NOTES: Written for the sgrarepairings challenge. My assignment required Teyla/Carson - children, future, fluff. I managed fluff - it was difficult to write. I think I'm satisfied with it, though!
Holding With Those Who Favour Fire
Teyla woke stiff, her body aching in the cool dark of the pre-dawn.
She lay on a bed of rough fibres, layered against the damp ground, but not enough - not enough to be comfortable. They rustled as she turned, a noise barely heard over the sudden wrench of pain in her arm as she tried to move - a pain she hadn't noticed until it stabbed.
"Don't move." Gentle hands shifted her onto her back, and a familiar silhouette was outlined against a charcoal sky. "You broke your arm when you landed."
The calming burr of his voice made her relax against the bed, the easy tones reassuring. "That would be why it is painful to move, then?" She made her tone wry, even through the gritty pain.
Carson's look was short and sharp. "Aye. That might explain it." He eased her back down to the pallet. "I don't want you moving for a while."
Teyla had a feeling she wouldn't want to move for a while. The sensations still ached through her, remnant echoes. "The others?"
His silence was speaking. Suddenly the ground was colder and harder than she'd thought.
"I couldn't find them at the Gate," Carson said, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder as though he was positioning it in place. "It was a pretty big blast we felt at Loritan - it's not unknown for the wormhole to jump completely to another planet."
"Atlantis?"
There was another pause, a shorter one. "The dialling device isn't working, and I don't have the technical skills to get it working again. Rodney would but, as you can see, he's not here."
His words were short and Teyla reached out to grasp his wrist in her fingers. "That was not criticism, Carson."
His fingers covered hers and squeezed lightly. "Sorry. I'm a little tense right now. You were unconscious for a long time."
"How long?"
"Nearly half a day. Nothing hurts other than the arm? You're not feeling dizzy or nauseous? Breathing isn't painful?"
"Other than the arm, I am fine," Teyla reassured him. "You are not injured?" Her eyes skimmed anxiously over his weathered and wrinkled fatigues and rested on the lines of his face.
"I'm fine, my dear." Carson shrugged. "I come from solid Scottish stock with a constitution like iron." At her query, he added, "It means we're a healthy people." He sighed. "I think that's going to be a good thing - I can't fix the dialling device to allow us to get through to Atlantis."
Teyla watched him as he flicked through the items of his pack - the few things they'd been carrying when they plunged through the wormhole from Loritan, headed for Atlantis. "They will send teams to look for us," she said in reassurance.
"Yes, but it will take them a while to find us if they have to dial all the planets. Best to be safe." Carson looked out at the rapidly revealing landscape. "It's going to be a tough few days."
"Yes," she agreed, looking up at the tree canopy overhead. "We will need to find shelter."
She watched as he eased himself down beside her on the pallet, noting the stiffness of his gestures, the weariness in his movements. A wave of concern touched her; she would not have concerned herself for Rodney or one of the military men, but Carson was different. "You should rest."
He glanced up at the sky, the dark leaden shades drifting to paler day. "Should isn't the same as will, Teyla."
--
Teyla grimaced as she looked at the DHD. Rodney had taught her how the DHDs worked at the same time as he'd taught Aiden, but this damage was beyond her skill.
Looking at it, she could not help but wonder if it wasn't beyond Rodney's skill as well.
"The secondary crystals have been shattered," she said. "There is no way to reroute the power so we can dial out. We must wait."
"For them to find us."
"Yes."
Carson glanced up at the sky. "I've heard of gating teams dialling out from locations that didn't have power..."
"I believe that those had a power source," Teyla murmured as she rose unsteadily to her feet. "Or they were able to dial the gate through strength of body alone." Her arm was bound in a sling, and she knew Carson was concerned for her. All and expected. She was concerned for him, also. Last night's sleep was not what they were accustomed to - but Teyla had adjusted to it more easily than Carson. She was used to being at the mercy of the elements, Carson was not.
And there was a storm coming in - one that would not be held off by the leaf canopy of the forest.
"We shall leave a sign for them," she said. "To let them know we are here."
In the end, they arranged rocks to spell out their initials, and Carson scratched a brief message into the base of the broken dialling device, since that was one of the first things any search party from Atlantis would check.
