those she deals with. She must make the decisions that others will not. She must please and placate when her pride demands otherwise. She must learn when to stay and when to walk away; when to fight, and when to give. She must sacrifice heart and soul for the good of all if that is what it comes to.
We cannot afford to make enemies.
Tagan had been a master diplomat. Wise and wondrous in the eyes of a small girl who had resigned herself to the fact that she would never be like him. She had sat in on deals in the making, heard words that resulted in only friendships and coaxed only the best prices from those friends. To young Teyla, all Tagan had to do was speak and it would happen. He could summon the Ancestors back to their cluster of stars if so inclined. Of course he did not realize the extent of his ability. Adults never did.
It was after the Genii's secret was revealed that Teyla came to realize how friendships could be nothing more than a means to an end. Diplomacy had become a trifle thing - necessary. However, in the long run, nothing more than eating away the time with words.
Teyla had attempted to be diplomatic with Michael, over and over and over again, as though speaking just to hear herself speak. Speaking to let herself know she was still alive.
She had come to realize long ago how unreasonable people could be, and still she tried.
“We were all caught in the blast that brought the place down. Sheppard... Sheppard was standing in a bad spot. Got the worst of it. Nearly broke every bone in his body...”
Teyla glared hard at Meelay across the licking flames of the meeting fire. The day was overcast and chilled, but in the close quarters of the log hut, you couldn't tell. Sweat tickled down Teyla's back between her shoulder-blades. In the orange and amber light, more sweat glittered on Meelay's and her father's brow. Daughter and father exchanged a brief and uncertain glance with each other.
“Teyla, I am sorry,” Meelay said weakly. “The people wish retribution for the things the one you call Michael has done. Bring us this Michael, and we will give you your Colonel back. There will be no blood shed.”
“Bloodshed's what they're going to get if you keep him a prisoner,” Ronon said, tone low and full of threat. His hand rested on the butt of his weapon, a silent promise of what would happen if he caught any of the Seevyans so much as scowling in Sheppard's direction.
Teyla laid a calming hand on his arm, though she felt anything but calm herself. A thread stood between her and giving Ronon an imperceptible nod of permission to go free Colonel Sheppard from the prison. Somehow, the Seevyans had discovered Michael was the product of a Lantean experiment. All Teyla could figure was that Michael - or someone under him - had spread this tale to increase hostilities and create obstacles.
And it had worked.
Grief had led to an obsession for retribution and retribution a need for someone to punish. Because it could not be Michael, that someone was Colonel Sheppard.
Fearing hybrids may have been in the vicinity, the Seevyans took Colonel Sheppard when the team had separated to sweep the perimeter. The people then explained their actions and what they wanted, promised Sheppard would not be harmed, then asked that the team leave or else they would go back on that promise. That had been a week and three days ago.
They continued to refuse to meet with anyone from Atlantis, with exception to Teyla, because she was the daughter of an old friend, and Ronon because he was not Lantean. They were not exempt, little good that it did. The Seevyans refused to speak with a Lantean diplomat, refused to let a Lantean medic check on Sheppard, refused medicines and food and aid offered by the Lanteans. They refused everything Lantean-related day after day, which was all Teyla had to offer. But above all, they refused to let Sheppard go, let alone let Teyla see him, unless Michael was brought before the Seevyan council in chains.
“It will take too long,” Teyla said. “Colonel Sheppard is needed, and his people grow restless. They do not even know what condition he is in.”
“He is well,” Meelay's father said a little too quickly.
Teyla landed her sharp gaze on him. Though his wrinkled and bearded face remained impassive, she did not miss the way his leathery cheek flinched.
“Is he?” she asked.
“The Lanteans'll take him by force,” Ronon said.
“Then we cannot guarantee the state of his condition when you find him,” said Meelay's father.
The Satedan rose, tall and dark with menace, his weapon out and in his hands. “Is that a threat?”
Teyla touched his thigh, not as a warning, but as a reminder. As much as she longed to coax these people into complying by any means, the Seevyans were on edge and Sheppard's life was at stake. They could not afford the risk of quick solutions.
“It is if you decide to be fools and act in violence. Bring us this Michael and your Colonel will go free.”
“It's not that easy,” Ronon snarled.
The old man narrowed his eyes. “Then find a way.”
“Let us see him and we will,” Ronon said.
“We cannot do that.”
“Why not!”
Teyla closed her eyes, feeling suddenly nauseous from the heat and thick air. Sweat slicked her like a second skin melting away, sliding down her back, her arms, neck, face.
“He went forward in time. About 48,000 years. Slept for eight hundred years just so he could get back. That's how he knew how to find you. A hologram of me told him where to look. He barely stopped as soon as he got back. Colonel Carter had to order him to slow down long enough just to get something to eat. All he wanted to do was save you.”
Teyla rubbed the back of her over-heated and wet neck, slick as slime beneath her hand. “Because they are fools,” she breathed.
The tent fell silent, the snap and pop of the fire suddenly too loud and intrusive. Every eye turned her way, wide with shock, even a little horror because Teyla Emmagan did not say such things.
Teyla Emmagan did not care.
She rose, forcing Meelay and her father to rise or be looked down upon. “If you wish to take hostages, then take me as well.”
Meelay balked, paling milk white. “Teyla -!”
“I was there,” Teyla said, glaring her into silence. “When Michael was changed, I was there. I am as much a part of this as the Lanteans. Therefore, I should take just as much of the blame. And if you wish to capture Michael, then you need me as bait. He wants me for his experiments.”
Ronon grabbed her arm and hissed her name, but she shook him off. There was much arguing, Meelay pleading for Teyla to be reasonable and her father stammering and babbling pathetic excuses as to why they could not do this. Something about alliances being broken and deals made by Teyla's father before he had died.
Teyla turned a deaf ear to all of it, followed by her back when she marched from the hut and across the frost-caked bare ground that was hard as rock beneath her aching feet. The day had grown colder and it felt good against her heated skin. She walked swiftly past wooden and straw huts to the largest structure the village had: a stone prison of two levels, one of those levels being underground, she knew.
Ronon walked alongside her. “Teyla? What do you think you're doing?”
“What I have to,” she said.
“Do you know what you're doing?”
Teyla lifted her chin. “Yes. I am going to check on John.”
“Carter's going to be pissed.”
“I do not care.”
Meelay and her father continued to plead and babble behind her.
“We could take them, easy,” Ronon whispered. His breath rose in misty coils before vanishing against the gray sky.
Teyla shook her head. “I do not think we will have to.”
The old man went as far as to shout an order for the guards to keep Teyla from entering. They stepped in front of the warped wooden door, their crossbows raised. Ronon was about to lift his blaster when Teyla touched his arm.
“Ronon. Trust me.” She turned to Meelay and the old man, calm yet her resolve having hardened to steel. She knew what she was doing - the only thing she could do. “I am doing this. Two prisoners create far more incentive than one. If you are that eager to punish Michael, then you must arrest me. He will come for me.”
