Title: Meridian
Summary: He found that despite his protestations, he was glad of her company.
Characters: John and Teyla Ronon & Rodney
Pairing: John-Teyla
Rating: T
Notes: Um... the author requests that the readers not kill her.
"You should not be out here."
John lifted his groggy head and met her eyes. She'd been crying, he could tell. If he was honest, he had been too. He lowered his eyes again, to the puddle near her feet, to the reflection of Atlantis in it's still surface.
He didn't need this.
He turned back to the sea before him, ignoring the shiver that shook his body. He gulped down the bitter lump in his throat and blinked back the sudden tears, shaking his head in irritation.
"Just... Go back inside, Teyla."
He heard a noise that sounded like a sniff and he wished that she would just go inside. He was having a hard enough time dealing with this himself without having to deal with her as well. He lifted an aching arm to his eyes and rubbed, trying to dislodge the grit that had taken up permanent residence there.
"You know I cannot."
He sighed and dropped his head into his hands.
"Just... please." He looked over the dark waters, the dangerous waves. "I really want to be alone right now."
"I do not."
He turned to her again, taking in her frame, backlit by the lights of the city he'd come to call home and closed his eyes against the hot tears there.
She sat beside him, close but not close enough and stared at the waters with him, her hair blowing in the wind that whipped at the towers and spires of the city. It had long since ceased stinging his exposed skin. The heavy clouds hung low in the sky, merging with the horizon. The sea was an eerie green, reflecting the clouds, mirroring John's mood.
It just wasn't right.
"I'm not ready to die," he muttered quietly, hoping the wind swallowed his words before she heard them.
He saw, from the corner of his eye, her head turn towards him, her eyes swimming with tears and he gulped again, sliding his eyes away from her. There was a pain in his chest that had nothing to do with the radiation poisoning.
"I believe no one ever truly is."
He nodded and turned his face to her, hoping his smile looked more sincere than it felt on his features. From the look on her face, he knew it didn't and he drew his lips in between his teeth in an attempt to ward off the coming sob.
He saw a tear slide over her eye lid and he turned away from her.
He didn't need this.
"I read this book once... The guy had AIDS – a disease that was killing him – and it was horrific, he couldn't..." he trailed off and bit his lip, his thumb worrying the skin on the ring finger. "Let's just say he didn't have a great life experience after that and... he went to Heaven and he asked to go back..." There was a silent pause where he could feel her gaze on his face, waiting for him to continue but he wasn't sure he could. "He wasn't ready to die but the Angels... they gave him the chance to go back..."
They didn't say anything for a while after that, only sat in silence and he found that despite his protestations, he was glad of her company.
He started when her hand reached out and touched his arm just as the first droplets of rain smattered the ground.
"You will not be alone, John," she told him with sincerity and John once again tried to keep his angry tears at bay.
He shook his head and lifted her hand from his arm, cradling it in his hands instead, and watched her for a moment as she searched his face.
"Everyone dies alone."
She conceded with a nod, her eyes falling to their clasped hands. He tried to withdraw them but she held onto him. The rain continued to fall around them and he looked up to her face, watched as the rain trickled down her face, as it soaked her hair, as it did the same to him.
"Then we will be with you until you do."
John looked away from her then, to the sight of the wide expanse of sea before him and he breathed it in, breathed in the scent of home; salty air, metal spires, her. He resisted the urge to gag as his stomach rolled, as the acrid bile rose up his throat, as his eyes filled with tears of pain.
"This sucks," he said in an attempt at joviality after his stomach emptied itself of its meagre contents but she did not smile. Instead, she watched him with penetrating eyes and he made himself look away.
"Did Doctor Beckett not say that the Ancients helped Doctor Jackson when this happened to him?"
John pursed his lips, not wanting to think that Jackson had stolen his thunder. Not wanting to think that the Ancients took care of him instead of one of their own.
That thought made him laugh, the sound unkind in his throat.
"He did." He looked down to their clasped hands, to her sodden uniform jacket, to her fearful eyes. He closed his eyes for a moment and let his mind wander. "Not seeing any help – Ancient or otherwise," he murmured, his lips quirking up at one side, an attempt at a smile in a situation that warranted none.
"John..."
He turned to her and shook his head, drawing her hand closer to his body, relishing in the momentary reprieve her touch offered.
"I don't want to ascend."
He hoped she heard the finality in his tone.
"Rodney told me of your heaven." John felt his heart constrict at that but he didn't flinch, didn't turn to her. The only outward sign that he was listening was the almost imperceptible squeeze he applied to her fingers in his. "It sounds better than another plane of existence."
John let out an airy laugh and dropped her hand from his, rubbing it through his soaked hair. More rain fell but neither paid it any heed.
"I don't think heaven extends to the Pegasus galaxy." He could see her frown and he turned to her, smiling lightly. "And even if it did, I don't think I make the grade."
"You are a good man."
"I've done some bad things."
"For good reason."
John sighed and met her gaze, letting it numb his pain if even for a moment.
"There's never a good reason for killing another person." He laughed lightly. "Not according to the man who does the marking."
The metaphor wasn't entirely lost on her, he could see and he was glad. He didn't feel like explaining it to her. The pain had returned and his eyes burned, his skin felt as though it was peeling from his muscles, those muscles being torn from his skin.
The morphine had worn off.
"I think I should go back to the infirmary," he said as he looked down to his exposed skin and saw red blisters where minutes before there had been none. He looked away from them, to the sea once again and then to her face.
As she helped him stand, her grip around his waist firm, he leaned against her more heavily than he should have. When he slipped his arm around her waist, he held her tighter than he should have. And when he murmured her name, it held more emotion that he had a right to bestow on her.
"It is all right, John," she said quietly, her own emotions clear. "I know." He nodded quickly, not able to find it within himself to be embarrassed that he hadn't been more discrete. "I have always known."
"Good," he said at length after they began walking to the transporter, his weight almost too much for his weak legs. As they stepped into the transporter and Teyla propped him against the wall, he reached out to touch her arm, to stop her from pressing the button and she turned to him, quizzical and sad. "So have I."
He could see her gulp, could see a sheen of tears in her eyes and he bit back his own hitched breath. They stared, her hand poised midair, his fingers grazing her skin and he knew. He knew that he'd let it go, that he'd missed it and now it was too late.
He dropped his fingers and looked away.
When the doors opened again, they were outside the infirmary and it was Ronon who held him up as he manoeuvred his way to his bed. As he lay there, the bandages covering his body, it was Rodney who stood by his side.
As he closed his eyes, he could imagine the three of them poised around his bed, silent sentries against the inevitable.
As the pain slipped away to darkness, it was her sobs he heard, Ronon's loud steps and Rodney's loud huff of breath.
Not everyone died alone.