The City and the Sea, a stargate: atlantis fanfic

the city & the sea. (stargate: atlantis)
teyla/weir; laughing, not crying; for twincy
Isn't it beautiful?" Elizabeth asks.

with many, many thanks to my good friend and beta, wliberation. disclaimer: neither stargate: atlantis, nor any of its characters here represented, belong to me; I am merely borrowing them. no copyright infringement intended.

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."- Kurt Vonnegut

And when all is said and done, Elizabeth makes the decision Teyla knew she would and Teyla leaves Atlantis, never to return. She likes to think Elizabeth didn't know what she was doing but Teyla knows this isn't true, that Elizabeth carefully weighs out every decision she ever makes and that this, like all other things, was careful and deliberate.

Teyla likes to think that Elizabeth mourned her departure but she thinks this would not be a useful response to anything, so instead she imagines Elizabeth the way she used to be, happy and easily delighted, laughing under the Lantean sun.

The earth humans are coarse and destructive, and Teyla does not always remember why she chooses to stand by them and guard them in the way that she does. Halling accuses her of forgetting her own but Teyla appreciates that there is something deeper to these Earth explorers than a need to conquer. She appreciates the need for knowledge and discovery and she sees in their leader a shining example of everything that is right and everything that is wrong with the way in which they go about their business.

Elizabeth Weir does not trust the Athosians and if Teyla was more like her, she would know better than to trust the Lanteans. But she is grateful for their help, and she knows it is better to make friends rather than enemies, so she comes to this shining city on the sea and her life changes again.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Elizabeth asks, braced against the balcony ledge and leaning out into the cool sea breeze. Teyla smiles, but doesn't agree. Teyla likes the feel of land beneath her feet, the reassurance of having something lasting and solid supporting her upright.

Elizabeth is like the tides, Teyla thinks; she is restless and yet oddly dependable; moving and serene. Her anger is the storm which comes mightily from the north, and her happiness is the play of light on the surface, dancing under the midday sun. Elizabeth changes with the tides, and she yields more of herself than she can possibly know. Teyla wishes she could hold on to her, hold on to the things that Elizabeth relinquishes so that one day, when Elizabeth is bereft and lonely, Teyla can return to her the fragments of her past and Elizabeth will be whole once more.

And under the cover of darkness, Elizabeth is blue and still, her breathing in time with the ebb and flow of the waves outside her window.

If Teyla cups her ear to Elizabeth's breast, she can hear the rhythm of the sea, turning, turning, turning, and the ever-present insistence of dominance and fortitude. Elizabeth Weir is a fortress, Teyla thinks, and these walls will one day fall to siege.

Curious, curious; Teyla moves in broad strokes, and Elizabeth watches from a distance, never breaking the threshold and coming fully into the room. Teyla does not mind so much, understands the need for pretences and distances. The Lanteans have peculiar rules with regard to formalities and moralities, and Teyla has yet to learn them all, but she will, given time.

Their leader is not a warrior; the weapons she wields are words, and Teyla is surprised to see in her an infantile delight in the world around her. Elizabeth is not a fighter, she has no want of violence, and Teyla admires this; but Elizabeth loves to look, to see what the world is made of, to see what lies over the next horizon. She is tempered by a decorous restraint, but she is eager, too, to taste the exotic, the rich and the new; eager to sink her fingers into red soils and sun-burnt clay, like a rapid river forging its way across a thirsting land.

Barriers and bastions, built strong and invulnerable, but curious, curious, and Elizabeth still watches from afar.

The city is a beacon of light shining from the depths of blue; it is withered and old, yet powerful and insistent, and Teyla senses its presence even when she closes her eyes. To her it is a place of reverence and peace, a solitary arm reaching ever onwards into the clear blue sky. Atlantis is a monument to age.

But then she watches Elizabeth and the way her neck extends as she lifts her face to the sun, the flex of her hand across the cool metal beams, and the way she shivers when she stops to breathe in the world around her, and Teyla realises that Atlantis is not just a home for this woman, and not just a symbol of dreams and expectations. She looks at Elizabeth and she sees the city embodied in this one woman and she thinks, she thinks, she does not know what to think, except it is beautiful and that, perhaps, is enough for her to stay.

When the war comes, she is unprepared. New worlds, new wonders, new woes. Elizabeth uses words, not weapons, and this is a war of attrition. So she changes like the tides, takes new turns and new twists, and she perseveres. Teyla watches as Elizabeth hardens under the burden of command, how the thirst for discovery becomes a battle for survival, and Teyla is saddened to watch the water enclose the city like an ever-fixed moat, unmoving and unchanging in its direction.

Teyla disagrees with them on many of their tactics, and although it begins with her anger at Sheppard's insensitivity towards Orin and his family and stretches on through the failure of the retrovirus, and finally the third siege of Atlantis, it is Elizabeth who makes the decision for Teyla. It is Elizabeth who pushes her away.

Elizabeth is a strong woman and a loyal leader, and Teyla believes that under different circumstances, she could have stayed in Atlantis. But the shields came down and Elizabeth still stood proud and tall and Teyla knew that she could not find a home among these people any more.

Teyla moves in broad strokes, and Elizabeth yields like the tides she loves so much, water beneath Teyla's gentle touch. She arches to meet Teyla's body like the swell of the tide to the Athosian moon, and they are a pair now, Teyla thinks, and perhaps she can draw Elizabeth to safer shores. And yet perhaps the distance is fixed, because gravity is attraction and repulsion, both push and pull, and inevitably it holds them in stasis.

"Teyla, please, we need you." Elizabeth says, and Teyla breaches the surface to read the meaning in the depths of Elizabeth's words. She likes to think Elizabeth is asking out of a selfish want, but she sees this is unlikely. Atlantis is Elizabeth's true love, and Teyla is hard pressed to show Elizabeth that she is Atlantis, that she can have the city and have Teyla because the two things are not mutually exclusive.

"We need you," Elizabeth says, and Teyla laughs because she does not think she can cry in front of the sea.

end.