Title: What She Knows
Summary: He's not the only one who needs watched over.
Characters: Teyla & John
Pairing: Teyla-John
Rating: K+
Notes: For the JT prompt battle: Five things Teyla knows about John Sheppard that he doesn't know she knows.
Notes2.0: It's actually turned out to be more of a "Four things she knows about John Sheppard that he doesn't know she knows and the one thing he does" kind of fic. I hope it still qualifies.
The cafeteria is quiet when he takes residence on a seat just inside the balcony doors. It had been quiet for hours; the only sound her own breathing and then the almost silent hiss of the doors opening for his arrival. His booted feet had moved stealthily across the floor.
The lights do not rise as he takes residence in a seat, tucked out of sight of the main door and she watches. He bows his head into his upturned palms and she can feel his resignation through the air.
She does not move to him. Neither he, nor she, is ready for companionship right then.
Aiden's departure has been hard on them all.
There are few on the base she feels as close to or as accepted by as Major Sheppard but she is not naive enough to believe he would like her company right now. Instead she waits quietly on the balcony, watching for a sign that he is ready for her approach.
When, sometime later, it doesn't come and he leaves, Teyla finds she is not yet ready to retire and she finds she envies him his sanctuary. As the cold fingers of night bite at her skin and nip her fingers, she waits on the balcony, wondering if someone is watching over her.
It is with a pang of regret that she realises there is not; that those people are on the mainland, tucked away from the pain she is feeling.
As dawn stretches across the sky and the cafeteria bustles to life, Teyla waits and watches, wondering. Major Sheppard steps through the door, speaking candidly with Doctor McKay and as his eyes skim past hers, pausing for a brief moment to smile, she knows that his strength is simply an act.
--
Sometimes, when she can't sleep, she makes her way to the gym to beat out her restless energy in a series of katas designed to relax and exhaust. Her haunted dreams of the creature, half human half Wraith, that they had created had driven her from her bed and to the confines of the one room in Atlantis she feels truly at home in.
When she reaches the door, she falters as the sounds of another filter into the corridor and she is shocked to find that her respite is to be shattered by another; as is often at this late hour, she is in no mood for conversation and she is grateful that the few people she passes on her way here are similarly maudlin.
She reaches the doorway and her eyes fall upon the figure of Colonel Sheppard beating out his own frustrations on one of the punch bags spaced out around the room. She finds that she is not surprised; she remembers a time, not so long ago, when she had stumbled upon this same feat – when the residual effects of the Iratus bug adrenaline had lingered in his blood and had kept sleep from him.
Now, like then, she watches – a silent sentry against intrusion.
Through the dimness she can see that sweat has moulded his hair to his head, has trickled down his face and saturated his shirt. His fists are glove-less and as he draws them back rearing for another punch, she can see his knuckles are red and bloodied and she wonders how he will explain away his injuries this time.
She wonders if she is the only one to see through his facade.
After a while, he stops and drops to his knees, his bloodied fingers digging into his face and eyes and hair and she can feel her chest tighten as she watches the anguish take hold of his body.
If John Sheppard was a man of tears, she can imagine they would be rolling down his cheeks by now. He's not but she can still sense the frustration ebbing from him in heavy waves. One fist punches the floor and he murmurs words she can't hear, nor doesn't care to.
He blames himself for her capture, for Michael's escape, for everything that happened.
As she slips quietly away, Teyla lets herself imagine how it would feel to not have to burden herself with blame.
--
The pier is quiet and empty but she knows that he is out here. Quietly asked questions had ushered her out of the main part of the city to the arms that stretched endlessly into the sea.
The others didn't question her, only nodded in greeting and smiled as she left, willing to leave the Colonel to her hands.
The wind is warm and the late evening humid, and sweat prickles on her upper lip as she moves quickly through open air corridors. She can taste the salt on her lips as she licks them and she can feel the faintest brush of sea spray on her skin.
It would be easy for her to lose herself in sensory perception, to forget the turmoil that had kept her from meditation but as she spots the Colonel on the edge of the pier, sprawled across the ground, staring up at the stars, she knows that she cannot.
Although her anguish is great, his is undoubtedly more so.
His enemy had saved his life, had called him brother and as much as she was repulsed by it, she knew she was also grateful. She knew he would be too, somehow.
She had overheard his quiet conversation with Rodney; that he's just glad to be alive.
But she knows none of them want to owe his life to a Wraith. Least of all him.
She falters at the thought but gulps down the lump in her throat and approaches slowly, running the possible conversations through her mind.
She is almost relieved when his gentle snores filter past the sound of the ocean and as she walks away, she tells herself she hasn't taken the easy way out.
--
She waits in the darkness of the Jumper Bay, her sounds filtered out by the gentle hum of the settling Jumper. She had spotted the Jumper leaving the city from her quiet spot on the balcony and as time had worn on, she had found herself in the Jumper room, waiting for its return.
As it descends through the gap in the ceiling, she feels the pang in her chest, deep and raw but she pushes it aside, crushes it down and lets it disappear into the place of things to be dealt with later. It's a practice she is well versed in now since her joining the people from Earth.
It is not the first time he has taken the Jumper he taught Carson how to fly in out at night and she knows it won't be the last. She wonders why the others don't question it, why they turn a blind eye to his antics.
She also knows they are trying to deal with it in their own way.
As his lanky figure emerges from the back of the Jumper and passes through the shadows, she feels her chest tighten but she holds the sob in.
She'll deal with Carson's death the way her people had taught her but she knows he doesn't have that luxury.
She waits a few long minutes until she is sure he is gone before she steps from the shadows and slips into the Jumper, stealing her fingers across the machinery inside, so delicate and powerful – controlled by thought. So simple yet so ingenious and as she sits in the co-pilots chair, she imagines Carson in the seat beside her, flying them back to the City through the storm.
The tears slip down her cheeks.
--
He waits, leaning against the wall, trying to steady his breathing.
The late night Jumper rides were always the hardest and he knows that he should stop but it's all that he has left of Carson, the memory of sharing something so important to him as flying with the Scot that he can't bring himself to not want to do it over and over and over again.
He knows it doesn't make it any easier.
But he knows that for those few hours when he's floating over the water or up in the stars, he's closer to Carson than he ever thought he would be.
It takes her longer to slip out of the room than he had thought but when she does, he watches her from the shadows, as she swipes her hands across her face again and again, as she slowly makes her way out of the Jumper Bay.
As he watches her leave, he sends a silent prayer of thanks to whoever may be listening that she knows him well enough to go him space, that even after only a year, she had known him well enough to not cross that line.
He waits until she's gone before he slips from the shadows and makes his way to his quarters, passing by her doors and lingering for a moment to assure himself she's safe.
He's not the only one who needs watched over.