The Dream

"NO!" Teyla screamed as she sat up. She was crying and shaking and couldn't get the visages of the memories out of her head. The memorial service was to be the next day, after the service on Atlantis, a more traditional Athosian service was to follow. She knew Ronon would have approved, if she could have asked him, but he was provided the same ceremonies since no one really knew Satedan funeral customs and Atlantis had been unable to contact any of the known surviving Satedans. She believed he would have appreciated the gesture, in his own way. Her husband, on the other hand, was not of this galaxy, but she believed he also would have approved. The service on Atlantis was for him, while the Athosian rites were for her. She had talked at length to Halling about having the rites for him. Halling had agreed that he had, through his actions over the years, indeed become a part of the Athosians, if simply by marrying her and raising her son as his own. None of them knew about the new life she now carried. She had not even known until they had returned from the disasterous mission where she had lost not only one, but two members of her team, her family. She had made Jennifer swear not to tell anyone, even though she knew from experience that she wouldn't.

There were so many jumbled thoughts going through her head of things that could have been. And the many different things she had yet to do to prepare for the ceremonies for both men. There were certain expectations of her at each ceremony. The ceremony on Atlantis would be the easiest to bear, the people in the city had come together to handle the arrangements without her having to bear much responsibility. She still had to finalize the preparations for the Athosian ceremonies. Ronon's would be first, followed by John's, the last of the rites would be combined.

She knew she needed her rest so she attempted to go back to sleep, this time in her own bed. When that didn't work, she made herself some traditional Athosian tea, hoping it would help. While she waited for it to brew, she looked in on Torren in his room. Her and John had shared a family suite since shortly before their marriage two years before. She had continued to learn more about her husband since. He had still been slightly hesitant about sharing thoughts and feelings, but had started to open up to her more and more as time went on. She remembered how he was very adamant that they needed three bedrooms. When she questioned him on it, he always said it was so that they wouldn't have to move again later. All of the extra items that they had went into the third bedroom and was forgotten over time. There was never time to go through it. There still hadn't been time, but recently John had started to go through the boxes piled in the room. With the work he had done in the room in the past week alone, it was like he knew it would be needed soon.

She heard the water for her tea in the small kitchen a read that they had and left her thoughts to finish her tea. After her tea was made, she went without thinking to the extra room, and made her way to the futon and sat down in the same spot she had just got up from. She saw the last box he had been going through as she sat down. She had already found the picture of them together that had been taken years ago, shortly after the expedition came to Pegasus. She had no idea what a camera was back then, or how much fun taking pictures would be. Underneath were other pictures of them: together, separate, and pictures of their team. She carefully removed the pictures and set them aside. She then saw papers, they looked like letters. She carefully removed them from the pile. As Teyla carefully read the words, she realized it was a poem. And on the very bottom there was yet one more poem. This one she read and thought it was very fitting for the coming day. There was one other thing in the box. It looked initially like a DVD that the movies were on that John was so fond of, but upon closer inspection, it looked slightly different. It was a clear rectangular case, with Torren's name on it.

Her curiosity got the better of her and she began to search. In just a few moments she had found what she was looking for. She took the CD player over closer to where she was and found a plug for it before putting the CD in the player and hitting play.

The first thing she realized was that the voice coming from the speaker was John's. After a few moments, she then placed the song he was playing on his guitar and singing. It was Johnny Cash's song "Heart of Gold". She remembered catching him singing the same song one night on the balcony, and a few nights after until she confronted him. She had actually went out on the balcony with him while was singing, after which he produced a ring and proposed to her. She had a feeling that he had known she would follow him out one day and was just waiting on her to make herself known.

She held the pictured tightly to her while she listened to the songs on the disk. She recognized the next song as "Ain't no Grave." While it was playing, she got a little more comfortable on the futon, just so she could hear his voice. She listened as he sang "Hurt" and tears came from her eyes, just to fall asleep crying and listening as he sang "Further on up the Road."

The next morning she woke up with tears still in her eyes and a shaking coming from her shoulder. She blearily opened her eyes and saw Ronon. She startled awake and quickly jumped away before looking at him in confusion. He looked at her questioningly while she looked him over. There were scratches on his arms and face, his left arm still in a sling. That's when it all came back to her. It had all been a dream. Well, not all of it, she acknowledged, but enough to realize neither John nor Ronon were dead. There were no funerals today. There were no ceremonies to plan. Relief flooded her as she remembered that neigher were lost in the fall, Ronon stood in front of her as a testament of the fact. They had both been brought back to Atlantis and the infirmary under the care of Dr. Beckett. Ronon had been kept for observation after his scratches and dislocated shoulder had been seen to. John had not been so fortunate. Her husband had suffered severe bruising, a broken arm, a dislocated knee, twisted ankle, but the most worrisome had been the bruising on the side of his face where he had impacted upon something on the descent. It was believed that this particular injury was the cause of concern due to the fact that he had yet to awaken when she left the infirmary a few hours before.

As she realized all of this, she caught sight of Ronon's face and found him grinning. As soon as their eyes made contact he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head questionably, keeping the grin on his face as he did so.

She didn't wait for further invitation. She was up like a shot and headed out their quarters to go see her husband in the infirmary. The look Ronon had given her had been enough. She knew her husband was awake, and she knew Ronon would stay with Torren until she returned. She needed to see her husband, and spend some time with him to reassure herself that he was going to be okay.

Then she would follow a feeling….and have a simple little test done…while she was there….