The old man shook his gray, shaggy head ruefully. “We will not take you for Colonel Sheppard.”
Teyla arched an eyebrow. “Is that what I said to do?”
With a heavy sigh of defeat, the old man nodded to the guards. They stepped aside, letting Teyla move through. It was with much reluctance and a last-ditch plea from Meelay that they led her through the trap door into the underground cells: four cells in all smelling of water, mold and urine and lit with dusky light squeezing through thin horizontal window slats. Ronon was not allowed to go beyond the trap door, though that did not stop him from trying until Teyla gave him a stony look that said without words to let this happen. Reluctantly, he acquiesced, and responded with a look that said how much he disliked this, then moved out of sight.
“Since you have been so eager to check on your Colonel...” the old man said. He had the warden take her to the very last cell on the left, through a warped and stained wooden door with a small, barred window. “Then you shall keep him company.”
If that was supposed to be a threat, it was a poor one. Teyla had to lower her face to hide her small smile.
Teyla heard John before she saw him: wet coughing followed by a ragged breath and a wheezing exhale. She squinted into the gloom barely broken by the small window, and saw a body in dark clothes huddled and shivering in the corner. Her breath caught, and she hardly noticed the whine, thud and clank of the door closing behind her.
She moved quickly to John, knelt beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. She could feel the heat of his fever even through two layers of cloth and it made her breath catch and her chest tighten.
“John?”
Sheppard stirred with a groan then a sigh, and rolled his head over the wet rock to look at her. He looked terrible, twice so in the poor lighting: pale, listless, with shadows circling his eyes like bruises, cracked lips and days of stubble. But when he smiled at her, sickly though it was, it was enough to loosen the band around her chest and let her breathe.
“Hhhhey Teyla,” he croaked.
With a gentle squeeze to his shoulder, Teyla smiled back. “John.”
“They...” he coughed. “Finally letting me have visitors?”
The band tightened again, making her heart flutter and her bottom lip tuck awkwardly under her teeth. She took a breath, and with an almost wry smile, said, “Not... exactly.”
When Sheppard struggled to sit up straighter, she helped him. The look on his face was a combination of panic and anger. “So, what? They took you, too? I wasn't enough? Or is this some kind of rescue mission gone to hell?”
“No.” Teyla pressed the back of her hand against John's forehead, where the heat was so heavy it made her skin sweat. “Merely a formality.”
She felt the muscles beneath the skin bunch in a confused furrow. “What the hell do you mean, formality?”
“It was the only way they would let me see you,” Teyla said. She took his wrist, pressing her fingers over the pulse-point, feeling the blood brush rapidly against the skin of her fingers. Too rapid.
“What was?” John asked. Teyla did not answer, knowing she did not need to. It took only seconds for both of John's eyebrows to pinch close together in sudden, confused, horrified realization. “You let them take you?”
“I asked them to.”
“Teyla!” John's protest ended in harsh coughing. Teyla coaxed him into leaning forward by pressing her hand against the back of his shoulder.
“Save your breath. It was my decision.” She lifted both shirts high enough to press her ear against the slick, shivering skin, just as Carson had taught her. A simple knowledge of healing was always useful but Teyla also harbored a secret fascination with medicine, all the more so after having watched John die and come back to life in a single moment. It had amazed her, frightened her and had given her far more hope than the city of Atlantis itself. For if these people could bring back the dead, what else could they do?
Too much, she feared. Far too much.
Closing her eyes, Teyla listened carefully to the deep rush and crackle of John's congested lungs.
“No offense, but it sounds like you weren't firing on all cylinders,” John said, his voice vibrating through his back and tickling Teyla's cheek. “No one asks to get arrested, Teyla. Hell, most people get arrested trying to avoid getting arrested.”
“How long have you been ill?” Teyla asked.
“Don't change the subject,” John said. “Four days.”
Teyla pulled back and lowered John's shirts. The light may have been weak, but not weak enough for her to miss the bruises patching John's pale skin. Anger blossomed deep in her belly. “Did they hurt you?”
John shrugged. “I won't deny putting up a little bit of a fight. Nothing serious, though.” He coughed into his hand. “They had to pin me down once or twice.” He coughed again, harder and louder. Teyla rubbed his back until the jag dissipated.
“Why... did you do this?” he wheezed.
“It was the only way to check on you,” she replied.
“Missed me that much, huh?” John said with a crooked smirk.
Teyla matched it as she settled beside John, arm to arm, the heat of his fever bleeding through her jacket and shirt and warming one side of her body. There was nothing more she could do at the immediate moment than slide her arm around his shoulders and press her hand against the side of his head until it rested against her own shoulder. Food and water would be brought according to the two bowls in the middle of the floor. The food bowl still retained a shallow and congealed puddle of stew. The water bowl was completely dry.
“Seriously,” Sheppard muttered, “you shouldn't have done this. The accommodations...” he coughed. “Accommodations suck... if you can't tell.”
They did indeed suck, and still Teyla did not care. She knew she should, deep down inside where logic and wisdom had been nearly buried by... Teyla was not sure by what they had been buried. She could not call it indifference. She would not feel sick with anger and concern if it were indifference. Her mind wanted to call it exhaustion: not of the body - she felt anything but tired. More... of the spirit, the heart.
She had thought for certain that she was going to die. She, her people, her team... John. Even after being rescued, even when safe back in Atlantis, death hovered like a shadow, always making her so sure that someone was going to die - as though someone had to die.
She was so tired of it, a part of her still waiting, because death should have claimed someone, anyone, by now, and it hadn't. Her mind could not grasp that they were all still alive. So it continued to wait, because waiting had become a deeply ingrained habit.
John drifted off to sleep, perfectly still except for his wet breathing and intermittent shudders. Time had a pale existence. Teyla barely noticed its passing even as the light outside the window waned from white-gray to gray blue.
Meelay came carrying a tray with four bowls and a blanket draped over one arm as though this were her regular duty. She set both down in the middle of the cell just within reach, and then slowly backed away until she stood within the threshold, wringing her hands.
“Teyla please,” she said. “Why are you doing this? There is no reason for it.”
Teyla looked up at her, hard and penetrating. “Did you know Colonel Sheppard was sick?”
Meelay blinked, startled, but said nothing. Teyla gave a curt nod. She had thought as much.
“You would not let us see him,” she said. “This was the only way.”
“Now you have seen him. Will you not leave?”
Teyla widened her eyes. “Leave?” Had she heard correctly? Did they honestly expect her to just get up and walk away, satisfied? Did they believe so easily that she would have few qualms about turning her back on John and let him suffer his illness alone? Did they honestly think such a thing was possible?
Teyla shook her head in disbelief. “Meelay... what is wrong with you? I know you and your people are angry and grieving... but this is foolishness. It is madness. You are risking the wrath of a people far stronger than you. You are condemning a man to death because you are ignoring him! Meelay... this is not a means to an end. This is stupidity!”
