Things To Regret
There are things one regrets in the morning.
Teyla jolts awake in a room in Atlantis not her own, with a man's warm body pressed close into her spine. Beneath the quilted covering, his hand lies warm and heavy on her hip, and his chest rises and falls with his breathing.
Outside, the sunrise begins, pink and gold over the rich blue-green of the ocean, tinting the room with a soft glow.
Last night's events crowd into her mind's eye.
...Laura's amused arch of the brow as he paused at the door, not interrupting, merely watching...
...the tension in his stance as he inquired after her, and the anger as she told him he need not be concerned...
...burning understanding as she looked up from her bag and glimpsed his expression in the mirrored glass of the window pane...
...his hand on her arm, catching her when she would have turned away...
...warm lips coaxing her to respond, gentle hands teasing her into need, the pleading note in his voice as she touched him, her fingers stroking his heated flesh...
She should not have done this - should not have let him in so close. He will take more of her than she wants taken, possess more of her than she can afford to let go. There are no half-measures with John Sheppard, and Teyla does not want to be consumed by him.
Too late.
With all the delicacy of a hunter stalking, she begins easing herself away from John, but freezes as his fingers trace up her spine. "Going?"
"It...it would not be wise to stay."
When she turns to look at him, he seems oddly remote, the handsome lines of his face set in an unreadable expression. "You're afraid of being seen leaving here?"
"I..." Teyla can feel the currents beneath this ocean, the tides pulling her in several directions at once. She doesn't need to see his face, she can feel the care for her within him, his need to have and to hold, his fear of losing her, physically and emotionally. She can feel the bitter sting of his belief that she'll go, the painful belief that the fault lies in him, and the desire-lust-hunger-want of a man who has tasted once and yearns for more.
Against all that, her own fears chafe at her senses, more pressing, but easier to ignore after many years of experience.
The conflict immobilises her when he slips his hand over her belly and around her waist and slides down in the bed. His lips touch the corner of the scar that angles down from her ribcage to the opposite hipbone, the remnant of the wound that came close to claiming her life - the wound from which she has only just been pronounced fully healed.
"John--"
"Shh," he lifts his head enough to look her in the eye. "You can go after. I promise."
'After' means after his hands have stroked her into fiery desire, after his mouth has coaxed hers to cover him with kisses, after his body has sunk into hers again and again, after he's spent himself in her with a tenderness that blurs her sight.
'After', he lies beside her, watching her with eyes that have no secrets. In some things, John Sheppard is a hero; in others, he is just a man.
In this, he is a man in love.
She brushes the hair from his eyes, and trails her fingers across his cheek. "May I leave now?"
He closes his eyes as if in pain, but only turns his head to kiss her fingertips lightly. "Yes."
Teyla sits up in the bed and bends to kiss him on the cheekbone. His fingers touch her waist, guiding her without grasping. She shivers at his touch, at what she is about to do. John is a friend and team-mate, not merely a lover - this will change things between them.
Change is not always bad.
Her lips linger by his ear. "Must I leave now?"
John shifts away, pressing himself back into the pillows to see her face, green-ish eyes wide and startled. "Teyla? Are you sure?"
She is not sure. But she cares for him, and if she must sacrifice something of herself, then she will. That is the price of caring for him and Teyla will live with it.
He is not so hesitant when she brings her lips to his, but he has no words - he needs no words as they meld into each other, skin to skin, one hand curving over her hip as the other traces her scar.
There are things one regrets in the morning.
This is not one of them.
- fin -