Bitter
There is nothing so bitter as innocence lost.
Sometimes the mirror of her eyes reflects a subtle tension, a memory of bars between them - she the prisoner, he the keeper.
Casual touch is acceptable - the brush of sleeves as she transfers their son to his arms, his chest against her shoulder as they look down at Torran, a touch of the hand before she goes to her duties in the city. But intimate touch - a hand to her cheek, his arms around her waist, his lips on hers - brings on a stillness, a distance too great for Kanaan to cross.
Kanaan had grown accustomed to loving Teyla from a distance until he risked his heart and offered her a place at his fire instead of the guest-bed or a guest-tent.
Perhaps if he were another man - another kind of man - he would press her for an answer, a certainty, instead of the careful space that exists between them...but Kanaan is as he is, and he has always understood Teyla better than anyone - better, even, than Halling.
He understands now.
He wishes he didn't.
Some days previously, Ronon offered some sparring time, Kanaan hesitated over the invitation but Teyla encouraged him and he finally decided to take up the offer. Torran was left in the care of Dr. Keller and her nurses, and Kanaan dressed in the loose tunic and trousers suitable for such sparring and went to look for Ronon.
He could hear the clatters and thumps from far down the corridor, Ronon's taunts and the other person's grunts.
It was no surprise to see Ronon sparring against Colonel Sheppard - nor to find Teyla watching them, following the interplay on bare, silent feet. She seemed to be calling encouragement to the Colonel - certainly Ronon needed none.
The Satedan man came in hard and high, a tactic that Kanaan recognised as the swooping arlet. A person came in high with the bantos then attacked low with a leg, tripping the opponent; and so Colonel Sheppard fell when Ronon tripped him up.
He was good-natured in defeat, measuring his length in his sprawl on the hard wooden floor. "I don't know why I bother," he complained lightly to Teyla. "It's not as though I get any better at this."
Her mouth curved in warm laughter. "Some efforts are worth pursuing," she said in the tones of a teacher instructing an errant student. Kanaan had heard her use such tones on those she trained. He had even been one of them, once.
Down on the ground, Colonel Sheppard made a snorting noise and turned his head to glare at Ronon, who was regarding him with his hands on his hips and a grin on his lips. "You could help me up, you know!"
Even across the room, he saw Teyla roll her eyes and stride over, reaching down to offer the Colonel a hand up.
Hands met - as did eyes.
And Kanaan felt as though the barren winds of winter had funneled through the tent of his soul, filling him with a chill that no summer heat can banish.
It was only a moment, two smiles of thanks and welcome, no skin touching other than the hands. But Kanaan knows Teyla; and he knows what he sees before him.
Tenderness in the grip of hands, a warmth in the curve of their mouths, and the careful way that they let go.
Kanaan has never quite understood Colonel Sheppard before. The man is something of an enigma; playful and protective, smiling and serious, carefully deferential to Teyla with what Kanaan always thought of as respect.
He understands better now, and the knowledge is bitter as the tuttleroot soup Teyla tried to make her father for his birthday one year - the year she forgot the kakta leaves.
Kanaan is accustomed to loving Teyla from a distance and being denied.
John Sheppard, he imagines, is used to a much closer denial.
The knowledge is bitter.
- fin -