NOTES: Written for the 2006 fanzine "Taking Flight: Tales From The Pegasus Galaxy - Volume II".
Kindred - Part One
"Am I the only one getting a bad feeling about this?" John asked quietly as they followed Teyla and the Noyian leader up through the hills where the Noyian encampment lay.
It was nothing more than the faintest sense of unease, the portentous stillness that John had learned meant trouble; but it had been nagging him since they met Khenar Lian.
Oh, Lian was friendly, charming, and had greeted them with some surprise but rather more eagerness. Of course, most of that eagerness was presently being directed at Teyla - an avidity that seemed just shy of obsessive. He'd looked over John, Rodney, and Ronon one by one, summed them up and turned his attention to Teyla.
Initially, John wasn't sure whether to be amused or slighted.
Right now, he was mostly irked and trying to work out why.
"You know, there's no need to go all Han Solo on us," Rodney remarked, pausing to pant a little from the climb. While the scientist was reasonably fit - 'fit' as compared to his state of body when he'd begun on the expedition nearly eighteen months ago - he still had a tendency to get easily winded.
Usually, John made allowances for him. Today, however, John wasn't the one setting the pace. The Noyian leader was clearly used to these hills - and used to walking with people who could keep up with him.
Ronon glanced back at Rodney, then looked up at the green-grey hills with their scrubby stands of brush and trees that leaned at drunken angles. For a moment, John thought the other man would agree with him. The broad shoulders shrugged. "I'm not picking anything up."
And with that, Ronon walked on.
Expressive as ever. There were times when John despaired of the newest member of his team. Not that Ronon wasn't impressive or good at what he did, just that he had a tendency to do things his way. Teyla usually had the most success drawing him out or reining him in, although John was pleased with the not-quite-friendship that had sprung up between him and Ronon.
John turned to Rodney. He hadn't gotten an answer from the scientist yet - mostly because he was still catching his breath.
"It depends on exactly what kind of a bad feeling you're expecting, Sheppard. I mean, he's being friendly, and Teyla trusts him." And that was enough for Rodney. John wished he could be so easily assured.
Far above them, a bird screeched, its strident cry carrying through the hills. Both men looked up, watching the circling speck as it tilted pinions and soared through the cool air.
"Do you think we're being led into an ambush?" Rodney asked. "Seriously? I mean, he might be a Gennii spy or something."
John didn't wince at the somewhat dramatic suggestion. Relations with the Gennii had never been cordial - particularly after the incident with Kolya and the attempt to take over Atlantis - but the two civilisations were presently at uncomfortable truce. Still, he glanced up the ridge where Teyla, Lian, and Ronon were making their steady way up to the Noyian camp, scanning for places where they could be picked off or trapped.
"I don't think it's an ambush," he said. "But keep your eyes open," John added, only too aware that Rodney wasn't the team-mate he really needed on the lookout. "Come on," he said with slight slap to Rodney's shoulder. "Last one to the top's a rotten egg!"
Rodney rolled his eyes but heaved himself up with a groan. Most of it was for show. Rodney would survive.
As he watched the other guy move off, a low ripple of laughter floated down from ahead of them, and John's concern grew. Teyla wasn't usually this friendly to strangers - at least, not so fast. She'd taken a whole morning to warm to him, even, and her friendship with the Gennii had been polite - although that had been more because they were withholding secrets than anything else.
Something was up with Khenar Lian and the Noyians. John just knew it.
--
John got a disbelieving look at the request but Ronon dropped behind to hurry Rodney along while he caught up with Teyla and their host.
In spite of their differences, Rodney and Ronon got along quite well. The scientist eased back on the derogatory comments regarding brawn and the military, and the Satedan responded by asking questions that interrupted Rodney's dialogues. And by not threatening him.
John could count on Ronon to keep his eyes out for trouble, at least. He might not be getting the same feeling that John was, but he followed John's lead.
