It wasn't her right to mourn him like she did.
She'd wake up beside him in the morning's first glow, his aroma of crisp dew soaking through her. With one smile he'd saturate her very marrow so deep she could feel his heartbeat miles away. He'd pause just long enough to know he wouldn't be forgotten, than creep from her tent, trying not to rouse her from pretend slumber. Once he was without he'd bid an unabashed good morning to her father and any villager that happened to be in his path.
On these mornings she would think of every offworld male who was afraid for his life because he had dared to look at her with more than professional interest. Tagan was an imposing man, but he never found the need to uphold his daughter's honor. Those men who found her lovely would wish they'd never seen her after facing Wyatt, the almost brother who shared her tent.
He called her his sibling of fire, better than blood, and stood to the world as the son of Tagan Emmagan. They held a connection deeper than the fleeting kind that Wyatt shared with every other female 'acquaintance.' He loved her better than all of them. He called her his true love, the one who would own his soul no matter how many women he would burn through.
There was a flawless formula to their midnight rendevous. First, He would find his way back through the ring of the ancestors after several days 'solidifying foreign ties' and meander to Teyla's tent.
Next, he would extol the virtues of the culture he'd adopted for the week, and of the certain young maiden who had fallen in love with him. Teyla's expression would never change, accepting that devastatingly good looks would do them all good, yet wishing he would choose another way. Then he would smile, attempting, and succeeding to use the same technique on roguish charm as he had on his fling.
Those girls always believed that if it were up to him he would stay by their side until his last breath, but Teyla knew the truth. In fact, most times he used her as his excuse. "Were it not for my duty darling. My beloved, I swore an oath to Tagan, and that cannot be broken. He raised me, I owe him my life more times than I can count, and I will not betray him." Then the girl would offer to stay by his side, to follow him home to Athos and make a new life there.
This step she could reenact breath for breath. He'd pause for a moment, than take her hands in his own, drawing them close to his heart, placing a gentle kiss on her palms. "I will always, always love you. I love you too much to tie you to my fate beloved. You deserve peace darling, a life of joy and love, and I cannot give you that." He would brush his fingertips across her cheek, pushing back the strands of hair that obstructed her flawless face, unmarred by the stick ring, a daughter designed for trade, not leadership.
"It is my calling to die for the house of Tagan, like my father, and all my brethren before me, I will fulfill my oath. It demands my life, and I must give it."
Then there was the pregnant pause. His ultimate weapon that only one woman had been able to resist. He would gently release her hands and place his palms on her cheeks with restrained passion burning in his eyes. He'd brush his thumb along her cheekbone and close his eyes for a breath, pretending to fight the urge to follow his heart rather than his honor. Then he would touch his forehead to hers, and kiss her lightly before pulling back and suppressing his saunter until all the way through the ring.
Athos would have a trading partner for life, because though Wyatt was a cad, he at least had the common sense to choose girls with influence as the object of his affection. Wyatt would own a little piece of that girl's heart forever, and as she rose to marry the leader of her people, she would honor the alliance with Athos above all.
When he'd summarized his exploits for the week he'd pretend to be slightly remorseful but with that same sparkle in his eye that meant he had his sights set for a new conquest. The elders never scolded him because, though they preferred traditional methods of negotiation, it was effective. (And if you spoke to Haling when he'd had just enough to drink he'd tell you tales of the rather lascivious behavior the most fastidious of the elders were known for in their younger years.)
Wyatt would spend the night catching up on all the village news, and giving Teyla the pressure valve she'd been seeking. He came back to the one he referred to as wife when he was playing, rolling the duties of husband and brother into one ripping her heart all the more.
He was eight years older than Teyla and slept by her side beyond the age of manhood, only using his tent when he had other purposes than sleeping. Even then, when his partner was spent, he'd roll to the side of his tent that lay closest to Teyla and guard her through layers of rawhide.
Athos thought them to be best friends, as did he. Neither suspected the torture she endured every time he neglected to return with the trading party. Visions of him proclaiming undying love to a maid on some far off world tormented her sleep. But he would come back to her, and that had to be enough. They got a part of him that she would never know, but she got his core, the very essence of his being belonged to her and no other. She never thought she could love another man, never marry, because every time she met his eyes she would have betrayed her husband.
So she loved him. Simple and chaste from afar, but deeper than anything he shared with his others.
There was a breath when she could've shown her emotion. But every villager with eyes to see would've known. She could've cried, could've taken her chance to let the pain run deep and be free of it. But she refused. She chose to bear the scar rather than let the blood flow clean and pure.
His Brea collapsed in a heap where she had been told the news. The beautiful woman who Wyatt had proposed to lacked the strength to stand now that she had been robbed of the father of her unborn child. Others had known pain like this, lost husbands of a lifetime, little ones, wives heavy with child, everyone had felt this loss, but she was tasting it for them all.
They'd loved Wyatt unequivocally, as the beloved son of the whole Athosian race. His marriage, his child, was life ensured for them all. Despite numerous offers Teyla hadn't shown an interest in any man, so through him would come their next chief. This accidental child had given him reason to spend more time in another woman's tent than Teyla's, and only in front of her eyes did he show his fear at this fate.
It had been a hunt. He told only Teyla that he needed his last few days of freedom before he married; and then he fell. The rock was slick from rain, and he was running down the mountainside to impress the younger brothers of his betrothed. The fall had been sudden, the rocky path crumbling beneath his sure feet and carrying him down the mountainside. His color was ashen when they reached him, and with his last breath his eyes cleared and he muttered the name of Tagan.