Meelay flinched and took a step back. “It is keeping the peace. The people want retribution. So long as they believe they will get it, they will not take matters into their own hands and destroy themselves in the process.”
“They are doing that already! Tell me, where is the wisdom in this? Will you keep Colonel Sheppard indefinitely simply to stifle the idiocy of your own people?”
Meelay balked, shock and anger flashing in her eyes. “Teyla-!”
“By the Ancestors, Meelay! This is not an answer! This is... I do not even know what to call it. I do not even know what it is. You used to be a proud, intelligent people who always did what was best, even if some among you did not agree. This is... this is placation. This is... Meelay -” Again, Teyla shook her head, dismayed and appalled. “This is not an answer.”
Meelay said nothing, and by the way she avoided Teyla's eyes, knew good and well that anything she had to say would justify nothing. Meelay was in intelligent woman - she and Teyla had known each other since they were children - but the while individual was intelligent, the group, sometimes, was not.
It was the group that people feared: turning friends into strangers and human beings into witless animals. Long ago, Teyla would have made an effort to avoid such a harsh assessment.)
Not today, with John shivering beside her and mindless selfishness all around her.
Meelay backed out of the cell, closing the door behind her.
John stirred, shivered, and coughed. “Don't be too hard on her,” he slurred. “She's just confused. They're all confused... scared.”
Teyla kept her arm around his shoulders so that he would remain upright as she leaned forward, inching her fingers over the rim of the tray until she was able to pull it closer. She repeated the process for the blanket that she tucked, with much maneuvering of the both of them, around their bodies.
A diplomat always tries to understand.
Of course John would understand. No, not understand - justify. He tended to blame himself in his own secret way. The Lanteans created Michael, John had agreed to it, therefore all the devastation and death might as well be his fault. Teyla often wondered if, as a child, when John broke something - a toy or priceless object - if he had tried to fix it with the fervor of one who would not stop until it was fixed.
It was a sad fact that there was some truth to it. It was a Lantean mistake, not John's alone, but still a mistake that had spread like a disease. While Michael's captive, there had been times when despair spread deep into Teyla's bones until she knew nothing but regret - regret that the Lanteans had ever come; regret for having put so much faith in them; regret for having known them.
“They are not the Ancestors,” Halling had once said, and he was right.
But then what were the Ancestors? People - people who'd made a mistake that had spread like a disease, then fled when they could not fix that mistake.
John had slept eight-hundred years and almost died trying to save her. He had brought her people back; he had brought her back. It was far more than anything the Ancestors had done.
She did not care to understand. There was nothing to understand. This was madness and she would not placate it. There were times to be diplomatic and times to do what felt right, and what felt right was to be here, now, in this freezing cell with John and ensure that he did not die for what he fought so hard to fix.
Teyla did not need to coax John to drink when she brought the water bowl to his lips. He inhaled the liquid, bringing his trembling hands up to hold the bowl and tilt it more. Guilt pricked Teyla when she had to pull bowl away.
“We have to save it. I do not know how often they come.”
John nodded in understanding. However, when Teyla put the food bowl to his mouth, he was less eager and barely took four swallows. When he managed all he could, Teyla set the dish down and drank and ate her own fill from her own dishes.
Night descended slow, cold and near-black except for the sporadic sliver of silver from the two moons whenever the overcast clouds parted long enough. Despite the blanket, how warm John felt against her and her own warmth, John still shivered, sometimes mumbling. If she listened closely, Teyla could discern words - names, both of people she did not know and people she did know. Her name came up often, always in a tone of worry, even panic.
Teyla tightened her hold around his shoulders. “I am here, John. I am safe. You found me.” Then he would relax.
When morning came, just as cold and gray as yesterday, Meelay returned with more food and water. She entered hesitantly, her body stiff and her expression nervous. She set the tray within reach and began to back out, but stopped to look directly at Teyla.
“His people,” she said, tilting her chin toward John. “Would they... would they attack us?”
Teyla inclined her head. “If it came to it, they would use force.”
Meelay wrung her hands until they were red. “But they have not... because we have their Colonel Sheppard. Because they fear us hurting him... not that we would. It is only a threat -”
“They do not attack because they are not a brutal people. They would rather reason with you. And if they did attack, they would attempt to do so in a way that would not result in casualties. They are explorers, not conquerers.”
Meelay nodded, though Teyla doubted she believed her old friend's words. Fear had clouded her judgment until it was all that she knew how to trust.
“The big man, from Sateda, came. He - he told me to tell you that Carter is upset. That she was relying on you to convince us to release Colonel Sheppard, and that she feels she is running out of options.”
Teyla smiled tiredly. “Tell him that I know what I am doing, and to tell Colonel Carter to have patience.”
Meelay pursed her lips as she looked form Teyla to John. His breathing had gotten worse during the night and Teyla was supporting most of his weight as he leaned up against her.
“You should not be here,” Meelay said. “Being near him will make you sick.”
Teyla's smile tightened. “I would not be here if I was not willing to take that chance.”
“Father will force you from here if he feels you are in danger. He will rescind the treaty between our people.”
Now Teyla frowned, shame grappling with anger, both heating her neck. That treaty spanned centuries, and Teyla remembered her father's yearly efforts to adjust the conditions that would suit both their people's needs. The nights spent in Meelay's house as their fathers talked and talked; adjusting and tuning to perfection the treaty until all were satisfied. There had been times, Teyla recalled, when she woke to hear their fathers still negotiating.
And Teyla was about to destroy it.
Centuries of effort, dead in the blink of an eye. Her heart fluttered fast and she wondered what her father would do - or say - to make it better.
A diplomat must make sacrifices.
But when she looked at John, pale and shaking and fighting just to breathe, anger buried shame.
“Why would I want to keep a treaty with a people that have forgotten what it means to be human? As I recall, your people were in need of it more than mine.”
Meelay flinched as though she had been struck, and glared at Teyla with nervous anger. “You have changed, Teyla Emmagan,” she spat like an insult. “These Lanteans have changed you.”
Tilting her head back against the wall, Teyla closed her eyes and sighed. “But I am not the one keeping a sick and innocent man prisoner.”
“He is not innocent. His people created the monster Michael. He did this to us.”
“What he did has no meaning,” Teyla stated calmly. “It is what he does now that matters. He did not leave me to die, so I will not leave him to die.”
There was no reply, only the whine and thunk of a closing door.
“She has a point,” whispered John's hoarse voice. “Don't wanna make you sick... lose your treaty.”
“I will take my chances,” Teyla said.
“Teyla, please -”
“John...” Teyla's voice caught and she cleared it. She had never heard John beg before. “It is all right. I will be all right. I know what I am doing. Trust me.”
She heard his sigh of defeat; felt it brush warm across her collar bone. “I do,” he said. “But if you so much as sneeze... you're out of here.”
“And who will make me go? You?”
“Your friend said her father was thinking of making you.”
Teyla grinned. “Nothing more than words, believe me. They both know what the outcome will be should they try. Many of their soldiers I sparred with when we were all children.”