Usually, John would have said he could count on Teyla to follow his lead, too.
As he moved up behind them, John picked up the strains of the conversation taking place between her and Lian.
"...considered a challenge among our young men to hunt the hireni without any armour," Lian was saying. "Boasting rights, if nothing else."
There was a lilt of laughter to Teyla's voice as she answered, "The custom exists among my people also - although both male and female youth attempt it. There is status involved in returning with kills and without injury."
"As is the situation here," Lian said, pausing with a smile intended to charm her. "You attempted it?"
"I did," she replied. "As did you."
John was irritated to realise Teyla wasn't phrasing it as a question. "Sounds like hazing," he offered, hoping to break in on the conversation.
From the expression on Lian's face, the interruption was unexpected and unwelcome. "Hazing?"
John tried to explain. "It's like...tricks they play on you - practical jokes when you start in a new unit. To make you feel welcome," he added. "At the Academy, they'd kidnap you sometime in your first month, strip you of your wallet and ID and leave you in the middle of nowhere to make your way back. It's a character building experience."
As well as a chance to see what newcomers were made of. Nothing showed up a person's true nature like a little adversity, frustration, and humiliation - although John had to admit that was rarely the main motivation for hazing.
Lian turned to Teyla, a question in his face. She smiled at him, brief and warm, before glancing at John. "Where they came from, they have no need to fear the Wraith. Their lives are different to ours."
"So I see," Lian murmured. "And you came to our worlds seeking conquest?"
"Knowledge, actually." He wasn't going to rise to the bait.
"What knowledge?"
"Oh, we pretty much wanted to know about the Ancients." At another questioning glance from Lian to Teyla, John elaborated. "You guys call them the Ancestors."
"We have heard rumours of a people living in the city of the Ancestors." Lian's gaze was cool as they rested on John. "That is you?"
"That would be us. Was us."
The Noyian nodded. "We do not trade often, for that gives the Wraith reason to hunt us down; but when we do, we trade in information as well as goods." He glanced from one to the other, then beyond them at Ronon and Rodney as they climbed up beside them. "Your presence is much spoken-of."
John grinned, then paused. "That's a good thing, isn't it?" A glance at Teyla and the tolerant amusement on her face reassured him before she even spoke.
"It is a good thing, Colonel," she said. "I would not remain with you if it were not."
He was pretty sure she meant the expedition as a whole, but a part of John was pleased that Lian looked from Teyla to him and back with narrow eyes, reaching conclusions that were probably wrong.
Not that John would tell the guy that things weren't like that between him and Teyla.
"Having a party?" Rodney asked, huffing and puffing from behind them. "Are we there yet?"
"If you ask again, I'm going to make you get out and walk," John told his friend with mock-severity. Then he sighed when the Noyian gave him the bewildered looks that were now standard for Pegasus natives when faced with the Atlantis expedition. "Never mind. It's a standing joke from our planet..." He contemplated explaining about road trips, confined spaces, travel times, and family holidays...and gave up.
Some things were just too tricky for a people whose idea of a good life was one where they didn't have to spend it on the run from the Wraith.
He doubted Lian would be interested in the explanation anyway.
Ronon, by now familiar with John's odd phrases, was ignoring the conversation and surveying the hills with his usual wariness. He paused. "We're being watched."
John began turning, his right hand reaching for his sidearm.
"For a while now," Lian said cheerfully, before he raised his voice. "Umaya!"
There was a brief rattle of rocks and leaves, and a girl drifted out of the scrub and onto the path like a ghost, barely twenty feet away.
John stared.
She wasn't more than sixteen or seventeen, with dark blonde hair, dark eyes and stunning features. Sure, there were good-looking women in Atlantis; hell, John worked with Teyla and Elizabeth on a daily basis. But this girl was...breathtaking.
He was pretty sure that both Rodney and Ronon were staring, too. At least, he hoped it wasn't just him.
