Rating: M

Setting: Some time in late Season 3. Which I guess makes this an alternate timeline. Because I don't like Kanaan. Torren is fine... but Kanaan really puts a cramp in my style.

Warnings: Very Mature. Lots of fluffiness. And smut. It's my thing.

Notes: I have finished writing the entire story. The Preface and Chapters 1 and 2 will go up first, followed by a couple of chapters every day after. Ten Chapters.

I write these stories because I'm such a huge John/Teyla-shipper and writing about them makes me happy. If they make someone else happy, then that's the cherry on top! And this story is dedicated to Sagey. :) Thanks for the advice & support.

Preface

Why is it always an ambush? Always a freaking ambush? thought John. Because they can't get to us in a fair fight, he answered himself with irritation. He looked over to see his three other teammates kneeling in the dirt, hands tied behind their backs, guns held to their necks as well. Well, we've been in worse. We'll just do what we do.

And they did. Granted, your average Genai plot wasn't always so brilliantly hatched, and their captors were easy to get the drop on— now the Genai were the ones with hands tied behind their backs, locked in a room, but John had to give them credit for trying. The team had been brought to some decrepit Traveler ship the Genai had managed to steal, kidnapping Rodney to fix the hyperdrive. They'd managed to take the entire team, which the Genai seemed to think was quite a bonus. I guess that was their first mistake, thought John.

Thing is, Rodney had his own not-so-brilliant moments, and the situation they now found themselves in wasn't a huge improvement over being Genai prisoners. Rodney had fixed the hyperdrive. Oh, he'd fixed it. It was just a little too fixed. From what John understood of Rodney's verbose explanations, he'd managed to make the ship go exponentially faster, without being able to turn the hyperdrive off. Oh, and it would soon overload, exploding and obliterating the ship and anyone on it.

They headed to two of the tiny shuttles in the bay, each made for two passengers. John and Teyla jumped in one, Rodney and Ronan in the other, and they discussed their escape via the shuttles' radios. They'd located one inhabitable planet nearby, although it was Stargate-less, which John felt was a major defect in this plan, but there wasn't really an alternative. They were just beginning to brace for take off in the shuttles when John heard Rodney nearly scream over the radio.

"JOHN! I THINK I KNOW HOW TO FIX IT! Looking at the shuttle controls just made me realize something and I might have figured it out! I gotta get back up to the control room and I think I can slow this thing down!" Rodney screeched.

"All right, let's go!" yelled John, turning to leave the shuttle.

"Thing is," said Rodney, "I'm not completely, completely sure I can completely fix it."

"That's a lot of completely's, Rodney," yelled John. "Can you fix it or not?"

"It's a 70/30 chance. 70 I blow it up, 30 I don't. You guys gotta get out of here, and I'll stay behind. I'll fix it and then turn back around to pick you up." Rodney's voice was cracking, and John knew this uncharacteristic heroism was a big stretch for him. Of course John also knew there was no way Ronan was going to let Rodney stay on the ship alone with the Genai, imprisoned though they were.

"Fine," growled John. "Get up there and fix it. Teyla and I will head down to the planet, and you come back for us."

"Here's the thing, John," Rodney puffed into the radio as he ran to the control room. "When I say I can fix it, I mean I can get it to stop accelerating and thus exploding. But I have no idea how to stop it."

"Well, what good is that going to do us, then?" John shouted back.

"Hopefully I can make it slow down, then get it headed in the direction of Atlantis, which should take us a couple of days to reach. Maybe by the time we get there, I can figure out how to get it to stop," said Rodney.

John headed to the rear exit of the shuttle. "Then we'll just stay with you to help," he radioed back.

"Didn't you hear the part about us probably EXPLODING?" screeched Rodney. "You have to get out of here!"

"He's right, John." Teyla reached out to stop him from opening the shuttle door. "Atlantis cannot afford to lose all of us at once."

John hesitated. He hated splitting up the team, but he knew Teyla was right. "Fine," grumbled John, sitting down at the controls and readying the shuttle for flight.

"One more thing, John," radioed the now panting Rodney, and John knew that bad news was following. "Since you're exiting the ship traveling at hyperspace, you might have a bit of a rough go of it."

"Great. Any more good news, Rodney?" John growled. The shuttle was lifting off the floor of the hangar and he headed toward the open hatch.

"If I get this thing fixed, we'll be back for you in the Daedalus. It should take us a couple days to get there and a couple of days back." The radio signal started to weaken, and through the static, John and Teyla heard Rodney shout, "I promise we'll be back for you in five days. Five days, John!"

A boot prod in the face wasn't John's favorite way to wake up, but he realized that waking up was a pretty good thing after that rough landing.

"Looks to me like you're both viable workers," said the voice belonging to the boot. "That makes it my lucky day. I'm Mirfa and you're going to have the pleasure of working on my grain farm." A bald, hulking man grinned down at John, pointing John's own P90 at him.

John looked around to see Teyla in the same situation—on the floor of the crumpled shuttle, gun pointed at her head. He could see she wasn't in any pain and tried to grin across at her. "At least there's food."

After they'd been on the planet for a few hours, John and Teyla had pretty much assessed their situation: Desert planet. Scorching heat. No Stargate. They were now forced into labor on what amounted to a slave plantation that grew just one crop, a grain with some unpronounceable name. "It's corn," said John sullenly. "It's just plain old corn."