She felt John wince.” Ouch.”
Teyla chuckled softly, giving his shoulder a gentle pat. “Exactly.”
When Meelay next brought them food and water, she said nothing except to explain that the lighter-colored bowl contained an herb that would help John's cough. It was a temporary reprieve only that lessened the congestion. By nightfall, John's coughing had worsened, the jags convulsing his body away from Teyla. She did what she could - rubbing his back, keeping him upright - but that was as far as she could go without the aid of medicine.
In the late twilight hours of morning, Teyla awoke to John thrashing, gasping and clawing at his own chest. He had ended up on the floor where he writhed and arched his back into a perfect bow.
Teyla's heart crawled into her throat. “John!” Grabbing him by the shoulders, she lifted him upright and leaned his back against her chest. She unbuttoned his outer shirt and yanked it off, lessening possible restriction to his chest, then leaned him forward and pounded the heel of her hand into his back, again and again, one hollow thump after another with a force that had to be bruising.
“Breathe, John,” she begged. “Breathe, please!” She hammered harder, from heel to fist, against hardened muscles and a rigid spine until she heard the slap of mucus and felt the shuddery expansion of his ribs as he sucked in all the oxygen his stuffed lungs would allow.
Both of them were shaking, just trying to breathe.
“John?” she said, tentative and irrationally afraid that getting him to speak would clog his throat back up.
John coughed, hacked, and spat mucus onto the floor. He nodded weakly but started to list to the side. Teyla shifted herself so that Sheppard's head ended up pillowed on her thigh and she pulled the blanket over him.
Still rubbing his back, she leaned in and whispered a shaky, “Please do not do that again.”
“S-sorry,” John rasped. He looked worse in the increasing light: complexion white, features tight and hollow as though in pain, of which Teyla had no doubts he was in. The overtaxed muscles of his ribcage twitched and fluttered beneath her hand. The bones themselves had to feel as if they were splitting in two.
When Meelay came to deliver their food, she set down the tray, took one look at John, paled and hurried away. Teyla quickly gave John the fragrant water and his breathing immediately eased.
Not much time could have passed when Meelay returned, her father with her as well as two guards. The old man regarded John, then Teyla, frowning his displeasure at the both of them.
“I have decided to be generous,” he said. “For the sake of your father. He was a dear friend to me, and I will not have you sully his name nor make me the enemy in all this. Come.”
Teyla did not move but gripped John's arm protectively. The old man's gray eyes rolled in exasperation.
“He comes as well, you foolish child.”
Teyla relaxed and stood, yet stayed where she was to watch the guards pull John to his uncooperative feet. John moaned, Teyla glared and the guards quailed imperceptibly by adjusting their hold to be more gentle. They definitely had not forgotten.
The both of them were escorted to a hut not far from the prison - the second largest structure in the village, just outside the line of skinny, naked trees marking the forest. Upon entering, Teyla was hit with the pungent scents of herbs and dried flowers, a stuffy yet comfortable puff of heat, and knew this to be the healing house. The guards carried John to one of the back rooms where they carefully laid him out on the bed, then exited to take up positions outside the door. Teyla glanced around and saw, against the right wall, a wooden cot with a straw-stuffed pallet and blanket. In the far left corner was an iron pot that she had the distinct feeling was not for cooking.
“You are not to leave this room for anything,” the old man said. “Either of you.” Then he turned with a twirl of his robes and stalked out, Meelay following reluctantly after him.
Teyla ducked her head to hide her smile. She turned and removed John's boots, then covered him to his waist. The healer walked in - a thin woman of fifty with long hair the color of wet rock and loose movements that spoke of a nimbleness not always common for those her age. She was smiling and pleasant, complaining good-naturedly about her sore back and knees as she fussed around John. She had Teyla lift John to remove his shirt. The cell had been freezing but the healing hut was balmy, and a balance needed to be maintained or the fever would overwhelm him.
It wasn't until the old woman applied a moss-green slave to John's chest that he started awake, eying the old woman warily.
“Teyla?” he rasped.
Smiling, Teyla placed her hand on his bare shoulder. “You are all right, John. She is a healer. Just relax and she will help you.”
“Easy for you to say. You're not the one shirtless and having his chest fondled by an old woman.”
The woman snorted. “Don't flatter yourself, boy. Pretty as you are, I am happily married and my Kif is still more of a looker than you.”
John pouted. “Hey, be nice to the sick guy.”
The woman chuckled, wiped her hands on a cloth then patted John's cheek softly. “This is me being nice, young man.” She poured steaming water from a kettle into a bowl filled with an herb that smelled like fresh spring grass. Having Teyla hold John's head, the healer had him drink a tea that smelled not unlike the earth tea Chamomile. She finished by tugging the blanket up just as far as the tip of John's sternum, ruffled his hair like an affectionate mother, and finally left with the promise of stew later on.
“I like her,” John said, his voice not quite as hoarse as a moment ago. He rolled his eyes up to Teyla. “What about you? You all right? Any sniffles, headaches, joint aches, chills?”
Teyla gave him an indulgent smile. “I am fine.”
John nodded. “What you did wasn't too bright,” he said. He dropped his gaze to his long feet rising up like misshapen pillars beneath the blanket, and worried his lip. Then he looked back up at her the utmost sincerity. “But thanks.”
Teyla wrapped her fingers around his warm wrist and smiled. “You would have done the same.”
He grimaced. “I would have busted you out using a little C-4.”
“All the same, you would have done something, just as I have done something.”
“In a heart beat,” John said with a smile. He let his head loll to the side and his eyes slide shut.
It wasn't until the middle of the next day that the Lanteans were given permission to step foot on the planet. Teyla was not aware of it, so she was surprised to see Dr. Keller enter the room and head immediately over to John, stethoscope out. The Seevyans had come to their senses, she said, and realized that keeping both Sheppard and Teyla would do them no good. At least, that is how the Seevyans put it when they spoke to Colonel Carter. Keller surmised that dealing with the Lanteans was not worth satisfying their vendetta. A stretcher was brought in after Keller's quick check of Sheppard's vitals, and Sheppard and Teyla were able to leave the hut.
As Teyla walked alongside the stretcher with John, Ronon hurried to walk next to her wearing a knowing smirk on his face.
“You knew this would happen,” he said. “You knew that letting them take you would lead to this.”
Teyla kept her gaze straight ahead. “Perhaps.”
Ronon snorted out a chuckle. “You're good.”
Teyla shrugged. She trailed her fingers along the edge of the stretcher until her fingers brushed over John's hand, and she gripped it. The result of her actions had only been a guess - there had been no certainty of what the outcome would be.
She had just wanted to check on John.
The End
Author: Kriadydragon
Summary/Description: Teyla does what she has to.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Teyla and John
Spoilers: Season five speculations. I was purposefully vague on a few things to as not to accidentally cross the spoiler line.