Dressed in a hide jerkin over rough-spun trousers, the girl eyed them one by one, starting with Teyla and finishing with Rodney, then turned to Lian whose sharp blue eyes were watching all of their reactions with a calculating eye. "You're making enough noise that a herd of hireni could come up on you and you'd never notice." Her tone was sharp as an irritated mother's.
"If hireni came through these hills," the Noyian man said dryly, "it would be noticed. Umaya, these are Teyla Emmagen and her friends: Ronon, John, and Rodney."
John noted the order of introduction and raised an eyebrow at Teyla, who looked slightly surprised at her designation as the foremost of their team. Rodney was more direct. "Teyla's friends?"
The Noyians regarded them with identical expressions of surprise. Definitely related - maybe cousins. "You are not her friends?" Umaya asked, looking at John.
"Oh, we're her friends," John said. "We're just not used to being introduced like that."
Lian exchanged a glance with the kid. "So...how would you prefer to be introduced?"
"Dr. Rodney McKay, Specialist Ronon Dex, Colonel John Sheppard," he said, pointing to his team-mates, then himself. "And Teyla, whom you obviously already know."
The Noyian's eyes narrowed. "I see." Lian turned to Teyla. "And you have no objections to this?"
Rodney bridled; "Why do you keep asking her? Are we see-through or something? Do we smell bad?" He held up one hand in a quelling gesture. "Don't even think of answering that, Sheppard!"
John was going to answer, but Teyla's voice cut off Rodney's tirade. "It is more customary for people to simply introduce us," she explained to Lian.
"I see." Lian shrugged and turned to the girl whose eyes had been taking all this in with the avidity of the young and sheltered. "Umaya, run ahead to the steading and let them know we come behind." When she scowled at him, he only warned, "Umaya..."
With a last glance at John's team - starting with Teyla and finishing with a long narrow-eyed look at John - Umaya shrugged and went, vanishing into the scrub and rocks with the same stealth with which she'd appeared. The Ops side of John found himself admiring the way the girl moved - she could give some of the guys he'd worked with lessons on covert intrusions. It helped that she was a beauty to watch.
He watched the lines of the hills, picking out possible hiding spots, and wondered if there were other kids out there, watching them from a distance - or from up close. They were used to the suspicion of adults, but children were usually more trusting - like Jinto and Wex.
Obviously not among the Noyians.
"She is independent," Teyla said quietly to Lian.
"And you were not at her age?"
The indulgent note in Lian's voice turned John's gaze from the hills. The man had taken a step closer to Teyla, standing in her personal space and focusing all his attention on her.
John frowned as Teyla held her ground. "I was," she said, meeting the Noyian's gaze, serene and even. "As were you."
Beyond them, Ronon had his eyebrows somewhere up in his hairline, and Rodney was mouthing at John, As were you? With a shrug and a pointed cough to interrupt Teyla's little stare-off with her admirer, John indicated the direction in which the girl had apparently vanished. "Maybe we should get along to your camp?"
Teyla glanced at him, then regarded Lian - almost challengingly, John thought. There was something going on, and he'd ask Teyla about it later, when the Noyian wasn't around.
Assuming the Noyian allowed Teyla out of his sight, he thought sourly as they started back up the track again.
Lian was still talking almost solely to Teyla.
--
The 'steading' was a city of tents, spread out through this valley in the hills for as far as John could see. Other than all the houses being tents, it looked like most of the villages they'd seen on other planets: dwellings complete with paths and gardens, public squares and people moving about their business.
"Two hundred," Ronon said as they paused at the ridge, waiting for Rodney. Lian had drawn Teyla on and, after a glance back at her team-mates labouring behind, she went. "Maybe three."
John regarded the spread of tents and the people moving industriously through. It reminded him of the Athosians the first time he'd walked into their camp - only larger. "Doing pretty well to hide from the Wraith that long."
The bigger guy shrugged, "Survival. It happens." And Ronon would know.
"What do you think of Khenar Lian?"