The village parted as Teyla walked through, deferring to her strength. Teyla knelt by the side of this lovely woman. This one who had taken her dream, this subject of midnight conversation, this lithe creature who had unknowingly forced Wyatt into responsibility. He usually never found his loves from within the village, but the ethereal Brea was too beautiful to pass by. He would have left her for another, but that was a truth Teyla would never share.
She was collapsed in a heap like Teyla's soul. He had been laid on funeral pyre, a celebration of the smoldering heart that chance had extinguished. She shed tears, but Brea wept, and the world wept with her.
All Teyla wanted was to lay by his side one last time. Cry into his shoulder and plead with him like a child, beg him to take up his bed and walk. She felt life bleeding out of her, consuming the tenderness of her heart and walling it up with stone. She could never relish in the pain as Brea did, it wasn't her right to lose herself to grief. She had let herself love him from afar, and that would be the fate of her pain.
She wrapped her arms around the shaking willow and whispered words of comfort in her ear. She told her sweet lies of his love for her, and how he met news of his unexpected child with joy. Whatever pain she felt would never be tasted. As long as she kept breathing her people would too.
Now here she sat, leaning over the balcony railing, gazing out at the pitch water. She knew it was there, she could smell the tang of salt on the wind, and hear the thunder of the waves below, both stirred by the coming storm.
The rest of Atlantis had made their way inside, and she could feel their stares through the glass of the commissary. The wind had intensified during her reverie, and the whip of the brine stung her skin. Still, she wasn't ready to go in. She wanted these few moments of peace, a chance for the pain to wash over her like those waves below and take her calm back for another few months.
She felt fabric slide around her shoulders, and restrained her involuntary jump, refusing to acknowledge that she hadn't heard him coming. She slipped her arms into the sleeves of the coat, realizing from the too broad shoulders and cuffs that reached around her hands that the coat was John's.
He leaned onto the railing beside her and held out held out a thermos. "Mint truffle." She wrapped her stiff fingers around the canister, feeling the warmth seep through.
He held his place next to her for a moment more, holding his breath as he debated saying something, anything. In that moment she would've told him about Wyatt, and he knew it too. He let his breath go, blending with the air flowing past them both. That was how he lent his strength, all the words left unsaid that coursed between them both shared in one breath. A piece of soul he gave willingly.
He stepped back from the railing and headed to the doors leading into the commissary. She broke her gaze from the darkness spread before her and watched him walk away. There was a jaunt to his lean frame, and with the distance he put between them she could finally admit to herself what her attempted distance couldn't deny.
She thought of Wyatt more and more the longer she dwelt within Atlantis. There were years when she would've given anything to call the daughter the bore Wyatt's eyes her own. In her darkest moments she caught herself hoping that Brea might be culled, than at least she would have some piece of him.
All that love, a lifetime of it unrequited. Now she felt like she was steeped in betrayal. He was their soul, and somehow she believed that so long as she still loved him she hadn't left her people alone on the mainland. Her love for him was love for them, but now she was unfaithful.
It was the smell of his jacket that gave him away. She knew long before the fabric graced her skin that it was his, she knew when it touched the air outside. The size meant nothing, it was the smell.
Rodney called it musk of Aqua Velva, but it was more than that. The saltwater suited him, and that sparkle of where sea met sky followed him everywhere, and glinted in his mischievous eyes. That warm sticky scent lingered on his jacket, and now it filled her.
She would've told him. As he stood next to her on that balcony she would've told him the deep story that had helped define her existence. And he would've understood. It would've changed nothing between them, he understood her well enough already that he didn't need to know the stories behind her personality; those didn't matter. What mattered was who she was now, and that's all he needed to know.
She watched that long, lean jaunt hesitate at the door, wondering if he'd done enough for whatever was bothering her. His smooth stride picked back up after just a moments pause, pretending he didn't doubt himself. She couldn't help but smile.
This is why she didn't like letting the wall down, even in private. There were problems when people saw her crying, but even more came from the things she couldn't deny any more when that wall was breached. She'd had the dream a few times before, where Wyatt pled with her to let someone in. To rip through the wall that she let control her, the one that had stopped her from speaking to Wyatt when she had the chance. There was more to it this time, and she knew it. There were orders to be followed, regulations that neither could ignore, and a duty to both their peoples. That made it all the easier to maintain the wall.
But for this moment they could both dream. She felt him standing on the other side of the door, picturing him leaning against the doors, willing Atlantis to keep them closed even though his subconscious was screaming at her to open them. They could imagine the day John was released from his post, or when Wyatt's child was old enough to become chieftain of their people. The day duty didn't control them both.
If either ever asked they would do it. Her adultery of the soul would pass the point of no return, she would betray her people and her legacy for the man waiting on the other side of that door. The city would indulge him for days after moments like these, times when what he wanted floated so close to the surface. After generations of loneliness the city wanted her one son to find joy, and couldn't understand why they skirted one another.
The wall was going back up, rivaling the one he had in place, the ramparts that kept them both safe. She drank deeply from the cocoa as she let her mind wander, and thought back to her younger days. A time when she never thought she'd love the smell of salt better than the smell of dew.
Thanks for reading, and I'd be deeply indebted if you'd leave a review concerning the brilliance or stupidity of the story. I was in a Teyla mood, and I thought I'd run with it.