Warnings: None
Recipient:
tielan
Notes: Big smushy hug to
reen212000 for the beta. Prompt - "I don't play your rules, I make my own." ~ Pink, Cuz I Can ~ Written for the
john_teyla_fic Thing-a-Thon
The Fine Art of Diplomacy
A leader is a diplomat, Tagan had once said. She must know and respect those she deals with. She must make the decisions that others will not. She must please and placate when her pride demands otherwise. She must learn when to stay and when to walk away; when to fight, and when to give. She must sacrifice heart and soul for the good of all if that is what it comes to.
We cannot afford to make enemies.
Tagan had been a master diplomat. Wise and wondrous in the eyes of a small girl who had resigned herself to the fact that she would never be like him. She had sat in on deals in the making, heard words that resulted in only friendships and coaxed only the best prices from those friends. To young Teyla, all Tagan had to do was speak and it would happen. He could summon the Ancestors back to their cluster of stars if so inclined. Of course he did not realize the extent of his ability. Adults never did.
It was after the Genii's secret was revealed that Teyla came to realize how friendships could be nothing more than a means to an end. Diplomacy had become a trifle thing - necessary. However, in the long run, nothing more than eating away the time with words.
Teyla had attempted to be diplomatic with Michael, over and over and over again, as though speaking just to hear herself speak. Speaking to let herself know she was still alive.
She had come to realize long ago how unreasonable people could be, and still she tried.
“We were all caught in the blast that brought the place down. Sheppard... Sheppard was standing in a bad spot. Got the worst of it. Nearly broke every bone in his body...”
Teyla glared hard at Meelay across the licking flames of the meeting fire. The day was overcast and chilled, but in the close quarters of the log hut, you couldn't tell. Sweat tickled down Teyla's back between her shoulder-blades. In the orange and amber light, more sweat glittered on Meelay's and her father's brow. Daughter and father exchanged a brief and uncertain glance with each other.
“Teyla, I am sorry,” Meelay said weakly. “The people wish retribution for the things the one you call Michael has done. Bring us this Michael, and we will give you your Colonel back. There will be no blood shed.”
“Bloodshed's what they're going to get if you keep him a prisoner,” Ronon said, tone low and full of threat. His hand rested on the butt of his weapon, a silent promise of what would happen if he caught any of the Seevyans so much as scowling in Sheppard's direction.
Teyla laid a calming hand on his arm, though she felt anything but calm herself. A thread stood between her and giving Ronon an imperceptible nod of permission to go free Colonel Sheppard from the prison. Somehow, the Seevyans had discovered Michael was the product of a Lantean experiment. All Teyla could figure was that Michael - or someone under him - had spread this tale to increase hostilities and create obstacles.
And it had worked.
Grief had led to an obsession for retribution and retribution a need for someone to punish. Because it could not be Michael, that someone was Colonel Sheppard.
Fearing hybrids may have been in the vicinity, the Seevyans took Colonel Sheppard when the team had separated to sweep the perimeter. The people then explained their actions and what they wanted, promised Sheppard would not be harmed, then asked that the team leave or else they would go back on that promise. That had been a week and three days ago.
They continued to refuse to meet with anyone from Atlantis, with exception to Teyla, because she was the daughter of an old friend, and Ronon because he was not Lantean. They were not exempt, little good that it did. The Seevyans refused to speak with a Lantean diplomat, refused to let a Lantean medic check on Sheppard, refused medicines and food and aid offered by the Lanteans. They refused everything Lantean-related day after day, which was all Teyla had to offer. But above all, they refused to let Sheppard go, let alone let Teyla see him, unless Michael was brought before the Seevyan council in chains.
“It will take too long,” Teyla said. “Colonel Sheppard is needed, and his people grow restless. They do not even know what condition he is in.”
“He is well,” Meelay's father said a little too quickly.
Teyla landed her sharp gaze on him. Though his wrinkled and bearded face remained impassive, she did not miss the way his leathery cheek flinched.
“Is he?” she asked.
“The Lanteans'll take him by force,” Ronon said.
“Then we cannot guarantee the state of his condition when you find him,” said Meelay's father.
The Satedan rose, tall and dark with menace, his weapon out and in his hands. “Is that a threat?”
Teyla touched his thigh, not as a warning, but as a reminder. As much as she longed to coax these people into complying by any means, the Seevyans were on edge and Sheppard's life was at stake. They could not afford the risk of quick solutions.
“It is if you decide to be fools and act in violence. Bring us this Michael and your Colonel will go free.”
“It's not that easy,” Ronon snarled.
The old man narrowed his eyes. “Then find a way.”
“Let us see him and we will,” Ronon said.
“We cannot do that.”
“Why not!”
Teyla closed her eyes, feeling suddenly nauseous from the heat and thick air. Sweat slicked her like a second skin melting away, sliding down her back, her arms, neck, face.
“He went forward in time. About 48,000 years. Slept for eight hundred years just so he could get back. That's how he knew how to find you. A hologram of me told him where to look. He barely stopped as soon as he got back. Colonel Carter had to order him to slow down long enough just to get something to eat. All he wanted to do was save you.”
Teyla rubbed the back of her over-heated and wet neck, slick as slime beneath her hand. “Because they are fools,” she breathed.
The tent fell silent, the snap and pop of the fire suddenly too loud and intrusive. Every eye turned her way, wide with shock, even a little horror because Teyla Emmagan did not say such things.
Teyla Emmagan did not care.
She rose, forcing Meelay and her father to rise or be looked down upon. “If you wish to take hostages, then take me as well.”
Meelay balked, paling milk white. “Teyla -!”
“I was there,” Teyla said, glaring her into silence. “When Michael was changed, I was there. I am as much a part of this as the Lanteans. Therefore, I should take just as much of the blame. And if you wish to capture Michael, then you need me as bait. He wants me for his experiments.”
Ronon grabbed her arm and hissed her name, but she shook him off. There was much arguing, Meelay pleading for Teyla to be reasonable and her father stammering and babbling pathetic excuses as to why they could not do this. Something about alliances being broken and deals made by Teyla's father before he had died.
Teyla turned a deaf ear to all of it, followed by her back when she marched from the hut and across the frost-caked bare ground that was hard as rock beneath her aching feet. The day had grown colder and it felt good against her heated skin. She walked swiftly past wooden and straw huts to the largest structure the village had: a stone prison of two levels, one of those levels being underground, she knew.
Ronon walked alongside her. “Teyla? What do you think you're doing?”
“What I have to,” she said.
“Do you know what you're doing?”
Teyla lifted her chin. “Yes. I am going to check on John.”
“Carter's going to be pissed.”
“I do not care.”
Meelay and her father continued to plead and babble behind her.
“We could take them, easy,” Ronon whispered. His breath rose in misty coils before vanishing against the gray sky.
Teyla shook her head. “I do not think we will have to.”
The old man went as far as to shout an order for the guards to keep Teyla from entering. They stepped in front of the warped wooden door, their crossbows raised. Ronon was about to lift his blaster when Teyla touched his arm.