Ronon smirked. "He wants to bed Teyla."
"Other than that."
Another shrug. "You think he's up to something?"
"When was the last time you saw Teyla this friendly with a strange guy?" John asked.
Overhead, a flock of birds few in V-shaped formation, their odd, honking calls echoing over the valley. Ronon watched them go. "Is it Lian or his interest you're suspicious of?"
John wasn't sure he liked what Ronon was implying. "Both."
"Okay." The other man's mouth pulled up one side in a lopsided grin. "I can keep an eye on her. But Teyla's not stupid."
"No. But she's not usually like this." And John didn't like it.
Rodney scrambled up the last stretch and sighed in relief as he beheld the tent city spread out below them. "Oh, thank God. I thought we'd never get here."
"Too much messing about in the labs, not enough exercise, Rodney," said John, conversationally. "You should join Ronon and I in a run sometime."
"Oh, yes, that would be wonderful," Rodney snapped. "I'm sure that expiring of heart failure in Atlantis is so much better than expiring of heart failure on some planetoid that doesn't even have the decency to live anywhere near the Gate!"
"Look at it this way, Rodney. We wouldn't have to go too far to get Carson on the job." John played the ingénue for all it was worth - baiting Rodney was one of his favourite pastimes. Hey, if he had to put up with the man, then at least he could have some fun out of it.
"Carson would probably refuse to come," sulked the scientist, leaning against the boulder that marked the top of the hill.
Ronon smirked as he slapped Rodney familiarly on the shoulder. "Do you good, McKay."
"Oh, please. I'm not going to go running with you just so Sheppard can feel less inadequate when you outpace him. That's what Major Lorne's for. Or Lieutenant Cadman. I'm sure Carson would love to minister to her if she had heart failure."
"Jealous?"
"Of Carson? Of course not."
"Actually, I was thinking of Cadman." He dodged Rodney's attempt to cuff him, smirking - not that the blow would have done anything other than briefly sting.
"Colonel?" Teyla's voice came through his radio earpiece, with the faint, weird overtone that meant she wasn't entirely out of earshot. "Has Rodney reached you?"
John took a few steps down the path, away from Rodney so the scientist couldn't hit him again. "Yeah, just got here. He's catching his breath. We'll be on our way down in a minute."
"I will be waiting at the turn-off," came the response a second later. "There is a fork in the paths."
"We'll be there in a minute," he assured her. Then, because he couldn't quite stop the question, he asked, "Did Lian desert you?"
"He was required to go ahead and make the camp ready for our arrival," Teyla said. "However, he has left one of the youths here to take us down the rest of the way."
So he wouldn't have to listen to the other man trying to smarm Teyla the rest of the way down. That was definitely a good thing. "Well, I'll send Ronon ahead to keep you company, and Rodney and I will be along in a moment." A jerk of the head at Ronon and the other man started down the slope, moving with all the agility of a mountain goat.
"We will be waiting."
Rodney sighed as he looked at the long trek down the slope. "Remind me why we couldn't bring the 'jumper?"
"Because we're suspicious bastards."
"There's no point in being suspicious dead bastards."
"Rodney, you're the best-looking dead person I've ever seen," John told him dryly. "And I've seen a lot of them. Keep walking."
The best thing about Rodney was that he was good at arguing, and okay at walking, but not so great at doing both together. The result was that a moving Rodney was a mostly quiet Rodney. Mostly.
"So you don't like the Noyian guy?"
"Let's just say, I'm not convinced he's as wonderful as he thinks he is."
"Sheppard, you're not as wonderful as you think you are."
"And look who's talking," John said with exquisite irony.
Rodney was definitely making faster progress downhill than he had uphill. Apparently the prospect of some long-term rest was galvanising him. "No, I am as brilliant as none of you ever say I am. Because I've kept your hide - and the hides of several billion other people - intact--"
"Single-handedly."
