With One Glance

Written for the SGA_Beya 2012 Spring Fling "You Complete Me" Challenge

Summary: A different ending to "The Long Goodbye" with more angst and focus on the "he cares for you more than you know" line. This story is self-contained but it does follow my previous "More Than You Know" story.
Disclaimer: SGA world is not mine. I wrote this story for fun, not profit.
Note: The one line of dialog in italics is from "The Long Goodbye" episode transcript posted at GateWorld.
Cover Artwork: The lovely cover artwork, that inspired parts of the story, is courtesy of the wonderful ladygris

Chapter 1

"Help is coming," Teyla said. "Please stay with me John. When you are better, I want to talk to you about what Thalen said because … because I also care about you more than you know."

Tears slid down Teyla's cheeks. She could not wipe them off. Her hands were completely covered by John's blood as she continued to press the already saturated bandages in an apparently futile effort to staunch the flow from his wound. He had not reacted to her latest plea to keep his eyes open and, when that failed, to squeeze her hand to acknowledge that he retained enough awareness to hear her.

"John, please stay with me," she repeated. "Please don't let go."

She leaned forward trying to discern if he was still breathing. Hoping that she was not deluding herself, she thought she heard a raspy sound. What was taking Dr. Beckett and his medical team so long? It seemed like an eternity had passed since Caldwell said that they were on the way.

She glanced up to make sure that Elizabeth remained unconscious. Certain that if she released the pressure on John's wound he would bleed out, she could not risk another struggle with Phebus, the vengeful fighter who had taken possession of Elizabeth's body. Fortunately, Elizabeth lay in the same position where she had fallen after Teyla hit her with a blast from the stunner.

Teyla's P90 was on the floor within her reach. She did not want to look at it or touch it. That was the weapon she had just used to shoot John. Her mind reeled at the enormity of what she had done. By threatening to release a poisonous gas into the ventilation system, Phebus had forced her to choose between John's life and the lives of three fourths of the Atlantis inhabitants.

Whether because of his humanity, cowardliness or knowledge that ultimately she would act beyond the boundaries of his chain of command, Caldwell told Teyla that he would not tell her what to do, laying the burden of this decision solely on her shoulders. Left with no recourse, she made the impossible choice, the one that John himself would have ordered her to make if Thalen had allowed him to speak.

Rodney's last minute intervention to block Phebus' computer codes came too late. Teyla had already begun to pull the trigger when Caldwell yelled for her not to fire. She tried to divert her aim. The shot went off anyway. John did not die instantly but, currently, he did not seem far from that moment. She felt as if her own life was draining away with every drop of his blood pooling on the floor and soaking their clothes.

He stirred under her touch and groaned. The pressure she was putting on his chest must be compounding the pain from the bullet wound.

"I am so sorry, John, but I have to quell the blood flow. Dr. Beckett will be here soon," she glanced down the corridor hoping that what she said would come true.

"Teyla," his voice, so soft and broken, she almost did not hear him. She leaned closer, wishing that she could move her hand to caress his sweat dampened face. Of course, she dared not. She thought the ebb and rise of his diaphragm was becoming progressively slower under her hands.

"Please forgive me, John," she said.

His dark lashes flickered and he opened his eyes once more. They were a much paler green than she had ever seen before. With that one glance, she had no doubt that Thalen had left his body.

"Not your fault. Phebus … gave you … no choice," he panted through a wave of pain.

"You don't need to speak now, John. Just breathe," she said. "Help will arrive at any moment."

"Teyla," John wearily moved his left hand and placed it on top of hers. Despite the clear lack of body heat, his touch warmed her. He continued, "Thalen was right."

"Right about what?" The fact that he had the energy to talk seemed like a good sign, but such an enigmatic statement puzzled her. Thalen had said many things. Most were lies meant to deceive her. "John?"

John blinked several times, clearly struggling to stay conscious. She could tell that he was having difficulty focusing his vision. "T'la…I … I care for you too..a lot. I think I love…"

Inevitably, before he could finish, he gasped and coughed. Underneath the soaked bandage, tremors wracked his chest. His eyes closed again and his left hand lost its grip, sliding off to his side. A small trickle of blood escaped from his nose. This time she had no doubt that he had stopped breathing.

She felt a surge of desperate anger—momentarily incensed that he would say such a ponderous thing and then just let go, "Don't you dare do this John Sheppard. Not like this. Please … John."