“Ronon. Trust me.” She turned to Meelay and the old man, calm yet her resolve having hardened to steel. She knew what she was doing - the only thing she could do. “I am doing this. Two prisoners create far more incentive than one. If you are that eager to punish Michael, then you must arrest me. He will come for me.”
The old man shook his gray, shaggy head ruefully. “We will not take you for Colonel Sheppard.”
Teyla arched an eyebrow. “Is that what I said to do?”
With a heavy sigh of defeat, the old man nodded to the guards. They stepped aside, letting Teyla move through. It was with much reluctance and a last-ditch plea from Meelay that they led her through the trap door into the underground cells: four cells in all smelling of water, mold and urine and lit with dusky light squeezing through thin horizontal window slats. Ronon was not allowed to go beyond the trap door, though that did not stop him from trying until Teyla gave him a stony look that said without words to let this happen. Reluctantly, he acquiesced, and responded with a look that said how much he disliked this, then moved out of sight.
“Since you have been so eager to check on your Colonel...” the old man said. He had the warden take her to the very last cell on the left, through a warped and stained wooden door with a small, barred window. “Then you shall keep him company.”
If that was supposed to be a threat, it was a poor one. Teyla had to lower her face to hide her small smile.
Teyla heard John before she saw him: wet coughing followed by a ragged breath and a wheezing exhale. She squinted into the gloom barely broken by the small window, and saw a body in dark clothes huddled and shivering in the corner. Her breath caught, and she hardly noticed the whine, thud and clank of the door closing behind her.
She moved quickly to John, knelt beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. She could feel the heat of his fever even through two layers of cloth and it made her breath catch and her chest tighten.
“John?”
Sheppard stirred with a groan then a sigh, and rolled his head over the wet rock to look at her. He looked terrible, twice so in the poor lighting: pale, listless, with shadows circling his eyes like bruises, cracked lips and days of stubble. But when he smiled at her, sickly though it was, it was enough to loosen the band around her chest and let her breathe.
“Hhhhey Teyla,” he croaked.
With a gentle squeeze to his shoulder, Teyla smiled back. “John.”
“They...” he coughed. “Finally letting me have visitors?”
The band tightened again, making her heart flutter and her bottom lip tuck awkwardly under her teeth. She took a breath, and with an almost wry smile, said, “Not... exactly.”
When Sheppard struggled to sit up straighter, she helped him. The look on his face was a combination of panic and anger. “So, what? They took you, too? I wasn't enough? Or is this some kind of rescue mission gone to hell?”
“No.” Teyla pressed the back of her hand against John's forehead, where the heat was so heavy it made her skin sweat. “Merely a formality.”
She felt the muscles beneath the skin bunch in a confused furrow. “What the hell do you mean, formality?”
“It was the only way they would let me see you,” Teyla said. She took his wrist, pressing her fingers over the pulse-point, feeling the blood brush rapidly against the skin of her fingers. Too rapid.
“What was?” John asked. Teyla did not answer, knowing she did not need to. It took only seconds for both of John's eyebrows to pinch close together in sudden, confused, horrified realization. “You let them take you?”
“I asked them to.”
“Teyla!” John's protest ended in harsh coughing. Teyla coaxed him into leaning forward by pressing her hand against the back of his shoulder.
“Save your breath. It was my decision.” She lifted both shirts high enough to press her ear against the slick, shivering skin, just as Carson had taught her. A simple knowledge of healing was always useful but Teyla also harbored a secret fascination with medicine, all the more so after having watched John die and come back to life in a single moment. It had amazed her, frightened her and had given her far more hope than the city of Atlantis itself. For if these people could bring back the dead, what else could they do?
Too much, she feared. Far too much.
Closing her eyes, Teyla listened carefully to the deep rush and crackle of John's congested lungs.
“No offense, but it sounds like you weren't firing on all cylinders,” John said, his voice vibrating through his back and tickling Teyla's cheek. “No one asks to get arrested, Teyla. Hell, most people get arrested trying to avoid getting arrested.”
“How long have you been ill?” Teyla asked.
“Don't change the subject,” John said. “Four days.”
Teyla pulled back and lowered John's shirts. The light may have been weak, but not weak enough for her to miss the bruises patching John's pale skin. Anger blossomed deep in her belly. “Did they hurt you?”
John shrugged. “I won't deny putting up a little bit of a fight. Nothing serious, though.” He coughed into his hand. “They had to pin me down once or twice.” He coughed again, harder and louder. Teyla rubbed his back until the jag dissipated.
“Why... did you do this?” he wheezed.
“It was the only way to check on you,” she replied.
“Missed me that much, huh?” John said with a crooked smirk.
Teyla matched it as she settled beside John, arm to arm, the heat of his fever bleeding through her jacket and shirt and warming one side of her body. There was nothing more she could do at the immediate moment than slide her arm around his shoulders and press her hand against the side of his head until it rested against her own shoulder. Food and water would be brought according to the two bowls in the middle of the floor. The food bowl still retained a shallow and congealed puddle of stew. The water bowl was completely dry.
“Seriously,” Sheppard muttered, “you shouldn't have done this. The accommodations...” he coughed. “Accommodations suck... if you can't tell.”
They did indeed suck, and still Teyla did not care. She knew she should, deep down inside where logic and wisdom had been nearly buried by... Teyla was not sure by what they had been buried. She could not call it indifference. She would not feel sick with anger and concern if it were indifference. Her mind wanted to call it exhaustion: not of the body - she felt anything but tired. More... of the spirit, the heart.
She had thought for certain that she was going to die. She, her people, her team... John. Even after being rescued, even when safe back in Atlantis, death hovered like a shadow, always making her so sure that someone was going to die - as though someone had to die.
She was so tired of it, a part of her still waiting, because death should have claimed someone, anyone, by now, and it hadn't. Her mind could not grasp that they were all still alive. So it continued to wait, because waiting had become a deeply ingrained habit.
John drifted off to sleep, perfectly still except for his wet breathing and intermittent shudders. Time had a pale existence. Teyla barely noticed its passing even as the light outside the window waned from white-gray to gray blue.
Meelay came carrying a tray with four bowls and a blanket draped over one arm as though this were her regular duty. She set both down in the middle of the cell just within reach, and then slowly backed away until she stood within the threshold, wringing her hands.
“Teyla please,” she said. “Why are you doing this? There is no reason for it.”
Teyla looked up at her, hard and penetrating. “Did you know Colonel Sheppard was sick?”
Meelay blinked, startled, but said nothing. Teyla gave a curt nod. She had thought as much.
“You would not let us see him,” she said. “This was the only way.”
“Now you have seen him. Will you not leave?”
Teyla widened her eyes. “Leave?” Had she heard correctly? Did they honestly expect her to just get up and walk away, satisfied? Did they believe so easily that she would have few qualms about turning her back on John and let him suffer his illness alone? Did they honestly think such a thing was possible?