Sometimes Rodney got sarcasm, sometimes he didn't. This was obviously going to be one of the times when he didn't. "--Single-handedly, for the last two years and-- Wha--?"
A small figure had moved out of the scrub brandishing a slim spear-like object.
John's first, startled thought was that it was a Wraith.
Then he realised the 'Wraith' was all of three feet tall, wore a leather tunic that barely reached the middle of its thighs, and had skin a shade darker than Teyla, nut-brown and sun-tanned. A silvery cuff gleamed on one small wrist, an old design. John dropped his hand from the weapon he'd instinctively reached for upon seeing the twisted, garish features and the pale, streaming hair.
"What the hell is that?" Rodney gasped from behind him.
"It's a Wraith mask," John said as the masked head tilted to one side, almost inquiringly. "Jinto has one."
From behind the mask came a high, piping voice. "Who's Jinto?"
"A friend of mine."
"And he has one of these?" The voice sounded slightly disappointed.
"Yep." It was hard to tell if the kid was a boy or girl from either voice or figure - certainly the kid was a good few years younger than Jinto. But he or she was still handling the spear with the kind of grip that spoke of competence with the weapon. John figured it was best to go for the harmless-and-conversational angle. "You know, I'm sure you're much nicer to look at without the Wraith mask, so why don't you take it off?"
There was a thoughtful silence. "But I'm not as scary without the mask."
Kid logic. No arguing with it. "No," John said with a faint smile. "But we'd prefer you weren't so scary."
"Really?" Off came the mask with gratifying immediacy, and the youngster beamed up at John from beneath a thatch of jaw-length dark hair. "I'm Anneka," she said, squinting up at the two men. "Why's he hiding behind you?" Her eyes widened in delight. "Was I that scary?"
John fought back the urge to laugh as Rodney spluttered and stepped away. "Of course not," he said. "I was just...startled."
"Oh." The kid eyed them, clearly disappointed with this answer. She also seemed to be considering their clothes. "You're not from the village."
John figured it was time to bring out the introductions. "I'm John, and this is Rodney. We're...uh, headed down to the village, Anneka. Would you like to show us the way?"
Anneka thought about this, then transferred the Wraith mask to the same hand as her spear, stepped forward to take John's larger hand in her own small one, and started off down the path again without a word.
Rodney muttered something about 'children and animals' that John could only just hear, and began following them, his feet crunching across the packed scree that made up the path into the valley.
Anneka's silence lasted for the first few steps. Then, "Are you from through the Ring of the Ancestors? I've never been through it, although Lian has promised that someday I'll get to go. Makhel says you get sick from going through, but I never get sick from anything!" She looked back at John who was highly amused by the steady stream of chatter - as friendly towards the strangers as Lian and the girl had been wary. "Are you okay? You're all quiet. The adults say I talk too much. You haven't said that yet."
Rodney muttered something that John really hoped the kid didn't hear. He smiled reassuringly. "I don't usually say that about people I don't know very well."
"I do," came the mutter from behind.
"Yes, Rodney, but you have no tact."
"What's tact?" The kid jumped topic without a moment's hesitation, twisting her head to look back at John again.
"It's...politeness."
"Oh, please," Rodney snorted. "It's telling lies that people want to hear."
Rodney would think that. John merely smiled at Anneka as she led them down past the dull grey rocks from which small scrubby bushes grew towards the light. "Politeness." The kid was smart enough to pick it up without any more help from John.
They found Teyla and Ronon waiting for them with an adolescent boy who was torn between trying to impress Teyla and trying not to be impressed by Ronon.
His expression changed as he saw the little girl. "Oh, Anneka! You were supposed to stay with Milla this morning!"
John found his hand dropped as Anneka stuck her hands on her hips and glared. "Milla's being silly over Makhel. Besides," she said, "I found these people looking for the village. See?"
Teyla's mouth twitched, and John couldn't help a grin at the child's proprietary attitude. The boy was less impressed.
