ITLE: The Prophecy : Journey

AUTHOR: Illman

RATING: PG for some violence and language later on

SEASON: set 3 years after they have arrived on Atlantis

MAJOR CHARACTERS: mainly John Sheppard and Teyla Emmagen

DISCLAIMERS: The characters, setting, etc, all belong to MGM, Gecko,

the Sci-Fi Channel.... I own nothing.

NOTE: Any mangled science, botched sentences and general oversights

are my fault. We haven't seen a lot about the Athosian culture yet, so

I'm making up many of the details.

SUMMARY: The key to defeating the Wraith may lay in an ancient

prophecy. But are John and Teyla willing to pay the price?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Can you blame a fic on bad planning? This fic got

started a while ago when I had an entire day to kill at the airport

waiting for a flight. .

FEEDBACK: Sure, concrit as good as well

SPOILERS: nothing specific , maybe tiny bits of Rising

A/N: You should really read The Prophecy: Prophecy first, otherwise it probably will not make a lot of sense.

Perfect silent reigned over the ruins on Athos, as John and Teyla sat next to each other on the edge of a cliff. The incredible beauty of the scenery almost let them forget the turbulent events of the previous week and the challenges that awaited them in the future.

John smiled as he observed Teyla who was looking ahead, her mind miles away. Now that he knew that they were going to be all right, he trusted her implicitly. He had had no choice but to follow her to Athos, if he wanted to live, Athos held the last promise of a cure. John had never been afraid to die. He had risked his life for his men more than once. To die for a just cause or to die protecting one's men was one thing, dying of a freakish genetic mutation was another matter. Although he trusted Teyla in all matters, including when it came to the Prophecy, he still wished he had her faith in the words written thousands of years ago.

Teyla's hand on his shoulder dragged him away from his thoughts.

"You should go back to the Jumper and lie down again. You'll need your strength later." Teyla got up to her feet and offered to help him up. John hated to admit to weakness, but he had never felt to need to hide anything in front of Teyla. He gladly took the offered. He was still shaky on his legs, but with Teyla supporting him, he eventually reached the Jumper. Beckett didn't comment on their return, he just ordered John to lie down and rest some more. Not having the strength to get into an argument John complied, he went back to a horizontal position.

He hadn't been lying down for long when the door to the 'jumper was opened and Rodney appeared on the frame. He had been on the planet along with the exploration team. His face was read and he was panting slightly, obviously having run fast.

"It's fascinating. Most of the city is buried and completely destroyed, but there is a huge building, some sort of temple, the anthropologists claim. I'm getting enormous energy reading from inside." McKay told, speaking almost too fast to be understood.

"What's the problem?" Beckett asked.

"We can't get in, we need your help and that of John."

"John isn't fit to go anywhere and I'm not going anywhere." Beckett replied immediately.

John sat up. "I'm coming with you. It just might take me a while to get there." He said as he pushed himself to his feet, holding on the wall with both hands.

"You can't even stand up. You're going no where."

"I can. Rodney? Is there anything else in the City, aside from the temple?"

"No, most of it is buried deep underground and the rest is a pile of stones." Rodney replied.

"Then we have to go." Teyla joined to discussion. "But Dr. Beckett is right, John, you should stay here."

"You need me, remember, the gene. I'm going." John made two steps towards the exit of thee 'jumper before losing balance and falling into McKay, bringing them both to the ground.

Before John had a chance to realize what was going on, he was rolled over and roughly pulled to his feet. He tried to gather his bearing and noticed that it was McKay who had pulled him up and was now keeping him up with an arm wrapped around his waist.

Even though they were close to the ruins, it was late afternoon by the time they finally got there. John was ready to pass out when they finally reached the portal in the wall. The wall was a good 15 feet high, beyond it, a high structure was visible.

"The energy reading are coming from something behind that wall. We have tried everything short of C4 to get in. We think that the portal might respond to the natural ATA gene." Rodney summed up their knowledge so far.

"My people have been to the city, even though we believed that it would draw the Wraith to us. The stories told of a tunnel entrance. If we can't get in through the portal, we could search for the tunnel" Teyla suggested.

John was only half-listened to what his team members were talking about. All he wanted to do was sleep. Feeling Dr. Beckett's worried gaze on him, he leaned against the portal, letting himself slide to the ground. The moment he had however touched the portal, it vanished and John fell backwards as the supporting portal was suddenly gone. Beckett and Teyla helped him back to his feet. Along with everyone else, they entered the courtyard behind the wall. It was been once a beautiful garden. There was still evidence of individual arrangements and beet, but now it was all overgrown and weeds had eventually taken over. After establishing that there was no immediate threat in the courtyard, they traversed the garden and called the other scientists to follow them. Teyla, Drs. McKay and Beckett and John walked over to the building.

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Teyla let her hand slide over the smooth stone of the temple wall. The carvings were incredible, it mist have taken many years to decorate to wall with such finely carved symbols. She assumed that it was some sort of script but she couldn't read it. The carvings resembled the writings of the Ancients. Maybe she could take some pictures for Halling. If this was Ancient than he or the Atlantis linguists could surely deceiver it. She was about to withdraw her hand from the cool stone wall when she felt an odd sensation run though her like a wave of cold water. She must have instinctively closed her eyes, because when she opened them again, she was standing about five meters from where she had stood before. The stone wall with the carvings was no longer where it had been a second ago. In its place was now a wall with a large red crystal embedded in its middle. Suddenly, in slow motion a red beam shot out from the crystal. Her eyes followed the read beam of energy travel through the hot air. It was headed right for John, who was kneeling on the ground examining the mosaic floor of the temple.

Teyla wanted to shout, to call out to warn him, but she couldn't find her voice. She started to run towards him, but it was too late. Everything moved slowly, but the red beam hit its target with cruel precision. John's body was whipped around by the force of the blast and for a second his face was turned to hers, an expression of utter shock on his features. A moment later, he smashed down to the floor, his head impacting violently with the ground. The red pool spreading out from beneath his head made her feel sick. She wanted to move, go to him, run away, wake up from this nightmare, shut her eyes and just forget, all at the same time.

Suddenly the familiar wave washed over her again and she heard a voice saying her name. A voice she had never expected to hear again.

"Teyla, come have a look at that." John called to her. Like she had just seen, he was kneeling on the floor, brushing away sand and dust from the mosaic.

"John!" That was all Teyla managed after just having seen him die. She moved away from the wall. At that moment, the decorated panel slit down, revealing the red crystal, she had seen before. Already knowing what was about to happen, she ran with even looking at the crystal.

As soon as she was close to John, she lunged forward, using her momentum to push John out of the range of the energy beam.

Teyla hadn't taken the burns on her back into account. Pain seared through her as she had roughly pushed John out of harms away. When she had landed on the strained area, she couldn't suppress a pained scream. Her scream must have alerted Dr. Beckett who came sprinting over from the next room. Seeing John and Teyla on the floor, he feared the worst and raced over to his patients, but a microsecond before he would have reached them, he was felled by the red energy beam. Exactly like Teyla had seen it happen with John, the force of the blast smashed him into the floor. The sound of the impact of his body with the stone floor was one of the most sickening things that John had ever heard and he had seen the ugliness of wars first hand. Teyla stared at the scene, realizing that she had saved a life only to sacrifice another.

TBC