Teyla shook her head in disbelief. “Meelay... what is wrong with you? I know you and your people are angry and grieving... but this is foolishness. It is madness. You are risking the wrath of a people far stronger than you. You are condemning a man to death because you are ignoring him! Meelay... this is not a means to an end. This is stupidity!”
Meelay flinched and took a step back. “It is keeping the peace. The people want retribution. So long as they believe they will get it, they will not take matters into their own hands and destroy themselves in the process.”
“They are doing that already! Tell me, where is the wisdom in this? Will you keep Colonel Sheppard indefinitely simply to stifle the idiocy of your own people?”
Meelay balked, shock and anger flashing in her eyes. “Teyla-!”
“By the Ancestors, Meelay! This is not an answer! This is... I do not even know what to call it. I do not even know what it is. You used to be a proud, intelligent people who always did what was best, even if some among you did not agree. This is... this is placation. This is... Meelay -” Again, Teyla shook her head, dismayed and appalled. “This is not an answer.”
Meelay said nothing, and by the way she avoided Teyla's eyes, knew good and well that anything she had to say would justify nothing. Meelay was in intelligent woman - she and Teyla had known each other since they were children - but the while individual was intelligent, the group, sometimes, was not.
It was the group that people feared: turning friends into strangers and human beings into witless animals. Long ago, Teyla would have made an effort to avoid such a harsh assessment.)
Not today, with John shivering beside her and mindless selfishness all around her.
Meelay backed out of the cell, closing the door behind her.
John stirred, shivered, and coughed. “Don't be too hard on her,” he slurred. “She's just confused. They're all confused... scared.”
Teyla kept her arm around his shoulders so that he would remain upright as she leaned forward, inching her fingers over the rim of the tray until she was able to pull it closer. She repeated the process for the blanket that she tucked, with much maneuvering of the both of them, around their bodies.
A diplomat always tries to understand.
Of course John would understand. No, not understand - justify. He tended to blame himself in his own secret way. The Lanteans created Michael, John had agreed to it, therefore all the devastation and death might as well be his fault. Teyla often wondered if, as a child, when John broke something - a toy or priceless object - if he had tried to fix it with the fervor of one who would not stop until it was fixed.
It was a sad fact that there was some truth to it. It was a Lantean mistake, not John's alone, but still a mistake that had spread like a disease. While Michael's captive, there had been times when despair spread deep into Teyla's bones until she knew nothing but regret - regret that the Lanteans had ever come; regret for having put so much faith in them; regret for having known them.
“They are not the Ancestors,” Halling had once said, and he was right.
But then what were the Ancestors? People - people who'd made a mistake that had spread like a disease, then fled when they could not fix that mistake.
John had slept eight-hundred years and almost died trying to save her. He had brought her people back; he had brought her back. It was far more than anything the Ancestors had done.
She did not care to understand. There was nothing to understand. This was madness and she would not placate it. There were times to be diplomatic and times to do what felt right, and what felt right was to be here, now, in this freezing cell with John and ensure that he did not die for what he fought so hard to fix.
Teyla did not need to coax John to drink when she brought the water bowl to his lips. He inhaled the liquid, bringing his trembling hands up to hold the bowl and tilt it more. Guilt pricked Teyla when she had to pull bowl away.
“We have to save it. I do not know how often they come.”
John nodded in understanding. However, when Teyla put the food bowl to his mouth, he was less eager and barely took four swallows. When he managed all he could, Teyla set the dish down and drank and ate her own fill from her own dishes.
Night descended slow, cold and near-black except for the sporadic sliver of silver from the two moons whenever the overcast clouds parted long enough. Despite the blanket, how warm John felt against her and her own warmth, John still shivered, sometimes mumbling. If she listened closely, Teyla could discern words - names, both of people she did not know and people she did know. Her name came up often, always in a tone of worry, even panic.
Teyla tightened her hold around his shoulders. “I am here, John. I am safe. You found me.” Then he would relax.
When morning came, just as cold and gray as yesterday, Meelay returned with more food and water. She entered hesitantly, her body stiff and her expression nervous. She set the tray within reach and began to back out, but stopped to look directly at Teyla.
“His people,” she said, tilting her chin toward John. “Would they... would they attack us?”
Teyla inclined her head. “If it came to it, they would use force.”
Meelay wrung her hands until they were red. “But they have not... because we have their Colonel Sheppard. Because they fear us hurting him... not that we would. It is only a threat -”
“They do not attack because they are not a brutal people. They would rather reason with you. And if they did attack, they would attempt to do so in a way that would not result in casualties. They are explorers, not conquerers.”
Meelay nodded, though Teyla doubted she believed her old friend's words. Fear had clouded her judgment until it was all that she knew how to trust.
“The big man, from Sateda, came. He - he told me to tell you that Carter is upset. That she was relying on you to convince us to release Colonel Sheppard, and that she feels she is running out of options.”
Teyla smiled tiredly. “Tell him that I know what I am doing, and to tell Colonel Carter to have patience.”
Meelay pursed her lips as she looked form Teyla to John. His breathing had gotten worse during the night and Teyla was supporting most of his weight as he leaned up against her.
“You should not be here,” Meelay said. “Being near him will make you sick.”
Teyla's smile tightened. “I would not be here if I was not willing to take that chance.”
“Father will force you from here if he feels you are in danger. He will rescind the treaty between our people.”
Now Teyla frowned, shame grappling with anger, both heating her neck. That treaty spanned centuries, and Teyla remembered her father's yearly efforts to adjust the conditions that would suit both their people's needs. The nights spent in Meelay's house as their fathers talked and talked; adjusting and tuning to perfection the treaty until all were satisfied. There had been times, Teyla recalled, when she woke to hear their fathers still negotiating.
And Teyla was about to destroy it.
Centuries of effort, dead in the blink of an eye. Her heart fluttered fast and she wondered what her father would do - or say - to make it better.
A diplomat must make sacrifices.
But when she looked at John, pale and shaking and fighting just to breathe, anger buried shame.
“Why would I want to keep a treaty with a people that have forgotten what it means to be human? As I recall, your people were in need of it more than mine.”
Meelay flinched as though she had been struck, and glared at Teyla with nervous anger. “You have changed, Teyla Emmagan,” she spat like an insult. “These Lanteans have changed you.”
Tilting her head back against the wall, Teyla closed her eyes and sighed. “But I am not the one keeping a sick and innocent man prisoner.”
“He is not innocent. His people created the monster Michael. He did this to us.”
“What he did has no meaning,” Teyla stated calmly. “It is what he does now that matters. He did not leave me to die, so I will not leave him to die.”
There was no reply, only the whine and thunk of a closing door.
“She has a point,” whispered John's hoarse voice. “Don't wanna make you sick... lose your treaty.”
“I will take my chances,” Teyla said.
“Teyla, please -”
“John...” Teyla's voice caught and she cleared it. She had never heard John beg before. “It is all right. I will be all right. I know what I am doing. Trust me.”