"Don't be silly," he said scornfully. "Lian had me wait here to show them down into the village."
The small, brown face crumpled in disappointment as she turned to John. "But you were looking for the village!"
"We were," John said, trying to sound reassuring. "You did a good job of leading us here."
"But you were already coming here!"
At a loss for what to say - generally, John was pretty good with kids - he was relieved when Teyla answered for him.
"That does not mean you did not do a good job, Anneka," she said gently. As the boy opened his mouth to protest, she silenced him with a flick of large dark eyes. He flushed and subsided, with an expression that was a hair shy of sulky. "Thank you for bringing our friends here. Now, you and Vilor can take us the rest of the way."
Vilor opened his mouth to protest; John shook his head at the boy, then was startled when Anneka grabbed his hand so her cuff banged against his wrist bone and began pull him down the track. "I'll lead," she said, tugging him past his amused team-mates and the resentful boy.
A glance back showed Ronon following with a broad grin of amusement on his face as he watched John being led away by the child. Beyond him, Teyla was touching Vilor's arm, saying something to the disappointed youth as Rodney made his way past.
"Vilor thinks he's important, just because he's the oldest boy," Anneka said. "But Umaya's nearly two moons older than him - and she's better at everything." The girl glanced up at John. "I'm going to be better at everything when I'm older."
"That's a good goal to try for."
A slight frown appeared on the immature features. "What's a goal?"
Behind John, Ronon chuckled.
"Fine," he said. "You explain it."
"Why?"
"Because you're from Pegasus and I'm not."
"What's Pegasus?" Anneka asked, her high, piping voice curious with childish innocence.
Ronon smirked at John. John glared back.
It was going to be a long way down to the camp. And there was still lunch to go.
--
In the end lunch wasn't as bad as John thought it would be.
Yes, Lian fawned over Teyla, but in the context of lunch, it seemed to be a Noyian thing. There was a young man serving Rodney, a woman serving Ronon, and the stunning Umaya stalked out of the shadows and presented herself as John's lunch companion in the open-sided food tent.
Beyond the boundaries of the tent, the Noyians went about their business, while groups of children came by, led by the energetic Anneka, who waved enthusiastically when John turned to meet her gaze and then ran off with another batch of kids.
The Noyians were a growing populace, unlike the Athosians. As John watched the men and women make their way past the tent, frequently contriving to look over him and his team-mates, he noticed that most of the women of childbearing age were pregnant - including some girls who weren't much older than Umaya.
Certainly, the girl acted considerably older than any sixteen year-old John had ever known.
"The hireni meats are marinated in tlaca and fermented illyet," she told him as she deposited food on his plate with all the solicitousness of a possessive girlfriend. "The baked miragena were made by Helana. Lian likes them." The last statement was sourly directed at the Noyian leader, who was trying to persuade Teyla to eat the miragena from his fingers.
John frowned. Teyla was refusing to take the food directly from Lian's fingers - which was, to his mind, just as well. He certainly wasn't going to eat from Umaya's fingers - even if she was holding the hireni meat up to his lips. "Uh, thanks," he said, a little uncomfortably as he took the food from her. "I can feed myself."
Considering the girl had to be at least twenty years his junior and probably underage by Earth terms, John was not about to get into any compromising situations - even if the girl was considered old enough among her people. Adult women were one thing, yes; John definitely drew the line at teenaged girls. He wasn't a dirty old man. Hell, he wasn't even old.
Umaya didn't seem all that happy about it, but shrugged and let John eat his lunch.
The hireni tasted slightly gamey, with a nutty-ish flavour. The miragena looked like a variant of a vegetable Teyla's people grew as one of their staples - a potato-like root that they used for everything, from grinding it into flour to baking it as an accompaniment to their meat.
"So," he said, trying to make general conversation. "How long have you lived in this valley?"
Lian looked up from his plate. "Nearly four years now. It is a good place for us - the river nearby with its fertile banks, and the hunting that comes for water."