"You know, on Earth there are kids who deface public property like this," he said when he emerged from beneath the 'lip' of the dialling device. "It's considered antisocial behaviour, if not outright criminal."
"I promise not to report you for this antisocial behaviour," Teyla told him with a straight face, "especially since I encouraged it."
"True." Carson dusted off his hands. "Yet I feel like I shouldn't be defacing public property - which the DHD is, I suppose." He met her gaze and gave a sheepish smile that drew out an answering smile in return. "Did you have any ideas on where to go?"
"No more than you."
"True, but you've more experience at this. There's no point in me charging around like I know everything when I don't."
The trust warmed her. Carson was one of the few men she knew who would admit to not knowing everything. It was just one of his more admirable qualities. And Teyla had taken a little time to observe their surroundings as they'd walked back from last night's campsite. "I would suggest that we find - or build - somewhere that is undercover for the night. It will rain tonight."
Carson glanced up at the sky. "Then I guess we'd better hurry."
--
The space they found was not quite large enough for privacy - not with the rain pouring down just beyond the lip of the cave.
However, in Teyla's opinion, they had been lucky to find this much shelter. This type of rock was not given to the formation of caves, and their shelter seemed to have been more due to the tearing-away of the cliff-face during a ground-quake than any alleviation of the rock's qualities.
It was shelter and would keep them dry for the night. Unfortunately, the hollow was long and deep, and there was only space enough for both of them if they lay together.
Carson was practical about it, although minute shifts in his body suggested he was not wholly comfortable. Teyla tried not to press down too hard upon him, lying still although her limbs ached with restlessness. The pain in her broken arm was a steady discomfort, only made manageable through the drugs he had given her.
Still, it was comforting to have the quiet solidarity of Carson beneath her, the soft scent of him overlaying the dusty floor of the cave and the fresh tang of the rain-wet foliage outside.
"They'll have a time finding us through this rain," he murmured into her hair.
"No," she disagreed, "they will not."
"How do you know?"
Teyla smiled in the darkness. "There is a locator chip in our pack lining."
"I forgot about that," he murmured. "You'd be more used to this than me."
"And still not so accustomed that it is familiar," she said. "And I have never had to contend with a broken arm."
"Does it hurt?"
"Only a small ache," she admitted. "But there is nothing to be done for it. I am fine."
"Not too cold? I'm not exactly a furnace," said Carson with something that seemed a little like embarrassment. "There's a thermal blanket in the pack, you know."
"I know." Teyla smiled as she rested her head back on his shoulder again.
"I can't be all that comfortable as a mattress."
She laughed softly. His concern was touching, if unnecessary. Teyla was quite comfortable, both in body and in spirit. Carson was a more soothing companion than any of her team-mates; the enforced closeness was not a problem. "This is fine. Am I too heavy?"
"No." His answer was swift and a little rushed. "No, my dear, you're not too heavy."
Something brushed across the tips of her hair - Carson made an aborted movement, swiftly stilled. "Then this is fine."
They fell into a comfortable silence for some time. Lulled by Carson's steady breathing and the soothing patter of the rain beyond their shelter, Teyla drowsed.
She woke to total darkness, the dripping quiet of the world after a storm, and a slow exhalation of breath beneath her cheek that was akin to a sigh. A moment earlier, she would have sworn that there'd been fingers against her cheek.
Perhaps some stiffening of her body betrayed her wakefulness. "Teyla?"
"What time is it?"
"Only a couple of hours after you fell asleep."
"You have not slept yourself?"
"Not really." He hesitated. "I'm sorry for waking you."
"It is a pleasant way to be awakened," Teyla said and listened to the silence. "I would not object to being woken like that more often."
"Teyla..."
She let the silence stand between them while, beyond the mouth of the cave, water dripped and wet leaves rustled in a slow-blowing breeze.
When Carson spoke, his voice was a little husky. "You could do better, my dear."
"And if 'better' is not what I want? If what - who I want is you?"
His fingers traced her cheek again, firm this time, no dream. "Then I'd consider myself the luckiest man in Pegasus."
Teyla turned her head a little and brushed her lips across his fingertips.
- fin -