She heard his sigh of defeat; felt it brush warm across her collar bone. “I do,” he said. “But if you so much as sneeze... you're out of here.”
“And who will make me go? You?”
“Your friend said her father was thinking of making you.”
Teyla grinned. “Nothing more than words, believe me. They both know what the outcome will be should they try. Many of their soldiers I sparred with when we were all children.”
She felt John wince.” Ouch.”
Teyla chuckled softly, giving his shoulder a gentle pat. “Exactly.”
When Meelay next brought them food and water, she said nothing except to explain that the lighter-colored bowl contained an herb that would help John's cough. It was a temporary reprieve only that lessened the congestion. By nightfall, John's coughing had worsened, the jags convulsing his body away from Teyla. She did what she could - rubbing his back, keeping him upright - but that was as far as she could go without the aid of medicine.
In the late twilight hours of morning, Teyla awoke to John thrashing, gasping and clawing at his own chest. He had ended up on the floor where he writhed and arched his back into a perfect bow.
Teyla's heart crawled into her throat. “John!” Grabbing him by the shoulders, she lifted him upright and leaned his back against her chest. She unbuttoned his outer shirt and yanked it off, lessening possible restriction to his chest, then leaned him forward and pounded the heel of her hand into his back, again and again, one hollow thump after another with a force that had to be bruising.
“Breathe, John,” she begged. “Breathe, please!” She hammered harder, from heel to fist, against hardened muscles and a rigid spine until she heard the slap of mucus and felt the shuddery expansion of his ribs as he sucked in all the oxygen his stuffed lungs would allow.
Both of them were shaking, just trying to breathe.
“John?” she said, tentative and irrationally afraid that getting him to speak would clog his throat back up.
John coughed, hacked, and spat mucus onto the floor. He nodded weakly but started to list to the side. Teyla shifted herself so that Sheppard's head ended up pillowed on her thigh and she pulled the blanket over him.
Still rubbing his back, she leaned in and whispered a shaky, “Please do not do that again.”
“S-sorry,” John rasped. He looked worse in the increasing light: complexion white, features tight and hollow as though in pain, of which Teyla had no doubts he was in. The overtaxed muscles of his ribcage twitched and fluttered beneath her hand. The bones themselves had to feel as if they were splitting in two.
When Meelay came to deliver their food, she set down the tray, took one look at John, paled and hurried away. Teyla quickly gave John the fragrant water and his breathing immediately eased.
Not much time could have passed when Meelay returned, her father with her as well as two guards. The old man regarded John, then Teyla, frowning his displeasure at the both of them.
“I have decided to be generous,” he said. “For the sake of your father. He was a dear friend to me, and I will not have you sully his name nor make me the enemy in all this. Come.”
Teyla did not move but gripped John's arm protectively. The old man's gray eyes rolled in exasperation.
“He comes as well, you foolish child.”
Teyla relaxed and stood, yet stayed where she was to watch the guards pull John to his uncooperative feet. John moaned, Teyla glared and the guards quailed imperceptibly by adjusting their hold to be more gentle. They definitely had not forgotten.
The both of them were escorted to a hut not far from the prison - the second largest structure in the village, just outside the line of skinny, naked trees marking the forest. Upon entering, Teyla was hit with the pungent scents of herbs and dried flowers, a stuffy yet comfortable puff of heat, and knew this to be the healing house. The guards carried John to one of the back rooms where they carefully laid him out on the bed, then exited to take up positions outside the door. Teyla glanced around and saw, against the right wall, a wooden cot with a straw-stuffed pallet and blanket. In the far left corner was an iron pot that she had the distinct feeling was not for cooking.
“You are not to leave this room for anything,” the old man said. “Either of you.” Then he turned with a twirl of his robes and stalked out, Meelay following reluctantly after him.
Teyla ducked her head to hide her smile. She turned and removed John's boots, then covered him to his waist. The healer walked in - a thin woman of fifty with long hair the color of wet rock and loose movements that spoke of a nimbleness not always common for those her age. She was smiling and pleasant, complaining good-naturedly about her sore back and knees as she fussed around John. She had Teyla lift John to remove his shirt. The cell had been freezing but the healing hut was balmy, and a balance needed to be maintained or the fever would overwhelm him.
It wasn't until the old woman applied a moss-green slave to John's chest that he started awake, eying the old woman warily.
“Teyla?” he rasped.
Smiling, Teyla placed her hand on his bare shoulder. “You are all right, John. She is a healer. Just relax and she will help you.”
“Easy for you to say. You're not the one shirtless and having his chest fondled by an old woman.”
The woman snorted. “Don't flatter yourself, boy. Pretty as you are, I am happily married and my Kif is still more of a looker than you.”
John pouted. “Hey, be nice to the sick guy.”
The woman chuckled, wiped her hands on a cloth then patted John's cheek softly. “This is me being nice, young man.” She poured steaming water from a kettle into a bowl filled with an herb that smelled like fresh spring grass. Having Teyla hold John's head, the healer had him drink a tea that smelled not unlike the earth tea Chamomile. She finished by tugging the blanket up just as far as the tip of John's sternum, ruffled his hair like an affectionate mother, and finally left with the promise of stew later on.
“I like her,” John said, his voice not quite as hoarse as a moment ago. He rolled his eyes up to Teyla. “What about you? You all right? Any sniffles, headaches, joint aches, chills?”
Teyla gave him an indulgent smile. “I am fine.”
John nodded. “What you did wasn't too bright,” he said. He dropped his gaze to his long feet rising up like misshapen pillars beneath the blanket, and worried his lip. Then he looked back up at her the utmost sincerity. “But thanks.”
Teyla wrapped her fingers around his warm wrist and smiled. “You would have done the same.”
He grimaced. “I would have busted you out using a little C-4.”
“All the same, you would have done something, just as I have done something.”
“In a heart beat,” John said with a smile. He let his head loll to the side and his eyes slide shut.
It wasn't until the middle of the next day that the Lanteans were given permission to step foot on the planet. Teyla was not aware of it, so she was surprised to see Dr. Keller enter the room and head immediately over to John, stethoscope out. The Seevyans had come to their senses, she said, and realized that keeping both Sheppard and Teyla would do them no good. At least, that is how the Seevyans put it when they spoke to Colonel Carter. Keller surmised that dealing with the Lanteans was not worth satisfying their vendetta. A stretcher was brought in after Keller's quick check of Sheppard's vitals, and Sheppard and Teyla were able to leave the hut.
As Teyla walked alongside the stretcher with John, Ronon hurried to walk next to her wearing a knowing smirk on his face.
“You knew this would happen,” he said. “You knew that letting them take you would lead to this.”
Teyla kept her gaze straight ahead. “Perhaps.”
Ronon snorted out a chuckle. “You're good.”
Teyla shrugged. She trailed her fingers along the edge of the stretcher until her fingers brushed over John's hand, and she gripped it. The result of her actions had only been a guess - there had been no certainty of what the outcome would be.
She had just wanted to check on John.
The End