"The Wraith haven't bothered you, then?" Rodney piped up from where he was cautiously poking around the things on his plate. The young man had been remarkably patient with the fussy scientist, who'd been somewhat placated by Teyla's reminder that the citrus to which he was allergic was uncommon in the Pegasus galaxy.
"They come," Lian said. "But they usually leave empty-handed. We are...good at hiding."
"In a camp this size?" John was surprised.
"When the Wraith come, we have taught our people to know where they must go, what must be done at the first warning." Blue eyes fixed on John. "There are those among us who know the techniques to bring down Wraith who reach the ground. In the end, we are no less prepared when the Wraith come than other cultures we have seen."
"So you hide?"
Lian frowned. "What else is there to do?"
"Fight back," said Ronon.
"Fighting back only incites their wrath," said Lian shortly. "We do not have the numbers to defeat them, nor the tools."
"But you've had people who managed to bring down individual Wraith before?"
"I said that there are those among us who know how to bring down the Wraith that reach our ground." Lian spoke shortly. "We are not a warlike people," he said, "any more than Teyla tells me her people are, but we protect our own."
John wondered exactly what Teyla had told the guy about the Atlanteans. "We're not warlike," he said tersely. "As Teyla should have told you."
"Colonel Sheppard's people are better prepared to fight the Wraith than we," Teyla said, flicking a wary gaze at John from beneath her lashes. "They have resources that we lack - they do not fear the Wraith the way many of our peoples do."
"And this is why you ally with them?" Lian asked. "What of your own people? Do they not need your leadership?"
"Teyla's people seem pretty well-adjusted to her coming and going," John said. "They don't live all that far from where we live."
"But that is not the same as living among one's people," pointed out Lian. "As Teyla surely knows."
Teyla's reply was short. "My people understand that I cannot live among them and fight the Wraith."
If the Noyian caught the irritation, he ignored it. "Yet it must be difficult living apart from your family and friends."
Even Rodney reared up from his plate at that.
John bit back the immediate scathing retort that hovered on his lips.
Teyla hesitated.
"She's got us," Ronon said into the silence. The way he said it made it quite clear that he considered it enough.
Looking at Teyla, John wasn't so sure she thought of it that way. And Carson had mentioned Teyla's grief after her mentor died - about her feeling alone - something that John had been too busy to think about until now.
Sometime soon, he was going to have a chat with Teyla about family being what you made of it and the people you could rely on to be there for you.
"But, forgive me," said Lian, continuing the conversation, "that cannot be the same as being among those who truly understand you, who know from where you came."
"She came from Athos," said Ronon dryly.
"Ronon." Teyla fixed him with a glare as stern as any parent, then turned to Lian. "It is not the same," she told him. "But I have friends among the Atlanteans as surely as I did among my own people." Her eyes flickered briefly to John, then to Ronon and Rodney, "And we are fighting the Wraith. That is more than my people have been able to do in generations."
Lian looked at her for a long moment. "And are you winning?"
This time, Teyla looked at John to give the answer.
"We're making progress," John said pointedly, not liking what the Noyian was implying. "And we're not dead yet." He held the other man's gaze for another long moment, refusing to look away first. Maybe it was what Rodney tended to call 'a comparative testosterone calibration', but John had pride in Atlantis, in the people there, and in his team-mates and their individual skills. No, everything wasn't perfect, and they weren't exactly winning against the Wraith, but they were doing what they could with what they had - and they'd survived so far.
He wasn't going to sit by while Khenar Lian of the Noyians sneered at it.
"I see." The Noyian regarded John for a few seconds, then turned with something like a shrug to quiz Ronon about his background.
Rodney met John's gaze, shrugged and continued eating - there were few things that could distract Rodney from his work and his food for very long. The young man assigned to serve him watched him eat with something like amazement - or horror. When Rodney wasn't thinking about something else, he definitely focused on his food.