She repeated the words until she heard the others coming. Someone pulled her out of the way of the medical team. She stood aside, watching and hoping.

Beckett and Marie crouched next to John. Marie quickly cut off his vest and shirt, exposing the bloody torso and moving his dog tags out of the way. At that sight, a memory flashed in Teyla's mind. Her own hands much more hesitant in doing a very similar thing after the iratus bug had latched onto John's neck and the only way to remove it had been to stop his heart, temporarily killing him.

Marie took John's pulse and blood pressure, while Beckett listened for chest sounds with the stethoscope.

"Barely any breath sounds. He's tachy. How long has he been unconscious, Teyla?" Beckett had to repeat the question twice before she heard him.

"I am not certain. Maybe two minutes?" she said. The time had felt like an eternity, but perhaps it had not been too long.

Beckett pulled off the stethoscope from his ear. "Bloody hell, it's a tension pneumothorax. Marie, I need the needle decompression kit…"

Before he finished asking, the veteran nurse handed him a syringe attached to a long tube.

With three people now working on John, Teyla shift position to see what they were doing, while staying out of the way. She wanted to know what was happening, but did not dare ask any questions. It felt as if she had lost the right.

Beckett, Marie and one of the new medics worked quietly and quickly. Marie swabbed the upper right area of John's chest. Beckett inserted the long needle. A hiss of air broke the silence. While they still continued to work rapidly—placing an oxygen mask, packing the wound and inserting a line to provide intravenous fluid—their actions were marginally less tense than before.

They carefully transferred him to a gurney and wheeled him off. Another pair of medics had already taken Elizabeth. The remnants of John's cut-up garments and a large pool of congealing blood were left on the floor.

Lorne picked up Teyla's P90. He had been so quiet standing next to her that she had not noticed him until now.

"Teyla, are you alright?" he said. His eyes traveled up and down her body. "Is any of it yours?"

It took her a moment to realize that he was asking her about the wide splatters of blood on her hands and uniform. She shook her head, "No, I am fine."

"I'm so sorry we didn't get here in time to back you up," he said. "We go stuck in that damned corridor for two hours. Talk about FUBAR. Damn it."

Teyla wasn't listening. She felt torn between the need to go to the infirmary and wait for news on John and Ronon, and the urge to disappear to a far corner of Atlantis. Her feet seemed welded to the floor. For the first time since she had reached adulthood, Teyla was paralyzed by the enormity of her actions. Not only had she just shot her commanding officer, most likely she had just killed the person who had stolen her heart from the first time she had gazed into his eyes.

"Let me walk you to the infirmary. Or do you want to go to your quarters first to get cleaned up?" Lorne's voice shook her out of her revelry.

He did not seem to understand what she had done. He should be yelling at her, escorting her to the brig or worse.

"I shot Colonel Sheppard," she said with a cracked voice she hardly recognized as her own. "I pressed the trigger. I heard Caldwell's command too late to stop."

"I know your tried, Teyla," said Lorne. "Phebus forced your hand with too many lives at stake. You did the only thing you could. It will be all right, Sheppard will pull through. That's what he does."

Despite his sincerity, she could not imagine how anything could possibly return to normal after this. She let him walk her back to her room. She promised that she would go to the infirmary as soon as she washed and changed her clothes.

She had a hard time stripping off the blood-stiffened trousers. The shakiness in the movements of her bloody hands did not help matters. She made the shower as hot as possible. She stood underneath it, watching the darker and then the paler crimson liquid run down her legs and disappear into the drain. That was John's life-sustaining blood.

She replayed in her mind every minute of the past hour. Up until the moment she pulled the trigger, there was nothing she could have done differently. As Major Lorne said, too many lives had been at stake and Phebus, lost in her mad thirst for vengeance, absolutely would not compromise.

Teyla forced herself to stop rethinking everything. What had been done could not be undone. That was the way of life. She made a choice and now had to live with the consequences. Foremost, she needed to see how John was doing and she had to take responsibility for her actions.

Despite her rationalization, her tears continued to flow. She let them fall. She soaped herself up quickly and mercilessly scrubbed her body. She dug in with the nail brush to get rid of the blood that had seeped underneath the nail bed. With barely a glance at the mirror to check the puffiness around her eyes, she dressed and swiftly brushed her hair. She composed her features and left her quarters.