A/N: This was written for Beya's Secret Elf Exchange 2012 as a final present for Mysra. Some dialogue towards the end is excerpted from the season 4 episode, Be All My Sins Remember'd. Disclaimer: No profits made and done purely for fun. As always, any feedback is welcome, and thanks for reading! :)

That Night

It was a cold night they made warm, wrapped in each other's arms. He went to see her, to see that she was alright. "Yes," she said as he stood in her doorway, "I am fine."

"Good," he replied. They both stood there staring into each other's eyes. His, a warm piercing hazel, and hers, a deep brown full of kindness and mystery.

"Will that be all?" she asked.

"Uh, no, well... If you want it to be."

She smiled at his awkwardness. Perhaps he wasn't coming just to check on her after all. He seemed to need some checking up on of his own. She stood to the side and gestured him in. "I was having a cup of tea after meditating, would you like to join me?"

"Yeah, sure. I could use a cup of tea," he said as he walked through the doorway and into her quarters. The room was as it always was, a comforting sight of earthy mats and pillows, a plush bed, and the faint smell of Athosian incense. They sat down on one of the mats with Teyla's Athosian tea-set between them. She slowly poured a pale green liquid into a stone-carved cup and handed it to him. The flavor was robust and slightly nutty, and John quite enjoyed it as he did most of her teas.

"So, how are you?" she asked.

"Fine," he replied as he leaned back against the end of her bed. She raised an eyebrow, making a face that John knew all too well. "What?"

"It is just that... A visit at this time of night is quite ... unusual. This is the first of its kind, I believe." John swallowed the rest of his tea and reached his cup forward for another fill. Teyla promptly obliged, patiently waiting for a response. He drank again, this time emptying the cup in one gulp. He exhaled slowly.

"I couldn't sleep. Carson's dead. Michael's run loose doing whatever, wherever. The Wraith. The Replicators. You... I guess I just have a lot on my mind. I just wanted to check on you."

She moved across the small distance between them to sit beside him. "I am fine. The wounds Doctor Beckett-Carson repaired have healed well. I look forward to coming back to active duty tomorrow. Do not worry, John, not for me." He nodded as he looked down at the mat between his legs.

Suddenly he felt drowsy and good. "Mmmh. Whatever's in that tea's working." Teyla smiled as she got to her knees and gathered the cups and little kettle onto the tray sitting on the floor.

"Perhaps you should retire to your quarters. You look as though you can sleep now."

"Yeah, but I don't feel like moving."

She smiled again as she took the tray to the little table in the corner of her room and set it down. She then went to her closet and pulled out a thick, warm blanket and carried it over to John, kneeling down to cover him.

"Or, perhaps you could sleep on the floor if you like. Here," she said as she covered him. "I will get you a pillow to lay down with." But, before she could pull herself up, she felt his hand on her forearm. He lifted his head up toward her, and she could see a helplessness in his eyes, something he would never have permitted her to see if they had not been so close. She knew she was being given access to the deepest part of him.

"I don't want to be alone," he said. "Teyla..." He pulled her near him and into his arms and kissed her softly.

She was taken by surprise. John sensed this immediately and relaxed his embrace.

"I-I didn't come here for this. I'm not trying to-"

Before he could say anything more, he felt her hand on his face, and something passed between them as she gazed into him. Then he felt her soft, warm lips pressed against his, and her arms sliding around his back. He held her closely as they kissed for what could have been minutes or hours. Time didn't exist anymore, just her, and him, and the 4 walls that surrounded them. It was all he ever wanted or needed to exist. She pulled away and started to unbutton his shirt. His hands found the zipper at the top of her vest-like garment and pulled it all the way down her delicately contoured back. After they slowly undressed one another, they moved to her bed. He laid her against the cream colored sheets and covered her with his body. They spent the night tangled in passion, a mutual longing replaced by consummation.

Hours later, they awoke in each other's arms right before the earliest hints of dawn. John snuggled his grisly face into the soft curve of Teyla's neck. "So, what do we do next?" At that moment, Teyla was filled with sadness.

"I am not sure. As the leader of my people I am expected to choose an Athosian."

"Well, they'll understand. They understood why you needed to be here to fight the Wraith. It only makes sense you'd... find somebody."

"And what of your superiors? Will they understand as well?"

At this, John frowned. "Who cares what they think," he spat out, saying the first thing that came to mind, but then thought of it more seriously. "You couldn't be on my team anymore if they knew. I'm not sure what else would happen after that, but we'll figure it out."

She rolled over onto her other side to face him. "John, as you mentioned last night, there is too much happening -"

"Yes, but things have calmed down some lately. I was just worked up letting my thoughts get to me."

"I know," she said. "But what of the times when things are not calm? I do not want either one of us held back because of how things were figured out for us, and that is what your superiors will do. They will decide for us."

John sighed.

"Well... If that's how it has to work... How long have your people been fighting the Wraith, Teyla? Hundreds, maybe even thousands of years? We don't have that kind of time. Carson performed surgery, and he didn't make it. We put ourselves in those kinds of situations all the time. If I've learned anything it's to enjoy what you've got while you've got it. Let's just do that." He pulled her close. "If it means you're on Lorne's team or something like that because of us, then okay."

"And you would be alright with that? Our team is at its strongest when we are all together... Lorne's team does not go on many of the same kinds of missions we do."

"You're right," John said. "His team is safer."

They continued on for a while, going back and forth. Teyla, erring on the side of caution, believed that they should wait until they could discreetly find out how their relationship would affect their work before moving forward. John, wanting to dive in and deal with whatever could happen, disagreed. "I'm just worried it'll never be the right time, and then time's up," he said.

"Very well. We will do what you decide, " Teyla replied, tiring of the conversation.

"I'll think about the best way to handle it, and we'll talk before I do anything official, okay?" he said reassuringly. She started to nod as the faintest hints of sunlight began to pour through her window.

"You had better get to your room. It would be unwise to stay here any longer."

"Right," he said, understanding the kind of attention being seen coming out of her room in crumpled clothes and with even messier hair during breakfast hours would draw. And with that, John quickly dressed and started for the door. He stopped and then headed back to the bed, leaning over and kissing her one last time before morning. A moment later, he was gone.

John figured he would pick the right time and setting to casually ask their IOA guy, Woolsey, what the IOA thought of situations where military personnel date contracted out non-indigenous civilians they work closely with. Just the idea of wording his connection to Teyla that way seemed weird. He would do his best, of course, to keep the conversation as far away from them and their night together as possible, but that time never came.

Soon, they found out that Michael was creating bug hybrids on planets throughout the galaxy, and shortly after that, the Replicators retaliated when their strike didn't work out as planned, causing them to flee. Then went Elizabeth and came in Sam. Heightmeyer died, and then, then...

"I am carrying a child," she said.

"You're what?"

"I am pregnant, John."

"Is this a joke?"

He couldn't believe it. Maybe she thought when he didn't say anything for several months afterward that he decided to just drop it, drop them, but he didn't. Was it his inaction that caused her to choose someone else? She didn't seem completely happy with her situation. And she never seems happy with him.

John remembered what she said to him that night, "... As the leader of my people I am expected to choose an Athosian." Was she just fulfilling an obligation when he didn't step up to the plate? Had she dropped them, leaving the possibility of what they could have together behind?

No, he thinks. That night meant something, something too special for that. I know it.

He will hold to the fact that they still share something very strong and rare between them, that they probably always will, and that whatever it was-the love, it isn't gone. They made a promise to each other that night, and he knows that she keeps her promises, and he intends to keep his. No matter how long it takes, he will wait for her.

For John, it is only a matter of time.

Fin :)