Beside John, Umaya shifted long limbs, her young face oddly intent as she looked from John to Lian and back to John again. He gave her a brief smile but turned his gaze to Teyla as she continued to eat and listen to Ronon's answers and both Lian and the woman's questions about Sateda.
After a moment, she lifted her eyes to meet his and arched an eyebrow in query.
John went back to eating, listening to Lian's questions and Ronon's answers.
A group of young men walked by, carrying the carcass of a dead beast on poles, and laughing and boasting of their kill as they went by. John noticed more than a few glances cast at Umaya as the youths' tales were told. One or two gazes lingered on Teyla's profile as she smiled at something Ronon said, and fingers pointed at her before they saw John watching them, and they hurried away, casting anxious glances behind them.
John really was having a bad feeling about this. He didn't know why, but the Noyians - their culture, their people, their behaviour, their leader - it all grated on his nerves.
"You have fought the Wraith?" Umaya asked, interrupting his thoughts. John found her dark eyes fixed on him as she pushed back a strand of sunlight-blonde hair with exquisite grace. "Personally?"
"Lots of times," he said, a little surprised by her words. From what Lian had said, he'd expected that there'd have been quite a few of her own people who'd personally fought a Wraith warrior. "You haven't fought the Wraith when they come?"
"Most of us hide in caves when they come," the girl said. Judging by the sound of it, she didn't think much of hiding. "Caves honeycomb these hills - more than enough space for everyone, and the Wraith can be held off."
Hence the choice of location. Still, John couldn't help asking. "How long since the Wraith were last here?"
Umaya shrugged. "Many years. We still have the weapons we took from them."
"Really?" Across the tent, John saw Rodney perk up, and asked the question he knew the scientist would want asked. "What kind of weapons?"
"The usual," Lian interrupted with a warning look at Umaya. "What you must have seen before among the Wraith."
"Maybe." And maybe not. "It would be good to check, though - see if there's anything new we could use." As Lian opened his mouth to say that the weapons belonged to the Noyians - as if they were using them! - John added, "We'd be willing to trade for them. A fair trade."
Lian glanced sideways at Teyla who nodded slightly. John tried not to lose his cool at the Noyian's evident distrust. "We would agree to a price if they are weapons we do not have," she said, her voice cool and smooth. "If you did not wish to give them to us outright, then the Atlanteans are willing to pay for their use for a set time."
"Borrowing?"
"With appropriate recompense," she said.
And that seemed to be everything he had to say on the matter.
"He'll think it over," Umaya said after Lian had returned to his conversation with Ronon. She leaned in towards John and spoke quietly so only he could hear.
"He seems pretty...suspicious."
The girl shrugged. "He has been friendlier to you than he has to any others who have come to see us."
Which made him wonder just how 'friendly' Lian usually was. "Because of Teyla?"
"She's not bonded, is she?" Umaya asked, turning to him.
He guessed that 'bonded' meant the same thing as being married. "No." John frowned as he looked across the low table to his team-mate. "But she's got other responsibilities."
"To you?"
John regarded the girl sharply. "To her people."
Umaya seemed more amused than dismayed by his shortness. "Do her people live among yours?"
"No. They're not comfortable where we live."
"You are alien to us," Umaya said. "Your thoughts run differently to ours."
"Our thoughts?"
The girl turned her head, watching Teyla laugh at something Ronon said to the woman ensconced beside him. "She and he - they do not think of you as their people."
John found himself thinking that Lian wasn't the only arrogant Noyian.
Umaya was wrong - had to be wrong. Both Teyla and Ronon were dedicated to the fight against the Wraith in their own ways, but they'd integrated into Atlantis, lived in the city alongside the Earth personnel and worked with them daily. John could think of very few people that he'd trust to watch his back, even if neither of them were exactly military standard.
And yes, they were different - and were thought of differently - because they were.
That didn't mean they didn't belong.
That didn't mean they weren't John's people.
- TBC -